Lee Young-jin’s body jolted. His head, previously tilted down, jerked up as he cautiously gauged Seo Seung-hyun’s expression. His lips trembled, and he breathed through the gap between them.
A choked sound emerged, but beyond that, there was silence.
Seo Seung-hyun sighed shortly.
“Yeah. What could I possibly expect from you?”
Then, he lifted his head again and flicked his finger towards Lee Young-jin.
“Come here.”
Lee Young-jin, stiff as a board, just stared at that finger.
Seo Seung-hyun flicked his finger again.
“I’ll take care of it, so come here.”
At that moment, another thought filled Lee Young-jin’s mind.
‘I need to apologize.’
He remembered the safe house in Shanghai, the coldness of the gun pressed against the back of his head. He thought of Seo Seung-hyun handing him the phone, his own request to sleep in the same bed, and Seo Seung-hyun’s response that it wasn’t a matter of compensation. He recalled the moment in Shanghai when Seo Seung-hyun released Ji Jung-hoon and Park Eun-young, their reunion in a Mugunghwa train compartment heading to Seoul, and the conversation with Ji Jung-hoon just minutes ago.
He thought of the sweetness of the chocolates filling a shopping bag, the brief meal in Bogotá under the raindrops, the hands picking bones out of fried fish, the long kiss under an umbrella, and the sweet embrace at the end of a long lovemaking session.
‘I have to say I’m sorry for lying, for deceiving. Right now.’
But his lips were stuck together as if glued with epoxy, refusing to part.
He tried to open his lips again.
But Seo Seung-hyun moved first.
His broad shoulders surged up, and, improbably light and silent for his size and weight, he stepped towards Lee Young-jin. His hands reached out, gently cradling Lee Young-jin’s cheeks. His long eyes looked down at him, the pupils in his dry, lusterless eyes wobbling.
“I’m sorry.”
Lee Young-jin thought he had said it, but it wasn’t him.
It was Seo Seung-hyun.
“I knew that releasing your teammates like that would lead to their immediate capture. It was my fault.”
Lee Young-jin looked up at him for a long time.
Just when his already moist eyes seemed to gleam with a sheen, drops of tears fell like raindrops on broad monstera leaves, tumbling down heavily.
The bond that had sealed his lips tight melted away at that moment.
Lee Young-jin shook his head.
Tears heavy on his lashes dripped down.
“No.”
Moist, gleaming black eyes looked up at Seo Seung-hyun.
“It’s me, I’m sorry. I stole the goods in Bogotá. I delivered them to Teacher. It was me who approached Xi Xiping first. The social security number on the contract wasn’t mine. The part about being twenty-seven years old was a lie too.”
Lee Young-jin braced for Seo Seung-hyun’s anger, for his eyes to grow cold with disappointment, for the hands cradling his cheeks to drop away and the warmth between them to fade, for him to turn and leave, for all that unhappiness to unfold at once.
But Seo Seung-hyun didn’t do any of those things.
Instead, he laughed with a mischievous expression.
“A lie? Even about being twenty-seven?”
Lee Young-jin’s heart squeezed tight. He nodded, tears flowing more freely now, his vision wavering as if submerged in water. He could hardly see Seo Seung-hyun’s face anymore.
He continued to speak recklessly.
“I’m sorry. It was all my fault. I’ve been deceiving you from the beginning to the end.”
The words ‘I’m sorry’ reverberated inside his lips several times. He searched for more words to express his sincerity, but no grand phrases came to mind. Only the apologies repeated over and over.
Seo Seung-hyun’s hands slightly withdrew.
As Lee Young-jin shivered, those hands returned to wipe the tears from under his soaked eyes. A smooth silk handkerchief dabbed away the tears. Lee Young-jin blinked several times. Droplets fell, and suddenly, his vision cleared.
Seo Seung-hyun’s face came into view.
He was smiling.
The corners of his long eyes turned down slightly, fluttering with a sweet smile.
“I haven’t told you something either.”
He nonchalantly tossed the now soaking handkerchief onto the table. The heavy, tear-soaked fabric fluttered slowly through the air. Instead of the handkerchief, his hand stroked Lee Young-jin’s face.
“The driver’s license I showed you that day. It’s fake.”
Lee Young-jin gaped up at him, dumbfounded.
The smug alpha curled the corners of his lips into a sly smile.
