“I know, that you think of me like family. That’s even more fucked up. You’re dating all these shitty betas and alphas who cheat without any backbone, while I say I’ll raise a child with you for life and you babble nonsense about how it’s okay to see other people.”
My head was blank. What is all this?
No matter how dense I am, I’m not so dense I can’t understand words being spoonfed to me like this. What Won Dogyeong is saying right now is, in other words, in other words…….
No, before that.
“Hey.”
“What.”
“Don’t curse, the child can hear.”
“Ah…… sorry. It still doesn’t feel real….”
Won Dogyeong wandered his eyes around my belly area with an “oops” voice and muttered an apology to who knows whom. I thought he’d calmed down a bit for a moment, but the gaze that returned to me was still rippling, filled with emotions that could be anger or resentment.
The face I saw every day felt unfamiliar. This wasn’t the Won Dogyeong I knew.
Or maybe he was just hiding it.
At the very bottom where I couldn’t easily notice, wrapped up tightly.
“……Do you like me?”
Won Dogyeong loosened his sharply extended eyes. His gaze calmly staring at me was sunken so deeply that nothing could be read.
“Yeah.”
“Since when?”
“I don’t know, since we were young.”
We’ve known each other since we were 7 years old, so how young exactly does “when we were young” mean?
High school? Middle school?
Whenever it was from, it was surprising. No, beyond surprising, it felt like my head had emptied out. I even thought it might be a dream and pinched the back of my hand lightly, but only a dull sting cried out for me to come to my senses.
“You… dated people too.”
He hated talking about it to death, but occasionally showed signs of seeing someone.
Whether they were an omega, beta, how he met them, I had no way of knowing such details. But it was clear from how this guy who usually forgot his phone in his bag like it was a decoration would occasionally clutch his phone and contact someone, or how the frequency of him coming home would subtly decrease.
“Ha, how did you know about that too?”
Won Dogyeong sneered while irritably running his hand through his hair.
“I did, date. I tried to live thinking about something other than you too.”
Thinking about something other than me…. Are these words really coming from Won Dogyeong’s mouth right now?
I’d vaguely imagined what he might be like when dating.
Should I say it didn’t work out well, or it just seemed like it wouldn’t be different from usual. I thought he’d be the type to grumble with his mouth but be affectionate in actions, pretend not to care but take care of this and that, and get angry saying it’s embarrassing when it comes to sappy words.
That’s why Won Dogyeong being this honest and nakedly scooping out and throwing his insides was doubly bewildering.
“It didn’t work out. Look. I’m doing this, right now.”
“…Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Then what would change? Even when I’m ridiculously good to only you, you think I’m just picky about people. When I avoid you, you think it’s because I’m busy, and when I get angry that you’re seeing trash, you think it’s because my temper is shit.”
That much…… when he got angry about me seeing trash, I at least thought he was saying it out of concern for me. As a friend, of course.
…Wait a minute.
“If I told you? With your personality, you would’ve moved out of this house right away because it was uncomfortable. And you would’ve made all kinds of excuses to keep your distance and worked hard at your job all the time. Whether I was waiting or not. When we were young it was studying, now it’s work. That’s all that’s in your head. When you’re busy and it gets in the way, you break up with whoever you were seeing without looking back, so how much would you have cared about me who’s just a friend?”
I had nothing to say. Because it was all true, word for word. We know each other too well.
But if there’s something he didn’t know, it’s that Won Dogyeong isn’t just a friend to me. I might have moved out. I might have kept my distance for a while. Even so, I would have seriously considered that matter.
If it was Won Dogyeong who brought it up.
“……Even if it all sounds like excuses, I have nothing to say. If I’d done something, our relationship might have changed. But I was scared. Scared that you’d just brush me off too. I didn’t think I’d be any different.”
Though not a lot, I dated occasionally, but I can say with certainty that there were plenty of more important things in my life. As he said, studying or work, or family—those things were much more important to me.
I’ve never liked someone I was seeing to death, never hesitated to break up. I never thought that was particularly a problem either.
“You don’t even see me as a romantic prospect, so I didn’t want to bring it up rashly and have everything fall apart. I’d rather stay quietly by your side. As long as I wasn’t greedy, I was the closest person to you. It’s really fu— annoying, but you like me the most as a friend.”
