Now that I thought about it, I realized I didn’t know a single thing about who Won Dogyeong had been seeing. It felt like he dated from time to time, but aside from work, he rarely left the house, so I wondered when he even managed to meet people.
Thinking about it now, maybe some of the things he called “work” were actually dates. His work schedule was irregular enough that he could have easily hidden it in between. He never wanted to talk about who he was seeing anyway. Though on that subject, he was pretty well-informed about my love life.
“I should eat and then go to the hospital.”
I thought about teasing him a bit but didn’t have the energy, so I gave up and blurted out the thought that had suddenly occurred to me. He seemed to understand immediately what I was talking about and turned back with a serious face.
“Let’s go together. I’ll give you a ride.”
“It’s fine, it’s nearby so I’ll just go by myself.”
“Get in the car.”
“What for when it’s close by?”
Won Dogyeong let out a deep sigh and rolled his eyes irritably.
“Can’t you just get in the car?”
“…Fine.”
Wait, hold on a second.
“Won’t it be a big problem if you get photographed at an OB-GYN?”
“I’ll just wear a hat and mask.”
This guy just doesn’t get it no matter how many times I tell him that people are just pretending not to recognize him. Even when Won Dogyeong covered his entire face with a hat and mask, he still gave off way too much of that meticulously managed person vibe.
People only glanced and let it go because it was his private life, but sharp-eyed people might have recognized him. In fact, there were quite a few times I’d heard whispers of “Isn’t that Won Dogyeong?” even when he was completely covered up.
“How ridiculous. Don’t even think about stepping one foot out of the car.”
I made my declaration and went to shower, then was horrified when I looked in the mirror.
Standing under the bright fluorescent lights facing the mirror, my body looked twice as much of a mess as when I’d briefly glanced at it in my room. My neck was so covered in kiss marks that I thought I might need to cover it with pain relief patches for a while.
I guess he had a reason to be sorry.
I angled my back toward the mirror and looked over my shoulder, but the back wasn’t much different. He’d sucked on me thoroughly all over. While washing my body, viscous liquid endlessly flowed out from inside, and I had to swallow my embarrassment alone.
After meeting in the living room all fresh and clean, we inhaled jjajangmyeon like vacuum cleaners and took Won Dogyeong’s car to the hospital. I stuffed him in the car, telling him not to talk nonsense about desperately wanting to come up with me.
I went home, took my medicine, and was cleaning around the house when Won Dogyeong kept treating me like an invalid, so I snapped at him that I was fine. He kept bothering me, saying I should go lie down just in case, so I shoved him into the bathtub along with the bed sheets and mopped the floor.
I rested for two more days like that before going to work.
Should I call it rest? It was closer to sleeping the whole time.
Won Dogyeong also slept like the dead for two days, then got up and shook it off, and wasn’t home for a while as he caught up on the schedule he’d postponed.
After that incident, time passed ambiguously, and since we were both busy, we had almost no time together, which made us become a bit awkward instead. If we’d spent time together as usual, we might have forgotten about it out of habit, but since we didn’t have that chance, every time we saw each other’s faces, that incident kept coming to mind.
Every time we ran into each other at home, we stiffened up like people who’d had a one-night stand running into each other on the street. It was a standstill for an entire month.
Conversely, I found myself searching Won Dogyeong’s name on portal sites, something I’d never done before. Online, traces of his busy work were updated day by day. Interviews, radio, movie premieres, stage greetings. Won Dogyeong on screen was sharply on edge.
[What do you think you have in common with Jeongsu, the protagonist of this work?]
At the reporter’s question, he paused with a contemplative “Hmm,” then twisted up the corners of his mouth and answered. It looked like a smile, but that was an annoyed expression. Won Dogyeong used to make that face when people were bothering him.
[The part about not being able to approach the person I like. Haha. I’m not good at that either.]
[Oh come on, people probably approach you even if you’re just smiling.]
[I don’t know, it doesn’t really work out. How about you, sunbae?]
He smiled prettily again and brushed off that topic. He nodded as if listening attentively while putting down the microphone, but to my eyes, he still seemed uncomfortable.
Not being able to approach someone… Is he that type? I’m not sure. He really needs to tell me things.
I can’t quite imagine Won Dogyeong being wishy-washy. Does he act like he did that morning when he was deflated in front of someone he likes?
Thinking about it that way was kind of funny. Isn’t that his default when he’s dating?
If so, he’s 180 degrees different from his usual self.
I watched a few more videos like that. Following the algorithm, videos from a few years ago suddenly popped up. It was a making-of video of Won Dogyeong with a slightly more youthful face than now, joking around with other actors he was appearing with.
This was a video from his early twenties when he had just started his acting career.
