Chapter 87

“If you don’t want to be screwed here in the hallway, behave and go in. I won’t make it painful.”

“… Let go of my wrist.”

“People are about to go to work. Should we just strip off here where everyone can see, hmm, Na-Yool? But then you won’t be able to lift your pretty face anymore.”

“……”

“My Na-Yool doesn’t like to be embarrassed, after all.”

“I told you to let go, you bastard,” Na-Yool warned him again, along with a death stare as he opened the door. Sang-Hoon snorted, tightened his grip on her wrist, and pulled her closer.

“Don’t you even feel sorry for me? A fucking slut pretending to be pure… You, what are you doing?!”

“Su-Jeong, it’s me.”

Sang-hoon’s complexion changed when Na-Yool, taking out the phone from her pocket, answered a call that came without a single ring. If she was not pretending to be on the phone, then it could only be that she had been in the middle of calling.

All this while.

“Fuck, what are you doing?!”

“—Su-Jeong, did you record it all? Okay, got it. Thanks.”

“Hey, shit, give it to me! Give me your phone!”

“Yeah, you might have to go to the police station. I’m at home. Report—ah—!”

“Fucking do it.”

Sang-Hoon snatched the phone from Na-Yool’s ear and hurled it on the floor. He trampled the still lit-on screen over and over and violently kicked it away. Then he sarcastically taunted her, his face distorted in an ambiguously wicked smile.

“Come on, report me.”

“You just broke my phone. How can I?” Na-Yool bluntly answered in a calm voice, without letting any sign of her extreme fear show through. The sight of her suddenly acting composed made Sang-Hoon burst into laughter. Na-Yool grabbed with her other hand the wrist that he had finally let go of when he took her phone and suppressed its trembling. They were so loud that she could not believe no one had come out yet.

“If you hadn’t made that call, I wouldn’t even break your innocent phone. Do you know? It’s all your fault. Your fault—”

“—In fact, maybe I knew it was going to turn like this.”

“What?”

While Na-Yool stared at the broken cell phone in the distance and muttered softly as though she had realized something, Sang-Hoon’s face contorted uglily. Na-Yool shifted her gaze back on him.

Then, looking at him straight in the eyes, she continued.

“So I guess that’s why I did it.”

She indeed had no other choice, but it was not a wrong choice either. Maybe, suddenly thinking of the friend she had been messaging while getting ready for work when she then saw Sang-Hoon was just a gamble. In addition to the fact that she did not switch her phone off after sending the last message before going out, making it easier for her to make the call despite not taking her phone out of her pocket.

Just like Sang-Hoon a moment ago, Na-Yool ambiguously smiled.

“How can I report you? It would break my heart.”

“……”

“My friend did the recording, so she will also report it to the police.”

No matter how short the number 112 (T/N: Korea’s police number) was, there was no way she could have openly taken her phone out to dial it with Sang-Hoon looking. No guarantee either that he would not have been more triggered. And no use mentioning the luxury of blindly browsing through her phone to find and turn on a recording app.

Getting her phone taken away before she could do anything with it, being raped by a Sang-Hoon convinced of his own sinlessness… in this very short period, she had imagined countless worst-case scenarios. And, without him noticing, she had fumbled her phone in her pocket, praying that the call properly went through. She had even doubted that the faint dial tone she heard coming from her coat was just an auditory hallucination, but eventually blocked it with her hand within the pocket in fear the sound would leak out.

Meanwhile, if Na-Yool successfully reached Su-Jeong, there was a risk she would hang up if she could not hear anything from Na-Yool’s side after picking up and did not notice something was wrong. It was a desperate gamble. Su-Jeong, her best friend in college, was quick-witted. So Na-Yool had inwardly repeated to herself a dozen times that Su-Jeong would catch on, while she more realistically hoped that someone would come out and ask if Sang-Hoon needed to be reported, but in the end…

“As you can see, I can’t do anything right now. So, she will.”

“……”

“Even if you trample my phone a hundred times, all the nasty things you said to me… Everything was recorded on my friend’s cell phone, and whatever you do to me from now on, the police will come here.”

Though no one came out to support her, Na-Yool had a 20-minute call to take her side. When Su-Jeong had informed her that she had been recording just in case and asked if it was ok to report Sang-Hoon, Na-Yool could finally breathe normally.

“No matter what you do, you’ll be caught on the spot. But if you insist on going in together, be my guest. Is there anything you’d like to add to the accusation?”

“…Fuck, you bitch…”

“You scumbag, how dare you.”

Na-Yool callously swore back when a large hand flew across her cheek. The power was so strong that the corner of her lips burst at once. Unable to control his flaring anger, Sang-Hoon swung his hand once more and smacked her on the side of the head. Na-Yool powerlessly staggered sideways.

“Kim Na-Yool, you, how can you do this to me!”

“…And how can you do this to me?”

Sniggers intermittently seeped through Na-Yool’s teeth as she threw back his question. She cupped her painful cheek and burst into uncontrollable laughs. She simply could not help but laugh.

Look at this overly aggrieved face!

Sang-Hoon looked at her with bloodshot eyes and a heartbroken expression as if he were about to cry. As if it was not him who harassed her, hit her, and molested her. Na-Yool lowered her hand that cupped the burning hot side of her face, showing contempt towards Sang-Hoon’s sincere belief that she was in the wrong.

“Oppa, do you know? I won’t hit you a single time.”

“……”

“I will be a very pitiful bitch who can’t resist the slightest even being beaten like this. I will cry until the police get sick of it. And while I cry, I’ll tell them how much of a scumbag you are.”

Sang-Hoon reached out his trembling hand towards the cheek he had hit. Instead of swatting it, Na-Yool turned away to avoid him and spoke up in an icy cold tone.

“You thought I couldn’t do anything, is it? That I’d be embarrassed, tell you to stop making trouble here, and invite you to rub one inside? That I wouldn’t be able to report you, out of shame for having dated a guy like you? You crazy bastard.”

“……”

“Wrong, I can do it all. Why do I have to feel ashamed because of you? Did I do anything wrong? Ah, maybe not realizing up until now that you were a lunatic? You should be the one living in shame, not me. Did you think I could not bring myself to sue you? That I’m insane enough to have any remaining feelings? Do you think I’d worry about your future and agree to a settlement after being treated like this? Don’t make me laugh!”

“…No need to make such a big deal out of it.” Although his face reflected a faint sense of guilt for Na-Yool’s red cheek, Sang-Hoon shamelessly put on a bold front. “And do you think the police have nothing to do? Don’t be naive, Na-Yool. We’re just having a lovers’ quarrel. It’s not worth calling the police. Why make it hard for both of us—”

“—I never loved you, so how is it a lovers’ quarrel?”

“……”

Cut off by the slashing comeback, Sang-Hoon was at loss for words, his mouth stopped wide open in a rather stupid fashion. By his dumbstruck look, it was evident he never expected Na-Yool to make this point.