10 – Flash Memory

A loud scream leaked from beneath my body. The unpleasantly hot flesh of another person was felt beneath my buttocks and thighs, and the neck of someone I gripped with both hands was slippery with sweat. The pulse throbbing in my neck sounded like a drum beating. My vision was all hazy and blurred. A stinging shock repeatedly touched my jaw and cheeks.

After the sequentially awakening senses combined, I became puzzled. I’m on top of someone, strangling their neck… There’s no other way to explain it. But, I had no idea why I was doing it.

‘Why?’

More than the reason questioning,

‘Die… just die.’

The emotion shouting angrily took precedence.

After blinking a couple of times, the fog seemed to clear from my eyes. A man’s face, smeared with red blood, suddenly appeared. The little flesh of the neck being strangled by my two hands was pushed up to just below the chin, making it look very strange. Coughing and uttering muffled groans and slurred curses, he was hitting my chin and shoulders haphazardly.

Behind me, I heard someone’s screams and sighs.

‘Ah…’

I was seized by a lax delusion.

‘It must be a dream, this…’

The blood-smeared face vaguely resembled someone I knew. It was difficult to recognize because the skin on the bridge of the nose was torn and both eyes were turned white, but vaguely… the eyebrows looked like Kang Hae-a’s.

‘Dream…’

It must be a dream. It’s a dream. It has to be a dream, if this man is Kang Hae-a…

“Tae-rim…”

Soon, a familiar voice was heard. It was Kang Hae-a’s voice calling me. As I lowered my head to check the blood-soaked face once more, hot sweat poured down my arms and legs like rain. The thick drops of sweat flowing down my forearms were clearly felt.

Even in the moment of white terror, I couldn’t release the strength in my hands. My mind was dim, and my hands were raging on their own. I was suddenly afraid. But what came was neither shock nor pain.

A pleasant, cozy scent and the sensation of soft palms caressing my back and digging into my side.

“Stop it… stop.”

Kang Hae-a pleads, his usually pleasant and tender voice all hoarse.

“Stop it, now…”

Twenty-six-year-old Kang Hae-a was trying to stop me. My mind, which had been dazed as if drugged, immediately cleared, and the bloodied man’s face became clearer. Because his windpipe was constricted, his mouth was open, and even his palate and upper teeth were visible.

Kang Hae-a’s panting breath was heard from behind me. His arms were wrapped around my waist.

‘Then… who is this man?’

If not my husband Kang Hae-a, if not the bright twenty-six-year-old Kang Hae-a…

‘Who…’

And where is this?

Park Joon-woo. The puzzle piece that is the core of my scattered memories is unexpectedly that man. Arrogant and rude alpha, Park Joon-woo… I remember Kang Hae-a calling him ‘Joon-woo-ya’ in a friendly way. Park Joon-woo was Kang Hae-a’s graduate school classmate and friend. …What a joke.

The question of ‘Hae-a, what do you lack that you give such a trashy guy the neat label of friend?’ had to be put aside. If I put a question mark on every question Kang Hae-a gave, my world would be confiscated.

On the day he came back with Park Joon-woo’s scent smeared all over him, Kang Hae-a had blue bruises on his side and back. It took more than a month for those bruises to fade to light green, then yellow.

What bothered me as I was about to leave for a business trip to the United States was the yellow color of those bruises.

I can’t be a romantic man. But since the late spring night when we had our first sex… relationship, I’ve given Kang Hae-a a corner of my mind. To put it another way, he was always in my head.

Kang Hae-a turned my head, which had been filled with a desire for work and a bit of stress, into a flower garden. Because of that, I couldn’t be calm or calculating. He rummaged through my insides as he pleased, walking, running, drawing, laughing or crying, feeling good or hurting. Kang Hae-a with the yellow bruises boasted a great presence among them.

Last month, there was a day when I left work earlier than usual and returned home without contacting him. I heard an unfamiliar humming, so I went up to the second floor and saw him walking out of the bathroom. He was naked, letting the water dripping from his wet hair flow down to his waist.

Even as he put one arm into a thick gown, Kang Hae-a didn’t notice my presence in the doorway. His defenselessly exposed back was slender, and all his movements were relaxed like a well-fed animal. It was nice to hear him humming a song, vaguely slurring the lyrics.

For a moment, I felt like I was stealing a glimpse of him in a time when I wasn’t there. On the other hand, I was bothered by the yellow bruises remaining under his slender waist.

I quietly went down the stairs. I pretended to have just arrived and made a clearing-throat sound, and the singing stopped,

‘Tae-rim?’

Kang Hae-a on the second floor had returned to the sensitive man I knew.

When I saw him coming down dressed in indoor clothes, I thought of the previous night when I had touched his lean waist. But even more than that, what remained in my head for a long time was the color of those bruises.

That, yellow bruise. The trace of another alpha left on the waist of a man who wouldn’t become mine.

…I couldn’t just go to the United States like that. If I did, Kang Hae-a in my head would be Kang Hae-a with yellow bruises on his waist throughout the more than 40-day business trip. It was obvious that I would be bothered to death, and I couldn’t help but feel wronged. Because I couldn’t contact him and ask him to send me a picture, asking ‘Have the bruises gone away?’

‘I have a situation, so please take a picture of yourself so I can see your body well. Of course, completely naked.’

If I sent such a text, it would be printed in large letters and waved around in court…

A plan was needed to prevent being treated as shameless. Rather than having my nerves frayed by worrying about my husband’s well-being throughout the business trip, I decided to clean up his surroundings and leave. There was no guarantee that an alpha who had approached Kang Hae-a once wouldn’t do it again.

Kang Hae-a’s tone was proper, but the stories contained within were indecisive, he was the boss everywhere but was a recessive omega, and he was aloof but kind. It meant that he was attractive enough to be a target for anyone. It was entirely my responsibility to stand guard and be wary for him.

So I looked for Park Joon-woo. To be exact, I wanted to find him. But I failed.

“There’s no one with the name Park Joon-woo who graduated from Korea Graduate School…”

I couldn’t find any record of that man through my lawyer or the police. As far as I remember, his name was definitely ‘Park Joon-woo’ and he was a painter or aspiring painter from Korea Graduate School, but when I tried to find his proper age, place of birth, and resident registration number information, there was no data at all.

They say there’s no man named Park Joon-woo. That’s what the lawyer said, and that’s what the police said. I felt like an idiot when they kindly continued with the obvious explanation that I couldn’t sue a non-existent man.

‘I definitely saw him with Hae-a… I assaulted him, and the day before yesterday, Hae-a even came back with his scent on his body, but he’s a non-existent person?’

I wondered if he had died in the meantime, but even his death wasn’t reported. I investigated to see if he had changed his name, but his name wasn’t on the list I found.

After a few days of hardship, the lawyer put forward a comfortable hypothesis.

“Since he touched the son of the Hanseong Group, that man must have known he did something wrong. So he may have been scared and gone into hiding.”

No, does he usually go that far? Does he secretly change his name, cut off all social activities, and completely disappear, just because he’s afraid of possible retaliation?

“Hanseong may have taken action first. I don’t know what they did… It looks serious and strange on the surface, but when you know the truth, there are surprisingly many cases where it’s nothing. What can’t a large company do in this day and age?”

Finishing his words, the lawyer smacked his lips. Judging by the way he rolled his eyes with a sullen look, he seemed to know that what he was saying was a line that would only appear in crime movies. I didn’t bother to point that out. Frankly, I thought that was a more likely story.

Kang Hae-a was the youngest child that Chairman Kang Joon-il cherished so much. That was exactly the repertoire that the people sent by Hanseong recited in a row when the marriage contract was exchanged.

I was tired of hearing the words that packaged Chairman Kang as a fool for his children to the point where he should appear on a childcare entertainment program, and Kang Hae-a as a six-year-old cute youngest child, not twenty-six, with ‘The Chairman’ or ‘The youngest son’ as the subject.

It was surprising that Chairman Kang Joon-il hardly ever visited the newlywed home after we got married. He did call me directly to ask how I was doing a couple of times. But there was no interference as much as I had expected. Kang Hae-a also never brought up stories about his family to me, even as small talk.

‘Do they have stories they only share among themselves…’

It’s just that I can’t hear them, but the relationship between the Kang family father and son must be good. How could it be bad, if Kang Hae-a was my child, I might have put him in my mouth and carried him around. Because the world is dangerous, I would have told him not to go out carelessly even during the day, and I would have only taken him out on trips to see good scenery sometimes.

Did the cute youngest child Hae-a tell his father about his concerns about Park Joon-woo? That a guy he knew as a graduate school classmate left bruises on his body… It was a very possible story. Did Chairman Kang, who was angry at that, take action? That a recessive alpha who failed to breed touched my baby carelessly… I would have done that too, so he would have done that too.

‘…If that’s the case, that’s a relief.’

I put off dealing with Park Joon-woo as it was. There were still some uncomfortable aspects, but I didn’t think it was necessary to investigate deeply.

I left a request with the lawyer to ‘keep an eye on him.’ But I didn’t have much expectation. The lawyer also pretended to listen carefully, saying ‘I understand,’ but until I boarded the plane to New York, there was no news or contact about Park Joon-woo.

Even while working back and forth between New York and Chicago, I thought about him a couple of times. But the worries always ended quickly. The real troublemaker in my life wasn’t Park Joon-woo or anything like that.

Rather…

‘Kang Hae-a.’

The ambiguous confusions that appeared to me, the unprecedented difficulties, the cumbersome memory impairment. All of that is because of Kang Hae-a. So… yes, Kang Hae-a. Kang Hae-a is the problem.

The New York business trip was the worst. Even if I were to find the culprit for that, it was Kang Hae-a. How could someone who wasn’t even there ruin my business trip, but because he wasn’t there, he ruined my business trip.

Objectively speaking, if we only discuss the work, it was successful. All the problems were solved smoothly as if I had done it once before.

Even the picky attitude of the cooperative company, even the clauses that became a point of contention after the contract, were resolved amicably with a few words and a couple of hours of meetings. So it’s safe to say that AOM has wings that won’t fall for the next 10 years.

After receiving the signatures of all the researchers on the confidentiality clause with an unprecedentedly huge penalty, it was time to reveal the bare face of our technology. There was a secret weapon that wasn’t even shown at the collaboration product meeting with Hanseong. According to the development team leader Kim, AOM’s ‘bare face was much prettier.’

The reason why Kim Min-soo was appointed as the team leader, aside from his anti-social personality that couldn’t keep the line between superiors and subordinates from the way he spoke about bare faces, was also because of his AI technology.

People often think of AI as a discarded child robot in a movie or a humanoid who hates humans, but the reality of artificial intelligence hasn’t reached such an in-depth stage.

The AI in AOM was at the level of superficially imitating the human thinking mechanism. AOM is a calculator that runs on those things. The most expensive calculator in Korea that extracts what kind of interaction the artificial intelligences have for 10 years at the longest and 3 years at the shortest, and what percentage of probability there is that imprinting or knotting will occur in the process.

Even the test that was completed a few months ago was like that. A beta test conducted with the information of me, the face of the company, and the celebrity Kang Hae-a. As it was a stage that needed development, the results weren’t concrete…

‘A smooth upward graph came out, or something like that.’

Because the resulting value was opaque, it was only of great help in grasping the direction of improvement.

Rather than the performance of the test itself, the power of the issue that the CEO directly used AOM to find a partner and even got married was great. Thanks to that, we were able to gain full trust from Hanseong and other cooperative companies and proceed with new research and secondary testing.

Thanks to that, internet news treated our program like a romantic new world device.

But the reality was like disposable coffee cups piled up like a tower on each development team’s desk. It meant that it was a bug-ridden lump with a plausible appearance.

‘Why! Why didn’t it work until before I left work yesterday when I ran it with the same query, but it suddenly works today!’

‘Huh? This… this shouldn’t work… it shouldn’t work…’

‘Team leader, the server is down.’

‘Did you hit the side of the main body?’

That was a common conversation in the development team. There were so many problems that it was difficult to release a finished product for commercialization.

The development team members who cried out whether the program was working well or not, the bugs that appeared as frequently as the number of days of overtime, …and, the problem was that a chip had to be inserted shallowly into human skin. The fact that the price of that chip was at least in the thousands of dollars and that medical insurance coverage was naturally impossible was also a problem…

So the US branch and collaboration were necessary. Scientists who would help our engineers were hiding in New York. If we could make the disposable implantable chip into a simple attachable sensor that could be used permanently, accessibility would be much better.

Who would refuse? If you just put a sticker on your temple for 2 weeks, you can verify whether the person you chose to marry is a normal alpha or omega.

If it’s ‘Becoming a person with an acne patch vs. Living a lifetime with someone who might commit rape, violence, fraud, embezzlement, or even murder’… anyone would choose the former.

“You’d be surprised how similar computer programming and human science are.”

The development team leader looked happy as he walked out of the conference room. The face of team leader Kim, who was hugging the gift given by the American research team who were impressed by our technology and acting proud, pushed my mood into the mud. I felt like my already messed up personality was getting even more edgy.

Team leader Kim, who is good at his job, was not at fault. The reason why my personality became so bad that I got angry even when I saw other people’s smiling faces was because of Kang Hae-a.

‘He never, ever contacts me first.The texts floating around on my phone were all trivial in context, and even those were the ones I sent. It was my job to contact him whenever I thought of him and missed him, making various excuses, and Kang Hae-a, who slowly accepted those, was aloof to the extreme.

-The day before yesterday-

[Hae-a. Is everything okay?]

10:00 AM

[[International Call] Huh???]

10:15 AM

[…I sent a text to ask how you are.]

11:00 AM

[[International Call] Yep! Everything’s okay!]

11:06 AM

-Yesterday-

[[International Call] I’m so I can’t answer the phone. Please call again after 00:00.]

12:00 PM

[[International Call] I’m so I can’t answer the phone. Please call again after 00:00.]

1:00 PM

[[International Call] I’m so I can’t answer the phone. Please call again after 00:00.]

2:00 PM

[You should at least set up an automatic reply message.]

2:01 PM

-Today-

[[International Call] I’m sorry…

Why did you call yesterday?

Is something wrong?]

12:27 AM

[I called to ask how you are…12:30 AM

Am I some talkative natural-born beggar and is his phone a public appeal device that only receives the appeals of noble scholars?

Next was the time to fully appreciate the usefulness of reporter Oh Geon-min. I wondered why Kang Hae-a, who doesn’t go to work anywhere every day and doesn’t have a personality that goes out far or often, had a full-time reporter, but there was a reason for it. Because Kang Hae-a doesn’t answer quickly, he needed someone around him to tell him about his recent activities instead.

Less than ten days after arriving in the States, Oh Geon-min-ssi became a mystery, whether he was Kang Hae-ah’s driver or a mole I had planted. Ordering him to take care of my husband’s meals was embarrassing at first, but after repeating it two or three times, it became routine.

Driver Oh diligently delivered ‘Today’s Writer-nim’ news every day. Perhaps it was thanks to the gift I told him to give to his wife, but his voice on the phone and the messages he sent were full of exclamation marks and vitality.

However, none of the news he brought pleased me.

[The writer-nim is not in good condition. He went to a brunch meeting this morning, skipped lunch afterward, and canceled his dinner appointment.]

[Hwang Ok-hye Ajumma has applied for a long vacation. Her son seems to have a severe flu. The writer-nim has approved it as paid leave. Ajumma will not be at the house from tomorrow.]

[The writer-nim seems dazed all day. I bought him a sandwich with the card you gave me, but he didn’t eat it. He called a personal shopper in the evening, so I left work early.]

‘The card you gave me’ meant the card I had given to Driver Oh in advance the day before I left on my business trip. When I told him to take him to a proper restaurant with that card, he couldn’t even start for the restaurant and was scolded instead.

-He keeps grilling me about where I got the money to buy expensive food… What should I do?

I had a headache when I received the urgent call. Feeding Kang Hae-ah even one meal was like putting a bell on a cat. Trying to control him remotely made it even more difficult. Driver Oh Geon-min was a quick and obedient avatar, but he wasn’t the one to get Kang Hae-ah up and moving.

My husband only gave me bright answers to the texts I sent and the occasional phone calls I made with excuses, but the ‘Writer-nim’ in Driver Oh’s reports was a completely different person.

“…Okay, then. I understand Hae-ah-ssi’s condition… I’ll send someone to take care of him tomorrow, so don’t worry and go home.”

-Someone to ‘take care of him’?

“My secretary… Because he’s an Omega. Hae-ah-ssi will probably be more comfortable with him.”

-Ah! Yes, I understand! Then I’ll hang up, CEO!

I ended the call with a greeting that seemed to show him bowing deeply. Looking at the call history on the screen, I was dumbfounded. Even if I added up all the calls I had with Kang Hae-ah since coming to the States, it probably wouldn’t amount to 20 minutes, but the call history with Driver Oh today exceeded 30 minutes.

I was about to touch my forehead in bewilderment, but it was only for a moment. I hurriedly made a second call. To the chief of staff at the Seoul headquarters, who was handling urgent matters for me, to entrust him with something even more urgent.

[Father-in-law]

The ringing stopped after about five rings.

-Yes, yes. What’s the matter, CEO?

“Eun-cheol-ah, are you busy?”

-Uh… No. Not really busy. Why?

“I have a favor to ask, it’s not company-related…”

I needed several excuses to tell him if he had time, could he go to my house and take care of Hae-ah-ssi. It was very awkward to suddenly say, ‘Please take care of my husband.’

Fortunately, Eun-cheol easily gave me the answer ‘Okay.’ He even said in a loud voice that he would take care of any helpful medicine and talk to him as an Omega, so I shouldn’t worry about this.

“Okay… I’m counting on you.”

Only then did I feel like I could take a breath.

It’s not that I don’t trust Driver Oh. But he was an Alpha with an imprinted partner. He was bound to be insensitive to Omegas other than his own partner. If it was Eun-cheol, who was also an Omega and Dominant, I thought he might notice aspects that Driver Oh couldn’t see.

Si Eun-cheol was an excellent secretary. He did his job well and never disappointed me.

But,

-I’m serious. That critic guy comes out of your honeymoon home every morning… And Hae-ah-ssi sees him off like he’s seeing off her husband going to work.

He completely messed up my head with his absurd words.

“……”

-…….

“……”

-…Hello? Hey, are you listening, Cheon Tae-rim? I think your husband is cheating on you.

I took the phone away from my ear as the accusation flowed out.

“Ha…”

Then I laughed in vain.

‘Yeah, I wondered why it was so quiet.’

Kang Hae-ah is just the eye of the storm. I don’t know if he likes me or hates me, if he’s sulking or angry, if he’ll bounce this way or disappear that way, that’s my husband.

Kang Hae-ah is a trustworthy spouse. At least, that’s what I think. Sometimes when he stares at the trees in the garden outside the window for a long time, I don’t know what he’s thinking, and when he smiles at me and frowns, I don’t even know if he likes me or hates the sight of me… But I trusted Kang Hae-ah.

There was nothing I couldn’t entrust to Kang Hae-ah. …Ah, no. Knives and guns are excluded, because I’m afraid he’ll accidentally cut his hand or shoot his instep. But anything else, especially our marriage, I could definitely entrust to him.

Kang Hae-ah was definitely not the type to cheat. Cheating is something you do when you’re tired of your partner, but he doesn’t even know me well in the first place.

My trust in Kang Hae-ah was so ambiguous yet solid. It’s hard to explain ‘Why do you think so,’ but I wouldn’t be uneasy even if I put my life in his hands. Rather, he was the man who would put my safety in a solid safe and hold me all day long.

So, the reason I’m urgently looking for a plane ticket back to Korea, whether it’s Incheon Airport or Gimpo Airport, is not Kang Hae-ah, but,

‘That guy slept in our honeymoon home?’

It was because of Im Geon.

I tried to think calmly, with a generous heart, and patiently. That’s what I did for two minutes after hanging up the absurd international call. Well, Im Geon must have had some reason to walk out of someone else’s house from early in the morning.

‘His house caught fire.’

No, then he should have looked for a firefighter, not a painter.

‘A robber broke in.’

If he was scared, he could have gone to the police station and slept in the detention center.

‘A natural disaster occurred and his house disappeared completely.’

Huh, even so, wouldn’t he have a few tens of thousands of won for a motel? He could have even slept in his car, rather than staying overnight at his ex-lover’s honeymoon home while her husband was away. He’s not a beggar, and he’s published several books, so how could he be so flustered?

Oh, right, Kang Hae-ah’s recommendation was written on the back cover of that book, and the strip around the first edition had an introduction like ‘The eye that discovered Kang Hae-ah.’

‘What a… dog-like bastard.’

I felt like my blood was boiling. I could feel the anger paralyzing my reason. I rummaged through my memories of Im Geon and began to interpret even the smallest fault as a hateful crime.

The way he showed off in front of me as if he knew my husband better than I did, the way he brought up past stories that Kang Hae-ah didn’t mention, and even the bouquets and letters that were easy to misunderstand.

“Crazy bastard.”

As I muttered curses and hit the car door with my fist, the voice of the youngest secretary, who was reciting the schedule, stopped abruptly. I made eye contact with the youngest, who was looking at the rearview mirror in embarrassment.

“Uh… CEO, why…”

“No. …It’s not because of you…”

When I covered my forehead with my numb hand, a sense of self-loathing washed over me.

“…I’m sorry. Don’t worry about it and drive.”

Except for when I lost my temper because I was stimulated by recessive alphas, had I ever been this angry? I couldn’t hear the words the youngest was saying, and it was difficult to think properly. The sight of me getting angry and hitting the wall was the image of a man I usually despised the most.

‘Am I the crazy one?’

No, no. Why, what am I? What’s crazy? It’s the bastard who sends letters like ‘Please calm my anxiety’ to someone who just got married who’s crazy. Huh… Thinking about it again makes me even more dumbfounded.

Whatever the reason, that man named Im Geon should not have slept in Kang Hae-ah and my honeymoon home. Especially since I knew they were past lovers, and I had already shown my discomfort at that point.

I never expected him to respect me in the first place. I don’t respect him much either. So there’s nothing to be disappointed about. But Kang Hae-ah was different. If Im Geon thought about Kang Hae-ah’s position and respected him even a little, he shouldn’t have done that.

It felt like a foreign substance that had been bothering me was floating to the surface. The point that had been faint, covered by his friendly face and his professional image as a critic and writer, suddenly became visible. Im Geon could never be a pure guest in my house, that simple fact.

If mistakes are repeated, it’s a habit. It was time to re-evaluate the point that he subtly discussed past events in front of me at the garden party. That man didn’t seem to be able to accept that Kang Hae-ah was someone’s husband. For some reason, he must have had a lot of lingering feelings for Kang Hae-ah.

“Go to the airport.”

I raised my head sharply and said that.

“Yes?”

The eyes of the youngest secretary, who was looking at me in the rearview mirror, widened. Even the few seconds that were delayed because of that were a waste, so I knocked on the hard car window.

“You have to look ahead.”

“Ah, yes, yes!”

“You have my passport with you now, right?”

“Yes? Yes, I do have it, but…”

“Go to the airport right now. Turn the car around.”

As much as my impatient attitude, the youngest’s driving also gained speed. Thanks to that, we arrived at the airport without delay. However, the fastest ticket to Seoul that I urgently obtained was only one.

“I’ll go alone, so Secretary Yoon, join the development team and help with the schedule.”

“Ah, no, CEO… Are you going to Seoul? Now? It’ll be tomorrow when you arrive?”

“Seoul isn’t tomorrow.”

Looking at the ticket for the economy seat, which I barely managed to get right before it sold out, I narrowed my eyes.

“…Seoul will be tonight.”

Then I passed through the security checkpoint as if running. It was only when the announcement urgently looking for passengers was broadcast right before the plane’s departure that I was able to get on the plane. As soon as I found my seat, the passenger sitting next to me showed a desperate expression.

Stopping just before 2 meters tall and living a life obsessed with exercise, that expression was now familiar to me. Whether it’s a subway or a train, if I try to sit next to someone, I’m a complete sinner. If I had had time, I would have bought two seats in advance, but I couldn’t afford that consideration right now.

‘I’m the one who’s desperate, some old Beta might have slept with my husband.’

I didn’t unclench my tightly crossed arms throughout the 14-hour flight. I sat huddled in my big body and suffered from all sorts of delusions. The flight itself was difficult because of the turbulence, and the turbulence of my mood was even worse. It felt like I was rolling around in pus, not clouds.

As soon as I arrived at Gimpo Airport, I grabbed a taxi. As I headed straight home, I felt like I was running, not the car.

When I stood in front of the house I had returned to after fifteen days, the clock was nearing midnight.

I was curious about what kind of expression Kang Hae-ah would make when he saw me suddenly barging in. I thought he would be flustered as if he had seen an uninvited guest, but I also thought he might try to greet me nonchalantly, or he might not even know I was there because he was sound asleep.

As I crossed the garden, only Kang Hae-ah, ‘who doesn’t even know I’m here because he’s sound asleep,’ remained in my mind. The house was filled with dark darkness, and even the hallway lights that were always bright were turned off.

‘He must be asleep…’

I opened the front door with a hollow guess, but surprisingly, the door gap was slightly open. I wondered what kind of mind he was in to sleep without even locking the door, let alone leaving it open.

I had a sharp suspicion that a thief might have broken in. Even if they only stole one light from the living room, it would be worth thousands.

I lifted my chin and checked the security camera first,

‘…I ended up hitting the wrong person before when I did this.’

I released the strength from my tightly clenched fist.

Closing the front door behind me, I quietly moved my steps. The sensor lights in the long hallway lit up above my head. Next to the stairs leading to the second floor, a rhombus-shaped light was spreading. It was the light from the studio’s incandescent lamp.

Dressed in a crumpled shirt like rags, feeling like a stalker obsessed with him, I walked towards Kang Hae-ah’s studio. I had a lot to say when I saw his face. I was in the mood to beg him to tell me what he was thinking with that small head.

Suppressing my temper so that I wouldn’t say anything I didn’t mean, I quietly stood in the doorway. Only then did I see Kang Hae-ah.

The anger that had been boiling in my chest suddenly cooled down. It felt like I had been hit with cold water.

His head, hunched uncomfortably on the wide chair, was the size of a fist. His neck, bent forward like a turtle, was thin, and his shoulders looked thinner than I remembered. The outline of his shoulder blades was raised above his work clothes, which were covered with paint oil.

