Chapter 12: A Fragile Stability

It was Min Seonghye, just as Yunhwan had suspected. The moment he confirmed the familiar face, a mixture of heavy concern and a weary sigh escaped his lips.

“…Seonghye.”

Why were bad premonitions never wrong? He had noticed how often Junseong and Manager Park’s gazes lingered on this specific vehicle. He figured Seonghye would be nearby because of the imprinting, but he hadn’t expected him to be right under his nose.

Whether he had lost consciousness or simply collapsed, Seonghye sat motionless with his head bowed. From beneath his lowered face, drops of blood were falling steadily—drip, drip. Seeing the man sitting there like a corpse, bleeding from his nose, Yunhwan reached for the towel tucked into his back pocket.

That’s when a voice spoke.

“They say when a person undergoes a rapid emotional shift, the capillaries can just burst.”

Manager Park had leaned his head in behind Yunhwan at some point.

“Things keep popping like that one by one. Doctor Kim says it’s a side effect of the imprinting.”

Yunhwan’s Adam’s apple bobbed heavily at the grim explanation.

“Since when…?”

“Since the day he was separated from you.”

It wasn’t just the separation. Because the meeting with Yunhwan was delayed day after day for the sake of “examinations,” Seonghye’s personality had grown more violent with each passing hour.

It was a person far removed from the Seonghye Manager Park knew. Even accounting for the memory gap, this stranger threw fits dozens of times a day. It was enough to drive anyone mad.

And he was so incredibly sensitive.

“It’s strange. I wonder how a guy like him ended up imprinting on a plain person like you. And to top it off—”

Manager Park tapped a large fist into his open palm.

“—that he went crazy and imprinted at first sight, without even any sexual contact.”

Manager Park stared at Yunhwan with a look of genuine confusion. No matter how he looked at him, the man sitting by Seonghye’s side, doing his best to stop the bleeding, was just… ordinary.

It was still hard to believe that this man’s absence was causing fatal damage to Seonghye’s body and mind.

It had been decades since humanity began to be divided into three types. While ordinary people were used to meeting, falling in love, and forming relationships, people like Seonghye possessed a “third sense” that shattered that normalcy.

Terms like “imprinting” and “pheromones” were dismissed as nonsense when first discovered, but now they were socially packaged and integrated into standard education curricula.

Of course, skeptical views remained—people like Manager Park, who wondered if it was really necessary to learn all this for the sake of 10% of the population.

“Mr. Kwon Yunhwan, do you feel anything?”

Manager Park pushed his large frame further into the car, his hand gripping the seat. At the sight of the yellowish crown of Park’s head appearing like a faded lightbulb, Yunhwan spoke in a small voice.

“No. Nothing at all.”

“Seems that way.”

In contrast to Seonghye, whose breathing had returned to normal, Yunhwan showed no peculiarities; he was simply focused on the bleeding. Manager Park scanned the scene with a lukewarm gaze, noting Seonghye’s calmed face and Yunhwan watching over him as he leaned against his shoulder.

“When you’re done, bring him out. Lay him down in the room.”

Despite everything, the atmosphere the two created was strangely stable. I guess imprinting really is a real thing, Park thought.

The storm had passed, and the yard of the country house was quiet again. On the leafy persimmon tree next to the warehouse, birds—whether the same ones or new ones, it was hard to tell—returned to chirp and flutter as they always did.

While Yunhwan, Seonghye, and Manager Hong (who was carrying Seonghye on his back) moved busily inside the house, a private conversation took place outside. It was Junseong and Manager Park.

“We came back down here because of your stubbornness, Doctor Kim, but will this actually work? If something goes wrong and it reaches the Chairman’s ears…”

Manager Park rubbed out his short cigarette butt against the wall and continued.

“How are you going to handle the aftermath?”

Next to where Yunhwan had been sitting, two copies of the contract lay solitary. Junseong stopped folding them and looked up at Manager Park.

“You’re the one who needs to work hard to make sure it doesn’t reach the Old Man’s ears, Manager.”

“Good grief… watch your mouth. You were a scholarship student for our company. Calling the Chairman who paid for six years of med school an ‘Old Man’?”

“Paying for six years of study to get a medical license with that money is the biggest stain on my life.”

As Junseong bowed his head to finish folding the contracts, the sound of a lighter flicked, and Manager Park’s blunt voice pierced his ears.

“Since you have the license, use it well so it’s not a waste. If you fix Seonghye, won’t that ‘biggest stain’ on your life be diluted a bit? He’s your patient, too.”

