25 – A letter written in a foreign language

Clang! A sharp noise shattered the weekend morning.

As soon as he woke up, Tae-rim reached his arm to his side. Unconsciously searching for Hae-ah first, but all that his hand grasped was a wrinkled sheet. As soon as his palm flopped down on the sheet, Tae-rim opened his eyes wide and raised his upper body abruptly.

The person who should have been there was not there. His fiancé, who was supposed to be boasting of his laziness with a cute face, with his brown hair disheveled like a bird’s nest and his eyes swollen like macarons every morning, was nowhere to be seen.

Tae-rim threw back the blanket and put his feet into the slippers under the bed. His body, which had been instantly awakened from sleep, moved quickly.

“Hae-ah?”

Last night, he had fallen asleep side by side with Hae-ah after playing with his hands. Because of that, Tae-rim was in a state of exposing his bare shoulders and chest without a shirt. He had at least managed to put on his white silk pajama pants, but even those were stretched out at the waist and were almost hanging on his hips.

Half-naked, he ran down the stairs on the second floor. Following the source of the ‘clang’ sound, it didn’t take him a few seconds to traverse the large house as he ran swiftly with his large body. As soon as he turned the corner of the pillar leading from the living room to the kitchen,

“Tae-rim-ssi, Tae-rim-ssi!”

Hae-ah, standing awkwardly in the middle of the floor, was seen. He had only managed to put on the top of his white silk pajamas, and his bare legs were exposed because he only had his drawers left for the bottom. His face, which was flushed red, showed clear signs of surprise and embarrassment.

As Hae-ah gathered his arms, the young dog in his arms tilted its large ears back. It was wagging its tail so fiercely at Tae-rim that its plump butt was wiggling. Hae-ah didn’t even flinch even when the dog’s front claws scratched his arm as it struggled to go to Tae-rim.

Holding the tomboyish puppy tightly, he said.

“Please take Do-jin. I’m afraid I’ll drop him if I put him down.”

“……”

Only then did the mess in the kitchen come into Tae-rim’s view. The sweet smell of maple syrup permeated the entire house, and broken pieces of glass were scattered at his feet. The teacup with traditional patterns, the plate that Hae-ah usually cherished, and even the thick glass bowl were all shattered. The sugar-like broken pieces floated on top of the spilled coffee, and some crumbs rolled far away and sparkled in the corner.

Hae-ah hesitated towards the silent Tae-rim. Do-jin, who had no way of knowing the protector’s circumstances, kept struggling with his four legs, so he was anxious that he might drop the young dog.

“Tae-rim-ssi. Quickly… Do-jin first….”

Letting out a small sigh through his nose, Tae-rim moved his feet in slippers. He swept the large pieces of glass to the side and strode into the middle of the glass shards, Hae-ah moved his arm towards him. He was thinking of handing Do-jin over to him as soon as possible.

But Tae-rim suddenly bent his upper body in front of Hae-ah.

“Uh, uh, why….”

Hae-ah, who was about to say something in embarrassment, soon closed his mouth with a ‘gasp’. The two legs that had been standing awkwardly were suddenly lifted into the air. Tae-rim held Hae-ah’s back with his left arm and his knees with his right arm and lifted him up. Moving as quickly as he had come, he moved his fiancé and the young dog to the living room sofa as a whole.

With his eyes wide open and Do-jin tightly hugged in his arms, Hae-ah was laid down horizontally on the sofa. The brown hair buried in the cushion was turned upside down like a bird’s nest.

“Y-you surprised me….”

Hae-ah whispered, listening to the sound of his pounding heart, and

“Who are you to say that?”

Tae-rim shouted.

“Stay still and don’t move because it’s dangerous. Hold Do-jin tight.”

Saying as if scolding, he raised his waist. Hae-ah stretched his neck towards Tae-rim, who was returning to the messy kitchen. Anxious, he sat and rolled his feet slightly.

“No, Tae-rim-ssi. Tae-rim-ssi, take Do-jin and go up to the room, I’ll clean it all up.”

As soon as he put his white feet on the floor,

“Stay still!”

A heavy and loud voice echoed through the living room.

“Just stay still, don’t get up.”

Soon Tae-rim moved busily. He opened the cabinet door, took out the necessary tools, and swept the large and small pieces of glass and dust into one place with a broom. He took out the vacuum cleaner and swept the floor several times, then wiped it carefully once more with a water-soaked mop. The fine pieces that had been sparkling everywhere soon disappeared.

Pushing the heavy trash can to one side and returning to the living room, he let out a deep sigh. And he started rummaging through the drawers. He opened and closed the drawers one by one and looked through the contents, but all he could see were LPs, albums, cameras, and video sets that he didn’t usually listen to, and the things Tae-rim was looking for didn’t come out.

Towards him, who was closing his lips tightly and opening the last drawer, Hae-ah, who had been quiet for a long time, said.

“Tae-rim-ssi…, are you angry?”

Then Tae-rim closed the drawer with a ‘thud’. He didn’t control his strength well because he was surprised. He turned around with a start and Tae-rim sighed.

Only then did Hae-ah come into view. He was lying on the corner of the sofa in a slumped and dejected posture, so much so that he felt crumpled, ‘holding Do-jin tightly and staying still’ as he was told. His eyes were glistening with worry and sorrow.

Do-jin wagged his tail for no reason, as if he had read the strange atmosphere.

“…There’s no way I would be. I’m not angry. Look at my face.”

Approaching the side of the sofa, Tae-rim knelt on the carpeted floor. Then he reached out and grabbed Hae-ah’s lower jaw very slightly. With his lips parted because his chin was pressed by his thumb, Hae-ah reluctantly looked up at Tae-rim.

“Huh? Hae-ah. Look closely. Does this look like an angry face?”

Tae-rim’s face reflected in his brown eyes was definitely different from that of an angry person. There was a groove between his eyebrows, but the ends of his thick eyebrows were slightly lowered. His eyes were affectionate and his nose and cheeks were flushed.

Hae-ah slowly shook his head. And he hesitated and answered.

“No.”

“Then what does it look like?”

“It looks like you’re worried….”

Soothing an adult like a child was, absurdly, the most effective way to handle Kang Hae-ah. His sorrowful heart melted away, and Hae-ah pursed his lips and raised the corners of his mouth slightly. Tae-rim patted Do-jin’s head as if shaking off the dust and gently stroked Hae-ah’s hair.

“Hae-ah. Where did you put the medicine box?”

“Medicine box?”

“You’re hurt. You’re bleeding from your foot.”

At Tae-rim’s words, Hae-ah blinked his eyes. Only then did he see the bloodstains on his white foot. There was a sleek and long scratch on his left ankle. Red drops of blood were forming and one drop was flowing down his ankle as if drawing a line.

“Ah, uh…. I didn’t know. I was too out of it….”

As my master raised his upper body and released his arms, Do-jin, finally freed, quickly jumped off the sofa. Tae-rim watched the dog wagging its tail and sniffing at the maple syrup scent ingrained in the carpet for a moment before speaking again.

“Medicine kit.”

At the concise words, Hae-ah touched his forehead, saying, “Uh,” “Um.”

“It’s in our bedroom… well, inside the bedroom, in my bathroom. On the bathroom mirror shelf…”

“Why did you put it in your bathroom?”

As soon as he finished the question, Tae-rim began to search Kang Hae-ah’s entire body. Without even getting a chance to answer, Hae-ah’s face was suddenly grabbed by a large hand. Tae-rim’s search, which involved groping the round head covered with soft hair, stroking his ears and the back of his neck, grabbing his chin to open his mouth, and even checking the inside of his cheeks, was obsessive.

“Are you hurt?”

Tae-rim checked Hae-ah’s upper body once again, which he had freely fondled just last night. The flat abdomen was only pale without any lumps, and the ribs, whose outlines had begun to blur since they started living together, were firmly attached.

“Tae-rim-ssi,” Hae-ah said, grabbing his forearm and pushing him back.

“It’s not that…”

Hae-ah said, exhausted from the persistent search, and

“Where were you hit?”

Tae-rim’s voice overlapped with his.

Soon, they said nothing. Hae-ah awkwardly opened his lips and stopped moving, and Tae-rim’s shoulders rose and fell sharply with rough breaths. After a few seconds of silence, Hae-ah moved his head. He placed his hands over Tae-rim’s hand on his waist and pressed his lips to his worried lover’s lips.

“I wasn’t hit anywhere.”

And whispered.

“I’m not hurt… Tae-rim-ssi knows best that I don’t even run into Hyung these days.”

“Then, why…”

“The medicine kit, that was when I was playing with Do-jin the other day, and my finger got scratched. I thought it would be a hassle to come down to the first floor every time to apply ointment, so I brought it to the second floor. That’s all.”

As he finished speaking, Hae-ah raised his right hand. He had injured his index and middle fingers while playing tug-of-war with Do-jin, who was unskilled at controlling his strength, and was bitten hard. The wound wasn’t deep, but the cuticles were torn off, making it annoyingly painful whenever it touched or brushed against something.

Now, Tae-rim pressed his lips to the fingers that had completely healed. Leaving a careful kiss, he slowly said.

“Our Hae-ah… can even say ‘that’s all’ now.”

Hae-ah burst into laughter at the compliment that tickled him from the inside out.

“Of course, who do you think I’m learning Korean from? I’ve studied hard.”

After stroking Hae-ah’s head a couple of times as he raised his head and boasted, Tae-rim finally left the sofa. Listening to the sound of footsteps running up to the second floor, Hae-ah adjusted his sitting position. Only after putting his feet down from the sofa did he realize that he was only wearing a top.

He hurriedly looked around for pants to throw on, but Tae-rim, running down with the medicine kit, was faster. Grabbing Hae-ah’s feet and placing them on the cushion, he opened the medicine kit.

“It looks like you got cut by shards when the plate broke. Let’s disinfect it and apply some medicine. Does it hurt a lot? Should we go to the hospital?”

“Ah, no. It doesn’t hurt at all. Why go to the hospital for a little scratch…”

“Tell me if it hurts, even a little.”

With that, Tae-rim sat on the edge of the sofa. As his hand led him, Hae-ah placed his left foot on his thick, firm thigh. He was twice as embarrassed to have his pale bare legs exposed.

“That’s… Do-jin climbed onto the table and fell… I meant to catch only him, but I dropped all the plates… Today is the weekend, and Ok-hye-ssi isn’t coming, so… I wanted to make breakfast for Tae-rim-ssi. It’s a breakfast menu I often made in Paris, waffles made with whole wheat flour and then drizzled with plenty of maple syrup…”

To hide his awkwardness, Hae-ah spewed out whatever words came to mind. He tried to pull down the end of his pajama top with both hands to cover his crotch, but he soon realized that it only drew attention and stopped.

“…I’ve always had that fantasy. Making breakfast and bringing it to bed.”

“I see.”

Tae-rim smiled very slightly. It wasn’t receiving, but giving that was his fantasy. That was very Kang Hae-ah-like. In a position where it was natural to live receiving, his fantasy was to give.

