Chapter 45

The entire drive back home, Yi-seon stared out the window, submerged in heavy thoughts. His responses to Yeon Mugyeol were purely habitual.

“Straight home?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s still bright out. Already?”

“Yeah.”

“Why are you so spaced out?”

“Yeah…”

“Forget it.”

His heart refused to settle. Forcing down the hand that wanted to touch his lips, he clasped his fingers tightly over his knees.

The second kiss. This kiss hadn’t been an accident, nor an impulse. They had simply been talking by the lake as usual, and then they had kissed.

What did it mean?

He wondered about the reason behind Mugyeol’s unexpected action and tender eyes. The hand stroking his back, the fingers caressing the nape of his neck—every touch had been unimaginably gentle. It felt so much like being cherished that his entire body had nearly melted.

Does he act like this with anyone when he kisses? Is it just a habit?

If not… could it be because it was me?

Was he this gentle and this careful precisely because it was me?

If he’s come to like me… If this marriage becomes one where we genuinely care for each other…

…I really wish that were true.

Stealing a glance at Mugyeol’s reflection in the window, he saw his profile driving with his usual composed expression. It felt as though Yi-seon was the only one shaken by a mere kiss.

Yi-seon leaned his cheek against the cool windowpane to soothe his flushed skin. Just the mere possibility that Mugyeol might like him made his heart race.

When Mugyeol parked the car in front of his house, Yi-seon spoke with a tense expression, “Yeon Mugyeol.”

“Look who’s finally deigning to speak to me.”

Mugyeol’s response was oddly prickly. But with his heart softened by the lingering aftertaste of the kiss, Yi-seon didn’t snap back at the sarcasm. Instead, he blurted out, “Why did you kiss me, anyway?”

“…”

It wasn’t born of simple curiosity. There was really only one reason why someone kissed, wasn’t there?

Affection for the other person.

But because such a word felt unnatural between Mugyeol and himself, he had to ask. Wondering if Mugyeol had developed feelings for him, if perhaps their hearts were aligned.

As Yi-seon asked with a heart fluttering with anticipation, Mugyeol’s eyes narrowed into slits.

“You were so fucking curious about that, you wore that expression the entire ride home… Fuck.”

Muttering under his breath, Mugyeol killed the engine and let out a sharp sigh. Resting his elbow on the window frame, he stared blankly toward a streetlight before turning his head to fix his gaze on Yi-seon.

An unreadable gaze slowly roved over Yi-seon’s face. Tap, tap, tap… Mugyeol’s fingertips drummed heavily against the steering wheel.

“Then what.”

“Huh?”

“Should we pick specific dates, put stars on a calendar, and fuck only then?”

“…What?”

“What are we supposed to do during a rut? Should I leave my fiancé alone, choke down suppressants, and jerk off by myself?”

Yi-seon clenched his molars at Mugyeol’s emotionless questions. Trapped in a space enclosed by glass and metal, his breath caught in his throat. He had only asked why they had kissed out of curiosity—why was this guy having another sudden meltdown? Mugyeol’s choice of words was so blunt it was downright infuriating.

Ever since the incident with Su-ah noona, this bastard had become hyper-sensitive. Had he developed some kind of kiss trauma?

Yi-seon understood his occasional flares of temper, but he was human too; when the other person turned abrasive, his own temper flared in response.

“Why the fuck are you throwing a fit again?”

“If you’re so unhappy about kissing, we can do it with prior consent from now on.”

“Fine. Let’s draw up a contract. We can draw circles on the calendar and deduct counts as we go.”

Mugyeol glared silently at Yi-seon. Feeling just as filthy, Yi-seon glared right back.

“I asked a pointless question. I completely forgot how we ended up getting married in the first place. Our conditions align, Chairman Yeon likes me, you need to clean up a dog-shit situation like a pheromone explosion, and since I happen to be an Omega, getting married will help us both during heats and ruts. Right.”

“…”

“Honestly, I don’t know if my conditions are really good enough to warrant all this, but thanks anyway. For thinking so well of me. I’ll make sure to work hard going forward. Let’s do our best, whether it’s kissing or whatever else. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

At Yi-seon’s sarcasm, Mugyeol’s lips hardened into a rigid line. Mugyeol silently watched Yi-seon’s profile as the other boy glared beyond the dashboard.

Soon, a sneer curled the corner of Mugyeol’s tightly set lips. A smile colder than an expressionless face.

“You sure know how to make things sound fucking complicated.”

“What?”

“Yi-seon-ah. Why are you acting so high and mighty? To put it bluntly, you were sold off for three hundred sacks of tribute rice.”

“…”

“Knowing my grandfather dotes on you, your parents took advantage of that to beg for foundation aid. And since Chairman Yeon is sitting on a mountain of cash, he decided to generously shell out the money. It’s a win-win for both sides, so isn’t it a bit rich for you to blame only me for looking at conditions and trying to get on Grandfather’s good side?”

Gripping the steering wheel tight, Mugyeol drove in the final nail.

“If anything, Ryu Yi-seon, you’re the one who came here because you only needed my conditions.”

The edge of his low, murmured voice sank into a dark, suffocating quiet.

Haa. Yi-seon swallowed his breath back down his throat. It felt as though he had been thrown into a sealed cave where the air had been cut off. His heaving chest constricted tight.

Three hundred sacks of tribute rice.

Mugyeol was right. By anyone’s standards, Yi-seon was at an obvious disadvantage in terms of status and background, but Chairman Yeon’s favor and Mugyeol’s pheromone explosion incident had brought about this outcome. Without either of those two factors, this marriage would never have happened.

The reality snapped into sharp clarity, as if a bucket of icy water had been dumped over his head.

