Ji Haesu’s heart is pounding.
They say his life was ruined because of me. And yet, he has to keep living because of me. That living itself is supposed to be his atonement.
“So what do you think?”
“Money and love. Two birds with one stone?”
Jungjo watched Ji Haesu, whose eyes were blinking vacantly, with a peculiar look. Sliding her slippered feet closer, she stepped in, then placed her hand over his tightly stretched dress shirt—so taut it looked as though the buttons might pop at any moment—right over where his heart was. The corner of Jungjo’s lips lifted into a smile.
“Your heart’s racing, XX.”
Ji Haesu clasped Jungjo’s soft hand and muttered dully,
“Am I… really in love?”
“Yes.”
Jungjo cupped Ji Haesu’s face with both hands as she spoke.
“So be careful not to let him die. If he dies, everything’s over.”
“I won’t kill him. The client said not to kill him in the first place.”
Ji Haesu said it with brimming confidence. Jungjo tried to say that wasn’t the point, but Ji Haesu, having apparently found the answer to the question gnawing at him, pressed a hand to his stiff, aching wound and stood up.
“I’ll just tell him. That living with me is the final punishment the client wants. Then he’ll live, right?”
Would he, really?
Everyone who’d gone through this had failed to endure it and self-destructed. Should she repeat it once more as a warning? But since it wasn’t her business, Jungjo kept her mouth shut. She’d already handed him the gun earlier as an apology for rudely aiming it at him—that would have to suffice.
“Here. Money for the treatment.”
“I’ll skim it off the organization’s funds anyway.”
“Do that.”
Ji Haesu replied lightly, then turned back to look at Jungjo. Staring at her small frame—barely 150 centimeters tall—with indifferent eyes, he spoke.
“Are you satisfied?”
“You’re different from me.”
“How so?”
Jungjo shrugged.
“Once you’ve stained your hands with the blood of innocents, there’s no real difference. In other people’s eyes, we’re all just murderers.”
Ji Haesu smiled with his eyes. When he told her, “Let’s meet again back home, friend,” Jungjo turned her back and replied,
“I’ll probably be in Japan next time. They say we’re taking Japan this time. You too—take care.”
“Oh, Japan. Nice, nice. I’ll avenge the Sino-Japanese War.”
Jungjo shot him an unamused look.
“Here. Painkillers and antibiotics. Three days’ worth.”
She tossed the pill bottle behind her. Without even looking, Ji Haesu caught it smoothly by instinct.
“Thanks.”
“For what? Don’t mention it.”
Clapping his hands, Ji Haesu hummed a tune as he left. Jungjo laughed in disbelief. As if he didn’t enjoy it simply because he got to kill people for no reason at all.
Making his way back out through the pitch-dark path—like a corridor straight out of hell—guided only by his senses, he finally saw the moonlit end of the alley in the distance. His car was waiting there. Ji Haesu ran toward it with quicker steps than before and peered through the passenger-side window to check.
Perhaps because he’d been given two tablets of lunapam, a sleeping pill stronger than zolpidem, Choi Suho was fast asleep, still bound with cable ties. Ji Haesu smiled gently and climbed into the driver’s seat.
Just then, tears slid down from the corners of Choi Suho’s eyes, and his hand twitched.
“Si… Si-in……”
Ji Haesu’s face hardened. Choi Suho trembled as he shook his cable-tied hands, speaking through a tear-soaked voice.
“I-I’m sorry…… I’m sorry. I was wrong. F-forgive me……”
At that moment, unwilling to hear him call for Do Si-in, Ji Haesu crushed Choi Suho’s lips with his own. A sticky, sweet moan slipped out from between Choi Suho’s lips—mmngh. To make him forget Do Si-in more thoroughly, Ji Haesu slid his hand into his pants and fondled the hole he’d earlier rammed his cock into. Choi Suho’s body jerked, his head tilting sharply to the left.
“Hah—! Ah……!”
Choi Suho’s face flushed red in an instant. With just two fingers thrusting in—push, push—the center of him swelled quickly. As Ji Haesu sucked greedily at his lips, Choi Suho couldn’t hold back his moans.
“Ahng… ngh.”
His climax came fast. His body shuddered violently, his front growing damp, and Choi Suho lost consciousness once more. Deciding this was for the best, Ji Haesu left him bound as he was and drove the car toward Choi Suho’s mansion in Pyeongchang-dong.
Perhaps Jang Jihyeok had pulled some strings—there was no one at Choi Suho’s estate.
Thinking about it, it wasn’t hard to see why. The youngest son everyone believed to be a dominant Alpha had suddenly turned into an Omega. When they went to check, they found him actually an Omega, having sex with some lunatic. There was no way they could spread the story that Choi Juho had returned and then died of a heart attack. They’d probably just buried it at their own level.
