The car tore through the darkness and merged onto the highway in the blink of an eye.
At the breakneck speed they were going, Ha-jin clung to the door handle so hard his fingers had turned white. His eyes were wide open, flicking back and forth between the dashboard and the windshield.
Outside, the scenery zipped by in a terrifying blur. But inside the car, it was unnervingly quiet. Not a single whisper of wind or road noise penetrated the cabin, making Ha-jin’s heavy, anxious breathing the only sound echoing in the stillness.
They were doing 150 kilometers per hour, yet the ride was absurdly smooth. Ha-jin hadn’t expected to experience the performance of an expensive car in this way.
His phone buzzed repeatedly in his pocket. When he pulled it out, he found a flood of worried messages from Kwak Mari. Skimming through, there didn’t seem to be any updates about Yushin. He turned the screen off and slipped the phone back into his pocket—only to feel Cheon Tae-seong’s gaze on him.
“You know she called you at this hour because she knew you’d do exactly this.”
“Please… just focus on the road, sir.”
“A guy this jumpy was seriously about to take a taxi all alone in the middle of the night?”
“Taxi drivers don’t drive at 150. Can you please slow down?”
Ha-jin glared, his eyes rounding into angry half-moons, but Tae-seong remained completely unfazed—just like the unwavering speed on the dash. Swallowing hard, Ha-jin muttered under his breath.
“I honestly don’t understand why you’re doing all this for me.”
The Tae-seong from this timeline was so different from the one before the regression that Ha-jin felt dizzy. Forget responding—he couldn’t even adjust to him. If this were the Cheon Tae-seong he’d spent two years with, maybe it would’ve made some sense. But this was someone he’d only known for ten days.
Even if Tae-seong was acting strange because of the pheromone issue, this was too much.
You need a doctor more than I do. He couldn’t say it out loud. Not while trapped inside a speeding car with the guy.
Tae-seong’s cheek puffed slightly—clearly, he was running his thick, hot tongue along the inside of his mouth again. Ha-jin suddenly felt heat rise to his own face and bit down on his lip. Tae-seong glanced at him, then responded, almost reluctantly.
“I told you—it’s because of the pheromone malfunction.”
Because of the imprinting. Even now, Tae-seong could feel Ha-jin’s unease, the rapid thudding of his heart. His grip on the wheel tightened.
“That still doesn’t explain why we’re barreling down a highway in the middle of the night…”
“There’s no logic to pheromones.”
“Don’t play word games. You’re doing all this because of the pheromone thing, and that means…”
Ha-jin trailed off, having unconsciously glanced at Tae-seong’s lips—only to be caught. He quickly turned back to the front, but the scent radiating from the man beside him felt like it had just reached out and seized him by the chin.
“‘All this’? It’s only been twice. And I’m not apologizing. Your pheromones definitely seduced me.”
“What are you even…”
The car’s quiet made everything sound twice as outrageous.
“I couldn’t stop. My chest hurt. My whole body ached.”
They entered a tunnel, and Ha-jin’s ears dulled. The words were absurd, and yet… they didn’t make him recoil. Maybe it was the tunnel’s red light casting an unreal glow across the cabin.
Anyone else saying such crap, Ha-jin would’ve completely ignored. Wouldn’t even listen.
Maybe it was the lingering fear he hadn’t yet overcome with Cheon Tae-seong. Either way, Ha-jin decided to keep talking—gathering his courage, if only to try and understand.
“What on earth could I possibly have done to make you act like this?”
“I’m wondering the same thing—how did you do this to me?”
“Sir, that’s just unreasonable. I can’t say for sure about the pheromones until I get tested, but I can tell you I do not have feelings for you. I don’t. I mean—I don’t hate you or anything. As a boss, you’re fine. But the kind of ‘liking’ you’re talking about…”
If you broke it down, what Tae-seong was really saying was: Lee Ha-jin liked me, seduced me with his pheromones, and that caused my own pheromones to go haywire. Ha-jin needed to refute that absurd premise—that he liked him—in the first place.
His voice hardened, and the corners of his eyes sharpened.
“I do not have those kinds of feelings for you.”
He clenched his fists and declared it with all the resolve he could muster. It felt like he was desperately trying to clear his name.
“I really, really don’t. Seriously. I absolutely do not like you.”
The moment the words left his mouth, the car fell into a dead silence, like someone had dumped a bucket of cold water inside.
Tae-seong said nothing. Just stared ahead, expression unreadable, hands firm on the wheel. The speedometer still read 150, but Ha-jin no longer felt scared. Maybe his senses had gone numb.