Hae-ah was naturally docile and calm. Even during his first break in his life, his brush never rested. Rather, he became even more diligent, often holing himself up in his studio during the day. He would divide the edges of the bouquet Tae-rim had bought him, the paws of Do-jin napping, and the shadow of Ok-hye-ssi working around the house from 1 PM to 6 PM into four drawings.

Sometimes, he would press his cheek against the window frame and stare blankly out the window. The next day, a work would be completed, transferring the light absorbed and transmitted based on the glass.

Thanks to that, Tae-rim came to love the large two-story house. Thanks to the high walls and the wide space of the hallway, the entire house was an artist’s exhibition hall. Everywhere he looked, there were works created by meticulous observation and affectionate expression. The whole house was Kang Hae-ah.

Sometimes, when he slowly walked down the long hallway, Tae-rim would feel the urge to cry. The world that Hae-ah saw with his eyes and drew with his hands was all delicate and warm. He didn’t know how to handle anything roughly or coldly. He was a man who drew even the blood from his torn skin as a warm pink, even the bruises flowing inside his clothes as a clear sky, even the urine he wet while crying as the yellow of forsythia.

It was impossible for Tae-rim not to love such an artist. Tae-rim couldn’t find a single flaw in him. The only flaw he felt was that no one had ever looked deeply into him and examined him throughout his life. Every time he became aware of that fact, Tae-rim felt a pain he had never felt in his life, as if his chest was being torn apart.

“Tae-rim-ssi.”

Looking down at Tae-rim’s crown, who was lost in thought, Hae-ah whispered.

“I think you’re putting on too much ointment…”

“……”

Only then did Tae-rim stop his hand. Hae-ah’s ankle was glistening due to the ointment spread thickly above and below the cut.

While putting a bandage on the red wound, Tae-rim slowly opened his mouth.

“Hae-ah. Promise me one thing.”

“Yes? Yes.”

Without even knowing what ‘promise’ he would utter, Hae-ah answered hastily. His face, nodding his head blindly like a good child, was reflected in Tae-rim’s serious eyes.

“If anything happens in this house, you absolutely have to take care of yourself first.”

“…More than Tae-rim-ssi?”

“Of course.”

Whispering lowly, Tae-rim gently pressed the bandage on Hae-ah’s ankle. Then, a very faint trace of blood seeped into the cotton of the bandage. Tae-rim slowly kissed the wound.

All he could feel was the sensation of the sticky bandage being pressed down, but Hae-ah blushed and smiled.

“Even if there’s a fire, you run out first, and even if there’s an earthquake, you hide yourself first. Even if a burglar breaks in, I’ll stop them, so you run away alone.”

“How can I do that…”

“Promise me you’ll definitely do that. Promise me that you’ll prioritize yourself no matter what happens.”

“……”

The smile that had sprung up at the sight of his affectionate care for a minor wound now disappeared. Tae-rim’s words, delivered with a more serious face than anyone else, were made up of only easy-to-understand words. Nevertheless, Hae-ah couldn’t easily nod or smile.

“Still… I have to protect Tae-rim-ssi. That’s what couples are. We promised each other to be husbands to each other…”

“Look at my size and tell me. Does it look like I need someone to protect me?”

“What’s wrong with Tae-rim-ssi? He’s so cute…”

“……”

The conversation was cut off once again. This time, it was Tae-rim who closed his mouth and tried to erase his smile. He blushed at the ears and remained silent for a while before humming lowly. Then, he brazenly opened his mouth.

“Hae-ah, that’s my wish. For you to take care of yourself first is my wish. If I’m cute, then cherish my wish too.”

A man who was just a few centimeters short of being 2 meters tall lowered his muscular upper body deeply, raised his eyes, and recited those words. Under normal circumstances, no one would have accepted it as aegyo. But Hae-ah wasn’t an ordinary person.

‘So cute…’

Accepting the beast-like black eyes as the eyes of a baby cat, Hae-ah pouted his lower lip.

“What kind of wish is so trivial?”

Grumbling and lowering his eyes, he drooped his shoulders. And reluctantly answered.

“Okay. I promise.”

Then, Tae-rim’s large hand filled Hae-ah’s vision. His four fingers were folded as if to make a fist, with only his pinky finger straight. With a small sigh, Hae-ah matched his pinky finger to his large finger and hooked them together.

With their pinky fingers intertwined, the two men’s hands gently shook up and down.

“I’ll think of myself first. I won’t get hurt… If it’s ever dangerous, I’ll run away first.”

“Yeah. Please do that.”

Tae-rim whispered lowly.

“…I really hate it when you get hurt.”

Hae-ah easily agreed to those words. He, too, didn’t want Tae-rim to get hurt. He mistakenly thought it was a common expression of affection.

It only took Hae-ah about five days to realize that Tae-rim’s obsession with the small scratches on his fingertips, the shallow wounds on his ankles, and the injuries he would sustain afterward was much more severe than he thought.

And in just five days, Hae-ah broke his promise with Tae-rim.

On the night that the antique tea set from England finally passed through customs and arrived in front of Kang Hae-ah’s house in Seoul, on a night when the bluish color unique to early summer enveloped the sky and the moon and stars shone particularly brightly, on a night when two men who had finished a date full of affection and a satisfying dinner lay side by side on a king-size bed, Cheon Tae-rim was sick.

It was Hae-ah who woke up to the sniffling sound. Hae-ah raised his upper body in an awkward posture and thought that the air in the room was excessively hot. Then, he heard a gasping sound, “Huh,” “Huh,” almost like vomiting.

Feeling his desire for sleep disappear in an instant, Hae-ah opened his eyes wide. He quickly touched Tae-rim’s forehead after finding him curled up on his side next to him. Tae-rim’s forehead, which was tightly closing his eyes and groaning repeatedly, was damp with beads of cold sweat and very hot. When he raised his other hand and touched his own forehead, it felt relatively too cold.

“Tae-rim-ssi, you have a fever…”

Quickly getting out of bed, Hae-ah headed to the bathroom first. Even while soaking a towel in cold water, his hands were shaking with shock. He even rinsed his face with cold water to calm down.

Without even wiping the water flowing down his neck, he grabbed the wet towel and realized that the person who should have been on the bed was nowhere to be seen.

“Tae-rim-ssi?”

After hurriedly turning on the mood light, Hae-ah found his fiancé on the floor. He was crouching with his straight, broad back, which had always felt reassuring, bent like a wounded beast. Groans leaked through his teeth.

Approaching him quickly, Hae-ah said.

“Tae-rim-ssi… Tae-rim-ssi. Are you okay? Does it hurt a lot? You have a very high fever, but first, put this on your forehead and lie down on the bed. I’ll call an ambulance now…”

“Get out.”

The worries he had been chattering about were cut off by two words.

“…Ah. Uh… I mean…”

Clutching the towel soaked in cold water, Hae-ah slowly blinked his eyes. He tried to understand the situation, but he was too flustered to do so.

“Ambulance… to…”

Tae-rim, who was grimacing, looked up at Hae-ah, who was repeating what he had said and standing still. His eyes seemed to be darker than usual, and his nose, exhaling rough breaths, was wrinkled.

“Stay… out, Hae-ah. …I’m okay, so stay out.”

It was a voice that pressed out each word as if stamping it.

“Tae-rim-ssi… why… what’s wrong?”

“Get out now.”

After shouting loudly, Tae-rim buried his head in his arms. He seemed very afraid, sick, and angry. Either way, it was strange.

Hae-ah’s heels were twitching with the desire to run to him right away, lift him up and lay him on the bed, put a wet towel on his forehead, find and give him the necessary medicine, and comfort him until the ambulance arrived. But his instincts were saying something else.

‘Do as you’re told.’

Unable to overcome the feeling of goosebumps all over his body, Hae-ah took a step back.

‘Run away.’

Feeling like he was about to cry, his eyes turned red. He even dropped the wet towel he had brought. At the same time as the wet towel fell onto the carpet, Tae-rim made a ‘thud’ sound. It was the sound of hitting the floor with a violent fist.

At the violent noise, Hae-ah flinched his shoulders and tightly closed his eyes. He easily succumbed to the mere imagination of the violence that would come. Suppressing the weak impulse to scream and fall down, he took two more steps towards the door.

Soon, the bedside table and the stand lamp fell over at the same time. It was because Tae-rim was randomly reaching out and flailing his arms towards the furniture. He opened and rummaged through the tilted drawer as if pulling it out. As soon as Hae-ah saw him taking out the black bag containing the suppressant, he quickly ran out of the bedroom.

‘…Because I promised. Because I promised to run away first if it’s dangerous…’

While crossing the second-floor hallway, Hae-ah was flustered. Running barefoot through the dark hallway, he stopped in front of the high stairs. He stopped the steps he was about to take downwards and gasped for breath in fear.

‘I… I have to call someone, someone to help… I have to help Tae-rim-ssi…’

Without realizing it, he fumbled for the waistband of his pajama pants, but he couldn’t find his cell phone. Even if he did find the phone, he didn’t know who to contact or what to say in this situation. ‘Run away first’ and ‘Don’t get hurt’. That was all of Tae-rim’s emergency action plan that he had repeatedly emphasized.

Hae-ah stamped his feet in place, repeatedly reaching out towards the stairs and stopping. He couldn’t erase from his mind Tae-rim’s body temperature, which was so hot that it seemed like it would pour out bubbling blood if he made a scratch. He couldn’t ignore anything, from the whites of his eyes that had turned red as if he was about to burst into tears, to his breathing that was so painful that he was sniffling.

Hae-ah knew how lonely it was to be alone when sick. It was because he hated the nights without someone to cool him down when he had a fever, someone to wipe him when he sweated, and someone to comfort him when he cried that he wanted to get married. He couldn’t bear to run away alone, leaving Tae-rim, whom he had met that way.

After washing his face with his dry hands, Hae-ah stopped. His feet, which hadn’t even stepped on one step towards the first floor, turned back towards the marital bedroom.

Then,

“Hae-ah.”

A voice was heard.

At the sound of a familiar person calling him, Hae-ah hurriedly turned away from the stairs. He staggered back down the hallway he had run away from. When he stood in front of the bedroom door that he had closed a little while ago, he had a faint smile on his tense face.

“Tae-rim-ssi, I’m here…”

In his haste, he grabbed the doorknob, but that was all.

“……”

Something was wrong.

‘It’s strange…’

It felt like the relief that had seeped in for a moment was being washed away. Feeling his chest tighten with tension, Hae-ah leaned his forehead slightly against the door. He was sure he had been called, he had heard the voice saying ‘Hae-ah’, but he couldn’t hear anything else from inside the room.

“Tae-rim-ssi…”

Hesitantly, Hae-ah gently placed his palm on the closed door. Then, he slowly stroked the door as if touching his lover’s back.

“Tae-rim-ssi… are you okay?”

As he carefully spoke,

“Hae-ah.”

A boiling, gasping voice was heard once again. This time, it was definitely not a hallucination, but the real thing. The real Cheon Tae-rim was groaning and calling for him.

“…Hold me, come here…”

Begging like that.

