5.4 The Night of the Beginning and the End
It was a rather peculiar experience to have a stranger know who you were. It wasn’t even a simple “I’ve heard about you”; if they exclaimed “It’s you!” with sparkling eyes and a look of great pleasure, the experience became even more vividly etched in one’s memory.
Jeong Tae-ui was certain that the memory of this moment would remain clear and unfading for years to come.
“Aha—, Tae-yi? Jeong, Tae, ui? You’re the one!”
The man before him was, if Tae-ui’s memory served him correctly, meeting him for the first time, yet he spoke with a wide smile as if he had encountered a very close and welcome acquaintance. The way he pronounced the name, breaking it down with strange clarity, sounded somewhat subtle.
“The one—what comes after that?”
Jeong Tae-ui looked at the man but spoke to Christoph. Christoph, peering outside through the blinds, murmured nonchalantly.
“1. The one Rick keeps by his side, 2. The one who played a trick on Rick, 3. The one who got on the wrong side of Rick. There are several other versions, but if you pick one of those three, you’ll probably be right.”
“Ah… so that’s the kind of ‘the one’ he meant.”
Jeong Tae-ui nodded. It wasn’t particularly pleasant, but he now understood the man’s reaction. However, it really wasn’t pleasant.
This man, who introduced himself as Alain, had been smiling the entire time. At first, Tae-ui didn’t think much of it, but after a while, he felt something was off, so he made a conscious effort to stare intently at the man’s face for nearly half an hour. As a result, Jeong Tae-ui concluded on his own that the man’s facial muscles were simply paralyzed in that position.
While men who love to laugh and almost always wear a smile aren’t exactly common, they can be found; however, a man who does nothing but ‘smile’ so perfectly was almost unheard of.
At first, he thought the man had a very lively and refreshing smile, but at this level, it started to feel ominous.
“But those middle-aged guys are making it way too obvious.”
Alain, who had approached Christoph by the window, peeked stealthily over his shoulder through the blinds and clicked his tongue.
“It’s going to be an absolute pain to teach rookies like that. Don’t I have to teach them everything from scratch, starting with how to use the bathroom?”
Alain laughed cheerfully and signaled to Christoph with [stolen content]his visit our siteeyes. Read on Read BL NovelsNoticing the signal, Christoph frowned in displeasure.
“What.”
“I heard Al Faisal suggested that you train his private soldiers. The thought of you teaching the ABCs to guys like that is just hilarious.”
“Hmph, news travels fast. Did they not mention that I never accepted the offer?”
“Well, I wouldn’t know. Rick said he’d drastically reduce their numbers to save you the trouble, so I just assumed you’d accepted.”
The man chuckled and returned to the sofa. Then, narrowing his eyes, he beamed a circling smile at Jeong Tae-ui. No, since his face was naturally shaped like a smile, perhaps this was the man’s version of a blank expression.
“I wonder what was so good, hm?”
The man suddenly murmured. Jeong Tae-ui, who had been looking up at the man while resting his chin on his hand, replied bluntly.
“Ilay buried a honey pot for me.”
The man seemed to fall silent for a moment, then suddenly burst into laughter.
“Ahaha, that’s surprisingly erotic, Tae-yi. …I guess the rumor about calling you by your first name is true.”
As the man scrutinized every inch of Jeong Tae-ui’s face as if he were a strange specimen, Christoph, who had returned from the window, struck him mercilessly. Ignoring the man who let out a groan and snapped his head back from the blow to the back of his head, Christoph sat down next to Jeong Tae-ui and abruptly held out his hand.
“Hand it over.”
“I don’t have it. That guy will call.”
Alain shrugged. Christoph frowned and grumbled, “He’s not the type to hide away, so why doesn’t he leave a contact number?”
“Does that mean we can’t make contact unless Ilay reaches out first?”
Jeong Tae-ui asked, tapping his temple with his fingertip.
“Hmm—something like that.”
The man beamed. This time, Christoph delivered a sharp kick to his shin under the table.
“When did he say he’d call?”
“Two-thirty.”
The moment Christoph glared, Alain answered immediately.
He was smiling even while getting his shin kicked… Jeong Tae-ui scratched his head, further solidifying his mental conclusion.
“Is the atmosphere always like this?”
When Jeong Tae-ui asked after a moment of hesitation, Christoph looked as if visit our sitehe [stolen content]didn’t know what he was talking about.
“What?”
“I mean—is it always this, uh, distractingly chaotic?”
“Not at all. It’s just because this guy is a lunatic.”
Despite not knowing what he was referring to, Christoph answered with a blunt shake of his head once Jeong Tae-ui phrased the question gently. Seeing Alain laugh hysterically at such a comment, Jeong Tae-ui could only mutter, “Oh, right.”
The time was 2:00 PM.
If Alain was correct, Ilay would be contacting them in 30 minutes.
Jeong Tae-ui had arrived in Frankfurt three hours ago.
Since Kyle had provided a car, he had made it safely [stolen content]from Kyle’s house to this quiet residence Read on Read BL Novelsin a residential area somewhat removed from the center of Frankfurt.
However, as he had suspected, thanks to an excellent intelligence network, suspicious people had already begun to station themselves outside one by one within ten minutes of his entering the house.
“It’s going to be a hassle when I leave here.”
When Jeong Tae-ui murmured this, Alain tilted his head as if he didn’t understand, then quickly realized and smiled with his eyes.
“Those guys outside? It’s fine, it’s fine. I’ll take care of them. Since it’s our first meeting, I’ll do that much for free as a gift. —Though it might sound like I’m bragging, it’s quite an expensive gift. It takes at least six figures just to move one of my fingers.”
The man speaking with a beaming smile was, as expected, a colleague of those lunatics.
Although he hadn’t been formally introduced despite being there for over two hours, it was clear from the conversation that he was a mutual acquaintance of Christoph and Ilay. Ten to one, he was part of that rumored den of madmen…
“How are the others doing?”
Christoph, glancing at the watch, [Read on Read BL Novels]murmured as [Read on Read BL Novels]he sank deep into the sofa, seemingly bored by the remaining 30 minutes.
“I don’t know about the ones elsewhere, but the ones in Frankfurt are Mark, Ivan, and Julian. They were all bored to death, so they’re excited now that Rick is here. All three of them have been calling since yesterday, telling me to let them know if something interesting happens.”
“Hmph. Tell them to stop playing around like unemployed slackers and get to work if they’re so bored.”
Christoph grumbled sullenly and began to squirm, already appearing bored.
Listening to their conversation, Jeong Tae-ui asked suspiciously.
“By any chance, are they the same members from the Riyadh terror attack last time…?”
“Ah, only Julian. The other two couldn’t make it because of something that came up. They were so disappointed when they heard the news later.”
“…Then, by any chance, are they going to swarm again this time…?”
Jeong Tae-ui asked with even more suspicion. Rather than suspicion, he was anxious about whether he could handle it now, and he had no confidence he [unauthorized copy]could visit our sitemanage if three more humans like Alain—provisionally—were added.
Fortunately, Alain shook his head.
“No, I don’t think so. All he asked me for this time was a single knife. He probably intends to run a light solo operation.”
Aha. This guy is the weapons supplier.
“A knife? What kind?”
When Christoph asked, Alain smiled broadly and stood up. He opened a box that had been placed like a decoration behind the sofa, rummaged through it, and pulled out a large bundle.
As he unfolded the long bundle wrapped in thick wine-colored cloth, a knife appeared, just as Alain had said.
However.
The large serrated knife, about the length of a human forearm, [visit our site]looked stolen contentmenacing enough to be able visit our siteto slit a bear’s throat. It was a weapon that didn’t fit at all with the phrase “run a light solo operation.”
“…Where on earth do you buy such illegal items?”
“I buy things that walk the thin line between illegal and legal, and then I touch them up a bit. How is it? Splendid, right? Let me know if you need one later. Since we’ve met like this, I’ll provide a special discount for you. Not that I’m trying to brag, but…”
Jeong Tae-ui barely listened to Alain’s words, glanced at the menacing object, and looked away.
For some reason, he felt a sense of gloom.
“But what is he planning to do with this?”
Alain asked, seemingly having made the weapon without hearing what it was for. Christoph, who had lightly gripped the handle and swung it to gauge the weight, tilted his head.
“There are probably two people who are definitely in his bad books… but I don’t know if he’ll stop at those two. He’s the type who can jump in any direction. His brain structure must be beyond normal.”
Hearing such words from Christoph, Jeong Tae-ui thought that Ilay’s life was a complete wreck. (But come [unauthorized copy]to [stolen content]think of it, even without hearing those words, it seemed he had already reached the absolute rock bottom of wreckage.)
In front of him, Alain nodded in agreement.
“That’s true. Was it Juan? The guy who slit that fellow’s intestines with a knife before. He left the main target alive and instead hacked up the guy who was just assisting him.”
“There was such a thing… As for the one he actually should have killed, he just stopped at cutting open the dead guy’s stomach and shoving the other’s face in there.”
Listening to the nonchalant conversation, Jeong Tae-ui slowly turned his body away. He felt as if he had heard stories he didn’t want to hear.
…Let’s not try to learn the past in detail. Hearing it doesn’t seem to lead to anything good.
Jeong Tae-ui tuned them out and decided to make up for the 30 minutes of missing sleep. When he closed his eyes, Alain chattered in a lively voice, asking if he was sleeping, but Tae-ui just gave a short “mm” and continued to ignore him after that.
Anyway, as long as he could get in touch with Ilay.
Once that happened, regardless of what sinister thoughts the [visit our site]man was having, he could at least come up with a countermeasure. In the worst-case scenario, he could find out where to go to pick him up and flee.
Predicting within a reasonable range, it would probably be something like playing a trick on Richard or Raman… and that was exactly the problem.
If it was a debt to Richard—more accurately, Tarten—he could consider the blood he shed the day he left Tarten as interest, but there was no answer for Raman.
He had no idea how to play a trick on a man who always traveled in a pack with bodyguards and subordinates. Surely he wouldn’t bomb the entire group…
As he thought this, Jeong Tae-ui realized it didn’t sound like a joke and quickly pushed the thought aside.
“I just hope I don’t end up participating in a crime instead of stopping one…”
Jeong Tae-ui murmured like a sigh. Whether he heard it or not, the sound of Alain laughing loudly echoed again.
“Come to think of it, that gentleman from Saudi seems like he’s going to be a headache. He has a lot of tails following him.”
Now, just by hearing the voice, he could almost see Alain’s beaming face.
“Ah. You mean Rashid is targeting Al Faisal? Hmm. That old man’s tide has already turned; it would be better for his old age to just accept defeat quietly.”
“He probably believes that if he eliminates Al Faisal, the advantage will return to him.”
“The old man must have gone senile, even though he’s not even that old yet.”
Listening to the flowing conversation between the two gave him a strange feeling.
Alain, whose voice was drenched in laughter, and Christoph, whose grumpy and indifferent face could be guessed just by listening.
It was interesting in its own way that they could carry on a conversation despite being so contrasting.
“Still, in a situation like this, if it were me, I’d just stay quietly in the harem and lounge around. I don’t know why that young middle-aged man is in such a hurry to chase someone all the way to Germany in this precarious political climate.”
“Al Saud has coveted Jeong Jae-yi immensely for a long time. Indeed, even [visit our site]in Tarten—which has almost nothing to do with munitions development—there was talk at one [stolen content]point about recruiting that renowned genius, so imagine how it is for them.”
“Jeong Jae-yi… I’ve heard the name a lot but have never seen him. Does he look like this guy?”
It wasn’t often that he felt a finger pointing at his face so vividly.
At that question, Christoph seemed to fall into thought for a moment and murmured, “Well.” The finger-pointing was vivid, but the piercing gaze was also very apparent.
“Even if they are twins, I wonder if there could possibly be two people this sparkling.”
Before the blunt answer could even finish, a burst of laughter erupted. Yes, it was worth laughing at. Jeong Tae-ui thought that if it weren’t his own business, he would have certainly laughed too.
“Chris said he eyed ‘the one and only Jeong Tae-ui’ and faced the threat of getting on Rick’s bad side; I guess it’s true. Ehehe, did he really bury a honey pot? I can’t tell at all.”
Mixed into the beaming voice was a thwack sound. It seemed Alain had been hit somewhere again.
“Ah. That’s right. [stolen content]How about you? I heard Richard [stolen content]succeeded Tarten. Besides, I’ve heard some strange rumors…”
The way he trailed off ambiguously was somehow subtle.
Tae-ui could almost see a mischievous, cat-like smile appearing in those eyes that always held laughter.
“…Sometimes it’s better to keep your mouth shut. I’m not in the mood to hear such things right now, Old Man Alain.”
Ah. This voice of Christoph’s is a danger signal.
As if Alain already knew what Jeong Tae-ui knew, there was a hint of laughter, but he didn’t say anything more.
At this rate, 30 minutes will pass before I even fall asleep, Jeong Tae-ui thought to himself.
Exactly then, as if they had synchronized their watches, the phone began to ring.
“Whew, our boss is certainly precise. Did you see? It hit the second hand exactly.”
He heard Alain stand up with a laugh. Simultaneously, Jeong Tae-ui opened his eyes. He followed the back of Alain as he approached the phone.
Seeing him press a button and return, it seemed he had switched the receiver to speakerphone.
“I’ve picked up, Boss—. We have a guest today—”
Alain, plopping back down on the sofa, shouted with a long drawl.
Soon, a familiar voice came through the phone.
‘I see you’ve finally arrived, Tae-yi. Since you’re there, Christoph must be with you as well.’
“Ilay. I heard you stopped by Berlin.”
Before any greeting, Jeong Tae-ui asked that first with glaring eyes. stolen contentAfter a brief silence over the phone, he spoke Read on Read BL Novelsin a voice that sounded faintly laced with laughter.
‘Ah, right. He was fast asleep, so I just left without waking him.’
“What do you mean you just left without waking him! If you were going to wake him anyway, you should have done it properly and at least said something before leaving!”
‘Hmm…? He was groggy because the medication hadn’t fully worn off. Since I used a condom and cleaned up after him, I thought he’d just think it was a dream. I guess not. …Ah. No. He must have been told.’
As if recalling the mention of having stopped by Berlin, Ilay laughed. And the moment he finished speaking, Jeong Tae-ui felt as if he had stepped on a landmine. Two pairs of eyes were now fixed intently on his face.
Tae-ui lightly rubbed his forehead and decided to quickly change the subject.
“Right, so what do you plan to do?”
‘Hmm—, did I come to interfere?’
Ilay, appearing to be lost in thought with a troubled yet smiling expression, asked casually.
“I wonder if I’m the type who could actually interfere even if I tried, but it depends on your answer.”
Ilay remained silent for a while. Tae-ui could almost picture him on the other end of the phone, leaning his chin on one hand with a smirk, tapping his fingertips against his jaw. Tap, tap.
‘Alain. Is everything we talked about ready?’
Suddenly, Ilay switched the person he was addressing.
Alain, who had been sitting on the back of the sofa nearby, swinging his legs, raised an eyebrow and replied, “Yeah.”
“It was done this morning. Since you brought it up so suddenly, I had to rush it, so I’m not entirely satisfied with it, but it should be quite usable.”
‘Got it. —Christoph. I thought you might be sticking to the house in Berlin, but I see you came along. That guy seems to be determined; are you doing alright?’
A hint of a laugh mixed into the [unauthorized copy]end of Ilay’s sentence. Christoph’s [unauthorized copy]expression immediately turned bleak.
“Are you trying to pick a fight with me, Riegrow?”
At that, Ilay gave a short laugh.
‘Well, fine. For now, I should thank you. For getting Tae-ui out of there and taking him to Berlin.’
“Yeah, I went through all the trouble of getting him out, only for him to end up in Frankfurt because of you. If you’re going to let go, do it quickly. I’m waiting.”
‘…Christoph. I leave him be because he’s the type who can’t do that anyway, but if you so much as lay a finger on him, I’ll kill you.’
Christoph clicked his tongue at Ilay, who spoke of killing with a casual, laughing tone as if it were a simple fact.
“As soon as we entered Frankfurt, there were three cars trailing us. This house is surrounded like it’s infested with cockroaches. What if someone just snatches him away the moment I look away?”
Jeong Tae-ui, who seemed to be the stolen contentobject of the unauthorized copyconversation, smacked his lips with a complicated feeling.
It wasn’t exactly unpleasant since they were worrying about him in their own way, but snatching him away?
‘Right… I didn’t like that either, which is why I kept him in Berlin… but seeing how things turned out this time, I thought I should change my approach.’
“How?”
It was Tae-ui who asked back. His safety was being discussed and decided in places he didn’t know—even if he was listening now.
‘I thought it would be better to fundamentally eliminate the people who are constantly eyeing you.’
“People constantly eyeing me… I’m not sure who there is besides the police chasing a fugitive, but how exactly are you going to ‘fundamentally eliminate’ them?”
‘The police aren’t the problem. I can handle things like that. The problem is the people who need the person known as Jeong Tae-ui.’
Tae-ui fell silent.
As expected, he hadn’t realized there were people who needed him in places he was unaware of.
However, the answer came quickly without much thinking. Someone who needed him. It was something he had experienced so often as a child that it wasn’t a difficult puzzle to solve.
And just as the answer formed in Tae-ui’s mind, Ilay spoke in a light tone.
‘The problem is solved if Jeong Jae-yi disappears.’
“…”
Tae-ui remained silent. He ruminated on the words he had just heard, wondering if he had heard them correctly.
Technically, it was true. That was the correct answer. It was, but…
“What? Are you saying you’re going to get rid of my brother?”
Tae-ui sighed. Thinking that such a thing was impossible from the start, he expected Ilay to offer some other related solution.
However, the answer that came back was, ‘Exactly.’
‘Since I have the chance, I’ll put in a sincere effort to test just how far Jeong Jae-yi’s amazing luck goes.’
The light, smiling way Ilay said it was no joke. Tae-ui’s expression stiffened instantly.
“Hey, wait… don’t you think you’ve gone completely off track? The person who harmed you this time was someone else, so why are you suddenly talking about killing my brother?”
When Tae-ui spoke with a very serious and faintly menacing aura, Ilay murmured, “Ah…” He clicked his tongue as if troubled and asked suggestively.
‘In your opinion, do you think it’s possible to harm Jeong Jae-yi from the outside through some intentional method?’
“No, it would be impossible.”
Tae-ui answered immediately. He could assert that with absolute certainty when it came to his brother’s luck. Ilay agreed.
‘Right, it’s likely impossible. In that case, I wonder if the people around Jeong Jae-yi are also that lucky. If Jeong Jae-yi falls into danger, wouldn’t one or two ordinary humans around him likely die?’
Tae-ui shut his mouth.
“…Who is it? Who do you want?”
‘The human who has too many people clinging to him.’
With that concise answer, there was no need for long deliberation.
“Raman?”
Ilay didn’t answer. Instead, he laughed softly.
It’s the right answer.
Tae-ui rubbed his brow and temples simultaneously. His brow was deeply furrowed, and his temples were throbbing madly.
Right, if it’s that, then it is related to the original situation.
‘That guy is the most troublesome. Once he’s gone, the rest of the people targeting Jeong Jae-yi are insignificant.’
As Ilay said, if Raman were gone—or at least if he stopped targeting Tae-ui for the sake of Jeong Jae-yi—life would likely become much easier. But.
“Fine. Okay. Everything is fine. I can understand targeting Raman, but why does my brother have to be involved in that…?”
As Tae-ui groaned, Ilay laughed.
‘Are you worried?’
This was not something a man who intended to target and kill someone else’s biological brother should say.
“Do you think I wouldn’t be worried if I were in my shoes?”
When Tae-ui muttered in disbelief, Ilay responded as if he were worrying over nothing.
‘With luck like Jeong Jae-yi’s, I wouldn’t be particularly worried.’
“If you believe in that luck so firmly, why the hell are you trying to test it!”
Tae-ui eventually burst out shouting. However, Ilay was not a man to be defeated by words.
‘To be precise, it’s not Jeong Jae-yi, but the guy who will be loitering and clinging to his side. While targeting Jeong Jae-yi, at least one guy coming and going nearby is bound to disappear.’
“Look, there’s a flaw in that logic. Where is the guarantee [unauthorized copy]that Raman will definitely appear if you target my brother?”
‘No, he will.’
Ilay’s answer was extremely concise. It felt very clear that further arguing would be useless.
Tae-ui let out a low groan, rubbing the deepening wrinkles between his brows.
He had heard earlier that things might veer in a strange direction, but he never imagined it would veer this way. Targeting an innocent person who had done nothing to him—what on earth was this?
Tae-ui firmly believed in Jeong Jae-yi’s luck. It was a belief similar to the idea that Ilay wouldn’t get hurt even if he fought special forces or was caught in a triple collision of large trucks on a highway.
That being said, a younger brother’s heart is naturally affectionate.
Regardless of whether a good result followed, he had to make every possible effort to prevent a sinister accident.
So, Tae-ui decided to make that maximum effort, even if it meant throwing away his pride.
“About paying back that debt, Ilay…”
Tae-ui spoke softly, barely suppressing a groan. He glanced up at the two people sitting leisurely nearby, listening to the conversation. He desperately wished those two would go somewhere for a moment, but as always, life does not go as planned.
“Is he more important than me? …When I’m asking you like this? Is your affection fading…?”
He couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence. He barely managed to squeeze those words through clenched teeth, a sigh escaping him.
Was this truly coming out of his own mouth? Was he perhaps just hallucinating that he said this, while in reality, he hadn’t said such a thing?
He thought that for a moment, but looking at the two people in his sight, that didn’t seem to be the case.
Beside Christoph, who was staring at him with a look of horror, Alain was also looking at him with extreme shock—his smiling face had been frozen exactly like that for several seconds.
“…I see… Boss usually lives like that…”
When Alain finally snapped out of it and murmured in surprise, Tae-ui slumped over.
“I absolutely do not…”
Tae-ui murmured in a voice that sounded like it was crawling hundreds of meters underground, but it didn’t seem like anyone believed him. Christoph, in particular, was looking at him with eyes that were somehow very resentful.
And the person whose approval actually mattered.
He remained silent on the other end of the phone. For quite a long time.
When he finally spoke again, Tae-ui realized he had failed from the very first sentence.
‘Tae-yi. I’m quite angry this time.’
The voice, now slightly devoid of laughter, continued after a short pause.
‘If things had gone slightly differently, you could have been in real trouble this time. You could have been in danger.’
“…”
‘So Tae-yi, don’t try to stop me this time. I’m telling you because I don’t want to be resented later. Though, knowing your personality, you’ll likely be a nuisance, so I didn’t actually want to tell you. Do not interfere.’
“What about the fact that Tae-yi became endangered by coming here?”
At that moment, Christoph, who had been listening from the side, interjected displeasedly. Ilay fell silent for a moment.
‘The forum is tomorrow. So even if it’s late, it’ll be over by tomorrow. If it’s fast, it might end before then.’
“Ilay!”
‘Besides, as long as they are targeting Jeong Jae-yi, they can’t use the worst-case scenario [visit our site]on Tae-yi. Because if a serious danger arises for [stolen content]Tae-yi, Read on Read BL Novelsit’s not just Tae-yi’s problem.’
Ilay concluded the conversation as if he had said everything he needed to.
Do you have anything else you want to say, Tae-yi? To the Ilay asking that, Tae-ui had more things to say than there were mountains, but in the end, he just shook his head. There was nothing he could say that would actually be heard.
“No, nothing,” he murmured with a sigh, and Ilay gave a final farewell, sounding satisfied.
‘Right, then I’ll see you tomorrow.’
With those words, the call ended, and silence filled the room for a moment.
No, to be precise, it wasn’t silence. Alain had stood up leisurely and was smiling nonchalantly, saying, “Aren’t you hungry? Let’s eat something.”
However, for Jeong Tae-ui, worry came before hunger. He groaned, massaging his throbbing head.
Regardless, he had no choice but to risk it and keep an eye on his brother. It was a bit [stolen content]ridiculous to protect someone who probably didn’t even need protecting.
“Surely he wouldn’t kill me just because I’m sticking to my brother’s side…”
As he murmured a thought that suddenly crossed his mind, Tae-ui shook his head vigorously.
With a mountain of hardships already piled up, he didn’t want to add one more ominous possibility.
“Anyway, the first thing I need to do now is…”
Tae-ui looked up at the ceiling and organized his thoughts.
Meeting his brother was the top priority.
* * *
Indeed, this level of security is something UNHRDO could boast about.
Jeong Tae-ui whistled lightly as he entered the exhibition hall.
A sign that read International Aviation Technology Forum was attached next to a placard for the 3rd floor.
