All that came to mind was Do Si-in’s wounded, tear-streaked face—and the way I’d said, “Hey, stop crying like that. I don’t really like crying unless it’s during sex.”
If I go looking for Do Si-in, what am I even going to do?
That thought suddenly crossed his mind.
Am I going to apologize?
The rebuttal came immediately.
Why would I? Why the hell should I apologize? Do Si-in’s father dying was just a coincidence—how is that my fault?
Then what—am I going to beg him to come back because I love him?
What do you even want to do, Choi Suho?
What are you trying to do to Do Si-in that you’re even looking for him?
I’d become exactly what Do Si-in wanted me to be, but even so, there was no answer to what I wanted to do once I found him.
What do I want to do right now? What am I, right now…?
Standing in the room where he’d shared love with Do Si-in for three years, he looked around—and there were so many traces of him that it felt suffocating.
Covering his face with his bleeding left hand, Choi Suho staggered out of the room as if fleeing. The fever was bad enough, but with Ji Haesu and Do Si-in dominating his thoughts, it felt like his head was about to explode.
If only someone would come along and give me a clear, definitive answer right now……
“No, young master!”
That was when it happened. As he clutched his head and stepped out of the second-floor bedroom into the connected living room, a familiar voice rang out. The moment he heard it, Choi Suho flinched and reflexively cried out, “Ah—Dad?”
“Young master, what on earth happened to you? Did you get into another fight? The Chairman has been extremely worried—he’s been absent from work without notice for three days now. Vice President Jang Jihyeok was summoned and severely reprimanded as well. The Chairman scolded him, asking why he wasn’t taking care of his younger brother properly. When he said you weren’t his brother, he was even slapped across the face…… Good heavens—if I’d known you were in this state, I would’ve come sooner! Vice President Jang Jihyeok didn’t hit you, did he?”
When he squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, standing there was the secretary who had served his father for many years. The same man who, whenever his father wasn’t around, used to play with him like an uncle.
For some reason, tears welled up the moment he saw him, but Choi Suho clenched his teeth, held them back, and sharply turned his head away.
Still, the secretary saw the tears pooling at Suho’s bruised eyes. Choi Suho—who lived, ate, and would die by his pride alone, who stood supreme under heaven and earth—had never cried over anything except matters concerning the Chairman.
At the secretary’s persistent, sharp question—“Are you sure nothing serious has happened, young master?”—Choi Suho wrapped his right hand with his left and replied in a hoarse voice.
“It’s nothing… I just drank and caused a bit of a scene at the hotel… ah! That hurts!”
“No—your hand is like this too…… This won’t do! We need to go to the hospital immediately—!”
“N-no! You can’t!”
At the word hospital, Choi Suho’s face turned deathly pale.
“Absolutely not! If Dad finds out, he’ll come visit, won’t he? You want me to show him this state? His heart’s not good—do you want him to see this and drop dead right now? No, absolutely not! That’s why Jihyeok hyung did that on purpose, so don’t say anything!”
Fuck. Jihyeok hyung. I want to go spit that out in the bathroom right now. The fact that I’m calling Jang Jihyeok hyung—that alone proves Ji Haesu has dragged me into doing all sorts of insane shit. Grinding his teeth internally, Choi Suho lowered his head when he saw the secretary looking at him with deep concern and spoke hesitantly. His hand had already grabbed the edge of the man’s jacket. Pity was etched clearly across the secretary’s face.
“It’s just…… my fever’s gone up a bit, so my head hurts…… that’s all.”
Yeah. That’s all.
Because there’s no one who’ll stay by my side right now.
“Uncle… could you stay with me for a bit before you go?”
After he said that, the secretary let out a heavy sigh.
“I can’t stay long because I have work as well, but I can stay for an hour or two.”
At those words, Choi Suho’s expression visibly brightened. Just the promise of someone staying beside him for an hour or two made him beam like a child, and the secretary couldn’t bring himself to scold him any further.
This is why I always end up going soft on Choi Suho.
—Can’t you stay with me?
In Hannam-dong, in that mansion—clutching my ankle, crying, half-naked and trapped……
—At this rate, I really feel like I’m going to die.
Because he behaved exactly like the Omega the Chairman loved so dearly—the Omega who gave birth to Choi Suho and then died.
He couldn’t protect that person. And if he failed to protect Choi Suho too, knowing how the Chairman would go mad, he simply couldn’t be cruel to Suho.
“Then if I stay with you, could you tell me what happened……?”
“It was just a common fight, I told you.”
It was obvious from how Choi Suho dodged the question that it hadn’t been a “common” fight at all.
But there’d been no contact from the hotel where Suho was staying…… and to make matters worse, Jang Haejin had been fired, leaving no one who actually knew what was going on with him.
“I get into fights all the time anyway. It’s just that. So… please don’t ask anymore.”
The secretary’s cheek twitched slightly. Normally, Suho would’ve brushed it off with irritation and laughter—“Ah, just don’t ask. Why bother?”—like he was talking to a real uncle. But now, he kept rolling his eyes anxiously, afraid he’d be found out, his gaze flickering up and down.
That desperate plea not to be asked any further only deepened the suspicion that something serious had happened.
“Understood.”
The secretary didn’t press further and let it rest. If he pushed any more, Suho would only grow more frantic trying to erase his tracks.
“I’ll go wash up first…… ugh!”
“Young master!”
As Suho unconsciously tried to brace himself with his right hand, the secretary reached out to help—but the instant his hand brushed Suho’s arm, Suho’s face went stark white and he screamed.
“Don’t touch me!”
“……Young master?”