Alpha pheromones were faintly floating in the air. They were things that flowed out as his emotions intensified. Won Dogyeong kept pushing back the pheromones that kept bouncing out like springs. He was still trying for my sake even now.
“But, I can’t do it anymore. Watch you take my child around while meeting other guys?”
“……”
“Raise it with me. Raise it with me, and keep me by your side.”
He looked somehow relieved. It also seemed like resignation. As if he were a torn plastic bag, he continued speaking without hesitation, as if he was going to pour everything out now as it flowed.
I was busy frantically picking up and swallowing the situation. I had to hurriedly chew over the idea of keeping Won Dogyeong by my side as something other than a friend.
“If you absolutely hate it, say so now. Then I’ll stop everything and disappear from your sight. I won’t even be your friend. I’ll never see you again.”
“What?”
“…I’ll take responsibility for the child. Child support or whatever.”
He was pouring it all out on his own, but his pupils were anxiously shaking left and right. Even though Won Dogyeong was clearly threatening, it felt like he was clinging to my hem begging to be held onto.
Even so, it wasn’t like I had the upper hand either. It was cheating to come at me like this knowing full well that there was no way I could possibly hate Won Dogyeong.
“No, hey.”
“I’m deliberately being petty, I know. You care about me. So hold on to me, Yeo Jeongwon.”
Won Dogyeong, who finished speaking while anxiously lowering his gaze, smiled refreshingly as if a painful tooth had been pulled. His plump lips stretched out long to the side and his neat teeth were nicely revealed.
Even the corner of his raised mouth being wetly tinged with gloom sparkled with a refreshing smile as if it were just some unusual decoration.
What’s really petty is your face using honey traps anytime anywhere, you bastard.
“I’m not telling you to force yourself to change your mind. Just stay by my side and seriously think about it, about me.”
After finishing speaking, he quietly rolled his eyes downward and just breathed quietly. A bit of regret seemed to flow out mixed with his exhale. On the table swept by a storm, a desolate silence lingered.
Won Dogyeong seemed to gauge my reaction as I sat with my mouth clamped shut, then suddenly stood up, fetched two glasses of water, and pushed one in front of me.
Looking down at the cup where the surface gently undulated, I was lost in thought.
Let’s trace back from the beginning.
I understood that Won Dogyeong likes me.
And probably for quite a long time. So he wants to raise the child together and wants to become that kind of relationship with me.
Then what about me?
If you ask whether I like Won Dogyeong in a romantic sense, I don’t. At least I’ve never thought about it that way until now.
But if I borrow his expression and ask “do I absolutely hate it,” that’s not the case either. Even if it’s a slightly different kind of affection, I liked Won Dogyeong enough. Enough to think it would be fine to live together for life.
Since a child has already been conceived between us, it’s not something that will end just by pretending not to know now, and even though it was an accident, I didn’t dislike sleeping with him either. Rather, after that day, his flushed face occasionally letting out gentle moans by my ear would sometimes suddenly burrow into my mind and be troublesome. That was also the main reason I’d been subtly avoiding Won Dogyeong.
Just with that, isn’t the verification of possibility already over… or not?
And in the first place, never seeing Won Dogyeong again?
That wasn’t in my options.
Of course, I wasn’t trying to reach a conclusion based only on such primal reasons, but I’d never imagined not having Won Dogyeong by my side since we were 7 years old.
Then what would I do on weekends and who would I watch movies with?
Suddenly I feel wronged. Is he saying it’s okay for him not to see me, what the hell.
After grumbling a bit inside and rewinding and repeating the same thoughts several times, I finally looked back on the past restless month and made up my mind.
“Okay.”
“……Really?”
Won Dogyeong was startled and knocked over the water glass he’d been fiddling with. Fortunately, there was nothing in it so nothing spilled.
Are you stupid?
“But let’s take it slow. I need time to accept this too…. I’m still dazed.”
“That’s naturally…… but really? You’ll think about it?”
“Isn’t that what you’re saying we should do?”
“Uh…… right.”
Won Dogyeong opened his eyes wide and blankly fiddled with his lips. He blinked and seemed to be thinking about something, then let out a deep sigh and roughly tousled his hair with both hands.
