Chapter 3: Shackles
Ping.
Every time the smartphone in my pocket gave a short buzz, my heart lurched violently.
A week had passed since that night. And yet my daily life had been transformed beyond all recognition. No — to anyone watching from the outside, nothing would have seemed different at all. I still sat through lectures as Seo Yu-na, the female student back from academic leave, and Ryu Yi-na still flitted in and out of the department lounge, all bright smiles and easy charm with the seniors. Only one thing had changed.
An invisible dog leash had fastened itself around my neck. The video saved inside that girl's phone — that horrifying footage of me lying stripped bare, spreading my most shameful place open with my own fingers as I screamed — was strangling the breath from my lungs.
"Yu-na? You listening?"
A hand waved gently before my eyes. I lifted my glazed, frozen gaze to find Min-jae, a classmate from my department, holding out a cup of coffee with a warm, eye-crinkling smile.
"Ah... sorry. I was off thinking about something else for a second."
"You've been looking worn out lately. Is it the assignments? Here, drink this — it'll perk you up."
We sat on the campus walkway bench, early-summer sunlight sifting down through the leaves. Min-jae scratched his cheek, sneaking glances at me. In his eyes shimmered a quiet fondness, a flutter of anticipation — unmistakably the look of a man seeing a woman, something I never would have received back in the days when I'd been one.
A faint revulsion, a sense of sheer wrongness, lodged in my throat. In a man's eyes, was I nothing more than a slightly delicate, innocent classmate — the sort who stirred a guy's protective instincts? All while knowing nothing at all of who I used to be.
"So, um... are you free this weekend, by any chance? If you are, I was thinking maybe we could go see a movie or something."
The very moment Min-jae spoke those careful words, the tips of his ears flushed red—
Ping. Ping. Ping——.
My phone buzzed like a madman, one notification after another. A premonition of doom swept cold up my spine. With trembling fingers, I lit the screen — and the sender's name glowing in the messenger notification stopped my breath dead.
It felt as though my blood were surging in reverse. Before I knew it, my head had come up and I was scanning my surroundings. Far off in the distance, beneath the shade of the trees, stood a tall, slender silhouette in a dark denim jacket and black crop top, hands shoved deep in her pockets. Silver piercings glinted between strands of bleached silver-gray hair. Yi-na was staring straight at me, her brown eyes gone cold and dead.
My fingers had stiffened so badly I could barely type, but I hammered the keys desperately and hit send. The reply that came back across the screen was cruel in its coldness.
My fingertips went white and began to tremble. This girl knew everything — that I had once been a man, and exactly what shameful reactions this body was capable of.
"Hey, Yu-na? What's wrong with your face? Did you get some bad news or something?"
Min-jae leaned in, flustered. Just as he reached out a worried hand to rest on my shoulder, the phone screen flared to life, driving home the final wedge.
"...I-I should get going."
"Huh? Yu-na!"
Leaving Min-jae's voice calling after me, I bolted up from my seat as if running for my life. From far away, Yi-na curled the corner of her mouth and slowly turned her back. Watching her retreating figure, I clenched my fist tight, drowning in terror and humiliation.
That night, at ten o'clock. Deep inside a Sinchon alley, before the front door of Yi-na's studio apartment.
Running away had never even been an option. I knew all too well what ruin would be waiting for me tomorrow morning if I didn't open that door.
Click.
The digital lock released, and as the door swung open, a blast of cool air-conditioning rushed out along with an unfamiliar scent. Inside, a single red mood lamp glowed in place of the ceiling light, steeping the room in a strange, unsettling atmosphere.
"Right on the dot, senior. How punctual of you."
Yi-na sat sprawled in the chair beside the bed, legs crossed at an angle. The firm muscles of her shoulders showed beneath a black sleeveless crop top, and at her feet lay a black leather bag, slumped over on its side.
"Y-Yi-na... this afternoon it really was just about the assignment. He only asked for my number, so..."
"Spare me the excuses, please and thank you~"
Yi-na rose from her seat. Her heavy footsteps thudded across the wooden floor. With the toe of her shoe, she kicked the leather bag on the floor, spilling it open.
A clatter, a thud.
Iron chains and black leather restraint straps — and a massive, brutally tapered silicone dildo as thick as a grown man's forearm, along with devices of grotesque shapes, scattered noisily across the floor.
At that monstrous sight, the words died in my throat.
"...What... what is all this?"
"Tonight, I won't be laying a finger on you myself, you see~"
Yi-na stepped up to me and took my chin in her hand, tilting my face up. In her brown eyes, the playfulness of moments before had vanished without a trace; only a raw, gleaming sadism remained.
"Wouldn't letting my cock anywhere near that filthy hole of yours be a reward far too generous for the likes of you? So from tonight until tomorrow morning, I've gathered a whole collection of friends to pound you senseless in my place, you see~"
"Yi-na, wait... just wait a second... eep...!"
I thrust my arms out to resist, but Yi-na's iron grip snatched up both my wrists in a single motion. With a casual flick of her strength, my body went flying onto the mattress.
"Turn around, Yu-na."
At Yi-na's icy command, the click of leather buckles sounded through the silent room.