‘Taesung, you said you wanted to be a useful person, didn’t you?’
A gently whispering voice eerily wrapped around the back of his neck. Taesung whirled around in shock. Naturally, there was no one there. He swallowed dry saliva and clutched his pounding heart. No more curses came out from his frozen lips.
‘You’ll have to help this hyung out. It’s something only you can do.’
Those thick hands that lightly patted his cheeks. That must have been the first and last moment those hands that always beat him up felt warm. Taesung had been stupid enough to get his heart racing at the words ‘something only you can do.’ Back then, he’d genuinely wanted to become a valuable person to him. Then I won’t be abandoned. I’ll have something I can confidently call my own place, he’d thought.
‘You’re an omega, aren’t you?’
He thought he’d been hiding it well. It was recessive anyway, so as long as he took his medicine on time, he was no different from a beta.
‘You’re already a body rolling around on the streets anyway, so why act so pricey? Fuck, Taesung. How fucking shitty would I feel if I beat you up right now? Huh? Why are you doing things that deserve a beating, why?’
Dragged away like a dog being taken on dog meat day, tied up and beaten senseless, he learned for the first time in his life what heat was. After receiving the omega diagnosis, his body that had never once betrayed Taesung by faithfully taking medicine collapsed pathetically with one injection Jang Hyeokjin administered.
In the most disgusting, miserable, fucking form—no, in the form of a dick itself.
He’d barely been freed from the collar that dug viciously into his skin. He never wanted to be dragged back there and tied up again. Cold sweat soaked his entire body. Taesung took out suppressants he didn’t even need to take and chewed them with a crunch.
Right, fuck, I have to survive first. Who am I worrying about?
It’s a world he has to navigate alone anyway. Whatever happens to that bastard who enjoyed everything he could enjoy—it’s none of Taesung’s business.
As soon as he exited the tunnel, Taesung pulled over to the shoulder and retched.
The strong suppressants seemed to have finally turned his stomach inside out.
3.
After the last final exams of third year middle school ended, the homeroom teacher put on a movie called ‘A.I.’ and left.
Classmates running around the back of the classroom like colts let loose. Screams loud enough to tear eardrums. In between, only the students boringly keeping to their seats were blankly staring at the TV screen moving solitary in a corner of the classroom.
A couple who’d cryogenically frozen their terminally ill son adopted a robot in the form of a young child as a replacement. From that scene, Taesung felt disgusted and buried his face on his desk.
Just then, the back door of the classroom burst open and the student affairs teacher banged on the lockers with a recorder. The students who’d been running wild slunk back to their seats and planted their butts down. The student affairs teacher made a round of the classroom and issued threats that if they made noise one more time, he wouldn’t let it slide. And when passing by Taesung, he lightly hit the back of his neck. Don’t sleep. Watch the movie. Your homeroom teacher put on something famous.
Taesung roughly rubbed his reddened forehead and let the incomprehensible English dialogue flow in one ear while throwing his gaze outside. The ginkgo leaves outside the window were all colored yellow. Through the half-open window gap, chilly autumn wind mixed with playground sand rushed in.
Hey, pass! Someone shouted from the middle of the playground. A whistle sound rang out faintly. Piercing through all this noise, a young child cried out sharply. Mommy, mommy, making sounds that grated on Taesung’s nerves.
Fuck, so damn loud.
Before that thought could even pop out of his mouth, someone stood up with a screech, noisily scraping the floor with chair legs.
“Hey, hey, Han Taesung, were you like that too?”
Are you crazy? Someone muttered. But no one openly scolded that bastard. He could feel everyone’s gazes piercing the back of his head. Taesung curled his stiffly frozen fingers one by one. Strength entered his fist.
“You got sent back, right? Hey, when your mom took you back to the orphanage, did you cry ‘Mommy, mommy, don’t abandon me’ too?”
He doesn’t remember how he lunged at that bastard. Just that in the next moment, that bastard’s jaw turned, people screamed noisily all around, and on the TV the kid kept crying mommy, mommy.
So Taesung still doesn’t know how that movie ends.
Did the mother come back to find him?
Or did that kid robot come to his senses and put a bullet in the heads of the couple who abandoned him?
Probably not the latter.
Because people hope that abandoned children grow up pure and kind.
Sympathize with them, but not need to fear them.
