Woosung Alpha’s Sour Grapes

Chapter 28

Hyeon-woo stayed at the hotel for one more day.

Since it was the weekend and Tae-geon was also absent, there was no need to hurry. He spent most of his time lying in bed, satisfying his hunger with room service ordered by the alpha when he was hungry.

Only when he was able to move decently did he leave the room. Although a dull pain shot through his waist with every step, even this was considerably better. When he first regained consciousness, he couldn’t move an inch.

He got into the elevator and pressed the button for the front desk floor. After checking out, as Hyeon-woo was walking out of the hotel lobby, someone blocked his path.

“We meet again”

“…Pardon?”

Looking at the man’s striking features, a memory suddenly came to mind. He had been rudely accosted like this recently. In the same place as today.

As Hyeon-woo frowned, recalling that day, the man curled up one corner of his mouth and spoke in a sarcastic tone.

“I thought you were a beta. Turns out you’re an omega, huh?”

“…”

“Looks like we have the same cycle.”

The gaze filled with thorny hostility directed at him was exactly the same as before.

“…Do you know me?”

To Hyeon-woo’s wary question, the man, seemingly uninterested in answering, stood with his arms crossed and slowly scanned Hyeon-woo from head to toe with an arrogant gaze. Hyeon-woo felt a chill at the gaze that seemed to be appraising him like grading meat.

“You look like a student, but you must be rich. Not just once, but twice.”

“…What?”

Unable to understand the nonsensical words, Hyeon-woo furrowed his brow and retorted sharply.

“Excuse me, I don’t understand what you’re talking about at all.”

“Why are you pretending not to know? People in similar situations…”

“…”

“Judging by your pheromones, you seem to have already half succeeded. Congratulations? I really thought you were a beta then. The way you looked…”

The man’s eyes as he spoke were not at all those of someone congratulating another. Rather, they were glaring at him as if they wanted to tear him apart.

What was he congratulating?

Hyeon-woo had no memory of doing anything worthy of congratulations, nor of doing anything bad enough to receive such intense hostility from someone.

Unable to grasp the situation, Hyeon-woo stood there with a naive expression. The man, after giving him an openly mocking smile, shrugged his shoulders once and headed for the elevator that had just arrived.

Hyeon-woo was dumbfounded. This was the first time in his life he had received such intense hostility. He tried to recall his short 20 years of life, wondering if he had ever done anything to make someone hold a grudge against him, but there was nothing.

Moreover, he felt uncomfortable as this complete stranger, whose connection he didn’t even know when or how it had been made, stirred up sensitive issues about betas and omegas before disappearing.

After averting his gaze from where the man had been standing, Hyeon-woo quickly left the hotel.

And the next day, Hyeon-woo met that man again at a cafe.

[I found a locked phone. I’m contacting this number because it was listed as the emergency contact.]

Hastily throwing on some clothes, he hurried to the agreed meeting place. It seemed Tae-geon must have dropped it. Whenever Tae-geon got a new phone, he would personally register Hyeon-woo’s number as the emergency contact.

He hurried his steps towards the city center. As he turned onto the downhill road, the sophisticated cityscape of the coastal downtown area came into view at once, with the blue horizon of the East Sea beyond.

[Andante]

The sign of the cafe, the meeting place, caught his eye in the distance. It was a place he and Tae-geon often visited on weekends because of the good coffee.

Stopping in front of the crosswalk, Hyeon-woo was lost in thought for a moment.

Why had Tae-geon, who was supposed to be in Seoul, lost his phone around here?

How did he send the message saying he was at home?

There were many things that didn’t add up.

Ding-.

As he opened the door and entered, a clear bell sound spread faintly above his head.

Hyeon-woo’s eyes quickly scanned the people filling the cafe. Soon, he spotted a man sitting alone wearing an oatmeal-colored trench coat. He was able to find him easily as he matched the description given in the message.

There he is.

“Hello. I came after receiving your message.”

The man who turned to look at Hyeon-woo’s cheerful greeting had his expectant expression crumple instantly. Hyeon-woo’s expression wasn’t much different.

It was that person. The rude and strange person he had encountered at the hotel yesterday.

The man, whose eyes had widened to their limit as if greatly surprised to see Hyeon-woo, asked, unable to hide his bewilderment.

“…What is this?”

“What do you mean? You texted me, didn’t you?”

Hyeon-woo showed him the messages they had exchanged that morning. The man’s eyes trembled finely as he looked at the screen of Hyeon-woo’s phone.

