DOGC Ch 17

“Stop saying strange things and go up to Seoul.”

“Do you want me to go to Seoul?”

“That’s why I’m doing this right now.”

“Why?”

A single, short question fell quietly to the floor. Seorim could not answer. His gaze wavered for a moment, and in that gap, Yeonho took a step closer.

“It doesn’t matter to you what happens to the company. In fact, you might even feel relieved if it fails. But why are you telling me to go up to Seoul?”

“That is……”

There was not much emotion in Yeonho’s tone. Seorim unconsciously clenched his hands into fists. It felt like something was caught in his throat. He was not prepared for how to answer, but the words tumbled out first.

“Because I often saw you, Mr. Ryu Yeonho, going to work exhausted.”

Even as his lips moved, Seorim himself did not know why he was saying such things. And yet, he could not stop.

“You said it yourself last time. That you did everything you could to survive.”

“……”

“The tower you worked so hard to build is about to collapse, so why are you wasting your time here?”

After he finished speaking, he was the one who felt dazed.

What am I saying right now? Will he think this is just awkward and rude meddling? I could have just pretended not to know, something I’m the best in the world at.

He rolled his eyes to look up at Ryu Yeonho, who stood right in front of him. He was standing silently, looking down at him without a single word.

It felt as if an emotion that had floated up from a deep place was drifting like a current in his eyes. Seorim did not know what color that emotion held.

How many minutes of silence flowed between them like that?

“Seorim-ah.”

Yeonho quietly called Seorim’s name. At those words, his chest flinched for a moment.

“Are you worried about me?”

Hearing those words, the area around his lower abdomen felt strangely taut. It felt as if his heart reacted first, and the lingering feeling sank down below his stomach. After catching his breath for a moment, Seorim gave a very small nod.

“So you want me to go to Seoul?”

Feeling as if his ears were growing hot, Seorim kept his lips firmly shut. As he met Yeonho’s eyes and sent a silent affirmation, Yeonho smiled briefly and said.

“I’m touched. But I don’t think I can go to Seoul.”

“What, why?”

After he had gone to such lengths to persuade him, the flat declaration that he would not go up to Seoul made him feel like he was about to explode. Yeonho, who was watching Seorim’s face crumple, answered in an unwavering voice.

“How can I go when you’re carrying my baby.”

He thought he had misheard. Seorim’s eyes widened to the size of lanterns. Did he know everything? The scenes where he had been suspicious of what Yeonho was thinking, wondering if he knew or not, flashed quickly through his mind.

“H-how did you know?”

“How could I not know. I’m not an idiot.”

His firm tone was that of someone openly bringing up a fact he had known for a while. Since when had he noticed? His skin grew tingly and hot.

He had tried desperately to hide the pregnancy, but thinking back, he had made such a fuss with all the dry heaving that it would have been difficult for the quick-witted man not to notice.

Seorim furtively avoided Yeonho’s eyes and said.

“It’s true that I’m pregnant, but… it might not be Mr. Ryu Yeonho’s baby.”

“That’s my baby.”

His attitude was still as firm as if he were stating that the sky is above and the earth is below.

“So how can you be so sure. Don’t you know about my relationship with Chairman Ryu?”

It was less an attempt to break his conviction and more an attempt to shift the doubt he himself had onto Yeonho. Seorim, too, greatly wished that this child was Yeonho’s. But in terms of probability, since he had slept with Chairman Ryu more frequently, wasn’t it inevitable that the chances were higher on that side?

Yeonho was silent for a moment, then tilted his head very slightly. And he opened his mouth indifferently.

“Did you sleep with Ryu Hyunjun?”

“No.”

Seorim blinked, trying to follow the intention behind the single question. He wondered why Ryu Hyunjun had suddenly popped up.

“Then it’s even more certain. Chairman Ryu had a vasectomy.”

As soon as the words fell, a part of his mind went blank. His heart beat fast for a moment, then quickly quieted down. It felt as if a single, tangled skein of yarn had suddenly unraveled.

Seorim stood still with his lower lip parted. The speed at which sentences formed in his head was a little slow. Before he could say anything, the realization washed over him.

This child can only be the child of Ryu Yeonho, who is right in front of my eyes.

He felt a slight sense of relief, was surprised by that relief, and as he was surprised, his face grew hot. His lips unknowingly curled up slightly.

Seorim, realizing he was smiling in an awkward sort of way, straightened his back in surprise. No one had said anything, but he felt he had become too transparent. It felt as though his inner thoughts had been completely exposed when he had no intention of showing them.

At that moment, Yeonho continued speaking calmly.

“If you want to live here, you can. I don’t find working at the company that fun anymore.”

“I can live here?”

“Whatever is comfortable for you.”

