‘Thanks. And please tell your mother I’m really sorry for the sudden marriage news that must have surprised her. I can’t pay my respects right away, but tell her I’ll definitely come visit later. And that I’m grateful for everything.’
[Choi Seojun] Okay. And what about your stuff at my place?
“Ah…”
Come to think of it, if that guy had belongings at this house, it meant Junghyun had things at his place too.
Not as much as him, but probably quite a bit.
Casual clothes and toiletries, cups and books…
‘Throw them away.’
Saying it didn’t matter since these were things he regularly sorted through anyway, Junghyun took out an empty box from the dressing room and began methodically placing Seojun’s belongings inside.
After organizing the comfortable indoor clothes, left-behind perfume, skincare products, and ties, the dressing room was quickly finished.
Next, he went to the bathroom to put all of that guy’s toiletries in the box, and after clearing away the books and charging cables left in the bedroom, the smaller items were surprisingly easy to organize.
All that remained was the surfboard in the pantry.
When they went surfing in spring, something suddenly came up and they had to return midway, so he had brought that guy’s board and belongings back…
“Ah, the more I think about Jeonghoo, the more of a bastard he is…”
Even then, he knew that guy had deliberately called Seojun away. In a dying voice as if something terrible had happened.
He knew but pretended not to and let him go.
That was the kind of relationship they had.
A little closer than friends but more distant than lovers…
Looking back, what he and Seojun had wasn’t really dating.
It wasn’t based on love from the beginning, just a relationship maintained because they needed each other.
He needed a fixed partner to avoid blind dates and because he knew how annoying it was for an omega without a partner, and that guy stayed by his side to move on from an unrequited love.
The breakup with someone he’d spent nearly half his life with, someone he’d once wanted to become family with, was easier than expected.
That’s what relationships were like.
In some ways, complicated and difficult to break off, but once you decide to cut ties, it becomes incredibly simple and easy.
That made it feel somewhat empty.
It felt like all the time spent with that guy was disappearing too easily.
Chapter 5
‘Omegas are delicate and fragile, easily hurt, so they must be treated with care. Especially you, as a dominant alpha, must be even more cautious when dealing with omegas.’
That was the omega theory Jaehyuk had been educated on and raised with since childhood.
True to those words, the omegas around him since childhood were generally delicate, sensitive, and fragile.
Of course, they were stronger than women, but compared to how one would handle alphas, they seemed so fragile they might break if gripped too firmly.
So he was always careful with them. Always keeping his distance and avoiding contact, worried they might get hurt or wounded even slightly.
It was the same with the omega who gave birth to him, with Yeonwoo who was his closest friend, and with other friends.
So he firmly believed he would never treat an omega roughly in his lifetime.
That is, until this morning.
“You definitely have a problem somewhere.”
“…”
“So, go to the hospital first.”
“…”
“I’ll contact our foundation’s hospital, so take half the day off and go straight to the hospital in the morning. First, get examined by an ENT specialist, then get tested, and if there’s no problem there, go to neurology for every possible test, and if that still doesn’t work, get an MRI of your hea—, no, your brain. If the MRI doesn’t work, try an MRA, and if that doesn’t work, a CT, X-ray, and if nothing shows up there, even a PET-CT. No, if nothing shows up, do whatever you can—angiography, EEG, everything. There’s definitely a problem here.”
It was a bright autumn morning.
The abnormally high temperatures that had persisted regardless of the season had finally subsided, making the sky high, the wind cold and dry, and the air refreshing.
The weather couldn’t have been better—cool and pleasant.
One of the few such days in the year.
But despite the clear weather, the inside of the car the two were riding in was sweltering.
Due to Jaehyuk’s anger as he gripped the steering wheel.
“I told you I can’t wake up in the mornings.”
“‘Can’t wake up well’?”
Are you seriously saying that, you’re not just someone who has trouble waking up, at this level it’s a fraudulent marriage, ETC.
Under Jaehyuk’s gaze filled with a variety of emotions, nagging, anger, and curses, Junghyun raised both hands in surrender, acknowledging defeat before tightly shutting his mouth.
He had nothing to say about this one.
“You definitely have a problem. At this level, it’s a disease. It can’t be anything else.”
