Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Any omega is considered pregnant until proven otherwise." The underground dentist, brought in by Choi Wooseok, spoke with the kind of unflinching confidence that made it clear he’d delivered this line more times than he cared to count. His tone was mechanical, but absolute, like a man who had long since stopped arguing with the absurd and simply leaned into it.

"You’re seriously asking a fifty-year-old omega to pee on a pregnancy test?" Gihun raised an eyebrow with sharp disbelief, the muscles in his jaw twitching as he tried not to laugh—or scream. His voice echoed in the cramped motel room they were squatting in, which Gihun had long ago bought out and turned into something halfway livable. The blinds were drawn, the lighting dim, but the tension in the air felt clinical. Bright. Surgical.

"A fifty-year-old omega who’s sexually active and reeks of alpha?" the doctor replied, his voice dry and clinical. "Yes. I am."

He sat down on a rickety stool near the wall, the legs creaking under his weight. No one had invited him to sit, but he moved like he owned the room, like Gihun’s life was just another minor entry in his medical logbook. "I can’t give you anesthesia until pregnancy is ruled out."

Gihun exhaled, slowly, and then again. A long, practiced breath, the kind you take when your body is telling you to scream but all you have is silence. The throbbing pain in his back molar was turning rhythmic now, as if in time with the faint ticking of the motel clock. A nerve was clearly exposed, and the entire right side of his face pulsed with dull heat.

He hadn’t had a proper heat cycle in five years—not since his body had started giving up on the idea that it still needed to be desirable or fertile. What he got now didn’t even qualify as heats. Maybe the barest hint of slick, a shallow, half-hearted stir of hormones that came and went in silence. No real need for suppressants. Nothing dramatic.

And as for sex—well, the last time he and Youngil had been together was… July? Or maybe late June? He couldn’t even remember now. And even then, it hadn’t been frequent. They weren’t lovers in the romantic sense. There was no official bond, no talk of knotting or permanence from Gihun’s side. It was rough sometimes—urgent—but it wasn’t deep. Not the kind of thing you remembered afterward with any clarity. Certainly not the kind of thing that got you pregnant.

The scent the doctor mentioned—that thick, warm alpha edge Gihun carried on his skin—wasn’t necessarily from Youngil, either. He was constantly surrounded by alphas these days. Not because he sought them out, but because they worked for him. They brought him food. They carried out tasks. He simply rewarded them too generously, and they stuck around like stray dogs who’d once been fed a scrap of meat. Loyalty bought with coin.

And then there was Junho.

Junho had been hovering nearby more and more lately, though his presence wasn’t like the others. He didn’t orbit Gihun out of dependence or greed. He did it out of necessity—and hatred. The only thread he still had left to pull in the endless knot of the Games ran straight through Gihun. His brother was gone. His path forward had collapsed. Now all he had left was Gihun’s proximity to the truth, and a vendetta that clung to him like frostbite.

Still, there was that scent.

It was faint, but it clawed at the edge of Gihun’s awareness.

It wasn’t just any alpha’s scent. It reminded him of Youngil. Not perfectly, but close. They must have been in the same scent family—herbal with something darker at the base, something bitter and cold. It was the kind of smell you didn’t forget easily, the kind that lingered in the fabric of motel sheets and the folds of your skin long after the person was gone.

And lately, Gihun’s nose had been unreliable. It betrayed him in small ways. He’d find himself convinced that he’d caught a whiff of that juniper note in places it didn’t belong. Like on the Recruiter. The one who’d approached him in August, wearing the scent too carefully chosen, too precisely curated. It had made his stomach turn. It had smelled like Sangwoo.

The doctor waited, unmoved, tapping a gloved finger against his thigh like a ticking metronome. Choi Wooseok had run off in search of a pharmacy, some twenty-four-hour hole-in-the-wall that sold condoms, Plan B, and omega tests by the dozen. They always had stock in districts like this. Demand was eternal.

Junho sat nearby, arms folded, face blank. He stared at the peeling wall like it might eventually provide answers. They hadn’t exchanged a word in ten minutes. Maybe more. It wasn’t that there was nothing to say—it was that whatever could be said would only complicate things further.

"And if I do it without the anaesthesia?" Gihun asked eventually, his voice quieter now, tired in a different way. He had already resigned himself to the pain. Better to rip the tooth out now and be done with it. For some reason, he just didn’t want to take the test.

Didn’t want to see the result.

Didn’t want to hold that piece of plastic and watch a second line bloom.

It was stupid. He was fifty. Officially, he’d be fifty in a matter of weeks. His body was well into menopause. His hormone panels had been flatlined for years. Even back when he and Youngil had slept together more regularly, it had never progressed into anything close to a true mating bond. No formal heat. No knot. Just friction and release and silence afterward.

And Youngil hadn’t held back, no. He rarely did. But without a proper heat, conception was unlikely at any age—and at Gihun’s, it bordered on impossible.

Still, something twisted uneasily in his gut. He didn’t want to take the test. Not because he feared the answer, but because he didn’t want to ask the question in the first place. It felt like inviting a ghost in through the front door.

He knew the odds. He knew his body. He wasn’t some naive kid just coming into his second heat. He was a weathered, half-broken man whose body had long since stopped playing fair. However, the thought of confirming the obvious—of forcing himself to look—felt unbearable.

He stared down at the edge of the sink through the glass wall, where a crack ran like a spiderweb through the ceramic. The faucet leaked every few seconds. Drip. Drip. Drip. The air in the motel room was too warm. Or maybe it was just the pressure behind his eyes. He clenched his fists once and then let go.

It was ridiculous. All of it.

He was almost fifty. He’d barely had sex in the last year. He hadn’t gone into a proper heat in half a decade.

And he still didn’t want to take the test.

What kind of logic was that?

What was he even afraid of?

It wasn’t pregnancy. He didn’t want a child. He didn’t fear the consequences. He wasn’t worried about shame or logistics or telling anyone.

It was something deeper. Something unspoken. The idea that if he took the test and it was negative, it would confirm what he already knew.

And if it was positive?.. He didn’t let himself think that far. He wasn’t that delusional.

But still, he didn’t want the test.

It was stupid. All of it.
Plain stupidity. Just plain, hopeless stupidity.

"Do you understand what it means to have a tooth ripped out?" the doctor asks, raising his brows in a deliberate arc, as if testing Gihun’s pain threshold not through tools or charts but through words, tone, and the sharp-edged smile of someone too confident in his own professionalism.

"I can handle a little pain," Gihun says with a nonchalant shrug, though inside he already braces himself for more than just the throbbing in his jaw. His voice is measured, steady even, but it masks the familiar, creeping fatigue that has become second nature to him. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t let on that the idea of lying still in a chair while someone digs through his mouth makes his palms sweat more than he’ll admit.

"In any case," the doctor continues, his tone clipped but not unkind, "you’ll need medication afterward, and the dosage depends on your status. I’ll admit, until now I believed the test was not that necessary. But you’ve convinced me otherwise." He offers the last line with a flat smile, the sort that isn’t really meant to be reassuring, just professional enough to close the subject.

Such a professionally committed bastard. Gihun presses his lips together, thin and pale, to avoid saying something that would undo the tenuous courtesy between them. The truth is, he doesn’t have the energy to argue, nor the patience to unravel whatever bureaucratic logic has turned a dental visit into a question of medical classification.

Pregnancy. Status. Hormones. That whole spectrum of misery.

When Gihun had been pregnant with Gayeong, it hadn’t been beautiful or sacred or any of the things people say to romanticize suffering. It had been hell. From the moment he realized something had shifted in his body, it was like being trapped inside a malfunctioning machine, one that sputtered and leaked and produced nothing but fatigue and nausea. Morning sickness started early and refused to leave, following him like a second shadow, hitting at random moments, turning food into an enemy and air into something that made him gag. He remembers falling asleep standing up in the shower, remembers the taste of iron on his tongue when he bit his cheeks too hard trying not to vomit. The fatigue was constant, bone-deep, like his marrow had thickened into cement.

And then came the complications—one by one, like a line-up of curses chosen especially for him. Anemia, of course, so severe he once passed out while folding laundry. Gestational diabetes, which forced him onto a diet so strict he began dreaming about boiled rice. Swelling that made his ankles disappear and left his hands aching from fluid retention. His whole body puffed out, distorted, foreign. Toward the end, it hurt just to breathe. It was as if he had been punished for something, except he had no idea what sin he was atoning for.

Back then, his husband—now thankfully ex—was all too pleased to let him stop working. And for a while, Gihun let himself believe that was a kindness. But the real nightmare had another face: his mother-in-law. That woman had a voice like vinegar and a gaze that could wilt flowers. She would visit, uninvited, and bring with her jars of soup and unsolicited opinions. Pregnancy isn’t a sickness, she would say, always with that tight smile and those dead eyes. You’re not the first to carry a child. Stop whining. And when the ultrasound revealed it wasn’t a boy, when the family heir wasn’t going to be an heir at all, their support evaporated like breath on glass, replaced by scorn and barely concealed disgust.

Enough. Don’t think about that woman. Don’t think about her thin-lipped disdain or the way she looked at Gayeong like she was a disappointment in a dress. She was never a beloved grandmother.

But oh, how Gihun missed his daughter. The ache of that longing wasn’t something sharp anymore, not like it had been in the beginning. It was dull, persistent, like a bruise beneath the ribs that never fully faded. It surfaced in quiet moments, when he caught himself reaching for a snack she used to like, or when he passed by a child on the street with the same hairstyle Gayeong always wore when she was in elementary school. That kind of missing had its own texture: soft, heavy, and so woven into his day-to-day that he sometimes didn’t notice it until it swelled too large to ignore.

Choi Wooseok returns quickly, a little breathless from the errand, and hands the test kits to Gihun with an awkward sort of embarrassment, like he knows this gesture carries more weight than he can name. He doesn’t speak, just looks down, and Gihun accepts the packages without comment, noting how expensive they feel in his hands—good quality plastic, sealed edges, branding too refined to come from a corner pharmacy.

They’re not the test strips he used to use, not those foil-wrapped sticks with the barely visible lines he squinted at in dim bathroom light. These are pretty advanced. Probably accurate to the minute. Probably imported. Probably unnecessary.

The motel room they are in isn’t exactly the Ritz, but it has all the hallmarks of a love hotel: mirrored headboard, a vending machine and a bathroom designed with voyeurism in mind. The walls between the shower and the bedroom are made of frosted glass, fogged enough to hide the details but not enough to protect dignity. It’s the sort of design meant to stir desire, to give couples the illusion of transgression, but it’s completely unfit for something as mundane and private as peeing on a stick.

Gihun, unwilling to perform this awkward ritual under the half-curious eyes of others, excuses himself and steps into the neighbouring room. One benefit of owning the place—at least he has options.

Inside the bathroom, he opens the box and finds, folded neatly on top, a small sheet of instructions printed in four languages. He doesn’t bother reading them in full—he’s done this before, far too many times to need guidance. Still, his fingers tremble slightly as he unwraps the contents. Not from fear, he tells himself, and not from hope either. Just from uncertainty, the kind that settles in your chest like a pool of water after a storm, clear on the surface but cold and endless underneath.

Pregnancy doesn’t make sense. Not when they’ve only just found their way in, not when the entire plan is so fragile it could collapse under the weight of a sneeze. It would be disastrous. Reckless. Almost laughable.

Besides, the odds are against it. He’s not in his twenties anymore. His cycles are irregular, his body older, his spirit more tired than it’s ever been. His heart isn’t open to anything new. His mind is stretched thin. And there’s no partner to speak of.

Well—there had been Youngil.

From the very start, Gihun had made things clear. He’d told Youngil straight out that he wasn’t the right person, that he wasn’t looking for anything serious, wasn’t ready, wasn’t able. That he had a calling, something that occupied every breath he took, something that left no room for relationships, for entanglements, for the messy weight of another person’s expectations. He hadn’t told him about the island, of course, or about the Games, but he’d made it clear that his mind and soul were already tethered elsewhere, bound to something he couldn’t walk away from even if he wanted to.

Youngil had made some dumb joke then, something about free hearts and the joy of unclaimed space, as if romance was a room you could enter just because the door wasn’t locked. Gihun had offered him a crooked smile—half amusement, half regret—and let out a soft, dry hum that tried to say everything he couldn’t bring himself to explain.

Youngil had a way of courting that was almost textbook in its elegance: flowers without occasion, small gifts without reason, and a stubborn refusal to let Gihun pay for so much as a bottle of water. He asked gently about Gihun’s day, not out of obligation, but with the quiet attentiveness of someone who actually cared to hear the answer. And it wasn’t just talk—when Gihun finally replied to the message that had lingered unread for hours, he’d receive a response in mere minutes, sometimes in seconds. Always warm. Always waiting.

Gihun often sighed when the name lit up his screen. The attention of a handsome, intelligent alpha shouldn’t have felt like a burden, and yet there was something about it that pressed down on him rather than lifted him up. That sincerity in Youngil’s eyes—it was real, he didn’t doubt that—but it also made Gihun feel exposed, like someone was watching too closely, even if the gaze was soft. Even in bed, it was all about Gihun—every touch, every movement, every rhythm centred on his pleasure, his reactions, his breath catching in the dark. And maybe it should have been flattering, maybe it should have felt like care, but instead, it stirred a quiet discomfort that Gihun could never quite name. Everything Youngil said seemed crafted to please him, to charm him, to match some imagined ideal, and that made Gihun uneasy in a way he couldn’t explain without sounding ungrateful. It was exhausting, in a quiet and delicate way that made him feel guilty for being tired.

Still, Gihun could admit it—Youngil was objectively perfect, the kind of man any omega would be proud to walk beside. He was tall, even if slightly shorter than Gihun, broad-shouldered, and carried himself with the kind of confidence that came from knowing exactly who he was and how the world saw him. He was clever, well-read, and never condescending. He held doors without making a show of it, listened without interrupting, and never once mentioned his rank unless asked. Yes, he worked in the police—something that, in the beginning, had made Gihun instinctively pull back—but even that Gihun had learned to overlook. It was just a job, Youngil had said, not a creed. He never wore his uniform around him, never acted like it meant anything special. And besides, he smelled good. He smelled like sun-dried herbs and green stems crushed underfoot. It had an almost medicinal dryness to it, subtle and clean, and it blended strangely well with Gihun’s own sharper eucalyptus undertone, creating something unexpectedly harmonious between them.

In another life—on another timeline, in another body, in another country—where Gihun wasn’t who he was now, wasn’t tethered to his past by the blood of others and the weight of promises never meant to be kept, where there was no unfinished revenge burning in his chest like a coal that refused to go out—in that world, maybe they could’ve had a quiet little life together. Maybe they would have lived in an apartment with plants on the windowsill and two cups of tea always cooling side by side on the kitchen table. Maybe Youngil would’ve ironed his shirts in the morning while Gihun made toast, and their days would’ve been marked by the comforting rhythm of shared domesticity.

But here, in this world, Gihun was always somewhere else. Always busy. Always thinking of something, someone, somewhere else. And when it came down to a choice between spending the night with Youngil or pursuing the slow, methodical work of vengeance against the bastard who’d destroyed too much to be forgiven, Gihun didn’t hesitate. He always chose the bastard. Every time. Without flinching. Because as much as Youngil tried to make room in Gihun’s life, his presence never reached the marrow. The connection he had with that other man—twisted, painful, inescapable—ran deeper than anything he had shared with Youngil. And that was the cruel irony of it all: that he felt more bound to the person he hated than to the one who cared for him.

It was somewhere in the thick fog of those thoughts—numb, resigned, and quiet in his borrowed solitude—that Gihun finally took the test.

The instructions were clear enough. He’d done this before. More times than he liked to remember. But nothing could have prepared him for what appeared on the screen after the minute passed, after the thin line blinked and settled into a word, then a number.

Pregnant.

3+ weeks.

What the fuck.

What the actual, irredeemable, cosmic-scale fuck.

Gihun sat down hard in the nearest armchair, the plastic test still in his hand, still angled toward the light like he didn’t trust his own eyes. The room around him was silent, the kind of quiet that doesn’t soothe but suffocates, and all he could do was stare.

This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t real. He was fifty. Youngil was about fifty. They were not young, not careless, not impulsive kids playing house. They were grown men with aging bodies and thinning patience and old wounds that never healed. Pregnancy wasn’t just unlikely—it was damn near impossible.

And yet.

And yet the word was right there, plain and bold. Pregnant.

God.

God.

God help him, he didn’t even know Youngil. Not in any way that counted. He didn’t have his phone number—had deleted it from everywhere. He didn’t know his blood type. He didn’t know his Rh factor. There was some vague memory of a joke about having type AB or something, but now Gihun couldn’t be sure if that had even been real or just a joke, a throwaway line during some lazy morning conversation when all of this had still felt like a bit of casual playacting.

He sat there for a long time, the test resting on his thigh, the screen slowly dimming as if even the device had grown weary of his inaction. His thoughts didn’t race—they drifted, aimless and broken, like pages torn from a book and caught in wind. One moment he was trying to calculate weeks, the next he was remembering the way Youngil kissed his wrist without asking, then he was panicking about medical records, then he was cursing himself for every single thing that led him to this exact point. It was like white noise had settled in his head, dense and blinding, a fog of static where rational thought couldn’t survive.

Eventually, his legs moved. Or rather, they obeyed out of habit, because his mind was still sitting in that chair, blinking at the word on the stick. On unsteady limbs, he pushed himself upright, each step heavy and uncoordinated, like he was walking underwater. He opened the door without knowing what he would say, what he would do, how he would explain anything.

And just like that, he returned to the room.

For some reason, it felt as though no one was particularly surprised by the result—as if, now that there was official confirmation, Choi Wooseok finally allowed himself to speak freely, bringing up all the little things Gihun had overlooked, or maybe purposefully ignored: how much water he’d started drinking lately, how often he rushed to the bathroom mid-conversation, how he grimaced and waved his hand dramatically at smells others barely noticed. It was as though they’d all quietly known, just waiting for him to catch up, waiting for him to hold the little white plastic stick and look at that word—Pregnant. And it made Gihun want to throw something. Or scream. Or vomit. He had been smoking this entire time. Christ. The nausea surged so suddenly it made his throat close up. He pressed a hand to his mouth and breathed through his nose. Across from him, Junho sat stiff-backed and visibly bracing himself.

Fuck. Just—fuck. A total, absolute, unmitigated disaster.

"Mr. Seong," Junho said, and Gihun didn’t miss the deliberate formality in his voice, "what exactly do you intend to do?"

What did Mr. Seong could even do?

"Pregnancy isn’t an illness," Gihun muttered, quoting, of all people, his former mother-in-law, whose voice he hadn’t thought of in years but which now rang with maddening clarity. "I’m going to the island, regardless. So, let’s get on with this—rip the damn tooth out without anaesthesia, we’ve still got the andrologist to see."

"…Are you serious?" the doctor asked, eyebrows shooting upward in clear disbelief.

The alphas in the room—men who’d seen enough stubbornness to recognize it when it dug its heels in—looked at Gihun with something like collective surprise, as though this child, this unplanned pregnancy, had the power to alter the trajectory of his plans, to humble or halt him. But no. Gihun had already done the math, already made the trade-off in his mind. No matter what came of this, there was no future in which he chose comfort or caution over what had to be done.

So the doctor didn’t give him any anaesthetic.

He only warned him once, very gently, before coming at him with those curved silver forceps, the kind that gleamed under the lights in a way that made Gihun feel like a sacrificial animal laid out on a table. And the pain, when it came, was immediate and immense and awful—raw and animal, crackling up the side of his jaw and echoing into his skull. The moment the tool clamped down and started to pull, Gihun almost screamed stop, almost thrashed and kicked like a panicked creature, because the crunch of bone tearing from bone was unbearable, and some primordial part of him flared with panic, scent thick with blood and pain and something deeper and more guttural—fear, maybe. He felt it seep into the air, sharp and rancid.

The doctor hesitated for a second. The tooth had moved, had shifted, was clearly no longer whole in its socket. Gihun’s lips were wet and trembling, the corners of his eyes damp, but he croaked out something like "keep going," and the doctor obeyed.

The final yank sent a blinding bolt of pain up his cheek. Gihun almost blacked out. The bitter tang of blood filled his mouth, and the warm slickness of saliva spilled down his chin. His whole face throbbed, and when the tears broke free, he didn’t bother to stop them.

"You won’t be able to get a proper implant," the doctor said once it was done, stripping off his gloves with a practiced flick of the wrist. "Not a permanent one, at least, not until you give birth. We’ll have to go with a removable prosthesis. We can add a tracker to it.”

Gihun just nodded, not trusting his voice, pressing the corner of a cold popsicle to his swollen cheek and blinking rapidly to chase away the remaining tears. His gums were pulsing with dull agony, and the taste in his mouth was disgusting—bitter, metallic, laced with antiseptic and shame.

In this shalf-dazed from pain, barely keeping it together state, he walked away from the motel room and went straight to the best omega clinic in the district, Junho never more than a few steps behind, eyes scanning their surroundings like a bodyguard expecting a sniper at every corner.Choi Wooseok had stayed with the doctor to watch over making the temporary prosthetic, something Gihun wouldn’t have to have surgically implanted. Small mercies.

The hospital itself was offensively pleasant. The scent of fresh linen, eucalyptus, and something floral filled the air. The lighting was soft but efficient, the walls painted in pastel tones meant to calm even the most frayed nerves. Everyone was all smiles, kind voices, and sympathetic glances—the kind that felt like they saw too much, that made Gihun want to look away.

Gihun speaks with a slight lisp, each syllable brushing against his wounded gum like the edge of a blade. The pain is sharp and sudden, like a needle driven into the nerve endings, flaring each time he moves his jaw or tries to wet his lips. The blood has already begun to clot, thick and metallic on his tongue, and every swallow is a reminder of that forceful, crackling sound when the tooth was torn from its root. Still, he does his best to remain composed as he explains the situation to the receptionist in the omega clinic’s front office.

The woman behind the desk listens attentively, nodding with the sort of well-practiced calm that makes Gihun feel even more exposed. Her uniform is pale lavender, the logo of the clinic—a white stork in a circle of soft pink—embroidered neatly above her heart. She doesn’t blink at the details, doesn’t react when Gihun quietly admits that yes, there’s a chance he might be pregnant, and no, he hasn't had a check-up in a long time. She simply types something into her screen, her nails tapping rhythmically like distant footsteps in a sterile hallway, and then says: “We have a window in a few hours. In the meantime, would you like to do an hCG blood test?”

The request is posed gently, almost like an invitation to rest.

In the adjoining room, he can already hear the muffled hum of machines and quiet conversations, the clink of glass, the sterile scent of antiseptic mingling with something floral and faintly sugary—standard practice in omega clinics, designed to soothe and reassure. Somewhere in the air, beneath all the engineered calm, Gihun detects that slight metallic tang of other people’s anxiety. Maybe it’s his own.

In the registration area, a nurse mentions other available screenings—STIs, hormone levels, nutritional markers—and although the words come in a blur, Gihun just nods along. He doesn’t want to think. Doesn’t want to argue. Doesn’t want to consider the implications of any of it too deeply. So he picks up the pen and checks every box without reading. He was alright with letting them draw his blood, take his vitals, analyse his deficiencies.

The nurse, a petite woman with careful handwriting, seems mildly surprised at his thoroughness but says nothing. Instead, she hands him a clipboard, then a plastic cup, then gestures him toward the hallway with the blood lab and the restrooms. As he stands, he sways slightly—whether from the pain, the adrenaline crash, or the simple weight of it all, he’s not sure—and Junho instinctively reaches out, placing a steadying hand at his elbow.

That subtle pressure, firm but gentle, anchors him.

Gihun lets himself lean into it for a second longer than strictly necessary.

They return to the waiting area in silence, sit side-by-side on one of the softly upholstered couches clearly chosen to resemble home furniture rather than something institutional. Junho keeps close, not speaking, not prying—just there. Reliable. Warm. And, oddly enough, grounding.

Gihun fills out the remainder of the intake form, and when he reaches the section labeled Emergency Contact, he hesitates only a moment before carefully printing: Hwang Junho.

He doesn’t ask permission. He doesn’t explain. Junho only notices a moment later when Gihun quietly flips the clipboard around for the staff to collect. Junho’s brows furrow.

"You listed me?" he says softly, incredulously, as though trying to decipher a puzzle he’s not sure he wants the answer to.

Gihun shrugs, his tongue flicking uselessly against the aching hole in his mouth. His voice is muffled from the pain and slightly hoarse from earlier strain, but he manages a crooked sort of smirk. "Didn’t think I should put down my alpha."

Junho’s face shifts—something between curiosity and concern shadowing his eyes. "Your alpha… he’s not…?"

"He’s far away," Gihun replies simply, with a hollow huff of a laugh, his eyes darting across the pale flooring. "Don’t worry. I think he’s pretty disappointed in me, anyway."

A pause.

Junho studies him closely. His hand is still on Gihun’s elbow, his fingers tense as though he’s ready to catch something that hasn’t yet fallen. "Why would he be disappointed?" he asks, his tone dipping low.

Gihun’s breath catches for a moment, but then he speaks, slowly, with a kind of tired candor that tastes bitter even as it leaves his mouth. "Because he thought I’d change my mind about serious relationships. Thought I’d come around to being the kind of omega who settles down, maybe raises a dog. I didn’t." He forces a shrug, but it lacks conviction. “So we... we don’t see each other.”

Junho is quiet, but his face is expressive in a way that Gihun isn’t used to. The crease between his brows remains deep, unmoving. "And if the pregnancy is confirmed… will you tell him?"

That question cuts sharper than any of the others, though the tone in which it’s asked is gentle, even careful. Gihun doesn’t answer right away. Instead, his hands move unconsciously, crossing over his abdomen, folding protectively over the soft belly that might be harboring a new, uncertain life.

"I deleted his number," Gihun murmurs. "So I wouldn’t be tempted to write him again."

The words fall flat. They feel both cowardly and impossibly brave. Junho doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t look away either. His gaze stays fixed on Gihun’s face, not judgmental, not sympathetic, just… present.

Gihun exhales sharply, lowering his head as he tries to collect the swirl of emotions behind his eyes. It’s difficult to articulate what he’s thinking, more difficult still to explain how months of silence and choices have led him here sitting with a pulsing cheek, an empty socket, and the possibility of a child forming quietly inside him. And beneath all of that is the quiet, ever-widening gulf that separates him from everyone he used to care about.

The island, the choices he made, the men he watched die—he keeps choosing that silence. Over and over again. He hasn’t called Gayeong, hasn’t written her a letter, which he had promised to. He hasn’t allowed himself to reconnect with Cheol, or even with Sangwoo’s mother. He holds himself apart, suspended between grief and guilt like an insect in amber, frozen by all the things he cannot undo.

And then there was Youngil.

Something about Youngil—the way he spoke, the quiet steel in his voice, the deep shadows beneath his gaze—had felt achingly familiar. Not just the sound of trauma, but the shape of it. Shared rhythms in the way they both hesitated before saying too much. Matching silences that meant more than any confession.

Gihun had blamed that on Youngil’s job. Being a policeman breaks people, he figured. Or maybe it attracts those already broken.

"I can try asking some people I used to work with," Junho offers after a beat, his voice lower now, almost tentative. "Former colleagues still have access to the police database. If you give me a full name and a date of birth, I might be able to find him."

Gihun blinks. The offer settles into his chest with an unexpected weight.

Does he want that?

He isn't sure.

His thumb taps anxiously against the armrest as he considers the possibilities: tracking Youngil down, sending him a message, seeing him again. The idea feels both dangerous and absurdly tender. He could destroy everything by opening that door again. Or maybe it’s already too late to pretend the door was ever closed.

"I don’t know his birthday," he says finally. "But his name is Oh Youngil."

No ID number, no work division. Nothing concrete. Just a name that still echoes in the back of his mind, lodged between memories of dim light and tense conversations and nights he couldn’t quite sleep.

He doesn’t know Youngil’s address either. Or his rank.

What he does know, for some reason, is that Youngil is lactose intolerant, just like Gihun. They used to joke about it. Split the soy yogurt in the breakroom. Avoided the same dishes in restaurants. The kind of detail that worms its way into your brain and refuses to leave.

If Gihun is pregnant—and he still refuses to believe it completely, not until there’s proof—then maybe their child would have that same intolerance. That small, strange legacy.

He finds his fingers drifting toward his phone, flipping automatically to his photo library.

He scrolls until he reaches an older folder labelled “Gayeong”—his daughter. She’s six in the photo. Gap-toothed and triumphant in front of a birthday cake, her hair in uneven pigtails. He stares at the screen, imagining what this new child might look like. Whether they’d have Youngil’s heavy eyelids or his narrow fingers. Whether they’d smile like Gayeong or cry like him.

The summons came without ceremony: a clipped knock at the door, a nurse’s polite murmur that the doctor was ready for him now. Gihun had been slouched in the waiting room chair, fingers drumming an uneven rhythm against his knee, when the interruption yanked him back to the present. Junho, perched rigidly beside him, turned his head just slightly—a fractional tilt of his chin, the barest tightening around his eyes. The unspoken question hung between them like a blade: Should I come with you?

Gihun’s response was immediate. A sharp shake of his head, so vehement it sent a dull ache radiating down his neck. He didn’t trust his voice not to crack if he spoke.

Alone. He needed to be alone for this.

The alternatives crowded his skull, each more grotesque than the last. What if it wasn’t a child at all? What if it was a tumor, some malignant growth feasting on his insides? Or worse—some grotesque deviation, the kind of medical anomaly that spawned whispers in hospital corridors. Better to face it without witnesses.

The examination room was smaller than he’d expected, the walls a sterile off-white that made the space feel simultaneously claustrophobic and cavernous. The air smelled of antiseptic and something faintly woody—hand sanitizer, maybe, or the ghost of a cleaning product. Dr. Kim waited beside the ultrasound machine, her posture relaxed but precise. She couldn’t have been older than thirty-five, with a round, kind face that softened the sharpness of her gaze. When she smiled, faint creases appeared at the corners of her eyes.

"Mr. Seong," she said, and her voice was warmer than the room deserved. "And your partner…?"

The question landed like a stone. Gihun almost laughed. Partner. As if his life still had room for something like this.

"I’m currently unattached," he said, and was proud of how steady it came out. No bitterness, no defensiveness—just a fact, delivered with the same tone he might use to state his age or blood type. At fifty, he was long past the shame that once might have coiled in his gut at such an admission. Let them think what they wanted. He’d survived worse judgments.

Dr. Kim didn’t react beyond a neutral nod. No pity, no curiosity—just efficient acceptance. She slid a clipboard across the counter toward him, the attached pen rattling against the metal clasp. "We’ll need to update your records, then. But first—your bloodwork." She tapped the file open with one manicured nail. "Your hCG levels are at 6,000 units. That typically indicates a gestational age of around five weeks—"

"Impossible." The word tore out of him before he could stop it, harsh enough to make his own ears ring.

She didn’t flinch. "I understand this may be surprising, but—"

"My last sexual encounter was in July." He forced his hands to unclench, palms flattening against the stiff paper covering the exam table. The crinkling sound was absurdly loud.

A beat of silence.

"Oh." Her eyebrows lifted, just a fraction, but it was enough. Her gaze flickered to his abdomen, then back to his face, reassessing. Gihun resisted the urge to cover himself, suddenly hyperaware of his own body. He hadn’t gained weight. Hadn’t felt different. How could something so monumental leave no trace?

"In that case," she said slowly, "an ultrasound would be prudent. hCG peaks around week twelve before declining, so if your levels are this elevated…" She trailed off, turning to prep the machine. The unspoken this shouldn’t be happening lingered in the air between them.

The gel was colder than he’d expected. He hissed as it made contact, the shock of it against his skin momentarily eclipsing the dread churning in his gut. Dr. Kim didn’t apologize, just smoothed the substance over his abdomen with practiced strokes. The transducer pressed down, insistent, and the screen beside them flickered to life in a burst of staticky grey.

For a long moment, there was nothing but the rhythmic whoosh-whoosh of the machine, the sound oddly primal.

"…Based on fetal measurements, you’re at eighteen weeks."

Gihun’s breath stopped.

The doctor continued; her voice carefully neutral. "I can even determine the sex at this stage. You’ve got a very active little one in there." A pause. "Would you like to know?"

The world tilted. Eighteen weeks. Four and a half months. His lungs burned. When had he forgotten to breathe?

"Excuse me?" The words came out strangled. "Eighteen weeks?!"

A memory surfaced, unbidden: Gayeong’s first ultrasound, the way his ex-husband’s hand had crushed his as they stared at that tiny, flickering heartbeat. They’d prepared for that pregnancy—vitamins lined up on the bathroom sink, meal plans color-coded by nutrient density, his boss begrudgingly reassigning him to desk duty after three separate doctors’ notes. He’d done everything right.

And now? Now he’d been shot at. Now he’d lived on convenience store rice balls and adrenaline. Now he hadn’t so much as glanced at a prenatal supplement.

The doctor continued moving the transducer in smooth, practiced motions across his abdomen as she emphasized, "Just to be absolutely clear, if termination had been under consideration, you're well beyond the acceptable timeframe for that procedure."

The grainy black-and-white image on the screen shifted slightly as she adjusted the angle. "Here we can see the head... Notice the cerebellum here, both hemispheres – all developing perfectly normally..." Her professional commentary flowed steadily, a stream of medical observations that Gihun only half-processed, his brain latching onto the key phrases: everything normal, everything developing as it should. She demonstrated admirable tact, never once mentioning his age or making any of the obvious comments that must have been running through her mind, simply stating there were no medical indications for intervention.

It wasn't that Gihun had particularly wanted that option, and truth be told if he had decided on that path he likely would have found a way to make it happen regardless of timelines or legality. But there was something about her pointed clarification that rubbed him wrong, an uncomfortable pressure behind his sternum that wasn't quite anxiety but something adjacent to it – the institutional presumption that of course this would be unwanted, that a man his age in his situation would naturally be considering ways to end it. The assumption scraped at him like a dull blade.

"What's the sex?" Gihun heard himself ask, his voice coming out weaker than he'd intended, the words escaping almost against his will.

The doctor's face brightened with a professional smile. "It's a boy," she announced, then added with a slight eye roll, "Though I don't get to share that information nearly as often these days. Everyone's caught up in this gender reveal party nonsense..." Her voice trailed off into professional muttering as she handed Gihun a thick wad of paper towels to wipe away the cold, clinging ultrasound gel. "We'll be able to determine secondary sex characteristics at your next screening appointment on October fifth."

The changes came swiftly and without negotiation. Gihun crushed out his last cigarette with something approaching relief. He had been meaning to quit for years, and now his body seemed to reject the very idea of tobacco with a visceral disgust that surprised him. His diet underwent a complete overhaul, Choi Wooseok's wife sending over carefully prepared containers of home-cooked meals – nutrient-dense stews, steamed vegetables still crisp, lean proteins seasoned with medicinal herbs. The bitter medicinal tea he now drank daily left an astringent aftertaste that inexplicably reminded him of Youngil's scent.

He stopped joining the others for firearms training, the recoil of weapons suddenly contraindicated. Instead, he spent those hours sitting by the window, sipping his terrible tea while staring at the calendar he'd begun annotating with increasing frequency. The date circled heavily in red remained October 31st, his scheduled meeting with that bastard, but now other dates crowded around it in neat blue ink: October 5th for the next ultrasound, October 12th for bloodwork, October 19th for the midwife consultation. His once-empty calendar filled with crosses had become a minefield of obligations.

Against all odds and expectations, the pregnancy progressed with almost insulting ease. The genetic screening returned no red flags, no chromosomal abnormalities lurking in the results. Morning sickness never materialized - a mixed blessing, as its absence meant he'd had no early warning, but also spared him months of discomfort. No bizarre cravings plagued him either, no midnight demands for pickled plums or ice cream with kimchi. Most surprisingly, his abdomen remained nearly flat well into the third trimester, only the subtlest rounding visible beneath his clothes. His naturally tall, lean frame disguised the changes beautifully since the narrowness of his hips and length of his torso distributing the growth in a way that left him still able to move with his usual ease. Practical, really. Fewer questions, fewer awkward explanations, less attention drawn to his condition.

The absence of physical markers created a peculiar dissonance - Gihun moved through his days without the visceral reminders most pregnant omegas experienced. His narrow frame showed no obvious changes, no telltale swell to prompt strangers' knowing smiles or questions. Even more curiously, he experienced none of the pheromonal instability. During that first consultation, the doctor had strongly recommended locating the alpha father precisely to mitigate such complications, yet somehow, against all medical expectations, his body demanded no such intervention.

Junho had exhausted every conceivable lead on Youngil. He was scouring Seoul for every Oh Youngil between thirty and sixty, then expanding to marginal cases just beyond those parameters. When phone records yielded nothing but a disconnected number formerly registered to a fifty-eight-year-old Ms. Kang, Gihun called off the search despite Junho's insistent theories about identifying marks or distinguishing features. Some doors, he decided, were meant to remain closed.

Unbonded pregnancies typically triggered violent pheromonal storms by the second trimester, the omega body's desperate cry for alpha stabilization. Yet Gihun's endocrine system remained stubbornly placid, as if the child inside him had inherited his own uncanny ability to endure solitude. The doctors murmured about statistical anomalies during check-ups, their bafflement tinged with professional admiration.

Also this unexpected equilibrium extended to his unlikely companionship with Junho. Their rapport had deepened with surprising ease, forged in shared trauma and single-minded focus. There had been a tense fortnight when Gihun feared Junho's attentiveness might signal romantic attachment until an awkward, circular conversation revealed mutual relief at confirming their purely platonic understanding. No grand passions, just two fractured souls recognizing familiar damage in one another.

Junho became his constant escort to appointments, not merely out of convenience but because his presence lent Gihun an uncharacteristic ease around alphas. Where others triggered his defensive posturing, Junho's restrained energy created a buffer against the world. The man possessed an almost supernatural gift for negotiation securing ideal time slots from nurses, extracting candid recommendations about specialists, even procuring illicit chocolates from the maternity ward's secret stash. Gihun cherished these small victories, the way Junho's quiet competence smoothed obstacles he hadn't even recognized as burdens.

For all its inconvenient timing, the pregnancy unfolded with surreal serenity. No complications, no cravings, just the gradual reshaping of his life around this impending existence. His dreams, however, betrayed a subconscious yearning his waking self would never acknowledge. Vivid nocturnal fantasies played out behind closed eyelids: a sunlit house with Gayeong laughing in the kitchen, their alpha (as they told him during the second ultrasound) son's boisterous energy shaking the walls, a menagerie of pets underfoot. Then Youngil would arrive home from work, the imaginary version radiating warmth. The visions grew more elaborate with each recurrence. Sangwoo and Liam dropping by for dinner, Saebyeok teaching the boy swear words. Always, always, the lump in his throat would swell until the dream's fabric tore, leaving him blinking at reality's cold contours.

Tonight's awakening came with the faint click of a light switch. Junho's silhouette retreated from the doorway, the weight of a freshly draped blanket settling over Gihun's shoulders. He fumbled for the bedside lamp, its glow revealing the calendar's stark proclamation: October 31st had finally arrived. The date glared back at him, its red circle pulsing like a fresh wound. Outside, Seoul's neon glow painted the curtains in artificial hues, the city humming.

Gihun traced a finger over his barely-there bump, the child within kicking as if sensing his turmoil. The movement triggered a cascade of physiological responses – accelerated heartbeat, shortened breath, the faint note of distressed omega pheromones cutting through his usual scent.

The digital clock on the nightstand blinked 03:17 in harsh red numerals. Three hours until sunrise, and about twenty hours until his appointment. Somewhere across the city, the man who'd fathered this child moved through his own nightly rituals, oblivious to the seismic shift coming for them both. Gihun exhaled slowly, willing his pulse to steady. The tea on his nightstand had gone cold, its medicinal bitterness intensified by neglect. He drank it anyway, the flavour conjuring phantom memories of alpha.

Through the thin walls, he heard Junho pacing in the adjoining room – the rhythmic creak of floorboards betraying his own sleeplessness.

The baby kicked again, stronger this time. Gihun pressed his palm against the spot, marvelling at the life asserting itself beneath his ribs. This child who defied medical expectations, who grew steadily despite stress and uncertainty, who smelled increasingly like the man he maybe will never meet again.

Outside, a gust of wind rattled the windowpane. Gihun watched autumn leaves scrape across the glass like skeletal fingers. Soon, very soon, all the carefully maintained compartments of his life would collide. The thought should have terrified him. Instead, he felt something suspiciously like anticipation stirring beneath the dread.

Chapter Text

They were sitting in the car, which was parked discreetly across the street from the club where the meeting was supposed to take place. The dashboard lights cast a soft, artificial glow over the interior, illuminating the worried creases of Gihun’s face as he sat in silence, lost in his own thoughts. Outside, the world bustled along as if nothing extraordinary was happening, as if he wasn’t sitting there with his hands trembling and a child moving within him—kicking faintly, then a little more forcefully, a living reminder of all the things he had yet to process. He was still calling it “the baby” in his head. It was a nics, vague and neutral placeholder for a presence. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to give it a name. He simply hadn’t made up his mind yet, not entirely, though he had been trying. He cycled through names in his mind constantly, almost compulsively, as if one of them would finally click and make it real. The name Junyoung had a certain sound he didn’t mind. He had spent some time trying out names that began with the syllable Ga, but everything he came up with sounded awkward or contrived, nothing felt quite right.

Oh Junyoung didn’t feel perfect either, to be honest. It felt like a name that belonged to someone else's child, not his own. But for now, it was a workable option, a tentative candidate among the others that he kept floating in his head like fragile paper boats on uncertain waters. Deep down, though, he suspected the real reason he hadn’t settled on anything definitive yet was because, for all the movement and all the biological certainty, some part of him still longed to talk it through with Youngil first. That conversation, however, was clearly out of reach for the time being—completely unavailable, locked behind barriers Gihun didn’t know how to cross.

Birthdays had never meant much to him, and in a way that felt both old and deeply ingrained. Perhaps that attitude had taken root in childhood, the kind of quiet indifference that forms early and never quite shakes loose. Even back then, when he and Sangwoo were just boys, the 31st of October had always been more about Halloween than his own birthday. Sangwoo, with his obsession for all things American, had a way of hijacking the celebration and turning it into a themed movie night, complete with junk food and rented VHS tapes from the only place in their neighbourhood that had foreign titles. Gihun had never complained. He wasn’t the type to make demands or corrections, and Sangwoo was always so enthusiastic. Every year it was horror movies, or comedies with jokes that didn’t quite translate, or action films with big explosions and terrible dubbing. Gihun watched all of them against his will—or so he liked to say at the time, grumbling and making a show of reluctance, even as he inevitably gave in.

There was also the language issue. Sangwoo, being the kind of person who made everything into a competition, often insisted they watch the movies in English. He would pause the film at intervals, quizzing Gihun on what had just been said or what a word meant, turning it into a kind of pop quiz that masqueraded as bonding. Gihun, in turn, responded with his usual blend of whining and sarcasm, making jokes, dodging the questions, and never really minding as much as he claimed. It was less about the movies, really, and more about the time spent together, the safe ritual of familiarity.

Youngil also loved cinema, though in a very different way. With him, watching films felt like a shared experience instead of a test. He, too, was a connoisseur—Gihun had figured that out early on, watching how Youngil could cite directors, explain camera angles, or dissect a plot with a kind of ease that bordered on scholarly—but he never used that knowledge as a weapon. Being with him felt different. He never made Gihun feel small. Even when Gihun knew nothing about a film, or missed an obvious reference, or asked a question that betrayed how little he knew, Youngil never scoffed or condescended. He simply explained, softly and without judgment, as though sharing knowledge was an act of affection, not superiority. That kindness lingered in Gihun’s memory now.

The baby kicked again, this time with a bit more force, catching him off guard. He winced slightly, adjusting in his seat, and then—inevitably—felt the urge to use the restroom rise again. For the hundredth time. The baby’s movements were becoming stronger lately, more deliberate, and Gihun could no longer pretend they were isolated flutters. It was clearly aware, clearly growing. And while the pregnancy had, by and large, been progressing smoothly, the awareness of it was like carrying a heavy glass object in both hands at all times: everything he did was done more cautiously now. He moved more slowly, not necessarily from discomfort, but because of the ever-present awareness of fragility—his own, and the child’s. Every strange ache, every twinge, sent his mind racing. He was prone to anxiety anyway, he knew that about himself, and pregnancy had only amplified it. At times, he imagined symptoms that weren’t there, illnesses that didn’t exist. He was aware of the tendency, tried not to let it control him, but still… at his age, he couldn’t help but worry. And yet, every check-up so far had come back clear. His labs were good. The doctor was reassuring. On paper, everything looked fine.

This meeting with that bastard was supposed to be a conversation. Nothing more, at least in theory. Gihun had rehearsed it in his head, over and over, trying to keep his expectations grounded in reality. He didn’t genuinely believe in Plan A, not completely. The idea that they would sit down, talk like civilized people, and the Front Man would suddenly be overwhelmed by remorse, realize the full weight of his mistakes, and reverse course—it was absurd, wasn’t it? And yet, some foolish, hopeful shard of him clung to that fantasy. A small but obstinate part of him, full of conviction and bravado, refused to let go of the idea that things could still be that simple. That all it would take was honesty and presence, and the truth would hit like a blow to the head. That the Front Man would understand, and everything would be undone.

That part of him, as naïve as it was, hadn’t died yet. It was still there, whispering in the background, wanting so badly to believe.

Gihun estimated, with a rough probability of about eighty percent, that they would end up taking him to the island. There was another fifteen percent chance that they would simply throw him out of the car at some nondescript curve in the road the moment they sensed he was being tailed, maybe just after glancing in the rear-view mirror and spotting something that set them on edge. Then there was a smaller possibility, say about four percent, that they would toss him out of the vehicle regardless of whether there was surveillance or not, as if it didn’t matter what precautions he had taken or what backup he had arranged—just eject him, like waste, mid-motion. And the remaining one percent? That he reserved for all the utterly unpredictable outcomes that lay outside his grasp and imagination. For example, a truly absurd scenario, one his mind entertained against all reason: the Front Man stepping out from the shadows, dropping to his knees in the middle of the street, bowing his head in shame, and apologizing with full sincerity. The man would lift his arms in defeat and confess that it was all just a grand social experiment, a test of society, a test of human nature—and that, miraculously, Gihun had won. That he was right. That he had proven something essential and profound.

But whether the one percent was even worth thinking about didn’t matter in the moment. Because as the seconds ticked away and the meeting drew closer, Gihun found himself consumed by unease. His nerves were no longer just fluttering; they were twisting and flaring like sparks about to ignite. And the baby inside him responded in kind, seemingly mirroring his emotional state with an agitated squirm that jolted through his lower abdomen, drawing a sharp breath from him. A wave of nausea climbed his throat—not quite overwhelming, but strong enough to make him question if he would even make it through this ordeal.

"Maybe it would be better if I went instead?" Junho offered, his voice low and cautious, almost uncertain as he inhaled deeply through his nose, the scent of Gihun—subtle but unmistakable—rising with its distinctive eucalyptus edge. Gihun’s scent, sharpened by nerves and the hormonal whirlwind of pregnancy, had changed slightly, but the underlying signature was still present, still grounding.

Gihun curled his lips, not quite a smile, more of a reaction laced with grim amusement. "You really think the Front Man would talk to you?" he asked, his voice cutting through the quiet space of the parked car. There was no genuine malice in the question, just a sort of dry practicality. Realistically, the Front Man wasn’t interested in anyone but players. If he was willing to communicate at all, it would be with Seong Gihun. Though even that phrasing was misleading. It would be more accurate to say the Front Man was simply invested in getting Seong Gihun off his back. Any ‘conversation’ was more about deflection than dialogue, more of a strategy to prevent further harassment than an opening to real negotiation.

Junho wasn’t there yet—not at the level Gihun had reached, not in the Front Man’s eyes—but with the sheer determination and unrelenting focus Junho carried like armour, it was only a matter of time before he became a serious rival in the silent, psychological war of attrition. If the Front Man were to name the top five most aggravating people in his life, Gihun might still be number one, but Junho was swiftly catching up, his name surely etched somewhere in the top tier of that mental list.

Junho sighed, his breath thick with restrained energy, but he didn’t press the matter further. He understood the situation well enough to step back without making a scene.

In truth, they did have a plan—a plan as reliable, they hoped, as a Swiss watch. Carefully constructed, detail-oriented and timed down. With all that structure, Gihun, whose mind was now operating with the strange logic of someone perpetually half-sick and half-exhausted from pregnancy, could already see the flaws. They weren’t faint, and they were there. Still, he clung to the thought that sometimes the stupidest ideas ended up being the most effective. That there was something about simplicity, or desperation, that could turn idiocy into genius.

Take, for instance, the Front Man’s suggestion—or decision, or whatever it was—that they meet on Halloween. In a club. The kind of club that catered to a younger crowd, where Americanized aesthetics and Western obsessions ran rampant, a swirling carnival of masks, sequins, synthetic cobwebs, and alcohol-soaked abandon. It was, on the surface, a basic strategy: surround yourself with chaos, with crowds in costume, where faces blur and sounds drown in one another. But it was smart, too, because it worked. It gave the Front Man cover, a safe space in which anything out of place could still be dismissed as part of the theme.

Gihun checked the time. It was almost time.

