Prologue
Ah, my breath rises to my chin, choked with tension. I trembled finely at the temperature of the air touching my nearly naked skin. It’s cold. Wearing scraps of cloth that couldn’t be called clothing was deeply humiliating, but there was no other choice.
I can’t fail after coming this far. I’ve been counting down the days for this.
After resolving that I would succeed no matter what, I stepped into the dark room. It was a decadent room draped with thick velvet curtains. Coming from a relatively bright place into a dark one, my vision swam. What about the other person? Probably they can’t see my face well either, so I must look like a tall man for a beta, standing in a ridiculous dress with my bare body showing.
Maybe they’ll just send me back like this. I recalled my reflection in the glass from before entering this place. My stomach churned for no reason.
The other person said nothing. I swallowed my dry saliva.
Even without looking directly, in my field of vision I could see a man sitting in what could be called the seat of honor. His upright posture, unsuited to the location, seemed pathetic.
Worried my somewhat impertinent thoughts might be detected, I lowered my head further to look at the floor. The ridiculously smooth marble floor felt cold. I couldn’t sense pheromones, but he was probably an alpha. Among the New Humans who purchased betas for this work, omegas were extremely rare. This was also why I particularly hated alphas. For reasons unknown, alphas were often greedy and violent. Relatively speaking, they were also frequently involved in drugs and crime.
That’s why the other person was likely to be authoritarian. Since I was in the position of being sold, if I upset the other person’s mood it could interfere with my plan, so I quickly hid my insolent gaze on the floor.
Whether because my face wasn’t clearly visible, or because it didn’t matter either way, the other person showed no particular reaction. He didn’t immediately tell me to kneel, calling me impudent, nor did he throw anything. I stood there engraving the pattern of the marble into my eyes. Perhaps he was the type to rage quietly.
“Come here and sit.”
The man invited me in a voice low and deep as night. Even though he clearly told me to come and sit, I froze in place, standing stock still. My hair stood on end. The sound transmitted as vibrations gave me much more information.
“I said sit.”
That voice commanding me once more was too familiar. Because it was the one I’d longed for in my dreams.
My feet wouldn’t move. It felt like not just the plan I’d made until now, but my entire brain was shattering into pieces.
– Woojae-ya.
The voice from the past that used to call me affectionately rang out like a hallucination. It seemed like exactly ten years’ worth of time had settled onto the last voice I’d heard. I clenched my fists tight. I couldn’t bring myself to lift my head. I was afraid he might really be sitting there.
I couldn’t bear it, terrified that the person who used to look at me lovingly had become a scoundrel who would buy a beta with money. As I denied reality, a question sharpened like a blade stabbed into me.
“Can’t you hear me?”
In my peripheral vision, the man was tapping his ear as he asked.
– Can’t you hear well? I’m speaking loudly.
The rude provocation I’d heard before and the current question mixed together.
You fucking bastard. Why are you here?
I approached him one slow step at a time, toward the guy who failed to recognize me to the very end and was rushing me like garbage. I might have walked slowly deliberately because I hoped he would recognize me. But after sitting down next to him, I let out a bitter laugh. Because I remembered how I looked just before entering the room.
Bleached white hair, scars on my face, tattoos drawn all over my body, vulgar attire that couldn’t be called clothing. To him right now, I was nothing more or less than a beta male prostitute.
Compared to ten years ago, I’d changed beyond recognition, so it would be strange if he did recognize me. I suddenly recalled myself from ten years ago.
Hair roughly cut at the cheapest barbershop in the neighborhood, an old dress shirt, worn jeans. Shabby and impoverished though I was, I had the appearance of a promising talent, so it was much better than the state he was looking at now.
Realizing that, it felt like all the strength drained from my body.
I had countless things I wanted to ask but couldn’t. I’d imagined meeting him again countless times, but I never imagined it would be like this. If this is fate, if there’s a god, this shouldn’t be possible.
Of all days, today—why like this?
“What are you doing? Pour the drink.”
I imagined strangling the neck of this person who gave cruel orders without even giving me time to despair. The thought that perhaps I was the one who made things turn out this way stopped that impulse. My first love making the worst comment in the worst situation was so absurd that no words came out.
Pour the drink, he says. Is this man, treating me like a prostitute selling his body, really him?
“That’s what you came here for, isn’t it?”
I prayed desperately that this man was just someone whose voice resembled his as I gathered my composure. I tried to act unfazed, but my hands kept trembling. It was as if I’d developed hand tremors. In the stillness, only the sound of pouring alcohol into a glass rang out.
