Chapter 55

Damon was surprisingly personable. He had even shown a great deal of consideration for Gi-hyeon’s foul mood that night.

—We can just have dinner some other time. If you feel indebted to me, treat me twice instead.

Of course, Gi-hyeon had pulled a rather complicated face at that specific comment; no matter how he looked at it, it sounded suspiciously like romantic interest. However, he quickly reasoned that a wildly successful sports star had absolutely no reason to pass over the hordes of Omegas throwing themselves at him, only to pursue Gi-hyeon.

“Bull-fucking-shit, So-khyun. Of course he’s hitting on you. Do you honestly think a sane person would ask you out to dinner again after witnessing that absolute psychotic meltdown?” Beom-hee let out a loud, unladylike burp as she crushed another empty beer can. Gi-hyeon stared at her for a long moment before letting out a heavy sigh.

“I literally told you not to drink in front of me because it makes me crave it.”

“And what, just pour this precious liquid down the drain? I’m doing you a favor by getting rid of it for you.”

Although he had hired a professional moving service, there was still a mountain of sorting and packing to do, so he was currently in the middle of emptying out his refrigerator. He was practically vibrating with anxiety over his massive to-do list, but he couldn’t exactly kick Beom-hee out. She had barged in carrying armfuls of mango-scented grapes and absurdly expensive strawberries, loudly declaring she was feeding the “father-to-be.” She had made a massive fuss about washing the fruit herself, but when she proudly presented the plate, Gi-hyeon stared in pure disbelief; she must have merely splashed water on them twice, because the strawberries still had their green stems fully attached.

“Hey, you’re supposed to cut the stems off.”

“Excuse me, Dad-to-be? Stop spouting bullshit. That Dick-oh bastard really spoiled you rotten, didn’t he? Who do you think you are, a prince?! Just shut up and eat what you’re given.”

Only Lee Beom-hee could so effortlessly weaponize an ex’s name right to her friend’s face. It was absurd, but it was impossible to actually hate her, so Gi-hyeon resigned himself to eating them whole. Apparently deciding the strawberries were perfect bar snacks, Beom-hee began systematically raiding the refrigerator for his remaining beers. At this rate, an entire fortress of crushed aluminum was rapidly forming in front of her. Gi-hyeon figured it was a blessing in disguise; if she didn’t drink them, he would have just poured them all down the sink anyway.

She clearly wanted to gossip about Team Leader Lim getting fired from the hospital, but since Gi-hyeon possessed absolutely zero interest in people from his past, he ruthlessly derailed the conversation.

“—Anyway, what did the OBGYN say?”

“Ah, about that… They said I need a joint consultation with the pheromone clinic, so I didn’t get a hyper-detailed explanation. Just the standard precautions, and the stark reminder that my situation is entirely different from a natural-born male Omega pregnancy.”

“But you’re an Omega now, too.”

A person’s secondary gender trait was decided at conception, fully manifesting during puberty. Therefore, mutating traits later in life was an astronomically rare phenomenon.

“They suspect I already possessed a recessive, dormant Omega gene. Apparently, without that underlying genetic foundation, even a dominant Alpha couldn’t forcibly mutate a Beta into an Omega.”

“I looked into it, too, and apparently, it requires a very specific, perfect storm of conditions. Occasionally, Betas are born carrying the dormant Omega factor, but because they never cross paths with a dominant Alpha, they simply grow old and die as Betas.”

But Gi-hyeon had possessed that dormant factor, he had spent years constantly bathed in a dominant Alpha’s aura, and that Alpha had subconsciously, desperately desired for Gi-hyeon to be an Omega. The violent collision of those three conditions had triggered the mutation.

“Because of that instability, they warned me that the safe zone of my pregnancy will arrive much later than a normal Omega’s, or that I might experience severe morning sickness incredibly early. They even told me not to let my guard down even after hitting the so-called ‘safe zone.'”

“Jesus, that sounds complicated.”

Beom-hee’s face tightened with genuine worry. Her reaction was exactly why he couldn’t bring himself to tell her the whole truth.

—In order to safely reach the stable period, the biological father’s pheromones are absolutely critical. Other Alphas could potentially provide some temporary stabilization, but that only applies to natural-born Omega pregnancies. In your unique case, Mr. So Gi-hyeon, the specific pheromones of the fetus’s father—the dominant Alpha—are mandatory.

The doctor had bluntly warned him that without reaching that stable period, the fetus’s survival was incredibly precarious. He absolutely refused to dump that horrifying reality onto Beom-hee’s shoulders. Telling her wouldn’t magically solve the problem; it would only torture the friend who had already done so much for him.

But that was a bridge he would cross when he got to it. He could panic about the impending crisis when the deadline grew closer. Right now, his absolute priority was establishing a secure, stable home in Ilsan for the child.

“Hey, by the way, aren’t you going to give the baby a nickname?”

Gi-hyeon, who had been absentmindedly tossing two or three strawberries into his mouth at a time, shot her a sideways glance. He savored the burst of sweet juice on his tongue. He had never been a fruit person before, but bizarrely, absolutely every fruit tasted like heaven right now.

“A nickname? Why bother… I’ll just give them a good name when they’re born. Who named you, anyway? If you got yours from a naming clinic, I’m taking my kid there so they turn out as much of a genius as you.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? You honestly think my sheer, unparalleled genius is just because of my name?”

“You never know. Seriously, where did you get it?”

He genuinely wondered if securing a name from the same clinic might ensure his child grew up to be just like Lee Beom-hee—brilliant, fiercely independent, and capable of carving their own path. Gi-hyeon desperately hoped his child wouldn’t inherit a single one of his traits. It wasn’t about self-loathing; it was because So Gi-hyeon had endured a suffocating amount of pain in his life, and he wanted to spare his child from ever experiencing that kind of agony.

“Since they said I’ll probably need a C-section anyway, I was thinking about consulting a fortune teller to pick the most auspicious date and time for the surgery.”

“…You’re surprisingly an overbearing parent already, but your methods are aggressively old-school…?”

Beom-hee stared at him as if he had sprouted a second head. Gi-hyeon simply let out a quiet chuckle. Wait until you have a kid of your own. You’ll want to give them the entire universe. He kept the thought to himself. It was a pathetic irony; he desperately wanted to give his child everything, yet he was already robbing them of one of their parents before they were even born. Instead of voicing his bitter thoughts, he merely kicked Beom-hee’s hip and ordered her to go wash more fruit.

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