Despite everything, Seo Won still wished he could lie without hesitation.
“…Why?”
Woo-chan couldn’t understand Seo Won at all. Because right now, to anyone watching, Seo Won looked like he wanted to die at Cha Han-gyeom’s hands.
“Are you trying to atone by dying to Han-gyeom? As if you’re even capable of something like that?”
There was only one reason Woo-chan couldn’t comprehend Seo Won. He knew everything—why Seo Won ended up imprisoning Han-gyeom in the mansion, how it happened, and what he did afterward.
So for someone who was privy to every piece of that information, seeing this shift in Seo Won’s emotions now was simply baffling.
“You didn’t know anything back then. Not about the research facility or Song Yeon-woo. You weren’t even the one who ordered the heart extraction. So couldn’t you just play the victim too?”
“How could I?”
Seo Won let out a hollow laugh and lowered his gaze. The shadows cast by his lashes naturally veiled his blue eyes.
“How the hell could I dare pretend to be the victim in front of him?”
The expression on Seo Won’s face as he thought of Han-gyeom wasn’t one Woo-chan recognized. Maybe that’s why he kept piling on unnecessary words.
“You’re the one who was always desperate to survive, weren’t you?”
After Han-gyeom had pushed Woo-chan aside and returned to Seo Won’s mansion, Woo-chan had dug deeper into Seo Won’s past. Even if it was what Han-gyeom had wanted, Woo-chan feared something might go wrong. So he investigated everything, from Seo Won’s past to his present, down to the smallest detail.
And that’s how he found out. That the massive mansion Seo Won was summoned into by Chairman Seo the moment he lost his mother, was nothing short of another kind of hell.
“I know about the curse that runs in your family. And the special clause too.”
“I figured… I should’ve expected it. You brought back all that information in under a month. As expected, the leader of such capable Espers has impressive intel.”
“Is this really the time to be sarcastic?”
Woo-chan glared at Seo Won sharply, then leaned back into his chair with a rough sigh.
“The person who kills the last bloodline inherits the remainder of their lifespan. That’s why you’ve been on the verge of death so many times.”
Seo Won didn’t answer. He just gave a faint, hollow smile.
You should’ve died instead of me!
Please, just die in my place!
You have no one, but we still have a family to live for! Just die already, damn it!
The raw, desperate screams from his relatives still occupied a corner of Seo Won’s mind.
All this time, in order to survive just a little longer, he had to do whatever it took. He refused anything that could harm his body—alcohol, cigarettes, and countless other things.
Included among those things… was other people’s affection.
Throughout his life, all Seo Won had ever seen were selfish desires. The murderous intent of his relatives who wished for the child—him—to die in their place so they could survive. The dark greed of those who tried to ride on the family’s wealth, power, and prestige.
Every person who ever approached him did so with feigned affection, slowly creeping closer step by step. The moment he realized that what he thought was genuine love had only ever been a means to drive him to death—or to feed their desires—the sense of betrayal was indescribable.
Even so, he couldn’t bring himself to resent the ones who betrayed him. Because every single person who approached him was the same.
After experiencing betrayal too many times to count, he no longer blamed others—he blamed himself.
‘So stupid. Fell for it again.’
‘Thought this time would be different, but of course it wasn’t.’
‘Guess the fool who gets tricked is the real idiot.’
Maybe it’d be better to just die, so nothing would ever hurt again. The pain of being endlessly battered by malice from every direction eventually led his gaze toward death. And when that time came, his instincts would whisper quietly to him:
‘If you’d only trusted your own feelings, you wouldn’t have been betrayed. You wouldn’t be in pain.’
And it was true. If any emotion came from someone else, he ignored it, no matter what it was. He convinced himself that only things he could see and touch—not invisible emotions—were worth believing.
On the flip side, whatever he felt—whatever emotion stirred within—he tried to believe in it completely.
That’s why Cha Han-gyeom was special. Because he was the first person who had collided with Seo Won, carrying a feeling that said: I want you to live.
Even if that feeling came hand in hand with the intent to take his life.
Seo Won looked at Woo-chan and let out a faint chuckle.
“You said the reason you two call each other ‘brothers’ and care about one another… is because of a shared sense of kinship, right?”
That bond between those who survived hell together, the natural pull they felt toward one another—that’s what they called kinship. Maybe… he’d felt something similar the moment he first met Han-gyeom.
“Maybe that’s why I fell in love with Cha Han-gyeom.”
The one person who, in the depths of Seo Won’s unbearable loneliness, responded to his lingering instinct to stay alive with the words: Live.
Because it came from someone who carried the same scent as him, Seo Won had no choice but to fall in love.
So much so that he was willing to throw away everything he had built, even his own life.
