Ban Do-ah / Modified EX74
Ban Do-ah let out a long sigh as she stared at her phone.
She had searched the job sites for anything she might actually be qualified for and applied to every single listing, but not one of them had gotten back to her. Nobody hired a high school graduate at twenty.
She needed something more than convenience store shifts — something that would actually build a career. Ever since her father's illness had stolen the use of his legs, membership at the gym had been shrinking month after month. Her mother washed dishes at a restaurant, but cheap immigrant labor was pushing her out too; lately the owner would suddenly tell her to stop coming in, or simply stopped scheduling her at all.
She had to help the family. And her father didn't have much time left — he would only be able to close his eyes in peace knowing his daughter had found decent work. She'd briefly considered the long view, going to college, but there was no time. Her father had less than a year. And if she was honest with herself, Do-ah didn't think she needed college anyway.
Because—
The gym door swung open.
It was Kang Jae-hoon.
"Oh? Hello there."
Do-ah, wiping down the window frame with a rag, greeted him politely.
Jae-hoon ran his eyes up and down her — the t-shirt, the jeans.
"Yeah. Yeah. Mmhm. Is Seok around? Came to see him."
"He's at the hospital. He's not in."
"Ah, is that right. Mm. You're Do-ah, then?"
"Yes, that's me."
"Right. I'm an old high school friend of your dad's."
"Oh, I see."
An awkward silence hung in the air for a moment.
"So when's Seok getting back? Mmhm."
"Not until the afternoon. He doesn't have classes in the mornings. I just stopped by to do some cleaning."
Jae-hoon pointed at the water purifier. "I see. Mind if I just have a quick drink of water before I go? Mm."
"Of course not."
Do-ah went back to wiping the window frame.
While he drank, Jae-hoon stole glances at her. The slim waist where the jeans squeezed tight, the heavy curve of her hips. The chest straining against the t-shirt was impressive too. And the short hair that didn't quite reach her nape suited a face that was, frankly, quite pretty.
What if I take her and sell her off at Boss Choi's place? He'd pay good money for that. Ban Seok. That bastard's nothing now anyway — his body's garbage, a shell of what he used to be. I asked him to lend me some money and he just ignored me. And when I told him Kang A-jin had run away from home, he laughed at me. Yes, he definitely laughed. Had that smug look on his face, like, 'My daughter's too well-behaved for that.' Son of a bitch.
And this girl here... she'd taste pretty damn good, wouldn't she? Hm?
Jae-hoon glanced at the gym door. Nobody would come by at this hour. The little brat wouldn't dare tell a soul about being used by her dad's friend — too ashamed.
He pulled a knife from his pocket. The short blade snapped open with a click.
Jae-hoon moved like a beast, striding forward without a flicker of hesitation — circling behind Do-ah as she cleaned the window, grabbing for her neck, pressing the blade to her throat—
Crack!
The world went black in front of his eyes.
Do-ah had already sensed him coming. She'd pivoted and driven a spinning back elbow straight into his jaw. Jae-hoon nearly went down but somehow managed to keep his balance, and when Do-ah kicked his hand away, the knife went spinning across the floor.
He clutched at his chin. Do-ah glared at him, guard raised with both fists.
"Nnngh. You fucking bitch."
Jae-hoon lunged and threw a punch, but Do-ah slipped it with an easy weave and flicked a jab off his face — pop.
"Ugh!"
In the instant his eyes squeezed shut, she was already ducking low and rushing in. By the time his vision came back around, she had vanished from sight. Rising from her crouch, she drove an uppercut up into his jaw with her whole body behind it.
Jae-hoon's head snapped back and he stumbled backward, crashing down against the edge of the ring. He grabbed desperately at the ropes to keep from falling — and that was his mistake.
Do-ah immediately hammered a liver blow into his right side.
"Guh!"
He doubled over instinctively, clutching his right flank. Some animal part of him had the sense to guard the left side too — not a bad instinct — but it meant nothing to Do-ah. The moment he bent at the waist, she seized his hair and drove a knee kick straight into his face.
"Ghkk."
Blood streaming from his nose, Jae-hoon could barely stay conscious.
"You piece of shit — I was already in a rotten mood, and you just walked right into it."
Cover the face, and a fist slammed into his body. Cover the body, and a fist cracked across his face. For several long minutes, Jae-hoon was nothing more than Ban Do-ah's personal heavy bag.
Then she spotted his guard drop away from his abdomen. She pivoted her whole body and snapped a spinning back kick into his solar plexus.
"Gaaaahhh—"
Jae-hoon crumpled to the floor clutching his stomach, foam bubbling at the mouth.
Breathing hard, Do-ah nudged the unconscious man's face with her toe.
"Hah... hah... Filthy bastard."
Her thoughts tangled together.
What do I do with him? If I call the police, does that make ME the one guilty of assault? No — there's CCTV right there, so... But then... why is Dad friends with a piece of trash like this?
Just then, the gym door opened. Three large men walked in, and Do-ah stumbled backward, away from them — toward the spot where the knife she'd kicked lay on the floor. If it came to it, she meant to grab it.
