Dopamine Addiction - Chapter 8

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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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8.
Hee Joo thrashed against the man’s grip, trying to break free. His foul-smelling hand pressed down harder, pinning her more firmly.
What is this? What’s happening?
She forced down the terror that crashed over her like a tidal wave and tried to make sense of the situation. Her mind, frozen like a broken clock, began to move again in stuttering increments.
One man was bald; the other had tattoos crawling up his neck. The skinhead clamped his hand over her mouth and leveled a gun at her, while the tattooed man spat curses with a vicious expression.
Her entire body went cold. Hee Joo steadied her trembling hands and strained to hear what they were saying.
The tattooed man asked her a question.
“Where is it?”
“Huh?”
Hee Joo stared at them with wide, unblinking eyes. The skinhead threatened her—”Shut up or you’ll die”—then slowly removed his hand from her mouth.
“Haah, haah.”
As she gasped for breath, the tattooed man pressed her again.
“I said, where is it?”
“Where’s what?”
The skinhead jammed the gun harder against her back. The sensation, no matter how many times she felt it, made her wince and her brow furrow.
“It’d be smart to hand it over while I’m being nice.”
“Hand what over?”
She had no intention of dying in a place like this. Especially not without knowing why.
Hee Joo lifted the backpack from her shoulder and offered it to them.
“If it’s money you want, it’s in the bag.”
The tattooed man glanced at the skinhead at those words.
“She really doesn’t seem to know. You sure it was handed to her?”
“Check the bag first.”
The tattooed man snatched the backpack and turned it upside down, shaking it hard. A passport, wallet, power bank, and lip balm tumbled out across the ground.
While the man rummaged through the spilled contents, his hand reached toward her again. This time his fingers burrowed inside her jacket.
!
A sickening sensation crawled down her lower back. It was like a snake slithering across her skin—repulsive, chilling.
“Get your hands off me!”
At her harsh protest, the skinhead clamped his hand over her mouth again. The gun barrel drove deeper into her back.
“Stay still. Unless you want to die.”
Hee Joo’s body went rigid. He could pull the trigger. Both he and she knew it.
How had things spiraled into this?
No matter how hard she thought, she couldn’t understand. She’d come only to meet her dying biological father—so who were these men? What did they want?
The tattooed man’s hands began to explore her body. He wore a twisted smile.
Hee Joo clenched her jaw and endured the moment.
His hands moved up from her waist, creeping higher like insects. She squeezed her eyes shut.
Then, in that instant—
“Ugh!”
A low grunt, and the hands constraining her suddenly released. She opened her eyes reflexively. The skinhead’s body was toppling to the side.
Thud.
At the same moment, the tattooed man raised his head. Their eyes met.
Both of them were equally bewildered.
“What the—”
The tattooed man was mumbling in confusion when someone stepped behind him, as silent and inevitable as death itself.
The newcomer seized the man’s face in both hands and twisted it sharply in the opposite direction. Snap. A sickening sound echoed through the air.
The tattooed man’s eyes bulged wide, but he never learned what had happened to him before his breath stopped.
Those long fingers released the dead man’s face. His body slid down to the ground.
Thud.
…
Hee Joo stared at the scene, numb. Then, slowly, she raised her head.
Another man, dusting off his hands, flashed her a dazzling smile.
“We meet again, Hee Joo.”
…
“Wait—Liam?”
It was Liam. He pulled his wide mouth into a seductive grin. Hee Joo trembled involuntarily.
The pile of filth she’d been trying to avoid was right here. Not in Seoul, but in San Francisco.
Why?
***
“So, how exactly did this happen?”
Hee Joo shut the front door firmly behind her as she left the house. There was no need to fumble for her key—the lock was already broken.
But at least this was better than leaving it wide open.
Liam watched her composed face and lowered his gaze. The back of his hand gripping the doorknob had turned white.
That was when he realized she wasn’t as calm as she appeared.
That was what made it entertaining—watching her pretend she wasn’t terrified.
“How did this happen, exactly? Liam?”
Every time the name “Liam” left her lips, her shoulders tensed. She let out a long breath and shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? Who were those men just now?”
