Chapter 27

“Please don’t worry about a thing and just get some sleep. I’ll get you there as quickly as possible.”

“I’m not worried. I plan on sleeping so deeply you’ll actually be alarmed, so please don’t wake me.”

“Of course, of course,” Manager Yoo replied with a good-natured laugh. Let’s not be fooled. That man is a venomous survivor too; that’s why he’s able to work under Jo Yeon-oh. Whispering the warning to himself, Gi-hyeon closed his eyes without a shred of lingering regret.

The luxury sedan driven by Manager Yoo glided smoothly out of Gi-hyeon’s apartment parking lot. True to his word, Gi-hyeon slept the entire journey. He vaguely registered Manager Yoo pulling into a highway rest stop for gas at one point, but he simply ignored it and continued sleeping.

The vehicle, specifically designed for VIP protocol, boasted a killer ride in the backseat. Because the seat could recline completely flat, he didn’t even suffer from back pain. Submerged in a deep, dreamless sleep, Gi-hyeon finally woke up the exact moment the sedan exited the interchange leading toward the country club.

He offered a massive, jaw-cracking yawn but didn’t say a word. Despite sleeping incredibly well, his mood was still utterly foul. If he engaged in conversation with Manager Yoo now, he knew pure irritation would spill out. Since he had no desire to take his anger out on the innocent manager, Gi-hyeon kept his mouth firmly shut until the sedan finally breached the resort that housed the country club.

Proving exactly why he was considered a hyper-competent secretary, Manager Yoo smoothly handed over a room key the moment the car pulled into the resort’s drive-in, acting as though he intrinsically knew Gi-hyeon was awake. Seeing that the man’s suit didn’t possess a single wrinkle despite the grueling hours behind the wheel, Gi-hyeon couldn’t help but think an experienced secretary was essentially a supernatural monster.

“Here is your room key. The Chairman likely won’t return until dawn.”

“Thank you for your hard work.”

“Not at all. You’re the one who suffered, Dr. So.”

After exchanging a moderate, socially acceptable greeting, Gi-hyeon climbed out of the sedan and stepped into the resort. Perhaps because it was the dead of night, or perhaps because it was an exclusive members-only establishment that didn’t accept many guests, the lobby was steeped in absolute silence.

Gi-hyeon’s standing figure was perfectly reflected on the gleaming marble floor. Against a wall decorated with marble one shade darker than the floor, pale pink peonies stood arranged in a vase, completely surrounded by white jasmine. A single hotelier stood silently at the reception desk, keeping watch with a lowered head. When Gi-hyeon walked past, the employee offered a silent bow, which Gi-hyeon returned with a brief nod before heading straight for the elevators.

“Room 1504…”

Muttering the room number etched onto the keycard, he stepped into the elevator. With his finger lingering on the button, he blankly watched the digital display track their ascent. Having just woken up, his consciousness was still muddy and unfocused.

Since he had already showered back in Seoul, he debated just going straight to bed. Or maybe he should take a proper bath first? Tangled in a web of trivial thoughts, he had no choice but to trudge sluggishly down the hallway after stepping out of the elevator.

Entering the room, he was immediately confronted by a massive suite that was somehow larger than his entire apartment, despite being a mere resort room. Noting the long conference table set up separately in the space, Gi-hyeon suspected Yeon-oh might be staying for several more days to conduct some sort of business meetings here.

…But why on earth do I have to be here?

Jo Yeon-oh could handle his own business perfectly fine. Gi-hyeon simply couldn’t fathom why he was required to be chained to this place for the entire weekend. But on the other hand, the cynical voice in his head pointed out that all these complaints should have been voiced back in Seoul.

If he was genuinely this resentful, he shouldn’t have followed Manager Yoo. If he was this irritated, he should have just ignored Jo Yeon-oh’s request. Everyone lays out their own bed to lie in. The spot where Jo Yeon-oh laid his body had, for a very long time, been painstakingly prepared by none other than So Gi-hyeon. So who was there left to blame?

“…I guess my only option is to claim all this liquor for myself.”

Pulling a bottle of Royal Salute and a Baccarat crystal glass from the minibar, he collapsed onto the nearest sofa. Yanking the stopper out, he poured the amber liquid into the glass and drank it straight, without a single cube of ice. He didn’t have any snacks to pair it with, but thanks to the mountain of pizza he had consumed before leaving, he wasn’t worried about ruining his stomach lining.

After downing two consecutive shots, he obediently pushed the stopper back into the bottle and headed for the bathroom, opting for a quick body shower without washing his hair. He had already shampooed before leaving Seoul, and doing it again just felt annoying. Completely ignoring the array of high-end amenities, he scrubbed his body down with a simple bar of soap. It must have been an outrageously expensive brand, because the soap radiated the kind of luxurious perfume scent you only found on the first floor of high-end department stores.