The startled secretary asked again, but Choi Suho covered his face with his trembling left hand and muttered,
“Right now…… damn it! No—go for now. I think I need to be alone. Even I think I’m acting weird right now. I’m sorry, uncle. Please leave for now.”
Let me be alone sounded like stay with me, and I won’t go to the hospital sounded like I need to go to the hospital more than ever.
Bluish-red bruises scattered across his face, blood vessels burst in his eyes, a wrist tinged not just blue but yellowish……
And on top of that—maybe because he was sick—the longer he stayed close, the more he sensed it: a faint, sweet, Omega-like pheromone mixed in. Even if it was just his imagination, pheromone abnormalities meant he was seriously ill and needed to go to the hospital immediately.
“Young master, the hospital—”
“I said no! I told you how many times already—Dad can’t find out!”
His raised voice was desperate. Seeing the secretary preparing to drag him to the hospital if necessary, Choi Suho squeezed out strength he didn’t even know he had, stood up, and limped toward his room.
He hadn’t noticed earlier, but now that he looked closely, even his legs weren’t working properly. The secretary chased after him, calling, “Young master! Young masteeer!”—but Suho was faster by a fraction.
Bang!
Slamming the door shut right in front of him, Choi Suho collapsed against it, sliding down as he wrapped his head in both arms and muttered,
“Please… please, I’m begging you, just go, uncle. I’ll contact you later……”
“The Chairman is very worried. He keeps asking if you’re still in a lot of pain.”
At the words Dad is worried, tears burst forth instantly.
In truth, he wanted to bury his face in his father’s knees and sob, telling him that Do Si-in had asked some strange man named Ji Haesu to fuck him—and that he’d let it happen. He wanted to cling to his father’s pant leg and beg him to kill Ji Haesu and Do Si-in right now.
But if his father found out that he—a dominant Alpha, the son born of the Omega his father loved—had been fucked by another Alpha, his father would never forgive him.
Because Choi Suho, the proud son born between the two of them, was his father’s pride and honor. Even if the Omega who gave birth to him was dead, he was still a beloved son—because he resembled that Omega father so perfectly.
Choi Suho buried his face between his knees and hugged his trembling body.
The person who loved me for who I am……
—Huh? Your name’s Suho? That’s really pretty. Me? I’m Si-in. The name’s fine, but my last name is kind of……
—Do. Do Si-in. Ah, don’t laugh! People always laughed at me back in school……
It was only you, Si-in.
“Ah……”
Only then did the withered flower inside him seem to regain a faint bit of vitality—revived with just enough life right before death.
“Young master, are you all right?”
Blinking blankly as silent tears streamed down, Choi Suho muttered in a low voice,
“Yeah…… to Dad………”
With his trembling left hand, Choi Suho lifted his pajama top, looked at his abdomen with the neatly drawn heart, and twisted his expression.
“Tell him I’ll be resting for a while. Say I got into a bad fight and I’ll be hospitalized.”
“Yes, understood.”
“Yeah. Please.”
“Get plenty of rest, and please make sure you’re admitted. If you’re admitted to our hospital—”
“Dad’s there too, and you want me hospitalized in the same place? I don’t want to worry him. I’ll be admitted somewhere else. I don’t want him to see me—at my age—hospitalized again because I drank and got into a fight……”
The lie was delivered so smoothly, so convincingly, that the secretary seemed satisfied and didn’t argue further. He only reiterated, again and again, that Suho must be hospitalized—then left.
Once the secretary was gone, Choi Suho barely managed to lift himself and walk into the living room. Every step he took, a mixture of semen, blood, and ointment clumped together and leaked out from inside his ass.
“Fuck.”
He walked, stopped. Walked, stopped.
The friction between his thighs sent pain flaring, forcing his breathing to grow rough. His head was spinning from the fever, and now even his ass hurt—his entire body throbbed so badly it felt like he was going to die.
Still—if he was going to deal with Ji Haesu and find Do Si-in……
Fuck. He had to copy down the phone number and address Ji Haesu had written on his ass, using the mirror.
Driven by the single-minded resolve to find both of them no matter what, he grabbed a pen and paper from the living room table and barely made it into the bathroom—more like dragging himself there by sheer will.
This is harder than the military.
At least in the military, he’d been treated well for being a dominant Alpha and Jang Yuguk’s son. But now—fuck—was it really okay for Choi Suho, son of Jang Yuguk, to be living like this?
The sudden realization that his social standing had fallen straight to rock bottom made his vision swim. Imagining what would happen if the Jang brothers ever found out sent chills racing down his spine.
Tearing off his pajamas with one hand, he turned his back.
The moment he saw his reflection in the mirror, he unleashed a stream of curses.
“Fuck, Ji Haesu, you fucking bastard! I’ll seriously kill you!”
[Contact me, pretty boy ♥
010-XXXX-XXXX
Gangnam-gu XX……]
Choi Suho’s face burned red, tears threatening to gather at the corners of his eyes—but they didn’t fall. His pride crushed them down, even as humiliation and shame tried to force them out.
It was written boldly in thick marker—so clear that no amount of body wash would erase it. He must’ve known that when he used a marker.
“Fuck, fuck!” he spat, cursing nonstop, while pressing the paper against the bathroom tile and glancing at the mirror to painstakingly copy down the phone number and address with his uninjured left hand.
It was barely legible—but readable enough.
After that, he threw the paper and pen out of the bathroom and washed himself. And washed again. And again.
After scrubbing for over an hour, the marker still wouldn’t completely come off. Carrying those stubborn stains on his naked body, Choi Suho staggered back to his room—and collapsed unconscious.
And what greeted him was a fever raging past 39°C, burning fiercely.
As always, there was no one there to take care of him.