The words came out so easily that Seorim was momentarily at a loss for words. It was strange even as he looked at Yeonho’s unhesitating expression. Why is he trying to go this far so nonchalantly? He did not want to deny it, but it was hard to accept.

“Why are you going that far?”

“What is.”

“Why are you trying to let go of everything you, Mr. Ryu Yeonho, used to enjoy, all because of me. What am I to you?”

Seorim exhaled as he spoke. An emotion he did not want to be discovered came too close, and he carefully cut off the end of his sentence. However, even if he cut off his words, he could not block his heart as well.

The thoughts that had been making his heart pound until now, and even at this moment, rushed in all at once and overflowed.

“Mr. Ryu Yeonho, what is wrong with you.”

“……”

“I don’t understand. Don’t you hate me?”

Seorim’s shoulders trembled. He swallowed down something welling up from the end of his throat, exhaled, inhaled again, and finally managed to speak.

“Why don’t you ask me? If I was the one who killed Chairman Ryu. Does it not matter to you even if I killed Mr. Ryu Yeonho’s father?”

The air grew heavy. For a moment, it seemed as if all sound in the room had vanished. Yeonho said nothing. Seorim pressed his lips together for a moment, then continued speaking as if bursting out.

“I was Mr. Ryu Yeonho’s father’s plaything, his toy. I might have even killed that father. It’s patricide. This shouldn’t be happening, you know.”

His throat felt raw. The uttered sentences fell to the floor like stones, seeming to coldly divide the space between them.

“……I, I wish I could just come to hate you, Mr. Ryu Yeonho.”

As he spoke the words, he took a ragged breath.

“I hate myself so much for being constantly drawn to you. I feel like I’m going crazy, knowing this doesn’t make sense but still being captivated.”

Seorim chewed on the end of his words, unable to look Yeonho straight in the eye. He swallowed, but a sob lingered at the edge of his lips.

“Why do you look at me with those eyes. Why did you come all the way here. Why did you buy me croaker, and seaweed, and treat me well. Why do you say you can’t go to Seoul. Why do you say I can live here if I want to. Why? Why for someone like me?”

His head dropped slightly. In a voice that sounded like it was wringing out his insides, Seorim painstakingly added sentences.

“I want to run away, but because you, Mr. Ryu Yeonho, keep trying to accept me, I lose my reason to escape. What am I supposed to do then?”

In truth, this was clearly the moment he should be running away. But his feet were stuck and would not move, and he kept wanting to lean on Ryu Yeonho. With his words, he was pushing him away with all his might, but inside, he wanted to hold onto him. Disgusted with the feelings that were leaking out haphazardly, Seorim tried to look away.

“The baby too, actually, it doesn’t matter, does it. The baby isn’t what’s important. Mr. Ryu Yeonho, why, why……”

With his breath, words, and emotions all tangled up, like someone who had just uttered something irreversible, Seorim could not lift his head. In the silence, he wished. For it to end now. For him to be pushed away. Then, it seemed it would be easier to breathe.

He felt the presence of Ryu Yeonho quietly approaching. Seorim squeezed his eyes shut. With the intention of shaking him off if he even reached out a hand, he was mustering his last remaining bit of pride.

However, what he heard was a calm voice.

“So you can’t be with me? You want to run away?”

The question was not definitive, nor did it feel like an interrogation. It was just a heavy resonance, meant to make Seorim answer for himself. Seorim weakly nodded his head.

“I can’t do that for you.”

The short sentence pierced him sharply, as if stabbing his heart. His surprised eyes widened on their own, and the pupils trembling beneath his eyelids shook chaotically.

Why.

The question swirled in his stomach but could not rise to his throat. The man before him was still looking at him with the same unchanging face. Not wavering, not collapsing, just standing there in that spot.

“If I hated you, I would have done something. I don’t know why you’re acting like a kid who won’t be satisfied until they’re punished for something, but if so, then just receive your punishment next to me.”

“……”

“Breathing, walking, sleeping, do it all next to me. So I can watch.”

A spot in his chest ached as if it were being forcefully squeezed by a strong hand. Those words were not comfort, not an order, not even pity. They sounded merely like a calm, yet direct and unavoidable sincerity.

“Don’t run away. Stay by my side.”

No words would come out. It felt like it was too late to run away from someone who was telling him to stay with him, embracing him whole—his sullied self, their broken relationship, and everything that had already become twisted.

Seorim tried hard to avoid his gaze. He felt he would collapse if their eyes met. Even in this moment, the desire to deny and the desire to accept were tangled together. Feeling as if tears would pour out if he stood still, Seorim clenched his fingertips and tried to take a step back.

Then Yeonho quietly added.

“Let’s call this your punishment, and my greed.”

