Five Seconds Without Hypnosis
“Hah... h-heuk... haa...”
Five seconds. Once again, exactly five seconds, and the hypnosis overlaid itself anew. But the aftershocks of the neural clash and phantom pain from those five seconds had drained the color from Ayoung’s face, leaving it corpse-pale. Her legs buckled, and she staggered, barely catching herself against the wall.
“Director! Are you okay?!”
The special cleaning supervisor, who’d been working nearby, rushed over in alarm.
“Your face looks awful. You’re sweating bullets... This site’s smell and vibe must be too much for you, especially since you were close to the deceased.”
“N-no... it’s nothing, just a quick dizzy spell...”
“No way. We’ll handle the rest of the belongings per protocol, so head home early and rest. If you collapse, the Association Chairman will chew us out.”
Under the supervisor’s firm insistence, Ayoung could only nod blankly. She couldn’t grasp what she’d just been thinking. Or why her body ached and her heart raced like this. But the exhaustion crashing over her was real enough.
“Alright... I’ll leave it to you.”
Ayoung stumbled out of the scene and slumped into the driver’s seat of her pickup truck in the parking lot.
The dim early evening. Having clocked out early, Ayoung drove along the riverside road toward her luxury Gangnam apartment. Her dazed eyes began to waver. As time passed. As home drew nearer.
Afternoon... our poor Afternoon.
The emotions injected by the hypnosis kept whispering. But those fragments from the five seconds at the cleanup site earlier. And the morning’s memories of the scalpel and operating room. These shattered pieces of memory slowly, ever so slowly, began drawing toward each other in Ayoung’s brain as she gripped the wheel, assembling into place.
“...Ha!”
Strength surged into Ayoung’s foot on the accelerator.
It was complete. The full truth. That fat, dumb-looking civilian pig kid had actually taken ownership of the goddamn hypnosis app her own father used and played her like a fool.
“Ha... haha.”
A deflated laugh escaped Ayoung’s lips. The shell of the kind aunt who doted on her nephew shattered into pieces.
“Fuck... you dared make me play the sweet aunt? You disgusting piece of shit.”
Ayoung gripped the wheel hard enough to snap it, grinding her teeth.
“Do you even know who I am, you trash? Treating the great Park Ayoung... like your mom, turning me into a hypnosis slave? Filthy bastard.”
Right now, Ayoung felt her mind clearer and sharper than ever. Rage burned through her body, but reason held firm.
“Dad’s bloodline is the best, huh? Letting his daughter break free for the first time.”
She was convinced her powerful mental fortitude as the daughter of an S-grade hero had let her shatter the hypnosis on her own.
“You’re fucked now, Ha Ohu. I’ll go straight home, chop off all your limbs, call my father, and spill every dirty trick you pulled with that app. I’ll separate your bones from your flesh just like you did to your dad.”
Her certainty peaked as the car pulled into the apartment’s underground garage, she rode the elevator to the 15th floor, and stood before her door.
Beep-.
Unlocking and entering, Ayoung’s eyes locked on the door lock—charred black from Miyang’s electricity yesterday, unrepaired. Not her mistake. That villain bitch and Ha Ohu’s doing.
Armed with the full truth, Ayoung kicked off her shoes roughly, ready to throttle Ohu, and stormed into the living room.
“Ha Ohu, you fuck...”!
The moment she entered the living room and opened her mouth to scream murder—
“Back already?”
Ha Ohu lounged on the plush sofa in a loose shower robe, legs crossed leisurely. Beside him, Miyang curled up cat-like, head pillowed on his lap, dozing.
Ohu didn’t even glance at Ayoung from the entrance, idly swiping his smartphone screen with his thumb.
That arrogant attitude snapped Ayoung’s reason.
This fucking trash pig bastard! I’ll call Dad right now and have you ground to dust! I’ve got your app all figured out—you’re done!
Ayoung inwardly spewed curses as she yanked the concealed self-defense dagger from her waist, lunging to slit Ohu’s throat.
Or tried to.
“...?”
Ayoung’s eyes widened. Her mind screamed profanities as she charged, but her body wouldn’t budge a millimeter.
She opened her mouth to curse, but her vocal cords locked tight, not even trembling.
Her eyes were forced downward into a soft, kind curve. And her legs. They carried her with elegant, dainty steps toward the table before Ohu’s sofa.
What the—? Why won’t my body move? Stop! Fucking stop right now!
Ayoung screamed internally, but her face beamed like a doting aunt thrilled to see her nephew after work.
Reaching the table, her hands groped the air. Then toward the handcuffs Ohu had placed there.
Click.
Her left hand gently snapped one cuff around her right wrist.
No! You crazy bitch! Let go! Drop it, fuck!
Clink.
