F10

Yeonho admitted to his own foolishness. He had always known there was a chance Siwoo might commit a crime against him. Despite having had plenty of chances to get away, he chose instead to stay and spend time with him. It meant the risk had seemed worth taking.

Maybe what he needed more than decades of life ahead was the joy of this one single day. Joo Yeonho hadn’t felt excited or at peace for a long time. The days ahead were likely to be just as boring and burdensome. He wasn’t unhappy, but he had no real attachment to life either.

Siwoo had appeared out of nowhere in his worsening daily life and brought with him a thrill and curiosity that Yeonho could hardly handle. He made Yeonho uneasy, but never uncomfortable.

So he had no regrets. But in the end, it hadn’t been the right choice. Right now, Yeonho was the prey of a brutal, merciless rapist and killer.

Siwoo, who had tried to choke him to death in the car, apparently thought it would be a waste to just kill him there. He had moved Yeonho’s body to the room. Thrown him onto the bed, forced his arms above his head, and tied his wrists together. After stripping off his pants while he was unconscious, he climbed on top of him, forced his legs apart, and began penetrating him with no foreplay, no condom. He used his own body like a weapon, trying to rip Yeonho apart.

And yet, even as Siwoo thrusted inside him, Yeonho didn’t feel any pain. It was suspicious, but Yeonho had a knack for accepting bizarre situations that happened to him, and he quickly rationalized the numbness too. He was under anesthesia, so of course there was no pain.

What would Siwoo do after ejaculating inside him? Cut off his limbs? Harvest his organs and sell them? Yeonho only hoped everything would be over before he woke up from the anesthesia.

“Please… don’t make it… too painful…”

Grinding his teeth, he left what might be his final words, but something felt off. According to what he understood of this setup, he was supposed to be completely unconscious. So why was he so clearly aware of what was happening? He could even speak. Everything around him was vivid, as if in high definition.

Siwoo’s face, full of primal desire. His eyes, gleaming with the hunger of a predator devouring its prey. The sweat dripping down his face, his swollen muscles, his tense veins. Yeonho could see it all.

“Ah…”

The eyes he had believed were closed flew open. And in that instant, Kim Siwoo disappeared. The hands he had thought were tied above his head were resting neatly at his sides. The legs that had supposedly been forced open were now completely clothed and firmly closed.

Yeonho, stunned, reached down to check the area where he had just imagined being roughly violated.

There was nothing.

He checked his whole body, carefully. Not a single injury. No evidence of any organ having been removed. It had all been a dream. From the moment he’d fallen asleep in the car until now, it was all a dream. He had taken a nap from six to seven thirty, and upon waking, sat up and awkwardly brushed his hair back with his hand.

If Siwoo hadn’t approached him to commit rape, or human trafficking, or murder, then was it theft?

He turned his head and scanned the room. The two suitcases he had loaded into the car trunk earlier were back inside, as if to say, forget about running.

Inside the suitcases, everything was as it had been that morning. The camera, phone, and wallet on the console were untouched. Nothing was missing.

But something had been added. A tray of sushi had appeared on the table, complete with chopsticks, neatly packaged. Siwoo must have already eaten. Yeonho had planned to treat him to dinner, but the spicy nap had ruined those plans.

The words he had said to Siwoo in the car before falling asleep echoed in his head in fragmented, text-like form.

You put something in the tea earlier, didn’t you…

Yeonho, who had simply been a sleepy person, now burned with embarrassment. His ears flushed red with shame. Rubbing his eyes, he mumbled slowly,

“…This is kind of embarrassing.”

After eating, he washed up to reset both his body and mind. He’d eaten food of unknown origin without a second thought, and figured maybe this time he really would collapse bleeding in the shower. But of course, there was nothing. No poison in the sushi, no drug in the soy sauce or wasabi.

With a deeply embarrassed expression, Yeonho dried his hair and took out his laptop to sort through the photos he had taken that day. As he worked until midnight, he unconsciously reached for his sleeping pills, then hesitated.

He wanted to fall asleep next to Siwoo just one more time. For others, deep sleep might be a daily occurrence, but for Yeonho, it was rare enough to feel like a chance he couldn’t pass up.

