Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Normally, Seonghwa took a taxi home after work. He lived far from the uptown, suburban neighbourhood he worked in. By the time he got out of the police station and the grocery store after, however, it was too late. He was left rushing to the bus stop with his groceries hanging off his arms, trying to make it before the bus left and he had to wait an hour or more for the next. The bus was near empty when he arrived, only a few late night stragglers like himself, and Seonghwa hurried on after paying his fare.

He found a window seat at the back of the bus and set his groceries down at his feet. Once he had settled in, he wrapped his arms around himself and tried not to cry. His day had started off so well in that it hadn’t been different from any other day for the last couple of years he’d been working as a housekeeper. Seonghwa loved the job; he loved cleaning and organizing, it brought him a calm and comfort few things could. The only thing he hated was the reputation that came with being “the help”. It was humiliating to constantly be treated as less than just because he cleaned people’s homes for a living.

His mother had been a housekeeper her entire life to raise him and his older brother as best she could, so if anything, he knew better than most just how hard the job could be, especially back then. And because of that, he should have expected this. Being the help often came with it’s fair share of accusations. Over the last six years, he’d had a few from different families he’d worked with. Most of those accusations were for stealing—because who else was there to blame?—but all had been cleared as cases of misunderstanding or misplacement. But after the last accusation, Seonghwa decided to downsize on the amount of people he worked for and talked to his agency to find something permanent. That had happened a year and a half ago when they set him up with a rich couple who needed someone to take care of the house and run all sorts of errands for them. Seonghwa didn’t mind doing the extra duties that were outside his job description because they paid him for it.

Today, another accusation had come, and this one had been too big for his agency to clear up. Police had been called, he’d been searched and interrogated, and even after he was cleared and let go because he hadn’t done anything, he was still fired by the couple. It wasn’t fair, but Seonghwa had learned now that very few things in life were for someone like him.

His phone vibrating in his coat pocket drew him from his thoughts; he knew who it was, and he didn’t want to answer, but it was always better to get it over with. Seonghwa sighed deeply, shakily, and pulled out his phone, quickly swiping up to answer. Before he even brought the phone to his ear, he could hear his mother screaming.

“Mama, please,” he said, trying to speak over her yelling and not disturb the other passengers. “Mama, I’m really tired. You can yell at me later. Can you please call me tomorrow?”

“No! Seonghwa, I told you, I told you! How many times! A million! What is this now? Tenth time? You are twenty four and cannot keep a job! What will I tell the family?”

The bus screeched to a stop to let people off and Seonghwa replied, “You could stop telling them all my business. I can’t even go visit any of our family anymore because they’re going to blame me every time something goes missing because of you. They don’t need to know everything happening in my life. You just like being the victim because if I really was such an embarrassment, you would keep your mouth shut.”

“Yah—”

“Whatever. Mama, call me later. Go bitch about me to the son you actually like.” Seonghwa hung up the phone, turned off the ringer altogether, and shoved it into his pocket. He took a deep breath and turned to stare out the window with a frown. The reflection of a man standing close by caught his attention after a moment and he turned his head, giving the man a curious look.

“Mind if I sit?” 

Seonghwa tried to keep himself from making a face and just nodded. The bus was completely empty except for a homeless man sitting near the front who was talking to the bus driver. It was just weird to him that the man would choose to sit next to him, at the back of the bus, when there were so many other seats. The man sat down right next to him, not even in the end seat, and stretched out, legs falling open and bumping against his own. “Bit late to be heading home, isn’t it?”

Seonghwa pulled his coat tighter around himself and gave the man a polite smile. “I could say the same to you.”

The man laughed. Seonghwa had to admit he was rather attractive. He had perfect teeth and lips and a tiny pointy nose. But something about him unsettled him. “I worked late tonight. Couldn’t catch a taxi. You?”

“Work and grocery shopping.” Seonghwa licked his lips and felt his eyes droop just a little. He was tired and he didn’t want to talk, but he had been raised to be polite. And on a bus late at night with a man he didn’t know, it was probably for the best. “But I’m taking a break from work for a while, so no more late nights for me,” he joked, averting his gaze. The way the man stared at him made him shiver.

He had dark eyes, the kind that didn’t really have anything behind them. With most people, Seonghwa could read them, but this man? He couldn’t tell and he didn’t like it. “Ah, really?” His voice lilted playfully with an air of curiosity that didn’t quite sound real. “Why is that?”

Seonghwa held back a groan. “I was a housekeeper. I got fired because they thought I stole from them.” He wasn’t ever going to see this man again, so he figured there was no harm in admitting this.

“Did you?”

“Is this a jail cell?”

The man laughed again. “You’re funny.” He stared at Seonghwa with an odd smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, or perhaps it did, but not in the right way. “Don’t think of it as a loss, though.”

Seonghwa let himself scowl. “Don’t think of losing my job as a loss?”

“Yeah. You’re too pretty to be cleaning people’s houses.” The man stretched his arms out and rested one on the edge of the seat behind Seonghwa’s head. Seonghwa tried to lean away without making it obvious. “You’d make a nice model.”

“Thank you, but I’m really not model material. I’m not interested in doing something like that.” He scooted to the side, getting closer to the window.

The man moved closer . “Hm. Yeah. Someone as pretty as you has no business working, anyway. You should be at home with someone to take care of you and nothing to worry that pretty little head about than making sure the house is clean and dinner is ready.”

Seonghwa furrowed his eyebrows and laughed, mostly from nerves. He didn’t know what to say. “Yeah...” He cleared his throat awkwardly and murmured, “I’m going to rest a bit, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course not. Go ahead." The rest of the ride was silent and Seonghwa was finally able to relax and rest his eyes until his stop. He dozed off and when he opened his eyes, the man was gone. Seonghwa gathered his groceries and headed to the front, stepping off the bus after a quiet thanks to the driver. He rushed down the dimly-lit streets to his apartment, not wanting to get caught in something he didn’t need to.

He lived in a small, shitty apartment complex that looked more like a motel than anything. Most people who lived there were single moms with kids who made too much noise at all hours of the day and night, alcoholics and drug addicts, couples who should have broken up a long time ago, or older people who had nowhere else to go. Most of his neighbours were nice, though. He babysat for a few of the moms sometimes and helped out his older neighbours when they needed it.

“You’re coming in late, Hwa!” The single mom who lived several doors down called.

Seonghwa smiled and waved at her, “Late night at work!” He dug around in his pockets for his keys.

“You mind coming over tomorrow to clean up for me and watch the kids for the night? I’ll pay you.”

“I don’t mind at all,” Seonghwa called, pulling out his keys and unlocking the door. “I’ll be over at the usual time, okay? Night, Mina.” Seonghwa shut and locked the door behind him, left his coat and shoes by the door, then got to putting away his groceries. After he cleaned and babysat, he would have a little more money to help him make it through the next few weeks until he could find a new job or a new agency to get him one. Otherwise, he’d have to go back to being a school janitor.

A job was a job, but he hated cleaning up puke and piss and other messes elementary kids loved making. He could call his mom for help, too, but that would mean stroking her ego. In the end, to prevent family shame, though, she would help him.

She’d talk a lot of shit first, especially after how he’d spoken to her earlier, but he could deal with that. His whole life, when she was around, she was always mean. As a child, it was scolding, nagging, and sometimes just screaming in his face about how useless he was, how he couldn’t do anything right, how he’d never be good enough. He was stupid, he couldn’t clean right, his cooking was revolting. Now that he was older, it was that along with the fact that he couldn’t keep a job, he’d dropped out of college, he didn’t want to get married, and he didn’t want to have kids.

When she called him in the morning, he knew the first thing she would do was remind him of what a failure he was. She’d probably hit him a few times. Seonghwa couldn’t blame her for feeling that way, though. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t feel that way about himself.

All of his life plans had blown up in his face. He’d wanted to finish college and get his degree in early childhood education, then work as a kindergarten teacher because despite not wanting children of his own, he loved them very much. He had planned to continue going to college on top of that to work towards being a counselor or child psychologist, something that would mean something. 

But by the time he got halfway through sophomore year, he just couldn’t keep up with the workload or afford it. After the many years of school before that, he was just tired. He was too stressed and too stupid, and his mother wouldn’t help him because his grades were so horrible, and he’d had no choice but to drop out. At nineteen, he’d had to become a housekeeper because it was the only thing he knew how to do, and that’s what he’d been stuck doing since.

Seonghwa could only bring himself to change into some pajamas and crawl into bed without brushing his teeth or showering. He cried himself to sleep, face buried in his pillow.

The next day, as expected, his mother berated him over the phone. It was the usual verbal abuse he’d come to expect from her. He tuned it out, saying sorry when was appropriate, accepting that she was right and he was always wrong. When she was satisfied, she hung up and he went to Mina’s. He spent the day cleaning while Mina was out doing whatever it was she did. Her children were still small, so they didn’t have school yet. The baby slept all day save for feedings and changings, and her two- and four-year-olds played or watched TV. He made them breakfast, lunch, and dinner. When bedtime came, he got the two bathed and in bed for the night. He minded the baby until Mina came home after midnight with her friends. She paid him and he went home to sleep.

In the morning, his mother came to pick him up to take him to the agency headquarters. She slapped him a few times and berated him again, reminding him of how stupid and useless he was. He’d felt like a child again and he’d cried, ugly and wet. She hadn’t cared, just told him to fix his face and hurry up. They drove uptown in her car and he sat beside her silent with his head hung low while she did all the talking when they arrived. His mother knew how to throw her weight around, he’d give her that. They agreed to keep him on with the stipulation he took a few weeks off to “rest”. He knew that just meant they needed time to find someone willing to take him.

He needed the break, anyway. But it felt weird not working, so he kept himself busy with cleaning for his neighbours, babysitting, and talking long walks downtown. He worked odd jobs when he found them, usually for store owners who were short-staffed. Often, he sat with the little old lady who lived below him. She smoked and talked his ear off while stuffing him with sweets. Seonghwa began to enjoy not working after awhile. It was nice to be able to relax, to finally be able to say, “Of course I can”, when neighbours asked him over for drinks or to chat. Sometimes Mina invited him to come over while her friends were there because she knew he had none of his own.

But through it all, Seonghwa couldn’t shake a creepy feeling that he was being watched. It was there, all hours of the day, no matter where he went or did. That shivery, cold prickle on his skin. Libby, the old woman, told him everyone around there felt that way, that it came with living in the kind of neighbourhood they did. It wasn’t the feeling of being watched, she said, it was the feeling that something bad could happen at any moment because this part of the city was always the wrong place to be. Her words eased his mind and he told himself he had never been home enough before to feel it like she did.

His agency contacted him nearly a month later with a new client. Seonghwa had been so grateful he nearly cried. That same afternoon, he’d gone to meet the couple he’d be working for starting the next day. They were incredibly sweet, both of them. They talked to him like an equal and spent time getting to know him rather than telling him what all they wanted from him. That, they said, could wait until he was on the clock.

