Chapter 140

Seoul reached up and stroked Do-hyeop’s cheek. A large hand immediately covered his, and Do-hyeop kissed his palm.

“I hope Haedam takes after me only a little and resembles you a lot, Director.”

“Why the hell would you say something so foul?”

At Do-hyeop’s stern scowl, Seoul tilted his head back slightly.

“He’d resemble the person I love most, so why do you put it like that?”

“No, what I mean is…”

“He held on so bravely because he took after your toughness. You don’t know anything.”

Nonsense. Do-hyeop laughed despite himself. Seoul was technically scolding him, yet nothing about it felt like a scolding. Another strange talent. He nipped Seoul’s cheek, and Seoul settled back against his chest.

“You’re returning to work the day after tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah. Staff will be stationed at the hospital constantly, and I’ll come straight here the second I clock out.”

“Okay.”

Do-hyeop had not gone into the office once since Seoul’s admission, so it truly had been an unusually long leave. Seoul yawned in the middle of his nod, and Do-hyeop took the monitor from his hands and set it aside.

He turned Seoul carefully until they faced one another. Seoul immediately folded against his chest, cheek resting on his broad shoulder as sleep reclaimed him. To Do-hyeop, Seoul himself looked almost newborn. He kissed the crown of his head and patted his back until the younger man burrowed closer. Affection foamed warm and light beneath his ribs.

“Wake me when Haedam wakes up too.”

“I knew waking up at dawn was asking for trouble.”

Laughter softened Do-hyeop’s voice. Seoul had bustled around before dawn like someone leaving on an exciting trip and spent the rest of the day paying for it in yawns and naps. Do-hyeop stroked his back over and over, exactly as Seoul had done for the baby.

With Seoul’s face buried in his chest, Do-hyeop kissed whatever he could reach—forehead, temple, hair. If his recovery continued like this, they would probably be discharged within a few days.

He opened Seoul’s gently curled hand and threaded their fingers together. The fingertips that had once been split by thick calluses were soft now, without a single cracked line.

Do-hyeop kissed each finger as it relaxed beneath his touch. It felt like proof that all the care he had poured into Seoul had taken root. He had just begun nibbling lightly at a knuckle when his brow tightened.

Whoosh.

“……”

A sudden surge of Seoul’s pheromones rolled through the room. It was nowhere near a heat cycle, yet the spike was abrupt enough to make Do-hyeop instantly alert.

To a man starved of Seoul’s scent, the rush was intoxicating. That did not make it safe. Do-hyeop looked down at Seoul sleeping with slow, even breaths and reached immediately for the call control. Seoul shifted, eyes scrunching at the movement, but Do-hyeop did not hesitate. “Get Oh Ga-on up here.”

Beep. Beep.

Oh Ga-on arrived shortly afterward with a masked medical team and began testing at once. Awake by then, Seoul held out an arm for bloodwork while sniffing uncertainly at the air.

They told him his scent had intensified. Seoul could not detect the change clearly himself, but if Do-hyeop—whose senses were far more acute—noticed something unusual, there would be no arguing against an examination.

“Is there… some kind of problem?”

Curled into Do-hyeop’s side, Seoul asked in a whisper. His anxious gaze flicked between the nursery door and the monitor. Oh Ga-on checked the figures on the wheeled diagnostic console, then dismissed the assisting staff. When the door closed behind them, the room went quiet.

“Well… It’s not an alarming issue. As you know, after giving birth, diminished pheromones gradually return over the course of about a year. However, Seoul-ssi’s have returned remarkably quickly. Well, because Seoul-ssi is a rather unique case…”

“Ah, fuck off with the preamble. What does that mean? Cut straight to the point.”

Oh Ga-on scratched one eyebrow at the snapped demand, then gave the answer directly.

“For the time being, you will have to be the primary caregiver for the child, Director.”

Seoul’s eyes widened as he turned sharply toward Do-hyeop. Do-hyeop, equally unprepared for that verdict, stared at Oh Ga-on beneath sharply drawn brows. A strange silence settled over the suite.

***

“So you’re saying all I have to do is shove this into his snout and feed him? What’s so fucking hard about that?”

Hands buried in his pockets, Do-hyeop stood at a crooked angle and argued with the nurse who had spent the last fifteen minutes instructing him. The nurse was beginning to sweat, mostly because of Do-hyeop’s vocabulary.

“Uh, that is to say, you must carefully monitor his condition. After feeding him formula, you must hold him like this…”

The nurse demonstrated on a tiny training doll, patting its back as carefully as if it were alive.

The tests confirmed what Do-hyeop had sensed: Seoul’s pheromones were fluctuating sharply. In infants born with manifested traits, parental pheromones could influence trait maturation for roughly the first three months. Until Seoul’s levels stabilized, he could hold the baby only when monitoring confirmed it was safe.

‘What about the caregivers who were supposed to come to the house later?’

Although Oh Ga-on named Do-hyeop the primary caregiver, Seoul’s first reaction was to reject the idea and summon the babysitters early. Full-time caregivers made more sense than calling hospital staff every time his pheromones spiked. Do-hyeop initially agreed; he wanted to remain beside Seoul, so someone else could handle the baby. Then he saw Seoul’s face.

