I was too shaken to register the pain properly.

The attacker pressed my bent thumb hard against the phone screen, but when that didn’t work, he snapped at his companion.

“Damn it, hold it still, will you? It keeps throwing errors!”

“Seriously, where the hell does that girl get all her strength? She’s all skin and bones!”

After too many failed attempts, the phone temporarily locked and displayed a thirty-second cooldown message.

It gave me a brief moment to catch my breath.

I lowered my head and pressed my lips tightly together.

Let them keep trying.

No matter how many times they scan my thumbprint, they’ll never unlock my phone.

Gayageum players often wear the fingerprints off their fingers from the strings, so we don’t use our thumbs or index fingers for authentication.

Of course, I had registered my pinky instead – a secret they couldn’t possibly know.

And there was even less chance of them unlocking Eun-sae’s phone.

Even identical twins have unique fingerprints.

The only reason I could access her phone was because I knew the password she regularly used.

As long as I protected it that way, the information inside would be safe.

I carefully used the little time I had during the lockout to collect my thoughts.

But where was this car going?

Was it going to the mansion I had visited with Lee Seol-won before?

How long did it take from the art hall to that house?

An hour and a half? Maybe two?

Just as I was beginning to feel overwhelmed by the long time I would have to endure in this car – my vision darkening with fear – a new question suddenly hit me like a blow to the head.

Wait a minute… Why the art hall?

Looking back, it didn’t make any sense.

My visit to the art hall was purely impulsive.

If I hadn’t happened to see Lee Seol-won in that fan-uploaded video, I would have been resting on my bed at Goshiwon right now.

If they were determined to kidnap me, it would have made more sense to hide near the practice room where my movements were predictable… not in the art hall.

“Ahhhhh!”

A scream escaped me as one of them twisted my wrist and tightened his grip around my fingers.

Realizing that I wasn’t going to cooperate quietly, the men suddenly used force to restrain me.

The pressure on each of my knuckles sent a cold shiver down my spine.

I can’t afford to hurt my hands too much.

I still have performances to give.

Pain – I could take that.

As long as I had enough strength left in my fingers to pluck the strings.

“Don’t touch me!”

I twisted my elbow, shoulder, and wrist in every direction, trying to reduce the pressure on my fingers.

I even kicked at the attackers, hoping to divert their focus from my hands to something else.

If it meant protecting my hands, I didn’t care what happened to my legs.

“Man, that girl’s got a weird temper. Why go out of your way to get hurt when staying still would’ve kept you safe?”

“Let go of me!”

“Damn, she’s really out of control… sh*t…”

The repeated fingerprint recognition failures on the phone led the men to believe it was because of my struggling.

They cursed under their breath and let out a frustrated sigh.

Then suddenly one of them stood up and straightened his posture.

“Yes, this girl is putting up more of a fight than expected. You may have to wait a little longer. Oh, just a little longer? No, we don’t hit her – we just try to scare her a little. Yeah, yeah. But honestly, she doesn’t seem that scared. Almost like she’s got somebody behind her or something. Right. Oh, I see. Yeah….She’s here. He says he wants to talk to you.”

Without warning, the man put the phone receiver to my ear.

Perhaps to avoid disturbing the phone call, the men let go of me.

Taking advantage of the moment, I tried to wiggle my throbbing fingers – but the sudden surge of heat and pain nearly made me scream.

‘Is it okay? It’ll be fine, right?’
‘What if it’s not?’

Cold sweat slid down my cheek and fell with a splat.

I took a slow, steady breath.

How was I going to deal with Lee Jae-kwang again?

Fragments of memories flickered through my mind, one after the other.

They say everyone has two sides – but in Lee Jae-kwang’s case, the split was especially extreme.

And I was someone who had only seen the worst of him.

I thought of Lee Jae-kwang the last time I saw him – when I was in Lee Seol-won’s arms at the mansion.

And with him, I remembered the murder that had taken place there.

His friends had toyed with a person to the point of death, and even on their way to cover it up, Jae-kwang had shown no remorse – even going so far as to drug his own cousin Seol-won to bring him down to their level.

That cold-bloodedness was something I could never forget.

With a personality like that, it was no surprise that he hurled vile insults at Eun-sae every night.

I hesitated for a moment, not sure how to respond.

