Chapter 121

Harrison fled the room, emotions perfectly sealed from his pale-painted face. His eyes which had turned much colder than their color briefly met the decreed servant outside the door who stood with his head bent low at his audience.

The young bachelor passes through the door carrying the bits and pieces of a dainty memory he cannot seem to overlook.

Soft . . . pale-looking neck . . .

His eyes squint in half as his jaw clenches.

What a total disadvantage—a weakness.

It should be none to his regards, really.

But it was more distinct than any of his concerns that were perishing his now considerably troubled mind and had worsened his sour mood.

And he cannot seem to point his mind to why.

But that should not be troubling him.

The devil will soon find his way here.

Taking short notice of his glumness, the servile servant meekly punched and twisted the door without a word said, locking it with a key that was chained to his rogue pants. His eyes gazed warily at the lean back and wide shoulders clothed in a clean gray shirt to his front.

"Lovely evening, ain't it, second master? How's the babe? Heard from the HQ that he's a total chick, aye?"

Before knowing it, his esteemed master's steps had ceased, and whose threatening body passively turned to face him, thoroughly startling every fiber of his being.

Harrison marched his way back in haste with clenched hands buried deep in his pockets. His eyes grimly looked down. He had never seen such a worthless being.

"Fuck yourself."

The servant gulps.

"Doing it might save you . . ." Harrison's eyes lower, "Best of luck, two heads."

The unfortunate servant had looked up at him, eyes guarded and lips parted. "Y-Yes, boss."

______________________

Jin covered himself with the comforter to warm his freezing body inside the chili room. He stared at the tightly shut door and listened to the silence that succumbed within the room with continuous uneasiness.

They are letting him go, and as much as to his surprise, he is well, and not a single limb of him is missing.

"Hiro . . ."

Taking all the horror and tragic events set aside, his eyes lower to his hands that are tightly gripping the quilt around him.

They were trembling.

He's going home.

Grateful tears coursed down his cheeks in silence. A shuddering breath of relief left him as he poured out all the distress in his heart. He chewed his lower lip and stifled the weakest hopeful cry beyond the soft fading smile on his lips.

Uncertain of not knowing what will happen to him later onwards has constantly watered his doubts to grow, persistently trying to hush his hopes to sheer darkness.

He has to find his way back—back home, to his mother, and to Hiro.

He breathes. No matter what the costs, he has to go home.

A bypass thought crosses his mind that left him to share another few seconds of quietness with himself.

They were questions worth pondering over. Confusing hints he could not discern where it leads to, and an odd man he could not comprehend what his purpose and intentions towards him might be.

His intent gaze lifts again towards the unmoving knob of the door. But he could discern one thing. Anyone is capable of hurting him inside this foreign house and place.

He must not place his faith in anyone easily.

His eyes move to his feet above the mattress.

Before leaving . . . the man had glimpsed at his feet more than twice.

Why did the man look at his feet?

He sniffed his snoot back in. He was afraid to stain someone else's linen.

Perhaps, the blue-eyed man's brother had furthermore enjoyed his victim's legs chopped?

His lips parted, frightened.

Mulling more about the idea had brought a chill to his back and a haughty sensation in his stomach. He had only read that type of people in the novels. Was there such a psychotic person on loose?

What cruel circumstances have honed his pitiful brother to choose that path?

Yanking the hem of his trousers up to his knee, his earlier furrowed brows fell to thinness. Another inkling of suspicion that might be the answer to his free pass piqued his claim.

He discovered a thin and flat metallic object wrapped above his ankles, like a dainty accessory he never knew he was wearing all this time.

And . . .

It was beeping in the thickest shade of red.

He bent his leg and spent minutes studying the peculiar object. It was thin as paper but twofold harder than a stone, so breaking it seems not possible.

How strange.

Why is there no lock—

Someone roughly banged the door open and barged into the room with heavy sounds of boots, interrupting the steady pace of his heart and startling him to death's door.

He held his breath and gripped the sheets around him tight.

It was a different person. With whom he is unfamiliar too.

The strange person was panting and looked at him with eyes wide like his. "Come with me."

The person left the door open wide, leaving it open before ambling back to check something outside the door.

Jin hesitatingly leaped out of bed and hastened to the loose door, but he stumbled back, his butt hitting painfully against the floor first as his surprised eyes enlarged.

His breath hitches after noticing a random person's head on the ground peeking outside the doorway.

"Ya need to hurry up, lad."

Jin grew utmost pale, but he drove himself to stand on his feet once again whilst holding the dreadful anxiety contained inside him. He followed the man as all he wanted was to escape—to be nowhere near the unmoving body on the floor and to breathe from the suffocating room where he was locked up.

The hallway was empty . . . bleak, quiet, and dark.

Everything that would stir his anxiety to provoke its limits.

"Don't steer too far away from me, aye? It is darker to see if you want to run undetected."

Jin gasped and strode faster, nervous if a person were to appear behind him more than what was ahead of them. The man is right.

He can barely see anything.

Jin breathes, "Are you helping me escape . . . mister?"

"Aye. As per my sir's command."

So the blue-eyed man had kept his word.

"Was . . . was that person d-dead?"

The man chuckled before him and caused his brows to meet.

"Hittin' him wouldn't end his life that easily, lad. Don't cha worry. These scoundrels wouldn't be alive this long if they couldn't handle that much."

As they continued to walk, Jin admitted it was the silence and the horror of someone who was to see them escape right now that taunted him all this time, so he tried to divert his attention elsewhere.

Getting information.

He should have performed to do so in the room, but unfortunately, the man offered nothing but a forewarning.

"Why have you brought me here if you're going to let me go?"

Amongst the questions plaguing his head, this first one was afflicting him since a moment ago.

It just doesn't make sense to capture a bird, put it in a cage, and let it suffer in mortifying lengths before letting it go as if it were only a child's play.

Although it was dark to see, he can sense the man had briefly looked at him from his shoulder after hearing his question followed by his heavy sigh of . . . exhaustion? Uncertainty?

It was hard to decipher what.

"It's not 'we' that brought you here . . ."

The person abruptly stops mid-sentence and halts on his step, causing Jin to bump his forehead on his back.

Have they arrived?

His heart fell when he heard faint and multiple footsteps far ahead of them.

The person before him turns to him. "It's them."

Jin's lips part.

The blue-eyed man's brother?