His slightly visible profile had the expressionless face unique to someone who was very absorbed. Tilting his head slowly, he was moving a small brush. Inside the canvas he was carefully trimming as if wiping off paint with his lips parted and his eyes lowered, was me.

“……”

As I blankly stared at my image in the painting, it was like looking at a stranger. I had never been a perfect lover with a kind face in such a warm landscape. There was also no one who had ever looked at me that way.

For a long time, Kang Hae-ah didn’t feel my presence. The criticism that he was a dull person came to mind, but it changed to praise that he was a craftsman with such good concentration.

…It was good. Thanks to that, I was able to observe him leisurely.

Will the day ever come when I will know him exactly in my life? At the moment when I was upset and had even quit work and flown here, Kang Hae-ah was making me feel moved.

After the minute hand in the angular clock moved ten more spaces, Kang Hae-ah turned his head as if he had felt something. His brown eyes, looking at me with a bewildered face, were hazy. He looked like he was drunk, very sleepy, or sad.

Waiting for him to say something to me after seeing me, I smiled awkwardly. Then he turned his head back to the canvas. The hand that was rubbing the oil on the brush on the rag moved slowly, like a broken machine.

After a few seconds, he looked back at me again. Then, while moving his mouth,

“Uh…”

He only let out a meaningless groan. His gaze slowly scanned from my head to my dirty, crumpled shirt, dusty pants, and black shoes.

His lightless brown eyes suddenly gave me great sadness. When I forced a smile and met his gaze, when I saw his face slowly shrinking… I felt strangely sad.

Walking into the studio, I looked at his painting again. Looking at it up close, the delicacy of the painting was amazing. I would probably never have such passionate feelings twice in my life. My heart fluttered and was soon dyed with shame.

Cheon Tae-rim is a petty man. An intolerant man who got angry and came all the way to Seoul to see Kang Hae-ah, saying he would listen to what excuses he had. Kang Hae-ah had painted such a man as a work of art.

After looking at the painting side by side for a long time, Kang Hae-ah smiled. His lips with an unknown smile were like a work of art that someone had painted. Slowly reaching out, I touched his cheek. His white skin was so cold that it was scary.

“Uh… Tae-rim-ssi?”

Soon he grasped my hand. I felt like I had become a ghost, when I saw him groping me like someone trying to confirm my existence.

Kang Hae-ah’s expression suddenly collapsed. His changes were always so fast that there were many times when it was difficult for me to keep up. Tears welled up in his calm eyes, wrinkles formed on his beautiful forehead, and his elegant eyebrows were distorted.

“Don’t leave me alone.”

Then he begs. Without even giving me time to prepare, bursting into loud sobs.

“Please, okay? I’m begging you. I can’t be alone. I’ve been alone all along, I’ve been fine all along, but I guess that’s not true…”

Thick tears poured out of his eyes as if they were gushing out. The groaning sound, resting his cheek on my palm, seemed to boil from inside his throat. All of that was too much for me. It was difficult to find the cause of the tears, words, and despair.

“Please stay with me. Please…”

I could only feel it.

‘He imprinted…’.

As I faced him, clutching my right hand like a lifeline and kissing my palm,

‘My Omega….’

My heart pounded red.

“Don’t leave me. If you’re going to leave, just kill me….”

Sorrowful confessions blurred over my palm lines.

‘My person.’

He shed tears, then abruptly raised his head. A thin moan escaped from his parted lips. His heart, about to burst, pounded as if it were my own.

“Tae-rim-ssi…. Is it real?”

His hands, touching me here and there, were as cold as ice. He stroked my upper chest and crumpled shirt collar with his dry hands for a long while, then grabbed my collar. Kang Hae-ah was the one pulling me forcefully, but I didn’t budge; rather, his upper body was drawn into my arms.

His desperation was like that of a drowning man.

“Hold me.”

When Kang Hae-ah said that, I had no choice but to hold him as tightly as I could. I wrapped my arms around his waist, which seemed weaker than ever, as he sobbed and gasped without a sound.

“Puppy,” he babbled incoherently, uttering unfamiliar sounds.

“Puppy…. What do I do? Sob, he must not have wanted to be alone either… he must have been worried about me. He kept scratching, asking me to open the door. He whimpered….”

Kang Hae-ah gasped into my ear,

“I regret it so much.”

It felt as if he had stolen the words I should have been saying.

“I’m so sorry…. I… I left him behind…. Sob, ugh… I lost him, knowing I’d never see him again.”

I… I left him behind. I lost him, knowing I’d never see him again.

‘No, I didn’t know.’

The moment I opened my mouth to make that excuse,

“No. I didn’t know, actually.”

Kang Hae-ah shouted. My heart pounded roughly at the cry that burst out as if he were my spokesperson.

“I was so out of it… I couldn’t think of anything. Sniff….”

I was bewildered, having all my words stolen. I blinked like an empty human, suffocating with injustice. When did I leave someone behind? What did I lose…? I couldn’t understand anything, yet I was sad.

I had never heard that tears were contagious, but Kang Hae-ah’s crying spread to me. I felt the blood vessels in my eyes swell as if they would burst. My eyeballs ached, and I felt a physical pain in my chest. Even my organs writhed from the incomprehensible shock.

“Tae-rim-ssi. Was living with me suffocating?”

My body froze like stone at the question. A strange impulse enveloped me. An impulse like a destiny, to tear Kang Hae-ah away immediately, to check his face, I had to.

I tried to grab his shoulders and push him away, but my, seizure-like movements were easily restrained. It was because Kang Hae-ah was holding me and wouldn’t let go. His arms wrapped around my waist like ropes, and his tear-soaked face was buried in my shoulder. But his lips didn’t utter a single word.

I suddenly became afraid. I was scared, of his silence. Of his body temperature turning cold. Even after finally breaking the silence and opening his mouth,

“If I were a Beta… Tae-rim-ssi… would living with me… feel like that?”

He asked a question I couldn’t answer.

“Would I be, like… an object… Sob, even if you tried to like me… you wouldn’t be excited, like living with a stone statue… would it be like that?”

‘This is torture….’

I thought so. This is torture, with the intention of deliberately inflicting pain on me…. Otherwise, without any purpose or malice, he couldn’t hurt me this much. If I knew what answer he wanted, I would confess, but I didn’t know how to soothe Kang Hae-ah, let alone find the answer.

Tears welled up. I was frustrated by my ignorance.

I repeatedly tried to pull him away to check the face hidden in my arms, but it wasn’t easy at all to push away the man who was desperately resisting.

‘Stop it.’

A huge fear rushed towards me like a black horse.

‘Please stop…. I’m scared. I’m scared….’

My terrified tongue moved on its own.

“I’m sorry.”

So please stop, stop…. I just want to check your face… I cried out with a pleading heart.

“I shouldn’t have left you behind…. I didn’t know, you….”

Apologies and excuses burst from my mouth without filtering.

Instinctively, I thought of Kang Hae-ah as my person. From the body scent emanating from him, the temperature of his small breaths, or simply the way he looked, I felt that he was mine. …So this was an apology for leaving behind an Omega who had Imprinted on me.

“It’s all my fault.”

But the words that burst out from inside my chest like blood,

“To leave you alone….”

Were being said by a different me from a different day.

I bit my lip and hugged Kang Hae-ah tightly, even closer. Only then could I feel his panting breath. The temperature of his slowly warming cheeks was no longer cold. His loudly beating heart also pounded against my ribcage again.

I was glad that Kang Hae-ah, whose heart I couldn’t understand at all, had Imprinted on me. Whether it was because he had come to like me, or because of the influence of my trait, he was now my Omega. I was glad about that fact. So I should be happy… but I only shed tears for some unknown reason.

It’s strange, that tears become easy in front of him.

Soon, my mind became a vessel for Kang Hae-ah. Everything else was nothing to me…. Only he was important in my world, and only he was considered a real being…. Not the daily routines like cogs moving according to my planned schedule, imagined appearance, and expectations….

But this man, who pressed his face against my palm until it was crushed and wept, who piled up unknown gifts all over the house and smeared his body scent on even one of my coats and one of my socks, who suddenly poured out the vast loneliness he had never shown before.

Nothing else matters except Kang Hae-ah.

When I stood in the center of the dressing room filled with his pheromones, I was almost angry.

‘Who cheated?’

The heat rushed to the top of my head, then quickly subsided. It was Si Eun-cheol who had said nonsense, but in the end, it was I who flew all the way to Seoul, even while thinking it wasn’t true.

Still, I had to say something to that guy.

While changing into workout clothes and waiting for Kang Hae-ah in the bedroom, I tapped on my phone.

[Don’t talk carelessly

Without knowing anything.

My husband didn’t cheat.

That guy isn’t an Alpha either.]

12:02 AM

I thought to myself that I was saying these kinds of things to Si Eun-cheol for the first time in my life. I didn’t know why the guy who was always on my side was acting strangely only at the most important moments.

‘No.’

When I thought about it calmly, there had been something a little peculiar since the garden party.

‘…No.’

Even before that, I seemed to have disliked the way Si Eun-cheol had acted since the marriage talks had started. Back then, my marriage was more of a contract between companies than a personal celebration, so it seemed natural that my longtime friend would be more concerned with my side’s gains.

But it wasn’t like that now.

‘Could it be that Eun-cheol….’

Slowly, my brow furrowed. There was one reasonable conclusion.

‘…Likes Kang Hae-ah?’

A soap opera-like drama from the 90s swept through my mind. No. This wasn’t “I liked my friend’s friend,” but “My friend’s husband…” Before I became deeply engrossed in dark thoughts, Eun-cheol sent a quick reply.

[????????????

Are you in Seoul right now??]

12:03 AM

[No… I just told you because

Hae-ah-ssi and that person

Seemed to have a strange vibe

And I was worried–;;]

12:03 AM

Even as I stared at the text messages, I couldn’t shake the uncomfortable feeling. He was so angry about something that wasn’t even his business, and he was talking about inaccurate stories as if they were facts…. It didn’t seem like Eun-cheol at all.

If this guy happened to like Kang Hae-ah, it was my job to cut him off to prevent any mishaps.

[Hae-ah-ssi Imprinted on me.]

12:04 AM

Then I put down my phone.

I saw Kang Hae-ah walking out hesitantly with a hoodie in his hand. He had changed from his work clothes covered in paint and oil to comfortable sweatpants.

His face was flushed, as if he was embarrassed to show me the mess in the dressing room. His straight eyebrows drooped sadly today, and his hands were crumpling the innocent sleeves. He was a person who was hard to figure out, but he was particularly bad at hiding his embarrassment.

Seeing his ears turn red, a small doubt stirred within me. …The absurd suspicion that my friend might like my husband.

‘Yeah, how could you not like someone like that.’

Come to think of it, they had even kissed on the day of the garden party.

‘…I was trying to shut him up. I didn’t want to hear Si Eun-cheol-ssi say any more.’

I still don’t know how to understand Kang Hae-ah. But if he explained the reason he kissed a strange man like that, there was a high probability that it was the truth.

At the moment I heard the confession, I was relieved that the other person wasn’t Im Geon, so I only focused on that fact. But when I thought about it, Si Eun-cheol had never even mentioned that incident to me.

‘This is what happens when you have a popular husband…. People become petty.’

Suppressing a deep sigh, I took him down to the garage. Thanks to the hardworking Driver Oh, who had filled the car with gas, we were able to head straight to Ulsido without stopping at a gas station.

“If you’re tired, get some sleep in the back seat.”

‘…I can.’

I swallowed the honorifics that were about to come out as a habit. Kang Hae-ah… no, …Hae-ah sat in the passenger seat.

“How can I let the driver get tired? I’ll sit next to you. …Let’s talk while we go.”

Even as he blinked his eyes, which were swollen and puffy, his tone was pleasant and kind.

I had no fatigue or drowsiness as I drove with such a husband in the passenger seat. It was a mystery where I got this strength from, after returning from a disgusting and dizzying 14-hour flight.

One thing was clear: I didn’t want to disappoint Kang Hae-ah, even if it meant I would collapse from exhaustion. I couldn’t let the natural-born actor, who had Imprinted on me and sent me off to America with a smiling face, be disappointed, or I wouldn’t even know he was disappointed.

That scared me. The fact that Kang Hae-ah wasn’t as proud and innocent as I thought, that he was a man who would hide his wounds and festering insides until the day he died.

The dog named ‘Puppy’ seemed like an opportunity. I wanted to find that dog and put him in Hae-ah’s arms, no matter what it took. I was sure my head would break if I saw him burst into tears twice, lamenting ‘I left him behind’ and ‘I’ll never see him again.’

Hae-ah acted as a radio, constantly chattering until we arrived at the beach on the unfamiliar island. The various stories he told, starting with ‘I heard it somewhere,’ weren’t hilariously funny, and the twists weren’t that surprising. But strangely, they were fun.

Well, it wouldn’t be easy for anyone to not make others laugh with that face and that voice. Even if it was an academic collection of essays that I had no interest in, it would be nice to listen to if he read it aloud. Even the words he struggled to convey, sitting on a cold rock on the beach, that he had let Im Geon sleep at his house, were like that.

Until half a day ago, I had thought that I didn’t care whether the words that came out of his mouth were excuses or pretexts, and that I would just listen to how he would explain what had happened last night. But when I saw him fiddling with the sleeve of his hoodie,

“Um… Tae-rim-ssi. I did something stupid.”

Confessing, I felt good.

“Yesterday… no. The day before, I called Teacher Im and showed him my work, and I let him sleep in the guest room. Nothing happened, it’s just… it was very late, and I couldn’t let a drunk person drive….”

‘See?’

I thought so.

‘Kang Hae-ah is a trustworthy person.’

It was a great relief to me that he wasn’t a criminal. Even just looking at his innocent eyes was convincing, so even if he had killed someone right away, I would have thought, ‘So what, it’s okay. The other person must have done something to deserve it,’ and I would have easily taken care of a corpse.

So it’s my good fortune that this man is such a kind person. If he had been a bad murderer, I would have been a body disposer.

‘…….’

No. Who would he kill with those pretty hands….

Hae-ah, who seemed tired from watching the sunrise, belatedly began to nod off. I laid him down in the passenger seat, who insisted that he was okay and not sleepy, and covered him with a blanket. Then,

“I can’t sleep in a place like this….”

Leaving behind a small complaint that was barely audible like a last will, he fell asleep in an instant. It didn’t even take a minute for him to lean his limp head against the back of the passenger seat and make a small snoring sound, ‘Kuh…’.

I laughed in absurdity. I smiled foolishly to myself and watched his face, then suddenly brought my finger under his nose. The breaths that leaked out tickled my skin.

I, who never used to talk to myself, did so in front of the sleeping man.

“Kang Hae-ah-ssi.”

Like that, and also,

“Hae-ah.”

Calling him like this,

“…Hae-ah.”

I thought that name was really nice.

I drove slowly to the deserted parking lot so that the sleeping man wouldn’t wake up. After parking the car in the most secluded spot, I got out and walked along the pier alone.

As I circled the island, I arrived at the narrow roadside. I saw country dogs tied up haphazardly with steel wires. I felt like a thief as I looked for a white one among them.

After wandering around like that for a couple of hours, it was finally morning. The island villagers began to appear one by one. I followed the old men pulling in their nets and walked down to the mud flats near the water. It was to ask around about finding a dog.

But I couldn’t find any white dogs in the vicinity, and I couldn’t even hear any stories of seeing a white dog.

‘What if I came all the way here and can’t find him?’

I was anxious as I leaned against the rusty fence.

‘…Hae-ah will be disappointed.’

Thinking about seeing his sullen face made me feel like a criminal. I began to regret bringing Hae-ah to this remote island so recklessly. I should have made flyers to find the dog, or at least done some preliminary research. I was just blinded by the thought of scoring points….

Since I was bad at using my head, I had to be busy with my body. I started going from house to house, and to the stores that had started to open one by one.

Only then,

“There’s a kennel that Oknane Halmae set up on that mountain over there….”

Was I able to get new information. It was the sound of an auntie wearing pink vinyl arm covers pointing to the mountain path and muttering.

“Up there on that mountain, Oknane Halmeoni?”

As I bowed deeply and repeated the words, the auntie’s frowning face slowly relaxed. She made eye contact with me and openly scanned my features, even patting my shoulder kindly.

“No, no, over there.”

Then she pointed to an even more distant mountain.

“Um…, I understand. Thank you.”

Leaving behind appropriate greetings, I moved my steps. Behind me, I heard a shout, ‘Come by later, for a meal.’ The store I glanced at was a restaurant selling gukbap. I wondered if Hae-ah had ever eaten pork gukbap with intestines mixed in…. I nodded with an ambiguous feeling and returned to the parking lot.

I checked on Hae-ah, who was still asleep in the passenger seat, and also checked the clock, which announced lunchtime. My sneakers were dirty because I had walked around for three or four hours. Even after shaking them out in front of the car door, the mud stains wouldn’t come off.

It was good that I found the shelter information and contacted them. It was also good that I drove up the mountain path without waking the sleeping Hae-ah, and that I hurriedly bought some bread and juice for him to eat, and that Hae-ah finally hugged a white dog, saying ‘It’s him.’

‘I’ve… seen him somewhere before.’

It could have been even better than this. If it weren’t for the strange sense of déjà vu given by the vaguely familiar white puppy.

The 40 minutes or so I spent at the shelter were all strange. The dog that Hae-ah had lost last winter should have been an adult dog, but the dog he hugged, saying ‘It’s him,’ was a chubby puppy. Considering the way he cried and apologized while looking for him, there was no way he would have completely given up on the lost dog. But he looked strangely refreshed.

While Kang Hae-ah meticulously filled out the adoption papers for the abandoned dog, I looked down at the white dog sitting on my lap. The spot on his nose like a smudge, the sparse fur around his mouth revealing pink skin, and his gentle, double-lidded eyes were all too familiar. It was the first time I’d ever looked at a dog and felt like I knew him.

Woof, woof… The sound of a dog barking came from outside the container.

I quickly looked up and glanced out the window, and my eyes fell on a campaign poster with the phrase, “Don’t buy, adopt.” It was a poster with a picture of a smiling Mixed-breed dog against a green background.

‘Ah, I get it…’

I immediately felt deflated. Come to think of it, I seemed to have seen a similar-looking white dog on a desk calendar belonging to one of the company employees. Park Min-hee, the employee who had even quit smoking because of animal testing, had a calendar with hopeful phrases like, “Waiting for a new family.”

Because he had bought and distributed fifteen of the same calendars, claiming that all the proceeds would be donated, all the employees in the development team ended up using the exact same calendar.

‘Yeah, I think I saw him on the calendar…’

I looked down at the dog wagging his tail and licking my chin with a troubled expression. A dull sensation, like marking the wrong answer, lingered in my mouth. A vague headache threatened to pound in my head, but it vanished completely at the sight of the five ten million won checks that Hae-ah had generously donated in the name of ‘charity.’

“Hae-ah.”

I liked Hae-ah like that. Hae-ah, who could change the genre of my life as easily as flipping his hand,

“I like you.”

And Hae-ah, who closed his eyes and pretended to sleep at my confession.

I liked Kang Hae-ah.

—Um… Are you perhaps out of your mind?

The words leaked out through the laptop speakers. On the rectangular monitor, eight employees divided into eight squares were participating in a video conference, and seven of them were just watching me carefully.

—I’m not being sarcastic, I’m genuinely concerned. CEO, are you really not feeling well?

The only one grumbling was Kim Min-soo, the head of the development team, located in the lower right corner of the screen. I fully understood his intentions, even the exaggerated sigh of ‘Hmph.’ Because I had come to Seoul, the meeting in New York that the entire development team had been eagerly anticipating was delayed by at least three days, so he was showing his disappointment.

“Don’t talk nonsense. How’s the work going?”

I asked, and

—Would I be saying useless things if the work was going well?

Team Leader Kim added another useless remark. He had volunteered for overtime throughout June to complete a project, but with the schedule being delayed, half of the reward had disappeared. It wasn’t unreasonable for him to grumble, ‘If I had known this would happen, I would have gotten some sleep while preparing.’

I pretended not to hear it.

“Secretary Yoon.”

Instead, I opened the report file I had received by email and called the youngest secretary. I saw the youngest secretary straightening up and sitting properly at the bottom of the screen.

The development team employees were clearly wearing pajamas with just shirts thrown over them, but the youngest secretary was neatly dressed from her hairstyle to her shirt, tie, and jacket. She didn’t seem to know yet that this company had video conferences to the point of exhaustion.

—Yes, CEO! I’ve coordinated the schedule well, so you don’t have to worry.

The youngest secretary reported, clasping her hands together. Her attitude felt almost solemn.

—And we received a call from the board of directors. Not all of them, but some of them… They said they were simply curious.

“Oh, is that so? What did they say?”

I replied, imitating a businesslike tone, but the youngest secretary didn’t seem to catch on to my joke. She hurriedly opened her prepared notebook and was busy finding and reading the notes she had taken during the call.

—They asked, ‘Did you look at the feng shui before setting up the US branch?’… ‘I know a shaman, so I’ll recommend her.’ And then they left their contact information. What should I say?

“Tell them we held a turf exorcism. We even brought a domestic pig’s head and buried amulets at the entrance.”

—Really?

“…No.”

Forcibly suppressing the laughter that was about to burst out, I changed my expression to look serious and sincere.

It wasn’t the first time the old men on the board of directors had brought up shamans. It was ridiculous, but they were serious. If I ignored it and moved on, it would become less fun. There was a specialist who handled such cases.

“Pass on the contact information I received from Si Eun-cheol and forward all related calls to him. He’ll take care of it.”

—Ah, yes! And… there aren’t any suitable plane tickets for your return flight… Only economy seats are left, what should I do? Should I book two seats next to each other?

“The seat doesn’t matter.”

As I replied, I glanced at the calendar in the corner of the laptop monitor.

“…The date is the problem.”

A small sigh escaped my lips involuntarily. If possible, I wanted to stay in my Seoul home for two more days. Hae-ah had marked me, and today, he had even hugged me from the morning, exuding a sweet body scent.

‘Did we just hug…’

When else would I be able to enjoy a morning where his haughty lips voluntarily sucked on mine?

I was frustrated that I had to return to the United States, leaving behind Hae-ah and our new family member, Do-jin. It was like leaving a buffet to go eat bugs.

I narrowed my eyes, displaying the calendar on the screen. I was wondering how to squeeze in the already delayed schedule to free up two more days, but the youngest secretary seemed to have mistaken my sigh for something else.

—Why doesn’t the seat matter? Even business class is too cramped for you to stretch your knees. Ugh… I’ll look for more and call you back.

“That’s not it…”

As I opened my mouth, I heard two knocks. When I looked up at the monitor, I saw Hae-ah with a clear face. He was holding a plate with fruit in his hands, and he had even neatly brought a small fork between his index and middle fingers.

After looking back and forth between the laptop and my face, Hae-ah approached silently. He placed the plate he had brought on my desk as it was and quietly retreated.

—…First of all, the schedule is set for tomorrow, what should we do? You know it’s an important day to open the research data and report the test results. CEO, you have to come.

Team Leader Kim’s grumbling voice flowed out from beyond the laptop. My hand almost flew to the keyboard volume key.

—What urgent matter could have happened that made CEO Cheon suddenly swear and do a furious race to the airport….

I frantically spammed the mute button, cutting off the embarrassing nonsense he was spewing.

“…….”

My fingers froze involuntarily with embarrassment. …Did Hae-ah hear it? As I tried to gauge his reaction, he silently left the study.

Letting out a long sigh, I glared at the monitor. Kim Team Leader’s mouth was moving inside the screen, chattering away without knowing he couldn’t be heard. He was more of a nemesis than a subordinate.

It seemed that Hae-ah had heard something he shouldn’t have because of that. He had even gone to the trouble of getting an expensive ticket, pushing me to return quickly because I had a schedule for tomorrow. I was dumbfounded by the sight of him holding the glossy ticket with both hands and handing it over like a polite raccoon.

“How much did you pay for this ticket to kick me out?”

I said I would stay and play with him for two more days, but he was trying to turn me into a workaholic. What Alpha in the world, no matter how obsessed with work, would leave their marked husband behind on a business trip? It was something to make fun of, saying, ‘Are you a eunuch?’

This was torture. Just this morning, he had buried his face in my crotch, scattering sweet pheromones and making my body tremble, turning me into a hungry dog, and now he was telling me he wouldn’t feed me fully, telling me to be satisfied with the appetizer I had tasted.

‘Did I get married, or did I come to Baskin-Robbins…’

And then Kang Hae-ah even made a bewildered face, looking dumbfounded.

Words were teeming in my mouth, but I could only utter a few.

“Can’t you just accept it?”

I lowered my voice and raised my shoulders, meeting his face as I asked, and with sparkling eyes,

“Huh?”

There was no way to resist Kang Hae-ah when he was being so coaxing.

“I don’t dress Tae-rim-ssi from head to toe as I please, do I? Just the plane, car, and watch that Tae-rim-ssi will ride… No, and the shoes too. Okay?”

“…You only act cute at times like this.”

“I didn’t act cute…”

I stared blankly at his face as he shamelessly lied. He also stared blankly at me with his brown eyes, as if he was still unfamiliar with talking to me. After a moment of silence,

“Was I very cute?”

Hae-ah joked.

I closed my mouth and admitted defeat. Honestly, he was so cute I could die. Did a grown man really need to be this cute…?

I liked the sound of his voice, speaking clearly and confidently, and I also liked the habit of licking his lips, as if he was still unfamiliar with talking to me. If I were recessive, I might have gone crazy and devoured him by now.

Even if I wasn’t recessive, I would have if I had been a little more honest.

If the guests Hae-ah had even forgotten about hadn’t suddenly arrived, that would have been the case.

“I’m sorry, Tae-rim-ssi…. I forgot I had an appointment.”

Then, Hae-ah introduced each of the guests who came one after another to me. I wasn’t surprised when I saw the head of the publicist. It was hard to imagine that the celebrity ‘Kang Hae-ah’ wouldn’t have experts clinging to him. The elderly professor, who was said to be his mentor from graduate school, was also an understandable guest.

But Im Geon was not.

“If I had known CEO Cheon would be here, I would have brought something.”

The publicist’s rambling words entered my left ear and flowed out my right ear. Im Geon, whose shoulders were stiff as if he also felt guilty, and I made eye contact in the air.

‘He didn’t expect me to be here.’

