Grab Her
Grab her.
"......Junhyuk?"
A cracked voice slipped out from between Inyoung's lips.
"Hey, Choi Junhyuk...... What's wrong with you?"
There was no answer.
His breathing had stopped. The blade he'd shoved into the man's face hung frozen in midair, and the light was draining from the two bloodshot eyes above it.
"Why are you just standing there......? Stop messing around!"
He looked like a mannequin propped up in front of a shop. Not a single flicker of the eyelids, no expression on his face. Only the veins standing out along the forearm gripping the knife handle proved he was still alive.
The man quietly reached out.
He closed his hand around Junhyuk's locked fist and peeled the rigid fingers open one by one, slowly. The knife slid limply free of that bone-stiff grip.
He glanced idly at the blade resting in his palm.
Click.
With a dry scrape of metal, the blade folded back into its housing. The man slipped the knife back into the rear pocket of Junhyuk's jeans as if handling his own belongings, then gave the pocket a couple of light pats.
"Keep things like this put away."
His voice was low and flat.
"Wh-what did you...... do to Junhyuk......?"
The man didn't answer. His gaze drifted from Junhyuk's pocket and lingered on the empty air.
In that instant, Inyoung saw the man's fingertips. A chill crawled up her spine at the sight of those fingers idly handling a weapon.
She had to run. Somehow, while Junhyuk was stuck like that.
Inyoung braced herself against the wall, trying to back away. Her legs wouldn't obey. Her thighs only shook and shook, and then her ankle gave out and she crumpled where she stood.
Crack. The heel of her shoe snapped off. Her black stockings dragged across the damp asphalt and tore, blood seeping from her knee — but she didn't even feel the pain. What arrived before the pain was the shame of having fallen to the ground, and the terror of not being able to get away from this place.
Why — why won't you move......
"Get up, please...... get up......"
Inyoung pounded her fist against her own thigh, muttering through a trembling voice.
"Is anyone there......? Please, somebody help me......!"
A scream burst from her throat, but the dark alley lay empty.
When the blade had come right up to my face, I clearly felt something open its eyes inside my head.
It was my first time experiencing the sensation, and yet it wasn't unfamiliar. There was no resistance to it, either. It felt like limbs that had been folded up since birth finally stretching out.
My hand reacted before I could think. I pressed my thumb and middle finger together and gave them a light snap, and in that instant Junhyuk, mid-thrust, stopped dead where he stood.
I quietly looked down at my own hand. No sense of anything escaping, no rebound of anything returning.
......It actually stopped him.
Nobody had taught me how, but I already knew the way it worked. Like a character changing classes in a game and knowing every new skill from the start, I could push any command I wanted into that empty shell.
My heart didn't race, and I wasn't afraid. It felt like doing what I'd always done, one more time — as if this were simply how it was supposed to be.
Scrape, shuffle.
A low, gritty sound of sand scattering spread across the floor nearby.
Inyoung was crawling along the ground on her dirt-caked knees. Even with her skirt rolled up to her waist and the bottom of her rear exposed, she seemed unable to think about covering herself — she only stretched her arms toward the glow of the streetlight at the mouth of the alley. Raking the floor until grime packed itself under her fingernails.
One broken shoe heel lay rolling where Inyoung had passed. Her stockings hung torn from knee to ankle.
I looked again at Junhyuk, standing blank and breathing not a sound.
I wonder if this works too.
I tossed it out the way I'd say anything else.
"Grab her."
The moment the words fell, Junhyuk's joints creaked into motion. With strides that held no hesitation, he closed the distance and snatched the ankle of the crawling Inyoung.
Thud.
"Kyaaagh!"
Inyoung's body jerked violently backward. The bag on her shoulder flipped over and her phone slid to the ground. Junhyuk dragged her along without pause.
"Hey! Let go of this?! Choi Junhyuk, are you insane?! Let — let go!"
Screaming, she kicked Junhyuk's shin mercilessly with her other foot. The toe of her heel hammered into his bone hard enough to make dull thudding sounds, but Junhyuk didn't so much as twitch an eyebrow.
There was no focus in Junhyuk's eyes. Pupils pinned to a single point in the empty air held no pleading and no tears. He was a machine that moved only as commanded.
"Junhyuk, please...... I'm hurting, okay? Let's just talk, save me......!"
"I was all wrong, okay?! I'll do whatever you want, so just let go of this and talk to me!"
"......"
"Let go! Let go of me! It hurts, I said it hurts......!"
