* * *
Sometimes it felt suffocating, but for some reason, he couldn’t heartlessly push him away when he looked into his eyes.
Could it be that he saw himself in Kangwoo?
Sharing the same wound—and a very deep one at that—created a bond deeper than he had imagined.
‘Seunghyun.’
And in the deep dawn before their high school entrance ceremony, after being out of contact for a few days, he came to Seunghyun’s house.
A twisted smile was hung on his face.
‘I’ve become an Alpha.’
After that, a daily life literally began where nothing existed for Seunghyun but Han Kangwoo.
Having become an Alpha, Kangwoo moved beyond being just an obsessed friend; he now acted as if Seunghyun were his Omega.
Despite Seunghyun being a healthy Beta over 180cm tall, Kangwoo pampered him excessively while being wary and aggressive toward those around them.
He found out later that Han Kangwoo’s marking was always left thick on Seunghyun’s body.
Because of this, friends with special traits would scowl whenever they saw Seunghyun, and as rumors spread, he began to drift away even from his Beta friends.
Seunghyun was gradually isolated, and Han Kangwoo was satisfied.
In that way, he spent the rest of his school years bound to him.
And was it just his school years?
‘…….’
But even then, Seunghyun didn’t think too deeply about it.
By the time he realized for certain that something was wrong, it was already too late.
From the moment they became adults, it was nothing short of hell.
On a day when Kangwoo poured out so much pheromone that every passing person with a special trait cursed, Seunghyun finally exploded.
‘Am I yours? Am I your property?!’
It was the first time he had ever gotten angry at him.
At first, Han Kangwoo looked amused, but his eyes flipped at Seunghyun’s words, “Am I yours?”
Han Kangwoo instantly overpowered Seunghyun and pinned him down with force.
No matter how tall Kangwoo was, Seunghyun was actually in a higher weight class because he was working as a model.
However, an Alpha’s physical strength was so powerful that Seunghyun was subdued without being able to put up any proper resistance.
‘Let go, ugh…!’
‘Seunghyun, do you know what I’m doing right now?’
Seunghyun panted, his hands held by Han Kangwoo as he was pinned to the floor.
Han Kangwoo’s weight on top of him pressed down on him.
‘How should I know, you psycho bastard!’
‘You….’
A murky voice whispered.
He leaned down and grazed Seunghyun’s ear with his lips.
‘You should have been my Omega.’
‘Ugh, hey! You, what are you doing right now…. Stop it. I said stop!’
‘If you were an Omega, you would have lost your mind by now and been begging me.’
Seunghyun’s eyes snapped open in horror.
It wasn’t just because he realized Kangwoo was giving him a pheromone shower.
It was because Han Kangwoo, who had pressed his body close, had begun to thrust his hips.
‘Han Kangwoo!’
His presence could be felt clearly even through their clothes.
The heavy friction sliding against his back was enough to instantly throw Seunghyun into a state of terror.
He tried to twist his body to escape, but even that was impossible because of Han Kangwoo’s hand, which held the back of his head and pinned it to the floor.
‘Seunghyun.’
‘Let—let go.’
‘Don’t ever say that again. It hurts my heart.’
‘Han Kangwoo, please…. Don’t.’
He stopped moving and let go of his hands.
His hands felt numb as the blood began to flow again.
Seunghyun gasped for breath.
Han Kangwoo pulled Seunghyun into a tight, seamless embrace.
‘You belong to me.’
His hand moved gradually toward the front.
As his hand fumbled with the front of his pants, Seunghyun twisted his body and sobbed.
‘You son of a bitch….’
There was no mercy in the hand that grabbed his front.
The hand that pushed inside to reach his skin was paradoxically gentle.
As if he were soothing Seunghyun.
‘Ugh.’
After putting his hand inside the underwear, Han Kangwoo began to stimulate his genitals softly.
Contrary to his thought that he would never, ever react, his lower abdomen grew increasingly heavy.
‘Fuck….’
Seunghyun muttered a small curse.
No. This couldn’t be.
He couldn’t believe he was reacting to Han Kangwoo’s hand.
It must be because his heart was beating so wildly.
He slammed his forehead against the floor.
Thud, thud.
Even though he slammed it twice in a row, the stimulation from Han Kangwoo’s hand was greater than the pain in his forehead.
When he unknowingly arched his hips, he just wanted to die.
‘Seunghyun.’
Han Kangwoo must have felt it too, as he stopped the hand movements and laughed lowly.
The breath reaching his ear gave him goosebumps.
‘Joo Seunghyun.’
He called his name again.
Seunghyun closed his eyes tightly.
He just wanted to disappear from this world.
He wanted to cut off the part of him that stood stiffly.
‘I’ll stop here for today.’
He lifted his body.
As the heavy weight vanished, horror faded and a sense of self-loathing rushed in.
As if he were satisfied that he had made him erect and that he had moved his hips, Han Kangwoo’s voice was soft.
‘I’m glad that you want me too.’
Military service had actually been a happy time.
At least Han Kangwoo wasn’t there.
Even after being discharged, the fact that Kangwoo still had over a year left in his service provided Seunghyun with a sense of liberation he had never felt before.
But what Seunghyun had overlooked was the man’s sheer persistence.
When Seunghyun finally manifested as an Alpha due to the persistent pheromone showers and marking, Kangwoo acted like a literal madman.
He spewed out a volatile mix of excitement—at the fact that they could now smell each other’s pheromones—and fury that they could never marry or imprint.
He became hostile toward everyone in Seunghyun’s orbit.
Seunghyun had hoped that becoming a fellow Alpha would make Kangwoo give up, but it only led to a succession of despairs.
Because of his manifestation, his military service period was deemed insufficient, forcing him to re-enlist immediately.
Furthermore, the company he had finally managed to get a job at revoked his hiring notice.
While he was serving, his grandmother passed away, and he wasn’t even able to be by her side at the end.
On the day he heard the tragic news, a thought had crossed Seunghyun’s mind.
Rather than an Alpha….
It would have been better if I had manifested as an Omega.
He had rushed home as fast as he could, but Han Kangwoo—who had been contacted first—was already there, keeping watch over his grandmother’s final moments.
The face Kangwoo made when he turned toward the late-arriving Seunghyun at the funeral hall, dressed in mourning clothes, was something he could never forget.
‘Now, I’m really the only one you have left.’
Unlike his glinting eyes, his face was so devoid of emotion that it seemed he must have looked down at his grandmother’s passing with that same cold indifference.
That disgusting, deceitful bastard.
The way he acted like such a thoughtful human being was beyond infuriating; it was so absurd it almost made him laugh.
No, perhaps this was his true self.
Perhaps he was only violent toward Seunghyun.
Perhaps turning into a monster only in front of Seunghyun was simply due to his distorted possessiveness.
As he was quietly lost in the futility of these past memories, a voice broke his train of thought.
“Seunghyun-ssi.”
Seunghyun was still held in Han Kangwoo’s arms.
* * *
