Chapter 107
The café interior, with its non-intrusive music playing, was rather empty since it was a weekday morning. Director Nam, sitting in a corner and drinking coffee, turned his head when someone plopped down in the seat across from him. Team Leader Lee Joon-seung, wearing a dark padded jacket, unzipped it and greeted him with his eyes.
“It’s cold out. Getting worse by the day. Hot in summer, cold in winter. Damn it, they say the world’s ending anyway, so we’ll all perish together. Maybe I should just ignore crazy bastards like Seongha and focus on my own life.”
Lee Joon-seung spoke gruffly as he placed a document envelope he’d been carrying inside his jacket onto the table, almost throwing it down.
“Would you like some warm tea?”
“Coffee.”
Director Nam got up to order for him and soon returned with a tray containing a white mug with steam rising from it.
After nodding his thanks and taking a sip of coffee, Team Leader Lee Joon-seung gestured with his chin toward the envelope.
“We’ve been investigating since last year, but without evidence or witnesses, the case has been fizzling out. But upon investigating the victim, I found that one of Seongha Group’s subcontractors was among their business partners. It smells suspicious, so I think we need to dig deeper. Please look into it as well. There must be a connection.”
“Ah, I see. I was wondering what this was about.”
Director Nam picked up the envelope from the table and set it beside him. Sipping his coffee, Lee Joon-seung looked at him with a suspicious glance, sensing something was off.
“Has something happened?”
“What?”
“I asked if something happened. Your expression looks… like someone who’s been blindsided and can’t get their bearings. It’s a rare look, especially from you.”
“I’ve just been tired from having a lot of work lately.”
“Hah, damn it. These bastards just bury and crush anything they don’t like, treating human lives as less than flies. Whenever there’s an unsolved case, I automatically become suspicious. Wonder who they’ve killed this time? What scheme are they plotting now? Who’s involved and to what extent?”
For Lee Joon-seung, who had unexpectedly lost his closest police academy colleague, nothing made his blood boil like the Seongha Group. He even disliked people with the surname Yoo. He was prejudiced against anyone named Yoo. It wasn’t regional hatred but surname hatred.
“By the way, is that kid still at CEO Yoo Siwoon’s house? The one you were planning to help escape? What’s happening with that?”
“He’s planning to leave soon. To a place no one knows, where no one can find him.”
“Are you sure he’s not really the ‘great gap’?”
“Why do you keep thinking that?”
“It’s strange, isn’t it? The way Yoo Siwoon immediately intervened when Yoo Oseon suspected the boy. CEO Yoo Siwoon, to put it kindly, is cautious—he’s an extremely deliberate person.”
Lee Joon-seung raised reasonable doubts as he recalled Yoo Siwoon’s behavior over time.
“…Unfortunately, it’s just circumstances that match up. Such a person couldn’t possibly exist. Do you actually believe the Yongse Pacheon Church doctrine makes sense? An Asura born through a man?”
Director Nam, while inwardly anxious, responded as if tired of Lee Joon-seung’s suspicions.
“It doesn’t make sense, but I’m saying this because there are so many people who believe this nonsense. Because they believe it, they commit murder without a second thought. Justifying their actions.”
“Have you been brainwashed too, Team Leader?”
“Maybe so. Perhaps I’ve gone strange from thinking about these weirdos every day.”
Lee Joon-seung shook his head as if he himself didn’t understand why he was like this, finding it difficult to shake off his suspicions.
“Such things simply don’t make sense in the first place.”
Director Nam sighed as he spoke.
He hoped it didn’t make sense. He really wished it were so.
If Eunseong wasn’t the “great gap,” he wouldn’t be this troubled.
He hadn’t expected this from Yoo Siwoon. Though younger than Director Nam, Yoo Siwoon was thoughtful, rational, and reasonable. He was someone who pitied Eunseong’s existence and the fate he was born into more than anyone. Just like Team Leader Lee Joon-seung, he had vowed to help Eunseong escape from a destiny where he had to endure unnecessary hardships because of his unfortunate connection to Yoo Siwoon’s family.
But that person… that man.
That man who took medication to suppress his sexual desire out of fear of responding to Eunseong, who pledged to undergo chemical castration if he ever did respond…
Moreover, he was even taking red tea. Director Nam knew roughly what happened when one drank it, having heard about it.
It was believed that bloodlines capable of producing offspring could only father sons by drinking red tea, and in the family, only those selected and qualified as breeders were allowed to consume it. Not only that, for someone like Eunseong, it was an herb that induced animal-like heat when its scent was inhaled.
