Chapter 30
Chapter 30. Son of a Bitch
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The desire that emanated from Taeseo’s body was one he had forgotten while adapting to Seongwoo-eup after arriving there.
It was a natural reaction for a healthy man, but the curse that escaped his lips was because the object of his desire was Yuna.
Taeseo tried to ignore the desire and turned on the water. Water so cold it felt like it was scalding his skin flowed down his firm body.
Thinking about it, it had been three weeks since he came down here. He had been so busy for three weeks that he hadn’t even masturbated once. Perhaps he had been so hurt by a woman before coming here that he hadn’t felt anything.
In fact, Taeseo had a woman. Her name was Seo Jia, a woman who had been pursuing him for a long time.
He dated Seo Jia because he found her constant pestering annoying, and yet, he thought Seo Jia was acceptable.
He didn’t put as much effort into his girlfriend as other couples did, but he would kiss her if she asked, and he would satisfy her desires moderately when she wanted to sleep together, accommodating her.
However, at some point, Seo Jia’s behavior became strange.
She actively emphasized that she wasn’t ovulating and pestered him to sleep together without a condom, and before reaching ejaculation, she suggested they not use contraception, using his desire as leverage.
On the day they broke up, he found a torn condom at the hotel he had gone to with Seo Jia.
‘Wow, Seo Jia, are you crazy?’
To Taeseo, who was furious, Seo Jia begged him to forgive her just once, saying she couldn’t help it because she liked him so much. However, Taeseo had no intention of taking responsibility for an unwanted pregnancy.
Taeseo considered their relationship to be one of mutual benefit, where they gave each other what they wanted. For Seo Jia, it was the fulfillment of her long-standing crush, and for Taeseo, it was the satisfaction of his desires.
Seo Jia was the one who sounded the alarm for that relationship, and Taeseo ended their relationship without a second thought.
He had no regrets about the end of their relationship, but being a man, he felt a heat building up inside him from not having sex.
Taeseo stood under the showerhead and turned on the water. The groundwater was terribly cold. Only after showering with water so cold it made his hair stand on end did the boiling heat within him subside.
While it was natural for a man to feel lust, Taeseo couldn’t bear it when the object of his desire was Ahn Yuna.
The age difference was one thing, but more than anything, Ahn Yuna’s situation evoked a sense of unwarranted guilt. He felt an inexplicable resistance to Ahn Yuna becoming the object of his desire.
Regardless, his desire subsided. That was when Taeseo felt at ease.
“Ah!”
They said the soundproofing wasn’t good, and it was true. A scream came from beyond the wall. It was from Yuna’s room, adjacent to the middle room.
‘What is she watching that’s so loud….’
Was she releasing her pent-up frustration from the day by watching a movie with fighting and violence?
At first, Taeseo thought the sound from beyond the wall was just noise from the TV. But after a moment. An urgent voice was heard.
“Don’t! Don’t do this!”
The voice was clearly Ahn Yuna’s. Only then did Taeseo realize something was happening beyond the wall.
Taeseo placed his hand on the wall. With a thud, the thin wall vibrated. Following the sound of something hitting the wall, a scream of “Ah!” was heard.
Taeseo immediately ran out of his room and banged loudly on Ahn Yuna’s studio apartment door.
“Ahn Yuna! Ahn Yuna! What’s going on!”
As if by magic, the noise from beyond the door stopped.
Taeseo pressed his ear to the door but heard no sound from inside.
The silence was even more strange. It was as if she were deliberately holding her breath, like playing hide-and-seek.
“Ahn Yuna, I know you’re back from work, so open the door! If nothing’s wrong, open the door!”
Taeseo pounded on the door as if it would break.
If nothing were wrong, she should have woken up by now and opened the door, but Yuna never opened it.
Something was clearly wrong. She was either too injured to open the door, or she was being threatened.
There was the option of calling the police, but the closest police substation in this town was 8km away. The situation could worsen before the police arrived.
At that moment, he remembered something Yuna had told him once.
‘Actually, the second floor is also commercial space, but it was illegally renovated… so the walls are a bit thin.’
When illegal renovations are done, it’s difficult to restore them to their original state if they’re built with cement blocks, so usually, they use wooden partition walls to divide the space. Therefore, the wall between Yuna’s room and the middle room was a thin partition wall.
Taeseo picked up a fire extinguisher left in the hallway. He entered the middle room and struck the wall separating Yuna’s room and the middle room with all his might.
With a crack, the plywood beneath the wallpaper split. With cracking sounds of wood splitting, a large hole formed in the plywood, and styrofoam insulation spilled out.
It was an act that anyone would call crazy, and if nothing were happening to Ahn Yuna, he would deserve to be cursed at.
But after continuing to strike with the fire extinguisher, a large hole appeared in the wall. And at that moment,
“!”
Through the gap in the broken wall, he could see what was happening in Yuna’s room. Taeseo dropped the fire extinguisher in his hand.
“You son of a bitch!”
