By Zephyria 
Hello, Diary.
…Usually, that’s how people start. How should I start my journal? What should I write first…? Hello, God or whoever you are who turned back my time. No… never mind.
First of all… I should start from 6 years ago… that is, when I first met Cheon Tae-rim-ssi.
I liked Cheon Tae-rim-ssi at first sight. There were many reasons, but they were all simple. I liked him because he was handsome, I liked him because he smiled at me as soon as our eyes met, and I liked him because his blunt jokes were funny…. Cheon Tae-rim was a man who fulfilled my inflated expectations. Finally, I had a home to stay in for the rest of my life, a family to be with. I was very excited that it was Tae-rim-ssi.
When we talked about the future of our marriage at our second meeting, Tae-rim-ssi emphasized that this marriage was a business contract. I was very embarrassed at that time. It was as if my unilaterally excited and thrilled feelings had been exposed. As soon as I had a long conversation with Tae-rim-ssi and returned home, I looked for the paper on which I had written my marriage vows. I crumpled it up and threw it away. I threw the childish vows about my ideal type and love luck into the trash, and wrote a new vow that began with the words ‘promise’ and ‘trust’.
‘Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’
The difference between Tae-rim-ssi and me proved Anna Karenina’s law perfectly. Tae-rim-ssi was a person with a happy family as if it were painted in a picture, and I was a person who grew up in an unhappy family for reasons I had never seen anywhere else.
Next to him, I felt what poverty was for the first time. Tae-rim-ssi already had a perfect family, full of affection, and friends who were only for him. But I had none of the three. When I felt the emotions of longing and base jealousy boiling up towards him, I tasted a bitter taste on the roof of my mouth.
On the night before the wedding, I couldn’t sleep at all. Every hour, every minute, every second, I tried to acknowledge one fact while chewing on it. Family, affection, friends. I wanted to give all of that to Cheon Tae-rim-ssi and have him receive it, but Tae-rim-ssi didn’t want me like that. Cheon Tae-rim was a fulfilled person who had no reason to give me all that and no need to receive it.
The wedding flowed by breathlessly and frantically. Tae-rim-ssi’s suffering was doubled because I was so flustered that I couldn’t even recognize the VIPs. When I recall that day, I just want to cry because I’m so ashamed. Did Tae-rim-ssi know it around that time? That I was a burden in his life.
I remember Tae-rim-ssi’s voice telling me the schedule in the car heading to the honeymoon destination. Looking out the car window with a tired look, he spoke of ‘his’ schedule, not ‘ours’. He was a person who had already set his business goals and even designed his own life.
Tae-rim-ssi was planning to spend less than half of his time in Seoul and more than half of his time in the United States for the next two years. I already knew that he wanted a spouse who would understand his frequent business trips, so I wasn’t surprised.
I just tried. Not to be surprised that I wasn’t in his tomorrow, not to show my poor soul, not to ask if there was any time I could spend with him during his business trips….
Once I gave up my greed, I was relieved about many things. I was proud that Hanseong Group was a cooperative relationship that gave Tae-rim-ssi the wings he wanted, and I was lucky to have met such a perfect man thanks to being born in such a family.
When I bragged that frequent business trips weren’t a problem, I secretly tightened the screws in my head. Even during the time that Tae-rim-ssi was with me, I decided to be the good Kang Hae-ah, as I had been. A bright and energetic husband who gave him strength, I could be that enough if it was less than half of the two years. Even if I combined the remaining half of loneliness, it would be less than the loneliness I had felt until now.
That’s what I thought back then….
…Ah. Yes, that’s right.
I first met Kang Hae-ah at a restaurant.
It was the first time in my life that I felt that a man was pretty. He was an elegant and relaxed person. He was the most handsome person I had ever met, and he had a unique, inimitable atmosphere. In particular, I can’t forget the voice he used to greet me. It was so surprisingly pleasant to listen to, it was like a voice actor’s voice.
He introduced himself slowly. The shy smile he showed, saying that he was still not good at Korean, was cute. Even his awkward accent was so pleasant to listen to. Even the fact that he occasionally mixed in literary language that would only appear in translated novels was amazing and new to me. There was a charm in his voice that made me look forward to what he would say next.
I thought that he was someone I could live with. He was a good enough man to live with as a partner for the rest of my life. He caught my attention, and I gained his favor. Other than that, there was no need to ask Kang Hae-ah, the youngest of Hanseong Group, for any other conditions. Perhaps the only thing was that he had to be an Omega to spend rut together….
The wedding itself was like work. There were too many guests and even reporters were swarming around, so it was a day when I was out of my mind all day. Even Mother, who said she would cry when I got married, was not in the mood to feel anything.
As soon as I arrived at the dazzling honeymoon destination, I was exhausted. I wasted my first night with Kang Hae-ah like that. He didn’t seem to expect any special events either. The morning at the hotel with a view of the sea from the terrace was a bit greasy.
Not all the days in Tahiti were good, but there were some new things I learned. That Kang Hae-ah was quite a cute person.
