ITDW 5

From the seafood restaurant to Gimhae International Airport, the boy traveled in a different car from his brother. On the plane, their seats were far apart, so all he could do was steal glances from a distance. There was no good reason to deliberately go over and talk to him. Jungyoon was reviewing reports even during the flight.

Jaeri thought that it would be normal for him to be consumed by fear, but perhaps because it had been a long time since he had been on a plane, he felt a little excited. Also, it might have been because of his brother’s words, defining this situation as a ‘picnic.’ It felt ticklish, as if they were returning home after going on a picnic together. The reality was that his brother had come to catch him, but the delusion that his brother had joined him on a picnic covered his rational thoughts quite thickly.

It might have seemed strange that his brother had remained silent ever since he had gotten up and left, leaving behind only the words, “You’re going to get a good scolding when we get up to Seoul,” but the power of his pink delusion and his mood was immense.

After arriving at Gimpo Airport, Jaeri shook off the head of the security team who was holding onto him and naturally got into the passenger seat of the car his brother was driving. But as soon as he sat on the seat, his brother, without even looking at Jaeri, coldly ordered him.

“Get out. Take the security team leader’s car.”

He hesitated at the unexpected instruction. He couldn’t tell whether he should really listen to him or not. Jungyoon stared at Jaeri askance and said in a low voice, as if spitting the words through his teeth.

“If you want to go home crying, I’ll make that happen. I’m warning you, it’s going to hurt a lot.”

“…I’ll see you at home.”

Jaeri got out of the car and quietly closed the door. He briefly thought about apologizing and asking for forgiveness, but he knew it would be a useless thing to do. He also knew that those words could become the fuse.

The thick delusion that had clouded his reason cleared away distinctly, and his mood subsided coolly, following the brain’s command to think more rationally in a crisis situation. He began to fear what was to come.

Jaeri got into the car driven by the 1st Security Team Leader, and that car began to follow the one Jungyoon was driving.

“Team Leader, my brother, is he very angry?”

“…Well, we sometimes can’t figure out the Vice President’s mood either.”

His superior could reprimand or fire people even with a smile, so one couldn’t be careless about his expression. Also, one always had to be aware that even if he seemed to trust and delegate everything, it wasn’t that he had let go of the leash, but that he was just holding the leash long and loose.

The air in the elevator was heavy. Even though there was no clock inside the elevator, it felt like he could hear the ticking of a clock’s hands. Jaeri stood behind his brother, looking at his brother’s firm back, then at his brother’s large hands, before finally dropping his gaze to the tips of his own dress shoes.

Just as he was thinking he wanted to just stay in the elevator forever, ting—. The doors opened with a clear sound. With a heart full of worries like a black pit, he followed his brother, keeping a distance of about two paces.

He continued to follow him even after they entered the house, but his brother came to a sudden stop in front of a marble pillar on one side of the living room. Jaeri, who had been walking stealthily, also stopped his steps behind him.

Jungyoon turned around and looked at his younger brother’s face at length. He scrutinized him meticulously from top to bottom, starting with his thoroughly intimidated face.

“You even bought and wore clothes on your own, how pretty.”

“…Yes.”

“Take them off.”

Jaeri obeyed his command without delay. Everything Jaeri was wearing, besides his underwear, was newly bought clothes. Since clothing was an item not permitted for shopping, he naturally had to take it off in his house. Jungyoon watched with boredom as Jaeri took off his clothes one by one, and soon Jaeri was naked except for his underwear.

The cold air clung to Jaeri’s body. His naked body was reflected whitely in the living room window, where the night view of the Han River spread out wide like a movie theater screen. Due to the living room lights, where only the night-lights were on, Jungyoon’s face was deeply shadowed and looked frigid.

“Turn around and grab the pillar.”

Leaving behind those words, Jungyoon disappeared inside. Jaeri went to the pillar and placed both his palms on it. The coldness of the marble spread through his palms. His brother had probably gone to get a switch. Jaeri tried to listen intently for his footsteps, but he couldn’t hear any such sound. He felt like he would cry from the fear of the reality that had suddenly hit him.