“You said you found a phone. Please give it to me.”

The man retorted sharply to those words.

“…What’s your relationship with the phone’s owner?”

“It’s my friend’s, so you can give it to me. I’ll make sure to deliver it properly.”

“…Are you two dating?”

Hyeon-woo’s brow furrowed sharply.

He really was a strange person. As the man who had been emitting inexplicable hostility towards him every time they met once again spouted nonsense with a rude attitude, Hyeon-woo felt there was no need to maintain courtesy any longer.

“That’s none of your business. Just give me the phone.”

“Why is it none of my business? I had sex with the owner of that phone.”

“…What?”

Hyeon-woo asked back with a stupid expression.

As confusion slowly spread across his face, which had been blank as if unable to understand what he had just heard, the man’s eyes shone sharply like a crow discovering a sparkling jewel.

“I’ll hand over the phone through the police station.”

Even after the man got up, grabbed the coffee that had been on the table, and left the cafe, Hyeon-woo couldn’t move a step from that spot, as if he had been turned to stone by a curse.

Se-jin took out the car key from his back pocket and pressed the button. Not far away, the headlights of a luxury foreign car lit up with a beeping sound. As he was walking towards it, he suddenly turned his head and looked back at the cafe he had just left.

Through the front glass, he could see the young omega. He looked exactly the same as before. Seeing him frozen in shock, Se-jin felt a strange sense of satisfaction.

There had never been a found phone in the first place. On that ecstatic night, he had swiped the phone from the alpha’s jacket while he was in the shower. Because it was locked, there was nothing to gain except the emergency contact number. Even that was quickly taken back when the alpha realized he had left his phone behind and returned for it.

When making the contract with the condition of producing an heir, it was premised that no additional relationship would be demanded. At first, he had intended to do just that. He thought he wouldn’t have any lingering feelings once he had an heir, but that was arrogance. That was before he had seen the extreme alpha with his own eyes.

Se-jin got into the driver’s seat and immediately inserted the car key and started the engine.

He had guessed that the boastful alpha must be from some great family, but he hadn’t known it would be this difficult to dig up even a single piece of information. All approaches to that alpha were blocked as solidly as a fortress.

He had begged his father to meet him again, but was flatly refused. In the end, he had no choice but to act on his own, but it was difficult to move with the wedding so close.

After that night when the heir was conceived, all other encounters felt trivial and unsatisfying. The anxiety that he might never again experience the ecstasy provided by that overwhelming pheromone drove Se-jin crazy.

Whenever he had the chance, he drove all the way to this distant place. Then he would wander around the hotel where he had spent the night with the alpha. He was certain that being used as a breeding horse, the alpha would appear here again someday.

The situation of their reunion might not be very pleasant, but if he could meet that alpha again even like this, he would have no other wishes.

And sure enough. He finally caught that alpha. He encountered a beta covered in the alpha’s pheromones at that hotel. It was only at their second meeting that he realized it wasn’t a beta but an omega…

An omega far inferior to himself. So weak it was questionable to even call it recessive.

And yet…

When they met again at the hotel yesterday, he noticed that something about that omega had changed. Something indescribable kept catching his attention, emitting a presence completely different from before. And all while being thickly covered in layers of the alpha’s pheromones, stained with intense obsession and lust.

Se-jin’s hands on the steering wheel trembled. He felt his body hair standing on end like thorns with jealousy. Recalling the alpha who had shown no desire or emotion in their relationship, Se-jin nervously stepped on the accelerator.

“…Friends, he says.”

The car, spewing rough exhaust, quickly left the parking lot.

Hyeon-woo returned home and was curled up on the sofa, hugging his knees. A noisy variety show was playing loudly on the TV, but he couldn’t hear anything.

Crunch, crunch.

Blood finally started to form at the tip of his thumbnail that he had been gnawing with his front teeth. Yet he felt no pain. His head was aching several times worse from the nonsense the omega had spouted.

‘Why is it none of my business? I had sex with the owner of that phone.’

Sex.

He was clearly an omega. His smooth, peachy skin and striking features were handsome enough to make one turn and look twice.

Such an omega said he had sex with Tae-geon.

Just imagining that person and Tae-geon standing side by side made his heart feel like it would burn to ashes. A terrible pain he had never experienced before pressed down on his chest.

“Ha.”

A deflated laugh escaped through Hyeon-woo’s twisted lips.

That can’t be.

Tae-geon having sex with an omega?

