Gang stared at that screen until his eyes nearly crossed, then snapped his body toward the door. He squeezed both eyes shut.
Why? Because he was mortified!
“First time using it, and it even shows the route you took. The location accuracy was better than I expected.”
The man laughed again, saying he’d given it five stars because it worked so well — and Gang’s ears burned red-hot. He’d walked straight into his own trap. Why had he forgotten about that? He should’ve deleted that app the moment he walked out of the hospital! Ah, how was he supposed to know the man would come after him in a single day? He’d clearly said he wanted time to think.
“I think I understand why you installed this app, Gang. I like it.”
His boyfriend was doing nothing but smiling in a situation that called for anger at the very least. Gang’s head, which had been tilting right in bewilderment, tilted left. Was he using sarcasm because he was actually furious about the app Gang had secretly installed on his phone? Was Gang just too thick to pick up on it? That would make the reaction make sense. But if that wasn’t it, then his attitude made absolutely no sense. How could he be so unbothered about an app that had been installed on his phone without his knowledge?
The question marks kept piling up, yet Gang couldn’t bring himself to say anything. Since he was the one who’d installed the app himself, he kept his mouth clamped shut hard enough to crease his chin, not a word coming out. The moment he blamed Jaeho for coming to find him, he’d only be condemning himself.
That was also why he couldn’t push the man away when he crept closer and wrapped his arms around him. He had it coming — he was the guilty one!
The man held Gang against him and acted as if Gang smelled absolutely wonderful. Gang couldn’t tell if it was some elaborate form of a backhanded insult or if the man simply had strange taste in scents.
I, I need to change the subject. What do I talk about? What can I say to peel this man off me — he’s stuck on like gum?
While he racked his brain for a way to get rid of the man, his eyes gradually drooped shut in the warm embrace.
I can’t fall asleep…….
The moment that thought crossed his mind, his head drooped and he startled awake. When had he even closed his eyes……?
The temperature was perfect — not too hot, not too cold. The space was quiet, broken only by the occasional gentle rocking and jolting that felt like a cradle. And the comfort of the man’s arms holding him steady went without saying. Everything around him right now seemed determined to put him to sleep.
He nodded off and jerked awake several times, and before he even realized it himself, he drifted away completely.
*
He vaguely remembered pressing his head to the rattling car window, then to the man’s shoulder, then finally nuzzling into a firm thigh. Or had that been a dream?
He couldn’t tell if he was still wandering through a dream or if he was awake but still too soaked in alcohol to think straight.
“Ugh— my head hurts…….”
The swaying feels a little different from before — what is this?
His body floated upward as if weightless, then rocked in irregular bursts. At one point he was even submerged in water, which confirmed to him that he was definitely still dreaming. The setting shifted between a car, an elevator, a bathroom — flashing through them in quick succession. It was a chaotic dream, flipping between scenes at breakneck speed.
Then came a strange but strangely realistic dream in which he was brushing his teeth in a frantic rush because he was about to be late. Why strange? Because he wasn’t the type to panic and squeeze toothpaste onto a toothbrush just because he’d be late — if he was going to be late, he’d just be late.
And yet why it felt so real was because the sensation of foam dripping down beneath his chin was startlingly vivid. On top of that, Jaeho appeared and personally brushed his teeth for him, saying he was too clumsy at it. A nightmare where he got teased for still being a baby. Not exactly how he wanted to be seen — but dreams being dreams, his arms just flailed uselessly, not an ounce of strength in them, and he couldn’t push Jaeho away.
As with most rough dreams, the setting kept shifting, and he couldn’t come to his senses easily. Then he felt a comfort so profound it struck him as odd.
Plush—
This is too vivid for a dream. The sudden softness against his back felt so real that he laughed faintly to himself and rolled his body to the left.
Soft? So — soft —?
And then, paradoxically, it was precisely that feeling of being too comfortable — impossibly comfortable — that felt wrong enough to jolt him out of sleep.