He had heard something about micro earpieces, tiny listening devices barely visible to the naked eye, something that fit snug in the ear canal and stayed discreet. But then Junho had told him a story about how one time during an exam, Junho had used a similar earpiece, only for the damn thing to pick up some stray frequency. Then it had begun to emit a high-pitched, continuous screech right in the middle of a crucial essay question. The result? Junho had written his philosophy response worse than he would have on his own, completely thrown off by the noise. And later, extracting the thing had been a whole other nightmare—something about tweezers and a panicked friend. After that debacle, they had agreed on a simpler, more practical option: a standard wireless earpiece in a neutral, skin-toned shade. In truth, if you didn’t look at it, it was basically invisible. And that was good enough.

The club was already alive when he entered. No, not just alive—roaring. The music wasn’t just loud; it was invasive, a presence in itself, thudding through the floors and walls and even his bones. The lighting was frantic and disorienting, casting shadows and bursts of colour that made everything feel more like a fever dream than a party. The place reeked of pheromones, sweat, perfumes, and synthetic fabrics warmed by bodies packed too close together. It was dizzying. Overwhelming. And Gihun, predictably, was beginning to feel sick again.

He brought his sleeve to his face, pressing it against his nose in an attempt to filter the air. It was a habit now, because this particular sleeve, the one Junho usually held onto when guiding him through a crowd or helping him down stairs, had the faint, familiar scent of something bitter and herbal. The fragrance wasn’t overpowering, but even the subtlest notes of sharp and calming herbs helped, anchoring him against the onslaught of noise and body heat and motion. In this atmosphere, the effect was dulled, but it still did something. Even the illusion of control was better than nothing.

Everyone around him was moving in jerky, chaotic sync with the pounding rhythm—bodies swaying, limbs flailing with careless abandon. The air was saturated with more than just music and sweat; it reeked of alcohol, of layered pheromones from every rank and breed of human, and of some acrid, strange smoke that made Gihun's already fragile stomach twist into knots. He winced, narrowing his eyes against the strobe lights that exploded in garish pinks, acid greens, and neon blues, each flash cutting into his vision like a blade. Goddammit. Why couldn't that insufferable idiot have picked a more discreet place for their meeting? Somewhere private, dimly lit, hidden—anything but this fever dream of flashing lights, synthetic beats, and surging bodies. But no. Of course not. It had to be here.

Gihun pressed his lips together tightly and tried to steady his breathing, focusing on not vomiting on the floor or passing out. The sudden swell of nausea made him clench his teeth and breathe through his mouth, though even that offered no respite. The taste of the air was worse than its smell. Every breath felt like inhaling rot wrapped in sugar and smoke.

He tried to keep himself composed, standing upright, trying not to draw attention, trying not to let instinct betray him. His body—his damn body—kept trying to do the same thing every time his mind slipped for a second. It tried to protect itself. His hand would float, unthinking, toward his stomach. An unconscious gesture. Something primal. Protective. It had happened more than once, and usually he caught himself halfway through. But in a place like this, where eyes could be anywhere and enemies might lurk in plain sight, he couldn't risk showing weakness. Not even for a moment.

"Staff in masks just entered the club—they just walked in!" Junho's voice crackled with urgency in the wireless earpiece Gihun wore.

Good. That meant this was the right place. Despite all the chaos, all the filth, all the unpredictability—this was it.

For all their grotesque methods and staggering cruelty, there was at least one thing Gihun couldn’t deny about the people who ran the top of this hellscape: they didn’t lie. Not directly. Not when it came to this kind of thing. They didn’t need to lie—deception was beneath them. It was much more efficient to brutalize you with the truth.

He remembered watching films with Youngil—films about the terrible tension between blissful ignorance and bitter truth, stories like The Truman Show, or some other late-90s commentary on illusion and reality. He couldn’t remember all the titles. It wasn’t The Matrix—that one he had watched with Sangwoo because of Liam, who usually fell asleep halfway through the endless philosophical monologues of that guy. The English version had always sounded bizarre to Gihun’s ears, surreal and artificial, but strangely enough, he’d memorized chunks of it over the years. He didn’t remember exact translations, just impressions of meaning—fuzzy outlines of what the characters had been saying.

Youngil had been emphatic about one thing, though. He believed in truth. Passionately. He couldn’t understand how some people chose fantasy when given the chance to see the real world, no matter how grim that reality might be. "You have to know," he would insist. "You have to want to know. Otherwise what are you even living for?"

Gihun had nodded along at the time, agreeing more out of habit than conviction. But deep down, he had always struggled with that view. Not because he disagreed, not exactly. He just… envied those people who could choose the fantasy. Who could close their eyes and stay closed. Who didn’t lie awake at night tormented by what they knew, who didn’t have blood-soaked memories that wouldn’t fade no matter how tightly they tried to shove them into the darkest corners of their minds.

He didn’t want to forget—he couldn’t allow himself to forget—but he often wished that forgetting would simply happen to him. That some independent force might strike him on the head, sever the neurons that held his most damning memories, and finally release him from the ache of remembering. He wanted to be freed from knowing. From guilt. From this endless cycle of remorse. From this crushing awareness that he had stolen lives—stolen futures—that someone else’s blood was still drying on his hands.

"Wait, masks?" Choi Wooseok’s voice buzzed through the earpiece next, bewildered. "Everyone here is in masks!"

Gihun clenched his jaw, a surge of irritation flaring in his chest. Of course they were. It was Halloween, for fuck’s sake. That was the whole point of meeting here. Everyone was wearing masks, animal heads, monster faces, grotesque papier-mâché parodies of the human condition. Even the staff were dressed like characters from films, or twisted doctors with glowing syringes strapped to their arms. It was a spectacle of collective anonymity, and therein lay both the brilliance and the danger of it.

Just then, the baby delivered a sharp, sudden kick—straight into his bladder. Gihun gasped, barely managing to stifle the sound, and had to twist his body slightly, eyes darting frantically across the flashing club interior as he searched for the nearest restroom. He had to go. Urgently. With Gayeong’s pregnancy, he hadn’t experienced anything quite this intense until much later, closer to delivery. She’d been such a gentle presence, even in the womb—calm, quiet, serene, barely a ripple from her. But this one… this little demon was already asserting himself with an iron will and iron feet.

His mother used to say that Gihun had been exactly like this in her belly—always jumping, flipping, causing chaos, like a theme park ride from hell. Maybe this was karma, circling back. Maybe some traits really were inherited, even before birth. He didn’t know. What he did know was that this kid was not giving him a moment’s peace.

Youngil, at least, had always given the impression of having been a calm, obedient child. There was something orderly and precise about the way he moved, spoke, even breathed. Gihun clung to the hope that their baby might inherit more from his father than from himself—not just in temperament, but in fate. He hoped with everything in him that this child would live a quieter life, a better one. One free from the terrible choices and consequences that had dogged Gihun’s every step. Let him be more like Youngil—please, let him be someone whole.

His steps grew quicker now, threading through the crowd with quiet desperation. He couldn’t afford to make a scene. He couldn’t afford to draw attention. The music pounded in his chest like a second, unrelenting heartbeat. Lights flared and dissolved, blinding him for seconds at a time, and all the while his mind was running through protocols, through plans, through the chain of information Junho had mapped out on crumpled napkins and old receipts. They’d rehearsed this. They’d walked through every angle. They’d talked contingencies, backdoors, failures. And still it all felt like standing in front of a firing squad and praying the bullets might miss.

The pressure in his lower abdomen was unbearable now. His pulse echoed in his ears, indistinguishable from the bassline, and the smell—God, the smell—was making his throat contract with every breath. If he didn’t get to the bathroom soon, he was going to lose control, and that would be the end of any hope of maintaining his cover.

One step at a time. Breathe. Don’t falter. Don’t show weakness. Don’t clutch your belly. Don’t throw up. Don’t get recognized.

Somewhere in this chaos, the Front Man was waiting. Somewhere in this writhing nightmare of costumed strangers, a man with more blood on his hands than Gihun could ever dream of was standing still, perhaps watching, perhaps bored, perhaps angry.

"Those in pink suits. The ones from the island," Junho says impatiently, his voice sharp with agitation, the clipped edge of frustration unmistakable. He’s clearly displeased by something, perhaps by the lack of clarity, or maybe by how slowly everything is unfolding. There’s a tension in his words that Gihun recognizes immediately — Junho is trying to stay professional, but irritation seeps through the cracks.

Gihun’s eyes scan the room restlessly until he finally spots the blessed letters WC. Without a word, he slips away from the crowd and makes a direct line toward it, weaving through bodies, shoulder to shoulder with strangers, moving as if possessed by a singular, burning mission. Once inside, the heavy stink of cigarettes almost chokes him; the stall walls are stained yellow from smoke, and the air clings to his lungs like wet fabric. He instinctively buries his face in the crook of his elbow, trying to breathe through the fabric of his sleeve, but even the bitter, herbal scent can't mask the pervasive cocktail of sweat, smoke, and something far more invasive.

The air practically hums with pheromones, charged and vulgar, laced with the unmistakable musk of sex, unfiltered and animalistic. Gihun has to suppress a gag. The very idea of someone choosing to have sex in a public restroom — let alone this one — is enough to make his stomach turn. The tiles are sticky, the stalls unclean, the lighting a sickly shade of yellow that makes everything look diseased. And yet from the stall to his left come unmistakable sounds — breathy moans, high-pitched and trembling, punctuated by another voice that answers with low, dirty promises, equally youthful in timbre. The age in those voices unsettles him. He doesn't want to guess how young they might be.

Kids these days. Unbelievable.

"I don’t even see anyone in pink," comes a voice in his earpiece just as he pushes open the restroom door. It’s Choi Wooseok, speaking in that same breezy tone he always has, even when surveillance yields nothing. The moment is almost surreal, like something out of a dream collapsing.

Except then, right in front of Seong Gihun, there stands a man — no, a soldier — clad in the unmistakable pink uniform, with a Square mask. The clean lines of the mask are almost absurd in this grimy environment. Square stands silently, saying nothing, and then simply turns on his heel and begins walking away, never once glancing over his shoulder to confirm whether Gihun is following.

He doesn’t need to. Gihun falls in behind him instinctively, slipping back through the sweaty, pulsating crowd. Relief shivers down his spine when he hears the voice in his earpiece again.

"Hey! I see one now, near the bathroom," Choi Wooseok reports, a note of excitement entering his voice. "He’s on the move! And Mr. Seong is following him! I’m going too!"

"There were two of them," Junho says with audible tension, his voice low but alert.

Gihun’s heart sinks just a bit, the corners of his awareness dimming. That could complicate things. His breathing quickens as he hurries after Square. Though he’s not exactly unfit, Gihun isn’t used to keeping up with this kind of pace anymore. Back when Junho accompanied him on walks, the man always kept things slow and gentle, always asking if Gihun was doing okay. Now, hormones fizzing and discomfort prickling his body, Gihun feels a wave of indignation. Why the hell are they moving so fast? And what happened to basic courtesy?

"What?" Choi Wooseok asks, his voice clipped with confusion. "Can’t hear shit."

"I said there were two!" Junho repeats louder, firmer now, and the command in his tone is impossible to ignore.

A sudden yelp from Choi Wooseok cuts through the static in the earpiece — a startled noise that makes Gihun wince. It sounds like he’s just spotted the second soldier. Damn it. This wasn’t supposed to spiral.

Choi Wooseok had always been such a considerate guy, one of the few genuinely decent people left in that entire chaotic mess. His wife made the best soup Gihun had ever tasted — even something as humble as myeonguk was elevated in her hands to something warm and extraordinary. Gihun had once tried to give Choi Wooseok some money, suggesting she open a little restaurant, but the man had politely refused. Later, though, Madam Im reached out directly, and Gihun gladly offered her a loan with a half-joking promise that her future award-winning eatery would always have a table waiting just for him, once it opened after renovations.

There was no way in hell he was going to let the husband of his favourite cook be left behind or put in danger. Gihun hopes Junho will keep him safe — though, realistically, it’s hard to imagine that an alpha like Choi Wooseok would have much to fear. The guy’s probably fine. Still, concern gnaws quietly at Gihun’s gut.

"Mr. Choi, where are you?" Junho asks through the earpiece, voice filled with urgency now.

Good guy. A real cop, one of the rare few who actually give a damn.

Gihun continues to follow the soldier as they leave the thudding bass of the club behind and slip into a corridor clearly designated for staff. It’s narrow and poorly lit, probably used for deliveries or maintenance. At the end of the hallway looms a staircase.

Gihun really doesn’t like stairs.

Not that he’s incapable of climbing them, but every step feels like an ordeal lately. Over the past few weeks, the pain in his hips has been increasingly persistent, a quiet ache that flares when he overextends. He stares up at the two flights above and swallows down his complaints.

“Pregnancy is not an illness,” he mutters to himself like a mantra, repeating the phrase in his head with every determined step. He tries to ascend quickly enough to keep pace but not so fast that he stumbles. Surprisingly, he manages decently well — no small victory considering how sore his pelvis is already.

In the background, Junho’s voice crackles again. "Mr. Choi!" Still calling out, still trying to keep things together. The familiar sound brings some strange comfort, momentarily overriding the hissed curses echoing in Gihun’s brain as he huffs his way up the last step.

Gihun and Square emerge from the building through a black service door, and cool air hits his face like a balm. Junho’s voice is still in his ear.

"They’ve exited the club! Everyone get ready!"

Finally. Outside, Gihun doesn’t feel the same pressure to rush. He adjusts his pace, taking careful, deliberate steps as they approach a white limousine parked at the curb. For the first time in minutes, he feels allowed to move at his own rhythm, to inhabit his own body without being pulled along by urgency.

Square moves forward and opens the door for him, holding it silently. Gihun hesitates for just a breath, but then steps forward.

There’s no scent coming off Square. None. Either the man is dosed in suppressants, or he’s managed to scrub his scent so thoroughly that nothing remains. Gihun feels a flicker of apprehension as he climbs into the limousine.

Inside, the air is cold and unnaturally clean. The neutralizer is strong — so strong, in fact, that even his own scent seems diminished, practically erased despite the stress currently tightening his chest. The minty undertone of the baby’s scent — once a constant, soothing presence — has vanished entirely.

Square shuts the door behind him, and Gihun feels the soft thunk reverberate through the vehicle. Honestly, he’s just grateful to sit down. He tries to find a comfortable position, shifting cautiously. His legs ache, his lower back is screaming in protest, and there’s a dull throb between his thighs that refuses to go away. And the baby is kicking again — low, hard, jabbing at some poor internal organ. But at least he got to pee beforehand. At least that much is settled.

Gihun glances around the limousine. He’s alone in this compartment. There’s an opaque black divider between him and the driver’s seat, a wall of shadowy glass that offers no hint of who’s up front. To his side, there’s a small table, and on it stands a tiny golden pig — it reminds him immediately of that enormous glass piggy bank suspended from the ceiling back on the island. The resemblance is eerie.

The limo begins to move, smoothly rolling forward. Barely ten seconds later, the comm in his ear crackles to life again.

"He’s in the white limo. Follow it," says Junho, his voice steady but resolute. "Remember, we take him alive."

They drive on in silence, maybe twenty seconds or so, just enough for the soft purr of the engine to start sounding like it belongs to another world, before a robotic, altered voice cuts through the quiet like a cold wire.

"Player 456," says the voice. The very same voice Gihun heard that day when he stepped off the plane in that distant, unreal 2022. "We’ve spoken before, in this car."

Gihun remembers that day in fragments, as if half of it belonged to someone else’s life—just colours, tones, the feel of warm tarmac under tired feet—but the words from that conversation have stayed with him in full, echoing through the nights with a tenacity he never asked for.

"In this car?" he repeats, raising a brow. The familiarity makes him uneasy. And the baby, as if in wholehearted agreement, drives a sharp kick into his gut, prompting a hiss of breath from between Gihun’s teeth. "It’s classier than I imagined," he mutters bitterly, casting a look of quiet suspicion toward the golden pig resting on the small table before him, its presence suddenly far too animate for comfort. He feels a bit ridiculous, talking into the silence as though it might talk back.

"I hoped you’d find a good life," the voice continues, that calm, modulated tone never shifting, never warming. "That you’d forget the past. That you’d be happy."

"I didn’t think my well-being mattered to you," Gihun replies, forcing himself again—just as he’s been doing every few minutes—to not place a hand on his stomach, even though he knows full well it’s the only thing that might soothe the child. The baby delivers another sharp jab beneath his ribs, and the pain blooms upward, making his voice tremble with a trace of something too raw to name. "I’m honestly about to cry."

And maybe, he thinks, maybe that is a threat.

Because something in him feels dangerously close to spilling. Maybe it’s the effect of the neutralizer pumping through the car’s air—his sense of smell has dulled, muting even the sour edge of stress sweat clinging to his skin—but while that fog robs him of the scent of danger, it also makes it impossible to feel safe. He can’t smell the baby anymore. Can’t smell himself. It’s like talking in a sealed-off void.

"You should have gotten on that plane," the voice says again, this time emanating unmistakably from the direction of the pig. The irony would’ve been laughable, if it weren’t for the high, sharp wave of anxiety threatening to crest in his chest. "It was the best possible choice."

"What you said to me that day," Gihun murmurs, leaning forward now, his elbows propped carefully on either side of his belly, voice sharpening with focus. "I never forgot it. That’s why I wanted so desperately to see you again."

The sheer effort that’s gone into this moment—it flares up in his mind, a sudden avalanche of memory. All the energy spent chasing shadows, all the trust he’s asked of others. All the people he’s dragged into this, the people he’s already lost, the ones he’s trying to protect. All the ones still left to lose.

He thinks of Youngil. He thinks of the child. He thinks of Junho, steady and brave in his own infuriating way. He thinks of the dozens of people who rely on him now without even knowing it.

He knows exactly what kind of men he’s up against. Bastards like these never stop at anything.

"And here we are," the voice croons, almost sing-song, like they’re playing at being old friends catching up over drinks. "So speak. What do you want from me?" The tone dips into boredom now, languid, dismissive.

Gihun feels irritation crackle beneath his skin like a spark looking for a fuse. The baby, somehow sensing that his parent’s patience is on the verge of splintering, stills completely. No more kicks. No more movement. Just a coiled, waiting silence. Gihun leans further down in his seat, inching closer to the gilded pig resting on the tabletop, drawn to it like to a cursed thing, face tight with focus, with pain, with rage that he doesn’t dare let rise too fast.

"Stop your Game," Gihun says firmly, each syllable landing like a strike against glass. His voice is low, resolute, and it carries that razor-edge tension of a man trying to control the storm boiling just beneath his skin. There is no tremble in his tone now, no uncertainty. Just the sheer force of will from someone who has had enough.

"The Game?" the Front Man repeats with mock curiosity, drawing out the word like it's some foreign concept he needs help translating. His voice curls around it with a note of theatrical confusion, a performance Gihun sees right through.

"The Game you've been playing, and still are playing," Gihun clarifies, his jaw stiff, eyes locked on the golden pig like it's the Front Man himself. That bastard must know their conversation is being transmitted—he has to—and so he speaks in riddles and euphemisms, hiding behind deliberately vague phrasing. "This Game," Gihun repeats, quieter now, but with more venom.

"We merely created the Game," the Front Man explains in that measured, artificial tone he uses when pretending to be patient, as if addressing a child who doesn't understand the rules. "You chose to participate of your own free will."

If not for the neutralizer in the air—if not for the chemical fog dulling his senses—this car would reek of eucalyptus right now. It would be flooding his lungs, settling in the back of his throat like rot, reminding him of everything this Game pretends not to be. But here, in this sealed vehicle with filtered air, he is denied even that honesty.

"What kind of bullshit is that?" Gihun growls. He can feel the tendons in his neck tightening, his molars grinding together in a tension that crackles all the way down to his spine. His jaw has been bothering him for weeks now. The last dental visit confirmed some minor deterioration—nothing catastrophic, but enough to remind him of how much his body has been through lately. The pregnancy has taken its toll, though even the doctor had admitted it was hard to tell if that alone was the cause. Gihun has never exactly lived a clean, soft life.

"You prey on people’s desperation. You corner them, herd them into a death trap, and then you feed off their terror and agony. And you have the audacity to call that freedom of choice?"

"You signed the contract yourself," the Front Man responds smoothly, not a flicker of remorse in his voice. "And while your first participation in the Games might not have been fully informed, your second entry was made with complete awareness of the consequences, was it not?"

Gihun wants to throw the pig. Wants to pick up that gilded, smug little object and smash it against the nearest surface until it’s nothing but jagged shards and gold dust. He wants to tear apart the illusion of politeness, of order, of rules. He wants to see the Front Man face-to-face, wants to reach through whatever camera or speaker connects them and claw the man’s eyes out. He wants him to feel something—anything—just once.

But the man on the other end of the line doesn’t understand. He never has. He speaks as if he believes his words make sense, as if they carry moral weight. As if he’s not just another monster playing God with the lives of the desperate.

If the Front Man had spent even a single minute in the place of someone clawing for survival, someone with nothing left but a shred of hope and a prayer for a second chance, he might understand. If he’d ever tasted that specific kind of despair—that dry-mouthed, gut-wrenching panic of knowing there’s no way out unless you accept the devil’s terms—then maybe he’d know how hollow his logic sounds.

"These losing players are just trash," the Front Man says then, and his voice is almost calm, surprisingly neutral. There's no sneer in it, no mocking now. Just a flat, declarative statement. "And the Game will continue until the world changes. Do you understand what I mean?"

For a moment, Gihun is stunned silent. The words hang in the air, lifeless and cruel, but they strike something deeply personal. Maybe it’s the hormones wreaking havoc on his ability to compartmentalize. Maybe it’s just his nature, the way he’s always felt everything too deeply, even when he pretended not to. Or maybe it’s the memories that rise unbidden now—the image of a man he saved from suicide more than once, only to lose him in the end. Drenched in blood, dying in his arms. Still fighting to the last breath. Still apologizing.

And now that man—Sangwoo—is being dismissed as garbage. As a failed participant. As nothing.

Gihun swallows the taste of bile rising in his throat. It burns like betrayal. The child within him shifts again, subtly this time, almost as if feeling the heat of the moment and curling inward, quiet and still. No kicks. No protests. Just the steady, quiet reminder that Gihun is not alone.

In his earpiece, he hears updates—calm voices, efficient tones, discussing the best place to intercept the limousine. They are being followed. There’s relief in that, a small anchor of reassurance. Whatever else happens, he is not walking into this alone.

He runs his tongue slowly along the bottom row of his teeth, his nerves still taut. The familiar shape of the removable prosthetic meets his tongue, which by now has become strangely comforting. Anchoring.

Although the limousine glides forward with a seamless, velvety grace, Gihun feels the familiar pang of nausea curling in his gut. A subtle churn begins in the pit of his stomach, rising with each breath, and he instinctively reaches into his coat pocket. His fingers close around the familiar rustle of crinkled plastic—a hard candy wrapped in a waxy, brightly coloured wrapper, part of a grab-bag assortment Junho tends to pick up at the pharmacy. The writing on the packaging is all in Chinese characters, indecipherable to Gihun, and there’s nothing printed on the candies themselves to give any clue about the flavours inside. But the first time he poped one into his mouth, his tongue registered something unmistakable—an odd but oddly grounding taste that instantly reminds him of Youngil, so he sometimes ate them.

The association is unexpected, visceral. The faint medicinal bitterness beneath the initial sweetness, but for a second Gihun feels himself flung sideways into a different time, a different place, a different life. He adjusts his posture subtly, trying to anchor himself. It probably isn’t very polite to be crinkling wrappers during such a conversation—especially not in a limousine—but the thought of vomiting all over the leather interior seems infinitely more discourteous.

"Are you saying that just because the world is built this way, we should all just shut our mouths and accept it?" Gihun’s voice is strained, but steady, his tone barbed with genuine incredulity. He can’t contain the raw edge of frustration that rises every time the Front Man speaks. "You treat people like racehorses."

The Front Man gives a soft chuckle, not mocking exactly, but coolly detached, his voice dripping with carefully measured amusement. "You know how easily overworked horses die? Such unfortunate creatures. I’m not a vegetarian, mind you, but that kind of entertainment—horse races, zoos—doesn’t sit well with me. You understand. Sometimes animals are nobler than humans. I’m not claiming to be the great exception, of course." He pauses just enough to let the sentiment settle, then continues with the same cool cadence. "You, Mr. Seong, treat racehorses like racehorses. I treat people who’ve driven themselves into corners like people who’ve driven themselves into corners."

"I don’t do that anymore," Gihun snaps, his words sharp as broken glass. "And unlike you, I don’t think the world revolves around me just because I happen to be standing on the so-called correct side. I hate half-measures. If you love animals so much, then go all the way. Go picket the zoos, confront the racetrack owners. Hell, I wouldn’t even mind joining you on the last one."

Gihun doesn’t actually have any strong feelings about zoos. Gayeong used to like them when she was a toddler, squealing with delight every time she saw a big cat or a monkey swinging on a rope. He remembers carrying her on his shoulders, her tiny fingers tugging at his hair as she pointed at flamingos or elephants. And the child he’s expecting with Youngil—well, they should probably see a few animals too, even if only to know the difference between a giraffe and a gazelle.

A silence descends, thick and deliberate, hanging in the space like smoke that refuses to clear.

"You’re such an eloquent man," the Front Man finally says, his voice smooth as silk and just as difficult to hold on to. "Do you want to find the Owner of the Games?"

Through his earpiece, Gihun hears voices crackling urgently in the background. Junho and Kim are speaking in rushed tones, their words overlapping slightly as they puzzle through the limousine’s increasingly erratic route. Something is off. Junho's voice sharpens suddenly, commanding, as he issues a direct order to halt the limousine immediately. But even before the command has a chance to ripple through the layers of response, something clearly goes wrong.

Of the two pursuit vehicles tailing them, only one manages to continue.

Gihun turns his gaze to the side window. His breath fogs a faint circle on the glass.

Fuck.

"Vehicle One and Two are under fire," someone says in his ear, their voice clipped with urgency and static. "We can’t proceed."

Fucking hell. The words slam into him like a punch to the gut. Inside, his child begins to kick again, faint pulses of protest against the tension coiling inside Gihun’s core. But he barely notices the motion. His hands remain clenched, his jaw locked so tight it threatens to crack. The world narrows to a pinprick of sound and fury. There’s no way out now but forward, and that forward path seems increasingly precarious, increasingly rigged.

For a split second, he thinks of Youngil again. The taste of that ambiguous candy is still dissolving slowly on his tongue, and with it comes an ache of memory so vivid it nearly robs him of breath. If anything happens to the convoy—if Junho is hurt, if their plan collapses—it won’t just be the Games that fall apart. It will be everything. The fragile web they’ve been spinning will tear, and beneath it there is nothing but the pit.

He closes his eyes, just briefly, and exhales through his nose. Focus.

Not for the first time, he regrets not smashing that little pig into shards. There’s something about that calm, studied cruelty in his voise—so elegant, so poised—that sets his teeth on edge. The Front Man talks like he’s above it all, like he’s observing a chess game in which everyone but him is just another pawn, shuffling helplessly across the board. But Gihun has seen the consequences. He’s watched people bleed out, watched them scream, watched them die choking on their own spit and terror—and he felt as he held their hands while they slipped away, powerless to save them.

He has seen, he has felt what this Game does. And no matter how you dress it up in philosophy, or cynicism, or cold-blooded logic, it is still murder.

A murder with contracts and cameras and euphemisms, sure—but murder nonetheless.

His jaw tightens again. The molars he had worked on just last month throb faintly. Gihun can’t shake the sense that even his bones are wearing thin under the weight of all this. The candy sits sticky under his tongue, its sweetness turning to syrupy bitterness, and still, outside, the limousine barrels forward into God knows what.

"Maybe you were planning to kidnap me?" the Front Man asks, his voice laced with a kind of amused irony, like someone toying with the edge of danger purely for sport.

Unfortunately, the honest answer is yes. That was the plan, or at least the shape of one, hazy around the edges but still unmistakable. Yet even from the very start, it was obvious that such a strategy would likely never succeed with this particular bastard. There was always something about men like him—an unpleasant, almost unbearable invincibility. People like that were rarely cursed with obvious weaknesses, at least not the kind you could easily exploit. No tender childhood trauma wrapped in plain sight, no hunger for recognition or comfort. No quietly festering inferiority complex waiting to be triggered. No, the Front Man was a different breed altogether: sharp-edged, polished to the point of opacity, unnaturally self-contained. The type of man whose vulnerable spots, if they existed at all, had long ago calcified into something unrecognizable.

It was this emptiness—not a romantic or poetic emptiness, but a cold, pitiful one—that made someone like him so difficult to break. And somehow, in a way that felt bitter and wrong, it even stirred a kind of reluctant pity. Not admiration. Not sympathy. Just the dead weight of recognition: that this man had shaped himself into something so bloodless, so armoured, that even his suffering could no longer be touched. Pity for the utterly hollow, in the worst sense of the word.

"I’ll go after the limo," Junho says through the comm, his voice tinged with urgency that quickly tilts toward alarm. "Mr. Seong, if you wou—"

The sentence is cut short.

A low boom rattles through the chassis of the car, loud enough to be heard not only through the earpiece but directly, through the air and steel around them. A dull explosion, somewhere behind them, perhaps not far at all. The sound rolls through Gihun’s ribcage like a bad memory come alive, and even though the hard candy he’s sucking on still tastes like something vaguely reminiscent of Youngil it does nothing to calm his nerves. His stomach feels like it’s folding in on itself, folding in and then tearing at the edges.

"I’m ambushed too," Junho says, and there's a crack in his voice this time—frustration, helplessness, maybe even guilt. "I can’t move forward anymore."

Gihun doesn’t respond. His jaw tightens, and for a moment, he just breathes through his nose, shallow and quick. Then he reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a gun. It's compact, steel, not particularly impressive, but it's real. It has weight, and it has purpose. He grips it with trembling fingers and jerks forward, pointing the muzzle at the sealed partition that separates the passenger area from the driver’s seat.

"Stop the car!" he shouts, voice raw, cracked with desperation and fury. When nothing happens, he pulls the trigger. One shot, then another, then several more in quick succession, the report of each one echoing sharply in the enclosed space. The bullets slam into the opaque glass, but it holds firm. Of course, it does. It's reinforced. Bulletproof. That’s no surprise.

It only makes him angrier.

"Do you really think you can stop the Game with a single gun?" the Front Man asks, his voice eerily even. There's no visible signs, but it feels like his tone carries a glint of genuine curiosity. It’s hard to tell with the voice being altered. It’s the interest of a man who collects strange insects and watches them squirm under glass, not maliciously, but with a dispassionate hunger to see what they’ll do next.

Gihun doesn’t respond right away. The echo of the gunshots still hums in his ears. Of course, he doesn’t think a single weapon will bring down the whole operation. That would be childish. Naïve. But even so, it would’ve been satisfying to pierce something, just once, something symbolic. A windshield. A neck. A calm voice.

He exhales sharply and forces himself to inhale more slowly, trying to reset his pulse, to wrestle back some semblance of composure. None of this, in the end, was unexpected. Not the ambush. Not the surveillance. Not the fact that the Front Man was always several moves ahead. All of this had been a probability—perhaps even a certainty—from the moment he agreed to this insane meeting. That he would be boxed in, outmanoeuvred, disarmed without even being disarmed.

Gihun lowers the gun and places it on the seat near him, fingers lingering on the grip a moment longer than necessary. His shoulders sag slightly, as though the tension has temporarily burned itself out.

"Let me play again," he says at last, voice low but steady. There’s no dramatic pause, no grand declaration. It’s just the truth, spoken plainly. A quiet surrender to a decision he’s been circling for days, maybe even weeks. Everything in his life has been leading to this. His age doesn’t matter. The money doesn’t matter. Not even Youngil, not even the child growing inside him, managed to steer him away from this. Because in the end, none of that will help the people who still suffer. None of them will know his name. None will thank him. But if he can do one last thing—one truly meaningful thing—it might be enough. It might finally be enough.

"Do you want to play in the Game?" the Front Man asks, voice tilting ever so slightly, as if caught between disbelief and amusement.

"That’s right," Gihun spits out, more angrily than he intended. "I want to play in the Game again."

Technically, it’s not entirely accurate. Not emotionally, not morally. He doesn’t want this, not in the way a man wants a cigarette or a drink or a second chance. But at the same time, maybe it is exactly right. Maybe it’s the first time he honestly said such a thing. His bloodstream is already reacting—adrenaline surging, thoughts sharpening. The chaos of it, the sheer unpredictability, brings with it a clarity he hasn’t felt in years. For the first time in a long time, he feels awake. Alive. Not safe, not calm, but undeniably present.

A terrible thought slinks its way through his mind, dark and unavoidable: the kid really did get a raw deal. Stuck with a father like him. But Gihun consoles himself, briefly, with the promise that if he survives this, he’ll set aside money for a therapist. A good one. And Youngil, for all his flaws, looks like someone who can weather a storm. He’s composed. Reliable. Maybe the kid's issues will only come from one side. Maybe there won’t be any at all. Or maybe Gihun will die before the child is born, and the problem will solve itself.

That final thought makes him smile, thinly, bitterly. It even sounds like something Youngil’s sense of humour but a little bit darker.

"You just asked me to stop the Game," the Front Man repeats as if genuinely puzzled by the contradiction.

This game could be played by two.

"If I agree to participate again," Gihun speaks carefully, deliberately, making an effort to keep his voice clear and firm, as if by sheer will he could suppress the tremble that threatens to betray him. He clamps down on any thought of the child, forcing it into some mental corner he refuses to open. "Your rich, repulsive masters will only enjoy it. So let me enter the Game."

A silence follows. Not a technical delay, not the sort of lag caused by electronics or connection issues, but something deliberate, thoughtful—possibly even theatrical. A pause that stretches out too long, so long it starts to feel like mockery, or worse, calculation.

"What are you waiting for?" Gihun scoffs, his patience threadbare. He doesn’t have time for riddles, for these heavy silences that play power games. "What, are you scared? Of what? A poor old omega who's already over fifty? Are you afraid you might lose?"

The tone in his voice is biting now, ironic, even reckless—but behind the sarcasm is something razor-sharp and rooted in something very real: defiance. This is not a man begging to be understood or spared. It’s someone holding out a mirror to power, daring it to look.

"My former boss was an omega," the Front Man responds, calm as ever, his voice still processed through the filter that strips away everything human. Yet there's something almost conversational there, as though this line is something he's said before and thought about long after. "And he was a frightening man. Someone you could absolutely lose to. You did, after all—if we are being fully honest—lose to him in marbles."

Gihun’s jaw tightens. He doesn’t like that memory being dragged back into the light. He doesn’t like how cleanly the Front Man slices into him, how accurate that blade is.

He isn’t proud of the marble game. Truth be told, there’s little Gihun is proud of. His victories have often been steeped in compromise, soaked in grief, coated in blood. He doesn’t wear medals. He wears scars.

"And I beat him in his own little game before he died," Gihun answers, his voice lower now, almost grave. There’s no bravado in it, only truth. "And I know he knew it. I know it because the look in his eyes told me everything in the end. And like you, he was afraid to see that the world isn't as vile as you've painted it to be. It terrified him to consider that it might be better than he ever believed."

"And you heroically want to show everyone the opposite," the Front Man drawls, the artificial tone of his voice somehow managing to sound weary, even sarcastic. It isn’t really a question, but Gihun responds to it anyway.

"You’re right," Gihun says without hesitation. His answer is stripped of irony, clear and true, not because he thinks it’s noble, but because it’s honest. "And I’ll show you. I’ll show you that the world doesn’t always do what you want."

Another pause fills the air, but this time it doesn’t drag. It breathes once, deep and measured, then vanishes.

"If that is your wish," the Front Man says finally, "then I will grant it."

There’s a hiss—sharp, immediate, metallic—and Gihun sees it: pale vapor unfurling into the space like a summoned ghost. It curls around the limo, slithering like something alive, and quickly thickens into clouds. He knows what it is before he even feels it in his lungs.

Shit. Is this even safe for someone in his condition?

The thought barely forms before his body begins to betray him. However, Gihun says nothing. He breathes deeply and evenly, not because it helps, but because it’s the last thing he can control. He stubbornly keeps his hands planted on his knees, refusing to clutch at his stomach, though instinct screams at him to. His mouth closes around the hard candy dissolving on his tongue, the bitterness of medicinal herbs mixing with sugar, grounding him even as the gas blurs the edges of reality.

Through the swelling fog, just before darkness claims him, he sees it: the bulletproof glass descending, the way it lowers almost reverently. On the other side, a figure appears—a man in a black mask, shrouded in a deep hood.

The bastard really was here the whole time.

Gihun’s lips twitch into the barest approximation of a smile. He had considered the possibility that the Front Man was speaking from some remote location, miles away in a bunker filled with screens. That would have been safer, after all. Logical. Cowardly. But no—he’s here, in person, watching from close enough to be caught in the gas cloud if the system fails. Which means he’s invested. Which means he isn’t just managing the Game—he needs it. That, Gihun thinks in a haze of slipping consciousness, will make beating him that much more satisfying.

Then, everything goes black.

He wakes the same way he did the last time: slowly, painfully, as if rising through tar. The light is too bright, mercilessly fluorescent, stabbing through his eyelids like needles. His skull throbs in time with the tinny, over-amplified music blasting from overhead—an all-too-familiar tune that signals wake-up time in the Game. It’s a melody rewritten by sadists.

On his body, the unmistakable weight and texture of the green tracksuit, which feels like the same one he wore before. Number 456. Just like before.

Gihun sits up slowly, deliberately, his muscles heavy and reluctant. Around him, the same bleak architecture he remembers: a vast room filled with rows upon rows of towering metal bunk beds, stacked like cages in a zoo. The smell hits next, an overwhelming mixture of omegas’ and alphas’ scents.

But among that suffocating haze of odours, Gihun catches two distinct ones. He pauses, nostrils flaring slightly, as his brain processes the unexpected.

One scent is the bitter, grounding aroma of medicinal herbs—the same taste that lingered in his mouth before he passed out. Just like Youngil. The other scent stops him cold. It was juniper. Crisp, sharp, resinous juniper. A small tether, perhaps, to his past self, his previous life.

It smelt like Sangwoo.

Chapter Text

The scent that belonged to Sangwoo was faint—almost imperceptibly so—but it had carved itself so deeply into Gihun's memory that even now, decades later, it emerged like a ghost in the air. Subtle, elusive, and dry like juniper bark in late winter, the smell lingered only when Gihun was most vulnerable. After their childhood friendship, five long years of living under the same roof, and finally the day Sangwoo died cradled in his arms, that smell had embedded itself into his bones. It was the final thing Sangwoo gave him, that calm and almost resigned aroma in the last moments of his life—so serene it had made Gihun's grief feel inappropriate, absurd. That smell haunted him.

It had become a problem so severe that Gihun eventually abandoned the house he had grown up in. The scent chased him through every room, no matter how many incense sticks he burned or scent-neutralizers he sprayed. It sank into the walls, the windowsills, the old furniture. Every hallway held a memory, and every memory carried that phantom scent, which clawed at his sanity and refused to let go. It wasn’t just nostalgia. It was something deeper, more damaging—a smell that threatened to consume him from the inside out.

Now, in this place, in this impossible context, Gihun feels his fingers tremble. It is involuntary and quiet, like the whisper of an oncoming storm he cannot avoid. The faintest shake in his fingertips, a hollow in his breath. It shouldn't be here. Neither of these scents should be here.

Because there’s the other one. The one that does not belong in this place either, and yet is unmistakably here. The scent of bitter herbs—sharp, medical, grounding. It reminds him of apothecaries and dark green leaves crushed in the sun, something unfamiliar yet emotionally precise. He never asked its name, but he knows it belongs to Youngil. His alpha. That smell alone, without words or touch, does something to him. Not in a way that softens him, no. Gihun doesn’t feel softened. But his nerves, which have been stretched taut to the brink of snapping, suddenly realign.

He breathes slower. Not because he's calm, but because some part of him, buried so deeply he can’t argue with it, believes that things might just be okay. That something—someone—is here to fix this. That maybe it’s not too late. That there’s still time. That he can find the pieces of himself that were scattered so brutally over the years and maybe start putting them back together. Even if it’s only for a moment.

But his thoughts are chaos. Whirling and fragmented and loud. One part of him aches for this to be over, for the game to reach its conclusion and release him. Another part claws for survival, for purpose. His tongue flicks across the inner edge of his mouth, touching the metallic seam of the prosthetic anchor, where the tracking device is hidden. It soothes him in the way only the tactile can. Familiar. Real. Anchored.

The taste of the herbal candy still lingers on his tongue, bitter with the earthy weight of dried roots and unnamable leaves. A comfort disguised as something clinical. As that aroma—Youngil’s—floods his nostrils again, more potent now, Gihun makes a decision. Whether instinct or longing or something primal, he stands and begins walking.

The classical music plays on loop above him, echoing just as it had the last time. The same sterile, too-bright composition that signalled morning. It scrapes against his nerves like a blade dragged against glass, but he lets it guide him forward. Step after measured step, he walks the path between rows of towering steel bunk beds, his eyes scanning every corner.

He still doesn’t touch his stomach. His hand hovers close but never lands. The child inside him is quiet—not kicking, but shifting. Awake, perhaps. Alert. Maybe even content. The movement is light but constant, and Gihun cannot ignore it anymore. His body floods with hormones—he can feel it now, the warmth prickling in his spine, the vague tug in his abdomen, the way his throat tightens. It’s not fear exactly. It’s not comfort either. It’s something more complicated. Something older.

Then, across the room, he sees him.

Youngil.

Seated on the lower bunk, posture quiet and composed, watching him. Watching only him. The rest of the world fades. The brightness of the lights, the screech of the orchestral music, the metallic stink of blood and sweat around them—it all slips away.

And Gihun wants to cry.

He doesn’t know why the tears rush so suddenly to the surface, why his throat aches with the effort of holding them back. Is it joy? Despair? Relief so pure it hurts? Or maybe it’s fear. Fear of what this reunion will demand. Because Youngil is here. He is truly, unmistakably here, and that changes everything. It’s no longer a question of ideals or strategy. No longer a matter of survival or sacrifice. This is real now. Personal. Irrevocable.

But what breaks him, more than anything, is Youngil’s face.

That expression—warm and yet tinged with sadness, like sunlight filtered through dust—is too much. His eyes hold disappointment, but it isn’t weaponized. It isn’t cruel. It’s just... waiting. Patient. Like Youngil has known all along that Gihun would come. That this path, no matter how broken, would lead them here. And that he would wait until Gihun was ready to face it.

It unravels Gihun more than any act of violence ever could.

He tries to breathe deeply. He forces himself to drag the air into his lungs, trying to ground himself, to cling to the last threads of self-control. It doesn’t quite work. The panic still flutters like wings in his chest. His knees are too light. His palms too damp. But he’s not breaking, not entirely. That has to count for something.

He is still walking.

He is still whole.

And then, finally, Youngil speaks. His voice is calm, as though they are just old friends meeting in a park after years apart. As though nothing about this moment is wrong. As though they are not prisoners in a nightmare designed to destroy them.

"Hello," Youngil says, the word soft and steady, cutting through the haze like a thread of silk.

"…What are you doing here?" Gihun breathes out, his voice low, raw around the edges, as he steps closer but does not sit. He remains standing, rooted to the spot, unable to look away from Youngil, who is seated on the lower bunk and looking up at him with a quiet, unreadable expression that makes something twist in Gihun’s chest. The sight of him there, calm and unmoving yet so vividly present, sends conflicting signals to his already overloaded senses.

"I’ve been told, I could find my omega here. That he’s in desperate need of help," Youngil says, his voice laced with irony, irritation, and a faint undertone of restrained anger that Gihun can smell before he fully hears it. That sharp, bitter edge is buried beneath the scent of medicinal herbs—the warmth of something ancient, healing, and bittersweet—that no incense or candy could ever replicate completely. Gihun helplessly and greedily draws in that scent as if it might ground him.

Would it be completely insane, he wonders, if he just sat down beside him and sank his teeth into that solid neck, into the scent and skin that had tormented him for weeks in dreams and half-memories? He aches with the urge. His whole body is suddenly trembling on the brink of it.

"You need to get out of here," Gihun says, the words cracking out of him, rough with pain and urgency, tinged with something dangerously close to a sob. His hands clench at his sides. "You need to leave before it’s too late."

Youngil is only involved in this nightmare because of him. Because Gihun couldn’t keep his distance. Because he wasn’t careful. And now the bastard is playing his sick game, and Youngil is a piece on the board. That thought burns like acid.

It’s all fucked beyond belief. Utterly, grotesquely fucked.

The sting behind his eyes builds and crests against his will. The tears start to form even before he can blink them back. Gihun breathes through his nose, but that only floods his senses more with Youngil’s scent. He almost whimpers.

Youngil should have just walked past that café.

Gihun should have handled everything on his own. Should never have gone to see Kim—if he hadn’t, then Kim might still be alive. He should have kept the watch shifts himself, stalked the subway corridors until he caught that bastard. If he’d done that, then no one else would have been dragged in.

Now everyone who’s ever shown him a shred of kindness is in danger. And the child inside him—their child—is kicking hard, urgently, as if it too feels the rising panic and needs to be noticed. The pressure shifts lower in his abdomen, and he feels a sudden, desperate need to use the bathroom. Everything is colliding inside him: hormones, grief, guilt, terror.

Gihun presses his lips together tightly. He really might start crying now. No, not might—he is seconds away.

His legs give out before the tears do, and he lowers himself heavily onto the edge of the bunk, bracing his hands against the mattress to keep himself upright.

"Does your alpha know you’re here?" Youngil frowns, the question sharp and clipped, filled with something darker beneath the surface. Possessiveness, maybe. Accusation. Hurt.

Gihun lifts an eyebrow in response, one corner of his mouth twitching in something that is not quite a smirk. "Well, you’re aware, aren’t you?" he says, his tone more bitter than he intended. Truth be told, he had hoped for something gentler from Youngil. Something warmer, even if only for a few minutes. Especially considering what lies ahead for them. But maybe Youngil already knows what that is. Maybe they told him. And if that’s the case, then of course he would come. That’s just the kind of person he is.

"Very funny," Youngil mutters, clearly not amused, his voice taut with annoyance.

"I don’t think it’s funny at all," Gihun shoots back, equally irritated, his voice rising slightly in pitch. The frustration is growing in him, fast and loud, coiled beneath his ribs like a spring. The baby is kicking more insistently now, almost rhythmically, and it makes it nearly impossible to focus. Gihun grits his teeth and rubs a hand over his lower belly. He should not give in to the attention-seeking antics of the little manipulator. That child is undoubtedly his, down to every last stubborn gene.

"…Your alpha," Youngil says after a pause, his voice lower now, almost contemplative. "Is he a good man?"

Gihun narrows his eyes. "Should I be worried that you’re talking about yourself in the third person?" he asks, eyebrows rising in disbelief. "There hasn’t been anyone but you during the past eight years."

The air between them seems to thicken with that declaration. Gihun doesn’t say it with resentment. He doesn’t say it with longing, either. It’s just a fact, an exhausted truth, and maybe that’s what makes it hit so hard.

Youngil exhales slowly, and the scent shifts again. A hint of sharpness bleeds into it, like crushed leaves rubbed between calloused fingers. "You reek of alpha pheromones," he says, smooth as silk, but the aggression beneath it is razor-sharp, only barely concealed. It slides under Gihun’s skin like a needle.

"Oh," Gihun exhales, blinking. "You mean that…"

He lifts a hand and scratches the back of his head, suddenly sheepish, then lets out a short, breathy laugh that’s half nerves, half defiance. "He’s cute," he says, shrugging one shoulder. "A little ugly in photographs, maybe, but I still like him."

Youngil doesn’t flinch. His expression doesn’t change, but his eyes darken ever so slightly. “Does he treat you well?” he asks through clenched teeth. His voice is measured, calm, too calm. But his scent is wild with tension, with barely concealed fury, and Gihun drinks it in like a drug.

And now he feels flirty. Why the hell does he feel flirty? That’s definitely the hormones. Has to be. It’s the only explanation for the way his body reacts to that mix of scent and voice and tension—God, and probably also a little desire to mess with Youngil, to get back at him for all the stupid, irritating, completely useless jokes he made back when things were simpler.

"And how serious is it between you two?" Youngil presses, the question weighted with implications, with things neither of them have said aloud yet.

"Serious enough, I’d say. We’ve been together since around May," Gihun replies in a tone that sounds thoughtful, almost casual, though there’s a tension running through his shoulders, something tight and coiled beneath the surface of his voice. He speaks as if the words aren’t particularly important, as if they’re nothing more than a vague recollection he’s fishing out of a busy memory—but the glance he casts in Youngil’s direction says otherwise. His eyes flicker, searching, almost gauging what sort of reaction he’s going to provoke.

"Since May?!" Youngil’s voice sharpens with a sudden, unmistakable surge of anger, and the air between them shifts—charged now with the unmistakable weight of his displeasure, thickened by the unmistakable edge in his tone. The sudden change is jarring, and Gihun, for a moment, regrets the way he phrased it. Still, the joke continues to amuse him somewhere deep down inside, in a dark, strange little corner of his mind where pain and humour still coexist. There’s something undeniably fascinating—dangerously appealing—about this version of Youngil, one who has dropped the practiced charm and the polite veneer, one who is allowing his real emotions to surface without refinement or reserve. It draws Gihun in, makes his breathing catch, makes his chest tighten in a way that borders on euphoric.

