Chapter 33: Yeon-chae’s Early Years

At twenty years old, Yeon-chae had grown up in an ordinary family, leading a remarkably ordinary life. He was born on the tenth floor of an apartment building somewhere in Seoul, a cherished only son whose striking looks garnered him a little more affection wherever he went.

For the first six years of his life, Yeon-chae’s world had been one of serene tranquility. That abundant peace shattered on his seventh birthday, the moment he blew out the candles on the custom-made cake his mother had ordered from the bakery.

“Yeon-chae. Your father has something to tell you…”

“Does it have to be now? In front of his birthday cake?”

“He’ll find out tomorrow anyway, what difference will a few hours make?”

His bewildered parents raised their voices, Yeon-chae caught in the middle. It was the first time his parents had ever flushed with anger towards each other.

As far as Yeon-chae could remember, his mother and father were always busy with their own affairs; they rarely even found time for casual conversation, let alone arguments.

Listening to their voices grow louder and more entangled, Yeon-chae stared blankly at the whipped cream cake before him. It was a lavish creation, adorned with layers of sweet chocolate and vibrant fruits.

He dipped a finger into one corner of the cake and tasted it. The whipped cream melted intoxicatingly sweet on his tongue.

A wave of nausea abruptly washed over him.

Yeon-chae cried and vomited until he finally succumbed to sleep. From that day forward, he never touched another sweet dessert.

When he woke the next morning, his father was already gone from the house.

Yeon-chae often met his father outside after that. However, his father never returned to the apartment where he had been born and raised.

His mother and father never held one of his hands each and took him to the playground. Yet, looking back, such outings had been rare even when his father lived with them, so it was hardly a new revelation.

It was always the older boy from next door, nine years his senior, who took Yeon-chae to the playground.

On the day his father left, the older boy found Yeon-chae sitting in the apartment’s emergency stairwell, clutching a cake box and crying silently. His eyes widened.

He scurried over, crouching before Yeon-chae, and with his small hands, gently wiped the tears from Yeon-chae’s plump cheeks, soothing him with, “Don’t cry, little one, don’t cry.”

The warmth from the maple-leaf-like palms against his cheeks was comforting. Slowly, gradually, the injustice and sorrow in his heart began to subside.

“But why were you crying?”

He sniffled, answering the older boy’s whispered question.

“My dad said he’s not coming home anymore. He’s going to ‘divorce’ Mom.”

Yeon-chae didn’t exactly know what “divorce” meant. The vague unease of that morning, the sorrow of his father’s retreating back as he left him behind, the sharp pang in his chest each time he entered his father’s empty study and flicked the lights on and off—none of it faded.

Overwhelmed, Yeon-chae burst into tears once more.

As he started crying again, the older boy pulled Yeon-chae into his arms and patted his back and waist. He continued to do so for a very long time, until late afternoon.

“Stop crying, Yeon. I’ll always be with you, every single day. You promised to ‘marry’ me, remember?”

The older boy called Yeon-chae ‘Yeon’. It had been that way since the moment he first saw Yeon-chae two years prior, when his family moved into the apartment next door.

‘I’m Yoonwoo. Eun Yoonwoo.’

The name Eun Yoonwoo sounded incredibly grand, but to five-year-old Yeon-chae, it was a mouthful. When he painstakingly tried to mimic, “Eun-yu-nu,” the older boy shook his head, saying that wasn’t how you said it.

‘Then you can just call me Yoonwoo-hyung. ‘Yeon’ and ‘Yoon’ make us sound like brothers, right?’

Yoonwoo-hyung, who actually had three siblings, had said. But Yeon-chae had no siblings at all, so he felt incredibly happy.

The older boy had embraced Yeon-chae tightly then, refusing to let go. ‘I’m going to marry Yeon. Yeon is the prettiest in the world.’

Nearby adults, who somehow caught the whispered words, burst into laughter. Surrounded by adults who clapped and cooed about how cute he was, five-year-old Yeon-chae merely blinked his round eyes.

“‘Marry’?”

The word “marriage” as Yoonwoo spoke it sounded vastly different from “divorce.” Yeon-chae was about to ask what marriage was but stopped himself.

He loved the older boy’s gentle embrace, so he simply replied, “Okay,” and nodded. Yoonwoo’s expression brightened, only to quickly furrow his small brow in deep thought.

“But my brother keeps saying boys can’t marry each other.”

Yeon-chae asked with a shocked expression.

“Can’t? Marry?”

“No, you can!”

Fearing Yeon-chae might start crying again, the startled older boy wrapped his short arms around him tightly and shook his head vigorously.

When they first met, the older boy had apparently thought five-year-old Yeon-chae was a girl. He was reportedly very despondent when he finally admitted, after Yeon-chae had grown a little, that Yeon-chae was a boy.

