Choi Suho shrank his shoulders and glanced around cautiously. Jang Yuguk grabbed his shoulders and spoke.
“You are Jang Yuguk’s son! Why should you apologize! My sons don’t need to do that! If they want apologies, if they want lawsuits, then settle it! Give them money if you have to—but never bow your head!”
He knew. He knew everything, and he naturally assumed that I hadn’t apologized. Because that was Father’s way of life. In Father’s life, there was no such thing as apology. That’s why Juho Dad died.
Suho almost said it, but when he saw his Father gasping for breath—heuk, heuk, his breathing ragged—he shut his mouth. If he said this now, he was afraid his only ally, his father who didn’t have much life left, would die. So he cowardly hid behind him instead.
“Okay, Dad.”
“That’s right, Suho. Always remember what I taught you. No matter what anyone says, you are Jang Yuguk’s son. Remember that. Walk proudly with your head held high. No matter what anyone says, you are.”
Jang Yuguk held Choi Suho’s hand tightly and pulled him into an embrace as he spoke.
“The only son I wanted to give everything to. The only son I ever loved.”
Choi Suho cried one last time in his father’s arms.
From the narrow crack of the door, Jang Jihyeok watched the scene with a calm yet sticky gaze. When Choi Suho sensed that strange stare and turned around, Jang Jihyeok had already been gone for quite some time.
***
Choi Juho. My Omega father who gave birth to me.
I need to find out about him.
And then what about Ji Haesu? I need to investigate Ji Haesu too…… and after that, I need to kill Ji Haesu.
No. Ji Haesu matters, but first I need to find Si-in and sincerely apologize for what I did. Whether Si-in accepts it or not.
Is this an apology meant just to make me feel better? No. I don’t know. I don’t know why this obsession with apologizing to Si-in has taken root.
“H-heuk, heuk.”
But what’s wrong with my body? Being beaten shouldn’t have wrecked me this badly. His stomach hurt so much he felt like he was dying, and Choi Suho collapsed to his knees in front of the front door. It was only the second time in his life that he’d ever knelt—he, who had never knelt before.
“H-hic… ah, it hurts so much.”
Hugging his stomach, Choi Suho curled up on his side, trembling violently as he folded in on himself. Was this the price for ignoring the attending physician’s words, for discharging himself immediately after seeing Father?
“Haha… khhk.”
Ever since meeting Ji Haesu, I’ve been paying the price for everything. Unable to endure the stabbing pain in his lower abdomen, Choi Suho lay limply against the front door, still wearing his dress shoes, and placed a hand on his bandaged forehead. With his vision blurring from the rising fever, he stared at the ceiling—and memories of his childhood in this mansion began to surface one by one.
—Oh dear, Young Master. Your fever’s really high. Did you take your tonic today?
—You must take after XX Dad—you’ve always been weak. Daddy will prepare tonic for you every year, so you have to drink it, okay?
—Suho, your dad made tonic for you again? I’m jealous. My dad’s always struggling just to get by—he’s never done anything like that for me……
Choi Suho pushed himself up with his uninjured left hand against the cold marble floor and looked at the tonic box carefully placed by the front door. His eyes quickly grew moist. Clutching his hair, tears spilled easily from the corners of his eyes.
…Right.
This might be the last tonic Dad ever gives me.
“The only son I wanted to give everything to. The only son I ever loved.”
Dad’s love is real.
But if Dad’s love is what made me like this… then am I supposed to blame Dad? But Dad loves me. Does that mean Dad’s love itself was wrong?
Choi Suho clutched his head and cried soundlessly. The only person in this world who truly loved me was Dad—am I supposed to blame him? Comfortably? Even if Dad loved me that way, the one who committed crimes is me.
I don’t want to live comfortably by blaming my dead father! I don’t want to stain him! No matter what I did, he was a father who loved me.
“The only son I wanted to give everything to. The only son I ever loved.”
Choi Suho knew instinctively. That was Dad’s will. Dad had anticipated his own death and prepared for it. He’d even made sure Suho’s share was more generous than Jang Jihae’s, so there was no need to worry about old age, but…
Why does my chest hurt so much? Why does everything feel so hollow, like ruins? It was so painful that every breath felt like walking through a field of thorns.
Si-in… when you lost your father because of me, did you feel like this too? When you lost your only blood relative—your father—did you feel like this, just like me……
Did you feel like an orphan overnight, unable to do anything? Even though you were already an adult?
The moment that thought crossed his mind, breathing became even more painful—almost sinful.
“It’s because of me…….”
I took Do Si-in’s father away. If I hadn’t made him lose his child, if I hadn’t caused that accident for Si-in back then! If I hadn’t done those things, Si-in’s father could’ve lived.
