CHAPTER 373: SORRY, I THINK I RUSHED THIS TOO MUCH

A strained silence fell on us for a while. My heart was thumping so much and I felt like it would burst out of my chest any moment.

I clenched my jaw.

Do I have to do this now? Do I really have to answer?

I don’t want to. I don’t think I want to.

But if I run now, if I make up some kind of excuse and run from the question now... Will I be able to confront it the next time I’m asked? No, would anyone even take up the courage to ask me a second time?

Now that the question is laid out in front of me... Now that my opinion is being sorted out, albeit forceful, but genuine... Should I still run?

Seo-Jun stared at me and so did Min-Cheol. He had a little sweat drop rolling down the corner of his face as if the pressure hit him more than it did me.

This discomfort he felt, he knew that I probably felt a larger cold of it and wished I didn’t have to push myself.

He turned to Seo-Jun, his eyes narrowed as he planned to tell him off, but for some reason, he couldn’t do that.

Why? He wondered this.

Was he because he was equally curious? He never actually thought of it no matter how much he thought of me, because he felt I was genuinely happy to be here.

I had no problems, not from the start and not now... So why did I not answer right away?

My hesitation and the tension that followed tilted his belief that I had been happy and contented from the start.

’So if... What if... Jo-Pil had not been happy from the start, but forced himself to smile and laugh in front of us. Does that mean he’s been having a hard time and was never truly happy? He was suffering?’

This sort of thought roamed through his mind and he clenched his fists. It made him curious to hear my response, and at the same time, it hurt him.

His oblivion could not excuse the fact that he had not picked up this little detail.

"Hyung," he called softly and painfully that I shook my head.

I had to open my mouth and speak. I had to say something.

I just had to but... Words wouldn’t come out.

Even when I parted my lips, prepared to speak, no sound came out of my mouth.

My mind decided it was time to speak the truth, and it would be less pressuring since it was only two of my masters but my heart... My heart just couldn’t pull through.

Seo-Jun finally sighed, breaking the tension he was equally feeling clogging up his chest.

"Sorry," he apologized, and I raised my head, my face looking rather stressed. "I think I rushed this too much,"

He looked away, unable to meet my tired and struggling gaze.

"I thought about it a bit more and watched your reaction and I felt, was that question too intense? Did it feel like I was forcing Jo-Pil to satisfy my own curiosity when he’s not ready to speak? It did seem that way," he brushed his hand through his hair awkwardly. "And that’s not the feeling I want you to feel. Jo-Pil, I didn’t mean to make you feel obligated to answer. You know how I’m a bit rough around the edges and say things that hurt even when I don’t want them to hurt. Jo-Pil," he finally brought his eyes to meet mine and watched as I bit my bottom lip, looking at him with a rather aching gaze. "I won’t push anymore. It seems you need more time than I thought."

Hearing that, I lowered my head.

It seemed like he gave up on asking me about it. It looked like I could finally breathe but... Why did my chest still feel clogged?

It didn’t make me feel any better that he let it go and gave me more time to settle my feelings.

Rather, it was...

"... annoying," I said, clenching my fists on he table. "You’re so annoying, Seo-Jun."

"I guess I am," Seo-Jun said, resting his chin on his knuckles. "Just take it that I was just throwing an annoying fit and forget about it."

"How could I?" I asked, releasing my grip.

Maybe this was what I needed. A push and pull strategy. A push with so much force that it suffocates me and a pull so light that I feel I can walk on my own two feet.

And at that point, my clogged chest was finally freeing up as I felt I could finally breathe, open my mouth, and say the words that found themselves so hard to slip out of my lips.

The dark truth I thought I could keep for a really long time.

"I hated it," I said, looking at no one but the table with my lowered gaze.

Memories of the dark room, chains, starvation... They all coursed through my mind in that instance.

"Little Min, do you have your phone there?" I asked and he nodded, taking it out.

"But what do you need it for, Hyung?" He asked as I tapped into his recording app.

"This is hard for me," I said to him. "It’s taking a lot out of me to be honest so I don’t want to have to say it a second time. Because of that, I should have a recording to give to the rest of my masters, don’t you think?" I smiled dryly and placed the phone on the table.

This way... I won’t have to face two more expressions when they hear my confession.

"First, I hated that I had to be sold for a debt I did not take," I said, my voice firm and not shaky in the slightest, as if they were words I had practiced a thousand times. "Then, I hated that I was mixed in with people I didn’t know. I hated that there were so many like me who were either suffering as a result of someone else or were pushed to the edge by the misfortunes of life and fell into debt in the end."

That’s probably why I decided to buy out all the slaves, despite knowing a few might’ve brought that upon themselves.

But it wasn’t their fault, I felt. It’s not like they asked to be born into a home that was lacking and had to use all means to fend for themselves.

It wasn’t like they asked to be in debt when they were being brought into this world either.

It was the cruelty of life that brought those slaves to where they were.

The cruelty of this world that stole their rights as humans.

"And then I hated every single person sitting up there, gazing at my wretched body and planning to buy me either for their own desires or for some sort of use. Ah, either way, they were after my body and the fact that I was an Omega. There was no one exempt from that hatred." I finally lifted my gaze and looked at Seo-Jun, my eyes still and sharp as I confessed. "And that included my master’s as well."

Seo-Jun’s eyes stayed on mine for a moment and then he tore away on his own.

Was it the guilt that caused him to act like that all of a sudden? Or was it that he could not handle the sharpness in my eyes?

I turned to glance at Min-Cheol with the same sharp gaze, and seeing such a foreign gaze on my face, the little composure he was keeping up slammed to the floor, and he lowered his head, biting his lip.

He knew it at that moment.

That not all smiling faces meant one was happy.

This was something he knew from a long time ago, as he had also exercised it a lot, but he thought, he felt, that I wasn’t like that.

He didn’t know.

He wished he had stayed oblivious because this was breaking his heart more than he could handle.

And it’s not like I was dumb either to not know that I was hurting him but since I had already begun, I decided to finish it.

"I hated my masters for thinking of me as a tool when I was living and breathing just like them. I was born with flesh, blood, and hair, just like them. I was human, and yet they planned to treat me like livestock, no doubt."

I could hear the loud gulp rolling down Min-Cheol’s throat heavily like a lump but I didn’t lift my head.

"Of course, I had no idea I had been bought by the four prestigious Alphas but knowing that wouldn’t change anything. It would’ve made me even more disgusted at the start, so staying oblivious was probably a blessing for me because I knew, despite where I was headed, only hell awaited me."