Salt Society Chapter 42

Only after the work of smiling back while looking at the laughing athlete’s face is finished will a time for tears be allowed for me as well.

Until then, I had to endure by peering into a mirror I usually never looked for, checking if I was smiling properly while my heart felt heavy.

So Kihyun was an adult. One who had been a grown-up for quite some time. At times like this, words his mother—who was born into a good family and lived as a child of wealth before getting a job after marrying his father—used to say to evaluate this situation would come to mind.

—Kihyun, are you upset because your mom looks like she’s struggling? But what can you do. That is what a profession is, so it is one’s karma. Karma is that scary.

He didn’t understand those words back then. He didn’t know what karma was, and he didn’t accurately know what a profession meant. But on days like today, he inevitably couldn’t shake the thought that his mother’s words were truly right.

Like this, on days when it was especially hard to endure, he thought that if this was his karma, he must be receiving punishment right now.

“Oh, Teacher, didn’t a message come?”

“If a message came, so what. Hurry up and finish all twenty. Since I let you skip one set earlier because you said your pelvis hurt, you should have finished long ago.”

“Ugh, I’m tearing up.”

So Kihyun replied while expressionlessly scanning the cheek of the athlete who claimed to be crying in his stead.

“Teacher saw, and you aren’t tearing up. Your skin is soft and dry without a single drop of sweat. How strange, how can Heeji not sweat while exercising?”

Ignoring the athlete who was protesting something, Kihyun took his cell phone out of his treatment uniform pocket and checked the message.

<Cho Yeonoh> 「I’m late today. Sleep first」 04:49 PM

Kihyun stared at it blankly before pressing the hold button without replying. It was partly because there was nothing to answer, and partly because the traces Cho Yeonoh had left behind over the past few days throbbed painfully.

After returning from Namhae, Cho Yeonoh lost his reason again after receiving the suppressant. The incident in Namhae, which he thought would be temporary, continued to happen even after coming up to Seoul.

Kihyun was flustered, but he accepted it this time too. He thought it was his own problem for starting the lie in the first place.

Cho Yeonoh, who had come to Kihyun’s apartment having lost his reason like that, left tooth marks in various places on Kihyun like a biting beast. The next day, he didn’t know how to detach himself as if dogs in heat were mating.

In between those moments, Cho Yeonoh frequently lost consciousness. At first, conversation worked with Kihyun, but after that, words didn’t get through at all. There was a reason he described him as a beast.

—His rut usually isn’t this severe. The medicine has worked well until now… My thought is that it’s like a side effect from a conflict between the inducer and the suppressant, but since he insists on staying here, we can’t even run tests…

Manager Yoo had a mournful face. It seemed he couldn’t bring himself to say anything to So Kihyun, whose eyes had become hollow after being tormented by Cho Yeonoh for two full days after coming up from Namhae.

After hearing that explanation, there wasn’t much Kihyun did. After washing Cho Yeonoh and laying him on the living room sofa, while the people Manager Yoo called tidied the bed and cleaned the house, he sat blankly on a swing at the apartment playground.

Three days passed like that. Fortunately, when Cho Yeonoh woke up, he seemed to remember nothing.

—It’s been… three days since I came here…?

Though he did ask back about the date with an unbelievable face while opening the lid of an earthenware pot of bubbling soybean paste stew. So Kihyun finished eating that meal deliciously and then kicked Cho Yeonoh’s butt to kick him out.

Along with the words that if he had a conscience, he should go sleep at his own house. Fortunately, Cho Yeonoh left without a second word. He seemed worried about the work that had piled up in the meantime.

Did he cry a little after that? After shedding some tears while showering, he fell asleep immediately, so there was no more time to cry.

According to the message, he said he’d be late today, but in reality, Cho Yeonoh would not be able to return to Kihyun’s house today. Because too much work would be piled up.

Thinking of the empty house, Kihyun thought he could just cry after getting off work. After finishing all the accumulated tasks, he would be able to make time to cry then.

So Kihyun’s sadness was pushed aside by life. But what could be done. That is what an adult living with the karma of a profession on their back must endure. Kihyun had no resentment toward his situation. Since there was no resentment, lingering attachment was thin. Since attachment was small, the basis for persuading himself as to why he had to exist here was meager. That is, why was I here, by Cho Yeonoh’s side. He couldn’t remember well.

“Teacher, I’m all done!”

“You’re so proud of yourself. You were the latest, Heeji.”

After shouting to the athlete who ran away saying “I don’t know!” that her pelvis would get twisted so not to run, Kihyun organized the exercise equipment. The reason he came to work even though he had remaining annual leave he’d applied for was clear.

