“Huu…….”
He was superior to that man from earlier, so he had to be even more frightening. His height and build might be twice the size. The odds were high that his face was so severe it would be hard to even meet his eyes.
He would surpass that violent someone the island people had spoken of with shuddering tongues — and so in Yi-won’s imagination, the Executive Director took on the likeness of something monstrous.
A formless image inflates easily. Yi-won was already consumed by visions of being caught by the Executive Director whose face he didn’t even know, and begging him on hands and knees. Locked away somewhere, unable to eat, let alone drink water. Lucky if he didn’t get hit. And maybe, just maybe, he might even die.
He drew his folded knees to his chest and pressed his forehead against them. The silence was fear itself to Yi-won, who was still so young.
He didn’t dare so much as think about taking out his phone. In case the light from it gave away that he was hiding.
With no windows in the basement, he couldn’t tell by the color of the sky whether morning was coming — but even so, there was no point forcing himself to check the time. It had already been the early hours of dawn when he’d set foot in Unsol-chae. The Executive Director, who had only just returned home, would fall asleep before long.
Yi-won lifted his head, and his expression was, in its own way, quietly resolute. Just stay still for now. All I have to do is not get caught. But just in case, I’ll find the best gap between the furniture I can, hide my body, wait it out, and then slip out carefully.
His anxious eyes moved quickly, searching for a suitable spot.
“There.”
The blind spot where the sofa and the cabinet pressed flush against each other. Yi-won got down on all fours and crawled over carefully. The space was even narrower than he’d expected.
He tucked his shoulders in as much as he could and pushed himself in feet-first, bottom first. Then he pulled his knees up to his chest and buried his head down — the width and height fit just right.
Blink. Blink. Darkness that had settled throughout the room, unbroken and still as death. The late-night hours edging toward morning. A mind and body exhausted from cleaning and moving around all day long.
Perhaps it was the relief of having found somewhere relatively safe. There was nothing Yi-won could do but breathe, and his eyelids began to sink.
“Ah…….”
I can’t. I can’t fall asleep. Or can I. Either way I have to wait until the Executive Director falls asleep, so maybe just a little……
The wave of drowsiness was overwhelming. He pressed his brow hard into the back of his arm.
No. If I fall asleep it’s over. Yi-won repeated it inwardly as he waged war against sleep.
A crash of thunder rang out like a cannon. Hundreds, thousands of rain streaks lashed the tightly shut windows. There was no telling when it had started — the world was as dark as if it had been doused in muddy water.
It was just past one in the afternoon when Choi Woo-hyuk, sunken in a deep sleep, finally opened his eyes.
He had been stripped to the waist. He pulled on a light robe and got up from the bed. He stepped out of the bedroom, walked at an unhurried pace to the bathroom, and showered first.
Money had clearly been poured into it, and it showed. It was in the bathroom — of all places — that Choi Woo-hyuk felt Choi Seong-jae’s lifelong devotion to Unsol-chae.
Every surface gleamed as though gilded in gold, and the bathtub was extravagantly large. A size fit for several people to soak in at once would have been more than enough for bringing in multiple omegas and having a thoroughly depraved time.
Even during those few minutes in the shower, Choi Woo-hyuk’s mind was restless. He stood before the showerhead with his eyes closed. The hot stream of water soaked him from head to toe without pause.
The water split into rivulets and traced the lines of his solid muscle as it ran down. The thick, jagged scars tangled together to form a single picture, and over them the water curved and streamed to the floor.
Choi Woo-hyuk shook the water from his wet hair and headed downstairs. He quenched his thirst with cold water. In the darkened interior — not a single light switched on — he stood and stared, transfixed, at the storm raging beyond the large living room windows.
It was then that his phone, set idly down on a surface, lit up and buzzed with a gentle vibration.
“Yeah.”
— I heard you went to the island.
“News travels fast.”
— It’s basically the law of the land — once you’ve found the right time to step back, you retreat and go off the grid.
“Don’t talk nonsense.”
— Let’s get together.
