How did it end up like this?
Sitting on the bed in the hotel’s highest-grade suite, Jaeha stared blankly and thought.
shaaaa—
It was raining outside. Even bleak downtown Seoul looked dewy when soaked; a wet Seoul made a different kind of view.
But that wasn’t what mattered.
The patter on the window mixed with the sound of water from the shower. It came from the suite’s bathroom.
How did it come to this…
He gathered his foggy head. And recalled last night.
After Sumin left, he found himself face-to-face with Jang Taegun. The man said he wanted to talk.
“Here, Director, you draw too many eyes.”
What did that mean—then he brushed a thumb down the edge of Jaeha’s collar. He seemed to mean the drink clinging there.
Jaeha, at a loss, couldn’t answer. As if he’d never expected one, the man kept talking.
“Or we can go up together.”
With one hand shoved in his suit trousers and the index finger of the other pointing upward, Jang Taegun wore an odd expression. His register hovered somewhere between casual and polite, an ambiguity that felt like a rider on that unreadable face.
The content sounded like a jab, but the tone was bone-dry, and with no clear expression, it was hard to tell if he was teasing.
A flavorless, affectless voice; an insolent way of speaking, yet with a face that showed none of it.
That subtle contradiction—that unfriendly paradox—seemed to describe the Alpha named Jang Taegun exactly.
Jaeha knit his brows a hair and shook his head. No matter that the man had appeared in his dreams, no matter that he’d unraveled his near-engagement with Sumin because of it—he wasn’t about to face him this fast.
He’d said as much to Sumin, but he had no thought of approaching Taegun right away.
After breaking it off, once Sumin and Taegun had settled whatever they were, maybe he’d try a word then.
If, in the meantime, he got his heart in order, all the better; and if Sumin and Taegun simply continued, there was nothing he could do. He had no desire to wedge himself between others.
Apart from the fact he’d hurt Sumin with the worst words—“I like your boyfriend”—he still wanted to keep the basics of courtesy. Separate from Sumin’s resentment, he needed time to put his feelings away.
“There’s nothing for us to discuss.”
So he shook his head. He didn’t want to remain in the same space with him.
It was like a premonition. If he ended up alone with Jang Taegun today, something would surely turn dangerous. Not knowing what kind of danger—that was the worst of it.
Taegun looked down at him after that refusal. His eyes were so black the iris and pupil barely separated as they fixed on Jaeha.
A chill ran his spine. Against his will, the dreams surfaced—awkwardly, at the worst time.
He refused to admit it, but in truth he had a bit of sexual fastidiousness. He didn’t like being touched; for a dominant Alpha, his ruts passed without fuss.
And yet he’d had those filthy dreams—partnered by the man in front of him.
He hadn’t known he had those kinds of sex fantasies; now the incubus who’d done every obscene thing in his sleep stood before him in a crisp German suit, and it was baffling.
As the storm whipped through his head, the man said,
“You’re interested in me, but you’ve got nothing to say?”
“……”
Shock washed over his face. All the heir lessons and business poker-face had gone straight to the floor.
A mercenary with a Middle East deployment on his record had once trained him in protocol for kidnappings—how to negotiate, how to mask your emotions under panic.
So even now, he shouldn’t have lost his composure—unless that damned mercenary had taken the money and taught him useless tricks.
But none of it came back. He registered his own panic and thought he had to snap out of it—yet he couldn’t make his body respond.
His brain, stuck in freeze, only replayed the words Jang Taegun had thrown.
Tilting his head, Taegun peered into his eyes, as if he’d found something there, and continued,
“Looks like you’ve finally got something to say.”
Right, Director?
The man gave a thin smile. That was where the trouble began.
The two Alphas went up to the top floor where the suites were. The elevator opened directly to the suite’s foyer.
It didn’t seem like a room snagged in a rush just to talk; the manager had sent a private hotelier.
At the door, Taegun cut his eyes at Jaeha as if to ask whether a hotelier was really necessary. From those lowered lids, he couldn’t read a thing. He’d thought years of experience made him good at reading an opponent’s play—maybe that had been delusion. Otherwise, how could he read nothing, not even a speck, from Jang Taegun.
At that arrogant question, Jaeha shook his head. His face had already gone pale. He wanted to reduce by even one the number of people who saw him like this.
With a small bow, the hotelier left. The two men, without a word, moved into the suite’s sitting room.
While Jaeha stood dazed in the center of the room, Taegun shed his jacket and tossed it on the sofa like it was his place. Jaeha’s gaze flicked to the jacket.
He’d dreamed a scene like this—he in the room already, Taegun coming in, shrugging off his jacket…
“Only brandy.”