One night, while we were having dinner together, I said, ‘Generosity comes from the barn’, and he couldn’t concentrate on the conversation and kept fiddling with his cell phone. While the waiter came to recommend dessert, I saw a portal site window on the cell phone screen. It wasn’t easy to pretend not to see the screen with ‘Meaning of Gokkan’ searched.
…Tae-rim-ssi went into rut. It was the first rut I had experienced since our marriage.
…I thought I would have already had my awakening around this time, but I was still not an Omega, and Tae-rim-ssi seemed more surprised than I was at the sudden rut symptoms. He turned red like a hot person, then breathed heavily like an angry person, and then he locked himself in the bedroom on the second floor.
If I were an Omega, would I have known instinctively? How to soothe him…. But I, who was only a Beta, was full of shortcomings. I was just flustered. I wish I had at least been calm…, I was beside myself with something I was experiencing for the first time.
As someone who couldn’t smell his body scent and couldn’t feel his pheromone, Tae-rim-ssi just looked like a very sick person. I was worried about him. With only vague knowledge and courage fueled by worry, to the point of ignoring his words not to come in… I was worried about Tae-rim-ssi. I was just worried….
I was a fool. It’s all my fault. It was wrong of me to approach him bravely without being able to soothe his excitement, it was wrong of me to assume that he understood everything I said and try to soothe him with nonsense, and it was wrong of me to try to give an Alpha in an excited state a suppressant injection.
I had to pay the price for trying to subdue a Dominant Alpha in a rut state as a Beta. Tae-rim-ssi hit my arm hard and pressed me down on the bed. I later learned that nothing more happened because I didn’t resist. If I had insisted more there, I might have been killed by Tae-rim-ssi’s unconscious hand.
But I was used to violence. It was scary and unfamiliar that the other person was Cheon Tae-rim-ssi, but violence itself was familiar. Fortunately… there are times when it helps that my Hyung is Kang Il-hae.
My body seemed to react faster than my reason. As soon as my neck was strangled and I was thrown onto the bed, I threw away the syringe I was holding and stretched out my arms flat as if I were dead. When Tae-rim-ssi saw me not resisting or moving at all, there was no light in his eyes. Just… it was pitch black.
After coughing a couple of times like that, he buried his forehead in my shoulder. Tae-rim-ssi, who was breathing hot air, looked painful. I wanted to soothe him properly. But when I reached out and hugged his head, he tried to push me away and slapped my cheek.
I was hit in the face by his strongly swung arm and fell under the bed. At first, my body hitting the floor hurt more, but later I couldn’t feel that pain very well. My cheeks and ears were numb and hot, and hot sweat flowed all over my body. My head was shaken violently, so I was dizzy. It was so different from when I was hit by Hyung, Tae-rim-ssi was much bigger and stronger than him.
At that time, I felt that Tae-rim-ssi had forgotten my existence. He fell on the mattress so that the bed shook, and made a boiling sound in his neck with his blood vessels raised. As soon as I saw his hand groping for the injection I had dropped, I got up and ran away.
And I was punished. Punished for leaving my husband who was in rut…. As I was hurrying down the stairs, I suddenly felt nauseous. Suddenly, the muscles in my whole body became as light as paper. On the other hand, my weight was as heavy as a rock.
I screamed and rolled down the stairs. I fell, hitting hard a couple of times with a thud, thud sound, and then I barely stopped when my foot got caught on the railing.
I still remember that day clearly. The feeling that the muscles in my thighs were stretched to the point of bursting, and that there was no place on my body that didn’t hurt. While crying while looking up at the high ceiling, I fainted.
It was almost an hour later that Tae-rim-ssi found me. After stabbing a suppressant injection into his arm like a knife and coming out trudgingly, when he found me, that sight must have remained a trauma even for the strong Tae-rim-ssi. My foot caught on the railing was broken and looked strange, and I was slumped upside down so my neck looked bent, and there was blood on my cheek….
Later I heard that water was also flowing from my nose and ears, because of the concussion.
As soon as I came to my senses, I saw Tae-rim-ssi’s face crying like a child. Fortunately, he put my neck, which was not broken and intact, on his lap, and knelt down and cried frantically.
“It’s okay.”
That’s what I said. I was more sane than Tae-rim-ssi, who had taken a suppressant and was crying. While panting and stuttering, Tae-rim-ssi called an ambulance, and
“It’s okay, Tae-rim-ssi.”
I tried hard to soothe him. It’s okay, I don’t hurt. It’s not because of Tae-rim-ssi, you didn’t do it on purpose, so it’s okay…. The reason I was saying those words wasn’t because I was a kind person. It wasn’t because I loved Tae-rim-ssi very much, or purely for his sake.
It’s okay, I don’t hurt. It’s not because of Tae-rim-ssi. You didn’t do it on purpose, so it’s okay….
It was a sound to soothe myself.
…Everything became a mess overnight.
When I found Kang Hae-ah collapsed at the bottom of the stairs, I was shocked to the point of going crazy. Blood was flowing from his beautiful cheek, and the toes caught on the stair railing were twisted. Water was flowing from his nose and ears, and I was out of my mind thinking that something was seriously wrong.
