‘A New Pseudonym’

For a moment, Hanna felt a sharp throb in her throat.

His tone hadn’t been particularly soft, yet she couldn’t understand why those words had sounded so strangely gentle to her ears.

Just as she clamped her lips tighter, forcing down the metallic taste of blood welling up again, a flamboyantly dressed man burst through the commotion of the crowd.

“What the f*ck! What is this?!”

“Welcome, Boss.”

At the arrival of Jo Changdae, who was wearing a wine-colored jacket over a completely unseasonal Hawaiian shirt, the guards managing the scene bowed from the waist all at once.

Regardless of their greeting, Changdae grabbed the collapsed man’s shoulder and flipped him over to check his condition first. The moment he saw the bloody pulp of a face, he leaped to his feet. He violently tore at his own hair and glared with bloodshot eyes at Beomgyo.

“C-C-Christ… Have you lost your f*cking mind? Do you even know who this guy is?!”

“…”

“You piece of sht, just because you entered the main headquarters, do you think nothing else fucking matters anymore?!”

Beomgyo didn’t even pretend to listen, casually throwing Hanna’s spilled belongings back into her bag. Furious at being ignored, Changdae looked ready to lung at his back.

However, Jonghak stepped in front of him first.

Having gathered her bag, Beomgyo snatched Hanna’s wrist and stood up.

“Jonghak, clean up the surroundings and make sure everyone shuts their f*cking mouths.”

Ordering his subordinate behind him to handle the aftermath, Beomgyo immediately dragged Hanna through the parting crowd.

“Stop right there. I told you to fcking stop! Hey, that absolute motherfcker!”

Changdae’s venomous shouting sliced through the thumping bass of the music, but Beomgyo never looked back.

Hanna didn’t have the luxury to look back either, as she struggled just to keep pace with the man’s massive, unyielding strides.

By the time they reached the steep stairs leading to the exit, Hanna’s captured wrist throbbed painfully. She called out to Beomgyo’s back.

“What about Yeji… I mean, what’s going to happen to that woman?”

Since he clearly wasn’t going to release her wrist just because she asked, she quickly changed her question. She still couldn’t get the woman who looked like Yeji out of her mind; she couldn’t just ignore it.

“That woman back there…!”

Thinking he might not have heard her over the music, she was about to ask again when Beomgyo, who had already reached the opposite side of the street outside the club, pulled open the door of a black sedan with a heavy click.

“Get in.”

Hanna, however, merely glared at the open passenger seat and refused to budge.

Facing the stubborn gaze of a child determined to get an answer to her question first, Beomgyo slowly pushed the inside of his cheek with the tip of his tongue and shifted his weight onto one leg.

“Do you know that girl from earlier?”

“It’s not that, but…”

Watching Hanna mumble incoherently due to the napkins stuffed in her mouth, Beomgyo let out a scoff, thoroughly exasperated.

“You certainly have the luxury to stick your nose into other people’s business looking like that. You don’t even realize your own house is burning down.”

Roughly jerking her captured wrist up, he thrust the flower she held right in front of her eyes and demanded.

“You know what this is, don’t you?”

“…I-I don’t know.”

Sensing danger, Hanna instinctively lied. Even though she knew exactly what that flower was and what it implied, she couldn’t simply pour out the truth.

Squeezing the slender stem tightly, Hanna managed to force out a barely audible whisper.

“I really don’t know. Earlier… that woman was just holding it, so…”

As she twisted her wrist and stepped backward, a stream of blood suddenly leaked through her teeth. The moment Beomgyo released his grip, Hanna hurriedly covered her mouth.

It wasn’t her first time being slapped, but just how badly had the inside of her cheek been torn…?

Biting down hard on the damp, soaked napkins, Hanna looked up at Beomgyo.

He didn’t call her out on the obvious lie. He didn’t raise a hand, nor did he use foul language to intimidate her.

He merely looked down at her with an expression that said he already knew everything.

He had looked exactly like this when listening to her lie about having company at the beach.

Back then, that look had made him seem like a proper adult… but now, it filled her with a sickening anxiety, creeping in like the blood slowly seeping through the crushed napkins.

While Hanna struggled to even swallow the blood pooling in her mouth, Beomgyo tossed her bag through the open passenger door.

He added a final warning, treating it like her last chance.

“Get in. While I’m still using my words.”

Ultimately seated in the passenger side, Hanna stared out the window for a long time.

Though she might not be skilled at lying, she was incredibly quick on the uptake.

He had beaten a seemingly important client without a shred of hesitation, appeared to be closely acquainted with a high-ranking individual at the club, and commanded his subordinates with practiced authority. She could easily deduce what kind of man he was.

After all, he belonged to a category of people Hanna was all too familiar with.

A thug, a gangster, or something of the sort… Automatically thinking of Nam Juyeol, Hanna tightly closed her aching eyes and opened them again.

If there was one thing she had learned with her entire body, it was that you should never provoke the temper of that type of person.

