Is This Really My Face?
The bodyguard's surrender came quickly. Of course it did. He had a family depending on him. What wouldn't you do, with someone sick waiting at home?
"...I'll take the picture. I'll take it, all right?"
The food slot in the door slid open, and a phone began to ease through the gap.
Should I snatch it? The selfish thought flickered through me the moment I saw the phone, but I snapped out of it just as fast.
Don't cross that line.
This relationship was already built on blackmail. I didn't want to shatter whatever trust he had in me.
Besides, I doubt I could snatch it even if I tried.
Look at those veins standing out on his thick forearm. He was putting everything he had into that grip, braced for the possibility I might try something.
"...You're going to break the phone like that."
"Hah... I'd appreciate it if you'd shut that mouth of yours, miss. I'm scared out of my mind over here. Just stand in front of the camera."
"I'm already standing."
Crack—
A joint popped from the other side of the door; he must have crouched down to get the angle.
"...Whoa. So that's why the boss is so obsessed with you, miss."
A murmur of awe, then the click of the shutter. The phone rotated in his palm until the screen faced me.
And there I was.
Me.
"Th-that's impossible! I actually look like that?"
My jaw wouldn't close. I'd thought the woman who'd kidnapped me had an otherworldly face, but the woman filling that screen was a full spoonful prettier — no, two. Even from what you'd call a humiliation angle, the kind nobody walks away from looking good, her features were so sharply defined it said everything that needed saying.
It was the kind of face that made her terrifying obsession almost... understandable.
"...Don't tell me you've never seen your own face? Not even once?"
"No."
"How is that even..."
Something about my reaction sent him down a grim path of assumption, his voice going dark as he asked. I didn't bother correcting him.
It wasn't a lie, after all. Today was the first time I'd ever seen my own face.
After the photo, I kept talking with the bodyguard. None of it was useful for escaping. Just idle chatter to kill time — whether he had a girlfriend, whether his little sister was pretty, anything that would fill the silence. I ran my mouth about all of it.
Maybe that's why. It might have been my imagination, but I felt like we'd gotten a little closer.
"So do they pay you well?"
"...Ten million a month."
"No way! Hook me up with a little something! There's gotta be a cut in there for me, right?"
"...I'm sorry, miss."
The mood plummeted. This wasn't the atmosphere I'd been going for, but I'd planted a strange misconception in him, and now everything I said just made it worse. I couldn't exactly comfort him, and telling him it was fine would have been just as weird. A silence hung between us.
What broke it was the sound of footsteps.
"She's coming, miss."
I was already moving before he'd finished the sentence, hurrying toward the bed. This time I didn't have the luxury of minding my ankle. Her footsteps were faster than usual today, and my heart hammered with a restless, jittery dread.
"Haa... unnie, I missed you so much I could—"
The lock clicked. The door swung open, and I threw myself onto the mattress, squeezing my eyes shut, pretending to sleep. I could call it a close save — except the footsteps of the woman who always pulled me into a warm embrace had stopped right in front of the bed. That meant she'd noticed something.
The blanket covering my ankle slid aside.
"Your ankle is swollen, unnie."
"Nngh..."
She tapped the swollen flesh with a fingertip, and a pain I couldn't swallow down tore a sound from my throat.
"How did this happen?"
"I-I just... I hurt it exercising. I-I won't do it again. F-forgive me, Heejin, okay?"
"What kind of exercise?"
"J-just some simple squats, that kind of thing..."
Calling her by name made her falter for a moment. Then her eyes went cold again.
Her hand moved to my only uninjured ankle — the left one.
"Fine. I'll play along, unnie. But we should still address the actual problem, shouldn't we? You exercise to get healthier. If it wrecks your health instead, there's no point. Don't you think?"
Pressure clamped down on my left ankle, hard, and the pain climbed with it.
"H-Heejin, please..."
"If I smash the left one too, you won't be doing any more squats, will you? It'll hurt a little, but in the long run it'll be good for you."
"Ah—! Aaaagh! S-stop! Stop it! I was wrong, please... hhnnk—"
The pain was monstrous, a preview of a life in which I would never walk again. Tears spilled down my face as I begged her. I'm sorry. Please just let it go this once. I'll never do it again.
Maybe the sincerity got through. The force on my ankle eased, bit by bit.
I looked up at her, hoping. Our eyes met. The look in hers was still ice, and it told me her anger hadn't gone anywhere.
If I lied again, a shattered ankle wouldn't be where it ended.
And I had no confidence I could fool her anyway.
I had to tell the truth. About the bodyguard. About the two of us.
"Th-that's... I mean..."
"Take your time, unnie. If you just tell me the truth, I won't punish you any further today."
She beamed. The terrifying atmosphere from a moment ago had vanished without a trace.
Just tell her. Honestly, that man had been complicit in a crime. He'd only be getting what he deserved.
...Or so I told myself. The rationalization wouldn't stick.
I couldn't shake the conversation we'd had. His little sister's hospital bills.
If I told the truth, he would end up half-crippled. He could actually die this time.
Would I escape a murder charge just because I hadn't done it with my own hands? No. I didn't know about anyone else — but if a single word from me killed that man, then I was the one who killed him.
"I-I was exercising. Hee... Heejin... hhnn..."
"Ha."
The smile on her face hardened in an instant. My left ankle was in her grip again.
I didn't pull away. I closed my eyes instead, bracing for the pain that was coming.
But no matter how long I waited, it didn't arrive. I cracked one eye open and looked at her.
For the first time, the face that had always gone cold with anger was twisted into something ugly.
"What a shame. Because now I absolutely have to hear whatever it is you're hiding."
