Passion: Diaphonic Symphonia Novel - Chapter 58

Just then.

“Oh?!”

He heard a strangely familiar voice from behind him. When he turned around, the large figure from earlier was there. Perhaps he was injured when Jeong Taeui tripped him, as his elbow was slightly scraped.

“Oh… that must have hurt. Sorry.”

There was no intention of mockery whatsoever. He had genuinely apologized, but the large figure seemed to have taken it differently.

His face instantly turned crimson, and he lunged at Jeong Taeui.

“You bastard!”

Seeing his menacing momentum, Jeong Taeui quickly ducked into the bathroom behind him. The large figure also quickly followed.

“You bastard, now you’re a rat in a trap.”

The large figure, his face red with fury, exclaimed triumphantly and lunged at Jeong Taeui, who was hesitating in front of the sink.

And then.

Jeong Taeui slightly ducked, avoiding the large figure’s massive arm, and kicked his ankle hard. The man let out a winded “Huh,” and flopped onto the floor.

This young man was clearly not destined for greatness. He had no learning ability.

Thinking with some pity about his future, Jeong Taeui aimed precisely at the spot just above his neck, below the back of his head, and struck him short and hard. With a grunt, the large figure’s eyes rolled back, and he passed out.

As the large figure, who had been roaring like thunder just moments ago, collapsed, the surroundings instantly became quiet.

Jeong Taeui wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and looked down at him. The hood of his jacket was flipped over, covering the large figure’s head.

“… … Should I borrow this?”

Jeong Taeui stared at him.

A loose hooded jacket that reached his thighs, and himself, being chased.

It seemed like a very plausible combination.

Plausible combination, my foot…

Jeong Taeui soon realized his choice had been a mistake.

He stripped the hooded jacket from the large figure and put it on himself, then dragged the unconscious figure into a bathroom stall, and secured the door from the inside with a broom.

The hood generously covered Jeong Taeui’s head, coming down almost to his nose, below his eyes. The jacket, which reached the large figure’s thighs, now came close to Jeong Taeui’s knees.

He had been delighted, thinking, This covers almost everything, so it’s great, but that joy was short-lived. The large figure in the bathroom stall was discovered far too quickly.

At this point, the large figure’s hooded jacket became very conspicuous.

“There he is! That’s him! He’s wearing Wilhelm’s clothes!!”

…Oh, for crying out loud.

Running like mad through the maze-like interior of the establishment, as if in a sprint, Jeong Taeui realized the mistake he had made.

This damn jacket was too hot. It was understandable, covering him from head to knee, but it didn’t let out the heat emanating from his running body.

Moreover, the very size of the jacket, which he had thought was an advantage, became a disadvantage. The hood came down to his eyes, obstructing his vision, and the hem of the jacket reached his knees, getting in the way when he ran.

He wanted to rip it off and throw it away somewhere, but whenever he tried to stop and take off the jacket, some guy, like a ghost, would appear and yell, “There he is!”

How long had he been running?

He couldn’t quite tell where he was in the establishment, nor could he guess how much time had passed.

Even now, behind Jeong Taeui, one guy was following at a considerable distance. It seemed he wasn’t accurately seeing Jeong Taeui and chasing him. Rather, he seemed to be following the sound of his footsteps and his presence.

If I could just go into a suitable place and hide for a moment, that guy would probably just pass by after searching.

Jeong Taeui scanned his surroundings for openings as he ran.

Just then.

Another path branched off to the side of the hallway where Jeong Taeui was frantically running. At the end of that path, he saw a built-in storage unit, like a cabinet.

“—…!”

It was a cabinet at the end of a dead-end alley.

If he went in there and hid, and then got caught, there would be no escape, and it would be over.

In short, if he could hide safely, it was a jackpot, but if he got caught, it was rock bottom.

Jeong Taeui hesitated for a moment.

He probably wouldn’t have chosen such a place normally. He wouldn’t have gone in there unless it was a place where he could escape again in case of an emergency.

