“…You don’t know, do you.”
Han Kyungoh said with a genuinely surprised expression. And when Wonha caught the corner of his mouth rising mysteriously, he snapped with a crumpled expression.
“What do you mean?”
“You really don’t know. Even though he likes you, Sangho doesn’t talk about himself, does he?”
“Fuck, what?”
“He was forcibly imprinted.”
“…What?”
“There’s no mark on his nape, but you can tell just by looking. Some bastard forcibly imprinted him, so his heat comes late. The imprinting pain doesn’t seem to come noticeably either. His refusal to take suppressants is probably trauma from forced imprinting too.”
At the unexpected words, Wonha’s face hardened. Forced imprinting? Then all those trauma-like reactions he’s shown so far were all…
“Th-that’s ridiculous.”
“Fortunately, my pheromones work to some extent. He’ll manage to endure with that, but finding the bastard who imprinted him comes first. Don’t you have anyone in mind? You said you originally knew Sangho.”
“…No.”
Wonha, who had turned pale, anxiously rubbed his forehead. So Sangho’s avoidance of heat suppressants is also a kind of trauma. Moreover, recently Sangho had even received a secondary trait retest at the hospital and was diagnosed as ‘beta,’ so he firmly believed he was a beta. It seemed impossible to force Sangho to take suppressants.
A strange sense of dissonance flashed through Wonha’s mind. But then, why did the test results come out as ‘beta’?
“Ha… did you see hyung get the secondary trait retest?”
“That was strange…”
“As Han Kyungoh-ssi knows, the probability of a retest being wrong is almost zero.”
“…”
“But that wasn’t an on-site test certificate—it was mailed.”
At Wonha’s words, Kyungoh’s eyebrow twitched.
“So?”
“It’s not ‘so what,’ but hyung is scared to go to his studio apartment. Could that also be related to his secondary trait?”
At Wonha’s sharp deduction, Kyungoh flinched.
“…Someone sprayed a lot of alpha pheromones there. Sangho’s been strange since then.”
“Then there’s a possibility the mail was switched. I don’t know why, but that… the bastard who imprinted him.”
Wonha and Kyungoh’s eyes met in the air.
“We need to check the hospital where he was tested first.”
“The test certificate might be forged.”
Wonha and Kyungoh spoke simultaneously. For once, they seemed to be thinking the same thing.
***
After agonizing for a while, Sangho came down to the hotel’s first floor and witnessed Wonha and Han Kyungoh sitting across from each other having a conversation in the distance. The two seemed to be talking quite seriously about various things. He’d come down worried they might fight like last time, but at the unexpectedly harmonious scene, Sangho felt an emptiness he didn’t even know he had.
In the midst of it all, Wonha was nodding with an extremely focused expression toward Han Kyungoh. Then he was seen pulling out his phone from his pocket and holding it out to Han Kyungoh, and Han Kyungoh also entering his number.
Sangho felt inexplicably resentful. The two really looked good together. Wonha, with his fair skin and tall stature, had light-colored hair and pupils that sparkled, and with his slightly downturned eyes, slightly folded double eyelids, and the cute dimple that appeared when he smiled, he was truly beautiful. Rather than himself sitting next to him, all scrawny and haggard, having the thick-featured and manly Han Kyungoh there seemed to look better.
‘He said he wasn’t interested.’
Sangho, with his lower lip slightly protruding, impulsively approached the two. He was curious what they were talking about that had Wonha so focused.
“…Then let’s check and go together? I’ll make a VIP reservation.”
“Sounds good. And we don’t interfere with what each other does in our own spaces.”
“From Friday onwards for now, I’ll keep him at the hotel. From Monday to Thursday, you can… no, wait. But then I’m losing a day, aren’t I?”
Sangho, who had been cautiously approaching, stopped in place when Han Kyungoh glanced and noticed him at a certain distance. When Han Kyungoh, who had been leaning forward with his elbows on his knees close to Wonha, straightened his back and sat up, Wonha also stopped talking and turned around.
“Hyung. I told you to stay upstairs…”
Wonha, with a slightly flustered expression, quickly got up from his seat and approached Sangho. Various complicated emotions surged up. I should be relieved to see Wonha getting along well with Han Kyungoh. But somehow he hated seeing the two of them with their heads close together in conversation. And now, as if wanting to stay longer with Han Kyungoh, telling him to stay in the hotel room when he approached.
“No. I’m going home now.”