“Hah—!”
His eyes flew open as if someone had grabbed him by the hair and yanked him up from the depths of the ocean. He exhaled in sharp gasps and gathered himself, and a familiar scene came into view.
“Wow……. I’m home?”
He’d sworn to himself he wouldn’t see this man’s face for a while — but this homecoming was so fast and precise it was almost laughable.
Lying down made his head spin, so he pushed himself upright and leaned his back against the headboard. He pressed his eyelids shut and rubbed them firmly, and his blurry vision cleared considerably.
“I should’ve drunk less…….”
Where did the dream end and reality begin? He’d been drinking heavily at Gamja’s place and passed out — and then Jaeho had shown up…… and then? Did he get in the car? That must be how he ended up here.
He’d drunk so much after such a long time that he’d blacked out. He irritably raked his hair back — and strangely, his head felt rather clear. He looked down and found that instead of his rumpled suit, he was wearing a shower robe.
The neatly tied knot didn’t look like something he had tied himself.
“You’re up?”
It seemed to be the man’s handiwork.
“Uh…… so…… you bathed me……?”
It seemed like more than just bathing — they’d apparently washed up together.
The man had changed clothes since earlier. Beige slacks, a white short-sleeved t-shirt. No flashy accessories, no eye-catching colors — and yet the way he carried it all was radiant, like a model. It was probably thanks to his exceptionally well-built physique more than any accessory could account for. On top of that, his bangs falling naturally over his brows made him look far younger than he was. No matter how generously Gang looked at him, the man had the face of someone in his late twenties — and Gang couldn’t meet those eyes, instead fidgeting pointlessly with the corner of the blanket.
“Yeah. Couldn’t have you dragging that into the bedroom.”
Damn! So the smell must’ve been there all along — it just hadn’t reached Gang’s own drunk nose. Well, of course — he’d been drinking like a fish, so there was no way he didn’t reek of alcohol.
Gang ducked his head again and buried his nose in the robe, sniffing — a pleasant body wash scent greeted him.
“I thought we made a promise to only drink a little…….”
The man standing close by said it like a quiet sigh.
“I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
The words came out before he thought about it, in response to what was clearly a worried remark. The moment they left his mouth, it sounded like a sulky teenager — but he couldn’t take them back, so he just brazened it out. Even as Gang crossed his arms and glared at the ceiling with a blunt reply, the man’s demeanor remained completely unchanged.
“Just imagine if there’d been an alpha in that group. Hm? That could’ve gotten dangerous.”
It was a completely unnecessary worry.
“Me and the guys are all betas. You don’t need to worry about that.”
What danger could there possibly be when he wasn’t even an omega — he was a beta. Besides, Gamja had recently broken up with someone but had been in a relationship until just a while ago, and Mangchi was currently dating someone his own age — apparently the scars on Mangchi’s face were considered sexy, or something. And Bulgom — the one exception among the betas — was actually a married man, wed to an omega woman five years his senior. Anyway, they were all people he couldn’t worry about even if he tried.
But that didn’t seem to be how the man saw it.
“They’ve all got the same dick, and they’ve all got a hole. How am I not supposed to worry? I know better than anyone how good my Gang tastes — of course I’m going to worry.”
“Wh, wha—?”
Wh, what — what did I just hear?
His brain, barely starting to sober up, deflected the blunt, explicit words trying to burrow their way in. Gang just rubbed his freshly-washed, smooth cheek blankly and stumbled over his words.
Question mark after question mark after question mark. A parade of endless question marks — and he stopped trying to think. He must’ve misheard because he was still drunk. Ha.
And the moment he stopped trying to make sense of the man’s words and actions, every terrible thing he himself had done the night before came flooding back instead.
The image of himself grabbing a toothbrush because he had to hurry and get to work. The image of himself flailing his arms uselessly in the air, insisting he could do it alone. The image of himself fleeing from the man who was trying to wash him down and put a robe on him. And finally, the image of himself getting caught and having the robe put on him anyway…….
