Please Let Me Use the Bathroom
Two hours. The time that had passed since Lee Dongwoo vanished felt, in her body, like an eternity. Yoo Jimin crouched on the cold iron floor, locked in a desperate struggle — not against an enemy, but against her own body, in a wretched war with a need she could no longer control.
I must have been insane. Why did I gulp down so much water...
Those few bottles of water she had chugged before the stream, using thirst as an excuse, were dragging her straight into hell. The urge had hit not long after Dongwoo left.
At first it had been bearable. But as time crawled on, her bladder swelled as if it would burst, and a heavy, twisting pain settled deep into her lower abdomen.
She could not go here. Absolutely not. It was the last scrap of pride she had left. She was chained, imprisoned, branded with some bizarre mark, and she might even have to drink from a dog bowl — but she would not piss herself on this freezing floor.
She crossed her legs and curled into herself as tightly as she could. Cold sweat ran down her spine. The pressure in her belly was far worse than the sting of the slap she had taken earlier. The world yellowed at the edges. Even breathing became a labor. She was at her limit. She really, truly could not hold it any—
A lock clanked.
At that exact moment, a sound she knew too well — and did not welcome — rang out, and the sealed iron door swung open. Through her blurring vision, a man's silhouette stepped inside. Lee Dongwoo. In both hands he carried several shopping bags that had not been there before.
Yoo Jimin looked up at him with unfocused eyes. Savior, or a demon carrying even greater despair? Right now her mind held only one thought: she needed to empty her bursting bladder, by any means necessary.
"Need to piss, huh?"
Dongwoo's sly voice slid into her ear. It was not a question. It was mockery, aimed with perfect accuracy at her wretched state. The flushed face. The cold sweat. The restless, twisting body. The pressure of a bodily need she could not hide no matter how hard she tried.
Worse than the shame was the pain in her belly, ready to split her open. Clinging to the last scrap of reason she had, Yoo Jimin begged.
"Nngh... yeah... please... the b-bathroom... please let me go... Dongwoo... okay?"
Her voice was barely more than a sob. Pride had been forgotten long ago. If she could just escape this hideous pain — the feeling that her bladder would rupture any second — she could have sold her soul to the devil.
"The bathroom?"
As if he had been waiting for exactly that, Dongwoo's mouth curled into a grin. He picked up one of the shopping bags he had set on the floor. A plastic bag stamped with a familiar brand logo. And from inside it, he pulled a bundle of white, square things that looked highly absorbent.
"Figured you'd need these. I picked them up special."
What he dangled in front of her were dog training pads. The packaging even advertised, in bold print, that they neutralized the smell of puppy urine.
"Here you go."
As if he were doing her a tremendous favor, he tossed a few of the pads onto the cold iron floor in front of her.
"...Training... pads...?"
Yoo Jimin's eyes flew wide in disbelief. She looked from the white pads at her feet to Lee Dongwoo's face, so casually explaining. A joke? No. That bastard was serious. He was treating her like an actual dog, telling her to piss on pet supplies.
Horror and an unbearable humiliation wrapped around her entire body. However much she had done wrong in the past, however much she was his slave now — this was too far. This was an act that denied her even the minimum respect owed to a human being.
"You... you really...!"
Her body shook with rage, but the bursting pressure in her bladder left her no room for any other thought. She was already past her limit. Any second now, a hot stream would spill down between her legs. The pads in front of her. Humiliating — but they looked like the only option she had.
The white pads thrown at her feet. Dongwoo's icy smile. This was real. No matter how hard she tried to deny it, the crushing pressure in her belly proved, with cruel insistence, that this was no dream.
He wants me to... go here...? Like a... like a dog...?
For a moment her mind went blank. Rage and disgust and shame tangled together until tears pricked at her eyes. This could not be happening. This was insane. But her bladder had already screamed past its limit.
In the face of pain that felt like it would split her open any second, human dignity was a luxury. Better to just... right now!
The decision took an instant. Holding out until she wet the floor would be worse than going on those white pads. Or would it? What was the difference? Her pride had already hit rock bottom a long time ago.
Yoo Jimin staggered to her feet. The iron chain still clung to her ankle, but Dongwoo had left her enough slack to reach the pads. She lurched a few steps forward and stood on the humiliating white square. Dongwoo watched the entire process with his arms folded, as if it were genuinely interesting.
She could not hold it anymore. Yoo Jimin squeezed her eyes shut. And she let go of everything she had been holding back.
"Nnhh...!"
