“Taesung. Do you know why I’m taking so much time to break you like this? Because I feel sorry for you, huh? I’m training you because it’s pitiful that you still haven’t figured out your place and are thrashing about thinking you’re human. If I thought of you as a disposable commodity to use and throw away, I wouldn’t even be doing this right now. I’d just hand you over to those drug addict bastards who buy omegas by the gram. Those bastards love big guys like you the most. They say if you grill omega flesh during heat, it smells like pheromones. Every time you go into heat, they cut off and eat the parts least needed for fucking, starting from the top. While they’re shoving their cocks in your hole, they’ll be chomping on your flesh with their mouths.”
Only after Taesung became docile did Jang Hyeokjin release his hair. Then he shoved his fingers into the torn corner of his mouth and pulled. Dark red blood dripped from the lips that had been bleeding little by little. Taesung couldn’t hold back the pain and let out a low groan.
“Fucking hell, acting tough when you’re whimpering over just this much.”
Jang Hyeokjin sneered.
“You rolled around that cheap body that’s not worth half a penny and think you did something great, Taesung. How many of our guys have been stabbed doing this work? When others were getting stabbed and dying, you just got fucked by a cock and that was it.”
“Then why do I have to be the one to take on that job?”
“You should’ve said that three years ago. Before you betrayed Hyun Jaeha.”
“Fuck, really…”
“You think Hyun Jaeha will forgive you for doing this? You went in swinging a bat to beat to death that kid who used to hold your hand and call you hyung, hyung, not even knowing what kind of dirty bastard you were, and now if you say you’re sorry, he’ll be so grateful, huh?”
“I’m not doing this to get forgiveness, I just don’t want to. I don’t.”
“Isn’t this whole mess because you fucked up the job three years ago? Then who the fuck should clean up this mess?”
Jang Hyeokjin grabbed Taesung’s face again. As if he didn’t want to hear any more blabbering, he shoved his thumb into Taesung’s mouth and pulled down his lower jaw.
“And Taesung. I absolutely have to see Hyun Jaeha die by your hand.”
In the end, this was what he wanted to say.
“Taesung, if you just cut off that arrogant brat’s breath with your own hands and bring him to me, you can live well for the rest of your life being called President without this kind of shitty work—I don’t understand why you’re refusing. Don’t tell me you have some kind of feelings for that brat?”
His mouth couldn’t move. Taesung squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. Jang Hyeokjin laughed out loud again. Click—the familiar sound of a belt buckle coming undone hit his ears.
Perverted bastard getting hard from beating people.
Jang Hyeokjin shoved his excited member into the forcibly opened mouth. Separate from his shitty mood, his damned body automatically lifted its head and swallowed Jang Hyeokjin’s thing deep into his throat. The thick cockhead blocked his airway, and Taesung grabbed Jang Hyeokjin’s legs while letting out choking groans. He—fuck—cursed internally as he roughly shoved his thing into Taesung’s throat as if he didn’t care whether he lived or died.
Whether it was from not being able to breathe or from his head being shaken like crazy, his mind gradually became hazy. It felt like someone was strangling him. Who was it? Hyun Jaeha, was it Jaeha?
“Ha, this bastard sucks so well but tries to get out of it.”
Jang Hyeokjin came, shooting his semen into his throat. His mouth filled with the disgusting stuff and nausea rose, barely bringing Taesung back to his senses. Jang Hyeokjin wiped the residue on his cock clean by rubbing it on Taesung’s tongue and lips, then blocked his convulsing, gulping mouth.
“It’s been a while since you got to eat hyung-nim’s cum, so you should swallow it all.”
Along with the nausea that had risen to his throat, Taesung laboriously swallowed everything. Only after rough breaths flowed harshly from his nose did Jang Hyeokjin release Taesung. Then he tapped the cheeks drenched in cold sweat and whispered.
“Hyun Jaeha. You take care of him.”
His voice wouldn’t come out because the inside of his throat was swollen.
“Hyun Jaeha has lived enjoying everything he could, hasn’t he, Taesung? If you really feel sorry, send him off with the least painful method, and live happily for his share too. Got it?”
When he didn’t nod, Jang Hyeokjin struck the top of his head with a smacking sound.
“Taesung, you need to answer.”
In the end, Taesung had no choice but to nod his head weakly.
It was just that Jang Hyeokjin was right.
Taesung had thrashed about not knowing his place because of Director Yoon’s nonsense.
When he reunited with Jaeha, who had left three years ago resenting him so much, and saw him greet him with a bewilderingly warm welcome, he had misunderstood.
What if I tell him what happened back then—won’t he forgive me?
