#98

After having her young daughter wait inside the house, Lee Hong-eun led Jung-hyun to a small clearing at the edge of the hill.

It was a place where a few old pieces of exercise equipment sat like piles of trash, as if no one in the neighborhood ever used them. Or perhaps, the people here simply lacked the time or mental leeway to stroll through a park and use such equipment.

“I did it because they offered me a lot of money.”

There, she lit a cigarette, took a drag from the filter, and then spoke.

“I figured that even if side effects occurred, you’re rich, so you wouldn’t be struggling for money like people like us. I thought this much wouldn’t matter.”

Jung-hyun kept his hands in his coat pockets, watching the cigarette smoke scatter into the air.

“To be honest, I also thought of it as a chance to get back at your mother. Every time I went to the center, she was a woman who did nothing but spout bullshit, calling me an Omega bitch and telling me not to act cheap around her son.”

A clear sense of hostility surfaced in the woman’s eyes.

“The thought of administering Omega pheromones—the very thing that woman hates so much—to her precious son… it was thrilling.”

“…….”

“If I had known I’d be caught so easily, I wouldn’t have done it. In the end, I didn’t even get the money….”

Lee Hong-eun put out her cigarette and whipped her head around toward Jung-hyun.

“But how did you know? You haven’t come to get pheromones for a while.”

Pure curiosity was written on her face. Jung-hyun stared blankly at her face, then impulsively blurted out something he had no intention of sharing.

“Because I became an Omega.”

“……What?”

“And I’m even pregnant.”

He wondered what kind of expression this brazen woman would make upon hearing this. Lee Hong-eun’s face froze strangely.

“I thought I had a cold that wouldn’t go away for several months, but it turns out that was the manifestation fever. If you had told me the truth when I requested a pheromone level test, maybe it wouldn’t have progressed to pregnancy.”

It was a useless hypothetical at this point, but Jung-hyun just spat out whatever came to mind. He needed someone to blame. He wanted to shift the responsibility and condemn someone.

“No, if you had just a little more conscience, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”

This woman fit the role perfectly. Even if she had been hired by someone else, wasn’t she a perpetrator with a clear motive? Therefore, he felt he had every right to pour this out on her.

“Do you think the only thing you’ve ruined is my life?”

Lee Hong-eun’s eyes trembled like aspen leaves.

“No. My body is bound to the family, so ruining my life is no different from ruining Myeong-jeong.”

He wasn’t unaware that what he was doing was just as vulgar as the actions of his mother or Kwon Ki-hyuk. Yet, he couldn’t stop himself.

“You’ll have to pay damages to the Myeong-jeong Group. …Can you handle that? I’m asking if you’re prepared to spend the rest of your life in prison.”

Jung-hyun looked down at the woman with a razor-sharp expression.

“How much do you think the compensation will be? In my opinion, it would be difficult to pay it back even if you sold all the organs of both you and your daughter.”

“……M-Mr. Jung-hyun.”

She collapsed to her knees on the cold ground.

“I-I’m sorry. I was wrong. I didn’t know it would turn out like this. I really didn’t. The person who ordered me said there wouldn’t be any big problems, just that the levels would rise a bit. I only did it because I believed those words….”

“…….”

“C-could you please forgive me just this once…? My daughter is only in first grade. I didn’t even get the money from that bastard, so I have no savings. Even this house only has a deposit of 5 million won.”

“…….”

The woman, who until a moment ago acted as if she felt not a shred of guilt for her actions, was now trembling and begging for forgiveness after a few words.

“Somang is a child born from being raped during her first heat…. Because of that, I was disowned by my family, and I’ve never received proper compensation from that son of a bitch. Somang only has me. And I only have Somang….”

Despite hearing the apology he wanted, a deep sense of lethargy hit his entire body. Meanwhile, he could hear the sobbing voice of the woman who was practically crawling on the ground.

“I hate being an Omega to death too. I feel like I’m going crazy! If I had money, I wanted to give my daughter plenty of Alpha pheromones. But I’m too busy just trying to put food on the table, and my daughter’s Omega manifestation levels are already incredibly high….”

