Chapter 24
Chapter 24
"Taesu-ya, are you still not grasping the situation? Look at yourself right now. You never had a choice to begin with. Whether you accept my proposal or not, I'm going to do the same thing to you anyway."
"Fuck... I knew it. Did you ever even have any intention of letting me go?"
Taesu pushed back against Jihwan's coercive attitude and proposal.
"Taesu-ya, listen closely."
Jihwan continued his explanation with a tone that suggested he found Taesu frustrating.
"Whether you obediently follow my orders with the faith that I'll keep my promise, or get beaten into following them, that's entirely your choice."
"But, in the former case, there's hope that you can be released from here if I keep my promise, whereas in the latter, there isn't even that hope. What will you choose?"
"......"
Taesu fell into silence at Jihwan's words.
'Ha... this is fucking bullshit.'
Taesu wanted to retort to his words, but he couldn't.
In the current situation, where his limbs were tied and he couldn't do anything.
The best choice he could make was to hope Jihwan would keep his promise and accept his proposal.
"Fine... For two weeks, I'll do whatever you tell me to. Make sure you keep your promise."
"Don't worry. I always keep my promises."
Thus, the two-week Wager between Jihwan and Taesu began.
-6-
Jihwan moved Taesu from the single room on the first floor to the same Basement as Minji.
"How is it? You're a bit more comfortable now, right?"
After moving Taesu to the Basement, he didn't bind his limbs completely like before and gave him a little freedom.
"Comfortable, my ass... You should at least let me be able to stand, shouldn't you?"
"Really? Should I tie you up completely like before?"
"......No, it's fine."
Jihwan put a metal Dog Collar around Taesu's neck as well.
The Leash was only 1.5m long.
He fixed it to a lower ring near the floor, not high up on the wall, making it impossible for him to even stand up straight.
Unlike with Minji, it was quite dangerous if he resisted, so Jihwan even put Handcuffs and shackles on his hands and feet.
The Handcuffs even had thick gloves attached, so he couldn't even use his fingers.
"Taesu-ya, do you remember the past? You treated me like a pig because I was fat and made me act like one."
"......Yeah, I did. I'm sorry, I mean it."
At Jihwan's words, memories of him doing that in the past surfaced.
It wasn't a truly sincere apology, but he apologized to appease Jihwan.
"This is your first order. For the next two weeks, you're not a human, you're a pig. Easy, right?"
"What the..."
Taesu was speechless for a moment at the command to be a pig, not a human.
"I told you, I'd only torment you with the things you used to torment others with. What, are you giving up already?"
"No... Fuck, I'll do it, okay!"
'Crazy psycho bastard. Fine, acting like a pig isn't that hard, I'll do it.'
"A pig shouldn't speak human language. Unless I specifically allow it, your answers will be unified to 'oink oink'."
"Oink... oink..."
'Fuck... this is really shitty.'
Taesu felt so ashamed and humiliated that he wanted to die, but for now, he followed Jihwan's orders.
Even if he wasn't sure whether Jihwan would actually keep his promise or not, this was the best he could do right now.
'Even if he doesn't keep his promise, I have to do what the guy says for now.'
Even if he tried to attempt an escape, it was impossible in the current situation.
Taesu decided to pretend to obediently follow Jihwan's orders to recover his strength and look for an opportunity to escape.
"There's no need for a pig to be wearing clothes. Minji, could you strip him for me?"
"Yes, Master."
At Jihwan's command, Minji began to take off all of his clothes.
Taesu couldn't even take off his clothes himself because his hands were tied in glove-style Handcuffs.
"I'm done, Master."
By Minji's hands, Taesu was left completely naked, without a single thread on him.
Taesu trembled with rage, barely managing to endure this shame and humiliation.
"How are you struggling this much already? We haven't even started yet."
"......"
"From now on, you'd better answer me right away, otherwise this happens."
Smack!
Jihwan mercilessly struck Taesu's body with the Whip he was holding.
"Ugh!"
Even though the whipping must have been quite painful, Taesu didn't scream and endured it by gritting his teeth.
'Ha~ this is really fucking shitty.'
He had resolved to obediently follow what the guy said for now.
But when it came time to actually answer by oinking like a pig, his pride made it impossible for his mouth to open.
"Answer!"
"Oink. Oink!"
After a few more lashings, Taesu eventually succumbed to the whipping and answered with an oink.
"Maybe it's because you're a beast, but you only listen when you're hit. I'll let it slide this once, but if you don't listen next time, I'll consider the Wager lost. Okay?"
"Oink oink."
'You fucking bastard, just you wait until you don't keep your promise, I'll really kill you.'
Taesu followed his orders while cursing Jihwan in his mind.