Breathing in the rich scent, the massive Jacuzzi tucked into the corner of the bathroom caught his eye, but he figured taking a full bath now would be a massive waste of time. Having already slammed back two shots of hard liquor straight, he worried he might pass out and drown if he wasn’t careful, so he regretfully abandoned the idea. Throwing on the oversized t-shirt and cotton shorts he had packed for sleeping, he went in search of the bedroom.

Desperately praying that, for tonight at least, the bastard wouldn’t crawl into the same bed, Gi-hyeon deliberately chose the room with the smaller bed. The second his head hit the goose-down pillow, he plummeted into sleep. If only he could have stayed that way until morning, it would have been absolute perfection.

“Ah…”

Gi-hyeon groaned helplessly. A distinctly foreign scent was wafting through the air, and in his half-asleep state, he was struggling to identify its origin. What is it? What is this smell? It was a scent he had definitely encountered before, yet it felt entirely unfamiliar and profoundly strange.

The very moment that thought crystallized, Gi-hyeon snapped awake from a slumber he couldn’t even remember falling into.

“Gasp—!”

“…Go back to sleep.”

Someone’s thick, heavy arm was slung deadweight across Gi-hyeon’s chest. Like being crushed beneath the heavy bough of a massive shade tree, Gi-hyeon took short, shallow breaths.

“What the…”

“I said, go back to sleep.”

Only then did he recognize the low, gravelly voice as Jo Yeon-oh’s. Ah, fuck. Relieving the tension from his startled, rigid body, Gi-hyeon endured the wave of mild exhaustion that swept over him.

As he let out a weak sigh and let out a soft groan, the bastard with his arm draped across his chest actually had the audacity to pat him soothingly, like coaxing a fussy toddler.

“…What are you doing?”

“This is the third time I’m telling you to just sleep. Go to sleep before I force a lullaby down your throat.”

The warning tone was absolutely drenched in fatigue. …Well, getting any more sleep here today is completely ruined. The bed was decently sized for one person, but cramming two fully grown adult men onto the mattress made it feel suffocatingly narrow. Suppressing a heavy sigh, Gi-hyeon simply stared out the window.

Piercing through the bedroom’s blackout curtains, the faint, grayish-blue light of dawn was beginning to break outside. As he stared blankly at the sliver of morning light, he could feel the steady, rhythmic rise and fall of the broad chest pressed directly against his back. The bastard had already fallen back asleep.

…Can you even call it insomnia when he sleeps this damn well? Gi-hyeon could never catch a wink of sleep whenever the bastard was around, yet Jo Yeon-oh fell into absurdly deep slumbers the second he was by So Gi-hyeon’s side. It made Gi-hyeon wonder if Yeon-oh didn’t actually suffer from insomnia at all, and just had an outrageously demanding, picky personality.

After enduring the claustrophobic hold for a few more minutes, Gi-hyeon’s mind completely cleared. Very slowly, he extracted himself from Jo Yeon-oh’s embrace. Pulling his windbreaker from his bag and throwing it on, he grabbed the room key and slipped out of the suite.

He didn’t realize he had left his phone behind until he was already standing in the elevator. Lacking the confidence to open the door, sneak back in, and grab his phone without waking the hyper-sensitive Jo Yeon-oh, he simply headed down to the lobby.

Despite the early hour, the faint scent of warm butter drifted through the air. The restaurant was clearly prepping breakfast for the lazy rich. Checking the time, it was approaching six in the morning. A bit early for a stroll, but a perfectly fine time nonetheless.

Stepping out of the lobby, Gi-hyeon pulled the hood of his windbreaker up over his head and began to walk. The grass, heavy with morning dew, radiated a sharp, verdant scent. The country club’s painstakingly manicured green stretched out endlessly, eventually bleeding into the distant ocean. The faint brine of the sea mixed with the scent of dew-soaked forest grass evoked a very specific thought in Gi-hyeon’s mind.

“They must have sprayed an insane amount of pesticides on this.”

It made absolutely no sense for the green to be this impossibly lush all year round. Shaking his head at the turf—which was miles above the quality of the courses he occasionally visited for medical support dispatches—he kept walking.

Unlike other golf courses that aggressively marketed themselves by hosting KLPGA tournaments, this place was completely unfamiliar to Gi-hyeon, despite his extensive experience with golf medical support. Likely catering exclusively to a tiny fraction of elites like Jo Yeon-oh, the club probably had zero reason to advertise to the public.

