Omega Complex Novel (Completed) - Chapter 21

“You use the pillow, Taegyeom.”

Anyway, this was my problem. Whether I was a child or now, I couldn’t refuse anything he asked. Especially if he made such a pretty smile. Did he know he was doing it, or not? If he knew, it was annoying, and if he didn’t, it was unfair.

“It’s your pillow, you should use it.”

Choi Taegyeom pushed the pillow towards me and turned onto his side. The way he blinked, resting his arm on his head, seemed to indicate he had no intention of using the pillow. If I offered it again, he might suggest we share it, so I feigned brazenness and placed a dry towel on the pillow. Choi Taegyeom watched me with clear eyes.

“Are you sober?”

“No.”

Could an answer of ‘no’ be so untrustworthy? Well, he wouldn’t have asked me to put him to sleep if he wasn’t drunk. Still, he seemed more sober than before.

“……I’m still dizzy.”

He answered slowly, then blinked. Through my vision, now accustomed to the darkness, I saw Choi Taegyeom adjust his posture. His eyes slowly closing and opening, and the way he rubbed his face against his arm, were as languid as a cat.

“You’ll have a headache tomorrow.”

The word ‘cute’ lingered on the tip of my tongue, so I quickly changed the subject. He had drunk quite a lot, so he might have a headache tomorrow. I didn’t drink much, but I knew Park Seongjae was the type to get a terrible hangover. Park Seongjae would come back with headaches, stomachaches, muscle aches, and all sorts of pains, chugging hangover remedies.

“No hangover?”

“I’m fine.”

Choi Taegyeom answered in a pleasant voice. The slight upturn of his lips made me want to gently touch them with my hand. The moonlight was this bright, I thought with a fresh feeling, and slowly reached my hand over his shoulder.

“It really does bring back old memories.”

Pat, pat, the hand patting his shoulder was awkward. How long has it been since we lay side-by-side like this? When we were young, we used to put each other to sleep, but we stopped after puberty. On a certain day, Choi Taegyeom started pushing me away, saying he preferred to sleep alone. I was quite disappointed back then.

“Good night, Lee Yoonwoo.”

Choi Taegyeom said that and then let out a soft, even breath. He must have been fighting sleep until now, seeing how quickly he quieted down. I patted Choi Taegyeom’s shoulder once, twice, and then whispered goodnight.

“You too.”

Watching him sleep, old memories resurfaced. Choi Taegyeom sounded asleep, and I comforted him. Choi Taegyeom would fall asleep as soon as he closed his eyes, and I would watch him countless times.

How could he look so perfectly drawn? I saw his neatly closed eyes beneath his tidy eyebrows. His prominent nose and sharp jawline were also refined. His face now had stronger features, but if you looked closely, his pretty childhood appearance still remained. Things like his plump lips and clear cheeks.

“Choi Taegyeom.”

I think I knew why he asked me to put him to sleep. Just as I missed him, he must have missed me too, so perhaps he expressed his accumulated longing, consciously or unconsciously, in this drunken way. But even so, it would surely be different from my own selfish thoughts.

I don’t know what I was thinking looking at him like this. Alpha pheromones, sharing a blanket, and all that. Yet Choi Taegyeom himself fell sound asleep as soon as he lay down.

“Are you asleep?”

Whisper, whisper, I asked in a small voice. It was less about genuinely wondering if he was asleep, and more about wanting confirmation that he was.

Since he was someone who usually fell asleep quickly, and he had even drunk alcohol today, he must surely be deeply asleep by now. Talking to a sleeping person wasn’t my preference, but there was something I really wanted to say today.

“Hey, Taegyeom.”

Swoosh, I closed my eyes. My heart pounded irregularly, reacting to the pheromones spread in the air.

After manifesting as an Omega, there was one thing I liked: that I could feel his pheromones. His soft, subtle pheromones made my heart swell with joy when I quietly felt them.

“I got a confession.”

