* * *
“You said it yourself. Come if you want to know.”
Navy blue eyes flashed coldly.
“Who leaked the story about my hyung.”
Bang Geunhyuk swallowed his saliva, then forced a smile while pushing Baek Seolheon’s back.
“……Hey, Baek Seolheon! What’s the rush? That bastard said he’s coming later, so sit down and eat something first!”
Baek Seolheon sat down on the sofa following Bang Geunhyuk without a word.
Bang Geunhyuk grabbed any glass, poured champagne into it generously, and put on airs.
“Drink, drink. Ah, are you too much of a model student to do this kind of thing? Tsk, you just grew fucking tall. Are you still a kid?”
He poked Baek Seolheon’s side with exaggerated intonation, but Baek Seolheon remained motionless like a stone statue, just staring at him.
Bang Geunhyuk frowned for a moment, then became conscious of the many gazes pouring toward him, raised the corners of his mouth again, and spread both hands.
“Anyway, noonas! This is that Baek Seolheon, and he’s fucking close with me…….”
“Kyaaah! Are you crazy?!”
However, those gazes weren’t on Bang Geunhyuk, but solely on the person sitting next to him.
“He really looks exactly like the photo Bang Geunhyuk spread?!”
“Exactly what! He’s way more handsome than the photo!”
“Wow, where did someone like this appear! He’s way better than most alpha male idols!”
“The Cheon Eunwook lookalike in person is insane.”
“Bang Geunhyuk, move! I can’t see his face!”
Soon people crowded around Baek Seolheon, and Bang Geunhyuk was even pushed out of the sofa by the crowd.
Bang Geunhyuk, who had been thrown to the floor out of nowhere, jumped up and reached out to the short-haired woman.
“N-noona! This bastard only looks good, he’s nothing special! Honestly, isn’t comparing him to Cheon Eunwook going too far? He’s not even an alpha, he’s a beta…….”
“What bullshit. He’s way prettier than Eunwook.”
That statement had weight.
Cheon Eunwook, a former idol and current world-class actor.
Since he’d been exclusive to the entertainment agency his parents owned, no one could speak carelessly about him.
However, Bang Geunhyuk didn’t know how to give up.
“Fuck! But he’s a beta! Isn’t that place going to be small, that place! The hyungs and noonas obsessed with dick will never be satisfied!”
“Ah, fuck. Someone beat that bastard so he shuts his mouth.”
“He keeps fucking around with dick talk. You get out.”
The crowd’s attention quickly turned to Baek Seolheon.
“Your name was Seolheon, right? Seolheon-ah, aren’t you good at drinking? Should this noona teach you? Call me Jeongnyeon noona.”
“Are you hitting on someone way younger? Act your age, Jeongnyeon-ah.”
“Someone who gets drunk on half a bottle of soju is teaching who?”
The omegas scattered their sultry pheromones and approached Baek Seolheon, then soon began fighting amongst themselves while keeping each other in check.
“Is this kid really a beta? He’s disgustingly handsome.”
“You know Baekil Estate, right? I’m on your mom’s distant cousin side, and if you’re also a Baekil person you’d already know, but I’m Cheon Taehyeok and…….”
The alphas also spoke to Baek Seolheon while releasing pheromones mixed with curiosity and wariness.
Betas can’t sense pheromones.
However, the young alphas and omegas facing Baek Seolheon seemed to completely forget that he was a beta, and the room quickly filled with heat.
“Geunhyuk-ah.”
In that chaos,
A low voice reached Bang Geunhyuk.
“Did you call me just for something like this?”
The tone was indifferent, but there was an edge at the end.
The noisy atmosphere quickly subsided, and only Baek Seolheon’s voice remained in the room.
“Satisfied?”
“……Wh-what?”
Baek Seolheon let out a low sigh and continued speaking.
“If you wanted to get attention, there would have been better ways.”
“What, you bastard?”
