MIM 80

80

“Kuh, ughk…you’re…a fail…ure…”

The broken words drew out a bitter laugh. Ma Jae-seung tightened his grip even more.

The failure was Father, not me.

“Huk…!”

His eyes snapped open and the scene before him flipped. Whatever had been pulsing beneath his fingertips stopped. When the pulse-like vibration ceased, no sound penetrated except his own ragged breathing and heartbeat. As a ringing that sounded like vital sign monitors echoed in his ears, his hazy peripheral vision slowly returned, like watching old film footage.

He saw pale skin gripped by his knotted hands. Ma Jae-seung stared blankly down at his hands, mouth agape. What he had been pressing down with full force turned out to be Kim Ye-wook’s neck. His lifeless eyes had rolled back, sinking into increasingly dark depths.

Father, the dark room, the employees—all gone. Ma Jae-seung let out a shaky breath as he slowly removed his hands from Kim Ye-wook’s neck. Suddenly his vision spun and he lost consciousness. He seemed to remember fragments of the past while wandering as if in a hallucination, but it was chaotically mixed with the present, causing confusion. He had imagined strangling his father, but it was Kim Ye-wook who had suffocated in his grip. It was hard to distinguish what had actually happened and what was hallucination. But…

The murderous intent that had burned in his chest was real.

“…Fuck.”

Ma Jae-seung slowly looked up at the sudden curse. It hadn’t come from his mouth.

Though he hadn’t heard a door open or close, black shoes now stood prominently in the middle of the living room. Though a beta shouldn’t have a scent, Ma Jae-seung recognized who the man was before fully lifting his head. The tension when facing him and that subtle flutter in his chest. His presence that recalled a scent still lingering in memory.

Shin-woo.

He was staring wide-eyed at the chaos that had unfolded before him. After briefly examining the strangled Kim Ye-wook, his expression hardened and he began moving quickly. He put on latex gloves from his many-pocketed top, then immediately knelt to check Kim Ye-wook’s condition. After checking his pulse to confirm he was really dead, he closely examined the marks on his neck. Then he suddenly stood up, ran out, and returned with a black sleeping bag.

“Go wait in the car.”

Shin-woo nodded as he pushed Kim Ye-wook’s corpse into the sleeping bag. He heaved the bag onto his shoulder, carried it out to the car, then returned to hurriedly clean up. Finding the suppressants Ma Jae-seung had taken, he cursed under his breath and crumpled the box into a large plastic bag. He stuffed in all the medicine Kim Ye-wook had brought and the glass Ma Jae-seung had drunk from.

“Go wait in the car.”

His process of disposing of the body and cleaning up was efficient and smooth. The initial shock had disappeared from his face as he looked around with cold eyes, removing any remaining traces. This wasn’t amateur work.

“Ma Jae-seung.”

As he watched him checking for surveillance cameras at the entrance, Ma Jae-seung realized something.

Ah. I killed Father.

Shin-woo had disposed of Father’s body for me.

“I said get in the car!”

A sharp slap rang out against both cheeks. Before the pain, before the sound, he registered the scene before him. Shin-woo had knelt in front of him and roughly grabbed both his cheeks. His urgent but firm eyes met his directly at eye level.

No one else had ever looked at him like this. His heart sank at this sudden realization. Ma Jae-seung was practically lifted by his collar and stumbled outside. Only after leaving the entrance could he properly walk on his own two feet.

“Get in the back since traffic cameras might catch us while moving. Keep your head down as much as possible. I’ll be right back.”

The words buzzed in his head. Whether from the drug or not, his vision was still spinning dizzily. Even this moment felt like a dream, and Ma Jae-seung unconsciously reached out to touch Shin-woo’s cheek.

“I killed Father…”

His parched throat stung, leaving the words unfinished. Then, their foreheads collided, and for a brief moment, his vision cleared.

“Get a hold of yourself!”

