CBB Chapter 1.2

The gate and the front door were still wide open just as he’d left them. Since there was no sign of anyone, he intentionally made noise with his feet as he entered. Lee Heedo, who had been crouched in the same position as before, got startled and ran into a room. The click of a door being locked followed.

Jang Woorak pounded on the door with his fist.

“Open this. I need to talk to you.”

“W-Why are you here again?”

“Because I’m worried you’ll do something stupid. I’m not that heartless, so let’s find a solution together.”

“……Come back later. I don’t feel like talking to you right now.”

“This little… Hey! Are you going to open this or not? Do you think I have time to care about your feelings? I’m an innocent victim who’s been screwed over by your father’s actions. I’m not someone you can just screw around with like this.”

“Please leave. Otherwise… I, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“What, are you going to kill yourself? You think I’ll let you die so peacefully? You can’t die until you pay back all this money.”

Jang Woorak took a couple of steps back and then charged at the door. The door, hit by his body, made a splintering sound as it crashed open. 

Lee Heedo, who had fled to a corner, stood with his hands clasped behind his back and his head hanging low, like a child being scolded. 

Woorak grabbed Heedo’s trembling chin and lifted it, their eyes meeting at a significant height difference.

Had this kid grown this tall?

“You can’t even die on your own now—Uwaaagh!”

Suddenly, with a monstrous scream, Woorak’s body flew backward.

Lee Heedo looked down at the stun gun he was clutching tightly in his trembling hand.

It worked…

Jang Woorak struggled to get up while his whole body convulsed.

“You… you f-fucking bastard, you’re dead—”

Lee Heedo was terrified that the violent man would get up and attack him at any moment. He was so scared that he turned the stun gun on again. He pressed the sparking device, crackling with electricity, against the convulsing man’s thigh for a long time.

“Uwaaaaaaaaagh!”

* * *

“Ugh…”

Woorak groaned painfully as he opened his eyes. His head felt like it was going to split, probably from hitting the floor when he collapsed. 

He thought he was going to die right here. He’d never dreamed that the dimwitted kid would have something like a stun gun. He tried to move, but his body wouldn’t obey as he wanted. Looking down, he saw his wrists and ankles were bound with thick leather belts.

What the hell is this? And where am I? 

Without a single window, illuminated only by fluorescent lights, it looked like a basement.

A stun gun and now confinement? Had this kid lost his mind? How can I kill him?

As he ground his teeth, he heard the sound of someone coming down from the metal stairs. The person, who had been descending with light steps, recoiled upon seeing him awake. 

Woorak yelled,

“Hey, where do you think you’re going? Come here!”

The kid feigned surprise, shrugging his shoulders, then turned his body to flee. 

That son of a bitch.

“Heedo, I was wrong.”

At his fake apology, the kid turned back with a startled face. Woorak strained the muscles in his stiff face to force a smile. He had to restrain the kid here first to figure out a way out. 

“Heedo, come here. I said, come here! I won’t say anything. I’ve been thinking about it, and I was out of the line. What did you do wrong to deserve that? I understand why you did this, okay? Come here and untie me, will you? My body hurts so much. I think something’s wrong because of the stun gun. Look at this. My hands are going numb because of the lack of blood flow.”

Woorak raised his bluish hands, wincing as if he was pain and furrowing his brow.

“You… you won’t hit me?”

“Geez, why would I hit you? You must have had your reasons. And even if I wanted to, I can’t. It feels like you hit me with enough electricity to power an American electric chair¹. I can’t feel my arms.”

Heedo, who had been gradually lowering his head as if acknowledging his own wrongdoing, hesitantly descended the stairs at Woorak’s groans. He fumbled along the wall towards a desk and pulled out scissors from a drawer. He approached Woorak, who was cautiously extending his hands like a bound animal, and carefully held out the scissors to cut the leather belts.

“You fucker!”

As soon as his hands were free, Woorak sprang up with a yell and headbutted Heedo’s forehead. He straddled Heedo’s fallen body and began to choke him. 

You little shit, you’re nothing but a pushover. 

He squeezed the long neck tightly in his large hands.

Heedo’s face turned crimson as he thrashed and struggled. Woorak, straddling his waist, bounced up and down to the floor with Heedo’s movements. Heedo’s hands, which had been hitting Woorak’s arms in agony, suddenly gripped both his wrists and twisted them.

“Aaaargh!”

Woorak screamed and collapsed.

Fuck, my wrists! Are they broken? No… But it fucking hurts. 

Pretending to examine his wrists, he surreptitiously wiped away his tears. 

The bastard twisted them like a child’s. 

It was because his hands had been tied for so long that he could only exert 0.7% of his usual strength.

Woorak blinked away to absorb the moisture in his eyes and glared at Heedo. 

Heedo, who was crouching and coughing as if about to vomit, flinched and covered his mouth with both fists when their eyes met. He breathed heavily through his fists, his body trembling violently. 