“Just because you called one person doesn’t mean your evaluation will change.”
“…….”
At Baek Seolheon’s words, Bang Geunhyuk’s face turned red and he just gaped.
“Isn’t that something you should know by now, at your age?”
The last remark was driven in like a wedge.
Those who had been quietly listening to the conversation soon burst into laughter.
“Uhahahaha!”
“Ahahaha! He’s fucking rude! I fucking love it!”
“Geunhyuk-ah, how do you even get ignored by your friend? You’re pitiful, really.”
One of the men pointed at Bang Geunhyuk and laughed sardonically.
“Right. You already got wrecked by your beta noona. Now you’re getting beat up by a beta friend too?”
“Shut up, fuck!”
Beta noona.
His older sister who was designated as successor while leaving him, an alpha, behind.
That story was an intolerable sore spot for Bang Geunhyuk, but everyone here knew that fact and didn’t show consideration. That made Bang Geunhyuk feel even more humiliated.
Bang Geunhyuk poured out his lost shame and anger on one person.
“Fuck, Baek Seolheon! You bastard, are you looking down on me right now? Am I easy to you?!”
“Not really.”
“Come outside, you fucker!”
He grabbed Baek Seolheon by the collar and dragged him out into the hallway.
Baek Seolheon’s build was bigger than Bang Geunhyuk’s, but surprisingly he let himself be dragged out obediently.
Complaints from those remaining in the room followed, but Bang Geunhyuk roughly shut the door.
Then he pushed Baek Seolheon against the wall.
“Making me even bring up noona. You fucker……. Are you doing this on purpose? To scratch at me?!”
“On purpose?”
Baek Seolheon brushed off the hand grabbing his suit jacket and said.
“I don’t even know about your family and I’m not interested.”
“You don’t know?”
Bang Geunhyuk’s hand floating in the air trembled.
“You’re still…… pretending not to know!”
Soon Bang Geunhyuk yelled loudly and grabbed Baek Seolheon’s shirt collar again.
“Fuck, in 11th grade! Last year, who brought up noona right in front of me!”
Last year……?
Baek Seolheon, who had been lost in thought for a moment, shook his head.
“I don’t know who you’re confusing me with, but I don’t have that memory.”
“Yeah, keep pretending you don’t know. You psycho bastard!”
Bang Geunhyuk roared at the end of his rage reaching the top of his head.
“Walking around the streets barefoot like a ghost, you must’ve been really fucking embarrassed! I remember it vividly, you know?”
“Barefoot?”
“Yeah, fuck! You looked exactly like a beggar!”
Baek Seolheon’s eyebrows curved like a crescent moon.
No matter how much he thought about what Bang Geunhyuk was saying, nothing came to mind.
He didn’t enjoy going out, and he had no memory whatsoever of going outside without even wearing shoes.
If it was last year, most of it was spent reading books in his room or taking care of personal ‘business,’ nothing special besides that.
If there was something slightly different…… it was that hyung, Baek Gunho, had enlisted in the military so the house was empty.
Bang Geunhyuk’s words felt unreal.
Even so, an inexplicable discomfort remained somewhere in his chest.
“Fuck, you’re the same! Your hyung! You came crawling out here because you’re worried about that fucker too, right?!”
The tip of Baek Seolheon’s fingers flinched and trembled once.
“What’s the point of being first in the whole school? Do you know what the kids in our class say about you? A bastard whose life is ruined because he’s a beta! Isn’t it because you’re a beta that you’re excluded from even that great Baekil Pharmaceuticals and Baekil Group? To the point where you don’t even know a single relative’s name!”
“…….”
“On the other hand, your hyung. Unlike you, the family really likes him, right? Because he’s an alpha.”
“……Did you also hear from your acquaintance. That hyung is an alpha?”
“So what are you going to do about it, fuck.”
Bang Geunhyuk, who chewed through Baek Seolheon’s question, yelled fiercely.