Jaeseop, who looked like a cattle thief, was lying face down on Yuna’s bed. Beneath him, Yuna, half-undressed, was subdued by Jaeseop.
Yuna couldn’t make a sound because Jaeseop was covering her mouth with his large hand.
The moment he understood what was happening beyond the wall, fire shot from Taeseo’s eyes.
With his eyes rolling, Taeseo smashed through the wall without regard for anything. Bang, bang, bang. With tearing sounds, insulation flew in all directions. After a few more blows, the wall completely broke down.
Taeseo burst into the adjacent room, grabbed Jaeseop by the clothes, and punched him.
“You son of a dog!”
Jaeseop swung his fist, trying to fight back against Taeseo.
“What the hell, you bastard! You’re just a car-poor bastard!”
The more Jaeseop spoke, the more force Taeseo’s punches carried. Taeseo knocked him to the ground without giving him a chance to resist and kicked him mercilessly.
Jaeseop raised his arms to protect his face, but Taeseo relentlessly kicked the parts he was defending.
Yuna, her face pale, covered herself without even a scream.
While kicking Jaeseop, Taeseo grabbed a blanket from the bed and threw it at Yuna.
After countless kicks, Jaeseop’s body went limp.
Taeseo picked up Yuna’s phone from the bed and called the police. About ten minutes later, the sound of sirens began to echo through the quiet rural area.
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“Manager! Manager!”
Hyunwoo, who had rushed to the police station, ran towards Taeseo, who was being questioned.
“What is this? You’ve never been brought to the police station for causing trouble before!”
Hyunwoo, who had been woken up and rushed over, looked back and forth between Taeseo and the police, his face ashen.
“Officer, I don’t know what crime this gentleman is being held for, but he will exercise his right to remain silent. His lawyer is on the way. Please postpone the interrogation until then. For now, nothing-”
Hearing this, Taeseo let out a curse so loud it echoed through the police station.
“Hey, you damn…”
Startled, Hyunwoo covered Taeseo’s mouth with his hand.
“Manager, please! If you curse like this here, it could add to the charges. Please be quiet for now.”
Taeseo shook off Hyunwoo’s hand.
“You, damn it. Do I look like a criminal? Huh? Do I look like someone who would be dragged to the police station for committing a crime!”
“What? You didn’t commit a crime, Manager?”
At Hyunwoo’s words, Taeseo’s face contorted, and the police officer sitting opposite them looked at them with a bewildered expression before speaking.
“Kwon Taeseo came to the police station to rescue a victim at a crime scene and provide a statement as a witness.”
“Rescued a victim? Him?”
Hyunwoo looked at Taeseo as if asking if it was true.
“Can I go now?”
Taeseo stood up from his seat.
“Ah, yes. Yes.”
“You said you’d take the other person home after their investigation, right?”
A female officer had taken Yuna to another room during her investigation. She was told she would rest there before going to the hospital for a medical examination.
He wanted to accompany her through that process, but he figured the victim of such a terrible act wouldn’t want him there, so he stayed at the police station to complete his statement as a witness.
“Yes. That’s correct. Once the victim has calmed down, we will escort her home after her statement is complete.”
“Yes. If you need any additional testimony, please contact us here.”
Taeseo took Hyunwoo’s wallet from his back pocket. He pulled out one of Hyunwoo’s business cards and placed it on the desk of the officer in charge.
“Then you may leave.”
“Yes. Please conduct a fair investigation based on principles.”
Taeseo and Hyunwoo walked out of the police station. Three people had come to the police station, but only Taeseo walked out.
Jaeseop, though he had fainted from the beating, was not in a condition serious enough to require hospital treatment.
More importantly, he was taken to the police lock-up because he was too drunk and incoherent to be interrogated.
“A cigarette.”
Outside the police station, Taeseo held out his hand to Hyunwoo.
Hyunwoo took out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his pocket and handed them to Taeseo.
“Manager, even though you did a good deed, coming to the police station at this hour? I was so shocked, thinking you’d caused trouble again.”
“I didn’t cause trouble, so it’s fine.”
“It’s not fine.”
“Hey, I told you I did a good deed, Seong…”
Taeseo, who was about to say “sexual assault,” closed his mouth.
Seongwoo-eup was a small town. Even in Yuna’s neighborhood, news traveled so fast that everyone knew what happened in any given house. If word spread that she was almost sexually assaulted, everyone would know in no time.
“Ah, damn it, maybe I shouldn’t have reported it.”
“What?”
“No. If I had left that son of a bitch alone, he would have caused trouble again…”
“Ah, please explain it so I can understand.”
“Explain what? It’s exactly what the police said. By the way, you said the lawyer was coming down?”
“You said you didn’t commit a crime, so why are you waiting for a lawyer?”
“Because I used some violence.”
“V-violence? You said you were a witness earlier!”
Taeseo turned away, avoiding Hyunwoo’s intense gaze.
“There was… an incident…”
He knew that answering his persistent questions would lead to a torrent of nagging.
