Chapter 116

Gye Do-hyeop survived.

Alive, unmistakably and miraculously so, with every limb intact. After days without water in an oxygen-starved tomb beneath the earth, his consciousness still drifted in and out, yet whenever the recovery crew moved too slowly, venomous curses rasped from his throat. By the time they hauled him to the surface and rushed him toward the medical center, emergency fluids were already dripping into his veins, sharpening his awareness little by little.

“In heat or something? Back the fuck off, bastard.”

Those were the first words he managed inside the ambulance, delivered in a low, hollow rasp. Yu Jeong-ham stared at him, bloodshot eyes widening in disbelief, then hastily edged away from Geum Seoul and crouched to gather the tiny crystalline pebbles clicking across the ambulance floor.

“Hic… sob…”

Seoul could not stop crying. With his face buried against Do-hyeop’s chest and both hands wrapped desperately around his, he shook with every breath. Do-hyeop lowered his face into Seoul’s soft hair and inhaled slowly, deeply, a faint and impossibly tender smile touching his mouth.

Do-hyeop had noticed the manhole in the floor the moment the emergency strobes began to revolve. But with no way to release the recoil lever, he could not know whether the heavy iron cover would even move, what waited beneath it, whether the space offered shelter, or whether it had already been blocked solid.

Alone, however, the gamble was worth taking. If he shoved Seoul into the extraction capsule first, he could drop through the hatch amid the collapse and, at the very least, keep his limbs from being crushed beneath falling masonry.

And if it was blocked?

Then I die. Fuck it. That had been the entirety of his conclusion.

After one examination after another at the medical center, Do-hyeop was finally settled into the hospital’s premier private suite. The moment they left him alone, he hauled the mud-splattered, soot-streaked boy into his arms and kept burying his nose against Seoul’s cheek and nape as if he needed constant proof that the scent was real.

Seoul could barely form a complete sentence. Choking on sobs, he only repeated, ‘Deputy Director. Deputy Director,’ shuddering with relief each time he heard that Do-hyeop’s clinical vitals were sound.

Do-hyeop insisted that Seoul be examined as well. When Seoul refused to leave his bedside, Do-hyeop manufactured an excuse and accompanied him to the omega clinic himself. He had absolutely no business loitering in an obstetrics ward, but Seoul’s swollen, reddened eyes were too exhausted to question him. Only after the physician confirmed that Seoul was severely depleted but would recover completely with rest and nourishment did Do-hyeop bring him back to the suite and pull him close again, breathing in his scent.

He was receiving an operational briefing in precisely that position.

The initial sweep had failed to detect any explosives because the secondary charges had been planted after the area was cleared. With the National Police controlling the cordon, it did not take much imagination to determine how Gwak Chun-young’s people had slipped inside. Hwang Gi-dong had been right. Vermin had burrowed into every crack.

“Furthermore, Deputy Director…”

“Watch your fucking volume. Auditioning for opera?”

It was not really a question, but an order to shut up. Seoul was fast asleep against Do-hyeop’s chest. Even while faint, exhausted groans escaped him, both arms remained locked around Do-hyeop’s waist, his breathing shallow against the man’s shoulder. The hand taped around an IV line had clenched Do-hyeop’s collar so fiercely that loosening his fingers had taken several minutes.

Every small twitch of the sleeping boy scraped at Do-hyeop’s nerves, leaving him with no patience whatsoever for Jeong-ham’s supposedly quiet reporting. Jeong-ham felt mildly wronged, since he had indeed lowered his voice, but having that particular demon back from the dead made even unreasonable abuse oddly tolerable.

After making certain Seoul had not stirred, Do-hyeop drew the duvet more securely over his shoulders and finally raised his gaze.

“Where does Noh Pil-gyu stand?”

“Silent since the report of your extraction reached him, sir. Word is he threw a screaming fit in his office.”

Do-hyeop gave a derisive snort. “Panic makes people sloppy. Keep operatives glued to him. And prepare to raid the Police Agency if necessary.”

“Yes, sir. …You went through hell.”

