Bloodline of Sin

The ceiling was the wrong shade of white. 

It was the first thought that pierced the thick, cotton-heavy fog wrapping Han Jun-woo’s brain. It wasn’t the warm, textured cream of his stepfather’s estate in Seongbuk-dong, nor was it the exposed industrial concrete of his loft in Manhattan. This was a sterile, predatory white, smooth as bone, framed by sharp, minimalist moulding that looked less like decoration and more like a cage.

Jun blinked, his eyelids feeling like they were weighted with lead. He tried to turn his head to beg whoever was tapping on his head to stop, as it was sounding like a drum in his head, but the world tilted violently on its axis. A wave of nausea rolled through his gut, forcing a groan from his dry throat.

"Where..." His voice was a rusty scrape against the silence.

He pushed his palms against the mattress. The sheets were silky sateen, old, slippery, and undoubtedly expensive. Higher thread count than his rent. He tried to sit up, summoning the will to orient himself, but gravity had other plans. His head spun, a kaleidoscope of throbbing pain behind his eyes, and he collapsed back onto the pillows, gasping.

Think. Just think.

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to drag memories out of the black hole of the previous night.

Yesterday. The flight ticket was already booked for him. First class as usual. The cabin's recycled air always dried out his skin. 

All this started with the terrifying phone call from Mr Song. 

“The Chairman is missing, Jun-woo. You need to come home.”

Home.

He remembered landing and the humidity of the Korean summer hitting him. He remembered the anxiety, the way his hands shook as he thought of his stepfather, the man who had taken him in at three years old, who had given him a name, a life, and the warmth that his biological father had only offered eighteen years too late.

Then... Felix.

Felix, bouncing on the balls of his feet at the hotel, insisted they needed to blow off steam before facing the Han family. 

“One drink, Jun. Just to settle the nerves.”

One drink had turned into two, and then more than he could handle. Neon lights. The thumping bass of a club in Gangnam. A blurred face offering him a glass. And then... darkness. A heavy, suffocating black curtain.

Fear, cold and prickling, began to crawl up Jun’s spine. He forced his eyes open again, fighting the vertigo. 

He scanned the room again; the blackout curtains were drawn tight, suffocating the daylight. The furniture was sleek, black leather and chrome and devoid of any warmth. There were no personal photos, no clutter, no life. It felt like a showroom for the depressed and wealthy. There was only one explanation.

I’ve been kidnapped.

Wait, where was Felix? Was he kidnapped, too?

The thought seized him. He was a Han, after all. He was a good leverage for someone who wants to hit it big.

That terrifying thought gave him all the power he needed to scramble out of bed, the movement frantic and uncoordinated. His legs were like jelly as he stumbled, catching himself on a nightstand that held nothing but a glass of water and a coaster. He looked down at himself. He was in his boxer briefs.

"Oh god," he whispered, wrapping his arms around his shivering chest. "Oh god, oh god." He could hear the pounding of his heart, wishing that he was religious enough to believe that the more he called out for a god, the more he could miraculously teleport to his cozy bed back in Manhattan.

He needed clothes. He needed a weapon, and more importantly, he needed out.

Looking around, he noticed his clothes from last night were nowhere to be found. He sniffed the air, and his nose wrinkled. That bad smell came from him. Jesus. He smelled... stale, with a strong rotten-egg odour.

"Gross."

He lurched toward a sleek, black wardrobe built into the wall. He yanked it open, praying for something, anything.

Inside, a row of identical white dress shirts hung like soldiers in formation. Below them, rows of dark, bespoke suits. No color. No variance. Just a uniform of power.

He grabbed a white shirt, his fingers trembling. He pulled it on. It was massive. The shoulder seams hung halfway down his biceps, and the hem hit his mid-thigh. He buttoned it with fumbling fingers, bringing the collar up to his chin.

That’s when it hit him. The scent.

It was faint, embedded in the fabric fibres. Sandalwood. Aged tobacco. And something colder, like rain on pavement.

It was familiar, and triggered a memory of a dark hallway, a looming shadow, a feeling of being very small and very unsafe. But his brain, still swimming in the chemical afterglow of the hangover, couldn't place it.

Why does this smell like fear?

He shook his head, trying to dislodge the feeling. He needed to leave. He padded barefoot out of the bedroom, the oversized shirt billowing around his slender frame like a ghost’s shroud.

The hallway was dark, the floorboards a grey-washed oak that felt like ice against his soles. He trailed his hand along the wall for balance, moving toward the source of light at the end of the corridor.

He stepped into a vast, cavernous living area. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over the Han River, grey and churning under an overcast sky. The furniture was sparse: a massive black sectional, a glass coffee table, a single abstract painting that looked like a violent slash of red on a black canvas.

It was beautiful, yet soulless.

Then, the smell hit him: roasted sesame oil and soybean paste. It was the smell of

Confusion warred with the panic. Kidnappers didn't cook comfort food. 

He turned toward the open-concept kitchen. "Hello? Is anyone—"

The words died in his throat.

A figure stood by the kitchen island. He was back-lit by the grey light from the windows, making him look like a silhouette cut from darkness itself. He was tall—impossibly tall—with broad shoulders that tapered into a waist accentuated by a black dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows.

The figure turned slowly.

Jun’s breath hitched. His heart didn't just skip a beat; it stopped.

