After his conversation with Beom Yisu, Siyeon didn’t return to the Nakwon-dong church until the sun had fully set. Part of it was that the back-and-forth with Manager Kang had dragged on longer than expected — but even after all that, Siyeon had stayed behind in the emptied space, alone with his thoughts.
Was it the right choice?
Cutting Manager Kang out and taking Beom Yisu’s hand — that was probably the best route available right now. No matter how many hypotheticals he ran through trying to find an alternative, nothing better came to mind.
And why would it? The money he stood to receive was a staggering 3.7 billion won.
Not even in his past life — when he’d lived in a single room and worked at a small print shop — had he ever come close to a sum like this. Not even the original protagonist had gotten his hands on that kind of money. So in a way, this was the first real success Siyeon had claimed entirely on his own.
And yet — something kept nagging at the back of his mind. No matter how much money was on the table, there was a deep psychological resistance he couldn’t shake.
To have a child, that means… s-sex. We’d have to have sex. And with three people, no less!
They were all fundamentally male — so how exactly was that supposed to work? If he’d known it would come to this, he wouldn’t have skimmed past the explicit scenes. He would’ve read every word carefully. Not knowing anything only made him more anxious for no good reason.
Oh, forget it. I’ll figure it out when it happens.
After agonizing over it for quite a while, Siyeon eventually came back to the church having found no real alternative. He pushed open the church door, aching body and all — and that’s when it hit him.
A sharp, acrid smell of char. His nose instinctively scrunched at the strange smoke and the unnatural odor.
What’s this?
He didn’t even have time to process what was happening. The moment he stepped inside, the sound of a rough, scratchy cough came from deeper within.
“…Siyeon? Is that you?”
Deaconess Kim’s face had gone completely pale. Something had clearly happened while he was away.
“Deaconess!”
Startled, Siyeon rushed over and caught her — she looked like she might collapse at any moment. There were no visible injuries, but the way her shoulders were trembling made it clear she’d been far more shaken than that.
“While you were gone — a man came.”
Deaconess Kim steadied herself just enough to continue. She hadn’t named anyone specifically, but a bad feeling crept over Siyeon, and his mouth went dry.
“This… what on earth…”
He followed her hurriedly inside, and the church was, in a word, a disaster. Torn pages of a Bible were scattered across the floor. Water stains and muddy footprints were smeared and spread everywhere in a filthy tangle.
But worst of all — the photographs that had been hanging on the walls. Among them, only the ones with Siyeon’s face had been targeted with particular fixation. As if precisely cutting out just his face — torn with obsessive, deliberate violence. This wasn’t hired muscle. That kind of vivid, focused malice was… unmistakable.
He glanced up, and Deaconess Kim held out a slip of paper she’d been clutching in her hand. On the crumpled sheet, a message had been scrawled in rough, careless strokes.
“Lucky bastard. Don’t think I’ll go easy on you next time.”
…Manager Kang, that son of a bitch. How did he find this place? Siyeon hadn’t anticipated him showing up here at all — his hands trembled slightly. Could it be because of the hired men from earlier? They’d been watching his face closely.
Right. Even if they’d been dispatched by Beomyeong, among the lower-quality ones, one or two might have had ties to Manager Kang. The original Hong Siyeon had also been chased by Manager Kang’s informants — so the assumption wasn’t far-fetched.
If I’d known it would come to this, I should’ve just stayed in the church instead of going out for a walk.
Then he wouldn’t have run into Beom Yisu, and he wouldn’t have run into Manager Kang either. Of course, getting through today safely wasn’t a fundamental solution to anything — but he regretted it anyway, for no good reason. As Siyeon’s gaze moved back and forth between the torn photo and the note, Deaconess Kim’s voice continued, carefully.
“Siyeon — are you going to report this to the police?”
What good would that do? Strictly speaking, he was the one who’d been running from debt collectors.
“Oh — no! This is just… there are some circumstances involved.”
“I didn’t even know you were being chased by someone like that… Does Mr. Seong know about this?”
The protagonist’s adoptive parents — they don’t even appear in the original story. With the adoption already formally dissolved, there was no reason to see or even contact someone called Mr. Seong, so Siyeon shook his head firmly. Whatever meaning Deaconess Kim read into that, she reached out and took his hand with a worried expression.
“You’ve been carrying a lot on your own, haven’t you.”
It was an unconditional concern — the kind he had never once received in real life. What kind of history did she have with the original protagonist in his childhood, to treat him this well?