From the moment I received the confession, I wanted to tell Choi Taegyeom. That he was right, that Kim Dohyun showed interest in me. That I was sorry for doubting his words.

“Kim Dohyun says he likes me.”

He said, lightly, let’s try dating.

But I couldn’t possibly tell him when he was sober. If I couldn’t even confess my own feelings, wasn’t it somehow strange to talk about someone else’s? I wasn’t brazen enough to casually say, ‘You were right.’

“But I refused.”

My tongue tingled. I had wanted to say these words so badly, my throat had been tickling all this time. I wanted to express that I liked him along with saying I refused. The feelings I couldn’t cut off flowed out little by little.

“Why, you said it before.”

It was nothing short of ridiculous. Choi Taegyeom was sound asleep, and I was chattering away all by myself.

“That saying you have someone you like works best.”

My hand, which had been patting Choi Taegyeom, had stopped at some point. Sleep was slowly creeping in because my eyes were closed. My voice, which had been speaking, kept trailing off at the end.

“So I said that.”

Suddenly, I wanted to see Choi Taegyeom. Even though I knew he was right in front of me, I wanted to confirm it with my own eyes, to look at him. If I saw him sound asleep, I felt I could also fall asleep peacefully. And if I added a quick stolen kiss, wouldn’t it truly be the best day?

“But…”

But the moment I lifted my eyelids, I couldn’t continue my sentence and had to close my mouth.

The quiet surroundings, the moonlight seeping through the window, and Choi Taegyeom, who should have been sound asleep.

“……But, he told me to think about it slowly?”

Choi Taegyeom, whom I thought was asleep, was looking at me with his eyes open.

“You…”

I was so flustered that no sound came out. I thought he was asleep. His eyes were closed, and I heard him even breathing. But now he looked perfectly awake, as if he had never been asleep. Even the signs of drunkenness that had been visible were gone without a trace.

“You, weren’t you asleep?”

That was all I could say. My heart was pounding, and my hand, which was still resting on Choi Taegyeom’s shoulder, froze. Choi Taegyeom slowly blinked and answered softly.

“I woke up.”

His voice was low. So low it could almost sound angry. Feeling self-conscious, I withdrew the hand from his shoulder, and his gaze followed my fingertips.

“Sorry. I guess I woke you up by talking.”

To think he would actually wake up from sleep. We had slept together countless times, but this was the first time Choi Taegyeom had woken up. He always fell asleep faster and deeper than me. He had never once woken up, whether I touched his cheek or stroked his hair.

“Go back to sleep.”

Pat, pat, I patted his shoulder, but Choi Taegyeom didn’t close his eyes. He just slowly blinked, emitting terrifying pheromones. Was he angry? I furrowed my brow with that thought, but Choi Taegyeom covered his eyes with one hand.

“Kim Dohyun…”

A suppressed voice escaped his lips. Inappropriately, his low, resonant voice was quite sensual. Choi Taegyeom sighed briefly, then spoke in a slightly softer voice.

“He confessed to you, right.”

The hand covering his eyes was frustrating. I wanted to see his eyes and confirm his expression, but other than the pheromones I felt on my skin, there was no way to know his emotions. So I couldn’t tell if this was anger, bewilderment, or surprise.

“He just said he was interested in me.”

No. At least it wouldn’t be anger. There was no reason for Choi Taegyeom to be angry about Kim Dohyun’s confession. ‘Anger’ is a reaction that comes when one’s feelings are attacked, and this has nothing to do with him. Unless he simply felt unpleasant about the fact that his pheromones had rubbed off on me.

“At the bar?”

“In the smoking room.”

Right. I knew it, but a ‘what if’ feeling arose. His slightly furrowed brow and tightly closed lips really made him look angry. So, even though I knew it wasn’t true, a glimmer of hope appeared.

“It wasn’t a very serious confession.”

The emotion Choi Taegyeom was showing was clearly a form of anger. Having watched him for a long time, I knew. His lowered gaze and tightly pressed lips were the expression he made when something displeased him. When something didn’t go his way, when someone made a big mistake, or when his plans went awry. Which of the three cases was this now?

