1.2 – in Berlin

It hurt.

He couldn’t even properly hold onto his consciousness.

I mustn’t lose consciousness. I can’t let go. Even though his own voice screamed so in a corner of his mind that it echoed in his eardrums, his flickering consciousness was too hazy to perceive his surroundings.

His head was hot. The burning pain that began to spread from his eye moved to his head, and eventually, to his entire body.

The vivid realization that his body—a part of his body—was writhing in pain and dying.

Even while wandering through an unconsciousness he couldn’t control, that fact came to him with chilling clarity. I am dying.

No. No.

He would rather find the source of the pain and tear it out before it died completely—before that death spread to the rest of his body. Even if it was agonizing enough to kill him, if that source remained like poison, it would eventually kill his entire physical self.

Where does it hurt?

Everywhere hurt.

But there had to be one. The most painful spot among them. The place that was choking the life out of him.

A handful of consciousness, scanning through his arms, legs, and damaged internal organs, eventually reached his head. The pain that was setting a hot fire began there. That place. The eye that was screaming as it died.

—… —.

He gripped his eye. To tear it out. But someone grabbed the hand that was trying to rip the eye away and would not let go.

Who is interfering? Who is blocking me to keep this pain alive?

Fierce rage fluttered amidst the pain, but soon he had to stop even that. He was in too much pain to sustain the resistance.

The eye. The eye. The eye that was unbearably hot, as if burning in the pits of hell.

However.

Then, he suddenly realized.

Only after finding the most painful spot did he realize that the place that truly hurt was not there.

The eye? This feeling like it was being poked with a red-hot skewer? He could endure this much. Even if it was suffocatingly painful, it wasn’t a pain that would make him lose his mind. He had never possessed such a weak spirit.

What was painful.

Was his heart.

His heart. His head. His mind. His reason. It was the pride, the self-esteem, the very root of who he was as a human being that formed the foundation of all those things. This pain, which was digging in as if to kill his body, was aiming for his heart.

The pride that had looked only forward without ever looking up or down, the self-esteem that had lived on unseen but intact within him, and everything that had allowed him to exist as himself—all of it was being brutally trampled and mocked.

A misery that burned him with a flame blacker than the pain.

That was what was killing him.

* * *

The doctor said that if it had gone just a bit deeper, the eyeball itself might have been enucleated.

While saying that there likely wouldn’t be any external scarring, the doctor trailed off, saying he couldn’t give a definitive answer regarding the vision yet. After finishing the consultation, Yuri confirmed that Ling Xinlu was in a deep sleep and headed straight to James.

“I suppose he intended to pluck the eyeball out entirely. Yet, that eyeball managed to stay put.”

Hearing only a few words of what the doctor had said, James immediately read Riegrow’s original intention. After a moment of silence with a troubled face, he drew a conclusion for the future: “If Dr. Bayern said that, it’s better not to expect the recovery of his vision.”

“I suppose so, as expected.”

Yuri agreed briefly and then fell silent. Despite how James might tear his hair out and scream, his cold judgment—always clearly grasping the context and dealing with it—was almost always correct. His judgment would be correct this time as well. He even had a keen eye for detail.

“What’s wrong? Why are you drooping so gloomily?”

Perhaps because they had shared joys and sorrows for so long, James was quite good at reading the expressions of Yuri, who was often described as having a blunt, expressionless face.

“No, it’s just,” Yuri shook his head, and James nodded as if understanding, patting Yuri’s shoulder. I know, I know, how could this situation not be a headache, James thought, swallowing his tears. He had just finished a call with the ringa’s lawyer and reported to Kyle a few dozen minutes prior.

It wasn’t the first time Riegrow had ruthlessly trampled on a precious child of a powerful family, nor was it a rare occurrence, but that didn’t make resolving the situation any easier. James shook his head, thinking it was fortunate that this particular incident was the kind that could be dumped on a lawyer.

“I feel bad for the young man. He must have lived a life of luxury without lacking a single thing, only to meet such a madman by bad luck and end up permanently maimed. How pitiful.”

“Still… it hasn’t been decided that vision recovery is impossible yet.”

Yuri unconsciously blurted out a response to the clicking James. James gave him a puzzled look.

Yuri knew Dr. Bayern’s style. If a man who spoke in the most hopeful terms possible spoke like that, it was correct to assume there was almost no possibility. Furthermore, as a renowned authority in the field of ophthalmology, he was unfortunately no quack in this case.

“…Ah, right. Come to think of it, he was Ling Tangyun’s younger brother. I hope there’s a good result.”

Interpreting Yuri’s unusual response as being more worried because the patient was the brother of an acquaintance, James added a futile wish.

No, it wasn’t because he was Ling Tangyun’s brother. Yuri was simply, purely, sorry for Ling Xinlu because he was Ling Xinlu.

I should have brought him sooner. No, it would have been better if he had received treatment in Dar es Salaam. No, when I received the contact in Sana’a, I should have predicted this and stationed medical staff in Dar es Salaam.

Even though Yuri knew he had done his best—and that he had provided the fastest and most appropriate treatment possible in that situation—he chewed over these belated regrets.

After receiving emergency treatment from a local doctor he had contacted in advance upon leaving Seringe for Dar es Salaam, he immediately flew a private jet to Berlin. From the airport, he was moved directly to the hospital, reaching the medical team that had been waiting after receiving prior notice. The time it took was only a few hours.

Even thinking about it again, there was no better way, yet his heart felt heavy. He sighed at his own helplessness.

“Right. The crazy second son contacted me, saying your phone was off.”

“Ah… come to think of it. He had disappeared.”

Yuri was surprised that he had completely forgotten such an important matter until now and pulled his phone from his pocket. However, the phone, which he had forgotten to charge, would not turn on as the battery was dead.

“What happened? First the older brother, and now the younger brother is missing.”

“I’ve already confirmed that he hasn’t left Seringe. It might not be unrelated to Jung Jae-ui’s whereabouts.”

He felt there was a high possibility, but since it was only a guess, he didn’t say it.

Considering Riegrow’s personality, he wouldn’t be able to dawdle for long, but there was no need to rush back in a frantic hurry. He had already arranged for a strict check on all personnel and goods leaving the island, whether by ship or plane, and had ensured that every path from Bahep to the villa area, down to the dead ends, was searched. Even the detailed movements at Al Saud’s villa.

It would take at least a few days for the information to come in to the extent Yuri desired. Moreover, Yuri’s role was to filter out only the necessary clues from the vast amount of important and trivial, true and false information that poured in, and then use those clues to deduce and deploy people appropriately. Unless it was a few absolutely necessary situations, there was no need for him to be on-site.

…However, it went without saying that it was better to be as close to the scene as possible, and there was no reason to stay here; if he returned too late, Riegrow would try to eat him alive.

That’s right. The search for Jung Jae-ui had already crossed into a new year. There was no reason to suddenly hurry. The only one anxious right now was Riegrow.

That was strangely fascinating. It was a weird feeling.

“Riegrow does seem anxious. He must know perfectly well that it takes a few days for enough information to gather, yet he’s calling you.”

“Don’t even get me started. He called so many times. If you turn on your phone, you’ll probably find a mountain of call logs from that crazy second son.”

“…Ling is anxious too,” Yuri muttered in a peculiar tone.

It was the first time he’d seen it. He had thought that anxiety or nervousness were entirely absent in a man like Riegrow. Perhaps Ling himself had lived his whole life not knowing that such emotions existed within him.

It was probably because of that man. Because of the man who made Ling seem like an ordinary person.

“I thought some things would never change, but I guess they do.”

“Stop it. It sounds like you’re saying things are getting more hopeless. Even when he called earlier, he sounded like he was about to kill several people.”

James groaned and waved his hand. Then, glancing at Yuri, he fell into thought for a moment before speaking.

“Right, come to think of it, Yuri, by the date, your contract expired a few days ago. Your contract was supposed to end after this job, but you were still tied down because it wasn’t resolved. …Would you rather give up the completion bonus and let the contract expire now?”

James asked seriously if Yuri wanted to wash his hands of this matter, as Yuri remained bound by the contract until the task he was assigned was completed, even if the contract period had passed.

In reality, at this point, Yuri had practically finished his work. The only thing remaining was the ‘confirmation’ that Jung Jae-ui was in seringe. Therefore, it would have been fine for someone else to take over from here.

James was offering to end the contract now if he wished, telling him he didn’t need to return to seringe.

Yuri looked at James for a moment. Then, he slowly shook his head.

“Since it’s the job I was assigned, I should see it through to the end. There’s no rush anyway. It’s just that one decisive piece of evidence that’s proving elusive, so it shouldn’t take much longer.”

Seeing Yuri answer calmly while replacing the battery in his phone, James shrugged.

“Right, if you say so. …Are you heading back today?”

“No, the last flight has already departed. I plan to return on the first flight tomorrow.”

“I suppose it is late already,” James muttered, picking up the phone.

“Then I’ll get you a hotel. Would near the airport be better? Or somewhere close by here?”

“Ah… no. I’m fine.”

Yuri hesitated for a moment before shaking his head. James looked at him with curiosity but put the receiver back down without saying anything further.

For now, he intended to return to the hospital.

Now that he had brought Ling Xinlu to Berlin and the surgery was complete, there was no longer any reason for Yuri to look after him. Yuri’s job was ‘to find Jung Jae-ui,’ and other incidental matters were not his responsibility. Whether Ling Xinlu needed a doctor or a lawyer, there were plenty of people here who could help him more professionally than Yuri could.

Thus, unless by chance, Yuri would likely never cross paths with Ling Xinlu again. Their point of contact, which had been tenuous from the start, ended here.

Yet, because of that, he wanted to confirm the man’s safety for even a moment longer. It was a feeling similar to how he had felt back then, when he had to leave the spot without seeing the man he pulled from the sea wake up.

He had confirmed that Ling Xinlu, lying in the recovery room, had woken up from the anesthesia, but he wanted to make sure he woke up properly after having drifted back into a semi-conscious sleep. And if possible, he wanted to stay by his hospital room until he left for the airport tomorrow dawn.

“…”

He felt a slight pang of regret for refusing James’s offer. Perhaps he should have just stayed in Berlin instead of returning to seringe. If he had, he could have watched Ling Xinlu recover—assuming he stayed at this hospital for treatment instead of returning to China.

However, he soon erased that regret from his mind. Their connection ended here; what was there to keep watching? Even tonight, he thought it would be lucky if Ling Xinlu, upon waking from the anesthesia, didn’t kick him out simply because he couldn’t stand the sight of anyone associated with Riegrow.

Checking the stream of missed call notifications that flooded in as soon as he turned on his phone, Yuri tilted his head. There were a few from Riegrow, a few from contacts or lower-level informants, and among them, one call from Ling Tangyun.

Come to think of it, he hadn’t contacted him separately about Ling Xinlu’s hospitalization. Of course, since the ringa had contacted T&R, Ling Tangyun likely already knew the news, but he probably wanted to hear the detailed circumstances through Yuri.

Just as Yuri was about to stand up, thinking he should call on his way to the hospital, the phone began to ring. It was as if the other person had been watching him; not even dozens of seconds had passed since he turned on the phone. It was the number of the person Yuri had just thought about contacting.

“I was just thinking I should call you, Tangyun.”

『Ah, you’re reachable now. Have you been well?』

Ling Tangyun’s voice, offering the greeting, was sunken, like someone who hadn’t slept for several days. Yuri could clearly envision a face that had grown haggard in a single day.

“I’m doing fine. However, as you likely already know, Mr. Ling Xinlu was seriously injured.”

『Yes, I heard. I heard you accompanied him to the hospital. Thank you.』

“Don’t mention it. …More importantly, about Mr. Ling Xinlu’s eye.”

『Yes, I heard about that too. I contacted the hospital to find out.』

Ling Tangyun’s voice grew heavier. Given his personality, he likely had extracted a realistic outlook—neither optimistic nor pessimistic. And the result, as James and Yuri had expected, didn’t seem to be good news.

Yuri remained silent. Ling Tangyun also remained silent for a moment before continuing the conversation with a sigh.

『Forget it. There’s nothing we can do about what’s already happened. I’ll contact the Riegrow family separately regarding that matter, so you don’t need to worry about it.』

This was typical of Ling Tangyun. He didn’t engage in wasteful emotional battles over things that had already occurred. Whatever conclusion was reached, a fitting price would follow, and that price was a matter for the two families to agree upon. It wasn’t something Yuri had done wrong, nor was it something for him to interfere with. He was a complete third party. By saying a brief “I see,” Yuri closed the topic.

“Is your father doing alright? He must be heartbroken that his beloved youngest son is so badly hurt.”

If it were ring huolong, he would likely be fuming with rage rather than bedridden with grief, but still, Yuri asked after the well-being of the man in his seventies.

Suddenly, Ling Tangyun let out a deep sigh. A groan of anguish was mixed into the breath.

『He doesn’t know yet. He happens to be away from home for a moment. Everyone is reluctant to be the one to tell him—it’s like Belling the Cat—so perhaps it’s for the best for now. But the problem is, the only person Xinlu even pretends to listen to is Father.』

“I can’t listen to him anyway, and regardless, I have matters I absolutely cannot step away from right now, so I can’t go there,” Ling Tangyun muttered.

『It’s a predicament. Since that brat suffered such a fate, with his personality, he’ll surely run wild as soon as he comes to… and there’s no one to watch over him to make sure he doesn’t do something dangerous.』

“…”

Ah. He had a feeling about this.

Yuri awkwardly scratched his temple. He started to say something but stopped and glanced at James. James, who had been reading a sheet of paper coming through the fax, felt the gaze and looked back at Yuri.

『That’s why I’m asking, Yuri. Couldn’t you look after him for a bit? I’m begging you. Just for a short while. Right, a month at most…? Just that long. After that, I’ll go myself if necessary.』

“Uh… is there no one else you can entrust this to?”

『There’s no one as reliable as you. All the ones I consider useful are tied up with work they can’t leave. Right now, things are in total chaos over here, like someone poked a hornet’s nest.』

Yuri glanced at James again. James, looking back and forth between the fax paper and Yuri, turned his body fully toward him. As if telling him to speak if he had something to say.

“As you know, I’m currently working on another job.”

『Of course, I know. That’s why I’m asking for just a short while. I’m truly worried, Yuri. Given Father’s personality, he’ll be jumping in rage, saying he’ll sink that entire island just because of this situation; imagine if Xinlu gets hurt further. Well, that’s unlikely, but there’s no law saying someone won’t try to harm the boy in the meantime. Whether it’s kidnapping or abduction.』

Harm. Upon hearing that word, Yuri’s heart sank.

No, thinking rationally, that was impossible. Right now, James had deployed plenty of security personnel around the hospital room, and Ling Xinlu was not the type of person to be easily harmed by some clumsy criminal.

Even though he knew that, the memory of Ling Xinlu’s pale face, unconscious from anesthesia, made his heart beat anxiously.

Looking at James, he had already finished reading the fax and was watching Yuri with his arms crossed. Being quick-witted, he likely had a rough idea of what was being discussed, even if he didn’t know the exact details.

One month. Having already worked past the turn of the year, a period like that wasn’t a significant amount of time—especially since rushing wouldn’t solve anything in the current situation…

『Furthermore, this is something being kept quiet even within the family, but…』

Suddenly, Ling Tangyun’s voice lowered. The dark, sigh-laden voice sounded as if he were about to tell a secret, and Yuri unconsciously pressed the receiver closer to his ear.

『About Xinlu… he’s a bit dangerous when he’s unstable.』

“Dangerous…?”

『Yes. Should I say he lacks self-control? When he reaches an extreme, he doesn’t just harm others; he regards harming himself as nothing. In truth, he’s more dangerous than some clumsy person trying to harm him.』

Hearing Ling Tangyun let out a long sigh, mentioning that he had self-harmed in the past when he was highly sensitive, Yuri couldn’t say a word.

Suddenly, the scene he had witnessed during the day came to mind.

Even after sustaining an injury so severe he might lose his sight, that white face, biting his lips until they burst and tore to stifle any sound because he refused to let out a single scream in front of Riegrow. Those shimmering eyes, lifting a gun at the man while knowing full well he would be hurt.

It wasn’t a matter of sacrificing a pawn to take a piece. He simply didn’t care for his own body.

“…”

Yuri scratched his temple.

There was likely some exaggeration in Ling Tangyun’s words to lure Yuri in. But it wasn’t a complete lie.

Yuri glanced at James again. This time he looked at him longer, and James signaled with his eyes for him to say whatever he needed to say.

“James, may I stay here for a while longer? Perhaps a month at most.”

When Yuri asked, James, who had already expected this, shrugged as if it didn’t matter, without much thought.

“Ling will handle the talking on this end, so if something urgent has come up, go ahead.”

Having spoken readily, he waved the fax paper held between his fingers and added, “This is it, right?” The fax paper he held contained a short message sent from the ringa: ‘We regret that things have turned out this way. We will contact you formally after detailed discussions among the kin,’ with a postscript adding requests regarding the protection of Ling Xinlu’s person.

“Yes, that’s right,” Yuri nodded and removed his hand from the mouthpiece. Then, he gave his consent to Ling Tangyun, who had been patiently waiting for his answer.

Ling Xinlu was still asleep.

Yuri asked the nurse if he had woken up and fallen back asleep in the meantime, but the nurse simply shook her head and left after saying, ‘It will take more time before he wakes.’

Pulling the chair from the table to the bedside, Yuri looked down at him in silence.

His complexion was still not great, but he had regained much more color than before. Earlier, his face had been so pale, like a corpse, and drenched in cold sweat that it was frightening to look at.

Fortunately, the other injuries besides the eye were not very severe. His arm was merely dislocated at the shoulder, and they said the ankle fracture would heal reasonably well in a month or two. No matter the wound, it wouldn’t be as painful as the fatally damaged eye.

Yuri let out a silent sigh.

Though half his face was covered by the tightly wound bandages, his porcelain-doll-like, fair and pretty face was asleep, breathing evenly. His lips, with dried scabs of blood, looked painful, causing Yuri to frown instinctively.

He’s so pretty.

“…”

Yuri quietly reached out and very carefully touched the scabs with his fingertip. He then tried to touch the bandages, but remembering the eye that had been bleeding earlier, he couldn’t bring himself to even touch it lightly. After hesitating for a moment, he stroked the cheek below it for a few centimeters and stopped.

The rough wound and the soft skin contrasted sharply; he lightly touched the cheek, which was as soft and squishy as a baby’s.

Really, he’s so young and pretty.

To think these beautiful eyes can never see the light again.

Yuri suddenly thought of a younger sibling. He didn’t have one. As an only son, he had envied friends with siblings when he was young, but he hadn’t particularly felt lonely or desperately wanted one.

But he wondered if this was what it felt like to have a younger sibling. Someone lovely, precious, and dear.

“…”

Of course, his heart wouldn’t ache like this just from looking at a sibling.

Fingering the cheek that felt as fluffy as freshly baked white bread—actually, poking it softly—Yuri stopped his hand the very next moment. A low, hoarse voice had flowed from between his faintly parted lips.

“Stop touching me and move.”

One dark eye, its light completely dead, had been staring at the ceiling since some time ago.

Yuri withdrew his hand and sat quietly.

Ling Xinlu, who had remained frozen and motionless for a while, blinked slowly a few times and then shifted only his pupils to look at Yuri.

For a moment, he seemed unable to perceive reality. Confusion flickered in his blinking eyes, as if he were sorting through a jumble of memories to distinguish what was reality and what was a dream.

But that was only for a fleeting instant. Soon, returning his reason and judgment to the reality of where he lay, he distorted the gaze he cast upon Yuri coldly.

“I should have killed you first.”

Muttering as if to himself, he pushed himself up. As he lowered his legs to get out of bed, he paused upon seeing his leg wrapped in a plaster cast. He then looked at his shoulder, which was wrapped in a compression bandage. Finally, he raised his hand to feel the bandages wrapped around his face, covering one eye.

The sound of teeth grinding was heard. The muscles in his jaw moved faintly, and a black flame flickered in his eye. Perhaps recalling the situation in which he had collapsed, veins bulged over his fists, which he slowly clenched and trembled slightly.

Eventually, Ling Xinlu lifted his head and glanced out the dark window.

“What time is it? What day?”

“It’s a bit past nine at night. The date hasn’t changed.”

Ling Xinlu leaned slightly over the edge of the bed and stopped. He remained still for a moment, appearing dizzy.

“Clothes.”

Yuri remained silent for a moment at the abrupt demand, then shook his head.

“You can’t go out yet.”

A fierce gaze flew toward him. Staring straight at Yuri, he spoke again in a clearer tone.

“Clothes.”

“You can’t.”

When Yuri answered quietly but firmly, Ling Xinlu pushed himself up from the bed. Still not fully recovered from the dizziness, he approached Yuri with a slow limp and without hesitation, struck Yuri, who was sitting quietly in the chair looking up at him. With a creak, the chair spun, and Yuri’s head snapped in the same direction.

Yuri couldn’t move for a moment. For an instant, it hurt so much he felt breathless. In fact, for a while after, he found it difficult to breathe properly. He had really hit him without holding back, despite having just gotten out of bed and not being in a fit state.

“Yuri Gable. Just because I smiled at you a bit, do you think you’re something special? There are enough people like you around me to sweep up and throw away. People who stare blankly, desperate to touch me once, and then, if I smile once, they immediately think they’ve become something and act presumptuously. I’ve had more than a few of those human-pests clinging to me.”

Anger laced with ridicule whispered low into his ear.

He seemed to think Yuri was acting out because he had some kind of backing. Yuri didn’t respond and silently rubbed the side of his face where he had been hit.

Having struck him as hard as a healthy man would, Ling Xinlu, however, seemed dizzy; he took a step back and muttered a curse to himself. Turning around, he limped toward the built-in closet and took out the outerwear hanging inside.

Rubbing his face, Yuri asked quietly.

“Where are you going?”

No answer came. He didn’t even look back.

“Whether you’re going to seringe or returning to China, it’s useless to leave now. No more flights are departing for those places today.”

Ling Xinlu, who had been about to put on his upper garment, paused at those words. After glaring at Yuri with a strange expression, he finally walked toward the window. The night view from the special suite, which had a better vista than most hotels, reflected the night of a well-ordered city. It was not like seringe, which became pitch-black at night, nor like Dar es Salaam, where yellow streetlights flickered sparsely along quiet city streets.

Ling Xinlu, who had been nearly unconscious since leaving seringe, glared at the night view below. Yuri rose from his chair and approached him. Standing a couple of steps away, he looked out the window as well.

“Is this your first time in Berlin?”

Berlin. Hearing that word, Ling Xinlu grit his teeth.

He was far too distant from the place where someone resided whom he wanted to rush to and tear to pieces right this instant. Rage boiled within him until his vision turned red, feeling as though his heart would turn to charcoal any moment; feeling as though he would die from this horrific anger if he didn’t rip that man apart right now—yet, he was too far away.

“Why…”

Why did you bring me all the way here? The words didn’t fully escape his lips. His voice blurred, betrayed by his trembling lips.

In the dark windowpane, his reflection glared back at the view outside. He remained frozen, not even blinking, until Yuri spoke.

“Ling—”

“…—!”

But the moment Yuri opened his mouth, Ling Xinlu spun around, lunged at him, and grabbed him by the collar. He slammed Yuri against the wall with enough force to crush him. Yuri let out a choked gasp, hitting the wall so hard it felt as though his spine might have snapped.

“From the start.”

A razor-sharp voice spat the words lowly through gritted teeth.

“I didn’t like you from the start, you bastard. Yeah, from the moment you fired a gun at me. The way you uselessly read other people’s expressions, the way you wag your tongue recklessly—there wasn’t a single thing about you I liked. I should have known you’d presumptuously interfere on your own. If I had, I would have gotten rid of you long ago.”

The hand gripping his collar tightened around Yuri’s throat as if to stifle his breath right then and there. Coughing, Yuri gasped for air, his face flushing from the lack of oxygen, but before his breath could fully fail, Ling Xinlu slammed him against the wall once more. His spine screamed in pain as if it were cracking, but his breathing returned.

Throwing aside Yuri, who was hunched over and coughing, Ling Xinlu glared at him fiercely before turning away, as if he couldn’t stand to be in that spot a second longer. Despite his limp, his stride was relentless as he headed for the door.

Before Yuri’s ragged breathing could settle, he rushed forward and blocked the door. Ling Xinlu, who had been about to grab the handle, snapped his eyes up, looking genuinely enraged this time. Yuri lowered the hand that had been rubbing his throat and spoke bluntly.