At those words, Seorim’s eyes finally turned red. The thread of pride he had been holding onto until the very end began to slowly unravel.

“If I were to insist that I want to stay here, the company, what about the company……”

Ryu Yeonho was the one who had led the company, and he was someone who would climb higher. Why was he deciding his future with Baek Seorim, who could not even stick his head out of the well, at the center of it all?

“Anyone would think you’d had all your assets confiscated and been exiled to the countryside or something.”

Yeonho laughed briefly. His tone was light, but his gaze was much clearer than that.

“You’re interesting to watch. That’s why I want to keep you by my side.”

“……”

“I told you, a guy who lives chasing fun ends up looking for something bigger and more stimulating. To me, you are the most stimulating thing right now.”

Even while tossing out what could be considered romantic words, Yeonho maintained a calm tone throughout. He added naturally, without any change in his expression.

“There is nothing more valuable than you. I don’t give a damn about the company.”

It was not a long sentence, but the weight it carried was strangely deep. Seorim could not respond for a moment and first composed his gaze. He was afraid of being caught feeling good about it.

“What will you do when I’m no longer fun.”

“I’m not even sick of you yet, and you came with something that will be even more fun in your belly.”

As he became conscious of his stomach, the presence of another being, clearly placed between them, felt more certain. His chest fluttered lightly. It was not funny, but his lips kept trembling. His reaction felt so awkward that he cut his words short.

“……That darn ‘fun’.”

He spat it out, but the emotion contained within was uneven.

In that moment, Yeonho strode toward Seorim. The distance between them collapsed in an instant. Seorim tried to step back but found his back against the wall. His body stopped first, and his breath followed, halting.

With his palm braced against the wall, Yeonho slowly pressed in on Seorim. Seorim squeezed his eyes shut.

🦅

Yeonho brought his own lips to Baek Seorim’s, who had his eyes squeezed shut. He felt a slender hand lightly clutch and wrinkle his shirt.

Baek Seorim leaned into him on his own.

Only now could Ryu Yeonho let out a long sigh of relief.

Mine.

I’ve finally found him.

When he first saw him, Baek Seorim had an impression more similar to a flower than a person. With his clear, white skin like porcelain, his lips colored a healthy crimson, and his pitch-black eyes. The description that he was not born and living, but that someone had exquisitely crafted and sent him down, suited his appearance better.

Looking back now, that face was, quite terribly, his type.

If ‘falling in love’ means to have all one’s senses focused as if bewitched, then it was true that Ryu Yeonho had fallen for Baek Seorim. At first sight.

He thought that with an appearance like that, anyone would at least glance once.

But one time was not enough. The way he sat silently was strangely bothersome. Even when he tried to ignore it, he kept getting caught in the corner of his vision. He drew his attention without any sound or movement. It was a kind of focus that could not be explained by the single emotion of finding someone pretty.

It was the same even after he vanished like he was running away. Where he might have hidden, who he was with, if he was living as he pleased. All of it bothered him. He assigned people and searched records, scouring every day to see if any trace of him was left somewhere.

He himself did not quite understand why he had let go of everything and searched for him, what was so pretty about him.

The moment Baek Seorim finally grabbed his coattails, none of that mattered anymore.

‘Don’t you have anything better to do?’

A voice that was neither high nor low, which suited his face quite well. He recalled the silent curses Seorim had spat out between his shallow moans.

The next time he saw him, he had suddenly jumped into the water trying to kill himself, and when he had gone to the trouble of saving him, he glared fiercely with his black eyes.

‘From the first time we met, why do you keep, speaking informally.’

The way he tried not to lean on him, putting strength in his waist while trembling so much in fear.

‘I never asked you to save me.’

It was so amusing how he tried to maintain his dignity to the end while blatantly showing his nipples through his soaked, transparent dress shirt. Does an omega male prostitute who sells his body while being beaten have something he wants to protect?

At first, he had only thought of it to that extent. No, he believed that he thought of Baek Seorim to only that extent.

And then the next day, he was playing with his master’s young son, drawing a tree for him in a sketchbook. His appearance, looking troubled yet diligently attending to the child, was new.

He thought it was fun. This male prostitute was slightly deviating from the trajectory of the human types Yeonho had seen until now. Those small angles of deviation from his expectations flew at him as interest.

What kind of expression would he make when he was being held by his father? He became curious about that.

He had assumed that, as prostitutes of his kind usually do, he would pretend to feel more than necessary and act coy. Even while secretly touching and enjoying Seorim without his father’s knowledge, Ryu Yeonho thought so. Even as he actually saw Seorim’s flushed face, there was something that remained unfulfilled.

