Chapter 9

Tsk.

One would have expected Geum Seoul to disappear into his room now that the laundry was safe. Instead, he stood motionless, dripping onto the floorboards. The stillness drew Gwichang’s eyes back to him, and their gazes met.

Seoul remained frozen. “…”

Beneath the bangs swept aside by rainwater, his eyes were clearly revealed: delicate double eyelids that tapered narrowly at the inner corners before slightly fanning outward, framed by long lashes. Gwichang’s brow twitched imperceptibly.

“Ah. Just a moment,” Seoul mumbled, blinking in surprise.

As though a thought had suddenly struck him, Geum Seoul rolled his hazel eyes and waddled off. Squish, squelch. His waterlogged sneakers carried him toward the room at the very end of the corridor—the only doorway without paint, nothing more than cheap plywood.

No, it could hardly be called a room. Unlike the quarters lining the hall, it had none of the basic shape of a living space. It was a cramped storage nook tucked beneath the staircase to the rooftop, too small for a grown person to stretch out their legs. Geum Seoul slipped inside as if it were perfectly ordinary. He lowered the dripping laundry onto a thin but neatly arranged mattress, then pulled the cord of a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling.

“Here. Take this. It’s clean,” Seoul offered, holding out a dry towel.

Next he took a towel from a nail driven into the wall at eye level and held it out. Even with rainwater stinging his eyes and running from his own hair, he offered away the only towel in his room first.

The towel was obviously clean, carrying the soft scent of fresh detergent. In a building where the rain dragged every stale, rotten odor from the concrete, Geum Seoul—and that one towel—smelled startlingly fresh.

And it was right at that moment.

Roar.

“Ah.”

Understanding dawned upon Gwichang.

Is this that punk’s pheromone?

The faint scent of forest and green leaves that Gwichang had noticed ever since arriving in the village belonged to Geum Seoul. Because it had been there naturally from the moment he stepped out of the vehicle—and because he had never imagined an omega could smell like this—he simply had not recognized it until now.

The scent drifted from Geum Seoul’s tiny room, where not so much as a weed grew: untouched forest, faint but steady, bubbling up like a spring hidden beneath stone. For a moment, the little storage nook felt like an entirely different world sealed inside the mildew-rotted building.

Geum Seoul used the hem of his oversized T-shirt instead of the towel, carefully dabbing rainwater from his brow and lashes. When Gwichang handed the towel back—damp now simply from having been held—the boy hung it on its nail again. Then he gathered the dripping clothes, which had already darkened his blanket, into a plastic hamper and turned briskly away.

Gwichang called after him, “Where are you going now?”

Apparently surprised that Gwichang cared where he was going, Geum Seoul startled and lifted the hamper slightly, as if displaying his answer.

“If I leave it like this, mildew will set in, and I’ll have to wash it three times later,” Seoul explained in earnest.

Meaning he intended to deal with it immediately. After waiting a beat as if expecting a response, Geum Seoul marched away and started down the stairs. Gwichang’s gaze dropped from the back of his neck to the trail of wet footprints marking the floor.

An operative muttered in confusion, “What’s going on?”

On the first floor, the operatives, caught off guard by Geum Seoul’s sudden sprint earlier, had remained on high alert. Though their superior’s hand gesture had barred them from pursuing, watching the runaway return soaking wet while clutching a bulky laundry basket was utterly bewildering.

The rain had made the predawn air even stickier and more oppressive. Geum Seoul glanced around at the line of men awake at such an ungodly hour with round, puzzled eyes, then trotted toward the exit as quietly as he could so as not to disturb them. He seemed completely unaware that he was the reason they were all standing there.

“What are you all gawking at? Are you running an errand or standing around waiting for a pat on the head?” Gwichang barked at his men.

Instead of giving further instructions to the squad, Gwichang summoned Yu Jeong-ham and headed into the office. Catching the nod, the sharp-witted subordinate promptly shut the heavy door behind them.

Click.

“Hey,” Gwichang said, turning to his aide. “Describe Geum Seoul’s scent to me.”

Jeong-ham blinked in shock. ‘Pardon?’

“Am I speaking fucking English right now?” Gwichang snapped, scowling.

At his boss’s scowl—Gwichang hated nothing more than repeating himself—Yu Jeong-ham quickly added, ‘My apologies,’ and searched his memory. He had never noticed any particular fragrance from Geum Seoul. The other omegas upstairs each carried a distinct scent, however faint, but Geum Seoul—

“Isn’t he a recessive, sir?” Jeong-ham ventured carefully. “He has the general feel of an omega, but I honestly couldn’t tell if he carries a distinguishable scent.”

Gwichang waved a dismissive hand. “Yeah, totally fucking useless. Go fetch the syringe.”

“Understood, sir…” the aide murmured, stepping out.

Gwichang watched his subordinate leave, then looked down at his fingertips. If he alone could smell that subtle fragrance, there were two likely explanations: either it was because he was the unit’s only dominant alpha, or because his steadily shortening rut cycle was closing in again. He switched off the rattling circulator, and the office immediately began to bake.

