Chapter 52

“A snake’s still a snake, horn or not,” Choi Yook scoffed. “It’s not even fit to be called dragon’s head and snake’s tail.”

Choi Yook shook out the moisture from his hair with a towel. Despite having been half-dry earlier, his dark locks were soaking wet once again. Spotting an opening to wedge himself in, Mu-yeong cheered internally and sprang to his feet.

“Shall I dry your hair for you?” Mu-yeong offered eagerly.

“I have hands of my own.”

Mu-yeong protested playfully, “I have hands too, yet you touched mine, Section Chief. Besides, I’m really good at drying hair. I’ve done it tons of times. You have no idea how important drying hair is. If you dry it carelessly, your hair gets damaged, your scalp gets ruined, and if you’re unlucky, you catch a cold.”

Remembering how his hyung used to scold him, Mu-yeong rattled off the points in quick succession. Listening half-heartedly to the impassioned lecture, Choi Yook perched on the edge of the bed.

“Whose hair have you dried so many times?” Choi Yook asked dryly.

“The younger kids at the orphanage,” Mu-yeong answered, smiling at the memory. “Whenever I dried their hair, they’d all nod off and fall asleep. Because it didn’t hurt one bit and felt so comfortable.”

Mu-yeong showed a quiet sense of pride. Scanning him from head to toe, Choi Yook patted his own thigh.

“If you’re that confident, climb up here and try drying it.”

“Excuse me?” Mu-yeong blinked.

“Your ears work just fine, so I don’t see why you’re asking,” Choi Yook scoffed. “What, you talked a big game and now you don’t really want to do it? Then there’ll be no need for me to respect your opinion going forward.”

“No!” Mu-yeong blurted out.

Startled, Mu-yeong blurted out a denial first. Then, hesitating somewhat, he picked up the hair dryer and approached the man.

He hadn’t anticipated Choi Yook making such a request. He had figured he would be fine since looking at the man’s back or the back of his head wouldn’t make him nervous. Yet as if his intentions had been seen right through, he now found himself having to face Choi Yook head-on.

The problem lay not with himself, but with Choi Yook. If today had ended with only Mu-yeong ejaculating, it wouldn’t have amounted to much. He would have brushed it off as just another round in their usual power struggle. But even if it was nothing more than a passing impulse, Choi Yook had been swept up in it as well.

It was truly strange and unfamiliar. To think that he could exert an influence on someone, and that this someone could leave him equally shaken in turn. Experiencing the reciprocity of a dynamic that had almost always been entirely one-sided left his mouth parched and his throat burning. It was a thirst he didn’t entirely mind.

Mu-yeong cast a furtive glance at Choi Yook. Immediately, their eyes locked. The man had been watching him the entire time.

Those pitch-black pupils held him captive like a camera lens, refusing to let him go. The way his eyelids blinked open and shut looked precisely like the press of a shutter.

Mu-yeong placed one knee on the bed outside Choi Yook’s thigh. Avoiding physical contact as much as possible, he brought his other leg up onto the mattress as well.

Doing so was of little use. The moment Choi Yook leaned his upper body back and parted his thighs, Mu-yeong’s legs were pressed flush against his. The black bathrobe parting them brought to mind the firmly closed sliding door of the bathroom. Drawing in a sharp breath, Mu-yeong switched on the hair dryer.

The loud rush of warm air disrupted the tense silence, if only slightly. Mu-yeong threaded his fingers through Choi Yook’s damp hair. Then, as though handling an imperial dragon’s reverse scales, he shook out the strands with utmost care.

All the while, the relentless gaze pinned him from below. He felt crushed beneath the man no differently than moments earlier—even though he was the one straddling him.

Suddenly, he became hyper-aware of every inch of himself. From the muscles in his face to the fingers gripping the hair dryer, everything threatened to stiffen up. In an effort to divert Choi Yook’s attention, Mu-yeong brought up business.

