Chapter 120
I want to forget too. I want to shake it off. I want to get better. I want to be happy. But I can’t. How can I fix this foolishness, this patheticness of almost calling out Tae-geon’s name unconsciously again?
I was afraid. I was more terrified of falling in love with someone again than dying.
The mere thought of that terrible emotion taking root in my heart again was an excruciating pain I never wanted to experience again, to the point where I wanted to bite my tongue and die right there. However, I couldn’t deny McRae’s words either.
If I couldn’t see him. If more time passed. I was just holding on with the belief that I would naturally become numb and indifferent, but I couldn’t even think about letting someone else into the space full of Tae-geon’s traces and painting over it with new memories.
Afraid of repeating the pain that accompanies the emotion of love, I locked it up tight with a padlock and refused to let anything in.
But as time passed, I had to face an even greater fear. The terror that I might never escape from Tae-geon began to creep in.
The area of my heart where McRae’s finger had brushed ached. It was once a space that had been bursting with emotions for Tae-geon. Now empty, those intense emotions from back then would rush in like inertia.
Unless I filled it with something else, it felt like it would remain as Tae-geon’s eternal space, holding only his traces.
The image of Tae-geon in a bright tailcoat kept flickering before my eyes.
Why was I alone still like this? While Tae-geon was living his ordinary life in a world without me.
Hyeon-woo bit his lip.
It felt like being trapped by something invisible, taking steps alone in place. I believed that if I endured and persevered just a little more, I would eventually overcome it. Like the moment when you pass the point of no return and no longer feel pain or hurt, I believed that day would come someday.
But I couldn’t tell anymore. I couldn’t trust myself anymore whether this was the right method, whether I was doing it correctly, whether it was the best way.
The ground I stood on was as precarious as a seesaw that would tilt to one side if I lost my balance even a little, and below it seemed like a bottomless cliff was waiting with its black maw open for my fall. A fear washed over me that nothing would change even if billions of years passed.
Suddenly feeling dizzy, Hyeon-woo reached out and barely managed to steady himself by grabbing the table. Seeing this, McRae visibly flinched, looking flustered.
After catching his breath briefly while looking at the floor, Hyeon-woo raised his head and spoke to McRae. It seemed impossible to have a proper conversation in this state.
“Please leave now.”
McRae let out a low, hollow laugh. After keeping his mouth shut and staring at his feet for a long time, the first thing he said was to ask him to leave. Hyeon-woo spoke again in a firm tone.
“I’ll handle Kevin myself. There won’t be any trouble for you.”
With those words, Hyeon-woo took his phone and disappeared into the back room. McRae, watching Hyeon-woo’s retreating figure, ran a hand over his contorted face.
…This wasn’t what he intended.
He never meant to push Hyeon-woo like this.
We had just gotten close. He had just started calling me Danny.
It felt like his impatience had ruined everything.
*
When Hyeon-woo came back out to the hall after hearing the police’s response that they would dispatch immediately to his report, McRae was gone.
“Ugh…”
Kevin, who had been sprawled out, groaned as if regaining consciousness. Hyeon-woo slapped Kevin’s cheek hard. Startled, Kevin hurriedly got up and looked around busily before spotting Hyeon-woo and seeming to understand the situation, becoming calm.
“Ugh… Fuck. That really hurts.”
“……”
“For an Omega… You look soft but your fist is damn brutal.”
Hyeon-woo frowned.
Could it be that he was mistakenly thinking he had been hit by Hyeon-woo? It had been quite dark inside at the time. Moreover, being intoxicated with alcohol and drugs, it was understandable that he might not properly realize that he had actually been stomped flat by a shoe rather than hit by a fist.
As Hyeon-woo was thinking this was fortunate, a black van arrived in front of the store. Three police officers in black uniforms with police badges entered the store and approached Kevin and Hyeon-woo.
Looking alternately at the battered Kevin and the unscathed Hyeon-woo, they seemed confused about who to arrest. Hyeon-woo pointed at Kevin.
