Dopamine Addiction - Chapter 53

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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53.
He gasped, clutching his side. Blood seeped between his fingers.
“Argh! It hurts!”
“I knew you lacked patience, but this is worse than I expected.”
Liam rose slowly and stepped toward him. James, swearing through gritted teeth, raised the arm he’d dropped. “Damn it.”
But pain seized his entire body, and the gun barrel trembled violently. Liam advanced with unhurried steps.
“Can you hit my heart with a gun shaking like that?”
“Shut your mouth, you bastard!”
“It’s strange to be called a bastard by a bastard.”
Liam reached out slowly and seized James’s gun. As he turned the barrel downward, James’s arm fell with it.
The gun clattered to the floor. James ground his teeth, glaring at Liam—when—
“Drop the gun.”
Cold metal pressed firmly against the back of Liam’s head. His face went blank. There was another one?
James’s twisted face broke into a vicious smile.
“Say one more word, you bastard.”
The moment he finished speaking, James pushed himself up and threw a punch. A sharp crack—Liam’s jaw snapped sideways.
James laughed with bitter contempt, his face streaked with cold sweat and malice.
“What are you looking at? Huh?”
He sneered and spat.
“Just shoot him, Owen. Kill him already!”
As James roared in fury, Liam’s lips slowly curled upward.
“You’re smiling? Have you lost your mind?”
James struck Liam’s jaw again. His face whipped to the side.
Liam raised one hand, wiping his mouth. Red blood came away. His eyes narrowed to slits.
“Why aren’t you pulling the trigger?”
James heaved, urging Owen on. But Liam’s attention fixed on the soft footsteps approaching behind him.
The moment Owen pressed the barrel down and reached for the trigger—
Click.
“Drop the gun.”
Hee-ju aimed her gun at Owen’s head. The barrel pressed against Liam’s skull wavered.
Without missing that microscopic hesitation, Liam spun around. Gripping the barrel with one hand, his fingers moved swiftly. With a sharp click, the gun disassembled into its component parts.
“!”
Owen’s mouth fell open in shock. He stared at his emptied gun, blinking.
In that same instant, Liam drew a knife across Owen’s throat.
Blood erupted. Owen’s eyes bulged wide as he collapsed to his knees.
“Please… spare me…”
“Damn it!”
James spun around and bolted for the stairs. Hee-ju swiftly redirected her gun and fired.
Bang.
“Aahhh!”
James screamed despite the shot missing him entirely, his body crumpling. Liam caught him by the scruff of his neck.
Liam swept James’s legs out from under him. He hit the floor hard on his backside.
Liam pressed his knee down against James’s sternum, bearing his weight.
“Gasp—gasp—”
James’s face twisted in terror. His voice trembled as he spoke.
“I don’t know how much your aunt paid you, but I’ll double it. So please, let me live.”
“Bargaining when you’ve got nothing? Do I look that stupid to you?”
“No, I’m serious. Or rather—if you kill my aunt, I’ll give you half of my inheritance. What do you say? Tempting offer, isn’t it?”
Hee-ju’s jaw clenched at those words.
“Even now, that’s all you can think about.”
Liam gave a casual shrug, glancing at Hee-ju. She trembled with rage on behalf of something that hadn’t even happened to her.
Liam spoke in a dry voice.
“That’s why I told you—people don’t change. If you let them live, they become a curse later.”
Without waiting for her response, he swung the knife mercilessly. James’s eyes bulged as if they would pop from his skull.
Bright red blood gushed from his throat in waves.
“!”
Hee-ju turned her head away.
She understood that Liam’s silence, his failure to ask for her consent, was a form of consideration. It meant she bore no responsibility for this—it was entirely his choice.
A wet, strangled sound escaped him. Finally, James’s head dropped to the floor with a dull thud.
Liam rose slowly, stepping over the bodies scattered across the floor to reach Hee-ju.
The Picture Ripper.
For reasons she couldn’t explain, his epithet suddenly surfaced in her mind. The reaper of death wielding his scythe. No one escaped his blade.
“Are you hurt? Is there any injury?” the reaper asked softly.
A reaper who whispered sweetly, but only to her.
Noel’s words came back to her then.
‘Liam only bows his back when listening to you, Hee-ju.’