“It’s fucking unfair that alphas take everything alone, right? Even if your hyung is a stupid, dull, retarded piece of trash compared to you, the alpha is still your hyung anyway, and the one with expectations is also your hyung!”
Even with the continued curses, there was no change in Baek Seolheon’s expression.
“Fuck…… Fuck! This is normal! Baekil is the normal one! It’s natural for alphas to have expectations over beta bastards! I, I should be better than noona……!”
The deep resentment that Bang Geunhyuk painfully spat out didn’t give Baek Seolheon much impression. He just thought there was a lot to correct in those words.
Baek Seolheon excluded because he’s a beta. That’s how the rumor had spread at school.
But it’s different from the truth.
Hyung, Baek Gunho, had tried many times to create opportunities for him to interact with Baekil Group, but it was he himself who rejected it.
It has nothing to do with his biological mother Baek Yeonhui, who keeps her distance from the main family. It was simply that Baek Seolheon himself didn’t want it.
Of course, there was no need to inform others of this fact, and he had no will to explain.
“Why do beta fucks who are nothing…… act up……!”
As Bang Geunhyuk was consumed by surging emotions, the strength gripping the collar gradually weakened.
Capillaries burst and his eyes reddened, and his eyes beaded with moisture shook precariously.
Baek Seolheon said nothing. Not because he couldn’t find words to say, but because he didn’t feel the need to speak.
Then, a new voice cut in between the two.
“Oh, I can hear voices echoing all the way from outside.”
A bleached-hair young man in flashy clothes with embroidery over a beige-toned shirt.
Baek Jeongwoo stuck his sunglasses into his collar and spoke cheekily.
“What are you doing, Geunhyuk-ah? Fighting?”
“J-Jeongwoo hyung?!”
“Wow, this bastard is fucking handsome?”
Baek Jeongwoo took off his sunglasses and tucked them into his collar while speaking familiarly.
“Are you that rumored cousin brother?”
“…….”
“You really look like a carbon copy of our old man. You have aunt’s face too. But…….”
Then he raised the corners of his mouth in a grin.
“You look incredibly different from Baek Gunho?”
At that moment.
Bang Geunhyuk let go of Baek Seolheon’s collar and instinctively stepped back a couple of steps.
Baek Seolheon’s face was still emotionless.
However, the air had changed.
Like when ‘hyung’ was mentioned behind the school,
That pressure he’d mistaken for alpha pheromones briefly pressed down choking the breath…… then disappeared like a lie.
It felt like a dream.
Baek Jeongwoo, who had been giggling, also flinched back, then coughed once and put a smile back on his face as if nothing had happened.
“Fuck, relax your expression. It’s scary.”
“Are you Geunhyuk’s acquaintance?”
“Look at that sharp tone. Well, rather than acquaintance, I’m a close hyung, right?”
Baek Jeongwoo shrugged his shoulders and walked past Baek Seolheon.
“Not just to Bang Geunhyuk, but also to your hyung, Baek Gunho.”
“…….”
“You’re curious about a lot of things, right? Follow me.”
At this, Baek Seolheon immediately followed behind Baek Jeongwoo.
Bang Geunhyuk, who was left behind, belatedly grabbed Baek Jeongwoo.
“H-hyung. What about me?”
“What.”
“If I go back alone like this, I’ll get beaten up by the omega hyungs and noonas…….”
“Yeah. You take care of that yourself. See you next time.”
Baek Jeongwoo turned his back coldly.
Baek Seolheon turned his head to glance at Bang Geunhyuk, then soon followed Baek Jeongwoo and left the hallway.
* * *
“Will you wait here with me……?”
Lee Yeongwoo pointed to the hotel room behind him.
“…….”
I thought about it.
Late at night.
An adult alpha male and a dominant omega male.
A hotel suite with a spacious bed.
I finished thinking.
“Sounds good.”
How wholesome.