“Because of me…….”
Trembling violently, Choi Suho clutched his head with his shaking left hand and his casted right hand, bowing his head like someone surrounded by ghosts.
“Because of me, Si-in…….”
And because of me, I lost my own father too. Ah—if hell exists, is this what it feels like? Why do I exist, only to inflict death—pain that can never be undone—on the people who loved me?
—Because of you!
The shrill scream of the maternal grandmother he once believed was his mother echoed in his ears…
—Young Master Suho!
The nanny’s dying groan as she tried to shield him exploded in his ears like fireworks. His own eyes, watching it all, had been wide and blank.
And when he opened my eyes, he was in Father’s arms—he’d rushed over in a single dash. Seeing him awake, he’d asked over and over, ‘Are you okay, Suho? Suho, are you okay?’ And Suho, face pale with shock, had said—
—Mom tried to kill me. Mom did.
—That’s not your mother! How could a mother try to kill her own child?
—But she said Juho hyung died because of me, Dad.
When Choi Suho said it through sobs, Jang Yuguk’s face visibly hardened. Thinking even Dad was angry, Suho panicked and burst into tears, and Jang Yuguk grabbed his frail shoulders and said firmly—
—Juho didn’t die because of you.
—But Mom said—
—Don’t believe a crazy person like that. And she’s not your mother. Juho didn’t die because of you—he died in an accident. Got it?
No matter how much he tried to forget, Father’s expression and ragged breathing kept resurfacing. Choi Suho lifted his face from his knees and muttered while staring at the tonic by the front door.
“So… he committed suicide because of me…….”
Then there’s no need to learn more about Juho Dad. That day—Dad’s expression back then—speaks the truth more clearly than anything Jang Jihyeok or Ji Haesu ever said.
Choi Juho gave birth to Choi Suho and chose suicide. Because giving birth to Jang Yuguk’s child must have been horrifying.
If that’s the case, how many people did he kill? His birth caused Juho Dad’s death, and indirectly, his maternal grandmother committed suicide in prison. Because of his fault, Si-in, his child, and Si-in’s father all died.
After that, the argument that erupted from his conversation with Jang Jihyeok stimulated Father’s heart and hastened his death. Suho couldn’t say he wasn’t the cause.
It’s all because of me.
If only I hadn’t existed, everything would’ve been fine.
But at that moment, something slowly came into focus in Choi Suho’s blurred vision. It was the tonic Jang Yuguk had brewed every year for Suho, believing he was weak because he resembled Choi Juho. When Choi Suho fled the hospital without Ji Haesu, he’d abandoned everything else—but he’d held onto the tonic box until the very end.
He couldn’t bring himself to throw away what Dad had given him. Dad had prepared two boxes. He’d already taken almost one and a half, and now only half a box remained. He’d been drinking it faithfully every morning and evening, enough that it could’ve been left behind—but thinking it was the last tonic his beloved father had given him, his hand reached for it on its own.
“The only son I wanted to give everything to. The only son I ever loved.”
Even if everyone—including Do Si-in and Ji Haesu—wants him dead, there is still a father who wants him to live. Propping himself up on the marble floor, Choi Suho stood and walked with a different gait than before, picked up the tonic box, and carried it inside.
When he opened it, there was a message Dad had neatly written in marker on an A4 sheet.
[Always warm the tonic before drinking it.]
“……Dad.”
Inside the tonic box were also imported caramel candies Dad had bought for him. A son nearly thirty years old—and yet his seventy-eight-year-old father still thought he couldn’t swallow bitter medicine, carefully packing peanut caramel for him. At that love, Choi Suho’s eyes burned hot.
Dad wouldn’t pass away so easily. He loves me. He knows who he’s living for—he wouldn’t leave me behind. Remembering how Jang Yuguk always worried about him more than his other children and habitually said he couldn’t close his eyes because of Suho, Choi Suho steeled his resolve again.
Father hasn’t passed yet—but even if he does, I still have things I must do.
Recalling what might’ve been his final conversation with his father, Choi Suho placed both hands on the kitchen island and lowered his head.
Maybe it really was too early to be discharged. The diagnosis had been six weeks, but he’d left after just two. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t hold onto a thought for long, why his priorities kept slipping away. Unwrapping the bandage and touching his forehead—now covered only with gauze—with his uninjured left hand, he felt the heat radiating strongly. His neck, marked with clear fingerprints, was burning hot as well.
So that’s why his thoughts keep breaking apart—it’s the fever.
But then… why do I have a fever? There’s no reason for me to have caught a cold—
—Ugh! Ah! A-ah!
—Haa… good, Suho? Hm?
