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“Young Master.”
The gazes brimming with admiration and curiosity from all directions didn’t faze him. His eyes, which had been fixed solely on Raon, briefly shifted to Joon before returning to her.
There she was—Raon, sipping the drink Hye-sung had handed her as she looked around at the festival.
Though he had tried to suppress his pheromones, it seemed that seeing Raon nearly fall after being jostled by the crowd had momentarily shattered his focus. A faint trace of his pheromones, so subtle even he hadn’t noticed, leaked out, causing the delicate elbow he held in his hand to tremble. He quickly withdrew himself from view.
It was reflexive.
Even Do-kyung felt momentarily bewildered about why he had moved out of Raon’s line of sight. But then, watching her turn her head this way and that in search of him, he let out a sigh-like chuckle.
And then it hit him—the reason he had hidden.
He was afraid.
Though he had come to the school because he wanted to see Raon, he lacked the courage to face her.
Her expression the last time they met had been so cold that he feared he wouldn’t be able to bear it if she looked at him like that again.
With a self-deprecating smile, Do-kyung took one last mental image of Raon. She was faintly smiling, enjoying the music.
The scent of Raon’s pheromones, even up close, was still pleasant. The refreshing sensation made his chest feel lighter. It was only now, through her pheromones, that he realized he hadn’t been breathing properly these past few days.
Finding her amidst the sea of people wasn’t difficult. Among the myriad unpleasant pheromones swirling around, Raon’s stood out as refreshingly distinct.
“Young Master. We’re late.”
Joon urged him with a sigh, and Do-kyung reluctantly turned away.
They were currently en route to the negotiation table with Sejin Corporation. If Do-kyung hadn’t detoured to catch a glimpse of Raon, they would have arrived long ago.
As Joon followed behind, he reported,
“Sejin is relentlessly demanding we hand over Jin Si-yoon.”
“Tell them I’m not done dealing with their eldest son yet, so I can’t give him back.”
Do-kyung spoke dismissively as he lit a cigarette. Joon, accustomed to this routine, shrugged as he flicked the lighter for him.
“I already told them that. They threatened war if we so much as touched a finger on him.”
“It’s not the Middle Ages. What war? Do they even think they can win a fight?”
Do-kyung curled his lips in irritation.
Jin Si-yoon. He was the mastermind behind Raon’s kidnapping and the president of Sejin Construction, the same man who had lost both of his testicles because of Do-kyung. He was also the eldest son of Sejin Corporation, a corporate mafia group akin to Han Young.
Being around the same age as Do-kyung, Jin Si-yoon had constantly been compared to him and had harbored an unrelenting sense of inferiority toward Do-kyung ever since manifesting as an extreme Alpha.
“The vice-president is also insisting we hand over Jin Si-yoon...”
At those words, Do-kyung smirked as he recalled Jin Si-yoon, neatly stashed away in his warehouse. Even before receiving the warning not to lay a finger on him, Jin Si-yoon’s lower body had long been ruined.
Do-kyung flicked the cigarette in his mouth.
“Tell them to go fuck themselves.”
The next night, cloaked in darkness, a scream echoed through the moonlit space, tinged with a bluish hue.
“Ugh!”
In the warehouse Do-kyung favored, Jin Si-yoon, the eldest son of Sejin, writhed on the floor.
Tightly bound to a chair, he had fallen onto the ground, his once sleek appearance nowhere to be found. “Emaciated” didn’t even begin to describe his condition.
Joon shuddered behind Do-kyung as he glanced at Jin Si-yoon’s disfigured face.
His entire body was covered in deep blue bruises, his eyelids swollen to the point where no whites of his eyes were visible. One cheek, grotesquely swollen as if someone had stomped on it, bore a long, deep gash crusted over with dark red scabs. Were it not for the intermittent rise and fall of his gasping chest, one might have mistaken him for dead.
It had been a week since that day—since Jin Si-yoon had been dragged here and left in this state. Simultaneously, it had been a week since Do-kyung began beating him once a day.
Despite receiving hundreds of calls demanding his return, Do-kyung ignored them all, focusing instead on completely destroying Jin Si-yoon.
Even Professor Yang, who had been tasked with treating Jin Si-yoon’s wounds, and Joon, who witnessed everything, couldn’t help but shudder and look away.
“At this rate, it’s only a matter of time before someone dies.”
Professor Yang clucked his tongue and sighed deeply.
Recalling how Do-kyung had instructed him days ago to keep Jin Si-yoon alive after rendering him impotent, Yang gathered his medical kit.
Seeing Jin Si-yoon convulse and faint, Yang figured it was time for another round of emergency treatment.
Sure enough—
Do-kyung lit another cigarette with a nod of his chin. Joon, standing beside him, flicked the lighter, and soon cigarette smoke curled into the air.
