Chapter 7

***

Waking up, Gi-hyeon found his body feeling remarkably lighter. He rose, brushing off the accumulated remnants of hope that had pooled on his pillowcase overnight. The empty IV stand and the deafening silence of the apartment indicated that the absurdly busy third-generation chaebol had already left for work. After sitting in a numb daze for a moment, Gi-hyeon finally forced himself up and headed out for his own commute.

Completely forgetting his severe indigestion from the night before, he detoured into a twenty-four-hour fast-food joint instead of heading straight to the clinic. While he desperately craved a deluxe breakfast set, the memory of yesterday’s catastrophic ordeal convinced him to compromise with a simple sausage egg muffin and sparkling water instead of coffee.

A heavy wave of drowsiness washed over him as he sat alone in the restaurant, despite having been awake for a while. Cursed with low blood pressure, Gi-hyeon was notoriously slow to fully wake, his mind refusing to sharpen until at least ten in the morning. Until then, forcefully supplying his brain with calories remained his best survival strategy.

He needed the energy to carefully dissect those fucking garbage words.

—Ever since we ended up like this, I haven’t touched a single person. You know that. But since I physically can’t help you with those biological urges, I’m telling you to take care of it using a method I know, strictly under my absolute control.

Peeling back the thin wrapper, Gi-hyeon took a bite of his muffin, washing it down with sparkling water whenever his throat felt tight. Once he finished, he tossed the trash and immediately ordered a coffee, surprisingly decent for a fast-food joint, handing the cashier his personal tumbler. The transaction was quick. Turning around with the lid secured, he listened to the ice cubes rattle crisply against the metal interior with every step.

Listening to that cold clinking sound, a bleak realization washed over him. Jo Yeon-oh had always been this kind of bastard. He was a man who obsessively needed to place everything he favored under his absolute control, a trait he had possessed since childhood. Because their mothers had been close friends, Gi-hyeon and Yeon-oh had practically grown up together since they were toddlers.

The fracture occurred after Gi-hyeon’s mother passed away prematurely. Gi-hyeon’s father, completely blind to his own severe shortcomings, spitefully severed all ties with his late wife’s family. He vowed they would never see their grandson again and abruptly dragged Gi-hyeon away to a new city.

Naturally, this severed his connection with Yeon-oh’s mother as well. At merely ten years old, Gi-hyeon possessed absolutely no power to rebel against his father’s tyranny. But a young Yeon-oh had staunchly refused to understand.

—“Why do I have to be separated from you?”

—“…He said we’re moving far away.”

—“So?”

—“…”

—“So you’re just not going to see me anymore over some pathetic reason like that?”

Gi-hyeon had never said he wouldn’t see him again. He was just about to beg the boy to wait for him, but Yeon-oh had stubbornly refused to listen. They parted ways on that bitter note, and Yeon-oh vindictively ignored every single one of Gi-hyeon’s attempts to contact him until they serendipitously enrolled in the exact same high school.

“Now that I think about it… his personality really is absolute garbage,” Gi-hyeon muttered to himself, letting out a heavy sigh as he pushed open the hospital’s glass doors.

Despite mercilessly ignoring Gi-hyeon for years, Yeon-oh had abruptly ambushed him one day with an aggressive demand.

“Why the hell are you so close with Lee Beom-hee?”

He had bonded effortlessly with Beom-hee at their cram school. Although she was notoriously loud in groups, she possessed a surprisingly calm, grounding presence when it was just the two of them. Gi-hyeon had never anticipated that this simple friendship would be the catalyst that forced Jo Yeon-oh back into his life.

Perhaps that was the fatal mistake.

Maybe I shouldn’t have let him back in.

Rubbing his stiff neck, Gi-hyeon offered polite morning greetings to the passing nurses before slipping into the locker room to change into his scrubs.

The rest of the morning blurred into absolute chaos.

A senior trainer dispatched to a figure skater called in frantically, begging him to consult the Head of Internal Medicine to verify a medication wouldn’t trigger a positive doping test. By the time he resolved that crisis, a massive backlog of athletes was waiting for treatment. Consequently, his morning shift dragged a full ten minutes into his lunch break.

Scarfing down his meal in a mere three minutes, he immediately collapsed into a deep sleep. Miraculously, the severe indigestion had vanished without a trace. The IV drip had clearly worked wonders. Considering it was personally administered by the Deputy Director of Haeseong Hospital, its flawless efficacy was hardly surprising. Regardless, the sleep had been deeply restorative.

