UB 51

CHAPTER 51……………………………………………….

Bound. Again. Yeong-in touched the seatbelt. It was the same passenger seat, yet it felt completely different from when she got into Im Kwon-ho’s car.

The sports car blocking the road horizontally made a semicircular turn and changed direction again. The speed of breaking through the rain gradually increased.

At this rate on the slippery road, it was fast enough to cause an accident. Just thinking that there might be another car in the first lane made her dizzy with fear.

“What did you do for Im Kwon-ho?”

Hyun-ha asked quietly.

Yeong-in mulled over the question with a tingling sensation as if she had been slapped in the ears repeatedly.

There was no way it could have happened, given the timing. She was sure that Choi Hyun-ha knew everything and was just trying to pick a fight.

“No. I just helped him.”

Yeong-in denied it, remembering Kwon-ho spitting blood. A surge of fear rose—if she didn’t say no, she didn’t know what might happen to Im Kwon-ho next. He was the one who had come to save her. She didn’t want to put him in danger again because of herself.

“Why do you think that bastard helped you?”

“Because he hates you.”

Yeong-in said what she believed to be the correct answer. Im Kwon-ho would do anything that might harm Hyun-ha.

“And because he likes you.”

“What…?”

Yeong-in stopped mid-sentence.

The crude provocation didn’t surprise her; she was used to verbal harassment. What caught her attention more was the atmosphere Hyun-ha was radiating now.

Hyun-ha was angry.

To be precise, he was extremely irritated. A normal person would call it rage.

Yeong-in fixed her gaze on Hyun-ha’s profile in the driver’s seat and clenched the seatbelt.

Under other circumstances, she might have been frightened. Even now, Hyun-ha’s state gnawed at her nerves. He was exuding a rough, menacing aura, and she imagined something bad might happen.

But bad things had already happened to Yeong-in. She just hadn’t realized it at the time.

Perhaps she might never have known—if she hadn’t come out.

“You knew my dad died, right?”

As the words came out, Yeong-in’s jaw trembled violently. Her teeth clicked in a steady rhythm like the sound of rain, eerie and unsettling.

The trembling wasn’t from fear. It was anger.

Hyun-ha may or may not have noticed, but Yeong-in had been angry since she got in the car.

“You said you’d tell me first if you heard anything about Dad. Have you ever kept a promise?”

Hyun-ha pressed the accelerator while listening to her trembling voice. Fine lines appeared under his eyes.

“Some things are better not known.”

“Who says so?”

No matter what she said, it wouldn’t reach Hyun-ha. Yeong-in didn’t have the strength to control others like he did.

Her chest felt like it would burst from frustration. She unlocked the passenger door and grabbed the handle.

At the perfect moment, Hyun-ha locked the passenger door. Click. The handle pressed, but the door wouldn’t open. When she tried again, he warned her.

“If you jump now, you’ll die.”

“If you don’t answer properly now, you’ll die. Like Dad.”

Yeong-in threatened him. She wondered if Hyun-ha, who had once said he needed to practice threats, would take this one more seriously.

She glared through the glass, but the scenery outside didn’t register at all. Only her reflection and Hyun-ha’s were visible in the transparent window.

“Did my dad commit suicide?”

She had asked Kwon-ho too, but his answer had been vague and evasive. Yeong-in needed a clear answer from Hyun-ha.

“He hanged himself. The body was damaged, so the exact cause is unknown, but the cervical vertebrae were broken.”

The answer was as precise as she expected. She imagined her father hanging somewhere. Yeong-in swallowed hard; her throat was so dry she couldn’t swallow.

“Damaged? Why?”

“Stray dogs…”

Despite the horror of the content, Hyun-ha answered mechanically.

“Ugh…”

Yeong-in grabbed the dashboard and retched. Her bent-over back shook violently. Her stomach was in turmoil.

She vomited several times, but having eaten nothing, only bile came up. Saliva mixed with stomach acid dripped under the seat.

When physically exhausted, her mind had easily shut down, but now she couldn’t even faint. She wished it would all just end.

If life were a symphony, she would have quit right then, closing the piano lid like a coffin and sinking into silence.

“Baek Yeong-in. Snap out of it.”

