If You Can't Kill Me
Those were the rules written on the paper. At the very top, set a little larger than the rest as if it governed every line beneath it, was that single sentence about loving each other until death.
I flipped the page out of habit, checked the blank reverse, and shoved it aside.
Heeyeon, who had fainted, came to a few times after that. Every time her rolled-back eyes found me, she made a choked little sound and blacked out again. It made tying her up a bit easier, so I didn't bother with anything extra.
I folded her legs until her heels pressed against the backs of her thighs and bound them the way you'd lash a crab's claws shut. Cheap rope was cheap rope, I figured — but the bargain stuff I'd bought was rougher than expected, and even without any real struggling her delicate skin was already flushing red.
"Huu."
I still hadn't bound her arms. That would have to wait until she woke up.
The rules on the paper I'd told Heeyeon to study didn't list any punishments for breaking them. I meant to improvise as I saw fit whenever she slipped. The last time I'd spanked her, I'd settled on thirty strokes in my head. I'd stopped at half that because she'd been struggling so hard.
Arms crossed, I looked down at Heeyeon lying there with that peaceful face and tapped the floor with my foot. What kind of punishment did you give someone who'd defied you twice without knowing her place?
"...Sleeping well, aren't you."
Still. She looked nice asleep. Getting angry while looking at Heeyeon's face was never that easy, so I let the tension drain from my shoulders, stepped a little closer, and brought my hand down across her cheek.
Wake up, Heeyeon. Time for your punishment.
My eyes snapped open. The moment they did, they felt dry, as if they had never been closed at all. Opening them was so hard that even half-lidded my vision stayed a blur.
I forced them wider somehow, fighting not to let them fall shut again, trying to claw my way back to consciousness. Past a certain point they finally opened for real. Had I only imagined I was opening them before? At last the sealed lids lifted, and what filled my sight was Senior's fully open hand sweeping past my face.
A burning cheek. A head ringing like a struck bell. Ah — so that was why I'd fainted. I clung to my slipping consciousness with everything I had. If I let go of the thread even a little, I would black out again on the spot.
"..."
Senior said nothing. Now that I knew why I'd gone under, it was time to dig up the memories from before — and everything I had done flashed through my mind in a rush.
"Ah — ah."
Had the AI assistant in the phone understood my command and actually made the call? I'd fought with everything in me, so why did Senior look completely fine? Ah. My fingers.
I turned my head to the side and saw them bent at angles that could not be called normal. When I put strength into them, they still moved.
"Lee Heeyeon."
"...!"
Goosebumps raced from the tips of my toes straight up to the crown of my head. My body locked the way an animal freezes at a lion's growl. Every muscle stopped dead.
"Unni's really pissed."
Clack-clack-clack. My jaw shook so hard my teeth knocked together. Both arms were free, but my legs were bound tighter than any restraint I'd seen before — completely immobile. If I resisted Senior now, I would have to fight standing on crab legs, walking on my toes.
"Ugh..."
Half-formed scraps of words came back up my throat. Maybe they were shards of rage. My heart hammered.
"Ah..."
My mouth opened. The sound came out small under the chatter of my teeth.
"F..."
"...What did you say?"
"Fuck... fucking hell..."
Lying flat on the bed, tears ran from the corners of my eyes and slipped somewhere toward my ears.
"...What did you just say?"
"This... fuuuck... why — why..."
Reason was screaming at me to move somehow, to smash my head into the floor until it bled. That friend called reason would surely be horrified if it could hear what I was saying now.
"You fucking. Piece of. Shiiit...!"
I shoved up off the bed with both arms. I dragged my bound legs forward, shoved them aside, barely got upright, and lunged. I threw my whole body at her. Just the throat — if I could just choke that throat, it would be enough.
Senior — no, that crazy bitch — dipped her body slightly forward. As if offering me her neck. Like a teacher handing the cane to a student and saying it was her own fault for not teaching properly.
As if I wouldn't do it.
In the brief instant my hands went for her throat, I made a vow. If I couldn't kill that bitch here, I would simply die myself.
The memory of the silent room where I saw nothing all day. Being punched in the stomach, fingers broken, slapped, spanked — those memories kept my resolve from crumbling.
My hands reached her. Until then Senior had shown no reaction at all. Watching my hands come for her, she only smiled, soft and sweet.
Then her throat was in my grip. With both hands I squeezed that neck with every last scrap of strength I had.
"Khuh."
A pleased little sound left Senior's mouth. The smile stayed.
"Hee — khep. Heeyeon."
"Shut up. Shut up...!"
Adrenaline detonated through me.
