* * *
Yoonwoo didn’t want to disturb Joowon, who might be asleep or hyper-focused in practice.
But unless he checked on him himself, he knew this anxiety wouldn’t go away.
After a moment of hesitation, he went to the front desk on the first floor and asked politely,
“Excuse me, I believe CEO Cha Joowon is staying in room 1508… I haven’t been able to reach him. Would it be alright if I go up and check on him? My name is Seo Yoonwoo.”
The staff looked at Yoonwoo for a moment, and then as if recognizing him, offered a warm and familiar smile while handing him a key card.
“Yes, Mr. Seo Yoonwoo. It’s been confirmed. Please go ahead.”
Joowon had been a long-time guest of this hotel, and since Yoonwoo had often joined him at the restaurant, café, or even occasionally in the rooms, it was only natural that the staff remembered him.
Yoonwoo accepted the cool plastic card.
Though Joowon hadn’t directly left the key for him, the staff giving it to him so naturally—knowing their relationship—gave him slight relief.
And yet, at the same time, the fact that he now had to go up himself filled him with unease.
Thanking the staff, he began walking with heavy steps.
As he made his way to the elevator, a small bakery tucked into one side of the lobby caught his eye.
Inside the glass display were a variety of delicious-looking desserts, but Yoonwoo’s gaze settled on just one: a rich dark chocolate cake—Joowon’s favorite comfort treat whenever he was stressed.
Yoonwoo bought a single slice, thinking, ‘If he sees this, maybe he’ll smile for just a moment. And if I can see that smile, maybe I’ll feel at ease too.’
With that small hope, he stepped into the elevator.
The short ride to the 15th floor felt unusually long.
The silence inside the enclosed space only amplified his anxiety.
Ding.
The doors opened to a quiet hallway lined with thick carpet that muffled his footsteps.
The cream-colored wallpaper and soft golden ambient lighting made the corridor feel like a completely different world—far removed from the one he usually lived in.
A faint scent of air freshener lingered.
Not a single sound could be heard, and his own heartbeat echoed loudly in his ears.
He suddenly felt awkward about the plain sneakers he had thrown on without thinking—they didn’t match this luxurious setting at all.
Swallowing dryly, he found himself walking more carefully.
Finally, he stood before room 1508.
‘It’ll be fine. Don’t overthink it. He’s probably just asleep or focused on rehearsal.’
He reassured himself again and again, taking a deep breath.
Then he pulled the key card from his pocket and carefully held it to the door lock.
Beep.
With a soft sound, the lock disengaged.
He slowly turned the doorknob and cracked the door open. Just as he was about to call Joowon’s name—
A faint, irregular sound escaped through the narrow opening.
At first, he thought it might just be the low hum of the air conditioner.
Or maybe water running in the bathroom.
But then he realized… there was something else.
Another sound, mixed in.
Someone… moaning?
No—it was more than that.
Breathless, wet gasps that came in ragged, stuttering bursts.
The sound rose and fell unpredictably, growing louder, then softer again.
A cold sweat broke out along Yoonwoo’s spine.
His heart began to pound wildly with dread.
“…Hyung?”
His voice came out small, almost involuntarily, laced with concern.
Was Joowon sick?
Did he need medicine?
Should he just go in?
Torn, he tried listening more closely.
That’s when it hit him.
Those weren’t the sounds of pain or exhaustion.
No—they were thick, sultry, and unmistakably heated.
And then—
“…Hnngh!”
Through the crack in the door came a sharp, crystal-clear sound, far more vivid than anything before.
High-pitched, thin, and laced with shuddering breaths, it was… unmistakably the lewd cry of an omega caught in the throes of pleasure.
Yoonwoo froze as if struck across the head.
His breath caught in his throat.
A wave of nausea—hot, bitter, and suffocating—swept through his body.
‘No. No, it can’t be.’
He shook his head violently.
‘I misheard. It’s something else. It has to be.’
Maybe it was the TV?
Or a sound leaking in from the next room?
Yes, that must be it.
It had to be.
He clung desperately to those other possibilities.
‘Just because I got the key card doesn’t mean this is Joowon’s room. The front desk might have made a mistake. This might not be his room at all.’
