DOTH Volume 4 Chapter 13.8

“Tsk, tsk.”

Jung Younggil clicked his tongue as he stared at his aged reflection in the window.

“I really have gotten old.”

Underestimating Yeon Woobeom had been his mistake. That included the time he went to Jiwoo to get his grandson back.

“I was still thinking of him as that little bastard from years ago…”

The young alpha’s pheromones, which had completely overpowered him, sent chills down his spine just remembering it.

Who would’ve thought the children he’d sold off in their youth would come back to exact revenge like this? Back when he’d fled overseas years ago, he’d still held out hope for a comeback. But maybe that hope had been misplaced. If only he could get Jung Heeyeon back, maybe it wouldn’t be entirely impossible, but retrieving his grandson, now living with Yeon Woobeom, seemed utterly out of reach.

His mouth felt bitter, and Jung Younggil licked his dry lips. Clearing his throat unnecessarily, he felt a wave of thirst come over him.

“Chairman, would you care for some citron tea?”

Right on cue, the captain reentered the room, bowing slightly as he stepped inside. He held two paper cups in one hand and a thermos in the other. After setting the cups on the old table, he poured the tea one by one. The light-colored liquid gave off a tangy aroma as it flowed.

“Please have some.”

Jung Younggil only brought the cup to his lips after watching the captain drink first. The warm tea slid down his throat, gently thawing the chill in his body. As the warmth spread, he began to relax, feeling somewhat revived. But as he set the cup down, his calm face once again twisted in discomfort. The captain’s eyes, staring intently at him, were quite disturbing.

“What are you looking at…?”

More precisely, the captain wasn’t staring at Jung Younggil, but behind him. Sensing something was wrong, the old man instinctively tried to turn around. However, before his shoulders could even move, a hand suddenly reached from behind. A sharp stench hit him, then his mouth and nose were covered.

Jung Younggil’s eyes flew open wide, his head twisting in resistance. With all his strength, he managed to catch a glimpse of the man restraining him.

“Let’s go home, Chairman.”

He didn’t recognize the alpha, but it was clear the man knew him.

Home?

His eyes closed. At the same moment, the salty smell of the sea rushed into the captain’s quarters.

—

His unconscious body was awakened by the damp humidity. The old man opened his eyes, parched with a burning thirst. The first sensations that hit his senses were the rusty smell of metal and the damp smell of soil.

“What is…?”

His voice was as dry and cracked as drought-stricken land. In the unfamiliar setting, Jung Younggil scrambled upright, his body trembling. A strange sensation under his hand caught his attention. As an ominous instinct crawled up his spine, his hands began trembling violently.

Forcing himself to calm his shaking body, he lowered his gaze. The uncomfortable feeling under his palm was now also starting to spread beneath his hips. He was sitting in a crudely entangled cage made of iron.

“W-What is this…”

The more he tried to speak, the more his voice splintered. Jung Younggil looked around from his unstable perch, crouched low inside the cage. To the right, to the left, in front, and behind—there was nothing but dirt.

He looked like a stupid beast that had fallen into a trap laid by a hunter.

The thirst became unbearable, and his trembling hands spasmed against the cold bars.

Clang.

The light metallic rattle of the cage was soon drowned out by a heavy, oppressive pheromone dropping from above. The old man, crouched like a worm trying to assess the situation, suddenly looked up toward the sky that he hadn’t noticed until now. The sunlight was blinding. His aging eyes could only make out silhouettes, but after squinting hard, he noticed there were two shadows above him.

The old alpha widened his eyes in fury, trying to make out the people who had locked him under the ground. Every time the large shoes stomped on the top of the cage, a dull, echoing clang resounded over his head. It was a sound he’d heard before, just like the clinking chains of leashed dogs struggling to break free.

His drug-fogged mind finally began to register what was happening. Between his wrinkled lips, a furious voice burst forth.

“Yeon Woobeom…!”

The man stood towering over Jung Younggil’s head.

“Chairman Jung.”

As the man leaned slightly forward, the shadow over the old man increased monstrously.

“I wonder if you recognize where you are right now…”

“You little bastard…!”

There was nothing but dirt all around, how could he know where this was? He wanted to stand up immediately, but unfortunately, the cage he was in wasn’t even resting on the ground.

It wasn’t until he heard the man’s calm, drawn-out voice that Jung Younggil realized exactly what kind of cage he was trapped in.

