PAO 35

Seowon, who had returned to his room, washed up and fell face down on the bed. He had left his clothes with the laundry service and was only wearing a gown, but his body was comfortable. He was bothered by the thought of Junghoo staying in the next room, but all he had to do was not open the door for him.

He felt like he could fall asleep just like that and was closing his fluttering eyes when the cell phone he was holding in his right hand rang. At that, Seowon shot up and checked who was calling, then with a deflated expression, he lay back down on the bed.

Lying on his back and looking at the ceiling, Seowon put the cell phone to his ear and muttered weakly.

“Yes, Minsung.”

—Seowon, I’m sorry for calling so late. I had a situation, no, I mean, I wanted to call too but… I’m sorry.

Minsung, who had been rambling, ended with an apology, figuring that whatever he said would just be an excuse.

“It’s okay.”

Seowon’s body was already on a bed with a view of the seaside, so there was no need to question him.

“More importantly, will you listen to my story?”

—Oh, sure. Tell me anything.

Seowon told Minsung everything he had felt throughout the day. He had wanted to tell someone what had happened to him anyway. He was grateful that it ended up being Minsung, and with that gratitude, he forgot all about the hurt feelings from the morning.

—A lot has happened.

Minsung, who had been listening silently, offered his brief impression.

“I know. I think so too. Just why is this kind of thing happening to me…”

If he didn’t think about it too seriously, he could just laugh it off and accept it. It depended on how one thought about it, but the anxiety that Junghoo could collapse at any moment weighed heavily on Seowon’s shoulders, and he was unhappy about it.

This was all because of Yoo Junghoo.

Yoo Junghoo had suddenly appeared in his well-lived life and thrown a stone into it. Seowon punched the bed as if to vent his anger. Even so, his hand was wrapped in cloth, so it didn’t hurt at all, but it served as a way to relieve his frustration.

All the while, Minsung’s quiet breathing was the only thing that indicated the call hadn’t been disconnected.

“I’m going through all sorts of things because I didn’t push Yoo Junghoo away.”

—Then you can just not see him.

“Huh?”

—If you don’t see him, you can go back to how things were before.

At Minsung’s casual words, Seowon unclenched the fist he had been holding. Minsung was right.

“I, I mean, I haven’t seen that Yoo Junghoo for a long time, but we still hung out when we were young and…”

Seowon was trying to explain why he did what he did, but he could feel his own words getting tangled.

—You don’t have to tell me.

It was no different from when Minsung had been mumbling excuses for not being able to answer his calls. It was a relief that he said he didn’t have to force himself to speak, but it wasn’t as if his mood was particularly refreshed by it.

“Welcome, Professor.”

“It’s been a while. Has it started already?”

Seong Hangyeol greeted the professor who was stepping inside. When the professor wondered if he was late, Seong Hangyeol pointed to Junghoo, who was undergoing an MRI scan.

“You can look at this now, and I’ll give you the results for the previously tested items separately.”

“No improvement?”

“I thought he would have gotten worse during this time, but he’s better than when he was discharged. Though it’s just a little bit…”

Seong Hangyeol, narrowing one eye, was clearly showing that he didn’t want to admit it. Since Yoo Junghoo had been the one to insist on being discharged first, he had been sure he would get worse, so he wasn’t particularly pleased that his prediction was wrong.

“I thought he’d left after giving up on everything, but it looks like he’s been putting in some effort of his own.”

Compared to the somewhat displeased Seong Hangyeol, the professor chuckled and looked at Junghoo with pride.

“Even so, it’s all useless if he can’t be fully cured.”

As Seong Hangyeol refused to let go of his stubbornness, the professor glanced at him and gave a subtle smile.

“I should praise him for holding on so well.”

“He deserves to be cursed out just for maintaining such a precarious state where it could burst at any moment.”

As Seong Hangyeol was blaming Junghoo for his foolishness, the professor laughed as if he found it amusing.

“Instead of saying that here, why don’t you go and say it to his face.”

“There’s no reason I can’t. ‘You need to be hospitalized again. You absolutely cannot leave until you’re fully cured.’ What would be so difficult about that?”

“Do you think he’ll listen if you say that?”

“He has gotten better, but his pheromones are still pooled in his cerebral artery. If that ruptures, it will be a real disaster.”

As Seong Hangyeol spoke with a serious face, the professor sighed as if in regret.

“It would be nice if there was an Omega who could handle those pheromones.”

“It won’t work even if they’re a dominant, and there’s no one who would accept him.”

No matter how much it was for the purpose of treatment, one couldn’t just ask someone to form a relationship. On top of that, Seong Hangyeol did not hide his disapproval, adding the reason that Junghoo himself wouldn’t want it. Because his own younger sibling had almost died because of Junghoo, he was convinced that there was absolutely no Omega who would release his pheromones.

There was no way the professor wouldn’t know the hatred contained within Seong Hangyeol’s words. The professor was putting on a regretful expression when he opened his mouth.

“You, still…”

“Would you like a cup of coffee?”

Seong Hangyeol cut off the professor’s words, pretending not to know anything.

Seong Hangyeol, holding coffee cups in both hands, placed one in front of the professor.

