At that assertion, Seo Seung-hyun stared into his eyes. Jang Young-hee didn’t avert his gaze, so Seung-hyun decided he wasn’t lying or joking. Aside from that, he couldn’t imagine this high-minded and loyal secretary telling Seo Seung-hyun a joke or a lie.
But if he wasn’t lying, what was the meaning of his words?
What was that thick pheromone that made the hairs on Seo Seung-hyun’s body stand on end and his skin tingle?
The sweet trace that still lingered on his body to this very moment?
“Not once?”
“Never.”
“Not at all?”
“No.”
“Even now?”
At that last question, one eyebrow twitched like someone who had just heard something very strange.
“What do you mean, now?”
The question came back to him.
“So you’re feeling the pheromones right now?”
“Y…….”
Seo Seung-hyun’s mouth snapped shut as he was about to say yes. Something slammed into his head like a wall.
Methylphenidate.
The strong pheromones and intense ecstasy he had never felt before.
The strong pheromones of Lee Young-jin.
The blurry traces of the endocrine disruptor that linger to this day.
If it was really methylphenidate, why did Seo Seung-hyun hardly feel any pheromones other than Lee Young-jin’s at that time?
And why can he still feel the traces of methylphenidate even now, long after its effects have worn off?
Why was Lee Young-jin so confident that it wasn’t knotting, that it never had been?
It’s not like he was lying, and he had that stupid expression on his face that said he didn’t even know he was knotting even though he was.
“Ha.”
One corner of Seo’s mouth quirked upward, a mocking smile tugging at the corners.
“Investigate Lee Young-jin again.”
“If it’s a behind-the-scenes investigation, I’ve already….”
“No. Go through his bedroom, do whatever it takes, find a hair, send it back to Korea for testing. Do a genetic test or a hair test.”
Jang Young-hee stammered, “I will.” Seo Seung-hyun didn’t hear the answer. A storm of confusion and thoughts was already raging in his head.
Lee Young-jin. Twenty-five years old. Extraordinary species, omega. He had at least three different social security numbers and worked as a freelancer. Debts that don’t exist on record. Said to have sex videos. Compared to how good he was at sex, he was clumsy and insisted that knotting was not possible, but he didn’t even know what knotting was. He looked experienced, spreading his legs without shame, but his face turned red when asking him to sleep in the same bed.
The ensuing chaos was interrupted by the vibration of Jang Young-hee’s cell phone.
He took out his cell phone and held it to his ear.
There was a moment of silence.
“CEO.”
After a short silence, Jang Young-hee covered the phone’s speaker with one hand and whispered in a low voice.
“We found the stolen car. It’s in Medellin.”
“…… And Lee Young-jin?”
“We’ve tracked down a stolen passport in the name of an Asian man we believe to be Lee Young-jin, and we’ve also confirmed that a flight from Medellín Jose Maria Cordoba to Barranquilla was booked in that passport’s name. It’s a 7:27 a.m. flight.”
Seo Seung-hyun’s eyes quickly traveled to the large chiming clock in the center of the parlor wall. The second hand was ticking away the dawn. The hour hand was exactly halfway between 4 and 5, and the minute hand was at 6. As soon as he checked the time, Seo Seung-hyun rose from his seat.
“Get the private plane ready.”
“I’ll put in a request to take off right now, but between the travel time to Guaymaral and the wait for takeoff, it’s going to be a tight squeeze.”
They have less than three hours before the flight to Barranquilla takes off.
It would take an hour to get from the mansion to the Guaymaral airport where they had a private plane waiting, some time to wait for takeoff, and then another hour and a half from there to Medellín. No matter how hurried they were, as they circled over José María Cordoba, waiting for ATC’s approach frequency, Lee Young-jin’s plane would be close to takeoff. Maybe it was already on the runway heading for the sky.
Seo Seung-hyun was unfazed.
“Tell them to wait.”
“What?”
“Call the airline, have them delay takeoff, and check the manifest.”
Jang Young-hee’s panic was short-lived.
The chief secretary, who soon regained his composure, answered briefly and clearly, “Yes.”
On the limo ride to Guaymaral Airport, Seo Seung-hyun asked himself a very personal and pointless question.
Why had Lee Young-jin turned down the money and asked to sleep in the same bed with him?
Why did he do that?
Would he have done that to anyone else but Seo Seung-hyun?
If he had just asked for the money, he wouldn’t have had this question.
Seo Seung-hyun’s ribcage puffed out. He narrowed his eyes and stared into space. What was the point of guessing the answers to those questions now, when he could ask Lee Young-jin himself in three hours?
***
Lee Young-jin was waiting for a flight to Barranquilla at 7:27 a.m. at Jose Maria Cordoba International Airport.
