By Zephyria 
“Yes, that’s true, but why here…?”
Eun-myeong asked, his nerves on edge. Only then did Jun-il give a beaming smile, showing a face that Eun-myeong recognized.
“I heard rumors that this place is an illegal extension. I was a bit scared to wander around such a large place alone, so I asked for some guidance.”
He was playing a joke, claiming to be scared with a build like that. Eun-myeong let out a small sigh of disbelief. Jun-il had said he was a civil servant, and indeed, they had crossed paths a few times while he was investigating residential conditions.
But why did he feel so strange?
Without realizing it, Eun-myeong frowned slightly. A sudden question popped into his head. Why was someone from Seoul wandering around Gyeryong Bay to this extent? There were civil servants here too…
“Shall we go down first?”
Eun-myeong hunched his shoulders. In his heart, he wanted to turn back right then and there, but he felt it would look strange to back out now.
“…Yes.”
Reluctantly, he followed Jun-il downstairs. The sound of steady footsteps filled the silence.
But it was strange. There was no sign of any human presence in this large building. The orphanage was as empty as a hollow cave. Dust had piled up thick, and weeds grew wildly through the gaps in the wood. It looked as though it had been abandoned for a long time.
As Eun-myeong looked around in confusion, Jun-il explained for him.
“I heard the orphanage was moved in its entirety to another location. This place is practically abandoned now.”
Something like that must have happened without his knowledge.
He navigated through various parts of the building. He would open a door with a creak and give the inside a cursory glance. Creak, creak—the old wooden floors groaned loudly.
The pace of Eun-myeong, following behind him, grew slower and slower.
To Eun-myeong, the orphanage was literally like a living, breathing monster. In front of that window, he had to slam his head against the floor until his forehead bled because he left some onions. In that corner, he had to kneel while covered in a damp blanket because he had wet the bed. He had suffered all day from cramps in his calves…
As memories surfaced one after another, Eun-myeong felt as if he had crawled back into a nightmare itself.
And finally, it was the long-awaited director’s office.
“Oh, is this the director’s office?”
Jun-il muttered to himself as he swung the door to the director’s office wide open. Thump, Eun-myeong’s heart dropped heavily. Thump, thump, thump… Eun-myeong stood to one side, like a child awaiting punishment.
Jun-il rummaged through the interior carelessly, as if he were someone on a field trip. He even swung open the boiler room door.
At that moment, the Omega estrus inducer he had hidden over there flashed through Eun-myeong’s mind. Fearing that the man might discover it, he couldn’t even bring himself to look in that direction.
His heart was racing with anxiety, terrified that he might find something…
“Well, there’s nothing much here, is there?”
Fortunately, Jun-il didn’t see anything unusual and left the director’s office. Eun-myeong let out a small sigh of relief.
Then, the man’s gaze stopped in front of a very large mirror in the hallway. It was a mirror that even Eun-myeong was seeing for the first time. Jun-il peered intently into the mirror. Eun-myeong thought he was checking his own reflection, but then he spoke.
“Was the director and CEO Kang Pyeong-won originally acquainted?”
The man suddenly brought up the CEO. Startled, Eun-myeong looked over and saw the name ‘Kangsung Kang Pyeong-won’ engraved at the bottom of the mirror. Jun-il muttered while staring at the dirty mirror. Eun-myeong instinctively hunched his shoulders.
“Yes, because of me….”
Eun-myeong answered hesitantly. What on earth was Jun-il thinking? Because he couldn’t read his intentions at all, Eun-myeong’s heart pounded with anxiety.
“You must be sad that the director passed away.”
“Yes, ah, well…, yes. He was someone I followed like a father, after all.”
Eun-myeong stammered through his words. He spoke mechanically, as if reciting from a textbook.
“I don’t think so. I heard he was a terrible person.”
At that response, Eun-myeong almost asked how he knew. But come to think of it, the director’s atrocities had already been fully exposed through news and newspaper articles.
“I heard he tormented the children at this orphanage terribly.”
And Eun-myeong had been at the center of it. Because his growth had been exceptionally slow since childhood, he would wet the bed or fail to eat his meals, and he was frequently dragged to the director’s office under the guise of needing “education” every day.
“…….”
Then, did Jun-il ask if he was sad about the director’s death even after reading those articles?
The confusion only intensified due to the contradictory nature of the conversation. Eun-myeong unconsciously took a step back.