“…….”

“That’s why I hated you and your mother so much. Because you people can buy those expensive pheromones without a second thought….”

Jung-hyun remained silent for a long time. In the chilly clearing, only the sound of her sobbing echoed.

When he lifted his gaze, he looked down upon a fairly atmospheric night view. It was a modest night view, deeply imbued with the feeling of everyday life, different from the glamorous night view of the city.

It was similar to the night view he used to watch while waiting for his mother. A story from a time when his mother was the only person on his side in the world.

Was he happy watching that? Or was he miserable? Now, he couldn’t remember at all.

Lee Hong-eun and her daughter resembled himself and his mother when they were young. Perhaps that was why he could understand the hatred she held.

To his mother, he must have looked deceptive—ignoring Lee Hong-eun to avoid upsetting her mood, only to pretend to be on her side behind her back. To her, he probably wasn’t any different from his mother.

Therefore, it wasn’t her fault that he became an Omega, that he got pregnant, or that everything was ruined because of it. In the end, it was his own fault. It was the result of the arrogance he developed while being protected within his mother’s pride.

He had known it all along. Despite knowing, he had climbed up to this shabby place searching for a weak target to pour his surging rage upon.

Just as Kwon Ki-hyuk took out his anger toward his father on him. A surge of nausea rose within him from the disgust he felt toward himself.

“…Get up.”

Jung-hyun spoke with a sigh.

The woman looked up at him, her face covered in tear stains.

“It’s too cold a day to be kneeling on the bare ground.”

“…….”

Lee Hong-eun stood up, glancing at him tentatively. As he watched her brush the dirt off her knees, Jung-hyun slowly spoke.

“I’ll ask a few things. Who is the person who paid you to do this?”

“…I don’t know who it is. I just suddenly got a text from an unknown number. At first, I thought it was voice phishing, so I didn’t reply, but then 3 million won was deposited into my account as a down payment.”

“And then?”

“They told me to report the pheromones I injected into you and the dosage every week. They said they’d pay the rest in one lump sum once the job was done. But about a month ago, that number started showing up as a non-existent number.”

“So that’s why you didn’t get the money.”

“Yes…. Only then did I get scared that I’d gotten involved in something unnecessary. That’s why I stopped.”

“Can you give me that number you said is gone? And the contents of the texts you exchanged?”

The nurse nodded and immediately sent the number and screenshots of the texts to Jung-hyun.

It was an unknown number to Jung-hyun as well, but for some reason, the last four digits felt familiar. When he searched for the number in his contacts, one saved contact popped up.

The last four digits were the same as the second phone used by the chief of staff that Kwon Ki-hyuk kept around.

“…….”

It was no longer surprising or shocking. Without any expression on his face, Jung-hyun put his phone back in his pocket.

Beside him, the nurse spoke in an anxious voice.

“I’ll do everything Mr. Jung-hyun tells me to, so could you please just let me have one last dinner with my daughter today?”

“…….”

“I know I’m being shameless. But I told my daughter we’d have chicken after work today, so she must be looking forward to it. We usually only eat it on special days like birthdays, but Somang got a hundred on her spelling test yesterday….”

Jung-hyun looked at her quietly, then took a leather wallet from inside his coat. He pulled out all the 50,000-won bills in the wallet and held them out in front of her.

The woman looked back and forth between the money and Jung-hyun’s face with a puzzled expression.

“……What is this?”

“Use this money to have a delicious dinner with your daughter.”

The nurse hesitantly took the money.

“…I’m sorry. When morning comes, I’ll go to the police station in front of here and turn myself in. But I’m truly sorry, could you please, please show me a little leniency? If I go to prison, Somang will….”

“You don’t need to turn yourself in. I won’t report you or sue you.”

“What…?”

“Be good to your daughter.”

Leaving the stunned woman behind, Jung-hyun abruptly turned around.

In the dark and quiet alley, only the sound of Jung-hyun’s dress shoes echoed lonelily.

99 – Puck Drop