Chapter 2
Chapter 2
"Aack! Three! Thank you for the Discipline."
She repeated it over and over, correcting her tone.
That made for a total of 12 hits.
She had been forced to submit due to the violence, but the mere fact that she had obeyed Jihwan—someone she had viewed as a bug—was enough to wound her haughty pride and fill her with extreme humiliation.
'You son of a bitch, once I get out of here, I'm not going to let this slide!'
She pretended to submit on the outside to avoid getting hit, but her inner resolve remained firm.
"You'd better write down the orders I gave you. Unless you want to get hit again for forgetting them."
"Yes...."
She answered because she didn't want to get hit, but her voice lacked strength, as if she were out of it.
"Do you think I'm being too harsh?"
Jihwan asked to move on to the next step.
"Yes. I admit I did wrong to... Sobo... no, to Jihwan-nim back in high school. I am sincerely sorry. I'm also sorry for only apologizing now, in this situation, after staying silent all this time."
"But, honestly, I didn't do anything wrong enough to deserve being kidnapped like this. If we pretend today never happened, can't you just let me go?"
Perhaps the Discipline was working; she argued back using polite honorifics, her tone much more docile than before.
'Sorry, my ass.'
Jihwan didn't feel for a second that Minji was genuinely apologizing; she was just saying it on the surface.
If she were truly sorry, she would just apologize without adding "but" and tacking on extra excuses.
'And even if she were sincere, I have no intention of accepting it.'
Even if he received a truly sincere apology, he didn't have the slightest intention of just accepting it and forgiving her.
"They say the hitter forgets but the victim remembers, but to think you actually believe that... it's a bit shocking."
"I do remember. But it's not like it was enough to warrant kidnapping and assaulting someone..."
"Hehe~ Then shall we see if you really remember?"
"Yes?"
Minji was slightly flustered, as he spoke as if he were going to dig into every single thing from the past.
She had only said she remembered.
She only remembered the fact that she had bullied him, but she couldn't really recall the specific details of how she had done it.
"30 items. You said you remember, so write down 30 things you did wrong to me. If you fall short of 30, it's one hit per missing item. If you write down more than 30, I'll give you your choice of food as a Reward for each one."
"If you write down 50 or more, I'll send you home. How about that? That's a pretty sweet deal, right?"
Minji's head spun and felt dizzy upon hearing his words.
She couldn't even think of 10 things right now.
Even if she squeezed her brain as hard as she could, it seemed impossible to exceed 30.
'Is this bastard doing this on purpose?'
No matter how much she had wronged Jihwan, it felt like 30 things was absolutely impossible.
It felt like he had intentionally set the bar absurdly high just to hit her.
"30 items?"
"Hmm, is 30 too low? Should I make it 40?"
"N-no! I'll do 30! That's great. 30!"
She shuddered inwardly at how he had picked at every little thing to reset her during the Corporal punishment earlier.
She thought 30 was a high bar, but she quickly agreed, fearing he might find another excuse to raise it.
"Oh, right! Obviously, no duplicates. For example, no matter how many times you extorted money from me, it only counts as one."
"What? If you do it like that, how am I supposed to get to 30..."
She was barely going to hit 30 even if she counted them separately, and now that she had to lump them all into one, Minji fell into despair.
"Do you have no conscience? If we counted all that separately, you'd hit 100, not 30. If you whine any more, I'll take it as a request to raise it to 40. Anything else to say?"
"N-no, I'll do 30. 30!"
"Then I'll be back in an hour, so think about it and write it down well until then. I've recorded everything in my diary every time it happened, so don't even think about making things up."
"Yes."
Perhaps because she didn't want to get hit, she answered mechanically and used honorifics well.
Jihwan gave her an hour, left the Basement, and locked the door.
With Jihwan gone, Minji was left alone in the Basement, reflecting on her past transgressions.
-3-
Left alone in the Basement, Minji recalled the past and wrote down her wrongdoings one by one.
Extortion of money.
Various errands.
Various verbal abuse and character defamation.
Threats.
...
...
Making him do my homework.
Standing by while he was exposed and masturbated in front of the opposite sex.
Stealing test questions.
'There are way more than I thought...'
When she thought about it earlier, she couldn't even come up with 10, but now that she was really focusing, she passed 10 in an instant.
Aside from the items written on the paper, countless other instances of bullying that Jihwan had suffered came to mind.
However, she didn't write them down because she hadn't been directly involved.