“I received word from Mr. Ling Tangyun. He asked me to take good care of you for about a week, until a suitable person who can faithfully look after your well-being is sent.”

After glaring at Yuri with cold eyes for a few seconds, Ling Xinlu let out a scoff, as if it were absurd.

“First the dog of the Riegrow family, and now it seems you’ve become my brother’s dog?”

Yuri did not answer. Ling Xinlu, seemingly having no intention of further conversation, tried to push Yuri aside. Or rather, he attempted to, but Yuri stood his ground firmly in front of the door and refused to budge. Internally, Yuri felt a bit troubled, thinking that for someone who couldn’t even maintain proper balance due to his poor condition to possess this much physical strength, it would be difficult to handle him once he recovered. A contradictory desire arose: a wish for him to get well soon, coupled with a hope that his physical condition would remain poor for at least a week.

When Yuri refused to move, Ling Xinlu’s gaze grew even more ferocious.

“Move.”

At the low command, Yuri simply shook his head in silence. After staring at Yuri for a moment, Ling Xinlu scoffed again.

“I thought you were a quick-witted fellow with good intuition. —I loathe persuading idiots, but I’ll tell you once for the sake of my eldest brother’s face. Even if I kill you here, no one will say a word to me. It would be no different from killing a bug. And I’m not just making empty threats.”

“Even if you kill me.”

Yuri blurted out a response the moment Ling Xinlu finished speaking. He paused for a moment in thought after saying it, but his mind didn’t change.

“Of course, you could kill me. Even if you don’t do it right now, falling out of your favor and incurring your father’s wrath is a serious concern. I have to make a living, after all, and cutting off my livelihood would be a trivial matter for you. …However.”

Yuri paused again. He knew that continuing would inevitably make this man even more furious. He sighed.

“If you leave here and go to Riegrow, you will undoubtedly die this time. And I worry more about my own heart, which would whisper to me until the day I die that I let you go knowing that, than I do about you or your father.”

While he had no particular obsession with life, it wasn’t that he had no desire to live long. He harbored a shy hope of growing old peacefully, taking a small boat far out to sea in his twilight years, swimming in the middle of the ocean, and being buried in the sea. (And if that didn’t work, he thought it would be fine to catch a giant tuna and be happily eaten by sharks until only his bones remained before returning to land.) But at the very least, he didn’t want to become an old man whose life was riddled with regret and guilt. Yuri was currently standing at that crossroads.

However, before Yuri could even close his mouth after speaking, a fist flew. Because the door was behind him, he had no room to retreat, and the already painful punch landed with even greater impact.

The sound of Yuri’s short groan was drowned out by Ling Xinlu’s piercing shout.

“Undoubtedly die? At his hands?!”

“….”

Yuri rubbed his face with the back of his hand. Blood smeared, perhaps from a torn lip. But before he could rub his face again upon seeing the blood, another punch flew. The ragged, excited breathing wasn’t Yuri’s, but Ling Xinlu’s, trembling with rage.

He had guessed that these words would severely offend him.

That telling him you cannot defeat that man would tear apart his already tattered pride.

The taste in his mouth was incredibly bitter.

“You couldn’t handle him when you were healthy, so you think you can handle him now, with your eye, arm, and leg all injured? If you insist on going, then at least after your eye is better—”

The calm counter-question, leaking out like a powerless lament, stopped midway. The hand rubbing his brow in a sigh also paused.

“…After your eye is better, go then. I’ll let you go once you’re recovered enough to look normal.”

Yuri stopped there and fell silent. In that moment, he realized a fact he hadn’t recognized until now.

His throat tightened with heat.

Come to think of it, that’s right. He will likely never see through those eyes again for the rest of his life, but he doesn’t know it yet. He doesn’t know how severe his disability is. He is simply fuming because he is injured.

Yuri instinctively lowered his gaze. For a moment, he couldn’t look Ling Xinlu in the eye. He had thought himself adept at hiding his inner thoughts behind a poker face, even if he didn’t lie, but for a moment, it didn’t work. Ah, this is difficult when it’s someone you have feelings for, he realized for the first time.

After staring at the toes of his shoes for a while, he raised his head once he felt his emotions were somewhat managed. Then, he froze.

Ling Xinlu was staring at Yuri. Without breaking eye contact, with a strange expression as if he had frozen in place, he gazed at every corner of Yuri’s face for a long time.

“…?”

Puzzled, Yuri tilted his indifferent face slightly. Watching him, Ling Xinlu blinked once and slowly spoke.

“My eye.”

Yuri fell silent. He didn’t know if Ling Xinlu noticed the slight twitch of his lips. However, it seemed his gaze momentarily traced Yuri’s mouth.

A quiet, significantly slower voice whispered clearly and low.

“It’s not healing, is it.”

With half-certainty and half-doubt, Ling Xinlu was quietly pressing Yuri for an answer.

Looking at his face, which had momentarily lost all expression, stripped of both anger and resentment, Yuri couldn’t answer for a while.

It wasn’t something that could be hidden forever, so lying would not be wise. Yuri had seen many people whose limbs were severed or who had suffered other fatal and permanent injuries. He had seen the explosive despair and rage they displayed when they finally ‘realized’ the practical meaning of those injuries in their lives, even if their minds understood what had happened to them before their bodies and emotions could accept it.

And now, before him stood a young man who could never see the world the same way again, his white face devoid of expression.

“…That is not the case.”

Choosing to keep silent rather than lie, Yuri could only mutter that. No, it wasn’t a lie. Dr. Bayern hadn’t said it was ‘completely useless.’ We don’t know yet. Maybe it can heal. He consoled himself with those thoughts.

Ling Xinlu looked at Yuri in silence. His eyes gradually grew darker and more glistening.

And then.

—BOOM!!

A terrifyingly loud sound, like something exploding, rang out right next to Yuri’s ear. The violent vibration, strong enough to make his eardrums ring, was not merely sound. The fist that grazed his ear—grazing so closely that the skin almost touched—was slamming into the door Yuri was blocking. The punch, swung with such immense force that it left a mark on the steel door, would have destroyed Yuri’s face had he not reflexively tilted his head aside.

“While looking at me as if you’re about to cry?”

Tilting his head, Ling Xinlu brought his face close to Yuri’s. His low, whispering voice was so soft it almost sounded gentle.

However, the face, pressed so close it was hard to look at, was frozen with a chilling coldness.

“Really? I’ll never see again? I have to live as a one-eyed man for the rest of my life? Every time I look in the mirror, every time I’m conscious of the fact that one eye can’t see, I’ll remember who made my eye like this? …Aha.”

He seemed to laugh a little. Stroking the bandage covering one eye while smiling with the other, he erased the smile in the very next instant. The fist that had been pressing against the steel door grabbed Yuri’s neck.

An immense grip, strong enough to snap his neck without any strangeness, dug into Yuri’s throat. The hand, strangling him relentlessly without a moment’s hesitation, seemed intent on killing him.

No, he was trying to kill him.

It wasn’t solely because he was angry at Yuri. The rage toward the entire situation, the resentment searching for a place to go, was simply exploding upon whoever was nearest.

In this moment, Yuri felt with his own skin that he was truly facing death. Is this what it feels like when murderous intent pricks the whole body like needles? he wondered. He reflexively grabbed Ling Xinlu’s hand. Holding the wrist with both hands to pull away the strong grip blocking his breath, Yuri applied pressure for a moment but then stopped.

Rather than a surrender to the grip or a resignation that it didn’t matter if he died, a gloomy feeling first washed over him—wondering what to do with this man. It wasn’t some clumsy humanism, and he found it ridiculous himself, but he felt a profound sadness for this young beast who had lost his loved ones, his pride, and his flawless body, and now didn’t know what to do with himself.

Yuri stopped trying to remove the hand strangling his neck and simply gazed at him with his fading consciousness.

Their eyes met.

Ling Xinlu’s eyes, which had been looking at Yuri but seeing another object beyond him—an object of terrible hatred—suddenly returned to Yuri.

The moment he faced Yuri, Ling Xinlu’s expression suddenly distorted. Not a vague feeling, but a rage that had arrived right before his eyes covered his face.

“—!!”

It felt as though the hand strangling his neck had let go. Instead, that hand struck Yuri. Staggering back from the door and sliding down to sit on the floor, Yuri rubbed his constricted throat and looked up at him.

Ling Xinlu looked down at Yuri and laughed, ha. With a face that looked as if he were on the verge of going insane from anger.

“You’re smart, aren’t you? You make it feel disgusting even to kill you.”

A kick flew. Because he instinctively curled his body slightly, the foot, which would have hit his waist, struck his back.

“Ha, I’ve become a lifelong eye-cripple, I was miserably crushed by the man I hate most, and now I’m in a position to be pitied by a pathetic piece of trash like this? Me? Ling Xinlu?”

Haha, Ling Xinlu let out a hollow laugh. Looking up at the ceiling and laughing several times in disbelief, he muttered, “I’m really going crazy.”

Yuri slowly stood up. His back, leaning against the door, throbbed. His face hurt too. But with a heart that throbbed even more heavily, he silently watched Ling Xinlu. Ling Xinlu, who was still looking at the ceiling and not even glancing at Yuri, muttered dryly, “Turn your eyes.” Yuri lowered his head slightly, focusing his gaze on Ling Xinlu’s tightly clenched fist.

He wondered if he was crying. But even after a while, there was no sign of tears. Perhaps he was barely holding onto his sanity, which felt as if it might truly snap at any moment.

“I feel truly disgusting.”

Eventually, a low voice spoke through gritted teeth. Muttering as if to himself, he threw the upper garment he had been holding at Yuri.

When Yuri pulled the clothes off his head, Ling Xinlu was limping toward the bed.

Yuri silently watched him climb onto the bed, turn his back, and cover himself with the blanket. He then carefully hung the clothes back in the built-in closet and sat quietly on the chair next to the door.

‘They said they were scared? Of you?’

Annette laughed incredibly loudly, as if she had heard the funniest joke in the world. It was a good thing the chair she was sitting in had its back to the wall, or she would have fallen backward.

‘My goodness, I want to go tell Derek right away. He’ll definitely be overjoyed to the point of tears.’

‘Please refrain from doing that.’

Yuri muttered gloomily, thinking he shouldn’t have mentioned it. If those words reached Derek’s ears, he would undoubtedly abandon his work mid-task, rush to find Yuri, and burst into laughter while pointing his finger in his face. He would probably lecture him, saying, See, what did I tell you? Stop making that awkward scowl and just smile.

‘Right, it must have felt great to be called scary, huh? That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’

‘No, Annette.’

Yuri sighed. As expected, he shouldn’t have told her the honest reason why he returned from a blind date set up by James in less than an hour.

Annette, a colleague five years older than Yuri, was a mischievous older sister type who loved to tease people using such stories as leverage. But at the same time, she was a very caring and affectionate partner. Enough to stop laughing the moment she saw Yuri looking depressed.

‘Oh, Yuri, Mon sucre, don’t be depressed. Your only mistake was moving your facial muscles a little too little.’

Leaning forward, Annette gently hugged Yuri and kissed his forehead. Having a French father, she was always honest and rich in emotional expression, and she often called Yuri—who was just a partner at the time, as they weren’t dating yet—my sweet. Moreover, she was incredibly quick-witted; when Yuri looked at her with his usual indifferent face after she used such an intimate term upon their first meeting, she immediately guessed his inner thoughts, saying, ‘Oh my, are you flustered, honey?’ (Later, she even made Yuri recoil expressionlessly by asking, ‘If you don’t like Mon sucre, how about Mon bébé?’)

Pulling her lips away from Yuri, Annette gently stroked his cheeks and tilted her head.

‘But that lady is strange too. A lady who grew up seeing only princes of the flower kingdom in a greenhouse? No matter how much you don’t smile, how on earth could this face look scary?’

Yuri raised an eyebrow slightly. Annette had been like that from the very beginning.

Even after they first met, were introduced as colleagues, and exchanged greetings, she had tilted her head for a moment and asked, “Is something going on at home?” When he replied that nothing was wrong, looking puzzled, she responded, “It’s just that you don’t smile at all.”

I don’t smile because it makes me look easy to underestimate, he had said with complete seriousness. Annette fell silent for about a second, then burst into laughter. She laughed so hard she actually clapped her hands, continuing to poke him in the ribs and urging him to smile, saying, “Why? Does your face look stupid when you smile? I’m curious!” Despite this, Yuri refused to smile until the very end.

Now, of course, quite some time had passed since they started working together, and they had become comfortable enough that he occasionally showed her a smiling face. However, whether it was in front of her or anyone else, Yuri truly did not want to smile while on the job.

Having started working at T&R from a young age, he had never possessed a particularly harsh impression. Combined with the fact that he looked young for his age—a trait that only intensified as he grew older—he was frequently underestimated. In fact, it was rare that he wasn’t.

Furthermore, when dealing with demanding tasks, it was difficult to gain trust from a first-time client with nothing but a young, neat face. As recently as two or three years ago, there was even a client who had protested seriously, saying, “I don’t do business with minors.” (Kyle still occasionally brought that up with a smirk, as if it had just occurred to him.) It was only because Yuri happened to be exceptionally capable that he was even able to be entrusted with work.

After agonizing over this, he spent an entire day in front of a mirror studying various expressions. He concluded that rather than making an exaggeratedly menacing face, a blank expression suited him best and seemed least likely to make him look easy. He had maintained that face for quite some time. Thanks to his naturally indifferent personality, it soon became second nature, as if he had been born that way.

Later, upon hearing of Yuri’s tearful efforts, Annette had scoffed as if it weren’t worth a second thought, saying, “It’s not because of that face; people stopped underestimating you because of your career.”

Smile, Yuri. I love your smiling face. She would say that occasionally as if it had just occurred to her. She was excessively mischievous, but Yuri liked her too. He preferred her smiling face over her frowning one. It was only natural to prefer the smiling face of someone you liked.

“But I really don’t get it. Why on earth did they say you’re scary? There’s no way they said that based on your looks alone…”

Staring intently at Yuri’s face, she murmured “Perhaps…” and gave him a suspicious look.

“Did you tell them, ‘I’ll consider it as long as you don’t make me do things that violate human decency,’ when the Sicilian mafia boss liked you at the end of the last project and told you to come work for him, and then almost got a bullet hole in your forehead for answering him to his face?”

Yuri subtly pulled his head away from her rapid-fire questioning.

Back then, the moment he had escaped that situation, she had struck him violently on the back of the neck. Along with the words: If you want to die, die alone. Yuri had thought, with his usual indifferent expression, that her claims of liking him or calling him Mon sucre had all been lies.

Even after that, Yuri occasionally received nagging from Annette, who would say, “This guy usually isn’t like this, but every now and then, if things go south, he drops dangerous remarks like he’s a landmine.” Now that she had the opportunity to bring up the incident again, Yuri shook his head reluctantly.

“No. It’s not that. They said I’m scary because my expressions are sparse.”

“Expressions,” Annette murmured, nodding as if she understood. While Yuri silently wondered if that was indeed understandable, she beamed and told him it wasn’t.

“That’s because they haven’t spent even an hour with you. Once you open up a little, your expressions are actually very easy to read.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. Look at you now. You have a face that looks like it’s about to drop straight down to the 70th basement floor. Why are you so depressed? Did you like that lady that much?”

Yuri stared blankly at the ceiling for a moment. “It’s not exactly that,” he murmured calmly.

“It just bothers me that I caused discomfort to another person. That’s all. I’m fine, Annette.”

Yuri shook his head as Annette stroked his hair comfortingly. Annette gave a bitter smile and pulled him closer.

“You’re absolutely not fine, Yuri.”

After giving him a light, comforting kiss on the cheek, she suddenly gave a mischievous glint in her eyes.

“But well, fine. It’s good that you got rejected. I think I’d feel lonely if you started dating someone.”

Yuri fell silent. He stared at her, feeling as though he had just heard something meaningful. Watching him, she narrowed her eyes.

“You’re flustered right now! See, I told you it shows on your face.”

Annette laughed out loud, sounding delighted. Listening to the long, cheerful laughter, Yuri, who had been watching her with a blank expression, suddenly let out a small chuckle himself. At that, she clapped her hands and laughed even more brightly.

“Ah, Mon sucre, I really do love your smiling face. It becomes the kindest face in the world.”

Yuri looked a bit embarrassed, but listening to that joyful laughter, he eventually shook his head and laughed again.

Through dating her, he learned that getting along well as colleagues or friends is a completely different matter from getting along well as lovers.

Yuri and Annette’s serious relationship did not last very long, but they did not break up on bad terms. Regardless, they were partners in their work, and a comfortable friendship continued afterward.

“…”

Come to think of it, they hadn’t been in contact for nearly a year. He wondered how she was doing these days.

After leaving the Intelligence Bureau, they only crossed paths once every few months at most, and sometimes contact was lost for years, but no matter how much time had passed, they could always share an unreserved laugh. The fact that they were both growing older included that kind of comfortable atmosphere. These were the moments when he felt that the flow of life was a good thing.

Yuri blinked a few times and rubbed his heavy eyelids.

Even though he had closed his eyes for a very short time, he had a dream.

Looking at the clock, only about twenty minutes had passed since he last checked.

When he looked up, Ling Xinlu still had his back turned. He didn’t know if the man had rested at all. But he must have slept more than Yuri. Even if only due to the instinct to forget the pain, he would have drifted in and out of consciousness.

“…”

Yuri stood up from his chair. The blanket had half-slid off Ling Xinlu’s bed. If he tossed and turned even once, it would fall to the floor.

He walked over quietly and pulled the blanket up to cover him again.

As he straightened his bent body, he saw the sky faintly breaking into dawn outside the window. The night was passing like this.

He didn’t know how many times he had picked up the blanket during the night. He was certain it had been more than six times.

Ling Xinlu hadn’t slept properly throughout the night either. Perhaps his body and mind, tormented by rage and pain, wouldn’t let him fall into a deep sleep; just when Yuri thought he had finally fallen asleep because no breathing could be heard for a long time, a faint, beast-like groan of suppressed anger would occasionally leak out. Then, he would sometimes exhale a ragged, convulsive breath and clutch the blanket as if to tear it apart. Because of this, Yuri had silently pulled up the blanket as it slid down the side of the bed several times.

Both of them knew that neither had slept properly all night, but neither said a word.

Yuri rubbed his stiff lower back and looked at the sky, which was beginning to turn reddish. The clouds, looking like a clump of red thread, reminded him of the color of Annette’s hair. Come to think of it, he had dreamed of her.

“…”

Thinking about it, he didn’t know when he had last smiled. Since he didn’t smile consciously, he couldn’t remember, and perhaps he had smiled once or twice recently, but lately, demanding things had happened in succession, so there had been nothing to smile about.

It doesn’t really matter, Yuri murmured to himself and looked down at Ling Xinlu.

This man used to smile quite beautifully, but it would be hard to see that smiling face for a while. …It was a pity.

What had he been thinking all night? Hovering between consciousness and unconsciousness. Between that terrible physical pain and the rage tightening around his mind.

Thinking about it, he was a truly tenacious person, unlike his appearance. When the body was damaged to that extent, Yuri could guess what the pain was like after the anesthesia wore off. It had been like that before, when he had been shot twice in the torso. It felt as if every nerve in his body was clinging to those spots, tearing them apart and setting them on fire, making it hard to even breathe.

Despite the pain likely being no less than that, he hadn’t wanted a single painkiller and hadn’t complained once. What tormented him more than that was the wound eating away at his heart. The shattering of pride, self-esteem, or something even more important.

Yuri pulled over the chair that had been cast aside next to the bed since last night and sat down. Right behind him, where his back was turned. And he watched him quietly.

How much time had passed? It wasn’t long before it happened.

“Stop staring. Your gaze is unpleasant.”

A low, murmuring voice drifted over his shoulder.

The voice was heavily raspy as if exhausted, but it was clearly edged. Hearing that, Yuri felt a sense of relief. A cold voice was better than one that was powerless and defeated.

“You haven’t put anything in your mouth since yesterday; aren’t you hungry? Is there anything you need?”

When Yuri asked calmly, Ling Xinlu’s shoulders seemed to flinch slightly. For a moment, a surge of emotion flared up.

After a while, Ling Xinlu slowly sat up and turned around. Yuri quietly gazed at him as they sat facing each other.

He had become noticeably gaunt overnight. His sunken gaze was fiercer than yesterday.

“Gun.”

“Pardon?”

“I need a gun.”

Yuri fell silent. Conscious of the weight of the device in his coat, he asked.

“What for?”

“Whether I shoot my own head or yours, I need to blast one of them.”

“…”

Yuri remained silent. Meeting Ling Xinlu’s piercing gaze, he pondered for a moment and let out a silent sigh. He took his phone from his pocket and contacted the person in charge of the security guards waiting in the hallway outside.

“…Yes. This is Gable. Please strengthen security during the morning, and prepare one team of trustworthy people to provide security inside the room. …No. There is nothing unusual at the moment. However, the situation may change soon. …Yes, please.”

After hanging up the phone with a few words in front of Ling Xinlu, who was looking at him suspiciously, Yuri took the gun from his coat. Without looking at Ling Xinlu, who slightly raised an eyebrow, he silently removed all the rounds loaded in the gun and poured them into his palm. Pushing exactly one round back in, he stood up and went to the bathroom, where he flushed the remaining bullets down the toilet.

Returning to the bed, Yuri held out the grip of the gun to Ling Xinlu.

Ling Xinlu glared at Yuri, frowning with a look of disbelief.

“A gun without bullets? Are you joking?”

“I left one round. Keep in mind: not your head.”

Yuri placed the grip in Ling Xinlu’s hand and turned the muzzle toward himself. He told him that if he had to shoot one of them, it should be this way.

Ling Xinlu let out a scoff, looking at him as if he were pathetic. Facing him, Yuri sat neatly back in his chair. He remained silent for a while before speaking. Even after opening his mouth, he hesitated for a brief moment, but soon tapped his own temple and spoke calmly.

“The head that remembers exactly how you looked yesterday—the version of you that is enraged and ashamed—is this one. We only need to get rid of this.”

“—…”

Ling Xinlu’s clenched jaw twitched.

The head that remembered yesterday, when pride and self-esteem were shattered to pieces. If he destroyed it all, would that event return to being a non-fact?

It would not.

Both Ling Xinlu and Yuri knew that.

As Ling Xinlu bit his trembling lip, Yuri said indifferently, “If you do that, the wound on your lip won’t heal and will burst open again. Please don’t.” Ling Xinlu glared at him with eyes that wouldn’t have been strange if they had turned Yuri’s head into a honeycomb right then and there. A chillingly low voice leaked through his twisted lips.

“Are you planning to mock me before you die? Or do you think I won’t shoot you if you provoke me like that?”

“That is not my intention.”

Yuri shook his head. Sarcasm or mockery hidden in words was not his way. Ling Xinlu likely knew that as well.

Staring at him, Ling Xinlu murmured lowly through his teeth.

“Same here.”

And in the next moment, his finger pulled the trigger.

The silenced gun made a light, dull thud.

At point-blank range. The bullet, which could not have missed, struck Yuri’s body. In an instant, a bright red stain bloomed across Yuri’s chest.

Yuri lowered his gaze. He looked down at his chest, which was dyed crimson, then slowly raised his head. He met the eyes of Ling Xinlu, who was staring at him blankly with wide eyes.

“It wasn’t the head.”

“…What?”

“It’s an ambiguous spot—not sure if I’d die or not. Far from a hospital, maybe, but if you’re injured here inside a hospital, you’ll likely survive.”

“What the hell is this!”

Ling Xinlu shouted and threw the gun away. The gun struck Yuri’s forehead before flying off and rolling across the floor.

“Paintballs?! Are you playing with me?! You really—!!”

“Do you feel better now?”

Yuri rubbed his chest and coughed slightly. Even though it was a paintball, the impact on his chest wasn’t small, and a dull pain followed. He’d probably get a bruise.

He hadn’t wanted to die like this. Nor had he intended to make fun of Ling Xinlu. He truly hoped that if this could help the man feel a bit better, it would be worth it.

…But it is a bit sad that he actually shot, knowing it might be live ammunition.

Still, it’s a relief he shot a place where I wouldn’t die instantly, Yuri thought, comforting himself as he stood up to retrieve the gun.

“Damn it! I hate you second only to Riegrow!!”

Ling Xinlu raged like a lion that had been stung by a bee, throwing pillows, cups, and whatever he could reach at Yuri. Avoiding and catching them as best he could, Yuri returned and pulled his chair back a few steps to maintain distance.

Eventually, when Ling Xinlu had nothing left to throw and could only glare menacingly while panting, Yuri, who had been watching him in silence until then, spoke.

