KIDNAP 1

I’ve been kidnapped.

That day, he drank alcohol, which he rarely touched, and on this rare occasion, got drunk. He refused his manager’s offer of a ride and went to the parking garage alone. How could someone who was crying and laughing with a beet-red face give anyone a ride?

‘…Shall we go to Dong?’

A designated driver was already waiting in the parking garage. “Yes,” he gave a short reply and immediately got into the back seat. Since it was early morning, both the streets and the inside of the car were dark, but it felt rather cozy. He was leaning his head against the car window, blinking slowly, when he heard an unfamiliar voice.

‘I enjoyed watching the match.’

Turning his gaze to the driver’s seat, he righted his head, sat up straight, and said.

‘Thank you.’

‘…It was really, really cool. Congratulations.’

The stammered words came back. Beom Taehyuk glanced at the fidgeting hands on the steering wheel and spoke again.

‘Thank you.’

A low vibration followed the end of his words, and his lips curved into a loose smile.

The driver’s seat became a little restless. Rustle, rustle. Making the sound of hair rubbing against the seat, the driver busily glanced at the rearview mirror. It seemed like he was about to say something, so he waited, but silence soon fell. He gave a passing glance at the top of the driver’s head peeking over the headrest and then sank his body into the seat.

Did he fall asleep after that? When he opened his eyes, he was in a garage.

‘Thank you.’

Saying the same words for the third time, he got out of the car and received the car key from the designated driver. His body felt languid, a mix of the effects of alcohol and fatigue.

He leaned against the wall, blinking lazily. The slender back of the driver, who was leaving the garage, blurred in and out of his vision a few times. Eventually, he briefly closed his heavy eyelids, succumbing to his exhaustion.

When he opened his eyes again, the driver was gone from his sight. Through the wide garage door, only the quiet residential area and the dimly rising sun in the sky were visible. He stared at the scenery. The thought suddenly occurred to him that getting dead drunk and coming home at dawn wasn’t so bad. The afterglow of his victory must have still been lingering.

Heh. With a faint smile, Beom Taehyuk, who had been leaning against the wall, straightened up. In any case, it was true that he was in a good mood.

Should I send a message telling everyone they worked hard?

It was the moment he put his hand in his pocket to take out his phone. A strong impact was dealt to the back of his neck. The pain quickly spread throughout his entire body. He tried to force his stiffening head to turn, but he failed to do so and passed out on the spot.

And he had just regained consciousness after that. It must have been a taser, as the blow was distinctly different from a punch.

‘Fuck, what bastard.’

Beom Taehyuk chewed on his anger, keeping his eyes closed to focus on his other senses. There was no unpleasant smell, nor did the air feel stuffy, and the texture of the fabric touching his body was soft. It seemed he was lying on a bed.

It didn’t seem like he had been beaten, either. There was a throbbing muscle ache, but wasn’t that the same pain he had been living with since his last match? The slight headache was also likely due to a hangover. Judging that there was no immediate danger, Beom Taehyuk quietly opened his eyes. The pupils that were revealed from beneath his monolids keenly surveyed his surroundings.

The first thing that came into view was a high ceiling with exposed pipes. Next were the vent and a small window below the ceiling, followed by a white wall with brush strokes left here and there, a dining table, a small chest of drawers, a restroom sign, and a door haphazardly covered with green contact paper that drew his attention.

It was a large space. The distance from the corner where the bed was placed to the green door in the diagonal direction seemed to be almost 6 meters.

As he examined the space, he felt a strange sense of dissonance. It wasn’t just because it looked like a converted factory or warehouse, or because the interior was extremely shabby. It was because all the furniture was crammed into this one corner.

「Restroom」

The door, which had a sign with a block-letter font like one you would see in a restaurant, was also only a few steps away from the bed. Glancing at the contact paper sticking out from the outside of the door, he sat up. Immediately after, a clanking sound was heard. Clank.

“……”

Beom Taehyuk’s face hardened coldly as he looked down. A shackle was fastened around his ankle.

Why was this monstrous thing, not even used in prisons, on his ankle? His gaze quickly traveled up the chain. The end of the tightly interlocked chain was connected to the bottom of the wall next to the restroom.

Looking at the iron ring firmly embedded in the wall, which seemed to have no other purpose than for attaching a chain, he was certain. This was a planned confinement.

Then why on earth would he be confined?

‘A grudge?’

