L*st and Death

Siron lay sprawled on the wooden floor, not moving an inch. In the stifling, windless heat, just breathing made sweat stream down his body, leaving him without the strength to twitch a single fingertip. It was as if he were submerged in a giant vat of hot water, sweat flowing from head to toe.

With effort, he tilted his body sideways, searching through the open doorway for Baekgyeong’s figure. He saw him hefting a log as thick as Siron’s torso above his head and slamming it back down, exercising violently. In just three days, Baekgyeong had recovered from his side wound and regained weight at an astonishing pace, reclaiming his monstrous stamina as if nothing had happened.

“Baekgyeong!”

Even though the distance was quite far, Baekgyeong dropped the log to the ground at Siron’s shout and turned his head.

“Get me some water.”

Baekgyeong’s face crumpled in disbelief. A half-finished bottle of water sat less than three meters from Siron. He drew in a big breath to scold him, but then reconsidered and rushed over to Siron instead.

“What is this, dog training?”

“Sorry. Maybe it’s because I became an omega... I’m really weak against the heat. Help me up.”

At Siron’s words, Baekgyeong’s scowling expression faltered. He quickly helped Siron sit upright and tilted the bottle of water to his lips. Siron drained nearly half of the lukewarm, almost hot water, then collapsed weakly back onto the floor.

“You sure it’s not heatstroke?”

“No. Not that bad.”

“Fuck, why does the plane have to arrive tomorrow of all days.”

From the first safehouse, it was a little over 2,000 kilometers to Timego Airport at the southern tip of Belzoras. After driving for two full days, Siron, Isaac, and Baekgyeong had finally reached Isaac’s second hideout. The airport where the private plane was scheduled to arrive lay about two hours away. Here, only faint bird cries could be heard in the distance—no sounds of habitation at all in this remote wilderness.

There was no running water or electricity, and the suffocating heat pressed down on them. As befitted a place near the equator, even in late September the sweltering heat never let up.

“Let’s go.”

“Go where?”

“Just follow me.”

Siron clung to Baekgyeong’s back as they descended the slope. The bare skin beneath his sweat-soaked shirt should have been unpleasant to touch, yet strangely, it wasn’t. It was like sinking into melting chocolate, a hazy, sticky sensation rising within him.

After a few minutes, they reached a riverbank. The water was so clear the riverbed was visible. Siron hesitated briefly, then waded in, cooling his overheated body.

Baekgyeong followed him into the river. The water was moderately deep, reaching only up to Baekgyeong’s waist at its deepest. In Korea, such a river would have been lined with pensions, but here, where the land was vast and people scarce, there was nothing around the river winding around the mountain’s waist.

Once he had cooled off enough, Siron began to shiver instead. Hugging his wet body, he sat down on a rock, staring blankly at Baekgyeong swimming in the water. Apparently alphas grew not only stronger sex drives but also greater muscle mass. Even though Baekgyeong had been bedridden for quite some time, his muscles were still sharply defined, the veins standing out.

Siron watched the ridges of his shoulders and back muscles as he cut through the water. Every time Baekgyeong turned, splashing water, a bestial energy seemed to seep out of him. Coming closer, Baekgyeong slicked his wet bangs back and asked:

“First you said you were hot, now you’re cold?”

“I haven’t recovered my stamina yet.”

“And who told you to fuck around with Isaac until you collapsed?”

“My condition started worsening back when I was having sex with you.”

“If it weren’t for me, you’d still be stuck in rut right now. Don’t you think my dick deserves some gratitude?”

Siron closed his mouth, deciding not to bother responding. The thought struck him that things between them had grown easier. Baekgyeong had once been like a live bomb, ready to explode at any moment, and Siron had lived constantly at the mercy of his moods. But the Baekgyeong before him now seemed stripped of that sharp, bristling irritability.

Maybe it was because the tumor had been removed. His temper was still rotten, but he didn’t seem hypersensitive anymore.

Shrugging off Baekgyeong’s persistent closeness with a push, Siron curled up tight.

“It’s because I’m wearing wet clothes. I’m cold. I should just take them off—they’ll dry quickly.”

“No way!”

Baekgyeong easily overpowered his resistance, stripping off Siron’s top and bottoms, wringing the water out, and spreading them on a sun-heated rock. Then he took off his own pants and underwear and laid them beside them.

“If Isaac sees this, it’ll look really suspicious.”

