“You should let go of him.” Colonel Yang’s voice is exceedingly chilling. The air has turned subzero and where he stands, glacial ice forms beneath. His gait is composed and steady, not one bit off-balance, but the undercurrent in his eyes is dangerously dark. He makes his way forward in deathly apparition, his form backlit by the waning moon. “It isn’t a request, but an imperative warning.”
The gravel cracks in motion. Noah thinks things will escalate beyond saving when the man so adeptly flips his knife upward, juggling it between his fingers in warning. The woman lets out a low whistle and deliberately tightens her hold on Noah. She is having too much fun with this that Noah can’t help but glare – though the glare turns into more of a wince when she covers his nose as well, effectively hampering his breathing.
He grabs her hand in an attempt to pry her off, but she is excessively strong – or perhaps, a part of Noah’s mind supplies that he needs more training instead. His injured shoulder is buckling from her grip.
“Pretend to struggle,” she whispers to him.
He doesn’t need to see to imagine the smile on her face. He also doesn’t need to ‘pretend’ to struggle either, considering his lightheadedness. He breathes harshly into her hand and lets out a soft whine.
“This is a… hm, a hostage situation,” the young woman says. “Give me all your money or I’ll have his life.”
“…” Noah only sighs in resignation.
Colonel Yang, however, doesn’t see through the poor farce. Unknowingly, the woman had found time to slide a knife dangerously close to Noah’s neck – not close enough to prick his skin but it is dangerous nonetheless.
Yang Rong has never looked more frightening. The man, shrouded in dark shadows, exudes alpha pheromones so pungent Noah can physically feel.
“I do not go easy on women,” he says coldly.
She lets out an airy laugh. “Really not my type… I’m more into this cutie here.”
“You’re asking for money?” Yang Rong sneers. “Then you’re asking the wrong person, because I have absolutely zero.”
At that, the woman balks a little. “You’re not rich? Then why does N—this little cutie stay with you?”
Yang Rong also has to blink a few times to register her meaning. “What do you mean? What does that have to do with anything?”
“…I believe there has been a misunderstanding, then,” the woman says with a small frown. “I had assumed you two to be dating, but… Hm, now that I look at you, you don’t seem to be good for him either. I had hoped he would introduce me to a better person. Not someone this aggressive.”
“…” Yang Rong stares at her for a really long time. The pieces finally click together when he notices Noah’s half-embarrassed, half-defeated face. “You know each other?”
The woman drops her death grip on Noah and sends over a radiant beam. Her brunette hair is tied in a high ponytail, and her pretty green-gray eyes reflect off a trillion stars. Very, very eye-catching.
“Noah, mon chéri!” She hugs him and drops a chaste kiss on his cheek – many chaste kisses, trailing down from his cheekbone to jawline. She coos at him like a mother would her son. “I missed you, sweetheart…!”
“…Allaire,” Noah groans out, though he doesn’t resist the kisses. “You almost cut off my breathing and—ngh, my shoulder—”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“My goodness!” she gasps after seeing a peek of the bandages on his shoulder. “What’s happened to you, Noah?! Come on, take off your clothes and let me see…”
“…Rb,” tf rlutr bea. “Pa lr olcf ktfc sbe vbc’a abemt la.”
She clicks her tongue in disappointment and immediately resumes to touching him everywhere but his shoulder.
“Xlnf wf j xlrr lc ugffalcu.” Vtf kgjqr tfg jgwr jgbecv tlr cfmx jcv qemxfgr tfg ilqr lc yfmxbc. “Jbwf bc, mbwf bc.”
Lf rlutr jcv vgbqr j iluta xlrr bc tfg mtffx. Lf’r ktbiis mbwobgajyif vblcu la abb – bcf mjc afii la’r j gffcjmawfca atfs’nf vbcf wjcs alwfr. Pa lr ecobgaecjaf, tbkfnfg, atja atf jevlfcmf bo bcf lr bcis j ilaaif qffnfv ys atf vlrqijs bo joofmalbc. Tjcu Ebcu kjamtfr mibrfis jcv vbfrc’a rjs jcsatlcu, atbeut tlr ygbkr ufa wbgf jcv wbgf mglcxifv qfg fjmt qjrrlcu rfmbcv.
“Only on the cheek?” Allaire frowns purposefully. “Not on the lips?”
“…” Noah stares at her in defeat. He has half a mind to tell her to stop joking. Instead, he settles to placate her with one more kiss on her cheek, cupping her jawline and dipping his head low—before Yang Rong roughly pulls him away.
The colonel’s eyes are twitching madly. A blood vessel is close to popping. The grip on Noah’s deltoid is more forceful than necessary but he still is restraining himself, considering how his hand is shaking from excess.
“Hey.” Yang Rong’s voice is a mix of frustration and spite. His tenor is abnormally strained. He lowers his mouth to Noah’s ear, all the while glaring at the woman in front of them. “You. Don’t do that in front of me.”