At the minibar, reading labels, Taegun spoke. Snapped from his thoughts, Jaeha pushed a knuckle under his tie knot and loosened it.
He wasn’t much for drink, but he was parched. Thirst turned his insides. A faint Alpha scent hung in the air. He wanted to cover it, even with the brandy’s fumes.
He spoke, hoping it didn’t sound urgent.
“…That’s fine.”
“Ice?”
“…Yes.”
With a clean motion, Taegun cracked the seal—pop—and poured into the crystal tumblers.
He put ice in one, none in the other. As he filled the iced glass, he tossed back the neat one.
By the time he’d finished pouring, one glass was already empty; he refilled his own and handed the other to Jaeha.
The movement was fluid, natural. As if they’d done this a dozen times.
“……”
Without a word of thanks, Jaeha took the glass. Before the ice could even start to melt, he knocked it back.
Glancing at him, the man said,
“Drinks well. Looks good doing it.”
So, more casual speech. Jaeha narrowed his brows, but the man had already returned to that deadpan face, as if he’d been talking to himself.
Once the burn traced down his esophagus, he didn’t wait.
“It’s a misunderstanding.”
At his curt expression, the man smirked. It could have been a sneer, or—without him noticing—the space between them might have shrunk; the smile felt too close.
“Do I look like someone who’s misunderstood something?”
He tossed back another. His eyes never left Jaeha.
Slowly, Jaeha retraced his thoughts.
This wasn’t in his plan. Even if he admitted an interest, not this soon.
He fought to hide his face.
“With Sumin… he wouldn’t accept it unless I used the most miserable words. That’s all.”
“Is that so? And did he accept it?”
The constant drift between casual and polite blurred his mood.
As it was, for the recent Jaeha, Jang Taegun was the only person who threw his composure off. From the instant their eyes met, he’d grown feelings; yet he didn’t know the man at all. For the always-cautious Lee Jaeha, that state was unbearably alien.
He’d fallen for Jang Taegun without knowing him. The more he realized the man he fell for had no sense of courtesy, the more bitter his mouth grew.
Setting his glass down, gripping the bottle by the neck, Taegun stepped toward him. Even so, space remained between them.
Despite that clear, physical distance, Jaeha felt a threat he’d never known in all his years as an Alpha.
“Director, you live above the clouds—you must not hear the punks’ rumors.”
“……”
He took another step. Like a big cat, his shoes made no sound on the floor. A mountain-weight presence.
“If you’ve used thugs, you pay the damages.”
He smiled without a sound. A lie of a smile. Unconsciously, Jaeha tucked in his lips and bit them. It was hard to keep his face steady.
Wild rose and sea salt curled around his ankles. What had been a faint note when they entered pooled across the floor like waves, lapping the room. Gooseflesh rose over him as he answered,
“How much will settle it?”
“Confident, aren’t you. Can you give everything you say?”
“If it’s not absurd…”
He thought they were moving one step at a time; suddenly, they were within arm’s reach. He felt like prey to a carnivore. The man refilled his glass.
“First deal, I’ll make it cheap. Drinking buddy will do.”
Then, simply, he backed off. As if everything so far had been play.
Without meaning to, Jaeha let out a breath of relief. If that was all, he thought he could withdraw in turn.
He shouldn’t have relaxed then.
He had never thought of himself as a lightweight. His life had always run above average.
From height to family, looks and everything he possessed—and his ability on top of that. Tolerance for alcohol was one of the things he was good at.
But he couldn’t beat Jang Taegun. Maybe the problem was that at the start, parched, he hadn’t been picky about what he poured.
When they drained all the brandy in the minibar, the two Alphas called the private hotelier they’d refused and ordered more.
The only food was seasonal fruit and marinated olives.
When the hotelier offered to arrange something, they’d waved it off. After that, with little talk, the drinking went on until dawn.
Beyond that, it was hazy. No—better to say there was nothing he wanted to remember.
“Ah—hn—!”
“Beg first and then no patience, huh. Dripping everywhere.”
What he did remember came in fragments; by Taegun’s telling, it might have been mutual heat.
No—surely it was. Jang Taegun had no feelings for him; the one harboring something you could call a wicked heart was himself.
If the lovemaking he barely remembered had left even a healthy Alpha’s body marked with languor, then it must have been pretty filthy sex. He swallowed a groan.
He came back to himself at the rain outside and the water in the bath, and he hurried to snatch his clothes from the floor and pull them on.
“A—gh!”
If not for the tearing pain that ripped from his pubic bone upward the moment he bent, he might have managed it. His knees even buckled.
“Fuck…”
Curses he didn’t usually use slipped out. Between his legs, everything was slick.