Diriric— Clack—
The sound of the front door opening echoed through the apartment. Ha Jun-seo glanced down at Seo Ha-yoon, who was sleeping in his arms. Fortunately, there was no sign of him waking up.
Footsteps approached, and Choi Sang-hyuk’s silhouette appeared in the doorway of the master bedroom. His dark eyes swept over the two naked bodies tangled together.
“Shh— I just got him to sleep.”
Ha Jun-seo pressed a finger to his lips and whispered softly. Then, carefully, he slid his body away from Seo Ha-yoon, making sure not to wake him. He pulled the blanket up, tucking it snugly around him before getting off the bed.
Picking up his clothes from the floor, Ha Jun-seo quietly exited the bedroom, closing the door gently behind him. Seo Ha-yoon’s peaceful, sleeping figure disappeared from sight.
“Let’s talk.”
Ha Jun-seo spoke in a low voice while putting on his clothes. The gentle smile he usually wore was nowhere to be seen, replaced by a cold, serious expression.
Choi Sang-hyuk turned and headed toward the entrance, but Ha Jun-seo grabbed his shoulder.
“Not outside. I can’t leave him alone right now. Let’s talk in that room instead.”
He pointed to a room farther from the master bedroom.
Once inside, Ha Jun-seo closed the door carefully to avoid making any noise. Running a hand through his hair, he let out a sigh.
“What’s going on?”
Choi Sang-hyuk asked as he took off his suit jacket. Ha Jun-seo ran his fingers along his lips for a moment before speaking.
“He had a nightmare while napping. Seems like old memories are starting to resurface… The moment he woke up, he started crying and throwing up. He was shaking all over, completely lost. I barely managed to calm him down and get him back to sleep…”
“You really had to use sex to soothe him?”
Choi Sang-hyuk sneered.
“You’re getting jealous now? Come on, this isn’t the time for that.” Ha Jun-seo shot back. “Normally, Ha-yoon would refuse outright, saying you hate it. But today, he begged for it first. Said he wanted to forget. Begged me to help him forget. What do you think that means?”
“…That whatever he remembered was so fucking horrific that just dreaming about it made him fall apart.”
Choi Sang-hyuk gritted out the words, his expression dark. After a pause, he added, “He’s never shown any signs of this before.”
“Hm— really? I had a feeling, though.”
“What the hell do you mean?” Choi Sang-hyuk demanded harshly.
Ha Jun-seo pulled out a chair, sat down, and crossed his legs before replying.
“Masochists aren’t just born that way. Some people are naturally inclined, sure, but others… they’re made that way. Given Ha-yoon’s pride and personality, don’t you find it strange that he’s a masochist?”
“Cut the bullshit and get to the point.”
“Well, it’s not exactly a simple topic to sum up… but if I had to give my personal opinion, it’s this. A very small number of victims of sexual abuse or assault have a tendency to recreate their past experiences—but only in a completely controlled environment where they can maintain full control at all times. They put themselves in a situation where they can stop everything with a single word, trying to transform their past feelings of helplessness and suffering into pleasure. In an SM dynamic, it might look like the dominant is in charge, but that’s never the case. Everything revolves around the masochist’s will.”
“They voluntarily repeat their own past abuse?”
Choi Sang-hyuk’s voice was tight with barely restrained anger. Ha Jun-seo nodded.
“That’s what I personally think. A significant number of the masochists who seek me out, wanting to become my ‘slave,’ actually want to relive the abuse they once suffered. But this time, in an environment they can control completely. Through that, they feel relief and even exhilaration from knowing they hold the power.”
“That’s fucking nonsense.”
“I know it sounds ridiculous. And I’m not saying that every single abuse victim ends up this way. But a very small minority do use this method to cope with their trauma. And I suspected Ha-yoon might be one of them.”
“Seo Ha-yoon isn’t some weak-willed person.”
Choi Sang-hyuk declared firmly. Ha Jun-seo let out a deep sigh and shook his head.
“Don’t impose your own ideas on him. People like that fight desperately to heal their wounds in their own way. They’re just trying to overcome it somehow.”
“Enough. Just tell me exactly what he remembered.”
“There wasn’t much. I couldn’t ask for details. He just… said that it must have been incredibly painful. That if he were Seo Ha-yoon, he wouldn’t have wanted to return to that body either.”
Choi Sang-hyuk’s jaw tensed, his muscles twitching with suppressed emotion. Ha Jun-seo watched him before speaking again.
“You work in this field, yet you never bothered looking into Ha-yoon’s past? You lived with him for two years, and you know nothing about him?”
“I don’t have a disgusting hobby of digging through my lover’s past.”