“Dr. So, time to wake up. You’re completely out of it,” a colleague gently roused him.

“Ah… thank you,” Gi-hyeon mumbled. His brain remained submerged in a heavy fog, making it excruciatingly difficult to shake off the lingering grogginess. He didn’t snap fully awake until a young elementary school taekwondo athlete marched in for the afternoon rehab routine and carelessly stomped directly onto his foot.

“Han-seong. Do you think it’s okay to just trample your doctor’s foot like that?”

“Aw, come on! You were standing right in my way when I was trying to walk past!”

“Oh? So you’re saying this is my fault?”

When the boy cheerfully shouted, “Yes!”, Gi-hyeon playfully locked him in a headlock. He then ordered the entire group into plank positions, spending the next segment ruthlessly correcting the kids whose hips were hiked up as high as mountains.

Even after prepping for the afternoon exercises, the mountain of paperwork and remaining treatments forced him to skip the end-of-day meeting just to administer a deep-tissue massage to a lingering athlete. After soothing the whining kid and carefully checking his joint mobility, Gi-hyeon finally sent him up to the wards. He was permitted to head home only after surviving that grueling marathon of labor.

Miraculously, he hadn’t received a single message from that son of a bitch all day. Considering he absolutely did not want to see Yeon-oh’s face anyway, it was a welcome reprieve. The second he stepped into his empty apartment, Gi-hyeon blissfully stripped off his clothes and stepped into the shower, marveling at how long it had been since he could undress in his own home without walking on eggshells.

After carelessly throwing together a mediocre meal, he collapsed onto the sofa in front of the TV and popped the tab on a cold beer. That crisp snap was his final memory. He must have passed out flat on his back shortly after. The severe sleep deprivation caused by Jo Yeon-oh relentlessly invading his sanctuary had finally caught up with him. Deciding to turn off the TV and migrate to his actual bed, Gi-hyeon brushed his teeth.

Just as he exited the bathroom, a distinct rustling echoed from the front door.

A heavy sigh instantly deflated his chest.

There was only one bastard it could possibly be. Adopting the grim resignation of a man walking to his own execution, Gi-hyeon strode forward and yanked the front door open just a fraction of a second before the doorbell could ring.

Gasp—”Mr. So!” Manager Yoo, Yeon-oh’s eternally suffering secretary, stood in the hallway, his face glistening with anxious sweat as his finger hovered mere inches from the doorbell. The instant he saw Gi-hyeon, a look of profound, life-saving relief washed over his exhausted features, prompting Gi-hyeon to furrow his brow slightly.

“Is Jo Yeon-oh drunk?”

“…Well, about that… Yes. Yes, he is,” Manager Yoo confessed, looking incredibly apologetic. Knowing perfectly well that the secretary was entirely blameless in this disaster, Gi-hyeon merely offered an understanding nod.

If Yeon-oh was truly intoxicated, it was practically guaranteed he was stubbornly refusing to exit the vehicle down in the parking garage. He had undoubtedly demanded to be driven to Gi-hyeon’s apartment, only to obstinately insist on sobering up before daring to go upstairs. Trapped by a boss refusing to move, the desperate secretary had no choice but to sprint upstairs and fire off an S.O.S. to Gi-hyeon.

Completely understanding the man’s misery, Gi-hyeon stepped out of the apartment in nothing but a short-sleeved shirt. Rubbing his arms against the sudden chill of the hallway, he asked, “Why do you look so completely drained, Manager Yoo?”

“Ah, my wife threatened to officially fire me as a husband if I came home late again tonight. I was trying to quickly dump him… I mean, handle the situation… no, I meant, I was trying to safely escort him inside so I could finally clock out.”

“You really suffer too much,” Gi-hyeon offered in dry, genuine sympathy.

Deeply empathizing with the agonizing plight of a fellow corporate slave, he accompanied the secretary into the elevator down to the basement parking lot. He truly couldn’t fathom why Yeon-oh was so obsessively terrified of letting Gi-hyeon see him drunk. If their relationship was so monumentally precious to the Alpha that he was actively attempting to micromanage Gi-hyeon’s sexual release just to maintain control, surely showing a slightly messy, intoxicated side shouldn’t be such a massive taboo.

“Oh dear, the Chairman has fallen asleep…” Yoo murmured as they reached the car.

