Part 5. The Second Task Begins (2)
Ji Haesu had raped Choi Suho thoroughly. He had violated him until he was torn and bleeding—enough that Choi Suho would likely be bedridden for days, writhing in pain. He wouldn’t even be able to go to his father, not because his body was broken, but because Ji Haesu had crushed his pride with his cock. Choi Suho would lie there, grinding his teeth, waiting for the day he could destroy Ji Haesu in return.
Hospitalizing Choi Suho in the same hospital where Jang Yuguk was staying and raping him until the tip of his cock wore down wasn’t part of Do Si-in’s request—it was Ji Haesu’s own doing. Choi Suho was the kind of dominant Alpha that made Ji Haesu want to trample him. And Jang Jihyeok, waiting outside the door, was another dominant Alpha who wanted to crush Choi Suho—just for different reasons.
“Ah.”
That was the first word Jang Jihyeok uttered when he saw Ji Haesu stepping out of the hospital room. Not a greeting, not a polite “nice to see you,” just a bright, almost nostalgic smile, as if he were meeting an old friend after a long time.
“Ji Haesu?”
Jang Jihyeok, who had been sitting alone in a chair, looking at someone’s photo on a tablet, stood up. Ji Haesu stole a glance at the screen before Jang Jihyeok could turn it off. The tablet displayed a photo of Choi Juho—Choi Suho’s father—from 28 years ago. Choi Juho, the man who had given birth to Choi Suho. His hands were bound to the bed, his eyes blindfolded, a gag in his mouth. He was completely naked, his belly swollen—clearly pregnant with Choi Suho. His legs were spread, and a dark, thick cock was slowly pushing inside him. It was Jang Yuguk’s cock, back when he was fifty. Choi Juho had been twenty-nine at the time. Jang Yuguk had ordered Jang Jihyeok to photograph every moment of his rape of Choi Juho.
Four years’ worth of records.
“This was when he was seven months and fourteen days pregnant… before Juho hyung killed himself.”
“Do you enjoy this sort of thing?”
Jang Jihyeok looked at Ji Haesu with a puzzled expression, as if he were the strange one for not understanding. “Beautiful things should be preserved. You can’t keep them otherwise.”
He even tilted his head, as if genuinely confused. “Don’t you take pictures of the bastard?”
“I don’t take photos unless it’s for a client’s request. If I start taking them for myself, I might forget the joy of seeing it with my own eyes.”
“But memories fade, get distorted, change however I want them to. That’s why I still think of Juho hyung as a kind and good person. Objectively speaking, though…”
“You think he was pathetic?”
Jang Jihyeok pressed his fingers to his temple and said indifferently, “Of course. From an outsider’s perspective, he threw his life away for some brat. He could’ve just killed the kid.”
He glanced at the hospital room door before standing up. Jang Jihyeok, towering there, looked so much like a middle-aged Jang Yuguk that if Choi Juho were still alive, he would have screamed at the sight. After all, whenever Jang Yuguk came home, Choi Juho would scream, beg on his knees to be let go, to be spared—only to be raped anyway.
Come to think of it, fate had a way of repeating itself. Choi Suho, at twenty-eight, was being raped just like his father. Ji Haesu thought it was almost funny. Is it ‘beauty dooms the beautiful’ or ‘handsome men meet tragic fates’? He smirked. Jang Jihyeok, frowning at the mockery in Ji Haesu’s smile, instinctively took a step back under the oppressive gaze of the nearly two-meter-tall man. Even as fellow dominant Alphas, they both knew.
This Alpha was different. He was the one who had subdued Choi Suho in an instant and raped him more than a dozen times.
“Well, we didn’t come here to talk about Suho hyung,” Ji Haesu said, his voice laced with amusement. “What brings you to me?”
“To give you a request…”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t take requests from chaebol families,” Ji Haesu cut him off.
Jang Jihyeok tilted his head back, expressionless, and hummed. “Just as I heard.”
“You knew.” Ji Haesu’s voice was playful as he winked.
“Yes, I knew.”
“So why bother coming to me?”
Ji Haesu asked outright. Jang Jihyeok’s lips curled.
“Curiosity. You take requests from the poor, but why not from the rich and powerful?”
Ji Haesu shrugged. “I don’t do this for the money. And what do Korean chaebols and the rich have to complain about?”
