Chapter 80
“…Haah.”
Tae-geon exhaled deeply and rubbed his rough face with one hand. A week had passed since Hyeon-woo lost consciousness and was bedridden. During that time, Tae-geon hadn’t eaten or slept properly. Fearing Hyeon-woo might disappear if he closed his eyes, Tae-geon couldn’t leave Hyeon-woo’s side for even a moment.
[It is confirmed that Clients 1 and 2 have a 99.9% probability of being in a biological parent-child relationship.]
In Tae-geon’s hand opposite the one desperately clutching Hyeon-woo’s arm with the IV, was the genetic test result. It was terribly crumpled and tattered like a rag, as if proving how much it had suffered in Tae-geon’s grip.
Tae-geon stared blankly at Hyeon-woo. Under the hair shimmering like ripples in sunlight, neat eyebrows could be seen. Along the gently sloping eye line, elegant eyelashes grew at the ends of the closed eyelids.
He couldn’t believe how such a terrible aspect could be hidden within that face, as pure and docile as an untrodden snowy field in early dawn.
‘Who ever said the child in my womb is yours?’
‘Don’t misunderstand.’
‘It’s another alpha’s child, not yours!’
Crunch-.
The paper in Tae-geon’s fist made a sound like a scream as it crumpled.
Did he want to escape that badly?
Was he afraid he’d never be able to escape if it was revealed the child in his womb was Tae-geon’s bloodline?
Is that why he tried to hide it, even enduring such treatment?
His heart began to throb with a stinging pain. Clutching his chest and gasping for breath, Tae-geon muttered as if in agony.
“…It’s strange. My heart……”
In a strained voice, Tae-geon turned to his attending physician and asked:
“Is this because of the imprinting too?”
Tae-geon, not in his right mind, didn’t even know what he was saying. The eyes of the attending physician sitting in a corner of the room widened in shock at those words. Soon, a great despair swept over his wrinkled face.
‘…You knew, didn’t you?’
‘……’
‘That Hyeon-woo might manifest as an omega.’
The low voice of Tae-geon uttering those words as he entered the room still rang clearly in his ears. That toneless voice felt devastatingly like a scream.
Hak-gyu bowed his head deeply. He felt as if one side of his chest was burning black with guilt.
The pheromones of an extremely dominant alpha that could even change surrounding genetic traits. Hak-gyu, who had encountered in reality what had been dismissed as an unfounded rumor circulating only among students of genomics, was equally confused.
Moreover, given that Tae-geon’s obsession with his target was far from ordinary, Hyeon-woo’s trait transformation might have been an inevitable outcome.
He shouldn’t have done it.
He should have strongly prevented it when, in response to his advice to get a pet, a human child stepped into the mansion instead of a dog or cat. But he couldn’t. Because he felt the intense vitality stirring in Tae-geon’s gaze towards Hyeon-woo.
Witnessing the heat rising like spring haze in those frozen eyes, Hak-gyu harbored a glimmer of hope that it might save Tae-geon from his trauma.
Even knowing that Hyeon-woo might be harmed in some way during the process, he couldn’t separate him from Tae-geon’s side.
Old Kwon Hak-gyu’s eyes reddened with overwhelming sympathy.
In the end, not only did he fail to cure Tae-geon’s condition, but Hyeon-woo, who grew up with him, also became a hater who despised part of humanity terribly. And he himself became the object of that hatred. All because of a childhood friend they had relied on closely.
Yet Hak-gyu’s heart broke at Hyeon-woo’s choice to wish to stay together, even hiding his traits, rather than resenting Tae-geon.
How hellish must that feeling have been?
The weight of the heart he had to bear alone must not have been light at all.
Hak-gyu was beyond shocked and felt devastated that Hyeon-woo’s choice, which likely stemmed from pure love, somehow led to pregnancy with Tae-geon’s child, followed by escape, confinement, and ending in miscarriage.
Kwon Hak-gyu’s hand on his forehead trembled. He too was a participant in this tragedy.
He could vividly see the image of the two rushing forward bare, like racehorses running wild without minimal protective gear. Filled with stubbornness and spite, neither of them would have readily stopped midway, even knowing that a thousand-foot cliff was gaping at the end.
They were too young. It had been just a year since they took off their school uniforms. It was too cruel a fate for young sacrificial lambs exploited by adults’ selfishness to bear.
Hak-gyu’s heart ached for the relationship between those two, which had been shattered beyond repair, because they knew better than anyone what they meant to each other.
Hyeon-woo walked and walked through the pitch-black darkness. He walked for a long time, holding a swaddled baby in his arms, and suddenly felt the presence of another life form brushing against the floor in the space where only his footsteps had echoed desolately.
