“Wow. Doji. That was suddenly aggressive. Even the best drivers hit the brakes hard sometimes. Let’s make seatbelts a habit.”
“……”
Do Jihoon didn’t say anything.
Heat spread through my whole body like the heater had been turned on.
Ah. Here it is again.
Is this bastard starting another one of his hysterical moods? I glanced at Jihoon. His expression had gone completely stiff.
Here we go again. But even this time, I had no idea why.
“Hey. Jihoon.”
“What.”
He stepped on the accelerator and answered coldly.
Because of that, I decided to just honestly say what was on my mind. I was seriously frustrated.
“You…”
Why are you being so irritated? What did I do wrong? You should at least tell me.
I forced myself to swallow the words.
That wasn’t a conversation—it was a reproach.
But when I thought about it carefully, this situation felt strangely familiar. That time he got angry after I met Ki Tae-young recently. Didn’t he react like this back then too?
No way.
He’s not jealous just because I’m meeting Shin Gi-hyeok… right?
Even I thought that was a stretch. A hollow laugh slipped out.
“Jihoon. When you suddenly get irritated like this, it really throws me off.”
“……”
“You must’ve been uncomfortable about something, that’s why you got annoyed. I tried really hard to think about why you’re angry, but I still don’t know.”
Jihoon didn’t say anything.
Looking straight ahead, I continued calmly.
“So if you’re angry, or uncomfortable, or feeling something negative like that, tell me. Then next time I’ll try not to make you feel bad.”
Jihoon lightly bit down on his lip. His pheromones gradually softened.
He almost seemed apologetic.
Cute bastard.
After choosing his words several times, Jihoon finally spoke.
“Yuri. You said it yourself—I’m your fiancé.”
“That’s right.”
“But it feels like I’m the only one who thinks of you as a fiancé.”
“…What?”
“And that really…”
“……”
I thought he would add something more.
But Jihoon fell silent.
I stared at him with my mouth open in disbelief. What kind of earth-shattering nonsense was this? I liked him so much—how could he say something like that? Jihoon clearly sounded hurt.
He let out a long sigh.
“I can tell just by your expression what you’re thinking.”
“Uh…”
“I was talking about the relationship between an alpha and an omega.”
The car stopped.
Jihoon turned to look at me. His face was rigid.
“Yuri.”
Air leaked out of Jihoon’s mouth.
“I guess I see you as an omega.”
With his thick brows furrowed, he bit down on his lip.
My mouth hung open. It opened and closed repeatedly like a broken machine.
What did I just hear?
Then does that mean what I thought at the café before wasn’t just something I imagined?
“Didn’t I say before? I’m an alpha too.”
“……”
“You’re an omega who already has a fiancé, but you say you’re going to eat alone with another alpha. What alpha would like that?”
“……”
A lot of couples run into problems because of opposite-sex friends.
When I thought about it that way, it made sense immediately.
But you were the one who said you were too lazy to go eat outside.
Those words rose right to the tip of my tongue before I forced them back down.
“I was going to make pasta at home. As thanks for buying me clothes today.”
“…You should’ve said that.”
“I didn’t think it would turn out like this.”
He shrugged.
For some reason, I suddenly felt like a criminal. I couldn’t even lift my head and just stared at the floor.
“You already made plans, right?”
“…Yeah.”
“Then it can’t be helped. I’ll make it for breakfast tomorrow. I was going to do it either today or tomorrow anyway.”
Jihoon let out a small laugh and spoke lightly.
That unsociable bastard. He was trying to cheer me up because I looked depressed.
“Go on. We’re in front of the barbecue place.”
Even though he said he didn’t want to, he still drove me all the way to the meeting spot. I couldn’t exactly tell Shin Gi-hyeok—who I had told to abandon his meal and come out—that we should meet another time, and I also couldn’t just send Jihoon home alone.
When I sat there motionless like a stone statue, Jihoon got out of the car and opened the passenger door for me. For some reason, my chest tightened painfully.
“Go on.”
“…Okay.”
“If you drink alcohol, you’re dead, Yuri. Don’t touch even a drop.”
