LCS | Chapter 1.5

From that day on, Chaegong started waiting for Hyeonjo again. He had said it was annoying, but the thought that maybe he had actually wanted to wait was enough to make Chaegong lightheaded with excitement.

But as time went by, the days Hyeonjo came home late only increased, and sometimes he didn’t come back until the next morning. After Hyeonjo scolded Chaegong for staying up all night waiting for him and then dozing off the next day, Chaegong stopped waiting. Hyeonjo didn’t ask whether he no longer waited for him. Those days passed.

When about two years had gone by since Chaegong moved into Hyeonjo’s house, Chaegong was hit by Hyeonjo for the first time. There wasn’t much reason.

On a day when Hyeonjo was unusually in a bad mood, Chaegong, though he couldn’t quite remember the details, got under his skin, and immediately after, his cheek burned hot. The two of them stood frozen for a long moment, neither fully understanding what had happened. Turning his head with a palm over his reddening cheek, Chaegong saw Hyeonjo’s startled face. After a while of silence, Hyeonjo muttered.

“…Then why did you do that?”

It was a familiar line. You asked for it. You shouldn’t have done that. Chaegong tightly clenched his trembling hands and lowered his head.

“…Sorry.”

It was an absurd situation, the one who had been hit apologizing. Only much later would he realize that he had fastened the first button wrong. At that moment, Chaegong should not have apologized. He should have snapped and asked why Hyeonjo was hitting him.

But Chaegong had never learned how to act that way. He only knew how to submit to violence and beg forgiveness for his mistakes. So that was what he did. And that action gave Hyeonjo’s heart a sense of legitimacy. You were hit because you did something to deserve it. That thought came to him, and before long it began to surface more and more often.

After that, Chaegong was often struck by Hyeonjo’s hand. At first it was not severe. It began with shoving his forehead or hitting his arm, but as time passed, the severity only grew.

Chaegong realized something was wrong when, during fellatio, he was slapped across the face for baring his teeth. The blow was so hard that tears sprang to his eyes. After hesitating for a moment, Chaegong clenched his trembling hands and apologized. Merciful Hyeonjo accepted the apology. Chaegong was afraid of when that hand, seeming so kind as it stroked his hair, might swing again.

“I let you sleep here, feed you, clothe you, and take care of everything for free. You should do this much for me too, shouldn’t you?”

Chaegong nodded. Hearing it like that, it did seem true. Hyeonjo provided Chaegong with food, shelter, and clothing without asking for anything in return. Whenever he went down to his family home for the holidays, he would hand Chaegong a thick wad of cash and tell him to go buy something good to eat. He let Chaegong watch TV whenever he wanted, and when his heat cycle hit, he even sacrificed himself to ease Chaegong’s sexual urges.

No matter how you looked at it, sleeping with a recessive omega like Chaegong, whose scent was faint and whose body was probably weakened by the side effects of cheap suppressants, must be exhausting.

For someone like Hyeonjo, who did all that, Chaegong not even being able to do this much for him was truly shameless. Chaegong opened his mouth again and moved his tongue more carefully than before. Hyeonjo gently stroked his hair and even praised him for having become quite skilled. With his cheeks swollen and red, Chaegong smiled.

Chaegong knew it too. They were not lovers, not even friends. He knew he was not Hyeonjo’s alpha or omega. And yet the instincts of an omega did not seem to think that way.

After Hyeonjo’s door closed, Chaegong slipped into the living room and covered his nose. His nostrils stung from the thick sweetness mingled with Hyeonjo’s pheromones. It was a pheromone completely different from Chaegong’s faint scent. It was the pheromone of a dominant omega.

Lately, Hyeonjo had been bringing home traces of other omegas’ pheromones fairly often. In truth, he had always done that, but before, he had at least tried to hide it. Now he did not even bother.

The unfamiliar scent of an omega filled every corner of their home. No, it was not their home. This was entirely Hyeonjo’s house. Chaegong was nothing more than a parasite living off him. A useless omega who had no right to complain even if he were thrown out at any moment.

Living with Hyeonjo, the words he had been brainwashed with by his dad seemed to be fading little by little, but as time went on, that thought only became more and more certain.

Hyeonjo was truly a good person. He had several friends he kept in touch with often, and he even bought gifts for Chaegong. In the mornings, he greeted Chaegong warmly, and the corners of his mouth when he flashed that easy smile were impossibly handsome. Of everyone Chaegong had ever seen in his life, Hyeonjo was the most perfect.

If such a Hyeonjo ever lost his temper and raised a hand against Chaegong, then it would be entirely Chaegong’s fault. Even if it was something that would never have happened had he been more careful, Hyeonjo always forgave him. Even when a sharp glance or a painful strike occasionally came his way, warm words would reach him again afterward, and that was why Chaegong still liked Hyeonjo.