From a few days ago, So Kihyun began to curse his own house—specifically, the bedroom.

—So Kihyun.

—…

—…Kihyun.

Because the moments when that all too familiar and close voice whispered his name were all born in his house and bedroom.

So, how could So Kihyun dare to rest in his “Home Sweet Home”?

He felt as if he had stepped into a quagmire where he could no longer move. He thought he alone would be able to escape, but while struggling, he was sinking further and further down. Kihyun didn’t have the confidence to look Cho Yeonoh straight in the face. If he stood before him with a perfectly fine face while Kihyun was gasping for breath with only his nose and mouth sticking out of the mud, So Kihyun would never be able to love Cho Yeonoh again.

He desperately missed the sea of Namhae County. That sea that flowed loftily, treating the brightly shining morning sunlight as mere scales with such a wide embrace.

“Mr. So, are you leaving work?”

However, even if he tried to think of it, there was only one place to return to.

“Yes, I have to.”

Still, he thought he could cry to his heart’s content after getting off work today. Even though he was the type for whom shedding a single drop would be equivalent to wailing even if he actually tried to make time to cry like that.

“One can only endure if there’s at least a small comfort like that…”

“Huh? What did you say, Mr. So?”

“I said there was dust on Ms. Seunghee’s hair.”

Ah, where? After pointing at a random spot on the head of Seunghee, who asked back, Kihyun stood up. It was time to go home.

⏳

His mood.

Was extremely, fucking shitty.

“…So, what you’re saying is that I slept with some Omega, but Manager Yoo doesn’t know who it was, the hallway CCTV doesn’t know, and only that Omega knows.”

Manager Yoo had a face as if he had no excuse. Cho Yeonoh let out a sigh and did a dry wash of his face, covering it with his palms.

Even until he left So Kihyun’s house and before coming to work today, even when he told him to find out who that damn Omega was, Cho Yeonoh thought that Manager Yoo, a faithful dog of his grandfather and quite competent in his own right, would definitely find that Omega.

But to think the CCTV was lost. It was to the point where he wondered if another guy had pushed the Omega into his room and even copied the CCTV. Cho Yeonoh swept his lips and chin with his index and middle fingers and asked.

“…Possibility that Cho Yeonsin intervened?”

“Director Cho Yeonsin likely prepared the rut inducer, so the Omega will be the same. …But the problem is that Director Cho’s side also seems not to know the Omega’s whereabouts.”

Manager Yoo’s speculation was useful there. If he had known about that Omega, there was no way Cho Yeonsin would be staying this quiet. He would have run to their grandfather long ago, panting like some dog revealing something, and snitched that Cho Yeonoh went down to Namhae and didn’t do the work he was told to do but went whoring instead.

Whether it was because of Jo Seongheon, Cho Yeonoh’s father, their grandfather didn’t much like his grandsons playing around loosely. Furthermore, for the eldest grandson, Cho Yeonoh, that yardstick was even more strict.

Regarding that, Cho Yeonoh often complained openly to Manager Yoo, saying he didn’t know why he only acted like that toward him when they were all the same low-lifes.

But even that was the price for the expectations the grandfather held. If he just worked hard managing money at Naban Gallery for the next year or two, Cho Yeonoh would take over Haeseong without trouble. Even if it’s a bit rugged now, if he just endures a few more seasons, Haeseong will gradually become Cho Yeonoh’s.

Therefore, for Cho Yeonsin, the son of the second son who had no weapons, he had no choice but to attack that part. It was obvious he would have tried to push Cho Yeonoh into his heat cycle with a rut inducer, send an Omega into that room to take evidence photos, and then immediately run to their grandfather and say “Look at this.”

If things had rolled that way, it couldn’t be this quiet until now. Just seeing that Manager Yoo was still staying by Cho Yeonoh’s side, it was hard to see that the grandfather, Cho Gyudeok, knew anything. If he had received any hint, Cho Gyudeok was not a person to leave it alone. Even right now, he would have made a fuss about taking back Naban, where he was selling scraps of paintings.

“I have the Omega’s DNA sample. Since we don’t know how things will turn out.”

“…Yes.”

Manager Yoo nodded briefly.

Even though it was a clean answer, he didn’t like it. Because he had a strong feeling that he was missing something somehow.

But since there was nothing he could do immediately, he instructed Manager Yoo to leave. Left alone in the director’s office, Cho Yeonoh stared intently at an object on his desk inspired by a metronome and let out a sigh.

It felt like he had slept with someone. Mistaking the partner for So Kihyun…

“…Fuck.”