“Let him think what he wants.”

Baekgyeong answered Siron’s grumbling with a smirk.

The night before, Isaac’s car had broken down just before reaching their destination. Lacking proper tools, they had abandoned it by the roadside, and Isaac had just gone off to repair it.

The three of them had come to a mutual agreement. Until they returned to the U.S., none of them would inflict physical harm on the others—and Siron especially feared Baekgyeong being beaten to death. Also, the two alphas would not subject Yoon Siron to any sexual provocation.

Though it was a condition Siron had laid down unilaterally, both had abided by it faithfully for three days. During that time, Siron practiced pheromone control among the beastlike alphas and eventually succeeded, however clumsily, in learning to release and conceal them.

Sniffing at the trace of Baekgyeong’s pheromones still lingering on his skin, Siron asked:

“Wouldn’t the Vile Group be capable of making some kind of drug to hide pheromones?”

“I’ll suggest it to my brother.”

“Really? Then make a suppressant for omegas too.”

“What would you need a suppressant for?”

“What do you mean? Even after imprinting, an omega still goes through rut.”

“Then just spend rut with me.”

Siron bit back the words that he didn’t want to have sex with him anymore, swallowing them deep down. He turned his head away and answered coldly.

“You even know how imprinting works?”

“I’ll find out.”

“And how exactly?”

“By going to the only person who succeeded in imprinting.”

As Siron turned this over in his head, a thought struck him with shock.

“Isaac’s father?”

“Technically his uncle.”

“He’s in prison, isn’t he? Isn’t he supposed to be half out of his mind? And do you think Isaac will just let you waltz in to see him?”

“You don’t know until you try. Sitting around punching numbers into a calculator won’t give you an answer.”

“Do you not realize how reckless it is to dive in unprepared? Just look at the state you’re in now.”

Baekgyeong averted his gaze, feigning distraction, lips twitching downward.

“Baekgyeong. I think you’re more likely to die at Isaac’s hands than Hybris’. The only reason he’s keeping you alive is because he wants to know what’s in your phone. Just that one reason.”

Surprisingly, Baekgyeong didn’t look insulted.

“I admit that much. So what if I unlock it and it turns out there’s nothing useful inside?”

Isaac would kill you without hesitation. Siron couldn’t bring himself to say the words aloud.

Baekgyeong let out a deep sigh.

“I really do wonder what the hell is in that phone that caused such an uproar.”

He picked up a stick from the ground, jabbed it into the sand, and began slowly drawing lines in the fine riverbank sand. He said nothing, just stared blankly at the letters, as if unwilling to solve a problem and reveal the answer.

a h o f t k d w ? ? ?

Including the w from the last quiz answer, Witty Burger & Spurs, Baekgyeong had eight of the eleven letters. Siron sat beside him, staring at the letters in turn, trying to think of words they might spell out in English, but nothing came to mind.

“If Madam Choi had known her son’s intellectual level, she wouldn’t have given him a hard problem.”

Baekgyeong sneered at Siron with half-lidded eyes.

“Ha, I finished a full Korean high school curriculum inside the ward, okay? I know Albanian, I can use Excel, I can code. My average Hangul typing speed is over 500. My English is over 70 WPM.”

“Oh, is that so?”

“Yeah.”

His triumphant response abruptly froze on his lips. The mischief faded, replaced by an unfamiliar seriousness in his gaze. With the stick in hand, Baekgyeong briskly drew grid-like squares across the sand like a go board.

Watching him, Siron recalled the quizzes he had already pored over countless times. Of the three remaining puzzles, one in particular had seized his interest.

PS. I felt like she was acting me, acting my life. Realizing I wasn’t the only one who had felt that way was comforting. It freed me from guilt.

Siron sat on the sand, chewing over the given keywords. This puzzle was much simpler than the others. More than the hints, the word “acting” drew his attention. Choi Baekhee must have seen some drama or film and recognized herself in a character.

A boy painting in red. An arrow hitting a red target. A boy with a bow.

As he turned over the images tied to those keywords, realization struck. The anxious thought quickly took shape.

A boy with an arrow.

It was as if an arrowhead pierced straight through his heart, cold wind whistling through the hole. He felt certain he knew which film Choi Baekhee had seen.

We Need to Talk About Kevin.

Now that he had the answer, he couldn’t believe he had ever forgotten the searing images from that movie.

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