The man in the middle approached her and drew something like an ID from his jacket pocket.
"Detective Choi Seok-han, Violent Crimes Unit. Did you do this?" He tilted his chin toward the fallen Jae-hoon.
Do-ah nodded.
"This is Kang Jae-hoon — a man we've been hunting. We got a report he'd entered this building. We'll be taking him into custody."
At the detective's signal, the other two hoisted the unconscious man up and carried him out.
"Thank you for your cooperation. Although..."
"..."
"Leaving him in that state all by yourself? That's impressive. Do you train somewhere?"
"Yes... Taekwondo and boxing..."
"I see."
"...Muay Thai and jiu-jitsu..."
"Ah."
"...Judo and kickboxing..."
"Right. Well — thank you again. And Kang Jae-hoon? Once he's inside this time, he won't be coming back out. So there's really no need to worry about him anymore."
"Okay. Thank you."
"Take care."
The man left the gym.
Ding.
Her phone chimed. A text message had arrived.
Congratulations on passing the document screening for employment at DB Pharmaceuticals. Please find below the details regarding your interview schedule...
The moment he tapped his key card, the door to the 19th-floor research lab slid open.
"Eun-ha. What are you up to?" Lee Han-seok rapped on the frame of Jang Eun-ha's lab.
"Come in."
When he opened the door, Eun-ha was busily jotting something down while studying analysis results printing across her PC monitor.
"Busy?" Han-seok asked, perching himself on the edge of her desk.
"Just organizing a few things. Did you need something?"
"No. I was curious how much progress you'd made on that report from before."
"W-well, you see..."
She was pretending to take notes on something useless. Han-seok glanced over and said flatly, "Why are you scribbling the chemical formula for ammonium phosphate? That's got nothing to do with our work."
"What? Oh. It just... popped into my head."
"Eun-ha."
Han-seok fixed her with a steady gaze. Eun-ha rose from her chair.
"You asked how it's coming along."
She retrieved a jar of candies from the reagent refrigerator.
"The Modified EX74 I mentioned last time. No loss of consciousness this time, and I've raised the pleasure response even higher. I also made one small addition — you'll need to try it and tell me what it does. If I tell you in advance, it might make you too self-conscious."
Han-seok accepted the candy jar. "Weren't you going to bring it up tomorrow? Tomorrow's your day on the semen roster, Eun-ha."
"I-I just care about whether the experiment works properly. The rest of it doesn't — doesn't really matter to me either way?"
Eun-ha turned her head away, rubbing at her temple for no particular reason. Han-seok chuckled and took a step toward her.
As she looked up at him, he laid a hand gently on the back of her neck and kissed her — a light tangle of tongues, then a soft parting of lips.
"I'll be doing the same for you tomorrow, so don't sulk."
"I'm not sulking."
Eun-ha was still staring blankly at his lips.
"Oh, right — how did that go? That what-was-it, the pain drug. Did you develop it?"
"Ah. Yes. But the thing is..."
Eun-ha rummaged through her cluttered desk and handed Han-seok a blister pack holding two pills. Scratching her head, she explained, "The first problem is that I can't test it. The second is — hah — I don't know why, but the pain level won't regulate. The slightest adjustment and the compound destabilizes completely."
"How so?"
"You said you wanted it to look serene on the surface while being agonizing underneath — but if I lower or raise the pain even slightly from this baseline, it collapses. So I've made it as-is for now, but this one is a bit..."
"What's the projected pain level?"
"According to it," she said, tapping the analysis monitor, "forty-seven."
The pain index was scaled from 1 to 10 — a measure of human suffering. Forty-seven was a number that shouldn't have been possible.
"You set it to 1–100?"
"No. Forty-seven on a 1–10 scale. I instructed it that if the true value exceeded 10, it was free to output numbers above 10. So it gave me 47."
"And what would that feel like?"
"Impossible to say, precisely. A rough estimate... something like every blood vessel in your body burning away, while being stabbed with knives across your entire body, and your whole torso simultaneously experiencing the agony of kidney stones?"
"And on the outside, he'd look perfectly calm?"
"Yes. Like he's under anesthesia — completely unable to move."
"Duration?"
"Fifteen minutes, if the subject endures it? But how would you even test it, sir? You're not planning to test it on a person... are you?"
By this point, even the devil's own chemist seemed to be growing concerned.
"I'll test it on a beast."
"These days, even animal testing becomes a legal headache if the animal rights groups find out about it."
The corner of Han-seok's mouth curled upward. "I have a beast it's perfectly fine to use it on."
"Well. I'm sure the CEO will handle it as capably as ever."
"Then I'll head upstairs. Good work. Feel free to knock off after the morning and go home early today."
As Han-seok moved to leave the lab, Eun-ha called him back.
"Honey."
Han-seok turned back to her, startled. She fidgeted with both hands, eyes darting away.
"When... when the results come in... tell me."
Han-seok smiled. "I will."
The door closed behind him.
The moment he was gone, Eun-ha slumped down onto the edge of her desk.
"Hah... hah..."
Both her cheeks were burning scarlet.
"I said it..."
The wetness that had slid down her thigh dripped onto the floor, drop by drop.