GH | Chapter 1.9

“And besides, it was the briefing in the first place. If there were something you or I absolutely needed to know, he would’ve said it earlier. The fact that he didn’t say anything means it’s something that doesn’t matter whether we know or not. Or maybe even something the boss doesn’t know himself. We just wait like this and go when the boss calls.”

“……”

“Hey, I’m technically one of the longest-serving people in this company, so at least listen to me a little.”

He had carefully explained that there was nothing more they needed to do in the current situation, but Upsilon still said nothing and only stared at him, and Ro interpreted that gaze as disbelief and grumbled.

Was it that he had no flexibility, or should he be offended by the lack of trust? When it came to work, Upsilon drew a rigid line of professionalism no matter how deep the crush, and sometimes Ro wondered if he was imagining things.

The alpha in front of him liking him. Or maybe he had already sorted out his feelings long ago, just as Ro wanted. Well, if that were the case, it would actually be a good thing.

“I know that you joined five years ago.”

“……?”

At Upsilon’s statement, which had drifted completely away from the topic, Ro stared at him while still holding his cola. What was this about? He had unintentionally pulled him out of Serpente, the mafia, five years ago.

It had also been five years ago that he reported to Robert that Upsilon seemed to have talent as an agent. It had been five years since Robert had gone to scout him and returned with a pleased face, and five years since news of the rookie agent Upsilon’s achievements had started to come in. So there was no way he could not know.

‘No, wait. We met five years ago in the Serpente mafia boss’s mansion. What is this guy even talking about?’

Ro, wondering what Upsilon was trying to say, even crossed his arms and stared at him as if waiting to see what nonsense would come out next. Information about agents was classified even within Amabile, but Ro was a special case who already knew Upsilon’s information. His reason for entering, his route in, his age, his name, his past, his background, all of it.

Of course, since he had been given the codename Upsilon, there had never been, nor would there ever be, any occasion for him to say that information out loud. That was the obvious official rule in Amabile, and also an unspoken rule that had continued for five years between Ro and Upsilon, the two people involved in that special case. …At least that was what Ro thought.

“Then do you remember meeting me five years ago too?”

At that question, Ro quickly revoked his thought that Upsilon’s liking him might be just his imagination. His crush was still ongoing.

In front of the irrational feeling called love, people wanted to assign meaning to everything. To call it fate rather than coincidence, destiny rather than chance. It was not something he fully related to, but that thing called love seemed to be a feeling that leaked out through tiny cracks no matter how much you tried to hide it, even when you knew it could not be repaid.

Ro had seen countless people like that, and he had solved many missions by using that feeling called love, but he did not want to maliciously wound the hearts of the people he used. More importantly, Upsilon was not someone he should be using.

He did not make light of love, having personally witnessed that a truly precious, fated love could exist in the world, but there was no need to keep lighting a fire under kindling that did not stir him and that he had no intention of accepting.

“We probably ran into each other in the lobby from time to time. But I think we only really started talking three years ago.”

“…Right.”

Upsilon answered briefly at Ro’s casual remark. Only now did Ro realize that the unspoken rule between him and Upsilon, the one where they did not mention what happened five years ago in Serpente, was actually just a rule of his own making. But Ro planned to keep following it.

If the day ever came when Upsilon neatly sorted out the feelings he held for him, would they perhaps be able to talk a little more easily as colleagues than they could now? He had no intention of accepting those feelings even if they were revealed, but if they had already been hidden for five years, he wanted Upsilon to sort them out as soon as possible.

He had no way of knowing Upsilon’s thoughts in full, but thinking of how hard he must be working to hold back the feelings spilling out of him, Ro did not feel entirely at ease either.

More honestly speaking, it was annoying. Someone else was the one who had stubbornly fallen for him, so why did he have to feel this uncomfortable? Even saying one sentence required careful choices for fear of giving him false hope, and it was exhausting.

“Don’t you like hamburgers? You didn’t eat them last time either.”

“I just wasn’t very hungry. You eat it.”

Seeing Ro eat nothing but a few fries while he finished his hamburger, Upsilon asked, and Ro once again pushed the untouched new hamburger, wrapper still on, in front of him just as he had a few days ago.

“Can you really get by until night with just that?”

“Night” was just a way of speaking. When Robert met the Ashford representative, there was no telling when the conversation would end. And if one considered, as the absolute worst-case scenario, that there might be combat with the Ashford representatives, then he needed to eat more solidly now.

Three days ago he had let it slide because it was vacation, not a mission, but the situation was different now. Upsilon could not possibly not know that, and Ro would not fail to know it either.

“What, are you worried about me now?”

“Don’t let it interfere with mission performance.”

“…Watch your tone.”

“If fast food doesn’t suit you, then eat something else. There’s still plenty of time.”

“Something else? You want me to go cut steak at this hour?”

“Would steak work? There’s a steakhouse five minutes away…”

“Okay, okay, enough. Why can’t you tell the difference between a joke and a serious remark?”

Ro waved his hands frantically at Upsilon, who looked ready to drag him to a steakhouse at any second. Had this guy always been this unreasonable? Ro sighed softly and took back the hamburger he had been offering Upsilon.

“Eat it, then.”

“That would be better for you too.”

“Honestly.”

Unable to win against Upsilon’s unfamiliar lecturing, Ro finally peeled the wrapper off his hamburger and began eating it as if to prove a point. It was true he had no appetite, but once he put it in his mouth, it did taste good. Unlike three days ago, the two of them finished their hamburgers, fries, and cola cleanly and left the fast-food restaurant.

“Still, you’re right that fast food is hard to beat when you need to settle a meal quickly. But it’s only one in the afternoon right now.”

The meeting with the Ashford side was at night, and Robert had said he would contact them separately when it was time to depart. He had even added that it would probably be after 6 p.m. at the earliest. Ro had wondered why they had been called so early if they were only going to leave later, but with Robert’s busy schedule, which looked easier than it actually was, there was probably nothing he could do about it.

While Ro was thinking about how to spend the awkward, open-ended five-hour gap, his phone suddenly buzzed. Thinking he might have received a text, Ro glanced down at the screen and then smirked, turning his head toward Upsilon.

“Upsilon, when the boss contacts us later, meet me straight back at headquarters.”

“What?”

“I’ve just got a promise with Selly.”

“Selly? Roelo’s president’s secretary?”

“That’s right. I’m going first. See you later.”

Without even waiting for Upsilon’s response, Ro waved his phone and walked off somewhere. Left alone on a New York sidewalk, Upsilon watched Ro’s back growing farther away, and only once he disappeared from sight did he start walking.

“……”

This seemed familiar too, from three days ago. The only difference was that three days ago, he had been holding the coffee Ro bought him. He had assumed he would naturally wait with Ro until Robert called again, but he had not expected Ro to make a promise for the open time. At least five hours remained before Robert’s specified time.

With time open before the mission started, Upsilon headed to Amabile headquarters’ shooting range. It had been a long time because missions had come one after another recently. The moment he entered the range, Upsilon checked his entry record on the screen to the left and at the same time brought up the list of all-time record holders.

The owner of the record that had never been broken since at least the time Upsilon joined Amabile, codename Upsilon. He was assumed to have been around Ro’s seniority level, but because Upsilon mostly handled solo missions, he had almost no chance to run into the junior Upsilon and had spoken to him fewer than three times over the last five years.

All Upsilon knew about Upsilon was that he was a dominant alpha, that he was Asian, and that he was called a genius sniper. The additional fact he had learned by accident a few months ago was that the man had a middle school-aged son, but not long after Upsilon learned that, he left Amabile. So the records shown on this screen would no longer be updated.