The Bar (4)
Kim Ji-hye hauled in a huge, ragged breath.
The stairs that had seemed to climb forever were finally coming to an end.
Her footsteps stopped. She stood perfectly still and stared back the way she had come.
The crimson light was rising very slowly, as if it were matching her pace on purpose.
Kim Ji-hye was certain of it. That thing was toying with her.
Rage detonated all at once, tore up through her throat, and she roared.
"Why the hell are you doing this to me?! What did I even do wrong?!"
At her scream, the rising red light halted.
"Hah... hah..."
The fury that had burst out of her beyond all control thinned as the seconds passed, and what it left behind was nothing but a fear she had no words for.
Thud-thud-thud-thud—!
Footsteps, suddenly pounding up the stairs like something gone mad.
"Eeeek!"
Realizing she had made the mistake of provoking a killer, Kim Ji-hye scrambled upward in a panic.
She was climbing blind with terror when her feet stopped once again.
The door to the rooftop stood in her way. She swallowed hard.
There was no other choice. If she wanted to stay alive even a little longer, she had to get out onto the roof.
Her mind raced.
Throw the rooftop door wide open, set her shoes at the very edge of the railing, and hide behind the door. Then, while it came out onto the roof and went to the railing thinking she had jumped, she would slip out and head back down the stairs.
That was her only hope.
Kim Ji-hye's trembling hand closed around the knob.
Click.
The rooftop was locked.
"Huh...? W-why won't this open?!"
Click, click, click!
She wrenched at the knob, but her feeble strength could not force the locked door.
"Please, please!!"
Thinking about it, it was only natural. Who in this day and age would leave an apartment rooftop door hanging open for anyone to walk through?
It was over.
"Ha... haha..."
Kim Ji-hye let out a hollow laugh.
"..."
She felt it then—a murderous presence wrapping around her back, sweeping over her whole body as if a giant tongue were licking her.
Red light fell across the top of her head.
Tears brimming in her eyes, Kim Ji-hye looked up at it.
A massive presence stood in the dark, its solitary crimson gaze burning with cold hauteur, staring down at her without a word. The phone in its hand was still recording.
"P-please spare me. I was wrong. I-I'm really sorry. I'll g-go to the police and tell them everything, I swear! Please, p-please!!"
It raised a fist.
"N-no! Save me, save me!!!"
She screamed and curled in on herself.
"...?"
But for some reason she felt no pain at all. Kim Ji-hye cracked her eyes open.
Creeeak—
It had opened the rooftop door.
Kim Ji-hye understood what it wanted.
Shaking so hard she was nearly convulsing, she stepped over the threshold.
It followed quietly at her back.
"Stop."
At his voice, Kim Ji-hye froze. She was trembling so violently it was hard to believe a human body could shake like that.
"P-please. I'll d-do whatever you say, a-anything, just s-spare my life. O-or how about me? I-as you can see, I've g-got a really nice body, right? Yeah?"
Unable to read a single thing in its expression, she only grew more frantic, close to losing her mind.
"Please! Please!! I-I don't want to die. I'll confess every last crime. Th-this was all Lee Deok-bae's idea! That bastard said Oh Yu-ri was an orphan, so there'd be no fallout, and told me we should sell her! P-please. Please!"
She bowed and scraped, begging for all she was worth.
Han Yuhyeon gently closed one hand around both of hers.
For an instant, his softness let her glimpse hope.
"H-huh...?"
Strength began to gather in his grip.
"I-it hurts! It hurts! It hurts!!! I said it hurts! Stop! Stop!!"
Her screams meant nothing to him. He had no intention of stopping. If anything, he squeezed harder.
Unable to withstand the pressure, Kim Ji-hye's hands began to crumple. Her fingers, prettied up with neat nail art, tangled and stuck together, and then—crack!—the joints bent the wrong way and the skin split. Crunch—!
"Kyaaaaaah—!!!"
With the scream, her hands were crushed completely. The pain, as if every bone had been ground to powder, drove tears and snot streaming down her face and carried her to the very edge of blacking out. Only then did Han Yuhyeon let go.
The moment he released her, her body toppled backward. Clutching her shattered hands to her chest, she rolled across the floor.
"M-my hands! My hands, m-my hands!!"
Han Yuhyeon said it as he thrust the camera into her face. The pain burned like fire and she thought she would go mad, but she could not bear to be tortured any further. She clung to her senses and spoke.
