Be busted
…What should I do?
Woonghee was bending his knees. His thighs, exposed as his pants rolled up, took on a pink hue. Woonghee clenched his fist with a blank face. The man’s damp wet shirt wrapped in his palm was heavy as if holding a rock.
Bright red blood. Blood that he’d only seen when cutting a wild boar’s throat flowed down from the man’s shirt. The blood drops mixed into the stream water, contaminating the transparent water.
With so much blood flowing out, it was natural that the man’s body wasn’t intact. Though he’d occasionally shown excessively excited behavior, this man had never been this disheveled before.
So heated up with fever, hadn’t he rambled on for the first time?
‘That young bastard’s head… I should have shot it with a gun earlier. And Lee Woonghee, I should have left you to die on the cliff. I should have swallowed wine while watching you die.’
That must have been the man’s true feelings, right? It must have been like a drunk person haphazardly spewing out the true feelings buried deep in their brain. He must not have been able to control his muddled, clouded head.
“Fuck, so what am I supposed to do…”
The red color continued to spread widely through the clean stream water. Like it gradually dispersing, Woonghee wanted to somehow shake off his complicated and confused thoughts. He quietly put his foot into the stream water. The flowing current embraced his ankle.
It’s just, that man only feels lust for me. Forget it, forget such gazes. That man spewing out his innermost words while heated with fever looking lonely and solitary, feeling like a lost child clinging to him…
…It’s probably all just my imagination.
“No. Fuck, it’s all not.”
Woonghee slowly moved along the valley. He stepped on bumpy rocks and passed the babbling brook. Isn’t the relationship between Omega and Alpha such a sticky and dirty relationship? It must just be possessiveness arising from mixing bodies.
Woonghee’s steps gradually slowed. It was a place where lushly grown vines and undergrowth were densely tangled. It was a place that looked exactly like a cliff because it was hidden by haphazardly grown nature, but an ominous space where a new place unfolded if you just brushed aside the grass with your arms.
“……”
Director Hwang was hiding here. He’d seen him float the tube here several times. It was the perfect place to float a tube because it wasn’t easily visible to other people and the water level was quite high.
A quiet world as if cut off from the outside. As expected, an orange boat was floating at the water’s edge. And next to it, Director Hwang’s figure busily moving his body also came into view.
“Why the fuck won’t this work!”
Director Hwang, unable to overcome his frustration, struck the stream water with his fist. Splash, splash! The wildly rising stream water splattered in all directions. Hidden by that noise, Woonghee slowly closed the distance. While firmly suppressing even his rough breathing and shaking emotions.
“Aak!”
When he approached Director Hwang’s back like that, he pushed the large body hard. Then he grabbed the back of his neck and shoved his head into the water puddle.
“Wha, what, pfft, you, whaat…!”
Woonghee squeezed out every ounce of strength to try to submerge him, but Director Hwang’s resistance with his breath cut off was tremendous. Uhpu uhpu! Rolling over the stones and muddy ground at the water’s edge, the two engaged in a fierce physical struggle like beasts.
“Euhk…!”
Then he was kicked hard by Director Hwang’s flailing foot. The moment his vision spun and his body fell backward. His side slammed hard into a sharp rock. Woonghee barely swallowed the scream about to burst out, gritted his teeth and got up, regaining his stance. Then he reached down and rummaged through the water bottom. Kwak—he grabbed a rolling stone and immediately raised it to strike down on Director Hwang’s head.
“Kwaak!”
From the shock to his head, Director Hwang screamed and tumbled in the stream. Not missing that moment, Woonghee snatched the boat at once and pulled it toward himself. Then he took out the machete from his chest and threatened Director Hwang.
“Don’t come close.”
Woonghee’s blade tip aimed precisely at the boat. His momentum was so fierce that it seemed he’d pierce a hole in the boat right away.
“I’m not just threatening you, I’ll really stab it.”
There was no trembling at Woonghee’s fingertips.
“You crazy bastard, you think I’ll fall for such a shallow trick?”
Director Hwang sneered while grinding his teeth, but his body was instinctively detecting the threat and backing away. Aiming the blade tip at the boat was a more powerful threat than pointing it at Director Hwang.
“You think I can’t stab it?”
