Salt Society Chapter 67

In any case, having heard his answer, I felt it was time for me to head home. I didn’t help with the work all day, but staying in a place filled with cigarette smoke didn’t seem good for the baby in my womb. Except when dealing with customers, I kept the semi-circular glass window blocked and left the small door on the counter side slightly open for ventilation, but one could never be too sure.

Picking up the basket of plums he had been eating, Kihyun stepped out of the house. The individuals obsessed with gambling were engrossed in their games as if they didn’t care whether the counter staff changed or not. Kihyun likewise didn’t look at them and walked straight toward the entrance.

As soon as he opened the door and stepped out, the outside air was hot. Kihyun took one of the plums he had been eating from the full basket and popped the whole thing into his mouth. Using his molars, he separated the pit—the bone of the fruit—and spat it out. The plum pit flew through the air and hit the wall of another vinyl greenhouse lined up next to the gambling house with a thud before bouncing off.

On the path Kihyun walked, vinyl greenhouses were lined up in a row for over a kilometer. Since they weren’t marked in order and all looked identical, it was easy to get lost if one walked without counting.

When one finally managed to find the gambling house and go inside, despite it looking no different from any other vinyl greenhouse, the scene unfolding inside was quite a spectacle. Dozens of gamblers sat there puffing away on cigarettes, brows furrowed as they tried to figure out how to handle the worldly desires splayed out on their tables.

If it weren’t for the poker cards spread out on tables covered with military blankets, one might have tried to argue it was just a farm shack made from a greenhouse, but the atmosphere they created was so direct that it was impossible to insist otherwise. It meant that if you were caught, it was over.

Kihyun thought it was fascinating every time—how someone who had been in the military could end up running a gambling house after being discharged.

It had been quite a while since he arrived here. He had come just as summer was beginning, and the rainy season had already ended. According to the calendar, about a month had passed, but it felt strangely like it had been well over three months.

Kihyun walked, stepping firmly on the grass growing between the vinyl greenhouses. A grasshopper flew over and stuck to the bottom of his shorts, so he slowly shook his leg. They were weaker than locusts, so if he used too much force, they tended to die instantly; he had to be careful.

Then, looking down, his shins felt more unfamiliar than ever before.

“Oh, what’s this…”

His pronunciation was muffled because he had popped another plum into his mouth in the meantime. Regardless, Kihyun was surprised. It was because the body hair that used to grow on his legs had vanished.

“This is ridiculous…”

Unlike what he had researched when he first underwent the trait transformation, his genitals had not shrunk, but his body hair was thinning. Now, even without shaving, the area under his chin and his philtrum remained perfectly smooth. But for his shins to be like that too.

A sudden premonition gave Kihyun goosebumps, and he came to a dead stop. He checked the area for any sign of people, then slightly pulled the band of his shorts and looked down.

…Upon confirmation, his pubic hair had certainly thinned as well. It wasn’t that he had been particularly bushy, but the fact that he now looked practically hairless where he used to have an average amount was absurd.

“This is a problem… How am I supposed to go to a public bathhouse when it’s so embarrassing.”

Kihyun let out a sigh and kept walking. Half of him felt restless because his masculine symbolism was disappearing, while the other half felt relieved that the size of his genitals—which he had heard might get smaller—remained the same.

However, within a few steps, he forgot why he had been feeling restless. This was because he suddenly wanted to eat braised spicy chicken. The problem was that it wasn’t just any braised chicken; he wanted the specific braised chicken sold at the spicy chicken stew restaurant near his old house.

“No. Bear with it.”

Kihyun lightly patted his stomach, which hadn’t even started showing yet. Because he had been a Beta male, he was told that he had high muscle mass and plenty of space in his abdominal cavity, so his belly might not show until he gave birth.

Since it was now exactly two months in, he was being careful. Looking back, the actions he had taken to flee down here were so inconsiderate toward the child in his womb.

On that day, Kihyun had left the newly bought car at the rest area and, carrying a bag containing cash and a few items scented with Cho Yeonoh’s pheromones, he headed straight for the rest area restroom.

Checking the location of the CCTVs under the rim of his ball cap, he went inside and borrowed a cell phone from the first middle-aged man he encountered.

—Excuse me, I’m sorry. I got separated from my group and I lost my phone. Could I borrow yours to make a call?

When he spoke quite urgently, the man seemed to think it was an emergency and readily lent him the phone. Kihyun used his phone to contact Yang Jisu. At first, he didn’t pick up, which made Kihyun anxious, but just as he was hesitating about whether to return the phone, Yang Jisu called back.

