Tears had already welled up in Hyowoo’s eyes as he looked at Lee Seohee.
“Seohee-ssi was… okay. Even when you were next to me, even when you touched me… I wasn’t scared…”
He was the only alpha Hyowoo didn’t fear.
The fact that he nearly had a panic attack when trying to shake hands with him at their blind date was simply because his body instinctively reacted to the fact that he was an alpha. It had nothing to do with Lee Seohee himself. As if to prove that, Hyowoo quickly regained his composure without a panic attack.
It was the same when Seohee whispered in his ear while wrapping the scarf around his neck. Though he was surprised, he didn’t dislike it.
He felt neither aversion nor panic.
To think that a relationship with an alpha, which would normally be unbearable, could be this comfortable. Even he found it hard to believe.
“At first… I suspected Seohee-ssi. I thought, why would someone who’s a world-famous star and a chaebol want to meet someone like me…”
For quite a long time, Hyowoo couldn’t trust his kind smile and consideration.
‘That demon… was kind to me too…’
His ex-boyfriend had also been a perfect alpha.
With his handsome appearance, excellent mind, and even refreshing personality, people were always flocking around him. To the introverted and quiet Hyowoo, he was an object of admiration.
Then one day, an unexpected confession came.
After school, he quietly called Hyowoo out and told him. That he’d liked him since enrollment. So, please go out with him.
At first, he was flustered.
During all three years of high school, they’d never been in the same class, never properly talked. Why would he suddenly make such a confession?
But the bewilderment was brief. Hyowoo accepted his feelings without hesitation right then and there.
‘Back then, I was too young and knew nothing…’
At that time, Hyowoo was like a delicate hothouse flower.
Thanks to his parents’ professions, they were financially comfortable, and his family was the very image of the ideal household people imagined. His parents spared no love and support for their children, and the siblings got along so well that people around them were envious.
Though he couldn’t completely avoid mockery and harassment for being an omega, since he was extremely good at studying, he didn’t face much discrimination at school. Thanks to his excellent grades, tall height, and handsome appearance like a beautiful boy, he was sometimes mistaken for an alpha and was quite popular.
Perhaps because of that, Hyowoo didn’t know how to suspect people and trusted easily.
Naturally, he believed his ex-boyfriend’s confession was sincere.
Not long after they started dating, his admiration for him soon turned into love. His heart fluttered from morning at the thought of meeting him, and every time they ran into each other in the hallway during breaks, he was filled with excitement.
However, the innocent first love didn’t last long.
Hyowoo was the only one who had purely fallen in love.
He had never liked Hyowoo even for a single moment. Everything that came out of his mouth was sweet lies, and in the end, he pushed Hyowoo into hell.
After that, he couldn’t trust anyone. That’s why he couldn’t let go of his suspicious gaze toward Lee Seohee either.
“I thought it was just momentary curiosity, that it couldn’t be sincere…”
He was certain there must be some hidden agenda. Otherwise, there was no way that accomplished chaebol Dominant Alpha would like an omega like himself.
However, the longer they met, the more Hyowoo realized that Lee Seohee was different from him.
‘During the time I dated my ex-boyfriend, I never felt at ease even once… It was like having a thorn stuck in my clothes that I couldn’t remove…’
He’d dated him for barely half a year. Throughout that short period, Hyowoo was tormented by an inexplicable uneasiness.
He often showed questionable behavior and words.
When they were alone, he was endlessly sweet, but when other people were around, he treated Hyowoo like air and ignored him. While whispering “I love you” every day, he tried to hide the fact that they were dating from his school friends.
As if that wasn’t enough, he even pressured Hyowoo not to tell those around him.
“Why do we have to hide that we’re dating from other people?”
When he finally spoke up after enduring his two-faced attitude many times, he made the excuse that he was a test-taker and didn’t want to attract unnecessary attention. He promised to tell everyone after the college entrance exam was over, but even after that, the situation didn’t change.
Whenever Hyowoo voiced his concerns about other things besides that, he would instead paint Hyowoo as a paranoid patient, saying, “You’re being too sensitive.”
Coincidentally, his words were always logical.
After this pattern repeated several times, Hyowoo gradually began to waver at his words. Maybe I really am the strange one.
Looking back, that was gaslighting.
‘I was such a fool…’
Back then, he was too immature to even imagine that his boyfriend might be wearing a mask.
