Chapter 79
Huff-!
Tae-geon suddenly clutched his chest. He couldn’t breathe well, as if something hard was stuck in his throat. Tae-geon’s chest muscles rose and fell to their limit as he gasped violently. He groaned, holding his chest from the unfamiliar intense pain. It felt like someone was squeezing his heart.
Tae-geon met Hyeon-woo’s empty eyes with his own blurred vision.
‘Our baby.’
He wanted to press Hyeon-woo about what he meant, but there was no time to question the truth of those words. For now, they needed to get outside as quickly as possible.
When Tae-geon picked up Hyeon-woo, he suddenly started thrashing violently after being limp like a corpse. Tae-geon tightly held onto Hyeon-woo, who was frantically struggling to escape his arms, and made his way out through the flames.
Even as he moved him to the car, Hyeon-woo wouldn’t stay still, and blood flowed from Tae-geon’s skin where Hyeon-woo’s nails had scratched him.
“Ungh, why are you suddenly like this. Come to your senses, Han Hyeon-woo!”
“Ugh…! Urgh!!”
“Hyeon-woo!”
Hyeon-woo, who had been flailing like he was having a seizure, covered his mouth and retched before finally losing consciousness.
Tae-geon laid the unconscious Hyeon-woo in the back seat and immediately headed for the hospital. Sticky fluid oozed from the burst blisters on Tae-geon’s burned palm gripping the steering wheel. Not just his palm, but his entire right shoulder and arm felt a stinging pain.
However, Tae-geon paid no attention and drove like mad. The back seat was becoming soaked red with blood flowing from between Hyeon-woo’s legs.
An hour had passed since Hyeon-woo went into surgery, but there was no news. Tae-geon, pacing in front of the door, felt his mouth go dry with anxiety.
As he stared endlessly at the “Surgery in Progress” sign lit up in red, a nurse rushed out of the operating room. Tae-geon grabbed the nurse, his face pale. However, he couldn’t bring himself to speak due to the overwhelming fear.
Seeing Tae-geon’s frightened face as he stood holding onto her without speaking, the nurse spoke first.
“The patient has lost too much blood. We don’t have enough blood packs, so we’re going to request support from other hospitals.”
At the nurse’s words, Tae-geon volunteered to donate blood. Fortunately, he was type O, the same as Hyeon-woo. After having his blood drawn in the blood collection room and returning to wait in front of the operating room for a while, Tae-geon lifted his head to check the clock on the wall.
Suddenly, for no reason, his heart sank and he felt a strange sensation of all the blood in his body draining to his feet. Tae-geon’s eyes, fixed on the clock, trembled endlessly.
1:20 AM.
It matched exactly with the time Hyeon-woo had been pronounced as having a complete miscarriage.
*
Called by the nurse, Tae-geon headed to the doctor’s office and sat face to face with the doctor. It was the doctor who had performed Hyeon-woo’s surgery.
“Excuse me, but what is your name?”
“Choi Tae-geon.”
As Tae-geon wondered about this sudden question, the doctor nodded at him.
“The patient kept calling that name even while unconscious. You’re the father of the miscarried child, correct?”
“……”
When Tae-geon didn’t readily answer, a look of reproach appeared in the doctor’s eyes. Tae-geon’s whole body was emitting strong pheromones of another omega. It was the smell of sex. It meant that while the omega carrying his child was fighting for their life in a fiery pit, this alpha had been recklessly rolling around with another omega.
The doctor spoke first to Tae-geon, who was sitting silently.
“If you want, we can do a genetic test right now. Would you like that?”
At those words, Tae-geon looked up, and the doctor pointed to the blazer Tae-geon was holding. It was soaked with blood and amniotic fluid from Hyeon-woo.
“Give me that.”
“……”
“I’ll need some of your hair too. Excuse me for a moment.”
The doctor, who had almost snatched the blazer, swept Tae-geon’s bangs and collected a few strands of hair that stuck between his fingers, placing them in a clear tube.
“This will be sent directly to the hospital’s genetic analysis center, and you can receive the results within a week.”
“…Is Hyeon-woo… okay?”
“Fortunately, all the fetal and placental tissue came out cleanly, so a separate D&C procedure wasn’t necessary. There was a critical moment due to the large amount of blood loss, but thanks to you, blood replenishment was done well and on time. The burns from the fire and lung damage will take some time to recover, but they’re not severe.”
As Tae-geon sighed heavily in relief, the doctor quickly added:
“It’s too early to be relieved. The patient’s reproductive organs are very weak, so this incident could lead to habitual miscarriages for life, and in the worst case, they might never be able to have children. And.”
