Jaehyun couldn’t really taste anything he ate. His eyes were seeing what was in front of him, but his brain wasn’t processing it.
Had Seunghyun ever paid this much attention to any particular person before? It seemed too extreme to be an act done under duress. Jaehyun frowned deeply as he ate his ribs.
“Is the food not to your liking?”
Suhwan asked in a careful tone. Jaehyun’s expression looked so negative that he wondered if the food wasn’t to his taste. Should he have asked for his opinion more when deciding on the menu? He was anxious that they might have ordered something Jaehyun didn’t like because they had decided too arbitrarily.
“It’s fine.”
“If there’s something else you’d prefer…”
“I said it’s fine.”
“Yes.”
When Jaehyun showed an irritated expression, Suhwan quickly closed his mouth. Seunghyun spoke again in a curt tone from the side.
“He’s eating fine. Just leave him be.”
“Seunghyun, why do you keep talking like that?”
“Because you’re overthinking it, hyung.”
This guy, really.
Jaehyun glared at Seunghyun, who kept choosing the most annoying things to say. Better dead than sick. In this confusing situation, Jaehyun could only let out a deep sigh.
Somehow, the meal ended and dessert was served. Jaehyun, who had been staring at the bright red omija tea and rice cake, raised his head to look at Suhwan.
He almost lost his composure after witnessing an unexpected situation. Jaehyun tried hard to collect himself. Gritting his teeth and reminding himself of the reason he came to this meeting, he readied himself for battle again.
“Why did you suddenly want to meet like this?”
It was Jaehyun who broke the silence first. He was inherently not good at beating around the bush.
So it’s finally come to this. Suhwan tensed his entire body and answered.
“Well… even though we didn’t meet when we got engaged, it’s been weighing on my mind. I asked Seunghyun to arrange this meeting.”
“Only now?”
“Yes… I’m truly sorry.”
Suhwan sincerely bowed his head. After a month had passed, he was sitting here alive next to Seunghyun, when in the original story, he should have already been dead.
To continue being with Seunghyun, he had no choice but to clean up the mess that Jin Suhwan had left behind. Rather than feeling wronged, he felt desperate. He hoped that Jaehyun would understand his sincere feelings.
Of course, Jaehyun had no way of knowing such thoughts. He just stared at Suhwan, who was bowing his head, as if looking at a rare animal.
What makes this chaebol so lightweight? Is his head made of feathers, bowing so easily?
Having expected an alpha who would act aggressively towards him, he had been nothing but bewildered from the start.
He thought that now the true nature would slowly be revealed. After feeding him and trying to persuade him, if that didn’t work, he’d probably start shouting. But there was absolutely no sign of that happening.
“So, you called me here just to apologize for that?”
“Yes.”
Is there any other reason? His face seemed to say exactly that. Jaehyun bit his lip firmly.
For some reason, at this moment, memories from the past began popping up one by one.
When HS went bankrupt, Seunghyun was still young, but Jaehyun wasn’t. As a high school student, he clearly understood what had happened to him and his family, and what would happen in the future. From that point on, Jaehyun’s world changed as quickly as flipping the palm of his hand.
Never once in his life had he considered his recessive trait a disadvantage, but in his now rock-bottom life, that wasn’t the case. A ruined family plus being a recessive omega. The gazes and attitudes of those around him were all too blatant.
When Jaehyun’s family had been wealthy, everything had been fine, but in an instant, these things began to strangle him. Perhaps because of this, Jaehyun, who had been unable to properly engage in emotional exchanges with others since high school, only became more cranky and cynical on top of his already sensitive personality.
But it didn’t really matter. Even when his former fiancé, who had been kind to him saying it was fine that he was recessive, turned away coldly, or when alpha males he had mistaken for friends sneered that they would give him money if he satisfied them during their rut, with time, these just became somewhat dirty memories of the past.
But it seemed that some small resentment still remained somewhere in his heart, as Jaehyun found it particularly irritating to see Suhwan apologizing and bowing his head so easily.
Jaehyun’s lips slowly parted.