He did break someone’s nose a few days ago, but that happened during a match. It was a fair fight with no dispute, and no MMA fighter would hold a grudge over something like that.

Besides, the culprit hadn’t tied up his whole body; they had only put a single shackle on one of his ankles. The place they laid him after he passed out was also a bed. They were treating him quite humanely, so it was highly likely that it wasn’t a grudge.

‘Then money?’

Kidnapping a mixed martial arts fighter for money didn’t seem like a natural thing to do, but there were plenty of idiots in the world who would blindly pounce on any celebrity. Maybe they heard rumors about his fight money and decided to extort some cash.

He couldn’t be sure of anything, but the intention to confine him for a long period was clearly visible. Even the clothes he had been changed into showed that. The loose-fitting sportswear, a style he often wore, looked ordinary at a glance, but there was a zipper on the side seam of the shorts. It seemed to have been custom-made to be easy to put on and take off while wearing the shackle.

The shackle restraining his ankle, the furniture clustered within the shackle’s range. There were even a few dumbbells next to the dining table. Furrowing his brow as he scanned the room, Beom Taehyuk suddenly whipped his head around. He heard muffled footsteps from beyond the wall. His eyes became sharp in an instant.

What kind of crazy bastards could they be? If this were another country, he might have suspected some insane gang. He wasn’t sure if he should consider himself lucky to be kidnapped in Korea, where there are no guns, but in any case, this guy probably wasn’t a normal bastard either. Beom Taehyuk watched the slowly opening crack in the door with keen eyes.

His body, with its large, sculpted muscles, prepared to fight. His two feet were planted firmly on the floor, the thick thighs beneath his shorts swelled as if to burst, and the hands resting on his knees unconsciously clenched and unclenched into fists.

His heartbeat was like the sound of a drum. A heavy vibration coursed through his body, and a familiar sense of exhilaration welled up. And finally, the kidnapper revealed himself from beyond the wide-open door and… it was an anticlimax.

The guy who hesitated at the doorway was so short and scrawny that he doubted the top of his head would even reach his shoulder. He could also see glasses through his shaggy bangs. With such a huge difference in weight class, and the glasses to boot, he was by no means a worthy opponent for Beom Taehyuk.

“……”

On top of that, after kidnapping him, the guy just stood there at the doorway, staring blankly. In the end, the person who was kidnapped spoke first.

“What is it.”

“…Ah. Lunch, I brought lunch.”

The kidnapper clattered the tray in his hands, flustered. The way he glanced at people with his head bowed low was strangely unnerving. Beom Taehyuk frowned and said.

“If you’ve kidnapped someone, tell me the reason first.”

“……”

The clattering sound stopped abruptly. The hunched-over kidnapper tilted his chin up diagonally and stared at Beom Taehyuk. With his shaggy hair covering his glasses, it was questionable whether he could even see, but he stared intently.

“Is he a lunatic.”

Beom Taehyuk muttered and examined the chain. It seemed to be quite long, but it looked difficult to reach the guy standing far away at the doorway.

At his chilling gaze that was assessing the distance, the kidnapper behaved like a person facing a wild animal. Without breaking eye contact—although his eyes weren’t visible—he very slowly placed the tray on the floor, then stood up again and held out both hands as if to show he had nothing.

“I-I won’t do anything strange.”

“I’m asking what your purpose is.”

When the massive man’s eyes flashed, the distance of over half a dozen steps and the chain binding his foot became insecure. It was as if he would nonchalantly ignore such flimsy things, snatch the opponent before him, and tear him to shreds. The kidnapper hastily stepped back and clasped his outstretched hands together tightly.

“Money?”

Beom Taehyuk asked quietly, observing the kidnapper carefully. The guy flinched his shoulders and shook his head vigorously, denying it.

“No! I don’t need money!”

He looks like he does. He was so grimy, he looked like he didn’t have a single penny.

Is he homeless? He doesn’t seem to be of sound mind either.

As the sharp gaze continued, the kidnapper’s shoulders flinched, and he released his clasped hands. Then, as if he didn’t know what to do, he gripped the hem of his clothes tightly and bobbed his head.

After a while of this, a small voice scattered.

“…cause I.”

“What?”

It was hard to hear because of the distance. Beom Taehyuk fixed his gaze on the chapped lips. After twitching and moving slightly, they slowly parted, and a hoarse voice soon flowed out.

“Because I like you.”

The pale lips that uttered the confession puckered upwards.

“I like you, Taehyuk.”