At the surge of emotion, Kang-woo spoke before he could stop himself, almost as if arguing back.
Seok-ho’s eyes flashed sharply.
“How do you know that?”
Only then did Kang-woo realize he had made a mistake. Up until now, Seok-ho had never once mentioned Jung-yeon’s trait. Which meant that the fact Kang-woo knew she was an Alpha was strange.
“…I found out by chance.”
“How did you find out by chance?”
Seok-ho clearly had no intention of letting it slide so easily. Kang-woo quickly ran through possibilities in his head.
“Noona obviously looks like an Alpha. It’s not just me—anyone seeing her for the first time would know. Honestly, it would be stranger not to realize she’s an Alpha.”
The explanation came out jumbled and disorganized. It didn’t really explain how he had “happened to find out,” but it wasn’t entirely unreasonable either.
After all, Jung-yeon was unmistakably an Alpha.
Betas couldn’t accurately distinguish between Alphas and Omegas just by looking at them. At most, they could vaguely guess—something like, this person excels in every way, so they must be an Alpha.
But there were some Alphas even Betas could recognize at first glance. The stronger the trait, the more they stood out.
Seok-ho seemed unable to deny that point, because he didn’t question further. That didn’t mean the suspicion in his eyes disappeared.
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have suddenly brought up your family.”
Kang-woo hurried to apologize.
It was both an attempt to steer the conversation away and a sincere apology. He suddenly wondered if mentioning Jung-yeon so abruptly might have made Seok-ho uncomfortable.
Seok-ho sighed with a furrowed brow. Then his expression relaxed, and he said something unexpected.
“I think you’re misunderstanding something, so let me correct it. Kwon Jung-yeon and I aren’t family.”
“…You’re not family?”
What did that mean?
Jung-yeon had clearly introduced herself as Seok-ho’s noona. And from the way she talked about him, anyone would assume she was truly his family.
Outwardly they bickered, but underneath it all, they clearly cared for each other like real siblings.
“No.”
But Seok-ho spoke firmly.
“My only family was the mother who gave birth to me—and she died right after I was born.”
Kang-woo had already heard from Jung Young-wan that Seok-ho’s mother had passed away. But that didn’t answer his questions. More and more question marks floated through his mind.
If Seok-ho’s only family had been his late mother… then who was the “older brother” Jung Young-wan had mentioned before?
And why was Jung-yeon acting like his family?
There were so many things he wanted to ask, but he couldn’t bring himself to.
Seok-ho’s profile looked strangely bitter.
Kang-woo understood all too well that talking about family could be painful for someone. For him, ever since he was young, his mother had been exactly that kind of subject. He didn’t want to dig into someone’s wounds just to satisfy his curiosity.
“We finished the beer.”
Seok-ho spoke briefly, as if he didn’t want to continue that topic. Rising from the sofa, he walked over to the refrigerator.
“Want another can?”
His subdued eyes looked at Kang-woo. Kang-woo parted his lips, then gave a faint smile and shook his head.
“No. I think one can upset my stomach a little. I’ll stop here.”
Seok-ho didn’t push him further. He took another can of beer for himself from the fridge. After that, the conversation stopped.
I shouldn’t have brought it up.
The atmosphere had been fine before the topic of traits came up. As he blamed himself, Kang-woo felt his mood slowly sink.
Only the noisy sound of the TV filled the quiet living room.
***
The streets of Gangnam were crowded with people who had poured out to celebrate the beginning of the new year.
Because of the occasion, most of the people filling the bars and clubs were those who had just turned twenty, visiting in groups with their friends.
Kyung-wook wasn’t much different.
The only slight difference was that this wasn’t his first time visiting a club.
Kyung-wook stepped outside for a moment to escape the chaotic space filled with loud, pounding music. As soon as he pushed through the heat of the underground interior, he saw that the front of the club was also packed with people waiting to get in.
He had come outside to give his overworked hearing a rest, but it wasn’t much quieter out here.
The chattering voices prattling around him assaulted his ears.
Everything felt like irritating noise.
“Damn, did you see the quality tonight? Why are the girls all so damn good-looking? I’m not going home tonight. I’m definitely leaving with one on my arm.”
Lee Seong-cheol snickered, his cheap vulgarity impossible to hide.
Kyung-wook stood a step away from the group, a cigarette between his teeth. As he flicked the lighter and inhaled deeply, the acrid smoke filled his lungs. He exhaled slowly, then pulled his phone from his pocket.
[Don’t stay out too late. Father will worry about you.]
It was a message that had arrived an hour earlier. Not that he intended to reply anyway.
“Trying to act like some kind of older brother.”
Kyung-wook clicked his tongue and held the cigarette at an angle.
His finger left the messages and soon tapped the photo album. His gaze fixed on one image. He stared at the phone in his hand as if he might devour it.
The photo Kyung-wook was looking at had been taken a long time ago. In it was a young Kim Kang-woo, from before his secondary sex characteristics had manifested. The two of them, still middle schoolers then, stood with their arms slung over each other’s shoulders, smiling brightly at the camera. Back then, he and Kim Kang-woo had looked like genuine friends.
“Oh—what’s this? Isn’t that Kim Kang-woo?”
While Kyung-wook was staring at the face that still had traces of baby fat, Lee Seong-cheol suddenly leaned in.
