LCS | Chapter 2.2

The amusement park they arrived at did not require much waiting in line, since it was a weekday. When Chaegong heard the price of the all-day pass wrapped around his wrist, he looked as if he might beg to just leave right then, but he had enough sense not to say it aloud.

The wind from the roller coaster felt unpleasant, yet in the photo taken by the camera on the ride, Hyeonjo was smiling. It was because Chaegong, frozen stiff, was clinging desperately to his arm, and that was amusing.

They rode most of the attractions. Chaegong trembled as if he were scared, but he never actually refused. On the ride that spun 360 degrees, he was terrified out of his wits, yet he did not let out a single scream, only kept his mouth tightly shut with a pale face. The food at the amusement park restaurants was awful for the price, but the decorations were rather cute, and Chaegong’s eyes sparkled at them, so Hyeonjo did not complain.

The last ride was the Ferris wheel. It was the kind of ride people usually chose as their final attraction. Hyeonjo had no fear of heights. But the omega in front of him clearly did, and seeing those eyes shut tight with all their nerves bunched up made him a little displeased. The night view beyond the stained window was worth seeing, after all.

Hyeonjo knew how to overcome fear. A little warmth. Thinking of a faint memory, he reached out without hesitation. The small hand nestled in his was trembling hard, but that trembling soon stopped. A damp floral scent drifted up, not unpleasant at all.

“Look down.”

Chaegong had never refused anything Hyeonjo said, and this time was no different. The eyelids that had been clamped shut and quivering slowly lifted.

“Ah…”

“Beautiful, right?”

On that face that could not tear itself away from the window, there was no longer any fear. His eyes glittered, catching the city lights of the nightscape. Satisfied with the way he had gone dazed while looking outside, Hyeonjo spoke in an unusually gentle voice.

“I happened to pass by here not long ago, and when I saw the Ferris wheel, I thought of you. I wanted to show you.”

His pitiful omega. Poor Lee Chaegong, who had never experienced anything like this before. At that moment, Hyeonjo found Chaegong unbearably endearing. That innocent, knowing-nothing face, that faintly blooming floral scent, looked as if it would scatter the moment he reached out to catch it. Hyeonjo did so at once. The lips that met his carried a scent a little deeper than before.

Hyeonjo did not especially like amusement parks, but sometimes he thought things like this were not so bad.

To be honest, Hyeonjo had not lifted his hand against Chaegong because he had wanted to. He had just been in a bad mood, and Chaegong had happened to be irritating at the time, so before he knew it, he had raised his hand.

Hyeonjo was not exactly a violent person, but he was not far from it either. The burn left on his palm made his chest feel as though it had dropped straight down.

Seeing Chaegong, startled, covering his cheek, Hyeonjo felt sorry. At the sight of those thin shoulders trembling and that head lowering, he wanted to pull him into an embrace and apologize, but guilt and pride had both surged up at once.

“…Well, why did you do that?”

It was a meaningless grumble. Too proud to apologize, too ashamed to look at the cheek that was already beginning to swell. So he turned his head and said it without thinking.

But then Chaegong apologized. Hyeonjo was flustered that the one who had been hit was the one apologizing, but at the same time, a thought quietly rose in him. Right. If he had not acted like that, he would not have been hit. And just like that, it became Chaegong’s fault.

Strangely enough, that made Hyeonjo feel better. Hyeonjo, who only occasionally said harsh things but had never hit him before, began to raise a hand bit by bit from that day on.

The guilt that piled up would whisper that he should not do that to Chaegong, but the moment Chaegong apologized, it vanished as though it had never existed. On the day he struck Chaegong hard enough to split his lip, a flustered Hyeonjo shouted,

“There’s nothing you do at home anyway, so you can’t even manage that?”

“…I’m sorry.”

And once again, all the blame belonged to Chaegong.

To be honest, it was not wrong. Hyeonjo fed Chaegong, housed him, and did everything for him for free. In other words, Chaegong was no different from a parasite or a freeloader in Hyeonjo’s eyes. He did not truly think of him that way, but if one were to look at it coldly, it was true.

If Hyeonjo was providing him with all of that and he paid nothing in return, then that level of violence was justified. In fact, the cause of it all was Chaegong. Hyeonjo felt at ease.

He did not even think about the always-clean house, the neatly arranged side dishes, or the closet full of clothes that were always ironed. In the first place, if he found Chaegong living off him so unbearable, he could have thrown him out, but he had never even considered doing that.

Dumb Kwon Hyeonjo rubbed at his stinging palm and turned his gaze away. At the edge of his vision was a face biting its lip while rubbing at its cheek, but he closed his eyes, pretending to be tired.

Without even understanding why he himself had done it.

One weekend, Hyeonjo’s friends came to visit. They had been making a fuss over how he had gone for nearly two years without inviting them even once.

