JADE 34

The sense of self-reproach for leaving my nephew entirely in someone else’s care while my brother and his wife were away slowly crept in. When I remained silent for a moment, Kwon Joowan, as if he had just realized, startlingly got out of the blanket and stood up.

“…Did Teacher Jun already go for a run?”

“No. Let’s stop jogging from now on.”

“Ah, why? Suddenly cutting me off. What if that goalkeeper kid looks for us?”

“I gave him my business card. Mr. Sejun, you need to rest. You’re not in a condition to worry about him too.”

Why is he suddenly overreacting? Did I almost die and then wake up?

Jin Sejun stared at Kwon Joowan with narrowed eyes.

“Is this a recommendation to resign?”

“…Not quite that.”

“Right, you said it wasn’t within the vice director’s authority.”

“I’ll bring you a meal.”

“I’m fine.”

The moment Jin Sejun stood up, Kwon Joowan extended his hand as if to support him but didn’t grab him. Jin Sejun slowly walked around the bed to show him.

“I think I can make it to the dining room. It’s not a few kilometers away, is it? The guest room is quite spacious.”

“…It’s not that far.”

Since I didn’t have the courage to pull out the IV needle like a movie protagonist, I held out my arm and stared blankly. Kwon Joowan quite skillfully removed the needle and applied a bandage.

He said he’d caused a lot of injuries, and it seemed he knew first aid as well. Well, a guy who used to do an intense sport is now the vice director of an academy, so he must be good at first aid.

‘This is nice…’

Something… was nice. The fact that Kwon Joowan, who had been constantly snappy and irritable these past few days, was taking care of him and had brought him to his home. What Kwon Joowan was thinking and what Jin Sejun was feeling were different, but still.

‘Am I a moron, by any chance?’

Still, to think this is what it feels like to wake up in a bed with another person’s body heat… it was warm and felt good.

The path from the bedroom door to the dining room wasn’t several kilometers long, but it certainly wasn’t short. But Jin Sejun, instead of estimating Kwon Joowan’s wealth and getting salty as usual, hummed a tune.

If I had known that Ahn Saeha would come out of another room as soon as I received the heated soup, I wouldn’t have been so thoughtlessly happy.

“Mr. Sejun, you’re awake. How are you feeling?”

“I’m perfectly fine… Hello.”

My mood should have lifted upon seeing the omega greeting me with a gentle smile, but seeing my energy drop, it seemed my condition was still not great.

‘Did he apologize because of something Ahn Saeha said?’

Even without Ahn Saeha, the fact that Kwon Joowan was still ‘Teacher Jun’ was reason enough for him to take care of Jin Sejun. But once my mood started to sink, messy emotions that had nothing to do with reason tried to fill in the cause.

As my spoon movements gradually slowed, the voices of the two, conversing as if Jin Sejun wasn’t even there, slowly faded. The two of them being in the same house seemed very natural.

“…”

The soup had cooled a bit and was no longer steaming as much as it had at first, yet my vision was blurry.

If he was his former fiancé, and if he even relayed family news, then a weekend visit to his home was naturally nothing special.

‘When did I become such a spineless bastard.’

It might be a little late to admit it, but Jin Sejun likes Kwon Joowan, even after being rejected twice. Don’t ask me why; I don’t know.

Yes, let’s admit one more thing: he was a little jealous of Ahn Saeha, too. You can say what kind of alpha is this, but it’s the truth, so there’s nothing I can do.

Is it because what you can’t have seems more precious? Looking at it that way, it seemed Jin Sejun also had a hipster taste in a certain sense. Or, as I always thought, the flaws in me as an alpha had grown significantly.

Still, it seemed that fate didn’t want a person to hit rock bottom completely, as I was at least able to avoid the disgrace of shedding tears while eating at someone else’s house. Jin Sejun was grateful for the small things as much as possible and continued his train of thought.

He couldn’t tell if the porridge was going into his mouth or his nose. Afterwards, he tried to adamantly refuse Ahn Saeha’s offer to drive him home.

