Chapter 97

“It seems we still need more time, sir. I’m sorry.”

The bastard who planted the blast had slipped away immediately afterward and vanished off the grid. Worse, every piece of identity information uncovered in the aftermath turned out to be fabricated from the ground up.

“Director Choi hired him personally?”

“Yes, that’s correct. We dug into Director Choi separately as well, but nothing turned up. It seems he was genuinely duped.”

Director Choi was an internal employee who had managed Gwak Chun-young’s domestic staff for a very long time. Having earned trust over years of assigned duties, and being burdened with far too many weaknesses and far too much cowardice, he was hardly the sort of man to dare stage a betrayal.

“Well, I suppose so. When the Special Security Department deliberately manufactures a fake identity and plants someone, who could possibly see through it?”

Gwak Chun-young muttered, pulling himself upright.

“Sigh. Guess Director Choi’s getting old too.”

Pressing firmly against his temples, he stopped in front of Lee Ho-hoon with an exhausted voice. Lee Ho-hoon kept his head bowed low.

Smack.

Without warning, Gwak Chun-young swung his open palm and struck Lee Ho-hoon across the cheek, then gave his wrist a loose shake. Ho-hoon’s head snapped sideways before quickly returning to the center. Gwak Chun-young raised his hand as if to hit him once more, but let out a sigh and lowered it.

“Forget it…. What good does hitting you do? Take care of Director Choi and send him off properly.”

“Yes, sir. I apologize.”

Gwak Chun-young sank back onto the sofa and picked up the tumbler from the table. With every gulp, his esophagus and gums felt as though they were burning, but the bitterest ache of all was in his gut.

The fact that, one after another, only the things he treasured enough to keep at home had vanished had been churning his stomach for days.

“That fucking bastard Gye Do-hyeop never had any intention of negotiating with me from the start.”

Pressing and rubbing the inner corners of his bloodshot eyes, he replayed that time in his mind once more.

If Geum Seoul knew where the ledger was or had it in his possession, Gye Do-hyeop would have drugged him, tortured him, or done whatever it took to extract the truth and seize it. And once he got what he wanted, killing him was the natural next step. It was the most foolproof way to eliminate any lingering risk.

Everything Gwak had heard, and everything he had witnessed himself, told him Gye Do-hyeop was not the kind of man who hesitated over an inconvenience like that. Yet he had kept Geum Seoul hidden comfortably in a home stocked with condoms, and even after the kidnapping, he had never once called to bargain or propose a trade. So Seoul had not been kept around merely for information. His claim that he had chased after Gye Do-hyeop through one-sided infatuation had been a lie.

“Mmh….”

Although he hadn’t managed to retrieve it, the gemstone Geum Seoul dropped had definitely been a mere C-rank. His own eyes, sharper than most machines, couldn’t have been mistaken.

Then did they really just get tangled up in bed?

“…How should I repay him for what I was given?”

In the end, he might have to kill Geum Seoul. What a waste. Licking his lips, Gwak Chun-young turned that face over in his memory. The boy suited his tastes far too well to simply throw away and slaughter—especially those eyes that always looked on the verge of tears. If anything, Gwak wanted to steal him. But Seoul was hidden somewhere inside Gye Do-hyeop’s reach, sealed away where Gwak’s people could not even locate him. Which narrowed the possibilities. An official residence. A safe house. Somewhere built to keep men like him out.

“Contact Jin Go-hui. Tell him to unpack the containers I left with him before.”

Normally, an answer would have come the second the order left his lips, but this time Lee Ho-hoon’s reply was slightly delayed.

“Boss, until things quiet down for a while….”

“What is it, agaaain?”

“I apologize. It hasn’t been long since you were released, so Gye Do-hyeop will be keeping a close eye on you.”

As if he loathed hearing those words, Gwak Chun-young furrowed his brow. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand. He couldn’t move as he pleased, and if he caused any trouble, he’d find himself detained once again.

Still, he had no desire to sit idle and buy that bastard more time.

“You said that bastard went to China a while ago, right?”

“Yes. We haven’t been able to confirm where he went or what he did.”

Clenching his fist, Gwak Chun-young pressed it firmly against his forehead. That fucking bastard Noh Pil-gyu was having a fit trying to cut ties the second he heard the ledger had slipped out of Gwak’s hands, and Gye Do-hyeop had slipped off to China while Gwak was completely immobilized. Were the two of them conspiring together, calculating how to strike him from behind? Every passing second felt like a fuse burning toward a bomb.

“…Seeing those old fucks wipe their mouths clean after happily stuffing themselves with my handouts, I can’t let this drag on too long.”

It wasn’t just about Noh Pil-gyu. Every single bastard who took his money acted the same. Until recently, they had done nothing but guffaw, crack jokes, and pocket cash, yet the moment he spent a brief stint in custody, they panicked and gave him shit, whining, ‘How could you mess with the Special Security Department?’ He was sick of hearing it.

“Haa. The power of money doesn’t last nearly as long as I thought.”

