TIN 142

I had imagined life’s final moment countless times. The future I would face after everything ended, after finding that person. The day I would finally escape this terrible yoke and find complete rest.

But none of those scenarios included Joo Do-hwa suddenly appearing and ruining everything. Not his rough hands pulling me from the sea, dragging me forcefully to shore, and throwing me onto the sand like a sack of potatoes.

“Cough, cough…”

The rain fell endlessly. In the downpour that made it impossible to see ahead, I lay face down on the ground, coughing repeatedly. The saltwater made my nose and throat sting, and I could even taste blood in the back of my throat.

“…”

The man who had dragged me here stood still, looking down at me. With the dark sky behind him, I couldn’t make out his expression in the shadows.

“I was planning to kill you with my own hands if I caught you…”

His low voice mixed with the rain sounded ominous. His usually relaxed, leisurely tone was now nothing but cold.

“Hyung.”

The man slowly crouched down in front of me with those words. As he roughly brushed back his rain-soaked hair, his face finally became visible. From his coldly set eyes to his lips curled up at an angle.

“Just how far did you go for your walk?”

Though his words were softer, the atmosphere hadn’t lightened. He tilted his head to one side as he watched me cough again.

“You said you were going to your room.”

“…”

“Is this your room?”

At first, I wondered what he was talking about. Then I remembered my last words to him.

‘Then I’ll go to my room.’

Leaving his house felt like a past life now. I had fled, overwhelmed by terrible betrayal, but in the end, I was caught before I could end everything.

“For someone with nothing, you sure have a big house.”

Joo Do-hwa spoke with a bitter smile on his face, closing and opening his eyes slowly. Rolling his eyes upward with a long sigh, he looked as if he was having trouble suppressing his anger.

“Look at me.”

“…”

I lowered my head while coughing. When I didn’t listen, he roughly grabbed my chin to make eye contact. His shadowed eyes studied mine quietly, and his twisted lips let out an artificial exclamation.

“Wow.”

“…”

“So Dongjin Pharmaceuticals had such innovative technology.”

His tone was openly mocking. No matter how gently he spoke, he couldn’t hide the derision in his wavering eyes.

“Making extreme recessive omegas with Viagra…I killed a valuable person, didn’t I?”

Joo Do-hwa must know that my now-blue eyes weren’t from side effects. That was why he was testing me by releasing his pheromones. Though the sharp pheromones made my skin sting, I only furrowed my brows while clearing my rough throat.

“Right, you didn’t take that drug.”

For some reason finding it amusing, Joo Do-hwa kept letting out hollow laughs. The snickers that escaped weren’t happy at all. If anything, they sounded unsettling. His fingers crept toward my ear, making me shiver.

“You know?”

“…”

“I did a hair test.”

His delicate fingertips caressed my side hair. Though it seemed like he might pull it out any moment, he just carefully tucked my rain-soaked hair behind my ear.

“They said no drug components were detected at all.”

Being careful about blood tests wasn’t enough. I thought I had escaped before he could draw blood, before everything was discovered. But Joo Do-hwa already knew there had been nothing in the water I drank.

“You tell me, hyung. Then that day, why did you act like that?”

“…Ugh.”

“We had a good time that day.”

His whispered words made me shiver. The memories from that day flooded back, memories I’d desperately tried to forget.

“Remember? You were so eager…”

“Shut up.”

“Even pulled me closer…”

“I said shut up!”

My shout was drowned out by the rain. Joo Do-hwa’s expression hardened at my outburst. His hand, which had been playing with my hair, suddenly grabbed it tightly.

“You were different from that corpse from before.”

“…”

“That’s why I was suspicious. Why would they make a fake that was so different?”

His grip on my hair tightened. Though it hurt, I couldn’t bring myself to resist. The cold rain continued to pour down on us.

“But now I get it. You weren’t fake at all.”

A hollow laugh escaped. From his cold face and twisted smile, to his harsh grip—everything showed his true feelings now.

“You’re my real hyung.”

“…”

“The one who should have died back then.”

The last words were spoken with particular emphasis. It wasn’t anger in his voice, but rather a deep-seated bitterness.

“Why did you have to come back?”

The question hung in the air between us. The sound of waves and rain filled the silence. For the first time since he’d pulled me from the water, I found myself looking directly into his eyes.

What I saw there wasn’t the warmth I’d once known. Only a cold, bitter resentment remained.

At that moment, I realized—there was no going back. The brief dream of having a family, a brother, was well and truly over.

His softly smiling face was just like Satan to me. The man before me had prevented me from crossing the threshold to the afterlife, yet I felt a threat to my life from him. Just a moment ago, I thought it was all over, but Joo Do-hwa was, in fact, scarier than death.

“What kind of story does such a pretty face hide?”

