"That’s why… that’s why I’m going to pay it back even more. Because you keep telling me not to…! Your money, CEO — I’m really, truly going to pay it back if it kills me. By any means, even if I go marry some rich man who wants me, even if I sell my body……! I’ll pay you back first, no matter what!"
The declaration, shouted so uncharacteristically loud, was so earnest and desperate it filled the CEO’s vast office and lingered without dispersing.
Eunwon’s shoulders, breathing hard, trembled with misery and agitation. Just like before, Muyoung’s rebuttal should have come pouring out at once — but what settled instead was a suffocating silence.
"…?"
Muyoung, who’d been roaring thunderously until a moment ago, just stared at him, frozen, and an uncomfortably sharp stillness filled the space between them, frightening in its edge.
Catching his breath, Eunwon bit his miserable lip hard in the cold quiet. Thanks to Muyoung’s silence, how wretched and trashy his heat-of-the-moment words had been felt even more stark and cruel.
Chewing his lip, holding back rising tears, Eunwon watched as Muyoung kept staring at him, still holding his shoulders in the same posture.
Stealing a glance upward with gathered courage, Eunwon was even more startled. The blazing, fiery eyes were gone, cooled cold.
A face impossible to read — it seemed angry, seemed disappointed. It even looked emptied of all feeling, which was more frightening, more chilling.
Has he… fallen out of love with me?
Even now, worrying about that, Eunwon felt — thup — Muyoung’s hands fall away from his aching shoulders.
"’You thought about selling your body to pay off debt.’ Haa…"
Stepping back a few paces, Muyoung finally moved his lips after a long moment, sneering coldly. At the spine-chilling low voice and the sigh-laced laugh, Eunwon flinched, shoulders hunching.
"Eunwon."
"…"
"If you were going to sell your body."
"You should’ve sold it to me."
Eunwon’s eyes shook as if in an earthquake at the utterly unexpected words.
"What… do you mean?"
"If it was a body you could sell that easily, you should’ve come to the bastard who’s been going mad wanting you — the one who’d pay the highest price for that body of yours."
"…CEO?"
"You claim to know everything, but you can’t even understand this much?"
"…"
"I’m saying, if you’ve decided to sell it anyway, sell it to me. What — can’t you marry for money and bear a child too?"
"…"
"That damned money. I’ll shower you with as much as you need."
Closing the distance he’d retreated, Muyoung growled like a fully enraged beast.
"Be smart. No matter how much you scheme and haggle with those pimp bastards, you’ll never find a sucker like me."
"…"
"Tell me how much. Just how much do you need, to think thoughts like that?"
Not wanting to meet Muyoung’s cold, piercing gaze, Eunwon lowered his head and bit his lip.
It was unfair. If he’d actually resolved to do it, it wouldn’t feel this unfair. Cha Muyoung, who wouldn’t even listen to him properly and only drove him into a corner — he was hateful, frustrating.
But he no longer wanted to offer lengthy excuses. In his eyes, Eunwon was already branded a vulgar, pathetic omega scheming to sell his own body for money.
— A tiny, pitiful thing barely scraping by — how could I not care. It’s irritating just watching from the side.
The wretched words that had clawed at him that day rang in his ears like trauma, buzzing. Right — to Muyoung, he’d always been exactly that much. A pitiful, troublesome needy neighbor. And now a squalid kid stepping forward to sell his body and future for money.
He thought of demanding — you say you adore me, so why do you keep belittling me like that — but the thought only made him feel more wretched, so he dropped it. Once the stubborn Cha Muyoung had decided to think that way, no argument of his would improve it.
Then should he just be brazen instead?
If he was already seen that way, should he at least play the part consistently? Acting crooked like that might be his own small rebellion — a way to protect his paltry pride in this unfair situation.
Forcing down the tears that threatened to spill, Eunwon hardened his face coldly and spat out the crookedest, nastiest answer he could think of.
"650 million won…."
"…What?!"
"…"
"What did you just say?"
"Then 500 million… won."
Had he named an absurdly large amount? The moment he answered, adding a little greed to the needed sum, Muyoung roared, and Eunwon hastily lowered it — at which his face turned even redder, more mottled.
Well, even Cha Muyoung would know the market price; no wonder he was taken aback. It was about twice the average he’d heard from PurPle.
He’d said it spitefully, in a resigned mood, but it seemed a bit much…
Eunwon shrank slightly, but with the resolve to properly commit to this sulk, he straightened his back and answered in as dignified a voice as he could manage.
"If you’d give me that much, I wouldn’t need to go anywhere else… I know you’re the richest person around me, CEO."
"With that much money… I think I could do it… whether it’s a real marriage or whatever."
