Chapter 18

A week later, Yi-seon followed his parents through the arrivals hall in Guam, where they had come for summer vacation. His older brother, Ryu Yi-jeong, had arrived on his own a few days earlier.

As he wheeled his suitcase past a bench, he spotted a vaguely familiar figure.

His build is similar to Yeon Mugyeol’s.

Dressed in a black short-sleeved shirt, black shorts, and black flip-flops, the large-framed man was sprawled over the bench like a limp rag. A cap pulled low hid his face.

Yi-seon was thinking that the guy even dressed exactly like Mugyeol when the cap-wearing stranger suddenly sprang to his feet.

“You’re not even gonna say hi?”

“Aaargh!”

Startled, Yi-seon let go of his suitcase and stumbled backward. Mugyeol caught it before it toppled, set it upright, then removed his cap and bowed politely to Yi-seon’s parents. “Hello.”

“Ah, Mugyeol. You waited a long time because the flight was delayed, didn’t you? So sorry.”

“No, not at all. I blinked twice and you were already walking out.”

Mugyeol flashed an easy smile, laying on the charm. Amused by his banter, Yi-seon’s parents patted him on the shoulder and started ahead. Despite telling the adults he had barely waited, the moment he fell into step beside Yi-seon he began whining under his breath, “I waited here for three hours. Why’re you so late? See this? Got dark circles waiting for you.”

“Good job. But why are you here?”

“Because I came here.”

“Not that…”

I mean, why are you here right now?

“I’ve got a passport too, am I not allowed to come?”

“You’re allowed.”

“Auntie even told me the hotel.”

…Well, it wasn’t as if coming to Guam were illegal.

It was strange, but Mugyeol had paid his own way here, and Yi-seon did not actually mind. The more he thought about it, the more the prospect of spending the trip with his friend lifted his mood.

A short while later, they reached the hotel, where Yi-seon’s older brother came out to greet them.

“Mom, Dad! Yi-seon-ah!”

Ryu Yi-jeong waved his hands over his head, wearing a T-shirt that read ‘I♡GUAM’. Beside Yi-jeong stood someone else wearing the exact same ‘I♡GUAM’ T-shirt. In pink, of all colors.

Mugyeol roughly yanked off his sunglasses and muttered, “Fuck… am I hallucinating?”

Yi-seon stared at his brother’s companion with much the same expression as Mugyeol. Beside Yi-jeong stood Mugyeol’s older brother, Yeon Hangyeol, whose face froze the instant he spotted his younger brother.

“Yi-seon-ah, you’re here? Aren’t you hungry?”

“Yeah, hyung. I’m fine. …Your friend is here too. Hello, Hangyeol hyung.”

“Hangyeol said he suddenly wanted to come. Oh, your friend came too? Hi, Mugyeol. Long time no see.”

Yi-jeong beamed and held out a hand. Mugyeol, who had been glaring at Hangyeol, instantly rearranged his face into a smile and shook it.

Yi-seon found the whole thing bewildering. Maybe half brothers were still brothers after all—how else could their behavior be so identical? Then again, the venomous staring contest between Mugyeol and Hangyeol hardly looked brotherly.

When Yi-seon’s parents caught up a moment later, Hangyeol broke off the staring contest, folded himself nearly in half, and bowed with an exuberant greeting. “You have arrived!”

“YoU hAvE aRrIvEd…”

Mugyeol mimicked Hangyeol’s greeting from behind, sneering derisively. Hangyeol straightened and glared at Mugyeol, but that was all he could do. With Yi-seon’s parents right there, he could neither swear nor start a scene; the corners of his mouth twitched with the effort of holding back.

Marching up to Mugyeol, Yeon Hangyeol turned his back to Yi-seon’s parents and whispered in a low hiss, “You little bastard. You don’t even greet your hyung?”

“Did Your Majesty enjoy good health through the night and attend to affairs of state without incident? Today as well, that precious royal personage—”

“Ah, shut the fuck up!”

“You told me to greet you. Got dementia already?”

Mugyeol tapped his temple with a smirk.

“Why did you even come, Yeon Mugyeol? Are you fucking insane? Why tag along on someone else’s family vacation without a shred of tact?”

“Whispering those exact words right back into your ear.”

“What, you bastard?!”

Hangyeol shrieked before he could stop himself, then flinched and glanced behind him. Fortunately, Yi-seon’s parents were already heading toward the elevators with Yi-jeong. Hangyeol hurried after him. Yi-seon followed, while Mugyeol strolled beside him, humming.

Having thoroughly mocked his brother, Mugyeol seemed to be in high spirits. “Ryu Yi-seon. Did you know Yeon Hangyeol was coming?”

