SATURDAY 90

“…What do you mean?”

‘Inyoung’ answered in a laughing voice. When Taeseon let go of his hands, he slipped out of the embrace and stood a step back.

Taeseon glared at him silently.

Well-groomed brown hair, fair skin, a slender and somewhat thin frame. The corners of the eyes looked gentle even though they were slanted upward, and the mournful brown pupils were full of moisture.

However, that usual piteous and fragile feeling he possessed was nowhere to be felt. Instead, what enveloped him was the poisonous shadow of a snake, beaming with a smile while hiding a blade within.

A monster that refused to blend into society, unfathomable by human thought.

Had they prattled on about him being a vengeful spirit or an evil ghost after seeing Inyoung? Those divinations were, of course, not true. They were nonsense made up by the fake shaman Shin Myeonghwa, an illusion that turned everyone in the Jegang family into fools.

But perhaps those divinations were right.

Because an evil spirit truly had been born into the household.

“…Yoon Inha.”

The smile on ‘Inyoung’s’… no, ‘Yoon Inha’s’ face deepened. Then, he soon began to cackle and laugh as if he had seen something amusing. Of course, it wasn’t the least bit funny to the one watching.

This was exactly what Yoon Inha’s personality was like. For instance, the type to intentionally kick away a phone dropped by an elderly person who had fallen. The kind of personality—no, persona—that did such things for no reason at all.

With that very persona, he had maliciously tormented Inyoung. No one in the house had ever reined him in. Inyoung used to mutter about that terrible bullying to Taeseon as if it were a casual passing comment.

He spoke nonchalantly as if it were no big deal… but to a normal person like Taeseon, it was nothing but a series of events that defied common sense. Character assassination, mockery, and making him a spectacle were common, and he isolated Inyoung from people very naturally.

There were an unusually large number of people who had approached Inyoung only to unilaterally cut off contact. All of that was also orchestrated by Yoon Inha. They used to gather together and talk about what made Inyoung react more strongly, what he liked, and what hurt him the most.

The saying “birds of a feather flock together” was perfectly apt. The woman who had lunged at ‘Yoon Inha’ at the previous shipboard party… the one who was the only Beta in the family, was also a member of that circle.

And though Inyoung didn’t seem to notice, the Alphas Yoon Inha knew had sexually harassed Inyoung countless times. As if he didn’t even consider Inyoung a human being, Yoon Inha used every means at his disposal to torment Inyoung.

It is impossible to know where that malice of Yoon Inha’s originated. Was it because he truly believed his destiny had been stolen? If he had been brainwashed since childhood, he might have held absolute faith in those words, just like Inyoung.

But had he not said it with his own mouth? He was just a hidden baby, he said. Was he half-doubting? Or, unlike the other people in that family, did he want to claim that his own head was normal?

It’s absurd. Regardless of what he claimed, it didn’t change the fact that Taeseon considered him a sociopath or a psychopath. He lived a life far removed from that of a normal person.

Furthermore, what was his environment like? His kingdom, which put him on a pedestal endlessly. For a person with antisocial personality disorder like Yoon Inha, it was a condition just as bad as abuse.

“I asked where Inyoung is. This is the second time.”

“Mr. Taeseon….”

“….”

“Are you failing to recognize me again?”

Taeseon twitched one eyebrow.

“After hurting me like that, are you going to… repeat the same mistake?”

A laugh escaped. He was speaking in imitation of Inyoung, but he didn’t even seem to have the will to speak similarly to Inyoung. Unlike when Inyoung had previously implemented Yoon Inha’s manner of speaking perfectly, Yoon Inha just wanted to tease Taeseon.

With a hardened expression, Taeseon strode forward. Yoon Inha made a frightened face with Inyoung’s features. As he drew near, he even retreated backward, faltering.

Following him like that, when Yoon Inha’s back hit the wall, Taeseon quietly gripped his throat.

“….”

“If you feel pain, will Inyoung feel it too?”

“No way. This body is mine.”

“That means he does feel it.”

When the lie didn’t work, Yoon Inha’s expression turned icy.

“…Ah, this is no fun.”

An arrogant and cold voice. Words steeped in the blood of a venomous snake, impossible to believe came from the same voice.

After glaring at Taeseon for a while, Yoon Inha raised his hand high. His fingertips curved, and just before his neatly trimmed nails could scratch Inyoung’s cheek, Taeseon snatched his wrist.