“Eun-myeong, you asked me earlier who did that to my car, right?”
The topic jumped suddenly. What was he trying to say? Eun-myeong could only look up at him with wavering eyes.
“After I dropped you off yesterday.”
“Yes….”
Eun-myeong nodded slightly, trying to shake off the encroaching sense of dread.
“When I returned to the inn, it was a disaster. The doorknob was ripped off, the floor was covered in footprints, and the window was broken.”
Eun-myeong squeezed his eyes shut. The Boss has truly gone crazy…
He felt he didn’t even need to ask who did it to know. Moreover, bringing this up at this timing meant…
It meant that the man who did that to the car was also the one who did this.
“The person in the room next to mine said they were too scared to come out because that guy was acting like a complete lunatic.”
Because the mirror was clouded with dirt, Eun-myeong’s face wasn’t reflected. However, he knew for sure that he must have a look of horror on his face right now.
Why on earth did you do that? Why did you do that to a civil servant of all people?
“You said the director was a good person….”
Jun-il muttered as if talking to himself. Then, the words that followed were a question directed at him.
“Then, is Kang Pyeong-won a good person too?”
Thump, it felt as if his chest were being crushed in a mortar. He could never call that man a good person, even as a white lie. His heart hammered.
“CEO Kang Pyeong-won is….”
He is not a good person; he is clearly a bad human being. But it’s not because he’s a good person that I like him.
As Eun-myeong tried to babble some sort of excuse, Jun-il cut him off, as if telling him he didn’t need to bother.
“Actually, I heard everything in the early morning. The conversation you were having.”
Eun-myeong squeezed his eyes shut. He heard it.
Not only that, but he had also seen the sight of the Boss grabbing him by the collar. Because he hated the Boss trying to tear his clothes, and because he hated how the man tried to handle him so recklessly as if he weren’t his own, he had been struggling.
“Eun-myeong, if you grow up under a low-life, you might not know who is a bad person and who is a kind person.”
He knew. He now knew very well why his Noona had repeatedly warned him not to open his heart to others so easily.
“I was curious why you would get entangled with a bastard like that.”
Jun-il looked down at Eun-myeong with a determined gaze, as usual. Every word he spoke pierced through the silence.
“I heard about it from your Noona too.”
“My Noona?”
Startled, Eun-myeong whipped around toward Jun-il. The face of his Noona from that morning floated before him. Her face, looking as if she had something to say while eating bean sprout soup, was vivid in his mind.
“I heard that you’re only trapped there because of debt, Eun-myeong.”
“That’s not it.”
Eun-myeong shook his head. He tried to defend the man once more, saying that wasn’t the case, but the words that followed tied his tongue like a rope.
“I heard you even reported him to the police in the past, Eun-myeong.”
Boom, his heart sank. Eun-myeong’s mouth hung open slightly, as if someone had pulled his jaw down.
“Ah….”
Jun-il was looking at him. His eyes were calm, as if observing his reaction. Eun-myeong couldn’t bring himself to continue. To ask how he knew would be to openly admit that he had indeed done such a thing.
And to deny it would be futile, as Jun-il was a government employee. Regardless of his rank, this was a fact that could be discovered simply by making one phone call to the police station.
“Eun-myeong, I told you I was a civil servant, right.”
Eun-myeong looked down at his forearm. Goosebumps broke out across his pale skin. Ever since he realized Jun-il’s car was heading toward the orphanage, a chill had been running through his entire body.
Why do I keep getting chills? And it feels a bit strange that my Noona, who was always so sensitive, would reveal my story so easily…
“But why, why would someone from Seoul go this far….”
At Eun-myeong’s guarded words, Jun-il let out a deep sigh. Finally, he spoke.
“Actually, I’m a police officer.”
For a moment, Eun-myeong almost bit his tongue hard.
It was an unimaginable revelation, but once he heard it, the broken puzzle pieces seemed to snap into place. The skillful way he had subdued the pervert, the fact that he knew Eun-myeong had reported the man to the police, and the righteous, upright aura emanating from him.
He was in trouble. He was in big trouble….
“I’ll help you, Eun-myeong.”
Eun-myeong instinctively tried to step back, but he bumped into the mirror behind him. Kang, Pyeong, Won. It was the mirror engraved with the Boss’s name.
“So that you can get away from that scum, Kang Pyeong-won—so that you can escape.”