The word I hadn’t been able to bring myself to ask him directly — even though I’d gone as far as investigating behind his back — finally crossed my lips, and once again, hot tears welled up from a place deep inside me.
I’d been turning away from it because I didn’t want to get hurt. And now I was being forced to face it head-on.
“Huu— you cheated on me with an Omega! Hic……”
“Me?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know! It’s because I’m a Beta, isn’t it— hic, that’s why you went and met an Omega. Huuuu—”
The tears that had been falling one or two at a time soon burst through the dam inside me all at once, completely out of control. I tried wiping them away with the back of my hand, but it was useless. They fell faster than I could wipe them, soaking my sleeve through.
“I don’t know who told you that, but it’s a baseless rumor not even worth responding to.”
The man took hold of my hand — which had been roughly scrubbing at my tears — and lowered it, then gently swept my eyes dry in my place.
A man who’s kind even in a situation like this is definitely guilty. Life imprisonment at minimum. That only made me cry harder.
“Don’t lie to me! Is this because you feel cheated now that I’ve turned into an Omega? Hmp, forget it! Get away from me!”
I sharply batted away his kindness, then pushed on without giving him a chance to cut in.
“Hic— is she prettier than me? Younger than me? Is she really that much better than me!”
Everything I’d been bottling up inside. Every single thing I’d wanted to demand answers for — I let it all out without a filter.
“There’s no way she could be… huu, I’m prettier! Why did you string me along and then cheat on me— hic, you bastard!”
It was true that I was the one who’d chased after him asking to date, but he’d been the one to reel me in with that face of his first — so it wasn’t wrong.
“Did you sleep with that Omega?! Was it better than when you’re with me? Huu, was it?!”
The storm of my outrage and grief gradually ebbed — partly because I’d finally purged everything I’d been keeping buried inside, but also because all the tears clouding my vision had finally run out, leaving my sight clear again.
It was then that I saw it — the man’s expression had gone rigid.
I wonder who said something like that to our Gang.
Bulgom’s face flashed through my mind again, but I quickly pushed it away.
“Hm? Who was it?”
His voice remained gentle, and he still brought his hand up to cool my tear-hot eyes — but his expression alone was cold enough that wringing someone’s neck right then and there wouldn’t have seemed out of place.
Instinctively, I realized once again that I needed to keep my mouth shut. That little shit Bulgom. He ought to know how many times I’ve saved his neck by now……!
“Wh— ahem. Who else. I saw everything myself.”
Now it was cold sweat instead of tears running down my face. I avoided the man’s gaze as he narrowed his eyes and sized me up, then reached toward my phone sitting on the nightstand beside the bed.
His arm blocked me, but my fingers just barely made contact and I managed to grab it. Let’s see if he can still act so confident once he sees this photo.
I quickly opened the gallery on my phone and pulled up the very photo in question — the one I’d worn the screen out staring at. No matter how many times I saw it, I couldn’t believe it.
“Here. Are you still going to deny it after seeing this?”
I shoved the phone with the photo right in front of the man’s face. He furrowed his brow and let out a low, quiet sound.
“Look at this! That smile! Others might not recognize it, but I do. You’re not the type of man who smiles like that in front of someone you don’t even like.”
“Ah……”
“You were meeting her regularly, they said. You must’ve been so busy going on dates behind my back.”
So even a man who slips through everything like a snake can’t wriggle out of hard evidence. That quiet little exclamation of his — he looked quite cornered.
“Fine, move. I don’t even want to be touched by someone who belongs to someone else.”
“I remember this day.”
“Yes, yes. I’m sure you do.”
I had no desire whatsoever to hear what came next. Whether it was an excuse or a confession — my answer was no.
Still pinned beneath him, I pushed against the man’s shoulder and thigh. Or tried to. I pushed and hit him with everything I had, but it was no use. Kang Jaeho was like an enormous boulder that had been rooted to the same spot for ages. Struggling against him left me completely drained.
“It was a day I got some very happy news.”
As though the memory had come back to him, the man smiled — the exact same smile as in the photo. Looking at that photo had soured my mood completely, yet for some reason, this man seemed even more pleased at the memory.
“That’s all there is to it. There’s no way I’d be seeing someone else when I have our Gang. Hm?”
As if it were nothing, he set the phone aside and seemed to shift tactics.
“Trust me.”
He folded his large frame and came to lean into me. I almost wrapped my arms around his broad back — then quickly caught myself.
“Then tell me who she is. The woman in the photo — she’s an Omega, isn’t she?”
Just what kind of relationship did they have that she was the one delivering happy news to this man — and just what kind of Omega was she that she got to witness that beautiful smile of his up close?!
“That is…… you’ll find out eventually.”
“What did you say?”
Lately I’d been learning so much about this man I’d spent three years with — and after going through all of it, it became clear. This person is hiding something from me again.
“It’s the truth. Because Gang hates lies……”
“And here’s someone who knows that—! Ha……”
Even though I’d gotten confirmation from his own mouth that there had been no cheating, a strange, nagging feeling that wouldn’t quite go away still lingered.
Why does it bother me even more right now than when I found out he’d been deceiving me so perfectly for three years?
“Fine. I’ll take it as a misunderstanding on my part.”
