Heavy Rain Chapter 14

However, regardless of such thoughts, his heart was racing wildly. Lyle rubbed his brow, suppressing his feelings as if something that absolutely should not happen was taking place. The headache, which had been quiet for a moment, began to seize him again.

“No, forget it. That judgment is correct.”

Watching the Chairman, the secretary carefully organized his thoughts.

His boss was often arrogant and self-centered, but he was an undeniably good person to work for. This was because he always judged situations objectively and was clear with rewards and punishments. He had even promoted the secretary, a Beta, to a high position based solely on his skills.

Recently, however, he felt that Lyle’s judgment often became clouded in matters related to Haejin Bright. Keeping this intuition in check, the secretary turned the page of the documents.

Haejin was not pregnant. It was said that it is originally difficult for a recessive type to conceive. Aside from that, Haejin’s blood test provided a lot of information—for instance, the fact that he was currently in a somewhat serious state of malnutrition.

After contemplating for a moment, the secretary finalized the information regarding Haejin Bright. Thinking it over again, it was a matter Lyle would likely snap at as unnecessary information.

Instead, to determine the future course of action, he asked Lyle calmly.

“What shall we do now?”

Lyle fell into thought, tapping the black desk that occasionally reminded him of the fellow’s hair. He had intended to seek him out again for negotiations, but was there really a need to chase someone who was going to such lengths?

Even while churning through such rational thoughts, strangely, the furrow in his brow would not smooth out. Haejin, who had nodded with a face full of desperate sincerity when they first contracted, was now flatly spitting out that he didn’t need it anymore.

Of course, Lyle knew well that Haejin’s motivation was not base financial greed. In fact, results of the investigation into the negotiation terms showed that the compensation for the contract he had paid had been consumed by hospital bills to an almost total extent. In Haejin’s bank account, which Lyle had peeked into with his powerful intelligence network, there remained only enough money to barely survive for a few weeks.

Thinking this far, Lyle paused for a moment. This meant that for the past five years, Haejin had been unable to save any money for himself at all. Naturally, Lyle hadn’t permitted him to look for other work.

However, he soon brushed the thought away, roughly running a hand through his hair. There was no way he would have needed money while living in the mansion anyway. If there had been such a basic problem, it would have reached his ears.

He was thinking too many useless thoughts regarding Haejin. Lyle felt a great deal of unpleasantness at this unfamiliar phenomenon.

The finger that had been tapping with a steady rhythm came to a dead stop.

“Chairman?”

“For now, find him.”

Despite everything, he could not suppress the urge to have Haejin back before his eyes.

Haejin just walked forward.

He had come out as if fleeing, but he wasn’t all that anxious. They say a person who has nothing left to lose becomes brave, and Haejin thought calmly that he was exactly in that state.

The season, which had been late autumn, was now striding rapidly toward winter. He, who only wanted to slump down right where he was, let the thought of the season running away and leaving him behind drift away vacuously.

He was wearing his thickest clothes, but the wind dug into his chest quite fiercely. Haejin curled his body inward as if hugging the family photo inside.

He remembered the clothes Lyle provided every year being warmer and lighter, but they weren’t his anyway, so he wasn’t in a position to miss them. Besides, the thickest coat had disappeared from the room before he could even look at it a few times.

After transferring between buses here and there, he reached the outskirts of the city. After buying some modest food, he simply walked. Because he had nowhere to go, he walked upon the road.

“Mom!”

“You’ll get hurt if you run.”

Then, around the time the sensation in his legs had almost vanished, Haejin found a bench and sat down. In front of him was a small park. It was the kind of park commonly attached to neighborhoods, with a few pieces of children’s play equipment.

A small child runs toward a mother. The middle-aged Beta woman was speaking worriedly, yet she opened her arms wide for the child.

From that small gesture, Haejin easily recalled his foster parents.

‘Haejin!’

His mother, who was like sunshine, loved to hug him until he felt suffocated. Around the time of puberty, Haejin had shown signs of being a bit put off. All his friends were like that, so he thought he should be too. But only after losing that embrace did he realize that he actually loved it very much.

Like a fool, I shouldn’t have done that.

Before being adopted, he used to be extremely envious of such sights. Yet, after being adopted, he had never once stared blankly at such a scene. Because he had a family that lacked for nothing.

To think he would see that sight again as if possessed.

Haejin was scared because tears still wouldn’t come.

“You still haven’t found him?”

Three weeks had passed since he spent his last rut with Haejin. He had only lasted this long because it was after a rut; otherwise, he would have been hospitalized with pheromone congestion long ago. Even so, this time a faint headache was constant, so the pain remained the same. It was as if there was no point in having spent such a boisterous rut.

Though he had ordered the search for Haejin, Lyle naturally continued to recruit other Omegas. It was merely an impulse. He thought there was a high possibility he would ignore Haejin just as he was, let alone contract him, once he actually found him.

Since he didn’t have time to sit and face Omegas for contracts forever, he left it to his secretary this time. Along with the instruction to find someone who was a recessive type. In his heart, he hoped that once the time came when he was desperate for relief, this repulsion would disappear.

So yesterday, Lyle, who had gone to the mansion for pheromone relief, ultimately could not hold back his nausea.

Annoyed by the thought of having to do this unpleasant task again, Lyle entered the room. It was because his pheromones had accumulated to the point where he couldn’t shake off the feeling of his head being in a daze. In the room where he used to mix bodies with Haejin, a recessive Omega just like Haejin was sitting.

The Omega, who was blindfolded and had both arms tied just like Haejin, seemed nervous. For some reason, the person was still wearing clothes, so Lyle unconsciously let out a sigh. It was because he was annoyed by the hassle of having to even take the clothes off. In many ways, it was different from Haejin, who cooperated efficiently without Lyle needing to exert such effort.

Which meant that Omega was not Haejin.

The moment he thought that, Lyle ran straight to the bathroom and retched. A powerful repulsion surged up as if pressing against his solar plexus.

Having endured the day with headache medicine like that, Lyle now had no way to soothe his irritation. Haejin’s whereabouts were still unknown.

“It seems he is only using cash. He doesn’t go near CCTV often, and his phone has been off the whole time. Above all, they said the search is difficult because there is no place where he might have connections.”

“Ha.”

Lyle was someone who had never once asked about the search for Haejin until now. Thanks to that, the secretary pulled up a mountain of information on Haejin, which had been pushed to the back burner, onto the business tablet.

Enduring the surging headache, Lyle remained silent. This was because Haejin’s behavior was incomprehensible in many ways.

It would have been easier to understand if the results had come back saying he was pregnant. If he were running away for the purpose of his child, that would be reason enough.

But was the contract with him really that repulsive? To the point of running away while abandoning even the few belongings he had left?

‘I don’t need it.’

The moment Haejin’s words echoed like a hallucination, the headache descended heavily toward his chest. He stopped agonizing over the incomprehensible phenomenon.

It would become clear once he just found him and put him in front of him.

“What shall we do with the belongings Mr. Bright left behind?”

“Pack every single one of them without exception.”

He would be able to find Haejin soon. He couldn’t escape his hands in this city anyway.

Lyle’s heavily sunken eyes shone intensely.

“…There’s not much left.”

As he wandered, he had come to a quite secluded place. The temperature had dropped further in the meantime, and white breath kept coming out even while he spoke simple words.