—Then I’ll become your family. I’ll become your family so you won’t be lonely anymore.
—Who the hell are you to say that?
At that moment, he slapped Do Si-in’s hand away and sneered. Seeing the look on Do Si-in’s face—clearly more hurt than a little—gave him a twisted sense of satisfaction, even as the thought this isn’t right flickered through his mind. Still, he couldn’t stop his mouth from running.
—Me marrying someone like you—a recessive—and making a family? Why would I?
—Because… I’m carrying your child……
As he blinked slowly, the world swayed violently. Do Si-in had been sitting in front of him, but at some point he stood up, smashing the furniture, hurling curses, trying to storm out of the house. And there was himself—clinging to him, soothing him in the exact same way Ji Haesu did.
—I’m sorry. Let’s be a family. I was scared of the word ‘family.’ When it became real, I got scared I’d turn out like my father—so scared that I hurt you.
Even as he said those words, there was another version of himself standing there in his head, dark and insidious, already plotting every possible way to get rid of Do Si-in’s child.
—You’ll really… become my family?
—Yeah. You know what I wanted.
Choi Suho voluntarily dropped to his knees on the floor littered with shards of broken glass, speaking as though filled with regret. It was all to curry favor with Do Si-in.
—Family is…
“Don’t forget how much I love you, Suho.”
Everything was returning to the starting point.
From the end—back to the beginning.
Choi Suho could feel it clearly: his value as a person was diminishing with each passing day, shrinking every time it was placed on a level scale. It was something as vital as his own life, yet he didn’t want to be afraid, or to add weight artificially, or to struggle uselessly. Now, the only person who could add weight to it was Do Si-in.
This wasn’t about adding or subtracting weight. I have an obligation to apologize to Do Si-in.
He had hurt him so deeply that his chest ached too badly to even get up. And he only realized it after it was returned to him in kind… Just as Ji Haesu said, he really was trash itself.
“You were right.”
Choi Suho murmured this while leaning into Ji Haesu’s arms, letting himself be held.
“I’m trash. I’m not even recyclable.”
Ji Haesu, who had been comforting him, let out a snort of laughter at the sudden self-confession.
“Even if you’re not recyclable, it’s fine. You’re still usable in your own way. I’ll keep you and live with you.”
“……”
“We’re becoming a family, Suho.”
Ji Haesu said it in an excited voice. Choi Suho blankly turned his head to look at him. Ji Haesu grabbed Choi Suho’s face and planted loud smack, smack kisses all over his bruises that had mostly faded, then whispered softly.
“That.”
“Becoming a parent isn’t all that joyful, but the idea of you carrying my child feels good.”
“With that mindset, shouldn’t you absolutely not become a parent?”
Suddenly, someone came to mind—there was someone like this before, wasn’t there?—and Choi Suho spoke in a cold voice.
“Like my father.”
“Oh, so you’ve finally realized Jang Yuguk is trash too. There’s hardly anyone more disgusting than him. A rapist who fell in love all by himself, acting all devoted on his own. He destroyed an entire family and trampled your life into the ground.”
“Still, my dad…”
He was about to say, he did love me, but the certainty was gone now. Did he really love me? If I hadn’t resembled Choi Juho, what would’ve happened? Would he have loved me at all?
“You know it too, don’t you?”
Ji Haesu brushed the back of his hand across Choi Suho’s face and then spoke the words he least wanted to hear.
“If you hadn’t resembled Choi Juho, do you think you would’ve inherited the name Choi Suho?”
“…Stop.”
Choi Suho clenched his teeth and lowered his head. It was the truth—but he didn’t want to hear it. He had already realized a truth painful enough to carve his chest out. He didn’t want it confirmed through someone else’s mouth, flayed until nothing was left inside him. As he tried to block his ears, Ji Haesu grabbed both his wrists and forced him down onto the bed.
“Can you really say he didn’t use raising you as a substitute for his longing for him?”
“Stop it!”
“Of course, he wouldn’t have looked at you with those feelings. You were the child born between himself and Choi Juho. But if you’d looked like him instead, would he have loved you at all—like Jang Jihyeok, Jang Jihun, or Jang Jihae? Didn’t Jang Jihyeok say the same thing?”
“I said stop!”
He wanted to rip out the tongue that mocked Choi Juho’s miserable life—and himself, born from it. Who are you to keep talking about me like that?
