Chapter 158
Director Nam, who had been confined in a place where human sacrificial offerings were kept, was released after several days. He was dragged before Yoo Siwoon in a haggard state. Yoo Siwoon was sitting at his study desk reading something. Even though Director Nam had returned in a disheveled condition, Yoo Siwoon continued with his work without even glancing at him. Director Nam stood before the man who was openly ignoring him, gritting his teeth.
After a long while, Yoo Siwoon indifferently opened his mouth.
“Eunseong has been desperately asking for you. Like a lost child looking for his father.”
“…”
“Don’t say a word. I’ll talk when the time comes.”
“Talk about what? That he’s pregnant with your child?”
“No.”
“Then what lie are you planning to tell?”
Yoo Siwoon finally closed his documents with an audible sound and raised his head to look directly at Director Nam.
Director Nam was a mess. His hair, usually neat and tidy, was disheveled, and his clothes were still the same ones he had worn that day, stained with black soot here and there, making him look like a beggar who had just emerged from a mine.
“…I’ll tell him exactly how things are.”
“Haa.”
Director Nam exhaled violently in frustration at his words. At that sound, one of Yoo Siwoon’s eyebrows twitched in displeasure.
“Why are you angry?”
“Is this normal? Are you in your right mind to believe that Eunseong is pregnant?”
“I am in my right mind. Completely sane.”
“…CEO!”
“I don’t understand you, Director. Why are you so certain that Eunseong would be upset?”
“What?”
“He’s carrying my child. The child of the man he loves.”
“…”
“I think he would be happy. Just as I am happy. I believe Eunseong would be happy too.”
Director Nam felt more chilled now, looking at Yoo Siwoon, than when he was being pushed into the secret room where human sacrifices were confined. Yoo Siwoon was sincere. He was saying these things with complete sincerity. And he was convinced.
His eyes were bright with intelligence and filled with self-assurance. He truly believed that Eunseong would be happy to be carrying his child, that he would be delighted about their connection through this divine bond.
“Me and Eunseong… and our child too. The three of us becoming happy together—is that what you’re opposed to?”
“That’s, that’s not the issue! You know better than anyone what that child would mean in this family!”
“I don’t believe in any of that. The calamity, the devil, the Blue Knight of Death among the four horsemen of the apocalypse.”
“…”
“It’s just not reasonable. I’m not a devil, and Eunseong certainly isn’t a devil either… Did I rape him?”
“…”
“Did I force myself on him when he said no? Eunseong wanted me first. Of course, I know this sounds like a cowardly excuse to you. It’s ridiculous that I’m even explaining this to you.”
“…”
“Not once when I held him did I not love him. I never even had the instinctive desire to impregnate him. From beginning to end. It was love.”
“…”
Though he was spouting absurd sophistry, Director Nam felt himself being persuaded by him.
“Go get cleaned up. Since you’ve returned alive, feed Eunseong something too.”
“…”
“I mean, earn your salary by doing your job.”
Yoo Siwoon gestured with his eyes toward the door, indicating it was time for him to leave. Director Nam stared blankly at the man with whom there was no reasoning, then turned away.
The rain that had been threatening since morning finally began to fall late in the afternoon. Moisture blurred the windows, the patter of rain mixed with Eunseong’s sniffling.
Eunseong had secretly taken out the photos of his biological mother and father and was looking at them. Tears kept blurring his vision, forcing him to wipe them away resolutely with the back of his hand. He tenderly traced his mother’s smiling face, her seemingly happy expression. He also affectionately caressed the face of his father, his biological father, whom he was seeing for the first time.
It was a face that felt strange since he was seeing it for the first time. Perhaps it felt more poignant because he didn’t know this was his biological father and had considered him a complete stranger.
Though it was possible that Detective Lee Joon-seung was lying, trying to make him suspicious of Yoo Siwoon, slandering him to create misunderstandings, Eunseong just instinctively felt it.
That this man who resembled him was his biological father, that his mother’s smiling face in the photo showed she loved his father.
That they had loved each other and given birth to him.
He had never once received the warm love of these beautiful people. Had never touched it, never felt it. Not once, not even a hair’s breadth of it.
Seo Jeong-gi was not his biological father. Though he sometimes treated Eunseong like a burden, he hadn’t abandoned him, and had even given up guaranteed wealth and glory to run away with Eunseong, promising to protect him from these people.
