The Predator’s Past

‘It’s a trap.’

It was clearly a trap designed to catch the target. And if one were to ask who the target was… no matter how I looked at it, it was me, Seohan.

Is he planning to break my skull this time? For a moment, I agonized over why he was calling for me, but the answer came easily. He was undoubtedly going to interrogate me about my behavior yesterday.

“What should I even say…?”

Several predicted questions popped into my head. He might demand to know if I have a split personality, or he might ask, “Who are you?” But regardless of predicting the questions, no clear answers came to mind.

The former might be better than the latter. Even so, they were both questions I desperately wanted to avoid, and a hollow laugh escaped me before I could stop it. The more I thought about it, the more my anger toward ‘Baek Seohan’—the one who drove the situation to this point—piled up.

In the end, following yesterday’s lead, I decided to be an avoidant person again today.

“Let’s just donate…”

My intention to avoid seeing Lee Dohun for a while remained unchanged. Finding places to donate, looking for volunteer work… time would pass quickly enough with just those tasks.

If he’s hungry, he’ll eat on his own.

However, that thought was shattered exactly the next morning.

“…He’s not eating?”

“Yes, still…”

A servant, still looking excessively intimidated, approached and delivered the news of Lee Dohun’s current status. Upon hearing that he hadn’t put a single spoonful of rice into his mouth—and wasn’t even drinking water—Seohan’s anxiety spiked.

‘What if something goes wrong?’

What if his body suffers because he’s not eating? What if he gets dehydrated? What if I feed him later and he vomits everything because his stomach is too weak? What if his esophagus is injured and he can’t swallow properly? What if he ends up in the hospital?

Thoughts snowballed, one after another. There was no way that would happen after just one day, and even less likely that the situation would escalate to the extremes of his stream of consciousness. Yet, he couldn’t let go of the endless worry.

<You should have treated Mr. Dohun better then.>

The face of the unknown main protagonist shimmered before his eyes. He even had the hallucination of a voice whispering that if he didn’t want to die, he should be kind to Lee Dohun.

Seohan reluctantly bolted upright. He felt he had to at least check if Lee Dohun was safe.

<Pitiful thing.>

Dohun had lived at the bottom of life for a very long time. He had received gazes of pity and sympathy more times than he could count.

The woman who gave birth to him fled to escape her husband, and Dohun, left alone, survived by enduring the man’s abuse from a young age. At first, he didn’t even know of a mother’s existence. He only learned the truth unilaterally through the man’s drunken screams of, “Your mother abandoned you and ran away!”

As he grew older, he tried his best not to get hit. But that was it; as he was still just a child, there was no way for him to escape the cycle of violence.

Then one day.

<Let’s just die together. Die!>

The man, having returned after binging on alcohol, brandished a broken bottle. Dohun, who had been hiding in the corner of the room holding his breath, escaped the house while the man tripped and fell in his drunken stupor.

It was an impulsive act, but he never regretted that day. Rather, it was the greatest stroke of luck in Dohun’s life.

The night he fled from the monster was one of torrential rain. Having no umbrella or anything to cover himself, he huddled under the awning of a closed grocery store to escape the downpour.

<Want to come with me?>

There, he met the most precious person in his life.

Dohun did not refuse the hand extended by an elderly woman passing in front of the store. It wasn’t that he lacked suspicion, but the fear that he might truly die if he rejected that hand and stayed there moved him.

Though they shared no blood, Dohun called her “Grandmother” and they lived like family. He thought this was what a real family was like. Not something like his father, who became a monster whenever he drank and beat his son.

After that, truly happy times followed. Despite his unfortunate childhood, he grew up well without becoming crooked, becoming a blunt but deeply humane person.

Although the grandmother who took him in was not wealthy and had to spend most of her day earning money, he never thought of himself as unhappy. On the contrary, every day felt like a blessing.

However, just like the luck that had arrived overnight, misfortune also struck suddenly.

<Your father left behind some debts.>

He was told his father had committed suicide. He had gambled away everything after even turning to illegal private moneylenders.