Inyoung twisted her head toward me and shouted.
"Please tell him to stop...... please, stop......!"
A single passing set of footsteps stopped at the mouth of the alley.
"Excuse me — what's going on here?"
A passerby strode into the alley. Perhaps on his way home from work, he carried a briefcase in one hand. He looked back and forth between the woman being dragged across the ground and Junhyuk clutching her ankle, then stopped a few steps short of them.
The passerby's eyes swept over me once.
"And what are you, over there? Are you with them?"
I didn't answer.
"Help me! Call the police, please call the police!"
Inyoung reached her arm toward him.
"I'm calling right now. Hey — let go of her hand."
The passerby planted himself in front of Junhyuk. Junhyuk didn't stop. He kept walking, still gripping Inyoung's ankle, and the man's shoulder was shoved aside.
"Wh-what is with this guy?! Hey! Hey! Aren't you letting go?!"
The passerby staggered and pulled his phone from his pocket.
I watched him silently for a moment, then snapped my fingers.
Tak.
The passerby's words cut off. The hand holding the phone froze with its thumb on the call button, and the light drained from his eyes.
The same eyes as Junhyuk's.
A small sound leaked from the phone.
"Tell them you dialed the wrong number, and hang up."
The passerby raised the phone to his ear.
"......I'm sorry. I dialed the wrong number."
The call ended.
I took the phone from the passerby's hand.
I wiped the call log, then handed it back to him.
"Nothing happened. Go on your way."
The passerby turned around. He slipped the phone back into his pocket and walked out of the alley at the same pace he'd come. I watched until the man was fully out of the alley.
In the meantime, Junhyuk had dragged Inyoung to my feet and released her ankle.
Inyoung grabbed at Junhyuk's trouser cuff one last time.
"Junhyuk...... look at me. Come back to your senses, okay? It's me......"
Junhyuk looked down at Inyoung. There was looking, but Inyoung was not in it. He neither pulled his cuff free of her grip nor shook off her hand. He simply stood there.
Inyoung's fingers slowly loosened.
"Ah......"
A short sound escaped her. It wasn't a scream, and it wasn't a plea. After that, she didn't even try to run.
I nudged her shoulder with the toe of my shoe. She flinched but didn't get up. Face pressed to the ground, only her shoulders shaking.
The screams faded into a hoarse sobbing, and the sobbing into a finely shattered exhale. Only that breathing pooled in the alley.
I looked down at Inyoung at my feet.
What should I do with this one, then.
Inyoung's vision filled with a black shoe toe that didn't carry a speck of dust on it. That single immaculate line was enough to make the hair on her body stand on end.
The man slowly bent his knees, lowering himself to her eye level. Unhurried movements. His shadow fell over her.
Inyoung seized the man's trouser leg with trembling hands. She didn't know what she'd done wrong, or who this man was. She simply begged.
"Please spare me...... I was wrong. It was all my fault, okay?"
There was no reply.
"I'll do whatever you tell me...... please, don't kill me......"
The man only looked down at the crown of her head. He didn't rush her, and he didn't push her away.
She ground her forehead against his knee and sobbed.
"I'm sorry for lying...... I was wrong, it was all my fault......"
Still, no reaction. Her grip tightened on the hem of his trousers.
The phone lying on the ground chimed briefly. The screen lit up, and a notification appeared.
Tomorrow 3:00 PM — Check-in · Grand Harbor Suite
It was the room Junhyuk had booked. Inyoung stared blankly at the words. There was no tomorrow for her anymore.
She'd even picked out the dress she was going to wear.
"I'll give you money — everything I have, so please......"
"I won't tell a soul...... like that man earlier, please just let me go too......"
The man's hand closed around Inyoung's hair. Her head was forced up.
"And why would I do that?"
"Th-that's......"
Their eyes met.
Her neck, wrenched back until her scalp screamed, trembled in fine shivers.
Her plea for her life swelled up to her chin — but the moment she looked the man straight in the eyes, her throat seized shut.
Not even a sound would come out.
A chill ran down her spine.
He had no pupils.
It was like stepping alone into a room with the lights out. No telling where the walls were, no sound. The longer she looked into him, the more nothing there was to find.
What is this......
The man's gaze brushed over the phone screen on the ground. Then he gave her hair a light sweep upward and, before long, broke into a smile.
His right hand rose slowly. Even the thought that she had to survive drifted out of reach. Inyoung's gaze followed the tips of those fingers as if bewitched.
Once more, thumb and middle finger came together.
Tak.