“I’m Yun Haneul, and I’m twenty years old.”
— May I ask whether you’re dominant or recessive?
“I’m recessive…… would that be a problem?”
— Not at all. However, before matching you with someone who wishes to have a child, we first conduct a health examination to confirm that you’re truly capable of carrying a healthy pregnancy. For now, please come to our office, fill out a brief set of forms, and we’ll schedule the examination from there.
“I see. Then where is your office?”
— You’re someone precious who will be giving us a child, so we’ll come to you directly. We’ll send you the meeting location and time by text — just be there when the time comes.
“Yes…… understood.”
Contrary to what Haneul had expected, everything moved forward with complete, seamless speed. On top of that, the moment he hung up, a text message arrived.
[11:00 AM, Yangjae Station Exit 10]
Since the meeting place was somewhere with plenty of people, Haneul headed there without much suspicion. He stood in front of Exit 10 at Yangjae Station and gazed absently at the people passing by.
That was when it happened. A black van slowly came to a stop in front of him. The passenger-side window rolled down, and a woman smiled as she spoke to him.
“Are you Yun Haneul?”
“Yes…….”
Haneul tried to peer inside the car, but the heavy tinting on the windows made it impossible to see anything within. Still, the woman looking back at him seemed more trustworthy than a hulking man covered in tattoos.
“It’s crowded here — get in quickly.”
“Oh…… yes, yes.”
The back door opened and Haneul climbed in. Only then did he realize something was wrong. Inside the van were three rough-looking men, raking their eyes up and down over him.
“Um…….”
“What is it, sweetheart.”
They leered at him, waiting for him to finish.
“I…… I’d like to get out.”
“Who says you can? Getting in was your choice — getting out isn’t.”
Haneul’s heart dropped. He moved to open the car door, but was immediately seized by the large men. The windows were all blacked out with heavy tinting, so no one outside could see in.
“Help! Someone help me!”
Haneul screamed as loud as he could, trying to call for help from the busy people passing outside.
“This little—!”
They shoved him halfway down onto the seat, pinning him against it, and covered his mouth. Unable to breathe, Haneul was crushed under the weight of the large men and couldn’t move an inch. They clamped his mouth and nose shut and waited for the strength to drain out of him — and once his body went limp, they finally let go.
“S-someone, help…….”
By the time Haneul gasped back to consciousness, the car had already entered a quiet road, and both his arms and legs were bound with thick rope.
“Look at this one — soft body, and skin so pale and smooth.”
“Wow, we’ve got a real good one for once.”
“Right.”
Watching the thugs snicker as they looked him over, Haneul realized he had been deceived. And then, a moment later, something Jingyu had said came back to him.
There’s no shortage of cases where omegas with a high probability of bearing alphas are traded illegally.
The large men, faced with Haneul’s continued resistance, shoved a wad of cloth into his mouth and pressed down on his entire body roughly.
But Haneul refused to give up, sharpening every one of his senses. Before long, the distant sound of a foghorn drifted to him, followed by the briny smell of the sea.
The car carrying Haneul lurched as it seemed to turn onto an unpaved road, then gradually came to a stop not long after.
“Let’s get out.”
At the woman’s order, the men hoisted Haneul up and carried him into an abandoned building. As they descended the stairs leading underground, a musty smell of mold hit him all at once.
“Stay quiet. Otherwise we’ll tie you up again.”
The men threw Haneul into a pitch-black room and growled in a harsh voice. The rope that had been bound so tightly around his hands and feet that the blood could barely flow finally loosened — and Haneul pulled the wad of cloth out of his mouth and shouted loudly.
“Let me loose! Is anyone out there?”
He ran toward the iron door that had slammed shut — and was yanked back by a sharp, brutal pain as something wrenched at his wrist, sending him crashing to the floor. But Haneul was too frantic to even register that he’d fallen, and frantically felt around his wrist with his free hand.
“Ah, ah…….”
The room was too dark to see clearly, but the sensation of cold metal against his wrist was unmistakable. It seemed they had cuffed one of his wrists and chained it to a short length of chain bolted to the wall.
“Ah…… this is insane.”
In the pitch-black darkness where he couldn’t see a single thing ahead of him, Haneul closed his eyes and held perfectly still for a long while, trying to let his vision adjust. And right then, a grating, rough voice scraped at his ears from beyond the iron door.
“Hff…… the goods they brought in today are real nice.”
“No kidding. Damn, I could just devour the whole thing myself.”
“Idiot, then the price goes down.”
“Hey, hey! Kids these days are all so easy — you really think this one’s never been f***ed before?”
“That’s a fair point.”
The “goods” they were talking about — it could only mean Haneul himself. Under normal circumstances, the situation would have been too absurd to even muster a laugh — but right now, every hair on his body stood on end.
Is this…… really the omega trafficking ring I’ve only heard about?
As the reality of his situation sank in, Haneul’s legs trembled and his spine ran cold. Even if omega rights had improved in the modern era, it was said that in places beyond the reach of the law, omegas were still trafficked like objects — for the purpose of bearing alphas.
The moment Haneul realized he had fallen into serious danger, the first thing that came to mind was his sister Garam.
What’s going to happen to Garam on her own? I have to make it back, no matter what……
And then it happened. The rattling of chains echoed through the room with a skin-crawling loudness. As Haneul’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, a shifting black shadow came into view. Startled, he took a step back and asked in a taut, tense voice.
“W-who’s there?”
“Shh!”
As his vision cleared a little more, the full outline of a dark silhouette emerged inside the dim room. In that instant, Haneul realized he was not alone here. The dark shadow moved closer to him and whispered in an extremely small voice.
“Are you an omega too?”
“……Yes.”
“They said they’re moving all of us here somewhere in a little while.”
“Is that so?”
Haneul stood still and strained his ears toward the sounds coming from outside.
“By any chance…… are those four people out there all there is?”
“There are only four of them here, but I heard more are coming later.”
“How many of us are there altogether?”
“Four people.”
Out there, three men and one woman……
Haneul judged that if the people here worked together, escape was entirely possible. He continued in a quiet voice.
“On the way here, I think I caught a glimpse of the sea. I’ll run toward the busier side of the coast and draw those people out — in the meantime, everyone scatter and run. Then we meet at the nearest police station.”