His persistent touch, like a snake crawling, slowly traced my face. Only his touch was vivid on my cold skin. And in the end, even pressing down on my lips.

“Are you going to continue keeping your mouth shut?”

“…”

I reflexively opened my mouth, then pressed it shut again. I had nothing to say, nor anything I needed to say. I knew the words he wanted to hear, but I didn’t want to utter the apology I should make.

Instead, there was something I wanted to ask.

“…Why did you save me?”

“…”

At the sudden question, Joo Do-hwa erased his smile. I coughed softly and spoke in a cracking voice.

“You should have let me die.”

“…”

“You shouldn’t have brought me back…”

I didn’t think he had saved me. Joo Do-hwa hadn’t saved me but had only held me back from leaving. The reason he brought me out of the sea wasn’t a matter of salvation, but confinement.

“Why did you have to come so early, Do-hwa.”

I told you to come slowly. It was almost done. If you had come just five minutes later, no, even three minutes later, you wouldn’t have found me.

“…Ha.”

Joo Do-hwa, who let out a hollow laugh, sharpened his fingertips. His thumb, which dug into the gap in my lips, pressed down on my lower teeth. It was an action that seemed like it would crush my jaw, but for some reason, the answer that came back was generous.

“Okay.”

“…”

“Blame me.”

A drop of rain fell and brushed my eyelashes. Beyond my reflexively blinking eyelids, I saw him slowly pull up the corners of his mouth.

“You can’t go back anyway.”

“…”

My eyes widened. Because that one word struck my heart. It was as if he was saying that even though the sea was so close, I could never go back there. That today was the last day.

“When the rain stops…”

But Joo Do-hwa, who was slowly continuing his words, suddenly stopped moving at some point. His slowly lowered eyes were fixed on the edge of my lips. More precisely, on the area below that.

“…Ah.”

The short exclamation sounded like a warning to me. His coldly hardening face, his darkly stained eyes, and the voice that flowed out were all like that.

“You’re showing me another interesting sight.”

I reflexively shrank my neck. It was an instinctive action, but Joo Do-hwa didn’t look at me. His hand, which suddenly grabbed my hair, tilted my head back mercilessly.

“Ugh…”

A groan burst out involuntarily at the sensation that my neck bones would break. But Joo Do-hwa didn’t care about that either and just stared at my neck for a long time. I wondered what he was doing, but after he burst out with a curse, I remembered a fact I had forgotten.

“Fucking hell, hyung.”

It was the part where Kei’s mark remained. The area that had been red and marked like an insect bite when I last checked my reflection in the mirror.

“How much more do I have to see?”

“Ack…!”

It felt like my scalp was being torn off. It was because he put strength into the hand that grabbed my hair. Soon, Joo Do-hwa, who let go of my hair, grabbed my arm and forcibly pulled me up from my seat.

“Ugh.”

A throbbing pain spread from my ankle, which I stepped on out of habit as I was dragged by him. Because there was no bandage, I lost my balance without even taking a step. But Joo Do-hwa effortlessly pulled me back as I was about to fall on the sand again.

“What are you doing…Ugh…”

When was it? It was like that time when I was dragged by him like livestock being dragged to a slaughterhouse. I couldn’t walk properly, staggering, but Joo Do-hwa didn’t look back at me and moved his steps. I kept staggering because I felt the ground sinking under my feet, but I wasn’t even allowed to fall helplessly.

“Ah…!”

He let me go near a flat rock on the sand. He threw me on the rock as if casting me aside, and laid me face down as I groaned. And in an instant, he took off my clothes on my lower body.

“…!”

There was no time to resist. The clothes, soaked with rain and sticking to my body, were torn carelessly under the strength of the dominant alpha. Joo Do-hwa, who fixed my wrist with one hand and my back with the other, leaned over from behind.

“I told you last time.”

A chill ran up and down my spine. It felt like something had touched my bare lower body. The husky, cracking voice and the pheromones that poured down like rain felt like they were heavily pressing down on my whole body.

“Don’t come back with someone else’s mark.”

“Mu….!”

I was choked. My vision flashed and my head went black. Before I could realize what had happened to me, an unbelievable pain flooded over me in an instant.

“Ah, aack….!”

I felt like my insides were being torn apart. The unsightly scream came from the pain I couldn’t even swallow. The object that dug into my stomach without any warning split me in half like a weapon.

“Ugh…Ugh, Ugh….”

My stomach was terribly twisted. My lower abdomen cramped a lot from the pain of my intestines twisting. I struggled madly, but I couldn’t even resist while being pressed flat on the rock.

“…”

The sound of gnashing teeth came from Joo Do-hwa, who was pressing down on me from behind. As much as I was in pain, he must have felt pressure as well, as he didn’t move for a while after inserting deeply.

Soon after, he took a rough breath and bit my left neck with all his might.