…Ah.
Now he understood.
Cha Muyoung had thought of Seo Eunwon as an "omega" from the very beginning.
Cha Muyoung, who suffered terrible mysophobia and omega aversion from the childhood kidnapping. But as the heir of a chaebol family, he was in a position where he’d someday have to have a child. The elders’ nagging seemed to have gotten much worse lately too…
To him, Seo Eunwon must have been the only omega who didn’t disgust him.
The unfamiliar affection and physical intimacy — holding him close all weekend as if they were dating, kissing him sweetly — must have had a specific purpose.
Well, he must have been suffering quite a bit himself. Enough to resolve on a contract marriage so unlike his usual personality and values that he’d already prepared the contract.
But he probably couldn’t bring himself to choose readily, for reasons like his mysophobia —and then he’d noticed Eunwon.
A shabby man, a recessive with barely any pheromones, but conveniently broke and struggling, threatened by loan sharks, and even clutching that flyer himself… hadn’t he shown a certain willingness?
Once he understood the context behind Muyoung’s proposal — furious as fire, yet making such an offer — the unfairness clinging to his chin transformed into a sad resignation mixed with a strange understanding.
Good for everyone —
could you call it a win-win…?
What would happen after the baby was born — the sole goal that had driven him to the contract marriage — was frightening even to imagine, but having been caught with the resignation letter and the flyer, having had this conversation, his relationship with Cha Muyoung was already ruined. There was no going back.
He’d protested unfairly that he’d never resolved to do it — but he couldn’t deny that, having searched the internet and asked PurPle for the exact amount, his heart had wavered to some degree.
Right.
If he was going to have to sell his body to pay off debt anyway, wasn’t this better than being pushed by thugs into a marriage, bearing the child of some old alpha?
And if he could repay even a little of his debt of gratitude to him — from whom he’d received so much over 25 years together — and lighten his burden…
That would be… a decent ending in its own way.
Having accepted everything and reached his conclusion, Eunwon sniffled his nose — which wasn’t even running — and nodded.
"Then… I’ll do it…."
Unlike Eunwon, who was beginning a new misunderstanding, Muyoung — who had no doubt that the deep kiss had more or less settled their argument — asked back, puzzled.
He’d been thinking: scold him sharply first, then calm down and coax him gently with words — and had been about to pat the round bottom of Eunwon, perched on his thigh, pat-pat. But the answer that came back stopped his hand short.
"I’ll only take 300 million…."
"I heard that’s the average. Even so… I’d like at least the average."
"What… are you even saying right now?" The eyes that had softened turned fierce again.
Muyoung doubted his ears. How had they circled back to that damned topic? Hadn’t they just shared a deep kiss and agreed to calm down?
For Muyoung — who’d blown off the steam that had been hissing out of his head at the sight of the marriage-broker flyer and the resignation letter with that kiss — the conversation returning to square one was dumbfounding, enough to clog his nose.
But Eunwon, sunk in his own private sorrow, swallowed even the sniffles threatening to escape. And in the crispest voice he could muster, he drove the wedge into this terrible, wretched contract approval.
"I’ll… bear it for you. Your baby, CEO."
"Hah…?"
"…So first, please have a new contract drawn up. No matter what, a contract… has to be done properly…."
***
He’d gotten a call saying it was extremely urgent and to come as fast as possible, and had blown off lunch plans with his juniors to rush over — but, rude as it was to say about someone else’s company, the atmosphere in Cha Mu’s secretarial office was a total mess.
"Our secretaries. I hope you’ve all been well."
"Lawyer Park, hello. Welcome."
The secretaries, who knew Park Minho was one of Cha Muyoung’s few friends and his personal legal counsel, greeted him professionally regardless of the mood — though they were perceptive enough to read the strange awkwardness clinging to the lighting, the temperature, the humidity.
What could have happened?
From the subdued air of the secretarial office to the matter that had summoned him so urgently, it all seemed connected to a single incident… As Park Minho rolled his eyes discreetly, trying to assess the situation—
"Don’t mind us, everyone go have lunch."
Whether he’d come out to greet him or not, Cha Muyoung appeared, opening the CEO’s office door with perfunctory carelessness, and at his single remark everyone vanished in a rush, as if they’d been waiting. All but one — and only then could Park Minho identify the cause and culprit of this suffocating atmosphere.
Cha Muyoung, making no attempt to hide his fury, and Seo Eunwon — awkwardly remaining at his seat unlike the other secretaries — were quite the sight.
"Eunwon-ssi. Hey, long time."
He deliberately called out to Eunwon — utterly deflated, head bowed, clicking only his fingernails together, ttok-ttak — and meeting his eyes, the state of his face was even worse. Swollen eyes and red, puffy lips.
