* * *
Joowon couldn’t wrap his head around the gap between the intense pleasure he’d experienced over the past five days at the hotel and the grim reality now in front of him.
His heart pounded with unease.
Why is Yoonwoo here?
He didn’t go to work?
Don’t tell me… he came into the hotel room?
No, that can’t be.
He hurriedly schooled his expression and approached Yoonwoo, doing his best to appear casual.
“Yoonwoo? Hey, come on. What’s going on? What happened to you?”
When Joowon shook his shoulders, the emptiness in Yoonwoo’s eyes seemed to regain a faint flicker of focus.
Slowly, he lifted his head and looked at Joowon.
His face was utterly pale, his lips dry and cracked.
“…Did you go somewhere?”
Yoonwoo asked quietly, his voice hoarse and broken.
Though his gaze looked vacant, a fragile tension hung underneath, as if he were bracing for Joowon’s answer.
Joowon was drenched in cold sweat on the inside, but he quickly pulled out the excuse he had prepared.
With a deliberately concerned expression, he said,
“Ah… I stayed at the hotel the whole time. I suddenly went into rut. I’m sorry—I was so out of it, I couldn’t even contact you. Did you get home safely that night? You must’ve been really worried, not hearing from me.”
He lied—blatantly, shamelessly.
Yoonwoo listened in silence, his expression unreadable.
After a pause, he asked again.
“…Who were you with?”
Joowon felt like his heart dropped straight to the floor.
Did he actually see something?
No, that’s impossible.
Feeling cornered, he raised his voice defensively.
“What are you talking about? Of course I was alone! Have you ever seen me let anyone stay with me during a rut? And you—what about you? What are you doing here like this? Don’t tell me you’ve been absent from work for five days too? The company must be in chaos if you missed the presentation. If I wasn’t there, you should’ve handled it!”
He turned it around, putting the blame on Yoonwoo instead.
His anxiety was morphing into irritation.
Yoonwoo didn’t respond to the audacity of Joowon’s accusation.
He simply lowered his head.
After a long silence, he murmured in a barely audible voice,
“…I was worried. You weren’t answering. I thought something might’ve happened… so I stayed home. I was just too worried.”
Only then did Joowon breathe a sigh of relief.
So Yoonwoo really doesn’t know anything.
He was just worried about me.
‘Thank god.’
Relieved, yet burdened with guilt, Joowon knew he couldn’t tell the truth now.
He put his gentle mask back on.
“…I see. I’m sorry, Yoonwoo. I made you worry.”
He gently pulled Yoonwoo into an embrace.
Yoonwoo’s body trembled faintly in his arms—but Joowon didn’t notice.
“Let’s get cleaned up. You look like a mess, and I could use a shower too. Let’s head to the office afterward. It’s late, but we need to try to fix this.”
Still in Joowon’s arms, Yoonwoo nodded obediently.
But his eyes remained empty.
Joowon helped him toward the bathroom.
Warm water poured over his body, but it couldn’t melt the ice frozen deep inside Yoonwoo.
Standing under the shower, he silently cried.
His tears fell freely.
Joowon’s face from moments ago—his effortless lie, the words “I was alone”—delivered without a blink.
If Joowon had just been honest…
Would he have foolishly believed him and forgiven him?
Even the thought made Yoonwoo feel disgusted with himself.
He couldn’t trust anything anymore.
The moment Joowon lied, the tower of trust Yoonwoo had built over the last eight years collapsed completely.
And then, a terrifying suspicion began to grow in his mind.
‘Maybe… this wasn’t the first time.’
Joowon had been late often in the past.
He’d gone on sudden business trips.
Sometimes he was hard to reach.
Each time, he said he was busy, or tired.
Yoonwoo had never once doubted him.
Were all those times lies, too?
Had he just been dancing in the palm of Joowon’s hand for the last eight years?
Where did the truth end and the lies begin?
Those eight years now felt like one long deception.
Yoonwoo knew it now: this relationship had to end.
Spilled water can’t be gathered again—and broken trust can’t be pieced back together.
But still…
He didn’t have the courage to let go.
The thought of leaving Joowon and being alone again terrified him.
Even in this pain, he hated how desperately he still wanted to lean on Joowon.
How pathetic he was.
After sobbing for a long time, Yoonwoo finally finished showering and stepped out.
Joowon, already dressed and cleaned up, was waiting for him outside.
The two of them left for the office in utter silence.
Though the midday sun was warm, it couldn’t thaw the invisible wall between them.
The distance felt greater than ever.
As expected, CS Design was in chaos.
