Chapter 58: The Unintended Proposal

“Hyung, even though our start was a bit unusual—”

“We didn’t start anything! What kind of relationship do we even have?”

“I believe we can do well together in the future. So, please—”

“Get a grip and stand up. I’m going to die of embarrassment…”

“Marry me. I’ll truly do my best, for my entire life.”

“Yah…”

Regardless of Yoonwoo’s squirming discomfort, Yeon-chae steadfastly finished what he wanted to say. He finally opened the small box he held in his hand. A dazzling diamond, set in a silver ring, sparkled before Yoonwoo’s eyes.

Yoonwoo’s lips parted in a bewildered, hollow expression.

“Did you really have to propose?”

He was even kneeling on one knee, as if he’d just stepped out of some cheesy romance movie.

“Why, why didn’t you just bring a bouquet of roses too?”

“I thought Hyung wouldn’t let me inside if I brought a bouquet of roses, so I left it in the car.”

“…Oh, right. You handle things well, I guess…”

Yeon-chae offered no reply to Yoonwoo’s lament, which was tinged with resentment. Instead, a smile bloomed on his lips, causing his long eyes to crinkle softly. His clear, distinct features brightened with a radiant charm.

In the small house’s living room and kitchen, Yeon-chae knelt before Yoonwoo, who was seated on a dining chair. His unblemished face, looking up at Yoonwoo, was unrealistically beautiful. Each time he blinked, his light brown eyelashes fluttered softly.

His gaze, fixed on Yoonwoo with unwavering intensity, was straight and expectant. Yoonwoo found himself speechless. He had met Yeon-chae’s eyes, only to lose himself in the moment.

No matter how many times he reconsidered, refusal was the only logical choice. This was the same conclusion Yoonwoo had reached after successfully avoiding Yeon-chae for nearly a week.

After the baby was born, he wouldn’t be able to return to his old life. By deciding to have the child, Yoonwoo had let go of his lingering attachments to an ordinary romance and marriage.

Even without this complication, he had never harbored grand romantic notions about marriage, so it wasn’t particularly difficult. However, Yeon-chae’s situation was different from Yoonwoo’s.

Yoonwoo knew that Yeon-chae had once loved someone else. He could also guess that, despite this, Yeon-chae had proposed because he wanted to make the best choice for their unborn child. Therefore, Yoonwoo didn’t want to shackle Yeon-chae, using a single night’s mistake—a mistake for which they both bore equal responsibility (though Yoonwoo felt slightly more accountable)—as an excuse.

Yeon-chae could meet someone he loved, date, marry, and build the family he desired anytime he wished.

If he offered to cover the child support, that would be enough. Even if he was currently pressing for marriage like a man blinded by emotion, Yeon-chae would eventually realize his mistake with time.

Yoonwoo believed it was his duty to make him realize it. Yet, the look in Yeon-chae’s eyes when he offered the ring lingered in his mind.

Every time he recalled that unwavering gaze and tender look, the radiant smile that graced his lips, and the way his long eyes crinkled until they almost disappeared, his chest ached with a throbbing pain deep inside. His heart pounded so fiercely that Yoonwoo had to press his palm firmly against his left chest, willing the frantic rhythm to subside.

The inexplicably quickening pulse kept him wavering. Perhaps he simply wanted to lean on Yeon-chae. If Yeon-chae were by his side, he would feel secure.

If they could become a protective fence for each other and raise the baby together, his frequent fears might vanish entirely. Such an expectation seemed to make his chest feel tight. He dropped his head, his thoughts filled with self-reproach.

As he continued to procrastinate, putting things off day after day, time relentlessly marched on. Yoonwoo avoided Yeon-chae for a while.

For their shared classes, he would dash into the classroom just before the lecture began, settling into the very back, only to make a hasty escape a minute before it ended, avoiding everyone’s gaze.

Perhaps intending to give him time to consider the proposal, Yeon-chae didn’t try to stop him. However, he occasionally sent messages.

[I won’t bring up marriage, so let’s just sit together during lectures, at least.]

It seemed he was worried about Yoonwoo, who wasn’t receiving proper pheromones lately. But Yoonwoo was too embarrassed to even look at Yeon-chae’s face, so he merely offered curt replies. In this way, he didn’t see Yeon-chae for two weeks.

Yoonwoo had forgotten how his body had reacted during the early stages of his pregnancy when he was separated from Yeon-chae. His consistently good condition had been a direct result of Yeon-chae always being by his side.

However, it didn’t take long for an omega’s body to show abnormalities when deprived of an Alpha’s pheromones. One day, as he was making a customer’s coffee order at the cafe, his vision blurred.

White flashes flickered before his eyes, and the ground seemed to give way beneath him. Yoonwoo collapsed, losing consciousness.

When Yoonwoo opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was Seowoo’s thoroughly hardened expression. Seowoo’s face was a volatile mix of fury, worry, and utter bewilderment, ready to explode at any moment.

In that instant, Yoonwoo knew Seowoo had figured everything out.

