If it’s something you don’t need to know anyway, if it’s something you don’t need to be told, whether you know or not, it doesn’t matter in living your life, doesn’t it? I thought only like that, and thought that he was being considerate of me by not bothering to tell me, to spare Seonjae from the hurt he might receive from knowing the truth.
Right.
I thought that was his consideration.
But… was he hiding it? Then does that mean in the forgotten memories, I committed something beyond the level of not needing to know, something that needed to be hidden?
“So that’s what you call… hiding, you do.”
Yoo Seonjae had nothing to say. I couldn’t read the expression that momentarily crossed his face. For me to read and judge, his expression was too complex. So I had to ask.
“Right. Why are you hiding it?”
“Yeoul.”
“Right. That’s what I wanted to ask, so I said let’s talk. What happened on the day I manifested.”
“Why would you bother-“
“Bother. Why am I digging up what you, Yeongjae hyung, and Professor Yeonwoo are hiding?”
“That’s not what I meant. We’ve lived well not knowing until now, haven’t we?”
So.
That’s the problem, that we shouldn’t have but we did, Yoo Seonjae.
“You know.”
“…”
“I’m so happy, Seonjae.”
Yoo Seonjae looked at me with a puzzled face. As if he hadn’t thought those would be words coming from me in this situation, I smiled gently at him as he looked at me with a somewhat flustered face.
“Our married life is perfect. Like you said. We’re a perfect couple, and I’m truly grateful and relieved that you’re my husband.”
“Yeoul…”
“But, Seonjae.”
My throat was parched. I don’t know if it was because the chamomile tea made my body languid, but my vision kept blurring. It’s a strange thing. My insides are burning up noisily, but my body is drooping like this.
Is this what it feels like to have a life other than myself growing inside my body? The balance inside and outside my body doesn’t match and my mood swings wildly.
“If my, our happiness was made from someone’s unhappiness, I can’t just be happy about it.”
“What does that mean, Yeoul? Who’s unhappy?”
Yoo Seonjae wiped his face dry and said in a voice mixed with a sigh. Even though he knows everything, even though he too hid that day’s events from me because of that, does he want to keep me from knowing until the end?
“Yeongjae hyung and Professor Yeonwoo.”
Yoo Seonjae’s hand holding the coffee cup stopped in mid-air. As if time had stopped.
Even though he must have known he would definitely hear those names from me, Yoo Seonjae was frozen as if he truly didn’t think I would utter those names.
“What happened… I need to know too.”
Yoo Seonjae’s brow seemed to furrow, then his hand that had stopped soon moved again. After taking a sip of coffee, Yoo Seonjae was silent for a long time. He looked down at the coffee cup for a long time, then turned his gaze out the window.
Rain had been falling since some point. The dampened air seemed about to push its way between us at any moment.
“Seonjae.”
“Yeoul.”
Yoo Seonjae turned his head, looked at me, and smiled. Looking at his face, I somehow felt like he was crying.
“I knew I was a dominant alpha from birth.”
What? …Is that even possible?
Usually you can know the expected trait, but you can only know the certain trait after manifestation. That our secondary sex characteristics are this, and the fact that the adolescent period when our future is determined by it is a very important time for trait-carriers is a fact everyone knows.
But how can you know that… from birth?
“There’s nothing money can’t do in this world, but… there are also things money can’t do? I knew that from birth.”
“What does that mean? I don’t know what you’re saying right now, Seonjae.”
“Mm…”
Yoo Seonjae’s gaze turned to the window again. Heavy rain was pouring down. The scenery outside the window spread here and there as the rain poured down, beating hard against the glass window.
“What money can do is extending life, and what money can’t do is also extending life.”
What is he trying to say, Yoo Seonjae?
“You know, Yeoul. I was born gnawing away at my omega father’s life.”
“What?”
This is the first time I’m hearing about his omega father from him. Even though I’ve been told I resemble that person… that’s why, knowing that not only Yoo Seonjae but all his family cherished me, no one told me about that person.