After leaving Woo-chan’s hideout, Seo Won didn’t get into the car right away. He stood in the empty lot where the vehicle was parked and took a cigarette case from his coat.
It had the same design as Han-gyeom’s. Brand-new, pristine—like it had never been used.
Click.
The sound of the case opening was oddly pleasant. To most, it would’ve just been a trivial noise, but at least to Seo Won, it meant something.
Inside, the cigarettes were arranged tightly and flawlessly, without a single gap. Seo Won picked the one nestled in the far corner.
‘A cigarette…’
He had always thought of it as something entirely harmful. A filthy indulgence that slowly and methodically destroyed the human body and shortened life. That’s what he used to believe.
Which was why he could never understand Cha Han-gyeom’s smoking. After barely surviving the massacre at the research facility, managing to cling to life by a thread,
it seemed absurd that someone with such a frail body would willingly teeter back toward death’s doorstep.
At one point, he thought maybe it was because Han-gyeom’s organs could regenerate normally after a seizure, so maybe he wasn’t afraid of dying. But that wasn’t it.
It was because once all the ashes he had left were gone, he’d die anyway—so what did it matter?
If Song Yeon-woo had been alive, maybe Han-gyeom wouldn’t have sat around waiting for death with thoughts like that.
Seo Won brought the cigarette to his lips. Though it was his first time, he had seen Han-gyeom smoke up close so often that it looked almost practiced.
Chik-chik.
That rough, cheap flint sound crackled through the air. It didn’t light on the first try. After several attempts, a small flame finally sparked to life.
He held the cigarette to the flame. Picturing Han-gyeom in his mind, Seo Won slowly inhaled, and the fire crawled quickly down the tip of the cigarette.
Along with the breath he took in, the deep, acrid smoke of the cigarette surged into his lungs. The sharp, bitter inhale immediately triggered a cough.
“Ugh, cough!”
“Director, are you alright?”
As Seo Won suddenly started coughing, Lim Du-hyuk—who had been watching with a visibly uneasy expression—rushed over. Seo Won raised a hand to signal he was okay and let out a few more coughs.
Once the coughing died down, Seo Won exhaled his now-rough breathing and looked down at the cigarette held between his fingers.
“Ha… How the hell does Cha Han-gyeom even smoke these things?”
Why would anyone willingly smoke something this harsh and bitter? And yet, with that expression devoid of attachment or hesitation, he would go through several a day.
Lim Du-hyuk added, concern still written all over his face.
“Until you get used to it, cigarettes will just taste sharp and harsh.”
“You’ve smoked before?”
“Yes. Up until shortly before I was assigned to you.”
Du-hyuk had completely quit the moment he was officially designated as Seo Won’s bodyguard—knowing full well how much Seo Won detested cigarettes.
“If it stings this much every time, I don’t know how anyone keeps going.”
“It’s only like that in the beginning. Once you take slow, controlled inhales, your body adjusts pretty quickly.”
Taking Du-hyuk’s advice, Seo Won brought the cigarette back to his lips. And sure enough, it went down a little smoother than the first time.
The thick, murky smoke slid down his throat, stinging as it passed, and slowly filled his lungs.
His honest impression after that first proper drag? Not great. Not great at all.
The thick black smoke left a strange sensation, as though it were tainting him from the inside out. It wasn’t pleasant at all, more like the discomfort of swallowing something foreign and unwelcome.
So he exhaled quickly.
Of course, even as the smoke unfurled in long ribbons from his mouth, the sharp stench clung to the air, leaving no room for comfort.
He frowned and took another drag.
This time, something changed.
The scratchiness in his throat settled; the smoke flowed more smoothly than before. His lungs, having already held the bitter air once, received it more readily now. He was even able to hold the breath in longer before letting it out.
It was only on the third inhale and exhale that he noticed a shift in his body. Maybe it was because he had always lived in a state of constant tension, but he noticed it faster than most would have.
As the smoke filled him and then drifted away, he felt his entire body slowly, gently loosen. Even the tangled knot of emotions inside him began to unravel, as if some unseen hand were soothingly patting them down. Enough to make him forget even the earlier unpleasantness.
“…Ah.”
After smoking just one, he understood.
Maybe Cha Han-gyeom couldn’t live without this.
Maybe life had been so unbearably difficult that without something as trivial as a single cigarette, he simply couldn’t make it through the day.
This harsh, acrid thing that dug into his body—offering only a fleeting sense of calm— Han-gyeom must have had no choice but to cling to it.
All because of the last words Song Yeon-woo left him: “Live.”
Seo Won held the cigarette between his lips and drew in another breath. Just like with Han-gyeom, the stinging smoke that now burrowed into his body no longer felt unwelcome.
