“I’ve ordered a clean and trouble-free one from the butcher shop. So you can stop nagging about it.”
The two hands gripping the iron bed’s headrest, which resembled prison bars, were white as snow. Joo-wan held onto the rusty iron as if it were a lifeline, refusing to let go.
But Jang Jin-woo pulled him by the waist, and he slid helplessly. Jang Jin-woo spread Joo-wan’s buttocks wide, which had been dragged along. The already loosened hole was glistening with a mixture of semen and blood.
He rubbed his stiff penis against it, rough and uncaring. Joo-wan shuddered and shook his head violently.
“Ugh… Stop!”
Jang Jin-woo pressed Joo-wan’s head firmly onto the pillow, silencing any sound that might escape. Joo-wan’s face and neck turned crimson as his breath was cut off.
He pressed down on Joo-wan’s struggling body with more force, pushing his glans inside. As if by magic, Joo-wan’s body stiffened. He rubbed the inserted part in a circular motion, then suddenly thrust up with force, pushing it all the way in. Joo-wan’s body jolted as the penis slammed into its root. At the same time, the mucus that filled the hole was pushed out.
“Haah…”
Jang Jin-woo tilted his head back for a while, shivering with sweet pleasure. His lips twitched with satisfaction. He pressed down on Joo-wan’s head and back, which were writhing in excruciating pain, and relentlessly pounded his hole as punishment. The penis would slide out, leaving only the glans, then slam back in, ruthlessly ravaging his insides. Joo-wan couldn’t even scream, only struggling to take a breath.
Jang Jin-woo, lost in his lust, licked his lower lip. He had reached a point where he couldn’t go a day without it. It was as if the nature he had suppressed behind a mask of kindness had exploded.
No, it was all Joo-wan’s fault. He had gotten used to it, but he kept acting like he hadn’t been touched before. The way he always looked at him with resentment and hostility aroused the sadism within him. He waited for Jang Jin-woo every day, with no one else to rely on. His numb response to any pain made Jang Jin-woo want to break him further. Didn’t all humans have that desire to conquer? He rationalized it that way.
As he moved faster, his vision blurred, and a faint dizziness swept over him. Blood and heat surged to his core, causing his eyes to flutter shut. The swollen flesh felt as if it would melt away. He tried to suppress any moan, but Jang Jin-woo couldn’t hold back the roar that escaped his lips.
“Haah, haah… Damn it… Ohh… Nghh-!”
He pressed his lower body against Joo-wan, rubbing himself against him as he was. The hand that had been pressing down on Joo-wan’s head tightened, then slowly released. Jang Jin-woo collapsed onto Joo-wan and released the breath he had been holding. Joo-wan shifted his body, curled up, his body ravaged. Jang Jin-woo, satisfied, chuckled and patted his thigh.
He then straightened his disheveled collar and stood up. He sat on the edge of the bed and meticulously cleaned Joo-wan’s body of the evidence of their encounter.
When he inserted his finger to scrape out the semen left inside the hole, Joo-wan shivered, clutching the blanket tightly. He didn’t care and scraped the inside wall. He also disinfected the wound at the entrance.
After finishing everything, he dressed him in his underwear and pants, and as usual, pulled the blanket over him. He also casually placed the newspaper he had brought for Joo-wan on the side.
“Don’t you ever think… that I might die?”
Jang Jin-woo was about to leave the room. Joo-wan’s sudden question stopped him in his tracks. Jang Jin-woo paused by the door for a moment. His answer came quickly.
“You won’t die, Park Joo-wan. I know that better than anyone. Have you already forgotten?”
He chuckled and looked back at Joo-wan. Joo-wan lay motionless, facing the wall like a corpse.
He brushed it off with a laugh and left the room. The door slammed shut with a thud, and the lock clicked securely.
“…….”
He pulled the blanket over his head. The small room was once again engulfed in quiet, deep darkness.

