Chapter 18: The Nocturnal Yearning

Discomfort raged like an unbridled beast. A creature, once well-tamed, threatened to break free from its leash and lash out.

Jung Ban-ri bit down on his tongue with sharp fangs. His survival instinct, honed sharp as a blade, conjured a solution to quell the discomfort.

‘If Yoon In-tae would just lie still, like last night… unmoving, then perhaps this discomfort would cease.’

‘Like a corpse with its breath severed, without the slightest tremor.’

‘Then, everything might just be alright.’

A childhood memory surfaced before his eyes.

“Jung Ban-ri, what thoughts do these images provoke in you?”

A doctor in a white coat presented three photographs. The first depicted one person violently striking another.

The next showed an animal with its throat slit by a sharp blade. The final image was a mangled car from an accident, and a lifeless body slumped over the steering wheel.

‘They can no longer move.’

This was the common thread among the three photos. The doctor paused briefly, then pushed the photos closer, inquiring further.

“Is that all? No other… thoughts come to mind?”

His eyes, scanning the three photographs once more, halted at the last one.

“Does this picture appeal to you?”

It was an unanswerable question. ‘To appeal.’ He couldn’t grasp the meaning of those words.

His gaze had fixated on the final photograph because, among them all, it was the most perfect.

The victim of the assault in the first picture might lie still for a time, but they would still writhe in pain. The animal in the second image, even after its life was severed, would twitch for a brief period while its nerves remained alive.

Yet, the corpse in the final photograph, utterly limp with dilated pupils, was incapable of anything.

“You wish to do such things to someone, don’t you?”

‘Who is this ‘someone,’ what are these ‘things,’ and what does ‘wish to do’ even mean?’

“Doctor, I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

Instead of answering, the doctor looked at the machine. Two devices lay there.

One was familiar. It was the machine he had seen during the previous consultation. A lie detector, he recalled.

Jung Ban-ri remembered every word of their last consultation.

“Jung Ban-ri, do you know what this is?”

“No.”

“This is a machine that detects lies. If you lie, Ban-ri, I’ll know. Do you understand why we use this machine?”

“To stop me from lying.”

“You are indeed clever.”

“Then shouldn’t this be attached to you, Doctor?”

“…What did you say?”

“You’re lying now, too. Even though you heard it.”

“Now, too? I am not a person who lies. Furthermore, this is our first meeting today, and Jung Ban-ri, you are the one lying right now—”

“Your son will not change. Just as before, he will never again laugh with joy or shed tears of sorrow.”

“How did you… eavesdrop on my consultation with the Chairman?”

“No.”

“Why do you keep lying—”

The doctor couldn’t finish his sentence, staring blankly at the polygraph. The machine failed to detect even a single lie from the young monster.

‘Is he playing with me…’

“No.”

“Silence! I didn’t tell you to answer.”

“I know.”

“………”

“Still, I’m telling you it’s not true. You said not to lie, didn’t you?”

“…It seems we should conclude today… and prepare something else. That, you won’t be able to avoid.”

Recalling their previous conversation, Jung Ban-ri turned his gaze to the other machine. ‘Then, that must be the ‘unavoidable thing’.’

Wires extending from that machine were attached not to his hands or chest, but to his head. Yet, that one didn’t seem particularly effective either.

Its screen had been displaying the same image for a while now. That white, mold-like shape on the pitch-black screen… ah, it was what was inside his head.

The organ that would spill out like a fatty lump if his skull were cracked open—his brain.

‘They’re looking inside my head.’ The monster thought dispassionately.

‘In any case, both machines seem useless, so perhaps all of this will end soon.’ ‘Then, quickly, I can leave this place and…’

“Now!”

The doctor suddenly raised his voice. For the first time, the image inside the machine changed.

A light, spreading like paint from the side of his brain, pulsed like a living organism.

“Tell me everything you’re thinking right now, Jung Ban-ri.”

“………”

“What’s on your mind right now?”

“………”

“Hurry!”

Hearing the doctor’s urgent prodding, Jung Ban-ri opened his mouth.

“A child.”

“A child? What kind of child?”

“One that’s bawling.”

“Describe it in more detail.”

“He’s crying his eyes out and clinging to me.”

“Is it a child you know?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me more about it.”

“…I met him at the hospital.”

“And?”

“That’s all there is.”

“A bawling child… Yes, I understand.”

“Understand what?”

“Just keep doing as you are. Tell me honestly, without holding anything back, whatever comes to your mind. Understood?”

The doctor again held out a photograph. It was one of the ones he had seen earlier: the person inflicting violence and the one suffering it.

“What comes to mind?”

The doctor asked the question, then looked at the machine, as if expecting the answer from it. The machine’s image remained unchanged.

