More than that, Yeonwoo was uncomfortable with Ho Munbeom who hadn’t taken his eyes off him. He thought Munbeom would leave since everything was finished. Embarrassed by his naked body covered only by a sheet, Yeonwoo touched his sore throat and barely managed to answer.
“I can rest a little and leave on my own. Please don’t worry about me, you can go ahead.”
Though his pronunciation slipped in places, he somehow managed to speak until the end.
Biting his lips, Yeonwoo lowered his gaze again. After staring at Yeonwoo for a while, Munbeom suddenly took out his wallet. The opened wallet contained only cards without any cash. Finding a few checks, he took them all out and held them out.
“I don’t usually carry cash, so this is all I have. Take it for transportation costs.”
“…”
This was another unexpected situation.
Yeonwoo was flustered and tried to refuse, but suddenly noticed the checks in Munbeom’s hand. Even at a glance, the numbers were unfamiliar. Surely not. As Yeonwoo continued staring, Munbeom carefully placed the checks in front of him. They were ten million won each.
Yeonwoo’s eyes widened in shock. Surprised by the large amount, and wondering if this was some kind of joke, Yeonwoo pulled the slipping sheet up to his shoulders and looked at Munbeom. As if he had been waiting for this, Munbeom stood up.
Looking down at the visibly exhausted Yeonwoo, Munbeom said, “Contact me later if you don’t feel well. And once you leave this place, it would be better for you to forget everything that happened here.”
“…”
“I’m sorry about this incident.”
Staring blankly at him, Yeonwoo moved his jaw up and down and answered, “Yes.”
“…I understand.”
After crying throughout the ordeal, his throat was completely raw. Every word felt like something sharp stabbing inside his throat, but Yeonwoo still gave the answer the other wanted to hear.
Thinking about it, nothing good would come from this getting out. It was just an accidental happening. If not for the blind date, they would never have met in their lifetime… and this was the end of their relationship.
Yeonwoo looked at the three checks on the bed.
He felt he shouldn’t accept them, but hesitated because it was such a large amount. Since Yeonwoo always spent more than he earned despite working hard, his mind was already calculating. Suddenly feeling stifled, he tapped his chest, and the gaze that had been fixed on him was withdrawn. Without looking back, Munbeom left the room.
Only after hearing the door close and automatically lock did Yeonwoo raise his head.
“…”
He hadn’t known what was where, but it really was huge. The bedroom seemed even larger than the studio apartment where he currently lived. Lowering his head again to stare at the three checks, Yeonwoo reached out his hand. One, two, three. It wasn’t difficult to count, but he checked several times.
After fiddling with the checks for a while, Yeonwoo flopped back onto the bed.
Just sitting up briefly had made his body feel worse. Yeonwoo stared blankly at the empty space. After doing so for a long time, his eyes began to sting, and only then did he close them. He felt heat rising to his eyes as if tears might spill out, but he held them back firmly. He didn’t cry until the end.
***
What was meant to be a short rest turned into deep sleep.
When Yeonwoo woke up alone in the room, he was startled and tried to get off the bed, but his legs gave out and he collapsed. Though he used his hands to break the fall and avoided serious injury, both knees stung.
The impact made his entire body creak. It felt like he had been beaten from head to toe. Still, this much was bearable. What troubled Yeonwoo more was the throbbing pain rising from deep within his body, from intimate places.
Having received only basic sex education, Yeonwoo didn’t know if continuing pain after the act was normal. Had something gone terribly wrong or was he injured? Should he go to a hospital for an examination? What if that person found out?
Yeonwoo thought of his father, Lee Jonghoon, who had sent him here and repeatedly emphasized to “somehow impress Ho Munbeom.”
Since first being contacted, he had only met him in person twice.
The man who appeared with a lawyer, nearly two hours late, at a shabby, deserted tearoom where he had summoned Yeonwoo, sighed as soon as he sat down. Wiping his forehead with a handkerchief, the man’s face was ordinary and bore no resemblance to Yeonwoo whatsoever.
Far from apologizing for being late, without even a warm greeting, his cold gaze scrutinized Yeonwoo from head to toe. It was so cold that even a stranger wouldn’t be looked at that way.