‘This is bad…’

Yoonwoo squeezed his eyes shut again, pretending to still be unconscious. It didn’t work, of course; Seowoo had known Yoonwoo for twenty-three years.

“Aren’t you going to get up right now?”

“Ugh, I’m hurt…”

He mumbled, too scared to open his eyes, and only received a smack on his back. Still, he stubbornly tried to pull the blanket over himself, but Seowoo eventually grabbed Yoonwoo’s shoulder, pulling him up to sit on the bed.

The IV tube connected to Yoonwoo’s hand dangled in the air. Yoonwoo wore a crestfallen expression, nervously glancing at Seowoo.

“Hyung, I’m a patient…”

“You’re fine. They said you’ll recover quickly.”

“No, I’m not? I feel like I’ve been beaten all over. I even fainted.”

“They said you’ll be perfectly fine the moment you receive Alpha pheromones.”

“Ah, uh-huh.”

Alpha pheromones, of all things. Seowoo’s expression, as he uttered those direct words, was terrifying. Yoonwoo rolled his eyes, furtively glancing out the hospital room window.

He tried to gauge if he could jump out and escape unharmed, but it looked to be about two stories high, so he’d likely have to sacrifice an arm. He couldn’t afford to lose an arm, especially with a baby, as surgery would be difficult.

“Not just any Alpha’s, but the baby’s father’s Alpha pheromones.”

“…”

Seowoo drove the nail in further, addressing the suddenly silent Yoonwoo. Tears threatened to well up in Yoonwoo’s eyes out of indignation. Even if Seowoo was his guardian, was it right to reveal a patient’s personal information like this?

However, Yoonwoo also had something to say. Of all people, Seowoo had no right to scold him about this.

“But Hyung, you got pregnant first too!”

The memory of the lecture Yoonwoo had given Seowoo when he got pregnant was embarrassing, but he desperately needed to escape this situation, so Yoonwoo just blurted out anything.

“You said it was just a casual fling, then you went and made a baby! What right do you have to say anything, Hyung?”

It was fortunate that the hospital room was a private one, so no one else was privy to this mortifying conversation. Perhaps due to his own past transgressions, Seowoo simply listened, unable to retort, his expression utterly priceless.

As if daring him to speak, Yoonwoo grinned triumphantly at Seowoo. So pleased was he to have finally silenced Seowoo that he failed to notice the tall figure that suddenly appeared as the hospital room door opened soundlessly.

“…Are you done talking, Eun Yoonwoo?”

However, it was still too early to celebrate his victory. From Seowoo’s mouth came an ominous voice.

“You certainly know how to run your mouth, don’t you? Who taught you that?”

‘You did, Hyung!’ he couldn’t actually say.

“Are you really so proud of getting pregnant suddenly at twenty-three, before even graduating college? So what are you going to do now? Have you even figured out how you’re going to make a living? And is that Alpha bastard going to take responsibility with you? You’re not going to spout nonsense about handling it all by yourself, are you? But it’s strange. Why isn’t that Alpha bastard showing his face anywhere right now? If you two were getting along, you wouldn’t have collapsed from a lack of Alpha pheromones and ended up here, right? But when did you even present? Don’t tell me you didn’t even know if you were a Beta or an Omega, just got into trouble, got pregnant, and then thought, ‘Oh, I guess I’m an Omega!'”

“Hyung, breathe when you talk.”

Yoonwoo worried Seowoo might collapse from hyperventilation. Even amidst the chaos, he couldn’t help but marvel at Seowoo’s intuition, which had pinpointed the exact core of the issue.

At Yoonwoo’s nonsensical retort, Seowoo finally lost his temper.

“Answer my question! What are you going to do? Are you even going to marry them? Don’t tell me that bastard assaulted you, and now you’re the only one proposing marriage while they’re running away?”

‘That wasn’t it. In fact, it was the opposite. Yoonwoo was the one who had ‘assaulted’ Yeon-chae, and now he was running away from Yeon-chae, who was proposing marriage.’ Thinking about it that way, he truly felt like he was doing something terrible. Yoonwoo simply rolled his eyes meekly.

Yoonwoo’s lack of any retort caused that assumption to solidify into an undeniable truth in Seowoo’s mind.

“Why won’t they marry you? Because of their age? Are they the only one who’s young? Do they only have a bright future ahead of them?”

It seemed a fist might fly at any moment. Seowoo could turn quite violent when things didn’t go his way. Cornered, Yoonwoo involuntarily shrieked.

“Damn it, I’ll get married! What’s wrong with getting married? I won’t handle it alone. Yeon-chae and I will handle it together!”

“What?”

“Really? We’re getting married?”

“Huh?”

Having blurted it out so abruptly, Yoonwoo felt even more flustered. However, a swiftly interjecting voice left Yoonwoo no time to recover from his shock.

Yoonwoo and Seowoo’s gazes simultaneously darted towards the hospital room door. Yeon-chae was standing there, his eyes crinkled into a radiant smile. A cold sweat trickled down Yoonwoo’s spine.

Even more absurdly, the moment Yeon-chae appeared, the pain subsided, and his body felt lighter in real-time.