‘Still, thinking about Cha Iheon while doing that is just wrong.’
Heemin vigorously scrubbed his hands, blaming everything on ‘Seo Heemin.’ It seed like he would have to postpone this particular practice session.
The intention to overco his trauma had been good, but if he finished here, he felt like he wouldn’t be able to look Iheon in the eye for a while. Stopping now was the best option.
‘I should go inside and draw with a reverent heart. I need so ntal discipline.’
When he had told Iheon that he wanted to like him, he had never ant it in such a crude sense. The fact that their kiss had been mind-blowingly good was a separate issue—what Heemin truly wanted was an agape love, free from lust.
A love so sacred and noble that he could still cherish it beautifully even after returning to reality.
To clear his head, he lowered the water temperature just enough to avoid catching a cold and stood beneath the endlessly falling stream. After reciting the nas of about fifty of the hundred greatest figures in Korean history, his erratically pounding heart finally began to settle.
Once he finished singing the song in full, he started thinking about the still life he would paint today. As he gradually escaped his tangled thoughts, Iheon’s face, which had been lingering before his eyes, washed away along with the flowing water.
His overheated body finally cooled to a lukewarm temperature.
***
Scratch, scratch.
The sound of a pencil gliding across paper was satisfying. The crimson hues spreading across the evening sky outside, the faint sounds of dinner being prepared in the kitchen, the lingering scent of paint from not-yet-dry canvases—it was a rare and perfectly peaceful mont.
He never expected that drawing could be as enjoyable as reading an interesting book. The process of overlapping lines to form shapes, connecting those shapes to create mass—each step brought him imasurable joy.
In the glimpses of ‘Seo Heemin’s’ past that he had seen through hypnosis therapy, painting had always been present. Thanks to that, he hadn’t needed to formally learn how to draw. He just had to recall those mories and replicate the paintings exactly as they had been.
Today, he chose to practice drawing a bottle of whiskey, the one Iheon frequently drank, along with an unused ashtray. Capturing the texture of transparent glass turned out to be more challenging than expected, and he ended up redrawing and repainting multiple tis.
He had already completed a pencil sketch and a watercolor painting of the objects. Now, he was finishing a third version—his own interpretation—where he deconstructed and reconstructed the elents of the scene in an abstract style.
He was so imrsed that he didn’t even realize how much ti had passed. He had forgotten to turn on the lights, completely absorbed in his work.
Just as he was about to draw the final stroke to complete the piece, the last faint rays of the setting sun disappeared, and an ink-blue darkness swallowed the room.
“...Ah.”
The mont had slipped away, and frustration washed over him. With a sigh, Heemin set down his pencil and leaned back against the chair, exhaling slowly.
Perhaps he had been too deeply engrossed in his painting. The reflection of the city lights, distorted and bleeding into the black river beneath them, struck him as oddly sentintal tonight. He made a ntal note to try landscape painting once his skills improved.
Knock, knock.
A brief knock on the open door was followed by a bright light flooding the room. Blinking against the sudden brightness, Heemin turned toward the source—Ms. Ahn.
“What is it?”
She was usually careful not to disturb him. It was unusual for her to seek him out. Puzzled, Heemin watched as she held up a prepared ssage on her phone.
[You should co out for a mont. You have a visitor.]
“A visitor?”
He had been so focused that he hadn’t even heard the doorbell ring. What struck him as odd was that Ms. Ahn, who usually identified visitors clearly—whether it was Dr. Hwang or Secretary Jung—had chosen to vaguely refer to this one as just a “guest.”
Who could it be that she felt the need to confirm with him, a prisoner in this house?
He was about to ask if she had checked the visitor’s na, but then he realized—Ms. Ahn couldn’t communicate via intercom.
Heemin quickly stood up, took off his work apron, and headed for the living room.
“...Kwak Yoonseong?”
On the intercom screen, an unexpected face was displayed in close-up. Even with age, the man still retained a beauty reminiscent of a single blooming rose. It made sense that Ms. Ahn had been taken aback—he hardly looked like soone involved in the criminal underworld.
But why had Kwak Yoonseong suddenly co here? And how had he found this address?
Well, this was Cha Iheon’s ho, after all. It wasn’t a safe house hidden from even his own subordinates, so for soone like Kwak Yoonseong, figuring it out wouldn’t have been impossible. His tenacity was second to none.
Still, the sudden visit was unsettling. Heemin turned to check the ti—7:30 PM. There were still two hours left before Iheon was expected to return.
