Ming You approached him. Calmly, unhurriedly. So Ho thrashed, tried to hit him with his head, his legs.
"What are you doing, you scum!!! Bastard!!! AAAAH!!!"
Ming You didn't react. He took a roll of wide silver duct tape. Unwound a long strip. Then, forcefully pressing So Ho's head against the pipe, he began wrapping. The sticky tape crunched, adhering to skin and hair. He wrapped the head and the pipe together, creating a monstrous hybrid of a man and a utility line. So Ho could only rasp and shake his head, but his movements were constrained to the limit.
"Bastard, bastard, bastard!!!" his cries became muffled, as if from underground.
Then Ming You tore off two small squares of tape. He leaned so close to So Ho's face that he could see every pore on his skin, every black dot in his bottomless eyes. Slowly, with disgusting tenderness, Ming You stuck one square to So Ho's upper eyelid, pulling it upward, then firmly pressed it to the skin above his eyebrow.
Then the second one — to his lower eyelid, pulling it down. So Ho's eyes were now wide open, fixed in a silent scream, deprived of the ability to blink, staring straight ahead, to where his sister was hanging. Tears streamed from them in a continuous flow, washing away the blood on his face.
"W-what is this… w-where am I?!" a weak, trembling female voice came from the right.
So Yeon had fully regained consciousness. Her eyes darted around the room, catching on her brother, on Ming You's figure, on the gleaming knife.
"So Yeon!!!" So Ho's scream was filled with such despair that it seemed the concrete might crack from it.
"Bro! Where are we…!? What's happening?"
"W-we… WE'RE TRAPPED! IT'S HIM! MING YOU!"
"Well observed, So Ho. Very observant," Ming You turned to the girl. His shadow, distorted by the red light, engulfed her. "Wow, you woke up just in time… I think it's time for some entertainment."
"AAAAH!!! Anyone!? Y-you… Ming You!? What do you want?!"
"So Yeon, don't talk to him! Be quiet!" So Ho screamed, but his voice was already hoarse from the strain.
"How nice that you know my name," Ming You took a step closer. He was smiling again, and this smile was worse than any grimace of rage. "I think we should get to know each other even better. Understand… the anatomy of the situation, so to speak."
He walked up to her, and the knife blade, still sticky with the blood from her brother's nose, gleamed in the red light. So Yeon instinctively recoiled, pressing her back against the cold pipe, but there was nowhere to run.
Ming You was in no hurry. He brought the tip of the knife to the nylon tie binding her torso and, with a light, almost affectionate pressure, cut it. The tie parted with a quiet snap. Deprived of support, So Yeon collapsed onto the polyethylene. The film sagged and squelched under her weight, and her bound hands and feet, still attached to individual ties, twitched helplessly, like an insect that had fallen on its back.
Ming You watched this for a few seconds, enjoying the picture of helplessness. Then he bent down, grabbed her under the armpits. His fingers in the rough gloves dug into the tender skin of her armpits, leaving red marks. He dragged her across the floor.
The polyethylene rustled and slid under her bare back, catching on every scratch, every drop of sweat. He dragged her to the very center of the room, onto a clean, untouched white field, right into the epicenter of that circle of hell where So Ho's tape-fixed eyes were directed.
He threw her there like a rag. Her body, beautiful and athletic, with the graceful curves of her waist, firm hips, and small, high breasts, now looked pathetic and vulnerable. The bruises from the ties on her wrists and ankles were already turning a bluish-purple.
"W-will you let us go? Yes? We won't say anything! I swear!" her voice was thin, breaking into a squeal. Her eyes, huge with terror, darted between Ming You's face and her brother's distorted face. "We'll just leave! Forget everything!"
Ming You crouched in front of her, bringing his face to her level.
"Of course…" he drew out the word, and that same soul-chilling half-smile played on his lips. "No."
The word was spoken quietly, but with such final, indisputable coldness that the hope in So Yeon's eyes died instantly, as if blown out. Her face contorted into a grimace of pure, animal fear.
"Don't you dare touch her!!!" So Ho's roar shook the air of the basement.
He lunged forward, and a sound that made the heart clench was heard — a dull, wet pop. It was his humerus, unable to withstand the insane strain, partially dislocating from the joint. Pain pierced him, sharp and burning, but he barely felt it against the backdrop of his spiritual agony:
"I'll kill you! I'll tear out your guts with my teeth! LET HER GO!"
Ming You didn't even glance at him. His attention was wholly absorbed by So Yeon. He stood up, and his shadow, monstrously stretched by the red flashlight beam, completely engulfed the girl, as if swallowing her whole.
"What then?" he asked quietly, addressing himself rather than So Ho.
Then he turned to her. The knife in his right hand traced a slow, almost elegant arc. He didn't cut right away. First, he touched the cold, bloodied flat side of the blade to the skin of her left thigh, just above the knee. So Yeon shuddered as if from an electric shock. Goosebumps covered her skin.
