The emergency room of the hospital they arrived at by taxi was busy and chaotic.
As soon as they arrived, Dojin was taken straight to the treatment room due to the self-inflicted wounds covering his body and the large laceration on his forehead.
Yoonwoo waited for his treatment with a calm expression.
He wasn’t not worried, but remembering how he had panicked and done nothing back at the motel, he tried his hardest to remain composed.
He knew that only by keeping his wits about him could he properly take care of Dojin now.
“Guardian, the patient’s wounds aren’t severe, so we’ll just disinfect them and apply gauze. There are no signs of a concussion either. However, he shows slight signs of shock due to excessive stress and self-harm, so it would be best to let him get plenty of rest today and monitor his condition.”
At the doctor’s words, Yoonwoo finally let out a small sigh of relief.
The curtain was pulled back, revealing Dojin sitting weakly on the bed.
Because he hadn’t been treated yet, the red gashes on his forehead and forearms were still fully exposed.
Seeing him like that, Yoonwoo felt relieved, yet complex emotions surged within him simultaneously.
He felt sorry and heartbroken that Dojin had been hurt this badly because of him.
Just then, Yoonwoo suddenly remembered what Joowon had said just before ending their earlier call.
‘There’s something I want to tell you… contact me again when you’ve settled down.’
He didn’t know what it was about, but he felt he couldn’t put it off any longer.
After a moment of hesitation, he asked Dojin, who was undergoing treatment, for a moment, walked to the corner of the hallway, and called Joowon.
[…Yoonwoo?]
After a few rings, Joowon’s low, muffled voice came through. His voice sounded even lower than it had at the motel.
“Yes, Joowon. It’s me, Yoonwoo. I’m… at the hospital ER with Dojin right now, but I have a moment, so I called.”
[…The hospital? Is he hurt badly enough to need the hospital? Because of… the self-harm?]
Joowon’s voice seemed to falter for a moment.
“Yes. Fortunately, they said he isn’t severely injured. He’s in the middle of treatment right now.”
[I see…. That’s a relief….]
Joowon said that and remained silent for a long time.
Then, he asked in a very difficult, trembling voice.
[…Yoonwoo. By any chance… that day, the day I went through my rut at the hotel… did you really come?]
From the moment he left the motel with Minjae until now, only one thought had dominated Joowon’s mind.
Yoonwoo’s reaction when he saw him at the motel, and that phone call he had received from Seoyeon in the past.
Pieces of truth he had tried to avoid and bury, thinking, ‘It couldn’t be,’ were now forming a horrific picture he could no longer pretend not to see.
Yoonwoo held his breath at the question.
It was an unavoidable question now.
He answered quietly, but clearly.
“…Yes. I went.”
A long silence followed.
Only Joowon’s ragged breathing could be heard faintly over the phone.
When he finally opened his mouth again, his voice was trembling thinly.
[…Why… why didn’t you tell me right away? Why didn’t you… tell me to break up immediately the day I came back?]
“…Because back then… you were my whole world.”
Yoonwoo said calmly. His voice held no resentment, no sadness.
“I was so afraid of breaking up with you. I was so terrified that if you found out, you might… ask to break up, that I couldn’t say a word. But… if we were going to break up like this anyway, I should have just told you everything the day you came back from the hotel and ended it then.”
He let out a faint, self-deprecating smile.
The Yoonwoo of that time had been too foolish and weak.
He hadn’t been prepared to handle the sense of loss that would come with losing Joowon.
So he had just hidden it and tried to bury it as if nothing had happened.
He hadn’t dreamt that doing so would only make him sicker.
At Yoonwoo’s words, Joowon felt the last shred of hope he had tried so hard to cling to for three days and nights shatter into pieces. He felt suffocated, as if his heart were being squeezed by intense pain.
[…By any chance… that day, did I… hit you?]
The angry words Seoyeon had hurled at him over the phone in the past flashed through his mind.
This time, it was Yoonwoo who fell silent.
A moment later, he answered in a very low voice.
“…That’s not important anymore. And… seeing Dojin struggling with his rut this time, I… I can understand your reaction back then, when you lost your mind… at least a little bit.”
That statement hit Joowon like an even greater wound.
His compassionate understanding stabbed his heart more sharply than any criticism could.
Only now did he desperately realize what a terrible thing he had done, and how much pain he had caused Yoonwoo.
Joowon bit his lip hard.
The surging emotions felt like they were hacking his heart to pieces.
