"...."
"I never really felt any urgency about pheromones, even watching you live like so monk, suppressing yours. Looked at another way, pheromones are a gift from heaven—so why make yourself that miserable, I thought. But watching you wreck your life under their control, I finally got it."
This ti Inu stepped up to Lau and jabbed him in the chest. His sneering mouth was full of poison.
"So what, did you get on your knees and beg? Spin him so line about how you didn’t know, but the powerful pheromones you carry broke a Golden alpha’s defenses and bewitched so I couldn’t resist? That it was a mistake born of overwhelming love? Did the great Lau Wikun really ladle out that kind of shabby excuse? Huh?"
Lau, who had been backing up and taking the jabs, suddenly let murder flash in his eyes and slapped Inu’s finger away.
"You didn’t go blabbing that part to Seo Ihyeon too, did you?"
"What part."
"The part where Seo Ihyeon has pheromones as well."
Inu stared dead-on at Lau’s face, his voice lowered and teeth gritting, then clicked his tongue and rolled his shoulders.
"Lau Wikun, what do you think you’re doing? You thought you were doing Ihyeon a favor, so you left that out? And now you think skipping that one part is going to change anything?"
"Then what can that one part change now?"
"At the very least, it could take a little of the shock and pain off—pain from thinking you planned and perford a changing to satisfy your own private hunger."
"..."
Lau’s face said he had a lot to say, but he kept his mouth shut. He turned his head, dodging Inu’s eyes.
If he learned about the unidentified pheromones that supposedly act only on Lau, Ihyeon might be even more confused for a while. And Inu didn’t think for a second that it justified a changing without consent.
But if Ihyeon’s deepest pain, in the end, had less to do with the changing itself than with the weight of the cri committed by the person he loved, then maybe the only analgesic that could blunt it—however slightly—was that, for now.
Leaving everything else aside, Inu shook his head at Lau’s stubborn refusal to speak about Ihyeon’s pheromones—the only thread that might, however thin, be a kind of hope, better than nothing at all. He hated to admit it, but Lau knew Ihyeon far too well. If there was any chance Ihyeon would try to divide up and shoulder so of the bla for this changing—that he might think so part of it was his responsibility—then Lau wanted to protect him from that.
Right or wrong about the changing itself, Inu couldn’t bring himself to sneer at this particular choice. If Lau could care about Ihyeon that much, why hadn’t he kept his head from the start? The urge to needle him for that, to say the sa thing again with a smirk, had thinned out—like a blaze that, once it’s burned through, has nothing left to do but go to ash.
"You’ve wrecked it as much as you can wreck it, so now take your hands off it. This is for the people involved to deal with. If you keep barging in and thrashing around... you’ll only throw him into deeper confusion."
After a long silence, Lau said it in a sunk voice and turned his back. Inu followed him toward the entryway, hesitated, and spoke.
"Don’t go to Shushu."
"Relax. I won’t kill him."
He didn’t even look back as he answered, flat. Inu grabbed his shoulder and turned him.
"You’re not in your right mind. Isn’t losing Ihyeon enough—you want to lose your friends too? At least for today, just hold it in. Cool your head."
When he didn’t answer, Inu’s nerves spiked; he squeezed down on Lau’s shoulder and forced a fishy smile.
"Don’t tell you’re going to spit out so line about how, if you’ve lost Seo Ihyeon, nothing else matters, Lau Wikun."
"Who said that? Who said I lost Seo Ihyeon."
He said it with a numb face, knocked Inu’s hand away, and stepped straight out the door. The words said one thing, but the voice was hollow—an empty shell with the core scooped out, no certainty or confidence in it at all.
■ ■ ■
He didn’t want to be a fisherman, but he always said there was no way he could give up a slice of fish cut right on deck and a shot of soju. Ihan said it all the ti, like a verbal tic.
Anyone who’d tasted it couldn’t help but agree—but for Ihyeon, more than that, it was the paper-cup mix coffee he drank standing at the bow of the returning boat, watching the harbor waver far off and draw near, that ant the most. If he focused on the bittersweet comfort spreading through his body worn out from labor and the warmth seeping through the cup into his hands, the weight of what was happening on shore felt a little lighter. For a mont, he thought, living like this—offering no resistance, just letting the waves toss you—might not be so bad. Like his grandfather and uncle.
