TIN 145

The metallic smell of blood was mixed with the sweet pheromones. When I unconsciously relaxed my jaw, I felt the bitten skin unsticking from my teeth. It was a revolting sensation, but even more cruel were Joo Do-hwa’s next words.

“You think I can’t restrain your limbs and just keep you barely alive?”

“…”

Only then did I realize there were handcuffs on my left wrist. The chain rattled with every movement I made, controlling my motions. The chain extending below the bed was too short to even raise my arms fully.

While I remained dazed, he slowly withdrew his hand. His fingers gradually slipped out between my clumsily parted lips. The trailing saliva was, of course, tinged bright red.

Since I had bitten down as if to sever my tongue, his left hand was visibly mangled. Casually untying his necktie, Joo Do-hwa wrapped it around his hand and tightly knotted it with his right hand and front teeth. Blood dripped steadily from his lowered hand.

There was no need to ask why he was doing this to me. I didn’t beg him to kill me, nor blame him for keeping me alive. I simply raised my upper body and grabbed the handcuffs with my right hand.

“…”

His eyes twisted slightly. It was the moment I cracked my thumb inward to slip out of the handcuffs. Though it felt like the bone was dislocating, such things didn’t matter anymore.

“Next time I’ll cut my wrists.”

“…”

“If you want to see it, go ahead.”

If he tied me to the bed, I planned to suffocate myself with the pillow. The days of living in fear of dying by his hands were now past.

“I’m not the hyung you’re looking for.”

How many more times would I have to say this? The play was over, and all that remained was to lower the curtain.

“This won’t change anything…”

Bang! A violent sound interrupted my words. He had roughly struck the wall with his uninjured hand. His coldly frozen eyes stared down at me steadily.

“I know that too.”

Joo Do-hwa spoke icily, twisting his lips. A dark shadow fell over his bright eyes.

“If you’re not my hyung, you think that means I’ll let you go?”

Though there was no other reason I could think of for his obsession with me, Joo Do-hwa mocked me as if that was out of the question. Without waiting for my response, he whispered quietly and gently, “I told you. Since I bought you, you’re mine.”

I was sick of hearing these words. Even in childhood, the boy had said similar things.

“Living here, leaving, throwing away that pitiful life—you can’t do any of it as you please.”

“…”

“How many eyes are in this house? You think we can’t keep one mere person alive?”

As he said, even dying wasn’t easy here. Just as he had stopped me from biting my tongue just now, he might find ways to prevent whatever I tried. It meant I wouldn’t be able to throw away my life as easily as slipping out of handcuffs.

“You say you’ll cut your wrists? You can’t go anywhere with that leg anyway.”

He gestured mockingly at my legs. Following his gaze, I saw my right foot fixed in a plaster cast. Though I felt no pain now, the lack of sensation was the real problem.

“Then I’ll cut off my legs too.”

But my response came out utterly emotionless. Nothing frightened me anymore. No matter what he threatened me with, death would be the final outcome anyway—whether sooner or later, we’d end up in a similar place.

“If you cut off my limbs and gag me…then I’d be like those dolls you love.”

Then when he got bored, he’d kill me. Few people continued to keep playing with childhood dolls into adulthood.

“As long as the face is intact, right? Isn’t that so?”

Where else could he find such a pretty doll…? If it’s for display, just keeping the head should be fine too.

“…”

Tense gazes crossed. Joo Do-hwa showed no reaction for a long while. However, unlike his calm expression, the veins bulging in his fist against the wall were clearly visible.

His long eyelashes slowly lowered. Blinking as if in slow motion, Joo Do-hwa turned sharply and approached the door.

I thought he was leaving the room. Or maybe he’d lock the door and come back to me.

“Henry, call the doctor.”

But contrary to my expectations, he opened the door and said this. I heard Henry, who had been waiting outside, answer affirmatively. Joo Do-hwa left the door open and returned to me.

“Don’t be like that. You’re not alone anymore.”

“…What?”