He missed him. Missed him with an ache so deep it gnawed at him in quiet moments, in the nights spent alone, in the mornings where he woke up reaching instinctively for warmth that wasn’t there.

"Well, aside from some moments, he treats me well," Gihun adds, as if continuing a conversation that had never stopped, his tone now deliberately flippant, even though there’s an unmistakable tremble behind his words. "I mean, if he didn’t hit me that hard, everything would be perfect. But all in all, things could be worse. I’m not really complaining. Well… maybe just a little bit."

The silence that follows is sudden and dangerous, thick with the sharp coldness that settles over them like frost creeping over glass. Youngil’s scent changes too, growing bitter and glacial, stripping the room of warmth. The shift hits Gihun like a wave, dizzying and electric. His body reacts instinctively—his skin flushes hot, his lips part slightly, and his mind swims with conflicting sensations. The child inside him shifts, less with violence and more with presence, like a subtle reminder that it’s still there, listening, observing. The pressure low in his abdomen intensifies, but none of it feels real anymore. All he can smell, all he can feel, is Youngil, that familiar herbal sharpness now bristling with controlled fury.

"What the fuck, Gihun?" Youngil asks, low and rough, a quiet demand that hits harder than any shout could. He grabs Gihun by the shoulders, not painfully but firmly enough that there’s no mistaking his intent. His hands are steady, fingers curled in just tight enough to make Gihun’s breath catch. He stares directly into Gihun’s face, no longer bothering with the polish of etiquette. The mask is completely gone now, peeled back to reveal raw intensity, the sort of pure emotion Gihun once thought he’d never see again. "You left me for some piece of shit who lays hands on you?"

Gihun feels a pulse of heat between his thighs, sharp and shameful. His underwear dampens immediately. He knows this is the worst possible time and place to be thinking about sex, and yet his body betrays him without hesitation. It remembers the last time, the goodbye that tasted like ash and longing, and it reacts now with terrifying hope. Youngil, furious and protective, all sharp edges and aching restraint, is still so heartbreakingly beautiful. Gihun finds himself staring at him, lips parted, breath shallow, heart pounding in a rhythm that isn’t quite panic and isn’t quite arousal, but somewhere messily in between. He doesn’t care who’s nearby, who might be watching or listening. The world has collapsed to this single moment, to this alpha whose scent drives him to the edge of reason.

"What’s this bastard’s name?" Youngil demands with a hard insistence, his voice ironclad. There’s no softness left. He smells even stronger now, and Gihun’s knees feel weak. The surge of pheromones is nearly overwhelming. If this continues for much longer, Gihun genuinely isn’t sure he’ll be able to keep himself together. His body is reacting faster than his thoughts, and he can feel the slow, dangerous buildup of want curling deep inside him, thick and impossible to ignore.

"Haven’t picked one yet," Gihun admits, his voice faltering under the pressure but still laced with that same mocking defiance that’s equal parts self-defense and instinct. His tongue feels heavy in his mouth, but he manages to force the words out anyway. "I’m thinking about Junyoung. How do you like that?"

"What?" Youngil’s brow jerks upward, the disbelief in his voice clear. His whole face shifts with confusion, trying to catch up to the conversation, trying to understand what the hell Gihun is saying.

"I’m pregnant," Gihun blurts, the words tumbling out with awkward abruptness, hanging in the air between them like a confession and a challenge all at once. His hands twitch at his sides, unsure of what to do with themselves. Youngil doesn’t respond immediately. He just stares at him, silent and frozen, like something essential inside him has short-circuited. His mouth is slightly open, but no sound comes out.

"We’re going to have a son," Gihun adds, his voice dropping to a quieter, almost shy register, as though he’s sharing a secret he hadn’t meant to say aloud. "An alpha. You probably guessed that much."

Youngil sits there, motionless. His posture goes stiff, and even his breath seems to halt for a second, suspended in the thick silence that follows. The scent of aggression that had been rolling off him in waves begins to ebb, slowly dissolving into something softer, something uncertain and quiet. Gihun can’t tell what he’s thinking. All he knows is that the herbal sharpness of Youngil’s pheromones no longer feels like a blade.

"You… You… It is mine?" Youngil finally manages to ask, the words stumbling out of his mouth in complete disbelief. His eyes are still locked on Gihun’s face, wide and unblinking, like he’s trying to memorize every feature, as if searching for proof that this is real. His voice is almost hoarse, as if it took all the air in his lungs just to speak those few words.

"Yeah," Gihun nods slowly, his voice quiet but carrying a faint, deliberate firmness that attempts to mask the uncertainty in his own chest. "I get it. It's sudden. Completely out of the blue. Believe me, it was a fucking shock for me too. And I understand your doubts, I do. If it helps, we can get a DNA test or something…"

"If you're telling me that this is my child, then this is my child," Youngil replies, enunciating each word slowly and with weight, as though each syllable has to be chewed on before it's allowed to leave his mouth. "But if that's true, then you… how far along are you?"

Gihun glances away, unable to hold the force of that gaze any longer. The weight of it is unbearable—too raw, too intimate, too full of things unsaid and years unravelled. He exhales quietly, as if even that is an admission. "Twenty-six weeks," he answers at last, almost apologetically, his voice low, hesitant, like he's sharing something secret and sacred and maybe a little shameful too.

Youngil sits frozen, the air around him almost visibly stilled, as if time itself has slammed to a halt. His hands remain on Gihun’s shoulders, though he doesn’t seem to realize he’s still holding him like that. There’s a strange contrast between the hardness of his grip and the vacant expression creeping over his face, as though he's been struck and his body hasn't caught up to the pain yet.

"In general, everything’s developing fine," Gihun continues, the words coming out with awkward effort, as though he's rehearsed them but still can’t believe he’s saying them aloud to Youngil of all people. "I don’t really know what else to say. They gave me a due date—January twenty-eighth. But there’s also been talk about a cesarean. I mean, I’d rather avoid that if I can, but we’ll see what the doctor decides. It depends on how things go. That’s… pretty much it." His words drift off not because he’s done talking, but because there’s no reaction coming from Youngil, who still just stares through him as if Gihun were a ghost or an old memory conjured from nothing.

The scent of fear begins to rise from Youngil, subtle but unmistakable, and with it a tinge of something else—panic, perhaps, the kind that coils tightly before it explodes outward. Gihun can feel the shift in him, feel it in the way his shoulders stiffen beneath Youngil’s grip, feel it in the oppressive silence thickening between them. It’s not surprising. This wasn’t the reunion either of them had likely imagined. And so, with a slight forward motion of his hands, Gihun makes a placating gesture.

"I’m not forcing anything on you," he says quickly, hoping to calm whatever storm might be gathering. "Really. You don’t owe me anything. I just thought it would be right for you to know. That’s all."

There is another pause, this one deeper, heavier, as if time itself has expanded inside the stillness. Then Youngil finally speaks again, his voice hoarse, dry at the edges.

"When… When did you find out you were pregnant?" he asks, each word sounding like it’s been scraped from his throat.

"Oh, that was back in September," Gihun replies, and for the first time, a tiny flicker of something resembling a smile curls at the corner of his lips. It’s tentative, barely there, but real. His hand drifts unconsciously to the curve of his belly, where the child inside has at last gone still, no longer kicking but pressing with quiet insistence. "Week eighteen. That’s when they confirmed it. I tried to call you. I did. But there was something wrong with your number, I think… I don’t know. In any case, it doesn’t matter anymore." He pauses, his expression shifting as his gaze sharpens and steadies, locking onto Youngil’s. "What matters now is that you need to get out of here. They’re using you. They’re playing you against me. That’s all this is. You need to leave this place."

For a moment, Youngil doesn't move. His entire body seems suspended in the tension of that realization, the full weight of Gihun’s words folding over him like a net. His scent changes again, a bitter undertone weaving into it, like something old and painful rising up from beneath the surface. Gihun feels the change immediately. It allows him to gain a sliver of distance, mentally if not physically. If he can stay calm, if he can stay focused, he might still have time to protect him. To protect both of them. Everything might still be okay.

As if needing an anchor, Gihun runs his tongue over the hard edge of his dental prosthetic, grounding himself in the sensation. Junho will be here soon. The plan, fragile and desperate as it is, hinges on timing. All he has to do now is hold Youngil’s attention. Just a little longer.

"Let’s start over," Youngil suddenly says, his voice breaking on the first syllable before he gathers himself. He looks at Gihun with something that’s almost pleading, something wild and raw and so filled with need it hurts to see. "Please. Give me a chance. Let’s… let’s get out of here together, somehow. Please, I’ll do anything for you, anything at all. But just… let’s go home. Let’s go back. We can make it work, I know we can." His tone is desperate now, but not in a way that frightens Gihun. It’s the desperation of someone who’s drowning in regrets, in missed chances, in years that can’t be rewound. Youngil slowly lets go of Gihun’s shoulders, only to take his hand instead, wrapping his fingers tightly around it with a grip that trembles just slightly. "Please," he repeats, softer this time.

"I can’t leave," Gihun answers, and there is no hesitation in his voice. The firmness is like a shield, like armor fitted over old wounds. He lays his other hand gently over Youngil’s, holding it with care but not yielding. "But you have to. You don’t understand how dangerous this place is. You think you do, but you really don’t."

Youngil’s expression twists, his jaw tightening. His posture straightens, bristling with a new kind of resistance, and his scent sharpens again, veering toward something sharper—frustration, maybe, or a mix of resentment and disbelief. "So I’m just supposed to walk away," he says, voice low and steady, but threaded through with that simmering undercurrent. "I’m supposed to leave my pregnant omega here, alone, in this… whatever this is. And I’m not even allowed to know what I’m being left out of?"

Gihun flinches slightly at the phrasing, at the way Youngil says "pregnant omega" with both possession and heartbreak tangled together in the syllables. His instinct is to reassure, to soothe, but the truth is, there is no easy answer to give. The circumstances are impossible, and the danger surrounding them is real. And Youngil, for all his strength, is a liability here if he stays.

"What’s so dangerous about this place?" Youngil presses, the emotion leaking into his voice despite his best efforts to remain measured. "What is it that makes it so impossible for me to stay? You clearly want to be here. You came here knowing you were pregnant, and now you’re telling me I have to leave without you? How is that supposed to make any sense?"

The bitterness in his scent grows heavier, mingling with disappointment, a deeply wounded sense of betrayal that only someone who had once imagined a different future could feel. His words are controlled, almost surgically chosen, but they cut just the same, carving through the space between them and demanding answers that Gihun can’t—or won’t—give.

Gihun holds his gaze, his own scent a mix of resolve and regret, and though the urge to reach out further, to say more, to explain everything, tightens his throat, he knows better. He cannot give in. Not while there’s still a chance to steer Youngil away from the fire.

"This is the life’s work I told you about," Gihun says, his voice subdued, the corners of his mouth dipping slightly, not into a frown exactly, but into something quieter, more resigned. A flicker of something wounded passes through his eyes—fatigue, maybe, or the strain of holding too many secrets for too long.

"Then it’s my life’s work too," Youngil replies without hesitation, as though the conclusion were obvious and absolute. "And I’m staying. I’ll help you."

Gihun’s expression doesn’t shift, not visibly. But the tension in his shoulders spikes in a way that’s almost imperceptible unless one knows him well. He exhales through his nose, just barely, and his eyes dart across Youngil’s face, searching.

"Did they tell you what exactly you’re supposed to help me with?" he asks slowly. "Did they even tell you what’s going on here?"

Youngil shakes his head with a quick motion, lips pressing into a thin, uncertain line. "No."

"Great," Gihun mutters, then corrects himself almost immediately, though the sarcasm is still clinging to his voice. "Actually, no. That’s bad. Or… maybe normal, depending on how you look at it." He scrubs a hand down his face and then gestures vaguely, words speeding up as his mind kicks into gear. "Anyway, they’ll give you a contract, and it’s sketchy as hell, so don’t sign it. Just tell them you’ve changed your mind. Better yet, say your omega’s already bonded to someone else and you’re completely heartbroken and leaving me for good."

The edge of irony in his tone can’t quite hide the urgency beneath it. His words are rushed, improvisational, like he’s desperately flipping through every bad lie he’s ever heard in hopes one might stick. Because Youngil is his most vulnerable point, and that bastard Front Man will absolutely seize on it the first chance he gets.

"I’m not leaving this place unless it’s with you," Youngil says, lips tight, the muscle in his jaw twitching with restrained emotion.

Gihun exhales sharply, somewhere between exasperation and surrender. Of course. That’s Youngil—loyal to the point of self-destruction, impossible to shake once he’s set his mind on something. Stubborn as ever, complicated as hell, and completely unprepared for what he’s walked into. Fine. Junho should be arriving soon anyway.

"Then stick close to me and follow my instructions," Gihun says at last, with a long sigh. "Take everything seriously, no matter how stupid it might se—"

A sudden siren cuts him off, loud and shrill, echoing off the walls like a jolt of static. The doors to the dormitory slide open with a mechanical hiss. Armed guards begin to file into the hall, faceless behind their masks and helmets. Gihun doesn’t even flinch. He doesn’t bother looking at them. Nothing new ever comes from their arrival. No truth. No mercy. Just spectacle and noise.

"—No matter how stupid my words might sound to you," he finishes, his voice low but firm. "These people are dangerous bastards. They won’t hesitate to kill you. Don’t give them an excuse."

"Maybe we should go and at least hear what these bastards have to say?" Youngil murmurs, tilting his head subtly in the direction of the newly arrived soldiers.

Gihun rolls his eyes and waves a dismissive hand. "They’re not going to say anything useful. It’s just some crap ‘welcome,’ like we’re honoured guests or something. Then the crowd starts shouting for their belongings. That’s the pattern. Trust me, you’re not missing anything."

"Still," Youngil presses, a faintly insistent edge creeping into his voice. "There might be something useful. Or at least something we can use later."

Gihun turns his gaze to him, studying his face. "I’ve been here before," he says quietly, and there’s something chilling in how plainly he says it. "You’ve figured that out, haven’t you?" He pauses only a moment before continuing, as though the words taste sour in his mouth. "They play children's games. For survival."

Youngil straightens up slightly, his posture going rigid, eyes widening just a fraction.

"Let’s just listen—" he begins.

"I don’t give a damn what those workers have to say," Gihun snaps, louder now but still in a whisper, though heated. His voice isn’t sharp enough to attract attention from the guards, but it’s close. He doesn’t want to move closer to the crowd. Doesn’t want to hear the speech again. Doesn’t want Youngil anywhere near the others if he can help it. This little bubble of space between them and the rest of the room is the only safety they have right now.

"Okay," Youngil says, holding up his hands in surrender, his palms open, non-threatening. But his face is troubled. His scent has soured slightly, a sharp blend of concern and frustration that doesn’t match the words he’s chosen. He wants to argue. He just isn’t sure how.

"So here’s how it works," Gihun says, pressing on before Youngil can speak again. His voice has gone flat, clinical now, as though he’s explaining weather patterns or bus schedules. "They play these games—six of them. Simple things from childhood. Except if you lose, you die. The prize for surviving all of them is forty five billion won."

"Wow," Youngil says, but his scent doesn’t match the word. There’s no awe in it. No disbelief. Just slow-rising dread and a growing, horrified understanding of what Gihun is actually saying.

"I know," Gihun says, managing a mirthless smile. "It sounds insane. But you have to believe me." He tightens his arms slightly over his abdomen, the protective gesture automatic. The child inside him shifts again, heavier now, pressing downward like it can feel the tension in the air. His lower back aches, a dull, dragging throb that’s been building all morning. His body is tired. His mind is exhausted. And his patience is gone.

"These fucking hormones," he mutters under his breath. His tone is bitter, but not angry—just tired. Bone-deep, soul-heavy tired. "And my omega nature." The words come out like a confession and a curse. His back twinges again. The discomfort is quickly tipping toward pain.

God, he thinks, closing his eyes for a moment, when is Junho going to get here?

"What is it?" Youngil immediately frowns, his brow knitting in concern as he closes the distance between them, stopping just short of brushing against Gihun.

"Your son has been particularly active these past couple of days," Gihun mutters through clenched teeth, his voice weary as he reaches instinctively for his abdomen, the motion both habitual and protective. His fingers splay across the fabric of his loose uniform, pressing lightly as though trying to soothe the shifting life within. "By the way, do you want to feel him?" he adds after a moment, glancing up at Youngil with a tentative, tired flicker of a smile.

"Am I allowed?" Youngil asks in a hushed voice, the words barely audible, trembling with a kind of fragile uncertainty that Gihun hasn’t heard from him before. There is fear in the question—not fear of Gihun himself, but of crossing some boundary, of ruining a moment that feels too delicate to be real.

"Of course," Gihun answers softly, the corners of his lips lifting just slightly in a gentle curve that only accentuates how exhausted he looks. His tone is kind, but laced with something far more vulnerable. In the background, the sharp whir of machinery and static hums to life; the Square has started playing video feeds on the monitor, clips featuring other players, and that likely means the infamous game of "Red Light, Green Light" is about to begin again very soon. It sends a chill up Gihun’s spine.

The dormitary they're in is watched from all angles. Cameras are embedded in every possible corner. It’s not paranoia—just fact—that there’s a strong chance a listening device has been planted near him, or worse, that they’ll soon assign someone to tail him, to spy on his every step and report back to that bastard, the Front Man. That smug, cold bastard who always seems to know just a bit too much. The pregnancy probably won't stay a secret for long, not with how often Gihun has to excuse himself for the bathroom, not with how his body keeps changing in ways he can’t quite hide anymore—not in this place, not under constant surveillance.

Youngil’s hand reaches forward, hesitant at first. The swell of Gihun’s stomach is barely visible beneath the baggy tracksuit they’re forced to wear, but it’s there, undeniable to those who know to look. When Youngil finally makes contact, his palm barely brushes the cloth before retreating like he’s touched something sacred. He seems terrified, like he is afraid Gihun will crack beneath his fingers like porcelain. Gihun exhales, the sound long and weary, and then he presses Youngil’s hand more firmly against his belly, guiding it gently, shifting it to the side just a bit where the kicking is strongest. And almost instantly, as if summoned by the contact, the baby delivers a solid kick right into Youngil’s palm.

Youngil goes pale, his face blanching with wide-eyed shock. His gaze drops to Gihun’s stomach, then to his own hand, frozen there, his expression something between awe and disbelief, like he’s witnessing something holy. He stares for several seconds, mouth slightly ajar, as if he's not sure whether to smile or gasp, and ultimately does neither, simply stunned into reverent silence.

"So, what do you think of the name Junyoung?" Gihun asks softly, his tone teasing but also genuinely curious, his expression warming into something softer, lighter. "Oh Junyoung?"

"Oh?" Youngil repeats with a faint frown, clearly caught off guard by the question. He considers it, lips pursed. "Oh... Maybe we should go with Seong instead? I have a brother. And you’re an only child, right?"

"Well, my mom’s last name is also Oh," Gihun says with a small shrug, his voice casual but measured. "So we can just say the name skipped a generation." There’s a beat, and then he adds, "But if you don’t want to, I’m not going to insist. I mean, you..." He trails off briefly, suddenly nervous, his words beginning to tangle as his thoughts trip over each other. "I’d like for you to be a little bit involved, you know? In raising him. Because, honestly, I don’t think I’m doing all that great on my own. And I… I’d really be glad to have your help. But I understand this is all coming out of nowhere for you. Maybe you don’t need this in your life. And maybe it seems like I didn’t use protection on purpose, just to trap you with the pregnancy, but that’s not—"

Gihun stops himself, blinking rapidly as he realizes how fast he’s speaking, how the pitch of his voice is rising. He’s doing that thing again—nervously rambling whenever he feels too exposed. He always did that, especially around people who mattered. And apparently Youngil still matters more than he’s comfortable admitting, because here he is again, spilling thoughts that should have stayed private, thoughts that aren’t yet fully formed, just pouring out because silence feels even more dangerous. And he probably forgot just how much calmer, how much safer he feels when this alpha is near. Or maybe it’s just the pregnancy amplifying everything, sharpening his reactions, his emotions, until it’s almost unbearable.

There’s a part of him now, deep and unrelenting, that wants to collapse against Youngil’s chest and let himself be held. That wants to lean into that scent, into that solid body, into those strong arms and let go for just a little while. He wants to climb into that embrace like a child, to cling, to be comforted, to rest. He wants it so badly it makes his throat tighten.

And the worst part is that he knows it’s pathetic. It sickens him, this craving for dependence. It disgusts him, how easily he’s been reduced to this soft, pliable version of himself, how the hormones or maybe the vulnerability of his condition is distorting him into someone he barely recognizes. It’s revolting.

What a fucking nightmare.

"I want this child," Youngil says with firm conviction, the weight of the words settling heavily in the stale, recycled air between them. There is no hesitation in his voice, but beneath the solid tone, Gihun hears something else—an undercurrent of fear, quiet but unmistakable, woven into the spaces between syllables. "But I’m really scared," he continues, his expression tightening as he speaks, his eyes searching Gihun’s face for something—reassurance, perhaps, or courage, or maybe just a shared understanding of the terror that’s starting to sink in. "Especially after what you told me about this place. You said it’s possible to leave?"

"Well, they do give you a contract to sign at the beginning," Gihun replies, his voice calm but distant, like he’s going over a detail he’s repeated to himself countless times already. He looks away for a moment, gaze flickering toward the corner of the room where the shadows fall just a little too cleanly, too perfectly—no doubt another hidden camera. Then he turns back, eyes slightly brighter. "Actually, I have a plan. And—not to brag—but I’ve got a whole team of people working under me who are actively trying to track down this place. They’re trained. They’ll find it."

"And how exactly are they going to track you?" Youngil presses, his tone shifting slightly—not hostile, but deeply sceptical, as though trying to hold onto logic in the middle of a nightmare. His eyes narrow a little, and Gihun can tell he’s trying to poke holes in this supposed plan before daring to hope.

"I came up with something brilliant," Gihun says, a flicker of pride brightening his face for a heartbeat, though it’s quickly tempered by humility. "Well, not just me. Choi Wooseok helped too. If it weren’t for him, I probably wouldn’t even have realized I was pregnant in the first place."

At this, Youngil’s eyebrows shoot upward in surprise, and he gives Gihun a sharp, curious look, clearly not expecting that answer. There’s a brief silence between them, punctuated only by the soft whirring of the surveillance machinery hidden behind the walls, and the distant echo of footsteps or maybe voices far down one of the corridors.

"You’re really sure it’s going to work?" Youngil asks eventually, his skepticism returning as he speaks slowly, deliberately, every word measured like he’s testing the floorboards beneath him before taking the next step. His mouth tightens into a thin, uncertain line. "I mean… maybe there’s some way you can check again? Just to be sure?"

Gihun leans forward slightly, then lazily runs his tongue over the cold metal brace in his mouth and he speaks again. "I checked. It’s fine." His voice is even, but there’s something secretive in it too, a quiet defiance that says he’s already thought this through in more detail than he’s letting on.

Youngil exhales sharply and looks away, visibly frustrated—not angry, just stuck in that awful space between disbelief and concern. He doesn’t know, of course. He doesn’t know that Gihun really did check, did test everything with painstaking care, double and triple-checked every link in the chain. Youngil likely thinks he’s just being mocked, that Gihun is playing some kind of joke on him, or worse, dismissing his concerns with smug, evasive confidence.

But Gihun knows the truth, and that gives him a small, secret kind of satisfaction. He lets his lips curl into a barely-there smile. Despite the obvious frustration radiating from Youngil, the man doesn’t snap at him, doesn’t raise his voice or accuse him of being reckless. He holds it in. That restraint—quiet and deliberate—is more comforting than anything he could have said aloud. It’s proof that even now, even amid all the uncertainty, Youngil refuses to lash out. And Gihun finds himself grateful for that.

Things had been different with his ex-husband.

Now, surrounded by the faint but ever-present smell of the dried herbs, Gihun finds an odd kind of peace stealing over him, despite the horrific circumstances on this island. The atmosphere is still suffocating, yes, but with Youngil here beside him, it’s as if they’ve been carved out of the larger chaos and placed in a quiet, self-contained world where none of the other horrors can quite reach them. It’s as though all they have to do is wait it out, just a little longer, and then somehow, maybe, they’ll slip through a crack in the system and disappear.

The lights in the room flicker for a moment and then go out completely, plunging everything into dim shadow. Then, with a mechanical hiss, a massive glass piggy bank begins to descend slowly from the ceiling, its bloated form catching what little light remains. The eerie melody begins playing overhead—the one that’s become synonymous with death, the twisted lullaby that signals the start of another round of carnage. The tune crawls under Gihun’s skin like a parasite, unwelcome and unforgettable.

Without a word, Gihun buries his face in the curve of Youngil’s neck, pressing his forehead into the warm skin there, trying to breathe slowly and evenly, trying not to let the memories drown him. That sound—it will always be the soundtrack to Saebyeok’s death in his mind, no matter how much time passes. It was playing when she fell. It was playing when the blood pooled. It was playing when he realized he was powerless to stop any of it.

Youngil raises a hand and begins gently stroking Gihun’s hair, his fingers brushing through the strands in quiet, soothing rhythm, like he’s trying to calm a child from a nightmare. He doesn’t say anything, and he doesn’t ask questions. He just continues the motion, slow and patient, offering comfort where words might fail.

Youngil is, in many ways, the ideal partner: steady, thoughtful, surprisingly tender in moments that call for gentleness. He may not fully understand the danger they’re in yet, may not grasp the scale of the tragedy looming over all of them, but he still does everything he can to soothe Gihun, who he probably thinks is just being overly anxious. Perhaps in his mind, the omega is simply reacting emotionally, reading too much into things, letting nerves get the better of him.

But even that assumption, mistaken though it may be, leads to kindness. And that kindness pulls Gihun in closer, makes him press his face deeper into the hollow of Youngil’s neck, unwilling to let even an inch of space separate them.

"So even if we leave after the first game, we’d still get some of the money?" Youngil asks quietly, his voice low and hesitant, as though he’s trying to puzzle it out aloud.

"What?" Gihun frowns and instinctively pulls back, leaning away just enough to look Youngil in the face, confusion written clearly in the crease between his brows.

"They said that after each game there’s a vote," Youngil says, tilting his head slightly, his tone thoughtful now. "And if the majority votes to end the games, then they will stop them—and the accumulated money will be divided among the remaining players." He pauses, then adds with a slight raise of one eyebrow, "You’re the expert between the two of us, aren’t you? The one who told me not to really listen to what they are talking about?"

"This fucking bastard," Gihun mutters under his breath, the words slipping out like venom from between clenched teeth. Of course, he doesn’t mean Youngil—though to be fair, Youngil has his own brand of quiet stubbornness, the kind that needles at Gihun in ways both irritating and oddly endearing. Still, the object of his muttered frustration is someone else entirely: the Front Man. The fucking Front Man. That smug, velvet-voiced demon with a face hidden behind that impassive mask, who somehow always knows exactly where to prod to make your most buried fears squirm.

Gihun had underestimated him. Not in terms of raw power or influence—he’d known better than that—but in his talent for cruelty, for orchestrating the stage just so, pressing all the right buttons until Gihun could practically feel the blood start to boil in his ears. There was a particular genius in that kind of psychological warfare, and Gihun, much to his dismay, now found himself on the receiving end.

Eventually, the blinding lights return with a sudden, humming flicker, flooding the room in their clinical, flat light. Like cockroaches scuttling from darkness, the players begin to shuffle toward the makeshift registration tables, forming awkward, hesitant lines. Gihun and Youngil don’t move at first. They remain seated off to the side, choosing not to crowd themselves into the anxious herd. Gihun can feel the tension radiating off Youngil in silent waves. Twice, maybe three times, Youngil opens his mouth as though to speak, lips parting and closing again like a man about to dive into frigid water but losing his nerve. He doesn't say anything in the end, but Gihun doesn't need to be a mind-reader or a soulmate to guess the thought lingering on Youngil’s tongue like a bitter pill: What if we just didn’t sign? What if we walked away now, while we still can?

When they finally do rise to join the line—most of the others have already made their marks—Gihun is still wrapped in the comforting scent of Youngil’s presence. It clings to his senses like warmth after a nightmare. He leans in a little, just enough to catch it more fully: a clean, familiar base. And yet, amid this grounding balm, Gihun finds himself searching, nose twitching subtly, his eyes flicking across the crowd. He’s hunting for something more—someone more. There's a scent he’s been missing, a particular juniper trace that lives somewhere deep in his memory and under his skin. It is not logical, he knows this, but longing has never cared much for logic.

There are too many people. Too many bodies crammed together in this space, and their scents—so many of them heavy with fear, confusion, cheap detergent, and synthetic cloth—are all bleeding into one another. He can’t pinpoint what he’s looking for. But the ache of its absence is enough to make his throat tighten.

Youngil is watching him carefully. There’s a crease of concern between his brows, and more than once, he leans in to whisper: "What are you sniffing around for?" His tone is skeptical, and a little amused, but there’s something else too—something protective.

Gihun waves him off each time, unwilling to explain in full. He has mentioned Sangwoo before, in passing, a name dropped like a shard of glass in the middle of an otherwise smooth floor. But he hasn’t elaborated. He hasn’t told Youngil about the weight of shared childhood, of betrayals so deep they left scars on his soul, of how that boy with sharp eyes and careful hands had once felt like the axis of his entire life.

It’s too much. Too raw. And besides, this isn't the time.

A woman, or more accurately—the girl who looks like she is barely twenty, Player 222—walks past, and suddenly, the air shifts.

Gihun stills. His body reacts before his brain catches up, and his nose follows the trail like a hound catching the edge of a familiar scent. That’s it. That’s the one. The cold wave that breaks over him is immediate and visceral, like stepping barefoot onto snow.

It’s coming from her. The smell is unmistakable. He moves his head subtly, drawing in a deeper breath. His fingers twitch, heart hammering hard against his ribs like a prisoner rattling his cell. It can’t be. It shouldn’t be. But it is. That scent—so terribly familiar, so heartbreakingly real—it knocks the breath from his lungs.

He needs to speak to her. Before the first game, no matter what it takes. He must.

His mind is racing, tripping over itself in a mad scramble of memories. Some are crystal clear: laughter over stolen snacks, the sun catching in someone’s hair, the shape of hands that once clung to his sleeve. Others are hazy, flickering like film reels damaged by time, but no less powerful in their emotional weight. The presence of that scent here is like a cruel trick, a thread of the past pulled straight into the heart of this nightmare.

"Maybe we should just go home," Youngil says again, softly this time, like someone asking a ghost to leave them in peace. "What if… what if no one comes for you?"

Gihun’s jaw tightens. He doesn't answer immediately. He knows what Youngil is trying to say. The risk is real. What if the people who are supposed to be watching from the outside never receive his signal? What if the plan falls apart before it even begins?

"Even if they don’t come," he replies at last, voice low but steady, "I know what’s coming next. I can adapt. I’ll figure it out. But listen… if you decide to leave, I’ll support you. I promise. I want you safe. I can manage on my own."

Youngil exhales slowly. He’s close—so close Gihun can feel the breath on his neck. That closeness, that heat, grounds him. Anchors him to the present. For a moment, the chaos of the room fades, and all he can feel is the quiet strength of this man beside him.

When Gihun finally steps forward to sign the agreement, he scans the document with a level of scrutiny he hadn’t afforded for other documents in his life. He’s startled to notice that the rules have indeed been changed. Subtly, but unmistakably.

His eyes land on the third clause:

THE GAMES MAY BE TERMINATED UPON A MAJORITY VOTE. IN CASE OF A TIE, PLAYERS WILL VOTE AGAIN.

He frowns, his mind immediately chewing through the logic. That clause—what did it mean, really? Wasn’t that already implied? Couldn’t they always call for another vote if the first one didn’t result in a clear majority? What had changed, and why?

And then it clicks.

The clause isn't for the players. It’s for control. It’s for creating the illusion of agency. More importantly, it’s designed to delay. If a vote is split evenly, it can be repeated until emotions are frayed, until fatigue sets in, until enough people are swayed by subtle fear and coercion to tip the scale in favour of continuing.

Then there's the other amendment—the more insidious one. The clause that states the prize money will now be divided among the winners if the games are terminated early. That detail stinks of manipulation. It’s a way to disincentivize unity. If everyone walks away, no one walks away rich. Why vote to stop when you might be the one to claim it all?

They’re trying to fracture solidarity before it has the chance to form. They’re planting seeds of doubt, whispering into the ears of desperate men and women: You could have more if they all had less.

Gihun feels a spark of rage flicker deep in his gut. It’s clever. Diabolically clever. And it means he’ll have to adapt, faster than he’d planned.

Still, a thought occurs—quiet at first, then sharper, clearer. It’s risky, but not impossible.

A vote. Held during the game, not after. While everyone is still raw, afraid, unsettled. When the cost of survival is fresh on their skin and no one yet feels invincible. That moment—that’s when they might listen. That’s when he could shift the tide.

The idea blooms like a flower in his mind. He smiles to himself. It’s dangerous, but promising.

He signs the document with slow, deliberate movements, and feels a strange, unexpected pulse of satisfaction travel through his chest.

This game can be played with two.

Chapter Text

The fact that Gihun had managed to hold out long enough to be one of the last people in line to sign the contract came with its own complications—most pressingly, the fact that he absolutely needed to get to Player 222 and find out everything he could and he needed to do it now, with no more time to waste.

Youngil trailed after him like a silent shadow, barely even glancing at the contract page before scrawling his signature in a careless rush, as if the document was nothing more than a formality to be brushed aside. He didn’t linger to read the clauses or analyse the implications, clearly more concerned with sticking close to Gihun, whose focus was already locked elsewhere. Gihun might have waited for him under different circumstances—if he hadn’t felt so fiercely aware of the ticking clock, of how few moments remained before they would be herded off to get their photos taken for the profiles, and after that, pushed straight into the first game. The window was rapidly closing. He had no luxury of time. He had to talk to her now, this very instant, before it was too late.

So he moved, following the trail left in the air, guided by the now-familiar and maddeningly vivid scent of juniper berries. It was like a silver thread glinting faintly in the darkness of his mind, leading him toward some distant, half-remembered truth. The smell wasn’t just familiar—it felt foundational, embedded in the deep marrow of his bones, and now it carried urgency. He followed it through the maze of clustered beds and whispering bodies until he spotted her. She had curled herself up in some far-off corner, trying to stay out of sight, tucked in like a frightened animal hiding from a world.

Youngil followed silently, no longer asking where Gihun was going or why. He simply walked a step behind, his brow furrowed with a growing tension, his mouth drawn in a flat line. It was obvious he didn’t like this. He didn’t like seeing Gihun so driven, so frayed at the edges. It unsettled him. He didn’t say it, but the concern was carved into every line of his posture. At this point, he seemed to believe that Gihun couldn’t be trusted to take even a single step without supervision. And honestly, Gihun couldn’t blame him.

The intensity of that watchful gaze made Gihun want to do a hundred contradictory things at once. Part of him wanted to shout—to snap at Youngil to give him space, to stop hovering like some overprotective specter. Another part of him wanted to cry, to break down and sob into the crook of Youngil’s neck and whisper "thank you" over and over until the words lost meaning. There was a sliver of him that wanted to turn and kiss him, maybe even bite him, to leave some kind of mark, a tangible imprint of this moment. And another sliver that wanted to bolt in the opposite direction, away from the unbearable heat building in his chest.

Fucking hormones.

His andrologist had brought it up a few times in the past, always with that maddeningly calm tone, as though what he was experiencing could be cleanly measured and charted out on a graph. She had said, cautiously and with no small amount of curiosity, that libidinal spikes varied from person to person. Some pregnant omegas experienced intense sexual desire during key stress periods, while others shut down entirely. Gihun had always brushed it off. He attributed that he hadn’t any unusual behaviour or heightened arousal to the suffocating stress of his environment and the singular obsession burning like wildfire through his thoughts: revenge, justice, and survival. There hadn’t been space in his head for anything else. His body only ever seemed to light up in the context of the Games, and everything else had dulled in comparison.

Even now, the dense, strong herbal scent of Youngil should have been overwhelming, especially given how closely he hovered behind Gihun. And yet his brain had already coded that scent as something familiar, something internal, something so intimate it was practically part of him. It faded into the background, allowing other scents to surface more sharply. And that was how he found her.

The girl was seated on the lower bunk of a nearby bed, her frame small and tense, shoulders hunched forward as though she were trying to make herself invisible. Her eyes were on him before he even spoke, her whole body going alert, as if she could already tell that he was coming straight for her. She didn’t know who he was or what he wanted, but she saw the unmistakable determination in his eyes, and she shrank back further into the shadows.

Gihun paused a respectful distance away, trying to make himself look less threatening. He raised a hand gently in greeting and offered her a soft, non-invasive smile, hoping it would help put her at ease.

"Hi," he said quietly, keeping his voice low and calm.

She didn’t respond aloud, but gave a small, tentative nod, enough to show she’d heard him, though clearly not enough to suggest she was comfortable.

Gihun felt his breath catch. Up close, the scent was unmistakable. It was his. The same piercing note of juniper, laced now with something warmer, softer. Something maternal.

"We’re... in the same situation," he said, nearly whispering. He couldn’t risk being too direct. Not here, where any wrong word could be overheard, where revealing too much too quickly might draw the wrong kind of attention. He needed her to understand without saying too much. "And… and I’m sorry for asking something so personal, but... the man, the person who’s the father... what’s his name?"

Her face twisted instantly into suspicion, and her body shifted reflexively into a defensive posture. She brought a hand down over her lower abdomen, almost unconsciously protective, shielding it even though there was nothing visibly there. She was still slim, almost narrow-looking, but the scent didn’t lie. The child she carried was far enough along that the scent was there and so strong.

"Why do you want to know?" she asked, her voice quiet but firm, her brow furrowed with confusion and wariness.

Gihun exhaled slowly, trying to steady himself. He didn’t want to scare her. He didn’t want her to feel threatened. But this—this was important. He could feel it. Something vital was unraveling in his chest, some thread of fate or recognition that he hadn’t even known he was holding onto until now.

He looked at her, really looked, and realized how young she was. Maybe twenty, if that. Too young to be here. Too young to be pregnant and alone in a place like this. And still, somehow, she was bearing it all with a kind of strength that hit him squarely in the gut.

There was so much he wanted to say. So many questions stacked one atop another, tripping over themselves in the scramble to reach his mouth. But he held back. Forced himself to take it one step at a time.

"I'm not here to hurt you," he said finally, the words raw and sincere. "I swear. I just... I think I know who he is."

Her eyes widened slightly at that, and Gihun saw the fear shift, just a little, into curiosity.

Behind him, Youngil stood silent and unmoving, his presence a steady, grounding pressure. Gihun was acutely aware of it, of the way Youngil’s presence softened the edges of the moment, made it possible for him to breathe without shaking. It was infuriating and comforting in equal measure.

Some part of him wanted to turn around and scream at Youngil to leave, to stop watching him with those silently concerned eyes. Another part wanted to lean back against his chest and let himself fall apart.

But none of that could happen now

"Why do you want to know?" she asks, brows knitting together in suspicion as her hand instinctively comes to rest over her lower abdomen in a protective gesture. There's barely a bump visible beneath her clothes—just the faintest rounding—but the scent of the child is already rising off her, soft and unmistakable, interwoven with the fragile, hormonal sweetness of late third trimester.

"It's just that… He…" The words come out slowly, choking and uneven. His throat tightens painfully as if clamped in a vice. Memory crashes over him like a wave too fast and too brutal to prepare for: the image of a very small, achingly gentle boy with impossibly large eyes, always filled with a kind of quiet hope, swims into his mind and threatens to drag him under. "He would be about thirty now. Cho Liam. But maybe that’s not his name now. I... This scent, this child’s scent… I’ve smelled it before. The exact same, down to the smallest note. It was my…" Damn these goddamn hormones, damn the way his heart won't stop twisting like a fishhook stuck in flesh. "... my b— my best friend."

His voice nearly cracks under the weight of it, and there's no covering that up. The girl tilts her head just slightly, the edges of her wariness sharpening again. She’s still very young, though there’s a kind of hardness in her expression that speaks to months—maybe years—of having to fend for herself. Her grip tightens protectively over her stomach.

"He didn’t call himself that, but he used different names depending on the situation," she replies at last, mouth drawn into a flat line. Her voice is controlled, but there’s something faintly bitter curling around the edges. "And if you're planning to get to him through me, it’s not a great idea. He doesn’t care about me. Or the baby. We don’t mean anything to him."

The words hit harder than Gihun is willing to admit, slicing through the haze of hope he hadn’t even realized he was clinging to. His stomach clenches. Fuck.

"Different names?" Gihun echoes, brows furrowing. "What kind? Do you maybe know his address, a phone number, even a city—anything?"

"I’ll give you the information once we’re out," she says, with quiet, deliberate firmness. "Just don’t mention anything about our relationship. I don’t want him near me again. I want him to leave me the fuck alone."

Her voice doesn’t waver, but her fingers press harder into her side as if she's bracing for something she can’t quite see coming. Gihun exhales slowly. Her bitterness isn’t just bitterness—it’s pain, disappointment that’s already calcified into cynicism. He understands it. More than he wants to.

"Listen," he says, his tone suddenly frayed at the edges, trembling from the nerves tightening every muscle in his body. "What if we try to revoke your consent to participate in the Game? I’m—look, I’m actually really rich. I can cover your debts. If you give me the information, I’ll take care of everything. You don’t have to go through this."

Her eyebrow shoots up, sharp with disbelief. "Seriously? And what are you doing here then if you’ve got money?"

"This whole thing is… it’s not legal. It’s not what it looks like," Gihun says quickly, casting a glance over his shoulder before jabbing a thumb behind him. "I’m here to stop it. That guy—he’s actually an undercover cop."

Youngil lets out a strange, almost comical little huff from behind them, part sigh, part laugh, but Gihun ignores it.

"And we’d really like to get through this without unnecessary casualties," Gihun adds, turning back to the girl. His voice is earnest now, practically pleading. "But there are things coming. Dangerous things. It won’t be safe."

She studies him like she’s trying to see past his words and into the structure of his bones, into the beating of his heart. Her gaze lingers especially on his face—on the flush in his cheeks, on the tension in his jaw, on the slight sweat-damp curl of his hair. Then her eyes lower, resting on his abdomen. Suspicion lingers.

"And you’re pregnant too?" she asks, quiet but pointed, as though testing him.

"Yeah," he nods, swallowing hard. "I am. Right now there’s a whole squad out looking for me—well, I mean, a task force. But you can go to Mrs. Im, tell her I sent you. She’ll take care of you, and give you money. You just have to tell her what you know about the Games and that you’re connected to me."

He hesitates, glancing sideways toward the path they’d come from, doing the math in his head. "Though I guess we might be leaving around the same time, depending on how things shake out."

Then, as if realizing the gap in politeness he should’ve covered from the start, he tilts his head slightly and offers a gentler expression. "What’s your name, by the way?"

"Kim Junhee," she replies, still wary but a little less bristling than before. There’s an edge of weariness in her voice now, the kind that belongs to someone who’s known too many sleepless nights and too little kindness. Still, it’s clear she’s processing what he said, and that something—maybe the scent of sincerity clinging to Gihun’s skin, or the wild, desperate edge in his voice—is sinking in.

She may be stubborn, but she’s not stupid. A pregnant girl with no one to protect her doesn’t belong here, and part of her knows that, no matter how fiercely she wants to believe she can handle it all alone.

And for a few moments, the dormitory around them falls quiet except for the hum of distant voices and the soft echo of shoes against the linoleum floor somewhere far down the hallway. The silence stretches, brittle and uncertain, suspended in that strange space between two people who might have been enemies under different rules, but who now share something intimate and inescapable: the presence of life inside them, and the need to survive not just for themselves, but for the ones they carry.

"Junhee, sweetheart, no matter what happens, I want to help you. Please, let me do that."

There is something about her, something subtle but persistent, that reminds Gihun of Gayeong. Not in appearance, but in the tentative way she carries herself, the way she seems to be bracing for impact even in stillness, her slight frame too tightly coiled to simply belong to a young woman going through pregnancy. It calls back something deeply paternal in him, something that tightens his chest with protective instinct, something that had stirred in him once before, years ago, under violently different circumstances.

With Saebyeok during the Games, he’d formed a bond that was difficult to explain but impossible to deny—something raw and aching, reminiscent of the bond between a parent and child, or a guardian and someone they desperately needed to save. He had never spoken of it aloud, but it had lived within him like a wound that refused to close. Especially after Sangwoo… after what Sangwoo had done. That moment had cracked something open in Gihun, something he hadn’t even known was fragile. Saebyeok had always been prickly, mistrustful, withdrawn. From the beginning she had built a wall around herself so high and sharp that even when she had begun to let Gihun in, it had been with visible effort. And still, he had wanted so badly to help her, to protect her, and even now—after everything—he couldn’t quite shake the guilt that her life had ended the way it did. He had promised her more, even if he’d never said the words.

But Junhee was different. She didn’t have that same hardened shell around her. Life had clearly treated her poorly—he could read that in the tension of her shoulders, in the small, instinctive movements of someone used to watching her back—but she hadn’t let the world make her cruel. Her face held no bitterness, just wariness, and something in her eyes suggested that maybe it didn’t feel completely foreign to her that someone might try to help without demanding anything in return.

He gently took her by the elbow, not roughly, just enough to guide her, and hurried with her toward the main hall, where some of the staff were already beginning to gather the papers and stack them neatly for processing. It was clear they were nearing the final stages of the intake, and he knew they didn’t have much time. His heart was beating quickly, not just from the exertion but from the urgency of it all. There was no way he was letting this girl go through with it. Not when he had a chance to get her out.

"Excuse me! Please wait!" Gihun called out brightly, injecting his voice with as much good-natured cheerfulness as he could manage under the circumstances. "Someone here’s had a change of heart!"

The Square staff member didn’t even look up at first. His voice was utterly devoid of emotion, so mechanical it may as well have come from a loudspeaker. "The agreement has already been sig—"

"Sir," Youngil interrupted, his tone sharply calm, controlled but loaded with an unmistakable authority. "You were told someone changed their mind."

The difference in delivery was striking. Where Gihun’s words had been urgent and slightly manic, Youngil’s were cool and precise, each syllable landing with the steady weight of command. There was something faintly reminiscent of Junho in it. Junho, who had always managed to speak with the casual confidence of someone who never needed to raise his voice to be heard. But where Junho’s voice had held warmth, the glimmer of mischief even in tense moments, Youngil’s tone was colder, more opaque. It didn’t lack humanity, exactly, but it didn’t court sympathy either. It sounded like someone used to giving orders that got followed.

God, he’s so handsome. And so strong. That was a thought Gihun couldn’t suppress, even in the thick of this moment. It flickered through his head like a shameful prayer. What on earth had he ever done to deserve the attention of someone like Youngil? What good deed, what moment of courage or sacrifice, could possibly have earned him the loyalty—no, the affection—of someone so competent, so unwavering, so solidly good?

Junhee stood beside him, looking increasingly uncomfortable with the attention they were attracting. Despite their relatively quiet approach, the commotion had not gone unnoticed. Players were watching now. Some subtly, others not at all.

Gihun leaned slightly toward her, not to pressure, but to shield. He wanted her to feel less exposed. More protected. He had no idea how young she really was, but right now she seemed impossibly small.

"Maybe Mister Seong Gihun has also changed his mind?" Youngil said smoothly, a hopeful tilt to his voice that tried to keep the mood from tipping into something confrontational. "You could have a quick chat with Miss Kim while I play this stupid game and everything."

Gihun stiffened. How could Youngil suggest such a thing? Even hypothetically. He turned to look at him, brows furrowed with disbelief.

"I’m not leaving. And of course, I will not leave you here alone," he said quietly but firmly, his voice thick with emotion and something else—something like dread. Did Youngil really not understand what kind of place this was? Or worse, did he understand all too well and think he could handle it alone? Maybe it was that—maybe he’d spent so long in law enforcement, so long-playing roles and wearing masks, that now he believed he was invincible. But Gihun had seen what this place did to people. He knew the Games didn’t care if you were trained or strong or full of purpose. They would chew through you just the same.

Youngil was an alpha, and like many alphas, he carried himself with the certainty of someone who believed he could weather any storm. It wasn’t arrogance exactly, more like an ingrained belief in responsibility. A need to shield others at his own expense. But Gihun had lived through enough horrors to know that the Games didn’t reward heroism.

And besides, his presence here wasn’t just for show. Junho needed to find him. That was the only chance they had of reconnecting and maybe of surviving what came next. Every minute Gihun remained here was another breadcrumb Junho might be able to follow. Every breath he took here was a lifeline dangling in the dark.

"No," he repeated, voice low and steady. "I’m not leaving."

That made something flicker in Youngil’s expression. Frustration and a kind of quiet acceptance, tinged with concern. He nodded once, almost imperceptibly, and then turned his attention back to the staff members, who were searching for that agreement form.

Gihun could feel Junhee’s unease growing. She shifted beside him, unsure whether to commit to this sudden change or to retreat before it solidified into something irreversible. He didn’t blame her. None of this was fair.

