You'll Never Forget My Name
In that moment, the man's hand reached out and ripped the VR headset from her face.
A harsh tearing sound cut through the air. The world of artificial light vanished, and the dark, damp reality of the room came flooding into her eyes.
The sudden shift left her vision swimming. When it cleared, the man's face was there, looking down at her — her own hair plastered to her forehead with sweat, her face drained bone-white with terror, and those vacant eyes of his, studying her with complete indifference.
"How do you feel?"
He asked it lightly, casually — the way you'd ask a child who'd just gotten off a ride.
That question snapped the last thread of Han Seoyeon's reason.
She thrashed against her bindings, twisting her body in a frenzy, trying to scream something — anything — but the gag in her mouth reduced it all to the sounds of a trapped animal. "Mmph! Mmmphhh!"
"Ah, right. You need to be able to talk."
As if the whole thing bored him, he yanked the ball gag from her mouth without ceremony. A thick strand of saliva stretched between the gag and her lips, glistening, before it finally broke.
The instant her mouth was free, the rage she had been choking on came roaring out.
"This… why the hell are you showing me this?!"
Her voice tore through the air, sharp enough to split, ragged between gasping breaths. The terror in her eyes was no longer alone. Burning beneath it was the fury of a queen who had spent her entire life as the one in control.
"You're going to rape me too?! Just like that filthy insect over there?!"
She jerked her chin toward Yoo Jimin, who was huddled in the corner, her voice dripping with contempt.
Lee Dongwoo did not get angry. If anything, he looked intrigued — entertained, even. A faint smile touched the corner of his mouth.
He gave her no answer at all. That smile alone promised a future more horrific than anything she had just watched on the screen.
At her splitting scream, Lee Dongwoo simply shook his head. There was no anger in his expression, no mockery — only the weary boredom of a teacher explaining something to a particularly stupid child.
"Rape, huh."
He rolled the word around on his tongue, tasting it.
"Hate to break it to you, but this isn't rape." His voice was as even as a lecturer's. "This is education. A sacred act of correction. Straightening out something that went very, very wrong."
Han Seoyeon could not make sense of a single word. She glared at him as if he had just started speaking in tongues. What the hell is this lunatic talking about?
Lee Dongwoo seemed to expect exactly that reaction. He took another step closer, and his shadow swallowed her whole.
"What, you've already forgotten who I am?"
That voice. She had heard it somewhere before — unfamiliar, and yet not entirely strange.
For the first time, Han Seoyeon stopped seeing him as some anonymous kidnapper and started taking him apart as a person. The broad, heavy shoulders. The solid, compact build. The short-cropped hair and the sharply groomed brows.
She tore through the drawers of her memory in a frenzy, rifling through the countless faces she had stepped on, used, and thrown away. Not one of them matched the man standing in front of her.
In her life, he had been nothing more than one more insect she'd brushed past — a creature not even worth remembering.
After a stretch of silence, she reached her verdict.
"I don't know."
The arrogance of a queen had crept back into her voice.
"How the hell would I know who a nobody like you is?"
Lee Dongwoo let out a short, sharp snort. Watching the genuine blankness on her face, he felt not the rage he'd expected but a strange, hollow disbelief.
"Figured as much, you fucking bitch."
His voice dropped to a low growl.
"I've never forgotten you. Not for a single day."
He took another slow step toward her.
"I've always hated you. You have no idea how completely you ruined my life, do you? Of course you don't. You never had a reason to."
Han Seoyeon listened to his sob story and scoffed through her nose.
"You think you're the only bastard who talks like that?"
Even bound, she fought to keep every ounce of her hauteur intact.
"You'd have to actually tell me who you are if you want me to remember. You can't even manage something that basic — no wonder you're sitting here like an idiot, kidnapping people."
She spoke as if she were scolding a bug on the sidewalk. In that instant, every emotion drained from Lee Dongwoo's face.
Then, suddenly, he smiled. A smile so clear and so pure it made the skin crawl.
"Alright. I'll make sure you remember exactly who I am."
With that, he turned his back on her and walked toward the branding iron sitting in the corner of the room, its power still on. A red glow shimmered at the heated tip, a low hiss rising from the metal.
Han Seoyeon's eyes locked onto that red light. What's he going to do with that?
Her instincts screamed danger. But his identity was still a complete mystery.
The tip of the branding iron glowed red-hot. Heat shimmered off that single small point, warping the air around it.
Han Seoyeon's pupils fixed on the crimson ember. This was not a threat. This was a promise of execution, announced in advance.
A primal terror coiled around the back of her neck. She thrashed against her bindings and played the last card she had spent a lifetime wielding as a weapon.
"I don't know what you think you're doing with that, but you are going to regret it! I'm the daughter of Han Minguk — four-term member of parliament! You lay a hand on me… you have no idea the kind of hell that's coming for you!"