However, Jeong Taeui’s legs were already growing heavy, and sweat was pouring down inside the hooded jacket. He desperately wished he could stop and rest his legs for just a moment.

And so, his judgment was clouded.

“—…Ah, I don’t know. Whether I die from being out of breath while running, or die from being beaten if caught, life’s the same anyway.”

Muttering incoherently, not even knowing what he was saying, Jeong Taeui ran towards it.

He didn’t know which path he had entered, but soft carpet was laid beneath his feet. His running sounds didn’t echo. That was good.

He felt the presence of someone chasing him from around the corner behind him.

Before that presence could see him. Before that, quickly.

When Jeong Taeui, breathless from running, finally reached the built-in cabinet, the presence reached just around the corner behind him.

“…!”

He opened the cabinet and blindly leaped inside. And then closed the door again. The wooden door clicked shut silently, blocking off the outside from the inside. And at the same time, the presence that had been chasing him reached the corner.

Jeong Taeui held his breath inside the cabinet.

This built-in cabinet, which seemed to be a small storage unit partitioned and renovated with wooden doors, had short wooden slats tightly attached diagonally, like a wooden blind, on its door. Through the gaps in these slats, he could see outside.

The young man who had been chasing him passed the corner, looked around for a moment, and then ran off down the path again.

“…—.”

Jeong Taeui, who had been holding his breath inside the cabinet, clutched his chest. Then, as he was about to let out a long sigh, breathing out the breath that had risen to his throat.

“Ah…” a small, faint sound seemed to come from right beside him.

“—?!”

Not right by his ear, but very close, within a few steps, the sound was heard.

Jeong Taeui flinched, holding his long-exhaled breath again. And slowly, he turned towards the direction from which the sound had come.

Just like the door facing the hallway that Jeong Taeui had checked earlier, it turned out that the side of the cabinet was also made of a door. No, it wasn’t a door. It had no handle. It seemed to have happened during a change in the interior structure; the side of this built-in cabinet, which had a door facing the hallway, was adjacent to the room at the end of the hallway.

It seemed that an originally open space had been blocked off with plywood or something, as the side was blind-slatted like a door, but it had no handle.

Why would they leave the blinds open if they were going to block it off instead of leaving it as a door? He wondered, and when he looked up, there was a vent directly above it with a fan spinning. In the corner next to it, a small hole was drilled, and an exhaust pipe was connected. It seemed unavoidable due to the piping.

Damn it, I thought I hid well, but why is this happening? There’s another person beyond the open door.

Jeong Taeui held his breath for now. Since he didn’t know who it was, he couldn’t carelessly reveal his presence here. Moreover, this was the end room of the carpeted hallway, where rows of secret-like rooms were lined up. The room’s location alone was enough to suspect that a suspicious person might be inside.

Jeong Taeui very carefully, making sure not to make a sound, turned his body and peered into the room adjacent to the side of the cabinet.

“—…Ah, …ah, …ah…”

That faint, blurry voice from earlier was heard again. The sound, repeated several times at intervals, soon turned into a tearful sob. It was a woman’s sob.

Jeong Taeui frowned and turned his gaze towards the source of the sound. The sobbing itself bothered him, but the fact that it was a woman’s voice bothered him even more.

However, when he caught a glimpse of the woman through the wooden slats, Jeong Taeui instantly flinched and froze.

It wasn’t just because the woman was naked. Nor was it just because a man—whose face was obscured by the angle of the wooden slats—was thrusting his hips between the woman’s thighs.

It was a face Jeong Taeui knew.

No, rather than knowing, it was a face he had seen before.

There was no way he had misseen or mistaken her. He had seen her just recently. In the forest of Tarten. Standing next to Richard.

Her beautifully curling hair was soaked with sweat and tears, sticking to her face. She was sobbing, pleading in a barely audible, mumbling voice.

