Chapter 14: Dangerous Innocence

Under the weight of the indiscriminate gaze pouring toward him, Yunhwan, who had been standing with his back to the door, slowly turned around.

“…….”

As expected.

The source of that raw, unfamiliar heat was indeed Seonghye. As Yunhwan turned back, a turbulent wave rose in Seonghye’s eyes the moment he locked onto him.

Yunhwan was the first to speak.

“Did you… sleep well?”

He greeted Seonghye, trying his best to act nonchalant. Though he wasn’t typically the type to get nervous, he couldn’t maintain his composure in front of Seonghye. Like a metronome that wouldn’t stop, the interval between Yunhwan’s heartbeats grew shorter and shorter.

On the other hand, Seonghye…

“…….”

The glint in his eyes as he stared at Yunhwan was both peculiar and chilling.

It was a day of brutal heat, with emergency alerts for heatstroke blaring every hour. Despite the weather being enough to overwhelm any grown man—and having just fainted from a nosebleed—the man stood there with such stability he looked as if he were taking root in the floor.

His pale skin, contrasted against a dark navy tee and black slacks, made his presence even more distinct. His physique, reminiscent of a torso modeled after an ancient myth, exuded strength and elegance even through the thin fabric. To Yunhwan, it was enough to trigger a threatening sense of tension.

I almost died trying to stop that man…

Facing the warning lights flashing in his mind, Yunhwan swallowed hard instinctively.

Seeing this, Seonghye—who had been watching him with a quiet gaze—slowly tilted his head.

“Why are you… nervous?”

His voice, coming from a throat that had been closed for a long time, was rough and cracked at the edges. He let out a low vibration in his throat and murmured again.

“Is it because of me?”

“…….”

“Because I’m here?”

In his eyes, which looked like they were shrouded in deep night mist, there was a glimpse of dangerously pure innocence. The man who had been knocked off the tracks of his life in an instant didn’t seem to resent Yunhwan for it; instead, he was blindly seeking answers from him.

“Do I make you uncomfortable, Hyung?”

“…Uh…?”

Yunhwan’s eyes fixed on Seonghye’s face again.

The smooth face, free of scars or wrinkles, did look youthful, but the Seonghye Yunhwan remembered always had a chilling aura, destroying and ruining everything his hands touched or his feet trod upon.

The remnants of Min Seonghye’s past from before his memory loss were still so powerful that Yunhwan could only blink like a fool at the honorific the man had just used.

“…….”

A subtle silence filled the room, the only sound being the breathing of the two men. As if an invisible boundary line existed, the man standing tall at the door held his breath and stared at Yunhwan.

Just as his shadowed face began to observe Yunhwan and his surroundings even more keenly.

“Uh, well….”

After awkwardly parting his lips, Yunhwan slowly shook his head.

“You’re not… uncomfortable, so you can stop asking.”

Yunhwan, whose hands and clothes were dusty from searching for books, turned and threw the bedroom window wide open. Seonghye’s eyes followed Yunhwan’s every movement without missing a beat.

Clearing his throat several times, Yunhwan glanced toward the window.

“As you can see, it’s the countryside, so you’ll be very bored. There’s nowhere to go for fun, and it probably looks dull just glancing at it.”

It would be boring and stifling. Nothing suited Seonghye less than being tedious or old-fashioned; Yunhwan believed this was a matter of innate temperament rather than memory. If so, would the current Seonghye be any different from before?

In the end, Yunhwan thought that this Seonghye might run away just like the one before he lost his memory.

“This place… is going to be very dull for you.”

Yunhwan’s gaze turned toward the view outside. Seonghye’s eyebrows twitched subtly as he watched him.

Yunhwan took a moment to appreciate the open, scenic landscape. But when a cold, indifferent voice that didn’t match the scenery cut in, his attention was pulled back.

“What does that matter?”

As if asking ‘Isn’t the countryside always like that?’ the man looked at Yunhwan.

“Hyung, as for me…”

“…….”

“As long as you are here, I can’t get bored of this place.”

Watching Yunhwan, Seonghye confessed in a low, sunken tone.

“You don’t know what I went through… just to be here at this moment.”

Strength gathered in his voice as it trailed off.

“…You probably don’t know, Hyung.”

Squinting slightly while watching Yunhwan, Seonghye then stared indifferently out the window at the shimmering heat.