"If you can't kill me, you're really going to die."
Senior spat each word with force, chewing them out one by one. Of course. Law or anything else, the trial waiting after I got out of here didn't scare me—
Crack. I definitely heard that sound. For a moment my left eye seemed to move independently of the right; the focus of my vision split, then snapped back. Overwhelming pain always grants a brief grace before you faint. The heavy blow landed before I could even register it.
"Heuuh...!"
I tried to scream and couldn't get it out — my head was ringing too hard. My body reeled. I realized I wasn't putting any strength into my arms, forced my eyes wide, and choked her again.
Senior raised her right arm. The hand that had drawn all the way back came flying at my cheek—
Smack.
A force I could have mistaken for a fist snapped my head around. I clenched my teeth and drove my whole body forward, squeezing harder. Please fall.
Smack. Smack. Smack. I saw the hair at the side of my head whip through my field of vision.
Smack. Another blow to the cheek. Fire had definitely caught on my face; I wanted to pour water over it right then and put it out. Why — why won't she go down. Tears finally spilled in streams down my cheeks.
Crack. Crack. After two more hits the question finally formed. Why won't she fall? Why is that arm still moving? The adrenaline pouring through me was cruelly starting to thin.
Smack. My head whipped sideways as if the strength had left my neck. Please. Against every vow to kill her, my body was falling back. Senior leaned forward to match. Smack. Hit once more and the strength drained out of me. Somehow I was still lifting my arms, still trying to choke her throat.
Did it even mean anything anymore? At some point I was on my back, and Senior was straddling me. Even then she kept her body tilted just enough that my arms wouldn't lose their reach and fail to find her neck.
Smack. Smack—!
My shoulders flinched smaller every time a hand came flying. Eek — ugh. Stupid little sounds leaked out of me. My hands were still on Senior's throat, but it was hard to call what I was doing choking anymore. I was just holding my arms in the air, and her neck happened to be there, so they touched.
"Not choking hard enough? I'm not dying. Not like this."
One hit for every word.
"Eek—!"
Smack. The hand Senior raised into the air again had turned red.
"Heuk...!"
I squeezed my eyes shut. Pain like something about to burst crashed through me again. A dizzying agony of skin dying rode up through my skull; I bit down until my teeth ground. It was the kind of pain that made you want to run right then and there.
When Senior lifted her hand once more, I yanked both outstretched arms back and covered my face. I wrapped my whole head behind them.
"Kyaaah...!"
I tried somehow to endure a pain I couldn't even scream about freely.
"What are you doing? Hmm? Heeyeon."
Senior's hands went for my arms. I wasn't even allowed to thrash properly, so I kicked uselessly with my bound legs and locked both arms hard over my face.
Why — why won't I faint? I clearly choked her, so why. Why. Did I not press the carotid right? Had I reincarnated into a world where I actually have superpowers?
Fuck. Fuck.
The arms I'd locked in place with every last drop of strength left in me before the fear of death simply came free when Senior frowned a little and applied force. Arms I'd braced so hard moved like the slender heroine's fluttering between a wall and the male lead. One hand went down beside the pillow. Senior's right hand rose into the air again.
Smack. Smack. Smack.
With every slap to the cheek came a stupid little eek and a fresh wave of agony. The vision in my left eye kept flickering out like a dying light.
So.
"I — I'm sor—"
I should have begged. I'm sorry.
"I'm sor — ry...! Ugh...!"
Even though my voice must have been clearly audible, Senior's hand strangely did not stop. Trying to speak, I bit down hard on my tongue with my molars and tasted blood.
"I'm — sorr. Ugh."
So I covered my cheek with the one arm I still had free. I curled in on myself. Bound legs, one arm pinned, the other free — curling as tight as I could gave me no defense at all, but I curled tighter anyway. Senior drove her knees hard into the insides of both my thighs and pressed down.
Pain that made stars burst across my vision.
"Aaaah...!"
And still the flying hand did not stop.
"Euk. I — I'm sor—, sorry. I'm. Ugh, keuk. Sor—"
I curled up and tried over and over, through the slaps, to force the unfinished syllables of I'm sorry out of my mouth.
Tears poured out in floods.
Consciousness drifted farther away, then snapped back with the pain shaking my head through my cheeks, then drifted and returned again. Vision went dark for a moment and then brightened all at once under the next blow. From some point on the vibration and impact of being slapped still reached me, but the drifting consciousness would not come back.
Smack. Smack. Smack. And after I saw the raised hand flying at me one more time, strangely no sensation and no memory remained. I could simply rest in peace.