“How are you getting home?”
“I usually take the night bus, or just walk.”
He’d been prepared to follow him by whatever means of transportation — but from here to Hoyong-dong was about an hour on foot. Walking an hour when a taxi would get you there in fifteen minutes? For that long?
He’d been planning to put him in a taxi — but now it seemed there was no choice but to walk with him. A whole hour together.
“I tend to walk too, actually. The wait time for the bus isn’t worth it with the schedules, and taxis cost a lot……. At least I get some walking in.”
Under normal circumstances he’d have called the uncles to come pick him up, or driven himself if he hadn’t been drinking — but Yong Cheonha said it without so much as batting an eye.
“That’s true. When my head gets full, it helps more to move my body. At least the walk won’t be boring.”
He agreed to walk together without any hesitation. He didn’t seem like the shy type.
As they walked, Yong Cheonha cheerfully satisfied his curiosity — asking what his name was, how old he was.
He was three years older than Yong Cheonha, and his name was Chae Songhwa.
Of course. He’d known he was pretty — and even his name turned out to be a flower. Ahh.
Twenty-three and he should be in the thick of university life, yet he was working a night part-time job — so Yong Cheonha asked if he was on a leave of absence.
He’d had a whole follow-up ready to go if Songhwa said he was on leave — which university, what was his major — but Songhwa said he wasn’t in university at all.
The awkward smile on his face carried a strange sadness to it, and Yong Cheonha caught himself thinking, oh no. What was university even worth, that it could put a look like that on such a beautiful person’s face? He felt like bringing in heavy machinery and leveling the whole institution.
“University is just expensive tuition with not much to show for it anyway. In my family, I’m the only one who went.”
Already the youngest and effortlessly endearing just by existing — and on top of that, Yong Cheonha was the one who’d gone and gotten a university degree out of a rough-and-tumble household. Not just any university, either — Hanguk University, no less.
Which was precisely why he’d received a foreign car and a building as his enrollment gift, and had been set up in his own place.
“I’m the hope of my family. If it weren’t for that, I probably wouldn’t have gone either. I think working suits me more than studying.”
During his exam prep days, it was because he’d had a thing for his alpha tutor that he’d thrown himself into studying — he’d never had any real passion for academics to begin with.
He’d ended up at Hanguk University because of it, but thinking about that tutor left a bitter taste in his mouth.
“What would you have done if you hadn’t gone to university?”
Just as Yong Cheonha found his mood dipping on its own at the memory, Chae Songhwa asked in a curious voice.
“Hmm……. Not sure? I’ve always been more comfortable with physical work, so……”
Probably would’ve gone around collecting on unpaid debts.
The precious youngest wouldn’t have been allowed to do something like that, so he’d probably have ended up sitting around collecting rent every month. Or helping out his older brothers, maybe.
“I don’t really know.”
With so much to inherit, did he really need to work?
He could picture it vividly — snagging a pretty alpha and dragging them along everywhere he went — but picturing himself actually working was something he couldn’t quite manage.
“If I had to do something, I think it’d be something in entertainment. Mostly because of the looks……”
The most realistic and promising way to meet pretty alphas, after all.
Pretty women could be found anywhere. But beautiful men? God…… It was a drought unlike any other. Every guy who’d looked decent from photos on social media had turned out to be editing.
Yong Cheonha didn’t ask for much. He just wanted a natural encounter with a reasonably pretty alpha.
But whatever nerve his words had struck, Chae Songhwa murmured under his breath, almost like a sigh.
“……Entertainment.”
A beautiful person with a troubled look. Ahh. Gorgeous.
He hesitated, then once again opened his mouth carefully.
“The finished product looks pretty, but it’s not a pretty place in the making — so I don’t think you should go in with too many illusions.”
He was visibly being careful not to put a damper on someone who might have romantic ideas about the entertainment world, yet he still wanted to give an honest heads-up to someone who didn’t know — a kind, well-meaning candor came through.
“Do you know the entertainment industry well?”
“Mm. A little.”
A trainee? Of course. With a face like that, there’s no way an agency wouldn’t have snapped him up. They have eyes too.
“Hyung, what’s your job? Someone in entertainment? An idol trainee?”
The idol trainee who’d nearly been a thing — the one who’d sent a long, rambling message the day he got a debut date and then blocked him — came to mind again.
Please, anything but an idol.
He prayed silently, and what came back was an answer that was neither one thing nor the other.
“Hmm. What is my job, I wonder.”
The self-deprecating tone was less of a reply and more of a murmur to himself.
Prompted by Yong Cheonha’s question, Chae Songhwa found himself genuinely pausing to think. His job. What was his job, exactly?
It wasn’t as if he had no job. But could this even be called a job? He’d been going to his side work more consistently than his main one.
With things so turned around, he wasn’t sure what to list as his actual occupation. Still — it was probably right to go with the main one.
He’d never been cast in a proper role, but he’d signed with his agency as an actor, so technically speaking, actor was correct.
He’d earned far more from part-time work than from acting, and after five years under contract without a single proper production to his name, he was a nobody — but an actor was an actor, at least for now.
“A not-selling actor?”
The “not-selling” part tacked on at the front was the bare minimum of his conscience. Usually the word actor came with a certain level of expectation, after all.
“An actor?”
But Yong Cheonha had no such expectations.
Ah, damn. I knew something was off about that face. It was way too good to be wasted on a chicken place part-time job.
“Whoa. An actor! Amazing!”
“A not-selling. Actor.”
