My loneliness deepened uncontrollably once I started going to school. My mother’s absence, and the fact that I had become a complete orphan, were things so despairing I couldn’t possibly put them into words. At least I had to count myself lucky that, thanks to Chairman Jung’s consideration, I didn’t have to go to an orphanage.

Every night, I sat on the garden bench and waited for Jung Inhyuk. When Jung Inhyuk, still in his school uniform, opened the front gate and came in, I would run to him and throw myself into his arms as if I’d been waiting for him all along.

He had never once shoved me away. It felt like the safest, warmest, most comforting mother’s arms in the world. To me, Jung Inhyuk was my substitute for Mom.

He was always mature, kind, and had broad arms wide enough to hold me.

But there were moments even Jung Inhyuk’s embrace couldn’t fill. The moment I was left alone at the playground late in the evening, the moment I had to stand there staring at the backs of my friends as they scattered and left me behind, those moments were unbearably lonely.

In the empty playground, only the swings creaked back and forth with a metal screech. I sat on one and stared up at the apartment buildings with their lights on, breathing out a white cloud of breath.

How warm and snug must it be inside?

I brushed the sand off my clothes and walked home. While trudging along, I impulsively went into a private house whose door was halfway open. I opened the gate and headed to the front door as casually as if I were the son who lived there.

When I pulled on the old front door, it let out a sickly creak. The door opened, and the smell peculiar to a family home washed over me. I heard doenjang jjigae bubbling on the stove, and the savory scent of steamed rice, fresh off the steam, drifted into the tip of my nose.

Ah… so this was what a home with a mother felt like.

I wiped away my tears as I looked into the house, where warmth lingered in the air. Just then, an auntie wearing an apron came out of the kitchen, and the moment she saw me standing by the entrance, she shouted for her husband inside the room. And that was how I was handed over to the police station.

I sat dazedly on a chair in one corner of the station, surrounded by drunken middle-aged men. And as always, Jung Inhyuk came to fetch me. He crouched down on one knee and rubbed my dirt-caked face with the sleeve of his school uniform.

“Shinjae, why did you do that?”

“…”

“Why did you go into someone else’s house? Hm?”

“…”

“Lee Shinjae, are you not going to answer?”

Big tear drops fell plop, plop. At his urging, I reluctantly opened my mouth.

“I don’t know either. I, I was wrong. I was wrong.”

Jung Inhyuk said nothing. He only stared at my face. Afraid of getting scolded, I hunched my shoulders tight and watched his reaction.

Soon, a man who looked like a lawyer arrived. After Jung Inhyuk explained the situation to him, he immediately grabbed my hand and left the police station. He ignored the car door the driver opened for us and started walking with me instead.

He kept holding my hand tightly all the way through the busy streets lined with colorful signs, and into a quiet alley.

Jung Inhyuk’s hand, clutching mine, comforted me with more heat than a hundred words ever could. I was grateful that he held my hand and walked beside me in silence like that. And walking in step with him felt as if he were telling me I wasn’t alone.

Jung Inhyuk never let go of my hand until we got home. My face had frozen stiff from the cold weather, but my hand still carried a lingering warmth.

The warmth he shared with me seeped straight into my heart.

But then, suddenly, Jung Inhyuk frowned and tried to let go of the hand he was holding. I clung to him desperately, but he mercilessly shook me off and turned away.

“…Don’t go! Don’t go!”

I woke with my hand reaching into the air. Turning my head, I saw the familiar room around me. Feeling drained, I lay there staring at the ceiling for a long time, blinking. Tears rolled down from the corners of my eyes.

I missed the young Jung Inhyuk, the one in his school uniform who used to hold my hand so warmly. That hand, warm enough to feel almost scorching, clawed at my suffocating chest. I couldn’t understand how Jung Inhyuk and I had ended up with such a vicious relationship.

The door suddenly opened without a knock. Jung Inhyuk, already dressed for work, came into the room. I jerked upright in shock. But the muscle pain that slammed through my whole body made me groan, and I toppled forward.

“You really do everything, don’t you.”

Jung Inhyuk furrowed his brow and leaned toward me. A faint pheromone scent flowed from his body. Before I realized it, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath as if savoring the fragrance, and Jung Inhyuk gave a soft snort.

I rubbed my forehead awkwardly and stuck out my lips. He adjusted the pillow so I could lean back comfortably, then stepped away. Only after I leaned my upper body against it did I realize I was completely naked, not a single thread on me. I quickly pulled the blanket up and covered myself.

“Why be shy when we’ve already seen everything?”

“…Still.”

