L*st and Death

Isaac’s safehouse was located in Laseva, the capital and port city of Belzoras. It was a building indistinguishable from the many similar structures packed along streets mixing residential and commercial use—nothing that drew the eye.

Before dawn, Isaac and Siron entered the run-down commercial building. Traces of its past life as an office remained scattered throughout, but most of the rooms stood vacant, casting a desolate mood.

They opened a door disguised as a regular key-lock but actually fitted with a fingerprint recognition system, then ascended to the third floor. The safehouse could only be accessed via an internal staircase in one of the offices on the third floor, leading up to the fourth.

Soundproofed walls and floors, windows covered with blinds, dust-coated comms equipment, lightweight desks and cabinets easy to move, a two-person dining table and two chairs. There was no dirty motel bed, but the place still gave the impression of a cheap inn mashed up with a makeshift office.

Deeper inside was a bare, echoing room that reminded Siron disturbingly of Secreta’s hideouts—especially the pitch-black basement he’d once been imprisoned in. No windows, no furniture. Not even a mattress or a topper.

Siron tilted his head and drew in a short, sharp breath.

"Ugh, this place is too spartan. I’ve got insomnia—I can’t sleep in a dump like this."

Just days ago, he’d been sleeping like a baby in the island camp, much to the amazement of the other homeless, and now he was giving Isaac a sour look. Isaac ignored him completely, pulling three blankets and a first-aid kit from the cabinet.

"Shall I spread the blankets out for you on the floor?"

Siron reluctantly took the blankets and scanned the room awkwardly. They weren’t kids at summer camp—was it really okay for all three of them to lie down in a row like this? In the end, he laid the blankets down in a triangle, putting as much distance between them as geometrically possible.

"Let’s respect personal space, okay?"

Isaac snorted, catching Siron’s intention to stay as far as possible from both alphas. He laid Baekgyeong down in his spot—still unconscious. Without a word, Isaac took out antibiotics and injected them directly into Baekgyeong’s vein.

"Where’d you learn how to do that?"

"War zones. And books."

"Wow... quite the dramatic combo."

Siron chuckled weakly and approached Baekgyeong, checking his complexion. Just three days ago, his face had been ghost-white and his breathing slow, like a corpse. But two days ago, he’d started running a fever—his cheeks flushed, breath quickened.

"Why hasn’t the fever gone down?"

Isaac checked Baekgyeong’s fingertips and nodded.

"Could be sepsis."

Siron’s expression, which had been relatively upbeat until now, turned grim. He looked like someone who had just been told they themselves were dying—an expression of blank disbelief.

"Is it serious?"

"Probably early-stage sepsis. He’ll recover soon. I gave him antibiotics. If he can’t even survive this, then he has no business living as an alpha."

"Kyung’s always been a bit dramatic, and physically weak too. If it were just a cold, he’d be whining nonstop—but he’s not even conscious. Maybe we should take him to a hospital."

"If we booked one now, the soonest you’d get a consultation in Belzoras is six weeks out. This is the best we’ve got."

Isaac stood up and switched off the room’s light.

"You should get some sleep."

He pulled Siron toward the opposite side of Baekgyeong, dragging him to the farthest corner. When Siron tried to wave him off, Isaac forcibly laid him down and held his shoulder to keep him from rising.

"Ugh, I’m fine, I said I’m fine."

But Isaac had no intention of letting Siron break his decision. He extended one arm beneath Siron’s head and pressed the other hand to his forehead to keep him from sitting up.

A literal arm pillow.

Given their emotional distance, it was a shockingly intimate move.

When Siron squirmed and tried to remove the hand, Isaac grabbed him by the nose.

"Agh! Don’t pull! Stop that!"

"You’re not gonna die. Just go to sleep."

"Okay! Okay, fine!"

At Siron’s outburst, Isaac finally let go of his nose.

"Guess that hurt more than I thought."

"I swear to God, I’d return the favor blow for blow if I could."

Siron grumbled. Isaac smirked.

"Sleep. We’ll be busy starting tomorrow."

"What are we doing tomorrow?"

"I’ll tell you when the time comes."

Siron sighed loudly, sulking.

"I hate it when dramas don’t give a preview."

Isaac chuckled a beat late, finally getting the joke. Siron brushed off the hand still lingering on his face and muttered:

"And I don’t think we’re in the kind of relationship where casual touching like this is appropriate."

"Sounds to me like you're very aware of the contact."

"Yeah. I have a bit of a phobia about uninvited affection and attention."

Isaac snorted, amused. Siron told himself he should just shut up and pretend to sleep already—but the words wouldn’t stop coming. That loudmouthed little puppy inside him kept yapping without restraint.

"I told you before, right? I always got affection just for how I looked. But your attention? It’s worthless. Like stepping on a rock."

"I can’t get a read on you."