However, security surveillance was in place from the moment he stepped through the entrance of the exhibition hall.
The familiar uniforms moving about everywhere indicated that UNHRDO had deployed a massive number of personnel in preparation for this forum.
If it was this much just on the surface, the security situation in places like the Technical Support Office must be substantial.
“If it’s like this the day before the [unauthorized copy]forum, unauthorized copythere shouldn’t be much to [visit our site]worry about under normal circumstances.”
As Tae-ui murmured in admiration, Christoph muttered from behind.
“Unless it’s someone who considers this level of security a joke, doesn’t that just make the problem bigger?”
“Hmm… hearing that suddenly makes my mood darken…”
Tae-ui smiled bitterly, waving the temporary pass he received at the entrance like a fan.
“Right, where is this problem-causing older brother of yours that UNHRDO is putting all its effort into protecting with such ironclad security? Weren’t you supposed to meet at the 1st-floor lobby?”
Christoph, who had long since crumpled his pass carelessly into his pocket, asked while looking around.
“Hmm, I guess he hasn’t arrived yet.”
Tae-ui checked his watch. The time pointed exactly to five o’clock.
The agreed time and place were the 1st-floor lobby of the exhibition hall where the forum was being held, at 5:00 PM.
Considering Jeong Jae-yi’s usual habit of never breaking a time appointment, he should have appeared by now.
Tae-ui tilted his head slightly in curiosity, watching the second hand tick past five o’clock. It was common for someone to be a bit late, but since Jeong Jae-yi had never been, he found it somewhat unexpected and looked around again. Still, he was nowhere to be seen.
“Hmm… maybe there’s a traffic jam.”
“We came by car too. And the roads were wide open.”
Tae-ui scratched his head. He just shrugged, thinking that these things happen.
Getting in touch with Jeong Jae-yi was easier than expected.
To be precise, it wasn’t Jeong Jae-yi, but his uncle, Jeong Chang-in.
Knowing that he would likely enter the country on a flight this morning, Tae-ui called the direct number Kyle had given him. After a few rings, his uncle’s voice answered.
Thinking that it had been a long time since they had spoken on the phone, he said, “Uncle, it’s me.” His uncle responded warmly, “Tae-ui!” without a moment’s hesitation, as if they had spoken just the day before.
His uncle, who had just entered the city after finishing procedures and contacting the UNHRDO branch in Berlin to settle things, said he had to go to the exhibition hall to complete the attendee registration, which was due today, ahead of tomorrow’s forum.
‘Attendee registration? For my brother?’
‘That’s right, Jae-yi.’
‘Haha, he’s busy. Could you put him on for a second?’
‘Huh? Ah, he went to handle some procedures, so he’s not next to me right now. But looking at this number, it seems you’re in Frankfurt too.’
It seemed Alain’s house number was showing.
As soon as Tae-ui smiled and answered “Yes,” his uncle said it was a good coincidence and suggested they have dinner together.
Since meeting Jeong Jae-yi was his goal in the first place, he readily agreed and set the appointment. He had just arrived after leaving Alain’s house on time.
“He’s a bit late… Ah, or maybe since he said he had to stop by here for attendee registration, that’s what’s delaying him.”
Tae-ui murmured, glancing again at the watch as the time began to tilt past five.
Christoph, who had been looking at the exhibition hall guide leaflet, thinking that a little lateness didn’t matter, remained silent for a while before suddenly muttering.
“They’re attached again.”
Tae-ui looked at him curiously, then murmured, “Ah.”
When he paid close attention after hearing those words, he felt unauthorized copygazes observing [visit our site]them from a considerable distance. There were several that he could detect immediately.
Tae-ui sighed. The situation had been similar on the way from Alain’s house to this place. Since they had stayed in crowded areas, nothing had happened yet, but it was impossible not to be bothered.
“At this point, it reminds me of cockroaches. It feels like they’re everywhere I go.”
“Cockroaches everywhere… Does Kyle not do regular pest control at his house?”
“No, I didn’t mean it like that…”
Jeong Tae-ui waved his hand at Christoph, who was staring at him with a suspicious frown. This guy occasionally failed to grasp basic metaphors.
Scratching his head, Jeong Tae-ui felt a stinging gaze on his back, which somehow seemed to have grown more intense.
“At this rate, even a hotel feels unstable. I wonder if I’ll be able to sleep peacefully tonight.”
Then again, if he looked at it that way, everywhere was a danger zone in a situation like this.
“The safest place to spend the night would be… a holding cell?”
Jeong Tae-ui shook his head again at Christoph, who was muttering innocently.
However, after thinking for a moment, Christoph spoke nonchalantly.
“If worst comes to worst, we can just call Alain and sleep at his house.”
“No, I’ll pass.”
“I can guarantee your safety.”
“I’ll pass!”
Jeong Tae-ui refused firmly with a serious face.
As Christoph said, it seemed that by riding in that man’s car and staying at his house, he could escape the threats of those following them. However, he could state with certainty that a new threat would inevitably arise.
During the short time it took to get here from Alain’s house, Jeong Tae-ui had already felt that new threat twice.
The first time was from the moment he stepped out of the front gate of the house until he got into the car parked on the residential street.
Those whose purpose was not merely surveillance surrounded the three of them—Alain had been very happy to drive them this far—the moment they stepped outside.
In truth, those monitoring from the outside weren’t particularly threatening opponents. If they were amateurs to the point of being so obvious, Jeong Tae-ui could have easily escaped even if he were alone.
In that situation, Alain smiled calmly, grabbed one of them by the hair, and slammed his head straight into the wall.
He easily suppressed any struggling resistance by dislocating the man’s shoulder and continued to smash his head against the wall like a madman until it burst and blood poured out.
Smiling brightly, he crushed the man against the wall until the scalp peeled away and a glimpse of pale stolen contentwhite bone appeared; once the head was smashed to the point where it was barely recognizable, he tossed the man aside carelessly. When he tried unauthorized copyto grab another person, the others—who had failed to subdue Jeong Tae-ui and Christoph while Alain was dealing with just one man—were wise enough to flee.
Alain pushed Jeong Tae-ui, who was looking down at the collapsed man with a horrified face and muttering that he should go to a hospital, into the car. Smiling calmly, he said, “By the time you get back, they’ll be gone. They usually take care of their own,” and started the car with a light expression.
Thinking to himself that this guy wasn’t just a colleague for show, Jeong Tae-ui encountered the second obstacle on the way here.
This time, they weren’t as clumsy as the previous group.
There had been a car following them from the start. As soon as they entered a deserted road, that car accelerated and pulled up beside them. The moment the two vehicles were side-by-side, a loud crack appeared in the driver’s side window.
The mark, which would have undoubtedly shattered the glass if it hadn’t been bulletproof, was the result of someone in the adjacent car firing a gun relentlessly toward the driver.
‘They’re coming in strong this time. Then again, it’s easier to just kill the driver first.’
Alain, the driver in question, spoke with a beaming smile and reached under the driver’s seat with one hand to pull something out. The moment he saw it, Jeong Tae-ui anticipated the chaos that would follow and pressed his hand to his forehead.
“I never want to ride in a car driven by a man who Read on Read BL Novelskeeps a .50 caliber Barrett under [Read on Read BL Novels]the driver’s seat again,” Jeong Tae-ui stated flatly. And at the same time, he thought:
If he ever met someone who had been part of the T&R Mobile Unit—which had supposedly vanished—he should absolutely avoid any association with them.
“Hmm, I suppose Rick makes you drive?”
The voice responding to Jeong Tae-ui’s words was heard the very next moment.
Turning toward the direction of the voice, Jeong Tae-ui discovered a familiar face. Seeing the man who had hardly changed despite the long time since they last met, Jeong Tae-ui smiled brightly.
“Uncle, you’re here.”
“It’s been a long time. Have you been well? Sorry I’m late. An urgent appointment came up on the way, and even though I tried to adjust the time, I’m still a bit late.”
Jeong Tae-ui’s uncle, Jeong Chang-in, an instructor at the Asia branch of UNHRDO, lightly patted Jeong Tae-ui on the shoulder.
Because he was so busy and faced [unauthorized copy]constraints of both time and space, he was one of the [visit our site]few remaining relatives Jeong Tae-ui [Read on Read BL Novels]didn’t get to meet very often.
“I see your schedule is still as packed as ever when you’re on a business trip.”
“Uh—no, this time it was relatively loose, but there was one thing I hadn’t considered. There’s someone I absolutely must meet this time, but their important schedule was almost on the same date as this forum, so the contact was delayed. I got a response right after I spoke with you on the phone, so I had to hurry and coordinate the time.”
His uncle said, shrugging lightly.
“The timing just didn’t work out. We agreed to meet in a little while; would it be alright if he joined us for a short bit?”
At his uncle’s question, Jeong Tae-ui nodded nonchalantly.
“As long as they’re okay with it, I don’t mind. Who is it?”
“Hmm? —Ah, right. That’s right. I’ve been so overwhelmed with work lately that I’ve lost my mind. Come to think of it, it’s someone you know too.”
His uncle laughed, lightly tapping his forehead [visit our site]with his fingertip. As he was about to speak, he suddenly stopped with his mouth open.
Wondering why his uncle had suddenly stopped talking and moving, Jeong Tae-ui followed his gaze and discovered Christoph, who was standing in a position where he was partially hidden by a leaflet display stand behind him.
“Christine!”
Looking at Christoph, Jeong Tae-ui shifted his gaze back to his uncle at the short name that burst from his lips.
However, seeing Christoph turn bleak the moment that name was uttered, his uncle quickly smiled and waved his hand.
“Long time no see, Christoph! How have you been, Christoph? How long has it been, Christoph! What brings you here, Christoph?”
After calling Christoph’s name repeatedly, emphasizing the last syllable, his uncle turned back to Jeong Tae-ui, who was just blinking at them.
“But how are you two together?”
Looking back and forth between the two [Read on Read BL Novels]with a puzzled face, his uncle suddenly wiped the smile [Read on Read BL Novels]from his face. He rolled his visit our siteeyes for a moment, looked at the two again, and asked Jeong Tae-ui.
“The friend you said you came with was Christoph?”
“Yes. Come to think of it, you did say you knew him, Uncle. Rather than saying I came with a friend, I could have just said I came with Christoph.”
Jeong Tae-ui, who had mentioned he would be coming with a friend while making the appointment with his uncle, smiled faintly.
His uncle nodded slowly, muttering, “I see.” Jeong Tae-ui knew that the face, which had a faint smile as a base as if he were thinking about something, was actually the face of someone racking his brain in embarrassment.
“…? What is it, Uncle?”
When Jeong Tae-ui asked in a slightly lowered voice, his uncle finally smiled awkwardly.
“No, I just didn’t know the person coming with you was Christoph. If I had known, I wouldn’t have set the appointment like that.”
Jeong Tae-ui, unable to grasp the meaning for a [Read on Read BL Novels]moment and slightly frowning, [stolen content]then saw a man entering the exhibition hall after passing through the security system.
The man, who stood out easily with his tall stature and pleasant face, scanned the area once before casting his gaze this way. Their eyes met.
“….”
Jeong Tae-ui reflexively opened his mouth, but then closed it again without saying a word. Then he glanced sideways.
Jeong Tae-ui wasn’t the only one who saw the man. Christoph saw him too. And simultaneously, the smile vanished from his expression, leaving it blank.
“Richard, welcome.”
Until his uncle raised his hand and spoke to him from the side, Jeong Tae-ui hadn’t even realized the man was walking toward them, even though he saw it with his own eyes. It was simply too unexpected. It seemed the same was true for Christoph standing beside him.
“It has been a long time, Mr. Jeong Chang-in. I’ve heard news occasionally through Kyle, but it’s been several years since I’ve seen you in person.”
Watching his calm demeanor [stolen content]as he greeted his uncle, Jeong Tae-ui realized that he had [Read on Read BL Novels]already known they were here before coming.
Whether it was intentional or coincidental, he couldn’t tell. Since his uncle said he was someone he absolutely had to meet, it might have truly been a coincidence that they ran into each other while meeting his uncle.
“We meet again, Mr. Jeong Tae-ui.”
To the man who offered a casual greeting, Jeong Tae-ui returned a light nod. Richard then looked at Christoph.
Christoph was staring silently at Richard.
He hadn’t expected to run into him like this immediately after leaving Berlin. Especially in a setting where he was meeting someone else.
“I believe I said we would meet soon, Christoph.”
Richard seemed to be smiling. The corners of his mouth lifted slightly.
Even though he smiled as usual, that smile did not look kind.
“Ah, right. It’s not like you two haven’t seen each other in a long time. You must have seen each other just the other day during the succession. Isn’t that right?”
At that moment, his uncle chimed in. Seeing his uncle calmly smile and poke his head between them, Christoph, who was about to open his mouth to answer, stopped. Richard slowly turned to look at his uncle.
‘Ah, I guess so,’ Jeong Tae-ui gave a vague agreement to his uncle’s words.
His uncle undoubtedly knew.
What had happened in Tarten, and perhaps even that Richard had visited Kyle’s house—there was no way his uncle wouldn’t know.
No one believed that the uncle, who was smiling as if he knew nothing, actually knew nothing, but they subtly kept their mouths shut.
“Ah. By the way, where is my brother?”
As if he had just remembered, Jeong Tae-ui asked about something that had been puzzling him for a while. He [unauthorized copy]wondered if he had gone to the restroom, but he was taking too long for that.
Then his uncle looked at Jeong Tae-ui with a fresh expression, as if he had forgotten again, saying, “Ah, right.” And only then did he smile with a slightly troubled face.
“He’s not here.”
“…What?”
“He’ll be arriving by private jet tomorrow dawn. That was the fastest way.”
“What? Why did he come separately?”
Jeong Tae-ui asked back with wide eyes.
“It happened to coincide exactly with the expiration of his UNHRDO contract. In Jae-ui’s case, there’s a mountain of paperwork he has to submit to move in and out of headquarters for overseas work, and since it overlapped with the contract expiration, it was simply impossible to handle within the timeframe. …Besides, it seems there are some ominous rumors circulating.”
His uncle shook his head and shrugged.
Jeong Tae-ui was convinced by the last remark.
Indeed, perhaps that was the most important reason.
“What is this, then Brother will only be here right before the forum opens tomorrow…”
Jeong Tae-ui, who had contacted his brother with a kind heart to protect him and had come to find his uncle with a determined mind, felt a bit deflated and scratched his head. Then he thought:
Anyway, if he’s not here at all, there’s no chance for anyone to harm him. At least there’s no way my brother will be hurt today. …Probably not tomorrow either.
Jeong Tae-ui let out a sigh, half relieved and half deflated, but then his uncle suddenly grabbed his shoulder firmly and began dragging him somewhere.
As Jeong Tae-ui’s eyes darted around in confusion, asking, “Uncle? Uncle?”, his uncle spoke brightly with the same smiling face.
“That’s why, let’s get you registered first.”
“Registered? What registration?”
“I told you. The registration for forum attendees is until today. Originally it was until the day before yesterday, but I pushed it through to extend it until today. I was wondering how to handle it, but it worked out great since you arrived just in time.”
Thinking that it’s always good that he doesn’t need to worry about things related to Jae-ui, his uncle hummed a tune as he practically dragged Jeong Tae-ui toward the escalator. Guessing the context of the conversation, Jeong Tae-ui raised his voice, even more confused.
“Can someone else register for me?”
“Why are you ‘someone else’? Since you were born as a half, like a double from birth, it wouldn’t be wrong to say you are the person himself. From now on, for exactly ten minutes, you are Jeong Jae-ui. Got it?”
“No, but still—”
“It’s fine. I have Jae-ui’s ID. Besides, although people say you don’t look that much alike, to foreigners’ eyes, you look quite similar, and the identity verification is only at a very simple level. Just simple enough that twins wouldn’t be caught. They only take a little bit of blood, so don’t worry.”
With a bewildered face, Jeong Tae-ui looked around desperately for someone who could help him.
However, Christoph, who was following hesitantly a few steps behind, looked at the uncle with a reluctant expression but seemed to have no intention of helping, and Richard, whose expression was blank and whose thoughts were completely unknowable, was out of the question.
“What if they bring out some weird physics formula and tell me to prove I’m Jeong Jae-ui? I can’t do things like that!”
“….It’s so nice that you and Jae-ui are so easy to tell apart.”
While easily dragging Jeong Tae-ui, who was struggling until the end like a cow that didn’t want to be led, his uncle tried to soothe him, perhaps intending to use a carrot.
“Let’s finish this quickly and go eat. I’ve made a reservation at the hotel where I’m staying. And since things turned out this way, the room I pre-booked for Jae-ui has become vacant, so you stay there. Since it was prepared for Jae-ui, the security is quite good.”
“…!”
Jeong Tae-ui, who was about to shout another protest, quickly shut his mouth as a small worry seemed to be resolved.
Recalling the past where almost nothing had gone against his uncle’s will no matter Read on Read BL Novelshow much he struggled, it was stolen contentbetter to just follow quietly and enjoy the benefits.
‘Is this a bit dangerous?’
Jeong Tae-ui looked in the mirror while washing his hands in the restroom.
Only his own reflection was visible in the mirror. The background was the overall view of the restroom.
In the restroom where one or two guests constantly came and went to do their business, Jeong Tae-ui silently dried his hands. And it was the moment he was about to turn and leave.
One man who had been doing his business and another man who had just entered the restroom approached Jeong Tae-ui instantly, as if it were nothing.
“…!”
A metallic glint flickered near his abdomen as they approached like arrows.
As a team attacking a person by surprise, they were almost perfect.
However, what they failed to consider was that Jeong Tae-ui’s instincts were slightly better than average. And that the person he lived with possessed a certain level of inhumanity, making him accustomed to this kind of sudden physical brawl.
Instead of dodging, Jeong Tae-ui stepped closer to the man thrusting the weapon. He suddenly grabbed the arm holding the weapon and thrust it toward the man approaching from behind without even looking.
Ugh, a short groan echoed, barely audible.
Despite it being a surprise attack, there was hardly even a groan.
After grabbing and pulling the arm, he saw that the weapon wasn’t a knife. It was a small electric baton. One with a simple shocking effect. A tool good for lightly paralyzing someone and then easily handling them.
As soon as he caught them off guard, Jeong Tae-ui quickly twisted the stolen contentelbow of the man in front in the opposite direction and dashed [visit our site]out through the door the man had been blocking.
They urgently grabbed his shoulder from behind, but his body was already halfway out the door. As long as he wasn’t pulled back in, he could escape this spot.
Just then, he grabbed the artificial flowers stuck in a large decorative jar in front of the door, swung them backward to block their vision with the dry branches, and used the opening to quickly move forward.
Soon, a person walking toward the restroom appeared at the end of the narrow hallway, and only after passing them and entering the restaurant could Jeong Tae-ui be certain that he had escaped the minor crisis.
The thought that this was troublesome crossed his mind.
If they started attacking in a place where people frequently came and went, it meant the attacks were becoming full-scale.
Furthermore, he had been able to escape easily only because the men just now had let their guard down, thinking Jeong Tae-ui would be off-guard.
From their movement alone, he realized they were properly trained people. They were different from the idiots he had first encountered upon arriving in Frankfurt.
“Why do you have a face like you’ve chewed on something bitter?”
His uncle, who was sitting at the table in front of a clean dessert plate, asked curiously as Jeong Tae-ui returned, shaking his head.
“Ah—I’m just worried about the walk back to the room. Now there are people grabbing me even in the restroom…”
“…Aha.”
His uncle nodded and smiled as if he understood.
“We’ve stationed UNHRDO agents at every corner of the floor where we’re staying, so please put your mind at ease.”
“In situations like this, the people closest to you are usually the ones to be most afraid of.”
“Aha. So that’s why you didn’t eat the vegetables I gave you.”
“Are you really saying that after putting cooked carrots on my plate Read on Read BL Novelswhen I said I didn’t want them, [stolen content]Uncle? For someone who’s lived as long as you have!”
As Jeong Tae-ui frowned, his uncle turned his head away, pretending not to notice.
At the end of that gaze sat Christoph.
He had been mostly silent for a while now.
“Are you tired?”
When his uncle spoke to him, Christoph glanced over and gave a short answer—“A little”—before falling silent again.
From the moment they arrived at the hotel until Richard left before dinner, Christoph hadn’t uttered a single word. Surprisingly, Richard hadn’t tried to strike up a conversation either.
Without a word, just as Richard had said, they acted like ‘strangers’—more than strangers—who were no longer part of Tarten or anything else, and Jeong Tae-ui didn’t see any reason to say anything about it.
Though he didn’t speak, Richard had spent the entire time staring directly at Christoph with cold eyes, as if Read on Read BL Novelstrying to pierce through him with his gaze. It was only after Richard disappeared just before dinner, claiming he had another appointment, that Christoph finally started speaking a word or two.
However, seeing him still taciturn and seemingly in a bad mood, Jeong Tae-ui scratched the back of his neck. He stared at the ceiling for a moment, wondering what to do, but decided to leave him be. It wasn’t the right time to bring it up, and the only thing to do was wait for him to work through his foul mood on his own.
“Agents at every corner of the floor… Are they people capable of handling someone who can pierce a human neck with their bare hands?”
Jeong Tae-ui asked skeptically as he cracked open a beer he had ordered separately instead of the tea served at the end of the meal.
“Hmm,” his uncle murmured, lost in thought for a moment.
Normally, it would be easy to admit, ‘No, that number of people couldn’t handle him.’ But he was considering the realistic possibilities of what would happen. It wasn’t a theoretical calculation of numbers, but a calculation of the actual probability of occurrence.
‘Ilay says he’s going to kill my brother.’
When Jeong Tae-ui had mentioned this during the meal, his uncle had almost dropped his fork. Barely catching the fork as it slipped from his fingers, he had looked up and asked in a dazed voice, “Why?”
Feeling a sense of kinship, thinking visit our sitethat’s exactly how Ilay must have felt during his phone call, Jeong Tae-ui Read on Read BL Novelshad relayed Ilay’s words.
But as he delivered the message, Jeong Tae-ui had thought about it again. He found it very suspicious and puzzling.
The first goal: to get rid of Jeong Jae-ui—though he also viewed the realistic possibility of this as very low. The second goal: to incidentally draw in and eliminate Raman.
Thinking about it while relaying the message, it didn’t feel entirely logical. And yet, hearing that man say it himself, it felt as though those words would undoubtedly come true.
Maybe it’s because he’s the kind of guy who turns the impossible into reality…
While Jeong Tae-ui was lost in thought again, his uncle, who had been contemplating over a cup of tea instead of beer, shook his head lightly.
“Rick won’t be able to make a grand move this time—not like when he went on a rampage in Riyadh.”
Jeong Tae-ui glanced at his uncle while holding the beer can to his lips. Meanwhile, in his head, he was recalling the knife he had seen at Alain’s house.
That weapon was certainly not meant for large-scale bombing, destruction, or rampages.
Judging by Alain’s words and the weapon itself, Ilay was moving alone this time. He wouldn’t be causing terror with comrades or doing something to draw an equivalent amount of attention as he had in the past.
“I don’t know… he has such an unpredictable personality. He’s not the type to fear the opponent’s attack or the subsequent fallout.”
When Jeong Tae-ui spoke, keeping a sliver of possibility in mind, his uncle set down his teacup and tilted his head.
“It’s true that he’s not the type to shrink back and fail to do what he wants because of things like that, but despite that absurdly reckless personality, he is an incredibly brilliant man. He never creates a mess that goes beyond the limit of what he’s willing to handle.”
His uncle added that if he caused a massive commotion and targeted Jeong Jae-ui or Raman this time, given the incident in Riyadh, it would become an incredibly tedious burden to manage.
“If I were him, I would move alone. That way, the utility relative to the effort spent is much better.”
His uncle concluded concisely. Jeong Tae-ui agreed with that conclusion.
“But Raman. Raman…”
His uncle frowned and tilted his head from side to side. Between the movements, which looked like neck exercises, a few clicking sounds of bone could be heard.
After staring blankly at the ceiling for a moment, his uncle muttered.
“I believe there was an appointment between Jeong Jae-ui and Raman Abid Al Saud forty minutes before the forum opens tomorrow.”
At those words, Jeong Tae-ui’s hand, which was tilting the beer can, paused.
There is no better opportunity than when the two targets are meeting. Especially if the goal is to take them both out at once.
“Where are they meeting?”
“I said forty minutes before. In the reception room provided at the exhibition hall.”
“…They’re meeting very simply and modestly.”
“The organization is doing everything in its power to keep Jeong Jae-ui and Raman from meeting.”