Jang Jihyeok’s face turned cold. “You know full well what my family is like and still say that.”
Ji Haesu clasped his hands together and smiled. “Choi Suho lost the father who gave birth to him, but he had the love of the father who made him.”
“…How dare you talk about my father in front of me.”
Jang Jihyeok’s lips trembled with suppressed rage. But then Ji Haesu took a step closer, looming over him, and whispered slowly, “You lost the love of the father who made you, but you had the love of the mother who birthed you. You became the legitimate heirs, didn’t you? You got everything—even forging the will while your father was unconscious, cutting Choi Suho out like he was nothing, dividing everything up like slices of pizza among yourselves.”
Jang Jihyeok’s eyebrows twitched as he clenched his jaw. Ji Haesu tilted his head and continued, “You’re all doing such a great job taking revenge on Choi Suho on your own. Why come to me? Look, the rich and powerful know how to handle their own business. It’s the poor, the ones who can’t do anything, who need me. That’s why I charge them for my services.”
“Ah, 400 million won a pop?”
“Payment is payment.”
Ji Haesu made a circle with his thumb and forefinger and grinned. “Nothing in this world is free. Choi Suho got his father’s love, but it wasn’t free, was it?”
His voice dropped, turning eerie. “Choi Suho will crumble in the end. When he sees his name erased from the will, replaced only with the names of the legitimate wife’s children, he’ll realize—Ah, my father never loved me after all. That’s what you’re hoping for, isn’t it? That’s why you forged the will. Not because you didn’t want to give him anything, but because you wanted him to know.”
Jang Jihyeok met his gaze impassively. “The request I have for you isn’t much. Why refuse without even hearing it?”
Ji Haesu let out a long sigh. “If you want to drop some petty revelation about Choi Suho’s birth, do it yourselves.”
“Legitimate wife.“
Jang Jihyeok closed his eyes and let out a hollow laugh. “Ha.” He opened them slowly, looking at Ji Haesu with something like genuine surprise. “How do you know all this? You’ve hidden everything about yourself. Your name is fake, your age is fake, your ID number is fake, your passport is fake. Nothing about you is real.”
“A man in my line of work can’t afford to be real. What if someone finds out? What if they shake me down?”
Ji Haesu deliberately locked eyes with Jang Jihyeok and bared his teeth in a grin. “And yet, you’re determined to dig into me. Just like Choi Suho.”
Jang Jihyeok smirked. Ji Haesu smirked back.
“I know your type. That’s why I don’t take your requests. Figure it out yourselves. I’ll stick to being the cowardly hero of the poor and helpless.”
Jang Jihyeok watched Ji Haesu’s retreating back, still in his hospital gown, and chuckled to himself. Only after Ji Haesu was gone did he wipe the smile from his face and mutter under his breath—
Just how much does that bastard know?
***
Something’s off.
The tonic he took every morning and evening suddenly made him want to vomit. Was his body not feeling well?
But it wasn’t just today—lately, his stomach had been aching, a dull, gnawing pain. Fuck, don’t think about it. This is all Ji Haesu’s fault.
Choi Suho lay in the two-person hospital room, glaring at Ji Haesu, who was cutting open the tonic packet with scissors and even inserting a straw for him. This was how his father used to give him tonic. If he tried to feed it to him properly, Choi Suho would complain it was bitter, too hot—any excuse to avoid it. His father would stay as long as possible, and Choi Suho would throw a fit. Now, seeing Ji Haesu use the same method, he felt strange.
Does he think he’s my father? Why is he doing this?
But his starved, affection-deprived body accepted the tonic Ji Haesu offered without resistance. Even when Choi Suho flinched and tried to refuse, his cracked lips parted, and he took the straw.
“Drink it all. It’s the medicine your father ordered for you.”
I’d drink it anyway, you fucking bastard.
Choi Suho grumbled inwardly as he sucked the bitter tonic through the straw Ji Haesu had so considerately inserted.
“Ugh, it’s so bitter…”
No matter how many times he drank it, he never got used to the taste. The nausea only grew worse, his stomach churning more with every sip. He was almost done with the box, yet the more he drank, the sicker he felt. He clutched his mouth, barely suppressing the urge to vomit, when Ji Haesu—inexplicably cheerful—pressed a caramel candy to his lips.
“There, you have to eat the caramel your father gave you too.”
I think I’m going to throw up…