The soldiers, though they had initially refused, quickly began shuffling through the papers after that commanding tone was used. Of course. Naturally. If an omega says something, it hardly registers. At best, it's ignored. At worst, it’s laughed off. But the moment an alpha opens his mouth with even a hint of authority, everyone snaps to attention and scurries off to obey. It’s infuriating. Gihun gritted his teeth as he watched the shift in their behaviour—how their hands suddenly moved faster, how they suddenly seemed to recall their duties. They were now rummaging through the stack to retrieve Junhee’s signed agreement, the one she clearly hadn’t consented to with full understanding, while the rest of the players were forming a line and filing out through various doors. Some of them still cast curious glances at the small, tense group gathered around the soldiers—likely wondering what the commotion was about—but for the most part, their attention was drawn to the mystery of what awaited them beyond those doors. That, after all, was what held their survival.

"Junhee!" came a sharp male voice from behind Gihun, cutting through the anxious hum of the moment like a blade.

Gihun turned instinctively, his muscles taut, heart seizing. An alpha was approaching them with brisk steps, a young man in his late twenties or early thirties by the look of it, his stride full of purpose. The scent hit Gihun before anything else—sharp, clean, and unmistakably coniferous. Pine. Resin. Cold wind through the forest. It clung to the man’s skin like smoke. And it was the exact same scent that had filled Liam’s small bedroom every night since the boy had started sleeping on his own.

The world tilted. Gihun felt the floor roll beneath his feet. His vision darkened around the edges, the artificial light of the room flickering as if it too were gasping. The scent stirred something old and raw in his chest, something that had not been disturbed in years and had never properly healed. Youngil’s scent, usually a quiet comfort grew sharper, more anxious, crowding in protectively as if to anchor him. But Gihun was already slipping. He could barely stand.

And Liam—or whoever he truly was—rushed past him without so much as a glance. He went straight for Junhee, who recoiled on instinct, her body language pulling back sharply. The look on her face was unmistakable: displeasure, discomfort, and not a trace of surprise. She was used to this. She had expected this. She rolled her eyes in a gesture that struck Gihun as unbearably sad for someone so young, and tried to sidestep the man’s insistent approach. He was speaking to her in a low, fervent voice, trying to reason with her or perhaps guilt her, while she seemed to shrink inward, barely tolerating the proximity.

Gihun hadn’t realized how tightly he was clenching his jaw until his teeth started to ache. He hadn’t thought—hadn’t even imagined—that he would ever smell that particular scent again. Not in this place, not after so many years. He had thought he’d left it behind.

Liam. Liam who looked nothing like Sangwoo and yet somehow echoed him in posture, in cadence, in some unconscious gestures. He wasn’t a mirror image, but there was a familiarity that clawed at Gihun’s chest. And it was unbearable. His hands were trembling so badly he had to tuck them under his arms to hide it. He tried to breathe, tried to ground himself, but everything was spinning and none of the anchoring tricks he had learned over the years seemed to work.

Youngil appeared at his side again, gently steadying him with one arm, the other hovering near his back as if unsure whether to touch. He said something—soft, quiet, perhaps even soothing—but all Gihun could hear was a high-pitched ringing, like feedback from a broken speaker. The pine scent, the juniper note that wasn’t quite Sangwoo but still summoned him like a ghost, overwhelmed every other sense.

He needed to speak. He needed to ask something—anything—to this Liam, needed to hear something from his mouth, needed to force the world to make sense. But his throat was closing up. His chest burned. His breaths came short and fast, and no matter how hard he tried to slow them, it wasn’t enough.

Youngil’s scent pressed closer, trying to anchor him again, but it only reminded Gihun that this wasn’t his home, this wasn’t safety. This was the Island. This was a place that warped every connection and stripped every feeling down to its bones. He pressed his palms flat against the table, trying to steady himself, his fingers splaying wide against the surface as if it could somehow ground him. Youngil, ever watchful, began stroking his back—soft, slow, rhythmic movements across the small of his back that would have been intimate if they hadn’t been so necessary in the moment.

"…We have rescinded the agreement for Kim Junhee," Square said, his voice awkward and formal, as though unsure how to proceed in the face of this small but persistent rebellion. "Is there anything else?"

Gihun straightened slowly, his chest still heaving. The pressure hadn’t lifted, but his mind was returning to the present—just enough for him to refocus. He turned his head toward the soldier, his expression hardening.

"Yes. This one won’t participate either." His finger pointed with unmistakable finality at Player 333.

"What?" Liam’s eyebrows shot up. He puffed out his chest like a rooster, indignant and full of misplaced bravado. "And who the hell are you supposed to be?"

Oh God. In that moment, Gihun saw it clearly. Whatever vague similarities Liam had to Sangwoo evaporated the second he opened his mouth like that. Sangwoo had always carried himself with a refined cruelty, a cutting intellect that sliced people open without needing to raise his voice. This—this was posturing. Bluster without substance. This was the kind of behaviour Gihun knew all too well. It was his. It was, in a strange way, almost more painful than if Liam had been Sangwoo’s exact replica.

The laugh bubbled up in Gihun’s throat before he could stop it—sharp, nervous, completely out of place. He giggled like a man on the verge of collapse. It wasn’t funny. None of this was funny. But something about the absurdity of it—the reappearance of a scent he thought he’d buried, the boy he had once called his son now standing here as a grown man trying to puff himself up in front of strangers—it made his ribs shake with barely restrained hysteria. His eyes were wet, though whether from laughter or something else, he couldn’t say.

Youngil did not laugh. Youngil stood at his side like a shield, watching Liam with the kind of focus that made it clear he had already assessed this new alpha and found him lacking. There was no warmth in his gaze. No sympathy. Just calculation. He placed his hand more firmly on Gihun’s lower back, a subtle signal: I’m here. I’ll follow your lead. Say the word, and I’ll end this.

Gihun inhaled shakily. The scents in the room still collided violently—sweat and fear and confusion—but he could breathe again. Almost. He kept his eyes on Liam, who was now staring at him with a mix of irritation and disbelief, like he couldn’t fathom being dismissed so easily. Like he didn’t realize how little power he held in this space.

"Player 333 is no longer participating," Gihun repeated, more clearly this time, his voice firm despite the quiver beneath it. He turned back toward Square.

"Gihun, you can’t just start revoking everyone’s consent forms. Please, calm down." Youngil kept rubbing small, steady circles into his lower back, trying to ground him. "Let’s go home. Together. With Miss Kim."

God, he was persistent. And slow on the uptake.

"I’m not going anywhere," Gihun said, jaw set. "I’m staying right here until—" He pressed his lips together, reconsidering how much he was willing to admit aloud. "Until someone comes for me. Liam… or whatever the hell his name is, is out."

"And why would you even care?" Liam threw his chin up defiantly, like he had nothing left to lose and didn’t give a damn who knew it. "You gonna pay off my debts or something?"

"That’s right," Gihun murmured, the detail surfacing from some deeply buried place. "You’ve got debts. How much?"

"One and a half billion," Liam muttered through clenched teeth, shoulders stiff, eyes sharp with shame disguised as fury.

"Pfah," Gihun snorted, a bitter, breathy sound that barely masked the wave of nausea rolling over him. "Your precious father owed six billion. I’ll cover whatever needs covering. But you’re both getting the hell out of here. You and Junhee. Out."

"My… my father?" Liam’s eyes widened with something too raw and startled to be anything but real. "You knew my father?"

But this time, no sarcastic quip followed. No deflecting humour, no attempt to mask his disquiet behind bravado.

"I owed your father more than I can ever repay," Gihun said, voice low. "And I owe you too. So revoke your consent. Go home with Junhee." He frowned. "No, wait. Not like that. Don’t you dare bother Junhee, you hear me? You can travel together, fine, but don’t get in her way. I don’t know exactly what you did, but I know damn well you’re guilty."

"Gramps, don’t you think you’re overstepping a bit?" Liam arched a brow, posture loose and cocky again as if none of this got to him. He turned his attention to Youngil, his smile now edged with challenge. "Maybe you ought to keep your omega in check before he gets hurt."

"And what, exactly, do you think might happen if I don’t?" Youngil’s voice dropped several degrees below freezing as he stepped forward, closing the space between them with a quiet, deliberate threat coiled in every line of his body. All of him radiated aggression—his shoulders squared, his hands flexing at his sides, his gaze hard as polished steel. Liam instinctively shifted to stand in front of Junhee, as if that would shield her from anything, though she didn’t look particularly pleased about it. Still, neither of the alphas broke eye contact, and the tension thickened like storm clouds gathering in a closed room. Their pregnant partners stood off to the side, watching, waiting, silent witnesses to a display of dominance that had no room for rationality.

"Dear players, who decided to participate in the game," the Square announced in that practiced, clinical monotone that all staff seemed to possess, though to Gihun it sounded vaguely plaintive, almost like the speaker hoped someone might listen for once. "Please proceed to the next area. Follow the Triangle."

Liam was the first to move, without looking back. And Gihun, of course, went after him. There was no hesitation in his steps, only a grim sort of resolve; he already knew that Liam was just as stubborn as Sangwoo, and there was no use trying to reason with someone so single-minded. Better to trail close behind and keep an eye on him.

Not that Gihun had any proof—nothing that would hold up in any real court—that this was his Liam. But all signs pointed that way. And that was enough to keep his pulse hammering in his throat, enough to make him feel like his ribs were about to split open from the pressure building in his chest.

He hadn’t really remembered the smell of Liam. How could he? Liam had gone missing in September of 1999, just disappeared without a trace. And the child’s body they’d found a month later—same age, wrong shoes, face too mangled to recognize—Gihun had never seen it. Hadn’t dared. Hadn’t been allowed. He’d swallowed the official story like broken glass and tried to move on. But Sangwoo… Sangwoo had refused to believe it, to the very end. He’d insisted, with that same grim, desperate fire that used to get him through school exams and meetings, that the corpse wasn’t Liam’s. That it couldn’t be.

And Gihun—useless, cowardly, weak—had eventually stopped arguing.

Gihun’s heart ached like a bruise pressed too hard. He followed Liam and the Triangle through the corridor, each step heavier than the last. Junhee’s voice floated behind them for a moment, clipped and annoyed, answering something Youngil said, but Gihun didn’t turn back. He couldn’t afford to.

What if it was really him?

What if Sangwoo had been right?

What if the boy walking just a few paces ahead of him—angry, arrogant, alive—was the same child he’d wept for, mourned, buried in a grave with someone else’s name?

He clenched his fists to stop the tremor in his hands, the one that always came when he was trying too hard to hold himself together. And somewhere, deep in the marrow of his bones, he begged Sangwoo for forgiveness—for not believing.

Gihun had denied it for a long time himself. There was a stretch of years where the mere thought of it lodged in his throat like a splinter, unbearable to name, impossible to let go of. But for the sake of their survival—his and Sangwoo's—he had to keep moving forward. He had to push past that unbearable loss, especially once Sangwoo began unravelling, slowly, in fits and spirals of quiet self-destruction. Gihun had made him go through with the degree, pushed him through to graduation like a man bailing water from a sinking boat with his bare hands. And it had been awful—Sangwoo at his worst, lashing out, falling apart, barely holding it together—but they’d made it, somehow. The professors had been understanding enough, or perhaps simply tired of seeing brilliant students implode in front of them. Maybe it was then that taking care of Sangwoo had become Gihun’s new reason to keep going, something to fill the endless hollow days left behind by Liam’s disappearance. He hadn’t wanted to make a new meaning, not then, but meaning had made itself in spite of him, the way moss clings to abandoned stone.

He and Sangwoo had always been different in how they carried their grief. Sangwoo, ever the rational one, the self-styled realist, drank himself senseless and still swore, tearfully and stubbornly, that Liam was alive. He would search the faces of strange children in parks, schools, in passing cars. He’d walk slowly through bookstores, pretending to browse, always lingering near the English-language children’s books. His fingers would drift over bright covers, as if searching for a ghost among their pages. And all the while, Gihun couldn’t bear to speak Liam’s name.

Gihun had mourned differently. He kept a tally in his head, a quiet running clock. Every birthday, he’d count: Liam would have been five. Eight. Twelve. Twenty. He’d picture Gayeong playing with her older brother, laughing and squabbling like siblings do. He imagined the photographs that could have lined the walls—first days of school, summer vacations, birthdays with store-bought cake. He imagined how Sangwoo would’ve rolled his eyes at Liam’s teenage moods and how they all would’ve cried at his graduation. Gihun imagined them getting drunk together for Liam’s coming of age, imagined sending him off proudly to some prestigious American university, bright-eyed and full of promise. He could see it so clearly that it hurt.

And now that little boy—his little boy—was thirty years old, drowning in a debt of one and a half billion won.

That little boy, that baby with tangled hair and sticky fingers, was going to be a father.

Gihun was old. Really, truly old. Not in the vague, passing way he usually meant when he said it. Not in the way people say "I'm getting old" when their knees ache or when they forget a name. No. He was old enough now to be called a grandfather.

"Gihun, who is that?" came Youngil’s voice, steady and close behind him, the familiar warmth of his hand guiding Gihun forward, steadying him as they navigated the narrow stairwell.

"...Do you remember Sangwoo?" Gihun asked quietly, gathering his breath, summoning the words like pulling thorns from his own skin. Youngil nodded carefully, meeting his eyes with gentle concern, but Gihun couldn’t hold the gaze. He looked away. "That’s Sangwoo’s son. I think."

"Oh," said Youngil, lifting his eyebrows, his scent laced with worry and tension. Not alarm at the situation, exactly, but concern—real concern—for Gihun himself, for the storm that must be swirling inside him.

And that brat still wouldn’t listen. Still thought that being thirty made him automatically wise, invincible, the master of his own life. Just like Sangwoo had, once upon a time. So sure he was the smartest person in the room, so sure he didn’t need anyone, especially not someone like Gihun looking out for him.

Gihun’s hands were still trembling. The stairwell was narrow and industrial, unpleasant to walk through under the best of circumstances. He hated the echo of their steps, hated how his knees protested each movement. He had to force himself to look normal for the mandatory photo, plastering on an almost-human expression while the robot barked its mechanical "Smile!" again and again. Originally, he’d planned to scowl, to look as heartbroken and resentful as he felt, but everything had been thrown so off-kilter that he didn’t have the strength left to be performatively bitter. All he could manage was not to fall apart completely.

He kept his eyes on Liam—on the man who might be Liam—as the boy tried to slip away into the crowd forming up ahead, disappearing into the anonymous stream of new players, one debt-ridden face among many. Gihun would not have lost him, too, if not for the sudden burst of joy and familiarity that rang out in a voice he recognized far too well.

"Gihun!"

Oh, for fuck’s sake. What now. Jungbae?

What the actual fuck was Jungbae doing here?

The shock of it hit him like a slap, rippling through him and instantly betrayed by the change in his scent. Youngil was already moving, already there, steadying him with one hand at his waist and the other beneath his elbow, grounding him like an anchor tossed into stormy water. And as always, the fresh and herbal scent was calming, drawing Gihun back from the edge with steady, silent insistence.

Fucking Front Man.

Gihun tries to breathe—deep, slow, deliberate. He forces his lungs to expand, his ribs to widen, and his shoulders to lower, though they keep snapping back up, as if bracing for a blow. Everything about the situation is spiraling too quickly—Liam, Youngil, and now Jungbae of all people. He wants to scream. Or vanish. Or scream and then vanish. Instead, he inhales again, steadies his weight on the step, and keeps walking.

"I saw you right away and thought about saying hi," Jungbae says with a clumsy smirk, trailing behind them with the clomping gait of someone who believes he still has the right to speak freely. His tone is off—half-joking, half-sleazy, laced with the kind of teasing that would’ve been fine if it came when Gihun was more calm and steady. "But you two looked real cozy. Like lovebirds. Isn’t it a little late in life for that kind of thing?"

"Good afternoon," Youngil replies sweetly, voice smooth like syrup, polite in the way a blade is polished. Gihun can feel the disdain radiating off him in waves, even if his face shows nothing but mild civility. Jungbae doesn’t seem to catch it—or pretends not to.

"Gihun knows so many people here," Youngil adds.

"Really?" Jungbae’s eyes widen theatrically, like a cheap actor trying to sell surprise. "Someone else from back in the day?"

"I think I found Liam," Gihun says flatly. No emotion. No inflection. Just truth dropped like a stone.

"...Liam?" Jungbae falters, his voice shrinking an octave, the teasing melting out of him. He looks lost for a moment, as if the name alone can shift the ground beneath his feet. "Gihun, but—"

"I know," Gihun cuts him off, sharp and fast. He doesn’t want the next words. Doesn’t need them. Doesn’t have time to soothe Jungbae through a conversation that he himself hasn’t survived. "That’s why I need another pair of eyes and another nose. I want you to look at him. On the field. And both of you—stay close to me. This is going to get dangerous."

He doesn’t wait for responses. He starts walking, pushed forward by nothing but sheer dread and Youngil’s steadying grip on his arm. The world around them blurs; the sharp lines of the stairwell, the buzz of orders over the intercom, the shuffle of guards and players lining up ahead—it all recedes into a kind of muffled hum. What matters is getting up and down those stairs. What matters is reaching the field. What matters is not falling apart in the middle of it all.

Youngil keeps one hand at Gihun’s lower back, the other near his elbow, nervous but firm, as if he knows exactly how close Gihun is to collapsing and is prepared to bear some of that weight. Gihun wants to cry again—not from pain, not even from fear, but from how damn good Youngil is. For being there, for staying, for putting up with all of this without needing to be asked. For being brilliant and kind and solid. For being a man who shouldn’t have to carry someone like Gihun but does it anyway. They’re lagging slightly behind the main group now, but Gihun knows that nothing will start without him. He is, after all, still the key.

"…Are you okay?" Jungbae asks, slipping ahead a little now, turning to glance back at him with too-familiar eyes. His tone is lighter again, but there’s a thread of something else now—curiosity, maybe, or blame. "I saw your ex about a year ago. He told me about your mom. And that you’ve basically dropped contact with Gayeong. Said you don’t even check in properly. I mean, sure, I get it—you’ve got your new fling and everything—but come on, man. You can’t just forget you have a kid. She’s hurting."

Each word lands like a slap. Then another. And another. Jungbae manages to flay Gihun alive without raising his voice, without even realizing what he’s doing. Gihun doesn’t respond—can’t respond—not because it isn’t true, but because it is. Every word of it. Not the part about Youngil being some romantic replacement, that’s garbage. But the rest? The part about Gayeong, about his failure to be a decent dad, about letting the weight of grief and guilt and the past swallow him whole? It’s all true. He’s a terrible parent. A coward. A selfish bastard who ran so far from pain that he trampled everyone who needed him along the way.

The tears start rising before he can stop them. His hormones are surging again, waves of heat and shame and panic rolling through his chest like a wildfire. He blinks fast, forcing them back.

He’s ruined everything. He’s going to lose Youngil. Yes, Youngil is here now, but how long can that last? How long before he realizes what a mistake this is? Before he finally lets go? He’s going to hurt him, the same way he’s hurt everyone else. Just like he’s going to fail Junyoung, too, because how could a boy grow up right with a dad like this? With someone as weak and broken and selfish as him?

Gihun should’ve died back then. On that rainy night, in that stairwell, on that platform—he should’ve let go. If Sangwoo had survived instead, he would’ve done everything right. He would’ve handled the grief. He would’ve rebuilt. He would’ve found Liam and reconnected with him like a real father should. Gihun was never cut out for this. Sangwoo would’ve brought things full circle, would’ve made peace with the past, would’ve healed.

Gihun should’ve stayed alone. That was the only way to keep the curse contained. The curse that spills out of him and poisons everyone he loves.

He should grab the Front Man and hold him tight—really hold him—and then throw himself into the abyss with him. Just fall together. Fall and end it all. That’s the only way to stop this. The only way to keep it from infecting anyone else.

"Mister Park, shut your mouth and keep moving," Youngil says through gritted teeth, one arm still firm around Gihun’s waist, the other bracing protectively against his lower belly as if to shield him from everything—emotionally, physically, spiritually. "How are you supposed to play in this condition? And don’t listen to that idiot—you will be a good dad. You are a good dad."

And the worst part of it all is that Gihun can feel he’s lying. Not out of malice, but out of tenderness, desperation, and a heart-breaking attempt to soothe. It cuts into Gihun like a splinter under the fingernail: not sharp enough to bleed, but constantly there, throbbing, accusing. He knows Youngil’s saying it for his sake, to keep him steady, to prevent him from slipping under the tide of emotion that’s threatening to drown him right there in the middle of the corridor—but instead of calming him, it has the opposite effect. It makes Gihun ache worse.

He wants to hold Gayeong again. Wants to wrap his arms around Liam, even though he shouldn’t. Wants to hold Junyoung to his chest and never let go. So much yearning it feels physical—like muscle pain, like a bruise under the ribs.

"Help me get there," Gihun says, voice quiet but firm, so full of control it’s nearly brittle. The baby stirs inside him in response to the tension, giving Youngil’s hand a sharp, sudden kick as if to announce his presence in this world of adults and their endless complications. Somehow, that simple jab grounds Gihun. Reminds him that he is not alone.

Thankfully, Jungbae has already moved ahead, either out of guilt or boredom or simple obliviousness, leaving them trailing behind. The Triangle remains behind them, watching their sluggish pace but saying nothing. There’s no reprimand, no threat, only quiet patience, which in this place is somehow more disturbing than cruelty.

The corridors are a labyrinth—twisting and doubling back on themselves like some kind of architectural joke at the players’ expense—and Gihun grits his teeth as he realizes how much farther he’ll have to walk just because some sadist decided hallways should spiral and tangle rather than lead directly. Every unnecessary step scrapes at his endurance, but he keeps going, one breath after another.

Youngil presses his lips together, clearly uncomfortable, clearly watching him with mounting concern. The subtle herbal scent that always clings to him, lingers in the air between them and helps Gihun breathe just a little deeper, just a little steadier. He’s grateful for it. Grateful for everything about this man, who somehow continues to hold him together even as he’s falling apart.

"Should I carry you?" Youngil asks, and he means it—not teasing, not performative, just an honest, worried offer from someone who would do anything to keep Gihun from hurting. "That way you’ll have more energy left for the game."

"I’m fine," Gihun replies, and it’s a lie, one he delivers flatly, without even trying to make it sound convincing.

But strangely, saying it makes walking easier. Maybe because it feels like accepting punishment, like paying off a debt. He deserves this pain, this struggle, this exhaustion pressing down on his bones and turning his breath shallow. He abandoned his daughter, betrayed Liam, is putting Youngil through hell and dragging Junyoung into it before he’s even born—so yes, he deserves this. He deserves every miserable step. Let it hurt.

Youngil looks like he’s seriously considering just scooping him up and carrying him against his will, and for a second, Gihun braces for it. But instead, the man simply stays beside him, silent and watchful, every step measured to match his faltering rhythm. And that makes Gihun want to cry again—not out of weakness, but because it’s too much, too kind. His lips twitch upward for a moment, almost against his will.

"How do you know his last name?" Gihun asks quietly, the question slipping out before he has time to second-guess it.

"…Ah," Youngil falters, and instantly, Gihun feels a terrible sense of shame flood his chest—like he’s just caught someone reading a private letter or looking through a box of childhood things. "Can we not talk about that?"

"Yes, we can," Gihun says, though the curiosity is clawing at him.

There’s a pause. Youngil sighs, and when he speaks again, it’s with that same confessional softness he used in the corridor before, like someone pulling open old wounds on purpose.

"I tracked down all the alphas you’d ever been close with, in any context," he admits. "Anyone who might’ve been with you romantically. I… couldn’t help myself. I needed to know everything about you. I abused my position—I looked at files, searched records. I just—" He breaks off, shaking his head, voice thinning with apology. "I’ll understand if you’re angry. If you want to report me, or file something formal."

His words are humble, but there’s no flinching, no cowardice in his tone—just the kind of guilt that comes from loving someone too much to pretend otherwise. And Gihun, against all logic, feels lightheaded again—this time not from stress or blood sugar or fear, but from the strange, dizzying sweetness of being wanted. Not just liked, or tolerated, but pursued. Hunted, almost. Desired with such persistence it borders on madness.

And the worst, most disorienting part? He likes it. He really likes it. There’s something twistedly flattering about the whole thing—about being the object of obsession in a way that makes him feel seen, precious, worth it. Like a prize someone never stopped chasing. He leans in just a little closer, as if drawn by gravity, and allows himself to press into Youngil’s side more fully than before.

It isn’t smart. It isn’t responsible. But for a few seconds, it feels good. It feels like something he doesn’t deserve but wants anyway.

And Youngil, of course, says nothing. Just keeps walking beside him, steady and sure.

He knows it’s wrong—he knows it’s inappropriate, foolish even, and that he should be far more careful, especially here, especially now, when everything is poised on the razor’s edge between disaster and deliverance—but still, it feels so good, so deliciously validating to realize that Youngil, the ever-composed, by-the-book, clean-collared officer who breathes regulation and walks like a living statute, is losing his mind over him. And not in some overt, explosive way that would attract attention or compromise either of them, but in that quiet, obsessive way that involves searching through records, making lists, noticing surnames and chasing after shadows that smell faintly of Gihun’s past. What an intoxicating, dangerous thing, to know that someone like that has lost his grip just a little because of him, and is still right here, by his side, not letting that irrational jealousy spill over in blame or accusation, not turning cold or cruel or territorial, but simply feeling it, owning it, carrying it, and showing up anyway.

And the knowledge that this jealousy exists—not as punishment, but as evidence of how deeply Youngil feels, how impossible it is for him to remain untouched even when he’s trying to act indifferent—lights a fire in Gihun’s belly that’s got nothing to do with hunger or hormones or instincts, but is instead this deep, visceral heat born of desire and shame and the weird satisfaction that comes from seeing someone else unravel ever so slightly because of you, and still not walk away.

Maybe this is how people end up having sex in public restrooms, Gihun thinks with a kind of grim amusement, not because they lack self-control or dignity, but because there’s something so heady about being wanted this much, about someone caring to such a foolish, desperate extent that all propriety flies out the window. Maybe it’s easier to understand, now, the kind of choices people make when they haven’t felt celebrated or truly desired in a very long time.

Not that he’s planning to do anything about it. Not yet. Probably. But it’s telling, isn’t it, that even the caveat “not yet” has snuck into the back of his mind like a sly little snake curling around his restraint. What a ridiculous time for this to be happening. What a laughably inappropriate moment in his life to be preoccupied with lust. Still, part of him can’t help but imagine it: the two of them surviving this, winning, blowing the whole place to hell and heading back to Seoul under the cover of some classified military operation’s aftermath—just disappearing into the night like victorious fugitives—and then, maybe, Junho would understand, maybe Junho would grant them a private cabin somewhere on the evacuation vessel, a little cramped space smelling faintly of diesel and sea salt, and Gihun would grab Youngil by the collar and finally, finally celebrate.

Because it’s been so long since Gihun has celebrated anything. He’s forgotten the last time something good happened without a corresponding penalty, without some hidden cost.

It’s no surprise, then, that the air around him has shifted subtly, that his scent—betrayer that it is—has begun to register hints of arousal, not urgent or uncontrolled, but unmistakable, and that in turn, Youngil’s scent is answering like a quiet echo in a deep tunnel, responding to the emotional change like a tuning fork caught in sympathetic vibration. The shift is minuscule, invisible to the untrained eye, but in a place like this, with stakes this high, where every breath is scrutinized and weaponized, it feels monumental.

Gihun straightens his spine a little, shoulders back despite the ache that’s already settling in his joints, feeling—for the first time today—like he’s not entirely crumbling. The situation is still terrible, and they’re still walking toward their likely deaths, but the fact that Youngil is still here, still beside him, and that Gihun, despite everything, still has a chance to reach for something beyond shame and failure—that alone gives him enough strength to focus, to momentarily lift his eyes above the swamp of self-loathing that threatens to drown him with every step.

He tries not to think about the fact that his obsession with these cursed games has already cost so much—his daughter, his body, his sense of self—and will likely cost even more before it’s over. Tries not to spiral back into that pit of thought where he’s the architect of every terrible thing that’s happened, where he can’t tell whether he’s the hero or the villain of his own story. No, he tells himself, not right now. Not while there are people counting on him. Not while Youngil is still close enough to touch.

The field for the first game is exactly the same as it was before—huge and surreal, with its blinding artificial sky and the bright, uncanny houses in the distance—and Gihun doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry when they step onto it. There’s something humiliating about the predictability of it all, about the fact that even now, even when he’s supposed to be one of the people who understands the system best, he still has to participate in this pantomime like a rat in a maze.

As soon as they step inside, the gates slam shut behind them with an ominous finality that makes Gihun’s stomach twist. He rubs his tongue along the edge of his dental prosthetic, a force of habit now, like someone testing the sharpness of a blade he can’t remove from his own mouth. Damn Junho. Damn him for making Gihun wait this long, for pushing things to the brink, for giving him hope and then dragging it out like this.

Gihun can’t wait anymore. He’s done waiting. He’s so tired of it.

"The first game is called Red Light, Green Light," announces the familiar mechanical voice—sickeningly sweet, infuriatingly cheerful, like a doll’s pre-recorded lullaby—and something inside Gihun clenches hard. Junyoung kicks again, a sharp, insistent reminder that his body is not entirely his own anymore, that whatever happens next, he has more than just himself to protect.

He should’ve gone to the bathroom one last time before entering the field. The pressure is distracting, discomfort layering atop tension until he feels like his nerves are being peeled raw with a spoon. But it’s too late now, and all he can do is steel himself.

The robotic voice continues, listing out the rules in that high-pitched tone that seems deliberately designed to dehumanize, to make light of the gravity of what’s at stake, but the words melt together in his mind into a sludgy, incomprehensible drone. His ears register syllables, however, they don’t form meaning anymore—not because he doesn’t understand them, but because he’s heard them already, and all that repetition has turned them into something abstract and numbing, like a religious chant stripped of its soul.

There’s a pause—long enough to draw breath, to centre himself, to recall every muscle that needs to freeze on command—and Gihun inhales slowly, filling his lungs with as much air as they can hold, letting it settle at the base of his ribs like ballast.

"Attention!" Gihun shouts at the top of his lungs, his voice rising above the ambient murmuring of the field and echoing harshly through the open space like a siren of panic and raw desperation. Dozens of faces whip around at once, startled, confused, and above all startled by the sheer volume and force coming from the slender, pregnant omega standing near the back of the group. Gihun fights the instinct to duck his head, to flinch away from the way their gazes cut into him like the crackling edge of a whip. He forces himself to keep his spine straight and his voice louder still, because as humiliating as it is to make himself the center of attention like this, to break the illusion of composure, it would be far worse to lie awake in some quiet, sterile bunk at night and wonder if someone might have lived—if only he'd spoken up, if only he’d screamed, if only he hadn’t been too proud to look like a lunatic. "This isn’t just some childish game! You’ll die if you lose!"

Next to him, Youngil is still holding his hand—he never stopped—and now his thumb is moving in slow, gentle circles against Gihun’s palm, grounding him, anchoring him with his scent as well. It doesn’t make the stares go away, but it makes them bearable. It doesn’t erase the sheer terror clawing its way up Gihun’s throat, but it makes him able to speak again.

All around them, people begin to murmur—not whisper, not really, because there is too much tension in the air for real secrecy—and the word death begins to snake through the crowd like something alive, something venomous and electric. Some faces go pale. Some mouths twist in forced laughter. Liam is standing a bit off to the side, brows raised in, though his expression is almost theatrical in its detachment, as if this is all beneath him, as if he’s not even remotely worried. He surveys the field, then the sky, nonchalant. A few meters away, Jungbae is muttering something to his companion, half-glancing toward Gihun, his mouth curved with something that might once have been fondness but is now tight and uncertain, as if even he, who knew Gihun for so long, isn’t sure what to believe. As if he’s wondering whether his old friend really has lost his mind.

It is painfully obvious, even without any confirmation, that none of them are taking him seriously.

"If they catch you moving, they’ll kill you!" Gihun yells again, more ragged this time, the words tumbling out past his trembling lips with all the urgency of a man whose body already knows how it feels to grieve.

And then, without further warning, the enormous doll positioned at the far end of the field rotates its plastic head. A saccharine, mechanical jingle plays from somewhere deep inside its chest, sickeningly sweet and jarringly out of place, and the moment it starts, a digital countdown appears overhead—five minutes, ticking backwards in pale red numbers that flicker ominously in the afternoon haze.

Junyoung kicks hard. Hard enough to make Gihun gasp and double over instinctively, one arm wrapping protectively around the swell of his abdomen. Youngil leans with him in perfect synchronicity, his hand joining Gihun’s and pressing just below the curve of his belly, his other arm hovering like a shield in case Gihun falters. He’s murmuring something soft and urgent, but Gihun barely registers the words—only the scent, that herbal smell of him, mixed now with something warmer, something nearly euphoric in its reassurance.

Gihun tries to focus on the field beyond, tries to assess the space between him and the line of the doll’s vision, but the crowd in front of them is too dense, too mobile, too unpredictable. The edges of the field are just shadows behind shoulders and spines. He raises his other hand to his mouth, shaky fingers cupped in front of his lips, as if this thin veil of skin and bone could protect him from what’s to come.

The jingle stops. There’s a second of breathless silence, a hush so thick it could be cloth pressed to a wound, and then the faint, unmistakable sound of shuffling feet.

"Player 283 eliminated," the voice says, mechanical and calm and utterly indifferent.

A shot rings out.

There’s a strange pause afterward, a vacuum of reaction—as if the sound hasn’t registered yet, as if no one wants to believe it was real. The crowd doesn’t even scream. Not yet.

"I want to call a vote!" Gihun bellows, his voice cracking from the force of it, raw now with desperation but still audible—clearly, perfectly audible—in the absolute stillness that follows the gunshot.

Silence falls like a curtain. No one moves. No one breathes. The doll does not rotate. The countdown continues.

Youngil’s scent shifts, growing stronger, more concentrated, a swirl of herbs and grounding comfort with an undercurrent of excitement, maybe adrenaline, maybe something less rational. His mouth is not covered, which sends a jolt of alarm through Gihun’s body, because they are still within range—maybe not clearly in the doll’s line of sight, but who knows whether some sensors could catch a flicker of motion, a twitch of lip or eyelash. Gihun files that worry away for later, for after, because Youngil has picked up his words without hesitation.

"You said we could vote!" he calls out, not shouting but projecting—firm, resonant, the voice of someone who doesn’t beg but demands. "Let us vote."

It’s not the first time Gihun has felt himself falling in love with Youngil. But this might be the first time it’s happened in front of a countdown clock, after a gunshot, in a field full of strangers whose names he might never learn. It doesn’t matter. It happens anyway, fast and dizzying and stupid, this second or third or fiftieth wave of affection for a man who keeps putting himself in harm’s way just to stand beside him.

And of course, because it’s not the emotional outburst of a trembling omega anymore, not just a shriek of fear and panic, but a demand issued by a composed, competent, and very visibly dominant alpha, someone up there finally decide to listen.

The countdown stops.

Chapter Text

Players reacted in different ways—some with disbelief, others with stunned horror—but gradually, a growing number began to register the presence of an actual corpse on the field. Once the truth of the death settled in, the panic became real. Shouts swelled in volume, voices overlapping into a rising cacophony as more and more players surged toward the large iron gates, their feet pounding the ground, their hands slamming against the metal bars in a desperate bid for escape.

Youngil was calm. Unflinchingly so. He placed a steadying hand on Gihun’s arm and gently steered him away from the chaotic tide of bodies without a word, guiding him to the side of the field where it was marginally quieter. The crowd was roiling now, a living, heaving organism driven by shared terror, and yet standing beside Youngil, the noise felt distant. The tension in the air was real—sharp, acrid with fear—but Gihun found himself surprisingly calm. Not because he was immune to the horror of what they’d just witnessed, but because Youngil exuded an aura of absolute composure, a cool confidence anchored in something deeper than mere stoicism. There was irritation in it, too—quiet, restrained annoyance, perhaps at the situation or the people—but layered beneath that was something stranger, a faint undercurrent of satisfaction. Joy, even. The scent of it laced the air, subtle but present.

And that strange mix of emotions had an effect on Gihun. It grounded him. Even as people screamed and thrashed and pleaded, he didn’t flinch. Instead, he felt a quiet kind of peace settle in his chest, absurd and misplaced though it was. The noise of the hysterical, anguished crowd didn’t grate on his nerves the way it should have. Quite the opposite. It filled him with a sense of reassurance. Their screams meant they were alive. They were real. And if they were this rattled, then they might actually vote the way he needed them to.

Liam approached them then, slipping through the chaos with a kind of stiff grace. His steps were slow, deliberate, but his posture gave him away—there was a faint tremble in his limbs, a subtle tightness in his jaw. He stopped just short of Gihun, standing close but not invading his space. His expression was difficult to read, but the tension that had previously marked his gaze seemed to have lessened. He was still calculating, Gihun could see the flicker of curiosity behind his eyes, but the hostility was gone. Or at least, hidden. Whatever animosity had once burned there had cooled to a wary neutrality.

Youngil shifted subtly, his arm around Gihun tightening, pulling him slightly closer. A little bit possessive and protective. Marking.

"Thank you," Liam said quietly, dipping his head in a gesture that hovered somewhere between a nod and a bow. The words were sincere, or at least seemed to be.

"Oh, please. Don't thank me yet," Gihun replied, his tone sharp but not without warmth. His voice trembled slightly, a residue of the adrenaline still coursing through his system. He couldn’t help the edge in his words. "And really, you should’ve listened to me in the first place. You should’ve left with Junhee when you had the chance."

The scolding came naturally, slipping from his mouth like a reflex. It was easier to focus on Liam’s choices—on what should have been done—than to dwell on what had just happened. Because beneath the thin layer of sarcasm and irritation, Gihun was still shaking inside. He knew that someone had to die. That was the grim reality of this place, this game. Someone always had to die first, if only to make the others believe. It was cruel, calculated, necessary. But knowing that didn’t make it any easier to stomach. A part of him still grieved, not just for the dead, but for the part of himself that had accepted the necessity of that death. He had orchestrated it. He had let it happen.

"…Is your offer about clearing debts still valid?" Liam asked, his voice quieter now, almost uncertain.

Gihun sighed. There was no hesitation in his reply, only weariness. "Of course."

Youngil’s reaction was immediate and wordless; his breath hitched, just barely, and the sound he made was one of quiet displeasure. His arm curled tighter around Gihun’s waist, the tension in his body shifting subtly as he pressed closer, as if trying to shield Gihun from something he couldn’t name. Gihun didn’t resist. In fact, the contact was comforting. He welcomed the pressure, the reminder that someone was physically, irrevocably there.

When Gihun had initiated the vote during the last Games during the Squid , it had been straightforward. Determining a majority between two players had been pretty simple. The dynamics were manageable. This was different. Now there were dozens on the field, all unmoored, all scared. Gihun had no idea how to coordinate a vote under these conditions. The logistics alone felt difficult. And judging by the way the soldiers were hesitating—no one had yet come forward to address the players, and the guards posted near the giant doll seemed preoccupied, their attention fixed on the radios—it seemed that even the staff were caught off-guard. No one had planned for this exact moment.

Gihun thought how he should had asked for a vote before the final game. Gihun’s thoughts flicked back to Saebyeok. He should have stayed closer to her during the last night no matter what. He should never have trusted Sangwoo to protect her. He had thought—naively, stupidly—that Sangwoo had developed a kind of paternal connection to her too, that he would step up when it mattered. That belief had cost him her life. And now, looking out at the sea of new players, Gihun couldn’t help but feel the weight of that mistake pressing down on his shoulders like a physical burden.

He shook the thought off. There was no room for it right now. He had to focus.

He looked at Liam again, at the slight quiver in his stance and the way he avoided meeting Youngil’s eyes. There was gratitude in his posture, but also something harder, something calculating. Gihun had bought his loyalty, but only just.

Youngil’s hand didn’t move from his side. The heat of it was steady, a silent signal of loyalty, of presence, of something more complicated that Gihun didn’t have time to unpack right now.

A hunched, tearful old woman—a player with the number 149 stitched across her chest—made her way shakily through the dispersing crowd toward Gihun. Her face was damp with tears, her nose red from crying, and every step she took seemed fuelled by some mix of disbelief, gratitude, and utter emotional exhaustion. Clinging to her elbow, more like an anchor than a guide, was a curly-haired alpha, perhaps in his early forties, wearing the number 007. His grip was loose, almost embarrassed, as though unsure whether he was supporting her or being dragged along.

"Thank you!" she cried between sobs as she finally reached Gihun, bowing low and repeatedly, her thin shoulders trembling. She bent from the waist, unsteady but insistent, bowing again and again with a fervour that startled him. Her voice cracked under the weight of her gratitude, and each word sounded as though it had been torn straight from her chest. Without hesitation, she reached over and placed a palm firmly on the back of Player 007’s head, pushing him down into a bow beside her. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

Gihun raised his hands in a quick, awkward gesture, flustered by the public display. "No need for that," he said quickly, shaking his head and waving them off with a mix of embarrassment and discomfort. He wasn’t used to this kind of reaction. He hadn't done what he did to be thanked. It hadn't been about heroics or recognition. It had simply been necessary.

But the crowd was already picking up on the energy. Murmurs began to ripple outward. People were nodding, muttering agreements, fragments of gratitude floating through the air like sparks looking for fuel.

"How did you even know what was going to happen?" asked Player 100, stepping forward slightly, his voice sceptical but not aggressive. There was tension in his tone, a cautious curiosity, a need to understand that undercut any sense of confrontation.

"I…" Gihun hesitated, glancing around briefly, but there was no way to soften the truth. "I’ve played these games before."

The words landed like a dropped stone in still water. The collective gasp from the surrounding players was sharp and unmistakable—an audible intake of breath from those who hadn’t considered the possibility. A moment of silence followed, heavy and stunned, before the whispering began again in earnest.

"You’ve played before?" someone repeated from deeper in the crowd, almost disbelieving.

"How much did you win the first time around that you ended up back here?" came a voice that was sharper, tinged with derision. Gihun turned to see the speaker—a violet-haired omega with a piercing stare and a sharp jawline, his chin raised in theatrical challenge. One arm was casually draped around Player 196, a tall woman with long ponytail who stood with studied disinterest, as though amused by the drama unfolding but detached from it.

Gihun didn’t answer. His lips pressed together into a thin, unreadable line. Whatever he might have said in response was swallowed in silence. He didn’t owe them explanations. The past was the past. Youngil’s hand found his arm again, this time gliding gently along the skin in a slow, reassuring stroke. Gihun leaned slightly into the touch.

Suddenly, a voice rang out overhead, mechanical and cheerfully impersonal—the same voice that had earlier recited the rules with dispassionate efficiency.

"Dear players," it began, its tone so chipper it might have been reading out shopping instructions. "As of this moment, the number of eliminated players stands at one. Therefore, the accumulated prize fund totals one hundred million won. The individual share per remaining player is two hundred and twenty thousand won."

"Two hundred and twenty thousand won?" someone scoffed aloud from the crowd, his voice soaked in disbelief. "Is that it? We get some measly two-twenty per head?!"

"Wait," Player 100 interrupted again, louder this time. "You mean every time someone dies, a hundred million gets added to the prize pot?"

"Correct!" chirped the mechanical voice, utterly unaffected by the moral implications of what it had just confirmed.

Gihun felt his stomach lurch. He had known, of course. He remembered this all too well. The equation hadn’t changed: a human life equalled cash. But hearing it stated so plainly again—with such unapologetic glee—made his skin crawl.

"Players who wish to continue the game, move to the right. Players who wish to end the game, move to the left."

The mass of bodies, so recently unified in panic and grief, now began to fragment. The field divided into murmuring clumps. People looked at each other, unsure. Some argued softly; others began drifting wordlessly in one direction or the other. Gihun didn’t hesitate. With Youngil at his side, he turned toward the left, the side of those who had had enough. Who understood the stakes. Who were ready to leave.

The elderly woman—Player 149—followed closely behind them, still dragging Player 007 with her as though he were a reluctant suitcase. She was muttering again, her voice lower now, nearly drowned out by the surrounding hum of voices. Gihun didn’t pay attention at first, but then a particular phrase caught his ear, slipping through the haze like a whisper with claws.

"…him being pregnant like that…"

Gihun’s eyes snapped sideways. His brow rose in a sharp, surprised arc.

"Ah, sweetie," she said, turning her face up toward him with a knowing, almost scolding expression. "I’ve been a midwife longer than you’ve been alive. I know a pregnant omega when I see one. And your alpha…" She cast a sharp glance at Youngil and huffed. "How could he possibly let you be here at this stage? And for a second time, no less?"

The guilt hit like a whip. Gihun didn’t even need to turn his head to feel the shift in Youngil’s scent—how it soured, warmed, became heavy with shame. The tension in his frame, the way he held himself suddenly tighter, was all the confirmation anyone needed. His lips pressed into a thin, pale line, and he said nothing.

"You don’t know the whole situation, ma’am," Gihun said quickly, his voice low, trying to deflect, to protect Youngil from the weight of her gaze.

"What do I need to know?" she snapped back, straightening as much as her frame would allow. She wasn’t angry, not really, just fiercely opinionated, certain of the rightness of her view. "An alpha has a duty to take care of their omega. That’s the situation. End of story." Her finger jabbed upward like a judge’s gavel striking down. "I don’t know exactly how far along you are, but at your age? It’s dangerous no matter what. You shouldn’t even be walking around, let alone doing all this," she made a vague gesture at the massive doll still looming in the background. "You’re coming home. After stress like that, you need a doctor. Immediately. And you—" she turned a withering eye on Youngil—"you make sure your partner stays in bed from now on. Strict bed rest. No exceptions."

"Hey!" Gihun frowned, unable to keep the edge out of his voice. The word escaped before he could filter it, instinctive and immediate. It wasn’t outrage so much as protest—a warning shot, light but firm, that this conversation had already gone too far for his comfort.

"Thank you for your suggestions," Youngil replied smoothly, with a small, almost courtly nod in the old woman’s direction. His voice was polite, laced with a kind of restrained civility that bordered on sarcasm without quite stepping over the line. "I’ll be sure to deliver them to him in a tone that makes clear they are non-negotiable." His tone didn’t waver, didn’t blink. And curiously, as the words left his mouth, the scent of guilt that had hung around him like damp fog began to shift. It wasn’t gone, but it had evolved—become steadier, firmer, laced now with something more self-possessed. Confidence. Resolve. A new current ran beneath the surface of Youngil’s scent, and to Gihun, it was an improvement. Less shame, more certainty. That, at least, was easier to breathe in.

He might’ve been imagining it, but something about that shift settled into Gihun’s bones like warmth. His balance faltered slightly—not from dizziness, not from fatigue, but from that gentle gravitational pull that always seemed to draw him closer to Youngil without effort. So he leaned into it, just a fraction more than he needed to, not for support, but for proximity. It wasn’t calculated. It simply happened.

Youngil looked at him then, really looked at him—eyes sharp, attentive, and burning with an awareness that cut through the ambient noise like a clean blade. There was something deeply focused in that gaze, like he was memorizing Gihun’s expression for some future moment when it would be needed. Then he added, in a tone so low and deliberate it felt like the brush of a hand across bare skin, "And if necessary, I’ll cuff him to the bed."

It was a joke. Probably.

But it landed with the weight of a promise.

Too much. Too sudden. Too charged. The words shouldn’t have had the effect they did—not here, not now, not in front of people—but Gihun’s body didn’t consult him before reacting. Heat bloomed high across his cheeks, not just warmth but that deep, flustered flush that started in the chest and spread like wildfire through skin and muscle. He didn’t meet anyone’s eyes. Couldn’t. He knew better than to assume anyone had missed that line—not with the way Youngil had said it, not with the way Gihun’s scent was probably betraying him already, shimmering with sudden hormonal upheaval, as subtle as perfume poured from a shattered bottle.

When they got back to Seoul—if they got back to Seoul—he was going to have words with Youngil. Strong words. Very precise ones. He’d lay it all out, how this kind of nonsense could not happen in public, how there were boundaries, how there was a time and a place and none of this was either. But for now, he said nothing. Let it pass. Pretended he was unmoved, despite the warmth still crawling along his neck.

As they moved toward the edge of the crowd, Gihun allowed himself to look at the gathering again with a more careful eye. He had not been naïve enough to believe that everyone here would be reasonable. The games drew all types: gamblers, desperates, sociopaths in disguise. He had prepared himself for the worst, emotionally speaking. Still, it was with genuine, fragile relief that he noticed something unexpected—hopeful, even. The number of players who had chosen to stand on the left, who were now silently making their preference to leave known, was visibly larger than the group lingering on the right. It wasn’t even subtle. The balance was clear. And that mattered.

He hadn’t fully expected this. Not after the murmurs about money, not after that too-casual question about the payout per death. That moment—brief but telling—had chilled him. He had imagined that some players, perhaps more than a few, would convince themselves they could make it all the way to the end, that they were clever enough or lucky enough or heartless enough to outlive the rest. And for one terrible moment, when that question had echoed out into the crowd, he had even considered whether it might’ve been more effective to wait—just a little longer—before calling for a vote. Let panic bloom. Let the fear do its work. Perhaps then, the shock of the first death would’ve carried more weight, tipped more minds in the right direction.