Eunseong had lost them all at once, without even knowing. All had been taken from him. Yoo Siwoon had taken everything from Eunseong’s life—his precious biological father and mother, even the father who had raised him. He had scratched, trampled, and ruined everything.
Clutching the photo to his chest, Eunseong sobbed loudly without making a sound. He screamed, but there was no sound there either.
While he was choking on his sobs, intermittently gasping, there was a knock at the door. Eunseong hurriedly hid the photo under his pillow and pretended to be asleep, pulling the blanket over his head.
His suppressed crying escaped as rough breathing.
“…Eunseong, are you asleep?”
It was Director Nam’s voice. Eunseong lowered the blanket slightly to check if he was alone. Yoo Siwoon was with him. Eunseong pulled the blanket back up to cover his face. Struggling to sound calm so they wouldn’t know he had been crying, he spoke.
“…Director, you’re back. I heard you went to the provinces for work, sorry for asking you to come back so quickly.”
“It was almost finished so there was no problem. How about you? Have you eaten anything?”
“Yes, I’ve eaten a little.”
Though he hadn’t eaten anything, Eunseong lied.
“Should I make some not-too-spicy tteokbokki for you?”
“I’m full. I don’t want to eat right now.”
“But why did you call for someone who’s busy with work? The CEO is here too.”
“I don’t want to talk when Ahjussi is here, when my cousin’s uncle is present.”
Eunseong spoke with the blanket over his head, not showing his face.
Director Nam turned to look at Yoo Siwoon. The man who claimed it had been love from beginning to end, every time, was visibly concerned about Eunseong whom he couldn’t see. Director Nam knew that too. His feelings for Eunseong were genuine. He wasn’t treating him as a vessel to bear his child but truly considered him a precious person.
The difference was that Yoo Siwoon and Director Nam had vastly different reference points for what they considered common sense.
The problem was that Yoo Siwoon’s words weren’t entirely unreasonable. They weren’t without merit.
Yoo Siwoon was in the process of easily pushing Chairman Yoo aside and taking control of the group. He was filling key positions with his own people and relegating executives who were followers of the Yongse Pacheon Church to minor roles.
According to his plan, the Council of Elders would soon follow suit, and the human sacrifice rituals would be abolished. The Yongse Pacheon Church would gradually erase its traces and follow the process of disappearing from this world.
If that happened, then except for the part about Eunseong giving birth to a child, everything would proceed according to his original plan, just as he wanted.
It was also true that Yoo Siwoon had stopped taking Jeokdan. Director Nam had surmised that Yoo Siwoon was cautious about pregnancy because if a child were conceived before the Yongse Pacheon Church was completely under his control, he couldn’t predict how that child might be exploited.
In any case, he was now moving calculatedly. The fact that he genuinely believed Eunseong would be happy to learn he was carrying his child meant that all his feelings were sincere, coming from a sound mind.
“Please leave.”
“…”
Though Director Nam was merely relaying Eunseong’s request, Yoo Siwoon stared at him with considerable displeasure, as if Director Nam was trying to drive him away.
“I think things will only be resolved if you leave, CEO.”
“…I see. It’s disappointing, but I have no choice.”
“You’re going to interrogate me about everything anyway, aren’t you?”
“Tell me everything without omitting a single detail, then.”
Yoo Siwoon gave Director Nam an intense look, glanced at the blanket-covered outline, and left the room.
Only when the sound of the door closing was heard did Eunseong pull down the blanket. His eyes were severely swollen from crying.
Director Nam furrowed his brow in pity as he opened a bottle of water and handed it to Eunseong. Rising to a sitting position unsteadily, Eunseong gulped down the water he handed him and put it down.
“Are you feeling a bit better?”
“…Now that I’ve seen you’re alive, I’m fine.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Eunseong took out a phone he had hidden in his bedding. It was the phone Director Nam had asked about before.
He typed a text message on the cracked phone and showed it to him.
[This place is bugged. CCTV is monitoring us.]
“…There’s nothing like that here.”
[No, there is. He told me there’s a clone of my phone too.]
“That was made after you ran away. You have no idea how shocked the CEO was then.”
Yes, the important thing was that Yoo Siwoon’s fondness for Eunseong, his love, wasn’t due to some innate resonance in his blood—it was genuine.
Director Nam chose to believe that Yoo Siwoon wasn’t in his right mind right now but would soon come to his senses, that he had even stopped taking Jeokdan and was temporarily losing his reason because he truly believed Eunseong was carrying his child.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
