* * *
“Let’s talk for a minute.”
Wooyeon spoke to Jeonghan, who was trying to leave the lecture hall. He felt like he’d go crazy if things stayed like this, so he absolutely couldn’t let it go.
Jeonghan followed behind Wooyeon, who was walking at a fast pace, with his hands thrust into his dark-colored coat pockets. After leaving the building and going behind the smoking area to a place where foot traffic was sparse, Wooyeon stopped walking.
Turning around to face Jeonghan, Wooyeon’s eyes were drenched in resentment. Behind him, vines completely climbed up the building.
He’d ruined the quiz. It was an opportunity that wouldn’t come back, and in the end, it would be reflected in his grades. Whether the one before him who had everything even knew what those grades meant to him…
“Why aren’t you keeping your promise?”
“What promise did I make with you, sunbae?”
Jeonghan, answering like that, had a shameless face that truly seemed not to know what he was talking about.
“Did you say it?”
“Say what?”
“That we’d forget.”
Wooyeon’s large eyes, wet with moisture, looked straight at Jeonghan. It had been only a few days since he said he’d forget, that he’d try to forget what happened at the Night of Sponsorship.
“Ah, that.”
“…”
“Honestly, sunbae, it shows even when you pretend it doesn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
Wooyeon’s large eyes blinked rapidly. Whether he really didn’t know what he was talking about, or didn’t want to know, it was impossible to tell. Wooyeon’s trembling voice was even pitiful, so Jeonghan laughed a little.
“I’m just telling it as it is… Haven’t you heard that before?”
A feeling like his breath was being cut off. Even while looking at Jeonghan’s face that he wanted to punch, Wooyeon couldn’t say anything in reply.
“I’m the only dominant alpha in our department, but there are many other alphas besides me, sunbae.”
It meant that there were many people besides Jeonghan who would have noticed that Wooyeon was a recessive omega.
Wooyeon’s eyes shook anxiously. He definitely thought it was because of Kwon Jeonghan, but seeing him deflect so calmly, he couldn’t say anything. Whether it was because of the cold or Jeonghan’s oppressive pheromones, Wooyeon kept trembling.
“I didn’t say anything. I don’t know if you’ll believe me since things happened to turn out like this today.”
Jeonghan tilted his head slightly and looked at Wooyeon with a crooked gaze. Jeonghan’s face, which was always smiling gently, was coldly hardened. Jeonghan took out a cigarette from his inner pocket and lit it with a Zippo lighter. He didn’t ask Wooyeon’s permission separately.
“Are you going to tell? That I’m recessive…?”
“…I don’t know.”
Cigarette smoke with a somewhat unique scent spread thinly in front of Wooyeon. As Wooyeon slightly frowned at the unpleasant feeling, Jeonghan, who had been continuously smoking, came closer to Wooyeon. Along with the cold wind, Jeonghan’s scent came to Wooyeon mixed with the cigarette smoke.
“Then instead, let’s have a drink. Just the two of us.”
“Why…?”
Wooyeon looked up at Jeonghan anxiously. Normally, a smiling face would have suited Jeonghan, but Jeonghan wasn’t smiling. With cold eyes, Jeonghan’s gaze looking down at Wooyeon faded in the cigarette smoke. Wooyeon felt a primal fear from his pheromones that seemed to press down on him.
“Because I want to get closer to you, sunbae.”
Only after spitting out those words did Jeonghan smirk. The cigarette, which still had a long way to go, fell to the ground by Jeonghan’s hand.
Wooyeon looked down at the fallen cigarette butt for a moment. And as Jeonghan stepped one step closer to Wooyeon while stepping on it, Wooyeon raised his head again to look at him.
What did it mean to want to get closer? With eyes that looked like they’d cry at any moment, Wooyeon kept looking up at Jeonghan.
“And I despise people who go around talking about who’s an omega or alpha among close acquaintances.”
He could collapse Wooyeon’s life at any moment if he wanted to. Jeonghan’s always relaxed attitude and the tolerance usually bestowed on people came from right there.
Jeonghan looked at Wooyeon with that arrogant, handsome face and smiled. Even in that moment, Wooyeon thought his eyes curving toward him were pretty, and felt skeptical about himself for thinking such thoughts.
Instead of answering, Wooyeon turned around and moved away from Jeonghan.
* * *
It was on the way home after finishing his tutoring job. The alley at midnight was, as always, dim because the light from the distant streetlights didn’t reach it, and only scattered lights were on in the houses in the alley that were stuck together like a chicken coop. Getting used to something meant that fear also faded.
“How’s Mom? Is she still really bad?”