When he discovered Baek Seorim in the basement where his father’s nasty hobby continued. Even as he was aroused by the body drenched in lust, the reason he did not take him was because he felt it would be a waste. He wanted to see his sober, fiercely glaring face, not a body smelling of his father, drugged and beaten to a pulp.

It was hard to explain what kind of feeling that was. Let alone explain, it could not even be defined.

He became curious about this person. He felt he would only be satisfied if he touched him, saw more of his reactions, and burst open the kernel he held inside.

It was enough as a pebble thrown into his perennially listless life.

He wanted to see more.

*You, who are small, beautiful, lowly, and struggling at the very bottom what kind of story do you have, and what kind of story are you going to create?*

Baek Seorim acted like a block of wood in front of others. He spoke only what was necessary, as if he had emotions and as if he did not, and put a fabricated smile on his lips. Speaking only pleasant words with his pretty face resembled a lifeless artificial flower.

At the end of every sentence, he would say, “How about Husband,” making gentle eye contact, and sitting by the rose bush, he would tilt his head and smile.

The slight curve of his shoulder line, the natural-looking smiling eyes, the posture with his two hands politely folded, all as if calculated. As a concubine, he was flawless. Just a boring reaction of someone doing what they were supposed to do.

What was funny was that, befitting his still young age, he would get annoyed and angry at him whenever he was provoked. The number of faces that only Ryu Yeonho knew was increasing.

Pretty, pathetic, full of stories, and ill-fated Baek Seorim.

Only he should know that face.

The most prominent trait passed down in the Ryu family was not their pheromone type or abilities, but their taste in looks. Not that they were a grand family with anything worth passing down through generations in the first place.

In fact, it was unclear whether everyone’s tastes were similar, or if Baek Seorim was so beautiful as to make their tastes similar.

However, what was certain was that Ryu Hyunjun showed interest in Baek Seorim. A kind of interest that, for him, was quite bothersome.

The look in Ryu Hyunjun’s eyes as he glanced past Baek Seorim was unforgettable.

Ryu Hyunjun was a man who had achieved nothing in the family despite his age. Thanks to being born into a good family, he had obtained a decent position and went abroad, but he had no substance.

When Hyunjun’s gaze lingered on Seorim’s fingertips, and when he acknowledged Seorim, Yeonho scoffed.

For what he is, at least he has a good eye.

It was commendable that he would reach out to a person who was his great-uncle’s concubine, even though he would not be able to handle the consequences if they got close.

While Ryu Hyunjun acted uncharacteristically kind and friendly towards Baek Seorim, Baek Seorim, as always, stood still, feigning a smile. The scene of the two disingenuous people was unfolding like a play in front of Yeonho.

It was a conversation not worth listening to, but Yeonho was curious how Baek Seorim would handle this situation.

He was in a state where annoyance and curiosity crisscrossed. He could see a glimpse of the bewilderment and disillusionment hidden behind Seorim’s forced smile, which made him laugh.

After Ryu Hyunjun retreated, the suggestion Baek Seorim made when he opened his mouth was a masterpiece.

“Then will you have some.”

“What.”

“Me.”

He really exceeds expectations. Yeonho found Baek Seorim, who was disgusted by the persistent Ryu Hyunjun yet shamelessly proposed a one-night stand to him, fascinating. And it was enjoyable.

Yes, it was enjoyable. Yeonho finally had to admit it. It was not simple interest.

Baek Seorim is enjoyable.

He wondered what kind of absurd thoughts he was hiding in his head. He wanted to be fooled just once. Go ahead, do whatever you want.

That night, Yeonho took Seorim.

The sensation of directly plunging his cock into the hole, of rubbing the shaft against the inner walls, was ecstatic beyond imagination. He was not just a pretty face but a body that lived up to its appearance.

It was the highest peak Yeonho had ever witnessed, a flawless and certain talent. It was even more apparent in the fact that the man himself seemed to have put almost no effort into it.

And the thing he did was to rummage through a drawer to find a necklace. Secretly, like a rat, while the other was asleep.

It was so cute it made him laugh. In reality, the necklace was a meaningless object. It would have been fine to give it back right away.

However, Baek Seorim cherished it. That was why the thought of returning it vanished.

It was not the object, but the emotion that he grew to find precious. That persistence, that heart filled with struggle—he wanted to see more of what kind of emotion was attached to that necklace that made him try so hard.

So when he did not return it, he was shot a contemptuous glare. He did not know when such an incredibly childish feeling had taken root in him, but even that face was cute. On the other hand, he also became curious about his friendly, smiling face.

The sound of Seorim’s wronged breaths strangely made his heart feel at ease.

Where its end was, what kind of emotion this prank would eventually spark into.

At that time, he had turned away from guessing.

Because he thought that if he just let it flow as it was, without giving this prank a name, it would soon disappear.

