* * *
Even though the smoke had dissipated, Junhee’s nose still stung.
He turned to look up at Cha Junwoo.
He wasn’t smiling anymore.
Junhee tried to read the intent behind his expression, but it was too dark to discern anything clearly.
“Oh, you know that Ki Taeryu is Yoon Geonju, don’t you, Assistant Yoo?”
With a flick of his fingers, ash fell from Cha Junwoo’s cigarette.
“Do I need to know? Even if it’s true, what business is it of yours, Team Leader Cha?”
“If a piece of trash is clinging to my subordinate, and the stench keeps wafting over, wouldn’t it be right to let you know?”
Cha Junwoo smirked.
The shadowy light cast across his face made it look like a distorted sneer.
“I don’t want to discuss personal matters.”
“You know if you get romantically involved with a client, the company will kick you out, right? I’m giving you this advice strictly as your superior. Nobody wants to lose a talented subordinate over some dirty scandal.”
A cold silence stretched between them.
For a brief moment, Cha Junwoo’s eyes, muddied like smoky glass, seemed to glint.
“I can handle my own affairs.”
Junhee’s voice was icy as he tried to step away from him.
“Do you think that bastard wouldn’t do something terrible to you? You don’t even know what kind of man Yoon Geonju really is.”
“…What did you just say?”
Junhee’s clenched fists began to tremble.
“He’s the bastard who shoved my mother into the street and got her killed.”
Cha Junwoo didn’t have a chance to finish.
Junhee had grabbed him by the collar and slammed him against the wall.
“You don’t know a damn thing, so shut your mouth.”
Junhee’s amber eyes burned with rage and hostility.
For a moment, Cha Junwoo seemed taken aback, staring into them before his lips curved into a faint smile.
“So, it’s mutual, huh?”
Junhee, feeling no need to dignify that with an answer, glared at him as if he might kill him.
“If you get tangled up with someone like that, the ending’s obvious. Does it really have to be him? Think carefully, Assistant Yoo. You’re smart.”
Cha Junwoo lightly patted the back of Junhee’s hand, which was gripping his collar tightly, as if to calm him.
Disgusted, Junhee wrenched his hand away.
“Someone like him, who’s had everything handed to him by sheer luck, is nothing like us, who’ve clawed our way up here.”
Cha Junwoo’s murky gaze drifted down to Junhee’s chest, which rose and fell with fury.
“Team Leader Cha, don’t lump me in with you.”
“People like him will never understand people like us.”
“‘Us’? That’s laughable.”
Junhee crushed a discarded cigarette butt underfoot and muttered.
“You’re just another privileged alpha. To me, you’re all the same.”
When I stepped out and came back in, the gathering had mostly wrapped up.
People were chattering about whether to head to a second round or not, but everyone was already so drunk they were wobbling.
“Ah! Team Leader!”
“Catch him!”
The leader of the couples’ fourth team stumbled and fell while putting on his shoes.
“Team, Team Leader, are you okay?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine.”
“Gasp, Team Leader, your, your…!”
It was clear he’d hit his head on the hard marble floor—his forehead had started swelling into a lump that looked like a horn sprouting in real-time.
There was a debate about whether to call an ambulance or just apply some ice, but it ended with one of the other employees helping the team leader into a taxi.
“I hope our team leader’s okay tomorrow…”
“Yeah. I bet his wife’s going to give him an earful.”
“Should we call it a night, too?”
“As much as I hate to, we probably should. We’ve got work tomorrow.”
With someone injured, it didn’t seem right to continue partying, so the group decided to break up.
“Deputy, we’ll head out first!”
After seeing the remaining employees safely call drivers and hail taxis, Junhee finally felt a bit relieved.
Luckily, his place wasn’t too far, so he decided to walk home to sober up.
“Is it over?”
When he turned around, Cha Junwoo was walking toward him from the secluded spot he’d disappeared to earlier.
He must’ve been chain-smoking the whole time—Junhee hadn’t seen him since he left.
“Yes, the team leader was pretty drunk, so we wrapped things up. You should be careful heading home, too, Team Leader Cha.”
“Want a ride—”
“No, thanks.”
Flatly rejected, Cha Junwoo smiled with his eyes.
Instead of pressing, as he often did, he took a step closer to Junhee.