Since they had agreed to marry, they would be responsible for each other’s cycles in the future. Entangling their bodies would be natural, and this kiss was merely a prelude to sex. What on earth had he been expecting by reading meaning into a single kiss?

“Yeah, let’s stop fighting. The pheromone explosion was the real issue from the start. If not for that, things wouldn’t have gone this far.”

“…”

“Anyway, I wasn’t trying to interrogate you. It just felt strange, thinking about marrying someone without feelings.”

Then again, Mugyeol had always been that way. He had always maintained that marriage and feelings were entirely separate matters.

Yi-seon had no idea how to salvage the ruined atmosphere. Frankly, he didn’t even want to.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

The faint ticking of the second hand sounded from Mugyeol’s wristwatch. Glaring at Mugyeol’s watch, Yi-seon clamped down on his simmering anger. When the bubble of his foolish expectations burst, all that remained was his crushed, flattened sincerity.

A dreadful silence hung between them, and artificial light crept softly into the darkened car. The streetlights, switching on with the onset of evening, cast deep shadows inside the cabin.

After a long silence, Mugyeol murmured belatedly, “Feelings don’t mean anything anyway.”

“…What?”

“Conditions are far sturdier than love. A contract is far more certain than emotions.”

“…”

“Do you understand?”

Light and shadow fell across Mugyeol’s face. Inside the dim interior, his jet-black eyes gleamed with a cold light.

Yi-seon nodded. “Yeah. I understand loud and clear.”

He understood perfectly: this marriage was an arrangement struck because their conditions aligned, so shut up and play your part.

Thinking it through only made anger surge anew. He couldn’t believe things had devolved into this shitshow just because he had asked why they kissed. Huff, huff… Panting under the rage swelling inside his chest, Yi-seon couldn’t take it anymore and shoved the car door open.

“Where are you going?”

Getting out right behind him, Mugyeol caught Yi-seon’s wrist. Perhaps remembering how he had bruised Yi-seon’s wrist by gripping it too hard before, he didn’t dare clamp down with full force.

Yi-seon jerked his arm back, shaking Mugyeol’s hand off.

“Home.”

“…”

“You drove me here to go home, didn’t you?”

Panting heavily with fury, Yi-seon looked up, unable to contain his anger. “You told me before, didn’t you? That you felt comfortable and had fun with me. That that was one of the reasons you considered marriage.”

“…”

“Well, as for me, fuck… I’m not having any fun right now, you bastard.”

Thud! Giving into his temper, Yi-seon kicked the tire of Mugyeol’s car and turned on his heel.

Until he reached the apartment entrance, he never heard the sound of Mugyeol’s car driving away. Though he wondered what Mugyeol was doing standing there without leaving, and though the back of his neck prickled under the weight of his gaze, Yi-seon never once looked back.

After arriving home, Yi-seon took a hot shower. As the tension in his shoulders eased, the full scope of what happened finally sank in.

Did I lose my shit too much?

Should I have just brushed it off like, ‘What’s wrong with him now?’

I already knew Yeon Mugyeol’s personality took weird, erratic turns sometimes, so why did I flare up right along with him? I’m not usually this kind of person.

In front of Mugyeol, he always struggled with emotional control. When he got angry, he didn’t hold it in; when he wanted to laugh out loud, he laughed with abandon.

It had never been like this when living at his aunt’s house, nor here at his parents’ house, nor at school. Yi-seon always strived not to be swayed by his emotions. He adapted to other people’s personalities, and more often than not, he buried and killed his feelings depending on the situation.

But with Mugyeol, it was different. He expressed his emotions freely. More often than not, he acted on impulse without considering the consequences. Entering into this marriage was like that, and so was fighting in the car today.

If it had been anyone other than Mugyeol, far from having a formal marriage meeting today, they wouldn’t have cursed and traded snide remarks in the car in the first place.

Come to think of it, in the past, he had even grabbed Mugyeol by the hair and given him a bloody nose. Every single bit of it had been purely impulsive behavior.

“…”

Why do I always lose control of my emotions in front of Yeon Mugyeol?

Why do I always act so impulsively?

Why did I get so greedy for Yeon Mugyeol, unlike myself?

Why did things go this far…?

It was the same earlier. In reality, Mugyeol had merely stated the facts. Since they were going to marry, they would spend their heats and ruts together, and physical intimacy was necessary for that. Since their conditions aligned and brought them together, they should each do their duty.

Not a single word of it was wrong. It was just that because he liked Mugyeol, he had attached meaning to a simple kiss and thrown a fit all by himself.

Upset and disheartened, Yi-seon picked up the phone he had tossed into the corner. He intended to rename Yeon Mugyeol’s contact from “Lunatic” to “Mega Lunatic.” But as soon as he picked it up, Mugyeol’s unread messages popped up on the screen.

— Mega Lunatic: Your temper is really something else.    [8:23 PM]

— Mega Lunatic: Let’s fix that nasty attitude of yours.    [8:25 PM]

— Mega Lunatic: For the sake of our harmonious married life.    [8:25 PM]

“Ha…”

The messages were so utterly Mugyeol that his anger flared all over again. Who was he to criticize anyone else’s temper? The bastard could fire off a hundred words after Yi-seon said one.

A fierce impulse surged to call him and scream profanities into the receiver, but his hands meekly typed a spite-laced joke instead.

— Ryu Yi-seon: Yes, darling.     [8:36 PM]

The read marker vanished immediately, as if the other boy had been staring at the chat. Above the window, the typing indicator flickered on and off as Mugyeol typed and deleted over and over. The speech bubble appeared and vanished multiple times. Then, after what felt like an eternity, the message that finally arrived consisted of a single consonant.

— Mega Lunatic: Heh    [8:45 PM]

Just how many minutes did it take you to write a single letter?

[END of VOLUME 2]