She let go of my ankle and started making a call.
It rang a few times before someone picked up.
"It's me. Come up here. Right now."
I didn't know who she'd summoned, but something ugly was about to happen. That much was certain.
It couldn't have been more than a minute before footsteps sounded outside the door. Then the door opened.
The person who walked in was someone I'd seen once before — the doctor who had treated my ankle.
"Yes, ma'am. What seems to be the matter?"
The doctor's eyes swept over me from head to toe, fast and practiced. An occupational habit, checking for injuries.
"She's not hurt, so stop rolling your eyes over her. You're dying to gouge them out, aren't you."
"I'll be more careful."
At Heejin's venomous tone, the doctor's gaze dropped to the floor.
"You used to be a violent crimes detective, didn't you."
"Yes. I was a criminal profiler."
That was when I understood why she'd brought the doctor here.
God, the obsession on this woman.
"Unnie lied to me today. And I have a right to know the truth, don't I?"
"Yes. I believe you do."
"There shouldn't be lies between people who love each other. You're supposed to tell each other everything. You think so too, don't you."
"Of course, ma'am."
Heejin poured out her deranged possessiveness, and the doctor nodded along, agreeing with every word. It occurred to me that maybe this terrifying obsession of hers wasn't entirely self-made — that the people around her, echoing it back, had helped build it into this.
"Find out why unnie is lying. Find out what she's hiding. Be thorough."
"Understood."
Maybe it was the former detective in her, but the doctor's face never changed. A blank wall. Like a person with no feelings at all.
"I'll be with you shortly, miss."
".........."
The fear she gave off was a different species from Heejin's. Heejin raged without distinguishing friend from foe. The doctor was a blade honed to a razor's edge. She was a mountain, vast and immovable. My mouth went dry. I couldn't get enough air.
"Miss."
"...Yes."
"What time did you wake up this morning?"
"...I don't know. There's no clock..."
"........."
Even the doctor didn't seem to know the full layout of this room. Her eyes flicked toward Heejin.
"Why isn't there a clock?"
She seemed aware, at least, that this was not a normal arrangement. Heejin's face flushed, as if a private shame had been dragged into the light, and she answered with a pout.
"None of your business."
The doctor's attention returned to me.
"Then what did you do with your day?"
"I just... lay there all day, and then I did a little exercise..."
"In detail, please. You watched TV, you read a book — you must have some kind of hobby. What kind of person spends an entire day doing a little exercise and nothing else?"
"...There's nothing in here to do anything with. No TV. No books. I eat with a plastic spoon and chopsticks because there aren't even real ones. What exactly am I supposed to do in a room like this?"
"................"
It stung a little to say out loud, but every word was true. I'd lain there all morning waiting for breakfast to arrive, and the only exercise I'd gotten was walking to the door to talk to the bodyguard.
Beyond that, I had done absolutely nothing.
The doctor seemed to register that I was telling the truth. She let out a breath and turned back to Heejin.
"I'll stake my career on this — I don't believe she's lying..."
"...You're sure?"
"Yes. I'm sure."
Heejin seemed to place a great deal of trust in her. I could see her face brighten on the strength of a single sentence.
"Good work. You can go."
"Yes, ma'am. Until next time."
She hadn't entirely shed the look of lingering suspicion, but Heejin seemed to have chosen, for now, to believe me.
The moment the doctor left, Heejin threw herself at me. She was rough about it, as if determined to collect on every second she'd lost.
"Open your mouth, unnie."
I did as I was told. I hadn't forgotten what she'd demanded yesterday, either. It was still embarrassing, but I lifted my arms and bared my underarms.
"Haa... unnie... mmph... you smell so good... god..."
When the rough kissing was done, she went exactly where I expected — my armpit. She dragged her tongue in long, wet strokes, bottom to top, top to bottom, thorough and filthy.
"Hh... nnnh!"
It felt like tiny ants were crawling over every inch of my skin. A maddening tickle.
"What are you, some kind of pervert? Getting off on your armpits, unnie?"
"N-no... nnh... I'm not getting off on my armp— nnnh!"
As if to call me a liar, she latched on and sucked hard, and that strange feeling started up again.
A heat bloomed from the pit of my stomach and spread through my whole body. Then a jolt — like I'd been shocked — a dizzying spark that blanked my vision white and left a sweet afterglow humming through every nerve.
"If you're going to come, say so beforehand. Understood?"
"I-I... I didn't come... hhn..."
"No, you came just fine, unnie. You reek of it."
Her hand began to creep toward my lower belly. Toward the place that was, for all intents and purposes, the center of everything.
"What kind of panties are you wearing today?"
".....I don't know..."
"You need to answer me properly, hmm? God, you're cute."
She seemed to think I was too embarrassed to speak.
"...No... I really don't know... I haven't changed them..."
That was not the answer she'd expected. She went still as stone, her expression turning grave.
"Unnie, do you not shower?"
"....I'm just at home. I didn't think I needed to..."
"Are you stupid? What kind of woman goes to bed without even wiping her pussy? How many days has it been since you washed?"
"About three days..."
Pussy.
She'd said it like it was nothing, but it hit me harder than I expected. I felt like I'd just been slammed with culture shock.
"I'm going to punish you for this, just so you know."
"........"
The word punish made my chest drop, but the brightness coming off her told me it wouldn't be anything severe, so I didn't plead for mercy.
"Just go to sleep already. I'm sleepy. Being in your arms like this... it just keeps rolling in. I want to play with you a little longer, but I can't fight it..."
The way she always did, she laid her head against my chest and started to drift off. She'd barely closed her eyes before her breathing evened out into the soft, even rhythm of sleep.
I followed her under.