“Where are you going alone in that condition? What if you collapse again on the way?”

“Ah, you’re really nagging me.”

For some reason, even Kwon Joowan was yelling, so he meekly said he understood (it’s not that he was scared). Jin Sejun, who was inwardly trying to predict Ahn Saeha’s car model, saw the Jeep pickup truck standing before his eyes and thought that he shouldn’t predict anything from now on. Not a single thing was ever right.

No matter if it was Kwon Joowan, I didn’t think he would leave his former omega lover alone with a lecherous and instinct-driven alpha (as he would likely appear in Kwon Joowan’s eyes). As soon as I thought that, Kwon Joowan followed us out. He helped Jin Sejun into the car and then got into the passenger seat himself.

The car was quiet during the not-so-long drive. Occasionally, Ahn Saeha would talk about a car he saw in front, and Kwon Joowan would agree or nod silently. He occasionally asked Jin Sejun something too, but after answering once or twice, he just pretended to be asleep.

The two of them looked really good together.

Jin Yiseo, despite being the size of a bean, seemed to feel a sense of responsibility. From the moment he learned that the reason Jin Sejun had been in Kwon Joowan’s care was because he was sick, he came home every single day. Even so, it was right before Jin Youngjun and his wife were to return from abroad, so other than sending a gift to the friend’s house Jin Yiseo always said he was going to, Jin Sejun hadn’t done anything guardian-like.

The returned Jin Youngjun and Chae Yoonmi were passed out in the master bedroom, exhausted from their travels, and the living room was piled high with travel gifts to be distributed to acquaintances and laundry. Jin Sejun cleaned out their refrigerator, cooked a simple meal, and ate it with Jin Yiseo, muttering.

“Jin Yiseo, you, letting your parents go on a trip by themselves, huh? Are you already being a filial son at such a young age?”

“I just set my goal clearly. My goal is the competition.”

This cheerleading cyborg child. Jin Sejun clicked his tongue at his nephew’s precociousness and asked.

“Aren’t you going to practice? You said you usually practice with your friend on weekends too.”

“…”

“Did you fight with your friend?”

“No, I didn’t.”

Judging by his recent behavior, it was clear that the kid who was just over ten years old had been worried about his thirty-year-old uncle. Jin Sejun brought up something else to avoid the increasingly strange feeling.

“Don’t you have anywhere you want to go? Like a kids’ cafe?”

“Uncle, kids’ cafes are for kids in the kids’ class.”

“You’re not giving your uncle a chance to treat you to something cool.”

“Then buy me tanghulu.”

“Okay. Let’s go after we finish eating.”

Jin Sejun had planned to buy it from anywhere near the house, but Jin Yiseo insisted on a place near the academy because of the quality of the sugar coating. He was even about to grab the car keys when he was told, “Your legs will atrophy if you do that,” so he held his nephew’s hand and trudged along.

“This kid is going to end up flying to Thailand when he craves pad thai later on.”

“I don’t think it will be to that extent.”

“I see.”

How on earth did a kid like this come from Jin Youngjun and Chae Yoonmi? Maybe it would be possible if you took the few serious parts of them and mixed them together intensely. Or maybe the parents are such fussbudgets that the child grew up this way instead.

While silently biting into the sugar-coated fruit in front of the store, Jin Yiseo revealed his ambitions and life plans. As soon as Jin Yiseo’s speech was over, Jin Sejun, still holding the skewer, clapped.

“You’re better than me.”

He was serious. Jin Sejun, at this age, didn’t have much he wanted to do or found interesting. He was just, always bored. Especially these days.

While talking to Jin Yiseo and holding back his nonsensical remarks, he naturally thought of the person who was fun to banter with. It might have been because the tangerines were delicious and the cherry blossoms, drawn out by the spring air, were in full bloom.

That bastard, he said we should see the cherry blossoms at night together too.

But well, he’s not exactly a bastard…

Jin Sejun brushed off the sugar powder Jin Yiseo had spilled and scanned the sidewalk. But unlike before, no familiar face appeared.

