The loyal secretary did nothing wrong. Knowing it all too well, he bit his lip. The inside of his mouth went dry. He thought of cigarettes. His habitual declaration of quitting smoking was about to come to an end again, as his last cigar hadn’t lasted more than a few days. Jang Young-hee noticed and pulled a new pack of cigarettes from his arm. An unfamiliar logo. Seo Seung-hyun took the cigarette from him and put it in his mouth. Jang Young-hee lit the cigarette for him.
Seo Seung-hyun walked over to the window and opened it.
The window looked out onto a beautifully landscaped patio.
In the midst of the global smoking cessation epidemic, smokers’ struggles were becoming increasingly mournful, and half-cigarettes with extremely low nicotine and tar content were on the rise, except in Colombia. People rolled their own tobacco. Those with money asked for entry-level cigars. If they had more money, they bought Cuban cigars. Laborers on illegal coca farms would steal coca leaves or fruit to burn.
Seo Seung-hyun looked out over the darkened patio and took a deep drag on the poison, which contained 31 milligrams of tar and 2.2 milligrams of nicotine. In a matter of seconds, the cigarette burned through the filter. A gas of nicotine, tar, polonium 210, carbon monoxide, benzene, mercury, cadmium, and more than four thousand other chemicals washed over his lungs.
“Any problems in Korea?”
“No. Seoran’s prosecution has been postponed until after the Lunar New Year holidays, but I don’t think it’s a big deal anyway.”
“…I don’t think the prosecutors are trying to wipe out a company the size of Seoran. If Seoran falls, there are one or two companies that will go down with it.”
The corners of Seo Seung-hyun’s mouth twitched with sarcasm. Formaldehyde and dioxin fumes drifted gently from his sharp front teeth and lips.
He crushed the filter between his thumb and forefinger.
As he removed the filtered cigarette from his mouth, Jang Young-hee walked over to him and held out a portable ashtray. Seo Seung-hyun threw the cigarette butt in it.
“What happened to that thing that Executive Director Kwon said?”
“I was going to tell you about the Haeju Forwarding.”
Jang Young-hee continued in silence.
“CEO. It’s related to Haeju Forwarding and Gyeongup Trading Company.”
One of Seo Seung-hyun’s eyebrows twitched slightly as he glanced at Jang Young-hee briefly, then turned back to his chair and sat down. Jang Young-hee followed him.
“Gyeongup?”
“We’ve never had anything to do with it, so we haven’t bothered with him until now….”
“No, no. I know. They sucked some honey during the military dictatorship, right?”
Seo Seung-hyun shrugged.
“Didn’t it go out of business, the executives fled, the name changed a few times, and they managed to keep it afloat with each regime change, but then it went under a few years ago?”
“It’s said that they started up again as Global Colgate in 2007, ran it for three years, then got hit with a currency exchange loss during the U.S. stock market crash and went bankrupt.”
“Yeah, that’s what I know.”
“Apparently, it wasn’t.”
Seo Seung-hyun looked at Jang Young-hee.
Jang Young-hee spoke again.
“They opened a new company under a different name, and unlike before, they started doing something smaller but more illegal. It’s mostly drug and contraband brokering, and it’s quite large.”
“Haha!”
Seo let out a short laugh.
“Well, well. So we had a competitor, right?”
He jerked a finger at Jang Young-hee. The secretary handed him a second cigarette and lit it. Seo Seung-hyun took the cigarette to his lips and spoke rapidly.
“This time, is that the domestic company that was working on this project?”
“I’m guessing so.”
“Haeju Forwarding?”
“That’s the new name of the Gyeongup Trading Company.”
“Is it still around?”
“They went out of business at the end of last year, and now they’ve renamed themselves IG Logistics Korea. It’s a completely different name, so it looks like a different company, but it’s actually the same company.”
“That’s a shitty name.”
The man who had added the initials of his name to the name of his company said casually.
“Does Executive Director Kwon know about this?”
“I don’t know how much he knows, but I’m certain he’s aware of it.”