He liked him so much that he naively believed everything he said at face value.
By the time he realized that the person he’d believed to be an angel was actually a demon, Hyowoo’s body and mind were already shattered like a broken glass that could never return to its original state.
‘But… Seohee-ssi is different.’
Unlike his ex-boyfriend who only pretended to be kind on the surface, Lee Seohee was someone with genuine warmth.
Consideration showed in even his trivial gestures, and kindness was contained in every word.
Above all, he didn’t hide his feelings. Whether anyone was watching or not, he honestly expressed his love.
‘Seohee-ssi always thought of me first and cherished me.’
It was the same on the last day they met, when his heat came.
He approached carefully so that Hyowoo, who was afraid of physical contact, wouldn’t be startled.
He asked if he was okay at every moment and absolutely never forced anything Hyowoo said he didn’t want.
‘That demon didn’t care about my feelings or personality at all…’
His ex-boyfriend, led only by instinct, trampled on Hyowoo without a second thought and left scars that would never fade for a lifetime.
However, Lee Seohee suppressed his instincts as a Dominant Alpha, which were several times stronger. After enduring with a strong will to protect Hyowoo, he ended up inflicting great injury on his own body.
That’s how sincerely he cherished and loved Hyowoo.
‘Just having Seohee-ssi by my side… made me so happy.’
When they were together, he was so delighted that no other thoughts came to mind.
When he couldn’t see him, he missed him, and when they were apart, he longed for him painfully.
‘If nothing had happened… No, if I had met this person before that incident happened…’
If he had met him when he could still have children with a healthy body, before he was completely destroyed.
And.
‘If the person I fell in love with for the first time had been Seohee-ssi, if only…’
How wonderful would that have been, Hyowoo thought as he hung his head.
“I’m sorry… for not being able to tell you until now… But… it was hard to talk about…”
Even after barely confessing everything, he didn’t have the courage to face him.
“…If you heard this kind of story, I didn’t know… how Seohee-ssi would react…”
One by one, the droplets gathered at his eyes flowed down his pale cheeks.
“I was afraid… you’d find me… burdensome.”
A tear that fell from his chin made a dark stain on the blanket.
“So, I was afraid… you’d get sick of me… I couldn’t tell you. I’m sorry…”
Lee Seohee, who had been silently watching the pitiful sight of him trembling his shoulders thinly and just repeating that he was sorry, came closer.
“Why are you apologizing to me? What did Hyowoo-ssi do wrong?”
Lee Seohee sat on the edge of the bed and carefully wrapped his arms around Hyowoo’s shoulders, preciously embracing the frail body that seemed like it would break at any moment.
“You don’t need to apologize to me. From now on, never apologize. Not to me or to anyone else.”
As he gently stroked Hyowoo’s head, he asked quietly.
“Will you tell me now, the reason you came here?”
At those words, the tears he’d been holding back poured out all at once.
‘I tried not to be greedy… Someone like me… would only be a stain on Seohee-ssi…’
But he could no longer hide his feelings.
“I came… because I missed you. I missed Seohee-ssi… so much…”
With his face buried in his embrace, Hyowoo painfully poured out his true feelings as if squeezing out his heart.
“I felt like I would die… if I couldn’t see you… I’m sorry… I really…”
It was the moment when he was about to apologize again out of habit.
Before he could finish speaking, Lee Seohee gently lifted Hyowoo’s face. And he pressed his lips onto the tear-soaked lips.
‘…It’s warm…’
It felt like being trapped in freezing ice and then meeting the sunlight.
Fear, guilt, anxiety. The emotions he’d been pressing down all this time melted away in an instant with a single kiss.
Hyowoo realized once again.
‘Seohee-ssi has been like the sun to me… From the very first moment we met.’
After sharing a kiss that was achingly sweet to the point of making his heart ache, he slowly pulled his lips away and gently wiped Hyowoo’s eyes with his fingertips.
“Thank you.”
At the sudden gratitude, Hyowoo opened his tightly closed eyes.
“Thank you for coming to see me.”
Eyes as warm as spring sunlight, but filled with emotions that couldn’t be fully expressed in words, were reflecting only him.
“I missed you a lot too.”
“……”
“Enough to die, I missed you, Hyowoo-ssi.”
Saying that, he quietly kissed Hyowoo again.
