That shadow. Is that shadow yours too? You son of a bitch?George may once have been my predecessor, but can I now say he isn’t a participant?What about me? George asked calmly.“Whoever that shadow is, what difference does it make?” he added with a mocking tone. “Nothing will change given your position.”Something changed. Right now.George looked flustered. I saw through his feigned composure—he was actually unsettled. George never answers a question with a question. Never.If the figure in the photo had been George, he would have answered yes. And he would have said it was just an unfortunate matter. Therefore, that shadow was not George.Yet George knows the shadow’s identity. There was another accomplice involved. For some reason, George tried to hide the identity of this other conspirator. He knew who the fourth person was—and still tried to conceal it! Clearly, George was an enemy!I still believed that he had once been my predecessor. Now I also believed he was a collaborator.The dusty, musty smell of the stacks stung my nose, but my senses were sharper than ever. George had said he would use me, and true to his word, he participated in the rape without hesitation last night. For the sake of his own survival, he would gladly participate in raping and torturing me. His goal was to live—so even if it meant offering me as a sacrifice, he would set fire to everything under his feet.Fortunately, George’s goals and mine overlapped in part. We were both willing to brave fire and water to survive Jérôme’s gang. Just as George had exploited my ignorance last night, I would exploit him.My silence made George realize his mistake. He blinked his clear eyes as if fatigued. I grinned and said, “All right, you son of a bitch, Hugh’s dog. Let’s get back to the topic. When it reached this point, how did our predecessors behave?”“They submitted without question,” George admitted.“They licked their boots and begged to be spared. Usually, after one rape, they lost their minds. Those bastards tortured the predecessors until they went completely insane. They couldn’t function as humans and lived like dogs.”“Like you?” I asked with a laugh. George replied coldly.“No. I didn’t become a dog—I chose to be one.”He fell silent for a moment, then spoke in a slow tone. “Soon you’ll have to make a choice too. Simon’s getting impatient. You’ll have to choose whether to submit to them or kill yourself. You know what happens if you miss that choice?”George’s eyes glowed strangely. “You’ll meet the same end as the predecessors. Unlike me, they missed their chance.”It was ludicrous. Absurd and solemn words. Unable to function as humans? Forced to live like dogs? Tortured until they went mad? They had already raped me, photographed it, dosed me with strange drugs, shot me with syringes, whipped me with a crop, and tried to drown me in the bog. Every imaginable or unimaginable horror had occurred. If they continued their torture, it would be nothing but repetitions of the assaults above.Physical violence, psychological torment, and sexual violence had all taken place. No matter how inventive they got, they could no longer shock me. If they offered me a choice, I would gladly hurl it to the ground.George, strutting with false bravado, looked ridiculous. No matter how valuable the information he held, he was just a dog of a bitch. A neutered mutt incapable of biting its master’s hand. I looked up at George’s gaunt, youthful cheeks and spoke softly, “You’re wrong, George. They made you believe you chose. You didn’t choose—you were raised as their dog from the start.”George stared at me expressionlessly, but anger flickered low in his eyes. I continued calmly, “The reason you’re different from the predecessors is that they groomed you as a pet they could sleep with. They have no pattern. Think they’d give you a choice? No way.”This time I stepped forward, my eyes shining. “They already failed to tame me.”That’s why Simon was anxious, why George showed interest in me, and why I was still walking on two feet despite everything.George said nothing. Yet I still needed his help. I needed everything he knew, felt, and had learned about Jérôme, Simon, and Hugh; I needed to review the predecessors’ cases through George.But from this conversation I realized: George was thoroughly Hugh’s dog. He could only think in the way they had trained him. He believed he lived by free will, unaware he’d fallen into their trap.Was George’s information genuine? Or was it false intel Hugh had implanted? Was George truly trying to help, or simply wandering deeper into Jérôme’s trap under his own feet? In this situation, allying with George was tantamount to siding with Jérôme’s gang.This was farewell to George. My talk with him had been useful only to unmask his identity and dissolve the alliance. That very conversation had revealed one weakness of Jérôme’s gang. I gave George’s blank face a faint smile and turned to leave the library. An unexpected gain.A dog demands its owner’s attention.A dog becomes what its owner trains it to be. The owner, with persistent patience, grooms the mutt into a cute pet. At some point, even if the owner stops doting, the dog still craves his love and attention.The more painstakingly you train a dog, the deeper its affection and trust for its owner grow. They studied dog-raising through seven predecessors, including George.I guessed that most had dropped out mid–training due to excessive abuse or total neglect. Only after six failures did the surviving dog emerge: George. At last, they believed they could get it right. They thought they could tame me into an even cuter dog. Maybe I already was. Thrown in the bog, betrayed by the roommate I trusted, raped by the boys I’d been friendliest with at school.I could understand why all the predecessors went mad and met miserable ends. No one could survive that with their sanity. They either ended up in an asylum, committed suicide, or—like George—rationalized everything and remained their thoroughbred dog.Until now, at least. But I was a variable. Whenever Simon repeated that I was special, or whenever Jérôme laughed at me like I was insane, it was clear I differed from the predecessors.How could I entertain them? It wasn’t a hard puzzle. [N O V E L I G H T] My resistance itself was their pleasure—the taming process itself. It was new, fresh, and unbearably exciting because it was different from before. But what if a dog showed no interest in its owner? Or……if it paid more attention to someone else than to its owner?