He could be jealous.

The sudden thought instantly settled in a corner of my mind.

In fact, there were many strange things. Was there any reason for such intense pheromones to be released just because a friend received a confession? What reason was there to raise his eyebrows and make a displeased face? What kind of words was he carefully choosing to convey to me?

I knew it was an absurd expectation. Just like last time, I would be disappointed again. Choi Taegyeom simply disliked Kim Dohyun, and the emotions he was showing now were an extension of those feelings. It was better to abandon my expectations now and realize my position.

But the swelling anticipation endlessly expanded its territory. What would he say? Would he get angry and tell me not to avoid Kim Dohyun, or would he argue that he was right? Or would he say he was upset by the very feeling that he liked me?

“Confessed, he did…”

The pheromones surrounding us subsided. Thump-thump, my heartbeat reacted to his pheromones. It wasn’t the raw desire from before. A slight tension and anxiety. And a faint expectation. Of course, there was also physiological arousal.

“……Right.”

However, that expectation was brief.

Once, twice. With each blink of Choi Taegyeom’s eyes, the emotions that had swelled within me slowly calmed down. He took a breath instead of continuing to speak, and slowly dissipated his pheromones.

“Just sleep for now.”

And in the blink of an eye, he had a nonchalant expression. The surging emotions also disappeared as he opened and closed his eyes. My endlessly swelling expectation was abruptly cut off.

“……”

Emptiness quickly filled me. Just like the expectation that had swelled in a very short moment, the empty space was now filled with a different emotion. Choi Taegyeom carefully pulled the blanket over me, but I didn’t even want to like that gesture.

“……Is that all?”

Suddenly, an uncontained emotion burst out. Absurdity, bewilderment, and an unbearable, bitter self-mockery.

“What?”

Choi Taegyeom asked back nonchalantly. He seemed to have quietly closed his eyes again, looking as if he would fall asleep any moment. I choked back the surging feeling of injustice and forced myself to continue nonchalantly.

“I told you I got a confession, and that’s all your reaction is?”

I hadn’t seen even half of the emotions that had surged. Neither anger, nor bewilderment, nor surprise. It wasn’t meant to elicit a reaction in the first place, but after seeing his reaction, I wanted confirmation. What were the emotions he had shown a moment ago, and where and how did they originate? He hadn’t shown me even half of that.

“Then what should I say?”

Choi Taegyeom answered without opening his eyes. His faintly scattered pheromones slowly faded. Now only a slight trace remained.

“You got a confession, and you refused. What would I say to you?”

He wasn’t wrong. It was reasonable, logical, and I had naturally expected that. Yes, until just a moment ago.

“You and I are friends, so it’s not really right to care about things like that.”

My mind went blank. Those were the words I had said to him a few days ago. That we were friends, as he said, so it wasn’t right to care about such things. I had said it in a fit of pique and regretted it afterward. I even remembered being anxious alone, fearing he might really lose interest in me.

“Then you…”

But if so, he should have ignored it from the start. When I was continuing my one-sided confession, he should have kept his eyes closed, pretending not to hear.

“Because we’re friends.”

I was angry. At myself, and at Choi Taegyeom. I knew I shouldn’t expect a reward when I had arbitrarily hoped. I also knew I shouldn’t force out emotions he wouldn’t show. But the feelings that steadily bloomed were foolish, and the ignorant boy was consistently cruel.

“So you wouldn’t care if I dated anyone.”

Choi Taegyeom opened his eyes as soon as I finished speaking. The short moment his eyelids opened felt like an eternity. Beyond his thin eyelids, his dark eyes looked directly at me.

“……”

I expected him to say, ‘Yes.’ I expected him to give a calm, affirmative answer, just as he had spoken a moment ago. So I had half-given up and composed myself.

But Choi Taegyeom didn’t say anything for a long time. He just stared at me with a blank expression. At some point, his pheromones were slowly mixing into the air.

“……Lee Yoonwoo.”