Rolling his one halfway-intact wrist, Gwak Chun-young closed his eyes. Geum Seoul’s blood-smeared face surfaced in his mind.

Ah. That was exactly what I wanted. The thought of what if I had found him first instead of Gye Do-hyeop crossed his mind dozens of times. He could have kept him tucked in his arms, cherishing him endlessly. In his head, Gwak Chun-young retraced the thighs and shoulders of the man tied to the chair, and the wrist he had grazed.

“Wait, didn’t you say Jin Go-hui seduced someone from the Special Security Department?”

“He said he vanished. He called when he left the country recently.”

“Right, fuck…. So he cut off every single bridge?”

No matter how much he racked his brain, he couldn’t think of a single way to kill Gye Do-hyeop and snatch Geum Seoul away—short of blowing things up on a massive scale.

“Ho-hoon.”

“Yes, sir.”

“See if you can bring in someone useful on the police side. Someone with plenty of dirt on them and a high-ranking seat.”

“Understood.”

This time, Lee Ho-hoon answered without offering any further commentary. He couldn’t talk him out of his plans twice.

“Get a ship ready, too. So I can slip out of the country for a bit once the job is done.”

Especially if the boss was already calculating the end game, there was even less reason to stop him. Giving a short reply, Ho-hoon stepped out into the hallway. All he could do was hope that whatever his boss was rushing into would pan out. Behind his back, the cheerful background music from the movie Gwak was watching continued to play.

***

“What’s all this?”

“Your food.”

Held in Gye Do-hyeop’s arms, Geum Seoul rubbed his eyes. He wondered if he was seeing things, given the lavish spread of fruit laid across the dining table first thing in the morning.

After Oh Ga-on’s visit the other day, this was the first time in days Geum Seoul had stepped out into the living room on his own two feet. Until now, he had spent nearly all his time in bed. It was said to be for boosting his wrecked nutritional state, ruined because he hadn’t been able to eat properly even before realizing he was pregnant. Unable to stomach even plain white porridge, he had received a continuous stream of IV fluids.

The only thing he could swallow was a brand of yogurt packed with various nutrients. Because he didn’t throw it up even when sipping it in small batches throughout the day, Gye Do-hyeop had immediately bought ten boxes and stacked them like a tower in a corner of the house.

“Anything with a smell, you’ll just puke right back up anyway.”

They had already endured several failed experiments. The day before yesterday, they tried tofu and scorched rice, both supposedly gentle on morning sickness, only for Geum Seoul to clap a hand over his mouth the instant the food reached him. Gye Do-hyeop swept the entire meal off the table. Afterward, Seoul would not even touch the yogurt he had once eaten without trouble, which put Do-hyeop in such a foul mood that he stormed into the hall and kicked Yu Jeong-ham’s door next door with thunderous force. Geum Seoul, unaware any of that had happened, simply curled under the blankets again and slept, trying to gather what little strength he could. Much later, when Do-hyeop returned to bed, he clumsily massaged Seoul’s arm and straightened it, only to watch the frail body curl back into itself before long. Standing at the narrow hand’s-breadth gap in the curtains, he stared at that thin back for a very long time.

One day, after Seoul complained that lying in bed was making him restless and he wanted to move around, Gye Do-hyeop immediately scooped him up. Then, without warning, he kicked the front door open and tried to carry him straight into the hallway. Bundled in his arms, Geum Seoul flung out all four limbs, seized the doorframe in desperation, and trembled there like a trapped animal. Do-hyeop stared down at him as though wondering what kind of lunatic he had picked up, then finally burst out laughing and paced around the apartment instead. He walked in slow, swaying steps almost like someone soothing an infant, carrying Seoul until the boy’s cheek settled against his shoulder and his breathing softened into sleep.

Every day became another experiment. Today’s attempt was fruit, something pregnant people were said to tolerate more easily. Not long ago, even when Seoul skipped meals at the cafeteria, he had often reached for fruit, so they had built the spread around that memory. Cereal and milk sat on the counter beside a tower of cold bread with almost no smell. A huge bowl of salad crowded the remaining space, surrounded by plates of strawberries, mandarins, grapefruit, mango, oranges, apples, and watermelon. Everything had been sliced into neat, bite-sized pieces, yet there was so much of it that the fruit spilled haphazardly toward the edges of the narrow island.

“Craving any of it?”

“Um…. Yes. I’ll try some.”

Looking at the counter laden with such a vibrant riot of colors, he could almost taste the refreshing tartness, and clean saliva pooled in his mouth. As he swallowed it down, Gye Do-hyeop settled into a seat while holding him close. Turning Geum Seoul halfway around on his lap, he touched a strawberry against the boy’s soft lips.

“I can eat it myself.”

“My patience is dead empty, so just open your mouth.”

“You never had much to begin with.”

“Yeah. And I’m practicing fucking sainthood right now in front of you.”

Without further retort, Geum Seoul took a bite of the strawberry. He remembered the shock he’d felt when tasting one at his place before. It held a level of freshness he had never dared dream of back where he used to live.