The acrid cigarette smoke dispersed quickly in the air, but when it cleared, Junseong looked up with a sharp gaze.

“Manager, you should stop pretending to worry about Seonghye and actually worry about him for real.”

“What?”

Mid-light, Manager Park let out a hollow, offended laugh.

“Bringing Seonghye to a place like this where he has no connections was a mistake from the start. That’s why the kid ran out every night and caused a scene until that accident happened.”

Junseong found the timing of Seonghye’s move to Sanghui-ri suspicious as well. It happened right before Seonghye’s management training was to begin in earnest, just before his official appointment.

Moreover, while the Chairman had ordered Seonghye to be tied down in a remote area for a while, it was Manager Park who had specifically picked Sanghui-ri.

The more he chewed on it, the more suspicious the circumstances felt. Junseong gathered these doubts and poured them onto the man in front of him. A subtle flicker passed over Manager Park’s face.

“Unbelievable… suspicion is a disease. You’re that upset that Seonghye took a break in a place with good air and water? And Doctor Kim, you always lump me and the Chairman together like some ‘Axis of Evil,’ but I’m just a salaryman. If the higher-ups order it, I have no choice.”

Smoke he hadn’t even fully inhaled leaked through Park’s twisted lips. Through the gray haze, Junseong replied with an unmoving, calm face.

“If that’s how it sounded to you, then I suppose that’s what it is.”

“…I think you’re laboring under a massive misunderstanding, Doctor Kim.”

“Is that so? Perhaps it’s because I’ve dealt with so much nonsense lately. I find it very suspicious why Seonghye—whose pheromones were fluctuating and who was due for a company posting—had to be kept here. And with Kwon Yunhwan right next to him, no less.”

His voice dropped significantly as he mentioned the name, but his gaze didn’t flinch. Junseong didn’t hide his persistence, and Manager Park blew smoke through his teeth, looking thoroughly annoyed.

“That man… it feels like someone you’ve known for a long time, Manager.”

“That guy?”

At such blatant shamelessness, a bitter smile escaped Junseong’s lips. This was why he hated the people from this company. From Manager Park, the Chairman’s right-hand man, to the employees he commanded, even down to the security guards in the lobby—to Junseong, none of them were without a mask.

He stood up with one copy of the contract, his brow furrowed.

“Don’t take me for a fool…. Whatever past connection you had with Kwon Yunhwan is none of my business. What I’m saying is, make sure no more problems arise for Seonghye.”

The remaining copy of the contract was left neatly on the porch for Manager Park. Junseong turned and headed into the house, as if he didn’t even need to hear an answer.

The paper left behind soon found its way into Manager Park’s hand.

He exhaled thick smoke onto the crisp, folded paper. His face, having heard exactly the answer he wanted, looked utterly satisfied.

“Right. You just do your best then.”

The man shrugged and walked out toward the gate.

“There are some kids in this world who just love to complicate their own lives.”

“…….”

“The kind who have to taste the dirt to know it’s dirt.”

“…Hyung.”

“To me, that looks like you.”

Sitting on the jade-colored linoleum floor below the bed, Manager Hong let out a clicking sound with his tongue. His gaze had been full of disapproval and pity toward Yunhwan for a while now.

Yunhwan, the junior with a misplaced sense of responsibility, pretended not to notice the look and was preoccupied with taking care of Seonghye, who was lying on the bed. He had even prepared cold water with ice in case Seonghye woke up from the heat.

“…You.”

Does this guy actually want to be a servant?

Just as Manager Hong’s expression was turning sour while watching Yunhwan’s antics.

Yunhwan, having pulled the thin summer blanket up to Seonghye’s chest, reached for the oscillating fan that was currently running.

Rattle, rattle. The noisy blades quieted down as soon as he switched the setting from ‘Medium’ to ‘Low.’ Manager Hong, who had been watching this deliberately, muttered a curse to himself.

“Is there no such thing as human rights in this house?”

He pointed a green folding fan toward the window.

“In this insane heat, am I supposed to give up my moral character for the sake of that one fan?”

Manager Hong looked ready to explode at the sight of the fan, which looked like it would tip over if flicked. He wondered where Yunhwan had even found such a thing; looking at the manufacturer, it was one of those companies where the product never breaks and lasts forever unless you throw it away.

“Sorry. I thought it might be too loud while he’s sleeping.”

Yunhwan turned his head, trying to ignore Hong’s sweat-drenched face. He was currently busy adjusting the environment so that Seonghye could sleep deeply without waking up.