His voice was noticeably softer than before, accompanied by words so jarring they were startling. As I stared at him blankly, Joo Do-hwa took my throbbing left hand. Then, with a gentle smile, he said, “We can’t let anything happen to our baby.”

I had no chance to question his words. He gently traced my twisted thumb and in the blink of an eye, crack, reset the bone. “Ugh.” As I let out a short groan from the stinging pain, he naturally interlaced his fingers with mine.

“You’re pregnant, hyung.”

“…”

The words were incomprehensible. Enough to make my mind go blank for one moment.

“Amazing, isn’t it? Genetics.”

He added quite casually that there was no need to continue until it took. His touch on my swollen thumb was as cold as a crawling snake, while his voice that followed was incongruously gentle.

“You need to take care of yourself.”

…Pregnant?

Only now, with my mind clear, did I realize that voice I’d vaguely heard was Joo Do-hwa’s. The scenes I’d dismissed as dreams came crashing down, flooding my mind.

“How is that…”

Pregnant? How could such an impossible thing…

“There’s some risk of miscarriage, but since your genes are so dominant, they say it’s fine. I’m sorry, I almost did something terrible.”

His words buzzed in my ears. Saying we need to be careful since it’s early, so don’t do such reckless things again. A string of despicable concerns followed.

“They say it won’t show on ultrasound yet…we’ll look at that together later.”

He didn’t withdraw his touching hand. Instead, I lifted my trembling right hand and placed it on my lower abdomen. Contradicting the claim of pregnancy, far from showing, my stomach was flat from lack of proper food.

“Ah…”

Moments I’d carelessly overlooked flashed by like a panorama. The body aches as if I had the flu, the strange drowsiness, and being unable to eat foods I usually enjoyed. Even the unexplained pain I occasionally felt in my lower abdomen.

“That can’t be…”

“It is.”

Joo Do-hwa cut off my stuttering denial. He firmly squeezed our interlaced fingers.

“That day was good for us.”

I knew which “that day” Joo Do-hwa meant. The day of the party at his mansion, when we joined bodies while listening to the sound of fireworks.

‘No, hah…inside…’

‘…’

‘Come inside, ahh…’

But I had taken suppressants the very next day, drugs strong enough to damage the pheromone glands of most recessive types. After taking something like that, there was no way I could be pregnant like a normal person. As I was thinking this, those golden eyes entered my vision.

‘They have no effect on me.’

“…”

‘My pheromones can’t be suppressed by such things.’

I felt devastated, as if I was covered in filth. Having eyes that changed color from being dominant—it wasn’t just Joo Do-hwa’s story. I felt the urge to gouge out these two eyes that had turned bright blue, this extremely dominant trait.

“…Ha.”

Joo Do-hwa’s child was growing inside me. Why was something that should be a blessing for others so horrific for me? I couldn’t believe that such a tiny life, too small to even hold, was blooming within me.

“It’ll be beautiful if it takes after you, hyung.”

Joo Do-hwa’s picture-perfect smile was terribly chilling. There was something oddly disconcerting about his persistent gaze. Through my dazed mind, I recalled what I’d heard just before falling asleep.

‘…Even with an ultrasound, the timing…’

Ah, I understood the source of my unease.

“You think it’s your child?”

His lips hardened at my blunt words. Not missing this tiny change, I slowly withdrew my hand from his. I could see his gently curved eyes turning cold.

“You don’t know whose child it is.”

This was the same Joo Do-hwa who would usually rage about how promiscuously I lived. Several weeks had passed since I left his house, and there were kiss marks of unknown origin on my neck. Yet it seemed strange that he would specify a date and call it “our baby.”

“You don’t even know how far along the pregnancy is.”

It was a gamble. If they knew the exact number of weeks, the doctor wouldn’t have trailed off like that. Because Joo Do-hwa’s words seemed more like self-brainwashing than certainty.

“Ah…”

His crimson lips moved slowly. Through the door he’d left open, I saw a doctor in a white coat start to enter then hesitate. Joo Do-hwa ran his uninjured hand through his hair and rolled his eyes languidly.

“You’re quite perceptive.”