NTH 82

“It’s hard to say that much. I am just doing as that friend told me to. There is no other way to resolve it, after all.”

The things Jeha had just said were so different from the kinds of things the Kwon Jeha he had known until now would say, that Chief Jeong could not help but be confused.

How was he supposed to accept the behavior of a man who used to scoff at not just superstitions but even recognized religions, who believed in no one but himself, now trusting only the words of a shaman friend and going to such lengths to visit a mountain valley in the dead of night?

When Chief Jeong couldn’t find the words to reply, Jeha spoke again.

“I know it must sound a bit strange. But there is nothing to worry about. I am not crazy, and I’m not going to spend a lot of money on exorcisms or write a talisman and put it in my pillow.”

“That’s a relief.”

“Once we go up Mt. Angae, only I can enter that friend’s house, so please wait at the foot of the mountain with the security team. If there are any suspicious individuals, please stop them from coming up the mountain.”

“Is there no possibility that the gangsters are already there?”

“Not at all. The plan for me to go there today is something that no one knows except for me and that friend. There is no reason for gangsters to be camped out in a mountain valley in this cold.”

“There were no signs of anyone watching us at the hospital, and we’re not being followed now, but I still don’t feel completely at ease.”

“It will be fine. However, if I am attacked or injured one more time in this state, the damage will be truly significant, so I ask that you be especially vigilant.”

“I understand. I will defend you thoroughly.”

Perhaps this was the last lifeline. Jeha thought that even if he had been told to go not into Geogugoe’s mouth but into its nostril, he would have had no choice but to do so.

Jin opened his eyes, trembling from a chill that pierced him to the bone.

The new office that Angel Cash Loan had moved to was dim and desolate. It had not been built for residential or office purposes from the start, so no sunlight came in, and heating was out of the question.

Inside the basement, there were no cell phones, TVs, computers, or radios, not even a clock or a window, so he couldn’t even properly tell if it was day or night.

Jin was curled up on a cot in the corner of the warehouse, wrapped in a blanket. His clothes and shoes had been taken away as soon as he was captured here, so his body under the blanket was completely naked.

“A-choo! Cough, hack, hack……!”

As he sneezed, unable to withstand the cold, a cough burst out as if it had been waiting.

Once the herbal medicines and various pills that Chief Jeong and Jeha had diligently fed him morning and evening were cut off, Jin’s physical condition visibly deteriorated with each passing moment. His dizziness from low blood pressure and anemia worsened, and his head would spin even if he sat up slightly.

There was a toilet in one corner of the basement, but even when he went to urinate a couple of times a day, he had no clothes, so he had to wrap the blanket around his body to move. Later, his hands and feet grew numb from the cold, and it felt as if his blood was not circulating properly.

While Cheon Sagang was out on business, his subordinates guarded the first-floor office, watching to make sure Jin did not escape.

They would come down every few hours and toss bread and milk, which were obviously bought from a convenience store, onto Jin’s bed. Jin didn’t even have the energy to chew and swallow the bread, so he just barely managed to suck the cold milk through a straw.

Then, when Cheon Sagang came down, the iron door of the basement would be firmly locked. Lying on the bed, Jin watched with blurry eyes as Cheon Sagang, having returned from his outing, slowly took off his mustang jacket and casually draped it over the back of a chair.

When he had first seen him right after being kidnapped, his skin was even more swarthy than before, and the hollows under his eyes were so sunken that he looked like he was on his deathbed. But after a full day of holding Jin and ravishing him like a beast, his complexion brightened and his energy seemed to have recovered a great deal, as if he had eaten some kind of restorative food.

In contrast, Jin grew progressively thinner and more gaunt. Cheon Sagang, who had approached the bed where Jin was lying, clicked his tongue.

“Well, well, a hunger strike, is it? You’ve been chugging only milk for days and haven’t touched anything else.”

Cheon Sagang swept the bread piled up on one side of the bed with his hand, sending it clattering to the floor. Jin remained still without answering, clutching the blanket.

“You have to eat well to get chubby and healthy, hm? Nana.”

“My name is Jin. The ‘jin’ from ‘real’.”

“Nonsense. Living with that pervert professor has filled your lungs with too much bad air.”

“You’re the pervert. Not Jeha.”

“Shut up.”

Cheon Sagang violently grabbed Jin’s mouth with his large palm and brought his face right up to his.

“How long did you think you could live in a dream world?”

“Ughh……!”

“Do you even know where that professor bastard’s family is from? Haesung General Trading. They say it’s a quasi-chaebol, but it’s a company that has never fallen out of the top 10 in the international trade sector, a much more solid enterprise than some paltry chaebol. Is the youngest son of a family like that even suitable for you?”

