He must have fallen asleep on the sofa without realizing it.
After getting home, downing a convenience-store burger with a can of beer, and halfheartedly going through his ankle exercises with a Theraband to ease his conscience, he had apparently passed out completely. The silver resistance band still lay across his stomach. Tossing it aside, Gi-hyeon dragged himself toward the bathroom with sluggish steps.
A faint scent of bleach lingered in the air.
Yawning, Gi-hyeon leaned against the bathroom doorframe. Folding his arms, he rubbed absently at his chin and asked,
“Did you see your mother?”
“…”
The Alpha didn’t answer.
The only sound filling the bathroom was the harsh scrape of a scrubbing brush against the tiles. Seeing a man in a perfectly tailored suit crouched in front of a bathtub, cleaning it with grim intensity, was enough to tell Gi-hyeon exactly how the meeting had gone.
The expensive trousers stretched tightly across Yeon-oh’s thighs as he crouched, the fabric looking seconds away from tearing apart.
Since most of his suits were custom silk, that one was probably finished for good.
Still, his movements weren’t frantic. If not for the dress shirt pulled taut across his broad back every time his shoulders flexed, he might have looked like someone calmly doing household chores.
Gi-hyeon watched him silently for a while before speaking again.
“Take me with you next time. I miss your mother.”
“Then be her fucking son instead.”
“…Your mouth’s filthy today. Finish up and shower. I’ll dry your hair for you.”
Leaving the Alpha to his strange coping ritual, Gi-hyeon wandered back into the living room. He rolled up the Theraband, tossed the empty beer can into recycling, and wiped down the table.
If he left even a little mess behind, Yeon-oh would probably start vacuuming the apartment in the middle of the night, and Gi-hyeon had no desire to inflict that on the downstairs neighbors.
Once he finished cleaning up, he headed to the bedroom.
Not long afterward, Yeon-oh emerged from the bathroom, fresh from a shower and radiating cold air.
Again with the freezing shower.
Summer hadn’t even started yet, but the Alpha’s absurd body heat made him seem immune to cold altogether.
Gi-hyeon wisely kept that thought to himself and accepted the hairdryer Yeon-oh shoved into his hands.
A towel hung over Yeon-oh’s head, hiding most of his expression as he crouched beside the bed and pulled the extension cord from beneath the nightstand. After plugging in the dryer, he sat directly on the floor beside the mattress, tugged the towel off his hair, and waited without a word.
Suppressing another yawn, Gi-hyeon shifted behind him and switched the dryer on at low heat. The quiet mechanical hum filled the room.
As he threaded his fingers through the damp strands and slowly moved the dryer back and forth, Yeon-oh gradually relaxed. Tilting his head back completely, he let the full weight of it settle against Gi-hyeon’s knee.
“Don’t move.”
“…”
The silence made it obvious he was still angry.
Still, this was nothing compared to how he acted after seeing his father.
Anything involving his father—someone Yeon-oh barely considered human—always ended badly.
There had even been a story about Yeon-oh nearly attacking him during a holiday gathering. Apparently it had taken several guards to drag him away after he lunged at the man like he genuinely intended to kill him.
In the middle of the struggle, one of his fingers had bent backward badly enough that Beom-hee had needed to reset it himself and put it in a cast. Somehow, the torn ligaments had healed in barely over a week.
After that incident, his grandfather had practically confined him to the house for an extended period. Terrified the old man might revoke the shares he had promised Yeon-oh, Yeongwon had personally gone to the estate to plead on her son’s behalf despite never setting foot there after the divorce.
That alone said enough about the grandfather’s temper.
Compared to that, Yeon-oh’s relationship with his mother was relatively stable. Still, the deep crease between his brows suggested she had either asked him to do something he hated or forbidden something he wanted.
Possibly both.
“Did you pick another fight with your mother?”
Resting against Gi-hyeon’s knee with his eyes closed, Yeon-oh answered flatly.
