By Zephyria 
He didn’t blindly expect to be happy.
He was already old enough to know better than to dream such sweet dreams, and he wasn’t ignorant of reality.
But… he thought that if there was 1 part happiness, he could do without the other 9.
Was even that a foolish thought and wish?
✽✽✽
── 1 Year Later
“Phew….”
His waist hurt, and the hole that had taken the member also hurt. Amidst that, the bitter part was that it didn’t hurt as much as it used to. Rather, he had even reached the point of thinking, maybe this is okay? He didn’t have much pride as an Alpha to begin with, but for things to turn out like this… he wondered if he should call that man amazing.
While walking, Jeong-min felt he couldn’t go any further and perched himself on the edge of a flowerbed. Perhaps because it was a secluded spot, there were no people and it was quiet.
Looking up at the sky, it was stained black and filled with dark clouds. I wonder if it will rain tomorrow…. It had been a long time since the alcohol wore off, and it was about time to go home… Jeong-min took out his phone, which had been silent for hours, to check if there were any messages.
There were a few messages: photos of the child that Young-min, who had recently remarried and had a daughter, was boasting about, and a few messages looking for Jeong-min in a group chat with former hospital doctors.
Other than that… there was nothing. The chat room containing the messages he truly waited for and longed to see was far down, requiring a long scroll to find.
Smiling bitterly, he opened an internet window. He read and read again the news about ‘Alpha Pregnancy’ he had seen earlier that day. Nowhere did it say that a pregnant Alpha had become an Omega. They were simply ‘Alphas’.
That’s not enough…. Is it truly impossible? Jeong-min sighed again and looked up at the sky.
His heart kept crumbling. He thought he could endure it, but perhaps he was just exhausted.
“Huh?”
Suddenly, a bright light shone toward Jeong-min. Dazzled, he closed his eyes for a moment and opened them to see a car slowly approaching. It was the car he had just had sex in. What? Didn’t it leave? Did he see wrong? While Jeong-min blinked, the owner of the car got out and approached.
“What are you doing here?”
“Uh….”
He hadn’t seen wrong. The Alpha who had slept with him and then left heartlessly was standing before him as if nothing had happened.
“Didn’t you leave? Did I leave something in the car?”
“You even got an injection, and your body isn’t in a normal state right now, so why aren’t you going home quickly?”
Kim Ju-hwan clicked his tongue and took off his jacket, draping it over Jeong-min’s shoulders.
“I’m fine.”
When Jeong-min tried to return the jacket, Kim Ju-hwan quickly stopped him.
“Forget it. I’ll take you home. Get up.”
“Um….”
Jeong-min didn’t get up, remaining seated and smiling with a slightly troubled expression.
“Can’t you get up?”
“It seems so. Thanks to a certain someone.”
“Blaming others… you drank too much, Sunbae.”
“And I even got the drug… thinking about it, it’s a miracle my body is intact.”
“Who says you’re intact?”
His muscles still hadn’t grown back, and the trembling in his hands persisted. He was struggling with exercise and body management, so it wasn’t very apparent on the outside, and he was only calming it down to some extent with drugs. Jeong-min’s body was currently a wreck. And the only people who knew that were Jeong-min and Kim Ju-hwan.
“Get up. I’ll hold you.”
As if he had no choice, Kim Ju-hwan grabbed Jeong-min’s arm and helped him up. He thought it wasn’t something to go this far for… but once he stood up, he couldn’t stand straight. The strength drained from his body and he felt nauseous. Jeong-min pushed Kim Ju-hwan away and threw up everything he had eaten. Watching this, Kim Ju-hwan clicked his tongue and patted his back.
“Let’s increase the interval between your injections.”
“…I can’t.”
Jeong-min barely managed one word before retching for a long time again. Since he hadn’t eaten properly, the fluid coming out was merely transparent, but it was agonizing. After emptying his stomach like that, he barely managed to get into the car with Kim Ju-hwan’s help.
It was definitely the car he had been entangled in just a while ago, but there was no smell, and the seats were clean. Of course, they had used it cleanly… but there were no traces of the sex they had just had.
Jeong-min sat in the passenger seat and closed his eyes. He felt the seat recline slightly and Kim Ju-hwan fasten his seatbelt, but he remained still. Right now, he didn’t have the strength to lift a finger.
Then, feeling a strange sensation on his lips, he opened his eyes to find Kim Ju-hwan wiping the corner of his mouth with a handkerchief.
“What… why are you doing this…?”
“…You’re drooling all over the place, so should I just leave it?”