“I don’t understand. Aren’t you just playing with my brother by keeping him around?”
“What?”
Suhwan looked at Jaehyun with surprised eyes. His pupils shook with bewilderment.
“No. I would never…”
“You went into rut, didn’t you?”
“What?”
Suhwan was again taken aback by the direct question. Staring at his wide, round eyes, Jaehyun narrowed his own.
For a dominant, Seunghyun’s heat cycle came quite late. Jaehyun, who made his suppressants, knew this well. Timing-wise, Seunghyun’s heat wouldn’t have come yet, but that wouldn’t be the case for the alpha before him. Clearly, his rut would have come earlier than usual, drawn by Seunghyun’s pheromones.
And that thought was accurate. Suhwan didn’t even think of evading the question and was simply flustered.
“Well, that… yes.”
After rolling his eyes helplessly, he nodded. Jaehyun’s gaze turned cold.
See. He did it. He did it. All alphas are the same.
Jaehyun knew well how cruel alphas could become during their rut. Seunghyun, who had no experience, must have found it difficult and painful. As Jaehyun’s atmosphere grew increasingly chilly, Suhwan didn’t know what to do.
“So what?”
“What?”
The defiant voice came from an unexpected place. Seunghyun, who had been listening quietly, gave Jaehyun a sideways glance. When Jaehyun turned to look at him, Seunghyun continued in a pointed tone.
“We did it with mutual consent. So what? We’re going to get married anyway.”
“What? Married?”
This kid talking about marriage, what marriage? Jaehyun laughed derisively as if it were absurd.
“Are you crazy?”
“No, I’m not crazy.”
Seunghyun answered in an indifferent tone and turned his head to look at Suhwan. He reached out to hold Suhwan’s tightly clenched hand and smiled. Seeing the affectionate gaze and action, Jaehyun’s mouth fell open blankly.
“And I should actually be grateful. Just think about it, hyung. It’s not easy to become in-laws with Hwamyeong.”
“You, you…”
At the cutting remark, Jaehyun couldn’t respond. His brother seemed less and less like the one he knew. Moreover, what Seunghyun was saying sounded familiar from somewhere. After being cooped up in his lab for days and returning home to sleep like a corpse, then barely waking up the next morning to turn on the TV, he might have seen a similar scene.
Was it a makjang drama? Seunghyun’s words were like dialogue that a villain in such a drama would spit out.
Is money everything? Is money really everything? Were you always this kind of person?
He couldn’t bring himself to say such things, fearing he’d become like the cheesy protagonist of a makjang drama.
“Seunghyun. Why are you talking like that?”
“But hyung keeps…”
“You’re making the professor uncomfortable.”
“…Yes.”
Seunghyun nodded quite docilely to Suhwan. Then he immediately turned towards Jaehyun. His face looked somewhat disrespectful as he looked at Jaehyun.
“Sorry, I went a bit too far.”
No matter how you looked at it, it wasn’t a face that was sorry. There wasn’t an ounce of sincerity in his apologetic words. Rather, it was an apology that would only make one feel worse after receiving it. Jaehyun frowned deeply and sighed.
“Haah, forget it. You little…”
“Where are you going?”
“Bathroom!”
Jaehyun, who yelled out, irritably opened the door and left. He walked through the winding corridor and entered the bathroom. Standing in front of the sink, Jaehyun stared at himself in the mirror.
A pale-faced man was glaring back at him. Dark circles had settled heavily under his eyes, and he looked more tired than usual. Is it because nothing was going as planned? Everything was a mess.
“Haah.”
Sighing, Jaehyun turned on the water and washed his hands. He thought about washing his face too but decided against it, thinking it would be noticeable if his hair got wet. He turned off the faucet and straightened his bent waist.
And as he was about to leave the bathroom without thinking, he paused. He’d stormed out as if angry, but now he felt embarrassed about going back in so quickly after just washing his hands. Jaehyun stopped in front of the door as he was returning to the room.
What should I do? Unable to fully open the slightly ajar door, Jaehyun pondered. He couldn’t understand why he was having such a foolish dilemma. Today was truly a mess in every way.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
