Chapter 35

Gye Do-hyeop arched a brow. “Not going to ask where we’re going?”

At that, Geum Seoul blinked his sleep-laden eyes. Seeing no sign of an inquiry in that blank stare, Gye Do-hyeop provided the answer himself.

“We’re going to your neighborhood,” Gye Do-hyeop said. “Whether it’s shower tiles or broken walls, having you look in person will make the search easier.”

Nodding eagerly, Seoul murmured, “Ah. Yes. I’ll search carefully.”

His head bobbed up and down with earnest determination. Even though he looked ready to drop from exhaustion, he refused to lie down. Fieldwork required no dress shirt; having readied himself in a short-sleeved top and fastened his wristwatch, Gye Do-hyeop approached the edge of the bed.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?” Gye Do-hyeop asked dryly. “Your eyes are practically rolling back.”

Pulling his heavy gaze upward with slow effort, Seoul asked softly, “…Aren’t you leaving for work?”

Gye Do-hyeop tilted his head. “You stayed up just to see me off?”

“It’s not my house, so going to sleep before you leave felt improper,” Seoul explained.

His voice was slightly raspy from accumulated exhaustion. The amber-brown eyes fixed upon him, the grayish-brown hair brushed back from his brow—a faint ache tightened Gye Do-hyeop’s chest. Reaching out, he pressed a broad palm against the soft cheek. Bereft of energy and heavy with slumber, Seoul leaned his head instinctively into the warm hand.

Gye Do-hyeop held his peace. “…”

This little runt is replacing the batteries in my cock again, Gye Do-hyeop mused with unabashed lust. Contrary to the crude thoughts passing through his mind, his thumb lightly caressed the pale cheek. Yielding like soft rice cake or jelly, the skin gave way under gentle pressure, prompting Gye Do-hyeop to apply a fraction more weight.

“…”

Having his face suddenly kneaded made Geum Seoul blink up at him. Truthfully, last night’s intimacy had begun under the intoxicating pull of magnificent pheromones, yet it had felt undeniably wonderful. Only after the scent began clearing did his overstretched body and aching waist throb with soreness, but at the time, he had been too occupied clinging and sobbing to notice.

Above all, the man had not acted frightening in the least. Though he spoke filthy words and laced every sentence with profanity, he had stopped right before true fear set in when told it hurt, halting at the point where his belly merely reverberated; and in the morning, he had respected Seoul’s plea not to penetrate because of the raw stinging. Even while his mouth spouted wicked taunts and his hands gripped as if to bruise, clear restraint had governed his actions. That restraint filled Geum Seoul with profound relief—even a fluttering warmth. It felt as though he were being genuinely cared for.

Sex was a first for him, but encountering alphas was not. Perhaps because he had grown up in such a wretched environment, every alpha he had crossed paths with had been awful: Im Gyun-il from the shantytown, Park Gil-pyeong, and the leering patrons who attended auctions and drooled toward the second floor.

Bunhong had described them as pathetic losers who had nothing to offer in looks, wealth, or stamina, leaving them with nothing but pheromone flexes. Whenever someone refused to obey, they resorted to violence; they belittled the room-renting gemstone omegas as cheap whores while desperately scheming to bed them.

Yet why did this man’s pheromones feel so delightful? Why did inhaling them make his body stir with sweet yearning? Was it truly because Gye Do-hyeop was a dominant alpha? If so, then the stench of other alphas being sickening was… Lowering his lashes in thoughtful silence, Seoul caught the scent of soap mingled with a faint trace of alpha pheromones drifting from the palm, prompting him to turn his head slightly and bury his nose against Gye Do-hyeop’s skin. A lovely scent. Thump, thump. The steady pulse vibrating against the calloused hand made his heart flutter with contentment.

Gye Do-hyeop swallowed a dry chuckle. “Heh.”

He had only kneaded the cheek because it looked endearing, yet Geum Seoul had leaned in until his nose and lips were pressed right against his palm, dozing off on his feet. As the weight grew heavier, Gye Do-hyeop bent his waist with a crooked grin. Cradling the back of Seoul’s head, he eased him backward onto the pillows, making the youth snap his eyes open and tense his limbs.

Startling with a soft gasp, Seoul blurted, “Ah.”