“Hel…”

“Eun-sae. Hey, Hyun Eun-sae. Long time no see.”

Our voices overlapped.

His was slightly louder – his tone was clearer than mine, which I had lowered to gauge his reaction.

Lee Jae-kwang?
Was this really Lee Jae-kwang’s voice?

Suddenly my mind went blank.

I instinctively covered my mouth.

It was an unfamiliar voice – completely different from the rough, coarse tone I remembered from Lee Jae-kwang.

This one was thinner, slightly higher… if anything, it could almost be called melodious.

And yet, there was a distinct air of condescension in the way he said my name – a tone that revealed his innate habit of looking down on others.

Who is this?

Or… did I hear it wrong?

I had to listen again.

Without making a sound, I brought the receiver even closer to my ear.

“Nice to hear from you – right? You’ve been so hard to reach, acting all high and mighty, I almost forgot what your voice sounds like, Eun-sae.”

The voice was still unfamiliar, but the mocking tone was similar.

In truth, a person’s voice always sounds slightly different over the phone, so it was too early to say for sure if it was the same person or not.

“Pouting is only cute up to a point, you know. Eun-sae. You’re listening, right?

Hey, Hyun Eun-sae. You shut up as soon as I get on the phone. Who taught you to ignore people when they’re talking? Was it Lee Seol-won? Did that bastard tell you to act like that?”

As I sat there, stunned and unable to collect my thoughts, his voice quickly became sharp and irritated.

Still in shock, I chose the simplest form of defense – I pretended I hadn’t heard anything.

“Yes, hello.”

“Hello?”

A hollow laugh came through the line.

“Eun-sae, I told you not to avoid me like that. Don’t do that ‘Hello? I can’t hear you’ or ‘I don’t remember’ and pretend you don’t know. You’re not allowed to give me any answer other than ‘Yes.’ Never.”

The word was painfully familiar.

—”Yes, I understand.”

It was the answer Eun-sae used to say like a mantra.

And now I understood why.

That answer must have been the result of countless battles – her surrender in the face of his relentless domination.

“Hyun Eun Sae, why don’t you answer?

“I understand.”

For now, I gave him the answer he wanted.

There was a version of “Hyun Eun-sae” that he believed in, and it didn’t seem wise to stray too far from that image.

“Be good. Like you always are.”

“Yes.”

My mind and tongue moved in opposite directions.

While suppressing the disgust I felt for him, I mimicked Eun-sae’s usual answers like a parrot.

It felt like I’d become a robot, carrying out programmed commands.

“Why don’t you let them access your phone?”

“It’s personal.”

“What part of your life is personal to me? I’ve been in every hole in your body – what could be more private than that?”

The vulgar choice of words turned my stomach.

A wave of nausea swept down my throat.

I barely managed to stay calm, clutching a hand over my mouth as I gagged.

The messages on Eun-sae’s phone had already revealed enough of what she had been through.

I didn’t need to hear it from his lips.

“Did you share it with Lee Seol-won as well?”

But he didn’t seem to be interested in stopping.

His mockery continued.

“You must be overjoyed now that your little one-sided crush finally worked out, you really think you’ve become something just because you managed to seduce Seol-won once, huh? Yeah, that’s when it started – when you started openly looking down on me, Eun-sae.”

I tried my best to find any trace of Lee Jae-kwang in that voice.

But no matter how hard I listened, no matter how many times I replayed it in my mind, I couldn’t be sure.

It wasn’t Seol-won.

And if it wasn’t Jae-kwang, then who was it?

“But does Lee Seol-won know how much fun you and I used to have? I think I have about twenty videos… maybe more? Ah, probably more than you remember. Since we’re sharing your holes, why don’t we share this one too? Wouldn’t it be more fun if the three of us watched them together? Even a limp bastard would get it up from those videos. Oh—how about sharing it with everyone?
You could get sponsorship, become a star overnight. These days, girls debut on streaming platforms just by taking their clothes off. With your face and body, you’d blow up in no time.”

Everything—all the conflict, the questions, the doubts—was bleached clean in an instant.

‘He filmed her?’
‘He filmed… what, exactly?’

No wonder it never made any sense.

I had always wondered what kind of influence he had over her – why Eun-sae never even tried to escape and just sank into helpless submission.

And now I knew.

She was a victim of p*rnography.