A Sincere Apology?
"Is that so? I'm glad to hear you're reflecting on your actions. Heheh." Dohyung chuckled in disbelief as he looked at the three girls, who hadn't reflected on their actions in the slightest.
The three girls found it bizarre that Dohyung, who had asked the question himself, was laughing alone. However, they did their best to keep their expressions neutral. Little did they know that their innermost thoughts were being read by him as clearly as an open book.
"Now, shall we continue the game today? The next turn is... Nabi, was it?"
"Yes, Master!" At Dohyung's words, Zia, whose turn it was to draw, reached into the Game Box and pulled out a slip of paper.
While Dohyung's three tormentors began their game, in another room, the four girls who had bullied Min-ah lay unconscious on the floor. Su-jin was the first to open her eyes.
"Ugh... Where on earth is this...?"
"Where? My house, of course. Where else would it be?"
Startled by the sudden male voice, Su-jin whipped her head toward the sound. There sat Dohyung in a chair, looking down at them. However, since the real Dohyung was currently in another room of the Basement, the Dohyung here was a clone, not the real one. Still, to anyone else, there was no way to tell the difference; he looked exactly like the real thing.
Looking at Dohyung, the only thing that filled Su-jin's mind was sheer terror. When she had first seen him, she had viewed him as societal trash who dared to kidnap someone from a wealthy family like her, allowing her to scream and raise her voice. But after undergoing two agonizing ordeals, he now looked like a complete lunatic who might do absolutely anything to her. Looking back at his actions so far, not a single thing had been sane.
From the very beginning, he had forced her to do something absurd: press her forehead against a red-hot iron plate to apologize. She had wondered how anyone could do such a thing when told to slam her head onto a plate that would sear her flesh, but after being denied food and water for two days, she had no choice but to do it to survive. The wound on her forehead from that time hadn't even healed yet; though wrapped in bandages, it still throbbed with pain.
The second ordeal was just as abnormal. He had trapped her in a wall and had someone on the other side force her to climax. When he said he would send her home if she endured for five hours, she had tried her best to hold out. But as she struggled to keep her sanity and prevent herself from coming, the person on the other side of the wall inflicted a flesh-searing pain to break her resolve. In the end, the pain was so excruciating that she had no choice but to choose climax. Otherwise, she would have had to endure that insane agony indefinitely.
Glancing around, she saw that Hye-min and Ara were in similar states. Hye-min's legs and buttocks were covered in dark bruises as if she had been severely beaten, and while Ara's legs seemed relatively uninjured, blood was visibly pooling around her groin, suggesting she had been wounded there. Seeing them like that, Su-jin knew that their lower bodies had been ruined just like hers, forcing them to give up on going home and submit to the climax. As she wondered why on earth she had to suffer like this, tears welled up in her eyes.
"Why... why are you doing this to us... No, why are you doing this to me..." Su-jin sobbed, bowing her head toward Dohyung. She only felt a deep sense of injustice, not understanding what she had done wrong to deserve such treatment.
Perhaps awakened by Su-jin's voice, Hye-min and Ara began to regain consciousness. Only Dong-eun, whom Dohyung had drugged, remained completely out of it, giggling to herself.
Dohyung stared at the four of them with an indifferent expression. Although he was a clone, he was an exact copy of Dohyung, so his thoughts were identical. Looking at the four girls, Dohyung recalled his meeting with Min-ah yesterday.
'Min-ah... she said she could forgive them if they sincerely apologized, didn't she?'
Dohyung didn't think Min-ah was wrong. Everyone had a different perspective. Forgiving someone who had harmed you was an incredibly difficult thing to do. Dohyung himself had suppressed the urge to blow his tormentors' heads off countless times whenever he saw the bastards who had ruined his life.
'But forgiveness... that is by no means an easy choice.'
Dohyung had initially thought Min-ah might just be paying lip service to get him to stop his revenge. That was how much he believed that the act of forgiveness was not easy. But recalling the look on her face when she spoke, she didn't seem to be lying at all. Holding resentment toward the other person, yet overcoming past pain and moving toward the future through forgiveness—Dohyung wondered if such a thing was truly possible. That was why he wanted to see for himself. He wanted to know if it could actually happen.
After confirming that the three girls—excluding Dong-eun, who was still too drugged to function—were awake, Dohyung spoke.
