He stepped back one pace from the door, and Gamja lifted the tools he’d brought. A few forceful, well-angled strikes and the door swung open easily. The neglected hinges let out a grating, ear-splitting screech.
“You might want to grease those hinges.”
It was just as he was about to head into the office with the guys who had thrown themselves flat in front of him and staged a protest — telling him to step on them if he wanted to go alone — hanging off his back like key charms.
Suddenly his head spun — and he stopped dead. He blinked, trying to bring his blurred vision back into focus, but it wasn’t easy.
“Hyung?”
“Hold on……”
He pushed Mangchi away as the man approached, studying his pallid complexion, then braced a hand against the wall beside the door, dropped his head, and steadied his breathing. It was nothing to be shocked about, really. These were symptoms he’d been dealing with frequently lately.
Fever, chills, headaches, muscle aches, nausea, lethargy, loss of appetite — and more. Common enough if you called them common, trivial enough if you called them trivial — all manner of symptoms showed up at the most inconvenient times and tormented him without mercy.
It’d almost be a relief to cough up blood and collapse — at least then he’d get a proper diagnosis. But the hospital had said all of this looked like nothing more than simple stress-induced symptoms. What reason do I have to be stressed other than Kang Jaeho? What a loud, disruptive aftermath of a breakup this was.
“Huuuh——”
A few deep inhales and exhales, and it felt somewhat better. His vision had mostly returned, and he chewed on the inside of his lip before lifting his head and stepping forward, feigning composure. He couldn’t very well use something this trivial as an excuse to lie down.
“Well now. Manager Park. You’re in there — why didn’t you open the door? Made my guy waste his energy for nothing.”
He walked over to where Manager Park was seated on the sofa, swagger in every step, and looked down at him. Both hands still shoved into his trouser pockets, he stared down at the man with thinly veiled contempt. Those snake eyes — condescending and cold — still sent a chill down his spine even after not seeing them in a while. For someone who had pretended not to notice his visit, he now had the nerve to wear a pleasant smile on that pallid face.
“Oh, has Manager Lee come to visit? My hearing’s been a little off lately.”
Manager Lee, my ass.
When this man had suddenly declared earlier in the year that he was moving into the floor above his office, he’d wondered what scheme he was cooking up — but more than half a year had passed now with no notable developments. The only thing he’d been doing was destroying his life expectancy through noise from the floor above. If that was their goal, mission accomplished. Exceeded, even.
The office held nothing but a few chairs and a sofa that wouldn’t have been out of place in a chairman’s suite. It was a barren space that gave no hint of what kind of business operated here. No desks either — figures, for a bunch of meatheads. He clicked his tongue.
A quick sweep of the interior revealed only five people holding down the fort. A lean, spare crew — nothing like his own side, who’d come rolling in with fifteen or more. Five whole people, and that’s what you’re making all that goddamn noise with? I should give all of you your funeral today.
He made a show of looking around the pointlessly bare office — wasteful given the effort he’d put into his outfit — then met those snake eyes again.
“I’ve been putting up with it for as long as I can, but I’ve reached my limit. What are you all doing up here, playing tag? That stomping is so damn loud I can barely survive down there.”
“There was no need to bring all those people——”
“Am I supposed to stop them when they follow me around of their own free will? I’m not that heartless.”
He said it with irritation and dropped down onto the sofa in front of him. Even standing for a short while was miserable.
“Ever since Manager Park’s people moved in, it’s been unbearable. I keep thinking I should buy some indoor slippers and hand them out — want me to get a few pairs?”
He said whatever came to mind without a filter, arms sprawled over the backrest of the sofa. He even made a show of counting the heads in the room on his fingers — how many should I buy?
“Haha, no need for that. I’ll tell my people to be more mindful.”
A cup of coffee had been placed in front of him in the meantime, but he didn’t touch it. Who knows what’s in it. Besides, the nausea kept rising and swallowing anything was out of the question.
He’d noticed his body deteriorating rapidly since coming up here. His stomach was churning and his hands and feet were trembling. He would have loved nothing more than to clock this smiling bastard in the face, but he couldn’t gauge whether he had enough strength to put any real force behind it. The only thing still working properly was his mouth.
“Why go to the trouble of crossing over here when you could just keep running your water business? Seems exhausting.”
“Things have been rough lately — the economy, and candy supply has been getting harder to come by…… You understand.”
“Do I look like I care?”
This snake-faced man had been shady from the very beginning. The poker face that never once flinched, never once showed irritation when he — young as he was — was called the same rank within the Gangho faction. Look at him now. Even in the face of his provocation, those snake eyes curved without a flicker, concealing whatever lay beneath.