With both the CEO and team lead having disappeared for five days, the scheduled presentation had never happened.
Angry calls and emails from the client poured in.
The staff looked at them with a mix of worry and resentment.
A cold, heavy tension filled the office.
Some employees openly whispered or clicked their tongues in frustration.
Joowon immediately rushed over to JX Group and bowed his head in apology, saying his sudden physical condition left him no choice.
Reluctant to lose the project or Yoonwoo’s designs, the JX representative allowed the contract to remain in place—but his eyes were filled with clear disappointment and distrust.
Joowon had avoided the worst-case scenario—but he had lost the most important client’s trust.
Yoonwoo sat at his desk and started working, but nothing stuck.
He moved his mouse and typed on the keyboard like a machine.
Even when coworkers called out to him with concern, he couldn’t hear them.
It was as if he were trapped inside a glass box, completely cut off from the world.
His soul still wandered somewhere cold and dark.
The chaotic day passed, and as evening approached, Joowon returned from JX and came over to Yoonwoo.
His face was tired, and there was a flicker of remorse in his expression.
“Yoonwoo… Want to grab dinner tonight? I… I feel bad.”
Yoonwoo looked at him for a moment.
He no longer knew if Joowon’s apology was sincere.
But the fact that Joowon kept messaging him and seemed to care throughout the day…
A foolish part of him, against all reason, still held out a sliver of hope.
Clinging to what felt like the last straw, he nodded faintly.
Joowon took him to their usual upscale restaurant in Gangnam.
Under soft lights, the other diners chatted quietly and fed each other affectionately.
To Yoonwoo, it felt like a cruel backdrop.
Dinner began in awkward silence.
Joowon forced a cheerful tone, saying things like:
“Rough day, huh?”
“At least we still have the project.”
“This steak’s pretty good.”
But Yoonwoo only responded with short, dry replies.
The mood couldn’t have been worse.
At that moment, Joowon’s phone rang.
It was an unfamiliar number.
But the second he checked the caller ID, Yoonwoo could clearly see Joowon’s entire face light up with a subtle, eager anticipation.
Even the tone of his voice, which had been weighed down by fatigue and guilt, shifted.
“Oh—no, it’s fine. Thanks for calling. Huh? Ah, right now?”
Lowering his voice slightly, Joowon glanced over at Yoonwoo, clearly trying to gauge his reaction.
But the excitement and warmth in his expression and tone were impossible to hide.
Yoonwoo felt his heart go cold.
There was no doubt—the person on the other end of that call was that omega.
“Where are you now? I’ll come to you. Yeah, see you soon.”
Joowon ended the call and hesitated for a brief moment, then turned to Yoonwoo with a face full of apology.
“Sorry, Yoonwoo. I just got an urgent call from Team Leader Park… I think I need to head out first. I’m really sorry.”
‘Team Leader Park’, really?
That was a blatant lie. Yoonwoo had clearly seen Park leaving work earlier, just across the partition.
And even if he hadn’t, what kind of emergency call comes after hours—especially one to the CEO?
Besides, the voice on the phone wasn’t Park’s usual low and composed tone.
It was soft, young, unmistakably youthful—a clear omega’s voice.
Joowon was showing him, in no uncertain terms, that a single call from that omega meant more to him than this dinner with Yoonwoo, than his guilt.
And that truth cut through Yoonwoo’s chest all over again.
Joowon stood up from his seat.
“The place is close to home, right? You’ll be fine going alone? I don’t know how long this’ll take, so just go to bed first.”
With that clumsy excuse, he rushed out of the restaurant without even waiting for Yoonwoo’s reply.
Got in his car. Drove away.
Yoonwoo sat frozen, staring blankly through the restaurant’s glass window at the car disappearing into the night.
Even the tiniest bit of hope he had before coming here was now completely shattered.
He had just been abandoned again.
All because of a phone call.
Joowon had thrown away their 8-year relationship over that one, insignificant reason: the omega had called.
Yoonwoo looked down at the food on the table—barely touched, now going cold.
Laughter and the clinking of cutlery around him pierced his ears like tinnitus.
He sat there, drowning in a despair too deep to measure.
It wasn’t until a waiter approached, asking cautiously if he was alright, that he finally came back to himself and stood up.
Walking out of the restaurant, his feet felt unbearably heavy.
The city night was dazzling with lights, but to Yoonwoo, it all looked like black and white.
He had no idea where to go.
Home?
No.
That place was no longer warm—only betrayal remained there.
And so, with an empty heart, he wandered aimlessly into the cold night of the city.
Like a child who had lost his way.
* * *
