“Grandfather always said this. That my happiness was most important. That whatever I wanted, he would support it.”
The fact that grandfather fed warm soup and rice to young Ganghyuk meant he liked Ganghyuk that much.
The fact that he took a photo of Ganghyuk holding him and kept that photo in an album meant he thought of Ganghyuk as a precious connection.
Grandfather would definitely have supported Ian’s heart that liked Ganghyuk. It was more certainty than speculation.
“It’s because you’re a person who gets blood on your hands that I’m sitting here right now, Executive Director. If it weren’t for you, I might be dead by now. After suffering something truly terrible.”
Gal Hongdo, who had kidnapped Ian, was a really scary person. If Ganghyuk hadn’t been involved in a dangerous industry and had been an ordinary office worker, he absolutely couldn’t have saved Ian.
“Is it so strange to like the person who saved me? What use is an age gap? If you like them, that’s all that matters. And it’s not like you and I have a twenty-year age difference, Executive Director. These days, a ten-year difference is nothing, they say.”
Even if Ganghyuk were twenty years older than him, Ian would have liked him. Moreover, Ganghyuk didn’t actually look that much older than Ian.
When wearing a T-shirt, he looked like he was in his mid-twenties. Even now he did.
Other people’s gazes weren’t important either. What was most important to Ian was his own heart, and Ganghyuk’s heart.
“Pushing me away like this. You’re doing this because you have feelings for me too, aren’t you, Executive Director?”
If not that, he couldn’t act this coldly while even mentioning grandfather. He also didn’t like him belittling himself.
In Ian’s eyes, Ganghyuk was a really cool person. His appearance, his way of speaking, his actions, his pheromones—all of it.
A person who is weak toward the weak and strong toward the strong.
He hadn’t known Ganghyuk for very long, but it was enough to distinguish whether he was a good person or a bad person.
Countless people had visited the soup restaurant, and Ian had grown up from childhood in the hands of people with far more life experience than him, like grandfather, Okjeong, and Soyeon.
Since the time spent with adults was overwhelmingly more than time spent with peers, not only had he picked up a lot, but he also heard daily the life experiences filled with their blood, sweat, and tears.
If Ganghyuk were truly a bad person, Okjeong and Soyeon would have dissuaded him first. Both of them subtly expressed concern, but they didn’t deny Ian’s words that Ganghyuk was a good person.
“I wish you would be honest too, Executive Director. Like me.”
Ganghyuk, who kept trying to push him away, was frustrating. Clearly when the rut cycle came, he had embraced Ian more hotly than anything else in the world.
Many say that sex and love are separate things, and especially that sex between omegas and alphas is even more so, but Ian believed in his sixth sense.
That Ganghyuk was absolutely not someone who would have sex with just anyone. He knew that if he really hated having sex with him, no matter how proactively he approached, he was someone who would push him away until the end.
Though he’d drunk quite a lot of alcohol, his mind was clearer than usual. When he put strength into his eyes, the corners stung. His heart pounded as if it would burst through his chest.
The burning heat spread up to the nape of his neck. His chest felt refreshed having said everything he wanted to say, but after saying it all, he was a bit scared that Ganghyuk might kick his chair back and stand up. To avoid showing it, he scrutinized every one of Ganghyuk’s expressions.
It was certainly just a moment, but he saw Ganghyuk’s eyes waver. Ian sincerely wanted to become closer to Ganghyuk than now. Before another person could take him away.
“Honestly……”
The last words left deep ripples in Ganghyuk’s heart. There wasn’t a single thing wrong in what Ian said. The bold words contained sincerity, and that sincerity was slowly moving Ganghyuk’s heart that had been like a huge boulder.
The thought that he and Ian didn’t suit each other remained unchanged even now. No matter what Ian said, it would never change for a lifetime.
However, he thought he could no longer deceive Ian’s heart. Though the face of the little kid in the photo still came to mind when he looked at Ian, he’d had sex with that child. And quite violently at that.
He’d only not knotted, but he’d almost ejaculated inside several times. Separate from the fact that Ian’s pheromones weren’t nauseating unlike other omegas, if he hadn’t had even a little bit of feelings, he wouldn’t have had sex.
Ian even seemed not to remember, but he himself had once tried to relieve Ian’s suffering when he wasn’t in his right mind, intoxicated by drugs.
“You’re right, I’m attracted to you. It’s an undeniable fact.”
He caught his eye, his actions were adorably infuriating, and he came to mind suddenly even while working. All of that had been his heart leaning toward him.
He’d never liked anyone, so his awareness was late. He’d thought it was an emotion combining a bit of compassion, responsibility, and favorable feelings, but when he picked through it thoroughly and looked only at the core, it was far more complex.
He tried imagining Ian with someone other than himself. Ian looking at that person with the same longing eyes he looked at him with, smiling prettily, whispering to be held.
He felt as dirty as if he’d been doused with sewage water. More than anything, he instinctively felt hostility toward that person whose face and name he didn’t even know.
He’d vaguely hoped Ian would meet someone better than him and be happy, but when he actually pictured that scene concretely, he saw the answer.
He didn’t want to give him up. To anyone.
He hadn’t known that the little kid who seemed less than half his size would be embedded this deeply in his heart. Even if he pulled it out, the traces would never disappear. He had a premonition that even if the bleeding stopped and the wound healed, the scar would remain for life.
“Kid, I’ve never coveted anything.”
Why had he passed off the emotions he vaguely felt as insignificant? Because he was afraid of starting. Once he started, he had no confidence he could stop.
Ian was only fluttering over seeing his good sides now, but would he be the same even after seeing all the way to the bottom? Could he still say he liked him even after facing the reality of what kind of bastard he was?
Right now it was possible. Letting Ian go freely.
But if their relationship deepened as the kid wished, he would absolutely never give up. Even if those big eyes became submerged in sorrow, even if he became battered and worn, he’d let him fall apart by his side.
“For someone like me to like someone means I intend to devour even that person’s life. It means that even if I fall into the pit, we’ll go to hell together, and I’ll absolutely never let you go.”
Because not being by his side would be more of a hell.
He swallowed his last words, but in Ganghyuk’s eyes looking at Ian, sticky emotions were already raging.
“Can you handle it.”
Right now, Ganghyuk was giving Ian a final chance. He was offering the single opportunity to run away and escape from him.
If he missed this moment, Ian’s path to escape Ganghyuk would become forever distant.
Gulp. Ian, who swallowed his dry saliva as if to steady his breath in the tension, looked firmly at Ganghyuk’s eyes.
“I won’t regret it. They say it’s most romantic when your first love becomes your last love.”
Grandfather had loved only one person his whole life. That’s why when the person he loved left early, and the child born between them became a good-for-nothing because he raised them too indulgently, he still couldn’t abandon them.
The love for his child naturally extended down to Ian. Though Grandfather had passed away, the love he’d given Ian was still alive and breathing in his heart.
The reason Ian could be honest with his feelings and proactively approach Ganghyuk was possible because of the unique confidence of someone who grew up loved.
“Is it because you’re young. You have very little fear.”
Ganghyuk, who chuckled, opened a new bottle of soju and filled his glass, then filled Ian’s glass too. When he held out the glass, Ian, whose cheeks were flushed, clinked glasses with both hands.
“Be comfortable. You said you wanted to get closer. Right now I’m too much like an elder.”
At the extremely respectful posture, Ganghyuk gestured at Ian’s hands. Still, Ian stubbornly clinked glasses once with both hands, then turned his head and drank the soju.
