[<Exclusive> Actor Lee Muyoung Accompanies Dominant Alpha J Ent. CEO Han Dowon to Hospital, Was He a Hidden Trait-Bearer?]
These were articles with photos of Muyoung and Dowon coming out of the hospital together the day before. The photo, taken from a distance with a close-up of the two standing in the hospital lobby, was undeniably of Dowon and Muyoung, and various speculative articles had been written based on it.
There weren’t just one or two articles. Countless articles were being copied and generated beneath the headline of the first article that appeared. The trend of articles appearing one after another within one or two minutes and rapidly multiplying was ominous.
“…You went to the hospital with that person yesterday?”
“…Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about that…!”
Muyoung’s mind went blank at the sudden turn of events. He couldn’t understand why such articles had suddenly appeared. Section Manager Kim urgently pulled out another phone he carried for work. He captured and saved several articles, then checked the time and let out a deep sigh, as if indicating the atmosphere was serious.
Watching Section Manager Kim step away slightly to make a call, Muyoung also picked up his phone. He was stunned by the endless barrage of calls, SNS messages, and texts that had been coming in—he didn’t know when they’d started. The flood of contacts from numbers he didn’t even know was clearly because of the articles that had just broken.
He blocked a few numbers with trembling hands, then dropped his phone. Even as he picked up the phone that had fallen to the floor, his trembling hands wouldn’t stop.
“What are you looking at? You don’t need to check all that. What do you want to hear?”
Section Manager Kim, who had been checking the situation, saw the distracted Muyoung and simply turned off his phone. He had no idea what to do or what to look into first. Section Manager Kim was the same, but for now, the priority was to escape this chaos.
The phone screen went black and showed no response, but Muyoung’s pounding heart wouldn’t calm down. Section Manager Kim’s face also grew darker as things weren’t going the way he wanted.
“This is crazy. I can’t reach CEO Choi. It’s completely jammed. Looking at my situation now, there must have been tons of calls to him too.”
“…Then shouldn’t I not be here?”
“Wait a minute…”
Section Manager Kim, who had been holding onto Muyoung and looking around the entrance and surroundings, led him to move to another location. Muyoung, moving as Section Manager Kim led him in a dazed state, was seated on an emergency staircase where people didn’t pass by. Section Manager Kim stood firmly in front of the collapsed Muyoung, checked something on his phone a few more times without saying anything, then handed one of his work phones to Muyoung.
“I’ll go check the situation and figure out a way to get out. We have to find a way to escape somehow.”
“…Yes, I’m sorry.”
“…Let’s deal with what’s right in front of us first, then talk about that.”
Muyoung, who had been biting his lip silently, nodded at Section Manager Kim’s words. Section Manager Kim looked down at the thoroughly dejected Muyoung, patted his shoulder a few times, and quickly went outside.
Crouched in a corner of the dim staircase where he couldn’t hear the sound of people coming and going, Muyoung slowly recalled what had happened yesterday. The photo in the article he’d checked didn’t seem to be from when they arrived early at the hospital, walked around, and met Dowon before going in. It appeared to be a photo of them coming out together after finishing the examination.
He buried his face between his knees and exhaled for a while, then took out the phone Section Manager Kim had given him. With clumsy hand movements, Muyoung swiped through screens and entered the portal site’s main page. There was no need to search for his name. The entertainment section was practically plastered with articles about Dowon and himself.
The photo clearly showed it was in front of the hospital, just as he’d confirmed. He clicked on the first visible article. All it said was that they’d been spotted coming out of the hospital. Various words were listed as speculation. Trait-bearer, dating, examination, hospital, deep relationship, alpha, omega, etc. Words that could become all kinds of stories depending on speculation were written arbitrarily.
There weren’t many places with proper articles written, but it was creepy that there were some that included comments from hospital officials saying the two had visited together and received examinations. Among the articles that were still spreading, some had only sensational catchphrases like “breaking news” and “shocking” added to headlines and photos.
“…So?”
In the distance, the sound of a door opening echoed, and someone’s voice rang out. Judging by the light flickering and going out from below the stairs, it seemed someone had entered from the lower floor. Muyoung hurriedly turned off the screen he was looking at and held his breath.
“The reporters outside are going crazy right now. Because of the articles that suddenly appeared.”
“So is Lee Muyoung not even able to enter the restaurant right now?”
As soon as he heard his name mentioned, Muyoung curled up even more. They seemed to be people who had worked together on the drama. He didn’t think they’d come up this far, but he thought it was better to be careful. He looked up the stairs so he could go up immediately if he felt them approaching.
“Was he really hiding being an omega? If he’s really dating Han Dowon, that would be it, right?”