A long time passed.
Only when the coppery taste of blood crept into his mouth from where he’d been gnawing on his lip did Tae-seong finally speak.
“Wanna make a bet?”
“This isn’t something you bet on. I don’t. Period.”
He hadn’t expected a normal answer—but the man’s sheer persistence was dizzying.
“Thought you were confident. Why’re you backing down?”
“I don’t even have anything worth betting.”
Ha-jin’s frustration bled into his voice. Back at the hotel, he’d already made up his mind: it was time to put an end to this thing with Cheon Tae-seong. The man was no longer someone who had power over him.
Still, he couldn’t help but wonder—what was it that made Tae-seong this certain?
“But seriously, sir, why do you even—”
“If you win, I’ll give you 500 million.”
Tae-seong cut him off mid-sentence, dropping the bomb.
Five hundred million won. Ha-jin almost bit his tongue. His hand trembled, and he tried not to show it as he glanced at the man’s profile. Tae-seong’s expression was cool, unbothered.
He clearly had no concept of what that kind of money meant. No idea of its weight or reality.
***
Kwak Mari shot up from her seat in the ICU waiting room the moment she spotted Ha-jin.
“You—how did you get here…?”
She never finished the sentence. Because behind Ha-jin, towering like an old tree, stood a man she didn’t recognize.
Her gaze, rising past Ha-jin’s shoulder, landed on Cheon Tae-seong—taller by a head—and quickly snapped back. Her eyes filled with questions, but Ha-jin beat her to it.
“He gave me a ride. How’s Yushin?”
“Huh? Oh. He’s in the ICU.”
Leaving the awkward greetings behind, Ha-jin headed straight to the glass doors of the ICU. There was still a long time until the morning visitation hour, so he hadn’t expected to see anyone. But just then, a familiar face appeared from inside.
As soon as the man saw Ha-jin, he opened the glass door and stepped out.
“Ha-jin! You’re here. I heard you were on a business trip down south—did you drive all the way back at this hour?”
“Doctor. How’s Yushin?”
Seeing the look on Ahn Se-hyung’s face—so heavy, so grim—Ha-jin felt his stomach drop.
“Well… Yushin’s white blood cell count is dangerously high right now.”
“But he was just discharged. His condition had finally stabilized—”
“We started with an ultrasound, and… there’s a troubling shadow near the pheromone gland. We’ll need further tests to confirm, but…”
“‘Shadow’?”
Ha-jin tensed, grounding his legs to keep from swaying.
Why so soon? Why was this happening already?
Se-hyung calmly relayed only the facts. And yet, hearing them now felt even more crushing than in his past life. Because back then, he hadn’t known how bad it would get.
At the time, he’d just thought Yushin was going through another rough patch. He figured, with proper care and following the doctors’ orders, they’d get him discharged again eventually.
The “shadow” mentioned by Dr. Ahn would later be diagnosed as internal organ adhesion. It was the worst possible complication caused by Yushin’s condition. Surgery was necessary, and the process was agonizing for both Yushin and Ha-jin.
And because of that surgery… Ha-jin had betrayed Cheon Tae-seong and accepted that job offer. He’d needed an enormous sum to cover both the operation and the endless caregiving costs afterward.
He’d taken the job and the money. And then, just after that, the new drug had been released. At the time, he thought it was fate. Like winning the lottery. He’d had no idea what was coming.
But now—things weren’t aligning. The timing was off.
The medicine—was it out yet? That was his first thought.
Had the drug already been developed, just as Yushin’s complications were manifesting earlier?
He couldn’t be sure. Maybe Yushin’s early decline was a result of his own regression. But drug development was a separate process—Ha-jin’s regression couldn’t have altered that cause and effect.
So what if something had gone wrong, and Yushin’s condition had changed course?
“God… what do I do… Yushin…”
What was the point of returning to the past, if this was how things would turn out? As his body trembled and he staggered in despair, a firm arm caught him from behind.
“Get a grip. You’re Yushin’s guardian. You can’t fall apart like this.”
Tae-seong’s voice was cold and solid, jolting Ha-jin back to himself. The man wrapped a strong arm around Ha-jin’s waist, pulling him in for support. Then, expressionless, he scanned Ahn Se-hyung’s name tag.
“Dr. Ahn Se-hyung. Where’s Professor Joo right now?”
“What? Oh—he’s in the middle of emergency surgery.”
“I see.”
With a blank expression, Tae-seong pulled out his phone and began dialing. Ha-jin, still leaning against him, didn’t even think to pull away.
He just stared. Helpless.