When he got back, he was smiling so big that near everyone noticed it. He proudly told them he had a new job and he had a good feeling about it. Mina and Libby congratulated him and BamBam, one of his neighbours who drank a lot but was a nice guy overall, invited him in for a quick drink.

He left with a pleasant buzz and made himself macaroni and cheese, the one thing he couldn’t fuck up, for dinner and sprawled out on the couch to watch SVU re-runs until nine. Seonghwa did the dishes, filled a cup with ice, and went to his bedroom.

The glass of ice went on his nightstand—he got thirsty when he woke up in the night and liked his water to be cold. And he thought melted ice tasted better than cold water—then went to shower. He put on an oversized t-shirt and some underwear when he came out into his bedroom and made a note to do his laundry after work the next day.

Seonghwa sat on his bed and turned on the TV while he brushed, flicking it to the news. “—due to the latest string of kidnappings uptown, local law enforcement are suggesting that—” He changed the channel, nose scrunched up, searching until he found the channel playing Bonanza and went to finish brushing his teeth. No one liked hearing bad news before bed.

When he returned, he crawled into bed, taking off his socks before he climbed under the blankets. He leaned over to turn out his bedside lamp, then curled up with his bear plushie and watched TV until he fell asleep.

A loud noise woke him up. It was a thud, thick and heavy-sounding, like something had fallen. He blinked a few times, rolling over to squint at his alarm clock. “The fuck,” he mumbled, confused. It was a little after two in the morning. Seonghwa wasn’t afraid of the dark or things that went bump in the night, but that sound didn’t feel right. It didn’t sound like something in the apartment settling. It sounded like someone not knowing their way around in the dark. Groggy and disoriented, he tossed off his blankets and stepped out of bed, avoiding the floorboards that creaked on instinct. He took his bear with him. Just in case.

There was nothing in the living room that looked out of the ordinary when his eyes adjusted. He frowned and sighed a little. “Must have been one of the neighbour kids, huh?” Seonghwa squeezed his bear close. “Let’s go back to bed, Ice Bear. Big day tomorrow…” Seonghwa returned to his bedroom and shut the door behind him with a yawn. He put Ice Bear into bed and grabbed his glass to take a sip of water.

As he went to lay back down, there was another loud noise, this time a creak. He froze. It had come from somewhere in his room. Could it be the pipes? He waited in silence for a few moments, waiting for something to happen. When nothing did, he relaxed and let out a small sigh. "God, what is wrong with me?”

Seonghwa started to climb into bed when suddenly, an arm wrapped around his throat. Instantly, terror and dread flooded his veins. He hadn’t seen or heard anyone come in. There was always someone outside too, no matter the hour, so how could someone have gotten in? Surely one of his neighbours would have come and knocked if they had seen someone lurking around. At least he would have hoped they would.

His scream caught in his throat and came out choked and strangled. Seonghwa thrashed in his assailant’s hold, clawing and scratching desperately at their arm. Maybe it was the panic and fear, because Seonghwa was sure it shouldn’t take so little time to choke someone into passing out, but he felt himself losing consciousness quicker than he could manage to slip his fingers between his throat and the man’s arm. His fingers began to go limp and he tried to jerk away, but the man just squeezed harder until his eyes began to flutter and he stopped fighting.

The first thing Seonghwa noticed when he came to was how cold he was. It felt like he’d been locked inside of a freezer. He was shivering from head to toe and his jaw ached, either from his teeth chattering or grinding. He was still only in his sleep shirt and underwear so the cold had seeped into his bones, making them ache deep within. His wrists and ankles were zip-tied together so tightly that his bones grinded against each other.

Seonghwa whimpered, then started to sob, tears leaking down his face and onto the icy concrete beneath his cheek. His throat felt bruised and achy from being choked; it felt like a sore throat, but worse. Every inhale scraped painfully against his dry throat and the cold air burned his lungs. More than anything, he wanted to just lay there and cry, but crying wouldn’t help him. He had all the time to cry if he could get out of this. Staying calm was perhaps the only thing that would give him a fighting chance. He stifled his sobs and blinked away his tears as he tried to observe his surroundings.

He was in a basement. The lights were off but there was a small window high up on one of the walls that had fading sunlight streaming through. It was getting late, then, sunset. The window was too high up and too small for him to fit through even if he tried, but he thought if it came to it, he could get something to climb, break it, and scream for help and make a lot of noise until he was noticed. Across from him, there was a work bench, like carpenter’s used, but he couldn’t see if there was anything on it. Above the bench, there was a pegboard with hooks, and it was covered with tools. Pliers, wrenches, drills, saws, hammers. Slightly off to the side, there was a laundry basin and a tap and near it, a stainless steel table like the ones you might see in a restaurant kitchen.

The next thing he noticed almost made him start to cry again because it felt like just the sight of it sealed his fate. There was a pool of blood on the floor, steadily going down a drain in the center of the basement. It was red and wet, thick with the smell of iron. Just the sight of it sent chills up and down Seonghwa’s spine, along with a feeling of dread. How long ago had someone died in this very basement?

Somewhere, deep in his mind, Seonghwa was grateful to still be alive but he also wished that he wasn’t. He wished that he hadn’t woken up at all and that his end had been back in his apartment, that Libby or Mina or someone would see that he hadn’t left for work and know something was wrong. That they’d find him in a crumpled heap by his bedside and his mother and older brother would finally care about him for once in their lives. That didn’t happen and he was alive, but that didn’t mean it would stay that way. Seonghwa tried to sit up, using his fingers to grip the floor as best as he could and push himself up halfway and used his weight to get him the rest of the way onto his bottom.

He scooted back towards the wall and used it to slowly slide up to his feet. Every few moments, he paused to listen and make sure there was no movement or sound from upstairs. After another of those moments, Seonghwa took a moment to breathe then crouched down, trying to fit his arms underneath him so he could get them in front of him.  His shoulders burned and his eyes pricked with tears from the pain, but he powered through, knowing he wouldn’t be able to get out of the zip ties unless he did. He was just flexible enough that he managed it, though he was sure he’d nearly dislocated both his shoulders in the process.

His breath came out harsh and panicked even as he moved calmly and deliberately, tightening the zip-tie with his teeth and lifting his arms above his head before bringing them down hard and fast. The zip-tie snapped and fell to the floor. “Okay,” Seonghwa whispered to himself, ignoring the stab of pain it sent through his neck. “I can do this. I can get out. I’m okay. I’ll be okay.” He hobbled his way to the work bench and grabbed a pocket knife, popping it out and quickly cutting his feet loose. The knife was tucked into his sleeve and since there was no way out down here, he’d have to go up.

Seonghwa was certain that the door was locked, meaning he had to wait for someone to come down or make some noise to force someone down so he could ambush them. The last thing he wanted was to get shoved down the stairs or shot because he had alerted the person to get a weapon too.

Waiting was the safer option. He picked up both zip ties, hiding them under the work bench and out of sight, and made sure nothing was out of place before he returned to the spot where he’d woken up and laid back down exactly as he’d been before.

Then, he waited. It felt like hours before he heard footsteps overhead, coming closer and closer until the basement door opened. Seonghwa tensed with fear, but steeled himself, preparing for just the right moment as the footsteps stomped down the stairs. A man came into view and Seonghwa recognized him instantly. He was the man from the bus. His breath caught in his throat but he stayed quiet, giving no sign of recognition.

“I see you’re awake.”

“I-it’s cold,” Seonghwa said quietly. “Really c-cold.” His fingers felt numb and his extremities had steadily been turning blue. The man was shorter than he was, and he didn’t look all that strong, but Seonghwa couldn’t really tell since his sweater was baggy. He had been dressed similarly on the bus too so he had no clue what he was dealing with. Either way, he thought he could overpower him if he really tried. The thought of being murdered or raped had his adrenaline spiking. “Why is it so cold?”

The man smiled at him, approaching like he had all the time in the world. “Poor thing,” he cooed, “you’re shivering.” Seonghwa wait until the man was closer and sprang to his feet, ignoring the cold, stiffness in his limbs and lunged at the man with the knife. He stabbed it into his arm and then yanked it out, quickly plunging it into his thigh. The man cursed and yelled out as Seonghwa pulled the knife from his leg and stumbled to his feet, heading for the stairs. He rushed up the stairs as quickly as he could and found himself in a hallway.

Without much thought and far too much panicking, he hurried down the hallway, stumbling towards the living room where he could see the front door. But he was in such a frenzy, zeroed in on the door, that he didn’t realize he wouldn’t reach it before it was too late and something blunt whacked across his skull and sent his vision in a spiraling, static-y black as he hit the floor.

Seonghwa woke up in the basement again. This time, he was on his back, the cold of the stainless steel table bleeding through the fabric of his t-shirt and making his legs and arms prickle with goosebumps. His head throbbed and his vision was bleary. A strangled sound fell from his lips as he tried to crane his neck and look around, only to find it held in place with a thick leather strap.

“L-le’me go,” he tried to say, words thick and slurred.

A sharp crack filled the room, a slap, and his head would have jerked to the side had it not been for the strap keeping him from moving his neck. Pain exploded in his left cheek and tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. “Shut the fuck up. You do not speak without permission. Speaking is a privilege, not a right. Am I understood?”

Head still spinning, Seonghwa managed a head jerk that was some semblance of a nod. 

He heard the man talking, but couldn’t make out a single word. He could tell, at least, that he wasn’t talking to Seonghwa. It was like he was talking to someone else. Seonghwa closed his eyes and tried to will away the dizziness he felt. 

“—I was going to be nice to him, but he had to go and ruin it by trying to escape. I was hoping he’d be obedient—” There was a loud clatter, metallic sounding, and Seonghwa flinched, his ears ringing from the sharp sound. “But now he’ll have to die sooner than I’d planned, huh?”

There was a click and then a bright light shining overhead, blinding Seonghwa. Even when he closed his eyes, the light was so bright, reddish-orange filled his eyelids. Thankfully, the light was redirected just below his neck a few moments later. When Seonghwa opened his eyes again, he could still see the faint burn of the light, but he could also make out what looked like cameras all around him, capturing different angles.

The man came beside him with scissors and began to cut off his shirt and then his underwear, the blades sliding through the fabric with ease and leaving him naked and even colder than he’d been before. “How should I punish him? Should I cut off his hands first?”

“N-no, please, I’m sorry,” Seonghwa whispered quickly, hands instinctively clenching into tight fists. “A-anything but that—” Another slap cut him off and he inhaled sharply, refusing to cry out and give the man that satisfaction of knowing he’d hurt him.

“He’s fucking ugly? Yeah, he is, isn’t he?” The man cackled, his laugh high-pitched and grating against Seonghwa’s ears. The words hurt more than being hit, though. It was what made him whimper, it was what made him cry. He knew he wasn’t the easiest person to look at, but did he really look that bad?