The secretary paused uncharacteristically for a few seconds, and Seo Seung-hyun’s face hardened as he sensed the mood. He picked up the cigarette filter with his fingers, pulled it away from his lips, and stared at Jang Young-hee.
“What’s going on?”
“Mr. CEO, it’s about the IG case….”
It was unusual for this rock-hard man to stutter.
“It’s related to Mr. Lee Young-jin. There’s a middleman named Choi Yoon-seok, and it’s confirmed that he was in contact with IG before this Shanghai auction, and he was also in contact with Mr. Lee Young-jin. Before that, he had already had several transactions with Haeju Forwarding.”
Seo Seung-hyun didn’t answer, just stubbed out his cigarette. Jang Young-hee pulled out a portable ashtray. Seo Seung-hyun placed the butt in it, placed his hand on the surface of the table, tapped it lightly with the tip of his index finger, and crossed his legs in opposite directions once to change his posture.
A moment later, a lascivious smile appeared on his face.
“…That’s one hell of a construction job.”
His voice sounded like he was enjoying himself. Jang Young-hee stared at him.
“What do you want to do?”
“Do what? Catch it.”
Seo Seung-hyun smirked.
“You mean the thing is in his possession right now.”
“I’m not sure.”
“Xi Xiping didn’t take it, so it must be on him. You think he threw it out on the street?”
Seo Seung-hyun said with a laugh.
“Track down that stolen car, release more money, and pass it on to Ms. Yang. Get the cartel or whatever to come in.”
“Yes.”
“Find them, recover the goods, and…. and bring Lee Young-jin back to me unharmed.”
Jang Young-hee didn’t answer, instead studying Seo Seung-hyun’s complexion. The alpha’s clean-lined face showed no sign of emotional agitation as he leaned his upper body against the chair back at an angle and smirked.
“I’d hate to have a child support lawsuit come out of the blue in a couple years.”
Jang Young-hee didn’t answer again. Only this time, it wasn’t intentional, he just couldn’t speak.
Seo Seung-hyun continued casually.
“What’s worse is that in twenty or thirty years, some faceless bastard will show up out of nowhere and claim his inheritance.”
Jang Young-hee’s face stiffened. The corners of his lips curled up. After a few seconds of silence, he barely spoke.
“…that means…….”
He tried to find as moderate and conservative a word as possible, but failed. Instead of a simple, socially acceptable two-syllable word, a more familiar legal term leapt out of his mouth.
“Are you saying that there was a… sexual union between the two of you?”
And Seo Seung-hyun took it quite naturally.
“Knotting? Yes. Why? What’s so surprising?”
“But…….”
Jang Young-hee made a very strange face. His eyebrows twitching.
“CEO. Are you sure?”
“Do I need to take sex education at this age from Chief Jang?”
Wasn’t Lee Young-jin the only one who needed mandatory sex education?
Jang Young-hee narrowed his eyes at Seo Seung-hyun’s sarcasm. With a palm as big as a pot lid, he pulled out the silk handkerchief he kept in his vest pocket and dabbed at his temples. It washed away the blurred sweat.
“CEO. I don’t know if I should say this, but… after a sexual union between extraordinary species, a pheromone trail should be left behind, isn’t that so?”
“Well, yes.”
Seo Seung-hyun was not serious.
To him, pheromones were so hazy that they were almost imperceptible unless he looked very carefully.
Except for Lee Young-jin.
Even now, long after the knotting, he could feel the faintest trace of pheromones in the room or on his own body. It was a very unfamiliar sensation.
His underdeveloped pheromone sensory system doesn’t prevent him from functioning as an Alpha. He also have experience with knotting. Of course, none of it was the same as last time.
“Maybe Ms. Yang mixed methylphenidate into the drink at a lethal dose, just enough to make me hypersensitive.”
He shrugged it off.
Who cares?
The important thing was that he had knotted with Lee Young-jin, and even in the slimmest of odds, he might be pregnant.
That’s when Jang Young-hee spoke up again.
“I know it’s a rude thing to say, but….”
“If you know, why don’t you keep your mouth shut?”
“But, CEO. I don’t see any trace of it on you.”
