* * *
Yoonwoo stayed up the whole night, eyes wide open.
After Joowon left, he sat on the living room floor for hours, watching the candles burn down.
The wine and cake he’d prepared with such care remained untouched on the table.
The silk slip he’d worn so bravely lay crumpled on the floor.
It all stood as proof of his miserable failure.
Curled up on the couch, he spent the night waiting for Joowon to return — not knowing when, or if, he would.
Only at dawn did the sound of the front door opening echo through the apartment.
Yoonwoo forced his stiff body to rise and looked toward the entrance.
It was Joowon.
He stepped inside, looking slightly disheveled.
That sweet, unfamiliar scent he’d started carrying recently faintly wafted from his body.
Joowon paused for a moment when he saw Yoonwoo curled up on the couch, staring at him with empty eyes.
A fleeting look crossed his face — not quite guilt, not exactly regret.
Rather, it was something cold.
Like a man who had already made up his mind.
Instead of heading to the bedroom, Joowon walked over to the sofa where Yoonwoo sat.
Looking down at him, he spoke in a calm, almost emotionless voice:
“Yoonwoo. I think it’s time we ended this.”
Maybe he should’ve expected it.
But hearing those words directly tore Yoonwoo’s heart apart.
It felt like his chest had shattered and fallen to pieces.
“…Hyung… What do you mean…?”
His voice trembled.
His eyes quivered, unable to believe — or unwilling to.
Avoiding Yoonwoo’s gaze, Joowon continued.
There was no emotion in his tone.
Not even hesitation.
“After last night… I just think we’re only hurting each other now. This is for the best.”
He said it like he was talking about someone else.
Like it was a conclusion he’d come to long ago.
“No… No, hyung! Please… why? Why are you doing this?”
Without realizing it, Yoonwoo slid off the couch and grabbed onto the hem of his pants.
He didn’t even feel the cold floor against his knees.
All that remained was a desperate need to hold onto him.
“What did I do wrong? Please tell me, I’ll fix it… Was it the clothes I wore yesterday? I didn’t know you’d hate them… I won’t do it again… Okay? I’ll do anything… Please… Don’t throw me away…”
His voice was completely broken with tears and pleading.
His face was a mess of tears and snot—utterly wretched.
But Yoonwoo’s pitiful appearance only served to snap the last thread of Joowon’s patience.
Looking down at Yoonwoo clinging to him, all the anger and frustration he had been suppressing erupted.
The calmness vanished from his face, replaced by a mix of cold contempt and disgust.
“Just stop it already, Seo Yoonwoo!”
Joowon shouted in a low, ice-cold voice.
He grabbed Yoonwoo by the shoulders and roughly pushed him away.
Collapsing back onto the floor, Yoonwoo looked up at him with shocked eyes.
“What did you do wrong? Nothing! You didn’t do anything wrong! It’s just… I’m tired! These eight years with you—I’m being honest—it was suffocating and exhausting!”
Like a dam bursting, he started unloading everything he had kept inside.
“I want to have a real relationship now! Like other alphas—with an omega. I want to feel pheromones, have a stable bond… I want that too! I’m so sick of people whispering behind my back whenever I say I’m dating a beta. I can’t stand having to take suppressants every rut anymore. I want to connect with someone through pheromones, like lovers should! But you can’t. And you’ll never understand how I feel, this pain I’ve been living with!”
His voice grew louder and more agitated with every word.
Watching him, Yoonwoo burst out, sobbing.
“Hyung, it’s been eight years… Everything we’ve been through together… Eight years—you can’t just throw it away like this…! Please, just think about it one more time… We were happy even without those pheromones. Please…”
He crawled toward Joowon, clinging to his leg in desperation.
Even the last shred of his pride was crumbling away.
But Joowon’s eyes remained icy, unmoved by Yoonwoo’s pleas.
“Hah… You think we were happy?”
He looked down at Yoonwoo with eyes full of scorn, and then said the most brutal thing he could.
“I slept with an omega during my last rut.”
Yoonwoo’s eyes trembled. He looked like he’d forgotten how to breathe.
“And you know what? It was better than I ever imagined. The kind of satisfaction your beta body could never give me—it was on a whole different level.”
He let out a bitter laugh.
“You want the truth? That rut with the omega—whose name I didn’t even know—was a thousand times more intense and satisfying than any night I ever spent with you. A thousand times better!”
Then, looking at Yoonwoo who sat in shock on the floor, Joowon drove the final dagger in.
“When I saw you in that ridiculous outfit last night… I felt nothing. Not even a flicker of excitement—just awkwardness and disgust. But do you know something? That omega? With just one gesture, they can send me into heat. Just a whiff of their pheromones and I lose control—I want to bury my face in their neck and go wild. Do you get it now? We were never meant to be.”
Every word he spoke was like a shard of glass piercing into Yoonwoo’s soul.