Isaac said:

"You say that, but then you were the one who kissed me first."

With that, Isaac slowly ran a calloused finger across Siron’s lips. The sensation was hot and rough—Siron imagined licking the dry pad of that finger, smoothing it with his tongue.

But afraid they’d end up provoking each other for no reason, he said nothing and focused on controlling his breathing.

“You can hate me and resent me all you want.

I already passed the point where I’d be willing to let you go.”

Hearing those words in the dark, face-to-face,

it would’ve been impossible not to kiss him.

“That was then. This is now.”

Siron slipped out of Isaac’s arm and got up.

He found the last point of the triangle and lay flat on the spare blanket.

He’d gotten used to sleeping in uncomfortable conditions back on the island, so one thin mat on cold concrete didn’t bother him.

But it still took him a very long time to fall asleep.

Isaac knelt beside Baekgyeong’s head and pried open his eyelid. When he shone a penlight into the black iris—slightly rolled upward and unfocused—the pupil contracted faintly. The response was sluggish, but it meant the eye still reacted to light. If things stayed this way until morning, Baekgyeong would regain consciousness.

“I can’t let something that troublesome happen. Wouldn’t you agree?”

The drug Sonia had been carrying was one Isaac knew all too well. It was a long-established compound called Somernol—a powerful sedative with anesthetic properties. When mixed with sodium chloride, it took on a faint purple hue. Upon ingestion, it suppressed REM sleep and plunged the subject into a deep, unconscious state. An overdose would induce coma.

Somernol was developed in the underground labs of BRI. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say it was born of Isaac’s own sacrifice. Designed with the alpha body in mind—whose metabolism processed drugs quickly—it had been weaponized into tranquilizer darts by Hybris and used in place of rut suppressants.

Isaac pried open Baekgyeong’s mouth, lifted the tongue that had curled inward, and fed him roughly a teaspoon of Somernol powder. Twice the recommended dose. Enough to keep him in a comatose state for at least three days.

Two days earlier, Isaac had caught a faint whiff of something. A scent. The kind of thing someone like Siron—with his underdeveloped pheromone glands—would never pick up on, but to Isaac, it was clear. Baekgyeong’s pheromones.

His pulse and body temperature were also well above average. It could be a symptom of sepsis—or the early signs of an oncoming rut.

A rut cycle? That can’t happen. No way in hell.

Isaac wiped the powder residue from Baekgyeong’s lips with a tissue, then stood.

He stared for a long time at Siron’s back—curled up against the wall like he was trying to become part of it, as if he could disappear by hugging the concrete.

Then Isaac returned to his spot and finally lay down.

The capital city of Belzoras, Laseva, looked like something out of a faded European travel poster. Colonial-era buildings, stained by sea winds, had crumbled over the years under relentless rain and time. Rather than demolishing and rebuilding, the city had survived through endless patchwork—its walls spackled with cement to keep everything from falling apart.

Siron stared, entranced, out the car window at the cityscape.

Along the broken concrete roads, vintage cars from the 1960s and 70s occasionally passed by. The streets were so rough it felt like driving off-road.

He had never imagined he’d end up in Central America—let alone Belzoras.

Now here he was, in Isaac’s home territory, inside the tiger’s den, dragging along the manacle called Baekgyeong like a prisoner entering willingly.

“Looks like there are nothing but street vendors around here. No shops at all.”

Siron was quietly scanning the surroundings for anything resembling a hospital, just in case he had to take Baekgyeong in—but he couldn’t find one.

“Why aren’t there more stores here? There’s so many people.”

“Commerce is underdeveloped. Manufactured goods are rare, so shops are few. People mostly buy from vendors.”

Just as Isaac said, most stalls sold foodstuffs and daily necessities.

Come to think of it, Siron remembered hearing during school that the average monthly wage in Belzoras was 50 dollars.

Back then, he couldn’t believe anyone could survive on that.

But now that he was here, it didn’t seem so impossible.

“You’re being surprisingly informative today.”

Isaac replied while keeping his eyes on the road:

“Useful things to know.”

“Mmm, yeah. General knowledge is always good to have.”

“Who knows? You might end up living here.”

Siron had been so focused on the outside view that he’d been hearing Isaac like a guidebook voiceover—until those last words made him whip his head around. Just then, Isaac turned the wheel.

Their car veered into a one-way, single-lane road. A backstreet off the main strip.

As they drove further in, the crowd thinned. It felt like he was deliberately steering into a quiet, secluded place.

“Why would I... wait, what do you—”

Siron tried to ask what the hell that meant, but stopped himself.

He knew exactly where that conversation would go next, and he wasn’t ready for it.

Isaac passed by a row of identical-looking buildings, then abruptly hit the brakes.

He shifted gears and reversed, parking in one smooth motion.

Then he looked at Siron with that same aggravating face—the kind that said: Is there a problem?

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