“And I like the countryside.”

“…….”

“The sky is blue and the ground is green.”

With an expression devoid of any real emotion, Seonghye rattled off a textbook answer. The eyes that briefly glanced out the window and the monotonous, mechanical commentary were both colorless and odorless. His interest was still focused solely on Kwon Yunhwan, as if nothing else was worth caring about.

As if to prove this, Seonghye spoke to Yunhwan without hesitation.

“I want to be by your side.”

“…….”

The fingertips gripping the old doorframe twitched as if they might reach out at any second.

“Please tell me I can. Give me permission.”

He was seeking Yunhwan’s permission. While suffering from the destructive impulse to embrace Yunhwan and breathe in his scent immediately, he instinctively sensed the danger that doing so might mean never seeing Yunhwan again.

In the space left by the memory gap, an animalistic sixth sense created by the imprinting had moved in to fill the void.

The unpleasant sensation that this person must not be handled roughly and that he was afraid of him spread through Seonghye’s veins to every corner of his body.

Setting aside the theoretical concepts of Alphas and Omegas, this was possible because his entire world had been reorganized around the man in front of him.

Seonghye’s fingertips slid down the doorframe with the sound of skin dragging. His head felt numb from the explosive emotions erupting over a single person.

When he bowed his head as if about to collapse, Yunhwan suddenly snapped out of it.

Regaining his senses with effort, Yunhwan finally forced out his voice.

“…Y-you can come over here.”

Seonghye raised his head blankly. Like a dream, his ink-black eyes were hazy and unfocused.

“It’s okay.”

The moment permission was granted, Seonghye closed the distance with long strides. His expression, which had looked precarious like cracked glass, shifted into one of relief as he got closer to Yunhwan.

As the distance vanished in the blink of an eye, Yunhwan finally realized.

The man breathing heavily within arm’s reach was Min Seonghye, but he was not the Min Seonghye he knew.

Above the eyes where the night mist was slowly receding, clear and bright ripples were constantly shimmering. The shape of his eyes as he looked at Yunhwan was long and clean. After failing to hide his passionate emotions since the moment he found Yunhwan, the man was finally able to speak to him directly.

Standing face-to-face with Yunhwan, Seonghye’s eyes sparkled like a lake reflecting light.

He smiled quietly and said:

“I missed you.”

Min Seonghye had returned. Here, to Sanghui-ri.

The first thing the returned man did was neither explore the changed environment nor confirm that he had escaped the destructive madness that had tormented him for weeks.

By reuniting with Yunhwan, the man had finally taken root in this land again, and he hoped—willingly—to be bound to Yunhwan. To Seonghye, Yunhwan was that kind of existence. A force like inertia or gravity that a mere human body cannot resist or refuse.

And from this background, a single intense emotion was derived—

A blind craving for affection, stemming from a one-sided imprint.

Junseong and Manager Park, who had rushed to see the two upon hearing that Seonghye had awakened, were ironically banned from the house by Seonghye. He claimed he didn’t want the scent of others mixing into the home that had suddenly become a space for just him and Yunhwan.

“Don’t you dare come inside.”

The warning voice was chilling.

Manager Park stared at Seonghye, wondering what kind of nonsense this was, but Junseong raised both hands and backed away willingly, intending not to provoke him.

Once only the two of them remained in the house, Seonghye’s entire focus was poured onto Yunhwan. It was so intense that even Yunhwan, whose five senses had been dulled over the years, found it hard to ignore.

“Hyung.”

Suddenly, Seonghye’s cool gaze swallowed Yunhwan deep.

“What kind of person was I?”

At the pure question, devoid of any hidden intent, Yunhwan blinked like a fool.

“…Huh?”

Then, thin eyelids trembled as if they would make a sound, closing over black pupils before opening again. His eyes showed even more curiosity toward Yunhwan.

“I heard from the people outside. That we lived together before I lost my memory.”

“…Yeah, that’s right.”

Despite the vague agreement, Seonghye’s questions showed no sign of stopping.

“Did I listen to you well?”

“…You did?”

Flustered, Yunhwan reflexively asked back, his eyes darting around. Seonghye gave a light nod.

“Uh… you were….”

While Yunhwan was agonizing over what to say to a kid with no memory, Seonghye, standing quietly in front of him, tugged at the end of his old sleeve. He was subtly urging him for an answer.