Junhee’s expression hardened, bracing himself for whatever nonsense might come next.
“If what I said earlier upset you, I’m sorry. I was just concerned about you, Assistant Yoo Junhee. Don’t take it to heart. And if you ever need help, don’t hesitate to ask.”
Maybe he’d sobered up enough to come back to his senses.
With a skeptical look, Junhee turned to leave after a brief farewell.
“…See you tomorrow.”
‘Yoon Geonju’s the kind of guy who’d shove even his own mother to her death.’
Cha Junwoo was gone, but his words lingered in Junhee’s mind like a scarlet letter, leaving his thoughts in disarray.
It had only been a few days since Junhee decided to screw over Ki Taeryu, yet here he was, defending him—even standing up to his boss for his sake.
But if he hadn’t read Ki Taeseong’s journal…
‘Maybe I would’ve believed him.’
Ki Taeryu and Yoon Geonju.
He thought he knew exactly what kind of people they were, but as time passed, they only grew more incomprehensible.
Just when he thought he could laugh at them and walk away, they’d be the ones standing by him when it truly mattered.
They’d yell and make him furious one moment, then hand him gifts to appease him the next.
Lately, they’d been bombarding him with calls and texts whenever they were bored.
‘I can’t figure them out.’
He told himself to stay wary, but when they stood before him, he couldn’t stop them from crossing the line.
Cha Junwoo’s words had been rude, but they weren’t entirely wrong.
‘Yoo Junhee should know that getting romantically involved with a client means getting kicked out of the company.’
Of course, he knew.
He also knew that the client trying to kiss him at every opportunity wasn’t normal.
He kept telling himself to draw a line, but each time that intoxicating scent hit him, he found himself helplessly accepting it.
Someone had said the first time was the hardest.
The second was easier, and the third?
Even more so.
Lately, he worried about more than just kissing.
He was afraid every boundary might come crashing down.
‘…Keep it together.’
Whatever Ki Taeryu’s past, the important thing was Junhee himself.
No matter the reason, Ki Taeryu had approached him with an ulterior motive.
That was an unchanging fact.
But cutting Ki Taeryu off immediately wasn’t an option—not with Baek Seunggyo and Kang Heesung in the picture.
‘If Ki Taeryu leaves me… will they just let me go?’
The answer was obvious.
Those two wouldn’t stop until they got what they wanted.
Especially not if their prey was someone as easily manipulated as Junhee.
The only way to protect himself from them was clear.
‘I have to destroy them first.’
It wasn’t something he could do alone.
But with Ki Taeryu—the madman who’d survived the tiger’s den that was the Ki family—by his side?
He was confident the one who’d end up crushed wouldn’t be Ki Taeryu.
‘…Strangely reassuring, in a messed-up way.’
He walked on, and before he knew it, he was in his neighborhood.
At the end of the street stood Naru Villa, its peeling paint making the name look like “Niru.”
As he shuffled past streetlights and utility poles, staring at the ground, he heard footsteps.
The familiar sound of dress shoes stopped on his shadow.
“You’re late.”
“…I told you I had a company dinner.”
It couldn’t be much past nine.
“If you’d called, I would’ve come to pick you up.”
To avoid confirming office rumors, that was never happening.
Ki Taeryu, still in his pristine suit, looked as though he’d just left work.
If he was off duty, why didn’t he just go home?
“…Why are you here? Without even letting me know?”
“You sounded off earlier. I came to check on you.”
Earlier?
Was he talking about their brief call in the afternoon?
Even if he was, what gave him the right to loiter outside Junhee’s home at this hour?
“How did you even know when I’d get here? Were you just waiting around?”
“You wouldn’t stay out overnight.”
“I might.”
“With who?”
Was it just Junhee’s imagination, or did Ki Taeryu’s voice grow icy?
“…Anyone.”
“You’d lock lips with some other guy besides me?”
Ki Taeryu stepped forward, closing the distance.
Under the dim, flickering streetlamp, their shadows overlapped.
Junhee instinctively stepped back, only for his shoulders to hit a rough wall.
It was the cracked fence where someone had spray-painted “We’re screwed” in bold, white letters.
Fitting, really.
It summed up exactly how Junhee felt at that moment.
* * *