Jungyoon returned and stood behind Jaeri, and Jaeri turned to look at Jungyoon. Unlike before, he was not wearing a jacket, and his shirt sleeves were rolled up to his forearms. The wristwatch he always wore was gone, and in his right hand, he held a long, wooden switch.

“…Hyung.”

His breathing became ragged. He called his brother as if letting out a sigh.

“Hands on the pillar.”

His hands had come off the pillar at some point. Startled, he turned back around and grabbed the pillar again.

“If you don’t want to be tied up, pay attention to where your hands are.”

“…Yes.”

From the space behind him came the sound of the switch cutting through the air a few times—whoosh. Even though the switch hadn’t touched him yet, tears welled up and he wiped them away with his hand.

“Why are you crying.”

“I’m scared. …I’m sorry, hyung… Ack!”

He heard a whoosh sound, and immediately, a burning pain was engraved on his back, making him cry out. It was a more severely vivid and cruel pain than he had expected. The split-second moment the supple wood touched his back and seemed to coil into his skin was densely horrifying. The pain, hot as if he would be burned, had, on the contrary, a chilling sensation, as if being slashed by a sharply honed ice nail.

A long mark like a red snake settled on his back.

Around that time, Jaeri re-recognized the space. This space, with nowhere to run, was not a place he could call a space for himself. In the space completely dominated by his brother, he did not possess even an inch of space of his own. In such a place, he could not face him and was only within his brother’s gaze.

Jaeri fumbled to hug the pillar he had only been lightly resting his hands on. His bare skin touching the marble was cold, giving him goosebumps. But, if he didn’t do that, he felt like he would unknowingly run to his room and lock the door in the face of the pain that would be hard to endure from now on. Even if he did, there was no place in this house that Jungyoon’s eyes did not reach. Heat rose to his head, and he pressed his forehead against the cold marble pillar.

His brother’s anger began to fall squarely onto his body.

Red lines were streaked across Jaeri’s back. In the middle of the living room, the small body, hugging the marble pillar tightly with clasped hands, trembled. The gaze of the man holding the switch in one hand was still coldly sunken.

The boy’s panting, tear-filled breaths and the sound of the switch viciously cutting through the air mixed together. Every time a whoosh sound was heard, Jaeri flinched his back muscles and squeezed his eyes shut, afraid of the terrible pain that would soon come.

“I’m sorry… sob, hyung… It… hurts so much.”

When the white parts of his back were almost invisible because of the unsightly welts, the boy begged while trembling all over. He knew he would be scolded, but it was far harsher than he had thought. He had almost never been hit this much even when being scolded by his brother. He kept on, kept on saying he was sorry and begging for forgiveness, but his brother didn’t even pretend to listen.

“Sob, hyung… please… aack!”

Swish—. This time, the switch fell on his thigh. The boy sobbed at the unfamiliar pain. He bit his lip to endure the pain, and the tender flesh had swollen red. Sweat poured from his whole body. Because of the sweat, the switch stuck to his skin whenever it struck, making it hurt even more.

He watched the tears and sweat flow down the pillar in front of his eyes. The marble pillar touching his body was now lukewarm. The temperature of his body was strange. His naked body was cold, but his back, thighs, and face were so hot he couldn’t think straight. Like a heat wave in winter.

Suddenly, he remembered that his brother had scolded him this severely twice before. Once was when he was sixteen, on the day he was caught after writing thoughts about suicide in his diary, and the other time was when he was seventeen, when he was so exhausted from studying for thirteen hours a day that he switched to a hypomanic state and decided to run away from home. He hadn’t even used a credit card then, but he was caught just five hours after running away.

Could it be. Could it be.

“Hyung, hyung… I, I wasn’t trying to run away… ack! …I really wasn’t. I wasn’t…”

“I know. You went on a picnic.”

