Chapter 7: If You Run, I’ll Kill You

“What… what are you saying?”

He had to have heard wrong.

Maybe something had gone wrong with his head in the meantime.

That was the first thought that came to mind, because the words he’d just heard made no sense at all.

They were absolutely not something that should be said in a situation like this.

“Marriage.”

At Chae Woo-seok’s voice, firmly driving the point home, the fake tears that had been pooling in Go Ha-jin’s eyes stopped mid-fall.

He blinked rapidly.

His mouth hung open, stupidly, not even a breath escaping.

Yeah, this guy really must be insane.

“Could you… get off me first?”

What about Woo-seok’s face?

Behind his playful smile, his eyes were filled with emotions that were hard to read, whether serious or joking, impossible to tell.

It was the kind of attitude that should have been brushed off as a joke without a second thought, and yet Ha-jin found himself feeling, oddly enough, that Woo-seok might actually mean it.

“Answer me first. Are you going to marry me, or are you just going to stay here and-”

Woo-seok showed no intention of moving.

Instead, he pressed the knife in his hand gently against Ha-jin’s wrist.

It was the flat of the blade, but Ha-jin didn’t know that, and he felt as though his wrist could be severed at any second.

If his luck turned bad, that blade might not stop at his wrist, it could just as easily end up in his neck.

“Okay! Okay, I get it, so please-put the knife down first!”

There was no time to think it through.

If an alpha with Chae Woo-seok’s background committed murder, what would happen?

It would almost certainly be ruled self-defense.

And if the victim happened to be a con artist who’d been scamming Gangnam alphas with fake marriage schemes, society might even applaud him.

Judging by his appearance and the current situation alone, Ha-jin was convinced this man wouldn’t hesitate to kill someone without batting an eye.

“Put it down?”

“P-please… put it down…”

Only then did the knife and the hand pressing down on his wrist withdraw.

The weight pinning down his chest vanished just as abruptly.

“Haa…”

Even so, it still felt as if something heavy was crushing his chest.

Like a stone weighing him down, Ha-jin couldn’t even move his fingertips.

He lay sprawled on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, gasping for breath.

He had no idea what was happening anymore.

The carefully prepared scam had been exposed, and on top of that, the target had suddenly proposed marriage.

This had to be a dream… right?

“Let’s start.”

“…Start what?”

In the meantime, Woo-seok rummaged through the bag Ha-jin had brought back from the convenience store and pulled out a can of beer.

At the sharp pop of the tab opening, Ha-jin flinched and pushed himself upright, unable to understand what Woo-seok was saying.

“I didn’t really like the omega property you showed me at the real estate office last time. But this scammer listing? It’s pretty interesting. Go on, introduce yourself properly. Make me feel like I actually want to buy you.”

Leaning back against the sofa with one arm draped over the backrest, he spoke casually while drinking his beer.

The arrogance was infuriating.

But this wasn’t the time to nitpick over that.

As he said, solving this through conversation wasn’t a bad option for Ha-jin either.

He didn’t believe for a second that Woo-seok genuinely wanted to marry him, but at the very least, he needed to hold his interest.

If he could buy time, he might find a chance to escape.

“And the price…?”

“What?”

“You said the listing interests you. If so, there has to be a price. Depends on how you plan to use it, of course.”

Woo-seok’s movement paused mid-sip.

Then a loud laugh filled the living room.

It wasn’t mocking laughter, it sounded genuinely amused.

Seeing him laugh this openly was a first.

“You.”

“…Yes?”

“Your life sounds like a fair price.”

There was still a trace of laughter in Woo-seok’s voice.

But the beer can in his hand crumpled instantly, metal folding like paper as the remaining beer spilled onto the floor.

The crushed can hit the ground with a sharp clang.

It was as if he were saying that if Ha-jin showed even the slightest dissatisfaction with that price, this would be his future.

“Don’t even think about scheming. There are hundreds of ways I could kill someone like you.”

This was going to be… a very long conversation.

****

Every time Go Ha-jin opened his mouth, Chae Woo-seok found himself at a loss for words.

He’d already heard it, about how Ha-jin had no family, had never lived in the States, how his education was all fake.

But what followed was even more absurd.

“You don’t have a real name?”

“…No.”

“That makes no sense. How do you live in Korea without a name?”

“Money’s all you need. Buying a suitable name and identity isn’t hard.”

Whether out of resignation or something else, Ha-jin obediently laid bare his true self.

There was no way to know how much of it was true, but it didn’t feel like a lie.

If anything, the fact that he volunteered information Woo-seok hadn’t even asked for suggested he was quick-witted.

If he’d been too obviously holding back even now, Woo-seok might’ve lost interest altogether.

“Go Ha-jin, then?”

“…That name cost me seven million won.”

That part was true.

The price was that high only because he was registered as an omega.

If he’d been listed as a regular beta, it would’ve been much cheaper.

“And your trait? That can’t be fake.”

Woo-seok asked with confidence.

He’d met more than enough omegas to know.

Ha-jin didn’t just have the look of an omega, his pheromones, too, were different from the norm.

At least that much had to be real.

“…That’s fake too. Do you think a dominant omega would be crazy enough to run scams? I’d be making money just sitting around.”

Woo-seok felt a headache coming on.

This little bastard had played him beautifully.

If he hadn’t caught the inconsistency with a casual question, he might’ve been blindsided completely.

