Omega Complex Novel (Completed) - Chapter 46

His voice was so loud it could make the club room shake. It probably echoed all the way down the hallway. A guy with unnecessarily good vocal cords. What should I do with this guy, a sigh escaped me.

“How, no, seriously! Since when!”

“……Is that important now?”

“It’s not, but!”

Hiss, hiss, Park Sungjae caught his breath. He was fine when talking about the rumor, but he was horrified only by the fact that I liked Choi Taegyeom. And he realized it at such an unexpected moment.

“How could you hide it so perfectly!”

“……Ugh.”

Minjeong, who had been watching the situation all along, sighed. The muttered word ‘idiot’ was filled with pity for Park Sungjae.

“That’s not the order now.”

Minjeong got up from the bed and shook her head. Her feet, dangling below the bed, slowly touched the floor. Minjeong lightly brushed her hair back and called me in a nonchalant voice.

“Yoonwoo oppa.”

My chest felt heavy. I knew what question was coming next. Sure enough, Minjeong continued without the slightest hesitation.

“Oppa, are you really an omega?”

A heavy silence descended. It was so quiet I could hear my eyes rolling. I met Park Sungjae’s burning gaze and uttered the words I had been steeling myself to say.

“Yes.”

Park Sungjae’s mouth dropped open. It was so wide, two fists could easily fit inside.

“It was a heat cycle.”

It felt like I could breathe again. Once the floodgates opened, the rest flowed out naturally.

“The hospital said I shouldn’t take suppressants, so I skipped school. Yesterday, I thought it was all over and came to school, but then my heat suddenly flared up, so I went home.”

My heart pounded. While nervous, I also felt a sense of liberation. Whatever their reaction, the milk was already spilled, and there was no turning back. That fact actually made me feel refreshed.

“Why did you pretend to be a beta?”

Minjeong asked in a calm voice. There was no betrayal or discomfort towards me. Nor was there a starkly surprised expression like Park Sungjae’s.

“Well…”

I started lightly, then closed my mouth heavily. I couldn’t organize which words to start with. The jumbled thoughts chased each other’s tails, eventually returning to the starting point.

“Because Choi Taegyeom hates omegas.”

Unconsciously, a long-held worry slipped out. The words, uttered abruptly, cleared my complicated mind. In my empty mind, Choi Taegyeom’s back appeared again.

“I didn’t want to be hated.”

I thought our hearts had connected. Choi Taegyeom said he liked me, he kissed me, and he mixed his pheromones with mine even knowing I was an omega. I had expected that now, there would be no need to hide the fact that I was an omega, or that I liked him.

But why?

“Because I like Choi Taegyeom…”

I stopped speaking mid-sentence. A fact I didn’t know why I was only realizing now hit me hard in the back of the head. My chaotic mind organized itself, like puzzle pieces falling into place.

How could I have forgotten? How could I have never once thought of it? I heard his confession, we were intimate, but why didn’t I consider it?

I hadn’t said I liked him.

I had never once confessed to Choi Taegyeom that I liked him.

‘You.’

‘Do you like me?’

Memories flashed like lightning. Asking Choi Taegyeom if he liked me. Demanding him to release pheromones because I was in heat. Even threatening to call Kim Dohyun to stop him from leaving.

‘Hmph, scary, scary… Ugh…’

I also remembered crying like a child and clinging to Choi Taegyeom. Choi Taegyeom carefully hugged me, and with an affectionate confession, lightly kissed me. His apology, and the unreadable expression he showed before we began.

“Hyung?”

Even tracing back all my memories, I couldn’t recall ever saying ‘I like you’ with my own mouth. All I had uttered were moans of pleasure and occasional remarks.

“……”

The realization came with a slight shock and a sense of futility. Although it was less than an hour, I was disappointed to see Choi Taegyeom’s back. I had imagined on my own that he must have started to dislike me because I was an omega.

But what if his hesitation was simply because he hadn’t realized my feelings? What if he just wasn’t sure because I hadn’t given him certainty?

I briefly considered the opposite scenario. Choi Taegyeom goes into rut, and I, being accidentally nearby, sleep with him. Even though I say I like him repeatedly, Choi Taegyeom doesn’t return a confession similar to mine.

“Hyung?”

Even in my imagination, my chest ached. An inexpressible emptiness, as if a hole had been punched through me, arrived.

I would probably lose all motivation after that one experience. I would think it was time to let go, having enjoyed a stroke of luck I didn’t deserve with one-sided feelings. A relationship that wasn’t clearly defined would ultimately poison both of us.

“I’m sorry… but.”

I thought our hearts had connected, but maybe they hadn’t. Just as I didn’t know his true feelings, he wouldn’t know mine. His apology, and the expression he made while looking at his phone. All those things reinforced the conclusion I had reached.

“Something urgent came up.”

He doesn’t know I like him. No, he couldn’t possibly know.

“Let’s talk later.”

It was also possible it was simply my own delusion. Maybe he really was uncomfortable because I was an omega, or maybe he wasn’t avoiding me before that. But either way, there was no other way than to convey my feelings completely. That fact made me feel rushed.

“Oppa.”