Seoul looked stricken with guilt. None of this was his fault, yet having to hand the baby back to strangers after holding him only once had left him drowning in anxiety and self-blame.

‘……’

‘Uh, should I contact them first to check their availability?’

Seoul worried at his lower lip as he spoke, cheeks faintly flushed. He was holding emotion down by force and trying to replace it with logistics. Do-hyeop could not stand the sight. He had not spent all this time cherishing Seoul just to let him wear an expression like that.

‘Forget it, damn it. I’ll do it.’

‘…Pardon?’

‘I said I’ll do it.’

Do-hyeop spat the decision like an annoyance. He had hired long-term help only to relieve Seoul’s anxiety. In practice, a newborn required three basic things: food, sleep, and clean diapers. Handle those on time and the rest could be learned. With hands trapped in mittens too small for Do-hyeop’s thumb, the kid was not exactly going to draw a gun or knife and create tactical complications.

‘But… you hate bloodlines and children, Director.’

‘What does that have to do with anything? I’m doing it because I love you.’

At that blunt answer, Seoul bit his lip again before finally nodding. From the moment he decided to carry the child, he had promised himself he would never force a burden onto Do-hyeop. But with an unexpected problem arriving this early, he had no room left to overthink it.

And so, while Seoul worked with Oh Ga-on to stabilize his pheromones, Do-hyeop became the baby’s primary caregiver. Seoul had spent months preparing for parenthood through manuals and instructional videos only to be temporarily sidelined, while Do-hyeop—who had spent those same months kissing Seoul and largely ignoring the fetus—was abruptly sent onto the field.

Rustle.

The nurse handed him the training doll. Do-hyeop instinctively caught it by the ankles. It dangled upside down. Somewhere nearby, someone gasped aloud.

Do-hyeop looked sideways. Through the observation glass, Seoul stared in horror like a visitor at a prison window. Sighing, Do-hyeop hauled the doll upright against his chest and patted its back as demonstrated. Raising something that could not even digest on its own seemed offensively inconvenient.

“…Very well done. Now I will hand you Haedam. Try holding him. Absolutely, under no circumstances, hold him upside down.”

“Do you take me for an idiot?”

The child was no longer being called by his prenatal nickname. Every label had already been changed from Taeyang to Geum Hae-dam, and the staff had adopted Haedam-ie as naturally as though they had used it from the beginning.

The nurse went to the crib, lifted the freshly changed baby—awake now—and carried him toward Do-hyeop.

Do-hyeop had never held an infant. He had never had reason to, and certainly never wanted to.

“Here, please support his head carefully.”

He shot the nurse an irritated look for repeating herself, then received the baby into his arms.

He knew the child was small. Premature, newly out of an incubator—of course he was small. But still.

“……”

Isn’t this too fucking small? Do-hyeop’s brow twitched as he stared at the almost weightless infant in his arms.

The baby had looked small against Seoul. In Do-hyeop’s hands he looked breakable. Shouldn’t they put him back in the incubator and let him cook for another six months? Something about this seemed medically irresponsible.

“I’ll undo this mitten. You may offer the bottle now.”

The nurse untied the round mitten from one tiny hand. Do-hyeop’s dark gaze dropped to the soft, chubby fingers. He brought the warm bottle to Haedam’s mouth, eased the nipple against his lips as instructed, and the baby latched without opening his eyes.

Slurp.

Soft suckling followed—proof, apparently, that this impossibly small thing was alive. Do-hyeop gave an involuntary chuckle; the lips looked like Seoul’s. He was just about to ask whether he should loosen his hold, whether he might be gripping too tightly—

Grip.

His gaze snapped downward.

The milk-scented brat had curled one hand around Do-hyeop’s finger where it steadied the bottle. The tiny palm and absurdly miniature nails could not even close fully around his pinky.

“……”

Nothing he had ever touched was this soft. Do-hyeop’s gaze moved from the hand to the pale little face.

Only then did he examine the features properly. Long lashes lay against closed lids. Fine downy hair, dark in color, covered the small head.

Do-hyeop swallowed. Apart from that dark hair, every feature looked like Seoul.

The neat curve of the nose, the tidy brows he could have kissed forever—Seoul, reduced to miniature.

Did babies normally resemble their parents this much? Do-hyeop stared with almost investigative intensity. Even the lids, slightly fuller toward the outer corners, looked so much like Seoul’s that grave astonishment settled over his face.

“My goodness, he’s opening his eyes. He must know you’re his father.”

As though aware of the scrutiny, the drowsing baby began to blink. A tiny grimace crossed his face as his eyes slowly opened.

“……”

The infant’s skin was so delicate that faint capillaries showed beneath his cheeks. His eyes were a clear hazel-amber—the exact color of Seoul’s. Even beneath the room’s dim indirect lighting, Do-hyeop knew immediately where they came from.

The name suited him after all.

A child born from Seoul carried sunlight in his eyes.

“Oong…”

Oblivious to the fact that he was being held by a man who had hated the very idea of blood ties, Haedam made a small sound in his throat and continued swallowing milk.

Only then did Do-hyeop notice something else. The dark hair—that part was his.