He had to obediently follow Jihwan's orders, if only because of the Wager, and if he kept acting on his pride in this situation, he might actually get beaten to death.
"I've brought in a pig, and I can't have it die as soon as I bring it in, so I'll give you food and water."
"Oink oink."
In order to take revenge on Taesu in earnest, it was necessary for him to recover his physical condition to some extent.
The revenge Jihwan wanted wasn't Taesu's death, but for him to live a long life and suffer forever.
Jihwan filled two Dog food bowls with feed and water and gave them to him.
Because his hands and feet were tied, he had no choice but to lie prone like a dog and eat with his face buried in the bowl.
'Eat. I have to eat, whether I'm going to escape or take revenge.'
Taesu hated to death the idea of lying prone like a dog in front of Jihwan with his face buried in the bowl to eat, but to survive, he had no choice.
"Ughhh!"
He steeled himself and brought his mouth to the feed, but the moment he did, the smell was so repulsive that he couldn't even bring himself to touch it.
'Fuck, how am I supposed to eat this.'
He had been starving for 3 days, so he would have eaten anything deliciously, but this didn't even seem like food a human could eat.
"I gave pig feed to a pig, is it not tasty? Should I just take it away?"
What Jihwan had put in the bowl wasn't even dog food, but actual pig feed.
It was so foul-smelling and repulsive that even if one had been starving for 3 days, it was hard to eat with a normal stomach.
'Eat, I have to eat! I need strength to escape this place or kill that bastard.'
Taesu clenched his fists, held his breath to block his sense of smell, and began to devour the feed, using his rage as fuel.
Taesu was someone whose tenacity and guts were superior to anyone else's, to the point where it wasn't for nothing that he was the school bully.
He thought of the feed as Jihwan and chewed it up with pure spite and grit.
'What a vicious bastard.'
Jihwan was creeped out watching Taesu eat the feed with pure spite, his eyes wide open.
Seeing those eyes reminded him of his days as an outcast being bullied by him, and he got PTSD.
'Yeah, hold on like that. That's the only way it'll be fun to torment and take revenge on you more.'
Jihwan felt anger at the memories of his school days that had surfaced after a long time, and he vowed to take revenge once again.
"Today is the first day, so I'll stop here. Recover well, you can look forward to tomorrow."
'Is it finally over?'
Taesu felt relieved that this hell of humiliation was over, at least for today.
Smack!
"Ugh, oink..."
Since answering wasn't a habit yet, Taesu answered belatedly after getting whipped again.
-7-
Jihwan left Minji and Taesu in the Basement, went up to his room, and turned on his computer.
He used Taesu's Messenger to pretend he had gone off the grid, and since he sent replies pretending to be Taesu, no one kept contacting him.
Taesu had many acquaintances, but they were all just superficially close, and it seemed there was almost no one who was truly close to him.
'This one is persistent.'
However, just one person.
Only one person was persistently contacting him, suspicious of the current situation.
Kim Seolhee.
Taesu's younger sister, who had just turned 20.
Taesu's family environment wasn't very good.
It wasn't that they were poor, but their father was violent, and they grew up heavily influenced by that.
This family environment also had a big impact on Taesu going astray in high school.
Growing up relying on each other under such a father, their relationship was much closer compared to other typical siblings.
Because of this closeness, Seolhee was feeling that something was strange about the replies and behavioral patterns of Jihwan, who was pretending to be Taesu.
"Hmm... what should I do about her?"
He was somehow making excuses to her via Messenger, but at this rate, Seolhee might actually report it.
Even if she reported it, there was no chance Jihwan would get caught, but if a report was filed now, it would cause a setback in the work he was planning.
Jihwan surfed the internet and collected information on Taesu's younger sister, Seolhee.
He knew he had a younger sister, but he didn't know much about her.
"Ha~ the world is fucking unfair."
Perhaps because you can't deceive DNA, she boasted considerable beauty, fitting for the younger sister of the tall and handsome Taesu.
Unlike Minji, who had a flashy and sophisticated appearance, Seolhee boasted a pure and elegant style of appearance, as if she didn't know anything about the ways of the world.
"Geez, she has a lot of problems too."
When he investigated her a little more closely, unlike her pure and innocent image, she was a troubled kid.
Like brother, like sister; she was indeed Taesu's younger sister.
She was also quite a famous bully in high school.
She had quite a few victims among the girls and was notorious.
'You're not going to get away with it either.'
He hadn't intended to take revenge on Taesu's sister.
But the more he learned about Seolhee, the more he thought they were the same kind of bastards.
He wouldn't treat her as severely as Taesu, but his mind was made up to use Seolhee for his revenge.
A smile naturally formed on Jihwan's lips at the thought of taking revenge by tearing apart the sibling relationship that was the only thing they trusted and relied on in the world.