But he had hesitated. Hesitated and acted too soon, maybe. It was possible, he admitted silently, that the players who had survived the first culling now felt emboldened. They had seen death and lived through it. That kind of experience rewrote a person’s instincts. Made them think survival was a pattern they could repeat. Especially now, with the prize money climbing visibly, tangibly, with every life lost. Temptation was a powerful motivator. And so was the illusion of control.

Still, the group was dividing. Irregular, but clear. Those still arguing for the continuation of the game had begun to cluster tightly, whispering amongst themselves, trying to sway others. Two players actually crossed over, leaving the side of reason to rejoin the thrill-seekers. Their movements were hesitant, as though they weren’t fully convinced, but peer pressure had never needed certainty to be effective. All it needed was proximity.

Then came the final tally.

"A total of 302 players have chosen to terminate the game. 152 have chosen to continue. The game is now concluded. Please follow the staff’s instructions."

The announcement was chirped out in that same falsely cheerful voice, as if it were revealing the weather forecast instead of declaring the temporary end of a lethal bloodsport. And then, with a low mechanical groan, the gates creaked open once more.

Through them marched the now-familiar forms of the Triangle-masked guards, flanked by a single Square. Their movements were orderly, practiced. One by one, they began issuing directions, positioning themselves with a precision that made it clear this too had been rehearsed.

A line began to form. Not just any line—a proper one, long and almost dignified in its arrangement. Players shuffled into place with muted footsteps, eyes downcast, shoulders slumped but not defeated. There was something remarkably still about the moment. Like the crowd, after all its howling, had become temporarily hollowed out, reduced to compliance.

As they had the first time, Gihun and Youngil waited until the very end, hanging back deliberately, letting the line fill up ahead of them. There was strategy in that choice—less visibility, fewer eyes, and they could go in their tempo—but also something more emotional, more instinctual. Neither of them wanted to walk out first.

The energy in the air had changed. This wasn’t like the first time. No one was screaming. No one was begging. The pheromones of fear were still there, but not in such staggering, saturating volume. It no longer felt like standing in a slaughterhouse. It felt, instead, like leaving a badly run office after finding out the manager had been stealing payroll funds. There was bitterness in the silence, a strange quiet that reminded Gihun of public disappointment, of national scandal, of collective betrayal. The kind of mood that settled over the country when a beloved politician was caught lying, or when a long-standing idol turned out to be corrupt.

Junyoung reminded him of his quiet but undeniable existence once more with a small, deliberate kick from deep within. Gihun let out a soft, involuntary sound—something between a sigh and a startled “ow”—his hand instinctively going to his abdomen.

"What is it?" Youngil asked immediately, his brows pulling together in concern as he leaned in, trying to catch Gihun’s eyes. His voice was quiet, but urgent, carrying that focused tension that always surged to the surface when Gihun showed even the slightest sign of discomfort. There was a possessive edge in his tone, one sharpened by proximity and worry.

Gihun lowered his gaze guiltily, as if he had been caught doing something he shouldn’t. He didn’t want to admit anything—not in front of people, not with eyes still on them from nearby—but his scent had already shifted, and they both knew Youngil could smell hesitation better than he could hear it.

"Do you need to go to the bathroom?" Player 149 asked gently, with a kind of grandmotherly intuition that brooked no denial. Her voice, though quiet, was laced with something firm and knowing, like she’d already made her diagnosis and was simply waiting for him to catch up. "You shouldn’t be wandering around in your condition."

Youngil pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers. The motion was swift, tired, almost theatrical. "Is it urgent?" he asked, turning back to Gihun.

"It’s fine," Gihun said quickly, shaking his head and waving one hand dismissively. "I can manage." His voice was calm, but there was a tightness to it, a strain in his smile that didn’t go unnoticed. He wasn’t going to make a big spectacle of himself over something as mundane as that.

Youngil wasn’t entirely convinced. His lips compressed into a thin line, and then he exhaled through his nose and turned sharply, walking with brisk purpose toward the nearest pair of soldiers—Triangular masks, both. Gihun watched him go, watched the tension in his shoulders, the way his stride always seemed to lengthen when he was irritated. His own hand drifted back to his belly, stroking once, absently, while Player 149 launched into another tirade just under her breath, equal parts scolding and concerned muttering.

He wasn’t really listening. His focus was on Youngil, who was now returning, accompanied by one of the Triangles, who moved with the stiff, formal gait of someone who had been instructed not to deviate from protocol but was, at this moment, doing exactly that.

"We’ve been given permission to escort you to the restroom," Youngil announced when he was close enough, his tone softer now, almost coaxing. He addressed the little group that had clustered around Gihun—Liam, Player 149, and the quiet, still-silent 007—giving them each a polite nod. "You should head to the dormitory line. We’ll catch up shortly."

Gihun looked around at them, and after a moment’s hesitation, nodded. "Go ahead. We’ll meet you there." His voice was steady again, the discomfort hidden behind a practiced mask. The old woman made a noise of protest, but didn’t argue. She gave Youngil a look that was half warning, half reluctant approval, and turned, tugging 007 behind her. Liam lingered for a second longer than necessary, his eyes unreadable, before following.

Youngil gently took Gihun by the elbow, his touch surprisingly warm through the fabric of his sleeve. "Let’s go," he said softly.

They slipped through a side door, one not used by the general crowd, and found themselves in a corridor that felt eerily familiar. The colour scheme—bright, saturated, unnatural—was the same. The hallways twisted in the same disorienting way. The stairwells still curved too narrowly, the corners still too sharp. Nothing had changed. Every inch of the space felt like an echo from before. Except now, they were moving slower. Now, Gihun wasn’t being dragged. He was walking at his own pace, and Youngil was keeping in perfect step beside him.

No one rushed them. No one shouted. No weapons were raised. The guards didn’t trail them aggressively—just one hovered at a distance. And maybe it was the hormones, maybe it was exhaustion, or maybe it was just time softening things, but the care Youngil showed now—the same care that had once seemed overbearing, too polished to be real—felt different. More sincere. More welcome.

Gihun let out a quiet breath, not quite a sigh. His back ached, the low pressure in his abdomen was growing a little bit and he managed a crooked smirk. "Almost there?" he asked under his breath.

"Almost," Youngil murmured in return, giving his arm a light squeeze. It was such a small gesture, but somehow it managed to ease something in Gihun’s chest.

It was, unexpectedly, sweet.

The restroom, when they finally arrived, was utilitarian and plain. Not a public bathroom like the one near the dormitory, just a modest space with a couple of stalls, a single sink without a mirror, and a blank, undecorated wall. This was clearly for staff use, not guests. Still, it was clean, and more importantly, unoccupied.

"I’ll wait outside," Youngil said, his tone low, careful.

Gihun nodded and stepped inside. The door creaked shut behind him. He turned the lock—out of habit, really, not fear. Neither Youngil nor the guard would barge in, but the idea of leaving the door even slightly ajar while doing something so basic was unthinkable. Privacy was a precious thing, especially here.

He approached the sink first, turned the water on high, let the noise fill the small space. Then, with practiced care, he opened his mouth and reached inside, removing the dental prosthesis from where it had rested all this time. His tongue brushed over the now-empty socket. He tilted the piece in his hand, studying it.

"Fuck," he muttered.

There really wasn’t a tracker in it. Just the stupid, clumsy fitting that had scraped against his gums. It was just a prosthetic.

Still scowling, he popped the tooth back in, wincing slightly as the edge scraped across still-sensitive tissue. Then he washed his hands slowly, methodically, letting the cold water drag him back to the present. Junyoung kicked again, this time with enough pressure to make Gihun hiss softly and press a hand over the spot.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," he muttered under his nose. "Now I actually need to pee. Good timing, son. Daddy appreciates it."

He let himself linger there for a moment, collecting himself. Outside, Youngil was likely standing still, listening—because of course he would be. He always was.

Ever since Junho had failed to find anything about Oh Youngil—no records, no workplace, no valid ID—Gihun had started to wonder if Youngil had been planted. Sent to keep tabs on him, manipulate him, possibly eliminate him when the time was right. Maybe even to make him pregnant to reconsider his plans. The only thing that didn’t fit was how sloppily the identity had been constructed. The inconsistencies were glaring for someone their calibre. If this had been a real operation, surely they could’ve chosen someone who had played in the Games and then vanished. They could have scrubbed records, inserted new ones, doctored files.

The hierarchy within this organization—this godforsaken death machine disguised as a game—was still murky in places, and Gihun wasn’t entirely sure if that ambiguity was intentional or simply the byproduct of something even more convoluted behind the scenes. It was clear, at least, that the Front Man occupied the pinnacle of authority, a figure shrouded in enough control and menace that no one dared question his decisions. The Squares, by comparison, seemed more like middle management: strict, faceless enforcers who directed the Triangle-masked guards and maintained order without truly making decisions. And then, standing slightly apart from all that structure, like a shadow stitched into the fabric but not part of its pattern, there was the Recruiter.

Youngil, for his part, behaved like someone who had been on the island before. That much was evident in every step he took, every turn of his head. He didn’t flinch at the strange architecture. He didn’t startle at the mechanical voices or the inhuman efficiency of the masked staff. When others recoiled from the surreal with a kind of primal fear, Youngil merely moved through it like someone navigating a familiar hallway. Gihun had noticed the absence of any real surprise on his face more than once, and it had begun to gnaw at him. Sure, it was possible that Youngil’s single-mindedness—especially in light of the unexpected pregnancy—had made him oblivious to the horrors around them. It was conceivable that, after the emotional wreckage of his ex-wife’s tragic pregnancy nearly ten years ago, this news had hit him so hard he simply stopped noticing anything else. That would explain some things. But not all of them.

Taken together, the effect was off-putting. Strange. Too strange to ignore.

Gihun had developed a few working theories about Youngil, though none of them sat comfortably in his mind. And now, in the quiet of a staff bathroom, he found himself sorting through them again, trying to eliminate one hypothesis and nudge another closer to confirmation. To do that properly, he needed to get out. He needed to meet Junho—or better yet, arrange for a meeting between Junho and Youngil. Face-to-face. That kind of collision could reveal which one of his theory was wrong and which was right.

Of course, there was still the possibility that Junho was the spy. That had to remain on the table, however reluctantly. Maybe both of them were. Maybe the two men circling closest to him were working in tandem, and the entire act was a long con designed to steer him in a particular direction. The paranoia wasn’t pleasant—but then, nothing about this place was.

What mattered more—what steadied him—was that he was still making progress. However tangled the personal web might be, however uncertain the faces around him were, Gihun was moving forward in his original goal: preserving lives. As many as he could. That was the centre of everything. And as an unexpected bonus, whatever shadow the Front Man cast over the island, Gihun found himself operating in a strange, privileged space. Whether the Front Man himself approved of it or was powerless to stop whoever was protecting Gihun—that remained unclear. But the result was the same: a margin of safety, a strange immunity to keep his pregnancy alright, a space in which he could manoeuvre.

That meant he had room to work with. Room to use soft influence. To plant ideas. To wield guilt like a scalpel and cut where it mattered most.

Gihun, for all his practicality, understood that the cracks between people often revealed more than their declarations. And when it came to Youngil—well. The man had always made it clear that he respected boundaries. That he didn’t want to be a burden. That he wouldn’t press for more than Gihun was willing to give. And yes, it had been Gihun who first drew the line, who insisted on the limitations. He had said it with finality: he couldn’t be the kind of omega who married, who cooked dinners, who waited at the door. He had believed it. Still did.

But.

Youngil had always asked twice. That had been his pattern. Soft-spoken but persistent. He would wait, and then return, voice gentle, gaze steady, asking again: are you sure? Do you still feel the same? He never pushed. But he always offered the door.

Until, one day, he didn’t.

And that was the part that bothered Gihun.

He wasn’t angry, exactly. There was no resentment festering beneath his skin. But it did sting. A little. That Youngil hadn’t asked again. That he had vanished from that place of offer and reassurance without even a quiet, final attempt. That silence had been more painful than any goodbye.

Gihun turned on the tap and let cold water splash over his hands. He splashed his face next, dragging the chill over his skin like a reset button. His scent had shifted again—he could smell it, sharp in his own nose, a mixture of misplaced calm and something bordering on anticipation. Not quite excitement, but not far from it. Inappropriate, given the circumstances. But then again, Youngil’s scent carried something similar. A quiet hum of purpose, like electricity beneath skin.

Gihun exhaled, long and hard, through his nose.

Then he left the bathroom.

Youngil was waiting just outside the door, not pacing, but close enough to betray his concern. His expression was composed, but the tension in his shoulders hadn’t quite eased. His eyes flicked up the moment Gihun emerged, scanning his face for clues. For signs of pain, or fatigue, or something worse. Gihun knew that look. It was absurdly flattering and slightly embarrassing, and the fact that Youngil never tried to hide it made it even more disarming.

It was touching. It was ridiculous. It was exactly what Gihun had expected.

And it made something soft open inside him.

He allowed himself the indulgence of basking in that attention. Of stepping closer, of letting Youngil drift into his space until the two of them were nearly touching again, shoulder to shoulder, breath and breath.

No one rushed them. Again, they moved at their own pace, escorted but not herded, allowed to drift through the unfamiliar corridors like dignitaries rather than prisoners. The hallways they were led through didn’t appear on any official path—they were narrow, oddly angled, painted in colours that were too vibrant to be welcoming. Hidden, but not secret. Designed, perhaps, to confuse rather than to conceal.

The soldier ahead of them adjusted something on his radio as they walked, speaking into it in low, clipped tones. Gihun couldn’t make out the words, but he didn’t try too hard to listen either, mostly because Youngil was distracting him—on purpose, no doubt. The alpha kept up a steady stream of soft questions, his voice laced with concern but threaded carefully with casualness. Did Gihun want something to drink? Something to eat? Would he prefer to lie down for a few minutes? Was he absolutely sure he didn’t want to be carried?

It was sweet.

Youngil never pushed any of the suggestions, merely offered them in that calm, matter-of-fact tone that suggested he would be completely prepared to act on any of them the moment Gihun gave the slightest nod. That tone—the eager real readiness buried beneath the calm—was starting to feel familiar and comforting.

Through the maze of twisting, illogically-structured hallways, they finally reached what had clearly been their destination all along: the tail end of the line of players who were already being led toward the dormitory space. The line moved slowly, each person carrying an air of quiet exhaustion, lingering fear, and the unmistakable scent of frustration. It wasn’t panic, rather something deeper and duller, a kind of emotional bruising that showed in their slumped shoulders and averted gazes.

How starkly this all contrasted with last time.

That first time it had been chaos. The fear had been sharp then, a blade against the neck. Now it was more like a pressure behind the eyes, constant and invisible but impossible to ignore. These people had seen death, yes. But more than that, they’d seen the mechanics of death turned into entertainment.

They entered the dormitory.

As Gihun stepped across the threshold, a familiar scent touched the edge of his awareness. Juniper. Soft, crisp, unmistakably juvenile. His gaze immediately tracked toward the source. There, on the lower bunk at the very back of the room, sat Junhee. The scent was coming from the child she carried, rather than herself, so it didn’t carry the layered complexity of adult emotion and he couldn’t say anything about Junhee’s well-being and emotions. But it was enough to draw Gihun’s attention in a heartbeat.

So they will transfer her with the rest of the players.

Gihun made his way toward her without hesitation, Youngil naturally following at his side like a shadow that breathed. The other players were already beginning to fan out across the room, some taking bunks, others remaining standing in small, quiet clumps. The door closed behind them with a solid thud—automatic, heavy, final. Only two Triangles remained inside the dormitory, positioned casually near the corners. Their posture was too loose to be threatening, but too intentional to be disinterested. Watching, but pretending not to.

Junhee’s expression brightened just slightly at the sight of him. It wasn’t a full smile, but something in her body language softened, her shoulders dropping just enough to register. Liam, seated a few bunks away, didn’t look nearly as pleased to see them. His face remained carefully composed, but the tightening of his jaw and the subtle flick of his eyes told Gihun everything he needed to know. That tension hadn’t gone away.

But Gihun’s heart was full anyway. That child—his new daughter—was there, safe.

"Why don’t we finally introduce ourselves properly?" Gihun said brightly, breaking the silence with the deliberate warmth of a host welcoming guests to an impromptu gathering. "We all know Junhee, of course. My name is Seong Gihun, and this is Oh Youngil." He gestured to his side. "Funny, right? He’s the only one here who even has a name tag—"

"Gihun!" a loud voice called out, cutting through the dormitory with an edge of disbelief and urgency.

He turned. Tensed and then forced himself to relax.

A familiar figure approached, moving with that same hurried gait he remembered—half concern, half impatience. Park Jungbae. His friend. His reckless, aggravating, loyal friend.

"And this," Gihun said, gesturing again with a forced ease as the man came closer, "is my friend, Park Jungbae."

"You’ve seriously been here before?!" Jungbae demanded, horror plain on his face. "Jesus, how the hell did you end up here again? You lose it all at the racetrack again? Or was it your new alpha’s deeds?"

Charming as ever.

Gihun felt a muscle in his jaw twitch. He could practically feel Youngil watching him, but it was his own reaction he focused on—measured, calm, deliberate. He reached out and took hold of Youngil’s elbow, squeezing lightly, grounding himself.

"Don’t project your habits onto me," he said coolly. His voice didn’t rise, but there was iron under the surface. "You’ve got plenty to say about my relationship with daughter, but remind me—does your wife know where you are right now? How about your daughter?"

"Eh, well… I’m divorced," Jungbae muttered, waving the subject away with a limp hand gesture, and lowering his gaze like a guilty child. The words came out with the hollow tone of someone who hadn’t quite gotten used to saying them out loud, as though confessing to a personal failure he still hadn’t fully processed.

"No way… You cheated on her?!" Gihun’s response was immediate, and instinctual—voice sharp with disbelief, but more than that, his scent changed. Fast. He didn’t even try to suppress it. A surge of righteous anger flared from him, an involuntary expression of outrage so thick in the air it felt almost tangible. It was the kind of thing that always happened when he was surrounded by alphas for too long—he’d learned early on to identify and interpret those scent shifts. Most alphas weren’t subtle. And over the years, Gihun had heard plenty of unpleasant things in male-dominated environments, things that had made his stomach twist and his patience wear thin. Jungbae, for all his supposed devotion to his wife, had always had a bad habit of tossing around compliments and little remarks to waitresses and store clerks when he thought no one was listening.

"Of course not!" Jungbae snapped, indignant. The defensive tone, combined with his flaring scent, was almost too much. He sounded more insulted than remorseful. "Em… Anyway, we’ll talk about this later, yeah? Over a bottle of soju or two." He even added a half-wink, like that was supposed to smooth things over.

But if he thought that would settle the matter, he was very wrong.

Youngil’s scent changed instantly.

What had been cool restraint turned suddenly cold, and with it came the unmistakable edge of aggression. It wasn’t loud—Youngil never was—but it carried weight. The chill in his aura settled like frost, and Gihun could feel the shift not just in the air but in his own body. Something inside him swayed, faintly—his equilibrium unsteady, breath catching just a little. His mouth felt damp. His core was warm. His belly pulsed faintly.

Why had Youngil held himself back for so long when they were in Seoul?

It occurred to Gihun, then, that they were almost never seen together in public. Most of their interactions took place in secluded places where nobody cared enough to stare. Now, surrounded by potential rivals and perceived threats, the alpha in Youngil had risen like a tide, possessive and ready. All it had taken were a few words from someone who didn't know when to shut up.

So many triggers, Gihun thought. So many reasons for a protective, territorial alpha to bare his proverbial teeth.

"I think the soju will have to wait until the next Lunar New Year," Gihun said, breezily, though there was a very real flush creeping up his neck now. "Although, on second thought, that’ll probably be a terrible time too."

"Wait a damn. You are pregnant?!" Jungbae asked and Gihin proudly nodded. Jungbae scoffed, disbelief plain on his face as his eyes traveled down to Gihun’s abdomen. "You’re kidding me. You actually went through with it?"

"With such a charming alpha, how could I not?" Gihun lifted his chin proudly, the words spoken with a deliberate theatricality, as though daring anyone to question him. He didn't care how it sounded. If anything, the look on Jungbae’s face made it worth it.

Youngil, beside him, straightened just a little—posture adjusting, shoulders broadening, spine lengthening like he’d just received a silent commendation. His expression, however, remained carefully neutral. Too neutral. His scent was another story entirely. It crackled faintly with resentment and wariness; a warning wrapped in civility. His face might’ve been composed, but the underlying message was clear to anyone with a working nose.

Jungbae, unfortunately for him, had never been able to read people too well.

He didn’t push back. Didn’t argue. But he caught that dissonance, that faint vibration of distaste. He registered the shift and, wisely, chose not to comment. He knew better than to try to reason with an alpha whose omega was pregnant—especially when that omega was as hormonally volatile as Gihun had become. No good could come from poking that particular hornet's nest.

"Where’s your Liam, anyway?" Jungbae asked at last, changing the subject with obvious effort. "With you in this state, I wouldn’t be surprised if your brain started making things up on its own."

Gihun’s lips thinned. It was one thing when he made jokes about hormones himself. It was entirely different—deeply irritating, even—when someone else did it, especially someone like Jungbae, who’d never been known for subtlety or tact.

"There he is. 333," Youngil replied before Gihun could respond, pointing across the room with a quick, sharp motion. "That one. Does he look familiar?"

Jungbae squinted. "A billion and a half in debt? Hmm. Crypto trader, right? That part definitely sounds like Sangwoo… You’re—what, Lee Myunggi?"

"Yes," Liam—Myunggi—replied. His voice was terse, low. Controlled. Gihun wasn’t entirely sure which name to use now. Maybe Myunggi, since the boy seemed more comfortable with it. Still, the ambiguity hung in the air.

Jungbae, ever curious, leaned slightly closer. He didn’t move his feet, but his body angled in a way that made his interest obvious. He drew in a breath—deliberate, invasive, but not cruel. The scent-reading was clear, almost ceremonial. And when he looked up again, he tilted his head just slightly to the side.

"Look, it’s been more than twenty years, so I’m not saying anything definitive," he began, tone slow and speculative. "But you do smell a bit like him. That doesn’t mean anything, though. You know that, right?"

Myunggi nodded.

"And you don’t really look like Sangwoo, not that much anyway," Jungbae continued, his voice shifting into the analytical. He studied Myunggi with the same intensity he used on game boards and loan agreements. "I mean, similar nose maybe, but the rest? I don’t know."

He stepped back finally, still frowning slightly. "So… who raised you?"

"My mother’s name is Lee Younghee," Myunggi said, voice a little tighter now. "My father’s name is David Lee. He lives in Japan… We aren’t in touch. My parents divorced when I was seven. My mother and I moved back to Korea."

There was an awkward beat. The room felt smaller somehow, as though everyone had drawn just a bit closer in the space of a breath.

Then, Myunggi turned toward Gihun, gaze steady but hesitant. The shift in focus was unmistakable. "But you’ll still give me the money, right?"

"Yes, I’ll pay off your debt. Do I really have to keep repeating myself?" Gihun waved a hand dismissively in Liam’s direction, not bothering to hide his exasperation anymore. His tone wasn’t cruel, just tired. Like someone repeating a promise for the fifth time in the same hour, still intending to keep it but drained by the constant reaffirmation. "But… do you really not feel anything else?" he asked, turning now to Jungbae, his expression shifting to something more searching, more intent.

"Could you at least give us a clue?" Jungbae asked as he sniffed the air again, his voice weary in a way that wasn’t performative. He wasn’t being dramatic or sarcastic anymore—just genuinely tired, and perhaps a little worried. His face bore none of the teasing glint it had carried earlier. He looked at Gihun like he didn’t want to add stress to an already overwhelmed omega. And that, in itself, was rare and appreciated.

"Juniper," Gihun said flatly, his mouth tightening around the word as though it left a bitter taste behind. He looked around, pointedly. "It’s so strong. You mean to tell me none of you smell it?"

"You’re saying… Sangwoo’s around here?" Jungbae’s eyebrows shot up, expression somewhere between alarm and confusion. "I mean, the 333 guy—he smells a bit piney, yeah, but nothing like Sangwoo."

Gihun bit his lip. He didn’t want to expose Junhee or the child, didn’t want to thrust them into a spotlight they clearly weren’t ready for. But then Junhee, quietly but firmly, raised her hand just a little, her gesture small but unmistakable.

"My son smells like that," she said softly, her voice unadorned, without defensiveness or pride. Just the truth, laid bare.

Jungbae’s eyes widened. "A kid? You’re still a kid yourself!" he blurted out, a bit too loud, then immediately seemed to regret it. His words hung in the air, awkward and unfiltered.

Gihun cleared his throat loudly and deliberately. It wasn’t a shout, but it was enough to redirect the room’s attention and remind Jungbae that tact was still a social requirement.

Jungbae sighed, and with Junhee’s tacit permission, he leaned in and sniffed cautiously, trying not to make a production out of it. The moment was uncomfortable for everyone—strangely intimate in a setting that offered no real privacy. Still, Gihun needed this. He needed another nose to confirm what his instincts were screaming.

"Hard to say," Jungbae admitted after a few moments. "But yeah… maybe. There’s a similarity, sure. I didn’t spend time buried in Sangwoo’s neck, but yeah—there’s something familiar."

Relief washed through Gihun like a tide. He wasn’t hallucinating. He wasn’t some delusional omega clinging to hormonal fantasies. There really was a scent, a thread of something that connected the past and present, some small miracle pulled from the wreckage of these monstrous games. If the Front Man had orchestrated this—had somehow investigated and engineered this connection—then Gihun would find him, throw himself at his feet, and thank him with tears in his eyes.

A DNA test would settle it for sure. But maybe that was what scared Gihun the most—the possibility of a definite answer. Either way, the truth would crack something open inside him, and he didn’t know yet if he was ready for that kind of impact. Maybe it was better, for now, to let things unfold more naturally. Maybe the best first step would be to take Liam—Myunggi—directly to Sangwoo’s mother. If anyone could confirm the boy’s identity aside from Gihun, it would be her. And from there… they would figure something out.

If he truly was Liam, then regular financial support would be the least Gihun could provide. And sweet Junhee—poor girl, pregnant and barely an adult—would need help, serious help, just to get back on her feet.

"By the way, Junhee, sweetheart," Gihun said gently as Youngil sited him down on one of the bunks, guiding him as if he were glass. Youngil didn’t say a word but stayed standing close by, one hand resting steadily on Gihun’s shoulder, rubbing soft circles as though trying to soothe not just muscles but thoughts. "How much debt are you in?"

"Thirty million," Junhee said in a voice so quiet it was almost inaudible. She looked up at him from beneath her lashes, ashamed, as though she had just admitted to something far worse.

"Thirty million?" Gihun’s voice wasn’t loud, but it carried a weight of disbelief. "You joined this insanity for that small an amount?" His chest rose sharply with a breath. "Not that I’m blaming you," he added quickly, catching himself. "You were scared. Of course you were. And the baby…" He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to. "And your parents…?" he asked softly, voice tinged with an exhausted hope.

"I grew up in an orphanage," she answered. The words were clear, measured, practiced. Like she’d said them before, and always expected the same awkward silence afterward. There was a flicker of shame in her posture, but also a quiet defiance, like she was daring anyone to pity her too loudly.

"Oh…" Gihun breathed. It wasn’t disappointment. Just surprise, and maybe something like guilt for asking in the first place. "Well… that’s alright. That’s okay."

"How old are you?" he asked after a moment, his voice warm again.

"Twenty-two," she replied, barely above a whisper.

"Older than Sangwoo and I were when we decided to raise one little troublemaker," Gihun murmured, more to himself than anyone else. The memory swept through him in a sudden rush—images and sensations tumbling over each other with startling clarity.

It felt like it had only just happened. Like he could blink and find himself back there on that old couch, the sun slanting in through the narrow windows of their first apartment, dust floating through the air like motes of uncertainty. Sangwoo had been sitting right beside him, knees touching, their hands both trembling as they stared down at the small plastic device that had, in a matter of seconds, upended the entire shape of their lives. A pregnancy test. Positive. There had been a strange stillness in the air, the kind that comes just before something breaks or blooms.

Sangwoo—then a third-year undergraduate at Seoul National University, brilliant and ambitious and far too idealistic—had been the first to speak. He wanted the child. It seemed he wanted them desperately, especially when he was talking about how abortion was a logical choice with glistering eyes. And when Gihun cautiously started talking about keeping them, Sangwoo cried with joy. With the kind of fierce longing that Gihun hadn’t expected from someone still living off scholarship stipends and cafeteria food. But the circumstances—they both knew—were dire. The finances were a joke. Their living situation borderline. And Gihun had only just started working full-time after finishing technical school. However, at the very least, his supervisors were kind and somewhat understanding with the whole situation even though not particularly pleased that the newly-hired omega asked for days off and short-term leave.

Food had been scarce. They’d subsisted on rice and eggs and whatever scraps they could stretch over a week. It hadn’t helped that Sangwoo’s mother had gone into an immediate and violent opposition the moment she found out. She’d called the pregnancy irresponsible. Reckless. She hadn’t offered a cent. Gihun’s own mother had been more sympathetic, but her health had been poor, her financial situation worse, and support from that side had been more emotional than material.

They’d gotten by but barely.

Looking back, Gihun still couldn’t believe how much of their survival had come down to blind luck and strange paths. One of those, ironically enough, had been the Christian sect they’d stumbled into. A group that, for all its fanatical overtones and bizarre theology, had offered food and shelter without much question. They’d been young. Hungry. Cold. And the people there had smiled at them with something that almost resembled warmth. The sect had fed them when no one else would. And later, when the baby came, it had even helped them secure a spot in a local daycare. It hadn’t been ideal. The sermons had made him uncomfortable, and some of the members had a glazed look in their eyes that Gihun still remembered with a shiver. But it had been help. And help was something they’d needed desperately.

Stranger still, it was that same sect that later introduced him to Gayeong’s father. That had been years later, long after the dust of his first parenthood had settled. He’d gone back, not out of desperation this time, but something quieter. He’d needed to sit in silence. To believe in something, even temporarily. To be part of something that moved with structure. Of course, in true chaotic fashion, what he ended up doing was inadvertently ‘rescuing’ one of the sect’s more devout followers—a young man whose faith had been brittle and just waiting to be tested. Somehow, their lives had entangled. Another chapter. Another child. Another heart added to the constellation of his responsibility.

It had been… a complicated youth. That much was certain.

And as Gihun sat there, now older, heavier in places both literal and figurative, he realized how much he didn’t want anyone else—least of all Junhee—to go through that. To be too young. Too unsteady. To carry a child before even learning how to carry themselves. Children were meant to be joy. Pure and unfiltered. They should be associated with warm mornings and tiny shoes and giggles in the hallway. Not cold nights. Not unpaid bills. Not the bone-deep fear of failure.

Yes, they were exhausting. Yes, they cried. They tested patience and broke things and made messes and got sick. But even that—the exhaustion, the fatigue, the overwhelming flood of responsibility—it all became a kind of sweetness, in time. A kind of love that rooted itself in the very body. And when you looked back, what you remembered was never the exhaustion. It was the weight of a sleeping child on your chest. The sound of small feet on linoleum. The way their entire world fit into your arms.

"I myself probably won’t be much help to you right now," Gihun said aloud, turning slightly to look at Junhee with a rueful smile. "Not in my current condition. But I know someone who might be. Or… I think she might be. It’s hard to say. I’ve already sort of saddled her with one kid, which probably wasn’t the best move…"

He trailed off. His thoughts flicked briefly back to Sangwoo’s mother again. How she had mourned Liam after everything had happened. And then, how she had clung to Cheol like he was a second chance she hadn’t dared hope for. Gihun had always felt a little guilty about that. He hadn’t been able to raise the boy himself. Not properly. He’d loved him, yes, but his eyes… the strain… it had been too much. And she had stepped in. Maybe not eagerly, but without resentment.

"If nothing else," Gihun said, voice softening, "we’ll hire a good nanny. You don’t need to worry about that. Just… don’t be ashamed of needing help, okay? Everything will be alright."

Junhee looked uncertain. Her eyes flicked down and then back up again, searching his face for some deeper assurance. Eventually, she nodded. A small gesture. Cautious. But real.

Gihun smiled again.

He wouldn’t do a DNA test. He didn’t need one. It wasn’t about confirmation anymore. Not really. It was about presence. About being able to visit every now and then and again smell that same juniper scent in the air and know—without needing words—that something beautiful had managed to grow out of all this madness. That something good had survived.

Chapter Text

Gihun found himself slipping into an unusually nostalgic state of mind, his thoughts tugged backward by the pull of memory and the soft provocations of Jungbae, who seemed equally immersed in the foggy charm of their long-ago past. Together, like two men paging through an old, worn photo album, they unearthed one recollection after another—tiny memories from a life so distant it almost felt fictional. And somewhere in the haze of their shared reminiscing, something in Gihun shifted. For the first time since the last round of games, he allowed himself to truly remember Sangwoo. Not the bitter ghost Sangwoo had become toward the end, not the clenched-jawed strategist hardened by desperation and isolation, but the real Sangwoo—the one from that lost time.

He remembered Sangwoo’s smile, sharp and ironic but also secretive and fond. He remembered the way Sangwoo had spoken late at night in low, tired tones, when their apartment was dark and silent, and Liam was finally asleep. He remembered how they had whispered in Korean only once the baby was down, because Sangwoo had insisted that he speak exclusively in English with their son to ensure bilingual fluency from the start. At the time, it had seemed like a quirk. Now, looking back, Gihun could see the quiet pride in it—the way Sangwoo had tried so hard to prepare their child for a life with more doors open.

And he remembered how, after scraping together every won they could spare, they had finally found the means to move into their own apartment. It had been small, cramped even, but theirs. A symbol of progress. Sangwoo had maintained his cordial ties with the sect that had once supported them, of course, and when questioned, always managed to frame their move as something Gihun insisted upon. Gihun hadn’t minded. The sect’s daycare centre had been well-organized and generously staffed, and in those precarious early months, that was more valuable than principle. As long as Liam had somewhere safe to nap while they worked themselves to the bone, Gihun could tolerate a few sermons and some awkward community meals.

Junhee, who had been quiet up to that point, leaned in a little, curiosity overcoming shyness. She began to ask about caring for a newborn, her voice soft but sincere, and Gihun, suddenly and unexpectedly warmed by her trust, launched into vivid retellings of those earliest days. He described the battered parenting books they’d borrowed from the local library, and how his own mother, though frail and not always well, had occasionally come by to offer guidance, her hands sure even when her voice trembled. He told her about how he and Sangwoo had learned to fold cloth diapers, and how they’d argued over the best way to swaddle, and how nothing had really prepared them for the full, overwhelming force of holding a crying infant at 3 a.m. after working a full shift.

"Liam was born on the third of July," Gihun said, his lips twitching into a wry, affectionate smile. "Though that nearly became an argument, too. Sangwoo—ever the planner—kept saying we should wait until the fourth, for symbolism or whatever he was thinking, and I kept trying to explain that babies don’t really wait for holidays to be born. It wasn’t until water broke that he finally gave in and we rushed to the hospital."

He laughed quietly, shaking his head at the absurdity of it in hindsight. At the time, he’d been terrified. Now, the memory seemed oddly comedic.

Still, the burden of responsibility had never been evenly split. While Gihun had returned to work barely two weeks after Liam was born—taking on extra shifts whenever possible, desperate to keep the lights on and the fridge stocked—it had been Sangwoo who had spent the most time with their son in those fragile early months. Feedings, changings, the relentless rhythm of lullabies and laundry—Sangwoo had taken it all on, stubbornly, diligently, because that was the only way back then. And because, for all his sharpness and ambition, he had loved Liam with something profound and fierce.

Looking back now, Gihun sometimes marveled at how they had managed it. How they had survived not just the financial strain, but the emotional weight of it all. He knew, deep down, that he wasn’t capable of doing it again—not like that. Not from scratch. Not with the same fire and foolish hope.

After a pause, Jungbae joined the conversation, his tone turning more thoughtful as he began to recount his own experiences, which had been, as he put it, "a bit more structured." He spoke about bath routines, about the teething gel that had finally helped after three sleepless nights, about introducing solids and which vegetables worked best for picky infants. He listed the vaccinations, the paediatricians, the milestones. His voice was confident and maybe a little bit boastful.

And for all his earlier bluntness, all the ways he had a talent for hitting nerves and rousing old insecurities, Gihun had to admit: Jungbae was a good father. There was no questioning it. You could hear it in the way he spoke. You could feel it in the little tangents, the things he remembered. The precise times. The favourite toys. The small triumphs and tired smiles.

Then, unexpectedly, Jungbae began to talk about his wife. Not in vague, respectful terms, but with real openness. He explained how they had made it a priority, post-partum, to carve out small pockets of freedom for her—hours where she could shower, rest, take a walk alone. He described how they’d taken turns, scheduled days, made sure she had space to breathe.

And as he spoke, he glanced toward Gihun—just briefly—but it was enough for Youngil to notice. The change was immediate. Subtle, but decisive. The alpha's posture shifted; his arm tightened around Gihun’s shoulders. He didn’t say a word, but his body language made itself perfectly clear. He drew Gihun slightly closer, anchoring him with presence alone, his touch gentle but unmistakably possessive.

Gihun, sensing the shift, smiled to himself. Of course, Youngil would react. Of course, he would bristle at even the faintest implication. And truth be told, that too was comforting in its own way. Protective instincts could be overbearing sometimes, yes, but they were also reminders of care and of investment.

"You know," Gihun began, his voice taking on the thoughtful cadence of someone momentarily lost in the haze of memory, "back when I gave birth to Gayeong, those special postpartum care centers where they take care of both the newborn and the recovering mother were still just beginning to appear. Barely anyone knew about them, and even fewer could afford them. It was all so new then, but now…" He trailed off, the tone of his voice softening into reassurance as he turned to look more directly at Junhee. "Now, everyone I spoke to at the hospital practically insisted on them. They said it's where you learn everything. How to care for yourself. How to care for the baby. They won’t just leave you fumbling in the dark. So please, don't worry too much, alright? You’ll get the help you need." He hesitated, then tilted his head slightly. "By the way, what week are you on?"

"I'm… not sure," Junhee murmured, her voice barely above a whisper, so faint it seemed to dissolve in the stale air of the dormitory. She looked down, her fingers tightening around the fabric of her loose sleeves, and in that quiet, vulnerable admission, the whole mood of the space shifted. Not dramatically. Not loudly. But definitively. A subtle clenching of breath in every adult nearby, like a collective pause none of them knew how to process.

Silence followed, a kind of heavy, suffocating quiet that didn’t rush to fill itself. Gihun found himself staring at her midsection, trying to make sense of what little he could see. She was so small—fragile even—and someone of her frame, at this point in pregnancy, should have had a belly that was far more visible. Especially because strong and fully developed the scent was there. It was not the kind of scent you picked up early on.

That realization sent a tremor through the group. Unspoken tension curled at the edges of their gathering. A breath held in unison. Gihun felt it like a wire pulled taut behind his ribs. He tried not to panic, to keep his face carefully neutral, but his heart had already started a faster rhythm in his chest. Something was wrong. Or at least not right enough to let it pass unmentioned.

"You’ve seen a doctor, haven’t you?" he asked slowly, gently, though even he could hear the strain of emotion tightening his voice. He was trying not to frighten her, but the urgency crept in despite his best efforts. He leaned forward slightly, his eyes searching her expression.

Junhee shook her head.

It was such a small gesture. Barely perceptible. But it hit like a thunderclap. Gihun froze for half a second, blinking rapidly, processing.

What the actual fuck.

His gaze immediately snapped toward Liam—Myunggi—who sat nearby, tension coiling in every line of his body. His scent, too, was sharp with panic and helplessness, though he made no move to get closer. Respectful of her boundaries, Gihun noted grimly, even as his own instincts screamed that someone should be doing something. Anything. But Junhee had distanced herself. Had made it clear through posture and silence that she did not want Liam involved. And there he sat, looking like a broken animal on the edge of a road, watching her with wide, devastated eyes.

Gihun’s own chest tightened. He needed a moment. Needed to think. Fast.

"Come on, let’s step aside for a moment," he said, his voice pitched low and calm, though inside his thoughts were running at full sprint. "Let’s go talk somewhere private. Just the two of us." He placed deliberate weight on the final phrase, and as he did, he felt Youngil’s grip tighten on his arm again. Protective. Reluctant.

Gihun turned to look up at him, his own gaze steady and quietly insistent. Youngil was already looking down, those eyes wide with that same unbearable worry he’d worn every time Gihun had even hinted at discomfort in the past. Gihun shook his head. Not this time. Youngil’s jaw flexed, but after a moment, he released his hold, stepping back with obvious reluctance.

Junhee stood too, slowly, with a sort of heavy grace that made Gihun’s heart ache. Together, they moved to the far side of the room, past unused bunks to a quiet corner that smelled faintly of detergent and institutional polish. Not private, not really—but far enough.

"Okay," Gihun said once they’d stopped, keeping his voice soft as he turned toward her fully. He lowered his head slightly, trying to meet her eye, though she still wouldn’t look up. "Can you give me an estimate, at least? Even just a rough guess. Anything helps." He reached out carefully and took her hand, wrapping his fingers gently around hers. His thumb moved slowly, rhythmically, the way one might try to soothe a spooked animal.

Junhee didn’t pull away. She didn’t flinch. But neither did she speak for several moments. When she did, her voice was fragile, but deliberate.

"We usually used protection," she said, her cheeks going crimson almost immediately. "But… on Valentine’s Day, we… we weren’t as careful as usual."

February. Gihun’s mind moved fast. If she had conceived on or around February 14th, then that would place her squarely in the final weeks. Not the second trimester. Not even the early third. November was here. She was due. Practically due. And she hadn’t seen a single medical professional. No ultrasound. No vitals. No checks. Nothing.

A deep, visceral horror rooted itself in his chest.

"Okay," he said again, trying and failing to keep the alarm from threading into his tone. He glanced down at her belly once more. "Are you absolutely sure? I mean, your bump looks small for that far along." He winced slightly as he said it, already aware of how hollow the words sounded. After all, his own pregnancy barely showed. But if she was really due in a matter of weeks…

"I was wearing a binder," Junhee admitted at last, her voice trembling slightly but carrying a fragile thread of composure as she finally met his gaze, her expression shy and hesitant but clear in its intention. "While you were out there, I took it off, and it’s just... the tracksuit sits this way, that’s all." As if to support her words, she pressed her hands lightly against the fabric of her clothing, adjusting it for a brief moment to emphasize the shape beneath. And now, indeed, the outline of her belly was far more defined—noticeably round, firm, and undeniably further along than anyone had realized only minutes earlier.

The revelation hit Gihun with the weight of a freight train. A tangle of sensations crashed through him all at once: shock, panic, protective instinct, and an overwhelming sense of urgency. His pulse accelerated so quickly he could feel it in his fingertips. This was no longer a matter of vague suspicion. This was imminent. All of it—birth, risk, danger. The scent was unmistakable now. That combination of juniper and pine that strongly reminded him the day Liam was born. Though this time, the proportions were reversed. With Liam’s birth, the smell had been sharp—almost suffocatingly strong with juniper, with just the barest whisper of pine behind it. Now it was heavier on the evergreen, almost calming in its depth, but it still triggered every nerve in his body. Beneath it all, the steady herbal presence of Youngil's scent tried to soothe him, but it only partially succeeded. His instincts were too alert, too heightened.

"You’re doing the right thing by being honest with me," he said finally, forcing steadiness into his voice even though his mind was still reeling. He placed his hand over hers and gave it a gentle squeeze, sincere in his gratitude. "Thank you, really." The way Junhee's eyes welled up then, as if she’d been holding in that fear for far too long and now, finally, someone saw her, broke something in him. She looked like she might burst into tears, not from sadness but from sheer relief.

He tried to keep himself calm, but it wasn’t entirely possible. His own scent had begun to broadcast a shrill undercurrent of panic—pure alarm, desperation, a scream trapped under skin. This was so much. Too much. And yet, they had one critical lifeline left: they were supposed to leave the island soon. Very soon. He held onto that thought like a rope in a storm.

"There’s a midwife here," he said quickly, glancing around the communal room. His gaze landed on the familiar form of the older woman, number 149, who was seated not far off. "That old lady, number 149—she’s a trained midwife. I think she could at least give you some kind of preliminary check, maybe explain a few things." He looked back at Junhee, trying to infuse his expression with hope and reassurance. "But the moment we get back to Seoul, you’re going to see someone. Immediately. No delays." He raised a finger in mock-seriousness, pointing at her like a stern father rather than an anxious omega, but his tone made it clear that he meant every word.

Junhee nodded quickly, her expression more determined now despite the fear still lingering in her eyes. She was so young. Too young for this. Gihun felt an ache of sorrow in his chest just looking at her, imagining all the things she hadn’t been prepared for, the dreams she’d probably shelved the second that test came back positive, alone and scared.

"And L-... Myunggi…" Gihun hesitated before saying the name, almost as if it tasted bitter on his tongue. "Did he do something to you?" His voice lowered with concern, but he kept it soft, careful not to push too hard. "You don’t have to tell me if you’re uncomfortable, I promise. I’m not going to force anything. I just want to understand. That’s all."

Junhee looked away, her shoulders sagging a little as if a great weight were resting there. She paused, collecting her thoughts, then exhaled.

"He started ignoring me back in March," she said. "He blocked me on everything, changed his number. He doesn’t care about anything except money and his channel."

"His channel?" Gihun echoed, raising his eyebrows as he tried to parse the implications.

She nodded, her expression darkening a little with something like annoyance. "Yeah. He’s a pretty popular videoblogger. Or... was." She gave a small shrug. "He used to have a huge audience. Millions of followers. He talked about cryptocurrency. He was really famous, actually."

Gihun blinked. He hadn’t been prepared for that. Not even close.

Wait. Wait, what?

His son—a baby he’d once held in trembling arms during midnight feedings—was a public figure? A celebrity of sorts? That was… unfathomable.

"Before the whole cancellation thing, anyway," Junhee clarified. "After the scam stuff came out, people turned on him. But he still has a few loyal fans—some of them are… obsessive. The way he acts in front of the camera is also part of it. A little too…" She struggled for the word, then settled on, "suggestive. It caused a lot of problems between us." She sighed deeply, the sound full of emotional fatigue. "I don’t want to go back to that. I don’t want him involved in the baby’s life. He’ll just disappear again, I know it. He’ll run the second things get difficult."

Her voice wavered at the end, not from weakness but from the hard-earned certainty of experience. And hearing it laid out so plainly made Gihun’s stomach twist again.

Gihun bit down gently on the edge of his tongue, trying to silence the reflexive response rising in his throat. Every part of him wanted to interject, to tell Junhee that things might still work out between her and Myunggi, that perhaps what looked like abandonment was actually a clumsy form of protection. After all, the way L- Myunggi looked at her now—with that tender, almost reverent adoration that softened every edge of his usually guarded expression—wasn’t something one could fake. And if Myunggi, this self-styled crypto star with more debt than some small companies, had truly amassed over a billion won in financial obligations, then maybe he’d pulled away because he didn’t want Junhee to get caught in the inevitable fallout.

But even if all that were true, this wasn’t the time. And he wasn’t the person he should be saying it to right now. Junhee had just spoken with raw honesty, trusting Gihun with something fragile, and responding with speculative reassurances about a man who had already hurt her would only sound like excuses—patronizing and unfair. He couldn’t do that. Not when she was trying so hard to be strong. Not when every line in her face and every word from her lips was a quiet plea for dignity.

No. What mattered now was trust. With his kind of daughter-in-law, he had to build something stronger than words. He had to be steady, even when his instincts screamed otherwise.

His thoughts wandered, unbidden, back to the bitterness of his own past. How his own mother, in the chaotic wake of his divorce, had so often failed to shield him from his ex’s anger. Sometimes she had even joined in, siding against him in small ways, her tone cold and curt, as if agreeing with her former son-in-law might somehow preserve her place in her granddaughter’s life. And maybe, in a way, it had. Gihun had resented it deeply back then. But with time, he’d come to understand what it cost her, and why she made that choice. Love sometimes wore cruel disguises when it tried to survive.

He had been a worse son, he thought, than Liam was turning out to be. Gihun had made real, unfixable mistakes. He had failed people. Fumbled what mattered. But Liam… Liam hadn’t even been given a proper chance. And if Gihun was right about the situation, if Liam had disappeared only because he’d been trying to protect someone else from his own disaster, then it wasn’t abandonment—it was damage control.

Still, this wasn’t the time to argue or to explain. Later, perhaps, when Junhee had space to process, when she began to wonder, to question, to remember that love had once lived between them—then Gihun would act. Maybe he’d nudge her gently toward that memory through the child. Remind her, perhaps, that the boy would benefit from having both parents in his life. That Liam, for all his flaws, had the capacity to be more. The trick would be to keep Junhee close. Not let her drift too far. If she floated too far into independence and resentment, pulling her back would become impossible.

His mind reeled with strategies, and he hated himself a little for thinking in terms of tactics when this girl, this fragile, wounded girl, needed compassion, not planning. But maybe it could preserve his strange, fractured family.

Then came the sound. A chime—mechanical, metallic, too familiar. The unmistakable tone of a door unlocking. Gihun jolted, his entire body reacting before his mind could catch up. The sound slammed into him like a cold gust of wind, triggering a spike of adrenaline that his body associated with the Games. With death. With panic.