My grandfather was a kind man, but he was stubborn about one thing: people. If he thought someone’s character was bad, he would never deal with that person again.
That’s probably why he chased my mother away. A young woman who said she would take me away came to our house a couple of times a year. My grandfather wouldn’t even talk to her, but I wasn’t stupid. I vaguely knew that she was my mother. We looked a lot alike, me and her.
Every time my mother was harshly scolded by my grandfather and turned away, she would hold onto me and say, “One day, Mom will come get you.” She even went so far as to link our pinkies and make a promise with a stamp of her finger. I didn’t wait, but she kept her promise. It was on the day of my grandfather’s funeral.
He was still healthy despite being seventy years old. Everyone said he would easily live to be a hundred… It was an accident. My grandfather had said he was going to the market, but I still don’t know why he was in a remote road far from town when the accident happened.
What was really unsettling was that the person who found him was a concrete mixer truck driver. They said the place where my grandfather had the accident was a road that no one would drive on except for those construction vehicles. They said it was definitely a regular car that hit him.
They never caught the culprit. There were many suspicious points, but there was no guardian to demand a thorough investigation. There was no physical evidence or witnesses. CCTV and dashcams were rare in cities at that time, let alone in the countryside.
I was my grandfather’s only blood relative, so I wore a mourning outfit that didn’t fit me well and greeted the mourners. My mother rushed over, I don’t know how she found out, and hugged me tightly when I was standing alone. I still remember what she whispered to me then. “Let’s live together now.” She was smiling at that moment.
I could hear people whispering. I was only eight years old, but I knew they were talking badly about my mother.
After the funeral, the people who had been taking care of the house left one after another. Even Grandma Gangneung, who said she would live to see me get married, left. She held my hand tightly and just cried. Even on her way out, she kept looking back, as if something was bothering her. I still can’t forget that sight.
The house in Seoul where my mother lived was really small. My mother’s other son lived there with me. I don’t want to talk about that kid right now. You wouldn’t believe it even if I told you. It’s hard to believe that such a person exists. No one believed that such a beast was living a good life under the guise of a human.
My mother slept all morning. Then, when the sun went down, she would finally wake up, put on makeup, dress up, and leave the house. I never saw her come home. She would be back asleep by the time I woke up in the morning. She always smelled strongly of alcohol.
I thought she was doing it to make money, but even after we moved to a much larger house, one that couldn’t even be compared to the one we had before, her life remained unchanged.
The only difference was that I no longer slept in the same room as my mother. There was a man who had taken over the master bedroom as soon as we moved in. He was a rough-looking man, and my mother’s other son called him “Dad.” He acted like a submissive animal around him, completely different from how he acted when he was with me.
My mother seemed to love that man very much. She would turn a blind eye to any mistakes he made. Once, we went out with my mother and came back, and I saw a pair of shoes I hadn’t seen before. They were women’s shoes. The door to the master bedroom was slightly open, and I heard a strange sound coming from inside. It was the same sound I would make when I jumped up and down on the bed. I could hear heavy breathing and moans mixed in. What else could it be?
I was young, but I thought that what the man was doing was wrong. My mother’s face had turned very dark at that time.
My mother? No, my mother didn’t say anything. She just closed the door to the master bedroom. Like I said, she loved that man very much.
The man’s strange behavior didn’t stop there. I started feeling uncomfortable whenever I slept. It felt like something was touching me.
So, one time, I pretended to be asleep, closing my eyes but staying awake. Not long after the lights in my room went out, the man quietly came in. He didn’t turn on the light, and he gently lifted my blanket. Then he put his big hand inside my pants and touched me. It felt like an insect crawling on me. It was so disgusting and terrifying. I knew then that it was a terrible thing.
I was scared, so I told my mother about it when the man wasn’t around. My mother’s expression hardened for a moment, but then she casually reassured me. She said that he was just being affectionate, and that I shouldn’t make a fuss. Isn’t that strange? My grandfather, who loved me more than anything, never did anything like that.