It was absurd that he had come to my newlywed home, even staying overnight until morning, after I had been away for a few weeks, and then returned looking so clean and innocent less than three days later. I wanted to call a pest control company and disinfect everything from the guest room he had stayed in to every seat he had sat on.

Slowly, I wrapped my hand around Hae-ah’s arm. Smiling, I pulled him towards me like a puzzle piece that fit perfectly,

“I’m just stopping by while on a business trip. We have a new family member at home.”

I said it lightly on purpose. It was a sound I made to check Im Geon’s reaction.

As expected, the guests’ faces turned to Hae-ah, or rather, to his stomach. Publicist Park was smiling, and the professor seemed genuinely surprised, but Im Geon’s reaction was clearly different.

For a brief moment, his eyes wavered and his mouth hardened. As soon as I confirmed that he had opened his mouth to say something and then closed it, Hae-ah introduced the ‘new family member’ outside the window.

“Isn’t he cute? His name is Do-jin.”

I put my arm around Hae-ah’s shoulder, who was excited to show off the dog. I held him close to my side, as if embracing him, and even put on a natural smile.

But inside, I was seething with anger. It was the moment when suspicion became certainty. I didn’t know what Hae-ah was thinking, but to Im Geon, Kang Hae-ah was not just an ordinary acquaintance. Even after fixing his expression to look proper, he couldn’t hide the lingering feelings in his eyes.

The following meeting made me even more suspicious. It seemed that the people who had gathered according to the titles on their business cards were checking the works to be displayed in the solo exhibition and discussing the outline of the exhibition, but Hae-ah was strangely insistent on the story of the frame, and the guy named Park was acting very unpleasantly.

“Shouldn’t we get the director’s opinion on the frame?”

After Im Geon added his support to the director’s words, Hae-ah couldn’t seem to get a grip.

‘Ha…’

I clenched my mouth shut. Otherwise, I felt like I would either openly click my tongue or burst out laughing. This meeting itself was a comedy to me.

What was so important about the frame that they couldn’t let Kang Hae-ah decide? Without the paintings he had drawn, the frame was just useless packaging, whether it was made of wood, gilded, or even studded with diamonds.

But it was an absurd farce that the artist himself couldn’t freely use a frame that he had prepared all the materials for in advance and even set the specifications for.

“…Why are you telling me that, Teacher?”

Hae-ah’s confident attitude noticeably faded. He became sullen, almost dazed, and his head even slowly lowered towards the tablet screen.

That reaction was fuel to the fire for me. A fire broke out inside me.

It was understandable that Director Park, as a publicist, would insist on an expensive frame, citing trends, but Im Geon was not. Hae-ah had introduced him as ‘a critic teacher who helps me,’ but that was also wrong. Even right now, he was taking sides with someone else.

‘This is a real son of a bitch.’

It became clear that Im Geon was not as good a person as Kang Hae-ah had said. In addition, perhaps Kang Hae-ah was not as strong-willed an artist as I thought.

Even in a place where he was discussing his solo exhibition with his name on it, in front of the works he had created, he couldn’t be the director. Even though he had set up the paintings he had completed with admiration as a shield, Hae-ah was voluntarily acting like a mere staff member.

I wondered what qualifications the publicist or the critic had, and since when they had been manipulating him. But I couldn’t point that out right now.

Raising my hand, I stroked and covered Hae-ah’s forehead and eyes, pretending to check his temperature. When my palm blocked his view like a pot lid, Hae-ah blinked twice with his dazed eyes. Then he closed them. His face, leaning in as if he was very tired, was warm.

“It seems like the important discussions are over, so please return now. Hae-ah’s condition hasn’t been good since this morning, so it won’t work.”

I dismissed his guests as I pleased.

“I’ve already placed the order, for the frame. …It’s my husband’s first exhibition after we got married, so I said I would take care of it. Since the order has already been placed, there’s nothing more to discuss.”

I got married for this reason, thinking that.

Leaving Hae-ah, who was sitting with a troubled face, to Do-jin, I chased after the guests, pretending to see them off. The professor was busy scolding his student in front of his car, and Director Park seemed to be chatting with me, but then he took out his cell phone and went down the shoulder of the road first.

The one I caught was Im Geon, who was the last to leave the garden.

“Teacher Im.”

When I called out to him like that, Im Geon gave an ambiguous smile. He opened his mouth with a smiling face, wondering what I was going to ask him, but I had no intention of listening to any excuses he made. I had already received excuses and apologies from Hae-ah. The only thing I cared about was him.

“Please be careful not to meet my husband privately again.”

I said it in a very polite tone. It was all or nothing. If I didn’t hold on tightly to my sanity as a social human being, an unfortunate incident would occur where I would be throwing a punch because of a Beta, not an Alpha, for the first time in my life.

Right now, I had to refrain from fighting because it was a meeting that involved Hae-ah’s reputation. I couldn’t solve everything with violence.

“And please.”

I had to straighten my back as much as I was angry. As I bowed slightly, Im Geon was flustered, not knowing how to treat me.

“…Once you start acting, please finish it to the end.”

Someone with that much education would understand the hidden meaning in my words. It also meant not to shake Kang Hae-ah, not to flirt with him, and not to put emotions into it.

“I won’t ask for the same thing twice.”

This was the final warning.

I stared blankly at Im Geon’s face, who didn’t answer. He showed a troubled expression and let out a small sigh like a groan. I had nothing more to say to him. Standing with my back to the house,

“Then please be careful on your way.”

I saw him off.

I didn’t get a plausible answer in the end, but I was satisfied with the silence. It’s always enjoyable to watch the limitations of someone you dislike.

Thanks to that, the anger inside me also left, following Im Geon’s retreating figure. Feeling like I was standing on ashes, I worried about Kang Hae-ah. Only I, a third party, had noticed, but Hae-ah still didn’t know. That the critic Im Geon was not just a pure friend….

Hae-ah was the only one who put pure goodwill in his voice when he called him ‘Teacher.’ Seeing him suddenly take Director Park’s side, and subtly urging him to go in a different direction, no matter what the hell the frame problem was, it was obvious to me that Im Geon was up to something.

‘Chairman Kang Jun-il’s man.’

Reason calmly organized the situation, while emotion caught fire.

‘And yet, why did he date Hae-ah?’

At this point, he became worried about Hae-ah.

Is this what people’s lives are like? It felt like watching a Korean version of The Truman Show. The so-called graduate school friend saw him only as a recessive Omega with a money bag, and Im Geon, the trustworthy teacher, was on the side of Kang Hae-ah’s Father, not him.

…Is this also a kind of ‘protection’ for Chairman Kang Jun-il?

‘Why didn’t he just put a surveillance camera around his neck?’

Suddenly, he remembered the bar from the other day. Hae-ah stood blankly in the hallway where the scent of whiskey stung his nose. While listening to the jeering voices discussing his slander with lewd jokes, his profile, blinking emotionlessly without getting angry or sad, was engraved in his head like a bas-relief.

He had no intention of seeing the same expression twice. Whether it was Im Geon or an old friend, it didn’t matter whose man he was or what intentions and feelings he had towards Kang Hae-ah. The only thing that mattered was whether he betrayed and hurt Kang Hae-ah.

Hae-ah was already his person. His person, his family, his husband. Even if he just stood in the hallway and smiled, he wouldn’t stand for it. He would repay as much as he received, even if Hae-ah couldn’t.

Regardless of who the opponent was, even if it was himself….

With that resolve, he returned home to find Hae-ah, who had become cheerful again, smiling. Delivery boxes were piled on the table where the guests’ glasses had been cleared, and Aunt Ok-hye was sitting next to him with scissors in her hand.

“Tae-rim-ssi, look at this.”

Hae-ah shouted with an energetic face, as if he had never been blank and tired.

“Isn’t it so cute!”

He looked down at the hand taking out a small piece of clothing from the box with surprised eyes. The sweater in his hand, only the size of an adult’s palm, looked like baby clothes for a moment. In a brief moment, many thoughts flashed through his head.

‘Why… why did Hae-ah buy baby clothes? Who is he going to dress…, maybe.’

In front of him, with his eyes wide open and cheeks flushed,

“Do-jin, come here. Let’s put on new clothes!”

Hae-ah became a high-performance fire extinguisher.

“Anything looks good on our Do-jin, right?”

“……”

The fire that had been burning in his chest was warm for a moment. The extinguished smoke rose above his head.

“Ogu, good. Ogu, did you?”

Do-jin didn’t say anything, but Hae-ah held the fur ball on his lap and made all sorts of responses by himself. He was very serious, trying on each of the clothes that Auntie had taken out, putting them around the dog’s neck, saying what looked good and what didn’t.

“You don’t like turtlenecks? You don’t wear turtlenecks? Then shall we wear this? Shall our Do-jin wear a shirt?”

“……”

“Oh, pretty. Handsome, our Do-jin. Give Hyung a kiss.”

The sugar-coated tone was so impressive that he felt like he could imitate it like a copier. He opened his mouth to joke by changing the subject to ‘our Hae-ah,’ but then closed it. If the haughty Kang Hae-ah didn’t accept his joke, the phrase ‘He said, “Give Hyung a kiss!” and died of embarrassment’ would be engraved on his tombstone….

‘I wish he would act like that with me too.’

He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, chuckling.

He just watched Kang Hae-ah. Kissing the white dog’s snout and black nose, ‘Pretty Do-jin,’ ‘Good Do-jin’… Kang Hae-ah was busy praising him. His double-lidded eyes, white face, and brown eyes looked just like a young white dog, a pretty and good Kang Hae-ah.

His house mutt was a supreme being, but he, the husband, had to wait three or four hours to find a chance to kiss him. Even though he had pushed him to go to the United States quickly, Hae-ah, who had sat in the passenger seat and followed him, said that he would at least see him off.

“Can I, can I leave a little… a little of my body scent?”

He didn’t miss the moment when the word pheromone came out of his mouth.

Of course, given Kang Hae-ah’s personality, saying ‘Please leave some of Cheon Tae-rim-ssi’s body scent’ couldn’t mean he wanted a kiss. It would be closer to what his haughty young master would do to give him a semen collection bottle and tell him to cum into it.

So the kiss was just a kiss. It was a kiss he wanted to give, using body scent as an excuse.

‘It’s like I indirectly kissed Do-jin.’

He narrowed his eyes and felt an ambiguous discomfort, but it was only for a moment. When he touched his lower jaw with the tip of his thumb, Hae-ah’s tightly closed lips slowly opened, and

“Ugh, uhm….”

A sweet moan flowed out with a nasal sound.

Hae-ah seemed to be good at kissing…, annoyingly so. He was the one who tried to rush in and lead, but before he knew it, he was caught up in his pace, and he was just getting impatient, and it seemed like he had the real initiative. He was busy pulling his waist and groping him, and he was getting hot. Hae-ah gently rubbed his neck as if he were soothing a child.

“Heu…, euung….”

It was driving him crazy that he made sounds like a sensitive instrument just by sucking his tongue and running it over the roof of his mouth. He asked him to leave his body scent, but rather, it was like he was leaving his body scent on him. A sweet scent came out with his panting breath, and the repeated moans made the blood rush to the center of his body.

When he barely took his lips off, Hae-ah’s head followed him as if chasing him. His docile eyes looked much more dazed than usual.

He blocked his reddened lips with his index finger.

“Are you… making that sound on purpose?”

Kang Hae-ah frowned from his eyebrows at his serious question. He even condemned him as a strange person, saying, ‘Why are you doing this, really?’

“…Don’t misunderstand. I’m really confused whether you’re trying to seduce me or not.”

“Pardon?”

His eyes, wide like a rabbit’s, contained a small reproach.

“Is Tae-rim-ssi such an easy man?”

He was so dumbfounded that he let out a hollow laugh when he was shot down like that.

“If you can’t even say it.”

It’s a mystery why it’s so fun to be with Kang Hae-ah. Why a day or two becomes an hour or two, and the spirit that has endured for 28 years melts like cotton candy in water.

He held him in his arms until just before he missed his flight. Had he ever hated going to work so much…? Work and meetings were such pointless things. He couldn’t even hold Hae-ah, who had imprinted on him, as he pleased, just to launch a machine that finds partners for others.

He had flown for 14 hours crammed into an economy seat… He had driven back and forth for 7 hours and even brought a dog. He had opened the reddest morning in the world, so he thought he would have sex in the evening, but he was sending him off like this….

‘…Am I being punished right now?’

He even had that thought.

‘Is Hae-ah punishing me because my attitude was bad during the last rut?’

His suspicion was as reasonable as his heart was frustrated. It wouldn’t be so unfair if he could at least remember what it was like.

He, who was restless, seemed like a recessive alpha. With a clear face, even though he had One-sided Imprinting,

“The plane is about to depart. You can go now, Tae-rim-ssi.”

Kang Hae-ah, who was allowing him, seemed to be an extreme Dominant Omega.

“Tae-rim-ssi?”

Hae-ah carefully touched his shoulder, which wasn’t responding. His farewell was subtly pushing his back. Helplessly, he took his bag and got out of the car, feeling very depressed.

‘I am an easy man, Cheon Tae-rim….’

If he could, he wanted to hide Kang Hae-ah in his suitcase and take him to the United States. He wanted to handcuff him and make him live attached to his side.

He could find the reward for his business trip when he received the necklace he had ordered in advance. The necklace, which was limited edition and sold only at the US headquarters, arrived in his hands on July 5 as scheduled. It was two days before Hae-ah’s birthday.

He was so excited that his heart fluttered like a butterfly as he went to pick it up, received the instructions and the item, and came out. He even finished wrapping it with his non-existent skills, packed his luggage, and headed to the airport.

The youngest secretary, who was holding the steering wheel, was also subtly beaming.

“Sometimes, I think you have really unexpected sides, CEO.”

Looking at the gift box that fit perfectly in one hand, he didn’t bother to answer the youngest’s words. Perhaps sensing his awkwardness, the youngest only laughed.

At the age of twenty-eight, he felt like he was having his first love with his husband.

His joy doubled when he fastened the small hook on the back of Hae-ah’s neck and put on the necklace. Hae-ah also smiled as if he was happy. The hand touching the purple essence hanging in the center of the necklace was as careful as if he was handling something precious.

To others, it might look like a ruby, but it wasn’t just a jewel. It was an essence with his body scent implanted.

The necklace, which was made with costs and efforts far exceeding the value of an ordinary jewel… was nothing more than a symbol of his possessiveness.

Hae-ah, who was still unfamiliar with this culture, didn’t seem to recognize its identity even while touching and looking at the necklace. In general, an Alpha’s essence tends to be light pink at best, so he might not know because the deep purple color of his, a Dominant Alpha’s, essence was unfamiliar.

There were things he would be happy to tell him if he ever asked. Hanging an Alpha’s essence around an Omega’s neck is a kind of mark. It has the effect of calming anxiety symptoms if an Omega who has just awakened or imprinted carries it around…, and there is also a superstition that it advances the timing of awakening in those who have not yet awakened.

Even if Hae-ah was a Beta who hadn’t yet awakened, he would have given him the same item as a gift. And….

“……”

He forcibly suppressed the urge to kiss his neat neck. If he kissed him, he would want to kiss him, and if he kissed him, he would want to have sex. But Hae-ah was a hundred times more honest than him, who was pretending not to notice his boiling lust.

“…Stay over, today.”

And he and Hae-ah had a date without going out of the house. He was so happy the whole time that he felt like he was receiving a gift on the day before his birthday. The more he knew how perfect Kang Hae-ah was, the more surprised he was. The movie he chose was very fun, and even the cooking he made as if he was familiar with it was perfect.

All he knew how to do was grill steak, but Hae-ah rolled up salmon and filled it with vegetables, baked bread on top of onion soup, and even made a salad with boiled shrimp.

“What is it that you can’t do?”

When he asked that while pouring wine into his glass, Hae-ah showed a thoughtful face.

“What I can’t do? Uhm…, there are a lot of things I can’t do. I’m not good at dancing either…, and I hardly know any sports. I’m very clumsy.”

He was sure that it was a lie to show off his modesty. Because he already knew how flexible and slender his body was, and what it was like in bed.

He didn’t talk much in bed. The only times his closed mouth opened were when he forcefully sucked on his neck and lips, and when the sweaty skin collided and made a sticky sound. Even then, there were no sentences, only moans.

It was worth it to carefully untangle him as if he was handling a sensitive instrument. Hae-ah arched his back and accepted him, and touched his ears and neck with excited hands. Drenched in embarrassing happiness, he ejaculated inside him.

“Ugh, euut….”

Hae-ah followed him very sensitively. What he had thought was a misunderstanding before was now clear. When he panted, his breath became rough, and when he moaned softly, he flinched and tightened his back. When he rubbed his skin and ejaculated, he seemed to feel the same way and shed turbid semen.

“Heu… euheut….”

He blankly looked down at Hae-ah, who was rubbing his reddened cheeks on the sheet. He seemed to be struggling as he flinched, shedding tears, and when he took his body away, the round, open asshole slowly narrowed. The semen he had ejaculated overflowed completely opaque white.

‘…Is he showing off that he’s been holding back for a long time?’

He came a lot, embarrassingly.

Fortunately, Hae-ah didn’t seem to have the mind to check his butt. Perhaps because of the side effects of the birth control pills, he was shedding tears,

“Tae-rim-ssi….”

He just quietly wrapped himself in his arms.

“Yes, yes….”

Holding Hae-ah, who was calling his name with a red nose, even the blunt him became a kind person. When he kissed his cheek, it tasted salty with tears.

He became ridiculous as much as he loved Hae-ah. Holding and comforting him, who was unusually whiny, felt like comforting a crying child and giving him an injection. The longer he pretended to be a good guy, the more heat gathered between his legs and his heart warmed.

He was late to realize that his and Hae-ah’s brain structures, who were fully intending to mix bodies all night long, were different. It was thanks to,

“Do-jin!”Kang Hae-ah’s pet dog, Cheon Do-jin, who was scratching at the bedroom door.”

“Ah, no…, Hyung, just, just wash up….”

As soon as he opened the bedroom door, the innocent mutt jumped onto the bed. Then, he whined sadly and licked Hae-ah’s face repeatedly. Hae-ah laid the dog on the couple’s bed.

Hae-ah laughed out loud while hugging the small uninvited guest. He was stunned by that. Kang Hae-ah was a person who always had a smile on his face, but his laughter wasn’t loud. But today was different. He hugs the white dog and pats his side, laughing out loud. Showing his neat lower teeth, like a truly happy person….

He wiped his chin for no reason and laughed along with him. As he slowly approached the side of the bed, Hae-ah hugged him tightly along with the young dog.

“Hae-ah.”

There were many things he wanted to confess, but he swallowed them all. He didn’t want to ruin Hae-ah’s midnight, who was smiling happily with his forehead reddened.

“Happy birthday.”

Then Hae-ah’s lips drew a curve and slowly lowered his eyes. When he slowly put his lips on his, he felt like he was eighteen years old.

However, as with all the cheers Hae-ah gave him, the joy that he and his heart were connected landed for a very short time and then left. Even before he finished the kiss, he took his face away and lowered his head. He was a little confused by that.

Blushing and making shy breaths as if satisfied with a light kiss,

“Let’s lie down together.”

Hae-ah whispered.

“Huh? Uh…, okay. …Are you sleepy? …Are you going to sleep already?”

“No, not yet. Are you tired, Tae-rim-ssi?”

“No. Not at all. I’m not tired at all.”

He was serious, but Hae-ah was smiling. He wiped his cheeks with the back of his hand as if embarrassed, then laid Do-jin right between them and rested his head on the fluffy pillow.

Then he drove in a bolt from the blue.

“Tae-rim-ssi is going back to the United States tomorrow, so let’s talk a lot and sleep together.”

…What is this, like a night at a training camp?

The white tail wagged and touched the sheet. Do-jin, who was lying in the center of the couple’s bed with his pink belly exposed, was clueless, as a dog should be.

What made him more dumbfounded was Hae-ah. With a bright and clear face, he was fondling the dog’s belly and had entered a night for all ages.

Only then did he realize. He had thought that he would naturally notice because he had poured out his body scent and pheromones, but Hae-ah couldn’t feel any of it because of the side effects of the birth control pills.

He had to shut his mouth tightly to avoid clingingly begging, ‘Let’s do it one more time.’ As he awkwardly lay down, he noticed that Hae-ah’s face was shiny and he seemed to be already satisfied with the short sex.

‘Was the sex… not good? …No, that can’t be. …Maybe he’s already satisfied? Did I do too well?’

He was the only one who was burning inside.

He also tried to put his arm around Hae-ah. But the only one who came into his arms was the innocent Do-jin. His chest was stomped on by the feet of the guy who was wagging his tail and happy.

“Our Do-jin likes Tae-rim Hyung.”

Tae-rim Hyung…ah. Why do you only let me hear that sound at times like this?

“It’s good for a puppy’s emotions to sleep with its guardian.”

It’s better for my emotions to sleep with you….

Hae-ah lay on his side towards him, swallowing his complaints inside. His two eyes, which contained him, sparkled like stars. He was just lying in the same bed, but was it that good?

“Like this, we… really feel like a family. Right….”

“We are a real family.”

Then Hae-ah smiled. Would it have been a little less painful if he had just been either cute or sexy?

‘I’m going crazy….’

It seemed that he was the only one who was sexually frustrated. It seemed that it was just his own business to want to study that body and to crave that those lips would give him the answer he wanted.

He was also happy that he was his family, lying next to him in bed. His story about his paintings and the anecdotes about his friends from his study abroad days were also good to listen to. But he couldn’t hear the confession he had been waiting for until dawn.

Kang Hae-ah’s sincerity, that was all the knowledge I craved. Even if he didn’t love me, it would be less painful than wandering in ignorance. But even as Kang Hae-ah clung to me, rubbed his lips against mine, and soaked me in his sweet scent, he slipped through my fingers like sand.

In the mornings, he would revert to the day we first met. I never dreamed I would become an Alpha, insecure even after imprinting an Omega.

Sometimes, I even felt that Kang Hae-ah had too much love for things other than me.

‘Just what is a dog to Hae-ah…’

There were days when I seriously pondered even such trivial matters.

‘Are all dog owners like that?’

Were they all like that, acting so frivolous only in front of dogs, being kinder than they were to people… It was a question that arose as I watched him, who rarely showed me a bright smile, showering Do-jin with praise and even giving him ten consecutive kisses.

Do-jin, unable to bear the pouring affection, even struggled and growled.

“Oh, you’re so pretty. Did you play a lot in the garden? Did you go for a walk with your aunt? Did you?”

The housekeeper smiled brightly at the word ‘aunt.’ Even the celery she had cut and brought was briefly tasted by Hae-ah before becoming Do-jin’s snack.

Clothes had become a necessity for the white fur ball. Since he couldn’t be bathed every day, he was dressed in an all-in-one outfit whenever he rolled around on the lawn, the shape with only his butt and belly exposed was quite funny and cute.

‘Baby clothes, my ass.’

I scoffed in vain. I was amused at myself for having such foolish thoughts, for being excited and hopeful even for a moment when I saw Hae-ah taking out those clothes.

But if possible… I wanted to see, how Kang Hae-ah, who cherished even a young dog so much, would be with his own child. Who would our child resemble more, would he have a troubled adolescence like me, or a gentle and docile nature like Hae-ah.

The only thing I was sure of was that Kang Hae-ah would be an overbearing parent. Even Driver Oh and the housekeeper, who always took Hae-ah’s side, wouldn’t be able to argue with that.

From Monday morning, with his heated phone pressed to his ear,

“No, how is our Do-jin big? He only weighs 5 kilos!”

He was having a heated argument with the person on the other end of the line.

“Are you looking down on my child because he’s a Mixed-breed dog? Dogs are all the same, why can’t Mixed-breed dogs be accepted as students? …No, that’s what you just said!”

It was the first time I realized that Kang Hae-ah was capable of such loud and angry outbursts. I stared at him with a dumbfounded expression, but he didn’t even notice my gaze. Unable to contain his anger, he paced around the second-floor terrace.

“The director of the dog kindergarten has changed,”

The housekeeper told me who he was talking to on the phone.

Her kind explanation made me even more bewildered. I had never imagined that the words ‘dog’ and ‘kindergarten’ could be combined.

“What kind of trainer cares about a dog’s pedigree? What kind of kindergarten is that? Did you have to submit your parents’ pedigrees when you went to kindergarten?”

On the other hand, Hae-ah was very serious. It seemed that the ‘dog kindergarten’ was refusing to accept Do-jin. He probably had no idea that the mutt was the mutt being raised by the youngest member of Hanseong Group… I could only laugh in disbelief.

Even after hanging up, Hae-ah continued to fume for a while.

“As if our child has nowhere else to go but here?”

His anger was short-lived, as he looked down from the terrace and called out ‘Do-jin’ in a voice full of woe. From the garden, Do-jin barked in response.

From Monday morning, Kang Hae-ah was truly strange and funny.

“Don’t worry, Do-jin! Hyung will take revenge for you!”

Promising to find a better kindergarten, making promises that the dog couldn’t even understand, he was so pure and innocent. I thought he would live like that, living the high life, forever.

I was his life partner and, in a way, an audience member. I would watch him for the rest of my life, and maintain my place closest to him. I wondered if I would become accustomed to it after another 50 years, and laugh less.

’50 more years…’

I loved Kang Hae-ah as he was now, and looked forward to Kang Hae-ah in the future. Someone who was confident in front of anyone, who felt pride in his work, who tied a necktie on a young dog and rolled around on the floor taking pictures, who forced himself to wake up for my commute on weekdays and never left the bed until 3 PM on weekends, just Kang Hae-ah. I hoped he would just be Kang Hae-ah.

Without clinging to anyone’s feet, moaning and crying….

My eyes moved stiffly. My eyelids felt sticky, like dried fruit peels, and my vision was blurry as if covered by a white film. Hae-ah, huddled in the corner of the gallery’s storage room, crying, appeared hazy.

“Give it back, please….”

It was tragically surreal, Kang Hae-ah begging with tears.

At that moment, my mind went blank and my memories became jumbled. My world revolved around Kang Hae-ah, but Kang Hae-ah was broken.

Kang Il-hae had broken him. Kicking him until his thin body floated in the air, making him cry so terribly that the area under his chin was pink with blood and tears.

“Please….”

As I followed Hae-ah’s pleading gaze, I noticed the necklace in Kang Il-hae’s hand.

In that moment, everything twisted strangely.

