Chapter 37: The Black Knight’s Gambit

“Let’s switch seats.”

Lee Dohwa abruptly rose, swaying slightly. Though those around him instinctively reached out to steady his form, no one else moved to stand, so Dohwa pointed a finger at one person.

“Brother. Switch with me.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

Jae-hyun to his left, Kang Hae-il to his right.

This seating arrangement had been fundamentally flawed from the start. Both men had remained untouched throughout the game, while Lee Dohwa, caught in the middle, had been continuously targeted.

He had inadvertently turned his head, only to glimpse a flicker of madness in Jae-hyun’s eyes.

It was a complete mystery how the executive director of Geumgang Group even knew about drinking games. Woo Sori, sitting opposite him, had been the most annoying, constantly pouring him drinks with a mischievous grin, claiming, “If you don’t know, you learn by drinking!”

However, when Woo Sori readily agreed to switch seats, even that irritation quickly melted away.

“Dohwa, that’s alcohol.”

“…It’s tasty.”

He moved all his dishes and glasses, then, parched, took a sip, and a delightful lemon scent filled his mouth. It seemed the seating truly had been the problem, as for the next three rounds, someone else was caught, making Dohwa grin broadly.

Meanwhile, the three people sitting opposite him hadn’t even flinched.

“Ah… I got caught.”

“Congratulations, congratulations!”

“Isn’t this your first time getting caught?”

Jae-hyun, who had maintained an undefeated streak, unluckily got caught and had to drink a forfeit. Everyone clapped and cheered, but they overlooked one crucial fact: alcohol doesn’t hit you immediately.

It slowly spreads through the body, and the intoxication builds over time.

All eyes then turned to Dohwa, who sat there blankly, unaware it was his turn.

“Me? Didn’t Chaeyeon-woo just go?”

“You’re after Chaeyeon-woo.”

“Right.”

As he finally grasped the situation and reached for the forfeit drink, Ma Won-ho, seated beside him, blocked his path with an arm.

“I’ll drink it for you. Give me a wish ticket.”

Right. Those existed. He’d forgotten because no one had used them.

However, seeing Ma Won-ho brazenly demand a wish ticket, a rebellious streak suddenly emerged.

“No.”

His pronunciation was still clear, indicating he was fine. He tossed the drink into his mouth, watching Ma Won-ho’s dumbfounded expression, presumably surprised by the refusal. The bitter taste was barely noticeable now.

Next, they played the Son Byung-ho Game.

“Fold down a finger if your phone number contains the digit ‘2’.”

“Is that even allowed?”

“It is.”

Laughter erupted from all directions at Dohwa’s resolute answer to Woo Sori’s query. They continued the Son Byung-ho Game for several more rounds.

Since the game was so targeted, even Kang Hae-il, who hadn’t been caught yet, finally got hit.

“Fold a finger if you’ve developed feelings for someone since coming here.”

“Fold a finger if you’re looking forward to a date tomorrow!”

Through his blurring vision, Dohwa, with ears wide open, held up one hand, not folding a single finger.

“Fold a finger if you want to leave right now.”

His finger instantly curled for that condition. However, he was too preoccupied with his own situation to notice anyone else.

Consequently, Dohwa failed to see that on the second question, everyone else’s fingers had folded, except for his own.

“Brother, how many wish tickets did you have?”

“One. You guys drank all of them.”

“How could I not pick up a free wish ticket if it fell on the floor?”

If he was going to succumb, he might as well have done it gracefully.

Jae-hyun had one, Ma Won-ho two, and Kang Hae-il four. At first, Dohwa adamantly refused any ‘black knights,’ but as his eyes glazed over, he seemed to give up, indiscriminately calling for one every time he was caught.

He had simply passed them on when others offered to drink for him.

As everyone had expected, Lee Dohwa was the first to be eliminated. With one person out, the drinking game naturally came to an end. It was just as Chaeyeon-woo, who had been caught relatively few times, was about to request a black knight himself.

They continued their drinking, ignoring the bundled form of Lee Dohwa, who had curled up on a cushion with a blanket pulled over him, his head buried.

Though eliminating a competitor should logically have improved the situation.

“What did everyone choose as the worst thing to do after a breakup?”

“Waiting outside their house. That’s so over the top, honestly.”

“Having people talk trash about me to others is what I dislike most.”

Every time Lee Dohwa stirred, one or two people would invariably glance his way, momentarily disengaging from the conversation. And those were precisely the two Alphas Chaeyeon-woo was interested in.

‘How irritating.’

He glared with cold eyes at Lee Dohwa, who was peacefully snoring, but it was only for a moment. The sleeping person wasn’t the important one right now.

Chaeyeon-woo also made sure to interject whenever there was an opening, and if someone wasn’t speaking, he’d directly call on them. Even if they hadn’t been caught in the game, everyone had been steadily sipping their own drinks, so no one was entirely sober.