Judging by the throbbing at the back of his head, maybe he already had been.

“The pheromones.”

“Those are just… haah… something I made myself. Perfume. Just perfume.”

Ha-jin was an extremely recessive omega, to the point where his natural pheromones were barely detectable.

Unless he entered a heat cycle, omega pheromones weren’t usually that strong anyway.

That was common knowledge.

So Ha-jin had sourced the raw materials himself and blended a custom ‘pheromone perfume.’

It wasn’t officially available in Korea yet, but among prostitution rings centered in Russia, it was quietly spreading.

Due to biological traits, only alphas, excluding omegas and betas, could detect the scent.

“Ha… you’re more of a find than I expected.”

Maybe it was because Ha-jin lived a life so different from his own.

Woo-seok found his existence genuinely fascinating.

Living off countless scams, owning a house, not impressive, but still, and never once getting caught by the police or anyone else.

His interest deepened.

It wasn’t what he’d originally wanted, but that didn’t matter.

This, in its own way, was intriguing.

“Put in your number. I’ll contact you again.”

Maybe he’d finally found the person he’d been waiting for.

****

“Yeah, it’s me. Sell my place.”

–What the hell are you talking about all of a sudden?

“It just turned out that way. As fast as possible.”

–What happened?

“f*ck, I hit a land mine this time. I’m completely screwed. I need to get out of here, now.”

Grabbing whatever he could, Go Ha-jin asked Teacher Lee to liquidate the property.

He’d have to sell it well below market price, but when it came to raising cash fast, there was no one better.

Questions followed, how he’d managed to screw up so badly, who the target had been, but Ha-jin didn’t answer.

He hadn’t called to vent.

–Cash?

“No, wire it. Send it to our usual account.”

Time was critical.

Woo-seok had left without incident, but there was no guarantee the same would hold true next time.

He might change his mind and send the police, or a private security firm.

For all he knew, rumors about Go Ha-jin being a con artist were already spreading across Gangnam.

But even worse than rumors was the chilling gaze Woo-seok had fixed on him, like he was about to make a move.

That face was hard to shake from his mind.

“Incheon Airport, please.”

He didn’t pack much.

Given his line of work, the most valuable things he owned were clothes and accessories.

He stuffed only the most expensive items into a single bag and immediately hailed a taxi.

Less than an hour had passed since Woo-seok left.

Being ready to abandon a residence at any moment was second nature to Ha-jin.

He’d never imagined a job going wrong, but he’d always left room for the possibility.

He decided to go to Japan, a place nearly as familiar as Korea, where he’d grown up.

He couldn’t stay in one country too long while scamming, so he regularly moved between Korea and Japan.

This round had been Korea, but getting caught by Woo-seok forced him to leave earlier than planned.

And with nothing to show for it.

No, worse.

He hadn’t even recovered the money he’d invested to maintain his fake identity.

“Going on a trip?”

“Hah… yeah, something like that.”

His wrist still ached where Woo-seok had grabbed it.

It hadn’t been a hard grip, but a vivid red mark remained on his pale arm, like a tattoo.

While facing him, Ha-jin had realized something.

This man was someone he could never defeat, no matter what he tried.

Compared to when they’d met under false pretenses, Woo-seok felt like an entirely different person.

Overwhelming.

Terrifying.

A sense of helplessness he couldn’t put into words washed over him.

“There’s a bit of traffic. You can sleep, I’ll wake you when we arrive.”

Regret crept in.

He shouldn’t have ignored those flashes of sharpness he’d occasionally sensed beneath Woo-seok’s rumored image as a reckless idiot.

He should’ve paid closer attention.

Still, he comforted himself with the thought that this wasn’t the worst possible outcome.

He’d tried to scam Chae Woo-seok and gotten caught, and yet he was still alive, with all his limbs intact.

The talk of marriage couldn’t be real.

What unsettled him most was how unreadable Woo-seok was.

Escaping like this already felt like a stroke of luck.

As the tension that had pushed him to his limits slowly eased, drowsiness washed over him.

Once he confirmed the taxi had left Seoul, he closed his eyes.

Only then did he feel safe enough to breathe.

His pounding heart gradually returned to a normal rhythm.

****

Click. Click.

The steady sound of metal brushing together reached his ears, and Go Ha-jin slowly lifted his heavy eyelids.

At first, he couldn’t see anything.

It took a while to realize he was inside a darkened car.

He’d definitely fallen asleep in the taxi headed for Incheon Airport.

Yet outside the window was nothing but pitch-black darkness.

Then, once more, click, followed by the faint smell of cigarette smoke.

“Awake?”

A voice he desperately didn’t want to hear reached him.

A man with a large build and piercing eyes.

With a hiss he drew on the filter, an orange ember flared in the dark.

It was as if that glow had transferred to the man’s eyes, his gaze burning as it fixed on Ha-jin.

“Come to think of it, I never gave you that warning.”

It was Chae Woo-seok, his voice still laced with easy laughter.

He began to move slowly.

Holding the cigarette in his left hand, he reached out with his right and gently cupped Ha-jin’s cheek.

If not for the situation, it might have seemed like an affectionate gesture.

Even so, Ha-jin couldn’t move an inch.

The gaze and the touch were both unbearably heavy.

The man exhaled a long stream of smoke and spoke again.

“If you run… I’ll kill you.”