“…I’m a bit hard of hearing when I sleep.”
“Hard of hearing?”
Thinking this couldn’t possibly explain the problem, Jaehyuk slammed on the brakes at a red light and openly glared at Junghyun.
What did you just say?
Do you really think this falls under what people commonly call being ‘hard of hearing while asleep’?
If you seriously think that, you have no conscience.
Under that gaze filled with so many emotions and unspoken curses, the perceptive Junghyun raised his left hand.
Indicating he would keep his mouth shut.
He had no choice because today’s incident was, from any perspective, 100% his fault. Even people who knew him would be disgusted, and after experiencing it once, they would look at him as if wondering if he was even human. So it was natural for Jaehyuk, who didn’t know him well, to be this appalled.
All the tragedy began this morning, or more precisely, at dawn.
Time flew by faster than money leaving a bank account for credit card payments, and as they entered into full-fledged wedding preparations, the wedding day approached without a moment to catch their breath.
Junghyun could say with certainty that these two weeks were the busiest in his life. When work and wedding preparations combined, there wasn’t even time to sleep despite claiming he wasn’t doing anything.
Although he was told everything would be taken care of, as one of the parties getting married, there was still a considerable amount he had to do.
Without even a formal meeting between families, not knowing what was what, he was contacted from all directions, dragged around, and before he knew it, it was the wedding day, and after that, it was night.
Due to Jaehyuk’s schedule with appointments that absolutely couldn’t be missed, they postponed their honeymoon and went straight to Jaehyuk’s apartment after the ceremony ended last night for their first night together…
When they opened their eyes this morning, both were contemplating divorce for different reasons.
“How can you not wake up with alarms like that? And why is your alarm sound like an emergency disaster alert?”
“…I can’t wake up without that level of noise.”
“You couldn’t wake up even with that sound!”
At Jaehyuk’s outburst of anger again, Junghyun retracted his earlier thought that he might get along well with this man.
It seemed like they wouldn’t get along after all.
He nagged too much.
He wanted a divorce just a day after the ceremony.
“How have you been living all this time?”
“People find ways to survive, somehow.”
And once again, Jaehyuk shot him a look that seemed to say, ‘You call that an answer?’
“If you’re going to keep nagging, at least buy me some soju first. I’ll fall asleep while you nag.”
“You didn’t drink alcohol yesterday and then went to sleep, did you?”
At Jaehyuk’s perfectly reasonable suspicion that perhaps some part of Junghyun’s brain had been damaged by alcohol addiction, Junghyun turned to him with a face that said ‘talk sense.’
“I didn’t even have time to drink. We both passed out as soon as we got home yesterday.”
Jaehyuk also remembered that Junghyun had fainted the moment they returned home after being dragged around all day yesterday since early dawn.
Come to think of it, that too was exactly as Junghyun had described.
He had said he falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow, and true enough, in the unfamiliar house and bed he visited for the first time yesterday, Junghyun really had fallen asleep like he’d fainted the moment he lay down.
And Jaehyuk himself also fell asleep right after showering, sleeping so deeply that he missed his usual wake-up time.
Honestly, Jaehyuk found that amazing too.
Usually, no matter how tired he was, he couldn’t easily fall asleep if there was even the slightest noise, not just from right beside him but from the same room, or even outside the house. That’s why when traveling, he would rent an entire house, or always book a presidential suite at hotels, or if that wasn’t possible, rent an entire floor of rooms, but yesterday he had slept soundly.
Last night, seeing Junghyun fall asleep without even showering the moment he got into bed, he had cursed, wondering what was wrong with this guy’s nerves, but then he himself fell asleep sitting on the bed with a towel around his neck.
Without even properly drying his hair.
And he had slept without hearing the alarm sound.
That’s how overwhelming their fatigue was last night.
But no level of fatigue could overcome Junghyun’s alarm sound.
A sound that loud would wake the dead. No, it would have woken up neighbors above, below, and next door. To exaggerate a bit more, it probably could be heard from the security office on the first floor.
It was almost a stroke of luck that the management office hadn’t contacted them this morning.
So that was the problem. The fact that despite that incredibly loud decibel emergency alert sound, Junghyun hadn’t stirred at all.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
