Chapter 50

“So, why did you break up again?”

“Personality differences.”

Beom-hee sputtered, spraying the mouthful of beer she had just taken, and shot him a look that clearly communicated, Bullshit. Plucking a tissue from the box on the table, Gi-hyeon handed it to her with a nonchalant shrug.

“Right, got it. But why did you show up with Damon Kim earlier?”

He hadn’t even given the man a destination before aggressively taking the wheel, yet Damon had followed him without a single word of complaint. Gi-hyeon had driven straight to Beom-hee’s place. It was incredibly rude—he knew that well enough—but he simply hadn’t been in the mood to explain himself, and to his credit, Damon hadn’t asked a single question. It was a silent grace that Gi-hyeon had been grateful enough for to bow repeatedly after stepping out of the car. Beom-hee, who had come down from her luxury officetel under the guise of visiting the convenience store, had spotted them. Gi-hyeon had shot her a warning glance, silently demanding she pretend not to know him, before turning back to bid the man farewell.

—I am deeply indebted to you. 

—No, not at all. I should be the one apologizing.

Stuttering through his response, Damon had hesitated before awkwardly asking for his number. After a brief internal debate, Gi-hyeon handed it over, figuring it hardly mattered since he planned on changing his number soon anyway. Damon had stared down at the screen displaying Gi-hyeon’s contact info, while Gi-hyeon gave him one last nod before turning his back on Beom-hee, who was still standing there, staring blankly at the scene.

So his name was Damon, Gi-hyeon mused, offering no response. Taking his silence as a refusal, Beom-hee shook her head in defeat. She crushed her empty beer can in her grip—having drained it in barely two gulps—and cracked open a fresh one.

“But seriously, you aren’t going to drink? Since when does a boozehound like you turn down a cold one?”

“Since I got pregnant.”

“Who got pregnant that you’re suddenly abstaining? Swearing off alcohol to cheer for a safe delivery? Wow, Dr. So’s loyalty is truly unmatched.”

The conversation felt like a broken record.

Gi-hyeon kept his mouth shut, quietly sipping the apple juice Beom-hee had poured him instead of beer. She pressed him again, demanding to know who was expecting. Even a genius like Lee Beom-hee couldn’t quite connect the dots between the word pregnancy and a man like So Gi-hyeon. Glancing up, Gi-hyeon waited until she swallowed her mouthful of beer before dropping the truth.

“Me. I’m the one who’s pregnant.”

“What kind of bullshit is that? Yeah, I’m pregnant too. I’ve been eating like a pig lately, and look at this gut. Didn’t you take nutrition classes? Hook me up with a diet program, Dr. So.”

He had expected shock, but she was treating it like a complete joke. Not that he blamed her; the entire situation felt like a twisted punchline to him, too. Yet, the more he reflected on the past few weeks, the more everything perfectly aligned with the textbook symptoms of pregnancy. His sudden craving for fruits he never used to touch, his intense reaction to Jo Yeon-oh’s pheromones in the resort room—the signs had been glaringly obvious. It was a miracle he hadn’t noticed them himself. Replaying the timeline in his head after leaving the hospital made the impossible undeniable, but convincing Beom-hee was another matter entirely.

Letting out a soft sigh, he added, “They said my traits mutated. I’m an Omega now.”

“…What-mega?”

Reality was finally dawning on her. Anticipating a disaster, Gi-hyeon gently pushed her beer can safely out of range before elaborating. “Apparently, prolonged exposure to dominant Alpha pheromones can trigger a mutation. It’s incredibly rare since dominant Alphas themselves are so scarce, so there aren’t many documented cases. Haven’t you heard of anything like this?”

“What kind of nonsensical… wait. Jo Yeon-oh is a dominant Alpha, so maybe it isn’t entirely impossible… But I didn’t major in that field, so how the hell would I know the details?”

Looking as though she might burst into tears, Beom-hee grabbed Gi-hyeon by the shoulders and shook him violently. He let her thrash him back and forth like a ragdoll until she finally collapsed back, clutching her head in absolute agony. Unfazed, Gi-hyeon didn’t even spare her a glance, simply raising his glass to take another sip of apple juice. The sweet and tart flavor slipped down his throat with surprising ease. He had been craving fruit lately, but finding a drink he usually despised so delicious was a bizarre sensation. Sipping away, he soon found himself staring at the bottom of an empty glass.

“Do you have any more of this?” he asked, disappointed.

“Wait, if you’re really pregnant— Aaagh, So Gi-hyeon! Tell me the truth right now! Which son of a bitch knocked you up?!”

“Keep your voice down. The baby can hear you.”

Beom-hee’s jaw practically unhinged. She looked ready to weep, utterly bewildered. “This makes no sense. My poor baby, how did you end up a tragic single father— No, wait a minute. Whose kid is it, really?”