He knew he hadn’t been taking care of himself as well as he should, but things had been hard and stressful, and he was so tired every single day no matter how much sleep he got. “Poor thing,” the man said, voice chock full of insincere sympathy. “Don’t like being called ugly, do you?”

Against his better judgement, Seonghwa shook his head slightly, but said nothing. 

The man laughed again and slapped a hand on his stomach hard, like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard, and Seonghwa hiccuped. “Will you just get it fucking over with?” he sobbed. He didn’t care if the man hit him again. “If you’re going to kill me or torture me, just do it. Whatever you’re going to do, just fucking d-do it.”

Surprisingly, the man didn’t hit him. “I’m going to gut you. Chop you up into tiny little pieces and fucking eat you.”

“Then get a knife and a saw and fucking do it.” Seonghwa took in a deep, shaky breath. “I don’t care. I bet they’d like that, w-wouldn’t they?” He glanced at the camera closest to him. “You fuckers like watching ugly bitches die because you know even they wouldn’t give your sorry asses the time of day?”

Silence followed his question, a pause Seonghwa hadn’t expected. He wondered if his words had gotten under the man’s skin. “This one’s interesting, huh? Maybe I should keep you for a while. Destroy that defiant act of yours before I eat you.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” Seonghwa spat back, though there was little bite to it with how badly he was shaking.

“Don’t worry, you’ll learn to be,” the man said jovially, disappearing from his peripheral. When Seonghwa caught sight of him again, it was as he undid his restraints to turn him onto his stomach and tie him back down. “You see, down here in this basement, I control you. I own you. You are nothing but a toy for my and my audience’s pleasure. You have no rights down here, except the rights to scream and to cry. You do nothing without my permission. You eat when I allow it, you drink when I allow it, you speak when I allow it. And when you’ve broken, you will be my food. Am I understood?”

Seonghwa clenched his jaw, flinching as his hands were tightly restrained against the table. He tugged against them and said, voice edging on a weak whimper, “Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to play with your food?”

A slightly familiar sound filled the air in the next second—when he was a child, his mother often punished him with whatever she could get her hands on. Often, it was a thin, sturdy switch that she kept in the living room to scare off stray dogs in the neighbourhood. Seonghwa remembered all too well the sound of it swishing through the air as she brought it down on him. He’d learned to know how high she had lifted it by the sound alone and how much he needed to brace himself in response. The sound was like that, but heavier, thicker. Scarier. He hardly had the time to tense up and prepare himself when a pain unlike anything he had experienced before seared across the flesh of his back.

It was like electricity surging through every layer of flesh and bone in his back, like it went through him and when the initial sting dissipated, an entirely new wave of pain began to radiate right where whatever he’d been hit with landed. He jerked forward, hands clenching into tight fists, his mouth hung open in shock. Every bit of air in his lungs felt like it had been punched out of him. The pain was worse than the switch had ever been.

He didn’t even have the time to breathe before another lash landed across his back. And then another and another and another. The man didn’t speak, didn’t make a single sound save for the occasional grunt as he swung. Seonghwa wanted to cry, to scream, to do something , but he didn’t have the air in his lungs to do so.

Tears rolled down his cheek, filling his mouth with saltiness, and he felt drool dripping down his chin—he had yet to close his mouth after the initial shock—worse, though, was the feeling of wetness on his back. Every sense felt heightened in that moment and he swore he could hear his blood flinging off whatever he was being whipped with and spattering on the man and the table and the floors.

“Poor thing,” the man cooed, pausing to round the table and stand in front of Seonghwa. He crouched down and Seonghwa met his gaze, eyes unfocused and bleary with tears. He felt his mouth moving, opening and closing, like a fish when it was taken out of water. “It hurts, doesn’t it?”

The man wore a mask, black with no distinguishing features to it. All Seonghwa could see were his eyes, brown and dead and so, so cold, staring back at him and glittering ever so slightly with a sadistic glee. He stared at Seonghwa like he wasn’t a person, a living thing. The man lifted the implement he was using and swished a few times, eyes crinkling as the sound made Seonghwa flinch. “It’s called a sjambok.” He said it conversationally, casually, like he was announcing that it was raining outside. “Like a traditional whip, but worse. I don’t get to use it often, but I want to break you slowly, bit by bit.”

Seonghwa’s lungs burned and it was then he remembered he could breathe now. He inhaled deeply, quickly, trying to get all he could. The sjambok was about three and a half feet in length, thicker towards the handle and tapered out to a much thinner end. It was made of leather, well-oiled and flexible. And his blood was smeared across it. “P-please,” he croaked, a sob finally able to spill past his lips. “Please, s-stop..”

“What did I tell you?” The man snapped his wrist forward and the sjambok cracked across his cheek like a gunshot, catching under the curve of his jaw. Instantly, a hot, angry red welt rose and burned across his face. Seonghwa gasped and heaved, head ringing from the impact. “Don’t. Fucking. Talk.” Every word was punctuated with another strike to the face, each pointedly avoiding his mouth, nose, and eyes. He almost thought the man cared about not causing permanent damage or hurting him too severely.

His head slumped forward and he took in shaky breaths, crying silently as his face throbbed with pain. He laid there, quivering and whimpering as the pain only grew worse instead of easing up. His entire body was numb, shaky, weak. “M-m’…m’g-gonna—” he slurred before he retched a few times, stomach seizing violently, before vomit finally spewed past his lips and from his nose onto the floor. Most of it was the mac and cheese he ate for dinner along with bile; it burned his nose and the smell and feel of it made him gag.

“You’re fucking disgusting.” Seonghwa’s face crumpled at the disgust in the man’s voice. The man tossed the sjambok aside and Seonghwa’s gaze tracked his movements as he undid his restraints and dragged him from the table. His legs wobbled and nearly buckled as his feet hit the floor. “Can’t even take a well-deserved beating without puking everywhere.”

He was taken to the laundry basin where the man dropped him in a heap on the floor and screwed a hose onto the tap. “Get up. Hold onto the basin.”

Seonghwa reached for the edge of the basin, sobbing as he used it to drag himself to his feet and leaned against it for support. The hose was turned on and cold water sprayed across his back. “N-ngh,” he shuddered, body still so cold. Pink water pooled at his feet and only when it ran clear, was he forced to turn around only to be hit in the face with the water. He gasped and gagged until he realized the man was cleaning him, not punishing him further, though it certainly felt like it.

“Get the puke out. I’m not gonna stand here forever.”

Quickly, Seonghwa lifted his hands, wincing as he scrubbed at his face and exhaled sharply to force any vomit left in his nasal passages out. He let the water fill his mouth and drip out to remove the taste and remnants of it. When he was deemed clean, the man turned the spray to the floor and rinsed away the vomit on the floor until it washed down the drain. Seonghwa stayed still, absolutely still, as the man returned to him and turned off the water.

He didn’t dare speak and waited for instruction. The last thing he wanted was for the man to beat him again. “Against the wall. Bend your legs like you’re sitting in a chair. If I come back and you’ve moved from that position, I will beat you again. Am I understood?”

When Seonghwa nodded, the man went to turn off his laptop and cameras. Seonghwa hesitated but wasted little time standing with back to the wall and lowering himself into a siting position. Already weak, the position had legs trembling within seconds, and the open wounds on his back stung from the rough concrete of the wall.

The man meticulously packed his cameras and laptop up and locked them in a small closet Seonghwa hadn’t noticed before. Then he disappeared upstairs. Seonghwa waited, legs shaking the longer he held the position, until the basement door opened again. The man had clothing in one hand and a towel in the other. The towel was thrown at him.

“Dry off. From now on, you may speak when I talk to you, but I only want to hear ‘yes, sir’ and ‘no, sir’ unless otherwise specified.”

“Y-yes… sir,” Seonghwa croaked. He dried himself off with shaking hands as he peeled away from the wall. “W—?”

“What did I just say?”

Seonghwa shut his mouth quick, averting his gaze as he neatly folded the towel, and took a few hesitant steps toward the table to place it there. The man threw the clothes at him next, lip curled in a disgusted sneer as he watched him pull on the thin sweatpants and t-shirt. They did little to ease his shivering, but he appreciated the covering, nonetheless.

After that, he was tied up again and left laying on the floor. When the man left, he turned out the lights, and Seonghwa cried. Why him?

From that day on, the man came down every day to set up his cameras. Every few days, whenever he seemed to remember that Seonghwa needed food, he would leave some, usually stale bread and a small cup of water. Sometimes, Seonghwa would wake up restrained to the table or hanging from a hook in the ceiling. Other times, the man would wait until he was awake to do anything. But no matter what, Seonghwa was tortured or beaten in some way.

From the sjambok, which he had quickly come to hate for it’s nasty bite, to belts, canes, whips, switches, bats, metal poles, hammers, wrenches—everything was fair game and purely dependent on viewer requests and the man’s desires—sometimes, he just used his body, and somehow, that was worse, being kicked and punched and slapped and stepped on; it was so much more degrading and humiliating. The man had taken to cracking his skull against the table or the floor recently after Seonghwa had backtalked him once—he’d only told the man that he couldn’t take anymore after the man insisted he could—but he only did once or twice a week so he didn’t kill him too soon.

It wasn’t long before his body being covered in welts, bruises, open wounds from whippings, black eyes, busted lips, and all manner of injury had become Seonghwa’s new state of normal. It hurt like hell but he was becoming used to it, coming to accept it. His pain tolerance had even started to grow. Now, he didn’t puke anymore, at least not unless the man beat him too hard for too long.

Emotionally and mentally, he wasn’t faring much better. The verbal abuse he received, both from the man and the viewers, hurt more than anything his mother or brother had ever told him. The words stung long after his wounds no longer did. Physical wounds always healed in the end but the emotional ones always took longer, or didn’t heal at all.

He hated being told how ugly he was, he hated having his appearance picked apart and mocked, he hated being told his bruised and bloody face was an improvement, he hated being poked and jabbed in his ribs and stomach and having what little fat was there pinched cruelly. Most of all, he hated being called a pig.

The man pulled his hair hard enough that his scalp bled sometimes and had come to enjoy forcing him to crawl on all fours and act like an animal, usually a pig or a dog. Suffering through the man’s laughter as he was forced to oink or bark was utterly humiliating, so much so, that he’d often just break down into sobs and beg him to stop, which nearly always resulted in a beating.

“You should be grateful,” the man would say, “You say ‘thank you, sir’ or nothing at all.”

The man was always insistent about that, so Seonghwa quickly learned that being obedient, appealing to the man’s evident need to be in control and have his authority acknowledged, made the beatings less severe, made his words not so hurtful. It made the man happy in some sick, twisted way.

As much as he wanted to be strong and put together, Seonghwa gave in to being good, to being what the man so clearly wanted him to be.

“F-forty-seven! Thank you, sir!” Seonghwa cried out, knuckles white and palms bleeding from how hard he was clenching his fists. He didn’t know when he had started counting out loud, he’d started in his head because it helped him stay grounded, but the man hadn’t told him to stop counting yet, so he kept going.

