“Ass*ult, threats, undeniable evidence. Add my testimony on top of that—what do you think will happen?”

‘You’ve got priors too, so it won’t be easy to just let this slide.’

At the quietly added words, the man flinched. But he wasn’t the type to back down obediently.

“You crazy b*stard.”

Smack—Gunwoo’s cheek turned. Gunwoo, whose frame was far larger than the average adult, wasn’t someone a man pickled in alcohol and reduced to skin and bones could handle. But to a man who’d lost his mind, such things didn’t matter.

Gunwoo smirked as he ran his fingertip over his slightly bleeding lip.

“Stronger than I thought. Use that strength to make a living. Don’t beg from the son you abandoned.”

“You f*cking b*stard.”

The man raised his hand again. But this time it didn’t reach Gunwoo.

“Stop if you don’t want to die at the hands of this f*cking b*stard. There’s a limit to my patience. Should we just go to the police station right now?”

“It won’t be good for you either.”

The threat that barely qualified as one was just laughable. If there was anything different between him and the man, it was that he wasn’t ruled by emotions.

Who knew the day would come when I’d use my deficiency that sets me apart from others like this.

“Let’s see whether it’ll be worse for me or worse for you. Actually, do we even need to go that far?”

Gunwoo stepped right up to the man.

“Dirty blood flows in my body too. Might as well go there once, what the h*ll.”

Prison.

The man understood Gunwoo’s words perfectly.

“Show up one more time. See what happens. I’m curious what I’ll do when I lose it too.”

After delivering the brutal warning, Gunwoo walked past the man.

The warning must have worked since the man didn’t appear after that.

Foolishly, he thought that was the end of it.

***

Senior year of high school, a few days before the college entrance exam.

Gunwoo, studying at the reading room like always, received a message from Hyena.

<Oppa, I have a problem I don’t know, can you teach me?>

<Please>

<Please please>

<Save me>

<Please?>

<Oppa>

<Do Gunwoo-ssi>

<Gunwoo-ya>

At the messages coming in one after another, Gunwoo smiled. It was the only time during his bleak exam preparation life when he could breathe freely. Thanks to his decent brain and concentration, studying wasn’t difficult.

It was just hard not being able to see Hyena as much as he wanted.

Even when he tried to ignore it, thinking of it as an investment for a future with Hyena, he ended up swayed by a mere message.

Maybe it was because he knew exactly how much she held back before sending it. In the end, Gunwoo picked up his bag.

“Hyena again?”

Sejun, who occupied the seat next to him, asked.

“Yeah.”

“Seriously, Do Gunwoo’s little shadow. I really can’t watch because I feel so bad for her. She’s so devoted—can’t you at least accept her feelings?”

When Hyena enters college, then.

Hiding his true feelings, Gunwoo tapped Sejun’s shoulder and left the reading room. He passed through the deserted alley that was a shortcut and was just about to enter the apartment complex when familiar figures caught his eye.

It was his adoptive father and that man. Gunwoo quickly hid himself in the alley.

“You shouldn’t come all the way here. You know it’s a sensitive time for Gunwoo, right?”

That man stood in front of his adoptive father.

“I was in such a hurry, I had no choice.”

He was utterly shameless.

“Didn’t you say last time was the last time?”

“Can people’s affairs be cut off so cleanly like that?”

At the utterly shameless man’s words, his adoptive father let out a long sigh.

“This is all I can give you right now.”

The man snatched the envelope his adoptive father handed over and checked inside.

“This’ll put out the urgent fire. I’ll come back in a few days, so have more ready.”

“How long are you going to do this?”

“Why are you being so petty? If you’re getting my son for free, you should be able to handle at least this much. Oh, and don’t forget. Your kid’s future depends on my mouth.”

Gunwoo followed the man who was waving the envelope as he walked away. He’d known he was bottom-of-the-barrel trash, but he hadn’t expected him to be this thoughtless.

‘If he’s thoughtless, I’ll have to teach him.’

When he spun the scrawny body around, the man’s eyes widened.

“Ah, f*ck. Thought my liver was gonna drop out.”

“What are you doing here?”

A cold voice completely devoid of emotion leaked from Gunwoo’s mouth.

