Crash!
Thunder cracked, tearing the sky apart, shaking the high-rise in the heart of Velas City. A torrential downpour lashed out. Like the heavens unleashing their wrath on someone's behalf.
I sat hugging my knees on the expansive bed, my heart stuttered in my chest as I stared at the bedroom door.
The rain hammered against the glass in a steady rhythm, but it couldn't drown it out. It couldn't mask the heavy, staggering footsteps dragging down the corridor.
I knew it was him. Even before he struck.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The thunderous pounding shook the door. It wasn't a knock. It was a violent kick, or a brutal slam, saturated with absolute defeat.
"Open! Aunt Lin! Open the fucking door!"
Ren's muffled roar bled through. His voice slurred. Ferocious, yet laced with agonizing pain.
Beep! Click... CRASH!
The heavy door was kicked open, ricocheting violently against the wall.
Ren's towering figure staggered inside. Lurching forward like a man sustained only by his very last shred of energy.
He looked like he'd just lost a brutal fight.
His suit was drenched, plastered to his skin, and smeared with mud across the shoulders and cuffs. His white shirt was shredded, exposing bruised, red flesh.
His wet hair plastered across his face, partially obscuring his eyes bloodshot and unfocused.
"R-Ren?" I managed to whisper, barely forming the word.
My body scrambled backward until I hit the headboard before my brain even processed the command. I knew the man standing before me was not the Ren I recognized.
Ren snapped his head up. In that fraction of a second, I witnessed pure insanity.
"What are you looking at?" he asked, his voice low, hollow, and heavy. He dragged himself toward the bed, one agonizing step at a time.
"Are you laughing at me? Satisfied now?! Enjoying watching me fall apart like this?!"
"I didn't..."
Crash!
He snatched the lily vase from the nightstand and hurled it at the wall, missing my head by inches. Porcelain shards exploded across the room.
"My company is ruined! Do you hear me?!" He roared, laughing like a madman while tears flooded his cheeks.
"They took everything! Power, money, reputation... nothing is left!"
He lunged in the blink of an eye. I didn't even have time to brace myself.
His massive weight crushed me into the mattress. His large hands clamped around my throat, squeezing relentlessly. My windpipe constricted. Air vanished. My vision blurred.
"Only you are left. Just a stupid fucking toy like you!"
"Ghk... R... Ren... let go..."
I clawed at his hands, trying to pry them off. But his strength was monstrous, fueled by sheer madness.
"I should just destroy everything."
His voice shook. Tears dripped from his face onto my cheeks, entirely contradicting the lethal pressure crushing my throat.
"I should kill you… then follow right after. Then no one can ever steal you from me! I won't allow it. I won't let anyone take you!"
The grip tightened. My vision darkened at the edges. I thrashed wildly, suffocating. Am I going to die? Die right when freedom is inches away?
No!
Survival instinct overpowered the terror. Instead, I slowly raised my trembling hands and cupped his face. My fingers brushed against the bruised, swollen flesh of his cheek. It was damp and scorching. I gently wiped his tears away.
Ren froze instantly.
The crushing pressure around my throat slackened slightly. The mindless insanity in his eyes wavered into sheer confusion. Like a man suddenly waking up and realizing what his hands were doing.
"Does it hurt?" I asked hoarsely. I channeled the softest, most tender gaze I could muster.
"Who hurt you? Tell me."
Ren stared at me like a man waking from a nightmare. His hands slowly released my throat, shifting to cup my face with trembling reverence.
"Yurin..." His voice cracked.
"Do you... not hate me? I just tried to kill you. I just hurt you."
"No..." I shook my head slowly. I grabbed his bloodstained hand and pressed my lips lightly against the back of it. A touch so faint it was barely a kiss.
Yet Ren froze.
"I have no one left, Yurin. I have absolutely no one. Everyone abandoned me. That bastard father of mine punched me. He said I was just a worthless bastard son who destroys everything I touch! He called me a curse on the family. He disowned me!"
"Hic... I'm a curse. I'm worthless..."
His confession poured out, releasing a lifetime of suppressed pain. He wasn't powerful. He was just a boy starved of the love his father never gave him.
I stroked his hair gently, letting him weep and vent his shattered soul.
But internally, my mind was glacial, utterly hollow.
Pathetic. Truly pathetic, Ren. You are as pitiful as I am. But I had to perform this act to the very end. I had to lull him into absolute blindness until the day arrived.
"Don't cry," I whispered against his ear.
"You still have me. Even if the entire world turns its back on you, I will be right here. I will be your home."
He looked up. His bruised eyes were bloodshot like a rabbit's. "Do you promise?"
"I promise."
Ren smiled through his tears. He crashed his lips into mine. A desperate kiss tasting of liquor and blood.
"Then tonight..." He pulled away, staring at me with a pathetic, pleading gaze. "Make me forget the pain... Let me f-"
"Shh..." I pressed a finger to his lips, stopping the sentence.
"You are exhausted, Ren. Let me take care of you tonight. Let me wash the pain away."
I guided Ren to the sofa at the foot of the bed. He looked frighteningly deteriorated.
I slowly, meticulously unbuttoned his shredded shirt. Peeling it back to expose a broad chest painted with livid bruises and scrapes from a brutal fight. He looked like a man who had lost everything.
"Where does it hurt?" I asked softly, grabbing a warm, damp towel.
"Everywhere," he rasped, closing his eyes and surrendering entirely to my touch.
I began to wipe him down. The warm cloth glided over his freezing, damp skin. Starting with his face. Cleaning the mud and blood from the corner of his mouth. Trailing down his neck, his chest, and his muscular abdomen.
Every stroke was gentle. Meticulously tender. Like carefully, almost reverently.
"Mnn..." Ren groaned softly in his throat. The warmth of the cloth and my hands visibly relaxed him.
I leaned down, using an antiseptic swab to dab lightly at the scrape on his arm.
"It might sting a little."
I blew softly on the wound. My warm breath ghosted across his skin, causing Ren to open his eyes. He looked at me with profound gratitude.
"Yurin." He grabbed my hand before I could continue.
"You are so good to me. Even after all the horrific things I've done to you. Why? Why are you still so good to me?"
I looked up, meeting his eyes with a faint smile. "Because you are Ren. And I am your Yurin."
I set the first-aid kit aside. I stepped between his legs and pulled his head to rest against my chest. I carded my fingers through his messy hair playfully.
"Rest now. Leave the horror outside that door. In here... it is only us."
Ren wrapped his arms tightly around my waist, burying his face in my chest like a child seeking shelter. He closed his eyes, letting his tears flow silently, soaking into my shirt.
This profound, intimate proximity. It chained this, turning him completely into my slave.
I gently massaged his shoulders, watching him gradually settle into my embrace.
So pitiful. You love me this much, but you never learned the right way to love. You think I am an angel descended to save you. You have no idea... I am the shears about to cut off your wings.
Twenty minutes later, sheer exhaustion dragged Ren into a dead sleep on my lap.
His breathing leveled into a slow, heavy rhythm.
I sat stroking his hair. But my eyes were completely vacant.
Two more days. Only a few days left. This play will finally conclude. And I will be the one to drop the curtain.