Correlation Between Alpha and Beta chapter 50

* * *

Juwon instinctively felt a sense of wariness towards that beautiful yet somehow scheming face and asked,

“Yes, what is it?”

“You don’t have to be so formal. We’re going to be family soon.”

Jiwoon’s brother, Jehoon, looked Juwon up and down without letting the smile drop from his face.

That gaze was somehow unpleasant.

“I have something I’m curious about. Are you really from Korea University?”

“Yes, I am.”

Juwon wondered why he was suddenly asking about his university.

“Then, did you perhaps… give a lecture at your alma mater about five years ago?”

Juwon paused to search his memory.

After graduation, he had given several special lectures on starting a business at the request of the university’s business school.

“Ah… yes. I think I did around that time… Why do you ask?”

“Ah, I see…”

Jehoon muttered meaningfully to himself, as if answering a riddle.

His eyes seemed to flash for a moment.

Juwon couldn’t guess what he was referring to and asked,

“What do you mean by ‘I see’? What are you talking about…”

“It’s nothing. I just asked out of curiosity.”

He quickly put on his smarmy smile again and changed the subject.

“More importantly, please take good care of our family’s troublemaker in the future. Our family is very grateful that CEO Cha is taking him away.”

He casually referred to Jiwoon as a ‘troublemaker.’

Juwon was instantly offended by his remark.

“Why is Mr. Jiwoon a troublemaker? He is such a pure and kind person.”

The words defending Jiwoon burst out of him without his realizing it.

Although this relationship might be precarious and unstable, he couldn’t stand his own future fiancé being belittled in such a way by someone else, especially a family member.

Jehoon’s eyes widened at his touchy reaction, and then he burst into loud laughter.

“Puhaha! Oh, I apologize. I was being rude.”

He stopped laughing and even pretended to wipe away tears.

“Yes, yes, of course. He is pure… and very kind. I am truly delighted as his older brother that you cherish my inadequate younger sibling so much.”

His words sounded like something a caring older brother would say, but Juwon strangely felt like he was being mocked.

Jehoon took out a business card from his pocket and handed it to Juwon.

The card read [Han Jehoon, Director, H Pharmaceuticals].

“If anything happens in the future, please contact me through this number. We wouldn’t want CEO Cha to run into trouble because of our youngest.”

He left those cryptic words, gave a slight bow, and then calmly disappeared.

Juwon stood there for a long time, looking alternately at his retreating figure and the business card in his hand.

He was very upset.

All of Jehoon’s words were puzzling, and his attitude was utterly unpleasant.

But at the same time, Juwon felt uneasy.

The feeling that he knew something, and his final remark that something might happen in the future.

He felt a sense of foreboding, as if predicting a disaster to come.

He rested his hand on the cold sink and glared at his reflection in the mirror.

A face stained with fatigue and anxiety.

He told himself that he had to tolerate this kind of unpleasantness because they were his future ‘in-laws.’

He forcibly put on his expressionless mask again.

And, suppressing the unpleasantness and anxiety, he returned to the family meeting.

*

The meeting continued after that, punctuated by the awkward conversation between the two families.

The discussion mostly revolved around the engagement date and venue, which was almost a unilateral announcement from Jiwoon’s side.

“Getting engaged before marriage is quite a fuss in this day and age, but since the two of them want it, we have no choice. Still, since everything is already decided, why drag out the time?”

Jiwoon’s father spoke, clearly taking the lead.

“As it happens, a hotel I know well has a good hall available, and I found out that the weekend exactly three weeks from now is open. Let’s go with that date. If I talk to them, they will give us a prime time slot. We will take care of all the preparations, so CEO Cha and the in-laws only need to show up.”

Three weeks from now.

It was too fast a schedule.

But Jiwoon and his family pushed forward, acting as if everything had already been decided.

Juwon’s parents could only nod awkwardly, and their reaction made Juwon feel even more uneasy.

He was being completely swept away by their pace.

Juwon felt a hitch in his breath over the engagement date and scale, which were determined without any input from him.

