Walking down the empty corridor, his steps gradually quickened until he was almost running by the time he reached the executive elevator. He punched the elevator button forcefully with his fist clenched. The button lit up, and the elevator doors opened. Seo Seung-hyun jumped in immediately.
The helicopter was waiting for him.
He lightly climbed aboard and grabbed the communication headset, and the rotor blades took off vertically as if they had been waiting. The aircraft swayed from side to side. Seo Seung-hyun glanced down at the dawn-lit Seoul roads sparkling with the lights of commuting vehicles, then checked his watch. The ceaseless hands of the watch had already moved the hour hand by about 11 degrees. 7:11. His perfect lips twisted, and a soft curse leaked through them. The loud propeller noise swallowed that curse.
It took less than ten minutes by helicopter from the Seoran Defense Kwanghwamun building to his Seongsu-dong penthouse. But even those ten minutes felt excruciatingly long to Seo Seung-hyun.
The moment the helicopter touched down right above the giant H, the door inside burst open.
Seo Seung-hyun leaped down from above.
His feet did not stop moving.
He whisked past Jang Young-hee, who had been waiting, and entered the rooftop lobby. Jang Young-hee hurriedly followed him. The competent Chief Secretariat had barely managed to press the elevator button before Seo Seung-hyun, but Seo Seung-hyun opened the door leading to the emergency staircase even faster than the elevator doors could open.
“CEO!”
Jang Young-hee was startled.
Fortunately, his dismay was short-lived. At his signal, five security guards waiting in standby sprinted down the emergency staircase in unison.
By the time the elevator doors opened leisurely, as heavy as they were, Seo Seung-hyun had already leaped down thirty steps.
Even after sprinting down two floors at once, the alpha’s breath was not the slightest bit disturbed.
Security guards, who had been ordered by Jang Young-hee to keep the emergency exit to the penthouse floor open, straightened up orderly at his arrival. Seo Seung-hyun, of course, did not give them a glance. His gaze, fixed straight ahead, did not waver even once.
He quickly darted into the open front door.
The door closed silently behind him.
Across the wide-open spacious living room, the Han River was undulating in gold with the dawn light.
The entire living room sparkled in dazzling gold.
A small figure stood still in front of the floor-to-ceiling glass window.
The rising dawn light tinted the left side of that figure in a shining red.
Seo Seung-hyun stared at that back for a few seconds, as if mesmerized.
At that small back, simply waiting for something.
His body moved before his mind did.
He took a big step forward. It didn’t take more than a few steps. His footsteps were trailed by spots of blood, but he didn’t notice.
His hand grasped Lee Young-jin’s shoulder. Lee Young-jin turned around. His face was obscured by the backlight of the dawn, making his expression difficult to see. Seo Seung-hyun, undeterred, gripped Lee Young-jin’s wrist with one hand and rolled up the sleeve with the other. The arm revealed was mottled with bruises and protruding veins. He pressed the syringe pen against that pale forearm and forcefully pushed the button. The button slipped under the sweat-soaked thumbprint.
“Shit.”
Seo Seung-hyun cursed.
He pressed the button again. Click. Click. The button was pressed several times. After several attempts, the 2-millimeter micro-needle penetrated the epidermis, injecting the nanovaccine into the dermis layer’s capillaries. These tens of thousands of nanovaccine robots, each only 7 micrometers in diameter, would swiftly swim through Lee Young-jin’s blood vessels, neutralizing the previously injected nanorobots from eleven hours ago and then naturally being disposed of by the body’s macrophages,.
The empty syringe pen slowly slipped from Seo Seung-hyun’s hand.
Thump! The syringe pen bounced a few times on the floor before rolling to a stop.
With a low sigh, Seo Seung-hyun placed a hand on his forehead. The dawn’s purple-mixed pale light shone on his side face, dividing his face symmetrically into light and shadow across his sharp nose.
Lee Young-jin was looking up at Seo Seung-hyun with wide eyes.
He moved his lips but said nothing.
Instead of asking what had just been injected into him, why he had come now, what he had been doing, Lee Young-jin just looked at Seo Seung-hyun.
The necktie disheveled by the strong wind, hair sliding down his forehead, the broad chest heaving with heavy breaths, the intensified scent of an alpha due to the heightened body temperature, the finely sweating temples. Unknowingly, Lee Young-jin reached out to caress the sweaty temple.
Seo Seung-hyun didn’t move.
Instead, he turned his gaze down to Lee Young-jin.
His pupils appeared golden in the rising sun’s light.
Lee Young-jin instinctively caressed his eyelids.
The deep eyes, sharply raised eye corners, densely packed eyelashes, and thick eyebrows were touched one by one by white fingertips.
Seo Seung-hyun placed his hand over Lee Young-jin’s on the back of his hand.
Lee Young-jin shivered at the contact with the feverishly warm palm.
“CEO, I…”
He started to stammer.
Seo Seung-hyun nodded as if encouraging him to continue and moved Lee Young-jin’s hand to his lips, pressing a kiss on the soft palm.
