Seongho, who was drunk, couldn’t avoid the attack and fell down pathetically. Everything hurt—the place where he was hit, his head which struck the ground when he fell, his hands, knees, and more. Rolling from side to side while screaming, Seongho shouted:
“You son of a bitch! Are you crazy?! Who do you think you’re…”
“The crazy one isn’t me, it’s you.”
“…Wow, what a psycho. So this is your true nature, huh? Or do you have someone backing you up?!”
Yeonwoo was clearly responding differently from what Seongho normally knew. However, not wanting to show any signs of backing down to someone like Yeonwoo of all people, Seongho put on a malicious expression.
“Come to think of it, you were acting all high and mighty the last time I saw you too! Hey, what kind of relationship do you really have with Ho Munbeom? Why do you have a check with his name on it?!”
While Yeonwoo did have a check with Ho Munbeom’s name on it, Seongho didn’t think they could have any deep relationship. That was impossible. How could someone like him have any connection with that Ho Munbeom? He must have stolen it. Yes, he was just someone lucky enough to be born as a dominant omega, a bastard child with nothing to his name—how could he possibly have anything to do with such an alpha? It made no sense.
From Seongho’s perspective, there shouldn’t be any point of connection between Yeonwoo and Ho Munbeom. What was impossible for himself should be impossible for Lee Yeonwoo too. That much had to be impossible, even if the sky were to fall.
“Me, I could understand, but you, someone like you, how could you possibly…”
Still lying face down on the floor, Seongho muttered to himself.
After listening silently to all the words intended to belittle him, Yeonwoo slowly opened his mouth.
“It’s the opposite.”
“…”
Seongho paused and slowly raised his head. The moment his eyes met Yeonwoo’s looking down at him, his face turned pale. It was as if he knew what Yeonwoo was going to say before even hearing it.
And Yeonwoo continued with utmost calmness.
“It was possible because it was me.”
“…”
“Because I’m a dominant omega, I was able to get at least that arranged date.”
Unlike you, for whom everything was impossible from the start.
With Lee Jonghoon’s personality, he wouldn’t have shown interest in an illegitimate child he hadn’t cared about for twenty years just because they were a dominant omega. It was because when he found him—a child he didn’t even know existed—his appearance was quite decent and he was a dominant omega, so he thought there might be some value in using him.
At first, Yeonwoo thought that just by attending the arranged date with Ho Munbeom, he would fulfill Lee Jonghoon’s purpose. But it seemed he didn’t know enough about that person.
He didn’t expect that he would even take out private loans in his name. Yeonwoo opened his mouth, thinking of all the worst-case scenarios that could result from the combination of a dominant omega and private loans.
“What are you so upset about? You have nothing to be upset about.”
From the beginning, Lee Jonghoon hadn’t paid for his father’s hospital bills and his living expenses from his own pocket. So that’s how it was. As it turned out, everything he had given him until now had actually been his own money. Despite that, he had made a big show of giving him pocket change.
How could he do that? He was still his bloodline after all. What was different about him compared to this paranoid guy kneeling in front of him that he deserved such treatment?
At this point, more than sadness, he was genuinely puzzled. What exactly was the difference?
By now, Yeonwoo recalled the words that Seongho had repeated like a broken record until his ears bled.
I’m better than you.
I’m more capable and impressive than someone like you.
…That couldn’t possibly be true.
There was no way he could be more lacking or inferior than Seongho.
In the silence created by Yeonwoo, Seongho’s expression changed moment by moment as his lips trembled.
“Y-y-you, why are you looking at me like that?”
“…”
“How dare you…!!”
Seongho lunged at Yeonwoo. Anticipating this, Yeonwoo dodged, and Seongho fell onto the table without even grazing Yeonwoo’s collar. Amid the loud crash of fruit appetizers, finger food, and half-filled glasses being knocked over, Seongho screamed. Unable to control his temper, he yelled several times while staggering as he turned around. Just as he was about to say something again with a “You—”, his cheek began to sting.
“…”
Seongho, whose head had turned sharply, froze in place.
After staying like that for a while, he stiffly turned his head to look up at Yeonwoo. His pupils shook uncontrollably. It was clear that he was shocked that someone like Yeonwoo had dared to hit him. But seeing that face, Yeonwoo felt no particular emotion.
