Lee Young-jin tore open the fifth pregnancy test.
The result was the same.
His heavy black eyes stared at the test in his hand for a long time.
No matter how many times he looked, the result did not change.
The five tests from five brands pointed to one thing.
Lee Young-jin’s pale face slowly flushed from his neck to the very top of his head, turning bright red. His small head was filled with memories of that night in Bogotá. The lush kisses, the melting warmth, the smell of damp cigars and whiskey, the overwhelming scent of the alpha filling the blanket-covered bed.
Lee Young-jin thought of the countless nights without Seo Seung-hyun.
Nights of endless waiting, nights of insomnia.
Nights drowned in fear that no one would ever find him.
Lying in a cold bed, quietly watching the end of the night through a small window, the daydreams he secretly harbored.
The intense chemical reaction that sometimes occurs between an alpha and an omega experiencing heat and rut together. A deadly hormonal action dressed up in romantic terms like fate, love, or bonding.
To Lee Young-jin, who wasn’t a proper omega, it was nothing more than fanciful daydreaming, a chemical miracle induced by neuroendocrine release, like a baseless fairy tale.
Lee Young-jin’s chest tightened painfully, and his shoulders shook.
His face could not get any redder, and the tip of his nose tingled.
His vision blurred, and a shimmering light flitted across the edges of his moist irises.
Lee Young-jin carefully repackaged the fifth test into its container. He stored it in his bag along with the boxes containing the first, second, third, and fourth tests.
***
Black waves surged high and low.
The cold sea air mixed with the damp wind.
Grey storm clouds clustered in the night sky. Rain mixed with the white foam. Lightning tore through the distant darkness.
Rumble.
The long sound of thunder shook the sea surface.
An old ferry swayed with the waves.
Seo Seung-hyun leaned against the wall, quietly watching the rain-streaked window.
His shadow flickered on the foggy window, the dim indoor lighting making it dance like flames. Only his eyes, absorbing light from the darkness and flashing like lightning, were distinctly luminous against the shadow.
After a moment of staring at his own reflected eyes, he turned away.
A man with a bushy beard opened the door to the bridge for him. Seo Seung-hyun stepped over the threshold without hesitation.
Thin raindrops fell on his shoulders.
The bearded man followed him silently like a shadow.
The deck was wet.
The smell of salt and fish wafted through the air.
The sound of the waves mixed faintly with labored breathing.
Seo Seung-hyun leaned against the bridge wall, staring into the dark sea swallowed by night. The rough waves rose and fell incessantly. Holding his gaze on the sea, he pulled out a cigarette from his pocket. Despite repeated vows to quit, the pack was almost new. Lighting the cigarette with a flicker from the cheap lighter offered by the shadowy man behind him, Seo Seung-hyun accepted the attentive service as if it were natural.
He smoked the cigarette slowly.
Thin raindrops, so fine they felt like mist or dew, fell on the burning cigarette.
His deep eyes, straight nose, and high cheekbones slowly got wet.
Seo Seung-hyun swept back his wet hair with one hand.
“Hah, ho…”
Pained groans floated over the sound of the storm and the sea.
Seo Seung-hyun continued to smoke leisurely, undisturbed. With each inhalation of dozens of carcinogens deep into his lungs, his broad shoulders and chest moved smoothly and flexibly. In the darkness, the cigarette’s glow flickered. The long ash fell onto the deck.
With the cigarette half-burnt, Seo Seung-hyun turned around.
At the edge of the dark deck, a shadow loomed. Lightning split the sky, revealing the deck’s end in a moment of brilliance.
Two expressionless sailors stood there.
At their feet, a mass that appeared no more than a lump of flesh writhed.
The sailors, dressed in worn work clothes, had faces eroded by weather and time, unresponsive to the groans at their feet.
One corner of Seo Seung-hyun’s mouth lifted slightly.
His pristine, expensive shoes stepped confidently across the wet deck.
His leisurely steps, never in a hurry, halted in front of the writhing mass. The lump groaned in pain as raindrops fell, streaming down a forehead contorted in fear and agony.
Seo Seung-hyun looked down at him indifferently.
Ash from the stub of the cigarette in Seo Seung-hyun’s hand fell, scattering over the sweat- and tear-soaked face.
The damp air was tinged with the acrid smell of cigarette smoke.
“Hah, urgh, to do something like this…”
Teacher coughed with a throat clogged with phlegm.
“I, I’m facing trial. They said they’d protect me in exchange for my testimony to the prosecution…!”
Seo Seung-hyun offered no reply. His expression remained unchanged. Raindrops rolled down from his wet forehead and dense eyebrows. His sharply chiseled features, as if sculpted from solid, slick rock by a skilled artisan in a single stroke, betrayed no hint of emotion.
