Chapter 31

He felt pleasantly tipsy. His tolerance for alcohol was considerably high, but the easy atmosphere had loosened something inside him, leaving him faintly light-headed.

When Jaeha emerged from the restroom outside the restaurant, he pulled a handkerchief from the inner pocket of his suit jacket and wiped the moisture from his hands. As he did, his steps gradually slowed.

Across the alley stood a convenience store. He stared at it, his expression clouded by a trace of lingering attachment.

I quit… but whenever I drink, I always crave one.

While other third-generation chaebol heirs had begun living abroad from birth to avoid military service, Lee Jaeha’s mother had spent his childhood speaking to him with an almost brainwashing persistence. She constantly reminded him of his maternal grandfather’s history in the anti-Japanese resistance and insisted that he had an absolute duty to serve.

From the time he was very young, she bought him model Air Force planes and casually remarked that becoming a pilot would not be such a bad future.

His mother had possessed a surprisingly flexible mind. She appeared rigid on the surface, yet she was the sort of person who told her son that it did not matter what he chose to become.

In truth, both mother and son knew those assurances were hollow. After all, she herself had married a piece of scum like Lee Ik-hyeong because she had been unable to cast aside the obligations imposed upon children of wealthy families.

Lee Jaeha, however, never became a pilot. The woman who should have remained his perfect shield had found eternal rest far too soon.

It would be inaccurate to claim that her death was his only reason, but when the time came, enlistment felt natural to him. Even Lee Jaeho held French citizenship and was therefore exempt from military service.

Perhaps uneasy at the thought of sending his eldest son into the armed forces, Lee Ik-hyeong had once summoned him to his study and cautiously asked, “Should I arrange an exemption for you?”

Jaeha had merely shaken his head before leaving the room. He had no need for that kind of favor.

He had never imagined military life would be particularly arduous. More importantly, he wanted to understand the ordinary perspective of the citizens in the country where the company he would someday inherit and manage had taken root.

Among all those reasons, however, his mother remained the strongest.

As fate would have it, Jaeha grew too tall during his military service to qualify as the fighter pilot his mother had once envisioned. Instead, he applied to become a driver and spent the entirety of his service chauffeuring a one-star general.

He never disclosed his family background, and perhaps Lee Ik-hyeong kept equally silent, because no rumors ever spread among the ranks.

The one-star general, who had no idea that his private driver was the heir to a conglomerate, regularly handed Lee Jaeha a ten-thousand-won bill and sent him to buy cigarettes.

Whenever Jaeha returned with two packs, one was left for him.

At first, he tossed the spare cigarettes to his barracks mates, who were constantly starved for anything bought outside the base. Eventually, however, he began smoking one or two himself.

Lee Jaeha had smoked heavily, particularly during the winter. He had not been stationed in Cheorwon, but his post still lay along the front line, where the cold became so vicious that the moisture inside his nose seemed to crystallize the instant he breathed, leaving his nostrils raw and cracked.

On days like those, the bitter air stripped away the scent of tobacco before it could cling to his clothes or skin. For that reason, Jaeha allowed himself to smoke only during the frozen winter months. Once discharged, he successfully returned to life as a nonsmoker.

Yet on evenings when he was slightly drunk, when alcohol slipped into the narrow cracks of his restraint and pried them open, the craving returned with sudden, brutal intensity. It was as though an insolent addiction, long whipped into submission by his reason and shoved into some forgotten corner, had begun crawling back toward the surface.

Unable to ignore the urge any longer, Jaeha finally crossed the alley and entered the convenience store.

“…Just give me the blue pack behind you.”

After indicating the cigarettes to the part-time employee, he reached for the wallet tucked inside his suit jacket. While fumbling through the pocket, he noticed a lighter lying on the counter and picked it up.

The employee gave him a pointed look, silently questioning why he had not yet paid. In the past, convenience-store clerks had simply taken the card and processed the transaction themselves, but apparently the system had changed, requiring customers to insert their own cards into the reader.

His thoughts were sluggish, and he hesitated. The awareness of the employee watching him made an inexplicable flush of embarrassment rise through him, urging him to move faster.

By the time he stepped away from the register and pushed open the door, setting off the bright chime above it, a wave of pathetic self-disgust had already settled over him. He genuinely could not understand why he seemed so incapable of suppressing his impulses tonight.

In the executive office where he had spent years of his professional life, he had never once entertained thoughts of sex, much less acted on them. Yet here he was, having not only ejaculated all over a water-buffalo-leather sofa but also bought cigarettes after drinking only a few glasses of soju.

Ordinarily, even when a fleeting urge surfaced, it remained exactly that: a passing thought he never acted upon. Now, temporarily forgetting that he had originally been heading back from the restroom, Jaeha tore through the thin plastic wrapping and flipped open the paper box with the tip of his thumb.

He drew a single cigarette from the tightly packed row and placed it between his carefully groomed lips.

He inhaled deeply enough for his cheeks to hollow, and the end of the cigarette flared a vivid, burning red.

Once the flame caught, he drew it away from his mouth and held it between his index and middle fingers. The sudden rush of nicotine, his first in years, sent his head spinning into a thick daze. He did not even bother to suppress the small, hacking cough that escaped him.

His hand remained close to his face, the cigarette hovering just above his lips. As vertigo rolled through him, he squeezed one eye shut, then forced it open again.

Yeah, this is fucking nauseating. Why the hell did I think I wanted to smoke?

Despite the thought, Jaeha merely adjusted the fingers resting near his mouth and bit down on the filter once more. He drew in another breath until his cheeks hollowed again, then released the opaque smoke in small, slow puffs.