Do-hyeop’s face twisted at the sentimental remark with such open disgust that Jeong-ham nearly regretted speaking. The fact that he did not snarl outright counted as miraculous restraint, granted solely because the boy was asleep in his arms.

“The gemstones.”

“Right here, sir. Either confirmed A-1 or beyond measurement altogether, probably outside the diagnostic scale. His eyes changed, as you saw.”

Do-hyeop accepted the stones without a word. During the entire ride in, Jeong-ham had crawled around the ambulance on his hands and knees, collecting every tear Seoul shed. When Seoul finally noticed and began apologizing in mortification, Jeong-ham had waved both hands frantically. Picking up miracles like these was hardly an indignity.

The crystals resting in Do-hyeop’s palm differed in size and color. Most were deep navy or violet, except for two tiny stones of absolute, lightless black. When he separated those from the others, Jeong-ham nodded at once.

“The black ones were shed inside the extraction capsule.”

Do-hyeop showed not the slightest surprise. Jeong-ham hesitated, curiosity cautiously overcoming self-preservation.

“Deputy Director, you calculated that you wouldn’t die before doing that, right?”

He genuinely wanted to know how far Do-hyeop’s foresight had extended, and what odds he had assigned to both of them surviving.

Still studying the gemstones, Do-hyeop slowly lifted his dark eyes. His expression was perfectly blank.

“Finished babbling nonsense?”

“Pardon?”

“What calculation is there when it’s my kid?”

Jeong-ham’s jaw almost fell open. A man who had spent his entire life reducing brutal operations to percentages, without so much as a droplet of sentiment contaminating the arithmetic, was now pretending to be some love-blinded martyr who had acted on pure instinct. The hypocrisy was so shameless that Jeong-ham’s cheek twitched. He urgently needed another subject.

“…We searched for the ledger while you were missing and found nothing. Where did you hide it, sir? Seoul-ssi didn’t know either.”

The question had kept Jeong-ham awake for several nights. Do-hyeop rolled his eyes toward the ceiling.

“Why the fuck would you need to know?”

He clearly had no intention of answering. A curse briefly darkened Do-hyeop’s face before disappearing. The fact that he spared Jeong-ham any further abuse was yet another concession to the precious omega sleeping against him. Jeong-ham wisely let the matter drop. With Do-hyeop alive again, the exact hiding place of the ledger was secondary; the man would deal with it himself.

“Gwak Chun-young’s whereabouts?”

“Unknown. He’s probably preparing to abandon domestic operations, if he hasn’t already fled overseas.”

“No. He thought I was dead, so he stayed in the country.”

“Yes, sir.”

Even as they spoke, Do-hyeop kept stroking Seoul’s cheek, adjusting the blanket, and checking the rhythm of his breathing. To an uninformed observer, he looked one breath away from claiming he had personally given birth to the boy.

“Who looked after the kid while I was gone?”

The words my kid were omitted this time, but only technically.

“Seo-woo remained stationed nearby, but Chief of Staff Hwang’s wife took personal care of him almost continuously.”

“Have her come by later. Once the kid wakes up, arrange our transfer straight to the quarters.”

“To the quarters, sir?”

Headquarters had suffered no breach beyond the decoy explosion, but Jeong-ham still had not expected him to return there immediately.

“I’m awake and we have the gems, so we crack the ledger. What else, boil it and eat it?”

Jeong-ham winced under the glare that seemed to ask how any human being could be this dense, then nodded quickly. “Understood, sir. I’ll make the necessary arrangements.”

“Screen every morsel that goes into the baby’s mouth until this is over.”

“Yes, sir. Security is stationed outside, so please rest today.”

“I’ll decide that. Get lost.”

Click.

When the door finally sealed behind Jeong-ham, Do-hyeop gathered Seoul closer and shifted his broad frame toward the edge of the mattress. Despite the difference in their sizes, Seoul somehow occupied most of the bed. Do-hyeop bent and pressed a kiss to his brow.

“Geum Seoul.”