“President Oh, why can’t you understand? Do I look like I’m trying to screw over your company? The fucking Ministry of Land sent out an official notice to cancel all orders for unqualified construction companies. So who told you to go to the gambling house with that pitiful amount of capital? You poured all your money into Spadea or whatever the fuck, so you’re not qualified—not qualified.”
“That, that was ages ago. You knew all that when you gave me the subcontract! I, I said I’m almost filling it back up, right? President Han! And, huh? That gambling house, you really don’t know about it? President Han, you didn’t pull some shit to set me up, did you?”
“Our President Oh has watched too much Tazza. Why would I do construction work to screw over such a tiny company? And President Oh, I don’t even fucking know how to do that. When I go there, everyone’s got their rice bowls flipped over and desperately slurping, is that right?”
Manager Kim looked at Manager Park as if asking if he knew. Manager Park jumped in shock and waved his hands. Ah, I don’t go to that gambling house. I only do it on my phone. All this bullshit.
President Oh’s already reddish face heated up to a dark red all the way to his completely bald crown. This fuck, fucking bastard, muttering curses under his breath as he grabbed Taesung’s collar. A short old man who’s skinny to boot trying to threaten only looks like a cicada crying on a withered tree.
Taesung frowned and looked down at President Oh. With a snort as if finding it utterly ridiculous, he brushed off the collar as if removing a bug from his clothes, shaking President Oh off with a tap tap. Then he placed his large hand on President Oh’s shoulder as he furtively avoided eye contact. Under the firmly pressing force, President Oh’s insignificant legs trembled.
“Remove your equipment and go.”
“I, I, I can’t leave like this. It’s, it’s a contract termination, so I have to receive the pe, penalty fee to save, save face with my employees.”
“What, don’t have enough money to go to the gambling house?”
“I haven’t been to the gambling house in ages, how many times do I have to tell you…”
Taesung put his hand in his jacket inner pocket. President Oh closed his bluish lips and gulped down dry saliva. Taesung sneered at him and took out a cigarette. Today’s cigarette pack warning was heart attack. Ah, heart attack would be a blessed death. Not bad.
As soon as he put a cigarette in his mouth, Manager Kim quickly lit it. Taesung blew white smoke into the air and waved the cigarette at President Oh. President Oh received the cigarette with trembling hands. After taking a drag, he seemed to calm down a bit.
“I know President Han isn’t doing this because you have a grudge. President Han also has to do what Wonin Construction tells you to do, don’t you?”
Taesung just curled up the corners of his mouth slightly.
“Just take care of your cut. If that equipment doesn’t leave, President Han’s construction will be delayed too, right? That’s better than both of us being fucked.”
He took out a new cigarette. President Oh held out the cigarette he was smoking, but Taesung didn’t even pretend to take it and just turned his head slightly toward where Manager Kim was. The tip of the cigarette burned red again. Snake-like slit eyes scanned President Oh’s servile face as if examining prey.
“How much?”
“That depends on President Han’s generosity.”
“I’m chicken-hearted though.”
“What kind of ridiculous talk is that? What kind of person is our President Han? A self-made person who went under President Jang with bare fists and became a proper company president, right?”
“Fuuuck, you just called me a dog bastard who does whatever Wonin says.”
“I, when did I…”
Taesung blew smoke at the flustered bald face. President Oh grimaced but didn’t let a single curse out of his mouth.
I should reward this praiseworthy old man.
He brought his hand back to the inner pocket where he’d just taken out the cigarette pack. Then he grabbed the edge of an envelope with his thumb and index finger and pulled it out smoothly.
“Treat your hard-working employees to some good pork belly and soju, and let’s not go to the gambling house. If you’d at least played Go-Stop, maybe. Holzzak is so easy to cheat at.”
“I’m not going, I told you I’m not going?”
President Oh went crazy over the envelope like a cat before a Churu treat. Of course, if Manager Kim heard this comparison, he’d roll his eyes saying, ‘How can you compare a lovely cat to that alcoholic baldy?!’
President Oh received the casually tossed envelope preciously with both hands. Then he kneaded it this way and that, estimating the amount. Meanwhile, Taesung took out his wallet. President Oh’s gaze soon turned to the thick stack of yellow 50,000 won bills stuck between the bifold wallet.