The other cuff locked her left wrist, binding her hands demurely in front instead of behind.
Her reason was free of hypnosis, fully aware of the truth and seething—yet her body remained under Ohu’s control.
Her legs buckled smoothly, and she knelt gracefully at Ohu’s feet.
Watching her own body handcuff itself and kneel before her enemy against her will, Ayoung’s eyes began trembling wildly.
“Mmm... Master.”
Miyang rubbed her eyes, rising from Ohu’s lap. Spotting the handcuffed, kneeling Ayoung, she startled back.
Ohu stayed lounged, not twitching a finger, just gazing down at her with his eyes.
“Why the shocked look? Thought the hypnosis was gone?”
Ohu’s cold, mocking voice pierced Ayoung’s scalp.
“Enjoying the aunt act? Or did realizing the truth and plotting to kill me make your heart swell in the car?”
Ohu leaned forward slowly, roughly seizing her chin with his large, callused hand.
“Those shitty texts you sent me? Every time I saw them, I flicked your memory alteration switch off and on for exactly five seconds. Thought you were free and got all hyped, huh?”
You... demonic bastard! You fucking played me?!
Unable to utter a single curse, tears of rage streamed from Ayoung’s eyes.
“If you’d just stayed a dumb, obedient slave under hypnosis, you’d never even know why you were one—live your whole life clueless. That’s no revenge.”
Ohu’s grip on her chin crushed like it’d shatter bone.
“You gotta fall from the heights to feel the real agony of the drop. I lifted your arrogance—thinking you beat the hypnosis, that you could kill me—to the peak... then shatter it in one go. Make you confirm you’re my bitch dog.”
A lucid mind knowing the truth, trapped in a body forced to obey like a worm. Realizing everything—from start to finish—had been in that civilian pig Ha Ohu’s palm, Ayoung’s spirit crumbled.
She thrashed in her cuffs, desperate to scream, but only muffled nasal whines escaped.
“Mmph...! Mmmph!”
“Alright, time to get back in place.”
Ohu released her chin with a flick and stood.
He tapped his smartphone screen a few times.
Ayoung’s kneeling body shot up like a robot. Tears streaming down her cheeks, glaring resentment at Ohu, but her legs marched toward the master bedroom.
The very spot where last night she’d bound Ohu, poised to gut him. On the cold bed covered in thick, transparent kimchi plastic to prevent bloodstains, Ayoung lay spread-eagled in her cuffs.
Ohu leaned against the master bedroom doorframe, arm around Miyang’s shoulders, gazing down at Ayoung writhing futilely on the plastic, screaming silently.
“Mmph! Hnnngh...! Haaang!”
“Why the muffled noises? Scream your lungs out.”
Ohu’s lips curled.
“Go on, Aunt. No one outside hears anyway. Soundproofed, right?”
You fucking bastard...!
The arrogant line Park Ayoung had mocked her terrified, screaming self with in this operating-room-turned-room yesterday. In just one day, the owner changed, returning as a verdict tearing Ayoung’s heart.
Ohu’s mocking voice echoed endlessly in her self-made soundproof prison, right in her ears.
Ayoung’s master bedroom, perfectly isolated from outside noise, had become Ohu’s soundproof operating theater under his control. Ayoung lay spread on the thick transparent kimchi plastic, utterly naked, not a thread on her.
The room’s air licked over her pale bare skin.
“...”
Ohu stood arms crossed, staring down at her motionless nude form. Not a trace of lust or excitement. Only cold calculation filled his mind.
This bitch has to walk into the Hero Association on her own two feet, perfectly fine.
That was the core of Ohu’s revenge plan. The perfect alibi for survival too.
If he hacked off her limbs or caved in her face in a fit of rage tonight, tomorrow Rapid Star and Association investigators would swarm this apartment hunting the no-show KHC Planning Director. His safest fortress would turn into his tomb overnight.
So Ayoung had to appear fine to the world. The kind aunt. The capable director. Sheathing that facade, she’d shield him and Miyang from external threats—an invincible barrier.
And.
As much as I hate it, I need Park Ayoung right now.
He could control the underworld info net through Miyang. But rooting out everyone tied to those snuff films and encircling the loan sharks who defiled his mom from both sides... required KHC Planning Director Park Ayoung’s intel and cooperation.
Plus.
I need to lose this weight and train up.
As Miyang’s fact-bombs and nagging hammered home, revenge demanded reshaping this useless lump of a body first.
It’s faint, but possible.
If his mom’s physical enhancement genes slumbered somewhere in this flesh. Awakening them would need Park Ayoung’s objective, ruthless judgment as an ex-Hero Association exec.
Miyang’s... great, but she’s too lovestruck.
She was already useless as an impartial training partner.