A child. Have his child.
It wasn’t a proposal he hadn’t anticipated. He already knew how the original story flowed. If anything, the situation was tamer than the source material — but that didn’t make it any less jarring.
Siyeon ran his tongue over his dry lips and shot back a question.
“And if I say no, will you let me go?”
“Are you planning to refuse?”
“No sane person would accept a proposal like that.”
Siyeon let out a disbelieving laugh, and Beom Yisu, as if on cue, laid down the card he’d been holding in reserve.
“Hong Siyeon’s debt — five hundred million, plus interest. I’ll clear all of it.”
Principal plus interest came out to roughly a billion. Not a small sum, but asking someone to bear a child for just that much? He’s supposed to be a conglomerate heir — smaller appetite than I expected. The moment Siyeon swallowed that private scoff, Beom Yisu’s voice followed, as if he’d read his mind.
“That, of course, is the advance payment. If you successfully deliver the child, I’ll add three times that as the final settlement.”
Three times the advance on top of it…… roughly three billion. Enough to live comfortably after the contract was done.
Honestly? He was tempted. He had absolutely zero desire to end up locked away by that vile couple, exploited and broken until he died — not a single shred of him wanted that ending. But given the circumstances, he couldn’t throw away the option of compromise entirely either.
No matter how many times he ran, if fate kept dragging him back to the same place —
If I can’t escape it, shouldn’t I at least have something to hold onto?
The real question was whether that payment would actually end up in his hands. In the original story, what reached the protagonist under the same terms had been barely a pittance.
Manager Kang had obviously skimmed everything off the top, playing broker in the middle. If he wedged himself in again this time, the outcome wouldn’t be any different.
If I could just cut Manager Kang out of the equation…… things would turn out better than the original.
But that man had a nose like a bloodhound for money. A loan shark relentless enough to track down Siyeon despite every desperate attempt at hiding — there was no way he’d quietly step aside when someone like Beom Yisu was in the picture.
The gut feeling alone was enough. The look he’d shot Beom Yisu today…… it had said everything. He was going to latch on by any means necessary and carve out a bigger cut for himself.
After chewing on it a while longer, Siyeon gnawed at his lip and looked up.
“You really are a gambler. Suddenly raising the stakes like this.”
“I have no intention of gambling with a child’s life. I simply offered fair compensation for a legitimate service.”
“Ah. A service.”
Siyeon’s words stalled for a moment before his mouth curved into a wry smile. Right — that’s exactly the kind of character he is. An arrogant conglomerate heir straight out of a trashy novel, answering exactly as expected. The predictability of it pulled a breath of dry sarcasm out of him.
“You really seem to believe money can solve anything.”
“Most things, yes. Do you need more time to think?”
“No. I’m not doing it.”
At the flat refusal, Beom Yisu held Siyeon’s gaze for a moment, then tilted his head slightly — wearing an expression that said he simply couldn’t comprehend it.
“Hong Siyeon. You need the money.”
It was nothing but a statement of fact, but it wasn’t exactly pleasant to be on the receiving end of.
The nerve of this guy.
Siyeon clicked his tongue inwardly. He was annoyed, sure — but it wasn’t as though it had actually wounded him. He’d long since decided this body and his real self were separate things, so he met Beom Yisu’s eyes without flinching and opened his mouth.
“I do need it. Funny enough, exactly as much as you’re offering.”
“Then you’re saying crawling back under a garbage creditor is better than accepting my proposal?”
“How I repay my debt has nothing to do with you.”
The moment he drew that line, the impassive expression Beom Yisu had worn this entire time shifted — his eyes dropping a degree colder, heavier. Even without words, the drop in his mood was palpable enough to feel.
“Then I suppose I’ll simply have to make myself directly involved.”
A low murmur, almost like a thought spoken aloud. The sharpness of it, beyond what Siyeon had expected, made him hesitate and take a small step back.
But Beom Yisu stepped forward, closing the distance without any intention of letting him go.
“What do you……”
“If rough handling is what you prefer, I can accommodate that taste.”
Gone was the veneer of a gentleman making a business proposition. Now it was an open threat. For a moment, the cold-blooded Beom Yisu from the original story seemed to bleed through.
If I push back any further, are we heading down the original route?
That was the one thing he’d sooner die than allow — which meant he needed to find a way to puncture this suffocating atmosphere. In situations like these, you had to knock the other person off-balance first. Whether that meant throwing the first punch, spitting in their face, or flinging sand in their eyes — you had to scramble their head to create an opening.