Perhaps it wasn’t as bad as she’d thought. Hee-ju’s expression softened as she nodded.
“Yes. But you—are you all right?”
“Thanks to you.”
“Do you think I could request a transfer to active fieldwork after this?”
“Not to that extent.”
At his answer, Hee-ju’s eyes shifted slyly. Then she pulled out her cell phone.
“I need to call Peter.”
As Liam nodded and brushed dust from his clothes, a bone-chilling sound reached their ears—the hammer of a gun being cocked.
It wasn’t reason that registered the sound. It was instinct—the survival instinct of someone who had lived countless days in a place no different from a battlefield.
“Hee-ju!”
Liam called her name. She turned, her eyes widening. His face was—
“…….”
His face was—
How should she describe it? She couldn’t find the right words.
He looked profoundly shocked, almost bewildered. No, that wasn’t quite right either. It was more like—
Yes, he looked frightened.
Frightened? Liam?
Only then did she recognize how absurd the thought was. As Hee-ju let out a small laugh, Liam threw himself toward her.
And in that same instant—
Bang.
Gunfire erupted through the corridor. Smoke curled past his shoulder.
Hee-ju’s body toppled backward. The world tilted sideways, and she saw the ceiling. She squeezed her eyes shut.
She hit the floor hard on her back. Through it all, Liam cradled the back of her head with one hand.
The impact was gentler because of that. Liam twisted his body and hurled the knife he’d been holding. It flew true, embedding itself in the man’s chest with a sharp whistle.
“Ugh—”
The man doubled over in pain. Liam grabbed James’s discarded gun from the floor and fired without hesitation.
Bang. The man standing at the top of the stairs tumbled down, clattering as he fell.
“…….”
Silence fell briefly. Then—
“Haaa.”
Liam exhaled in relief, his head dropping onto Hee-ju’s shoulder as if to verify her heartbeat.
Then he pulled her into his arms with crushing force. She thought her ribs might break.
But instead of crying out, Hee-ju stared at the ceiling.
Ah—
Confusion flickered across her face. The expression she’d glimpsed on Liam’s face just moments ago clung to her mind, refusing to fade.
Those gray-blue eyes trembling with fear.
Could it have been… because of me? Afraid I’d be hurt?
Suddenly his words surfaced in her memory.
‘If I become sincere, can you handle it?’
‘No matter how far you run, I will find you. That’s the price I pay for becoming sincere. Are you prepared?’
“!”
Hee-ju’s eyes snapped wide open. The arms wrapped around her were trembling faintly.
It was no trick of her senses. The Picture Ripper was shaking against her entire body.
Oh, what do I do.
What is there to do? There’s nothing to be done.
Resigned, Hee-ju slowly raised her arms and wrapped them around his neck. She felt Liam flinch at the gesture.
The two stood motionless, drawing warmth from each other. The acrid smell of gunpowder brushed past her nose.
Heat radiated from their joined bodies, even more intense than the residual warmth of the gunfire. After a long moment, Hee-ju finally spoke.
“Should we try?”
“…Try what?”
His voice came slowly, rough and raw, as if scraped by sandpaper.
Hee-ju tightened her arms around him, her gaze fixed unwaveringly on the ceiling.
“To handle it.”
At that, Liam pushed himself up. Bracing one hand on the floor, he raised his upper body to look down at her.
Hee-ju turned her eyes to meet his. His expression crumbled slowly, his lips loosening into something unguarded.
Finally, he smiled with radiant warmth and whispered in a low voice.
“I like that.”
“Yes. I like that.”
Hee-ju nodded blankly.
There was something slightly off about the exchange, and Liam tilted his head in confusion. But Hee-ju simply stared at his face.
Liam, smiling like that.
I like that.
His face drew closer by degrees. Hee-ju’s eyes closed instinctively.
His rough lips brushed against hers, and soft flesh parted her teeth, pressing inside.
They had kissed several times before, yet she never grew accustomed to the sensation. Each time warm flesh moved through her mouth, an electric thrill raced down her spine.
Her mind went blank. Her body melted as if boneless. Her legs weakened. Had she not been lying down, she would have collapsed ungracefully.
Her hand, which had been holding his neck, slipped slowly downward. As she caressed his shoulder, she lifted her head—his left shoulder was damp.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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