Over the past few years while committing all sorts of sordid acts, there was one thing Gil Taeseo had become certain of. To move a person, you had to seize their weakness. Something they absolutely wouldn’t want to lose. Or something they’d jump into a pit of fire for. For example, things like wealth, prestige, power, and children.
In this case, it was the last one. A child. If there was one difference, it was that unlike usual, this time his own blood was half-mixed into that child.
“Daddyyy!”
Gil Taeseo walked calmly and steadily. No matter how much the child tucked under his arm struggled, there wasn’t a single waver. Just looking at his expression and gait, you wouldn’t think he was kidnapping a resisting child.
“Hey, squirt. Cry louder.”
The kidnapper even ordered louder crying with an indifferent face. It seemed he was using the child outright as a trumpet to summon the parent.
The child who started crying louder when the man lowered his head and said something. This sight looked exactly like a young child frightened after being threatened by an unfamiliar gangster.
If only it weren’t for what the child blurted out while crying.
“Waaaahhh! ……Mister. I’m not squirt, I’m Taesol.”
At the brazen words, Gil Taeseo scoffed quietly. Still, the man’s tongue rolled once inside his mouth. As if engraving the name.
“Right, Gil Taesol.”
“Lee Taesol!”
“Yeah. Gil Taesol.”
“Gah! Daddyyy!”
This scream seemed to be let out from genuine annoyance. Hearing that sound, Gil Taeseo recalled their first meeting a few hours ago.
***
The gazes of the large man and small child collided head-on in midair. What broke the suffocating silence that had continued for a while was a groan from Lee Saehyeon. Saehyeon, who had been nodding off while clinging to the warm body, had passed out as soon as they entered the house. So oblivious to the world that he was talking in his sleep. It was the final stage of Lee Saehyeon’s drunken habits.
“Mmmngh……”
As soon as that sound was heard, the child ran to the entrance in one bound. Like a tiny rabbit the size of a mouse’s tail popping out of a burrow.
“Put him down! Put daddy down!”
The way he clung tightly to his leg and shook was quite desperate. His body was so small it could easily be lifted with one hand. Naturally, the physical impact he could give with that body was minimal. But something else seized and shook Gil Taeseo.
Things like the child’s body, warm and soft from just waking up, the familiar eyes looking up at him. That mercilessly tore through his exposed, defenseless insides.
“You’ll fall on your ass doing that.”
When the hopping child staggered as if he’d fall backwards, the man caught him in one swoop. The child who was suddenly dangling in the air widened his eyes and froze. Taking advantage of that gap, Taeseo quickly removed not only his own shoes but Saehyeon’s as well. By the time he crossed the entrance and stepped on the floor, he was carrying the father and son, one in each arm.
When he lightly dropped them one by one onto the blanket, both their trembling forms were funny. Though the funniest thing in this situation was himself.
“Daddy.”
As soon as his bottom touched the soft blanket, the child stuck to Saehyeon with a slap. Gil Taeseo, who had been quietly looking down at that sight, slowly lowered his body and sat. As his vision lowered, the child came into closer view.
Hair so light in color it could almost pass for blonde at a glance, and large gray eyes. Looking at the familiarly sculpted features, he couldn’t help but know.
“You’d have to be a moron not to know.”
The alpha bastard he’d cursed viciously and torn to shreds in his mind was himself. A hollow laugh escaped at that fact.
The man who’d been swallowing all sorts of curses lowered his gaze at the feeling of his shirt being tugged. Small, fragile, living and breathing evidence of sin asked with sparkling eyes.
“Daddy…… did you come to get me?”
If it were before he wouldn’t know, but now Lee Saehyeon’s wishes weren’t important. No, they were important, but they were scheduled to be ignored due to lower priority. With his own separate greed to keep Lee Saehyeon by his side no matter what.
Greed ruins people and corrupts relationships. Gil Taeseo himself knew that better than anyone. But there was an inevitable gap between knowing something and choosing it. He understood that now. Gil Taeseo decided today—perhaps just now—to commit another foolish act.
“Yeah.”
The child’s obvious gaze pierced into the relatively house-sized man. A body that looked exactly like his own but was much sturdier and larger. A gloomy shadow fell over the child’s face as he looked back and forth between that body and his own.
“Daddy…… always gets happy when he sees my face, then gets sad again.”
Small hands touched Lee Saehyeon’s pale cheeks. The hands like maple leaves moved gently over the sunken cheeks with no flesh. Each movement was careful, as if holding clouds or cotton candy.
“Daddy’s expression is always…… my face.”
The child said that when he was rolling around on the blanket waiting for daddy and suddenly lifted his head, he saw his reflection in the refrigerator. It was exactly that face. The child’s face with all expression evaporated looked peaceful at a glance and somewhat melancholic. As if accepting a sad ending despite having expected and waited for it for a long time.