Lee Young-jin quivered.
His eyelids fluttered like butterfly wings, and his eyelashes trembled.
The corners of his eyes twitched, and a tear formed beneath.
His thick lower lip quivered as if struggling to speak, and finally, a word slipped out.
“I’ve gathered all the documents related to Gyeongup Trading here…”
Seo Seung-hyun’s brows furrowed slightly.
He looked around.
Only then did he notice dozens of boxes filling a corner of the spacious living room. The thick cardboard boxes, each marked with various symbols and numbers, were neatly stacked.
“Ah…”
A sigh of resignation escaped Seo Seung-hyun.
Lee Young-jin’s shoulders shrank.
He sneaked glances at Seo Seung-hyun and added in a voice that was almost a whisper.
“The money you gave me before… it’s still there. I’ll return it. Since I breached the employment contract, there’s also a penalty…”
“That’s enough of that.”
Seo Seung-hyun cut him off sharply.
Lee Young-jin’s black eyes blinked slowly. In the moist, clear pupils, the disheveled alpha cracked a smile.
“Come here and give me a kiss.”
Lee Young-jin looked up at him as if enchanted.
His feet hesitantly moved towards him.
And when Lee Young-jin, as if statue-like in his steadfastness, took a step towards the alpha waiting perfectly in place for him.
Something hot dripped down onto his foot.
Lee Young-jin looked down in confusion. Before he could fully understand what the warm liquid soaking his instep was, the alpha, who had been as solid as a rock or steel sculpture, staggered.
“CEO Seo?”
Instinctively, Lee Young-jin stretched out his arms to catch his falling body, but unable to support the weight made of thick muscle and bone, they both collapsed to the ground. Simultaneously, the blood pooled inside the sleeve of the expensive silk jacket poured out further.
“Ah…”
Lee Young-jin murmured, lips parting in shock.
He stared down at Seo Seung-hyun, who lay limp in his arms like a fallen beast.
Drops of blood trickled from the soaked sleeve’s end, rolling down onto the strong back of his hand.
“CEO Seo?”
Lee Young-jin gently shook his shoulder with a powerless hand.
“CEO Seo. CEO Seo…”
His plaintive voice called out several more times.
There was no reply.
The moment Lee Young-jin spent in shock was not long, only a few seconds. His hand, following the trail of blood on Seo Seung-hyun’s hand, hurriedly stripped off the suit jacket to reveal the wound. The shirt around the shoulder was soaked with blood. Breathing heavily, Lee Young-jin pressed down on the shirt with both palms forcefully to stem the flow of blood.
Then, a phone inside the discarded jacket of Seo Seung-hyun started to vibrate.
Gasping for breath, Lee Young-jin reached out one arm to rummage through the jacket.
A familiar name flashed on the sleek 5.8-inch screen.
[Jang Young-hee]
The vibration stopped soon, but the message remained. Lee Young-jin, gasping for air, dragged Seo Seung-hyun’s large hand to press the thumb against the screen edge. The fingerprint lock disengaged, revealing a message from Jang Young-hee. Without a moment to read it, Lee Young-jin hastily tapped the call button.
The ringing didn’t last long.
[Yes, CEO Seo.]
The moment Jang Young-hee’s familiar voice came through the phone, Lee Young-jin burst into tears.
“Chief! The CEO…”
The competent chief secretary grasped everything from that one sentence.
About a minute later, following the trail of blood droplets to the penthouse, the chief security manager, led by Jang Young-hee, pulled Seo Seung-hyun, who had lost consciousness due to excessive bleeding, from Lee Young-jin’s arms.
Among the security personnel conducting hemostasis and emergency treatment under the skilled orders of the chief secretary, Lee Young-jin watched the scene in a daze, only fluttering his eyelids.
“…Yes. Please have Dr. Min on standby. Prepare blood of type K, Rh-C…”
Jang Young-hee’s commands to someone on the phone resonated thunderously in Lee Young-jin’s ears.
Lee Young-jin stood up suddenly. Though it was only in spirit, as his knees barely managed to prop him up.
“Ch-Chief.”
He grabbed the hem of Jang Young-hee’s clothing.
“I have that blood type. If my blood could be used for a transfusion…”
Moisture filled his black eyes, making them swell like the ocean surface.
But the chief secretary, ever professional, was unmoved by the desperate plea, stating firmly,
“We have pre-prepared blood for emergencies, so there’s no need to worry.”
“But still, in case it’s not enough…”
“There won’t be a shortage. And even if there was, donating blood during pregnancy could be harmful to your health, so you can’t, Mr. Lee Young-jin. Please stay at home. I’ll assign a security detail to you.”
“Uh…”
Lee Young-jin’s grip loosened on Jang Young-hee’s clothing.
It was due to a loss of strength, but the usually perceptive chief secretary failed to notice this time. He immediately turned and followed the paramedics and stretcher carrying Seo Seung-hyun out.
“Uh, uh, uh…”
Lee Young-jin watched them leave, merely mouthing words in a daze.
***
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