LLU 61

Contrary to my expectation that they would dump me in some remote countryside, the hospital I arrived at was large and impressive. Above all, it was not far from the city center.

For such a grand and luxurious scale, the admission procedures were incredibly strict. It must have been for privacy reasons. Probably a place that celebrities or politicians use discreetly. Having followed Choi Junghan around so much and visited so many upscale and secretive places, such a guess came to me without much difficulty.

I went straight through the admission process without even receiving a single examination. The procedures proceeded smoothly and swiftly. Watching all of it unfold right beside me, I let out a snort. I had no idea it could be this easy to throw a perfectly sane person into a psychiatric hospital.

I also learned that a psychiatric history I had never once been diagnosed with was already recorded under my name. From causing a scene at the shareholders’ meeting to being transported here and completing the admission process, it took only an hour or two at most. To pull strings to this extent in such a short time—truly befitting one of South Korea’s leading conglomerates.

The law allowing emergency admission with the attending physician’s signature and the guardian’s consent in urgent cases must have been very conveniently used under the power he possessed.

“Mr. Pioon? I will guide you to your room.”

When we arrived at the floor with the inpatient rooms, the nurse sitting at the station greeted me and the executive secretary accompanying me. I silently followed behind her while taking in the corridor with my eyes. Instead of the typical white and sterile hospital interior, this place was decorated with a calm and deep atmosphere, like a hotel.

It was when we passed the lounge area. A familiar phrase caught my attention from the large TV broadcasting the news. I paused for a moment and looked at the screen.

—…In the second part of CM Electronics’ 54th shareholders’ meeting, a man identified as Mr. A suddenly approached the podium and caused a disturbance. He has now been transported to a psychiatric facility on an emergency basis. Given that a considerable number of shareholders participated in the meeting, the uproar is expected to be significant. The footage in question is…

I looked at the scene filling the screen with the detachment of watching someone else’s story. The image of me suddenly interrupting in front of Choi Junghan, who was holding the microphone and proceeding with the second part of the agenda. Of course, the subsequent scenes had been cleverly edited out. I found it surprising that they didn’t block it and even aired it on the news.

The interior of the arrived hospital room looked extremely luxurious and cozy. Whether all the rooms in this hospital were like this or this was a special suite, it was far removed from the ordinary hospital rooms I knew.

“I will provide the inpatient orientation. This is a general guide to life in the hospital room.”

The nurse who let us in handed me patient clothes and an information sheet. While staring intently at her as she spoke in a kind yet businesslike manner, I inwardly felt a bit of admiration. Even while dealing with me—who was probably the most infamous psychiatric patient in Korea right now—she showed no sign of it whatsoever. Truly the mark of a professional.

“Then please rest well. The attending physician will come for an interview later.”

I don’t need an interview. I’m not sick anywhere.

I muttered that to myself inwardly. However, instead of spouting the clichéd lines that the nurse must have heard hundreds of times from patients, I simply nodded. The executive secretary also left the room together with her. From now on, he would stand guard in front of this hospital room.

Now I was left alone in the spacious hospital room.

At last, a profound sense of exhaustion rushed over me and overwhelmed me. With the sensation of a tidal wave crashing down oppressively and dragging me into deep despair, I obediently closed my eyes.

In the afterimage deeply etched inside my eyelids, there were still countless crowds. People pointing fingers at me and murmuring, the shocked faces of the management, reporters thrusting cameras forward, and…

Choi Junghan looking at me with eyes frozen in shock.

It was a scene I had imagined hundreds, thousands of times over the several months of planning and preparing. And today, I turned that imagination into reality.

No matter what disposition I would receive from now on, regardless of that, I had done it. I splendidly splashed filth onto his face and tarnished both him and the corporate image.

But my revenge does not end here. My determination to bring him to death by any means necessary had not faded in the slightest. This was only the beginning.

The trust he had patiently built toward me over a long time had completely collapsed. Now, how would Choi Junghan react? Would he harshly punish me for properly ruining his work and then discard me like trash, or,

Or would he…

With a question I could not answer, I simply lay down on the bed. For now, all I wanted was to sleep. An overwhelming drowsiness covered me in one fell swoop.

When I opened my eyes, the first thing that greeted me was the low darkness. Only the light leaking in from outside barely illuminated the shadows inside the hospital room.

And the scent of the man that now felt as natural to me as air.

“You awake?”

A languid voice rang out from the side. Seeing me groggily sitting up, he—who had been sitting beside me looking at a tablet—raised the brightness of the indirect lighting. The hospital room, which had been submerged in bluish darkness, quickly took on warm light.

Choi Junghan, who set the tablet aside without reluctance, looked even calmer than I had expected. The flustered appearance from earlier was completely gone.

The slight smile he gave me while looking at me was no different from usual. If not for the strangeness of the location, I might have mistaken it all for a dream.

