1
The dead of night — far too late for any boat to be running. Yet cutting through the savage river wind, a vessel arrived at the dock, chartered for one man alone.
Among the group clad in black suits, the tallest stood at the front. When he moved, the rest followed like shadows at his heels.
By the time white wisps of breath dissolved into the cold air, the cabin had grown loud with the rough shuffle of leather shoes. The moment the man took his seat, every sound ceased at once.
He moved to shrug off his jacket. In that single restrained gesture, a grotesque scar rose into sharp relief across the back of his hand. No words were needed. One man quickly reached out to receive the garment, while another on the opposite side produced a cigarette as if he’d been waiting for exactly this moment.
The man drew a long drag and exhaled. Before the white smoke had even faded from the air, the boat was already moving.
Cross the Eunryu River — its black waves swallowing the dark whole — and you arrive at a small island. Curved in shape, like something that calls a cloud to mind, the island bore the name Cheongun Island.
Choi Woo-hyuk had inherited the island when his father, Choi Seong-jae, died several years ago. For a place with a name that evoked some pristine, sacred ground, the center of the island was frequently blanketed in fog, regardless of season. Forests and wetlands filled the land where sunlight barely reached even in the middle of the day.
Both its location and its weather made it ideal for evading the eyes of the government. The kind of people who commanded VIP treatment wherever they went. The kind who knew how to grease the wheels of economic growth. The kind who put on a show of integrity while never quite managing to shed the gutter instincts they were born with.
People like that always needed somewhere to meet in secret, and so they flocked to Cheongun Island, the property of the Choi family. Bodies tangled together as filthily as the dirty money that changed hands, and whispered secrets vanished like the sound of the early morning wind. Among the endless lies lived moans, and every transaction was unspeakably obscene.
The ones tasked with entertaining these guests were those who had been dragged here because they couldn’t clear their debts.
What Choi Woo-hyuk had inherited wasn’t just the island. It ranged from the people who guarded and managed Cheongun Island, all the way to a single aging omega who had spent night after night servicing alphas — regardless of whether any of them wanted to be there.
All of it. Every last bit of it belonged to Choi Woo-hyuk.
Wol-hwa Jeong, the upscale Korean restaurant nestled quietly within the island, was in an absolute uproar. The new owner — who hadn’t sent so much as a word since inheriting the island — had suddenly announced he was coming to visit. That one brief notification was enough to send the entire atmosphere of Wol-hwa Jeong into violent disarray.
Rumors surrounding the new owner had been circulating for a long time already. Among the prominent alphas who had been coming and going from the island for years, talk of the Choi family — father and son — never seemed to stop. It was practically accepted as fact that Choi Woo-hyuk, who carried that bloodline, was crueler than his father had ever been.
A rumor long forgotten had come roaring back to life. Along with news that the new owner had arrived on Cheongun Island came the order: prepare, for his first meal would be held at Wol-hwa Jeong.
The omegas, who had been busy tending to guests, gathered in twos and threes at a corner behind the annex.
“It’s his first visit, so all of you pay attention — watch your mouths especially. Every breath, every blink, all of it. Whatever the answer is, ‘no’ doesn’t exist. Whatever he asks for, the answer is yes, without exception. Understood?”
It was Shin Mi-sun, a middle-aged omega who had been on Cheongun Island for quite some time, who spoke. She had worked at Wol-hwa Jeong since the days when Chairman Choi Seong-jae, the island’s former owner, used to visit regularly.
She was one of the few who had experienced Choi Seong-jae firsthand — through her eyes, her hands, her skin — and that made her nerves all the worse.
“Chairman Choi was violent, erratic, and cruel. If something bothered him, whether it was a person or anything else, he had it eliminated on the spot. His son is no different. How could he be?”
She had been an orphan, dragged here in her early twenties to cover her uncle’s gambling debts — her only living relative. Before she knew it, more than half her life had passed on Cheongun Island without her ever once setting foot in the Eunryu River. And still, she couldn’t take even a single step beyond the island.
Now she remained at Wol-hwa Jeong as a puppet manager — for all the good it was worth — coaxing and soothing the other omegas just like herself. She let her gaze drift across the group, who had done little but quietly nod.
“Where’s Yi-won?”
“He’s probably still going around the guest rooms, cleaning. A lot of them are empty right now, so it must be taking a while. I’ll let him know.”
“Tell him to head straight to Unsol-chae the moment he’s done.”
It was the name of a sprawling villa tucked deep within the island — at its farthest, most secluded end — hidden among densely packed pine trees, within Cheongun Island’s roughly 120,000 pyeong of land.
