Chapter Text
The rain pounded harshly against the glass windows of Seongje’s office, as if the sky itself were trying to force its way into the building. Outside, the world looked dissolved into a watercolor blur everything was shadow and smeared movement, outlines swallowed by water streaming like desperate tears.
The smell of burning tobacco mingled with the metallic scent of the storm, creating a kind of dirty comfort. Seongje was sunk into his black leather swivel chair, his body draped in a laziness almost feline. His eyes followed, bored, the thick drops sliding down the glass, as if each one carried a secret he already knew by heart. The cigarette rested between his fingers with a kind of careless elegance, and he brought it to his lips with the calculated slowness of someone who knows that time, when properly handled, is a weapon.
Then, the door creaked.
He didn’t turn. He didn’t need to.
The presence that invaded the room was heavy, dense like smoke. An invisible field of rage and pheromones tensed the air. Baekjin. His scent arrived before his body did. Bitter, sour, like electricity about to fry the nerves of anyone daring to take a deep breath.
"Why are you here?" Seongje broke the silence without moving, his voice slow, languid. "Don’t tell me another idiot got caught by the police."
He lifted the cigarette to his lips again, inhaling as if he were dragging the whole world into his lungs, and let the chair turn slowly. The leather creaked. His eyes finally found Baekjin, standing in the middle of the room like a shadow badly stitched to the world.
"Yeon Sieun is dead."
Silence. A faint sound, maybe the drip of a leak, maybe just time slipping away.
Seongje smiled. And the smile was wide, cynical, misaligned with the news.
"Really?" The question slipped from his lips in a tone of perverse melancholy, but with a hint of disappointment, a barely-there shadow of something that wasn’t quite surprise.
"Was it you?"
The question hung in the air, light as a soap bubble, ready to burst with the slightest breath of truth.
Seongje’s smile faltered. A microsecond of hesitation, a twitch in the mask. He adjusted himself in the chair with the lazy elegance of a big cat. Crushed the cigarette in the overflowing ashtray with a muffled snap.
"You’re funny, Baekjin," he said at last, voice hoarse with restrained laughter. "Upset that Eunjang’s little prodigy omega turned to dust... why? Were you hoping to stick your cock in him?"
"Was it you or not?" Baekjin repeated, his voice still the same tone, firm as stone, and his posture didn’t waver a millimeter.
Baekjin knew Seongje well enough to understand he played until everything got boring. To him, life was a game board where other people’s frustration and despair were the most valuable pieces. That’s what kept him entertained: the chaos between boredom and pleasure.
"Aish. You’re so annoying!" Seongje scoffed, resting his chin on his palm. "Why would I kill him? It’s a sin to erase such a pretty little thing from the earth, especially when he brings so much entertainment to our lives."
Baekjin didn’t answer. Didn’t even blink. He just stood there, a monument to exhaustion, until the tension finally gave way. He walked to the chair in front of the desk and dropped onto it with the weight of someone carrying the world on his back and no permission to let it go.
Seongje, on the other hand, rocked gently in his chair, as if he were back on the playground. Only now with blood on his hands and a palace of crimes at his disposal.
"Why are you so shaken up about this, huh?" he asked, curiosity tinged with provocation. "He was just another omega with martyr eyes."
Baekjin ran a hand over his face like he was trying to peel off his tired skin. His eyes turned to the window, getting lost in the shadows dancing with the thunder.
"Because we need the fucking Eunjang territory." He took a deep breath. "And Eunjang thinks it was the Union. I got a call from Baku. Not a friendly one."
Seongje laughed, but it was a humorless sound, a hollow echo that got lost among the raindrops on the glass.
"And why would you think I had anything to do with it?"
Baekjin shot him a look, one second too long. Something in it spoke louder than words.
“You know perfectly well why.” For a fleeting moment, Baekjin caught the way the corner of Seongje’s mouth twitched. “And also because I told you to handle Eunjang. And you have this… special gift for turning problems into craters. Your methods tend to be binary. All or nothing. Blood or smoke.”
