NTH 101

All the energy drained from his body. Jin glared at the cellphone in his hand.

There was no such thing as a Wi-Fi router in this house. A cellphone without even internet access was less useful to Jin than a public payphone. Because even without a single penny, you could make a collect call from a payphone.

What on earth was this cellphone for? Was it bait to see if Jin would secretly try to call Jeha? Was it to make him experience firsthand that no matter what trick he used, he could not escape from him?

Feeling dejected, Jin turned off the cellphone and put it back where it had been. He had to return to the bed where Cheon Sagang was before he was caught for escaping the room. The front door was right before his eyes, but he could not go outside naked. Clothes. If only he had clothes.

By the way, what floor was this? Was it a height he could survive if he jumped? Since he had ridden the elevator from the basement while blindfolded, he did not even know what floor it was. Frustrated, Jin wanted to at least look outside, so he walked to the veranda. He pushed the blackout curtain aside slightly and opened the door leading to the veranda.

In that moment, a frigid chill wrapped around Jin’s naked body, but Jin did not feel the cold. It was because, surprisingly, his clothes were there. In the exact state they had been when shoved into the trash can.

As he picked up the cuff of the pants lying on top, a flood of emotions washed over him. Should he put them on and run away? Wouldn’t he get caught? Just then, something small and shiny fell to the floor with a thud from the upside-down pants.

Jin crouched down and picked it up. It was the N-shaped pendant Jeha had given him.

“What are you doing there.”

A grim voice rumbled low behind him. No horror movie could have made Jin’s heart freeze more than this. Jin hastily tossed the N-shaped pendant into his mouth. He placed the pants back on the pile of clothes and stood up as he answered.

“It was… it was stuffy…”

“You slipped out just like a little rat, didn’t you.”

The pendant, shoved into his left cheek, poked sharply at Jin’s gum. If Cheon Sagang were to kiss him, he would have to swallow it down his throat. Striding over, Cheon Sagang swiftly snatched Jin by the waist.

“Is it the full moon? The moon is bright.”

“…”

“Stuffy, you say? So you were trying to jump? Or were you trying to put on those garbage-like clothes and run away again?”

“…No.”

“It would be quite nice to open the window and fuck you from behind here. The neighborhood residents could listen to your moans live.”

“Don’t say such horrible things. I’m going back inside.”

Jin roughly shook Cheon Sagang off and ran to the master bedroom. He could hear the sound of Cheon Sagang striding toward him. Thud, thud, thud. Jin dove onto the bed, spit the pendant out of his mouth, and shoved it under the mattress. Cheon Sagang, who had followed right behind, wrapped his arms around Jin’s chilled body from behind. A creepy voice coiled around his ear.

“You’d be wise not to try any foolish tricks.”

“…”

“There’s no way for you to contact that professor bastard, so just give up. You can never leave this place. Until the day you die.”

“Then just kill me instead.”

“What?”

“Kill me. I’d rather die than live like this, like an animal by your side.”

“Don’t be impatient. You won’t live long anyway. And I’m going to enjoy you to my heart’s content until you die.”

Cheon Sagang’s long fingers groped Jin’s chest. As he fiddled with his nipple, he got hard again. He rubbed his swollen member between Jin’s buttocks. No matter how much it was a physiological phenomenon, Jin, who absolutely did not want to react to that touch, squeezed his eyes shut.

Should he still live like this? Was there any meaning in breathing? Wouldn’t it be better to tear the bedsheets and hang himself? If he was going to die soon anyway, as Cheon Sagang said, at least he could suffer less humiliation.

If he had known it would be like this, he should have treated Jeha better when he was with him. He should have told him he loved him until his ears wore out. He felt like an idiot for only regretting it after the fact.

Jeha.

I miss you.

I love you.

If he could just see Jeha one last time before he died, Jin felt it would not matter if his breath stopped right then and there.

When Jeha came out of the giant monster’s mouth, only a couple of hours had passed in the outside world. Jeha expressed his gratitude to Gu Minho and Hwon and hurried down from Mist Mountain.