He inhaled sharply, trying to ground himself. The scent that hit him with new wave was herbal, fresh, green wave that curled around him like a tether. Youngil. He was watching all this time—his gaze sharp, ever fixed on Gihun, like he could sense his rising anxiety and was ready to step in the moment it spiralled. Gihun turned toward him, breathing slowly, and gave a small nod of acknowledgment. He would be fine. He had to be.

He turned back to Junhee and gave her the gentlest look he could manage.

"Let’s go," he said quietly.

They returned to the loose circle of alphas and players that had gathered again, tension visible in every slumped shoulder, every restless movement. It wasn’t over. It never was.

A Square had entered the room, flanked by silent guards whose faces were obscured behind geometric masks. The Square stepped forward, posture erect, voice crisp and emotionless as it sliced through the anxious murmuring.

"Dear players," he began, with a practiced intonation that was almost too smooth, too polished to feel real. "As a result of the first game, the accumulated prize fund now stands at one hundred million won. A total of four hundred and fifty-four players have successfully completed the game. Accordingly, each participant will receive two hundred and twenty thousand won."

There was no applause. No cheer. The room erupted instead into a discordant blend of complaints, curses, and frustrated outrage. Players began to shout over one another. Someone screamed that the amount was an insult, that risking your life for such a pitiful sum was a betrayal. Another voice argued that it was unfair—that others had been too cowardly to play and should be punished. Still others threatened legal action, empty threats hurled into the void, but spoken with the rawness of genuine despair.

The Square held up a hand, then raised his voice, louder and more insistent this time.

"However," he said, and the room quieted by degrees. That word. Gihun hated that word. "We understand that the decision you made may not have been fully considered. That is why we are now offering you a deal."

Gihun’s breath caught in his throat. He didn’t like the sound of this—any of it. He knew these kinds of offers. Knew what lay beneath them: traps disguised as choices, manipulation cloaked in generosity. He had seen enough of this theatre to understand that deals offered by masked men rarely led to salvation. More likely, they led back into the fire, wrapped in prettier words.

"Each player’s life is valued at 100 million won. We are offering you the opportunity to participate in the Game once again. The prize fund will depend on the number of participants. We do not expect you to make a decision immediately—we will wait for your answer in one week. However, please note that the number of available slots is limited due to the specific requirements of the upcoming games. You may be placed on a waiting list, and there is no guarantee that those who attempt to join at the last minute will be able to do so. Therefore, if you wish to ensure your participation in the Game, I recommend you do not delay."

"...Are we supposed to call the same number again?" Gihun's voice cuts through the air, louder than expected, emerging from the back row where he stands partially held back by Youngil’s arm across his chest. It’s not aggressive, not quite—it’s insistent, a tension that buzzes in his throat like he’s been holding this question in for too long and now it escapes whether he wants it to or not. Youngil keeps him from advancing, keeps him grounded with a firm grip, and Gihun can smell it then—his scent tightening, growing sharper, more bitter. Protective.

"No, we will distribute new business cards," the Square replies coolly. "Don’t worry."

"Hey, old man, what the hell are you doing here again?" The voice that rings out is half-amused, half-aggressive. It belongs to Number 230, the one with purple hair. He pushes to his feet with a lazy sort of swagger, taking deliberate steps toward their little cluster, the tone of his voice rising for the benefit of the crowd. "Didn’t you already get your turn? Maybe stop screwing things up for the rest of us?"

There’s laughter and words of approval from the crowd—loud, mocking, communal. The kind of laugh people only manage when they’re scared and trying to drown that fear in something meaner. These are the ones who voted to return. The ones who believed they had nothing left to lose. They howl and clap and jeer, and Gihun can feel the static of it under his skin, the way it settles like sand in his joints, making every movement harder. But he also feels Youngil, still there beside him, still gripping his wrist, grounding him with that persistent scent and that quiet, unmoving presence.

It’s too much. Something in him slips.

"You’re all just going to die, that’s all!" he blurts, and even as the words leave his mouth he hears how they sound—petulant, thin, too shrill, too much like a tantrum. Too omega. It’s the kind of voice no one listens to, the kind of voice even he, if he were on the other side, would dismiss without a second thought.

Someone nearby rolls their eyes. Another person exhales through their nose with theatrical annoyance. There’s a snort of laughter from the left. The dismissiveness in the air is almost tangible, like smoke, curling around him with a cold indifference that borders on cruelty. And it infuriates him—how none of them are listening, how none of them are taking this seriously, how none of them seem to realize that they are marching straight into their own deaths, smiling like idiots.

Junyoung has gone still inside of him. Probably smart enough to guess that one more spark, one more careless word, and Gihun might snap entirely—might scream until his throat tore or break down in some embarrassing, irreversible way.

How could they all be this stupid?

Every single one of them, stupid beyond reason.

Except for Youngil and Junhee. Youngil, who hasn’t let go of his arm, who’s still there with him, anchoring him with steady eyes and the firm, grounding weight of his presence. Youngil, who smells like tension but also like safety. Youngil, who doesn’t say anything but doesn’t move away either. And Junhee is just a child, really, just a girl with a future she still believes in, but she had heard him, that night. She had listened. She had understood something. And now she was doing everything she could to make a life worth living, even in the middle of this chaos.

And the rest of them? Just absolute fools. Dense, unreachable, hopeless fools. That’s why they ended up here in the first place—because somewhere along the way they mistook recklessness for bravery and stupidity for fate. Who in their right mind agrees to gamble their life on children's games for money? And then, when someone comes right out and tells them, clearly and unmistakably, that they are going to die here—that this isn’t theory, not metaphor, not some clever little euphemism but a simple truth—they shrug and say, "So what?"

Idiots. The lot of them.

And for one long, furious second, Gihun wants nothing more than to spit it at them—something sharp and cruel like, "Then die here, all of you," and walk away with Youngil into some hypothetical sunset. Let them rot in their own apathy. Let them die for a paycheck. Let them go back to licking the boots of the bastards who built this place.

But he can’t.

He breathes in—too fast, too shallow—and there it is again: that scent of juniper, phantom and persistent, like heat in the bloodstream. He feels it coil around his thoughts like smoke, feels the weight of blood on his hands that isn’t actually there but still refuses to be washed off. It stops him. Freezes him in place. Because no matter how much his instincts scream at him to walk away, to cut his losses and escape while he still can, something heavier keeps him rooted.

He can’t go back. He can’t turn away. Not when there’s even a sliver of a chance that he might save someone. Not everyone—he knows that—but maybe one person. Maybe two. If he can convince just a few of them that this isn’t a game, that this is death with a coat of paint, then maybe all of this will be worth it. Maybe then the ones who’ve already died won’t feel so... pointless.

"Please. Please believe me!" he calls out, his voice raw with desperation. His eyes scan the crowd, which is beginning to resemble something closer to a wall than a group of people. He searches their faces for anything—fear, doubt, hesitation—but finds none. They look back at him not like he’s a man warning them of a cliff, but like he’s a street preacher shouting about the end times in the middle of a mall. Something to be pitied, maybe. But not listened to.

That’s the curse of tragedy: one death is enough to make you weep, but a hundred is just a number. And once the initial horror passes—once the adrenaline fades and the fear settles—what’s left is calculation. Cold, deliberate calculation. What are my odds? How much can I win? Could I be the one who makes it?

"You shouldn’t be getting so worked up," says a voice beside him, and then a hand reaches for his arm. He turns and sees her—Player 149, the old lady, her face pinched with concern, the lines in her skin etched with the kind of sorrow that comes from surviving more than a few of life’s worst offerings. "Don’t waste your energy on these fools," she says, loud enough for others to hear. There’s something oddly comforting in her scolding. The way old women used to scold tired children.

Gihun stares at nothing, the expression on his face slack and unfocused, like a man underwater watching the surface drift further away. The crowd is still buzzing—still talking, still shifting—but the sound is muffled in his ears, like it's happening behind a thick pane of glass. What he sees isn’t them, not anymore. He sees others. Faces from the first Game. People who aren’t alive anymore, people who shouldn’t have died, and yet they did—because somehow he didn’t. He remembers their numbers, not their names. Their eyes. Their pleading hands. The final moments of some of them.

And now hands are on him again—one on each side. Youngil to his right, steady and silent, the pressure of his fingers unmistakably firm. The grandmother to his left, touch lighter, rubbing slow, instinctive circles on his back, her scent less protective and more like something familiar from a childhood he barely remembers. He doesn’t fight it. Doesn’t speak. Doesn’t even blink. His brain feels like it’s fuzzing at the edges, like the air is thinning. If he passes out, he thinks distantly, it won’t be the worst thing that’s happened to him.

But he’s glad—so glad—that he forced the vote exactly when he did. It might not have been smart. It might not have been fair. But it was the only moment when people had enough fear in their bodies to listen. If there’s any chance at all to reduce the bloodshed, to drag even a handful of these morons back from the brink, it’s going to be because of that moment. That one sliver of clarity.

"We’ll be arranging transportation back to Seoul shortly," the voice says. It's Square. Gihun barely hears him. The words are distant, like a recording played in another room.

Youngil hasn’t let go. The grandmother is still talking. Her son hovers nearby, shuffling awkwardly from foot to foot like he wants to help but doesn’t know how, like he’s waiting for instructions from a playbook that doesn’t exist.

Yes.

Gihun’s eyes focus. He looks at the old woman, who is still rubbing his lower back with the kind of practiced touch that makes him feel—if not better, exactly, then at least slightly less like he’s about to dissolve. Her gaze meets his. Her expression is shrewd. Searching. She’s watching his face like she can read the pain there, and maybe she can. Somehow, it really is easier to breathe.

He hopes Youngil is watching, too. Hopes he’s paying attention, because whatever the old lady is doing—however she’s pressing or stroking or grounding him—it’s working. The pain he didn’t know he was feeling begins to recede, like a tide going out. The sharpness dulls. The tension ebbs. It's strange. Comforting. A reminder that the body knows things before the mind does.

"Please," Gihun says suddenly, the words urgent and clipped. "Please look at someone else too."

"Someone else is pregnant in this mess?" the old woman gasps, throwing her hands up in theatrical horror. "What is wrong with all of you? Why can’t you stay home where it’s safe?" She looks genuinely scandalized, but it’s the kind of performance that carries sympathy beneath the outrage. Her tone is chastising, yes, but her movements are already shifting, already preparing. "Come on, show me, where are they?" she demands, looking around.

Junhee raises her hand, shy and uncertain.

The old woman peers at the girl’s stomach, still hidden beneath the folds of her tracksuit jacket, and there’s a moment of concentrated silence as she studies the faint curve, the posture, the way Junhee presses her arms protectively across herself even while trying to appear unaffected.

"Sweetheart, my name is Jang Geumja. And you, what’s your name?" Her voice softens considerably, the gruffness peeling back to reveal something maternal, practiced, almost too careful.

"Junhee," the girl replies quietly, her voice small and cautious, as though not quite sure she’s allowed to be part of this moment.

"What a beautiful name, really..." Geumja hums, already stepping closer, reaching out with the unhurried authority of someone who has seen more births than arguments. Her fingers rest lightly on Junhee’s midsection before she starts pressing gently in different spots, testing for movement, firmness, depth. She leans in slightly, sniffing, her brow furrowing as she breathes in deeply through her nose, the motion oddly wolf-like in its intuition. "Darling, you’re due any day now," she mutters, more to herself than to the girl, but the words are unmistakably final.

The air changes not abruptly, not dramatically, but sharply enough that Gihun feels it along his spine, the sudden alertness that sweeps through the group like static. The scent of alphas in the vicinity spikes in response to stress—Youngil’s in particular becomes unmistakably sharper, braced like a storm front. But it’s Liam’s that fractures first, spiraling instantly into panic, thick and sour like spilled adrenaline. There’s no attempt to mask it. No instinct to hide. It rushes out of him like smoke under pressure, and Gihun feels the edge of it like a headache behind his eyes.

Youngil, for his part, holds steady—but only just. His scent doesn't curdle into fear like Liam’s, but it twists, tightens, becomes strangely metallic, the kind of chemical tension that usually arrives just before something violent happens. Gihun notices the shift, and without thinking, reaches for him—his palm closing gently around Youngil’s wrist, thumb stroking along the vein there with slow, grounding pressure. It’s a clumsy gesture, but it's what he has. Youngil doesn't relax, not fully, but he looks at Gihun then—really looks—and there’s something grateful in the glance, something shaken and struggling to stay anchored. Behind his eyes, however, panic still flickers, cautious and exhausted.

It makes Gihun wonder how Youngil will handle it when it’s his turn.

When it’s no longer theory or preparation but actual labour, actual pain, actual blood. When every second stretches into an eternity and every breath has weight. Will Youngil hold together? Will he be calm? Will he lose his mind?

Or will he be just like now—quietly breaking apart behind his eyes and trying not to show it?

In an ideal world—if the next few weeks go exactly right—Gihun will finish this whole damn nightmare with the Games, wrap the loose ends tightly enough that no one else has to bleed, and then spend the rest of his pregnancy somewhere calm. Somewhere safe. He imagines it sometimes when the fear isn't so loud—a quiet house, maybe even a big one, one with stairs and a garden and too many bedrooms. He pictures Youngil beside him, solid and steady. He pictures Junhee living with them too. Maybe Gayeong visiting on holidays, bringing books and side dishes and little gifts. In that version, Junhee and Liam will be together as a pair of happy newlyweds.

Dinner at the same table. Silence when it’s needed. Warmth when it isn’t expected. That kind of life.

Is that really asking too much?

Jung Geumja continues asking Junhee quiet, pointed questions—how long ago she last saw a doctor (never), whether she’s had any ultrasounds (no), whether she’s taken vitamins (sometimes, maybe, she’s not sure). She scolds her for not getting checkups, for walking around like she’s invincible, and then, just as quickly, turns her scolding to the broader system, muttering about how modern medicine’s full of nonsense and fearmongering these days, how doctors invent diagnoses just to charge more money, how some of the "conditions" they now push are pure fiction. It’s all delivered in a rapid-fire rhythm, a mix of outrage and familiarity that makes it hard to tell when she’s being serious and when she’s just venting long-held opinions.

But then the subject shifts.

"The father?" Jung Geumja asks, voice sharper now, eyes narrowing.

Junhee answers almost immediately. "There’s no father," she says, and her tone is too flat, too rehearsed. Gihun knows the sound of a young person trying to protect themselves.

Except Liam speaks at the exact same time.

"I’m the father," he blurts out, breathless, voice cracking in a way that makes the words sound like a confession and a challenge all at once.

Silence.

The tension breaks not with words, but with action. Geumja turns, stares at Liam, squints like she’s recalibrating her entire mental image of him, and then—without warning—smacks him on the head.

Not gently.

Not metaphorically.

She actually strikes him, knuckles rapping sharply against his skull.

"Hey! Hey, that’s enough," Gihun snaps, rising to his feet faster than he intended and catching Geumja’s arm mid-swing. His voice is taut, not angry exactly, but laced with the kind of authority that doesn’t leave room for protest. "Let’s not hit anyone today, alright?"

"What kind of ridiculous alphas are being raised these days?" she explodes, lowering her hand but not her tone. Her face is flushed, her scent prickling with a kind of offended righteousness. "Running around getting girls pregnant, then—"

"You don’t know the whole story," Gihun cuts in, his voice low and firm. He doesn’t shout, doesn’t scold. Just states it. Quiet but unyielding. "And maybe you should focus on the girl instead of trying to beat a confession out of someone."

"That’s exactly the problem," she snaps. "It’s always people like you, making excuses for them. Trying to find reasons. Trying to explain it away. But an alpha’s job is to protect—omegas and women both!"

"And how much protection has your alpha son offered anyone lately?" Gihun spits the words before he can stop himself, and the moment they leave his mouth, he knows he’s gone too far.

Because it’s different, isn’t it?

She can lash out at Youngil. She can hit Liam. She can scold and blame and mutter about how things used to be. But he’s supposed to keep it together. He’s the one who has to maintain the facade of reason, of maturity, of composure. He’s the one who doesn’t get to break.

"Well, he didn’t abandon anyone pregnant," she says, pursing her lips as though the sentence itself leaves a bad taste in her mouth, like it costs her something to say it out loud in his defence.

There’s a whole litany of insults burning on the tip of Gihun’s tongue—most of them crude, ugly things that have nothing to do with the situation at hand and everything to do with how much this grown man clings to his mother in his forties, as if the umbilical cord had never truly been cut. It’s unfair, he knows. Cruel. Misplaced. But fairness isn’t really a concern right now. Gihun feels nothing but heat, a visceral, coiling rage that licks up the inside of his ribs and makes everything else fade into background static. What makes it worse—what twists the knife—is that Youngil smells guilty.

Not just uncertain. Not conflicted. Guilty.

And that scent hits Gihun like a slap.

As if somehow Youngil thinks this is about him. As if this argument, this tension, this old woman and her misplaced righteousness are things he needs to feel ashamed of. The implication stings more than Gihun wants to admit, because of course Youngil is good, too good sometimes, and of course he’s internalizing all this as some failure of his own. Of course he’s standing there thinking that maybe he should have said more, done more, stepped in sooner.

And inside Gihun’s belly, Junyoung stays utterly, unnervingly still.

Not a flutter. Not a twist. Not a single rebellious kick. Nothing to give away his presence at all. Which probably means he knows. Somehow, in that strange, shared biological intuition that binds omega bodies to their unborn, he understands that this is not the moment to add more fuel to the fire. No need to draw attention.

Gihun draws in a long breath, and then another, letting each one stretch across his ribs, deep and deliberate, trying to force his heart rate down, trying to gather whatever fragments of composure remain within reach. He is, despite everything, trying to be a good person. Or at least a reasonable one. The kind of person who doesn’t retaliate just because someone else throws the first punch. The kind of person who still believes it matters not to become what you hate.

"So, visually speaking, everything’s alright?" Gihun asks, his tone calm, measured, deliberately soft. He turns slightly toward the older woman, shifting the heat of his gaze away from Liam and redirecting it where it might actually be useful. "We’re going to the hospital as soon as we get out of here, but is there anything I should know in the meantime? Anything we need to say, or do, or prepare for? Any tests she needs to ask for?"

The old woman doesn’t answer immediately. Her lips are still tight, the corners drawn downward in that unmistakable expression of someone chewing on a stubborn bitterness. But something in her eyes flickers, just slightly, and maybe it’s the way Gihun’s voice comes out—unaggressive, unthreatening, genuinely worried—that makes her pause. Maybe she remembers, at the last second, that scolding the pregnant never did anyone any good. Whatever it is, she exhales, the breath escaping from her like steam from a cracked kettle, and begins to speak again, this time with less venom.

She explains, in short, that the girl is far too small for the baby she’s carrying. That the fetus is likely oversized relative to her frame, which will make labour difficult, possibly even dangerous. She advises Gihun to bring her to Saesan University Hospital—not the cheapest, she admits, but reputable, and more importantly, trustworthy. She tells him that a few of her former students still work there, which means there’s a chance, just a chance, to get in through the side door, metaphorically speaking. To navigate the system quietly, discreetly. To get help without racking up insurmountable debt.

She says this all with a strange sort of warmth—abrasive, still, in the way only the elderly can be, but undeniably sincere. She knows that everyone here has money problems. That’s a given. No one joins this death circus for fun. So she doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t judge—she simply says, in her own prickly way, that she’ll help.

And it breaks something in Gihun.

Not dramatically or publicly. But he feels the tears gather behind his eyes like rain swelling behind a dam. There’s a tightness in his throat that won’t ease, a sudden, overwhelming gratitude that lodges itself beneath his sternum and makes his knees feel weak. He doesn’t cry, not really, but he feels like he could. Feels like he should.

So instead, he clears his throat and asks the only question left that matters.

"And your debts?" he says quietly, looking at her not just as a woman with sharp elbows and a sharper tongue, but as someone who shouldn’t be here either. "How much do you owe? Or your son owes?"

She waves him off instantly, as if the question offends her. "Don’t worry about that," she mutters. "I didn’t help because I expected anything in return. Just keep the girl alright."

Gihun wants to argue. Wants to insist. But the sharp electronic chime of a nearby door interrupts him, and everything shifts. The guards begin forming them into lines, the kind that look loose but are watched with sniper precision. One by one, in staggered clusters, they begin to lead the participants out—small groups at a time, down narrow corridors with deliberately disorienting angles and shadowed lights.

Gihun’s group, as it happens, is last.

They wait.

And in that waiting, he manages to coax a little more from the lady. Her address. The name of her son’s creditor. The total sum of the debt she didn’t want to admit in front of others. A quiet promise, exchanged quickly and almost sheepishly, that if she makes it out of this alive, she’ll let him come over for tea. Not just as a thank you, but because she feels like she owe him her life.

It’s so small, and yet it matters.

Gihun feels the weight of it settle into his bones. He doesn’t say anything about her son’s obvious flaws—doesn’t mention how spineless or cruel he’s been, doesn’t call out his failures. He congratulates himself silently for that. For not meeting cruelty with cruelty. For not taking the bait. For letting the moment pass without escalating it further. He wants to believe that’s growth.

And the situation, for all its sharp edges, seems to settle. At least a little.

Liam walks before ajumma’s son, his posture stooped slightly, his eyes full of something like shame when he occasionally looks back. He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t approach. But the way he looks at Junhee—pleading, aching—says enough. He’s not proud. He’s not pretending. There’s apology in every line of his body.

Junhee, meanwhile, walks at the very end of the line, slow but steady, her entire weight partially balanced against Youngil’s side, because Gihun asked him to help her since he got better. Junhee doesn't look at Liam and pretends he doesn’t exist.

Gihun watches all of it.

Their group is the last to approach the door, the one through which the other participants had been disappearing in orderly batches—six at a time, like passengers boarding a shuttle to somewhere unspeakably final—and by now the rhythm of it has become so routine, so metronomic, that it would have felt strange not to follow it. But just as Gihun and Junhee begin to step forward, ready to melt into the tail end of the procession, one of the guards makes a subtle gesture, and they are quietly, but unmistakably, redirected. Not through the main threshold. Not with the others. Instead, they are told to enter a side room, separate and small, as if they had been selected for something neither punitive nor privileged—just different.

Gihun tenses immediately. Not dramatically, not outwardly, but with a tightness in his spine that speaks to every instinct honed by survival. He doesn’t ask questions, not out loud. But he turns, and finds Youngil watching him with that steady, frustratingly calm expression, the kind that makes you want to scream and trust him in equal measure. Youngil meets his gaze, and his lips move without sound, mouthing the words as if they’re sacred or scripted—"It’s okay"—a whisper of a promise passed between them through sheer eye contact alone.

Gihun breathes him in then, not metaphorically but literally, the anchoring scent of him that cuts through his stress like something real, something grounding, and the faint presence of herbal scent wraps around him like fabric pulled over chilled skin, familiar and steadying. He nods, not because he is convinced, but because he has already decided to trust him anyway.

They go.

Junhee walks a step behind, small and taut as a wire, her fear not loud but persistent, pulsing like a heartbeat beneath her silence. The room they are led to is nothing more than a box— minimalictic and aggressively blank. A holding cell disguised as a utility closet, without windows or furniture beyond the two chairs bolted to the floor. There is no mirror, no decoration, no camera that can be seen but surely there, watching. It is the kind of space that makes you feel like a question that hasn’t been asked yet.

Gihun, no longer interested in deference or permission or anything resembling shame, sits down immediately. He doesn’t ask. He doesn’t wait. The ache in his lower back gives him no reason to pretend at politeness. He claims the chair like it’s his by right—like being pregnant entitles him to at least this one small act of inertia. Junhee, seeing this, follows his example, sinking into the other chair with the cautious stiffness of someone who has not yet learned the art of pretending she belongs somewhere.

They sit and they wait.

Not long, but long enough for discomfort to bloom. Long enough for their silence to thicken with unasked questions and creeping tension. The kind of waiting that fills the air like fog, until every breath feels like it might disturb the balance.

Then, the door opens, and a Square enters—not hurried, not late, but with the slow, even tempo of someone who has rehearsed this a thousand times before. In his arms are two garment bags, heavy and black, made of the kind of plastic that looks expensive enough to be reused but cheap enough to feel disposable. Behind him, the Triangle who escorted them slips out without a word, as if the exchange is part of some choreography only the masked men understand.

The Square doesn’t introduce himself, doesn’t offer explanation or apology. He simply speaks.

"Dear players, you need to change."

Just that.

No context, no reason, no discussion. A statement dropped into the room like a stone into still water.

Gihun feels his entire body tighten—not in panic, but in familiar, bitter recognition. This, he thinks, is going to be a problem. Not necessarily for him, but certainly for Youngil. He can already picture the way Youngil’s jaw will clench when he hears about this later, the way his scent will twist sharp and sour with guilt and rage he won’t know where to put. It’s not that Gihun himself is thrilled about it either; he isn’t. But at this point, modesty is a currency he’s already spent. These people have seen him unconscious, stripped, bleeding, disoriented. They’ve had their hands in his mouth, their fingers on his pulse. They dressed him in this tracksuit when he was barely conscious. They’ve likely reviewed his bloodwork, hormone panels, maybe even pelvic scans. There is nothing left of his body that hasn’t already been catalogued by the system.

Still.

Something about being asked to strip, now, in this silent and windowless room, feels worse than when they simply took that right from him. Because now it’s performative. Now it’s a ritual. Now it feels like surrender.

Junhee is visibly rattled. She doesn’t move or speak. Just folds her arms around her midsection like she’s trying to hide the shape of herself. She is already too close to giving birth. Too exposed. Too raw. And even with the Square turning his back—deliberately, performatively, like a man pretending decency—the act feels hollow. The power dynamic remains unchanged. The room is still theirs. The rules are not negotiable.

Gihun knows himself too well.

He knows that if Junhee weren’t here, he might do something reckless. Something theatrical. He might launch himself at the Square without hesitation, knock him out cold, strip him of his uniform and wear it like a disguise. He might take his chances walking through the heart of the facility, head high, daring them to stop him. He would find the Front Man. He would unmake the system. He would carve his defiance into every sterile wall.

But Junhee is here.

And so is his child.

And the others.

And so, instead, he swallows it down—the fury, the impulse, the fantasy—and watches the corners of the room like they might give him an answer he doesn’t already have.

And then it hits him. A quiet revelation.

Of course. Of course the guards are sedating other players again in those cars.

It’s the only explanation that makes sense. That’s why the others were herded through in groups of six, while he and Junhee were separated. Whatever illusion of control the organization maintains, there are cracks—cracks that widen in the presence of certain people, certain truths.

He feels it then. The fracture. The weakness of Front Man. And it glows.

Could it really be? Could it truly, finally be Youngil?

Is he the Front Man?

It’s a theory he’s entertained before, but always with distance. Always with a sort of self-mocking doubt. But now it kind of fits. The pieces begin to fall into place with terrifying precision—the sedation, the timing, the access, the careful management of his movements. Youngil’s ability to talk with the guards with this tone. The way his presence always seems to smooth the path.

The only thing that kept him from fully committing to this version was his strong suspicion that Youngil’s real name was Hwang Inho.

Gihun thought so because Junho’s and Youngil’s stories and small details matched up very well. Not that Junho talked much about his brother, but some things slipped through, and the more Gihun recalled what Youngil had said about his younger brother, the more it aligned with what he had seen in Junho. And of course, it would explain his steady and healthy pregnancy.

However, it was still unclear just how much actual power the so-called Front Man held in this hierarchy, whether he was truly the ultimate authority or merely a symbolic figurehead within a structure that extended far higher into hidden layers of command, Gihun couldn’t be certain that the decision made today—even the separation, the guarded tone, the ritual of being led away—originated with him. It seemed more and more plausible that there existed a separate, possibly even higher-ranking position—an administrative or executive tier tucked so deep into the machinery of this system that the Front Man himself was merely its mouthpiece.

If Youngil really was Hwang Inho—if that was the truth buried under layers of names and masks and misdirection—then it was unlikely that he also occupied the position of the Front Man. Not because he couldn’t, not because he wasn’t capable, but because of the lingering history surrounding Junho, and everything that had unravelled in the wake of that betrayal, that disappearance, that grief-laced silence. If anything, it made more sense to think that Youngil, or Inho, or whatever name he had worn at different points in his life, existed above the Front Man. At the very least, parallel to it. And the idea of that—the sheer possibility that the person Gihun now trusted, leaned on, held close, might be someone with power not just tactical or symbolic, but operational—was oddly exhilarating. Not because he sought protection in influence, not because he desired control, but because the closeness it implied, the possibility that he had already won him over, lent their connection a gravity that felt both intimate and cosmic.

It meant that this was no longer a fluke, a coincidence, a convenient alignment of circumstance.

It meant that Gihun had seen through him—or rather, to him—and that Youngil had allowed it.

And the more he sat with that, the more he felt the trembling certainty that he could pull him away from all of this—not with manipulation or guilt, not by force or threat, but simply by being. That Youngil, for all his restraint and ambiguity, was already half on his side, and all Gihun needed to do was finish the arc of that turn.

Because this wasn’t about individuals anymore.

It hadn’t been for a long time.

This was about systems.

About the quiet complicity that allowed suffering to become structure, that normalized cruelty until it wore the mask of fairness. Gihun knew—had known for some time—that those who continued to participate in this machinery weren’t necessarily the villains. The real sickness wasn’t in the people who pulled triggers or enforced the rules. It was in the rot beneath the rules themselves. In the gleaming logic of those who profited from blood. In the polite detachment of the rich. In men like Oh Ilnam, who could smile while watching the weak perish, who could aestheticize death into a parlour game.

But Youngil wasn’t like that.

Gihun knew that.

He knew it in the way Youngil touched him, in the way his scent bent around fear instead of reinforcing it. He knew it in the careful pauses of his speech, in the hesitation that betrayed empathy, in the faint guilt that sometimes leaked through his composure. Even the Front Man, as much as Gihun had feared and loathed him at first, had revealed something telling by allowing Gihun to participate again. That decision, by its very existence, undermined everything the man claimed to believe. It exposed a contradiction, a weak link. Because if Gihun truly didn’t matter—if mercy had no place in this equation—then why let him return?

And still, for all his speculations, one thing gnawed at the edge. What if it wasn't that deep?

There was one revolting little possibility, that lived deep in the back of Gihun’s mind, festering in shadows like mold behind a wall. That the name change was because Youngil was married. That "Oh Youngil" was a borrowed identity, a shield for a double life. That somewhere out there, there was a family. A wife. Maybe even children. And Gihun hated the thought with a kind of silent violence. He hoped, with a desperation he hadn’t wanted to admit, that it wasn’t that. That there wasn’t another life waiting for him elsewhere. That he wasn’t some temporary deviation.

Shaking it off, Gihun let the tracksuit fall to the floor in a crumpled heap. He changed into the clothing he was wearing before coming here, no longer shocked that it didn’t smell like anything. The fabric had clearly been treated with a neutralizing agent, stripped of scent, rendered antiseptic and untraceable, a deliberate erasure of identity. Just another layer of control. Just another reminder that none of this was ever about choice.

He didn’t flinch when the Square approached from behind.

But his body reacted anyway.

A ripple of discomfort passed over him, quiet but unmistakable, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up with the static of instinctive fear. Something about proximity under these circumstances—about being touched without invitation, about surrendering the last scraps of autonomy—always registered like danger. His scent shifted before he could rein it in, a burst of sharp eucalyptus rolling off his skin like a shield too late to be useful.

"Player 456, I will now blindfold you," the Square announced, voice still wrapped in that hollow neutrality that made it impossible to tell whether he was comforting or threatening. "After that, I will bind your hands and legs. Then I will carry you to the other players."

It wasn’t a request. It wasn’t a question.

It was merely a statement of process.

And Gihun hated how it sounded.

He felt the sharp edge of fear rise again, not the kind that panicked, but the kind that coiled deep in the gut and made every limb heavy with resistance. His whole body wanted to say no. To push back. To fight. But instead, he nodded slowly, cautiously. Accepted it. Because there was no alternative right now. Because sometimes survival was about knowing when not to resist.

Inside him, Junyoung stirred.

A soft, subtle kick—not violent, but intentional, as if echoing Gihun’s emotional static. A mirror. An answer. His baby could sense it, clearly. The tension. The fear. But the kick wasn’t angry. It was more like a signal. “I’m here,” it seemed to say. “I feel it too.”

The blindfold came next. And with it came memories.

Too many.

The darkness behind fabric always called back older shadows—that day few years ago, drugged and disoriented, the feel of unfamiliar hands, the silence of cold walls. It was too much. But Gihun forced himself to breathe through it. Long, deep inhales. Searching for a smell—any smell—that might ground him.

And there it was.

Juniper. Faint but present. He is fine. It’s not like the previous time.

His hands and feet are bound next, and this—this is where the discomfort truly sets in, not because the action itself is painful or violent, but because of what it implies, because of the forced stillness it demands, because of how helpless it makes him feel. The blindfold already rendered him vulnerable, took from him the right to sight and certainty, but the ropes around his wrists and ankles make it worse, reduce him to cargo, to something that must be carried and restrained, not for safety, but for order. And when they lift him—arms folding under his knees and shoulders and then up, with eerie steadiness—it’s not the loss of balance that frightens him, it’s the realization that his body is no longer his own. His scent reacts before his mind can catch up, blooming with anxiety, the kind that only those with enhanced olfactory senses would catch immediately, and apparently the Square does.

"Please, calm yourself," the masked voice says, not cruelly, not even indifferently, but with the same dull cadence as someone giving weather updates or reading from a medical chart.

Gihun gives a muffled noise in return—not agreement, not refusal, just a sound that says he’s heard, that he’s trying. He focuses on his breath. Slow in, slower out. He tries to tune in to the scent around him, but it’s no help—the only things he can smell are himself and the faint remnants of juniper, because all the workers are blanketed in scent suppressants so thick it feels like trying to breathe through cloth. He tells himself this is probably a good thing. At least they can’t sniff out his fear like blood in water.

The man carrying him is strong and trained. He doesn’t jostle Gihun, doesn’t grunt or shift with effort. That helps. Gihun focuses on that steadiness, lets it be a temporary raft to climb onto. It doesn’t make the fear go away, but it gives it something to hold onto besides itself. Still, it doesn’t stop the nervous pulse in his chest or the faint flutter of alarm that dances along his ribs. But he manages. He gets through it. He doesn’t struggle, doesn’t ask for help, doesn’t break. Just breathes.

He exhales with noticeable relief when his body is finally lowered into what feels like the seat of a car—cold vinyl or plastic beneath him, hard and unyielding but somehow more tolerable than being airborne. He assumes this is good news. That they’re being transported. That maybe, just maybe, someone somewhere still considers him worth preserving. But then, without warning, a gag is pushed between his lips and secured behind his head, and the panic surges up all over again. It’s not even painful—it’s just sudden, humiliating, infantilizing. And too many memories return at once: of helplessness, of darkness, of not knowing where he is or who’s in charge or what comes next.

Still no smells.

Still no voices beyond the mechanical ones.

He wants to scream—not from fear, but from frustration. From being reduced to limbs and breath and scent and silence.

He hopes—he prays—that Youngil is nearby. That he’s in the vehicle. That he’s watching. That this is all being done for appearance only, for the file, for the record, for whoever might be monitoring. Gihun forces his breathing to stay even, tries to keep his heart rate low, because fear doesn’t help anyone—not him, not his baby, not Junhee. He tries to think of anything else. Anything. But of course, the mind, when desperate, often leaps to the worst possibilities. And suddenly he remembers that during his previous pregnancy, during the last months, he developed rhinitis—pregnancy-induced, allergic to air itself, made his nose useless, clogged up for days on end.

He nearly chokes on the relief when he realizes he doesn’t have it now. That he can breathe. That he can smell. That juniper is still with him.

Not much. But enough.

Sitting like this, gagged and bound and blindfolded, turns out to be even more unpleasant than unconsciousness. Because at least when sedated, he didn’t have to think. Now he is painfully aware of every second that passes. Of every knot in his back. Of every muscle forced into stillness. And of course, Junyoung isn’t helping. The baby is awake now—maybe bored, maybe annoyed, maybe sensing his father’s unease—and begins to kick. Not hard, not violently, but persistently. A nudge. A signal. A reminder: you’re not alone in this body. Gihun wants so badly to press a hand to his belly, to murmur something, to soothe him. But his hands are tied, and his mouth is sealed, and all he can do is endure.

He swears, when this is all over, he’s going to make Junyoung suffer for this—playfully, of course. He’s going to take the most embarrassing baby photos imaginable, going to show them to every future friend and date, going to make his child’s cheeks burn with second-hand shame. You did this to me, he will say. You kicked when I couldn’t fight back.

Time dissolves. He loses track. Could be minutes. Could be hours.

But then—finally—the rhythm of the vehicle shifts. Footsteps. A pause. And then the weight of another body being lifted into the space beside him. Junhee. He knows it before they touch. Knows it from the way the air changes, from the sound of her breath, from the faint whisper of her hair brushing against his arm as she’s settled into the middle seat. She isn’t gagged. Or if she is, it’s a different kind.

Her hair tickles his skin, and it’s absurd how comforting that is, but more importantly—her arrival brings scent.

Juniper again is here subtle, but more present. More real. It’s enough. In a perfect world, he would rather have the herbal scent as well and would rather bury his nose in Youngil’s neck and inhale until he forgot what pain was—but this, this will do for now. Because he reminds himself that there will be time later. That the herbal tang of Youngil’s skin will still be waiting. That he will get his fill. And Junhee, after all, will be keeping her distance after all and he won’t have so many chances to breath this scent very often.

Somehow, impossibly, despite the position and the tightness and the physical discomfort radiating from every joint, Gihun manages to drift off. Not deeply. Not for long. But long enough to forget. Long enough for his body to shift from fear to fatigue. He dreams, and the dreams are hazy—fragments of his childhood, glimpses of Sangwoo, memories of conversations they once had about the future, back when the future was still a horizon instead of a wall. He dreams of warmth. Of possibility. And even though the dreams are tinged with sorrow, with the ache of something lost before it could ever be fully real, they are better than nightmares.

He will take them.

Waking is violent not because of pain, but because of disorientation. One moment, he is floating through a memory. The next, hands are on him again, and he is being lifted—still blindfolded, still bound, still gagged—and dragged from sleep into confusion. They carry him outside. He can feel it—the change in temperature, the sound of wind through leaves, the crunch of dirt and stone beneath boots. They do not speak to him. They place him on a bench firmly, but not cruelly, and then leave him there. His body sags. The bench is cold.

Beside him, another body settles. The warmth of her. The soft jangle of breath. Junhee. He doesn’t need to see her. He knows.

Then a voice. Familiar. Sharp. It's Jung Geumja.

"Oh my! This is a park, right near Saesan University Hospital!"

Gihun’s eyebrows rise behind the blindfold. He can’t help it.

Seriously? he thinks. The thought is so strong it almost feels like speech.

It’s like Youngil isn’t even trying anymore.

Chapter Text

The gag is removed first, a gesture done with deliberate care, slow and without tension, as if even this small moment of liberation holds symbolic weight beyond the physical discomfort it relieves. Then comes the blindfold, unfastened with the same precise attention, allowing the world to return gradually, not in a violent burst of light but as a slow flood of dusk-gray vision. Even though it is night and they are outside, even though the sky is heavy and the streets are quiet, the harsh artificial glow of the lamps nearby still makes him squint, his eyes not yet ready for the world’s sharp edges. It doesn’t take long for him to adjust, but there’s something about this particular return to sight that feels gentler, perhaps because the hands that removed the blindfold belonged to Youngil, and Youngil is not just anyone.

He moves with that same calm attentiveness that Gihun has come to associate with safety; his presence is warm and steady and watchful, his scent folding around Gihun in a soft blanket of herbal scent and grounding instinct.

"How are you?" he asks, voice low but steady, as if even in the question there is a protective instinct.

"I’m fine," Gihun replies, though the words come out muffled still, partly because of the lingering ache in his jaw and partly because his wrists and ankles are still tied, which, despite everything, adds a layer of absurdity to the exchange. "A little faster, please," he adds, his voice not demanding but edged with the dry humour of someone who knows exactly how ridiculous he looks, tied up like cargo while his alpha kneels in front of him like a penitent knight.

The whole situation is, objectively, embarrassing.

Everything about the situation is awkward, uncomfortable in the way that something tender becomes when it is visible to others; but strangely, it doesn’t feel shameful, not in the same way things once did back on the island, where every moment of weakness was a performance for the audience, where vulnerability was something sharp and cold, stripped of all gentleness.

Here, now, under this city night sky, Gihun doesn’t feel that exposed, and perhaps even feels the smallest flicker of pleasure in the way Youngil stays close, in how this closeness radiates something quiet and strong and safe, a kind of embodied promise that no harm will come while he is near, and the mix of physical stillness and emotional relief makes him just a little bit dizzy of being cared for, of being able to rely on someone again.

He glances to the right, needing to ground himself with a change in focus, and sees Junhee sitting beside him, already without blindfold or gag, her body relaxing slowly under the expert touch of the old woman—Player 149—who continues her task of unbounding her with a kind of brisk maternal efficiency, her hands sure, her voice muttering half-hearted complaints about knots tied too tight and the incompetence of modern people.

Her useless son, of course, lingers nearby, standing awkwardly, his hands shoved into his coat pockets like a boy too old to be scolded and too childish to take responsibility for anything meaningful. A little farther off stands Liam, not saying a word, not stepping forward, but watching with an expression so open and so soft that Gihun can hardly bear it. He doesn’t approach Junhee, perhaps out of respect for the boundaries she has laid, perhaps because he knows that presence, when unwelcome, is just another wound. It’s the right decision—Gihun knows that—but still, he wishes something different for them, something simpler, something better.

He wishes they were the kind of couple who could overcome this awkward silence, who could find their way back to each other with apologies and shared meals and quiet forgiveness; he wishes they were already on their way to being a family, living together in a space filled with ordinary noise and safety and warmth, the kind of home where people cook and argue and fall asleep during movies. If Gihun can find a path toward something resembling stability, if he can do that even now, with everything he carries, then surely these two, young as they are, should be able to manage the same. He knows not all things last—he knows that love is fickle, that time wears down even the most intense of connections—but if Liam can still look at Junhee with that expression, that raw, quiet, hopeful expression, then how can she not see it? How can she not reach for him?

Of course, Gihun knows that people have limits, that forgiveness is not always a simple choice, that sometimes a line gets crossed and no amount of soft glances or silent apologies can mend it. Maybe Junhee has such a line. Maybe it has already been crossed. But Gihun, who has spent most of his life forgiving things that probably didn’t deserve it, still believes—maybe foolishly, maybe naively—that there’s always a thread to hold onto, some path back toward each other, even if it’s narrow and winding. He’s always been the type to search for an explanation instead of a grudge, to find a reason instead of blame, and even when he can’t forgive, he still tries to understand.

Maybe it’s that religious nonsense that was being said in the sect and sink in, those teachings about turning the other cheek and bearing pain with dignity, teachings that never quite left him. Maybe it’s something deeper—some essential part of who he is that cannot stop hoping that people can be better, even if they haven’t been yet. Maybe it’s weakness. Maybe it’s idealism. Maybe it’s just the way he’s built, that he would rather be disappointed than cruel, would rather be burned than cold, would rather give the wrong person a second chance than leave the right person to drown alone.

He turns his gaze back to Junhee.

She isn’t speaking. She isn’t looking at Liam. But something in her posture has shifted, a subtle loosening of tension, a relaxation of the jaw, the hands. The change is small, almost invisible, but Gihun notices it. The old woman continues to work, her grumbling growing softer, more like ritual than protest, as if she is simply narrating the process out of habit. Her fingers are deft, practiced.

Gihun looks around as he rubs at his wrists instinctively, his fingers curling over the faint indentations left by the ropes, while Youngil, crouched in front of him, works methodically and in silence to finish undoing the final knot. The rope isn’t rough, not enough to cut skin or bruise, but the memory of being bound—of being passive, immobile, reduced again to something to be carried—is still lingering in the joints, and the slight ache of pressure makes him mutter to himself, almost too quietly to be heard.

"Oh, so Jungbae isn’t with us…"

The reply comes quick, carefully measured, delivered in the same tone that Youngil always uses when he’s trying to sound polite but is barely concealing something far more acidic underneath the surface.

"And do you have some sort of business with him?"

There’s no overt aggression in the phrasing, but Gihun catches the glint beneath the veneer, and the sudden sharpness of the scent in the air tells him he was right to notice. It’s so precisely performed that Gihun almost laughs—not because it’s funny, but because the pettiness is so well-disguised as concern that it amuses him.

"Of course. We haven’t seen each other in a couple of years, and we were pretty close friends back in the day," he replies, his tone light and dismissive, as if the weight of it doesn’t matter, even though it obviously does.

He lets out a short, dry hum of a chuckle, then adds:

"And I need to find out what his debt is, so I can pay it off."

Youngil doesn’t pause in his task—his hands still move, untangling Gihun’s ankles now—but his voice tightens ever so slightly when he replies, the precision faltering for just a fraction of a second.

"And maybe sit down with him somewhere for a drink, right?"

"Yeah, maybe," Gihun nods, as if the idea is so casual it doesn’t even register as notable. "We can stay in the motel and maybe we can invite him over there, sit together with the others and just catch up."

"What others?" Youngil asks, and even though the question comes out evenly, there’s a new flicker behind it now. He’s crouched again, finishing the last loop, his hands careful, deliberate, and his gaze flicking up from below—sharp, intense, burning with a kind of heat that Gihun doesn’t dare name.

"Oh, you know, a bunch of diff— Right. They’re looking for me. I should call them. Thanks for reminding me!"

He pats at his pockets as he says it, distracted and slightly breathless, the realization hitting him mid-sentence and shifting the entire direction of his attention. Youngil presses his lips together but doesn’t say anything, returning instead to the final knot at Gihun’s ankle, the silence stretched taut and thin.

When Gihun finally pulls out his phone, it comes out along with a small keyring and a loose fold of bills—somewhere around 220,000 won, by a rough estimate—and for a moment the sight of that money gives him a wave of nausea. Not because of the cash itself, but because of what it signifies, what it reminds him of, what new death or lost soul now clings to those paper edges. Every time he gains something lately, it’s at the cost of someone else.

The phone is off.

There are no urgent messages or missed calls when it boots back to life, which makes sense—everyone who matters already knew where he was, knew not to expect him, knew that absence meant danger, not abandonment.

He dials Junho’s number slowly, the muscle memory still intact even though it isn’t a number he’s called often in the past. That was always the thing—Junho was just there, a steady shadow, an arm’s reach away. There was no need to call when the person you needed was already standing next to you.

Youngil settles beside him on the bench with a sort of casual fluidity, like he belongs there, like he’s earned that space, like this closeness is just another unspoken right. And he leans in, just a little, enough to be near the phone, enough to suggest that he intends to hear everything without saying a word about it. Gihun sighs—an annoyed, soft sound—and shifts the phone to the other ear, lowering the volume just enough to make the conversation harder to catch.

"Help the old lady, would you?" he says under his breath. "She’s taking her time with the ropes."

It’s not a command, more of a nudge—a way to remove Youngil from the immediate vicinity of the call, and also a genuine request, since the woman is still fussing with the ties at Junhee’s wrists. Gihun doesn’t look up, doesn’t press the point, but he knows Youngil is watching him with that look again—that quiet, restrained protest that says let me stay, just let me stay, and maybe even put it on speaker, what do you have to hide?—but after a long, thoughtful pause, he rises.

He crouches again beside the old woman, his knees folding easily, his back straight, his hands sliding into the work she’s already started

While the call is still ringing and Gihun is quietly swearing under his breath, growing more and more tempted to hang up and try another number, just as he’s about to do exactly that, the line clicks and Junho picks up.

"Hello," he says, with that same carefully neutral tone he always uses when he suspects something is very wrong and is trying not to show it too obviously.

"Hey," Gihun draws out the greeting, deliberately casual, stretching the syllables with exaggerated ease. "How’s everything?"

"Gihun-hyung!" Junho practically shouts, and the sudden panic in his voice startles Gihun enough to make him smile a little. "Where are you?"

"In the park, near Saesan University Hospital," Gihun answers, tone still light, still pretending nothing in the world is wrong, as if they’re just catching up after running separate errands. "And you?"

"...We’re on Ulleungdo," Junho says after a pause, his voice tight with frustration. "They found the tracker. It was a trap. And you—did the Games end?"

"Well, they’ve paused," Gihun replies, his mouth twisting. "You remember how it went the last time? It’s kind of like that again. There’ll be another round in a week, so you and the whole squad should head to Seoul, alright?"

"Are you alright?" Junho’s voice lowers again, returning to that steady undercurrent of concern that always gets to Gihun no matter how much he tries to stay detached.

A soft smile appears on Gihun’s lips unbidden.

"It could have been worse," he hedges, not wanting to dive into the details, especially not now. He’s not entirely lying—but not telling the whole truth either. And of course, right on cue, Youngil’s scent sharpens with faint displeasure, the herbal note turning bitter at the edges. When Gihun glances over, Youngil is looking at him, not unkindly, but with a kind of subdued tension, like he’s used to being the main focus and doesn’t quite know what to do when he isn’t. "You won’t believe who I ran into," Gihun says suddenly, changing the subject with the kind of forced brightness that’s only half for Junho’s benefit.

