“I’m sorry, hyung. I… I’ve become a bit sensitive—”
“Yoo Seonjae. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can tell you.”
My heart stung at Yeonwoo hyung’s cold gaze. Even the one thread of hope in my already collapsed world had disappeared.
“Even if I beg like this?”
I asked, kneeling down. He said nothing.
“Then let me ask just one thing.”
“Speak.”
“Yeoul isn’t seriously ill or anything, is he? Not something too horrible to even mention… right?”
Yeonwoo hyung chuckled. He’s laughing. In this situation, laughter… comes out?
“Hyung.”
“No. Just. Yeoul is lucky. To have a husband who thinks of him like this.”
…….
What was it? For some reason, I kept getting a sense of discord from Yeonwoo hyung today. It felt like he wasn’t the Yeonwoo hyung I knew…… He’d been kind to me no matter what. Even when Yeongjae hyung said he’d never see me again, it was Yeonwoo hyung who said he shouldn’t do that.
But this was like, yes, the coldness I’d felt from Yeongjae hyung that day…….
“I’m envious.”
“……Hyung?”
Yeonwoo hyung smiled brightly. Before I knew it, Yeonwoo hyung had returned to his usual good-natured face. What was it? Suddenly everything became confusing. Were the things I knew really the truth?
Yeonwoo hyung, and Yeoul too.
I thought I knew them all. I believed the faces they always showed me by my side were real, but were those really their true faces?
“……I’m sorry. I was rude. I shouldn’t have come to ask you this. Sorry for taking up your time for nothing.”
“No. I’m the one who’s sorry. For not being able to help.”
“By any chance…… just by chance.”
Still, I couldn’t give up if there was even a 1% chance, so will you forgive rude me until the end, hyung?
“If Yeoul contacts you, or… if you feel like telling me anything about Yeoul, please let me know.”
Yeonwoo hyung looked at me with a slightly surprised face, then soon nodded and smiled. Barely managing to move my feet that wouldn’t budge, I left Yeonwoo hyung’s research lab.
Ah…….
My head is throbbing.
I haven’t been feeling well lately. Uncle Irang says it might be because I’m not resting properly while searching for Yeoul, but for me, it’s no different from my usual lifestyle pattern. Even when Yeoul was here, I never slept more than four hours a day.
Every morning I woke up earlier than Yeoul and prepared everything for Yeoul—what to eat, what to wear, even what to breathe—in the best condition.
Actually, after graduation and marriage, I’d vowed to never let him go outside and keep him close to me forever. I vowed that the two of us would live in one house for the rest of our lives, looking only at each other, eating only good things, wearing good things, going to good places and seeing and hearing good things, just the two of us happy like that… I vowed to live like that.
But since Han Yeoul got a job even before graduating, things started going a bit awry, and one by one things that didn’t fit appeared, creating a crack in our relationship.
We were something I’d protected for so long.
I didn’t know. That we could break this easily.
“Haah……”
“Seonjae!”
My vision blurred. I could see Uncle Irang running from afar, but before I knew it, the ground flipped and I blacked out.
“Seonjae!”
“……Are you coming to your senses?”
When I opened my eyes, I was in the emergency room. Uncle Irang seemed to have brought me here. Seeing my second hyung looking at me with his unchanging expression and Uncle Irang with a face full of worry, I couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Huh? This bastard, he’s smiling. Hey, Yeongjae. Isn’t something wrong here?”
“There’s nothing wrong. He’s perfectly normal.”
“But why is he like this? He just came to and he’s grinning. Isn’t this a bit strange? Isn’t something wrong with his head? Shouldn’t we take some pictures or something?”
“We don’t need tooo—”
Uncle Irang making a fuss and second hyung calmly deflecting his words. Anyone watching would think Uncle is my hyung.
Come to think of it, second hyung wasn’t like this before.
[Seonjae. Our youngest. Let’s kiss with hyung~]
He was an affectionate hyung. Until that incident. Until I… left an indelible scar on second hyung and Yeonwoo hyung.
