Heavy Rain Chapter 5

The unexpected scene caught Lyle’s eye. However, even that lasted only a brief moment, and Lyle felt that sparing this much time was sufficient. Thus, ignoring Haejin, who was still staring at him, frozen as if he had become a statue, he entered the mansion.

Behind his back, it felt as though a gaze remained fixed for quite a while.

𓂃ﾟ ⋆ ﾟ ☂︎ 🍂༄˖°

“…”

Lyle, looking down at the swaying whiskey glass, furrowed his brow. It was because his own face reflected in the glass distorted slightly and suddenly changed into Haejin’s sorrowful face.

This was all the fault of the Omega who, after staying quiet for five years, was now showing abnormal reactions. Being obedient was Haejin’s greatest merit. He did not like this sight of him suddenly acting out as he pleased.

Haejin’s face, which he had faced for the first time in a while, remained the same. That youthful face unique to East Asians exuded a mysterious atmosphere even as time passed.

As expected of a city that is cloudy for most of the year, here in Heavy Rain, clouds often covered the moonlight even at night. The face seen by relying on that faint light gave a different feeling from the one he had looked at just a while ago after their tryst ended.

Lyle, drinking the alcohol irritably, suddenly thought. He wondered if that expression resembling sorrow had been particularly desperate today of all days.

Maybe I should have listened to what he had to say.

“…Ha.”

It was a useless thought. Perhaps because his rut was approaching, he felt as though his mind could not focus on work at all and was becoming distracted.

Sweeping his hair back neurotically, he calculated the rut period. It was only a few days away.

He had no time to waste his mental energy on such unnecessary matters. Like the vast funds it held, the massive Vermouth corporation waited for his decisions every minute and every second. If there were a rut period, there would be a vacuum in his work, so he had to prepare in advance.

Even though he had brought his thoughts this far, Haejin’s face floated around in his head. It was an annoying sensation, to the point where he felt a slight headache.

That face that shone remarkably even in the dark night, those black eyes.

“…”

For some reason, he felt as though his throat was burning, so Lyle had to pour one more glass of the alcohol he had intended to stop drinking.

Amidst the ice clinking with a cold sound, Lyle discovered Haejin’s face again. That face that was unpleasantly clean.

Omegas are a nuisance. They are a race even more driven by instinct than Alphas. If one does not want to inherit the foolish state of one’s ancestors, it is better to keep them at a distance.

The butler will take care of Haejin’s business. The butler, an Under-Alpha, was a capable man who had managed this mansion for a long time. Being a bit greedy was a flaw, but since he was a person faithful to him, Lyle did not care much. At any rate, since Haejin’s role was important, he believed the butler was managing him meticulously.

Without knowing how large a crack this decision would create.

𓂃ﾟ ⋆ ﾟ ☂︎ 🍂༄˖°

The next day, Haejin set out of the mansion alone.

Yesterday, for the first time in a very long while, he shed tears alone in his room. They were dry tears that wouldn’t come out even if he wanted to shed them ever since he had lived in the mansion for about three years.

However, the few tears that had dropped stopped flowing as if they had reached their limit. Haejin met the morning suffering from a slight fear that his inside had become empty.

Whether the rumors had spread throughout the mansion, even the food provided in the morning did not come. The vast contract fees Haejin received were exhausted entirely on hospital bills. Therefore, he had to rely on the food, clothing, and shelter provided by the mansion to survive. In the first place, when drafting the contract, Lyle himself had said that he did not need to worry about other secondary things.

However, it had been quite a while since those basic things were not kept. Clean clothes provided every day failed to come sporadically, and sometimes he even had to clean the room himself.

Surely the great Vermouth family wouldn’t lack money. This was merely the damage caused by Lyle’s indifference. Haejin felt that clearly from Lyle’s attitude yesterday, where he didn’t even intend to listen to his words.

He could have gone wandering to find the butler again as Lyle said, but Haejin did not do so. No, he could not. It was too sorrowful to have to suffer such a thing yesterday and then hold onto the servants and beg them again.

So for now, he set out of the mansion. There was still some emergency money in his bank account. After walking to where the bank was, he intended to withdraw the money and call a taxi when returning.

“It’s cold.”

The late autumn weather had one foot stepped into winter. The autumn rain falling like mist made the surroundings even more desolate.

The city he was in, Heavy Rain, was famous for heavy rain from the beginning. He could hardly remember when he had last seen the always gray sky shining brightly.

The main mansion of the Vermouth family was on the outskirts of Heavy Rain. This included a bold design that turned the entire surrounding area into a meadow for security reasons. Building a grand mansion in the city where land prices were the most expensive in this country allowed one to realize the wealth of the Vermouth family.

However, to Haejin right now, it was only a factor that caused a hindrance. It was because he had to walk for quite a long time to reach the city where cars traveled. After the accident, he had deliberately avoided walking for a long time, but there was no other way. With the rain and the sudden walking combined, his left ankle ached sharply.

Pushing through the cold late autumn rain, Haejin finally reached the city. His toes were completely soaked and it was very cold, but the citizens living in Heavy Rain knew well that one must walk diligently at times like this.

In fact, it might be fine even if he didn’t go visiting so urgently. The documents weighed on his mind, but waiting for another day or two and then taking the car provided by the mansion again would also be a way. Because the butler probably wouldn’t want the contract to go wrong either.

However, strangely, his heart was in a hurry. He felt a desperate urge to see his parents’ faces and tell them that although he was having a hard time, he was trying his best. Perhaps the cold treatment at the mansion had touched his heart deeply.

His parents, who fell into a coma immediately after the accident, grew thinner by the day. His mother, who always gave Haejin a warm hug until he lost his breath, was now barely holding onto that tenacious life, appearing as nothing but skin and bones.

Haejin believed that the reason they were breathing even this thinly was entirely for him. So that Haejin, who had already been left alone once, would not be left alone again.

Now, the bank will appear just around that corner. His heart warmed at the thought of hurrying to the hospital to see his parents’ faces. Although the hospital bill payment was a day late, he would be able to process it without much trouble.

It was just as he finally entered the city area, dragging his heavy legs. A line of luxury vehicles pulled up near him. It was a sudden event, enough for passing citizens to stare.

Haejin, thinking it was none of his business, moved his legs diligently. Until a bodyguard who got out of the car called him.

“Mr. Bright.”

“…”

Haejin just quietly looked back at the person who called him. Somehow, he didn’t have a good feeling. He felt resentful about why it had to be today of all the many days he had to go to the hospital.

“Mr. Vermouth is looking for you.”

“Could I go after stopping by the hospital?”

“No.”

Before his words even finished, the bodyguards had already surrounded him. As if they had no intention of listening to whatever Haejin said in the first place.

Among the bodyguards who were each a head taller than him, Haejin was extremely helpless and small. While his mouth opened and closed several times, his arm was grabbed brutally and he had to be dragged to the car.

Through the car door that slammed shut, the still cloudy sky was visible. Haejin could do nothing but swallow a sigh inwardly.

𓂃ﾟ ⋆ ﾟ ☂︎ 🍂༄˖°

“Not yet?”

“They say they’ve found him.”

The headache that began suddenly after he went to work continued. Then, from around lunchtime, it began to be unbearably bothersome. It was a sign of the rut.

Finishing up his work in a hurry, Lyle coolly assessed his own condition. This was why traits were inconvenient. It was an unreasonably irrational body structure, to the point where he could not understand why on earth Alphas and Omegas were made as a pair in the beginning. Often, it felt as though these genes demanded more than just shoving his member into a loathsome Omega’s hole, so Lyle was in a state filled with irritation to the top of his head.