MIM 30

“Cute. A boy?”

Shin-woo smiled as he received the photo. Yoon-sung nodded desperately.

“Yes.”

“What’s his name?”

Why is he asking the name? Yoon-sung glanced up at Shin-woo and quickly lowered his gaze. He couldn’t bring himself to tell such a man his child’s name. Why was he interested? As this thought crossed his mind, a chill ran down his spine.

Surely not.

“If you’re from Bihyang, we’re neighbors.”

At these words, Yoon-sung’s heart sank. He blinked blankly, trying to calm his racing heart.

While investigating his personal information would be nothing for someone like Shin-woo, Yoon-sung never thought he’d actually do it. On second thought, it wasn’t that he had free time, but rather that he was malicious. This man was more than capable of harming his child too.

“My wife knew nothing! And the child is innocent. If you’re going to kill someone, kill me, but please leave my family alone!”

Any further delay could lead to greater harm. Following his chilling intuition, Yoon-sung quickly bit the hem of his clothes. Without time to fuss with removing his socks and shoes, he immediately spread his right hand flat on the floor. As he looked up with a resolute expression, Shin-woo raised his rounded eyebrows.

He approached with a hollow laugh, adjusting his grip on the knife. The knife tip pointed towards the floor, just above Yoon-sung’s hand. Unable to muster the courage to watch, Yoon-sung squeezed his eyes shut.

“With such a vivid imagination, you should be able to live well even without a few fingers.”

“……”

“It might sting a bit.”

A bang resonated in his ears, accompanied by excruciating pain that made his jaw drop. Saliva dribbled out of his mouth along with the cloth he had been biting. Yoon-sung screamed. In the pool of blood, he could see his severed ring and little fingers.

Two fingers had been cut off. The cross-section was perfectly clean.

“Shh… It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s over.”

A low voice continuously soothed Yoon-sung. Through his blurry vision, he saw Shin-woo’s hands, covered in bright red blood, picking up the severed fingers and dropping them into the milk. Without any sign of discomfort, Shin-woo expertly applied gauze soaked in saline to the amputation site to stop the bleeding. The buzzing in his ears and the haziness before his eyes made the situation feel unreal. Yoon-sung gasped as if he might pass out at any moment.

“Hoo, huu, heh, huk, huuu… ha.”

“Ah, it’s alright. You can still work without a few fingers. You’re a good father, so you need to work, right?”

“Heuk, uwek… uk, heu.”

“I have a position to maintain, so I can’t let you go unscathed. You understand, right?”

Shin-woo continued to comfort Yoon-sung with soothing sounds. He had said he’d cut off five, so were there three more to go? Terrified of when the knife might strike again, Yoon-sung was paralyzed with fear. After waiting for a while with no sign of him calming down, Shin-woo clicked his tongue and threw the knife far away.

It’s over. Really over. Can you pull yourself together now? You’re being overly dramatic.

Haah…

These days, I’ve used up all my patience on the young master, I don’t have any left for you.

Hey? Yoon-sung.

The moment he heard his name, Yoon-sung snapped back to reality. He lifted his wet eyelids dazedly. Light brown eyes approached right up to his face, as if they had been waiting, pinning him in place.

“Now, listen carefully.”

“Y-yes, yes…”

“If you touch a single hair on the young master’s head.”

Even if I become a wandering ghost with my entire body burned, I’ll come back for revenge.

Go tell that woman the same thing.

His voice penetrated Yoon-sung’s ears, resonating in his skull. After taking a step back from Yoon-sung, who was nodding mechanically in a daze, Shin-woo clapped his hands with a sharp sound.

“What are you doing? Move quickly. If you take them to the hospital right away, they might be able to reattach them.”

“…Pardon?”

“Run!”

When Shin-woo suddenly thrust his face forward, Yoon-sung jumped in surprise. He fled without looking back, as if in a trance. Even in his haste, he didn’t forget the milk cup, leaving a trail of dirty pink stains mixed with blood along his escape route.

“I’ll need to wash up.”

Shin-woo frowned as he looked down at his shirt splattered with blood. He couldn’t greet Jae-seung looking like this. Clicking his tongue, he checked the time and leisurely began unbuttoning his sleeve.

It hadn’t even taken 30 minutes, let alone an hour.

* * *

He thought his puberty was long past. Sitting in the middle of the student cafeteria, Shin-woo picked up his spoon, feeling the countless stares pouring his way. Despite clearly knowing everyone was looking, Jae-seung sat with his head held high, smirking defiantly.

