By Zephyria 
A comeback to the 5th-floor shared house.
As Haon pressed the keypad, someone opened the door from inside and came out. Was Kim Hyun-gyu also about to leave?
But the person who emerged was not Kim Hyun-gyu. Surprised, Haon called his name.
“Seo-jun?”
“Hyung, you’re here?”
Cha Seo-jun also gave Haon a smiling look with his eyes.
He had just seen a similar face, and the immediate thought that struck him was…
‘Cha Jeong-won, that guy definitely doesn’t have a soft impression.’
He had clearly thought he looked gentle and affectionate, but seeing Cha Seo-jun immediately made him think otherwise.
It was like slightly sanding down the corners of a rectangular table?
“What are you doing here? No. What’s going on here?”
“Ah, well…”
Just as Cha Seo-jun was about to answer, Kim Hyun-gyu peeked his face out from behind Cha Seo-jun.
“You weren’t coming in for so long, I was thinking of living with him instead.”
At the pointed joke, Haon grimaced.
“Changing housemates without my permission?”
Kim Hyun-gyu snorted defiantly, and Cha Seo-jun laughed with an awkward expression.
“That’s not it, I just came to visit.”
“Really?”
“I was just about to leave now. Go on in.”
Cha Seo-jun came out first and held the door open.
Thanks to that, it became easier to enter with the suitcase. Haon gave him a grateful look with his eyes.
“Alright, see you later.”
“Yes, and hyung…”
Before he could even feel the lingering effect of those words, Haon had to face an unexpected ambush.
“Wahk!”
At the clearly intentionally startling, youthful voice, Haon quickly turned his head.
He faced a truth he had missed, distracted by Cha Seo-jun.
Snack bags were scattered on the floor, and a colorful blanket was piled in a lump on the sofa. And rolling around amidst it were familiar children.
“Oppa!”
“Hyung!”
It was the twin siblings, Yoon Seul and Yoon Byeol.
The fourth and fifth. Still small, still noisy, still doing as they pleased.
Yoon Seul, waving a hand clutching a snack, ran over and clung to Haon. Yoon Byeol half-rose from the sofa, still holding a game console.
The flustered Haon looked back and forth between them and called out.
“What, why are you guys here?”
“Mom said she was busy and asked if we could see you only on weekends?”
The answer came from an unexpected place. Kim Hyun-gyu, who had closed the door and come in, shrugged his shoulders.
Taken aback, Haon turned to look at Kim Hyun-gyu.
“Why did she tell you that?”
“She came to the house and we met. Didn’t she contact you separately?”
Only then did he rummage in his pocket and pull out his phone.
No calls, but there was a message.
“Aunt? She said she had to go see her aunt?”
She seemed to be talking about the aunt who runs a kindergarten…
It seemed their parents, who live in Gangwon-do, came up to Seoul, left the kids here, and went to see their aunt.
“You have an older brother and an older sister too, why here…”
“Hey, do you think your hyung and noona would look after them?”
Kim Hyun-gyu, who had been a friend since before the twins were born, summed up the situation.
“She probably thought you’d take good care of them. Anyway, are you back now? No, then where have you been staying all this time?”
“…No comment.”
At the detailed interrogation, Haon first stood in the entryway and patted each of the kids’ heads once. In an instant, the air surrounding him changed.
The sudden visit from his siblings wasn’t a misfortune. Well, it wasn’t, but…
He was tired. He wanted to sort out his thoughts a bit, but they weren’t giving him the chance.
At least it was fortunate that it was Friday, with classes over now, marking the official start of the weekend.
“Haon hyung.”
Cha Seo-jun, who he thought had left, had somehow come up behind him and patted Haon’s shoulder as if to console him.
“Hang in there.”
＊ ＊ ＊
The neatly pressed hem of the coat, the hair styled without a single strand out of place, and the silhouette falling straight to the ankles were what first caught Cha Jeong-won’s eye. The familiar scent of perfume brushed past the tip of his nose first.
“…Mother.”
No further words followed. Cha Jeong-won felt his mouth go dry and ran his tongue over his lips once.
“What’s with that expression. It’s as if I’ve come somewhere I shouldn’t have.”
“Please go back.”
Cha Jeong-won didn’t want to let his mother into the house. At least not now.