He gasped for breath, but his lungs filled only with cold despair.
He couldn’t breathe properly anymore.
It felt like he was falling endlessly from the edge of a cliff.
Like his soul was shattering into pieces—and the sound of it was deafening in his ears.
After unleashing everything, Joowon actually felt relieved.
He looked down coldly at the crumpled figure on the floor and let out a long, weary sigh—as if he were sick of the very sight of him.
“Hah… Yoonwoo. Let’s not do this. Like you said, we’ve been together for eight years. We’ll still see each other at work, so let’s end it cleanly. Please.”
His words weren’t a plea, but an impatient push to get this over with. Joowon just wanted to end this tiresome relationship and start something new.
He didn’t spare Yoonwoo another glance.
As if everything had been settled, he turned and walked toward the door.
His head seemed full of something—or someone—else. L
ikely that omega.
That realization ripped Yoonwoo’s chest open all over again.
“Keep the apartment. We’ve been together eight years—I’ll count it as your settlement.”
Joowon wanted a fresh start.
Even this apartment felt like a shackle to him, so he was leaving it behind with Yoonwoo like throwing off excess baggage.
“……”
Settlement.
That single careless word shattered what little pride Yoonwoo had left.
Was eight years of love reduced to a single apartment?
To Joowon, their love—their time together—was worth nothing more than this cold space.
His cold, transactional attitude hurt more than all the cruel words he had thrown earlier, extinguishing the last flicker of hope in Yoonwoo’s chest.
Tears welled up in Yoonwoo’s eyes and spilled uncontrollably down his cheeks, hitting the cold floor with soft, muted drops.
Like a broken faucet that wouldn’t stop leaking, his tears wouldn’t stop.
His vision blurred, but he couldn’t even think to wipe them away.
No… Don’t go… Please…
Seeing Joowon heading for the door, Yoonwoo staggered to his feet, legs trembling.
He reached out, trying to grab Joowon’s arm.
A reflex.
A last-ditch attempt.
But Joowon, without even turning around, swatted his hand away like it was an annoyance.
Smack.
A dry, harsh sound rang out as pain shot through Yoonwoo’s wrist.
The same wrist he had injured when Joowon had pushed him at the hotel.
The bruise was already dark and deep, and now another blow struck the same spot.
A gasp escaped his lips before he could stop it.
Instinctively, he clutched his wrist in pain—but Joowon ignored it completely and opened the door.
Bang.
The sound of the door slamming echoed through the apartment.
It was over.
Completely.
Yoonwoo stood there, frozen in front of the closed door.
The crushing weight in his chest had been replaced by searing pain that tore through his entire body.
His wrist throbbed, and his heart felt like it was being ripped apart.
Tears poured from his eyes like rain.
He had wanted to hold on.
He hadn’t wanted to let go. He thought if he just tried harder, did better, everything would be okay.
But Joowon had discarded him so easily—and rejected even his final plea.
Completely drained, Yoonwoo sank into a vast emptiness.
All that remained in the space Joowon had left behind was someone betrayed, broken, and abandoned.
He couldn’t believe it—that eight years could be so easily dismissed.
That all the love he had given, all his sincerity, could be tossed aside like nothing.
What had he meant to Joowon?
Had Joowon never loved him at all?
Had he just endured Yoonwoo for eight years—tolerated a pheromone-less beta under the guise of love?
Was what we had… not even love?
As that thought crossed his mind, all strength drained from his body, and he collapsed back onto the floor.
An emptiness like his heart had been hollowed out consumed him, followed by a crushing sense of misery that made him feel unbearably small and worthless.
“In the end, there’s no one in this world who will ever love me. I… I don’t even deserve to be loved.”
Gripping his wrist in pain, overwhelmed by a despair that felt like it was slicing straight through his heart, he collapsed flat on the cold floor and cried out like a wounded animal.
His sobs echoed through the empty house.
“Aah! Aaaah!”
Incomprehensible screams tore from his throat.
His chest felt unbearably tight and raw, and he struck it repeatedly with his fists.
But strangely, he felt no pain.
His heart had already been ripped to shreds—what meaning could physical pain hold anymore?
Where everything he loved once stood, only deep wounds and a wretched, all-consuming loneliness remained.
It was a despair he couldn’t escape, no matter how desperately he struggled.
After sobbing for what felt like an eternity, Yoonwoo finally pulled himself together and staggered to his feet.
The house Joowon had thrown at him as “alimony”—a place filled with memories of joy and, now, of complete devastation—was no longer somewhere he could stay.
He had to erase every trace of Joowon from his life.
With hollow eyes, he walked into the bedroom and silently took out his suitcase, beginning to pack what little belongings he had.
There was no lingering attachment in his movements, no sadness—only a deep, hollow void, moving his body like a lifeless puppet.
As if his soul had been left somewhere far away, he felt absolutely nothing.
* * *