“Of course. I’ll really just eat and come right back. Before seven.”
I stood quietly in front of the barbecue restaurant until Jihoon’s car disappeared.
[21 Shin Gi-hyeok: Where are you?]
[Right in front. Going in now.]
Only after Shin Gi-hyeok’s KakaoTalk message came did I finally snap out of it and walk into the restaurant.
***
“I guess I see you as an omega.”
Crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy.
The video player in my brain kept replaying Do Jihoon’s declaration: “You’re an omega.”
I was truly the dumbest idiot of the century.
Just last week, I had promised myself I’d focus on Jihoon. But all I had done was talk about focusing on him—my actions said otherwise.
I thought I had adapted extremely well to this world.
But I hadn’t.
If I really had adapted, I would’ve immediately realized that Jihoon saw me as the opposite sex—an omega.
A “pro adapter”? What a ridiculous delusion.
Even while eating, it was hard to stop thinking about Jihoon.
“I’ve lost my appetite…”
“You just ate an entire geun of pork belly by yourself. And isn’t that a lettuce wrap in your hand right now?”
“……”
“Are you okay? That looks like overeating.”
My mouth clearly had a mind of its own.
While my heart and brain were drowning in guilt, my mouth kept stuffing food into itself.
Shin Gi-hyeok looked at me worriedly.
Stop thinking about it.
I shook my head, cutting off the train of thought. It wasn’t right to sit there looking miserable in front of the guy I had invited.
“I usually eat a lot.”
“Really? I didn’t notice when we ate at the cafeteria.”
“I’m selective. If it’s good, I eat a lot.”
I answered casually.
The worry on Shin Gi-hyeok’s face seemed to ease a little. We hadn’t even known each other that long, yet he was genuinely concerned about me. I felt grateful.
“I picked good friends.”
“Really? That was random, but… thanks.”
“Yeah. Feel free to be grateful.”
Shin Gi-hyeok, Lee Daeju, and Kwon Jisoo too.
They were all warm-hearted people.
Some people say the friends you meet in college don’t last long. But really, it all depended on the person.
Shin Gi-hyeok and I finished six servings of pork belly between the two of us before parting ways.
My wallet was in serious pain.
It took about twenty minutes to walk from the barbecue restaurant to my house.
Plenty of time to get lost in thought.
“It’s gotten cooler.”
Just a few days ago it had been freezing. That’s why I had borrowed Ki Tae-young’s coat after the freshman welcome party.
His coat was currently at the cleaners, so I could pick it up during my free period on Monday and return it to him.
That would completely end any private connection between Ki Tae-young and me.
“Do Jihoon…”
Just thinking about him made my head spin.
He said he saw me as an omega.
But it was ambiguous whether that meant he saw me as his omega, or if he was simply warning me to behave properly since we were bound by an engagement.
“Am I really that oblivious…?”
No.
I wasn’t that dense!
I tried imagining something.
What if I were a beta man—and Do Jihoon were a beta woman?
In my ears, “I’m an alpha too” turned into “I’m a woman too,” and “I guess I see you as an omega” turned into “I guess I see you as a man.”
“…What the hell?”
Looking at it that way, didn’t it sound like Jihoon was basically confessing that he liked me?
That Do Jihoon?
Sure, I told myself not to blindly believe the novel, but still—the same Do Jihoon who had confidently declared he would never fall for me from the very first day?
And he liked me?
How could that make any sense?
There wasn’t a single point of connection between us.
It’s not like I had flirted with Jihoon. I hadn’t confessed love to him either.
All I’d done was crack dumb jokes and throw metaphorical uppercuts.
“Oh. I’m already home.”
Lost in thought, I had walked without realizing it and somehow arrived at my apartment.
Were my feet always this fast?
I deliberately walked as slowly as possible—reeeally slowly—into the elevator. But the elevator seemed to have a booster installed and delivered me to my door in ten seconds.
“Damn it…”
The time was 6:50.
I had said I’d be back by seven, so I should go inside.
But my feet refused to move.
