Chapter 61: The Weight of Disgust

Kwon Yiyul raised his middle finger again and slowly traced the groove of my spine.

His large hand, veins standing prominently beneath pale skin, carefully examined my body over and over as though measuring the shape of fragile porcelain.

Terrified that he might discover the illness I was hiding, I denied his words far too quickly, like someone already guilty.

As expected, Kwon Yiyul was not an easy opponent.

“Come to think of it, before you quit, you visited the management department and asked whether you could apply for industrial accident compensation, didn’t you? Kim Kyungwoon-ssi was supposed to issue the medical documentation separately.”

“…That did happen.”

“But according to the management staff, Kim Kyungwoon never submitted the paperwork itself. And when I asked the medical administration office, they said your examination records weren’t registered at all.”

“……”

“So are you really fine? You’re not hiding something from me again, are you?”

Kwon Yiyul’s sharp eyes slowly tightened around my throat.

He had looked at me with those same eyes once before and asked an odd question out of nowhere.

What was the thing that would anger a bird’s owner the most after locking it inside a cage?

Was it escaping the cage?

Refusing to obey its owner?

Or acting arrogantly despite being nothing more than a bird?

Back then, without thinking much about it, I answered that obviously it would be the bird rejecting its owner and fleeing the cage.

Kwon Yiyul stared at me quietly for a moment before immediately cutting me off.

‘No. That’s not it. The most unforgivable thing is when the bird acts perfectly normal every day and then suddenly dies without a word.’

‘……’

‘The moment the owner wakes up the next morning, walks to the cage, and finds the bird already dead in his hands… that’s when he becomes truly furious. Furious enough to lose control of himself.’

I didn’t know whether he had spoken as if predicting the future, or whether the words meant nothing at all to him back then.

But judging from his reactions now, Kwon Yiyul simply could not tolerate anything that violated the rules he established inside himself.

“Maybe I should install surveillance cameras in your room…”

The desire to control people.

To handle them however he pleased.

To bend them according to his will.

A classic psychopath’s tendency.

“Hiding something? There’s nothing like that.”

“……”

“I already explained this before. When I decided to quit, I tried squeezing out as much compensation money as possible through industrial injury claims. But because you kept clinging to me, I had to erase every trace I could before running away.”

That was why I decided I would never reveal my illness to Kwon Yiyul.

Perhaps this was the greatest revenge I could possibly take against him.

Perhaps it was also my final opportunity to rebel against him at all.

Fortunately, the center was a place where accidents and incidents occurred endlessly.

If I timed things correctly, disguising my death as an accident wouldn’t even be difficult.

Every year, the number of Guides who died during field support incidents easily exceeded double digits.

It wasn’t unrealistic.

I still worried about the people at the shelter.

But surely, even Kwon Yiyul wouldn’t go after innocent people because someone died in an accident.

“…Do I need to explain myself further?”

“……”

“……”

“No. There’s no need. Maybe I was still upset that you rejected my offer and ran away. I didn’t ask because I genuinely suspected you, so don’t take it too personally.”

From this point forward, I only had one task left.

Where.

How.

And in what manner I would die.

“You worked hard again today. I’ll send you a separate bonus, so check your account before you leave.”

“…Thank you. As always.”

“It’s nothing. It’s not like you’re getting paid for free. You’re even offering up your body in service.”

Offering up your body.

The phrasing sounded filthy.

He could have said it in any number of ways, yet he deliberately chose the crudest wording possible.

Kwon Yiyul was doing it on purpose.

I bit down hard on my lip and forced out a quiet expression of gratitude.

While my head remained lowered, Kwon Yiyul pressed his fingers firmly against the back of my neck where it showed through the open collar of my shirt, slowly massaging the skin.

There was barely any pride left for him to destroy.

Yet my jaw and shoulders still stiffened instinctively.

My mood sank heavily into disgust.