The whip, a proper one, hit against his back several times in quick succession, and Seonghwa bit back his scream. “Forty-eight, forty-nine, f-fifty, f-fifty,” he gasped out, breath catching in his throat and choking him. “F-fifty-one, thank y-you, sir!”

He wanted the whipping to end . Nausea had his stomach churning and his head was spinning, vision blurry and full of spots. Instead of a number and thank you, Seonghwa heard himself say, voice suddenly so much weaker and shaky, “S-sir, I d-don’t— d’nt, I-I d—…”

“Oh, come on, now, piggy!” The man laughed at him, voice filled with malice and amusement. “You were doing so well, don’t fuck it up now! You still have so far to go!”

Blood was dripping down his back and legs and his skin stung where the whip had broken through, letting sweat seep into the wounds. Seonghwa sobbed and let out a wail, head lolling backwards clumsily. “I can’t!” he screamed, “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t! S-sir, please, I c-can’t d’it no more! P-please! I d-don’t feel— M’g-gonna—”

“Are you giving up, piggy? I thought you were tough! What happened, huh?” The man yelled at him, voice taunting, “Piggy can’t take a few hits without squealing?”

Seonghwa couldn’t respond, even as hard as he tried to. Just breathing was becoming hard; his heart was beating quickly, his breathing starting to become shallow and rapid. “P-please, p-p’ease,” he gasped, squeezing his eyes shut in a weak attempt to will away his disorientation and nausea. “S-sir.”

The man growled and Seonghwa fully expected to be whipped again. Instead, the whip clattered to the floor and the man began to mutter under his breath. “Stupid fucking pig,” he cursed, “Fucking bitch.” Seonghwa heard the laptop slam shut roughly and then the man grabbed at his legs and lifted him up off the hook he was hanging from.

“S-sir, sir, sir,” Seonghwa babbled, sobbing and gasping as he was dropped onto the floor, his chin cracking hard against the concrete. He tried to crawl away but received a rough kick to the back of his head, forcing him back to the floor.

“Stop fucking moving.” The hose turned on and he was barraged with freezing cold water. Seonghwa cried out and thrashed around on the floor, mindless incoherent pleas falling from his lips. “I should kill you already. Fuckin’ tired of all your crying and screaming. You’re so ugly. All you’re good for is being a punching bag and a fuckin’ meal.”

“P-please! P-please, please, please, please, s-stop, stop, stop!” Seonghwa writhed and squirmed, pulling at the rope around his wrists. He screamed and kicked at the air. “M’g’nna die, m’g’nna die! Gonna die! I w-wanna go home! I w-want my mommy,” he wailed at the top of his lungs, “Please, let me go!”

“Shut up!”

“I want my mommy! I wanna go home to my mommy!” Seonghwa screamed.

“WOULD YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP!” The man roared, drawing a louder scream from Seonghwa as he swung the hose at him, the metal tip getting him right in the throat and turning his scream to a sickening wheeze. He hit him again and again and again, each one getting him in the head or neck and spewing water into his face. “SHUT UP. SHUT UP. SHUT THE FUCK UP.”

In an instant, any noise that would have come out in the next second seized in Seonghwa’s throat and was swallowed back down like vomit. The pure, unadulterated rage in the man’s voice terrified him. He felt like he was four again with his mother towering over him, screaming in his face. Worse than that, though, because at least his mother would sometimes try to be nice after. Seonghwa didn’t even dare apologize. He clenched his jaw so tightly it ached and curled up in a ball, trying to protect his head and neck from any further assault.

A heavy silence fell between the two of them, Seonghwa’s from terror and the man’s from rage. The only sound was that of their breathing, laboured and shaky.

Without a word, the man threw the hose at him and went upstairs, slamming the door so hard, Seonghwa heard the wood crack.

Seonghwa’s body refused to let him relax until over two hours later when he was sure that the man wasn’t going to return. It was only then that he let himself cry as he dragged himself up from the floor and hobbled to the work bench to cut himself free of the rope. This time, he put the knife back. There was no use in trying to escape, not again. He knew better now.

He picked up the hose and stumbled to the laundry basin to turn it off after he washed the streaks of blood staining his legs. Goosebumps covered every inch of his skin as he pulled on his clothing. They were wet and covered in blood stains, but he was so cold, he had no choice but to wear them. Seonghwa curled up in the corner of the basement, curled up as small as he could get to stave off the cold, and sobbed into his arms.

It was hours before the man came back. Seonghwa was still awake and he watched him from the safety of his corner, body trembling and teeth chattering. He had a thin piece of foam folded under one arm and a white box in his other hand. The foam went on top of the workbench, still folded, and then he turned to him, expressionless as always.

“Come over here, piggy.”

Every part of Seonghwa was screaming no, no, no , but he knew he had no choice but to obey, no matter how scared he was. Slowly, he uncurled from his ball and crawled over, arms threatening to give out from under him. The man patted the table. “On your stomach.”

Seonghwa felt his face crumple and his lip start to quiver. Still, he climbed up onto the cold, cold table and laid down, arms hanging loosely off the sides. His shirt was pushed up and the man poured a cold liquid over his back. It stung instantly and Seonghwa grit his teeth through a hiss.

“Your behaviour today was absolutely unacceptable. Clearly I haven’t been beating you enough since you decided it was okay to disobey me, have I, piggy?”

It was a test. Seonghwa knew it was. He tried not to cry, opening and closing his mouth a few time before he whispered, “N-no, sir.”

“No sir, what ? And speak up.” The man dabbed his back with a cloth and then began to slather it in something. Whatever it was, it eased the pain enough for Seonghwa to be able to focus and breathe properly again. Sometimes, after a bad beating, one that broke open skin, the man would tend to his wounds. Seonghwa liked when that happened because for a brief moment, he was nice to him. Physically, anyway.

“No, sir,” he repeated louder, “P-piggy… Piggy h-hasn’t been beaten e-enough.”

“I’m so glad you agree.” The man pulled him into a sitting position and observed his throat and head thoroughly. “Don’t worry, piggy, we’ll get that behaviour straightened out tomorrow, won’t we?”

“Yes, sir.” Seonghwa nodded, blinking away the tears threatening to fall.

The man smiled and reached up to squeeze his cheeks in one hand like one might do to a child and cooed, “Good piggy.” He pulled away and picked up the foam, tossing it onto the floor and unrolling it with a kick. “Get your rest, pig. Ugly as you are, you need it.”

Seonghwa slid off the table and shuffled to the foam mat. It was barely an inch thick and covered in stains, no doubt from various bodily fluids, but Seonghwa didn’t care. He was happy to have something between him and the cold floor. Sniffling, he dragged the mat to his corner and sat down on it, pulling his knees to his chest.

He didn’t feel safe trying to rest when the man was still there. He watched the man clean the table and the floor and waited until he started to head upstairs.

The words caught in his throat as he debated saying them or not. He forced them out after a few seconds when the man was halfway up, “Thank you, sir.”

His footsteps paused. For a moment, Seonghwa regretted saying anything at all. After a pause, the man grunted at him and continued upstairs. He turned out the lights and closed the door. Seonghwa let out a shaky breath and laid down, wrapping his arms around himself and pulling his knees to his chest.

Over the next few weeks, the beatings grew worse. Seonghwa knew part of it had to do with him needing punishment—he accepted that and knew he deserved it—but it seemed like the blood-lust of the man and his audience had both grown exponentially. Seonghwa wasn’t sure how his body could still handle it. The man had at least started to feed him more, though, and that helped, but not by much.

The man had started breaking his bones and tasing him, bumping up the voltage if it even seemed like he was getting used to the previous setting. The bone breaking started when he teased him with a sledgehammer, swinging and hitting around his legs, threatening to shatter his femurs. Seonghwa thought he must have shown how frightened he was of that happening on his face. Two days later, when Seonghwa accidentally hit him while he was seizing on the floor from being tased, he broke his fingers on that hand. All five of them, one by one. He had set and bandaged them later that night and called him a good piggy. The tasing was something the man had done on a whim. He had one lying around, hadn’t even been sure it had batteries in it, and just jabbed it into Seonghwa’s ribcage. It had been excruciating and the man laughed as he twitched and seized on the floor.

A few of his ribs were broken from being stomped on, which made it harder and more painful to scream. That only made the man hurt him more. Seonghwa, though, was finding himself growing used to the treatment. In fact, he almost took comfort in the assurance that he would be beaten every single day, without fail. It was a constant, a form of stability and structure, even, that he had never had before.

Even if it hurt, he now said ‘thank you, sir’ on instinct. In the midst of his cries and screams, he had learned to stop begging for it to end, and learned to beg for more instead, and to say ‘thank you, sir’ when he got it.

He also learned more about the man, just by watching him, for they rarely talked. He didn’t like it when Seonghwa cried that he wanted his mother or wanted to go home. Seonghwa thought that it made him feel guilty in some way because his eyes, usually cold and dark, always seemed to hold some odd look he had yet to identify when he did. When Seonghwa was good, the man would be pleased enough to show him some kindness. Sometimes that meant giving his wounds better care, which once happened after Seonghwa had taken a wrench to the head and in his daze, thanked him for beating him and teaching him how to be a good pig. Seonghwa had cried that night from humiliation, but the act had made the man come down and bandage him up and check his head tenderly to make sure it was alright aside from the lump that had formed. He even gave him different clothes, slightly less thin and no less dirty, but warmer nonetheless.

It was easier to read the man’s moods now, too. He was usually emotionless, unless he was angry, but Seonghwa was learning to read his body language, to search his eyes for the minuscule glint of emotion that sometimes showed there. When he was angry, he did everything louder. Seonghwa could hear him on the main floor stomping and slamming and banging and throwing. He’d stomp down the stairs. If he was angry, he seethed silently and gave only clipped orders, usually to tell Seonghwa to take a certain position or do something. If he was enraged, he screamed, roared , at him, whether it was orders or abuse. He did everything harder too. He hit harder, kicked harder, his words even hit harder. He was like an animal, primal and feral. Everything he did was on instinct.

The best thing to do when that happened was stay quiet and make himself small. No matter what, Seonghwa did not make a sound and stayed on the floor as much as possible, shoulders slouched so he was tiny and harmless, and he didn’t speak, not even to thank him. A mere whimper would make the man’s rage ten times worse and the beatings that happened as a result of that left Seonghwa effectively immobile in a pool of his own blood.

When he was in a good mood, he didn’t beat him so harshly. Seonghwa kept him there by being polite and being vocal because that’s what he liked, what the viewers liked.

