“Smells like shampoo.”
Yeon-oh buried his face against the back of Gi-hyeon’s neck as he spoke, his nose brushing the damp hair near his nape.
“I washed it with soap,” Gi-hyeon replied flatly. “Stop bothering me and walk properly.”
They had already left the hospital and were heading toward Gi-hyeon’s apartment on foot.
The sight alone was absurd. A third-generation chaebol walking home like an ordinary office worker. Gi-hyeon had no idea where Yeon-oh had abandoned his car before climbing into Beom-hee’s vehicle earlier. Thinking about Manager Yoo — who had probably been discarded alongside the car without warning — made him feel a brief flash of sympathy.
Gi-hyeon’s apartment was close enough to the hospital that walking was convenient.
Yeon-oh’s home, on the other hand, was nowhere near the area. He lived in one of those ultra-exclusive villas overlooking the Han River, where privacy was treated like a military secret. Which only made it more ridiculous that every time he visited the hospital, he insisted on “going home together,” only for the destination to inevitably become Gi-hyeon’s apartment instead of his own.
Not that Gi-hyeon disliked having him there.
The problem was what happened afterward.
Because unless he was completely exhausted, Gi-hyeon rarely slept properly when Yeon-oh stayed over. Simply knowing the other man was lying beside him kept him painfully awake.
Whenever Yeon-oh’s scent lingered in the sheets, sleep became almost impossible.
As a Beta, Gi-hyeon could not perceive pheromones themselves. But Yeon-oh still carried a distinct scent — clean soap, faint aftershave, expensive cologne softened by body heat. The combination always affected him more than he wanted to admit.
At night, in the dark, that presence became overwhelming.
And when Yeon-oh unconsciously pulled him closer in his sleep, wrapping an arm around him without thought, Gi-hyeon sometimes felt as though something invisible was pressing down over his skin.
That alone was enough to ruin him.
There were nights when his stomach tightened painfully and his thighs tensed against the mattress while Yeon-oh slept beside him completely unaware.
Which was why, every now and then, Gi-hyeon reached his limit.
“Go sleep at your own house tonight,” he said.
Yeon-oh looked genuinely startled.
They were already standing in front of the elevator to Gi-hyeon’s building, yet he stared at him as though he had suddenly started speaking nonsense.
“So cold,” Yeon-oh muttered with a scoff. “This poor bastard can’t sleep without his owner, you know.”
The elevator doors slid open.
Yeon-oh stepped inside first and held the door for him like Gi-hyeon’s earlier comment had meant absolutely nothing.
Gi-hyeon sighed quietly as he followed him in.
“Don’t compare yourself to a dog. Real dogs would be offended.”
Truthfully, he was exhausted enough to desperately want a full night alone.
But turning Yeon-oh away was difficult.
Because unlike Gi-hyeon, who merely lost sleep due to circumstances, Yeon-oh genuinely suffered from severe insomnia.
Gi-hyeon could sleep perfectly fine under normal conditions. During lunch breaks at the hospital, he could finish eating in minutes, lie down on a massage table, and fall asleep immediately. Even during military service, he had always been good at grabbing sleep whenever he had the chance.
Yeon-oh was different.
For him, sleeping itself seemed exhausting.
And for reasons neither of them understood, the only place he ever slept properly was beside So Gi-hyeon.
They had tried everything. Even giving him Gi-hyeon’s blankets and pillows to take home had changed nothing.
Eventually, Gi-hyeon simply gave up and let him stay over.
At first, he thought he could tolerate it most days and occasionally send him home whenever he needed space.
But Jo Yeon-oh shamelessly pushed for all seven days of the week.
The worst part was that Yeon-oh had absolutely no idea what he was putting Gi-hyeon through.
Despite how cruelly he had rejected the confession at first, the foundation of Yeon-oh’s entire existence was still built around So Gi-hyeon. If he ever learned how badly Gi-hyeon struggled physically around him, he would probably try to “fix” the situation somehow.
And that would only make things worse.
Gi-hyeon would rather stay awake all night staring at the ceiling than watch Yeon-oh force himself into intimacy out of guilt or obligation.
Because Gi-hyeon loved him too much for that.
Their relationship had begun as friendship, deepened into something closer than family, and only afterward become romantic. Even now, friendship still formed the core of everything between them.
And in his own way, Gi-hyeon wanted to protect that.
Lack of sex would not kill him.
Losing Jo Yeon-oh might.
He could not even imagine what kind of person he would become in a world without him.
Still, it made sense that Yeon-oh never noticed any of this.
