By Zephyria 
“I told my subordinate to tail Lee Eun-joo.”
The bear of a man with broad shoulders stood in a perfectly poised posture and reported.
“He says it looks like she is heading home.”
Confusion swarmed Eun-myeong’s mind like dark clouds. There was nothing at home, so why…?
Hoping there might be some trace of his noona left, he had scoured the house thoroughly several times. However, as if mocking the passing years, there was truly nothing left in the house. All that remained were shabby clothes, worn-out shoes, and a quilt with the stuffing bursting out. Why on earth would she go to a house like that?
‘He said she bought two tickets to Cheongdo for tomorrow.’
At that moment, the mention of the two tickets lingered in his head. Could she have come to get him…? Since no one would have answered even if he had called the house.
“Shall I go and bring her back alive?”
The bear asked. At that chilling question, Eun-myeong stiffened his neck. His pulse throbbed with such tension that it was almost visible.
“No.”
The man stood up in front of Eun-myeong. As the shadow grew larger and larger, Eun-myeong looked up at him with his mouth slightly agape. He let out sharp, ragged breaths.
“I’ll go myself.”
The man reached out and took the jacket that was above Eun-myeong. The soft fabric brushed against Eun-myeong’s stark white, bleached face.
“Customer….”
Eun-myeong grabbed the waist of the man as he slid his arms into the jacket. The man raised an eyebrow, as if saying, Hmm? That sharp, piercing gaze was unbearably uncomfortable and frightening.
“Could I… not be the one to pay it back…?”
His faint voice was drenched in desperation.
“Actually, I’m very good at slicing sashimi, I-I’m good at serving, and I’m good at weaving cast nets. When I’m fast, I can weave two a day. I’ll pay back everything you lost in your business too.”
He continued to add rambling sentences. Eun-myeong frantically searched his mind to embellish his insignificant self. He had no education and no muscles, so the things he managed to squeeze out were all utter rubbish.
Even so, Eun-myeong couldn’t stop talking out of sheer desperation. Despair wavered in his eyes, visible through his messily grown hair.
“I’ll barely eat, I won’t even sleep, I’ll just pay off the debt. So please, just leave my noona alone… is that, …not possible?”
There was no flicker of emotion on the man’s face. He looked as if he were observing a boring movie from a distance.
“Why should I?”
The returning tone was chillingly cold. As if refusing to allow any further pleading, the man turned and walked away. Eun-myeong’s slender arms dropped limply to his sides.
“Cu-Customer….”
His back grew more distant. Looking up at him from the wardrobe, Eun-myeong quickly pushed himself up. The soles of his feet, which hadn’t fully healed, hurt, but he endured the stinging sensation. As he stepped on the marble floor, it felt as if dozens of toothpicks were stabbing into his tender flesh.
“Boss….”
He remembered the title the bear and the sashimi restaurant aunties used to call him and repeated it. No matter how much he hurried, the man continued to drift away, which felt cruel.
Just as his fingertips were about to catch the jacket, he tripped on the rug and fell. The world spun violently, and he slammed face-first into the rug.
Silence instantly fell over the hotel. He felt the man’s gaze piercing the back of his neck. A truly miserable situation. Eun-myeong continued to speak haltingly.
“It must have been because of me.”
His pronunciation was muffled, his mouth pressed into the rug.
“The orphanage director… he, I…. He raised me thinking I was an Omega….”
Eun-myeong struggled to push his upper body up. The arms he used to brace himself on the floor trembled violently. The brown fibers of the rug were damp. His crying face was imprinted on the rug as if it had been stamped there.
“And then he sold me to some old chairman….”
It was then that the man approached with heavy steps. He stepped ruthlessly over the rug and grabbed Eun-myeong’s chin in his hand.
“Tell me more.”
He whispered. Despite having shown not a shred of interest until now, surprisingly, a sticky, peculiar glint flickered in his eyes. Eun-myeong saw a sliver of hope.
“He was in his 70s. He said he needed an Omega to bear a child.”
“And?”
Eun-myeong swallowed hard. Then, he slowly parted his lips.
It was the year he became an adult. As he was packing his things to leave the orphanage, the Director called him into the director’s office. Inside, there was an old man.
‘This is the man who will be your husband.’
The greasy, glistening gaze fixed upon him was terrifying and frightening. He wanted to run away, but knowing that anywhere in Gyeryong Bay was ultimately within the Director’s grasp, Eun-myeong was dragged to the old man’s mansion.
“And then.”
That was when the problem occurred.
“When I was tested, it turned out I was a Beta….”