However, there was a problem. Ryu Hyunjun was more interested in Baek Seorim than he had thought. And more than he had thought, Baek Seorim received Ryu Hyunjun well.

It was difficult for the quick-witted Yeonho not to notice that the time and frequency the two spent together were increasing.

He even witnessed them having a secret rendezvous, with Baek Seorim planting a kiss on Ryu Hyunjun’s cheek. Taking Baek Seorim after seeing that was a purely impulsive act.

He thought it was only natural for his head to spin when they were rubbing their lips together outside the window, especially during his rut cycle. Then, it suddenly became impossible to know why he was angry.

“You, you’re a real piece of shit.”

He did not know why he was spewing curses at Baek Seorim either. It was just that his mood was so twisted that he could not bear it without holding him and breaking him.

Even while denigrating him as cheap, he knew he was the one obsessing over that cheap thing, picking fights for no reason, and going so far as to wreck his body after making a mess, but he did it anyway.

Pinned underneath him and moaning, Baek Seorim shed tears. He knew that they were not just physiological tears overflowing due to pleasure.

His heart was breaking. Because he was ashamed and furious, because he hated the situation of them having sex so much that he could not bear it.

At that, Yeonho, too, became uncomfortable. It was unpleasant, and his anger flared up.

Because Seorim was crying because of him.

However, Yeonho did not know how to honestly look into his uncomfortable feelings. He told himself that Baek Seorim was the one who first made him watch, who first got on his nerves, so this찝찝한 feeling was a problem created by Baek Seorim, not him.

Even while turning the blame onto Baek Seorim, his heart was moved when he saw him clinging to him with teary eyes. He felt like he was crazy for acting affectionately after forcibly taking him. He wanted to cherish Baek Seorim. When he rubbed his cheek against his face like a whining puppy, it felt as if a part of his chest was slowly melting.

“Look at me.”

“……”

“Don’t look away.”

Really, to be born looking like this.

He could not remember whether he had ended up saying the thought that crossed his mind out loud, or if he had swallowed it. It was partly because he was not in his right mind during his rut. However, it was certain that Baek Seorim had spoken with a voice full of sorrow and eyes full of hostility.

“You’re raping me anyway, what’s the point of pretending to be affectionate.”

Baek Seorim would probably never understand, even if he lived his whole life, how much those spat-out words had chilled his head.

No different from Chairman Ryu. Perhaps he’s even considered worse than Ryu Hyunjun. The fact that this twisted his mood to the point of shattering it felt as if the blood in his body momentarily reversed its flow, surged upwards, and burst.

How kindly I treated you. How specially I treated you, how could you say that.

Seorim was speaking the truth, but Yeonho denied it with his entire being.

Perhaps the emotion that boiled over the most in that moment was betrayal. He had believed that in the time they spent together, in the words they shared, from the body heat they built up by brushing against each other, he would be regarded differently from others. Just as he had held Baek Seorim in higher regard than others.

Even if he did not know what kind of emotion that was.

After messing Seorim up like that, Yeonho reduced his encounters with Seorim as much as possible.

Somehow, it was awkward. Facing Seorim. No, seeing Seorim’s resentful eyes. Or, for fear that there might not even be resentment in them.

So he forced himself to focus on work. He tried to pull together his constantly scattering nerves and tried to erase Seorim from his mind. He volunteered for overtime like that, guarding the unlit floor alone. The fingertips flipping through Ryu Hyunjun’s business report were unusually slow.

Something’s fishy. He was the type to remember numbers like a habit, and he did not find comparing data with the past bothersome, so he noticed right away.

Third-quarter performance, internal budget plan, supply contract, supply price adjustment details. The documents were decent, but the numbers were strange. The monthly inventory turnover ratio of one of the subsidiaries, ‘Taehwa M&C’, was ridiculously low. The costs were constant, but the gross profit margin was seen to fluctuate abnormally depending on the quarter.

To be precise, the profit was intentionally inflated. And the traces of it were hidden in inventory assets, accounts receivable, or temporary sales contracts.

It was accounting fraud.

Did he want to catch Chairman Ryu’s eye and inherit Taehwa Construction?

Ryu Hyunjun was always like that. While looking at him with eyes mixed half with bravado and half with jealousy, he awkwardly tried to squeeze himself into the orbit of ‘capable people’.

Is this shit the product of that long-held inferiority complex?

At first, he considered finishing it with internal measures. Ryu Hyunjun, who had no skill and a weak internal support base, was no match for him even if he died and came back to life. However, the amount of accounting fraud revealed in the audit report was not something that could be ended with just a demotion.

He had manipulated the numbers using two subsidiaries simultaneously, even mobilizing an overseas corporation. Yeonho silently closed and opened his eyes, pressing his brow with his fingertips.

