Chapter 2: Shanghai (2)
Lee Young-jin moved to a place far from comfort, crumpled up like a piece of luggage. It would be more accurate to say “he was moved” rather than “he moved”. In any case, he became luggage and was moved somewhere over the course of several hours. He guessed it to be about five hours, but it was difficult to grasp the exact time flow with him repeatedly fainting and waking up in the middle. He just guessed that it was about half a day, judging from his hunger and physical condition.
He was imprisoned somewhere in the dark (probably, since he was wearing a hood or something over his face anyway) and in a quiet place. Besides, it was on a bed. Every time he wriggled, the soft mattress swayed. The mattress smelled of old dust, but the overall cleanliness seemed to be good. Lee Young-jin wondered if the people who brought him here were quite humane.
The thought stopped there.
He passed out again, with his face buried in the soft mattress.
Why did he keep fainting?
The burning thirst in his throat forced him to wake up.
There was still no one, and the hood pulled over his face was still there. It was hard to breathe. He rubbed his face on the mattress to try and get the hood off somehow, but it wasn’t easy. The lower part barely reached the tip of his chin but it ended there. Lee Young-jin wriggled like a caterpillar for a long time, and eventually gave up and just stretched out. His shoulders hurt as his arms were bound behind him and his wrists restrained in the plastic handcuffs also tingled.
Like a flickering street lamp, his consciousness blinked on and off repeatedly. He passed out half the time and was in a daze for the other half.
When Lee Young-jin came to his full senses, someone’s hand grabbed him by the shoulder and lifted him up. The hand wasn’t violent, but it was forceful. As if a computer that had gone into sleep mode was rebooted, the sensations he had forgotten all along came over him like a tide. The first thing he felt was thirst. Next was a throbbing pain in his right shin as he was being dragged. His head was blank. A faint headache throbbed at the back of his head.
Four hands were on both sides of his arm, each pair holding an arm. They dragged his body, shrunken in fear and tension. Lee Young-jin barely put strength on his wobbly knees and moved his steps. There was a sound of a door opening and then closing.
He walked down a hallway that seemed endless.
Lee Young-jin started counting the number of steps in his mind. One, two, three, four… ten, twelve, eighteen… then stairs. Again one, two, three…they seemed to have moved about 25 meters. The flow of air was calm and heavy. Inside. Very tightly sealed.
The steps stopped for a moment.
Tong, tong, tong, was heard.
The sound of the bones on the back of a hand hitting a thick wooden board.
After a moment of silence, the door opened. The sound was so faint that you couldn’t hear it unless you listened very carefully. Lee Young-jin was dragged forward again. 16 big strides and then a stop. A large hand pressed against his shoulder. He sat down. A chair hit his butt. The string of tension that had been pulled taut was released. Having lost all his strength, his body collapsed onto the chair and his upper body leaned against the backrest. His arms were released and his wrists were tied to the armrests. His ankles were tied to the legs of the chair in the same way.
Lee Young-jin moved his arms slightly, but the reinforced plastic handcuffs didn’t budge. It was clear that even if he had been a ‘proper’ omega, he wouldn’t be able to escape.
“Do it in moderation. He’s still calm.”
Then an unexpected voice was heard.
As if his limp body was springing up, his spine stood erect. His breathing also quickened.
It was that voice.
The voice that pushed the gun into the back of Lee Young-jin’s head!
“He’s still an omega. It’ll be dangerous if he run amok.”
Another voice answered. The voice came from right next to him. At least two of the four hands that brought him here belonged to this voice. He focused on their voices while breathing heavily.
“Well. If he was going to run amok, he would have done so long ago.”
“Maybe he’s looking for an opportunity.”
“Haha! Opportunity? The opportunity has already passed.”
A short, cheerful laugh.
For some reason, goosebumps ran down his forearms. His spine tightened. An unknown hot mass spun around inside his lower abdomen. The muscles between the back of his head and temples were pulled to their fullest and a tingling tension swept over him. Strangely, his body kept heaving. Lee Young-jin desperately suppressed it.
“Understood. Please take care.”
The sound of heavy languid steps retreated in unison.
The sound grew farther and farther away, then disappeared as the door closed.
Lee Young-jin was terrified and nervous as he listened carefully if anyone would approach him again.
It was at some point.
Suddenly, the stuffy hood that had been covering his face came off. It was too sudden. He didn’t even feel anything. A sound leaked out, whether it was a moan or a scream.
Warm light spilled over his eyelids.
His iris stung, his pupil constricted, and tears trickled out and pooled at the corners of his eyes. Lee Young-jin closed his eyes tightly and bowed his head. The blade of direct sunlight jabbed under his eyelashes. In the end, he couldn’t stand this tension as his shoulders trembled, and his breath came out through his nose and mouth.
“I haven’t even started yet, so why are you crying already?”
A heavy bass whispered.
The roof of his mouth and tongue tingled. It felt like grains of sand rolling around in his mouth. Lee Young-jin managed to clear his throat.
“There is no point in torturing me.”
Then the laughter returned.
“Haha! Torture? No way…Don’t you know the Convention Against Torture?”
This was an unexpected response for Lee Young-jin. Lee Young-jin quickly lost his composure when the expected interrogation didn’t come and he collapsed like a sand castle. He hunched his neck and lowered his gaze. He shuddered with all his might, his shoulders frozen in fright.