“Can’t you tell by looking? I’m getting paid for raising my kid for free.”

The man said with a cackle.

“Why are you taking it from my father?”

“Look at this b*stard. I’m your father. The blood flowing in your body is mine. Not that gentleman.”

“That d*mn blood, I want to drain it all out.”

“Go ahead if you can. I can extort more using that as leverage, so it’s no loss to me.”

It was a statement that made him wonder where the bottom of humanity was.

“Stop it.”

“Why would I when there’s an endless money source?”

“There’s something I’ve been looking into carefully lately…”

Gunwoo spoke as he approached the man.

“How to get rid of someone without anyone knowing?”

The man stepped back with fear in his eyes.

“There are so many methods. From brutally painful ones to ones that end in an instant. Which should I do for you?”

“…”

“Tell me what you want.”

Thwack—the man struck his face. It was an instinctive action to protect himself. Gunwoo put up a moderate guard and silently endured the man’s violence. Even while smiling.

That’s when it happened.

“Oppa!”

At that moment, a voice that absolutely shouldn’t be heard rang out. Hyena, who’d come running in a hurry, clung to the man’s body.

“What’s this now?”

The man, angry beyond measure, pushed Hyena away. Her small body fell to the ground.

In an instant, his vision flipped. Gunwoo knocked the man down, mounted him, and squeezed his throat.

Beside him, Hyena sobbed.

“Stop it, Oppa. You’ll die if you keep this up.”

The one dying was the man, yet she worried about him until the end.

When he came to his senses, he was sitting in the police box near his house. The man with his face a mess was screaming at the top of his lungs.

“That b*stard hit first, I’m telling you. He even choked me trying to kill me.”

“The ahjussi hit first. Look at this face—where is there even a place to hit!”

Hyena fought back without backing down.

“You f*cking b*tch, where are you spouting nonsense? You hit me too. Officer, those two are in it together.”

“I just fell while trying to stop them.”

“She’s talking nonsense. Officer, those two pinned me down and tried to kill me. No, I pay taxes that go toward your salary—why aren’t you protecting an innocent citizen’s rights!”

The officer glanced at the man’s throat, which showed no trace of choking, and answered indifferently.

“Special ass*ult, gambling, theft. You’ve got an impressive record.”

“That’s the past, and I’m an innocent citizen now.”

The man said with a shameless face.

“Well, we’ll know that after investigating. Those students are pretty hurt too.”

The officer’s face, looking at Gunwoo with bruises all over his face and Hyena with her disheveled hair, showed pity clearly different from before.

Since their identities had already been confirmed, the situation was clearly favorable to Gunwoo no matter how you looked at it.

A thug with several priors and a model student ranked in the top 10 nationwide couldn’t be compared from the start.

“Th-what is it. CC-something. You know, those surveillance cameras. You’ll know if you check that.”

“I already told you. There’s no CCTV there.”

Of course. He’d deliberately chosen that place.

If someone hadn’t interfered, everything would have been perfect.

Gunwoo stared at Hyena, the protagonist of this mess. Clothes as messy as though she’d rolled in dirt, disheveled hair. Scratches all over her face entered his vision one by one.

“Oppa, are you okay?”

She was worrying about him in a worse state than his own—he should be worried and feel sorry for her, but honestly, he was happy. 

Even in moments like this, he, who was called a b*stard, a little prick, a son of a b*tch even by his biological father, fed off Hyena’s reaction. Maybe he was the real son of a b*tch.

Hiding his true feelings, he asked back.

“I’m fine. You?”

“Of course I’m fine. Look at my build. I’m Yoon Hyena—take away my toughness and I’m a corpse.”

Behind her bright smile, his biological father smiled nastily. And…

“That b*stard’s biological father is me. This is clear ass*ult on a family member.”

The bomb had exploded.

Shocked by the unexpected truth, Hyena stared at him. He couldn’t meet that gaze.

It felt like the darkness he’d suppressed and buried deep inside himself had been exposed.

The face of his biological mother gasping for breath with the whites of her eyes showing came to mind. So did the voice that constantly brushed past his ears.

‘Watch carefully. This b*tch’s face as she dies because of you.’