As time passed and I grew older, the man’s midnight visits continued. I think it was in the second or third year of middle school when he stopped bringing other women to our house. It might have been a happy thing for my mother, but not for me. After that, his visits weren’t limited to the middle of the night. His actions towards me didn’t stop at just touching me either.
A truly terrifying thing happened one day when I had to leave school early because I twisted my ankle during gym class. I was relieved to see that the man’s shoes weren’t at the front door, but I guess he came back while I was asleep. I woke up gasping for air, and the man’s penis was inside my mouth. My mouth was being ravaged, I couldn’t breathe, and it felt like my mouth was going to tear apart. His tip kept hitting my uvula, making me gag. My head kept hitting the wall, making me dizzy and disoriented.
I kept closing and opening my eyes, and that’s when I saw it. My mother, peeking into my room through the crack in the door. She was pale as a ghost. My throat was so tight I couldn’t speak, but I screamed at her repeatedly. I begged her for help. Please, save me.
But she just closed the door quietly, just like she always did. I felt hopeless and scared. I was so heartbroken that I cried.
Why didn’t my mother love me like that man? Why didn’t she care for me even a little, like she did for her other son? She was my mother. She was my mom.
I mentioned this earlier, right? My mother had another son besides me. He was a truly awful person. He couldn’t stand to see me without trying to torment me. He had a dog, a huge one, almost as big as a person. You can see the scars from being bitten by that dog on my legs, at least three or four of them.
My girlfriend from high school committed suicide. She couldn’t take it anymore. I wonder how scared she was, all alone. My heart still breaks and I shudder every time I think about it. My half-brother’s gang did terrible things to her. I thought I had to kill him. I wanted to avenge her somehow.
A person died because of me, but he was just smirking and making nasty jokes. I stabbed him with a knife. I don’t even want to try to defend myself by saying it was self-defense. I really intended to kill him. I still regret it sometimes. I should have stabbed him in the neck, not his leg. Blood spurted out like a fountain, and he screamed that he was going to die. My mother appeared at that moment.
My mother didn’t say anything. She didn’t even cry. She calmly called an ambulance and made a phone call to someone. She said she needed an emergency admission.
The woman listening to me frowned. She couldn’t believe that a mother would send her sane son to a mental hospital.
Joo-wan continued to stare at the branches swaying in the wind, his gaze still calm.
“Do you know what I’m afraid of?”
The woman remained silent. It was the same for all those who were forced to be admitted to a mental hospital, but Joo-wan’s story was suffocating just to listen to. He said that the reason he had been trying to hold himself together for the past ten years was because of fear. He endured because he was afraid and scared.
“Everything becoming permanent. I’m trapped here, living and dying without meaning, and my mother, the man, and that bastard will live good lives without any guilt, and eventually, the four of us will be bound together as a family. That’s what I’m most afraid of.”
The nature of his “fear,” which had been vague, finally became clear.
Jang Jin-woo sipped his coffee and looked at Joo-wan’s physical examination results. He had lost weight again. It was a change that any doctor who cared even a little about their patient would notice. But Kim Je-guk, Joo-wan’s doctor, just kept staring at his phone and giggling.
Jang Jin-woo prescribed Joo-wan some vitamins instead, and requested high-protein foods and carbohydrates in his diet. It couldn’t hurt to be careful.
“What are you working so hard on?”
Kim Je-guk, apparently tired of playing, suddenly approached and poked his head forward.
“I’m done.”
I tried to divert his attention with a smile, like I always did. Usually, Kim Je-guk would just scold me, saying, “You’re too diligent for no reason.” But this time, he suddenly turned the monitor towards him. He scanned Joo-wan’s examination records with a look of interest.
“Come to think of it, patient Park Joo-wan, he was RH-AB blood type, wasn’t he?”
He looked like he had found a pearl in the sand.