Eight years of trust couldn’t just crumble like this.
It shouldn’t.
It couldn’t.
Before his desperate self-deception and denial of reality could even come to an end, another louder, clearer sound exploded from within the room.
This time, there was no room for doubt.
“Haahng…! Joowon…! Ahh…! More…! Right there… that feels good…!”
‘Joowon.’
The moment that name spilled from the mouth of an unfamiliar omega, a sharp ringing screamed in Yoonwoo’s ears, like a siren.
As if every sound in the world had been swallowed up in that instant by a high-pitched frequency.
His mind blared warnings—there was no way that name, that situation, could possibly be real.
Before the ringing even stopped, the final barrier of Yoonwoo’s sanity shattered completely.
All sound from the world was shut out.
Only the obscene moans of the omega and that name, Joowon, pierced into his ears, his mind, his heart—ripping through him without mercy.
His vision blurred as dizziness swept over him.
The box of chocolate cake he had been holding slipped helplessly from his fingers and hit the floor with a dull thud.
The sound rang unnaturally loud in the empty hallway, but he barely registered it.
His whole body went cold.
The chill started from his fingertips and crept up his limbs, burrowing into his chest as though to freeze his heart.
Eight years.
The time they had built together.
His gentle voice, the warm gaze that always looked only at him, the promise: “You’re the only one.”
That voice had always sounded more sincere than anything in the world.
All those times they laughed, fought, comforted each other with pats on the back, and dreamed of a modest but happy future—all of it now felt like faded lies.
Was it all a lie?
Was the person he trusted and loved most really behind that door right now, tangled up with another omega?
‘No… Something must be wrong… Could he be being blackmailed? Or maybe… maybe there’s some awful circumstance I don’t know about…?’
It was the last sliver of hope—no, a desperate grasp to reject reality.
Even in this hellish moment, the foolish what if clung to his ankles.
Maybe, just maybe, Joowon didn’t have a choice.
Maybe his alpha instincts… maybe the suppressants didn’t work…
Yes, it had to be that.
But even that desperate rationalization was cruelly mocked by another sound that struck Yoonwoo’s ears from beyond the door.
Between the omega’s moans came low, rough, gasping breaths—ones he knew all too well.
“Huff… khh… haa…!”
It was unmistakably Joowon’s voice.
Not sounds of pain or resistance.
They were guttural, primal breaths, saturated with pleasure and desire—alpha lust in its rawest form.
Twisted together with the omega’s cries, the sound echoed down the hallway, blatant and obscene, almost as if to mock Yoonwoo’s very existence.
In that moment, even the last threads of Yoonwoo’s trust snapped.
Blackmail?
Circumstances?
Suppressants?
No. Even if those were true, that voice was unmistakably one of indulgence.
Joowon was in there, willingly, holding another omega in his arms.
The tenderness and trust he had shown Yoonwoo over eight years were nowhere to be found—he was just another alpha, surrendering to instinct.
The words “I’ll gladly take suppressants for you”—were they a lie all along?
He had said, over and over, that they were special, that they understood each other beyond pheromones.
But in the end, was he—were they—just nothing to him?
It felt like all eight years had just been erased.
A chill wrapped around Yoonwoo’s body, as if even his heart was being frozen solid.
He could no longer think.
Not betrayal, not despair, not even anger registered.
It was as if every emotional circuit inside him had burned out.
As if all sensation had gone numb, and the world was now moving in slow, unclear motion.
Only one thing remained—the hollow, consuming void that everything had ended.
‘Is this really happening? Am I trapped in a nightmare?’
He stood frozen in front of Room 1508’s slightly open door, unable even to remember how to breathe.
From the narrow crack, those humiliating sounds continued to leak out, like they were mocking his eight years.
He stepped back without realizing it.
A squelching sound and a sharp crunch under his foot—he had stepped on the box of chocolate cake he had dropped.
The thick chocolate cream oozed from the crushed box, clinging stickily to the sole of his sneaker.
That unpleasant sensation brought with it a harsh clarity.
This nightmare was real.
His eight years had been crushed—stomped on like garbage.
His eight years, his entire world—were breaking apart without a sound, right now, in this very moment.
* * *
