Chapter 14
As soon as Yugyeom was out of sight of the men guarding the door, he wiped the smile from his lips.
The moonlight from the window illuminated his stiff face as he walked, unconscious of his increasing pace.
He didn’t know why his breath was coming harder with each step.
He felt nauseous, filled with an emotion he’d never felt before. It was a feeling he could only describe as malaise.
The eyes staring back at him were imprinted on him and wouldn’t go away.
As he tightened his loose tie and turned the corner, he bumped right into the person coming from the other direction, his body tilting backward, unable to handle the speed at which he was walking.
He fell backwards, a hand gripping his jaw tightly as he flailed in the air.
“Uh…… what the fuck!”
Rubbing his throbbing tailbone, he lifted his head to meet Yugyeom’s face, his eyes widening with embarrassment.
His mouth fell open in a straight line.
“Chan-ah.”
Looking down at him, Yugyeom wrapped his hand around my scowl.
“Where are you going?”
His voice was friendly, but there was a strange edge to it.
A normal person wouldn’t have noticed, but Ichan, who’d been using his eyes to guide him for 27 years, was quick to recognize it. Perhaps even more than the horse’s owner.
Maybe it was her.
She was definitely worthy of the name of Baek Hawon’s sister.
“Wow. After three days, you suddenly brought Baek Hawon’s sister and left her with me, and I didn’t even see her nose, so I thought something else was going on, haha.”
The words came out smoothly, but not naturally. Yugyeom pulled his hand out of Yi Chan’s grasp with a cheerful smile.
The corners of Yugyeom’s mouth curled up as he let go of his hand obediently.
Seeing something familiar made the complexity of the moment feel like a dream that would be forgotten once he woke up.
Yes, familiarity, that would be all.
The number of people who had reached out with sympathetic hands was already beyond familiar.
The beautiful bastard child of utopia, a name that had always been so tempting to possess. People had come to her, drawn near, and then left because of it.
So this time would be no different.
“Have you seen Cha Yeon-byul since the first day?”
Yugyeom started walking in the direction he’d come from, and Yi Chan followed.
Utopia’s buildings were enclosed, but the 56th-floor hallway, where Yugyeom’s room was located, had an all-glass wall that wrapped around the curving corridor from the outside, giving him an unobstructed view of the city below his feet.
The night sky, as far as I could reach with my hands, resembled my hair in the wind. The pupils of the eyes that looked back at me might have been the same color.
As I overlapped the memories, I realized that I was not looking at the sky but at the night sea that day.
Or, more precisely, the back of his head, looking down at the night sea.
“We met.”
Yugyeom’s short answer brought a cold smile to his lips.
It was the first time he had seen her since the day he brought her here.
I’d be lying if I said I’d seen her sleep.
Her reaction was partly expected and partly not.
I knew she’d be flustered, but I didn’t expect her to take it so bluntly.
“By the way, do you know what I just heard?”
Even though he kept his voice low, Ichan was giddy with excitement.
It wasn’t uncommon for him to wander off in a huff, so Yugyeom didn’t pay much attention to him, but he swiped his fingerprint on the device on the door and stepped into the room.
His outstretched legs made their way past the long conference table and stopped in front of the wall.
He pulled back the blackout curtains that stretched from the high ceiling and completely covered the wall, revealing a jumble of notes and photos.
“You know the smuggling of the oil paintings has been working on for months, going to great lengths to get them in without taking the middle route.”
“Don’t you know what my father was expecting?”
Yugyeom replied nonchalantly, reaching for a photo on the wall.
It was tucked away in an out-of-the-way corner, a picture of someone who wasn’t part of the plan.
“I see. But Baek Chun intercepted it in the middle.”
Baek Chun. Hearing those words, Yugyeom dropped his hand that hadn’t reached the photo and turned his head toward Yi Chan.
“Baek Chun?”
This was definitely something he hadn’t expected.
Baekchun and Utopia hadn’t always gotten along from the beginning.
It was Bai Chen who had betrayed Utopia’s second-in-command and left the organization.
Since then, Bai Chen has grown in size at an alarming rate, and at some point, he has surpassed Utopia.
As such, Utopia’s hatred for them has been passed down through the generations.
However, it was usually Utopia who was the one who did the touching, and Bai Chen rarely touched them directly.
“Something’s wrong,” Utopia said, “We may have stolen something from the cruise ship that day, but how many times has Bai Chen messed with us like that before, but he’s never been so open about it?”
It wasn’t hard to guess why.
“I must have picked up something big.”
Cha Yeon-byul. The Princess of a Thousand.
Rolling the name over in his mind, Yugyeom let out a laugh that even he couldn’t make out the meaning of.