"You all want to go home, don't you?"
At Dohyung's words, the three girls nodded frantically, unable to say a word.
"Then you should have held out better during the game last time... Well, I'm planning to give you another chance, though."
The three girls looked at Dohyung with anxious eyes, terrified of what he might do to them next.
"I'm punishing you right now on Min-ah's behalf. But Min-ah said something interesting. She said, 'If they sincerely apologize, I can forgive them.' I want to see if that's actually possible."
Dohyung had already confirmed through Zia, Ji-sun, and Eun-ji that they weren't truly reflecting on their actions. By this point, one would expect them to honestly think about what they had done wrong, but those three still hadn't repented. What about these three, Min-ah's bullies? Would they truly repent of their wrongdoings and offer Min-ah a sincere apology? Dohyung was curious.
"I'm going to film a video of you apologizing to Min-ah. If Min-ah watches the video and forgives you, I'll release you immediately. But anyone who fails to apologize properly, or whom Min-ah cannot forgive, will be locked up here forever until they die."
The three girls gasped at Dohyung's threat of being locked up forever until death. They absolutely did not want to die in a place like this. Their families were waiting for them at home, and they wanted to return as soon as possible to reclaim their daily lives.
"I'll do it! I'll ap-apologize to Min-ah!"
"Me too! I've wanted to apologize to her for a long time!"
"Min-ah, I'm so sorry!!"
Now that a chance to return home had presented itself, the three girls desperately pleaded with Dohyung.
"I said I'm filming a sincere apology. It's useless to apologize now when I'm not even recording yet."
Dohyung stood up and opened the basement door. "Follow me. We're moving to the place where I'll film the apology video."
At Dohyung's command, the three girls quickly stood up and approached him. Then, Ara noticed that Dong-eun was still unconscious and pointed a finger at her.
"Um... but what about Dong-eun...?"
"That bitch? Leave her. She's trash who tried to drug Min-ah and force her into prostitution. Even if Min-ah forgives her, I never will."
Ara couldn't say a word in the face of Dohyung's underlying rage and quickly averted her eyes from Dong-eun. Since they were friends, she had wanted to ask him to take her along, but the atmosphere made it clear that Dohyung would never agree. Rationalizing that she could barely save her own skin right now, Ara abandoned Dong-eun, walked out of the room, and closed the door.
The place the three girls followed Dohyung to was another basement room a short distance away. Once inside, Hye-min raised her hand and spoke to Dohyung, looking embarrassed.
"Um... but... aren't you going to give us clothes?"
"Clothes? Why do you need those?"
"Since you said you're going to film a video..."
Dohyung smirked at Hye-min's words. Just as she said, all three of them were currently stark naked, without a single thread of clothing. The thought of filming a video that would be shown to someone else made them feel deeply embarrassed.
"Clothes? As if. Trash like you doesn't need things like that. Instead of worrying about clothes, you'd better focus on how you're going to apologize properly."
Dohyung pointed to the center of the room, where three chairs were set up. "Go sit in any chair you want."
"Ah, yes!" The three girls quickly ran over and sat in the chairs at Dohyung's command. Then, Dohyung slowly began to lock the restraints attached to the chairs.
"Huh? Th-this is...?"
"I'm locking you in so you don't try to run away if it hurts. Stay still."
After securing the restraints on the three girls, Dohyung placed bands with wires connected to them onto their heads, then attached clips from a mechanical device to each of their fingers. By this point, the three girls had a feeling they knew what Dohyung was trying to do. They hadn't fully understood what he meant by a "sincere apology" earlier, but looking at the setup now, they realized how he intended to verify their sincerity.
"Do you have any idea what this is? This is basically a lie detector. I need to film a sincere apology, but we can't have you lying, can we? I have to catch any falsehoods. If you lie, it's going to be quite shocking."
Hearing Dohyung's words, the three girls, who had planned to just blindly apologize, fell into deep despair. They had never imagined he would use a lie detector. Of course, everything Dohyung was saying was a lie. There was no lie detector; it was just a prop to set the stage. Dohyung already possessed magic that allowed him to read minds. However, if he simply accused them of lying without any physical justification, they wouldn't accept it, so he had set up this elaborate scenario to make it look like a real lie detector was at work.
"Now, shall we hear your apologies?"