For no reason, last night came to mind and my face burned. Last night, I had collapsed while having sex with him, and when I woke again, my body was still shaking. I had gone in and out of consciousness, unable to keep up with his monster-like stamina. I didn’t even remember exactly when I’d blacked out.

And yet, strangely, my body was clean. It had definitely been a mess of sticky fluids clinging all over me. Only belatedly did I notice the pressure bandage wrapped around my wrist, and I lifted my head to look at Jung Inhyuk.

With a smooth, exhausted-looking face that showed not the slightest trace of fatigue, Jung Inhyuk adjusted his tie knot and leaned lazily against the vanity. The oppressive presence coming off his tall frame and solid muscles made my gaze drop on its own.

“Someone’s coming later. If you’re uncomfortable, go out.”

“…Someone?”

“I was wondering what you’d stuffed into the toilet bowl in the guest bathroom.”

Jung Inhyuk rolled up his sleeve to show me his wristwatch. It wasn’t the watch he always wore, but a different one wrapped around his wrist. Ah… only then did I remember the watch I’d thrown into the toilet in a fit of anger.

I blushed with embarrassment. Over the years, there had been countless things of Jung Inhyuk’s that I’d damaged. I’d smashed his car before, and I’d even torn apart a painting hanging in the living room that had cost tens of millions of won. But Jung Inhyuk had never once picked a fight over it or asked me why I’d done it.

He was just the kind of person who replaced things with new ones, and yet… it seemed he had truly treasured that watch.

“It was something I quite liked, so I didn’t think it would meet its fate in Lee Shinjae’s hands.”

“…I’m sorry.”

“When does filming start?”

“…Next Thursday.”

He took out his phone to check the date and frowned. I could hear him tapping the screen with his fingernail, as if he were thinking about something. Come to think of it, his rut would be soon.

Jung Inhyuk was a healthy alpha, and an alpha of superior rank at that, so his rut cycle tended to come at regular intervals. He was taking medication to align his cycle with my heat cycle, but I still didn’t know the exact timing. I scratched my cheek with my finger and bit my lip.

“It’s fucking annoying when your downstairs hole won’t open, so get a prescription for heat-inducing meds and take them.”

“…What?”

“I won’t say it twice. If you want to film comfortably, your heat needs to come by Sunday at the latest.”

“…But if I get pregnant during filming,”

Even if I did get pregnant, I wanted it to happen after filming was over. Though that wasn’t exactly up to me. At my words, Jung Inhyuk let out a breathless laugh.

“You really overestimate your body. What, because you’re only a recessive and, on top of that, an omega through mutation, you think you’d get pregnant that easily?”

“Still, you never know. Vice President, you’re a superior alpha.”

“A normally manifested recessive omega only has a 15 percent chance of getting pregnant. During a heat cycle, it’s 30 percent.”

Come to think of it, I had mutated as a recessive only late, and my pheromones were weak to begin with. It was safe to say he wouldn’t be brought to heat by my pheromones. The chances of me getting pregnant were extremely low. Even so, I couldn’t help worrying because Jung Inhyuk was a superior alpha.

“If you’re that worried, just take birth control.”

I didn’t understand what Jung Inhyuk meant. Take birth control? That meant this wasn’t about a heat cycle for getting pregnant. Wasn’t the ultimate goal having a child? I had no idea what he was thinking. No matter how anxiously I worried over it, biting my lip and turning it over in my head, nothing came to mind. Even after studying alphas and omegas, there were still too many things I didn’t know.

Jung Inhyuk glanced at his wristwatch, then took the car keys from his pocket and tossed them onto the bed. The keys arced through the air and landed on the blanket.

“It’s parked in the lot. Take it.”

“…I don’t need a car. Why do you keep giving me a car I don’t even drive?”

“Rest comfortably, even if only for a little while. That’s why I’m giving it to you.”

Leaving behind words I couldn’t make heads or tails of, Jung Inhyuk left the room. I reached out and grabbed the car keys. One of the most useless things to me was a car. When I had schedules, I usually used the company car, and during inactive periods, I hardly ever went out.

Once in a while I’d drive just to get some air, but one domestic car was more than enough. And after rolling around so indecently with him last night, a car felt like nothing more than payment in kind.

I dropped the keys beneath the bed and lay back down. But soon after, I kicked off the blanket and sat up again. I pulled out the materials on alphas and omegas that I’d stored under the bed and started reading. The papers had been handled so much they were worn ragged, but as I turned the pages, one interesting sentence in the section on omega pregnancy caught my eye.

“A pheromone capsule can be made from an alpha’s blood. A pregnant omega needs an alpha’s pheromones. But when, due to unavoidable circumstances, the two must be apart, a pheromone capsule made from the alpha’s blood can be used as a substitute. However, its effect is limited.”