It was the first sign of someone other than himself in this lonely and eerie darkness. Only after focusing on that sound did he realize it wasn’t the footsteps of a human walking on two legs.
Instinctively, Hyeon-woo followed the sound of something desperately moving forward, stirring the bare ground with its whole body like a snake. It pushed the ground behind it, moving forward, forward without stopping for a moment.
After following for a while, he heard the sound of water. The gentle trickling sound seemed like a narrow stream or brook. The creature stirring the ground jumped in with a splash. Soon after, as if it had reached the other side, the sound of something brushing against the ground could be heard not far away.
Hyeon-woo stepped into the water to follow, but screamed and lifted his leg back into the air. It was too hot. At that moment, red light began to flicker before his eyes, which had been pitch black until then.
Soon, the surroundings brightened. A large fire was spreading across the stream from where Hyeon-woo stood. The baby was crawling on all fours through that fiery pit.
Hyeon-woo’s heart sank. With trembling hands, he hurriedly checked the swaddling cloth he was holding. But there was nothing there.
“No!”
It was his child. The baby that had escaped from the swaddling cloth was fearlessly crawling into the roaring fire.
“Don’t go!”
Don’t go! Come here! Hyeon-woo’s throat closed up as he screamed, calling for the child at the top of his lungs. He realized he hadn’t even given the child a name yet. He couldn’t even call out a name to say that wasn’t the way, to come back here.
Gasping for breath, Hyeon-woo threw himself into the boiling water. It looked shallow from the outside, but when he actually entered, it was endlessly deep and muddy, so much that his feet couldn’t touch the bottom.
The more he struggled, the more his body sank. In Hyeon-woo’s view, barely keeping his head above water, he saw a small boat approaching from far away.
If only I had that boat, I could cross…!
Hyeon-woo waved his hand with all his might towards the approaching boat, his eyes bloodshot. In the boiling hot water, Hyeon-woo’s entire body was turning red, and his skin began to peel off.
Finally, the boat came near. Hyeon-woo’s eyes widened to their limit as he desperately struggled and looked towards the boat.
Tae-geon was engaged in sticky lovemaking on the boat, his body intertwined with an omega. It was the very omega with whom Tae-geon had formed a knot. The sweet moans bursting from his mouth shook Hyeon-woo’s eardrums.
Tae-geon, who was placing a gentle kiss on the omega’s forehead just as K used to do to him, met eyes with Hyeon-woo, who was on the verge of drowning. Cold, frosty eyes devoid of any emotion scanned Hyeon-woo.
The boat passed by Hyeon-woo and drifted leisurely along the current. On the receding boat, Tae-geon could be seen sharing a deep kiss with the omega.
His chest felt like it was burning up. Bubbles began to boil around Hyeon-woo. The bubbles lifted him out of the water as if spitting him out.
By the time he crossed to the other side, everything had already burned down, and only ashes were scattering with red embers.
The baby had disappeared without a trace, like a bubble. As if it had never existed in the first place. Yet it had clearly been in his arms. The warm sensation was so vivid.
Tears of blood flowed from Hyeon-woo’s eyes as he lay on the ground, frantically sifting through the ashes like a madman. As even the small embers floating like fireflies gradually faded, the space was once again plunged into pitch-black darkness.
I will never forgive you.
Hyeon-woo turned his steps towards where the boat had disappeared. There was nothing in Hyeon-woo’s arms now. Neither the child nor the swaddling cloth that had wrapped it existed anymore. Tears flowed endlessly from Hyeon-woo’s eyes as he walked aimlessly.
A faint ball of light could be seen in the distance. Hyeon-woo walked and walked towards it without stopping.
I will never forgive you.
It was the moment he emerged from what looked like a tunnel-like embankment. Suddenly, a bright mass of light poured in all at once, as if assaulting his vision. At the same time, someone embraced Hyeon-woo.
…This embrace.
When Tae-geon’s scent rushed into his lungs, his body reacted before his mind. His whole body trembled like an epileptic patient, and then a choking sound escaped from Hyeon-woo as he threw his head back.
Hyeon-woo’s eyes gradually lost their light as he struggled to breathe as if someone was strangling him. Alarmed, Tae-geon hurriedly removed Hyeon-woo from his embrace. Only then did Hyeon-woo, who had collapsed sideways on the hospital bed, cough and gasp for breath.
The tears that had been pooled in Hyeon-woo’s eyes flowed down along the corners of his eyes. Tae-geon’s breath stopped for a moment as he watched this.
“Aah… Ah… Aaah!!”
Tae-geon could only stare blankly, as if in a daze, at Hyeon-woo who was clutching the bed sheets and wailing.