“Even if you shoot me, you cannot go to seringe immediately. It is true that there are guards lined up outside to protect you. They are more professional than I am in these matters, so it will be difficult to shoot all their heads off.”

“It’s not protection, it’s surveillance! Who sent that kind of thing?”

“It is protection. They are people carefully selected by the Riegrow family, so they should be trustworthy.”

“Ha! The Riegrow family! What nerve do they have?! Do they intend to apologize on his behalf? I’ve already become half-blind!”

Ling Xinlu screamed.

The end of his voice was trembling slightly. The rage that he could hardly control—the resentment that had subsided somewhat during the night and through fatigue—exploded all at once. His remaining eye flashed darkly.

“I’ll never see the world with both eyes again for the rest of my life! And yet, even in this state, I couldn’t even land a proper blow on that bastard! Ha, like an idiot, it must have been funny seeing me act so reckless when I didn’t even have the ability! Yes, how much must he have laughed! That man! At me!!”

Yuri already knew how much terrible hatred could be contained in a human voice. But he had never heard a voice as thick with hatred as the one he was hearing now.

“I hate him so much it makes me shudder, just thinking about him makes me nauseous! I can’t stand the thought of living under the same sky as him!”

Thwack. Ling Xinlu struck the foot of the bed. The steel frame creaked and tilted. He struck it again and again—thwack, thwack, thwack—as if unaware that his own knuckles were swelling.

Suddenly, his pale face turned ghostly white. Ling Xinlu clamped a hand over his mouth. “Wheeze…” a choked sound leaked through the fingers covering his lips. Unable to endure the surge rising from within, he bent over the side of the bed.

“—…!”

Hardly any vomit came out. It was because he hadn’t eaten since yesterday. Even as only gastric juices trickled down to the floor, Ling Xinlu curled his body inward, as if that were even more agonizing. His body convulsed, unable to soothe the repeated heaving in his stomach.

Yuri stood up. He dampened a clean towel with water, poured a glass of drinking water, and returned.

Silently, he wiped Ling Xinlu’s soiled hands. He also wiped the mouth and face of the man, whose shoulders were still hunching intermittently as if his stomach were still churning, and then pressed the water glass into his hand. Then, he cleaned the floor.

He said nothing and showed no emotion.

Yuri suddenly wondered what expression was currently on his own face—the face Annette had described as “looking the same all the time, but actually easy to read once you know.” He hoped it wasn’t something like pity. He didn’t want Ling Xinlu’s state of mind to become any more miserable.

After bowing his head and finishing the floor, Yuri washed the towel, hung it in the bathroom, grabbed a fresh one, and returned to the hospital room. He stopped after a few steps.

Ling Xinlu was crying.

Silently and quietly, sitting motionless like a doll in the hospital room where the morning sun rose, filling the windows with a pale lemon light.

Though the face drenched in tears remained expressionless, his tightly clenched jaw and interlaced fingers, with white knuckles protruding, were trembling slightly.

It was the most miserable state of mind Yuri had ever seen him reveal.

A pride that had once been noble and fastidious, now shattered into pieces and rolling around on a dirty dirt floor. A devastation so profound that he had revealed a side of himself so hideous he could not accept it. And the misery of exposing all of that directly before another person’s eyes.

To the man who kept his gaze lowered in a state of misery so deep he couldn’t even tell him not to look, Yuri, who had been standing still for a moment, slowly approached.

Don’t come near me. Don’t look. Go away.

He wanted to say those things, but frozen in an overwhelming sense of frustration that rendered even those words impossible, Ling Xinlu sat there with only his cheeks wetting. Standing beside him, Yuri gently pressed the soft towel against his cheek.

“I’ll really give you live ammunition later. So…”

Whether it’s a miserable sight or a shameful state, don’t force yourself to bottle it up; let it out. Think of me as someone who will disappear, and don’t become more miserable because of me.

He swallowed the rest of the words. He felt the man would only suffer more if he heard them.

However, Ling Xinlu seemed to have understood the words Yuri didn’t say. His frozen lips twitched.

“Ha. I didn’t know you could read minds.”

“Very occasionally.”

Ling Xinlu flicked his gaze to glare fiercely at Yuri. He looked as if he wanted to say something more, but as if he couldn’t even be bothered, he closed his mouth again.

“…”

“…”

Silence flowed.

Yuri, who had been dabbing Ling Xinlu’s cheeks, withdrew the towel once he saw the tears had stopped. Then, his gaze happened to fall on the man’s chin. Over the gaunt face, a rough, barely visible stubble had grown.

Even though Yuri shaved every day, he found it somehow fascinating and stared blankly for a while. It was curious, and in a way, it felt a bit cute, but he figured if it grew for another day or two, it would be unsightly.

“I told you not to look. Your gaze is unpleasant.”

After enduring it for a while, perhaps because Yuri had stared too long, a sharp remark finally flew his way. An unpleasant gaze—Yuri hadn’t looked with any particular intention, so he lowered his eyes slightly, but then looked up again.

“Shall I shave you?”

Ling Xinlu looked at Yuri. At first, he frowned and looked up with a face that suggested he had misheard or misunderstood, but upon seeing Yuri’s silent expression, he confirmed his ears had worked correctly, and a flicker of absurdity crossed his face.

“I’ll go prepare some warm water.”

Leaving those words behind, Yuri turned around. He could feel the wide, bewildered eyes staring at the back of his head, but ignoring it, he went into the bathroom and gathered a towel, water, shaving foam, and a razor. Even for a VIP room in a famous hospital, it wasn’t a hotel, so it wasn’t perfectly equipped; there were only disposable razors.

Returning to the room with the supplies, Yuri stood beside Ling Xinlu, who was still sitting motionless like a doll.

When the warm, damp towel touched his face, Ling Xinlu’s lips flinched, but no words came back. Yuri applied the shaving foam to his chin and began to move the razor.

Sshhk. Sshhk. Following the trail of the razor moving over the foam, white, soft skin was revealed. Tracing over it with his hand to confirm the smooth texture, Yuri moved the razor slowly but skillfully.

Now that he looked, there was still fine down on the earlobes. The cheeks were fair and soft.

Knowing full well that his exterior and interior were different, Yuri felt a fresh pang of heartache, thinking that such a young person had to go through this. Naturally, his touch as he stroked the cheek became more cautious.

“You perverted bastard.”

Suddenly, Ling Xinlu muttered.

Because the chin moved abruptly, Yuri almost cut him. He quickly withdrew the razor and checked to see if there was a nick. Fortunately, it seemed he wasn’t hurt.

Yuri, who had been too focused on checking the chin to process the words, let out a sigh of relief. It was then that Ling Xinlu, who had kept his gaze lowered until now, looked up. Their eyes met—large, pitch-black pupils.

“Touching me in secret while I’m sleeping.”

Yuri blinked at Ling Xinlu’s sarcastic remark. While wondering what he meant, he remembered that he had indeed done that yesterday.

I thought he wouldn’t have the mental capacity to care about that, but he stores everything in his memory and attacks later once he’s calmed down.

Yuri scratched his head.

Having never had perverse thoughts that he couldn’t tell others, he felt a bit wronged by the word “pervert,” and there had been no impure intentions when he stroked him yesterday. However, since the party involved—who could be seen as the victim—was saying it, he couldn’t protest.

“I thought you were staring blankly whenever you got the chance, but now that I’ve fallen into the abyss and am too exhausted to even be angry, you like touching me however you want, don’t you?”

Facing Ling Xinlu, who was looking at him with a cold sneer, Yuri fell into thought for a moment and then murmured, “I guess so.”

“I’m only thinking about it now, but you’re right. I don’t dislike it.”

And with one final stroke, he slowly cleared the last bit of foam from Ling Xinlu’s chin with the razor. He set the razor down and picked up the wet towel.

“You’re going to die by my hand eventually anyway, so can’t I leave some good memories before then? Please show that much mercy.”

Yuri wrapped the cold towel around Ling Xinlu’s face and rubbed slowly. The pitch-black gaze looking up at Yuri seemed to drop slightly, and then he closed his eyes. It seemed he didn’t mind it, as if the cold towel was calming not only his face but also his mind.

His eyelashes were long. They were the same pitch-black color as his softly lustrous hair. His well-shaped eyebrows were too.

Yuri could understand why the fastidious and ruthless ring huolong cherished his youngest son like a treasure.

With a slight sense of regret, Yuri withdrew the towel.

“All done.”

As Yuri gathered the items, Ling Xinlu’s eyes snapped open. Staring at Yuri, who was picking up the towel and water bowl with an expressionless face, he opened his mouth. “Now then.”

“Give me the live ammunition you mentioned earlier.”

“…”

Yuri, who was about to head to the bathroom, paused and looked down at him. With a look that suggested he would shoot Yuri’s head off this time, he was staring at him with pitch-black, glittering eyes.

“In a week.”

Yuri answered calmly. He thought that by then, he would ask someone to deliver the live ammunition to him and then quickly head to the airport.

“Until then, I have a request from Mr. Ling Tangyun, so I cannot leave your side.”

I said I’d give it to you later, but I never said I’d give it to you today, right? Adding this thought to himself, Yuri turned away. He pretended not to see Ling Xinlu’s eyes flashing fiercely in irritation.

The nape of his neck tingled from the ominous aura that almost felt like bloodlust, but it was still much better than seeing him sitting in the abyss of misery as he had been a moment ago.

“You… you perverted, fraudulent liar!”

An indignant shout erupted from behind him. Simultaneously, a kick flew toward Yuri’s backside just as he took a step.

“…!”

He didn’t fall, but he was pushed forward several steps. In the process, he splashed the water all over the floor. The area below the knees of his pants became soaking wet.

Come to think of it, I don’t have any clothes to change into. What do I do? Yuri looked down at himself troubledly and sighed.

* * *

The first person to visit was James.

Appearing with a lavish and elegant bouquet of flowers in one arm and a vintage wine from a year that was said to be impossible to obtain even for a fortune in the other, James offered a greeting with a perfect smile that no one could call businesslike.

“This is our first time meeting in person, is it not? I am James Miller, working at T&R. Do you find the room to your liking?”

“This is a modest gift,” James said as he placed the wine on the table and handed the bouquet to Yuri. Consequently, Yuri, who had been standing behind Ling Xinlu, found himself reflexively hugging the bouquet, seriously wondering, Every vase in this room is already filled with flowers; what should I do with this?

“Yes, I like it very much. In fact, I feel almost apologetic that you’ve provided such a wonderful room.”

Rising from his seat to greet James, Ling Xinlu extended his hand with a smile as perfect as James’s.

The sight of the two men exchanging handshakes with perfect smiles while subtly sizing each other up was so dazzling that Yuri couldn’t look at them directly for a moment. I’ll figure out a vase later; for now, I’ll just have to put them in the bathtub, he murmured loud enough to be heard and walked toward the bathroom.

It was in the afternoon that Ling Xinlu moved his residence from the hospital to a hotel.

Yuri had suggested that it would be better to stay in the hospital a bit longer since his physical condition wasn’t fully recovered, but Ling Xinlu had stated flatly that he didn’t want to stay in a wretched place like a hospital. Although it was a VIP room with a view and facilities that were better than most hotels, Ling Xinlu had fiercely added, “The very concept of a hospital is wretched,” so Yuri had nodded in agreement.

Fittingly, as the party at fault, when Yuri contacted Kyle—or more accurately, his secretary, James—he immediately booked a suite at the most luxurious hotel nearest to the hospital. Not stopping there, James visited them less than two hours after they had checked in.

“I have heard much about you. That you are indispensable to T&R.”

Watching Ling Xinlu offer James a seat with an impeccable smile, Yuri, who was coming out after turning on the water in the bathtub where he’d placed the bouquet, blinked.

He had never seen that expression before. So, that is the ‘expression the youngest son of the prestigious Ling family shows to the public.’

He had guessed that Ling Xinlu wouldn’t use the same face he used with Jung Tae-ui, Riegrow, or Yuri, but that was truly a “perfectly crafted” face. A perfect young master who looked, to anyone, as if he had been raised in a good family, loved and well-educated, yet showed no flaw.

I must have been staring too openly.

Feeling the gaze, Ling Xinlu, who had been dealing with James with a smiling face, turned his eyes toward Yuri. As James followed that gaze and looked at Yuri as well, Yuri saw it. Ling Xinlu’s gaze turning fierce.

Don’t look. I told you your gaze is unpleasant.

Yuri felt he knew exactly what those eyes were saying. It was something he’d heard dozens of times today alone. (And since he didn’t stop looking just because he heard it, he had heard it repeatedly.)

Yuri pretended not to notice and turned his gaze away, returning the nod of greeting from James. Clad in a high-quality suit like armor, James was emitting an unusually inaccessible pressure today. From his expression—though he was smiling perfectly—the depths of his pupils were blazing. Judging by that level of anger… Kyle must have caused another accident.

Sure enough.

“However, this is unexpected. I thought Mr. Kyle Riegrow would come in person, but instead, his secretary has come… No, please do not misunderstand. I do not mean that I have any complaints regarding Mr. Miller.”

I mean I have complaints about your boss, who is the immediate family of the person who caused the accident, yet didn’t come himself and sent a secretary instead, Ling Xinlu said with a hidden barb, and as soon as he smiled brightly, James’s smile deepened.

“Yes, normally Mr. Kyle should have come in person, but a chronic illness he has suffered from for some time suddenly flared up last night. For now, however inadequate, I have come to offer greetings first, and he intends to visit you again later. My apologies.”

“Oh dear, I hope he recovers quickly.”

Listening to the picture-perfect conversation between Ling Xinlu, who responded in a worried tone, and James, who thanked him for his concern, Yuri remained silent. Kyle must have flown off to some rural corner for a book fair or a used book auction again last night…

James lived a pitiful life.

Possessing several high-level certifications that others struggled for years to obtain even one of, he was a talent useful in many fields. He was a man who never lacked an answer regardless of the question, received a salary that was by no means insufficient for his level, had a beautiful wife, and several competent and reliable colleagues. Without a doubt, among those who knew him “moderately,” there were many who envied his situation immensely.

However, there was one element that cast an immediate shadow over his dazzling life when viewed from a “moderate” distance: his direct supervisor. He was a vicious boss who never accepted his resignation no matter how many times it was submitted and tied him down by any means necessary.

Poor James. Today as well.

Yuri placed the skillfully brewed black tea between them and stood behind Ling Xinlu. Out of habit, he stood closer to the door, but Ling Xinlu’s short remark immediately flew his way.

“I believe I told you I’d prefer it if you didn’t stand on my right.”

“I’m sorry.”

Bowing slightly, Yuri moved a couple of steps to the back-left. James looked at them curiously, but true to his nature of never revealing unnecessary emotions, he showed no reaction.

Besides “don’t look,” the other thing Yuri had heard from Ling Xinlu several times was this: Don’t stand on my right.

‘If you won’t disappear, at least don’t stand on my right. It’s unpleasant to have you even in the corner of my vision.’

Having injured his left eye, Ling Xinlu demanded that Yuri stand on his left—his blind spot—so as not to be noticed. Yuri had silently accepted the request, but because he habitually stood near the door, he sometimes forgot.

“Before coming here, I briefly visited Dr. Bayern.”

James spoke as he moistened his lips with the black tea. With an expressionless face, Yuri listened intently and glanced at Ling Xinlu. The man himself showed no particular reaction and simply drank his tea, saying, “Is that so?”

“Since you are likely already aware, I will be honest and say the outlook is not very good, but he mentioned that depending on the recovery process during treatment, it is not entirely hopeless.”

A very slight warmth appeared in the corners of James’s eyes. Given his position, James was always businesslike and precise, but he wasn’t a bad person. He felt happy himself when delivering good news. Just as Yuri was showing signs of happiness now.

Byron, who spoke in the most positive direction possible, was not a man who made things up. If he said so, it meant it was at least worth the effort.

“Not entirely hopeless…”

Ling Xinlu repeated the words quietly. After a moment of thought, he gave a thin smile.

“Those are kind words.”

He responded briefly, then fell silent and sipped his black tea.

It was a sneer. A sneer directed at the person in the position of the perpetrator in this situation, and at his own circumstances.

James seemed to have sensed it as well, just as Yuri had. After a brief silence, he turned his gaze toward Yuri.

“Right, come to think of it, I haven’t heard much on this end. Have you received any word from seringe, Yuri?”

“Pardon? Ah, I did receive a contact this morning, but nothing has particularly changed regarding the situation.”

Yuri, who had been standing behind Ling Xinlu with his hands clasped behind his back in a straight posture, shook his head. “I see,” James muttered, his face not appearing particularly disappointed. It wasn’t a matter he viewed with such urgency anyway.

Yuri looked down at Ling Xinlu for a moment. Ling Xinlu, who had turned his head slightly in a direction where he couldn’t be seen, seemed faintly shaken. It was likely because of Jung Tae-ui.

“There has been no contact that could confirm Jung Tae-ui’s location, but there has also been no word of any bad omens. Rather than assuming he has come to harm, it would be more accurate to speculate that someone is simply hiding his whereabouts.”

Looking at James, but directing the words toward Ling Xinlu, Yuri added. Ling Xinlu showed no reaction, and James nodded, saying, “I see.”

Soon, James also smiled lightly, perhaps guessing the part that was weighing on Ling Xinlu’s mind.

“Yuri is rarely wrong. He is a highly capable talent. While you are staying here, you can likely trust him with your personal safety without any worries.”

Only then did Ling Xinlu look back. He turned his head until Yuri came into view of his right eye, and as their gazes met, he narrowed his eyes slightly. Whether he was mocking or scoffing was unclear, but Yuri faced him, pretending not to notice.

“I suppose so. That is why the eldest brother would have specifically entrusted my care to him. …I look forward to your help, Mr. Gable.”

“No, the pleasure is mine.”

As Ling Xinlu gave a sudden, formal bow to Yuri, Yuri quickly bowed back. Because his usual demeanor was so stoic, it didn’t show much, but in truth, he felt as if he were sitting on a bed of needles.

Whether it was a relief or not, regardless of his inner thoughts, Ling Xinlu seemed much calmer on the surface. From around the morning, he had barely shown any disarray or roughness, and his way of speaking to Yuri had returned to the previous mix of formal and informal speech.

However, that was only his outward attitude; his gaze and tone remained sharp as a blade. Though a smile occasionally appeared on his pretty face, he radiated an atmosphere that suggested he would find live ammunition from anywhere and put a bullet through one’s forehead if provoked.

Yuri took a step back, pretending not to notice. He looked down at the wide-open view outside the large glass window behind him. Rather than the rows of buildings that promised a wonderful night view, what first caught his eye was the outdoor pool right beneath his feet, where clear water rippled without a soul in sight.

Come to think of it, he hadn’t been able to enter the water yesterday or today. He couldn’t even soak in a bathtub when washing; he had to settle for a shower. Perhaps he wouldn’t be able to swim for the duration of his stay here.

The thought made him feel a bit depressed. He decided he must soak in the bathtub tonight, no matter what.

…Ah. The bathtub. The bouquet.

“Excuse me for a moment.”

Yuri whispered briefly in a voice that wouldn’t disturb the two men talking and hurried to the bathroom.

The bathtub, where he had placed a massive bouquet, was almost full of water. If he had waited any longer, it would have overflowed.

Quickly turning off the faucet and leaving the top of the bouquet exposed so it wouldn’t be completely submerged, Yuri sighed quietly while drying his hands.

Unable to swim, and staying like this for a few days.

He wasn’t the type of person to be so sensitive as to be on edge over every bit of someone else’s malice or hostility, but this time, it was a bit tiring. Perhaps it was because the person was someone he genuinely liked, to a degree he was consciously aware of.

“Being hated by someone you like is difficult, Annette.”

Perhaps because of a dream, he murmured the name of a person who wasn’t there. If it were her, she would have undoubtedly whispered, “Oh, my lovely Yuri, you fool,” and kissed his forehead. She would have soothed Yuri’s heart with affectionate words seasoned with experience. …And then, she would have teased him mercilessly.

Yuri peeked outside the bathroom. He saw the two men engaged in a casual conversation. Above their heads, as they spoke elegantly with bright smiles, it felt as if the phrase ‘a honeyed tongue and a dagger’s heart’ was floating in the air.

James was naturally a man who could swallow a python and smile calmly if necessary, but Ling Xinlu was surprising. No, thinking about it, Ling Xinlu was a character whose duality was highly emphasized, so it wasn’t surprising in retrospect, but it was still impressive. Until this morning—no, until he was alone with Yuri before James arrived—Ling Xinlu had shown no expression other than scoffing, sarcasm, and coldness. Now, as if nothing had happened, he wore a gentle and lovely smile across his face.

Amazing… that man should be an actor.

While Yuri was looking at Ling Xinlu with great internal admiration, in the very next moment, he flinched as his eyes met Ling Xinlu’s, who was looking straight at him as if he had already known. For a second, a dark flash seemed to flicker in his eyes, but they soon curved softly.

“Mr. Gable, why are you watching from there? If you’re finished, come over here.”

Following Ling Xinlu’s words as he gestured kindly and tilted his chin toward the space over his left shoulder, Yuri murmured, “Yes,” and left the bathroom.

It seemed that having good intuition and being quick-witted wasn’t always an advantage. Right now, Yuri was receiving a silent message: ‘I told you your gaze is unpleasant. Stop staring from there and stay tucked away behind my left side where I can’t see you.’

Just as he was walking back to his original spot in silence, as if timing it perfectly, the bell rang the moment Yuri passed the intercom. It was an internal call.

Wondering why a call would come from another guest room, he found it was a call from the lobby desk on the first floor, just as he suspected.

While Yuri responded briefly—”Yes, that’s correct,” “Yes,” “Yes, one moment”—the two men paused their conversation and looked at him. Yuri covered the mouthpiece and turned to Ling Xinlu.

“A guest has come to see you, Mr. Ling Xinlu. They said their name is Ling Paoyun.”

He spoke the name exactly as the desk had pronounced it, but Ling Xinlu frowned slightly, as if he couldn’t recall immediately. However, he soon murmured, “Ah,” as if he realized who it was.

“He is a cousin who lives near Berlin. He must have come to pay his respects after hearing the news.”

“How fast,” Ling Xinlu said with a bitter smile. In front of him, James made a move to leave, saying, “Ah, then I should be heading out soon.” Since the conversation between the two had been nothing more than superficial pleasantries—serious discussions regarding this situation were likely being fiercely exchanged between the legal teams of both sides—Ling Xinlu didn’t make any effort to stop him.

Standing up, James gestured to Yuri, who was responding, “Yes, please send him up,” and hanging up the receiver.

“If it’s a relative, there might be private conversations. Wouldn’t it be better to leave them alone for a while? You can speak Chinese, after all.”

Yuri wondered for a moment if Ling Xinlu couldn’t understand James speaking in German, but after glancing at Ling Xinlu, who was watching them both in silence, he replied in German.

“I cannot, as I do not know who might be a dangerous person.”

The moment those words left his mouth, he heard Ling Xinlu chuckle.

He does understand. He had a feeling he would. He recalled Ling Tangyun mentioning in passing the outstanding and diverse linguistic abilities of the youngest brother.

“Even so, he is a close relative. It’s a pity you suspect him so blatantly.”

To the reprimand of a man who couldn’t immediately remember a close relative’s name, Yuri bowed his head and replied obediently, “My apologies.”

“He is not the kind of person capable of doing anything dangerous. He will likely just be obsequiously reading the room, hoping to get in my good graces so I’ll put in a good word with my father.”

“…….”

Yuri thought that blatant suspicion from a stranger might be better than blatant contempt from a relative, but he said nothing. Ling Xinlu waved his hand, smiling elegantly and beautifully, as if he weren’t the one who had just spoken such harsh words.

“But it seems Mr. Miller wishes to talk more, so please go. Even without a watchful eye, he won’t do anything worth worrying about.”

Yuri hesitated. He looked at Ling Xinlu blankly, and when their eyes met, he spoke seriously.

“Watchful eye? That is not the case. You are free to move as you wish. I am simply with you to ensure nothing dangerous happens. No one is forcing anything upon you in any way.”

He didn’t want Ling Xinlu to feel as if he were tied down or trapped in a prison. Had he been thinking that? Yuri felt a sense of discomfort and displeasure.

Perhaps he had. Yuri had certainly blocked Ling Xinlu from returning to seringe. To prevent him, who had lost his reason in agitation, from meeting a senseless death. To prevent his unhealed wounds from worsening due to neglect.

“No one, …….”

But Yuri stopped there. He blinked with his mouth open, then closed it. He was silenced by Ling Xinlu’s gaze, which was watching him with a blank expression.

“…….”

