Chapter 31 – Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (3)
Hyunwoo bought some snacks and water at a convenience store and headed to the house he had left for the day.
The building originally belonged to his mother, but became his property as of last year.
No, it is a two-story brick house that is a bit awkward to use the word building.
It was an old building that was built over 30 years ago, but after extensive renovations, it was more than enough to live in alone.
“Wow, the building owner is a bachelor.”
As he reached the house, a familiar voice called out to Hyunwoo. It was a fruit shop lady who had recently rented out the first floor of the building.
Because she was close to sixty, she had trouble deciding between her name and that of her grandmother, but Hyeon-woo called her “Aunt.”
Whenever she ran into Hyunwoo, she would pretend to know him and call him the building owner.
We’re not that close, but we’re close enough to pretend not to know each other.
Hyunwoo raised her voice for her going deaf from her early age.
“Hello! “Is business going well these days?”
“Huh? Well then, good luck. Since it’s in the middle of a residential area, my neck is fine. “I’ll go out and pay the rent on time, so you don’t have to worry about being a bachelor.”
She mutters something in a dialect that Hyunwoo cannot easily understand. At first glance, she seemed to mean that she would not fall behind on rent, so she just smiled.
The monthly rent paid for giving up a small space on the first floor is about 1 million won.
It used to be a space where his mother ran a beauty salon, but now it has become a fruit shop that allows Hyunwoo to lead the life of an unemployed person.
He bowed his head in greeting and headed toward the entrance of the building next to the store.
In order to use the stairs located inside the building, you had to enter a password into the thick glass door blocking the entrance.
After entering the six-digit password with familiar movements and walking up the stairs, I hear the sound of the door slamming and locking behind me.
Then, the sound of cars passing outside and the sound of the TV coming from the fruit shop fade away beyond the door, and only silence falls in the hallway.
Perfect sound isolation so that the sound of small exhaled breath can be considered the loudest sound in this space.
Hyunwoo inherited this building and carried out renovation work, paying particular attention to soundproofing and soundproofing. This was especially true because it was a building located on a street where people walked around.
He did not want the hustle and bustle outside to invade his home, nor did he want the sounds he made to spread to passers-by outside.
He opens the front door lock and pulls the handle, and an empty landscape welcomes him.
Soundproofing work was also completed inside the house, so the silence that filled the house was not unfamiliar at all.
The only furniture in the living room is the sofa and the small table next to it.
There isn’t even a TV or shelves that his mother might have used.
The first thing Hyunwoo did as soon as he inherited the house was to throw out all the belongings in the house.
Space was no exception to his control freak tendencies. No, she especially liked it because it was the house where she lived.
I couldn’t tolerate even the slightest trace of the previous owner, or to put it slightly exaggeratedly, even a speck of dust.
It made me sick to think that this was a house with the hands of a woman who had abused her.
Therefore, he first used the inheritance he inherited to remodel this house. Everything from floor to ceiling was destroyed, torn out, and rebuilt.
A home just for Hyunwoo, reborn under Hyunwoo’s touch. An entity that embodies his controlling tendencies in the form of space.
Hyunwoo lay down on the sofa and stretched out his hand to the notebook on the table.
The thin notebook with a dark blue leather cover was filled with short lines of text along with the date.
[March 28th. Pygmalion effect. Praise and expectations seem to be surprisingly effective in changing people’s behavior. What happens if you praise more and expect more?]
[March 30th. Principles of systematic desensitization. Removing aversive reactions requires delicate hierarchical control. Start from small tasks and gradually move up to larger tasks. Never be in a hurry.]
That might be a type of teaching assistant that I started using after meeting Hyeji.
I am confident that my memory is not that bad, but my sense of reality was very blurred due to meeting dozens of women in two months.
As a woman who intrigued her appeared for the first time in a while, she needed to leave a brief review for each day in order to prevent her from making any mistakes or misconceptions.