It was less a warning than a desperate scream.
Lee Dongwoo stopped in front of her, the iron in his hand. He watched her struggle in silence for a moment, then let out a quiet chuckle.
"I know, Han Seoyeon, you fucking bitch. Of course I know."
His voice was almost lazy.
"So what?"
He crouched down until their eyes were level. There was no fear in his gaze. No hesitation. Only a cold, savage possessiveness, glittering like a blade.
"As long as you're in here, I hold your life in my hands. First… let me introduce myself properly."
Lee Dongwoo brought the glowing iron close to her face. The heat made the muscles in her cheek twitch and jump.
The name had barely finished ringing in her ears when he dropped the iron and pressed it into the soft, white skin just beside her collarbone.
SSSSSSSS—
"AAAAAAAGH!!"
What tore from her throat could not be called a scream. It was the howl of an animal. The hideous sound of burning flesh filled the room, and the nauseating stench of searing protein poured into every corner of the air.
Her entire body arched like a drawn bow, convulsing. The pain lasted only a moment — but the mark would last forever. After a few seconds, Lee Dongwoo lifted the iron away.
On her white skin, a dark crimson brand smoked and steamed, carved in with perfect clarity.
L.D.W.
Lee Dongwoo. His name. From this moment on, she would never be able to forget it — not for as long as she lived.
Even after the screaming died down, Han Seoyeon's body kept trembling in fine, helpless spasms. The burning agony near her collarbone. The unspeakable smell of her own cooking flesh. The blood vessels in her eyes had burst red, and drool ran freely from the corner of her mouth. She fought to steady her ragged breathing, clinging desperately to a consciousness that kept trying to slip away.
At the edge of her vision, she could see the man's face looking down at her with an expression of deep satisfaction.
Lee Dongwoo. The instant that name drove itself into her skull, the pain transmuted into a rage she could no longer contain.
"You're… you're that fucking loser Lee Dongwoo? You piece of shit!"
Her voice was raw, as if someone had taken a file to her throat.
"I swear to god I will have the cops put you away! You hear me?!"
Lee Dongwoo shrugged at her thrashing and laughed, as if the whole thing were adorable.
"Yeah? Oh no. I'm terrified."
He raised one hand and reached toward the angry, blistered flesh at her collarbone. She flinched and tried to pull away — but what spilled from his palm was not cold. A soft, warm light bloomed from his skin.
The moment the light touched her, the unbearable pain vanished as if it had never existed. The charred, blackened skin sealed over in an instant, returning to the pale, unblemished flesh it had been before. The brand was gone without a trace.
Han Seoyeon stared at her restored skin, her expression gone slack. What… what just…
Lee Dongwoo picked up the branding iron once more. Then, like a craftsman dissatisfied with a crooked piece of work, he clicked his tongue.
"Tsk. Came out a little crooked. I'll have to do it again."
He smiled — a cruel, expectant smile — and drove the glowing iron back into her newly healed skin.
SSSSSSSS—
"AAAAAGH! N-no! You insane bastard!"
A scream of pure agony tore through the room, more desperate than the last. Once again came the hideous sound of burning flesh, and a thick, acrid smoke rose into the air. Deeper this time. Uglier.
Lee Dongwoo paid her struggling no mind at all. He simply pressed the tip of the iron harder into her flesh, seating it there.
In that instant, Han Seoyeon's body convulsed as if it were coming apart. The pain short-circuited her brain and rattled every nerve she had. It was past the point where reason could reach — a pure, annihilating destruction.
Her body betrayed her will.
"Hhk—!"
The sensation of a hot liquid running down her inner thigh. It was not sweat. The sphincter of her bladder had simply given out.
A warm stream of piss soaked through her underwear and dress in an instant. The expensive silk darkened as it drank the urine, clinging to her body in a grotesque second skin. The sharp stench of ammonia tangled with the smell of burning flesh and punched into the nostrils, nauseating.
The moment she realized she had wet herself, a shame far worse than the pain crashed over her. A humiliation she had never once experienced in her entire life. Queen Han Seoyeon — always perfect, always elegant. The last of her pride was sliding down onto the floor in a warm, filthy puddle, right along with her own piss.
Fat tears spilled from her eyes without stopping. She could not even scream anymore. Her mouth hung open, producing nothing but broken, hitching sounds. "Hh… hhk…"
Lee Dongwoo looked down with deep satisfaction at the wreck of her — and at the puddle of urine spreading toward his feet. Then he lifted the iron away.
On the dark, ruined skin, the letters LDW sat carved deeper and cleaner than before. A perfect piece of work.
He glanced at her, still trembling faintly, and tossed the branding iron aside.
"Getting it now? This is what I call education."
His voice was as calm as it had been from the start.