MIM 85

Immediately after disposing of the body, Shin-woo returned to the mansion. When he had checked before leaving, Ma Jae-seung had been passed out from their intense rut-induced encounters, but concern about withdrawal symptoms from the suppressants hastened his return. Only after safely returning to the mansion and picking up Maro did he finally relax, making him realize how tense he had been the entire time. Though he couldn’t call it his home, having Ma Jae-seung nearby somehow put him at ease.

As soon as he entered, Butler Hwang approached and took Maro. He had only briefly mentioned that Ma Jae-seung had gone into rut while dealing with him, but the butler must have noticed the stench of the corpse that had been in the trunk for two days, so he must have been incredibly worried. After rolling his eyes around, Shin-woo offered a brief summary, “He took suppressants and went berserk.”

“How did he get suppressants…”

Butler Hwang furrowed his brow and muttered, but nodded without asking anything further. The connection between the corpse in the trunk, the suppressant use, and the rampage was clear enough without asking. Shin-woo clicked his tongue and nervously ran his fingers through his hair.

He should have warned Ma Jae-seung earlier about the suppressants being dangerous to him, at least when Ma Jae-seung discovered the experiments. It wasn’t easy to explain why drugs that worked for normal alphas had drug-like effects on Ma Jae-seung. The fact that suppressants meant to help alphas actually acted as poison was one of the biggest side effects of the genetic transformation experiments. He should have told him, but he had postponed it, not wanting to say anything that would make Ma Jae-seung consider himself a failure.

And that led to this disaster. Watching Shin-woo’s frowning face, Butler Hwang asked a nearby employee to bring a glass of water. Only then did Shin-woo realize how parched he was. Focused on disposing of the body quickly, he hadn’t even had a sip of water since dawn, let alone eaten.

After confirming Shin-woo had finished the water, Butler Hwang reported on Ma Jae-seung’s condition.

“The young master still has a fever, but otherwise he’s fine. He’s actually handling it better than his previous rut. However, what concerns me is…whether from the shock of going berserk or from the suppressants, he seems unusually calm. Could it be the sedative effect of the suppressants?”

“Calm?”

“Yes. That’s what worries me. Do you think we should call a counselor?”

Shin-woo recalled Ma Jae-seung approaching him after throwing the handcuffs to the floor. Those firm arms that had held him tight and that persistent gaze.

“Let’s do that once the rut effects completely wear off.”

Shin-woo lightly agreed to Butler Hwang’s suggestion and turned around. Since arriving at the mansion, his attention had been constantly drawn to Ma Jae-seung’s room upstairs. As Shin-woo strode toward the stairs, Butler Hwang hurriedly followed. He stopped Shin-woo and spoke with difficulty.

“Um…Hye-jung asked me to check if you had any trouble because of her.”

“Ignore it.”

Shin-woo firmly shook his head before the words were even finished. Hye-jung was now someone living a new life outside this city. If Ma Jae-seung hadn’t become suspicious and persistently tried to track her down, they would never have exchanged a single word.

Butler Hwang seemed internally flustered but quickly composed himself. Though Shin-woo understood his feelings after living with the family for a lifetime, nothing could be done.

“Delete the contact information I gave you and forget about it. It won’t do either of us any good.”

“…Understood.”

Just as Shin-woo put his first foot on the stairs after confirming Butler Hwang’s response, he heard a quiet murmur from behind.

“Still, it was nice to see her after so long, and outside the mansion at that. Her complexion looked much better. Though it seems neither she nor I can do anything about the insomnia.”

“…”

“The karma of being bystanders, I suppose.”

Shin-woo glanced back. Shadows fell across the face where worry lines seemed particularly deep. A child who had withered slowly, neither truly living nor dying, while being abused by his parents. It must not have been easy even just to watch silently on the sidelines.

“Take melatonin if you can’t sleep. I’ll buy you some when I go out tomorrow.”

Shin-woo tossed out these words, half-joking and half-serious, then ran up the stairs. Behind him, Butler Hwang’s low laughter echoed.