Woonghee, who retorted in a voice containing suppressed anger, pressed the middle of the boat firmly with the tip of the machete. The part the blade touched swelled up as if it would burst. Director Hwang contorted his face and spat out harsh curses.
“This fuck…!”
“It’s in two days.”
Woonghee said decisively. Director Hwang screamed like crazy.
“Crazy bastard, if ghosts really existed, they should take someone like you first.”
Director Hwang said as if chewing and spitting.
“I’ll be keeping this. So come out two days from now at 4:30 in the morning, at that time. That’s the opportunity.”
They had to move during the quiet time when they wouldn’t be caught by surveillance eyes. If anyone showed even the slightest suspicious sign, people would unhesitatingly try to report to Managing Director Gi. Because it was a world where everyone monitored each other.
“…And we’re taking one more person.”
“On a two-person boat? Are you crazy?”
Director Hwang asked back.
“We can go enough. Why don’t you shed some of the fat stuck to your sides first.”
He mocked the fat that didn’t decrease much even in this difficult island life where they were dying.
“Keep your mouth shut if you don’t want to see an ugly sight. Got it?”
Woonghee didn’t take his eyes off Director Hwang for even a moment. The sharp blade tip of the machete moved from the boat back toward Director Hwang. Director Hwang, who had no means to respond to Woonghee, eventually backed away and slowly left.
When Director Hwang’s silhouette disappeared beyond the lush vines, Woonghee relaxed and slumped down. Only then could he release the breath he’d been holding.
“I did the right thing…”
There was no one to answer his soliloquy. Only the sound of stream water flowing could be heard around. Then he finally raised his head. Already there was no hesitation on Woonghee’s face.
‘Let’s go. I don’t have time to be like this.’
He shouldered the boat and quickly moved along the valley. The current grew stronger and his footing was unstable, but the resolution in his heart was firm. He had to find Tula and quickly inform him of the news.
Woonghee frantically cut through the bushes. Passing countless trees, he eventually stood in front of a certain large tree. He handed over the tube he’d carried on his back above his head.
“Fill it with IV solution.”
As he said that, the bushes stirred. A long arm popped out through them and took the tube.
[Uh, okay! Got it!]
There wasn’t much time. So this time, they absolutely had to succeed.
Woonghee only returned to the bungalow after repeatedly instructing Tula not to forget to fill it with IV solution. He was about to throw open the door as usual but flinched and stopped. It was a place he went in and out of every day, so why was he so afraid to enter?
…Actually, he knew the reason too well. It was because of the man lying there.
Right, Gi Junhyuk-ssi, you’re right. If I’m going to leave, now is the opportunity. Smashing your head and leaving now would be the right thing.
Woonghee bit hard into the soft flesh inside his cheek. As if grasping onto something that kept trying to become soft, he steadied his mind by inflicting wounds on his body. Creeeak—he carefully opened the door. Then he faced the man’s body that leapt into both eyes. Exposing his upper body studded with brownish muscle masses, the man lay helplessly in the room.
It was like a collapsed castle. Because his usual appearance of standing tall like a spire was nowhere to be found. Woonghee’s hand holding the machete trembled.
In two days, I’ll leave you. I’ll go without looking back. Whatever’s on that island, I have to go there.
This is the right thing to do.
“Ngh…”
Then a low groan burst from the man. He tossed and turned his thick body in his sleep. This was bad. At this rate, the arm bitten by a wild beast would be crushed under the large body. Woonghee unknowingly rushed to the man.
“You can’t…”
He grabbed his forearm and repositioned the body writhing in pain. The man’s abdomen faced the ceiling and gasped.
“You can’t move.”
Woonghee found something long and hard from one side of the room. It wasn’t the machete to smash the man’s head. It was aloe vera. Gently pushing it with a knife, transparent liquid flowed down.
In case the wound became infected, Woonghee gently applied it to the man’s affected area. On two knuckles of Woonghee’s busily moving fingers were bite marks from teeth—all traces of the man biting him.
“……”
While tending to Managing Director Gi’s wound, Woonghee kept frowning the whole time as if he himself was in more pain. Though he couldn’t understand it himself, he hoped this man wouldn’t feel any more pain.
Where on earth was this feeling born from? I don’t understand my own duality either.
But I’m going to leave you. Mercilessly, I’ll leave lightheartedly.