Yeon-oh himself felt no real sexual attraction toward Gi-hyeon.
If anything, Gi-hyeon often felt like the strange one for harboring those kinds of thoughts toward the person who had been his closest companion for most of his life.
Before dating him, Yeon-oh had almost exclusively been with female Omegas. From every possible angle, a male Beta like So Gi-hyeon simply did not fit the pattern of what he desired physically.
Of course, as an Alpha, Yeon-oh still experienced rut. But even that was tightly controlled.
His cycles were extremely regular, and Haeseong Hospital practically treated them like a classified national project. Specialists monitored his suppressants personally, adjusting formulas specifically for him.
Gi-hyeon had no idea how Yeon-oh handled ordinary physical urges outside of that.
But one thing was obvious.
None of those urges were directed at him.
Sometimes Gi-hyeon wondered whether Yeon-oh simply had an unusually low sex drive now. According to rumors, he had not exactly been restrained in previous relationships.
Maybe age had mellowed him out.
Or maybe he simply did not feel that kind of desire with Gi-hyeon at all.
Since Yeon-oh himself rarely experienced visible frustration, he probably assumed Gi-hyeon was the same. People naturally projected their own standards onto others.
Which was why Gi-hyeon never explained things.
Never explained how tense his body became whenever Yeon-oh held him.
Never explained how dangerous his scent felt.
Never explained how difficult it sometimes was just to sleep beside him.
I can deal with it myself anyway.
That thought only worked because Gi-hyeon’s own sex drive was relatively manageable to begin with.
And honestly, confessing his feelings in the first place had already felt selfish enough.
He refused to ask for more.
Still, frustration remained frustration.
Tonight, he had fully intended to take care of things alone before sleeping. Watching Yeon-oh casually head toward his apartment again, Gi-hyeon let out another quiet sigh.
At this point, forcing him to go home was clearly impossible.
“…Seriously, you’re unbelievable,” he muttered. “You pay rent for that giant place and barely sleep there.”
“Why would I care?” Yeon-oh replied easily. “It’s not like I bought it with my own money.”
“Exactly my point. So why abandon your fancy mansion just to mooch off a regular person’s apartment?”
“You talk too much, Dr. So.”
The elevator doors opened onto Gi-hyeon’s floor.
Yeon-oh walked out first and immediately entered the passcode to the apartment door.
Back when Gi-hyeon moved in, he had chosen the numbers at random because he could not be bothered thinking about it properly. At some point, Yeon-oh memorized it faster than he had.
Sometimes Gi-hyeon thought it was ridiculous that even the passcode to his own apartment no longer felt entirely his.
By the time he was thinking that, Yeon-oh had already stepped inside like he owned the place.
“I can’t even tell who actually lives here anymore.”
“You could come over to my place too,” Yeon-oh replied casually. “Nobody’s stopping you.”
That was true.
Yeon-oh constantly invited him over.
And Gi-hyeon rejected it every single time.
Suppressing himself here was already difficult enough. Spending the night surrounded by Yeon-oh’s scent in his actual home sounded genuinely dangerous.
Sometimes Gi-hyeon felt absurdly pathetic for guarding his own self-control this carefully when Yeon-oh had no intention of touching him in the first place.
“I’m washing my hands,” Yeon-oh called while removing his jacket. “Think about what you want for dinner.”
He hung the suit carefully inside the expensive clothing care system he had personally bought for the apartment before disappearing toward the bathroom.
Gi-hyeon washed his own hands at the kitchen sink.
“I’m not really hungry,” he said quietly.
“Bullshit.”
Yeon-oh’s voice echoed back immediately from the bathroom.
The complete certainty in that response — as though Gi-hyeon not wanting food was the most unbelievable statement imaginable — made him smile faintly.
Unfortunately, it was true.
Lately, his appetite had been terrible. His body felt sluggish all the time, and he had been losing weight without meaning to.
Which was bad.
With the state of his ankle, he needed to maintain muscle mass, not lose it. But after work, he was usually too exhausted to properly exercise or eat.
Still, Yeon-oh was stubborn enough that he would inevitably force food into him somehow.
Gi-hyeon exhaled softly.
Inside the aquarium, the goldfish continued swimming in slow circles beneath the pale light.
Watching them absentmindedly, a thought surfaced quietly in the back of his mind.
Am I tired?
The question lingered there for a long moment.
Tired from what?
From where?
What exactly was exhausting him this much?
Gi-hyeon stared silently at the fish for a while longer before closing his eyes briefly and letting the thought sink back into silence.