The storage room in the gallery hallway became a hospital funeral hall, filled with more reporters than mourners. Kang Hae-ah, kneeling and clinging, was the same, but the man standing before him was me, dressed in black mourning clothes.

‘Please, Tae-rim-ssi…’

Kneeling in the cold hallway, Hae-ah clasped his hands together. He gripped them as if praying, then began to beg, rubbing them together like flies. His once-white neck was scratched, and his eyes shimmered with tears born of shock.

‘Please give it back…’

A sharp scream burst from my lips. Seeing myself responding to Kang Hae-ah’s pleas with indifference, I screamed something and lunged at him. I threw myself at Cheon Tae-rim, who was wearing black mourning clothes and had a face filled with only depression and hatred, knocking him down and pinning him.

Everything flowed from impulse. The blood in my entire body seemed to boil with anger.

I slammed my fist into the face of the person whose body had collapsed with a thud. I punched him repeatedly until his nose was crushed and blood gushed out, until the muscles in my arm spasmed.

‘If someone has to die, it should be you.’

The blood and saliva of others stained my fist.

‘You die. You…’

As I swung my fist, jabbing at the crushed nose bone and splattering red blood on my cheek, my soul cried out.

‘Instead of Kang Hae-ah… you should die.’

Putting my weight on both hands, I grabbed my own neck and strangled myself.

Loud screams leaked from under my body. The unpleasantly hot flesh of another person was felt under my buttocks and thighs, and the neck of someone I was gripping with both hands was slippery with sweat. The sound of my pulse throbbing in my neck was like the beating of a drum. My vision was all blurry. A stinging shock touched my jaw and cheeks in succession.

There were sensations that awakened sequentially.

“Tae-rim-ssi….”

Kang Hae-ah was behind me, clinging to my back and trying to pull me away,

“Look, look at me…, please.”

Coughing sounds followed one after another.

Every time I blinked, the face in front of me changed rapidly. They were all Kang Hae-ah, but they were all different people. Laughing while holding Do-jin, who had gained a lot of weight and weighed 7 kilograms, like a baby, waiting for a kiss with his lips pursed and eyes closed, looking at me with surprised eyes with a stitched wound on his cheek… groping my cheek, covered in tears.

“Tae-rim-ssi, cheek….”

I couldn’t tell who my… Hae-ah was. They were all my people, but not always.

I grabbed his hand. I had to go with him. Anywhere was fine. Anywhere but here, I had to take him out of here….

Hazy figures flickered all around.

“Cheon Tae-rim!”

A trembling, bloodstained hand was looked down upon. Tilting my head at the sight that seemed to have come straight out of a hard-boiled film, another hand holding a wet wipe came into view. Only then did I realize that the blood-soaked hand was mine.

“Tae-rim, are you with it?”

When I looked up, Si Eun-cheol was busily wiping my hands. His face was momentarily the young face of his high school days, before belatedly returning to that of an adult.

“Hae-ah.”

It would have been better to scream. The cry that burst from my lips sounded worse than that. It was terribly desperate, almost a scream.

“Hae-ah…, where’s Hae-ah?”

Moving my head to look around, I saw the storage room with bloodstains, overturned chairs, and a twisted desk. Blood was splattered all over the floor. It was such a mess that it wouldn’t be surprising if someone had died here.

But Kang Hae-ah was nowhere to be seen. Neither was the corpse of Kang Il-hae or myself, whom I had beaten beyond recognition.

Grasping my shoulders, who had widened my eyes and forgotten to blink,

“Get a grip, Cheon Tae-rim!”

Si Eun-cheol shouted.

“…Think slowly. Think carefully.”

Si Eun-cheol, who was used to calming me down, had a script. Since high school, whenever I went on a rampage, he had a set of lines he would recite, and there was a set order to the questions.

“Do you know who I am? What’s the date today? Tell me where you are. Do you remember what you were doing just now?”

As familiar as his voice, his touch on my cheek was also habitual. I grabbed Si Eun-cheol’s hand and pulled it down. The pink wet wipe was crumpled in Si Eun-cheol’s hand as he rubbed his forehead as if troubled.

“Kang Hae-ah. …Where is Hae-ah?”

Then he sighed. He bit his lip as if troubled and lowered his head, then pulled away the hand I was holding as if shaking it off. Si Eun-cheol frowned, as if contemplating something, rubbing his forehead. Various emotions rose and disappeared on his familiar face.

Soon, Eun-cheol stepped aside in front of me.

“…You’re not going to cause a scene, are you?”

After nodding once, I passed him.

The moment I stopped at the gallery entrance, I was seized by a very strange feeling. I was confused as to whether all the commotion that had passed was just a dream. It was because of Kang Hae-ah, who was smiling brightly under the bright lights.

His acting skills at pretending to be okay were so high that even I was about to be fooled. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, him standing tall and smiling nonchalantly.

After begging and screaming in pain, without even a drop of sweat, with a neat face… he was smiling. His smile was angelic, his straight back was triumphant, and the flow of his entire body was simply elegant.

Because of that, I became miserable. It felt like I had been hit in the back of the head with a large stone. I felt my head exploding from the shock. Kang Hae-ah, standing right in front of me, was exactly as I had seen him. The Kang Hae-ah I thought was beautiful, wanted to have, and thought would be fun to live with for the rest of my life. The shell of him that I loved….

Smiling side by side with a doctor, whom he often saw as a friend of his Father, Kang Hae-ah’s left hand rested on his stomach. Only the hand, pale and touching his upper abdomen, was the only visible trace of pain.

Something, whether pain or sorrow, was slowly spreading within him, visible to the naked eye. A crack began to form on his smiling face, and his posture became subtly hunched. He stared blankly at the wall for a moment, then smiled habitually, before becoming expressionless.

Still, Kang Hae-ah didn’t cry. It was me who felt like crying.

Turning my head to follow his gaze, I sighed. Im Geon, standing next to Chairman Kang Jun-il, was visible. Stopping whatever they were talking about, he was seen approaching Hae-ah. Slowly, Hae-ah turned his head away from him. Only then did his emotions show through his trembling Adam’s apple. He looked like he would burst into tears if anyone just held his hand.

That was it. I couldn’t leave him alone any longer.

I strode towards Hae-ah. Approaching him, unable to hide my impatience, Kang Hae-ah smiled as he saw me. The flesh under his eyes trembled, and blue veins stood out on his neck. The miserable feeling he had swallowed was transferred to me instead.

I had no talent for suppressing resentment. The only reason I wasn’t getting angry right away was because I knew he had sat in front of the canvas for days, chewing on the end of his brush, for today’s exhibition.

There was nothing else to stop me…, except Kang Hae-ah.

“Let’s go.”

Even if he didn’t answer my words,

“Let’s get out of here.”

I took Hae-ah’s hand. The touch of his small hand was frighteningly cold.

I was about to threaten to scream if he didn’t follow me, but fortunately or unfortunately, he followed me hesitantly. I saw his face gradually turning red, and his brown eyes becoming wet. Taking him, who was on the verge of tears, across the gallery, for some reason, it felt like I was stealing a work of art rather than an artist.

As we stepped out of the parking lot, Eun-cheol was seen standing next to the sedan. After conveying something, Driver Oh was about to open the back door. I quickly seated Hae-ah, who didn’t seem to have the mind to look around, in the back seat of the car.

His face was so red that he looked like he was about to collapse, then it turned white. I was scared, scared that Hae-ah would faint. Scared that he wouldn’t be able to get up again.

“Tae-rim!”

As I was about to get into the car after him, I heard my Mother’s voice. Her face, hurrying after us with Father, was full of worry.

“What’s wrong? Huh?”

I could see Hae-ah moving inside the car. So that he couldn’t get out, I closed the car door. Nodding to Driver Oh, he also got into the driver’s seat.

Opening my mouth towards my Mother as it was, I closed it.

“…….”

I didn’t know what to say. Only my mouth opened and closed, but no words came out of me. I felt my eyes turning red. The way I looked to my Mother’s eyes was probably worse than ever.

My Mother first examined the blood on my shirt sleeve. Seeing my fist with the skin peeled off in red, she glanced at Hae-ah’s silhouette hidden in the car, and I knew what she was suspecting. She was worried that I might have hit Kang Hae-ah, even for a moment.

I wasn’t disappointed by my Mother’s suspicion. Considering the commotion and incidents I had caused so far, that much was a reasonable suspicion. However, I shook my head slightly. Then, a greater despair permeated the gaze that had contained worry and a little anger.

It was always like this with my Mother. My Father was the Alpha like me, but the person who truly understood me was my Mother. With just my hesitation and rising resentment, and a few gestures, my Mother seemed to realize something and raised her hand to cover her mouth.

And without showing her lip movements, she whispered softly.

“…Then, who is it?”

The short question contained many assumptions. With my mouth closed, I looked up at the sky. The weather, which had been clear until lunchtime, had become unbelievably gloomy. The clouds were already dark before evening came.

“Kang Il-hae….”

Opening my mouth like that,

“…Hae-ah.”

I stammered unlike myself.

“Hae-ah…, Hae-ah is badly hurt. I’ll take him to the hospital first….”

I finished speaking vaguely like that. My Mother quickly examined my eyes, then took half a step back.

“Okay, go quickly…. Call me, Tae-rim.”

Leaving the two of them saying goodbye in the parking lot, I got into the car.

‘Call…, do I have the time to do that, in this situation…’

The answer was ‘no.’ I couldn’t even get my voice out properly right now, and it was difficult to put together sentences to explain what had happened. I hadn’t even properly understood what had happened in that small storage room in the gallery. I couldn’t even manage my own emotions, so I had no time to take care of anything outside my skin.

“I… I’m not really hurt. Even if I call a doctor, I’ll call them to my house, I’m not going to the hospital. It’s not good to have a diagnosis record left, I don’t want to go.”

My mind became even more confused because of Kang Hae-ah, who was saying such nonsense.

‘Why is he worried about the record first?’

…Since when has he been worried about leaving a record when he goes to the hospital because he’s sick? It was difficult to solve even a simple problem. I didn’t want to solve it and know the answer.

As Hae-ah insisted, I practically jumped out of the car as soon as we arrived home. I ran straight inside, into the large building permeated with Chairman Kang’s kind coercion, and opened the door to the first-floor studio.

Even with all the major works gone, many paintings remained in the studio. There was a portrait of me, and other dark paintings that hadn’t been exhibited. I rummaged through those dark paintings haphazardly.

I had to find Kang Hae-ah’s self-portrait. I needed to confirm it once more, that terrible and sorrowful painting….

The moment I pulled out the painting, its corners dusty from the past few weeks, I was struck by shock. Before, I couldn’t understand why Kang Hae-ah had painted himself in such colors. But not anymore. Within the painting, where only colors and planes existed without form, was Kang Hae-ah, collapsed and weeping in the storage room.

After staring at the painting for a while, I threw it away, canvas and all.

“Ah, Tae-rim-ssi.”

Hae-ah screamed as if I were about to harm him. Hae-ah clung to my arms with both hands, as I gripped the canvas frame, trying to smash it. With a startled gasp,

“Don’t!”

A pleading cry was faintly heard.

“Please don’t…, don’t!”

“The self-portrait?”

Finally, resentment surged forth.

“You….”

My voice was like a moan,

“Why do you have to be like this, why does your painting have to be like this!”

It poured out like a scream. The ruined canvas slipped from my hands.

“Don’t, don’t…, I’m sorry for deceiving you. I’m sorry!”

Releasing the painting, I grabbed Kang Hae-ah. I checked once more the face of the young, radiant, and handsome man, so that I wouldn’t be able to read anything from such an unpleasant and gloomy self-portrait, black, blue, and red.

But I already knew the moment that pretty shell was shattered. Even if I looked again now, Hae-ah was no longer the Hae-ah he used to be. Just this morning, he was looking forward to our date, wondering what to eat for dinner, but now, in front of me, in my hands, was a broken self-portrait.

Kang Hae-ah was driving me crazy. He laughed, leaving me angry because of him and sad in his place. His face, even making ‘hehe’ sounds as he laughed, turned all the blood in my body blue.

“Tae…, Tae-rim-ssi does the same thing. You take public transportation every Tuesday, right? It’s for the company’s image marketing…? I’m similar, no… it’s the same. It’s just… image marketing for the family.”

His voice, speaking with a nonchalant chuckle, shook my soul. How many times had he thought that way and deceived himself, to be able to make excuses about image marketing with a smiling face in front of me at this moment….

“No, it’s different….”

As I moaned and sobbed,

“It’s the same. It’s the same, isn’t it? It’s all to look good to people, so what’s wrong with it….”

Hae-ah tried to soothe and comfort me instead.

“How can that be the same as this….”

Suddenly, an overwhelming fear struck me. An unfounded terror that Kang Hae-ah would leave me as I was tormented my entire body. Seeing his face, turned as white as snow, I couldn’t bear the anxiety. So that he couldn’t turn around and run away, I grabbed his thin shoulders with both hands.

While my insides were being torn apart by anxiety and worry,

“Don’t be angry.”

He uttered nonsense blankly.

‘…What?’

At that moment, Kang Hae-ah didn’t seem like a person. Standing there expressionless, just repeating ‘Don’t be angry’… he didn’t seem like a person, muttering emotionless words.

“Hae-ah, please….”

I pleaded, adjusting my grip on his shoulders.

“Why do you lie that it’s okay after setting fire to someone’s heart? Is it okay to just smile after being beaten like a dog by your family?”

Even as I desperately begged, Hae-ah didn’t show any reaction. I wished he would at least cry, at least pour out the words in his heart. But Hae-ah was silent.

Just,

“Don’t… be angry.”

He only made pitiful sounds repeatedly. Seeing his cheeks trembling like a frightened person, I felt as if an invisible wall had been erected between him and me.

“Kang Hae-ah.”

He can’t see. What my expression, my tone, my feelings are like now…. I was consumed by sadness, but he flinched around his eyes as if he had met an angry person.

“Don’t be angry, really….”

When have I ever been angry at you? Why are you so afraid of me… I opened my mouth to ask, but only managed to let out ragged breaths. I wasn’t in my right mind, and Hae-ah was out of his mind.

“Heu…, heuk.”

He staggered, letting out a moan that was hard to tell whether it was a laugh or a cry. I quickly pulled him into my arms as he collapsed on the spot.

“I, I can’t breathe….”

The faint breaths that barely escaped were weak. Helpless, I sat him down on the studio sofa. I was upset and angry. Tears welled up.

As I stroked his face to check on him, regret surged up, wishing I had dragged him to the hospital by force.

“Hae-ah. Hae-ah…, please. Please….”

Kneeling in front of him, I begged.

“Please say something…. Why don’t you tell me honestly.”

After panting and catching his breath,

“Do you… like drawing?”

I said as if groaning.

“Is it something you do because you like it?”

Is there even one thing you do that you like… As I asked that, Kang Hae-ah became completely expressionless. His face, devoid of laughter, was pale like the moon. Sweat-soaked hair clung to his forehead.

“I like being Tae-rim-ssi’s husband.”

Kang Hae-ah said without laughing or crying. The corners of his mouth were cold, and his eyes were deeply sunken like those of a desperately lonely person. I finally met him. I met the real him for the first time in front of me.

“Hearing that Tae-rim-ssi chose a good marriage partner, that you have an eye for people… that you’ve spread your wings, that you look good, that you two look good together… I like hearing those things.”

His voice, speaking calmly, was proper, but his eyes grew dimmer with each passing second.

“Hae-ah, stop….”

I was terrified. Clear liquid was flowing from his nose.

“…I like being next to Tae-rim-ssi.”

“St…op, stop talking.”

“I… like Tae-rim-ssi.”

A trail of water formed on Hae-ah’s neck. As I fumbled with trembling hands, his ear was damp.

“Di…d you get hit in the head?”

He didn’t seem to hear my voice, shouting as if having a seizure.

“I like you….”

He blankly repeated the same words and collapsed towards my shoulder.

Hugging the silent Hae-ah, I blankly opened my mouth. For a moment, I seemed to hear the rustling sound of crumpled plastic.

A strange, monster-like groaning sound crawled up from the bottom of my throat. My heart was tearing, and my head felt like it was breaking.

As I picked up my cell phone with trembling hands, I couldn’t even dial 119, that easy number, and had to press the phone icon again two or three times. Even the paramedics couldn’t understand my voice, speaking haphazardly as I panted.

After what felt like an eternity, the sound of an ambulance arrived. I was lost in thought, still hugging Hae-ah.

When I came to my senses, two paramedics were unfolding a stretcher to lay Hae-ah down, and

“Guardian, please let go.”

The paramedic forcibly pried my arm, which was embracing his upper body, away.

“Please let go, calm down…. Calm down, we’re going to the hospital now.”

The moment I followed into the back seat of the ambulance, my head ached as if it would break.

The hospital…. I should have gone to the hospital sooner. I shouldn’t have argued in the car…. I shouldn’t have pushed him so hard. I should have just hugged him. I shouldn’t have asked why he hid it, or forced him. I shouldn’t have made him cry….

“Guardian?”

I shouldn’t have answered the phone like that that day.

“Guardian, are you okay?”

I looked up abruptly, and tears fell onto my thighs.

“Are there any other family members who can come? Please call one more person, you seem very anxious too, guardian.”

I stared blankly at the paramedic and picked up my cell phone. The screen was shaking, so I wondered if it was broken and checked again, but it was my hand that was broken. I repeatedly clenched and unclenched my fist several times because the trembling wouldn’t stop.

Unable to watch any longer, the paramedic took the cell phone from my hand and called Mother instead.

After arriving at the hospital, the situation outside my skin felt like a play. The nurse lifted his clothes to check, and there were palm-sized purple bruises all over Kang Hae-ah’s stomach and side, swollen as if blood would pour out if pricked with a needle. It didn’t suit Hae-ah at all. It looked like fake makeup.

The surprised Doctor rushed over and moved him on the bed to take a CT scan first, which felt like acting, and the sweat all over my hands and the tears wetting my face were just like spring water.

“…Hae-ah.”

Coming to my senses and belatedly, I chased after the Doctor and nurses, and Kang Hae-ah opened his eyes. His pupils, illuminated by the hospital’s fluorescent lights, looked much brighter than usual, and his pupils were strangely large.

“Tae-rim-ssi.”

Hae-ah looked for me, rambling. As I walked next to the bed and took his hand,

“My… my necklace….”

Tears streamed down his eyes.

“My necklace….”

The sobbing sound escaped faintly and then stopped. His eyes were half-closed, and his lips were parted as he stopped. Panicked, I placed both hands on his chest and brought my face close to his. The nurses told me to step back, but soon took a step or two back.

I could feel the body scent flowing out of my skin like a violent poison. But I couldn’t control anything. I couldn’t hold back the emotions that were bursting out.

“I….”

Meaningless words poured out like rain,

“I was wrong.”

It wasn’t words, but they poured out as if spitting out a missing tooth.

“…I was wrong. I… was wrong. …I’m sorry. Hae-ah-ssi. I….”

As I bowed deeply, tears welled up on my chin and fell.

“So please… don’t leave me.”

On Kang Hae-ah’s chest, I leaned my heavy head. I checked that his heart was beating and that breath was escaping through his teeth.

“Tae-rim-ah.”

Only then did I see my parents’ faces. Mother grabbed my shoulders, comforted me, and separated me from Hae-ah. The Doctor and nurses stood at a distance and then belatedly approached.

Hae-ah, carried on the bed, disappeared beyond the door of the examination room. I took two or three steps to follow him and then stopped.

“It’s okay, Tae-rim-ah. They said he’ll be okay.”

Mother’s words, patting my shoulder, felt like a lie. It can’t be okay, everything in my world was a mess. I couldn’t control my body scent, my hands were shaking like an addict, and my throat kept tightening. Tears poured endlessly from my eyes. I was sad and angry. I was angry because I was sad.

On the chair in the hospital hallway, I sat down as if collapsing. I raised my hand to cover my eyes and then burst into tears. Even Mother was taken aback by my sobbing, my shoulders shaking. Even when I was born, I only cried for a short time and then stopped, and they said that the newborn baby didn’t cry, so they were scared that there was something wrong with me. Now I couldn’t stop crying. I just… couldn’t breathe.

I liked Kang Hae-ah. From his expression to his unique atmosphere, his unknowable personality, his gestures, his way of speaking, his habits… I liked everything about him. I ended up liking him, even though it was just acting, struggling not to get hurt. I mistook that for charm.

His gestures, trying not to belong anywhere, seemed like a free-spirited soul. His eyes, reacting sensitively to my touch, seemed like a proud nature. I thought that the reason he didn’t accept my confession was his own affluence. I even ridiculed myself for having to flaunt my feathers like a peacock, using my business, appearance, and trait.

I thought he was someone whose inner thoughts I couldn’t understand at all, when he pretended to sleep and breathed heavily, ignoring my confession. I thought he was a haughty cat who liked to claim his space, when he frowned and shrugged his shoulders at my touch. I mistook him for a man who had lived a rich life, receiving too much love, because he just let the affections I poured out flow away like pouring water into a bottomless pit.

I was a zero-point husband. All the facts I knew about Kang Hae-ah were wrong. As soon as I opened the door to the vault that was him, what I saw was nothing like the Kang Hae-ah I had known. I don’t know the life of Kang Hae-ah at six, fifteen, and twenty years old, begging not to be hit and clinging to his brother’s feet.

I was resentful. That I hadn’t looked at him properly. I was angry at myself for making an easy confession that I liked him and treating him like an interesting puzzle. My blood was running backwards, and I felt like my eyeballs would fall out from anger.

A gentle embrace pulled my head, sobbing and panting, into its arms.

“It’s okay, Tae-rim-ah. It’ll be okay.”

Words of comfort followed one after another. There were days when even if something very bad happened… one word from Mother, one hug, and everything would be okay. But today, even my creator couldn’t give me comfort.

I’m sick of the word ‘okay’ now.

‘It’s okay, Tae-rim-ssi.’

Those words had never been untrue.

Hae-ah’s condition fortunately improved without surgery. They said that they had to watch the progress to see if there would be any more bleeding in the spleen and that he had to take absolute rest, but it wasn’t at a level that required immediate incision and surgery.

Under the bandages wrapped tightly around his thin waist, the corners of the bruise, which had spread its area in half a day, were visible. The dark and blue color was familiar.

‘Self-portrait….’

It was the color applied to the corners of the self-portrait that Kang Hae-ah had hidden and painted.

Sitting quietly with a much cooler head, I looked at the face of the sleeping Hae-ah. His face, deeply asleep with a blood transfusion IV drip attached to his arm, was familiar yet unfamiliar. It was the same as the innocent Hae-ah’s appearance that I knew, but on the other hand, it was like seeing a complete stranger.

‘Do-jin….’

Only then did I think of the dog.

‘He must be… whimpering at home. Did I… leave the front door open?’

I was embarrassed by my irresponsibility when I belatedly worried about his well-being. Hae-ah would have taken care of the dog first, even if the house was on fire….

I had to contact Ok-hye. When I called to ask if she could stay at home for a few days and take care of the dog, a quick answer came back, telling me not to worry. I hung up the phone with a sigh and looked at the face of the sleeping Hae-ah again.

He was excited and humming, the day he brought home the young dog. Only that appearance wasn’t acting. He called that white dog his younger brother and put a shirt on him, wrapped him in a blanket because he thought the air conditioner wind would be cold, carried him on his back like a baby in a swaddle, and made farting noises on Do-jin’s stomach, laughing at Do-jin’s annoyed growls.

A smile came to my cheeks as I recalled his playful and cheerful face.

‘Please stop hitting me….’

That voice, begging like that, chilled me to the bone.

I quietly took Hae-ah’s hand and held it. His fingertips were bluish, so I rubbed them several times, and the color slowly returned. I put his hand, which had turned pink, into the warm blanket. Carefully, I straightened his arm and arranged his disheveled hair and the fallen blanket up to his neck.

His face, lost in a dream, looked very worn out. There were bluish circles under his eyes, and his lips were dry. It wasn’t good to see a sick person. Especially if that person was my husband.

As I slowly lowered my gaze, I suddenly saw a shallow scratch left on his neck.

Without realizing it, I jumped up from my seat. I pulled down the blanket that I had pulled up and covered him with, and examined his neck from side to side.

It wasn’t there, what should have been there.

‘Give it back, please….’

Only then did I know why Hae-ah had repeatedly begged, clinging to his brother’s feet. The hallucination I had briefly witnessed in the gallery warehouse also surfaced in my mind. I had seen myself snatching the necklace with the purple essence embedded in it… that hallucination wasn’t entirely false.

‘My necklace….’

Hae-ah’s voice, searching and sobbing, was also heard again as if replaying it. It had been taken away, the birthday present I had given him… Hae-ah liked that necklace quite a bit, and he never took it off even when he slept. I had quietly let him hear the sound of me arranging the collar of his pajamas.

That day, Kang Il-hae must have taken it away.

‘So that’s why….’

Please, please… I thought the reason he was crying and clinging was because he was in pain, but it wasn’t.

‘He wanted it back….’

My heart turned as cold as steel. Slowly, I pulled up the thick blanket and covered him, and I took a breath.

I had to get it back somehow. It had to be around Hae-ah’s neck, that necklace.

Around my person’s neck….

“…….”

I stroked the neck of the sleeping man with the tip of my index finger. The white skin, covered with a very thin scab, was strangely familiar. The bizarre déjà vu that the ailing Kang Hae-ah gave me turned my insides out disgustingly.

Suppressing the urge to vomit, I yielded my seat next to the bed to Mother. It was only for a brief moment that I stopped at the hand that grabbed me, asking where I was going.

“…There’s something I need to get. I’ll be right back.”

As I slowly tried to pry off Mother’s hand that gripped my forearm, she instead clasped both of my hands together. Gently enveloping my large hands, Mother wore an expression of unease I had never seen before.

“Tae-rim.”

Then, she glanced out the hospital window, down the hallway. As my head moved in the direction of her gaze, Mother lightly turned it back with her fingertips. Hunched over with my back bent, I fixed my eyes on Mother.

“Actually, there are police officers outside. They’re talking to your Father right now. …It’s nothing serious, but apparently, a nurse in the emergency room reported it. She mistook you for the assailant.”

“Ah, …is that so.”

The misunderstanding she relayed with a hush made me feel awkward. But it wasn’t entirely incomprehensible. My fists and cheeks bore the scratches from when I attacked Kang Il-hae, and Hae-ah had been carried in defenseless, unconscious. A large Dominant Alpha making a commotion while holding a passed-out recessive Omega—anyone could have mistaken me for hitting him.

