It was surprising that Jinwoo had made it out of the room and all the way here in that state. The pheromones that had saturated every corner of the room must have thinned out in the meantime. Otherwise there was no way Jinwoo would have fallen asleep with such a peaceful expression, buried in someone else’s clothes.
“Mmh….”
Whether it was because he’d caught the scent of actual pheromones from a real person rather than a fading trace, Jinwoo stirred briefly, and the tension in his expression eased a little more. The scent drifting freely off of him was equally settled — rising in soft, steady little bursts, like soap bubbles floating through the air.
It had been the same yesterday, but it struck Yuhan again just now — this was an omega eight years his junior. Jinwoo would turn thirty before long, and yet in Yuhan’s eyes, he would probably always look young. The sight of Jinwoo buried in his clothes stirred something possessive in him as an alpha. After worrying all day, this was a far more satisfying sight than it had any right to be.
My omega.
The one who had nearly slipped into another alpha’s hands. The one who would carry his child.
“Jinwoo. What are you doing out here like this.”
He stroked Jinwoo’s face, flushed warm with heat. Whether from the temperature or the lingering fever, tiny beads of sweat had gathered across his forehead.
The eyes that slid open partway were still thick with sleep. One pat and he’d be out again without a doubt.
“Let’s go to bed.”
He bent down to lift him, but Jinwoo reached out first. Not sure what he was asking for, Yuhan paused — and the hazy expression on Jinwoo’s face crumpled.
“You don’t want to…?”
His thoughts came to a full stop. It sounded like a pout. It also sounded like a plea.
The instinct to lean on an alpha without limit, to be loved by them — it was a phenomenon commonly seen in omegas going through a heat cycle. Regardless of how two people normally got along, this particular need was something everyone experienced equally. The two of them had been distant with each other, but right now, that was the last thing on Jinwoo’s mind.
“Hh….”
Perhaps he’d thought too long — a soft, hitching sound snapped him back. This was a different quality from the tears that came with pleasure. There was genuine hurt in it.
“I’m sorry, Jinwoo. Look at me. Alright?”
The sight of those shoulders shaking as Jinwoo hid his face in the clothes was difficult to watch. That all he wanted was a little of Yuhan’s affection — it didn’t sit right, somehow, for someone who had grown up so thoroughly loved.
So long as Jinwoo didn’t refuse what needed to be done, Yuhan had no intention of interfering in his life or controlling him. He couldn’t bring someone who shone so brightly from all that love and dim him with his own selfishness. So it only needed to go as far as a child — one healthy alpha child, and that would be enough.
Pitying Jinwoo, or seeking out voids that didn’t even exist just to fill them — that would be nothing more than his own arrogance.
“You hate me, don’t you….”
“Who told you that? I don’t hate you, Jinwoo.”
“But then, hk, why….”
That someone with such a straight, resilient core was leaning on him — an alpha — because he was an omega, and finding that satisfying: that was probably just the product of that same arrogance.
“I’ll hold you. But you’ll have to let go first, alright?”
He gently coaxed Jinwoo, who was clutching the hem of his coat and refusing to release it. The behavior was childlike enough to warrant a frown — yet Yuhan felt nothing of the sort. The dark, damp part of an alpha’s desire, the part that ran opposite to reason, wanted Jinwoo to stay exactly like this forever — helpless and completely at his mercy.
Jinwoo, who had seemed like he might never raise his head again, slowly turned to look at Yuhan. The face that had been so clear just moments ago was a mess of tear tracks.
“There you go.”
Yuhan took the limp hand that had released its grip and draped it over his shoulder, then scooped Jinwoo up in one smooth motion.
He’d felt it last night too, when he’d carried Jinwoo after he’d passed out — he needed to put on weight. It was one thing to be surprised that a grown man could be lifted so easily, but it wasn’t a good thing at all. In this condition, even if he did get pregnant, it was obvious Jinwoo would be the only one suffering for it.
It might have been better to let this heat cycle pass with medication and wait until things between them had softened a little more before sleeping together.
A short, humorless laugh escaped Yuhan without warning. He’d just caught himself holding two feelings at once — the desire for Jinwoo to bear his child quickly so his position would be secured, and the desire for Jinwoo not to suffer.
So this is why people say small attachments are dangerous. Feeling something toward Jinwoo that he’d never felt even toward family members who shared the same space as him. It was strange.