The doctor pointed to the monitor.
“There are a few things you need to know, that’s why I called you here.”
The monitor displayed an anatomical cross-section of reproductive organs.
“The patient has remaining bulbus glandis tissue. Here.”
Pointing to the root of the penis in the image with a long pointer, the doctor continued.
“It’s the organ that expands during knotting. Found only in alphas.”
“……”
“Genetically, this body should have manifested as an alpha.”
Tae-geon looked at the doctor, furrowing one eyebrow. His expression said, “What nonsense are you talking about?”
“You’re an extremely dominant alpha, right?”
Tae-geon nodded at the doctor’s question.
“It’s presumed that your pheromones turned the patient, who should have manifested as an alpha, into an omega. We contacted the hospital that first diagnosed them as an omega, and it seems the patient already knew. Why they manifested as an omega.”
*
‘Hello, I’m Han Hyeon-woo.’
An arm wrapped in brilliant light suddenly appeared in the space that had been only darkness.
Stop it. Go away! Just leave me alone!
No matter how much he rejected and pushed it away, that hand tirelessly and persistently tormented Tae-geon. The light that had transferred from the child began to drive away the darkness surrounding Tae-geon. Feeling the warmth that slowly seeped in like the light of dawn, Tae-geon could no longer ignore that touch.
He grasped the hand extended towards him. He surrendered his body to where that hand led. Thus, Tae-geon broke through the darkness and emerged into the world. A pure white light gently enveloped him, as if welcoming Tae-geon breaking out of his shell.
The embrace with its sweet warmth, the sound of a heart beating thump-thump, the sparkling eyes looking at him were incomparably warm and cozy.
My world. The savior of my soul.
Leaving the doctor’s office, Tae-geon leaned against the wall, unable to walk further as his legs trembled.
‘I wish they would all just die.’
He hated and resented them with all his heart. The dirty and ugly species mad with carnal desire.
Every time he cursed at omegas, Hyeon-woo was by his side.
‘I don’t like them either.’
‘If you don’t like them, Tae-geon, I don’t like them either.’
The hatred that had transferred from him had seeped in completely, and at some point, Hyeon-woo too came to hate omegas.
‘I’ll definitely become an alpha. Like you, Tae-geon.’
‘Then let’s live happily together. In a world without dirty omegas.’
Tae-geon breathed roughly. Something hot blocked his throat, making it difficult to breathe. A terrible pain spread across his chest. It seemed to be near the solar plexus, or maybe near the heart. His fist, unable to pinpoint the location, repeatedly struck that area mercilessly.
He hadn’t known anything. He hadn’t tried to know. Blinded by extreme feelings of betrayal towards Hyeon-woo, nothing appeared clearly to him. His chest boiled over with hot revenge. He had been obsessed only with completely subjugating Hyeon-woo to himself, even mobilizing his pheromones.
Once unleashed, his desire ran wild towards Hyeon-woo with unstoppable momentum, as if demanding compensation for all the hunger it had endured. As time passed, his sense of purpose became vague, and even when he realized he was coveting Hyeon-woo’s body solely for his own desires, Tae-geon couldn’t stop himself.
Yet contradictorily, deep in his heart, one vain dream was growing. Just as he had found true peace through Hyeon-woo, he increasingly yearned to become Hyeon-woo’s sole sanctuary.
He thought he had been guiding Hyeon-woo along the most comfortable and safe path, shielding him from the storms at the forefront so he wouldn’t get pricked by thorns or trip over stones.
That’s why he seemed to feel an even greater sense of betrayal and loss towards Hyeon-woo who tried to leave his embrace. He grabbed Hyeon-woo by the collar and forcibly kept him by his side when he tried to deviate from the orbit.
Walk this path. No other path.
You’re walking with me. Forever.
He didn’t realize that the path he had paved was turning Hyeon-woo into an omega, nor that the pit of despair originating from himself was opening its jaws to swallow Hyeon-woo’s soul at the destination.
With blurred eyes, Tae-geon took out his phone and called his attending physician.
‘The Messiah executed by the law.’
Tae-geon strongly believed at this moment that it wasn’t just a coincidence that he had found a clue about Hyeon-woo’s escape through the physician’s words. The attending physician might have known from the beginning. The fact that Hyeon-woo would gradually transform into an omega by his side.
He had so many questions about the truth of this, and about this deathly pain in his heart. Hakgyu’s trembling voice saying he would depart immediately leaked through the receiver.
Plop, plop.
Something was falling to the floor incessantly.
Tae-geon didn’t even realize that he himself was crying.
