I’m Not Your Affair Partner! - Chapter 4
“So… you’re really saying you’re not the bastard who was sleeping with Chae Yoo-Jin?”
The man’s low voice carried a troubled note, but the menacing edge from earlier was gone.
Si-Ryeon stared down at him in disbelief. The man had suddenly become docile, as though he had never acted aggressively in the first place.
“I’m not. I really mean it.”
For some reason, Si-Ryeon felt that the man might actually listen to him now.
At Si-Ryeon’s straightforward answer, the man raised his eyes with a gloomy expression.
“I’m sure the name was something weird like ‘Si-Ryeon.’”
“…I don’t know where or how things went wrong, but I’ve never dated a man in my life.”
“If he’s an omega, what does his gender matter?”
The man replied indifferently.
Si-Ryeon barely suppressed another surge of anger.
Their brief conversation had already made it clear that this man operated according to a different set of norms. He could see another man as a sexual partner and genuinely believed he could impregnate him.
But what could Si-Ryeon say?
Variants really could transcend gender when it came to relationships with one another.
Si-Ryeon, however, was an entirely ordinary man. Not once in his life had he ever considered the possibility of having a sexual relationship with another man.
“…It matters to me. I’m an ordinary human.”
“Right. You’re a beta.”
“And I don’t appreciate being called a beta either… Haah. Fine, whatever. That’s what I am. I haven’t even met ten alphas or omegas in my entire life, so how could I possibly have had an affair with one?”
Now that the man had calmed down, Si-Ryeon somehow felt his own strength drain away.
Overcome by a mild wave of dizziness, he collapsed into the chair.
For a moment, a listless silence lingered inside the cramped room.
“Hong Nak-Do.”
The man’s flat voice suddenly caught Si-Ryeon’s attention.
Si-Ryeon, who had been sitting there blankly with his head hanging, looked up.
“What?”
“Not you. Hong Nak-Do. That’s my name.”
Still sitting on the floor with one knee raised, the man stared into empty space as he repeated himself. His seemingly expressionless face made it difficult to tell what he was thinking.
Because of that, it took Si-Ryeon a moment to understand what he had heard.
…Had the man just introduced himself?
“And?”
‘What am I supposed to do with that?’
At Si-Ryeon’s cold response, the man—Nak-Do—raised his eyes. His well-shaped eyebrows soon twisted into a menacing frown.
“…Even when I try to be nice, you insist on acting like an asshole.”
“You would’ve had to give me an opportunity to be nice in return.”
Even Si-Ryeon knew that the best course of action was to avoid provoking a lunatic like this.
Despite knowing that, he couldn’t blunt the thorns in his words. In a foul mood, Si-Ryeon glared at Nak-Do.
“You did everything in the wrong order from the beginning. Instead of suddenly kidnapping me, you should’ve introduced yourself and confirmed the facts first—”
“That’s enough, unless you really want me to pin you down.”
“……”
Nak-Do made a show of rising, as though he might approach him at any moment.
Si-Ryeon quietly closed his mouth.
Even the foulest mood tended to subside in the face of a threat to one’s safety.
Of course, that didn’t mean his expression softened.
Nak-Do stared at Si-Ryeon’s pale face for a moment, then sighed and scratched the top of his head with one finger.
“So, to summarize, you’re not the bastard having an affair with Chae Yoo-Jin.”
“……”
“And naturally, you’re not the one who coaxed Chae Yoo-Jin into running away from home by promising to buy him an apartment?”
“……”
What kind of question was that?
Si-Ryeon didn’t even own a home. He had been scammed out of his rental deposit and saddled with 170 million won in debt.
Where would he find the money to buy someone else an apartment?
His disbelief must have shown on his face.
Nak-Do studied Si-Ryeon with a peculiar gaze, stroked his chin, and nodded.
“Come to think of it, you don’t look like his type. You’re too pretty.”
“……”
“Then who the hell is that bastard?”
Nak-Do fell silent once again.
Si-Ryeon stared incredulously at him as he gazed into the distance, apparently lost in his own thoughts.
“Excuse me. You can figure that out yourself. Please let me go now.”
Si-Ryeon was struggling to endure much longer.
His mind had been pushed to its absolute limit.
Eighteen consecutive days of overtime. An enormous debt he had to repay by the following week.
Those realities had already filled Si-Ryeon’s cup to the brim. Then, without warning, an enormous flood called kidnapping and confinement had been poured into it.
He didn’t give a damn about the affair or anything else.
At this point, Si-Ryeon truly just wanted to go home.
As though only then emerging from his thoughts, the light returned to Nak-Do’s unfocused eyes.