When I came to my senses, I was in the hospital. My parents came before his family. Father was very angry with me. He didn’t even know that his husband had fallen down the stairs, and I was rather relieved to hear him scolding me. Kang Hae-ah was frustrating because he only said that he was okay to me. He didn’t look okay at all, but he only said that he was okay….
After that day, Kang Hae-ah was hospitalized and received various treatments. The wound on his face, which was only handsome and pretty, was more serious than I thought, so he had to sew it up with three stitches in the end. I told my family that it was a wound caused by rolling down the stairs, so I thought that was the case.
For three weeks, I also received psychiatric treatment. I suddenly remembered hitting his face with my arm so that his cheek was torn during a counseling session. How could I have forgotten that fact even for a moment? The image of him flying away as soon as he was hit by my arm flashed like a scene in a movie. It struck like thunder and never left my mind again.
Even though I had suffered from a rare trait, I had never hated myself in my life, but at this time I wanted to bite my tongue. I could only stand in front of the hospital room where Kang Hae-ah was lying and clench my teeth so hard that my jaw hurt. The fact that I was crazy in rut, unable to distinguish right from wrong, and hit him was like a nightmare. He said he just rolled down the stairs because he was dizzy… I didn’t understand why he was covering for me with his consideration.
Kang Hae-ah didn’t get angry with me for apologizing profusely. Rather, he felt sorry for me. He even soothed me, saying that it was just an accident and not my fault.
Kang Hae-ah ended up with a scar on his cheek. He was only hit once by the hand I swung, but he was left with an indelible scar. It felt like the first blemish left on his flawless life.
It was fortunate that I had a business trip to the United States scheduled. If I stayed by his side and went into rut again, I was scared that I would have to put a leash around my neck.
Kang Hae-ah also said that it was a good thing. He smiled, saying that he would protect the house and recover, and if he was lucky, he might have his Omega awakening in the meantime. When he smiled, the bandage on his cheek was wrinkled.
As I left for a business trip to the United States, I packed stronger suppressants and booked a psychiatric consultation at a local hospital. During my time in New York, I sent Eun-cheol to the newlywed home a couple of times. I checked on Kang Hae-ah’s condition, making obvious excuses such as leaving a USB behind or asking him to find a book.
Each time, I hoped to hear news of his awakening, but I didn’t hear the story I wanted. Let’s hold on a little longer, I fought with my self-loathing. Just a little longer, until Hae-ah-ssi has his awakening. Then I won’t repeat the mistakes of the past, and I’ll be able to repay that debt of gratitude for the rest of my life.
On the day I returned from my business trip, I gave Kang Hae-ah a birthday present. He kept saying it was okay to my apology for being late, and he was beaming. He said it was more comfortable to be alone, but the way he welcomed me was like a lonely puppy.
I was satisfied after giving him a essence necklace with my body scent. I didn’t forget to tell him to wear it all the time, hoping that his awakening would be brought forward even a little bit in the process.
…I held a personal exhibition,
One new fact I learned that day was that Tae-rim-ssi had been to less than ten exhibitions in his life. He had been to large art museums while traveling, but it was his first time participating in someone’s exhibition opening.
As someone who had been attending openings every month since college, it was amazing and, on the one hand, exciting. I was able to use the excuse of showing him the exhibition to ask him to go out with me.
My older sister said that she would be bringing in a Russian master’s painting to her art museum next weekend, so I told him to go and see it in advance on Friday, the day before the opening. With no other audience, just the two of us….
I was so happy that he said he liked it…. My heart still flutters when I think about that time. I gave my sister a painting to hang in the building lobby as a ticket price. Even then, I didn’t regret it. Aside from the honeymoon after the wedding, I had never gone out with Tae-rim-ssi alone without a purpose.
I wanted to have a date like the lyrics of any love song. To go out together from our house, and to return home together… I wanted to become such an ordinary couple. Then I would be able to know what it feels like to have a real family.
…It was the first time I saw Kang Hae-ah’s smiling face. It was the first time I saw him laughing with his shoulders shaking while making a sound. That fact was quite shocking.
It was nice to come to a sparsely populated exhibition with soft lighting, just the two of us, even before it opened. But the painting, supposedly by a great master, was just so-so. It wasn’t particularly moving, and although it was well-painted, it was hard to understand what made it so great. Kang Hae-ah’s paintings, which I often saw outside the window of the detached studio, seemed better.
I was pretending to appreciate the paintings slowly, matching Kang Hae-ah’s pace, when he suddenly laughed. He was wearing audio guide earphones in both ears, looking at the painting and laughing to himself, then belatedly checked my expression and wiped his mouth. The laughter disappeared as cleanly as milk foam wiped away.
Then he walked ahead. My audio guide in Korean was a beat late, playing the joke he probably heard in French.
I was disappointed. The smiling face I saw briefly was as bright as the moon, but it was erased before I could properly appreciate it.
…Tae-rim-ssi had his second rut.