And through that split-second gap, he had to steer things into his favor. That was exactly why he went for this drastic move.
“Then ten times!”
Siyeon’s clear voice sliced through the silence and rang out across the alley in Nakwon-dong.
“Give me ten times your proposed advance, and I’ll seriously consider it.”
At the audacious counter, the corner of Beom Yisu’s mouth slowly twisted. Between the stuttering flicker of the dim streetlamp, Siyeon could feel those eyes fixed directly on him.
“You’re free to inflate your own worth.”
Beom Yisu’s expression gave nothing away. Siyeon felt a little like a puppy baring its teeth at a tiger — but he held the other man’s gaze and kept his composure anyway.
Then Beom Yisu furrowed his brow as though actually deliberating, and leaned in, voice dropping to something dangerously low.
“But I’d like to verify for myself whether you’re worth that much.”
Whether it was mockery or genuine interest, he couldn’t tell. At the probing words, Siyeon forced a breezy laugh and shrugged.
“You said money solves everything — so you must not want to invest even that much?”
“I make it a rule not to enter losing contracts.”
“Then we’re done here. You’re the one who dragged me into this and threatened me into bearing your child.”
He fired back with full bravado, but he could feel the stiffness crawling up his own throat.
……Too high. I went too high, didn’t I.
Ten times the advance of one billion…… was that a hundred billion? Honestly, it was an absurd amount. He had to wonder, just as Beom Yisu had implied, whether this body was worth pricing at that level. But wasn’t it Beom Yisu who had proudly declared that money could solve anything?
Which meant right now, the reason the offer was being resisted had to be that the amount was insufficient — and if the answer here was “I can’t give you that,” it was Beom Yisu’s dignity that would crumble.
Then back off if you’re scared. If it’s just you two out of the picture, I only have to dodge Manager Kang — and that’s nothing.
But what if he actually said yes? Even if Manager Kang skimmed as much as he had in the original, Siyeon would still end up with more than what was left behind. And with enough money, there’d be chances to run when the right moment came.
No matter what, his situation would be better than being destitute. So if the offer was accepted, it was the winning play. Even as unease and calculation clashed inside him, Siyeon kept a shameless face and watched Beom Yisu’s expression carefully.
“Just because I have debt doesn’t mean I’d want to carry a stranger’s child out of nowhere. We only just met today.”
He’d been running the numbers in his head, but now Siyeon let his face fall into something fragile and pitiful — fingers curling tight into his collar. Like a timid, tragic heroine. If he drifted too far from the original trajectory, things would get hard to control — so for now, it was time to look thoroughly, convincingly weak.
“Ohh, this is really troubling. I’ve never even…… done that sort of thing before……”
Siyeon pressed a hand to his forehead, murmuring the words just a shade too loudly to be a genuine aside. A sidelong glance, a voice that trembled with just the right awkwardness. Even to his own ears it was clunky — but he didn’t miss the moment Beom Yisu’s eyes flickered.
It seemed the face layered with a lifetime of hardship had managed to paper over every crack.
“If that’s the concern, we can start by getting to know each other.”
“……Getting to know each other?”
The answer that followed was far too specific.
“We’ll proceed starting with pheromone partnering. After that, a privacy clause can be added if you want. But……”
His gaze, mid-sentence, locked onto Siyeon’s face.
“You’ll need to prove that you’re worth what I’m paying for.”
Still the same dry delivery — but the eyes that bore into Siyeon’s, as though this entire negotiation had already been decided, were burning.
“W-wait. That sounds like you want to sign the contract right now.”
“We’ll need to prepare the paperwork, so not immediately. We’ll settle it as a verbal agreement for now.”
“No, that’s not what I meant…… you’re actually going to give it to me? Ten times the advance — that’s a hundred billion.”
“I simply judged that cutting out unnecessary time wasting was the more profitable choice.”
Siyeon’s face went momentarily blank — but Beom Yisu paid it no mind. He glanced at his wristwatch and delivered the next words without a flicker of emotion.
“Take it. I’ll send the detailed terms once they’re drawn up.”
A phone was extended toward him. When Siyeon hesitated, Beom Yisu’s brow tightened. As if to say he would not allow any further waste of time — he grabbed Siyeon’s wrist roughly and forced the phone into his hand.
“Going forward, it would be wise not to think about pulling any tricks or running. Accepting this proposal is the most rational choice available to Hong Siyeon.”