The face was sharp, angular, and devastatingly handsome in a way that made your stomach hurt. High cheekbones, a jawline that could cut glass, and eyes as dark and abyssal as the bottom of the ocean. And there, cutting through the perfect left eyebrow, was a faint, jagged white scar.

Han Min-jae.

His stepbrother. 

"You," Jun breathed, the word coming out as a terrified squeak.

Min didn't smile or frown either. He just watched Jun with an expression of profound, terrifying indifference. He held a ladle in one hand, looking as comfortable with domesticity as a shark would be in a sandbox.

"You're awake," Min said. His voice was a low rumble, a baritone that vibrated through the floorboards and straight into the soles of Jun’s feet.

Panic, irrational and explosive, detonated in Jun’s chest.

He didn't think. He ran.

He spun on his heel, his socks slipping on the polished wood, and scrambled for the front door he spotted across the room.

"Jun-woo, stop," Min’s voice clipped the air.

"Get away from me!" Jun screamed, his voice cracking. "Don't touch me!"

He lunged for the door, but the dizziness returned with a vengeance. The room tilted. The floor seemed to rush up to meet him. He stumbled, his legs tangling in the excess fabric of the shirt.

He heard the heavy, rapid thud of footsteps behind him. Fast. Predatory.

Jun cried out, trying to correct his balance, but he was falling backwards, flailing. He squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the impact of the hard floor.

It never came.

An arm, hard as iron, wrapped around his waist. Momentum carried them both as Jun felt himself being lifted, spun, and then they were falling together.

They landed on the massive black sectional couch.

Min landed on top of him. It was a heavy, crushing weight, but just before they hit, Jun felt a large hand cup the back of his head, protecting his skull from the leather armrest.

The air left Jun’s lungs in a whoosh.

He opened his eyes.

Min was hovering over him, his forearm braced on a side of Jun’s head, taking the brunt of his own weight. Their faces were inches apart.

Jun could see the flecks of gold in Min’s pitch-black eyes. He could feel the heat radiating from Min’s chest through the thin fabric of the shirt. He could smell the sandalwood and tobacco, the source of the familiar scent on the clothes, overwhelming him now, thick and intoxicating.

Min wasn't breathing hard. He wasn't flushed. He was perfectly, terrifyingly still.

Jun lay frozen, pinned, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. He stared up at the man who had terrified him for years. The man who looked at him like he was dirt.

For a moment, a long, stretched-out silence, Min didn't move. His gaze dropped from Jun’s wide, terrified eyes to his parted lips, then back up. There was a flicker in that stoic gaze. Not anger or hate, just something unreadable. Something that looked almost like... pain.

Then, Jun snapped back to reality.

"Get off!" Jun gasped, shoving his hands against Min’s rock-hard shoulders. It was like trying to push a mountain. "Get off me! What are you doing? Let me go!"

Min’s expression hardened instantly. The flicker was gone, replaced by the familiar mask of ice.

He pushed himself up effortlessly, standing and adjusting his cuffs as if he hadn't just pinned his stepbrother to a couch.

"Stop screaming," Min said calmly. "You are acting like I kidnapped you. We are brothers, moreover If I wanted to kidnap you, you wouldn't be on my couch. You’d be in a dark basement somewhere under the Han mansion."

Jun scrambled into a sitting position, pulling his knees to his chest, wrapping the oversized shirt tighter around himself. "Where am I? Why am I here? Where is Felix?"

Min walked back toward the kitchen, picking up the ladle he had discarded on the counter. "You are in my penthouse. I was at the Club Vibe last night for business. I saw you. You were unconscious in a booth."

"Felix..."

"I don't know your friend," Min interrupted, his voice cutting. "I asked the bouncer. He said your companion left with someone else an hour before you passed out. I had my security sweep the area. He wasn't there."

Jun felt the blood drain from his face. "You left him?"

Min turned, his eyes cold. "I secured you. That is where my obligation ends. I have since had my head of security locate your friend. He is safe. He was taken home by one of the drivers I assigned to tail you. He is likely sleeping off a hangover in a guest room."

Jun slumped, relief washing over him, followed immediately by a surge of humiliation. "So you brought me here to... what? Mock me?"

"I brought you here because you blacked out and I wasn't going to dump you on your mother’s doorstep covered in vomit," Min said, turning back to the stove. "I have your phone. It's on the charger."

He stirred the soup, his back to Jun.

"You are reckless, Jun-woo," Min said in disappointment. "You come back to Seoul after ten years, knowing the Chairman is missing, knowing the sharks are circling, and you go to a club and get blind drunk? You are fragile. You have always been fragile. Do you have no survival instinct?"

"I didn't—"

"You are a target," Min continued, his voice dropping an octave. "You walking around unprotected is an insult to the security I pay for. Just because you played American for a decade doesn't mean you aren't a Han in the eyes of our enemies."

Min turned around, holding a bowl of steaming soup. He walked over and set it on the glass coffee table with a sharp clack.

"Eat," Min commanded, pointing at the bowl. "Sober up. Get your hangover sorted. And then get out of my house. I am obligated to ensure you don't die before the will is read, but I am not obligated to babysit you."

He straightened up, looking down at Jun with a sneer that didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Don't look at me like a kicked puppy. It's pathetic. Eat."