LLU 66

A dull, unsatisfying sound rang out. I had expected it, but piercing through solid muscle and bone all at once was difficult.

A low groan of “Eugh” could be heard. At the same time, his leg jerked violently. It felt closer to a reflexive reaction than a deliberate attempt to shake me off.

In that instant, monstrous strength surged up. I gripped his violently twitching calf with all my might and yanked the knife out. The blade, raised high in the air, was stained with bright red blood.

Blood instinctively freezes a person. Even though I had imagined this scene countless times, when it actually became reality, the feeling of horror inevitably came first.

But I soon shook my head to shake off stray thoughts. I had to think nothing at all. Before fear could twist and distort my mind, I needed to act. Without hesitation, I raised the knife mechanically and slammed it down again.

That was the moment.

“What are you doing?”

A calm voice reached me. At some point, Choi Junghan had half-raised his upper body and was staring fixedly at me.

“Are you trying to cut off my ankle?”

Unlike earlier when his leg had jerked violently out of sleepy reflex, he no longer moved his leg. He didn’t scream, didn’t kick me with his other leg, didn’t lunge to snatch the knife away, nor did he try to overpower and crush me.

Even in a moment like this, the stillness in Choi Junghan’s eyes did not waver. Rather, a glint appeared as though he had found a new toy. His pupils, brimming with moonlight, gazed at me without the slightest hint of blue. Far too straight and upright to possibly belong to a human.

Only after meeting Choi Junghan did I realize it. Pure madness is closer to silence than to clamor.

“Yeah. I’m going to make sure you can never walk again.”

I replied in a calm voice.

“Remember? I told you I’d ruin your life until it hits rock bottom.”

“Of course I remember.”

A smile spread across Choi Junghan’s face. The smile that bloomed softly like a flower opening was simply impossible to believe belonged to someone who had just been stabbed.

“You said you’d be with me forever. How could I forget those ecstatic words, Oon-ah.”

I met his eyes straight on and yanked the knife out with all my strength. Blood gushed from the wound. It was not the dark red traces clinging to the blade, but real, living blood pouring freely and relentlessly.

Choi Junghan did not stop me. All he did was faintly furrow his brow when I pulled the knife out and smile thinly as if to say there was nothing to be done. Even as I went wild stabbing him, the madness of simply watching it with interest made me feel once again an overwhelming sense of helplessness.

“But why the ankle specifically?”

Choi Junghan asked in a low voice. When he slightly tilted his head back, the night city lights illuminated his starkly white neckline. He tapped lightly near his carotid artery with long fingers.

“You said you wanted to kill me. Then you should have stabbed here. I’d be dead in less than five minutes.”

“Dream on, you bastard. I have no intention of letting you die that comfortably.”

I glared fiercely with fire in my eyes and snarled back.

“Until I repay every single thing you did to me in full, you don’t get to die. Why the ankle? Because you broke my ankle in front of Kim Junwoo. Because you threatened a kid who runs by holding his ankle hostage. Because you were the first to put chains on my ankle.”

“…….”

“So isn’t it only fair that I make your leg limp for the rest of your life too?”

Choi Junghan’s eyes widened slightly. Heat rose in those pupils that had always seemed lacking in light and therefore alien. The bizarrely rapid surge of life in them instead made him appear even more chilling.

“Ah—, really.”

His cool lips curved smoothly. He slowly swept his palm across his face. After the large hand passed, an inscrutable, deep smile remained.

“Getting stabbed in the leg and still managing to turn me on… what kind of talent is this?”

“Shut up. If you’re done spouting nonsense, stick your ankle out the rest of the way.”

I was tired of all the bullshit Choi Junghan kept spewing, so I didn’t flare up. I simply looked at him with cold eyes.

“How can I stop loving you?”

Choi Junghan continued cheerfully. But the relaxed smile lasted only a moment.

“How can I love you?”

He whispered in the darkness.

Gradually, the slick smile vanished from the corners of Choi Junghan’s mouth. After the laughter completely evaporated, only a horrifyingly expressionless face remained. It was a dramatic change as if he were performing in a play.

But I knew that this unfamiliar and chilling face was the real Choi Junghan. It was also the face he almost never showed to others.

“Dream on. You can never love me.”

I replied with a challenging look in my eyes.

“Even if you died and came back to life, you could never win my love.”

Whatever effect these words would have on Choi Junghan—whether they would shatter him to pieces or fail to leave even a scratch—was not something I could control. I was simply stating the truth.

I raised the blood-stained knife again. Just as I was about to plunge it straight back into his ankle, this time both my wrists were seized. For the first time, Choi Junghan—who had been quietly watching me stab him—intervened.

“How can I do it?”

A calmly sunken voice asked me.

“How do I have to be to love you, Oon-ah.”

“Let go. I told you a monster like you would never understand it even after a lifetime.”

“That’s right. Like you said, Oon-ah, I’m a monster who’ll never understand that kind of thing even after a lifetime. So you’ll have to teach me.”

The strength gripping my wrists gradually increased. Choi Junghan no longer seemed willing to obediently let himself be hurt. Repeating like a madman that he wanted to be taught about love, he appeared completely unconcerned about his bleeding ankle.

I tried twisting my wrists to break free from Choi Junghan’s grasp, but it was futile. The difference in raw strength was too great. Far from shaking him off, the most I could do was clutch the knife tightly in my hand so it wouldn’t be taken. In terms of pure physical power, the advantage had already tilted.