Seongje didn’t deny it. Didn’t even blink. He just smiled, that twisted smile that said “I’m exactly what you think, and even worse than you imagine.” His chaotic, sadistic nature was a fire he never tried to put out.
"Do you know who could’ve done it?"
“No.” The answer came dry, almost indifferent. “But you know perfectly well why I’m going to solve this mystery. I had my eye on him, but I had to look away for a moment because it became a priority to clean up Naksung’s mess before the police decided to actually do their job.”
Baekjin nodded, but something in his eyes said he wasn’t entirely convinced.
"Keep an eye on Eunjang. They’re sure it was us because of the Naksung thing, so they’ll probably retaliate." Baekjin stood. The chair creaked under his weight. His coat made a muffled noise against his thighs.
He walked to the door, but before leaving, he stopped.
Seongje watched him over his glasses, still rocking, wearing an expression teetering between disinterest and cynicism.
"Oh, and about Naksung," Baekjin said, without turning. "Ji Hakho will handle it from now on. Naksung was his responsibility, if we’re in this mess, it’s his people who dirtied the room, so he’s the one who should clean it."
Seongje pursed his lips like a child watching his toy get confiscated by the teacher.
"My fun always gets cut off right when it’s getting good..." he murmured, picking up his phone from the desk with theatrical boredom. "One day I’ll charge for this with interest."
⚝
The asphalt still gleamed wet beneath the wheels, marked by the recent memory of the storm that had seemed to swallow half of Seoul. Now, however, the sky was clear, a dark mantle studded with stars that shone with an almost mocking calm. The scent in the air was dense, saturated with the living essence of thousands of wet things: earth, grass, concrete. A perfume of a freshly-washed world.
Seongje was driving with one hand on the wheel, steering the car away from the pulsing heart of the capital, toward a secluded housing complex where the homes seemed deliberately isolated from one another. They were antisocial residences, surrounded by carefully preserved green areas, because the rich brats who lived there liked to convince themselves they were “doing their part for the planet.” These ecological self-delusions made Seongje roll his eyes so hard he nearly glimpsed his own brain.
Yeongi sat in the passenger seat, enchanted like a clueless tourist. At every turn, she sighed at the modern architecture framed by greenery, at the street so clean it seemed freshly swept by invisible hands, at the fresh smell of grass and wet earth that overpowered the lingering scent of asphalt. Even the lighting — flickering LED lamps spaced with mathematical precision — seemed pulled straight from a luxury urban design catalog.
Seongje had only bought a house there for practical and unpublishable reasons. Illegal money is like smoke: it comes in easily, and vanishes just as fast. A police raid, a seizure, an anonymous tip... and poof! It’s gone. But real estate? Ah, that’s physical. It has weight. A deed. It doesn’t evaporate like an offshore account balance. Besides, if he ever needed to launder some cash later, it was a fast, clean, safe method: buy for one million, declare it’s worth two, and voilà — “legal” profit. Korean-style creative accounting.
"I should’ve asked for more for this job," Yeongi huffed, her voice sulky, though her eyes were still hypnotized by the scenery.
"I’ve cleaned up your boyfriend’s mess at least five times just this year," Seongje retorted, not even glancing at her. "You should be doing this as a courtesy."
Yeongi clicked her tongue in indignation but didn’t argue. Silence settled into the car like a third presence, thick and comfortable, until he turned left, onto the gravel road that led to his property.
That’s when Yeongi straightened in her seat, her eyes wide, and a “Wow!” slipped from her lips like a sigh that lost its brakes.
The house emerged from the greenery like a sculpture of white concrete with light wood accents. It rose from a winding clearing, with well-lit paths snaking toward the entrance. The synthetic lawn, placed with strategic perfection, added a touch of urbanity to the forged naturalism. In the back, a lake reflected the night sky like a liquid shadow. Elegant, silent, dangerous.
It was beautiful, yes. An architectural magazine painting. But Seongje still preferred his penthouse in the old district, near the Ganghak building. That place was filthy, loud, full of neon and screams and blood on the sidewalk. But it was his. It was real. His throne at the center of chaos.
Seongje parked carelessly. He wouldn’t be staying long anyway.