But as long as the investment was held as a hostage, there was nothing he could do.

He could only resign himself to the situation.

The stiff and uncomfortable time flowed on, and the family meeting finally ended.

After loosening the tie that felt like it was strangling his neck, Juwon drove his exhausted parents back home.

In the car, his mother smiled brightly, saying things like, ‘Still, it’s a relief that the future daughter-in-law is from a good family,’ and ‘The child is very sweet and pretty. He suits you well.’

But Juwon answered distractedly.

Faintly, a scene from the future he had once envisioned with Yoonwoo came to mind.

Not a fancy hotel, but a small, warm gathering in the small garden of the university campus where they first met, or a small restaurant near the seaside on a sunny day, where they invited only the people they wanted, rather than his parents who had hurt Yoonwoo.

Yoonwoo’s face, smiling shyly while holding his hand, and his own look, gazing at Yoonwoo with affection.

That was the genuinely happy future he had believed would surely come.

But the reality… was merely outwardly adorned with splendor, yet devoid of any excitement or joy, filled only with a heavy, burdensome sense of duty.

This was the path he had chosen himself, but Juwon hadn’t realized its end would be so desolate.

When Juwon returned to the apartment he shared with Jiwoon, Jiwoon had already arrived.

He was extremely happy that the family meeting had ended successfully and ran to Juwon, hugging him.

“Hyung! We’re really getting engaged now! I’m so happy! In three weeks, we’ll be real family! Now I really feel like you’re becoming completely my Alpha! I won’t let anyone take you away!”

He rubbed his face into Juwon’s chest, acting cute, and lavishly released his sweet Omega pheromones, which were heated by excitement.

Juwon felt his body, as an Alpha, react intensely to the small body clinging to him and the pheromone scent that strongly stimulated his nose.

Jiwoon noticed Juwon’s reaction and began to entice him even more overtly.

“Hyung, on that note, shall we make another family member today?”

His hand slipped under Juwon’s shirt and groped his hot bare skin.

But something was wrong.

His mind was hazy, and his body was clearly heating up, but wherever Jiwoon’s touch landed, it felt unpleasant, like goosebumps, and even his pheromone scent felt repulsive.

He couldn’t bring himself to reach out to him.

In that very instant, Yoonwoo’s cold, resolute eyes from a few days ago at the officetel, the sight of him pushing Juwon away with contempt, flashed through Juwon’s mind like lightning.

It was a memory that gripped his consciousness more strongly than any pheromone.

In this pheromone fog, only the look in Yoonwoo’s eyes in that memory was vividly clear.

‘This is wrong. Not anymore.’

He couldn’t embrace another Omega, this false comfort, while thinking of Yoonwoo.

He realized that doing so would only destroy himself.

Juwon pushed Jiwoon’s shoulder, who was clinging to him, much more resolutely than before.

His touch contained explicit rejection.

“Jiwoon-ah, I’m sorry, but… I just thought of something I need to urgently check at the company. I think I need to go back for a bit.”

His voice was calm but somehow hurried.

“……!”

Jiwoon was clearly surprised by Juwon’s unambiguous rejection and snapped his head up.

His eyes shook wildly in disbelief.

He narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing Juwon’s face as if checking for something.

The sweet, seductive smile vanished from his face, replaced by a mixture of cold anger, bewilderment, and anxiety.

It was difficult for him to accept that his pheromones, his seduction, had been outright rejected at such a crucial moment.

A sinister thought of where Juwon might be going crossed his mind.

Juwon felt a chill down his spine at Jiwoon’s cold expression, which he had never seen before.

“…Now? This late at night? To the company?”

His voice was sharply trembling.

“Yeah, sorry. It’s important. I’ll be back soon.”

Juwon quickly avoided Jiwoon’s eyes and grabbed the jacket he had taken off, putting it on.

He fled from the suffocating space, heading out the front door without looking back.

‘Slam!’

The door closed, and all expression completely drained from Jiwoon’s face, his eyes freezing over coldly.

He clenched his trembling fists and glared at the firmly shut front door.

* * *