He wanted to wake him, and wanted just as badly to let him sleep. He wanted the boy to rest without interruption, yet he burned to see those luminous eyes open and looking back at him. The last time they had done so already felt impossibly distant.

‘You calculated that you wouldn’t die before doing that, right?’

He had been certain Seoul would dig for him beneath the wreckage. His own survival, however, had been another matter entirely. Whether he would still be breathing by the time Seoul managed to clear a mountain of rubble was something no calculation could promise.

For most of his life, uncertainty had barely existed. Everything had been reducible to probability.

Do-hyeop knew his own thresholds. If an operation’s projected success rate rose above forty percent, he treated it as one hundred. That had always been the dividing line. Anything below forty, he discarded without hesitation.

Betting everything on an absolute unknown had been a first.

The probability that open space existed beneath the manhole. The probability that the ceiling would hold long enough for him to squeeze through. The probability that rescuers would reach him before dehydration, suffocation, or another collapse finished the job.

He had acted with none of those answers. The only constant in the equation had been Geum Seoul’s life.

The probability of keeping Seoul alive. The probability that, even if Do-hyeop vanished, the boy could survive Gwak Chun-young and Noh Pil-gyu on his own.

He remembered the azure gemstone gathering in his palm. During intimacy, Seoul’s tears had always hardened into a soft pink. This one had blazed blue. If emotion determined color, and the intensity of that emotion determined grade…

Then if the tears Seoul shed when the capsule launched had reached A-grade, his survival would be guaranteed even without Do-hyeop beside him.

Once Noh Pil-gyu was taken down, Gwak Chun-young would follow. With both men removed, there would be no one left capable of threatening Geum Seoul. Through every permutation he had run in those final seconds, only one result had mattered: Seoul’s safety. That had been the entire blueprint behind the emergency code.

The variable that had driven him into an unknown with no measurable odds, and had somehow become the one permanent constant in his life, now slept quietly in his arms. He remembered their first meeting: Seoul on the floor, being beaten by Park Gil-pyeong.

“How could someone so breathtakingly beautiful exist…”

He stroked the pale cheek, its softness roughened slightly by days of rain, wind, and dust. Seoul’s long lashes trembled as he drew a deeper breath. Do-hyeop held one finger beneath the small nose and felt warm air brush his skin.

It still seemed impossible that this fragile-looking creature had dug him out in a matter of days. Jeong-ham had reported everything: Seoul refusing appraisal, summoning Noh Pil-gyu and bluffing him at enormous risk, then directing the recovery effort himself.

“Ah…”

A ragged breath left Do-hyeop. He pressed his face into the curve of Seoul’s neck and inhaled the warm scent of a living body.

He had survived again. But this time, survival had not come from clawing his own way upward until his nails split.

Seoul had dug down to him instead, shifting debris that might as well have been mountains, enduring rain and dust until his palms tore open raw.

Do-hyeop had no name for the sensation moving through his veins. Seoul kept prying open jaws that had been locked shut for decades and spooning unfamiliar emotions onto his tongue: tart things, savory things, delicate and refreshing things, sharp intoxications and quiet comforts. One miraculous flavor after another. Yet the most devastating of them all was simple sweetness. Geum Seoul was so sweet it made his teeth ache.

For a long time, he did nothing but breathe in the boy’s scent. Life filling his lungs no longer felt tedious or merely inevitable. It felt astonishing. Sacred, even. Everything Seoul placed in his hands became something he could not bear to profane.

Against the pale curve of Seoul’s ear, Do-hyeop whispered everything he would never have confessed while the boy was awake. He apologized for having no intention of ever letting him go. He admitted that if Seoul died, he would devour his corpse, set the world on fire, and die beside him. He told him this warped, possessive madness had been dragged out of him entirely by Seoul; that it was Seoul’s fault for appearing before a ghost raised in a warehouse and somehow catching hold of his crooked antenna; that planting something as pure as devotion inside his blackened heart was a sin Seoul would have to answer for forever. To the sleeping boy, he murmured his obsessive adoration again and again, as quietly as prayer.