His uncle said with a smirk. From his tone, it sounded as if they had tried to avoid scheduling the meeting this time as well, but were forced to do so.
“It’s easy to make excuses to keep them apart when they’re inside the headquarters, but in a situation where they’re out in the field—and he somehow knows the entire schedule—there was no excuse left to stop them.”
Listening to his uncle explain how they censored almost half of the news sent to Jeong Jae-ui and sent it back without him ever seeing it, Jeong Tae-ui muttered in disbelief.
“…Why is that man so hated? To go that far to keep them apart.”
“He’s a man who is trying his hardest to poach the most core human resources of the organization, and even the headquarters. Do you think they’d view that kindly?”
Jeong Tae-ui nodded, saying “Aha,” at the concise explanation.
Indeed, even behind that childish attitude, [stolen content]there were actually fierce conflicts of interest involved. Jeong Tae-ui let out a light sigh.
“Forty minutes before the forum starts tomorrow…”
“Yes. From forty minutes before to twenty minutes before. Exactly twenty minutes are scheduled for the meeting.”
“…The organization is quite petty. What’s the harm in letting them meet for a bit… It’s not like my brother is the type to just run off because someone told him to.”
“No. Truly, he tempted him with rewards so massive it would make anyone’s head spin. It’s only natural the headquarters is anxious.”
Jeong Tae-ui smiled, remembering that his uncle—who muttered, ‘If it were me, I would have gone already’—was also a man with almost no greed for wealth, much like Jeong Jae-ui. He then shifted his thoughts back.
“A twenty-minute encounter at the exhibition hall… That would be the perfect time to take them both out at once…”
But no matter how he thought about it, it was impossible.
Unless he rained down a massive barrage of shells like the Riyadh bombing, it was impossible to do it twenty minutes before an international forum when countless people were moving about—especially in an exhibition hall reception room. If it was the place where Raman and Jeong Jae-ui were meeting, there would be a truckload of security guards surrounding the area. Naturally, it wouldn’t be a place where long-range sniping was possible.
While Jeong Tae-ui was deep in thought, his brow furrowed as he wondered how Ilay planned to do it, Christoph, who had been silent beside him, spoke.
“I’m sorry, but if you’ve finished your meal, I’d like to go up and rest. I’m not feeling very well.”
“Oh, ah, right. Let’s go up.”
Jeong Tae-ui checked the time, which was getting late, and looked at Christoph’s pale face before standing up from his chair.
He often looked pale because he was naturally very fair, but right now, his complexion was exceptionally poor.
He had been fine until the afternoon; his sudden silence and darkened expression had definitely started after he encountered that man.
Jeong Tae-ui clicked his tongue in pity inwardly but said nothing.
As they left the restaurant and headed toward the elevator, Jeong Tae-ui Read on Read BL Novelsnoticed several people exchanging subtle nods [stolen content]with his uncle. It seemed that the organization’s guards were blended in among the general guests inside the hotel.
He suddenly let out a short laugh, and his uncle looked at him curiously.
“No… I just thought, since UNHRDO said they’d provide ironclad security, they really did.”
“Hmm? Ah, it’s not that ironclad.”
His uncle lightly uttered words that someone in a high position within the organization probably shouldn’t have said.
“It’s an ironclad security that can be easily broken if you have the guts to cause a scene on a large scale like Rick, and the wealth to hire and pour in a massive amount of professional manpower.”
“With the requirements you just mentioned, there wouldn’t be any ironclad security that couldn’t be broken…”
As Jeong Tae-ui muttered while shaking his head, his uncle chuckled.
Soon, the private express elevator stopped.
The elevator, carrying only the three of them, began to ascend rapidly.
Jeong Tae-ui looked at the small, round surveillance camera installed in the corner of the elevator ceiling and gave it a slight wave. Suddenly, his uncle spoke up.
“That’s right. I should tell you, since you’re a good boy who worries about his brother. Currently, Jeong Jae-ui is officially recorded as having entered Germany.”
His uncle’s tone was so casual that Jeong Tae-ui thought he was just making some trivial small talk and started to answer, “Ah, yes,” before pausing.
When Jeong Tae-ui stared at him, his uncle looked back as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Otherwise, how would he have registered for the forum? No matter that you were there, does it make sense for someone who hasn’t even entered Germany to register for the forum?”
“No… I think it makes less sense to say someone who hasn’t entered the country has entered it.”
Jeong Tae-ui muttered weakly, knowing full well that his argument wouldn’t hold any weight.
“Since there’s nothing to gain from making it public, everyone within UNHRDO, except for a very small few, believes Jae-ui is currently in Germany.”
After saying that, his uncle gave Jeong Tae-ui a benevolent smile.
“So, if Rick is targeting Jae-ui, he won’t be able to cause any trouble at least tonight. Even if he searches everywhere for Jae-ui’s whereabouts, he will never find him in Frankfurt until tomorrow morning. So you can sleep peacefully, knowing that.”
“Ah, yes,” Jeong Tae-ui nodded and let out a sigh.
“Hearing that somehow makes me dread the arrival of tomorrow,” he muttered weakly, and his uncle laughed as if it were amusing.
By the time Jeong Tae-ui grumbled that he wasn’t joking, the elevator reached the destination floor.
Just as his uncle had said, men in the organization’s uniforms were standing at intervals at the ends and corners of the hallway. From their respective positions, there were a few spots that seemed to be blind spots, but it didn’t seem like something to worry about.
“You, you, Christoph. Your rooms stolen contentare connected, so come [visit our site]over and hang out if unauthorized copyyou get bored during the night.”
“Even if they’re connected, the structure means the doors are quite far apart.”
Perhaps feeling a bit better now that they were close to a place to rest, Christoph muttered as they nearly reached the rooms. His uncle frowned and looked at Christoph.
“Instead of thinking about resting comfortably, you’re observing things like that… That’s what they call an occupational hazard.”
“I was just stating a fact. And even if I go hang out, I’m not going to your room. I’ll go to Tae-yi’s.”
Christoph replied as if he were stating the obvious, then said, “I should rest now,” and entered his assigned room.
“What grudge does he have against me that his words are so thorny…”
As Christoph closed the door, his uncle muttered suspiciously. Following behind Christoph toward his own room, Jeong Tae-ui looked back at his uncle to say goodbye.
“He might have a reason for a grudge. Why do you think Christoph was in a [Read on Read BL Novels]bad mood all evening?”
“No, if I had known the friend you came with was ‘Christine,’ I wouldn’t have invited Richard to the same place.”
His uncle shrugged and shook his head.
With a somewhat exaggerated sigh, his uncle left a kind farewell—“Come over whenever you feel too scared to sleep alone at night”—and entered his room.
“I wonder if that’ll ever happen,” Jeong Tae-ui muttered as he walked to his room, his gaze falling on the uniformed man standing tall next to the door.
Since he had seen him exchange nods with his uncle earlier, he was undoubtedly a UNHRDO agent. Also, the distance from the door to where he stood was about a few steps. At that distance, even if the man lunged at him the moment he opened the door, he could probably…
Realizing he was unconsciously calculating in his head, Jeong Tae-ui let out a bitter smile.
“I’ve lived comfortably in Berlin for a few years, but habits are scary…”
Whenever he was in an environment where unauthorized copy[stolen content]he had to be unauthorized copyeven slightly tense, he found himself calculating in his head.
But that’s how one survives in this barren world. Comforting himself with that thought, Jeong Tae-ui opened the room door and spoke to the man.
“Thank you for your hard work.”
“Not at all. Please rest comfortably.”
Only after memorizing the voice of the man who replied with a kind smile did Jeong Tae-ui step into the room.
Whew… The sigh he intended to let out lightly became long and heavy.
This is why it’s bad to be tense all day. Once the tension breaks, fatigue suddenly rushes in.
“Tomorrow is going to feel as long as a billion years…”
Jeong Tae-ui massaged the back of his neck, groaning.
Then, he suddenly tilted his head.
He should have heard the click of the auto-lock as the door closed, but he didn’t.
Looking back in confusion, he saw that something had fallen under the door, preventing it from closing completely.
As he approached the door, the kind-looking agent from before, having realized the door hadn’t closed, was stepping slightly inside.
“…—”
As Jeong Tae-ui reflexively checked for objects within reach, the agent bent down and picked up the fallen item. Then, he smiled and held it out to Jeong Tae-ui.
“I wondered why the door wouldn’t close; it seems you dropped this.”
“Ah, thank you.”
Jeong Tae-ui smiled and took the item. It was a key wallet. It was indeed his.
I must have become very sensitive after living such an intense life these past few days, Jeong Tae-ui thought, shaking his head as he watched the man walk back out.
But then.
It was just as Jeong Tae-ui reached for the door to finish closing it, even though it would have closed on its own.
The man, who had almost completely exited, suddenly stopped dead in his tracks.
“…?”
As Jeong Tae-ui tilted his head in confusion, the man suddenly began to shrink.
No, he wasn’t shrinking. He was slowly sliding down the wall, collapsing.
“…!”
Reflexively, he slammed the door shut.
Or rather, he tried to.
But just before the door closed, a steel baton wedged itself into the gap. The closing door opened silently.
Standing there was a man in the organization’s uniform. He seemed to be the man who had been guarding the corner of the hallway. The one positioned in the blind spot of the other corner.
The man slowly lifted the brim of his uniformed cap.
A strange face was smiling there.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Jeong Jae-yi. Please forgive my rudeness.”
Simultaneously, the man sprayed something directly into Jeong Tae-ui’s face.
Before he could even dodge, a pungent gas blurred his vision, blocking his sight. And along with that obstructed view, his consciousness drifted away into a distant haze.
* * *
――We’ll meet again soon.
That voice clung to his ears, refusing to leave.
“……Shut up……. I’d rather hear any Read on Read BL Novelsother sound……. I don’t want to hear your voice.”
Christoph muttered faintly. His hand, rubbing his ear irritably, tightened with sudden force.
On the way from the exhibition hall to the hotel, Jeong Chang-in and Richard had chatted continuously in the car. The content of their conversation was nothing special. Congratulations on the succession, or bits of information floating around regarding work.
While Richard drove and Jeong Chang-in sat in the passenger seat talking, Christoph had done nothing but stare out the window.
It wasn’t that he thought they would never see each other again.
The words he had spoken upon leaving Berlin—that they would meet again soon—remained in his head like an omen.
He didn’t want to meet him again. He didn’t want to see him anymore.
Still, he thought that after some time had passed, he would be okay again. Memories and emotions are bound to fade with time.
If only he hadn’t reappeared right before his eyes so soon.
――We’ll meet again soon.
Those words continued to hum in his ears.
That was why, even after entering his room and pulling the duvet over his head in the pitch-black bed without turning on the lights, the sound did not stop. Though he was exhausted to the point of his spirit being frayed, he could not fall asleep.
“Medicine, some medicine…….”
Christoph suddenly muttered and sat up. However, seeing the unfamiliar darkness surrounding him, he realized: in this strange place, there was no medicine for him.
But he couldn’t stay like this. At this rate, far from falling asleep, the noise echoing in his ears all night would eventually tear his eardrums apart.
Christoph got out of bed. He threw on some clothes and hurried outside. As he practically ran toward the elevator, the man standing beside it as if on guard looked at him with a puzzled expression.
The hotel would have first-aid supplies. No, but basic first-aid medicine [unauthorized copy]couldn’t Read on Read BL Novelsstop this headache and tinnitus. He needed [stolen content]the medication he always took. But that wasn’t a drug sold over the counter.
Christoph clicked his tongue as he realized this just as the elevator numbers approached his floor.
What should he do? Would it be better to pierce his ear, like he had once done long ago? Back then, even when he shoved a pen into his ear, his head continued to ring noisily. But perhaps it would be different now.
No, but even over-the-counter medicine might work if he took a lot of it. Not just one or two pills, but more…….
While Christoph thought anxiously, the elevator arrived.
With a short mechanical chime, the doors slid open quietly.
Just as he was about to step into the elevator, thinking it would be better to ask for first-aid supplies than to look for a pharmacy at this hour—
“My, my. Where are you going in such a hurry? Judging by your attire, it doesn’t seem you’re going far.”
Along with a shadow blocking his path, a familiar voice sounded from slightly above him.
A familiar voice.
The same voice as the whisper that had been ringing in his ears.
Christoph looked up blankly at Richard, who was slowly stepping out of the elevator as if to block him. Meanwhile, the elevator doors closed and soon descended again.
“Where were you headed?”
The soft voice asked.
“……My ears are noisy, I was going to get medicine.”
As Christoph muttered, Richard fell silent for a moment. Soon, a low snort followed. Along with the short comment that he was still the same.
“What voices are you hearing that make your ears so noisy?”
“……. I hear your voice.”
Silence returned.
Anxious that the noise in his ears would return once the silence settled, Christoph muttered to himself with dry lips.
“I don’t want to hear it……. I don’t want to hear it.”
He felt a gaze upon him from above.
But he didn’t lift his head. It was because he didn’t want to make eye contact.
“Well, fine. Anyway, shall we go to your room and talk?”
When Richard spoke concisely, only then did Christoph lift his eyes. He gave him a displeased look.
“I have nothing to talk about with you.”
“Why not? Since you rejected Tarten’s offer and left, there should be things we need to settle. The amount you must reimburse and the method of repayment. To what extent your authority as a legal blood relative in the operation of Tarten will be reduced. The minimum things you must do, despite having no further responsibility or obligation to Tarten. And a few other similar matters. ――Ah, right. Though you likely no longer care, news of your mother as well.”
Richard listed them one by one in a businesslike tone.
Christoph shut his mouth. He wanted to refuse, but no suitable words came to mind.
Richard glanced at the security guard who was looking over with a puzzled face, then without another word, pulled Christoph along, saying, “Go to your room.”
Almost dragged by Richard, who headed straight for Christoph’s room without even asking, Christoph tried several times to shake off the hand gripping his elbow, but Richard didn’t look back nor did he let go.
Even after stopping in front of the room door, Richard half-forcibly rummaged through the pockets of the motionless Christoph to find the key, opened the door, and entered. Only after the door clicked shut behind them did he release Christoph.
“Now then, shall we talk? About your rights regarding Tarten moving [visit our site][Read on Read BL Novels]forward. As you know, rights and obligations always come together.”
Richard’s voice, starting the conversation immediately, was strictly professional. It felt as if a lawyer handling the family’s general affairs had brought a contract or a consent form.
Christoph merely glanced at the few sheets of paper Richard spread on the table without reading them. Richard mechanically recited what was written there, but it hardly registered in his ears.
“……Stop it. That’s enough. I’ll waive all rights to Tarten, and I won’t take on any obligations. Ah, right, I’ll definitely reimburse what needs to be reimbursed, so just tell me about that.”
Christoph interrupted Richard midway. As he muttered wearily, Richard stopped talking and looked at him.
“It’s better for both of us to finish this conversation properly now, so you don’t claim later that you didn’t hear it.”
“Ha……. Why? Do you think I’ll come running later, mentioning legal relationships and claiming inheritance rights?”
Richard stared at Christoph in silence for a moment before saying, “Fine,” and taking his hand off the papers.
“I’ll organize the documents and send them to you later. And as stolen contentfor the inheritance, Christoph, the moment you gave up the succession competition and visit our siteleft, you lost that right. If there is anything you can inherit――ah, right. When your aunt passes away, the assets in her name will be your share.”
Richard leaned against the table. He continued speaking to Christoph, who was standing blankly in the middle of the room, “Come to think of it,”
“Your aunt has moved her residence to the north annex. She probably won’t have a reason to leave that place from now on. Unless she leaves Tarten entirely.”
At those words, spoken as if they were insignificant, Christoph flinched, his body stiffening very faintly. As he slowly lifted his head, Richard was staring intently at him. When their eyes met, the corners of Richard’s mouth curled up slightly.
“You’re finally looking at me.”
“――Did you say my mother liked that place?”
Christoph asked. However, his slightly furrowed brow indicated that even as he asked, he knew that couldn’t be the case.
Richard let out a low snort.
“Of course not. You of all people should know that she [visit our site]especially loves the east [visit our site]wing, even within the Tarten estate.”
He knew.
The east wing of Tarten. That was where the people who led Tarten lived. It was a place where very few people, even within the empire of Tarten, could reside.
And yet, there was no way that Bianca, of all people, would want to move to the annex where mostly the collateral branches stayed.
Looking with satisfaction at Christoph, who was staring at him blankly, Richard continued.
“The night I visited Berlin after completing the succession, she moved as soon as she returned to Dresden. ……Well, in the end, it worked out for the best. She fell ill as soon as she moved, so the annex is better for recuperation than the east wing, as it’s quieter and more secluded.”
“…―.”
His lips parted as if to say something, but then closed again. Richard, who hadn’t missed a single movement, suddenly whispered lowly.
“Consider yourself lucky it stopped at that.”
At that low whisper, the voice of him growling softly that night suddenly overlapped.
The chilling voice that had said he would kill that woman came back vividly. The cold gaze reflected on the screen.
Christoph looked at him silently. Perhaps the memory of that time had also returned to Richard, as the cold smile that had been on his lips vanished.
“I told you. My mother doesn’t think badly of you. She doesn’t view you poorly in any case.”
Christoph spoke quietly. The gaze that had been lost in thought, without a shred of a smile, flickered toward Christoph. A flash of anger crossed that gaze. With that same look, a short smile appeared on his lips.
“Right. She did tell me she was sorry.”
“…―.”
“That day, as soon as I returned to Dresden, I went [Read on Read BL Novels]to her and asked if she had told you that. She turned pale and told me. That she was sorry. That it was all because [Read on Read BL Novels]you, ……Ha. I’ll stop. I feel like my mouth is getting dirty.”
Richard clicked his tongue shortly and turned his head.
Christoph remained silent. He could guess what she had said.
However, after a moment of silence, Richard suddenly wore a twisted smile, as if some thought had occurred to him.
“Right, I’m busy enough taking care of my own affairs. Besides, you already have someone who gets angry on your behalf and says thank you on your behalf.”
Christoph frowned slightly. He tilted his head a bit, as if he didn’t understand what he meant. He wasn’t sure about the latter, but he understood the former immediately.
“Tae-yi, ……can only do that much for me.”
Christoph muttered bluntly.
Exactly as the words meant, Jeong Tae-ui could only do that much for Christoph. Anything unauthorized copybeyond that was not Christoph’s [Read on Read BL Novels][Read on Read BL Novels]share. Nor was it Jeong Tae-ui’s share. Just as Jeong Tae-ui had said many times, Christoph knew it too.
But after staring down in silence for a moment, Christoph soon lifted his head. His displeased face stubbornly shut its mouth.
“Well, whatever. If you visit that house often, you never know how things might turn out between people.”
“How things might turn out……?”
Christoph nodded.
But even so, he didn’t think that he and Jeong Tae-ui ‘might turn out’ in that way. Still, it didn’t matter. It wasn’t as if he wanted a relationship like Riegrow’s. Just as it was now.
“Besides, that house, fine. As you said, there’s someone who tries to protect me.”
Christoph spoke, his lips tightening slightly. He had intended to be sarcastic, but it didn’t work well. So he shut his mouth again.
Richard looked at Christoph coldly. At some point, his eyes [stolen content]seemed to narrow [stolen content]slightly, and he spoke frostily.
“Kyle is, ――.”
He paused for a moment. As if lost in thought, his gaze was on Christoph’s face, yet he seemed to be looking at something beyond it. Perhaps he was seeing an image remaining in his memory.
For a moment, it seemed his lips trembled. However, his tightly clenched jaw remained silent for a while before he continued coldly.
“Kyle is old. Moreover, while he seems generous and naive, he is actually meticulous and flawless. He’s dual-natured. And his hobbies are too manic. At that point, it’s not just liking books. It should be seen as almost obsessive-compulsive.”
“…….”
Christoph blinked blankly.
Because a story that was completely out of context had suddenly come up, his train of thought was cut off.
After suddenly listing a series of complaints about Kyle for some unknown reason, Richard’s expression became considerably more grim.
Christoph let his gaze drop. Perhaps Richard was deeply offended that Kyle had kicked him out of the house in such a manner. Otherwise, there was no reason to speak of him so maliciously.
“……Still, he doesn’t lie.”
Christoph spoke quietly. Feeling a bit sorry that Kyle was being cursed because of him, he stepped in to defend him.
He doesn’t lie. Kyle didn’t lie to Christoph. At least, as far as Christoph knew.
“……He doesn’t make jokes that hurt, either.”
He defended him once more.
Suddenly, Christoph’s expression went blank. A sound lingered in his ears.
――I like you, Christoph.
They were soft and affectionate words. Suddenly, his heart tightened.
Did I want to hear those words? From anyone.
From anyone……?
He tilted his head vaguely. In the process, he suddenly felt a chill and curled his body up.
Like an older brother, or a father, Kyle had spoken affectionately to him many times. It was a gentle voice.
And yet, he didn’t become warm. Even though he wanted to hear those words more, even though he heard them so many times, he still had to curl up because he was cold.
Flinching, Christoph rubbed his own arm. Once the thought of being cold entered his mind, he seemed to feel even colder.
But then.
Over Christoph’s hand rubbing his own arm, a strong hand gripped his shoulder as if to crush it. While flinching momentarily, Christoph glared fiercely at Richard.
“I, that you hurt――.”
He had been speaking lowly through clenched teeth, but suddenly shut his mouth. However, he didn’t loosen the grip on the shoulder and looked down at Christoph. Somehow anxiously and urgently.
Eventually, contrary to that anxious gaze, he spoke slowly and lowly.
“You were never in pain.”
His words were not wrong.
Christoph had never been in pain. He felt that if he said he was in pain once, he would keep saying he was in pain, over and over. That was why he didn’t say it. Therefore, Christoph himself believed he wasn’t in pain.
“You were never in pain, you were never happy, you never laughed, and [Read on Read BL Novels]you [stolen content]never cried. I’ve never seen any of those things.”
Yes, I’ve never seen them, Richard repeated as if talking to himself.
“Tell me, Christoph. If I had truly said so, ――if I had told you that I liked you, would you have come to Tarten then?”
Richard’s voice was strange.
It was a voice Christoph had never heard before.
It sounded anxiously excited, wavering with restlessness, shaking precariously.
Just as Christoph had felt at one point.
“There’s no need to hypothesize about things that could never happen. You hate me, Richard Tarten.”
Christoph looked up at him calmly.
At that moment, the eyes looking at Christoph seemed to widen slightly. Looking at Christoph as if seeing something bizarre, he muttered, “Right.”
“Come to think of it, you did say that. ……Did you say that no matter what I say, you can’t hear it anymore? Yes, I hated you. I did.”
Richard laughed lowly. Then he suddenly tilted his head. Even so, it’s strange, a whisper like a monologue seemed to flicker past.
“Then how about saying it like this. That the taste of your body is good.”
The voice whispering that had a somewhat bitter tinge.
It was hot.
Not just warm. It was hot. It felt as if he would be burned wherever their skin touched.
With his head thrown back fully, Christoph only glared at the head cushion above him. Read on Read BL Novels[visit our site]Sounds occasionally leaked from his trembling lips, but the words were unintelligible. No, perhaps he had intentionally chosen not to understand them.
“……It’s over.”
He sounded aggrieved, perhaps sorrowful, or perhaps angry. The latter was likely the most accurate.
“In the first place, …—the deadline we talked about, it’s already, …—”
Christoph’s thinly trembling voice grew clearer. It was a voice loud enough for the meaning to be fully understood.
At that moment, the lips that had been stroking the inside of Christoph’s arm lightly bit into the tender flesh. It was enough to make him faintly knit his brows for a split second. Because of that, the words failed to reach the end and were cut off midway.
However, Richard, who had left two or three spotted marks on the inside of the arm, moved up the limb to the shoulder. Christoph flinched, shrinking back. His body jerked every time those lips made contact.
“Right. It is over. You did say it in the first place. That it would last until I completed the succession. I have successfully completed the succession. So, the deadline we first discussed has already passed. You’re right.”
Richard’s low voice drifted over him.
But after rubbing his lips and cheek against the shoulder for a moment, he suddenly bit down on the shoulder as if he had suddenly become enraged.
“—!”
A clear set of teeth marks was engraved.
“But I never said I wouldn’t do this anymore after the succession.”
“Don’t… be unreasonable…!”
Unreasonable? Richard murmured the word and laughed lowly. His breath tickled the top of the shoulder.
“I didn’t say anything incorrect. Hmm, no, but come to think of it, what does it matter if I’m being unreasonable? I hate you. There’s no reason for me to obediently follow the words of someone I hate.”