“There must be a reason I sleep so well beside him.”

He seriously considered stealing Siwoo’s cologne to have it analyzed. At this point, he felt like a patient who had found a far better drug than the one he’d been using. Every time he slept near Siwoo, the craving grew stronger. And if that craving continued, it would become an addiction. Like a drug addict, he might start wanting Siwoo more and more.

He picked up his phone and changed Siwoo’s name in his contacts to “Propofol.” He debated whether to call Human Propofol¹ Propofol is the active component of an intravenous anesthetic formulation used for induction and maintenance of general anesthesia. and ask if he could come up to Room 415, but instead he buried his face in his knees and started arguing with himself.

Just because today was safe doesn’t mean he’s not suspicious. There’s no such thing as kindness without strings. You have to leave this place tomorrow morning.

Your life is already boring and meaningless. Breathing is exhausting. You don’t even want to live anymore. So just follow what you’re drawn to.

He couldn’t make a decision easily. But his instincts started coming up with a convincing reason to justify visiting Siwoo. Given how badly he’d been reacting to sleeping pills lately, if he took one tonight, he would almost certainly have another episode in his sleep. There was no telling what he might end up saying to Siwoo in the middle of the night.

Why are you even near me? I had a dream where you raped me brutally. I guess your dick really left an impression this morning. Can I see it again?

“No. Joo Yeonho. Please, don’t say that.”

If he was going to end up visiting him tonight anyway, wouldn’t it be better to go while still in his right mind? He would politely ask Siwoo to let him sleep beside him again. Before he did anything disgraceful or disgusting in his altered state.

To make it clear that he planned to sleep over, Yeonho even put on pajamas and visited Room 415. Siwoo had come out in gray sweatpants and a light t-shirt, which made Yeonho’s black silk pajamas feel embarrassingly over-the-top, but he offered his thanks anyway.

“Thank you for even taking care of dinner. I’ll definitely treat you tomorrow.”

Siwoo didn’t let him in. He blocked the door with his broad frame and said,

“You’re planning to see me tomorrow too? I’m a bad guy, remember. You shouldn’t be doing this. You should be running away right now.”

“I’m sorry for accusing you of putting something in my tea. I’m getting a little tired of apologizing too.”

Siwoo responded with a chilling smile that could’ve been a joke or a threat.

“You don’t need to apologize. If I’d had something like that, I probably would’ve given it to you for real.”

Yeonho, who had decided to act on instinct from now on, had no trouble brushing off a comment like that.

“Where did you get my luggage?”

“I checked your room and saw it was empty. Figured it’d be in your car, so I brought it up. Found the car key in your pocket.”

“So when you told me to run, you didn’t mean it. You didn’t want me to go, did you?”

Siwoo didn’t reply. He just looked at Yeonho and stood there quietly.

His gaze, fixed on Yeonho’s eyes, slipped down the bridge of his nose and toward his neck. When Yeonho had fallen asleep in the car earlier, Siwoo had battled his desire.

The urge to kiss him had transformed into the desire to ruin him. And that desire to ruin him had been quietly released in a series of light kisses. Holding Yeonho by the neck, he had kissed his forehead, his eyelids, the bridge of his nose. And then he had stopped.

Even now, he needed to stop here.

“See you tomorrow. Sleep well.”

As Siwoo began closing the door, Yeonho stopped it with his hand and leaned in. He held something out toward Siwoo and, with courage he’d never summoned before in his life, said,

“Could you help me put this back on? And apply the ointment too.”

He had taken off the bandage from his chin during his shower and now pointed at the wound. As he held out the ointment and a fresh bandage, Siwoo frowned slightly and asked,

“You can’t do it yourself?”

“I can. But I’d rather you do it. Inside the room…”

“If you come in now, you might not be able to leave.”

It was a warning. Siwoo hoped desperately that Yeonho would be startled by it and walk away. That he hadn’t come here with the intention of spending the night. That was the version of Joo Yeonho that Kim Siwoo wanted. He didn’t want to end up hating him more than he already did.

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  Propofol is the active component of an intravenous anesthetic formulation used for induction and maintenance of general anesthesia.