At 6:45 a.m., there was no one in the airport bathroom. He stood in front of the sink with lukewarm water and had a staring contest with himself in the mirror while brushing his teeth. His victory and defeat were not easily determined. Because of his lack of sleep and nervousness, there was heavy shadow under his dark eyes and his complexion was pale. Looking at that gloomy and miserable face, he lowered his head and spat out the foamy water. It was defeat.
As he came out after brushing his teeth, a boarding start sign appeared at the gate. People who looked not much different from Lee Young-jin moved slowly in a row. A flight attendant wearing thick fake eyelashes smiled and checked each of their passports and boarding passes. Contrary to that perfectly professional smile, there was no sincerity in the gesture of checking the passport and boarding pass. It was a process not much different from riding a train.
Perhaps, even if what Lee Young-jin was holding out was a flyer rather than a passport, there would have been no problem passing through the gate.
The flight attendant let Lee Young-jin inside the gate. Lee Young-jin joined the line of passengers lined up like a herd of zebras crossing a river in the savannah. At the end of the aluminum passageway, they were thrown onto the vast runway. The flight attendants led the passengers, who were wandering around like a herd of lost African wildebeests.
A small passenger plane with the tips of its wings hanging precariously was standing on the damp asphalt floor.
The wind and dewdrops mixed together and poured down.
Lee Young-jin took it all in stride, climbed the stairs, and entered the narrow, cool plane.
The seats were cramped and the chair cushions were old and puffy. Of course, Lee Young-jin was not dissatisfied with that. He placed his laptop bag at his feet and fastened his seat belt. He held on to his lifeline with both hands and quietly closed his eyes. The sound of footsteps walking up and down the carpeted hallway, the rolling sound of heavy luggage wheels, muffled whispers, the shouts of flight attendants, the low vibration of the engine, all the hustle and bustle faded away in the darkness inside his eyelids.
Other thoughts filled the place of that noise.
The sweat-soaked skin, the weight of a real down blanket as light as a feather, the damp sweetness inside, things like that.
Instead of being confused by emotional turmoil, Lee Young-jin deliberately began to think about the future journey.
The plane he took was a domestic flight from Medellin to Barranquilla, leaving Medellin at 7:27 a.m. and heading to Barranquilla’s Ernesto Cortissoz International Airport. The reason he intentionally included this journey, which lasted about an hour, was to avoid any possible tracking. Rather than leaving Bogota for Canada or the United States straight away, it was easier to avoid being tracked by making a few stops along the way. That was the reason why he had to meet a passport dealer in Medellin.
It was a pretty good allocation of time to spend a full day traveling from Bogota to Medellin while waiting to receive a new passport.
Upon arriving in Barranquilla, Lee Young-jin planned to immediately purchase a new flight and travel.
There are not many outbound flights to North America to choose from at Ernesto Cortissoz International Airport. He was considering Miami or Toronto. Crossing the U.S. border might be dangerous due to heightened security checks, so his mind was leaning toward Toronto.
But Miami also has its advantages.
Maybe he will have to launder his identity again before entering Korea. And in that case, in many ways, the work was easier in Miami than in Toronto. Decades ago, illegal immigrants who risked their lives to cross the Mexican border immediately sold the identities of their newborn children, who had been born in the United States and acquired the right to live legally, at a low price to secure tomorrow’s water and food. These identities flowed into the black market and became very useful counterfeit identities. Since the majority of victims followed their parents’ lives, they will die without even knowing that the passport created with their identity is being used all over the world.
Miami, or Toronto.
Anyway, that choice was postponed for an hour and a half.
He might have to launder his identity and, if necessary, stay in North America for a few more days.
There has been no contact from his teacher yet.
Now that he had obtained the second item, he had to report it after safely crossing the Colombian border, inform them of the time limit, and it would be convenient if he received work instructions on what to do….
While he was immersed in such thoughts, the surroundings suddenly became quiet. A somewhat urgent announcement ended the sharp silence. Eh, Ladies and Gentlemen… An awkward English broadcast followed as if reading subtitles. Dew to Technical Issue on Our Plain, We Are Kindly Requesting All Passengers Getting Off the Plain… … . Lee Young-jin didn’t listen to that and just blinked.
A young woman sitting next to him grumbled softly as she pulled her earphones out of her ears and stuffed them into her bag. It must have been an insult.
Flight attendants appeared from the front and back of the plane and began herding passengers out of the plane like sheep.
Suddenly, it became a nomadic procession again, and the passengers, while grumbling and complaining, took their luggage out of the overhead bin and made their way through the narrow passage.
Lee Young-jin sat in his seat for a moment.
He didn’t have much experience flying, so it took him a little while to figure out the situation.
Fatal airframe failure. Okay. That might really be the reason.
But he was being pursued, and his pursuer was the kind of person who talks about hundreds of billions without thinking.
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