“Damn, our Kang-woo was fucking cute when he was younger. At this level, isn’t he more like a girl than a guy? Huh? A girl?”
Still grinning, Seong-cheol suddenly shook his head with a click of his tongue, sounding regretful.
“Ah, fuck. We should’ve just yanked down his pants that day before letting that bastard run off. Hey, Kyung-wook. Lend me your phone for a second. I wanna take a closer look.”
Seong-cheol reached out as if to grab the phone. But Kyung-wook quickly shoved it into his back pocket.
“Don’t touch it.”
His gaze openly showed his displeasure. Seong-cheol awkwardly withdrew the hand left hanging in the air and scratched his chin.
“Man, you’re ridiculously sensitive over just looking at a photo.”
He muttered for a moment before quickly changing his tone.
“But you two must’ve been pretty close. I heard you stuck together every day in middle school, but I thought that was all bullshit.”
Seong-cheol hadn’t gone to the same middle school as Kyung-wook.
He had attended a middle school in the neighboring district, so he had heard plenty about Baek Kyung-wook—the dominant Alpha—but he only truly became acquainted with him after entering high school and ending up in the same class.
So everything Seong-cheol knew about Kim Kang-woo and Baek Kyung-wook being close in the past was just rumor. At first, seeing how incompatible the two seemed, he had assumed it was nonsense. But seeing the photo where they were stuck together shoulder to shoulder, maybe it wasn’t.
“But how did Kim Kang-woo piss you off so badly that things turned out like this between you two?”
Seong-cheol realized he had misspoken the moment the question left his mouth. Cold dark-brown eyes fixed on his grinning face.
“What’s the relationship between me and Kim Kang-woo supposed to be?”
Kyung-wook flicked ash from his cigarette with a snap of his finger, staring straight at Seong-cheol as if daring him to keep talking.
“Huh? Uh?”
“What’s my relationship with Kim Kang-woo like—how does it look to you, you little shit?”
Since Seong-cheol kept running his mouth without reading the room, Kyung-wook had practically set the stage for him. But now that he was actually on it, Seong-cheol just burst into an awkward laugh and rolled his eyes around nervously.
“No, I mean… you two don’t even keep in contact anymore, right? I’m just saying. I mean, honestly, isn’t that how it is? Huh?”
Speaking in a casual tone, Seong-cheol lightly patted Kyung-wook’s shoulder, as if telling him to relax.
Kyung-wook simply stared at him in silence. Under that cold gaze, Seong-cheol began to sweat.
“Ahem.”
He cleared his throat and looked away, pretending to be distracted.
“Ah, damn. Standing out here in the cold wind is sobering me up. I drank expensive stuff, too. Hey, let’s head back in now. It’s freezing.”
The others nearby, who had been chatting and smoking among themselves, heard Seong-cheol’s urging and crushed their cigarette butts out before heading back into the club one by one.
Kyung-wook also tossed his short cigarette onto the asphalt and crushed it under his shoe. Then he walked in the opposite direction from the group. Seeing his figure striding away, Seong-cheol called out urgently.
“Kyung-wook! Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“Why all of a sudden?!”
“This is boring.”
“Hey, we’re just getting started! We can grab girls now! I already got something from Santa that’ll make the drugs hit like crazy! Baek Kyung-wook, you bastard! We land way hotter chicks when you’re around!”
Seong-cheol’s voice tried to stop him from behind, but Kyung-wook ignored it completely and kept walking. He flagged down a taxi on the main road and headed straight for Sinchon-dong.
Since the distance between the starting point and the destination wasn’t very far, the taxi arrived quickly.
“You’re not taking the change?”
“Keep it.”
Kyung-wook pulled out a fifty-thousand-won bill from his wallet, paid the fare, and walked toward the officetel.
Looking up at the tall building, Kyung-wook clicked his tongue bitterly.
He had planned to keep Kim Kang-woo locked up somewhere high in that building.
For a brief moment, something strange flickered in his cold eyes.
It wasn’t as though Kyung-wook had felt any particular emotion toward Kang-woo from the beginning. When they were younger, he had simply been drawn to him without understanding why. To the point that even his own father found it strange—Kyung-wook had always wanted to give Kang-woo everything, endlessly.
He followed that inexplicable feeling for a long time. Only much later did he finally realize the reason he had been so weak toward Kim Kang-woo.
Kim Kang-woo reminded him of his foolish mother.
A mother he had never been able to depend on, not even for a single moment. A mother who didn’t know how to give affection, yet constantly craved it.
Kyung-wook’s mother had been a dominant Omega.
Born to parents who ran a small, unimpressive restaurant, she had grown up in a poor household, enduring every hardship with stubborn determination.
During her school years, when her classmates discovered she was an Omega, she was ostracized.
Even though that label followed her everywhere, she never gave up. Even when her debt-ridden parents abandoned her in a house plastered with foreclosure notices and ran away, she endured life with fierce stubbornness.
She studied while working brutal part-time jobs, barely managing to secure a position as a secretary.
And that was where she met Baek Gu-bon.
The two soon fell in love, as if by fate. Or at least, they believed they had. For his mother, the happiest time of her life was then—
When she and Baek Gu-bon secretly enjoyed their affair together in hotel rooms.
Even though the man she loved was married and already had a five-year-old son, it didn’t matter to her.