Choi Sang-hyuk retorted sharply. But after a brief pause, he added,
“…Though this time, I probably should have.”
A faint sense of regret lingered in his quiet voice.
A moment of silence passed between them.
“Wait a second.”
Ha Jun-seo suddenly got up and stepped out of the room. When he returned, he was holding Seo Ha-yoon’s new phone.
“If he transferred money somewhere, that means he received someone’s account information. And if they even showed up at his house, there’s no way we wouldn’t have noticed. We’ll find out quickly if we check his phone, won’t we?”
He held up the phone and gave it a little shake.
Choi Sang-hyuk’s expression darkened with reluctance. He had always been weirdly rigid about certain things.
“What, are you really that uncomfortable with touching your lover’s phone without permission? You’re annoyingly old-fashioned about the weirdest shit. Whatever, I’ll just look at it myself.”
Without hesitation, Ha Jun-seo unlocked the phone and started tapping through its contents.
“Seo Chang-seop?”
Ha Jun-seo glanced down at the call history as he muttered the name under his breath. The moment Seo Chang-seop was spoken aloud, Choi Sang-hyuk’s eyes twitched sharply. He stepped closer, standing right next to Ha Jun-seo, peering over his shoulder.
Seeing this reaction, Ha Jun-seo smirked but didn’t say anything. Instead, he continued what he was doing. He exited the call log and opened the messaging app. Seo Chang-seop’s name appeared at the top of the recent messages.
[Deposit five million won by 6 PM today. Otherwise, this father of yours has his own ways of handling things.]
Above the threatening message, a small preview of an attached image file was visible.
“…This…”
Ha Jun-seo hesitated, his thumb hovering over the screen. A sinking, ominous feeling coiled in his gut. He couldn’t bring himself to open it right away.
“Open it.”
Choi Sang-hyuk, who had been watching silently, pressed him impatiently. Ha Jun-seo took a deep breath and cautiously scrolled up.
A single photograph appeared on the phone screen.
The background was a dingy, run-down room—something resembling a decades-old motel. Against that backdrop, the pale, naked body of a boy stood out starkly, as white as freshly fallen snow. His hazy, unfocused eyes were clouded, as if he were heavily drugged. Beneath them, a distinctive beauty mark stood out against his porcelain skin.
His legs were spread wide open. Between them, his underdeveloped form was exposed. A rough, adult hand gripped his pale thighs, forcing them apart, pressing bruises into his delicate skin.
Neither Choi Sang-hyuk nor Ha Jun-seo said a word.
They just stared.
Ha Jun-seo’s fingers, still holding the phone, had begun to tremble faintly. Beside him, Choi Sang-hyuk’s breathing had turned ragged, his chest rising and falling heavily.
“That fucking son of a bitch.”
Choi Sang-hyuk growled, his voice low and guttural, like a predator ready to tear into flesh. Beneath those few, simple words lay a deep, seething rage—bottomless, suffocating, laced with disgust.
With shaking fingers, Ha Jun-seo scrolled further up in the message thread. The photograph disappeared, revealing more of the messages Seo Chang-seop had sent.
[If it’s too much, just send the five million first. I’ll try to make do with that for now.]
[You must have forgotten since you lost your memory, but you shouldn’t treat your father like this.]
[Ha-yoon, pick up the phone. Ignoring your father like this isn’t right.]
Ha Jun-seo abruptly shut the screen off. His grip on the phone tightened until it seemed like he might crush it in his palm. His entire hand was trembling, his knuckles turning white.
With his free hand, he ran his fingers through his hair—then clenched the strands so hard it looked like he was about to rip them out.
“…Ha-yoon…”
He whispered the name under his breath. His voice was heavy with both fury and raw, aching sorrow.
Choi Sang-hyuk suddenly turned on his heel and started toward the door. Without hesitation, Ha Jun-seo reached out and grabbed his wrist, stopping him.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m waking him up. I need to know exactly what that bastard did to him. Every last fucking detail.”
“He was trembling so hard he could barely breathe just from dreaming about it. He threw up until he had nothing left inside him. And you want to force those memories out of him? Are you out of your fucking mind? I barely got him to sleep. Just leave him be for now.”
The muscles in Choi Sang-hyuk’s jaw clenched tightly. His black eyes were burning with fury—deep, consuming, utterly lethal.
The veins and tendons in his clenched fists bulged against his skin, straining with the force of his rage.
Ha Jun-seo watched him carefully. He knew that this level of anger could push Choi Sang-hyuk into doing something reckless. Something irreversible.
He could tell Choi Sang-hyuk was on the verge of exploding. But this wasn’t the place for it. They couldn’t risk shocking Seo Ha-yoon any further.
