Chapter 95

Tap. Tap.

Gye Do-hyeop rolled a fountain pen in one hand, his gaze fixed on the monitor before him. It was surveillance camera footage that had captured the headquarters corridors over the past month. Scrubbing the timeline back and forth, Gye Do-hyeop tracked Geum Seoul’s movements.

At some point, Geum Seoul had begun stopping by the cafeteria slightly earlier than lunchtime. Passing over the boxed meals prepared for staff going out on field assignments, he would take two apples or two bananas, slip them into a small bag, and leave.

His destination was the archives. Holed up in there, he would read a book, nibble on a banana, or simply lie facedown on a desk to pass the hours.

Now and then, he would quietly rise while working in the office and dash to the restroom, or step off the elevator after hours only to bolt toward the staff quarters. Every single time, he had been covering his mouth.

On the day before Do-hyeop’s return, Geum Seoul had stopped by a pharmacy. He had taken the outdoor path. Lifting his arms into the air and tilting his head back, he had looked as though he were bathing in the pouring sunlight.

Gye Do-hyeop froze the footage on that frame and stared at the face in silence before zooming in another step. Under sunlight, Geum Seoul’s hair was much lighter than it ever looked indoors, almost blond, as though it had swallowed the yellow light whole. Do-hyeop wanted to see the color of his eyes too, but the resolution broke down before he could magnify the image that far.

“……”

Something struck him out of nowhere, and he rewound the footage a little further.

On the day of his return, Geum Seoul had stepped into the deputy director’s office with him, then emerged alone and bolted down the corridor.

‘I love you.’

That had been the moment. What kind of feelings had he harbored when making that half-choked confession? His Adam’s apple bobbed as though he were forcing down something barbed with thorns. The sharp, rigid nib of the fountain pen dug hard into Gye Do-hyeop’s thumb.

‘I… I waited for you, Deputy Director.’

With what heart had he spoken those words?

‘It’s a relief your body can’t get pregnant.’

Geum Seoul, who gave himself so completely to him. Everything Do-hyeop had failed to notice while drunk on adrenaline. In that brief span when he had wanted nothing but to bury his face in that scent, intoxicated by pheromones he had gone weeks without, what cold, careless words had he used to rip open a heart already worn thin?

On the screen, Geum Seoul ducked into a corner out of sight from the deputy director’s office and clapped a hand over his mouth. Huddling his already petite frame, he had pressed his hand against the wall with all his might, doing everything in his power to erase his own presence.

Sometimes he had thought it might be nice if Geum Seoul became pregnant. He had imagined the soft-hearted, upright boy carrying his seed, bearing his child, growing old beside him, and dying there in the end—bound so tightly he could never truly slip away. Do-hyeop had wanted to brand him with an indelible weakness, some permanent mark that would make leaving impossible.

Yet now that the wish had actually come true, there was not a shred of satisfaction in it. Do-hyeop covered his eyes with one hand and pressed hard into his temples. A vicious headache surged, tempting him to bite down on a cheroot and drown the room in smoke that very second. Instead he clenched his molars and endured, the pain drilling into his skull like needles driven straight through the brain.

Prick.

At last, accompanying a cold sensation, the pen nib pierced right through the flesh of his thumb’s distal joint. Dark crimson blood trickled down the barrel of the pen.

‘I love you.’

‘It’s a relief your body can’t get pregnant.’

That day, before setting out to meet Noh Pil-gyu, what he had wrapped around himself like a talisman was Geum Seoul’s tender confession. Yet all he had given back was a coat bristling with needles. Shrouded in it from head to foot, Geum Seoul had choked back his breath all alone in the hallway.

He turned his head. The curtains over the window behind the bed were drawn completely shut. Sleeping, Geum Seoul’s hair was the same ash-brown he had always known, not the golden shimmer that caught the sunlight. Gye Do-hyeop’s gaze lingered long over Geum Seoul’s eyebrows, his hair, his lips.

Thin saliva pooled beneath his tongue. Nausea. Gye Do-hyeop realized he had taken some tremendous shock to his system.

Geum Seoul was nothing like him. Down to the seed, down to the innermost grain of him, he had been made from another mold. Everything Seoul offered felt righteous and warm—white as a flower petal held to the sun. Everything Do-hyeop carried felt foul and black, a cactus armored in thorns, cold and blue as a corpse. Watching Seoul’s reactions, choosing his words, swallowing curses, forcing himself to be gentle—none of it changed what he was. Through and through, he remained Gye Gyeong-mu’s grandson.

“Ah.”

Gye Do-hyeop chewed over and over the sensation, sharp as a razor blade slicing and carving into flesh. Like a man born numb to pain trying to burn his very first agony into memory, he ground the pen nib harder and harder into his thumb, already split and seeped with ink. Even as dark crimson blood smeared with black ink across his palm, Gye Do-hyeop kept bearing down.