The moment Richard’s low, mocking voice fell, Christoph shut his mouth. His wide, blue eyes paused for a moment and looked [visit our site]at Richard. Richard stolen contentstared back intensely, then suddenly let out a twisted smile.
“Now you say you can’t hear me even if I say it dozens or hundreds of times, yet you seem to have heard the word ‘hate.’ ……Well, fine.”
Richard pulled his body back slightly. Looking down at Christoph, who was breathing heavily as if his crushed chest had finally been freed, Richard grabbed the inside of Christoph’s knees. Then, regardless of how Christoph’s eyes widened as he looked down, Richard forced his legs apart.
“Richard……! Don’t be unreasonable, I kept my promise! Until the day the deadline ended, I kept the promise I made to you and listened to what you said, I followed your words!”
But even as Christoph cried out in a low voice, Richard positioned himself between Christoph’s legs. He stroked his own member, which was already standing firm and hard, a couple of times. At that, it reared its head even more aggressively.
“And?”
Richard spoke shortly. As he did, he gripped Christoph’s waist and lifted him. He pressed the tip of his member against the defenseless groin.
“I have no reason to follow your orders anymore.”
Christoph gripped Richard’s arms. He put strength into his visit our sitehands, as if he could push him away at any moment.
Richard paused, stopping just before moving his hips. He looked down at Christoph expressionlessly, then smiled.
“Not following…… Then what do you think will happen?”
“What……?”
Richard leaned his body forward. Their chests touched. Richard’s lips brushed past Christoph’s cheek to reach his ear. The hard flesh that had been pressing against the inner thigh opened his body slightly.
Christoph instinctively shrank back. In that movement, the object that had been trying to enter by opening him slightly from below slipped away.
“Don’t do that, Christoph.”
Richard whispered in his ear.
The voice was exceptionally tender. It was soft, as if he were sweetly pleading.
“That…—”
When Christoph momentarily lost his words, Richard continued in that same tender voice.
“You see, Christoph. Until now, you were ‘doing it reluctantly because of a promise, though you hated it, and enjoying it moderately,’ but from now on, it becomes ‘being forcibly raped despite hating it.’ ——Exactly like this.”
Simultaneously.
He thrust his hips upward. Violently, without giving him a moment to breathe. Without warning.
The sound of flesh colliding echoed loudly. Richard’s crotch slammed against Christoph’s buttocks.
Christoph froze, his eyes wide open.
The word he heard amidst the unfamiliar sensation turned his mind blank.
Soon, his face flushed red with anger, then turned pale once more.
“You, Riha, —…”
Even the short act of calling his name in fragments didn’t come out properly.
It was hot.
The overwhelming object digging between his thighs, the bodies rubbing together without a gap, the tongue that bit and sucked his cheek full—everything was hot.
But more than that, his mind.
It felt as if his mind was being scrambled and boiling over in a mess.
“…….”
His trembling lips could no longer even let out a moan.
Then.
Something reflected in Christoph’s wide, blue eyes.
Richard’s lips, which occasionally left his face and then touched it again, seemed to murmur something. But no sound was heard.
Soon, the mouth that had been silent for a moment seemed to try to say something, only to grit its teeth again.
Richard’s face was visible.
It was a face Christoph had never seen before.
Christoph couldn’t tell what was contained in that strangely distorted face.
Bitter. Painful. Agonizing. Exhausting.
Separate from the flashes of excitement or pleasure, those emotions flickered across that face in short bursts and vanished.
That was a face Christoph should be making. Those were emotions he should be harboring.
He couldn’t understand why this man was making such a face.
So, for a moment, Christoph forgot everything and stared blankly at Richard’s face.
Then, suddenly.
Christoph gasped. It was because he couldn’t breathe.
His throat was hot. The heat [unauthorized copy]in his throat, as if he [stolen content]had swallowed a ball of fire, gradually spread throughout his entire body.
His chest grew hot. Every time he exhaled, his throat felt so hot it seemed to be burning black. Eventually, that heat traveled through his whole body and finally reached his face.
His eyes were so hot that he closed them. It was so hot he felt he might be scorched.
Christoph raised his arms to cover his eyes. Lips touched those arms over and over.
As he pressed the back of his hand over his eyes, he felt the sensation of lips touching his palm. Again and again. Then, those lips moved down a bit further and covered Christoph’s lips. His eyelashes brushed against his fingers.
He didn’t know why Richard was making such a pained and exhausted face. Yet, it was because of that face that Christoph realized. If he hadn’t made such a face, he might have let it pass without knowing.
Richard was raping Christoph right now.
For the first time.
While clearly recognizing that fact in his mind, he was violating Christoph by force.
His eyes were hot. But he didn’t open them, fearing that flames would surely overflow and burn his eyes the moment he did. Instead, he only pressed his eyes harder with the back of his hand.
Then, suddenly.
Slowly, so slowly he could barely feel it, hot moisture touched his fingers.
Right where Richard had been burying his face until a moment ago, the hand still covering his forehead began to get damp.
His fingers flinched. At that, Richard kissed the tips of the shrinking fingers. He slowly rubbed his cheek against the palm and kissed him again. The area around his eyes, touching the fingertips, was faintly wet.
Christoph did not open his eyes.
He didn’t want to see.
He must not see what kind of face he was making right now.
So, Christoph kept his eyes closed and clamped his mouth shut.
Suddenly, the sound of laughter brushed past his ear. Low and bitter, and after a few dry, intermittent laughs, a low voice followed.
“How does it look to you?”
“…—”
“To me, it seems like I’ve gone mad.”
The low, husky voice laughed. For a long time. Truly, as if he were insane.
“Isn’t that right? Doing something so miserable, ……and yet being desperate to have you.”
While making him this miserable, the low voice touched his ear like the sound of wind and vanished.
The movement of the hips grew gradually faster.
The moisture that had touched Christoph’s palm had already disappeared, but every time he shook his body while thrusting, the area around his eyes, which occasionally brushed the fingertips, was still wet.
Richard hugged Christoph’s waist. He tightened his arms, embracing him fiercely.
A wet sound echoed from the groin. That was the only sound to be heard.
Richard no longer laughed, nor did he whisper. He only occasionally kissed Christoph’s lips with longing.
Eventually, when he felt as if his entire inside was filled to the brim and there was no empty space left, the sensation of something swelling to the limit and pouring out hammered violently against his stomach.
Christoph shrank his body as much as possible. If it weren’t for Richard holding him, he would have curled up infinitely small like a fetus.
While tightly embracing the shrinking Christoph, Richard stolen contentpoured everything he held [unauthorized copy]inside into that body.
When a silence that gradually settled finally arrived, Richard dropped his head, which had been pressed against Christoph’s cheek, and buried his face in Christoph’s shoulder.
Christoph stiffened slightly, wondering if his shoulder would get wet, but it didn’t.
Richard simply stayed like that for a long time, unmoving, embracing Christoph.
* * *
He hadn’t been asleep, but his consciousness had cut out.
After staring at the ceiling for a long time as [stolen content]if he had lost his soul, he suddenly regained consciousness.
It was warm.
Within that feeling, which was closer to a sensation than consciousness, Christoph blinked.
His mind woke up little by little. It felt as if the consciousness that had been dissolved in the space was slowly gathering to recreate the human known as himself.
After the sensation of warmth came a feeling of heaviness.
Richard was lying prone on top of the limp Christoph. Still embracing Christoph’s waist and back, he had his face buried in Christoph’s shoulder.
Seeing as he wasn’t moving, he might have fallen asleep.
At some point, Christoph had placed both hands lightly on Richard’s back.
He slowly lifted his hands. Then, his shoulder [visit our site]shook very visit our site[visit our site]slightly. Christoph quickly put his hands back where they were.
Looking at the still-motionless Richard out of the corner of his eye, Christoph frowned slightly.
Come to think of it, there was no need for that.
“…….”
Something felt unfamiliar.
While wondering what was unfamiliar, he soon realized.
The weight of the body lying on top of his own was slowly rising and falling in a regular rhythm, breathing.
This was a first.
It felt stifling; should he push him off……?
But after contemplating for a moment, he stopped.
Then he realized once more.
Perhaps because he realized it late, this body temperature—warm, or even hot—was not unfamiliar now. There was no chilling sensation in his chest.
Finding it unfamiliar that another person’s body temperature wasn’t unfamiliar, Christoph tilted his head. As he tilted it, his body shook slightly.
Flinching…… Richard, who seemed to move slightly, let out a deep breath and lifted his head.
He really must have been asleep.
Christoph looked at Richard with a strange expression. He couldn’t determine his own expression—whether it was slightly frowning, peculiar, or surprised.
As he stared at Richard with those subtle, slightly sullen eyes, Richard, looking down at Christoph with eyes steeped in [visit our site]sleep, simply dropped his head back [unauthorized copy]onto Christoph’s shoulder. As if telling him not to wake him because he was sleepy.
“……. Richard.”
Christoph remained silent for a moment before calling him quietly.
For a few seconds, there was no response.
Just as he was wondering whether to call him again, Richard suddenly bolted upright. With a face that looked as if he had been beaten awake in a dream, he looked at Christoph in horror.
“……. Move. You’re heavy.”
As Christoph murmured, Richard immediately got off him without a word. He still had a somewhat bewildered look on his face.
However, while Christoph got up and gathered his clothes, Richard also seemed to have emerged from the brief absence of consciousness.
With just a single sweep of his hair and a long sigh, he became the usual Richard.
Richard sat on the edge of the bed, crossed his arms, and stared down at his feet with a serious face for a long time. Then he glanced at Christoph. Christoph was pulling the sheets off the bed.
“……. What are you doing.”
“I’m going to wash.”
Richard frowned strangely and spoke incredulously.
“The laundry will be handled here, so you can just leave it.”
Then, this time, Christoph frowned and looked at Richard.
“I said I’m going to wash. Not the sheets. Me.”
“Then why are you pulling out the sheets?”
“The robe is far away, so I have to wrap myself in the sheet to go.”
Richard looked up at the bathroom door. It was a distance of about a dozen steps.
“You can just go.”
“You want me to walk around naked in front of a rapist?”
Christoph glared at Richard with an incredulous look.
For a moment, Richard paused and shut his mouth. Then he just looked at Christoph silently.
Having pulled the sheets out without a word, Christoph, who had been about to wrap the sheet around his body as he said, sat on the bed blankly as if lost in thought. Then, he suddenly murmured as if talking to himself.
“Am I…… a human who deserves this?”
Richard looked at Christoph, who murmured as if purely curious, with a slight frown.
“Since I was deficient from birth……. Maybe it was always going to end up like this. I was broken from the start.”
He murmured alone, tilting his head.
He didn’t feel much of anything. For a moment earlier, he had certainly been furious enough to go mad, but looking back now, he wasn’t particularly angry or sad.
What he was more curious about was why that man had made such a face then. Why he——.
It was when he suddenly looked up at Richard.
The expression vanished from Christoph’s face. It was because Richard was staring at him with a frozen face.
“I, …—”
Richard, who opened his mouth, couldn’t follow through with his words.
His terrifyingly stiff face just stared at Christoph as if to pierce through him. So Christoph stared back at him in turn.
At some point, Richard let out a low groan and rubbed his forehead as if not knowing what to do. He tried to speak several times and stopped, tried and stopped, before finally letting it out with a low groan.
“I have never been as miserable as I am today.”
Christoph watched Richard, who shut his mouth as if in pain, and then spoke abruptly.
“Right, since you even went as far as raping me, you’ve really hit rock bottom.”
As Christoph glared sullenly, Richard said nothing for a while. Then he spoke lowly through his teeth.
“No, that’s not it. I——.”
Just as he was speaking and his words seemed to fail him again, causing Richard to shut his mouth.
It seemed a sound was heard from outside.
Following Richard, who instinctively turned his gaze toward the door, Christoph looked that way too.
It was noisy outside. He could hear the sounds of people whispering and the footsteps of those moving urgently one by one, and the noise gradually increased.
Before long, there was a knock on the door.
At that firm yet anxious sound, Christoph threw aside the sheet and opened the door as soon as he threw on the robe hanging in the built-in closet.
Jeong Chang-in was standing there.
Despite the late hour, he was dressed as if [stolen content]he were about to leave at any moment, and unlike his usual self who never lost his composure, he bore a hint of anxiety.
“A shooting is taking place in front of the former Saudi embassy.”
Hearing Jeong Chang-in’s words, Christoph tilted his head for a moment with a look of bewilderment.
“A shooting at the former Saudi embassy……. ……Why is that.”
It was something that could be a topic of conversation, but there was no reason to inform Christoph with such a serious face.
However, facing Jeong Chang-in, who remained silent for a moment, the expression began to fade from Christoph’s face as he looked at him strangely.
Eventually, Christoph asked quietly in a toneless voice.
“Tae-yi is.”
“He’s there. ……I received word. That they ‘have Jeong Jae-ui.’”
* * *
The first thing to return was his hearing.
He heard unfamiliar sounds. Or rather, to be precise, every sound was unfamiliar.
The sound of a metal chair scraping against the floor, the occasional rhythmic click of dress shoes as people passed by, and voices conversing in low tones beyond the door.
Speak in a language I can understand…
He wanted to grumble, but no words came out.
It wasn’t just because the root of his tongue felt numb, as the paralysis hadn’t fully worn off. A mouthpiece-like object had been placed in his mouth, and a gag made of braided leather straps had been tied firmly over it.
In this state, far from speaking, he couldn’t even scream for help. Then again, that was likely exactly why they had done it.
Jeong Tae-ui opened his eyes only after those thoughts became clear in his consciousness. His vision wavered. His sight blurred, drifting far and then coming close. However, seeing as it improved slightly with a few blinks, he felt he would be fine given a little more time.
It didn’t take long after opening his eyes for him to realize he had been kidnapped.
No one told him. Even when he tried to eavesdrop on the occasional murmuring voices from outside to find something out, it was a language he couldn’t understand. However, he knew what language it was. It had the same vocabulary, accent, and rhythm as the language he had heard every single day when he was trapped in Seringe years ago.
Arabic, huh…
Jeong Tae-ui sighed.
Without thinking too long about it, it was likely the Saudi Arabian side.
Jeong Tae-ui tried shaking his arms, which were tied behind his back. The knots, which tightly bound his wrists crossed over each other, didn’t seem like they would loosen easily.
At least his legs were relatively free. Leather straps mixed with steel wire and braided several times bound his ankles with a gap of a couple of spans, allowing him to walk, albeit in short, shuffling steps. Though it was only within the confines of a small room.
Where around here am I?
As he pondered this, Jeong Tae-ui suddenly recalled the man he had seen last before losing consciousness. The agent wearing a UNHRDO uniform who had been standing guard. Or more accurately, the man who had played a part in kidnapping Jeong Tae-ui while pretending to stand guard.
Did they swap people? Or did they bribe him?
The latter was more likely. Usually, it takes a great deal of effort to swap someone in charge of security and protection from the outside.
And if they had bribed him, it wasn’t a job that could be done by bribing just one person. Multiple collaborators were needed.
Then, a comment his uncle had made as a joke flashed through Jeong Tae-ui’s mind.
—The guts to carry out a large-scale operation, and the wealth to hire and pour in a massive amount of professional manpower.
Someone who would possess both of those things.
…Ilay?
Jeong Tae-ui chewed over the name that had suddenly popped up with suspicion, but eventually shook his head.
Of course, it had just come to mind instantly, but even if he suspected him seriously, there was no reason for Ilay to kidnap him. If he had to think of one, perhaps it was a case of kidnapping him in advance to ensure his safety.
Jeong Tae-ui rolled those thoughts around in his head for a moment before shaking his head again.
This was no time for such musings. Not that he was in a situation where he could do anything about it, but there was a need to organize his thoughts.
Arabic heard from outside. The guts to carry out a large-scale operation. Immense wealth and power.
The answer came too easily. No, he didn’t know if it was the correct answer, but for now, there was only one person Jeong Tae-ui could think of.
Raman Abid Al Saud.
Furthermore, now that the name had come to mind, there was no need to even guess the reason for his kidnapping.
That man had been dying to devour him from the start. To be precise, he had shown for quite some time his intention to use Tae-ui however possible to manipulate his brother according to his own desires.
Jeong Tae-ui sighed.
I thought I was being careful, but I ended up like this.
From the moment he stepped out of Kyle’s house in Berlin, he had guessed there would be someone watching for any opportunity to get their hands on him with the goal of reaching Jeong Jae-ui. Even without guessing, this person named Raman had already tried to snatch Jeong Tae-ui in Dresden not long ago.
He had vowed not to fall into that bastard’s hands, if only because he found him loathsome.
What to do… If I think carefully, there might be at least one way to escape.
As he racked his brain for a while, he felt a strange sense of déjà vu. And thinking further, something like this had happened before—though slightly different.
The experience of being captured and imprisoned by Raman.
And if one were to ask how Jeong Tae-ui had escaped that situation back then…
“… … …”
A man who had previously rained artillery shells down on another country’s capital had smashed that expensive and luxurious prison to pieces with an anti-tank gun.
No. That’s not right. That absolutely won’t do.
Jeong Tae-ui shook his head.
Although he wanted to get out of here, he declined to have such a situation occur again.
“…”
Then, as expected, do I have no choice but to quietly surrender myself to Raman’s hands and just watch with my fingers in my mouth as he uses me as bait to lure my brother?
He didn’t like it, but it was one way. If it came to that, he planned to cling to his brother and beg him. To get out of here.
Jeong Tae-ui moved his uncomfortable body with a creak and sat on the edge of the bed.
He looked around, but there were no objects he could use.
It seemed that for now, he really had no choice but to wait.
If he waited like this, someone would eventually appear.
Jeong Tae-ui sighed, listening to the occasional presence of people passing by in the hallway, as if they were monitoring him.
But Raman.
He had heard that Raman was scheduled to meet his brother tomorrow. If so, he would have the opportunity to meet his brother in person and make a proposal, so why go as far as dragging him in using this method?
…No, maybe it’s because they’re meeting tomorrow that he needs to get his trump card in hand today.
Jeong Tae-ui leaned his body back heavily onto the bed.
His bound body lost its balance and tilted, causing his head to hit the wall quite hard.
“…!”
He swallowed a cry of pain into his mouth, unable to scream.
Unable to use his hands, he rubbed his head against the mattress to soothe the pain, which made him feel somewhat miserable.
However, it seemed the paralysis had almost completely worn off.
His vision had cleared, and his senses had returned properly. His head throbbed slightly, but that might have been because he just hit it.
Jeong Tae-ui looked around the room once more.
A stone floor and simple, practical plastered walls. In one corner, a wooden desk that looked like it hadn’t been used in a long time. And the cot Jeong Tae-ui was currently sitting on.
Aside from the bed, it felt like some kind of official residence or a school. No, rather than a school, a government office or a public building.
But if it was a place to capture and imprison someone, it would be a derelict building no longer in use, or…
Jeong Tae-ui glanced at [Read on Read BL Novels]the glass windows and [visit our site]sashes, which were far too clean for a derelict building.
It seems to be a building currently in use…
It was then.
He heard voices passing by outside. It seemed this room was located somewhere in the middle of the hallway, as people occasionally brushed past.
The reason those voices caught his ear was that they were in a language he could understand.
“When is our employer arriving?”
“Who knows. Anyway, we caught the guy he told us to catch, so our job is basically done.”
It was German.
Judging by the term ’employer,’ they weren’t people under visit our siteRaman, [Read on Read BL Novels]unauthorized copybut rather mercenaries hired temporarily.
Jeong Tae-ui recalled the man he had seen last before fainting.
He had suspected that man had been bribed, but it seemed they had also hired mercenaries.
The kidnapping plan this time must have been very thoroughly devised. Then again, that atmosphere had been apparent during Tarten’s succession ceremony as well.
Jeong Tae-ui clicked his tongue inwardly.
What a persistent man.
Several years had already passed since he left Seringe.
During those several years, he could have reasonably given up, yet he was still targeting him this obsessively.
Whether his brother was a far more visit our siteincredible and great person than Jeong Tae-ui thought, or if that man was simply obsessive about trivial things.
“Judging by the mood, it seems he’s really determined this time.”
“Well… doesn’t he think this is almost his last chance?”
“Probably, given his age.”
The voices were gradually approaching from the other end of the hallway. Now they were loud enough to hear without even trying to listen intently.
But age.
Jeong Tae-ui tilted his head in curiosity.
…Aha. Was the one targeting my brother not Raman, but the old man sitting in front of him? The one called Al Faisal. Putting together what I’ve heard, it seems the old man is the one whose name is on the line, while Raman is the one wielding the actual power.
But in Jeong Tae-ui’s head, they were all the same.
“But honestly, I didn’t really want to take this job.”
“Why?”
“Someone I knew in the past told me something. That the target our employer is so desperate to catch is someone you gain nothing from touching.”
“Hmm… well, as long as we get paid, it’s fine.”
A response of “Haha, true,” followed.
Their conversation returned to mundane topics, such as wanting to go drink as soon as this job was over, or craving women.
Jeong Tae-ui let out a sigh.
The target Raman is desperate to catch… Jae-ui’s brother?
Well, it was true that there was nothing to gain from touching Jae-ui’s brother. Because if it wasn’t what his brother wanted, there would be no profit for the other side. He was a very rare case where money, power, and violence did not work.
But something felt slightly off in the context…
It was while Jeong Tae-ui was blinking and tilting his head.
He heard the men, who seemed to be passing right in front of him, speaking.
“By the way, doesn’t the guy inside understand everything we’re saying?”
Since they were speaking right in front of the door, it was too clear that ‘the guy inside’ referred to him.
“Who knows… if he’s East Asian, maybe he speaks English?”
“No. They say he’s a genius. I heard visit our sitethere are more than visit our sitea few places [unauthorized copy]desperate to recruit that man.”
“Hmm. What, does he speak ten languages or something? Haha. So what if he understands? What do we know? We didn’t say anything important. Right, Mr. Genius?”
Shouting “Right, Mr. Genius?” as if to make sure he heard, the men banged on the door once from the outside and passed by. Laughter trailed behind them.
However, from their conversation, which revealed they knew nothing, Jeong Tae-ui could be certain of one thing.
They had the wrong person.
…I was kidnapped instead of my brother… But what to do, the genius you desire is probably comfortably on a plane coming this way right now.
Jeong Tae-ui suddenly felt the strength leave his body.
What. I wasn’t kidnapped as an effective means to threaten my brother, but because they mistook me for him.
Regardless of which it was, the fact that he was kidnapped [visit our site]remained unchanged, but he felt strangely deflated. The proud way he had been worrying about how to escape before he could be used as a bargaining chip to threaten his brother now felt a bit futile.
But.
Jeong Tae-ui suddenly frowned.
Wait… then it’s not Raman. Because Raman wouldn’t mistake me for my brother. …No, since I haven’t encountered Raman here yet, the possibility that he kidnapped me mistaking me for my brother still exists.
Then again, thinking about it, that man had originally intended to kidnap his brother.
If so, it wouldn’t be strange if the person who kidnapped him—mistaking him for his brother—was Raman. No, it made perfect sense.
“…”
Jeong Tae-ui tilted his head suspiciously, unable to figure out why he kept feeling like a calculation had gone wrong somewhere.
However, the time he spent pondering alone did not last long.
Less than 30 minutes after the men who spoke German passed—this was perceived time while rolling around alone without a clock, so it might have been shorter in reality—he began to hear footsteps approaching from a distance.
Jeong Tae-ui instinctively sat up. He raised his body from the bed where he had been lying lazily and waited for the footsteps that were undoubtedly coming toward this room.
There was something clearly different from the footsteps that had occasionally passed by earlier. Those approaching footsteps were, at the very least, those of six or seven people.
A mixture of several slow yet formal footsteps, as if following one person in the center, eventually stopped in front of the door.
After a short phrase in a language Jeong Tae-ui couldn’t understand, the door opened.
In front of Jeong Tae-ui, who had a gag in his mouth, hands tied behind his back, and feet bound just enough to barely walk, a group of people entered.
He had guessed from the footsteps, but there were quite a few. At a glance, there seemed to be over a dozen.
However, there were only about four or five key figures.
In the center was a middle-aged man who looked like the highest-ranking person among them, and around him were three or four subordinates who seemed to be serving him; the rest looked like people who did the heavy lifting.
The middle-aged man standing in the center looked at Jeong Tae-ui with cold eyes as soon as he entered. The gaze that carefully scanned him from head to toe was chilly. It wasn’t exactly hostility, but it showed no sign of goodwill.
Jeong Tae-ui let out a deep sigh.
Seeing several Arabs dressed in thobes and ghutras made him feel depressed, likely because he had few memories of good things happening when encountering such people. It was like that in Seringe, and like that in Dresden.