Jin’s eyes, which were about to say, ‘Jeha loves me regardless of status or wealth,’ wavered for a moment. Jeha had never told him in detail about his family, so he had no idea they were that prominent.

Cheon Sagang removed his hand from Jin’s mouth and unbuckled his belt with a click.

“Sooner or later, once he got tired of you, you would have been thrown away immediately.”

“That’s not true. What do you know.”

“What did you do in that house other than receive treatment you didn’t deserve? With this frail body of yours, what more can you do for him? If anything, he’s probably feeling relieved that you’re gone and is looking for a less-demanding sex partner by now.”

Jin did not answer, but Cheon Sagang did not miss the deeply hurt look in his eyes. As he smiled creepily, unzipped his pants, and pulled out his half-erect member, Jin spoke in a tearful voice.

“You, why on earth are you doing this to me?”

“What are you talking about.”

“Why did you even mobilize gangsters to capture me? Jeha paid off all the debt. So aren’t we nothing to each other now?”

Cheon Sagang snorted and yanked the blanket off Jin, throwing it to the floor. Jin, who was already cold, flinched and curled up, but Cheon Sagang forced his body to lie straight. He muttered in an extremely low voice.

“Nothing to each other, you say?”

“Give me back the blanket! It’s cold! I feel like I’m going to freeze to death!”

“Think back properly. The longer you were away from me, didn’t you feel depressed and lose all will to live? You are a being who can absolutely not live without me.”

“Don’t give me that bullshit!”

Cheon Sagang slapped Jin, who was glaring and talking back, hard across the cheek with a hand that was as cold as an iron plate.

“Aack!”

“You used to be much more docile, carefully watching my mood. In the short time I wasn’t looking, you’ve picked up some bad habits and completely lost your manners.”

“Ack!”

As he struck the same spot a second and third time in succession, Jin’s cheek swelled up redly, and his lip burst, forming a drop of bright red blood. Cheon Sagang, licking up that blood deliciously as if it were honey, whispered in Jin’s ear.

“You are me, and I am you. We must always be together.”

“Hngh…… You crazy bastard. You’re a devil.”

Cheon Sagang licked Jin’s penis, which had shrunk from the cold, and then took it into his mouth. Tears once again flowed from Jin’s eyes, which were already raw and pink from crying so much.

Cheon Sagang’s body was always as cold as the air outside; he lacked the warmth that a human being should possess. Even the inside of his mouth, which held Jin’s lower parts, was not warm at all, but merely lukewarm.

Jin remembered Jeha, who, worried that he might be cold, would always turn on the hot water so excessively that the bathroom would be filled with white steam before he would finally let him take off his clothes and get into the bathtub. Jeha made Jin, who had a low body temperature, drink hot tea every day, had him wear cashmere sleeping socks even inside the house, and held him tight in his arms to sleep every night.

Jeha’s house was warm throughout, even the terrace, which was an outdoor space, but the warmest place of all had been in his arms. Jeha’s lips, which had kissed his entire body, and his mouth, which had caressed his penis, had been hot enough to melt all his flesh.

It had only been a few days since he had felt that warmth, but it already felt as distant as if years had passed. The area around his heart ached so much that Jin’s chest heaved as he sobbed.

Even as he continued to suck, Jin’s penis did not get hard, and Cheon Sagang’s expression crumpled into a deep frown. He wanted to use drugs to force an erection, but in such a weakened state, the side effects of the drug could lead to cardiac arrest.

Cheon Sagang, annoyed, spread Jin’s legs wide open. Placing his dark red shaft, with its bulging veins, at the entrance of Jin’s hole, Cheon Sagang said in a chilling voice.

“You’ll forget soon. A place so unrealistic was never yours to begin with.”

“Hic, sob……”

“I’ll make it so you can’t think of anything.”

As Cheon Sagang’s penis inconsiderately pushed into the unprepared hole, Jin let out a moan that was close to a scream and squeezed his eyes shut.

“What’s wrong? Didn’t you enjoy it with that pervert professor every day?”

“Sob, it hurts……”

“Every time, I was burning up all alone, like an earthworm thrown into the sunlight. Did you know?”

“Ah-heuk, it hurts! Fuck, it hurts like a bitch, you fucking bastard!”

“Hoo…… you’ll be comfortable soon. You and I were originally one.”

Jin loathed Cheon Sagang for spouting words he could not understand. He always forced Jin to ejaculate and then swallowed every last drop of his semen. The bizarre sexual behavior of Cheon Sagang himself, who never ejaculated no matter how much he climaxed, was utterly disgusting.

