Chapter 33
Do-heon rubbed his forehead and shook his head.
“Who do you think is making my waist and stomach hurt so badly right now? Just let me drink alcohol in peace.”
“What… should we do, Director?”
“…Leave him be.”
Taking advantage of the moment, Cheong-yeon leaned toward Do-heon and pressed him further.
“Am I the only one hurting like this? Is this normal?”
“What is?”
“Is it normal for a person’s bones to make creaking sounds with every step?”
“If it was that bad, you should have said you were in pain instead of drinking first. I would have taken you to the hospital right away.”
Do-heon responded in a somewhat softer voice to Cheong-yeon’s whining about being in pain from the previous night’s activities.
“And what would I tell the doctor? That I’m in pain all over because I did it too much with my ex-husband during my heat cycle? That my butt feels like it’s disappeared? Something like that?”
“Hmm. You have a point. It might be better to take painkillers once you’re sober.”
He reached out and touched Cheong-yeon’s forehead. Startled by the unexpected physical contact, Cheong-yeon pulled back.
He felt uncomfortable as Do-heon’s Alpha pheromones subtly permeated the air. It wasn’t enough to make his body heat up or lose control of his own pheromones like yesterday, but perhaps out of long habit, physical contact still made him somewhat uncomfortable.
“I feel a bit better than before, maybe because of the alcohol. But seriously, I can’t leave here today?”
“You still seem unstable, so stay until tomorrow morning. You don’t have academy classes today anyway.”
“That’s true… But what if I say I’m leaving?”
“Then I’ll have to lock the front door to keep you from leaving.”
“……”
He was calmly declaring that he would imprison Cheong-yeon if he refused to stay. His attitude was so unapologetically confident that Cheong-yeon almost found himself nodding in agreement without thinking.
Coming to his senses a beat late, Cheong-yeon furrowed his brow. Why exactly did he have to stay in this house until tomorrow just because Do-heon said so? Wasn’t that too forceful?
Additionally, he was curious how Do-heon knew he was attending academy classes. Had he seen the notification because Cheong-yeon paid with his card? He didn’t think Do-heon would check such details one by one.
Cheong-yeon glanced sideways at Do-heon with suspicious eyes. Just then, Do-heon’s phone began to ring.
It must have been a call from the company, as he stood up and left the dining room while answering the phone. Even as he was leaving, he didn’t forget to gesture to the employee to clear away the wine.
Seeing the employee hurriedly approach to clear the table, Cheong-yeon took the remaining wine and gulped it straight from the bottle.
“Oh my…! If you drink all of that like that, what will happen later? Your stomach will be upset…”
The employee stuttered in surprise at Cheong-yeon’s nearly manic determination to finish the entire bottle.
“What does it matter? Moon Do-heon isn’t here anyway.”
Having filled his stomach with alcohol, there was no more room for food. After emptying the wine bottle completely, Cheong-yeon brazenly stood up from his seat.
“Are you finished eating? Oh, by the way, I’ve prepared the bed on the second floor. I’ve also put out new toothbrushes and shower products in the bathroom—the ones you always used. Please let me know if you need anything else.”
Perhaps because he was drunk, drowsiness swept over Cheong-yeon, and for a moment, he considered the complacent idea of going up to the room and taking a short nap as she suggested. But soon he felt something off and stopped himself from heading to the bedroom.
They had prepared the bedding and filled the bathroom with the products he always used?
He was no longer a resident of this house and didn’t live here anymore. He wasn’t even in a position to be called a guest anymore.
So why did the people in this house continue to treat him as they had before? As if nothing had changed.
The room was exactly the same as when he used to live here, and his clothes and personal belongings were all in their places, nothing discarded. It was a space so familiar to him yet one he wanted to forget.
Was he really the only one in this house who found this situation strange?
“……”
Cheong-yeon changed his mind and decided not to go up to the room. Somehow, the idea of obediently returning there to sleep was repulsive.
His vision was slightly spinning, so it didn’t seem right to return home alone just yet. He didn’t need to stay until tomorrow as Do-heon said, but he did need time to sober up.
After contemplating what to do for a while, Cheong-yeon decided to watch a movie and turned toward the kitchen. Opening the cabinet, he found it still stocked with the snacks he used to eat frequently.