Thud—

“…Urgh… ugh…”

The moment I left Kwon Yiyul’s quarters, I rushed straight into a public restroom and gripped the toilet while dry heaving violently.

Every place he touched burned feverishly hot while simultaneously tingling with unbearable revulsion.

Using my fingernails, I scratched at my skin again and again.

Especially the back of my neck, where his fingers had lingered longest, leaving faint marks behind.

I scratched until blood surfaced.

I didn’t even understand why this reaction happened.

Maybe it was because, deep down, I already understood that accepting money in exchange for giving over my body wasn’t much different from prostitution.

Maybe all the disgust I’d buried inside myself for years had finally started surfacing.

Or maybe it was because I fully understood my miserable situation and still lacked both the ability and the will to escape it.

I wished I could define this filthy emotion with a single word.

But humans were far more complicated than that.

Shhhhh—

“Hah…”

I washed my face with freezing water cold enough to chill my bones.

Because stomach acid had surged back up my throat, sticky saliva nearly resembling filth coated the corners of my mouth.

When I glanced at my reflection in the mirror, I looked like someone who had escaped from prison.

My neck was covered in scratches.

The shirt I had carefully ironed earlier was now wrinkled beyond repair from the violent retching.

As I leaned over the sink again to rinse away the sour taste gathering inside my mouth, the restroom door opened.

Loud voices echoed through the room.

“Hey, is that true?”

“I’m telling you, it is. I was eating at the cafeteria yesterday, and there he was sitting alone in the corner.”

“Huh. I thought he went back to his hometown after disappearing for a whole month.”

“Hometown? Come on, isn’t it obvious? He’s planning to bury his bones at the center now. Damn, money really is terrifying. Acting all pure and tragic like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. I knew it from the start.”

I clicked my tongue inwardly, wondering if they seriously had no concern about someone overhearing them.

Then suddenly, my thoughts turned ice cold.

The moment they entered, the men walked directly toward the open window near the lounge and lit cigarettes.

“Seriously, he’s so weird. They openly treat him like trash and don’t even see him as human, but he still stubbornly stayed.”

“Exactly. I thought he was just some greedy bastard obsessed with money, but turns out Han Jaeyoon’s more ambitious than I expected.”

They deliberately raised their voices.

In other words, to them, Han Jaeyoon was the kind of person anyone could mock freely without consequence.

The men’s wheezing laughter gradually crossed the line.

“Forget it. We’ve already got enough headaches. Once the council revises the legislation, those people won’t last much longer before getting kicked out anyway.”

“Who knows? Maybe he’ll survive by crawling into someone’s bed. Weren’t there rumors before that the Attack Team leader had his back?”

“Ugh, disgusting. If it were me, I’d die of shame before living like that. Doesn’t he have any pride?”

My chest grew hotter and hotter.

Yet my thoughts became colder.

Both arms braced against the sink trembled helplessly.

I had heard worse things countless times during my years at the center.

But for some reason, today felt unbearably humiliating.

The men kept going.

Maybe he was sleeping with executives too because at least his face was decent.

How much would he charge per night?

Maybe he even earned his Guide position by selling his body to the director.

The refugees connected to him were probably surviving the same way.

One insult after another piled endlessly together.

Words they never would have dared say directly to my face.

“Well, that explains why his own teammates despise him too. The second someone calls for him, he jumps right into whichever bed they want.”

“f*ck, maybe those high compatibility rates are fake too.”

“Haha, honestly wouldn’t surprise me. People always have reasons for being shady. Just looking at his face, you can tell he’s a fraud.”

“Alright, enough. Let’s go. Lunch break’s almost over, and we need to get back to the field.”

A sharp ringing whined through my ears.

I wiped away the tears running down my face together with the flowing water.

Thankfully, I’d been bent over the sink the whole time.

Otherwise, I would have looked even more pathetic.

Even after the men’s voices disappeared as suddenly as they came, their words lingered beside me long afterward.

Forcing me to think about what I truly was.

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