“……”

Something was wrong. Hae-ah froze the moment he felt the sense of unease. He only had to open the door, his lover was beyond this door, but something felt off. Hae-ah was the type to believe anything Tae-rim said, even if it was ‘a monologue is a word spoken alone, and slang is a word spoken by a corpse’. But the current Tae-rim was not like his usual self.

He was the one who told me to stay out until just a while ago. Cheon Tae-rim, who made me promise, even hooking pinkies, to run away alone when it was dangerous. But now he’s telling me to come into the room, it didn’t make sense. Something was definitely wrong. ‘Hold me’…, that was a weak plea he would never utter in his right mind.

Hae-ah knew he wasn’t saying it with a clear head. He was just following his instincts, looking for someone to share his suffocating pain and relieve his terrible lust. She knew it was just the tempting scent of fake cheese in a trap.

But Hae-ah couldn’t bring herself to,

“Hae-ah….”

She couldn’t ignore Tae-rim’s voice, choked with tears as he called her.

“I’m here, …I’m here.”

Hae-ah carefully pushed open the bedroom door.

Through the crack in the door, opened just a hand’s breadth, she saw a man huddled on the floor, his forehead pressed to the ground. Several syringes were scattered around him. One vial of medicine had fallen over, and there were stains from the spilled medicine on the carpet in several places.

‘…Did he inject himself with a suppressant?’

Hae-ah desperately tried to remember. She had heard that it took at least an hour for the suppressant to take effect. It meant that it would take at least an hour for the Alpha’s mind to return and his arousal to subside.

‘Still, Tae-rim-ssi….’

Maybe. Hae-ah thought so. Maybe he injected himself very quickly, taking action before it got too painful. And he wasn’t just any Alpha, he was a Dominant Alpha. So, maybe, luckily, his mind had returned quickly.

Hoping so, she pulled on the doorknob,

“Hae-ah….”

Hae-ah hesitated and stopped.

“Where are you….”

Before her eyes, Tae-rim was mumbling like that, his huge body crumpled in the distance. ‘Where are you’, ‘Hae-ah’, and ‘Come here’… his words, desperately pleading, felt devoid of consciousness. He was just instinctively muttering words to entice his partner.

I shouldn’t go in. Now Hae-ah was sure. Whether he had injected himself or not, she shouldn’t go in now. It was clear that the medicine hadn’t taken full effect yet. Didn’t she know how violent a Dominant Alpha in rut could be?

Moreover, Cheon Tae-rim was an exceptional person, hard to easily categorize as Dominant. The ‘seizures’ he showed were distinctly different from those of other Alphas.

Still,

“Hold me….”

Hae-ah couldn’t bear it. Just hearing Tae-rim’s crying voice filled her eyes with tears. His pain felt like her own, and her heart ached. She would rather share that pain than just stand by and watch.

In the end, Hae-ah pushed the door open completely. Then, flustered, she ran back into the bedroom she had fled from. She knelt down in front of the huge Alpha, who was curled up, and reached out her arms.

“I’m… I’m here.”

Hae-ah whispered, embracing Tae-rim’s upper body with both arms.

“I’m here, I…. I’m here….”

“Hae-ah….”

“Yes, Hae-ah is here, Tae-rim-ssi. I’ll stay with you…. It’s okay, Tae-rim-ssi. I’m here next to Tae-rim-ssi. It’s okay….”

Then Tae-rim’s head came into Hae-ah’s arms as if headbutting. Hae-ah gasped and staggered at the strong impact, but she didn’t stop embracing and comforting her lover. Soon, overwhelmed by his huge weight and strong arms, Hae-ah fell helplessly backward.

Tae-rim crushed Hae-ah’s entire body, which had fallen on the carpet, with his weight. A suffocating embrace followed.

Hae-ah opened her arms and hugged the crying Alpha’s head. She also raised her legs and wrapped them around his thick waist. Like a koala, like a human shackle, like a warm blanket, she hugged him tightly as if to bind him, and at the same time, she hugged him tightly, and Hae-ah’s body vibrated along with the trembling Alpha’s body.

“It’s okay….”

Hae-ah whispered, soothing the large teeth that were burying themselves in her neck, panting and digging in.

“It’s okay, Tae-rim-ssi. It’s okay…. Hae-ah is here.”

Soon Hae-ah gave her whole body to the Alpha. She let him tear her clothes, bite, suck, and chew her skin, spread her legs, and rub his erect penis roughly against her buttocks.

Rather, Hae-ah moved proactively. She spread her legs on her own and reached for the lotion bottle on the fallen side table. But the excited Alpha didn’t wait for him to loosen up on his own.

With a groan, Tae-rim thrust his erect penis into Hae-ah’s vulva.

“Ah, ack….”

The hot, hard flesh was mercilessly shoved into her tender body. The small hole, contracted as much as possible due to tension, couldn’t handle the Alpha’s penis. Hae-ah screamed, tears welling up, and trembled convulsively, then frantically opened the lid of the lotion in her hand. A gush of white, viscous lotion burst out and flowed wildly over his stomach.

“Ugh, ugh…, sob….”

After gathering the cold, slippery lotion, Hae-ah rubbed her hands back and forth against the penis that was relentlessly digging between her buttocks. She was applying the lotion awkwardly in a pitifully crushed position, and Tae-rim seemed to take even that movement as foreplay and began to move roughly.

“Ah, haa…, sob! Ugh…!”

While being crushed by the violently moving giant Alpha, Hae-ah heard the thudding sound each time her body was lifted up and slammed back down to the floor. She felt as if her existence had become just an accessory attached to the body of the large Alpha. It felt as if her whole body was being torn in two by the penis piercing her insides, and her head felt like it was on fire.

“Ah, aah….”

While being shaken violently, Hae-ah continued to clutch and squeeze the lotion bottle. The lotion that barely flowed out, instead of acting as a lubricant, flowed meaninglessly down her buttocks, as she was so out of her mind that she couldn’t even properly apply it to the base of the Alpha’s thick penis and pubic hair.

“Hng, ugh…, ugh….”

Hae-ah stretched out her arms, trembling with pain, down. Then she grabbed her buttocks with both hands and spread them to the left and right. She thought that her skin would be torn apart if she continued like this, so it would be better to voluntarily open her hole and give up her body.

“Tae-rim, ssi, gently….”

Hae-ah whispered like that, supporting the Alpha with her whole body.

“Gently, sob, ugh… gently… you promised me…. It’s me, it’s me… I’m Hae-ah.”

Hae-ah’s feet dangled in the air each time the Alpha slammed his whole body into her. She cried and cried from the burning pain inside,

“Sob, ugh, it hurts, it hurts…, gently, please….”

Hae-ah suddenly came to her senses. ‘Huh’, ‘huh’… Tae-rim had stopped the act, repeatedly exhaling rough breaths. Hae-ah couldn’t see his expression because the excited man was burying his head in her shoulder. She only felt the precum that had leaked from the Alpha’s penis flowing moistly between her buttocks.

“Haa…, haa….”

When Tae-rim began to push his body against her again, Hae-ah’s body, accustomed to insertive sex, accepted the Alpha on its own. Twitching, her hole tightened and her inner walls wriggled, clenching his penis tightly.

“Ha, haa…, ugh….”

Even while being shaken madly, Hae-ah cupped Tae-rim’s cheeks with her hands. Forcing him to look at her, she examined his red-hot eyes. Tae-rim, whose reason was paralyzed by the rut, didn’t say anything anymore. He was just panting roughly, full of excitement and lust. Even so, he was crying.

He was crying, Cheon Tae-rim was. His pupils were dilated, making his eyes look darker than usual, and tears welled up, falling like rain on Hae-ah’s cheeks.

“…….”

After pressing her lips tightly and hesitating, Hae-ah curled her toes tightly and wrapped her legs around Tae-rim’s waist. She also stretched out her arms and hugged his thick neck tightly. Then she showered him with kisses.

Gently rubbing her lips against his, licking the gaps between his teeth with the tip of her tongue, pecking at his lower lip,

“It’s okay….”

As she soothed him like a child, Tae-rim’s rough breathing gradually subsided.

“…It’s okay, I’m here. I won’t leave Tae-rim-ssi alone. I won’t go anywhere, huh…? It’s okay….”

As she hugged him with her whole body, comforted him with her body temperature and lips, and with a gentle voice, Tae-rim’s tears seemed to stop at some point. ‘It’s okay’, Hae-ah whispered repeatedly and hugged him tightly.

And the next moment, Hae-ah felt her whole body being crushed by his heavy weight. Tae-rim convulsed slightly, as if a horse that had finished a race shook its body.

“Huh, sob….”

He let out a boiling groan and then ejaculated. Hae-ah also trembled along with him, feeling the hot heat spreading through her stomach. Suppressed by pain, surprised by the insertion, and worried by the tears, Hae-ah’s penis was still limp.

Tae-rim’s body, having finished ejaculating, fell heavily onto Hae-ah’s upper body. Hae-ah couldn’t bear the weight falling on her chest and let out a shallow cough, ‘cough’.

“Cough, cough… ugh, Tae-rim, ssi, now….”

The moment she opened her mouth to try to remove the Alpha who had finished ejaculating, Hae-ah felt something churning inside her. A shiver ran down her spine and her skin trembled.

The Alpha’s arms, which she thought had calmed down, wrapped around Hae-ah’s waist as if to bind her. It was a rough embrace, as if trying to pull her into his arms.

“Ah, ah, uh….”

Flustered, Hae-ah pushed the floor with her toes and flailed her arms and legs. It was already too late when she realized the situation.

“No… no, no….”

Soon, she felt something wriggling and swelling in her lower abdomen. Hae-ah let out a strange groan, ‘Hiiiik’, and threw her head back at the rough sensation that enveloped her whole body. The Alpha’s penis, already deeply embedded inside her, was swelling stiffly even after ejaculating.

“Ah, aah, ah…!”

With her mouth open and tears streaming down her face, Hae-ah trembled. The huge foreign object was stabbing and crushing her inner walls, and her waist twisted involuntarily from the endless stream of stimulation.

“Ah…sob, sob, wait! Take, take it out, ah, no…!”

Korean and French began to mix wildly from Hae-ah’s lips. Neither reached Tae-rim’s ears. Panting with hot breath, he covered Hae-ah’s lips with his own. Hae-ah stretched out her legs as she suffered from the biting that randomly gnawed at her lower lip.

“Ah, ugh, eup….”

Her eyes closed tightly as her teeth sank into the tender flesh of her lips. Hot tears flowed down her furrowed eyes. The moment the salty taste of blood touched the tip of her tongue, she stretched out to the tips of her toes and trembled as if electrocuted. And she ejaculated.

The gushing semen splattered wildly on her and Tae-rim’s chests. As the muscles of the one who had finished ejaculating contracted, the penis that was piercing her back grew even larger.

“Hng, hng…! Ugh, ugh….”

Hae-ah could only open her lips and shed tears. She couldn’t resist or escape. Her body reacted on its own to the stimulation from the large Alpha’s penis, which was bulging out of her belly. The muscles of her whole body loosened, then trembled convulsively, and she repeatedly reached orgasm again.

“Ugh, ugh! Hng….”