“Please… please—, …it, …in…, …me, please…”

The words of her plea, heard intermittently, were mixed with such obscene words that Jeong Taeui’s earlobes burned, frozen like a statue by the scene unfolding before his eyes.

The woman herself seemed mortified to utter such words, her flushed face completely drenched in tears.

Jeong Taeui couldn’t move, so he just lifted his eyes. He couldn’t bear to look any further, and felt he shouldn’t.

But why was that woman here, in such a state?

He had clearly heard that she was Richard’s lover…

“…”

The moment that thought struck him, Jeong Taeui’s eyes widened.

Come to think of it, this was Richard’s establishment. And that woman was Richard’s lover. Then, the man currently gripping her waist must be—

“Good, well said. You spoke so obediently as I told you, so I’ll stop now.”

A man’s voice, laughing softly, was heard speaking to the woman.

Sure enough, it was a voice Jeong Taeui knew.

As the man bent down to stroke the woman’s back, his face became visible. There was no room for doubt.

Richard Tarten.

It was him.

He laughed with satisfaction and began to thrust roughly. Soon, the room was filled with a mixture of screams and moans. All the while, Richard whispered words so lewd that they were difficult to bear, and forcibly coaxed such words from the woman’s mouth.

Jeong Taeui’s face turned pale.

My God. He really was a pervert. A true, utter pervert…

It felt like a dream. This wasn’t the Richard, Jeong Taeui knew. He was uttering words that Richard, who lived in the West Wing of Tarten, would never say, with an expression he would never make, and with a cruelty that was impossible.

Jeong Taeui’s vision suddenly spun, and he looked up, desperately trying to avert his gaze from the scene.

He wanted to cover his ears. Vivid and explicit sounds were heard from so close by. It was shocking how someone could wear a human mask and humiliate another person like that.

His tightly pressed lips trembled. Wow, he really was an utter pervert. To think such a person actually existed around me.

He somehow felt like he would die if he was caught. If he were caught by any chance, he felt that Richard would mumble, “You saw, didn’t you…?” and his gently smiling face would instantly transform into that of a cruel, utter pervert.

As Jeong Taeui barely supported his dizzying head, caught in a confused state between dream and reality.

From his right side, which was out of Jeong Taeui’s line of sight, another low male voice was heard.

“Your tastes really haven’t changed. You always pick similar women.”

Gasp.

That voice pierced his ear like an awl.

He choked. His ears felt numb. His vision went black.

That voice was so familiar. He wished he had misheard it, but it was a voice he couldn’t possibly mishear. He had lived with him for years.

…Ilay. Ilay Riegrow.

…I escaped the fox’s den only to walk into the tiger’s mouth.

Jeong Taeui clenched his trembling hands tightly and looked into the room with a pale face.

Richard, who had calmly engaged in sexual activity even in front of another person—Ilay—had finished his business and was now wiping himself with a towel.

Such an act of sex alone could be considered perverted, but now, he was even doing it in front of others. He was truly an utter pervert.

Richard threw the towel he had used to wipe himself into a basket in the corner, then picked up his clothes. Casually exposing his naked body, he put on his clothes one by one, and he smiled.

“I like these lovely things. If you just stroke them a few times, they’ll cry and beg for forgiveness, saying they’ll do whatever I tell them. Do you know how lovely those voices are? The feeling of them being completely under my control, there’s nothing like these lovely things to experience that feeling.”

“Still the same.”

Ilay chuckled in response.

But before that, the mouth that always smiled gently and uttered only kind and sincere words, was now uttering such shocking words in the same voice. And not even a lovely person, but a lovely thing. Wow… he was someone who would be ranked among the top people to avoid.

Jeong Taeui couldn’t believe it and stared at him with wide, tearing eyes, but no matter how many times he looked, he was still Richard Tarten.

While Richard was getting dressed, the woman, who had been there since who knows when, lay collapsed as if exhausted, not moving an inch. Her entire face was wet, and she occasionally gasped for breath, a truly pitiful sight.

