Beep —
— The next stop is Nakwon-dong.
As the rattling of the local bus came to a stop, Siyeon shook out his disheveled hair and rose from his seat. Having grown up in a generation dependent on smartphones, finding his way by asking for directions aloud and reading physical maps was no easy task.
But after a few wrong turns, he managed to arrive at ‘that place’ he’d had in mind as his hideout. Stepping off at the rundown bus stop, Siyeon confirmed the sign marking his destination.
Behind the signpost reading ‘Nakwon-dong,’ the Beomyeong logo hung on every redevelopment fence alongside the words ‘No Unauthorized Entry — Managed Zone.’
“……Is this really the right place?”
Siyeon surveyed the surroundings — even more desolate than he’d imagined — and stepped inside the redevelopment district’s perimeter. He had his doubts about whether it had been the right call, but nothing better came to mind for now.
If I’d gone down to the countryside where the orphanage is just to avoid Manager Kang, I would’ve been caught immediately.
Before being sold off to the alpha couple, the first place the original main character had fled to was a rural village where he’d spent his childhood.
It held not a single good memory, but when a person is in crisis, instinct drives them toward familiar ground. And that choice left him with tremendous regret — he was caught by one of Manager Kang’s lackeys in less than a full day.
It wasn’t described in great detail, but the text only said he’d been beaten just short of death and subjected to harassment. Just imagining it made Siyeon’s skin crawl.
The orphanage is absolutely off the table. Now and forever.
With the orphanage ruled out, the only remaining option was the neighborhood where the main character had briefly been adopted as a child. As one could see, it was currently designated as a redevelopment zone and the security was poor — but there was no other choice.
Wandering somewhere unfamiliar in his wrecked physical state carried too much risk. Besides, since the main character had never fled here in the original story, it was exactly the right kind of place for Siyeon right now.
But that debt the main character supposedly owes…… does it actually exist?
That Alpha’s Trap was an original work that placed heavy emphasis on a sensational storyline — solid plausibility or factual grounding simply didn’t exist in it. Given that it was a melodramatic novel, that much was to be expected. Still, even so, there were a few things about the base setup that puzzled him.
One of them was the matter of Manager Kang’s identity. Perhaps because he was a one-dimensional villain side character, nothing about his backstory was revealed beyond the fact that he came from the same orphanage as the main character.
A main character with no family ties wouldn’t have had a sick relative to support either, so it was puzzling how Manager Kang had saddled ‘Omega Hong Siyeon’ with a debt in the hundreds of millions.
It just glossed over it as a troubled childhood…… so there’s no way of knowing.
Should he stop blindly running from Manager Kang and instead confront him — demand to know whether the debt was even real? That thought crossed his mind, but then he remembered beating the man with a mop and running off, and he let it go immediately.
“This place feels strangely familiar.”
Setting thoughts of Manager Kang aside for now, Siyeon looked around the redevelopment zone and felt a peculiar sense of déjà vu. It was his first time in this neighborhood, yet the layout felt oddly familiar.
He somehow knew that around the corner would be a dead-end alley — and that if you turned back and walked three more blocks, there’d be a worn-down church. And he already knew that the church he’d set as his destination was running a temporary shelter.
The original work hadn’t given a detailed location for the church, so he’d expected to have trouble finding it — and yet.
Is this a memory that belongs to this body?
Something about it felt unsettling, but then again, hadn’t he already been through things that defied explanation? He decided to chalk it up as one of the perks of being a transmigrator and moved on.
“What brings you here?”
As he was wandering in front of the church looking for the entrance, a middle-aged woman approached and spoke to him. Siyeon had an instinctive feeling that she — with her warm, gentle face — was the mistress of this little church in Nakwon-dong.
“Did you come for a service?”
“No, ah…… yes. A service……”
In truth, he’d come for the temporary shelter, but it felt too much to ask a complete stranger to put him up for the night before they’d even exchanged names.
As Siyeon hesitantly opened his mouth to speak, he could see her eyes go wide. The woman seemed to have suddenly recalled something and greeted him as if she recognized him.
“Are you Siyeon by any chance? Seong Siyeon?”
“……Pardon?”
“It’s been so long. You don’t remember me? You used to follow Deaconess Kim around all the time when you were little.”
The woman who introduced herself as Deaconess Kim clasped Siyeon’s hands tightly, as if overjoyed to see him. The hands that held his were rough and coarse, but warm.
Seong Siyeon?
There was something that puzzled him, but Siyeon played along with vague agreement and took in his surroundings.
“Are you here for a visit?”
“Ah, it just crossed my mind after a long time……”
“Glad you came. So, what happened to your leg?”
“I just slipped on some stairs.”
“Goodness, you have to be more careful. Why don’t you come inside instead of standing out here?”
“Ah…… yes.”