His forehead felt hot where they touched, pressed together with Shin-woo who had suddenly moved closer. “It’s okay.” The quiet reassuring voice calmed his heart. As if hypnotized by those penetrating brown eyes, his agitation subsided like a lie in those brief seconds. Every movement was as natural as if this were a ritual performed countless times.

“It’s okay.”

After murmuring one final time, Shin-woo ran back into the house. He returned to the car a few minutes later and started the engine immediately.

“I looked up the address—this place belonged to Kim Ye-wook’s father, fortunately there’s no CCTV. They probably never installed any. Valuables would’ve been kept at home, and since this was probably where they discussed shady business, cameras would’ve been inconvenient for everyone.”

“…”

“Given the location, there shouldn’t be any witnesses either. Here, drink this first.”

His eyes, focused on the road, glanced briefly to the back. Ma Jae-seung caught the water bottle Shin-woo had tossed.

“Withdrawal symptoms will start in six hours. You might feel like your flesh is burning and experience hallucinations, but I’ll be back by then, so drink lots of water and hang in there.”

Still dazed from emerging from shock, he couldn’t think straight, but even so, the words ‘withdrawal symptoms’ caught his ear. Shin-woo pressed the accelerator to barely make it through a changing light, then added his explanation.

“Suppressants don’t work on you. Especially powerful ones that need prescriptions—they’ll cause addiction and damage your nervous system. Eventually, it becomes irreversible and leads to death. It’s like a drug. Stay away from them from now on.”

Shin-woo knew the dangers of suppressants thoroughly. Given how vividly he described the symptoms, he might have personally seen test subjects addicted to suppressants. If there had been experiments, Kim Ye-wook likely knew about this too. He fed me the pills knowing this. That’s why he called me to this deserted place rather than his home.

The world seemed to be spinning. Ma Jae-seung forced himself to drink half the water and then reclined his seat back. Just as he squeezed his eyes shut, unable to keep them open any longer, he heard something heavy rattling from behind.

We’re driving with Ye-wook’s corpse in the back.

Once conscious of it, he couldn’t control his thoughts. The image of the black sleeping bag bouncing around in the trunk transformed into his father’s head rolling at his feet, making him nauseous. As Shin-woo had warned, his body was starting to feel hot. Perhaps because of the warning about feeling like his flesh was burning, his entire body truly felt like it was on fire.

Though the symptoms were violent enough to damage the nervous system, strangely he wasn’t scared. Even though the pain made him wonder if death might be better, he had an odd certainty that he would survive. As if this wasn’t his first time experiencing such a thing.

Great flames rose before his eyes before turning to black ash and scattering. Even as heat rose that felt like his flesh was melting, Ma Jae-seung struggled to cool his complicated thoughts. There were people around him who seemed like both allies and not. Things everyone knew but him, things they wouldn’t tell even when asked. All the situations he couldn’t understand. It felt like finally finding missing puzzle pieces.

Everything makes sense if I assume I lost control like today and killed Father. Everyone around had been protecting me when they knew I had lost my memories. The words of Butler Hwang and Lee Young-shin telling him to forget the past and move forward now sounded different. It easily explained why they didn’t bother to help when he tried to investigate the incident. They wanted him to forget that memory and live a new life.

Ma Jae-seung forced his heavy eyelids open to watch Shin-woo. The guy who had acted coolly and moved with quick judgment. The fact that he brought in the two-man crew must have been to clean up the mess I made. The will might have been forged after the incident, or perhaps they were preparing to raid a rich household’s coffers when I happened to do what I did.

Ma Jae-seung’s gaze lingered on Shin-woo’s cheek, his round ear. Suddenly the burn scars covering his entire back flickered in his mind. To see more clearly, to try to grasp at memories that might surface, Ma Jae-seung closed his eyes. Then he muttered quietly.

“You seem experienced at this.”

The car slowly stopped, probably at a signal. Whether he heard or not, Shin-woo didn’t answer for a while. In the continuing quiet stillness, the car started moving again. Along with the sound of the corpse rattling, a delayed answer came.

“You’ve been through all sorts of things.”