Before the Rain Washes It All Away

A shadow stretched long behind the pitch-black figure of Woo Jaeyoung.

A lukewarm early-summer rain lazily landed on the bridge of his nose.

When he lifted his head, a black umbrella was quickly held over him.

“The car is on its way, hyungnim.”

“And the site?”

A clear metallic click rang out as the tip of his cigarette caught fire.

A thin stream of smoke slipped out between his lips like a sigh.

“They say it’ll be set up right in time for your arrival.”

“Keep them conscious. I’ll check it myself.”

It was an important matter, and he intended to handle it quickly, but perhaps because of the suspicious timing, his voice carried a subtle chill.

The men standing nearby answered with tense “Yes, sir,” their voices tightly wound.

The timing lined up too perfectly, as if rehearsed.

Among them, one man stood out with especially broad shoulders and a large build.

He spoke “What about the fingers, hyungnim?”

The man who used to act all harmless and naive in front of a frail omega now had eyes sunken into pitch-black coldness.

The trembling dialect he once used had long since disappeared.

“Should we keep all ten attached?”

Chewing down lightly on the cigarette filter with his front teeth, Woo Jaeyoung tilted his lips into a crooked smile.

“They’re the bastards who laid hands on Yoo Sowon, so normally I’d be the one cutting them off one by one myself, but…”

He trailed off deliberately, letting the question hang.

He recalled how the guys at the office used to dote on that lively, friendly kid.

They would stash snacks in their pockets or drawers, always looking for a chance to hand them over.

It wasn’t exactly a bad sight, so he had let it be.
Unlike the prickly Moyoung, Sowon was soft and gentle, the kind people found cute.
It wasn’t uncommon to hear them say they wished they could have him as a younger brother.

Then one day, Yoo Sowon vanished out of nowhere.

Those same men started pestering Woo Jaeyoung like they’d lost their minds.

They insisted he must have hurt Sowon somehow, that the kid must have finally snapped and run away.

They whined about how rare it was to meet someone like him in their harsh lives.

Dealing with their complaints and sending them out on errands had been a headache in itself.

When word came that Sowon’s disappearance might not have been a simple runaway case, but a kidnapping orchestrated by Gong Chanhyuk, the head of Taehan Financial Capital’s Seoul southern branch, the office erupted.

There had been no solid proof until now, but given Sowon’s otherwise ordinary life, it was obvious where the problem came from.

“That f*cking bastard was bound to pull something like this!”

Even without being pushed, the enraged men worked efficiently.

They swept through nearby warehouses, factories, and empty offices around where Sowon had been found, capturing every last underling one by one.

There had been clashes with gangs controlling the southeastern area, but charging at men who had nothing to lose was no different from asking to get beaten senseless.

Well, they’d worked diligently.

A reward was due.

Woo Jaeyoung glanced sideways at Gamja, who was holding the umbrella over him, and asked,

“It’ll take some time to get there, right?”

“Yes, hyungnim. About two hours.”

“Think you’ll get bored waiting?”

A glimpse of white, neatly aligned teeth showed.

“If they act like complete assholes, we can always cut a few off.”

A car climbed the steep hill and stopped precisely in front of him.

As Woo Jaeyoung slid into the back seat, he muttered,

“Just hurry up. I’ll be back before the kid wakes up.”

“Understood, hyungnim.”

The car sped off toward its destination.

The rain striking the window diagonally grew heavier by the moment.

It didn’t look like it would stop anytime soon.

That was fine.

Rain was perfect for washing away anything suspicious.

His fingertips tapped lightly against the door trim, producing a small, steady rhythm.

‘He said he wasn’t Yoo Sowon, didn’t he.’

Woo Jaeyoung frowned slightly as he recalled the young man with round, clear eyes like droplets of rain.

The kid had said he had something important to talk about, speaking with an oddly resolute attitude.

Yet instead of getting to the point, he had first begged for a promise.

‘Promise me you won’t treat me like I’m crazy. I don’t want to be locked up in a psychiatric hospital.’

‘What the hell are you talking about? I don’t even know what it is yet…’

‘Just promise me that first. Please. It’s not hard, right?’

Woo Jaeyoung had no intention of pushing away the Sowon he had finally gotten back.

So making that promise wasn’t difficult.

Only after confirming it several times did Sowon speak, his face pale.

‘I’m not Yoo Sowon.’

It sounded absurd, but Jaeyoung didn’t interrupt him.

‘I mean… I’m someone else, but somehow I ended up possessing this body. To me, this world is like… a story.

A novel. A novel where I can only exit once I reach a happy ending.’

