To simply summarize the current situation: Lee Saehyeon himself was now confined by his (former) enemy-like childhood friend and (current) sex partner slash treatment method.
Saehyeon sat slumped on the sofa with his strength drained, his pupils unfocused. It was because he’d already gone through every option available to a confined victim.
The first thing worth trying was, of course, throwing the front door open again. It was only natural. Wasn’t a door originally made for people to go in and out?
But Saehyeon’s plan to burst out like a wasp uncle was thwarted before he could even cross the threshold.
“Crazy. Why is the door lock like this!”
The door lock was installed backwards. In other words, the password pad was facing inward.
He couldn’t tell if it had been like this since the first day Gil Taeseo dragged him into this house, or if it had been changed while he was unconscious.
What mattered was that right now, Saehyeon absolutely could not go outside of his own volition.
“…Right. You want to try this, huh?”
Unless it was a bomb shelter, there was no way the front door was the only opening to the outside in a house. The sound of crashing about was closely followed by small running footsteps going thud thud thud.
He hadn’t examined it carefully at night with the lights off, but it was daytime now and the interior lights were on brightly.
The large window occupying one wall caught his eye immediately even in his dim vision. If not a small window, but one that could be opened and closed and faced the garden, it was enough to see possibilities even with this body.
And so what Saehyeon saw when he vigorously pulled back the blackout curtains was not a bright world of freedom. It was a pitch-black, huge back.
The man who had been standing guard with his back to the window glanced back. He had a slightly taller height and a blunt impression compared to the person he’d seen at the door earlier. When their eyes met, the man who immediately lowered his gaze bowed his head, then looked forward again.
Just in case, he tried pulling the handle, but as expected it didn’t budge.
“……”
The curtain that fell from his weakened grip dropped down with a refreshing sound. Light scattered like waves between the rippling pieces of fabric.
Whether it was because the sharp light stabbed his eyes, or because of something else. It was a moment when everything went dark before his eyes.
As you could tell just from this much, Gil Taeseo was thorough. Really disgustingly and terribly so.
“How can there not be a single laptop or tablet…”
Not finding any harvest even after searching every corner of the room was quite desperate. In the end, Saehyeon had no choice but to return with a dumbfounded expression and plop down on the sofa.
It was right then that his slumped body gave a small jolt. Saehyeon reflexively turned his head. At the end of his gaze, the small epicenter giggled. The child who had climbed onto the sofa at some point was sitting down making the same plopping sound as if copying Saehyeon.
“Daddy, which way are we going this time?”
Saehyeon’s body flinched at the innocent voice. While frantically searching for an escape route, he’d forgotten the child’s existence, if only for a moment. The child had actually been following closely behind the whole time. It was the same when he was lost in thought circling around in front of the entrance.
The sight of the two of them spinning round and round together like playing train was funny enough that it was a shame there was no one to see it.
“Uh uh… No. That’s enough now.”
Saehyeon had already given up on escaping immediately. There was no need to waste more energy flailing about and making the child anxious. Saehyeon, who had been carefully examining the child’s face, let out a small sigh.
With the child stuck close to him tucked under his arm, Saehyeon flopped backward completely.
‘…Just wait until you get back.’
Swallowing all kinds of curses while being conscious of the child, Saehyeon only chewed on exactly those words. Now that it had come to this, he had no choice but to wait until the culprit behind all this returned.
When he returned, whether to beat him, kill him, or destroy him. He’d be able to do something.
And that was a complacent thought he could have because he didn’t know Gil Taeseo wouldn’t return for a full three days.
“…He’s not dead, right?”
“Pardon?”
“Gil Taeseo. I’m asking if he’s dead or not.”
On the second day, Saehyeon couldn’t help but speak to the man bringing lunch boxes. Saehyeon wasn’t friendly enough to readily speak to the jailer of his confinement, a stranger, even a fierce-looking other person.
But excessive irritation and stuffiness pushed the words out of his mouth unexpectedly. The tumbled words rolled and rolled through the awkward silence.
Both were equally surprised by the conversation that unexpectedly broke open. Saehyeon carefully examined the man who had stiffened.