「She’s finally calmed down a bit and just fell asleep.」
Wooyeon sighed lowly while gripping his phone tightly. After receiving a call from the caregiver in the afternoon saying his mother’s condition had worsened, he couldn’t focus on work. What Wooyeon feared wasn’t dark, gloomy alleys but things like this.
He should have visited over the weekend and at least seen her face. Thinking of his mother who must have been alone and lonely at the hospital over the weekend without a caregiver, his chest felt heavy with guilt. There were times her condition worsened several times even in a month, and though he’d been told before to prepare himself mentally, his heart dropped every time.
“I’m really sorry I couldn’t visit, ma’am. Please take good care of my mom.”
「It’ll be okay now. The doctor said it’s fine too. Student Wooyeon, don’t worry too much. If she gets bad again, I’ll contact you.」
“Yes, thank you so much.”
Because of his packed part-time job schedule, he couldn’t easily visit the hospital. Even with the call disconnected, Wooyeon couldn’t immediately take the phone away from his ear. He even thought that his mother was sick because of him looking after his own depression more than his mother.
Passing through the creaking rusty gate, Wooyeon put his phone in his pocket and went down the stairs. When he found his key and opened the door, along with the damp air of the semi-basement, there was a musty smell of mold. Even this was familiar to Wooyeon.
But the light inside the room was already on. Inside the small semi-basement room, barely the size of a palm, flooded with yellow light, Wooyeon wasn’t alone.
“Hey. Try coming home earlier.”
Wearing a completely disheveled suit and giving Wooyeon advice was Choi Seokwoo. Choi Seokwoo turned to look at Wooyeon with an annoyed face while chewing on a triangle kimbap. Below him, on the small breakfast table, were scattered remains of convenience store food he’d probably eaten, and the small, yellowed old refrigerator was half open.
“Fuck, I thought the sun would rise while waiting.”
“Who told you to come in without permission?”
“What?”
Choi Seokwoo chewed and swallowed the triangle kimbap he was chewing, then laughed at Wooyeon as if he was ridiculous.
“You, you seem to be mistaken about something, but you have nothing you can do as you please. Originally, being in debt is like that. Do you think this is your house? If you owe me this much, this is no longer your house. I’m doing you a huge fucking favor.”
Wooyeon didn’t answer and put down the bag he was carrying. Sitting on the floor, Choi Seokwoo’s gaze followed Wooyeon.
“You’re not the slightest bit grateful that I treat you like a human being, right? That’s why you act like this bitch to me. Huh?”
“How much exactly should I be grateful to you?”
“I’m waiting without selling you to an omega club even though you’re that great S University student.”
“…”
“Stop fucking with me, you bitch. I’m already holding back from wanting to fuck you. Don’t end up crying with your hole drilled after getting beaten.”
There was no freedom even in the single room of a small semi-basement. Wooyeon, who had been glaring at Choi Seokwoo, rummaged through his desk drawer and pulled out a small paper box package and threw it at him. What fell below Choi Seokwoo’s knees and shins was the new suppressant that Kwon Jeonghan had given Wooyeon as a gift at the Night of Sponsorship not long ago.
“Now leave.”
Choi Seokwoo tore open the paper box and checked the contents. A satisfied light crossed Choi Seokwoo’s face. Making a sucking sound through his teeth, he put the suppressant in his suit jacket’s inner pocket.
“I’ll give you the million as promised. And you’re about to run out of meds, right?”
Choi Seokwoo picked up a paper bag that had been standing by the wall and tossed it toward Wooyeon. The paper bag fell at Wooyeon’s feet and spilled its contents.
Familiar medicine with crude packaging. They were copied suppressants. They were things Wooyeon was sick of, but without even these, Wooyeon couldn’t go about his daily life. The cost of this medicine would again be added as debt in Choi Seokwoo’s ledger. There was no gap for Wooyeon to escape from the inescapable yoke.
“But you, nothing happened there, right?”
Choi Seokwoo said while leaning diagonally against the wall and lighting a cigarette. He was asking if nothing happened at the Night of Sponsorship.
“Nothing like that happened, so put out the cigarette.”
“Don’t be a bitch. With your looks, there must have been quite a few bastards clinging to you saying they’d suck you off, right?”
Choi Seokwoo got up from his seat with the cigarette between his fingers. The acrid smell of cigarette smoke filled the narrow room that wasn’t well ventilated. Even as Wooyeon glared at him, Choi Seokwoo grinned and tapped Wooyeon’s cheek.
“Oppa’s busy so I’ll get going, so don’t cry from being lonely at night.”
Choi Seokwoo hummed while putting on his shoes with crushed heels. Soon the door closed with a bang, and Wooyeon withdrew his gaze that had been glaring at Choi Seokwoo’s back.
