Chapter 13

Shrrrr—

The memory devices embedded in the album unfurled, spreading into a panoramic reel across the air.

In his teens, Yeongung had no idea how to protect himself. He only knew how to carve pieces off himself for the sake of others—as if self-sacrifice were the natural order of things.

Before he ever learned right from wrong, he mastered killing and not being killed. His life was a continual struggle to survive the adults who sought to strip him of everything and use him however they wished.

“Better two than many; better one than two.”

In those days, Yeongung was brutally lonely, painfully desolate, achingly isolated. Yet in his immaturity, he pretended otherwise—acting grown-up, acting unbothered. He hated exposing weakness more than death itself, and he kept impossibly strict standards for himself, unable to forgive even the smallest flaw.

Small things, yes—but enough of them could collapse his world. So he honed himself obsessively, mind fixed upon a single goal: becoming an Absolute, warding off both visible and invisible enemies alike.

At fourteen, when he became a government-certified Hunter—the youngest to do so—his youth was already drenched in the blood-curdling screams and gore of monsters.

When thrown alone against a high-ranked beast… when trapped inside a Gate for a month with no food… when he carved down thousands of monsters and rolled through fields of corpses… he hadn’t flinched.

But humans feel relief when faced with someone similar to themselves. Those too different, too superior, inspire either reverence—or unease.

Those who cast Yeongung into hell itself sneered when the boy returned unscathed, calling him a creature more monstrous than the monsters.

“All his teammates died except him. And he looks fine. That kid is cold—really cold.”

They called him a cold-blooded freak for not crying over the dead, pointing at him as they whispered behind his back. Yet whenever they needed his strength, they held out their hands without shame.

Hypocrisy layered on hypocrisy—Yeongung grew accustomed to it, then numb to it.

But… had young Yeongung, had I, truly been fine? Was I really all right alone?

“Of course not. Not at all…”

He had survived things no child should ever face. When starving to death inside a Gate, he tore flesh from monster corpses with trembling hands. When encountering intelligent psychic species, he had his mind scraped, toyed with—driven so close to suicide he could taste the void. Unknown creatures terrified him, always and utterly.

Yet what frightened him more than death was this:

that if he died, not a single soul would grieve.

After a Gate-clear, bereaved families came to identify bodies, weeping over remains already beginning to rot. Scenes he could never dare to imagine for himself.

His portrait would be replaced with his Hunter ID photograph. His funeral would be barren—no mourners, no family, an empty hall of cold incense. Whenever his life came close to ending in battle, that was the funeral he pictured.

And then… into the life of that cold, abandoned child walked a sixteen-year-old boy named Won Iheun. The boy’s reckless actions were enough to thaw the frost sealing Yeongung’s heart.

Unintentional, perhaps—but powerful nonetheless.

Yeongung brushed a finger over Iheun’s head in the photo. Next to him, he saw himself wearing a stupid, vacant expression.

“Damn… standing next to a pretty boy makes me look like a clueless country bumpkin. His face was insane back then. He’s handsome now, but teenage him was a whole different flavor of peak.”

He laughed, remembering how Iheun once claimed that was his “awkward phase.” Likely because he was pre-secondary-sexual-development then, and shorter than Yeongung. Two years later, when they reunited, Iheun had become a towering high schooler—confidence radiating as he literally looked down at him.

Even if Iheun hated it, Yeongung adored that “awkward-phase” version of him.

“Tsk. He was so much cuter and more honest back then. Now he’s grown into some unreadable bastard.”

Even opening his heart to his orphanage friend, Lee Chahyeon, had been influenced by Iheun. After meeting Iheun, something shifted inside Yeongung. His relationships with “irreparable trash” stayed the same, but he learned to accept genuine kindness from those approaching him sincerely.

“I mean… I didn’t have romantic feelings from the start. He was two years younger—come on.”

His erotic attraction hadn’t blossomed until long after he became an adult.

Their first meeting was when Iheun was sixteen. Their reunion—after Iheun grew taller than him—happened when the boy was in high school. Then Iheun vanished from sight… until seven years later, returning as the perfect specimen of a dominant Alpha.