I still hadn’t awakened as an Omega, but Tae-rim-ssi was already on his second rut. I thought that living with a Dominant Alpha would stimulate my pheromones and trigger my awakening… I was so disappointed and sorry.
Compared to Tae-rim-ssi, I was such a deficient husband. Ignorance is bliss, and I was exactly like that. I remembered hearing that Omega awakening could happen faster if you had relations with a Dominant Alpha, so I recklessly tried to soothe his rut with my body and speed up my awakening. Back then, I thought I was an Omega… I firmly believed that’s all it would take to awaken.
Was it fortunate or unfortunate that an aroused Tae-rim-ssi held me? All I felt that night was pain. Even the irrational Tae-rim-ssi seemed bewildered. Omegas were supposed to be okay… Being held by an Alpha was supposed to be a pleasure… I was hurt and ashamed that I couldn’t feel that way.
I was supposed to feel good being held by him, I had been waiting for the day when I could have relations with Tae-rim-ssi and our relationship would deepen, but I thought I was going to die. I felt blood flowing and my stomach tearing. Overwhelmed by the pain, all I could do was dangle and shake.
Crushed under his weight, I buried my face in my arms and sniffed repeatedly. Had I awakened yet, did I smell like an Omega, I wondered, crying as I smelled myself. In the end, I didn’t awaken, I only got hurt.
I tried to escape a few times, but Tae-rim-ssi caught me, and when I injured my right arm, I screamed in surprise, which was the problem. The neighbors heard the noise and called the police. I had to go to the hospital in a police car.
I wish I could be the first to know about things concerning me… But others always knew about my life first. What my future aspirations should be, where I should live and who I should be friends with, when I should get married and what kind of husband I should be, and sometimes… even the fact that I was essentially a Beta… Everyone else knew first.
Tae-rim-ssi knew first… that my awakening rate didn’t even reach 80 percent. That Kang Hae-ah was a Beta, that he was someone who couldn’t be his mate, that he was a fake. Even before me….
…I spent weeks trying to find a way to divorce Kang Hae-ah.
By the time the copies of the marriage contract were crumpled and the added notes outnumbered the content of the contract itself, I only knew the fact I least wanted to know. I had been scammed, by the man I believed would be my life partner.
In the car after the final legal consultation, there were two heavy documents. One was data that uncovered the hidden design in the contract offered by Hanseong Group. Regardless of Kang Hae-ah’s trait, to divorce him, I would have to hand over my business entirely to Hanseong Group.
The second document was even more malicious. The evidence was undeniably clear that Hanseong had completed all that data investigation before the marriage in the first place.
Forgetting to turn off the headlights, sitting in the driver’s seat watching the garage door open, I felt nothing and, at the same time, I felt everything. I thought of Kang Hae-ah, who just yesterday was on the phone exchanging friendly greetings with his father.
Did he know? That was all that mattered to me.
He couldn’t have not known. All the evidence said so. Kang Hae-ah also knew his trait, that he had bet on the 77 percent probability because of his fearless personality, the spokesperson sent by Kang Il-hae said outright, shaking my mind.
I took out the documents that would be helpful in the lawsuit from the glove box. Knowing that I shouldn’t show them to Kang Hae-ah in consideration of the ensuing dispute, I still went into the house with them in my hand. Deep down, I wanted to lose.
I wanted Kang Hae-ah to realize my plan, to tell me some circumstances and details I didn’t know, to ask me not to divorce him, to ask me to endure this hardship with him. I wanted to willingly lose to such a Kang Hae-ah.
But Kang Hae-ah was not there. I put down the stack of documents and searched the entire house, but he didn’t appear.
The house, where his presence had disappeared, was utterly empty. I, too, was empty inside, and I collapsed haphazardly on the vast floor.
Taking only his phone and wallet, he had left our house. I thought there was only one reason he was avoiding facing me. That he knew. That he had deceived me knowing, and that’s why he ran away.
I was a fool for worrying about him even for a moment. I felt like a dog chasing a chicken.
Kang Hae-ah, who had run away from me, stayed for a few days at the house of a critic who was supposedly a friend. When I heard from Si Eun-cheol that they had been dating until the winter of the previous year, I was in the process of throwing the divorce papers into the trash can and starting a small fire.
That person was also a Beta, I heard.
Until now, those words had never made me feel alienated. Except for that day, that moment.
…I ended up running away. I was afraid to face Tae-rim-ssi. I was scared by the documents and photos Hyung sent….
I wasn’t even a little bit of an adult, and I did something that wasn’t adult-like. At the time, it seemed like the best thing I could do. If even a sober Tae-rim-ssi blamed me, pushed me away like an obstacle, hit me… Just imagining it made me suffocate, I was embarrassed, scared… I couldn’t possibly stay at home.
So I ran away, hiding in Teacher Im’s house, who I thought was the most on my side in the world. I didn’t have the courage to meet anyone else. The past days when I had loudly proclaimed that I would awaken soon immediately became pathetic.
The teacher tried to comfort me. When I heard that it didn’t matter whether I was a Beta or an Omega, I couldn’t even tell if it was comfort or restraint.
