Chapter 11

After exiting the bath, Gi-hyeon immediately ordered room service.

While debating what to eat, he vaguely recalled hearing that this specific hotel was famous for its spicy seafood jjamppong, so he ordered it without hesitation. While he was the type to simply skip meals if he lacked an appetite regardless of the time, whenever he actually sat down to eat, he tended to devour massive portions. Tonight, he was ravenous and desperate to eat in peace without walking on eggshells.

Unlike Gi-hyeon, who heavily favored meat, Jo Yeon-oh surprisingly preferred a plant-based diet. Whenever they shared a meal, the Alpha persistently shoveled greens onto Gi-hyeon’s plate, forcefully dictating a healthy diet. Feeling exactly like a rebellious child sneaking junk food behind their guardian’s back, Gi-hyeon defiantly added a large plate of deep-fried chicken yuringi to his order.

While waiting for the food, Gi-hyeon picked up his phone. Normally, unless he was actively expecting a call, he possessed zero interest in the device’s whereabouts, but being completely alone in the hotel room inevitably invited stray thoughts.

—You’re pissed off because I acted like a couple of Betas dating yesterday, aren’t you?

Jo Yeon-oh’s exact words remained lodged deeply in his mind like a persistent splinter. Gi-hyeon possessed absolutely no knowledge of any dynamic outside of dating a Beta. In truth, his overall grasp of ‘dating’ as a concept was embarrassingly shallow.

Jo Yeon-oh was his very first Alpha partner, and everything prior had been nothing more than clumsy, juvenile flings. Consequently, he had absolutely no frame of reference for what constituted a ‘normal’ relationship between an Alpha and an Omega. Suddenly painfully aware of his own glaring lack of experience, a childish streak of stubbornness flared within him.

Fully acknowledging how incredibly pathetic it was, Gi-hyeon typed “dating an Alpha” into the search bar. Scrolling rapidly, he bypassed the mountain of results without actually reading any of the text. Among the endless links, a commercial advertisement selling ‘Omega-scented perfume’ caught his eye. While Gi-hyeon had absolutely zero personal curiosity regarding what an Omega or Alpha supposedly smelled like, the rest of society clearly obsessed over it.

Reaching that disturbing conclusion, Gi-hyeon abruptly locked the screen. The exact second he initiated the search, a suffocating wave of intense self-loathing had violently crashed over him. Hurling the phone onto the mattress, he let out a miserable groan. A crushing wave of self-reproach ruthlessly berated him for acting so incredibly pathetic.

Just then, the chime of the doorbell signaled the arrival of his food. Instructing the staff to simply leave the cart outside, Gi-hyeon waited a moment before opening the door and hauling the tray inside. Plucking a cold beer from the minibar, he settled down to eat. He had barely managed three mouthfuls of the spicy jjamppong while watching TV when his phone suddenly vibrated.

“…”

Gi-hyeon stared blankly at the device he had carelessly tossed aside.

The screen was flashing with a distressingly familiar name.

Turning his head away to take another swig of beer, Gi-hyeon ultimately set the can down, extended his arm, and snatched the phone. Without a second thought, he hit the hold button to instantly reject the call. He then meticulously switched the device to silent mode. He knew from bitter experience that completely powering off the phone would instantaneously mutate Jo Yeon-oh’s standard temper tantrum into an apocalyptic, psychotic rampage.

Having successfully neutralized the threat, Gi-hyeon systematically annihilated his dinner and the remaining beer. After placing the empty dishes outside his door, he cracked a window to ventilate the room and brushed his teeth. Not having to constantly monitor whether his bathrobe had slipped open was an absolute luxury. Idly checking his phone for the time, he was instantly half-paralyzed by the sheer, unhinged volume of incoming calls.

As he rejected yet another incoming call, Jo Yeon-oh’s name flashed across the screen accompanied by a missed call notification. Nestled right beside the bastard’s name was a small red bubble displaying the number ’16’. It explicitly meant he had sixteen missed calls from the exact same person.

“Is he a fucking lunatic…?”

Thoroughly horrified, the muttered curse slipped out entirely unprompted. Deciding he couldn’t care less about the consequences anymore, Gi-hyeon ruthlessly powered off the phone entirely, shoved it onto the hotel’s complimentary charging dock, shut the window, and aggressively yanked the blackout curtains closed.

Finally, it was time to sleep in absolute peace.

***