GH | Chapter 1.5

Unrequited love. That was the feeling Upsilon held for him. It had continued ever since that moment five years ago, when Ro had accidentally pulled him out of the dark underworld. And for those five years, Ro had been waiting for the ember of feeling Upsilon held for him to die out as quickly as possible.

After the meal at the fast-food restaurant, Ro dragged Upsilon to a nearby cafe. He warned Upsilon sternly that the coffee was something he was buying of his own accord, so he should drink what was bought and not come into the cafe.

“Did you see the black-haired guy standing outside? He’s so handsome. Totally icy pretty-boy vibes, icy pretty-boy vibes.”

“Looks like an alpha at a glance. But is he alone? Should we go out together and talk to him?”

“Looks like he’s waiting for someone. Is it okay to bother him?”

As Ro went inside and ordered coffee, the girls sitting at a table were peeking outside and whispering. Following the excited chatter of the girls as if they had seen a celebrity, he found the end of their gaze pointed to Upsilon waiting for him outside the cafe.

Even Ro had to admit Upsilon was tall, with distinct features and a face handsome enough to fit an alpha. He was the kind of strikingly good-looking man who drew attention wherever he went, and Ro could not understand why an alpha with both looks and ability had fixated on him, a beta rather than an omega.

Ro looked on fondly at the girls whispering among themselves about Upsilon, and one of them caught his eye. It would have been awkward to look away, so Ro simply smiled brightly, and her face flushed slightly before she smiled back.

Then she lowered her head and started saying something eagerly to her friends. Judging by the way the others, including her, occasionally looked toward Ro, he was probably the subject of the discussion this time. Just then, the coffee he had ordered was ready.

“Here. Take it, icy pretty-boy.”

Ro, who had taken two coffees to go from the cafe, held one cup out to Upsilon, who had been standing there waiting for him. Deprived of the right to choose the coffee as revenge for stealing his mission, Upsilon obediently took the cup Ro handed him.

“Icy pretty-boy?”

“In the cafe, some fresh-faced teenage girls were calling you an icy pretty-boy.”

“……”

“Anyway, I bought lunch you chose yourself and coffee for dessert, so if you say one more word about discrimination or stinginess, I swear…”

“I just said it casually.”

As if. Ro had wanted to say that, but he quietly swallowed it down with a sip of the cafe latte he had ordered with an extra espresso shot.

“Then, I’ve had my little revenge, and I’m heading out now.”

With that, Ro truly turned and left without the slightest hesitation. Upsilon, staring quietly at the takeout cup Ro had handed him, took a quiet sip of coffee. It was the only coffee he drank, a light cold brew.

What exactly was Ro thinking when he said this was revenge for stealing his mission, yet ordered Upsilon the menu item he liked best? Upsilon walked in the direction opposite from where Ro had gone, cup in hand.

Just as Ro had been given three days off as the price of successfully completing the mission, Upsilon had received the same leave. Ro had said he planned to sleep through the vacation, but Upsilon had no convincing plan. Even now, as he walked down the street, he had no idea where to go or what to do.

“……”

Wandering the streets without a destination, Upsilon ended up sitting on an empty bench. Five years had passed since Robert scouted him into Amabile. Five years had passed since he had blindly followed Ro into the place where the man who had saved him from Serpente, the mafia almost no one remembered by name anymore, belonged. It had been five years already. And yet it had only been after two years in the company that he could finally have a proper conversation with Ro.

At the time he joined, Ro, who seemed about the same age as him, was an agent with far more seniority than Upsilon had imagined. It was only natural that newly recruited Upsilon and Ro, who had more than a decade of experience, would have almost no overlap. One day, after Upsilon had been at Amabile for a little over a year, he had once casually asked Robert about the difficulty of the missions Ro handled.

‘The difficulty of the missions Ro takes on? Hmm, they’re usually on the rather tricky side. But Upsilon, the level of mission Ro handles is still beyond your current skill and experience. Very far beyond it, in fact.’