“What kind of outfit would you like your date to wear tomorrow?”

“…Something neat.”

“They should wear comfortable clothes.”

“Anything would be fine, I think.”

He pricked up his ears at Woo Sori’s pointed question, but finding no useful information, he clicked his tongue inwardly. Chaeyeon-woo, wondering if he should pretend to be drunk, slowly blinked, and Ma Won-ho, who had been leaning back, noticed him.

“Sleepy?” Ma Won-ho mouthed. Chaeyeon-woo smiled sweetly and mouthed back, “No.”

As he leaned slightly to one side, he felt as if he brushed against Kang Hae-il, who was seated next to him.

“…Thank you.”

Kang Hae-il abruptly held out a blanket to Chaeyeon-woo. He blinked in surprise, then conspicuously unfolded the blanket and draped it over his entire body.

Kang Hae-il, however, didn’t even glance his way, simply drinking by himself and rarely participating in the conversation, save for a fleeting eye contact once or twice.

“Is it acceptable for your partner to have other Alpha friends, or not?”

“Not acceptable.”

“What if they’re childhood friends?”

“Still no.”

Then, as if a button had been pushed, the usually quiet Kang Hae-il suddenly answered first, drawing everyone’s gaze. His uncompromising stance, even on Woo Sori’s hypotheticals, was amusing, and everyone teased him.

Chaeyeon-woo, however, looked at him with a satisfied expression.

“What if there’s even one Alpha at a drinking gathering?”

“It’s best to prevent potential mishaps before they occur.”

As Woo Sori pushed further, pulling out an almost infinite number of hypothetical scenarios, Kang Hae-il’s eyebrow twitched. Chaeyeon-woo, too, was inwardly categorizing what was acceptable and what wasn’t.

‘If we start dating, I’ll need to sort some things out.’

Everything that came out of Kang Hae-il’s mouth leaned towards the negative; it seemed that if they ever dated, some things would definitely need to be ‘cleaned up.’

“You have to live your life with hobbies. Isn’t that practically confinement?”

“There are countless hobbies one can pursue without meeting Alphas.”

“It’s not a disease, and avoiding people based on their secondary gender is prejudice.”

“Considering the legal cases surrounding Omegas, you wouldn’t be able to say that.”

Occasionally, when Ma Won-ho expressed opinions contrary to Kang Hae-il’s, their debates became quite exciting. Their win rate was almost fifty-fifty.

He adjusted the blanket covering him, then propped his chin in his hand, observing the two. The more they talked, the more evident it became how different their values were.

Judging solely by their words, Ma Won-ho seemed a better fit for him, yet being ‘constrained’ by Kang Hae-il didn’t sound bad either.

Seeing Chaeyeon-woo sitting quietly, smiling while lost in various fantasies, Woo Sori decided it was time to wrap things up. No one had left the gathering early, save for quick bathroom breaks, and the long-running session had somehow stretched into midnight.

Jiiing—

[Tomorrow, please send a message to the date partner who makes your heart flutter.]

Everyone’s phones vibrated, receiving the same message. Chaeyeon-woo, whose remaining tipsiness had been jolted away, unhesitatingly typed out his message right then and there.

He didn’t particularly want to go to an aquarium, but what mattered was the person he was going with.

“This time, everyone sent it right away.”

Chaeyeon-woo was the first to put his phone down, then watched the others. Everyone but one had sent their message without much deliberation.

‘Now he’s even sleeping with his mouth open.’

He glared at Lee Dohwa, who was peacefully snoring, utterly oblivious to the conversations that had transpired while he slept.

“Dohwa couldn’t send the message, could he?”

“Then it’s just unfortunate for his date partner, I guess.”

He almost said ‘poor guy,’ but stopped himself. And when Lee Dohwa wouldn’t wake up even when they tried to rouse him to clean up, Chaeyeon-woo’s expression hardened as he watched Kang Hae-il simply pick him up and carry him to the second floor.

‘That sly fox.’

His last memory was leaning his face into a cushion in the first-floor living room, intending to catch a quick nap. Yet, upon regaining consciousness, he found himself in a bed.

‘I never climbed the stairs, so how did I get here?’

Checking the time, it was five in the morning. During the drinking game, Dohwa had done his best to maintain the atmosphere until the very end.

He hadn’t drunk enough to black out, so he remembered everything that had happened. Still in the clothes he’d worn yesterday, he saw two microfiber blankets on the bed, and a question mark seemed to float above his head.

Lying down, he checked his phone notifications one by one and discovered the message he should have sent last night.

‘Can I send this now?’

After much internal debate, he decided to send it anyway, reasoning that the production team would surely figure something out if he just submitted it. He drafted the message with the utmost sincerity.

After all, there was nothing worse than sending it late and half-heartedly.

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