Chapter 113
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 113
Dokyun suppressed the tension rising within him and looked at Eun-chae.
One would expect her to show at least a hint of panic in a situation like this, but Eun-chae maintained a leisurely attitude, not a trace of alarm on her face.
“…This isn’t the time to be so relaxed, you know.”
“Hmm…? Eun-ah doesn’t know what you’re talking about.”
Clench—.
His fists tightened. A surge of anger rose in him as she referred to herself as ‘Eun-ah,’ yet he frowned, finding that her act no longer felt as detestable as it once had.
It was probably because he had started to pity her.
“Honeybee. How long is Eun-ah going to be like this? What kind of game are we playing now?”
Her voice cut through his thoughts. Dokyun’s expression hardened as he looked at her.
She wore a beaming smile, but as always, it was tinged with an awkwardness that made it seem forced, as if she were struggling to form it.
It was one of Eun-chae’s defining characteristics.
She never used all of her facial muscles at once, only a select few, which made her expressions look unnatural.
Seeing her like this always brought a question to his mind.
Why were her expressions so awkward?
It was a question that followed him whenever he thought of Eun-chae, and only now was he beginning to see the answer.
…It’s because she doesn’t know how to make them.
In Dokyun’s opinion, Eun-chae simply didn’t know how to form facial expressions.
He couldn’t say she didn’t know emotion; when her actions grew violent, her tone of voice was thick with it.
Dokyun suspected this bizarre phenomenon was a result of Eun-chae’s unique circumstances.
Eun-chae always emerged for the purpose of self-harm. And once she was finished, she had to go back to sleep.
Furthermore, human expressions were a learned behavior.
It was a skill acquired during infancy by interacting with parents and others, by starting to mimic them.
In other words, because she only performed a mechanical role and had to fall asleep immediately after, she never learned what emotions and expressions were appropriate for which situations. That had to be the source of her awkwardness.
It was a deduction, but one he held with near certainty. No other answer fit the pieces of the puzzle so perfectly.
Go Eun-chae’s life was one that made Dokyun feel an automatic sense of pity.
…Useless thoughts.
Dokyun squeezed his eyes shut, shaking the thoughts away.
This wasn’t the time for that. Regardless of the pity he felt, this was a situation that demanded his full attention.
Dokyun opened his eyes again. He watched Eun-chae, who was staring back at him while letting out little pants of breath, then took a deep breath himself and spoke.
“…Let’s stop with the games, shall we?”
First, he had to clearly establish the hierarchy of the current situation.
If she were to run wild, someone was going to get torn apart before they could even have a conversation.
He had to make her properly recognize her own situation—that she was the one being suppressed. He had to adopt a coercive attitude to make her understand that, for this moment, Chae Dokyun was superior to Go Eun-chae.
He puffed out his chest and hardened his expression. He tried to make his frame look bigger, using his downward gaze to apply pressure.
Dokyun was confident in this. His intimidating face had a unique talent in this particular field.
Just then, as Dokyun stared down at Eun-chae with a look that screamed get a grip on the situation, a laugh escaped her lips.
“Hee…!”
Flinch—.
Dokyun’s body trembled at Eun-chae’s relaxed attitude. The moment he realized he’d let his own shock show, he quickly hardened his expression again, but in that instant, Eun-chae stuck her tongue out at him.
It was a playful gesture.
As the thought Is she messing with me? crossed his mind, a sudden sense of dread washed over him, and he quickly reached for her mouth.
She might be trying to bite her tongue.
With that thought, Dokyun shot his hand out, pressing his fingers over her tongue and pushing it back into her mouth.
At that moment.
CRUNCH—.
Eun-chae’s lips curled into a smile as she bit down on the fingers that had entered her mouth.
“Aargh!!!”
A scream tore from his throat as her teeth dug into his flesh. His body convulsed as if having a seizure, trying to shake off the pain spreading through him.
His eyes flew wide open, his breathing turning ragged.
He needed to pull his hand out immediately and check the damage.
But even then, Dokyun gritted his teeth and forced himself to endure, refusing to withdraw his hand from her gnawing mouth.
The thought that she might try to bite her tongue again if he pulled away flashed through his mind.
Dokyun’s body trembled as he glared at Eun-chae.
At the end of his gaze, Eun-chae was looking back at him, her eyes curved into crescent moons.
“You crazy…!”
“Heehee….”
Another laugh escaped her.
As Dokyun’s face filled with bewilderment, Eun-chae began to lick the fingers inside her mouth.
“Jjyup—. Jjyup—.”
He felt the soft, wet sensation at the tip of his fingers. A wave of goosebumps washed over his entire body.
Shudder—.
Dokyun’s body twitched again at the chill running down his spine. He stared at her with trembling pupils.
Even completely bound and unable to move, she was still raising this much hell. He couldn’t comprehend her behavior.
He had to control her somehow, but seeing her like this, he began to feel a sense of hopelessness.
As Dokyun bit his lip, his face a mask of despair, Eun-chae, who had been biting his fingers until then, finally spat them out and spoke, her voice full of laughter.
“Hee… Salty.”
“…You crazy bitch.”
The words escaped him before he could think. Instinct spoke before reason could.
*
Deciding it was too dangerous to even let her open her mouth, Dokyun temporarily gagged her with a cloth. After searching the house, he found a ball gag in a corner of the dressing room, brought it back, and fitted it into her mouth.
