Chapter 72
“The reason I asked to meet you today is…”
Se-jin shuddered as Tae-geon’s low voice penetrated his eardrums. Tae-geon whispered in an even lower voice than before.
“Because I imprinted on you.”
Se-jin’s eyes widened. Tae-geon leaned back and smiled as if troubled.
“What should we do?”
“……”
“You already have a mate.”
…Imprinting?
He imprinted on me?
Se-jin’s heart pounded violently. The intense pumping made him feel like his blood vessels might burst. With his earlobes turning red, Se-jin tried to maintain a composed expression and snorted.
“…How can I believe that?”
Tae-geon narrowed his eyes and smiled at the unexpected counterattack. As Tae-geon stared at him as if telling him to continue, Se-jin cleared his throat and spoke again.
“Imprinting isn’t common.”
“……”
“Besides, I’ve heard that dominant alphas don’t imprint.”
“……”
“…If you really imprinted, you would have had a rut too. Why are you only looking for me now? Especially after I’m already married, as you said…”
Even as he spoke, Se-jin stared intently at Tae-geon’s lips, waiting for an answer with expectant eyes. In response, Tae-geon slowly opened his mouth.
“Se-jin, your heat cycle is due tomorrow, right?”
Se-jin flinched at the sudden mention of his name.
The alpha knew. His name.
Just as he had desperately searched for the alpha, had the alpha been secretly searching for him too? Se-jin’s eyes sparkled with excitement.
“Yes, that’s right. But I plan to take suppressants.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
Tae-geon cut him off and took out a room key card from his inside pocket.
“You won’t believe anything I say until you see it for yourself.”
Tae-geon handed over the room key, subtly brushing the inside of Se-jin’s wrist. Even from that brief touch, Se-jin trembled as if his entire body had been electrified.
“Tomorrow night, see for yourself. Whether I imprinted on you or not.”
“……”
“We’ll talk again after that.”
An alpha’s rut perfectly coincides with the heat cycle of the omega they imprinted on. He was saying he would prove the imprinting by showing his rut during Se-jin’s heat cycle.
Se-jin swallowed hard. To think he would show him that. He would show him his aroused state because of him! He desperately wanted to see it. He wanted to clearly confirm with his own eyes the alpha’s state of desperation for him.
His heart raced with anticipation. Se-jin’s eyes gleamed fiercely as he licked his lower lip. He was his. His own alpha. An overwhelming sense of possession surged within him.
As Se-jin took the room key with trembling hands, he suddenly remembered the young omega he had encountered in the hotel lobby.
‘I guess our heat cycles are similar?’
…Come to think of it.
“There’s one more, isn’t there?”
Se-jin asked, narrowing his eyes coyly.
“An omega with the same heat cycle as me, among those you’ve slept with.”
For a moment, Tae-geon’s face turned frighteningly cold. Unaware of the dangerous glint in his eyes, Se-jin continued speaking.
“You’ve rolled around with that pathetic omega multiple times…”
“……”
Seeing the alpha’s silence as if in acknowledgment, intense jealousy welled up in Se-jin’s chest.
What was that ecstatic pheromone that young omega was covered in…?
The more he thought about why he had showered such pheromones on that half-baked omega who seemed even more foolish than himself, the more insanely jealous he felt.
Obsession and possessiveness, greed and passion. Raw pheromones tangled with all sorts of desires. Even he, not an alpha, felt weak in the knees and suffocated by that pheromone that had enveloped the omega so menacingly, as if warning others not to approach his omega.
Se-jin began to interrogate Tae-geon incessantly, as if he were something to Tae-geon.
“That slow-witted omega’s heat and your rut would have the same cycle, right?”
“……”
“So how can I believe what you’re saying about imprinting on me?”
He needed to know exactly how he was different from that pathetic omega. He desperately wanted to hear from this dominant alpha’s own mouth that he had never been satisfied except in his relationship with Se-jin, that only he was the true mate capable of sharing complete pleasure.
“…Slow-witted omega…?”
Se-jin flinched at the ominous low voice and carefully observed Tae-geon’s expression. He clearly felt an overwhelming murderous intent, but when he looked up, Tae-geon’s expression remained as calm as before.
“Who was it? Do you know that omega’s name?”
“…I don’t know.”
“……”
“I’ve only seen them a few times in the hotel lobby during their heat.”
“……”
“I only noticed because that omega was covered in your pheromones.”