Swish—. The switch fell again.

“Aack…! I was going to come back, in the evening…. I was going to call….”

He was so out of it that he couldn’t even register what his brother had answered. In the midst of it all, he belatedly recalled that his brother had defined it as a picnic from the beginning. It was because all his senses had shut down and only his sense of touch was flashing.

“Kim Jaeri.”

“Ugh, sob… Yees….”

“Jaeri-ya.”

“Yes, yes, hyung. hic… mph….”

His whole body seemed to shrink in surprise at the sudden call of his name, and then a scary question came from behind him.

“What was the worst thing you did this time.”

“Huuuh….”

It was a question with no discernible answer. He now knew that running away wasn’t the answer.

He had a terrible premonition that if he answered wrong, this punishment would not end. The boy, truly thinking he couldn’t take it anymore, just kept shedding tears. I’d rather just faint. He wanted to faint to escape this situation, and also to prove how much it hurt.

When there was no answer, Jungyoon whispered in a deliberately gentle voice.

“Pull yourself together, you have to answer.”

“hic…. Huuuh, mph….”

“Think carefully and answer. What was the worst thing you did.”

“…Hyung, you, you told me to stay home. And sleep… hic… but I went to, Busan… ack! Ugh, huh….”

Three more unforgiving blows landed on his thigh. He squeezed his clasped hands so hard that they turned white. His legs even started to cramp from the severe pain that he didn’t know when would end.

“Sob, hyung…, hyung… forgive me, sob…. Ugh…. I was wrong, hic….”

Jaeri’s crying had turned into hiccuping sobs, and because he was crying so hard, he couldn’t even finish a single sentence of “I was wrong.”

“Shall we try answering again.”

“Huuuh… tell me, please. …It hurts, so much….”

“There’s no way you don’t know.”

“…I don’t. Ugh…. hic….”

He tried to hold back his crying and speak, but he could only make a hic sound. Jungyoon moved right up to Jaeri, who was unable to continue speaking because he was crying so much. Jaeri now turned his head toward his brother standing behind him and met his gaze. He was looking down at him. He pressed his own feverish cheek against his brother’s face that he always longed for.

“You need to be hit more.”

“Ugh, sob… If, if I get hit more, I might bleed…. hic… I won’t, hic, mph… I won’t do it again….”

“And you don’t even know what you did wrong.”

“Ugh… sob…. Dr, drinking alcohol.”

“Is that the worst thing you did?”

“Yes, yes.”

It was a shot in the dark. If it wasn’t drinking alcohol, it was getting the card from his sister. Either way, Jaeri didn’t know which of the two was the correct answer.

“Then what was the second worst thing you did?”

The voice that continued to ask difficult questions was merciless.

“Sob…. hic, …hyung …I…. I don’t know…. I don’t…. hic…. mph….”

“Shall I give you a hint. Something you did today, and haven’t told me about yet.”

His thinking functions had almost stopped a while ago, but now was the time to use his head clearly. While crying, Jaeri tried hard to think of the answer, and Jungyoon waited patiently for the few minutes that this intense deliberation took place.

“…Trying to… drink alcohol?”

“…That’s right.”

He answered as if letting out a sigh, and then roughly threw the switch away. The sound of it falling on the stone floor was dull. Jaeri stared resentfully at the switch that had been thrown far away, knowing that it was now over.

A sense of relief made him burst into even more sorrowful tears. It had been hard to bear. It was so severely painful that the word ‘hard’ couldn’t express it. He didn’t know his brother would go this far. He also hadn’t really known that drinking alcohol was such a big problem that he would be scolded to this extent.

“What did the doctor tell you alcohol is to you?”

Jungyoon asked in a voice that was very low, yet somehow drained and even gloomy. Jaeri, even in the midst of his relief, briefly thought that he was the one who was really in pain and struggling, so he didn’t know why his brother was using a voice like that.

“…Poison….”

“If you’re an adult, you can drink, right?”

“hic… No.”