And they must have sternly warned the reporters never to go near Choi Suho’s mansion. No matter how he thought about it, that man seemed to want Choi Suho dead—just like Choi Juho. His obsession with Choi Juho was intense enough that forcing Choi Suho to die the same way couldn’t possibly be a misunderstanding.
—If you force a miscarriage, that kid will kill himself. But if there’s a child?
If Choi Suho had a child, would they treat him better? Ji Haesu had acted boldly in front of Jungjo, but the truth was that he was trapped. Like someone who had seen Choi Juho as the past, present, and future, XXX was haunted by a sense of foreboding. He couldn’t bring himself to make Choi Suho pregnant—yet he also couldn’t bring himself to force a miscarriage, as the client demanded.
Choi Juho had given birth to Choi Suho and then committed suicide. No one knew whether it had been planned, or whether he’d simply been unable to endure that moment after giving birth.
Gripping the steering wheel, Ji Haesu stared ahead into the dry, bluish darkness with eyes deeper than the dark itself. He pressed the side brake button and neatly organized his thoughts.
Complicated thinking doesn’t suit me.
First, get Choi Suho pregnant—and make sure he can’t run away.
After that… we’ll see.
Anyway, I need to get rid of that damn tie first—the unlucky one Jang Yuguk gave Choi Suho as a joining gift, the one he used to hang himself.
He didn’t believe in his homeland’s superstitions, but as of today, he’d decided to believe one thing: you shouldn’t own objects soaked in the souls of the dead.
The fact that Choi Suho treasured the tie Choi Juho had used to kill himself disgusted him.
What is it, some kind of death totem? The more he thought about it, the worse his mood became.
Having reached that conclusion, Ji Haesu turned his head. Choi Suho, now awake from the drugs, was glaring at him with a pale face. He looked like an assassin who’d crawled back from the brink of death. Ji Haesu rested an arm on the steering wheel and smiled brightly.
“Sleep well, Suho?”
“Untie me, you fucking bastard.”
Choi Suho rasped hoarsely. Ji Haesu’s fist clenched at the fact that he still refused to call him hyung, but today—no, yesterday?—his father had died, so he decided not to hit him today. He was still human, after all. He was willing to allow a period of mourning.
“Untie me, you son of a bitch!”
“If I untie you, you’ll run away.”
“I won’t run!”
Choi Suho struggled violently, shaking his cable-tied wrists as he shouted, “Untie me!” Even as Ji Haesu thought that he’d tear the skin off his wrists and start bleeding at this rate, his fist flew before he could stop himself, smashing hard into Choi Suho’s head.
Thud!
“Careful. You’ll hurt your hands.”
He’d meant to hit his head so he wouldn’t injure his hands, but Choi Suho’s head slumped sharply to the side. He hadn’t meant to hit him that hard. Still, at least his hands would be safe. To gain one thing, you always had to sacrifice another.
Taking advantage of the moment Choi Suho was unconscious, Ji Haesu cut the cable ties with a tool he always carried. Then he returned to the passenger side, slung Choi Suho over his shoulder, and entered the Pyeongchang-dong mansion as though it were his own home.
“Ugh……”
Choi Suho groaned—uhk, ngh—as if he’d been struck cleanly near the temple. Ji Haesu removed Choi Suho’s shoes, took off his own, and quickly headed for the bedroom. He’d only been here a few times, but now it felt comfortable, like home.
If—just if—he assumed Jungjo was right, and that he did love Choi Suho.
Then this might become our newlywed home someday, wouldn’t it? Thinking that way, it felt like their house. And if a nursery were added here, it would be perfect.
But the current Choi Suho wouldn’t do. If he was going to give birth and live on, his temper needed to be beaten out of him a little. Still, it wasn’t as if he could beat Choi Suho every time after the baby was born.
After laying Choi Suho’s limp body on the bed, Ji Haesu removed his mourning clothes piece by piece. Beneath them were bruises—yellow, blue, red, and even purple—proof of just how thoroughly he’d beaten him.
Even so, seeing that Choi Suho still wasn’t broken only made one thought surface.
There really is only one way.
He didn’t want to beat Choi Suho anymore.
He wanted to torment him—but not beat him.
The moment that thought crossed his mind, Ji Haesu stood motionless beside the bed, staring down at Choi Suho for a long time.
He wants to torment him—but…
From the first light of dawn until morning, Ji Haesu didn’t move once. Like a statue, he stood there, gazing down at Choi Suho.
His head tilted slightly, and a smile settled on his lips.
Atone, Suho.
Just as you wish.
For your entire life.
By my side.