“More importantly, how about your side?”

Ilay’s voice was heard.

He was closer than Richard in terms of position. His voice came from just a few steps away. It was just that Jeong Taeui couldn’t see him from where he was standing.

Richard, pulling on his pants, turned to Ilay.

“My side? —…Ah, as for my side, there’s no big change for now. There’s no sign of change from the known situation yet.”

As Richard said that, he finished putting on his pants and picked up the shirt that had been draped over the back of a chair.

“For now, it’s not a situation where we can step forward. Nothing has been decided yet. We just have to wait for the decision to be clear, somehow.”

As Richard shrugged, Ilay, who had been silent for a moment, opened his mouth.

“If Al-Fad holds out a little longer, it might flow in another direction.”

His ambiguous tone made it hard to tell if he wished for it, regretted it, or found it exciting. It would have been easier to tell if he could see his expression.

Richard mumbled, “Al-Fad holds out…?” as if thinking, then shook his head.

“His fall is a foregone conclusion. It’s just a matter of whether it’s a little faster or slower.”

“Even so, the pro-American regime in that country won’t be overthrown. No matter who succeeds, the direction of policy won’t change much.”

“That’s right. But the point is that the day when the real power changes is not far off. The problem is who will take that position…”

Richard’s voice trailed off there. A faint smile was mixed in his tone.

With a voice containing just that much of a smile, Ilay responded.

“So, which of the two do you hope takes it?”

“Haha, I prefer the one who offers easily repayable terms.”

“Easily repayable terms.”

As if underlining his words, Ilay repeated the phrase.

A moment of silence passed. Silence filled the room.

Jeong Taeui swallowed his breath.

Damn it. Silence isn’t good. Whatever happens, say something, or sing, or move, for crying out loud.

Jeong Taeui cursed inwardly, observing the scene in the room through the gaps in the wooden slats beneath the vent.

No one would willingly enjoy eavesdropping on others, but this situation was truly awful.

The cramped built-in cabinet was extremely stuffy. The fan in the vent directly above his head was blowing hot air straight onto Jeong Taeui’s head. Moreover, this hooded jacket, covering him from head to almost his knees, half-obscured his vision, making it feel even more stifling. He was already hot all over from running like mad, and the air inside the cabinet was muggy. On top of that, this damn hooded jacket had perfect insulation, so he was already drenched in sweat.

Why did I take this hooded jacket? If I was going to hide in a secluded place like this anyway, I wouldn’t have worn something so stuffy.

He couldn’t take it off now even if he wanted to. If he so much as twitched a finger, he would be easily discovered by the people in the room.

Due to the suffocating heat, his breathing was gradually becoming rough.

Disaster.

If the room was that quiet, he couldn’t move at all, and had to even suppress his breathing.

But if it was just this much, he would have just thought, How unlucky, what a disaster, and left it at that.

Of all the people to inadvertently eavesdrop on, it had to be him.

He was truly jinxed.

He could understand Richard being here. After all, wasn’t it his establishment? So, he thought it was plausible for him to be sitting in the innermost room of this place.

But why did the person talking with him have to be him?

And worst of all, if he had eavesdropped on a conversation that didn’t matter, he would have just awkwardly smiled and slipped out, but a serious atmosphere was emerging, and it seemed he had heard something he shouldn’t have.

It’s unfair. Even if I listen, I don’t understand what they’re talking about. Somehow, just hearing it, an unforgivable, subtle atmosphere is flowing, isn’t it?

Damn it. Whatever, for now. Please, just don’t stare at each other like that, someone say something, say something. I can’t hold my breath forever.

Jeong Taeui’s vision was starting to blur. He was suffocating from barely suppressing his ragged breaths, and the sweat pouring down kept getting into his eyes.

Just as the thought crossed his mind that he might pass out from respiratory distress and collapse in the cabinet, getting caught.