And when he was in one of his rare very good moods, which had only happened once so far, Seonghwa was permitted to speak freely and even sit close by without fear of getting clocked in the face just because the man felt like it. He could ask questions, but that didn’t mean they’d always be answered, such as when he asked what his name was. But he answered other things, sometimes. The man’s favourite colours were red and yellow right now, he liked meat and ramen but he hated vegetables so he didn’t eat them very much, and he drank a lot of coffee. He didn’t have any pets (“Besides you, of course, piggy,” he’d said) but he wanted to get one someday, maybe a dog, but he wasn’t sure. They never talked for very long. Eventually, the man would cut it short and leave.

Seonghwa thought that it was because he didn’t want to get attached. For the time being, Seonghwa was much like a chicken or a cow. Or a pig, to be more appropriate. And the man was like a farmer. He was keeping him for now, but eventually, he would decide that it was time to kill him. To eat him. And it was hard to do that when you formed a bond with something. Seonghwa understood it. It still frightened him, the thought of being killed and eaten, though. He cried himself to sleep thinking about it some nights.

Most nights, though, he didn’t cry anymore. Crying didn’t make the pain coursing through his body go away and he liked to save his tears for when things really hurt. He mostly slept or stared at the wall, or the ceiling if his back didn’t hurt too much, and he’d wait until he passed out or the man came downstairs.

He could try to escape again if he wanted to. Seonghwa knew he was at a point where the man trusted him enough to not do anything stupid. He hardly tied him up anymore outside of streaming. He left his tools and weapons out in the open and somehow had come to trust that Seonghwa wouldn’t one day pick one up and kill him. That trust wasn’t misplaced, as much as Seonghwa hated it. Even if he did kill him and get away, where would he go? His mother and brother were probably happy he was gone, if they had even noticed. Someone else had probably moved into his apartment by now. There was no way he was going to be able to get his job back either. The family he was going to work for had probably found a replacement already. He had nothing left for him.

The basement door opening tore Seonghwa from his thoughts. He opened his eyes and sat up, waiting until the man’s shoes appeared. Instantly, he could tell he was in a good mood. Not good enough that Seonghwa would be allowed to speak to him a whole lot, but good enough. Seonghwa bit back his smile as the man hopped down the last step and approached the closet to get his equipment and set up like he always did.

Seonghwa waited patiently, for what else could he do?

“Today is Valentine’s Day, piggy. Did you know that?”

“No, sir. Do you have a Valentine?”

That meant Seonghwa had been here for nearly four months. It felt like it had been so much longer than that.

The man chuckled, as though he found it funny that he had even asked him that question at all. “Strip,” he ordered, turning on his laptop and setting it on the table.

Seonghwa stood and removed his clothes with his good hand, leaving the pants and sweatshirt on his “bed”. When the man finished setting up, Seonghwa approached quietly, hands held out for the rope that hung from the ceiling. The man’s lips quirked up in the ghost of a smile as he tied his wrists firmly, but with enough room that he could slip a finger between his wrists and the rope.

Without having to be told, Seonghwa lifted on his tip toes so it’d be easier for the man to hoist him into the air. Today, he was kind, and only lifted him a few inches, until his toes just barely touched above the ground. It put less strain on his shoulders and hand. The man tied off the rope on the work bench and tugged to check it was secure.

Then they began. The man started the stream and put on his mask before stepping into view.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” he said, “I knew you’d all be lonely today. Or perhaps feeling a little jaded. I understand. How fortunate that we have a lovely little piggy to fix that, hm?”

Requests came in quickly. Seonghwa could never read them when he was so high up and he was grateful for that. He preferred being surprised rather than having to suffer the fear-filled anticipation of some horrible thing that was going to be done to him. He often wondered how the people who watched these things became so… so depraved. How they had come to enjoy these things. Were they born that way? Did they stumble across something in their youth that forever changed their psyche?

“Feet up, pig.” Seonghwa whimpered minutely in response and braced his shoulders before he lifted his legs up, presenting them to the man. “Yeah, it’s learning quickly, ain’t it? It’s a real shame I don’t keep my toys for long. This pig’s the best one I’ve had. It takes beatings so well, looks so pretty when its all bruised and bloody for me.” The words made Seonghwa squirm, but his heart swelled with pride all the same, as though the praise would somehow mean he’d be spared his fate.

The man picked up a switch, one of the thinnest he had, and brought it down on the soles of his feet hard. Seonghwa clenched one of his fists and groaned, toes curling from the pain. Having his feet whipped was unbearable, but he knew this was only a warm-up. It wouldn’t be long before the requests would get worse. Quickly, the man set a rhythm, repeatedly whipping at the soles of his feet without a moment in between.

Seonghwa’s legs shook from the strain but the man was in a good mood today and he didn’t want to ruin it by putting his legs down for a break. When the onslaught of hits stopped, Seonghwa barely had the time to let out a sigh of relief before his right leg seized violently and he cried out, toes curling and muscles cramping painfully.

“A-ah!” he cried out, legs dropping before he could stop them. The taser was jabbed into his legs five more times, then his stomach another few times. Every jolt made him groan and seize and thrash against his bonds; even through the pain, he was careful not to kick.

“Look at that. What a good piggy! What do piggies say, hm? What do they say?” The man cooed at him, shoving the taser against his leg and zapping him again. “What do piggies say?”

“Ghh,” Seonghwa groaned through gritted teeth, sweat already beginning to drip down the side of his face. “O-oink oink.” The man smiled and reached up to pat Seonghwa's stomach.

The man’s eyes crinkled behind the mask. “Very good! You're such a good piggy, aren’t you?”

A tremulous smile teased at Seonghwa’s lips as he steadied himself on the tips of his toes. The words 'thank you' lingered on his tongue, desperate to tumble forward, but he was too frightened to speak just yet, because he didn't know if doing so would make the man angry or not. It almost sickened him, just how happy those words made him feel, how happy it made him feel to be called good.

It made what came next easier to bear. Whippings were never easy for Seonghwa. It wasn't so much the pain in the moment, as horrible as it was, as much as it was the pain after; the way it radiated throughout every inch of his body, from his shoulders to his legs, the way he couldn't lie in nearly any position without reopening the scabs. Most of all, he hated the scars and how much uglier they made him feel; that hurt too.

Whimpers spilled from his lips, body already trembling and tense with anticipation. The first lash caught his hip and the length of the whip wrapped around, searing into his back. Seonghwa screamed at first, he always did, at least until his throat was too raw to keep it up. Then he just sobbed loudly, openly.

Every lash seemed to sting more than the last and it seemed like the man was playing a game of angling the whip and his hand just right to catch old scars right on the mark and reopen them. The distinct slow wet feeling of blood trickling down his skin made Seonghwa prickle and squirm.

He hung limply, taking every lash, and trying his best to keep his eyes open so when the man looked into his face, he could see he wasn't weak, he wasn't giving in, that he could take more. He could be good and take so much more. When the man stopped, Seonghwa had to bite down on his lip to keep himself from crying and begging for more on instinct.

"How else should we play with our piggy, hm?" The man twirled the handle of the whip around in his fingers while Seonghwa hung with his head low, trembling and panting, body occasionally jerking with the aftermath of shock.

Seonghwa watched him fling blood off his whip and roll it up before setting it aside. “Oh, here’s a good one. This will be your first time with this one, pig,” the man hummed, turning from the laptop to grab a knife. He twirled it in his fingers as he approached, the fingers of his free hand reaching out and dragging up the expanse of his sweaty, blood-streaked stomach.

“S-sir?” Seonghwa whispered, stomach tensing up at the touch.

“Be good and squeal for me.” His hand pulled back and without warning, he stabbed the knife into the side of his stomach. The sensation was immediate and utterly overwhelming as he slid it in until the hilt brushed against the edges of the new wound. A high-pitched whine tore out of Seonghwa’s throat, his lips going slack as he tried to form words, whether they were supposed to be 'thank you' or 'please stop', he couldn’t tell.

He panted and gasped, eyelids fluttering and stomach cramping as though it couldn’t decide whether to relax or tense up from the intrusion. The man’s eyes darted to the side, to the laptop, and Seonghwa saw a hint of surprise in his eyes. He could tell because they grew softer at the edges and drooped down just slightly. The expression lasted for only a second. They only ever did.

The knife was pulled out of him with a wet squelch and Seonghwa groaned, wishing he could double over and cradle his stomach. There was blood, a lot, but not as much as he expected there to be. He thought the man knew just the right spot to stab that it wouldn’t hurt him too badly. Seonghwa blinked, trying to fight the black at the edges of his vision; the pain wasn’t anything he wasn’t used to, most of what he felt was shock that he’d been stabbed in the first place.

Small fingers ran up his thigh, going up until they reached the open wound. The man hesitated, something he rarely did and quickly played off as though he were simply teasing him. Seonghwa could only breathe, shallow and quick, completely mute with shock, as two of the man’s perfectly manicured fingers, adorned with black polish, slid into him. Into him.

It was an intrusion of the greatest kind, too intimate and too personal, and tears pricked at his eyes. He did not dare move, both for fear that he would hurt himself further in doing so and that he would anger the man. His flesh stretched around the fingers in a sickening way and the sound—wet, slick, visceral—made Seonghwa feel ill and hot.

Carefully, the man twisted his fingers, blood seeping out around them and sliding slowly down his stomach and thigh. Seonghwa felt his legs twitch and heard the most pitiful sounds, like a hurt puppy, fill his ears, sounds that were coming from his quivering lips.

“Does it hurt?” The man whispered, voice so low, Seonghwa felt like it was only meant for him to hear. 

His lips barely moved and his words came out a shallow whisper: “Yes, sir.” The man’s eyes were focused on his face, pupils blown wide. Seonghwa had never seen that look on him before. He drew his lower lip into his mouth and bit back his agonized groan as the fingers thrusted into him, moving in and out slowly, teasingly.

They curled and twisted as though searching for a prostate that wasn’t there, stroking at the muscle and organs within him, touching things that never should be touched.

“Does it feel good?” He asked next, voice still as low as before.

Seonghwa’s breath caught in his throat—he tilted his head, eyes searching the man’s, taking in how much darker they seemed be, how wide his pupils were, the way they shone under the dim basement lights. He realized in the same moment that he was hard and that what he saw in the man’s eyes was arousal. Lust. The words tumbled out before he could catch them. “Y-yes, sir,” he breathed.

Precum gleamed on his tip and he felt a buzzing tingle deep in the pit of his stomach. He exhaled slowly, trying to speak, only for his words to come out in a low moan. Maybe the man didn’t care about the viewers seeing his face anymore or maybe they knew what he looked like and he only wore the mask for show, Seonghwa did not know, but he did know that the flush to the man’s cheeks as he lifted off his mask and tossed it aside was something new, something he had never seen on him before.

The man dipped his head down and Seonghwa let his head fall back as a hot, wet tongue laved over the skin of his stomach until it reached his fingers. The moment the taste of blood hit his tongue, a feral sound fell from his lips, like a starved animal who had finally gotten its jaws around the flesh of a fresh meal, and his fingers slipped out only to be replaced by the hot, wet muscle.