Against her will, a hot stream ran down between her legs. A long, hissing rush filled the silent iron room, obscenely loud. The white pad soaked yellow in an instant, warm steam rising off it. She had held it for so long that the volume was considerable.
Her whole body trembled with shame, but at the same time the crushing pain vanished and every muscle in her went slack. Her legs nearly gave out beneath her.
Even after the stream stopped, she could not lift her head for a long time. She could not tell whether what ran down her cheeks was tears or cold sweat. An unpleasant wetness clung somewhere to the hem of her clothes, as if a little had splashed. The thought that this was truly the end. The despair of having crossed the last line that made her human wrapped around her entire body.
Lee Dongwoo said nothing. He simply watched her wretched state, a satisfied smile hanging at the corner of his mouth. He did not need mockery or a jeering remark. The collapse of her dignity was, all by itself, the finest entertainment he could ask for.
As the heat of the urine cooled, the cold sensation of reality came flooding back. The unpleasant cling of damp fabric against her skin. The faint, humiliating smell of her own waste pricking at her nose.
Yoo Jimin sat with her knees pressed together and her head bowed low, unable to do a thing. Body and mind both felt shredded.
How much time had passed? Very slowly, very carefully, she lifted her head to gauge Dongwoo's mood. He was still standing there with his arms folded, looking down at her. There was not a trace of pity in that face. Only a cold detachment, as if he had been watching something amusing.
That was when she noticed what he was holding. A small black digital camera. The lens was pointed directly at her. No. He wouldn't. But the moment she remembered what she had just done, a terrible premonition slid down her spine.
"You... you didn't..."
She barely managed to get the words out, her voice shaking.
"Just now... when I was peeing... you filmed that...?"
As if he had been waiting for the question, Dongwoo grinned and lifted the camera, pointing the lens straight at her. He even mimed the click of a shutter.
"Of course I did. It'd be a waste not to record a historic moment like that."
He peered at the camera's tiny LCD screen and nodded, looking thoroughly pleased.
"I'll replay it whenever I get bored. Wait, no. This could actually work as content."
A playful glint sparked in his eyes.
"Famous streamer Uni, pissing in public... wait, indoor urination? And on a dog pad, no less. Rare footage! Views would go through the roof, don't you think?"
"...What?"
Every last drop of color drained from Yoo Jimin's face. He filmed it? And he was going to put it on the internet? It was a scenario she could not even bear to imagine. It would not just end her streaming career. It would end her life as Yoo Jimin, the human being. More fatal, more destructive, than any scandal or controversy she could name.
"No... please... anything but that...!"
Her terrified cry had no effect on Lee Dongwoo whatsoever. He simply toyed with the camera, enjoying himself, savoring her despair. It was the easy smile of a predator who had his prey's weakness locked firmly in his grip.
Ah...
The video. Uploaded to the internet. The words circled in her head. And then Yoo Jimin understood. Why Dongwoo had told her to keep streaming. It had never been mercy. It had never been consideration. It was mockery in its cruelest form — and a perfect instrument of control.
A video of her most humiliating moment. He would hold it over her head and force her to smile and chatter in front of the camera as if nothing were wrong. And if she resisted even a little, or tried to ask for help? He would release the video without a second thought. Or he would break her with that agonizing magic, the way he had before.
"You son of a... you bastard...!"
Her body shook with a rage that surged up from somewhere deep. So this was how he planned to hold everything she was and shake it. The sheer meanness, the cruelty of it, made her teeth chatter. But the rage turned, almost immediately, into a cold despair.
What could she even do? Did she have the power to stand against him? That strange ability, magic or whatever it was. The cruelty with which he treated people like animals. And now he had her entire social existence in a fist. She could not see a way out.
She realized a collar had been fastened around her neck — one harder than iron chain, and invisible. Stream time. She had thought of those hours as a chance to escape. Now they had become the stage for her most horrific punishment. How much humiliation, how much terror, would she have to swallow behind a smiling face in front of that camera?
She had no idea what orders he might give from off-camera, what games he might play. If her expression stiffened even a little, if she made a single mistake, then...
Just imagining it made the blood in her body run cold. Helplessness. A kind she had never felt in her life, seeping all the way into her bones, crushing her. It was a deeper despair than the ache of her swollen cheek, deeper than the humiliation of the soiled training pad still lying on the floor.
The thought even crossed her mind that dying might be better — but she did not have the courage for that either. All she wanted was to close her eyes against this hellish reality, dreading the stream that was coming.
But even with her eyes shut, Lee Dongwoo's sneering face did not disappear. Neither did the brand on her lower belly, burning as vividly as ever.