Returning to Seoul with Chief Jeong, who had been waiting, Jeha went back to the hospital. He did stay in the hospital for a few days after that, but he was not simply lying down comfortably. Jeha put Chief Jeong to work and focused on finding Jin’s whereabouts.

Chief Jeong reported to the police that ‘a loan shark named Cheon Sagang has kidnapped an acquaintance.’ But, as expected, the police were not much help. The place where Jin was first kidnapped was very secluded, so there were no CCTV cameras nearby.

All Jeha knew about Cheon Sagang was his name and the business name ‘Angel Cash Loan.’ The police investigated centering on ‘Cheon Sagang’ and ‘Angel Cash Loan,’ but there were only four people with the name ‘Cheon Sagang’ in the national resident registration. Of course, none of those four were the Cheon Sagang Jeha was looking for. ‘Angel Cash Loan’ was similarly not registered in the system.

That being the case, the only source of information was Cheon Sagang’s business partners. Chief Jeong visited the Sangbong Gang, who were imprisoned in jail due to Section Chief Choi’s machinations. He also went to meet the Garibong Gang, who had gone to the detention center for collectively assaulting Jeha.

Neither side yielded much of a result. They only repeated the same answer: ‘President Cheon was an enigmatic figure. We joined hands with him because of his immense financial power. He asked us to cooperate, saying he would lend us money interest-free.’ No one knew Cheon Sagang’s personal information or the location of his newly relocated office.

Like that, without gaining any results for several days, time passed mercilessly.

After being discharged, Jeha returned to a home filled with traces of Jin everywhere, and his distress and sense of loss doubled. Although he had obtained a clever plan from the Azure-Robed Boy to extinguish the parasitic soul, if he did not find Cheon Sagang quickly, he would not even have a chance to use that plan. It had been well over a week since Jin had been able to take his medicine. Jeha grew more and more anxious.

Not having the confidence to lie down again in the bed where he had made love with Jin every day, he lay down on the living room sofa. But the sofa was not much different. Here, he would sit Jin between his legs, hold him in his arms, and watch the news. They would turn on a movie and not watch a single scene properly, engrossed only in making love.

It was the same everywhere. The bathroom, the kitchen, the terrace, all those places were imbued with memories of Jin. As Jeha lay on the sofa with his eyes closed, dozens of Jins chattered, giggled, and moved around him.

Tormented by such visions and auditory hallucinations, Jeha picked up his cellphone. It was past four-thirty in the morning.

As he was about to access a portal site to read crime-related articles, Jeha’s gaze suddenly fell on an app with a map on it. It was the app linked to the location tracking device planted in Jin’s pendant. Chief Jeong had said the connection was lost after the Angel Cash Loan office. Jeha would often press that square icon. Of course, the location had never appeared.

Pressing the icon with little expectation, a sun-shaped circle spun around, indicating it was updating. After waiting for some time, a new screen soon appeared.

A red dot was glowing on the map.

Jeha shot up to a sitting position. With a trembling hand, he pressed the ‘Save Current Location’ button. Then, as he tried to zoom in on the map, the red dot suddenly disappeared.

Was it a hallucination? Maybe he was seeing things because he had not been sleeping properly. Jeha tried to calm himself and clicked the ‘View Saved Locations’ button. A red pin was stuck in the location he had seen earlier. It was an officetel in Jungnang-gu.

Jeha immediately walked to the dressing room and called Chief Jeong.

“Young Master?”

It was a sleepy voice. Jeha spoke with a sense of apology.

“It’s me. I’m so sorry to call you this early in the morning.”

“It’s all right. I’m always on standby. Is this perhaps about Mr. Jin?”

“Jin’s location tracker suddenly activated.”

“What did you say? Is that really true?”

Chief Jeong shouted, his sleepiness completely gone. Jeha said calmly.

“A red dot was definitely displayed on the map. It disappeared quickly, but I saved the location.”

“That’s a huge relief!”

“So, I was wondering, is there any possibility of a malfunction?”

