5.
“Anyway, we resolved it cleanly and smoothly!”
Where exactly? Which part was clean? His in-laws made his nose bleed, and his parents beat his back. If anything was ragged, it was definitely ragged, but which part was clean or smooth?
“No one opposes our relationship anymore!”
That might have been true, but it seemed like opposition had sprung up the moment they presented the first birthday party invitation. It was like he had created it himself.
Instead of correcting the facts, Saebyeok started the engine.
He wanted to hurry back to the hotel and apply a hot compress to the places that had been hit today. He felt really upset.
“If someone’s going to get hit, it should be me, not you.”
“Hey. Who’s at fault—the pregnant person or the one who got them pregnant? If anyone should get hit, it’s right that I’m the one.”
“Still!”
They say couples start to resemble each other, and Saebyeok seemed to have caught Gong Pyeonghwa’s strange sense of romance, feeling embarrassed that he hadn’t been the one to get hit! It felt like, comparatively, he loved less!
Honestly, he wondered what kind of feeling this was, but anyway, that’s how he felt.
‘A man has his pride. I feel like I’ve hidden too passively behind Pyeonghwa.’
Me? I love less than Gong Pyeonghwa? This was a matter of pride.
“Next time, I’ll be the one to get hit.”
When he stubbornly insisted, Gong Pyeonghwa shook his head.
“No. That’s not happening.”
“I said I’ll be the one to get hit next time!”
The two macho men, affected by anchoring bias and unable to even consider the option of not doing anything worthy of being hit in the first place, bickered back and forth.
“Both my parents are still very healthy. Let’s get hit twenty years from now. They’ll probably have lost some strength by then.”
“Every time you say things like that, I’m not sure if you’re an unfilial son or not.”
“That just means it hurts that much.”
“…Does it hurt a lot? Let’s apply hot compresses when we arrive.”
Gong Pyeonghwa kept insisting he was really fine, saying what else did an Alpha have going for him besides a sturdy body, smiling like a pushover.
“If you’re so sturdy, why did your nose bleed?”
“Mucous membranes are weak. Sigh. Alphas are people too.”
“You’re impossible to deal with.”
“What are you talking about? You’re going to live with me for the rest of your life. You should be dying of happiness.”
Would there ever come a day when he could overcome that thick skin? But thanks to that thick skin, Saebyeok could be honest with Gong Pyeonghwa.
“Did we do the right thing…?”
When he carelessly tossed out the messy thoughts in his mind without any order, Gong Pyeonghwa’s playful smile made him feel at ease.
“Of course. Definitely. No worries. Don’t worry.”
Whether it was because of his face, or his deep voice that inspired trust, or the calming effect of Alpha pheromones, he didn’t know, but whatever it was, it felt good.
“Still, they won’t come to the first birthday party, right? Inviting them the day before was really pushing it too far.”
“They’ll definitely come. The company’s closed on weekends anyway.”
“…”
Did I just think that whatever it was, it felt good? I think I need to reconsider that thought.
“They’ll come. Since they’re rational people.”
“What’s rational about it? The transportation to the birthday venue?”
“I did book a place with a good location. I did well, didn’t I?”
Once again, his husband seemed out of his mind.
‘I guess I need to be the one who stays sane…’
Gong Pyeonghwa’s face was calm and full of confidence.
“They’re the kind of people who think it’s more rational to come and regret it than to not come and regret it. So they’ll come first, then they’ll see Iseul and fall in love again. They’ll become completely captivated by Iseul. How’s your husband’s big picture?”
Strange.
Just as he was about to tell him that what wasn’t right wasn’t right, Gong Pyeonghwa covered his nose with the back of his hand as if his nosebleed, which he thought had stopped, had started again.
“Let’s go to the hospital just in case, okay?”
When Saebyeok spoke with worry dripping from his voice, Gong Pyeonghwa rambled nonsense trying to lighten the mood.
“No, no. There’s really no problem, it’s just that my butt is starting to feel sore now. Whew, my dad’s still so strong.”
His full swing form was no less impressive than a baseball player’s.
“But I did kind of deserve to get hit. Still, my dad’s cool, so honestly, he probably felt better after hitting me with the bat?”
How exactly is that cool?
“Ah. Maybe because it’s been so long since I got hit, it brought back memories. When I was getting hit with the bat earlier, I felt like I was back in high school?”
Gong Pyeonghwa reminisced nostalgically while mulling over the aching pain in his buttocks.
It was the time when he was in his third year of high school…
“Hmm? But why was I hit back then?”
He couldn’t remember.
Figuring it was probably for some trivial reason, he just whistled casually.
He turned on the radio, partly to change the atmosphere.
-…Yes! This next story is quite something.
The now-familiar voice of the radio DJ was heard. What kind of story did they receive this time? Thinking it was probably nothing special, he leaned back against the car seat.
-Hello. I’m an ordinary Beta woman. I have a boyfriend I’ve been dating for about 2 years, and my boyfriend is an Alpha. We met through a blind date and we had a lot in common, so we became close quickly. Yes, yes, I see.
Hmm. Ordinary.
-My boyfriend is very handsome and healthy, as you’d expect from an Alpha. It’s already established in academia that Alphas have good stamina and strong bodies. Yes, yes, even the Alphas around me have such good stamina that if I weren’t a Beta, I’d want to be born an Alpha.