While dripping with semen that had become thinner than before, Hae-ah moved her hands gropingly. She had to touch her lower abdomen to make sure it hadn’t been pierced. The lower abdomen, which bulged out following the shape of the swollen penis inside, felt deformed. Hot tears welled up at the scary feeling.

But the pleasure overcame the fear. She repeatedly ejaculated until she could no longer ejaculate, and then even dribbled urine into her vulva.

“Ah, ah…, …I don’t want to, I don’t want to….”

A dull sensation just before urination suddenly surged, and then it became pain. Hae-ah began to resist, giving strength to her tingling lower abdomen and penis. Crying and screaming that she didn’t want to, she beat Tae-rim’s shoulder wildly and scratched his back with her fingertips. Each time she tried to pull her body back, the Alpha’s embrace became stronger.

The lower abdomen, bulging in her vulva, was about to be crushed against Tae-rim’s muscles. A groan burst out involuntarily at the feeling of being pressed tightly.

“Aah….”

I don’t want to, I don’t want to… After screaming, Hae-ah lost her mind. Her mind flickered off and her eyes flashed white. While being hit in the face with a lukewarm liquid, she opened her mouth and groaned.

“Ah, ah, sob, aah… Ah!”

Something that was neither urine nor water, ejaculated by the penis convulsing, splattered wildly on her chest and face. She cried without even knowing that the liquid she had ejaculated was entering her mouth, and then Hae-ah reached orgasm again. It was an orgasm she didn’t even know how many times she had reached.

Her thighs, which had been convulsing repeatedly, cramped. Her gaping anus was greedily swallowing the Alpha’s penis. From inside her throat, a sound like a child crying, ‘Guk’, ‘Guk’, and melting groans flowed out wildly.

“I love you….”

And Tae-rim murmured lowly.

“I love you, Hae-ah. I love you….”

A different light flashed in the eyes that had been painted black with red lust. Even in the moment when only instinct remained without reason, Tae-rim was Hae-ah’s Alpha.

“I love you.”

The voice confessing repeatedly echoed in the darkened bedroom.

“Ah, I, I….”

With her face covered in sweat, tears, and saliva, Hae-ah opened her reddened lips. But she couldn’t put together a proper answer. As the Alpha lowered his body deeply, Hae-ah’s upper body moved greatly, hanging as if clinging to the joint.

“Hng….”

While dripping water from her penis, Hae-ah curled up her whole body. Her eyes turned red, then darkened, and then blurred again from the overwhelming stimulation. In her mind, which was all wet, painful, and dazed,

“Ahng, hng…, aah….”

A moan echoed. Whose voice is that… When she blinked her eyes and came to her senses, it was the groan coming from her mouth.

“Ah, ah…, hng, ugh, hng….”

After kicking the floor wildly with her toes and repeating the scratching a few times, Hae-ah arched her back and trembled. She convulsed like a person electrocuted by the repeated waves of intense pleasure, and then slumped her whole body.

“Hng, sob….”

She could no longer do anything but be trapped in the overwhelming pleasure. She desperately wished that the knotting would end quickly, but at the same time, she was constantly overwhelmed by the thought that she would rather die with the bond never ending.

“Tae-rim, ssiii….”

At the moment when she felt the dry pleasure that was endlessly surging without any more liquid to release, she felt something hot leaking out of her numb hole. The liquid was leaking so much that it was soaking wet all the way to her buttocks. With her fading mind, she barely opened one eye and looked down, and saw opaque semen.

“…Tae-rim-ssi…, I’m….”

While ejaculating the semen that the Alpha had ejaculated into her anus, Hae-ah lost her mind.

The first thing Hae-ah felt as soon as she opened her eyes was the hot body temperature that was suffocating her chest, and the numb pain. There wasn’t a single place from the top of her head to the tips of her toes that didn’t hurt. In particular, her lower abdomen hurt as if it was being stabbed with something sharp and beaten with something heavy.

Ugh, ugh… Groans flowed out involuntarily. Unknowingly shedding tears, Hae-ah flailed her arms and legs.

“Tae….”

She tried to find her lover out of habit, but her voice didn’t come out well. Making a metallic sound, she forced herself to move her head. Thick drops of tears flowed down her cheeks repeatedly.

“Tae-rim-ssi….”

That alone exhausted her. She didn’t have the strength to get out of bed, let alone pull back the blanket. Unable to move even a finger, Hae-ah, limp like wet cotton, only shed thick tears repeatedly.

While anxiously examining the dim air in the room,

“Hae-ah.”

Tae-rim appeared in her field of vision.

“Don’t cry.”

Approaching the bed with a wet towel in both hands, he wiped the sweat on Hae-ah’s forehead and the tears that flowed down her temples. Relieved by the gentle touch, Hae-ah closed her eyes. Soon, a large hand came under her neck and supported her so that she could lift her head.

Hae-ah forced her mouth open at the sensation of a mug gently touching her lips. Even that alone made her lower lip ache already. It was because her lips had been bitten by Tae-rim, who had been excited all night, and she had chewed on them with her upper teeth to endure the pain, leaving scabs. As she endured the stinging pain and opened her mouth, the water that flowed into her parched tongue felt sweet.

After barely quenching his thirst, Hae-ah began to survey his surroundings. The overturned side table, the broken lamp, and the scattered medicine bottles and syringes had all been tidied up long ago. The carpet stained with water and bodily fluids was nowhere to be seen, perhaps removed. Hae-ah himself was lying in the center of the bed, and Tae-rim’s expression was more stern than ever.

“……”

Hae-ah’s eyes desperately followed his profile as he silently cleared away the mug.

“Tae… Tae-rim-ssi. Are you… angry?”

He managed to ask in a hoarse voice,

“Yes.”

A cold voice returned immediately.

“…Because I… broke my promise… Is that why… you’re angry?”

“Yes.”

Hae-ah hadn’t expected Tae-rim, having overcome his rut and regained his reason, to praise him for ‘doing well’ or thank him. He knew better than anyone that he had broken a promise, one that had been confirmed multiple times with a pinky swear.

“Tae-rim-ssi… I….”

“…I don’t want to hear it right now.”

Facing Tae-rim’s face, hardened with anger, Hae-ah felt thirsty again.

But even though he was overwhelmed with guilt, he didn’t regret it. Even if he could turn back time, he would do the same. He would return to Tae-rim, who was suffering alone in the bedroom, no matter how many times. And he would pay the price for that action, without ever lamenting it.

“I… Tae-rim-ssi looked like he was having such a… hard time….”

But the vocabulary coming from between his teeth couldn’t keep up with his thoughts. Perhaps that was why,

“Why are you worrying about me?”

Hae-ah’s heart sank at Tae-rim’s retort.

“Who’s the one having a hard time right now? You could have been seriously hurt. I could have hit you, harmed you, ki….”

Tae-rim, who had been spewing words, unable to hide his anger, shut his mouth. His jaw was clenched so tightly that his molars were on the verge of grinding together. His muscles contracted tightly from the excitement and anger, and his chest swelled greatly as he inhaled hot breaths.

Tae-rim couldn’t open his mouth, only inhaling and exhaling for a long time. Finally, even the words that flowed out like a groan were a question.

“Why did you do that? What were you… thinking?”

Hae-ah couldn’t understand the voice that asked as if in pain, beyond worry. If it had been a minor matter, he would have said he was wrong. If it had been a trivial accident, he would have admitted it was his fault and apologized. Kang Hae-ah had lived his whole life like that. Whenever someone got angry and blamed him, he would admit it, apologize, and try to ease the atmosphere. Even if it was the original sin of being born, he would bow his head and say he was sorry.

But when the person questioning his sin was Cheon Tae-rim, and the moment he uttered the words, ‘Why did you stay by my side?’, Hae-ah didn’t think he was wrong. He wasn’t sorry, and he wasn’t ashamed. Therefore, he couldn’t apologize, even falsely.

“Then… should I have just left Tae-rim-ssi alone? Suffering, with a fever, moaning… Should I have just left him alone?”

Hae-ah said. He swallowed the pain in his sore throat and spoke each word with force,

“Just leave me alone.”

Tae-rim replied quickly.

“Please, just leave me alone. Please… please don’t interfere in my affairs with that body of yours.”

Hae-ah felt like he had been hit over the head with the words that fell like a stone. The pain surged up as heat. Shame, humiliation, embarrassment… Tears welled up in response to an unfair feeling that couldn’t be expressed in any other words.

It was strange. When he saw Cheon Tae-rim unable to come to his senses due to the pain, he thought he wanted the rut to pass quickly and for him to regain his reason. But Cheon Tae-rim, with reason in his eyes, was more cruel than an Alpha in rut.

“Why….”

Hae-ah’s neck flushed red and then rippled. He tried to swallow the rising sobs. He tried not to act like a child, to deal with it like an adult.

But all he could do was keep his mouth shut and his eyes open. If he blinked even once, the tears filling his eyes would fall in a torrent.

Seeing his face, swaying with sadness, Tae-rim sighed lowly.

“Hae-ah.”

As he slowly reached out his hand, Hae-ah stiffened and hid his hands behind his back. His upper body slid down into the blanket.

“Why… that…, why…, I…. I….”

Without rest, Hae-ah tried to find the words to express his feelings. He didn’t want to sob and sniffle like a child, but to express his position, feelings, and thoughts, why he had no choice but to do so.

“Ugh… hic….”

But all that flowed from between his teeth was a wet moan.

“…Hae-ah, that’s not it.”

If he could only take back the words he had spoken, Tae-rim would have groped the floor like a beggar looking for bread. But his words entered Hae-ah’s ears and lingered. Without flowing out carelessly, they wounded the twenty-six-year-old Kang Hae-ah.

“…I didn’t mean it that way. I was just angry for a moment… I was so worried about you. I was afraid that you might get hurt…. That I might hurt you….”

Tae-rim’s words, explaining in a fluster, were pitiful. Anyone who saw him in that state would have clicked their tongue. Trembling like an aspen with his huge frame, he was at a loss.

And then he faced the situation he had tried his best to avoid.

“I… can’t…?”

Not making Kang Hae-ah cry. For Cheon Tae-rim, that was the only goal. And today, Cheon Tae-rim had failed.

“I… can’t I worry about… hic, ugh… Can’t I worry about Tae-rim-ssi?”

Hae-ah cried, panting with wet breaths. The blood vessels rose on his neck, which seemed to have become gaunt overnight, and a flush spread to his forehead in an instant. Blood leaked from the brown scab on his swollen lips. Every time he exhaled, a sob burst out with difficulty.

“Hic, ugh…. Is a Beta… not even allowed to worry?”

Thick tears streamed down his flushed cheeks.

Anxiously, Tae-rim reached out his hand. As he cupped Hae-ah’s soaked cheeks, the crying man’s body temperature was too high, and the frightened man’s palms were pale and bloodless.

“Hae-ah.”

That was all Tae-rim could do.

“Hic, ugh… hugh….”

“…Hae-ah.”

In a very short moment, but feeling a terribly deep sense of self-loathing, Tae-rim kissed Hae-ah’s forehead. He kissed his cheeks, crying in sorrow, and constantly wiped away the flowing tears.