“He tried to rape me, so I had no choice. I’m the one who called.”
As Hyeon-woo said this, alpha pheromones were emanating strongly from his entire body. There were no omega pheromones in the store. It was a typical method of an alpha trying to rape an omega using pheromones without mutual consent.
Seeing the clear circumstances, as the police moved to arrest Kevin, Hyeon-woo quickly added one more thing.
“And I think he’s taken some kind of drug.”
“Hey! You, bastard! This guy is really! Won’t you shut up?!”
Reacting suspiciously as if having a fit, Kevin’s strange behavior prompted a nearby officer to immediately roll up Kevin’s sleeve. Dark bruise-like marks were spread like spots on the exposed forearm.
Hyeon-woo instantly recognized them as needle marks. It was the trace that had been left almost daily on Tae-geon’s arm when he received sedatives as a child. From the terrible burning smell coming from Kevin’s body, Hyeon-woo had guessed it was an inhalant drug, but it seemed he had enjoyed various methods.
While one of the officers radioed the narcotics unit, the other two handcuffed Kevin and led him outside.
The officer who finished the radio call was about to follow them out of the store when he turned back to look at Hyeon-woo.
“There shouldn’t be any problems, but keep the CCTV footage safe. If there’s an assault charge filed, it could help prove self-defense.”
Soon, everyone had left and the store became quiet in an instant. Hyeon-woo accessed the server where the CCTV footage was recorded on his phone. He deleted the entire section from the moment McRae entered the store until he left.
His mind was in complete disarray.
His head was foggy from not having slept at all since yesterday. As the empty store fell into silence, extreme fatigue washed over him.
After turning off the lights and making sure the doors were securely locked, he went outside. A cool breeze blew, ruffling his hair. He wanted to get back quickly and rest.
As he hurried his steps, he stopped after a short distance. McRae was standing at the corner, waiting for him.
A pungent tobacco smell mixed with the cold air. It was a scent he hadn’t smelled for a while since the day he had scolded McRae to stop smoking.
In response to Hyeon-woo’s gaze that seemed to ask why he was here, McRae replied as usual, slightly curling the corners of his eyes.
“I was worried.”
“……”
“Did you resolve it well?”
“Yeah.”
“…That’s good.”
“……”
After standing silently for a long time, McRae slowly opened his mouth.
“I’m sorry. I made a mistake.”
“……”
“I’m sorry for giving advice without knowing anything. I was too presumptuous.”
Advice.
Hyeon-woo recalled the words McRae had poured out to him.
He had asked if I was making an effort. Effort to escape from the past, effort to meet new people and be happy again. As Hyeon-woo carefully recalled his words, he shook his head.
“It’s fine, you’re right about everything.”
Surprised by the unexpected response, McRae looked at Hyeon-woo with a slightly shocked expression.
“Thinking about it, I didn’t make any effort at all.”
“……”
“I’ve just been running away.”
All he had been doing was avoiding the immediate situation, turning a blind eye, and pushing his body to the limit to empty his mind so he couldn’t think anymore, but he had never thought about filling the empty ruins with something else.
“How do you do it, then?”
Hyeon-woo looked up and stared at McRae.
“That effort you’re talking about, how do you do it?”
It seemed like nothing would change at this rate. The fear that he might never escape from Tae-geon swept over Hyeon-woo like a huge tidal wave.
“Tell me. Should I start with sex? I’d rather die than do it with Kevin, but I think I could with you. Will everything be forgotten after that? I want to forget. I want to erase it. If I can cover it with something else, I’ll do anything. That’s effort, right? Then I can forget, right?”
“……”
McRae, at a loss for words, clenched his fist tightly.
…What kind of relationships have you been in until now?
McRae couldn’t say anything, seeing Hyeon-woo looking so distorted and warped, as if he had never received proper affection, yet appearing so pitiful and desperate.