Every time I mustered the courage to return home, Il-hae hyung made me sit back down. It didn’t take much effort. Just one question, ‘Now that he knows you’re not an Omega, what do you think he’ll say?’ was enough to knock me down.
I was stunned, as if I had been slapped. I couldn’t say anything in response to Hyung’s words. There was no longer any reason for Tae-rim-ssi to look at me, to tolerate my mistakes, or to endure being by my side. The expectation that I would awaken as an Omega. That was the only reason for our marriage, but that was gone. The only thing I had been waiting for my whole life… that was gone.
With an awakening rate of 77 percent, how could I be so unlucky, Hyung cursed at me. He said that the reason Father wasn’t answering my calls was because he was disappointed in me, and that it was all my fault.
At the time, it seemed like that was right. If only I had awakened properly… I ruined our marriage because I couldn’t do that one thing properly.
When I finally mustered the courage to return home, I had twelve letters in my hand. I was afraid that Tae-rim-ssi would be angry with me, that I would see him hating me sober this time, so I planned to write down my position in letters and hand them to him. While constantly imagining him getting angry, saying that I was ruining people’s lives and playing childish games, I covered the surface of the letters with cold sweat.
Sitting in the house where Tae-rim-ssi hadn’t returned yet, I turned on the television. Turning on the news channel was like a habit for me at the time. Listening to the Korean pronunciation, a habit I was trying to learn…. Listening to the announcer’s words with one ear and letting them flow out the other, I reread the letters I had written.
But the news coming from the television in a clear voice was strange.
Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office, Eastern District Prosecutors’ Office, Chief Prosecutor Cheon Hee-jung… My mind went blank at the voice digging into my stunned ears. The picture displayed as a reference screen next to the announcer was the one I had drawn, my painting.
‘Political maneuvering’, ‘lobbying’, and the names of several familiar assemblymen flowed out in clusters. The clearly ringing words felt like alien language. I couldn’t understand anything properly.
It’s just a fleeting tabloid… That was my hope. But even if it was false, the news was not corrected.
Late in the evening, Tae-rim-ssi, who had returned home, looked at me sitting on the living room sofa. He only looked, looked. There was no criticism I had worried about, no violence I had feared. He looked at me, then turned around and left the house where I was.
The media’s personal attacks on Chief Prosecutor Cheon Hee-jung poured down like arrows. I was overwhelmed just trying to follow those words. I didn’t know what was real and what was fake, what had happened and what to do. Having lived my whole life as a puppet under my father’s hand, I had neither the strength nor the knowledge to protect anyone.
I tried to consult with Il-hae hyung, but I only heard that I should lie low and not ruin public opinion by meddling. Father didn’t answer my calls well, and my younger sister was abroad. My older sister said she was busy preventing the damage that Hanseong Group would suffer.
Then, what about the damage Tae-rim-ssi is suffering… There were nights when I locked myself in the house, clutching my hair and trembling. There was a phone with the SNS screen displayed, where I had been selling myself as others told me to, putting my name and face on the line my whole life.
[Incorrect ID or password.]
[Incorrect ID or password.]
[Incorrect ID or password.]
The password for the account that I had been using perfectly fine until last week had been changed. For a moment, I naively, mistakenly thought that I had forgotten my password. Only after going to the phone verification page did I realize that the real owner of that account was not me but the publicist.
It was my account with my face on it, I had been using it like that for the past six years… I couldn’t access it. I had been blocked.
A sense of helplessness that I had never felt in my life pressed down on my body like a rock.
When Tae-rim-ssi returned home after a few days, there was a moment when Kang Hae-ah became the perpetrator. The moment I became a dirty Beta who deceived Cheon Tae-rim’s long suffering and even pretended to be a victim….
…After a hellish month, I felt a sense of liberation.
Having gone crazy at the end of physical and mental exhaustion, I felt… a sense of liberation. When the reporters lined up in front of the main house whispered among themselves and cleared their seats, I felt a very brief, ignorant sense of relief. Those bug-like reporters are finally leaving our family alone, they must have found another incident to bite into, it’s a relief… I thought that.
I received the call that Father had passed away immediately after. The cause of death was a heart attack.
I felt the ground beneath my feet collapsing. Arriving in front of the hospital, seeing the cars running smoothly, I wanted to throw myself in front of them. A fleeting impulse to escape, thinking that I wouldn’t have to experience the next thing, surged up, but subsided as soon as I saw Mother leaning on my arm and crying.
The memories of the next three months were fragmented. I quietly kicked out the Kang Jun-il family, who came to the funeral hall that was prepared right away. Still, let’s not cause a commotion on Father’s last journey, Mother, who was holding me back, was the strongest person in the world.
Kang Hae-ah didn’t grant me even one request to go back. Kneeling in front of me in the empty hallway, he tortured me.
With a shameless hand, he handed me an envelope. Crumpled, worn-out letters were inside along with condolence money. He was like a devil, doing this to me, to my father, to my mother, and then giving money. I tore them to shreds, envelope and all. I threw the wads of paper at his face and spat out insults I didn’t mean.