Because she’s religious? That couldn’t be it. The original Siyeon — an orphan — had also come from an orphanage under the church. No, this was simply because Deaconess Kim was a warm person at her core. Even the last remnants of his distrust seemed to melt in that warmth.
“I’m so sorry that something like this happened because of me, Deaconess.”
“Don’t say that — how is this your fault? And besides, we were already planning to leave this place soon anyway, so don’t worry, Siyeon.”
Deaconess Kim shook her head quietly. Siyeon let out the breath he’d been holding — a long, slow exhale. The char smell seeped deep into his lungs with it, filling his nose with unpleasant air.
It felt strange that someone who wasn’t even family was worrying about him like this — but more than the strangeness, what came first was gratitude. And he felt guilty, too, for what felt like dragging Deaconess Kim into danger.
“You’ll need to clear out of here now too… do you have somewhere to go?”
He did have a place. He just didn’t want to go. If he had his way, he’d rather go to the job Deaconess Kim had told him about, or leave for somewhere else entirely and follow her there.
But Manager Kang and that couple would obviously come after him. He couldn’t keep burdening the Deaconess any further — so Siyeon forced a smile, pretending to be fine.
“Yes, actually — I just came from meeting with an acquaintance. I’ve arranged to stay there for the time being.”
“They’re a good person, right? If anything feels off, make sure you tell me.”
“They’re really fine. Everything you’ve done for me up until now… that’s more than enough.”
At her repeated checking-in, Siyeon nodded. Trying to act like it was nothing, he started picking up the torn photo fragments one by one. Then, struck by a sudden thought, he carefully tucked the crumpled shard of a face from the photo into his chest and said:
“There’s actually… one thing I’d like to ask of you.”
***
That night, Siyeon didn’t go straight to Beom Yisu’s home. He stayed at the church. Since it was set to be demolished soon, this would likely be his last night here.
Deaconess Kim said she’d finish sorting through the rest of the things, and sent Siyeon to the room first. She pulled out a blanket and handed it to him, then turned on the light in the inner room — a flickering yellow lamp lit up the narrow space.
“Don’t think about anything and just rest. Even if you feel okay, full recovery takes time — don’t push yourself too hard.”
When Deaconess Kim closed the door and left, the sense that he’d briefly been fine began fading again. Setting aside the scrapes and cuts, what was hard to bear was the heat that had been suppressed by medication now threatening to surge back up.
Every breath made his insides burn with a hot, simmering ache. It was the aftereffect of contact with an alpha. His condition had deteriorated this much from just a brief encounter with Beom Yisu — what would it be like once he moved into the couple’s home?
“Stop thinking about it. It’s not like you’re going to die.”
…Well. The original protagonist did have a miserable death ending.
Damn it… even with nerves as tough as steel wire, worry crept in at odd moments. Siyeon muttered a curse between his teeth and, clutching his aching stomach, wandered aimlessly around the room.
As he did, traces he’d need to erase caught his eye. He moved the toothbrush he’d left beside the sink, then rubbed the handprints off the mirror with his sleeve. Until the reflection blurred — until it looked like he’d never been there at all.
What else do I need to do.
He neatly folded the pajamas he’d borrowed and set them on the bed. He was methodically erasing every trace of himself from this room when his hands stopped — at the desk.
He opened the drawer and pulled out a few sheets of paper tucked inside. The disposable notepad he’d gotten from Deaconess Kim. The memo she’d written with job information. Even the sticker from the medicine bottle. These were things that could become clues — small, but not something he could throw away.
I think… that’s everything I need to take.
Siyeon sorted through the things he absolutely had to keep and tucked them away inside his coat. He’d been moving busily when — buzz — the phone in his pocket vibrated.
[Contract Terms — Prior Consent]
His attention had briefly been pulled elsewhere because of Manager Kang. It seemed the preliminary contract Beom Yisu had mentioned had finally arrived. In the dim room, the phone screen glowed blue as Siyeon stared at it for a long moment. He wanted nothing more than to avoid it — but he pushed himself, muttering under his breath.
“Alright. Even in a tiger’s den, you can survive if you keep your wits about you.”
Right — who was he? He was the only one who knew how this story ended. Spending a hundred days wallowing in worry wasn’t going to solve anything. Siyeon took a deep breath and slowly opened the message. The screen was densely packed with contract terms he’d more or less anticipated.
He had to comb through this preliminary contract all night now. Were there any loopholes? Which clauses were unfavorable to him? He was going to nitpick every last one and rewrite them — that was his resolve as he began reading through the terms.
