Chapter 4: A Close Call

His body felt as if it had turned into plaster.

In that fleeting instant, Chaewoo’s mind was swallowed by chaos.

He had come to the address his uncle gave him, only to find Beom Euigeon, a junior from his own department.

“How did you get here?”

When there was no answer, Euigeon asked again.

Chaewoo frantically wracked his brain as it threatened to go blank.

“You left a printout behind. I came to bring it to you.”

From the moment he saw Euigeon’s face, his heart began to pound as if it would explode, contrasting with his stoic expression.
However, instinct pushed Chaewoo to force out a lie by any means necessary.

“All the way here?”
The voice that came back was filled with suspicion.

“I just happened to be passing by.”
In this state of confusion, the excuse he managed to squeeze out was pathetic.

‘Could it be that the Alpha son from the family seeking an Omega to bear a child… is this guy?’
But Euigeon was still a college student.

At twenty-four, he wasn’t exactly at the age where one would be desperate to have a child.

“Give it to me.”

“What?”

“You said you were bringing the printout.”

“Ah… Oh, right.”

Heat rushed to his face.

He was mortified.

To hide it, Chaewoo lowered his head and opened the bag he had brought.

There was no way a printout from a lecture was inside.

The bag was full of documents he had prepared for what was supposed to be an interview.
Fearing Euigeon might see them, he turned his body as far back as possible to hide the bag.

Euigeon’s dark eyes watched Chaewoo’s every movement without missing a beat.

“It’s not here. I must have forgotten to bring it.”

He had come all this way to a place far from school without calling, claiming to deliver a printout, yet he didn’t have it.

It made no sense whatsoever.

To make matters worse, he didn’t even know if Euigeon had disclosed the location of this practice room—or whatever it was—to their peers.

His mouth felt beyond dry; it felt like it was parching.

“What printout was it?”

“The one from the Aria Theory class…” Chaewoo muttered in an unsure voice.

“I already have that one.”

“You do?”

“……”

“……”

A strange silence followed.

“…But since when did you start speaking so casually to me?”
Chaewoo pointed out, realizing belatedly that Euigeon had addressed him informally.

He was desperate to shift the topic of this clumsy conversation somehow.

“Right. I see.”

“Yeah.”

Cold sweat ran down his back.

Pressed by the urge to smooth over this situation naturally, Chaewoo spent a long time choosing his words.

In the meantime, Euigeon lifted his bored eyes to check the clock on the wall.

“Do you have anything else to say? I have a guest coming today.”

It was a dismissive question, as if he were dealing with an uninvited intruder.

As Chaewoo shook his head, Euigeon’s gaze briefly lingered on his nape.

It was only a fleeting glance, but Chaewoo flinched involuntarily.

He raised a hand to cover the back of his neck.

“No, nothing else. I must have been mistaken. I’ll go. Get back to your practice.”

Fearing Euigeon might stop him, he fled the officetel without looking back.

He didn’t even have the patience to wait for the elevator.

Chaewoo ran down the stairs, reaching the first floor in one breath.

Only after he was completely out of the building did he exhale the breath he had been holding.
Cold sweat was even trickling down his forehead.

His mind was still reeling.

The situation was absurd.

To think the son of the musical family his uncle mentioned was Beom Euigeon.

Euigeon’s sharp gaze, looking down at him as if asking why he was there, remained vivid in his mind as if etched into his vision.

The embarrassment made his head spin.

‘What on earth must he have thought?’

Euigeon wasn’t a fool; he wouldn’t believe that a senior who disliked him would suddenly show up at his place just to deliver a printout he’d supposedly left behind.

Moreover, Euigeon had never told Chaewoo the location of his officetel.

On the surface, it seemed like he had escaped, but unless Beom Euigeon was an idiot, he would have realized why Chaewoo had come there.

‘In that case, did he figure out I’m an Omega?’

How had he controlled his pheromones?

Chaewoo checked to see if any pheromones had leaked out because he failed to compose himself.

Fortunately, his control was as perfect as ever.
To anyone, he would appear to be a Beta.

But what if Euigeon noticed?

What if he exposed the fact that Chaewoo was an Omega to the whole school?

Just imagining the way the students in his department would look at him made it hard to breathe.

After losing everything he had, the only part of a normal life Chaewoo managed to barely maintain was school.

While hiding his Omega status from acquaintances wasn’t a legal issue, his heart sank at the thought of faces that might treat him differently out of a sense of betrayal.

The professors who had given him lessons for a long time would be disappointed, too.

He didn’t want to lose his school life like that.
He wanted to safely obtain his diploma, just as his father and uncle wished.

Chaewoo returned to his studio apartment as if being hunted, without even being able to open his documents.

As soon as he threw his bag under the desk, his uncle called.

—”Chaewoo. Did you go?”

“……”

He couldn’t bring himself to speak.

He couldn’t say that he had seen a junior from his own department at the place he visited.

And that wasn’t all. Beom Euigeon was even in the same class as Chaewoo within the vocal performance department.

That meant they would cross paths much more often than other students.

If possible, he wanted to turn back time to an hour ago.

“I thought about it, and I didn’t go because I don’t think I can do it.”

—”…As expected, it’s a bit much, right?”