They were not the kind he could relax enough around to bare his heart to, but they were at least amusing to have nearby sometimes. In truth, most of Hyeonjo’s friends were like that. People he had known since childhood through the same sort of families, and people he had met in society later on, flattering him to lick up whatever crumbs fell from him.

Ignoring their teasing complaints, Hyeonjo thought of Chaegong, who would be at home. Thinking of him, unable to get up even in the morning after being handled a little roughly the day before, Hyeonjo found himself smiling. Most of his friends were alphas and looked down on omegas, but they would not go so far as to lay hands on a friend’s omega without permission. So he brought them along.

Perhaps he had just come out into the living room, because Chaegong stood there with disheveled hair and a mottled nape, looking startled. His gentle eyes sparkled like those of a frightened rabbit.

At that, Hyeonjo smiled faintly, and then Taewon’s voice rang out. When asked who he was, Hyeonjo found himself falling silent.

Lee Chaegong was Lee Chaegong. The omega Hyeonjo had picked up, taken home, fed, and raised. Not a lover, and not even a friend. Lee Chaegong and Kwon Hyeonjo, friends? It was absurd.

That did not mean Chaegong was nothing, though. He was the omega who had spent the longest time with Hyeonjo, even if they had never stood shoulder to shoulder.

The closest answer was a prostitute. There was no better word for someone who was neither lover nor friend, not even a roommate, but lived off him in his house and slept with him.

But Lee Chaegong was not a male prostitute. A male prostitute spread his legs for many people, but Lee Chaegong spread his legs only for Kwon Hyeonjo. And his purpose was not money. Whenever Hyeonjo looked at him, he thought of eyes that shimmered with light.

“Housekeeper.”

Right. Lee Chaegong was Kwon Hyeonjo’s housekeeper alone. A housekeeper who did not just handle the chores, but other things as well.

Taewon played along at the mention of housekeeper, acting as if he knew all about it, but in truth Hyeonjo had never once prattled on about Chaegong.

He had only said, in answer to the question of why he had not been meeting any omega lately, that he had an omega for taking care of his sexual needs. It was something he had said on a day when he had never imagined they would actually meet Chaegong.

Chaegong, looking flustered, bowed his head and hurried into the room. His faint pheromones were scattered all over the house, and Hyeonjo’s friends sniffed them with faint smiles.

They kept talking, saying the scent was far too faint, that the high-end prostitute they had met before had a much better scent. Hyeonjo felt strangely annoyed. It seemed to be anger at them looking down on his omega, no matter how insignificant Chaegong might be.

Hyeonjo glanced unconsciously at Taewon, who was smelling the air as if savoring it in silence, and immediately called Chaegong over. Using an ordinary excuse, Chaegong slowly came out of the room.

Had he changed his T-shirt, the one that had stretched at the neck and shown clear marks? Most of the marks Hyeonjo had left last night were hidden now. He did not like that. He needed to make it clear that that omega was his.

Like a startled squirrel, Chaegong went to the kitchen and soon returned with cups on a tray. As he set them down one by one, the alphas’ gazes gathered on him.

“Hey, Kwon Hyeonjo. Your tastes have changed a lot.”

At Taewon’s sly remark, Chaegong’s shoulders shrank. It was oddly noticeable, but when the others added a few more words, Hyeonjo could only laugh along.

His standards had gone down? That was certainly true. The omegas Hyeonjo had dated before were all glamorous in face and scent. This was the first time he had spent long nights with an omega who had such gentle eyes and such a faint scent.

Though still young, Hyeonjo had never lacked experience. He had spent nights with countless omegas, and most of them had never been seen again after the second time. That was partly arrogance, but the bigger reason was that one night was enough to kill his interest in someone.

So why was he not getting tired of Lee Chaegong? That gentle face and unimpressive scent would sometimes come to mind even during class. Even after tasting him countless times over nearly three years, it was still the same.

Hyeonjo was lost in thought when,

“Still, it is kind of hot seeing such an innocent face with marks like that.”

Just as Hyeonjo had wanted, Taewon was tugging at the collar of Chaegong’s T-shirt to inspect the obscene marks, but Hyeonjo felt no pleasure in it. He was annoyed that Chaegong, while being stared at by alphas all over his body, did not even refuse. And he wanted to gouge out Taewon’s eyes, filled so clearly with desire.

Maybe it was anger from seeing his own omega behave so obediently in another alpha’s hands.

Then, just as Taewon was about to lean in and bite Chaegong’s nape, Hyeonjo shot to his feet and yanked Chaegong hard into his arms. He could clearly feel the body that had gone stiff with tension. When he let out his rough pheromones, Taewon raised both hands and smiled lazily.

The other friends’ eyes were filling with curiosity and questions. Since they had exchanged one-night partners more than a few times, this reaction was only natural. Hyeonjo felt a little embarrassed. A toy. Chaegong was nothing more than a toy. It felt like being a child who burst into tears because someone else had touched the toy he had been playing with.

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