Chapter 38

The blinding sunlight pouring through the un-drawn curtains stung his eyes fiercely. For someone suffering from chronic insomnia, it seemed he had fallen into a shockingly deep sleep last night. Waking up in a hazy daze, Jo Yeon-oh shook his groggy head.

He felt as though he had just experienced an incredibly long dream… The phantom sensation lingering in his hands was terrifyingly vivid, yet he couldn’t quite remember what exactly it was. It was something incredibly soft, profoundly comforting, and made entirely of things he desperately missed…

But no specific image surfaced. Jo Yeon-oh merely blinked his vacant eyes. Slowly, he turned his head to the side. He was absolutely certain he had fallen asleep with Gi-hyeon, but the space next to him was completely empty and pristine.

“…”

No, it wasn’t pristine.

Sitting up on the mattress, Jo Yeon-oh let out a low yawn before staring at the bedsheets in utter disbelief.

A thick, white fluid—resembling spilled yogurt—had dried crusty against the fabric. Jo Yeon-oh knew exactly what it was. It was semen. He couldn’t be absolutely certain whose it was, but it was undeniably the physical evidence of someone holding another person, violently working their hips, and releasing their seed.

A terrifying, icy chill raced down his spine.

In a state of mild panic, he quickly rubbed his hands over his own body. There were no obvious signs of intercourse on his skin. His pubic hair wasn’t matted with dried cum, either. It seemed his partner had meticulously wiped his body down with a damp towel or something similar.

While his body was clean, the partner clearly hadn’t possessed the energy to strip the bed, leaving the horrifyingly undeniable evidence of their tangled fluids crusted into the sheets. If that was the case, who the fuck had dared to pull a stunt like this? Jo Yeon-oh’s brow twisted into a furious scowl.

Shooting out of bed, he desperately searched for the phone he usually tossed onto the nightstand, but it was nowhere to be found.

“Fuck…”

Grinding the curse between his teeth, he snatched the bathrobe discarded carelessly on the floor. Moving quickly, he grabbed the hotel phone stationed in the corner of the bedroom and dialed his own number.

With a low bzzzt, the monotonous sound of a phone vibrating echoed through the room. Gi-hyeon immediately followed the sound. Digging through the pile of his own discarded clothes scattered across the floor, he pulled out the phone, the screen brightly illuminating the fabric.

“…What the hell is this.”

His eyes widened in absolute shock. A full day had vanished from his memory. Skipping over the entire weekend he had supposedly spent in Namhae, it was suddenly Monday morning, without him even realizing it.

Swallowing the string of curses threatening to erupt, he immediately dialed Manager Yoo’s number.

[Yes, Chairman.]

“…I’m going to need you to explain what kind of absolute bullshit just happened.”

Grinding his teeth as he spoke, the person on the other end of the line let out a heavy sigh before beginning the explanation.

[It appears Director Jo Yeon-shin spiked the drinks in the banquet hall. We believe your drink was also spiked, and we currently suspect the substance was HZ-11—a psychotropic rut inducer, or to put it vulgarly, an Alpha aphrodisiac.]

“…What?”

[We intended to administer the antidote immediately after ingestion, but you had already vanished, Chairman. Reviewing the CCTV footage, we confirmed you returned to your suite. Since you appeared to be sleeping, we closed the door and returned the following morning, but you did not respond to the doorbell. We had a very brief phone conversation, but you simply ordered me to hang up. …Do you truly have no memory of this?]

At Manager Yoo’s explanation, Yeon-oh scowled fiercely, pulling the phone away from his ear to swipe through his call log. Exactly as the secretary claimed, there was a record of a three-second phone call.

“…What about Gi-hyeon.”

At that exact time, So Gi-hyeon would have been sleeping inside that very suite. If he had returned to the room in a chemically induced rut and done something—anything—to a sleeping So Gi-hyeon…

Feeling violently nauseous, all the blood completely drained from Jo Yeon-oh’s face as he waited in pure terror for Manager Yoo’s next words.

[Dr. So was sleeping in a different room. He requested a separate room, stating he simply wanted to get a good night’s sleep for just one day, so I transferred him to a new room in advance. After sleeping for the night, he mentioned he wished to head back up to Seoul early, so I made the decision on my own authority to arrange it. I rented a car for him, and I believe he is currently at home.]

…Thank God. As the terrifying tension that had nearly driven him insane began to slowly recede, Yeon-oh dragged his tongue over his lower lip and finally asked the remaining questions.

“Then what the hell are all these disgusting marks on the bed.”

[…You spent the night with someone else, Chairman.]

“With who.”

The moment he asked the question, the violent nausea finally erupted.

—Yeon-oh-ah, look at what Daddy is doing.

A sickeningly repulsive voice violently rattled his skull.

His vision swam dizzily.

His completely empty stomach violently heaved against his diaphragm.

