Omega Complex Novel (Completed) - Chapter 48

Pick up, pick up.

My desperate wish did not reach Choi Taegyeom. Instead of answering the phone, he watched it. He didn’t move his body, nor did he blink. His appearance was similar to what I had seen in front of the building earlier.

—The customer you are calling is not answering…

The sound I most dreaded was heard. With a beep, the answering machine started. Forgetting to hang up, I stared at him, and Choi Taegyeom casually put his phone away.

“…”

I walked towards Choi Taegyeom as if possessed. Since it was from one end of the hallway to the other, he didn’t seem to notice me approaching. Then, suddenly, he raised his head, saw me, and his eyes widened.

“Lee Yoonwoo?”

“…Hey.”

A harsh tone burst out. His surprised expression, and his flustered face, revealed raw emotions. That told me that Choi Taegyeom had truly been trying to avoid me.

“Why aren’t you answering your phone?”

Choi Taegyeom was avoiding me. That fact scared me more than I had thought. What if he disliked me because I was an Omega, what if his feelings had cooled after we slept together, what if nothing changed even if I said I liked him? Various worries flooded in.

“You.”

But even so, I didn’t want to give up. I had confessed to being an Omega, and I had heard him say he liked me. Since I had achieved things I thought impossible, couldn’t I hope for a little more? ‘I like you, Choi Taegyeom.’ Shouldn’t I at least say this one thing?

“Let’s talk.”

Choi Taegyeom didn’t answer and just looked at me. For a very brief moment, he closed his eyes, then lifted his eyelids and replied. His deep gaze was filled with an unknown emotion.

“Okay.”

The place Choi Taegyeom and I headed to was my house. We hadn’t specifically decided on a destination, but as we walked in silence, that was the direction we took. He opened his mouth once to carry my bag, and once to tell me to watch my step, but after that, he walked silently half a step behind me.

“…”

“…”

Because of that, an awkward silence hung between Choi Taegyeom and me. Never before had silence with him felt awkward, but for the first time, it was so heavy it made my stomach churn. Unable to bear the weight, sometimes a suffocating breath escaped me.

“Your body,”

Choi Taegyeom finally spoke when we were almost at my house. He stopped talking, hesitated for a moment, and then finally asked a short question.

“Are you okay?”

“My body?”

Was he talking about the heat cycle? Or was he talking about the muscle aches that had startled me this morning? The former was fine, but the latter was a bit tough.

“Your back must hurt a lot.”

His worried voice held tenderness. If he was worried about that, why did he go around avoiding me? And then to ask so cautiously, how could I answer honestly?

“I can just bear it.”

In truth, there wasn’t a single part of me that didn’t ache. My back hurt, of course, but also my pelvis to my thighs. Every step caused an indescribable pain. I could somehow manage not to show it, but moving itself was agony.

“You’re not okay, are you?”

Choi Taegyeom casually discerned my true feelings. I heard him click his tongue lightly and sigh. I quietly stopped walking and turned to look at Choi Taegyeom.

“Taegyeom.”

His clear eyes passed through the air and rested on my face. What was he thinking in that small head of his? If only I could look inside. And while I was at it, I wanted to show him what I was thinking too.

“Why are you avoiding me?”

The day we reunited, Choi Taegyeom told me not to avoid him. He even stubbornly demanded a plausible reason if I was going to avoid him. I clearly remembered everything, even his bright smile after I said I understood.

“You said you couldn’t accept me avoiding you without a reason…”

Choi Taegyeom blinked without any change in expression. His long eyelashes left fluttering afterimages. Eventually, he let out a hollow laugh and mumbled.

“…You remember things like that perfectly, don’t you?”

I thought he would deny it, but he readily admitted it. He even playfully added, asking if it was okay to avoid someone if there was a plausible reason.

“Just so you don’t misunderstand, it has nothing to do with you being an Omega.”

The tension seemed to release. Choi Taegyeom casually mentioned the part I had been worried about all day. He calmly reassured me that it was okay that I was an Omega. My churning stomach settled down.

“It’s just my problem.”

Choi Taegyeom’s pheromones had already sunk into a melancholic state. His blurred expression, and his blurred voice, made it impossible to see what he was thinking.

“I wished you weren’t an Omega.”

I wanted to ask what he meant. He said it didn’t matter that I was an Omega, so why now wish I wasn’t an Omega? Did he even know that the two things he just said were full of contradictions? He opened his mouth faintly.

“You slept with me because of your heat.”

The phrase ‘because of heat’ was very subtle. It was true that I had a heat cycle, but I had no intention of calling anyone else even if he had left. My heat came, and by chance, Choi Taegyeom was there. It was a major event that happened because Choi Taegyeom said he liked me.

“And I slept with you knowing that.”

Choi Taegyeom gently lowered his gaze. He seemed to be recalling last night, and I thought his expression was incredibly alluring, unfitting for the situation.

“I can make you like you were yesterday, right now.”