“But you know, Suho. That doesn’t mean you get to wallow in self-pity.”
“……”
Ji Haesu stared directly at the tears gathering at the corners of Choi Suho’s eyes, then twisted his lips into a smile.
“You shouldn’t feel sorry for yourself. Even people born like you live happily and kindly. You’re the bad one. You’re the trash. You’re the one who did wrong. So why are you blaming your family? You’re an adult—you should know how to carry the weight of your own mistakes! That’s what makes me so angry.”
“Ugh! I never blamed my fam—!”
With his hair yanked back, his head pressed into the mattress, Choi Suho squeezed his eyes shut, insisting it wasn’t like that—but Ji Haesu didn’t stop. His words were harsh and relentless, like slaps across the face.
“If you don’t fix that attitude now, you’re going to have a hard time raising a kid later.”
“Huh—hngh.”
Still held by the hair, Choi Suho panted roughly and made a vow.
I’ll get out of here. No matter what.
So this is about wanting pregnancy.
Fuck—this is my house, and I can’t even walk out on my own. I’m tied up, unable to do anything!
“At this age, corporal punishment’s out of the question.”
Ji Haesu tilted his head to the side as he spoke.
“So what do I have to do to make you listen?”
“I won’t listen to you, fuck! Let go of my hair! You’re pulling it out!”
When Choi Suho thrashed angrily against Ji Haesu’s habit of grabbing his hair and suppressing him, Ji Haesu finally let go. In the past, Choi Suho would’ve screamed back, kicked, thrown punches, demanding a fight—but he had clearly grown subdued. He simply lay sprawled on the bed, gasping for air.
Ji Haesu stared down at him with chillingly clear, light-brown eyes, then opened his mouth.
“Want to go see the baby room?”
“You didn’t… touch my house, did you?”
“What do you mean your house? We’re going to be a family. That’s a bit cruel.”
Ji Haesu sniffed dramatically, letting out a fake sob as if truly hurt.
“This is our house now, and you still say things like that? We’re going to be a married couple. Parents, too.”
At his words, Choi Suho unconsciously spat out the phrase that had become habit.
“I’m not an Omega! I told you—I’m an Alpha!”
“Alpha? You? Honestly, you’re really funny.”
Then Ji Haesu lowered his head and burst out laughing—phfft. Choi Suho frowned, not understanding the meaning of that laugh, until it suddenly dawned on him. His face began to drain of color.
No way…
Since Ji Haesu returned, his heartbeats had grown steady, his thought processes returning to normal.
“N-no.”
Choi Suho hugged his trembling shoulders. He told himself it couldn’t be true, but Ji Haesu’s blatant mockery forced him to compare himself before and after his return.
What was he like before Ji Haesu came back? Even when Songyu—another Omega—took care of him, hadn’t he been searching for Ji Haesu?
And after Ji Haesu returned? Even as he listened to those needle-sharp, vicious words spilling from his mouth, he could feel himself rapidly calming down just from breathing in Ji Haesu’s pheromones.
The light completely drained from Choi Suho’s expression.
This wasn’t how an Alpha behaved. An Alpha couldn’t react like this. An Alpha would never find comfort in another Alpha’s pheromones. The Alphas he’d held countless times had gagged at his scent, crushed and suppressed, begging him to spare them.
He’d enjoyed that—deliberately hunting only Alphas, targeting them, raping them. There was no way he wouldn’t know.
“Did I… really become an Omega?”
Ji Haesu pushed himself up on the bed and stroked Choi Suho’s hair as he spoke.
“You accepted it just fine at first. Why are you denying it now?”
“Did I really become an Omega, fuck!”
“Yes! You’re an Omega! And that’s perfect—there’s a sure way to find out for certain whether you are or not. Let’s do a pregnancy test. You’ve never done one before.”
“What?”
“I bought a ton of pregnancy tests.”
Smiling, he added while looking straight at Choi Suho’s face.
“You’re recessive, after all.”
It was the day Choi Suho’s world completely collapsed. Ji Haesu didn’t stop there. He rose to his feet and, as if he’d prepared in advance, opened the nightstand drawer and pulled out a box.
“See?”
Holding up the box labeled Pregnancy Test, Ji Haesu tipped it over Choi Suho’s head. They spilled out in a cascade—as if countless tags labeled recessive Omega were raining down like a meteor shower.