As far as he knew, the employees thoroughly organized the kitchen and refrigerator at least twice a week, but they hadn’t cleared this out. No, if anything, the snacks seemed even more fully stocked than when he had left the house. Do-heon, who never ate snacks unless during meals, couldn’t have changed his eating habits in the meantime.
“This damn house. What’s going on here…”
Cheong-yeon muttered to himself with a slightly slurred pronunciation. Then he grabbed some zero-calorie cola and a few snacks and went to the living room.
He sat on the living room sofa, opened all the snack packages, spreading them out, and began chomping away, not caring about crumbs falling, while selecting a movie to watch on TV.
“Isn’t he too drunk?”
“Should we tell the Director about this…?”
The employees began whispering with confused faces at Cheong-yeon’s unfamiliar behavior, something they couldn’t have imagined before.
They seemed to think Cheong-yeon was misbehaving because he was drunk, but while his body might have been tired, his mind was clearer than ever.
He just felt a surge of indignation—why had he never been able to comfortably watch a movie in the living room even though he had lived in this house for three years? It was frustrating that in such a spacious and nice house, he had never once been able to sprawl out leisurely, always anxious about how Do-heon would view him.
He told me to stay here anyway. Surely he wouldn’t complain about me watching a movie in the living room. If he does, I’ll just leave. I’m not in a position to worry about being kicked out anymore.
Cheong-yeon chose a romance movie that had been released recently. It was an ordinary high school romance genre, and he remembered his acting academy teacher praising it endlessly, saying it would be good to watch for study purposes.
The film depicted the protagonist’s life from age eleven to eighteen, with the story unfolding against a school backdrop. He had heard that three actors—two child actors and one adult—portrayed the character’s growth.
Although it was a quiet, light romance far from being artistic, it had received quite favorable reviews from critics.
To set the mood, Cheong-yeon turned off all the lights in the living room. The TV was so large that it really felt like being in a movie theater.
As the story of the protagonist’s childhood began, Cheong-yeon stared at the screen with wide eyes, trying to concentrate and clear his head of the alcohol.
Just then, having apparently finished his call, Do-heon emerged from the study into the living room. He approached after discovering Cheong-yeon sitting on the darkened living room sofa, munching on snacks and randomly watching a movie.
Instead of asking what he was doing, he sat down at a reasonable distance from Cheong-yeon and silently began watching the movie.
“……”
Cheong-yeon pretended not to see him and continued eating the snacks.
The movie’s protagonist, who seemed to be an Omega from a wealthy family, had attended a private school since elementary school. The scene showed wealthy children in school uniforms chattering and sharing their concerns with each other.
Along with typical concerns for their age about academic performance, future careers, and romance, they also exchanged fairly serious business talk, befitting children from affluent backgrounds.
—I’m not interested in my parents’ business. I don’t want to follow them to Yale either.
—Then what will you do?
—I’ll forge my own path in life! Just watch.
—Don’t be ridiculous. Sort out your love life first before talking.
—That’s right, coward Jason. How can you talk about forging your own path when you can’t even confess to the person you like?
—I’m serious!
…They’re quite precocious little ones. Look at them so boldly making such privileged statements.
Cheong-yeon smirked as he watched the children in private school uniforms on the screen. The child actors’ performances were so natural that he kept focusing on the story rather than the actors.
As he became overly immersed in the movie due to his tipsy state, he suddenly wondered what Do-heon’s school days had been like. Come to think of it, he had rarely heard stories about Do-heon’s childhood.
Cheong-yeon turned his head toward Do-heon, who was sitting next to him, and stared at him intently.
“What?”
Feeling the gaze, he asked after a moment.
“Did you go to a school like that when you were young, Director?”
“A school like what?”
“You know, where rich kids go. Wearing uniforms from elementary school, with fancy facilities.”
“Something similar. Though I didn’t waste time on trivial romances like those.”
He answered with a shrug, as if talking about someone else. Cheong-yeon put another snack in his mouth and tilted his head as if he couldn’t understand.
“What do you mean romance is trivial? Then what did you spend your time on?”
Don’t most kids have those kinds of concerns at that age? Then again, Moon Do-heon having romantic concerns? It didn’t seem to fit.
Even if it was when he was young, somehow the idea of him being desperately in love didn’t sit right…
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
