HWAMB — Chapter 42

At my alarmed voice, he answered curtly, “Money can buy anything.”

This was bad.

The more unstable the person, the worse it got in situations like this. Provoking him would only make things worse.

So I forced myself to speak quietly, suppressing my temper.

“…I won’t fight. Just untie this. My arms hurt.”

“…”

“Or at least take off the blindfold.”

I groaned pitifully on purpose. Jae-ho didn’t answer. He stayed silent, probably thinking it over.

Footsteps drew closer.

I tensed, my tied body stiffening. A moment later, Jae-ho freed my arms.

At least my wrists had a little freedom again.

“What about my eyes?”

“That depends on how you act.”

“Then my legs.”

“…”

“You bastard… You’ve got guys stationed outside anyway. And I can’t even run with my ankle like this…”

He ignored the question completely.

The Jae-ho standing here now was different from the one in the alley.

I couldn’t read his expression. That only made him feel more threatening than before.

In the long silence, I gave up waiting for an answer and asked another question.

“…What time is it. Where are we.”

“Who knows.”

“My phone.”

“Oh… that? It wouldn’t stop buzzing, so I smashed it. Too noisy.”

That bastard—do you know how expensive that was? Even when riled up, he never thought things through.

Watching me curse inwardly, Jang Jae-ho let out a small laugh.

“Relax, I’m kidding. I just left it back in the alley where you passed out.”

“…”

“Enough already. Untie me. Doing this won’t solve anything.”

“Won’t solve anything? It’s easy. You know what. All you have to do is promise to take responsibility for me.”

Responsibility? He said it like it was nothing, though it was a demand far heavier than he could ever handle.

Quietly, Jae-ho said,

“You don’t know. No, you won’t even try to know. That I kept coming to find you because things were so bad for me.”

“Bad for you?”

“Why do you think I was barefoot?”

“That’s…”

When I couldn’t answer right away, he replied simply.

According to him, after the fight at school with me, his already strained relationship with his family collapsed further.

He’d always been a troublemaker, but this time his father was furious. He told Jae-ho to take a break from school and put him under house arrest for a year.

What’s more, his father—usually indifferent—suddenly cracked down this harshly because of Shim Hyun-woo, he said bitterly.

I’d only heard that he transferred schools, but it seemed that wasn’t the truth.

Come to think of it, Hyun-woo did seem to know him… Maybe their families had ties through business.

And Jae-ho always did hate Hyun-woo more than seemed normal.

“Do you know what it’s like to feel watched every day? How fucking suffocating it is? At first the security was sloppy, so sneaking out was easy, but today it was tough. I was in such a rush I couldn’t even grab my shoes.”

‘And yet here you are having people follow me around, you psycho,’ I thought, swallowing it down.

The smug pride in his voice made me want to slam a fist into his gut again, but I forced the anger back.

In this situation, already at a massive disadvantage, the last thing I needed was to provoke him into violence.

So I hid my real feelings and spoke as calmly as I could.

“Hey, Jang Jae-ho. If you seriously want to have a conversation with me, take this blindfold off. And just so you know, I’m not threatening you. If you want an honest conversation, you need to look into each other’s eyes. Right?”

I dressed up the words, coaxing him.

After a short silence, he seemed to think it over, then quietly removed the blindfold.

The sudden brightness, after being in the dark so long, made everything blur.

I couldn’t yet make out distant objects, but I could see nearby things clearly enough.

The first thing I saw was Jang Jae-ho, right in front of me.

Unlike when we fought earlier, he was wearing shoes now.

The stranger he’d been talking to was gone, as if making sure no one would see his face.

Unlike his earlier confident words, Jae-ho now looked nervous, fidgeting with a box cutter—sliding the blade in and out again and again.

So that was the sound I’d been hearing all along.

When I tensed and stared at it, Jae-ho noticed and rushed to reassure me.

“Ah… this? It’s just a charm. When I hear the sound, it weirdly calms me down. I’m not gonna hurt you, so relax.”

‘…That’s already more than threatening enough…’

Kidnapped by a violent hothead, trapped with a blade in his hands—no amount of excuses could make it feel safe.

He was still someone who could harm me.

And I didn’t want to end up tomorrow’s news headline: “Omega found dead in back alley.”

As my blurred vision cleared, the rest of the space came into focus.

I took a slow look around. The place was bleak—an old warehouse, from the looks of it.

Was there really such a desolate warehouse near here, one where no one would question a guard standing outside?

I forced myself to think.