For that reason, a month’s worth of records had already accumulated in the assistant teacher’s diary, and the woman who was the subject of the diary was in the process of being reduced from a rag to a slave.
Hyunwoo looked through the previous contents for a moment, opened the margin of the last page, and picked up his pen. The pen slipped on the paper with a crunching sound.
[April 28th. Symptoms and principles of PTSD and its treatment. Why did it look like that? What kind of magic happened?]
I left a simple line in my notebook and fell into deep thought as I bit into the snack I had bought.
Hyeji’s abnormal symptoms that I witnessed this morning were clearly beyond the normal range.
No matter how you think about it, it’s not normal for her to act like a doll with its strings broken just because she couldn’t say I love you properly.
Hyunwoo really wanted that unusual reaction. When he first saw that reaction, he felt like Santa had visited him while he was sleeping last night.
If you can do it once, you can do it twice or three times. So, we need to find out what the principle is.
It was only that thought that made Hyunwoo return home, tired.
I was convinced that it was definitely related to yesterday’s corporal punishment, but I couldn’t figure out the principle.
No, I guessed it to some extent, but I couldn’t blindly trust it. There were many parts that were unclear to explain simply with violence.
I especially liked the strange sight of Hyeji laughing with tears streaming down her face last night.
Hyunwoo continued to worry a little longer and then shook off the thoughts that came to mind through Jung-gu heating.
His own learning and experience were still insufficient to approach it with just his guesses.
After pouring the snack into his mouth, he opens the laptop on the table and begins searching.
In the quiet living room, only the sound of typing and clicking of the mouse occasionally rang out.
He moves only his eyes and hands without the slightest movement. The eyes move continuously and scan the information displayed on the monitor.
There were several search boxes open, but they all had one keyword in common.
PTSD causes, PTSD symptoms, PTSD stages, PTSD treatment… Search terms that might make someone mistake you for a psychotherapist or mental counselor.
In particular, I read a lot about the treatment of PTSD.
If you know how to improve symptoms, you can easily know how to make them worse.
Woooooung- Woooooung-
For a long time. The sound of the cell phone vibrating from his pocket broke Hyunwoo’s concentration.
I frowned slightly and took out my phone, and messages from Hyeji appeared on the screen.
[Jeong Hye-ji: I went home safely!!! Why didn’t you leave a KakaoTalk message? Binggu. Did you fall asleep right away?]
[Jeong Hye-ji: It’s lunchtime haha. You two should eat and sleep ㅜㅜㅜ… I can’t even call you for fear of waking you up.]
[Jeong Hye-ji: And my period broke out… I somehow felt like I was going to break out today ughㅜㅜ]
Hyunwoo was casually reading the messages through the preview pop-up notification, but when he saw the last message, he fell into deep thought.
On the day I first met her, I heard that her period had ended some time ago, so even considering the oral contraceptives she was taking, her cycle was roughly correct now. On the contrary, it felt a bit late.
I’ve been taking the medication for almost two weeks now. If everything goes as scheduled, you can enjoy vaginal ejaculation to your heart’s content after your period.
Hyunwoo smiled at that thought and then came up with a perfect idea and licked his lips with his tongue.
The smile on his lips grew darker.
I was already looking at her anus, but the opportunity presented itself. It seemed that if she used this period well, she would get a meat toilet that could take a dick through her back hole.
Of course, that was the way. It was obvious, without any need to say it.
Words like a dense spider web pulled from the tongue. Entangle her body and mind.
This time, Hyeji will be caught on the web that the tip of her tongue is squeezing, and will helplessly surrender her anus.
Hyunwoo felt things swelling just by imagining it, and he turned his phone’s notifications to silent. First, I had to organize my studies from just now.
According to what we found, yesterday’s magic was not just about barbaric and low-level violence.
If I had waved my hand too hastily, relying only on yesterday’s experience, I would have ended up in trouble.
What broke her spirit last night was ambivalence.
It means having contrasting emotions at the same time about an object, person, idea, etc., Or confusing emotions such as feeling one way or another.