“To think you still only like instant coffee mix…”

Seong Hangyeol gently swirled his own coffee.

“Thanks to you, Professor, I find myself craving it too.”

“You managed to get it so often whenever you visited, it must have grown on you.”

Seong Hangyeol tilted his cup as he looked outside. Perhaps because it was the first time he had seen the sea in a long time, his expression had calmed down considerably.

“Come to think of it…”

At the professor’s voice, Seong Hangyeol tore his eyes away from the sea and looked at him.

“There was a kid who presented as a dominant Omega a long time ago, and he was quite special.”

“Dominant Omegas are rare, but it’s not like they don’t exist.”

When he asked in what way, the professor let out a small laugh.

“He volunteered to take pheromone control classes even though I told him he didn’t need to.”

“Even though he was a dominant?”

“That’s right.”

Seong Hangyeol asked this because dominant Omegas usually don’t undergo any special training. It wasn’t that they were strange. It was because, even without it, their ability to control their pheromones was incomparably superior to that of any other Omega.

For him to have taken those classes despite that, it had to be seen not just as unusual, but as a completely peculiar case.

“Yes. You’ve probably seen him a few times too. You must have seen him when you came to get this coffee mix?”

“Me? So many people pass through there, if you put it like that…”

For a moment, Seong Hangyeol’s words trailed off. He looked down at his own instant coffee mix. Then, he tried to recall the people he had passed in the past and soon remembered one person’s face.

“By any chance, is that dominant Omega young? Is he a man?”

At Seong Hangyeol’s question, the professor shook his head.

“That’s personal information, so I can’t tell you.”

“For instance, his name is Han Seowon, or something like that.”

“Hmm.”

The professor hummed and drank his instant coffee mix. It wasn’t an answer, but it was a reaction that was as good as an answer.

From the time he ended his call with Minsung until he received his clothes back from the laundry service, Seowon couldn’t get Junghoo out of his mind.

It was true that he had been shaken since Yoo Junghoo appeared. He couldn’t push him away, and he couldn’t refuse him. At the same time, he wanted to hide his own secret, which was so absurd that he couldn’t help but laugh at himself.

“I’ve been living my life with selective rationalization.”

He hadn’t told Junghoo his secondary gender, yet he was frustrated that he couldn’t figure out his secret. He would keep his distance from him, but then pay attention when he needed him—he was exhibiting such contradictory reactions.

And yet, Junghoo smiled and approached him as if nothing was wrong. He didn’t hesitate to joke around. He lent him a large sum of money and was willing to live with him.

“He really managed to like a pain in the neck like me.”

Once the train of thought started, it was hard to stop it. At this rate, it would be better to just have Yoo Junghoo in front of him to make his mind go blank.

Seowon called Junghoo. He thought Junghoo would stick to him when he said it was free time earlier, but he had disappeared and there was still no word from him.

Junghoo didn’t answer the phone. Once, twice… The long ringing tone made it seem like he was in a situation where he couldn’t look at his phone, so he got up from his spot. Seowon left his room and went to the front of the room where Junghoo and Seong Hangyeol were staying.

He thought he must have returned by now since it was almost midnight, and pressed the doorbell.

It was the same as when he had called. There was no response. As if not only Junghoo but Seong Hangyeol wasn’t there either.

Recognizing the light that even his eyelids couldn’t block, Seowon shot upright. He had been looking for Junghoo all night, but he had fallen asleep without knowing when.

“Yoo Junghoo!”

Seowon hurriedly looked for his cell phone. He had continued to look for Yoo Junghoo last night as well. The reason was simple. Because he wasn’t answering his calls, he was worried that he might have collapsed somewhere. Seong Hangyeol might be with him, but he couldn’t rest easy until he checked with his own eyes.

After fumbling around the bed and shaking out the blanket to check, he got down on the floor and thoroughly searched for where his cell phone might be. Soon, Seowon found his cell phone, which had fallen under the nightstand. Hurriedly reaching out and grabbing the phone, Seowon, without even thinking to go into his call history or long-press the call button, dialed the number he had memorized.

“Just where did you collapse. This is driving me crazy.”

Perhaps because he was anxious, he couldn’t even sit down comfortably and paced around on the spot. At the familiar ringing tone he had heard last night, Seowon neurotically tousled his hair.

It was a ridiculous situation that he had followed him all the way here, but hadn’t been able to meet Junghoo all night.

“If you brought me all the way here, you should answer your phone.”

Seowon was expressing his immense frustration when he was startled by the sudden sound of the doorbell. Seowon, who slightly moved the still-ringing cell phone from his ear, hesitantly approached the door.

“Who is it?”

“It’s me. Seong Hangyeol.”

It was one of the people who hadn’t shown even a glimpse of himself when he was searching so hard, so Seowon immediately threw the door open.

“Did you sleep well?”

Seeing Seong Hangyeol and Junghoo standing there, Seowon was seized by complicated feelings.

“Let’s go eat.”

While Seong Hangyeol went ahead, telling him to follow, Junghoo answered his phone as if to show him.

“You called. I fell asleep early so I didn’t know.”

Not only did his voice come from right in front of him, but it was also mixed with the mechanical sound.

“You… were you really asleep?”