Teacher gasped for air, managing to tilt his head back to look up at him.
And finally, their eyes met. Instinctively, he realized.
This alpha in front of him was merely cloaked in the trappings of civilization.
Conventions against torture. The Hague conventions. The UN Charter. The Rome Statute. The agreements humanity set forth in the name of civilization to uphold human dignity had no sway over this alpha.
Seo Seung-hyun, with a smile on his face, brought the cigarette to his lips in silence. His perfectly proportioned lips deeply inhaled the smoke. His lungs, filled with poison, inflated and then slowly exhaled.
The cigarette butt, shortened by a finger’s width, fell onto the wet deck, extinguishing itself just centimeters in front of the fallen Teacher’s eyes.
Terror flickered in his wide-open eyes.
His breathing became harsh and ragged.
“Was it fun?”
Seo Seung-hyun’s voice was even, almost carrying a hint of amusement.
“What, what do you mean…”
“Was it fun? To lure a clueless kid and enjoy yourself for a decade.”
With those words, Seo Seung-hyun grinned.
“No, no need to answer. It must have been damn fun, considering all you’ve done over those ten years.”
“No, it’s not like that! I, I gave that, that kid a chance…”
“A chance?”
After a short retort, a loud laughter burst out.
After a hearty laugh, Seo Seung-hyun, eyes crinkling with amusement, looked down at Teacher.
“A chance. That’s a nice word.”
Seo Seung-hyun eyed the crumpled, aged man sprawled on the deck like discarded cargo. He saw in those weary eyes the remnants of past desires and greed not yet extinguished.
The magnolia tree from ten years ago.
The old community hall.
Fifteen-year-old Lee Young-jin with his dewy eyes.
The small back that was always looking somewhere far away.
All the opportunities he was robbed of.
Seo Seung-hyun, smiling, extended his hand backward. One of the stoic sailors beside him moved silently, placing a dark object in his hand.
“Alright. Then, how about I give you a chance…”
Seo Seung-hyun caressed what he received from the sailor with his other hand. In the darkness, a Colt M1911, with over a hundred years of history in killing, gleamed. He twirled the heavy, fully loaded gun in his hand as if it were a toy.
Teacher’s eyes shimmered upon seeing the gun. His breathing became rough, desperation swirling in his pupils.
“Please, let me live… The prosecution is waiting for the trial. I’m supposed to testify. If you really give me a chance…”
Seo Seung-hyun knelt on one knee, lowering his body. The gun barrel pressed against Teacher’s forehead.
The rain intensified.
Lightning tore through the darkness once more.
His usually expressionless face briefly flashed under the illumination before disappearing back into shadow.
Teacher swallowed hard, sensing death in the fleeting moment, too brief even for his brain to scream.
The gunshot sounded before anything else.
The thunder rolling over the rough sea swallowed the noise of the shot.
Seo Seung-hyun’s finger pulled the trigger repeatedly. Click. Click. Click. The magazine rotated rapidly, firing 11.43mm bullets at a velocity of 253 meters per second. The bullets tore through the thin skin, shattered the skull, churned the brain into a mess, and burst through the opposite side of the cranial wall.
Blood splattered.
Dark red droplets speckled his unflinching nose and cheekbones, washed over by thin streaks of rain.
After all seven rounds were fired, Seo Seung-hyun’s hand didn’t stop. The empty magazine clicked several more times in vain. Only then did Seo Seung-hyun cease.
“Haa…”
A sigh, barely audible, escaped.
The M1911’s barrel, still pressing against the ruined skull, was smeared with blood and brain matter. The arm holding the gun, having withstood the recoil of the .45 ACP bullets—far stronger than that of the Parabellum rounds—remained motionless.
Silence ensued.
The waves rocked the ferry.
The sailors remained still, silent shadows.
Seo Seung-hyun slowly lowered his hand and stood up. Stretching his hand out, the sailor who had first handed him the gun took it back with both hands.
Seo Seung-hyun’s gaze drifted into the void.
His chest swelled with a deep breath and then slowly returned to normal.
He breathed roughly and violently for about a minute.
Killing had never provided him any thrill or intoxication, but at this moment, he was as agitated as he had never been before.
Seo Seung-hyun took out a cigarette from his pocket.
He calmed his breathing while smoking for a long time.
Then, he casually tossed the shortened cigarette butt, along with the still heavy pack, over the deck into the sea.
“Deal with the ones under the hold together.”
The two sailors nodded silently and lifted the mangled body between them.
The three half-dead victims of violence and torture stored below the deck, destined for nothing but pain, would now sink to the bottom of the deep East Sea, never to resurface.
“Tell President Izawa that this wraps everything up.”
Seo Seung-hyun spoke quickly and sharply to the bearded man behind him. The man merely nodded once in response without saying a word.
Leave a Reply