That night, Lee Min-ho sat on the couch with a box of banana milk in one hand and his legs folded beneath a loose robe. His skin still carried warmth from the bath, and a towel covered his damp hair. A white sheet mask rested across his face, cool and lightly scented.

The day kept returning to him whether he wanted it to or not.

HR had called everything "the incident," as though a neutral word could make the restroom, the hand at the back of his neck, and the alpha trying to sink his teeth into Min-ho's scent gland sound less serious. They had spoken from a prepared report and asked questions only after deciding which answers they preferred.

The meeting had lasted eleven minutes.

By the end of it, Min-ho had lost his job, his access card, and the right to return to his desk. No one had asked about the launch schedule he had repaired, the product samples waiting for approval, or the Fashion Week files still saved under his account. J Core had taken his work and removed him before lunch.

He drank more banana milk and stared through the window without seeing much beyond his own reflection.

A knock came from the door.

No one visited him this late, and anyone who knew him would have called first. Even so, Min-ho crossed the living room and opened the door without checking the mirror or remembering the sheet mask.

A man in a baseball cap and dark athletic clothes stood outside, close enough to fill most of the doorway. His height registered first, followed by the straight black hair beneath the cap and the dark eyes fixed on Min-ho.

Those eyes moved over the sheet mask, the towel, the robe, and the banana milk still in his hand.

"Shit." The man stepped back.

"Kiyaaa!" Min-ho shut the door and backed away, his pulse racing as the milk box nearly slipped from his fingers.

For several seconds, he could think only of the stranger outside and the fact that he had opened the door dressed like this. Then the man's face caught up with him.

He knew that face. Until a few hours ago, Min-ho had worked for him.

"Mr. Lee," the man said through the door, his voice calm again. "I sincerely apologize for disturbing you. I'm Joo Hee-won, CEO of J Core Group. I came to speak with you."

Min-ho stared at the white mask reflected in the dark window.

Of course the CEO of the company that had fired him that morning had chosen tonight to visit. Of course Min-ho had answered the door looking like a ghost holding banana milk. "Could you wait a moment while I change?"

"Of course."

Min-ho hurried into his bedroom, removed the mask, and pulled the towel from his hair. After changing into a soft T-shirt and fabric trousers, he ran his fingers through his damp hair and returned to the door.

He opened it only a few inches. "Are you still there, Mr. Joo?"

"Yes, Mr. Lee."

"Did you come because this wasn't something you could discuss over the phone?" Min-ho kept his voice low. "I don't understand why you appeared at my door this late."

"I'm sorry. I thought it would be more appropriate to speak with you in person."

Min-ho studied him through the narrow opening before pulling the door wider. "Please come in."

Hee-won stepped inside and bowed. "I apologize again for arriving without notice."

"It's fine. I wasn't expecting anyone."

That much was obvious.

Min-ho moved aside and watched Hee-won remove his shoes. He had seen the CEO many times during his year at J Core, always from a distance and almost always in a tailored suit. Managers corrected their posture when he entered a room. Senior alphas lowered their voices. Assistants carried folders behind him.

In athletic clothes and a baseball cap, he seemed younger, though no less imposing.

Min-ho had screamed in his face. He decided to deal with that humiliation at some later point in his life. "Please sit wherever you like," he said. "Would you like something to drink?"

Hee-won walked toward the couch, then stopped.

A cool scent moved through the room, softened by the steam escaping from the bathroom. Ocean air. Salt water. Clean rain.

The change in Hee-won's eyes came at once. Dark brown gave way to a deep amber that seemed lit from within, orange near the edges and honey-colored around the pupils.

Min-ho had turned toward the kitchen and did not see it. By the time he faced Hee-won again, the amber was gone.

Hee-won sat on the couch while Min-ho chose the armchair across from him. The coffee table remained between them, along with the banana milk Min-ho had left there.

"What did you want to discuss?" Min-ho asked.

"I learned about your dismissal this afternoon." Hee-won explained that the report had raised several concerns and that the company had secured the corridor footage, access logs, and employee records. "You were dismissed before the facts were verified. That decision will be suspended, and any loss of salary will be corrected."

"Suspended?"

