Jung Haon’s reaction was exactly as Hyo-jeong had expected. She was certain that Seo Inho must have struggled to suggest going to the hospital.
“You told me Inho got angry when you said he should go to the hospital.”
“M-Me? I did?”
Haon asked back, flustered. He couldn’t clearly recall the phone call he had had with Hyo-jeong in the early morning hours. All he remembered was that he had called her.
At the time, Haon had rambled incoherently while trying to explain the situation, but Hyo-jeong had understood everything.
“Well, he didn’t exactly get angry… It’s just… I kept insisting we should go…”
“I get the picture.”
Seeing Haon so deflated, as if he had been scolded, Hyo-jeong gave him a warm smile. She could somewhat understand why Inho was so concerned about him.
“Inho doesn’t like hospitals.”
Hyo-jeong circled around the bed and took a seat across from Haon. Suddenly, Inho’s earlier words—Don’t say anything weird to him—flashed through her mind, but she decided to ignore it. After all, what she was about to say wasn’t weird.
“He was really sick before.”
As Haon straightened his upper body, the blanket that had been draped over his shoulders slipped off again.
“Uh, where… where was he sick…?”
Hyo-jeong, wearing thin-rimmed glasses, met Haon’s eyes. She adjusted her glasses as an excuse to discreetly study him.
He was completely different from the Omegas Inho had casually dated before. Haon looked as innocent as he was young, maybe even more so than others his age. It was easy to tell what kind of person he was even without long conversations.
More than anything, he seemed to love Inho with his whole heart. The image of Haon sitting barefoot on the waiting chair was seared into Hyo-jeong’s memory. The way he had stared blankly around, looking so lost, was like a child who had lost both his home and his parents.
Judging by Inho’s condition, it was clear he felt just as sincerely about Haon. The fact that he had taken suppressant pills so strong they strained his heart showed just how heavy his feelings were.
He must have believed that a frail Omega like Haon couldn’t endure his rut. Given how thin and weak Haon appeared, it made sense that Inho had tried to endure it with medication. Even if, as a doctor, she couldn’t condone it.
“Please, tell me…”
While Hyo-jeong was momentarily lost in thought, Haon, anxiously wringing his hands, spoke first.
“I… I don’t know anything about Inho.”
His faint voice trembled with the threat of tears. Haon forced his round eyes wide open, desperately trying not to cry.
It would have been fine if he cried. But just like someone who had grown too used to holding it all in, he tried his best not to. Hyo-jeong gave him a small, encouraging smile and continued explaining.
“He’s not sick anymore.”
She chose her words carefully, phrasing it just gently enough for Haon to understand.
“Even though he’s lying down like this right now, his body will recover quickly. As long as he takes his medication and manages his stress properly, he won’t collapse again.”
In truth, it was rare for a dominant Alpha’s body to deteriorate to this extent. It meant that Inho had been severely neglecting his own health.
“Then….”
Trailing off, Haon looked up at Hyo-jeong directly. His soft brown eyes gleamed with clarity, signaling he was ready to hear the rest.
Even so, Hyo-jeong didn’t speak right away. She took off her glasses, tucked them into her pocket, and pressed her fingers against the bridge of her nose. After a brief moment of silence, she chose her words carefully—then decided against filtering them. She figured if someone was going to stay by Inho’s side, they had the right to know.
“When he was a kid, he was forcibly hospitalized. For about three months.”
It had happened before Inho manifested as a dominant Alpha.
Whenever Hyo-jeong traveled to the U.S. with her family, she would occasionally meet Inho. In her memories, Inho was always a quiet, melancholic boy. It wasn’t that he appeared particularly sick or unstable. He was simply less talkative than his siblings.
But then, one day, she heard that Inho had been admitted to a psychiatric ward.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, why would I lie? Just keep it to yourself. Don’t tell anyone.”
The story had come from Park Jung-hyuk, Inho’s cousin, so she hadn’t fully believed it. After all, it was hard to accept that a perfectly normal kid attending school would be forcibly committed.
“Why was he hospitalized?”
“He kept throwing fits about going back to Korea. Heard he even tried to cut his wrist in front of the principal. Total psycho!”
“No way…”
At that time, Hyo-jeong didn’t know the full extent of Inho’s situation. She hadn’t been particularly interested enough to dig deeper, either.
If it were true, she had simply thought, What a pity. That was the extent of her concern.
Later, as Hyo-jeong returned to her regular life, she received a call from an unregistered number. She still vividly remembered tilting her head in confusion while answering her buzzing phone on her way to cram school.
Normally, she wouldn’t have answered. But she instinctively pressed the accept button without much thought—and what came through was an unexpected voice.
“Hyo-jeong noona, it’s me, Inho.”
The voice—saying Seo Inho again to clarify—was horribly hoarse.
She had no idea how he had gotten her phone number. But young Hyo-jeong didn’t have the time to question it; she immediately asked what was wrong. They weren’t close enough to be calling each other. Their families merely knew one another.
“Noona, please help me!”
However, for Inho, it must have been different.
“Please tell them I’m not sick!”
His clumsy, desperate voice didn’t even sound like him.
“I want to go home.”
For a moment, Hyo-jeong had thought either it wasn’t Inho on the line, or he had dialed the wrong number. After all, they weren’t close enough for him to make such a desperate request.
“Hyo-jeong noona, please!”
But Inho kept clearly calling her name over and over. It was definitely him asking for help. The moment she realized that, the strange heat that welled up behind her eyes was as vivid as if it had happened yesterday.
