Hostage Handbook

Chapter Twenty-Four | Winning is Losing

YEOREUM

My appearance doesn't interest any of the intoxicated flesh. It is depressing to name all the politicians and businessmen, chaebols and celebrities, doctors and lawyers who are mumbling drunk balderdash at flesh pink nipples.

Jungkook is on the left side of the lounge with three half-naked women. His eyes briefly flit across me before they return to the young woman kneeling between his legs.

"We have a very special recruit today, gentleman," Alyssa extols. "She is former Empress, Song Yeoreum."

A round of beastly cheers rips through the crowd. The patrons hold their alcohol bottles, suspicious syringes, and torn bras out at me with slurred praises. I suddenly don't know if they're trying to scare me off or make me feel good.

Alyssa takes me to the middle of the room and twirls me around, amplifying the crowd's excitement. They pin me against the curiosity in their eyes where I sprawl for their attention and affection.

"Thank you all for making our rookie feel welcomed," Alyssa says, waving her hands to calm the patrons. "According to Fever Moon's golden rule, we will get through a coin game to decide whose teeth will have the luck to savour this imperial piece of new meat."

"Nine million won," a stout middle-aged man yells. "I want to fuck the Empress."

"Look like we are starting high." Alyssa claps her hands together with a chuckle. "Nine million won once. Are there any higher bidders?"

The men peg obnoxiously tongue-twisting numbers at me, threatening to make me feel unworthy of the price they stab on my flesh.

The prices are doubling, tripling, and quadrupling off each other. It sounds unrealistic. I am somewhat certain that they are competing with game tokens different from the Korean Republic won I struggled my entire life to earn.

"Eight hundred million won," a fruity male voice rips through the chaos. "I want to sixty-nine with her."

Alyssa sweeps her arm towards a young man on the right end of the lounge. The excitement in her eyes glistens brighter than the LED lights below the glass tables.

The man is a third-generation chaebol I have seen on entertainment news. His father is the owner of a famous entertainment company that dominates half of the nation's stardom.

The man must be in his early twenties with the lingering boyishness in his large deer eyes. His thin lips seem to always hold a sulky pout that demands special treatment. He raises an eyebrow when his gaze falls on me, inspecting me from head to toe like he is appraising an antique through a display box.

I bat my eyes toward the man with a smile. Not anything too excessive like a wink or an air kiss. Just a faint, delicate curve that subtly communicates my interest in him without selling myself cheap.

"I think we might have a winner," Alyssa raves. "Mr Han called for eight hundred million won. Can anyone top him?"

The bidders who allied together to share me emit a collective grunt.

"Mr Han has won," Alyssa says as she pushes me in Mr Han's direction. "Yeoreum will have the honour to sixty-nine with Mr Han."

Mr Han picks up his phone for five bulky men to enter the room with a row of ten briefcases. Alyssa hunkers to reveal thick piles of crisp fifty thousand won notes cramped between shockproof pillows. They are the same Korean Republic won I've earned and used, but they look so foreign.

"No one can top me. You guys are all fucking bottoms," Mr Han growls, chuckling.

I exaggerate the swivel of my hips as I sashay towards Mr Han, mimicking Alyssa's signature catlike stroll. Mr Han pulls me next to him and tucks my hair behind my ears to survey my features.