“Auntie, call the boss and let him know my adoptive father is here.”
[Are you going to let him in?]
“He probably won’t try anything weird. It’ll be fine.”
This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.
Kwak Yoonseong was an unpredictable, ticking ti bomb. However, there was still ti before he joined hands with Shin Seungbeom and blew everything up.
Before the explosion could happen, Heemin needed to extinguish the fuse first—to turn this bomb into a dud. Whatever it took, he had to placate and manipulate Yoonseong, ensuring he didn’t have the chance to weave his insidious sches.
Premature suspicion only bred chaos and death. It was distasteful to engage with soone so transparent in their motives, but he couldn’t afford to leave any openings when it ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) ca to Kwak Yoonseong.
Cha Iheon’s life depended on it.
As Ms. Ahn typed out the ssage, Heemin pressed the intercom button to unlock the entrance to the underground parking lot. On the screen, he saw Kwak Yoonseong step through the open doorway.
While the elevator carried him up, Heemin quickly gathered up the drawings he had worked on that day and put them away. He couldn't let Yoonseong see how much his skills had deteriorated.
Ding-dong.
The doorbell rang, followed by a firm knock, as if the visitor wanted to make sure his presence was known. Closing his eyes briefly to steady himself, Heemin recalled the personality and speech patterns of the ‘Seo Heemin’ from the novel before stepping forward to greet Kwak Yoonseong.
“Heemin! It’s Daddy!”
The mont the door opened, a voice rang out in exaggerated cheerfulness. A wave of saccharine-sweet Oga pheromones, distinctly different from an Alpha’s, flooded Heemin’s senses.
“What brings you here, Father?”
“I was wondering how you’ve been, so I decided to drop by. I’m hurt, you know. You haven’t even called.”
“I’ve been imrsed in my work.”
Once ‘Seo Heemin’ started painting, he would shut himself away for months at a ti, dedicating himself entirely to his art.
Heemin casually ran a hand through his bangs and offered a light smile. Yoonseong’s eyes lingered for a mont on the paint-stained fingers, darkened from handling brushes, but he seed satisfied with the excuse and changed the subject.
“Cha Iheon isn’t back yet? It’s rare for him to leave the office right at six sharp.”
He believed that Heemin and Iheon were in a relationship. Even so, his question about Iheon’s absence was obviously an attempt to gauge the situation, making Heemin chuckle under his breath.
“He had so business with the chairman.”
“Chairman Yoon Dae-ho of Wooshin Group?”
“Yes, Chairman Yoon.”
“Oh, is that so? Ms. Ahn, make sure to hang this up properly so it doesn’t get wrinkled.”
Following Heemin inside, Kwak Yoonseong shrugged off his jacket and tossed it to Ms. Ahn as if she were a servant.
Watching a character so deeply steeped in materialistic thinking and shallow pretense play out his role right in front of him was unexpectedly amusing. It felt like observing a live theater performance. Of course, Heemin himself was also a character in this story.
“You might as well hand over your bag too.”
Smiling, he held out a hand.
As if he were carrying a briefcase stuffed with cash, Yoonseong tightened his grip on the handle.
“This, I’ll keep.”
“This way.”
Leading him toward the living room, Heemin intentionally passed by the open study. Yoonseong, catching sight of the easel inside, briefly paused and glanced toward it.
“You’re not using your studio anymore?”
The officetel that ‘Seo Heemin’ had once used as a studio was now owned by Do Junyoung. Back when Seo Jae-han’s debts had been piling up, Junyoung had bought it for ‘Seo Heemin,’ but Heemin had no reason to use it now.
He couldn’t leave the house without Iheon’s permission, and besides, this ho was the safest haven he had.
Of course, he was curious about ‘Seo Heemin’s’ past works. Since he had treated painting like a personal diary, there were probably many pieces worth seeing and referencing.
But looking at them wouldn’t magically improve his own skills, and he had no intention of getting tangled up with Do Junyoung. So, he responded with a smile.
“I feel more comfortable here.”
Yoonseong scanned the room, clearly unconvinced. It wasn’t surprising—Iheon’s house was far from cozy.
A mysterious, glass-walled room, surveillance caras discreetly embedded into the ceiling, and an atmosphere so ticulously maintained that it refused even a speck of dust—nothing about this place suggested comfort.
“Your tastes have changed a lot.”
“They say lovers start to resemble each other.”
Heemin blurted out the joke without thinking, then imdiately regretted it. His gaze flickered toward Yoonseong to gauge his reaction.
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