# Chapter 20
“Fortunately, there’s no bleeding.”
He gently pressed on my scraped knee.
“…?”
He looked at my blank expression and then helped me up, saying I didn’t seem to be injured.
“This is our home…” I said with a silly smile.
“Yes, yes.”
“But why are you here?”
“That’s quick of you to ask.”
Do Jihoon said as he removed my coat. I passively accepted his touch. Jihoon’s hands were gentle, and his pheromones were comforting.
“…You.”
But then, after touching my hair, he suddenly said in a cold voice,
“…You’re really desperate to date, aren’t you?”
“Me…?”
There was no answer from Jihoon. His pheromones approached me aggressively. The memory of being showered with his pheromones a few days ago came to mind. I flinched.
“…”
Jihoon frowned. At the same time, his pheromones became gentler. He roughly stroked my face with soft hand movements.
“Waaah…”
“Stay still. You stink.”
“Damn it…!”
Stink! When I glared at him with wide eyes, Jihoon smiled broadly as if I were pathetic.
“What gives you the right to look at me like that? Have you no shame?”
He grabbed my nose between his index and middle fingers and wiggled it.
I felt wronged. I hadn’t done anything wrong. I’d been swept up in his anger without knowing why, and had to spend all day at school being careful after being bombarded with his pheromones.
It was heartbreaking. That I’d come to like Jihoon too much. It felt like I was the only one giving affection while he didn’t even consider me his friend.
Tears flowed again from my eyelids, which were swollen from crying so much.
“…Crying again.”
Jihoon spoke as if annoyed. I mumbled and said to him:
“You know… I really like you.”
“…What?”
At my words, his pheromones fluctuated unstably. Unlike his usual self, he asked me back in a dumbfounded voice.
Encouraged by this, I continued speaking.
“I really like you… Why are you always angry?”
“…”
“You need to tell me… I get a bit scared when you’re angry.”
“…Why? Why are you scared?”
Because I’m afraid my life will hit rock bottom if you dislike me.
Even in my drunken state, those words didn’t leave my mouth. I fumbled for a bit and then expressed the second reason why I was scared of him getting angry.
“You’re really precious to me… But to you, I’m like a stone rolling on the street…”
Jihoon was silent for a while, then spoke again.
“…What is there to be scared of?”
“…”
“I’m your fiancé.”
“My fiancé?”
At my stupid questioning, Jihoon looked me in the eyes and answered one by one.
“Yes. Your Alpha.”
“My Alpha…”
“Yeah. That’s what you’ve been babbling about.”
“Me…? When?”
“Whenever you drink too much… Never mind.”
Jihoon quietly sighed. But strangely, his gaze was so tender that it calmed me.
I smiled very brightly. My pheromones burst out and moved toward Jihoon. Thank you. I like you. You’re such a good person. He stood still and accepted all my pheromones.
“Woah. The bed is nice!”
I collapsed onto the bed with great satisfaction. Jihoon carefully sat on the edge of the bed and stroked my hair.
“You’re really like a dog.”
“Are you insulting me right now?!”
“I said you’re like a bastard.”
“You’re insulting me again…”
I closed my eyes as I received his strokes. I felt warm and drowsy. I wasn’t sure if it was due to Jihoon’s pheromones or his touch.
“You’re really… a good guy.”
“I’m glad you finally realized.”
Sleep was coming over me. Just before falling asleep, I smiled, raising the corners of my mouth, and said to him:
“Jihoon…”
“What.”
“Don’t leave me. Let’s be friends forever… Got it…?”
At that, his hand abruptly stopped. I drifted off to sleep.
❖ ❖ ❖
“…”
I was a dog. Fuck.
I looked up at Jihoon, who was sitting on the sofa with me kneeling. He was literally in a state of a bomb about to explode.
“…But you were the one who got temperamental first…”
“So you drank that much and came back on someone else’s back?”
“…”
“And to the apartment we’re going to share, no less.”
I had absolutely nothing to say, even if I had ten mouths. Just yesterday, I was clearly the one angry at him.
How quickly the power dynamics had changed.
“I just won’t drink anymore…”
“Of course.”
“Ah, on second thought, maybe not zero but just one bottle…”
As I carefully suggested a deal, Jihoon glared at me fiercely.
“Can’t you assess the situation?”
“…No, sir.”
I lowered my eyes, which had been raised in dissatisfaction. Fuck, sob. I was a hard-headed idiot who had stepped forward to accumulate bad karma.
Jihoon turned his neck as if already tired and said:
“Now you owe me three debts, Yuri. Is your dream to be a creditor? A debtor?”
Three? The first was when I got drunk and acted up for the first time, the second was the price of hiding our relationship, and the last was today’s karma.
But…
“Three, you say?”
“Don’t tell me you don’t remember.”
“No… Isn’t it two? Since our engagement relationship has already been exposed, that one should be taken out of the count…”
“Yuri. No cancellation of subscription. The period has already passed.”
He said with a clear smile. I felt a surge of unfairness, but I still had nothing to say.
But wait, something seemed a bit off.
When I first got drunk and acted up with Jihoon, I vomited on his clothes, and he took me home, so it made sense for him to look at me with disdain.
But this time, the situation was different.
I didn’t vomit, and it was Ki Taeyoung who took me home. If I owed a debt, it would be to Ki Taeyoung, not Jihoon.
Having reached this conclusion, I looked at Jihoon with a bit more confidence.
“Your expression looks quite ominous.”
“No. Think about it. One debt when Kim Bojin called you, two debts for agreeing to hide our engagement relationship. Up to there, fine, I acknowledge.”
“And?”
“But no matter how I think about it, I don’t owe you anything today, right? It was Senior Taeyoung who brought me home, not you.”
As soon as I said that, without any exaggeration, I experienced hell. Jihoon looked at me like a messenger from the fires of hell. A haze rose around him.
“…Why now…”
“Do you remember yesterday?”
“Yes. I remember everything I said yesterday.”
“And yet you don’t understand what the problem is. With your goldfish-like brain.”
The boiling around Jihoon went “psssh” and cooled down. With a resigned expression, he put strength into his hand and thumped my hair hard.
“Ow! Ow!”
“You’re really lacking.”
“Ow! What?”
“Like a deficient Omega.”
With those words, he stood up from his seat. I got up from the floor, watching his reactions cautiously. When Jihoon headed towards the entrance, I asked where he was going, and he answered that he was going home.
“Why?”
“What do you mean why? I need to bring my stuff.”
“Ah, right.”
“Yuri. Sometimes I’m genuinely worried about you.”
He raised one corner of his mouth and hatefully expressed concern for me. That look was exactly the same as usual. With that, I finally realized that he was no longer angry. Though I still didn’t know why he had been angry in the first place.
Jihoon beckoned to me as if calling a dog. Seeing that, I remembered the curses he had hurled at me last night.
“You bastard. You called me a dog bastard yesterday, didn’t you?”
“…You are definitely lacking.”
Jihoon sighed as he put on his shoes. I poked him repeatedly. We bickered like before as we each visited our homes to move our stuff.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