“Let go, let go!”

“Teach me. Oon-ah. Teach me.”

“I said let go, ah, fuck you, you bastard!”

“If you teach me, I’ll let go. Oon-ah. If you teach me, I’ll let you cut my ankle.”

Choi Junghan completely reversed our positions by holding my wrists. I ended up pinned beneath him, gasping. Choi Junghan, spouting those words without the slightest change in his gaze, truly looked out of his mind.

Contrary to how he had mocked me for being obsessed with the word love, the person truly obsessed with “love” was Choi Junghan. He wanted to know about love. He wanted to do it to me, and he wanted it returned from me.

But if I didn’t teach him, he would never know it until the end. He could neither give it nor receive it.

His tone neither rose nor grew excited. Watching Choi Junghan repeat the same words in a flat, monotonous voice, I shuddered.

“I said let g—ah!”

It happened while I was struggling and putting strength into my arms. My wrist twisted, and the large blade I was holding changed direction. The moment I realized it, tiny droplets of blood spattered across my face.

“Pioon!”

What I saw next was a huge upheaval. The thick, dark swamp that had pooled blackly in Choi Junghan’s eyes scattered in all directions in that instant.

The long cut on the opposite forearm holding the knife was not deep. It had merely grazed the skin thinly.

And yet, Choi Junghan…

“Put that knife down. The childish game is over now.”

His voice sank lower than the darkness surrounding us. The empty air that had contained nothing was now filled with something cold and damp. Rage. There was no other way to describe the resolute emotion.

So this is it.

Probably in that moment my eyes shone the way Choi Junghan’s always did. At last, however faintly, I had discovered his reverse scale. I had dug up the weakness of a man I thought could never be broken.

“Hand over the knife.”

A chillingly low voice commanded me. When I glared at him without answering, Choi Junghan grabbed the hand holding the knife and tried to forcibly pry it open.

In the darkness, four blazing eyes tangled chaotically, sharper than the blade. As the movements grew larger, a momentary opening appeared. I quickly curled my body and rolled hard under the bed. Our bodies tumbled across the floor with a loud clatter.

Because I had gripped the handle with all my strength, fingernails digging in, the knife remained in my hand instead of his. Without hesitation, I pressed the sharp tip against my own throat.

“Back off.”

“Pioon. Put the knife down. Give it to me and let’s talk.”

“Get lost. Take your hands off me before I slash myself!”

Choi Junghan’s hands fell away far too obediently. In his eyes, tinted by the blue light of early dawn, what filled them was no longer amusement. For the first time, I faced his pure, unadulterated fear.

“I said put the knife down. I won’t say it twice.”

“Don’t order me around. Come any closer and I’ll stab my own throat and die right here.”

“You were going to do something, weren’t you. Finish it.”

He spoke rapidly in a low, locked voice. Without taking his eyes off me, he extended his ankle—so covered in blood that no bare skin was visible.

“Stab me like earlier. You said you were going to cut off my ankle.”

The threatening whisper directed at me was fierce, yet strangely it sounded to my ears almost like a plea. He felt unfamiliar. For a moment I was confused whether this man was really Choi Junghan.

He was like a giant beast driven into a corner. His ferocious gaze was as sharp as a trap’s blade, yet what Choi Junghan was restraining was not me, but himself. The man who had smiled leisurely when I said I would sever his ankle had lost every bit of composure the moment I held the knife to my own throat.

Since I was the one inferior in strength, it was only a matter of time before the knife was taken back. Without hesitation, I raised the blade that gleamed blue. Not toward his defenseless ankle in front of me, but toward my own chest.

I pressed hard below my collarbone and drew a long line. Since the goal was not suicide, I applied only enough force to keep the blade from sinking into my heart. Soon a stinging pain clouded my vision.

“Pioon! What are you…!”

Choi Junghan’s beast-like roar struck my ears. Bright red blood dripped, plop, plop, down my chest. This was the first time I had seen Choi Junghan so shaken. Even as momentary pain made my head reel, I thought—

To show such a satisfying reaction. It had been worth committing this madness. Watching Choi Junghan charge like an enraged beast, snatch the knife from me, and hurl it far away, I split my lips into a wide grin.

And then I pulled out the second knife I had hidden inside my underwear.

“……!”

Could I ever forget the expression on Choi Junghan’s face in that moment for the rest of my life?

Unlike the first knife, which had been a kitchen knife, this one was a jackknife. When I had torn open the mattress and hidden the long knife there, I had also included the jackknife I had once seen in Choi Junghan’s desk drawer.

Since the risk was far higher and the chance of failure much greater than at the shareholders’ meeting, preparing extra ammunition was only natural. I hadn’t expected I would end up using it to stab myself.

“I told you! Do that kind of crazy shit to my ankle!”

Choi Junghan growled like a lunatic. He pounced like a tiger, covering my entire body with his own. But before he could snatch the knife and throw it, I succeeded once more in tearing open the chest wound I had just made with my own hand.

It was close. The second attempt had nearly failed. Because he stopped me immediately, the depth the blade reached was even shallower than before.

Yet the wound that already existed swallowed the blade without any resistance. Tiny spurts of blood scattered across Choi Junghan’s face.

He spat a curse and yanked the knife away in one motion, hurling it far. Unfortunately, the second knife had served its purpose there too.