Chapter 14

Bunhong’s old words drifted back to him. Geum Seoul swallowed, wiped a bead of water from his damp hair where it had slid down his neck, and rested his cheek against his drawn-up knees.

‘This was on the boss’s orders too, so change into something comfortable and get some rest.’

This time, Yu Jeong-ham’s voice resonated in his memory. He had said the man personally gave those instructions. In other words, he was to rest comfortably here today and ride back up with them tomorrow.

His mouth went dry again. The image of Gwichang standing beneath the rooftop with both arms raised returned to him. With that height and those broad shoulders, the chest Geum Seoul had fallen against had felt enormous and immovable.

‘Come down.’

Why had that made him feel so safe? Other than his mother, no one had ever held him before. Not once. Perhaps because he was curled into himself now, warmth slowly climbed from the back of his neck into his cheeks. The fruity sweetness of the soap still lingered over his skin.

Then he remembered another scent—the one he had caught for only a moment against Gwichang’s chest. Something like dried flowers, perhaps, and yet heavier. The contact had been too brief to name it properly, but the fragrance had tingled across the bridge of his nose. *How could a person smell like that?* Geum Seoul buried his face against his knees and closed his eyes. It was nothing like the scent that had first woken him, but it was just as mesmerizing. Slowly, his eyelids grew heavy.

Tap.

Snap.

His eyes flew open. It had unquestionably been broad daylight when he showered and sat down, but the feeling of the room had changed. Heavy curtains covered the windows so completely that he could not judge the hour.

“My neck hurts…”

Sleeping curled into such a tight ball had left his neck stiff, but the pain mattered less than the faint rustling outside the door. *He said… no one was supposed to come.*

‘Though we’re fresh out of food and water here, so I’ll leave some outside the door later.’

Ah. Yu Jeong-ham’s parting words returned to him, and the tension eased from his shoulders. He still did not know whether helping them once entitled him to this much kindness, but his throat was burning dry. That need finally made him move.

“Would it be all right if I just grabbed the water…?”

He could do without food. Water was different. His throat was so dry that even swallowing felt as though the inside of his esophagus were sticking to itself.

Rustle.

Geum Seoul rose from the sofa and crept toward the front entrance. *Click.* A ceiling sensor flared to life, making him look up before he took another barefoot step. The long horizontal door handle came into view. He pressed it down with exquisite care. A sharp chirp sounded as the latch released. All he meant to do was open the door a handspan, take the water, and close it again without a sound.

Creak.

“Huh?” Seoul blurted softly.

He did not even get one foot past the threshold. A towering figure stood a single pace away, one hand already extended toward the handle. Gwichang looked down at him, and Geum Seoul disappeared beneath the reach of his shadow all over again.

“…”

Geum Seoul went rigid, his eyes widening into circles. Finding anyone outside when he expected an empty hall would have been startling. Finding *this* man there emptied his mind entirely.

He stared. Gwichang’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, then traveled from Geum Seoul’s bare forehead to his eyes, nose, lips, and chin. Only then did the realization strike: his real face was completely exposed.

Seoul recoiled in sheer panic. “Ah—shit!”

*I’m caught.* Geum Seoul gasped, clapped both hands over his mouth, and stumbled backward. His feet tangled beneath him. As his balance tipped, cold fear shot through his spine.

Grab.

Gwichang crossed the distance in an instant, caught Geum Seoul by the forearm, and hauled him forward. Instead of crashing onto his tailbone, Geum Seoul pitched into the broad plane of the man’s chest. The bitter fragrance of dried leaves flooded his senses.

“Ah.”

His head spun—not from the collision, and not from the black shirt filling his vision, but from the dizzying absurdity of the encounter. His throat felt sealed shut again. Slowly, uncertainly, his gaze crawled upward.

Looking down at him, Gwichang asked, “What, did you come out to grab this?”

Gwichang ignored his panic and went straight to the point. Only then did Geum Seoul notice the white plastic bag in the man’s other hand. He hurriedly peeled himself away, taking a flustered step back before offering a belated apology.

“Yes… I’m sorry,” Seoul stammered, his cheeks burning.

“Right. Sorry again, as usual.”

Geum Seoul stole a look upward. Gwichang’s eyes were fixed somewhere around the exposed line of his neck. *Thump-thump.* His heart battered his ribs. He rubbed a hand over the heat in his skin and hurried to clear the entryway.

The hallway was narrow and Gwichang was much too large for it, forcing Geum Seoul to retreat almost backward. Each time they passed beneath a ceiling light, shadow slid over the man’s sharply cut features and vanished again in white glare.

What is happening? What is this?

Gwichang kept advancing in long strides. Geum Seoul backed all the way into the living room despite never intending to let him inside, then sidestepped with his face burning. The plastic bag landed on the dining table with a crisp rustle.

“Eat,” Gwichang instructed, unbagging the meal. “You haven’t eaten a bite all day, have you?”

Seoul remained in dazed silence. “…”

His heart seemed to pound all the way into his skull. The low voice barely registered. Geum Seoul kept his back turned and pressed both hands hard over his chest.

“Drink some water, at least.”

“…”

“Yeah, keep chewing my words up. Decided to outright ignore me now, have you?”

If he opened his mouth, he felt as though something vital—heart or brain, he was not sure which—might come spilling out. Still, he could hardly ignore the man for a third time. With his thoughts in chaos, he forced out an excuse.

“Um… my face… I…”

“I know,” Gwichang said flatly.

“Pardon?”

The curt answer made Geum Seoul whip his head around. For a fraction of a second, Gwichang’s gaze—somewhere near his calves or thighs—snapped up to meet his.

“I said I know. That it was fake.”

