By Zephyria “Oh my goodness. You must have been so shocked. Don’t worry. It wasn’t on purpose, and we checked the CCTV footage; he suddenly jumped out. The injuries are minor, and you won’t have to worry about it anymore.”
Team Leader Oh handed Choi Won-joon a coffee, and Choi Won-joon put on a sickeningly sweet expression.
“That’s a relief. My heart was pounding so hard from the shock.”
“That’s usually the case. You can’t be okay after hitting someone.”
Then, Team Leader Oh gestured for Lee-eum to come over. He was in the middle of investigating a captured criminal and tried to pretend he didn’t notice, but the team leader kept signaling, so he reluctantly went to him. The team leader patted Lee-eum’s back and smiled kindly.
“Thank you so much for withdrawing the complaint. Detective Kim is definitely not that kind of person; there must have been some misunderstanding.”
“Yes, I understand. Thinking about it, I didn’t do well either. I’m just sorry that I reacted emotionally.”
Team Leader Oh was impressed.
“Oh, you have such a generous heart. Your employees must be so lucky. If someone like you were the owner, it would make working at the company worthwhile, wouldn’t it? Haha. Isn’t that right, Detective Kim?”
Lee-eum couldn’t openly scoff and just wore a soulless expression. Team Leader Oh was definitely a good person, but he also had some snobbish tendencies. He was always sincere when catching criminals, but that didn’t mean he was purely innocent. He was anxious that his team member who caused the accident might offend a chaebol and get involved in troublesome matters.
“I’ll be going now. I was on my way to work.”
“Oh, you should. You’re a very busy man.”
Choi Won-joon got up, and the team leader signaled Lee-eum to see him off. Lee-eum reluctantly went outside. His secretary was waiting with the car far away. It was the same person he had seen in the lobby on his first day visiting Sehwa Construction. Both of them were staring, wishing he would just disappear, when Choi Won-joon stood next to him and took out a cigarette. He lit it and stood facing Lee-eum.
“Relax your expression. I caught the culprit for you, didn’t I?”
“You said it was an accident.”
“That’s right. A clearly intentional accident.”
He smiled, and there was mischief in it. Lee-eum thought he was a man with so many different faces. The more he did, the more Lee-eum’s expression soured.
“What on earth were you thinking, hitting someone?”
“I did it out of pure intention to help Detective Kim. I was so surprised. Can’t you see? My hand is shaking.”
Seeing him raise his hand and shake it exaggeratedly made Lee-eum not want to talk anymore. He turned to leave, but Choi Won-joon called out to him from behind.
“Have you thought about my proposal?”
“I refuse.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes. I’m serious. So don’t contact me again. Don’t even show your face. If you show up like this again, I’ll really put you in handcuffs and throw you in jail. I wanted to take your black box today and reveal that you did it on purpose, but I held back because I didn’t want to get involved any further. So please, let’s not see each other again. Got it?”
“Okay, fine.”
Lee-eum thought he was giving up, but he threw the cigarette butt away and went inside the police station. The way he strode up the stairs looked suspicious, so Lee-eum followed him and grabbed him, and his gaze went down.
“Where are you going?”
“To the bathroom.”
Ah, Lee-eum was embarrassed and let go of his arm. Choi Won-joon smirked and went up the stairs. Lee-eum watched as he went upstairs past the bathroom next to him, and sure enough, he turned right at the end of the stairs. He headed straight for the chief’s office.
Lee-eum was horrified and chased after Choi Won-joon, grabbing him again.
“What are you doing? Why are you going in there! The bathroom is that way.”
“Really? I smelled something rotten, so I thought this was the bathroom. I’m going to meet your chief and make a big mess. Detective Kim will have to take responsibility for everything. You know better than anyone what I’m going to say, right?”
Lee-eum was about to explode.
“You son of a bitch, are you threatening a detective in the police station?”
“What threat? Do you have something to hide?”
Just then, the Team leader of Violent Crimes Unit 3 was passing by on his way to see the chief and glanced at them. Lee-eum glared at Won-joon but couldn’t bring himself to say anything more. Choi Won-joon’s threat was genuine. Lee-eum wondered how someone could be such trash, but at the same time, he felt pathetic for not being able to stand up to him.