The car hissed lightly on the damp gravel, and the headlights cut two pale beams into the darkness, disappearing into the thick green of the grounds. The engine died with a deep growl, and the silence that followed felt even heavier, as if the night were holding its breath.
Outside, the smell of wet earth was thicker, enveloping, almost alive. The breeze still carried traces of the earlier storm, humid and cold like a warning. The crickets had resumed their song among the tall trees, but their voices sounded distant, muffled by the restrained opulence of that house with its clean lines and soft lights. The structure stood like an ambiguous promise: safe on the outside, but full of secrets within.
Yeongi stepped out of the car and looked around with a certain silent awe. The house was even more impressive in person. Not a soul in sight, not a single lit window in the other homes. A dead, discreet territory. Perfect for the kind of thing Seongje did.
He was already walking ahead, hands in the pockets of his coat, shoulders slightly hunched from boredom. As if he were heading to the corner store for bread, not ushering someone into the beating heart of a secret.
Yeongi quickened her pace to catch up.
The entrance lights turned on automatically as they approached, bathing the concrete porch in a warm, golden hue. A sensor recognized Seongje’s presence with a discreet beep. He didn’t hesitate, didn’t stop, didn’t announce anything.
The door opened with a soft electric click, and Seongje pushed it open with the same casualness of someone entering any ordinary room. Nothing in his posture suggested there was anything special inside. Only the silence, which seemed to thicken the closer they got.
Yeongi followed, her footsteps muffled by the impeccably waxed floor. Her eyes scanned every corner as if trying to guess, anticipate, sketch the puzzle Seongje stubbornly refused to show her in full. He was always like that: tossed the pieces on the floor and let others choke on the dust.
They climbed the curved staircase, where their steps echoed softly against glass and concrete. The lighting was indirect, almost theatrical, casting long, warm shadows across the pale walls. The hallway seemed to stretch farther than it should, as if the house itself were resisting the moment.
Seongje stopped in front of an unmarked door, opened it without ceremony, and walked in first.
Yeongi hesitated. A shiver ran up her spine. Taybe it was the smell of medicine, or the air that was too cold, or that old instinct one develops after seeing too much. Still, she stepped inside.
And froze.
"What the…"
The word died before it reached halfway up her throat. Because there, in the middle of the spacious room — the only one with the curtains drawn and bathed in a soft amber light — lay Sieun. Asleep. Like a ghost too beautiful to be real.
He was sleeping deeply, his face turned to the side on the pillow like a child lost in a good dream. His head was wrapped in white, clean bandages, which contrasted brutally with the scrapes and purplish bruises scattered over his pale arms, visible where the heavy, dark gray blanket stopped, right at his waist.
He looked untouched, and at the same time, ravaged.
Yeongi felt her stomach tighten. The sight was so surreal it took her brain a few seconds to accept it was real. The air in the room felt thicker. Colder. As if pain had acquired its own temperature.
"You’ve got to be kidding me" she finally whispered.
Seongje leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching the beta with a flicker of boredom in his eyes.
"Do I look like I’m kidding?"
Yeongi spun around, her voice sharp:
"This is Yeon Sieun? Eunjang’s golden omega? Baku’s golden boy? The same one everyone thinks has been dead for two days?"
Seongje raised an eyebrow, lips curved in a smile that never touched his eyes.
"Surprise!"
She took two steps toward the bed, as if proximity would help her understand. But the closer she got, the more real the image of Sieun breathing slowly became, his chest rising and falling with an almost innocent rhythm. And that only made everything feel even more wrong.
"You’re insane. You kidnapped an omega and faked his death. That’s… that’s a death sentence, Seongje."
He didn’t answer right away. He just watched her. The light from the lamp left half of his face in shadow and the other half looked like it was enjoying the spectacle of her shock as if it were contemporary art.
"I want you to take care of him." Seongje’s voice came out firm, unwavering. "And I didn’t fake anything. I just happened to find him unconscious at the accident site. According to the doctor, he could wake up at any moment. Until then, we’ll keep the theater of Sieun’s death running until I figure out who tried to kill him and why. He’s our bargaining chip for Eunjang’s territory. So no funny business."