He licked into him hungrily, eyes shut and face pressed against his skin as much as could be managed, as much as was possible, so he could get his tongue in deeper. Seonghwa squeezed his thighs together, toes curling as he whimpered, both from the pain and the pleasure that was slowly coming to accompany it. The noises the man made his head feel fuzzy and full and suddenly he thought that he would not mind if the man really did eat him right now because for a moment, no matter how brief, he understood the hunger and understood that if he was going to be eaten, no matter how much he didn’t want it, in the end—

In the end, he would have purpose. He would be wanted. He would be enjoyed.

Seonghwa wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that, the man’s face pressed against his stomach, his fingers occasionally dipping in to join his tongue. He just knew the longer they stayed that way, the more light-headed and delirious he felt. It felt like forever before the man pulled away and Seonghwa managed the strength to loll his head forward. They stared at each other, the man at his sweaty face and bit-swollen lips, and Seonghwa at the man’s blood stained lips and chin, the smear of it across his sharp, little nose.

“I’m gonna puke,” Seonghwa whispered. Or at least, it felt like he would. The man licked his lips slowly, eyelids almost fluttering as the blood there hit his tongue again. Something about the way he looked at him was different. He turned away, hands near shaking as he stopped the stream and fumbled to untie the rope, lowering Seonghwa to the floor.

His knees buckled under his weight as his feet hit the floor, but he had no time to steady himself let alone fall over before the man was on him, hands grasping at his waist desperately and lips hungrily finding his own. Seonghwa kept his arms in the air, let the man guide him in a stumble towards the work bench. His body stung and ached and screamed in protest but he could scarcely focus on that with the man devouring his lips and tongue like his life depended on it.

Seonghwa tried to keep up, torn between letting his mouth go slack and letting the man take the lead and continuing to kiss him back, tongue moving lewdly against the man’s. Hands slid down his back, groping at his ass before they hooked beneath his trembling, bloodied thighs and hoisted him up to sit on the bench. A wrench dug into his ass harshly but Seonghwa didn’t care. He lowered his arms, letting them fall around the man’s neck and hang loosely.

They both moaned and the man’s nails dug into the sensitive, bruise covered flesh of his thighs, hands kneading at them roughly. The man pulled away, just briefly, and his eyes were half-lidded and his chin quivered. “S-sir,” Seonghwa whispered.

And just like that, it was like a switch flipped and the man jerked away like he’d been burned. Immediately, Seonghwa knew the man was going to be angry—no, enraged . He started to get up, knowing he had to get on the floor, make himself small. Instead, his vision spun wildly and he lost his balance, hitting the floor so hard every bit of air left his body with a wheeze. His head spun and although he tried to keep conscious, he couldn’t, not with the pain coursing through his stomach and head.

His stomach was bandaged up when he woke up hours, maybe days later. The entire area was sore and tender, and it hurt a whole lot more than the wounds from his whipping did. It hurt just to sit up and his throat was dry and screamed with protest when he tried to clear it.

“Rise and shine, pig.” The man’s voice was clipped and harsh. Seonghwa wanted to cry. He sat up slowly, clutching at his stomach as he turned slowly to face the man. He sat at the foot of the stairs with a glass of water and a bowl of ramen. His stomach growled loudly at the sight.

“Aw, is the pig hungry?” Seonghwa nodded slowly. The man stood and picked up a box that sat beside him on the stairs. “Is that so?" He flung the box down, the wood breaking and splintering off as broken glass exploded from the inside and scattered across the basement floor. “Then crawl over here and get it.”

For the life of him, Seonghwa couldn’t understand why he was acting so differently now, crueler . They’d only kissed… maybe they would have gone farther. They would have gone all the way had Seonghwa kept his mouth shut. Was he angry that he had made it obvious he was interested in Seonghwa for more than just a meal? Seonghwa stared at the glass then the bowl of ramen. He was so hungry for something other than bread. He got on his hands and knees, biting back a hiss as his broken fingers touched the floor. Bits of glass and wood dug into his palms, knees, and calves, but the pain was rather small in comparison to the empty ache of his stomach. If he crawled fast enough, he’d hardly feel it. When he reached the end of the glass, he crawled to the stairs where the man was waiting. 

He half expected him to knock the bowl over and make him eat off the floor. Seonghwa liked to imagine he wouldn’t have done that if it came to it, but right now, after not having had a good meal in months, he would have no problem with doing so. But the man was nice and pushed the bowl toward him with the tip of his boot.

Seonghwa sat down and picked up the bowl, eagerly slurping down the broth first to settle his stomach. He very nearly moaned at the taste; it felt so good to actually eat something with flavour. Between slurps, Seonghwa picked up the glass of water with shaking hands to take small sips.

The man watched him silently and Seonghwa took his time eating the ramen, and even when he got full, he forced himself to finish because he didn’t know when the next time he’d get a meal would be. He finished the water just as slowly and then set both dishes back at the foot of the stairs.

Several minutes of silence stretched on between them. The man stared at him and Seonghwa picked at the glass in his palms and legs. He knew he wasn’t supposed to talk, but he couldn’t help it. He needed to say something, anything. He wanted to know what he had done, why the man was being so much colder now.

“Why are you angry? W-what did I do wrong?”

When he received no answer, Seonghwa tried a different question. A non-sequitur, perhaps, but one he somehow felt would give him the only answer he needed.

“Sir…” Seonghwa leaned in close, staring up at the man with wide, imploring eyes. “Why won’t you tell me your name?”

His jaw clenched tight, the skin near one side his nose rising in a slight snarl. Seonghwa started to rear back when he stood up, taking the bowl and cup with him. “Because if you say my name looking at me like that…” The man turned away and started to walk upstairs, “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get rid of you.”

The only things the man seemed to feel now were anger and lust. 

Everyday, Seonghwa woke to him thundering around upstairs before he came downstairs. On some days, he’d beat him. And Seonghwa was used to that. But on other days, the torture he received was borderline sexual in a way that only made sense coming from the man. Those days were nice, because at least there was some amount of pleasure to be had from fingers shoved down his throat or the electric jolt of a taser on his nipples or, as of the day before (and only after he cracked him upside the head so he’d stop trying to cover himself) his cock too—the voltage was never too high, only just enough to really make him jump, but it still scared him a little. 

Sometimes the man stabbed him, often in the stomach because it was the safest for what he liked to do. He’d tied Seonghwa to the table and eat his stab wound out for what felt like hours, moaning and groaning at the taste of his blood, and rut against his thigh until he came. Then he’d pull away and clean him up before leaving without a word. Seonghwa never got to cum and he never dared to try. 

It was like he couldn’t decide what to do with him anymore. Seonghwa could tell he was conflicted from how erratic his behaviour had become. When he was done, Seonghwa would listen to him thunder his way back up the stairs and he’d throw things around and stomp and be his enraged, loud, angry self for hours on end. 

While he threw his tantrums, Seonghwa thought about his words. 

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get rid of you.”

And he thought about what he was going to do. 

Everything had shifted between them that day. Seonghwa was no longer just a pig or a meal, but someone the man had accidentally grown attached to despite his best efforts to prevent that from happening. He didn’t think the man loved him, he wasn’t sure he was capable of that, but he felt something for him and he liked him. He had to like him, even just a little bit—otherwise, he’d have been chopped up and stuffed in his freezer by now.

Their interactions were analyzed through pain-induced dazes when Seonghwa couldn’t sleep. He ran through them all over and over, taking note of all the little things—how the man’s touches lingered, how his gaze lingered, how when he left Seonghwa after he finished streaming, he lingered, taking his sweet time before finally going upstairs. He pretended that wasn’t what he was doing, but Seonghwa knew him well now. Perhaps that had been the man’s first mistake: not killing him before that was possible.

Seonghwa often tried to figure out why the man had chosen him in the first place, as well. Out of all the people he could have kidnapped, that he could have chosen to eat, why did he choose him? Before that night on the bus, had he watched him from afar and decided early on? Or had that night on the bus been the first time he saw him and he had decided at that moment that he wanted to eat him?

And what had Seonghwa done to make the man change his mind like this? Had it been his obedience? How well he took everything the man gave him, no matter how much it hurt?—and god, did it fucking hurt. Seonghwa didn’t know, but it did give him hope. Hope that the man wouldn’t kill him and eat him. Hope that he had somehow managed to worm him way into the man’s heart.

————

Seonghwa woke to a hand fisting in his hair and yanking him up harshly. He cried out, eyes blurry and mind hazy from sleep as he was dragged onto his knees. "Sir, wh—" he started to say, stopping midway through when a hand cracked across his cheek.

The man was muttering, voice so low and harsh, that Seonghwa couldn't make out a thing he was saying. it all sounded like a low rumble to him, like a brewing thunderstorm, and all he could do was wait for the first boom. He had no idea what he had done, if he had even done anything at all to deserve the rude awakening.

Every slap made pain explode in his face and the man didn't even try to be kind. He hit him across both cheeks, across his nose, his lips, even the sides of his head. "Fucking sick of you," the man finally managed to growl out. "Fucking stupid bitch. You stupid fucking bitch!"

He could taste blood on his lips as he blubbered, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

"Shut the fuck up!" The man shoved him backward and Seonghwa heard the sound of him undoing his belt. Fully expecting a beating, he began to sob.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry, sir, what did I do?"

A harsh hand grabbed at his chin, yanking his head forward, and something wet and slimy crushed against his lips. The head of his cock. That realization filled Seonghwa with a mix of dread and relief. Relief he wouldn't be beaten, dread because he wasn't ready for something like this. He wasn't sure he even wanted it.

"Open your fucking mouth," the man snapped, voice belying the little amount of patience he had left.

With no choice, Seonghwa opened his mouth and immediately gagged hard as the man shoved his hips forward and the tip of his cock hit the back of his throat. The man held his head in a tight grip, one hand fisted tight around a handful of his hair and the other cradling the back of his head. He fucked into his throat hard and fast, stifled groans falling from his lips.

Seonghwa beat at his thighs, eyes fluttering and rolling back as he gagged and retched around his length. "You like this, pig? Finally putting that useless mouth of yours to work?" the man spat, shoving his head forward until his nose was pressed deep into his pubic hair and holding him there. He laughed as he listened to Seonghwa try his hardest not to vomit. "Gonna puke? Can't take a little face fucking?"

He tried not to. He really, really did, but the moment the man began to move again, Seonghwa retched hard and felt puke spurt out around the man's cock and down his lips and chin. It wasn't really puke, though, since he hadn't been fed yet. It was mainly bile and thick, frothy spit and it coated the man's cock and fell into Seonghwa's lap and onto the floor.

And the man didn't seem to care because he didn't stop pistoning his hips forward. The acid of his bile burned and clung to his throat, filling his mouth with a foul taste, and Seonghwa could only sob and try to swallow down the urge to puke any more.

It felt like forever before the man finally came, the hot liquid spurting down his throat and smearing across his tongue and lips as he pulled out. Seonghwa coughed and doubled over, a string of spit and cum hanging from his lower lip as he heaved for air.