Alphas hurt when they get hit with a bat too. Alphas are people too. Protect Alphas. Gong Pyeonghwa, defender of Alpha rights, protested silently.
-But I didn’t know back then.
What is this? Is there a twist?
-That he would use that stamina to cheat.
What trash.
Even Saebyeok, who had been listening without much thought, coughed in surprise. It’s like getting on what you thought was a merry-go-round only to find out it’s a gyro drop.
-My boyfriend worked hard at his job, and on days when we had dates, he would always arrive before me and wait, and after our dates, he would always make sure to take me home. He was a considerate person.
“As if that’s being considerate…”
“What’s considerate about that…”
Both the Alpha and the Omega couldn’t help but click their tongues.
-He was always diligent in his responsibilities, a boyfriend I was even considering marriage with. Before meeting me, he was such a nerd that he had no women around him, just a few friends. Since he had so few friends, and those friends all knew me too, whenever he said he was going out with friends, I would gladly let him go. I shouldn’t have done that.
Are you dropping ominous foreshadowing at this timing?
-While my boyfriend was traveling with his friend, I prepared a surprise to clean his studio apartment and surprise him. Finally, my boyfriend returned, and at the moment I was about to come out of the closet!
No way? No way? Surely not?
-My boyfriend was sharing a passionate kiss with his friend. I was so shocked I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t accept reality. That man I thought was just a friend was actually a male Omega, which is supposed to be so rare. Yes… the two of them weren’t friends, but were in a physical relationship.
Oh, my goodness. Gong Pyeonghwa covered Iseul’s ears and sighed. Saebyeok wasn’t much different.
“If he was going to be like that, why did he even date a girlfriend…”
“Don’t try to understand the minds of cheaters with a normal person’s brain.”
Hoping this would be a story where good triumphs over evil, they focused back on the radio.
-Of course, I told my boyfriend we should break up.
Thank you! Gong Pyeonghwa and Shin Saebyeok clenched their fists.
-Then my boyfriend started begging me.
Does he have no conscience? Why is he begging?
-I was so shocked that I came straight home without looking back. I kept thinking about the two of them kissing. I can’t even tell you how much I cried that day.
Gong Pyeonghwa spammed the radio message board with tearful messages.
[ã… ã… … Beta lady ã… ã… ã… ã… ã… ã… A Mercedes will appear for you ã… ã… !]
There were already dozens of people similar to Gong Pyeonghwa. The radio message board looked like it was going to flood with tears.
-Even though I hate him now, I still keep thinking about him. My boyfriend is begging me, saying it was a mistake, that the Omega seduced him first with pheromones so he couldn’t help it, that it won’t happen again, and when I see him begging like this, I think maybe the male Omega was the bad one, and I’m tempted to take him back reluctantly.
Eh, that’s not right. Gong Pyeonghwa and Shin Saebyeok shook their heads simultaneously.
-When I told my friend this story, she asked if I was crazy.
That’s right. That’s right. Gong Pyeonghwa and Shin Saebyeok nodded their heads at the same time.
-My friend is an Omega. She told me that she couldn’t say anything before because telling someone to break up with their partner while they’re dating can strain a friendship, but she had been sensing Omega pheromones from my boyfriend for quite a while. She said it wasn’t just pheromones that rubbed off from passing by, but traces of them marking each other after having physical relations.
Gong Pyeonghwa blurted out “What a son of a bitch” without thinking, then covered his mouth in surprise. Fortunately, Iseul was sleeping.
-I’m grinding my teeth with a sense of betrayal at the revelation that while dating me, he was continuously having relations with that male Omega behind my back. But I’m so pathetic for still trying to compromise, saying that it’s just memories and that an Alpha’s instincts can’t be helped. What should I really do in this situation?
What do you mean what should you do? That guy is trash. What’s all this nonsense about Alpha instincts?
Gong Pyeonghwa, defender of Alpha rights, drew a line as he condemned the actions of a certain shameless Alpha.
-Can Alphas and Betas never truly love each other? …That was the story.
The DJ seemed troubled and paused for a moment.
Then he raised his voice a tone higher to boost the tension.
-Our channel seems to have a lot of listeners who are dating people with special traits! But this story… whew. Fortunately, you’ve broken up with him now, right? You’ll be able to meet another Mercedes soon. We’ll send an air purifier as a gift to our Beta lady.
Huh? An air purifier?
“It must be from our company?”
“What are you talking about? Air purifiers are Baeksan.”
“Hey, no matter how much I love you, that’s not right.”
The royal family couple, with infinite pride in their respective company’s products, bickered. The DJ’s voice continued through their bickering.
-Dating between special traits and Betas, this seems like an eternal chain of worries. Special traits have pheromones that only they can feel, and we can’t read those pheromones. A recent survey showed that when dating someone with special traits, the suspicion of infidelity is quite high at 86%.
If there’s that much distrust, why date in the first place? Doesn’t dating essentially mean marriage? For Gong Pyeonghwa and Shin Saebyeok, who had extreme views on dating, this was incomprehensible.
-Special traits can send signals through pheromones without having to say anything, but we can’t even feel those signals, let alone read them. If I were to date someone with special traits, even I would find it hard to let go of the suspicion that ‘my partner might be deceiving me.’ Of course, it’s not just special traits—there are plenty of strange people among Betas too. I hope everyone has wise relationships.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