“I held you, so you trust me now, right?”
It was the kind of line you’d only hear in a cheap drama. He’d never imagined he would say something like that in his life, let alone to a partner in an arranged marriage. But when Jinwoo nodded and buried his face against his shoulder, Yuhan thought that maybe those dramas had done their research after all.
Unlike borrowed clothes, pheromones released directly from the source did a great deal to ease the restlessness of an omega still in the middle of their heat. His plan was to let his pheromones flow freely for as long as Jinwoo needed and settle him back to sleep by the time they reached the bedroom.
“Stay lying down. I’ll be right back.”
He laid Jinwoo down on the bed just as it was, blankets bunched up and all. He was still in his work clothes, so he’d meant to step out and change quickly — but a hand shooting out and catching his sleeve stopped him before he could take a single step.
“Where are you… going…?”
It wasn’t a simple question. It was no different from asking him not to leave.
“Hng….”
He took the face that looked moments away from crying again and held it between his hands, pressing his lips to Jinwoo’s. The lips that met his unexpectedly tasted of salt. Tears that hadn’t been wiped away yet, lingering at the corners of his mouth.
Unlike last night with all its sounds of water, he didn’t press his tongue in. He ended the short, almost childlike kiss — and right before the last moment, he bit down on Jinwoo’s lower lip to hold back the urge to take him then and there.
“Just wait a—”
He hadn’t given Jinwoo the fast-acting medication, so there had never been any guarantee Jinwoo would sit quietly. But he hadn’t anticipated this — Jinwoo gripping his collar and initiating the kiss himself.
Jinwoo did exactly what Yuhan had done to him: he traced his tongue over the lips, licked and pulled, trying to draw him in. It was as clumsy a kiss as anything could be — and yet that clumsiness moved something in him.
He had been with far more skilled people than this, in numbers that couldn’t compare. Those encounters had always left him feeling like something was missing. Looking back now, it wasn’t a vague sense of lacking — it was an absence. They were people who had no problem at all without him, and he’d thought that was convenient, but it wasn’t, not at all. What Yuhan had wanted was someone who needed him and no one else.
The foolish alpha, still unable to shed his arrogance, read in Jinwoo’s eyes both desire and the longing he had wanted so much to find.
“Jinwoo. What are you trying to do to me….”
This was someone he hadn’t planned on getting attached to in the first place. He had met him because he needed to, and married him because he saw him as a favorable hand to play. Jinwoo had said he could take a lover outside the marriage, but Yuhan had never entertained the idea. He knew firsthand how grueling a life it was, being born out of wedlock.
But it wasn’t only that.
One child — born from his relationship with Jinwoo — was all he needed. As long as Hajin didn’t resort to underhanded tricks in the meantime, K Group would naturally fall to him. And someday his child would take over the company — and he didn’t want them to witness the same ugly things he had.
The last omega in his life would be Jinwoo. And now, beyond simply being a spouse, he found himself wanting to give that a little more meaning.
“Do it….”
Whether or not Jinwoo had any idea what was going through his mind, Yuhan couldn’t bring himself to push away the bright, open face pressing him for more.
- Meet, talk, realize
I think I’ve lost my mind, genuinely….
If at least his memory had gone blank from drinking, it wouldn’t be this painful. What good was having a memory like this — it was the kind you were supposed to use during exam season, not for something like this.
Jinwoo wanted to erase roughly ten hours of memory, starting from the dressing room. Where that stamina had come from, or whether it had simply turned out to be more manageable once he’d tried it — he didn’t know. But the memory of spending the entire night pestering Yuhan, begging for more, came back in vivid, mortifying clarity.
He desperately wanted to flee this bed and run somewhere — anywhere — but the man who had fallen asleep with a firm hold on him made that impossible. Well, to be fair, even without that, every muscle in his body was screaming, and he probably couldn’t move properly regardless. He wanted to bury his head in a hole.
He was on the verge of silently screaming and curling his hands into fists when Yuhan’s arm pulled him in closer.
“You’re awake?”
It didn’t seem like he’d been pretending to sleep — Yuhan murmured in a low voice Jinwoo had never heard from him before. Jinwoo startled, hunching his shoulders, and gave a small nod in response. His throat felt raw and scratchy, and he was certain that if he opened his mouth, whatever came out would sound wrecked.