He tried to look straight at Muyoung with his own version of fierce eyes, but it was truly difficult. Even to himself it felt so clumsy it seemed almost funny. He quickly turned his gaze away, biting his lip — and Muyoung’s silence stretched longer than expected.
After browbeating him so terrifyingly, Muyoung didn’t readily answer. Eunwon understood, of course. Even for a chaebol, 500 million was a lot of money. And he’d said there were many additional expenses besides, so he must be calculating.
Or maybe — he’d said it in a flash of temper, but thinking it over, the recessive Eunwon might not please him as a spouse after all. He might be missing the other dominant omegas attached behind the contract.
Less wretched, my foot. More wretched.
As if he’d ever been dignified, uncontrollable shame and misery flooded back, and Eunwon pouted his lips again, dropping his head with a thud.
How had it come to this?
His chest felt like it would tear. He wanted to burst into loud sobs, but he couldn’t, so he just chewed his already scabbed lip — and into his blurring vision, Cha Muyoung’s shoes stepped closer.
With a sigh, he felt a nudge at his toes, as if picking a fight.
"Face up. What did you do right, burying your face like that?"
At the needless scolding, the tears pooled at his nose threatened to spill, and he sniffled once — then a large hand forcibly lifted his chin. The moment he squeezed his eyes shut, unable to face Muyoung’s angry face—
"…Mmph!"
Their lips met. Startled only briefly by the roughly devoured lips, Eunwon felt a tongue push through the parted gap.
The tongue that stormed in without giving him room to breathe rummaged through his mouth violently, like a shameless intruder. And not just the tongue. The kisses pouring down — biting his lower lip, gnawing — felt closer to violence than romance.
"Hnngh, mmph……!"
The startled Eunwon squirmed and pushed, but the massive wall that was Cha Muyoung would not budge. Instead, he gripped the back of Eunwon’s neck firmly and drove deeper. But even that punitive motion didn’t last long.
"Hah, wait, hnnh—mm……."
As Eunwon whimpered, grabbing Muyoung’s forearm with the hand he’d been flailing, the kiss that had felt like violence turned gentle as if it had been a lie.
"Mm……."
The tongue that had only satisfied its own greed, stirring his sensitive insides, now softly licked his membranes, soothing the lips where blood had metallically spread, as if to comfort them.
Muyoung’s eyes, which had been obsessively fixed on Eunwon’s, softened too. The hand that had gripped his nape, pinning him as if to hold him in place, now tapped his ear playfully and stroked it gently, as if it had never been otherwise.
It could now be called a rather romantic intimacy. Though the contact had begun in bewilderment, Eunwon — spellbound by the resulting softness of the second kiss of his life — found himself gripping somewhere on Muyoung’s body with his other hand too.
Pleased by the hand pulling him in, Muyoung layered their lips deeply again, as if he’d been waiting. This time thicker, denser. His sharp nose pressed Eunwon’s cheek, their hot breaths tangling at the tips of their noses.
"Ah…."
A hazy moan escaped Eunwon’s mouth. His waist twitched. While his mind, gone white and hazy, could focus only on the bursting stimulation, popping like fireworks, Muyoung had already leaned deep into the sofa and lifted Eunwon onto his thigh. Eunwon didn’t even realize how his position had changed.
His dating experience was modest and he didn’t know much about kissing, but Muyoung seemed chillingly good at it.
Even in the middle of trading hurtful, upsetting words, the moment their lips touched, his mind went soft and mushy, unable to think of any of it. Every time his head tilted as led, every time their tongues tangled, every nerve in his body sizzled as if burning.
Following frantically down the path of pleasure he offered, Eunwon finally gasped, breathless, letting out a pained groan — and Muyoung slowly pulled away.
"Haa, hah…?"
Looking down at Eunwon’s glistening lips, half-lidded eyes, and flushed cheeks, Muyoung furrowed his brow, then lowered his head again to press a light kiss to his lips — mwah —and murmured, foreheads still touching.
"You’re so fucking hateful, Seo Eunwon."
"…"
"Seriously, really, hate you. Hate you to death."
It must obviously be his imagination, feeling that the petulantly spat words held more affection than resentment?
Even as he received the shower of consecutive kisses trailing from the corners of his lips to his cheeks — mwah, mwah — Eunwon shook his head inwardly.
After a misunderstanding like that, affection?
He mustn’t have such delusions…
Just as always, he tried to keep himself in check — and then, the pieces all clicked together like a puzzle and struck the back of his head hard: Muyoung’s actions that had puzzled him for days, the verbal abuse from moments ago, and this physical intimacy now.
— "An alpha doting on his own omega — what more explanation is needed?"
— "…Did you really think I didn’t know you were an omega?"
— "If it was a body you could sell that easily, you should’ve come to the bastard who’s been going mad wanting you — the one who’d pay the highest price for that body of yours."
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