Hae-ah hated Tae-rim’s kindness. He hated him for silently conveying each and every one of his loving heart, his apologetic feelings, and his sincerity in cherishing him. He hated him because he gave him all three but didn’t answer his words.

Exhausted, Hae-ah couldn’t finish the conversation. He leaned his face on Tae-rim’s hand and cried for a long time, then fell asleep as if fainting.

Tae-rim wiped the face of Hae-ah, who had collapsed from crying. He wiped away the droplets of blood that had formed on the wound on his lower lip, then searched the bedroom for the medicine box. Soon, he went down to the living room on the first floor. In the end, Hae-ah was right, it was inconvenient to have the medicine so far away.

He had been obsessively concerned and clinging, determined to protect him and not hurt him, but in the end, it was Cheon Tae-rim himself who had hurt Hae-ah. Hating that fact deeply, Tae-rim frowned and his eyes reddened. Forcibly swallowing the curses that rose up his throat, he applied ointment to the lips of the sleeping man.

When he pulled back the blanket he had covered him with, a mottled naked body was revealed. White skin, randomly marked with red handprints, bruises, and traces of flesh torn by hard bites, felt like a soiled drawing paper. Picking up a damp towel and wiping his legs, Tae-rim glared at the bodily fluids that soaked the sleeping man’s crotch. The bloodstained semen was pinkish.

Soon, the damp towel was thrown to the floor. Leaning his forehead on his fists, Tae-rim groaned. The dimly brightening dawn was creeping into the bedroom.

His heart was heavy and his head was hot.

‘…Why.’

Numerous thoughts floated into his head, then sank as if hit by water.

He thought it was okay, whether Kang Hae-ah was a Beta or an Omega, he didn’t care…. He was confident that he could love him with all his heart, no matter which one he was, that he would overcome it with an affection stronger than animalistic instincts. He wanted to be with him for life, unchanging whether he soared strongly or collapsed weakly.

Would Kang Hae-ah’s position be the same as his? Regardless of whether Hae-ah himself was a Beta or an Omega… could he unhesitatingly love a hulking Alpha who could be a threat to him during every rut? Could he maintain his affection while enduring animalistic instincts? Would he want him to always be by his side, unchanging?

He already knew the answer to that. He knew it even before he met the man named Kang Hae-ah. If he asked out loud, Hae-ah would unconditionally,

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll protect you.’

‘I love you.’

…He was a lover who would give him those three answers and then embrace Tae-rim.

But what if every day was like today… What should he do after one year, two years, or even six years… In the moment when a night comes when he can’t even guess what tomorrow will bring?

Tae-rim raised his head. The high ceiling filled his black eyes.

‘It’s okay because I know everything… What the hell is okay about it?’

Now he hated himself.

It was an exam he started with a cheat sheet in his hand. He was confident that everything would be fine, that he would love and be loved. But just loving was so difficult. He had never felt ‘difficult’ in his life, no matter who he met or what he did, but the smooth and easy days he had been rushing through suddenly seemed to have turned into a complex maze.

‘‘I know everything’… he said.’

Tae-rim quietly looked down at the sleeping man’s hand. Even in a half-conscious state, Hae-ah was frowning and twitching his fingers, as if having a nightmare. As Tae-rim placed his hand on the hand that was flailing as if searching for something, the small movements finally stopped.

Looking at the fingers that were silently wrapping around his hand, Tae-rim frowned. He was too arrogant. Maybe that’s why things went wrong. He was mistaken in thinking he knew everything about Kang Hae-ah. He thought that if he scared him enough and got a promise from him, then he would abandon him and run away. But he was wrong.

…From the beginning, the interpretation was wrong. The marriage life in the Beta Test and their life today were similar but different in many ways. It wasn’t the presence or absence of a wedding that was important. It was the presence or absence of love that was important. Kang Hae-ah from the first Beta Test, who ran away in fear of the Alpha in rut, was different from his Kang Hae-ah today.

The Beta Kang Hae-ah created by a 23 percent probability had never heard the words ‘I love you’ from the Alpha Cheon Tae-rim. No one other than Cheon Tae-rim had ever told him that they loved him.

But today, his Hae-ah was different. He had heard the confession that no one had ever given him, but which he had longed for on his own, from Cheon Tae-rim. He had been with the words ‘I love you’ every morning and night, and had gained a gentle kiss and a warm haven.

There was no way he could leave such a lover alone and run away. There was no way he wouldn’t come back to soothe him, hug him, and tell him it was okay. Hae-ah was like that. His Kang Hae-ah was that kind of person.

Lowering his head, Tae-rim buried his face in the sleeping man’s palm.

“I’m sorry….”

As he pressed his lips deeply onto the lines of his palm, he tasted a bitter taste of tears.

“I’m sorry, Hae-ah….”

As he whispered an apology that wouldn’t reach him with a heart of atonement, a thought suddenly flashed through his mind. The thought that his heart, which had said ‘It’s okay because I know everything,’ might not have been arrogance after all…, a reasonable suspicion that he hadn’t known ‘everything’ from the beginning.

‘Easter egg.’

Kim Min-soo had said those words. On a night in the past, he had stopped the elevator on the fourth floor and said that with a very excited and happy face. …He had said that he had found an Easter egg, that he had found a code hidden in the first Beta Test.

Sighing softly, Tae-rim jumped up from his seat. After pressing his lips to the forehead of the sleeping Hae-ah, he found his car keys and hurriedly left the house.

At dawn, with 3 hours and 40 minutes left until work, Kim Min-soo almost shouted ‘Who are you?’ at the CEO who suddenly came to the sleeping room. It was Cheon Tae-rim, who seemed like he would have combed his pomade hair back with wax from birth and said ‘It’s me!’ But who on earth was this man standing in front of him now, with his hair all disheveled and covering his forehead, his sweatshirt, presumably pajamas, with stretched sleeves, and his training pants?

He made people’s jaws drop with his unfamiliar appearance, and then the words he said were just as absurd.

“What’s that.”

It was all of a sudden.

“‘Easter egg.’ The one I mentioned before…. What was that? Did you decode it all?”

At the string of words, Kim Min-soo got up from the plush armchair. Stretching, he rolled his eyes left and right. After examining Cheon Tae-rim, who looked undoubtedly out of his mind, he lied.

“No. It wasn’t a big deal.”

“Did you discard it?”

“No, I didn’t discard it, but….”

“Then give it to me. I’ll decode it.”

At the voice that poured out like a storm, Kim Min-soo hugged his arm and stroked it for no reason. The short and sweet sleepiness that could only be tasted in the sleeping room at this time instantly disappeared, and a sense of reality began to return as if he had been splashed with cold water.

Coughing softly, he slowly moved his steps out of the sleeping room.

“Um, CEO. It really wasn’t a big deal. I don’t know what you’re expecting… but I don’t think it’s a good idea to look at it.”

He said it because he was thinking of the CEO with respect in his own way.

“That’s for me to decide. Give it to me.”

And such persuasion didn’t work at all for Cheon Tae-rim.

“Haa….”

Scratching the back of his head roughly, Kim Min-soo walked into the development room. Arriving at his desk, which was more cluttered than any other, a dot was blinking inside the bluish monitor. After plopping down in the office chair, Kim Min-soo waved the mouse left and right.

As he clicked on the document locked with a double password and pressed the ‘Print’ button, the printer placed on one side of the development room began to turn with a ‘whirring’ sound.

Just as Cheon Tae-rim was approaching quickly, the printer spat out a black piece of paper. The printed paper was white like any other A4 paper, but it was densely filled with small font Korean characters that left no room for margins on the top, bottom, left, and right, making it look black at first glance.

“What… is this?”

Cheon Tae-rim asked. He was standing blankly, only looking at the printed paper without picking it up.

“It’s a fill-in-the-blanks….”

Kim Min-soo’s reply came out somewhat listlessly. Dragging his slippers, he moved his body and picked up the freshly printed paper. Then, he blew on the ink for no reason.

Before he started decoding it, it was just an incomprehensible code left in the first record of the AOM Beta Test. Because it was mixed up in a messy, twisted, and fragmented way, at first he thought it was a trace of ‘spaghetti’… that is, the remnants of code that Kim Min-soo himself had twisted and not cleaned up.

He was curious, so he tried to match the arrangement line by line, like solving a Sudoku puzzle, and that was the root of the problem. It was already too late when he realized that it wasn’t something that could be solved like a crossword puzzle.

Scratching above his eyebrows with his index finger, Kim Min-soo opened his mouth.

“Um, well…. The… the sentences are still a bit strange. It seems like the original text itself was written strangely. I just translated and solved it as it was interpreted, I’m a developer, not a translator. Please understand….”

Speaking as casually as possible, Kim Min-soo held out the densely printed paper to Cheon Tae-rim. Even so, he was inwardly worried about his top boss.

‘I should have checked what it was before bragging about it….’

But regret always comes too late.

Slowly, Tae-rim received the paper, which looked particularly heavy due to the many letters.

‘To Tae-rim-ssi.’

As soon as he read the first sentence, he realized that he was holding a letter. It was a letter written by Kang Hae-ah from the Beta Test. It was a letter of apology that he had tried to deliver to Cheon Tae-rim twice but failed, and was eventually discarded by him, consisting of twelve pages.

‘Hello. Cheon Tae-rim-ssi. This is Kang Hae-ah.’

The letter began like that.

‘I’m sorry. I sincerely apologize on behalf of everyone. I’ll do whatever I can about the awakening issue. I’m sorry I’m not good enough. I don’t know why this misunderstanding happened. But I’ll work hard to find a way to fix it. I’m really sorry.

And I’m sorry for running away from home. I was scared of getting scolded. I’m really sorry. I’m sorry for being scared. I was a child who was often scolded since I was young. And I had a similar experience on Tae-rim-ssi’s rut day. These days, I keep thinking about old things. It feels like I’ve gone back to my childhood. Life in Seoul is hard, embarrassing, and sad.

I want to do everything well. More than anything else, I want to do the best I can with my married life with Tae-rim-ssi. I want to find out what I did wrong and didn’t know, and solve the problems. I’ll take the trait test again. I’ll also find a way to awaken as an Omega.

And I’m sorry. I have one request to make in this letter, which isn’t enough even if I apologize and beg. Please, don’t divorce me? If you divorce me now, Tae-rim-ssi and the company will only lose out. There must be a better way. I’ll do my best to find a solution. I can go anywhere and meet anyone Tae-rim-ssi wants. But I don’t know where to go or who to meet on my own.

Tae-rim-ssi. I’ve lived my life doing what others told me to do since I was young. Father wrote the script, and Hyung was the director. I grew up as an actor. Kang Hae-ah, as Tae-rim-ssi knows him, is a character in that movie.

In fact, I, Kang Hae-ah, can’t do anything on my own. Tae-rim-ssi. I’m a pathetic person. I learned to be an actor because Father told me to, I went where I was told to go, and I didn’t do what I was told not to do. It didn’t matter if I didn’t want to learn something, if I didn’t want to go anywhere, or if I wanted to do something else.