There were a few people loitering near the house, but only one person set foot inside. Yoon Changwook, was it? The name the man had told him on the first day finally came to mind.
“Do you mean Director-nim?”
The man hesitated and asked back. Compared to his fierce face and large build, both his actions and speech were especially careful.
It was an attitude like dealing with a water balloon that would pop if touched, or a wild animal that was all excited and ready to scratch at any moment.
Well, of course. A subordinate dealing with an unknown omega and child that his boss had suddenly confined would have no choice but to be careful.
“If that’s Gil Taeseo, then yes.”
It wasn’t a question asked without knowing. Didn’t he have someone bring food punctually three meals a day and make sure he took his medicine? On top of that, he didn’t forget to send along hangover-cure worthy menus with every meal. It seemed like a menu choice targeting himself, who had gotten thoroughly drunk and summoned Gil Taeseo.
‘It’s not like he’s teasing me or anything.’
At first, recalling the series of hangover lineup starting with porridge and moving on to bean sprout soup and pollack hangover soup made him laugh emptily.
But what really pissed him off was something else. The fact that while being sarcastic enough to select menus like that, the main body himself had vanished without a trace and hadn’t shown his nose at all. While he himself was locked up here unable to leave.
“He seems to be… quite busy these days.”
He hadn’t expected to get a proper answer, but he deflated anyway.
“Ah… I see.”
Right. He’d be busy. If he was an alpha who could confine a person helplessly in a house in the 21st century, it was only natural.
The man who hesitated for a moment as if to say something more eventually just bowed his head and disappeared outside the door. Saehyeon, who had gained no benefit whatsoever, plopped his body back down on the sofa.
His side was warm from holding the child who had gone into nap time after eating and playing. Afternoon sunlight crossed over the sofa through the slightly pulled back blackout curtains to look outside.
Perhaps because his body wasn’t well, his always lukewarm body slowly warmed up with the sun’s and child’s warmth transferred to it. But for some reason, only his head and chest became heavy and cold.
At some moment when he was muttering curses inwardly and peering out the window. Saehyeon was seized by a strange sense of déjà vu.
A large but warmthless house, a fixed seat placed where the view outside the window was best. An omega sitting upright like a still life painting on it, earnestly waiting for an alpha to return.
It was the moment when the eerie indignation and stuffiness finally lifted its veil.
‘Saehyeon-ah. You should go to your father.’
A low voice came back to life across time. The sensation of the soft fur of the bear doll that had fit snugly under his tightly clenched hands from tension was the same.
‘Tsk. What’s a doll for a son, a doll. Giving him crap like that is why the kid grows up like an omega.’
But the answer that came back was only cold.
Saehyeon’s father was a businessman who was born in a poor family, went through being adopted by relatives, and became quite self-made. It was a life that had flowed smoothly according to his ambitions and plans, but even such a person had no choice but to suffer setbacks before raising children.
Because he himself was the child born from the omega he had ‘rescued’ while even providing funds to the struggling company.
The man’s cold gaze passed over his hesitantly standing body. Even though it was an incident from long past, it felt like that gaze was cutting his skin.
‘Wait, you…’
‘Don’t come out. You’re annoying.’
‘…Lee Saehyeon. Put that down right now.’
From that day on, that doll was thrown away and he never saw it again. Clearly at that time, he had been sad enough for tears to well up slightly and a corner of his heart felt empty. There were times when he sniffled at night while calling the name he had personally given it.
He couldn’t even remember well now what that doll looked like. How big it was, exactly what color the fur was. What remained in his memory more than that was the back of someone sitting by the window endlessly waiting for someone.
“…Ha.”
It was truly absurd enough to make him let out an empty breath involuntarily. To compare his current self to his mother. Then naturally, wouldn’t he have to substitute Gil Taeseo for his father, and this child for his young self?
But sometimes people were bound to thrash about seized by nonsensical things. Not to mention if it was something close to a reverse scale that had secretly followed him his whole life and could still shake up the human called Lee Saehyeon helplessly even now.
“No wonder I really… felt like shit.”
Saehyeon, who had muttered, deliberately tore his eyes away from outside the window. His slowly lowering eyes crinkled slightly.