Anyway, who is this man?
He thought Raman would come, but a complete stranger had arrived. His age was similar to the man Raman used to accompany, but it wasn’t that face. Nor did he seem to have the aura of Raman’s subordinate.
While Jeong Tae-ui was thinking about the relationship between this man and Raman, the middle-aged man, who had been examining him, said something to the person beside him. Then, the person standing behind him stepped forward and untied the gag in Jeong Tae-ui’s mouth.
As the mouthpiece and straps that had been [unauthorized copy]tightly filling and binding his mouth were removed, Jeong Tae-ui took a deep breath.
The middle-aged man said something to him. At those incomprehensible words, Jeong Tae-ui only tilted his head slightly.
The man frowned and clicked his tongue, remained silent for a moment, and then spoke again.
“Are you the man they call the genius weapons developer? You look young; how long have you been doing that work?”
This time it was English.
While relieved that a language he could understand was spoken, Jeong Tae-ui hesitated for a moment. It was because two questions had been fired at him simultaneously.
Muttering “Umm” awkwardly, Jeong Tae-ui chose to tell the truth first before the misunderstanding deepened further.
“I am not the genius weapons developer. I’ve never done such work.”
When Jeong Tae-ui answered, the middle-aged [unauthorized copy]man, who had been about to pour out more questions, paused instantly. His [Read on Read BL Novels]expression distorted strangely.
As the middle-aged man poured out a torrent of words to the man standing right next to him, that man glared at Jeong Tae-ui with a bewildered face.
“You’re saying you’re not Jeong Jae-ui?!”
“I am not.”
“You’re saying you’re not the man who registered as Jeong Jae-ui today and was under the protection of UNHRDO?”
To the man who shouted in a tone suggesting he already knew everything and that Tae-ui shouldn’t lie, Jeong Tae-ui shook his head again.
“I did register in his place and gratefully used that room, but I’m sorry, I think you have the wrong person.”
When Jeong Tae-ui answered decisively, the man stared intently at him with a frown.
“Then who are you?”
The man was asking as if they couldn’t possibly be unrelated if he had registered in his place and even used his room.
Jeong Tae-ui remained silent for a very short moment.
He couldn’t immediately tell if it would be better to say he was Jeong Jae-ui’s younger brother or not.
Above all, if he knew who this man was, he would see a direction for the conversation, but in a state where he didn’t even know that, the only fact Jeong Tae-ui knew was that this man had intended to bring Jeong Jae-ui.
He racked his brain for a short while, but since no clever solution came up, Jeong Tae-ui gave the most neutral answer.
“An instructor from UNHRDO told me to register in Mr. Jeong Jae-ui’s place and use that room, so I just followed instructions. I don’t know where Mr. Jeong Jae-ui is.”
In situations where information was lacking, an answer that was neither a complete lie nor the full truth was often the best.
When Jeong Tae-ui spoke with [Read on Read BL Novels]a somewhat aggrieved look on his face, [visit our site]the middle-aged man who had been watching him intently asked again slowly.
“Then you’re saying you aren’t the man Raman has been searching for so persistently? Not the man who tried to persuade Al Faisal to bring him under his wing, claiming he would be a strength to Ali?”
“I don’t know who that man is, but I’m not Jeong Jae-ui.”
As Jeong Tae-ui answered clearly and innocently, the middle-aged man narrowed his eyes, glared at him, and clicked his tongue.
“Hmph. I was going to make those bastards chase a ghost… It seems those organization people created a decoy of their own.”
At the man’s mutterings, Jeong Tae-ui, who had instantly become the decoy, shouted “Bingo!” with a crestfallen face.
As if a lightbulb had suddenly gone off in his head, a name he had heard a few times came to mind.
That man. The one said to have lost a power struggle against Prince Ali. Rashid.
Rashid glanced at Jeong Tae-ui and said something unauthorized copyto the man standing beside him. Jeong Tae-ui felt he [unauthorized copy]knew exactly what was being exchanged between Rashid and the man who nodded while looking at him.
Ten to one, it was an order to investigate.
Rashid turned away with a displeased expression. Just as he was about to leave the room, scolding the people around him in irritation, the sound of rapid footsteps approached.
A young man entered.
“Regarding the contact you ordered, a message has arrived from UNHRDO.”
He seemed to be a hired mercenary or someone of similar standing.
When the small-framed man standing next to Rashid muttered something, Rashid arched an eyebrow. Then, the small-framed man—the translator—conveyed the words again.
“What do they say?”
“Yes. Well… the main points of the organization’s response are that [unauthorized copy]they want [unauthorized copy]confirmation of his safety and a precise specification of the demands.”
While the translator spoke, Jeong Tae-ui clicked his tongue. Ego… It seemed they had contacted the organization after kidnapping Jeong Jae-ui.
However, the young man wasn’t finished.
“And there is another attachment with a different sender’s name, likely someone collaborating with the organization. It states that since the act of kidnapping, detaining, and threatening a member of an international organization for personal reasons has the potential to escalate into an international issue, sanctions will be imposed unless Researcher Jeong Jae-ui is released from detention immediately… but I cannot recognize the signature. It looks like Arabic.”
As the young man muttered while looking at the printed paper, another man standing nearby peered at the document and frowned.
“Raman Abid Al Saud…”
The moment that name was mentioned, a brief silence fell over the room.
Jeong Tae-ui quietly observed their reactions, shifting only his eyes.
The situation seems to be turning a bit grim… While thinking this, Jeong Tae-ui’s gaze [unauthorized copy]suddenly stopped on the youngest-looking Read on Read BL Novelsman standing closest to him. More specifically, his gaze landed on the small knife tucked into the leather belt at the man’s waist.
That would be quite useful…
Jeong Tae-ui thought for a moment and tried to subtly shake his arms. They were tied so tightly that he could barely move. In this state, it would be difficult to sneakily slip away.
While Jeong Tae-ui was stealing glances at the young man, the men, who had been whispering in a tense atmosphere, seemed to be in a hurry to leave.
Jeong Tae-ui clicked his tongue inwardly. The moment the young man started to follow them out of the room, Tae-ui scurried forward and collided with him. While the young man staggered and momentarily lost his balance, Tae-ui leaned down and plucked the knife from the man’s waist with his mouth.
The young man shouted something shortly, sounding angry. Several of the men who had been leaving came back in.
Tock. Jeong Tae-ui spat out the knife, quickly reached back to pick it up, and gripped it tight. The young man yelled and tried to force his hand open, but Tae-ui practically lay flat on the floor to hide his hand.
Four or five other men approached with annoyed expressions.
Rashid, who had been leading the way, and a few men beside him looked at the scene and seemed to guess what happened. They clicked their tongues, said a few words, and simply walked away.
The remaining men tried to take the knife from Jeong Tae-ui, and when he refused to let go, they began to punch him in anger.
“Ack! Ow! It hurts, stop hitting me! I only took his knife, why are you guys beating me! Get off! Why did you kidnap a person and do this!”
Jeong Tae-ui screamed furiously in Korean—which they couldn’t understand—though since the things a captive says are usually predictable, they probably weren’t that curious. He fought back desperately, biting, kicking, and headbutting the men indiscriminately.
The outcome of a fight between one person awkwardly restrained and four or five free, sturdy men was obvious from the start.
In the end, after being thoroughly beaten, Jeong Tae-ui had to soothe his ragged breathing for a while, feeling as if he were suffocating because the men—who left huffing and puffing after being bitten and scratched all over—had tied his mouth-piece and gag much tighter than before.
After inviting a beating that left him bruised all over and bleeding in places, the only thing Jeong Tae-ui had left was a lighter he had managed to steal from a man who smelled of cigarettes while he was thrashing about and pulling at them with his awkward hands.
This damn lighter really came at a high price… I just hope nothing is broken, Jeong Tae-ui groaned, rolling on the floor, unable to move for a while.
Forced to smell the foul scent of burning leather, Jeong Tae-ui felt a brief moment of regret.
If he had just stayed quietly and let things play out, since he wasn’t the person they wanted anyway, wouldn’t they have let him go? Even if they used him as a bargaining chip for Jeong Jae-ui, his safety might not have been seriously threatened.
But even if given the choice again, Jeong Tae-ui would have made the same decision.
If you’re lucky, they let you go quietly, but if you’re unlucky, they might dispose of you without a trace so that no word leaks out. He knew from reading a single book on military history that such cases were incredibly common.
An ordinary person like Jeong Tae-ui, who was not exceptionally lucky like Jeong Jae-ui, never entrusted his life to luck.
“…”
As he slightly shifted the direction [visit our site]of stolen contentthe rope against the lighter’s flame, Jeong [visit our site]Tae-ui frowned with a groan.
It seemed a bone near his shoulder had been slightly displaced when he was beaten earlier. He felt a sharp throb every time he moved, and soon the area began to swell.
Actually, it wasn’t just his shoulder. He suspected his entire body would be purple if he could see himself in a mirror.
Sighing, Jeong Tae-ui remained focused on freeing his legs. The ropes binding his arms were tied so tightly they dug into his skin, making it impossible, but the cord binding his ankles could be burned relatively easily.
Wedging the lit lighter between the seams of the bed and holding the ankle cord to it, Jeong Tae-ui thought once again that the smell of burning leather was not something a human should have to endure.
The smell of scorching leather straps and steel wire was so pungent that he worried someone might come if the scent leaked out, but fortunately, that didn’t happen.
In fact, judging by the fact that the sound of people passing by had been sparse for a while, everyone seemed to be busy elsewhere. He could occasionally hear the distant sound of people talking loudly and moving hurriedly.
My legs are fine, and my arms are as they are, but I wish my mouth would be more comfortable.
Feeling acutely how uncomfortable the mouthpiece stuffing his mouth was, [visit our site]Jeong Tae-ui tugged at the [stolen content]blackened ankle cord. Black ash fluttered down.
Okay…
Rubbing the ankle cord against the edge of the bed, Jeong Tae-ui let out a light sigh. Before long, the ash-covered cord could not withstand the friction and snapped weakly.
At least his legs were free.
He regretted that his arms weren’t free, as that would have allowed him to free his legs and mouth as well, but one must learn to be grateful for the small things given.
Jeong Tae-ui satisfactorily shook both ankles. His thighs and shins, where he had been beaten, throbbed, but it didn’t hinder his movement. His ankles stung slightly, but again, it wasn’t a major issue.
…Even saying that, he could only talk about “hindrances” if he had an environment where he could actually move.
Jeong Tae-ui looked at the window with the shutters closed. He didn’t know what time it was. Surely it wasn’t dawn already, but if he could at least see outside, he could make a rough guess.
He looked regretfully at the window positioned higher than Read on Read BL Novelshis arms, then quickly gave [stolen content]up and turned his head.
Now, next…
Jeong Tae-ui approached the wooden desk. He opened the swing door attached to the desk outward and put more weight into it. Crack. The door broke and hung loosely.
As expected, it’s much easier to do things when even one leg can move properly, he hummed happily, waddling over to pick up a thin pin that had fallen from the broken hinge.
Fortunately, this building, which looked like a government residence, had a flimsy door structure that could be opened easily with a single pin.
Turning awkwardly and groping the doorknob by feel alone, it was quite difficult to open it with his bound hands. It took a considerable amount of time.
Judging by the hallway he saw when the door opened earlier, this building was indeed nothing more than a residence, so sneaking out shouldn’t be difficult.
Jeong Tae-ui hummed. The door was just about to open.
At that moment.
He thought he heard something.
A sound that was hard to mistake: gunfire.
“…?!”
The gunshots ringing through the silent night started as occasional single shots, but gradually became more frequent. Moreover, the sound of a machine gun could be heard from somewhere.
Jeong Tae-ui slowly tilted his head.
Did I hear wrong?
But no. He could clearly hear the gunshots, however faint, from a distance. And they were accompanied by screams and shouts.
…Something is wrong.
Naturally, he had never seen a good outcome from hearing gunshots. When shouts were mixed in with the gunfire, it went without saying. Anyone would feel the same.
His fingers, rattling the doorknob, grew anxious.
Yet, even amidst the anxiety, his fingertips moved without mistake, and a moment later, he felt the click of the lock releasing.
Good.
Jeong Tae-ui paused to sense the presence outside. He felt no one.
When he opened the door, the gunshots grew louder. Rough shouts and gunfire sounded slightly muffled, as if they were outside the building. However, inside the building, gunshots rang out from somewhere on the lower floors. Those sounds weren’t as frequent as the ones outside, but they echoed occasionally here and there.
Listening for a while, the gunfire seemed to be coming mainly from the right side of the lower floors—likely about two floors down.
“…”
No, perhaps this was actually for the better. There was a high possibility that people had flocked to that area.
Jeong Tae-ui carefully opened the door. Inch by inch, he opened it silently while scanning the outside.
The hallway was dark. Among the fluorescent lights spaced far apart on the ceiling, some were off, so while there was no problem moving around, it felt dim.
But this was actually better. The dimmer it was, the less likely he was to be spotted. Of course, if he moved energetically, he couldn’t avoid being seen.
Jeong Tae-ui stepped quietly into the hallway.
As he thought, this building seemed to have been used as a public office.
Along the hallway that curved ahead, similar-looking wooden doors were lined up on both sides. The large open iron swing door next to the corner of the hallway was likely the stairs.
There was no one in the hallway.
To succeed in escaping, he had to avoid being caught.
Under other circumstances, there might have been a chance to smooth things over even if caught, but in his current state where he couldn’t use his arms, Jeong Tae-ui was overwhelmingly disadvantaged regardless of whom he encountered.
Now… let’s see…
But as soon as he thought that, he sensed someone running up the stairs.
It would have been better to quickly duck back into the room, but the sound was so sudden that there was no time to open the door with his backward-turned hands and enter again.
Damn it, he cursed inwardly, pressing his body tightly against the wall next to the fire hydrant at the front of the stairs. However, the fire hydrant, which protruded only about a span, offered almost no cover. Anyone coming up the stairs would see him directly just by lifting their head.
Sigh. A game of tag as soon as I step out. I’d prefer hide-and-seek in this situation; I hate tag.
He was a fast runner, but visit our sitewith his upper body awkwardly visit our sitefixed, his movement speed was bound to drop significantly.
Still, running was his only option now, so the best plan would be to kick the man the moment he looked this way and then bolt. Thinking this, Jeong Tae-ui shifted his foot back slightly.
However.
It was an incredible stroke of luck for Jeong Tae-ui, but simultaneously incomprehensible, the man stepped back into the hallway as soon as he reached the top of the stairs.
As if he had been looking back to see if something was chasing him and eventually decided to just back away, the man approached backward. Jeong Tae-ui did not miss this opening.
While finding it strange, he launched himself in one motion, aiming precisely for the chin and kicking the man.
The man’s head snapped back, and he staggered as if his brain had been shaken. Jeong Tae-ui delivered a second kick. This time, just below the back of the head. It landed perfectly.
The man’s eyes widened, and he collapsed unconscious. Jeong Tae-ui carefully checked the man from a few steps away.
“…”
After confirming that the motionless man was merely unconscious, Jeong Tae-ui let out a sigh. That was a close call.
…But.
For some reason, thanks to the man backing into him, Jeong Tae-ui had gained the upper hand and been able to knock him out, but he was still puzzled.
Why? As if something terrifying was chasing him from behind, why would he turn around like that…
As Jeong Tae-ui tilted his head and bent over to look at the man, he quickly stood up upon hearing a sound from the lower floor.
Regardless, this was no time to linger.
Holding his breath and sensing the presence on the lower floor, Jeong Tae-ui moved toward the stairs. The number marked on the landing was 3. Since there were stairs going up, the building was at least four stories high. If it was used as a residence, it would likely be five or six stories at most.
Jeong Tae-ui’s cautious steps reached the second floor.
He intended to go straight down, but sensing someone moving just below the stairs, he entered the second-floor hallway.
In a building of this size, there were bound to be other staircases.
Jeong Tae-ui moved quickly, listening for any signs of presence.
But it was strange.
While running through the hallway searching for the stairs, Jeong Tae-ui felt a peculiar sensation. It grew stronger the further he went.
There was a strange lack of human presence.
Clearly, when Jeong Tae-ui had been locked up, he had often heard the sounds of people passing by in the hallway. Thus, he thought there were quite a few people in the building.
But the surroundings were silent.
While gunshots were occasionally heard from the lower floors, it was as if there had been no one here from the start. Or as if everyone who had been here had vanished somewhere.
“…?”
He had a bad feeling. He wanted to get out of this building immediately.
Another iron door appeared at the end of the hallway. It looked like a stairwell.
As he approached and pushed the door open with his shoulder, there were indeed stairs. However, the moment he stepped inside, Jeong Tae-ui froze.
There was a corpse.
Right in front of him, on the top step, was one person, and another was lying bloodied on the landing leading down.
“…!!”
Seeing the corpse dead with its eyes wide open, Jeong Tae-ui stopped breathing for a moment.
What is this? Why is someone dead like this in a place like this?
It was while Jeong Tae-ui was frozen in place, watching them.
Suddenly, with the clatter of an iron door opening on the floor below, the sound of someone stepping inside was heard.
Jeong Tae-ui quickly hid behind the door and held his breath.
Fortunately, the person who had entered the stairwell on the lower floor didn’t seem to have any intention of coming up the stairs. …No, there were two of them.
The sound of heavy breathing continued for a while, and then one of them suddenly muttered.
“Damn it… no matter how much they paid, I shouldn’t have signed visit our sitea contract for this kind of job… What unauthorized copythe hell happened? I don’t even know what kind of situation this is.”
A voice slightly elevated with anxiety and fear.
A moment later, a somewhat calmer voice followed.
“What do you think? Those bastards suddenly stormed in in the middle of the night and started shooting. Damn it, the guys who went outside were breached too. A few of them have already gotten inside the building.”
“Was that guy the boss? The one who broke through the glass door first? It seemed like everyone on their side was following his orders. What did you call him, Abid? Al Abid?”
“Al… Saud… was it? He seemed to be looking for someone…”
Jeong Tae-ui held his breath and stayed hidden behind the iron door, listening to the low conversation between the men. Only then did the situation make sense.
Abid Al Saud. Raman had come.
It was hard to imagine that man smashing through a glass door, but after mentioning something about imposing sanctions [Read on Read BL Novels]earlier, it [unauthorized copy]seemed he had simply pushed his way in by force.
If so, the person he was looking for… would be his brother, who hadn’t arrived in Germany yet…
Jeong Tae-ui suddenly felt a tiny bit sorry for Raman.
He probably came with the calculation that he could win Jeong Jae-ui’s favor—or put him in his debt—on this occasion to lure him to Saudi Arabia, but it was a miscalculation from the very start.
If I appear before him, he’ll be beyond disappointed—actually, if I appear, he’ll probably grab me and use me as a bargaining chip immediately—so I must succeed in escaping secretly without being caught.
It was just as Jeong Tae-ui made up his mind.
“No… but the problem isn’t that guy.”
A faint trace of terror suddenly colored the voice of the man whispering below. His husky voice trembled slightly.
“There was a monster mixed in. A devil of a man. You saw him too.”
“Uh… …is he a mercenary they hired?”
The responding voice also trembled and grew low.
“No, I don’t think so. I saw him while I was hiding and waiting for him to pass, and he was stabbing the guys on their own side too.”
“What? Then he’s someone hired by our side… no, that can’t be, Brett was killed by him!”
The man’s low voice was almost a wail.
“What the hell is going on, then what is that guy! Where did he come from!”
“He came to look for someone too. I couldn’t hear clearly, but… he asked where they were. He’s looking for someone.”
“Damn it… what the hell did that old bastard [Read on Read BL Novels]Rashid kidnap to cause [visit our site]this mess!! Let’s just grab that guy and hand him over to them!”
“Wait… is it the guy they said they kidnapped? He was locked up upstairs, right?!”
It was the moment the man shouted in what sounded like a low scream.
Suddenly.
The lights went out.
“…?!”
“What, the lights?!”
Amidst the bewildered voices of the men, Jeong Tae-ui also stiffened slightly. The light that had been leaking from inside the iron door where he was hiding also vanished.
A pitch-black darkness, so [Read on Read BL Novels]deep it felt like he had gone blind, with not a single stolen contentlight source in any direction.
It seemed the power for the entire building had gone out. As if someone had cut the fuse.
“A blackout? At a time like this?!”
“What, I can’t see anything. …What happened. Damn it, did some bastard shut off the power to the whole building?! Wait, when I came in, there was a circuit breaker right next to this door—”
But then.
Cutting through the men’s voices.
“Aha… I turned off the lights specifically for your sake, but I guess you didn’t like it. Who knows, maybe in the dark, I might miss you and you’ll be able to hide and escape safely.”
A low voice mixed with laughter was heard. Right nearby.
In an instant, the blood in his entire body froze.
Jeong Tae-ui stood frozen in the pitch-black darkness.
There was no way he could have misheard that voice.
…It was Ilay.
Jeong Tae-ui swallowed a trembling breath, thinking that if his hands were fine, he would have undoubtedly clutched his chest in relief.
If that low laugh sounded this terrifying to his own ears, which were already familiar enough with it, how must it have sounded to them?
However, before Jeong Tae-ui could feel sorry for their plight, a blood-curdling scream was heard. The scream vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
“Now, shall we quiet down the loudest one first and then hear the story? Where did you say you locked up the guy you kidnapped? Upstairs? I’ve already cleared out the few guys on the second floor, and I just checked the third, but I didn’t see Jeong Jae-yi. …Aha… strangely, there was one empty room littered with charred pieces of leather and lighters; did he escape from there?”
He really is lucky, Ilay laughed lowly.
Jeong Tae-ui’s heart continued to throb with dread as he rolled his eyes.
Ilay was also looking for Jeong Jae-ui.
He believed that the person kidnapped and brought here was Jeong Jae-ui.
“…!”
No, it’s me, me! It’s me!!
Feeling a sense of… well, not exactly welcome—his trembling heart certainly didn’t feel welcome—but rather a need to inform him of the fact, Jeong Tae-ui stepped out from behind the iron door.
And only then did he realize.
He couldn’t use his arms. Naturally, he couldn’t remove the mouthpiece and gag blocking his mouth. Moreover, above all, that bastard had shut off the building’s power, and everything was engulfed in a darkness where one couldn’t distinguish an inch in front of them.
Hah… Just as a slightly ominous feeling hit him and he stopped, it was already too late.
The presence from the lower floor seemed to subside for a moment, and then he heard Ilay speaking slowly as he stood up.
“Is someone there?”
He swore that this was the first time such an ordinary sentence felt so terrifyingly frightening. Yes, it felt like something out of a childhood ghost story.
“My. I didn’t notice at all until now… I wonder what skilled little rabbit was hiding there.”
Ilay laughed as he walked up the stairs.
Thump, thump. The heavy sound of dress shoes grew closer, step by step.
Jeong Tae-ui agonized for a moment.
If I just rush out and headbutt his chest, will he realize? …No, I feel like I’ll get hit once before I can even headbutt him.
Or if I just wait quietly for him to come… no, he’s not the type to be kind and do nothing just because I’m being quiet.
Then escape… …that’s also a bit…
While Jeong Tae-ui was hesitating, unable to do this or that, Ilay was stepping up onto the intermediate landing.
It was then.
A very hazy and dim night light was filtering through the small window on the landing. In that dark light, which wasn’t enough to distinguish features, only silhouettes could be recognized. Within it, the outline of Ilay’s hand as he stepped onto the landing was faintly visible.
Specifically, his hand, and the object held in it.
“…!!”
Even though it was just a black silhouette, he recognized it immediately.
It was the object he had seen at Alain’s house.
At the end of that serrated blade, as long as a human forearm, a thick droplet of liquid hung, swayed for a moment, and then fell.
“Hmm…?”
Then suddenly, Ilay paused his steps. Stopping as if puzzled, he suddenly muttered to himself.
“Didn’t it smell a bit like something burning just now…?”
In an instant, Jeong Tae-ui flinched. The charred leather straps hanging broken around both his ankles suddenly felt heavy.
A moment of silence followed.
At the end of that silence, a low laugh, more terrifying than anything heard from hell, echoed.
“Aha… my senses are as good as my nose… especially my instinct for prey has never been wrong.”
“…!”
“It’s been a while, Jeong Jae-yi. It’s so dark that I can’t even shake your hand.”
The shadow of the knife in his hand spun in a joyful circle.
At that moment, almost instinctively, Jeong Tae-ui bolted from his spot and began running up the stairs. He felt a chill run down his spine, and every hair on his body stood on end.
What do you mean your instincts are good, you crazy bastard!!