As easily as I understood, Mother seemed upset. It wasn’t something to be proud of, but being treated like a thug wasn’t new to me. In my teens, I couldn’t stand my trait and couldn’t overcome my instincts, causing accidents. So even though she knew I had beaten up Kang Il-hae, she didn’t even ask for a reason.

But being mistaken for hitting Hae-ah was a different matter. With wrinkles forming on her ever-gentle brow, Mother seemed not just upset but angry.

“I heard… he said something strange enough for you to misunderstand. Your actions and words made it seem like you were the assailant…. Is that true? Why on earth would you do that?”

I wanted to smooth out her furrowed brow and ease her troubled heart, but I couldn’t find the words. There was no excuse for my actions of grabbing Kang Hae-ah, who was being carried on a stretcher with a cold, pale face, and refusing to let him go. The sentences I blurted out, “I’m sorry, it’s my fault,” were suspicious enough.

Why on earth did I do that?

“I don’t know.”

I don’t know.

“I don’t know either, Mother.”

I just did. Because if I didn’t, I felt like I would suffocate. Because it felt like I wouldn’t have another chance to hold Hae-ah again. There’s a concrete dam in my brain, and it keeps leaking… if I don’t say something, it feels like it’s going to burst soon. So I just….

“…I’ll be right back. Please watch over Hae-ah for me.”

Releasing Mother’s hand, I looked at Hae-ah’s sleeping face. His dry lips were cracked, but he seemed more comfortable than before.

“If Hae-ah wakes up while I’m gone… please be next to him when he wakes up. Please don’t let him be alone.”

Mother didn’t bother to answer my request. Ignoring me, her troublesome son, she simply took Hae-ah’s hand as if he were her youngest son.

By the time I left the hospital, the dark clouds were ominous. The sky, which looked like it would pour rain at any moment, seemed lower than usual. After looking up at the dark clouds for a moment, I rummaged through my pockets.

Taking out my phone with its nearly depleted battery, the first person I contacted was Vice President Kang Hae-in, before Kang Il-hae.

I stood on the path leading to the hospital parking lot, avoiding the busy medical personnel. And I had a brief conversation with her. I wasn’t close to the vice president. I had only met and talked to her twice, on days when there were major meetings related to collaboration agreements.

But that was enough to know about Kang Hae-in. It wasn’t just because she was a Dominant Alpha like me. It was clear that unless she was ambitious and smart enough, she wouldn’t have risen to the position of vice president in a group where only 9 percent of the executives were women.

―Why did you think I would side with CEO Cheon?

After a few words were exchanged, Kang Hae-in asked. Gripping my phone tighter, I leaned my shoulder against the stone-carved wall of the building.

There were many reasons why the vice president would side with me. Kang Il-hae suddenly intervened in the collaboration meeting, where the important framework had already been laid out, claiming he had taken over, and Kang Hae-in had disappeared without a trace.

In Han-seong, having something dangling between your legs was a great privilege. It was ridiculous and absurd to see a recessive alpha managing director come in and take over the major work between companies that a Dominant Alpha vice president, not just any employee, had prepared. It wasn’t that Kang Il-hae was completely incompetent, but he certainly wasn’t competent enough to replace Kang Hae-in.

So, it would be possible to entice Kang Hae-in with various words. I could say that all the major bridges between AOM and Han-seong would be built through you from now on, or I could volunteer to be a cleaner and get rid of her unsightly younger brother.

But in business, there was nothing more unnecessary than saying everything you could say.

“Then, is it not possible?”

I retorted with a question. Kang Hae-in would figure out the reason on her own, and I didn’t have much battery left on my phone.

―I feel bad that I was analyzed.

Kang Hae-in let out a faint chuckle.

―I understand, so do as you wish. It’s not difficult to say a few words to help you. …But next time, …well, I don’t know if CEO Cheon will have any further requests for me, but anyway, should we have a less business-like conversation?

“‘Less business-like’?”

―…Still, Hae-ah is my brother. And CEO Cheon is family now, too.

Then the call ended.

Holding the warm phone in my hand, I briefly wondered if Kang Hae-in had her own kindness or circumstances. On the other hand, I also felt that a smart person quickly cut off rotten ties.

There was no need or time to worry for long. After checking the remaining 5 percent of the battery, I called another “family member.”

Compared to Kang Hae-in, Kang Il-hae was slow to respond. It was obvious that he had been waiting for a call from me, but it was even more amusing that he answered the phone just before it went to voicemail, his intention was clear.

The point was simple. I recited that I had something to give you, and you had something to receive from me, and Kang Il-hae readily answered. His voice, telling me to check the text message and unilaterally hanging up, sounded more dull than usual.

‘Did he bite his tongue?’

Tapping the corner of the phone with my index finger, I called Driver Oh Geon-min. He brought my car as if he had been waiting. Then, he bowed deeply.

“CEO, I’m sorry. I should have taken you to the hospital right away back then….”

“It’s fine. Don’t wait, just go home.”

Even after handing me the keys, Driver Oh didn’t leave. He stubbornly refused the taxi fare I tried to give him and kept looking up at the hospital building with a worried expression.

Leaving him, shoulders slumped, in the hospital parking lot, I pulled the car out first.

‘Yeah, that’s right….’

A sound that was neither a chuckle nor a sigh leaked out of my mouth.

Last afternoon, I hated Driver Oh for listening to Hae-ah’s request to go home instead of going to the hospital at my word. But seeing his stubble-covered face today, he seemed to have realized his mistake long ago.

It wasn’t Kang Hae-ah who moved Driver Oh’s steering wheel. Would Kang Hae-ah, who sang about how much he liked being free, have bothered to hire a driver to follow him around?

‘If I go to the hospital now, Chairman will make a fuss…. Go home.’

In the end, it’s Kang Jun-il.

Just as my teeth were pressing tightly together because my jaw was clenched, a text message arrived. I had been planning to go to the company if he continued to avoid contact, but Kang Il-hae kindly informed me of an officetel located in the center of Seoul.

‘It doesn’t matter where we see each other.’

When I drove across the main road in a neighborhood where land prices had risen as high as they could,

‘It’s better this way.’

My heart gradually lightened.

I stood in front of a new building that showed no signs of age. It was at a level that could be mistaken for a completed expected view with SD modeling.

I remembered hearing around two years ago that Chairman Kang Jun-il had more than ten high-rise buildings that he had just built and kept, and Kang Il-hae was running two of them.

Honestly, it was funny, the way he thought that calling me into his building would be a shield to protect him. …Even surrounded by walls with his works, Kang Hae-ah looked tearful.

They were brothers, yet so different. In the past, when I only skimmed over their public images, I had even thought that Kang Il-hae and Kang Hae-ah looked alike. Just like Vice President Kang Hae-in resembled the third child of that family, Kang Mi-hae.

It was too late to lament now how foolish that thought was, but I couldn’t help but regret it. I didn’t look closely enough; I could understand that about Kang Il-hae since he was someone else, but I didn’t recognize my husband, Kang Hae-ah.

How foolish I was…. If I had looked closely, I would have known it long ago. No, I should have looked closely and known it long ago. That Kang Il-hae and Kang Hae-ah were not alike at all.

I left my fingerprints on the 9th-floor button of the elevator, which was so shiny that it reflected my face. After going up, I checked the numbers of the doors placed at wide intervals and arrived at the address I received in the text message. As I reached out to the light leaking through the crack in the door, I felt like a burglar. I opened the door without knocking.

As I strode in, there was a brief sound of surprise from inside the house. Kang Il-hae’s face, looking up at me with his chin raised, was unfamiliar.

Seeing the blue bruises inside his eyes and the cast on the bridge of his nose, I understood why his voice on the phone had sounded dull. The memory of beating him up as I pleased was so hazy that I couldn’t tell what was real, but looking at his face, it seemed that it had all been real.

Standing blankly in the living room of the large house, I scanned the interior, which was decorated like a penthouse. There was a painting with lines drawn all over it hanging on the wall, but it wasn’t as good as Hae-ah’s work, and the leather sofa had a glossy material, and the glass table was transparent so that the black frame was fully visible.

On top of it, an familiar necklace was lying there alone. The string was tangled, as if he hadn’t bothered to store it carefully.

The light from the lamp was transmitted through the purple essence, creating a line of light on the table.

“……”

Hae-ah didn’t know that that essence wasn’t just a simple ruby, but Kang Il-hae seemed to know. Well, that’s why he stole it. I was speechless at his paltry attempt to present the stolen goods, which were obviously mine and Kang Hae-ah’s, as if they were a trading card.

“So, what is it that you wanted to say?”

Leaning his body diagonally towards the armrest of the sofa, Kang Il-hae asked. His glossy eyes were half-filled with tension and half-filled with anticipation.

Until last month, he would have jumped up and asked for a handshake, but it seemed that he had stopped with the formalities as of yesterday. I was very glad to see that I was no longer a representative of a partner company or even a brother-in-law to him. It was because I wasn’t here to see the managing director or brother-in-law of that company either.

“I didn’t say I had something to say.”

Slowly, I took off the jacket I was wearing.

“…I said I had something to give.”

Kang Il-hae, the shameless man who was waiting for the words of apology that I would tell him, was the antithesis of my husband. Compared to that man who presented a building he had never lived in as his shield, Kang Hae-ah had never shown a comfortable face even once inside his own house.

After putting down the gray jacket, I unfastened the strap of the watch on my wrist. Kang Il-hae just stared blankly up at me.

“What… what are you doing?”

He asked. Seeing my fist, he seemed to finally remember being hit. I stared blankly down at him, who was spouting the obvious nonsense about there being security outside.

“Because it’s a watch I cherish.”

Hae-ah gave it to me.

“If possible… I’d like you to answer me now.”

Putting the watch in my left pocket, I looked down at him.

“Why did you do that?”

And I asked, to Kang Il-hae, who was making a stupid expression and furrowing his eyebrows.

“At the exhibition gallery, in the supply room. Why did you do it?”

Then Kang Il-hae’s shoulders shook. After briefly bursting into exaggerated laughter, his face turned white, and he was busy erasing his flustered expression by repeatedly washing his face with his hands.

His surprised expression turned my insides out. It seemed that no one, not even once, had asked him why he hit his younger brother.

“Uh…, what nonsense is that? What reason is there for brothers to fight? Our family is originally… when we fight, we hit each other more than other families…? Yesterday was, well… just an accident.”

Kang Il-hae’s tongue grew longer. I felt nauseous looking at his face, shamelessly spouting the lie that ‘brothers fought.’ If you have no conscience, it seems that even unilateral assault becomes a fight.

“I already heard the story that it’s been like that since you were young….”

My words trembled as I tried to suppress the rising anger. Swallowing hard, it felt like a thorn was stuck in my throat.

“…Still, there must be a reason?”

I need to know why my husband had to kneel on the dirty floor and cry. I feel like I can’t live or die without knowing that reason. Not for Hae-ah, but for me to breathe, I need to know. Why on earth did Kang Hae-ah follow Kang Il-hae to that secluded room, leaving me behind… what on earth did the two of them talk about, why did he have to get hit?

“Ha….”

Kang Il-hae let out a long breath as if exaggerating. It was a sigh that dismissed the deep concerns of my world as nothing.

“Hey, CEO Cheon.”

Furrowing his eyebrows, he leaned forward.

“He’s your patient, right?”

Then his voice changed immediately.

“Do you think I’ll just make up a reason because you’re threatening me like this? You’re not some kind of gangster…. I’m really at a loss for words.”

“……”

“That’s a disease, right? A disease where you act cool to other alphas because you’re a Dominant Alpha. It only happens when you lose your mind. I’ve looked into it all. Did you think that fake threat would work on me?”

“……”

Without answering, I observed his attitude.

Judging by his appearance, he seemed to have already calculated whether he could sue me. It was time to wonder about the face of the lawyer who had extracted patient information without police intervention or a court order.

Trying to slander me with words like disease and patient had no impact on me.

‘It’s not like it’s been just one or two days.’

The first time I assaulted a fellow alpha, I went around to various clinics, from surgery to neurology to psychiatry, and received all kinds of treatments. Some doctors said it was a disease, and others said it wasn’t, but the opinions were roughly similar. That there was no other way to cure it other than using a suitable Omega as a tranquilizer. And that violence and memory impairment are diagnosed as seizure symptoms.

So Kang Il-hae isn’t the only man who can be shameless in this place. He also seems to know that just as he can vaguely deny the fact that he assaulted Kang Hae-ah, I can also claim that my crushing his nose was not an assault.

How many judges would give a guilty verdict when the only son of a prosecutor general caused an ‘incurable disease seizure’? As far as I know, there are none.

“Did our Hae-ah know you were a patient when he married you? Ah, you probably didn’t know until yesterday. CEO Cheon, you’re a patient with a kingdom of animals disease that only affects alphas.”

Kang Il-hae was dropping hints one after another. The fact that he had finished his background check and wasn’t keeping it a secret meant that he had given up on the idea of going to court.

“…You’ve never hit anyone when you’re sober, have you?”

Seeing the sneer hanging on the corner of his lips, it didn’t seem like he was going to open his mouth willingly.

“There’s always a first time for everything.”

Actually, for now, I just wanted him to shut his mouth for a moment.

As it was, I covered Kang Il-hae’s face with the jacket, which was thicker than the season called for.

“What, what is it?”

I grabbed his struggling head tightly with my right hand. I pressed his face with my palm so that the back of his head was against the back of the sofa, and he screamed shrilly as his broken nose was touched. What a fuss for a man to make over such a small thing.

“It’s because you look alike.”

Using the jacket sleeves as a string, I wrapped and tied them tightly around his face as if bandaging him. He was showing quite a strong gesture demanding an explanation of the situation he was in, so I kindly explained it to him.

“It’s because your eyebrows look like Hae-ah’s… it’s a little hard to look at them and hit you.”

“Ah, no, shit, what the…. Don’t try to act tough!”

Kang Il-hae’s body was already trembling. Sometimes, a person’s true nature was just absurdly pathetic. Kang Hae-ah’s true nature made me cry, and Kang Il-hae’s true nature made me laugh in disbelief.

The age difference between the two was only two years. Their builds were similar too, Kang Il-hae being slightly bigger, but not significantly so. So, if Kang Hae-ah had genuinely resisted and fought back, he might have won in a physical fight with him.

‘If he hadn’t been beaten since childhood.’

That thought suddenly popped into my head as I punched Kang Il-hae in the stomach and threw him to the floor.

“Agh!”

No. Not ‘might have won,’ but ‘would have won.’ Compared to a guy who screamed at the first hit, Hae-ah stood shamelessly in the center of the exhibition hall even with bruises and blood swelling on his body. If they had exchanged blows, he wouldn’t have been unilaterally kicked and crawling on the floor like that… It was absurd that Kang Hae-ah couldn’t do that.

In that respect, Hae-ah was still a six-year-old kid in front of his Hyung. His Hyung was the man who kicked such a younger brother until he got a concussion and his spleen was damaged.

I waited for a plea to come out of his mouth. Once, twice, kicking his stomach like handling a soccer ball.

“Now answer the question.”

Kang Il-hae thrashed around, floating in the air and hitting his back against the wall. He clutched his stomach and made rough coughing sounds, ‘cough, cough.’

“What did you talk about with Hae-ah in that room?”

Raising my rough hand, I rubbed my mouth. The distorted shape of my lips, neither smiling nor crying, felt numb.

I didn’t hear the answer I wanted from Kang Il-hae. Not even a plea.

‘Three, …four.’

Counting the number of times, I kicked and stomped on his stomach. Thinking of the bruises left on Hae-ah’s body, I chose a similar spot.

The reason I didn’t retaliate in exactly the same way was simple. It was because I wasn’t as stupid as Kang Il-hae. I had no intention of leaving evidence of organ rupture.

Around the fifth kick, he grabbed my leg and blocked it. He struggled so violently that the side table hit his arm and fell over, and the ceramic vase shattered.

“I, I’ll answer, I’ll tell you! I will….”

Then, in a fluster, he took off the jacket covering his face, so I kicked his left chest.

With a thud, there was a painful sound as if the hard rib cage was breaking,

“Agh! Ack! Shit! I’ll tell you! Tell you!”

Kang Il-hae screamed, hitting the floor with his fists. He couldn’t beat me, and a guy who couldn’t even beat his own anger couldn’t possibly beat someone else.

“Shit…, that, bastard, no, Kang Hae-ah… he’s not that kind of guy… I know because he’s my brother. But yesterday, he went crazy and snapped at me. That, that….”

“‘That’?”

“Yo, your Father… Chief Prosecutor Cheon. …Are you going to mess with him?”

The foot about to step on his knee stopped in mid-air. Staggering silently, I stood on both feet. Otherwise, I felt like I would fall. It felt like all the walls around me were rushing into my head at once.

It’s always like this. Hae-ah… keeps surprising me. Making me anxious like a weak person, and throwing the shock I can’t bear the most at the moment I least want to endure it.

“Shit, I, uh, hic… haven’t, no, I haven’t done anything yet, but that… that bastard grabbed an innocent person first….”

Kang Il-hae made excuses, reading my silence, standing blankly with hot eyes, as encouragement.

“I’m wronged… that…, ah, I didn’t do anything, in the end, that’s how it is. Do you have evidence? Do you have any evidence that I did anything, shit… you don’t! You don’t! Huh?”

“……”

“Anyway, the project is over…. Okay?”

His words were both digested like food I’ve eaten and very unfamiliar and ambiguous.

“…‘Project.’ What’s the reason for plotting such a thing?”

“Ha…, what does the reason matter? That bastard is going to break his brush. I didn’t do anything, and I won’t do anything in the future either…. Ta, take this off….”

I was mentally blank for a moment. The belief that nothing bad could happen to my Father no matter what Kang Il-hae did was firm, but,

‘Something bad….’

Cold sweat ran down my spine and the ground beneath my feet turned black.

Even after hearing the answer I wanted, I wasn’t happy at all. Rather, I felt suffocated.

…In the end, it was me. The answer to all the questions I had for Kang Hae-ah was me. The reason he declared that he would give up even the paintings he was so good at overnight….

Forgetting to blink, I stretched out my foot. As I crushed Kang Il-hae’s left chest with my shoe and stepped on it with my weight, a scream escaped his mouth.

Kang Il-hae hit and pushed my calf with his fist, then scratched and clung to me with both hands.

“I…, I’m done, right? Stop, hic…, stop it, you crazy bastard….”

I had been close to violence all my life, but there was still no red line in my life. I had injured others many times, but this moment was, among them, the first moment I remembered.

Beating someone up sober was never a pleasant thing. Even if I hurt Kang Il-hae, even if I killed him, my anger wouldn’t subside, and Hae-ah wouldn’t be miraculously healed.

Anyway, I heard the answer to the question. Whatever I do now, Hae-ah’s steps, who went out to follow Kang Il-hae to find out about my Father’s work, won’t stop. The teenage Kang Hae-ah, who was called in and beaten every time he came to Korea, won’t disappear as if washed away. The six-year-old Kang Hae-ah, who was forced onto a plane crying because he didn’t want to study abroad, won’t be okay.

But….

‘That doesn’t mean I have to forgive him, does it?’

If I didn’t step on Kang Il-hae’s chest, I would be ashamed to breathe next to Hae-ah for the rest of my life, so it was better to have a few red lines drawn. To be honest, I didn’t care if I had to live in prison.

‘…No.’

That would be a bit difficult. What would Hae-ah do if I went to jail? He’s someone who likes my body scent so much. He might suffer from withdrawal symptoms due to the One-sided Imprinting problem.

“Heo-eok, cough… shi…bal, heuk….”

Kang Il-hae’s groan made me laugh. As I was laughing, I felt like I had become the very person who cursed at me when I beat them up a long time ago. Crazy bastard. Madman. Mentally ill person, thug, gangster bastard….

‘Tae-rim-ssi.’

…I shouldn’t have bothered covering Kang Il-hae’s face. Even though everything, even his habits, were different, would I think of Hae-ah if I beat him while looking at his face… but that’s all I could think. I didn’t take off the jacket that was tied around his face. I left it there until the cloth was soaked with liquid, whether it was tears, sweat, or saliva, and he couldn’t breathe because it was wrapped around his face.

“Hic…, hee-ik….”

Finally, Kang Il-hae became quiet.

“Plea…se, just….”

I slowly squatted down in front of him, who was making labored breathing sounds. A nasty Alpha scent was flowing out very faintly. It was the smell of a recessive alpha.

I knew about his trait from rumors, but when I actually smelled it, it was very funny. I wouldn’t have anyone to give it to as a gift, but even if I made an essence with his body scent, it wouldn’t come out as a deep purple color like the one I gave to Hae-ah.

‘So he took it, because he wanted it.’

I was having a funny fantasy, but I didn’t laugh. With a stiff face, I leaned closer to him and just smelled the pathetic scent. He flinched at my presence.

“St, stop it….”

Then he hurriedly begged,

“Kang Il-hae-ssi.”

I rubbed my nose and under my chin.

“A complaint will be filed against you soon…. It’s better to accept it quietly without doing anything useless.”

The sensation of my chin touching the tip of my index finger was rough. It was because of the beard. Even half a day from now, I would look quite messy. I need to shave, before Hae-ah wakes up….

“Co, complaint? Shi, bal, who, who beat someone up….”

“I didn’t say it would go in my name.”

Kang Il-hae can’t beat me for the rest of his life. For the rest of his life, he can’t touch my husband, Kang Hae-ah.

“Do, do you know who, who I am….”

“I know.”

I lowered his arm, which was thrashing around with a suffocating sound, and placed it under my feet. Kang Il-hae made a fuss just by stomping on his wrist. Instead of clicking my tongue, I untied the jacket sleeves tied around his face.

As soon as I removed the cloth that was completely blocking his nose and mouth,

“Heo-eok…!”

Kang Il-hae opened his mouth wide and inhaled. Blood was seeping out from under the nose cast. His eyes were bloodshot and his face was all wet, as if he had cried.

He glared at me with eyes full of heat. Even though I had trampled and kicked him like that, he didn’t seem intimidated at all.

“It’s a mystery why your personality wasn’t caught in our test.”

He shrugged as I sighed and laughed in disbelief. I wanted him to be more scared and cry more… In that sense, Kang Il-hae was the owner of a truly great ego.

“Bloodlines are really amazing. Kang Hae-ah was born in the same family, and a bastard like you was born. And Vice President Kang Hae-in was born….”

Getting up from my seat, I headed to the table. Now the business was over. It was time to take what I would receive since I had given what I had to give. After putting the watch back on, I picked up the tangled necklace.

“You have an unusually smart older sister.”

Then Kang Il-hae shrugged. It seemed like some button inside him was pressed by the story of his Dominant Alpha sister, who was also his boss. I opened my mouth to tell him that your family wouldn’t be on your side in the future.

“Kang Il-hae-ssi.”

But what came out of my mouth was a hollow sigh.

“You are no one now.”

After looking down at his pathetic face for a few seconds, I turned around. I was about to head to the front door, which was still locked, when a foul smell suddenly wafted from behind.

As soon as I reflexively turned around, I swung my fist.

“Ack!”

Kang Il-hae dropped what he was swinging as his hand was caught by my hand blade. The broken pieces of pottery that fell on the floor shattered into several pieces and scattered in all directions.

Following his scratched hand, I saw his face flushed with embarrassment.

“Why, why Kang, Hae-ah….”

Kang Il-hae was talking nonsense. I stared down at his bloodshot eyes shaking back and forth with a stiff expression.

“Why always, why again… now, now Kang Hae-ah…, that bastard… He’s not an Alpha or anything. Shi…bal, he’s lived a comfortable life, what value does he have, huh, how much does he have. What’s the big deal if I mess with him a little….”

Blood flowed from under his nose as he grumbled, unable to contain his anger. The wound on his broken nose seemed to have been torn again. With a dark bandage stained black, Kang Il-hae shook his dark eyes aimlessly.

I had no intention of listening to his incoherent nonsense. I was about to stop him and leave, but,

“Why did you plot such a project?”

Kang Il-hae changed my mind.

“It’s all because of you, Chief Prosecutor Cheon, because you insisted on marrying him…. Now that bastard, he thinks he’s something, and he’s presumptuously crawling up and acting like a son.”

It felt like steam was rising above my shoulders. My body was boiling with silent anger. But without answering,

“……”

I endured it. No. It can’t be… That’s what I thought. If I got angry now, I would really end up killing Kang Il-hae.

“Kang Hae-ah, that bastard, is just our family’s pet dog…. You know? You married your dog. He’s not a person. Everything that makes him look normal was all, Father….”

He wasn’t looking at me when he muttered in a trembling voice.

His head, stained with a nosebleed, was blankly facing the floor. The pathetic inferiority complex that filled his eyes, vaguely resembling Hae-ah, disappeared in an instant. Soon, a slight despair seeped into his dark eyes.

Drip, drip… I heard the sound of water falling. Following him, when I lowered my gaze, I finally saw the red blood pooling on the floor.

The blood pouring from my hand blade was, as if a lie, purely red.

Suddenly, I thought of Hae-ah. Hae-ah, who recited incomprehensible words like cold brown or warm brown. Whenever I secretly peeked into his studio, I diligently observed the paints placed on the pedestal.

Thanks to that, I could now know the name of the red that soaked my hand.

‘Chinese Red.’

Would Hae-ah laugh if he heard my thoughts?

I closed my eyes tightly and opened them. My mind, which had been momentarily blank, slowly returned.

I lifted my torn hand as it was and ruined my watch. There was no point in taking it off. The flesh torn by the piece of pottery he swung was ragged, and the blood that flowed out quickly soaked my watch and forearm.

Taking a long sigh, I put the necklace I was holding in my other hand into my pocket. Then, I pressed down on the wound with my palm.

“Act a little smarter….”

As I took a step closer to him, a weak voice came out of my mouth. I didn’t even have the energy to deal with Kang Il-hae anymore.

“Compared to your siblings, Kang Il-hae, you are very….”

I tapped the cheek of the dumbfounded guy with my blood-soaked hand.

“A defective product.”

Then I turned around.

This time, Kang Il-hae didn’t grab me. He had rushed in with the spirit to stab me in the back, but when the blood poured out, he seemed flustered.

The wound on my hand blade was deeper than I thought. Even after getting in the car, the blood didn’t stop, so I had to untie my tie and wrap it around.