“Quit gasping and go back to sleep,” Gye Do-hyeop told him.

Fidgeting under the sheets, Seoul murmured, “Still, you’re heading out….”

The moment his hand released him, the youth squirmed to push his upper body upright once more. Watching to see what on earth the kid thought he was doing, Gye Do-hyeop saw him turn as if preparing to climb out of bed entirely.

“If you get up right now,” Gye Do-hyeop warned in a low rumble, “I’ll make you spread your cheeks right by the shoe rack.”

“Have a safe day at work,” Seoul blurted instantly.

The toes that had barely grazed the floor retreated back beneath the duvet. Having learned through intense experience since last night just how humiliating such demands could be, Geum Seoul meekly pulled the covers right up to his neck and lay on his side. Though he had threatened him himself, seeing the youth curl up and pat the duvet neat was utterly comical.

Adjusting his watchband and tucking his sunglasses into the collar of his t-shirt, Gye Do-hyeop kept his gaze fixed on that sleeping face. Unaware that a faint curve touched his lips, he brushed back his hair and turned the knob of the bedroom door. The steady, peaceful rhythm of soft breathing rose behind him, slackening the tension in his hand.

Snap.

Standing before the front door ready for work, Gye Do-hyeop switched off the air circulator. Finding the rapid ventilation faintly disappointing, he furrowed his brow before stepping out into the hall.

He normally loathed having anyone inside his home, but Geum Seoul possessed virtually zero disruptive presence. Liking that quality about him, Gye Do-hyeop pondered what gift to buy for the youth as he exited the building. Come to think of it, the errand fee from before should have been substantial, yet Seoul had said nothing about it. Had he not checked his Crevit balance yet?

Answering over the receiver, Yu Jeong-ham said, —“Yes, Deputy Director.”

“We’re heading back to Geum Seoul’s neighborhood tomorrow, so get ready,” Gye Do-hyeop ordered.

Neither Gye Do-hyeop, who referred to the area as Geum Seoul’s neighborhood instead of its district name, nor Yu Jeong-ham, who listened, found anything strange about the phrasing. Continuing the call, Gye Do-hyeop climbed into the vehicle waiting on the first floor. Though it was an autonomous vehicle, a human driver occupied the front seat due to protocol regarding security and safety. Normally two escorts were required, but Deputy Director Gye, despising ceremonial escorts, insisted on just one.

On his first day of reassignment, eager subordinates had attempted to boost their new chief’s prestige by deploying two escort vehicles and five suited men, only for Gye Do-hyeop to flick ash from his cigarette and brawl with them, snarling whether they thought they were street gangsters and threatening to grind their inflated egos into dust with around-the-clock grunt work. Naturally, no one dared mention that his own conduct was far more gangster-like. In the end, he permitted only a single backup driver to switch immediately to manual control in case of cyber hijacking or ambush.

Yu Jeong-ham paused in genuine bewilderment. —“Pardon? Why are we going back there?”

“What,” Gye Do-hyeop snapped back, “you really want a fucking debriefing from me?”

—“No, sir…” Jeong-ham answered hastily.

Gye Do-hyeop cut straight to the point. “Have the guy who searched the shower room when we seized the ledgers report to my office.”

Yu Jeong-ham affirmed the order, but the line was already dead. It was a recurring thought, but his superior’s personality—acting annoyed whenever questioned, only to curse people out afterward—was truly something to behold. Yet despite withholding explanations, Gye Do-hyeop took personal responsibility for resolving every crisis, leaving little room for complaint. Yu Jeong-ham had surrendered his soul to his superior’s razor-sharp competence long ago.

The same held true for most counter-terrorism team members who had transferred alongside Deputy Director Gye to the NSSA. Rounding up suspects who treated the nation like kindling required sharp instincts alongside intellect. As living conditions degraded and ideological friction deepened, terror scenes rife with tangled interests became extraordinarily lethal. In that grinder, counter-terrorism operatives under the Security Command had perished without ever seeing their names recorded in the news.

That was how things had been before his arrival. Gye Do-hyeop had been a special external recruit scouted by the then-Director of Security; the cold friction from seniors who obsessed over seniority vanished within exactly one week. It was the day a bomb threat targeted the central government complex.

