Jihan’s POV
I keep shaking my head, my vision blurring until his face doubles.
“No. It doesn’t make sense.” My hands are trembling now, fingers curling into my sleeves like they can hold me together.
“I asked him to scent me that day and he didn’t complain. He even told me I should do the same to him so you guys wouldn’t suspect anything—so you wouldn’t think we weren’t getting along.”
Why am I saying this?
Why am I giving him pieces of me like this—raw and bleeding and unprotected?
My chest hurts.
It actually hurts.
Like something inside me is tearing itself apart, thread by thread.
Because I had never expected to be so good at telling a lie, I almost believe myself.
“Hyung,” Chansoo sighs, and that sigh feels like a knife.
“Don’t lie to me. You can get drunk and crawl all the way home, but no alpha gets into your pants unless you like them.” His voice softens in the cruelest way possible.
“You like Wonbin so much. What’s the point of denying he’s the father? You’re going to marry him anyway.”
Something in me snaps.
Not loudly.
Not cleanly.
Just… quietly.
Like a bone cracking under too much weight.
“I’m not lying,” I whisper, wiping my face with the heel of my hand, smearing tears everywhere.
I hate that I’m crying.
I hate that my body keeps betraying me.
“I’m not asking you to believe me. I told you it wasn’t him, so it’s not him.” My voice rises despite me trying to keep it down.
“I don’t like him. And I don’t want to marry him.”
The words feel wrong the second they leave my mouth—not because they aren’t true, but because they sound like something I’ve rehearsed a thousand times just to survive.
Something I say so I don’t fall apart completely.
Chansoo laughs.
A short, disbelieving chuckle that makes my stomach drop.
“Really, hyung?” he says.
“You’re so sure it wasn’t him, but you don’t even know who the father is?” He shakes his head.
“You’re not gonna fool me.”
I stop walking.
Everything stops.
The house creaks somewhere behind us, the sound of footsteps upstairs, the faint hum of a television—but all I can hear is the echo of my own heart pounding like it’s trying to escape my chest.
“Shut up.”
The word slips out before I can stop it.
“You don’t know anything,” I say, turning around, tears spilling faster now.
“This wouldn’t be happening if you didn’t look so sad when you were about to get engaged. This wouldn’t be happening if you didn’t ignore me and make me feel guilty—like because I’m an omega, you had to suffer instead.”
My throat burns.
I can barely breathe.
“Shut up,” I repeat, my voice breaking completely now.
“I did all of this just to make you happy. Just so you could be free.”
My chest caves in on itself as I say it, like admitting it out loud finally gives the pain permission to exist.
I don’t wait for his response.
I can’t.
I turn and run up the stairs, sobbing so hard my vision goes white at the edges.
I don’t look back.
I don’t want to see his face.
I don’t want to see anyone.
I didn’t remember how I got to the top of the stairs.
I only remembered the sound—my own sobbing echoing too loud in the hallway, my chest burning like something inside me was clawing its way out.
Every breath hurt.
Every step felt wrong, like I was walking away from something I had already lost long before tonight.
My hands were shaking so badly I had to grip the railing, my knuckles white, my vision blurring until the world melted into streaks of light and shadow.
I could still hear Chansoo’s voice behind me, still sharp, still accusing, still convinced he knew me better than I knew myself.
You like Wonbin so much.
The words wouldn’t leave me alone.
They wrapped around my ribs and squeezed until I thought I might throw up.
Because maybe I did.
Maybe I still did.
Or maybe what I liked was the idea of not being alone, of being chosen instead of tolerated, of being wanted instead of passed around like a responsibility.
I slammed the bedroom door shut behind me and slid down until my back hit the floor.
My knees curled into my chest without me telling them to.
My body knew what to do when everything fell apart—it folded in on itself, small, quiet, apologetic.
Like if I took up less space, maybe the pain would too.
I pressed my palm against my mouth to muffle the sound of my crying, but it didn’t work.
Nothing worked.
My chest heaved violently, my stomach twisting, heat pooling low in my abdomen in a way that made me feel sick with myself.