Gi-hyeon didn’t answer with words. He just turned to look at her, his expression plainly stating, Who else could it be? Her face contorted into a bizarre grimace.

“…Are you telling me it’s that Dick-oh bastard’s kid?”

“A guy like me, who else would I be sleeping with?”

Who else, indeed. 

A man like So Gi-hyeon, who had devoted over a decade to a painfully unrequited love, only to wind up pregnant with his crush’s child without the slightest intention of ever telling him. No, it was because of that devotion that he refused to say a word. This child would be his and his alone. Jo Yeon-oh harbored a deep-seated disgust for intimate relationships with Betas. Gi-hyeon could hardly march up to him now and announce that he had miraculously mutated into an Omega and was carrying his child.

Ironically, even in the very moment he was hurling vile insults at Jo Yeon-oh, Gi-hyeon had loved him. He would likely continue to love him for a long, long time. Yet, So Gi-hyeon no longer painted a future with Jo Yeon-oh in it. Love was love, and reality was reality. He had finally succeeded in surgically excising the man from his life. All that remained was the cold, hard truth of his current situation.

Wearing a perfectly composed expression, Gi-hyeon voiced the request he had been mulling over during the drive. “So, do me a favor. Recommend a good OBGYN and a pheromone specialist. And keep this an absolute secret from Jo Yeon-oh.”

Seeming to grasp the entire tragic history wrapped in those few words, Beom-hee let out a heavy sigh. “…You’re really not going to tell him?”

“Why would I? The bastard doesn’t even know I’m an Omega.”

His reply was remarkably nonchalant.

A prickle of tears threatened to surface, but quickly receded into the depths of his impossibly calm heart. This tranquility was entirely different from the explosive fury he had unleashed on Jo Yeon-oh outside the hospital. It felt as though all the injustice, the seething anger, and the crushing sorrow had been exhausted a lifetime ago. Gi-hyeon fiercely brainwashed himself into believing that only reality remained. And to some extent, it was the truth. His list of responsibilities had just grown exponentially.

He was no longer the unburdened bachelor, free to roam wherever the wind took him. The chasm between yesterday and today was staggering. The newfound heaviness in his chest wasn’t entirely unpleasant, but that hardly meant he was free of anxiety. The only silver lining was his financial stability. The inheritance his mother had left behind might have been a mere pittance in the eyes of the chaebol elite, but for an ordinary citizen, it was an overwhelming fortune, more than enough to live comfortably.

His thoughts drifted to a villa in Ilsan, one of the properties included in his mother’s estate. With a university hospital nearby, it would be the perfect environment to raise a child. He had even heard glowing reviews from a senior doctor who used to work in the area, praising it as a quiet, idyllic neighborhood. If he moved there and rented out his current place, he and the baby would want for nothing. The real issue was his own restless temperament; he knew all too well that idleness easily bred depression.

Striking while the iron was hot, he logged into the Physical Therapy Association’s portal and filtered the job listings for Ilsan, finding a surprisingly high number of lucrative positions. “They’re mostly looking for female therapists,” he muttered, scrolling through the postings. “Wait, I’m an Omega now, so maybe that doesn’t matter anymore?”

Watching this display of pragmatism, Beom-hee clicked her tongue in sheer disbelief. “Look at you, already completely adapted to your Omega status. Drop you on a deserted island, and you’d be cracking open coconuts within the hour, you crazy bastard. Your survival skills are terrifyingly good, huh?”

“A man’s got to have some useful talents,” he replied dryly. Transforming into an Omega was certainly absurd, but the immediate reality of his situation took precedence. Shifting gears, he posed a question that had been burning in his mind. “Hey, I vaguely remember this from physiology class, but is it true that your dick shrinks when you become an Omega?”

“Cut the bullshit, Dr. So. Is the size of your cock really the issue here? You terrify the hell out of me when you act like this. Please, just panic a little. I’m doing all the panicking for the both of us here!”

“I appreciate the effort, but penile shrinkage is actually a massive issue. A man’s pride is on the line here.”

“Aaagh, you crazy bastard, stop fucking around!”

Beom-hee scowled, her irritation finally boiling over. Knowing when to quit, Gi-hyeon wisely clamped his mouth shut. Without relaxing her fierce glare, she tipped the can back and drained the last drops of her beer. A heavy somberness settled over her features. “I’ll contact a senior colleague tomorrow. Let’s hit the pheromone clinic first, and then we’ll head over to the OBGYN to get a proper diagnosis.”

Gi-hyeon offered a docile nod before rising to his feet. “I’m heading out.”

“…Are you really going to keep this from Jo Yeon-oh forever? That bastard is the reason you turned into an Omega in the first place.”