Won’t I be able to be treated like a human again?
When was it? When he was dragged out after being injected by Jang Hyeokjin, an old man who saw Taesung frowned deeply and grumbled.
‘Boss Jang said he was bringing an omega so I had expectations, but what is that? His face is so fierce, I’m not attracted at all.’
Jang Hyeokjin laughed at those words and covered Taesung’s head with a black plastic bag. Then, pressing down on Taesung as he flailed from suffocation, he said:
‘Chairman, do you decide whether to shit based on how the toilet looks? As long as the function works, that’s all that matters.’
Jang Hyeokjin’s words were always right.
The problem was wanting to be treated like a human when he wasn’t one.
It would be easier if he just accepted it.
It would be easier.
“You have to watch the morning broadcasts carefully. Whether it’s Jerusalem artichokes, Siberian ginseng, or even lemons—if they feature it once, it sells like crazy. There was a broccoli boom once, kohlrabi swept through once too. I think it’s celery’s time to shine now.”
“Celery had its moment like 20 years ago. Dad said when he ground celery into my baby food, I gave him the stink-eye for the first time. There’s a reason things fail.”
Jaeha pulled out the celery that Yeom Chaewoo had confidently placed at the center of the display but hadn’t sold a single stalk all morning, and shoved it under her nose. Yeom Chaewoo opened her nostrils wide and sniffed.
“Mm, fragrant.”
“With this lack of self-objectivity, the store’s going to fail. Completely fail.”
Yeom Chaewoo smacked Jaeha’s mouth with the celery. It meant don’t say unlucky things.
Because of all the superstitions she’d come to believe in while running the business, Yeom Chaewoo cherished a money tree that came as an opening gift in a sunny spot in front of the store, and pig-shaped ornaments in front of the counter kept increasing day by day.
Ever since she was young, Yeom Chaewoo’s dream was to become rich. In the second-grade elementary school classroom, only two people wrote “rich person” as their future aspiration—Yeom Chaewoo and Hyun Jaeha. Yeom Chaewoo wanted to buy her mom a newly built apartment, and Jaeha vowed he’d buy his dad a big house with a yard. Back then, he had no idea that Hyun Sejun had walked away from a mansion with a garden sprawling like a forest with his own two feet, and dreamed such empty dreams.
Was it from that time, or even before? He couldn’t remember exactly, but it seemed the two became friends around then. Both had guardians who came home late, so throughout the year they went back and forth to each other’s houses, cooking ramen and watching TV late into the night or reading books. But before Jaeha entered fourth grade, they moved to another area and lost contact, and he thought they’d just become memories to each other.
He heard news of Yeom Chaewoo again when he went to take a university interview exam. One person who had been staring at Jaeha’s name carefully asked. Didn’t you go to ○○ Elementary? Wow, running into you here? Your hair color was so unique and your surname isn’t common, so I wondered. Chaewoo talked about you sometimes. Remember Yeom Chaewoo? You two were really close.
Jaeha, without any effort, like the protagonist of the fairy tale “Little Lord Fauntleroy,” had his dream come true when a rich grandfather appeared, but Yeom Chaewoo, through no fault of her own, like the protagonist of a common sob story in real life, had her mother scammed and in debt, losing even the fruit store they’d been running, and her mother collapsed from the shock and became unable to move freely, causing her to drift even further from her dream.
They said she even gave up on university.
Was it because of the setting? More than any other misfortune of Yeom Chaewoo’s, the person who felt most sorry that she couldn’t go to university changed his messenger status message to “You can do it, again” after college admissions ended and then disappeared.
Anyway, having learned of Yeom Chaewoo’s situation, Jaeha found her a year ago at a fruit and vegetable wholesaler.
The wholesaler who had dealt with her mother’s store felt sorry for her situation and hired her under not-bad conditions. She diligently carried fruits and vegetables from dawn, and during the day, she made time to visit her mother lying in a nursing hospital. In dramas, hardworking unfortunate protagonists like this always had rich men with prickly personalities show up like lottery tickets. Including the fact that there was absolutely no possibility of becoming lovers, Jaeha had sufficient qualifications to be Yeom Chaewoo’s lottery ticket.
I’ll give you an opportunity.
Should I pay off all the debt you’re carrying, or should I give you a chance to earn the money to pay off your debt?
Yeom Chaewoo seemed to take the bullshit that her childhood friend who appeared after 10 years was spouting as just one of those choice questions floating around the internet.
What’s the point of just paying off the debt? The nursing hospital costs 2 million won a month. I have to grab the opportunity to earn money. People need to work to earn money to build up the stamina to become rich.
She was exactly as she had been when they were young.