Based on what he knew of the original story, that “happy ending” meant that he and Woo Jaeyoung would end up living happily together.

So he asked, haltingly, for cooperation—for his safety, peace, and happiness.

‘But technically, I’m not the real “Yoo Sowon”… so if you feel deceived, I’m really sorry, but if you think about it, I’m also a victim of this sudden possession…’

As he rambled, Sowon looked up at him with frightened eyes.

Jaeyoung’s silence clearly unsettled him.

‘If you’re going to change your mind and throw me into a hospital, I won’t go. I’ll run away somehow.’

‘Calm down. That won’t happen.’

Sitting at the head of the bed, gently brushing Sowon’s forehead, Jaeyoung asked flatly,

‘Then who are you?’

‘…I don’t know. That’s what’s driving me crazy. I do remember some things, but they’re fragmented… hard to explain.’

‘So in a way, it is amnesia?’

‘Yeah… It’s weird, right?’

‘It is. But it’s fine. We’ll figure it out step by step. For now, we should talk about it more.

I’ll also think about how to help you. We need to figure out whatever your original “plan” was too, right?’

‘You’re really okay after hearing all this?’

‘As long as you stay by my side, that’s enough.’

At that moment, his phone vibrated.

It was a message saying the men he’d sent to the southeast had found both the one involved in Sowon’s kidnapping and the one who supplied the drugs.

‘You tired?’

His deliberately gentle voice eased Sowon’s tension.

‘Yeah…’

‘Get some sleep. It’s not too late to think about it after. I’m going out for a bit, so don’t go anywhere.’

‘Okay.’

‘Stay inside the house. I’ll be back before you wake up. Be good.’

‘Got it… just go already…’

Gathering his thoughts, Woo Jaeyoung closed his eyes.

At his deep sigh, Gamja glanced at him through the rearview mirror.

“Is something wrong, hyungnim?”

“Gamja.”

“Yes.”

“Call Doctor Jang later… no, wait. Does Sowon feel uncomfortable around him?”

“Yes. He stiffened up. It seemed like he suspected something.”

“What would he even suspect? I’ve never let him roam around the office when I’m not there.”

“That’s right. There was always someone with him. He wasn’t interested in capital work to begin with.

Whenever work talk came up, he’d leave on his own. He never tried to interfere.”

“I see… Before this, the worst he had was minor illnesses, so he never even met Jang Hanseon.”

“Is there a problem?”

“Not exactly. On the way back, call Doctor Jang and ask him to recommend a psychiatrist.

Someone discreet… and easy to handle.”

“Understood.”

To be honest, Woo Jaeyoung didn’t believe Sowon’s claims at all.

His life was far too grounded in harsh realism and cynicism to accept talk of possession or novels.

He hadn’t interrupted or denied Sowon only out of consideration.

In reality, he had already drawn his own conclusion.

‘They said dissociation can happen due to trauma.’

By estimation, Sowon had been confined for about one to two months.

There were clear signs of injections and physical abuse on his body, and concern about severe psychological trauma followed.

Wounds of the mind were harder to heal than wounds of the body.

Even Jang Hanseon, his attending physician, had been deeply worried.

He had even said it was fortunate that Sowon had at least found some relief through the defense mechanism of amnesia.

But what if amnesia wasn’t enough?

What if forgetting alone wasn’t sufficient and he had to deny himself just to endure it?

“…Ha.”

A low, eerie chuckle escaped him.

Through the mirror, Gamja caught a glimpse of his gaze but didn’t dare ask.

“How far do I have to go before this is enough to satisfy me?”

“…”

“Breaking a few bones and cutting off a few things doesn’t feel like it’ll cut it… what do you think?”

The man gripping the steering wheel replied evenly,

“You need to make an example of them.”

“Exactly.”

Woo Jaeyoung lowered his gaze and bared his teeth.

They say beasts hunt only when hungry.

But he had been born as something worse than a beast.

He didn’t fight to tear flesh—he fought to see blood.

And whatever was done to him, he repaid it several times over.

Until now, he hadn’t realized that Yoo Sowon was his reverse scale.

The bastards probably hadn’t known either.

To them, Sowon must have been nothing more than a naive, inferior omega toyed with on a whim by a dominant alpha—someone they kept around just to watch his heat cycle.

But what did any of that matter now?

The only thing that mattered was that Woo Jaeyoung had completely snapped.

“I should show them what kind of hell-born bastard Woo Jaeyoung really is.”

The rain grew heavier.

The pounding sound against the windows roared as if it would hide even the most vicious of intentions, urging the beast on.