“…” Noah is confused by the brewing tension. He shakes his mind off it immediately and starts the introductions before anything else goes south. “Yang Rong, this is Allaire. Allaire, this is… Colonel Yang of Unit One. He’s a… I met him. A month ago.”
“Yang Rong, Yang Rong,” she rolls the name off her tongue. “Colonel Yang… you are very strange. You’re not lovers so… what are your intentions with him?”
Yang Rong only continues to glare at her. “None of your business. Noah, who is this frustrating woman?”
“Allaire is someone I’ve been acquainted with for a long time. One decade, at least.”
“…One decade,” Yang Rong repeats monotonously. “Why so long?”
“…?” Noah ponders a little. “Perhaps it would be twelve years if I had to give a better approximation. I’ve resided with her since young.”
“Just you and her,” Yang Rong says. “That alpha woman?”
He raises a brow. “Allaire is easy to get along with. She has a very mild temperament and is not as overbearing as y—”
“—I’m better,” Yang Rong tells him. “I’m better looking, stronger and more skilled in every facet.”
“…” Noah furrows his brows. “There is some sort of misunderstanding?”
Allaire lets out an amused laugh, her melodious voice traveling more loudly into the night. “Wow. Noah, be careful not to let that beast latch onto you… Although, hmm, I am surprised he hadn’t marked you yet with how impulsively aggressive he is—ah, does he know you’re an omega?”
Noah doesn’t reply, but the fluster gives it away. To be more frank, he doesn’t look that flustered – how Allaire can tell the one quiver on his face is beyond understanding. “We don’t have that kind of relationship.”
The young woman lets out a low hum, her eyes trailing from Noah to Colonel Yang and then to the latter’s still-shaking hands. Yang Rong oozes hostility and if not for Noah next to him, there is little doubt he would engage in a fight. Tonight, the colonel is unexpectedly extra aggressive.
“I see,” Allaire says. “Then I will have to ask how you’ve gotten involved with a colonel, of all people. But first, why don’t we head home and have a nice talk over dinner?”
“Mn,” Noah agrees. “I do need a little bit of your help.”
“I’m sure,” the woman says with a disappointed frown. “My dear Noah, I haven’t seen you for two months and already, you look like chicken bones. Does this Colonel Yang not know how to take care of you or has he been eating your share? His physique certainly seems bulkier in comparison.”
“…” Yang Rong doesn’t know what to say.
Neither does Noah but he tries anyway. “My digestion hasn’t been great.”
Yang Rong feels the need to add, “I feed him well. The little kitten is only the pickiest eater in the universe.”
“…Little kitten,” Allaire repeats in amusement. She turns to Noah with a twinkle in her eyes. “Oh? He calls you that? How surprising you’d let him, considering you almost decked Hyun in the face for—oh.” Allaire suddenly comes to an epiphany. “Oh, I see. Noah, he already knows, hm?”
“…Mn,” he replies quietly. “In fact, Colonel Yang is also infected.”
Allaire’s eyes widen. Then, she lets out a soft laugh and brushes back the loose strands of her bangs. “Suddenly, everybody but me is infected here. It makes me think I’m the minority instead when around you aberrants.”
—
Hours later, the three make their way past an unsuspecting metal door and down a long flight of concrete stairs. The area is relatively obscure – somewhere past the forest, out of the main roads, and in between muddied terrain. The entrance of the air-raid shelter would be easily missed if not for Allaire leading the way, though Noah is also familiar with every high and low hill.
Yang Rong, on the other hand, sticks to Noah’s side like a lost shepherd dog, his eyes flicking from one end of the staircase to the other. He is also sticking very close, side by side, arm to arm, enough to brush against Noah’s fingers once in a while. The colonel had remained relatively silent and docile for most of the journey, simply listening in on Allaire’s drabbles and mundane updates – things about their food supply, book curations, guests and customers, then more things that the general outsider wouldn’t understand.
So, Yang Rong is immediately out of the loop as Noah actively makes conversation with her – and the latter enjoys it too, because he had chuckled more in the last hour than he ever did in a month when with the colonel.
“Mm,” Noah replies to Allaire as the ramblings go on and on about his whereabouts for the past exactly seventy-two days. “I had met with an old friend in the city and… I’m sorry, but I crashed your car.”
“There you go recklessly traveling again,” Allaire chastises him, flicking him gently on the forehead. “How did you move from here to the city then to the Arctic so quickly, hmm? Did you hijack another car, or did you bribe a certain person who seems to be infatuated with you?”
“…Neither,” Noah replies with a soft cough. “The other car wasn’t hijacked. It was Shi Luo’s, but it broke down as well, so I had to walk the rest several hundreds of miles.”
“Ah,” Allaire replies teasingly, “so it was that other person who’s also infatuated with you.”
“…Don’t put it like that,” Noah tells her begrudgingly when they reach another door. This one is wooden and is painted in an earthy red tone. “Shi Luo sent me on an errand to procure drug samples for him, so it is natural he’d provide me a vehicle. A shame I might have to pay for the damages now, however.”