On weekends during cherry blossom season, the roads were damn congested. He thought he would be able to see the cherry blossoms while jogging, but for Jin Sejun, this year’s cherry blossom viewing was limited to glancing at the ones planted along the roadside. That’s why he would get angry every time the road was blocked by spring picnickers, telling them all to just stay cooped up at home.

And with an early spell of wind and rain, the fully bloomed flowers were gone as if it had been a lie, leaving only bare branches. The weather was crappy, and the fallen petals were just trash, so he had no idea if there was anything good about cherry blossoms blooming at all.

‘Ah, I just washed my car the day before yesterday!’

Jin Sejun got annoyed when he parked his car above ground and saw the car window covered in damp petals.

At the academy, Kwon Joowan was cautious. He wasn’t being subtly irritable like before, but the two of them also stopped joking around and giggling with each other. In fact, this was probably the normal way for working professionals, for members of society, to behave.

Jin Sejun, too, felt a bit awkward by himself after coming full circle and realizing the obvious. That is, it’s not like he didn’t know he was liked, unless he was a fool, but once he realized it wasn’t just a desire to fuck him once, he became embarrassed with himself.

After all, a feeling beyond a temporary desire, not even a one-night stand, between a person with secondary gender traits and one without was a bit… well. It was uncomfortable to put a finger on it, but while Kwon Joowan had promised a future with the omega Ahn Saeha, the fact that they weren’t married now could also be an example explaining it.

“You become adults by fighting, hahahaha.”

The director said, as if he knew something. Since Teacher Jun and Teacher Jun were usually so informal with each other, just observing common courtesy elicited such remarks.

What are we supposed to do if we’re both over thirty and still not adults…

As someone who had eavesdropped on the conversation on the stairwell before, hearing such words was newly perplexing. I wanted to ask why things had gotten more awkward, but for the director, whose nosiness didn’t cross the line, that was probably the limit of what he could throw out as a joke.

It had been decided from the beginning that I would only stay until the competition and then quit, so nothing would change. I just had to do my job and leave, without harboring any useless, strange hopes.

After maintaining an appropriate distance like that, things became terribly boring. It would be better to have my heart broken spectacularly (not that it hasn’t been, of course) and spend my time drinking and singing sad songs day and night.

Then again, he didn’t wallow in self-pity even when he was living like a recluse. He just became a wreck whose pride was wounded.

How did people who messed around with their bodies because their love lives didn’t go as planned end up that way? Jin Sejun wanted to try it once too, but for some reason, taking that one extra step was still not easy.

In the first place, what would you expect from a person who hesitated even when an opportunity came, now that he had lost his confidence, regardless of the presence of pheromones?

It was unfair that Kwon Joowan, who wouldn’t know about these circumstances, thought of Jin Sejun as a guy who seduced customers and whose eyes would wander to any omega. Because Jin Sejun wanted to be like that if he could.

“I’m bored.”

…had become his catchphrase before he knew it. But when his brother or sister-in-law, who were concerned about it, suggested social activities that could fill the void in his life, it was his daily routine to refuse them all.

In the end, Jin Sejun was even told by the few people who worried about him, “If you’re not going to do anything, at least shut your mouth.”

He left work right on time and didn’t go for morning jogs, so the only thing he did was look at the flamenco dancer doll his brother and his wife had bought as a souvenir.

Counting the dots on the red dress while spacing out had something in common with meditation, so it was more useful than he had thought when he first received it and thought they should have just given him something to eat.

‘A trip… that would be nice.’

Jin Sejun could go if he put his mind to it, so there was nothing to be particularly envious of, but the fact that it was a trip for a couple seemed nice. The secondary issue of them fighting because they don’t get along there is another matter.

It was startling to realize anew that he had recently spent almost all his leisure time with Kwon Joowan. It wasn’t just jogging, but the whole series of events where he would send pictures of his meals and giggle when he received comments.

What exactly was our relationship?