“C, cut him off?”
Cold sweat trickled down my forehead as the conversation veered in an unexpected direction.
“Why did that guy come back to Seoul? He could have stayed buried in Spain for life.”
“Hey, Seolheon.”
“Then he had the gall to brag in front of Hyung that he became an Alpha. There are limits to stupidity.”
“Come to think of it, you—”
I went ahead and asked what I had wanted to ask for a while.
“Why do you hate Haram so much? You two used to play just fine together.”
“Lee Haram only treated me like a toy however he wanted. I don’t remember playing together.”
“You two got along okay doing taekwondo play and all that.”
“Do you mean when he used me like a sandbag and hit me?”
“S, sandbag?”
Was it… like that?
“D, didn’t you also ride bikes together?”
“I nearly got into a car accident cleaning up after him when he sped off by himself.”
“And you two often played ball…”
“You mean when he stood me up like a post and just did dribble practice for himself?”
“…”
I honestly thought they bickered but got along fine.
Whenever I sent him out to go play with Haram, Seolheon would always nod. …Even if his face was unbelievably sullen.
“You can’t have a conversation with him. He’s a savage, a brutish animal of a guy.”
“Y, you really didn’t get along…”
I had assumed refusing to call Lee Haram “Hyung,” even though he was three years older, meant they were close like friends—but looking at it now, he was just ignoring him.
‘Well, their personalities… really don’t match at all.’
Lee Haram took my advice literally and leaned into his sunny nature until he became practically a human sun.
Seolheon, quiet and composed like the moon on a still night, was his polar opposite.
‘Truthfully I didn’t want them getting too close… but I didn’t think they were this bad.’
How on earth did those two cling to each other in the novel? What made Uheon Baek fixate on Lee Haram is a total mystery.
Was the novel’s Geonho Baek such trash that the two of them joined forces? I’ve forgotten almost all of it now, so I have no idea.
While I was turning over a question no one could answer, someone came into the house.
“My boys. Did you hold down the fort?”
“You’re back?”
Our adoptive mother, Yeonhee Baek, returned from work.
She smiled with her eyes at the motionless Seolheon and gently stroked his hair. He dodged his father’s touch with ease but was lenient with his mother. Maybe because she was comparatively less fussy.
“Oh? Did someone stop by? I’m catching an unfamiliar pheromone…”
“Haram came by. He just got back to the country.”
“Oh my. I heard he became a Prime Alpha! I should send a gift sometime. By the way, are you okay, son? Prime pheromones are strong, you know!”
“I took medicine and I’m fine now.”
When she belatedly studied my complexion, I waved it off with a smile.
The feel of Seolheon’s fingers pressing deep in my throat flashed back so vividly that goosebumps rose, but I smiled as if nothing was wrong.
“Let’s air the place out first. Air it out, air it out.”
Even so, Mom hurried to find the remote and pressed a button. The apartment’s floor-to-ceiling windows and the terrace doors slid open and a cool spring breeze came in.
Truly a luxury apartment. Even after ten years, the ahead-of-its-time smart IOT system still impressed me.
Setting the remote down, Mom watched me for a moment, then walked over to Seolheon.
“Seolheon. Your dad says he’s bringing cakes from the café for a snack—could you go meet him? It looked like he had his hands full.”
“…”
“I’ve got documents I have to send to the company right now, and your brother’s wiped out from the pheromones. You can help, right?”
“…Yes.”
He looked put out at the mention of his dad, but he soon nodded.
I could have gone instead, but I stayed put because I understood Mom’s intent.
Once it was just Mom and me left at home, silence fell over the spacious apartment.
Mom let out a small sigh, then gestured as she sat at the wide table.
“Geonho. I’m still debating whether I should even say this.”
“Please speak freely.”
“You’re so smart and mature… I felt I should ask for your opinion too.”
After wrestling with herself for a while, she finally took something out of her handbag.
Two stiff, high-quality white cards.
Simple text was printed on them.
[Baekil]
“Invitations from the main house.”
And below that, each card had a name.
[Seolheon Baek]
[Geonho Baek]
They were Seolheon’s name and mine.
“The truth is… they’ve been coming for seven years now. Every time the Baek family’s regular gathering is held.”
I picked up a white card and looked it over.
[Baekil, a tomorrow opened by light.]
Beneath the Baekil Group symbol of the sun, there was a short greeting and the schedule.
“As you probably already know, you know I don’t like the main house much, right?”
Having lived together, I knew well how uneasy Mom felt about her family.
I didn’t know the details, but she seemed to shudder at the authoritarian, money-absolutist atmosphere rampant among her relatives.
She went so far as to avoid even saying the name of her own pharmaceutical company, “Baekil,” in front of me and Seolheon.
So even on holidays and anniversaries, we spent the day as just family, without meeting relatives.
I also never brought up the Baek clan in front of Mom.
And then today, at last, Mom opened the subject herself.
“I wanted to keep hiding you and Seolheon… but watching your talent, I started wondering if I’m blocking possibilities out of my own selfishness.”
Looking me straight in the eyes, Mom asked in a low voice.
“Geonho. Do you want to meet the Baekil family?”
This wasn’t simply about meeting someone or not.
It was about whether I wanted to be recognized as a member of the Baek conglomerate family.
“As you’ve just gone through a serious ordeal, being an Alpha doesn’t automatically make the world safe. Especially for someone like you—talented, with looks anyone would warm to, raised in slightly better circumstances than most… there will definitely be harder situations to come.”
I could more or less guess why Mom was saying more than usual.
“So I think the more weapons you have at your disposal once you’re an adult, the better. I am a little worried whether the Baek family would forge those weapons properly, but…”
Whether I felt alienated because I was adopted.
Whether she herself was robbing me of the chance to succeed on the vast stage of Baekil Group—those two things were probably weighing on her mind.
“Given your particular situation…”
But she didn’t want to tie me to a family with flaws, either.
And she worried I might be treated unfairly because I was adopted.
“So, Geonho. Choose freely.”
After those two feelings collided, she finally brought it up to me directly.
With the most serious gaze I had ever seen from her, Mom asked me:
“Do you want to go to this gathering?”
“No. I don’t.”
“I see… Hm? You don’t?”
“Yes. What could I even do if I went.”
“Y, you can take more time to think if you want?”
If I were the ambition-drunk “Geonho Baek,” I would have said, “I’ll go right now!”
But I, Geonho Baek, am different.
“My dream is just to get a normal job, save normally, buy a small building, and live off rent in old age.”
“G, Geonho. You could dream bigger than that…”
“No! I know my place very well.”
I have no ambition! Not that it’s anything to brag about!