Woorak’s eyes narrowed. 

No matter how I look at it, he’s a dimwit, so how did he manage to overpower someone like me?

Woorak cracked his neck from side to side. This time, he planned to completely smash the kid’s skull so he wouldn;t be able to fight back. Just as he tilted his head back to headbutt him, the back of his head slammed violently against the floor with a loud crack.

Heedo, who had struck Woorak’s jaw, forcing his head down, now aimed his trembling fingertips at the point where his jaw met his neck. 

Woorak, momentarily stunned by the impact, soon grimaced and clutched his head. Just like with the stun gun, the man was tough. He had withstood blows that would have knocked out anyone else. 

Terrified, Heedo forced his unresponsive body to move and finally manage to straddle the man. He couldn’t look him straight in the face because of Woorak’s fierce glare. Averting his eyes, he spoke to the floor.

“You were going to hit me again… You said you wouldn’t. I trusted you… Earlier… you almost … choked me to death…”

“What about you? You also attempted murder, you bastard! You used a stun gun! And what’s with all this? Why did you tie me up?”

“…I was scared.”

“You’re the scary one, you fucking bastard! Now, untie me!”

Heedo flinched with every shout. His eyes darted around and he even drooled. Woorak sighed deeply through his gritted teeth and lowered his voice.

“Heedo, I’m a very busy man. You need to go to school and do what you need to do, right? Let’s both go back to our  normal lives. Like nothing happened, okay? So, untie me, will you? I’m really hurting. I won’t do anything, I’ll just leave.”

“How can I trust you? Earlier… If I hadn’t done anything, I would have died.”

“Hey, would I really kill you? I have my own life to live. And you almost killed me, too.”

“I… I didn’t… kill you. And I don’t think that would have killed you? It wasn’t a gun…”

“You bastard! Have you ever been hit by one? Do you know what that kind of pain feels like? It feels like you’re dying!”

“…You scared me first.”

Woorak thrashed around so much, yelling “Shit! Damn it!” that Heedo had to sit on his chest to restrain him. Woorak groaned at the pressure, struggling to breathe. 

Taking advantage of this, Heedo grabbed both of Woorak’s wrists, untied the belt, and tied them together again. Then he slowly got up and picked up the scissors that had fallen to the floor. He held the scissors up close to his eyes, carefully examining the open blades, a gesture that Woorak watched with an uneasy expression.

What is that crazy bastard planning now? 

Whatever it was, he had to stop him.

“Hey, you can’t.”

Startled, Heedo nicked his finger on the blade.

“Aaaargh!”

Heedo screamed as if his finger had been cut off. He cradled the slightly bleeding finger in his other hand and blew on it, glancing sideways at Woorak.

Woorak clicked his tongue, looking at him like he was a complete idiot.

“It really hurts…”

Embarrassed, Heedo blushed and squirmed. 

Oh, really? 

Woorak’s face crumpled at the bizarre behavior.

Heedo kept muttering, “It hurts, it really hurts,” toward Woorak, who was wincing. Tired of listening, Woorak reluctantly acknowledged him.

“Does it hurt a lot?”

Heedo nodded like a child.

“Then why did you touch the blade? What are you going to do with those?”

“This…”

Heedo crawled on his knees and placed the scissors near Woorak’s ankle. Woorak’s eyes widened, thinking he was going to untie. But instead of the leather belt, Heedo put the blades against the hem of his pants and cut them up all the way to his thigh swiftly.

“…?”

“….”

“Hey! What the hell are you doing?”

“If you move… you’ll get hurt.”

Heedo clicked the scissors in the air as a warning and then proceeded to shred the pants to rags and shirt to pieces. When only Woorak’s underwear remained, he hesitated for a moment, but eventually brought the scissors towards them. Woorak grabbed his underwear.

“W-wait, hey, you crazy bastard, are you really crazy?”

At his yell, Heedo looked dejected. Woorak swallowed the curses he was about to unleash and took deep breaths. He shouldn’t provoke this lunatic.

“Heedo, what are you doing? Why are you taking off all my clothes?”

“So you can’t run away.”

“To keep me locked up longer? Why? You’ve done enough. Oh, did I not apologize yet? I did earlier, but you must not have heard me. Heedo, I’m sorry. I was too rough, wasn’t I? I’ll find your father and get the money he borrowed from me. I won’t appear in front of you again, okay? So we’re good, right?”

“How can I trust you? Someone as scary as you… I’m going to report my father’s disappearance to the police. I’ll let you go when they find him.”

“You’re going to the police? Why don’t you just turn yourself in while you’re at it? Doesn’t it occur to you that this is a crime?”

“Then do you want to stay here forever?”

As Woorak clenched his teeth with a grinding sound and shut his mouth, Heedo cut through his underwear. Then he grimaced as if he’d seen something unpleasant.

“……Disgusting.”