The cramped interior, the pain of his wrists being crushed, and nothing visible ahead but the faint outline of the vehicle’s interior through the thin black fabric over his head. Even that wasn’t enough to give him any clue about who these men were.
He wanted to sob uncontrollably, to throw a fit and beg them to let him out. The only reason he didn’t was because he was too terrified. His feet had gone numb and his thoughts kept cutting out. The entire time the vehicle moved — destination unknown — Dohui swallowed his tears over and over.
It seemed that the kind of pain that made you feel like you were going to die didn’t only come from physical injury. His heart was squeezing so tightly he genuinely wondered if it was about to stop.
A scene straight out of a movie was unfolding right in front of him. He couldn’t even begin to figure out where things had gone wrong.
Dohui’s family was poor, but in its own way, it had been a warm one. Poverty didn’t always destroy a family. He and his mom had lived closely together, and there was his grandmother in the countryside too.
They’d run a small pork bone soup restaurant, only to close it in the end buried under a mountain of debt — but they’d tried their hardest to push through regardless. Dohui had been earning money to cover their living expenses, while his mom’s job search wasn’t going as well as expected. The debt that showed no sign of shrinking made him pace with anxiety.
Even so, he’d thought of it as ordinary life. Others might have called it suffocating, but Dohui had endured everything and looked for solutions. He’d lived that way — without troubling anyone else.
His head was cluttered with all kinds of thoughts, but not a single one of them offered a way out of this situation. A paralyzing, extreme terror gnawed at Dohui, devouring him piece by piece.
“I…… you have the wrong person……”
The voice he’d scraped together from a courage he didn’t have was pitifully small. His thin voice was trembling uncontrollably. It sounded this fragile even to his own ears — to them, it would mean even less.
The man beside him clicked his tongue, as if inconvenienced.
“Say one more word.”
That was enough to press down on Dohui’s tongue. An extreme pressure descended all at once. He could barely breathe, and when he opened his mouth, only saliva spilled out freely.
Nngh— Dohui gasped out labored breaths, but until they reached their destination, the men offered him nothing. As though it didn’t matter to them whether he suffocated and died.
The van rolled over gravel, juddering beneath him, and then the engine cut off. When the door opened, a sharp blast of cold air raked across his entire body. Whether it was the chill seeping through his coat or the vague dread of what was about to happen, Dohui shook violently. Like someone who had been pulled out of freezing water, the trembling would not stop.
The heavyset man grabbed Dohui’s forearm without a word and yanked him out roughly — almost hurling him out, no different from how he’d been thrown in.
Unable to see clearly, one of his ankles twisted. Ugh! Dohui let out a short cry of pain, but the man dragged him forward without a moment’s hesitation.
Cement? Or…… what was that? A strange, unpleasant smell pricked at his nose. Dohui’s face was a mess of sweat, tears, snot, and saliva, and the fabric kept sticking to his skin. That made it even harder to breathe.
The man shoved his shoulder down hard, and Dohui fell to his knees without even a chance to resist. Hff— Hff— Each exhale pooled and rang inside his ears like thunder.
By now it wasn’t the pain but the fear pressing down on him that was driving him mad. He wanted to beg for his life. His instincts told him to cling to whoever was in front of him. To grab at his ankles with trembling hands, to plead that they had the wrong person, to beg them to let him go.
He’d thought that if he did that — begged frantically enough — they might look at his face again and release him. A grain of rice’s worth of hope. But the warning the man had thrown at him inside the van weighed heavier. Even with his teeth chattering, he couldn’t bring himself to say a single word.
Why is this happening. His mind was beginning to go blank.
“Well, well.”
A voice that reverberated all the way down to his toes. It sounded even colder than the men’s sharpened warnings.
Without even realizing it, Dohui held his breath and dropped his head. Even if he lifted it, the black cloth around his head meant he wouldn’t meet the man’s eyes anyway — and yet he did it regardless.
“Yes, Director Gong. He was strolling around the streets bold as you please. Got some nerve for someone his size.”
“Release him.”
A short command — and the men who had hauled him here like a ragdoll moved at once. The feeling in his legs had gone, and his lower abdomen clenched tight. He felt like he might wet himself.
Fwh— The fabric that had felt like it would never come off lifted from his head with effortless ease. The brightness made him squeeze his eyes shut. Blinking them open slowly, the blurry shape of a man crouching down in front of him came into view.
A powerful scent. Not unpleasant — but bright red warning lights were flashing furiously inside Dohui’s head.
And what a threatening presence he had. Dark, dense brows formed a sharp, defined line, and beneath them, his lashes were short but neat. Jet-black eyes stared directly at Dohui. Eyes that looked at him as though he were something utterly beneath contempt.