It was where Choi Seong-jae had once stayed, and where Choi Woo-hyuk would be staying for the time being. The villa had sat empty for a long while, maintained to some degree in the meantime, but it would need one more thorough check before he arrived.
“There were instructions to send one person who could handle odd jobs. He’s young, so he’ll do as he’s told, and even if he’s thin, he’s a boy — he’ll be more useful for physical work than the rest of us.”
Shin Mi-sun spoke plainly. But the concern underneath her expression wasn’t something she could entirely conceal. The others gathered around her were no different.
“Cleaning is all he knows how to do, so it shouldn’t be too hard for him.”
Within Cheongun Island — Wol-hwa Jeong included — Yi-won was one of a kind. He wasn’t an omega who had been sold here. He had been born and raised on this island. He and Shin Mi-sun weren’t mother and son by blood, but they were in every way that counted.
Like a colony of cats raising their young communally, all of them had watched Yi-won grow up — an orphan, with no one else. At the age when other children should have been playing with rattles, he played with saliva-sticky spoons. Instead of lullabies, he was put to sleep by the moans drifting in from somewhere in the guest rooms.
The child had grown up eating baby food made from scraps of snack ingredients left over from the night, and instead of treasure hunts, he’d rummaged through the corners of guest rooms checking whether any used condoms had been left behind.
Yi-won had a pretty face, a small frame, and an air about him that didn’t quite fit with the strangeness of this place — and he had always been a beta. The alphas who passed through the island lamented the fact that he hadn’t presented as an omega. There was no shortage of clingy jokes about how, if Yi-won ever became an omega, they’d be the first ones to have him.
Shin Mi-sun and many of the others had considered it a blessing that Yi-won was beta. Even if he was trapped on this filthy, wretched island with no way out — even without a debt to his name — at least he wouldn’t be subjected to treatment this degrading.
But contrary to their prayers. With the turning of the year, Yi-won turned twenty — and after a prolonged and agonizing presentation fever, he became an omega after all.
And so they found themselves worrying, instinctively, about sending Yi-won to Unsol-chae. Dreading the possibility that something awful might happen to him. Even though they were all in the same position, Yi-won was the only one on Cheongun Island who still managed to feel something like comfort — and that weighed on them. His innocence could shatter at any moment, and watching over him was always a heavy thing.
Each of them sat quietly with that ache when one omega in the corner slowly parted her lips.
“Yi-won’s pheromone glands haven’t even properly developed yet. No matter how impressive an alpha Choi Woo-hyuk might be, it won’t be easy for him to pick up on the pheromones of an omega who’s never gone through a heat.”
“…….”
“However long Choi Woo-hyuk ends up staying, all Yi-won has to do is act like a beta while he’s here.”
It was what all of them wanted to say — and what they all needed to hear from each other. To them, Yi-won was a child left standing at the edge of the water.
One hour later.
Yi-won finished cleaning the last guest room and stepped out the door. His sweatpants were rolled up to the calves, his bare feet damp in his slippers. He kept wriggling his pale, thin toes as he wiped the flushed, sweat-damp skin of his cheek.
“Ha — I’m out of breath.”
The room he’d just finished was by far the worst of the lot. Even with the windows thrown wide open, the stench of pheromones was thick enough to choke on. Shards from broken liquor bottles and shattered dishes kept turning up no matter how many times he swept and scrubbed, scattered through the filth on the floor.
The curtains — not easy to replace — were in terrible shape, and the bedding was splattered here and there with dried semen that had been left to harden. Yi-won shook his head with a full-body shudder and let out one heavy sigh after another.
That said, it wasn’t as if the work was finished. He still had a cart piled high with ashtrays to deal with before it was truly over.
Every ashtray looked the same. Snow-white cigarette butts crammed in so densely they jutted out like the quills of a hedgehog, grotesque and bristling.
“Ugh, the smell.”
No matter how many times he emptied ashtrays, he never got used to the stench that rose from them. The river wind was blowing this hard, and still the smell clung stubbornly to the tip of his nose, refusing to leave.
“Ugh… disgusting.”
Why do they even spit phlegm in them, honestly. Like it’s not hard enough to clean up.
Yi-won hated emptying ashtrays even more than he hated handling tied-off condoms still full of semen.
He was pinching his nose shut and squeezing his eyes closed as he emptied the last ashtray when his worn apron pocket buzzed. Yi-won sniffled and pressed the answer button.
“Hello?”
— Jeong Yi-won, can you hear me?
The person on the other end lowered their voice to near-whisper. As if hiding from someone’s gaze. So Yi-won instinctively hushed his own voice in turn.
“Yeah. I can hear you, noona.”
— Why haven’t you been picking up. Are you done cleaning?