Truth be told, he wanted to ram the fountain pen into his own temple. If that was what it took, he wanted to gouge out the crude, violent cells coursing through his blood and burn them to ash. He found his own fucking nature revolting—holding something so lovely in his arms, only to end up tearing into it in the end.

He hated seeing the kid curl up. Watching Geum Seoul ball himself up even on a wide bed, he had resolved that one day he would coax him to stretch out and sleep comfortably on his back. Yet none other than he had forced the boy into that defensive huddle.

Gye Do-hyeop knew better than anyone just how lovely Geum Seoul was. He was the one who had found him. He intended to tuck the boy under his wing and cherish him until the day he died. Letting that innocent, gentle spirit flourish while keeping anything foul from his eyes, he wanted to see that quiet smile the boy had shown him once before.

Falling for Geum Seoul was easy. It was closer to a law of nature, a certainty like gravity that anyone would swear by. And Geum Seoul liked him—none other than him.

Because he had been the first to spot the dust-caked uncut gem? Because he happened to wield the power to drag him out of the gutter? Gye Do-hyeop, a man who believed in strict cause and effect, had yet to find a clear reason for the feelings Geum Seoul laid bare before him.

Even if all this was sheer, miraculous luck, Gye Do-hyeop had no intention of releasing what he held. Under no circumstances would he allow Geum Seoul to leave over wounds he had inflicted. He had no desire to be the kind of pathetic bastard who only learned regret after letting his prize slip through his fingers.

As if determined never to forget, the man stared unblinkingly at Geum Seoul suffering in the paused video. Willingly swallowing self-loathing like poison, he choked down the sensations scraping through his brain and spine, accompanied by the persistent rise of acidic nausea.

Only after biting down again and again on the tongue he wanted to carve out did Gye Do-hyeop look back toward the small body breathing softly in sleep. He wanted to touch him, but his own filthy hands felt unworthy of it. Even without the mess of ink and blood, they had always been foul hands—hands that had handled Geum Seoul carelessly, born of rotten blood and sharpened by an ugly temper. While Do-hyeop chewed on that self-disgust, the pen nib sank deeper into his thumb, feeding the ache. Still, he touched nothing. He traced Seoul’s curled form with his eyes alone. The first true guilt of his life carved its mark inside and out, a lesson delivered by someone nine years younger.

Rustle.

When Geum Seoul opened his eyes, still curled in a ball, the bedroom was quiet. Wiggling his fingers, he found the needle taped to the back of his hand had been removed. Where’s the Deputy Director?

“How’s your stomach?”

The voice came from right beside him. Leaning against the headboard, Gye Do-hyeop was staring at a monitor. Switching off the screen and taking off his glasses, he extended an arm to hand over a water bottle while supporting the boy’s back. Geum Seoul pushed himself upright.

“…I’m fine. How long did I sleep?”

“Four hours. It’s still early, so go back to sleep.”

True to his words, the room remained dark, but a faint blue dawn was filtering in from outside. Only then did Geum Seoul realize the bedroom curtains had been drawn open by about a handspan.

Beyond those curtains lay the agency courtyard. When the Deputy Director was away, Geum Seoul liked the sunlight streaming in and kept them half-drawn, but from the day the man was set to return, he had kept them tightly closed. That meant Gye Do-hyeop had opened them. Geum Seoul took a sip or two of water. Noticing the water level had barely budged since breaking the seal, Gye Do-hyeop pressed the bottle to his lips again. Understanding the command to drink more, Geum Seoul silently swallowed a few more mouthfuls. Only when he met the man’s standards was the bottle set aside.

Leaning back down onto the bed, Geum Seoul quietly gazed at him.

It was strange. After all that terror and dread, when the moment finally arrived, Seoul was not frightened at all. The Deputy Director hated family and despised bloodlines. Seoul had always assumed that meant he would naturally hate a child too—that the instant he learned of the pregnancy, he would cast Seoul away without hesitation.

The man still said nothing. He simply sat there looking down at him, fingers gently parting the messy bangs on his forehead. Even beneath that impassive expression, he was astonishingly tender.

His heart fluttered incessantly—not with terror, but with a quiet thrill. He won’t throw me away just because I’m carrying his child. Even without having exchanged a proper word, Geum Seoul could tell. The curtains that had never once been drawn open in all the time they had spent together now parted by a handspan, letting in the cool breath of dawn. The moment he saw that gap, hope overtook his dread and crushed it beneath its weight.

“It’s your baby, Deputy Director.”

The words came out slightly cracked. There was little need to state the obvious with a doctor having already come and gone, yet he felt compelled to say it anyway. It was a line he had rehearsed so many times in his head.

The air seemed washed in blue, even the scent of the room tinted indigo. Above the bed, where only quiet breathing stirred, Gye Do-hyeop kept his gaze fixed on Geum Seoul’s face from the instant the boy opened his eyes. Not once did he look away.

“Do you even need to say that?”

Even as he muttered those quiet words, his gaze never wavered. When Gye Do-hyeop brushed his forehead once more, stroking his hair and letting out the faintest chuckle, Geum Seoul released a languid sigh.