Hee Joo shook her head again. Then she swept her eyes carefully across the surroundings. No watching eyes lurked in the entryway or behind the curtains.
She hurried away from the house. Liam followed at her heels. His flat voice drifted between his teeth.
“You don’t know? Those men who were trying to kill you—and you have no idea who they are?”
Are you asking me to believe that?
The unspoken words lingered in the air. Hee Joo kept her eyes down and quickened her pace.
“We need to get out of here first. You’re not forgetting that there are two corpses in that house, are you?”
While Hee Joo moved in something between a walk and a run, Liam strolled along at his leisure with his hands thrust into his pockets. Yet she still couldn’t outpace him.
Liam answered in a light tone.
“Strictly speaking, it’s one corpse. The other one’s just unconscious.”
“That’s one more reason we need to leave before he comes to.”
No taxis passed through the quiet residential neighborhood in broad daylight.
Hee Joo retraced her steps back toward the main road, though she couldn’t be certain this was the right direction. But she had to go somewhere.
Her mind was a tangle. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t understand what had happened. Or rather, before that—
She stopped abruptly, her gaze fixing on something ahead.
…
Liam stopped as well, raising one eyebrow. His eyes tracked where hers were looking.
There was nothing there. Liam’s face clouded slightly before his attention returned to her.
“What are you—”
At that instant, Hee Joo bolted. Liam’s instincts fired immediately, and he launched into a sprint. If he’d thought she could lose him, he was sorely mistaken—
“Ugh.”
Hee Joo crouched in front of a row of trees and started to heave. Liam looked down at her hunched form with an incredulous expression.
“Ugh.”
Liam was about to walk away, pretending not to know her, when he exhaled once and stepped closer. With a casual hand, he patted her back and asked.
“Are you all right?”
“Haah.”
Hee Joo gripped the tree trunk and pulled her unsteady body upright.
Liam reached out quickly, but Hee Joo straightened herself without his help. Then she resumed walking as if nothing had happened.
“Let’s go. We should hope there were no witnesses.”
Liam, lost in thought, asked with a note of suspicion.
“Is it really about the corpse?”
Hee Joo stopped dead in her tracks.
She stared at Liam with the same sharp gaze she’d leveled at the empty air moments before. The subtext beneath his words was clear: “You’re not seriously upset just about that?”
Yoon often called her “An Bosal”—a nickname meant to convey admiration at how she could stay silent and endure even situations that would normally make someone furious.
But Yoon didn’t know the truth. She wasn’t holding back her anger. She simply didn’t feel any.
They were just people passing through her life, after all. They weren’t important to her, and they had no power to move her.
…Though occasionally the Office Division’s incompetence did make her blood boil, but that was beside the point.
She had no expectations of others, and therefore no disappointments. There was no reason to be angry.
Yet somehow, every word from Liam managed to get under her skin. More than most.
When Hee Joo spoke, an edge had crept into her voice.
“Unlike you, I’ve never seen a corpse before. And certainly not watched a living person turn into one right in front of my eyes.”
“I should have just stood by and watched him pull the trigger.”
Liam laughed coldly and with bitter sarcasm.
“That’s not what I meant—”
“This is why the Office Division is—”
!
His words struck her like a blow. Hee Joo clenched her teeth, and her fists tightened.
She genuinely despised the Field Division. That crew with no social awareness whatsoever.
And she’d been trying to avoid that filth.
On the verge of shouting something back, she instead fell silent and trudged forward. Liam followed unhurriedly behind.
Hee Joo had never once believed she had ambition. If she won the lottery tomorrow, she’d quit on the spot.
But in this moment, for the first time, she wished for the highest position in the Office Division. She wanted absolute power—the kind that would let her command the Field Division with a single finger.
She walked with sharp, angry strides, then abruptly stopped and glared at Liam. He smiled wryly, as if to say, Go ahead if you have something to say.
“Thank you for before!”
To anyone watching, it looked less like gratitude and more like a declaration of war, but Hee Joo held her chin high. At least she wasn’t some crude, socially inept Field agent.

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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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