“Excuse me.”

The voice pulled him from the dull, rhythmic pounding inside his skull. Jaeha turned, his gaze wandering before going blank for a heartbeat.

He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, but the world remained an indistinct blur. A dull ache pulsed through his head, prompting him to press the thumb of his cigarette hand firmly against the space between his brows.

To anyone watching, however, he merely looked like an extraordinarily handsome man narrowing his thick brows in an elegant, sophisticated frown.

When his vision finally focused, he found a slender man smiling faintly at him, accompanied by a friend. From his scent and presence, he appeared to be an Omega.

“Excuse me, do you happen to know where the Samyoung Skewer restaurant is?”

Whatever their intentions might have been, it sounded as though they were simply asking for directions. Jaeha turned his head and carefully exhaled the smoke away from them before answering.

“Ah… this is my first time in this alley.”

The movement exposed the thick line of his neck and the sharply defined sternocleidomastoid muscle beneath his skin. The Omega’s eyes immediately brightened, captivated by the prominent veins branching across Jaeha’s neck like grapevines, vivid and faintly pulsing.

The man exchanged a soft giggle with his companion, but Jaeha, his head still swimming from the first cigarette he had smoked in years, completely failed to notice their excitement.

At last, the Omega who had first approached him stepped closer, his voice carrying an unmistakable note of suggestion.

“Excuse me… are you alone?”

At that exact moment, the clean scent of fresh water drifted in from behind him. A thick, powerful arm hooked around Jaeha and dragged him backward against a broad chest.

It was Taegeon.

“Nope. This guy’s married.”

Appearing seemingly from nowhere, Jang Taegeon plucked the cigarette straight from Jaeha’s fingers, placed it between his own lips, and answered in a muffled, thoroughly indifferent tone.

Startled, Jaeha twisted around and caught a glimpse of Taegeon’s jawline, rendered sharper and more prominent by the way he held the cigarette.

His expression remained unreadable. One eye narrowed slightly against the smoke curling upward from the glowing tip.

“Married… I see. Sorry for bothering you.” The Omega flicked a quick glance at Taegeon, bowed politely, and stepped away.

One of the people standing nearby jabbed him sharply in the side. “Hey, why are you leaving already? Let’s ask what that guy’s deal is,” the friend muttered, staring openly at Jang Taegeon before the Omega hurriedly dragged him away.

Lee Jaeha forced out a short cough. Beside him, Taegeon remained motionless, his gaze fixed on the alley where the group had disappeared.

“…I thought they were asking for directions.”

“Who the fuck said anything about directions?” Taegeon finally looked at him. “It’s not like I asked whether you and I were about to have a gangbang with them in the middle of the street.”

Gangbang…

Lee Jaeha repeated the word silently, too stunned to respond.

Taegeon raised the cigarette and drew in a long, punishing drag, hollowing his cheeks exactly as Jaeha had done moments earlier.

Perhaps it was because of his towering frame and massive chest, but his lung capacity seemed absurd. He inhaled with such force that the cigarette burned down at startling speed, leaving behind little more than a glowing, red-tipped stub.

As the tobacco surrendered to the flame and crumbled into ash, Lee Jaeha devoted all his concentration to remaining upright.

Two enormous Alphas standing pressed together on a public street attracted more than a few curious, lingering glances. The situation was humiliating beyond words.

Taegeon made no attempt to release him. Instead, he tightened his hold and turned Jaeha around within his arms until they stood face-to-face.

Then it happened.

Rather than exhaling the smoke, Jang Taegeon lowered his head and sealed his mouth over Jaeha’s.

What entered Jaeha’s mouth was not merely tar and nicotine.

Something soft and yielding slipped between his lips, curled around his tongue, and withdrew with a quiet, wet smack. Without realizing what he was doing, Lee Jaeha licked the lingering trace of saliva from his own lips.

Taegeon stared down at him, his dark eyes shifting like the surface of a midnight sea. For a moment, Jaeha could not decipher the meaning behind that gaze.

In a low, submerged voice, Taegeon asked, “Finished doing everything you wanted?”

“Pardon?”

Taegeon hooked both arms behind Jaeha’s waist and hauled him into a crushing embrace. Not even a sliver of space remained between them. Jaeha felt as though the tip of his nose might brush against the hard edge of Taegeon’s jaw.

“You fed the bastards who wanted a meal, flirted with an Omega on the street despite being a married man, and even smoked when you supposedly don’t. So tell me, are you finished doing everything you wanted?”

“No. I didn’t flirt with anyone.”

“Of course not.” Taegeon’s voice remained flat, but the sarcasm beneath it cut cleanly. “Our Executive Director here merely stood there, and those people with functioning eyes latched on to him all by themselves. Is that right?”

“…”

“I understand. Let’s go home.”

Taegeon pulled him closer still.

Jaeha had never once told him no. With no resistance left to offer, he rested his forehead against Taegeon’s collarbone, which felt as hard and unyielding as a steel pipe.

A quiet laugh suddenly escaped him. Keeping his forehead pressed to Taegeon’s chest, he whispered, “Yes. Let’s go.”

Taegeon said nothing, though the arms around him tightened even further.

For a moment, Jaeha considered circling his own arms around Taegeon’s back and returning the embrace.

He stopped himself.

Nearby, the convenience-store door opened with another bright chime. Even then, Lee Jaeha deliberately remained where he was, lingering in Taegeon’s arms and making no attempt to pull away.

***