The first night in Kang Taejun's house felt like a cage.
It was my first time seeing things outside my bar. I was confused, unaware about anything or knowing how to do such a thing.
I sat on the edge of the bed—his bed—and stared at the silk sheets like they were mocking me. Too soft. Too clean. They didn't belong under my hands, not when they still smelled faintly of sweat and cheap liquor from the bar.
I had never seen a house this big before. Every step echoed like a reminder: You don't belong here. You're just property that he bought.
The door opened, and he walked in—casual, shirt half-unbuttoned like this wasn't the same man who had just ruined my life and "rescued" me at the same time.
"Why are you sitting like that?" His voice was calm but carried a weight I couldn't place.
I didn't answer.
He crossed the room in a few steps and crouched in front of me. "Do you even know why you're here?"
I clenched my jaw. "Because you bought me."
His lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Exactly. Which means you don't get to look at me like that."
"I'm not looking at you any way," I muttered.
He grabbed my chin suddenly, forcing me to meet his gaze. "You're looking at me like you still have a choice."
My breath hitched.
"Here's your reality," he said quietly. "You dance for me now. You smile for me. You sleep in this bed when I tell you to. And if you think I paid for you just to let you sulk in a corner, you're wrong."
I moved back, but he didn't let go.
"Let me go," I hissed.
Instead, his grip softened, almost confusingly gentle. "I won't hurt you if you do what I say. That's better than where you were, isn't it?"
The worst part was that he wasn't lying. The bar was hell. I had been starving. I had been nothing. And now… I was something, even if that something was still owned.
But the way he said it made bile rise in my throat.
"Take a bath," he said finally, releasing me. "You stink of that place."
When he left, I sat there for a long time, shaking, before forcing myself up. I ended up touching my face on the place he touched.
I had sudden butterflies in my stomach.
The next few days blurred together—orders, silence, and that look he gave me like I was both his possession and his problem.
He didn't touch me at first. Just watched. Studied me. It must be humiliating to be honest as I don't know anything.
I took him just 5 hours to teach me how to boil an egg.
One night, though, I woke up to the mattress dipping under his weight.
"What are you—"
"Lie down," he said simply.
My stomach twisted. I wanted to fight, but my body remembered the bar, remembered what happened to those who fought too hard.
And so I didn't fight.
I hated being knotted but the bar was worse. A pure hell.
The next morning, I stared at the ceiling with tears drying on my face and felt something hollow open up inside me.
To be honest doing this with him was way much better than those h0rny alphas at the bar.
Days passed. Or maybe it was hours. Time had no meaning here, only rules and silences.
I kept myself busy cleaning, cooking, anything that kept me moving. I wasn't allowed outside. Guards stood like shadows, watching my every step. I had freedom, in a sense—food, clothing, a warm bed—but it wasn't freedom. It was a gilded cage.
Kang rarely spoke to me unless he had to. When he did, it was sharp, precise, like a scalpel cutting into my pride.
"You look like hell," he said one morning, leaning against the doorway.
I shrugged. "I always look like hell."
"You always will, unless you learn to listen."
"Listen to what?" I snapped, my voice trembling more than I wanted. "You own me. You bought me. There's nothing to listen to!"
He smiled thinly, and I hated him for it. "That's where you're wrong. I didn't buy you so you'd scream at me. I bought you so no one else could."
I wanted to spit, punch, or throw something. But I didn't. I couldn't. Not yet.
And the truth—deep down, the part I refused to acknowledge—was that he had power I couldn't fight. My body obeyed even when my mind screamed.
One evening, I tried to escape. Just for a moment, just to see the sky without bars or walls.
I reached the front door. The guard turned, and my heart sank.
"Trying to leave?" he said flatly.
I froze.
Before I could answer, Kang appeared behind me, his hand on my shoulder like a weight I couldn't shrug off.
"You're learning fast," he said quietly, almost amused. "But don't think you can outsmart me. Not here."
He pulled me inside, not violently, but with a grip so firm I felt every ounce of my independence slip away.
"Next time," he said, voice low and dangerous, "and I will make sure leaving hurts in ways you can't imagine."
I nodded, swallowing back a scream that wanted to escape.
"You don't even know anything about the outside world. You'll end up gangr@p3d."
Maybe he's right. I'm an omega and he's an alpha.
Months passed by.
The loneliness was worse than the control. At night, I would sit by the window, staring at the lights of the city, imagining the bar, the music, the chaos I knew so well. And I would cry. Not from fear. Not from hunger. From the ache of having a body free to move but a soul trapped.
Kang watched me sometimes, silent, never touching. And that gaze—calm, unblinking—made me feel exposed in ways I had never felt before.
"Stop staring at me like that," I whispered one night when he appeared in the doorway.
He tilted his head. "Like what?"
"Like I'm broken. Like I'm nothing."
"You are something," he said, voice soft but cold. "You're mine now. And that makes you… something I can't let anyone else have."
I shivered. Not from his words, but from the strange heat that ran through me despite myself.
Sleep became a relief I didn't want to give myself. I dreamt of the bar, of broken bottles, of people shouting and laughing, and then I'd wake to his quiet steps, the weight of his ownership pressing into the air.
Sometimes I wanted to scream. Sometimes I wanted to beg. But every time I opened my mouth, I remembered his eyes—calm, controlled, terrifying—and I stayed silent.
I began to realize something terrifying: it wasn't just fear. It was… something else.
And I hated myself for even thinking about it.
The night he came home late, furious from some business, was the first time I saw him truly unhinged.
His suit was wrinkled. Hair in disarray. He didn't even look at me at first, just moved past the guards, his footsteps echoing like gunshots.
When he finally stopped in front of me, I froze.
"You're going to learn," he said quietly, dragging me close. Not to hurt me, not yet. But close enough that I could feel his breath, his heat, his impossible control.
"You belong to me now, Seojoon. Don't make me regret bringing you here."
The words slammed into my chest harder than any punch.
I wanted to pull away, to run, to hide. My body trembled. My heart raced.
And yet… part of me felt something else—fear mixed with a strange, unfamiliar pulse of… attention. Interest. Desire.
I hated myself for noticing.
I sank to the floor after he left, shaking, tears running down my face.
I was trapped. Owned. Afraid. And for the first time, I felt something like longing—not for him, exactly—but for the strange, impossible connection he had imposed on me.
And I hated myself for it.