A hand touched her back. The caress along her spine sent shivers like flames. She remembered the relentless nights in the mansion—hands groping her body.

“Don’t touch me!”

A scream burst out like a seizure. She couldn’t bear anything touching her body.

Yeong-in wrapped her arms around herself and rocked back and forth. The car had stopped by now, but she didn’t notice.

“We have to go in now.”

Hyun-ha said, but Yeong-in continued as she was. He got out of the driver’s seat, walked around the car, and opened the door on her side.

“Leave me. Don’t touch me…”

“No. Get down.”

No matter how she struggled, Hyun-ha didn’t budge and pulled her out of the car. She had braced herself, thinking she might be thrown to the ground like with Kwon-ho, but Hyun-ha held her almost protectively.

She couldn’t resist. His arms wouldn’t release her no matter what. Without closing the car door, Hyun-ha carried her inside the mansion.

They had returned.

The moment she entered, Yeong-in hung her head. It sounded as if the sky was collapsing behind her. Thunder. The mansion welcomed her.

It was almost like a standoff in a police station. Yeong-in and Hyun-ha faced each other across a long dining table. Yeong-in perched on a chair, Hyun-ha stood.

At first, he wanted to take her upstairs, but when she almost fell on the stairs, he compromised. Both soaked, they sat at the first-floor dining table, creating a gloomy, eerie scene.

Yeong-in leaned her weak body on the chair. She didn’t care that rainwater seeped into the fabric. Warm tea and accompanying food gave off a pleasant aroma, but she had no desire to taste it.

Hyun-ha placed a bundle of papers next to the teacup. For a moment, Yeong-in recalled the evidence she had seen on the third floor.

“This is your father’s suicide note found at the scene.”

Yeong-in opened her mouth. Hah. She gasped. It must have been found with the body. He had been keeping it until now.

“Why am I only seeing this now? Why show me only now?”

Hyun-ha remained silent. Yeong-in glared at him with reddened eyes.

The note was stiff, apparently a copy.

It was her father’s handwriting. Immediately familiar—even the habitual way he wrote the Korean letter ‘히읗’. There was no doubt it was genuine.

The letter began with Yeong-in’s story.

It was done for his daughter, he didn’t know what he had done, and he was sorry to Hyun-ha. The writing was scrawled and crooked, but the content was barely legible.

Reading several pages of the letter, Yeong-in’s face gradually paled.

The note was horrific.

It barely mentioned the planning or preparation for the crime the detectives were curious about, but it detailed excessively what happened after he kidnapped Choi Hyun-ha.

He blindfolded and tied him, locked him in a cramped cage where it was hard to move, gave him minimal food and water, left him in a filthy enclosure with constantly barking dogs.

Choi Hyun-ha howled alongside the dogs.

Her father thought Hyun-ha had gone mad—a boy howling with dogs. He described vividly the chilling, beast-like eyes she had glimpsed when lifting the waterproof cover slightly.

“My dad… was the criminal…”

The paper fell from Yeong-in’s hands.

Even when everyone pointed fingers, Yeong-in clung to hope that perhaps it wasn’t her father. Maybe she had stubbornly wanted to believe her real father wasn’t a criminal.

But her father had clearly written in the note that he had kidnapped Choi Hyun-ha. Yeong-in covered her face.

For me? Did he even know what happened to me because of what he did? She wanted to scream at her dead father.

Her father had locked up and starved Hyun-ha until he was near insanity. He tortured him. Yeong-in buried her face in her palms and screamed silently.

Time passed, and she lifted her disheveled face. Rain-soaked hair clung to her cheeks.

“What about Dad’s body? The funeral?”

Finally, she thought of that. Was it okay to worry about the funeral of someone who had kidnapped and tormented a minor? But he was her father.

“I’ll make sure you can hold a funeral. Don’t worry.”

A gentle answer. Yeong-in bit her lower lip. Should she feel grateful to Hyun-ha now? Or sorry?

Reading her father’s handwritten note only added to her confusion.

The teacup tipped over. The lukewarm tea soaked her fingers. Looking closely, she realized she had knocked it over herself. Suddenly, she felt dizzy.

“Did someone put something in the tea?”

Her first question came suspiciously. Hyun-ha laughed.

“No. Even if there was, you didn’t take a sip.”