Jihan’s POV
“No? I mean—”
“You mean it’s okay if it was someone else,” I cut in, unable to stop myself now.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with me being in heat. You just wouldn’t do it if you knew it was me.”
I turn my face away before he can see how badly that lands.
I don’t want him to see how easily I’m unraveling, how his words keep finding the softest parts of me.
“So you regret it?” I ask quietly.
“You hated it that much?”
His response is immediate, almost panicked.
“No. I didn’t regret it.”
And for a split second, hope flares.
Stupid, reckless hope.
“But it was wrong,” he adds.
“Because you’re going to be part of our family—”
Something in me snaps.
“Exactly,” I say, turning back to him.
My voice doesn’t sound like mine anymore.
“I’m going to be part of your family. So what’s wrong with it? Don’t you like me, hyung?”
There it is.
The question I’ve been circling for weeks.
The one I’ve been too afraid to ask because I already know how much it can hurt.
He looks at me like he’s been cornered, eyes darting away, jaw tightening.
I see it then—the crack in his composure.
The way his hands curl slightly at his sides, like he’s holding himself back.
There’s something in his gaze that looks like pain, like frustration, like loss.
And it wrecks me.
Because it means he feels something.
Just not enough to choose me.
“No,” he says finally, looking away.
The word lands heavy, final.
It’s amazing how one syllable can dismantle everything.
I swallow hard, forcing myself to stand.
My legs feel shaky, but I keep my posture straight.
Dignity is the last thing I have left.
“Then we should cancel the engagement,” I say calmly.
Too calmly.
“I don’t want to force you to like me just because of it.”
His head snaps up.
“What?”
But I’m already turning away.
If I stay any longer, I’ll beg.
I’ll cry.
I’ll reach for him and ask him to stop me.
And I don’t trust myself not to do something humiliating just to feel wanted.
I walk out into the garden, the cool air hitting my face, grounding me just enough to keep moving.
Every step feels like I’m tearing something out of my chest.
I hate that I still want him to follow me.
I hate that part of me listens for his footsteps, hopes he’ll grab my wrist, pull me back, say something reckless and honest and irrevocable.
He doesn’t.
By the time he realizes what I meant—what I was really saying—I’m already gone.
Later, I imagine the scene without being there.
His mother asking where I am.
The confusion on his face.
The way his shoulders probably slump when he admits he messed up.
I can see it so clearly it hurts.
“I think I fucked up, mom,” he says, and I almost laugh at how well I know him.
The image of him being pulled into a hug, of him finally letting himself be comforted, twists something deep inside me.
I want to be the one holding him.
I want to be the one he breaks down in front of.
I want to be the one he loses control for.
That’s the most frustrating part.
I don’t want him careful.
I don’t want him polite.
I want him desperate.
I want him to look at me the way he almost did earlier—like he was standing at the edge of something dangerous and beautiful and didn’t know whether to jump.
I want to be the reason he forgets the rules he’s built his life around.
Because I know I could break that wall if he’d just let me try.
He’s right there.
He always has been.
And somehow, I’m still missing him.
______________________________
The tears don’t stop.
They don’t even slow down.
They just keep coming, hot and relentless, like my body has decided this is the only language it knows now.
Wonbin’s voice keeps looping in my head—No—so clear, so firm, so final.
I wish I could rip the sound out of my skull.
I wish I had never asked.
I wish I had stayed ignorant, stayed hopeful, stayed stupid enough to believe that maybe he felt the same way I did.
I press my hand over my mouth, but it doesn’t help.
The sobs still claw their way out of my chest, ugly and broken.
I feel ridiculous for crying this hard over one word, over one man—but it wasn’t just the word.
It was everything it meant.
Everything it erased.
I wanted him to say yes.
I wanted him to hesitate.
I wanted him to lose control.
Instead, he chose distance.
He chose safety.
He chose not me.
By the time the front door opens, my whole body feels hollowed out.
I don’t even remember how I was already here.
I don’t remember how I walk to the car to go home when my head felt like it was underwater.
The moment the door shuts behind me, arms wrap around my shoulders, warm and familiar, grounding and suffocating all at once.
I hate that I need it.
I hate that I’m an omega right now—hate how everything feels so loud, so raw, like my emotions have no skin anymore.
I never hated being an omega before.
I never hated how deeply I could feel, how instinctive my heart was.
But right now?
Right now it feels like a curse.
If I weren’t an omega, I wouldn’t be here.
I wouldn’t be carrying proof of a night that ruined everything.
