Just like the wretched expression reflected on my phone screen right now.
Since I’d collapsed, the phone had been off the entire time. The pitch-black display caught my face in sharp clarity.
“What are you doing?”
Even at Cha Hyunwoo’s voice, which came as reliably as ever, I kept up my fierce staring contest with the dead black phone screen. The winner was, naturally, the black screen.
I blinked my tear-stinging eyes and looked up at Cha Hyunwoo. Maybe it was because of the old memory that had suddenly surfaced — the face of a young Cha Hyunwoo seemed to overlap with his.
Even though we were living together, as Hyunwoo had carelessly said back then, it probably wasn’t because he’d remembered what happened when we were kids.
The moment Cha Hyunwoo got into university, he declared his independence in front of his friends and put out a call for a roommate. I just happened to be the only applicant.
Still, recalling those old memories made a small laugh slip out despite the gravity of the situation.
He used to be just as tiny as me. Who would have thought he’d grow this big — big enough that I’d have to crane my neck back to look up at him. I just smiled to myself without saying anything, and one of Cha Hyunwoo’s eyebrows furrowed slightly. That displeased look is exactly the same as when he was little.
Feeling another laugh about to escape, I shook off the memory and patted the spot beside me on the sofa. Cha Hyunwoo sat down next to me without protest.
“Why are you up so early?”
“…I guess I’ve slept way too much?”
“How’s your body?”
“Perfectly fine, obviously!”
I lifted my left arm — the one that had the IV in it — and rolled my shoulder around in every direction. Anyone who saw this would say I’m healthy. Cha Hyunwoo apparently didn’t count as that “anyone,” because his expression showed no sign of softening. I pretended not to notice his stiff face and asked:
“Are you okay?”
“Why would I not be.”
…Can’t you tell just by looking? I wanted to hold up a mirror for him, but I didn’t feel like moving, so I just flopped onto my back and used his thigh as a pillow. At my sudden move, Cha Hyunwoo’s body went briefly rigid before relaxing again.
I glared at my troublesome phone, then handed it over to Cha Hyunwoo.
“Turn my phone on for me.”
I wanted to leave it off forever, but I couldn’t.
“You’ll be alright?”
Probably. I nodded slowly, in a way that roughly conveyed that meaning, and Cha Hyunwoo took my phone with a short sigh. I watched his long fingers work the phone and swallowed drily for no particular reason. The few seconds it took for the phone to turn on felt endlessly long.
“Twelve missed calls.”
I shot upright at Cha Hyunwoo’s words.
“W-who from?”
“…Hoyun sunbae, Bora noona, people from our department, and.”
My head swiveled stiffly as he read down the missed call list one by one.
“…And?”
I swallowed drily and stared intently at Cha Hyunwoo’s red lips, my gaze desperate.
“Lim Suha.”
“What about Dad and my brother?”
My urgent question followed immediately.
“…Nothing from them.”
“Really? Thank goodness!”
I let out a breath of relief, then paused for a moment.
I’d thought I was worried about Lim Suha’s calls, but it seemed I’d actually been more anxious about my family’s. I was in the middle of releasing a long breath and pressing a hand to my chest when my shoulders flinched at the ringtone blaring without any sense of the room.
“Whoa, who is it?”
I turned my whole body toward Cha Hyunwoo and straightened up, kneeling. Cha Hyunwoo’s sunken gaze stayed fixed on the phone screen.
“…Lim Suha.”
So what had to come, came. I took a deep breath and held out my hand. But Cha Hyunwoo didn’t give me the phone — he just looked at me.
“Can’t you just not answer?”
I wonder what had rubbed Cha Hyunwoo the wrong way again. I stared at his deeply furrowed brow, then shook my head.
“I want to do that too, but I think it’s better to contact him once and make things clear.”
At my words, Cha Hyunwoo thought for a moment, then held the phone out. Why does he look so reluctant to hand over someone else’s phone like that. He was like a child grudgingly giving up a treasured toy under his mother’s insistence.
I sank back against the sofa and answered the call. I thought Cha Hyunwoo would go into his room, but he stayed sitting quietly beside me, as if standing guard.
— Jeong Yiyeon!
I stiffened for a moment at Lim Suha’s voice shouting the instant the call connected. I’d thought I’d be fine, that none of it mattered anymore. But actually hearing his voice was hard.
— Why haven’t you been picking up?
His angry voice poured out like an accusation. He ignored my calls just fine, but apparently I’m not allowed to do the same.
— Do you know how many times I tried to reach you?
A disbelieving laugh slipped out for a moment. Looking back at the missed call list Cha Hyunwoo had read out, it had only been five or six times at most. This wasn’t what I wanted to hear. What had I been expecting in the first place.
— Yiyeon? Are you listening?