Convention against torture?
The Hague Treaty? UN Charter? Rome Rule of Law?
It’s just a useless piece of paper.
The man standing in front of him now would be able to torture Lee Young-jin whenever he wanted, as much as he wanted, regardless of international criminal law.
A silence like sharp needles followed.
In the meantime, his eyesight, which had been accustomed to the darkness, slowly began to adjust to the light, and his surroundings began to come into his eyes. Lee Young-jin barely held back his fear and slowly raised his head.
About mid-thigh, he could see a window frame, clean and straight, not a speck of dust. A tall French window with white roses from the top to the ceiling, and outside the window, rugged shutters tightly screened the glass. Two chandeliers hung on either side of the ceiling, at least four feet high, giving off a dull scarlet light. There was a dark red carpet all over the floor and gold lamps hung here and there from the maroon wainscot walls.
It was like the interior of an old-time European aristrocratic mansion.
In the heart of Shanghai.
It was something anyone would think was bad taste, but it didn’t enter the eyes of Lee Young-jin, who was very nervous.
“Have you calmed down now?”
Then the voice came again.
His head automatically turned in the direction of the voice.
A man stood leaning against a round bar mounted on one wall.
Again.
The moment he saw him, he shuddered and gasped for breath. The heavy air pressed against Lee Young-jin’s shoulders as if the other’s presence increased the air pressure.
Extraordinary species.
A proper one.
And an Alpha.
However, Lee Young-jin didn’t feel intimacy, or any kind of pleasure from him, nor did he feel the comfort he felt when seeing Ji Jung-hoon. His shoulders kept trembling. His stomach was strained.
Lee Young-jin watched him with his chin pulled tight and his lips tightly closed.
The man wore straight-angled suit trousers and shoes. The shirt was not disheveled. He was wearing a vest the same color as his pants and buttoned up all the buttons. The tie was a bit outdated. But on his chest, it just looked a little conservative instead of old-fashioned. The sleeves were unbuttoned and folded three or four times, revealing thick wrists and forearms. His unusually prominent wrist bones were clearly visible even from a distance.
His short hair was neatly brushed back to reveal his straight forehead. His hollow eyes, angular chin, and the bridge of his nose and eyebrows were made up of straight lines without the slightest curve. The pupils in the horizontally elongated eyes were achromatic with high brightness enough to look gray at first glance.
Age wasn’t easily determined. He looked like he was in his late 20s, maybe 30s or a year or two older than that, and in a way, he felt like a mature man in their late 30s.
“Great. Looks like you’re ready to talk now.”
His lips moved softly.
Lee Young-jin twitched his chin.
The man approached Lee Young-jin.
His movement was fluid, flowing and made no sound at all, but as he drew closer, his size reminded him of a giant aquatic creature swimming in the depths.
He stopped in front of the chair.
Lee Young-jin wanted to drop his gaze. However, his body was firmly fixed to the chair, and he couldn’t escape anywhere. So he decided to face the situation. He managed to stiffen his neck and meet his gaze.
However, the man didn’t seem very interested in such a fight. He tilted his head slightly to the side. The pale scarlet chandelier light hit the area between his brows and the corners of his eyebrows, turning the color of his iris to a pale achromatic color.
“Who do you work for?”
The man asked a question.
Lee Young-jin didn’t answer.
He had received various trainings in preparation for interrogation. He didn’t take it seriously. Both Teacher and the person teaching him thought that he would never find himself in such a situation anyway. But in the end, it came to this situation…then, a hard dry hand came and touched his cheek. Lee Young-jin involuntarily swallowed dry saliva. His neck felt sluggish. As his cheeks tightened, his convex lower lip shrank slightly, then tightened again. The corners of his eyes twitched along with the beauty mark on his pale skin. The man’s gaze moved from the trembling neck to the hardened chin, lips, and eyes in turn.
The tension intesified.
Lee Young-jin thought once again that he wanted to run away.
Long fingers stopped slowly from his cheek to his chin, to the point where his jawbone and the nape of his neck joined.
At that moment, the educational content that keeping silent in certain situations can lead to the worst results came to Lee Young-jin’s mind.
The man’s eyes were still staring at him. In the end, Lee Young-jin gave up the fight and admitted defeat. Doubting whether the man was aware of this short tug-of-war.
“I, I…”
He lowered his gaze downwards and barely opened his mouth.
“I don’t kow about that… I just do what I’m told.”
“Who ordered you?”
“Teacher.”
“Who is your Teacher?”
“I don’t know the name.”
It was only then that the man’s hand broke away from Lee Young-jin.
It felt as if the hand had been strangling his throat. Lee Young-jin lowered his eyes and took a few quick deep breaths. His chest swelled up and down again and again.
The thirst intensified again. He stuck his tongue out and licked his dry lips. The lower lip parted slightly, giving off a faint taste of blood. His throat burned.
And only then did things about Ji Jung-hoon and Park Eun-young strike his head like lightning.
“M-mister…”
“Mister?”
“My colleagues…”
He strongly wanted to ask about their safety but his vocal cords didn’t follow his will. Lee Young-jin’s voice was small and weak, and even the endings were vague.
“Ahh. Your colleagues.”
The man nodded indifferently.
“Don’t worry. Because I keep my promise.”
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