Neither angry nor pleased, with eyes slightly widened in an unreadable expression, Ling Xinlu was staring at Yuri without emotion. Feeling as if those black eyes were binding his gaze, Yuri couldn’t bring himself to look away. Then, sensing another gaze staring intently at him from over Ling Xinlu’s shoulder, he finally looked up. James was watching him blankly and gave a casual, bright smile when their eyes met.

Ling Xinlu also seemed to feel Yuri’s gaze shift and turned his head. James shrugged lightly and said with a charming smile:

“He is a man who values human rights very highly. Moreover, he is diligent in his work.”

“It seems so.”

Ling Xinlu responded with a smile. However, that smile felt somewhat formal and chilly.

This man’s insides are twisted again, Yuri thought while silently watching Ling Xinlu. But he couldn’t tell where it had twisted, and before he had time to think deeply, the bell rang to signal that someone had arrived at the door, so he had no choice but to step back.

Giving a nod to the visitor who entered with a friendly face, Yuri left the room with James, stating that he would remain in the first-floor lobby until the conversation ended. He didn’t forget to station another guard, who didn’t know their language, inside the entrance—in a spot where their conversation couldn’t be heard well but they could be seen.

“He’s a prickly young master. What is it about that young man that you like?”

These were the first words James blurted out as soon as they sat down in the spacious, open-concept cafe located inside the hotel entrance on the first floor.

Because the boundaries of the cafe were blurred, a grand piano sat in an ambiguous location—perhaps within the cafe’s territory—where a neat young lady was playing quiet pieces that wouldn’t disturb people’s conversations.

A piano… the sound of a live performance really is special, Yuri murmured as he sat down. As soon as he took a seat near the terrace where the outdoor pool was visible, he seemed to forget both the piano and his companion, casting a longing gaze only at the pool. He only turned his head belatedly when James spoke to him.

“Pardon?”

“Not ‘pardon.’ You quite like him, don’t you? Am I wrong?”

I know you usually pretend to be indifferent while secretly liking people, but you seem to like him more than usual, James said as he opened the menu handed to him by the waiter. Following James, who murmured “espresso” without looking long, Yuri said, “The same for me.” He then scratched his temple—awkwardly—with an indifferent face while meeting the gaze of James, who was staring at him.

“Yes, that’s right. …He’s not a bad person.”

“Hmm,” James tilted his head.

“I thought he was just a smart, clever youngest son who grew up loved in a rich house, but he looks like a pretty cat and acts like a lion cub.”

Muttering in a nonchalant tone, James turned his head, glared at the glass shelf next to the counter, and called the waiter to order one of each kind of macaron. Seeing a man who usually didn’t enjoy sweets do this, it seemed his stress levels these days were considerable.

“Do you not like him?”

“Well, it’s not like I’ll see him again, so what does it matter if I like him or not? But if I had to say, I hate difficult people regardless of gender, age, race, or nationality. Among them, a German man in his 40s who loves books to the point of madness is the absolute worst.”

“Ah,” Yuri removed his hand from his temple and looked pityingly at the vein popping on James’s forehead. Then he asked about the whereabouts of the problematic German man in his 40s.

“Where is he now?”

“Cordoba.”

“At least he didn’t go that far.”

Faced with James’s fierce glare immediately following those words, Yuri murmured poorly, “It’s better than when he took a flight to Peru, saying he had to go to Antarctica like before.” And as punishment for that slip of the tongue, he had to listen to James’s stream of complaints and curses, starting with “Better in what way!”, until the coffee and snacks arrived. No, until the coffee cups were empty and the snacks had all vanished.

It seemed he had a great deal built up. Then again, it was understandable.

There was likely no one who understood James as well as Yuri did. Having worked beside Kyle helping James before going to the intelligence agency, Yuri considered James to be the person with the most excellent character he had ever known.

This man seemed cold and decisive, but he was strangely soft in odd places; he was so principled that if Kyle refused to accept his resignation, he would just be dragged along.

Yuri gazed at James, who had downed the espresso and macarons like water, and said half-jokingly, half-seriously.

“Why don’t you just tell him to hand over the entire management right instead?”

“He’d be delighted.”

“…….”

Then again, it sounded like something that man would do.

Yuri nodded reluctantly, imagining Kyle smiling gleefully. James, who must have been infuriated watching that, clutched his head and groaned.

“If he buys some Islamic scripture that I can’t even read, I’ll burn it immediately.”

“Wouldn’t you be fired then?”

It was then. Suddenly, James stopped clutching his head and looked at Yuri. Before eyes that flashed with a sudden brilliance, Yuri instinctively leaned back slightly.

“Yes, that’s it. That’s the one.”

James nodded, snapping his fingers.

“If I do that, I can finally be fired!”

“…….”

It had been a joke, but it didn’t seem like it would end as one. Yuri could only wish for luck in the future of James—or Kyle.

“More importantly, how about you? Will you be okay?”

“Pardon?”

“I thought your role was just to soothe a slightly prickly rich young master, but he’s no pushover.”

“Ah,” Yuri murmured, rubbing his temple.

“A personality that points a gun at Rick wouldn’t just be ‘slightly prickly.’ …Still, he’s not that bad.”

He lacked a bit of confidence in the latter part. He had always thought of himself as someone who was honest and maintained objectivity, but it seemed that when one’s liking for a person tilted too far, that was no longer the case.

Fortunately, that wasn’t the point James was focusing on, as he clicked his tongue and shook his head.

“The crazy second son is the problem. Why are the people around that guy always so problematic?”

“Still, Mr. Jung Tae-ui seemed like a decent person.”

“No, it’s not a matter of character. If we’re talking about character, Kyle isn’t a bad person either. The problem is whether or not they cause trouble.”

James was firm, and Yuri was left speechless in the face of that resolve. Moreover, thinking about it, it didn’t seem entirely wrong.

“Look at Mr. Jung Tae-yi; he’s at the center of the seringe situation right now. Do you have any idea how many times that crazy second son has called me?”

Ah, I see. Now I know why you look exceptionally haggard, Yuri thought, nodding expressionlessly. At the same time, he guessed the reason James had called him out. It was likely because of the situation in seringe. Although they had spoken briefly in the room earlier, James seemed to have considered that there might be things Yuri couldn’t say because Ling Xinlu was present.

There isn’t much of that, Yuri thought, though he slowly rubbed his chin, lost in thought.

“The situation regarding Mr. Jung Jae-ui hasn’t changed much. It’s similar for Mr. Jung Tae-ui… but I don’t think it’s the absolute worst-case scenario. Whether he was killed and buried or whatever, if it happened where people could see, word would have reached us by now. If the worst has happened, it means it occurred somewhere out of public sight…”

In seringe, the only such place was Al Saud’s villa. James seemed to catch the meaning immediately.

Yuri fell into a brief silence, shifting his gaze from the outdoor pool to James, and murmured casually.

“I suspect Mr. Jung Tae-ui may have already reunited with his brother. It’s just a guess, though.”

“I just hope they didn’t reunite in the afterlife.”

Surely not; if that were the case, you wouldn’t be able to handle Ling, Yuri thought, shrugging his shoulders at the gruesome imagination.

“There will be news soon. One way or another.”

“…If you say so, you’re probably right.”

James sighed, his expression softening slightly.

Yuri’s intuition regarding work was usually accurate. At least to the point where, if he actually voiced it, it could be considered almost certain.

“Then again, Jung Jae-ui is more famous for his luck than his genius, so surely nothing has happened to him. —Anyway, your work is winding down, yet you’re stuck in a place like this for no reason. How ironic.”

James, who always moved according to a schedule planned by the minute, checked his watch and spoke in a consoling tone, seemingly deciding he still had a bit of leeway. Yuri, who had been glancing at the pool with lingering longing, shook his head nonchalantly.

“It’s fine. It’s not that bad. Except for the fact that I can’t swim whenever I feel like it.”

“Haha, that’s the most important issue for you, isn’t it? I noticed the atmosphere was quite chilly earlier; is that young master not even giving you enough leeway for a quick swim?”

“No. The current situation has made him a bit rough, but he’s actually a good person.”

After saying it, Yuri wondered if it was a bit contradictory from a general perspective, but he figured it didn’t matter. In reality, in Yuri’s mind, Ling Xinlu was someone who, while a bit prickly, had a sufficiently lovely side, and for Yuri himself, it wasn’t a lie.

“A good person…”

James murmured Yuri’s words, not appearing to believe them literally. However, he seemed to feel that it didn’t matter since it wasn’t his business. Moreover, since Yuri—who generally liked people but rarely expressed fondness for specific individuals—was saying this, James found it interesting and asked with a grin, “In what way?”

Yuri was in a bind. When asked in what way he was a good person, he was momentarily flustered, unable to think of an answer.

In truth, since meeting him, Ling Xinlu had rarely shown Yuri the aspects of a ‘good person.’ He had shown a lovely smiling face, but beneath that outer shell, his true nature was always clearly visible.

…Then why was his heart leaning toward him?

Because he was pretty.

That couldn’t be the only reason.

Perhaps that was indeed why his attention was first captured. But if it were simply the surface, he should have fallen for Ling Xinlu’s mother, who looked just as similar but was softer and more pure.

Then why?

“…He looks perfect, but he isn’t.”

Yuri murmured abruptly. Only after speaking did he think, Ah, is that it? Was that what was in his subconscious, which he hadn’t been able to bring to his conscious mind?

Once he started talking, the words continued slowly but steadily.

“He’s so beautiful that I want to watch him from the side, but more than that, there’s something unstable and precarious about him that makes me want to look after him. …And he knows it himself. He doesn’t hesitate to do vicious things, using any means necessary to get what he wants, yet he’s prideful and fastidious.”

For some reason, it was pitiful, and he couldn’t take his eyes off him. …No. It wasn’t that he couldn’t take his eyes off him. It was that he didn’t want to.

“Hmm… That makes him a good person…?”

James frowned and laughed, as if the context didn’t add up.

Yuri fell back into thought. As James said, the things Yuri had listed were far from the requirements of a good person. Then, what he had meant was…

“…Yes, he is a good person, to me. A person who is good to have by my side and to look at.”

Yuri nodded and spoke quietly.

I see. That’s it.

It felt strange, as if he had been thinking this all along but was only now bringing it to his conscious mind.

Perhaps Yuri’s expression was extremely serious, as James laughed aloud and waved his hand lightly.

“What is this? It sounds like you’re saying you like him.”

“Yes. He’s beautiful. Pure. Lovely. Fastidious.”

Yuri’s answer was blunt as usual, but it was sincere. James stopped laughing for a moment and stared at Yuri, then gave a bitter smile, thinking, My, he really seems to have taken a liking to that young master.

Yes, I really have, Yuri nodded.

Yes, that’s right. He is lovely. Even his spiteful and wicked side.

His heart throbbed. Slowly but with a clear presence, his heart went thump, thump. It felt somehow shy yet pleasant, so Yuri quietly placed his hand over his chest.

I see, yes, he found himself smiling faintly.

Because he was so focused on the pleasant beating of his heart, it was only a few seconds later that he realized James had stopped smiling and was looking over Yuri’s shoulder as he stood up.

“It seems you’ve finished your conversation. Did you come down to see your cousin off, or to have some tea?”

“Coffee isn’t bad, but the macarons here are excellent,” James said, and only then did Yuri turn around.

Without him realizing when, Ling Xinlu was standing there. Standing side-by-side with the man who had visited claiming to be a relative, he was looking at Yuri with a strange—hard to read—expression.

“…”

“…”

Their eyes met.

The heart that had been beating in a pleasant rhythm until then suddenly pulsed a bit stronger. It was because the lovely face he had been thinking of had appeared in reality before his eyes.

Yuri smiled happily. It had only been a few dozen minutes since they last met, but he felt a longing and joy as if he were seeing someone from a dream in real life.

However, unfortunately, the smile was not returned with another smile. Ling Xinlu, who had been watching Yuri in silence, frowned slightly for a very brief moment. In that instant, the smile vanished from Yuri’s face.

Uh… for a moment just now, he looked like he was offended.

Returning to his usual expressionless face, Yuri fell into thought. If he hadn’t misread it, why?

Perhaps Ling Xinlu had heard the conversation between Yuri and James. The cafe was an open layout, and while their voices weren’t particularly loud, they hadn’t intentionally lowered them. Moreover, since they had been talking until he came this close, he might have been hearing them for quite a while.

But thinking back, he hadn’t said anything that would be considered malicious gossip. If anything, it was a story that was slightly embarrassing. …Come to think of it, he might have mentioned that he was vicious or not perfect.

While Yuri was lost in thought, Ling Xinlu regained the bright and gentle smile he usually wore when dealing with others.

“My cousin said he was leaving, so I came down to see him off. I thought you would have left already, but you’re still here. It seems you had a lot to discuss with Mr. Gable.”

“Ah, I was just about to leave.”

James exchanged brief greetings with the relative standing next to Ling Xinlu. The relative, having received a short introduction of James and Yuri from Ling Xinlu, looked at Yuri with the face of a very generous older brother.

“Is this the person Brother Tangyun sent? Looking at him, he has a very good impression and seems reliable. Yes, please take good care of our Xinlu. As you know, he is a very precious child.”

Yuri stared silently for a moment at the man who burst into a hearty laugh while offering a handshake, then simply said, “I will keep that in mind,” and gave a formal, brief handshake. He caught a glimpse of Ling Xinlu, who had slightly turned his head away, silently twisting the corners of his mouth. A flash of contempt brushed across those lips and vanished.

But… oh. Again.

The moment Yuri caught sight of Ling Xinlu’s smile, Ling Xinlu’s gaze flew toward him. Realizing that Yuri had seen the cold contempt on his face, he openly scowled.

Why did this man always see the inner emotions that appeared only for a split second—even if he hadn’t tried that hard to hide them? He pressed Yuri with a harsh glare.

I’m not looking because I want to, Yuri replied with a troubled look in his eyes and quickly turned his head away.

“…Well, I’d like to talk more, but I have business to attend to, so I must go. Mr. Ling Xinlu, I hope you recover quickly. Yuri, I’ll be in touch.”

After giving a brief greeting and a nod to Ling Xinlu’s relative, James picked up the bill and left. The relative, who seemed to look around for a moment, also left a warm, exaggerated smile and a farewell to the two before turning away.

And in the cafe where quiet piano music flowed, only the two remaining people and a subtle silence were left.

Yuri watched the direction the two had disappeared in before turning his gaze to Ling Xinlu. Ling Xinlu had been staring at Yuri with a dissatisfied face for a while now. As if searching every nook and cranny. Yuri blinked and tilted his head.

“Since you’re already down here, would you like to sit for a bit before you go? The piano music is nice, and the coffee is delicious. …I didn’t try the macarons, but if it’s James’s taste, they should be trustworthy and delicious.”

“…”

“…?”

Faced with Ling Xinlu’s gaze, which continued to stare blankly at Yuri’s face without answering, Yuri slowly raised his hand and felt his own face while facing him. Is there something on me? James didn’t say anything.

“I was thinking about which part of your impression is supposed to be ‘good,’” Ling Xinlu said abruptly. Spitting the words out as if to say good my foot, he turned away, appearing completely uninterested in coffee, pianos, or macarons. Yuri quickly followed him as he walked straight toward the elevator.

“Then again, he was a guy with no eye for people to begin with. Calling someone reliable when they spend their time gossiping about others behind their backs.”

The monologue was in a low voice, not intentionally meant to be heard, but since they were the only ones in the non-stop elevator going up to the suite, Ling Xinlu’s words were heard clearly.

At the sarcasm that lumped his cousin and Yuri together, Yuri felt a prickle on the back of his neck as if someone were poking him, and he briefly looked up at the ceiling.

…No. Although he talked about him while he wasn’t there, he didn’t badmouth him.

…Well, words like ‘vicious’ were included, but he meant that he liked everything including those parts. Did this man, who was a genius at reading the atmosphere and the lines between words, happen to miss that only at that moment?

…He had no intention of badmouthing him at all.

While Yuri was contemplating with an expressionless face whether he should apologize or just pretend not to know, Ling Xinlu’s cold gaze flew toward him. This man, who was also a genius at reading people’s moods, snorted and muttered.

“It would have been more interesting if you’d actually badmouthed me. Do you know that fake gilding is more embarrassing than badmouthing? Why on earth did you have to make a fool of me in front of that pig-like guy?”

If he means the pig-like guy, is he referring to that somewhat plump cousin who just left? But make a fool of him—he had no such intention. As Yuri, rarely flustered beneath his expressionless face, hesitated in confusion over what to say, the elevator stopped at the destination floor. And Ling Xinlu, glancing at Yuri’s confused expressionless face, had undoubtedly become accustomed to reading Yuri’s expressions. After confirming Yuri’s face, he seemed to feel a bit better, slightly lifting the corners of his mouth as he stepped out of the elevator.

“…”

Watching the back of Ling Xinlu, who gave a light nod to the guard waiting at the door and entered, Yuri sighed.

Although he liked him including those parts, he was indeed a spiteful man.

“I told you to stand on the left. You’re annoying, so stay out of my sight.”

Ling Xinlu, who was standing in front of the terrace looking down at the hotel view and popping open his shirt buttons while lost in thought, suddenly glanced at Yuri standing slightly behind him and spoke sharply with a dissatisfied scowl.

Yuri nodded slightly and soon moved a few steps to the opposite side. Because of his habit of standing near the door rather than the client, he often made such mistakes.

Even so, he would still be able to hear his presence and sounds, but apparently, even just being in his line of sight was unpleasant. Yuri scratched his head a bit awkwardly. He had received plenty of dislike toward him in the past, but he thought, As expected, the dislike of someone you like is special.

Standing slightly behind Ling Xinlu, who was staring silently at the ground as if thinking about something, Yuri also followed that gaze and looked regretfully at the empty pool below. Then, as if to shake off that lingering longing, he spoke.

“Your cousin looks a lot like Mr. Ling Tangyun.”

Although he was plumper than Ling Tangyun, the bridge of the nose and the shape of the mouth were similar. Anyone could tell at a glance they were relatives. In fact, that cousin looked much more like Ling Tangyun’s biological brother than the beautiful young man in front of him did.

Ling Xinlu snorted.

“My eldest brother would hate to hear that. He’s a person my eldest brother dislikes. Well, hardly anyone likes him, though.”

The tone was caustic as he added that even his own wife had only married him for money.

“It’s understandable he’d hate him. His attitude toward people is either servile or arrogant. I don’t like my eldest brother much either, but he’s still better than that nauseating creature. At least he’s not humanly repulsive.”

Yuri said nothing.

For some reason, he suddenly felt a tightness in his chest.

It wasn’t because he remembered Ling Xinlu generously giving a flawless, bright smile even to that repulsive cousin. He already knew he had that kind of personality, so it didn’t feel new.

It was simply that the attitude Ling Tangyun occasionally showed when talking about Ling Xinlu came to mind.

A glimpse of feeling troubled and uncomfortable—not enough to say he hated or loathed him, but certainly not looking like someone with affectionate interest in his younger brother. The feeling Yuri had sensed was likely not wrong.

He knew that family relationships in the world varied wildly and that there were countless families worse than strangers—and it wasn’t that they were worse than strangers—but how should he put it?

Yuri, who briefly thought of the word ‘pitiful,’ pondered for a moment before shaking his head.

That wasn’t it. It was ‘a waste.’

If he had been in that position, he could have embraced and stroked that lovely younger brother to his heart’s content. He felt that Ling Tangyun’s position as the ‘older brother’—a position that allowed him to do so openly, yet which he did not utilize—was a great waste.

Yuri’s silence seemed to have been subtly heavy and long.

Ling Xinlu, who had been glancing sideways, suddenly turned and scrutinized Yuri intently. Every corner of his expression.

“You’re thinking something strange again, aren’t you? Something that would be unpleasant to hear.”

Yuri flinched imperceptibly. However, as if noticing even that, Ling Xinlu’s eyes narrowed.

Should he say this man was good at reading expressions, or that he himself was too easy to read? But since he had only heard the latter from a very small number of people until now, it seemed more likely to be the former.

Yuri remained silent for a moment, meeting the gaze of Ling Xinlu, who was staring through him, before speaking abruptly.

“You’re debating whether to hear it or not, aren’t you?”

Caught off guard by the counter-question, Ling Xinlu frowned. He glared at Yuri with a look that said, What is wrong with this guy? but soon lifted his chin defiantly. Fine, since you’ve gone so far as to say that, let’s hear it then—what exactly were you thinking? He projected exactly that kind of attitude.

“It’s nothing much. If I were your… No, it’s nothing.”

Yuri started to speak, but after a brief hesitation, he shook his head. He felt that if he said it, Xinlu would likely sneer with a look that said it wasn’t even worth hearing. Or perhaps he would get angry, thinking, How dare someone like you. Sometimes it is better to leave the unknown unknown.

However, the position of the person who is left with a half-finished sentence is different. When Yuri trailed off in his hesitation, Ling Xinlu’s eyes immediately flared.

“What is it? I can already guess it’s nothing substantial, so just go on.”

Though he expected to hear something quite unpleasant, Ling Xinlu pressed him, determined to settle the matter, as he found the possibility of unpleasant imaginations continuing to bloom in his head even more irritating.

Yuri rubbed his temples with a troubled, expressionless face before opening his mouth bluntly. “It’s nothing much.”

“I just… wondered for a moment what it would have been like if I were your brother.”

As the words left Yuri’s lips, the expression vanished from Xinlu’s face. A flicker passed through his round pupils—the look of someone who had been guessing various things, none of which had hit the mark; the look of someone who had heard something completely unimaginable.

It would have been nice if that were the case. Even now, I could have stroked his head as he blinks so lovably.

Yuri clenched his fingers, which were twitching instinctively. He gazed blankly at Ling Xinlu.

Blink, blink. After pausing for a moment as if reflecting on what he had just heard, he eventually relaxed his shoulders slowly. Along with a sigh that escaped him as if he found the situation absurd.

“I can think of more than a handful of fairy tales right now that say you’ll be struck by divine punishment if you harbor greed beyond your station. I take it you didn’t read many fairy tales as a child?”

“I preferred stories of heroes who gave courage and hope.”

Should I let this slip here or not? The thoughts flowing behind that innocent-looking face seemed somehow visible. Rather than being scared or worried, Yuri found it amusing, and his eyes softened unconsciously. Yes, truly, it would have been nice if I were his brother.

Ling Xinlu seemed to find Yuri’s words utterly absurd. He let out another snort and simply waved his hand dismissively.

“I’ll tell the eldest brother later. That he should be careful because you’re coveting his position.”

The smile that appeared on his lips in disbelief was clearly a sneer, yet even that smile was so pretty that Yuri found himself staring blankly at the curve of his mouth. However, the moment he noticed Yuri’s gaze, the smile vanished instantly.

“I told you not to look at me because your gaze is unpleasant.”

At the words that flew like frost, Yuri quickly averted his eyes. “My apologies,” he murmured shortly, looking back down at the grass outside the window.

The sun was already beginning to set. When he was in seringe, he used to go out to the sea every evening unless something particular happened. The sky, shimmering in a reddish deep blue when looked up at from underwater, was always breathtakingly beautiful.

…If only I could go in there. Even if it wasn’t the sea, if only I could immerse myself there and feel the soft touch of the water tickling my skin as I swayed.

Though he wasn’t consciously aware of it, he must have been a bit depressed. Whenever his heart sank, he missed the water even more.

Because of that, Yuri didn’t realize for a while what the other had said. The words Ling Xinlu had suddenly murmured: “Yuri.”

Only after enough time had passed for him to blink once or twice did Yuri turn to Ling Xinlu in confusion. Uh, just now…

He felt he had heard a form of address that was very familiar yet incredibly strange. It wasn’t a word with any particular meaning, yet his heart gave a thud.

“Yes?”

While slightly doubting if he had been called, Yuri answered. Ling Xinlu, who was still looking out the window without even glancing at Yuri, remained silent in thought for a while before casting a sidelong glance.

“Come to think of it, the eldest brother called you that when he spoke of you. Yuri.”

“…”

“I suppose that’s how close people call each other? Like Mr. Miller earlier.”

Yuri looked at him for a moment before answering awkwardly, “Ah, yes.”

“I don’t specifically distinguish between those I’m close to and those I’m not when being called that, but generally, that’s how it is.”

He had never really thought about it, but thinking back, it was true. People he had known for a long time and was comfortable with usually called him that. But isn’t everyone similar?

Ling Xinlu stared at Yuri with his arms crossed. A subtly dissatisfied look seemed to flicker across that face, which hid whatever he was thinking.

“I see. …Since when have you known the eldest brother, Mr. Gable?”