His face was expressionless as he stared at Si-Ryeon.
Perhaps he had become too absorbed in his thoughts—or maybe the weather was simply hot.
Beads of cold sweat had formed across his forehead, and the whites of his eyes had become bloodshot.
For some reason, the silence grew tense.
Si-Ryeon swallowed dryly and bit the inside of his lip.
Then Nak-Do broke the brief silence.
“Then go.”
“…What?”
“I won’t stop you, so go.”
Nak-Do casually pointed behind himself with his thumb.
Si-Ryeon stared blankly toward the place he had indicated.
The firmly shut iron door.
After looking at it, Si-Ryeon opened his mouth.
“…You’re just letting me leave?”
“What? Did you think I’d locked you in here or something?”
Nak-Do replied sarcastically.
Another unfamiliar surge of rage welled inside Si-Ryeon. He rose from his seat.
“What about my bag?”
“Your bag? …Oh, it’s probably in Kang Chan-Seung’s car.”
“……”
“What? Do you want money for a taxi?”
“No, thank you.”
He could worry about retrieving his belongings later. For now, he needed to get out of this room.
With that thought, Si-Ryeon strode across the room.
Nak-Do remained seated in one corner with his knee raised, watching Si-Ryeon approach the door.
Ignoring the gaze against his cheek, Si-Ryeon turned the handle.
Rattle.
Rattle, rattle, rattle.
‘…What?’
Nak-Do had spoken so confidently that Si-Ryeon had assumed the door was unlocked.
It wasn’t.
His face stiffening, Si-Ryeon turned toward Nak-Do.
“What’s the password?”
“What password?”
Nak-Do responded shamelessly.
Clenching his teeth, Si-Ryeon violently shook the handle.
“This is locked. How am I supposed to leave?”
‘There really is no end to the ways this bastard can mess with someone.’
Si-Ryeon was glaring at Nak-Do when—
“What?”
Nak-Do shot to his feet, his face now just as pale as Si-Ryeon’s.
“Move.”
All traces of his earlier composure gone, Nak-Do approached with a fierce expression, shoved Si-Ryeon aside, and grabbed the handle.
Rattle! Rattle!
He shook it with far more force than Si-Ryeon had. Si-Ryeon actually began worrying that the handle might break.
Nak-Do clenched his teeth and cursed.
“Fuck.”
“Wh-What’s wrong?”
Nak-Do’s sudden aggression made Si-Ryeon nervous as well.
Instead of answering, Nak-Do muttered through clenched teeth.
“Kang Chan-Seung… That bastard locked the door before he left?”
His voice contained a raw bewilderment he hadn’t managed to conceal.
Si-Ryeon blinked.
“What do you mean he locked the door before leaving?”
Nak-Do didn’t answer.
Still gripping the handle, he pulled out his phone with his free hand and called someone.
Si-Ryeon looked up at Nak-Do’s urgent profile and struggled to hold on to his fleeing sanity.
‘No way.’
Surely not.
“Why the hell isn’t Kang Chan-Seung answering his phone after causing this mess…?”
Nak-Do muttered in a simmering voice through clenched teeth.
Si-Ryeon gave an awkward laugh and clutched the edge of his sleeve.
“You… know the password, right?”
Surely not.
No one would lock a person inside a room without having any way to get them out.
“Fuck…”
Instead of answering, Nak-Do cursed under his breath and rapidly entered numbers into the electronic lock.
Beep, beep, beep, beep—beep-beep.
Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep—beep-beep.
The repeated electronic error tones were enough for Si-Ryeon to fully understand his situation.
“You…”
Si-Ryeon’s lower lip trembled.
Nak-Do finally let his hand slide away from the lock before delivering the grim news.
“Looks like we’re trapped in here until morning.”
He paused.
“Both of us.”
***
Tick. Tock.
The second hand of the wall clock sounded unusually loud.
Si-Ryeon sat on one corner of the mattress with both knees drawn up, glaring at Nak-Do across the room.
He had to spend the night—perhaps even longer, since they had no idea exactly how long it would take—trapped in an enclosed space with a man capable of viewing him as a sexual partner.
In such a frightening and uncomfortable situation, the only thing Si-Ryeon could do was stay as far away from that dangerous man as possible.
Thus, Si-Ryeon and Nak-Do sat in diagonally opposite corners with a long boundary made from the blanket stretched between them.
Si-Ryeon had threatened to call the police if Nak-Do crossed the line.
Nak-Do had accepted the arrangement, saying that involving the police would be troublesome.
“……”
‘How did things end up like this?’