“Okay… Let’s go. We’ll talk later.”
“When?”
Lee-eum roughly swept his hair back and gritted his teeth. Heat rose to his neck, and he rubbed it with his hand, and Choi Won-joon’s gaze blatantly landed on him. Lee-eum glared at him, displeased by the gaze, and Choi Won-joon insincerely raised the corners of his lips and smirked.
“So when? I’m busy until Friday.”
Lee-eum reluctantly answered “Saturday” to Choi Won-joon, who persistently asked. Getting this man out of the police station was his top priority right now, so he had no other choice.
“Okay. See you then.”
One of the things Lee-eum despised was spitting on someone’s face. For the first time in his life, he had the urge to spit on someone’s face. Choi Won-joon had a strange talent for drawing out the demon inside Kim Yi-eum, who prided himself on living a righteous life.
❖ ❖ ❖
“Why the sudden check-up?”
Lee-eum mumbled as he received the results from the doctor. The doctor was Lee-eum’s high school classmate and the first person to notice Lee-eum’s Omega symptoms. He looked at the results, and as before, his constitution was marked as Beta.
Although very rare, there were such people. People who were so recessive that they didn’t show up properly on tests. Lee-eum was one of those cases, and thanks to that, he had lived for over 20 years knowing he was a Beta.
Lee-eum breathed a sigh of relief after confirming the results. He was nervous that his constitution might have changed in the meantime, but if it stayed like this, he would have a way to respond even if Choi Won-joon questioned his constitution.
“During my heat cycle, the symptoms were worse than before.”
“How so?”
“Even if an Alpha is just nearby, I feel nauseous and can’t stand it. The medicine calms it down quickly, but I’m a little worried that I might lose control.”
“Shouldn’t you open up to your family about that? Even just to prepare for a possible situation.”
“What do you mean by ‘possible’?”
“The symptoms could appear like a rampage, as you said.”
“……”
“Pheromones aren’t something you can control at will. Right now, it’s just a disgusting smell, but if you lose your mind and run wild, then there’s really no solution. You might wake up and find a stranger lying next to you, and there could be unfortunate consequences.”
“By ‘unfortunate consequences,’ do you mean pregnancy?”
“Yes.”
Lee-eum chuckled in disbelief. No way. Me, pregnant?
“Isn’t pregnancy impossible for recessive people anyway?”
“Not necessarily. There’s a case similar to you who got pregnant. I’ll send you the data.”
Lee-eum frowned and got up from his seat. He told him to forget about the worries and just give him plenty of medicine, and his friend took it out of the drawer and handed it to him. The examination and medicine were all prescribed under his friend’s name. After receiving it and putting it in his pocket, Lee-eum took out cash from his wallet.
He put it on the desk in the examination room and came out, and the nurses’ eyes flew towards him. They must be curious about the situation since he always just chatted and left without getting an examination. Lee-eum hurried outside and drove the car towards the National Forensic Service. Even though the real culprit had been caught in connection with the Yang Taek-il case, a lingering uneasiness remained.
Team leader Oh didn’t like to dig up closed cases, so if he found out, he would definitely nag him. He arrived at the National Forensic Service and took the elevator to meet the medical examiner, and he heard footsteps.
It was almost closing, so he pressed the open button, and a pair of sleek shoes came through the gap in the door.
“Thank you.”
The man who politely greeted him was wearing a black suit and was slightly taller than Lee-eum. He arrived on the 3rd floor and walked to find the medical examiner, and the man who had been in the elevator with him was chasing after him from behind.
“Excuse me,”
He cautiously called out to him, so Lee-eum turned around, and the man had a slightly nervous expression.
“Kim Yi-eum, right?”
Lee-eum slowly blinked his eyes. Did he know him? He looked down and saw the name tag around his neck. Western District Prosecutor’s Office, Jeong Dae-han. He looked up, and the man’s smiling face came into view. The dimples that appeared when he smiled looked like scars.
Scar. Dimple. Scar. Dimple…?
Ah, Lee-eum recalled the man from his memory.
“Jeong Dae-han?”