Before he could even hear the answer to his question, Jo Yeon-oh threw the phone across the room and sprinted into the bathroom. Gripping the toilet bowl like a lifeline, he bent over and violently retched, desperately trying to purge his stomach, but absolutely nothing came out. Even though his empty stomach had nothing left to give, the voice echoing in Jo Yeon-oh’s skull seemed determined to physically wring his organs dry. The violent, agonizing dry-heaving refused to stop, making him feel as though his eyeballs were going to pop out of his skull.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the disconnected line, Manager Yoo frowned slightly, repeatedly calling out to Jo Yeon-oh. He had heard a dull thud, and Yeon-oh had abruptly stopped speaking.

“Hello, Chairman? Are you alright?”

But there was no answer. Letting out a heavy sigh, Manager Yoo disconnected the call.

“…”

“…”

Gi-hyeon deliberately avoided meeting Manager Yoo’s gaze as the secretary pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at him. There was no longer any reason to look at the man. His objective had been flawlessly achieved.

Staring at Gi-hyeon’s completely emotionless profile, Manager Yoo let out a heavy sigh and spoke.

“…Are you satisfied?”

“More or less. Please help me through to the very end. I expect you to do your absolute best to ensure this is never discovered.”

Replying with a completely deadpan expression, Gi-hyeon stood up from his seat. Even now, his inner thighs pulled with a severe, agonizing tightness. It felt exactly like the intense muscle soreness one experienced the day after an aggressive adductor workout. It was the very first time in his life he realized this was the physical aftermath of intense intercourse.

Remaining seated, Manager Yoo looked up at Gi-hyeon. It was the kind of gaze one reserved for looking at something profoundly toxic and terrifying. Gi-hyeon didn’t bother offering any particular expression in return.

Because to him, this was the absolute best possible outcome.

“Please continue to hide it. Your ‘superior’ will undoubtedly desire the exact same thing. I highly doubt he has ever imagined the glorious picture of his eldest grandson vigorously fucking a Beta male.”

“…What exactly do you plan to do now.”

Unable to completely mask his devastated expression, Manager Yoo asked the question. Gi-hyeon felt surprisingly unaffected. The dull, throbbing pain radiating from his inner thighs, or the raw, stinging agony from a place he had never even consciously registered before today—none of it was a major issue. Gi-hyeon’s thought process was incredibly simple. As long as Jo Yeon-oh never found out, everything was fine.

No, he absolutely had to ensure Yeon-oh never knew. Wasn’t that the exact reason he had sought out Manager Yoo and blackmailed him? He had demanded the secretary completely wipe the CCTV footage of the hotel corridor and permanently delete any trace that Gi-hyeon had ever entered that specific suite. Ironically, it was a massive relief that the man closest to Yeon-oh’s grandfather was the bastard’s own secretary. It allowed Gi-hyeon to confidently state that their ultimate goals were perfectly aligned.

Jo Yeon-oh would undoubtedly live under the agonizing delusion that he had spent the night with some random stranger just to quell his chemically induced rut. Manager Yoo had painstakingly laid the groundwork to ensure that lie held up flawlessly.

—I slept with Jo Yeon-oh. I trust you will permanently erase every single record related to it.

From Manager Yoo’s perspective, burying this incident wasn’t an act of loyalty to Gi-hyeon or Yeon-oh—it was a direct service to his ‘true’ boss, Jo Gyu-deok. If Yeon-oh’s hyper-conservative grandfather ever discovered that his precious grandson had actually fucked a Beta male, he would absolutely not sit still.

His grandfather was the kind of man who hired people to dig through the trash thrown out of Gi-hyeon’s house twice a month. It seemed he was obsessively monitoring the garbage for used condoms or any other lifestyle products hinting at an active sex life.

Once, while walking to the convenience store to buy beer, Gi-hyeon’s ingrained military habit of scanning his surroundings had led him to spot the man actively digging through his discarded trash. Gi-hyeon had stealthily tailed the man. The destination the trash thief eventually reported back to was a place Gi-hyeon knew entirely too well. He had never told Jo Yeon-oh. It was blindingly obvious that bringing it up would only trigger a massive, destructive war. Looking back on it now, he was actually profoundly relieved he had kept his mouth shut.

Thanks to that dedicated trash thief, Jo Yeon-oh’s grandfather was fully convinced that while his grandson might be dating Gi-hyeon, they were absolutely not having sex. That was undoubtedly the only reason he had left them alone without saying a word until now. But what would happen if he discovered the truth about last night? Gi-hyeon had posed that exact question to Manager Yoo.

—What do you honestly think will happen, Manager Yoo.

As long as So Gi-hyeon, the primary party involved, feigned absolute ignorance, no one would be harmed. And so, Gi-hyeon played the fool. He completely ignored the agonizing pull in his inner thigh muscles and simply walked away.

***