* * *
Dragged into a van, Yeo Woohee cried to himself, thinking this was exactly why dating a chaebol’s son was a bad idea.
If the kidnappers called his parents and demanded 500 billion won, Chairman Yeo would probably hang up, saying there’s no way he’d spend that kind of money on an illegitimate child.
The only person he could rely on was Yeo Jinwoo—but that guy was hot-headed and reckless.
He could already picture Jinwoo charging in with a gun to beat up the kidnappers and ending up dead.
The thought spiraled into a scene where the kidnappers sliced off his ear to scare the chaebol.
“Please… sniff… let me go.”
He tried to cry as quietly as possible, worried they’d get annoyed with the noise.
Curling up like a pill bug, he shielded his ears and avoided looking at their faces.
A large hand gently stroked his trembling back.
“Woohee, it’s me. Dohee. Don’t worry—I came to save you.”
“Huh? Dohee?”
A familiar voice he never expected to hear here.
Yeo Woohee lifted his tear-streaked face, and Kang Dohee, looking shocked, asked if he was hurt.
His nose, which had hit something earlier, started bleeding again.
He instinctively tilted his head back, but Dohee lowered it again, saying it might run down his throat.
When Kang Dohee asked one of the thugs in the passenger seat for something to stop the bleeding, the guy opened the glovebox and handed over a crusty old towel that still smelled faintly of fabric softener.
It felt like a reminder that, unlike normal people, these men often had to deal with blood.
Kang Dohee held the thick towel to Woohee’s nose.
“Are you sure you’re not sick or something? You’re really okay?”
He still looked worried.
At least it seemed like he’d heard something from Na Taejoon.
Woohee just replied, “It’s nothing,” and waited for the bleeding to stop.
Not knowing what to do with his bloodied hands, he just held them awkwardly until Kang Dohee pulled out several wet wipes.
Dohee gently wiped Woohee’s hands clean.
The sensation of the wipe tickling his palms somehow made his heart flutter too.
But he had a master—he couldn’t be getting emotional over another Alpha.
So, he pretended to be mad on purpose.
“What do you think you’re doing? Just because I’m going abroad doesn’t mean you can kidnap me!”
“I couldn’t let you stay with that bastard for even a second longer. I know what could happen to you. And you wanted me to just sit back and watch?”
Even after saving his friend, he was being yelled at—understandably, he was upset.
His voice turned bitter.
His eyes were fixed on Woohee’s neck, as if he already knew exactly what Yeo Jinwoo had done.
Woohee quickly covered the pheromone gland where Jinwoo’s name had been engraved.
“I just want you to be okay. That’s all I want.”
“How did you know? That… something was happening with him.”
His intuition was terrifying.
Woohee had only called once to assure his worried friends that he was just sick.
Yet Kang Dohee had figured out everything about his relationship with Yeo Jinwoo.
Well, half of it, anyway.
What he didn’t know was that all of this was part of a plan—something Woohee had wanted and dreamed of.
“Take me back to him. We were on our way to hang out.”
“You know where he was taking you? If you went with him… damn it. No way. That’s not happening.”
From the way he was reacting, maybe Jinwoo had planned to lock him up somewhere.
Thinking about how he was about to go somewhere amazing and now it was ruined because of this guy—he was so angry he could scream.
“You’re acting just like him. I didn’t think you would be like this too. I’m disappointed, Dohee.”
Dohee had thought Woohee would be happy to be rescued.
Like a prince saving a princess from a dragon, he thought this could be a scene straight out of a romantic movie.
But Woohee, tired and worn down, just resented him for getting involved without asking.
Maybe he was scared of the retaliation he might face from Yeo Jinwoo because of this.
Dohee clenched his jaw and bowed his head. Whatever it took, he had to get Woohee away from that bastard.
“I know what you’re afraid of. But I have the strength now to protect you. What your brother did to you—that’s not normal. It was never your fault, and you don’t have to keep hurting yourself by staying silent.”
Kang Dohee covered his tear-streaked eyes with a hand.
He was an Alpha now, and yet here he was, crying like a fool in front of the Omega he liked.
Pathetic.
“Do your parents know what your brother’s been doing to you?”
“…No. They don’t. And don’t even think about telling them! Not even you—I won’t forgive that.”
Yoo Woohee was like a cat that had fallen into a sewer.
Even when a rescuer reached out a desperate hand to save it, the cat scratched the hand, mistaking help for harm, and tried to run.
His large, almond-shaped eyes brimmed with fear and suspicion.
Kang Dohee decided not to press the issue any further, not wanting to scare him more.
Woohee probably still believed the foolish idea that if he just endured it all, his family could stay harmonious.
That was why so many cases of sexual abuse within families went hidden.
The car that had been speeding slowed down.
The navigation voice said, “You’ve arrived near your destination. Please turn left.”
[Ending navigation.]
Woohee glanced out the window, then looked back at Dohee.
“I heard your parents are coming home today.”
They had arrived at Woohee’s house—the residence of the powerful family behind the OL Group.
Right now, the only people who could stop Yeo Jinwoo were their parents.
So Dohee had no choice but to bring Woohee back to the very house he feared most—the one he shared with Jinwoo.
Dohee pulled a handkerchief from his jacket and reached out to Woohee. A
s he gently tied it around Woohee’s neck to hide his name tag, he looked down at him with a pained expression.
“Be careful. You want to keep this from your parents, right?”
The large figure that had come close now stepped back.
Seeing Dohee’s worried face, Woohee felt guilty.
He considered saying that it wasn’t like that—that he’d actually enjoyed it, to ease his friend’s worry—but then stopped himself.
If Dohee found out what a pervert he was, he’d never be kind to him again.
Before waking up in this novel, there’d been a boy he’d grown up with, practically since they were babies, because their parents were friends.
He’d thought that boy, of all people, would understand if he came out as gay.
So after years of agonizing, he’d finally told him in high school.
But when he came home from school, he’d found his parents sitting in the dark, waiting for him at the kitchen table, holding knives.
They lunged at him, screaming they’d rather die than have a son like him.
He had begged for his life, sobbing.
His mom said she couldn’t live with the shame in the neighborhood.
His dad beat him, shouting he hadn’t known his son was mentally ill.
The next day, bruised all over, he still went to school.
But the air in the classroom turned ice cold when he walked in.
He forced a smile and tried to talk to his friends.
“What’s wrong?”
No one answered.
The friend he had trusted stood surrounded by others, glaring at him in open disgust.
On the blackboard, someone had written slurs like “Homo Sex, AIDS Spreader.”
As he tried to erase them with the board eraser, the sound of mocking laughter echoed behind him.
He couldn’t go back after that.
It wasn’t just the bullying—he could’ve handled that.
What broke him was realizing he got hard when they forced him to kneel and poured milk over his head.
It was hard enough just being gay.
But he was also a true submissive masochist. He dropped out.
His parents treated him like filth after that, locking him in his room and only sliding in food and water during meals.
He studied alone in that room and eventually passed the equivalency exam.
When he got into college, his parents pretended to support him gaining independence and kicked him out to live near school.
He’d been hurt, sure—but the pain didn’t last long.
With no one to watch him, no one to control him, he was finally free to visit SM clubs.
It was there he saw, learned, and accepted that someone like him could only be happy with a good Master.
That’s why Yeo Jinwoo meant so much to him.
He was just like him—one of the rare few in this world.
A lion had to meet a lion.
A cat, another cat. An elephant, an elephant.
Everyone had their own kind to be with.
* * *
