Song Hanyeong turned around without replying and entered the research lab while still embracing Surim’s shoulders.
“Wait, what are you doing? Don’t touch me!”
“Now, now, let’s go somewhere quiet.”
“I said don’t… Let go!”
Lee Myeongho subdued the resisting Yoo Hajin and shoved him against the wall as if throwing him. Gripping the face of Yoo Hajin, who groaned after hitting his back, Lee Myeongho brought his face close and whispered low.
“Shut up, you blood bag bastard.”
That voice held a power that soaked prey in fear. Yoo Hajin trembled and couldn’t even blink. Lee Myeongho grabbed Yoo Hajin’s wrist and led him in the opposite direction from the office.
“Now, let’s go.”
“Wh-what are you going to do to me?”
“Who knows~.”
“I, I’ve received the mark. I’m not some insignificant prey.”
“Haha. Is that so?”
“The person who gave me the mark is Song Seokjin. If he finds out you’re doing this to me…”
“Song Seokjin? Aigoo, you’re bragging with a mark you got from trash like that?”
Trash? His partner wasn’t someone who should be called that way. When he went to banquets, everyone looked up to him as a vampire of the Song family. Was his name Lee Myeongho? Someone whose surname wasn’t even Song wasn’t an existence to be looked down upon.
“I heard there were guys going around putting on airs for no reason, but the situation seems quite serious. I’ll have to deal with them soon.”
Lee Myeongho shook his head and tagged the employee ID hanging on the elevator button. Then, after a moment, what had only appeared to be a wall between the two elevators lined up side by side rose up, revealing a square space.
A secret elevator—it was utterly suspicious. Yoo Hajin began struggling as if his last survival instinct had exploded.
“Let go! You, who are you…!”
“Mm, who am I? You’ve heard that saying, right? If you’re going to be a servant anyway, it’s better to be a servant in a high official’s house. I’m exactly that kind of case. No, I’m the crown prince’s first servant, so I’m even better than that. Hahaha!”
Lee Myeongho lightly subdued Yoo Hajin, who was making a fuss about not getting on the elevator, and dragged him onto the secret elevator. Yoo Hajin’s efforts to desperately hold onto the elevator entrance were shattered without reward when Lee Myeongho pulled as if flicking his hand once. The elevator door closed immediately.
Yoo Hajin, who had tumbled inside the elevator, huddled in the corner.
“Send me back. I just, I came because they said I just had to give blood to Song Hanyeong…”
“Yes, yes.”
Lee Myeongho, replying without listening at all, firmly pressed the button to the underground research lab. Since he’d obtained an interesting test subject for once, there were many experiments he wanted to do. He said he’d been vegetarian for a month, right? Then first, he’d check what differences there were between the test subject’s blood and Jin Surim’s blood…
Lee Myeongho, who was planning the experiment contents, suddenly recalled Song Hanyeong protecting Jin Surim a moment ago and made a subtle expression.
“He’s not usually like that.”
Lee Myeongho scratched his chin and grinned.
“As expected, he’s completely fall—”
Ding— The elevator door opened with a cheerful bell sound. Beyond it were vampires in lab coats, computers, experimental equipment, and a human inside a giant glass tube.
“Now, Yoo Hajin-ssi, let’s go in.”
“N-no. No…!”
* * *
The scene that entered Surim’s eyes when he glanced back, concerned by the sound of arguing, was Lee Myeongho pushing Yoo Hajin against the wall. However, the iron door closed immediately, so he couldn’t confirm what happened next.
Surim, who was being led obediently by Song Hanyeong, pulled out the lightest question from his confused mind.
“Manager-nim, is Manager Lee also… that?”
“Yes.”
“…Good Lord.”
From the nuance of his words about being careful with his conduct and such, he’d thought there might be more vampires in the research institute, but to think one was in the same office.
“Why didn’t you tell me beforehand?”
“Is that important?”
“It’s important! …Well, not really. But still.”
Why did he feel wronged? Surim pouted with a dissatisfied face.
When they’d walked halfway down the corridor, Song Hanyeong led Surim into an empty break room. In an instant, they were left alone in the dim room. When Surim raised his trembling gaze upward, Song Hanyeong leaned his head against him. A deep sigh followed.
Surim saw that the man’s complexion had turned deathly pale, so he lightly brushed aside his bangs and checked the temperature of his forehead. Song Hanyeong’s body temperature was rather slightly lower than normal.