Yoon Inha stared at Taeseon with a terrifying face, then seemed to close his eyes and collapsed forward with a thump. Taeseon caught the gaunt body as if embracing him.

Taeseon’s eyes narrowed instinctively. He was an adult male, yet he was so light that almost no weight could be felt. A moment later, the body in his arms twitched, and he slowly opened his eyes.

For some reason, the eyelashes, which had become slightly damp like wet flower petals in the meantime, lifted heavily. Taeseon felt relieved at the sight of the pupils visible through the gap. Inyoung blinked his eyes a couple of times, blink, blink, and then raised his head with a bewildered face.

“…Uh….”

It was only after some time had passed that he realized he was being held in Taeseon’s arms. Then, startled, he rubbed his eyes once and blinked rapidly. As his legs flailed as if kicking the floor, Taeseon simply picked him up and carried him.

“Let’s go wash your face. You can’t seem to wake up at all.”

“Pardon? No, wait a minute….”

Carrying Inyoung, who wasn’t fully awake yet, straight to the master bathroom, Taeseon wrapped a towel around his neck and washed his face with his own hands as if he were a young child.

“Pffft…. Tae, Mr. Taeseon, what….”

While he meticulously washed Inyoung, who looked beyond bewildered and actually quite absurdly confused, the bathtub finished filling. Taeseon wiped the moisture off Inyoung’s face with a towel, brushed his hair—which had gotten all wet due to his clumsy skill—and headed toward the tub.

Then, he opened the lid of the bath salts and poured them into the tub with a splash. Inyoung, who was sitting by the sink, watched the scene and continued to blink in embarrassment.

“Am I… dirty? Do I smell? I washed before going to sleep….”

“No. It’s just, they say salt is good, right?”

“Pardon?”

“In many ways. It’s rich in minerals, has disinfecting and sterilizing effects, gives a sense of psychological stability… and they say it has the effect of washing away bad things too.”

Inyoung tilted his head stiffly and looked at Taeseon. He wasn’t some host on a bath salt home shopping channel…. His attitude was clearly strange.

It was also strange that he was definitely sleeping on the second floor, but suddenly woke up in the living room being held by Taeseon. If Taeseon had carried him down, it would have been in a more stable posture.

Then, suddenly, Inyoung looked out the window. The garden visible through the window across from the tub was pitch black, with the garden lights all turned on.

Did he wake up suddenly in the middle of the night? Or was it dawn?

Thinking that, Inyoung checked the bathroom clock and couldn’t help but rub his eyes.

The date was strange. He had skipped a day.

“Mr. Taeseon, did I sleep all day by any chance?”

Taeseon, who was stirring the arm he had submerged in the tub, looked back at Inyoung. He shrugged and replied that he had.

“I guess fatigue had built up.”

“A—no, no matter how tired I am….”

Taeseon watched Inyoung silently as he couldn’t hide his embarrassment, wondering how he could sleep until this time. It seemed he would have to start by silencing the household staff.

Seeing that he had no memory at all, Yoon Inha must have woken up during the morning. And he would have spent the day “normally.”

He had no intention of interfering with the time Inyoung spent alone, but still, if he acted in an unusually peculiar way, a report would be made to Taeseon. Seeing as there had been no contact today, it meant it was a day like any other.

For ‘Yoon Inha’.

That is why he was dissolving bath salts in the tub. Do they not say salt drives away ghosts? Lee Taeseon is someone who has never believed in such superstitions, but now that things have come to this, it’s hard to say it’s a completely baseless story.

Once the tub was full, Taeseon set the temperature control button and pulled Inyoung into an embrace to lower him from the sink. Then, with skillful hands, he undressed and washed Inyoung.

Inyoung’s expression grew darker as if he sensed something was wrong, but Taeseon distracted him with trivial jokes so he wouldn’t dwell on unnecessary thoughts.

Thanks to that, by the time they entered the tub together, Inyoung’s tension had completely dissipated. The water was a bit hot, and as the salt completely dissolved, a fragrant scent wafted up.

When they came out after washing again after being in the tub for about twenty minutes, Inyoung was nodding off.

“Are you sleepy?”

“Yes…. It’s strange….”

At his muttering, which omitted the words “even though I slept all day,” Taeseon smiled without a word and kissed his forehead. As if to say that everything is fine and there’s no need to worry.