Yeongi turned fully toward him now, facing him head-on.
"Shouldn’t you be telling Baekjin this? Are you seriously going to lie and hide this from him?"
"It’s not exactly a lie if no one asks. And he only asked if I’d killed him or if I knew who had." Seongje shrugged. "And even if I told him… what good would it do? He turns into an idiot every time Baku gets involved because of that childhood nonsense. That’s why we still don’t have the territory. Baekjin will know when it’s necessary. Besides… it’s the best way to protect Sieun. My heart’s been generous lately."
Yeongi stared at him, eyes glowing with barely restrained fury.
"This has nothing to do with protection. You’re playing the hero when really you’re just another lunatic with a new toy."
Seongje let out a low chuckle. That dry, lazy kind of laugh from someone who stopped taking offense a long time ago.
"Maybe. Or maybe I just liked the idea of having something that beautiful sleeping in my bed without hating me," he said, the words slipping out with the same ease someone might use to comment on the weather.
Yeongi didn’t respond. She just looked back at Sieun, unaware of everything, trapped in a heavy sleep, cradled by a world he didn’t even know was fake.
And for the first time, she felt sorry for him.
But also… a quiet, gnawing fear of what would happen when he woke up.
Yeongi remained silent for a few moments, her eyes still fixed on the inert figure in the bed, as if trying to calculate the invisible consequences hanging over that small, fragile body.
"And when he wakes up?" she asked at last. Her voice was lower, heavier, as if not wanting to disturb Sieun’s sleep.
Seongje gave a half-smile, resting his head against the wall.
"I don’t know… maybe I’ll chain him up until he understands this is the best he’s going to get at least until Eunjang decides to cooperate," he said, with a voice far too light for someone talking about kidnapping.
Yeongi slowly turned her head, disbelief plain on her face.
"You’re not going to do this."
"No?" he raised an eyebrow. "I haven’t decided what I’m going to do yet. Maybe he’ll wake up loving me," he said, almost laughing at his own provocation.
She narrowed her eyes, sarcastic.
"Yeah, or maybe he’ll wake up and smash your face in with the headboard."
"So romantic, as always."
"And what if he freaks out? Runs? Thinks the Association actually tried to kill him and starts screaming?"
Seongje ran his tongue across his teeth, thoughtful. His eyes, however, never left Sieun.
"That’s exactly why you’re here. Until he wakes up, we just wait. I don’t know yet what he remembers, if he remembers, or if he will. He might not even recognize his own name." He shrugged. "Until then, he stays here. Pretty. Quiet. A perfect trump card."
Yeongi let out a short, humorless laugh.
"You’re sick."
"Probably. But as long as the sickness gives me an edge, I’d rather not look for a cure."
She shook her head, already stepping away from the bed.
"If you want me involved in this madness, I want more money."
"Sure. I’ll give you whatever I feel like," Seongje didn’t even look at her this time. His eyes were fixed on the gentle curve of Sieun’s neck, on that peacefulness that felt too much like a lie to be real.
"Great," Yeongi murmured, already at the door. "I’ll take the biggest room I can find. If it has a bathtub, even better. No cameras in the bathroom, please. I like to piss in peace."
Seongje didn’t answer. He just raised a hand distractedly.
Silence returned, thick and full of things left unsaid. He slowly pushed off the wall, approaching the bed with the same care one might use when walking a tightrope in the dark.
Sieun slept beautifully. His face calm, almost serene. Breathing in a steady rhythm, his brow slightly furrowed like someone dreaming of something unpleasant, but not painful. Not yet.
Seongje stood there. Watching.
He still didn’t know how any of this would turn out. Didn’t know how Sieun would react, what he’d remember from that night, what he’d say. But… there was something addictive about the unknown. Like staring at a gun on the table, not knowing if it was loaded.
"Let’s see what you turn into when you open your eyes" he murmured, almost like a promise.
Then, he turned off the light and left, leaving the door slightly ajar.
Just enough to hear, in case he woke up.