Yuri realized it immediately. The reason he brought this up—the emphasis on Mr. Gable—meant: Just so you know, there is this much distance between you and me.

Even without him pointing it out so explicitly, Yuri wasn’t so oblivious or brazen.

Yuri sighed, rubbing his temples.

“Since before you were even ten. It’s because it hasn’t been that long since I started working at T&R. It’s already been over a decade.”

“Over a decade,” Ling Xinlu repeated, his lips curling in a sneer.

“There are countless people who have spent decades close to the eldest brother and yet haven’t received as much trust as you have. Impressive. You two must be very close.”

“It can’t be that bad. Fei lets me put him up whenever he occasionally comes to Europe.”

Yes, it meant he was at least someone trusted enough to be left with a son, so it was fair to say he was trusted in his own way.

Recalling Ling Tangyun’s trust anew, Yuri nodded. However, it seemed a different word had reached Ling Xinlu’s ears first.

“Fei? That obnoxious bastard?!”

“…Bastard? Still, Fei is a few years older than you.”

“Whether he’s a few years older or dozens of years older, a nephew is lower in the family hierarchy than I am. Besides, he actually is obnoxious. Since we were kids, it was obvious he was desperate not to lose to me in anything. All while pretending to be a good person.”

Ah, how obnoxious, Ling Xinlu shook his head, and Yuri watched him in silence.

While impressions of a person differ for everyone, he had never thought that Ling Tangyun’s eldest son, whom he had seen occasionally since childhood, was such an obnoxious type of person. He was competitive, but he had been a child with leadership and kindness.

However, thinking that he might look different through the eyes of a peer, Yuri accepted it privately. Meanwhile, he quietly watched Ling Xinlu, who was grumbling gloomily, “Fei and Xiao Chun are both equally obnoxious, just like siblings. Well, they might be better than the kids from the second brother’s side. Those guys are just…”

As if sensing Yuri’s inner thoughts, Ling Xinlu reached a conclusion first.

“Then again, there aren’t many humans in my bloodline that I actually like. They’re all greedy and only care about saving face.”

“…But they seem to like you.”

Ling Xinlu’s frowning eyes turned toward Yuri. Yuri averted his gaze and looked down.

“You can tell if you listen to them. How they think of you. How much they cherish, trust, and love you.”

At least as far as Yuri could guess, Fei did not dislike this youngest uncle. Perhaps because they were similar in age, there seemed to be some competitiveness, but there was no hostility in the rare words he uttered, such as, “I heard that guy got into UNHRDO this time. He’s even the top of his class. Isn’t that amazing?” or “Xiao Chun was caught snooping around the youngest uncle’s annex and cried after being scolded by Father. He kept singing about how pretty his uncle is…”

Probably Ling Tangyun too. Or even those ‘kids from the second brother’s side.’

They might find it difficult to deal with Ling Xinlu, but they likely didn’t dislike or hate him. It felt that way.

Yuri looked down silently. He thought that if he were underwater, he wouldn’t have to deal with such complicated thoughts.

“There are plenty of people who like me. In fact, it would be faster to find someone who hates me.”

Then, Ling Xinlu spoke. Yuri, who had instinctively turned his gaze toward him, saw a bitterly twisted mouth.

“But have you never considered that, depending on the method, that can be extremely unpleasant?”

“The method… you mean.”

“I mean that not all affection is the same. Interest can be ‘curiosity that wants to dig into every intimate detail of the other person’s private affairs’ rather than ‘consideration.’ It can easily be that.”

Yuri fell silent.

Ling Xinlu clicked his tongue in irritation, perhaps recalling a memory from some time ago—or one that had persisted throughout his life. The surge of irritation, however, did not seem to subside with those words alone. Glaring at Yuri with fierce eyes, he poured out another outburst of anger.

“For example, you’re like that. You look at me saying you like it, but I find it unpleasant. If a pervert looked at you saying they liked it, would you like that?”

Not expecting the arrow to suddenly fly toward him, Yuri was momentarily speechless. Even knowing it was just a vent of anger, Yuri sank into serious thought for a moment. Then, he spoke. “This might sound like an excuse, but…”

“I have never had any deviant thoughts about you.”

Ling Xinlu looked at Yuri with an incredulous face.

“You haven’t? About me?”

“Yes, I haven’t.”

After staring blankly at Yuri with that same incredulous face for a moment, Ling Xinlu snorted and muttered, Wow, now he’s lying with a serious face, treating me like a con artist.

“…I’m honestly speechless. You’re saying you weren’t staring at me blankly? Just today, how many times did I tell you to look away?!”

Ling Xinlu glared fiercely at Yuri and yanked at his half-removed shirt. A button that hadn’t been fully undone popped off and rolled across the floor.

Roughly throwing the discarded shirt at Yuri’s feet, Ling Xinlu stood facing him directly. Then, he tapped his bare chest with his palm.

“This!”

The words were low but harsh.

“You’re saying you never thought about touching this? After staring at me so intently hundreds of times? Do you think I’m a fool, that I wouldn’t notice a gaze looking at me so openly?!”

“That’s not it.”

Yuri became so troubled that even his expressionless face blurred slightly. But as if not seeing that, Ling Xinlu’s eyes flared even more fiercely.

“What do you mean it’s not?!”

“It’s true that I looked, and it’s true that I couldn’t take my eyes off you, but I didn’t have any imaginations that I couldn’t tell others. I couldn’t even think of having such imaginations.”

Though he didn’t stutter, his desperate plea, delivered with a sense of helplessness, seemed to have worked—if only by a grain of dust. For no words came out of Ling Xinlu’s mouth, which had been about to shout.

Yuri looked at Ling Xinlu seriously, trying to erase the unpleasantness he must have felt. However, unable to immediately think of what to say next, he hesitated for a moment and eventually added a weak, unconvincing remark.

“Believe it or not, I’m heterosexual.”

“…”

“I have been until now. Truly.”

“…”

“…Though I am doubting it a bit now.”

Even though it wasn’t a lie, it felt like one, and his voice, which had been growing smaller, eventually trailed off into a resigned murmur. Dejected, he even dropped his gaze.

“…”

“…”

Silence hung in the air.

Neither Ling Xinlu, whose anger had stopped due to incomplete combustion, nor Yuri, who had tried to defend himself only to end up in a muddle, spoke first for a while.

“…There were plenty of guys like that. Guys who claimed they were heterosexual and had no interest in men.”

Eventually, Ling Xinlu spoke first. His somewhat reluctant tone suggested he was very displeased with the fact that he now looked like he was being stubborn in a situation where it was awkward to provide a basis for rebuttal.

“But in the end, they all tried to force themselves on me. Spouting ridiculous nonsense, saying I seduced them with a glance, or that they thought I was a woman in their drunken state because of how my face looks.”

“…”

“They all ended up in the hospital. Some of them still—and will continue to—rely on the hospital. I think I told you, I’ve never lost a fight. …Almost.”

Almost. As he added those words, Ling Xinlu’s face stiffened slightly.

Yuri could soon recall who the person was that had spilled ink over a life where he wouldn’t have needed to add such a qualifier. Almost simultaneously, he spoke up impulsively.

“I won’t be like that. I’ll just… like you while looking at you.”

Any words would have done. He blurted something out before the other’s mind could crumble again in memory, and only after speaking did Yuri freeze. Uh.

He felt that this wasn’t quite right. The words themselves weren’t a lie, but somehow, it felt as if he had accidentally confessed. In a very uncool, naive way—the kind of way Annette would have scolded him for, asking how on earth he could confess like that.

Ling Xinlu was also looking at Yuri with a face similar to the imaginary Annette. Fortunately, however, the face that had momentarily lost color and stiffened had returned to normal. He looked at Yuri as if he had heard a joke that wasn’t even funny.

“Can you guarantee that?”

Ling Xinlu asked with a tilt of his chin. Yuri quickly answered, “Yes,” and nodded.

Force himself? He hadn’t even imagined it. Even if he weren’t heterosexual (though he was doubtful now), he would never have had such a thought. He had never even dreamed of a physical relationship against another’s will.

Ling Xinlu looked at Yuri, who did not avoid his gaze, and let out a low snort. As if deciding to let it slide once, he turned away and stated firmly, “Don’t forget those words.”

Nodding obediently and answering “Yes” again, Yuri somehow found the situation funny. This situation where he, a heterosexual, had confessed to a homosexual and been rejected.

He had accidentally, vaguely confessed, and been dumped.

It would be a lie to say he wasn’t depressed. But on the other hand, he thought, What does it matter? He had never wanted to pluck the flower from the start anyway.

Thinking that made his heart feel much lighter. Good, Yuri nodded to himself, but then, seeing Ling Xinlu pick up the clothes he had thrown on the floor, dust them off, and throw them back on, he unconsciously murmured with regret, “Oh.”

Ling Xinlu, who had just slipped his arms into the sleeves of the shirt, looked back curiously as if asking what was wrong.

“…It’s nothing. Please put on your clothes.”

“…? Why?”

Ling Xinlu turned toward Yuri, fastening the shirt buttons one by one. Yuri watched him in silence.

Of course, he had no intention of touching or forcing himself on him. But he really was beautiful. So much so that he wanted to look at him forever. And his body was beautiful, too.

Calling him “pretty” might be a misnomer. His body was quite different from that bright, lovely face; while he looked lean, in reality, he possessed flawlessly smooth, well-developed muscles. It made one marvel, wondering if this was what a beautiful man’s body was meant to be.

“……. You say you like just looking at me—are you sure you don’t have other intentions?”

Ling Xinlu asked, pausing as he was about to fasten the button just below his collarbone, staring intently at Yuri. Yuri shifted his gaze away, avoiding eye contact at the brusque—yet somehow amused, though Yuri couldn’t be sure if it was just his imagination—question.

He didn’t know why he suddenly felt strange after saying just a few minutes ago that he ‘hadn’t had any weird thoughts,’ only to be stared at like this. He truly hadn’t had any unspeakable thoughts until that moment.

Feeling a mix of unfairness and embarrassment, Yuri hesitated before letting out a sigh and slumping his shoulders.

“I didn’t until a moment ago. Truly. ……I’m sorry. I’ll try harder.”

Muttering honestly in a crestfallen tone, Yuri lowered his head and kept his mouth shut, staring only at the toes of Ling Xinlu’s shoes as he stood before him.

I must look pathetic. And here I am, saying I like him.

Unable to bring himself to look up in front of the motionless Ling Xinlu, Yuri swallowed a bitter breath, wondering what kind of expression the other was wearing as he looked down at him. He imagined it was somewhere between anger and ridicule.

“……Your expression really doesn’t change……. Still, I’m starting to be able to read you. What you’re thinking.”

Then again, since he doesn’t lie, maybe there’s no need to read his expression, a voice murmured back, almost like a monologue.

Yuri slowly raised his head. And he saw. Unexpectedly, Ling Xinlu was looking at him with a faint smile at the corners of his eyes, as if he found the situation amusing. His eyes were so beautiful that Yuri found his gaze captured once again.

I shouldn’t. He’ll probably snap at me again and tell me not to look, but I still wanted to see him for just a little longer.

After gazing steadily at Yuri, Ling Xinlu let out a small chuckle, his eyes curving further.

“If you hadn’t been so obnoxious, you might have become a quite amusing and likable little insect. ……Anyway, look away. Stop staring.”

* * *

A low sound reached his ears at some point. Yuri opened his eyes and sat up.

As if waking from a dream, there was no sound, only a thick, pitch-black night. Yuri stared at the door for a moment before getting up, throwing on his robe, and heading outside.

Passing through the cool, dark living room, he stopped in front of the inner room.

The door was open by about a hand’s width, and inside was silence. It was as if the silence were trying to tell him how deeply the person lying inside was asleep.

“…….”

But before Yuri, holding his breath, could even blink a couple of times, a low sound leaked from inside once more. It was a breath that sounded like that of a wounded animal.

“……Excuse me.”

The quiet voice speaking as he gently knocked on the door sounded exceptionally loud in the still night air. The moment he spoke, the ragged breathing from inside vanished as if wiped clean, but Yuri pushed the door open and entered.

Even without turning on the lights, his eyes, accustomed to the dark, could easily see the room. On the nightstand was a blister pack of painkillers with not a single pill left. A water glass that had run dry. Yuri knew that there had originally been eight painkillers in that pack.

“Is it very difficult?”

Yuri approached the bed and spoke in a low voice, leaning over.

No response came from Ling Xinlu, who remained motionless under the covers as if asleep. The breathing from before seemed to have been a sigh in his sleep; perhaps he truly had fallen asleep.

“I’ll bring a wet towel.”

Just as Yuri spoke briefly and was about to stand up, a low, hoarse voice slowly leaked from beneath the covers. It sounded as if every single word was an effort.

“Unless you’re bringing more painkillers, just get out.”

Yuri looked down at him for a moment, then turned and walked away without a word.

However, what Yuri brought back after his brief absence was indeed a wet towel. Carrying the towel, which emitted a warm steam, he pulled back the covers.

Unexpectedly, the covers slid down easily to the shoulders, revealing Ling Xinlu, his pale face drenched in cold sweat. Even in the dark, one eye reflected the light, glaring at Yuri before blinking and disappearing for a moment. He blinked several times, perhaps because sweat had run into his eye.

“Don’t touch me at night. ……Because I’m truly at the point where I want to kill you.”

To be precise, it would be more accurate to say: I want to kill you, but my body won’t follow my will, and it’s driving me crazy. His eyes, glistening like those of a predator, were saying exactly that.

During the day, as his body was active, the pain remained somewhat submerged beneath his consciousness, but at night, it surged up violently. It felt as if his eyes were being poked with a red-hot iron rod. Even though he could easily endure most pain, this was horrific enough to make his mind go blank. Even after swallowing every painkiller he could reach, the pain did not vanish, and his eyes burned unbearably. In an instant, his entire body became soaked in cold sweat.

Every night.

Losing consciousness to the pain, waking up only to be exhausted by it, and then—perhaps because the painkillers finally kicked in or because his mind cleared as the night dissipated—feeling relief as the pain blurred toward dawn, his body drenched in sweat.

And every time, Yuri would go to Ling Xinlu’s room and stay by his side as he clenched his teeth to keep from moaning.

“Does it make you happy… to see someone in such miserable pain? Damn it, keeping me alive, was, not, —….”

“Don’t bite your tongue.”

The pain came in intermittent waves. Moments of agony where his eyes rolled back to show only the whites alternated with moments where his mind returned enough to be conscious of his own cold sweat and panting breath. And whenever the pain was overwhelming, Yuri silently stopped Ling Xinlu from biting his lips to offset the agony—even if it meant sticking his own finger into the other’s mouth and letting it be bitten.

As the wave of pain receded once more, Ling Xinlu lay sprawled on the bed, gasping for air.

“I taste blood in my mouth……. Who said they wanted to taste your blood.”

“Put your arm this way.”

Ignoring Ling Xinlu’s mutterings, Yuri pulled his arm toward him. Before the warm towel could cool, he wiped the sweat from his body clean. Occasionally, those terrifyingly pitch-black eyes glared dangerously at Yuri, but it seemed he no longer had the strength to push his hand away.

It was fine. Once daytime came, he would return to being the Ling Xinlu who smiled brightly, keeping his inner and outer selves strictly divided, as if he had no knowledge of the night. Only in this moment, due to the excruciating pain, did he lose the composure to wear his mask.

And now, the time was approaching when dawn would begin to seep into the middle of the night.

“……, Tae-yi hyung, …….”

A familiar name suddenly slipped from the lips of the exhausted Ling Xinlu. Perhaps he was half-unconscious.

“Still, he’ll go to that bastard. ……Even if I feel like I’m dying of pain like this.”

Instead of answering, Yuri set down the towel he had used to wipe him and pulled up the covers. He tucked them in lightly so they wouldn’t slip.

“I met hyung before that bastard did. I liked hyung before he did. Hyung liked me too. ……Not that bastard.”

His voice was exhausted. His lips, bitten and torn, were parched.

How many times had he thought this? Even while walking around like the sun during the day, he might have thought this dozens or hundreds of times. Even knowing that it would only heat him with rage and crush him with misery.

“Why him of all people. Why that bastard of all people. At least, if it hadn’t been him, if it were just…—.”

Muttering like a delirious monologue, Ling Xinlu fell silent. After a moment of silence, he pulled the covers, which had been up to his shoulders, all the way over his head.

During the day, he exuded an aura more overwhelming than a man much older, but at times like this, he seemed like a child who had shrunk infinitely small. Yuri instinctively started to reach out to comfort him, then hesitated and withdrew his hand.

“Don’t look. ……You. Your gaze. It’s really disgusting. What do you want?”

“……. I don’t want anything.”

Except for the act of looking itself, he added. A low breath was heard from under the covers. He had probably snorted, but even that was exhausted, his breath scattering.

“Don’t make me laugh……. Even if they’re biological parents, I have the greed to want the affection they give of their own accord. ‘Please like me,’ ‘Please smile when our eyes meet’—do you know how noisy those kinds of gazes are……? But I’d rather have that. ……What are you? I don’t know what you’re hoping for when you look at me.”

Yuri said nothing.

Ling Xinlu’s voice was gradually slowing down. His mind, dulled by the successive waves of pain, seemed to be finally letting go of consciousness.

This kind of pain would only last for a few days. Perhaps as soon as tomorrow, it would lighten into a ‘bearable’ pain. By the day after, it would likely be certain.

If that happened, he would no longer babble his inner thoughts while half-unconscious. Because of that, he wouldn’t look displeased when he faced Yuri again in the morning.

Even if that were the case, Yuri hoped he wouldn’t keep everything bottled up inside. ……But that wasn’t his role.

Yuri waited until the faint movement of the covers settled into a completely regular rhythm before quietly standing up. Once again, in an air as silent as the midnight stillness, he looked out the window—where it was so dark he doubted whether dawn even existed beyond it—before turning away.

There is no joy, no sadness, no ecstasy, no misfortune.

The water was always filled with nothing but silence.

If only I could melt into this.

A thought he had always had whenever he was submerged in water long ago—at some point, he stopped thinking it. While submerged, his body and mind became empty, as if he had truly melted away.

Cozy and peaceful. As if he were in the place where everything began.

“…….”

Exhaling a long breath, Yuri raised his head above the surface and brushed back the hair covering his eyes, looking up. In the dim sky, dawn was just beginning to break.

The moment he emerged from the water, his consciousness, which had been scattered as if melted, returned. Yuri stepped out of the pool and draped the towel he had left on the ladder over his shoulders. It was the dead of dawn and still dark, so his wet body felt cold.

But he felt much better. As was always the case when he entered and left the water, it felt as if his heavy heart had melted away in the depths.

I probably couldn’t live in a place without water, Yuri muttered, shaking the water out of his ears.

This was the only time he could enter the water. While Ling Xinlu was fast asleep. Even during this brief window, he would notify the other guards on watch and leave his post, but while Ling Xinlu was awake and moving about, he rarely left his side.

In truth, he had only been submerged for a much shorter time than usual and wanted to swim more, but today’s portion was satisfactory enough. This would be enough to endure the day.

Shall I head back to the room now? Yuri muttered as he slipped his feet into his sandals.

“Looking at you in the dim light, you look just like a water ghost.”

He hadn’t sensed any presence at all, so Yuri flinched at the voice that suddenly flew in from behind him.

“……. What are you doing here?”

Turning his head while still hunched over, Yuri blinked and asked after identifying the owner of the familiar, low, exhausted voice.

He had seen him sleeping like the dead in the room before coming out. He never imagined that a person who had been in agony all night until he was drenched in sweat and finally fell asleep from exhaustion would appear here.

“The pain woke me up again. Though it’s bearable now, not as bad as it was in the middle of the night.”

Sitting on a beach bench, Ling Xinlu was frowning, pressing one hand over his bandage. He rubbed his temple with his thumb, as if a headache had accompanied the pain.

I see, Yuri thought, standing still and watching him.

Seeing him speak while maintaining his sanity, it seemed the pain had indeed decreased to a bearable level, just as he said. That was a relief.

“Did you come down for some fresh air?”

“Looking down from above, I saw someone monopolizing the pool in the dead of dawn and not coming out. Since you didn’t move for a long time, I came down to see if I had become the first discoverer of a drowned corpse.”

His voice was quietly subdued, but the content was typical Ling Xinlu. Because he spoke so quietly and softly, even the sarcasm didn’t sound like sarcasm.

“Do you like water that much? You probably barely slept; do you like swimming more than sleeping? ……I’m envious. I’ve never been that immersed in something.”

“……. You’re immersed in it right now. To the point where all your attention is on that, whether it’s day or night.”

When Yuri replied quietly, Ling Xinlu fell silent. Perhaps bothered by Yuri’s words, he remained quiet for a moment, but not in the mood to show fierce anger, he simply clicked his tongue and said, “I really don’t like you…….”

“And thanks to that, my head is heavy even at this hour of the dawn.”

Yuri gazed at him as he muttered displeasurably, then looked down at his own feet where water droplets were dripping and pooling, before opening his mouth.

“Since you’re already down here, why don’t you try getting in the pool? Your heart feels much lighter. Heavy thoughts melt away like salt.”

“……. With this leg? With this eye?”

Ling Xinlu, looking at Yuri with narrowed eyes, held out his bandaged ankle. He tilted his chin up. Only then did Yuri mutter awkwardly, like a fool, “Ah, right.” Ling Xinlu looked at him as if he were truly an idiot and added, as if driving the point home, “And.”

“I believe I told you. I don’t swim. I almost died in the water once; I have no desire to go back in now.”

Come to think of it, I wonder where that bastard is, the one who just watched while a child was dying. Even as my breath was fading, I thought that if I survived, I would definitely catch that bastard with my own hands and beat him to a pulp, he muttered, and Yuri remained silent.

From what Yuri had heard, there were three people Ling Xinlu wanted to personally eliminate: Riegrow, Yuri himself, and that bystander from his childhood.

……That would save him some trouble.

“But if what you said is true, that is somewhat appealing. If heavy thoughts could melt away like salt.”

Leaning deep into the bench, Ling Xinlu murmured languidly, closing his eyes as if he were about to fall asleep. He added to himself that if that were the case, this pool would immediately become salt water like the Dead Sea.

Yuri watched him silently. Seeing him motionless, as if he had truly fallen asleep, Yuri lifted the edge of the towel covering his shoulders and rubbed his dripping hair.

“I’ve been like that since I was a child.”

The words slipped out unexpectedly, low, like a monologue.

“When I was submerged in water, it felt as if my thoughts were melting out of my body. The misery was diluted, and I forgot the pain. That’s why there were times when I practically lived in the water.”

Perhaps he had originally been a person of more intense emotions. Someone who desired things more fiercely, cried and threw tantrums, flew into rages, and drowned in joy while shouting and clapping. But those emotions had melted into the water without him even realizing it.

However, even if they were emotions that flowed more moderately and calmly, Yuri valued his feelings and always listened to them. What it was that he truly wanted. Even now.

“I’ve never seen you smile. It would be nice if I could see such a face.”

He wanted this beautiful, pitiful young man to smile. Truly happily.

He wanted to see that face he had never seen. But it was okay if the person seeing it wasn’t him.

Yuri fell silent. He gazed at Ling Xinlu, who had his eyes closed and whose thoughts were unknown, and swallowed a quiet breath.

“Shall we go up? It’s too cold to be dressed so thinly.”

Knowing that he probably hadn’t fallen asleep and had heard his words, but seeing that Ling Xinlu had no intention of moving, Yuri draped the towel he had been using—though it was slightly damp—over the other’s shoulders. Only then did he open his eyes slightly.

“I’ve taken the towel from someone who was practically naked and wrapped it around me; how could I be cold? ……Take it. The towel is wet and it feels gross.”

Ling Xinlu pulled down the towel draped over his shoulders and tossed it at Yuri. He then looked at Yuri with a dissatisfied expression.

“Do you know the phrase eon-gam-saeng-sim (How dare one harbor such a thought)?”

Yuri looked at Ling Xinlu, momentarily bewildered by the sudden inclusion of Chinese, but soon nodded.

“I do.”

“Right. Then let me tell you, I don’t dislike you. In your own way, you’re interesting, and surprisingly, I don’t feel uncomfortable being with you. Sometimes you’re funny, or even enjoyable. If we were just talking about that, I’d probably like you quite a bit more than average. …But, when my eye throbs, or when I suddenly hate that bastard so much I want to blow my own head off—in those moments, I find you loathsome as well, to the point where I can’t stand it. My head knows that you didn’t have malicious intent and that you did it for my sake, but my emotions feel otherwise. Why did you overstep? Why were you there to make me feel even more miserable? Those kinds of emotions can’t be controlled by reason.”

