After briefly rummaging through the files given to him, when his stomach became uncomfortable again, Hyedam quietly got up from his seat. He carefully left the conference room so as not to disturb Luna, who was concentrating on her work, and sat on the sofa behind the large tree in the corner.
Though it might be freezing cold outside, the sofa where the sunlight poured in was cozy and warm. He yawned drowsily and stretched, but overcoming the sleepiness that was gradually creeping in was not easy. He couldn’t control the warmth and drowsiness, his churning stomach, and his body drooping like waterlogged cotton.
Unable to overcome his gradually heavy eyelids, Hyedam’s eyes closed.
Half-asleep and half-awake, he was neither asleep nor awake. The noise made by the people working at Luna’s company felt distant.
Since English was used more than Korean here, the sound of their conversations wasn’t bothersome at all. Hyedam’s mouth corners slightly lifted at the feeling of having a foreign movie playing. Even when mixed with other people, Luna’s voice, which was particularly loud and high-pitched, was immediately recognizable.
What had excited her again?
Her voice, always energetic and lively, stood out more than usual. Did a problem arise? In his drowsy state, Hyedam’s strange imaginations moved actively.
Because she couldn’t get the item she was trying to obtain? Or because she found something she really liked? Or because a client ordered something close to impossible? As he thought of things that would excite her from her perspective, his ears naturally tuned in to her words.
“Appearing again, what are they trying to do? After causing such a ruckus back then and completely breaking the kid’s mentality, they took money on the condition they’d never appear again and keep their mouth shut, that should have been enough……”
Was she on a call with someone? The other person’s voice couldn’t be heard, and after a moment of silence, Luna rapidly poured out words. He thought he was fairly good at English, but he couldn’t understand all of her words that were too fast.
On top of that, there were many profanities mixed in that he didn’t fully understand the meaning of.
Though he had been listening indifferently, before he knew it, Hyedam was focusing on that story. Even listening roughly, it sounds like an incredible mess? So in the past, someone used a child to do something like blackmail and extorted money, but appeared again after several years.
Just which sucker took responsibility in a situation where they weren’t even sure if it was their lover’s child or not? Even if they insisted too stubbornly that it was their child, not knowing whether they made a mistake or not? No matter how much more open that culture is than ours and how drunk they got. Tsk……
Just hearing this much, it was understandable why Luna was shouting so angrily. Probably the side that got money extorted, claiming to be the child’s father, seemed to be close to Luna.
“Crazy…… From the beginning, that side insisted unreasonably. Don’t you remember no one believed it back then? Except for a few kids seeing them come out of the room at dawn, there was no evidence. Whether they really had relations or just went in briefly and came out, who knows. It happened to be a CCTV blind spot there……”
As the story was progressing interestingly, while listening to Luna’s words, Hyedam stretched drowsily.
“That’s what I’m saying. That’s why they supported everything during pregnancy and childbirth. When the baby was born, even the blood type didn’t match, so won’t they do a paternity test? The paternity test kept coming out strange too, so they did it several more times!”
After a brief silence and quick responses, now only Luna’s occasional curses could be heard.
“So what’s the Lewis family doing about it?”
His sleepiness had completely vanished, and thinking that he should gradually go in and help her with her work once Luna finished her call, Hyedam’s hand that had been massaging his shoulder stopped.
“Leo doesn’t know either? Of course he wouldn’t know. If this story reaches Leo’s ears in the current situation, there’ll be murder right away.”
Lewis? Leo?
“Honestly, even during school and all, wasn’t it just one or two who clung to him like moths to a flame? Just thinking about those who tried to seduce him somehow to change their fortune…… Omegas wouldn’t take their medicine when their heat came and would hover around trying to get to Leo’s dorm, and other Alphas would go into rut again…… Ugh. Really, those beasts. Anyway, as soon as that matter was settled, Leo took a leave of absence and went into Korea. After that, he just studied and worked like crazy.”