It was his own form of rebellion. Shin-woo, who knew Jae-seung well, could see it.

Jae-seung had been in a bad mood since getting ready for school this morning. Though he tried to hide it, he was sullen and barely touched his breakfast. He spent an unusually long time in front of the mirror, then threw a fit in front of the garage, insisting on taking the best car to school. Shin-woo learned the reason for his fuss about cars, a subject he knew nothing about, while checking his phone during class.

Articles about Jae-seung were all over every portal site. The internet was buzzing with posts and articles with variations on the title “Second Son of Ma Family Arrives in Slum in Luxury Foreign Car.” Despite trying so hard to keep it secret where he’d been. Word had spread everywhere that he’d gone to Bihyang with a chauffeur. Fortunately, Han Yoon-sung’s wife hadn’t given an interview, so it wasn’t known who he’d met.

With both sons like this, Ma Jin-seong had failed at raising his children. Empathy is also a form of intelligence. How nice it must be to have flowers for brains. What’s the second son of the Ma family doing there? Is he trying to experience poverty? The relentless, cruel comments kept flooding in unfiltered.

That’s why he was acting this way. His attitude showed a fighting spirit, as if he’d decided to face what he couldn’t avoid. Shin-woo had sensed it when Jae-seung insisted on eating in the student cafeteria. He covered his mouth, trying to hold back a smile. He couldn’t help but find Jae-seung cute as he sat with his neck straight, striking a pose as if to say “look at me.”

“I am the brand itself. That’s what we learned in class today.”

Jae-seung muttered with a rather determined expression. Before Shin-woo could ask what he meant, he continued.

“For a businessman, fame isn’t a bad thing. I’m the face of Ma Corporation, becoming the brand.”

“…”

“Just wait and see. You think I’m just going to sit here and take the insults?”

As Shin-woo was starting to feel uneasy, Jae-seung suddenly pulled out his phone. True to his nature of being accustomed to getting hurt both physically and emotionally since childhood, he naturally knew how to recover. If his body was hurt, he had to lie down and rest, but if his heart was hurt, he had to move without giving himself time to sink. 

Shin-woo knew this fact all too well, almost to the point of being sick of it, but… 

What was this talk about brands?

Under Shin-woo’s watchful gaze, Jae-seung unexpectedly raised his phone and took a selfie. What on earth was he trying to do, when he had never been interested in photos before? As he watched him with his chin propped up for a while, someone’s voice pierced Shin-woo’s ears.

“What’s this? Looks like Ma Jae-seung really made an account.”

Account? Surely not social media? Shin-woo looked at Jae-seung with an expression as if he’d bitten into something sour. Jae-seung, who had been absorbed in his phone, glanced up and said,

“I’m trying to become ‘Ma Jae-seung’, not just ‘the second son of the Ma family’.”

“…I get the intention, but why through social media?”

“Articles are going to be written and photos taken anyway, so isn’t it better if I provide the source?”

Instead of replying, Shin-woo quietly searched for Ma Jae-seung on social media. It wasn’t hard to find Jae-seung’s newly created account. The strange selfie he had just taken, with his chin looking thick due to the angle, was set as the profile picture, and the bio read ‘Master of Ma Corporation’. Above all, the most definitive evidence was that he had sent commanding mentions to the official accounts of hotels and businesses owned by Ma Corporation, ordering them to promote his new account.

Does losing your memory make puberty come twice? Shin-woo, who had suddenly lost his appetite, put down his spoon.

“Social media… Please, can’t you not do it?”

“Why? You don’t like me being free?”

Jae-seung sneered. It was understandable that his love for humanity had hit rock bottom after experiencing such a shocking event. Thinking that it was all due to his overflowing energy actually made Shin-woo feel relieved. He looked at Jae-seung’s empty rice bowl.

Whether Jae-seung was aware of it or not, his previously erratic allergic reactions were gradually disappearing. It seemed that his body, which had experienced dramatic changes after becoming an adult and facing his first rut, was slowly entering a stable phase as he finally transformed into a full Alpha. Whether he would adapt well to his body that was different from others remained to be seen.

“Find this bastard and send him a lawsuit. Don’t settle under any circumstances.”

Jae-seung handed over his phone with a cold command. It seemed someone had misunderstood the ‘Master’ in his bio and sent a dick pic via DM.