“Well, if anyone knows this place, it would be you.”

His jaw slackened like it had lost all strength. The old alpha lifted his gaze toward the sky once more. Enough time had passed now to understand the situation he was in.

“Don’t you agree?”

The man smiled leisurely.

“Ack, ah! No… no!”

Jung Younggil frantically scuttled backward. The metal cage’s crude structure pressed coldly against his skin.

Just like words pouring from above his head, this place was one the old man knew well.

“Huff, huff… haah.”

The rusted iron cage which had once imprisoned the man above.

And also, it had caged the childhood of the omega now standing beside him.

“Even if you crawl around like a dog…”

Now, it was the rust-stained, iron-scented raised cage that held his own aged body.

“You still won’t be able to escape…”

The dogs he had raised were standing there.

Jung Younggil blinked his heavy eyelids several times. The winter air was bitterly cold, yet the sunlight bearing down on him was unbearably hot. Nausea rose with his thirst, and the old man hastily bowed his head. He retched with a dry heave, but all that came out was yellow bile.

The filth he vomited seeped through the tangled bars and fell to the dirt floor. Jung Younggil instinctively felt that he would soon end up in the same condition as that vomit. His body, which had been trembling slightly, began to shake uncontrollably. Chains clanged, and the barking of dogs grated harshly in his ears. The white-haired old man curled up like a tired beast and let out a sound that didn’t even resemble speech.

“Heeyeon, if it’s too much to see, it’s okay to wait in the car.”

“Pardon? I’m alright.”

Jung Heeyeon looked down at the old man trapped inside the raised hutch, his face unreadable. Stepping on top of the hutch, which had been buried deep into the earth, gave him the strange sensation of floating in mid-air. His feet didn’t quite touch the ground, and though it made him feel slightly unsteady, he wasn’t scared or anxious. He had someone to lean on.

“Director.”

Jung Heeyeon gently tugged on Director Yeon’s coat as he called out. Perhaps sensing what he meant, the man moved without hesitation and embraced him from behind. Even with that short motion, the metal clanged loudly beneath them, echoing into the hollow ground. Jung Heeyeon didn’t look at the man who held him so naturally, his gaze was directed to below him.

Seeing the figure he had always looked up at, now crouched down below his feet, felt unfamiliar and strange. The pit was dug so deep that even if he stood on tiptoe and stretched his arms upward, he could never reach the ceiling. Far below, Jung Younggil was groaning like an animal.

“Do you feel sorry for him?”

Director Yeon whispered quietly into Jung Heeyeon’s ear. It had been Director Yeon who brought the overly kind omega to this place. But he hadn’t thought about what to do if his lover ended up feeling pity for Jung Younggil. Jung Heeyeon, gentle by nature, might very well feel sympathy for the old man.

He hadn’t planned to stop his lover from feeling pity, but he did worry if Jung Heeyeon would recoil from Director Yeon’s true nature. Even though it was only the faintest sliver of it that had been revealed.

Still, he had brought the omega here because Jung Heeyeon was a victim. And as such, he had the right to witness the fall of the old alpha.

“I don’t feel sorry for him.”

Contrary to Director Yeon’s fear that his young lover might flinch at such cruelty, Jung Heeyeon shook his head.

“He hurt you, Director.”

Jung Heeyeon tilted his head back slightly and murmured softly, which brought his eyes level with Director Yeon’s lowered gaze.

“Mhmm. So he’s not pitiful because he hurt me?”

Director Yeon cupped Jung Heeyeon’s soft, pale cheek with one hand, smiling just enough that Nam Soohyun’might’ve joked, ‘Doesn’t he have a fox tail hiding back there?’ As if it had never been bruised, the skin beneath his fingertips was warm and smooth.

“Yes. He hurt you, so he’s not pitiful. And then there’s Haejin hyung, and Chief Nam Soohyun, and also…”

“What about you?”

“Pardon?”

“Why aren’t you on that list, Heeyeon?”

“Oh.”

Only then did Jung Heeyeon seem to remember his own suffering.

“Right… I was hurt too.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

Director Yeon kissed his clear forehead before finally letting go of his cheek.

But the moment his affectionate gaze turned to the cage below, his expression turned ice cold. So cold that not a trace of warmth remained. He tightened his hold on the omega in his arms and stared down at the old man with blank, emotionless eyes.

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