The man still had a smile on his face. His eyes were as cold as icicles frozen in a deep cave, but his lips were curved upward as if a swan had gracefully spread its wings.
“Why?”
He asks slowly as he puts his lips to the crystal glass.
“Done appreciating?”
“…Crazy bastard.”
Managing Director Gi approaches. His pheromones come crashing down. Even though a huge shadow was attacking him terrifyingly, Woonghee couldn’t move as if he’d been captured. All he could do was tremble with just his big toe.
“How is it, Woonghee-ssi?”
Finally, he grabbed Woonghee’s nape. Then he applied threatening force as if he would strangle his neck right away.
“How does it feel to be on my cruise?”
The man who was being so cruel with his grip, yet whose eyes were nothing but sensual, rambled like an evil spirit.
…So this cruise was Managing Director Gi’s after all? He was someone who reigned as if it were natural even when staying on the island. Everywhere, he held brutal power in his grip. His very existence was violent, a merciless man who trampled on rules.
How on earth did he bring this cruise? Why didn’t he escape earlier? This psychopath—don’t tell me he was enjoying watching people suffer?
Did this man really send those police? How? By what method?
What kind of jungle should this motherfucker be thrown into to get eaten? Why does he devour others like a top predator everywhere and smile insidiously as if pleased?
“How the hell did you gather the police? And where did you get this cruise from…!”
“I occasionally brought my cruise around this area to mine for jewels.”
He grabbed Woonghee’s bangs. Gently, as if stroking a dog bastard, he caressed them and then soon applied force with a grip. Ugh, Woonghee groaned. It felt like someone was crushing his entire skull. Then this bastard would probably crunch and eat even that brain meat whole, saying it would be sweet.
Nailed in place like a taxidermied specimen, Managing Director Gi’s face came close.
“When doing business, sometimes there are things that need to be kept secret.”
His smoothly curved lips parted with a smack. Secretively, as if sharing a deep kiss. But he gripped his hair even more fiercely.
“…Ugh!!”
“There was a radio. It didn’t get caught by signals either, so it bypassed the shitty surveillance network.”
He laughed quietly as if he’d experienced something absurd. He wanted to hook his finger into those long tearing lips. It seemed better to just tear them long like that…
“But it disappeared when the cruise was smashed.”
He gazed at the air. Then, as if chewing over his past, he let out a quiet sigh and slowly stroked his chin.
“I thought it was lost somewhere in the sea. But being with Woonghee-ssi, I thought I didn’t need to look for it.”
“Really fuck, what the hell kind of nonsense are you…?”
“But when I lost Woonghee-ssi… I had to search the entire ocean…”
Just looking at that complexion, he looked pitiful enough to be mistaken for a man who lost his beloved lover. He only looked like a desperate man who lost his love, and the miserable sadness of collapsing helplessly while clutching a bleeding heart was conveyed intact.
“Then I found it. Because I needed Woonghee-ssi.”
He kept his head fixed in the air and only rolled his eyes toward him. It was an eerie sight.
“If you’d said that earlier… we would’ve escaped long ago, wouldn’t we?”
Then the man this time shook his ribcage and laughed, “Haha.” The thick torso wrapped in a dark robe heaved threateningly. Then he sneered quietly, “Escape, did you just say escape?”
“Congratulations, on coming to the third island.”
Fuck. Woonghee spat out curses as if vomiting blood. He struggled so much to escape from that shitty place, risked his life, and backstabbed other humans! Yet in the end, he’s next to this man again…!
As if mocking that, the man even burst celebratory fireworks and champagne.
“Welcome to my island.”
“You motherfucker. Fuck, from a place like this, I can just jump off, you crazy psychopath bastard…!”
What kind of island is this cruise, Woonghee spat out words as if chewing them, saying he could just jump off. You thought so wrong. Nothing will go your way.
The man’s fingers swept through Woonghee’s hair once again. He stroked each strand as if petting him.
“Why? Are you going crazy wanting to escape from here too?”
“The problem isn’t that it’s this place, the problem is being by your side!”
“Why? Here you can have everything. I can fill everything you lack, Woonghee-ssi. Mm, even love.”
“…I don’t even want to breathe in the same space as you.”
He’s an insane man who deliberately came all the way here to find him. Love? Don’t bullshit me. This man can’t feel emotions, he’s a deficient human. He’s doing this because of the inferiority complex of not having what even humans inferior to him naturally possess.
So isn’t he clinging to him like this while going on about love?
“But we’re perfect when we’re together.”
