What Happened to Somi?

Chapter 06

Ji-Eun flinched as her right wrist slipped out of the ropes Eun-Seok had bound her hands with. She raised her head and managed a small smile, hoping it helped Somi. "Hang on a minute, Somi. I'll untie you."

Somi had tears streaming down her cheeks. The discomfort of being tied to a fallen chair was at the far back of her mind. She majorly felt relief, glad the other woman was fine to an extent. "Unnie, are you sure you are alright?"

Ji-Eun nodded and freed her other hand before working on her legs, pushing back a scream of pain. "I'm sure, Somi."

"I'm so sorry, Unnie." Somi cried. "I'm really sorry. I should have spoken up. I should have done something. I shouldn't have –"

"Somi." Ji-Eun's tone was soft, the way it always was each time she had to stop Somi from going haywire. Her smile was small but nice. "It wasn't your fault. It's that bastard's fault." She flinched again as she moved, every part of her hurting. "We'll figure out a way to get out of here."

"Unnie, I don't think we can. He'll kill us."

"Then we should die trying." Slowly, Ji-Eun crawled towards Somi. She wasn't sure she was strong enough to stand and she didn't want to risk it. If she fell, there was a high chance Eun-Seok would hear and that'll be bad for both of them. "I'm going to untie you, Somi. No matter how painful it is, don't scream."

Somi managed a nod. "I'll try." She sniffled. "I really thought I lost you."

"I've been awake for a while." Ji-Eun crawled behind the chair and got started on Somi's legs first. "I just had to try to loosen my ropes." Her red wrists were enough proof. "I knew most of the times he came in to see you and force water down your throat. Each time you went back to being unconscious and I came around, I took some of the water that was left."

Somi felt like a monster. "I'm so sorry, unnie."

"You should have told me. Instead of lying that you were trying out one thing or the other which led to you being clumsy, you should have told me. We would have thought about something, Somi. We would have drawn up some sort of plan."

Somi only felt way worse. "I'm sorry."

Ji-Eun bit back the pain. "Let's just try to get out of here first...We have to get out of here. We need to get out."

Somi knew better than to tell the other woman she didn't think there was a way out that didn't involve death. She tried to hold on to the same hope Ji-Eun clung to. They had to get out. She had a lot of people to apologize to, starting with her best friend – Hye Jin, and then Taehyung.

Up in the house, Eun-Seok made himself coffee from scratch while humming and gently swaying along to Beethoven's Symphony No. 5. His phone's timer counted down the time it'll take for a flight from Seoul to Jeju. Right beside the phone sat a burner phone which he had used to send texts to every single person involved in his grand scheme.

Once he poured himself a cup, he cleaned up the kitchen and walked to the window that overlooked his back garden. He mentally went through the mechanics of digging a grave; how long it would take and how he would have to time himself so no one came in unannounced to disturb him. The first grave would be for Ji-Eun, he had no use for her. The next grave would come at least a month and half later, when he was done torturing Somi as much as he wanted to.

The mere thought of it excited him. He liked her screams and despite what he told her each time, he loved her tears. Her pleas excited him and he was looking forward to having more. He wondered if torturing Ji-Eun while Somi watched will break her more than anything. Somi loved her manager a lot. It'll hurt more than his attacks on Hye-Jin, Taehyung, and that of Jessi which was set to be executed at any minute.