“Your hands are shaking. Are you that nervous?”
I was grateful for the warning that I shouldn’t speak inside here. Because if I opened my mouth now, I felt like I’d pour out abusive language at him, plan or no plan.
Why are you here? Are you crazy? Why you, what are you lacking, what aren’t you satisfied with?
Rambling questions flooded through my head like a deluge, but in the end what I wanted to ask was just one thing. Why are you here? Why? Not even noticing the alcohol overflowing, I tilted the bottle. The dark-colored foreign liquor of unknown name soaked the table. The alcohol smell mixed with a strong woody scent numbed the tip of my nose.
“Right. You can’t speak here. How pitiful.”
“……”
“I’m fortunate that talking to myself isn’t so awkward anymore.”
The remark that he was fortunate talking to himself wasn’t awkward sounded strange. The person I knew had been taciturn to begin with. It felt like everything I’d known until now was distorting. What could have happened in the meantime? Why would he, who grew up wanting for nothing as the heir to a corporation spanning the nation, with an alpha’s body, appear here to purchase a beta? I found myself blinking while holding the now-empty liquor bottle.
“I can ask you anything and you can’t answer. Isn’t that cowardly?”
He asked in a strange tone, as if unburdening something. More than his question, I felt dazed by the scene before my eyes.
On one side of the table soaked with alcohol lay white powder and empty syringes. It seemed to be for use inside the room.
This was a place that soaked betas in drugs until they couldn’t function as humans before selling them. Just coming as a customer to such a place was a predictable fall from grace. Now I had to accept that he wasn’t the person I knew anymore, yet my lips trembled miserably. I absolutely couldn’t be in my right mind.
So I didn’t even notice that his words were somewhat strange. For a while, silence descended between the two of us.
Belatedly, I ruminated on his words. What would he suddenly want to ask someone he’d seated to violate after turning into a wreck with drugs? And I didn’t understand the word “cowardly” either. That the merchandise couldn’t answer whatever the other person asked was the rule of this place—why would that be cowardly?
“…!”
And I froze as if struck by an electric shock when my wrist was grabbed. So startled, I turned my head and ended up facing him. My prayers that it wouldn’t be him became meaningless. It was him. He was looking at me. Ten years had passed, yet nothing had changed except that his features had become more defined than back then. He still had that annoyingly picture-perfect face. His face, incomparably more mature than at twenty, was right before my eyes.
The wrist he gripped strongly hurt. More painful than that was—
“Is this what you abandoned me for? To appear before my eyes looking like this?”
Like that day when I told him we should break up. No, with anger even colder and sharper than that day bursting forth.
I frowned at the pain in my tightly gripped wrist. Because he pressed so hard, the scar on my crushed wrist hurt. The hand firmly pressing the only real trace on my body full of fakes was strong.
“Answer me!”
When did he recognize me? The tears that welled up helplessly, unlike his languid commanding voice, at his passionate outcry were resentful. My breath caught at the tears that rose so rapidly they made my vision ripple in an instant.
They were real tears that required me to strain my eyes with all my might to stop them from overflowing. Gye Sajun, who had leapt across ten years, filled my wavering pupils completely. And in the worst possible form. In a situation I’d never even imagined.
I wished the sky would collapse or the ground would rise up. Then this would be an absurd dream.
“I said answer me!”
But no such thing happened. I only saw him fiercely and roughly pressing me. He acted exactly as if he were wounded.
The eyes looking at me were more miserable than the last time I’d seen them. Unlike his voice filled with fierce anger, his cold gaze gave me chills. Perhaps rather than being wounded, he was disappointed? My heart seemed to sink. A hollow laugh escaped.
I felt someone’s gaze from somewhere. I’d come to this place to work, and to do that I couldn’t arouse suspicion.
I suppressed my tattered feelings and lunged straight at him. With my free hand I pulled him close and kissed him recklessly. As soon as our lips touched, the pain in my wrist intensified. I clung to him as he tried to push me away and climbed onto his lap. If someone was watching, this appearance would be more natural.
More than anything, I didn’t want to answer anymore. I felt like I’d insult and revile him without knowing my place.
You came here for this anyway. You don’t have the right to be angry at me anymore either.
Closing my eyelids to hide my resentful eyes, the tears that had pooled lost their way and burst forth between my eyelashes. The temperature and texture of the lips touching my tongue hadn’t changed.
They were the exact same shape and tasted the exact same as ten years ago.
That’s why the tears wouldn’t stop. Because while everything had changed, only this remained the same, and that felt cruel.