I hate you to death… Why is it that only I have to be the villain and the beast, you made me like this, even if I forgive everything else, I can’t forgive or love lies, I spat out a scream or a shout.
And so, finally, I hurt Kang Hae-ah. He writhed like an electrocuted bug, silently shedding tears. His unusually sparkling brown eyes turned dark with despair.
He was still wearing the necklace I had given him at that moment. The necklace I had given him on that white neck as a sign that he was mine… I snatched that damn necklace away.
Then, as if having a seizure, he pleaded. Begging with tears to please give it back, rubbing his two palms together like flies,
‘I really, didn’t know. …I really didn’t know. Really. Really….’
Finally putting on a false act,
‘Please give it back, please…. Please, Tae-rim-ssi. I was wrong, I was wrong.’
He lingered in the hallway for hours after I left.
I hated Kang Hae-ah, who had deceived me and ruined my world. I thought I would feel relieved if I ruined him and saw him cry as much as I did. But not even one scratch on his neck, not even one tear he shed while begging, saying he really didn’t know, made me happy. No one, nothing, could compensate for my loss.
It was just terrible. Kang Hae-ah’s clean face, his cute way of speaking, his indecisive personality. His existence was terrible to me. It was terrible that I still didn’t hate him, even with my father’s coffin in the room right next door.
I became cold. I imitated a rock that couldn’t feel any emotions. I had to become strong, in order to never forgive Kang Hae-ah, who was begging and pleading for forgiveness.
Every moment I wavered towards Kang Hae-ah, I was a parricide. Every time I saw his face, heard his voice, and looked into his eyes, I forgot about my father’s death.
I can’t even remember half of each day, but only Kang Hae-ah’s crying face was clear in my mind.
…Cheon Tae-rim-ssi was completely broken.
Not only his mind but also his body collapsed under the grief brought about by the loss. The rut cycle, which seemed to be well-controlled, became a mess.
I was that crazy. Crazy enough to crawl under Tae-rim-ssi’s waist, who was unconsciously filled with anger and excitement… I was that crazy.
They said that if a Dominant Alpha knots a Beta, they can become an Omega. That was the only probability I could believe in now. Whether I got imprinted or died because of it, it was all good. If I could only become an Omega, if I could only turn Tae-rim-ssi’s heart back, if I could only become a body that could give him at least some compensation… That was all I wanted.
I got a perfume that was said to contain Omega pheromones through Il-hae hyung. I scrubbed my whole body to get rid of my scent, and sprayed it on my body a couple of times. I hoped that Tae-rim-ssi would mistake me for an Omega, and that he would knot me.
My bad plan was half successful and half failed. I was forcibly held by him and bled while knotting, but I didn’t become an Omega.
Tae-rim-ssi came to his senses only when the blood that had soaked between my crotch turned brown and the hot semen hardened and dried. I hugged him, who was screaming, and begged like a monster. Tae-rim-ssi, Tae-rim-ssi, please don’t go… I said such things. Don’t abandon me… Hold me again, if we do it one more time, I might become an Omega then….
Like someone waking up from a nightmare, Tae-rim-ssi screamed endlessly. I clung to his arm and smeared tears on it.
Tae-rim-ssi accepted me, who was forcibly reaching out and kissing him, with tears. Then he threw me away.
I bounced off the headboard and hit my forehead on the metal stand. When I woke up after fainting for a moment, Tae-rim-ssi was hugging me. He was calling my name with mumbled pronunciation and cursing me. I could feel his heart beating wildly inside his hot chest, where my forehead was leaning.
I pretended to be unconscious. Hoping that he would hold me a little longer….
Tae-rim-ssi left me like that. He listened to my pathetic pleas and poor persuasion and didn’t divorce me, but that was it. He left me. In heart and in body….
…I can’t possibly live next to Kang Hae-ah.
I had to get away from that man, who was begging for forgiveness and crying for a hug, as quickly as possible. I couldn’t bear it otherwise. If I stayed by his side even a little longer, I felt like I would forgive him and hug him.
I absolutely couldn’t say it was okay. Saying that would be like forgiving him for killing my Father. All circumstances pointed to Kang Hae-ah, but I couldn’t completely let him go. Clear evidence said he was a damn Beta, a con artist determined to ruin my life, an actor from the shameless Kang family, but when I looked at Kang Hae-ah in front of me… I started to like him again.
We shouldn’t be together. We would only eat away at each other, bite and tear each other apart. Forcibly tearing myself away from him, I left the terribly large house.
One year, two years… For a whole six years, I only left him. When I left for my last business trip to the United States, Kang Hae-ah no longer greeted me. He didn’t tell me to have a good trip, nor did he say he would wait. He locked himself in his room, which was originally the guest room, and didn’t even show his face.
I, too, didn’t bother to call his name or greet him. I simply packed my suitcase and quietly walked out the front door. At that moment, I heard a small cough.
Did he catch a cold? I thought subconsciously. Is it cold, the house. Is it very cold… I wondered.