Because compared to all the times he had been hit by Seongho, this was nothing. So Yeonwoo struck his other cheek.
“…Ack!”
Only after being hit twice did Seongho cry out, trying to get up by pressing his hands against the messy table, but before he could, he was hit once more. As his head swung left and right from being hit on both sides, Seongho suddenly began to tremble, repeating “wait” over and over, as if scared.
“Y-y-you, did you take something? Y-you know who I am…!”
“Who are you?”
“…”
“Tell me. Who exactly are you?”
When actually asked, Seongho’s mouth remained tightly closed. He wouldn’t have anything to say. After all, Seongho didn’t have any title worth boasting about. He was just spouting the same nonsense he always did when bullying the easy target that was Yeonwoo, and this time it simply didn’t work.
To be honest, Yeonwoo was never afraid of Seongho from the beginning. He had just recognized his place as an illegitimate child early on and lowered his head accordingly. On top of that, he also felt a bit sorry for Seongho who had suddenly learned of his existence.
But what Seongho had done had taken away any slight feelings of remorse that might have remained. Moreover, what Lee Jonghoon had done made Yeonwoo realize that he no longer needed to be mindful of his place as an illegitimate child.
He had thought it was a one-sided relationship, but it wasn’t. From the beginning, they had planned to use him without the slightest bit of affection, and he hadn’t known.
Yeonwoo looked down at Seongho who was sitting on the floor.
He reached out to Seongho, who didn’t resemble him in any way, no matter how you looked at him.
“Give it to me.”
“W-what…”
By now, even his voice trembling, Seongho pressed his right pocket with his hand. Seeing such an obvious gesture, Yeonwoo tapped Seongho’s knee with the tip of his foot. At that, Seongho inhaled sharply and looked up at Yeonwoo.
Yeonwoo didn’t know what expression he was making, but it must have been quite frightening. Otherwise, Seongho wouldn’t have hurriedly taken out a folded gift certificate envelope from his pocket.
“H-here, it’s here!”
“…”
“I-I didn’t touch it! B-because of that damn Ho Munbeom’s name…”
The gift certificate envelope that was held out was one that Yeonwoo had received at the supermarket at the end of the year. It was a gift he had received as one of the employees who worked hard that year.
Everyone who worked there received something with different names attached to it, but he was grateful that even he, a part-timer, was included. It was the first thing he had received while working, so he had kept the envelope even after using the gift certificate. It had meaning to Yeonwoo, which is why he had put the check he received from Munbeom in it.
Yeonwoo stared at the envelope whose once crisp corners were now all pressed and crumpled into a mess, then took it.
Upon opening the envelope and examining the inside, there were three checks.
Like the envelope, they were crumpled, and some were even torn. It seemed that since they couldn’t be used immediately due to the barrier of Ho Munbeom’s name, Seongho, unable to control his temper, had tried to damage them.
Yeonwoo took out the checks and checked the back. After confirming the three characters of Ho Munbeom’s name, he muttered as if to himself:
“Don’t casually say that name.”
Then he dropped the envelope to the floor.
Seongho looked at the envelope that fell in front of him, then raised his head and flinched. It was because Yeonwoo was tearing the check in half, holding it left and right.
“What are you doing!”
Seongho reached out in surprise, but he dared not touch Yeonwoo or stop his actions. While he was confused and repeatedly making “uh, uh” sounds, the check was torn into smaller pieces in Yeonwoo’s hands. Yeonwoo then put these small pieces of the check, now too small to be torn further, straight into his mouth.
Seongho’s eyes, which thought there was nothing more to be surprised about, widened. Regardless of whether Seongho was staring at him in shock, Yeonwoo slowly but thoroughly chewed and swallowed the check pieces in his mouth. After swallowing all the check pieces in several portions, Yeonwoo looked down at Seongho and said:
“Now it’s gone.”
“…”
Seongho’s cheeks, frozen in shock, began to swell. Seeing his face becoming increasingly strange, Yeonwoo smiled. Seeing the corners of his mouth rising, Seongho let out a whimper and hastily backed away. Losing his balance and falling flat, he turned his body and began to crawl on the floor. Watching Seongho crawl away as if Yeonwoo were an object of terror, Yeonwoo opened his mouth.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