At that, Cha Jeong-won’s mother, Cha Aeri, showed a displeased expression. She didn’t openly get angry, but a frosty, icy energy flowed out.
“Fine, where we talk isn’t important anyway.”
Cha Aeri paused briefly for a moment, then lifted the corner of her mouth ever so slightly. It was too cold to be called a smile.
“Shouldn’t you start thinking about marriage soon?”
Cha Jeong-won blinked.
He couldn’t bring himself to say anything.
Seeing his mother, his once peaceful mind grew noisy, and his thoughts became tangled.
She wasn’t someone who would come without a reason. But why now of all times, he thought.
Why now, when Yoon Haon had just disappeared from his space.
“Mother.”
“How old are you now, still making that face.”
He didn’t know what expression he was making now.
But as his mother’s gaze slowly swept down the contours of his face, old memories were dragged up along with it.
The child who had been caught up in all sorts of misfortunes since childhood.
The times when news of an accident would come, and his name would always be tangled up somewhere in it. The times when even catching a cold would inevitably lead to complications, making life difficult for everyone around him, including Cha Jeong-won.
Then one day, Cha Jeong-won, holding his maternal grandmother’s hand, headed somewhere. His mother was by his side too.
It was a place with colorful ribbons hung, dazzling yet frightening in their brilliance.
‘Something very wicked has attached itself. We need a talisman.’
‘I’ll give you as much money as you want, please write it quickly.’
His grandmother was desperate, but the shaman firmly shook her head.
‘No matter how much money you offer, I cannot write a talisman for you.’
‘But you said we need a talisman!’
‘Not just any talisman. A human talisman.’
At the shaman’s meaningful voice, the young Cha Jeong-won stared blankly at her. The shaman, who had been speaking to his grandmother, slowly turned her head and met Cha Jeong-won’s eyes.
He could never forget her gleaming gaze.
‘……We need an Omega Amulet.’
Cha Jeong-won still remembered the atmosphere of that time.
The way the adults looked at the child before them not as a person, but as if he were possessed by something bizarre.
That gaze remained in his mother’s eyes too.
“That story again.”
He asked as calmly as possible.
“I’m not asking for much. Just an Omega. Whoever it is, just bring them and get married.”
At those words, Cha Jeong-won felt a strange urge to laugh.
It sounded like she wouldn’t look at the other person’s conditions or family background as long as they were an Omega, but to Cha Jeong-won’s ears, it sounded different.
“Sounds like you’re saying to buy a talisman.”
“That’s not wrong. Someone by your side to suppress your misfortune, to make your life less difficult—I don’t care who it is.”
Cha Aeri’s voice flowed out indifferently, pulling Cha Jeong-won’s mood down.
“I’ll handle it myself.”
There was nothing more to say. It was just as Cha Jeong-won was about to touch the door lock to enter the house.
“I knew you’d say that, so I prepared in advance.”
His hand stopped in mid-air.
“Don’t complain that I’m pushing it on you without a word. Since you won’t do it, I am.”
It was a cold maternal love that pushed Cha Jeong-won into the mud, all under the guise of being for her son’s sake.
“You probably won’t be able to refuse this time.”
Cha Aeri said confidently.
“I put my heart and soul into choosing this one.”
The moment he heard his mother’s words, the image of Haon, whom he had faced until now, rose in Cha Jeong-won’s mind.
The charming smile he would flash with his eyes crinkling. The expression he had seen this morning was drawn before his eyes like an afterimage.
As Cha Jeong-won wavered, Cha Aeri noticed immediately.
“Have you already met?”
Looking at her son, who had become quite flustered, Cha Aeri deliberately did not say who that Omega was.
“Good, that means less to explain. Let’s appear together at your father’s retrospective exhibition and announce the engagement news first. If you hate marriage, at least get engaged.”
Cha Jeong-won grew suspicious.
Could it be that all of this was because Yoon Haon had left his side?
Or was he just another piece of misfortune for him?
The face laughing while catching its breath on the bed, the hot skin, the sweet pheromones rising and mixing with his own. The person who was within reach if he just stretched out his hand, yet who asked for just one day.
Yoon Haon.
‘……Omega Amulet.’
As the shaman’s words and his mother’s words overlapped, the back of his neck grew cold.
54 – NOT 54