Most of it was just watching from the side or slightly egging them on.
'Why on earth did I act like that back then?'
Looking back now, she couldn't even understand why she had bullied him to that extent.
Everyone else was doing it, so she just followed along; it was daily life, so she didn't really think of it as a bad thing.
Looking at it from Jihwan's perspective, she understood a little bit why he was seeking revenge like this.
'No, wait, even so, doing this much is crossing the line.'
She had bullied Jihwan, but she wasn't the main culprit, and she didn't think she had done anything to deserve being kidnapped to this extent.
Because the people who had bullied Jihwan that severely were other people.
"Fuck, what do I do?"
It felt like quite a bit of time had passed, but without a clock, she didn't know exactly how much time had gone by, which made her even more anxious.
She hadn't even passed 20 yet, so she was getting increasingly anxious.
'Let's just write everything down.'
Many other instances of bullying that she hadn't written down came to mind, but there were many she hadn't written because she hadn't done them herself.
Minji was a girl, and the main culprits who had severely bullied Jihwan were mostly boys.
Thinking that getting hit for falling short was the same as getting hit for writing the wrong things, Minji wrote down everything, even the bullying she hadn't done.
'Ha~ Will I pass?'
By writing down the things other friends had done, she was able to pass 30, but she was worried if that devil-like bastard would accept it.
"Ha~ To think I'm worrying about this kind of shit, it's really fucked up, damn it."
Perhaps because she had some breathing room after finishing, she realized the reality of her situation and let out a deep sigh, cursing.
It was annoying as hell to be writing this kind of list in a place like this.
But the fact that she was groveling to a loser like a bug just because she was afraid of getting Corporal punishment...
...made her feel miserable.
Click.
'He's here.'
Exactly one hour later, Jihwan opened the Basement door and entered.
As Jihwan approached, Minji's heart pounded rapidly with tension.
"Ho-oh~ You wrote quite a lot."
"Yes."
She didn't forget to answer mechanically, not wanting to receive Corporal punishment for not answering.
Jihwan picked up the A4 paper Minji had written on and examined it slowly.
"What is this? More than half of this isn't bullying you did yourself, Minji?"
"I... I thought that standing by and watching the bullying was also a wrong, so I wrote it down."
It was a pretty clever answer, a case of "the interpretation is better than the dream."
Even Minji herself was surprised that she had come up with such an answer in that short amount of time.
"Hmm, is that so? Standing by is indeed wrong, but actually, everything you wrote here is your direct fault. Not just standing by."
"Yes? What does that..."
It was true that she had bullied him, but to say all that bullying was her fault felt like such a stretch.
"All 30 items written here are your fault. So, I'll accept all 30."
"Really?"
She felt relieved that he was accepting it, regardless of whether it was actually her fault or not.
Her thighs were aching even while just sitting still, and she didn't even want to imagine getting hit again here.
"Of course, I'm not just accepting it. There's a reason why it's all your fault, even the things you didn't do yourself. If you guess that reason, I'll accept all 30. I'll even give you food as a Reward."
"But what if you can't guess it? How can I accept it if you don't even know why it's your fault, right?"
"There's a reason why all of that is my fault?"
Minji asked, as if she didn't understand.
No matter how much she thought about it, she couldn't even get a clue as to why it was her fault.
"You don't know? If you don't know, you can just pay with your body. Let's see~ One, two, three... That's 12 hits. Still, you wrote more than I thought, so I'll be generous and make it 10."
Jihwan raised the Switch and swung it threateningly to scare her.
"W-wait a minute! Please give me some time to think."
Feeling threatened by Jihwan's Switch, she urgently asked for time.
It hurt so much already, and to get hit 10 more times here? She didn't even want to imagine it.
"If you can't think of it right now, you won't think of it later either. Do you think giving you time will change anything? How would you figure it out if you don't even know what you did wrong?"
"You never know. If I think about it carefully, I might be able to figure it out!"
"Sure, it's not a difficult request. Would 5 minutes be enough?"
Jihwan said, as if being very generous, and gave her 5 minutes.
"5 minutes is too sho..."
"What? 5 minutes is too long? Should I give you 3 minutes?"
"N-no! 5 minutes is plenty."
"Alright, then try thinking about it carefully."
Having gained 5 minutes, Minji racked her brain and pondered repeatedly to somehow figure out the reason why it was her fault.
Would she be able to figure out her own wrongdoing?