Even the tie I wrapped around as a bandage was soon soaked red. Pressing down on the wound with one hand, I leaned my head back against the driver’s seat. A sudden sense of fatigue flooded in like a tide. I still had the sensation of kicking Kang Il-hae’s body at the tip of my toes. The feeling of his abdomen, which felt like a leather bag filled with water, was vivid.

‘I’m tired.’

Until just a moment ago, my heart, which had been so calm that it was cold, began to pound. So I felt relieved. The fact that my mind was uneasy and my head was dizzy belatedly seemed to be proof that I wasn’t a complete… pure gangster bastard.

Looking at the hallucination of the car window spinning around, I thought my body was too heavy. I was dizzy and tired, so I wanted to fall asleep like this.

‘I’m tired….’

…Because I married him. Does Hae-ah still not know that he was beaten until he fainted for such an absurd reason? If he had known, would he have even hinted at it to me? And if he didn’t know, what kind of expression would he make after hearing that story now?

I’m afraid he’ll just laugh it off. I’m afraid he’ll just look at me blankly for a moment and then just laugh nicely….

‘Don’t laugh like that….’

That expression is scary. An expression that looks so comfortable that it’s scary. That guy who seems to have no regrets in life, that dejected smile….

‘Buzzing’… My eyes snapped open at the vibration of my cell phone. The vision that had been blacked out for a moment became bright again. I had been trying to catch my breath for a moment, but it seemed I had fainted in the car.

Groping around, when I picked up my cell phone with my blood-stained hand, a notification window popped up first saying that there was almost no battery left, and then a photo in a text message opened.

My eyes met Hae-ah’s in the photo, who had his eyes wide open. His expression looked sulky like a sulky child. Following the sender’s name, ‘Vice President Kang Hae-in,’

[Keep your promise.]

As soon as I checked the text message, the screen turned off.

Even after pressing the power button firmly two or three times, the discharged cell phone wouldn’t turn on again. Suddenly, the dizziness disappeared, and a warm bloodiness circulated in my head. With a mind that became clear at once, I grabbed the steering wheel.

When I silently drove the car and arrived at the hospital, the gray tie had turned black and I was only slightly dizzy. The driver’s seat was a mess because bloodstains flowed down the steering wheel.

As soon as I entered the hospital entrance, a nurse ran up in surprise. I was almost dragged along as I was guided to the emergency room. I was planning to go up to the hospital room to see Hae-ah right away, but… the nurse sat me down on a cot.

‘I guess….’

If I went there looking like this, the person who had barely woken up would probably faint again.

A Doctor ran over and asked what happened, so I only told him the words I had appropriately picked out. I said I had been cut by a crazy person, and requested that I didn’t need to call the police, but I wanted a record of the treatment. The torn hand blade had to be stitched up with twelve stitches.

Looking at the stitched marks that looked red and black under the opaque bandage, I was speechless.

‘Does Kang Il-hae have no brain?’

It was actually a good thing for me, since the one-sided assault had now become mutual. By now, that family’s lawyer’s head must be rotting….

Even if things couldn’t be resolved on my end, Father wouldn’t stand idly by. He may seem cold and detached on the surface, but Mother and I know the fire that burns within him. Whatever Kang Hae-ah’s treatment was within the Kang family, that’s their problem. The Cheon family doesn’t need a black sheep.

The suffocating feeling, like a boiling heat, finally subsided.

‘If I had my way, I’d even change Hae-ah’s surname…’

My steps, which had been leisurely as I indulged in imagination, halted in front of the parking lot leading to the hospital’s main entrance.

The culprit was none other than Im Geon.

“…….”

My mood sank into the mud, caught off guard by the unexpected visitor. He, too, looked surprised, as if neither of us had planned to face each other. Standing in front of a white sedan, he was dressed casually in sneakers, with an electronic cigarette in his right hand.

Judging by his still-intact face, untouched by any fists, his purpose in coming to this hospital was obvious.

‘He came to see my husband, at this hour…’

Amidst my heightened nerves, a bouquet of flowers placed on the roof of his car caught my eye. I now knew that the phrase written on that ridiculous note, asking for reassurance, was the flower language of that damned flower.

Not lilies, not roses, but ‘Hellebores.’ The fact that I’d memorized the name of a flower I’d never encountered in my life said it all.

When Hae-ah was still a ‘rookie writer,’ as he called himself, Im Geon had given him a bouquet of Hellebores when he was nervous before his first solo exhibition in Korea.

‘He said the flowers would take away my anxiety, so I shouldn’t worry… he gave them to me with good intentions.’

When I cautiously asked about it, Hae-ah spoke of it as a fond memory. But to my ears, it sounded like the shameless ploy of a lecherous old man trying to seduce a young, impressionable newcomer.

Just imagining Kang Hae-ah at twenty-two, trusting him as a good mentor and calling him ‘Teacher,’ ‘Teacher,’ made me want to scream,

‘How much did you sell your conscience for?’

A surge of anger welled up inside me.

While I openly observed Im Geon, he, too, was scrutinizing my appearance. The headlights of passing cars reflected in his glasses as he took me in.

“Haa….”

With a short sigh, I approached him. The shameless bastard immediately picked up the bouquet from the roof of his car and handed it to me.

“Could you please deliver this to the writer?”

My eyebrows twitched at the absurd request. What was his intention in saying something so outrageous, knowing it would provoke my anger?

It was one of two things. Either what needed calming wasn’t anxiety but his balls, or he had a desperate reason for doing this.

“I brought his favorite flowers, but I can’t see him directly. I was told he’s still asleep….”

Im Geon’s addition, trying to break the heavy silence, calmed me down. Hae-ah would have been awake long ago.

I didn’t know who had told him that lie, but it must have been someone from Chairman Kang’s side. If so, their intention was clear. Now that Kang Hae-ah had declared he would give up painting and the landscape had changed, there was no longer any need to keep the critic Im Geon by his side.

Thanks to that, I felt much lighter.

“Just give it up and go home. There’s no one to deliver your bouquet to.”

Finishing my words with a sigh, I turned away easily. If he was a man who was no longer important to Hae-ah, then he was not worth wasting my emotions on.

Behind me,

“You can’t separate me from the writer.”

Im Geon said. It was a desperate cry, almost a shout.

His absurd words made me stop in my tracks. Taking my hand out of my pocket, I turned around to see an unreadable anger on his face. It was a far cry from the smiling face he wore while holding a champagne glass in a sunlit garden.

“You can’t… separate me from Kang the writer.”

Im Geon said, emphasizing each word, and

“I can separate you from Kang Hae-ah.”

My answer was simple.

With Kang Hae-ah’s own declaration, he was no longer an artist. It was a waste of talent that even an amateur like me found astonishing, but no one had the right to object to Hae-ah’s chosen retirement.

But I wondered why a critic wouldn’t accept his retirement.

‘Does he think he’s something special… is he getting too carried away?’

As I looked down at him closely, Im Geon’s eyes flickered darkly.

“The writer… Hae-ah, will eventually come looking for me.”

Soon, untamed jealousy greeted me.

“He’s done it before, and he’ll do it again. He has no one but me. When he gets scared of you and needs a place to hide, he’ll eventually….”

“Shut up.”

A foul curse surged up inside me.

“Do you think everything you say is true?”

As I rebuked him, unable to hide my anger, his mouth, which had been spouting nonsense, froze open. His eyes, fogging up his glasses, darted rapidly from side to side.

“What?”

Then he asked back.

“…What did I just say?”

I quietly took in his confused face. Seeing him babble on without even remembering what he’d said made me clench my teeth.

No matter how messed up I was, no matter how scared Hae-ah might be, he would never go to Im Geon instead of me. So what was the intention behind his nonsense about ‘he’s done it before’?

“Think hard with that smart brain of yours that used to evaluate art and obscenity.”

With the tip of my index finger, I flicked the temple of his glasses.

“Think about who’s unilaterally obsessed right now.”

With a flick… the glasses slipped down his nose, and

“…who’s desperate.”

With a flick, Im Geon’s chin twitched from the force of my finger, and his bare face was revealed. Even as he looked down at the glasses lying at his feet, he held his head high.

“I didn’t want to break up.”

I approached the muttering man. That alone was enough to adjust our eye level.

“I didn’t want to… that’s why I pushed him away.”

“Hae-ah knows that.”

If I noticed it, there’s no way that sensitive person wouldn’t know. He must have already realized it and buried it deep inside.

“Do you think Hae-ah would like it if you confessed it with your own mouth?”

That ‘Teacher,’ who used to give him flowers and coax him, ended the relationship in just a week, valuing his contract with Chairman Kang more than his love for him….

“Teacher Im.”

Extending my foot, I stomped on the fallen glasses. I heard a sound like sugar cookies crumbling under my shoe.

“Whatever Hae-ah said to you, it wasn’t sincere. Even if he put his lips on yours, it wasn’t sincere.”

I know. It’s my husband’s bad habit to run away when things get tough. He even does it to me sometimes, as if to tell me to shut up.

Did his desperate and pathetic attitude look cute to this man? To me, it just looked pathetic… that struggle.

“Didn’t I… make it clear? I won’t say the same thing twice.”

My hand went up to Im Geon’s left ear. Forcing myself to clench my fist, I suppressed the urge to tear off his ear.

“…….”

Silently withdrawing my hand, I felt my feet heavier than usual.

Im Geon’s reaction was unstable. He blankly stroked his nose once, as if to wipe it. It was a habitual gesture, even after his glasses had been taken away.

Then his face turned red. I couldn’t tell if he was terrified by my threat or embarrassed by his foolish slip of the tongue.

He got into the driver’s seat of his car and disappeared without a word, and I didn’t watch him for long. I was just annoyed that I had wasted time and emotions.

‘This is no time for this.’

I just wanted to see Hae-ah. I wanted to see my husband get up with a clear face and shamelessly tell me that he was okay.

The hallway in front of the hospital room was quiet, unlike the emergency room. I was so exhausted that I was almost comforted by the calmness of the early morning. The thought of seeing Hae-ah at the end of a long day put my mood into a slow-moving turbulence.

But before Hae-ah, I saw a man standing in front of his hospital room.

‘Who else is it, what kind of bastard is here at this hour….’

My insides were already turned upside down because of the shameless Im Geon. I frowned, feeling like everything outside was an unwelcome guest, and then,

“Hey, Cheon Tae-rim…. What’s that blood on you?”

I lost all strength when I recognized him.

“Why are you here?”

When I expressed my bewildered feelings without embellishment, Si Eun-cheol’s face crumpled just as much as mine. He made a very angry face, grabbed my arm, and started dragging me away from the hospital room where Hae-ah was, to the end of the hallway.

I followed Si Eun-cheol without a word. I felt suspicious of the guy who had come to check on Hae-ah without being asked.

Before long, we arrived in front of the emergency exit door. Pushing me into a corner of the hallway where no one was passing, Eun-cheol immediately started scolding me.

“Hey…. Do you still think you’re in middle school? Don’t you have any awareness as the CEO of a company?”

As expected of someone who’s known me for ten years, he knows me well. Just by seeing that I’d been hurt, he could easily deduce that the person who’d hurt me was even more hurt.

“Cheon Tae-rim. You’ve changed since you got married! Why are you acting so unlike yourself?”

To his serious question,

“What’s like myself?”

When I answered casually, Si Eun-cheol punched me in the shoulder.

“Is this funny? Do you think this situation is funny?”

“Ouch.”

I covered my shoulder as if it hurt, showing the stitched wound on the side of my hand. Only then did he shut his mouth.

If I were to ease Eun-cheol’s worries, I had a lot to say. Like, whatever the situation, the blood on my clothes was mine, or that the other side wouldn’t be able to report it because they had something to hide….

“Eun-cheol.”

But I was tired.

“I’ll take care of my own problems, so don’t worry.”

When I answered briefly, Si Eun-cheol took a step back. It was as if he physically felt the line that had been drawn with words.

“…Since when did your problems become just your problems? In the old days… it was our problem.”

Eun-cheol muttered, averting his gaze from my bland face. His expression clearly showed his disappointment. What a sentimental guy.

I sighed inwardly. How nice would it be if that young master, who never showed any signs of distress even when his insides were rotting, would do this for me?

“I had something to ask you anyway.”

I filled the step he had taken back. As I leaned closer, as if cornering him, Eun-cheol’s eyes, already as big as saucers, widened as if they would pop out.

“Answer me honestly, no matter what.”

I blocked his escape route by placing my fist against the wall. Depending on his answer, the relationship between him and me could be reversed in an instant.

“W-what is it? Why….”

Sensing the seriousness of the situation, Eun-cheol also seemed nervous. I tried to meet his gaze as his eyes darted back and forth.

“Si Eun-cheol. Honestly….”

And I asked.

“Do you like Kang Hae-ah?”

“What?”

The sensor light in the hallway above our heads flickered and went out with a click. I raised my left hand and waved it in the air, and the incandescent light came back on. Thanks to that, I could see Si Eun-cheol’s wide-open mouth and his flushed face very clearly.

“N-no, th-.”

He opened and closed his mouth meaninglessly, and then,

“You crazy bastard!”

He shouted out a curse.

“Is that what you say to me?”

Si Eun-cheol shouted, stomping his feet in place. The fact that he didn’t give a clear ‘no’ answer made me very suspicious.

When I narrowed my eyes and looked down at him, he finally shook his head violently.

“No! It’s not!”

If he did this, it was even more suspicious. Why was he emphasizing it so loudly? A strong denial is a confirmation….

“Really not?”

“Really not, you crazy bastard.”

“If that’s not it, why are you being so sensitive about Hae-ah’s business?”

“What, sensitive? Why am I really doing this! If you want to know, it’s all because of your pheromones….”

As the atmosphere became more violent, a nurse cleared her throat from afar in the hallway. A small warning to lower our voices followed.

Only then did Si Eun-cheol’s voice decrease.

“…Never mind. Cheon Tae-rim. Do you have some kind of delusional jealousy or something? You crazy bastard…, don’t pretend to be innocent in front of him.”

I felt twisted by his muttering, clicking his tongue. I was annoyed that there was no distance in his words referring to Hae-ah as ‘him.’

I opened my mouth to point that out, but

“…….”

I closed it again quietly. I thought I would really be treated like a delusional jealous person if I did.

It was frustrating for me. Whether I have delusional jealousy or not, whether I pretend to be innocent or dance a fan dance in front of Kang Hae-ah, why does Si Eun-cheol care?

“I’ll let it go that you went to his house a few times because I asked you to.”

I said, pressing my throbbing temples with my thumb.

“…I’ll even let it go that you misunderstood that Hae-ah called a critic to his house as an Alpha… yeah, let’s just say that.”

I observed him very closely. Si Eun-cheol’s eyebrows, which had been smugly crossed,

“Then why did you come here?”

Were twitching like electrocuted snakes.

“…You’re really not saying that you came because you were worried and concerned?”

“…….”

Si Eun-cheol was silent. He was a guy who was so good at talking that he often cornered everyone from the youngest secretary to the team leaders of each department 7 days a week. He had never lost his words and been silent, but now he had a lock on his mouth.

‘What…. Why is he like this?’

I was embarrassed when the aloof guy suddenly became quiet. An awkward atmosphere raised goosebumps on my shoulders.

“You… you really don’t like Hae-ah, do you?”

I asked, wanting to get confirmation one last time.

“…….”

“…….”

But there was no answer.

I started to regret pushing him with my cheesy jokes. As expected of someone who’s known me for ten years, I knew him as well as he knew me. I had seen that face before.

Was it when we were in the second year of middle school? He threw away all the snacks and gifts that the Alpha senior in the third grade who was good at dodgeball gave him every day, and ignored her, but on the day that senior graduated, he was depressed all day, that expression.

That expression from that day was exactly on Si Eun-cheol’s face now, …an expression of realizing his feelings late.

‘…This isn’t it.’

I just wanted to see Hae-ah with a relieved heart.

The outside air that seeped in through the half-open window filled the void of the conversation that had been cut off. As I felt the tickling of the early morning breeze that swept over my rough chin, I looked down at Si Eun-cheol.

As if he felt my gaze sweeping over him,

“…I don’t like him.”

Si Eun-cheol said vaguely. It was a lie, even though he couldn’t fix his crumpled eyebrows and the color of his reddened earlobes.

“Oh, yeah…. I see.”

I sighed awkwardly and took a couple of steps back.

“Yeah, Eun-cheol. I believe you.”

I patted Si Eun-cheol’s shoulder twice, saying things I didn’t mean.

“There’s no way you’d like my husband. Sorry for misunderstanding.”

In my heart,

‘I shouldn’t have asked him to run errands….’

I was filled with complicated emotions.

There’s no law that says an Omega can’t fall for another Omega, but I was too careless. Hae-ah, who speaks so softly and kindly, must have been so kind to Si Eun-cheol, who came to see him. If you comfort and take care of him like that, you can’t help but develop feelings….

When you think about it, the current situation wasn’t entirely Eun-cheol’s fault.

‘I have to take care of him myself from now on. Ah… no, I should just take Hae-ah with me when I go on business trips.’

As my thoughts stretched out to Hae-ah, I no longer had any business with Eun-cheol. I was about to move towards the hospital room where my husband was, but

“Ah! Where are you going…, you crazy bastard.”

Si Eun-cheol reached out his hand towards my arm. His neat fingers slipped over my thick arm, grabbed my shirt, and pulled me back hard.

“Do you want to make your husband, who just woke up, faint again? Would Kang Hae-ah be happy about that? ‘Tae-rim-ssi, why do you look like that? What should I do…, huh? You said you beat up Hyung so badly?'”

“…Don’t imitate me. Are you crazy?”

My tone became rough at the creepy impersonation. It was even more unpleasant because it was strangely similar.

When I shook off his grip, Si Eun-cheol let me go willingly.

Instead, he pointed his finger at my sleeve. The bloodstain, which was turning yellowish-brown from the edges, had clearly seeped up to my elbow.

“Wash your sleeves thoroughly before you go in, Cheon Tae-rim. If you want to keep pretending to be innocent.”

He pointed me in the direction of the bathroom and then stepped back.

“Then I’ll see you on Monday, CEO Cheon Tae-rim.”

I glared briefly at the guy who bowed deeply, even to the point of bending over at the waist, in an exaggerated manner.

“I’ll tell the nurse never, ever to disturb you.”

The words of greeting were barbed.

And the moment I saw Kang Hae-ah sitting alone in the dark center of the hospital room, waiting for me,

“…….”

My legs gave way with a huge sense of relief. I had to fight hard not to collapse right there.

Surrounded by a plethora of gifts, Hae-ah’s woeful expression made him look like a subject in a pessimistic photographer’s work. Letters, flower baskets, and wrapped boxes glittered silver even in the darkness, but there was no sign that any of them had been opened.

With a tense face, Hae-ah reached out to me. I couldn’t understand that gesture, that expression. A trace of pain lingered on his delicate cheeks, and the silhouette of the cast beneath his patient gown was prominent. I had no choice but to embrace him… as if he were afraid I would turn away, his eyebrows furrowing so desperately.

I approached him slowly. I consciously slowed my pace, afraid that if I didn’t, I would hug him too tightly and hurt him.

I left wrinkles on him with my embrace, on his neat short collar of the patient gown, even on the blanket neatly arranged over his knees.

“Tae-rim-ssi….”

Hae-ah’s touch, wiping the raindrops from my shirt, was gentle.

“Why are your hands so cold? Where have you been? You even got rained on….”

He seemed to have mistaken the water I used to scrub away the bloodstains in the sink for rain.

I let him worry about me. I allowed him to look at me with concern, even though he was the one who had been taken away unable to even say he was in pain, and I accepted his sympathy to my heart’s content. That alone made me feel like I had arrived at a complete and safe home.

“I want to go home….”

Hae-ah’s whisper echoed my own feelings.

“I want to see Do-jin, too… our home….”

‘See?’

I was satisfied.

‘I knew he’d look for the dog first.’

I laid the worried Hae-ah down lengthwise on one side of the bed. Fitting myself into the remaining space, I also lay on my side, gazing at the face I had missed all day, and returned the necklace like a trophy.

That alone was enough for my Hae-ah to,

“I like you, Tae-rim-ssi.”

Easily show his tearful eyes.

“I like you….”

Many people knew Kang Hae-ah, but only I knew my Hae-ah. Kang Hae-ah, who confessed his affection and kissed me in my arms, was my person, known only to me.

Intoxicated with possessiveness, I felt rewarded. The tingling wound on my hand and the belated rush of anemia couldn’t spoil my mood.

“I like you.”

The moment I heard the confession I had so longed to hear, the fatigue of the day vanished completely, and

“…….”

Just as the person who smoothed out the end of a long and rough day began to grope at my chest, my soul was completely taken away.

The culprit was the injection button, pressed haphazardly under the cast. The drug’s effects, clearly injected at least two or three times, mixed with my pheromones that I couldn’t help but release, and Hae-ah’s brown eyes lost focus.

“…Hae-ah, don’t.”

With hazy eyes, he kept digging into my chest. Because he kept biting at me with his teeth, my collarbone became damp with saliva, and heat gathered in my groin.

“S-stop. Stop touching me.”

The more I flustered and tried to stop him,

“Why?”

Hae-ah’s touch became even worse.

Suddenly, a warm hand touched my pants. As if groping and searching, he grabbed my erect penis haphazardly, sending a jolt through my lower back.

‘Dong…hae Mulgwa Baekdu…sani mareugo dalh…dorok….’

Hae-ah let out a snicker, as if amused by my desperate struggle. His clumsy hands moved even more explicitly, and my penis swelled hotly, oblivious to the situation.

‘Na, Nam…san wie jeo sonamu….’

I tried to think sad thoughts while reciting the national anthem. Even though I desperately pressed the call bell, there was no response.

‘Si Eun-cheol….’

It seemed it was no empty promise that he had told them not to disturb me under any circumstances.

‘No, is it even okay to ask medical personnel for such a favor?’

Is it okay to ask the hospital nurses not to work… an Alpha is dying here.

Let’s just hold hands and sleep, no, don’t touch me… After coaxing and pleading with him with a tearful heart, Hae-ah stopped seducing me. My face was flushed red, and his pants were half-off, his buttocks slightly visible.

“Hand….”

With those words, muttered in a small voice,

“Ugh… um….”

Hae-ah fell into a deep sleep. A gap opened in my suffocating breath.

“…….”

It took a long time and a lot of self-loathing to cool down my erect member. Only after drying the sweat that had soaked below my waist and letting out a hollow sigh did I have the composure to look at the sleeping Hae-ah.

“I can’t live with you, because of you.”

His face, buried in my arm as a pillow, was pale. I carefully kissed his clear forehead, as if washed in valley water, and

“I want to… go home….”

A fairly clear mumble escaped his lips.

“Let’s go to our home….”

“…Okay.”

Carefully, I untangled the twisted IV line and covered him with a thin blanket, and Hae-ah’s expression also relaxed. As I smoothed his hair with my large hand, I thought his face was too small.

I couldn’t believe it, that this small head contained a world I didn’t know and that he was so busy every day. That he worried about me alone, thought about my father’s work, and chased after Kang Il-hae. That he lived as a black sheep in that terrible family, yet was such a white and kind person….

I gave up trying to understand Hae-ah. How could I, who had a respectable father and a mother who always had my back, understand his world? It was enough to know that he was a very strong person.

Even after going through such things, Hae-ah had become the Hae-ah he was now. So Hae-ah was a strong person. Hae-ah, who had endured those things, was a thousand times stronger than Kang Il-hae, who had beaten him down.

I liked that Hae-ah. So much so that I felt ashamed of myself….

Whenever I held him in my arms, I felt like any action or emotion of mine was being rewarded and healed.

“Hae-ah.”

When I looked at his face, sleeping soundly while clutching my hand,

“I wish you were a little… more wicked.”

I touched his forehead and wished so.

I no longer liked Kang Hae-ah, who I had thought was so kind, pure, and innocent. I hated that he was a kind younger brother, an obedient son, and a considerate husband. I wished he were a selfish person instead. I wanted him to be a bad person, even if only to me.

I wanted him to feel comfortable with me, to treat me as his own and manipulate me as he pleased, to be stubborn sometimes, to be greedy… I wanted Hae-ah, you too, to be like that, just like I am.

I wish it were so. I wanted him to feel like he was being compensated and healed for the past when he was in my arms. At least for this moment… I wanted you, smiling in your sleep, to feel that way.

It wasn’t difficult to get a restraining order against Kang Il-hae. There was no need to show the wound on my hand or the diagnostic record of twelve stitches. It was thanks to my father-in-law, who had no intention of using his son’s injury.

Chairman Kang Jun-il was indeed a chairman who had supported Hanseong Group for 30 years. To put it nicely, he was calm; to put it badly, he was emotionless. Even though Kang Il-hae was his own son and hadn’t done anything right, it was strange that he didn’t seem upset at all that he had been beaten so badly by me that his nose was crushed.

My mother was surprised to see Chairman Kang Jun-il apologizing obediently to my parents and me.

“Did you use some trick, Tae-rim-ah?”

I just shook my head at her question while she pinched my arm.

“What trick could I use, when Hae-ah was hurt like that?”

I shrugged and remained ignorant, and my mother’s eyes narrowed. She stared at my face for a long time, as if suspecting something, so I silently packed the discharge luggage.

Hae-ah, who had been called to the examination room for the last time, returned in a wheelchair pushed by my father, sitting with a very uncomfortable and helpless expression.

My eyes briefly met my father’s, who was looking down at Hae-ah with the kindest face in the world.

“…….”

I just smiled and said nothing. I went over and finished pushing my husband’s wheelchair, replacing the words I wanted to say.

If you ask if I used any tricks, to be honest, I didn’t just sit idly by. But my creativity was of no help in resolving this matter. It was Kang Hae-ah who had told me the trick from the start.

‘Just tell them that I already know. That I know everything, that he hid Hae-ah’s awakening rate to get him married, and that he approached not for the AOM partnership but for political connections.’

The words I conveyed to Vice President Kang Hae-in over the phone were merely a recitation of facts. Stories that the kind-hearted Kang Hae-ah had known all along but couldn’t use as a shield. That alone was enough. Enough to watch Chairman Kang Jun-il’s busy hospital visit.

I wondered what Chairman Kang Jun-il, who was busily making excuses to my father and me, had said to his youngest child, Hae-ah. But on the other hand, I didn’t want to know anything more about their family history.

My only interest was Kang Hae-ah, and nothing else.