Robert had answered without any softening, having seen right through the hidden intention behind Upsilon’s question. After that, Upsilon took on many missions to build the skill and experience Robert had mentioned, and that brought him to the present. By now he had accumulated enough skill and experience to be assigned as the additional agent on missions Ro was deployed on, and even Robert praised him. Yet when he finally met Ro again, Ro hated him.

Given what he had done, Upsilon could understand why Ro disliked him. But then how was he supposed to understand the fact that today, while showing his dislike, Ro had still bought him lunch and then given him a coffee tailored exactly to his taste?

‘…The more time passes, the harder this gets.’

Whenever he stood before Ro, his heart always felt unsettled. After long deliberation and still unable to find a way to use his three-day vacation efficiently, Upsilon eventually returned to Amabile headquarters and gave the vacation back to Robert.

“Upsilon. Sometimes you need to know how to rest. I didn’t scout you so you could work nonstop like this.”

Robert let out a small sigh as he looked at him coming to ask for another mission instead of using his vacation. This was not the first time Upsilon had come to return his leave. The first few times, Robert had brushed it off with a laugh, thinking he had recruited an enthusiastic agent, but after the same thing happened more than ten times, then more than twenty, even Robert could no longer simply laugh it off.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve done this.”

“Exactly because it isn’t the first time that I’m telling you this. Haven’t I repeatedly said that properly relieving accumulated fatigue is something every agent must do?”

“I’ve hardly ever seen the boss rest, though.”

“That’s simply because you haven’t seen it. I do rest when I need to. I even went to Hawaii for five days last month.”

“……”

“Perhaps I’m a step ahead of you when it comes to knowing how to rest. Do learn from me. You’re an agent who learns faster than anyone else, so I trust this should be simple.”

It was Robert’s way of refusing to accept Upsilon’s vacation return this time. Even after being told that much, Upsilon still looked as if he had no intention of leaving the office, and Robert gave a bitter smile. If Upsilon could be talked into going back by a bit of scolding, he would have been enjoying his vacation long ago.

“My head’s a bit tangled, so I think it’d be better to move my body instead.”

“Ro showed you that vague attitude again, did he?”

Caught red-handed, Upsilon had nothing to say. Since the first time he met Robert five years ago, he had always been amazed by his sharp insight. The information handled by Amabile, a private company that presented itself as an information firm, was each and every one worth an astronomical amount.

That “astronomical” value referred not only to monetary worth, but also to information that could not be priced at all, the kind of dangerous secrets one would normally only handle at a national level.

Amabile was essentially a vast gray zone planted in the middle of the city, and Robert, as the president of such a company, could not possibly be an ordinary person. Even after more than five years in Amabile, Upsilon still knew far more things he did not know than things he did know about Robert.

“Hmm, if you’re saying that much, there actually is one urgent job that just came in.”

Robert clicked the mouse on his desk a few times and turned the monitor toward Upsilon to show the screen.

“Black mission. I can’t give you the materials in physical form, so take enough time to review them here.”

Black mission. A mission in which the core objective was to kill the target or destroy the object itself, or one that would inevitably involve numerous casualties.

On the screen Robert showed him was a profile of a woman who looked to be in her mid-forties. Her haggard face suggested chronic exhaustion, and from the white lab coat she wore and the detailed information that followed, it was not hard to infer that her profession was researcher.

“Sara Greenwood. Beta. Forty-six. She was a fairly famous biochemist and professor, but about three years ago she suddenly disappeared and was reported missing by her family. But the police recently discovered that Sara Greenwood had been staying under an alias at a small motel for a long period of time.”

Robert switched the screen appropriately as he explained the mission to Upsilon.

“The police protected her immediately after finding her and conducted a brief statement interview, but the problem was that Sara Greenwood did not answer a single question.”

“She exercised her right to remain silent?”

“That’s right. Apparently her anxiety symptoms were already severe when she was first found. But after investigating the materials she had on her at the time of discovery, it turned out she and several unidentified people had been creating some kind of unknown drug.”