As Butler Hwang had said, Ma Jae-seung was calmly sitting on the bed, looking out the window. The sight was familiar—hands neatly placed on the bedsheets, back straight, gazing endlessly at the scenery. He often looked out the window like this during his confinement.

When Shin-woo deliberately made his presence known while entering, Ma Jae-seung slowly turned to look at him. Though his cheeks were still flushed with fever, he appeared neither anxious nor confused. Could he be hallucinating from withdrawal symptoms? Something was different in his upward gaze. Shin-woo tilted his head to one side and asked bluntly, “Feeling better?”

“Yeah.”

Ma Jae-seung didn’t object to the casual speech. After checking his temperature with an ear thermometer, Shin-woo poured and handed him a glass of water. Even after quietly emptying the glass, Ma Jae-seung remained silent. Though there must have been mountains of questions, he seemed to have none.

Maybe he doesn’t remember? Shin-woo tried probing, “What do you remember?”

“Everything up until strangling Kim Ye-wook to death and coming back to sleep with you.”

The answer came back unnecessarily detailed. Ma Jae-seung remembered everything without missing a single detail.

Is he in shock about killing someone? Shin-woo shared some facts that might help ease Ma Jae-seung’s guilt.

“It was self-defense. He was trying to kill you too.”

“…”

“There were experiments before, testing suppressants by component and dosage. He must have known that when he gave you the suppressants. He’s also the one who invited uninvited guests to your birthday party.”

Ma Jae-seung frowned and pushed out his lips sullenly. Though he seemed annoyed, his lack of surprise was rather pitiful. After all, they had met quite often and stayed in regular contact, but in the end, Kim Ye-wook had also approached him with ill intentions.

At the beginning of the semester, when Ma Jae-seung was visibly desperate to make friends, Shin-woo hadn’t even liked him trying to make friends. He had hoped Ma Jae-seung wouldn’t trust people too easily or let them get too close, wished he would act with more caution. But now, seeing him so indifferent toward relationships with no expectations at all felt even worse.

Shin-woo let out a sigh. He honestly didn’t know what the hell he wanted anymore. However, he knew one thing Ma Jae-seung needed right now.

“Meet an omega. If you imprint, you’ll have some control even during rut.”

Things would get much better once his pheromones stabilized. While sex itself helped, it would be a hundred times better to imprint and sleep with an omega than with a beta who couldn’t help with pheromones at all. Since he was only ever meant to be temporary anyway, now that things had come to this, he needed to help Ma Jae-seung find a proper mate.

It was his fault for putting it off until now. Shin-woo turned away from those green eyes looking up at him and said, “I’m not saying to buy one. I can arrange meetings with suitable omegas. If you prefer natural encounters, we could go to bars together. We should do background checks for safety, but that much—”

“Are you—”

The lengthy explanation was cut short. Ma Jae-seung, who had arbitrarily interrupted, was staring straight at Shin-woo. Only after meeting Shin-woo’s eyes again did he speak.

“Okay?”

Shin-woo couldn’t immediately understand what he meant. Was he asking if it was okay for him to meet another omega, or if Shin-woo knew he wouldn’t receive additional compensation if he met another omega, or was he just asking about Shin-woo’s poor complexion?

Had this always been such a difficult phrase to understand? Perhaps it felt awkward because he’d rarely heard it in his life.

Shin-woo kept his mouth shut, not knowing what to say. Though it would have been easy to casually say he was fine, his voice wouldn’t come out, and he couldn’t bring himself to give that simple answer. It was then that Ma Jae-seung suddenly grabbed Shin-woo’s wrist.

As he collapsed onto the bed, a wave of hot body heat washed over him. Before he could react, a thumb traced deliberately over his wrist. Ma Jae-seung examined the unmarked wrist where the handcuff marks had been, rubbing it for a while until the skin turned pink, then slowly let go.

His fevered hand next moved to Shin-woo’s waist. Lifting the T-shirt revealed a mottled upper body. Areas where lips had sucked hard showed bruising, and teeth marks remained where they had scraped. Ma Jae-seung slowly traced his fingertips along the marks he had left between old scars. His fingers, moving carefully as if searching for new wounds, stopped at the burn mark that had slightly spread to the side.