I wouldn’t be terrified of what comes next.
If I weren’t an omega, I wouldn’t have gotten pregnant so easily.
The thought makes me sob harder.
How am I supposed to say it out loud?
How am I supposed to tell them that I’m pregnant and the father doesn’t want me?
That he didn’t choose me—wouldn’t choose me—unless he was forced to?
I’m terrified they’ll do something to Wonbin if they find out.
Terrified they’ll corner him, threaten him, demand responsibility he never offered willingly.
I don’t want that.
I don’t want him bound to me out of obligation.
I don’t want to look into his eyes every day knowing I had to trap him to keep him.
“Grandma,” I whisper, my voice breaking completely.
“I want to call off the engagement. Please.”
There’s a pause.
A heavy one.
Then I hear her sigh—soft, tired, knowing.
“Is it because you found another alpha, Jihan-ah?” she asks gently.
Her hand comes up to my face, wiping away my tears with a tenderness that nearly shatters me.
“Even if you don’t tell me… I can smell it. You’re pregnant, my dear.”
The words hit me harder than I expect.
My knees almost give out.
“How… how did you know?” I ask weakly.
She shakes her head.
“Anyone with a nose can tell.”
Shame curls in my stomach.
Guilt.
Fear.
“I’m sorry,” I choke out.
“I don’t want to marry Wonbin.”
The words taste bitter, even as they leave my mouth.
Because that’s the cruel truth—I don’t want to marry him if he doesn’t want me.
I don’t want to spend my life being the person he settled for.
She pulls me closer, her voice calm despite the storm inside me.
“Okay. But why are you this sad, hm? This isn’t good for you—or the baby. I can cancel the engagement. You can marry the alpha you want, Jihan-ah. Don’t cage yourself because of fear.”
Marry the alpha I want.
My chest caves in on itself.
“I can’t,” I whisper.
“There is no alpha who wants me.”
The tears come harder, like my body is punishing me for even thinking otherwise.
“Now tell me,” she says softly, but there’s steel beneath it.
“Who is the father?”
I freeze.
My throat closes.
My mind flashes back to every warning she ever gave me, every promise she made about protecting me.
I know what she’s capable of.
I know what she’d do if she thought someone hurt me, abandoned me, took advantage of me.
I can’t say his name.
I open my mouth—then footsteps echo behind us.
“Whose father?” Chansoo’s voice cuts through the air, sharp with confusion.
“What father?”
I turn, my heart dropping to my stomach as he comes into view.
“Jihan is pregnant,” my grandma says quietly.
The room explodes.
“What—what?” Chansoo stares at me like the world just tilted.
“Hyung—how long? Why didn’t you tell me? Is this why you keep guarding your stomach like that?”
I look down, unable to meet his eyes.
“I wasn’t sure,” I murmur.
“I wanted to be certain first.”
He runs a hand through his hair, agitation rolling off him in waves.
“So who is it?”
I shake my head.
His disbelief is immediate.
“You don’t know? How is that even possible?”
His pheromones spike, sharp and angry, making my stomach twist.
Grandma stays silent, watching us closely.
“I was drunk,” I say, my voice barely holding together.
“When I woke up, I was alone.”
Chansoo’s expression changes.
Slowly.
Horribly.
“The last time you got drunk was at Wonbin’s party,” he says, pieces clicking into place.
“He brought you home. We joked about it because you smelled like him for days.”
My breath catches.
“Is it him?” he asks.
The room goes quiet.
And just like that, everything hurts again—fresh and brutal and endless.
I don’t know when the room started shrinking.
Maybe it was the way Chansoo’s voice sharpened with every question, or maybe it was the way my chest had already been collapsing long before he spoke—slow, quiet, inevitable.
The walls felt closer than they should’ve been, the air too thick to breathe properly.
Every inhale scraped my throat raw, like my body was punishing me for still trying.
I shake my head before I even realize I’m doing it.
Hard.
Desperate.
Like if I keep moving, the truth won’t catch up to me.
“No,” I say, and my voice cracks immediately.
“No. He’s not the father. It wasn’t him.”
The words come out too fast, too sharp.
Defensive.
Guilty-sounding even when I know I’m telling the truth.
Chansoo’s eyes narrow.
He doesn’t believe me—not really.
I can see it settling on his face like something ugly and permanent.
“Why are you so defensive?” he asks.
His tone isn’t gentle anymore.
“I was just asking if it was him. I mean… it just made sense.”
It made sense.
Of course it did.
Everything always made sense to everyone else.
Just not to me.