“By the way, Section Chief,” Mu-yeong spoke up over the whir of the dryer, “did you check out that man? The handsome guy who supposedly came looking for Yoon Hee-sook. The one with a mole under his lip.”

Come to think of it, quite a while had passed since he handed over the notebook, yet the man hadn’t mentioned a word about it. A sarcastic smirk tugged at the corner of Choi Yook’s lips.

“Why? Anxious because you heard he’s handsome and can’t wait to meet him?” Choi Yook asked derisively.

“I’m asking because things won’t move forward just from me running around looking for him,” Mu-yeong countered. “You need to cooperate as well, Section Chief.”

Mu-yeong swiftly delivered the rational argument. Scanning his face, Choi Yook tilted his head back.

“I checked him out, but it doesn’t look like he has the kid,” Choi Yook replied. “He might know something, but feeling him out will take time.”

To think Choi Yook already knew who he was, yet hadn’t dragged him out to bury him alive right off the bat. Mu-yeong considered that the stranger might not be a mere henchman of Yeongchwi Moneylending.

“Wasn’t he just a minion?” Mu-yeong asked, his fingers pausing in the damp hair. “Is it complicated between you?”

“It’s complicated, all right,” Choi Yook conceded.

As he spoke, his sharp gaze probed Seo Mu-yeong’s face with keen scrutiny.

“He’s a male shaman my parents are utterly obsessed with.”

Seo Mu-yeong blinked. If he was a shaman Choi Hak-gyun and Kim Jeong-seon swore by, could he possibly be the mastermind behind the incident fourteen years ago? If he had gone so far as to seek out Yoon Hee-sook, that seemed all too likely. The stench of a suffocating, colossal bottleneck hung heavy in the air.

“Well, religious matters are always complicated. Since reason won’t get through to them at all, it must be frustrating for you as well, Section Chief.” Seo Mu-yeong chimed along offhandedly. Intensely curious though he was, he couldn’t pry any further about what kind of person this shaman was. It was glaringly obvious that the topic frayed Choi Yook’s nerves.

At any rate, it made sense that Choi Yook hadn’t known of the man’s involvement. Neither Choi Hak-gyun nor Kim Jeong-seon would have ever told him, and Choi Yook himself would have steered clear of any male shaman.

The strands of hair brushing Mu-yeong’s fingertips fluttered gently in the warm draft. Setting the hair dryer aside, Seo Mu-yeong lightly neatened Choi Yook’s hair. When the dried bangs fell across Choi Yook’s eyebrows, his impression was distinctly different from when his hair had been soaking wet.

He knew it was an illusion, but it gave off a softer, more relaxed air. Even those sharp, aggressive features looked far neater and more composed. Mu-yeong couldn’t easily tear his eyes away. Then, the moment his gaze collided with Choi Yook’s, he hastily spoke up.

Mu-yeong spoke up impulsively. “With your bangs down, I think you look even more handsome.”

“You only like it because I look like an easier target,” Choi Yook scoffed, chiding him for his transparent flattery. “Not long ago you were whimpering, and now your spirits are already high enough to crawl all over me. That tenacity of yours is truly something.”

Mu-yeong crumpled the towel clutched in his hands. He pouted slightly. “I mean it. To my eyes, this simply suits you better. It’s not like I’m telling you to go around wearing your hair down like this.”

He voiced his sincerity, but Choi Yook didn’t pay him the slightest heed. Feeling wronged, Seo Mu-yeong climbed down from the man’s lap.

“Now that your hair is completely dry, I’ll be on my way,” Mu-yeong announced.

Seo Mu-yeong looked for the cap that had been flung onto the floor. But just as he bent over to pick it up, Choi Yook extended a long leg and planted his foot firmly atop it.

Choi Yook drawled, “You don’t have your bag today, of all days. And for once, you brought a cap.”

Those mere two sentences sounded strangely loaded with meaning. Mu-yeong’s bent waist threatened to freeze rigid. Recalling the voice recorder tucked inside the bag he had left behind, Seo Mu-yeong managed a radiant smile.