"...Who?" Junho asks, cautious now, clearly picking up on the strange tone.

"You’ll see when you get here," Gihun replies with a sly little grin. "We’re heading to the hospital now, and then maybe back to the motel. Not sure yet. Anyway, we’ll be in touch."

"Alright," Junho answers quickly, all efficiency again. "Thanks for calling. We’ll arrive by tomorrow afternoon. Goodbye."

"Bye!" Gihun chirps, and then ends the call, slipping the phone back into his pocket in one smooth motion before turning toward the group, his voice raised just enough to address everyone at once.

"So what’s the plan then?"

The plan, as it turns out, is more or less dictated by Madam Jung, who insists on accompanying them to the hospital and personally assisting with the arrangements, offering guidance and advice on everything from which clinic wing to request to what paperwork to fill out in advance. She keeps glancing over her shoulder at Liam as she walks, a constant little flick of her eyes full of silent judgment, as if he’s some stray mutt following too close behind. Liam, for his part, shuffles along quietly behind Gihun, his shoulders hunched, his entire demeanour radiating the sort of shame that isn’t theatrical but bone-deep and heavy, the shame of someone who doesn’t even think he deserves to look up.

Junhee walks arm-in-arm with Madam Jung, nodding politely through a stream of well-meaning but hopelessly outdated and rigid advice that blends seamlessly with the older woman’s barely disguised disapproval of alphas as a concept. One moment she’s talking about diet and walking posture, the next she’s muttering about "young alphas these days" and how things were better when people respected roles and knew their place. Junhee’s expression remains mostly unreadable, but there is a subtle stiffness in her jaw that Gihun notices and doesn’t mention.

Behind them trail Gihun and Youngil, walking side by side, though Youngil has a hand resting lightly but deliberately around Gihun’s waist, a gesture so natural it doesn’t draw attention but still manages to claim space, to mark presence. The contact is steady, non-intrusive, just enough to steady Gihun’s steps and remind him that he’s not walking alone—not just metaphorically, but physically. Gihun doesn’t mind. In fact, it’s one of the only things about the moment that feels remotely comforting.

And at the very end of the little procession, the son of Madam Jung ambles along slowly, completely absorbed in whatever game he’s playing on his phone, his eyes never once lifting from the screen, his thumbs tapping out some frantic rhythm. He simply trails behind them like a ghost.

At the hospital, as they stood awkwardly near the glass entry doors where the fluorescent lighting buzzed overhead like some distant warning, it turned out that Madam Jung really did have the kind of influence that could bend the rules of institutional rigidity. In truth, under normal circumstances, there was absolutely no chance that an unaccompanied, visibly pregnant young girl with no appointment or documentation would have been admitted at such a late hour. The receptionists, half-asleep in their chairs behind the counter, looked up with the weary expressions of people prepared to say no for the hundredth time that evening. But as soon as Madam Jung stepped forward, straightening her coat and clearing her throat with the precise air of someone who expected doors to open for her, there was a subtle shift in energy.

She gave her name, calmly, without fanfare, but the name itself seemed to travel through the air like a ripple in water. One of the nurses blinked in confusion, then recognition. A younger woman, barely out of internship age, hurried off to whisper something into the ear of a passing resident. That resident’s brows rose just slightly, and then he too disappeared into the hallway. Within five minutes, a tall man in a white coat appeared, his ID badge heavy with titles, and he was smiling—not politely, but warmly, even reverently. He bowed to Madam Jung, thanked her for her past service, and said that one of his senior interns would be honoured to conduct a private consultation, even at this hour, out of professional respect.

It was clear that some of the older staff still remembered her. Maybe not personally, maybe only through the legacy of her teaching, the whispered anecdotes passed down like folklore from one class of nurses to the next. But whatever the source, her name carried weight, and now, that weight was buying Junhee access to care she would never have otherwise received.

Junhee was called in gently, not briskly. The doctor invited her in with a professional but welcoming gesture, and though she hesitated—just for a moment—at the threshold of the door, she turned and asked softly if Madam Jung might accompany her. Her voice was low, barely audible over the hum of the hospital corridor. There was something shy in the request, something almost childlike in the way she didn’t want to go in alone. And despite everything—despite all the complicated feelings Gihun had about the woman’s pushiness, her constant critiques of young alphas, her smug commentary on how things used to be—he found himself glad that Junhee had someone she could trust enough to ask.

Gihun himself remained seated on the bench in the hallway, one leg bouncing slightly with nervous energy. He hadn’t said anything, hadn’t tried to insert himself into the situation. But deep down, a part of him had wanted to go in too, to be there during the examination, to listen to the doctor’s assessment with his own ears, to ask the questions Junhee might be too embarrassed or overwhelmed to think of. Yet something stopped him. Something about the way Junhee looked at Madam Jung made him step back.

He supposed this was the same feeling that had always driven mothers-in-law to insist on attending appointments, to hover, to fuss, to push advice like a shield against their own helplessness. But he wasn’t his mother-in-law. He wasn’t trying to impose. He wasn’t trying to control. He just wanted her to be okay. He wanted the baby to be okay. That was all. It wasn’t about being on Liam’s side or not—though he had plenty to say to both of them if he ever let himself open that particular door. It was just... the quiet desperation of someone who didn’t want to lose any more people.

Most likely, later that night, once they were all back in the motel or wherever they ended up crashing, all this tangled emotion would come spilling out to Youngil. In that hushed voice Gihun always used when trying not to cry, he’d whisper about the fear, about the guilt, about the unreasonable frustration and the unreasonable love. And Youngil, for all his own walls and secrets, would probably just listen. Maybe hold him. Maybe not even say much. But Gihun knew now that Youngil’s presence alone would be enough to pull him back from the edge.

They waited outside for what felt like an eternity but was, in reality, only ten or fifteen minutes. Time stretched oddly in hospitals, especially when you weren’t the one being seen. Gihun sat stiffly, rubbing one thumb along the ridge of his opposite palm, and tried not to let his knee bounce too much. Youngil sat beside him with all the calm of someone who had decided not to worry—either because he didn’t want to or because he had trained himself out of the habit—and rested his hand gently on Gihun’s lower back, his fingers tracing small, almost imperceptible circles.

It helped, a little. But not enough.

How could someone go an entire pregnancy without visiting a doctor even once? How could she not get checked, not make sure the baby was developing properly, not get her own vitals monitored? The government was practically giving away prenatal services, flooding the media with public service announcements, throwing incentives at citizens in a desperate attempt to reverse the country’s birth-rate decline. There were coupons, appointments, free vitamins, priority clinic slots—entire public networks geared toward ensuring maternal health.

And still, Junhee hadn’t gone.

Back then, with Liam, things had been so different. It had been 1994, and even just being seen alone as a visibly pregnant omega—especially without a visible alpha—had been enough to spark whispers, judgment, the sense that you were either a burden on society or a shameful anomaly. But that was decades ago. Now, even in his own kind of solo pregnancy, Gihun hadn’t felt a whisper of shame. Not from the nurses. Not from the doctors. Not even from the strangers on the street.

How, then, could she have gone through this whole thing in silence?

Didn’t she even fear for herself?

And here—this was where the thought turned inward, accusing. Was he really any better? He hadn’t exactly been a model patient himself. He’d delayed his first appointment longer than he should have. He’d smoked longer than he’d meant to. He hadn’t taken his prenatal supplements on schedule. He’d eaten whatever was convenient, whatever didn’t make him gag, whatever he scrounge up between emotional breakdowns. At least Junhee was young—her body would bounce back. But he was in his fifties. At his age, recovery came slower, and consequences lingered longer.

He placed his hand over his stomach and sighed, the motion automatic. Immediately, Youngil straightened beside him, his posture going alert.

"Are you alright?" he asked, his voice low but charged with concern.

Gihun waved him off. "I’m fine."

He didn’t mention being a little hungry, because that will be what Youngil needed to be cataloguing nearby convenience stores, mentally planning the fastest way to get food into his hands. But Gihun didn’t want that. He didn’t want a fuss. He just wanted to sit, and then, when Junhee came out, he wanted them all to go somewhere and eat something warm and simple and stupid, and then sleep. That was all.

Liam was still pacing. Back and forth. Back and forth. His eyes were fixed on his phone, his thumbs scrolling endlessly through whatever feed or distraction he had pulled up, but it was clear his mind wasn’t on it. His expression was distant, tight around the mouth. Every once in a while, he glanced up toward the door where Junhee was, then quickly dropped his gaze again. He was trying not to fall apart.

How reasonable was it, truly, for all of them to live in a motel at first?

That question looped in Gihun’s head like a quiet siren, not loud enough to drown out everything else, but insistent in its rhythm, unrelenting in its presence. Would it work? Would it feel right? The building was tucked behind a side road, mostly quiet, always clean, with enough rooms to accommodate all the people he cared about at the moment. From a purely logistical point of view, it was ideal. There was room for everyone to have some measure of privacy. The location was surprisingly central. Transportation was accessible. And best of all, the place was under Gihun’s control, a space he could keep safe, regulated, soft around the edges. But still, even with all those points in its favour, something about the idea of living there — of making it their base of operations, their refuge — felt off. Slightly humiliating, maybe.

The door down the hallway finally opened. Gihun immediately stood, his fingers already knotting together in a tight, nervous clasp, the gesture unconscious but deeply familiar. He had naively and desperately hoped that Junhee and Madam Jung would return with good news. That they would look relaxed, that their shoulders would be down and their expressions unreadable or, better yet, lightly amused. That they would say something "Just a little dehydration" or "Come back for a check-up next week." That they would be going home.

But their faces told a different story. There was no relief there. No warmth. No levity.

Something twisted sharply in Gihun’s stomach, and it was all he could do not to let the panic flood through him like cold water.

"What is it?" Youngil asked quickly, his voice attempting a tone of steady concern but failing. It cracked on the last syllable, revealing the undercurrent of anxiety he wasn’t quite managing to suppress.

"The ultrasound doesn’t look good," Madam Jung said, her voice precise and sharp, the kind of tone that cut through speculation and left no room for interpretation. "We’re taking her for a CTG now. There’s a chance we’ll need to proceed with an emergency cesarean section."

She was already moving before the words finished leaving her mouth, guiding Junhee gently but firmly in the direction of another hallway, another door, another moment of medical uncertainty.

"You should all go home," she added, over her shoulder.

"Go home?" Gihun echoed, his voice pitching upward. "That’s my grandson in there, you mo—" He bit off the insult, cutting himself off mid-word with a sharp breath and a forced, brittle cough. "Ahem. I’m staying. If Junhee doesn’t mind," he added hastily, as if remembering at the last moment that this wasn’t about him, that her preferences mattered more than his desire to hover.

And if she did mind — if she asked him to leave, even gently, even vaguely — he would go. He would force himself to. If not out of respect for her, then at least out of solidarity with the version of himself who, once upon a time, had sat in a hospital room begging the world to leave him alone during labour. The version of himself who had wanted no eyes, no voices, no expectations. Who had wanted to disappear into the process and come out on the other side whole, undisturbed.

He didn’t want to be one more person crowding her. He didn’t want to become that noise.

But Junhee didn’t object. Her head tilted in a small, exhausted nod — not forced, not polite, but real. She didn’t mind. And that, somehow, softened the edges of Gihun’s panic. Just slightly.

"Is there anything we should bring?" he asked quickly, almost tripping over his words in his eagerness to be useful. "Do we need to pay for anything now? Maybe we should get it settled in advance?"

"After the procedures," the nurse snapped, already turning away, her white coat moving in unison with Madam Jung’s as they flanked Junhee and steered her out of sight.

The rest of them were left behind — told, pointedly, to wait.

Liam had drifted toward the far end of the hallway and now lingered there, half-shadowed, speaking into his phone in a hushed, fractured tone. He wasn’t looking at anyone. He wasn’t trying to join the conversation. And really, that made sense. He’d fallen out of the daily rhythm of his live, vanished without a trace, and of course he has some things to get done.

Gihun sighed. He could understand why Junhee had told him to keep his distance. He could. But even so, he wished — perhaps unreasonably — that Liam would try harder. That he would push past his discomfort, that he would find the courage to show Junhee he was still here, still fighting for the right to be by her side. Not with words. Not with apologies. With action.

Gihun knew better than most how fragile these moments were. How fast resentment could harden into something immovable. And he knew — God, he knew — how easy it was to lose someone not because they didn’t love you, but because they didn’t believe you did. So yes, maybe Liam needed a little push. A metaphorical smack upside the head. Not cruelty. Just a nudge.

The first step, probably, was to show he was serious. That he had intentions, not just guilt. That he had a plan. That he was ready to be present. And if he did that — if he made the effort — then Junhee, who was hormonal and terrified and under more pressure than anyone should be at her age, might just forgive him.

In the end, this entire situation, strange and nerve-wracking as it was, might actually be useful for Junhee herself, even if she did not yet fully realize it. After all, if she was going to raise a child mostly on her own, if she truly intended to build a life where she could provide emotional, physical, and logistical support for another human being, she needed to develop a level of resilience and awareness that could not come from standing quietly at the sidelines, waiting for someone else to intervene, to hand her the right tools or decisions on a silver platter. She had to become the kind of person who took herself to the doctor, who asked the right questions, who understood her own medical condition not just in vague emotional terms but in clinical ones too, and that included difficult moments like this one, walking through cold hallways with strangers in white coats, trusting them to read machines and charts and alarms. It was not ideal. It was certainly not easy.

They waited outside the examination room for just about thirty minutes, though to Gihun it stretched into something more sluggish and distended, as if time had thickened, slowed, become syrupy in its refusal to move. For a while, he tried to sit still on the uncomfortable waiting bench, his hands clasped, his legs crossed at the ankles, his eyes darting to the overhead lights that buzzed with a dull, distant hum. But the longer they sat, the more tightly the anxiety wound through his chest, and eventually he stood and began to pace the hallway slowly, deliberately, reading every informational poster pinned to the walls as if memorizing them might somehow help. He didn’t actually absorb anything, not really. His eyes scanned the words — charts about prenatal nutrition, reminders about postnatal screenings, diagrams of fetal development — but they passed through him without sticking. It was less about education and more about distraction, an attempt to keep his thoughts from looping endlessly through worst-case scenarios.

Youngil didn’t press him. He didn’t trail behind him or ask questions or attempt small talk. He simply remained seated on the bench, posture composed but eyes trained steadily on Gihun, who had already snapped at him once under the pressure. It had not been fair, not truly. Youngil hadn’t said anything wrong. He hadn’t even looked at him strangely. But the stress had bubbled up so suddenly, so sharply, that Gihun had lashed out instinctively, a short, sharp bark of “What?” that echoed off the white tiles and made a passing nurse flinch. Since then, Youngil had kept a respectful distance, but not in the way of retreat — it was more like he was holding space, giving Gihun a silent option: come close if you want, be alone if you need.

And Gihun wanted both. He wanted space. He wanted arms around him. He wanted solitude. He wanted warmth. He wanted to scream and cry and laugh and collapse into someone’s lap. He wanted to go to sleep and wake up a week from now when everything was resolved. He wanted all his children near him, safe, healthy, whole. He wanted peace. He wanted normalcy. He wanted relief.

When was that going to happen already?

Roughly fifteen minutes into their wait — or maybe longer, or shorter; time had stopped being linear — Madam Jung’s son arrived. His name, it turned out, was Park Youngsik, and he was carrying a convenience store bag that crinkled with promise. He had brought samgak-kimbaps, probably too many, but his expression was humble and hopeful, as if he knew food was the one gesture people always accepted. Gihun took two, thanked him with a small bow, and Youngil muttered his thanks too, his voice clipped and half-buried behind clenched teeth.

Gihun sighed through his nose, the kind of sigh that came not from exhaustion but from sheer amusement. There was something deeply funny about it, in a twisted way. As tired and emotionally wrecked as he was, he could still find the humour in Youngil’s quiet, prickly jealousy. Because really — of all people — this was the moment he chose to be possessive? Was he even aware of how absurd that looked? How misplaced?

It almost seemed like Youngil had no idea how handsome he was. That had to be the explanation. Because if he did, if he even slightly grasped the impact of his presence — the effortless elegance of his posture, the beauty of his face, the way his scent lingered in a room— then surely he would not be wasting jealousy on someone like Park Youngsik. A curly-haired, bespectacled, mild-mannered man who still lived with his mother and clearly had never made a single autonomous decision in his life. A man who, though perhaps kind and dutiful, exuded all the romantic appeal of a tax office clerk on lunch break. And this, this was the person Youngil thought he might have to compete with?

It was laughable. Honestly.

And that wasn’t even touching on the fact that Gihun himself wasn’t exactly a prize catch these days. Fifty-one years old, visibly pregnant, the lines of age beginning to show around his eyes and mouth no matter how much moisturizer he used. He was hardly the image of desirability, even to people who appreciated omegas with history and character. Sure, he had his features — his face had always been considered pleasant, his eyes large and expressive, his hair thick and obedient enough to look presentable without effort. But still. His height alone had been enough to throw off plenty of alphas in his youth. There had always been something vaguely intimidating about tall omegas, something that triggered insecurities in weaker alphas with fragile egos. That hadn’t changed, not really. The world had shifted in many ways, but old prejudices had a long shelf life.

Still, what mattered most to Gihun now was not the absurdity of the jealousy itself, but its direction. Because at the very least Youngil never framed his suspicion or territorial discomfort as something Gihun should be guilty about. The tension always turned outward, toward potential rivals, never inward as a critique. He didn’t make Gihun feel like a criminal for receiving attention. He didn’t demand explanations. He simply sat there with a clenched jaw and narrowed eyes and tried not to say anything stupid, and frankly, Gihun found that tolerable. Almost endearing. Youngil was in love with him so much that he felt threatened by a man who had done nothing more than hand over a bag of convenience store rice triangles.

And that, in its own way, was enough to make Gihun’s chest ache with a kind of exhausted affection.

One way or another, it is only the doctor who returns to the waiting room, her expression calm but serious, and she announces, in an even voice that somehow still manages to carry a slight tremble of urgency, that according to the CTG results, the fetus is experiencing hypoxia, and the decision has been made to proceed with a cesarean section.

Gihun remains seated. Gihun is grateful, deeply and physically grateful, that he is already sitting, because he knows with terrifying clarity that if he had been standing, he absolutely would have collapsed, the floor rushing up to meet him in a blur of hospital tiles and muffled panic.

Youngil tries to calm him, gently placing a hand on his back, speaking in low tones that aim to soothe, and Gihun breathes deeply, forcing his ribcage to rise and fall in slow, even movements. Junyoung gives a small kick, a hesitant nudge from inside, as if trying to comfort him, and Gihun instinctively presses his hand to his belly, cradling the motion, anchoring himself with the fact that at least this child is still here and he is safe.

Youngil continues murmuring reassurances, his tone low and measured, but Gihun can tell he is rattled too, not just because of the subtle tightness in his voice but because of the faint shift in his scent, the subtle change that Gihun has learned to read like a second language. And strangely, the fact that Youngil is shaken makes Gihun feel a little more stable, as if their fear together somehow balances the scale instead of tipping it further.

"How long will the operation take?" asks Liam, and his voice is strained in a way that is both deeply familiar and completely new. He is about to become a father, and it is showing.

"The situation is not as dire as it might seem," the doctor reassures them, a professional calm settling over her words. "If all goes well, she’ll be transferred to the recovery room in about an hour and a half."

They are shown where the surgical wing is, and then the four of them — Gihun, Youngil, Liam, and the perpetually awkward, shuffling Park Youngsik — settle into the nearby waiting area, an antiseptic white-and-blue corner of the hospital with rigid chairs and a humming vending machine.

Over the next few hours, Gihun feels as though his entire nervous system is being wrung out like a cloth. Every bit of anxiety, every tight coil of tension stored up over the past days, weeks, maybe even years, now finds its moment to unspool, and it does so with relentless precision. Youngil shifts into what Gihun recognizes as autopilot — his voice smooth, his posture composed, his movements all precisely controlled — and Gihun knows this is a mask, a construct carefully maintained for Gihun’s sake, and he is grateful for it. There is no confrontation, no distraction, no demands. Just the steady presence of a man who is holding it together because he knows someone else needs him to.

Liam, meanwhile, takes and makes phone calls with increasing intensity, his voice fluctuating between anger and clipped professionalism, using words Gihun does not entirely understand — investment terms, financial acronyms, something about portfolios and liquidity — and although the stress of the situation is all-consuming, Gihun cannot help but smile just a little, recognizing the inherited sharpness of mind, the instinct for control, the verbal precision that echoes somewhere deep in Gihun’s bones. The apple had not fallen far.

On the 3rd of November, at exactly 3:45 in the morning, Madam Jung finally emerges. She is wearing full surgical scrubs now, her hair tucked under a cap, and she looks completely exhausted, her face drawn but somehow glowing with the residue of responsibility fulfilled. She walks toward them and announces that everything went smoothly. The baby scored an 8 on the Apgar scale, weighs 2.7 kilograms, and is a boy. She holds up her phone and shows them a photograph, the screen glowing in the dim hallway light.

"And how is Junhee?" Gihun asks immediately, his voice strained but steady as he leans forward, eyes narrowing as he tries to see the image better.

"She’s doing well," the midwife replies with a small, tired smile.

The baby, in the photograph, looks a little too purple, his skin still carrying the bluish tint of birth, and it is far too early to say who he resembles — his features are still vague, a mix of everything and nothing — but for some reason, Gihun thinks he looks like Liam. Maybe it’s the shape of the brow. Or maybe it’s simply because he remembers Liam looking exactly the same way after birth: wrinkled and stunned and impossibly small.

Liam, his hands trembling now, asks if the photo can be sent to him, and Madam Jung, clearly not familiar with smartphone etiquette, simply hands him the device, saying she doesn’t know how to do it. Liam fumbles with the interface and sends it to himself, and then Gihun offers up his own phone so that he can have the image too — the first photo of his grandson.

His grandson.

The word lands with strange weight in his chest. He is a grandfather now. He is a grandfather.

Somehow that realization makes the whole world tilt slightly, as if a new role, a new identity, has just wrapped itself around his shoulders and whispered, "You have lived long enough to see life begin again." He doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. So he just sits there, stunned, holding the image of a brand-new life in his palm.

Madam Jung and her son take their leave, each hugging Gihun briefly before heading off. There is no offer to stay longer, no pretense of intimacy beyond the shared moment, and that is just fine. Gihun does not want them in his motel. He does not need that kind of chaos.

Youngil quietly pays for the best room available for mother and child — a private maternity suite with soft lighting and actual linens, not just hospital-standard sheets — and Junhee will be moved there after recovery room. Liam sits outside the door, hunched and wide-eyed, like a nervous dog waiting for permission to re-enter the house after being scolded. Gihun gives him a thumbs-up. It is both a gesture of encouragement and an unspoken message: you still might have a chance.

Because yes, eventually, she will give in. She will. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But after a C-section, when moving is difficult and everything aches, and she needs help just to stand or reach the water cup, she will have to lean on someone. And if Liam is smart, if he can just keep being steady, just keep showing up, then maybe she will choose to lean on him.

Youngil insists, gently but with enough persistence that Gihun eventually agrees, that they should go home for now and return during visiting hours. And, truth be told, Gihun does not resist much. He had slept in the car earlier, true, but all these nerves, all this heightened emotional current coursing through him like a second bloodstream, had worn him out completely, leaving a strange kind of ache in his joints and behind his eyes. And besides, he really, really wanted to shower.

There was also the small, lingering fact that all their recent meetings had taken place on neutral ground — places not his, not Youngil’s, just impersonal spaces suspended between. And sure, it felt dangerous to bring Youngil into his territory now, into something as personal and traceable as his motel, but at the same time, this man had done nothing but show consistent, attentive care toward Gihun. Patient, understanding, remarkably unpushy affection. And there was something about that, something about being treated not only like a fragile omega but also like someone whose agency was intact, that made Gihun soften, bit by bit.

"To my place?" he asks, tilting his head slightly, unsure if Youngil is really going to go along with this, unsure if it would change the dynamic or expose too much.

"Let’s go," Youngil agrees, immediately and with surprising enthusiasm. That was interesting. Typically, alphas preferred to bring omegas into their own spaces, to reclaim territory through intimacy, to reinforce the subtle biological dominance encoded into their scents and their homes. But maybe Youngil really wanted to see where Gihun lived. To understand something deeper. To observe the way he took up space when no one was looking.

Gihun orders a taxi, and the car arrives quickly, as though the universe, for once, was not trying to delay or complicate things. The driver raises an eyebrow when he sees them going to the motel, or perhaps catching a whiff of the scent mix that hadn’t yet fully stabilized, but he says nothing, and that silence is a gift in itself.

They pull up in front of the weathered old motel. The building looks like it has seen better decades, not just better days. The sign is not lit, the paint peeling in places, and one of the outdoor security lights buzzes faintly with an irregular rhythm.

"I thought we were going to your place," Youngil says slowly, drawing out the words like he’s trying not to let the disappointment seep into them, but it’s there anyway, faint and unmistakable.

"This is my place," Gihun replies simply, walking up to the front door.

"What?" Youngil frowns, puzzled.

"I bought it. I live here now," Gihun explains, like it’s the most obvious and normal thing in the world, his tone so casual it almost feels rehearsed. "I thought you would’ve figured that out already," he adds with a faint chuckle, unlocking the door.

Youngil says nothing as he steps inside behind him. The space is quiet, undisturbed. Nobody had bothered shutting things down properly, so the lights are still running, and the faint hum of electricity and water pressure makes the place feel not entirely dead. They don’t have to flip switches or reprogram anything. The motel simply lets them in, like a body receiving its blood again.

They walk together to the room where Gihun spends most of his time — not just sleeps, not just hides, but actually kind of lives, breathes, exists — and Gihun hesitates for a fraction of a second before opening the door.

People have been in this room. It’s not sacred, not untouched. Kim has been here. Junho has been here. Choi Wooseok has been here. Even the Recruiter once stood in this space. But letting Youngil in feels different. There’s something intimate, almost ceremonial, about it. Not just letting him inside a room but letting him see the rhythm of Gihun’s solitude.

"You really didn’t know about this place?" Gihun asks, glancing back over his shoulder.

"I saw you come here before," Youngil admits, his voice quiet, cautious. "But I thought you were meeting someone else here."

"You thought I was seeing someone else?" Gihun arches an eyebrow, clearly surprised. "And you never said anything?"

"Well… you told me from the beginning that you weren’t looking for anything serious," Youngil says slowly, choosing his words with great care, like each one is a piece of delicate glass. "And I figured, if there was something going on — if you did have someone else — you would leave me if I make fuss of it. That you would just walk away if I ever came across as too… clingy."

He picks that word like he doesn’t quite like it, like it tastes sour in his mouth.

There’s a pause between them, thick with unspoken truths. Not accusations, not even disappointment. Just two people trying to figure out what the other one knows, and what the other one feels, and where those things collide.

And Gihun doesn’t answer right away. He walks further into the room, shrugs off his coat, places his phone and keys on the cluttered desk. It smells like his space. A strange mix of laundry detergent, papers, faint eucalyptus, and the ghost of coffee. He sits on the edge of the bed and looks up.

"Seriously?" Gihun staring, not blinking, his gaze sharp but tinged with disbelief. Considering the sort of things that triggered Youngil’s jealousy — things like a random glance from a nurse or a well-meaning look from a waiter — it was almost impossible to believe that he could have remained so calm in the face of Gihun’s potential entanglements with others. "The last time I slept with anyone before you was when my heats were still regular. That was sometime back in 2017, at best."

It’s the kind of thing that should have comforted Youngil, at least in theory. But instead, his scent, so herbal and grounding a moment ago, sharpens with tension, growing tighter around the edges like a string pulled taut.

"Well, I couldn’t risk losing the bond between us, no matter how much your little motel excursions pissed me off," Youngil says, his tone quiet but unmistakably direct. "And then, when you started talking about breaking it off for good, I fought you on it at first. I really did. But then… after a while, you started smelling like another alpha. Not strongly, but enough. Just faintly, regularly. So I finally agreed to your offer to let you go."

A slow ache blooms in Gihun’s chest, as though his ribs have turned to soft lead. His heart twists. It actually, physically twists.

He looks away, blinking quickly, trying to force the wetness from his eyes before it dares to fall. There is an unbearable sadness in the room now, made more unbearable by how gently Youngil is sitting beside him, as though giving him the space to gather himself and fall apart in equal measure.

The truth is, Gihun always walks away from the people who need him. Who love him. Who choose him.

Youngil gently sit down on the bed near Gihun, their bodies barely touching. Gihun leans forward without thinking and presses his face into the curve of Youngil’s neck, his voice muffled and small as he begins to murmur apologies — one after another, like some broken record that only knows one line. "I’m sorry," he whispers, over and over.

Youngil says something about how it isn’t necessary, about how he doesn’t need to apologize, but Gihun cannot stop. The words keep spilling out, not for forgiveness but because he doesn’t know what else to do with this grief that’s lodged between his throat and his chest.

Youngil strokes his back slowly, up and down, his palm warm and steady through the fabric, and that soft gesture — so simple, so kind — makes it all feel even worse somehow. Not because it hurts, but because it is the kind of comfort Gihun never really believed he had the right to. The kind of gentleness he always imagined was meant for other people, better people, not for someone who was already halfway broken when he arrived.

And Youngil, for all his strength and discipline, for all the quiet fire in his eyes, is being good. He is being steady. He is being kind.

And Gihun — well, Gihun is the kind of man who, after this week-long pause, will go back to that island. Will throw himself back into that world like it still owes him something. Will sacrifice himself — again and again — not for redemption, but because he doesn’t know how else to live.

He cares about Gayeong. He truly does. He cares about Liam. He cares deeply about Junyeong. He cares about his grandson, who just arrived into this world with fragile breath and tiny hands.

And he cares about Youngil.

He really, truly cares about Youngil.

But no matter how much he cares, no matter how deeply those affections root themselves in the softest corners of his heart, Gihun knows, with a clarity that borders on cruelty, that he cannot walk past that island. He cannot let go of the idea of tearing it down with his own two hands. He cannot — will not — forget what happened, not until the thing is broken, or he is, or both.

There is a panic rising inside him. A mounting hysteria. A sharp wave of chemical terror that rushes in like a tidal flood against his better sense. His body, his hormones, his every cell are screaming at him to just give in, to give up the fight and let himself finally, finally have a family. To settle down. To be soft. To be held. To be safe. He can smell Youngil’s stability. He can feel it radiating off his skin like sunlight through cotton. Everything in him wants to yield.

His mind, too — cold and rational — tells him this is the right path. That this man, this life, this fragile peace is the answer. It is the happy ending. It is the reward.

But his heart disagrees.

His heart says this is a happiness he hasn’t earned. That this is peace built on the backs of too many forgotten people. That there are still ghosts screaming his name across blood-soaked sand.

His heart still cries for Saebyeok. His heart still mourns for Sangwoo.

His heart still aches for the four hundred fifty-four players who never came back from the island in 2020. For the men and women who never had the chance to make the same choices Gihun is struggling with now.

And so he lies there, slowly quieting down, the storm inside him dulling into low, persistent ache. His tears have stopped but left their mark — narrow trails of salt down his cheeks, skin still damp from it. He stares up at the ceiling with hollow eyes.

Youngil, wordless and patient, brings him a glass of water and asks gently if he would drink.

Outside, the sky has begun to change color. Morning is almost here.

Youngil spoke about the practical matters that needed to be addressed, about how he had taken pictures of the things Junhee would need in the hospital, and how he had looked up the visiting hours, and also that they would have to arrange for a choriwon for her, something temporary but supportive, a caretaker to help her in the first days after surgery. And as he spoke, Gihun nodded at first a bit distantly, as if still submerged in the fog of his earlier emotions, but soon he joined the stream of the conversation more fully, drifting into the current of planning and intention, his voice gradually gaining clarity and warmth as he added his own thoughts, saying that they should also bring Sangwoo's mother, that it would be only right, since she had just become a great-grandmother. Probably, assuming Myunggi really was Liam, and that woman deserved to know and see the child and be seen, to exist in this little constellation of family that was slowly, if precariously, forming around this sudden new life.

Youngil nodded as Gihun spoke, his fingertip absentmindedly tracing small, slow circles on the inside of Gihun’s arm, a gesture that was both intimate and calming, and perhaps also a little distracting, something that kept Gihun moored to the bed, to this moment, to the sound of Youngil’s voice and the warmth of his body beside him. And then, after a pause, Youngil said, with a tone that was casual but also gently insistent, "And we should probably buy a proper apartment as soon as possible, so we have time to set everything up before Junyoung’s birth."

It was phrased like a suggestion, hypothetically, and as always Youngil deferred to Gihun’s opinion on the matter, his questions always angled in a way that made it clear he wanted Gihun to lead the decisions, to shape the choices, to imagine and define what their future could look like, asking what kind of place he wanted, what kind of layout, what kind of kitchen, what kind of neighbourhood, and Gihun found himself surprised by the ease with which he began to answer, not with hesitation but with enthusiasm, perhaps because something in Youngil’s manner made it safe to want, to speak his long-buried desires aloud.

Gihun wanted to move to the suburbs, to a huge house where they could all live together like a real family, the kind of family that ate meals at the same table and argued about where to put the rice cooker, and he listed the rooms they would need with the same seriousness someone might use to list tactical military supplies: a room for Gayeong, of course, because she should always have a place there, a place that was hers, no matter where she was or how old she got; a room for Junyeong, naturally, and one for Liam, and one for Junhee, and one for the baby, and probably a guest room as well for all the other people who might one day come into their orbit, and then a big kitchen, a new one, fully remodeled with the latest equipment, one of those ones with a huge island in the middle and a double-door fridge and a vent hood that actually worked, and a living room big enough for a ridiculous couch and a TV the size of a billboard, because why not, because maybe they deserved that kind of space, that kind of comfort.

Prodded gently by Youngil’s quiet follow-up questions, Gihun kept talking, elaborating, clarifying, decorating his imagined house with all the details he had never let himself voice before, speaking of skylights and laundry chutes and a garden where they could grow strawberries for kids and where he could sit and sip something warm in the early morning without being reminded of the world’s cruelty, and the more he spoke, the more he realized how much he wanted it, how deeply he ached for it, and he could feel the words getting caught in his throat, and his voice starting to shake, and he had to blink rapidly to keep the tears from spilling over again.

And it was ridiculous, really, because they were just lying there on that old bed in that shabby motel room, and yet somehow it felt like a palace, or maybe more than that, a sanctuary, because Gihun had not thought he could ever feel this safe again, had not imagined that there would be a place, however temporary, where he could lie beside someone and not feel like he was waiting for the axe to fall. The way Youngil’s herbal scent curled around him like a blanket, the way his presence radiated steadiness and warmth, it all created an atmosphere that felt like being held, not just physically but emotionally, psychologically. Gihun had to press closer, had to bury his face in Youngil’s collarbone and hold on, not because he thought Youngil might leave, but because somewhere deep inside there was still a part of him that didn’t believe he could really stay.

He knew he was being foolish, felt himself playing the part of some omega caricature out of a cheesy magazine, giggling and blushing and melting at every low-voiced comment from his impossibly handsome alpha, and he hated it a little, hated how his body responded, how his instincts flared, but he also loved it, because it meant something in him still worked, still responded, still wanted, and that meant he was still alive, still capable of imagining more than just survival.

Fucking hormones.

Youngil said he would go to the store in the morning, would pick up everything Junhee might need for her recovery, that there was a list and he would double-check it twice and maybe even call the nurse to make sure nothing had been missed, and then, when everything was ready, he would come back and wake Gihun so they could go together to the hospital during visiting hours. Gihun protested, said he wanted to come along for the shopping, said it wouldn’t feel right to sit back and do nothing, but the way Youngil replied, firm and calm, saying there wouldn’t be anything interesting and that it would be better for Gihun to rest a bit more, that it was really more sensible to stay and sleep, it didn’t sound dismissive. It sounded like a command spoken with care, and something in the tone made Gihun’s spine tingle in a way that was not entirely unpleasant, something primal responding to the suggestion of protection, of being taken care of.

He grumbled a little, and Youngil laughed softly, and they both knew that Gihun would end up staying, and that he would appreciate it later, and that maybe letting someone else take care of things wasn’t the same as being weak.

And then, for the first time, Gihun fell asleep beside Youngil. Their legs tangled together, the rhythm of their breathing falling into sync, and his last conscious thoughts were of that imaginary house, the one with too many rooms and too much light, and in the dream that followed, that house became real, solid and warm and full of life, full of laughter and the smell of rice cooking and the sound of footsteps on wood floors, and in that dream every room was filled with people he loved, all of them alive, all of them happy, and the dream held no shadow, only sunlight, only warmth, and it was the first time in a very long time that Gihun dreamed something that did not leave him feeling hollow or guilty or afraid.

It was just joy.

And when the light from the rising sun began to bleed slowly into the motel room, colouring the walls with a soft grey glow and bringing with it the scent of a new day, Gihun stirred, still wrapped in the echo of that dream, and though he had not yet opened his eyes, and though the world outside was still as uncertain and harsh as it had always been, for a few long seconds he felt nothing but peace.

Chapter Text

Gihun woke up feeling both strangely well and simultaneously burdened with a kind of sulky undertone that clung to his thoughts and skin like humidity, not quite unpleasant but definitely not comfortable either, a contradictory cocktail of sensations that he could only compare, with some hesitation and private amusement, to the way he had felt after a particularly satisfying heat — the kind where everything passed safely, quietly, gently, but left him emotionally overstimulated, raw in places he could not name, and filled with an absurd mixture of gratitude, vulnerability, and a persistent desire to whine, to curl up, to be held and stroked and cooed at like a petulant cat that still felt it deserved more attention.

He lay there in the stillness of the motel room, covered in the vague remnants of dreams he could no longer remember clearly, and for a moment it was almost meditative, a state of equilibrium between rest and readiness, between having slept enough and still wanting to stay horizontal forever. There was a tangible pull in both directions, like being tied between gravity and flight, between wanting to lie very still in this nest of warm sheets and the faint, fading scent of Youngil’s skin, and yet simultaneously having a rising and irrational compulsion to get up immediately, to be somewhere, anywhere, doing something — as if time were slipping too quickly and he had already fallen behind.

His body felt loose and heavy in a way that wasn’t unpleasant, just unfamiliar, like he had been properly taken care of during the night, and now that his body had nothing to fight, it was giving him the chance to feel everything else — the weariness, the softness, the small ache in his lower back, the quiet reminder from his abdomen that he was not alone inside himself. There was no sharp pain, no tension, just a growing, swelling need to press his forehead against something solid and safe, to burrow into Youngil’s shoulder and maybe sob a little for no clear reason, to be told he was good and kind and beautiful and that he had done enough and didn’t have to carry the weight of the world by himself anymore.

But Youngil wasn’t there.

The space beside him was empty, and though the sheets still smelled like him — that signature herbal scent laced with something warmer, muskier, unmistakably alpha — the absence was like a cold spot against Gihun’s side, an absence he hadn’t been prepared for. And yet, Gihun reminded himself, this was entirely his fault. He was the one who had, still half-asleep, murmured something about how good it would be to eat some lychee right now, how he was craving it intensely, how he hadn’t tasted it in years but suddenly the thought of biting into the slick, floral flesh of a cold lychee made his mouth water so badly it felt like a biological emergency. It hadn’t been a calculated request, not really — it had just slipped out between dreams — but it had been real, a desire sharp and bright enough to jolt him fully awake, and in the haze of that waking, he hadn’t stopped Youngil when he’d offered, no, insisted, that he would go find some.

Gihun hadn’t expected the craving to escalate like this, hadn’t realized that the longer Youngil was gone, the more his body would rebel, as if the need for lychee had become tangled up in his need for reassurance, for presence, for scent, for safety. What the hell was going on now, at week twenty-seven? He had been doing so well, relatively speaking. He had managed to stay level, avoid major hormonal catastrophes, keep his emotions in check, or at least within functional range. And now, out of nowhere, he was seconds away from collapsing into tears because he couldn’t suck on tropical fruit.

It was absurd.

And yet he couldn’t shake the knot of emotion tightening in his throat.

He pressed his face into the pillow, deeply inhaling the remaining traces of Youngil’s scent clinging to the fabric, and instead of calming down, he only felt the hot sting of tears prick at the corners of his eyes even more intensely. Why wasn’t he back yet? Surely it hadn’t been that long. But it had. Gihun glanced at the clock — it had been over thirty minutes, thirty minutes of waking panic dressed up as craving, thirty minutes of irrational thoughts spinning faster and faster in his mind, telling him terrible stories, ridiculous ones, like maybe Youngil had decided this was all too much and left, maybe this was his polite way of disappearing, and it was that voice, that ancient terror whispering in the back of his head, that refused to be silenced even when he knew better.

Because logically, he did know better.

He knew Youngil wouldn’t do that.

Youngil had gone because Gihun had asked for something, and even if it had been a half-conscious murmur, Youngil had taken it seriously, had left without complaint, probably determined to return triumphant with a stupid little fruit just to make Gihun smile. But logic meant nothing to instinct, and the deeper parts of him were screaming now, screaming that he had made a mistake, that he should never have let the alpha out of his sight, that he should have insisted on going along, insisted on being part of the errand, because what if something went wrong, what if he chose the wrong brand, what if he came back and nothing tasted right and everything was awful?

During his pregnancy with Gayeong, he remembered having cravings that were at least as baffling. There had been a week when all he had wanted was chalk and toothpaste — and not even flavoured toothpaste, but the plain, old-school minty kind that burned your tongue. Once, he had spent an entire afternoon wandering around construction zones in the neighbourhood, pretending to look for someone, just so he could stand near the freshly laid asphalt and inhale deeply, embarrassed and absurd, googling in secret where the next round of paving was scheduled. He had hidden it from everyone, not because they would have judged him necessarily, but because some of those impulses were simply too raw, too animal to share.

Though, in fairness, Giseok might have gone out and found him chalk and mint paste and even booked him a tour of the local asphalt plant if he’d only asked, especially back when the baby’s gender was still a mystery and everyone was walking on eggshells to make sure Gihun stayed calm and comfortable. It was different now. He was older, more used to the indignities of pregnancy, more resigned to its humiliations, and also less patient with himself. Still, this particular wave of irrational desperation felt sharper than he remembered, more gutting, and it was clearly being amplified by Youngil’s absence.

He clutched the edge of the sheet and rolled onto his side, trying to regulate his breathing, to talk himself down, to remember that he wasn’t in danger, that nothing had happened, that this wasn’t abandonment, that this was just a quick trip to the store and he would be back soon, maybe even now, maybe if Gihun just got up and looked out the window, he’d see him walking up the drive, carrying a plastic bag.

Gihun, lying curled up in a space that still barely retained the warmth and scent of someone who had promised not to leave for long, makes what he believes is a strategic, or at least damage-controlling decision, to call Youngil directly, to bridge the ever-expanding gap of seconds and minutes that threaten to overflow into a full-blown hormonal breakdown, the kind of spiral that begins with a trembling lip and ends in a breathless sobbing fit, curled around a pillow like a dying animal, so instead of letting it take over, he reaches for his phone with shaking fingers and calls, breath already hitching with anticipation and rising irrationality, the kind that tells him if Youngil does not answer immediately, something catastrophic has surely happened.

The call connects.

Youngil answers on the very first ring, his voice composed, soft, but not sleepy or distracted — no, his tone carries that kind of sharpened gentleness reserved for emergencies, for emotionally charged moments when softness must also be precise, measured, intentional, and although he doesn’t sound overtly panicked, there is urgency beneath the surface, a very present tension barely held in check, as if he had been waiting for this call or feared it might come at any second.

"Is something wrong? Are you okay?" Youngil’s voice is low and carefully modulated, but Gihun hears it, the faint static of strain underneath, and somehow it soothes and hurts him at the same time, that Youngil might be worried, that Youngil would drop everything if he were asked.

"Where are you?" Gihun responds instead of answering the actual questions, the words coming out far more plaintively than he had intended, his voice high and thready and full of all the things he hadn’t meant to say — the need, the fear, the ridiculous spike of emotion he can’t quite suppress.

"I’ll be there soon," Youngil says, and the conviction in his tone is like a lifeline, steady and bright and unshakeable, the kind of voice that makes people believe promises even when they shouldn’t. Gihun has no reason not to believe him, and so he buries his face even deeper into the pillow that still carries the scent of the man on the other end of the line, his arms wrapped tight around it like it could transmit warmth through memory alone. "Do you need anything else? Are you sure nothing happened?" Youngil asks, a little breathless now, but still level.

"I don’t need anything," Gihun whispers, swallowing the thickness in his throat. "Just come back soon."

The call ends, but the ache doesn’t.

What the hell had he been thinking, asking for lychee? It hadn’t even been that strong of a craving in hindsight. He could have ignored it. Could have waited until later. Could have gone himself. Should have gone himself. Anything would have been better than this aching vacuum of time in which Youngil had disappeared into the city and Gihun had been left behind to stew in his own tangled emotional stew. The thought that Youngil was out there buying fruit while he was here drowning in his own overreaction made him want to tear his hair out.

No, worse — it made him want to sob harder.

He presses his forehead to the mattress and takes a shuddering breath. If he had just kept his mouth shut, if he had just said he wanted water or nothing at all, if he had just lied and said he wasn’t hungry, then none of this would be happening. Youngil would still be beside him. He would not feel like a broken, frantic shell of a person at risk of falling apart because someone left to run an errand.

Maybe he really should consider locking Youngil in a room, just to be safe.

Not literally, of course — well, not entirely literally — but the thought is there, hovering in the background like a misbehaving impulse he doesn’t actually intend to act on, but can’t quite dismiss either. It wasn’t even about possessiveness, not in the traditional sense. It was about safety, about knowing Youngil was somewhere close, somewhere protected, somewhere within reach. If he was a staff member, if he belonged to the workers of the Games, then perhaps keeping him close is also a part of the grander plan.

And if Youngil was indeed in it, it wouldn’t be just personal. It will be strategic.

Honestly, that kind of logic made frighteningly good sense.

Gihun had believed the best plans were the ones that didn’t feel like plans at all, the kind that emerged naturally, instinctively, like something so obvious it didn’t need charts or meetings or theories. Take the whole business with the tooth, for example — they had planned it extensively, had gone over the timing and logistics dozens of times, and in the end, it had still played out with the graceless inelegance of a script being torn up mid-performance. And yet even that failure had brought something useful — it had illuminated the existence of a traitor, someone embedded deep in the inner circle, someone who had known too much.

And when Gihun thought of who that traitor might be, his mind, reluctantly but consistently, returned to Junho.

Or at the very least, someone intimately connected to Junho, because Gihun had worked with his collectors over the years, and none of them had ever raised red flags like this — not until recently. But this? This sudden exposure, this vulnerability, this betrayal? It pointed to something closer, something personal.

Still, one thing didn’t quite line up: if Youngil really was part of the staff and Junho or someone close to him was a spy, then why hadn’t Youngil known about the pregnancy?

That detail continued to gnaw at Gihun, refusing to fall neatly into place, refusing to be folded into the comforting narrative he was constructing. Unless — and here, the idea was more than half a joke, but also strangely plausible — unless the Front Man was an omega.

An omega who was infatuated with Youngil.

That would certainly explain the preferential treatment, the indulgences, the curious leeway afforded specifically to Youngil and not to others. It would explain the curious sense of affinity Gihun had felt on occasion, those strange, stilted conversations about equality among omegas, about autonomy and dignity, delivered in that voice filtered through black glass.

It must be said that the entire theory about Youngil being the Front Man had, in some strange and not entirely rational way, become not only a semi-consistent hypothesis constructed out of scraps of evidence and intuition, but also, on a more subtle and far more discomfiting level, a kind of unspoken desire, a possible unconscious longing for something that Gihun could neither fully understand nor openly admit to himself. And perhaps it had started long before he even realized it, long before any tangible hints had appeared, perhaps it had begun in the quiet, inchoate spaces of memory and imagination, in dreams, in the way certain words spoken by that man, back then, had landed with strange, disproportionate weight in the centre of his chest, becoming echo chambers that resonated long after the voice had faded, and perhaps those phrases, those interactions, had done more than their immediate meaning should have allowed.

Perhaps it had been a manifestation of some deep and unprocessed psychic rupture, a brokenness of the mind and spirit that, in the wake of trauma, attempted to reassemble itself through warped logic, through emotionally charged projections, through the peculiar and often misleading language of dreams. Because yes — the dreams had started, and they had not been pleasant, had not been poetic or redemptive, but deeply uncomfortable, troubling, sometimes even shameful. At first, Gihun had reacted with revulsion, with a kind of moral nausea, as if the subconscious itself had betrayed him by conjuring these images, these feelings, these phantom sensations of hands — warm, decisive, authoritative — touching him, gripping his shoulders, sliding over the arch of his spine, holding him down or pulling him closer.

Back then, during that period when his life had frayed to the point of no longer resembling anything he could claim as his own, back when he had lain beside his mother’s corpse for what felt like days without moving, without eating, without crying, just existing in that static space where grief curdled into paralysis — it was during that time that his body stopped cycling, that the heat phases which had once arrived with almost cruel regularity ceased altogether, leaving in their place this string of invasive dreams. And later, even as he began to crawl out of that black pit of despair, even as he tried to stitch himself back into the fabric of daily existence, the memory of those dreams had clung to him like sweat, sticky and sour and humiliating, because he had been aroused, and that arousal — so utterly out of place in the presence of grief and decay — had made him feel unclean in a way nothing else could.

