The Main Character is Obsessed With a Foreign Substance

“Before… when I went to headquarters to meet my grandfather, and when I had that blind date, and when I had that club gathering…”

All the incidents he had tried to dismiss and ignore kept coming back. He wanted to ignore them even now, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so. Ever since Seunghyun had started having occasional nightmares, he had seemed increasingly anxious and strange.

Because of him, the original story had gone awry, causing the main character, Ju Geonyul, to act out of character before exiting the story. He thought that would be the end of it. Since he was taking over the role that Ju Geonyul had played as the main character, HS would soon be revived. But unerased questions kept tormenting him.

Would the original story end just by substituting the role? In the original story, Seunghyun becomes happy after experiencing misfortune and receiving care from the main character. But the current Seunghyun… what role did he play if he hadn’t experienced any misfortune?

Suhwan looked at Seunghyun with an anxious face. Today, his smiling face seemed unfamiliar. Seunghyun approached closely and grabbed Suhwan’s shoulders with both hands.

“Hyung, why are you curious about that?”

“That’s…”

“Why? Do I creep you out? Have you grown to dislike me?”

“No, it’s not that.”

“You can never escape from me anyway. Don’t you understand that yet?”

“…!”

Why are you saying those lines…

Seunghyun was saying lines similar to what Jin Suhwan had said in the original story. It shouldn’t be possible—the gentle Seunghyun couldn’t possibly do to him what Jin Suhwan had done. Yet his body trembled helplessly.

“Ah.”

Pheromones rushed in and overwhelmed Suhwan. His trembling knees finally buckled. As Suhwan’s body collapsed, Seunghyun gently embraced him.

“I love you, hyung.”

“Seung… hyun.”

“I’ll protect you for the rest of my life.”

Everything went dark before his eyes. Listening to the sweetly whispering voice, Suhwan closed his eyes. He needed to somehow persuade Seunghyun, but his head hurt too much. Feeling as if something snapped in his mind, his body collapsed into Seunghyun’s arms.

***

It felt like he had dreamed. It was an unpleasant dream where Seunghyun became a frightening, obsessive maniac like Jin Suhwan in the original story. Such a thing couldn’t possibly happen, so he thought perhaps he was too stressed about the incident with Ju Geonyul. Reaching this conclusion in his half-asleep state, Suhwan barely opened his eyes. Then he exhaled a long sigh.

“Haaa…”

Lying straight on his back looking at the bedroom ceiling, Suhwan muttered to himself. It was definitely a dream. Then he turned to the side, shifting his body. That’s when a strange metallic sound reached his ears.

Clank.

“Huh…?”

What was that sound? With a chilling feeling, Suhwan raised his body. That’s when he saw the shackle encircling one of his ankles. It was made of metal but had soft fur-lined fabric attached to prevent pain. And a thick, long chain connected it to the bed. It was exactly like the shackle described in the original story—the very shackle that had been placed on Seunghyun’s ankle when he was imprisoned by Jin Suhwan in the original work.

“Why, why is this here.”

Suhwan reached out and pulled at the shackle. But it didn’t budge at all. Next, he pulled at the chain. He tried to break it with both hands, but it was futile. Even an alpha’s strength was useless against it.

Click.

“…!”

The bedroom door opened and someone entered. It was Seunghyun. Carrying a tray in his hands, Seunghyun approached the bed with a calm face as if nothing was wrong.

“You’re awake?”

“…Seunghyun.”

“Hungry? Eat up.”

“This… take it off first.”

“…”

“Please.”

He tried to hold back, but tears welled up in his eyes. He couldn’t believe the current situation.

After placing the tray on the bedside table, Seunghyun sat down diagonally on the edge of the bed. He reached out and brushed his fingers across Suhwan’s teary eyes. It was an exceptionally gentle touch, as always. With that touch, Suhwan held a glimmer of hope. He’ll say it was just a joke, then smile and remove the shackle. However, that expectation vanished without a trace when Seunghyun opened his mouth.

“No.”

“Why, why.”