His cold hands touching him, the metallic coldness of his body against his skin, his lukewarm penis filling him tightly below—all of it was equally nauseating.

However, as the tedious time passed, where a day felt like a month, Jin was gradually consumed by resignation and despair. He even began to think that the place where he truly belonged was not Jeha’s house, but this warehouse. It was like the feeling a poor person who had won a stay at a five-star hotel would have after experiencing it for a short time and then returning to their palm-sized single room to lie down on their tattered blanket.

Old, shabby, miserable, and pathetic, but the familiarity and cheap sense of relief of having finally returned to where I belong. That was the emotion that slowly spread through Jin’s chest, trapped in Cheon Sagang’s grasp.

One day, he seriously doubted his own memories. Maybe it really was a dream. Was the existence of Jeha a fantasy created by Nana, who so desperately wanted to become ‘Jin’?

If so, it would have been better not to have had such a dream. If he had never known that warmth, perhaps the coldness now would be a little less painful. If he could cleanly erase all the undeserved affection with an eraser, his heart wouldn’t be burning up with this maddening longing.

“Hic, sob……”

The tears Jin shed while thinking of Jeha all flowed into Cheon Sagang’s mouth.

Four days passed like that, and on the evening of the fifth day, the smallest and thinnest of Cheon Sagang’s lackeys, who acted as an errand boy, came down to the basement.

He always dyed his hair orange, and because it looked like a carrot, he was called by the nickname ‘Carrot’. That Carrot threw a peanut sandwich from a 1+1 deal at a convenience store and a low-fat milk with a discount barcode because it was nearing its expiration date, with a pitcher-like pose.

“Hey, Red. Eat your dinner.”

Jin, who had only been able to drink milk for days, was lying down in a state of near exhaustion. Jin muttered in a dying voice, as if his life were fading.

“Why am I Red.”

“You’re naked, so you’re Red, you stupid bastard.”

Carrot snickered as he replied, then stared silently at Jin’s neat eyelashes as he lay with his eyes closed, the blanket pulled up to the bridge of his nose, and asked.

“Just how much did you borrow to end up with your clothes taken away and locked up like this?”

“……”

“The hyung-nims said that since you’re on your deathbed and they can’t even harvest your organs, the boss is just using you as his cum-dump. Is that true?”

“None of your business.”

“Hmph, you look as faint as a ghost, you dirty male prostitute, and you’re cheeky too.”

Feeling insulted by those words, Jin’s eyes flashed open. Carrot, who was startled by the unexpected confrontation with his large, dark eyes, quickly shot back in a fierce tone.

“What are you gonna do if I glare at you? You rent boy bastard. You just lie around like a bug all day, are you properly wiping the hole the boss shoots his cum into?”

His insults did not reach Jin. Jin’s eyes were fixed on the initial necklace hanging over the knit sweater Carrot was wearing.

Unlike the cheap plated chain, the pendant looked very luxurious, and it was the exact same N-shape as the one Jeha had given Jin before. It was slightly tilted, with elegant curves at both ends, and a small diamond embedded in the top right, making it instantly recognizable.

Chief Jeong had said that it was not a ready-made product but custom-ordered to Jeha’s desired design. Come to think of it, the thick white turtleneck knit sweater, the black cotton pants, and even the sneakers Carrot was wearing were all what Jin had been wearing when he was kidnapped.

Jin asked Carrot with a serious expression.

“Where did you get that necklace?”

“What? What do you want to know for?”

“Did you buy it, or did you find it?”

“Of course I bought it! You think I stole it like you?”

“What brand is it?”

“Would you even know if I told you? Birds of a feather flock together, a bastard who used to be a pickpocket is accusing someone of being a thief, what the fuck.”

“Then why are you wearing my clothes?”

“This bastard, I’ve been letting it slide, but really! Are you the chairman of this brand’s company? Are all these clothes sold in the country yours, you son of a bitch!”

His reaction, turning red-faced and getting angrier than necessary, was clearly suspicious.

The necklace that Jeha had spent a fortune on, equivalent to Chief Jeong’s three months’ salary, to protect Jin was hanging around the neck of a punk with a carrot head. The clothes and shoes that Jeha had taken Jin to the department store to personally pick out and put on him were not meant to be draped on the body of a bastard like this.

Something hot and indescribable surged up in Jin’s chest. He realized anew that anger could be a more powerful driving force for life than hope.

If I could just meet Jeha one last time. If I could just confirm whether all those days were a dream or not. Wouldn’t it be worth risking this pathetic life of mine, which is just uselessly lying around every day?

For the first time since he was locked in the basement, a small light entered Jin’s eyes, which had been dazed all along.