“Him.”

The doctor presented the next photograph. The second: the slaughtered animal.

“Him.”

And the next photograph. The third: the person who died in the traffic accident.

“Him.”

The doctor turned his gaze from the machine to face the small child before him. It was the look one would give a monster.

“It seems you are fond of that child, Jung Ban-ri.”

‘.’ The monster surmised the meaning of the word. ‘It must be the clearest image circling in my mind.’

Moments from his very early childhood, before he could even speak, remained vividly in his mind, clear as the photographs before him.

And the image of Yoon In-tae, crying uncontrollably, sat at the very top of all those memories. Effortlessly overshadowing all other images.

“Jung Ban-ri, you like it when that child cries and clings to you, don’t you?”

“I don’t know what ‘like’ means. It just keeps appearing in my mind.”

“That’s because you wish to see that sight again, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

Jung Ban-ri nodded.

“So, Jung Ban-ri…”

The doctor concluded, pressing the photographs into his hand. “You wish to do these things to that child.”

The monster gazed at the photographs. He overlaid the child’s face onto each one. “Isn’t that right?”

‘Yoon In-tae, bawling… Yoon In-tae, unmoving beside me.’

The satisfying fantasy finally bridled the discomfort. The monster removed the fangs he had embedded in his tongue.

A metallic taste spread through his mouth. Saliva had pooled heavily beneath his tongue.

Swallowing the bloody fluid, the monster slowly rose. Stepping out of the lodging, he was met by a pitch-black dawn.

The darkness seemed to push him forward. A short distance away, beneath the glow of a streetlamp, Yoon In-tae stood visible.

The very source of his discomfort. Shrouded in shadow, the monster mused.

‘Could it be that he… Yoon In-tae…’

His heart, having found its target, pounded fiercely. Like a beast poised to begin its hunt.

Or perhaps… like someone falling in love.

***

As dawn deepened, young In-tae would slip out of his room. He pressed his small hand against his pounding chest, tiptoed carefully, killing all sound.

Yet, in his mind, he shouted loudly. ‘Ban-ri, let’s play.’

‘Baaan-ri, let’s plaaay.’

He lifted his voice slightly on “Ban” and “play” to create a cheerful melody, adding an endless repeat sign and a crescendo at the end.

Singing Ban-ri’s name in this way, he traversed the palatial mansion, ascending to the highest floor in a single breath.

To a place where no one but Jung Ban-ri’s family ever ventured, reaching the topmost stair, before a sturdy barred gate.

The barred gate, reaching an adult’s chest, was a device meant to confine someone smaller. In-tae’s mother had installed a similar gate at home, leaving In-tae to go to work.

It must have been his mother’s only means of protection, with no one else around to care for him. But In-tae, who grew faster and had better athletic skills than his peers, would easily climb over it.

Unlike In-tae, Ban-ri, who was behind the bars, could not do the same. Instead, he knew the daily changing password.

In-tae stood on tiptoes, pressing each digit Ban-ri called out to unlock the device. Click. Even after the door opened, Ban-ri always hesitated.

In-tae eagerly slipped his hand through the narrow gap in the bars. “Ban-ri, let’s go play.”

A pale hand hesitantly approached. Yet, once their hands met, Ban-ri held on with surprising firmness.

Escaping the bars, the monster smiled widely. Every moment with Jung Ban-ri was cherished, but In-tae loved that specific Jung Ban-ri, from that particular night, the most.

Perhaps, what he truly cherished wasn’t Ban-ri himself from that time, but the moments when they felt incredibly close.

Even without knowing Jung Ban-ri was a monster, back then, he felt as if he knew everything about him. It was the beginning of a one-sided love.

***

A low buzz, the vibration of his phone, reached his ears. His eyelids were too heavy to open immediately.

In-tae fumbled around on the mattress, searching for his phone. When he finally grasped it, the phone was silent.

Yet, a faint buzzing still seemed to linger in his ears… was he imagining things? Come to think of it, the sound hadn’t been loud, as if ringing from a distance.

‘This is why you can’t live a life of sin.’ After abruptly leaving the MT, he had received several messages and calls from classmates asking about his well-being, even on his way home.

However, he couldn’t answer the calls or reply to the messages. He had been too busy ‘sticking’ with him as soon as he got home; what could he have said?

He had planned to reply quickly once Jung Ban-ri returned to his own home… ‘He’s just going to put it back in anyway—what’s the point.’

The monster, regardless of whether the phone rang or not, was diligently fulfilling his stated intention. Or rather, should it be “overflowing”?

His last memory before losing consciousness was of shuddering at the sensation of his belly being so full that it felt like it was spilling out.

Perhaps because his entire focus had been on his phone until he passed out, he kept hearing the buzzing sound.