“You like to screw someone and run?”
A heavy voice said it with a sneer, no greeting at all. Jaeha squeezed his eyes shut and opened them.
“I have something to say.”
That day, Lee Jaeha decided to propose to Jang Taegun.
The amount of water he drank that day was 1,230 mL. Two 500 mL bottles weren’t enough; he’d gone through about half a bottle more.
Only that day did he understand the saying that people drink a lot when they’re nervous. Despite all that water, his stomach clenched so hard with nerves that he couldn’t get anything chewable past his lips.
At the working lunch, his secretary wore a puzzled look as she watched her boss swallow only water, but there was nothing Jaeha could offer her by way of excuse.
After finishing his afternoon tasks, he sat in the director’s office and stared holes through the clock. He planned to leave the office a little earlier than when downtown Seoul started to jam up.
When the minute hand hit the time he’d chosen, he stood at once and grabbed his suit jacket from the hanger in the corner of the office.
“Director… oh, are you heading out?”
Yujin, his secretary, walked in with a tablet and halted in surprise. He cut her a glance, checked his reflection in the window, and brushed the faintest wrinkles from his jacket.
“Is there anything urgent? I need to step out.”
“No, not that. The second madam asked what time you’d be home tonight.”
“…I’ll be going to Nonhyeon-dong today.”
The “second madam” meant Kim Ranhui. His buoyant mood settled a notch.
It had only been three days since he’d made that scene, and she was already asking after him—clearly she wanted to confirm whether what he’d said was true.
He could picture, almost vividly, how high her hopes must be.
Sumin’s family was quite respectable, and his father—Jaeha’s prospective father-in-law—was being backed by the party as a presidential candidate in the election two years out.
Lee Jaeha, with a president for a father-in-law, setting himself as Yushin’s heir was as natural as the sun rising in the east tomorrow.
But that match had turned to mush like an apricot after the monsoon and dropped. For Kim Ranhui, all she had to do was grind the underripe fruit underfoot and claim it was worthless from the start.
Then she’d have ample pretext to cast out Jaeha and reach for Yushin’s succession.
So of course she’d want to ask if it was true—since when he’d had feelings for Jang Taegun. He could practically see her testing his heart and then whispering to Lee Ikhyeong, with a saintly face, that it was a deal Jaeha wanted.
Face stiffening like wax, he told Yujin:
“…If she calls again, say I’m in a meeting. I’m leaving early for personal reasons. Have Manager Im go home early today too.”
“Yes, Director.”
Yujin answered tonelessly. She didn’t need it spelled out to guess that her boss did not like Yushin’s mistress of the house, Kim Ranhui; their relationship made that clear enough.
He’d never shown hostility toward his stepmother in front of subordinates, but after working together so long, she would know.
With only his car keys, wallet, and phone, he told Yujin to wrap up and left the office.
They were meeting at the hotel again.
He’d taken pains to book the hotel dining room. He could have had Yujin do it, but for some reason he wanted to make the call himself.
After giving the time and date, he had to state the number of guests, but the simple word “two” would not leave his mouth.
Only then did he dimly recognize the feeling as anticipation. His toes tingled.
How did it get like this—on the way to the hotel on Namsan, he forced himself to think back through everything.
From that first time he met him at that trivial gathering, he must have felt something for that Alpha. The sudden rut had been proof.
After that he’d seen him with Kim Sumin, and then he’d dreamed—filthy beyond words. Long if you called it long, short if you called it short: that was the length of Lee Jaeha’s denial.
It was too short a time to admit that an Alpha standing at the apex of the world, with everything under his feet, was drawn to another Alpha—and too long a time to admit that what he felt was a kind of emotion, something like love.
In those two chaotic hours, he was on his way back to the hotel to face Jang Taegun again.
He’d racked his brains for days over what words to use.
I like you. If you’re not displeased, I’d like your permission to date you.
It was the sort of confession an Alpha made to an Omega, but having lived his whole life as an Alpha, he couldn’t think of it any other way.
He even indulged the romance of buying flowers. But when he reached the hotel, embarrassment took him, and he got out of the car empty-handed.
He had thought that day he would gain something. He’d even prepared the lines—break up with Kim Sumin; I’ll wait.
But that day, he did not tell Jang Taegun his true feelings. Even though their marriage ultimately went through.
Love? If you asked, the answer would be a noncommittal “who knows.”
“The one thing I want from a marriage with Director Lee is just that—one thing.”
“……”
“Give up everything of Yushin and come. Then who knows. Maybe I won’t care that you’re an Alpha.”
The answer to Lee Jaeha’s proposal was “Yes.”
It came with a condition, which stripped the consent of any warmth.
The wedding was quiet. Even if one side’s roots were in a gangster company, for a conglomerate union it was missing a lot.