Yuri remained silent. Ling Xinlu had been speaking calmly, without agitation, but as if a memory from that time suddenly surged up, he abruptly shut his mouth. He let out a bitter breath and rubbed his furrowed brow for a moment. A glance—his gaze seemed to fall upon Yuri’s fingers, which were raggedly covered in bandages. Those were the fingers he had bitten just a short while ago. Another short sigh escaped him.

“Still, since I know you’re not a bad person and that you’re trying your best for me, I’ll tell you this for your own sake.”

“….”

“Wish for something realistic. My smiling face isn’t something just anyone can see simply because they want to.”

Saying these words—whether as a joke or in earnest—with a fair amount of seriousness while staring straight at Yuri, Ling Xinlu suddenly beamed. It was that bright, beautiful smile he so generously showed to those around him. Then, he pointed to himself.

“You’re not saying you want to see this face, are you?”

This formal, hypocritical face.

Yuri realized that Ling Xinlu understood him as much as he understood Ling Xinlu. No, perhaps he understood Yuri’s heart even better.

“Actually, I can’t even make that face on my own,” he added in a light tone. Yuri stared intently at him. Then, he shook his head almost imperceptibly.

“It is fine if the person seeing it is not me. Anywhere is fine.”

As long as he truly smiled with happiness. It was fine if someone other than him saw that face, which would be as beautiful as paradise. …Though, Ling Xinlu—who wanted to keep Jung Tae-ui by his side by any means necessary—would likely never understand such a sentiment.

Just as Yuri thought, Ling Xinlu frowned as if it were absurd, then narrowed his eyes. He shifted his gaze to the calmly settled grass and shrugged.

“Well, maybe I’ll be like that too, whenever I find my ‘water’.”

When Yuri looked puzzled, Ling Xinlu wore that pretty smile again.

“You said that being in the water makes a heavy heart feel like it’s melting away. If I find something like that, I’ll probably smile like that too. Though I don’t know what ‘that’ is.”

Soon, Ling Xinlu wiped the smile away indifferently and stood up from the bench, muttering, “It is a bit chilly.” Wearing only a loose shirt, he rubbed his arms and glanced back at Yuri. Yuri, who had been watching him silently as he asked, “Aren’t you cold?”, suddenly asked:

“May I see your other faces?”

“….”

“I mean, your usual—your general face, like the one you have now.”

“I don’t know how to fix the look of displeasure on your face, but…” he rambled incoherently, unlike his usual self.

Ling Xinlu, who had been staring at Yuri in silence, suddenly let out a short snort.

“The moment this mister thinks I’m feeling a bit better, he suddenly gets greedy.”

“Am I not allowed?”

Ling Xinlu frowned slightly. He looked at Yuri with an expression that openly wondered why such a nuisance had attached itself to him, but Yuri did not look away and faced him silently.

Eventually.

“Look.”

The answer came abruptly, in a tone that sounded highly displeased. The tone and expression were almost as if to say, ‘Look at what?’, and Yuri momentarily slumped his shoulders and looked down, only to look up again a second later with an ‘oh’.

“Don’t look too blatantly. And not when I’m in a bad mood.”

Then, as if he were being incredibly generous, Ling Xinlu shrugged his shoulders. Yuri stared at him intently and then nodded. “Yes, I will do so,” he replied bluntly.

He liked it. He liked that he was lovely and cute, and even that he was somewhat twisted inside. He loved capturing every bit of that brilliant, dazzling vitality in his eyes.

And so, from the moment those words were spoken, he couldn’t stop staring at him. Even though he knew that, before long, Ling Xinlu would subtly frown like this.

“Good grief,” Ling Xinlu muttered. Looking Yuri up and down as if he were somewhat troubled or embarrassed, he turned his gaze away and blurted out:

“Why don’t you smile like that more often yourself?”

Only then did Yuri realize his expression had relaxed. He blinked, touching his face, but regardless, Ling Xinlu turned and began walking toward the building.

“It’s cold, let’s go up. …You need to redo the taping on your fingers. They’re all wet.”

Following quickly behind him as he walked alone without looking back, Yuri answered, “Yes.” His fingers didn’t hurt at all anymore.

* * *

The news reached Yuri while he was waiting for Ling Xinlu at the hospital.

While waiting for the consultation with Dr. Bayern regarding the test results from that morning—he was waiting outside because Yuri didn’t want to be in the room with others, though he would find out the results through James anyway—Yuri was breaking up cookies for the pigeons gathering in the sunny spot of the hospital courtyard. Seeing James’s name on the phone screen, he glanced inside the hospital.

Wondering if Dr. Bayern had already contacted James before Ling Xinlu had even come out, Yuri answered the phone. After a formal greeting, the first thing James said was that it had been confirmed that Jung Tae-ui was at Al Saud’s villa.

“….”

Even though he had suspected it, Yuri was momentarily speechless.

Yuri threw the remaining cookies away and stood up.

“How was it confirmed?”

『It seems he called Ling directly. He says he is currently at Al Saud’s villa with Jung Jae-ui.』

“I see. And the current situation is….”

『He hung up quickly, perhaps because he made the call in secret, so I couldn’t confirm further. But seeing as there was no mention of other issues, I don’t think he’s in a dangerous state.』

Just then, he saw Ling Xinlu coming out of the hospital with a light step, holding a bag of medicine in one hand. Instead of the thick bandages that had covered half his face, he wore an eye patch and sunglasses. He approached Yuri, giving a light wave of his hand. Then, seeing Yuri staring intently at him while talking on the phone with a strange expression, he stopped close by with a peculiar look in his eyes.

“…, now that contact has been made, it would be better to hurry.”

『Indeed. It would be problematic if they moved their location in the meantime. Anyway, Yuri, good work. Jung Jae-ui’s location has been confirmed.』

Hearing James add that the efforts of several months had finally reached a conclusion, Yuri murmured a half-hearted “Yes.”

With this, the contract was complete. The original goal, the whereabouts of Jung Jae-ui, had been confirmed, and Yuri’s job was done. The rest was for those who needed Jung Jae-ui to handle.

『I’ll contact you later regarding the contract renewal. For now, as you said, we must hurry.』

“Then, goodbye,” and the call ended.

Ling Xinlu had been silently watching Yuri put the phone in his pocket for a while.

“Did they find him?”

The voice was as casual as always, but sensing a flicker of an alien emotion within it, Yuri nodded.

“Where was he?”

“He is said to be at Raman Abid Al Saud’s villa, with Jung Jae-ui.”

“My, they certainly confirmed it quickly.”

“I heard Mr. Jung Tae-ui contacted Mr. Riegrow directly.”

After a short silence, a brief response came back: “Hmm, I see.”

After that, almost no conversation took place between them on the way back to the hotel. He asked how the eye was, but only a half-hearted answer came back saying it was the same. With a face that betrayed nothing of his thoughts, Ling Xinlu kept his gaze fixed outside the window.

His recovery was fast, so almost no external scars remained. Once the bandages were removed, he looked no different from an ordinary person. There was nothing wrong with the movement of his eye, so unless one knew beforehand, it would be difficult to notice that one of his eyes was restricted. His body had also returned to a state almost identical to before.

Over the last few days, Ling Xinlu seemed to be feeling much better. At least, his mood seemed to have recovered to a level similar to when he occasionally encountered Yuri in seringe before he was injured.

As the night grew late and his physical condition became sluggish, his mood seemed to sink unpleasantly as well, but since the wounds had healed, the pain was not as severe as before, and he no longer woke up thrashing in the night.

Instead, he developed a mild insomnia. He said that when he woke up in the middle of the night, he found it hard to fall back asleep, so he developed a habit of coming out to the living room and sitting in the pitch darkness for a while—if something that lasted a few days could be called a habit.

And in those moments, Yuri, who was a light sleeper and woke up at the slightest sound, would immediately get up and go to the living room, standing silently behind Ling Xinlu at a certain distance.

‘Ah… seriously… I’m trying to be alone for a bit, do you really have to interfere?’

Ling Xinlu would usually mutter irritably, but if Yuri silently maintained his position, he wouldn’t say anything more and would turn his head. Then, very occasionally, he would toss a word or two when he felt like it. Most of them were monologues that didn’t require an answer.

And now, as well.

After Ling Xinlu had gone to the bedroom early, Yuri, who had been reading a book, turned off the light and lay down, but he ended up getting up again before he could sleep for long. It was because of a soundless presence coming from outside.

He could vaguely tell that a presence, almost non-existent like that of a feline, had settled onto the sofa. The presence stopped there.

“….”

Yuri put on his robe and went out. Sure enough, as he thought, Ling Xinlu was sitting in the dark living room. Yuri stood a few paces away, as he always did.

Even in the darkness, the outline of his face was visible at an angle. However, his expression was unknown. Yuri silently gazed only at the cheek that shone white in the dim light from outside.

“Today, my headache is quite severe, so my mood is really not great.”

The suddenly muttering voice approached him lowly. It was a voice a step lower and more exhausted than usual. No, he wasn’t exhausted. He was suppressing a rage that was surging and burning in his chest. Barely holding himself together.

“On a day like today, why don’t you just not look at me?”

Still, it was much better than the short ‘get lost’ he had spat out at first. Yuri didn’t answer and didn’t move, using that as a substitute for his refusal.

However, that seemed to snag on the heart that was forcibly suppressing its emotions. Ling Xinlu, who had been silent for a moment, turned around.

“Just when I’m trying to manage my heart and be nice, you go and pour oil on the fire… Didn’t I tell you? Your gaze is unpleasant. I don’t know what you’re hoping for.”

“I hope for nothing.”

At Yuri’s short answer, the corners of Ling Xinlu’s mouth twisted. As if a gap had opened for the resentment he had known was just a vent for his anger and had kept locked in the depths of his heart to force its way out, his expression changed. “That’s the problem,” he spat out, his voice becoming even lower, as if grinding his teeth. “I simply cannot tell. It would be fine if you had a greed that was easy to notice, like other people. I know that kind of gaze very well and am used to it, so I can just ignore it. But you say it’s not even greed, then what is it?”

“…. I don’t know.”

Yuri hesitated for a moment but answered honestly.

He was actually more flustered that Ling Xinlu was asking. He had never stared at someone so blankly before, but nor had anyone he had cared for and dated for a while ever pressed him like this. Asking why he was looking.

Why he liked him—Yuri didn’t know that either. Appearance, personality, way of speaking, behavior—one cannot absolutely like a human being based on a single trait. He liked the single human being that emerged from the mixing and blending of all those things.

Greed. That, too, was not a method Yuri knew. The method Yuri knew was simply to embrace the person generously and hold everything about them. Being clearly distinct separate entities, yet sometimes becoming an indistinguishable whole. Yes, like swimming while forgetting oneself in the water.

Ling Xinlu watched Yuri, who could only stare at him because he didn’t know how to put such things into words, with his pitch-black eyes. Suddenly, his gaze seemed to distort with displeasure. But his lips smiled.

“I suppose you have to know the taste of greed to actually have it. Right? Just as those who know the taste of money are the ones who crave it more.”

The ice-like anger in Ling Xinlu’s voice blurred. Hiding his killing intent like a predator before its prey, he laid his anger at the bottom of his heart and lightly flicked his fingers. “Come here,” he added.

Yuri hesitated for a moment, but as Ling Xinlu urged him again with a wave of his hand, saying, “I told you to come,” Yuri approached and sat diagonally beside him.

Ling Xinlu, who had been tapping the seat right next to him with his finger, slowly shifted his gaze between Yuri, who sat a bit further away, and the still-empty seat he was tapping, then let out a low breath like a snort.

“I’ve thought this for a while, but Mr. Gable sometimes seems to be in a different world by himself. It’s as if your feet are floating about 10 centimeters off the ground.”

“…. Is that so?”

Yuri looked down at his feet, which were quietly planted on the floor. Watching Yuri tap the floor with his heel, Ling Xinlu twisted his lips.

“Is it because you don’t know greed? Why don’t you try stepping into this world? If you don’t know how, shall I help you?”

Yuri stared blankly at Ling Xinlu as he rose from his seat. By the time he thought that the curved eyes, which looked like a calm smile, seemed somehow very twisted, Ling Xinlu had already stopped right in front of him.

“Mr. Ling Xinlu…?”

“You say you’re happy just by looking? That must be a lie. It’s because you’ve never possessed it. That’s the most common excuse people who aren’t even in a position to be greedy make because they don’t want their pride hurt. It seems you don’t even know that. …Shh.”

The low, whispered breath of ‘shh’ touched his lips.

Before he knew it, Ling Xinlu had climbed onto Yuri’s thighs, who was sitting quietly with good posture, and licked Yuri’s lips as if tasting them. He seemed to tilt his head slightly to observe Yuri’s reaction, then quietly pushed his tongue between the closed lips. The lips, which had seemed firmly blocked, parted without difficulty. The weight that had been lightly perched on his thighs became heavier.

And Yuri sat quietly, motionless, in this reality where the man who had climbed onto his thighs, giving him a heavy weight, was stroking his cheeks softly and kissing him.

“You’re remarkably composed,” Ling Xinlu murmured with a chuckle through the lips that had parted for a brief moment.

Of course he was composed. Because the sense of reality hadn’t hit him yet.

“….”

Only after the surreal feeling that made his mind go blank faded did Yuri blink. Only then did the warm body heat, the taste of the tongue, and the sensation of the hand stroking his cheek reach him.

His body shuddered. Ling Xinlu seemed to have noticed that small agitation. He felt the sensation of the overlapping lips curving pleasurably.

Soon, the hand that had been stroking his cheek gripped Yuri’s head softly, yet firmly. Almost simultaneously, the sensation penetrating his lips took on a full-fledged heat. The hot heat that stole his breath in an instant occupied his mouth, and then his mind.

“…—!”

A thick scent seemed to waft from somewhere. It was the fragrance of a large, flamboyant flower that paralyzed the mind. Yuri thought, in his hazy consciousness, that this scent was the man himself.

At first, he hadn’t even realized that he had begun to suck on the other’s tongue. He only noticed when Ling Xinlu’s movements slowed for a moment, as if surprised. Slowly, softly, bit by bit, Yuri simply flowed along with the other’s movements, which were greedy enough to be violent.

“――. ―….”

After a brief hesitation, Ling Xinlu seemed to slowly adjust his pace to Yuri’s. A sudden feeling of tenderness washed over him. The touch of the hand that stroked his chin, then moved down to his neck, his collarbone, and his chest; the way the man’s front pressed firmly against his lower body, rubbing against his thigh.

Movements so gentle and soft, as if he were with someone he truly loved.

Closing his eyes and watching Ling Xinlu lightly nip at his cheek from a distance so close they were almost touching, Yuri thought with a clouded mind. He felt that sharing body heat with this lovely person was like a dream—and he knew it was a dream within reality.

Still, he was lovely. The moment that thought crossed his mind, his head grew hot. A sweet scent filled his mind. His heart became as hot as his head.

That was why. While watching the man kiss his cheeks and ears, Yuri ended up pressing his own lips against the other’s cheek.

In that instant, Ling Xinlu stopped moving. He tilted his face slightly to look at Yuri. There was something strange about his expression, so Yuri stared back intently, unaware of how his own face looked. Thinking that he was lovely.

After staring at Yuri for a while, Ling Xinlu whispered.

“Does it…”

“Yes?”

“…feel good?”

Does it feel good? As he asked, his hand stroked Yuri’s arm—a touch that was tender yet somehow languid.

Yuri remained silent for a moment before nodding honestly. His heart was still throbbing hotly. Seeing this, Ling Xinlu gave a thin smile. I knew it, he seemed to say, as he lightly kissed Yuri’s ear.

“Even so, do you still enjoy just looking at me?”

His voice was sweet, like candy used to lure a child. As if waiting for a child to fret and say that wasn’t enough, that they wanted that candy.

“…….”

Yuri blinked amidst the sensation of lips rubbing against his cheek. Still exhaling sweet, aching breaths, he asked.

“Does it feel good for you too, Mr. Ling Xinlu?”

The lips moving on his cheek stopped. They lingered for a moment before pulling away. Ling Xinlu moved back to a distance where his expression was visible and looked down at Yuri. He gazed intently, searching every corner of Yuri’s face as if trying to find something.

In the next moment, the hand cradling Yuri’s cheek also dropped away.

“You really have a knack for killing the mood… How can you say something like that when your breathing is this worked up?”

Clicking his tongue in irritation, Yuri felt the sudden chill of the darkness entering through the gaps of his open shirt, regretting the loss of the other’s body heat.

Looking down at Yuri, who sat silently with his head bowed, Ling Xinlu clicked his tongue once more and spoke with a sigh.

“Still, it wasn’t as unpleasant as I thought. Yeah, well, it was better than expected. Surprisingly. …Why are you looking at me like that just because I said it felt good?”

Ling Xinlu licked the finger that had been stroking Yuri’s lips, then frowned slightly upon seeing Yuri staring back at him with an expressionless face.

“If I still haven’t developed that ‘greed’ you speak of, Mr. Ling Xinlu, then I suppose you’ve wasted your effort.”

The moment Yuri spoke slowly, the expression vanished from Ling Xinlu’s face. Staring at Yuri blankly, he tilted his head and asked.

“You aren’t greedy? …Is it funny? That I wasted my effort?”

Yuri thought for a moment and shook his head.

“I don’t know.”

“…―.”

After staring intently at Yuri, Ling Xinlu turned his head slightly. He let out a short, dry laugh.

“You really are a strange human… Just when I think you’re kind of interesting, you scratch at my nerves in an instant. It’s not easy to do that, you know, hm?”

Ling Xinlu leaned over Yuri again. As he drew close to peer into Yuri’s face, his eyes curved dangerously.

“Maybe I should try scratching back. It’s not hard to get under someone’s skin if you set your mind to it. To make someone’s heart ache.”

“Right?” he whispered into Yuri’s ear. Hot body heat transferred from their pressed bodies. He did so with a clear intention, the volume of his lower body distinctly felt as he rubbed slowly against him.

“Aren’t you greedy? Right now, you can do whatever you want. I’ll let you.”

A sweet voice. A sweet scent. After whispering as if pouring honey into his ear, he gently bit Yuri’s earlobe.

Tilting his head back slightly to look down at Yuri, Ling Xinlu smiled when their eyes met. It was a smile that blatantly revealed his intent to seduce, fully aware of how he appeared.

You could possess me right now. As much as you want, however you want. An opportunity like this won’t come again. Even if it leads to something heartbreaking, this is the only time you can possess this lovely person, even for a moment.

Yuri knew that the smile was saying exactly that. Ling Xinlu knew that Yuri understood.

Watching him silently, Yuri slowly reached out. The smile in the other’s eyes seemed to deepen.

He pulled the man’s head into an embrace. He drew the man, who wore a smile so sweet it was intoxicating, toward himself. The warm, lovely body heat followed obediently in his hands.

And then.

Pop.

He pressed his lips against the other’s cheek. A bit firmly.

“…….”

In an instant, the smile vanished from Ling Xinlu’s face. He looked at Yuri with an expression like someone who had been suddenly smacked in the head by a person who had been smiling kindly. Facing him for a moment, Yuri tilted his head as if wondering if this wasn’t it, and kissed him again. This time on the lips—pop—a bit more firmly.

And then silence returned. The smile was gone, and his eyes had turned cold.

“…….”

“Was it not good?”

Yuri asked seriously, facing Ling Xinlu, who only stared back with a chilled expression. Then, slowly, very slowly, Yuri lowered his indifferent face.

“You were right. It does make one’s heart ache.”

Of course, he hadn’t expected a great reaction from a peck—a brush so slight it was embarrassing to even call it a kiss. But he hadn’t expected to receive such a freezing gaze.

The women he had dated in the past were all considerate people, so they likely never blamed him for his lack of skill. This was the first time he had seen someone make such a bewildered face over a simple kiss. His heart grew heavy. Indeed, this memory would linger for a long time.

“The ‘heart aching’ I was talking about wasn’t that kind of—. ……. ……Forget it.”

Speaking coldly in a tone that clearly showed he had truly lost interest this time, Ling Xinlu stepped away from Yuri. He flopped back down into the seat where he had originally been. However, unable to suppress a surge of spite, he glared at Yuri with displeasure.

He had thought it might be a good change of pace to throw aside a naked human who was groaning and flushed with fever right before the climax and just watch, but now, he clicked his tongue and muttered to himself as if it didn’t matter anymore.

I see. So that’s how it was.

That would certainly deal a significant blow to one’s heart. Enough to remain in the memory for a very long time.

“…….”

Yuri quietly stroked his chest over his heart.

However, he had indeed become flushed. For a moment, he had felt a heaviness below. To the point where it became laughable that he had claimed to be heterosexual.

Sensing the gaze watching him, Ling Xinlu glanced over and asked coldly, “What?”

“No, I just thought that maybe it could work with a man too.”

As Yuri spoke while shaking his head, Ling Xinlu merely snorted, appearing uninterested. Yuri thought for a moment and then asked.

“Mr. Ling Xinlu, have you always had a sexual preference for men from the start?”

Even as he spoke, it felt like some kind of survey interview, and Ling Xinlu seemed to think the same, as he frowned slightly. He spoke in a tone that suggested he’d give a rough answer and then tell him to get lost.

“I haven’t really thought about it. Whether it’s a man or a woman, I’ve had so few experiences I can count them on my fingers. I’m quite plain in that regard. I did it a few times because the sight of the other person groaning was funny, but that’s all.”

Yuri fell silent. He was surprised to hear that the man had almost no experience. Just from the brief contact they had just shared, he had given the impression of being undoubtedly experienced and skilled.

As if reading Yuri’s thoughts, Ling Xinlu continued.

“I’m naturally good at things even if it’s my first time, as long as I know the knack. With the first guy, I spent about six or seven hours testing things out to learn the trick, and after that, he clung to me like he’d lost his mind, so it was a pain to shake him off. The guy spent the whole time crying and fainting, saying he was dying of exhaustion, yet he clung to me like some drug addict.”

Yuri, who had been nodding along, paused.

I guess young people really do have great stamina. Six or seven hours… he was probably exaggerating, but that still means they did it for several hours. The person he did it with must have had incredible stamina to endure that much in the more difficult position… and… but can you still get an erection even if you faint from exhaustion?

Yuri sank into thought over the sudden question. As he looked at Ling Xinlu in silence, the other looked back with a questioning gaze. Then, as if a thought had suddenly occurred to him, Ling Xinlu narrowed his eyes.

It felt as if he could see right through whatever Yuri was thinking. Only then did Yuri realize he was contemplating an overly private part of another person’s life, and he quickly shook his head to clear his mind. Why did it even matter?

“People often misunderstand. Tae-yi hyung misunderstood at first, too.”

“Pardon?”

“……. Well, it has nothing to do with Mr. Gable, so let’s drop it.”

When Yuri looked at him with confusion as he suddenly blurted out something out of context, Ling Xinlu stared at him silently before waving his hand as if to say it didn’t matter.

“That guy clung to me quite pathetically back then. I tried everything to get rid of him. At the end, I got so annoyed that I told him if he took off his pants and spread his cheeks right there, I’d fuck him, and he actually pushed his ass out, hesitating, right in the middle of a crowded club. How is that any different from some junkie who’s lost it? He was a guy who acted so high and mighty, but when he clung to me, he had no pride or dignity left.”

Listening to Ling Xinlu’s sarcastic monologue, Yuri vaguely realized what part he had misunderstood. But what reached his ears more clearly was the tone of voice that sounded irritated just thinking about it.

Ling Xinlu was speaking of the person he had first slept with without a shred of warmth, as if he had simply slept with them as an experiment.

Even though he thought he already knew, Yuri fell silent, feeling as if he had seen another facet of the man. While that was also a part of who he was and didn’t diminish his value, it left a bitter taste in his mouth.

Like Yuri, Ling Xinlu said nothing. Thinking of that person at the time—and the thoughts triggered by him.

“I thought I would never look like such an idiot. …But I ended up looking more like a pathetic loser than that guy did.”

The bitter sneer was self-deprecating.

—What he was recalling was the pain of seringe. Yuri had often seen how the things stolen from him there would suddenly crush him intolerably.

“If I just drug him.”

Ling Xinlu muttered, as if the thought had suddenly popped into his head. He spat it out casually, as if it were an impulsive whim, but then he fell silent. It was as if the weight of the thought only sank in after he had spoken. And Yuri instinctively flinched, feeling his heart freeze cold.

“Then would he become mine?”

“That is not how it works.”

Ling Xinlu glanced at Yuri, as if he hadn’t fully heard Yuri’s hesitant answer.