“……Do you hate me?”
Me, who left you in misfortune, yet suddenly appeared to take away what’s most precious?
The child lifted his head and quietly looked into the man’s face. His obvious gaze moved as if searching for something, then rolled back again to return to his daddy. Daddy sleeping with a peaceful face, different from usual.
“……But it’s okay. You’re going to save daddy now, right?”
Like a prince or hero from a fairy tale.
In the fairy tale books daddy read to him, there was always a hero or prince. He always thought: someday, I’ll become a hero who saves daddy.
But even after sleeping ten nights, twenty nights, his body was still smaller than daddy’s. To reach the sink he always had to step on a chair. During that time, daddy continued to hurt and became increasingly exhausted.
To the point where one day when he woke up, he’d even forgotten Lee Taesol’s own name. Before, he’d always called him ‘Taesol-ah.’
“Prince my ass. More like a demon bastard.”
Gil Taeseo, who had been quietly listening, scoffed. It was something he could say because he didn’t know that it was himself who had ruined the daddy he thought of so preciously.
A strange sound, whether ‘paeng’ or ‘hing,’ split the sunken air. At that sound, Gil Taeseo turned his gaze, which had been fixed on Lee Saehyeon, to the side. The face that had been fine until just now was suddenly covered in tears. With that face, the child mumbled.
“I’m…… all grown up. So it’s okay…… even if daddy goes, I can…… *hng*.”
The way he bit his lips tightly and made a walnut on his chin was funny, inappropriate for the situation. Gil Taeseo reached out his hand and lightly touched the child’s cheek. The startled child looked this way. With tears pooling in his already large eyes, they looked like the small glass marbles he used to play with as a child.
“Why would I leave you behind?”
What on earth was he thinking with that small head? Whether it was because he was a kid or hadn’t fully woken up, his tongue was all twisted and he couldn’t even pronounce properly. The way he insisted he was all grown up was funny.
Right. It should definitely be funny. Somehow he couldn’t laugh properly.
“You have to do your part in kidnapping your daddy.”
Gil Taeseo and the child had a strange agreement like that until dawn broke. It was the full story of the kidnapping and abduction case that only Lee Saehyeon didn’t know about.
***
“Look at that. I told you he’d follow like his tail’s on fire if you’re here.”
Gil Taeseo bent down and whispered to the child dangling along. Hearing those words, the child’s cheeks couldn’t help but twitch. His cheeks were so chubby that even from an angle where only the top of his head was visible, his baby fat bulged out on both sides, fully visible.
Walking with long strides, the car soon came into view. Gil Taeseo bent his body and sat down inside the open door. The child was still tucked between his arms.
A moment later, Saehyeon appeared staggering. He’d run at full speed in his own way, but he couldn’t quite catch up to the calmly walking Gil Taeseo and was quite delayed. He was even empty-handed while the other was carrying a four or five-year-old child.
The air seemed to sharply scrape past his lungs. Pressing down hard on his aching chest, Saehyeon shouted.
“Huff huff, hey you bastard, what, do you have motors on your legs……”
It was prey that approached fearlessly in front of the car door gaping open like a demon’s mouth. There was no way the man lurking inside the car, waiting for this moment, would miss it. A hand that suddenly popped out grabbed the defenseless arm and pulled sharply.
A soft, cool sensation touched his knees, and a firm arm caught his body that had been about to collapse forward.
“Gotcha.”
When he lifted his head, Gil Taeseo’s chest and chin were right there, close enough to touch. Before he knew it, Saehyeon, who had not only entered the back seat of the car but was half-embraced, startled and trembled. He immediately tried to push his body back, but the escape route was already blocked.
Through the car window, he could see the culprit who had quickly closed the door.
‘The person I saw before…… it’s that guy.’
Tall as a door with a blunt face. It was the man who had accompanied them from when he reunited with Gil Taeseo until he became a greedy pelican at the high-end restaurant.
When their eyes met, Shin Seokwon, who slightly bowed his head, went around the car body and climbed into the driver’s seat. When the sound of the door closing once more rang out, Saehyeon snapped to his senses.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing right now!”
When he reached out and pushed hard at the chest, the body unexpectedly retreated easily. It was a situation where it was rather embarrassing that he’d stretched out his arms with all his might, assuming the body wouldn’t budge. Saehyeon subtly folded his extended arms and hands.
“Daddyyy……”
Into the space created by Gil Taeseo retreating, the whimpering child burrowed in. Lee Saehyeon’s hands were still fumbling, but as if it were natural, he patted the child’s back. Gil Taeseo’s eyes swept over the two people stuck together. His graceful cheek briefly puffed up. The man who’d been rolling his tongue spat out words.
“Well. Kidnapping slash abduction?”
It was a shocking word choice with absolutely no reward for the buildup.