It seemed his inferiority complex had exploded into a vanity that wanted to boost his performance.

The fact that a guy who did not deserve even a piece of Baek Seorim’s heart had dared to covet him was annoying. If you do not know your place and act presumptuously, you have to have all your teeth pulled out and be dragged down to the bottom to understand your place.

The trivial smile Baek Seorim showed in front of Ryu Hyunjun, the expression he made as he tilted his head slightly to listen, the way they kissed, all flashed through his mind in sequence.

Suddenly feeling his own behavior was childish, Yeonho let out a hollow laugh. It was a mystery why he felt so annoyed.

That night, an unofficial summons was issued to the head of Taehwa Construction’s legal team.

“Get the materials ready and have him appropriately booked.”

— Weren’t you planning to handle this internally?

“He went too far.”

— It will get complicated if it becomes a case. It will be tiring for you too, Executive Director…….

“Clean is better. I won’t have to see useless things anymore.”

It was natural for the head of the legal team to worry like this. The term ‘case’ meant media exposure, external audits, and a drop in stock prices. In a time when the market was fluctuating as sensitively as now, just one wrong financial indicator could cause investors to pull out.

Institutional credibility falls in an instant, and even the external image is damaged. Especially for a company as large as Taehwa Construction, which handled many major public projects, a single word, a single number, was bound to sway public opinion.

“Just push through with it. It’s fine.”

— Yes.

Even knowing that. Knowing it, he willingly chose it. The procedure to erase Ryu Hyunjun’s name from history.

After that, a tumultuous winter came. Chairman Ryu died and Baek Seorim disappeared.

Yeonho remembered clearly the day Baek Seorim disappeared.

That day, a chill like the fishy smell of water lingered in the dim morning air. Yeonho, who had returned from the company at dawn, massaged the nape of his neck with his shirt buttons half-undone. The strength had lightly drained from his shoulders, and a deep fatigue was settled around his eyes.

Knock, knock—.

It was then that he heard a knock on the door. At first, he thought he had misheard. Because there was no one in the mansion who would knock on his door at this hour.

Yeonho, who was staring at the door, grabbed the handle and opened it. Standing in the pitch-dark corridor where not even a light was on, was Yeonwoo.

The cardigan he had carelessly thrown over his pajamas was disheveled, and his small hands were clenched tightly at his sides, trembling. His eyes were bloodshot red, as if he had just stopped crying after a long time.

It was a gaze that seemed to barely cling to the air. Seeing the unusual aura at a glance, Yeonho narrowed his brow.

“……hyung.”

A trembling voice barely brushed past Yeonho’s chest. The child’s shoulders rose and fell with ragged breaths, as if he could not breathe properly. It was a precarious sight of someone barely holding onto an emotion on the verge of collapsing.

Yeonho frowned and reached out to wrap his hand around Yeonwoo’s shoulder.

“What’s wrong.”

Instead of answering, Yeonwoo could not meet his eyes and hung his head low. Clenching his clothes tightly, he barely managed to move his lips and utter words.

“S-scared. Save me.”

At those words, Yeonho’s pupils wavered slightly. The words that burst from his mouth were so small and desperate.

“What happened, Yeonwoo-yah. Who did this.”

It was a voice lowered to be as gentle as possible. At that, Yeonwoo squeezed his eyes shut. What was it that was suffocating his small chest so much? He panted as if he wanted to speak but could not.

“D-dad……. Hyung-ah. He said, this, was a secret. Hyung-ah.”

His throat was hoarse, and he could not continue. He just trembled his shoulders, on the verge of bursting into tears at any moment.

“It’s okay. Hyung is on Yeonwoo’s side. I’ll protect you no matter what.”

“Hy-hyung. Hyung.”

“Did something happen with Baek Seorim and Dad?”

Ugh, oooh. Letting out a moan, Yeonwoo nodded his head a couple of times. Yeonho took the child’s hand and went out into the corridor. The tips of his fingers were as cold as if he were holding a block of ice.

It was still dark outside, and in the quiet stillness, only the two people’s footsteps echoed softly.

Yeonwoo was a fearful child, but this was the first time he had come to him at dawn, trembling like an aspen leaf. What on earth had happened? A bad premonition spread.

Yeonho silently stepped forward and climbed the stairs. When he reached the door of the room where Seorim stayed, he reached out and carefully turned the doorknob.

Click—.

It was quiet inside. But it was not an ordinary stillness. It was an ominous silence left behind after something had slipped away, holding its breath.

The moment he crossed the threshold, the first thing that wafted out was the strangely thick smell of blood. Yeonwoo suddenly gripped his hand tighter and began to tremble.

“Hyung-ah……”

As if whispering, moving almost only his lips, Yeonwoo muttered. Yeonho’s gaze slowly swept the room. A single floor lamp was toppled over on the floor.

