Saehyeon doubted his own ears for a moment. He even raised his hand to rub his ears. But what came back wasn’t restored hearing, but only the loud exhaust sound of the car.
Gil Taeseo’s expression, leaning slightly toward the car window with the corners of his mouth raised, was calm. His tone was equally leisurely. The shamelessness of it made the meaning of his words hit belatedly.
“You… is that something you say in 21st century Korea right now?”
“What’s the problem? I can do it, so I’m saying I will.”
He said something so absurd too calmly. For a moment, words caught in his throat. Honestly, Saehyeon was utterly dumbfounded right now.
He’d just had a drink and woken up, only to find Gil Taeseo lurking in the studio like a goblin. When he came to his senses and tried to drive him out, the intruder even carried off the kid.
He’d frantically followed out only to be loaded into a car and dragged to some mysterious destination—that was the current situation. Listing it out like this, it was amazing his mind was still intact.
His head, soaked in hangover and confusion, creaked and wouldn’t turn properly. But one basic sense of crisis was certain—he couldn’t be dragged along like this.
“Stop the car right now!”
“Why should I.”
No matter what Saehyeon said, Gil Taeseo wouldn’t budge. He’d been stubborn and unyielding even in the past. Now that he’d aged considerably and his occupation was… probably what it had become, it wouldn’t be strange if he’d doubled down on that.
Saehyeon, quickly eliminating options, whipped his head around. Looking at the afterimages flickering beyond the car window, jumping out seemed impossible. Honestly, even if they’d stopped, running away with the kid made no sense. If it were before, maybe, but with this weakened body, it would clearly be far beyond his capability.
In the end, Saehyeon had no choice but to select interrogating the kidnapper again instead of escaping.
“……Where are we going? What the hell are you scheming?”
“If I tell you, will you quietly cooperate?”
He wouldn’t. He truly had not the slightest intention of doing so.
“……”
“If you’re thinking of running somehow, give it up early. I have no intention of letting you go, and if I catch you again, I won’t let it slide.”
How did he know he was thinking of running immediately?
Saehyeon lowered his head and pressed his lips shut as if avoiding the persistently piercing gaze. The child naturally came into his lowered view. The child tilted their head with tear tracks still streaked on their cheeks. But soon laughed “hehe,” apparently happy to be held tight.
The car stopped only after driving for quite a while. Through the door opening with a clack, the man bent his body. A shadow fell largely over Saehyeon, who was blinking blankly.
“Get out.”
As he hesitantly stepped on the asphalt, his arms suddenly became light. Gil Taeseo, who’d nonchalantly snatched away the child, jerked his chin toward his back.
“Choose. Will you walk on your own, or should I carry you?”
Following Gil Taeseo’s chin jerk, Saehyeon’s gaze moved from the snatched child to the surroundings. The familiar, crumbling villa complex had changed into an unfamiliar landscape at some point.
Heavily overgrown vegetation, an empty parking lot. A place that made him wonder if they’d entered some mountain lodge. In such a location stood a fairly large hospital.
The building itself seemed well-maintained, but perhaps because of the situation and setting, it gave off a somewhat eerie feeling.
So, it was perfect for this kind of misunderstanding.
‘Hu-human trafficking… organ harvesting?’
No wonder this bastard said he absolutely wouldn’t throw punches since they met again. Plus he remembered the meal money he hadn’t accepted last time. Not taking it with all limbs intact, not accepting the money—there were all these sinister reasons behind it.
As Saehyeon backed away hesitantly, something solid touched his back. Gil Taeseo’s arm had already blocked his escape route. The arm bent as it was and wrapped around his back and shoulders like vines, pulling him in.
Suddenly in a half-embraced position, a acrid scent brushed his nose. The warmth transferring to his coldly cooled body was also vivid. In a different situation with a different person, it might have been a heart-fluttering scene.
But the genre in Saehyeon’s brain was different. If others had romance, this side had horror movies or crime-related current affairs programs on infinite replay.
Right. His heart was pounding. Because hearts beat from other emotions like fear, not just fluttering feelings.
“I said the latter charges transport fees.”
Gil Taeseo’s breath, as he bent down, tickled his ear. Saehyeon, who’d squeezed his eyes shut feeling briefly dizzy, opened his mouth in a trembling voice.
“By any chance, is that transport fee like… a kidney or an eyeball… something like that…?”
“……What kind of nonsense is that again?”
In the end, after failing at 2 attempts to snatch back the child and 3 escape attempts, Saehyeon was reduced once again to laundry hanging from a utility pole as he crossed the hospital entrance.
The people he encountered while passing through the parking lot, entrance, and hallways mostly had gangster-like impressions. Without exception, burly men who looked like they could throw a punch stood at attention,
“Good day, sir!”
And every time they greeted like this, blood gushed in Saehyeon’s imagination.