The massive debt fell straight to Dohun, who hadn’t been able to sever the bond between father and son. He stared for a long time at the promissory note handed over by a man with an unpleasant smile.

The timeframe was generous, but the interest rate was absurd. Furthermore, there was a clause stating that he would forfeit his physical rights if the debt wasn’t repaid within the deadline. A fierce gaze shot toward the man opposite him, but the man didn’t flinch.

<There’s an old lady living with you. If you take this clause as it is, I won’t touch her. Well, change it if you want. We don’t care. Instead, the collection will get a bit more aggressive, and we might have to touch someone else?>

It was a threat that if he changed the clause, his precious person would not be left alone. He sent the man back with the excuse of needing to think it over. Beyond being an unreasonable contract, it seemed clearly illegal. Dohun had no intention of following it.

The next day, Dohun immediately went to the police station to report the illegal private lending office. And the incident happened that night.

<Oh my, dear husband…!>

A small warehouse located far from the house caught fire. It was a place where his grandmother had kept her late husband’s belongings, often watching over it with nostalgic eyes.

There was nothing inside that could have caused a fire. It was a deliberate act of arson, obvious to anyone. In that moment, he realized. The police could not protect them.

He simply watched his grandmother wailing as if her heart were being torn apart. It felt as if a hole had been pierced through his heart. An endless guilt rose within him.

It felt as if someone was whispering in his ear that it was him who had taken away what his grandmother cherished. He hadn’t done anything wrong, but he couldn’t shake that thought.

<I’ll pay it back, that debt.>

So, he accepted it. He suppressed the urge to punch the man’s face as he smirked, saying he knew it would end this way.

Since then, Dohun’s life had become miserable again. He worked like a madman to earn money, but saving the massive sum his father allegedly borrowed seemed impossible. Yet, even if it was a future that would never be realized, Dohun knew no other way but to cling to it. Thus, a treadmill-like life of living only to pay off debt repeated itself.

Then, by chance, he met a man.

<Hello.>

The person with a radiant smile introduced himself as Baek Seohan.

The expensive-looking suit and the wealthy aura of his face made it obvious he was someone living in a different world. Naturally, Dohun was wary of him, but the man he kept running into continued to offer unprovoked kindness.

<Why are you doing this to me?>

<Just because. I like you, Mr. Dohun.>

He thought the man was a truly strange and suspicious fellow.

One day, Baek Seohan, who seemed perfect in every way, confessed that he had been abused by his father. Having apparently been drinking somewhere, he looked disheveled unlike his usual self, muttering with a faint scent of alcohol. His eyes, filled with melancholy as if pouring out a deep-seated grief from his heart, caught Dohun’s attention.

It was from that point on that Dohun unknowingly began to grow closer to him. Perhaps his heart was drawn to the fact that they shared a similar past.

As time passed, Dohun grew closer to him. He could feel himself gradually opening his heart.

He had a sturdy body that didn’t fail even after working without rest, but he couldn’t help his heart getting weary. When he felt a suffocating tightness in his chest, he would talk to Baek Seohan about it. Spending time with the man who listened quietly made him feel strangely better.

He wondered if this was what it was like to have a friend he could pour his heart out to.

<Should I pay off the debt for you?>

<No, this is my business.>

Once, he had received an offer to have his debt paid off. Dohun flatly refused. Baek Seohan seemed to have a lot of money, but that shouldn’t be a reason to rely on him. He didn’t want to feel like he was trading a friend he had grown close enough to share his inner thoughts with for money.

<Interesting.>

<What did you just say? I didn’t hear you.>

<It’s nothing.>

If one had to pinpoint the cause of everything, would it be the conversation they had then?

On a morning like any other, the grandmother, who sold small herbs and side dishes at the market, left the house early. And Dohun always set out to work at a similar time. No, he tried to set out.

<You people, what are you…!>

<Take him.>

It was a truly sudden kidnapping. He struggled and fought back as much as possible, but the difference in numbers was absolute. In the end, he could not escape the clutches of the unknown men.