He, too, had lived his whole life believing he was an Omega. But he wasn’t, and every time doctors tested him afterward, the result was the same. No matter what anyone said, Eun-myeong was a Beta.
‘Relying on nothing but a decent face, where did this kind of thing roll into my house?’
The old chairman slapped Eun-myeong’s cheeks several times. In the end, he was kicked out of the mansion with his clothes all torn. He had been “refunded.” Naturally, the Director had to cough back up the price paid for Eun-myeong’s body. That amount was a staggering 200 million won.
‘I fed you and gave you a place to sleep, and you stab me in the back like this? You useless, worm-like brat! I’ll strip you naked and feed you to the fish before you come to your senses, eh?’
The Director’s cruelty reached its peak. Eun-myeong was stripped naked and locked in the director’s office for days. In the boiler room, which was barely a hand-span wide and attached to the office, he shivered without even water, only to be dragged out occasionally just to be beaten. It was the kind of corporal punishment inflicted on a disobedient child.
…And then, a week after escaping the director’s office, the Director made Eun-myeong take out a private loan from the sashimi restaurant owner.
“He made me borrow 200 million won in private loans from the sashimi restaurant owner….”
Most of the children at the orphanage left the facility burdened with private debt. The Director claimed it was getting back the cost of raising them. Eun-joo noona was charged 20 million won, and the other children were around that level.
But Eun-myeong was different. The 200 million won that had gone into the Director’s pocket was placed directly onto Eun-myeong as a burden. The debt bred and multiplied among themselves, swelling to an unmanageable amount that strangled Eun-myeong’s breath.
“That’s probably why my noona did it.”
The man grabbed Eun-myeong’s cheek with one hand and pulled him closer.
“You’re really a Beta?”
Eun-myeong hesitated to answer. It might have been better to say he was an Omega to get a higher price for himself.
“Yes.”
However, Eun-myeong nodded. Tears streamed down, leaving his cheeks damp and cold.
“If I were an Omega, the sashimi restaurant owner… would have tried to sell me off long ago.”
But he now knew that the price to pay after being discovered as a non-Omega was far too horrific. If Eun-joo noona hadn’t stormed into the director’s office and shouted that she would report him to the police while he was locked up, Eun-myeong might have truly been beaten to death then.
“C-Could I go too? Please take me with you, please….”
Noona hated the Director more than death. The reason she hated bad deeds was very simple. Since the Director was a bad person who did illegal things indiscriminately for money, she naturally came to despise him.
And such a noona had sent crabs to the Director. Moreover, an Omega estrus inducer…. Though he didn’t know for sure, it must have been because of a pathetic and lacking person like him. Eun-myeong could not just leave his noona like this.
“Please, Boss.”
He begged the man desperately. He wanted to read the man’s inner thoughts, but as usual, his face didn’t even blink an eyebrow. Only that gaze, those pupils, glistened with interest like they were soaked in oil.
“Please let me go too.”
He couldn’t let the man leave like this. If he could at least follow, he might be able to persuade the man further.
And….
He wanted to confirm with his own eyes that his noona was alive. For too long, he had lived in a hell of repeated worries and anxieties that she might have come to harm. After that, he didn’t care what happened to himself.
Soon, the man gave a short nod. He had succeeded in capturing his interest. Only then did Eun-myeong let out a long sigh.
It was one piece of luck amidst ten thousand misfortunes.
The car sped forward. Eun-myeong stared blankly outside. With his fingers, he kept picking at a hangnail. When he scratched the part where a scab had formed, blood burst out again.
“…….”
As they got closer to the house, he was restless with anxiety.
Soon, the car crawled into the familiar alley. However, the front gate of the house, buried in darkness, was open. Eun-myeong quickly got out of the backseat. The thug who said he was tailing the noona was standing in front of the house.
“You’ve arrived, Boss.”
He bent his waist at a 90-degree angle and guided the man toward the house.
“Lee Eun-joo is hiding inside the house.”
Eun-myeong quickly hurried forward. As he limped across the threshold, the lights inside the house were off. It was so silent that not even the sound of insects could be heard. To anyone else, it would seem as if the house were empty.
“Noona….”
Was she holding her breath for fear of being caught by someone else? As Eun-myeong approached the house calling her softly, there was a loud crashing sound, and the door opened.
“…Eun-myeong.”
And the woman who appeared had disheveled hair and eyes that were damp. Her clothes were utterly shabby, as if she had just thrown on whatever she could find, and her socks were mismatched.
“Noo-na,” Eun-myeong whispered.