The man wrenched his head back by his hair and stared down at him, nostrils flaring slightly and eyebrows furrowed with anger. Seonghwa stared back up at him, knowing he looked a mess, knowing he looked so fucking ugly. He just wanted to curl up in a ball and die.

"God," the man muttered. "You're fucking disgusting."

Seonghwa covered his mouth with his shaking hands as the man tucked his cock away and walked upstairs, leaving him alone in the dimly lit basement. When the door shut and locked, he let himself cry.

Things were tense after that, taking a 180 from the previously sexually-charged interactions. The man became almost clinical with him, torturing and beating him with a frightening amount of detachment. It unsettled Seonghwa and it made him scared because it seemed like he didn't care anymore. He hardly even talked to him anymore either. And if he didn't care, how much longer was he guaranteed his life?

"Sir," Seonghwa whispered one night as the man checked the gash on his head with a care he hadn't shown in a long time. The injury, surprisingly, had been an accident. The man had gone a little too far in beating him that day, to the point Seonghwa had bled a quite sizable puddle onto the floor. He'd slipped on his own blood, stumbled backward, and cracked the back of his skull on the steel table hard.

At first, the man thought he was fucking around when he went silent and then started wailing, hands clutching at his head. But then he realized it was serious and had been quick to shut things down and drag him up off the floor to check his head.

He had a deep gash now, his hair soaked with blood, Seonghwa thought the man almost looked sorry that he'd gotten hurt, but perhaps only because it wasn't by his hand.

"What?"

He pursed his lips and kicked his legs back and forth, letting out a little hiss as the man dabbed at the blood with gauze. "I was just.. I was wondering—" he mumbled, hunching in on himself.

"Straighten the fuck up. I can't reach your head if you're sitting like a damn shrimp."

Quickly, Seonghwa straightened up, letting the man roughly adjust his head into a position where he could reach the wound properly. "I'm sorry, sir," he blurted. "Can I ask you something?"

"Have I socked you yet?"

Seonghwa smiled a little at the man's response and wrung his hands together. "Have I been good? Was I good?"

The man rolled his eyes near audibly. "Does it matter?"

"To me it does."

"Okay. You know what?" The man quickly finished bandaging up his head then rounded the table. He slammed his hands down at either side of his hips, making Seonghwa jump. "What do you want?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"You're pissing me off."

Seonghwa swallowed nervously. "What did I do?"

"It's what you're not doing." The man's eyes narrowed, nostrils flaring slightly as he huffed.

"Am I boring you?" Seonghwa asked softly. "Am I not fun for you anymore now that I'm good?"

The look on the man's face said no. Seonghwa tilted his head and the man tapped his nails on the table. "No," he spat out after a moment. "You're doing the opposite of boring me and it's fuckin' pissing me off. Go lay down so I can clean up."

Seonghwa had the feeling the man wanted him to disobey, but he didn't give him that satisfaction. He was tired and hurt enough. He simply nodded and carefully slid underneath the man's arms and skittered off to his mat in the corner. He sat and watched quietly as the man cleaned his blood from the corner of the table and his tools and put everything back in its proper place.

He was upset, but Seonghwa somehow felt that the man wasn't mad at him, but at himself. Maybe for saying too much, maybe for making it obvious that Seonghwa was having an effect on him.

"Go to sleep." The man muttered as he finished and headed upstairs. For once, Seonghwa didn't hear him raging as he usually did. So he felt at peace, almost. He let out a sigh and curled up in a ball, shutting his eyes. As long as the man wasn't mad, he felt safe enough to try and sleep for a bit.

It must have worked because just a few hours later, Seonghwa woke up to the sound of the man stumbling down the stairs. He never came down after dark. Seonghwa got to his feet quickly, ignoring the throb at the back of his head. "S-sir?" he said quietly, fearfully, fully expecting a repeat of that night from a few weeks ago.

The man walked toward him quietly, movements uncoordinated in a way they never were, and in the next second, they were kissing. Well, the man was kissing him and Seonghwa stood still in shock, unsure of what to do seeing that the last time hadn't gone very well. He tasted alcohol on the man's lips and tongue. He'd been drinking.

His hands were all over his body, groping and squeezing, pulling Seonghwa in close. Seonghwa let out a shaky whimper and grasped at the man's face, returning the kiss eagerly. The man shoved him back against the wall and slotted a thigh between his leg, roughly grinding his hard bulge into Seonghwa's hip.

"You piss me off so fuckin' much," the man hissed as he pulled back, their noses touching. His breath was hot and smelled like whiskey. "Every time I see your stupid f-fuckin' pretty face," he slurred, "I wanna slam it into the floor. I wanna punch the shit outta you. I wanna fuckin' strangle you. I wanna slit your throat and string you up like a pig, wanna drain you dry, and fuckin' eat you—"

"Then why don't you? Why don't you eat me?" Seonghwa whispered, voice soft, demure, nonthreatening. The man's face softened then drew into a scowl, mostly from annoyance.

"Because—" The man inhaled shakily then whispered, "I'd only ever be able to do it once."

The man kissed him again and they grinded against one another. It felt like forever before the man came and pulled away, lips kiss-swollen and red. He was heaving as he stumbled backwards, knocking into the table with a groan. "You need to s-stop," he muttered. He scrubbed a hand down his face, mouth screwed up in a frustrated frown. "Fucking shit."

Seonghwa approached slowly, lowering himself down onto his hands and knees as he went. "Please keep me, sir. Please," he begged. "I can be so good and everything you could ever want. All you have to do is keep me. I'll be yours forever."

He kneeled in front of the man and tilted his head back to stare up at him. "Pig—" The man started to say.

"Please," Seonghwa said with conviction. "I will be whatever you want me to be. Your punching bag, your fucktoy, your maid—whatever you want, whatever you need, sir, just please, please keep me. Please…"

The man scrunched up his nose and mumbled under his breath before shoving off the table and stumbling towards the stairs. "Go to sleep." He disappeared upstairs, leaving Seonghwa alone and once again unfulfilled. 

And Seonghwa couldn't even pretend that it hurt because it didn't, not when he knew now just how deeply he was affecting him.

The next day, Seonghwa knew he had to be on his best behaviour. Perfect, obedient, small. If the man had even an inkling of memory of the previous night, he'd be angry, and Seonghwa didn't want to be beaten any more than was necessary.

He was sitting on the table, waiting, when the man came down after shuffling around for a while upstairs. He hadn't sounded angry and now that Seonghwa was seeing him, he didn't look angry either. Even so, Seonghwa stayed quiet, in case it was a test of some sort or if making noise would set him off suddenly.

"What are you waiting for?" The man almost sounded amused.

Seonghwa's mouth felt dry. "You," he whispered. "I was waiting for you, sir."

"Hm." The man went to his tool bench and lifted himself up onto it. They sat across from one another quietly until he decided to break the silence with an awkward cough. Seonghwa had never seen him seem so nervous. "About last night—"

"I'm sorry," Seonghwa blurted instantly. "I'm so sorry, sir. I don't k-know what came o-over me and I—"

"Don't interrupt me. You know better," the man snapped, though there was very little bite to his words. “What happened last night didn’t mean a damn thing. You forget about it and don’t ever bring it up again. Am I understood?

All Seonghwa could do was nod. “Y-yeah… yes, sir. Of… of course.”

The man scowled at him. “You get a break today. Take advantage of it. You look like shit.”

Trying not to cry was hard, but Seonghwa managed, glancing up at the ceiling and blinking to will the tears away. He didn’t allow himself to cry until the man had gone. Then he sobbed into his hands. Nothing he did was good enough for the man. 

Whether he was good or bad, quiet or loud, big or small— nothing seemed to please him. Nothing was good enough. Just when it seemed like Seonghwa was making progress with him, something would inevitably get in the way. He didn’t understand why the man wouldn’t just accept that he liked him. He did. Seonghwa knew he did.

And Seonghwa didn’t know how he felt about him besides the fact that most of the time, he was terrified of him and that he felt belittled and small and mortified in his presence. And some of the times where he didn’t feel that, which were few and far between, he was numb and couldn't bring himself to care about what the man was going to do to him. And some of those times still, he found the man handsome and heartbreakingly perfect even as he beat him and fuck—he didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to die. He hadn’t done anything to deserve that, to deserve any of this shit! He only wanted to be loved, even if it was by a cannibalistic serial killer. Why was that so much to ask?

He was just a person and maybe he wasn’t perfect, but he always tried to be good, and why didn’t that count for anything? Why did bad things always have to happen to him when he only ever tried to put good into the world? Why did Seonghwa have to suffer? Why not his mother or his brother or the man, people who were bad, people who had hurt him, people who he wanted love and acceptance from despite that? All Seonghwa had wanted was so desperately to be his and to be owned and to be kept and to be useful and to be loved and to be good—

He sobbed and slid off the table, stumbling to his sorry excuse of a bed and curling up in fetal position, as small as he could get. He didn’t know how long he spent crying, he just knew that when he was finished, his face felt hot and he couldn’t see through his tear-blurry eyes and his lips were sore from being bitten, and that he wanted the man to look at him and think he was pretty, truly pretty, for once. Pretty without swollen lips and a bruised face and a bloody nose.

Seonghwa cried some more.

Seonghwa felt numb. He'd felt like this for the last few weeks. He didn’t care when the man came downstairs. He didn’t care to cry or scream as he was beaten. He didn’t care to do anything except stare at the wall or floor and try not to think. The man’s behaviour had become erratic since that day, near unpredictable, and Seonghwa knew it wasn’t good.

He knew he wouldn’t be allowed to live for much longer. He could tell, could feel it. The chances of the man getting fed up with him and the things he made him feel and deciding to get rid of him to stop it were higher than the chances of him keeping him. 

But for now, they'd just finished a stream. The man had patched him up and now he had a hand in his hair, thumb stroking over the spot he had hit him with the wrench all those months ago. There was a small scar. It felt nice when he lightly scratched at it. Seonghwa closed his eyes and let out a shaky breath. “Sir... How long are we going to keep doing this?” he whispered.

"Doing what?"

“How long are we gonna keep playing this game? I just.. I think that if you’re gonna kill me and eat me, you should get it over with. Unless there’s something stopping you.”

“I think you have a brain infection.” The man snorted, pulling away to head towards the stairs. Trying to remove himself from the conversation. Seonghwa noticed he was doing that more lately. 

“So something is stopping you! Just admit it. You like me! Some part of you likes me,” Seonghwa called out. The man stopped in his tracks, fingers just barely twitching like they did when he wanted to slap him. He wanted to get up and kneel before him and take those fingers down his throat. “You like me,” he repeated, lowering his voice to something meek and reverent. “I know you do, sir. I know it…”

The man turned around and stomped toward him. “And what gave you that idea, pig?”

