Gong Haejin abruptly ran his fingers across Dohui’s teeth. Saliva clung to his fingertips. Dohui’s shoulders locked up with tension. Gong Haejin withdrew the finger he had dragged through and put it in his own mouth. At the vulgar wet sound that followed, Dohui squeezed his eyes shut.
“Ashamed? Over something this small?”
“Ugh…… Why, why are you doing this.”
He protested with a tongue that had grown clumsy. Dohui had never once broken the law or done anything that could be considered a problem in his entire life. He’d never even come close to encountering anything like that — and whenever he saw news or foreign videos dealing with things like this, it had always sounded like someone else’s story. It had. It really had.
So Dohui should not have been put through this. Because of a man carrying despair on his back…… because of the friend who had dragged him into this…… He was so wronged he could go mad, but escaping this place on his own might have been impossible.
Would he even be able to go home.
The hope buried deep inside Dohui began to fade, worn pale by things he had unwittingly let slip past him. In the fierce cold, the brightness in his eyes grew dim, and his limbs slowly gave way beneath him.
The cold, frost-laden floor met his back. The chill made him try to twist away, but he was soon pressed flat and made to lie still.
He lifted his eyes in a daze, and dark, glinting irises filled his vision. They were the eyes of a beast — fearsome, something to be fled from. Sensing instinctively that he was about to be devoured, Dohui pushed himself up on his elbows and tried to scramble away. Inch by inch. Every surface he touched scraped and stung, but he had to get away regardless.
Like a herbivore caught in a trap, there was nowhere to go. Walls on all sides, and the single door was shut tight. Even so, Dohui drove himself with everything he had. If he could just get out somehow, get help……
He struggled to grasp the door handle, but clunk — nothing but the sound of metal, no response.
“You can’t open it from the inside.”
At the man’s helpful explanation, hope shattered like broken puzzle pieces.
A thin ankle was seized, and he was dragged across the floor. The skin sliding against the ground left raw scrapes behind. Gong Haejin clicked his tongue in displeasure at the reddened skin, then pulled off the pants barely clinging to Dohui’s frame and the socks wrapped around his small feet.
The pale cock, not a hair on it, hung limp. The cold had drawn the balls up small — it was cute enough that a laugh escaped him.
“Small.”
At those words, Dohui’s brow pinched — pride pricked, for all that he was. Gong Haejin looked at him and laughed. Seizing that brief gap, Dohui was already crawling away again, inch by miserable inch.
This kid really doesn’t know when to quit.
The sight of him putting every last ounce of effort into escaping — while showing off the shyly colored little hole tucked between his cheeks — was laughable.
“Are you a virgin?”
Dohui didn’t seem to register anything the man said. It didn’t matter. Just from the way he acted, he looked every bit like the type who’d never even managed a single kiss.
A virgin, huh…… That made it considerably more appealing. Pinning down a struggling body, pressing it flat, and grinding it down until it broke apart — it was the kind of act that roused the instincts Gong Haejin kept suppressed throughout the day.
“I’m asking if you’ve ever taken a man.”
Wet strands of hair tangled between his fingers. He flung him by them, and the pale body hit the floor.
Gong Haejin closed one hand around the throat that fit perfectly in his grip. Thrash, thrash. Limbs flailing like an insect, face flushing deep red. Faint red veins surfaced across the whites of eyes clouded with terror.
“Th-that……”
What is that supposed to mean — the kid asked with wet, glistening eyes. How innocent. Gong Haejin let out a faint, thin laugh.
“I said I’d wait until tomorrow, as promised. What a considerate victim I am.”
Even after being given that generous deadline so kindly, the kid dug his fingernails in and raked them down his arm. Those precious little fingers he’d been hiding under that small backside throughout the entire conversation — now that his life was hanging by a thread, he couldn’t even think about that anymore, could he. Gong Haejin sneered inwardly.
His throat hurt. His airway was completely blocked and he felt like he was going to die. He was forcing thin threads of air into his lungs through his open mouth and protruding tongue, but if the man squeezed even slightly harder, even that would no longer be enough. Dohui pushed his feet against the floor and kept up his pathetic struggle.
“Shh.”
The man’s lips came together lightly. Those straight lips curved.
Consciousness flickered. The very moment his eyes began to roll back, his throat was released. Cough. Cough. He had lost count of how many times he’d coughed since being dragged here — his lungs ached all the way to the bottom.
In the end, his wavering consciousness went dark.
***
Gong Haejin stepped out of the room and crossed the hallway. Pyo Mingyu, who had been standing by the door, fell naturally into step behind him.
“Leave him like that and he’ll freeze to death — raise the temperature just enough that he won’t die.”
“Yes.”
“The others.”
