Red Dot - 159

Chapter 159

“How did you know, our Junseong?”

Nam Ki-hyuk did not deny it. Instead, he seemed pleased that Junseong figured it out.

Junseong looked at Ki-hyuk and felt chills run through his body.

Ki-hyuk felt exactly like a snake.

A terrifying, giant snake that bit the nape of its prey, tightened around it to immobilize it, and slowly crushed it to death.

Junseong, overwhelmed by a sense of foreboding, pushed Ki-hyuk away and stepped back. Ki-hyuk’s gaze turned cold instantly.

“Why? Are you scared of me?”

Instead of answering, Junseong staggered backward with unsteady steps.

He wasn’t afraid of death. After all, this was a dream, and there was no pain. Even if Ki-hyuk killed him here, he would just start over from the beginning.

“From the beginning…?”

A sudden realization hit him.

Ki-hyuk saw Junseong’s death through dreams. If Junseong let himself be killed by Ki-hyuk’s hands, the next cycle’s Ki-hyuk would surely realize that Junseong had figured everything out. That would be the only reason Ki-hyuk would kill Junseong when they were alone.

“Better if I die by my own hand.”

That way, the crucial clue that Ki-hyuk tried to kill Junseong would disappear. If Junseong didn’t want to be chased by Ki-hyuk the moment the next cycle began, this was the way.

Junseong hurriedly scanned his surroundings, and his eyes landed on a dessert knife placed on a nearby table. It was for cutting waffles, with a rounded tip and not very sharp, but it seemed capable of piercing a person’s throat.

Without hesitation, Junseong grabbed the knife and stabbed it toward his own throat.

Or rather, he tried to.

The knife’s tip, meant for his throat, was firmly blocked with a sensation of piercing something, preventing his success.

“Ouch…”

Ki-hyuk, who had approached with the intent to pounce, twitched his eyebrows. Red bl00d flowed from his sturdy hand, pierced by the knife’s blade. Bl00d also glistened on the shiny blade protruding from the back of Ki-hyuk’s hand, dripping onto Junseong’s shoulder.

Ki-hyuk, who stopped Junseong’s suicide, alternated his gaze between his pierced hand and Junseong’s pale throat.

“You know what I hate the most, Junseong.”

Ki-hyuk, gripping Junseong’s hand tightly with the knife still piercing it, twisted one corner of his mouth upward.

“Did you really think I’d kill you?”

He smirked mockingly, but his eyes held a bitter tinge for some reason.

As Junseong met his gaze, he momentarily let his guard down, thinking this was the Ki-hyuk he knew. But then, his hair was yanked roughly, forcing his chin up and exposing his throat.

“That’s too much.”

Ki-hyuk brought his lips to Junseong’s pale throat and bit the tender skin gently. He bit hard enough to leave teeth marks instantly, but Junseong only felt the pressure on his skin.

Yet, the fear rising from that spot was immense. It was more vivid and terrifying than when a zombie tore at his throat with bl00d splattering everywhere. A horrific dread washed over him, as if moving even slightly would lead to an unimaginably brutal death.

“Now that you’ve figured it out, it’s time… to be punished, right?”

Ki-hyuk whispered with his lips buried in Junseong’s throat.

“I told you not to die, but you kept dying so well.”

Ki-hyuk, citing absurd reasons to justify his act of punishment, released Junseong’s hand holding the knife. While Junseong, still with his hair tightly grabbed, pushed Ki-hyuk with both hands, Ki-hyuk took the knife’s handle, lodged straight through his palm, into his mouth and pulled it out.

Ki-hyuk spat out the bl00d-soaked knife and grabbed both of Junseong’s arms, twisting them behind his back.

“Let go!”

Junseong, suddenly bound, struggled as if regaining his senses. But his arms were already tied behind his back, and he was held in Ki-hyuk’s embrace.

Ki-hyuk, with a smiling face, hugged Junseong tightly and looked outside the café. A black van parked on the street opened abruptly, and three men rushed in. Two café employees, a man and a woman, who were lingering in confusion, flinched at the sight of guns boldly held in the men’s hands.

Two men aimed their guns threateningly at the employees, while the other approached Ki-hyuk and Junseong.

“Seokjin, give him a shot.”

“Yes, boss.”

The man, responding politely to Ki-hyuk, pulled a syringe from his pocket. It looked like a disposable syringe easily bought at a pharmacy, already filled with a transparent drug.