Allaire lets out a lighthearted laugh. She takes out a thin wire from the pocket of her trousers and inserts it into the keyhole. She fiddles with it expertly in between her slim fingers and in a matter of seconds, a soft click is heard. “I highly doubt that, my dear. I think if you blinked your pretty eyes twice, Dr. Shi would assemble a whole aircraft for you. Blink them thrice and he’d bring out a whole fleet.”
“The risks of air transportation are—”
“Not my point, sweetheart,” she says with a growing grin. She opens the door and beckons for him to go ahead. “Here you are, Noah. And Colonel Yang, was it? I’d forgotten my keys again, but I can ascertain that this place is run by me. Make yourself at home and… be a good guest. Don’t destroy anything.”
The hanging bells on the door chime with the wind. Yang Rong heads in with a still disgruntled expression on his face. “Why would I destroy anything?”
“Just teasing you,” Allaire replies with a wink. “Your reactions are quite enjoyable.”
“…” Yang Rong resolutely turns away and refuses to speak to her. It is rather humorous, really, for the colonel to be this reserved. In a different environment, he would’ve no doubt tried to assert his dominance, but tonight he’s in a more subdued state of agitation – more subdued than he was earlier, at least.
The place they’ve entered is well lit with candles and kerosene lamps. The décor, however, is a tad eerie. Little resources were spared in its décor – to the left, an antique mahogany counter, to the right, several sinks and disposable stations, and then ahead, a long narrow corridor that may or may not be a kitchen. The chamber is a mix of laboratory and butchery.
Yang Rong studies every part of it. “This is a store?”
“You can say that,” Allaire responds, waving a hand for them to follow her down the corridor. “I run a reputable business. I buy from and sell food to the residents who may stumble their way here. Hm… I also sell exotic anomalies to military officers like you—which, speaking of…”
Allaire leads them on a mazelike path, turning at least three corners and passing more corridors before reaching another open area. She turns to Noah and leans in close to his ear. She whispers for him to hear alone. “I need to talk to you about a certain person who’d come to visit.”
Noah raises a brow. He lowers his voice to match. “Another difficult customer? You’ve been getting a lot of those.”
“This one is troublesome, but he pays heftily,” she replies. Allaire leans back again and flashes a bright smile at Yang Rong who is pensive in the back. “Come have a seat in the communal lounge.”
“A communal lounge?” Yang Rong frowns. “Is this a hotel?”
“Of sorts, yes,” Allaire says, her smile not fading. “My business operates within many scopes.”
dum dum theater:
–[behind the curtains, in the 39th military base…]—
li jiayun: (furiously taps the transceiver) c-colonel yang! we’re still here!
yoo seok: (hums inattentively) don’t bother. he won’t respond.
jae: (sobs) the colonel has forgotten about us!
ming tang, sitting in the corner: no, the author has forgotten about us.
Tbh I also forgot about the squad😅
YR is jealous~
Thanks for the chapter!
😂 they…. they will be back after yr and noah get some more Alone Time if u know what i mean
Thanks for the chapter ♥️♥️
✨💕
Thanks!! YR is definitely challenged for head alpha here. So funny to see him this off his alpha game. 😝
yang rong: t-poses to assert dominance
Haha! The little theater was hilarious!
im glad my 0.5 braincell theaters are entertaining at least 😭😭
Gaaah I think I’m in love with Allair, everything about her reminds me of a deep Ruby red, with a thick yet dripping consistency.
Looking forward to the next dum dum theatre, Jae is just the most lovable pupper ever
I forgot to add how much I love Allair is just edging YR into action.♪(^^)o∀∀o(^^*)♪
👁👄👁 yr is just trying really hard to hold his big pp back right now
i should let the chaps pile up but dangs I read as fast as I do my due homeworks
DO YOUR HOMEWORK ON TIME
Well, I’m with YR in this, like who the hell is this woman, why is she kissing him in front of YR? Why Noah is accepting this??????????
Thank you for the chapter.
allaire: it is our tradition~~
noah: ＼| ￣ヘ￣|／ mn.
yang rong: … … how about i be a part of this tradition too?
Thanks for the chapter! <3
thank you for reading 💕
.
u__u i hope the rest of unit one is having a fun vacation! I wonder what kind of images ljy has managed to draw in the sand?
OMG this got me, I thought she was bad 🤣 I’m so happy that she isn’t 💃🏾
The lady being shocked that YR is poor… Noah stays with him because he’s in love, alright? Well.. that’s a little far-fetched, but it’ll surely be the reason in the future
YR is jealous, ayyyy. Allaire is also quite the curious character, I like her relaxed and flirtatious personality that is both teasing and enduring.
And the theater… Ming Tang, you are too perceptive. Even breaking the fourth wall, my goodness
They’ve made it to the slums already? RongRong really is playing hooky~