The displeasure he’d felt over that had barely been shaken off while holding and kneading Eunwon earlier, but thinking of it again, he couldn’t help feeling unpleasant all over.
Judging by his mother’s wording—"a secretary" rather than "Eunwon"—it seemed the fact that the secretary he’d met in his place was so excessively pretty and lovable that he’d hit on him hadn’t been passed on.
*At least he saved his own face.*
Muyoung, who held nasty prejudices against trait-holders other than himself and Eunwon—alpha or omega alike—snorted with a crooked heart.
"What’s wrong with sending a secretary in my place. At this rate, with a marriage like that, I’d see my secretary more than my spouse for the rest of my life—better to get him used to it in advance."
[*What did you say?!*]
"If you don’t want to see someone else’s precious child treated like that next to me, never pull such a ridiculous stunt again. Parents interfering in their grown child’s private life—people will laugh at what a state this family’s in if they see it. You care *so* much about that stuff, don’t you?" [*You—you—just you wait!*]
He hung up, not wanting to hear another word. And got into the already long-arrived elevator. Pressing the first floor, catching his breath, his resolve finally clarified—and so did a little regret.
*Should I have chased him right away?*
No—if he had, Eunwon might have bolted in an even more unpredictable direction, so following slowly like this was better. The tiny thing couldn’t have gotten far—he’d obviously hole up in that hovel-like rooftop room.
Besides, Seo Eunwon, who’d refused his offers of a car dozens of times and insisted on the miserable life of a pedestrian, couldn’t be that fast no matter how quick he was. He was probably trudging toward the subway or the bus stop right about now.
*Jesus, does he think I’m going to eat him?*
*Why run away so pointlessly and painfully?*
He was the one left dumbfounded and speechless, his mouth hanging open. Not pretending not to know—he’d *erased* the memory entirely…
To think he’d spent three weeks doing idiotic shovel-work on a kid who knew nothing—how pathetic.
Earlier, when he’d finally devoured the kid’s lips, he’d thought everything would proceed smoothly from today—moving in together, marriage, decorating the baby’s room…
But he had no more time to wait. His patience—scraped together from the soul, never much to begin with—was already completely gone. With a solemn face, Muyoung muttered to himself.
"Sorry, but I can’t keep the promise, baby."
Three days? He’d die of frustration in that time. He’d settle it today, and make today’s (sober) first kiss an anniversary no matter what. And this weekend, they’d spend it together without parting for a moment.
As he laid out his happy plans and stepped out the building’s main entrance, the sight before his eyes abruptly calmed him. There, sitting on the stairs in a vagrant-like getup, was his thoroughly unwelcome neighbor—and cousin—Joo Siyoon, waving as if he’d been waiting.
"Ooooh, Cha Muyoung appears."
"…"
Grinning with a newly torn-open shark-shaped ice cream in his mouth, his mouth and tongue were dyed red enough.
"Want one? There’s apple sherbet too."
He was about to pass by with a scowl, too good to even talk to, when Joo Siyoon rustled the plastic bag and thrust out an ice cream with a green apple drawn on it.
*So they make apple ice cream like that.*
If it resembled Eunwon, like an apple, it would be fragrant and delicious—but this wasn’t the time to be distracted by such things.
As Muyoung tried to ignore him and walk past, Joo Siyoon giggled as if he’d known he would.
"I keep getting rejected today. Rejected by the crucian carp, rejected by the crucian carp’s poop."
"What the hell are you talking about."
"*Hee hee*, you. Crucian carp Seo Eunwon’s poop, Cha Muyoung. The cute carp ran off alone, so I figured the carp poop would show up soon, and waited."
It was a rather childish, dirty expression, but it oddly pleased him. Anyway, Eunwon had run off ahead and run into Joo Siyoon, so he needed at least a minimum of confirmation about an unwelcome situation.
"You didn’t say anything stupid to the kid, did you."
"Well, we had a pleasant chat—*I* don’t know which topics were worthless."
"Don’t be annoying. Say it straight."
At the snarl, Joo Siyoon shrugged and opened his mouth with a hatefully scrunch-nosed grin.
"Just said hi since I was glad to see him. Asked if he wanted ice cream, and he said no? Even though it was grape… mm, and asked how he’s been feeling lately, and asked about it since he didn’t smell like anything today, I was curious."
"You *did* say stupid shit."
"No—then how could I not check, after seeing him like *that* that day? We’ve known each other over twenty years. I didn’t even know he was an omega until then, that was the first time I found out. Ah, right. There was one thing I really wanted to ask but didn’t. Since when have you and Cha Muyoung been fooling around naked—*kehk!*"
"*Cough…* hey, hey, okay, I’ll stop here, *ugh*. I won’t ask that far, I didn’t! He didn’t know anything anyway, so, *cough*… hey, you grab a man’s nape *and* his hair at the same time? That’s really cowardly."