If his mouth had been fine, if [unauthorized copy]he could have spoken, Jeong Tae-ui Read on Read BL Novelswould have screamed that at the top of his lungs.
Then again, if that were the case, there would be no reason to run like this, he thought on one hand as he dashed up to the third floor in one breath and exited into the hallway instead of going further up.
As he left the stairwell door on the third floor, a low laugh followed him up from the stairs half a flight below. It was skin-crawling.
The hallway was wrapped in a pitch-black silence. There were no lights and no sign of anyone.
After walking a few steps, Jeong Tae-ui realized that he couldn’t simply run away. Right now, there was nothing in his favor.
Even if he were in proper condition, it was uncertain if he could safely escape that man, and with his upper body bound and restricted, his running speed was naturally lower than the other’s.
Furthermore, as he bumped into things here and there in the darkness while running, his dislocated shoulder throbbed so much he wondered if it was becoming a serious problem, and his ankle, which had only been slightly sprained earlier, was gradually falling apart. Even the mouthpiece filling his mouth choked his breathing. At this rate, he felt he would suffocate to death before he died by that man’s hand.
In this situation, trying to escape that man by simply running was a suicidal act.
Jeong Tae-ui moved through the hallway as [Read on Read BL Novels]silently and quickly as possible, opening every door he came across. Since his wrists were tied, even that wasn’t as easy as he hoped.
Just as he had opened maybe three or four doors, a voice came from the stairwell.
“Jeong Jae-yi. You don’t have to run so hard. With your luck, aren’t you always fine no matter what I do, hm?”
The leisurely, ample voice echoed through this pitch-black space that was as silent as a grave. Meanwhile, the sound of a gunshot—bang—was heard from somewhere below.
The gunshots had grown significantly closer than before.
It seemed they had finally pushed into the building and started a firefight; intense gunfire began to be heard from some part of the lower floors.
Yet, only this place remained quiet—even though gunshots were clearly audible, it felt as if this place were detached from everything else—giving him a strange feeling. It felt like a different world here.
“Even when I shot you in the past, a perfectly fine gun suddenly exploded, and I was the one who got hurt instead. I really thought it was incredible luck.”
That happened too?! So this bastard has been after my brother’s life since way back?!
“But you know, aren’t you curious? What would happen if it were a knife instead of a gun. You’re human too, so surely your belly skin won’t be able to block a knife, and the knife won’t suddenly melt away. I was curious about that, so this time I prepared a knife instead of a gun.”
He could almost see the face smiling mischievously. That voice was gradually approaching.
Jeong Tae-ui suppressed his presence and leaned against a pillar ledge in the hallway, slightly offset.
Even then, that slow and relaxed voice continued to speak as it drew closer.
“I wonder just how far your luck goes. I’ve been curious for a long time. So, let’s test once more which will prevail: my hunt or your luck. Even if your luck is overwhelmingly superior, I’m curious to see how you’ll escape…”
The voice had come a few steps closer.
Nothing was visible in the hallway. No matter how much of a monster Ilay was, he shouldn’t be able to distinguish Jeong Tae-ui with his eyes. The rest relied on his ears, his nose, and most importantly, his instinct.
Jeong Tae-ui held his breath. He knew his heartbeat couldn’t possibly be heard outside his chest, but [unauthorized copy]to his own ears, it sounded like a giant drum, making even him anxious.
If I step out and approach him now, wouldn’t he realize that I’m not his prey?
Who knows. Since they spent so much time together, maybe he developed some kind of sense for it, and he’d recognize him just by the presence if he got close.
Yes, that was possible. For instance, didn’t that man sometimes know like a ghost when he entered his dark room silently in the middle of the night and suddenly pull him into an embrace?
Once, wondering if he did that to anyone who entered his room at night, he had secretly called Kyle and—without saying a word to him, because Kyle surely wouldn’t have helped if he knew—led him into Ilay’s room. (Thinking back, he had almost done something terribly sorry to Kyle.)
At that time, far from embracing him, Ilay had responded coldly in a frigid voice, ‘Why at this hour? If you have business, tell me tomorrow over breakfast.’ After Kyle grumbled and left, and after a short interval, when Jeong Tae-ui entered the room just as quietly as Kyle had, he was without fail pulled into an embrace again.
“…”
Judging by that, yes, if I just go to him quietly and obediently now, he might realize halfway and put the knife away.
It was the exact moment Jeong Tae-ui had this very brief deliberation.
“Ah, let’s see… are you around here?”
For a moment, both voice and presence seemed to cut off. Just as his heart sank upon realizing this, his voice suddenly sounded right in his ear. Simultaneously, the sensation of something slicing through the air approached.
An extremely short moment.
Following his instinct.
With a distance of barely an inch, Jeong Tae-ui narrowly managed to dodge. A grating yet smooth sound, as if sliding into the wall, echoed as the blade plunged right next to his bound arms. The chilling sensation of the blade brushed against his arm.
“…!!”
You ghost-like bastard, Jeong Tae-ui’s heart plummeted.
But he was in no position to dwell on it.
Pulling the knife from the wall, Ilay laughed lowly and swung again with precision, as if he could see, aiming for a spot that would undoubtedly be fatal if hit.
Whenever he tried to push off the ground and run, Ilay swung in that direction, making him strongly suspect that this man could actually see.
Ilay suddenly let out a short, admiring laugh.
“Indeed, is this why they say you’re lucky? There’s no way a body that spends its time sitting at a desk immersed in a world inside its head could dodge so splendidly. …Well then, shall we start getting serious?”
So you weren’t serious until now! I’m dead.
Jeong Tae-ui grit his teeth.
It couldn’t be helped. He hadn’t wanted to do this, but he had to survive first. Sorry, Ilay.
Without even trying to hide his presence, Jeong Tae-ui gauged the direction from which [visit our site]the other was leisurely approaching, aimed accurately, closed his eyes tight, and kicked him mercilessly.
Thwack.
He could feel the heavy impact against a shin. It hit perfectly.
And for the first time, Jeong Tae-ui realized very vividly that this man was human.
A low, short groan was heard. A groan of pain escaping from Ilay’s mouth—it felt like the first time he had ever heard such a thing. There was the sound of him bending his body and catching his breath.
After hesitating for only a very brief moment, Jeong Tae-ui immediately turned around and ran, swallowing his tears. As a fellow man, he really hadn’t wanted to do this.
He felt sorry enough to cry. At the same time, he felt despair at the thought that if he were caught now, there would be nothing but death.
Unable to gain speed because he couldn’t see ahead, he twisted his body slightly, using his shoulder instead of his hands to check the way forward, and ran with all his might.
According to Jeong Tae-ui’s memory, a corner should appear around here, and [stolen content]if he turned that corner and went a little further, [unauthorized copy]another set of stairs would appear. Then unauthorized copyhe would absolutely go down. Once he went down and got out of the building, it would be game set.
Damn it. Why am I playing a survival game with my life on the line in the middle of the night? How did I end up in this situation?
For the first time, Jeong Tae-ui resented his brother just a little bit.
Although he swore he never wished his brother had fallen into this situation instead of him, the thought that a large part of the cause of this situation lay with his brother made him feel a tiny bit of resentment. At the same time, he realized once again just how lucky a human his brother was.
“…—.”
He was out of breath. He felt as if he were truly about to die.
Jeong Tae-ui thought that perhaps he was no longer in a normal state of mind. For a while now, the sound of gunfire had been ringing out continuously, sounding increasingly close. …The gunfire was close.
Suddenly, he snapped back to his senses.
While the gunfire was close, it was certain that it wasn’t coming from this floor.
If that were the case, if he followed the sound and went down.
Though he might encounter someone pointing a gun at him, he might be able to escape that terrifying man chasing him from behind.
Jeong Tae-ui followed the sound of the gunfire.
In the pitch-black darkness where there was nothing to lean on, that desolate sound of gunfire was his only guide.
Following the structure of the building as he remembered it, bumping his shoulder violently several times as he rounded corners and ran toward the gunfire, a threshold suddenly brushed past Jeong Tae-ui’s feet.
Stairs.
A short burst of euphoria surged through Jeong Tae-ui’s mind.
If he could just go down. If he could just go down here and escape this building.
With only that thought in mind, he felt his way down a step on the stairs, not even knowing where they began. It was then.
“Planning to go alone?”
A voice sounded right behind his back.
A voice whispering, brushing closely against his ear.
When had he gotten this close? Without him noticing at all.
In an instant, Jeong Tae-ui’s heart froze.
He realized then that this was the man’s hunt.
Making him believe he could escape, while ensuring he never could.
“……!!”
A sharp pain stung his back.
Even though he had thrown his body aside the moment he felt that breath, even before the voice had fully registered, a blade he failed to dodge tore through his clothes and grazed the skin of his back.
It wasn’t enough to be a major hindrance, but the faint scent of blood wafted through the air.
From behind, a voice sounded, this time sounding genuinely impressed.
“You dodged? Now that’s impressive. Jeong Jae-yi, I think you might be better suited for this side of things than being a researcher.”
But the moment he finished speaking.
There was a rush of wind closing in on his face.
Tripping on the step behind him, Jeong Tae-ui lost his balance, staggered, and collapsed against the wall.
And then, a knife sliced across Jeong Tae-ui’s neck.
To be precise, about an inch below his ear.
The thin blade cut deep into the skin of his neck and embedded itself in the wall.
A single layer of skin. But quite deep.
Ilay still held the hilt. If he simply pushed his hand sideways to tilt the knife, that large, sharp blade would drop his head like a guillotine.
…The game was over.
“A very precise hit.”
Right in front of him, he heard Ilay grinding his teeth. His voice was a low growl, as if he were still in pain.
“It’s been a while since something hurt this much. You really kicked without mercy. For a moment, I wondered if I’d never be able to use it again for the rest of my life.”
The blade, which had sliced through a layer of his neck, seemed to twitch. Strength entered the hand gripping the hilt.
With a feeling that he was truly on the verge of death, Jeong Tae-ui slowly closed his eyes.
Was he really going to die like this? Just like this… at Ilay’s hands?
That wouldn’t do. He hated the idea of dying, but dying at this bastard’s hands was even more unacceptable.
Wait, there must be a way. Even if you’re bitten by a tiger, as long as you keep your wits about you, your wits, your wits…
“That won’t do, Mr. Jeong [Read on Read BL Novels]Jae-yi. [stolen content][stolen content]If this thing becomes unusable, your brother will cry.”
He absolutely would not! Absolutely not!!
Suddenly, he woke up. If he were to suffocate to death right now, the cause of that suffocation would absolutely not be physical.
Jeong Tae-ui breathed heavily, glaring at the invisible Ilay.
As if he didn’t even feel that gaze, Ilay laughed softly.
“Now… shall we see. I wonder if the lucky Jeong Jae-yi’s neck won’t fall off even if I slice it.”
“……!!”
The sensation of strength entering the hand gripping the hilt was transmitted through the blade.
His heart stopped for a moment.
Right then.
A terrifying sound that shook the air rang out by his ear.
That sound, resembling a clap of thunder, filled his eardrums.
Immediately following it was the acrid smell of gunpowder reaching the tip of his nose.
“Get away from him.”
A low, clear voice echoed from the darkness.
From the bottom of the stairs, around the landing, the sound of dress shoes approached, step by step. Then, a gunshot rang out once more.
Aiming precisely where Ilay’s voice had come from. Regardless [unauthorized copy]of whether the [stolen content]bullet would shatter his head, the trigger was [unauthorized copy]pulled relentlessly from the darkness.
Jeong Tae-ui knew that voice.
The way of speaking, with an ingrained confidence rooted in the nature of one who had reigned over others since birth, was not something easily forgotten.
The blade left Jeong Tae-ui’s neck. It was likely to avoid the bullet flying straight toward his head.
Ilay, now standing a step away from Jeong Tae-ui, seemed to remember that voice as well, letting out a laugh.
“To think that Lord Raman Abid Al Saud would come all the way to such a dark and gloomy place.”
“Ilay Riegrow. The one you actually intend to harm is me, not him. Do not touch that man.”
“—Aha…?”
Ilay raised the end of his sentence subtly. He [Read on Read BL Novels]trailed off for a stolen contentmoment as if thinking about something, then [visit our site]suddenly laughed. But he soon muttered, “Well, it doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, I thought you’d come. I had a feeling you would. Then, shall I do as you wish? Come to think of it, didn’t I still have a debt to repay you?”
With those words, Ilay immediately moved. Gauging the direction from which Raman’s voice had come, as if he could see right through the weapon he was holding.
Soon, gunfire rang out again. Intermittently, several times, the gunshots continued, changing direction each time.
At the same time, as if responding to the gunfire, the faint sound of thin fabric tearing—shrrk, shrrk—was mixed in between.
No words were heard. As if neither had any intention or need to converse from the start, neither side attempted to speak first.
All that could be heard were the gunshots and the presence of the blade.
Gun and knife. Which one was more advantageous?
In the current situation, it was impossible to pinpoint either. A knife that could slice through a wide area without a trace in a situation where one couldn’t see an inch ahead, Read on Read BL Novelsand a gun that could pierce Read on Read BL Novelsflesh without distance constraints the moment the opponent’s position was identified.
Which one suited the hand holding the weapon better? Which one could be handled more skillfully? Furthermore, in this unpredictable situation where one sense had been completely lost, who was more accustomed to fighting?
—If so, the answer was already decided.
The scent of blood grew thicker.
Whether Ilay had been shot or Raman had been cut, one of them was undoubtedly injured. And those wounds were increasing as time passed.
At those quiet yet terrifying presences, Jeong Tae-ui flinched and withdrew his hands. The reason his fingertips were cold in the face of these sounds wasn’t just because he was tied up and unable to move.
Someone was getting hurt. The smell of blood was incredibly thick.
Yet neither of them made a sound. Not a groan, nor even the sound of labored breathing could be discerned. Occasionally, a short sound like a click of the tongue was heard, but that alone wasn’t enough to tell whose it was.
Right in front of him, unseen, someone—perhaps someone close to him—was being injured.
He came to realize the terror of not being able to see in this form.
It was then.
The gunfire that had been sounding intermittently from below approached this way. It seemed they were following the gunshots ringing out from here. The presence of people followed.
One, two… even a rough guess suggested that four or five people had reached the stairwell of the floor immediately below.
He couldn’t tell whose people they were. Raman’s side, or Rashid’s side.
However, as if they had confirmed each other as allies even in this darkness, the sound of them talking reached him. Having run while talking anxiously among themselves in rough, fast voices, they shouted something toward this direction from the landing below.
Among the unintelligible words that sounded like they were calling someone, Raman’s name was faintly mixed in.
Jeong Tae-ui could quickly tell who was calling him visit our siteanxiously with a worried voice. It [visit our site]was Malik’s voice.
In the darkness, Raman shouted something brief. Upon hearing those words, the group that had been hurriedly climbing came to a sudden halt.
“…Right, it would be troublesome if other guys interfered along the way.”
Ilay muttered. Hearing that dangerous voice mixed with a low laugh, Jeong Tae-ui felt a slight sense of relief that he seemed to be okay for now.
The fighting on the lower floor—and inside and outside the building—seemed to have mostly ended. After two more gunshots were heard from a distance below, there were no more.
Judging by the fact that they remained stationary on the floor below without moving, it seemed Raman’s side had ended the situation.
This was likely the final fight of the night.
He heard someone below screaming to turn on the lights. However, since the lines had been cut entirely, they couldn’t be easily restored. For a moment, something seemed to flash dimly down there. It seemed someone had brought a flashlight or something that could serve as a light source.
The few men standing anxiously on the lower Read on Read BL Novelslanding, unable to climb further, also [Read on Read BL Novels]shouted downward. One or [stolen content]two lights began to flicker.
But in front of Jeong Tae-ui, who was still enveloped in pitch-black darkness, the smell of blood became overwhelmingly thick.
Thump. —Thump. Jeong Tae-ui’s heart throbbed and raced.
At that moment, a hot, fishy smell brushed the tip of his nose. At that immense scent of blood, whose it was he didn’t know, Jeong Tae-ui felt a surge of nausea beyond sharp tension.
And only then did a groan finally sound. Although it was only for a fleeting moment, it was enough to realize that it was not a familiar tone.
After a momentary relief, Jeong Tae-ui listened with tension that remained sharply edged. He didn’t wish for Ilay to be hurt. But he didn’t wish for Raman to be hurt either.
Then, a short thud was heard. It was a heavy sound, enough to make the listener feel the pain, but he felt relief that it wasn’t a gunshot or the presence of a knife.
Following that thud, there was a weight that collapsed and was carried onto Jeong Tae-ui’s body.
“…—.”
Jeong Tae-ui flinched in surprise. Rough, short breaths, gasping for air, were heard right by his ear.
“…Haha… the two of you have similar sides.”
The voice coming from a few steps ahead was Ilay’s.
It was the same relaxed and low voice, but a rough breath was faintly carried in it. He didn’t seem to be entirely unscathed either.
“You both chose the wrong profession. …Well, whatever. I enjoyed tonight enough.”
Ilay spoke quietly. That low voice, with a subtle strain, indicated that he too was injured somewhere, but Jeong Tae-ui cast an invisible gaze toward the man collapsed on top of him.
A smell of blood so strong it was nauseating.
His expression hardened at the smell of hot, sticky blood that [unauthorized copy]flowed down, soaking Jeong Tae-ui’s body in an instant.
It was more terrifying because he couldn’t see. The smell of blood was so pervasive that he worried about what state this man would be in when the lights came on—no, whether he would even survive.
“Don’t touch him.”
Suddenly, Ilay’s low voice brushed past.
The voice, completely devoid of leisure or laughter, was cold.
“Don’t touch Tae-yi. Don’t try to use him in any way. —You see, Mr. Jeong Jae-yi, I really don’t like the fact that Tae-yi’s words are almost all listened to by you, and that you would likely grant almost everything that bastard wants. If it weren’t for the facade of being brothers, regardless of whether your luck was good or not, I would have killed you by any means necessary. —But if I killed you with my own hands, Tae-yi would undoubtedly hate me, …so I let you live, even today.”
Ilay clicked his tongue. Though he spoke coldly, it was evident that he was actually extremely displeased.
Jeong Tae-ui looked toward Ilay. Looking at him with eyes that couldn’t see, he suddenly flinched and let out a groan inwardly.
This is bad. The current situation is so bleak that it makes me sigh, and no matter how I think about it, this isn’t a situation that can be easily overlooked… and yet, the fact that I’m more concerned right now about how embarrassed I feel after hearing those words means my head is really in a bad place.
Then suddenly, the man who had been lying motionless on top of Jeong Tae-ui, soaked in blood as if dead, gave a faint sign of laughing.
“Yes. That’s glad to hear. Please take good care of that Jeong Tae-yi. I don’t want to see that man as much as possible either. —Just the fact that that man influences this person makes me feel beyond displeased.”
The voice exhaled through the teeth, mixed with a gurgling sound of blood, sounded like nothing more than breaths broken into fragments.
However, after hearing those slow words in full, Jeong Tae-ui fell silent. He had no way to speak, but he also had nothing to say. Because hearing this man’s words gave him a vague, highly unsettling and ominous feeling.
…For a moment, I felt like I must absolutely never send my brother anywhere near this man. I hope it’s a mistake. Please.
As Jeong Tae-ui was swept by a faintly ominous premonition, forgetting all other worries for a moment, a bitter laugh reached his ears.
“…Were you surprised? —Are you displeased?”
Raman asked. In a voice Jeong Tae-ui had never heard before—polite, yet incredibly kind and soft.
Suddenly, his heart dropped. Not for any other reason. He felt that these were words he should absolutely not be hearing.
But before Jeong Tae-ui could sneakily pull away from Raman, Raman’s hand grabbed Jeong Tae-ui’s arm. That hand too was stickily wet with blood; for a moment, Jeong Tae-ui’s face hardened, wondering just how disastrous this man’s condition was.
“Mr. Jeong Jae-ui. …Did you really not know?”
He asked lowly.
Before he could ask what… Jeong Tae-ui only thought that he had to leave this place immediately due to the sudden onset of an ominous feeling. Meanwhile, from below, beams of pocket flashlights were climbing the stairs in clusters, brought from who knows where.
Wait, please don’t say it, don’t say any more, I’m not Jae-ui’s brother so don’t tell me! I absolutely, even if I die, do not want to hear it!
Never had he cursed the fact that his mouth was covered more than at this moment.
However, as he struggled to pull away in a panic, fortunately, as he wished, he [unauthorized copy]didn’t Read on Read BL Novelshave to hear any more. And unfortunately, he would come to think for a long [stolen content]time that it would have been better to hear it.
The hand that carefully reached for Jeong Tae-ui’s cheek paused upon realizing a gag was tied around his face, then hurriedly removed the gag. A low voice, mixed with anger, burst out, asking who had done such a thing.
While Jeong Tae-ui was briefly thinking, ‘If possible, my wrists too…’, the moment his mouth became free, the leisure to think about his wrists vanished.
The hand that had been hesitantly touching the corners of Jeong Tae-ui’s mouth suddenly, as if unable to hold back, grabbed Jeong Tae-ui’s head and pulled him in. “Uh, uh, uh?!” and pulled along unexpectedly, Jeong Tae-ui’s soul flew away in the next moment.
“…—!!!”
And Jeong Tae-ui, who didn’t hope for as much luck as Jeong Jae-ui but hoped for as much as ordinary people, saw the peak of misfortune at that moment.
To describe the feeling exactly, Jeong Tae-ui, whose ‘mouth had been eaten,’ was immediately showered by the pocket flashlights that had rounded the landing and come up. And at the same time, Ilay, who had been expressionlessly wiping the blood off his knife on his collar, froze like a stone statue the moment he saw Jeong Tae-ui—and Raman—reflected in that light.
And Raman, who in some ways might have been the most unfortunate person there, the moment his vision opened with the light, looked blankly at Jeong Tae-ui with a face that had lost more color than the massive amount of blood he had actually poured out, and then lost consciousness.
* * *
“Guerrillas? The old man has gone senile.”
While Alain tossed out the words beside him, Christoph was unloading his gun and reassembling it. Even while driving, Alain barely looked ahead, glancing sideways to check the sight and smiling broadly.
“But it’s unexpected… didn’t he not like that kind of method? It’s boring.”
Christoph did not answer. He simply continued to reassemble the gun he had taken apart, meticulously inspecting every single component.
Watching him, Alain grumbled as if he were being treated unfairly.
“This is too much. I feel like you don’t trust me.”
“……. Hmph. It seems you’ve kept it in good condition.”
After sliding the final part into its slot, Christoph pulled the hammer back once.
Click. After confirming the tactile sensation one last time, Christoph stood the rifle upright, buttstock down.
“But seriously, where are we going? They’ve already blocked everything off. They’ve sealed off all the surrounding buildings.”
Alain was driving slowly. Inside the car, which was crawling at a snail’s pace—so slow that there was hardly a point in being in a vehicle—Christoph gazed indifferently out the window. At a glance, it looked as though he were merely leisurely observing the crowds of people gathering in a large circle.
Then, suddenly, Christoph’s gaze fixed on something as if he had found what he was looking for.
“Stop the car.”
The moment the words left Christoph’s mouth, Alain stopped the car without a word of complaint. Before [unauthorized copy]stolen contentthe car had even come to a complete halt, Christoph opened the door and stepped out.
“Wait here. I’ll be back.”
“What? I’m coming too!”
“I’m going to secure a building, so you’re not needed.”
Frowning, Christoph flicked the rifle toward him.
Accepting the gun Christoph had just disassembled and reassembled as if it were a hostage, Alain shrugged.
“If it’s a building, the Civil Society Coalition building to the southeast would be your best bet.”
At Alain’s words, Christoph, who was about to close the car door, paused and arched an eyebrow with a suspicious look.
“Civil Society Coalition? That sounds like a useless name.”
“Why? Even so, right now, a building with that name will be useful to you, won’t it?”
As Alain gave a playful smile, Christoph muttered, “I suppose so,” and closed the car door.
He walked straight toward the north gate of the old Saudi diplomatic mission, which was currently barely in use. He had definitely seen him near there a moment ago. Though his head was wrapped tightly in bandages, it was undoubtedly Aziz.
Christoph, who had absolute confidence in his eyesight, quickened his pace.
The area around the old mission was in utter chaos.
UNHRDO personnel, who had arrived ahead of the police, had surrounded the old mission and were blocking civilians from approaching. Without so much as a sidelong glance at them as they hurried about with grim expressions, Christoph ran toward the north gate visible in the distance.
He didn’t have the luxury of sneaking around to avoid their eyes.
Neither in terms of time nor mental state.
“Uh, you can’t go in there. —You there, wait a moment!”
