SN | Chapter 1.4

“Y-Yuwon-ah, just endure a little longer…. You, just endure a little longer…. Then, I’ll do something and get you out….”

It was a ridiculous promise. Each word felt like a blade cutting through his chest. The man laughed at Yuwon, who knelt in despair.

“Do you know why they cut off the fingers of gamblers? Even if you leave them with just their fingers, they’ll crawl out and grab a card. They’re not human.”

“…….”

“And you still can’t do it?”

“…I won’t.”

It wasn’t that he couldn’t; he wouldn’t. Yuwon wanted to make his choice clear.

Seeing him refuse to bend his will, the man tilted his head. Looking up at the ash-colored ceiling, he let out an annoyed sigh, his face cold. A tense silence flowed. While Yuwon steeled his resolve, the man rolled his tongue in his mouth, then suddenly raised an eyebrow.

“Then you can do this, right?”

“…I’ll do as you wish.”

“Try running away from me.”

What? Hearing something unbelievable, Yuwon looked up at the man with wide eyes.

“If you get out of the mountain, I’ll let you go. But if you get caught, you’ll stamp your fingerprint….”

The man’s eyes gleamed with a fierce silence, like a predator before its prey. With the eyes of a beast confident he wouldn’t lose Yuwon, the man announced the start of the hunt.

“I’ll screw you until your hole tears?”

⋆˙⟡⋆˙⟡⋆˙⟡

Twenty—!

Twenty-one—!

The man’s voice echoed loudly in the humid mountain valley. Yuwon ran, looking only ahead. His breath was caught in his throat, but he couldn’t stop.

“Huff, huff.”

100 seconds. The man gave Yuwon exactly 100 seconds. This mountain was the land of dogs. It was an endlessly tight time to escape from a man who must be familiar with the terrain.

Hearing that number, he realized the man had no intention of truly giving him a chance. It wasn’t a chance; it was a hunt. The man was angry. He was paying the price for defying and resisting by saying no.

But still, there was a sliver of possibility. If he could just get out of the mountain, the man would keep his promise. Wrapping baseless certainty in positivity, he kicked off the wet ground with determination.

Desperately running to seize the chance, Yuwon was barefoot, and his stretched-out T-shirt and pants were heavily soaked by the relentless raindrops. His eyelashes, laden with water droplets, were bothersome. As he hurriedly raised his hand to wipe his eyes, it happened.

“Ow!”

Thud, his foot caught on a tree root jutting from the ground. He fell flat, crashing into the mud. As his head collided, he squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath. They said the village became deserted after a big forest fire, and the wet ground smelled of wood and ash.

Quickly regaining his senses, he got up and wiped his face with the pouring rain. The forest debris, turned to mud, washed away quickly.

Yuwon ran again.

“Where is this….”

60 seconds? 100 seconds? He had no idea how much time had passed.

The fastest way out of the mountain would be the road they drove in on, but since it was open enough for vehicles, he’d likely be caught immediately. So he ran deep into the forest, hoping the dense trees would hide him.

As he ran, he found himself in the middle of the forest. The buildings, only traces left from the fire, were no longer visible, and all he could hear was the sound of rain.

The lush leaves now just beginning to block the monsoon rain. Thud, thud, as intermittent raindrops hit his body, Yuwon looked around. Feeling dizzy from completely losing his way, he decided that it would be just as hard for the man to find him.

As he walked through the densely grown trees, a strange silhouette began to appear in the forest scenery that filled his view. What is that? Wondering if he had lost his way and returned to the deserted village, Yuwon stopped and soon identified a white building standing tall in the forest.

It seemed untouched by the fire, with no signs of scorching. What if he hid there until nightfall? They didn’t search for missing people during the day, did they?

Yuwon listened carefully, confirming there were no signs of anyone around, and cautiously moved forward. Finally, what came into view was a rather large building, a cathedral with a strangely familiar shape.

Most of the windows were broken, and vines tangled around the walls. However, compared to the buildings he saw leaving the mountain’s base, it was in good condition. Outside the cathedral stood a statue of the Virgin Mary with a benevolent smile, completely intact.

Seeing the statue naturally reminded him of his mother. He sighed in frustration, worried that Seo Kyungyoung, who had sold even his son, might next go after his mother.

“…Ha.”

He had many thoughts, but there was no time to pity his situation. Yuwon closed his eyes tightly, opened them, and moved again.