‘It’s a marriage I wanted. Not because of the contract, but because I like Kang Hae-ah.’

It took me too long to admit that fact. One season passed in confusion, and it felt like six years.

I had to make sure that nothing in my life would hurt Kang Hae-ah. The strength in my clenched fist, as I vowed to protect him and prevent anyone from hurting him or messing with him carelessly, had not yet been released.

I didn’t know that such a firm resolution would return as such a great ordeal.

Being hit by Kang Hae-ah’s fist, who had climbed on top of my stomach with the force to crush my organs,

‘Wow… that actually hurts.’

When I looked up at his face, panting like an angry person and even shedding tears on his own… it was excruciatingly difficult for me not to hurt him.

‘What’s so important about that award.’

Technological innovation and all that… that award, the awards ceremony, the party was the problem.

‘…I just shouldn’t have gone out.’

I slowly stroked Hae-ah’s knees as he cried, breathing heavily. Seeing his face sobbing because he couldn’t bear his own heat and couldn’t control his emotions made me feel strange. Even though I knew it wasn’t true, I thought that this was the real Kang Hae-ah. Stripped bare of all social pretense… the real him, leaving only instinct.

Just three hours ago, Kang Hae-ah was the most decent husband in the world. Throughout the awards ceremony and party night, he stayed by my side, wearing a lovely smile.

The tailored suit, which revealed the shapeliness of his firm body, was made of a thin material and had a bright color. As a result, it added a soft and innocent atmosphere to someone who was already handsome enough. Many people’s eyes recognized ‘Kang Hae-ah’ and glanced over, then invariably turned back to scan his entire body from head to toe.

“My, aren’t I too handsome today?”

Hae-ah whispered, leaning his shoulder against me. I was pleased that a humble person was praising himself for once, but

“People are only looking at Tae-rim-ssi. Our CEO’s face is going to wear out.”

“…….”

It was dismissed as nonsense.

Hae-ah’s true worth wasn’t just in his attractive Omega appearance. By rattling off and telling me stories about businessmen that even I didn’t know, he became a reliable wing.

But even after winning the biggest award that AOM and my name could receive in Korea, I wasn’t very happy. Even as I met the many approaching businessmen and learned their faces and names, I couldn’t concentrate at all. A bad feeling kept raising its head inside me. It was because I saw Hae-ah’s face smiling and saying he was okay.

To be honest, now that the awards ceremony was over and I had seen everything, I wanted to go home quickly. I had never been close to the bed in my life, but I wanted to do nothing for about two days and just laze around in bed with him.

When I was looking for Hae-ah, who was fluttering around inside and outside the party hall because he was cold from the air conditioning, my insides were a sight to behold. If possible, I felt like I wanted to hold a leash in my hand. When I imagined chaining his neck so that he couldn’t stray more than 2 meters from my right hand, I wasn’t sure if it was my personality that was the problem or if Hae-ah was just uniquely maddening.

Looking back, that was the opportunity. I should have kidnapped Kang Hae-ah and returned home when I felt even a little bit strange.

If I had known that his first heat cycle was coming, that he would run at me like a dog in heat, …that he would sit on my stomach, masturbate, and torture me.

While driving home with Hae-ah, who was feverish, in the back seat, Driver Oh kept checking the rearview mirror and showed a worried expression.

“He looks like he’s having a hard time…. First, I’ll help you get him inside the house.”

Driver Oh was an Alpha who had completed mutual imprinting and knotting with his wife. He was a man who would not cause any problems by not being affected by Hae-ah’s body scent. Moreover, he had finished his contract with Chairman Kang Jun-il at the end of last month with his retirement, and had even been newly hired as my subcontractor.

“…No. I don’t need you, just go home right now.”

The problem was me.

“Yes? CEO?”

I couldn’t bear the fact that any Alpha other than me existed next to Kang Hae-ah, who was in heat.

“Get out of the car. Please, right now.”

Perhaps sensing the rising irritation, Driver Oh quickly left the driver’s seat. When I almost pushed him out, my instincts took precedence over my reason, and monopolizing Hae-ah was my priority, putting aside any feelings of guilt.

Still, I should have been patient. I never dreamed that Hae-ah would be so strong and stubborn. It was my fault that I mistakenly thought it would be easy to subdue him and give him medicine.

To pay for that sin, I had to meet Hae-ah, who had become a zombie, lying motionless on the bed.

“Ughh….”

He buried his face in my neck, letting out a feverish groan. The sensation of his front teeth and tongue gently biting and licking my sternocleidomastoid muscle was painful and soft at every moment, tearing at my soul. His chest, touching my ribcage, was throbbing, and his reddened, excited penis was dripping with precum. My mind was hazy from the overflowing body scent and pheromones. The skin that touched him felt hot to the point of being stinging. His panting breath was so sweet that it was difficult to even inhale.

Above all,

“Hng, ugh… please… Tae-rim-ssi… do it for me, hng?”

Knowing that it was an unconscious sound, it was difficult for my conscience to ignore that temptation.

‘Easy to subdue, my ass.’

Far from subduing Kang Hae-ah, I was completely subdued by him. How could I ever win against Hae-ah? It was difficult to even push him away once when he was crying and rushing at me.

On his stomach, which hadn’t even been two weeks since the bandages were removed, there was a terrible bruise that looked like blood would flow out if touched even slightly. I turned my head away from the dark, bluish, rotten peach-colored bruise.

My teeth clenched involuntarily.

“Let’s do it….”

Hae-ah moved his upper body, making a sobbing sound. His waist, swaying slowly back and forth, was subtly flexible. His hands, obsessively caressing my chest, and his languid, affectionate eyes all shook me.

While rubbing his buttocks against my already erect penis,

“Do it… just once.”

He said in a slurred voice.

I frowned and smiled, my forehead flushed. To be honest, it was a living hell. I wanted to hold him in my arms right away, as he wished. I wanted to kiss his buttocks, which were wet with anticipation of the approaching Alpha, grab and spread his anus, and shove mine in.

But there was only one thing that bothered me. What an Omega in heat cycle wants is inevitably knotting… and the fact that I am a Dominant Alpha was a problem for the first time in my life.

In the dictionary, ‘knotting’ is defined as ‘a sexual bonding act in which an Alpha’s penis changes to increase the chances of pregnancy in the partner during ejaculation,’ but in vulgar terms, it means ‘the dick gets bigger when you cum inside.’

The reason why many Beta men envy or are jealous of Alphas is also because of knotting. I’ve never heard of a woman being obsessed with her breast size, but there are countless men who are obsessed with their dick size. To be honest, there isn’t a man on earth who hasn’t measured his penis with a ruler. Both before and after erection.

But ‘Alphas get bigger when they knot than when they’re erect,’ ‘they feel ten times the usual sexual sensation when knotting,’ so it’s bound to be a fantasy for guys with dicks.

Naturally, most Alphas liked knotting. How else would they sing that it’s ‘the only drug allowed by the country’? There were also some who engaged in forced knotting solely for sexual pleasure.

…It hasn’t even been ten years since it became a ‘narcotic restricted by the country’ due to that. Knotting without the other person’s permission is now illegal.

All of that had been irrelevant to me until now. Because I was a Dominant Alpha, and among them, one classified as extremely Dominant.

The moment a Dominant Alpha knots, forced imprinting on the Omega is a natural consequence. There are even false rumors that it can cause Betas to awaken as Omegas, and if you’re not careful, you could kill them from overexertion during sex. Well… from the Omega’s perspective, since they’re being crushed to death, should it be called ‘crush-exertion’?

The Dominant Alpha’s genitals didn’t just ‘get a little bigger than usual’ during knotting. They swelled to twice their normal size and wouldn’t come out of the other person’s genitals until the excitement subsided after ejaculation.

The knotting experiences with Dominant Alphas that circulated in the world were all messed up. There were occasional cases where the Alpha’s excitement wouldn’t subside, so they were taken to the hospital still inserted, and it was common for Omegas to get hurt and bleed while trying to escape.

“Tae-rim-ssi….”

Raising both hands, I wrapped them around Hae-ah’s panting waist. Then Hae-ah smiled. He seemed to be mistaken, thinking I was hugging him.

I raised my hand and covered his navel. Then I estimated with my eyes, if I inserted it like this, how much my flesh would swell his belly….

‘…This won’t do.’

Hae-ah had been hospitalized until two weeks ago and wasn’t even in his right mind right now. I didn’t have the confidence to knot him without making him cry, get hurt, or feel pain. I didn’t have the confidence to just skip the knotting and have light sex either.

Whether he knew my conflict or not, Hae-ah made a pleasant sound. His excited breathing sounded like ‘hng’, ‘hng’, like air leaking. The white hand that had been holding the tip of a brush touched my waist. It slowly rubbed the outline of the muscles above my ribs, slowly flowed down to below my stomach, and then grabbed my genitals.

“…….”

Only then was the mystery of the morning solved. The morning when he was sitting between my legs, his face flushed with a milky liquid all over him, the truth of that time was laid out before my eyes.

The sound of swallowing hot saliva was gulp… so loud it was almost frivolous.

Hae-ah very slowly crawled down between my knees. I thought he might be a little sane since he was saying ‘Tae-rim-ssi’, but it seemed not. If he were in his right mind, the Kang Hae-ah I knew wouldn’t voluntarily open his lips and bury his face in my thigh.

With my upper body half-raised, I watched him. I had to stop him and pull him away so I wouldn’t regret it later, but that was easier said than done… my morality was just awful. I could never be the kind of person who would stop Kang Hae-ah, who was sticking out his tongue with an excited face.

As soon as it entered his small, warm mouth, the heavy flesh immediately hardened.

“Eueueum….”

I didn’t know why he was moaning when I was the one getting my dick sucked.

“Hoo….”

I took a long breath and frowned. The sensation of his tongue licking my glans made my spine stand on end, and even the breath that escaped from his nose made me flinch.

Hae-ah made me feel good, yet stupid. The more my senses were focused on my throbbing, veined cock, the more I felt my intelligence dropping. With the tip of my cock full in his mouth, the face sucking so hard that dimples formed felt like a mirage. The tingling sensation was real, but the sight before me made me feel dazed.

“Hae-ah.”

“Eum, uh….”

The muscles in my waist twitched as if convulsing.

“Haa…, Hae-ah.”

He meticulously licked and sucked my thing, which was throbbing and veined like a monster. When his lips, which had been uttering only pleasant words, rounded and made a ‘pop’ sound, I felt like I was being devoured by him.

His lips, which had swollen slightly for a moment, fell away wet with precum. As he gasped and exhaled the breath he had been holding back, Hae-ah leaned his cheek against my erect thing. His few cheekbones were pressed against the dark red cock with bulging veins. I just stared at Hae-ah’s face, which looked almost ecstatic. When he openly sniffed my body scent and licked the flowing liquid, he was not the Kang Hae-ah I knew.

Soon he climbed back onto my knees. His movements, slow as if he were on drugs, were full of feverish excitement. As he sat down on my cock, which was erect to the point of pain, I had to grit my teeth. The pleasant pressure from the heavy weight and firm skin made it hard to breathe.

I held my hot breath and exhaled, and Hae-ah, with his mouth blankly open, looked up. When I tried to smile, he also raised the corners of his lips, following me.

I grabbed his wet thing.

“Ah!”

The returning reaction was violent and quick. Stretching out his waist and panting, he voluntarily moved his body. The genitals covered by my palm moved back and forth, craving stimulation.

As he wanted, I moved my hand. After touching his genitals, which were covered in wet liquid, for a long time, he trembled his thighs at the end of a hot moan.

But he couldn’t reach climax. He just slumped back down on my stomach, letting out a long, sorrowful breath.

‘Recessive….’

Not being able to ejaculate without an Alpha’s insertion was a common heat cycle symptom shown by recessive Omegas. Not understanding his condition, Hae-ah let out a cry. He must be so excited that it’s hard, but it was even pitiful to see him whining because he couldn’t ejaculate.

Not knowing the cause of the pain, he grabbed my hand and begged me to touch his chest, his stomach, and his lower body. Swallowing dry saliva, I stroked his thing. Only clear precum was dripping from the tip of his genitals, which were flushed pink.

“Euek, eueut….”

Still, he only let out moans of pain, and I couldn’t relieve his fever with caresses. However, I could find the timing to find and feed him medicine so that he could relax.

“It’s okay, Hae-ah.”

Whispering soothingly, I grabbed his thing with one hand. Every time I repeated squeezing and releasing,

“Euek! …Eueut, heueue….”

I could hear moans that sounded like groans.

With my remaining hand, I slowly touched Hae-ah’s waist. I slowly moved my hand to his thigh, rounded the end of his knee, and then grabbed his shoulder and pushed him back.

Hae-ah had a bewildered face as he flopped down on the bed. With his chest moving roughly up and down, he blinked his eyes with his stomach exposed. Under his spread thighs, his white buttocks, wet with bodily fluids, were visible.

“…….”

Because of that, I was distracted and had to admire it for a while, forgetting the medicine I was trying to find.

“…You’ll be okay soon.”

When I bent down and kissed him softly, he licked my lips slightly. The small movement set my chest on fire. Eyes full of unfocused excitement contained me, and his precious and beautiful body wanted me. Slowly, between his knees that were spreading to the left and right, I slowly took my place.

“Eueung, quickly….”

As if trying to urge me on, Hae-ah wiggled his waist while lying down.

I found it cute that he was voluntarily doing something he wouldn’t normally do even if a gun was pointed at his head. I realized that this is what happens when you strip naked and lose your mind.

“Yes, yes… good boy. Good boy.”

I touched his soft hair and rubbed my lips against his parted lips as if crushing them. Hae-ah blinked his eyes rapidly, like someone trying to enjoy the small sensations. After kissing his quiet cheek with a ‘pop’ sound, I reached for the side table.

Stabilizers vary greatly in composition depending on whether they are for Alphas or Omegas, but suppressants, fortunately, can be taken together. If it’s a medicine that works for me, even if I only administer half of it to Hae-ah, it should be effective.

But the moment I leisurely took out the injection bag,

“Euek.”

A rough fist hit my cheek. More than the pain of being hit in the cheek, I was more surprised that Kang Hae-ah had hit me. The suppressant-filled injection rolled to the floor, and Hae-ah’s face, stained with fever, was visible. He had an angry expression as if he had been betrayed.

“Heok, heok….”

Unable to contain his anger, he rushed at my shoulder. And bit hard on my chest.

“Ack….”

Screaming, I almost jumped. I reached out to push him down, but moaned at the second bite in the same spot. A deep bite mark remained on the muscles of my chest. Hae-ah licked and sucked that mark. His two legs were wrapped tightly around my waist like a koala.

As he put his weight on me and crushed me, my body naturally fell backward. I hit the back of my head on the headboard and was laid flat, and Hae-ah’s two arms pressed down on my shoulders. He didn’t say anything anymore. He didn’t seem to have the mental capacity to form sentences.

After several attempts to forcibly pull away Hae-ah, who was panting and rushing at me, I collided with his movements as he climbed on me, trying not to fall off my body no matter what. My back and forearms were scratched by his fingernails, and Hae-ah’s face, who didn’t understand why the imprinted Alpha was rejecting him, was covered in tears.

“Heuk, euek….”

I wrapped my hands around the back of his head as he sobbed and hugged me. As he dug into my arms, he cried sadly. While breathing roughly and hugging him,

‘What the hell… is this?’

I was so exhausted that I was dazed.

“Hae-ah, just… the medicine… first.”

Hae-ah’s weight, riding on my mumbling body, was heavy. He put his forehead on my forehead, his nose on my nose, and he twitched his breath.

“Cheon Tae-rim….”

The small muttering sound,

“I like….”

Took away my energy without any effort.

“I like you.”

Finally, soft lips covered my mouth. The moment I inhaled in surprise, a sweet body scent filled my lungs, and Hae-ah adjusted his posture and hugged me. He grabbed my erect thing and forcibly put it against his back, pushing it in from the end as if pressing it down.

“Heok, euek….”

My eyes closed and my lips parted on their own. From the glans to half the shaft, the sensation of hot, narrow muscles writhing was electrifying and took over my head.

“Ah, ah….”

Letting out small moans, Hae-ah slowly sank down. The tight stimulation made my cock feel like it was about to break. The gushing body scent made it hard to breathe, and I felt like my throat and lower body were being constricted at the same time.

“Eu, eueung…, heueung….”

Hae-ah’s movements, moving slowly up and down, were terribly clumsy. Compared to my tightly swollen thing, his hips were small, and far from inserting the entire cock, he was too tired from the long excitement to move properly. After wiggling his waist a couple of times,

“Heuk….”

He strained the muscles in his neck and began to ejaculate torrentially.

I stared blankly at him as he shot white semen all over my stomach and chest. It was a ridiculously short and clumsy rape, but strangely, that point excited me. This time, I was the one who wanted to bury my face in someone else’s genitals.

“…You started it first.”

As I suddenly raised my upper body, Hae-ah’s body fell backward. His dry back touched the sheet and his two feet floated in the air. Even in the midst of all this, my thing, which I had shoved into his narrow hole, didn’t come out and instead went in deeper.

Huk, huk… Exhaling hot breath, he grabbed and crumpled the sheet. He kicked his feet here and there, but it was a meaningless resistance.

“Heuk, heueuk…, eueut….”

Soon, Hae-ah wiggled his muscles and wiggled his waist. I stared at the sight of his dry stomach moving up and down, then I hugged him and started moving as if throwing my body. Because the bodily fluids had dried ambiguously, there was a squelching sound from the sticky joint.

“Eu, euek…, eung… ah, ah!”

A screaming moan echoed in my ears. He scratched my back and shoulders, and I hugged him so tightly that I felt like I was crushing him.

“At, ah, heuk…, ah, …ah!”

“Heok…, heok, Hae-ah…ya.”

Curses flowed out of my teeth on their own. It was good, maddeningly… I wanted to ejaculate and knot inside him. I wanted to swell his genitals until his tender belly burst and make him mine so that he couldn’t live without me. I felt like it would be okay to kill him then, because then he would remain my Omega forever.

“This, this fucking….”

I clenched my teeth so hard that my molars hurt. The barely held-on sanity cursed myself, saying, ‘You crazy bastard’.

“What, the hell….”

Exhaling hot breath, I bumped my forehead against Hae-ah’s shoulder. Hae-ah, who had been suddenly headbutted, gaped blankly. He was innocent, but I was like a monster.

Every muscle in my body writhed between impulse and reason.

‘No.’

No, no. It can’t be.

Knotting was absolutely out of the question. To Hae-ah, who was not in his right mind and in poor physical condition…

‘I can’t hurt him.’

I couldn’t do that. It was said that the nature of the relationship instinctively changes after knotting, and that was also an unwelcome thing.

‘…How hard I worked to win his heart.’

I wish I could just imprint instead. Such a desire suddenly sprang up. If we had imprinted on each other, Hae-ah wouldn’t have been so desperate even if his heat cycle had come. He was trembling with anxiety, and I was the cause of it all. I was the damn Dominant Alpha who easily imprinted on an Omega and then pretended not to know.

In my heart, I desperately wanted to imprint on Hae-ah too. Just as he had mortgaged his life to me after just one relationship… I wanted to be easily tied to Kang Hae-ah too. I wanted to be Kang Hae-ah’s Alpha, and I wanted Kang Hae-ah to be my only Omega for the rest of my life. I wanted him so much, I liked him so much that it made me cry, and no matter how different our traits were, I was resentful that my damn soul wouldn’t be tied to him.

Hot breath, like someone who had finished running, escaped out of my nose with a ‘hoo-uk’, ‘hoo-uk’. Hae-ah was even trying to inhale the breath I exhaled, like a dog looking for drugs. As I forcibly tried to pull out the genitals I had shoved into his back, Hae-ah’s two legs wrapped around my waist.

“…….”

A silent battle began again. When I grabbed his knees and released them, Hae-ah hugged my chest again, spraying scent and moaning. The narrow muscles in his back seemed to be chewing and swallowing my thing. My reason was on the verge of snapping due to the tingling excitement.

“No…, no way.”

I fought back while panting roughly. The physical fight was practically a one-sided assault. When I forcibly pulled my body away before the throbbing male got bigger, Hae-ah hit, pinched, and scratched me to death. When I was exhausted and fell off the bed, he climbed on my stomach, and when I managed to push him away and lay him down, he stuck his flesh to my body.

“Hae-ah, stop…!”

When he hit my shoulders and face indiscriminately with a thudding sound, I even thought he was crazy, but the gesture of digging into my arms was warm and soft. When he put his forehead on the center of my chest and whined, even the scent from his hair felt good. I wanted to put him in my mouth and swallow him whole.

“Hae-ah.”

“Eueung….”

“Hae-ah….”

“Uh.”

When I quietly stroked his head, he leaned on me like a puppy.

“…….”

Giving up on suppressing him with force, I used a trick. I brought my lips to his lovely lips, which had become quiet, and rubbed them, waiting for his unguarded lips to open.

“Heueung….”

As Hae-ah moaned pleasantly and opened his mouth, I put my finger in his teeth. As I covered him as if riding him, a resentful sound flowed out from under my body. The hand that was slapping my cheek was fierce.

Ignoring him hitting me and biting my finger with a clanging sound, I reached out my remaining hand and rummaged through the drawer again. I had already given up on giving him an injection, but I thought I could feed him a liquid medicine. When I twisted the lid open with my teeth and showed him the brown medicine bottle, Hae-ah started crying.

“I don’t like it, I don’t like it….”

“…….”

“No… don’t do that…. I don’t like it….”

‘Ah, I’m really going crazy.’

Seeing his sobbing face, I felt like a villain again.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry…. I know you don’t like it.”

“I don’t like it….”

Words of appeasement also came out on their own.

“But let’s just take one bite…, just one sip, huh?”

I struggled to suppress him as he thrashed, but I lost strength and missed him several times. Hae-ah struggled with all his might, and I couldn’t bring myself to suppress him strongly.

Eventually, the muscles in both arms became painfully taut and even my breath became rough. With his two legs wrapped tightly around my waist, Hae-ah was pressed down on the sheet. He breathed resentfully, and hot tears dripped down.

His tear-stained face looked infinitely sad. I pressed down on his chest with one hand and directed the hand holding the medicine bottle to his cheek. I was just trying to feed him some medicine, but Hae-ah twitched his eyes and closed them tightly. His sobbing lips closed and a walnut pattern formed on his chin.

“I, I’m… sor, sorry….”

He slurred his words relatively clearly.

“I, I really… di, didn’t know…, do, don’t hit me…. Do, don’t be angry….”

A frantic, pleading voice echoed. In an instant, strength drained from my hand, and my whole body went limp.

I had always thought that Kang Il-hae was the reason for Hae-ah’s behavior, which I had found difficult to understand. I thought he acted strangely because of the memories of being beaten while growing up. Avoiding my touch, averting his gaze, and occasionally,

“Don’t hit me….”

I thought Kang Il-hae was the cause of all the frantic pleas.

But…

“Tae-rim-ssi….”

Why are you calling my name?

Confused, I stopped, and his hands suddenly gripped my cheeks like claws. He squeezed and pulled at them as if to tear my ears off, then bit my lips hard. The sharp pain jolted me awake. Instinctively, my fists clenched tightly.

“Ugh…!”

He released my lips, which he had been chewing on, and then began to lick and suck at my cheeks. It was as if he was pouring the kisses that had only stayed inside my mouth onto my cheeks, my chin, and all over my body. I felt like I was being devoured, and my skin flushed. Hae-ah, panting, sank his teeth into my shoulder.

“Stop….”

I grabbed the back of Hae-ah’s head, who was biting as if he would tear off a chunk of my shoulder, and pressed down. Instead of pushing him away, I pressed him closer, as if telling him to bite harder. He opened his mouth and began to lick the wound on my shoulder.

I grabbed Hae-ah’s neck, like a beast in rut, with one hand. I pressed him down onto the sheet, and hot sweat flowed all over my body. As soon as I swung my hand with force, he fell too easily.

“Cough….”

Hae-ah coughed roughly and twisted his body. Hae-ah was the one being pinned down, but I was the one trembling as I gripped his neck.

‘Why… is he so weak?’

I was afraid. It was okay if he hit me, scratched me, bit me, and beat me to a pulp, but I was scared that he would get hurt by my touch. It was terrifying to think that he was being dominated too easily by me and that he might die at any moment.

“I’m sorry.”

Sweating profusely from fear, I forced strength into my hand.

“I’m sorry…, Hae-ah. I’m really sorry.”

“Sniff…, sob….”

“Please don’t cry. It’s not that I hate you.”

I grabbed his chin and forced it open, his tear-streaked cheeks pressed in and his lips opening so easily it was almost pathetic. I poured the pink suppressant into his mouth as he sobbed and coughed.

I closed his mouth and covered it with my palm.

“Please…. Just swallow one mouthful.”

Hae-ah struggled again, saying he didn’t want to. Forcibly injecting suppressants, whether it was into an Alpha in rut or an Omega in heat cycle, was literally a grueling task.

“Hae-ah, please… I’m begging you….”

I endured, getting hit in the jaw, shoulder, and ear by his fists, which he swung with all his might.

“Swallow.”

Hae-ah strangled my neck for what felt like seconds or minutes. Even as the veins on my forehead bulged and my Adam’s apple was pressed tightly, I held my breath and endured. Exhausted, he soon collapsed.

Just as I thought he was only exhaling hot air onto my wrist, his furrowed eyebrows slowly smoothed out. His brown eyes widened. He seemed to stop crying and stare blankly at me, then started crying again and pushing me away.

It sounded like he called my name, ‘Tae-rim-ssi…,’ with a muffled pronunciation under my palm. I quickly removed my hand, and he almost immediately crawled out of bed and rolled onto the floor.

Startled, I almost screamed. After hitting the floor with a thud, Hae-ah groaned, clutching his bruised stomach.

Then,

“Why….”

He started to cry. Reason was finally reflected in his bewildered eyes. Hae-ah’s terrified expression tore at my heart. I was bewildered and sweating.

“Hae-ah, it’s not like that.”

I quickly got out of bed and followed him. He was in shock as he frantically checked his half-erect penis and his naked body.

“Why, why… why me….”

Hae-ah backed away from me, crawling backward. I was dumbfounded and frustrated by his appearance as he crawled back until the back of his head touched the bedroom wall.

“No…, it’s not like that!”

I had never been so frustrated in my life. Almost reflexively,

“It wasn’t me, Hae-ah…!”

As soon as I shouted that, my face flushed with heat.