Seonghwa’s throat suddenly felt dry. “I see the way you look at me. And you've been so angry ever since… s-since…” His hand went to his stomach, resting over the scar from his first stab wound. “You kissed me. And you liked it, and it scared you. A-and you said. You said you didn’t want me to know your name because you didn’t know if you’d be able to get rid of me. And what about a few weeks ago?”

“That doesn’t mean anything. None of it meant anything. I was drunk. I told you not to talk about that.” The man stuffed his hands in his pockets and meandered to the center of the basement. “Why would I like a pig like you? You’re ugly. You’re disgusting. And I’m still going to eat you.”

“You haven’t yet. You won't.” He knew he shouldn’t have said that. The man would take it as a dare, a challenge. And Seonghwa wasn’t even half sure, nor confident that he knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t act on it just yet.

One of the many things Seonghwa had learned about the man was that his moods could change in a split second based on a single action or word and that when he was angry, besides being loud, he moved fast—like a viper snapping out and biting quicker than their target could jump away. The man was just like that and Seonghwa never had the time to scream or to dodge.

He was on him in an instant, taking him down to the floor and slamming a fist into the side of his cheek. “You’re FUCKING TESTING ME,” he yelled, spit flying from his mouth and onto his face. Seonghwa cried out at the weight of the man on his stomach and tried to roll over and get away. “You think I won’t fucking eat you? I’ll fuckin’ eat you! I will fucking BUTCHER you, Seonghwa!”

It was the first time the man had ever said his name before, Seonghwa realized. It was the first time he had heard it in months. He was pig or piggy to the man. Always pig or piggy.

“N-no,” Seonghwa whimpered, “You won’t. You won’t do it. You can’t do it. You wouldn’t!”

The man fisted a hand in his hair, yanking him up violently and dragging him back to the table. He was rambling, voice so low and so angry, Seonghwa couldn’t make out a single word he was saying besides 'I'll fucking eat you, bitch'. “You’re hurting me!” Seonghwa cried as he was slammed against the table. “Stop it!”

"Get on the fucking table.”

“Just stop it! Please!” Seonghwa climbed onto the table, sweat-slick knees slipping on the cold metal. “Just listen to me!” The man grabbed the back of his head and his waist, forcefully maneuvering him onto his stomach and strapping him down.

He went unacknowledged and he craned his head, trying to see what the man was doing. “Please, p-please, stop!”

The man turned to the work bench, tools rattling as he searched for what he wanted. He was breathing hard, moving too fast, so fast, that his hands wouldn’t stop shaking until they finally found a knife. It was freshly sharpened—Seonghwa knew because he’d watched him do it the night before—and his fist wrapped around it tight.

Seonghwa started to breath hard, jerking against his restraints although he knew it was futile. “Get away, get away, GET AWAY!” He screamed as the man approached with it, “Get away from me!”

The man did not respond, just rested one slightly shaking hand on the back of the thigh closest to him and began to cut into his flesh. Seonghwa screamed again and didn’t stop screaming as pain surged through his thigh. He could do nothing but scream and try to escape his restraints. The man said nothing, did nothing, except cut, knife digging in deep.

Blood seeped out and down his thigh, dripping onto the table and off onto the floor. He sawed through the layers of fat and muscle until he had a large, unsymmetrical chunk of flesh carved out.

“Please!” Seonghwa screamed, voice cracking and weak, “J-just keep me, just k-keep me!” 

Cold air hit the exposed fat and muscle left as the man pulled out the chunk and Seonghwa shrieked louder than he ever had before. The sound didn’t even seem human to his ears. His brain could hardly register that it was coming out of his mouth. A piece of rope slid under his thigh and the man tied it off above the wound, pulling it hard enough to almost cut off his circulation entirely.

When he rounded the table to stand in front of Seonghwa, he shoved the chunk of meat, his flesh, into his face, rubbing it across his cheek and nose and forehead, everywhere . His teeth were grit, lips stretched in a horrible snarl as he spat, “Don’t you ever fucking test me again. Do you understand me?”

Seonghwa sobbed and gasped and tried to turn his head away. 

“I said, DO YOU FUCKING UNDERSTAND ME?”

“Y-yes, y-yes, yesyesyes,” Seonghwa screamed out, “S-stop, stop, p-please!”

“You fucking disgust me. I can’t fuckin’ wait to see how you taste. Can’t wait to slit your throat and string you up like the damn pig you are.” The man spat in his face and Seonghwa jerked away hard, rattling the entire table.

His breathing was erratic as the man started to go upstairs, chunk of flesh in hand. Seonghwa cried and screamed, “Please! S-sir, please! Don’t leave me! D-don’t leave! S-sir! I-I can be anything you want, anything! Please, I promise, I'll be so good! I'll do anything and be anything and I'll never complain or tell you no a-and—”

The door slammed shut and Seonghwa just screamed.

When he couldn’t scream anymore, Seonghwa just laid there, panting so hard that his chest hurt. The pain was—it was indescribable. Thinking was hard, breathing was hard and he couldn’t let the pain overwhelm him or else he’d forget to breathe and he’d die and he really didn't want to die, not like this.

All the while, he could hear the man upstairs, stomping around the kitchen, slamming pots and pans; being loud, being angry. That went on for a long time. Too long. And when the noises died down to give way for the sharp scraping of a chair, Seonghwa squeezed his eyes shut and tried to focus on calming down. Why didn’t he shut up? He should’ve shut up. That thought repeated, like a mantra, I should’ve shut up, I should've shut up, I should’ve shut up.

He should have passed out by now. He wished he had already. Perhaps the man would be kind and kill him while he was unconscious. He’d go to sleep and just never wake. Seonghwa thought that was a better way to go. Or maybe if he didn’t, he’d let him choose. If he did, he wanted to be choked. He knew what that felt like, he knew what to expect. It burned and it felt like his face and lungs were going to explode, but then the fuzzy, light-headedness took over, and it didn’t feel like anything anymore. It didn’t feel like anything but peace.

“I was good, I was good,” he whispered to himself, clenching and unclenching his fists. “I tried really hard to be good.”

Sleeping made the pain go away, at least for a while. Seonghwa nearly started crying again when he woke up, freezing, leg numb, and still tied down. There were no sounds coming from upstairs. All was silent and still. Too silent, too still. Maybe the man had gone to bed… but he never went to bed with Seonghwa still tied up. Not anymore. He hadn’t done that in months. Not since he knew he could trust Seonghwa not to run.

And it wasn’t like Seonghwa could run right now, not when his leg was in the state it was. Seonghwa didn’t even want to think about it. He couldn’t, not without wanting to vomit. All he could do was wait. 

He waited for hours until, at last, the basement door swung open and the soft sounds of footsteps trudging down filled the basement. The man wasn’t wearing his boots like he usually did. In fact, when he came down, he was in only his socks. Seonghwa dared to lift his eyes from the ground and—he was in pajamas. He couldn’t be planning to kill him then, Seonghwa thought. He couldn’t even be planning to beat him. Surely not.

Seonghwa couldn’t help the small, confused whimper that left his lips. “S-sir?”

The man stared at him. He wasn’t angry anymore. Seonghwa couldn’t quite place the emotion he saw on the man’s face and in his body language. He almost seemed… sad? But that couldn’t be right. Not quite. What would he have to be sad about? 

“Sir,” Seonghwa repeated, voice getting quieter, more frightened. “W-what’s… what’s wrong? What’s going on?”

“I….” The man’s nostrils flared and he inhaled sharply. His lower lip and chin quivered, eyes darting around the basement and looking everywhere but at him. “I can’t do it. I can’t eat you.” He sounded distraught, utterly distraught, and defeated, hopeless, in a way Seonghwa had never heard another human being sound. His face screwed up in disgust, subtle but abundantly clear to Seonghwa. It was the most emotion he’d ever seen him show besides his anger and lust. He looked sick, genuinely sick—to the point that he looked a little green, like he might start vomiting at any moment—at the mere thought. 

Seonghwa didn’t know what to say except, “I’m sorry.” Like it was his fault, like he felt bad about it. A part of him did. 

Slowly, the man approached and lifted a hand to rest on his head. “I tried to,” he whispered, thumb gently stroking his hair. “I tried so hard to keep you down. But it made me feel… it made me feel sick. Disgusted. I couldn’t stop vomiting after.” He trailed a hand down the back of his head, his back, until it found his thigh—the wound still open and exposed. “But fuck— you were the best thing I’ve ever tasted.” 

The fact that those words made Seonghwa’s heart flutter made him feel sick. This man had ruined him. Absolutely ruined him. He exhaled, shuddery and soft, “What are you gonna do t’me?” 

“What do you think I should do with you?” It was a genuine question. He sounded like he meant it, like he really wanted to know.

The answer Seonghwa came up with lingered on the tip of his tongue. He licked his lips and took in a shaky breath, voice coming out in a pitiful whimper as he said, “K-keep me— you could keep… m-me..”

“Yeah… Why should I?”

“B-because..” Seonghwa hesitated again, on purpose this time, because he had already long since come up with reasons—Was that fucked up? That he already knew what he wanted to say, that he already knew why he wanted the man to keep him, why the man should keep him—and he didn’t want to seem too eager, to seem like he’d thought this would happen. He didn’t want the man to get angry and decide a bad stomach ache was worth getting rid of him. “You worked r-really hard training me. I can take everything you give now. I like it now. I’m— I’m very obedient,” he whispered. “Like I said b-before.. I could be useful. I c-can clean and t-take care of your house. I can… I c-can keep you company, too, however you want me to. A-and I’m not the best at cooking but I can learn. I can be anything you need me to be. Anything you want me to be.”

“Okay.” The man pursed his lips, but said nothing else. They didn’t talk anymore. Seonghwa knew it was best to keep his mouth shut for the time being. The man worked on cleaning and bandaging his leg; it hurt badly, especially when circulation returned to the wound after he took off the rope tied tightly around it. But Seonghwa laid quietly, tears dripping down his cheeks and onto the floor until he was done. 

He thought he should feel happy. The man was most likely going to keep him. He certainly wasn’t going to eat him anymore. He probably wouldn't kill him anymore either. He looked like he was giving what Seonghwa said genuine thought. Seonghwa was sure he’d convinced him… But Seonghwa still wasn’t happy. He was relieved, but not happy. He felt as though being happy would jinx it all.

What if this was just a phase of some kind? What if it didn’t last? What if he changed his mind? He felt as though letting himself be happy about this would only end horribly.

When his leg was cleaned and bandaged, the man carried him to his bed and laid him down carefully. “I’ll make it warmer down here for tonight. Get some sleep.”

Seonghwa nodded weakly. He had grown used to the cold, it hardly affected him anymore, but he appreciated the gesture. The man stood there for a moment, looking down at him. It seemed like he wanted to say something but couldn’t bring himself to. In the end, he just repeated, “Get some sleep.” before turning out the lights and heading upstairs.

Sleep came easy that night because for once, Seonghwa wasn’t as scared anymore.