Inside the luxury vehicle, Jo Yeon-oh was slumped forward, arms crossed securely over his chest, sound asleep. Staring at the peaceful, unbothered face of the bastard who had spent the entire day torturing his mind infuriated Gi-hyeon.

“Where did he drink?”

“Well… Haha…” Manager Yoo offered a weak, utterly unhelpful laugh. He had likely been drinking with the sort of untouchable elites whose names a secretary couldn’t casually drop.

Yeon-oh’s grandfather, Jo Gyu-deok, had officially entrusted him with the Haeseong Foundation and Naban Gallery, a prestigious art museum established by the conglomerate.

Despite possessing absolutely zero connection to fine art, Jo Yeon-oh sat comfortably in the Director’s chair, meticulously orchestrating money laundering and tax evasion schemes while biding his time to inherit the sprawling Haeseong empire. The fact that he was drunk meant he had likely endured a grueling dinner with politicians or VIP buyers, casually passing off multimillion-dollar paintings to wash dirty money. If it weren’t a high-stakes scenario, Yeon-oh, whose absolute limit was a pathetic four cans of beer, would never have allowed himself to pass out in the back of a car.

Knowing that Yeon-oh survived his crippling insomnia by snatching brief, fragmented naps, Gi-hyeon felt a sudden, irritating pang of sympathy. Figuring the idiot might as well be dragged upstairs to change into comfortable clothes if he was going to sleep anyway, Gi-hyeon released a heavy sigh and turned back to the secretary.

“Give me the keys and head home, Manager Yoo. It’s already incredibly late.”

“Ah, are you sure that’s okay?” Yoo asked, his face painting a masterpiece of polite guilt. Having observed the man for years, Gi-hyeon knew he possessed a startlingly shameless streak, so he only half-believed the performance, offering a wry smile. Fully aware that Gi-hyeon had completely seen through his act, Manager Yoo merely flashed a bright, unapologetic grin.

After taking the keys and waving the gleeful secretary off, Gi-hyeon yanked the rear door open and attempted to rouse the sleeping giant. “Wake up, Jo Yeon-oh.”

“…”

The Alpha remained utterly motionless. Clicking his tongue, Gi-hyeon leaned into the cabin, extending his arms to drag Yeon-oh out by his waist.

Ugh!

A startled gasp punched out of Gi-hyeon’s lungs as Jo Yeon-oh suddenly surged forward, wrapping his massive arms securely around him. Blinking rapidly in shock, Gi-hyeon realized the Alpha was still completely asleep. Yeon-oh had never possessed aggressive sleeping habits, making the sudden, viselike embrace incredibly baffling. To make matters infinitely worse, the Alpha tightened his crushing grip around Gi-hyeon’s waist, burying his face directly into the crook of his neck and inhaling deeply, sending a maddening, ticklish shiver cascading down Gi-hyeon’s spine.

“…Jo Yeon-oh,” Gi-hyeon warned, his voice dropping an octave in sheer frustration.

Yet, the Alpha showed absolutely no intention of letting go. Just as Gi-hyeon raised a hand to physically shove the man’s forehead away, Yeon-oh spoke.

“You smell so good.”

Delivered in an impossibly clear, sober cadence, the whisper sent a horrifyingly erotic surge of electricity down Gi-hyeon’s spine as the searing heat of his breath washed over his sensitive nape. Wincing as if struck by a sudden bout of vertigo, Gi-hyeon ruthlessly forced his expression back into an icy, stoic mask. “Stop fucking around and get up. We’re going inside.”

Hauling a massive, dead-weight Alpha out of a car, much like dragging a waterlogged mattress, was an impossible feat even for someone of Gi-hyeon’s strength. His increasingly desperate attempts to drag the man by the waist were both infuriating and pathetically useless.

Fortunately, Yeon-oh seemed to finally regain a fraction of consciousness. Blinking his hazy eyes, he offered Gi-hyeon a sluggish, lopsided smirk. Merely witnessing the exact moment those unfocused, wandering eyes suddenly anchored themselves with crystal clarity onto him felt like a blade slicing cleanly through the very center of Gi-hyeon’s chest.

It was the terrifying sensation of a frozen winter lake violently cracking open at the first breath of spring.

Gi-hyeon was immediately consumed by a devastating, helpless vulnerability. Even in this chaotic mess, the dark beauty mark stamped starkly against the high bridge of his nose was breathtakingly pretty. Realizing this was hardly the time to be swooning over a face he had memorized years ago, Gi-hyeon clicked his tongue and attempted to straighten his posture.

