Chapter 156
“Isn’t that what’s happening now? Though you’re young, you must be perceptive enough to see it. Yoo Siwoon has taken all the shares that Chairman Yoo, Yoo Seongil, and that bloodline owned. Yoo Siwoon is now the owner of the Seongha Group.”
“…”
“I know it’s too much to explain everything and make you understand it all right now. I’m not asking you to believe me. I’m just asking you to be suspicious of Yoo Siwoon.”
“…”
“You probably don’t believe it. You probably don’t want to believe it either. Whatever sweet words he’s told you… he must have treated you very well. Right? As if he would give his life for you.”
“…”
It went beyond just treating him well. Yoo Siwoon had told Eunseong he loved him. That he loved him so much he couldn’t bear it, that he had no choice but to become trash, that he couldn’t reject Eunseong when he clung to him begging for love.
Eunseong had thought he was the one who clung to Yoo Siwoon, but that wasn’t it. Yoo Siwoon had made it so Eunseong would cling to him. Even when Eunseong was living separately, trying to forget him, Yoo Siwoon had approached him emanating that grass smell Eunseong hated, telling him to take a whiff, and Eunseong had lost his senses and clung to his cousin’s uncle, rubbing himself against his body like a dog in heat.
“I can prove that what I’m saying isn’t a lie. You didn’t get your phone discovered, did you?”
Eunseong nodded reflexively. The phone Lee Joon-seung had given him through Choi Jung-eon was now inside his outer clothes.
“Your phone probably has a clone. Don’t ever contact anyone through that phone. You’re being monitored.”
“…What?”
“No matter how dense you are, haven’t you noticed something strange?”
At Lee Joon-seung’s question, Eunseong’s eyes wavered. Yoo Siwoon knew how Eunseong masturbated while thinking of him.
He had been watching everything. He was watching everything on Eunseong’s phone, what Eunseong was doing, what he was thinking, when he became vulnerable, when and how to press in to make him crumble… Yoo Siwoon knew everything.
“There must have been something, right?”
“…No. There was nothing.”
“I’m also being monitored by Yoo Siwoon. That’s why I can’t do anything right now. Barely convincing your friend to send you a phone is all I could manage.”
Lee Joon-seung’s eyes glanced toward the door, as if looking at Choi Jung-eon who was waiting in the living room, worried about Eunseong.
“You’re the only one who can stop Yoo Siwoon now.”
“…Stop what?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Stop my cousin’s uncle from raping me? Is that what I need to stop?”
“…”
“I’ve never been raped.”
“You’ve been gaslighted. Haven’t you ever seen anything like the grass? Has he never burned incense and made you smell it? Haven’t you felt anything strange?”
Yoo Siwoon must have done such things. That’s who Yoo Siwoon was—someone who would do such things. Lee Joon-seung pressed as if urging a suspect to tell the truth.
“I told you, no. I’ve never seen anything like that, and there was nothing strange!”
“Haa… fine, keep defending that murderous bastard who killed your biological parents and the man who raised you. Oh Yunhee, Park Myung-hoon, and Seo Jeong-gi must be wailing and pounding the ground in the afterlife.”
Lee Joon-seung was furious at Eunseong’s defense of Yoo Siwoon. He spat out the words. His eyes, full of contempt and disgust, glared at Eunseong. He was being used without knowing it, and even seemed to welcome the exploitation—this attitude embodied the very Seongha way that Lee Joon-seung despised. They were cunning and vicious, like snakes.
Yoo Siwoon had even brainwashed this naive child and was slowly devouring him as his prey.
“Director Nam too—his sudden disappearance isn’t right.”
“…”
“What Yoo Siwoon is doing isn’t normal, so they must have had a disagreement, and Yoo Siwoon probably got rid of Director Nam too.”
“…”
“If you don’t believe me, try to find Director Nam. See if he’s alive or dead.”
After Lee Joon-seung left, Eunseong lay down on Choi Jung-eon’s bed. Sitting at the bedside, Choi Jung-eon looked pityingly at Eunseong, who lay there limp and dazed, and asked:
“Is what the police said true?”
“…I think there’s some misunderstanding.”
“Is it okay for you to go back to that house? He says they can’t arrest him because there’s no evidence? Your rich relative is still waiting for you downstairs, hasn’t left.”