While staff evacuated to bunkers and counter-terrorism squads mobilized in orderly panic, Gye Do-hyeop strode into the control room alone, scanning employee rosters and days of surveillance footage. Within seventeen minutes, he pinpointed the intruder’s route and located the installed explosives. Furthermore, he single-handedly identified the suspect network among the crowds entering the building—when the facility housed 180 on-duty personnel and the homemade bombs numbered twenty-four. It was an insane debut.

‘Filter out the security staff absent today, then identify individuals who repeatedly entered exclusively on that bastard’s shift. Next, correlate blind spots with blueprints to check air ducts accessible to someone of that build within the visit timeframe. Is this difficult?’

Having delivered the dry explanation, his arrogant face clearly projected disbelief that dozens of officers had run around like headless chickens over something so obvious, earning universal resentment. While an emergency briefing might have reached similar deductions eventually, stepping into the control center amid a ticking bomb crisis and mapping the red holographic trajectory single-handedly was nothing short of miraculous.

When asked how he knew the explosives wouldn’t detonate immediately, he replied that he had deduced it from the modulated voice on the warning call; when pressed further, he simply shrugged that he could tell from the breathing and atmosphere, driving an exasperated senior officer to shout in fury, ‘What the fuck does that even mean!’

From then on, Gye Do-hyeop saved numerous lives, beyond the countless civilians pulled from terror crises. With unassailable logic and swift reflexes, he rescued his teammates repeatedly. Furthermore, his uncanny talent for manipulating terrorists with unnervingly smooth diplomacy allowed him to eradicate the most vicious insurgent cell through internal discord he deliberately sowed.

Ultimately, the reason Yu Jeong-ham and the current team obeyed Gye Do-hyeop unconditionally—beyond the dozens of lives they owed him—was that following him maximized their survival. Sticking by his side and doing as told guaranteed returning alive from any ambush or terror zone. In an agency where dying without leaving an intact corpse was routine, that was the greatest trust a superior could offer his subordinates.

Although the Security Command was dismantled during restructuring after Gye Do-hyeop was drafted into the NSSA, the fact that its core duties were fully absorbed into the new agency served as another testament to his commanding stature.

Apart from his intellect and striking appearance, he was a man thoroughly crooked in almost every respect. Consequently, Yu Jeong-ham required some time to process the bizarre development unfolding before his eyes.

‘They slept together. They definitely did.’

Early the following morning, the conviction hardened. Observing Geum Seoul seated in Gye Do-hyeop’s living room, Yu Jeong-ham was positive. Gye Do-hyeop’s pheromones clung thick and heavy around the youth. How thoroughly had he drenched someone whose natural scent was already faint? Walking into the apartment, one could smell nothing but Gye Do-hyeop’s scent. Searching his pockets instinctively for scent neutralizer, Jeong-ham hesitated; if this was his superior’s deliberate doing, erasing it without permission was out of the question.

The plan today was an early excursion to Geum Seoul’s former neighborhood. Having summoned the operatives who previously searched the building per the Deputy Director’s orders, Gye Do-hyeop had scheduled the trip the moment he finished questioning them. Though a plausible official pretext was offered to Noh Pil-gyu, the covert nature of the mission limited the team to three people: Geum Seoul, Yu Jeong-ham, and Deputy Director Gye.

“I heard you already know the Deputy Director’s name and department,” Yu Jeong-ham said pleasantly. “I’m Yu Jeong-ham. My introduction is a bit late, isn’t it? My apologies; our work is rather sensitive.”

“Not at all. I understand,” Seoul replied, waving his hands in polite haste.

Having heard the name previously, he decided not to mention it.

Yu Jeong-ham explained, “The two of us will travel together today, while the Deputy Director moves separately.”

Exhaling a quiet breath, Jeong-ham kept his misgivings to himself. While Deputy Director Gye’s judgments had never failed, situations like this were nerve-racking. If Geum Seoul were captured by Gwak Chun-young’s faction later and divulged their identities, the consequences would be catastrophic. Eliminating him beforehand seemed by far the safest option.

Offering a shopping bag, Yu Jeong-ham gestured toward it. “Ah, would you open this?”

The movement of Seoul’s slender hand reaching inside was quiet and reserved.