I didn’t even know who I was anymore.
I had been so sure once—so stupidly hopeful.
I had clung to that hope like it was the only thing keeping me afloat, even when it cut into my skin, even when it started to sink.
Wonbin’s face kept flashing in my mind.
The way he looked at me at the party—confused, spiraling, hurt.
The way his voice had cracked when he tried to say my name and failed.
The way he kept reaching for me with his eyes while I stood there pretending I didn’t see it.
Pretending I didn’t care.
My phone buzzed.
Once.
Then again.
I didn’t need to look to know who it was.
Wonbin.
I squeezed my eyes shut, hot tears spilling down my cheeks.
My heart betrayed me instantly, leaping, aching, screaming his name like it still believed he could save me from this.
He can’t, I told myself viciously.
He won’t.
He never did.
The phone buzzed again.
And again.
I didn’t want answers anymore.
I didn’t want explanations.
I didn’t want apologies that came too late and meant too little.
I just wanted the pain to stop—wanted my chest to stop caving in, wanted my body to stop punishing me for hoping, for loving, for believing I could have something gentle.
Another buzz.
I finally looked.
Wonbin: Please.
Just talk to me.
Wonbin: Jihan, I’m sorry.
I didn’t know—
Wonbin: Please pick up.
My hands trembled so hard the screen blurred.
I stared at his name until it felt unreal, like it belonged to someone else’s life.
Someone stronger.
Someone braver.
I turned the phone face-down.
“I can’t,” I whispered into the empty room.
“I really can’t.”
Because if I answered, I would break completely.
I would tell him everything I had swallowed down for years.
I would ask him why I wasn’t enough sooner.
Why I always had to be the one who waited.
Why loving him felt like drowning quietly so no one else would notice.
A soft knock came at the door.
Not Chansoo’s sharp, impatient knock.
This one was slow.
Careful.
Familiar.
“Jihan,” my grandma’s voice called gently.
“Baby… open the door.”
My throat closed.
I didn’t want anyone to see me like this.
I didn’t want her pity, her worry, her knowing eyes that always saw straight through me.
I didn’t want to be the disappointing omega grandson who made everything complicated.
The door creaked open anyway.
She didn’t scold me for locking it.
She never did.
She just shuffled in slowly, sat down on the floor beside me without a word, and pulled my shaking body into her arms.
And that—that was what finally destroyed me.
I sobbed into her shoulder like I was a child again, like I had scraped my knees on the pavement and needed someone to tell me it would heal.
Her hand rubbed my back in slow circles, steady, grounding, as if she could physically hold my heart together.
“I tried so hard,” I gasped between sobs.
“I really tried… I just wanted everyone to be happy.”
“I know,” she murmured softly.
“I know you did.”
Her voice didn’t accuse.
It didn’t judge.
It didn’t tell me what I should have done differently.
And somehow that hurt more than anything else.
“I ruined everything,” I whispered.
“I ruined myself.”
She pulled back just enough to cup my face, her thumbs wiping away my tears.
Her eyes were wet too, and that made my chest ache all over again.
“No,” she said firmly.
“You were hurting long before tonight. This didn’t start with you.”
I wanted to believe her.
God, I wanted to believe her so badly.
But all I could feel was the weight of every moment I had stayed silent, every time I had stepped aside, every time I had convinced myself that being loved halfway was better than not being loved at all.
My phone buzzed again on the floor.
She glanced at it, then back at me, her grip tightening.
“You don’t have to answer,” she said gently.
“Not tonight. Not when you’re bleeding like this.”
Bleeding.
That was exactly how it felt—like something inside me had split open and wouldn’t close no matter how hard I tried to press it shut.
I leaned into her chest, exhausted, hollow, numb.
I didn’t know what would happen tomorrow.
I didn’t know who the father was.
I didn’t know how I would survive this family, this engagement, this life that suddenly felt too heavy to carry.
All I knew was that the hope I had clung to—so carefully, so desperately—had finally slipped through my fingers.
And it hurt so badly I wished, just for a moment, that I could stop feeling altogether.