This ambivalence was the hidden key to reassembling her mind at will.
It makes you have extremely contrasting feelings about your boyfriend, such as feeling as he is the person you love the most and feeling like he is the person you fear the most.
He starts out as the warmest person, then acts like the coldest person, and then becomes the softest person, then turns into the most violent person.
Just like yesterday.
This ambivalence paralyzes Hye-ji’s ability to think and creates the optimal condition for brainwashing her. She had already tasted some of the fruits this morning.
Hyunwoo calmly wrote down the content from just now into his notebook and became familiar with the principle.
It was a clearer and simpler principle than I thought.
[One. A depleted mind cannot function properly. It is like a body that cannot lift a finger after hard physical labor.]
[2. The clash of ambivalent feelings confuses Hye-ji’s mind and quickly depletes her spirit.]
[3. A depleted mind cannot resist and accepts any brainwashing.]
When I took off the pen and looked back, I realized that the words I had unconsciously said yesterday and the actions I had taken without much thought were all a form of torture that triggered ambivalence.
He cut my heart to pieces with sharply forged words, but comforted me with a gentle tone. He used terrible violence and then gently caressed her as if he were a precious lover. He acted like he was very disappointed, but was happy to follow orders.
In particular, after inflating my positive emotions with a confession, I was confident that hitting her breast had really set off the trigger.
The complete depletion of the mind created in that way, and the rationalization of corporal punishment imposed in that state.
I felt like I finally understood why Hyeji was so nervous in the morning. It was as if she had fallen into very strong brainwashing.
After that, Hyunwoo continued to carefully organize the details of his investigation. Instead of the previous vague guesses, grounded confidence based on theory gradually began to take root.
Then, when I looked out her window, the sun was already going down. He was so focused that he didn’t even notice time passing.
When I took out my cell phone, which I had put on silent mode, there were a lot of messages and missed calls.
[Jeong Hye-ji: Did we wake up??]
[Jeong Hye-ji: Honey, why aren’t you answering the phone? Are you sleeping? Don’t worryㅠㅠ]
[Jeong Hye-ji: Hey!!!!! As if I’m telling you to answer the phone!!!]
[Jeong Hye-ji: Wooi ㅠㅠㅠㅠ When you wake up, send me a KakaoTalk message right away!!!! Get ready to get scolded!!!!!!!]
Even after that, seeing the exclamation marks and tear signs, it seemed like he was quite anxious.
Hyunwoo lifted his drowsy body from the sofa and moved his fingers.
[Hyunwoo Kim: I’m sorry. I put it on silent and forgot… I didn’t even know there was a call. Furthermore, I was sleeping all this time, and now I woke up… Are you very angry?]
I roughly wrote a reply and picked up the cup with the intention of having a glass of water or something, but immediately the notification sound rang. It looks like he was holding his phone all day and waiting for a call.
[Jeong Hye-ji: heheyou idiotㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ I was so worriedㅠㅠㅠ He thought he was deadㅜㅜ Thank goodness!!!!! Did you sleep well?? Are you refreshed?]
Surprisingly, other than worrying and asking how I’m doing, I don’t get annoyed at all.
He continued his conversation briefly and concluded by saying that he would wash up and contact me again.
As Hyunwoo soaks in the warm water, he thinks back on his studies just now.
For her, her violence is effective. However, only on the condition that she has built up positive emotions that can rival his.
In that case, even though it was a bit of a hassle, it was necessary to continue acting like a friendly boyfriend for a while. No, the more thorough the better.
I collect my thoughts one by one while feeling the stream of water.
As Hyunwoo left the bathroom, he seemed to know what he had to do right away.
Even though it was something I had not planned on until just now…
This evening, I’m going to pick her up from work.
Build up as much as possible from positive emotions, which will become an axis of ambivalence.
Originally, in order to plummet to the ground, a spectacular flight was necessary.
Hyunwoo’s eyes sparkled after he finished thinking. Now that he knew what to do, he had no more hesitation.