When Gil Taeseo, who’d been striding along, set him down with a thud, Saehyeon already had a half-enlightened expression. The flush from blood rushing up due to his bleach-white face and posture created an eerie harmony.
“Haha……”
He thought with an empty laugh at the approaching presence. Fine, kill me. But I’m taking one of Gil Taeseo’s fingers with me.
As he was squeezing out such gangster movie-worthy lines, a strap tightly bound his forearm and a sharp needle pierced his vein.
“Now, patient. It’ll sting a little. Sti-ing.”
“?”
Saehyeon pressed his arm firmly with the cotton the nurse had given him. A moment later, a cute character bandage was placed on top of it.
“Um, patient. You mustn’t move. Now, taking the picture-.”
“……”
After having several bottles of blood extorted like that and having all kinds of pictures taken while being deprived of freedom of movement.
“Yes, come in.”
Saehyeon was sitting blankly in front of a young man wearing a white coat and even glasses. He was a man with a kind and gentle impression who looked like he wouldn’t kill even an ant.
The room he glanced around also looked like an ordinary hospital examination room. Interior mixing warm and bright wood and white tones, with even a small nameplate placed on the desk. Saehyeon’s eyes read the writing on it. Trait Department Specialist, Kim Yeonsu.
If not for Gil Taeseo sitting with legs crossed in the room and the man who’d been holding the steering wheel blocking the door, there would have been nothing problematic inside.
The processes up until now were the same. Someone coming out saying they’d received contact and immediately guiding them. And except for occasionally seeing men with fierce impressions in the hallway, it was like an ordinary hospital examination process.
“Now. Shall we take a look?”
The doctor, Kim Yeonsu, who’d been overlooking the patient looking around for a moment, opened his mouth to draw attention. The face that met Saehyeon’s gaze smiled good-naturedly.
“First of all… your pheromone levels are very bad.”
The first words that came from Kim Yeonsu’s mouth after staring at the monitor for a while were these. Levels that didn’t just fall short of average but fell far, far short.
“You’re a secondary manifestor, right? Previous trait was Beta and now Omega, and by the numbers you’re Recessive.”
Next followed confirmatory questions and answers.
“And I heard you went through pregnancy and childbirth in that situation. Is that correct?”
He didn’t know what this was about, but it seemed like he was somehow receiving treatment. While Saehyeon just moved his lips hesitantly, the answer popped out from the side.
“Yeah.”
Saehyeon glanced sideways. But Gil Taeseo’s gaze was fixed on the doctor sitting in front. The frighteningly hardened face should have been scary, and the informal speech should have been unpleasant, but the doctor actually seemed unconcerned.
“Hmm. This is more serious than I thought.”
The man lightly grabbed the monitor and turned it toward Saehyeon. Inside it, a pitch-black and pale white photo was displayed.
“Here, do you see? This is your pheromone gland.”
Where the pen pointed was a bizarrely distorted, very faint and strange shape, like chewed and spat-out gum.
“This should originally be swollen to some degree and have a nice round shape. But right now it’s shriveled up like only the shell remains.”
From a person’s health and individual physical reactions to emotions. It looked too insignificant to be a powerful organ that could shake all of that.
“Like this, you won’t be able to properly generate or process pheromones. And then the entire body will inevitably be under serious strain……”
As he just blinked, the doctor kindly added supplementary explanation. He said it was like a fish without gills, by comparison. The body was slowly but steadily breaking down, and it seemed to have progressed quite a bit.
“Taeseo-ya. I’ll just speak frankly. You asked me last time, right? Whether late-manifesting Omegas would strain their bodies if they got pregnant.”
The doctor, who’d swallowed briefly, fixed his gaze on Gil Taeseo’s side. He seemed to know that’s where the decision-making power lay.
“My answer then was no. Because even secondary manifestors, depending on the case, if you take enough time to stabilize the trait, you can live without problems and even get pregnant. But a few cases are different.”
If an Omega who manifested through continuous exposure to a specific trait person’s pheromones went through pregnancy and childbirth immediately before the trait stabilized, then the matter changes.
“If you don’t actively treat this with the Alpha partner… honestly, it’s hard to expect a good prognosis. Right now, think of it as a ticking time bomb state, barely holding on.”
While various conversations went back and forth between Gil Taeseo and the doctor, Saehyeon stared blankly at the monitor. It seemed his body’s condition was more serious than he’d thought. Really to the point of racing against time.
“Then. How should the treatment be done?”
“It’s simple.”
Continuous sexual contact with the Alpha partner who contributed to manifestation and pregnancy to absorb pheromones.
“The more full-scale the better, the more mucous membranes touch the better. The most efficient would still be penetrative sex, right?”
With a pure and chaste face that seemed billions of years away from such topics, the doctor spat out a diagnosis that might appear in a 19+ web novel.
