Zero by One: Take Me Home

15. The Fourth Ill Fate

　"So you can take it easy, Kang. You're savvy. You should know what I'm getting at..."

Then, beating all the odds of his expectations, the taller male lowered his head to level with his ear.

　"...Plus, there's no need to run away from your fate when it's bound to come back to bite you, correct, bambi?"

The tantalizing warmth against his skin prickled Taehyun to recoil but all reflexes somehow seemed to have left his body.

With a tiny, innocent smile as if the devil himself had never crept its way to his lips, Beomgyu waved the coffee at Kang whose face was now flickering between colours that he managed to stir up, before striding to their team office.

During the previous nights, Beomgyu had mulled over different approaches for singling out the mole(s) in his team.

There were more than ten but less than fifteen - bar the two newcomers - in the office with various starting points of tenures. In order to break down the number of suspects, Beomgyu would obviously bet on the newbies instead of trying his luck and go for the veteran members' necks first. That would only lead to unnecessary tension and distrust that could shatter the team's cohesion.

Surprisingly enough, Beomgyu wasn't spurting a 100% nonsense to Kang - he regarded the overall balance and harmony of the group seriously. Less so because he was a righteous or sympathetic leader, mostly because he knew what awaited him once he played into the ugly example of the scumbag they called the former leader of this unfortunate squad, even if it costed a mere wrong move. After all, he could think better than to let a couple of information thieves further invalidate his, if not already tainted, reputation.

That being said, his major hurdles in getting rid of those pests were the narrow time limit and his shallow understanding of each subordinate's morales.

Through the glass partition, Beomgyu eyed the kaleidoscope of heads drooping into the sea of paperwork and hummed musingly.

　Those losers do look like zombies though.

When necessary, Beomgyu tends to go out of his way to get leverage, always, even if that means putting aside his personal disfavor if doing so can at least promise him a profound insight. So he needn't take a lot of time to psych himself.

Not only was he goalward, but he's also responsible for his actions. Since originally, he was the one that manipulated behind the curtains so that moron could waltz in to the place he'd have otherwise not belonged to. And had that moon-eyed moron turned out to be the meddling spy, Beomgyu could gladly make his work short and finish what he started without batting an eye. If not, then why rush to have fate slap across Kang Taehyun's face as it should?

The diabolic smirk made a quick come back.

Some days ago, he almost lost interest because of Kang's distasteful reaction to realizing their hierarchy. Looking back, not only that moron had yet to ask him for forgiveness properly, his bladelike eyes also never ceased to glare at Beomgyu, daring him to push his buttons further. It was quite a sight every time Kang's face darkened from too much salt Beomgyu sprinkled over him.

What a lot of people seemed to miss when it comes to Choi Beomgyu, the next generation of the leading pioneer of chaebols who's far more talked about than the actual heir for his accomplishments that outnumbered his years of experience in the industry, was his nasty nature when it involved seeing people who wronged him suffer, or better, making them suffer.

Matter of fact, no one ever bothered to notice how he'd rightfully claimed the modifier 'sadistic' to describe himself since that one time.