“Seoryeong, please....”

At the unguarded Korean that slipped out, Seoryeong flinched and froze. He’d done nothing but toy with people high-handedly all this time, and now he pressed his lips to a fake cheek and begged.

Even after taking sedatives, being chained, even getting shot, he was a man who never once let go of the upper hand. Even when Seoryeong hid her pitch-black insides, he was the one standing above her head.

“Don’t disappear.”

Lee Wooshin was trembling. The small vibration that began in his broad shoulders carried into her.

Seoryeong squeezed her eyes shut and turned away from his thread-thin breath. Instinct told her this moment was when he was at his weakest.

“All this time, I only looked for you. Only you.”

A thick vein bulged in the man’s nape. His high nose rubbed against the unfamiliar texture of her skin. As if to suppress the surge of passion, he inhaled her body scent rough and deep.

No... Not like this....

Because of you, I... it was too hard.

Enduring the heavy ache, she went for his groin again. On purpose, she jabbed and struck only the wounds that were obvious to the eye. But Lee Wooshin didn’t react at all—he took everything and only swayed.

Every time he reached out, stubborn to pull her into an embrace, heat pooled in her chest like banked fire. She kicked him with all her strength and bolted.

“Stop right—!”

The bellow, edged with metal, seemed to coil around her ankles. In a blind panic, Seoryeong fled and knocked over a porcelain piece in front of her.

Clatter—! With it, the console collapsed and crashed down onto Lee Wooshin’s ankle as he barreled after her.

The cane flew; he toppled in an ungainly heap. At the thunderous crack, she glanced back. Bracing himself with his elbows like breaking a fall, he still lifted his head.

Shards of glass driven into his palms and knees fixed themselves in Seoryeong’s eyes. She clenched her fists till they hurt.

He leveled his gun toward the direction where the sensors wailed—then, with a vacant, lost expression, couldn’t fire. His tightly clenched jaw trembled in fine spasms, and the clotted breaths he heaved up looked empty.

Left alone like that, he seemed powerless and defenseless, a boy gone astray.

“Don’t go, Han Seoryeong—don’t go!”

His cracked voice burst out again.

He had been hanging his head, clutching only shards of glass, when he suddenly began tearing at his bandages.

What do you all know. Brown eyes and brown hair—what, fuck...! It’s Han Seoryeong. It’s ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) Han Seoryeong. Even if she’s wearing an animal’s hide, I know my wife.

With irritable hands he ripped the in-ears blaring in both ears. But when the bandages wouldn’t come off in his frantic fumbling, Lee Wooshin spat a short curse and rose quietly.

As if the corridors of this mansion were lit up in his mind, he sprinted the opposite way without a hint of hesitation.

Thud, thud—glass rained off with every stride down the hall, and the floor marked out a clear trail of blood.

At a fork, Seoryeong faltered, then cut right around a corner. The deeper she went, the more the annex tangled into a labyrinth; her head kept jerking, never still.

“Where—huff—where...!”

Panting, she turned corridor after corridor until at last an exit came into view. Like breaking out from a hellish past, she kept her eyes ahead and ran—

Something sprang like a beast, hooked her waist, and slammed her hard into a wall. At once her lips were crushed, mashed.

“—!”

They didn’t meet square the first time. His mouth bit rough somewhere along the line where her lip met her cheek.

When she shuddered and tried to turn her head away, he caught her jaw in an instant and sealed her mouth properly.

Then a hot tongue pushed in. Her breasts softened and flattened against his hard body; she felt his heart plunge and hammer.

“Mm...!”

The hunk of flesh parted her lips, pressed deep, and scraped her palate. Between their sealed mouths, wet sounds stuck and pulled apart—tchup, tchup. Between them, Lee Wooshin pleaded.

“Seoryeong....”

Mm—! She thudded her fists against his chest, but the sinewed arms cinched her waist with no gaps.

She tried yanking his hair, but as if expecting her to run again, he clamped her back-of-the-head hard, blocking her retreat.

“Hht...!”

Twisting the angle of her head only drove his tongue deeper, rubbing her flesh, skimming as if to count her teeth. A sob-like moan spread low, and she felt a faint tremor flow from the iron-hard nape of his neck.

He ravaged her mouth like he’d rip out the root of his tongue—licking the slick inside of her cheek, scraping her lower lip with his teeth. He sucked her flesh mindlessly, then caught her fleeing tongue root and ground it.

“Hu—hhuut...!”

Forcing her lips open felt violent, yet because Lee Wooshin was shaking all over, it felt like they were trading breaths out of sheer desperation.

“Uh—mm...!”

Mucosa collided, a wet thud. Restless with impatience, he twisted his head more and more.

She threw her head back to push him off, but he chased doggedly and finally snagged her tongue. He rubbed till every tiny papilla stood, scraped her upper lip with his teeth. He licked like he would strip her mouth bare, spilling sighs of relief one after another.