“You… knew?” Seoul asked softly.

The tension abruptly melted from the fists clutching his chest. He knew. He actually knew. But how? Was it that obvious? Yet none of the locals in the neighborhood ever realized it. I put it on so diligently every single day, at dawn and in the morning. As confusion of an entirely different sort washed over the boy’s face, Gwichang pulled a long, thick foil-wrapped roll from the plastic bag and placed it onto the kitchen island.

“It’s because it’s me,” Gwichang said. “Your neighborhood folks, other bastards—none of them can tell. It’s fucking obvious.”

The words might have sounded a touch arrogant, yet they oddly put him at ease, and he nodded. Ah. This man was police. That was how he knew. Scrape. In the meantime, Gwichang had pulled out a chair and tipped his chin: sit. Like a wary cat, Geum Seoul tilted his head a few times, then approached in small steps and sat down.

Having waited through that hesitation with uncharacteristic patience, Gwichang twisted the cap off a water bottle with a sharp crack and set it down beside him. Stealing a quick glance, Geum Seoul picked up the bottle with both hands and pressed his rounded lips against the rim.

Gwichang watched him silently. “…”

Those pitch-black eyes fixed unwaveringly upon Geum Seoul’s rosy lips.

He had recognized it as an elaborate disguise from the very beginning, yet he had never been curious about the true face underneath. Plenty of people in this world sought to conceal their features, especially among the countless criminals of every background he had hunted down over the years. Wigs were a given, prosthetics altering teeth or nose bridges like Geum Seoul’s were commonplace, and lately, earpieces or glasses utilizing holographic modulation to alter eye shapes by the hour were widely in circulation.

Even looking at such subjects, Gwichang could roughly deduce their natural visage. Short of donning a seamless prosthetic mask, modifying basic bone structure was impossible, and disguises designed merely to evade recognition rarely offered any genuine surprises once stripped away.

Gulp. Gulp.

Whether his throat was simply parched, Gwichang’s gaze stayed fixed on the wan neck that would not leave the water bottle, swallowing gulp after gulp.

He had naturally expected a beauty. It began with the eyes—glimpsed whenever the boy pushed his hair back, or when it clumped together wet—and he had guessed the crooked nose disguise existed because of a high, straight bridge; even the protruding front teeth and the plump pink-tinged lips he had counted as part of that picture.

“…”

And yet.

He had never anticipated the boy would look stunning enough to liquefy a person’s prefrontal cortex. Stripped of all that filth, Geum Seoul transcended every estimate. It was as if his disguise had never been meant to dodge recognition, but rather designed with the singular purpose of butchering his natural features beyond all measure. Something scratched restlessly beneath Gwichang’s skin. His brows furrowed slightly before smoothing flat. In any case, Geum Seoul was no recessive omega. If a face like this paired with that pheromone counted as recessive, every other omega in existence would have gone extinct long ago. He was dead certain of it.

Blink.

Having swallowed several gulps of water, his senses seemed to steady somewhat. Shaking off the panic, Geum Seoul gazed quietly at the foil package resting before him. Along his pale neck, where faint chafed blemishes remained, his throat bobbed halfway and sank back down.

“Holding an ancestral rite?” Gwichang drawled with a dry scoff. “Three or four spirits could have devoured their fill and attained nirvana by now.”

Assuming the boy was waiting for permission, Gwichang spoke up dryly. As though attempting to decipher the bizarre metaphor, Geum Seoul blinked lashes that shared the exact chestnut hue of his hair, then pinched his thumb and forefinger like pincers to gingerly peel back the crumpled foil.

“It’s kimbap.”

Parting his rose-tinted lips, a soft gasp escaped him. It was merely two plain rolls of kimbap resting side by side. Since there was no proper diner anywhere near the neighborhood and he had seen no reason to drive into the city, Gwichang had simply grabbed leftovers from the squad’s rations. Stuffed only with standard fillings without a single gourmet ingredient, it was utterly ordinary fare, yet Geum Seoul stared with parted lips as though beholding an opulent feast.

Even so, there was no sign of him actually eating, prompting Gwichang to tear open a pair of disposable chopsticks from the bag. Setting them down beside the boy, he received yet another timid ‘Thank you.’ Yet the boy merely held the wooden utensils without moving.

“What now?” Gwichang asked, raising an amused brow.

Geum Seoul hesitated, whispering, “Could it be…”

Whether seized by fear or embarrassment, the tips of Seoul’s ears flushed faintly pink. Gwichang’s watchful gaze didn’t let even that subtle shift slip past. The brown pupils that had been fixed quietly on the kimbap drifted upward.

“Would you… like to eat together?” Seoul asked timidly.

“…”

It was obvious at a glance that food was a scarce commodity in this town. While savory aromas occasionally wafted from half-finished ruins as though someone were cooking, the smells were rarely appetizing, merely hinting at something being boiled down for an eternity.

The building where Geum Seoul resided was no different. Beside the laundry area—which had a roof overhead but was practically outdoors—sat a crude counter for cooking. Yet it looked as though it hadn’t seen proper use in decades, leaving a couple of portable butane burners as the sole appliances, which the omegas on the second floor seemed to use to whip up whatever they could manage.

Judging by the slender limbs protruding from his t-shirt and shorts, he had clearly never eaten a proper meal in his life, yet before what might be his first feast in ages, he was offering to share. Having no appetite and not the slightest desire to eat, Gwichang merely narrowed one eye before pulling out a chair and sitting down. He was curious what the kid intended to do. Seated at adjacent sides of the four-person table, Geum Seoul hesitated briefly, then reached out with his chopsticks to pinch a tightly packed slice of kimbap.

Slip.