Won Dogyeong seemed determined to turn my insides upside down, so he delivered the final blow while poking at his rice bowl.
“Do you usually sleep with it that cold? It was just right with the blanket on… but I was shocked when I saw the temperature setting in the morning.”
“It was especially hot yesterday….”
I answered indifferently and shoved two pieces of rolled omelet into my mouth at once. Thinking I was eating a lot because it was delicious, he asked if he should make more, so I said no.
I don’t know, let’s just go to work.
In the car on the way to the office, I kept looking at the sky the whole time. My fighting spirit was broken and I didn’t have the energy to think about anything.
“It’s raining.”
It was the rainy season so it rained every day, but as if today’s rain felt different somehow, Won Dogyeong smiled pleasantly while listening to the sound of rain.
Right, I laughed along with him.
We’d clearly decided to sleep together for my and Yongyong’s sake, but only Won Dogyeong was full of energy. My pheromones shouldn’t have that effect.
After pounding the keyboard all morning as if shaking off my complicated feelings, I finally contacted Myeong Haemin.
[Me: Rooftop after lunch]
[Myeong Haemin: ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ(kekekekeke) Did you fight again?]
[Me: We didn’t fight]
[Myeong Haemin: Huh, lame]
[Me: Ah just come]
[Myeong Haemin: ㅇㅋ(ok)]
And after hearing about the previous night, Myeong Haemin held her belly and laughed.
“So you’re saying you want to do it with Kim Minwoo but you’re sulking because he didn’t touch you. Pfft, keuheuk.”
“No, it’s not that I want to do it!”
I got angry with my arms crossed. Why can’t she understand this?
“If it were you, do you think you’d fall right asleep the first time you slept with someone you like?”
“I don’t know… I’d rather just say let’s do it than worry about that.”
“Ah, come on! Listen.”
Haemin giggled and nodded half-heartedly.
“He really fell asleep as soon as he lay down! Right away! Immediately! Until morning!”
“You should’ve fallen asleep as soon as you lay down too.”
“I was trying to….”
I replied sulkily.
Like I didn’t sleep because I didn’t want to. She doesn’t even know how hard I tried to fall asleep.
“Why can’t you? You don’t even like him.”
Haemin grinned and gulped down her coffee. I suddenly found myself at a loss for words, stammering before biting my tongue.
Right, I don’t even like Won Dogyeong…?
…Do I not?
It’s not that I don’t.
Sometimes he looks kind of cute so I get flustered, and I’m conscious of touching him too….
No, but yesterday’s situation wasn’t about that, I’m saying.
“Or just say you’ll sleep separately. You can just hug his clothes like you’ve been doing.”
“Mm….”
“That’s not it either?”
“…It’s not that I don’t want to sleep together. It’s just, kind of, kind of.”
Myeong Haemin, who’d been watching me closely, narrowed her eyes and grinned.
“What, you’re conscious of him?”
I pressed my lips together and furrowed my brow. I really don’t want to admit it but….
“…Kind of?”
“But you’re annoyed that Kim Minwoo doesn’t seem that way?”
“…Well, that too… kind of?”
“Kkeuk, euhahak! That’s all your karma, endure it. Heuhahaha!”
I sipped the rooibos tea I was holding. My face felt hot.
I shouldn’t have told Haemin. It’s not like I didn’t expect this kind of reaction.
But earlier, I really felt like I couldn’t bear it if I didn’t vent to someone. Separate from the actual embarrassment, I did feel a bit relieved.
She kept laughing at whatever I brought up, so I just gave up and listened to Haemin’s blind date stories. Whether you’d call it a blind date—she slept with him the day they met, dated for a week, and broke up. She said she’s going on another blind date tomorrow. Anyway, she’s amazing.
The afternoon dragged on boringly. I kept worrying about how I could fall asleep tonight without being affected even while smelling that sweet shampoo scent.
A double bed might sound spacious, but when two men lie down it’s not that wide. To create more distance than yesterday, I’d have to break through the wall.
Blocking my nose was out of the question.
Haemin kept saying to just do it, but that wasn’t the problem.
It wasn’t that I wanted to solve it by doing it or not—the issue was my body reacting on its own. Everything else was a matter of feelings.
It wasn’t that I disliked sleeping together enough to insist on sleeping separately, and I didn’t want to hurt Won Dogyeong over something like that either.
In the end, if Myeong Haemin’s advice to endure it was the answer, then it was the answer. There was no real solution other than enduring it.
If she called it my karma, I had nothing to say, but did I really have to receive karma in this way?
Couldn’t it have come in a less humiliating direction?
When I kept sighing deeply all day, the deputy manager in the next seat looked at me strangely. Thankfully he didn’t ask, probably because it seemed like it’d get annoying if he got involved.