With those words spoken out of his mouth, Seo Seung-hyun turned his head and looked at Jang Young-hee. A pair of dark eyebrows, set in golden proportions above a round face, arched in displeasure.
“Young-hee.”
His voice, unlike his eyes, was soft and profound.
“Isn’t the situation a little bad to accuse your boss of being a eunuch?”
“That’s not what I meant, CEO.”
“Then what is it?”
The thin corners of his eyes folded up into a wry smile.
Extraordinary species are infertile by nature. Millions of years of complex evolutionary processes have made them stronger and more robust, but have weakened their fundamental function as living beings. High rates of incompatible pregnancies, premature births, and stillbirths. On top of that, extremely low fertilization rates. Knotting and heat is a form of reproduction that increases the chance of fertilization. An Alpha that couldn’t knot and an Omega that couldn’t go into heat meant infertility.
“As an extraordinary species, I know you’re functioning perfectly fine.”
“Ah. It’s time for Chief Jang’s sex education class.”
Seo Seung-hyun said sarcastically.
Jang Young-hee was undeterred.
“I was going to blame it on Mr. Lee Young-jin’s poor health, but it’s still strange that there’s no pheromone trace to this extent.”
Seo Seung-hyun tried to warn the loyal secretary that he was crossing the line, but Jang Young-hee was quick.
“It could be an Omega that intentionally removed its reproductive function.”
Seo Seung-hyun’s warning didn’t make it out of his lips before it became a reality. A sound halfway between a chuckle and a sigh escaped.
He’s not a young teenager who doesn’t know how to use or where to buy an alpha condom, nor is he an ignorant delinquent who believes that ejaculating outside the body is a surefire way to stop knotting. He’s not even an idiot who doesn’t realize what he’s done.
Recognizing the vague mockery, Jang Young-hee bowed his head deeply.
“Maybe he was wearing some kind of pheromone perfume that sexually stimulates alpha males.”
“I didn’t know our chief secretary was a romantic fool who was into such commonplace things as pheromone perfume.”
Seo Seung-hyun sarcastically said, and Jang Young-hee didn’t laugh.
Eventually, Seo Seung-hyun raised his hands, shrugged, and said simply.
“It must be the methylphenidate, because Ms. Yang put methylphenidate in my drink that day.”
Jang Young-hee’s brow furrowed again.
“But CEO has resistantance to methylphenidate….”
“Rather than being resistant, I just have a higher reaction point than others.”
Seo Seung-hyun cut Jang Young-hee off.
An undeveloped pheromone sense organ, and therefore a higher-than-average drug reaction point. Few people know about it, including his loyal secretary. A dry smile appeared in his eyes.
“…Either Ms. Yang actually put a near-lethal dose of methylphenidate in it to kill me, or he knows something about my body.”
Jang Young-hee’s forehead furrowed. Seo Seung-hyun shrugged it off and continued.
“Lee Young-jin probably has a congenitally weak pheromone system, but in a different direction than mine. Well, he’s said so himself, so it must be true.”
It doesn’t work, it’s never worked, and so on and so forth.
“Anyway, that day was an accident.” Seo Seung-hyun started to add, but stopped.
Jang Young-hee, who had been listening to Seo Seung-hyun for a while, asked again.
“But didn’t the CEO knot?”
“Chief Jang, don’t you think this is an overly private and intimate conversation?”
“I’m sorry. But for the sake of an inheritance dispute that might happen in twenty years, I think it’s better to be clear now.”
“As one of the major shareholders, I understand your concern for the company, but what exactly do you want to make sure of now?”
Seo Seung-hyun smiled as if amused, but in contrast, Jang Young-hee’s face was stiff and rigid, and his voice was as stiff and uneven as his face.
“CEO. I can’t find any trace of sexual union in you. In the same vein, I’ve never thought that such an act would be possible with Mr. Lee Young-jin.” At this point, the smile on Seo Seung-hyun’s face hardened like an iron mask. “I have never felt Mr. Lee Young-jin’s pheromones, not even once.”
Leave a Reply