She also knew she couldn’t successfully run away, and even if she did, she had nowhere left to go—which was another reason she had quietly boarded the car.

She couldn’t exactly go to the police; if anything, getting caught by the police would ruin her completely.

The man who looked like his subordinate had taken care of the drugged woman, and he has already helped me twice, so it will be okay…

Even as she tried to run a comforting script through her head, a sudden wave of terror swept over her as she watched the unfamiliar streets blur past the window, making her feel utterly lost.

“Where are we going right now?”

Averting her eyes from the dark sea beneath the bridge and the lined-up fishing boats, Hanna turned to the driver’s seat and asked.

“The hospital.”

“…The hospital?”

At Beomgyo’s unexpected response, Hanna’s eyes widened even further. A hospital—that was an answer entirely absent from the million scenarios playing out in her mind. Surely he wouldn’t take her to a hospital just for a torn cheek? No, more importantly, the real issue was…

“I can’t go to a hospital!”

Belatedly recalling her situation, Hanna cried out in a panic. Beomgyo, however, merely propped his elbow casually against the window frame.

“Why.”

“That’s, well… my current situation is a bit… it’ll be troublesome if a record is left…”

Because I’m technically a dead person right now. So I can’t receive medical treatment under my own name. Unable to bring herself to say it, Hanna stopped herself after rambling incoherently. Somehow, the more she explained, the more suspicious she felt she sounded…

Just then, the car gradually slowed down as it hit a red light.

By the time it came to a complete stop, Beomgyo’s gaze, which had been fixed straight ahead the entire time, shifted over to the passenger seat.

Sensing his eyes drop to her lap, Hanna instinctively gripped her bag tightly. Then, he suddenly asked.

“What’s your name.”

Looking back up at him, the man’s gray eyes felt as though they were piercing straight through her.

“Why the name all of a sudden…?”

As she held his gaze, a cold sweat began to break out along her spine, forcing her to sharply avert her eyes.

It’s not that he knows anything. I’m just letting my own guilt get the better of me…

Kim Hanna—it was just a common name.

It wasn’t as if he could deduce who she was or what kind of mess she was in based on that alone, yet Hanna couldn’t understand why she was unable to answer.

Was it out of simple fear, or was she actually entertaining the insane thought that she might truly have to live under Yeji’s name…?

Suddenly hit with a wave of nausea, Hanna gritted her molars hard.

Just then, the honk of the car behind them echoed. Setting the vehicle back in motion, Beomgyo slowly spun the steering wheel toward a side road and spoke.

“Forget it, then.”

“Duna… no. Sena. Kim Sena.”

Since he had told her to forget it, she could have easily remained silent, but Hanna went out of her way to manufacture a name.

Even so… Hanna, Duna, Sena… even a dog wouldn’t be named like that.

She was appalled by her own complete lack of creativity, but given the sheer chaos of the situation, it was the absolute maximum her brain could formulate.

Though considering she corrected ‘Duna’ because it sounded too much like a joke, perhaps she had been somewhat cautious.

Reflected in the car window was Hanna’s face, looking entirely ambiguous as to whether she was laughing or crying.

After driving through a heavy, prolonged silence for a while, the car finally pulled up in front of a weathered building.

“Get out.”

Following Beomgyo out of the passenger side, Hanna froze solid the moment she spotted the sign attached to the building.

The old channel letter sign flickered precariously, but the letters for ‘Motel’ were exceptionally bright, illuminated by crisp LEDs. Hanna’s mind couldn’t comprehend how their destination had managed to shift from a hospital to a motel.

No. Perhaps this had been his destination from the very beginning. Maybe she had trusted a strange man’s words far too easily.

Without a single word, Hanna stared at Beomgyo’s retreating back as he walked ahead, her hands tightly gripping the strap of the bag crossing her chest.

Human trafficking, organ harvesting, prostitution…

As a horrifying list of illicit trades flashed through her mind, Hanna—finally resolving to attempt the escape she had previously abandoned—swallowed hard against her dry throat.

Just as she slightly pivoted the toes of her dirty sneakers to turn away, Beomgyo’s voice cut through the air first.

“No cars even pass through this area. If you don’t want to freeze to death, get inside quietly.”

Hanna, who was just about to take a step, hesitated and surveyed her surroundings. Usually, lodging facilities were clustered together, but the area was strangely dark.

Buildings were scattered far apart, and she couldn’t detect a single light to indicate whether they were occupied. Hanna turned her gaze back to Beomgyo’s broad back.

Pausing just as he pushed open the glass door, he glanced back, a faint smirk tugging at his lips as he added.

“Ah, actually, freezing to death might be a luxury.”

“What?”

“The kind of bastards who gather in places good for hiding are always predictable. Isn’t that right?”

As if telling her to leave if she wanted to, Beomgyo slipped into the building alone.

A chilly breeze brushed past Hanna’s back as she stared at the rattling glass door.