Don't Ease Up
"..."
Inha looked down at me with an exaggerated expression—the look of someone scolding a puppy that had torn up the room after she came home from work, barely holding back the urge to scoop it straight into her arms, all while willfully ignoring the fact that she had left the puppy alone in that room all day.
And more frightening than her expression was the fact that my limbs were bound. What terrified me more than having them spread open was that my ankles and wrists were tied to each other. I didn't know why. Maybe because it still left me free to cover my body with my arms and legs.
"Spread your legs."
She said it. So I pushed aside the limbs I'd been holding half-open out of caution, and a shame different from the usual rose up at the simple fact that I was exposing myself of my own accord.
Of course I wasn't foolish enough to get on her nerves right now, so I flung my legs wide until my knees touched the bed and squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for whatever pain might suddenly land on my stomach or cheek—or maybe my fingers and toes—when a sudden rustling reached me. Opening my eyes to match it, I found her scanning down the lists I had checked...
"Uh, um..."
I had filled those items out honestly—especially the plays I hated. No matter how many people might share related tastes, not many would choose a urethra or an anus over a vagina made for that purpose, and she wasn't a fool either.
So there she was, scanning those items, and there I was, lying with my legs spread. What she would do next was so obvious I opened my mouth.
"Um, uh, Unnie. Th-that."
Then she set the papers and various objects up onto the bed, picked the cat-ear headband out from among the clutter, and fitted it onto my head. The headband was a little loose for my size, so even forced on it didn't scrape my scalp.
"From now on, Heeyeon is a cat. Got it?"
"...What?"
"How does a cat cry?"
"Uh, m-meow...?"
"You know what I mean, right? Heeyeon's a smart girl."
Having said that, she grabbed my foot and kneaded it a few times. Usually in situations like this, for plays like this, wouldn't it be a dog role? But this wasn't a mutually agreed play between us, so I had no choice in the matter.
So my mouth clamped shut. Making meow sounds well past the age of twenty was hard.
Still kneading my foot, she took hold of my toes and pulled them down in a long stretch until my shinbone and the top of my foot formed a straight line. With her free hand she set her palm against my ankle and pulled harder and harder downward—somewhere between the top of my foot and my little toe, it felt like a cramp was about to hit—
"Meow...!"
I made the cat sound without forgetting, praying she could translate a cat's cry.
Even so her hands didn't stop, and the center of my foot drew tighter and tighter until a cramp set in. It wasn't the strongest kind, but it was painful enough. My face twisted hard. The cramp felt like it was migrating toward the sole, so I clenched and unclenched my hands for no good reason.
"Tense your foot."
"Ngh...!"
"Tense it. Now."
She repeated the same words. Having no choice, I tensed it, and only then did the pain of the cramp my own muscle was producing come through with perfect clarity.
"Uh, ah...!"
"Don't ease up. Keep tensing."
That was what she said, but no one could keep their own hand submerged in boiling water. So as I gradually eased the tension in my foot, she somehow noticed with uncanny precision, suddenly climbed up over my body, and set her hands on my throat.
That sudden movement alone was terrifying, but she didn't stop there—both hands clamped hard around my neck. In an instant my airway sealed and my breath cut off. More frightening than the terror of not being able to breathe was the expression looking down at me from above. Her two pupils locked with mine.
Was I lucky my foot didn't hurt?
"Ugh..! Kh...!"
She showed no intention of getting off me.
"I said don't ease up. Hmm? Don't ease up. Got it?"
She spoke in a low voice.
"Don't ease up. Got it? Do you understand?"
She put her weight into it and pressed my throat even harder. For a brief moment the illusion that my neck might break flashed through me, and I nodded. She still didn't take her hands away. My arms weren't free enough to tap out, so I moved my wrists as best I could and slapped hard at my own ankles.
A cute clap-clap filled the room.
"I trust you? Still, pass out once for now. Heeyeon."
She said it while listening to me nod and the sound of me hitting the tops of my feet. Goosebumps rose at her low voice, and my eyes began to close. No matter how hard I tried to keep them open, they shut further and further, until my vision went completely dark.
Then my eyes opened again. Though I was sure I hadn't been out even a second, she was sitting at my feet, pulling on my toes. The moment I registered that, some muscle in the sole of my foot began moving on its own in a strangely autonomous way.