“No, I didn’t. He’s close with my brother, so they must’ve come early to hang out together.”

“Doesn’t that bastard have any tact? Why the fuck is he butting in on someone else’s family trip?”

…I don’t think you’re one to talk, Mugyeol-ah.

Yi-seon and Mugyeol stopped in front of the family clustered around the elevators. Yi-seon’s mother was in the middle of handing out the room keys.

“One room for me and Yi-jeong’s dad, and one room for Yi-seon and Yi-jeong. We booked a total of two rooms like that, right?”

“Yeah.”

“But right now, in the room meant for Yi-jeong and Yi-seon, Yi-jeong and Hangyeol are staying.”

“Then where do I sleep?” Yi-seon asked, puzzled.

There were only two rooms. If his parents took one and Yi-jeong and Hangyeol took the other, where was Yi-seon supposed to sleep? He did not want to squeeze in with his parents, and he certainly did not want to wedge himself between his brother and Hangyeol…

Mugyeol dangled his room key.

“Then you can just sleep in my room.”

Just as Yi-seon was about to nod in relief, his father shook his head firmly. “No, you can’t.”

“Pardon? Why?”

“Yi-seon is an Omega.”

“…”

“No matter how close of friends you are, it’s dangerous for Mugyeol, an Alpha, and Yi-seon, an Omega, to share a room. Absolutely not.”

Yi-seon was stunned. He and Mugyeol might be an Alpha and an Omega, but Yi-seon had never viewed their friendship through a sexual lens. Nor had he realized his father was paying attention to their secondary genders at all. As an Extreme Recessive Omega who normally emitted no pheromones, Yi-seon himself rarely felt any tangible sense of being an Omega.

Mugyeol pointed back and forth between himself and Yi-seon, looking genuinely bewildered. “Me and him? Me and him?”

Yi-seon’s mother backed up his father.

“It’s better and more comfortable for brothers to room together. Yi-seon can share the room Yi-jeong was using, and Mugyeol and Hangyeol can share the room Mugyeol booked. Brothers together.”

“…”

“…”

Mugyeol and Hangyeol went grim in perfect unison. Their matching looks of horror were almost proof enough that they were brothers. But with Yi-seon’s parents making the Alpha-and-Omega argument, neither could come up with a respectable rebuttal.

After a long, stunned silence over the room assignment, Mugyeol bolted for the front desk the moment Yi-seon’s parents stepped into the elevator.

“Yeon Mugyeol? Where are you going!”

He did not even answer, as though half his soul had already fled. About three minutes later, he returned looking ready to die.

“They say there are no vacancies.”

“Makes sense, it’s peak season.”

“I’d rather just die. Strangle me right now.”

“Okay.”

Yi-seon obligingly wrapped his hands around Mugyeol’s neck while glancing toward Yi-jeong and Hangyeol. They were a sight too: Yi-jeong was patiently coaxing Hangyeol, whose mouth was set in a spectacular sulk.

“Take this chance to get along with your brother. There aren’t any spare rooms anyway.”

“No, fuck, even so, how the hell am I supposed to sleep in the same room as that bastard? We go for each other every time we make eye contact. I was planning for the three of us—you, me, and your brother—to hang out together—”

“Hangyeol, you’re the older one. A hyung should embrace his younger brother—how long are you going to keep fighting like this? And if you came on our family vacation, you have to follow our family’s rules.”

“No, but I—…”

“Hangyeol-ah.”

“Haaah…”

Yi-jeong handled Hangyeol in a calm, even tone. Very mature—worlds apart from Yi-seon, who had just been strangling Mugyeol because Mugyeol told him to…

Yi-seon immediately pulled his hands off Mugyeol’s neck. “Hyung. Which room is ours? If you’re gonna stay down here with Hangyeol hyung, can I go up first and unpack my luggage?”

“No. Let’s go up together. We need to move Hangyeol’s stuff out anyway.”

“Sure.”

Yi-seon, Yi-jeong, and Hangyeol headed for the elevator with Mugyeol. Even getting inside turned into a petty contest between the brothers over who would enter first. Mugyeol managed to get his shoulder across the threshold first.

“Mugyeol, what room are you in?”

“Room 1920.”

“Hangyeol, pack your bags and head to Mugyeol’s room in a bit. Let’s get off now, Yi-seon-ah. Mugyeol, go unpack first and get some rest.”

“Yes.”

Yi-seon, Yi-jeong, and Hangyeol got off on the seventeenth floor. Yi-seon waved as Mugyeol continued to the nineteenth, then led the way down the hall. Just as he raised the keycard at their room, Hangyeol darted in front of him and shoved the half-open door closed.