Mu-yeong smoothed his expression into complete innocence. “I left my bag in the car thinking you’d send me right back down. Do you dislike me wearing a cap?”

Choi Yook remarked coldly, “It can’t even hide anything, yet you look like an idiot trying to cover up. You’re like an ostrich burying its head in a sandpit.”

“……”

Choi Yook’s voice took on a sharper edge. “Don’t go around wearing it from now on. Unless you want to see me toss it straight into the trash.” He warned him. Even though he was merely sitting there speaking in a relaxed cadence, his demeanor was threatening beyond measure.

“Yes, sir,” Mu-yeong answered meekly. “I’ll make sure to throw them all away myself so you don’t have to bother, Section Chief.”

Only then did Choi Yook pull back the foot pinning down the cap. Seo Mu-yeong scooped it up and bowed deeply at the waist.

“Goodbye, then.”

Because the absence of his bag hadn’t aroused further suspicion, his voice was rather cheerful. Looking back, despite a few tense twists and turns, it was a morning where he had gained far more than he had lost. Under ordinary circumstances, he would have walked out of the room in high spirits, thinking his luck had held up brilliantly.

Yet Seo Mu-yeong couldn’t brush everything off and turn carefree as easily as before. The humidity lingering in the room refused to evaporate, clinging tenaciously to his skin. His spine tickled, as though pressed against a damp, sodden duvet.

Straightening up, Seo Mu-yeong rubbed his spine over his T-shirt. Choi Yook’s gaze fastened onto the faintly exposed curve of his waist. Mu-yeong’s eyes likewise brushed against the parted hem of the man’s bathrobe before glancing away.

The electronic lock turned, issuing a crisp chime. Stepping out of the humid guest room and into the hallway, the air felt astonishingly dry. It was as if he had suddenly been thrust into an entirely different season.

Seo Mu-yeong took a deep breath as he stepped into the elevator. Once he steadied his breathing, he carefully replayed what he had heard from Choi Yook regarding the male shaman.

He said Choi Hak-gyun and Kim Jeong-seon treat him with utmost devotion.

Suddenly, the contents of the recording he had listened to earlier surfaced in his mind. Kim Jeong-seon had always taken a submissive stance toward Choi Sijin. No matter what tantrum he threw, her response was always along the lines of, Mom is sorry, I won’t do it again. Seeing how such a woman had clung to Sijin to the bitter end while fretting in distress, it seemed certain that the two of them had been talking about the male shaman.

And what had been the subject of that phone call? It was a conversation about “there”—the place Choi Yook had suspected Seo Mu-yeong was tied to.

In other words, Choi Yook had suspected that Seo Mu-yeong was a lackey sent by the male shaman. His sharp observation of Mu-yeong while bringing up the shaman today, as well as his past probing about whether Mu-yeong knew any shamans, had all stemmed from that very suspicion.

Then I need to tread carefully.

A sharp tension bore down heavily on his entire body. As someone intimately tied to the incident fourteen years ago, the male shaman was bound to be a dangerous opponent. Perhaps, like Choi Yook, he might even see right through Seo Mu-yeong.

If so, he could never let down his guard. He had to steer clear of the man’s sights and stab him in the back when the time was right.

Ding. The elevator came to a halt in the basement. Stepping out, Seo Mu-yeong moved habitually to put on his cap. Yet just before it touched his head, his hands suddenly froze.

Standing in place, Seo Mu-yeong tapped the stiff brim lightly against his head. In those fleeting few seconds, an intense conflict flashed through his mind.

Put it on? Leave it off? Wear it, take it off, leave it alone, throw it away, rebel, obey… Still, the Section Chief didn’t even believe me when I told him honestly that bangs suit him. If he won’t believe me when I’m not hiding anything, then he’ll just have to deal with me hiding things too.

Seo Mu-yeong tugged the ball cap firmly down over his head and strode light-footedly out into the underground parking garage. It was his petty revenge against Choi Yook for not taking his words at face value.