Next to it, a bloodstain was spreading. It was not a large splatter, but the blood that had spread on the floor in a messy pattern was enough to show that something had definitely happened in this room. The source of the fishy smell was probably this.

The bloodstain started near the lamp and continued, as if dragged, following smudged marks under the curtain.

The hem of the thick, red curtain was darkly stained. It looked like the blood had seeped into the fabric, spreading into a dark, reddish-black color.

Yeonho stood there for a few seconds, then lifted the curtain with a blank expression. What was hidden under the curtain was a scene that did not deviate from his expectations.

Chairman Ryu was lying there. His father, left as a corpse with his form intact, looked somewhat lonely, and at the same time, grotesque.

It was not that there was no shock, but he did not feel sadness. Rather, the fact that his head was surprisingly cold made him realize once again that there had been absolutely no affection between father and son.

The moment he witnessed the scene, Yeonwoo trembled and buried his head in Yeonho’s side. Then he sobbed without even making a sound.

If this child had seen something, or experienced something, he had to ask right now. Only then could he handle it.

Yeonho asked in the calmest voice possible.

“Ryu Yeonwoo.”

“Hic, sob, y-yes.”

“You saw it, didn’t you. What happened here.”

Yeonwoo took a deep breath and opened his trembling lips, but could not immediately utter any words.

“You have to tell hyung. That’s the only way I can protect you.”

“B-but, hyung-ah, said it was a secret, a secret mission just between us.”

Did Baek Seorim tell him to keep his mouth shut?

If so, was Baek Seorim the one who did that to Chairman Ryu?

Yeonho’s gaze wavered weakly. His silently smiling face, the occasional display of his age-appropriate behavior despite seeming to have no desires, his clear eyes that would sometimes gaze at the sky.

That Baek Seorim killed someone in this room.

He looked like he did not have the energy to kill anyone, but, yes, if he had been beaten like that and lived so unfairly, he might have killed him in a fit of anger. Since he had swallowed more humiliating times than anyone, he might have reached his breaking point.

It was the moment Yeonwoo slowly came to accept the possibility. Yeonwoo grabbed his collar and looked up.

“I-it was me. It’s because of me. Hyung-ah, because of me.”

“What?”

“The secret, I have to keep it. Save hyung-ah. He disappeared. He said he’d see me tomorrow morning, but I won’t be able to. Hyung-ah, is gone. I know.”

His mouth instantly went dry. Yeonho grabbed Yeonwoo’s shoulders and met his eyes.

“Speak clearly. It’s okay, slowly.”

Yeonwoo bit his lip hard, then managed to open it again. Tears welled up to his chin, but he struggled as if he had to get something out of his mouth before that.

“Because of me, because of me, hyung-ah did that.”

His throat closes up. The mouth that could not form sentences finally began to move.

“In the room, it was noisy so I came up, and Dad was sitting on top of hyung-ah. Hyung-ah, asked for help, but……. Dad, was choking hyung-ah, trying to kill him.”

“……”

“S-so I. Because Dad is such a hateful and bad person, so with that, I hit him.”

The words that followed were shocking.

When Yeonwoo finished speaking, a silence fell as if the air itself had stopped. Yeonho could not say anything for a while. He chewed over and over again on the sentence that had just come out of the young child’s mouth.

The blood drained from his fingertips. His gaze turned again to below the curtain, to the toppled lamp. One side of the luxurious surface was caved in.

But there were no traces of blood spatter, unnaturally so for it to have been used as a weapon. As if someone had tried to hide the detailed circumstances.

Only then did he understand Yeonwoo’s fear-ridden attitude. It was something he had to do to protect his hyung, but he had been trembling all through the dawn, shouldering the guilt alone.

“Then, what about Baek Seorim?”

“Hyung, hyung-ah, told me to go first. Not to tell anyone this story. That it’s a secret mission.”

“A secret mission……”

“He said when morning comes, everything will be okay. That it’s just, a dream.”

Was he planning to take the blame?

Wiping the lamp, smearing and hiding the corpse and bloodstains, making the child run away. He himself disappeared without a word.

Yeonho put his palm to his forehead. There was an emotion that would not cool down even if he pressed his brow, even if he pressed his temples. Was it surprise, bewilderment, or anger? Or was it an emptiness that overshadowed all of that?

Why on earth would he do such a thing. Why would he go so far as to protect Yeonwoo? It was completely incomprehensible from a rational standpoint.

Acting so listlessly as if he were just living day by day waiting to die. Why would he take the blame and run away, worrying that the life of a rich kid, not even his real brother, would be ruined?