“Even if he doesn’t come to me, if Tae-yi hyung becomes like that, that bastard will suffer. He’ll be enraged, furious, and run wild like a madman. Won’t he?”

He must, Ling Xinlu murmured, his eyes beginning to glint with a dark intensity. Facing him directly, Yuri said quietly.

“Stop it. That would mean losing Jung Tae-ui forever.”

“Lose? He’s not mine even now. The one losing is that bastard, not me.”

Ha, Ling Xinlu snorted and held up both hands. It seemed that even he no longer knew what was contained in those empty hands. Only hatred, anger, resentment, and despair.

“If I can pull Tae-yi hyung to my side even by doing that, I can do it as much as it takes. You think I can’t? I’ll tie Tae-yi hyung to my side and laugh at that bastard as he rages in fury from the other side! That Jung Tae-ui is mine, not yours!”

His voice grew rough. His eyes, excited, were glinting darkly.

Yuri thought it was a deeply strange sight. One eye glinting with a living, burning rage, and another eye dead and black, reflecting no light. Somehow, it felt as if this revealed the man’s inner self exactly as it was, making Yuri’s heart ache.

“Are you going to kill the remaining eye as well?”

“What?”

Ling Xinlu didn’t seem to understand the words Yuri had muttered unconsciously. Watching him tilt his head with a frown, Yuri slowly spoke. Knowing that these words could be a dagger to him.

“Do you truly want Jung Tae-ui? Jung Tae-ui himself? Not just as a tool for revenge because you hate Ling?”

The expression was wiped clean from Ling Xinlu’s face. The light vanished from his eyes, and emotion disappeared from his lips. Without turning his gaze from that face, which now looked almost pale, Yuri continued bitterly.

“The way you are doing this is not loving him—not loving Jung Tae-ui. At least, that’s what I think.”

“You’re saying I don’t love hyung?”

“Not in the way you are now.”

“Why is someone like you trying to deny my feelings?”

Yuri did not answer. But as he looked at him silently without turning away, a distorted smile slowly appeared on Ling Xinlu’s face. Ha… a suppressed breath escaped.

“Then do you think my heart will turn elsewhere? Why. Do you think a crumb of that might fall to you by some chance?”

“I am not saying this for my own sake. You are trying to do something wrong.”

Ling Xinlu laughed as if it were absurd. After laughing softly for a long while, he looked down at Yuri with cold eyes.

“Harming Tae-yi hyung?”

“……. The one you’ll end up harming isn’t Jung Tae-ui or Riegrow. You’ll be harming yourself.”

The laughter froze. The cold eyes also froze. As if the very blood in his body had frozen, Ling Xinlu looked down at Yuri. The rage that had been crawling through his body along with his blood seemed to freeze as well.

He slowly tilted his head. Then he looked at his empty hands. As if gauging what was inside them. He would soon realize. That there was nothing there but distorted emotions. —Though he didn’t want to realize it.

“…―!”

In the next moment, that empty hand gripped Yuri’s hair. Then, he slammed his head down onto the table with a loud thud.

The glass pane covering the table shattered. Small fragments rained down onto the floor. Before long, droplets of blood began to flow over them.

In an instant, both the head and the table were stained with blood. Yuri blinked several times as blood entered his eyes. He couldn’t tell exactly where the hot, searing pain was spreading from in his head.

“Just when I think things might get better.”

Ling Xinlu spat out the words while pressing Yuri against the table, gripping his hair tightly.

“Just when I think you’re quite alright, that there are parts of you I like quite a bit, that you might actually be great…”

“…―.”

“In an instant, you ruin my mood. You make it absolutely, horribly, filthily foul.”

It was because Yuri showed him the version of himself he didn’t want to see. Because Yuri thrust his own miserable image, and the self that had become even more despicable because of it, right before his eyes.

And because he knew that fact himself.

“What’s wrong? Do you think you’re so great? Do you enjoy digging into people’s insides with such a calm face?”

He knew this was just a vent of anger.

Yuri didn’t say a word. No excuses, no persuasion, no apologies.

Thump— his head was slammed against the table once more. Yuri let out a short groan, but he still remained silent.

With that, Ling Xinlu threw Yuri aside and strode into the room. The door closed with a violent crash and did not open again.

After getting out of the taxi and standing before the hotel entrance, Yuri lingered there for a while.

Seeing him with thick bandages wrapped around his head, a familiar doorman approached him in surprise. Yuri gave a small smile to reassure him that he was fine and entered the lobby, but there, his steps faltered again.

In the polished doorframe, he saw his own reflection, head bandaged.

The injury wasn’t that severe. It was just a bruise and some torn skin, nothing to worry about. Though it looked serious because of the amount of blood, it would heal in a few days with some ointment.

Nevertheless, the sight of the bandages felt like a protest, as if saying, ‘Look what you did to me,’ and for now, he didn’t want to face Ling Xinlu. Of course, he couldn’t avoid him until the wound completely healed, so it was inevitable in the end.

Yuri lingered in front of the elevator for a moment before heading out to the courtyard. It would be better to go back up after a little while. As long as there was no word from the bodyguard he had left in charge, there was nothing to worry about. If he did get a call, he was right here at the hotel and could go up immediately.

“…….”

Perhaps because the day was overcast, no one was at the pool. Only the surface of the water, rippling in the strong wind, drew clear circles.

Yuri sat on a bench right next to the pool. He kicked off the sandals he had hurriedly thrown on to go to the hospital and splashed the water with his toes. The sensation of the water wrapped around his skin, missed and welcomed.

He didn’t hesitate for long.

Taking off only his jacket and draping it over the bench, Yuri entered the pool just as he was—in a cotton shirt and cotton trousers. The version of himself that usually claimed such a thing would be a nuisance to others had vanished without a trace; in his place was only a man who, the moment he touched the water, felt a suffocating longing for the depths. He didn’t care about the wound.

Perhaps he had simply failed to bring it to his conscious mind, but he might have been struggling more than he realized. To feel such a thirst.

Unlike usual, the clothes clung to his skin and felt cumbersome, but he soon grew accustomed to it. The stinging sensation where the water seeped into the wound also dulled. All that remained was a sense of peace and coziness—a feeling that all frustration and agony were melting away and flowing out.

…Ah, yes. This was it. The thing he missed so much that he lived without even realizing it, as natural as breathing.

Yuri closed his eyes. He could feel the knots tied in his heart slowly melting away one by one. I see. I was struggling.

It was a strange feeling. He had never been so consciously aware that he was having a hard time until now.

To think his heart had grown this heavy in just a short time, not even a full month. Indeed, loving someone is difficult.

He must have struggled too. Probably dozens of times more than Yuri. If he had brought that heavy, painful heart to his conscious mind and recognized it, the exhausted weight of it would have been indescribable.

…—.

Would it have been better if he hadn’t said those things? Those words that felt like dragging out the depths of the other man’s inner thoughts and shoving them right in front of his face—would it have been better to swallow them?

But Yuri knew that even if he went back to that moment, he would say the same things. While clicking his tongue at his own lack of eloquence to make the other man hurt less.

“…….”

Let’s go up. I’ll go up and tell him I went to the hospital, that I’m not hurt badly, and give him news of Jung Tae-ui. That he is staying there safely as a precious guest along with his brother.

Thinking of the contact he had received on his way back from the hospital, Yuri slowly stood up. He pulled his body, which had been submerged, above the surface.

At the boundary where water met air, feeling the splash of water tapping against his skin, Yuri let out a long breath.

At that moment.

“Are you crazy?!”

A voice screaming loud enough to tear his eardrums erupted right beside him. Startled, Yuri snapped his eyes open.

A man, who looked as if he were about to jump in, was leaning halfway into the pool while gripping the ladder, violently grabbing Yuri by the shoulder. Then, he dragged him out of the water.

“? …—??”

Dazed as he was hauled out, Yuri looked up at the man who was glaring at him fiercely, while Yuri himself was half-soaked. It was Ling Xinlu, who should have been high up in the hotel. A man who had no reason to be here.

“……, ……Were you trying to swim?”

Ling Xinlu, who had been glaring fiercely at Yuri as he asked in confusion—since he had said he didn’t like swimming—let out a hollow, incredulous laugh. Not a trace of a smile reached his eyes.

“No matter how obsessed you are with water or how much you dream of becoming a water ghost, do you have any sense, jumping into a pool with your head in that state? If you mix blood into a pool where everyone goes, who would want to get in? Why are you so selfish?”

Blinking at the barrage of words, Yuri shrugged his shoulders slightly like a sinner. However, he gazed at the man and asked quietly just as he stopped speaking.

“Were you worried?”

“Yes! I was! I was watching from above, and when I saw some guy with bandages wrapped around his head jumping into the pool fully clothed, I came down wondering if that bastard had gone insane! What about it?!”

Yuri silently watched Ling Xinlu, who was shouting right in his face with eyes that looked as if he wanted to shove him back into the water at any moment. Despite the anger, Yuri couldn’t help but feel a sudden urge to smile. So, he just smiled quietly.

“Thank you. You’re kind.”

Ling Xinlu opened his mouth to snap back, but he stared at Yuri in sheer absurdity, as if his words had been blocked. After glaring menacingly for a long time, his lips eventually twisted into a sneer.

“Did I tell you before that it’s quite a talent to make words that sound like sarcasm not sound like sarcasm?”

“Yes, you did.”

Yuri spoke calmly and touched his head. The wound stung beneath the thick bandages. Perhaps blood was seeping through again. But since he hadn’t hit anything, he just needed to apply disinfectant and wrap a new bandage.

“Has your anger subsided a bit?”

When Yuri asked quietly, Ling Xinlu, who had been looking at him with disapproval, snorted.

“Do you really think that’s a question you can—.”

He cut himself off, as if it were unnecessary to even answer. But to Yuri, that was what mattered. Whether the wounds that had been so jaggedly raw had calmed down even a little.

Ling Xinlu stared intently at Yuri, who was silently waiting for the rest of the sentence. His fierce and harsh eyes flickered.

“Mr. Gable. I’m being serious, but I think some corner of your brain is not functioning correctly. Where in the world is there a guy who jumps into a pool immediately after getting his head stitched up, and where is there a guy who tells the perpetrator they’re ‘kind’ or asks if their ‘anger has subsided’?”

Adding, “Unless you’re an idiot or a retard,” he seemed to truly think of Yuri as one or the other.

But regardless of what he thought, Yuri felt good. This is enough, he felt.

Regardless of the reason, Ling Xinlu had come down to see him. Whether it was worry, or a tiny shred of guilt, or anything—or even if he had come down just to shove him into the water—he was there in front of Yuri like an unimaginable gift.

He wasn’t as selfish or malicious as he thought himself to be. Even if those traits were highlighted in extreme situations, he was lovely enough. At least to Yuri.

That was why. He smiled because he was happy and glad. Regardless of whether Ling Xinlu paused and stared at him with a strange expression—perhaps truly wondering if this man had gone mad.

“I’m fine. You don’t have to worry. About going into the water. Because I can’t get hurt inside there.”

Yuri briefly shifted his gaze to the pool. There was no evidence, but it was a belief firmer than any proof. That the water would not harm him.

To him, it was a space more comfortable and cozy than the air. Inside, there was nothing difficult, only coziness. Like the place he had stayed in a long time ago, before he was born.

“I wish you had a place like this too, Mr. Ling Xinlu.”

He murmured, suddenly feeling a sense of pity.

He needed water to immerse himself in. So that he would no longer be thirsty or struggle.

…It would have been nice if a person like Jung Tae-ui could have become that water for him.

But perhaps that wasn’t something only Ling Xinlu needed. Perhaps there was someone who needed him even more desperately than Ling Xinlu did. …Yes, that was likely the case.

Yuri turned his gaze from the pool to Ling Xinlu. He had a very strange expression. As if he were debating whether to get angry, scream, be sarcastic, just sigh, or—though unlikely—cling to him like a child and cry about how unfair it all was.

The moment he saw that face, Yuri had a sudden thought: Ah.

It was okay. Without reason or evidence, but as firm as his belief that the water would not harm him, he felt that way.

“You’ll be able to find it too. Because now it’s your turn to be happy. As much as you’re struggling now, you’ll be able to move into wider and more generous waters.”

Yuri raised his hand and placed it on Ling Xinlu’s head. It felt so natural that he didn’t think about whether the other man would find it unpleasant or if it was overstepping. He felt as if he were stroking a child who was watching for a chance to cry.

The black eyes staring at Yuri with a tightly shut mouth were truly beautiful. So, Yuri looked at him and softly stroked his hair. Yes, you are beautiful, he thought. Lovingly.

Eventually.

“Water is dripping. I’m getting wet too.”

A complaining murmur leaked out weakly, like a sigh.

But even as he replied, “Is that so?” Yuri did not remove his hand, and Ling Xinlu, despite the frown on his face, did not avoid the touch.

* * *

Yuri pondered for a moment whether he should tell James or not. But the deliberation didn’t last long. A matter of this scale would likely reach James’s ears soon even if Yuri didn’t say anything. In fact, it might have already reached him. Seeing as James, who usually called every morning, had been silent today.

“…….”

Yuri had a feeling that James was currently screaming and tearing his hair out somewhere.

Yuri rubbed his chin thoughtfully while looking down, but in the end, he decided not to pick up the receiver. Yuri had seen and experienced many cases where calling prematurely in such situations only led to taking the blame.

Moreover, it wasn’t James who weighed more on his mind in this situation. What he was more conflicted about than whether to report the incident was…

“Why have you been sitting in front of the phone for a while now?”

Following the sound of the door opening, a voice approached.

Yuri, still with his arms crossed and rubbing his chin, turned his head slightly to look. Ling Xinlu was coming out, wearing only a robe as if he had showered, rubbing his wet hair with a towel. He had thrown away the blindfold, complaining it was stifling, and his gait, which had been slightly limping until last week, was now normal; to look at him, he was no different from anyone else.

The fact that one of his black eyes, sparkling like a young fox, was not functioning properly would be unknown to anyone unless told. Though his movements were very slightly slower when picking up objects, as if his sense of distance was off.

The mischievously sparkling eyes that hid his schemes, the lively and lovely expressions, the light yet composed demeanor—nothing was different from before he was injured. No, in some ways, he seemed even more stable than then. To the point where Yuri no longer had to look at him with a worried gaze.

It’s okay. Yuri thought so too.

Although his expression would occasionally freeze when related topics came up, he was certainly regaining his composure, as if he had accepted and internalized his reality.

“…….”

But still, there were things he didn’t want to bring up. Like now.

“Are you waiting for a call? Then why don’t you just call first? Unless you’re intentionally not calling because you’re playing tug-of-war with a lover.”

“Tug-of-war… I don’t do such things.”

“Do you even have a lover?”

There was a hint of mockery in that.

“I didn’t expect someone with your personality, Mr. Gable, to play tug-of-war,” Ling Xinlu said nonchalantly as he passed by and took a lemon juice from the minibar. There was a slight sneer in those words as well.

Yuri felt subtly offended, as if he were being spoken of as someone incompetent in romance, but the statement wasn’t wrong, and since it was a topic completely removed from his dilemma about whether to tell him, he felt a bit relieved.

“Come to think of it, Mr. Ling Tangyun contacted me while you were showering. He said he’d be coming to Germany around next week.”

“The eldest brother? What for? If he’s coming because of me, tell him not to. It’s a nuisance.”

Ling Xinlu waved his hand and flopped onto the sofa. Sipping his juice while gazing indifferently out the window, he muttered to himself, “I won’t even be in Germany by next week anyway.” Yuri gave him a puzzled look.

Ling Xinlu’s physical condition was almost fully recovered, though he was still visiting the hospital. His eye would require a rehabilitation center for a while—perhaps quite a long time—but otherwise, after a few more hospital visits, there would be no need to go anymore. However.

“Where are you going?”

Yuri turned back toward Ling Xinlu and asked. Whether he was returning to his family home in China, going to seringe, or anywhere else, there was no reason to stop him now that he was mostly healed. But the timing of that remark bothered him.

Meeting that direct gaze with narrow eyes that seemed to be smiling or not, Ling Xinlu eventually let a smile touch his lips. Those mischievous lips opened to ask, “Why?”

“Wondering why you’re asking where I’m going when that guy has returned to Germany?”

Hearing the words thrown in a sarcastic tone, Yuri fell silent.

“…….”

As Yuri remained silent, momentarily unable to find words, Ling Xinlu looked him over with amusement. There was a hint of spite in his eyes, as if blaming Yuri for trying to keep it a secret.

Did he know?

The news that Riegrow had entered Germany had reached Yuri late last night. To be precise, it was before he actually entered. It was news that he had issued a ticket from Dar es Salaam to Frankfurt. And a few hours later, news arrived about who had gone to the airport to meet him.

“What are you looking at? I have my own contacts. I heard that a call for assembly was sent to T&R’s former mobile unit.”

“……. I see.”

“But that’s all. If you’ve heard any other useful information, tell me too.”

“…….”

Yuri turned his back to the phone entirely. He had no more business with it.

There was no point in hiding it. Ling Xinlu had already heard everything he needed to—James, needless to say, as well.

After Jung Tae-ui’s location was confirmed, Riegrow returned to Germany without delay. And he contacted his former colleagues—the group that remained a painful part of T&R’s past.

Anyone with a brain who knew them understood what that meant. No matter how they stepped forward, it meant an incident would break out soon.

“Poor Mr. Miller,” Ling Xinlu murmured, even sighing as if he were genuinely sorry. While nodding in agreement, Yuri did not take his eyes off Ling Xinlu’s face. He was smiling calmly and didn’t seem particularly agitated or unstable, but Yuri watched him silently.

Meeting Yuri’s gaze, Ling Xinlu chuckled.

“It feels like you’re gently brushing someone’s face with a soft brush. As if checking if there’s any missing dust.”

“I’m sorry if that was unpleasant.”

“No. It’s better than I thought. It’s not like it’s the first or second day Mr. Gable has looked at me like that.”

Ling Xinlu waved his hand lightly and drank his juice. A brief silence followed. Only the occasional sound of him calmly sipping the juice could be heard.

Yuri had no way of knowing what he was thinking. However, seeing that he rarely lost his composure these days, Yuri simply felt a certain level of relief in his heart.

“Is your wound doing okay?”

Ling Xinlu, who had been staring intently at Yuri while lost in thought over his juice, asked abruptly. Yuri raised an eyebrow slightly and soon shook his head.

“It is nothing.”

A scar might remain, but it was under his hair anyway, so it wouldn’t even be visible. On the surface, Yuri also looked perfectly fine without any visible injuries. At most, it only hurt when he unconsciously brushed back his hair and touched the wound.

Hmm, I see, Ling Xinlu thought as he set the empty juice bottle down on the table. A small clink of glass echoed.

Sitting up straight with his fingers interlaced on his knees, Ling Xinlu looked directly at Yuri. Yuri, who had been sitting upright from the start, looked back at him, guessing what he was about to say.

“It would be the decent thing to do as a human being to stay until you’ve fully recovered, but I don’t have that much luxury.”

Ah, as expected. Yuri thought those words might come. Yuri nodded silently, conveying both that it was fine and that he shouldn’t worry.

Looking at Yuri, Ling Xinlu let a smile touch the corners of his eyes and continued. His voice seemed to have softened just a little.

“Please look into some flights for me. For the day after tomorrow, to Dar es Salaam. I need to go pick up Tae-yi hyung.”

Yuri smiled bitterly at Ling Xinlu’s addition: “I won’t use any tricks.” Then, he slowly nodded.

“I will look into it. Are you going alone?”

“People from my main family have agreed to help. We’ll meet in Dar es Salaam.”

Then you won’t need to look for separate accommodations, Yuri murmured. Ling Xinlu added, as if suddenly remembering something, “Ah, and…”

“I’ll let the eldest brother—the one who told Mr. Gable to keep an eye on me—know, so you don’t have to worry. …You’ve worked hard all this time.”

Ling Xinlu bent his waist and bowed politely.

For the first and last time, he was sincerely saying ‘thank you’ to Yuri. Regardless of the resentment, dissatisfaction, or bitter memories he had held toward Yuri, he was grateful.

Receiving his greeting, Yuri knew it was now time to part. It was a farewell that came at the appropriate time, neither too early nor too late. A quiet and peaceful parting, fortunate that it didn’t take the worst possible form.

I’m glad I didn’t leave only bad memories.

Yuri bowed back to him. He put his sincerity into the short phrase, The pleasure was mine.

Neither of them spoke for a moment. In the short but cozy silence, it was as if they were savoring the time they had spent together. For Ling Xinlu, it had been a time more painful and grueling than any other in his life, and for Yuri—in one sense or another—it was a time he would never forget.

Eventually, Yuri stood up.

“The day after tomorrow, I should look for a flight that arrives by evening local time, right?”

The day after tomorrow; there wasn’t much time left. It wasn’t just about booking a flight. There were countless things to do to end his stay here.

“Ah…”

Just then, Ling Xinlu opened his mouth as if to say something. Yuri, who was about to turn away, looked at him curiously. Ling Xinlu stared blankly at Yuri, who was calmly waiting for his words, but then slowly shook his head.

“It’s nothing. I’m counting on you.”

After staring at Ling Xinlu, who was waving his hand with a pretty smile, for a while, Yuri nodded. And with sincerity, he delivered his final greeting.

“I wish you luck.”

It was a peaceful and quiet period.

* * *

There was not a shred of hesitation in Kyle’s decision, and thanks to that, James lost the opportunity to throw in his resignation once again.

According to a witness, when this incident broke out and the news reached him, James froze like a pillar of salt for about five seconds, looking devastated. However, after bowing his head in thought for those five seconds, he stood up with a surprisingly calm and composed face.

‘This time for sure.’

Muttering that, his steps toward Kyle were so brisk and light that he almost looked ecstatic.

However.

To James’s great regret.

Upon hearing the news, Kyle made a concise decision without changing his expression.

‘Leave him be. Even in the worst-case scenario, what’s the most that could happen? The death penalty?’

Adding, ‘And that’s only if the brat gets arrested quietly,’ he nonchalantly tossed the fax paper—which informed him that his own biological brother had just bombed Riyadh a few dozen minutes ago—onto the desk.

At the unexpected reaction—or rather, not entirely unexpected, but the fact that he didn’t frown as usual and mutter, ‘It’ll be a real pain to stop him (you, James)’—James, momentarily speechless in a way that was unlike him, stared blankly at Kyle.

‘…Then.’

‘The loss is too great to just hush it up as if it never happened. He’ll handle it himself. Well, if he happens to roll back into my house, I’ll stop at protecting him.’

Kyle seemed intent on ending the conversation there, telling him to just keep him updated whenever the situation changed. Then, noticing James standing there dazed behind his cold face, he let out a long sigh.

‘Honestly, this kid… causing such a mess and making me worry. You must be very worried about this too, seeing as your complexion is so poor. Don’t worry too much. This brat is the type to survive no matter where he’s thrown, so it wouldn’t do for you to ruin your health worrying about him. You know how much I cherish and trust you, James? I truly consider you family.’

For some reason, the topic seemed to shift subtly toward the end, but James said nothing. Regardless, since his biological brother had fallen into a serious situation—though it was his own doing—and since he hadn’t been burdened with more bomb-like work, he couldn’t bring himself to be sarcastic.

Kyle, letting out a feigned long sigh, finally seemed to realize something as his gaze dropped to James’s clenched fist.

‘By the way, James, what’s that in your left hand? Surely it’s not a resignation letter?’

‘…’

‘What is it? Did I do something wrong to you recently? Did I cause you great trouble and anxiety with my family issues without realizing it…? Tell me anything, I’ll correct it!’

And James, while glaring terrifyingly at this possessor of ghostly intuition who was clinging to him with a pitiful and innocent face, crumpled the resignation letter he had intended to shove in Kyle’s face the moment the words ‘I’ll have to hush it up somehow’ came out. He failed to achieve his original goal.

“…Did you try burning the books?”

Yuri asked while drinking coffee, facing James, whose brow was furrowed and expression frozen stiff. A response as cold as his expression came back.

“I tried burning them.”

“And they still didn’t fire you?”

“Right there where I burned the books, they burned my resignation letter with them and held a funeral for it.”

He was crying and saying to the books, ‘Farewell. Go to a good owner’s house in the next world.’ It was a horror I never want to see again, James said, shuddering.

I see, Yuri thought, nodding quietly. Since even that didn’t work, he figured the day James’s resignation would be accepted would never come in his lifetime.