“Currently being tracked. They’ll be caught soon. But — doesn’t what that kid said seem a little off? It feels like he genuinely didn’t know what he was carrying.”
“Could be.”
At Gong Haejin’s breezy answer, Pyo Mingyu’s stride slowed for a moment before quickly returning to pace.
“Mingyu — you saw the apartment.”
Steeped in poverty. Modest throughout. Even the bedding looked like something a mother had picked out and replaced for him.
“Yes.”
Gong Haejin’s steps came to an abrupt halt. His head turned slowly. His gaze was cast not toward Pyo Mingyu but somewhere farther — beyond the door, to where Im Dohui lay unconscious.
Under normal circumstances, he would have kept him awake the entire time, driving fear into him at its most extreme — so the act of choking him until he passed out was the mercy he had extended to the kid.
“The ones with nothing fight the hardest. Whether Im Dohui knew or didn’t, it doesn’t erase the crime. The fact that he kept our goods in his home is real.”
That characteristically low voice resonated, smooth and unhurried. Pyo Mingyu gave a small nod.
Gong Haejin pointed his tongue and dragged it slowly across his lips.
“For now, let’s watch and see.”
There were plenty of that type. Stupid junkies renting out some motel room, huddling together in groups, pooling their small minds over drugs. He had seen when he undressed Im Dohui — no needle marks on his arms or anywhere else. Then the motive was money.
The elevator doors closed. Leaving only Dohui behind in the cold, still space.
***
From his ankles to the tips of his toes — ice cold. He opened his eyes shivering from the cold, and the man was gone. Dohui looked for his clothes, relying on the faint, pale light. Dark pupils behind swollen, puffy eyelids desperately searched for something to cover himself with.
But there was nothing.
Not even the chair he had been sitting in — that too was gone. In the same space as the night before, every single object had disappeared. Dohui curled himself into a ball and struggled with everything he had not to lose what little body heat remained.
“Ugh……”
His skin burned and itched beyond bearing. He dragged his fingernails down his forearm, and a pink trail bloomed in their wake. He scratched, and scratched, and scratched again.
There was no way to know how much time had passed, whether it was night or day. He wasn’t even hungry. But his throat hurt terribly.
“Is…… is anyone there……?”
Mid-plea, Dohui startled and clutched his own throat. His voice had broken completely, stripped of any dignity. Like someone with a severe throat infection — every single word he tried to speak was met with a scraping pain that clawed at his throat.
“Anyone…… anyone……”
Dohui crawled on all fours to the door handle and touched it. I’m cold. Please help me. Those wretched, miserable pleas rang clear in Dohui’s own ears.
The price of one small promise was cruel.
Chapter 2 — The Price
“Welcome back, Director.”
Pyo Mingyu fell into step behind Gong Haejin, who passed by without a word.
“That kid.”
Gong Haejin had stopped by the office early in the morning, looking no different from usual. He settled into his seat with his usual neat, composed bearing. Only the faint press of his fingers against the corners of his eyes — again and again — suggested he might be a little tired.
“He’s alive. And the guys have been sent to the airport. There was a ticket purchase record just like he said, and we confirmed he actually boarded — so we’ll have him the moment he comes out.”
“Mm.”
“Director.”
Gong Haejin opened the eyes he’d been holding shut.
“President Nam came by yesterday. He said to please handle things once the goods are recovered.”
“Heavy footsteps for an errand like that.”
“……”
At the dismissive remark about President Nam’s build, Pyo Mingyu only allowed himself a small, silent smile. Then he picked up a shopping bag that had been set carefully to one side and brought it over.
“He said he thought you’d like it.”
Liquor that easily cleared ten million won a bottle.
Even at the sight of it, Gong Haejin let out a scoff. Getting his own kids hooked on product, getting blindsided by the likes of Im Dohui, and then showing up to grovel with something like this — it was almost impressive in its audacity.
Gong Haejin gave a light tilt of his chin. Without needing another word, Pyo Mingyu read the signal and poured a glass and held it out.
Gong Haejin pushing alcohol into his barely-awake system first thing in the morning wasn’t particularly unusual. It was simply fuel — what it took to get him moving.
“One more thing — apparently a report came in from Im Dohui’s neighbor yesterday. They’re treating it as a suspected break-in. After that, it seems his family was contacted separately. His mother apparently came straight over to check.”
The neighbor had said it looked like Im Dohui had been kidnapped — but at that time, Im Dohui hadn’t been home. There was even CCTV footage of him going out and buying a sandwich at a café.
“The police said they’d be filing it as a runaway case.”
“Fine.”
The investigation would proceed, but it would be slow — that much was added.
A break-in, huh…… Gong Haejin let out a short, quiet laugh.
“Toss him a few.”
“Yes.”