“It’s not like he did it on purpose,” Gi-hyeon replied evenly.

He hadn’t known.

At first, it had probably just been a passing wish—a fleeting thought that it would be nice if So Gi-hyeon were an Omega instead of a Beta. And that very wish had somehow materialized, warping his biology entirely. There was only one reason Yeon-oh would have desired such a thing: the simple, immutable fact that Gi-hyeon was a Beta male. That wasn’t a crime; it was nobody’s fault. He had known all the risks, yet he was the one who had gotten greedy first. If there was blame to be assigned, he had to point the finger at himself. But Gi-hyeon was exhausted. He was so incredibly tired of hating the pathetic version of himself that had suffered endlessly by Jo Yeon-oh’s side—the man who had tossed and turned through agonizing nights, only to wake up to miserable mornings. He just wanted to stop hating himself.

As if reading the tumultuous thoughts churning behind his stoic mask, Beom-hee slowly shook her head. “You’re too ruthless, Gi-hyeon-ah.” A beat of silence stretched between them before she added softly, “That bastard was probably terrified of how ruthless you can be.”

Coming from the brilliantly perceptive Lee Beom-hee, her assessment carried weight, yet Gi-hyeon couldn’t bring himself to agree.

To fear someone meant acknowledging their power over you.

Gi-hyeon had handed Jo Yeon-oh all the power the moment he fell in love with him. That was why, even after having his very gender rewritten against his will, all he could muster was a single string of curses before moving on. He had willingly handed over the hilt of the blade to Jo Yeon-oh. If blame were measured out, it would undoubtedly fall seventy percent on his own shoulders, and a mere thirty on Yeon-oh’s. He refused to scream and curse, calling the man a son of a bitch or a bastard over a measly thirty percent when the lion’s share of the fault was entirely his own doing.

And yet, despite everything, So Gi-hyeon had never once received even a sliver of that power in return. Jo Yeon-oh had always been fiercely unapologetic in his presence. He would touch Gi-hyeon with brazen confidence, pulling him into his embrace and burying his face in the crook of Gi-hyeon’s neck before drifting off to sleep. In stark contrast, Gi-hyeon had never known a single night of peaceful rest in those arms. The paralyzing terror of abandonment, the agonizing dread that their fragile connection might snap—that burden had been solely Gi-hyeon’s to bear.

But if, by some miracle, Jo Yeon-oh had genuinely feared him… “Then I suppose it just means we were entirely incompatible from the start,” Gi-hyeon murmured.

For seven long years, they had ruthlessly forced mismatched puzzle pieces together, stubbornly enduring the friction until the edges were pulverized and the pieces themselves were ruined. Yeon-oh must have suffered, too. Weighing it all, Gi-hyeon decided to call it even. The scars Jo Yeon-oh had carved into him were now paid in full. Nothing else truly mattered anymore. His entire focus would shift exclusively to the future—to surviving the pregnancy and raising the child growing within him. He was going to build his own family.

“Lee Beom-hee, let me borrow a car,” he demanded abruptly.

“Bullshit. Every single car I own is a convertible. Is that any sort of vehicle for an expectant father to be driving around in?”

“I’ll just use it temporarily and bring it back as soon as my own ride is delivered. I’m going straight to the dealership to sign a contract for a new one.”

Beom-hee whipped around, staring at him in utter horror. Watching him calmly map out his future, completely unfazed by his sudden mutation into an Omega and his unexpected pregnancy, seemed to have deeply shaken her. She shook her head slowly. “When your ankle was shattered… you hid that from Jo Yeon-oh until the bitter end, too.” Gi-hyeon offered no reply. “I definitely like you more than that Dick-oh bastard, but honestly? You’re a terribly cruel bastard yourself.”

A small, genuine chuckle slipped from Gi-hyeon’s lips. The sheer absurdity of two terrible bastards torturing each other relentlessly before finally tearing apart was painfully amusing. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. Now hand over the keys to the Mustang. That is one gorgeous ride.”

“Fuuuck you! Do you have any idea how much that costs?!” Beom-hee shrieked in outrage.

Ignoring her desperate screams, Gi-hyeon casually strolled over to her key box. Turning a deaf ear to her pathetic pleas to take literally any other car, he snatched the key fob adorned with the iconic galloping horse emblem. Throwing a casual wave over his shoulder, he bid her a cheerful goodbye, promising to see her tomorrow.

Intermittent chuckles escaped him as he walked down the hall. But the moment the heavy doors of Beom-hee’s building sealed shut behind him, the smile vanished entirely from his face, leaving behind a hollow mask.

“What are we going to do with you…” he whispered, gently patting his lower abdomen.

It had been an exceptionally, agonizingly long day.

***