Instead, Jo Yeon-oh reached out, his large hand gently cupping Gi-hyeon’s cheek in a devastatingly tender caress. It was the exact same, familiar warmth he always offered.

“Are you done being mad at me?”

The sheer audacity of the question, delivered in that perfectly sober voice, was staggering. His soft, placating tone implied that Gi-hyeon had simply thrown a baseless tantrum out of nowhere. Yet, confronted by that gentle inquiry, Gi-hyeon found himself completely paralyzed, incapable of formulating a single word of defiance.

Exactly. Why the hell was I so angry?

He was going to stay by this man’s side regardless, fundamentally incapable of walking away. What possible benefit was there in lashing out and manufacturing awkwardness between them? He lacked the sheer willpower to shove away the hand currently caressing his cheek and declare an absolute end to this twisted, agonizing game. In front of Jo Yeon-oh, So Gi-hyeon was nothing more than a defeated dog baring its throat.

Offering no response, Gi-hyeon silently pulled himself backward, extracting his upper body from the vehicle’s interior. Despite having an abysmal alcohol tolerance, Jo Yeon-oh rarely ever drank himself into a stupor. Proving this fact, the Alpha stepped out of the backseat entirely on his own two feet, standing perfectly upright.

He hadn’t actually been asleep at all. The stubborn bastard had undoubtedly been sitting there in the dark, waiting to fully sober up before daring to face Gi-hyeon. A man so notoriously neurotic about his sleeping environment would never willingly pass out in the back of a sedan. Fully accustomed to this specific, calculated drunken habit, Gi-hyeon threw a sidelong glance at the perfectly balanced Alpha before turning on his heel and striding toward the elevators alone.

The heavy, deliberate cadence of footsteps followed right behind him. After pressing the call button, Gi-hyeon stared blankly at the digital floor display. In his periphery, he watched Jo Yeon-oh stumble slightly before instantly correcting his posture, forcing himself to walk with terrifyingly precise steps. He really is incredibly drunk. Releasing another long sigh, Gi-hyeon returned his focus to the ascending numbers.

The moment the metal doors slid open in the basement, Gi-hyeon stepped inside and held the open button. Yeon-oh lumbered into the carriage, immediately closing the distance to lock his arms securely around Gi-hyeon’s waist, letting his heavy frame subtly lean against him.

“You’re heavy,” Gi-hyeon muttered.

“What did you do today? You didn’t even call me,” Yeon-oh complained softly.

“Why the sudden interest?”

It was an incredibly bizarre question considering they had never been the type of couple to exchange trivial, hour-by-hour itineraries. Gi-hyeon simply stared blankly at the metal doors. Perhaps due to the alcohol flooding his system, Yeon-oh’s body heat radiated against him with an intense, suffocating warmth. If the Alpha had dumped his entire dead weight onto him, he would have collapsed, but since Yeon-oh merely rested his heavy head on his shoulder, the burden was manageable. The only reason Gi-hyeon had complained was because, for some inexplicable reason, he was hyper-aware of Jo Yeon-oh’s physical presence tonight.

The phantom, electrifying sensation of the Alpha’s breath against his nape still lingered on his skin like a scorching brand. The heavy arms caging his waist felt agonizingly tight. Listening to the quiet, mechanical hum of the ascending elevator, Gi-hyeon squeezed his eyes shut to regain his composure. Mercifully, a sharp chime signaled their arrival, and the doors slid open.

“…Get off.”

The fact that he had barely managed to squeeze those two words out in a raw, breathless whisper made him feel unspeakably pathetic.

Considering the catastrophic argument they had just yesterday, his utter lack of pride was genuinely astounding. However, since So Gi-hyeon had long ago surrendered vast portions of his dignity when it came to Jo Yeon-oh, the wave of self-loathing rapidly lost its momentum and evaporated into nothingness. It was a fleeting guilt that wouldn’t even survive the short walk to his front door. Gi-hyeon had survived this long by expertly ignoring unsolvable emotional equations.

Stepping out of the elevator, Yeon-oh effortlessly punched in the passcode on Gi-hyeon’s digital lock. He might have appeared perfectly lucid, but Gi-hyeon knew with absolute certainty that by tomorrow morning, the Alpha’s memory of tonight would be a complete black hole. The realization that he was allowing his emotions to be violently jerked around by a man who wouldn’t even remember the interaction made him feel like an absolute idiot.