A sullen voice popped out. Han Kyungoh was sitting in his seat blankly staring at him. When he shot him a sharp look as if to say ‘What are you looking at?’, the big man awkwardly scratched behind his ear.
“H-home? You’re not going to Han Kyungoh-ssi’s place?”
Wonha asked, raising the corner of his mouth awkwardly. Well, he had been staying at Han Kyungoh’s place until now. But Wonha’s reaction, who had so disliked being with Han Kyungoh until now, gave him an uneasy feeling. If the two of them get along well without me, Nam Dohyun will lose interest in me anyway. Then I can go back to my studio apartment.
“Well, I can’t impose on him forever…”
“No!”
“No!”
At Sangho’s words, Wonha and Han Kyungoh shouted simultaneously. Sangho looked at the two with an even more suspicious expression.
“No, no. Hyung. After talking with Han Kyungoh-ssi, he seems like a good person. U-uh, the contract is expiring soon anyway, so how about staying a bit longer?”
‘A good person? How long have you been talking to suddenly call him a good person?’
As Sangho’s expression became more distorted, Wonha said urgently.
“Uh, I mean. Stay at Han Kyungoh-ssi’s a bit longer and… th-then, shall we go somewhere fun on the weekend? From Friday to Sunday. The weather’s nice too.”
“No. You two already seem to have gotten close, so I can’t interfere with your weekend.”
When he coldly cut off Wonha’s words, Han Kyungoh stood up abruptly, even more flustered. Sangho seemed to have firmly decided to leave the two of them together and return to his studio apartment. Originally, they had agreed that from Monday to Thursday would be at his apartment, and from Friday to Sunday Jang Wonha would keep Sangho. But if the person in question refused and said he was going back to his studio apartment, the tentative agreement they’d obtained through their power struggle would fall apart.
And Kyungoh, noticing that Sangho kept throwing guarded looks at him, threw out his last card without realizing it.
“I’m going to live with Jang Wonha-ssi.”
“…What?”
When the surprised Sangho opened his eyes wide, Jang Wonha’s face immediately twisted terrifyingly as if to say ‘what kind of bullshit is this?’ Then Kyungoh placed his hand on Wonha’s shoulder with a thud and pressed down firmly, giving silent pressure as he spoke.
“Right? We decided to get along well, didn’t we?”
“Fuck, what kind of dog-like—”
“N-no!”
At Sangho’s urgent cry, Wonha stopped mid-motion as he was roughly shaking off Han Kyungoh’s hand from his shoulder. Something—Sangho, who always showed passive reactions, was getting angry with a bright red face.
Sangho was quite flustered. It’s good for Wonha to get close to Han Kyungoh, but suddenly living together? If Nam Dohyun found out? It was obvious he’d go completely crazy. In that story, Nam Dohyun decided to eliminate ‘Sangho’ because he touched Wonha.
“Why, why are you living together? W-Wonha has a home too, doesn’t he?”
“Why not. You told us to get along well.”
“Th-th-that can’t happen. Y-your heat cycle is already disrupted!”
“That’s true. Who knows what might happen if just the two of us live together.”
“No! Get away!”
At Kyungoh’s shameless words as he raised his eyebrows slightly, Sangho’s face turned pale as he wedged himself between Wonha and Kyungoh. Sangho quickly pushed Han Kyungoh away from Wonha, hid Wonha, who was much taller than himself, behind him, and began to protest.
“Y-you…! Like an animal! Y-y-you, you did th-that to m-me too…!”
“You told us to get along well, didn’t you?”
“Y-you can’t do that without any order!”
“Hyuuung…!”
In the midst of it all, Wonha made a touched expression at seeing Sangho standing in front to protect him. Hyung, are you jealous of me right now? So cute. Looking at that expression, he thought Kyungoh was being ridiculous.
“Then hyung can move in too. I need to do rehab exercises, and hyung agreed to help me. The three of us can work out together.”
“Wh-wh-what?”
“Right, hyung. I need to build my body for my new project these days too.”
When Wonha quickly chimed in after reading the atmosphere, Sangho felt his mind go blank. No, I mean. It’s dangerous if he touches Wonha. But if I live with them too… what happens then? Will it just look like friends sharing an apartment?
‘The combination is a bit strange. Should I think of it as workout mates or something? At least I’m not the only one stuck to Wonha, so Nam Dohyun won’t be able to easily suspect and make a move.’