Before the fire, the deserted village was said to be a resort for the rich visiting the casino. Perhaps that’s why the cathedral looked like a piece of antique art. The building that survived the great fire without collapsing was exceptionally elegant, and the unmarred marble exterior exuded a certain sacred dignity, as if announcing that God was watching over this place.

He stepped inside the building. Creak, the old door opened, revealing the damp interior.

He walked past the disarrayed chairs and into the nave. Unlike the mostly broken entrance, the inside still had many intact windows. Opposite the entrance, behind the altar where the mass was held, the stained glass sparkled as if untouched by dust.

However, the crucifix that should have been on the wall had fallen to the floor. Though undamaged, the face of Jesus nailed to the cross looked incredibly somber. With a heart growing unbearably heavy, he deliberately avoided looking that way and surveyed his surroundings.

Fortunately, there was a place to hide. The inside of the ornate marble altar was empty, seemingly used to store items for mass, and the space looked quite deep. Yuwon, watching the shadow of trees dimly visible outside the window, cautiously squeezed himself inside.

The marble, soaked with summer rain’s humidity, was cold. Every time his bare skin rubbed against it, he got goosebumps, but as time passed, he gradually adapted.

Drip, drip, Yuwon listened to the sound of rain coming from somewhere. He focused all his attention on detecting if footsteps mixed in or if he heard the man opening the door.

But as time passed, no one appeared. As the tension eased, all sorts of thoughts began to occupy his mind.

What would happen if the man caught him? No, he could worry about that when it happened. Think positively. What if the man really lost him? What if he truly escaped the mountain? No matter what, the mountain’s owner wouldn’t break his word.

Yuwon was busy catching his thoughts that kept drifting negatively. If he didn’t, his mind, which hadn’t seen hope for years, would only imagine the worst. The man, the mountain, the debt, a life worse than a beast. At some point, while trying to escape such a miserable and wretched reality.

The surroundings fell into a muffled silence.

Even the intermittent sound of water stopped. Was everything holding its breath at the mountain owner’s movement? Suddenly, a question arose, and his mouth went dry. In that silence, reaching an extreme state of tension, he couldn’t hear anything but his heartbeat. Yuwon covered his head with his palms, closed his eyes tightly, and just breathed. It was a thin breath that seemed like it could break at any moment.

Just a little longer, until sunset. It was when he kept repeating that.

“This isn’t even begging to be screwed.”

Suddenly, the man’s voice pierced his ears like a ghost. He hadn’t heard a sound…! Startled, he turned his head to see the man leaning over, one arm resting on the altar.

“Did you really think I’d let you go?”

The man’s long eyes curved like a crescent moon. Light from the stained glass cast a halo behind his jet-black hair. His face, backlit and shrouded in twilight, only highlighted those striking blue-gray eyes. Though not as intense as that night, they held a cruel excitement visible to the naked eye. Memories resurfaced, and his hair stood on end.

“Ah!”

Instinctively, Yuwon tried to burrow deeper to escape, but a hand suddenly grabbed his arm and pulled him out. Thud, pain shot through his knees as he fell from the altar’s edge.

The man didn’t give Yuwon a chance to stand properly, dragging him along. His foot caught on a branch, flipping him over and causing blood to start flowing. The pain, like a burn, flared up all over his body.

“Wait, wait! I’ll do as you say!”

The man didn’t respond. Yuwon, his hair grabbed, was dragged to a window with broken glass. The man roughly shoved him outside.

“Ow!”

He felt the heavy rain hitting his face. Only then did he become aware of the noise surrounding him. It wasn’t that there had been no sound while he hid in the altar; Yuwon, terrified, simply hadn’t heard anything.

The rain fell like a waterfall from the sky. The downpour was so loud it pierced through the dense canopy of leaves and crashed to the ground.

“Ha, ugh!”

After leaving him in the rain for a while, the man finally pulled him back under the roof. The man’s gaze fell on Yuwon, who had barely made it back inside.

His face, soaked white by the rain, looked both pure and gloomy. His black eyes, with blurred boundaries between the pupils and irises, were striking. Raindrops clung to his long eyelashes. The man, facing Yuwon’s transparent face like a flower petal wet with morning dew, bared his teeth in a fierce smile.

“Damn, now you’re worth looking at.”

The next moment, Yuwon’s face was kicked into the man’s crotch. The man’s voice dropped into his ear like a fall.

“Ready to suck?”

With a whisper full of excitement, the fully erect member rubbed against his face. The shape felt through the wet fabric was shocking. It was natural for memories of the night with the man to resurface. Even though it had been a while, it felt like the lower part that had bled was aching again.

“Open your mouth.”