Taeon, who had been looking at Sunjeong’s face for which he couldn’t find an answer, fell into slumber as if losing consciousness when it was nearly 7 AM.
“Crazy, I’m late!”
“Why.”
Taeon, with bedhead hair like a magpie’s nest, checked his phone and screamed, but Sunjeong was calm.
“I have to go to work. My shift starts at 10.”
It was already 10:13. The work foreman always highly valued Taeon’s diligence, and thanks to that, he often received better treatment compared to the other men, but at this rate it was all going to go down the drain.
Sunjeong weakly grabbed the arm of Taeon, who was trying to get up roughly.
“Yoon Taeon.”
“What?”
“Can’t you stay with me today?”
The large eyes of Sunjeong staring intently at Taeon didn’t contain any of the aggression he’d shown Taeon yesterday.
Those large, adorable eyes so familiar to Taeon, that gentle gaze.
Now it seemed like everything had returned to normal.
Taeon got up from his spot with a satisfied feeling.
“Bullshit. Our young master might not know, but if I don’t work, I’ll starve to death. I’m leaving now.”
Taeon’s voice, which deliberately used the dialect often heard at the construction site in an even more awkward and exaggerated way, clearly contained mockery. At those words, Sunjeong’s well-shaped eyebrows drooped slightly downward.
But before those eyebrows could tilt too much, they soon found their place.
Whether Sunjeong did that or not, it didn’t matter to Taeon at all as he picked up and put on the clothes he’d thrown off yesterday.
He looked terrible not having washed, but it didn’t matter anyway since once he started work, within less than an hour he’d be in a state where you couldn’t tell if he’d washed or not.
“Fuuuck……”
Taeon paused for a moment at the small curse that flowed from Sunjeong’s mouth.
Why does he even curse so clumsily? When Taeon was about to shake his head with a hollow laugh, Sunjeong opened his mouth again.
“Loser who can’t take what’s offered.”
“What did you say?”
Somehow, when Sunjeong attacked him, Taeon couldn’t stand it.
“My heat, I was going to give it to you. That’s why I put up with that ugly, smelly bastard for a whole hour yesterday.”
Put up with? Then Go Sunjeong never had any intention of hooking up with that bastard from the start?
Then does that mean he deliberately hung around with that bastard yesterday?
Before Taeon’s head, which had started spinning, could find an answer, Sunjeong opened his mouth first in a low voice.
“Yoon Taeon.”
“……”
“You really are a loser who can’t take what’s offered. I’m not giving you my heat.”
“What? Go Sunjeong, is that really coming out of your mouth……”
Taeon couldn’t continue his words.
It was because Sunjeong had thrown a pillow reeking strongly of cheap fabric softener at Taeon’s face.
“What’s the point if your body is a slut? Your heart is fucking like a heat. Live like that forever.”
Now Sunjeong’s voice was unrestrained.
“Huh, this……”
Sunjeong got up from his spot. He’d clearly slept naked yesterday, but he was fully dressed. Don’t tell me he woke up, got dressed, and waited for Taeon.
“Yoon Taeon, you just wait and see.”
By the time he realized that what was pooling in Sunjeong’s eyes as he said this were teardrops, it was long after Sunjeong had left the cramped motel room. Taeon stood there dazed for a long while.
***
“You’re gonna cause an accident today at this rate.”
The work foreman passed by with a word to Taeon, who kept making small mistakes today.
Taeon felt awkward but wasn’t even embarrassed. The mistakes Taeon was making right now were too much even for mistakes. He was dropping lumber he’d been moving with plenty of room to spare, or stepping wrong without avoiding the rebar clearly stacked right in front of his eyes.
“Be careful.”
“Yes.”
Taeon answered in a calm voice, but it didn’t seem like he’d be able to concentrate on work anytime soon.
He searched his pockets thinking he might have cigarettes, but since he didn’t usually smoke, there was no way he’d have any.
In an irritated mood, Taeon let out a deep sigh and messed up his hair for no reason.
Damn Go Sunjeong. Taeon muttered to himself inaudibly.
He couldn’t forget the last sight of him yapping like a Chihuahua at Taeon, saying his heart was a heat, after spouting nonsense about living promiscuously. And what was with those tears?
[Hey, did you get home okay?]
There was no reply from Sunjeong even to the message he sent around lunchtime.
His mouth felt dry. He really felt like he needed to smoke a cigarette.
It was Sunjeong’s work that Taeon’s phone had not “Go Sunjeong” but “Sunjeong” with a sky-blue heart attached. At some point, he’d snatched Taeon’s phone saying he had something to look for, and changed it like this.
While he’d spoken harshly to Sunjeong about it, Taeon hadn’t actually changed this saved name.