Minjeong lightly started speaking to me as I was about to leave the club room. I turned my head, still holding the doorknob, and a dry voice uttered the rest of her words.

“I don’t really care if you’re an omega or a beta, Oppa.”

Minjeong looked at me with a calm gaze. She was always a person with rare changes in expression, but today, her blunt face was a comfort.

“Being an omega doesn’t change the fact that you’re Lee Yoonwoo, and you wouldn’t have become friends with us if you were an omega, right?”

Even though I hadn’t explained further, Minjeong seemed to have roughly guessed. What I was agonizing over, what I was thinking, and why I had suddenly cut off my words.

“Right?”

She nudged Park Sungjae as if seeking agreement. Park Sungjae, who had been watching me, startled and nodded his head. His large frame moved with a flutter.

“That’s right!”

Park Sungjae clenched both fists, expressing his agreement. His clear eyes seemed to show his sincerity. At that, my anxious feelings, as if I had never worried, subsided.

“……Yeah, thank you.”

A faint smile escaped me. There were two people who didn’t care what my secondary gender was. Perhaps Choi Taegyeom would also talk like these guys. If he said it didn’t matter whether I was an omega or not, I would feel much more at ease.

“So don’t worry too much.”

Her calm words were incredibly kind. It even gave me a little breathing room despite my hurried state. If I look closely, there’s a reason why both of them are surrounded by so many people.

“I’ll buy you a drink after the exam.”

I left the club room, leaving the guys who wanted something expensive behind. I planned to go meet Choi Taegyeom first. It was only 2 PM, and if nothing unusual happened, he would still be at school. Surely, he wouldn’t have gone home without contacting me.

[I’ll wait at the main gate] 02:00pm

My hand, sending the message, seemed to tremble slightly. Half tension, half anxiety, and a little excitement. The emotions I had hidden for five years churned in my chest.

Looking back, it was always Choi Taegyeom who waited. When we were children, when I avoided him, and when we reunited as adults. He waited, and waited, and waited for me. Even our daily walk to school together was thanks to him waiting for me in front of my house.

Perhaps that’s why, standing in front of the main gate, waiting for Choi Taegyeom felt incredibly awkward. It felt like Choi Taegyeom would arrive any moment, but 10 minutes passed, then 20 minutes, and still no contact from Choi Taegyeom.

[Where are you?] 01:22pm

[I’ll wait at the main gate] 02:00pm

[Call me when you see this] 02:23pm

Time was already approaching 3 PM. It was time for a reply, a call, or some form of contact. I wanted to call him, but I decided against it, in case he was taking an exam.

“……He’s late.”

But indefinite waiting has a knack for creating worry. As I looked at my phone until the message screen wore out, and as time gnawed at my patience, slowly revealing the bottom. As the initial suspicion gradually turned into certainty. All elements converged into a single conclusion.

Ah, he really is avoiding me.

Choi Taegyeom was definitely avoiding me. Whether he disliked me because I was an omega, or if he was scared and hiding. He disappeared without even listening to me or attempting to resolve things with me. His act of hiding, utterly lacking courage, was like looking at my old self.

My chilled pheromones stirred. My hand, holding the phone, was already dialing Choi Taegyeom’s number. The eleven digits I had never forgotten filled the screen in the blink of an eye.

And, just as I was about to press the call button. If he was taking an exam, he would have turned off his phone. No, at least he would have put it on silent. Just as I rationalized that, a savior-like voice pierced my ears.

“Isn’t that Taegyeom’s friend?”

I instinctively lifted my head. Not far away, familiar men stood. The man with glasses, the man with brightly dyed hair, and the unusually short man.

It wasn’t hard to recall where I had encountered them.

“Hey, your voice is too loud.”

They were the friends who had been with Choi Taegyeom at the sushi restaurant, and earlier in front of the building. I could tell from the way they were watching me and whispering among themselves. They were clearly whispering, but I could hear everything distinctly, just like last time.

“What do we do, he heard us.”

“What do you mean ‘what do we do,’ we have to apologize.”

“He’s looking at us?”

It didn’t matter that Choi Taegyeom wasn’t with them. What mattered was the feeling that they, at least, could alleviate this suffocating feeling. Since they had been with him just an hour ago, they might know where he was now.

My legs moved before I could think deeply. As I approached, the men startled, their shoulders twitching. They flinched and backed away, their reaction strangely exaggerated. Especially the man with brightly dyed hair, who was the most serious.

“Excuse me.”

“Gasp.”

They exchanged glances among themselves, hesitating. One by one, their eyes flickered uneasily each time my gaze met theirs. I ignored the man who started to say ‘Sorry…’ and asked the question I had wanted to ask for a while.

“Do you happen to know where Choi Taegyeom is?”

The place they headed was a lecture hall in the business administration building. I hadn’t exactly asked them to take me, but they started walking before I could decline. Well, there are many buildings in the business administration department, so this would be better than me searching for him.

“He’s probably almost done. The exam started at two o’clock.”

Choi Taegyeom was taking an exam in the computer lab on the 6th floor. I heard he was taking a liberal arts course related to financial accounting, and it was taking a long time because of the high difficulty. I secretly let out a sigh of relief as I spotted Choi Taegyeom’s profile beyond the back door.

He really was taking an exam.