Because Lee Ikhyeong disapproved of his son’s marriage.
Jaeha had no particular interest in his father’s discourtesy. He only felt a touch embarrassed for Taegun.
Thinking back to the day he went to propose still left him a little dazed. He’d been so nervous he couldn’t get even half of what he’d prepared out of his mouth.
“So, if Mr. Jang marries me, what I can give Team Manager Jang is…”
“Are you suggesting you recite a trousseau list? You do realize this is a terrible deal for your side, right? Do I have to explain even this?”
Head cocked, expressionless, he stared at Jaeha. Every thought vanished in an instant.
It was a small mercy he’d been trained for years not to show feeling on his face. He’d rather die than show a face flushed with thin shame, embarrassment, the wish to look good to the other person flipped at once into humiliation.
He managed to say:
“That’s not what I meant…”
“If your pride takes a hit and your dick won’t get up, would you like me to live with you even if you’re useless?”
“……”
Without meaning to, he glanced between Taegun’s legs and then, startled, looked away. He felt the quick huff of Taegun’s laugh.
“Even if we’re generous, it looks like I’m being sold to you. If I’m going to eat for free, should I provide service with my mouth only?”
Expression unchanged, he lifted a hand to his lips and pushed his cheek out twice with his tongue. A gesture like a cock prodding the inside of a cheek during a blowjob.
From the moment he saw it, Jaeha’s mind went white. Not one of the lines he’d prepared came back.
Watching him go slack, Jang Taegun snorted.
“I don’t get it. At all.”
“……”
“Do you like me?”
He should have answered “Yes.” But he was frightened by the way the Alpha pheromones carpeted the private dining room with anger.
Not because he was afraid of Jang Taegun—because he was afraid Taegun would think he was strange. It was the first time in his life he’d feared someone’s judgment.
He wasn’t someone who lived under evaluation. If anything, he was the one who evaluated others.
It struck him that feelings like this—no matter who for—make a person poor. Even someone born at the pyramid’s peak, standing before the person who roused his feelings, was a shabby Alpha with nothing to offer.
“No. That’s not it.”
“……”
This time, Jang Taegun closed his mouth.
The pheromones coiled heavier around his ankles. Proof Taegun was angrier, but Jaeha couldn’t guess at his mind.
Why was he angry. Wasn’t it something he could dare to soothe. The other hadn’t given permission, but he was already burning to coax him, to pour affection on him. Already, Lee Jaeha wanted to do everything for Jang Taegun.
But Taegun, too, wore the face of a man who wanted nothing—just as he himself had, before he fell in love.
“So what you’re saying is you need me to run your precious family’s projects.”
“……”
“Fine. I’ll name my condition, too.”
Only then did Jaeha feel blood return to his fingertips. If the other side was stating terms, that made it easier.
He lived in a world awash in material things. When something happened, dealing with it rarely took much effort.
If that was what Taegun wanted, he could comply. The chance to present his love in material form brought color to his face.
Taegun stared at that face as if licking it. He took a cigarette case from the inside pocket of his suit jacket, pulled out a stick, and set it between his lips.
Blankly, Jaeha muttered:
“This is a no-smoking—”
“Do you obey every law? Doesn’t Yushin dodge taxes plenty?”
Expressionless, he flicked his lighter and scorched the tip. The end hissed and began to burn.
Jaeha shut his mouth. He wanted to look good and had no idea how.
It would have been easier with an Omega. Was it only hard to speak because the person who’d stolen his heart was Jang Taegun—or was Taegun simply not a good conversation partner.
Maybe both. Tense, he found himself wanting to rub at his aching balls and instead stared blankly at the folded napkin on the table.
Then he realized he hadn’t ordered even after coming into the dining room. In the silent private room with no music, there were only him, Jang Taegun, and Jang Taegun’s pheromones.
The moment they sat, Taegun had dismissed the waiter. No one would enter until he called.
His nerves, which had settled a little, rose again in a swell. The wild-rose and heavy sea-salt scent made his stomach heave.
It felt like staring from the deck at a single wild-rose blooming on a tiny reef in the middle of the sea. That was when—
Exhaling smoke, Jang Taegun spoke.
“I don’t like a hole that carries a lot under it and still moans on my cock.”
It was a bald, intimate drop into plain speech. Compared to that, all his earlier rudeness didn’t even register—and ironically, it made Jaeha realize that up to now, Taegun had been showing him “manners.”
“Since it ends when I fuck and shoot anyway, I don’t like people getting dressed up either.”
“……”
“I’m asking if you can throw everything away and come with just your body.”
Jaeha swallowed. It was like desire itself asking him the question.
“The one thing I want from a marriage with Director Lee is just that—one thing.”
“……”