“His face is decent enough, taking after his father.”
When he still had a bit of hope, Yeonwoo had tried to be brave. He wanted to at least say, “Hello, I’m your son, Lee Yeonwoo.” But before he could, Jonghoon thrust a photo at him.
“Take a good look at this face.”
The photo showed a man who was clearly an alpha at first glance. It was strange. How confidence and superiority could be felt from just a single photograph.
Jonghoon’s thick fingertips tapped the man’s face. “Ho Munbeom, the heir to the Ho Group. After being just a rumor, he finally showed his precious face this year. This guy will become the head of Ho Group. You’ll be going on a blind date with him.”
“…”
“Normally, an omega like you wouldn’t even be able to touch the shadow of such an alpha. But I’ve managed to secure this opportunity with great difficulty. For your father’s sake, don’t miss this golden chance and make sure to seize it firmly. That would be your filial duty to me and your father.”
It was something that would never have happened if either of them had been in their right mind. But from the beginning, that side intended to use Yeonwoo, and Yeonwoo needed money. So Yeonwoo decided not to think about more complicated concerns.
Various documents were presented to the compliant Yeonwoo.
They were forms he had never seen before, but in summary, they stated: Regarding hospital bills for his omega father and living expenses while Yeonwoo stayed in Seoul, “Party B” must accept and immediately comply with whatever “Party A” wants under any circumstances.
It was quite a bleak document to be exchanged in a biologically connected father-son relationship. Nevertheless, Yeonwoo silently signed where they wanted. As soon as he signed the last page, Jonghoon snatched the documents away and raised one corner of his mouth.
“At least you’re more docile than your father. If that bastard had been like this, he wouldn’t have ended up in such a state. I’m leaving first. Come out in 30 minutes.”
After Jonghoon and the lawyer had left, having said only what they wanted to say, Yeonwoo also got up immediately. They probably told him to wait and come out later because they didn’t want to appear together, but Yeonwoo didn’t want to follow that instruction and slipped out through the back of the building. But Jonghoon was there.
With the lawyer in front of him, he was exhaling smoke with a cigarette in his mouth.
“This kid, why is his personality so stiff? How is he going to properly flatter Ho Munbeom like that? What do you think, sir?”
“Still, his appearance is exceptional, so it might be okay.”
“What good is just a decent face? Taking after his father, he reeks of being uneducated. Don’t you know those who have everything also judge character? Damn it, if only Seongho had been an omega. He shows no signs of manifesting no matter what.”
“Young master must be having a hard time too. He wants to meet your expectations, but things aren’t going as planned.”
“…Why did that one have to manifest as dominant? If Seongho had manifested as dominant, we wouldn’t have had to waste money unnecessarily. It’s not just a small amount—wouldn’t it be better to stop the treatment at this point?”
The malice condensed in such casual words was suffocatingly heavy.
Even after Jonghoon had finished his cigarette, tossed the butt to the ground, and left, Yeonwoo remained leaning against the back door wall for a long time.
He needed to forget words from such a person. That was the only way to endure. Yeonwoo lowered his gaze to his feet and let out a short sigh.
The road he hastily exited onto was filled with various cars. He used to enjoy resting while looking at mountains, but Seoul had none of that. There were only a few artificially planted trees for landscaping.
Checking transportation options to return home, he found a bus near the hotel. He could take that and then transfer to a village bus near his home. It was fortunate that there was a bus heading toward his home, but that was a different matter from his physical condition.
Each step was torture.
Suppressing the desire to collapse back onto the bed, Yeonwoo left the room and entered the elevator with his head bowed. Throughout his exit from the hotel, the extremely tense Yeonwoo couldn’t even look around. Though unlikely, he worried about what would happen if a hotel employee stopped him. Despite not having done anything wrong, he couldn’t help thinking that way.
Even after leaving the hotel, Yeonwoo couldn’t relax. His body, which had been perfectly fine just the day before, refused to move as he wished.
While he could understand the pain, his lower body felt so strange that he wondered if his pelvis was dislocated. Everything ached without exception, and the pain rising to his lower back made him groan involuntarily.