A moment later, Yu Jeong-ham returned carrying a small glass vial and a disposable syringe. Expertly tearing the seal to draw the liquid, he slid the needle into the crook of Gwichang’s arm and depressed the plunger.

“Already, sir?” Jeong-ham asked with furrowed brows. “It hasn’t even been a fortnight.”

“Stop nagging. What’s Geum Seoul up to?” Gwichang muttered.

Having his concern severed so curtly, Yu Jeong-ham pursed his lips and gave an indifferent shrug.

“They report he’s spinning the laundry in the wash house,” Jeong-ham informed him.

Geum Seoul’s earlier explanation was proving entirely true.

Recalling the boy’s parting words, Gwichang muttered, “If I leave it like this, mildew will set in, and I’ll have to wash it three times later.”

When the plunger bottomed out, Gwichang pulled the needle free and tossed it and the empty vial into the trash. He still had unfinished business with the little rat, but the boy’s wild dash upon waking had destroyed the timing.

“Any word on Lee Hee-joong?” Gwichang inquired, rubbing the crook of his arm.

“Still no trace of him anywhere in the perimeter,” Jeong-ham reported, pulling up data. “If he set out on foot alone, we should be able to track him down by tomorrow afternoon.”

Gwichang countered flatly, “He didn’t leave alone. Pull up the locations.”

At the Ghost’s command, Yu Jeong-ham brought out the tablet, displaying an expansive map of the surrounding terrain where green pins glowed along various paths.

“This sector isn’t covered yet?” Gwichang questioned, pointing at a blind spot.

His finger had landed on a decommissioned military compound. The layout made cameras and sensors difficult to mount, so operatives had to install them by hand; for now, the marker still glowed red.

“We needed time to divert attention over clearance issues. It should be completed by tomorrow, but until then, I’ve assigned patrols and lookout posts.”

Gwichang sneered, glaring at the delay. “Why not just finish it next year while you’re at it?”

“Y-yes, sir… We’re moving as fast as we can…” Jeong-ham stammered.

“The moment he’s spotted, snap his toes first,” Gwichang instructed coldly. “Make sure he can’t run.”

“Understood,” Jeong-ham answered.

Gwichang dragged a finger east across the screen. Abandoned shantytowns dotted the area—settlements where people had clustered decades earlier, now hollowed out and occupied by unregistered paupers. Leaving the district entirely would trigger the monitoring hubs, but he wanted Lee Hee-joong caught as quickly as possible. His eyes moved across the grid. Fuck. Crawling into a godforsaken hole with zero cameras.

“He’s already slipped away,” Gwichang muttered, examining the perimeter. “Scrape every frame captured here and audit them.”

“Yes, sir,” Jeong-ham replied.

“Report even the slightest anomaly,” Gwichang warned darkly. “If you miss something, you’ll be the first one tossed into an interrogation cell.”

“Understood, sir… I’ll have three sets of eyes review it,” Jeong-ham promised hastily.

The ledger Lee Hee-joong carried mattered above everything else; it had to be recovered at any cost. Now that they finally had a lead, sitting still was not an option. Noh Pil-gyu was snapping greedily after power, and Gwak Chun-young had been feeding that appetite increasingly dangerous bait. Whatever loot that foolish bastard had swallowed needed to become the pyre that burned him down.

Gwichang asked coldly, “What about Gwak Chun-young?”

“He’s en route back from the Philippines right now,” Jeong-ham stated.

The inauguration of the new administration had inevitably triggered backlash as corrupt remnants were purged. Those holdovers belonged to the ‘Node faction’—operatives tied to the failed previous regime. Their figureheads were awaiting trial or locked in detention centers, but lately the organization had begun knitting itself back together underground: smaller, angrier, and far more meticulous than before.

Lately, Gwak Chun-young had begun sniffing around to embed himself within Node. That bastard, trotting across borders to procure black-market weaponry, needed to be handcuffed and thrown behind bars, yet Gwichang’s immediate superior was acting as a massive shield instead of offering assistance.

The exhaustion of the past year could be laid almost entirely at Noh Pil-gyu’s feet. Doing double duty while constantly dodging the scrutiny of his own superior had left Gwichang wishing he had ten bodies to spend.

Gwichang called out calmly, “And confirm whether the weapons are actually reaching Node.”

“Understood, sir.”

Even after the new regime thinned Node’s core, Gwak Chun-young changed the equation. Give weapons to failures steeped in persecution fantasies and what might have remained a coup could become outright terror. Even after recovering the ledger, burying Gwak Chun-young had to come before Noh Pil-gyu. Where do I start with this bastard—and how? Gwichang kept his eyes on the map and turned the problem over in his head.

Knock, knock. Seoul stopped in his tracks, turning his head.

“Yes?” Yu Jeong-ham answered through the door. Expecting it would only be an operative at this hour, the hesitant voice that drifted back proved his assumption completely wrong.

“Um… it’s Geum Seoul,” came the hesitant voice through the door.