“What should I even say if I see Do Jihoon?”
I absolutely hated the idea of things becoming awkward between us. Do Jihoon might speak bluntly, but he was actually kind inside—he always put up with me clinging to him. And if I asked him to do something again, he usually did it.
That was why I liked Do Jihoon. To the point that I wanted to stay together with him even when we were hoho old grandpas.
In the end, around 6:55, I opened the door and went inside. I crept quietly toward the living room, but when I looked around, Do Jihoon wasn’t there.
“Looks like Do Jihoon ate out too.”
If I saw him right now, it would probably be extremely awkward. So it was a relief.
It was definitely a relief, but…
“Why does my stomach feel so empty?”
The house somehow felt hollow. It even seemed a little chilly. I’d naturally assumed he’d be home, so maybe that was why it felt strange when he wasn’t.
I almost sent him a KakaoTalk message asking where he was, but I stopped. Asking where he was right now felt weird, and it seemed like it might just stir up unnecessary trouble.
So instead, I trudged over to the bathroom, washed my face and brushed my teeth, then changed into my pajamas.
“Mm…”
I dove onto my wide, oversized bed. Now the bedding barely carried Do Jihoon’s scent anymore. Unless I focused every bit of my attention on my sense of smell, I couldn’t detect it.
“Something about this doesn’t sit right…”
It felt a little unsettling.
And then suddenly, completely out of the blue, I had the thought that I wanted to go lie down on Do Jihoon’s bed. I wondered if his bedding might smell like blankets dried nicely in the sun.
Had my brain short-circuited? Wanting to lie on Do Jihoon’s bed?
But Do Jihoon wasn’t home right now. In that case… it shouldn’t matter… right?
I quietly stepped out of my room. Thankfully, Do Jihoon still wasn’t back.
When I gently opened the door to his room and stepped inside, I could clearly sense Do Jihoon’s pheromones. I took a deep breath. Warmth seeped in through the spaces of my skin and my pheromone glands. Just basking in his pheromones like this gradually made me feel better.
I cautiously walked over to Do Jihoon’s bed.
And then I flopped down onto it.
“Wow…”
His bedding was saturated with pheromones. I rolled onto my side and pulled Do Jihoon’s blanket tightly into my arms. Why was it so soft and languid like this?
“Mmng…”
A soft nasal sound slipped out on its own because it felt so good. I shook my head side to side while continuing to rub my face into his blanket.
I rested my head on Do Jihoon’s pillow. His pheromones were thick there too. I turned my body and buried my face into it.
“Ah… I’m sleepy.”
Maybe because I’d been out walking around for so long today, my whole body felt pleasantly tired. When I looked at the clock, it was already past 7:30. Since I didn’t know when Do Jihoon would come home, I should probably start getting up soon…
But I didn’t want to get up. I just wanted to roll around here.
So I decided I’d lie down for just a little while before getting up. Exactly ten minutes. I even set an alarm for ten minutes later.
But my eyes kept slowly drifting shut. Even when I forced them open with effort, before I knew it, they were closed again.
Ah. This isn’t good. No, it’s fine. I set an alarm anyway. I’ll just sleep a little.
In the end, unable to resist the drowsiness creeping over me, I fell asleep on Do Jihoon’s bed, hugging his bedding.
***
Inside the quiet house.
Do Jihoon was sitting on the wide sofa. A breath that sounded almost like a sigh spread through the living room.
Do Jihoon recalled the truth he had blurted out only a few hours earlier.
“I guess I see you as an omega.”
And then he remembered the words he had said when he first met Yeon Yuri.
“I’m pretty miserable too. Unlike you, it seems like I’ll have to put in quite a bit of effort.”
From the very first button, things had been fastened wrong between him and Yeon Yuri.
Do Jihoon only learned about his engagement the day before he was supposed to meet Yeon Yuri. His future fiancé was Yeon Yuri, someone rumored to be promiscuous and eccentric.
When he heard that news, fury shot to the top of his head. Do Jihoon had long recognized deep in his bones that he was the heir of Kipyeong. He had always understood that his engagement would be used as a tool to pursue corporate interests.
But Yeon Yuri?
Bumong Pharmaceutical was necessary. It was the foundation Kipyeong needed to extend its reach into the bio industry.
But Yeon Yuri was not.
It was obvious that his rotten temperament would someday splatter filth onto Do Jihoon’s life. For the first time, Do Jihoon felt dissatisfaction toward his parents’ judgment. He felt as though his life had been shoved into a pit.