A trade passed down through generations, and with it the excessive wealth and power that came from it. Those whose backgrounds resembled each other naturally gravitated closer.
He had met Kang Seon-ho, who was the same age as him, when they had each gone to study in Japan. The friendship built in a foreign country had carried on well enough. Checking in from time to time, meeting up when the occasion arose.
This is going to be a nuisance. Not even a full day had passed since he arrived on the island. A faint irritation surfaced at being disturbed this early in. Choi Woo-hyuk fished the cigarette pack from his pocket and bit one between his teeth.
“Come in, then.”
— You’re really letting me in? I figured most guys were getting the word out that you can’t even get a foot in the door.
“If that’s the rumor, then that’s what it is.”
— You talk about your own place like it’s someone else’s.
He didn’t know much about this island. And he had no desire to know more. To Choi Woo-hyuk, it was simply the island that was currently his. Nothing more, nothing less.
— O-kay. As you know, I have high standards. Run-of-the-mill options don’t cut it for me. Put in the proper effort for a friend, yeah?
A deep furrow crossed his brow as he listened. Work had kept him busy enough that he’d managed to forget for a while — Kang Seon-ho’s sordid hobby of indulging in orgies. When Choi Woo-hyuk went quiet and said nothing, exhaling smoke one after another, Kang Seon-ho’s voice grew urgent, firing off a rapid string of “Hello?”, “Hey. Did you hang up?”
“Shut up and hang up.”
— I’ll call when I’m on my way.
Choi Woo-hyuk ended the call and let his gaze drop absently downward. There on the floor near his feet was a smear of brownish streaks.
“What’s this.”
He had instructed that it be done with help if needed, and made ready for immediate use. Lee Gyu-tae had been in charge of the upkeep, so the final inspection had been his responsibility too. Choi Woo-hyuk turned over the memory of Lee Gyu-tae’s flustered behavior in the early hours of the morning.
“Honestly.”
It meant the cleaning hadn’t been finished by that hour. It also meant it hadn’t been started immediately upon receiving the order — that it had been dragged out. Choi Woo-hyuk creased his brow and let his gaze drift across the room.
One far in the distance. One near the stairs. One on the side of the living room. There were more smears than he’d expected, scattered throughout.
Choi Woo-hyuk followed the stains, stepping over them to see how many more remained. From the first floor, down to the basement just below it. Stains were dotted at intervals on the steps leading down as well.
He switched on the light in the darkened basement.
“What the hell is this.”
His late father’s sexual preferences, which he had no desire to confront, were laid bare without apology. The basement was entirely Choi Seong-jae’s space for sex. From displayed toys he had no wish to examine for signs of use, to a wide range of expensive liquors of every variety.
Like breadcrumbs from Hansel and Gretel, Choi Woo-hyuk followed the trail of brown marks across the floor — and the furrow between his brows deepened into something far worse. His mood had turned thoroughly foul, and he was in the middle of releasing a long-suppressed sigh when it happened.
Something small caught against the toe of his slipper. Choi Woo-hyuk bent down and picked it up.
A strawberry-scented lip balm. One that had no place in this villa, in this room, or with him — and certainly not with his dead father.
As luck would have it, Yi-won had made it out of Unsol-chae just before sunrise. At the quiet villa entrance, the slippers he’d left behind were gone. He had no time to look for them, so he crossed the threshold barefoot, up on his tiptoes.
He ran like a stray cat bolting from a person. The storm had already been tearing through for some time — sharp and vicious as a blade. It scratched and soaked and surrounded Yi-won’s delicate skin from every direction.
He ran with his eyes fixed ahead, unaware that his chapped lips were splitting further each time he breathed out, unaware of the mud embedding itself into his bare feet with every step, ignoring the wounds that kept bleeding before they had any chance to close.
Perhaps that was why.
The exhaustion and the tension that had settled over his small, slight body finally brought Yi-won down, sick in bed.
Crash — boom—!
A peal of thunder, and a fierce gust of wind that kept hammering at the windows again and again. Every time it came, Yi-won curled himself smaller.
“Hhnn…….”