“Take my side. Or have older women always been your type?”
“Your mother’s beautiful. Why wouldn’t she be?”
The second Gi-hyeon answered with the same deadpan tone, Yeon-oh immediately twisted around to glare at him.
“Have you lost your mind? Lately, every time an Omega even comes up—”
He abruptly cut himself off with a curse.
“What about Omegas?”
When Gi-hyeon tilted his head in confusion, Yeon-oh turned away again and shut his mouth completely.
Assuming he would talk eventually once he cooled down, Gi-hyeon let the matter drop. Yeon-oh’s hair was deceptively difficult to dry—soft and fine, but ridiculously thick.
By the time it was fully dry, though, it felt smooth enough that Gi-hyeon absentmindedly ran his fingers through it a few extra times. A low sound escaped Yeon-oh in response.
Feeling generous, Gi-hyeon patted the mattress.
“Lie down. I’ll massage your back.”
“You worked all day too. Forget it. I’m sleeping.”
“Face down, patient.”
After Gi-hyeon firmly pushed at his shoulder a second time, Yeon-oh let out a quiet laugh and obediently stretched out across the bed.
“You know your hands are going to cramp up doing this. Then I’ll end up massaging you instead.”
“Mm.”
Gi-hyeon ignored the vague response and pressed both hands against the broad muscles of Yeon-oh’s back. He worked slowly through the tension gathered around the shoulders before shifting lower, using firm pressure to loosen the tight fascia.
Most athletes screamed when he used this much force on them.
Yeon-oh barely reacted.
“Does this seriously not hurt?”
“It does.”
Even while Gi-hyeon dug his thumbs hard into the knotted muscle, the Alpha’s voice remained completely flat.
Assuming he could take more pressure, Gi-hyeon climbed onto his lower back for leverage without thinking much about it. It was a standard technique he used all the time at work.
Using his body weight, he pressed both thumbs firmly along either side of the spine before driving deeper near the base of it.
“—Hey. Get off.”
“Why? Does this spot hurt?”
Yeon-oh’s voice had suddenly dropped lower than usual, rough and strained in a way that felt unfamiliar.
Thinking he had finally found a sensitive spot, Gi-hyeon pressed harder.
The entire body beneath him jerked sharply.
“What are you doing? You’ll hurt your back if you move around like that.”
“I said get off.”
His voice sounded almost hoarse now.
Completely bewildered, Gi-hyeon was about to ask what the hell was wrong with him when Yeon-oh suddenly shoved himself upright.
Thrown off balance, Gi-hyeon nearly rolled off his back and onto the mattress.
“What’s wrong with you? Did I actually hurt you?”
Yeon-oh ignored the question entirely.
He got up and walked straight out of the bedroom.
A second later, the bathroom door slammed hard enough to echo through the apartment.
Gi-hyeon stared blankly after him.
What the hell is wrong with him now?
He had seemed calmer while getting his hair dried, so why was he furious again all of a sudden?
Maybe Yeongwon had said something particularly bad this time.
After sitting there for a moment, Gi-hyeon finally gave up and flopped backward onto the bed. His eyelids already felt heavy.
The clock read exactly ten.
As expected, overworked office workers were biologically programmed to shut down before midnight.
Besides, the second Yeon-oh eventually came back to bed, he would probably wake him up anyway. And since he had technically showered at the hospital already, washing his face and brushing his teeth could wait until then too.
With that extremely lazy conclusion, Gi-hyeon closed his eyes.
Surprisingly, he slept straight through the night.
When he woke at six in the morning, Jo Yeon-oh still hadn’t returned to the bedroom.
In fact, it looked like he had left the apartment altogether.
“…What the hell?”
Still half asleep, Gi-hyeon checked his phone with a frown.
No calls. No messages.
Did something urgent come up at work?
Accepting that explanation almost immediately, he pushed the matter aside.
He had more important things to worry about.
He had to get to work.