After tucking the lighter back into his pocket, Joon retrieved Do-kyung’s phone and handed it to him.
“The vice-president says if you don’t return home within thirty minutes, you should prepare yourself.”
“...”
Do-kyung glanced indifferently at the text message displayed on the screen and snorted.
“Looks like he’s planning another tantrum over yesterday’s incident.”
“...Considering what Young Master has done, it’s entirely possible.”
Joon replied with a grimace as he tucked the phone away. There was no need to mention the dozen missed calls from Mu-jin before the text arrived.
Last night, thanks to Do-kyung suddenly wanting to see Raon and turning the car around, negotiations with Sejin had started two hours late.
Sejin’s side was furious, ready to flip the table if Jin Si-yoon weren’t being held hostage. To add insult to injury, when Do-kyung appeared alone without Jin Si-yoon, Sejin’s chairman, Jin Han-hong, nearly collapsed in frustration.
Watching their reactions, Do-kyung smirked, not even bothering to sit down.
[It seems you don’t know who should be angry right now… If you’re so upset, why did you wait two hours instead of just leaving?]
Then, as if to prove he’d been shoved out, Do-kyung left after delivering one last remark.
[Oh, and stop dreaming about seeing your grandson. That’s why I came out here.]
Naturally, Jin Han-hong foamed at the mouth and collapsed backward.
Since then, this had been the situation. Not only Do-kyung’s phone but also Joon’s drained at lightning speed, like 5G data.
It was laughable how they, who had resorted to the despicable tactic of kidnapping, now acted as if they were the victims, throwing a fit.
Joon sighed deeply and asked,
“Are you not going?”
“What’s the point of going if I’m only going to hear unpleasant things?”
Do-kyung replied indifferently, kicking Jin Si-yoon’s leg sprawled on the floor before walking away.
Ignoring Professor Yang’s panicked shouting from behind, Do-kyung blinked lazily, leaning against the window to gaze up at the night sky.
By now, the festival at school must be in full swing.
“Is she still there today?”
Do-kyung chuckled softly, recalling Raon’s unmistakable presence amidst the crowd.
Standing beside him, Joon cautiously asked,
“Have you decided to stop attending school altogether?”
Do-kyung, lost in thoughts of Raon, raised an eyebrow slightly.
“You’ve skipped exams and are short on attendance. Two academic warnings mean expulsion. Are you sure this is okay?”
“...”
“The chairman’s been plotting, you know. Rumor has it among the secretaries that if he lines up all the matchmaking profiles, it’ll circle Seoul.”
Joon shrugged, recalling the handful of profile photos sent to Do-kyung’s phone days ago.
“The chairman said if you absolutely refuse to go on blind dates, then bring him either your business degree or Yoo Ra-on herself.”
Before Joon could finish, Do-kyung snorted. Anticipating this reaction, Joon asked,
“Is it over between you and Yoo Ra-on?”
“How can something end if it never began?”
Do-kyung’s curt reply made Joon blink twice in rapid succession. But then, nodding in understanding, he replied,
“True. It wasn’t a proper beginning, so discussing an end would be excessive. Your relationship was merely contractual.”
“...”
“Do you feel better saying it like that?”
“Not particularly.”
Do-kyung glared silently at Joon, who stared back blankly. Then, clicking his tongue, Do-kyung turned away. He had nothing to say—Joon wasn’t wrong.
End. Just days ago, Do-kyung had reacted violently to the mere mention of the word “end,” claiming the right to conclude rested solely with him. Now, he seemed eerily calm, almost unrecognizable.
As Joon watched Do-kyung’s profile bathed in the starless night sky, he posed a question that remained unanswered:
“So, are you giving up just like that?”
Joon knew more about Do-kyung and Raon’s situation than anyone else, aside from the two involved.
From the start, he knew Do-kyung was expressing a kind of interest in Raon that was unlike anything he’d shown before.
Suddenly devising ways to befriend someone, or meticulously setting aside time to meet someone despite his busy schedule—these were things Do-kyung had never done.
To Joon, who had served Do-kyung loyally for years, the man named Han Do-kyung related to Yoo Ra-on felt foreign and unfamiliar.
Pretending not to notice the emotions welling up inside him was impossible. Even the elders of the Han family, who only heard snippets of stories from afar, recognized those feelings. Only Do-kyung seemed oblivious.
‘But it wasn’t the end.’
Joon muttered inwardly as he recalled the previous night.
The fact that Do-kyung genuinely liked someone and was now tiptoeing around that person’s feelings was surprising enough—but hiding while watching over her?! This was Han Do-kyung!
In all his years serving Do-kyung, never once had he seen him run away.
Joon gazed at Do-kyung as if witnessing something extraordinary, then quietly pulled the corners of his lips into a smile.
While part of him worried about Do-kyung, another part found the situation oddly amusing.