“Yeah, it’s a bit much.”

—”Right. Good thinking. Forget about that. Your uncle misspoke.”

“Please tell that man that I couldn’t make it, too.”

—”I’ll take care of it, so don’t worry. Make sure you eat dinner before you sleep.”

“Where are you, Uncle?”

—”I’m still out.”

[There!] Someone shouted over the phone.

—”Ah, yes, yes. I’m coming now. Chaewoo, I have to go back because I just stepped out for a moment while working. Don’t starve yourself, eat something. I sent some spending money to your account earlier.”

“…I said I’m fine.”
Chaewoo muttered to the disconnected call.

He had no strength left in his body.

Without even changing his clothes, Chaewoo lay down on the floor.

Would this foul mood improve after a good sleep?

But even after a long time with his eyes closed, sleep wouldn’t come.

Instead, complex emotions became stickily intertwined.

Shame and guilt were by far the largest among them.

“Right. There’s no way such a thing could be a good opportunity.”

Self-deprecating, Chaewoo pulled up the blanket and turned over.

He knew regretting it was useless, but he was driven to the brink of insanity by how pathetic he was for being tempted by such a ridiculous proposal and going all the way there.

And why did it have to be Beom Euigeon of all people?

Past midnight, Chaewoo called his father at the nursing hospital to calm his mind.
The dial tone rang for a long time.
However, his father must have been asleep, as he never picked up.

Since losing his health, his father hadn’t tried to have long conversations with him.

Even when Chaewoo visited, his father would often cut him off just to send him back quickly.

Instead, he relied desperately on his uncle.

He hadn’t been like that before, but his personality had changed a lot after going through so many trials.

Perhaps it was only natural.

While he understood his father, he also felt hurt.
Watching his father push him away made him feel endlessly cold and lonely.

The harsher reality became, the more clearly he remembered the happy times of the past.

He was troubled in many ways.

Chaewoo stared at the dark screen of his phone before closing his eyes, vowing to definitely go see his father next week whenever he had time.

****

The next day was packed with afternoon lectures.

The first lecture was Italian Diction, conducted by the department professor.

In other schools, students might finish it in their first or second year, but at Yeonseo University, the standards were exceptionally strict, so the proportion of upperclassmen taking the course was high.

Once again, Chaewoo’s designated seat was in the very back.

A few minutes after Chaewoo sat down, students began to enter one by one.

The lecture hall gradually became noisy.

Conversations about how much they gamed at the PC room yesterday, what they ate, and what movies they watched flowed incessantly.

He even caught the title of a movie he had wanted to see for a while.

Normally, he would have been interested in the conversation, but no sound registered.

Beom Euigeon was also taking this lecture.

Chaewoo’s mind was still a mess, filled with what happened yesterday.
What if Euigeon insisted on asking why he had come by yesterday?

‘What should I say then? What if he interrogates me in front of everyone, asking if I came for the Reset Partner arrangement…’

“…….”

He squeezed his eyes shut at the worst-case scenario.

However, Chaewoo soon tried to resolve the situation rationally.

To the public, he was a Beta.

One who had never even been suspected of being an Omega.

There were times when people mistook him for one at first sight because of his appearance, but once he stated he was a Beta, no one doubted his gender after that.

He was that confident in his pheromone control.

So, if Euigeon mentioned yesterday, he could just insist that he happened to stop by while passing.

“Chaewoo. What are you thinking about so deeply?”

“Huh?”
Someone set a bag down in the seat next to him.

When he turned his head, Kim Yunso was looking at him curiously.

“…Nothing. You’re early today.”

“The bus actually came early for once.”
Kim Yunso was Chaewoo’s peer and a fellow senior.

Unlike Chaewoo, whose graduation was delayed due to the military and family matters, she was a case of someone who couldn’t graduate because she had gone abroad for language studies.

The two had more in common than just that.

Yunso had been famous as a music department outsider since her freshman year.

In a music college where group life was emphasized, she had been excluded from the social circles after consistently and boldly skipping mandatory events, earning the disapproval of seniors and professors.

Since she was currently the only peer in the vocal department with the same class year, the two often sat together when taking overlapping lectures after Chaewoo became a voluntary outsider himself.

It was a sort of sense of kinship.
Since they were in similar positions, he didn’t want to push Yunso away.

“Are you going to your part-time job today, too?”

“In the evening.”

“Then let’s have dinner together.”

“Sure. But I only have about twenty-five minutes.”

“Why? Didn’t you usually have more free time around now?”

“I increased my working hours.”

“Wow, you’re amazing. Isn’t that sandwich shop super intense?”

Kim Yunso didn’t ask in detail why he had increased his working hours.

She also knew well that Chaewoo’s personality and behavior had changed significantly compared to before.

He had never explained the reason separately, but she seemed to have roughly guessed his circumstances after observing his patterns.

Chaewoo liked that bluntness of Kim Yunso’s.

And the fact that she was a Beta, meaning there was no need to worry about leaking or sensing pheromones.

The two were spending their final semester while maintaining a proper distance.

“Senior Euigeon, over here!”

Suddenly, a student in the front row waved toward the back door.

Chaewoo’s shoulders flinched.

The situation from yesterday, which he had forgotten for a moment, came rushing back.