"Among Koreans, how many people say they don’t want to when someone says ‘Let’s grab a meal sometime’? Whether they eat or not, they usually just say okay first."
Haeil asked it with a lift at the outer corners of his eyes, a low growl under the words.
"Right? Isn’t that right?"
Faced with the sudden, devouring force of him, I gave up on keeping my head cold. He wasn’t wrong, either.
"Understood. If I get time to share a meal sometime, I’ll contact you."
At my answer, the corner of his mouth stretched up.
"Good. That’s enough."
I slid my gaze off Haeil’s face, which looked unambiguously pleased.
Either way, the initiative on the promise would end up in my hands.
Even if I let it slip, there’d be nothing he could say. I decided to just let it pass easily.
A phone was thrust at me.
"Then put your number in."
"...?"
"I don’t pick up unless it’s a saved number. Come on, put it in."
When I looked at him like I didn’t follow, he gave the phone a little shake.
"Your personal number. The one on your card is for work anyway."
He was right: I used two phones.
One for work-related calls only, and another personal phone for private calls.
"Do you specifically need my personal number?"
"Of course. I ignore every call from an unsaved number. Wouldn’t it be sad to miss your chance like that?"
Sad? Really?
Pressed by his urging, I had no choice but to take his phone. If I ignored him, I had a feeling he would call my work contact, and I couldn’t have that.
He watched my fingers enter the contact into his phone. He swallowed a pleased smile where I couldn’t see.
Honestly, unnecessarily cute.
The moment I finished, he immediately called. The phone at my ear—my phone—rang right there on the terrace.
Confirming I hadn’t given him a fake number, he brightened.
"Great, great! Then call me anytime."
In the same excited tone, he added:
"What could I not comp for the very capable Mr. Baek Kanghyeon?"
His words overlapped with what he’d said earlier.
—What I’m saying is, the person named Baek Kanghyeon is even more capable than I thought.
What could someone I’d barely met know about me.
Even so, it was true that what he said eased something that had been pressing on my chest.
If I repaid that much with a meal, it felt like a cheap price to pay.
Anyway, Kwon Haeil’s interest would only be a whim born of sudden circumstances. If I humored him once, he might write it off as a passing amusement.
Unable to understand why his interest was aimed at me, I could only think that way for now.
Stretching wide as he drew in a breath, Haeil asked out of nowhere,
"Oh, right—you’re out on external business today, so you’ll head in early after this, yeah?"
As he added, Isn’t that what people usually do, his eyes went suddenly sharp.
"Don’t tell me you’re going back to the office." This chapter was taken from novelping.com without permission.
"I was planning to."
His face twisted hard.
It was still faintly amazing how quickly he could change expressions.
"Seriously?"
"Yes. I have a lot to do once I’m back."
"What kind of company is that? I should report them straight to the labor office. No—has the almighty Baekcheong Group lost its mind, working a Division Head like a mule? They’re insane over there!"
Left alone, he looked ready to spit at the lobby doors.
"You’ll wreck your body. I’m not just saying it—Alpha or whatever, you can just drop, fast."
"That won’t happen."
"Don’t make promises like that. If we sign and it turns out Division Head Baek Kanghyeon is one stumble away from collapsing at any time, wouldn’t that be incredibly unsettling? Hm?"
Rattling off with a fierce face, he hurried to add,
"Just saying in advance, this isn’t throwing weight around, okay? I’m worried. Don’t misunderstand."
"Who said anything?"
I snorted a laugh and answered, and felt the tangle in my head clear a notch.
For once, neither Father nor Baek Heeu came to mind anymore.
***
After we wrapped the meeting smoothly, I went back to the office as planned and focused on work. It looked no different from any other day.
But the moment the end of the workday—6 p.m.—hit, something changed.
Vrr— vrr— vrr— vrr—
My phone would not stop buzzing.
If it had been the work phone, I would have picked up immediately no matter the time.
Noisy.
If I’d known it would be like this, I wouldn’t have given him my number.
With the phone starting up again the second it cut off, I couldn’t focus anymore.
In the end I took out my personal phone—the one I kept in my desk drawer, not the work phone.
"Call with breaks. How does your vibration never stop?"
—If I don’t do this, I figured you’d really bury yourself in work till dawn.
I let out a small sigh at the bright voice through the phone.
I had considered he might reach out from time to time.
I just didn’t expect it to ring this relentlessly.
Doorbell, phone—same difference.
Shaking my head, I remembered how he’d mashed my doorbell without pause on the very first night I moved in.
At the same time, I caught the small consideration in what he was doing.
Even with countless calls to my personal phone, if I didn’t pick up he could have tried the work contact at least once. If he had, I would have answered without delay.
But he insisted on calling only my personal phone. As if to emphasize that this was strictly private communication.
Maybe that’s why—even though the calls were annoying enough to get on my nerves—it didn’t actually feel that unpleasant.
—Leave work early. If you don’t, I might really show up at your company and kick up a scene.
"Are you in your right mind?"
—Perfectly. You’re my guy—the one who’s going to upgrade my club—how could I not care this much?
We hadn’t even signed anything yet, and he was already saying my guy.
"Whether I work more or not is up to me. Stop talking nonsense and hang up."
—I definitely warned you, okay? Hm? Hey, Baek Kang—! Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
I cut the call before he could finish. Letting it go on would just be irritating and loud.
Worst case, I should consider changing my number.
I glared at the screen, expecting it to start blaring again, but thankfully nothing else came in.
Exhaling a light sigh, I slid the phone back into the drawer to focus again—then paused and looked down at it.
My last call with Baek Heeu weighed on me.
Heeu… he must have called a lot.
Right after the meeting ended.
I had blocked Baek Heeu’s number.
With Father pressing him, I knew he’d had no choice. Knowing that, I still could only put up a cold wall.
Because if I didn’t, I didn’t think I could hold out.
Lowering my gaze at the memory of that call, the documents for the W(WAVE) Project I’d been reviewing stabbed into my eyes.
—I’ve prepared a large-scale project suited to you.
In my head, Father’s gentle voice played itself without permission.
—From the moment you were born, you were the only son who met this father’s expectations.
It didn’t take long to realize that warmth directed only at me was the heaviest curse in the world.
And that curse had continued right up to now.
—I believe you’ll do well.
He said he believed.
He said it like there wasn’t a shred of doubt.
This time will be different.
This time he’ll truly trust my ability, just as the words say.
I had hoped—please, just this once.
Stupid.
Just as he didn’t trust my ability, I shouldn’t have trusted him either.
—As long as this father is here, you’ll have nothing to worry about.
—Nothing at all.
Even those words, which once sounded like the warmest thing in the world, were nothing but a cold knife to me.
As his voice echoed, something like a punch bloomed in my lower abdomen, hard and throbbing.
"…Ugh."
The pain made even breathing laborious. A chill ran naturally up my spine.
Again.
Familiar pain twisted my face pale.
At the same time, Haeil’s worried words floated up.
—You’ll wreck your body. I’m not just saying it—Alpha or whatever, you can just drop, fast.
Like he’d said, even a robust Alpha wasn’t an unconditional iron man. We were healthier than most, with strong immunity and almost no virus-induced sickness. Stress disorders, too—we had high resistance, not immunity.
Maybe that was why, when stress piled up too much, my lower abdomen would start to ache like this.
I’d had the symptoms since my teens and kept going to the hospital right up until adulthood.
Wherever I went, they all said the same thing: stress-induced inflammation of the pheromone gland. In Alphas, unlike Omegas, the pheromone gland sits in the lower abdomen.