The voice of a uniformed man speaking mechanically from behind suddenly grew louder. However, as Christoph continued to run, ignoring him, a brief moment of confusion ensued before two or three agents began to chase after him.
Stop right there! It’s dangerous! Come back this way! As the agents shouted, Christoph thought that Alain must be giggling while watching from the car a short distance away, but he soon erased even that thought.
The sound of gunfire was ringing out loudly.
As he nearly reached the north gate, the gunshots sounded close by; in fact, as he ran, a metal trash can a few meters in front of him exploded with a loud pop as a bullet pierced through it.
He was there, in front of the north gate. It was Aziz. One of the few people among them whose face Christoph actually knew.
To be precise, Aziz wasn’t alone. Several men were standing scattered near the north gate, casting sharp, watchful glances around as if monitoring something.
A subtly tense atmosphere flowed only in that immediate vicinity.
They noticed Christoph approaching quite early.
Then again, there was no way they wouldn’t notice someone being chased by two or three men screaming at him to stop.
Seeing someone sprinting toward them with relentless speed, their expressions shifted instantly, and they drew weapons from their coats.
“Stop right there! Who are you?”
“Stop! Or we’ll shoot!”
As if he couldn’t hear their rather cliché warnings, Christoph actually accelerated.
Their warnings were not mere threats.
One of the men standing in the front fired a shot at Christoph.
However, as if he already knew the aim was designed to narrowly miss, Christoph ran in a straight line.
Another shot flew. Again, Christoph did not dodge and kept running, and the bullet missed.
The third was different. The moment the third bullet was fired, Christoph finally shifted his path slightly. This time, too, the bullet missed him.
And the fourth. This time, there was a man aiming precisely at Christoph. The moment he saw the muzzle aligned in a straight line from an angle that was difficult to avoid—or rather, an angle easy to hit—Christoph finally drew his gun for the first time.
He pulled the trigger lightly.
In the next instant, the man screamed and dropped his gun. Blood overflowed from the man’s hand, dripping onto the weapon rolling on the ground.
The men’s complexions changed.
As the men looked at Christoph as if they were seeing a stolen contentghost and began to shout warnings to those around them to start firing in earnest, Aziz, who had finally recognized Christoph, flinched and widened his eyes.
“Chri…?!”
“It’s been a while, Aziz.”
“Sto… stop!”
Aziz’s restraint came a bit too late, and a few shots followed, but even those bullets failed to hit Christoph.
At Aziz’s shout, the men kept their muzzles pointed at Christoph with wary faces, though they stopped pulling their triggers.
Before he knew it, Christoph was surrounded by a dozen or so men. A dozen muzzles were all aimed at him simultaneously.
Aziz signaled them to hold back and looked at Christoph with a strange expression.
“Christoph Tarten…?”
“I thought you’d be hovering between life and death for a while after Rick blew your head open, but you’re already walking around just fine.”
When Christoph spoke instead of offering a greeting, Aziz looked as if he didn’t know how to respond.
“What brings you here?”
“A friend of mine is inside.”
To Aziz’s somewhat blunt question, Christoph muttered, gesturing with his chin toward the old mission inside the tightly closed north gate.
Aziz’s expression became peculiar.
“Inside here…?”
Right now, inside this north gate—specifically, within [Read on Read BL Novels]the walls of the old mission—a gunfight was taking place.
The ones fighting were Raman’s side and Rashid’s side. Aside from them, who were Aziz’s compatriots, the only outsiders inside would be the mercenaries Rashid had hired from the outside.
Aziz frowned slightly and tilted his head strangely as he asked.
“So, do you wish to enter the old mission?”
“…You have the authority to let me in, don’t you?”
Volume 5 part 2
Aziz seemed to hesitate for a moment, but soon nodded.
“If that is what you wish, I shall make it so.”
“No, I’m not going in.”
At Christophe’s response, Aziz blinked a few times. Then, he frowned again.
Since that bastard is already running wild in there anyway, there’s no need for me to go in too, Christophe muttered to himself, but his voice didn’t reach the others over the ear-splitting sound of gunfire.
“……?! Then, ……?”
“Opposite the north gate, across the street from the official residence, there’s a building called the Union of Civic Organizations. I want to get up there.”
Christophe spoke nonchalantly. The moment he said this, Aziz’s expression stiffened and he knit his brows.
All buildings within firing range of the old official residence were currently under lockdown. stolen contentThis [unauthorized copy]was to prevent unexpected interference, whether from enemies or allies.
The old residence, in particular, was a building of considerable age. With its low ceilings and simple structure, it was very easy to designate a target and snipe from the outside if one had a mind to.
It was Raman who had ordered the lockdown of all surrounding buildings while securing the residence. Since it was a direct order from him, it was beyond Aziz’s authority.
“That is problematic.”
When Aziz shook his head, Christophe scowled. He clicked his tongue in dissatisfaction for a moment before speaking coldly.
“I have no grudge against you people. I simply don’t like the human who dragged my friend in there. I’ll get out of your way once I catch him.”
“The human who dragged your friend in there, you say――.”
Christophe did not answer.
Aziz stared at Christophe for a moment, and as if he had a vague inkling of who was being [visit our site]referred to, his complexion shifted slightly. He [stolen content]then shook his head with a grim face.
“I cannot. I cannot lift the access restrictions.”
“……. Is it lèse-majesté to target some idiot who’s a royal, despite the fact that he uses guerrillas as mercenaries?”
As Christophe muttered indifferently, the other men, finally realizing who Christophe was after, also changed their expressions.
It was Rashid.
Although he was currently the opponent they were facing, he was by no means a target for ‘execution.’ Even Raman, who was inside, would likely be unable to kill Rashid even if he captured him.
“You, ……. ……Regardless, it is impossible.”
Aziz shook his head, his face hardened. After watching him in silence for a while, Christophe spoke quietly.
“Aziz. I don’t have time.”
“It is impossible.”
Just as Christophe began to frown while staring at the man who gave the same answer repeatedly.
“Lift the restrictions. In this situation, who knows if he will actually succeed or not anyway.”
A voice mixed with a calm laugh drifted from behind Christophe. Simultaneously, the men surrounding them hurriedly lowered their muzzles and snapped to attention.
Christophe paused and turned around to find a middle-aged man of modest build standing before him.
With a gentle-looking face and a faint smile, the man studied Christophe carefully.
“It has been a while. No, not that long. ……Indeed, Malik praised you so highly that I wondered just how skilled you were, and it seems he had reason to say so.”
Christophe stared blankly at him before giving a slight, curt nod. The men beside him seemed bristling at Christophe’s attitude, but none of them unauthorized copydared to [unauthorized copy]step forward and reprimand him in front of the middle-aged man.
That man, Al Faisal, whom he had greeted in Tarten not long ago, looked at Christophe once more with fresh eyes.
He had undoubtedly been watching Christophe from the moment he rushed toward the north gate with three guards trailing behind him. From the way Christophe had instantaneously breached their perimeter to the way he deftly dodged bullets while precisely reducing the enemy’s strength with minimal casualties.
“Did you know I was here?”
Al Faisal asked again. Christophe remained bluntly silent for a moment before nodding. This time, the man standing beside Al Faisal glared and opened his mouth as if to say something to Christophe, but Al Faisal smiled and waved him off.
“I see. That is why you came this way.”
Al Faisal nodded, sounding somewhat impressed.
The moment he saw Aziz near the north gate, Christophe guessed that this man would be somewhere nearby. Otherwise, there was no reason for Aziz—who, despite being bandaged, was physically capable of moving—to be standing guard here instead of storming the residence with Raman.
Al Faisal observed Christophe for a while longer and then beamed.
“There are as many royals in our country as there are clouds in the sky, so I wonder if one of them really matters…… but Rashid is a bit problematic. He is too prominent a figure to simply hush up.”
Al Faisal winked at Christophe with a playful smile. When Christophe looked at him with slight bewilderment, the man let out a hearty laugh.
“However, if it is just a slight injury rather than death, I could easily frame it as a mistake you made while trying to help us. ……Well, given how things have turned out, his end is likely already decided anyway.”
Al Faisal’s expression suddenly clouded, and he clicked his tongue while looking toward the residence.
Christophe watched him for a moment and then bowed his head.
“Then, ‘a slight injury’……. But I cannot give you a guarantee. If he doesn’t enter the sniping range, there’s nothing I can do.”
At Christophe’s words, Al Faisal smiled with a subtly pinched face.
“I am not telling you to do something to Rashid. I [Read on Read BL Novels]am simply saying that if any ‘incident’ happens by chance while you are observing from up there, I will help you.”
After a brief pause, Christophe nodded and said, “Yes.”
Listening to Aziz hesitantly contact someone to lift the access restrictions for a specific person at a building to the southeast, Christophe turned away.
Then, Al Faisal’s voice followed from behind him.
“That’s right. Please reconsider what I told you the other day. Seeing your skill, I find myself quite covetous of it. You are welcome anytime, so please come to me once this business is finished. I shall be waiting.”
Christophe looked back with a complicated expression at the man who was smiling warmly like a neighborhood uncle. After hesitating for a moment, he gave another curt nod and finally turned away, quickening his pace.
The inside of the building was shrouded in pitch-black darkness.
Even looking through a scope, there was no way to see inside a building where not a single speck of light was visible to the naked eye.
“Seeing as the lights still aren’t on, it seems they didn’t just flip the breaker. They must have cut the power entirely.”
Alain muttered beside him.
What to do, it’s so dark, what on earth to do, he murmured like a song, smiling mischievously. Christophe glanced at him and held out his hand.
As Alain looked down at the hand with a feigned look of curiosity, Christophe glared fiercely at him. Alain stopped playing around and promptly handed over the infrared scope.
“What would you have done if I hadn’t brought this?”
“Hmph. If you were the kind of guy who wouldn’t have something like this, I would have had no reason to call you.”
“Huh, so you didn’t call me because I’m reliable and skilled?!” Alain exclaimed, sounding [stolen content]shocked, but Christophe didn’t look back at him.
“I prepared all this for you, kept your gun in great condition, drove you here—isn’t there a reward for such a kind person like me?”
“The reward is that I haven’t used this gun to blow your head off despite you being a distracting nuisance.”
When Christophe muttered this, Alain chuckled, thinking it was a joke. However, they were well aware that it was obviously not a joke.
Once the scope was attached, reddish silhouettes began to emerge from the darkness.
……Not that one.
……Not that one either.
Inside the building seen through the window, silhouettes were moving back and forth one by one. However, the darkness devoured their vision, making their movements appear very slow.
He checked the windows one by one, but the person he was looking stolen contentfor did not [visit our site]enter his field of vision.
“But you can’t see faces with that, right? How are you going to know who it is?”
Alain asked curiously from the side, but Christophe didn’t answer. Soon, Alain muttered to himself, Ah, right, it’ll probably be easier than I thought.
While Christophe remained motionless, moving the scope only minutely, Alain hopped up and sat on the rooftop railing. In a precarious position where he looked as if he might fall at any second, he nonchalantly swung his legs and hummed a tune.
“Ah. That’s right. Come to think of it, I heard you cured your haphephobia. Is that true?”
As if suddenly remembering, Alain reached out toward Christophe’s shoulder. But just before the hand touched him, Christophe spoke a short, blunt truth while maintaining his posture behind the scope.
“Touch me and I’ll push you.”
“……. Hmm…… I must have heard the rumors wrong.”
If I fall from the roof of a seven-story building, I might not die if I’m lucky, Alain muttered, tilting his head to look [visit our site]up [stolen content]at the hazy night sky before glancing at Christophe.
“By the way, then who was that guy earlier? The one who followed you until the end.”
“…….”
“The guy who followed you until you got in the car and could only say ‘don’t go’—is it okay to touch him?”
“Shut up. You’re distracting. Move.”
Christophe swung his hand dismissively. Pushed by the gesture, Alain let out a gasp and wobbled, but easily regained his balance on the railing. With a face devoid of any actual fear, he shouted.
“I thought my heart stopped from the shock!”
“If you don’t shut up, I’m actually going to push you.”
Christophe muttered. Sensing the visit our siteresonance of sincerity in [stolen content]those [visit our site]words, Alain grumbled and shut his mouth.
Christophe adjusted the scope and said nothing. Only silence flowed between them.
‘Why do you have to be the one to go there?’
Richard had said that while blocking Christophe’s path.
It had been utterly strange. Why was he stopping him?
It was just as Christophe, after Jeong Tae-ui had departed a step ahead and he had contacted Alain to bring some gear, was about to leave the room. That was when Richard had spoken.
‘Do you want to show off the skills you displayed in the mobile task force again in a place like that? Do you think if you make a good impression on Jeong Tae-ui now, you can steal him away from Rick?’
Listening to the words coming from those twisted lips, Christophe remained silent. But that silence was not an affirmation.
He never thought of stealing Jeong Tae-ui from Riegrow. No, Riegrow didn’t matter.
‘Rick…… doesn’t matter. I never thought that. I just can’t stand the thought of Tae-ui being in that shootout. ……Move.’
But Richard did not move. As if he hadn’t heard the latter part from the beginning, he asked again.
‘You didn’t think that, but you can’t stand it……?’
Richard laughed lowly. But soon the laughter vanished, and he asked, Why?
Why.
He didn’t know. He had thought about it many times. Yet he still couldn’t find the answer. Christophe simply liked Jeong Tae-ui. Now, whether Riegrow was there or not, regardless of who he was with or what their relationship was, he simply liked him for who he was. If asked for the reason, what should he say?
‘I don’t know.’
Christophe shook his head.
He felt a desire to stand there for a moment and think it through, but he couldn’t. There was no time.
‘Move, Richard. I have to go.’
Perhaps going would be useless. The organization might have already rescued Jeong Tae-ui, or since it was Jeong Tae-ui specifically, Riegrow might have found out and gone there. ……No, he probably had gone. He was undoubtedly wherever Jeong Tae-ui was.
But even if it was of no help, Christophe wanted to go. He was the first person Christophe had consciously realized he liked.
And yet.
‘……Don’t go.’
The moment he heard Richard’s voice saying that, Christophe’s steps faltered.
A low, husky voice. That voice, which sounded Read on Read BL Novelsangry, was sharply agitated as if suppressing a great rage.
Christophe stared at him without blinking his blue eyes once. As if he were a stranger.
Richard’s face was terrifyingly stiff. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say he had turned pale. Why did that face look so haggard?
‘Don’t go, Chris.’
‘……Why.’
Christophe faintly knit his brows. But that was only a thought. He tried to scowl, but as if possessed by something, Christophe simply looked at Richard with a strange expression.
Richard was silent. After a long time without answering Christophe’s question of why, he eventually shook his head and repeated the answer Christophe had given moments before. I don’t know, he said.
‘I, …―.’
Repeating words of unknown visit our sitemeaning, he fell silent again. A rough hand sweeping across his [stolen content]face betrayed his anxiety.
‘Christophe, I, …….’
But after starting to speak once more, he broke off mid-sentence and suddenly let out a bitter laugh. Even that sigh-like laugh was tinged with an indefinable restlessness.
Suddenly, he lifted his head. And he looked straight at Christophe. In those eyes, there was no trace of laughter, only a flickering uncertainty born of anxiety.
Richard slowly reached out. Christophe, who had been watching him without moving, flinched and shrank back slightly the moment the hand brushed his chin and cupped his cheek.
The hand caressing his cheek was strangely warm. So warm that the memory of a temperature that had been almost scorching suddenly surged back.
Christophe’s expression stiffened involuntarily.
A temperature that was scorching hot.
Skin rubbing and pressing against skin.
A sensation that was strangely familiar, and thus, strange.
In the next moment, Richard pulled Christophe’s cheek. And looking down at him, he slowly pressed his lips against his. Without closing his eyes, he gazed at Christophe as if not wanting to miss a single detail.
Eventually, the lips slowly parted. Richard continued to look at Christophe—tracing his lips carefully with a thumb as if it were strange—and whispered.
‘Are you not avoiding it now?’
‘……You’d do it anyway even if I avoided it.’
Christophe pushed him away and wiped his lips with the back of his hand, speaking bluntly.
It was strange. His heart began to ache again. He felt that if this continued, it might hurt so much that he would struggle to breathe.
‘If you’re done, move. I have to go.’
Christophe roughly pulled Richard away from the door. Richard, who had not taken his eyes off Christophe for a while, was pushed away with unexpected ease this time.
Feeling bewildered by the gaze that continued to follow him even after he turned his back, Christophe rubbed his lips with the back of his hand several times. If he didn’t, he felt he might consider even this sensation familiar.
Then.
‘Christophe. I like you.’
A quiet voice suddenly sounded from behind him.
It was a nonchalant statement, delivered abruptly without any warm or soft light.
And yet, Christophe flinched slightly at those words.
‘That’s a boring joke.’
Christophe muttered with a face that had lost some color and slowly turned around.
But Richard was not looking at him.
He was standing blankly in the middle of the room.
Standing truly blankly, like a stopped, grotesque doll, he was faintly frowning as if lost in troubled thought. Then, he suddenly let out a short laugh.
I like you. After reciting the words he had just spoken once more, he laughed again as if it were absurd. That absurd laugh finally turned toward Christophe.
‘Am I really crazy……?’
‘……You seem to be.’
It was a side of him he had never seen before.
A soft, low snort escaped him, and then the smile slowly vanished from his face. Expressionless, he simply stared at Christoph. As if the answer to some complex problem lay within him.
‘Even I think I’m strange. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t even know my own mind.’
It was a monologue. Though he knew Christoph was there, Richard was speaking these words to himself. He tilted his head slightly, as if truly finding himself odd.
After a moment of hesitation, Christoph asked.
‘…What is it? Did the pressure of the succession make you lose your mind?’
“Succession…” Richard murmured the word back to himself, and then let out another soft snort. Then, he began to laugh quietly. He laughed for a long while, as if something were incredibly funny, or perhaps as if he himself were a joke, before shaking his head.
‘I was strange even before that. …I don’t even know when it started.’
Richard murmured in a somewhat self-deprecating tone and closed his eyes. As he rubbed the bridge of his nose as if tired, his eyelashes [Read on Read BL Novels]suddenly caught Christoph’s eye.
Christoph fell silent.
Once again, his heart throbbed strangely. Painfully.
A forgotten sensation resurfaced.
The feel of his face against his hand. Those wet eyelashes brushing against his fingers.
The memory of his damp eyes against his skin, that moist sensation, was vividly etched in his mind. Along with it, the feelings he had experienced then.
Why that warm body temperature had felt so hot. Why his heart had throbbed so much. Why his eyelids, squeezed shut because he couldn’t bring himself to open them, had been so burning.
‘…Don’t go, Chris.’
He whispers, as if murmuring in a dream with his eyes closed.
However, after a short pause, the words continued, somewhat coolly.
‘If I say this, will you stay?’
Christoph stared blankly at Richard. That whisper had been neither a pretense nor a lie. But Christoph could not continue to stay beside a man who surely wouldn’t know the reason even if asked. Because Christoph didn’t know either.
When Christoph called his name, “Richard,” he opened his eyes.
They were harsh eyes, as if he were angry. But within them, Christoph thought he had seen that flicker of anxiety—not knowing what was what or what to do—somewhere before. However, he could no longer remember where.
Christoph looked at him in silence for a long time before finally opening his mouth. After a brief hesitation, a whisper leaked from his parted lips.
‘Richard. I don’t feel like I dislike you. Even after everything that happened because of you.’
‘…—.’
Richard stared at Christoph without even blinking, his face looking as if he were hearing some bizarre story. Christoph continued, speaking slowly, word by word.
‘But I’m not sure. I don’t know why I feel this way. Or if I even truly feel it.’
I wish I had thought about this sooner.
The thought suddenly occurred to him.
If only he had thought about it sooner. A bit more. Before returning to Dresden. Before leaving that place. Since he was younger.
If he had been thinking about it since then, he might have found the answer more easily now.
‘…Maybe I’ll go back to Tarten eventually. But not now.’
Christoph quietly shook his head.
Silence flowed between them.
Facing Richard, who watched him silently with an unreadable expression, Christoph eventually turned away.
He could delay no longer.
It was time to go.
As Christoph stepped out of the guest room, Richard followed a step behind.
‘…Don’t go.’
Urgent.
The words that had previously resembled a vague sneer had vanished [visit our site]completely; he unauthorized copyspoke now with nothing but urgency.
Christoph did not answer. He didn’t look back, walking straight ahead.
Richard followed behind him. Heavy footsteps continued right behind him.
In front of the elevator, he spoke once more. As if reluctant, yet as if the words were forcing their way through his lips despite that reluctance.
‘Don’t go.’
Still, Christoph neither looked back nor answered.
Inside the descending elevator, the same words were heard once more. And as they exited the lobby on the first floor.
He must have heard everything Christoph had said, yet he kept saying it. He said only that. As if that was the only thing he knew.
Or perhaps he didn’t know [stolen content]what else visit our siteto say. unauthorized copyOr perhaps he simply didn’t want to accept what Christoph had told him.
Following Christoph, who walked a mere step or two ahead at a steady pace, Richard did not grab him. His hand flinched, occasionally reaching out before stopping, but in the end, he could not seize Christoph to stop his steps.
He simply spoke.
Don’t go. …Don’t go. …Don’t go.
Over and over.
Just as he had when he told him to come back to Tarten, to go back together.
But now, Tarten was no longer in those words. It didn’t matter if the place to return to wasn’t ‘Tarten’.
Until they left the hotel and climbed into Alain’s car, which was already waiting in front, Christoph never once looked back. However, he listened intently to Richard’s voice coming from a step behind, not missing a single syllable of the identical words.
Alain gestured with a questioning look, as if asking [stolen content]who it was, but Christoph answered by shaking his head. Alain looked at him with a puzzled expression, then shrugged as if it didn’t matter, [Read on Read BL Novels]sat in the driver’s seat, and Christoph sat in the back.
Just before the car door closed, Richard reached out for the first time since leaving the room. But again, his hand couldn’t bring itself to grab Christoph; instead, it grabbed the door that was about to close.
‘Don’t go.’
This was the last thing he could say to Christoph today. And perhaps for the foreseeable future.
Only then did Christoph look at Richard for the first time.
There was neither a smile nor composure on his face. Even that unfamiliar expression was no longer unfamiliar.
Perhaps now, nothing about this man felt unfamiliar anymore.
‘Then, you come.’
Suddenly, a thought he hadn’t considered until now sprouted into words.
Christoph fell silent, surprised by the words that had escaped his lips before he could consciously think them. He blinked his slightly widened eyes and looked at Richard.
Richard was also staring intensely at Christoph.
Looking back at him, Christoph suddenly clutched his chest. His heart ached. Something filled his chest, making it hard to breathe.
Yet, without taking his eyes off him for a moment, Christoph continued.
‘You come. Then maybe I’ll be able to know too. …So, come find me.’
He didn’t know if those words, whispered low like a monologue, had even reached Richard’s ears.
Christoph removed Richard’s hand from the door, which had been watching him without missing a second. Then he closed the car door.
Thump. Dividing the world outside and the world inside with a single door, Christoph turned his head.
“Can we go now?” Alain asked, glancing back through the mirror with a smile. Christoph nodded.
And so, Richard was left alone behind.
And Christoph was left alone here.
“Don’t go…”
Only after speaking the words aloud did Christoph realize he had said them.
“Huh…” Christoph tilted his head, momentarily taking his eyes off the scope. He wondered why those words had suddenly popped out of his lips for no reason.
Beside him, Alain, who had been sitting precariously on the rooftop railing, swinging his legs, glanced over.
After rolling his eyes for a moment, he seemed to realize the words weren’t meant [stolen content]for him. The smile on his face deepened.
“I’m not going anywhere. I wouldn’t go even if you told me to.”
Christoph clicked his tongue at his own slip-up in front of this man and shut his mouth.
Alain leaned in, amused. He leaned over as if the narrow railing were a wide bed.
“What’s gotten into you, Christoph? Why are you still thinking about that?”
“…”
“Is he clinging to you while crying?”
Christoph thought of Richard. He remembered the expression on his face as he held the car door and looked at him.
Don’t go. Richard, who had barely managed to throw out those short words before falling silent.
Richard, who couldn’t even pull him out of the car, but merely held onto the door.
After thinking for a long while, Christoph whispered, “Yeah.”
“…He clings to me while crying.”
Inside his chest. Inside his memories, something.
It was strangely unsettling. Why. For some reason.
Beside him, Alain murmured a light “Hmm” and shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, he must like you quite a bit.”
Christoph stared blankly at Alain. Alain, who had been humming and swinging his [stolen content]legs, tilted his head sharply to the side when their eyes met.