Once I'd grasped the situation, the pain that had been deferred came flooding in.
"Hwaaah...!"
A shrill scream spilled from my mouth.
"If you're awake, you should be tensing. Heeyeon."
"Aaaah...! I-it hurts, it hurts...!"
"Not tensing?"
"Ugh, I-I'll, nn..! I'll tense it..!"
When I tensed, the pain intensified. It writhed as if a fish were hiding in the sole of my foot.
"U-Unnie! Unniee..!"
"You know Heeyeon's wearing cat ears right now, right?"
"Hnnngh...!"
My foot hurt so much. It hurt so much that the pain now seemed to be climbing into my calf.
My legs shook violently. Even when she punched my stomach and told me not to move, the trembling wouldn't stop. Maybe because the pain in my stomach was nothing by comparison.
I had no idea how much time had passed. No matter how slowly time crawls when you're in pain, even accounting for that, it felt like thirty minutes had gone by. My legs shook too hard. She poked my left toes with her fingernail, but I felt nothing.
"...!"
It was too hard to endure, so I bucked my hips. I pounded the pillow with my head.
She'd told me to stay still, but I didn't listen. Only then did her hands leave my foot, and I hurriedly pulled those far-stretched toes back up, trying to soothe the muscle that was writhing as if it would burst. With my bound hands I pressed hard into my ankle again and again.
I couldn't even think about what she was doing, and around the time the pain was gradually fading, the object she'd brought over—
Something like a ring that fit snugly around the big toe, fixed immovably to a metal rod.
"Ah, my arms hurt. Still, well, it's with Heeyeon, so. Yeah."
Ignoring my frantically moving hands, she grabbed my big toe and fitted the thing onto it. An involuntary hiiik escaped me as I wriggled my toes, but it didn't particularly slow her down.
And I figured out what the object was for around the time she bent my toes back to the same angle as before and locked them into the groove of the restraint—I shook my head side to side to knock off the loose cat-ear headband and cried out.
"U-Unnie! This really, really hurts...aaaah...!"
Before I could even finish speaking, the cramp came back. The muscle that hadn't fully released started dancing merrily again. I didn't know the principle, but either way.
"Cat.. ah, it fell off. Hehe, smart as expected."
"Unnie, Unnie, please. Okay? Ah, I-I'll, k-kiss me...! Y-you can touch my chest too...!"
"Hmm, that doesn't really seem like something you get to permit."
My legs rattled again. The difference from before was that my ankle was fixed as if bent, so the ankle itself couldn't move.
"P-please...!"
I begged through gritted teeth, chewing the words out.
"Just hold on a little. Okay? Just until your ankle stops moving."
She answered. And that answer was so chilling that the panting breaths and screams leaking through my teeth all stopped. If a cramp goes on too long, does it become unusable?
When it came to medical knowledge, all I had was the thin, broad stuff learned from YouTube knowledge channels, and nowhere was it written what happens if you maintain a muscle spasm for a long time.
"U-Unnie. H-hey. This isn't fun. I-it r-really hurts. Okay? Ah, never mind."
Trying to continue, the saliva I'd forgotten to swallow in the pain went down my throat and I coughed involuntarily, and before the feeling of something stuck in my throat had fully gone—
"Th-the bed. The bed! Tie me to the bed. Please? P-please, hng, please...!"
"Hmm, in that case..."
She pondered with her two now-free arms. With my hands bound to my ankles I scratched desperately at the rod connected to my toes, but it wouldn't come free.
Why, how had she bound me like this. Who the hell sells a crazy thing like this and where. Please, my foot hurts so much. Save me. Help me.
My head rang with the countless sentences forming inside it. Not a single one of those sentences made it out of my mouth.
Even in the brief moment she'd stopped speaking the pain kept flooding in, so when I opened my mouth to urge an answer, her face drew closer and closer until her lips touched mine.
And then, just like that.
"Kiss me."
When she spoke, a mint scent washed over me.
I opened my mouth and stuck my tongue out long.
Mixing tongues of my own accord was a first in my life, but strangely I felt nothing at all. So I moved my tongue even more greedily.