How desperate must he have been to call her of all people? That thought had crossed her mind back then.
“Where are you?”
The moment Hyo-jeong asked, the call abruptly cut off.
“Three months later, I heard he was discharged.”
Fortunately, it had been during school break, so she was able to use a family trip as an excuse to go back to the U.S. She hadn’t even finished unpacking before she rushed to find Inho. He was back at his usual boarding school.
“But… he didn’t remember anything.”
Leaning against the wall, Hyo-jeong stared quietly at Inho lying in the hospital bed.
“When I apologized for not being able to help back then…”
“Help with what?”
Young Inho had tilted his head, looking up at her with a puzzled expression, as if he truly had no idea what she was talking about. But his gaunt face, which had thinned dramatically over those few months, told the story of what he had been through.
“I’ve been here the whole time!”
“You mean at school?”
“Yeah, why?”
It took several more exchanges before Hyo-jeong realized he wasn’t pretending. He genuinely didn’t remember. So she never brought up that day again.
A few months later, Inho attempted suicide at school, and the following year, he manifested as a dominant Alpha. She had thought—hoped—that his hardships would end there.
“Even after becoming an adult, he had to visit the hospital often because of his drinking. His condition was that bad.”
Turning her gaze back to Haon, Hyo-jeong tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Haon was listening intently, his face giving little away.
“I’m telling you all this because he’s gotten a lot better now. Inho’s the kind of person who would rather die than talk about this stuff himself.”
Even now, whenever his health severely declined, he would struggle with his trauma. But he always bounced back quickly. Inho was steadily getting better—not because of anyone else, but by his own willpower.
“This time, the biggest issue was the amount of suppressants he took. As long as we manage his medication properly from now on, this won’t happen again.”
Hyo-jeong glanced at her wristwatch, signaling that she was wrapping up the conversation. By now, Haon should have some understanding of Inho’s condition. She studied his expression carefully before deliberately brightening her tone to shift the mood.
“So, when would be a good time for you to get your checkup, Haon-ssi?”
Lowering his head, Haon fiddled nervously with his hands before murmuring in a faint voice,
“When Inho-ssi… wakes up….”
“Alright, whenever you feel comfortable, Haon-ssi.”
Watching Haon, Hyo-jeong rubbed the tip of her eyebrow thoughtfully. Maybe all of this had been too heavy for someone as young as Haon to hear. She briefly wondered if she had made a mistake.
But the conviction that if Haon was going to run after learning Inho’s past, it was better to find out now—before they got any deeper—was even stronger. It would be best for both of them.
At that moment, Haon lifted his head and gulped down the juice in one go. He cooled his burning throat with the refreshing liquid, then looked back up at Hyo-jeong. His round eyes, lined with delicate burst capillaries, shimmered with moisture. It felt as though a mere brush of wind could make the tears spill over.
“What… can I do for him?”
But his voice was endlessly calm. He slowly closed his eyes and opened them again, and gradually, the vivid redness faded from his gaze.
‘He’s stronger than he looks.’
A faint sense of relief softened Hyo-jeong’s smile.
“Just staying by his side will be a great help.”
She spoke gently, glancing back and forth between Inho and Haon.
“Help him keep a regular routine, but don’t treat him too much like a patient. And… it’s better to keep alcohol at a distance.”
Haon nodded, folding down his fingers one by one, as if memorizing each point to later record it in his phone.
“He’s lived with alcohol for so long that quitting completely will be difficult, so even just reducing it little by little will be enough. Exercise together, find hobbies to enjoy together too.”
There were limits to controlling emotions with medication alone. Inho needed to change the small habits in his daily life first. If Inho were awake, he probably would have sneered and told her not to lecture him in a doctor’s coat.
But the most important things were often the most obvious: a regular, healthy life and time spent with someone you love.
Hyo-jeong firmly believed that alone could heal more than half of any illness.
“Still, these days, he’s been avoiding drinking parties, right?”
“He doesn’t go at all.”
Haon’s voice grew a little clearer. That, at least, he could say for sure. Ever since living together, Inho hadn’t once come home drunk.
At that, Hyo-jeong raised one eyebrow with an amused smile. ‘Inho must really like Haon.’
“At a glance, Inho seems like such a great guy, doesn’t he?”
Before leaving the hospital room, Hyo-jeong gave Inho a final, thorough look. Aside from appearing noticeably thinner, his face didn’t look sickly at all.
“Not to mention his looks, he’s attentive, considerate, playful…”
In response, Haon simply nodded enthusiastically. There wasn’t a single lie in her words.
“But all of that? It’s him trying to win your favor.”
Haon’s nodding stopped for a moment.
“He’s buttering you up so you’ll look at him kindly, so don’t hold back—show him lots of affection.”
Checking the time, Hyo-jeong headed toward the door. She handed Haon her business card, telling him to contact her anytime he needed help.
Haon quickly saved her number into his phone so he wouldn’t forget. Then he slowly turned his head toward Inho.
Even after Hyo-jeong left, Haon kept a calm expression. He didn’t cry anymore.
He took a small breath and wiped the sweat from his palms onto his thighs. After opening and closing his hand a few times, he reached out his arm to take Inho’s hand.
At that exact moment, Haon’s phone began to ring.
The lit-up screen once again displayed an unregistered number. Haon answered the call just before the vibration stopped. The voice that slipped out from between his cracked lips was stripped of all emotion.
“Who is this?”