They weren’t coming back with a “full catch,” exactly, but it was enough that he didn’t have to hear Grandfather’s grumbling curses about how “the sea’s bled dry.” As autumn deepened, dostic fresh mackerel ran rich with oil and were especially popular. Even without a big ship, if you paid attention and hustled, you could bring in enough to help the household along.
If our boat cos in full, so do the others; catch a lot and the price drops, so either way making a living is hard—Grandfather said that, swallowing his coffee like soju, yet his face was brighter than usual.
"The scrawny kid’s turned out halfway useful."
Grandfather’s rough face—like the sea’s salt and unforgiving wind had soaked into every crease—turned to Ihyeon with a smile.
"I figured you’d get even skinnier if you went to Seoul to draw."
"Hyun’s just lean. He was sturdy to begin with. His hands are good, too."
Uncle, perched on the hatch of the hold sorting small tools, chid in. Ihyeon wasn’t as seasoned at boat work as Ihan; all he’d done was help with things that didn’t need special know-how—hauling in the net, chucking the fish pulled from it down into the hold. Maybe ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) because expectations were low, the reviews were generous.
"Then maybe I should ship out."
"Don’t talk nonsense."
He ant it as a joke, but Grandfather—who’d once pressed Ihan to take the boat without compromise—cut him off cold.
"A kid who can pay down the family debt that much with his drawing, what boat. You’ll amount to more than your old man."
He flicked a glance toward the harbor as he said it, then mashed out the ember of his cigarette with those thick fingertips and slipped into the wheelhouse. Following his back and looking ahead, Ihyeon saw a familiar figure loitering on the pier.
His father stood at the mooring spot where, before he left the village, Ihyeon sotis ca down to the harbor to wait for the boat.
"He doesn’t show it, but I think he’s been in a good mood since you ca. He’s not the type to co down to the busy harbor."
Uncle, easing into the docking routines and uncoiling rope, patted Ihyeon’s shoulder and gave him a hazy smile.
Between the bustling boatn, Father stood with his hands thrust deep into his jacket pockets, watching this way. Contrary to Uncle’s line about him being in a good mood, Father’s face was blank—no cracks in it at all.
But Ihyeon had no intention of denying that sothing in Father had changed, sohow. At least when it ca to Father, he couldn’t say that the rainy-dawn mont when he turned away from him and followed Ihan out the gate had turned into a useless, childish runaway.
"We don’t need to move it to the market. Go on, get."
"But... it’s a lot."
"It’s work the two of us have done all our lives. You think we’ll fall to pieces because your one pair of hands isn’t there?"
Uncle gave a snort like Ihyeon was being silly and scrubbed the back of his head. Ihyeon gave an awkward smile, then leapt first onto the pier, caught the rope Uncle threw, and tied it hard to a concrete post. He’d only been at it a few days, but his form looked a little more legit; still, when the rope rubbed his soft palms, it stung.
It was pri travel season, so even on a weekday there were plenty of tourists; the pier was busier than usual. The boatn, rushing to shift the catch to the market, barked at the tourists trying to fra romantic evening-sea photos to make way—but even that rough noise lted into the soundscape of the pier. A vigor, a vivid, stubborn grip on life that he’d never felt even in overflowing Seoul flapped everywhere like the bodies of fresh catch.
Crossing the center of the fish market with Father to head out of the pier, Ihyeon realized suddenly that he didn’t dislike this place as much as he thought. Maybe he even liked it.
You can click your tongue and point fingers at people who sink into ennui or lethargy and choose a passive death—but when it cos to a person’s desperate thrash to live, you can’t insult it lightly.
Better to hurl yourself in, even if it looks pathetic, than to let go and step back to save so face. That wasn’t squalor—it was urgency for life itself, and it was exactly the intense, multicolored color of living that he’d craved in gray silence.
He’d grown sick of silence. Hadn’t he left this place, left Father’s side, to score even a hairline crack across that empty peace where nothing happened?
Seen with that in mind, every corner his gaze touched looked different than before. The fish market he’d thought of as a dank, reeking mud pit ca at him as a freshness that pricked eyes and lungs. The faces he’d once read as only rough and curt were varied and fierce. People who shouted like the sky was falling, then, as if they had not a care in the world, threw their heads back and laughed.