That was when—

“I was twenty-seven, and he was twenty-five.”

Iheun had just returned from a deployment to a war-torn nation. After discarding his uniform, he founded a private guild—then came to recruit Yeongung personally.

From then on, they were together.

And the moment Yeongung realized his attachment to Iheun exceeded the bond of mere colleagues or senior-junior Hunters was this:

Whenever he saw Iheun around Omegas, he grew irritated. Angry. Annoyed.

He’d been slow on the uptake, but eventually he recognized the feeling for what it was.

Jealousy.

He drowned himself in alcohol afterward—like a lunatic.

“Tch. I was practically a wreck for a while.”

It was Yeongung who suggested becoming sexual partners. One late night, after a meeting, he stopped Iheun as the Alpha was leaving to meet an Omega.

He said:

I can satisfy you better than whoever you’re going to see. So do it with me instead.

He had never taken an Alpha from behind before, so where did that suicidal bravery come from?

Ignorance makes one bold; looking back now, it was the kind of line only someone clueless could utter. He had absolutely no idea what it meant to take Iheun’s monstrously endowed self.

“I wanted to die when he rejected me.”

Iheun hadn’t accepted the offer immediately. They eventually ended up spending entire nights together—but not without hurdles.

Maybe because it was that Won Iheun, the magnificent bastard—despite all the rejections, no one else ever stirred Yeongung’s heart. His crush was his first love and, at the same time, his last.

“And now that I’m carrying his child, it really is my last.”

Closing his trip down memory lane, Yeongung shut the hardcover album. It drifted back to its place on the shelf with a gentle hum.

‘You have a new message.’

He checked his wearable immediately—half expecting a text from Iheun.

【Recipient: Yeongung

Sender: Tako Guild Emergency Line

CODE-9 detected at Seoul Hangang Jamsu Bridge.

All S-Team members—deploy immediately.】

“Code Nine…?”

Throwing on a rider jacket, Yeongung dialed someone while rushing out. Sanghui’s panicked voice burst through the phone.

[Hyung! Where are you!?]

“I’m on my way. But are you sure? Code Nine? We haven’t had one in years…!”

The number after “Code” indicated a Gate’s type. Nine was, regardless of Gate rank, the hardest kind to handle.

“What’s the projected Chimera count?”

Chimeras—the signature monsters of Code Nine Gates—devoured anything living, evolving into stronger forms with near-human intelligence. They were notoriously hard to subdue.

[…At least several hundred.]

Jamsu Bridge, closed to traffic and used for cultural events, was always crowded. If hundreds of Chimeras fell there—

“Fuck. The damn system doesn’t let me breathe.”

The thought alone sped his steps.

“When did the Gate open?”

[One hour ago. A fashion show model found it on the dressing room floor. Thought it was a small stain at first—but it grew every time she changed outfits, so she finally reported it.]

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Evacuate civilians. Request the Association to put a dome barrier around Jamsu Bridge—Han River apartment owners will cause hell if property values drop. Prep our team for entry.”

[Got it. But hyung, are you with the Master right now?]

“Won Iheun? No, he’s not here.”

[Everyone’s losing their minds right now, and our guildmaster hasn’t shown his face since morning. Where the hell is he?]

“What? …Damn. Fine. I’ll find him. Sanghui, move exactly as instructed.”

[Yes, sir.]

Ending the call, Yeongung headed toward the elevator to the underground parking lot—when someone else suddenly tapped their access card first.

“Unfair, isn’t it? The guildmaster you mentioned is out here working his legs off.”

Startled, Yeongung grabbed his stomach protectively.

“Jesus—! Don’t do that! You’ll scare the baby out—just—don’t pop out of nowhere like that! Do it again and I’ll ki— no, I’ll… I won’t let it slide!”

Iheun’s gaze dropped to the hands shielding Yeongung’s abdomen.

“Let’s go together. My telekinesis is faster.”

Embarrassed by the stares, Yeongung shoved his hands deep into his jacket pockets.

“…We’re taking the car.”