“It’s your fault, hyung. Because you keep not listening to me.”

“When did I ever do that.”

Seunghyun gazed down intently at Suhwan, who was speaking with a trembling voice. Although he didn’t like seeing that frightened face looking at him, he thought it didn’t matter anymore. It was far better than having Suhwan slip away from his embrace. He would never lose him again. He is my…

For a moment, Seunghyun frowned at the throbbing in his head and shook it off. Soon he looked at Suhwan as if nothing was wrong.

“Eat first. Okay?”

“Seunghyun.”

Seunghyun was still gentle. His affectionate tone was no different from before. And that made it all the more frightening.

It felt like everything was his fault. Seunghyun had become strange because he had ruined the original story. If only he had disappeared as initially planned, if he hadn’t become entangled with Seunghyun, would things have turned out differently? The guilt made it even harder for Suhwan.

“Please, don’t do this.”

“…”

“Please… it’s all my fault.”

A tear fell down his cheek. Staring at that sight, Seunghyun lowered his head. He stuck out his tongue to lick away the tear Suhwan had shed, then smiled, lifting the corner of his mouth.

“I said no.”

“Seung… hic.”

Seunghyun’s lips, which had been licking Suhwan’s cheek and eyes, covered his pleading mouth. As if he didn’t want to hear it.

Then Seunghyun lowered his lips, kissing Suhwan’s collarbone, chest, and all the way down.

“Your ankle looks pretty even with a shackle on, hyung.”

The last place Seunghyun’s lips went was the ankle wearing the shackle. After kissing the top of his foot, Seunghyun smiled with a happy face. Suhwan looked at that beautiful face with a sense of despair.

Ring, ring…

When the phone rang, Seunghyun took out his phone. As soon as he checked the caller, he clicked his tongue in disapproval and stood up.

“Don’t go hungry, eat your meal. Understand?”

“…”

“I’ll be right back.”

Seunghyun kissed Suhwan’s cheek, urged him again, and left the room. Suhwan watched his retreating figure, unable to say anything.

***

He desperately hoped it would be a dream when he opened his eyes again.

But when Suhwan opened his eyes, he still had to face the shackle restraining his ankle. A long sigh escaped his lips.

“Haaa…”

As he moved his foot, there was a clanking sound of metal. And the shackle around his ankle shifted and moved. At that unfamiliar sensation, Suhwan paused for a moment, sitting still on the bed.

Then, with another short sigh, he moved his foot again. As he lowered his foot below the bed, the long chain followed, going under the bed. The chain that went down to the floor made a jangling sound as it spread widely across the floor.

The shackles that the original Jin Suhwan had prepared to restrain Seunghyun in the novel. It seemed like the consequence of having avoided looking at his BDSM collection out of disgust had come back to haunt him. No, perhaps throwing them away would have been pointless. The current Seunghyun would have probably obtained identical ones from somewhere and still managed to put them on his ankle.

Suhwan still couldn’t understand how Seunghyun had come to change like the original Jin Suhwan. Just thinking about it made his head throb. Suhwan simply pushed the question to the back of his mind and got up from the bed.

Clank, clink.

As Suhwan moved, the chain connected to the bed stretched out. The chain was exactly long enough to allow Suhwan to enter the bathroom. After finishing his business and trying to leave the room, the chain pulled taut precisely at the threshold. Looking at the chain that wouldn’t budge no matter how hard he pulled, he sighed again.

“Hah… what should I do now?”

After muttering, he moved again. He saw the tray that Seunghyun had left on the nightstand. Rice and side dishes were neatly arranged. Despite being hungry from a long fast, he didn’t feel like eating. Suhwan looked at the food on the tray with an expressionless face and then turned away. Then he lay down on the bed again.

How could he fix this? Suhwan racked his brain. If Seunghyun had taken on the role of the original Jin Suhwan from the novel, then he himself must have switched roles with him. According to the original flow of the story, would he, now in the main character’s role, be tormented by Seunghyun, who had become the foreign entity, until someone rescued him?