"You see," Ming You whispered, "this is how the body reacts to a stimulus. Fear, cold, anticipation…"
He started with the shorts. He didn't cut them off with one motion, but began slowly, with pressure, guiding the blade along the seam on the inside of her thigh. The fabric, dense sports material, resisted, then parted with a crunching sound, revealing a strip of tender, white skin. The blade went so close that it scratched the skin, leaving behind a thin, pink line that instantly beaded with tiny droplets of blood, like dew on a petal. So Yeon whimpered, closing her eyes.
"Look," Ming You ordered, but she just shook her head.
He ran the blade along the other leg. The shorts now hung loose, held only by the waistband. Ming You hooked the fabric at the waist with the tip of the blade and jerked it towards himself. The shorts slid off, revealing her underwear — simple black cotton panties, already damp with fear. On the inside of her thighs now gleamed two parallel, shallow trails. Blood oozed from them slowly, trickling in thin streams down her skin, gathering in droplets on her knees and falling onto the white polyethylene with quiet, distinct clicks: drip… drip… drip…
"No…" So Yeon moaned, trying to close her legs, but the ties on her ankles wouldn't let her.
Then he went for her top. The blade touched the area just below her collarbone. So Yeon froze, holding her breath. Ming You, with light pressure, traced the tip of the knife from the center of her chest downward, diagonally, towards her waist. The fabric parted, revealing the lower edge of her sports bra and her firm, flat stomach. She cried out — short, abrupt.
He repeated the motion on the other side, creating a V-shaped cut. Then he hooked the fabric at the neckline with the blade and tore it downward. The entire top fell apart, landing on her knees. Her breasts, small, neat, with dark, taut nipples, were now exposed to the cold, stagnant air of the basement. She tried to cover herself with her bound hands, but it was useless.
Ming You tossed the knife aside — it landed on the polyethylene with a dull slap. Now his tools were his hands. He grabbed her panties and, without ceremony, tore them off with one sharp movement. The thin fabric ripped with a characteristic sound, leaving red friction marks on her buttocks and pubis. Now she lay before him completely naked, all her youth, all her athletic beauty, exposed. Her body was racked by a fine, incessant tremor.
"You!!!" So Ho was no longer screaming. He was rasping, choking on tears and saliva.
His eyes, held open by the tape, were so bloodshot that the whites were almost invisible. He saw every detail. Every muscle on his sister's body, every drop of blood, every gesture of Ming You. His mind, already teetering on the edge, began refusing to accept this as reality. This had to be a nightmare. The worst nightmare of his life. But the pain in his dislocated shoulder, the sticky tape on his face, the metallic taste of blood in his mouth — all screamed of monstrous, unadorned truth. He felt something inside him, some fundamental support, cracking and collapsing with the roar of an avalanche.
Ming You stood up straight in front of her. His eyes slid over her body with a cold, appraising gaze, devoid of even a hint of lust. Slowly, without taking his eyes off her, he unzipped his worn-out trousers and pulled them down along with his underwear.
"Stay away from me!!!" So Yeon shrieked, scrambling backward, dragging her bound legs across the polyethylene. Her voice soared to a piercing scream, full of primal terror. "NO! DON'T! PLEASE! MOM!"
"Hush, hush," Ming You whispered.
He took a step forward, placing his foot on the loop of ties around her ankles, pinning her legs to the floor.
"Don't come near her, AAAAH!!!" So Ho screamed.
Ming You, ignoring him, bore down on So Yeon with all his weight. His knees dug into her thighs. His hands, smelling of blood and sweat, grabbed her wrists, pinning them to the polyethylene on either side of her head. His face was centimeters from hers. She could see the absolute, all-consuming emptiness in his eyes.
"AAAH!!! Get off!!!" She struggled, writhed beneath him, but her strength, the strength of a basketball player, now seemed pathetic and childish against his cold, relentless determination.
He lowered one hand between her legs. Roughly, without preamble, he penetrated her with a finger, exploring, stretching. So Yeon howled — a long, guttural, rending sound, in which unbearable physical pain mixed with the deepest, existential horror of violation.
"AAAH!!!"
Ming You, without changing his expression, withdrew his finger, now covered in scarlet mucus. Then he guided his hard member towards her entrance.
And with a force that made her pelvic bones crunch, he entered her.
The tissues, unprepared, dry from fear, tore with a disgusting, wet crunch, like the sound of wet cloth ripping. So Yeon roared, her body arching in an unnatural arc, lifting off the floor. From her, from the torn vagina, blood gushed out. Not a trickle, but a dark, thick stream, immediately flooding the inner surface of her thighs, mixing with those shallow cuts and spreading across the polyethylene. The puddle beneath her expanded, soaking into the white plastic, staining it a rich, glossy scarlet. The smell — sharp, coppery, sickly-sweet — instantly filled the basement.