As soon as Kihyun answered, he roughly explained the situation. Despite it being a sudden declaration of a visit by anyone’s standards, Yang Jisu mentioned that he was short-handed anyway and gave him an address, which Kihyun memorized on the spot.

—Thank you.

Then, after deleting the call log, he returned the phone to the man. Seeing Kihyun bow politely, the man nodded and left the restroom. Kihyun went straight into a restroom stall and stepped onto the toilet. It was to climb through the window located above the toilet.

If someone witnessed him, it would be a disaster, so he had aimed for the window inside the stall. The window was small enough to be a bit tight for an adult male to climb through. Kihyun had to throw his bag out first and then squeeze his body through.

His forearms got a bit scraped on the window frame, but that wasn’t important. Luckily, even though the restroom window was a bit high up, it wasn’t so high that he couldn’t land properly. Jumping down, Kihyun went around to the back of the building as if nothing was wrong and headed toward an outdoor stall of a hiking brand next to the restroom entrance.

—I’ll wear these out.

He then bought hiking pants, a top, a bucket hat, a thin balaclava, and a hiking backpack, then changed in the makeshift fitting room. Inside the fitting room, he emptied all the items from his original bag into the newly purchased hiking backpack and then stuffed his old clothes in as well.

A moment later, when So Kihyun emerged from the fitting room, he simply looked like a sturdy hiker. Covering half his face and his neck in the middle of summer was suspicious, but since many people wear balaclavas to avoid getting sunburned, he figured it would be fine. Sure enough, the employee was surprised.

—Oh my, it’s so hot, are you going to wear the balaclava out?

—I have a bit of a cold.

He made up a random excuse and paid in cash. The shop owner looked like he didn’t see what a cold had to do with a balaclava, but soon asked if he needed a cash receipt. Kihyun shook his head. There was a reason he wasn’t using cards; a cash receipt? It was a ridiculous idea.

After finishing the payment, Kihyun gave a quick bow, left the stall, and walked into the rest area building at a pace that was neither fast nor slow. He bought some simple food and a bottle of water and put them in his bag.

When he came back out, fortunately, there were many express buses just as Kihyun had hoped. He looked around briefly, found a Honam-bound express bus heading for the Mokpo terminal, climbed aboard, and said to the driver point-blank:

—Driver, I was so afraid I’d miss the bus that I took a friend’s car to get here. I lost my phone so I couldn’t buy a ticket, but I’ll pay in cash. Could you please let me on?

—Aieee, you shouldn’t do that. Well, get on for now. Aieee…

The driver clicked his tongue, tsk, but he let Kihyun on. Fortunately, he was able to find a bus with empty seats on the first try. He paid the fare in cash, sat in an empty seat, ate the bread he bought at the rest area convenience store, and closed his eyes.

It seemed they stopped at another rest area along the way, but Kihyun couldn’t wake up. It was because he had become so sleepy. After sleeping the whole way, he woke up and got off at the Mokpo terminal, then called Yang Jisu from a payphone.

The payphone smelled like the old-fashioned aftershave that middle-aged men use, which made him feel nauseous, but he couldn’t help it. When he called while soothing his churning stomach, Yang Jisu told him to wait for about an hour and a half.

After hanging up, Kihyun wandered around the area with a relaxed mind and then went into a snack shop to eat. He only ordered one bowl of ramen and a roll of kimbap, but perhaps because the kimchi was delicious, he ate more than usual. The owner said he ate well and brought him a bowl of rice, so he even mixed the rice into the soup and finished it.

After paying and coming out, he looked around and went into a drugstore to buy a toothbrush, razor, shampoo, soap, and lotion for his face, then returned to the terminal and waited quietly for Yang Jisu. Looking at the clock inside the terminal, thirty minutes had passed since the time he had specified, but he stayed put and only looked toward the entrance.

—Oh, Second Lieutenant So!

Only after waiting for about another forty minutes did Yang Jisu appear. He approached Kihyun with a big smile. He didn’t apologize for making him wait, but he did take the bag and load it into the car.

Yang Jisu didn’t ask Kihyun anything. It wasn’t that he refrained out of consideration for Kihyun, who said he had suddenly quit his job; he just seemed uninterested. Since he was that kind of person, Kihyun felt comfortable with him. He liked that the man’s lack of a sense of authority was unlike an Alpha or a soldier.

—It’s a room I used to rent out to foreign workers from a nearby factory, but they were all deported for illegal entry, so the room is empty. You use it. If you help me with work, I won’t charge you for the room.

—I’ll do that.