To prove that he himself is a perfect human without a single flaw. Woonghee now seemed to understand how to effectively provoke and hurt such a man.
Proving that you have no value to me…!
Woonghee roughly pushed him away with his elbow. Next to the spot where he’d been sitting, that man stared intently at Woonghee.
“Why should I with a bastard like you?”
The man laughed. As if daring him to try. It was an appearance where he felt no sense of crisis or fluster at all. That appearance provoked Woonghee. Woonghee stepped backward. His soft skin scraped against the bare floor, making a friction sound. Screech.
One step, two steps, three steps…
He distanced himself from him like that. And Managing Director Gi was only slowly watching Woonghee as he fled. Like a beast with hidden claws, he was crouched low, measuring the moment to hunt.
The air in the room trembled viciously.
“Haa, fuck…!”
And that was when it happened. When Woonghee started running madly toward outside the room as if exploding all the anger and desperation built up in his body.
His breath rose to his chin and his heart pounded as if it would burst, but he couldn’t stop. He climbed the stairs one step at a time with all his might.
Then he passed through the corridor, narrow and dark like a snake’s throat, in one breath.
Running until his breath was about to cut off like that, he stopped in front of the entrance connected to the deck. The dawn sky was glaring at him viciously while crouched like a beast not yet fully awake from sleep.
Woonghee gulped, swallowed his saliva, and approached the railing. The sharply striking waves scratched Woonghee’s vision. The sea breeze clawed and passed by as if tearing his skin to shreds.
Beyond the railing, the jet-black sea spread out. That pitch-black world of darkness he’d had to look at and stare into for weeks. It was hell that presented hopelessness sickeningly.
It really was like an island as the bastard said.
Soon, he felt hands gripping his nape from behind.
“Yeah, it’ll be very easy. You can just jump from here.”
And an ominous whisper followed. No, actually he knew he was approaching but didn’t avoid it. In the state of standing here, he wouldn’t be able to escape from him.
…Unless he jumped into this water.
“Or should I push you?”
He embraced Woonghee’s neck as if strangling him, as if he would really do as he wished. Woonghee was just precariously caught in his grip while leaning his body on the railing.
“Ugh…!”
The waves surged. The cruise swayed greatly as if dancing a waltz. If the man loosened his grip even a little, Woonghee would really become whale food.
“Why? Don’t want to die?”
Like this, he might really die.
His heart tightened as if someone was squeezing it, so he couldn’t even breathe properly.
Dozens of times a day, the desire to live and the laziness that it might be easier if he just died like this would fight.
However, every time he faced such situations, Woonghee would confront his true feelings. I want to live, I don’t want to die so helplessly like this…!
“Ugh, ugh…!”
The man’s index finger separated from him. Feeling the gradually loosening strength, Woonghee unconsciously grabbed the man’s forearm.
Just as Paeng Hana, pushed by the seawater, had clung to him with all her might, Woonghee also just grabbed at a straw.
The man let out a laugh as if pleased by that.
“Did you say you wanted to become a beta?”
It was a sticky tone that strangely lured him out. As if soaking in sticky oil, Woonghee met his viscous eyes.
Yeah, he just wanted to become a beta. He just wanted to live normally like others.
Really, that was all.
“Fuck, fuck…! Yeah, I wanted to become a beta! Not to have my life mortgaged to a brain-damaged psychopath like you…!!”
But he didn’t know where his very first wish had all run away to, and why he was gripped in the hands of a shitty bastard like this. The more he struggled to escape, the tighter this trap squeezed his flesh.
It crushed his bones and tore his skin to shreds.
“Then I’ll personally stick a syringe in your neck.”
“What other nonsense are you trying to do to me…”
Huff, huff. Woonghee let his body hang limply while entrusting everything to the man’s grip. Then he lifted his eyelids with difficulty. The area under his eyes trembled. The salty sea breeze blew and his hair flew wildly. His eyeballs stung terribly.
“Pretend to love me.”
That shitty love talk again. Do you only feel satisfied when you fill your empty brain with love like that?
“For 2,132 hours.”
What the hell is with that dog-like specific time? His whole body trembled and strength entered his jaw. Woonghee felt like he was going crazy with anger, but the man was still looking down at him like Satan in the midst of it all.
And what he uttered was.
“Do you know what it means?”
This kind of thing. It was a question that didn’t fit at all. Whenever he was with this man, he always got caught up in his pace like this. It felt like being sucked into an endless black hole.
“How would I know…!”
But the next moment, at the words flowing from the man, Woonghee almost bit his tongue hard.
“It’s the time we were trapped together on the island.”