Second hyung wasn’t only cold to me. He just… changed as a person, I should say. After that day, second hyung became like a machine, as if all his emotions had disappeared.
Home-hospital-home-hospital.
A workaholic who only knew work. No, rather than a workaholic, he looked like he couldn’t stand it if he didn’t work. So none of us could tell second hyung to ‘rest.’
I… felt uncomfortable looking at hyung. In front of Yeoul, I visited hyung as if nothing was wrong, talked with hyung, and treated hyung as usual, but every time I faced hyung, every time I looked into hyung’s eyes, the guilt from that day seeped into my skin.
It was like a bug eating away at all my nerves. If I could, I wanted to carve out and tear off all my flesh—my nerves screamed everywhere second hyung’s gaze touched.
Becoming sensitive was instantaneous. My words to hyung weren’t kind, and the more hyung looked at me nonchalantly, the more I struggled.
Perhaps that was my own signal.
A signal begging him to please look at me, because if I didn’t do even that, second hyung would never look at me for the rest of his life.
Thanks to that, hyung seemed to despise me even more, but I was grateful that even in that way, hyung acknowledged me as a person, acknowledged the world. Anyway, I needed something to hold onto hyung. Whatever it was.
Otherwise, it felt like I’d leave everything behind and fly away.
“What a waste of that build.”
“I know.”
“Are you sleeping?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, right.”
Second hyung said while writing various things on the chart. It had been quite a while since he’d spoken more than three words to me, so I chuckled without realizing it. No wait. Since they said I was already smiling, have I been smiling this whole time?
Looking at Uncle Irang’s expression, I could tell what kind of face I was making without even looking.
“I really think we need to take some pictures of him.”
“We don’t need pictures. But I think you should go to the Trait Medicine Department and get some tests done.”
Second hyung said while closing the chart.
“Trait Medicine Department?”
I’d just met with Yeonwoo hyung. Though it wasn’t for medical treatment.
“Your pheromone levels are a bit strange. That’s probably why you collapsed.”
“Pheromone levels? Did I take too many suppressants?”
Actually, I had been taking suppressants quite frequently lately. Because Yeoul wasn’t here. My rut cycle was fairly regular, and thanks to my trait characteristics, I could control it relatively easily if I tried, but without Yeoul, my anxiety made that difficult.
So for the past few months, I’d relied on medication. I could see how that might be a problem… but could that really affect my pheromone levels to that extent?
Just from suppressants?
“I don’t know what the cause is. That’s not my field.”
“……”
“Uncle Irang. Take this referral and bring him to the lab. He can walk, so you won’t need a bed, so well…… you can handle it, right?”
Second hyung disappeared toward another patient with his usual quick steps, as if he were busy.
“Hey, is your head really okay?”
“I’m fine. Nothing’s wrong.”
I answered roughly while looking at the referral.
Pheromone levels…….
Something I’d never thought about. While frequently visiting the Trait Medicine Department because of Yeoul, I’d often seen omegas getting their pheromone levels checked regularly, but why would an alpha, especially a dominant alpha like me, need to get pheromone levels tested?
“The lab is…… over there.”
Uncle Irang reached out his arm as if to support me, but I got up from the bed nonchalantly and walked toward the lab with heavy steps.
I didn’t have time to waste here. I needed to get tested quickly and go find Yeoul.
“How long does it usually take for these test results to come out?”
I asked the nurse as soon as I entered the lab.
“Usually about a week.”
“Is there a way to get them faster?”
“There is. It costs more though.”
“I don’t care about cost. How long does the fast one take?”
“It comes out today.”
“Then do that one please.”
“Okay, let me ask the professor first.”
Even though the results would come out in a day, the tests took a full day. After being stuck at the hospital all day, unable to do this or that, the result the doctor notified me of with the results sheet in hand was something I never imagined.
“Mr. Yoo Seonjae, you’re imprinted?”
Imprinted. That can’t be…….