He vaguely recalled conversations his mother and the aunt next door had shared, punctuated by their quiet chuckles. But the older boy held Yeon-chae’s small hand firmly and shook his head emphatically.

Their clasped hands felt soft, warm, and pliable.

“It’s okay. I’m going to be an Alpha, so if you become an Omega, we can get married.”

“What’s an Alpha?”

“Someone tall and brave like me, who eats well, that’s an Alpha.”

“But Yoonwoo, you’re not very tall.”

“I’m going to grow tall from now on!”

Yoonwoo declared loudly that he would definitely become an Alpha, so Yeon-chae shouldn’t worry and just become an Omega. Yeon-chae wanted to believe everything the older boy said, but that particular claim felt deeply suspect.

This was particularly true because the older boy’s preferred fare wasn’t rice, but sugary snacks so sweet they made your tongue tingle.

“Yeon. But is that… a cake?”

“Yes.”

A growl rumbled from the older boy’s stomach.

Yeon-chae looked down at the cake box. Inside was the whipped cream cake, untouched save for his one taste. It was the cake left forlorn in the wake of his father’s departure, on the last day they were together.

Yeon-chae offered the cake box, almost as big as himself, to the older boy.

“You’re giving this to me? Really?”

The older boy’s dark eyes sparkled. Yeon-chae heard him swallow, a tell-tale gulp.

“If I give you this, will you marry me, hyung?”

Yeon-chae asked earnestly, determined to confirm it, for he truly wanted to “marry” Yoonwoo. The older boy had already opened the box and retrieved the cake.

With nimble small hands, he swiftly scooped a generous dollop of whipped cream with a disposable fork, shoved it into his mouth, and swallowed it whole.

“I’ll marry you even if you don’t give me this.”

His small face, as he shrugged and answered, looked so incredibly cool.

The whipped cream cake, which Yeon-chae had merely held in his arms, entirely ended up in the older boy’s stomach. Such was his passion for sweets that he gleefully devoured the entire large cake in a frenzy, only to suffer from a severe stomachache and be bedridden for several days afterward.

Yeon-chae’s early childhood was filled with memories: a small hand holding his, a smiling face pushing him on the swings at the playground, a whispered promise to play with him every single day if they married. Amidst his father’s absence and his mother’s increasingly distant presence, it remained the sole radiant memory.

That time was fleeting. Then, one day, the older boy and his family vanished without a trace, leaving behind yellow eviction notices plastered on their front door and furniture.

It was just days before Yeon-chae’s eighth birthday. As Yeon-chae quietly gazed up at the yellow notices, his mother spoke, her face etched with worry.

“Something happened to Yoonwoo’s family. When everything’s okay again, Yoonwoo will come to see you, Yeon-chae.”

Yeon-chae nodded, holding his mother’s hand.

But no matter how long he waited, it never happened. Yeon-chae started school. He grew so tall each night his legs ached.

He followed his mother, who had been dispatched overseas, spending his school years abroad. Even upon his return, when he collapsed with manifestation fever and woke to realize he had manifested as an Alpha, not an Omega, weeping bitter tears, Yoonwoo never came.

Upon entering university, Yeon-chae left the home he shared with his mother and found an officetel near campus. The first floor featured a studio layout, with the living room and kitchen separate, while the bedroom was located on the second floor.

The duplex officetel felt a bit too spacious for a single occupant.

“I don’t need such a big place,” Yeon-chae murmured, looking around the interior.

His father, who had come to see Yeon-chae for the first time in a while, offered an awkward laugh. This officetel, under Yeon-chae’s name, was a gift from his father to celebrate his acceptance into his desired university.

Not to be outdone, his mother presented him with a luxury sedan. When Yeon-chae first saw the black sedan, he thought, ‘The car is too big.’

Both the sprawling officetel and the large foreign car felt like ill-fitting, awkward clothes to Yeon-chae. He had enrolled in a prestigious university, just as his parents wished, yet held no expectations for his college life.

It was peculiar, despite living separately for nearly fifteen years and rarely exchanging proper conversations, that his mother and father shared the exact same expectations for Yeon-chae.

‘If you get into a Korean university, I’ll buy you everything you want, Yeon-chae.’

His parents would, in the end, never truly know what Yeon-chae desired. He had already lost one of those desires on his seventh birthday, and another had vanished just days before his eighth.

However, it was still too soon to draw such conclusions.

It was the freshman welcoming party, hosted by his department. As usual, people gravitated towards Yeon-chae, who sat quietly in a corner, nursing a beer.

Despite his quiet demeanor and sparse words, people were perpetually drawn to his side.

“I’m a third-year, Eun Yoonwoo. Nice to meet everyone.”

Yeon-chae nearly dropped the beer glass he was holding. It was a small mercy that he managed to hold back from spitting beer all over Yoonwoo’s face.