"Until the investigation is complete. If the evidence supports what I've been told, the termination will be removed entirely. The people who approved it will answer for what they did." Hee-won spoke as though those outcomes had already been decided. Min-ho could understand why people rarely argued with him. There was no uncertainty in his tone and no sign that family involvement would change anything.

Still, Min-ho had spent enough of the day listening to promises from J Core. "Why did you come here yourself?"

"Because my company dismissed you after an executive attacked you." Hee-won offered no excuse for arriving in person. "I also wanted to offer you your position back."

There it was. Restore the job, repair the paperwork, and expect him to return before the next campaign meeting.

"No, thank you," he said.

Hee-won watched him. "You don't need to answer tonight."

"I already know my answer." Keeping his voice polite, Min-ho explained that returning would mean sitting beneath the same managers who had approved the report and going back to a department that had used his work while leaving him outside the room where it was praised.

Once Min-ho finished, Hee-won said, "The people involved won't remain in control of your employment. Your record will be corrected, and you'll receive the salary you lost."

"I lost one day of salary."

"That doesn't make it acceptable."

Min-ho looked toward the campaign folder on the corner of his desk. He had brought it home the previous day because the fashion division kept changing the retail image order. He had planned to finish it after his bath.

The company had fired him before he could hand it back.

"You came here personally, and I appreciate that," he said. "But removing the termination from a file does not return me to the company I thought I worked for yesterday."

"I wasn't informed before the dismissal."

"Then you didn't know what was being done under your name."

Silence settled over the room.

J Core had Hee-won's family name on its buildings, product labels, fashion stores, and cosmetic counters. Min-ho had spent a year watching managers use that name whenever they wanted their choices to sound final.

Hee-won had not ordered the dismissal, but it had still happened beneath his authority.

"You're right," Hee-won said. "I should have known. The fact that I didn't is not a defense."

Min-ho had expected an explanation. The agreement left him with less to say.

For the first time since entering the apartment, Hee-won seemed less like a CEO correcting an error and more like a man accepting responsibility for a company that had failed one of its employees.

That mattered, but it was not enough. "The report can be corrected, and the people involved can be removed," Min-ho said. "But I won't go back to the same desk and act as though everything is fine because the CEO asked me to."

"I understand that I came here with the wrong offer."

Min-ho had no reply to that.

Hee-won looked toward the campaign folder. "The production calendar discussed in today's meeting was yours."

"Parts of it."

"Most of it. You reorganized work across Beauty and Fashion without the authority to do so."

"Because the people with authority booked the same studio and crew for the same day."

A faint amber glow returned to Hee-won's eyes, subtle enough to disappear in the low light. "You prevented both launches from being delayed."

"I did my job."

"No, Mr. Lee. I saw the records. You did far more than your job, and from what I've been told, this wasn't the first time."

Praise from the CEO should have felt satisfying after spending the day being treated like a problem. Instead, it made Min-ho wary.

Hee-won seemed to understand. "I won't ask you to return to your old position again tonight. The investigation will continue whether you come back or not. Your record will be cleared because it should be, not because I expect something in return."

That was the first thing Min-ho had heard all day that did not sound like a transaction. He stood. "Then I think this conversation is over."

Hee-won rose with him.

At the door, Min-ho bowed. "Thank you for telling me yourself."

"You shouldn't need to thank me for correcting what J Core did," Hee-won said.

"No, but most CEOs would've sent an assistant."

"Most CEOs aren't related to the executive named in the report."

Min-ho's hand stopped on the doorknob. "You know who it was."

"Of course I do."

"What will happen to him?"

"He'll lose every position that gives him access to employees while the case is reviewed. After that, the evidence will decide the rest." There was no hesitation in Hee-won's answer.

Min-ho searched his face for some sign that younger brother meant exception. He found none. He opened the door. "Good night, Mr. Joo."

"Good night, Mr. Lee."

The door closed between them.

Hee-won remained in the corridor as the apartment returned to silence. Min-ho's ocean scent still reached him through the door, mixed with clean soap and the faint sweetness of banana milk.

He thought about the employee who had repaired two launch schedules without recognition. The omega who had fought off an alpha executive, faced HR alone, and refused an offer most people would have accepted before Hee-won finished speaking.

Then he remembered the white sheet mask, the banana milk, and the startled scream. It was the sweetest, most honest thing he had seen in years.

His eyes turned amber again.

I want him. I fucking want him.