“No! Don’t do it!”

“Shh, it’s okay. He’s good at giving shots without pain. Oh, does it matter if it hurts? You can’t feel it anyway.”

Ki-hyuk showed a playful smile that clashed with the icy atmosphere, making it all the more eerie.

Junseong, sensing danger, tried to struggle more fiercely, but he was completely trapped in Ki-hyuk’s embrace. Unable to resist properly, he was injected in the throat, where Ki-hyuk’s teeth marks remained, and quickly lost consciousness.

Bang-, bang-, faintly, two gunshots and screams echoed.

Junseong had hypothesized long ago that Ki-hyuk might be a murderer.

As soon as he started revealing his secrets to others besides Ki-hyuk, his comrades began dying one by one at the hands of a murderer, so it was natural to suspect him.

Moreover, Junseong strangely never became a target. Neither did Ki-hyuk.

When this happened two or three times, suspicion was inevitable. No matter how vigilant he was, there were no signs of others or traces of the murderer, so he had to look for the culprit nearby.

He realized it definitively while observing the cut surfaces of the bodies.

The severed parts were all joints or relatively thin bones. He had once seen Ki-hyuk completely sever a zombie’s neck with a single swing of a dagger, controlling the force precisely. The military dagger was sharp, but Ki-hyuk’s strength and skill in cutting bones were remarkable.

The brutally severed bodies all had clean cuts, as if done by one person. The cut locations were places Ki-hyuk could easily sever with his strength and dagger.

Yet, Junseong had kept denying and ignoring the idea that Ki-hyuk was the rumored murderer.

Ki-hyuk had no motive to do so.

Among the dead comrades, not all were people who insulted or distrusted him. Some had fully supported and followed him. He couldn’t find a reason why Ki-hyuk had to kill not only those who distrusted him but also those who were reliable allies.

That was until he witnessed Jang Daewook’s death.

“Was I… what you hated, hyung?”

If not, he didn’t know.

The reason Ki-hyuk wanted him to be “alone.”

Bound alone in a damp, dusty abandoned factory, Junseong endlessly mulled over his groggy thoughts.

He hoped there was some proper justification for Ki-hyuk’s murders.

Because the world they started experiencing was like this, an abnormal world, where both woke up with horrific memories.

Hoping for some convincing reason, Junseong sought him out as soon as this cycle began. He believed Ki-hyuk would confess honestly to him, who had realized he was the murderer.

But he belatedly realized that was the one thing he should never have done.

Lying down, Junseong clutched his dizzy head and sat up. He tried to steady himself with one hand but, due to handcuffs, had to support his head with both hands.

“Handcuffs…?”

Perhaps because of the strange drug, his mind was sluggish. His consciousness was hazy and dizzy, so he noticed the handcuffs on his wrists a beat late.

Junseong shook his dizzy head a couple of times to clear his mind. It didn’t help much, but he could at least assess his condition.

A rope was tied around his waist, with a knot at the back connected to a short, one-meter iron chain linked to an iron pillar behind him. He pulled at the rope and chain with his handcuffed hands, but they seemed impossible to break or undo with ordinary strength.

Left alone in the middle of the factory without light, Junseong relied on the red glow of the sunset outside to scan his surroundings. Fortunately, there were no signs of anyone nearby.

As he calmly assessed the situation, his heart began to race. His anxious mind quickly instructed him on what to do.

“I need to die quickly. Quickly…!”

He knew well who had brought him here. Not knowing what he might do, Junseong had to escape or die to restart as soon as possible.

But the distance Junseong could move was only one meter around the iron pillar. No matter how much he groped or searched within that range, there was nothing useful.

As despair sank in, footsteps echoed in Junseong’s ears. Not one or two, but a group of footsteps.

Then, lights began to turn on from the factory’s far end. With a pop-, the entrance lit up brightly, revealing Ki-hyuk standing boldly with at least ten men.

Ki-hyuk walked toward Junseong, giving orders to the men. They looked far rougher than Ki-hyuk, yet they bowed deeply to him, acting respectfully.

Pop-, pop-.

The factory’s lights kept turning on, reaching the mat where Junseong sat.

“Our Junseong, you’re finally awake.”

Looking at the frightened Junseong under the bright lights, Ki-hyuk’s lips stretched into a wide grin.

“Time to be punished.”