“Hi.”A girl was lying on the lawn in the garden, writing a paper on a towel. When I greeted her, she doodled at the edge of the page, then looked up in surprise.I held out a scarf. It had been lying by her feet. “I thought this was yours.”“You’re right. Thanks.”The girl’s ears turned red as she sat up. She took the scarf and tucked her hair behind her ear. I glanced at the paper she was writing on.“What are you working on? Kafka?”“K afka, yes—Raymond.”She said softly. Surprised she’d mentioned my name, I looked at her.“We take German literature together—you didn’t know?”I didn’t know at all. I’d had no chance to make friends at school until now. But this was good—lucky. I plopped down opposite her.“Sorry, I haven’t been paying attention around here.”“It’s okay. I’m Judy.”She held out her hand. It bore more scars than I expected. Smiling, I shook her hand.George had said I knew nothing about the school. He was right. Living with them in the same room, they had subtly controlled what I saw, felt, and knew. Until now, I had no window into the school outside of them.But this school had countless students besides them. It would be arrogant to think I would ignore them all forever.Yes, they may have seen only me, but I was not only theirs. To me, they were just some friends who’d fallen out. Isn’t that common in school friendships?I smiled brightly at my new friend Judy. Judy was writing a paper while waiting for friends. As we sat on the grass chatting, one by one other students gathered. There were five of them total—three girls including Judy, and two boys. All unfamiliar faces.They were different ages and came from different places, but they’d grown close through club activities. Judy was in the sculpture club. That explained the scars on her hands. Some students joined clubs just as a hobby, but Judy was one of those preparing for art school.I was surprised to learn the school even had clubs. We gathered in the café to drink coffee and chatter about the exam, then headed to the studio.The studio was in one of the annex buildings and was much larger than I’d expected. One of the students, wearing what looked like a dust-covered spacesuit, went inside to work. I stayed with Judy and a boy named Carl. They sat at a workbench and showed me some busts they’d made.“Wow.”I lifted a horse Carl had made, about the size of a human head, and admired it.“It’s not just flattery—you really did a great job.”“I practically lived in the stables for a month to make that horse. Not bad, right?”Carl said with a grin.“Do you have an instructor?”I asked while examining Judy’s and Carl’s works. They were truly impressive. Judy answered, “Yes. Every Friday, a teacher comes from outside the school.”She teased, “So, Raymond, are you interested in sculpture now?”I wasn’t suddenly eager to sculpt. I was fairly handy—before living with Julia, I used to help my father around the house—so I didn’t particularly like tedious handiwork. But I didn’t say that. My goal was to avoid Jérôme’s gang by spending time with these kids. Plus, Carl was a very good lure.Jérôme’s gang, uninterested in girls, wouldn’t mind if I hung out with Judy. But Carl was different. I wasn’t certain yet, so I planned to spend time with both Judy and Carl—though Carl seemed the better bait. Imagining how Jérôme’s gang would react to my new friendships thrilled me.I’d held the reins in my hands all along. They could abuse and mock me as much as they liked, but I wouldn’t give them the obedience they craved. And I had no intention of submitting. So how would they play the game now?I smiled softly and turned to Judy. “Yes. Teach me a bit.”We spent the afternoon in the studio. Time flew as we carved wood and painted.In the evening we all headed to the dining hall. Thanks to Carl living in the same dorm, dinner that night was in Building B’s cafeteria. I sat between Judy and Carl, cheerfully talking about tomorrow’s exam and last weekend’s flat tire incident. We laughed at the smallest things and made quite a ruckus.At one point I felt the long-awaited gaze. I turned my head to see Jérôme and Hugh sitting together at the table across from us, staring at me. It was rare to see Jérôme’s expression sour. His impassive face tried to pull into a smile when our eyes met, but it only twisted into a ridiculous look. Then, forsaking forced laughter, Jérôme glared at me expressionlessly. He didn’t touch the food in front of him.Oh, how sweet the thrill of victory and joy welled in my chest when I faced Jérôme’s face! How bright and radiant my smile could be when I smiled at Jérôme, who couldn’t bring himself to smile back! Hugh, far better at masking his expression, cheekily waved once before leaving with Jérôme. Neither touched their plates. Watching the backs of the two boys, I grinned with the first taste of exhilaration since arriving at this school.After dinner, Carl and I went up to the dorm together. Carl lived in Room 201 with three other boys. When we emerged from the stairs into the second-floor lounge, about eighteen or so boys were bustling around the lounge and balcony. It was an unfamiliar scene. Some lounged on the sofa’s edge, tossing a tennis ball back and forth; others lay on the floor studying for exams; a few sat with their legs stretched out, smoking. It was lively.They were all boys from Rooms 201 and 202. The dormitory doors on both corridors were wide open. No one seemed to be inside the rooms. Everyone was gathered outside. When Carl appeared, the boys greeted him in unison…

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