Caught off guard by the unexpected warmth, Siyeon followed Deaconess Kim into the worn-down church. Along the walls inside were rows of photos of laughing children. One of those photos caught Siyeon’s eye, and he couldn’t help but stop.
Omega Hong Siyeon?
He hadn’t known much about the main character’s childhood, but the photo made it clear. The child in the picture who looked to be around ten years old was unmistakably the original main character. With such a striking appearance, there was no room for confusion — and yet.
“Found your photo?”
Deaconess Kim seemed to have noticed that Siyeon had stopped to look at his childhood photo. Siyeon pulled his gaze away from the picture and gave a small nod.
“And next to him……”
“Who, Yohan?”
Deaconess Kim pointed to the child beaming brightly beside the young Siyeon. She looked at Siyeon with eyes that held a quiet sadness.
“He’s resting in a good place now. Should we pray together like the old days? For Yohan?”
Without waiting for a response, Deaconess Kim headed toward the sanctuary. Siyeon followed after her in a state of confusion. Was this too a memory belonging to Omega Hong Siyeon? It would make sense — even the path to the sanctuary felt familiar.
Strange. I only meant to stay for a short while……
The ‘orphanage’ where the original main character had spent his childhood, and ‘Nakwon-dong’ where he’d briefly gone through the adoption process, had only been described in a few simple lines.
Since he hadn’t read all the way through to the ending, he didn’t know whether there were any hidden details in the final arc — but up to the point he had read, there’d been no particular mention of it.
The text had simply said that young Hong Siyeon spent most of his teenage years at the orphanage, so Siyeon had vaguely assumed he must have been returned after being adopted in Nakwon-dong.
What happened here.
An adoption reversal wasn’t such a remarkable thing in itself. Many children at the orphanage — Siyeon himself included — had gone through something similar, so he’d always glossed over it without a second thought.
But thinking about it again now, a question arose belatedly: wasn’t there a reason why the main character, even though he had fled to the orphanage full of nothing but bad memories, had never once come to Nakwon-dong?
“Siyeon, can you come help me over here? Let’s eat together first.”
“Ah, yes…… just a moment.”
Deaconess Kim, who had been holding both of Siyeon’s hands and praying with him, invited him further inside the church, saying she wanted to cook him a warm meal. Siyeon hesitated briefly, but figured one meal couldn’t hurt when he was starving and exhausted — and accepted.
And the faint suspicion he’d harbored about Nakwon-dong faded away before long, as Siyeon began experiencing the side effects of the heat suppressants shortly after finishing the meal.
***
“The fever’s still high. I’m starting to think you really should go to the hospital.”
Siyeon had been bedridden for two full days. At first, the severe fever and abdominal pain had been so intense he couldn’t even open his eyes — but thanks to Deaconess Kim staying by his side to nurse him, his condition had improved considerably.
“No…… I’m really fine. I’ll get better with rest.”
“Alright then. Make sure you say something if you need anything.”
Deaconess Kim had given him temporary shelter in a corner of the church when he suddenly collapsed, allowing him to rest. She must have had plenty of questions, but when she sensed that Siyeon didn’t want to talk, she didn’t press him — which was a small mercy amid everything.
Once she closed the door and left, Siyeon pressed a hand to his forehead — the heat there had subsided somewhat — and sat up at an angle.
Maybe I was worried for nothing.
When he first arrived in Nakwon-dong, he’d kept his guard up due to that strange sense of déjà vu, but throughout his stay here, Deaconess Kim had treated him with nothing but ease and comfort.
During his convalescence, their conversations had mostly revolved around stories of young Siyeon coming to the church every week. Through talking with Deaconess Kim, he learned that the child named Yohan in the photo was the son of the family that had taken Siyeon in.
After Yohan went to heaven, President Seong’s family moved away, so I had no way of hearing any news about you, Siyeon. I’m so glad and happy you came back looking so well.
Deaconess Kim brought up events from a past Siyeon knew nothing about. He’d responded to her with a mix of vague agreements and gentle deflections.
How are the madam and President Seong doing?
Ah…… they’re doing, well.
I’ve been hoping to see them sometime — could you let them know and pass along a message?
About that…… since I became an adult, I’ve fallen out of touch with them too.
It seemed Deaconess Kim had once shared a close bond with the Seong family. But the fact that she didn’t know about the adoption reversal gave him a rough sense of when things in the original story had unfolded.
‘The original Hong Siyeon’ had his adoption reversed after Yohan died — right around the time the family left Nakwon-dong.
Which meant…… the death of Yohan and the main character’s adoption reversal could very well be connected.
“Ugh…… my head……”
The moment that thought landed, Siyeon was gripped by a deeply unpleasant headache. Not the kind that could be attributed to the suppressant side effects — but something thick and dark and clinging, like tar.
