Chapter 1
PART 2
Squeak-.
Hee-young opened the iron door and went in, and without even looking around, went straight to her room. She got off work late today. She got off work two hours later than usual, so when she entered the inn, each room was already full of guests. She wanted to cover her ears to the dirty moans leaking out through the flimsy cracks in the door that wouldn’t close completely.
Maybe it’s because it’s hot, but some rooms have their doors wide open and they were doing it openly. Maybe they want to show everyone else what they’re doing.
Squeak.
Hee-young glanced back at the sound of the iron door opening behind her. A man who was already quite drunk, probably a customer, was opening the iron door and was coming in.
‘I’m bored.’
Hee-young was about to take off her shoes and enter the room, thinking that she wanted to get out of here quickly.
“Look at that plump butt.”
Hee-young was surprised when her butt was suddenly hit from behind, so she turned around as she was about to enter the room. The drunk man who had entered through the iron door a moment ago was now standing behind her.
“Sir, go somewhere else. I don’t sell my body.”
Hee-young glared at the man with a frown. This kind of thing happens sometimes. There are some guys who think all the women in this inn are prostitutes and try to talk to Hee-young. Hee-young snapped at the man as usual. At other times, every other man would just laugh and back off.
“Fuck. A bitch like you doesn’t sell her body? Aren’t all the bitches here the same?”
“Ahh!”
The man pushed Heeyoung into the room. The man who had barged into her room slammed the door and threw his heavy body at Heeyoung.
“Get out of the way! Get out of the way, you crazy bastard!”
Hee-young tried her best to push away the man who was on her, but he didn’t move. For the first time, Hee-young was terrified. Up until now, she had never felt scared of anything. But now, fear was engulfing Hee-young.
‘Anyone, someone… please help, or else I will be raped… !’
Even if she screamed and yelled here, no one would help her. No one would jump in to stop this man. In the end, she would be brutally raped by this dirty man in this room.
‘No!’
Heeyoung bit the back of the hand of the man who was trying to take off her clothes.
“You b*tch!”
“Ahh!”
The man whose hand had been bitten slapped Hee-young on the cheek.
“Do this one more time, and I’ll crush your pride and joy.”
The smell of alcohol vibrated from the man’s mouth like a foul odor. The blood flowing from her torn lip from the hand seeped into her mouth, made her taste the blood.
“Where the hell will you go, you bloody prostitute? You fucking bitch.”
As the man hurled curses at Heeyoung, he violently tore off Heeyoung’s shirt, and the button flew off, revealing her upper body. Heeyoung didn’t miss the moment when the man bent down to take off his pants and kicked the man’s head with all her might.
“Eww!”
Hee-young took advantage of the gap where the man’s body rolled to the side and jumped up and ran out of the room.
“You fucking bitch!”
A man was chasing after me from behind.
‘Oh, where to… …!’
Hee-young ran out of the room, but as she was wandering around not knowing where to go, she saw the room right next door. Even if she ran into the alley, she would be dragged back anyway. It was a do or die situation.
“Mister!”
Hee-young opened the door to the next room and jumped in, quickly catching up with the man on the phone. She didn’t have time to think about how ridiculous she looked right now. With her shirt and pants off, she was wearing only a bra and panties, and he looked at her with a look of bewilderment.
“What are you doing now… … .”
“You bitch! Why don’t you come out right now?!”
Then a drunk man came into the room, his face bulging with anger.
“What is that?”
He furrowed his brow, annoyed by the sudden commotion.
“Hey, I will talk later.”
The man who ended the call threw the phone away and pushed away Hee-young who was hanging on his arm. When he pushed her away, Hee-young’s eyes became dizzy. If even this man abandons her, there is no one left for her to turn to for help.
“It’s free today, but it won’t be free next time, kid, I will pay you well, so come here.”
As the man spoke, he stood up and patted his knees.
“Hey. Get out while I’m talking nicely. This girl isn’t a prostitute.”
“Fuck. What the hell are you doing, kid? And who are you?”
But the drunk man showed no sign of backing down. Instead, he took out his wallet and threw a few ten-thousand won bills at me.
“Okay, I paid for her. Okay? Now that I paid, tell that bitch to come crawling over here and get ready to suck my dick.”
“Bitch?”
The man slowly walked to the door and kicked the drunk man standing in front of the door on his stomach.
“Eww!”
The drunk man fell down in the yard with a scream that sounded like a pig being slit. The man who came down to the yard slowly put on his shoes and walked towards the fallen man. The man who approached him with a leisurely gait slammed his shoe on the fallen man’s lower body.
“Eww!”
The man’s face turns ashen and he screams as the heel of his sturdy shoe crushes the center of his trousers.
“This looks like it’s a dick too, should I make it so that you don’t have a dick anymore?”
The man’s voice was low but menacing. It was enough to make a person tremble with fear. He stepped on the drunk man’s lower body with the heel of his shoe, took out a few crumpled ten thousand won bills from his pocket, bent down, and stuffed them into the fallen man’s mouth.
