KISS THE SCUMBAG Chapter 1

“Whose child is it?”

Suddenly, a cold voice pierced his ears. Yujin jolted, snapping back to reality. The muzzle was still pointed right at him. Winston’s cold face, looming over Yujin, and the eyes full of contempt for him remained entirely unchanged. Realizing that he had been lost in an absurd delusion, Yujin was flustered and at a total loss for what to do, even for a brief moment. Seeing him unable to find a response, Winston sneered as if he had expected nothing else.

“Of course you wouldn’t be able to answer.”

A short, scoffing laugh leaked from his twisted lips, sounding like a sharp intake of breath.

“What would a slut like you know about who the father is?”

For a moment, it felt as though something sharp had been driven into his heart. Yujin, his face drained of color, could only stare at Winston.

It’s you.

He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. His desperate sincerity struggled and wandered, lost within his constricted throat.

It’s you, Winston.

Seeing Yujin unable to speak due to the shock, Winston sneered and mocked him.

“Darling, I know better than anyone in the world just what a messy slut you are.”

∞ ∞ ∞ 

Cough, cough.

As his body shook violently with the force of his ragged coughing, the lawyer stood silently, back stiff and straight. Haa, haa. The man, gasping for shallow breaths, let his body slump with a look of exhaustion. Around him lingered the sweet scent of pheromones, unique to his secondary sex. It was the scent of that very trait that had allowed this man to rise to this position, granting him everything he possessed—yet denying him the one thing he had wanted most.

It was no longer intoxicatingly fragrant, nor was it thick. It simply lingered around him, faint and subtle enough to barely signal its presence. It was akin to the scent of death. Gurgle, gurgle. Letting out an annoying rasping breath, the man opened his mouth with a voice raspy and worn thin.

“How much… is left?”

Gurgle. Once again, a bubbling, metallic sound spilled out. The personal physician, standing by the bedside, just watched him in silence. After waiting for the coughing to subside, the lawyer paused before speaking.

“Are you ready?”

To the quiet question, the man repeated his labored coughing twice more before nodding. As if it were a signal, the physician asked a few questions. After hearing the man’s answers, he turned to the lawyer.

“Mr. Campbell’s consciousness is clear. His pheromone levels are also lower than usual.”

With Extreme Alphas, there are frequent cases where their brains melt due to their own pheromones. However, unlike his frail body, Harold Campbell’s mind was sharp.

“Of course. It’s the first time in my life my head has felt this clear.”

The lawyer and the doctor looked on in silence as the master of the estate retorted with a voice mixed with a metallic rasp, as if he had been waiting to say it. Harold Campbell was still only in his early seventies. Despite that, his remaining time was short.

Given the trait of an Extreme Alpha—who has higher immunity than the average person and ages slowly, resulting in a much longer life expectancy—this was unprecedented. Perhaps it was the price he paid for being the only one in the family born with a near-mutant trait. The pheromones that had dominated him for decades since his manifestation had finally knelt before their host now that death was near. And for the first time in his life, the man felt a sense of liberation. Soon, he would be free from this sickly, heavy body as well.

Harold coughed again. The lawyer checked that everything, including the doctor’s statement, was being recorded properly before speaking.

“This will has been drafted in advance according to the wishes of Mr. Harold Campbell, and Dr. Wilson, his physician, has verified that Mr. Harold Campbell is of sound mind. To prove the veracity of the will, two additional doctors have completed psychiatric evaluations and confirmed the same. Each certificate is attached separately to the will. Now, Mr. Harold Campbell, please read the will aloud yourself.”

The lawyer, who had recited the formal text like a machine after changing only the name and a few trivial words from the countless times he had repeated it for different clients, handed the prepared will to Harold and stepped aside. Harold collected his breath, struggled to raise his body, and buried his back against the large pillows before barely managing to speak.

“I, Harold Campbell, being of sound mind in the face of death, have written this will. It shall be executed without fail through legal procedures under the responsibility of Mr. McCoy, the lawyer.”

Having said quite a long sentence, he broke into a series of short, dry coughs, then steadied his breath again and began to read.

“Camilla, you who have spent your life with me, you gifted me our four treasure-like children.”

Harold began to recite the assets to be left to those remaining in a crisp, clear voice. To his wife, Camilla, $1 million in cash is to be paid monthly until her death. However, payments will cease if she remarries. To his only daughter and eldest child, Catherine, $10 million in cash and all the family horses are bequeathed. To his eldest son and second child, Gordon, $10 million in cash and the Malibu villa and its land are bequeathed. To his third, Jason, $10 million in cash is to be paid monthly, provided he undergoes continuous medical treatment. If he stops treatment or uses prohibited substances again, payments will cease immediately until he is admitted to a specialized hospital for intensive treatment and discharged.

Occasionally coughing harshly, he barely made it this far before gesturing to the physician to bring him water. Only after drinking the entire cup of water provided by the doctor did Harold gasp for air and open his mouth.

“And Winston, my beloved youngest son.”

He was his most cherished son and the one who resembled him the most, and he was the most excellent among the children Harold had sired. Thinking of the cold, purple eyes of the son who was the only one to share his own trait, Harold continued in a trembling voice.

“To you….”

∞ ∞ ∞ 

Yujin is returning.

When they first heard the news, the Campbell family was turned upside down. Lady Catherine, who frequently fainted, lost consciousness for 34 seconds this time as well, and her husband, George—who had been fanning her with a handkerchief after laying her on the sofa—managed to control his mouth as foul language threatened to spill out, muttering only a single, “Damn it!”

Camilla Campbell, who was always strong-willed and cool-headed in all matters, kept her back straight and appeared to maintain her composure, but inwardly, she felt so awful that she wished she could just faint like her fragile daughter. That was how terrible the mood was.

Catherine’s daughter, Georgina, who was still in her teens, sat apart drinking black tea and watching the adults with interest. Gordon, the eldest uncle who always stepped forward at times like this, raised his voice again, using his right to speak first.

“Why on earth is that cheap brat coming here? After dragging the family name through the mud, now he comes back!”

Lady Catherine, who was lying on the sofa clutching her head and groaning, added a word.

“His very existence is a disgrace to this family.”

Though I think the most disgraceful thing is Grandfather, who took in an Asian boy much younger than you as a lover while he was at that age, Georgina thought.

Wisely, Georgina did not voice her thoughts and just quietly brought her tea to her lips. It had been a very long time since she had heard the name “Yujin.” It wasn’t even clear whether it had been five or six years since Yujin had left the estate. “The freak who lived in the annex.” That was all Georgina remembered about him. After she grew up to a certain point, she had been told he was such a distant relative that it was meaningless to calculate the kinship, but the one thing that was certain was that there wasn’t a single person in the house who considered him family. Everyone thought the claim that he was a very distant relative was likely a lie from Harold Campbell, who didn’t want to lose face.

Because the truth was that he had been the secret lover of Harold, the master of the Campbell household.

Throughout his time at the estate, he was a presence welcomed by no one, and when Yujin left, everyone rejoiced and toasted to it.