It was the most ridiculous nonsense he had ever heard in his life.

Nevertheless, that nonsense floated persistently in his mind like a buoy on waves, messily stirring up Hyeon-woo’s thoughts.

Tae-geon returned late on Sunday night. Hearing the front door open, Hyeon-woo, who had been lying in bed, hurriedly went down to greet Tae-geon and asked,

“Your phone?”

“…What?”

When Tae-geon asked back at the sudden question, Hyeon-woo cleared his throat and calmly spoke again.

“You said you lost your phone. Did you find it?”

“What are you talking about? I never lost it.”

“Do you have it now? Let me see.”

To Hyeon-woo, who was suddenly asking about the whereabouts of his phone, Tae-geon handed over the phone he had in his pocket. Hyeon-woo took it and examined every corner. The model, carrier, and even the scratch on the bottom right corner all matched Tae-geon’s phone.

It was a scratch that had occurred a few days ago when Hyeon-woo accidentally knocked Tae-geon’s phone off the desk while taking off his outer clothes in the lecture room. Feeling sorry, he had offered to replace it with a new one, but Tae-geon had insisted on keeping it, saying it was bothersome.

He felt deflated. He felt pathetic for having been momentarily shaken by the claim that someone had slept with Tae-geon.

Come to think of it, it had happened sometimes during their school days too. Omegas who boasted about sleeping with Tae-geon. Because of Tae-geon, who didn’t even give them any attention, those omegas looked more miserable and pitiful in Hyeon-woo’s eyes.

The situation was no different from then, but he had been completely taken in. The emergency contact could have been found out even if the phone had been left unattended for a short while.

He let out a hollow laugh, feeling stupid for having been fooled.

Hyeon-woo recalled the omega he met at the cafe. Even such a seemingly perfect omega desperately struggling to have Tae-geon looked ugly and unsightly. It was the typical omega appearance that Tae-geon hated. And over that, his own image slowly began to overlap. Hyeon-woo’s eyes deepened like an abyss.

…Would I be the same?

If he had been a proper omega, if he could fully feel Tae-geon’s pheromones, would he have liked Tae-geon even more than now? Would he too have become such a pathetic omega, obsessed with Tae-geon regardless of right and wrong, like that person?

Lost in thought, Hyeon-woo’s mind suddenly flashed to the image of himself calling out Tae-geon’s name during his night with the alpha.

He was the same. He wasn’t in a position to confidently argue that he was any different from those omegas now.

“Did something happen?”

Tae-geon asked, examining Hyeon-woo’s somewhat dazed face. Hyeon-woo shook his head slightly and replied in a nonchalant voice.

“No, nothing.”

“…”

“Nothing at all.”

Nothing happened.

I don’t want anything. Just like this.

He just wanted to stay in the closest place to Tae-geon, as he had done until now.

The one and only person who would stay by Tae-geon’s side until the end. Without a doubt, it would be me. It will definitely be me. Hyeon-woo decided to be content with that.

He even thought it was fortunate that Tae-geon hated omegas and sex. If Tae-geon hadn’t had such trauma, he would have been an alpha too high to dare approach, especially for a defective product like himself.

If he couldn’t have him, it was better that no one else, including himself, could have him.

He felt disgusted with his own selfishness that had reached such a conclusion. The deeper his feelings for Tae-geon grew, the more painful it became to face the ugly and repulsive aspects of himself that he hadn’t known before.

He had never imagined that loving someone could be this painful and terrible.

The love he had seen in books and movies was beautiful and sweet, but his love seemed to be rotting black, crawling with maggots, and emitting a foul stench.

“Dinner? Did you eat?”

“No.”

Tae-geon frowned at that.

“What have you been doing without eating until now.”

“I was waiting for you. You should have come earlier. I’ll starve to death without you.”

“Stop joking around.”

Though he was chiding him verbally, Tae-geon’s lips seemed to soften somewhat as he held out a paper bag. Hyeon-woo took it and looked inside. In an elegant box were small, golden-brown canelés. As Hyeon-woo tried to unwrap it, Tae-geon stopped him.

“Go wash up, I’ll prepare dinner. You can have these later.”

“Okay.”

Hyeon-woo’s gaze was hot as it followed Tae-geon’s back disappearing into the room. As he hugged the paper bag in his arms, the sweet smell of butter tickled his nose.

Just like this.

If only this could last forever, Hyeon-woo felt he could even sell his soul to the devil, as long as he didn’t become greedy for more.