Lee Young-jin managed to move his barely responsive fingertips, touching Seo Seung-hyun’s cheek buried in his shoulder. Seo Seung-hyun turned his gaze to look at him intently. The alpha’s colorless eyes were transparent, settling thinly, with the black pupils clearly visible through the narrowed eyelids.
‘This is strange.’
Lee Young-jin thought briefly.
‘It should be strange….’
That was as far as his thoughts went.
His eyelids drooped, and a heavy sleep pressed down on him.
It was a perfect five hours of sleep without any dreams.
When Lee Young-jin opened his eyes, the room was dark.
The black light of the Han River water, fluttering through the deeply tilted blinds, drew stripes on the bed.
The temperature in the room was mild.
Instead of a blanket, he felt Seo Seung-hyun’s limbs wrapped around his body. Lukewarm breaths gently swept over his nape and shoulders. Lee Young-jin slightly lowered his eyes to see Seo Seung-hyun resting his chin on his shoulder, asleep. The proud and confident alpha was now peacefully asleep with his eyes closed. Hesitantly, Lee Young-jin reached out his hand to touch his eyelids. Seo Seung-hyun did not wake up.
His heart pounded.
Lee Young-jin gathered his courage to touch his face more.
Over the neat eyebrows, along the contours of the cheekbones and cheeks, the firm jawline, and then to the thick and strong nape.
He thought of nothing.
Touching his body, Lee Young-jin drifted back into sleep.
He woke up again five hours later.
The blinds were all down, leaving the room still dim. It was hard to gauge the time. Lee Young-jin barely lifted his heavy eyelids and looked around. At the end of his blurry vision, an electronic clock on the bedside table caught his eye. It was just a few minutes past seven in the morning.
A thick, light blanket covered him up to his shoulders.
Inside the blanket, heated by body temperature, was just warm enough, but Lee Young-jin quickly realized that the alpha, who had held him in his arms and legs and fallen into a deep sleep five hours ago, was gone.
He gathered his knees and pushed himself up with some effort.
The soft blanket slid off his naked body.
He looked around.
His eyes, accustomed to the dark, recognized the familiar bedroom immediately.
Hesitating a bit, he knelt down on the gray rug, lifted his buttocks, and peeked under the bed. In the dimness under the low bed, a dark mass was visible. Lee Young-jin’s heart pounded. He crawled in slightly, reached out his hand, and pulled it out. A heavy box of vitamin drinks was dragged out.
Lee Young-jin opened the dust-free box lid. Bundles of crisp banknotes, tied with paper tape, lay quietly inside. He breathed out sharply as he counted the bundles.
“One, two, three… eight, ten, twelve.”
Exactly twelve bundles.
Excluding the two bundles he had secretly taken to Bogota, hidden at the bottom of his bag, sixty million won remained intact.
Lee Young-jin’s breathing quickened.
He put the money back into the box meticulously.
‘He left the money untouched, even though I ran away.’
Lee Young-jin thought over the reason several times but couldn’t come up with an answer, so he hid the vitamin box back under the bed.
Then, the answer struck him.
‘Maybe he couldn’t find where I hid it.’
After all.
It was hard to imagine such a proud man like him lying flat on the floor, peering under the bed like Lee Young-jin.
Lee Young-jin then remembered the employment contract Seo Seung-hyun had pushed towards him in the Mugunghwa train compartment.
‘Maybe I can use it to pay the penalty. I must have caused him a huge loss…’
Of course, that loss was an amount far beyond tens of millions of won, but Lee Young-jin could only imagine such figures in binary numbers, so he didn’t think that far. The money in this paper box was the largest amount he had ever handled in his life, and he couldn’t think there was anything he couldn’t do with such a substantial amount.
‘Anyway, I have to find CEO. To apologize, to say I’ll pay the penalty…’
With that thought, Lee Young-jin got up from the rug.
He stepped into the space behind the high, long walls of the dressing room. Opening his assigned section, he found new clothes, sized perfectly for him, neatly folded.
He picked up the top t-shirt, put it on, then tore open a packaged pair of underwear and stepped into it. After putting on the indoor tensile pants, he was finally ready to leave the bedroom.
Opening the bedroom door, the morning sunlight filling the hallway was dazzling.
He squinted and walked down the hallway into the spacious living room.
Beyond the living room windows, the shimmering surface of the Han River seemed to overflow.
The sensation of the pants clinging to his legs felt odd. Carefully moving his legs, Lee Young-jin walked along the wall of the living room. Turning the corner at the end of the wide hallway, bright natural light from the kitchen area diagonally lit up the corridor. Lee Young-jin stopped just before entering the lit area, in the shadow of the corridor wall.
The soft aroma of coffee, the scent of baking bread, and the smell of bacon frying mixed in the sunlight.
Along with the smell of food, voices could be heard.
“The chief prosecutor seems to be moving personally.”
“What’s got such a big shot to lift his behind all of a sudden?”
“It’s about time he got anxious about his performance, given the sensational appointment.”
“Hmm.”
With a low click of the tongue, Jang Young-hee’s stiff voice followed.
“If we can catch Gyeongup Trading, we can dig up all the corruption and collusion with the government that’s been going on since the military days. They must be quite heated.”
“A youngest ever candidate for the Chief Prosecutor?”
“It’s still uncertain, but if the Gyeongup Trading case goes well, the chances are high.”
“What about Director Moon? Aren’t they not on good terms?”
“That’s true, but they’ll cooperate in a case like this.”
Gyeongup Trading.
The familiar name made Lee Young-jin’s ears perk up.
Seo Seung-hyun’s short laugh was heard again.
“Haha! Cooperating with a person trying to kick him out? Unless Director Moon has lost his mind, that’s nonsense.”
“They’ll make a deal. They could offer Director Moon the deputy chief position.”
“Following the youngest ever Chief Prosecutor candidate with the first-ever Deputy Chief Prosecutor from the Sangjong line. Doesn’t sound too bad.”
“The Central District Prosecution’s Deputy Chief is a traditional route to becoming a Senior Prosecutor. It wouldn’t be a bad offer for Director Moon.”
There was a single dry click as if someone lightly tapped something with the tip of their nail.
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