Chapter 5
Riiiiip.
The morning sunlight poked at my cheek through the window.
As if it were telling me it was getting late and urging me to get up, it made me half-open my eyes without thinking.
I wondered what that rough, meaningless sound I'd heard earlier had been, but as the cool breeze from my left washed over me, I started to feel like it didn't matter.
Caught up in that refreshing feeling, I sat up without thinking and braced a hand on the bed to stretch.
'......?'
I braced myself... braced...
For some reason, my hand wouldn't move at all.
A little puzzled, I looked down at myself and soon realized my hands and feet were tied with some thin cord.
The knots were tight but carelessly tied, unmistakably meant to kidnap me.
Only then did it hit me that I was in danger.
'What kind of lunatic kidnaps someone in broad daylight at a hospital full of witnesses?'
They must have targeted me because I was a cute little girl alone in a private room without a guardian.
They wouldn't have done this if they'd known I used to be a guy.
But thankfully, I wasn't so young that my mind would go blank in a situation like this. I was an adult who could take advantage of the fact that we weren't far from the hallway near the hospital entrance.
'In this situation, it'll be a little embarrassing, but... I have no choice but to scream.'
My high, clear scream would surely ring through the hospital in an instant.
Then it wouldn't take much to draw in not just the patients around me, but the nurses and doctors near the lobby, too.
"...Mmph! Mmph...! Mmph......"
'Figures. Fuck.'
Obviously, no one preparing a kidnapping would leave their target's mouth untaped.
Blue duct tape was clamped firmly over my mouth.
'Was that ripping sound earlier the tape being torn...?'
With my hands and feet already tied, I was in the perfect position to be kidnapped, having completely lost my freedom of movement.
Realizing there was nothing I could do by struggling, I let out a deep sigh inside.
It was something I didn't even want to imagine, but at this rate, I'd probably be taken straight to the culprit's hideout and subjected to all kinds of inhuman, humiliating things.
And then, just like the victims in kidnapping cases that always made the front page, I'd surely be killed.
They'd have their fun and then destroy the evidence. A painfully clichéd, but obvious future.
'If I'd known this would happen, I should've just died last night.'
I'd never been proud of being born male, but I'd never wished I could live as a woman, either.
So I could swear on my conscience that I had absolutely no desire to become entertainment for perverted bastards who lusted after a tiny body like this.
Even if it were Hyunwoo, I think I'd feel sick. If it was some kidnapper whose face and name I didn't even know, there was even less to say.
I stole a glance up at the culprit. In one hand, he held a blood-soaked bandage, as if he'd just removed it from my neck.
He wore a suspicious hat and mask, along with bizarre sunglasses—a suspicious thug by anyone's standards.
He looked like the very definition of human garbage I shouldn't associate with, and I felt my mind go blank.
"......"
After carefully scanning me from head to toe, the unidentified man quickly scooped me up, as if carrying out his plan to kidnap me.
'I don't want to... I don't want this bastard holding me.'
Finally, I'd left the bed and ended up in the man's arms. I struggled desperately to deny the horrible things that were about to happen.
And it seemed my resistance wasn't entirely pointless, because the man looked flustered and couldn't move easily.
"Hey. Hold still for a second!"
The man shouted at me.
Understanding what he meant, I thought how shameless it was for a kidnapper to say something like that, and at the same time...
'...Hyunwoo? That sounds like Hyunwoo.'
At the unbelievable realization of who the kidnapper was, my whole body went rigid.
Relieved that I wasn't actually being kidnapped, I gestured for him to peel the tape off my mouth, and Hyunwoo removed it without a fuss.
Rrrrip.
The duct tape made a vicious sound as it came off, sending a jolt of pain through me.
It hurt so much I felt like my lips might get ripped right off and stuck to the tape.
The sticky stuff left around my mouth didn't exactly improve my mood.
If anything, it was one unpleasant thing after another.
"So, what were you trying to do just now?"
I asked Hyunwoo the question at the very top of my list.
Whether this was a hidden-camera prank or just a joke, he definitely owed me an explanation.
"You'd have trouble walking with your body so small, so I was going to bring you over myself."