Why isn’t he selling? With a face like that? Even if the acting were terrible, the demand just for the face alone would be more than enough. He must not have debuted that long ago.
But wait — can actors go to clubs? Then again, Yong Cheonha had seen more celebrities at clubs than on TV.
“So that’s why you were wearing the mask!”
“No. It was because I wasn’t feeling well……”
Oh. A sickly beauty. The best kind.
“But I’m feeling better now.”
A healthy beauty. Also the best kind.
“Have you been to the doctor?”
“I was under the weather for a few days but I got through it. Actually, I was still feeling a bit rough earlier, but right now I really am okay.”
“Still, please go see a doctor. Just in case.”
Yong Cheonha felt anxious. What if he caught some strange illness and that beautiful face got damaged?
“You could feel fine and then suddenly take a turn, so please make sure you go.”
He nagged him once, and then again, out of worry. He’d said he was twenty-three, so he was probably done growing — but he was terrified of anything marring that face. Do you even know what you look like right now? This. This!
But Chae Songhwa, with no way of knowing what was actually going through Yong Cheonha’s mind, was simply, genuinely moved.
We barely know each other and he’s this worried……
Having only ever experienced cold people who couldn’t care less whether he was sick or not, Chae Songhwa was deeply touched, and he turned the words over in his mind.
“Come to think of it, Cheonha……”
“Whoa. Amazing.”
What did I do to deserve that reaction?
“The ‘Cheonha’ thing — it’s a bit……? It makes me cringe. Cheonha, he says. Wow.”
Songhwa looked confused, and Cheonha bounced on the spot, saying he had no immunity to that kind of address and it was giving him goosebumps.
He was used to being called “young master” or “boss” — not something so formal and oddly stiff. He practically begged Songhwa to just speak casually, and only barely managed to get him to change how he addressed him.
Overwhelmed by Yong Cheonha’s bulldozer-like sociability and his remarkable ability to make people comfortable, Chae Songhwa dropped the formal speech without even thinking about it.
Even if Yong Cheonha was younger — they’d barely just met, and here he was suddenly speaking casually already. Even Songhwa himself was a little taken aback, but when someone was literally jumping around showing you goosebumps, there wasn’t much reason to stick to an address the other person hated.
“Okay. Cheonha, then — what were we talking about, again?”
Oh. Oh damn. “We.” Are you kidding me.
His insides went absolutely wild with giddiness.
Just seeing that egg-shaped face stare back at him blankly, having seemingly forgotten what they’d been saying, was enough to make him smile without thinking. The guy was a comedian without even trying. Those large, striking features packed into such a small face — how did the spacing work out so perfectly? The space was compact enough that parking should’ve been a nightmare, and yet the arrangement was a flawless work of art. A perfect composition.
End of semester, plus a beautiful alpha. The blessings just kept coming. This was what life was supposed to feel like.
“Why are you smiling?”
Why do you think? Because you’re outrageously pretty.
“……I’m a bit drunk? Keep smiling without meaning to.”
He said it shamelessly, blaming the alcohol, and threw in some nonsense about how he naturally had more of a smiley face anyway.
His lips had no intention of coming down. Chae Songhwa wasn’t doing anything in particular — just existing — and it was already so entertaining and wonderful.
“You did drink a lot.”
Beer doesn’t even get you drunk, it just fills your stomach. A measly few bottles — there’s no way that’s getting to me.
“Is it the alcohol? It seems like your pheromones have been leaking a lot — are you okay?”
“Ah. Sorry. I don’t really think about my pheromones much. Didn’t even realize I was releasing them. It was unpleasant, right?”
To begin with, he didn’t particularly put any stock in pheromones, so he hadn’t noticed.
His pheromones were something most people couldn’t detect — and on the rare occasion they could, alphas would either feel subdued or put up their guard. Apparently it smelled too much like an alpha’s pheromone. Because of that, omegas were actually the ones who tended to be drawn to him more often.
Yong Cheonha himself wasn’t great at picking up on it either, and it was too much effort to bother managing it — besides, it seemed decent enough at keeping mediocre lower-tier alphas at a distance, so he’d never bothered thinking about it.
But thinking about it now — Chae Songhwa was the type who could pick up on Yong Cheonha’s pheromones.
He’d been breathing in something that probably wasn’t a pleasant experience, and Yong Cheonha felt a little bad about that.
“Hyung, I’m sorry. My pheromones made things uncomfortable for you, right?”
“No, not at all.”
“No, really. It’s not exactly a smell that’s easy to be around. I’ll be more mindful. I don’t register my own well enough, so I just end up letting it go.”
“No. It’s not refreshing exactly, but it’s warm and nice.”
He was probably just saying it — but it was pleasant to hear.
He’d only ever gotten comments like “suffocating” and “you’re making the alphas feel small” — and now someone was saying warm and nice.
“Lip service. Nice.”
“Hm? It’s not lip service, it’s just the truth as it is. Comfortable, and warm.”
“Come on. Everyone else says it’s the kind of smell that makes alphas feel small.”
“They let themselves feel small over that……?”
Why……? If something that minor made you feel small, how did you survive in this harsh world? Chae Songhwa looked at Yong Cheonha as if he genuinely couldn’t understand.
“I mean, usually omega pheromones are sweet and fresh, and alpha pheromones are like soap or wood, right? Heavy, masculine? If a smell that should come from an alpha comes from an omega instead, apparently that’s what makes them feel small.”
What kind of logic is that? If something as simple as whether a scent was masculine or not was enough to make you feel small — Chae Songhwa would have been made to feel small a hundred times over by now.
