***
In a way, Choi Juho’s life was pitiable too.
Ji Haesu gently stroked Choi Suho’s head as he slept peacefully despite being covered in bruises, and his thoughts drifted to Choi Juho. Remembering Juho in his younger days wasn’t difficult at all. With his hair down, Choi Suho looked exactly the same—just looking at Suho was enough.
And this must have been the worst possible outcome for Choi Suho. Ji Haesu knew that, yet he hadn’t stopped him when Jang Jihyeok called and said he’d go in person. It wasn’t his business, after all. Still, it was true that he hadn’t expected Suho to be hurt this deeply, and he hadn’t known what to do. He hadn’t imagined Suho would cry as though the world were collapsing.
With empathy bordering on zero, Ji Haesu had watched Choi Suho bury his face in his knee and sob in the emergency stairwell, analyzing him over and over again—until only now did he finally arrive at an answer.
Was he crying because he felt sorry for his father? Or because he himself was a serial rapist, born from a father who’d been raped for four years and died like Do Si-in?
Ah—no. That wasn’t it. Was the shock coming from realizing that, despite being born that way, all he’d ended up doing was becoming trash who produced victims just like Choi Juho had been?
In the end, it was nothing more than useless self-pity and belated self-awareness. Still, you have to pay the price for what you’ve done, Suho. Whether your father was raped for four years and gave birth to you or not has nothing to do with the fact that you toyed with and discarded Do Si-in for three years.
Putting that aside—if Choi Juho were still alive, he’d be around fifty now, wouldn’t he? He’d joined Free Electronics right around the time the archaic terms yangin and eumin were being replaced with Alpha and Omega. It really had been a long time ago. In Ji Haesu’s own country, people still disliked using the foreign words Alpha and Omega, preferring terms like yangin, eumin, geukyangin, and geukeumin. It made him feel anew just how fast Korea changed.
Ah… or maybe not. Half my blood is Korean too, so Korea isn’t really a foreign country to me, is it?
“Mmm… Dad…”
Ji Haesu, who’d been lost in thoughts of the homeland he’d left long ago, frowned in confusion when he saw Choi Suho shifting his aching body and calling out for his father in his sleep.
I’ve seen plenty of trash, but trash that loves their dad this much? That’s a first. No wonder it hit him so hard when he learned about Choi Juho.
Come to think of it, that was probably why Jang Yuguk had introduced Choi Juho as Suho’s hyung, not as the father who gave birth to him.
Choi Juho had been born much like any other child in an ordinary Korean family. The reason Ji Haesu said “much like” was because Juho had been one of the very few geukyangin of the time—back then, Korea didn’t use the terms Alpha and Omega—and because he was strikingly handsome and tall, taking after his father, to the point that the entire city of Naju buzzed about him.
A geukyangin born into a family that had farmed pears for generations. On top of that, he was brilliant in his studies—a model eldest son who always ranked first.
His father, who cultivated pear orchards across a considerable stretch of land, lavished special support on his eldest son, Choi Juho, among eight siblings. Selling off land to pay for his education, he sent Juho to school—and Juho was accepted as the top student into Seoul National University, a feat difficult even back then. The small town of Naju held a grand celebration.
Their father carried Juho on his shoulders, his face split in a radiant grin, while Juho’s seven younger siblings looked up at their brother—the pride of Naju—with shining eyes.
Back then, Choi Juho truly shone. In a Korea where poor nutrition kept the average height low, even accounting for his status as a geukyangin, he stood at 183 centimeters. With his cool, sharply defined features, he drew attention wherever he went. Born as the eldest, he carried a strong sense of responsibility, taking on difficult tasks in his department and showing consideration toward his female classmates.
Because of that, he was both admired and envied by his peers, and praised by his professors.
At Seoul National University, there was hardly anyone who didn’t know Choi Juho.
The top student from Naju in North Jeolla Province. A geukyangin. Handsome. A business administration major. And in an era ravaged by the IMF crisis and brutal unemployment, he landed a job at Free Electronics in one go—a company notoriously hard to enter.
Omega advances never stopped wherever he went, but he always firmly refused them.
Because, he said, he had a geukeumin woman back home he’d promised to marry. That only made his popularity burn hotter. In truth, he was already engaged. His fiancée—a geukeumin, just as the terminology was shifting and people had begun calling them Omegas—attended Sookmyung Women’s University. He often went to Sinchon to meet her, enjoying weekend dates together.