On a night during the fourth month of the long business trip, I received a sudden phone call. Staring at the three letters of his name, ‘Kang Hae-ah,’ on the screen, I sat in the dark. The long ringing tone stopped once and then started ringing again.
After hesitating, I answered the phone, and it was a contact so trivial that it was hard to understand.
Out of the blue, Kang Hae-ah called and asked me what I wanted to do when I returned home. Various sentences filled my head.
What do I want to do? When I return home, I want to go back to that day, that moment, six years ago. I want to go back to the day I met you, reveal all the facts I know, and check your expression.
To see if you are a natural-born liar, as the world says and my reason judges. Or if you alone are purely innocent while everyone else is lying. I want to see your reaction and solve my lifelong mystery.
And I want to tell you. I imprinted on you.
That day, that night… on the day I lost my mind, stained with anger and hatred. On the day you covered yourself in fake Omega pheromone and crawled under my belly… You don’t remember, and even if you did, you wouldn’t understand… I imprinted. I imprinted on an Omega named Kang Hae-ah who doesn’t even exist.
You are not an Omega, a man who cannot embrace me or hold my hideous body, but those few drops of cheap pheromone perfume fooled me. I remember the moment I went crazy and mistakenly thought you were an Omega. Burying my nose in your neck as you sobbed… Now everyone will understand me even if I forgive you… Because it’s because you’re an Omega, there’s nothing I can do if you’re an Omega…. I was briefly, wretchedly happy with that pathetic expectation.
I want to shout at your face, which has kind-looking eyes. It wasn’t the fact that you were a Beta or Father’s death that ruined my life and shattered my ego. It’s because I imprinted on you, because I went crazy for you, a wall that can never accept me and will never imprint on me, that I experience a sense of loss every single day since that day. That I live because I can’t die, that I endure because I can’t break up….
Instead of pouring out countless words, I gave an easy answer. I said that I didn’t want to hear any more surprising news and that I wanted it to be quiet. I hung up the phone like that.
It was a strange night, somehow. When I put down the phone, wet with sweat and tears, my stomach churned and I felt nauseous. I took out medicine for my anxiety and chewed it, and before the taste could leave my mouth, I headed to the airport.
I called Kang Hae-ah several times before the plane took off, but he didn’t answer. Now it seems it’s your night, not mine, I thought as I heard the take-off announcement. Why did you suddenly contact me and ask about my schedule, asking what I wanted to do when I returned….
For a moment, I had a positive thought. Maybe, just maybe, after six years since our marriage, five years since my Father passed away, I might be able to have an open and honest conversation with the person named Kang Hae-ah.
Leaving the night of New York, I arrived in Seoul, which was night again. Looking up at the gloomy evening sky, I headed home. On one hand, I was darkly anxious, and on the other hand, I was full of hope, in a very bizarre state. Perhaps the expectation was a shield to avoid focusing on the ominous premonition.
How did the trajectory of my life get so twisted? I thought as I looked up at the dark, unlit two-story house. As soon as I entered the garden, a dog I had never seen before ran towards me, barking. Behind the collar-wearing dog, I saw a large dog house. I realized that I had become a guest in this house.
I wondered what kind of expression Kang Hae-ah would make when he saw me barging in like this. I thought he would be flustered as if he had seen an uninvited guest, but I also thought he might greet me nonchalantly, or he might lock himself in his room and ignore me.
As I was about to walk towards the main building, the white dog repeatedly blocked my path. Roughly avoiding the dog, I arrived at the front door, which was open by a hand’s breadth. Did he forget to lock the door… I was dumbfounded by the sloppy appearance and chuckled. Forgetting about the strange phone call that seemed so ordinary, I figured he must have already fallen asleep.
The entire house, which I entered without a sound, was surprisingly clean. Even in the darkness, I could clearly see the display cases arranged in rows and the spotless hallway without a speck of dust. It looked more like a penthouse ready to welcome guests than a house where people lived.
Unintentionally moving my foot, I ended up kicking something. At the same time, the sensor lights in the hallway turned on brightly. Looking down, I saw a ceramic bowl rolling away and spilled dog food. There weren’t just one or two of the same bowls. There were several bowls in each corner of the hallway, filled with dog food and plenty of water.
Could it be that Kang Hae-ah went somewhere far away, like on a trip? I muttered and headed to the kitchen. When I opened the refrigerator with a bang, I saw containers of side dishes and wrapped food, packed so tightly that it felt dark. It looked like he had prepared food for people just as he had prepared dog food. In fact, Kang Hae-ah was practically living alone, so why. Where did he go….
Immersed in an indescribable feeling, I just stood there blankly. The desire to meet him immediately and pour out my heart began to be consumed by a strange sense of unease. I just fidgeted with the luggage bag in my hand and headed to the living room.
Only then did I notice the note placed in the center of the table. It was a memo written on a torn sheet of lined notebook paper.
“I’ve made side dishes in the refrigerator. The laundry should be all dry, so please just fold it.
I’ve found someone to work starting Monday. I’ve already paid the salary, so please just use it.”