Hyunwoo answered with shameless confidence.
It hardly seemed like an answer to my question—enough to make me wonder if I'd asked it wrong.
'Does he have trouble understanding?'
The Hyunwoo I remembered wasn't stupid.
If anything, his grades had been better than mine. He wasn't the sort of person who couldn't understand the meaning of such a simple question.
"Then why not just wake me up and take me with you?"
"You were asleep, so I decided to just bring you."
It was frustrating. Frustrating enough to make me doubt whether we were even talking about the same thing.
It felt like being forced to eat a sweet potato without even getting a sip of water.
"No, I mean, why did you tie me up?"
So frustrated that I just asked him directly, making my displeasure clear.
I couldn't understand why he needed to tie me up and kidnap me just to take me with him.
Only after hearing me did Hyunwoo rub his chin and think for a moment.
I had no idea what he was thinking, but watching him scan me again made my skin crawl for some reason.
"I thought you might wake up halfway through and make a scene. You might struggle because you thought you were being kidnapped."
'Is he actually crazy?'
I started to worry about Hyunwoo's state of mind. He knew exactly that it would look like a kidnapping, and he'd gone ahead with it anyway.
It was such a crazy thought that I couldn't help thinking something had to be wrong with him.
Come to think of it, I hadn't contacted Hyunwoo since he'd rushed off to the military. It wouldn't be surprising if he'd hurt his brain in the meantime.
'I haven't been in the military myself, but I've heard people come back with disabilities they didn't have before.'
It suddenly occurred to me that I should be kinder to Hyunwoo.
He must have been through so much that it drove him this far off the rails, even if he never told anyone.
Of course, that didn't explain what he was doing now.
"If that was what you were worried about, couldn't you just give me a normal piggyback ride...?"
"...That's. A little embarrassing. Carrying someone piggyback in broad daylight. People might get the wrong idea."
For some reason, Hyunwoo scratched his cheek sheepishly, his cheeks turning red.
I had no idea what kind of wiring was running through his head, but the way his face kept getting redder felt a little unpleasant.
'Seriously, what is this...?'
Hearing him calmly say that carrying someone on his back while they were asleep was embarrassing, but tying them up and abducting them wasn't, made my brain feel like it was twisting into knots.
Hyunwoo's words had gone beyond confusing and were crossing the line of common sense. I was at a loss for words.
As I sat there silently, I felt the tape being put back over my mouth.
'Wait, now that I'm awake, isn't this whole thing over?'
He'd said he was bringing me because I hadn't woken up, which meant there was no reason to go through with this kidnapping now that I was awake.
But Hyunwoo seemed to think otherwise. He held me tight against his chest and headed out of the hospital room.
'But wouldn't this look like a kidnapping to everyone else anyway?'
"......Mmph?!"
As soon as the thought crossed my mind, Hyunwoo dashed toward the hospital entrance the moment we stepped outside, as if he'd seen it coming.
Leaving the thoroughly startled people behind, he raced off as fast as the wind.
Then he ran all the way to the nearby taxi stand, opened the door, and roughly tossed me onto the back seat.
His movements were so smooth and decisive that I couldn't help being impressed, as if he'd rehearsed them.
Those well-practiced movements made me genuinely start to worry about Hyunwoo's future.
It took Hyunwoo less than two minutes to carry me from the hospital room to the back seat of the taxi. Then he climbed into the front seat without a hint of hesitation.
"You know XX Mart, right? Drop us off in the alley just past it."
"Pardon...? I mean, sir... that person..."
"They're my friend."
The taxi driver kept glancing back and forth between me, tied up from head to toe, and Hyunwoo.
The worried look on his face made it seem as if he was afraid he'd gotten mixed up in something shady.
'It's understandable he'd be shocked... a tiny girl tied up all over and a huge adult man with his face completely covered.'
Now that we'd come this far, I resigned myself to whatever happened and decided to lie down comfortably.
Before long, the taxi started moving.
Even in this situation, the driver seemed to have a strong sense of professional duty and had decided to drive us after all.
The taxi drove along the road for a long while, then turned onto a street I'd never seen before. And where it finally stopped was...
"...Huh?"
Right in front of the police station.