…He had no idea why something like that was here, but he had to use what was available.
“Mmph, hmph.”
Dokyun watched Eun-chae, who was letting out muffled sounds through the gag, and continued to think.
Even with her mouth bound, she had been writhing like that for hours, a constant giggle on her face.
Didn’t she get tired? Watching her struggle without ever taking her eyes off him, he felt a sliver of fear begin to creep in.
…Perhaps it was only natural.
After all, there had never been a single time he’d confronted her and emerged unscathed.
Dokyun felt his body flinch again at the memories. He took a deep breath to compose himself.
…Her resistance is stronger than I thought.
He had to calm her down somehow and get her into a state where a conversation was possible. But no suitable method came to mind.
How could he make her calm down?
How could he even begin to have a conversation?
As he pondered this, Dokyun noticed that Eun-chae, who had been shrugging her shoulders at him, had suddenly stopped moving. He watched her carefully.
Her expression vanished. Her breathing stopped.
Dokyun narrowed his eyes, watching her face grow redder and redder, then shot to his feet.
That lunatic!
She was holding her breath.
Realizing this, Dokyun rushed over to her in a panic. He shook her head and pressed on her neck, forcing her to breathe.
It was a drastic measure.
A way to inflict pain to break her focus on holding her breath.
A moment later, after confirming that she had taken a sharp gasp of air, Dokyun finally let go of her and scowled.
“Don’t try any stupid shit.”
“Mmph, mmph.”
At his warning, she let out another laugh. His expression twisted into a deeper scowl, and feeling a throb in the back of his neck, Dokyun sighed heavily and returned to his chair.
“I’m not taking it off just because you do that. I told you, if you feel like talking, blink three times.”
“Mmmph.”
Dokyun stared at Eun-chae, who was letting out a long, drawn-out sound, her eyes curved into crescents.
She refused to blink.
Stubborn. The only word that came to mind was that she was truly, utterly stubborn.
He had been planning to remove the gag, even for a moment, if she had just feigned a willingness to talk. But even tied up like this, she absolutely refused to show any intention of communicating.
He couldn’t understand what she was thinking.
She would probably spew out a torrent of words the moment he removed the gag.
But it wouldn’t be the kind of conversation he wanted. So, after he told her to blink three times when she was ready for a proper talk, she had been like this ever since.
A deep sigh escaped him.
It was just… just a conversation.
He had asked to talk because he wanted to know what kind of life she’d lived, what she was thinking, but she showed no intention of opening her mouth.
Was his approach wrong? Did he not know what she truly wanted?
As those thoughts gave him a headache, Dokyun let out another sigh and began to review her past actions.
He thought there might be a clue there.
First, it wasn’t that she hated him.
If that were the case, she wouldn’t be showing an obsession for him that bordered on madness.
Go Eun-chae’s attention was constantly focused on him. The moment he said something, her struggles would stop. Conversely, the moment his mind started to wander, she would immediately have a fit and act out.
It was as if…
…As if she wants me to look at her.
That’s how she was acting.
Dokyun, following this train of thought, lifted his head and met Eun-chae’s gaze.
She was staring right back into his eyes, a creaky, forced smile on her face.
Dokyun felt a pang somewhere deep in his chest.
He still didn’t know what her ultimate goal was. But he could at least tell that she wanted his attention.
Dokyun stopped his train of thought and parted his lips.
“…When I was a kid.”
The words came out of nowhere.
Dokyun spoke, watching her.
The moment he opened his mouth, all her movements ceased. He didn’t know if this was the right approach, but if she wasn’t willing to talk, he figured he would have to lead the conversation by speaking first.
Having decided, Dokyun, without knowing what to say, simply began to ramble about whatever came to mind.
“I used to be so scared of frogs. Their color, the way they looked, the way they moved. It was all so scary. I really hated seeing them, but I lived in the countryside, so the yard was crawling with them. What could I do? I had to get used to it. So, with a child’s logic, I figured that to stop being afraid of frogs, I had to understand a frog’s heart. I smeared green paint on my face and jumped into the rice paddies. And then…”
As he continued his story, Dokyun watched Eun-chae’s condition.
Her fits stopped. Her twitching movements grew smaller, and her eyes were fixed directly on him.
Is this working?
After rambling on and observing her, it seemed this approach was the right one.
Growing more confident, Dokyun wracked his brain for anything to say and kept talking.
He moved on from the frog story to the cards he used to collect as a kid, the teacher he was afraid of in school, and from school ghost stories to the tale of when he first came to Seoul.
Dokyun chattered on about his life, watching her.
Her face was so expressionless she almost looked like a doll.
If he didn’t check the rise and fall of her chest or the movement of her pupils, he would have thought she truly was a doll, she was so perfectly still.
She was that focused on his story.
What did she want? He thought about it, but he still didn’t know.
He had wanted to hear her story, so he didn’t understand why he was the one talking.
He just figured this was how things had turned out. As he continued to talk…
Blink.
Her eyes blinked.
“…I met a per—…”
Dokyun stopped talking when he saw it. Then, twice more, her eyes blinked.
Blink. Blink.
Her eyes had blinked a total of three times.
Dokyun stared at her blankly, meeting her gaze, before finally speaking.
“Are you ready to say something now?”
There was no answer.
That was only natural, since her mouth was gagged.
But amidst the silence, her head gave a small nod.