“Haa... How could I not recognize you....”

When his rough palm stroked the face that felt so real, even the ice plate of her chest hairline-cracked. His hot hand closed gently around her neck, and her body temperature shot up at once. Her head went blank.

Because of you I hurt to the point of dying. But with you, without you—it was the same kind of hard....

When you vanished, and when I found you again. Some days I hated you so savagely I shook; some days I hated you till I cried. What do you call a feeling that’s only hatred without end like this.

Seoryeong knit her face with self-contempt.

If this isn’t poison, then what is it.

“Hhh....”

Saliva slid endlessly down along the tongues tangled wet. As if to sever the sensation, she bit down hard on the thick tongue.

Even with the metallic taste of blood like a cut from a blade, Lee Wooshin didn’t pull away; he opened his jaw wider.

Tch, tch—her mouth was a swamp. She thrashed as if to refuse it, but with her nape clamped tight, even resistance wasn’t easy.

“...Listen to me.”

He supped at her lips smoothly, as if begging. The eyes hidden by bandages speared through her, burning.

Short of breath, gasping, she glared at him—so his lips fell frantic on her brow, eyelids, the bridge of her nose, the tip of her chin.

Even when she shook her head like shooing a fly, he clamped her face again, relentless. His breath scattered here and there, so starved that she almost reached for her own tightening belly.

You bastard.... Whether he’d infiltrated as an NIS agent or was the real Solzhenitsyn—she didn’t know. Lee Wooshin still wasn’t a man to trust. That hadn’t changed.

“It’s all my fault. I’m the bastard who should die.”

His big hand gripped her shoulder tight as he spoke. Seoryeong went rigid.

“...Now I know. That I shouldn’t have left Han Seoryeong alone like that and disappeared.”

“......”

“With you right in front of me, I still couldn’t hold you. Every time I wanted to clutch you tight, I spat only cruel words.”

“......”

“Because of me, you suffered pains you never needed to. I even shoved dead Kim Hyun between us.... Hurting you like that—I regret it to death.”

With tense eyes, Seoryeong looked up at him.

“I’m sorry. It’s all... my fault.”

It was the first apology she had ever heard from him. From the mouth that had always spat only stubborn, cold words, breath came ragged now, lips completely undone. Seoryeong felt like her brain had been mashed—she couldn’t think at all.

“Never again will I leave you alone.”

He nibbled at her wrist with his teeth.

“So please—just for a single day. No, even an hour is fine. Listen to my paltry excuse.”

Like a beast in the rain, his shoulders shuddered and shook.

“...I’ve crawled through every gutter in life, but a life without Han Seoryeong was the most horrific of all. When I truly lived without you...”

A voice like something wrung out leaked from him.

“The world—could be this fucking vile.”

Face twisted, he dropped his forehead—thunk—onto her shoulder.

“I don’t need anything. As long as I have Han Seoryeong.”

...Her ears felt like they were going deaf.

“Leave all the heavy things to me and come back.”

Come back, Seoryeong.

Like a parrot, Lee Wooshin repeated only that, over and over. The man’s body heat on her shoulder boiled like heated iron.

Come back, Seoryeong....

The weight of him leaning her way drove in like thorns. With her pit aching cold and sharp, Seoryeong only bit her lips in silence.

It was the moment she lifted her palm to his hard wingbone to steady his staggering body.

Pop—! The sprinkler in the ceiling burst, drenching them both in an instant.

“—!”

Because of the sheets of rain, the infrared sensors everywhere shrieked. All at once, her crown went cold.

Who was I about to hold just now? Gritting her teeth, Seoryeong shoved him off roughly.

Pushed without strength, Lee Wooshin seemed to lose his sense of direction for a moment and glanced about.

“Seoryeong... Seoryeong—”

She saw his back hit the wall and sink slowly down. From his overboiling body, something like heat-haze steamed up.

Stumbling as she turned, Seoryeong dragged trembling legs one step, then another—fleeing more desperately than ever.

She wanted to look back, but she couldn’t. Leaving him behind again hurt as much as flaying the skin off her own belly.

She ran with eyes forward only, and when her hand closed around the knob right ahead—something crashed apart behind her, and a heavy weight thudded down with a dull tremor. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

“......!”

Her shoulder flinched, but she turned the knob.

We... there’s nothing good for us in staying together....

I don’t know what it means to trust someone again....

I don’t know how....

She swung the main door open and made it out safely. The breath she’d held burst out at once. Kiya—neat in a priest’s cassock—twirled a cross on his fingertip and spread his arms.

“Magnificent, wasn’t it?”

Smack—! The moment she stepped out, Seoryeong slapped the cheek he offered with all her strength. The tears she’d held back slid down her face.