He carried her to the bathroom, his arms a cage of false comfort.
The hallway lights passed over them in fractured patterns, white and sterile against the shadows that clung to the corners of the house. Ji-hyun didn't move. Couldn't. Her cheek rested against his shoulder, skin clammy from tears and the damp heat rolling off his chest. Her body sagged, half-conscious, but her mind thrashed like a trapped bird.
The bathroom door creaked open with a soft groan. He stepped inside and set her down—not gently, not roughly, just with that same unbending precision she was beginning to dread. His control was never violent in the way people imagined monsters to be. It was methodical. Absolute. Like gravity. Like God.
The door closed behind him with a soft click, the sound echoing louder than it should have in the humid air.
Steam curled up from the freshly drawn bath, spiraling in pale ribbons toward the ceiling. The tiles were warm underfoot in theory, but Ji-hyun felt nothing but cold—deep, marrow-deep, the kind that wrapped itself around her spine and whispered, you're never getting out.
The mirror over the sink was fogged in patches, but her reflection glared through the haze, fragmented and wild-eyed. A smear of blood marred her temple. Her lips were cracked. Her nightgown—someone else's choice, someone else's taste—clung damply to her skin. She looked diseased. Cursed.
She touched her arm. Red. Streaked. Bruised. Her fingers moved mechanically, scrubbing at the stains with the corner of a towel until the skin burned pink. The blood wouldn't come off. It smeared. It mocked her.
She dug her nails in deeper.
Her vision blurred. It wasn't pain that stopped her—it was futility.
Because the stain wasn't only on her skin.
It was in her.
The mirror offered no comfort. Only truth. Cold, unyielding, hideous.
You're not getting out.
The door creaked behind her. She stiffened. She didn't have to turn. The air told her everything. The steam thickened, but the warmth didn't touch her. His presence was a temperature drop, a weight in the air like a thunderhead forming above her skull.
"When you're ready, come to me."
Min-soo's voice coiled around her ribs. Gentle. Measured. Final.
He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. The bruises on her body were maps of past lessons. She didn't need to be told what would happen if she stayed too long. If she disobeyed. If she believed—just for a moment—that her silence was hers to choose.
Ji-hyun stood motionless, her hands clenched at her sides.
She didn't want to go.
She couldn't stay.
Her lungs stuttered, caught between scream and silence. A high-pitched ringing filled her ears. She stared at herself one last time.
The girl in the mirror had no fight left in her.
Her legs moved first. Like a wind-up doll.
Turn the handle. Open the door.
And step into hell.
---
The bedroom was a tomb lit by the city's dying glow.
Glass walls opened to the skyline, where the buildings glimmered like teeth in a monster's jaw. Far below, cars moved like blood cells through veins of wet asphalt. Neon signs blinked faintly, half-obscured by the fogged-up windows. The world kept turning.
And she was locked in this place outside of time.
Min-soo stood before the window, back to her. A silhouette drawn in black ink. His reflection shimmered faintly in the glass, elongated by the light, distorted. Not human. Not quite.
He didn't speak. Not at first.
But she could feel him seeing her.
His attention was weight without mass, sharp as a needle to the spine. It pressed between her shoulder blades, traced the column of her neck. Her heartbeat stuttered, each beat too loud in the silence.
"Did I tell you to stay in there?"
The question landed like a guillotine—soft, but irreversible.
Ji-hyun froze. The cold air of the bedroom coiled around her damp skin, tightening until her breath caught in her chest.
Her answer was silence. She knew better than to speak without permission. Words, here, were blades. Her voice was a weapon he had already taken from her—disarmed, dismantled, and buried.
He turned slowly.
Min-soo's face was made of stillness. That impossible, unreadable calm that always preceded cruelty. His eyes gleamed in the half-light—reflections of a man she could not name. Beautiful in the way fire is beautiful right before it burns you alive.
"Closer."
She didn't want to move. But her feet betrayed her. One step. Another. The floor was cold. The silence, colder.
As she neared him, his arm lashed out—not suddenly, not violently, just inevitably. His fingers closed around her wrist like manacles made of ice. She gasped. Her pulse thrashed against his grip.
"Do you think you can escape me?" he whispered. His tone was low, almost amused. "You're mine, Ji-hyun. Your skin. Your breath. The scream you won't let out."
He leaned down, breath ghosting against her ear.
"Even the parts you think are still yours… they never were."
Her stomach churned. A flicker of nausea rose up her throat, thick and bitter. She didn't pull away. Her muscles wouldn't listen. Her body had learned too quickly what defiance cost.
He studied her as if she were something fragile and ruined. A painting he had cracked with his own hand.
Then he drew her closer—one sharp pull—and her body collided with his.
Her breath hitched. His scent overwhelmed her: smoke, spice, and something more coppery underneath. Not quite blood. But close.
His pupils were enormous now. Black eclipses. No light inside.
"You'll come when I call," he said, thumb tracing her pulse like a death knell. "You'll kneel when I command. And one day, you'll beg for the privilege."
The words buried themselves deep in her mind, lodging like splinters.
She closed her eyes. She wouldn't cry. He liked that. It fed him.
But her jaw trembled.
And he smiled.
He let go.
The sudden release sent her stumbling back a step, off-balance, cold rushing in to fill the space his body had occupied.
"Sit."
The command snapped through her like a whip.
She dropped without thought. Her knees hit the carpet. The chair behind her caught her weight. She folded her hands in her lap. Head down. Eyes averted.
Min-soo circled her.
Like a judge. A god. A beast choosing where to bite first.
"You'll learn," he murmured, his fingers trailing through her hair, smoothing it back as if petting something domesticated. "This is where you belong. With me. Forever."
His hand lingered on her neck.
The contact was almost tender.
Almost.
But beneath the softness was threat. Always.
He turned back to the window, arms folding behind his back. A mirror of every night before. The ritual. The repetition.
The prison.
His reflection in the glass smiled.
A small, cruel thing. A knife-edge curved into the shape of a mouth.
Ji-hyun's fingers clenched. Her nails dug half-moons into her palms.
She kept her head bowed.
Kept her breathing steady.
But somewhere beneath her ribs, something writhed. Not defiance. Not hope.
Just the ghost of a scream.
One she didn't dare let out.
---
Later, when he was gone, she curled into the chair, still as glass.
The light had shifted. The glow from outside turned orange. Then red. Then nothing. The city sank into black.
She didn't move.
She couldn't.
Not yet.
Her wrist throbbed. Her ribs ached. Her mind reeled.
But her body? Her body sat perfectly still.
Her body understood.
Resistance was pain.
Obedience was survival.
Her thoughts curled in on themselves like burnt paper. Memories distorted. She couldn't tell if she had spoken today. If she had eaten. If she had dreamed.
There was no future. Only the repetition of this moment.
Min-soo's voice still echoed in her head.
"You'll kneel when I command."
Her jaw clenched.
She hated that she wasn't sure—wasn't certain—if he was wrong.
She hated that some part of her, deep beneath the bruises and the silence and the fear, believed him.
And she hated that part of herself most of all...
---