Lee Young-jin was drawn into that smile, his head swirling with too many questions, but the only word that made it out was,
“Why…”
The myriad sentences that could follow the adverb “why” didn’t even need to be voiced out loud.
“You’re not really asking because you don’t know, right? Needing to confirm everything through words seems to be a trait of kids like you, but it’s not my style.”
Seo Seung-hyun answered, caressing the corner of his eyelid with his thumb.
It’s certain that both Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas are completely damaged.
Lee Young-jin couldn’t understand a word Seo Seung-hyun was saying and had no idea how to express the tangle of thoughts in his head.
He simply thought about the chemical reaction between alphas and omegas and the fantasy he, as a hybrid mutant, had never dared to dream of.
Whether it was the moment the alpha said he wasn’t asking for compensation, or the moment the omega asked to share the same bed, it wasn’t clear which came first, and it didn’t matter. Perhaps because the temporal gap between those two moments was so short, it could be described as simultaneous.
His heart began to beat faster.
Unintentionally, Lee Young-jin raised his hand to press down on the left side of his chest. However, it was ineffective. That strong mass of muscle had completely escaped the control of his cerebral cortex, racing wildly according to the regulatory center in his medulla oblongata. His blood circulated rapidly, his head heated up to the top, and his extremities tingled.
“…there’s a time limit on the item.”
Lee Young-jin’s lips blurted out words on their own.
“It’s a laptop, probably made with a primary battery that can’t be charged. You have to enter a valid code to open it.”
His speech sped up.
“I’m not sure how much time is left. I had opened it once before, but I don’t know. I don’t know what happens when the time runs out. You need that item, right? I’ll help you. We have to retrieve it first. I, gave it, to Teacher….”
“Lee Young-jin.”
Seo Seung-hyun cut off Lee Young-jin’s rambling.
“I knew there was a time limit. Don’t worry. There’s still plenty of time.”
“How much time?”
Seo Seung-hyun shrugged his shoulders.
“If that guy you call Teacher just sells the item to me quietly, this will be over quickly. What do you think? Will that bastard willingly sell the item to me?”
“I could meet Teacher and persuade…”
“No need for that.”
Seo Seung-hyun gently tapped Lee Young-jin’s cheek with the tip of his index finger. At the same time, his long eyelashes slightly bent, stirring sweetness, and the alpha whispered softly.
“I told you. I’m a businessman. This is my specialty.”
***
Ding-dong.
The elevator stopped.
The doors opened smoothly, revealing a lobby with white marble tiles leading to the underground parking lot. Seo Seung-hyun stepped onto the tiles without hesitation. He walked straight ahead, never stopping or hesitating, as if no one had ever stood in his way or brushed past him.
The glass doors leading from the lobby to the parking lot opened automatically. Jang Young-hee and the chauffeur, who had been waiting beside the limousine, both bowed.
Seo Seung-hyun nodded slightly in acknowledgment of their greeting, and at the same time, Jang Young-hee opened the rear seat door for him. After Seo Seung-hyun got in, Jang Young-hee closed the door behind him and then got in on the other side. The interior of the large sedan, perfectly adjusted to the right temperature, filled up heavily with two alphas.
The chauffeur shifted gears, and the car smoothly started moving.
Seo Seung-hyun silently fidgeted with the tips of his toes crossed for a while.
Sensing the boss’s discomfort, the secretary’s eyebrows narrowed slightly before returning to normal.
After a few minutes of silence, Seo Seung-hyun leaned back, resting his elbow on the armrest, and propped his chin on the back of his hand before speaking.
“Young-hee.”
“Yes.”
“Can you find those bastards?”
Jang Young-hee quickly understood the vague question.
“…Their faces are mosaic in the footage, but it’s not impossible. I’ll look into it as quickly as I can.”
“Don’t just do it…”
Seo Seung-hyun’s eyes lowered significantly. His eyes, muddied like the depths of water into which black ink had been dropped, flickered sharply. His jaw twitched as if he was holding back anger.
“In that video… the… parts where he appears, mosaic everything and alter the voice…”
Seo Seung-hyun, a man who never stuttered or faltered in his voice, paused several times, furrowing his brow as he spoke. Jang Young-hee silently nodded.
“I’ll handle it properly. Don’t worry.”
Then he made one last confirmation of his superior’s intentions.
“Are you sure you won’t check it yourself?”
The response came before the thought.
“Fuck. Am I insane?”
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