It had not just been faceless figures in those dreams, either. No, worse — some of them had included Sangwoo.

Or rather, the version of Sangwoo that had haunted him most thoroughly — the one from the final days of the Games, the Sangwoo with the glassy, dead eyes and the bleeding neck, the Sangwoo who had turned inward and downward, who had isolated himself even from Gihun despite their alliance, who had acted as if he were walking alone from the beginning, as if no one else had ever mattered. That Sangwoo would appear in his dreams standing before him with the knife in his hand and that fractured look in his eye, and they would relive the bridge again and again, would reenact their last arguments in whispers or screams, would spin together in loops of guilt and fury and grief.

But then the dreams would shift.

They would transform into strange, surreal tableaux that seemed to take place in pastel-coloured rooms, soft and reminiscent of a child’s nursery, and in these dreams, Gihun would be speaking — passionately, sometimes angrily — to a figure dressed in black, a man in a mask whose presence filled the room like smoke, who always listened without interrupting, whose silence was heavy with judgment or admiration or something else Gihun could never pin down. And there was a peculiar satisfaction to these interactions — an electric current of emotional domination, of pushing back against something bigger, something monstrous, and forcing it to waver. And Gihun, in these dreams, would feel his own power swelling, would feel a twisted kind of arousal at the idea of breaking this man’s composure, of seeing that perfect surface crack, of making him lose control even for a moment. And after that they were having sex, which had made him ashamed, which made him make Front Man the bastard in his head so he could distance himself from this.

But he tried to remind himself that it wasn’t really about the man behind the mask. That the true enemy was the system, the machinery that ground people to powder and called it sport. That even if the masked man were replaced, the wheels would keep turning. However, something about that voice, about that posture, about the way he occupied space — there was something magnetic about it, undeniable and dangerous and maddeningly compelling.

And perhaps that was why his subconscious had latched onto Youngil, had grafted these impressions onto him. Because Youngil, too, was powerful, was calm, was strong in that quiet, self-assured way that suggested he could bend the world around him with enough time and will. Because Youngil smelled like safety and dominance and gentleness and unyielding certainty, all at once. Because something inside Gihun wanted desperately to be owned, to be understood, to be claimed by something immovable and fierce and tender.

It should be said, that Gihun had ever equated sex with love. That had never been his framework.

His first experience, predictably enough, had been with Sangwoo. He had been sixteen, caught off-guard by his first real heat, blindsided by its intensity, and Sangwoo had come over — his best friend, his constant companion, the one person who always seemed to understand him without explanation — and somehow, things had unfolded from there. It had not been romantic. It had not even been intentional. One thing had simply led to another, pulled along by instinct and awkwardness and the desperate need not to be alone.

In retrospect, Gihun knew he should have been more cautious, should have controlled himself better. But then again, it wasn’t as if Sangwoo had resisted. And afterward, they had never talked about it properly. Every time Gihun tried to bring it up, tried to analyse it, Sangwoo would shut down or deflect or pretend it had never happened. And perhaps that silence, that refusal to label anything, had influenced Gihun more deeply than he realized, had conditioned him to avoid defining relationships, to avoid making demands or staking claims. Because those strange, ambiguous years with Sangwoo had felt more intimate, more real, than anything that came later.

Even his relationship with Giseok hadn’t come close.

Both Gihun and Sangwoo, over the years, had maintained peripheral contacts, more or less freely, and it had never once been the source of true tension or formal complaint between them, not in a way that lasted or left deep bruises; it had simply been a reality of how they coexisted, a function of the unspoken arrangement that formed the foundation of their life together, which, by the time it had settled into something that resembled domesticity, had long ceased to be a romantic or sexual relationship. It had evolved, or perhaps just eroded, into a partnership of habit and routine, and because of that, neither of them had reason to demand exclusivity or express jealousy. And Sangwoo had often explained — with that particular tone he reserved for revealing how the world really worked, as if every insight he shared was another piece of the puzzle Gihun had never been sharp enough to assemble himself — how often real business, actual negotiations of substance, were conducted not in boardrooms or formal offices, but in tea houses, in hotel saunas, in dim, smoke-scented parlors where men spoke in lowered voices and where the unspoken rules of masculine power and privilege allowed alphas to maintain a "legal" wife at home and, without any real dissonance, to enjoy the company of prostitutes on the side, so long as no scandal occurred, so long as boundaries were observed, so long as discretion reigned supreme.

Perhaps that had contributed to Gihun’s sense of detachment about intimacy, perhaps it explained why, for a while, he had managed to exist within that ambiguous life with Sangwoo, co-parenting Liam with an ease that belied the absence of any romantic or sexual context between them. After all, once their physical connection had dissolved — quietly, without declaration or crisis — there had been a strange tranquillity, a peace born of knowing exactly what not to expect from each other, and in that peace, Gihun had allowed himself, occasionally, to date, to try things, to test the waters, even while raising a child and returning to the same apartment where Sangwoo folded their shirts and read the news in silence.

But then Liam disappeared.

And after the first storm passed — after the waves of denial and rage and blind, animal despair had finally ebbed, leaving behind that hollow space inside his chest where hope had once lived — Gihun began, shakily, to construct a new rhythm of life. That rhythm included, oddly enough, going to church. It was less about belief than about sound and routine; he would sit there on Sundays listening to the low murmur of sermons, understanding little, since the English was both familiar and strange to him, like a language he had once known in a dream but now could not quite decipher. There was something faintly comforting in the cadence, in the solemnity of it all, and a part of him, though he would not have admitted it out loud, hoped that perhaps, by sheer exposure, some kind of meaning would emerge — a message, a signal, a justification.

He was not expecting Giseok.

Giseok had arrived like a plot twist in a story Gihun thought he already understood. A devout believer, visibly earnest, someone who had not only broken away from his family, but had found refuge, purpose, and what seemed like joy in this place of soft voices and softened hearts. At first, their interactions had been limited to quiet, almost clinical exchanges about faith. Gihun had asked questions, not with the intention to provoke, but from genuine, almost childlike curiosity, admitting freely that he was not a believer and did not understand why a loving God would allow the things that had happened to him, to Liam, to so many. These questions would often stump Giseok, who would frown and murmur that he would ask his spiritual advisor, that he would look into it, that he would do his best to provide answers next time.

Gihun would nod, grateful, almost tenderly so, not because he expected the answers to change anything, but because it was touching that someone cared enough to try. Deep down, he did want to be convinced. He wanted to believe that all of it — the disappearance, the violence, the slow dissolution of his life — was part of a plan, even a cruel one, and that someday the pattern would reveal itself. That there was a reason. That there was structure beneath the chaos.

Then, inevitably, Giseok began to have questions of his own. Small ones, hesitant at first, cracks in the armour of certainty. It became clear that this, too, was part of the path — some kind of test of faith, a trial meant to deepen conviction rather than undermine it. Gihun couldn’t remember the exact terminology, but he remembered phrases like "faith must live in the heart, not the mind," and he had nodded along even as he privately doubted whether his own heart was still capable of such things.

And somewhere along the way, their walks after service became routine. Giseok would walk him to the café where Gihun sometimes lingered, nursing a coffee more for the ritual than the taste. The first time Gihun left his umbrella behind had been deliberate — a small flirtation, a test balloon, a move made half out of boredom and half out of a desire for something soft. But after that, it started happening naturally, like muscle memory. Gihun would simply forget. And Giseok, always with that gentle smile, would appear beside him with the umbrella, holding it over both their heads like it was the most natural thing in the world.

There was something achingly beautiful about that. About the way Giseok never made demands, never pressed him for anything, just walked beside him and talked about fate, about choices, about grace. It made Gihun want to smile. Made him think, for brief dangerous moments, that maybe he could believe in something again, even if it was just the kindness in another person’s eyes.

Giseok had been, in many ways, a good husband, especially if judged by the traditional Korean standards that his mother so eagerly upheld, and particularly when one takes into account just how deeply his mother had embedded herself into the everyday fabric of their lives—because yes, while Giseok may have formally left the sect, the sect itself had most certainly not left Giseok, and this manifested in small, seemingly insignificant but persistently telling habits, in phrases half-remembered from sermons, in patterns of thought and behaviour that Gihun, being no stranger to such environments himself, could mostly tolerate without much complaint, as they felt familiar, even mundane, until the reactions of his mother-in-law made it clear that not everyone, in fact, did things that way. But be that as it may, the fact remained: Giseok didn’t drink, didn’t cast sidelong glances at other omegas or women—or alphas, for that matter, although Gihun had long suspected that the so-called spiritual purity of that sect had never been without its own hushed games and covert arrangements, given how more than once he’d accidentally walked in on various “spiritual leaders” in positions that were anything but platonic. Giseok didn’t smoke, didn’t gamble, didn’t waste money on vices or temptations—he was, on paper, a virtuous man, almost irritatingly so.

And yet, there was no chemistry. There was no spark. There was no love. And eventually, even the foundational layer of mutual respect began to fray at the edges and dissolve, as though the absence of emotional nourishment had quietly eroded it from within. It had never resembled what Gihun once had with Sangwoo, not even in the slightest, not even when he squinted and tried to fool himself.

The divorce, when it came, was unpleasant for both of them—not catastrophic, not explosive, but heavy with that aching kind of silence that comes from prolonged disappointment. And while it hurt, it also felt like the only rational and ultimately merciful path forward, because had they continued pretending, had they forced themselves to endure the charade for much longer, the result would likely have been something truly disastrous—one of them might have died in spirit if not in body, and their daughter Gayeong would have grown up between two ghosts. As it was, they managed to preserve a tenuous kind of structure, a brittle framework that allowed for some semblance of continued parenting.

Gihun had often considered not divorcing at all—not because he was holding onto some dream of reconciliation, but because of Gayeong, because of the gnawing fear of losing another child, the way his mother warned he inevitably would if they didn’t stay together, and in a grim, slow-motion way, her prediction came true. Of course, it wasn’t immediate. The loss was gradual, like a slow leak from a wound you pretend not to see, and something inside Gihun always ached when he thought about the fact that Gayeong was somewhere out there while he was here, distant and irrelevant, watching her grow up secondhand through a screen.

And maybe that was part of what drove him back into gambling, part of what drove him to start smoking, part of what dulled the edges of his judgment and made him so recklessly indifferent to his own well-being.

Gayeong, it seemed, was better off with Giseok, who had, post-divorce, somehow found his footing—he found love, his career flourished, and his life seemed to glow with a domestic joy that Gihun only ever glimpsed in carefully curated social media posts. But Gihun looked anyway. He scrolled, sometimes for hours, not even trying to convince himself it was healthy. He looked for photos of Gayeong, for signs that she remembered him, that she smiled in ways that used to belong to him.

Once the thought had passed treacherously through his mind: maybe he could have another child.

Not to replace the others. Not as compensation or as a stand-in. Just as… something. Something new, something to live for, something that might soothe the echoing ache in his soul and offer him a chance to do things differently, to be better, to love more wisely.

It was selfish, yes. He knew that. And the desire itself felt vaguely shameful, not only because of the implications, but because deep down, it came with the wish to raise the child entirely on his own—without a second parent, without interference, just him and the baby in a small, quiet world.

His mother might not even have yelled. She would have sighed, perhaps said something curt and practical about the price of formula or the rising cost of diapers. But she would have helped. They would have managed. They always did.

But somehow, things just did not work out, unfortunately, although it must be said that Gihun never actually tried all that actively either, rather hoping that it would just happen on its own, as though the stars would align, the schedules would match, and one day, maybe on a lucky morning, he would bump into a halfway decent alpha. He might have slightly nudged fate now and then, choosing more promising days to go to the club, or to spend an extra moment lingering by the café where alphas with soft eyes and neat clothes sometimes stopped for coffee, but in truth, he had given up on the whole idea long before he admitted that to himself.

And it was, honestly, a strange thing to think about, that after Gayoung, after all the mess, the struggle, the weight of that part of his life, Gihun had even dared to think about going through another pregnancy. But it was probably because all of that chaos had somehow receded in memory, as though dulled by time or eclipsed by the sweetness of the outcome. It felt like it had happened to someone else. As if the horrors of sleepless nights, the health problems, the worry, the cold bureaucracy of prenatal appointments, the judgment, the loneliness, all of it had just washed away, leaving behind only the image of that little girl with her serious eyes and fierce temper. Maybe that was it—each pregnancy was its own story, its own gamble, and nothing guaranteed that this time would follow the same path. And yet, if Junyoung suddenly decided to make up for the lack of chaos in the earlier trimesters—when Gihun hadn’t even been aware he was pregnant—with a sudden outburst of complications and emotional torment, it would be an absolute catastrophe. The timing was, in no uncertain terms, completely wrong.

Gihun wandered through the motel, his body heavier than usual, the slight swell of his abdomen now making even walking feel oddly uneven, as if his centre of gravity had subtly shifted and his joints refused to cooperate. It wasn’t dramatic, but it was noticeable. He moved toward the room where he kept the money, and as he walked, he felt each step echo in his spine and knees, a dull reminder that his body was carrying more than just fatigue. Something felt off. Truly, if he were being responsible, he should see a doctor, not only because of the physical discomfort but because the emotional whiplash of the past few days was threatening to drown him. Everything felt like it was piling up too quickly, too heavily, and he hadn’t even begun to tackle the central issue: figuring out how, exactly, he was going to get back into the Games. Because he had to. That much was certain.

He glanced around at the identical motel rooms, all of them bearing the same bland anonymity, each one a temporary haven, but none of them feeling quite right for what he now needed to lock Youngil. He wanted to scoff at himself for even considering these rooms a solution. None of this would be enough if it came down to hiding someone like Youngil. If he was going to be serious about this, he should have bought a place with a real bunker, something solid and secure. This wasn’t enough.

And beyond all that practicality, there was the deeper, more irrational hurt that festered inside him, the part of him that resented how attached he had become to Youngil. It wasn’t just attachment, it was something visceral and raw, something that exposed every vulnerable inch of him. Gihun knew, logically, that it wasn’t fair to expect Youngil to reciprocate with the same helpless dependency. After all, Youngil, at any moment, could choose not to come back. He could decide that he had done enough, that he didn’t owe Gihun anything, and he could disappear into whatever shadowy infrastructure supported his existence. And Gihun would be left behind, stomach heavy, heart heavier.

The bitterness of the thought almost choked him. There was that familiar mix of herbal from his clothes and eucalyptus scent. It made Youngil’s scent even more intoxicating, more enveloping. And that was terrifying. It meant that Youngil had become, in some corner of his brain, home. And that was dangerous.

But really, what right did he have to expect exclusivity? Gihun had made it clear—painfully, repeatedly, perhaps even coldly—that he did not want anything serious. He had set that boundary, and Youngil, to his credit, had respected it. There had been no pressure, no expectation, no sudden grabs at commitment or attempts to change the rules. He had accepted what was offered, and he had never once used Gihun’s vulnerability against him. And Gihun was grateful for that, he was. But still, some deeply irrational, childish part of him whined with a snivelling, nasal voice inside his chest, "What do you mean he was willing to accept that we wouldn’t be something serious?"

It was an awful feeling. That contradiction. That unbearable longing to be wanted completely, while simultaneously flinching away from the obligations and entanglements that came with it. It made him feel like a fool. Like some stereotypical omega in old romance novels, the kind who didn’t know what he wanted and punished everyone around him for it. And still, knowing all this, understanding his own faults, didn’t make the feelings go away. If anything, it made them worse.

What irritated him the most—what truly gnawed at the most delicate, inflamed edges of his composure—was not the fact of his secondary gender, which Gihun had never exactly hated, but rather the subtle, enduring implications of it that always seemed to linger around the edges of any room he entered, every interaction he initiated, every favour he asked, or even failed to ask. He didn’t resent being an omega in the straightforward sense; in fact, more often than not, he had learned to treat it as an advantage, a quiet card up his sleeve that allowed him to move through spaces with less resistance than someone more visibly threatening. It was far easier, after all, to work with alphas who instinctively perceived him as weaker, softer, someone in need of guidance or assistance, someone they could help, someone who flattered their instincts to protect and lead. In another life, had Gihun been driven by ambition, had he strived for real authority or power in the public sphere, this secondary gender might have been an obstacle, a true liability, one that curtailed his freedom and undercut his credibility. But in the specific context of his life—shaped by loss and compromise, by survival and sly maneuvering—his gender became a performance. A persona. Something he could wield strategically. And so he often leaned into it, played the role with a calculated tilt of the head, a wearied softness in his voice, always ready to deploy his favourite script: "I still have to give birth, dear strong alphas, please help a poor beautiful omega." A plea dressed up as submission, and no less effective for being transparent.

And then Youngil appeared. And everything got complicated.

Because here was a man who, on the one hand, treated Gihun as an equal—not in the performative way some alphas did when they wanted to earn omegist points or project their modernity—but in a way that felt instinctive, natural, non-negotiable. And yet, on the other hand, Youngil also engaged in a host of traditional behaviours, the kind that would have felt oppressive or even suffocating from someone else, but never once slipped into condescension or patronizing ritual. It was as though he had some uncanny ability to read thoughts, or at the very least, a sixth sense finely attuned to Gihun’s shifting moods and silent boundaries. He knew what would be too much and what would be just right. There was a certain resonance to this, a haunting familiarity, because something similar had once existed between Gihun and Sangwoo—except with Sangwoo, that parity had always been a form of conflict, a dance of dominance and passive resistance, as if their shared history, their shared failures, demanded constant recalibration.

With Youngil, there was no fight.

Youngil didn’t need to prove anything to anyone, and certainly not to Gihun. Maybe it was maturity, maybe just the way life had carved his edges differently over the years, but compared to the Sangwoo, who was the one who had always needed to assert that he was the smartest, the strongest, the one with the plan—Youngil seemed not just composed, but whole. And whereas Gihun had often felt an impulsive thrill in trying to challenge Sangwoo, with Youngil, he felt something altogether new. He wanted to soften. To lean back. To be cared for. To relax into the space between them and not feel like it would snap shut if he made the wrong move. Especially after seeing that other side of Youngil—that wild, impulsive, almost feral quality that broke through his polished exterior and revealed something far more honest. It was that version of Youngil that made Gihun want to let go. That made him feel safe being soft.

And speak of the devil—or perhaps more accurately, think of the alpha—Youngil appeared right on cue, opening the front door on the first floor, his voice already threaded with urgency and a rising sense of worry, just as Gihun was mechanically stuffing bundles of money into a bag, the physicality of it grounding him in something mundane and theatrical, a distraction from everything else he couldn’t control. Of course, a wire transfer to a secure card would have been more efficient, but something about the tangible nature of cash made the gesture more dramatic, more sincere. It had a certain noir elegance to it.

Gihun didn’t answer right away, didn’t call out. He remained quiet as he zipped the bag shut, not because the room was some grand secret, but because he didn’t want Youngil to know about the weapons locker tucked behind one of the walls. It wasn’t trust—it was something else. A need to maintain a sliver of space, a last foothold of autonomy.

He stood up slowly, shifting the weight of the bag until it rested comfortably against his side, his other hand instinctively sliding over the swell of his stomach. It was a subconscious motion by now, a grounding gesture that brought him back into his body. And that body, he realized, was changing faster than expected. The bump had definitely grown, more noticeable now even beneath his layers. Of course, it made sense—Junyoung was developing rapidly at this stage, and up until now, he had been nestled lengthwise along the uterine wall, pressed in a way that minimized outward growth, but maximized pressure on Gihun’s bladder, which the doctors had warned might change as the baby repositioned. And judging by the increasing force of Junyoung’s movements, that repositioning was already underway.

"Goddammit, Junyoung," he muttered under his breath, pausing at the doorway, a mix of exasperation and reluctant amusement flickering in his expression. "You couldn’t wait until your daddy was done with the Games? Really?" He sighed. "Waddling around there with this belly out front like a damn target is going to be a nightmare."

Goddamn it, everything was happening at the worst possible time. No matter how he tried to spin it, no matter how determined he was to maintain his composure or justify the trajectory of recent events with reason or purpose or blind acceptance, the truth remained unavoidable—everything was so painfully, inconveniently timed. How much simpler, how much more manageable the entire ordeal with the Games would have been if he had not been pregnant. To begin with, they would have implanted a proper tracker under full anaesthesia, a secure, official-grade model, and there would have been no way in hell for anyone to extract it, no reckless removal with bloodied tools in a dirty bathroom, no frantic calculations about exposure or survival. Not to say that Gihun regretted the child. He didn’t. He couldn’t. But the timing was nothing short of catastrophic.

He closed the door behind him, trying to shake the thoughts loose, and almost immediately caught sight of Youngil stepping out of another room down the hallway, carrying a massive plastic bag that stretched awkwardly from his elbow to his knee. There was something strained in Youngil’s scent—an edge of sharpness, severity, a tension like steel wire drawn taut and just shy of snapping—but as soon as he spotted Gihun, a visible wave of relief passed through him. His chest rose and fell with a long breath, as though a rope had just been untied from his throat.

"I was just gathering a few things for the hospital," Gihun said quickly, his voice tinged with that practiced warmth that came from years of surviving awkward encounters. He smiled, gentle but faintly defensive, and gestured vaguely to the duffel bag now slung over one shoulder. "Stuff that I figured the little ones might need."

Youngil immediately stepped forward, hands already reaching for the bag as if it were a matter of life or death to keep heavy objects out of the hands of his pregnant omega. Gihun let him take it, though the gesture made him feel oddly self-conscious, like he had accidentally wandered into the wrong role in a play and couldn’t remember the lines anymore.

"Please don’t disappear like that," Youngil said, trying to keep his tone even, almost gentle, but it cracked just slightly at the edges, the words pushing out faster than they were meant to, too full of urgency to be casual. His face remained calm, almost blank, but the mismatch between his voice and expression was jarring. It wasn’t just nervousness; there was something else lurking underneath, something dark and tightly restrained into the shape of concern.

"Oh, come on, I just stepped into the other room," Gihun replied, waving a hand dismissively, trying to ease the tension with a laugh that didn’t quite land, one hand awkwardly scratching the nape of his neck as if trying to rub out his own guilt.

"Then leave a note next time," Youngil snapped, the words cutting through the room like glass. But almost immediately, he seemed to catch himself, inhaling sharply, and said with a softer voice, "I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. I just... I really do worry. Especially after everything that’s happened."

"I’m sorry too," Gihun said, his voice much quieter now, barely audible, the apology escaping before he could swallow it back.

They returned together to the room where Gihun had been staying most of the time, the room that now bore all the marks of his strange temporary domesticity, and began sorting through the various supplies he had set aside—most of them meant for Junhee and the baby, a mix of hygiene kits, folded clothes, vitamin drinks, wet wipes, paper forms, and small comfort items. And then, almost with a sigh, he pulled out the kilogram of lychee he had insisted on earlier.

He winced.

The fruit looked wrong. It wasn’t the beautiful pearlescent glow he remembered from past cravings; instead, it was off-color, slightly dull, like something left out in the sun a little too long. Gihun hesitated, but, feeling a sense of obligation to at least try what he had fixated on so desperately, he reached for one, cracking the shell between his fingers. The skin resisted with a roughness that scraped his fingertips, and when he pushed through to the inside, the pulp clung wet and sticky, far too sweet in a way that turned his stomach. The scent hit him next—rotten, overly floral, aggressively saccharine—and his nausea surged up his throat before he could stop it.

He felt the tears start to prick at his eyes almost immediately, ridiculous and unprovoked, and yet so overwhelming that he couldn’t do anything but sit there, clutching the half-peeled fruit, blinking rapidly to keep them at bay.

What the hell kind of bullshit was this.

He clenched his jaw, determined not to lose it over something so stupid, so small, and placed the fruit down with exaggerated care, wiping his fingers on a paper napkin. But the napkins, of course, were the cheap kind—thin and weirdly slick, more like waxed paper than cloth—and instead of helping, they left sticky fibers stuck to his hands, adding to the mounting horror of tactile discomfort. The more he rubbed, the worse it got, until the residue seemed to cover his whole palm like an invisible film of disgust.

And so, predictably, inevitably, like any other person overwhelmed by hormones, sensory overload, and mounting pressure, Gihun began to cry.

It was not a composed kind of crying. Not a tear gliding down the cheek in poetic silence. This was the kind of sobbing that started in the throat, thick and ugly and trembling, a helpless reaction to something that had nothing to do with the fruit or the napkins and everything to do with the ever-rising sense that he had completely lost control of his life. His shoulders curled in on themselves, and his breath came out in short, uneven bursts, each one dragging another gasp of air through his tight chest.

"What happened?" Youngil’s voice snapped to alertness instantly, his footsteps coming closer, the sound of him kneeling beside Gihun audible in the rush of movement. His voice was low, tense, sharp with concern, but not sharp at Gihun—sharp at the situation, sharp at the universe, sharp at anything that dared make Gihun feel like this. "Are you okay? Are you hurt somewhere?"

He tried to meet Gihun’s eyes, craning slightly to see past the curtain of dark hair that had fallen forward, but Gihun couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t speak.

And of course, the tenderness in Youngil’s voice—the genuine worry, the depth of emotion barely restrained in his gaze—only made it worse. Gihun cried harder, fists clenched, body hunched, tears sliding hot and fast down his cheeks. What a complete fucking disaster.

"Hey, hey, it's okay," Youngil said again, more quietly now, his hands hovering in the space between them, clearly desperate to help but also afraid to touch without permission. "Tell me what’s wrong. Please. Does something hurt?"

"I don’t even want lychee anymore. You could’ve wandered a million years for them for nothing," Gihun muttered, his voice hoarse and uneven as he did his best to quell the flood of tears that had caught him off guard and now refused to stop, his eyes swollen and raw with emotion. Without waiting for any reply or reaction, he turned away, shuffling toward the bathroom in the stiff, halting steps of someone too overwhelmed to hide it anymore. "Just throw that shit away. The smell alone makes me nauseous."

Inside the bathroom, the moment he flicked on the light and closed the door behind him, the tears seemed to fall even harder, no longer restrained by the presence of another person. He scrubbed his hands under the faucet, water too cold, but somehow that sharp chill helped him stay tethered to the present moment. The crumpled napkin, damp and gummy with juice, landed in the trash bin with a sound far too light and clean for the storm still raging inside him. But even after that—after the water, after the brief ritual of trying to wash away the sticky residue of lychee, and everything it now represented—the tears didn’t stop. They kept coming, just as relentless, only now worsened by the unbearable kindness of the man waiting just outside the door, the man who didn’t accuse him of anything, didn’t yell or scold or make passive-aggressive comments. The man who simply waited and gave him space. And it was horrible. It was disgusting. It was the absolute worst. Why did he have to be so good?

Because the thing was, if Gihun had gotten up early, gone out to pick up some ridiculous craving on someone else’s behalf, only to return to find that person throwing a tantrum, sobbing, and not even eating what he brought—he would absolutely have said something cutting. A snide remark, a sarcastic jab, maybe something that made the other person cry harder. But not Youngil. Youngil, with his ever-present, maddeningly calm scent, didn’t express even a drop of irritation. All Gihun could smell was worry—tender, real, insistent—and it only made the tears come faster.

He tried to breathe deeply. One long inhale, a pause, an even longer exhale. Then another. But it didn’t help, not even a little. His chest still hurt, still spasmed, and his hands trembled despite the tight fists he made to control them. Eventually, knowing he was fighting a losing battle, he stepped out of the bathroom and walked straight into Youngil’s arms without asking, throwing his arms around him and pressing his damp, flushed face into the curve of Youngil’s neck.

Youngil didn’t hesitate. One hand immediately found Gihun’s lower back, the other settled against his hip, and he began to stroke slow circles with his palm, not saying anything, not pushing for explanations, just holding him there, solid and real and unwavering. And it was that—the quiet, the patience, the warmth—that allowed Gihun to finally let go. He sobbed again, fuller this time, the sound cracking open from somewhere deep inside his chest. Surely at some point he would run out of water, out of tears, out of whatever fuel was keeping this flood going, but for now, he let it come.

Youngil moved slightly, gently manoeuvring them both toward the bed. They sat together, Youngil still holding him, now adding the occasional pass of his fingers through Gihun’s hair. It felt like something ancient and sacred, that gesture, the kind of comfort Gihun didn’t remember receiving even from his mother. He leaned harder into the crook of Youngil’s neck, wanting to disappear into the scent, into the skin, into the space carved out between them that felt too safe to be real.

Eventually, when the tears stopped of their own accord—slowing to a trickle, then to silence—Gihun whispered, barely loud enough to hear, "Thank you."

"You don’t need to thank me," Youngil said softly, the kind of reply so sincere and unassuming that it made Gihun want to cry all over again, though now he couldn’t. There was nothing left in him to give to tears. Empty, wrung-out, he just stayed there, breathing.

"What time is it?" Gihun asked, after another long pause. He didn’t move, still pressed close, but he wanted to know how long he had lost to this wave of emotion. Youngil always wore the same watch on his wrist—a cheap, digital thing that clashed with every other piece of clothing he owned, which tended to lean toward tailored, neutral-toned, expensive—but Gihun had never asked about it. Something about the way Youngil wore it with such consistency suggested it meant something, and Gihun didn’t want to pry.

"Eight in the morning," Youngil replied, glancing down at his wrist.

"Madame Cho’s already open then," Gihun murmured, his voice still thick, his breath catching slightly on the last word. "I don’t even know how I’m supposed to talk to her after the way I ran off last time." There was a faint whine to his tone, not quite deliberate, but impossible to suppress.

"We don’t have to tell her anything if you’re not ready," Youngil said, still rubbing slow circles on Gihun’s back. His voice was measured, careful, full of awareness. "But I think…"

He hesitated. Gihun could feel it in the shift of his fingers, in the weight of the pause, but eventually the rest came.

"I think you run away a lot. And maybe it would help to stop doing that. Just this once. I’m not pressuring you. I’m not going to make you do it if you really don’t want to. I’ll understand if you’re not ready."

God, it would be so much easier if someone did make him. If someone just pointed a finger and said go, ordered him to stand up straight and handle it, then he could do what needed to be done without shouldering the moral responsibility. Gihun’s whole life had trained him to accept commands under pressure, to react when forced, and it was always easier to pretend there was no choice, just inevitability. That kind of pressure made it easier, psychologically, to go through with something unpleasant. You don’t choose; you just comply. It’s not your fault. You had no other option.

But of course, that only worked when he already wanted to do the thing in question, deep down. If he really didn’t want to do something, if he truly, sincerely resisted, he always managed to find a way out.

"You’re right," Gihun said quietly after a long moment. His voice no longer sounded like a child sulking, but rather someone older, more grounded, tired but clear. "Let’s go to her shop."

Youngil was carrying not only the bag packed with hospital necessities for Junhee—the items the hospital staff had listed out in exacting detail—but also the large, heavy sports duffel stuffed with cash intended for Liam. They were taking a taxi, because in his current condition Gihun didn’t feel confident enough to sit behind the wheel, and Youngil, for his part, was far too focused on Gihun to be trusted with driving safely. Gihun didn’t even need to say it out loud: he preferred that Youngil remain fully present and physically near, able to comfort him at a moment’s notice, a steady source of reassurance in case anything felt like too much.

As the car moved through the city streets, Gihun sat trembling, gripping the fabric of his pants so tightly that the knuckles of both hands turned pale, shaking perhaps more severely than he ever had before in his life, and it wasn’t just because of the destination.

It was strange, in a way, because Gihun had never really been afraid of his own mother, not in the way other children often were. He had always come home without fear, even when his report cards were a disaster, waving them around without a trace of guilt, dismissing them with the offhanded arrogance of someone who genuinely believed that a charming omega like himself didn’t need grades to make his way in life. His mother would scold him sometimes, yes, raise her voice for effect, but she would always settle down afterward, always return to calm. Sometimes she didn’t even bother yelling; she would just sigh in that familiar way of hers, and together they would scheme about how to get through whatever problem had arisen, how to carry on as though the setback were nothing at all.

Sangwoo’s mother, on the other hand, was something else entirely. She was thoughtful, meticulous, not at all prone to letting things go, and while she couldn’t exactly be called vengeful or overtly angry, she somehow radiated a quiet authority that made her infinitely more terrifying than Gihun’s own mother ever could be. There was something about her that made you feel judged, even if she didn’t say anything at all. Gihun still remembered, down to the finest detail, the day he and Sangwoo went to tell her about the pregnancy—about Liam—and how he had trembled so badly during the conversation that his knees wouldn’t cooperate, how Sangwoo had to guide him out of the house after, because his legs wouldn’t carry him, because he was so thoroughly shaken by her response. She had said they were ruining each other’s lives. That they would regret this. That she wouldn’t help. And she meant it.

She only saw Liam in person twice, and even then, she kept her lips tightly pressed together in disapproval, though Gihun noticed how she was already softening, little by little, under the charm of a small alpha child. But sadly, the relationship between grandmother and grandson never had time to take root, never had a chance to become what it might have been.

They never spoke heart-to-heart, he and Sangwoo’s mother, never tried to clear the air, but Gihun had seen the grief in her face, the profound sense of disappointment. After Sangwoo’s fourth or fifth suicide attempt—he had lost count by then—Gihun, terrified of leaving him alone, had taken him to her. The hospital hadn’t seemed like an option because it promised a lot of problems in the future. Sangwoo was spiraling, and Gihun didn’t know what else to do. Something shifted after that visit. Their relationship began to thaw, just slightly. She seemed to understand, at last, that he wasn’t the enemy. Sangwoo also appeared somewhat lighter afterward—not healed, never healed, but lighter. He didn’t stop trying to kill himself, but at least now someone else was watching too. His mother started calling him regularly, checking in, asking where he was, what he was doing.

Sangwoo never did manage to build a new family. He poured everything into his work instead, and it was clear that his mother worried about that, grieved that her son had ended up this way. Gihun suspected that she carried deep regrets over what had happened with Liam, how things had fallen apart. Maybe that was why she accepted Cheol so easily, when Gihun introduced the boy as Sangwoo’s son, without hesitation, without questions. Maybe she wanted to believe, or needed to. Cheol’s scent had a distinct evergreen sharpness to it, and he was an unfailingly polite child, almost formally so. The kind of child who would bow properly, who would remember to use honorifics even when playing. And Sangwoo, back when they were kids, had always been that way in front of his mother, too—careful, precise, the model son.

As the car pulls up to the corner, Gihun tries to steady his nerves and his trembling fingers, which do not seem to want to calm down no matter how much he silently begs them to behave, and while Youngil gently strokes his knee and tells him that everything is going to be fine, that it’s all going to work out, that there’s nothing to worry about because they are doing the right thing, and they are doing it together, Gihun tries to believe him, and, in all honesty, a part of him does—because in the end, somehow, everything really does always manage to settle into some semblance of order, or peace, or closure, even if it’s temporary or messy or only halfway real.

He exhales with a sharp kind of focus, unbuckles his seatbelt, and steps out of the car, the early Sunday morning air cool against his face in a way that makes him pause for a heartbeat, like the moment has teeth, or meaning, or perhaps just a memory clinging to its edges. The little shop owned by Madame Cho is already open, even though it’s still early, and Gihun walks toward it with careful, deliberate steps, trying not to think too much, trying not to let the heavy thoughts clutter his chest, trying to keep the whirlwind of nerves from rising into his throat and choking him. He isn’t doing a very good job of it, but he tries nonetheless.

He climbs the steps cautiously, feeling a kind of strange disembodiment, like his legs are moving through water or fog or something less real than the present moment, and then he hears a voice—a loud, delighted cry—cutting through the haze with a piercing clarity: "Gihun!"

Lifting his head, he forces himself into some semblance of emotional composure and says, with a weak but sincere attempt at a smile, "Hello."

"Come in, come in," she urges, already stepping out from behind the counter, her tone cheerful and welcoming in a way that makes Gihun feel both comforted and panicked at once. "You’ve put on weight!" she observes with a warm smile. "I’m happy to see you!"

"I… I won’t stay long. I…" Gihun falters, his words trailing into a familiar hesitation, the kind of uncertainty that clings like wet clothes, the same way it had back then, and then finally he manages to ask, "How is Cheol?"

"He’s doing well," she says with a smile that doesn’t lose its brightness. "Though he doesn’t really look like Sangwoo. Or you." Her voice drops slightly in tone, just enough to let the implication settle heavily between them like a folded napkin of disapproval. "Well, I suppose in terms of temperament and manners, he is like Sangwoo. Such a lovely child. The entrance exams are coming soon…"

For Madame Cho, academics have always been paramount, the holy grail of life’s battles, and Gihun nods out of instinct more than conviction, the tension climbing steadily in his spine because Youngil is still waiting in the taxi, and although paying extra for the wait is no issue, there’s an undeniable pull now, a desire to return to the children as soon as possible, to feel again that firm sense of orientation, of direction, maybe even to hear someone else, yet again, confirm aloud that Gihun is not insane, that this man, this alpha he met, is indeed Liam.

"…So right now we’re thinking of applying to medical school. It’s a good choice for an omega, I think. I doubt an economics program would suit him. He’s so gentle."

And indeed, economics sounds like a terrible idea. Medicine does sound like a solid plan, especially if the boy is clever, and if he has the kind of diligence to make it through the long years of schooling, then surely, they can find a way to fund it. And wouldn’t it be a relief if, in Cheol’s case, they could manage to avoid the kind of early pregnancies that seem like a curse. Not that Liam wasn’t old enough…

"Ahem… So. Recently I met someone. An alpha." Each word comes out like a tooth being pulled without anesthetic, and it takes everything Gihun has to not trip over the sentence. "He’s thirty years old, and he…" He searches for courage, for resolve, something steady to brace against the rising tide inside his chest, and then, in a rush, finishes, "And he looks like Liam. And he had a son yesterday, and that baby smells exactly like Sangwoo."

He rushes through the last part, his voice quick and tight, not because he’s unsure of the facts but because he’s terrified of the response, terrified that he’ll have to say it again and again, that he’ll be met with disbelief or worse, with gentle pity.

"What? Could you repeat that, please?" she asks, disbelief thick in her voice as she raises her eyebrows in a way that makes Gihun immediately regret every word he just uttered, though at this point there is no turning back, no escaping the fact that he has now pulled another person into the whirlwind of doubt and hope and aching that has wrapped itself around his chest like a second skin.

Fuck, goddammit. Gihun clenches and unclenches his fists, once, twice, trying to suppress the sharp-edged panic that rises in his throat like bile.

"I am currently feeling a little, or maybe a lot, overly emotional," he begins, voice trembling despite his efforts to keep it steady and measured and calm, "and I understand that I may be judging things unfairly, that I might be seeing things that are not really there or making connections that aren’t based in fact but in desire or memory or loss. But I met a boy who, by all accounts, is the right age to be our Liam. And he has a child. A child who smells exactly like Sangwoo." He exhales, the breath shaky and uneven. "I’m going to the hospital, and I would be extremely grateful if you came with me. Only if you want to, of course. I’m not insisting or demanding anything. I just… it would mean a lot."

"Oh my God!" Madame Cho exclaims, immediately moving into action, her steps hurried and sharp, her hands reaching for something unseen, her entire body a blur of sudden energy. "Of course, I’ll go! I just need to close the shop, just give me a minute, give me a moment."

"And why not just leave Cheol here to man the register?" Gihun asks as he watches her flurry of motion.

"Have you lost your mind? He’s still a baby, and besides, he has studying to do, I keep telling him these after-school centres are giving out so many assignments these days, I barely have time to keep buying him fresh notebooks!" she mutters half to herself, half to Gihun, who, despite everything, finds himself smiling at the way her voice carries that note of familiar maternal exasperation. And somewhere in the middle of this moment, he remembers, with a strange sort of ache, how he and Sangwoo used to man this very counter in their younger years. Truly, grandchildren are loved in a very different way.

The shop smells strongly of fish, not unpleasantly, but insistently, and Gihun makes a mental note to buy some later. Actually, what he really wants is sashimi, cold and fresh and just the right kind of fatty. Of course, he is not allowed to eat sashimi now, which is annoying in a way that feels deeply unfair, like one more tiny indignity added to the growing pile of frustrations that pregnancy seems to bring. He tells himself that once Junyoung is born, he’ll have the finest sashimi available in Seoul, and he will eat it slowly, reverently, savouring each bite as if it were a reward for all of this.

He and Madame Cho leave the shop together, walking side by side while she continues to mumble things under her breath about stock and closing times and whether or not she left the backlight on. Gihun matches her pace, glancing once toward the car, which is still waiting for them in the exact same spot where they left it, and when they reach it, she instinctively moves toward the back door, but Gihun quickly reaches for the front passenger door instead and holds it open for her.

"Forgive me, but we’ll be riding in the back with Youngil," he says.

"Youngil?" she repeats, eyebrows lifting again, her voice laced with that familiar tone of maternal suspicion that suggests she is mentally making a thousand calculations and judgments in the span of a breath.

"That’s my alpha," Gihun replies, his voice firm but sheepish, and he feels the heat rising to his cheeks almost instantly. "Just get in already, please."

Madame Cho’s face remains one of stunned curiosity, but she says nothing further and enters the vehicle without protest, sliding into the seat with the practiced grace of someone who has spent a lifetime managing chaotic young people and rarely being surprised by their developments. The scent that floods the car as Youngil hears who he is to Gihun shifts almost immediately, swelling with pride and joy so potent that Gihun can practically feel it clinging to his skin, wrapping around the space like a soft invisible blanket. He closes the door behind Madame Cho and slides into the back seat beside Youngil, who reaches over immediately to place a hand on Gihun’s knee.

The motion is familiar now, soothing, automatic almost, and for the first few moments Gihun leans into it, grateful for the touch, for the anchor it offers. But as they drive, as the silence in the car grows thicker and more intimate, that same touch begins to feel different, not exactly inappropriate but certainly charged, and when Youngil’s fingers begin to drift slightly inward, the pad of his thumb tracing the inside of Gihun’s thigh with a kind of casual reverence that is anything but innocent, Gihun tenses slightly and tries to edge his knee away.

But Youngil, with that infuriatingly calm and fake-surprised look on his face, as if he’s just now noticing that his hand has travelled too far, simply adjusts the angle and continues, pretending that everything is perfectly normal, that this gesture is still part of the comforting process, when in fact it is not. His thumb continues to press just lightly enough to stir something under Gihun’s skin, and it is very clear that Youngil knows exactly what he’s doing.

There would absolutely need to be a conversation with him at some point in the near future, that much was clear—some kind of open, structured talk where boundaries could be properly discussed, and where Gihun could voice his concerns about physicality and timing and the need for clarity between what was comfort and what was flirting. But right now was not the moment for that. Right now, Gihun focused all his effort on holding himself together, on keeping his expression neutral, on ignoring the trailing fingers at his thigh, and on staring fixedly out the window while trying to summon peaceful thoughts, calming images of an evening in the motel surrounded by familiar voices, warm light, the comforting weight of a full belly, good company, and the clean, oily taste of well-prepared fish shared among everyone.

When they finally arrive at the hospital, Youngil insists, quite gently but immovably, on helping Gihun out of the car. He steadies him with one hand while balancing both heavy bags. And though Madame Cho seems outwardly calm, composed in her expressions and slow in her movements, Gihun catches something urgent flickering in her eyes, a tightness around the mouth, the way she keeps glancing toward the building's entrance, and he understands that this is serious for her, too. This is not a polite accompaniment. This is something she’s doing because a small hope has begun to bloom and it is terrifying and tender and unbearable all at once.

They step inside together, and go to the reception desk, where they are immediately addressed by the nurse stationed behind the counter, who looks up with a bright, overly cheerful expression as Gihun says they’re here for Kim Junhee.

"Oh! Are you here for Kim Junhee? Are you her parents?" the nurse asks, her voice light, expectant, already halfway anticipating a sweet, affirming reply.

"Unfortunately, we’re the parents of the child’s father," Youngil responds with a sigh, his tone controlled but weary, and while Gihun appreciates the fact that Youngil is, without hesitation, choosing to share that label with him—"we’re the parents" instead of "he’s the father"—it still stings to hear Liam being spoken about like a problem, like a failed participant in something as foundational as birth and family. There is something dismissive in the phrasing, a soft condemnation Gihun finds himself instinctively recoiling from.

"Oh…" the nurse murmurs, her voice trailing off with that awkwardness unique to healthcare workers who’ve just realized the situation is more complicated than they thought. "He left around six in the morning. It’s great that you’re here now! The mother really needs a lot of support."

Of course, Liam left. It’s not unexpected. It’s understandable, even. Junhee hadn’t exactly welcomed him warmly—she had, in fact, explicitly told him to give her space—and he had just returned from the trauma of the Games, and it’s not like he had any real chance to rest or even clean himself up. He probably needed to go home, change his clothes, maybe shower, breathe. He would come back. Gihun was sure of that. He had to. But still, it was stupid, and it was disappointing, because this was the exact kind of moment when you don’t leave, when you stay, no matter what, when you prove something unspoken just by being present.

"But I paid for the special assistant, didn’t I?" Youngil interjects with a slight frown, his voice low and edged with that sharpness that appears when something he’s meticulously planned has begun to unravel.

"Yes, yes!" the nurse says quickly, her smile now more sheepish than sunny. "But her shift hasn’t started yet, so technically she hasn’t taken over responsibility. For now, the on-duty nurse is helping the mother."

Goddammit, Liam, Gihun thinks with rising frustration, his fists briefly tightening at his sides. What a perfect opportunity this would have been to show sincerity, to demonstrate that he understood the seriousness of the situation, that he could be counted on. But of course, he’s still a child. He doesn’t yet grasp what presence means in moments like this, how vital support is, how remembered it becomes. But it’s not his fault. It’s normal. He’s young.

"All right, all right, we’ll deal with that later. What’s her room number?" Gihun asks, waving the rest of the matter away like an irritating mosquito.

"Oh, she’s on the eighth floor, room 821. Would you like me to escort you?" the nurse offers, already half-standing.

"No, no, that’s not necessary," Gihun says, brushing her off as he turns toward the elevator, the weight of everything beginning to press more heavily against him.

They step into the lift, and as it rises, Gihun explains softly, mostly for Madame Cho’s benefit, that Junhee had a caesarean section, and that relations with Liam—well, Myunggi, technically—were still distant and complicated, a situation that Madame Cho reacts to with a gentle gasp and a sympathetic nod, the kind that says she understands far more than she lets on and that she isn’t judging either side too harshly.

The hallway of the eighth floor is quiet, muted by the thick hospital carpeting and the closed doors that each hide a new story of pain, of joy, of blood and birth and loss. They find the room easily—821—and Gihun steps forward, his palm brushing once, lightly, against the door before he knocks gently and says, his voice soft but filled with warmth and concern:

"Junhee, sweetheart, may we come in?"

A quiet but confident "Yes" is heard from inside the room, and they step in together.

And immediately, it smells unmistakably of juniper.

"It’s Sangwoo." The words come quickly, too quickly, and far too confidently for a woman who, by all biological logic, should be less sensitive to pheromones. But it's Sangwoo’s mother who speaks, and as if drawn forward by some invisible string, she walks slowly toward the cradle where the baby lies, stopping just short of touching, her eyes locked on the tiny form nestled within. "He is the spitting image of Sangwoo," she says in a voice so soft it nearly dissolves into the air, and yet beneath that whisper there is a trembling, the shimmer of unshed tears.

Junhee turns her head weakly toward the baby with a worried expression, as if unsure whether she’s allowed to feel relief or fear in this moment, but she doesn’t have the strength to rise, and her gaze quickly shifts toward Gihun, silently pleading.

"Would you like me to bring him to you?" Gihun asks gently, his voice laced with quiet respect.

"Yes, thank you," Junhee answers, and as she speaks, Youngil steps forward to help ease her up in the bed, supporting her with careful hands.

Gihun approaches the cradle and lifts the newborn into his arms. The baby is astonishingly small, warm, and breathing in that delicate, fluttery way unique to the just-born, and although Gihun can’t see any of Sangwoo in the shape of his face or the tiny, furrowed brow, the scent is undeniable. That same piercing, juniper sweetness that had once clung to Sangwoo like a signature now radiates from this infant’s skin with quiet persistence. And this weight, the surprising heaviness of something so little—it feels precious in a way that strikes Gihun deep, somewhere unprotected.

He cradles the baby tightly, gazing into his face, and for one long moment, there is nothing but a swelling, all-consuming tenderness that silences every other thought. It is hard to explain what is so different about holding a grandchild versus one’s own child, but Gihun feels it. It isn’t distance or detachment. Perhaps it’s the freedom from obligation, the absence of that exhausting sense of total responsibility. This child does not need him to be everything; he can simply love. He can spoil and dote and marvel without needing to prepare for the long, uncertain road of parenting. It is a different kind of love, and it unfolds within him like the gentle blooming of something unexpected, something ancient.

Tears begin to fall again, silently this time, slipping from his cheeks and down his jaw without resistance. Gihun leans in to press a light kiss to the child’s head, then carefully passes him to Junhee, whose face contorts momentarily with pain as she adjusts her position, but then softens into something achingly maternal. Her smile is tired but profoundly tender, and her gaze as she looks down at her son is one of pure, fierce affection.

Overcome, Gihun turns away and buries his face into the curve of Youngil’s shoulder again, seeking the same comfort and grounding he always seems to find there.