“Of course, there is. That tracker doesn’t have a separate battery, so it only activates when heat greater than a person’s body temperature is applied to the pendant for a certain amount of time. It won’t even work if it’s worn over clothes. That’s why I told Mr. Jin to always keep the necklace from leaving his skin.”

“It seems the pendant was off Jin’s body all this time.”

“Yes. But the fact that it activated again now means that Mr. Jin or someone else was in contact with that pendant for over a minute. In any case, I will head to the place marked on the map, so please send me the location where the dot appeared.”

“I will go there right now.”

“You yourself, Young Master? You can’t! What if you get hurt again like last time? An unrelated person could have picked it up, not Mr. Jin. Young Master, you must absolutely not go anywhere near there.”

“No. I have to go. The objective is not simply to catch Cheon Sagang. Saving Jin is the priority, but there are other things that must be resolved as well. I’ll explain later.”

“Ha, when it comes to Mr. Jin, you really are… You wouldn’t listen even if I tried to stop you anyway.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It can’t be helped. I will head over there as well. Just send me the location.”

Jeha hung up and sent the location to Chief Jeong. Since it was dawn, it would take about half an hour to get there. The problem was that the place was a multi-unit officetel. He could distinguish which building it was from the dot’s location, but the exact floor or unit number was not displayed.

Jeha changed his clothes and pulled on Jin’s black baseball cap. It did not matter if it was a wild goose chase.

If there was even a sliver of a possibility, Jeha had no choice but to cling to it, even if it was just by a hair.

Jeha parked his car in the underground parking garage of the officetel where the location had pinged.

The entrance to Building A was visible, but it was quite far away. If Jeha had not been a super-visionary, he would never have been able to identify the faces of the people entering and exiting.

Around the same time, Chief Jeong also arrived at the officetel. He parked his car right next to the officetel’s main gate. He waited in a position where he could easily follow Cheon Sagang’s car if it appeared on the ground level. Jeha explained a few strategies to him over the phone.

After that, only a tedious wait continued. After seven o’clock, people heading to work got into their cars and exited the parking garage in a line.

Usually, cash loan company offices open after ten o’clock. But since Cheon Sagang was the president, there was no guarantee he would arrive at work on time.

Nine o’clock passed. Unable to overcome his fatigue, Chief Jeong was dozing off in his car. But Jeha did not let down his guard. He merely stared at the entrance with a cool gaze.

It was then. A tall man wearing a black coat, black pants, and a scarf with a flashy pattern got off the elevator and came out of the entrance. Without taking his eyes off him, Jeha pressed and held a speed dial number on his cellphone.

“Yes, Young Master.”

“A black G-Wagen, license plate ending in 0323. Be careful.”

“Understood.”

Presently, Cheon Sagang got into a large black car. Two women who had gotten off the elevator with Cheon Sagang walked toward a car near Jeha. The voice of one of them faintly reached Jeha’s ears.

“Whew, how can he be so tall? Isn’t he over 2 meters? Just standing next to him was scary.”

“Unnie, is this your first time seeing that man? I’ve run into him a few times.”

Jeha focused his hearing on them as much as possible. The one called ‘unnie’ replied.

“Really? I guess it’s because I mostly work afternoons, but today’s my first time seeing him.”

“I saw him in front of the convenience store at the main gate, too. He smokes a ton. He’s handsome, but his complexion is too dark and his eyes are scary.”

“Is that so? Do you know what floor he lives on?”

“The 8th floor. I saw him go into Unit 801.”

“Scary. I’d better not go to the 8th floor. You be careful, too.”

Building A, Unit 801.

Jin is there.

Kwon Jeha felt like he wanted to thank the women. After confirming that Cheon Sagang’s car had completely left the parking garage, Jeha called Chief Jeong again.

“Yes, Young Master. I’m following him from a distance.”

“Be careful not to get caught. I’m telling you again, you must not try to catch him. This matter can only be fully resolved if he comes back to this house. But he shouldn’t come back too soon, so please stall for time according to the plan until I say it’s okay. From now on, please report via text message.”