One weekend, after a fierce night with Hyeonjo, Chaegong finally woke only after the sun had climbed overhead. Rubbing his gritty eyes, he stepped out into the living room.

“You’re back? Come in.”

At the same time, someone else came into the living room. It was the first time Hyeonjo had ever brought anyone home. Chaegong’s body stiffened. There were three people who had come in, and at a glance they all seemed to be alphas like Hyeonjo. While Chaegong stood frozen, not knowing what to do, he met the eyes of one of the men.

“Who’s that?”

Hyeonjo’s gaze settled on Chaegong. He smiled, and said,

“The housekeeper.”

Chaegong was indeed the housekeeper Hyeonjo had hired. But Hyeonjo introducing him to his friends like that felt unbearably strange.

“Oh, the omega you mentioned before?”

At the laugh-laced remark, Chaegong hurriedly bobbed his head and went back into his room. Only after he sat down with his back against the door did he notice that the T-shirt he was wearing had been stretched out at the neck, and the obscene marks beneath it were laid bare.

Anyone could tell Chaegong had spent the previous night in a heated tangle. Red-faced, he changed clothes and sat on the edge of the bed. That omega, he thought. Had Hyeonjo been talking about me outside?

What had he said? A useless omega taken in out of pity? A freeloader whose scent was faint and who was useless for everything? Thinking that made his chest ache.

He had long since thrown away shame after being beaten by his dad as a child and driven out into the middle of winter with nothing on his back, but somehow he still felt so embarrassed he could not bear it. The laughter drifting faintly from outside sounded as if it were mocking him. Then Hyeonjo’s loud voice rang out.

“Chaegong, bring me something to drink.”

Chaegong was Hyeonjo’s housekeeper, and he could not refuse a request like that. He shuffled out of the room. The eyes fixed on him all wore strange smiles. It was the same on the way to the kitchen, and again when he returned with the juice and set the glass down. A man with unusually pale skin, who had been studying Chaegong’s face as he put the glass down in front of him, grinned.

“Hey, Kwon Hyeonjo. Your taste has changed a lot?”

Chaegong could not have misunderstood what that meant. A searing shame tightened around his throat. At the man, Taewon’s, words, laughter burst out from here and there. When they even started saying Hyeonjo’s standards had dropped, it felt like tears might come, but Hyeonjo only laughed along with his friends’ teasing.

A small sense of betrayal welled up in him, but honestly, even having such feelings was a luxury. Just as he was wondering whether he should simply go back to his room, Taewon reached out and grabbed Chaegong’s wrist. A chill ran across his skin at the cold touch.

“Still, having those marks on such an innocent face is kind of hot.”

Held by the wrist and standing awkwardly in place, Chaegong could not shake off Taewon, who lifted a finger and tugged at his T-shirt, staring hungrily at the marks along his nape and collarbone. Taewon was Hyeonjo’s friend. Hyeonjo would care much more about his friend than about Chaegong.

The others around them looked as though they had no intention of stopping him. It had not been very long, but it felt endlessly drawn out, as though it would never end. The alpha pheromones drifting faintly toward him carried a sharp, biting scent he had smelled somewhere before. Taewon, gripping the shirt like he was seizing someone by the collar, yanked it hard. Just before Taewon’s lips could bite into Chaegong’s neck, Chaegong was pulled back violently.

“Are you planning to fuck in someone else’s house?”

A cold voice echoed through the living room. Hyeonjo had pulled Chaegong toward him, and although he was smiling, it was no smile at all.

The pheromones of a dominant alpha hung heavy in the air. The alphas’ mood sharpened at once, and as Chaegong struggled under the pressure, Hyeonjo, silent for a moment, told him to go back to his room. Chaegong obeyed. As he slipped back inside, he glanced over his shoulder. Hyeonjo was no longer smiling.

Taewon offered an apology readily enough. He said he was sorry for joking like that even though he knew how possessive alphas could be. Hyeonjo nodded without fuss. In truth, he was a little embarrassed that he had overreacted so much.

He had even had a threesome with Taewon and another omega before, so there was no need to react like that now. Lee Chaegong was not someone precious to Hyeonjo, after all. Knowing that, Taewon asked,

“What is he?”

It was not a question about Chaegong’s identity. It was more likely meant to ask why something like that was here at all. Hyeonjo answered with a completely indifferent expression.

“Just a toy to pass the time. I just don’t like other people laying hands on him, that’s all. I don’t feel anything.”

“Guess so. He’s not really your type, either.”

Right. A toy to pass the time. That was all Chaegong was to Hyeonjo. An ordinary, run-of-the-mill recessive omega whom Hyeonjo found cute because he trailed after him like a dog wagging its tail the moment he was treated kindly, someone he could indulge a little because it made no difference whether he was there or not. Thinking that, he smiled. Even if Chaegong had heard it from behind the door, Hyeonjo would have said the same thing.

…Probably.