But why is he bringing up that person’s story now?
“My omega father was a doctor, you see. He was a dominant omega. Just looking at how he gave birth to three children, you can tell how healthy he was, right?”
Yoo Seonjae laughed. I was anxious. My heart kept pounding because I felt like I was going to hear a story I shouldn’t hear.
Having made him bring up the story, I only then realized that I wasn’t properly prepared to hear it.
Foolish Han Yeoul.
Yoo Seonjae’s words to speak clearly if I want something finally hit home. I wanted to know, but on the other hand, I didn’t want to know. Any of it.
While not wanting any changes in life. While not even being certain whether I actually want a child or not. While not being mentally prepared enough to hear stories of people whose lives changed because of me, I only then realized that I had cornered him as if it was Yoo Seonjae’s fault for not telling everything.
I now clearly understood why Yoo Seonjae expressed this story as ‘hiding.’ He knew. That I wasn’t… ready to hear it yet.
But now there’s really no choice. Because he, Yoo Seonjae, has decided to tell.
“My omega father was a Trait Medicine Department doctor, and when I was in his belly, an emergency patient was brought in.”
“…”
“It was an extreme recessive omega in the middle of manifestation.”
At his words, my image from high school overlapped—the day I manifested, emitting tremendous pheromones and being carried on his back to the hospital. I felt nauseated.
“The reason extreme recessive omegas have fainter pheromones and lower pregnancy rates compared to other omegas is because they pour out almost all their lifelong pheromones when they manifest.”
…I didn’t know. Because no one tells you such things. People busy hiding that you’re an extreme recessive don’t hold the person involved and tell them such things one by one. They just believe themselves to be ‘recessive,’ emit faint pheromones relying on the slim pregnancy probability, and live holding onto something called hope.
“At such times, if there’s the same trait nearby, they’re severely affected by it.”
“Affected by it?”
No way…
“Dominants can become dominant omegas, dominant omegas can become recessives. If pregnant, one of the two can go wrong.”
My hands trembled violently. It’s Professor Yeonwoo. It’s Professor Yeonwoo’s story. Yoo Seonjae is telling me Professor Yeonwoo’s story through his father’s story right now.
As if I have no fault, as if saying forget about your story, I’ll tell you mine…
“Usually, that’s why only beta doctors work in the Trait Medicine Department emergency room.”
I know. There are two types of emergency rooms.
General emergency room and Trait Medicine Department emergency room.
The general emergency room is literally an emergency room used by all emergency patients regardless of trait. The Trait Medicine Department emergency room is an emergency room used by trait-carriers, but there’s a condition. Only trait-carriers who have started secondary sex characteristics can use it. In other words, it’s an emergency room used separately only by trait-carriers ‘in the middle of manifestation.’
Just in case something unexpected happens to the doctor.
If a situation arises where a doctor faces a life-threatening situation for the sole reason of seeing patients in the emergency room, no one would want to work in the emergency room. So a solid system is established to prepare for all dangers. Along with solid hazard pay accordingly.
But accidents always happen in unexpected situations.
“But not all emergency patients come by ambulance. When your person is gasping for breath, a person’s judgment becomes clouded.”
I thought I knew what he was trying to say. A trait-carrier in the middle of manifestation came to the general emergency room, and Yoo Seonjae’s omega father, exposed to that ‘accident,’ fell into critical condition. Because of that, Yoo Seonjae is saying he was born ‘gnawing away at his father’s life.’
It was the same for me.
We were young at the time. We knew there was a separate Trait Medicine Department emergency room, but it wouldn’t have entered Yoo Seonjae’s eyes as he ran carrying me all limp. He probably only thought he had to go to the emergency room where ‘hyung’ was. Because he needed someone to rely on. So Yoo Seonjae would have gone to the general emergency room where Yeongjae hyung was, and the result would have been Professor Yeonwoo’s stillbirth from exposure to my pheromones.
