That subtly defiant tone, too. It was barely a murmur — as if afraid he’d have something shoved into his mouth — and yet he still watched for reactions. Defiant, but clearly aware of exactly who was standing in front of him.
“Are you going to pass me around again.”
A short, compressed question — are you going to hand me from person to person like a rag, and drive me out of my mind again. He moaned at the slightest thing, and his voice had gone rough from being strangled, but it was still perfectly suited to tickle Gong Haejin’s ears.
“Maybe I will.”
Dohui’s shoulders flinched visibly.
“Drug you up, call all the guys over, have a proper orgy? Tell them to stuff two in that tight little hole at once, and if that’s not enough, use the mouth too. You wouldn’t last an hour before you’d be clinging to my legs.”
Just like the first time you saw me.
“What would you beg for this time. To let you live? Or — to take you away. I’m curious, Dohui. Tell me. Hm?”
Dohui pressed his tongue to the raw inside of his cheek. The skin was ragged and torn. He was a madman — one who used violence the moment he decided someone wasn’t listening, wasn’t being compliant enough. A madman’s words were never empty threats. There was not a grain of trust between them, but threats like these were always genuine. His body had already learned that firsthand.
Dohui felt the nausea rise and covered his mouth with his hand.
“That’s what you get for not eating properly.”
That’s not it. The wounds you left haven’t even healed yet — it’s that your words cut so easily, splitting open something already raw, and I have no way to dodge them. I take every blow head-on, and that is what’s wearing me down.
He wanted to say that. But all that came through the gaps in his fingers was saliva. Whether it was from the fruit he’d eaten just minutes ago, his throat burned.
Gong Haejin, who had been watching him struggle with quiet attention, tucked his half-hardened length back away.
“You really do try hard.”
He said it and stroked Dohui’s head.
“I’m going out. Come with me.”
“Wh, where…… I don’t want to go there.”
“I’m not throwing you to those men. I’ll show you something worth seeing.”
Then where are we going. Gong Haejin said nothing more. When Dohui’s feet stayed rooted to the floor, he told him to stop sulking — they weren’t going there for that.
Only then did Dohui’s feet lift, barely, off the ground. Just slightly.
“……Not like this.”
Dohui managed to collect himself enough to point it out. Not a stitch of clothing apart from a T-shirt — no underwear, nothing. Going out like this, he might freeze to death. Is this another method of torment? He had no idea what that ruthless mind had conjured up, but absolutely, absolutely not — he could not go out like this.
“Ah.”
As if only now realizing, Gong Haejin patted Dohui’s cheek. Not intended to hurt — but to Dohui, it delivered a pain that was already far too familiar. A graceless gesture with no trace of consideration or courtesy in it.
Dohui pushed the man’s hand away. The man allowed himself to be pushed aside by that feeble force and said I’ll get something, then disappeared somewhere.
Dohui let the tension drop from his shoulders at the thought that he wouldn’t have to go through that again — not right now. Fatigue followed. I’d like to just sleep like this, he thought.
“Hff……”
He exhaled a sigh heavy enough to sink the floor.
“Im Dohui.”
“……W, where are we actually going.”
Dohui’s voice trailed off abruptly. Because the man had reappeared holding a large coat.
By the size of it, it must be his. Wearing something like that, he’d look like a child drowning in a parent’s clothes — but right now, he was in no position to be selective. Then again, had he ever had a choice in anything since coming here? A hollow laugh nearly slipped out.
“Put it on.”
Gong Haejin tossed the coat in front of him. He himself was already fully ready to go out.
“……Shoes too.”
“You’re awfully particular.”
He wanted to argue that of course you needed shoes if you were going outside — but he didn’t have the energy. And he had the feeling that pushing it would only earn him another hit. So Dohui put the coat on quietly.
Barefoot in indoor slippers, Dohui arrived somewhere he knew well. An abandoned building standing alone in the middle of a wide lot. The place where he had first been brought.
At the time, he’d been too gripped with panic to take in his surroundings — but he retained a rough impression of the landscape. There was still not a trace of human warmth here. Strange, almost, that a place this desolate could exist in a country as small as Korea.
He looked out at the bleak surroundings, and his heart pounded like something crazed. Wooden planks of unclear purpose had been heaped in piles everywhere. Things that had been battered by the winter winds and snow, molded in patches here and there. Beyond that, the scene looked like construction that had stopped midway — and Dohui felt a chill that went deeper than cold.