So he lashed out at Yeon Yuri.
It hadn’t been intentional. Until he arrived at the lounge, Do Jihoon had been controlling his emotions perfectly well.
The dam he had been pressing down on burst the moment Yeon Yuri started that clumsy act. Pretending to be delicate and fragile just to avoid living together—it was ridiculous.
When the two of them were left alone, the idea he’d originally had—to maintain boundaries with Yeon Yuri—was completely overturned. Do Jihoon laid bare the displeasure he felt.
As rumored, Yeon Yuri had a filthy temper. But it wasn’t in the promiscuous way people described. Yeon Yuri was more like a fighting rooster. His mouth was foul, and like Do Jihoon, he was dissatisfied with the engagement.
The proposal Yeon Yuri had come up with after wracking his useless brain was utterly pathetic. Do Jihoon expressed, in a roundabout way, that he should just shut up.
After that, he ran into Yeon Yuri frequently. He couldn’t ignore the adults’ expectations that the two of them become close. Without complaint, Do Jihoon let himself be dragged around by his parents.
Back then, he didn’t know.
He had no idea that he would eventually start feeling positive emotions toward Yeon Yuri.
The first time Do Jihoon felt desire toward Yeon Yuri was that day—when Yeon Yuri had been thoroughly soaked in alcohol, recklessly downing drink after drink without restraint.
Dominant omegas were extremely rare. Even among the heirs of long-standing conglomerates, that fact didn’t change.
When Do Jihoon was hit by Yeon Yuri’s pheromones—laced with affection and possessiveness—he felt a fleeting surge of desire toward him. At that momentary impulse that ran contrary to his own will, humiliation and anger boiled up from his lower abdomen.
Still, there had been a gain. Do Jihoon had succeeded in putting Yeon Yuri in his debt. It was only verbal, but he considered the psychological upper hand meaningful.
The moment Yeon Yuri shifted from being an acquaintance to a friend was during their high school graduation.
Do Jihoon had always mocked trait-holders who couldn’t restrain something as trivial as desire. The fact that he himself had to head toward the omega dormitory like some one-dimensional idiot alpha was deeply humiliating. Worthless acquaintances kept approaching him, trying to make conversation and asking for photos, and by the time he met Yeon Yuri, Do Jihoon’s anger had reached its peak.
That anger still lingered when he asked Yeon Yuri for a photo.
But after spending time with him, Do Jihoon noticed a smile lingering at the corner of his mouth. Surprisingly, his mood had improved quite a lot. It was confusing.
Was it because of his rough way of speaking, or his bright smile?
Do Jihoon acknowledged that Yeon Yuri had a talent for improving his mood.
From that day on, Do Jihoon began contacting Yeon Yuri of his own accord. Conversations with Yeon Yuri were entertaining. To Do Jihoon, Yeon Yuri was like a bouncy ball that sprang back whenever pressed—or a desert fox baring its teeth and hissing.
Do Jihoon had many acquaintances. He had been required to build nothing more than superficial relationships with a hollow smile.
His parents were gentle, yet coldly rational. They showered their son with parental affection, but they never allowed him to form relationships of trust with others.
Hide your weaknesses and show only your strengths. Trust is something you gain, not something you give.
For Do Jihoon, who had grown up in such a repressed environment, Yeon Yuri was the only anomaly. He had come to feel a genuine human fondness for the omega he was engaged to.
The exact starting point of when Do Jihoon began to feel something more than friendship toward Yeon Yuri was, in truth, unclear.
Yeon Yuri often flirted without even realizing it. Whenever that happened, Do Jihoon found him pathetic and absurd. But perhaps, using those feelings as a shield, affection had been lurking deep within him all along—so Do Jihoon thought. For the first time in his life, the raw emotions he received from someone who was once a complete stranger injected a spectrum of feelings into him.
The moment Do Jihoon truly realized his feelings was when Yeon Yuri kept going on and on about an alpha. Yeon Yuri had gotten his number and was smiling vacantly, clearly oblivious.
Yeon Yuri smiled brightly while chatting with that alpha. The fake act he had once put on to avoid living together overlapped with the smile right in front of Do Jihoon’s eyes, and rage boiled up.
What finally pushed Do Jihoon past the limit he had been enduring was one word from Yeon Yuri.
“Baby.”