“Wow, as expected of our Oon. You really pulled it off properly, huh?”

A mischievous smile spread across Choi Junghan’s face as he looked at me. The way he whistled playfully was childishly innocent.

“It was really thrilling. You publicly confessing to me in front of all those people…”

His breath, as he spoke in an exhilarated voice, was soaked with overflowing excitement.

“I told them to get the video in high quality. I think I could jerk off to it ten times while watching it at home. Plus, for the first time, you called me hyung. I should designate it as an anniversary and check it every year.”

“Stop the crazy talk and shut up. And stop bluffing. Honestly, things went to hell because of me, didn’t they.”

I looked at him coldly and snorted. His pathetic bluffing was ridiculous.

“Ah, yeah. Things did go to hell.”

Choi Junghan smiled. As if he had brought up a really amusing topic, even pure interest sparkled in his eyes.

“The stock price has already dropped quite a bit. Several advertising contracts got completely wrecked too. The agencies of the product models were frantically calling. I guess the kiss scene we filmed together left quite an impression.”

He spoke as if it were someone else’s business and giggled.

“This is entirely your achievement. I almost wanted to call in the advertising agency executives and hold a seminar. Like, try promoting like this for once.”

“Why didn’t you block the articles? You could have easily hushed it up.”

Cutting off his stream of nonsense coldly, I asked what I had wanted to ask since earlier. The Choi Junghan I knew was not the type of person to sit idly by with both hands folded while things turned out this way.

Choi Junghan, who burst out laughing briefly, replied in a kind voice.

“Hmm, our Oon prepared for this over several months. If I didn’t let the news air at least, you wouldn’t have been satisfied, right?”

“…Crazy bastard.”

Even though I knew all too well that Choi Junghan was out of his mind, I still got chills. Is there another lunatic in the world who would stake his own company on such a ridiculous game with me? I glared at him as if looking at a disgusting insect and spat out,

“Congratulations on being fucked, you son of a bitch.”

“Cute and fiery too. No wonder I never get tired of you.”

Choi Junghan showed no sign of being fazed even by my provocative swearing. He stood up, smiled softly, and reached out toward me.

I turned my head to avoid Choi Junghan trying to kiss me. He grabbed my wrist—the one that had struck his hand with a sharp sound—and lifted it above my head, then climbed on top of me. Pressing me down with familiar weight, Choi Junghan licked his lower lip hungrily.

“But, Oon-ah. The uproar will only be temporary.”

He whispered. What was contained in his chillingly sharpened gaze was neither hatred nor resentment toward me.

“I didn’t build it overnight, you know.”

The thick, viscous emotion that had built up was purely desire. His urge to monopolize me in an eerily extreme way had already become something beyond mere physical lust.

“So don’t be too sad. If I stand firm, won’t I be the one feeding you?”

Choi Junghan said that and grinned. With a face so smug it made me want to kill him even more.

I gathered saliva and spat it out with a smack. With one hand, he slowly wiped it off his cheek. Instead of slapping my cheek or choking my neck, Choi Junghan gripped my face firmly with strong fingers.

Between my lips that were comically pressed and forced open, he let a long string of saliva drip down. His saliva slithered like a snake and slowly flowed into my mouth. Even as I struggled and tried to shake off the weight and hands pressing me down, it was futile.

Instead of pouncing and forcing a kiss, Choi Junghan covered my lips with his palm, making me swallow it inevitably. Then he looked down at me with faintly smiling eyes. For a long time, silently, he just looked at me like that.

The fifth dawn breaks. While quietly taking in the dim scenery of the brightening dawn, I was sitting by the window.

The view looking down from here was quite good. To the right of the hospital, mountains stood like a folding screen, and far to the left, the Han River could be seen. Every day, I gazed at that scenery for a long, long time.

Since entering here, I would fall asleep late at night and wake up three or four hours later. When I opened my eyes thinking I had slept deeply, it was invariably dawn.

Falling back asleep was difficult. Until the sun fully rose and the nurse came around for rounds, sitting blankly by the window to pass the time had become my habit over the past few days.

“Just rest here for a week. I’d like to take you back right away if I could, but there are adult circumstances.”

The reason I started counting the number of dawns was because of what Choi Junghan had said in a light tone, as if he had no choice, on the very first day he admitted me here.

“A week? And after that?”

When I asked that, he answered with an annoyingly clear and bright smile in his eyes.

“I’ll tell you that in a week.”

After discharge, where would I be taken?

Since the media was paying attention, they would have no choice but to keep me in a proper facility like this for about a week whether I liked it or not. By the time interest faded, I might be locked away in a facility no one’s footsteps reached, or I might end up following the same path as the former women of Chairman Choi who had been cleaned up by Choi Junghan.

Because that crazy bastard’s thinking could not be grasped by ordinary people’s logic, for five days I could not help but consciously count the passage of time.