“Wait! Don’t go in yet!”

“What?”

“Wait here! I’ll pack my bags and come out!”

“…? Okay.”

Is packing luggage really something that needs to be that secretive?

Yi-seon and Yi-jeong waited blankly outside. What on earth took so long to pack? After a great deal of mysterious rustling from inside, Hangyeol finally emerged.

Yi-seon wheeled his suitcase inside and murmured, “The view is amazing.”

He said it easily enough, but nausea fluttered in his stomach. The dark-blue waves below looked as though they might swallow him whole at any moment.

Uneasy, Yi-seon kept his head down to avoid the ocean view and quickly unpacked. He washed up in the bathroom, and the instant he stepped out, Yi-jeong pulled something over his head.

“What’s this?”

“Our family shirt. I gave one to Mom and Dad earlier, too.”

Yi-seon looked down blankly at the ‘I♡GUAM’ printed across his chest. Seeing Yi-jeong and Hangyeol in matching shirts earlier, he had assumed they were couple shirts. Apparently not.

Fiddling with the hem, Yi-seon left the room with Yi-jeong. The matching shirts suddenly made him wonder about something.

Do Mom and Dad not know about the relationship between Hyung and Hangyeol hyung?

His parents had objected to him and Mugyeol sharing a room solely because of their secondary genders, even though they were just friends. So why were his brother and Hangyeol hyung—an actual couple—being left completely alone? Was it because one was an Alpha and the other a Beta? Or did his parents simply not know yet?

Yi-seon quickly dismissed the thought. It was his brother’s private life; there was no reason to pry.

When they reached the lobby, his parents were waiting in the same matching shirts. Mugyeol was the only one still missing.

“When is Mugyeol coming down, Hangyeol-ah?”

“No idea. He was taking his sweet time up there, making coffee and taking a shower. He’s always done whatever he wants, that bas—I mean, my brother.”

Hangyeol carefully censored himself in front of Yi-seon’s parents. Yi-seon dialed Mugyeol. A moment later, Mugyeol’s voice came through the phone from around the corner. Fresh from the shower, he was strolling toward them while raking back his damp hair.

“Couldn’t even wait that long and called because you missed me?”

Mugyeol approached with the joke already on his lips, spotted the group in the lobby, went silent, and immediately turned around.

“Where are you going?”

“Just a sec.”

When Mugyeol returned from upstairs, he looked like a proper member of the family: he too was wearing an ‘I♡GUAM’ shirt. His was vivid royal blue, and annoyingly enough, it suited him perfectly.

“Why didn’t you wear it earlier?”

“Because anything from Yeon Hangyeol is dirty trash, so I threw it out right away.”

“So you rummaged through the trash can to pull it out and wear it?”

“Shut up.”

Mugyeol tugged irritably at the hem, despite being the one who had thrown the shirt away and then fished it back out.

Once everyone had assembled, dinner came first. They headed to a popular local pizza place, where everyone except the underage Yi-seon and Mugyeol ordered beer.

When Yi-seon, who preferred salad over pizza, merely picked at his greens, Mugyeol barked at him to eat some meat, “Hey. Eat the meat, the meat. You’re not growing taller because you only eat grass.”

“I’m 177, for your information. In my own way, that’s slightly above average.”

It’s just that you’re stupidly massive, Yeon Mugyeol.

“You should at least make it to 180. Don’t give up. We’re high school sophomores, there’s still a chance.”

“Given my hormones, growing this much is already a miracle.”

At 177.6 cm, Yi-seon was on the taller side for an Omega. Had he manifested at an earlier age, he might have ended up shorter than he was now.

Watching the two bicker, Ryu Yi-jeong jabbed Yeon Hangyeol in the ribs with an elbow.

“Hey. Mugyeol says the exact same thing as you. Telling people to eat lots of meat.”

Yeon Mugyeol and Yeon Hangyeol’s faces stiffened at once.

“Even coming from you, Yi-jeong-ah, being compared to that bastard really rubs me the wrong way…”

“Hyung, why are you doing this to me?” Mugyeol protested fiercely, clutching his fork.

Yeon Hangyeol slammed the table with a thud. “Where do you get off glaring at your hyung like that? Knock it off.”

“You first.”

“What? ‘You’ to your hyung? You-uu?”

As Yeon Hangyeol’s voice rose, Yi-seon’s parents, dining at another table, looked over with interest.

“What is it, boys?”

“Nothing, Mom. Just chatting.”

“All right. Order more if there’s anything else you’d like to eat.”