Rumor had it that this was the exact kind of place where high-stakes bets in the hundreds of millions of won took place. Having spent the entire night entertaining, Jo Yeon-oh would undoubtedly wake up, eat breakfast, and head right back out for another round of corporate schmoozing. If Yeon-oh had been the one receiving the hospitality, he never would have traveled all the way down to Namhae. Gi-hyeon’s deduction was practically a guaranteed fact.

He was deep in these thoughts when it happened.

“Excuse me…”

Someone called out, stopping Gi-hyeon in his tracks. Without thinking much of it, he turned around to face the stranger. The man was also dressed in a light windbreaker and running shoes, clearly out for a dawn jog. Given that his eyeline was slightly higher than Gi-hyeon’s—and Gi-hyeon was quite tall himself—the man was likely around Jo Yeon-oh’s height, if not a bit shorter. With gentle, amiable eyes, he gave off a highly favorable impression.

Wondering what the man wanted, Gi-hyeon simply stared, waiting for him to speak. The man finally opened his mouth.

“Could I get your name?”

Gi-hyeon had assumed the man was just going to ask to borrow a phone. Being asked for his name completely out of the blue was so bizarre that his face instinctively crumpled in confusion. Staring intensely at Gi-hyeon, the man’s face suddenly flushed a violent shade of crimson as sheer panic overtook him.

“Ah, I just… I thought you were an Omega…”

“Excuse me?”

It was such a profoundly absurd, unheard-of statement that Gi-hyeon could only ask him to repeat it.

The man looked equally horrified. He was clearly an Alpha, and while mistaking someone in the dark hours of dawn was plausible, didn’t Alphas and Omegas instinctively recognize each other through pheromones or whatever? Tilting his head in genuine confusion, Gi-hyeon decided it was all too strange and simply offered a polite, dismissive bow.

Looking mortified, the Alpha awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck and returned the bow multiple times. Thanks to his amiable features, he didn’t seem entirely like a creep. Discarding the bizarre encounter from his mind, Gi-hyeon continued his walk along the trail circling the golf course.

After completing another lap or two, he debated heading directly toward the coastline. The ocean, just beginning to catch the break of dawn, was showing off a set of dazzling, golden ripples dancing across the water’s surface that was breathtaking even from a distance.

“It’s really beautiful…”

The admiration spilled out unprompted. Witnessing that view almost made being dragged all the way down here worthwhile. It was bitterly ironic that he could only find the comfort he desperately sought from his unrequited love in the distant Namhae ocean.

They say life is made of nine parts anger and sorrow, leaving only one part for joy and happiness. Gi-hyeon’s singular piece of joy was out there in the distance, reflecting the morning sun and swaying gently with the tide. Just like the scales of a colossal golden beast. He was just about to shift his trajectory toward the shoreline when it happened.

Suddenly, a heavy gaze prickled his skin. Looking up to see what it was, he spotted Jo Yeon-oh leaning against the resort terrace, dressed in nothing but his sleep pants, staring directly at him. Yeon-oh aggressively waved something in his hand. It was too far to see clearly, but it was almost certainly Gi-hyeon’s phone.

“…”

He was undoubtedly going to nag him to death for leaving without it. Swallowing a heavy sigh, Gi-hyeon wrapped up his brief moment of peace and turned around. Behind him, were those golden ripples he had fallen in love with at first sight still dancing? They had to be. It wasn’t like the ocean would ever change. The moment he turned his back, he missed it with an acute ache.

He could taste the salt in the wind. Just feeling this much was probably enough. Who in the world gets to live a life possessing everything they want? He had lived his life strictly adhering to his mother’s advice to find happiness even if he only held a tiny fraction of the world.

Thinking of that, he felt a sudden pang of sorrow, remembering that the woman who had spoken those exact words hadn’t even stayed by So Gi-hyeon’s side in the end. The ocean behind his back was probably the same. It seemed Gi-hyeon’s ocean didn’t exist here, either.

If that was the case, where was So Gi-hyeon supposed to go? Gi-hyeon looked back up at the terrace. Jo Yeon-oh had already abandoned his post, leaving only the sheer curtains fluttering wildly in the sea breeze through the half-open window.

Even though his destination was completely cemented, his footsteps grew painfully slow. Stop being so incredibly pathetic, he scolded himself, but his pace refused to quicken. Gi-hyeon had no choice but to walk the short distance at an agonizing crawl.

The second he entered the room, Jo Yeon-oh snapped at him in pure irritation, demanding to know why he was so excruciatingly slow. Exhausted and unwilling to fight, Gi-hyeon just muttered, Sorry, and let it go.

Perhaps the things piling up behind So Gi-hyeon’s back weren’t oceans at all, but a mountain of things he had absolutely no reason to be sorry for.

Behind his back, the hotel door clicked shut.