The place was the sa; I’m the one who’s co back changed.
A step ahead of his father, Ihyeon slipped a silent, bitter smile on and threaded through the busy crowd—then his eyes and feet stopped.
There stood the co-op head—whose face Ihyeon knew—and with him, as always wearing a serious look, Mr. Im.
He noticed Ihyeon too, and narrowed his eyes a touch, fixing his gaze on him past the co-op head’s shoulder.
Just like Lau said, he was quiet.
He must have heard the news that Ihyeon was back, but for days he’d done nothing. Ihyeon hadn’t spared him a thought, either. Next to what he was going through now, worry about Mr. Im was a joke. Even if the man tried physical intimidation, he had nothing to fear. No—if he tried to lay a hand on him now, Ihyeon might actually welco it. He’d been looking for sothing to take it out on; he might just snarl, go on then, try it.
Mr. Im, eting Ihyeon’s eyes without moving, looked away first and led the co-op head off.
"Let’s go, Dad."
Ihyeon pushed at Father’s back and left the market.
Day three since he’d co.
Under cover of being bored, Ihyeon went out to sea three straight days, and when they were back on land he went walking with Father before dinner. Really, it was more like Ihyeon trailing Father’s walk. Father didn’t wait if Ihyeon fell behind or glance back to check the distance—he just moved, wordless. But there were cracks there, fine hairlines, signs of change that hadn’t been there before. Father showing up on the pier today was part of it.
Cutting through the center of the village, Father kept walking without stopping, from the north side where Grandfather’s house stood, across to the south hill where Mr. Im’s house stood along with the neat vacation villas and mansions.
With his hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets and his head down, Father turned his attention to nothing, didn’t take in the scenery—he focused only on the act of walking, and ate up a steep climb that would take a good hour at an easy pace in just thirty minutes.
Because the south hill rose much higher than the north side near the harbor, its crest had a broad, open view. But no locals bothered to co up here to admire the “hateful” sea.
Along the rail set at the cliff’s edge for tourists, four or five benches sat there gracelessly, scattered. Father, as if following so voice calling from sowhere, would clamber to the brink, flop onto a bench, and sit, blank, for anywhere from half an hour to an hour.
He’d followed Father out because he felt like he had to throw sothing, anything. At first, Ihyeon just sat quietly, looking at his father’s profile.
But soon he understood. It might be that Father was the best person to tell things to.
Not only would he never repeat what he heard, he was the kind of listener who wouldn’t condemn, no matter what the story. That was exactly the kind of person everyone wanted to talk to.
From his arrival in Seoul to now—skipping so stretches, digging into others—he began talking without order. He talked until Father rose first and dusted off his seat.
On the surface there was no reaction, and at first the thought of what Father might think slowed him down as he chose and dropped words. But once he confird that Father didn’t react even when he said he’d fallen for a man who was a Golden alpha, he could be bolder.
eting Chief Han again, and about Uni and Juhan. Running into Alienation at Lau’s house, the Hong Kong trip where he t Suki Kim, the story of Lau helping Sora and Ihan escape... Yesterday he’d talked about Chicago and Boston.
Sotis... there are dreams you miss more achingly than real things you’ve lived. As it goes when you trace those dreams, Ihyeon held a happy smile and talked about Lau.
His poised ease that shone among people, the pitiful confusion he showed after he threw that ease away and used violence for Ihyeon’s sake, and—even though he’d barely managed to hold on to his reason and turn the answer into a refusal—the talk of marriage that had made Ihyeon’s heart drop into his shoes.
What was in his mind when he talked about marriage, then?
What was clear was that it had been a desperate choice—the kind a person would reach for when he was wrapped in a far more tangled, unmanageable problem than Ihyeon had guessed at the ti.
Watching his father’s profile as the sun slid down behind the mountain at his back and the far sea blackened, Ihyeon quietly curled a fist on his thigh. Today it was ti to talk about what ca after.
The evening sea wind shook him without rcy. His jacket flapped, his hair whipped every which way.
"I’m putting a burden on you right now, Dad."
"..."
"I’m dumping on you the weight of a story I should carry alone. Because I’m angry at you—because I want you to feel heavy, to hurt, too."
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