Blood trickled from the open gash in his head, wrapping around his neck in jagged lines like red vines winding their way around the base of a pillar. Life's liquid slowly leaked from his head, curling around his face before finally trailing off and hitting the bed with a subtle, non-rhythmic plopping sound that grated on his nerves.

He wished he could move, but the cuffs you placed on his wrists and ankles restricted his movement to nothing more than uncomfortable shuffling. The pain in his head had subsided some time ago, much to his dismay. Even the lingering smell of chloroform was beginning to dissipate, although a strange smell that reminded him of petroleum had filled the air. Both had provided a much-needed distraction from the reality of what was happening to him.

He wasn't sure how, but you had thrown him onto this bed quite some time ago, without him knowing. The fact that he had been captured was humiliating enough in itself, and now worse so knowing it was his own ex-prisoner who had done it to him.

There weren't any clocks in the room, and the last time he had seen one, the time read 4:24 PM. He wasn't entirely sure what the time was now, but if he had to venture a guess, he would've estimated that at least 4 more hours had elapsed. A heavy banging on the wooden door lifted him from his thoughts, and he waited with a critical eye as the dead bolt was lifted and the door creaked open.

You, his captor, walked in stoically. Though your face remained relatively passive, your eyes shone with contempt as the sight of the man before you and triggered the memory of the circumstances under which you, yourself had been apprehended.

Aside from being bored, and criticizing his wounds, a majority of the time he had been awake, Sangwoo dealt with him mentally berating himself.

Why did he drop his guard?

Sangwoo had analyzed the situation frontward and backward, but still could not provide a rational explanation to placate his seething mind, and bruised ego.

Yes, he had been drugged, but it was just a few drops on a rag; how did it take him out? And though resisting capture would have been easy, the possibility of him fighting back was slim-to-none, due to your sneakiness. Despite all that, when he dropped his guard and bent down to pick up the item for you, you had immobilized him with the crash of a hammer on his head. That precious moment of trust had cost him everything.

He shook the revelry out of his mind. No point on dwelling on past events now. His eyes left the ceiling and instead sought to fixate themselves on you, who had situated yourself to his left. He knew what was coming next.

"Why did you do it?"

Skip to the alternative ending if you like happy endings only ;)