“Are you alright? Your complexion is very bad. Just like last time…”
“Shall we sit for a moment?”
“Yes, that would be better.”
Surim helped Song Hanyeong sit on the sofa. As if he had a headache, Song Hanyeong frowned and pressed hard on his brow.
After thinking for a moment, Surim tapped his own thigh.
“……”
“…If you don’t want to, don’t…”
At Song Hanyeong’s peculiar expression, Surim timidly shrank back. The thought belatedly came that it might be too much to tell him to lay his head on his thigh when they weren’t even dating.
However, Song Hanyeong smiled and really did as Surim suggested, laying his head on his thigh. The sofa wasn’t long enough, so one of Song Hanyeong’s legs went outside and touched the floor, while his other leg rested on the armrest.
Seeing that, Surim wondered if he shouldn’t have told him to lie down, then felt relieved seeing Song Hanyeong’s complexion improve a bit. Song Hanyeong, lying on his thigh, was staring up at Surim. For some reason, that gaze seemed sharply penetrating yet affectionate despite that, so Surim reflexively covered his eyes with his hand.
“…What are you doing?”
“I think you need to rest a bit.”
“Do I seem that way?”
“Yes, very much so.”
“And you think I can rest like this?”
“…Can’t you rest?”
“No.”
He’s fine but needlessly teasing people to make them anxious. Surim dissatisfiedly tensed and relaxed his thigh muscles. Song Hanyeong smiled as if he felt it at the back of his head.
“The story about being seriously injured in an accident as a child is a lie.”
“What?”
Surim felt the sensation of eyelashes moving rustlingly beneath his palm. Song Hanyeong, who had opened his eyes in the darkness, was blinking slowly.
“That wasn’t an accident but an attack. My father died from that day’s events, and I nearly died.”
“……”
“And the one who killed my father was my uncle.”
“The uncle you said you sent those people to?”
“Yes, that uncle.”
Good Lord. Surim was so surprised he couldn’t say anything else. As he just breathed heavily in bewilderment, Song Hanyeong held Surim’s hand that was covering his eyes as if covering it.
Only then did Surim carefully ask.
“Did you… report it to the police…?”
Song Hanyeong laughed lowly.
“Surim-ssi, we don’t handle such matters ‘that way.’ My uncle will die. However, only after we find those who helped him.”
“You’re looking for accomplices…”
And the bait spread to find those accomplices was precisely Jin Surim.
First was the report from Lab 8’s Senior Researcher. There would have been surveillance all along after that, and in the midst of it, his father’s cousin witnessed them spending time alone at the hotel, and finally, he’d portrayed Jin Surim as an important existence at the banquet hall, so it was natural that his uncle became interested in the bait.
The result was Yoo Hajin, who had approached him yesterday and today. What Yoo Hajin had said earlier, “there are rampant rumors that Song Hanyeong-ssi can only eat that now,” probably wasn’t true. It was still just his uncle’s suspicion. But it would soon become known as truth after today’s events.
When that happened, it would only be a matter of time before the cautious uncle rushed to get his hands on this weak and fragile man.
“It won’t be long before that happens.”
“Yes, you’ll be able to find them.”
“It’ll be dangerous…”
“Manager-nim…”
Jin Surim would be in danger. He knew it. He’d known and proceeded with everything from the beginning.
Jin Surim had been a discarded card from the start, a consumable that didn’t matter what happened to him after replicating his blood.
That’s what he’d thought.
‘But why am I angry?’
The moment Yoo Hajin said words that revealed his uncle was paying attention to Jin Surim, his head heated up unbearably.
Then, Jin Surim removed his hand and bent down to kiss him. Soft lips touched gently, then a hot tongue pushed in. He almost never initiated like this.
“Then, I’ll protect you, Manager-nim.”
“…You will?”
Would it feel like this if a small puppy like a cotton ball barked saying it would protect its owner? Song Hanyeong smiled.
“You just laughed at me, didn’t you? Of course I know that I’m nowhere near enough. But I can feed you to your fill, right? That’s also protecting you, Manager-nim. Isn’t it?”
“I suppose so.”
Song Hanyeong grabbed the nape of Surim, who was trying to sit up, and pulled him toward himself. Their lips met once more. More roughly than before, and a bit stinging.
“Mmph…!”
A kiss that tasted of blood continued deeply.