“…….”
— Yiyeon, let’s meet first. I’ll explain. This is all a misunderstanding.
…Calling all of that a misunderstanding. A distant, hollow feeling settled over me and I closed my eyes. I bit down on my lip too. I didn’t want to cry over Lim Suha anymore.
“You did watch the video I sent, right? How can that… be a misunderstanding?”
My throat tightened and my voice trembled finely. For the sake of the time I’d spent loving Lim Suha, I wanted all of this to be nothing more than a small mishap — wanted it to be a misunderstanding, just as he said.
— It was just a brief meeting for my father’s business, and the client happened to be an omega. I genuinely didn’t know. That person deliberately released pheromones in the elevator. That’s why it happened.
“…….”
— I couldn’t help it because I’m an alpha. You’re a beta so you wouldn’t understand, Yiyeon, but people with designations are sensitive to pheromones. And once we went up, nothing actually happened. It was a business meeting.
Designation, pheromones, it was for business — these were things Lim Suha brought up often, every time he couldn’t see me. Looking at it now, it all seemed like nothing but excuses.
When I spoke again, my voice was simply flat.
“No, let’s break up. That’s why I answered the call. I can’t face you, hyung. No — I don’t want to.”
— What?
“You don’t need me anymore either, hyung. Not now.”
Maybe for a long time already. No — maybe from the very beginning… it had always been that way.
Lim Suha used to envy people who had omega partners sometimes. I wasn’t a designation holder, so I’d just felt sorry and tried harder to make up for it. Not knowing that none of it meant anything.
— No, Yiyeon. The person I truly like is you. This is a misunderstanding.
Some way to treat a person you say you like.
In the end, tears fell from my tightly shut eyes. I hadn’t wanted to cry, but the hurt turned into tears and dropped.
If I’d known it would end like this with him, I never would have started.
His voice still rang in my ear. The excuses kept coming without end. His voice was no longer sweet. It was loud and grating. No matter how much I listened, there was nothing in it that made any sense.
— Yiyeon, just listen to me. Let’s meet first, and then we can—
The jumbled torrent of words tormented my head. As a throbbing ache seemed to spread through me, I gripped the phone hard and cried out as if in anger:
“Don’t ever contact me again!”
With those words, I ended the call. Lim Suha’s disjointed rambling cut off abruptly.
The silence lasted only a moment before the ringtone blared again immediately.
“I said don’t contact me.”
He never listens until the very end. The long, drawn-out ringtone stopped, then rang out loudly again.
“Ugh, it’s so loud!”
I covered my ears and shook my head violently.
It’s too loud. My head, my heart — everything was tangled and noisy.
In the middle of shaking my head fiercely, Cha Hyunwoo’s large hand covered the hands pressed over my ears. My wildly swinging head went still at once. The tears didn’t stop — they fell without end.
“…Hk.”
I don’t want to show him such an ugly sight. The tears just kept welling up. Through my blurry vision, Cha Hyunwoo’s face filled my sight, flickering in and out.
The moment I felt our eyes meet, his low, composed voice spoke to me.
“My family is seriously loaded.”
I stayed quiet at the inexplicable words he suddenly threw out.
“You know that, but even more than you think.”
“…….”
“So something like that piece of trash — I can make him disappear from your sight forever.”
Ah….
Right. The Cha family is rich, so he really could do something like that.
What is it I actually want to do with Lim Suha.
“And,”
I blinked at the quietly murmured voice. Tears beaded and dropped, and Cha Hyunwoo’s face came into sharp focus in my vision.
“I’m not like that.”
“……?”
“The thing he said about not being able to help it because he’s an alpha.”
Right — Lim Suha said those painful words to me.
“I’m not like that.”
At the words spoken with such conviction, I forgot the ache in my heart and my lips parted slightly.
“Not every alpha in the world acts like that bastard.”
…Ah. I’d made up my mind. Now I could finally see the way forward. The tears stopped. My vision was clear. Strength came back into my voice.
“I’ve decided.”
I wiped my tear-streaked face roughly with my palm and looked straight at Cha Hyunwoo.
My eyes are probably swollen and I look terrible. But right now, I felt like I needed to let this resolution out somewhere — anywhere — or the weight pressing down on me would never lift.
“I’m going to forget him.”
Yes. Whether the time I spent with him was one year or ten — I’m going to forget it. As if he were someone I never knew from the start. As if there had never been a single moment I liked him.
I’m going to forget him that cleanly.
The few memories I even had with him had already been worn ragged from replaying them over and over, heart fluttering every time.
At my solemn declaration, Cha Hyunwoo matched my energy and spoke to me with a grave look in his eyes. As if he’d been waiting for exactly those words, or perhaps as if he’d been hoping to hear them.
“Want me to help.”