I’m so humiliated, goddammit…… There’s no way I can sleep in the same bed as him tonight.
On top of all that — a kiss inside a car with their fellow organization members present! Was he out of his mind?!
Determined to get out of the space they were sharing, he swung both legs off the side of the bed — and only then did he notice what was in the man’s hand. Jaeho must have caught his gaze, because he extended the cup toward him.
“Honey water. Drink it while it’s warm.”
Gang swallowed hard. He hadn’t been thinking about it, but now that it was right in front of him, a fierce thirst hit.
I’ll leave when I leave — eat first, then go.
His head was throbbing, so he didn’t hesitate and reached out for the cup. He gulped down the warm honey water — not too hot, not too lukewarm — and let out a breath that was half moan, half sigh.
Ahh, I’m alive…….
The honey water was very sweet. Of course it was — it was honey water. But it wasn’t only the honey water that was sweet. Everything the man handed him was invariably, unfailingly sweet. To the point where it was hard to tell whether the man only gave sweet things, or whether everything he gave simply became sweet. Sometimes even the gaze that landed on Gang’s skin felt sweet, and Gang would find himself running his tongue around the inside of his mouth for no particular reason. And it never got old.
Why is this person so gentle? He deceived me for all this time and still, nothing has changed.
As if the sweetness had numbed his mouth, a thought that had been circling his head all day long slipped out before he could stop it.
“Are you sick?”
Even when he’d walked out of the hospital. Even when he was reaming out his subordinates. Even when he’d been knocking back shots of soju — he’d been curious, and he’d wanted to ask.
“It’s not something serious, is it……?”
The absence of any visible injury made it all the more worrying. No matter how angry he’d been in the moment — this was still his boyfriend. He should’ve at least confirmed why he was hospitalized before storming out of that hospital. He’d regretted it a hundred times over.
“Answer me.”
Gang looked up at the man who was still standing, urging him to respond from where he was perched on the edge of the bed. The man stared back at him steadily for a moment, then quietly took the cup from Gang’s hands, set it on the nightstand, and said:
“Just. Accumulated fatigue.”
Gang almost laughed.
“What kind of hospital admits someone for accumulated fatigue?”
No matter how ignorant he was, no matter how little he knew about classifications — this one thing he knew for certain.
“What kind of dominant alpha gets hospitalized for accumulated fatigue.”
Alphas rarely had reason to go to the hospital for anything ordinary.
“And you’re not just any dominant alpha — you’re a supreme alpha…….”
A supreme alpha, one of the rarest among alphas — it made even less sense.
Another lie. This is definitely a lie.
He’d already been deceived by this man once. Watching him now try to hide even an illness — something hot surged up in Gang’s chest. How many other lies were there that Gang didn’t know about? Just how long had he been deceiving him?
But right now, in this moment, the desire to know outweighed the anger. As resentful as it made him — even knowing he’d been taken in by a lie — he still loved Kang Jaeho enough that worrying about the man’s condition took precedence over everything else.
“That’s a lie…….”
He’d been the one to get angry, the one to ask for space — but the truth was, if Jaeho just said he was sorry. If he said he’d be honest with him from now on, without any more lies, Gang could forgive everything. If this man had at least apologized to him, he wouldn’t have drunk himself into the ground today.
“That’s a lie, Kang Jaeho.”
He grabbed the hem of the man’s t-shirt and shook it — but Jaeho didn’t budge.
He was already ready to start over with the man again after just one day — that’s how starved he was for this person’s warmth. But this heartless man wasn’t even bothering to deny that it was a lie.
“Aren’t you sorry? To me?”
Gang held back tears pooling at the corners of his eyes and met the man’s unreadable gaze head-on.
“Aren’t you sorry — say something!”
“Yeah.”
The only word that finally came from the man’s mouth — which had seemed sealed shut as if it would never open — was just that. Yeah.
“What?”
“I’m not sorry.”