“I’m not drooling… I’ll wipe it.”
“I’ve already wiped it all.”
“Then give me that handkerchief. I’ll buy you a new one.”
“…Fine. Then.”
Kim Ju-hwan handed over the handkerchief as if tossing it. Jeong-min stubbornly took the handkerchief, put it in his pocket, and closed his eyes again. Then, as if suddenly remembering something, he tried to sit up, but Kim Ju-hwan silently pressed him back down.
“Home address….”
“I know it. I’ve driven you home how many times?”
“Ah…. That’s right.”
He could feel Jeong-min’s voice losing strength and his pronunciation becoming slurred.
“Sleep. I’ll wake you when we arrive.”
“Uh… but I feel bad. You were supposed to meet an Omega today….”
“Stop talking nonsense and sleep.”
Despite those words, Jeong-min continued to mumble to himself for a while before slowly leaning his body against the seat. Soon, the strength left his body and steady breathing was heard; Kim Ju-hwan took a blanket from the back seat and covered Jeong-min with it. It wasn’t yet weather to feel that cold, but lately, Jeong-min often mentioned being cold, as if he couldn’t regulate his body temperature properly. His body certainly felt colder to the touch than before.
He turned off the car engine and looked at the sleeping Jeong-min.
“Omega, my foot.”
It was getting hard to keep lying. Pretending to be uninterested, pretending to meet Omegas, just so the other wouldn’t feel burdened…. But if he hadn’t done that, this man would not have kept him by his side.
That was also bitter…. While liking the same Alpha, why didn’t he show any interest in him? Well, given what he had done in the past, perhaps it was poetic justice…. Sadly, Kim Ju-hwan was very good at objective self-analysis.
“Shin Jeong-min.”
He reached out and stroked his hair. Did you ever think you’d be doing something this foolish again? He had hoped to be entangled with Shin Jeong-min again, but not in this form. Perhaps the expectation that another path would open was also futile. The wheel of fate was not that generous.
It was one year after they had spent their last rut together that Jeong-min and Kim Ju-hwan reunited. It was in the hallway of the research ward.
Upon hearing the news that Yu Shin-woo had been rushed to the hospital in a state where his heart had nearly stopped, Kim Ju-hwan hurried to the research institute. It wasn’t because he was worried about Yu Shin-woo. It was because of Shin Jeong-min, who would be experiencing hell by his side.
The top doctors and researchers would be attached to Yu Shin-woo’s side, but he knew that no one would take care of Jeong-min, who would be despairing beside him….
Sure enough, when Kim Ju-hwan arrived at the hospital, Jeong-min’s face looked very exhausted.
“Sunbae.”
Kim Ju-hwan called out cautiously. At that, Jeong-min, who had been praying with his hands clasped and head bowed, slowly lifted his gaze. After seeing Kim Ju-hwan’s face, he looked surprised for a moment, then gave a bitter smile.
‘…I guess it was meant to end up like this.’
Those words carried a heavy weight of meaning.
He knew that Shin Jeong-min had not stopped taking the drug to become an Omega. Kim Ju-hwan had always tracked his movements. He knew how he obtained the drug, and Kim Ju-hwan had secretly bought out the pharmaceutical company.
He provided the drug Jeong-min wanted, but he ensured that no medication that could harm his body was administered. Even so, a body that had already been broken could not simply return to normal. Skin that once looked healthy had lost its luster, and his body had become gaunt and frail.
Though he had always watched from a distance and received reports, seeing it in person was different. Why did it come to this? You left in search of love. You thought you would be happy by Yu Shin-woo’s side. He had suppressed himself countless times, thinking that even if it made him sick with jealousy and drove him mad, it would be fine as long as you were smiling. But he didn’t look happy at all.
The problem was Yu Shin-woo’s condition. During his three-month grace period, he failed to find an Omega with a high matching rate. He had boldly declared he would survive on drugs, but in less than half a year, his body developed a resistance, and his health deteriorated rapidly, landing him in the hospital. Afterward, at Yu Shin-woo’s request, they searched for Omegas again and made several imprinting attempts, but all of them failed. That process was still ongoing.
Shin Jeong-min had watched that entire process from the sidelines.
‘It’s because of me.’
Feeling a sense of guilt.
‘It’s because I’m by his side….’
The Shin Jeong-min who was always confident and full of poise… the one who held a certain light, had vanished in just one year. That was absolutely not the future Kim Ju-hwan had wanted. Yet, paradoxically, it was an opportunity. A perfect chance to reweave what had been severed.