“I paid. Since I paid, you can suck my dick, right?”
The man with the money stuffed in his mouth shook his head in fear, unable to spit it out.
“Why? I paid for it. If I pay, you’ll suck my dick, right?”
The fallen man’s face was now completely red. The center of his trousers, where his shoe had crushed them, had a stain spreading. He must have peed himself because he was so scared.
“You fucking punk. Who the hell are you peeing on? It’s your pee, so you clean it up for me, you punk.”
The man rubbed his shoe against the terrified man’s face.
“Suck it cleanly so it doesn’t smell like piss, or I’ll really cut your dick off.”
The man, frightened by the words, began to suck the sole of the shoe he had put to his face. Hee-young peeked out of the room to watch the scene. Soon, the women and guests who had come out of the other rooms one by one began to laugh at the scene.
The man who had been sucking the soles of his shoes while hearing the laughter coming from all directions eventually crawled out on all his fours through the iron gate with his pants stained with urine. The man who returned to his room picked up a ten-thousand won note that had fallen in the room and handed it to Hee-young.
“It’s yours. That bastard gave it to you, so take it. You didn’t suck his dick, but you showed him your bra and panties, so take it and keep it, thinking that’s what you deserved.”
Hee-young quickly took the money from the man’s hand. Yes. This is the price for showing off her underwear. This is the price for scaring her.
‘I can take it. He tore my shirt too. It’s the price of having the buttons rebuttoned.’
Heeyoung still hadn’t stopped shaking. But she tried to pretend she was okay.
“Lock the door and sleep. Can you lock the door from the inside?”
“Yeah…”
“If those guys come at you, pretend to suck their dick and then rip their dick off. There are guys whom you can’t handle with your own strength. So instead of rushing away from them and getting beaten up, just pretend to suck their dick and then rip their dick off. Then, no one will be able to rape you.”
“I don’t want to hear about something that dirty.”
“If you want to survive, you have to do dirty things.”
The man gestured to Heeyoung, indicating that she should leave now.
“Next time I won’t help you for free.”
“I’ll boil some ramen for you for free.”
“Yeah. That’s right.”
Hee-young, who came out of the man’s room, quickly went into her room as the gazes poured out on her. This was because I was still wearing only a bra and panty. Hee-young stared blankly at the mess of her shirt and pants scattered around the room, and the things that had been thrown around while she was struggling, and leaned against the wall.
Hee-young’s eyelids fluttered as she raised her hands and put her knees on her chest. Her hands were also shaking. She tried to act okay next to the man in the next room, but she just wouldn’t stop shaking. She’d grown up here since she was a child, so she thought that this kind of thing wouldn’t bother her anymore. No, she thought that this kind of thing would never happen to her. She thought that she could kick away any person who looked at her with suspicion.
But today was different. The drunk man seemed crazy and his strength was beyond my ability to handle.
‘I’m sick of this place… … .’
Hee-young crawled into a corner and with her still trembling hands, she took out the bankbook she had hidden under the clothes in the bottom drawer. The amount printed on the bankbook was 4.6 million won.
‘I can’t go anywhere with this… … .’
Hee-young, who checked all of her assets, despaired again. At least here, she doesn’t have to pay rent. If you go somewhere else, you will have to pay at least 200,000-300,000 won in rent no matter how bad it is. And on top of that, there are utility bills and living expenses. If you spend all of your salary on food and shelter, you will never be able to escape this bottom hole-like place.
‘If only I had five million won more… … ‘
But five million won won’t fall from the sky.
‘If I had just five million won, I would run away from here right now… … ‘
Do all people who rob banks feel like this? They want to commit robbery with a knife.
‘I wish everything would just go to hell.’
Hee-young tightly closed her eyes, holding her bankbook tightly.
When people leave this alley, they have a happy expression on their face. The same goes for people who work in the same office with her. They have homes to return to and their families. They make plans to eat out after work and travel on weekends.
To them, it is an ordinary day. The people who pass by on their way here from the office are ordinary people who enjoy their daily lives. People laughing outside the glass windows of restaurants or cafes that they occasionally look into. A harmonious family laughing in the TV dramas that the aunts here put on.
But I am the only one living here so miserably. I struggle to escape, but I can’t shake the feeling that I am sinking further into the abyss. Is it possible to escape from here?
‘I’m going to get away… … . I’m going to run away… … . I won’t live like this. I won’t live like this forever and die… … .’
Heeyoung bit her lips tightly.
‘I won’t choose the means. I’ll do anything to get out of here. I won’t live such a dirty life. I won’t die like my mother.’
What Hee-young fears the most is dying like her mother. Dying like the woman in the last room. A death where no one will pity her, cry for her, or even remember her. She won’t die like that.
Hee-young raised her head and looked around the room. The walls and ceiling were covered in mold and water stains, the damp floor, and the stinky blanket. It seemed like this smell had already become ingrained in me. It was a smell that I would never erase from my life, and I would definitely run away to a place where this smell could not chase me.
The moment she made up her mind, the man in the room next door came to her mind.