Yoo Siwoon had been drinking such a thing.
Director Nam grimaced as he drank his coffee, as if swallowing bitter medicine, recalling the two naked bodies entwined on the bed.
“It must taste really bad. Would you like mine? Mine isn’t that bitter.”
“No, it’s not that.”
Yoo Siwoon wasn’t even letting Director Nam into his house anymore. Terrible images wouldn’t leave his mind—what those two might be doing, the horrifying scene of Eunseong’s lower abdomen swelling.
Yoo Siwoon’s eyes had changed that day after dealing with Yoo Oseon and showing a strange reaction. Like he had metamorphosed into a completely different species, that scholarly man who had once denied and distanced himself from desire now blatantly displayed his half-nakedness in front of Director Nam, making no effort to hide his unbridled lust.
From that point on, from the moment he emerged after dealing with Yoo Oseon, he had changed somehow. He wasn’t his usual self. Director Nam didn’t know what had happened inside, but this man who routinely disposed of people had turned pale and vomited as if seeing a corpse for the first time.
Director Nam saw blind obsession in Yoo Siwoon’s eyes, which completely ignored his words—a loss of reason. It felt like looking into the eyes of Yongse Pacheon Church believers who awaited the “god who came by a side path,” believing that the Asura would bestow power upon them.
If only Yoo Siwoon had acknowledged his attraction to Eunseong, fallen in love and become unable to reject him anymore—if only it were that, Director Nam could have accepted it. But the eyes he saw that day were too transparent to call it love. It was an emotion without impurities.
Yoo Oseon was, after all, of a bloodline recognized as a breeder. Director Nam suspected that Yoo Siwoon might have experienced some kind of awakening in the process of eliminating him, having inherited the same blood as them.
If that was the case, if Yoo Siwoon had realized something or become self-aware…
Yoo Siwoon must have decided that rather than giving Eunseong to someone else, he should take Eunseong for himself. Director Nam guessed it meant he wouldn’t tolerate or allow anyone else to lay hands on Eunseong.
“By the way, about Executive Director Kwon Junho.”
“Yes?”
Director Nam, lost in thought, focused his attention on Lee Joon-seung’s words.
“Executive Director Kwon Junho. Can you reach him? He was supposed to give me some materials, but he’s not responding to my texts. The old man hasn’t gotten into trouble, has he?”
“Ah… Executive Director Kwon Junho.”
Director Nam’s voice trailed off.
To find Eunseong, they had no choice but to deploy manpower, and to blind their eyes, Yoo Siwoon had to sacrifice Kwon Junho, who had rebelled against Chairman Yoo.
It was a desperate measure with no alternative. At the time, Director Nam also agreed with Yoo Siwoon’s order, seeing it as unavoidable. But as time passed, even that no longer felt normal. He suddenly thought that Yoo Siwoon had lost his reason due to his misguided obsession with Eunseong, betraying an ally who should have been kept safe.
And there was also a vague suspicion that when it came to matters related to Eunseong, such irrational judgments wouldn’t stop at just one.
“What? You don’t know either, Director Nam? Seriously?”
“I don’t really… I’ll look into it.”
“Damn it, he hasn’t been taken out by those bastards, has he?”
Unaware that Yoo Siwoon had betrayed Kwon Junho, Lee Joon-seung’s eyes burned with hatred, fear, and loathing for the Seongha Group. He continued, saying they couldn’t just sit idly and take this.
“It’ll be faster if I look into it. By tracking his phone or whatever. I should at least be able to find out where he was last.”
“…No, don’t go that far. It might just raise unnecessary suspicions, so leave it be. He might be deliberately avoiding contact.”
“He’s someone who agreed to come over to our side, so why would he be hiding now? When does CEO Yoo Siwoon plan to blow this open? The evidence is overflowing. Does he actually intend to expose this? Why is he being so cautious? How long will he remain just cautious? It wasn’t easy to bring in Seo Jeong-gi’s case from the Gangwon Police and cover it up. We keep creating cover-ups, making things difficult, but what is CEO Yoo Siwoon doing?”
Lee Joon-seung’s voice grew louder. Director Nam looked around to ensure no one was nearby. He gazed at him gravely, with a look that urged him to calm down.
The reason Director Nam had to defend Yoo Siwoon despite privately agreeing with Team Leader Lee Joon-seung was because he still believed in him, and wanted to believe in him.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
