Magnificent Vexation || Winrina

two

It's Friday.

Minjeong knows what comes for her today. Her captor will come home, fulfilling his sadistic desire to beat Minjeong all he pleases.

Minjeong doesn't even know what time it is right now. There's not even a single window inside the room. The only lights available for her to use are a flashlight near the wall. She stinks as hell, she didn't get to clean herself for three days straight now.

Minjeong hopelessly lay down on her thin mattress. The room is extremely dark and suffocating, but Minjeong already gets used to it.

Not until that familiar sound of footsteps came closer to the basement, Minjeong's adrenaline skyrocketed. She immediately fixed her painful body to sit.

Her heartbeat knocked her senses like a drum as she could hear the door was currently unlocked from the outside. Fear washed all over her, drops of sweat rolling down from her head.

The door squeaks open, slowly but surely. There he is. Her captor, standing right in front of the door frame with a baseball bat in his hand. His face flashed out his usual warm smile.

"Minjeong...", he said as he slowly approached the terrified young woman with his smile. He slowly squats down in front of the woman's static figure before tilting his head to the side. He continued to smile, still.

"Work is tough this few days, Minjeong. My colleagues keep pissing me off", he said as he stroked the length of the baseball bat with his long fingers. "I wish I could beat them all I wanted, but then they'll definitely beat me back".

The smirk on his face is evident, before he instructs. "Crouch".

Minjeong wasted no time to do as he wanted her to. It's better for her to be obliged, or else, she'll get it worse.

Minjeong put her knees together as she crouched. Her arms circled her legs, ready for the impact. When her captor finally stood up, swinging the bat to his back before swinging it back to the front and hitting Minjeong on her shoulder, the young woman started to brace with her silent groan.

"Be silent, be patient, and when he's in a good mood, I will think of a plan".

She repeated the same words inside her mind, trying to persuade herself as long as she did as the man pleased, she was sure that one day she could be free.

She can escape.

It keeps going on like that. Minjeong braced for every impact, as her captor kept hitting her back with his smile.

Minjeong eyes closed shut. The pain is eating her up, but the desire to let this torture end as soon as possible is stronger. Drops of blood fell freely from her mouth to the floor.

"Let's make this short. Don't trigger him".

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two:
lively neighborhood

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Through her five years working for the agency, never once, Jimin stepped his feet inside the NIS building. It's better for her to be secretive because the way she does her work right now is magnificent.

No one knows.

Only she did.

Yungho had spitted out more relevant information relating to the drugs. Who bought them, and where he sold them. The chief already texted the address to Jimin, and being curious like always, Jimin wondered what was hidden in that dark house Yungho pointed to.

It's just a normal house in a great neighborhood. Nothing out of the ordinary. Great community with good people. Jimin wonders if Yungho would take them as a fool.

"This is rarely an impossible place for drug dealings", Jimin mumbles to herself.

Driven by curiosity, Jimin got on her old jeep that day just to roll down the street to look at the neighborhood surroundings. She put on her black cap and her usual black sweatshirt as she started the car's engine.

It didn't take that long for her to arrive at the neighborhood. Just about fifteen minutes away from her apartment, and now here she is, on the road called St. Ford Street.

This is such an unusual scene. Jimin never expected what she would see. She's guessing she will encounter a gloomy neighborhood where the people around will keep shut behind their doors, empty roads without any single human.

But seeing the road in person, Jimin could tell how wrong she was.

There are kids running down the street. Some are on their bicycle with their friends. Some skating down the pedestrian walkway. There are even neighbors talking to each other happily in front of their yards.

"Here? Drug dealings here?", is that possible? Jimin thought inside her mind.

She drives her jeep slowly through the street, just in case the kids might cross the street carelessly or by accident. She tried to spot that specific house Yungho had mentioned.

As she kept driving, finally she saw it.

The dark house Yungho mentioned to the NIS. Well, he is true.

The house is painted in dark grey paint. The door is black, and all the windows are black tinted. Jimin couldn't even take a glance of what's inside. All the windows are closed shut. Yungho is right. This is totally a dark house.

The front yard is somehow decorated with light amounts of flowers. There are roses, in white and pink color. Some are just wildflowers in yellow.

Jimin wonders if the young woman Yungho mentioned actually exists. There's no sign of a car in front of the house. She could see no people inside. The mailbox has no letters inside. Not even the daily newspaper.

One more time, Jimin wanders her eyes around the house. Everything there looks lively, except this one single house.

"What secret are you keeping inside?", Jimin whispered as her eyes dotted back to that mysterious dark house.