She was a piano major at Sookmyung. He graduated from Seoul National University with a degree in business administration and joined Free Electronics. They promised to get married once he’d saved up enough money.
Up until then, Choi Juho had believed his life would stay wide open, like the Yeongdong or Gyeongin Expressways—smooth and unobstructed.
But who could have known that that day would turn his life completely upside down?
That day.
Jang Yuguk, then Vice President of Free Electronics, stopped by headquarters to offer congratulations to the new hires. As he walked through the lobby, he noticed Choi Juho standing at the very front, clapping and smiling brightly—simply because he was handsome.
It was the dawn of the millennium, when the terms Alpha and Omega were just becoming established. Jang Yuguk was fifty years old. Beside him stood Jang Jihyeok, twenty-four, awaiting enlistment. And Choi Juho, freshly discharged from the military and newly hired, was twenty-six, on the cusp of turning twenty-seven.
“Vice President Jang Yuguk, welcome! Thank you!”
Everyone spoke the same words.
“Vice President Jang Yuguk, welcome! Thank you!”
But Choi Juho’s voice—smiling with white teeth bared—pierced straight into Jang Yuguk’s chest. Jang Yuguk instinctively placed a hand over his heart. It was pounding, thumping wildly, as if Juho had breathed life back into it.
Unfortunately, Jang Jihyeok was also staring at Choi Juho, dazed.
Choi Juho, eager to make a good impression, gave Jang Yuguk and Jang Jihyeok an awkward eye-smile when their gazes met. That single gesture became the worst possible choice, shoving his life into hell in an instant.
Who could have known? No matter how you counted it, twenty-six or twenty-seven was still the age of a chick just stepping into society.
Moreover, he was a dominant Alpha who constantly sprayed pheromone suppressants—an employee benefit unique to Free Electronics. He wouldn’t have known what kind of pheromones Jang Yuguk was emitting toward him. His parents took great pride in the fact that he was one of the rare dominant Alphas—but if he’d been an Omega, someone who didn’t need suppressants and could immediately sense predatory Alphas, perhaps this wouldn’t have happened to him.
If he’d been a dominant Omega, maybe he could have avoided the “company dinner” that was nothing more than a cover for offering Choi Juho up as sexual tribute to the vice president.
“Juho, here. The Vice President is pouring you a drink himself. Take it.”
“Ah—th, thank you!”
No—would it have mattered even if he were an Omega? Could he really have avoided a massive company dinner attended by the vice president? He was already prey thrown into waters where sharks circled relentlessly.
Just like the Alphas and Omegas offered up to the suite where Choi Suho waited.
“Come on, Juho. Drink up. All the way.”
Every department head and deputy manager was watching him.
The alcohol the vice president handed him tasted bitter. The palm that brushed against the back of his hand was damp and unpleasant. But Choi Juho squeezed his eyes shut and recalled his parents’ words.
—Listening to your elders never does you any harm, Juho.”
—Do well when you go to Seoul, okay? Always say yes, yes to your seniors. That’s how you get promoted faster—and marry Ye-eun sooner and have kids.
Remember your parents’ words.
And then Choi Juho’s consciousness cut out completely.
When he came to, he heard panting breaths above him. Below, there was searing pain, as if his body might tear apart. Hot breath and sticky hands roamed over him.
As he whimpered in pain, his head tilted back and a bitter pill was shoved into his mouth.
“Take it, Juho.”
“Hh… it’s b-bitter. I don’t want it.”
It hurt. It was bitter. He didn’t want it. Then lips, wetter than the hands groping his body, pressed against his.
That was when Choi Juho’s eyes flew open.
This is a kiss. Like the ones I shared with Ye-eun—!
But it wasn’t Ye-eun.
What he saw was Vice President Jang Yuguk, older now but still handsome. Choi Juho screamed, but the place was like a soundproof chamber—no matter how loudly he cried, nothing escaped.
“AAAAH! Help me! I don’t want this! I don’t want it!”
“Juho, it’s okay. You’ll come to like it.”
“V-Vice President… p-please, no. I don’t want this!”
As Choi Juho sobbed, shaking violently with his eyes squeezed shut, Jang Yuguk leaned in and whispered into his ear.
“Then will you resign?”
Choi Juho’s eyes lost focus.
“What about your family back in Naju?”
“……”
“Will you tell people you resigned because you were raped by a vice president?”
“……”
Tears didn’t even form in Choi Juho’s eyes. He merely shook, his gaze tracing the patterns on the ceiling, his mind in chaos. His entire life flashed before his eyes.