The bridge of his nose descended in a flawless line. Below it, a subtly defined philtrum, and lips curved upward to one side — distinctly masculine. Beneath a firm jawline, a prominent Adam’s apple moved — and when it did, his voice drove into Dohui’s ears like something harsh and relentless.
“Did the item come back properly?”
“Yes, Director. However, there was a shortage. It appears it was divided and hidden in separate portions.”
“How much.”
“Less than half.”
“That’s not a slight shortage.”
Hmm. The sound rumbled in his throat as Director Gong looked down at Dohui.
Eyes darting around wildly in terror — that was an expression he’d seen plenty of times. The kid had a pretty face for a man, and it was a mild shame that someone like that had been living as a thief, he thought — nothing more.
The brief impression ended quickly. Regardless of the captured kid’s appearance, Gong Haejin was in a very foul mood right now.
“Enjoy yourself?”
“……”
Dohui, of course, couldn’t say anything. He was struggling to understand the intent behind the question.
Enjoy yourself — what does that mean. Is dragging me here against my will supposed to be some kind of game? Dohui had no answer to offer for the questions tearing through his head.
At that, the corner of Director Gong’s mouth rose again. It felt like if he stalled for an answer any longer, it wouldn’t end with just a single hit.
He didn’t know where this place was, but it was exactly the kind of warehouse you only saw in movies. There was nothing inside — a vast, open space held up only by thick pillars scattered throughout, and even those had the paint peeling away, crumbling, the material beneath fully exposed.
“Should I keep waiting?”
Tears threatened to spill again as Dohui sniffled and fumbled for words.
“I…… I don’t know…… what you mean…… I haven’t done…… anything…… Who…… who are you.”
“You do this and you don’t know who I am?”
Who is he…… A face like that wouldn’t be easy to forget.
Dohui pieced together what little information he could manage. The man had been called Director. Director Gong, a handsome face, a frightening presence.
Going around in circles, Dohui’s lips moved haltingly.
“Gong…… Haejin…… Director?”
It was a face impossible to forget. That day at the club, it had only been for a moment — a few seconds at most that his gaze had lingered on him — but the aura the man gave off was unlike anything ordinary. His face, of course, included.
Gong Haejin’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“……”
His eyebrows rose, held for a brief moment, and came back down. A confirmation.
In the silence that stretched between them, the uneven sound of breathing scattered around them. At last, the man’s lips — which had seemed like they might never open — parted.
“So you do know.”
“Hk…… I think there’s been some misunderstanding……”
“Tell me slowly, so I can understand. We’re not bad people.”
Coming from someone radiating this level of menace, the words didn’t land at all. If there was a textbook example of a bad person, it would be this man.
The tears Dohui had barely managed to hold back rolled down again. Hk— Hk— no matter how hard he tried to suppress the sounds, they slipped out against his will. Whether it was because every pair of dark eyes in the room was fixed on him, or because the man right in front of him was suffocating him with sheer presence alone — he couldn’t tell. He imagined what would happen if these people didn’t let him go, and the horrifying conclusion made him shake his head rapidly.
“Why is he broken.”
It didn’t seem directed at Dohui. The man standing behind him gave a quiet, I’m not sure, and Gong Haejin grabbed Dohui by the hair.
How many times today was that. At this rate, his hair was going to come out in clumps. The man’s grip was distinctly different from the ones who’d dragged him here. While being shaken back and forth, his vision distorted and nausea surged up his throat.
Urgh……
When Dohui dry-heaved, Gong Haejin finally released him — as if he were something filthy. A few strands of Dohui’s soft hair clung lightly to the man’s palm.
He brushed them off with an unhurried elegance, then tilted his head slightly.
“I’m asking nicely where the rest of my goods are.”
“Wh…… what goods……”
“Im Dohui.”
The moment his name came from between Gong Haejin’s lips, Dohui understood — this was no case of mistaken identity. The realization struck him like lightning from a clear sky, drenching him all the way down his spine.
The place wasn’t even heated, yet cold sweat poured down his back, and from Dohui’s lips, white breath scattered into the air pitifully.
“Want to try answering? Tell me who you were planning to sell my goods to. I don’t know what kind of price they promised you.”
With that, Gong Haejin gave a small nod.
The man standing behind stepped forward with a heavy tread and seized Dohui’s forearm. What appeared next was a sharpened blade. It was short — barely the length of a finger — but given the situation, Dohui screaming was perhaps only a natural reaction.
“Ugh!”
Displeased by the resistance, Gong Haejin drove his fist into Dohui’s stomach. It was so large and so hard that the padded coat served as no shield whatsoever.
Dohui crumpled to the ground and began drooling. Tears fell endlessly onto the rough, gritty floor.
“I was going to untie your wrists, you idiot.”