Hyedam’s hand that had been touching his shoulder dropped with a thud onto his thigh. The protagonist of the gossip he had just been listening to was Leo Lewis? A family that could readily give 5 billion won on the condition of never appearing again and not contacting the media. Luna’s close acquaintance.
Around late autumn when he was twenty, he suddenly went to Korea. Hyedam had also met Ondal in the autumn of the year he was twenty. He was mixed up in Leo’s most difficult time, the memory he would most want to forget. What was the reason for staying by his side pretending to have lost his memory?
He wasn’t as smooth-talking as now, nor did he smile much. When they were together, he talked so much that sometimes Hyedam would cover his mouth telling him to be quiet—the current Leo and Ondal from back then were the same yet very different.
The reason he sat alone on the wooden bench in the cold weather looking at a distant place, the reason he didn’t smile much and didn’t talk much…… He felt like he understood all the reasons why he left that place immediately without looking back as soon as Robert appeared.
But why with me? You could have just stayed like that and left abruptly, so why the hell did you sleep with me? I was the sucker. Not Leo, but I was the sucker.
How ridiculous I must have seemed. Since I was a beta, not an omega, I must have been easy? Because I was someone who would never trap him with a baby. So even now…… What expression would he make the moment the word “baby” came out of my mouth?
The person in that story was probably an omega, right? That’s why that family took responsibility for the pregnancy period and childbirth. Since they said it was a family precious about descendants.
But if he, who is officially a beta, said he was pregnant, and that the child was his child, what expression would Leo make? Would he give him a large sum of money too and chase him away? He wouldn’t be fooled twice, not once but twice. Although what he had was the truth,
The fingertips casually placed on his thigh trembled. His already uncomfortable stomach churned, and nausea rushed in. Unable to distinguish whether his head hurt or his chest hurt, his breath was choked.
Hyedam’s trembling hand slowly wrapped around his stomach.
“Ah, I don’t know. I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear today’s story. I have to work. I’m busy. Don’t even open your mouth to Leo. If this gets in his ears now, everyone’s really dead.”
Following Luna’s muttering mixed with rough curses as if she had ended the call, the sound of slippers could be heard, but Hyedam remained frozen like a statue, unable to move.
He had just thought Leo had no interest in children. There was no reason everyone had to like babies. It wasn’t something that could be forced upon them to like. But he already had sufficient conditions for that. Twenty years old. An age that could never be called old.
Anyone could make mistakes. After entering university, he himself had crawled home on all fours countless times, and how many times had he drunk and passed out sleeping in the club room?
According to Luna’s words, for some reason, Leo didn’t remember that day’s events clearly. Whatever the process was, he tried to take responsibility, but the other party deceived him and his family to the end.
“……”
His chest constricted suffocatingly, so with a slow hand he tapped his left chest. Only then did the tightly blocked airway seem to open a little. It wasn’t time to understand and be considerate of him, but to take care of himself now.
The emergency room duty doctor had made a wrong judgment.
It was late at night, and the emergency room was crowded with many patients. Someone’s blood sample and his own might have been switched, and hormones weren’t always constant.
Weren’t hormones things that always changed according to circumstances? Anyway, I’m just suffering from a serious gastrointestinal disease right now. Right now, he had a ridiculous dream in his sleep. A dream like a third-rate trash movie, not even second-rate.
After biting and releasing his molars tightly, Hyedam’s trembling gradually subsided. Color returned to his face that had gone pale, and his irregular breathing gradually found stability.
Hyedam inhaled as slowly as possible and exhaled just as slowly. After lightly rubbing his cold hands, he swept his face, and next organized his disheveled hair from sprawling on the sofa.
Getting up from his seat and straightening his clothes, a gentle smile hung on Hyedam’s face. As Hyedam was about to step toward the conference room, his body swayed slightly.
“Stubborn Lee Hyedam is all dead.”
Muttering in a low voice along with curses, Hyedam laughed. Just as he had lived until now, he would do his best, find an answer, and make a decision he wouldn’t regret.