“Is it that he was hiding being an omega because he was dating?”
“Who knows. Or maybe they’re just pretending to date. It could be sponsorship.”
“Lee Muyoung? No way… He doesn’t seem like that type?”
“Who knows. How can you know what’s inside a person?”
The murmuring voices echoed on and off through the spaces of the emergency staircase. But Muyoung could easily tell what they were thinking. He thought most people probably thought similarly.
“Then why did they go to the hospital?”
“If he really hid his trait, then maybe… pregnancy or some other reason?”
“Ugh, don’t make me imagine it! That’s disgusting.”
Two people visiting a trait hospital together. An actor and the CEO of an entertainment company. Whether the actor known as a beta was hiding his trait, whether he was dating an alpha, or whether he was doing something else while pretending to date—the increasingly sensational and sordid speculation circulating through people’s mouths and growing uncontrollably was the same everywhere, not just in this industry. The truth wasn’t very important. As long as it was fun and interesting to hear and talk about, that was enough, and scandals usually arose that way.
“Let’s go in quickly. They’ll complain to us again for no reason.”
“We have to last until dawn…”
The sound of the door opening again, and the light brightened briefly then disappeared. The footsteps of the people who had been talking vanished, and soon the presence felt from below also disappeared. Only then did Muyoung breathe and opened the phone he’d been holding again. There was no separate message from Section Manager Kim.
The articles were now even predicting the direction of the entertainment company Dowon ran. Among the articles pretending to be neutral, some were speculating whether it wasn’t for an actual relationship but for a contract with J Ent. They’d tried to package it in polite words, but in the end, it was saying that Muyoung was receiving sponsorship to climb up.
“Haa…”
He couldn’t help but sigh. His heart, which had been beating fast from the panic at the sudden event, grew cold as he faced the articles. Not a single one assumed it was a proper relationship. He even thought that rather than this, it would have been better if the tabloid from before had spread.
Hadn’t he been trying in his own way to be careful while meeting Dowon? No, was it right to say he’d been careful? Would the reaction have been better than this if he’d revealed he was an omega and worked openly? There must have been people who worked without revealing their traits secretly, but he’d never heard of people who had been inevitably exposed like Muyoung now meeting good endings.
Just as increasingly negative thoughts were growing in size, the door on Muyoung’s side opened carefully. It was Section Manager Kim. Section Manager Kim, who had gone to check the situation, approached the crouched Muyoung.
“…CEO Choi is also handling it right now, so what do you want to do?”
“First, I need to get out of here…”
“Even if we leave, you can’t go home right away. There will be a lot of reporters there. If they can’t catch you here, they’ll be desperate to catch you there.”
“…Then the office, is the CEO there?”
“Yeah. Let’s go to the office, then book a hotel or something. That would be better.”
When Section Manager Kim agreed and concluded, Muyoung nodded.
Following Section Manager Kim’s words that they couldn’t leave right away, the two waited in the emergency staircase for quite a while. Section Manager Kim, who had been looking outside the door periodically, gestured to Muyoung. Muyoung, barely straightening his crouched body to stand, followed beside him with a tense face.
Fortunately, the reporters outside seemed to have retreated to some extent. They came out through an exit on the completely opposite side from where they’d gotten out of the car. When Section Manager Kim whispered softly that he’d moved the car while Muyoung was waiting on the emergency staircase, Muyoung just nodded hard and moved his feet quickly.
As soon as they quickly exited the building and safely got in the car, Section Manager Kim started the engine. His hands and feet felt heavy even though he hadn’t really done anything since leaving home.
“I told CEO Choi we’re going to the office, but there will definitely be reporters there too. It would be better to go in through the underground parking lot.”
“…Yes.”
Hearing him continue that he’d told the drama wrap party production team he was sorry, Muyoung answered mechanically. Perhaps noticing his lackluster response, Section Manager Kim glanced at Muyoung through the rearview mirror.
Section Manager Kim was conflicted too. It wasn’t just anyone, but a well-known entertainment CEO and actor in the industry had been photographed coming from the hospital together, so for those who like to write stories, Muyoung must have been very good prey. He didn’t know the detailed circumstances, but thinking about it coldly, it wasn’t as if he’d committed some tremendous crime. Even so, Muyoung’s appearance, thoroughly cowed and restless, couldn’t help but be pitiful even if he weren’t the actor he was in charge of.
“What can we do about what’s already happened? We have to come up with countermeasures. Don’t worry too much and rest at least until we arrive.”
While nodding once more at Section Manager Kim’s comforting words, Muyoung couldn’t dispel the anxiety building up in his body. He felt like he’d been making the people working with him suffer more because of himself lately.