“I might have to go see her every day.”
It was clear that he would lose out if he missed out on what he could get out of her, so why not give in to something that wasn’t too difficult.
What I thought was a ridiculous request had suddenly become a reality.
But what is this ambiguous feeling?
I felt like I was holding sand in my hand, even though I knew I had a good hand.
“I’ll take the kid for a ride and then call Bai Chen in three days.”
Yi Chan smirked. It was the kind of laugh that made him look like an evil villain when he thought about what he could get away with.
Suddenly, Yugyeom’s hand was holding the photo he’d been looking at earlier. The glow of the lights illuminated the face of a woman in a colorful red dress.
“But you don’t have to be nice, do you? You can just lock up your room and have a few kids watch over you. Why would I need to watch over you in your room?”
Ichan’s eyes twinkled as he added the last thing he wanted to say.
Yugyeom studied his face in the photo, fingering the glittering piercings in his ears.
“You’ve grown up so beautifully, and if something happens to you while you’re out there, won’t you be more tired? It’s better to take the safe route, even if it’s a bit of a hassle.”
Ichan’s sparkling eyes narrowed as if he were counting the possible contingencies. He thought briefly, then ran a hand through his hair.
“I see. I don’t want to mess with him when he’s not his usual self…….”
Yugyeom let out a low chuckle, and slowly pasted the photo over the name at the center of all the notes and photos.
His lips curled around his fingertips, expressionless.
* * *
Five days in Utopia. Every day of his hostage life had been the same. Yesterday was the same as yesterday, with the exception of Yugyeom, but today started the same way.
“Hey, will you wake up already?! It’s already two o’clock!”
Ichan’s unexpected wake-up call made me jump up again today.
Unlike last night’s thunderstorm, the sunlight streaming into the large room was enough to melt me.
I squinted at the mess and ran a hand through my sweaty hair. My whole body was drenched in sweat.
I don’t remember much, but I’m pretty sure I had a nightmare again today.
It was like this every time I slept. At this rate, I might not be exaggerating when I say that I’m going to suffer from a mental illness.
“Ugh…… me water…….”
I buried my face in my hands and groaned, and Yi Chan clicked his tongue, but I could hear his footsteps, so I knew he was going to bring it to me again today.
He’s got such a weird personality.
I knew he could turn from smiling to pointing a gun at me in an instant, but for now, I was trusting that he’d be okay.
Ichan was surprisingly generous to the weak. Though he was ruthless if they got in his way.
I hoped he’d see me as the mindless, Yugyeom-seeking person he’d been for days.
“Wake up.”
I gulped down the cold water in the cup he’d brought me, and my mind cleared.
Looking at himself in the full-length mirror on the dresser, he was dressed in a neat, plain black suit. Even his tousled poodle hair is quite calm.
In his hand, he held a strange black mask.
“What is this?”
While he was engrossed in his reflection in the mirror, I coldly reached out and snatched the mask from his hand.
The unadorned black mask was large enough to cover my entire face, so it was hard to tell who was wearing it.
“Is collecting masks your hobby?”
I laughed while covering my face with the mask, and Ichan looked uncharacteristically serious. His eyes widened as if he suddenly realized something, and he scurried over to the long table next to the couch.
“This is better, isn’t it?”
After a long, careful glance at the table, Ichan picked up a unicorn-colored mask with rainbow-colored feathers on each side.
I nodded, trying to stifle a giggle.
I glanced over from my bed, still under the covers, and saw a table full of colorful masks. Intrigued, I slid off the bed and walked over to Ichan’s side.
“Are we going to a masquerade ball?”
There was more variety in the masks than I had seen from afar. It was hard to tell which was the strangest.
“The rule is that you have to wear a mask. It’s an event that happens every five years, and the purpose is to discover talented people who have been rotting in the corners. Do you really think you’ll be able to compete if you’re up against an executive?”
“That’s an oddly meticulous rule.”
“It’s okay. Can’t you see my handsomeness? Is it still not enough?”
Yi Chan looked down at me through the unicorn mask. Surely, the mask’s presence was too great to give him away.
But I don’t think he’s the only one who would wear something like this. Isn’t he just announcing that he’s an idiot?
“I think this would look better on you.”
I picked up the red see-through mask, grinning like a child playing a prank.
Without warning, a hand reached out from behind and wrapped around mine. The hand was surprisingly cold, with blue veins showing beneath skin whiter than sunlight.
“Really?”
His breath tickled my ear.
“You think this looks good on him?”
The voice, so close to my ear, sent goosebumps down my spine.
“Ah!”
I cupped my hands over my ears and turned around to see Yugyeom laughing out loud, his eyes languidly folding down at the corners.