Gunwoo raised his gaze. His biological father, lips stretched in a skin-crawling way, looked at Hyena and raised his hand to make a throat-slitting gesture.

‘That b*tch will end up like your mother too.’

The devil wearing the mask of biological father was saying that. A relationship that would never end until one of them died.

His hands naturally clenched with force. If he just slit that throat right now, he’d be free. Grab the head and cut as slowly as possible. So he can never survive, so he dies as painfully as possible.

The terrible thought took concrete shape. That’s when warm heat brushed over his twitching hands.

“Oppa, are you okay?”

Hyena’s face full of worry filled his eyes that had been gripped by murderous intent. Over it, the face of his biological mother gasping with the whites of her eyes showing overlapped.

At that moment, he realized. If he coveted Hyena, she would become unhappy. That sunny face would lose its vitality and eventually wither and dry up.

Like his biological mother.

The reality he’d avoided all along grabbed his ankle like that. So perfectly he couldn’t move an inch.

From that day on, Gunwoo distanced himself from Hyena. He volunteered for military service, and after discharge, he lived alone near school under the excuse of studying and rarely went home.

Even during that time, contact came endlessly from his biological father. At first, he didn’t answer.

<Should I make that b*tch like your mother too?>

Until a message came from an unknown number.

He thought his biological father, who’d lost his mind, might harm Hyena or his adoptive parents. 

So he pretended to give in and answered his biological father’s calls. He periodically gave him a set amount of money, neither too much nor too little, and attached someone to him. 

The money he’d grown through stocks went into his biological father’s hands like that and became crime funds. He collected that evidence bit by bit. 

His biological father was imprisoned without ever dreaming that the person giving him money was the culprit. As his criminal record accumulated, his sentence lengthened.

Everything was flowing smoothly. Except for the longing for Hyena that attacked sporadically, the boiling l*st, and the twisted possessiveness.

Just one ‘Yoon Hyena’ was missing from his life, yet life felt empty.

He’d never craved anyone else’s affection in his life. Not even his parents.

But Hyena was different.

He wanted her face that changed moment by moment, her eyes that fully revealed her emotions, to be directed only at him. If that couldn’t be, he felt like he’d shatter everything. 

Like his biological father.

He drank heavily and picked up his phone. He felt like he’d go crazy if he didn’t hear Hyena’s voice. His hand that had been quickly pressing numbers stopped. Gunwoo let out a bitter laugh.

Even after suppressing and suppressing it, these feelings that eventually burst out.

‘Should I just close my eyes and take her?’

Whenever impure thoughts arose, the last image of his biological mother came to mind. In the end, Gunwoo threw the phone in his hand at the wall. Once, twice, three times. Like he was trying to completely destroy the feelings remaining inside him.

He drank like crazy. Because otherwise he felt he couldn’t endure it.

At the ambiguous boundary between dream and reality, Hyena looked at him with a face full of worry.

‘Hyena, you don’t know. Me stroking my er*ect c*ck over and over while thinking of you every night. Me licking and tasting every part of you who appears in my dreams and ultimately making you cry. And me having dirty fantasies of shoving my c*ck in while looking at the real you standing before my eyes.’

He wanted to shove his c*ck into those lips moving and saying something. He also wanted to pin her down and put it in her tight hole. 

What would Yoon Hyena be like, completely stained with his scent?

Through the impure fantasies, a voice full of conviction overlaid.

‘Oppa wouldn’t do that.’

‘I’m a son of a b*tch. I could do terrible things to you right here, right now.’

‘Do it. If it’s oppa doing it…’

He couldn’t stand it. Gunwoo approached right up to Hyena’s nose. He, who was about to kiss her, hesitated. Her tightly closed eyes were trembling.

‘How much I’ve… oppa…’

How much I’ve… you…

But they were words that shouldn’t be heard or told.

‘Stay by my side just as you are now. Forever, unchanging.’

‘Even if I can’t have you…’

As soon as he heard the news that Hyena had gotten a job, he bought a house in a place close to her company with a good location. Hoping that Hyena could comfortably move into that house anytime. 

He even applied to the American branch, hoping the saying that distance makes the heart grow fonder would be true. But he regretted leaving for America in less than a day. 

His solid mental state protested from severe insomnia and longing.