Well, it’s more annoying to search for it and change it one by one, isn’t it?
Taeon, who had been staring at the sky-blue heart for no reason for a while, clicked his tongue and turned off his phone.
The work foreman, who had been watching Taeon work with a troubled mind, eventually gave Taeon an order to leave early today. It wasn’t even a busy day, and he didn’t want to see him cause an accident for no reason. Since he clearly wouldn’t dock his daily wage for this, Taeon put on a repentant expression and obediently accepted the order.
Since he had time, it would be perfect to rent a bicycle and do some deliveries. He didn’t really need to work this hard, but when his mind was troubled, moving his body was the best.
Taeon, who had searched whether there were spare bicycles at nearby bicycle storage facilities, started walking leisurely through the alleyways.
The scenery of this truly unremarkable neighborhood was all too familiar to Taeon.
He thought he’d naturally escape these narrow alleys once he grew up.
Sunjeong, who didn’t match these alleys at all, would appear from time to time and surprise Taeon.
‘Yoon Taeon, you just wait and see.’
Sunjeong’s sharp voice that had been troubling Taeon since earlier rang in Taeon’s ears once again.
‘I’m absolutely not giving you my heat.’
Taeon, who had been ruminating on Sunjeong’s words, cursed out loud this time.
“Fuck, Go Sunjeong.”
The key point was that Sunjeong could spend his heat with someone else.
Even if he told Sunjeong, who was cursing him for being a loser who couldn’t take what was offered, his true feelings that he should give it to someone worthy, it wouldn’t get through anyway.
The words that once they did it, it really seemed like there’d be no turning back—he could never say them even if he died.
Taeon started worrying that Sunjeong might meet someone like that bleached-hair cigarette-reeking guy he’d seen yesterday out of defiance toward Taeon. Unable to endure it anymore, Taeon entered a convenience store he saw and bought a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.
Walking toward where there were no people, Taeon lit a cigarette and coughed out hacking sounds.
It was because it had been too long since he’d smoked.
A hollow laugh came out.
Sunjeong, who had chattered something or other to Taeon who started putting cigarettes in his mouth as soon as he turned twenty, kept coughing because of his weak bronchial tubes. Yet he couldn’t tell Taeon not to smoke for fear of going against Taeon’s mood.
He’d acted like a complete asshole on purpose, wanting him to quickly leave because he hated the smell of cigarettes, but once his face turned bright red from coughing, he ended up quitting cigarettes. Since that day, he couldn’t really touch cigarettes anymore.
[Are you ignoring me? lol]
Unable to endure it anymore, he sent another message to Sunjeong, but as expected, there was no reply.
Well, this too was surely just temporary.
Taeon could live without Sunjeong, but Sunjeong couldn’t live without Taeon.
Knowing that kind of Sunjeong, he’d deliberately treated him roughly all this time, but the current situation was a bit infuriating too.
When Sunjeong appeared in a few days, he planned to have a really serious conversation this time. He wanted to calmly talk without getting angry about why Taeon and Sunjeong didn’t need to be entangled with each other, why it was better for Sunjeong to completely sort out his one-sided love, and why there was no need to appear in this neighborhood.
Then Sunjeong would probably drip tears again…… but it couldn’t be helped.
But Sunjeong didn’t appear before Taeon a few days later.
Even several weeks later, long after those few days had passed, even several months later, Sunjeong didn’t appear before Taeon.
***
[Taeon-ah, do you have time today?]
[No]
[When do you have time?]
[Don’t know]
[I’m going into heat soon lol Make some time for me]
[We’ll see]
Even before the message from Yoonwoo, whom he used to meet more often than Yuhyeon, Taeon was indifferent.
Looking at the date, his rut period was slowly approaching.
Come to think of it, his rut period had always been regular since becoming an adult, but the cycle got twisted because Sunjeong showered him with dominant omega pheromones. Go Sunjeong, this is really. Taeon muttered to himself in a voice that didn’t have much energy anymore.
It had already been 3 months since Sunjeong completely disappeared from before Taeon. It was also the longest time they hadn’t seen each other since Taeon and Sunjeong got to know each other.
During all this time, Sunjeong had acted like he had separation anxiety from Taeon.
A year ago, before leaving for a week-long trip to Italy to both attend the wedding of Sunjeong’s eldest brother Sunho, who was marrying an Italian alpha woman, and to travel, Sunjeong looked up at Taeon with teary eyes.
‘Yoon Taeon.’
‘Even if you go into rut, don’t just spread your legs…… stay chaste……’
It was a funny thing to say. Even if Sunjeong was in Korea, there was no way Taeon would be chaste.