After giving Eunseong a burner phone number, Lee Joon-seung left the apartment disguised as an appliance repair technician, just as he had entered. Even hours after Lee Joon-seung’s departure, Eunseong remained weakly lying on Choi Jung-eon’s bed, not returning to Yoo Siwoon who was waiting for him. Dusk was settling, and it would soon be completely dark.
“He might do something to you, you know? If that’s true… Shit, it’s fucking scary. This isn’t normal stuff. That guy really is a police officer. My dad confirmed it all. One of my dad’s juniors is a cop.”
“It’s not true. It’s a lie. I know that detective. He used to take bribes from my cousin’s uncle, and now that he’s not getting paid, he’s slandering Ahjussi!”
Eunseong suddenly sat up from where he was lying and shouted at Choi Jung-eon, with an energy that seemed to come from nowhere.
It can’t be true.
Yoo Siwoon killed his biological parents.
He also killed the father who raised him, whom he had believed was his real father all this time.
He took Eunseong to rape him, to make him have a child, to take over the company, to have everything.
…And he had talked as if he loved Eunseong.
He called him precious, said he was so precious it took his breath away, called him “my beloved wife.” He said he thought of Eunseong and himself as a married couple, and promised they would spend their lives together that way.
My wife…
My beloved wife.
“…Hey, are you okay?”
“It can’t be. It can’t be… it can’t be. No. No! NO!”
Eunseong screamed. He clutched his hair as if tearing it out, shaking his head, and eventually thrashed around, shaking his body violently in denial.
“What’s happening? Eunseong! Hey! Hey! Snap out of it! Dad, come here please!”
Choi Jung-eon’s parents rushed in and pinned Eunseong’s flailing limbs to the bed. Even while restrained, Eunseong continued to heave his body and scream until he suddenly went limp, the violent seizure subsiding as he lost consciousness.
When he regained consciousness much later, Eunseong insisted he had to go, had to return, brushing aside the protests of Choi Jung-eon and his parents as he left the house. Choi Jung-eon supported Eunseong with his arm, bearing almost all of his weight.
“Are you okay? Are you really okay?”
“…I’m not okay.”
“The fact that you’re saying you’re not okay makes me think you’re not completely not okay.”
“Yeah… I’m not okay.”
“Shit, I’m asking if it’s really okay for you to go back to that murderous bastard!”
“Yeah… it’s okay.”
“How is it okay?”
“It’s okay. Everything else isn’t okay… but that one thing is okay. Because…”
Eunseong, who had been leaning almost entirely on Choi Jung-eon, managed to straighten his body and looked at him.
“He can’t touch me.”
“Really? He can’t touch you? Can you guarantee that? Do you have proof?”
“I do have proof. He can’t touch me. If he touches me… everything will be over for him. Didn’t I tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“…I’m the only fifth-generation son from a family where heirs are extremely precious. So my cousin’s uncle can’t touch me. If he touches me… he knows he’ll lose everything he has. If something happens to me, something happens to Ahjussi too.”
Eunseong spoke calmly. It was an assertion without the slightest hint of doubt.
“…Well, that’s fortunate. He really can’t touch you, right? You’re sure?”
“Yeah… that’s right. That one thing… that one thing is true.”
Eunseong calmly reassured Choi Jung-eon, telling him not to worry, that Yoo Siwoon absolutely could not touch him, could not lay a hand on him.
As the elevator doors opened, Eunseong saw Yoo Siwoon waiting for him, leaning against the car door.
He had been waiting for Eunseong to come out, even at this late hour. Upon spotting Eunseong, he straightened his posture. A gentle, affectionate smile—the kind one gives when looking at a loved one—spread across his face, which had been waiting for so long.
“I’ll go by myself. You go back inside. Tell your parents not to worry, that it’s all a misunderstanding…”
“It’s not a misunderstanding. Why would the police make up such crazy lies? Your cousin’s uncle or whatever is really a chaebol, right? This seems like some kind of inheritance dispute but on a massive scale, that’s what they said.”
“Don’t worry about me. And… don’t take any action on your own. Your parents don’t need to either. If really necessary, we can get help from the police.”
“Fine, I understand. Even if I wanted to do something, I couldn’t. We’re up against a chaebol. What could ordinary people like us do?”
“Don’t come down. I’ll go.”
Eunseong pushed back Choi Jung-eon’s chest as he tried to come down and see him off to the end. The elevator doors slowly closed between Eunseong and Choi Jung-eon, who had stepped back a few paces.
“You know our code, right? Contact me if anything happens!”
“…Okay.”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