Until high school, Won Dogyeong was an ordinary student struggling with college entrance exams just like me. He suddenly declared he’d become an actor in college, and after briefly doing minor roles, he lucked into a work where he played a supporting role with some weight, which blew up, and he quickly established himself.
I knew it would turn out this way from the moment Won Dogyeong set his mind on it.
Won Dogyeong was the type who, if he decided to do something, would do it.
Rather than being exceptionally talented at everything, he was the type to charge at something to the end once he decided to do it. You could tell just from how he grudgingly raised his grades in high school even though he didn’t really like studying, and entered the same university as me.
When he cried about bombing a practice exam, I really thought he was seeing things.
So no matter what, whether he was a celebrity or whatever, I couldn’t really imagine Won Dogyeong failing.
Throughout elementary, middle, and high school, he gathered people around him like the Pied Piper. His cool, pretty face combined with his prickly personality that put up walls everywhere had an aspect that drove both so-called haters and fans crazy.
Even without doing anything, all kinds of scandals clung to him, with a truckload of people wanting to get close to him and a truckload of people wanting to pick fights with him.
The misunderstanding I mainly received from being by his side was obvious. I don’t know how many times in my life I’ve been asked if I was dating Won Dogyeong.
What’s more, with everyone I dated, there was always friction at least once because of Won Dogyeong. My exes generally called Won Dogyeong “that alpha” with a tone of utter disgust.
Of course, they didn’t know that the childhood friend I lived with was the Won Dogyeong on TV, but even if I made up some suitable name to tell them, he ended up being “that alpha” anyway.
Starting with “Are you going to meet that alpha again?” they’d say things like “That alpha definitely likes you,” or “Is that alpha more important than me?” Naturally, I also heard “How long are you going to keep living with that alpha?”
It was my fault for living with an alpha, but I never liked anyone enough to give up living with Won Dogyeong.
At those times, I always broke out in a cold sweat trying to explain that we weren’t like that, and often got tired and broke up. It was hard to accept a lover who urged me to cut Won Dogyeong out of my life.
But now, in the end, “that alpha’s” child was inside my belly.
Even with ten mouths, I’d have nothing to say…
Maybe in the end, they were right. I was only now realizing how audacious the idea was that an alpha and an omega could live in the same house without anything happening. Only after causing a major accident.
Even so, without much difficulty, I decided to have the child.
If I was going to have a child someday anyway, I thought having one now wasn’t necessarily all bad. If I had one while young, it would be a bit easier to raise, right?
I’d reached that conclusion the day after going to the hospital without much agonizing.
The problem was Won Dogyeong.
He wouldn’t… like it.
There was no way he’d be happy about a child unexpectedly conceived with an unexpected partner. His work was going really well too, so he’d want to avoid a major scandal like this.
Besides, Won Dogyeong didn’t really like kids to begin with. He said they were noisy.
I didn’t want to burden him. I should tell him, but I had absolutely no desire to shove the accidentally conceived child at him demanding he take responsibility. Having decided on my own whether to have it or not, I had that much decency.
Having and raising it alone, well, it’s not such a terrible flaw in this day and age.
But I’d probably have to move out of that house.
Ironically, when I’d thought I was lucky not to be kicked out, now I was going to walk out on my own feet. It’s not like we’d raise it together, so I couldn’t stay in that house while pregnant, and honestly, I didn’t even want to imagine what kind of trouble would happen on the day people found out that the child in the roommate’s belly was Won Dogyeong’s.
I fiddled with the paper cup in my hand and stared blankly into space. A gentle breeze pleasantly tousled my hair as it passed.
First, I’d tell him about the child, and say I was looking for a place so please give me a little time until I moved out…
“What’s this, you’re actually drinking tea?”
When I turned my head, Myeong Haemin, a college classmate and also a coworker who joined the company at the same time, waved her hand with a tired face, then plopped down next to me sipping coffee. She gestured with her eyes at the tea bag sticking out from the side of my cup.
“Just. Thought I’d take care of my health a bit.”
“Did you get a health checkup or something?”
“Not that. I’ve been too busy to take care of myself.”
“That’s unusual.”
Haemin glanced at me sideways and tilted her head.
“Do you have some kind of worry lately? You seem like your mind is somewhere else. You’re not even taking off your glasses.”
“Ah.”
When I hurriedly felt around my eyes, the blue light blocking glasses I stubbornly only wore in front of the monitor were sitting there nicely. I took off the glasses, stuck them in my front pocket, and smiled awkwardly.
“Does it show that much?”
“Yeah. Deputy Manager Han was asking if something was wrong with you too.”
At the name I’d forgotten about, I flinched in surprise and just blinked.