The warehouse wasn’t very big. The scene wasn’t surprising—except for one detail.

As I searched instinctively for an escape, I realized there were no windows.

It was a completely sealed space.

A chill ran through me.

The door was firmly shut, unmoving.

My head spun.

My breathing, already shaky, turned suffocating.

I’d planned to stall for time, stringing along nonsense until I could find a way out, but it was all wiped clean from my head.

I couldn’t even process what Jae-ho was saying anymore.

Shit. Shit.

I darted my eyes frantically around for even a tiny window. Nothing.

A piercing ringing filled my ears. Jae-ho grabbed my shoulder, shaking me roughly, shouting something I couldn’t hear.

Whenever I clawed my way back to reality, I was dragged into the swamp of old memories again. And each time I tried to crawl out, the swamp gripped my legs tighter.

Then it happened.

From outside, faint sirens. Jae-ho’s face turned pale with panic.

The cramped warehouse, the wail of sirens—

It was the same sound.

The earsplitting crash, followed by sirens. Why are nightmares always carved so deep into the brain that they never fade?

My body curled up on its own.

Beside me, Jae-ho cursed, yanking his hood over his head.

He rushed to the door, throwing it open.

Outside, a man said something to him, and Jae-ho shouted, slamming his foot into the wall.

Clang, crash!

A stack of metal pipes toppled, making a racket.

“Fuck, can’t you do your job right? Don’t you want to get paid?!”

Soon angry shouting filled the air. I just… didn’t want to think anymore.

Even the sound of my own heavy breathing was unbearable, so I covered my ears to block out the noise.

It’s okay, it’s okay.

Whenever I was caught in nightmares like this, Hyun-woo would cover my ears for me, whispering those words.

It’s okay, it’s okay.

But it wasn’t okay.

Not without him.

Not at all.

The old trick, the mantra that once worked, failed without Hyun-woo by my side.

All it did was remind me how fragile a person could be when crushed by trauma. I was exhausted, terrified.

Why did this have to happen to me?

‘I’m so tired.’

What did our parents ever do to deserve what happened?

What did I do to deserve this bastard’s obsession?

The shock of today tangled with old traumas until it all blurred into one mess.

I was still trapped in that deep, damp swamp of memory, unable to crawl free.

How much time had passed?

The shouting outside faded into silence.

Had I lost it, or was there really no one left?

Deep inside, something fragile was breaking.

Had Jae-ho run from the sirens? If so, did he leave the door open? If he shut it, what then?

Slowly, I pulled my hands away from my ears.

Nothing. No sound.

The strangers were gone. Jae-ho was gone.

‘Bastard, you could’ve at least untied my legs…’

I didn’t even need to look around. The cold silence answered for me.

Just as I lifted my head to scan the room, a deafening sound tore through my ears.

The screech of a car braking hard, a sharp scream, then the crash of impact.

I slammed my hands back over my ears and bowed my head.

The vivid memory ripped into me like knives, shredding my chest.

My breath caught, sweat pouring down my face. My back was soaked through.

I couldn’t dare to look.

If the door was shut, would I suffocate? Would I die here, just like that? I kept my eyes locked on the ground.

The floor seemed to tremble with my panic.

Finally, unable to bear it, I squeezed my eyes shut tight.

* * *

After running frantically for a long while, Jang Jae-ho finally stopped, gasping for breath.

He had no idea how the police had found this place, but it seemed the commotion back at the night market where he first grabbed Kang Eun-jae must have drawn too much attention.

‘Good thing I know the back roads.’

He’d already given his hired men directions, so they should’ve slipped away safely. At least, he thought, getting caught would do him no good anyway.

The only stroke of luck, he figured, was that the abandoned warehouse he’d used was halfway up the back mountain—a confusing, out-of-the-way place. Hidden beneath thick trees, it was nearly impossible to find unless someone looked closely.

‘Still… I should’ve managed a proper talk with him.’

Jae-ho stopped again, looking back with lingering regret.

He couldn’t get out of his mind the way Eun-jae suddenly broke down into unexplained panic before he left. But there was no time to sit down and talk.

Jae-ho was worried about him, but it couldn’t be helped. If his father found out about this, he’d be as good as dead.

The last time, his father had slapped him across the face without warning, shouting, “Because of you, we lost the chairman’s son’s favor and jeopardized the deal!”

On instinct, Jae-ho slowly touched the cheek that had been struck before.

‘Damn it… if it weren’t for that bastard Shim Hyun-woo…’

Grinding down his anger, he began piecing together his next plan in his head.