I was always busy. People liked the Kang Hae-ah that was created that way, and I was happy that people liked me.

But today is different. This is the first time I’ve had such a hard time, and everyone is just telling me not to do anything. If they told me to awaken, I feel like I could, but Father isn’t giving that order. Maybe he knew I couldn’t, that I was a Beta, not an Omega.

Tae-rim-ssi. I’m so scared that Tae-rim-ssi will hate me if I don’t do anything. I’m so worried that if I write this letter clumsily, the carelessly written sentences will make Tae-rim-ssi think I’m pathetic.

But now I want to say everything. I don’t want to lie anymore. I want to be accepted even if I’m not understood.

Tae-rim-ssi. I grew up being scolded a lot by Hyung, and I was beaten a lot whenever I was scolded. I’ve been beaten more deliberately and for longer than I was beaten by Tae-rim-ssi on the last rut day. When I was young, I was forced to starve, I wrote a hundred apology letters all night long, and I woke up from being hit even while sleeping. I even had a broken ankle and was forced to take a plane and run away to Paris.

So, it’s not Tae-rim-ssi’s fault that I fell down the stairs the other day. It’s not Tae-rim-ssi’s fault that I got hurt or that I’m in pain. It was always my job to go and comfort Hyung when he seemed upset. Hyung says nice things to me when other people are around, but he treats me badly more often when we’re alone. If I didn’t get scolded and comfort Hyung quickly when he was angry, I would get beaten even more later.

That’s why I did that. Even on the rut day, because Tae-rim-ssi seemed upset, because Tae-rim-ssi seemed to be in pain, I did that without realizing it. I thought I had to comfort him. For me, it was better to be beaten by Tae-rim-ssi. It was much scarier to leave Tae-rim-ssi alone.

Tae-rim-ssi. I’m really sorry for letting you see such an ugly side of me in this way. I’m really sorry that my Korean letter is clumsy and my handwriting is strange. I’m really sorry that you must have been surprised, but I suddenly ran away on my own. I’m really sorry for trying to help without knowing you well. I’m really sorry for liking Tae-rim-ssi even though I’m not an Omega.

I wrote this letter for the past two days, sweating and wiping away tears. I’m going to take courage one last time and deliver it to Tae-rim-ssi.

After reading this letter, please don’t be angry with me. Please don’t tell me to leave. Please… won’t you tell me? What Kang Hae-ah should do in the future. How I can live next to Tae-rim-ssi and remain as his husband. I’ll do anything Tae-rim-ssi tells me to do.

Father called me the Joker among the cards, and Hyung called me the Pawn among the chess pieces. I can change the atmosphere of the board depending on how I’m used, and I can go anywhere and do anything well without being picky. I’m confident that I can do anything. So please don’t throw me away, please use me. I’ll become a useful person. I’ll live as Tae-rim-ssi wants me to. If you just forgive me… if you just understand me a little and bear with me, I’ll become a good card and a chess piece that you won’t regret.

So please, let’s not break up. Please don’t hate me. It’s okay if you don’t like me. I understand if you don’t love me. Just don’t push me away, don’t leave me behind, don’t leave me alone. I’ll do anything to do that.

Please just stay by my side.

With hope and love. From Kang Hae-ah.’

Cheon Tae-rim’s lips were tightly closed. Only after returning to the first sentence and reading it two or three times did he realize that this letter was a good six years old. There was Kang Hae-ah, who lived a non-existent time more fiercely than anyone else. And there was Cheon Tae-rim, who read Kang Hae-ah’s life one by one as if studying history.

Therefore, he knew what this letter was. It was the letter that he had spread out on the living room sofa and was inspecting line by line on the day he returned after running away from home for the first and last time. Coincidentally, Cheon Tae-rim in the test was not in the right state of mind to notice what Kang Hae-ah was reading at the time. The news that day was full of exposés about Cheon Hee-jung’s corruption.

“……”

Tae-rim stroked the surface of the paper. The neatly printed letters on the new paper had no torn marks or hesitant, pressed-down traces.

The last time the owner of this letter wanted to hand the letter to his spouse, he had to kneel and beg. There was criticism and rejection poured over the face of the crying person. There was Cheon Tae-rim, who tore up the received money and the letter and got angry. It was the day Cheon Hee-jung died in the program.

Kang Hae-ah must have trembled as he was hit in the face by the scattered pieces of paper. Like an electric shock, like a bug. According to the records, he was in that much pain.

Even so, he picked up the scattered pieces. He scraped together every single letter, written with pain and rejected with tears. The developer had left meaningful data in the crucible, enough to mistake it for an ‘Easter egg.’

‘Did he… think about giving it to me again? If so, when? …Until when did Hae-ah have such hope?’

The answer was already determined. For Kang Hae-ah in the test, which was recorded as a failure, that hope was always ongoing. Until just before his body was ruined after waiting and he received a terminal diagnosis that was no different from a death sentence, Kang Hae-ah had a small hope for six years.

Kang Hae-ah was just that desperate. Enough to scrape together the pieces of his confession that Cheon Tae-rim had torn apart and somehow put them back together. Enough to hide the tattered twelve letters somewhere without throwing them away.

Tae-rim silently looked down at the letter that was sent to ‘Cheon Tae-rim.’ He folded the paper full of letters in half and put it in his pocket. Then he quietly moved his feet.

Kim Min-soo hurriedly followed Tae-rim, who was leaving without saying anything. He followed him to the development room hallway and said in a fluster.

“Um, CEO. Um, don’t… don’t worry too much about it. I mean… anyway, the Cheon Tae-rim written there isn’t the real CEO either.”

“How am I not me?”

Tae-rim’s two legs, which had been moving quickly, stopped abruptly. His black shadow was even bigger and longer than usual. Even the dim dawn air flowing out through the glass wall felt particularly cold at that moment.

“…If Kang Hae-ah is Kang Hae-ah, how can only I not be me?”

The words he recited in a low voice were no different from a soliloquy. Cheon Tae-rim didn’t want to hear an answer, and Kim Min-soo had nothing to say.

Kim Min-soo watched Tae-rim’s back as he left silently, feeling complicated. In fact, he also knew, he could tell even though he had only accidentally run into Kang Hae-ah at the company and exchanged greetings. That he and the one he had glimpsed through the test were not different at all. That even if the taciturn CEO didn’t show it, the Kang Hae-ah in the test had already become his Kang Hae-ah to him.

When Tae-rim returned, struggling to suppress the tears that kept welling up, the morning sun was hanging on the roof of the large two-story house.

As soon as Tae-rim opened the front door and entered the house, he felt the urge to faint.

“Tae-rim-ssi, this….”

If he had a gun in his hand, he would have put the muzzle to his chin and pulled the trigger. Tae-rim wanted to escape from this moment, even if he had to do that. The moment he saw the letter that Kang Hae-ah in his own world, in his world, was holding tightly in his hands. When he handed over a thick bundle of letters that seemed to be about twelve pages long, crumpled up, with a nervous face.

“No. I don’t want to read it….”

Tae-rim said as if groaning.

“…I know your heart, I understand. So… please, the letter, Hae-ah. I don’t want to read it….”

He staggered in place as he endured the emotions that seemed to pour out. Tae-rim already knew what kind of content was written in the letter that Hae-ah had written while sobbing. That the sad words, to the point that he wanted to deny them, had been transferred to his world. No, in fact, they had existed from the beginning. …They just hadn’t been written on paper as letters.

That made him sad. He didn’t want to find out that his guess was true. He didn’t want to know anymore, he just wanted to live today. He just wanted to love today.

“Tae-rim-ssi, I was wrong….”

Hae-ah didn’t know what Tae-rim was feeling when he rejected his letter. So he was anxious, so he sobbed. Shaking his shoulders, he took one step, two steps, towards the one standing tall in front of the front door.

“If you just forgive me once… can’t you keep… keep liking me?”

When a small hand grabbed his sleeve, Tae-rim staggered greatly.

“…I’ll work hard…. I’ll laugh when I have to laugh… and I’ll try to hold back even when I want to cry. Tae-rim-ssi, I’ll listen to Tae-rim-ssi from now on. …I’ll do everything you tell me to do…. Please… keep liking me….”

While begging with his head bowed, Hae-ah suddenly felt a drop of water falling on the top of his head. When he opened his eyes wide and raised his face, tears fell again, pattering down on his two cheeks.

“I’m sorry.”

Tae-rim cried. He cried so hard that the tears that flowed down his chin soaked Hae-ah’s two cheeks. Even so, he didn’t seem to know that he was crying. Only when the tears he shed touched his lover’s cheeks, only when his Hae-ah was just gaping with a bewildered and surprised face, did he hurriedly wipe Hae-ah’s two cheeks with the tips of his thumbs.

“I’m sorry, Hae-ah. I’m sorry, it was my fault….”

“…Tae-rim-ssi.”

He frowned as if he were feeling the pain of the rushing sadness. It was a time of surrender that he had never experienced in his life. His large body slowly collapsed to the floor. Tae-rim’s legs gave way and he had no choice but to kneel.

Like a person drowning in water, he reached out his arms very urgently. He hugged Hae-ah’s waist tightly and buried his face in his dry stomach, clinging to him.

“I, I was wrong…. I don’t want to get angry at you. I don’t want to be obsessed with you, and I don’t want to become ugly in front of you. But I don’t know how to do that….”

A muffled voice leaked out from his lips buried in his clothes.

“Hae-ah, I don’t know.”

Hae-ah’s upper body swayed back and forth following the rough sobs.

“I don’t know, I…. What should I do….”

“Why…, why are you crying, Tae-rim-ssi? What’s wrong, don’t cry.”

“I’m sorry, Hae-ah.”

While hugging the Alpha who was crying, Hae-ah unknowingly sniffled. ‘Don’t do that,’ he whispered softly, and then he sniffled, and soon he followed Tae-rim and reddened his eyes.

“Don’t do that. If Tae-rim-ssi cries… I feel like I’m going to cry too….”

Soon, the sound of two men crying filled the entire house. While hugging each other and crying, they were both inwardly embarrassed. They couldn’t understand themselves crying like young children who had just woken up from a nightmare, and even in the midst of that, they were madly in love with their lovers, who were pressing their cheeks together and burrowing into each other’s arms and crying together.

The two men’s crying stopped only after the white dog yawned and ran down the stairs. Because he had cried so much, the round neck collar of Tae-rim’s sweatshirt was all wet, and Hae-ah’s nose turned red and his eyelids were swollen.

“Were you… worried about me a lot?”

Hae-ah asked, shaking his shoulders in the aftermath of his sobs, and

“…Yeah.”

Tae-rim nodded his head like a gentle child.

“Do you… like me a lot, a lot?”

“…Yeah.”

Stopping the conversation, Hae-ah pressed his lips down on Tae-rim’s lips, and Tae-rim pressed his lips down on Hae-ah’s lips. It was a literal kiss, just pressing their lips together without mixing tongues or saliva. Hae-ah smiled softly, making a ‘sniff’ sound, and Tae-rim’s lips also thinned slightly as he smiled.