Won Dogyeong came to pick me up right on time after work as usual.
We parked the car in the underground parking lot and came back with milk. I wanted to eat the remaining box of donuts, but we’d finished all the milk at home yesterday so there was none left.
After emptying the bean-sized portion of rice in three spoonfuls again today, I sat at the table holding the donut box again. Won Dogyeong chuckled watching me excitedly open the box.
“Should I buy more tomorrow? Or want to eat something else?”
“Tomorrow? Mm….”
I pondered while chewing a pineapple donut and nodded.
“I’ll eat them.”
“What kind?”
“Umm, the same?”
“Got it.”
“…Thanks.”
He shrugged. Even though it’s close, going out to buy them must be annoying—I felt sorry.
After finishing his meal, Won Dogyeong took out some snacks from the pantry and sat down. I offered him the whole box of donuts to eat, but he shook his head saying no. Maybe he felt bad taking them because I was eating them so deliciously.
Won Dogyeong, who’d been tearing open the bag and eating across from me, suddenly held a snack in his hand and pulled his chair back.
“Want me to show you that?”
“Ahahak!”
Won Dogyeong had a party trick he did when he was bored. I liked this quite a bit, so before he even tried anything, laughter burst out and I started giggling.
“Here I go.”
He threw three snacks up in a row, then moved his head and caught them in order with a thud thud thud. When he told me to throw some too, I giggled and threw them, and he chomped chomped and caught them well.
“Eit.”
“Ah, what are you doing?”
I deliberately threw it in a weird direction, so he got annoyed and snatched it with his hand. It’s impressive he can catch that with his hand too.
“Throw it properly.”
When he put it back in my hand, I threw it into the air and he went “hup” and caught it with a satisfied face.
I hit the table laughing. My hand tensed up and the donut I was holding got squished a bit.
This had been his specialty since childhood. There were quite a few people who did this, but few who did it this well.
So I recommended he do it when he went on variety shows as a rookie, but the agency absolutely told him not to do it so he couldn’t. Thanks to that, Won Dogyeong’s image is still close to mysterious.
He’s not like that at all—I don’t know where to express this injustice.
“Hey, can’t you do this on variety shows now?”
“They said they’d really charge me a penalty if I do this.”
“Euhahahak!”
It was a wise decision. If people saw this, there was a high chance they wouldn’t be able to immerse themselves in whatever role he played in any work.
But why did they allow the dancing? I don’t think I’ll ever understand.
Won Dogyeong seemed to find little reward now since I always laughed like a button was pressed whenever I saw that. He pulled his chair back in and silently ate his snacks.
“Would Yongyong be good at this too?”
“What good does being good at this do?”
“It’d be really funny if you two did it together. Should we quit everything and start a circus troupe?”
“Then you practice something too.”
“Can’t I be the MC?”
“Trying to coast by.”
I imagined a family circus troupe where Won Dogyeong and Yongyong caught snacks I threw for them, then held my belly and laughed again. After laughing like that for a while, I finally caught my breath.
I was out of breath from laughing too much.
Even after seeing it for twenty years, it’s still this funny—that’s talent.
Won Dogyeong, who’d finished eating all the snacks, neatly folded the bag into a note shape. As he fiddled with the bag, he hesitated as if he had something to say. He glanced at me, then opened his mouth in a low voice.
“I talked with the company….”
It was about Yongyong. I’d been curious since there was no news anyway.
“Are they releasing an article soon?”
I asked while chewing an original donut.
Remembering how I fell for that weird sweet flavor theory yesterday, I saved it for last today. But it actually seemed like there was merit to that theory—eating the original first seemed more delicious.
“Shouldn’t they release it quickly before we get caught? When exposé articles come out on Nampatch, it’s chaos.”
The faces of certain celebrities who’d become a hot topic with dating rumors or affair articles and stopped activities for a while flashed through my mind.
We hadn’t done anything wrong, but if it came out as being caught by the media rather than an official announcement, it would definitely get twice as noisy.
Even with an official announcement, the out-of-wedlock child issue would be noisy, but thinking about being exposed with photos of us going in and out of an obstetrics clinic together made my spine go cold.
Except for the first time we went to see the ultrasound together, I’d adamantly stopped him so he’d been going alone, so the probability was low.
Male omegas tended to show less belly, so he could manage to obscure it with his clothes until quite far along, but if the announcement was delayed, it was equally creepy to think of photos being taken of us going in and out of the house together when he was obviously pregnant.
Even if reporters were doing undercover coverage on us, noticing it seemed far-fetched.
How can you beat people whose job that is? It’s better to make the first move.