A face that made it obvious to anyone he’d been crying his heart out.
Seo Eunwon — Cha Muyoung’s attachment doll. The Cha family’s hidden real youngest. The kid so smothered by Cha Mu’s fussing all his life that friends called him "Muyoung’s baby," to the point there was even an absurd rumor he might be a son Cha Muyoung had at seven and hidden away — had cried?
Who could have made him cry?
The company CEO who’d treasured and fussed over him endlessly — who, afraid the kid would get hired elsewhere and fly away if he let his guard down, had quickly tied him down as his own secretary, and who spent all day peering at him through the window cut into the CEO’s office — who on earth could make that kid cry?
The thought that he might have been summoned to sue whoever made Seo Eunwon cry —or to clean up after Cha Muyoung had already punched them out — gave him a throbbing headache.
Surely it wasn’t something that would go criminal…
Pulling himself together, Park Minho asked, watching for Muyoung’s reaction.
"Is this about your baby? He looks like he’s been crying… Who made him cry? Did you hit them? Do I need to prepare a lawsuit?"
The answer to the hushed question came only after the CEO’s office door shut with a click and the blinds over the window facing the secretarial office rolled up with a rattle. The window — opaquely coated from the outside — showed Seo Eunwon sitting in his seat with perfect clarity from the inside.
"I made him cry."
The stalker, quietly watching Seo Eunwon hold up a tissue and sniffle as he wiped his nose, confessed. At the unthinkable identity of the culprit, Park Minho spat out the water he was drinking.
"…YOU make him cry?"
"Huuuh? Really? No, why? How did THAT happen?? Weren’t you wooing him?"
It seemed they’d avoided ending up in court, at least — but to Park Minho, "Cha Muyoung made Seo Eunwon cry" was far more shocking than "Cha Muyoung beat to death whoever made Seo Eunwon cry," so he had no choice but to press him.
The other dim-witted friends still pathetically insisted "Cha Muyoung has a weakness he’s caught by," or "Cha Mu’s a humanitarian who helps the less fortunate, whatever he looks like," or even bullshit like "Cha Muyoung’s past life was the favor-repaying magpie" —
But Park Minho, equipped with a lawyer’s instincts, had caught the creepy scent of their real relationship years ago.
The suspicion had started with watching the absurdity of him enduring a 30-hour round trip to Korea once a month — even while studying in America — just to see the kid’s face. The wedge of certainty came about two and a half years ago, when that family’s father passed away.
Watching him stop all his schedules to act as chief mourner, holding the kid who cried until he fainted the whole time, and on top of that settling all the debt caused by that strange uncle… that was no favor-repaying magpie, no humanitarian helping the less fortunate, no man with a weakness caught.
Cha Muyoung’s demeanor back then was so utterly that of that family’s dependable eldest daughter-in-law — or sturdy eldest son-in-law.
And so Park Minho understood.
Ah… so it wasn’t because he was his benefactor’s son, or because he was someone who gave him stability, that he doted on Seo Eunwon — he’d been drooling over him, marking him as his mate since childhood.
Truly, enormously perverted and sinister. Are all dominant alphas like that? As someone born to a beta family and raised beta, it was a way of thinking Park Minho simply could not accept, and he’d shuddered.
Chewing over his past realization, Park Minho poked again at the long-silent Cha Muyoung.
"So, what went wrong? And… surely not… you didn’t do anything bad to the kid, did you…?"
Cha Muyoung, annoyed by the words "something bad" yet answering dutifully with a tired face as he swept back his hair—
"Nothing like that, but things got a bit tangled."
"Tangled how?"
"To put it simply, we’ve decided on a contract marriage."
"Huh? Decided to do what?"
"Actually, Seo Eunwon might already be carrying my child."
"Huuuh…?"
"Eunwon doesn’t know yet. But haa… he says he’ll marry me and bear the child, and in return he’s asking for a measly 300 million."
"Huh… 300 million? Well, that is the average dowry for a trait-holder special marriage…."
"Average, my ass. He started at 650 million, and then — I didn’t do anything — he suddenly slashed it himself by more than half. I mean, really… it’s absurd."
"Huuh… uh-huh, yeah… okay, hmm…"
"That’s why I called you. To draw up a contract. For starters, I want to give him around 10 billion."
"…Huh?"
Huuuuuh?
He wants to give how much?
100 won? 10… billion?
He knew that for Cha Mu, 10 billion was honestly more realistic than 100 won — but in a contract where the average market price hovered around 300 million, 10 billion was insane. Thoroughly, certifiably insane.
Thinking he must have misheard — "Sorry, could you say that once more? I think I heard wrong," he asked, and Cha Muyoung, frowning as if it were the greatest annoyance, opened his mouth again.
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