“I also… I like Tae-rim-ssi a lot, really a lot. I worry about you a lot, I think about you a lot….”

Whispering softly, Hae-ah wrapped his arms around Tae-rim’s neck.

“Let’s go back to the room.”

Tae-rim said, looking up at his clumsy lover. Kneeling on his solid knees on the floor, with his black hair scattered over his forehead, he was Tae-rim only for Hae-ah, whom no one else could steal a glance at.

Hae-ah blushed, hesitating.

“I… still… can’t walk very well….”

Then Tae-rim suddenly raised his lower body and picked up his lover, who was hugging his neck, as he was.

“You don’t have to do what I tell you to do.”

With his feet floating in the air and his waist hugged by thick arms, Hae-ah heard a low and gentle voice.

“You can do what you want… you can do what you want. You can do that next to me.”

The old sorrows melted away with the two or three sentences conveyed with a strong hug. Burying his face in Tae-rim’s arms and wetting his collar with his wet breath, Hae-ah pressed his lips tightly. It was a moment when everything that filled his chest was happy, sad, pitiful, and lovely.

Suppressing his tears, Hae-ah forced a smile.

‘This is my person. Tae-rim-ssi is… my person.’

And then he felt it deeply. He knew now, he could admit it. Whether he awakened as an Omega or not, regardless of his qualifications, Cheon Tae-rim loved him. He loved Cheon Tae-rim just as much….

At the moment when his whole heart was filled with affection,

“Huh….”

He felt a strange sensation of his heart wriggling and throbbing.

The muscles in his whole body tingled for a very short time, and then returned to normal as usual. Feeling a subtle feeling, Hae-ah hugged Tae-rim, who was carrying him across the house, even tighter. Then the unfamiliar sensation that had been pounding inside him disappeared like snow melting.

“Hae-ah.”

“Yeah…, Tae-rim-ssi.”

“Shall we shower together?”

While climbing the stairs without using his legs at all, Hae-ah laughed.

“Are you… forgiving me now?”

Hae-ah whispered, leaning his dried face on Tae-rim’s shoulder, and

“You didn’t do anything wrong in the first place.”

Tae-rim pressed his lips down on his hair.

“…You were just being yourself.”

The conversation ended there. They decided to stay in a pleasant silence. Hae-ah closed his eyes tightly and repeatedly repeated the words he had heard, and Tae-rim quickened his pace, wanting to put his lover in a warm bathtub and comfort him.

The whole house was warm with the early summer sunshine, with the young puppy Do-jin panting and running after his two guardians.

It was a morning that felt more affectionate than he deserved.

“Minimum temperature 22 degrees Celsius, maximum temperature 26 degrees Celsius, probability of precipitation 20 percent. July 7th, today’s weather is literally the best.”

The voice reading the weather forecast was clear and refreshing. Holding his phone in his left hand and extending his right hand out the wide-open car window, Hae-ah enjoyed the wind that wrapped around his fingers.

The mileage on the Bugatti’s dashboard, which had been nothing more than a figure in the garage, exceeded 10 kilometers in three years. Moving his sturdy forearms, with the sleeves of his light gray shirt rolled up, the man carefully turning the steering wheel was Tae-rim. The simple mandarin collar accentuated his jawline, and the thick strap of the watch on his wrist suited his long, slender fingers.

“The weather is great, the drive is great, and our Tae-rim-ssi is the best. Today’s mood is simply the best.”

Hae-ah drawled out the ending, acting playful. Tae-rim glanced at his face, unable to hide his excited mood. His smiling face, looking up at the blue sky outside the car window, looked as if it could be captured in a photo and placed on an ion drink billboard. If it were filmed and uploaded to social media, ‘like’ hearts would flood in like a wave.

Come to think of it, similar proposals had been made several times. There were subtle suggestions that they should find an advertising model to be the face of AOM not from the entertainment industry, but from the seat next to the CEO. Cheon Tae-rim’s answer was always NO.

Half of it was a consideration to protect Kang Hae-ah’s life as his own, to protect his private sphere, and not to disturb his long-awaited break.

‘Who do they think they are, showing off my man to anyone?’

The remaining half of his possessiveness was contained in his dark eyes, obsessively scanning his lover’s profile.

Feeling the gaze piercing his left cheek, Hae-ah shrugged. Bursting into laughter like a boy, he needlessly pulled on the innocent seatbelt strap.

“What are you looking at? You’re thinking strange things again, aren’t you?”

Tae-rim chuckled at the question that saw right through him. Turning the steering wheel as the light turned green, he stretched his right arm out in front of Hae-ah. However, contrary to his worries, the car didn’t shake, and Hae-ah’s body didn’t lurch forward. The Bugatti smoothly entered the complex left-hand lane.

At the same time, Tae-rim had a thought that Hae-ah, who had failed his driver’s license test last month, would find very unfair. It wasn’t difficult at all to drive Hae-ah’s car instead. In fact, it was quite fun. It was as if the car had a ‘Moses’ Miracle’ system installed, as other cars automatically made way and cleared the road. There was no crazy driver who would dare to come close to the light emerald-colored Bugatti. Unless someone was driving recklessly in the wrong direction, there was no chance of a car accident.

While Tae-rim was concentrating on driving, Hae-ah’s expression had changed. His upper lip protruded forward like a bird’s beak, and his eyes narrowed as if displeased.

‘What strange thoughts is he having now?’

As soon as he made the guess, Hae-ah started saying strange things.

“Would it be too selfish to want you to be romantic only with me?”

“…Who?”

“Tae-rim-ssi.”

Tae-rim let out a low groan at the unexpected words. He was a man who had never been called romantic in his life. A rock, a wooden block, a wall. That’s what Mother called him, and that’s what his girlfriends, who lasted no more than four days or four months, called him, and that’s what Si Eun-cheol, who had been his closest aide for over ten years, had said.

And… a crazy bastard, a princess, a heartless man who abandons his friends. That’s what Cheon Tae-rim was called after meeting Kang Hae-ah. Yet, his Prince was sulking with a gloomy face, so the crazy, heartless princess who abandoned his friends couldn’t help but feel wronged.

“Who else besides you have I been romantic with?”

As soon as he asked the question as if scolding, Tae-rim realized the answer to his question. It wasn’t that he recalled or regretted his mistakes. It was because he already knew that there was only one person who could make Hae-ah feel self-conscious and compare himself.

‘Si Eun-cheol. It’s because of that bastard.’

As soon as he realized the answer, Tae-rim cleared his throat with a ‘ahem’. Then, he spoke in the kindest and gentlest voice possible.

“Hae-ah. Were you worried about the gift I sent to Eun-cheol’s hospital room? There’s no need to be. I only ordered it, I don’t know what was given. Secretary Yoon takes care of everything, things like that.”

Then Hae-ah said, “Uh-huh,” and raised his head, which had been lowered, and turned to Tae-rim, muttering, “Mind reader.”

“…You’re not lying to comfort me, are you? That gift was chocolate and a novel. Not just any chocolate, but a ‘Sweet Bear with a Heart’ special edition chocolate. The novel was about a subject that would clearly divide opinions, and it was the last volume.”

Tae-rim’s eyes narrowed as he mulled over the words he had just heard. His lips puffed out as if drawing the number 3.

Tapping the steering wheel with his index finger, Tae-rim said.

“I don’t understand… Hae-ah. Is Si Eun-cheol better looking than me?”

“Pardon?”

“Or does he seem kinder than me?”

“Pardon? What are you even saying?”

“Hmm…”

The conversation ended ambiguously. Hae-ah, who had shaken off his anxiety by observing Tae-rim’s reaction, felt refreshed, while CEO Cheon Tae-rim, who had realized the subtle undercurrents between his secretaries, felt very awkward.

Apart from being a friendly and efficient secretary who was good at her job, Yoon Eun-ah was not the Alpha type that Si Eun-cheol would like. She was comprehensively progressive and dated regardless of whether they were Alpha or Omega. On the other hand, Si Eun-cheol was old-fashioned, believing that Dominant should meet Dominant, and recessive should meet recessive, not to mention distinguishing between tendencies.

‘…Well. What do I know.’

Tae-rim frowned, feeling self-pity as he wondered what he was worrying about when he didn’t even know that his close friend had One-sided Imprinting on him. When situations changed and emotions rushed in, Si Eun-cheol was the kind of guy who could even do a lip bump with an Omega like him. And that too, to the husband of his close friend, Cheon Tae-rim.

‘Ah, thinking about it makes me angry again.’

Hae-ah said to him, who wanted to take his brain out of his head for a moment and rinse it in running water.

“But is it okay to go this far? It seems like we’re too far from the venue…”

“I said let’s spend the whole day together, not let’s go to a charity event.”

Tae-rim retorted, driving the car relentlessly through the tollgate. Hae-ah was very puzzled by that.

July 7th, today was Kang Hae-ah’s twenty-sixth birthday. Hae-ah was someone who had ‘always spent his birthdays with his family.’ Even the modifier that sounded affectionate was prone to changing its meaning when attached to Hae-ah. For him, birthdays were not a happy day, and his family was not a kind presence. For him, his birthday was the day that was publicly known as the anniversary of his Mother’s death.

Twenty-six years ago, on July 7th, Chairman Kang Jun-il’s wife died giving birth to her fourth child, whom she had conceived out of love. Everyone in the world believed that, and all the siblings accepted the lies that their Father had spun. There was a tragedy that returned when Hae-ah learned the word ‘but’ as a child and stammered, ‘But, Mother…’

‘What does the date of death matter? It’s not like the dead can argue. Everyone else is fine, why are you the only one being so dramatic? Do you want to pretend to be nice, or do you just hate that it overlaps with your birthday? Don’t be mistaken, Kang Hae-ah. No one will congratulate you for something like that…’

Then there was Kang Il-hae, who would swing open the doors of the venue. Next to him was Kang Hae-ah, who was sobbing, unable to digest the criticism that had come his way. When Kang Il-hae pretended to comfort his crying younger brother, people would make sounds that were a mix of admiration and lamentation, and they would freely adore the two pretty brothers.

The details were slightly different, but the development was always similar. July 7th had always been like that for Hae-ah. He would attend a charity event held in Han-seong in the name of his Mother, smile when he heard birthday wishes, and lower the corners of his lips in a sad pretense towards those who expressed their condolences for the old death. A day when he was forcibly pushed around by his Hyung, verbally and sometimes physically. That was Hae-ah’s birthday.

It was impossible for Kang Hae-ah, his kindest son, to be absent from the stage that Chairman Kang Jun-il had set up.

‘Hae-ah, happy birthday. Let’s spend the whole day together today.’

Tae-rim had said that today when he woke up to the sound of a young dog’s footsteps walking through the hallway. Hae-ah had simply accepted his kindness. Knowing that meeting his Hyung was a scary and awkward thing for him today, he thought it meant that he would attend the charity event as his partner.

So, he chose a shirt, watch, and shoes for Tae-rim that were dignified but looked neat. Hae-ah himself found a cream-colored blazer and dress pants that were bright but not too flashy. That wasn’t all. He even took out a small piece of art that he had drawn to put up for the donation auction, placing it under the passenger seat.