“If not, he must be quite the idiot.”
Watching Alain shake his head as if it didn’t matter either way, Christoph murmured, “Right.”
He must like me quite a bit. Or he must be quite the idiot.
Tracing those words, Christoph looked away from Alain.
Alain, who had been smiling to himself for a while, suddenly frowned with a mock expression of apology and looked back at Christoph.
“But well… I don’t actually know much about that kind of thing.”
To him, who spoke as if it were a bit of a shame, Christoph nodded after a short pause.
“Me neither. …I don’t know either.”
Murmuring bluntly, Christoph lowered his head again to look through the scope.
“What are you going to do?”
When Alain asked, sounding curious but actually as if it didn’t matter, Christoph didn’t answer and simply scanned the building through the scope. He watched the windows, filled with nothing but pitch-black darkness, one by one, and only when Alain started humming again did he suddenly mutter.
“I’ll think about it in a bit. Because he’ll come.”
After a brief silence, he added.
“No matter where I go.”
“The tide is starting to turn.”
Alain whistled, sounding amused.
After Raman broke through the glass of the northern entrance—the most vulnerable point—and stormed in, the situation at the old official residence, which had been a fierce struggle, began to change gradually over time.
The mercenaries Rashid had hired, even from the rebels and guerrillas, had held the upper hand initially with their unique tactics, but at some point, they began to lose ground. Now, the shifted tide was clearly visible.
“…It would be strange if the tide didn’t turn when they’re killing people like that.”
Christoph, who had been watching the building through the scope, muttered abruptly. Beside him, Alain turned his head. “Huh?” Then, he laughed aloud as if he understood.
“Aha, Rick is slaughtering them inside. But why is that guy suddenly doing pro bono work in there?”
Christoph gave a short answer: “Who knows.”
“Well, whatever. So, what about the target? Not yet?”
“Mm. But with the tide turning like that, they’ll likely show themselves soon just to escape.”
Christoph didn’t take his eyes off the scope. Beside him, Alain watched the building and said with a laugh, “Oooh.”
“People are starting to flood inside. The back door has been breached. …Now it’s just a matter of time.”
“Yeah. …Ah. Found them…”
Christoph, who had been responding half-heartedly, suddenly fixed his aim in one direction.
Reddish shadows moving in the darkness were caught in the scope.
More than three or four shadows were moving together, keeping a slight distance from one another.
Among those shadows heading toward the stairwell was a small shadow. Christoph’s muzzle pointed toward that person, who was surrounded by others in front and behind.
“He’s an older gentleman, so keep it light, keep it light.”
“…Right. …Just enough so he can’t run away on his own.”
Christoph murmured indifferently.
The moment that shadow was centered in the crosshairs, his finger pulled the trigger.
The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was a white ceiling.
However, as he blinked a second and third time, before he even recognized it as a ceiling, the smell of medicine hit his nose. A medicinal scent that seemed permeated into the place itself. Because of that, he realized first that he was in a hospital.
Only then did Jeong Tae-ui turn his gaze to confirm he was in a hospital, but at that moment, he froze.
Beside his bed, he saw a familiar face sitting quietly and watching him—though he didn’t know how long they had been there.
A familiar face, but one he hadn’t seen in a long time. Yet, it was a face that would still be familiar even if they met after decades.
“…Jae-ui hyung.”
“You’re awake.”
His brother, Jeong Jae-ui, whom he hadn’t seen in a long time, spoke quietly.
Jeong Tae-ui stared blankly at his brother, [visit our site]who was suddenly present before him, and tilted his [visit our site]head slightly while lying down.
“This is a hospital, right. Why am I lying here? Am I hurt somewhere?”
“Don’t you remember?”
It wasn’t that he… didn’t remember. The moment he opened his eyes and recognized this as a hospital, the events just before he fell into a deep, unconscious sleep came flooding back.
He remembered dragging Ilay, who insisted he was fine, to the nearest hospital, and he could vaguely recall that as soon as they arrived and he caught his breath, an overwhelming drowsiness hit him and he blacked out.
But I wasn’t the one who was hurt, so why am I in a hospital bed… As Jeong Tae-ui tried to scratch his head, he flinched the moment he tried to lift his arm.
His shoulder hurt immensely. Just trying to move his arm slightly caused a maddening throb in his shoulder.
Ah. Right. I think I did hurt my shoulder… As he thought this and tried to adjust his lying position, his entire body began to scream in a similar level of agony.
“…! …!!!”
Beside Jeong Tae-ui, who couldn’t even scream and could only scream with his expression, Jeong Jae-ui spoke calmly.
“Sprained ankle, dislocated shoulder, and some fairly deep lacerations on your back and neck. Other than that, bruises all over your body. You’ll be surprised when you look in the mirror.”
Listening to his brother mutter that he’d seen it earlier and that the skin wasn’t skin-colored, Jeong Tae-ui swallowed the tears that naturally welled up because his whole body was throbbing.
“Uh… But… is it okay for you to be here right now? Didn’t you come to Germany for the forum?”
Only then did Jeong Tae-ui ask, wondering why his brother was by his side. The wall clock behind him pointed to the time the forum was supposed to be held, as far as he remembered.
Come to think of it, since Jeong Jae-ui was the one publicly kidnapped, he wondered if the forum had been postponed or if his brother had skipped it entirely. After a moment of silence, Jeong Jae-ui spoke.
“You slept for a day and a half.”
“…Huh?”
“I arrived yesterday morning, attended the forum immediately, and then came here. Today is the second day of the forum.”
Listening blankly to his brother, who had only been scheduled to attend on the first day, Jeong Tae-ui blinked.
No wonder when I woke up, although my body felt like it had been through a meat grinder, I felt refreshed as if I’d had a deep sleep… He nodded dazed.
Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t slept properly for a while. For the past few days—no, going further back to when he went to Dresden—he hadn’t once slept with his tension fully released. It seemed that tension had crashed down on him all at once along with his injuries.
“I see… Ah, did the forum end successfully?”
Jeong Jae-ui nodded. Looking at him, Jeong Tae-ui suddenly let out a sigh.
“I see… I’m glad you came after everything was settled, hyung…”
Now that the nightmare of a [stolen content]night had [visit our site]passed visit our siteand he was alive, peacefully basking in the sunlight, he felt a truly deep sense of relief.
Of course, if it had been his brother, he wouldn’t have gone through such harrowing events in the first place, but even if there were a one-in-a-million chance that his brother did experience such a situation, he didn’t even want to imagine it.
Jeong Jae-ui wore an expression that was partly troubled and partly apologetic.
“Yes. I intended to come in with your uncle, but they told me that the processing documents I had submitted on time had gone missing, so in the end, I couldn’t come in that day. The employee in charge was puzzled, saying he had definitely taken care of the documents and didn’t know why they vanished, but I got a call yesterday saying that those specific documents had slipped into a gap under the cabinet.”
To his brother, who looked apologetic toward the younger sibling who had gone through harrowing events in his stead—as if saying, If that hadn’t happened, I would have come sooner, I’m sorry—Jeong Tae-ui shook his head, telling him it was fine.
With a pure heart, Jeong Tae-ui was sincerely relieved and happy that nothing terrible had happened to his brother, but at the same time, he realized once again. His brother must have received a very special blessing from someone up in the heavens.
Jeong Tae-ui let out a light sigh.
However, it was good.
Although his entire body was screaming in [visit our site]pain, he was facing unauthorized copyhis beloved brother like this, his brother [Read on Read BL Novels]was still living a peaceful and moderate life, and he himself was okay now.
As they say, all’s well that ends well; Jeong Tae-ui felt a sense of satisfaction.
Furthermore, he felt a secret sense of relief upon hearing that the forum had passed without any issues while he was sleeping as if dead.
He had been vaguely worried that Ilay, despite the chaos he had caused, might continue to run wild in an attempt to kill Jeong Jae-ui, but it seemed that wasn’t the case.
Even though Ilay’s stomach had been ripped wide open to the point where his intestines were slightly peeking out—and he had to keep them tightly wrapped in clothes and pressed down with his hand until they reached the hospital—Tae-ui felt that for a man like him, stepping out to eliminate a person or two in that condition would be a piece of cake.
…Wait. Right.
Suddenly, recalling that horrific wound that had drained the color from his face the moment he saw it, Jeong Tae-ui snapped his eyes open.
“Where is Ilay?”
“Did you call for me?”
At the answer that came the moment he uttered the name, Jeong Tae-ui nearly jumped out of his bed.
Because it had been so quiet and there was no sign of presence, he had unconsciously thought that only he and his brother were in the hospital room; it was only natural to be startled by a sudden voice.
Turning his head toward the source of the voice, he saw Ilay sitting in the chair by the window, looking at Jeong Tae-ui while flipping through a newspaper.
Jeong Tae-ui stared at him intently. He scanned him from top to bottom as if he couldn’t believe it. Perhaps finding the gaze strange, Ilay raised an eyebrow.
“Hmm?”
“Why are you so fine?”
“What do you mean, why am I so fine… It’s because nothing hurts that much.”
To the man who asked back as if he were the strange one, Jeong Tae-ui widened his eyes.
“That’s impossible! Your stomach was gaping open…!!”
“Something like that gets better with a few stitches.”
“…! …!!”
He wanted to scream and rave that it was impossible, but Jeong Tae-ui’s entire body was aching—though it was a pain that couldn’t even compare to that monster of a man—and in reality, Ilay looked perfectly fine, as if the wound really had only required a few stitches.
But this made no sense. It felt redundant to say it now, but still, if he were human, he shouldn’t be like that.
That day, just looking at the wound had been enough to make Jeong Tae-ui’s head spin.
Yes, when the light of the flashlight pierced through the pitch-black darkness and illuminated them,
Only then did Jeong Tae-ui see Ilay and freeze pale.
The smell of blood was vibrating to the point of nausea, but he had assumed it was because of Raman—indeed, looking at Raman, his entire body was drenched in blood with not a single spot left untouched, making him a literal corpse—but blood was also pouring out of Ilay’s stomach like water.
As if he had been deeply sliced by a sharp hand-blade, his intestines were visible through the large, gaping gash in his abdomen. Seeing Ilay nonchalantly pressing those intestines, which were trying to spill out due to abdominal pressure, against his skin with one hand while wiping a blood-stained knife on his clothes with the other, Jeong Tae-ui thought he was in a splatter movie.
Despite that, he had grabbed the man who calmly claimed there was no need to go to the hospital and rushed him straight here.
After dragging him to the hospital and shoving him into the emergency room, Jeong Tae-ui had sat blankly until he was hit by a sleep that felt like fainting. Perhaps because this was the nearest general hospital, he had spent a while staring vacantly at the stream of corpses (reservists) flooding into the ER before he finally lost consciousness.
“….”
Come to think of it, in a half-conscious haze, he thought he heard someone whispering with a shudder while they were scanning the building to pull out the injured, saying that corpses had been scattered in every room of the building, killed horribly with wounds that looked as if they had been cut by a jagged, saw-like blade.
Since most of those corpses were people who had already been stationed in the building—rebels and guerrillas from the Middle East whom Rashid had gathered like hiring mercenaries—they said that, in the end, the man who had wiped them all out deserved a reward. However, they lamented that it was absurd and impossible to give an award to such a terrifying monster who killed people so brutally.
“…. ….”
Jeong Tae-ui let out a groan and frowned.
A jagged, saw-like blade…
Corpses in every room of the building…
A terrifying monster who killed people brutally…
He had fainted before hearing the name of that terrifying monster, but Jeong Tae-ui felt he already knew.
“This is… no, I should call it a blessing in disguise.”
Jeong Tae-ui pondered for a moment whether he should thank Rashid, who had kidnapped him by hiring a large number of guerrillas, given that Ilay didn’t seem to have to take responsibility for committing such a massacre.
But even if he pondered it, he didn’t stolen contentknow where the man he was supposed to thank was, nor did he have much desire to find out, so he simply dropped the thought.
“Ah. That’s right. Tae-yi.”
Ilay called out as if he had suddenly remembered something, and Jeong Tae-ui, who had been lost in distant thought, looked up with a “Hmm?”
“Christoph came and left while you were asleep. He asked me to send his regards.”
“Huh? Oh, uh, yeah. …Why is that guy sending regards suddenly, as if he’s someone I’ll never see again?”
After answering, Jeong Tae-ui tilted his head, feeling slightly puzzled. Ilay replied nonchalantly while flipping the newspaper.
“Ah. He’ll probably be too preoccupied with preparing to leave and going through the procedures to have the headspace to come here for a while. I wonder if he’ll be able to see you once before he departs.”
“Huh? Where is he going?”
Jeong Tae-ui asked with wide eyes. He felt as if the world [stolen content]had [unauthorized copy]suddenly changed in the brief moment he had closed and opened his eyes.
“He decided to go to Saudi Arabia. It seems he’ll be hired by Al Faisal’s private army to do things like train the soldiers. I don’t know the details, but for some reason, Al Faisal seems to think very highly of him.”
Listening to Ilay add casually that the old man seemed to have a penchant for beautiful faces, judging by the wives he’d acquired, Jeong Tae-ui just blinked for a while.
It was, how should he put it… a strange feeling.
“I see. Then I won’t be seeing him for a while.”
“Well, he didn’t seem like the type to settle down there. When I asked if he was never coming back here or to Dresden, he was silent for a long time before muttering, ‘Maybe, occasionally,’ so we’ll probably be able to meet again without much difficulty.”
Though we won’t be stuck together all the time like we have been, Ilay curled the corners of his mouth in a mischievous yet satisfied manner.
Jeong Tae-ui nodded and muttered, Right, I see… but he still felt a strange sensation. However, he couldn’t quite figure out what that feeling was.
If he wouldn’t be able to see him for a while, he should be sad.
But it wasn’t necessarily just that.
While he was sad, it was hard to put it simply because, on one hand, he felt that this was a good thing for Christoph. Also, if he wanted to meet him, he could find a way, so thinking about it deeply, it wasn’t that sad.
It was just, how to describe it.
…Yes. This feeling was moving independently of his own emotions.
It was as if he were watching a wheel that had been stopped dead beside his own slowly rolling wheel finally begin to creak and move.
…What is this. This isn’t sadness.
He might even be a little happy. Although, in some corner of his heart, a feeling similar to sadness remained faintly.
“…Hmm. Good. …Good, I think it’ll be good.”
As Jeong Tae-ui muttered, he felt that it would truly turn out that way, and he suddenly smiled with satisfaction.
Christoph will be fine.
For some reason, that feeling came to him like a conviction, and a light sigh escaped him.
Ilay gazed at Jeong Tae-ui intently and then suddenly let out a short laugh.
“You seem to be in a good mood.”
“Uh, well… hmm. It’s not bad.”
Jeong Tae-ui beamed.
“Saudi Arabia. Although I can’t go visit, it’s not far, so that’s good.”
“If you want to visit, you can go once every few years.”
To Ilay, who spoke as if he were granting a great favor, Jeong Tae-ui shrugged.
“Hmm… but given the situation, leaving the country is a hassle in many ways… so, just occasionally.”
Despite being an international fugitive, Jeong Tae-ui often moved around within Germany quite nonchalantly, but he rarely went abroad. This was because it was cumbersome in various ways.
When Jeong Tae-ui muttered “just occasionally” with a hint of regret, Ilay glanced at him and, after a short pause, spoke.
“Come to think of it, your warrant will probably be lifted soon.”
Because he said it so casually, Jeong Tae-ui didn’t quite understand what he meant at first.
“Huh?”
When Jeong Tae-ui asked again, Ilay folded the newspaper, tossed it onto the table, and stood up. As he walked slowly toward the empty bed next to Jeong Tae-ui—Tae-ui watched him very closely, and since his walking seemed perfectly normal, he began to doubt his memory of seeing the man’s intestines—he spoke.
“It wasn’t my intention, but anyway, Al Faisal said he would come personally to give a reward for the hard work of dealing with the troublesome bastards that needed to be handled. So you’ll probably be pardoned soon.”
Jeong Tae-ui stared blankly at Ilay.
He would no longer be an international fugitive.
In truth, he had lived without feeling much inconvenience so far, but it was still a pleasant thing to have restrictions removed, both practically and formally.
As Jeong Tae-ui smiled happily, asking, Oh, really? Ilay looked at him with a somewhat subtle expression and added coldly.
“However, regarding you, Raman opposed it.”
Jeong Tae-ui froze with the smile still on his face.
“…Why?”
The smile vanished, replaced by a furrow in his brow.
What reason could Raman possibly have to oppose his pardon?
To put it bluntly, the man had been sliced to pieces by a knife and left looking like a corpse—though Raman probably had nothing to say about the reason for that—so for the other man to be pardoned while he was opposed was incomprehensible and baffling.
As Ilay watched Jeong Tae-ui sink into thought with a frown and wide eyes, his gaze grew colder and colder.
“Why do you think?”
“…Why.”
Unable to guess at all, Jeong Tae-ui visit our sitefurrowed his brow further, and only then did he feel an indescribable, chilling something in Ilay’s narrowed eyes.
“Was his tongue tasty?”
At the words Ilay spoke lowly, Jeong Tae-ui spent a few seconds with a bewildered face, muttering, His tongue? What tongue? but in the very next moment, he froze as cold as ice.
“…. …… That, …that was absolutely not my fault….”
The reason he struggled to speak, even while appealing to an obvious and unquestionable truth, was not because of the innocent brother watching him curiously from the side, but because of the terrifying man staring at him like a snake.
No, but only after stammering those words did he realize.
It was absolutely not Jeong Tae-ui’s fault.
Jeong Tae-ui’s expression shifted instantly to a bleak one as he looked straight into Ilay’s chilling gaze.
“In the first place, who was the one who mistook stolen contentme for… for someone [stolen content]else and chased after me to kill me?”
Ilay looked silently at Jeong Tae-ui, who had glanced at his brother sitting politely nearby and adjusted his words to be more moderate.
However, as if he had nothing to say about that matter, he remained silent for a while. Then, he suddenly muttered lowly.
“Right… I almost hurt you. I did.”
The moment that whisper, which was almost a monologue, reached his ears, Jeong Tae-ui fell silent.
…Yes. He almost had.
Jeong Tae-ui suddenly recalled a thought he had at some point during that nightmare of a time when he was being hunted.
At that moment when he thought he might actually die.
He had thought it was impossible. Even before [unauthorized copy]the thought that he didn’t want to die, he thought [Read on Read BL Novels]that he must never die by Ilay’s hand. Especially not in the form of a mistake.
“It’s a relief that it didn’t happen.”
Adding, So in the future, just don’t mess with people who are said to be lucky, Jeong Tae-ui smiled brightly. Ilay watched him in silence and then quietly nodded.
“Right. …I’ll pass on that. No, I don’t even want to think about it.”
As if the very act of thinking about it was unpleasant, Ilay shook his head a couple of times, let out a short sigh, and lay down on the bed. On the bed where Jeong Tae-ui was lying. Leaving his own perfectly fine, empty bed beside it.
“It’s cramped.”
When Jeong Tae-ui muttered with a frown, Ilay replied nonchalantly.
“Then get on top of me.”
“What am I supposed to do, get on top of a guy whose stomach burst open!”
Muttering that he told him a few stitches would fix it, Ilay was glared at fiercely by Jeong Tae-ui, who eventually gave up and lay down beside him. He lay down, but… his brother’s quiet gaze was piercing.
“Ilay… likes human body heat more than he looks…”
After saying that out of awkwardness, he felt it sounded incredibly pathetic, so Jeong Tae-ui just shut his mouth.
Jeong Jae-ui stared at Jeong Tae-ui blankly for a while without saying anything. Then, he suddenly stood up.
“…Right. Then get some rest. I think I should visit Raman’s room for a moment.”
Is that guy lying in the same hospital? I kind of hate that, Jeong Tae-ui grumbled under his breath, then quietly nodded, realizing that the appointment he was supposed to have with Raman before the forum must have vanished. Then, suddenly.
…Wait. Hold on.
Jeong Tae-ui’s eyes snapped open.
The end of that night, which he hated to remember, and the memory of that shame he didn’t want to think about—if he forced himself to recall it, that too was not a memory he was originally supposed to have.
At that time, Raman had clearly [said/done something] to his brother—.
Suddenly snapping awake as if he had been doused in cold water, Jeong Tae-ui tried to bolt upright and call out to Jeong Jae-ui, but Jeong Jae-ui spoke first, one step ahead of him.
“And Tae-yi, you don’t have to worry much about him opposing your pardon.”
“Tongue—huh?”
Jeong Jae-ui looked at Jeong Tae-ui, who tilted his head at the sudden words, and continued after a short pause.
“Regardless of the outcome, Raman ended up getting hurt like that while going there to save me. He is a person who puts in that much effort just because he wants to invite someone as unremarkable as me to that research institution; I don’t think it’s right to keep refusing him.”
“Huh?”
“If I tell him I’ll accept his proposal and bring up your pardon, he probably won’t refuse, though I’m not entirely sure.”
“No, wait, Brother…”
As Jeong Tae-ui reached out to Jeong Jae-ui while stammering, Jeong Jae-ui responded by smiling calmly and shaking his head.
“No, it’s not like I’m going to that research institute just because of you even though I hate it, so don’t worry about it. Regardless of that, they’ve requested it so politely and repeatedly despite my long refusals that I felt both sorry and grateful, so I was just thinking I should go and stay there for a while.”
After saying that, Jeong Jae-ui gave a light wave of his hand and left the hospital room, saying they would see each other again soon.
Without a chance for Jeong Tae-ui to say anything, he blankly followed the trace of his brother’s disappearance, muttering pitifully to himself, “No… that guy is absolutely not the kind of person to be grateful for, Hyung…” but those words no longer reached his brother.
With a vacant look on his face, as if he might burst out calling “Hyuuung!” at any moment while staring at the hospital room door, Jeong Tae-ui was being watched intently by Ilay, who was lying pressed right up against him.
Hyung, no, that’s not it, Jeong Tae-ui continued to mutter the same words as if he were about to cry. After [stolen content]watching him for a long while as if it were amusing, Ilay suddenly reached out.
Even when a thick arm wrapped around his waist, Jeong Tae-ui remained blankly spaced out; even when that arm tightened around his waist, he was still spaced out; and even when that hand reached down toward his groin below the waist, he remained spaced out until the very end. It was only when Ilay lifted him up entirely and sat him on his lap that Jeong Tae-ui’s eyes finally snapped open.
“I’m seriously worrying about my family’s future, so why do you keep interfering!”
“I want to tell you that it’s a useless worry.”
“You’re not family, so…!”
“Why don’t you think about who exactly you are worrying about right now?”
At the words Ilay tossed out nonchalantly, Jeong Tae-ui stared at him blankly, as if he had been struck by something.
“Even if I were to force your brother into that bastard’s bed without leaving a single shred of clothing on him, do you really think any harm would come to your brother?”
“…Now that you mention it, you’re right.”
Jeong Tae-ui nodded hesitantly, though he still looked suspicious.
However, seeing Jeong Tae-ui still looking dissatisfied, hanging his head like a discouraged puppy, Ilay clicked his tongue and let out a sigh.
He reached out to cup Jeong Tae-ui’s cheek, then pulled him closer and lightly licked his lips. Then, he rested the other’s head on his chest and slowly patted his back.
“One way or another, everything will work out in the end, so what is there to worry about?”
Ilay’s quiet voice murmured pleasantly through the ear pressed against his chest, sounding like a lullaby.
As the familiar voice, familiar warmth, and familiar touch slowly enveloped him, Jeong Tae-ui gradually relaxed, the tension leaving his body.
Everything will work out in the end.
For some reason, those words pierced clearly into his ears.
Is that so? As he thought, the feeling that it probably would follow along.
“Yeah. …Yeah.”
Jeong Tae-ui murmured softly and let out a sigh.
Everything will be fine. Everyone.
Just as Jeong Tae-ui was now welcoming a satisfying and peaceful new day despite the tumultuous days he had faced.
As Jeong Tae-ui obediently leaned his head against Ilay’s chest and rubbed it slightly, he could feel Ilay laughing above him. That sound reached his ears pleasantly again, and Jeong Tae-ui ended up laughing too.
“Gasp… wait, I can’t be lying on top of you like this, your, your stomach!”
“It’s fine.”
“What do you mean it’s fine! What if it bursts! Move your hands, I’m getting off!”
“If it bursts, we can just sew it back up.”
“I said I’m getting off!”
“Hmm… …Then shall I lie on top of you instead?”
It didn’t take long for the voice shouting that it was the same either way to change into a sobbing voice saying, “I’ll just lie quietly on top of you.”
[Passion: Diaphonic Symphonia End]
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