This man never dirtied his own hands, but more than anyone, he lurked behind the scenes wanting to see him fail and take everything he had. He didn’t know why. He simply chalked it up to the kind of karma that came with being good-looking.
“Don’t be so cold. We betas have to wipe up after those alpha bastards without so much as a thank-you, and it’s not like we can get lucky like omegas and set ourselves up for life. Wouldn’t it be better if we helped each other out?”
“Hah?”
This bastard is smiling while jabbing a knife in.
In other words — he’s saying I spread my legs for Director Kang with no pride, trying to live easy like an omega even though I’m not one. Damn. He just said something incredibly foul with a smile on his face, didn’t he? That’s exactly what he meant, right?
Well damn, so that’s why people in dramas always beg the main characters not to get involved with someone at work. It seemed like his disastrous love life had been fully exposed and was being served up as common gossip. The absurdity of it made him laugh. Watching him, Manager Park flicked that serpentine tongue of his again.
“I grew up without family too, just like Manager Lee — completely alone. So this place really does feel like home to me. I have an affection for it. Surely, people who are in the same boat ought to stick together.”
“Did a little digging, did you? Well, too bad. I’m not sentimental enough to be moved by that kind of sob stor——y…… wha……”
He was shooting back at the man who kept poking at him with pointless jabs — refusing to back down — when something caught in his chest, hard, and breathing became difficult. The pounding sound he could hear now wasn’t noise from the floor above — it was his own heartbeat. The sound reverberated through his entire body and his hands and feet began to tremble uncontrollably.
Instinctively, he realized this was different from before — this wasn’t simply a stress-induced symptom stemming from his breakup.
“My, my. Are you feeling unwell?”
He parted his lips to breathe — just breathing through his nose wasn’t enough anymore — and faced Manager Park. The man was still smiling pleasantly. For just a moment, curiosity and something like fascination flickered in those eyes. His expression was at odds with the supposedly concerned question. The shirt bunched up under his right hand, which had been clutching his chest, crumpled sharply in his grip.
“You son of a…… bitch……”
The guys behind him rushed over to where he sat on the sofa and checked his complexion, but he couldn’t even get out a single word of reassurance — his mouth just opened and closed uselessly. He pressed his left hand hard over his mouth against the surging nausea and dizziness.
The timing was terrible. That man hadn’t laid a hand on him. He hadn’t drunk the coffee they’d set out, and there had been no physical contact — so there was no way to explain this other than his symptoms simply worsening, and no grounds to use it as cause for a fight after the fact.
It seems today wasn’t the right day to come.
Not wanting to show any more weakness in front of this bastard, he shoved himself up off the sofa. With his breathing labored, the loosely knotted necktie felt insufferably tight. He yanked it down roughly and made for the exit without a word of goodbye. But he didn’t make it more than a few steps before his legs gave out and he sank to the floor.
“Ugh……!”
“Hyung. Are you alright? Hyung!”
Both legs had lost all strength and were shaking badly.
Fucking hell. The doctor was definitely a quack. Rare disease, incurable illness, terminal condition — whatever it is, he’s got it. Because there was no other way to explain every inch of his body feeling this wretched.
His vision began to spin wildly, and he felt as though he was falling endlessly toward the ground. Even though he was on solid land, he was gasping as if drowning, sinking to the bottom of deep water. His consciousness flickered, as if his power were about to cut out entirely.
Through his closing eyes, the face of the snake-eyed manager drifted into view — lips and eyes curving into a smile. His plan to beat that bastard’s face to a pulp had gone up in smoke. Not only had he failed to land a single punch, but there was no time to even feel the humiliation of having shown pain and dropped to his knees in front of the man — his vision was already going dark. Damn, I dressed up thinking it was his funeral, only for it to turn out to be mine.
“Hyung. Try to stay with us!”
“Get the car ready right now!”
As he struggled to hold onto consciousness while the guys around him panicked — just as he was about to close his eyes for the last time — the grating screech of the hinge that had annoyed him on the way in sounded once more, followed by the steady, measured sound of dress shoes on the floor.
Even through his fading awareness, that sound bored itself into his ear. Who’s here?
The faction members surrounding him parted like the miracle of Moses, and someone who walked through the gap lifted him effortlessly into their arms. It was too warm, too steady to simply call it being held — it made him want to cling to it and fall asleep.
“Kang…… Jaeho……?”
Through eyes barely held open for one last moment, he thought he caught a glimpse of a familiar face.
Ah, I really can’t hold on any——more…… hey……
Swept away by the deep, rich scent that crashed over him like a wave, he lost consciousness entirely.