Kang Hae-ah used to press down hard when writing in Korean. After he wrote something down, the paper underneath would also have traces of the pen pressing down. Seeing the handwriting that looked like a diligent student’s notes, I relaxed and laughed.
“Don’t chase away the Jindo mix in the yard, and please give him a name. He’s been neutered and vaccinated for Corona too. He keeps tearing up, but it’s because he has conjunctivitis. It’s not contagious. He’s almost all better.”
…As if I would chase away your dog.
“I have one request.”
A request? You don’t do that to me.
“I’ll be in the detached house now, but Tae-rim-ssi, please never come in.
Just report it to the police. Please tell them not to turn on the siren when they come.
Please never come into the detached house, Tae-rim-ssi. This is my last request.”
My whole body immediately felt heavy. You’re in the detached house now.
‘Why….’
It’s been a long time since it was used. It’s been years since I last saw you drawing a picture. Why are you in the detached house, the person who was coughing. On this cold day….
“I’m so sorry for everything until now.”
I read the last sentence twice, three times, four times. But I still couldn’t understand. The simple sentence made my stomach churn.
I couldn’t move quickly. My limbs felt heavy like in a nightmare, and my feet wouldn’t move easily. As I slowly moved out of the house, the ticking of the clock seemed to urge me to go quickly, to go and see him.
As I staggered out of the huge house with trembling knees, I saw the white dog again. The dog was scratching at the door of the detached house, barking loudly, then whimpering and crying repeatedly. I stumbled towards the dog, whose eyes were stained with brown spots.
Why, as I pulled on the cold doorknob, did I think of your smile instead of the tearful face I had seen hundreds and thousands of times.
The smile you showed me just once six years ago…. Standing at the exhibition hall you took me to on a date, looking more like a work of art than the artworks, shrugging your shoulders and smiling…, why did I have to think of that face?
“Kang Hae-ah-ssi.”
Because the weather was cloudy, even the huge windows of the detached house didn’t function properly. I saw a long sofa in the dark darkness. Kang Hae-ah was asleep. His face, lying lengthwise on the sofa, was pale. My bag fell onto the vinyl that covered the floor. I wanted to reach out. But I couldn’t approach.
Instinctively, I knew he was already dead.
“…Hae-ah-ssi. Kang Hae-ah-ssi?”
An unknown dog passed by me as I muttered. The white, rugged-looking dog began to lick Kang Hae-ah’s cheeks and mouth. The face, which had been filled with depression and sadness, slid down under the cushion. The closed eyes and parted lips looked strangely comfortable.
I had seen that face before, only when he was asleep. When he woke up and faced me, that peace disappeared. Now he would never see me again. He had decided to be at peace forever.
“Are you okay?”
But I asked as if dealing with someone who would wake up soon. I already knew there would be no answer. But I was still hurt. Kang Hae-ah doesn’t answer, doesn’t respond to my question. He was the one who begged me to say just one word, even if it was cursing.
Taking one step closer, my knees gave way. I fell to the floor with a thud. The touch of the cold vinyl was rough.
I crawled towards him. I forcibly pushed away the dog licking his parched cheeks. I had learned how heavy the weight of the dead was while carrying my Father’s coffin. But Kang Hae-ah’s corpse was very light. The terribly sad and frighteningly persistent vitality was no longer felt.
“Kang Hae-ah-ssi, wake up.”
I said, stroking his gaunt cheeks. Laughter was mixed in my voice. As if going through a pointless prank.
“If you wake up now… I’ll make everything as if it never happened.”
I whispered, ruffling his soft hair as if dealing with a living person.
“I’ll forgive you. I’ll believe everything you say… Let’s start over. You just have to wake up. So….”
The curse-like imprinting was broken. The shackles that bound me were also released. I no longer had to feel pain from being separated from him. The loss that had been strangling my neck for so long was now over.
“Wake up, Hae-ah-ssi.”
At the moment of liberation, I collapsed. I screamed until my throat was hoarse, but all that came out of my mouth was a faint breath.
“Kang Hae-ah-ssi….”
Come to think of it, it had been a really long time since I called your name. It had been just as long since it became the most hellish name in the world.
During that long time, you held on to me and endured. You clung to me with tears, saying that there was no ‘goodbye’ between us. There were moments when I sincerely hated you for saying that wasn’t that what family was, so we couldn’t break up.
Even so, I couldn’t bring myself to say goodbye. I thought it was something I could endure and overcome. I thought that if I endured and persevered, you would always know that there was a home to return to. While I was silent, you endured well. You endured so well for so long that I became accustomed to the fact that you were always waiting for me.
So our goodbye was only easy for you. I collapsed. I collapsed, shattered, and broke into pieces. Kneeling, I could never stand up again.
…Let’s forget everything. Hugging your pale body and banging my head on the floor, I wished. I wished that I would forget the wounds you gave me and the wounds I gave you. That I would forget everything. That I would erase everything. So that I could return to the me before I met you….
But I couldn’t know who I was without knowing you.
My bloodshot eyes were hot.