He had started working on the palm-sized square canvas a week ago. From that day until this morning, it was a charity event that he had been preparing and paying attention to. And it was Tae-rim who had immediately canceled his plans.

It was something that should have made him upset and at least bewildered.

But Hae-ah was happy.

“Then where… where are we going now?”

Hae-ah’s voice trembled, unable to hide his excitement. In an instant, he became happy.

He didn’t have to forcibly keep his place and sell his face while being pushed around. He didn’t have to pretend to mourn and cry, or pretend to be happy and smile, as if it were his Mother’s death anniversary, which was still a week away. He didn’t have to see his Father, he didn’t have to read his sisters’ expressions, and he didn’t have to meet his Hyung.

Most of all,

“To meet the person who gave birth to you.”

It was the first birthday in Hae-ah’s life that he was spending alone with the man he loved.

Arriving at their destination, Tae-rim got out of the car first. Walking around the car and opening the passenger door, Tae-rim gestured, and Hae-ah placed his hand on his palm. Holding the box containing the artwork that should have been on the auction block by now, Hae-ah stood with both feet on the blue parking lot.

What greeted them was a charnel house built on a prime location. The two-story Korean-style building did not reveal its function on the outside. Colorful flowers bloomed on the walking path with a small lake, and the leaves of the Mongolian oak tree swayed in blue light whenever the wind blew.

Hae-ah’s Mother was there. In the Korean-style house in a landscape that was gentle enough to soothe anyone’s soul, at the end of a long corridor after filling out the register, in a dark brown storage box in a private room of about two square meters, in a very expensive and very small urn.

“Sorry. I couldn’t bring any alcohol today.”

Soon, a bizarre sight unfolded before Tae-rim’s eyes. Hae-ah and his Mother had only spent a week together after he was born before they parted ways. Hae-ah had no memory of that time. There wasn’t even anyone to reminisce about his Mother from that time with him. Yet, Hae-ah seemed to be closer to his Mother, who was contained in a small urn, than to his living Father or siblings.

“Mom. Guess who I came with? This is my… um… haha. My… my future husband…”

Instead of Hae-ah, who was awkwardly greeting her, Tae-rim bent down in front of the small table. He inserted incense sticks into the center of the prepared rice bowl and lit them with a match. Until the subtle scent filled the small room, he bowed his head and paid his respects in silence.

Hae-ah no longer smiled falsely. With his mouth closed, he faced a quieter and happier birthday than ever before.

After a long period of gentle silence, he put down the box he had brought.

“I’ll give this to Mom.”

Then he took out the artwork from the box. It was a small sketch of a new work that he was revealing to the outside for the first time this year as an artist, with even the frame designed and made by himself. If it had been put up for auction at the charity event, it would have immediately fetched the highest price.

However, the work, which had yellow painted on the falling sunlight and simply and clearly depicted the shadows of leaves with blue borders, was placed next to the photo of the woman who had stopped at the age of thirty-two today.

By the time they returned to Seoul, the sunset was visible outside the car window. The two of them, with the strong smell of incense on them, listened to the pop song playing on the radio.

While savoring the moving birthday he had experienced for the first time in his life, Hae-ah suddenly said.

“Lamborghini, Lamborghini truck. Or Maybach, Suburban. Which one do you like better?”

Tae-rim tilted his head slightly at that. Hae-ah leaned his upper body towards him, tilting his head as if asking what he meant without answering. The seatbelt strap was pulled all the way.

“I want to give you a gift, Tae-rim-ssi. Choose what you want.”

“A gift, for me… out of the blue?”

“Yeah.”

“Does it have to be a car? The SUV I’m driving now is only two years old and very sturdy… Don’t you like it?”

“It’s not that… I just want to get you a car that suits you better. I heard that Team Leader Kim is driving an expensive new car too.”

“……”

Tae-rim’s jaw immediately hardened. Suppressing the urge to shout, ‘That Kim Min-soo bastard,’ he clenched his teeth. There wasn’t an employee in AOM who didn’t know that the development team leader, who had bought an expensive imported car, had started taking up two parking spaces in the company parking lot.

He knew that he greeted Hae-ah in a friendly manner as he came and went, but he thought that he wouldn’t be so clueless as to brag to a tycoon who had only three figures in his garage when there were other people to brag to about his new car. Looking at it now, it was a gross overestimation.

“Can’t you just pick one? Huh? I want to give it to you. I’m really grateful for today too… Tae-rim-ssi, you’re going to drive me around a lot like this, aren’t you? Instead of you driving, I’ll… please, please. Huh? It doesn’t make sense for the CEO’s car to be worse than an employee’s. Doesn’t it?”

“……”

Kang Hae-ah, the youngest son of a conglomerate family, didn’t know why a mere team leader had bought an expensive car. He didn’t know that the ‘CEO who drives a worse car than an employee’ in front of him had poured out incentives worth his annual salary as the price for successfully analyzing Kang Hae-ah in order to succeed in his love life.

So,

“Aah, please, please. Please. Huh?”

He grabbed Tae-rim’s forearm as if it were a lifeline and showed off his cuteness, which he didn’t usually do.

“Can’t I? Really… really… can’t I? I’m asking you like this… but still can’t I?”

“Haa…”

The problem was that Tae-rim was overly weak to his cuteness.

“Tae-rim-ssi.”

When he widened his brown eyes like a puppy who had something upsetting happen and drawled out the end of his words, Tae-rim’s heart thumped and pounded at the trick. He frowned and tried to manage his expression by closing his mouth tightly, but even that was only temporary.

Kiss.

Hae-ah kissed his firm cheek.

Kiss kiss.

Holding onto the stretched seatbelt strap, he stretched out his neck and repeatedly bumped his lips.

Kiss kiss kiss.

Tae-rim’s head was slightly pushed back by the soft lips pecking like a woodpecker pecking at a tree with its beak.

Tae-rim’s right hand pressed down on Hae-ah’s chest, who was about to launch a fourth attack. Hae-ah sat back in his seat, burying his back in the passenger seat due to the sudden force. Turning the steering wheel with his left hand, Tae-rim hurriedly parked the car on the shoulder, which was empty for preventing drowsy driving.

Then he quickly unfastened the seatbelt strap around his waist. With his face flushed red, he stretched his upper body towards the passenger seat, and Hae-ah covered his lips, which had been showering kisses a moment ago, with both hands.

“Answer.”

Then he spoke in a low voice. His eyes were narrowed and serious, and his shoulders were raised stiffly, almost touching his ears.

Looking down at his lover who was imitating him, Tae-rim finally burst into laughter. Sighing, he rubbed his nose on the back of Hae-ah’s hand. Then, after hesitating for a few seconds and racking his brain, he decided to choose the cheapest of the vehicles that Kang Hae-ah had proposed.

“Then I’ll take the Suburban.”

“Wow!”

“Now, lips.”

With a complete smile, Hae-ah’s eyes narrowed as he lowered his hands. Letting out an excited breath between his teeth, he slowly lowered his eyes. His eyelashes were facing down, his blushing cheeks were puffed up with a smile, and his lips anticipated the coming kiss. Cheon Tae-rim saw such a beautiful face for the first time in his life.

Yesterday’s Kang Hae-ah was better than today’s Kang Hae-ah. With each passing day, he became happier, more fulfilled, and more honest. And so, for the first time in his life. The beautiful face Tae-rim saw today was always the first time in his life.

Tae-rim pressed his forehead with both hands. And he admitted it. His happy Hae-ah, fulfilled Hae-ah, honest Hae-ah was not only beautiful but also a troublemaking, tomboyish young master.

“How did this happen… Why…. Why two cars?”

Tae-rim asked, pointing at the vehicles filling the large garage. At the end of his index finger was the Suburban that Hae-ah had suggested and he had chosen, and at the end of his middle finger was the Maybach that Hae-ah had suggested but he had refused.

Unlike the frozen Tae-rim, Hae-ah moved leisurely and walked to the middle of the two vehicles.

‘No way, no way….’

Tae-rim felt an uneasy aura and staggered in place. Sure enough, Hae-ah, with a bright smile, lowered his arms and tore off the door guards attached to the driver’s seat of the Maybach and the passenger seat of the Suburban with a ‘rip’ sound.

“It’s a set of two, so there are two!”

Smiling brightly, Hae-ah placed the two car keys in Tae-rim’s palm.

“Isn’t it really pretty? One is for commuting, and the other is good for going on drives and playing. It suits CEO Cheon so well! Come here, huh? Take it for a spin!”

“…….”

There were many things Tae-rim wanted to say, but he couldn’t easily utter any of them. ‘Lamborghini, Lamborghini truck. Or Maybach, Suburban,’ he had said. No wonder it felt like he was giving a multiple-choice question; the Suburban was a trap. From the beginning, the choices were two: ‘Lamborghini and Lamborghini truck. Or Maybach and Suburban.’

With a bright face, Hae-ah tore off all the remaining door guard sponges. The symbol of the new car, peeled off like an ice cream wrapper, fell to the garage floor.

Suppressing a sigh, Tae-rim silently looked around the garage. Just as he knew Hae-ah well, Hae-ah also knew him well. He clearly saw through that both the Suburban and the Maybach were ultimately cars of the type that Tae-rim would like.

Inevitably, Tae-rim trudged towards the new car.

‘Damn it….’

To be honest, he liked it.

“…Thank you.”

So he decided to accept it.

As if to make up for Tae-rim’s inability to be readily happy, Hae-ah looked excited. He knocked on the car window and shouted, ‘Please open the door,’ and when Tae-rim pressed the key to open the doors of both vehicles at the same time, he quickly entered the back seat of the Suburban. Tae-rim knew why Hae-ah had chosen the wider car rather than the more expensive one.

When he followed with a smiling face, Hae-ah was already lying stretched out on the seat. Smiling like a mischievous child, he began to unbutton his top one by one. On the other hand, Tae-rim first loosened his pants belt.

“Pervert.”

Hae-ah whispered after tempting him first and showing his stomach. Tae-rim gladly accepted the word as a compliment. Crawling between his fiancé’s legs, he buried his red face in his fair neck.

Then he whispered with a smile.

“I really can’t beat you. You even sprayed perfume in the car.”

“Huh? No…?”

Hae-ah, hugging Tae-rim’s back, gave a bewildered smile.

“I didn’t spray anything….”

“There was a really nice scent, definitely?”

Compared to Tae-rim, who was shaking his head from side to side and sniffing, Hae-ah was very distracted. He thought his huge lover was like a shy boy. He was busy enjoying the cute Tae-rim, like a child receiving a toy car and being hesitant.

Changing his lying position, Hae-ah asked.

“Aren’t you going to test the ride?”

Pretending to be unable to resist the cute urging, he buried his face in his neck again, but Tae-rim couldn’t overlook a slight sense of strangeness. He seemed to have smelled a strange and pleasant scent for a very brief moment, but the sensation that had touched the tip of his nose was now gone.

‘That’s strange.’

As he tilted his head, his short hair tickled Hae-ah’s chin. The sound of laughter, with his chest heaving, filled the colorless and odorless interior of the vehicle.