After a short silence,

“Sniff…, did I do that?”

Hae-ah retreated into the corner, sobbing. The lust zombie from before was nowhere to be seen as he huddled naked in the corner of the bedroom, covering his mouth and saying, ‘What do I do?’ He seriously scanned my whole body with shocked eyes, but I was sorry, I found him cute.

“What do I do….”

Yeah, what do we do…. What do I do, he’s so cute?

Even after being bitten, torn, and scratched all over my hair and arms, I still found him cute, so I was seriously ill.

“It’s okay.”

I bent down and cupped his face in both hands. His cheeks, which fit perfectly in my palms, were warm and soft.

“Don’t misunderstand, it’s because I was worried you’d get hurt. Don’t blame yourself, it’s because of the heat cycle. I’m not hurt.”

As I quietly comforted him, Hae-ah placed his hands on top of mine. Even though he was a head taller than me and his build could change weight classes if he were an athlete, his eyes, filled with guilt for hitting me a little, were so innocent.

As I quietly opened my arms, Hae-ah fit perfectly into my embrace. He was touching the shoulder that he had scratched so badly and sobbing again, and I felt ticklish inside. How could I not find him cute, as he whispered endlessly that he was sorry and hugged me?

Anyway, Kang Hae-ah had a knack for making me a weirdo. He had a knack for grabbing the axis of my body and shaking me around like a mobile, driving me crazy….

“I’m sorry for hitting you.”

Because of that, I failed to notice one obvious fact. Even as I felt his body temperature, which still seemed to be boiling, and smelled the sweet pheromone flowing out, I didn’t realize that I had been deceived.

“Hae-ah. …You didn’t swallow the pill?”

I didn’t know that the suppressant had only touched his tongue a little and that he had spat it all out without me knowing,

“What pill?”

I also didn’t know that if he deliberately released pheromones, he would no longer be cute.

“Hae-ah, hey….”

The moment I was helplessly pushed onto the bed, I was the one who had been collared.

I didn’t know how many times I had been pinned under his butt as he climbed on top of me. His clear eyes were a little more awake than before. That’s why it was even harder to refuse. I was worried that if I threw him off and subdued him at this moment, ‘Cheon Tae-rim’ would be imprinted on Kang Hae-ah’s mind in that form.

It felt like I was playing a terrible game where the bosses got harder and harder, but every round, the boss was Kang Hae-ah.

He sucked on my lips and groped my chest, and the area under my back became soaked. As if the stimulation I had received was not disappearing but accumulating, now even small gestures made blood rush to my penis. To be honest, my dick was about to explode. Still, I tried to push him away.

But Hae-ah knew me too well. Even weaknesses that I didn’t know….

As soon as my hand touched the area around his stomach,

“Ugh….”

He frowned and shrugged his shoulders.

As soon as I saw that reaction, I lost my strength. My hand, which I had taken away in surprise and embarrassment, was soon pinned under his palms. My whole body became a tool to arouse him. Hae-ah sat on top of my hard, erect penis and rubbed his body against it again.

I belatedly realized that his pained expression was an act. But I wasn’t sure. Every time I tried to shake him off,

“It hurts.”

Every time I tried to grab him to take him off my body,

“It hurts…, Tae-rim-ssi.”

Kang Hae-ah subdued me with a single word.

But more than the act of forcibly pressing his body against mine and having sex, more than the innocent eyes that made me wonder who was raping whom,

“Hold me….”

The small whisper, as if it would disappear if I blew on it, drove me crazy.

“You don’t have to hold back…, you can knot, please… I want to. Please do it…, huh?”

I can never beat Kang Hae-ah.

When my heart turns red and my ears go numb at his whisper….

“I love you….”

A strange sensation instantly surged from the tips of my toes to the top of my head. I was consumed by a feeling that was too noble to be called pleasure and too pitiful to be called joy.

“I, really… love you.”

The light bulb in my head shattered,

“I love you….”

I abandoned myself to instinct. The moment I overturned the moral standards that I had been upholding, I felt an unbelievably great sense of liberation. I rushed at him so fiercely that Hae-ah was surprised and backed away. I immediately pinned him down on the bed, sucking on his ear and biting his neck. When I sank my teeth into his tender flesh, he let out a moan that sounded like crying.

As I shoved my penis deep inside him, my whole body trembled with the sound of my heartbeat. Hae-ah’s body, which was wriggling and tightening around my hole, felt more familiar than my own body. I could feel my penis wriggling and growing under his skin. At that moment, I couldn’t tell if what was moving me was affection for him or greed.

My body was no longer mine. I had even forgotten how to use my arms and legs. My legs were a ladder to climb onto Hae-ah’s body, and my arms were ropes to tie him down so he couldn’t escape. I bound him by putting my weight on him and pressing down.

Without any foreplay to ease his mood, I just shoved my penis in and pressed down with my whole body, and Hae-ah let out a pained groan.

“Ah…!”

I was blinded by excitement the moment I penetrated him deeper than ever before. Even as he cried out in pain, unable to move, I didn’t let him go, but instead released pheromones.

“Huh, huh….”

But I couldn’t find the reason why I was pressing down on Hae-ah, who was stained with lust, in him. Hae-ah didn’t resist as my penis wriggled and swelled, widening his hole and pushing up his organs.

“Ah, ah….”

Even as he cried and shed tears and even leaked water from his penis, Hae-ah didn’t run away. The moment I was surprised to feel his lower abdomen, covered by my palm, bulge out, he instead lifted his hips so that his skin would touch my body even more.

At that moment, his complete trust seemed to stop my time. Shocked, I shuddered. Hae-ah, who had begged me not to hit him and cried that it hurt, trusted me…. Even though I felt like his body would break if I just pressed down hard, even though I didn’t trust myself, Hae-ah trusted me even in his madness.

The moment I felt every trembling breath and muscle spasm of his as if they were my own, Hae-ah smiled. His forehead and cheeks were red and tears were streaming down his cheeks, but he smiled.

“Tae-rim-ssi….”

I collapsed at his sobbing voice.

“I love you.”

I brought my lips to his cheek and said that. I wasn’t ready to confess yet, but my tongue recklessly spat out a confession that was hard to bear.

“I love you, Hae-ah.”

For some reason, tears came to my eyes. At the moment when my head should have been spinning with pleasure and I should have become a beast of lust, my mind was instead washed with cold water and my vision became even clearer.

“I’ve always…, liked you.”

I hugged Kang Hae-ah, who was standing alone and clearly in a blurry world, and even as I planted my seed inside him, my thirst didn’t stop at all. Rather, I wanted him even more. I wanted him to devour me and take out my heart and chew it.

“I’m sorry….”

Then I apologized.

Repeatedly,

“I’m sorry. Forgive me.”

I repeated words for no reason.

“I’m sorry, Hae-ah. It was my fault. I’m sorry….”

Hae-ah didn’t cry at the moment I said ‘I’m sorry.’ Rather, he nodded as if he understood my words. With his cheek pressed against the sheet and only his hips lifted to touch my body,

“It’s okay.”

He gave me a terribly familiar answer.

“It’s okay…, ugh, yeah…. It’s okay, Tae-rim-ssi. It’s okay….”

Hae-ah forgave me for worrying about the bestial, violent knotting. Even in the most animalistic moment, when our sweat-soaked skin was sticking together and my deeply thrusting penis was swelling his lower abdomen, Hae-ah comforted me.

When I covered Hae-ah’s back and lowered my head because I could hear him whispering something,

“It’s all… okay…. It’s not Tae-rim-ssi’s fault….”

He defended me, trembling his thighs.

His panting voice stopped the moment my body completely covered him like a roof. Unable to make a sound, as if he was suffocating, Hae-ah squeezed all the water out of his body. The bed mattress became wet and damp as he trembled all over like a person electrocuted and pushed the sheet back, back, and crumpled it with his bent toes.

“Ah…ugh, ah….”

Hae-ah arched his upper body and then lifted his chin, collapsing from the surging pleasure.

“Ugh, ugh… sniff, sob, ah, ah….”

I hugged his shoulders and put my palm on his swollen lower abdomen, panting heavily. The pleasure filling my head was strangely bizarre.

The moment of knotting, which I was experiencing for the first time, was fucking awful. It was as if I had soaked every emotion in sweat and plastered it all over my mind. I didn’t want to be sad, I didn’t want to think about it, I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to, my muscles were twitching, but I was determined to be sad. Sad, angry, frustrated, sorry… I felt guilty.

“Sniff….”

Tears streaming down my face in an unsightly manner, I shoved Hae-ah into my arms. With my penis still inside Hae-ah’s warm body, which had already fainted and was limply stretched out, I cried like a madman and ejaculated. It was a long, long ejaculation that felt more like urination than ejaculation. After ejaculating, my penis shrank, but Hae-ah’s stomach was even more swollen.

“Why… you.”

I cried, shedding tears. They say a man cries three times in his life. That was all wrong. As I hugged Hae-ah, who was asleep in my arms, I cried like a reborn person, I cried like a child who had lost a parent, and I cried like a man who had lost everything in the world.

Hae-ah didn’t die even after knotting. That alone was a very fortunate thing.

If anyone heard these thoughts, they might laugh and say that I was too confident in myself, but at the time, I really thought I would kill him. I was afraid that my ‘I’m sorry’ would be the last thing I said to him, and that’s how I felt when I saw Hae-ah’s face trembling and crying, mad with pleasure, after he fainted and woke up.

…Now that I think about it, Hae-ah might have just been crying along with me, not because of the pleasure.

I realized later that knotting and internal ejaculation were things I shouldn’t have done when I thought of him taking birth control pills.

But when I breathed in the bluish dawn air and saw Hae-ah clinging to my body,

‘What can I do.’

That shameless thought came to my mind.

‘What am I supposed to do, I like him so much….’

Hae-ah twitched his nose as I exhaled. I scrutinized the face of the person who was asleep as if he had fainted. The eyelashes of his unconsciously closed eyes were dense, and his nose was not very high, but its shape was so pretty that it looked like a sculpture. His lips were pouting like a bird’s beak.

‘He always does this when he sleeps.’

His slightly parted teeth and the pointed upper lip made me smile. I quietly laughed to myself and brought the tip of my index finger to his philtrum, and his parted lips closed tightly and a sleepy grumble flowed out.

“Hae-ah.”

“Ugh….”

“Are you asleep?”

“Yeah….”

The conversations over the next few days were like that. For several days until the heat cycle passed, Hae-ah was drunk on sleep or lust, and I followed him.

‘Everything would be perfect if I could just imprint on you….’

The only desire I had was that. Now that I had knotted, I thought that One-sided Imprinting would naturally become mutual, but my affection for him was as sincere as it could be, both physically and mentally, but I still couldn’t completely bind myself to Hae-ah.

I wanted him to be bound to me and to easily give me even the deep instinct called the soul, just as he had done. I wanted to put more sincerity into my whispers of love, completely end the anxieties caused by me, and remain his Omega and he remain my Alpha.

‘Why isn’t it working?’

I was bewildered as I observed Hae-ah’s lovely face one by one, and I was a little frustrated. I was even suspicious that there might be something wrong with my body, or that I might have some kind of rejection reaction to the act of imprinting that I didn’t know about.

But I was the only one who was questioning my imprinting. In the first place, Hae-ah didn’t even seem to expect mutual imprinting. I didn’t know if I should be relieved or disappointed by that fact.

Hae-ah seemed happy just by the fact that knotting had occurred. In that sense, I was also happy.

You, in your purity, wouldn’t know—how I am constantly saved by you, who always forgives without dwelling on my shortcomings.

After the knotting, Hae-ah and my relationship did change as much as I had worried, but not in the direction I had feared.

The feeling of regarding someone else existing outside my skin as if they were my own flesh was extremely unfamiliar. However, the strange sensation, though new, wasn’t unpleasant. The new stimulation brought me to where I was supposed to be.

‘This is my place.’

Holding Kang Hae-ah in my arms, or burrowing into his embrace, I felt that for the first time in my life. It was enough to make the past days of living in the same house, lying in the same bed, and eating together seem insignificant.

‘He’s my person….’

That pathetic feeling was so good.

‘He’s my Omega.’

Holding Hae-ah countless times and planting my seed inside him countless times, I just felt good. The days when I didn’t respond to any contact from the outside and no guests came looking for me couldn’t have felt more complete.

I was fine even though I barely ate, slept, or drank. Just looking at Hae-ah stretching his body over mine and hearing his colorful breaths, I didn’t feel hunger, fatigue, or even thirst.

“What if I get pregnant?”

It was Hae-ah himself, who had brought me that complete happiness, who poked a small hole in it.

I blinked at the voice that came out of nowhere. With his chin propped on the center of my chest, Hae-ah had sleepy eyes.

“I’m not confident I can raise a baby well, I’m….”

His mumbling voice was small. I wasn’t very surprised, as I had grown used to his sleep talking over the past few days.

Yesterday, Hae-ah had asked, ‘What happens if the imprinted partner knots with someone else?’ His voice, whispering in his sleep, was very pleasant to hear. When I told him that the imprinting would be broken in such cases, he smiled like a satisfied person and drifted off to dreamland.

‘What kind of dream is he having today to say something like this?’

While running my hand through his disheveled hair, I rubbed his round forehead with my thumb.

“Um, haven’t you ever… thought about it? Other people… think about children first when they get married.”

When he asked in such a small voice, my heart fluttered for some reason.

If I had to choose, I was a typical Alpha who secretly wanted children. Since elementary school, when asked to ‘draw your future self,’ I would draw a house with a crooked triangular roof, a spouse, and two children with clumsy skill. If that spouse was Kang Hae-ah and the children resembled him… I felt like I could even create a soccer team.

“I don’t,”

Hae-ah said abruptly, as if he had read my mind.

His rejection wasn’t surprising. Just thinking about the birth control pills piled up beyond the bathroom mirror cabinet made it obvious. Because I vaguely knew his tendencies, I hadn’t bothered to discuss family planning.

“What are you so afraid of?”

Still, I was curious about the reason.

If he was afraid of pregnancy because he had lived his whole life thinking as a Beta, that could be the case. Even if he recovered to the best of his ability, he couldn’t return to his health before childbirth, so if he didn’t want such a penalty, that was also a matter that deserved respect.

Hae-ah’s mouth slowly opened, then hesitated and closed again. Whatever story was about to come out of his mouth, I was confident that I wouldn’t be surprised.

“Mother’s death anniversary… isn’t my birthday.”

But Kang Hae-ah always had the knack for manipulating me at will.

“…Actually, it’s a week later, but I lied, Chairman….”

I had to be surprised twice. The story he told was incomprehensible and strange in itself, but his subconsciousness of calling the person he had always referred to familiarly as ‘Father,’ ‘Chairman’ was even stranger.

“Mother… didn’t die giving birth to me. She died a week after giving birth to me… because of depression, they said.”

I thought that a sense of eeriness and pity could be felt at the same time. The inhuman family history, difficult to understand, was eerie, and Hae-ah, who called the healthy Father ‘Chairman’ but called the Mother he had never even met ‘Mother,’ was pitiful.

“I… resemble… Mother.”

After quietly closing his mouth, Hae-ah leaned his cheek on my heart. His hands slowly reached out, found my long arms, and settled on my palms. Then, he just let out a long, soft breath. I felt an indescribable sense of liberation from the long sigh.

Hae-ah, I wish you would forget this story… I wished so. If you knew you had confessed sad things to me, would you be ashamed and burst into tears?

“…So if two lines appear on my pregnancy test, it means I have testicular cancer.”

…I wish I could forget these words.

Scars that have been carved into the skin may be forgotten, but they do not disappear. While quietly fading, they lurk beneath the clothes, only to reveal themselves at the most unguarded moment.

For example, the scar on my shin was like that. It was a straight scar about a hand span long that I got in the summer of my twentieth year when I was obsessed with surfing. It started when some Alphas picked a fight with me for exchanging a few words with an Omega I met for the first time on the beach. While trying to avoid the crazy bastards who were chasing me with a boat right behind my surfboard, I crashed into a coral reef, and I got a long cut on my shin, and a red line was drawn on those guys’ lives.

It’s been eight years since then that I’ve been carrying that scar. Now, there was no pain and it wasn’t conspicuously hideous in color. It cleverly overlapped with the lumpy gastrocnemius muscle, so it was hard to tell whether it was a calf tendon or a scar.

Even so, the scar bothered me and ruined my mood whenever I was about to forget about it. It was because the unpleasant atmosphere of that day and the white foam of the salt water that quickly penetrated into the wound were hidden inside the skin.

Scars engraved in memory rather than skin are the same. Regardless of whether they are real or not, they sometimes suddenly come into view.

Even the scars of others are the same, they come crashing in without consideration.

“When Tae-rim-ssi looks at me…, sometimes… you look at me like you’re angry.”

The scar that Hae-ah brought out was like that. It was when we were sitting side by side in the bathtub after a satisfying sex.

Not knowing that it was a scratch mark, I just pondered intently whether I had ever been an angry person in front of him.

The answer was obvious. I had never been angry at Hae-ah.

“…Sometimes you glare,”

I had no memory of glaring at him either,

“And sometimes you’re expressionless.”

There was no time when I was expressionless either.

From the beginning, I wondered if it was even possible to look at Hae-ah without an expression. I only had memories of trying to manage my overly mushy expression.

“It’s okay if you don’t completely fix it, but I’d be happy if you smiled a little more….”

Hae-ah whispered, leaning his shoulder against my bewildered arm.

I shook my head.

“I’ve never done that.”

“…Then I’ll show you the evidence.”

I laughed because he was so cute, speaking like a detective who had made a great decision. Even after taking a spa and wiping our bodies side by side, and taking out a set of fluffy pajamas and sitting in the living room, I was just happy.

As expected, my memory was correct. My appearance in the home video that Hae-ah took out as ‘evidence’ was so beaming that it was somewhat embarrassing. I was a little disappointed that I didn’t manage my facial muscles if I had known I was being filmed with a camcorder.

‘He’s so happy that he got a pretty husband.’

With my chin propped on my fist, I watched the party on the television screen. Rather, it seemed like Hae-ah, not me, was the one who was expressionless. He smiled like an Angel and stood next to me, but his expression vaguely blurred every few seconds.

The back of Hae-ah’s head, sitting in front of the television, was round. I could see his ears slowly turning red as he looked up at the screen without even thinking of coming to the sofa.

“That day was subtly fun. I didn’t know what you were thinking all day. I thought I had married a mysterious man.”

While watching the home video, I tapped the seat next to me on the sofa.

“What are you doing on the floor? Come here and sit down.”

But Hae-ah,

“…….”

Drove me crazy in a new way.

That day, that night, he didn’t say anything until the home video ended. And that silence lasted for a full two days.

The 48 hours created by Kang Hae-ah’s silence and avoidance were hell for me. His face, when he didn’t open his closed mouth and avoided my gaze, looked like a surprised and wounded person. It seemed that the confusion and sadness he felt were transferred to me as well. But there was no explanation, so I couldn’t know the reason. I could only feel my heart plummeting to the bottom of my feet repeatedly.

Hae-ah was holed up in bed and didn’t move. I massaged his shoulders and hands, made meals and offered them, asking if he shouldn’t eat something, tried to put a thermometer in his mouth, and tried to feed him antipyretics. But Hae-ah didn’t show any reaction.

The only meaningful change in expression was that he occasionally opened his mouth and looked at my face.

“Please say something, anything.”

On the day I made the same plea for the thousandth time,

“Tae-rim-ssi….”

Hae-ah let out a choked voice. I was about to forcibly take him to the hospital, wondering if it was a side effect of knotting. Even though he showed a sad look on his heavy face, I was happy that he got out of bed and took my hand.

“Yes, Hae-ah…. Please tell me any story.”

Holding his hands tightly, I kissed his fingers wildly. Because the temperature of his hands was so cold, I put them in my palms and rubbed them vigorously. Hae-ah quietly scanned my face, as if he had opened a book for the first time.

“I can’t… seem to admit it. That Tae-rim-ssi… likes me….”

The words, delivered haltingly and slowly, were difficult to grasp.

“Who.”

When I asked briefly,

“I….”

Hae-ah whispered. Then, he opened his lips and remained silent for a long time. The hesitation was long.

“…I’ve never seen it, Tae-rim-ssi smiling like that…. I wanted you to look at me like that every day… that’s what I thought every night. Will you like me tomorrow…, will you smile at me while looking at me tomorrow, what should I do to please you.”

Forgetting the desperation of wanting him to just let me hear his voice, no matter what he said, I frowned. Could there be a more incomprehensible sentence than this? Kang Hae-ah, who wants me to like him, waits for me to smile, and wants to please me….

I liked him from the beginning. When I saw him, I naturally smiled, and from the moment he walked towards me wearing a pure white tailcoat, I let Kang Hae-ah into my heart.

“This is unfair. Why…, why couldn’t I enjoy that smile?”

That was an unfair story for me too. It felt like all the affection I had poured out had flowed past him.

Hae-ah told me a long story. Sitting like an object on the bed where darkness had fallen, his voice had no tone throughout the long confession.

“A day feels like 4 hours, and sometimes it feels like 2 hours. I used to like that. That time passed quickly… that hard days were cut off in chunks. I could easily think that I only had to endure the burdensome gazes and painful tension for a short time.

I used to… yes, I thought so. That if I loved you… and I was loved too, everything would get better. No, it doesn’t have to be love…. Just one tender kiss, if you gave it to me while looking into my eyes, I could overcome today’s sadness with just that…. It’s already been 6 years since that story.”

My mind went dark at the bizarre confession. The answer ‘It’s okay’ that he often said to me was about to flow through my teeth, but it stopped.

I thought of the things I had to do as a spouse: comforting him that it was okay, reassuring him that I understood him, and scheduling proper hospital counseling…. I had to do that, and I would have done that. If Hae-ah’s words, which could only be described as a disease, weren’t so familiar to my ears.

Familiar…. His words, his expressions, the specific unit of time of 6 years.

“…Even if a day was cut up and pasted together haphazardly, I didn’t think it was strange. I thought it was okay if I just remembered Tae-rim-ssi. Because only Tae-rim-ssi is important. Because only Tae-rim-ssi is important in my world.”

I was the same. Only Hae-ah was important. Ten, a thousand, ten thousand times a day. Only Kang Hae-ah was important in my world. Everything else was just an accessory. The words that came and went, the people, sometimes even my time, everything was just noise, extras, and devices, and if it wasn’t Hae-ah, nothing else mattered.

“But… I want to look at Tae-rim-ssi properly, but I don’t know how. Even now… Tae-rim-ssi would never, never get angry at me… but even now, that’s how it looks. Like you’re resenting me…. Like you hate me…. I… I think I’ve lost myself.”

Hae-ah’s wrist, held in my hands, trembled like an aspen. Tears welled up like waves in his eyes, which were always clear. He swallowed dry saliva repeatedly, and his blue lips twitched. Even so, he didn’t stop looking at my eyes, nose, mouth, and expression.

I finally understood the past two days. Hae-ah had not said anything and had not eaten anything for two days, and had mustered up courage. He must have repeated today’s confession in his mind several times. But I had no answer to give him. The moment I just opened my mouth silently, I felt like I had become an incompetent person.

I just hurt. My head hurt, my heart felt like it was running at my feet, and it felt like my raw flesh was torn apart. Also, I felt like I was going to cry. Unexplained emotions rushed in in a mess.

“I don’t want to do that anymore.”

Rather, Hae-ah was the one who was okay.

“I want to be happy. As much as I want to protect Tae-rim-ssi and make you happy… I want to be happy too. I want to fully feel all the good words Tae-rim-ssi says to me, the smiles you give me.”

He no longer trembled his hands. The eyes that had been blurred with tears also became clear again after shedding two drops.

“I want to feel…. That I’m alive.”

A small vitality returned to the confessing lips.

Soon, I was the only one who was afraid in the darkness. My whole body was just dull like a rock, and I was bewildered because I didn’t know why I wanted to cry, and I was terrified.

“I want to live.”

I laughed without knowing why that word was so deeply moving. Then Hae-ah smiles, smiles so that his cheeks become round following me, and lightly pressed his tearful lips to my lips.

“There’s something I want to show you….”

Soon he took my hand and pulled me. He slowly got up from the bed, and then led the way with legs that seemed to have lost strength in the past two days. As I followed him down the stairs, my heart was full of confusion.

With a face that was even resolute, Hae-ah stood in the studio. The studio, which had not been used once since the declaration to ‘break the brush,’ had a coolness like an empty house. The moment I stood blankly in front of the easel with the canvas lowered, my fingertips turned white because of how much strength was put into the hands we were holding.

“Actually, what if this isn’t the first time?”

Hae-ah asked. I couldn’t find a suitable response to that. I was starting to worry. It was a different kind of worry than before.

“What if… I… what if I’ve lived the same life twice?”

I wondered if Hae-ah was crazy. If that was the case, it would be a big problem. If he was crazy, it meant that I, who was accepting his words as fact, was also crazy.

I felt like I could laugh it off even if he was acting to tease me. I felt like I could easily forgive him even if he had been anxious and worried for two days just to mess with me…. I wished that was the case.

“What if Tae-rim-ssi… knew everything about what you wanted from me, and when and what would happen between us…?”

But Hae-ah was saying something to me that was like sleep talking that I couldn’t understand or accept.

“Hae-ah.”

I cleared my throat so as not to appear to be criticizing him.

“…Why are you thinking like that?”

If he gave reasons such as feeling déjà vu or having a dream, I might have been able to accept it. Because I also felt déjà vu when I saw him from time to time, and I always met him in my dreams. I was even joking to myself that I might have met Kang Hae-ah in my previous life. I thought that Hae-ah, a emotionally rich artist, might have had a different interpretation even after receiving a similar feeling.

That was until he let go of my hand and rummaged through the last drawer of the desk.

“There’s something I want to show you. …No, actually, I don’t want to show it to you… but there’s something I have to show you.”

Hae-ah, rambling, reached out both hands in front of me.

“After reading everything, it’s okay if you think I’m… crazy, and I’ll understand if you take me to a mental hospital. But promise me you won’t… you won’t leave me.”

“There’s no way I would.”

My answer came out like a groan. My eyes took in the red leather notebook he handed over with trembling hands. The stiff cover, like a brick, had letters carved into it like scars in a pressed handwriting.

‘Kang Hae-ah’s Future Journal’.

As I opened the unfamiliar cover, I wanted to read it, and I wanted to throw it into the fire.