Atonement, About it's Cruelty - Chapter 26
Looking back now, it seems the lips holding the cigarette were smoothly curled. With those smiling lips, he lit another cigarette.
“If you want more, I can wait a bit.”
He was nonchalant about the violence in the darkness, and that indifference terrified her deeply.
The despair and fear of that moment licked at her heart like a chilling flame. Desperately, she begged. Please don’t leave me in this darkness, please help me.
“Help me, please help me…”
On the other hand, Simon, who had hoped he could finally relax now that the woman’s eyes were open, felt his patience wearing thin the moment she seemed to lose her senses.
The brothel owner, who had thought this would be a lucky day, now wished she could just die when faced with Simon’s unwavering stare.
Simon stepped forward menacingly and roughly lifted her up, then shoved her toward the bed and issued a command.
“Take responsibility. If she’s lost her mind, one finger won’t be enough.”
The brothel owner wept as he looked at the completely broken woman.
Help me, don’t abandon me, please help me.
The woman kept muttering the same words over and over. Her eyes were vacant, tears streaming down, and her fists clenched tightly as if they would turn white.
It felt like something she had seen before, or a scene she had experienced.
She gulped for air and crawled onto the bed. Then she took the trembling woman’s stiff hand and lowered her head.
“I’m sorry.”
“……”
“I’m sorry. I did wrong.”
“…Help me, don’t leave me, I…”
The voice, full of despair, carried the same terror from the night before.
The brothel owner, who had sought to destroy the woman’s body with her own hands, lifted her up and held her tightly. She stroked her back, which she had once intended to push into the abyss with a smile, and apologized as if pleading.
“I’m sorry, miss. I’m so sorry.”
It could have been a desperate struggle for survival, a shred of conscience buried deep below, or perhaps an instinct obeying the devil’s command to take responsibility.
Whatever the reason, she couldn’t let go of the fragile body, which seemed on the verge of collapse, even as she choked back tears.
Holding her small back, she told her to come out of there, that it was all in the past. She insisted that her actions hadn’t been driven by ill will, while still sharing warmth.
“I’m sorry, miss. I was wrong. I’m so sorry.”
However, Simon’s reaction to this was not just cynical but downright horrifying.
“What a mess. I told you to take responsibility, and here you are sitting around apologizing.”
Muttering that if Oscar weren’t outside the door, he’d have seen blood here several times over, Simon pulled out a cigarette. The absurdity of the scene made him feel like his blood was boiling, so he turned his back to the bed.
“Find a place to bury her.”
However, as his assistant, who was nervously gauging Simon’s mood, hesitated momentarily, he cautiously spoke up.
“Sir, but…”
“What?”
“Somehow, it seems like she’s coming to her senses.”
“……?”
As Simon was about to light his cigarette, he turned sharply to look. He locked eyes with the woman enveloped in a faint light.
The brown eyes set in her pale face drew Simon’s gaze irresistibly. At that moment, he felt that the woman’s consciousness was returning.
“I’m sorry, miss.”
The old prostitute from Felpe comforted the woman she had intended to exploit, while the naive foreigner was slowly regaining stability in the arms of the woman who had tried to sell her off.
Of course, Simon’s view of this was consistently horrific.
“I can’t understand it. What a sight.”
Even so, the transparent brown eyes were becoming clearer by the moment.
The woman, who had become a living key, was troublesome both in life and death, and in madness.
Simon, observing her with a cynical gaze, lit his cigarette and thought.
So what if she’s come back to her senses? Isn’t it enough that she’s up and about, no matter how?
Yes, that’s what matters, isn’t it?
Through the spreading smoke, the brown eyes were visible.
Simon raised his cigarette with one hand and gave a sarcastic nod.
“Are you coming to your senses?”
As the last remnants of the suffocating nightmare began to fade with the warmth and touch on her back, the once-distant, hazy voice became clear and loud.
Seo-ah, now facing the red eyes of the man who had been speaking, realized that he was the source of the menacing conversation she had overheard. She also recognized him as one of ‘those men’ who had been near ‘that man’.
The man approached her step by step, and behind him, other men with similarly strong builds appeared. They pulled away the person who had been holding her.
The warmth that had saved her from the surging memories abruptly vanished.
“W-what? Why? Please, save me. She’s awake now!”
It took Seo-ah a moment to realize that the warmth that had rescued her was, in fact, from the very person who had pushed her into despair. When the man with red eyes reached right in front of her, Seo-ah understood that the person being dragged away was the dignified innkeeper.
From the crack in the slightly open door, heavy and intense presences surged in.
Unable to remain seated on the bed, she hastily got up and placed her feet on the floor, feeling as if her knees might give way. As she tried to steady her trembling legs with her hands, she saw long, slender legs in her line of sight. Shiny black shoes stopped just one step away from her.
“……”
Holding onto her thighs for support, she glanced up, and the man with the red eyes was looking down at her.
“Can you walk?”
His tone was polite, but it felt as though if she answered no, he would expect her to crawl.
“…Yes.”
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