Tae-geon’s gaze sharply focused on something beyond the lounge pillars, as if confirming something, before returning.
“I don’t even remember the omega you’re talking about.”
“……”
“You’re not jealous of an omega like that, are you?”
At those words, Se-jin’s eyes sparkled like a crow discovering a jewel.
“It’s definitely you, Se-jin. The one I imprinted on.”
Tae-geon lowered his posture and leaned closer to Se-jin, whispering.
“Since that night with you, my cock hasn’t been able to get hard for any other omegas.”
“…Is that so?”
Se-jin, who had been quiet until then, responded with a satisfied expression, curling the corners of his mouth.
“Come to think of it, the alpha pheromones that omega was giving off weren’t just yours.”
“……”
“Sometimes they gave off a disgusting smell, God knows what they’ve been mixing with.”
The omega continued with an awkward smile.
“I guess I misunderstood. I’m sorry. Imprinting on such a promiscuous omega, that would be bad luck.”
Tae-geon’s fist clenched under the stool, trembling slightly. Blue veins stood out ominously on the back of his hand. Unaware of this, Se-jin licked his lower lip and scanned Tae-geon’s face. Tae-geon, wearing a honey-sweet smile, whispered to Se-jin.
“Then shall we continue this conversation tomorrow? I’ll leave first.”
Tae-geon flicked Se-jin’s jacket pocket containing the room key with his crossed index and middle fingers, then quickly got up and left the lounge. Se-jin, watching Tae-geon’s retreating figure, gripped the room key in his pocket.
The alpha was more dangerous and attractive than he had imagined. His determination to possess him burned even stronger. With eyes gleaming like a viper’s, Se-jin downed the rest of his cocktail in one gulp and left his seat.
*
Tae-geon lay on the bed wearing only a robe, massaging his throbbing temples. As his body heated up, a headache set in. It was a precursor to his rut. At this rate, it seemed it would start even before dawn tomorrow.
He felt unwell from enduring the disgusting pheromones that had been openly directed at him throughout the conversation with the omega. His jaw muscles still ached from clenching them tightly to resist the urge to smash the mouth that spoke so carelessly about Hyeon-woo.
This omega was a kind of sacrifice. A sacrifice for an equivalent exchange for Hyeon-woo’s life. Throughout his time with the omega, he had noticed several times the gazes of those hiding behind the lounge pillars watching him. No doubt, by now they would have started investigating the omega’s background.
He had thought it would be a simple card to use and discard, but who would have thought he’d run into Hyeon-woo at the hotel? And Hyeon-woo in a state covered in his pheromones, no less.
‘There’s one more, isn’t there?’
‘An omega with the same heat cycle as me, among those you’ve slept with.’
‘You’ve rolled around with that pathetic omega multiple times…’
As Tae-geon carefully mulled over the omega’s words, he suddenly clutched his head.
‘I don’t even remember the omega you’re talking about.’
“Damn it.”
He had made a mistake. He hadn’t imagined Hyeon-woo would be mentioned at that moment, so in his confusion, he had blurted out whatever came to mind. He gritted his teeth at his own stupidity.
He had ended up pretending not to remember someone he had slept with multiple times.
The omega had clearly noticed. That everything he was saying was nonsense.
The omega’s attitude of calmly listening and gleaming his eyes while knowing full well that what he was saying made no sense was unsettling.
As Tae-geon carefully went over today’s meeting from the beginning, wondering if he had missed anything else, he suddenly sat up in bed.
‘One gin and tonic, please. On the rocks.’
The omega’s signature, written in elegant handwriting on the bill, fully occupied Tae-geon’s mind.
“…Ha!”
Tae-geon’s hand froze mid-way through running through his hair, and a bitter laugh escaped his lips.
…That vaguely familiar signature.
He had been wondering where he had seen that handwriting that had been nagging at him all along…
‘It’s mine! You gave it to me!! I did what you told me to!!! Give it back!!!’
Last summer, in the pocket of the assailant who had tried to rape Hyeon-woo, there was a check with the exact same signature.
Crunch.
His teeth ground involuntarily. Just recalling that memory made uncontrollable anger surge within him. He regretted countless times not having torn that bastard to pieces while comforting and soothing Hyeon-woo, who had been trembling and shrieking at the slightest touch due to the trauma from the incident.
NOTE: WTF IS HAPPENING I’M CRYING FOR HIM