Cowardly, my ass.
If you’re going to run your mouth about someone else’s precious kid, you should’ve been ready for at least that.
At the repeated declaration of surrender, Muyoung let go of what he’d seized—intending to give him both a chokehold and a bald-spot worry—as if throwing away something dirty. While he brushed his hands off unpleasantly, Joo Siyoon coughed a few more times and muttered with a scowl.
"How can you baby an animal like that and then send him to an arranged meeting in your place? You should just keep him tucked at your side."
*That’s exactly what I intend to do.* Just as Muyoung was about to resume his stopped steps, an unexpected piece of information flowed in.
"This is something you clearly don’t know, so I’m telling you. My aunt. This time she’s really serious. If it doesn’t work out, she’s ready to just bring in anyone decent, do a contract marriage, and get a kid made by artificial insemination first."
"That refined lady? As if."
"You’re the one who doesn’t know. These days, among the elders over there, that’s the more *refined* way, they say. Bring in dominant trait-holders from the gutter, pay them a bride price, make them play the obedient son- or daughter-in-law, and when the kid’s born, raise it as purely *our* family’s darling, exactly to our tastes. Then that precious trait-holder grandchild—we don’t lose even half to the other side, it’s all ours. They’re sick of love and dating, sick of finicky new family members, sick of dealing with in-laws of similar standing who are troublesome and fickle—did you really not know?"
"A bride price—so in the end you’re saying they’ll just buy a person with money?"
"*Hee hee*, that kind of criticism just gets swallowed whole—that’s part of the *refinement*. Pay the compensation properly, write the contract well, and afterward any conflict can just be settled with both sides going okay, so it’s fine."
"…"
"Even if you marry for love, feelings cool, and it’s the same if you marry weighing families and conditions. Rather than later making a scene and embarrassing yourselves fighting over property division and custody when you divorce, this is better. Ah, the details vary by contract, but usually the side paying the money gets ‘free dating while married’ too. That’s the part you’d be most curious about, isn’t it?"
"Disgusting."
Muyoung spat out his impression, coldly, with a genuinely disgusted face.
"To hear you talk, you’d think you were some righteous soul. Thinking about lofty values like things money can’t buy… you’re not some moral bastard, are you?"
Honestly, it wasn’t wrong.
Whoever paid money to enter an absurd marriage and bear someone else’s child—Muyoung couldn’t care less. But if *he* were involved in it?
Of course he hated it. It was horrifying.
The first thing that came to mind was a physiological revulsion, enough to make his home feel sick. He absolutely didn’t want that. But he had no obligation to tell Joo Siyoon even these thoughts of his. Without unknitting his scowling face, Muyoung turned his head.
"Anyway, that’s not something to discuss with you."
Glaring fiercely at Joo Siyoon, still sitting flat on the ground, Cha Muyoung kicked the ice-cream bag he’d set beside him with a *thunk* and set off on his way.
From behind him, Joo Siyoon went "*Aagh, my ice cream!*" and rustled around, then suddenly shouted, "Ah, right."
"You know our pretty boy’s going to the hospital to see his mom, right? Tell your teacher I said hi. I’ll be by soon."
He turned around reflexively, and Joo Siyoon was rubbing the back of his head and winking hatefully.
The hospital?
The hospital…
He’d bolted in shock—he probably hadn’t headed for his mother’s hospital—but Seo Eunwon was a soft-hearted, kind baby. He might instinctively have run to the arms that felt safest.
With his phone in Muyoung’s hands, location tracking was impossible—how frustrating could this situation be. After a moment’s thought, Muyoung turned his steps back toward the elevator instead of the main gate.
Not forgetting to give the ice-cream bag Joo Siyoon had been stuffing back together another *thunk* of a kick on the way.
"*Ow! Cha Muyoung, you crazy bastard!*"
First things first, he’d just have to comb the nearby streets and head toward the hospital.
"Oh my, Muyoung. You’re a busy man, coming here without a word… what brings you here?" The moment he faced Kim Eunha—his (prospective) mother-in-law—sitting alone in the hospital room, Muyoung realized he’d been perfectly played by Joo Siyoon’s shoddy prank.
Right—the kind, deep-hearted Seo Eunwon wouldn’t go clinging to his sick mother’s arms for comfort, dangling his own heavy heart.
Enraged at missing Eunwon and being fooled by Joo Siyoon, he couldn’t coldly turn his back on her, who greeted him like a child, so glad to see him.
Muyoung naturally fixed his mask into place, standing by the bed with the perfect, devoted eldest-son-in-law (or eldest daughter-in-law) face.
"I was nearby on business and thought of you, ma’am. You’ve been through a lot with the treatment. How are you feeling?"
"Much better. What suffering did *I* do… as always, our Eunwon did it all."
In one corner of the hotel-like hospital room, dinner had been laid out—but the food and utensils were untouched, spotless.
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