The reproach I couldn’t hold back from spilling out — aimed at his fiancée — still had my feelings for him woven into it. Love I hadn’t finished sorting through yet. Jealousy over the smile he’d given someone else. A sense of betrayal over the way he’d deceived me. Sadness over the trust that had been broken. Until not so long ago, all I knew was love and affection — and now these feelings were far too complicated.
“But that doesn’t change anything.”
He had already betrayed me and lied to me. That alone was reason enough to end things. Hadn’t the people at the office who’d been secretly watching my relationship even clapped and said it was a clean breakup? Even if I were to get back together with him, I’d definitely spend the whole time endlessly gauging the sincerity of his feelings and doubting him. This wasn’t the fairytale princess romance I’d dreamed of.
“I’m discharging myself.”
The man, who had been watching my blank, expressionless face in silence, said fine and moved aside. All that time when I’d been pushing him and he hadn’t budged an inch.
When I sat up, he straightened the hospital gown he’d made a mess of. I ignored his natural way of tending to me and picked up my phone from where it lay to the side. I made a call straight away and looked down absently at the top of the man’s head.
Kang Jaeho had gotten down on one knee in front of me without a second thought and had gone to pick up the slipper that had gone flying, slipping it back onto my foot. How is this man handsome even at the crown of his head? Even his hair whorl is perfectly shaped. The fact that I was thinking something like that even at a moment like this was ridiculous to me.
It must be the pheromones, right?
Before the dull ringtone had the chance to ring more than a few times, a familiar voice came through.
— Boss! Are you feeling any better!
“Yeah. You know where I am, right? I’m discharging right now, so come get me immediately— oh!”
I’d called Mangchi intending to have him come pick me up, but the man who had risen from the floor smoothly swiped my phone away.
“You need to rest from work for a while.”
“What are you doing. Give that back!”
I got up and reached out to grab the phone from his hand, but the arm holding it had shot up toward the ceiling — impossibly out of reach.
“Stop messing around!”
I went up on my tiptoes and stretched — failed. I tried jumping in place with my arm extended, but he jumped along with me and I failed again. I jumped again and again, but he kept jumping in perfect sync each time, and the sheer frustration of it made me more determined than ever.
I grabbed his shoulder with my left hand and stepped on the top of his foot to get extra height, but I fell just barely short again.
If only I were just a little taller……!
Whether he was delighting in this or mocking me, the man laughed with his eyes crinkling shut — and I let out a helpless laugh of my own, because I couldn’t believe it. The man still had me standing on top of his foot, holding my waist in place, and brought the stolen phone to his ear and said:
“Tell Chief Kim to have the car on standby.”
I protested loudly about what in the world he thought he was doing with my phone, but the man just waddled around the hospital room with me standing on his feet. I wanted to step off, but my waist was held firmly against him, and every time he moved, I instinctively grabbed onto him — so I ended up a willing participant in his ridiculous little walk.
***
“No! I’m not getting in—!”
Down in the hospital’s underground parking garage, the sight of me throwing a fit about not getting in the car while still in my hospital gown was embarrassing even to myself. But there was nothing I could do about it. He was being quite firm about taking me back to the place we used to live together.
I yelled at the top of my lungs and threw my weight back in an attempt to pull my captured arm free — but I was more likely to dislocate my shoulder from its socket than I was to escape from this man’s grip.
“But Gang needs pheromones right now.”
“I’ll handle that myself, so let go of me.”
The man who had one of my arms in his grip had turned back into a boulder.
“Oh! What’s that over there!”
Since brute force wasn’t working, I resorted to cunning. I stretched my free hand out behind him and called out in a startled voice. I could see his gaze shift away.
Yes! Now, while he’s off guard—
Oh?
“One escape attempt is enough. Let’s go home now. You’ll catch a cold.”
As if he’d only been playing around until now, the man put his full strength into it — and I was dragged along without managing a single moment of resistance.
I realized then that even our little tug-of-war had only been possible because he’d been going easy on me.
“Tch.”
Right. Tricks don’t work a second time.
A little while ago, in the hospital room, I’d attempted an escape as well. I had barely managed to get my phone back, and without even changing out of my clothes, I’d bolted out of the hospital at full speed. Or I’d tried to. To be precise, I’d failed before I could even make an attempt. The moment I opened the hospital room door, I was grabbed by a line of big guys standing guard.
Chief Kim, who had witnessed all of this embarrassing spectacle, read the room and quietly opened the rear door of the car. But getting in the car like this was something I’d rather die than do.
I threw both arms out, braced myself in front of the car, and ran my mouth.
“We’re broken up. So it doesn’t even make sense for me to be taking your pheromones. I’ll handle it myself, so stay out of it.”
“Handle it yourself and go find some other alpha’s d—”
“AAAAAAAAAA!”
I screamed at full volume into the air in front of me for five solid seconds, drowning out the man’s crude words. Physically covering his mouth would’ve been just a hair too slow.
He didn’t hear that, right? My dignity is still intact, right?
I sneaked a glance at Chief Kim’s expression, and in that split second of distraction, my body was bumped from behind and I was shoved straight into the car.
“Fine, okay. Let’s go.”