The land in Naju, preserved through hardship since the Japanese occupation. The fertile soil of Honam.
His grandfather had once been a wealthy landowner, but became an independence activist and fell into poverty. That poverty was passed down, but Juho’s father had always been proud of his grandfather. He was never ashamed of labor.
Through labor, he reclaimed the family land—and paradoxically sold it again to send Juho to Seoul National University. It was land soaked in the spirit, resentment, blood, and tears of his grandfather and father that carried him to Seoul National University and to Free Electronics. And now he was supposed to give it all up over something like this?
Sensing what Juho was thinking, the vice president untied the necktie that had bound Juho’s wrists. He placed it in Juho’s hands and said,
“Wrap it around my neck.”
“……”
“Do that, and I’ll give you the highest position.”
But neither Jang Yuguk nor Choi Juho knew then.
What Jang Yuguk ultimately gave him was a noose—made from the very necktie he’d handed him that day.
Choi Juho hanged himself with that necktie.
Perhaps he’d endlessly told himself it wasn’t rape, that it was consensual, that it was merely a way to be promoted.
But what must he have felt the day he became an Omega, when Ye-eun noticed his changes and asked what was wrong? When the shame he’d hidden was laid bare before the person he loved? And when she suggested reporting it to the police?
They say he smiled through his tears.
“No, Ye-eun.”
Seeing Choi Juho clutching her hand and crying, Ye-eun couldn’t say anything.
“I… I wanted it too. I liked it. I—I… li-liked… it…”
“You know Omegas can’t marry each other, Juho. We promised to get married back in elementary school.”
“I’m sorry, Ye-eun.”
Her hair brushing against his cheek hurt. Her fingers wiping away his tears hurt. Her embrace—unable to abandon him, filled with pity—was unbearably sorrowful. For the first time, Choi Juho bared his heart and sobbed, while she wordlessly stroked his hair.
“Juho.”
“Ye-eun, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
“Let’s… break up.”
“Mm…”
A descendant of independence activists. A child of Korea that forged the Miracle on the Han River. The pride of Naju.
But what did any of that matter to him now?
Jang Yuguk promised him high positions if he accepted his love. He promised to make him his Omega if he broke off the engagement. He promised to pass everything on to the child if Juho gave birth. But what value did any of that have?
Jang Yuguk’s love wasn’t a lie. That was what drove Choi Juho even more insane. If only it had been a lie—if it had merely been lust for his body!
Even knowing that his love was steeped in acts so vile they could never be forgiven, Jang Yuguk continued to crave Choi Juho’s affection and kept committing unforgivable deeds.
There was no way to forgive him. In the end, secrets never last. News of the broken engagement spread all the way to distant Naju. When his parents came to Seoul and saw him as Jang Yuguk’s kept lover, they abandoned him on the spot. Seeing Choi Juho pregnant with Jang Yuguk’s child after becoming an Omega, they called him the family’s disgrace and refused to even take his calls.
Would Choi Juho’s life have been different if he hadn’t joined Free Electronics?
Ji Haesu didn’t know. He’d never seen him again after that day—smiling brightly at twenty-six as he joined Free Electronics.
His life ended, preserved in a sorrowful, desolate state at the age of thirty.
What was certain was that Jang Yuguk obsessively and perversely documented every moment of his short, roughly four-year “love” with Choi Juho in photographs—enough for Ji Haesu, under the alias Ji Haesu, real name XXX, to uncover and verify everything. Even Ji Haesu found it revoltingly shameless.
Jang Yuguk was truly insane.
To give the necktie Choi Juho used to hang himself as a gift to Choi Suho on the day he joined Free Electronics.
No—naming his son after the very person he drove to suicide was already beyond conscience. Truly deranged.
To name your child after someone who killed himself because of you?
Maybe because of that, Choi Suho was following in Choi Juho’s tragic final years.
Becoming an Omega after being an Alpha. Being raped endlessly by other Alphas. Soon becoming pregnant—and miscarrying again and again.
Ah… no. Two of those will be different.
Suho, you’ll be gang-raped—and you won’t kill yourself. Because I’ll make sure of it.
Smiling in satisfaction, Ji Haesu pressed a kiss to Choi Suho’s bruised cheek.
You have to live longer than your fathers, you piece of trash. Choi Juho was kind and gentle, so he couldn’t endure it. But you’re trash—you’ll endure just fine.