"I-it was all Lee Deok-bae's doing. O-Oh Yu-ri d-didn't do anything wrong. Th-that bastard lured me in, saying he'd give me a lot of money. S-so I even b-bought off the friends I worked part-time with, paid them to keep their mouths shut, and spread the rumor that Oh Yu-ri had been throwing herself at them. I'm truly sorry. I-I'm sorry! I'm sorry!!"
Kim Ji-hye slammed her head against the floor.
Thud—! Thud—! Thud—!
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry...!"
Every time she struck her head and lifted it again, the wound on her forehead split wider and the bleeding grew worse.
In no time at all, Kim Ji-hye's face was a mask of blood.
"I'm sorry, hhk! I-I'm sorry..."
Pain twisted her face more and more. Even so, she did not stop.
Not until Han Yuhyeon spoke.
"Enough."
"The suicide note?"
The question left her dumbstruck.
He knew about the note too?
What in the world is he?
"What did you do with the suicide note Oh Yu-ri wrote in blood?"
"I-I lied and s-said I'd turn it in to the police. I actually b-burned the note out in the mountains..."
"Good. You spoke well."
His tone had softened a degree.
For some reason, she felt that it was over.
Blood dripping steadily from her forehead, Kim Ji-hye managed a faint smile.
"Th-then... y-you'll let me live?"
For an instant, her own line felt familiar.
Just like her friends in the video.
"Ah, ah...! Aaaaaah!!"
She began to howl like an animal.
"S-spare me! P-please spare me! I was wrong. I...! Mmph— mmph!!"
Han Yuhyeon seized her jaw and forced her mouth open. Then he whispered, perfectly calm, against her ear.
"K-kkhk!"
The fingers clamped around her jaw pushed into her mouth and drew out her pale pink tongue.
"You said you were reflecting, didn't you? If that's really true, then the hands and the tongue that took a person's life are useless to you, aren't they?"
"Mmmph! Mmmmmph!!"
Kim Ji-hye's eyes flew wide. In her pupils she could see Han Yuhyeon's fingers wound around her tongue.
Crack—!
"Mmmmmph!!"
Blood sprayed from the tongue. Its plump shape vanished, withering into something like a dried-out twig.
Blood gushed from Kim Ji-hye's mouth.
She wanted to scream, but no voice would come. All that escaped her was a choking gurgle.
There was nothing she could do but weep like a madwoman and thrash in the pain.
"You all say the same thing. That you want to live. That you're sorry. But not one of you ever means to take responsibility. If you've stolen something precious from someone else, it's only right that something be stolen from you as well."
Han Yuhyeon seized her by the hair and dragged her toward the rooftop railing.
"S-spahre mhe! Spahre mhe!!!"
Kim Ji-hye thrashed, but it was useless.
Just like her friends in the video, she was hanging in empty air with nothing beneath her feet.
"Do you remember which floor Oh Yu-ri jumped from?"
At the question, her mind went blank. When she could not answer clearly, Han Yuhyeon kindly showed her himself.
All at once her vision flipped. Her stomach lurched and tickled as she was sucked downward, as if she had been thrown onto an amusement-park ride.
When she came to, she was in front of the railing of her own room on the seventh floor. Han Yuhyeon was braced there, both feet planted against the wall.
"The seventh floor. So if you jump from the seventh floor, the same as she did, and you survive—I won't harm you any further."
"S-spahre..."
Tap—
Han Yuhyeon let go.
A moment later, the sound of something bursting rose from below.
He did not bother to look down.
All he did was upload the video to an online community from her phone.
Once the upload was finished, he searched for the next target.
Lee Deok-bae.
The one who had led this whole affair.
He murmured to himself.
"Target search. Lee Deok-bae."
Ding—
A hologram screen appeared in the empty air, the same as always.
But the words that surfaced this time left him no choice but to be thrown.
Target search has failed.
Failed?
Not once—not when he had tracked Kim Jeong-sik, and not when he had hunted Kim Ji-hye and her friends—had this ever happened. The system had always traced the location of whoever he wanted, all on its own.
Why?
An ominous thought flashed through his mind.
Don't tell me he's dead.
The odds were high that a dead man simply could not be tracked. But there was no reason for him to be dead, was there? Fleeing in a panic after seeing the video was one thing. Taking his own life out of sheer terror, in that short a span of time?
Doesn't something about that feel wrong?