But for Kyle, it was an excellent choice. Whether in the past, present, or future, his brother would be a disaster rather than a help, so he could not afford to lose this wonderful worker to help him. Yes, even now, this top-tier worker, James, who was responding accurately and flawlessly to the flood of contacts from all over the place the moment Eli Riegrow was put on the international wanted list as a terrorist.

The incident had been made public several days ago.

In this industry, by the time something hits the mainstream airwaves, the situation is usually already over because the news has already circled around, yet the office was still a chaotic mess even after several days of broadcast.

During the mere twenty minutes Yuri visited the office to finalize the last documents regarding the contract expiration, the total time James let go of the phone was likely less than two minutes. And just now, the moment the clock hands pointed exactly to noon, James switched the office phone to ‘off.’ Simultaneously, the phones in the external secretary’s office began to catch fire, but the inside of the office became temporarily quiet. (However, Yuri could have bet his entire fortune that James’s personal cell phone would start ringing shortly.)

“As you can see, the situation is like this, so it seems it’ll be hard to eat together. I’m sorry for inviting you to lunch.”

James sighed, glancing at the faxes that had been pouring in relentlessly. Yuri shook his head nonchalantly. He had come expecting this.

“It’s fine. I came because I had business to attend to anyway. …Now then, with this, this contract is successfully completed. Special clauses are all handled. That’s everything, right?”

Yuri skimmed through the confirmation document, which had been completed exactly as originally contracted with nothing to touch up, and handed it back to James. James, who glanced at the confirmation as if barely looking—though he had undoubtedly checked every single letter thoroughly—said “Okay” and tucked the paper into a folder.

“What about the contract renewal? I’ve prepared the documents; since you’re here, why not just sign those and go?”

“Ah—, …I’ll rest for a week or two first. I feel like if I renew the contract right now, Kyle will immediately chase me off to Riyadh.”

No matter how much Kyle claimed he had no involvement in Ling’s bombing incident, everyone who knew about the close relationship between Kyle—and by extension, T&R—and Ling could not simply overlook it. This was evident just by looking at the current situation, where the ears were ringing with phone calls and the presence of people bustling about as if a beehive had been poked.

In a situation where any usable manpower had to be deployed immediately to put out urgent fires, there was no way he would be left as idle manpower. Yuri, who was both a capable talent and wise, knew this very well, and having just stamped ‘contract expired,’ he wanted to rest for at least a few days.

“I’m sorry, but you’ll have to suffer alone for a few days, James. I’m going to get some rest.”

When Yuri asserted this confidently with an indifferent face, James gnashed his teeth while ripping off a piece of fax paper.

“Fine, I’m setting the term of this next contract to ‘lifelong.’”

“You know I don’t do lifelong contracts. Please set it to one year, as always.”

If there was a task that needed to be entrusted for a particularly long period, he would sign multi-year contracts, but otherwise, he always renewed the contract on an annual basis. James waved his hand dismissively, as if he had expected that.

Against the backdrop of faxes pouring out endlessly even as he tore them away in handfuls, Yuri left a half-hearted greeting of “Good luck” to James, who was rustling a sandwich bought by an employee because he didn’t even have time to eat, and stood up. In his heart, he wanted to help, but in James’s current situation, there was nothing Yuri could do. Other than quietly slipping a packet of granular vitamins into his hand.

Waving to James, who shouted for him to come back next weekend to sign the contract, Yuri left the office. Every employee he encountered until he stepped out of the T&R headquarters building had hollow eyes.

This is why you shouldn’t have the wrong boss. You must always be cautious when signing an employment contract… thinking of it as someone else’s problem, Yuri began walking toward his house, which was a bit far from the company but not too far to walk.

It took several days just to clean the house, which had been thick with dust because it had been empty for so long. Yuri worked slowly but thoroughly and patiently. Thanks to that, the house, where dust had piled up even inside the cupboards making it seem daunting to touch, was now clean in every corner; all that was left was to go home and hang the curtains he had washed and dried on the rooftop.

Hoping that the next job would be near Berlin so he could clean a little bit every day, Yuri entered a back alley where cars could not pass. In the deserted alley, only the sunlight poured down dazzlingly, making his heart feel relaxed.

“…”

In the end, it seemed Jung Tae-ui had fallen into Ling’s hands.

When he heard that Ling Xinlu had snatched Jung Tae-ui and disappeared right in front of Ling, who had destroyed the seringe villa, Yuri felt a greater sense of crisis than he did during the Riyadh bombing.

From the moment Ling Xinlu left to pick up Jung Tae-ui, he had expected that a peaceful and moderate development would not occur. However, he thought—and hoped—that at least he wouldn’t expose himself to danger as he had before. He hoped they would reach a conclusion in the most rational and non-violent way possible, whether through conversation, a bet, or negotiation.

However, since Ling Xinlu had taken Jung Tae-ui almost by force, it was predictable that at least one person would suffer a rough fate. And even though it no longer concerned him, including Jung Jae-ui and other related matters, Yuri had continued to keep his antennae up regarding that side.

Fortunately—though depending on the perspective, it could be an unhappy ending—it seemed the conclusion was that Jung Tae-ui returned to Ling and Ling Xinlu was left alone without being seriously injured.

In Johannesburg, where they stopped over before going to Hong Kong after snatching Jung Tae-ui from the seringe they revisited, the only person who eventually issued a boarding pass to Hong Kong was Ling Xinlu.

After hearing that he had returned to Hong Kong safe and sound, Yuri estimated the time it would take for Ling Xinlu to arrive at his main family home and contacted Ling Tangyun just in case. Only after hearing the reply, ‘He came back looking a bit discouraged,’ and confirming his safety, did Yuri breathe a sigh of relief.

Since Ling Xinlu wasn’t the type to show signs of being discouraged in front of others unless he was truly devastated, the fact that Ling Tangyun said so meant he really must have returned in a very depressed state.

I wonder if he’s feeling better by now.

“…”

Yuri fiddled with the phone in his pocket. He felt like calling Ling Tangyun again, but he hesitated, thinking that if he called without any particular business, no matter how indirectly he asked, Tangyun would suspiciously interrogate him, saying, ‘What’s gotten into you, asking about someone else’s well-being?’

But, …it’s okay.

His chest throbbed heavily when he thought about how Ling Xinlu must have felt on the plane returning to Hong Kong alone, but he wasn’t overly worried.

The Ling Xinlu he had shared final greetings with still had a faint feeling of instability, but the feeling that he had calmly organized his thoughts was much stronger. As if he had decided for himself that if it didn’t work even on the last attempt, he would tie it off.

So, even if he’s discouraged and depressed for a while, he’ll be fine.

Hmm, Yuri nodded to himself, thinking he should come up with a suitable reason to call Ling Tangyun later, and quickened his pace. Fiddling with the phone in his pocket.

The afternoon sunlight was warm. The cold wind and stinging sunlight blended together just pleasantly. Walking through the bright, deserted alley, Yuri took a deep breath.

It was silent.

It was a strange feeling.

He had never thought this way before, but this solitary afternoon felt empty. As if he had lost a goal in life.

Whenever he finished a task that took a long time, he always fell into a hollow feeling for a short while, but that was truly brief. This was the first time he felt an emptiness that lasted long enough to savor. And Yuri knew the reason.

The living, breathing beauty he had experienced up close for the first time in his life. Even though it was as short as a fleeting moment, he had clearly felt that body heat with his hands, his body, and his lips. He had been enveloped in a sweet and brilliant fragrance.

That fine and beautiful thing had certainly been close to him, but now it was gone.

Just looking at it was enough. Truly. He didn’t wish for anything more than that. But.

He wanted to keep looking a little longer.

“…”

It seemed that before calling Ling Tangyun, he first had to somehow pull himself together from his own discouraged and empty heart.

Let’s go to the pool this afternoon. I’ll go home, eat, put up the curtains, and then head to the pool to stay submerged for the rest of the day. I’ll feel much better then.

Germany is great in every way except for the sea; the Baltic is far too cold. I wondered if I should head down toward Switzerland for the weekend to soak in a lake instead, and by the time I finished that thought, I had reached the apartment.

After exchanging brief greetings with the elderly man who was sweeping in front of the ground-floor hallway’s end room, Yuri entered the building and stood before the mailboxes. In the corner of the mailboxes, where letters were sparsely and haphazardly tucked in, the box marked with Yuri’s room number was empty.

“…….”

The hand that had naturally reached for the mailbox hesitated. Blinking a few times, Yuri tilted his head and rummaged inside the mailbox before opening the cover entirely. There was nothing.

That’s strange, he thought, searching every corner of the box, but it remained empty.

“Are you expecting a letter today?”

The old man, who had finished sweeping and was heading inside, spoke up after seeing Yuri rummaging through the empty mailbox. He then pulled out a couple of letters from his own box.

“No…… not exactly.”

Yuri glanced at the old man’s letters and finally closed his own mailbox quietly.

It wasn’t that he was expecting a specific letter. However, he had naturally assumed there would be some. From various places Yuri himself wasn’t even aware of.

There were many who wanted to contract with Yuri Gable. Letters inquiring about his availability often flew in. Recently, as his contract with T&R neared its expiration, he had received one or two contacts almost every day. And today, having finally confirmed the expiration of the contract—and since this industry was a place where information traveled with terrifying speed—he had assumed his mailbox would be overflowing.

So, without thinking much, he had reached into the mailbox to take out the letters he assumed were there.

“…….”

Yuri stared at the empty mailbox and turned away. He scratched his head, glancing needlessly at other people’s mailboxes that contained a letter or two.

Since he would likely renew his contract with T&R unless something unusual happened, there was no reason to be disappointed that no recruitment letters had arrived, nor was he in a desperate situation to find work, so it didn’t really matter. Still, humans are such that they feel somewhat disappointed when their expectations are so perfectly thwarted.

He had already been feeling lonely, and now he felt as if the world itself were turning its back on him.

I’ll stay in the water longer than usual today, Yuri thought as he made his way up to his room on the top floor, the sixth.

Before he had climbed many steps of the spiral staircase, his phone rang. Yuri slowed his pace and pulled the phone from his pocket. Seeing the familiar name on the screen, his heart relaxed slightly.

“Annette?”

『Mon sucre, Yuri! It’s been a while! How have you been?』

Her voice, always clear and radiant, rang out brightly. It was a joyful tone that seemed capable of brightening the mood of anyone listening.

“The same as always. What’s up?”

『Did the meeting with James go well? Did you sign the contract expiration?』

“You’re fast with your news. I just got back and I’m on my way up to my room now.”

Yuri jingled the keys in his pocket and looked up at the spiral staircase, which still had a long way to go to the top. The wooden stairs of the building, over 80 years old, made a nostalgic creaking sound with every step.

『Then you must have received our contract request? Did you open it?』

“What? A contract request? No, I didn’t get anything.”

『Really? That’s strange. I sent it via express mail, so it should have arrived by now. Maybe it’ll come tomorrow? Anyway, I’ll send it by email too. Please consider contracting with us.』

It seemed she had called to gauge his interest in employment. Yuri let out a short laugh.

“I assume you’re short on field agents. I appreciate the offer, but I’ll decline. I think I’ll renew my contract with T&R.”

As soon as Yuri answered, she let out a disgruntled huff.

『What? Why only contract with them? The employment terms shouldn’t be that different.』

“It’s just… since I’ve worked with them for a while, we already know each other’s styles, so it’s easier to coordinate.”

Furthermore, the employment terms at T&R were better than at the Intelligence Agency—and better than almost anywhere else—but he didn’t feel the need to mention that.

Knowing Yuri’s personality—that once he declined, he was not easily persuaded—Annette grumbled for a bit and then sighed.

『Anyway, fine. Putting that aside, make some time. We haven’t seen each other in ages.』

Yuri readily nodded to her suggestion to have a meal together since he would be free for a while. Meeting a friend he hadn’t seen in a long time was always a welcome event.

“Sure. When?”

『Hmm—how about this evening?』

So suddenly? While he was laughing, he finished climbing the stairs to the sixth floor. He considered going straight to the roof to pull down the curtains, but then he thought he should hang his blankets while the sun was still out, so he turned toward his room.

『Are you busy today?』

“No. I’m f—”

Thinking that he had no other business this afternoon besides going to the pool, Yuri began to answer readily, but he stopped mid-sentence.

A man was leaning against his door.

Stepping on paper scraps scattered messily at his feet and clutching a thick bundle of papers under his arm, the man gave a light wave upon seeing Yuri.

Yuri stopped in the middle of the hallway and stared at him intently. He gazed blankly for a long time, as if seeing a hallucination that shouldn’t be there, until he snapped out of it when he saw the man pull one of the papers from the bundle and rip it with a shrrrip.

“Sorry, Annette. I don’t think today will work. I’ll call you back later.”

While offering a brief farewell and hanging up, Yuri did not take his eyes off him. It was because he still couldn’t believe it.

“……Compensation adjusted upward by agreement according to internal hiring standards, treatment equivalent to head manager level, working conditions include four times a year… tsk, this one is no good either. All the conditions they’re pushing are mediocre. There isn’t a single place that looks decent.”

Reading through the sheets of paper—which, upon closer inspection, were all envelopes—the man clicked his tongue and crumpled the paper, throwing it away. Another piece of paper waste was added to the pile at his feet.

Only after he had pulled another bundle from under his arm, read it, and thrown it away about three more times did Yuri move again.

“Mr. Ling Xinlu. What brings you here?”

When Yuri called his name clearly, he beamed. That radiant smile was unmistakably Ling Xinlu.

“You’re back earlier than I thought. Did the meeting with Mr. Miller go well? What about the contract renewal?”

“No, not yet……. But why are you here,”

“This apartment must be really old. Even for a hallway, it’s incredibly cold inside the building.”

Yuri watched Ling Xinlu blow warmth into his hands for a moment, then silently took out his key and opened the door. The paper scraps scattered messily on the floor had clearly been created while this man was standing there. And presumably, the contents were the letters that should have been in Yuri’s mailbox.

Ling Xinlu, who remained composed in front of the owner after unhesitatingly opening and discarding someone else’s mail, stepped readily into the room Yuri had opened. Before Yuri could even welcome him with a “Come in,” he was already standing inside the room.

Looking around the shabby and narrow room—which had only what was necessary for one person to live in—he approached the bed basking in the sunlight by the window and flopped down.

“It’s cozy and nice. The view is great since it’s the top floor, and the breeze is refreshing. …….”

Muttering as if he liked it while scanning every corner of the room, Ling Xinlu suddenly fell silent and smiled. When Yuri, who had come in after picking up the paper scraps from the door, looked at him curiously, he laughed out loud for a while before speaking.

“No, it’s just that I feel like a room really reveals the personality of its owner. There are no unnecessary items, but everything necessary is here.”

“Is that so?”

Yuri, who had never been conscious of such a thing, looked around his familiar room anew, but nothing stood out as being particularly different from anyone else’s room.

“……. I’m curious about your room, Mr. Ling Xinlu.”

He wondered what was there and what was missing compared to his own room.

Ling Xinlu arched an eyebrow and smiled brightly. “Really?” he asked back, his tone carrying a subtle, mysterious smile. When Yuri looked back in confusion, he was smiling innocently as if nothing had happened.

“……? But what brings you here? I heard you went back to China.”

“Ah—I went home, shut myself in, and cried for a bit before coming back.”

Yuri’s expression stiffened, and his eyes widened slightly. Ling Xinlu smiled again, as if he had expected such a reaction, but the mention of crying bothered Yuri more than the expression.

“Why?”

“Aren’t you going to comfort me?”

Yuri hesitated at Ling Xinlu’s abrupt counter-question. Come to think of it, he had suffered another heartbreak in the meantime. After spending time where his body was worn down and his heart was aching, in the end.

“You’ve been through a lot. ……You did well.”

For some reason, Yuri murmured in a discouraged tone. However, the party in question, Ling Xinlu, burst into laughter the moment Yuri murmured that.

“You’re really the same. It’s just a hair’s breadth away from being sarcasm, yet it doesn’t sound like that.”

Yuri scratched his temple while looking troubled—yet still indifferent—at Ling Xinlu, who laughed openly, saying, “If you think about it, aren’t I quite the expert?” After laughing for a while, Ling Xinlu suddenly inhaled and stopped. He gazed at Yuri for a moment and then spoke abruptly.

“I guess I was unexpectedly delicate.”

“……?”

“When I went home and got a full check-up, they told me I was on the verge of getting a hole in my stomach. Besides that, my father found out late and was so furious he nearly collapsed, so I spent a few days quietly shut in the house resting. I felt terrible too.”

Though he spoke lightly now while tilting his head, he must have felt truly awful. Yuri recalled Ling Tangyun saying that he had ‘returned quite depressed and wouldn’t come out of his room.’ To the point where his negative emotions were plainly visible to others, his heart must have been a mess.

“Actually, that guy was bombing another country, so hundreds of times a day, I felt like just throwing a bomb into his house. Even now, since I’ve come all this way, I feel like doing just that.”

Muttering with narrowed eyes, Ling Xinlu glanced at Yuri and then smiled, saying, “It’s a joke, a joke,” but it didn’t seem like a complete joke. When Yuri softly replied, “I’ll give you the address,” Ling Xinlu’s eyes widened, and he soon snorted with laughter. “If I actually went to that house, I feel like you’d follow me to stop me,” he said, to which Yuri gave no answer.

“—Well, while lying shut in my room like that, I just lost all my energy. Life became boring. Even when I tried to joke around, the people around me were all morons who couldn’t even understand a word. ……As I spent my time in my room with nothing but idle thoughts, I started thinking that Mr. Gable, at least, wasn’t boring.”

Ling Xinlu, who had been looking up at the small skylight in the slanted ceiling, lowered his gaze. He looked at Yuri intently, as if re-evaluating whether his judgment had been correct. His murmurs sounded like he was talking to himself.

“……I wondered if your head had fully healed. I wondered if you’d drowned somewhere. I wondered if your non-sarcastic sarcasm was still the same. And then, whenever I thought of seringe, I’d feel a surge of resentment and get choked up.”

A calm smile appeared on Ling Xinlu’s lips as he spoke quietly. That smile twisted slightly at the end, as if the resentment he had tried to bury had peeked its head out again because he mentioned it.

“After spending my time just being irritated, my father finally said something. He asked what I was going to do if I couldn’t even manage my own heart.”

“I guess I looked pretty broken to him. My father is the type to sweat bullets trying to soothe and coax me no matter what, not someone to say harsh words to me,” Ling Xinlu murmured, then gathered all the papers he had been fiddling with on the bed and threw them into the trash can at his feet. He didn’t seem to care that most of them were unopened letters, nor that the recipient of those letters was standing right in front of him.

“So, about that—”

Rummaging through his ample pockets, Ling Xinlu pulled out a piece of paper folded twice and held it out to Yuri. Yuri looked back and forth between Ling Xinlu and the paper, then silently took it and unfolded it. In front of him, Ling Xinlu continued cheerfully.

“Won’t you contract with me?”

At the words that flew in before he could even finish unfolding the paper, Yuri paused. Seeing Yuri give him a silent gaze after he had spoken so casually, as if it were a child’s game, Ling Xinlu smiled like a pretty cat.

“Being with you is quite pleasant and interesting, though you occasionally say things so bluntly that it makes me flare up. And I get choked up when memories of seringe come back. I think it would be good for tempering my nature while engraving the character for ‘patience’ in my mind.”

“……. Are you planning to attain enlightenment by looking at me? You, a man who was on the verge of a stomach perforation?”

The imagination that he had developed a gastric perforation because stress accumulated every time he saw Yuri—was far from welcome, even as a mere thought.

Nevertheless, he scanned the contents of the paper—which, for something handed over so casually, was a fairly proper contract.

“Well, that’s half the reason. The other half is that I need someone skilled to manage my personal affairs now that I’ve come to my senses and need to learn how the family business works. And I thought of Mr. Gable, who isn’t tied down elsewhere, is highly capable, and already knows me to some extent.”

Still wearing a smile, but with a face that wasn’t joking, Ling Xinlu gestured with his head toward the paper Yuri was holding and asked playfully, “The employment terms are as written there. Are they insufficient?” Yuri shook his head and murmured, “No, they’re extraordinary.”

Based on the terms alone, it was a magnificent contract—to the point where he would be called a fool for a long time if he didn’t jump at it immediately. The work conditions, the treatment, the compensation.

However, the reason he couldn’t nod immediately was that Yuri knew Ling Xinlu. He knew that a man with such unstable and fickle tendencies was not a good contracting partner as an employer. And Ling Xinlu himself must have known that fact. That was why he had been watching with eyes devoid of laughter, waiting to see what answer would come from Yuri’s mouth.

“And, ……it still hurts deep inside. It’s hard to fall asleep at night, so I have to take medication. I feel like if I could just grab onto someone and pour it all out, I might feel a bit better, but there’s no one I can tell. I can’t tell anyone.”

That’s why it feels like a knot is forming inside, he murmured, his lips twisting slightly.

That was because he was Ling Xinlu.

Unless it was someone like Yuri, who had happened to see his pride shattered and torn to shreds unintentionally, there was no way Ling Xinlu would ever first show his broken and trampled pride to another person and complain of his pain. Even if he writhed in pain as if being scraped by a knife every night, unable to sleep, he would swallow it alone. While wearing a face during the day that suggested he hadn’t suffered a single scratch.

“Won’t you help me?”

The face Ling Xinlu made as he asked piteously, looking at Yuri as if clinging to him in anxiety, was likely a fake expression crafted to obtain Yuri’s consent. Yuri wasn’t foolish enough to be deceived by that. Ling Xinlu probably knew that too.

But the content of what he said was not a lie.

With a composed face, trying not to show his unhealed wounds to anyone, he had stood alone among people.

“If I refuse.”

Yuri spoke after silently staring at the paper. Ling Xinlu’s expression turned slightly cold for a moment, but he quickly erased any sign of it.

“Are you perhaps planning to interfere every time I look for a job?”

Taking his eyes off the paper, Yuri stared at the pile of scrap paper heaped in the trash can for a moment before turning his gaze toward Ling Xinlu. Ling Xinlu also looked at the trash can and shrugged his shoulders with an awkward expression—though he likely didn’t give it a second thought.

“If there is a place that offers better terms than I do, I will concede gracefully.”

The pretty smile on his face seemed certain that no such place existed, yet it implicitly suggested that he might interfere if it did.

Yuri looked at the paper again. Indeed, there would be no place offering better terms than this. Though it wasn’t a decision to be made based on conditions alone.

His hand, fiddling with the sheet of paper, tightened slightly.

He was still conflicted, but he felt that even if he thought about it longer, the conclusion would be the same.

So, Yuri spoke.

“Please give me some time.”

As Yuri met his eyes while saying this, Ling Xinlu seemed a bit disappointed, but he nodded readily, as if he had already considered such an answer.

“Fine. But I don’t want to wait too long, so by tomorrow afternoon, the decision—”

“I’ve forgotten a lot of my Chinese, so I’ll need to study for a month or two to get back to my previous level. Besides, there are many things I need to settle here before going that far. So, I would like to start in two months. If that is acceptable.”

Yuri finished his sentence. Then, he waited quietly for a response from Ling Xinlu, who was staring at him with a peculiar expression.

Ling Xinlu was looking at Yuri strangely. It was the answer he had wanted, yet it seemed strange to him that such an answer had come so quickly.

Eventually, Ling Xinlu smiled slowly.

“I can wait that long.”

The smile, spoken in a tone as if he were being generous, felt unfamiliar even though Yuri had seen it many times. It was a joyful and natural smile that reached his eyes, the corners of his mouth, his eyebrows, cheeks, and forehead.

Ah, yes. This is what I wanted to see. He missed this feeling—the satisfaction that came from simply looking.

Ling Xinlu seemed to notice Yuri’s gaze, as he had been staring blankly without realizing it—though it would have been impossible not to notice. Seeing the smile slowly fade, Yuri asked belatedly.

“May I look?”

It was a question he had asked once before.

Ling Xinlu stared intently at Yuri, who was waiting for an answer with a calm yet serious expression, and then, at some point, let out a short, dry laugh. The laugh, leaking out as if he found the situation absurd, sounded almost like a snort.

He looked at Yuri, who was watching him quietly, from a slanted angle for a while, and then laughed in disbelief again.

“Sure. Look as much as you want during the contract period. Anytime, to your heart’s content.”

Yuri nodded to Ling Xinlu, who had readily granted permission this time without any conditions. He murmured, “Thank you.”

Ling Xinlu, watching Yuri with a beaming smile, suddenly asked out of the blue.

“Well? Do you think there’s any place that could offer better terms than I do?”

To that arrogant and confident question, Yuri didn’t think for long and honestly shook his head.

Soon, a cheerful laugh erupted in the room.

* * *