Is he a fool? He had lived a life of constant loss, so why did he insist on taking the blame for something he could not handle until the very end and suffer a loss? He wanted to get inside that head of his just once.

“Are you really the only one who knows this story?”

Yeonwoo shook his head at the calmly asked question.

“I didn’t, tell anyone. Because hyung-ah told me not to……”

“Okay, you did well.”

As soon as he heard the answer, Yeonho’s brain started to work coldly.

No one knows. This incident does not yet exist in the world. It did not seem like it would be that difficult to handle.

This mansion is too big, too complicated, and now it holds too big a secret. If he left what happened last night as it is, it would probably destroy two lives.

Chairman Ryu’s body was in place, the smell of blood was vibrating, and the traces were clear. It was too late to do anything about the scene itself now. As soon as morning came, the servants would rush in for their duties. If the puzzle piece of the runaway Baek Seorim was added to that, the story would be over.

Yeonwoo would be investigated as a witness, or in the process, he might not be able to bear it and confess the crime he committed. In that case, either Baek Seorim or Ryu Yeonwoo would be recorded as a murderer.

If he set the only thing to protect as the well-being of those two.

Yeonho slowly turned his gaze to the inside of the room. The lamp, the bloodstain, Chairman Ryu’s body.

There was no time. The thing to do was too obvious. If both of them could only live again if nothing was discovered, then he just had to burn everything away.

“Yeonwoo-yah.”

“Uh, yes.”

“The secret mission. You must keep it. Now the three of us are doing it, including hyung.”

The oil is in the warehouse. From now on, this house must disappear. And Baek Seorim must also completely disappear from this matter.

Yeonho turned his head for the last time and looked at the corpse half-revealed under the curtain.

The face with its eyes open was starkly white even in the darkness. On the skin where blood had dried, there was no trace of the authority he had in life.

The silence passed like a long breath. There was no sadness or regret. He had not a single emotion that a son should feel in front of his father’s corpse.

He lived so loudly and debaucherously, and his end is quite fittingly futile.

It was not mockery, nor was it pity. It was just an honest observation. The end of a man who filled his life with greed, who struggled to grasp more than anyone, and who stubbornly did not let go, was not much to look at.

The life of a human who only knows himself ends so bleakly and meaninglessly. Yeonho did not take his eyes off him for a moment and let out a quiet sigh.

“This is it, Father.”

It was a final farewell filled with a little contempt.

Yeonho turned his head. There was no need to look anymore, and no reason to leave any emotion behind.

After handling things to some extent, he constantly thought about Baek Seorim. No matter how much he thought about it, he could not understand.

Why would he run away, embracing someone else’s crime, when he could not even properly gauge his own path ahead? The time spent by the side of a psycho like Chairman Ryu must have been overwhelming enough, so what was it that made him volunteer to bear the share of pain at the end?

He recalled the way he had a deceptively submissive face, but when they were alone, he would not hesitate to show his annoyance and his age-appropriate way of speaking.

However, now, emotions that could not be explained by the word ‘interest’ were piled up inside him.

Why he chose a path that would destroy himself. To say it was because he was ‘kind’ was too easy. The evaluation of him as just a pitiful person was far from enough.

Yeonho wanted to know where each of those actions originated from, to know their source. He wanted to look into Baek Seorim’s life from beginning to end, in its entirety.

What kind of life was accumulated in those hands that took the blame for killing Chairman Ryu, erased the evidence, and hid the traces.

What kind of pain, what kind of powerlessness, what kind of resignation was melted into them.

As he thought about Baek Seorim, wondering why he had acted that way, he came to miss him. His smiling face, his angry face, the way he would blush over trivial things.

And he became curious about many other aspects of him too. Perhaps it was not about finding out, but a desire to keep watching from a close distance.

It was a kind of emotion he had never felt before.

How to define it was not important. He just wanted to see him. Baek Seorim’s voice, his gaze, his steps.

What expression he would make, what tone he would use to get angry, how sorrowfully he could cry, what he really wanted to do. He was curious about all of that ‘next’.

And Yeonho could now understand what he had been looking for in Seorim.

In the faraway land of Haenam, the hand he had carefully held, unable to even grip it tightly. The long eyelashes that trembled. The face on the verge of tears, about to burst out crying. He was confident that the appearance revealed before him today was far more beautiful than any flushed face of the past, than any time he was disheveled in desire.

The real pulp of the pomegranate that the foolish Chairman Ryu would never see in his lifetime.

Seorim, whose firmly built walls had crumbled, was glowing all reddish. As if a floral scent would emanate from him.

He is mine.

Completely his.

Crying, laughing, being happy, being sad, all of it would only happen by his side.

Savoring Seorim’s heated breath to the fullest, Ryu Yeonho, perhaps, for the first time since he was born, smiled a real smile.