Why did he bring me here. Is he going to do that again to me…… no. Gong Haejin had said he’d show him something worth seeing. What qualified as worth seeing by his standards — Dohui couldn’t begin to imagine. He let himself picture various things, then erased them quickly. Then he considered the most probable reality. Has someone been caught?
“Welcome, sir.”
The men standing solidly at the building’s entrance — Dohui wanted to grab their hands and plead. Please help me. Get me out of here. Absurd thoughts. They were Gong Haejin’s men; there was no chance they’d help. He just desperately wanted something to hold on to. And sure enough, they didn’t so much as glance at Dohui, wrapped like a bundle in that oversized coat.
The yellowish bruise on his forehead, the slightly swollen cheek, the pale white toes peeking out of indoor slippers — none of it fit the image of someone going out. His toes were freezing.
The shadow cast by Gong Haejin’s frame fell across his feet. Even that felt like something to recoil from, and his steps slowed.
“Welcome, Director. Everything is prepared.”
Pyo Mingyu bowed at the waist. Then, in a posture of careful deference, guided him forward.
Dohui’s body lurched sideways. Gong Haejin had dropped an arm like a log across his shoulders.
“Cold?”
“……My feet are a little.”
“That makes sense. Bear with it a bit.”
That was all. There was no way to get shoes here, and shoes probably wouldn’t make much difference to the cold anyway.
Ha. Dohui exhaled the breath stuck in his chest. Better not to have asked at all. Being around Gong Haejin made sharp words want to keep spilling out — he had to keep reining himself in. On the rare occasions he muttered something out loud, Gong Haejin would hear it and laugh. He’ll never be someone I understand, not in a hundred lifetimes. And he had no desire to.
Gong Haejin shrugged off his own coat and draped it on top of the one Dohui was already wearing. The sudden weight lurched Dohui forward.
“Ah……”
The thing he’d grabbed to catch himself just happened to be Gong Haejin’s arm. The muscle shifted beneath his grip like something alive, and he snatched his hand back in alarm.
“That’s going to be a problem if it keeps happening outside.”
“…….”
“Let’s take care of business first.”
See that over there?
Gong Haejin pointed toward a particular spot. The space had no walls — open on all sides, nothing left but a scattering of old pillars.
So it was all visible at a glance. Two people, bound at the far end. Their build and clothing — neither of them was Jinho.
Of the two tied to chairs with gags in their mouths, one was someone Dohui recognized. The Manager. The club manager who had come through Jinho’s introduction — who had told him he could start work immediately if he agreed on the spot.
Why is he here? He pieced together the situation quickly to answer the question.
Gong Haejin was tracking down something he said had been taken from him. But was the manager connected to that? Perhaps he had investigated Dohui’s background and traced where he’d worked — or maybe the location where the item was received had been somewhere near the club. He hasn’t gone and caught another innocent person, has he?
Then the other one…… given everything that had happened, it was most likely the driver.
Dohui’s steps slowed. The brutal scene he had witnessed before was replaying vividly inside his head. Blood spraying, a face contorted in agony, the sounds — every sense Dohui had was screaming at him to run.
Hhng, hk…… Dohui’s breathing turned ragged. The fear that had come belatedly descended on him like a crushing boulder. The pressure of feeling like he might be ground to nothing made everything inside him shrink.
When Dohui’s feet stopped, Gong Haejin looked at him steadily.
“Here we go again.”
Pyo Mingyu, standing just behind, added a word.
“Civilians generally have a hard time with things like this. Shall I have him wait in the car?”
“No. He said he had something he wanted to ask.”
Right?
There was a low, rotten interest woven into Gong Haejin’s voice. It sounded like a siren’s call. When Pyo Mingyu mentioned the car, Dohui had wanted to scream send me there right now — but at Gong Haejin’s question, his lips parted, then closed again.
“One of them is the driver. The other one is the one who planned everything with that friend of yours.”
“The Manager……”
Gong Haejin scrubbed at the back of Dohui’s head roughly. His own version of a pat, perhaps — but a touch with no sense of restraint whatsoever.
No further words followed, and Gong Haejin’s face was expressionless. Dohui too was too overwhelmed by the atmosphere and the eyes around him to say anything. The Manager kept sending him some kind of look — desperate and pleading. Save me. Help me. It was almost audible.
Dohui looked down at his own ankles. Bound by invisible shackles — what on earth could someone like him do.