[…I’m sorry, Yoonwoo.]
Joowon’s voice cracked wretchedly.
[Truly… I’m so sorry. For showing you such a horrific scene, for hurting you like that, and… for the fact that you bore all of that alone… while I dared to abandon you…. For giving you distrust and trauma regarding Alphas… for all of it… I am so, so sorry.]
His voice was almost sobbing with guilt. He paused for a moment to catch his breath.
[Watching Kim Dojin this time… I realized it clearly. All those things I said when I broke up with you—that it was Alpha instinct, or that it couldn’t be helped because you were a Beta… all of it was nonsense, utter garbage. Dojin endured in the same situation as me, no, an even worse one, while thinking of you… but I… I couldn’t overcome my own weakness and selfishness, and I collapsed. So please… don’t think it’s your fault anymore. All the responsibility for our breakup… lies entirely with me.]
His confession was desperate and sincere. How many nights must he have suffered to be able to say this?
Listening quietly to his heartfelt apology, Yoonwoo smiled slightly.
Faint tears welled in his eyes, but it wasn’t due to sadness.
Perhaps he had been waiting for those words for a very long time.
Joowon’s apology felt like it was melting away the very last of the knots that had been festering deep in Yoonwoo’s heart.
“…I know it now, too. That it wasn’t my fault. Actually… I wasn’t really sure, but Dojin taught me. So… I’m really okay now.”
Joowon couldn’t say anything more to that.
A moment later, he barely cleared his throat and said,
[…Right. That’s a relief. That’s enough…. Stay healthy, and let’s meet sometime.]
“You stay healthy too, Joowon.”
Yoonwoo replied briefly and hung up in a hurry.
Talking to him any longer was too emotionally taxing.
But at the same time, he felt a sense of liberation, as if a heavy stone that had been pressing down on him for a long time had finally disappeared.
After the call ended, Joowon collapsed where he stood.
He could no longer hold it in; he curled into a ball like a child and began to wail.
“Ugh… ugh… Yoonwoo… I’m sorry…. I’m so sorry…!”
His whole body shook, and his vision blurred.
All the regret and remorse washed over him.
The sight of Dojin when the motel door opened—bloody, self-harming, yet refusing his instinct to look for only Yoonwoo—brought him infinite envy and jealousy, as well as a deep self-loathing.
Why couldn’t he have been like that?
Why did he let go of his most precious love because of mere pheromones and instinct?
He beat his chest, weeping for his own weakness and foolishness.
Then, suddenly, like a madman, he began to claw at his own neck, where his pheromone glands were located, with his fingernails.
Skin tore and blood seeped from his neck, but he didn’t stop.
He wanted to get rid of it.
He wanted to escape the wretched shackles of pheromones that had turned him into a beast and ruined his love with Yoonwoo.
“Something like this… if only this didn’t exist…! Hng… I… I ruined everything. Yoonwoo… Yoonwoo…!”
He hated himself, and regretting the past so deeply, he cursed himself and wailed like that for a long time.
His sobbing filled the empty house, echoing wretchedly like his broken heart.
After the call with Joowon ended, Yoonwoo sat leaning against the hallway wall, feeling dazed for a while.
His mind was complicated, but strangely, his heart felt calm.
He felt he could finally escape the shadows of the past.
He slowly rose to his feet, intending to return to the treatment room where Dojin was.
Just then, he heard urgent footsteps from the other side of the hallway.
When Yoonwoo turned his head, Dojin’s grandfather was running toward him, panting.
A young secretary followed him, looking anxious.
“Grandfather?”
Yoonwoo muttered in surprise.
As soon as Chairman Choi spotted Yoonwoo, he hurried toward him.
“Where is Dojin! Is my Dojin alright!”
His complexion was pale, and his voice, lacking its usual dignity, was filled with urgency and worry.
Yoonwoo was momentarily speechless at this unexpected side of him.
“He, he’s a little hurt… but the doctor said it’s nothing serious. He’s inside getting treated right now.”
Yoonwoo explained the situation as calmly as he could.
Chairman Choi finally let out a deep sigh.
His expression looked as if he had aged ten years, but deep affection for his grandson, which he hadn’t quite been able to hide, flickered across his face.
Seeing this, Yoonwoo realized anew how much the old man cherished and worried about Dojin.
Even if he looked stern and cold on the outside, in the end, he was just an ordinary grandfather who cared for his only grandson.