With those words, the pheromones floating in the air increased. Perhaps because he was conscious of me being an Omega, the amount was less than usual, but I understood what he wanted to say. Choi Taegyeom probably wanted to emphasize the danger of his pheromones.

“I can make you want to sleep with me, whether you’re in heat or not.”

Even without that, I had already experienced it once. At the Japanese restaurant, I was intoxicated by Choi Taegyeom’s pheromones and masturbated. It wasn’t heat, nor were the pheromones meant to make me go into rut, yet I reacted helplessly to him.

“Do you know how scary this is?”

Choi Taegyeom, speaking like that, was unfamiliar. No, to be precise, it had been a long time. It was the remnant of a trauma he hadn’t revealed except when he was very young.

“Lee Yoonwoo, you.”

His fingertips touched my cheek. The hand that approached like a feather landing slowly caressed my entire cheek.

“Even if you don’t like me.”

His warm body temperature passed my cheek and reached my ear. Choi Taegyeom, who caressed me as if touching a fragile object, left with a slight regret and moved away.

“I can make you have sex with me.”

So what? I wanted to ask back. The assumption of not liking him was useless. I liked Choi Taegyeom, and the risk factor he mentioned posed no harm to me. But with an already flawed premise, it was difficult to even point out the error.

“If I lose my reason like yesterday.”

“…”

“If I forcibly hold you, make you cry, hurt you when you’re struggling. And then you hate me.”

Choi Taegyeom’s eyes turned cold. A faint sneer showed beyond his cold expression. The corners of his lips, turned up, were more self-deprecating than ever.

“Then whose loss is it?”

“What do you mean by that…”

My lips parted. The words I wanted to say kept swirling in my mouth. Where to start, how to say it. How to convey my feelings accurately. I couldn’t organize it at all.

“Me, you.”

Finally, I revealed my thoughts after a brief opening. It was a question that would make Choi Taegyeom scoff.

“Don’t you think I might like you?”

“I do.”

The answer was simple. I know you like me. Choi Taegyeom, who said that, added firmly.

“As someone to protect.”

He showed no expectation. No expectation that I would like him, no expectation that we would feel the same way, no expectation that our night together would have been a good experience for me too.

The desire that I simply wouldn’t dislike him was much smaller than I had thought.

“You’ve always been like that.”

“…”

“You do everything I ask, you can’t refuse anything I request.”

“…”

“What is it with that sense of obligation…”

It wasn’t a sense of obligation. Yes, I should have denied it, but after hearing his next words, I couldn’t answer at all.

“Let’s stop now.”

My head throbbed. Stop, what? I couldn’t even remember what I was going to say. Choi Taegyeom, who had been looking at me with downcast eyes, spoke in a calm voice.

“This is enough.”

It felt like my emotions were crumbling. As if a corner of my chest had been emptied, all my motivation shattered at once. We were clearly looking at each other, but what was reflected in his eyes wasn’t me.

“I can’t do this anymore, I’m sorry.”

As soon as Choi Taegyeom finished speaking, he turned his head. His averted gaze seemed to declare that everything was over. I followed his face and stammered.

“…I didn’t dislike sleeping with you.”

“…”

“It wasn’t out of obligation either.”

Now, I understood the apology he had given. He wasn’t just apologizing for losing his reason. It was an apology for everything: for pouring out his pheromones, for forcibly arousing me when I didn’t want to be.

“It’s just…”

I was going to say that it was because I liked him. From the beginning, I had come to Choi Taegyeom for this one phrase. But before I could utter the words, a low voice returned.

“One month.”

It felt like cold water was thrown on me. My head cooled, and my complicated feelings became calm.

“I’ll sort it out within that time.”

Choi Taegyeom, who said he liked me, and Choi Taegyeom, who said he would sort things out, overlapped. It was a confession so shocking it left me speechless.

“I’ll give up on you.”

My feelings had been festering for five years. Not once had they been comfortable, and not once had I thought I could forget them. But Choi Taegyeom, in a resolute voice, said he would forget me. He declared he would give up all his feelings within a short month.

“…Give up?”

“Yeah.”

Had a short syllable ever felt so cold? All the time I had liked him, I had never once resolutely decided to give up.

“I’m going to stop.”

One month. I knew how short that time was. It took three months just to get used to pheromones after manifestation, and half a year for Choi Taegyeom to stop appearing in my dreams. For me, a month was far too short a period to kill my feelings.

“I don’t want to manipulate you with pheromones.”

I hadn’t thought of this. The reason Choi Taegyeom was rejecting me was so different from what I had imagined. My head was numb, and even breathing evenly was difficult.

“I’m not confident I won’t do it again.”

Blink, I closed and opened my eyes. Choi Taegyeom, having cut off all pheromones, caressed my head. His large hand stroked the top of my head, the back of my head, and my ears, then moved away.

“I’m leaving.”

I was seeing more of his back than I had ever seen in my life recently. And only the back of him leaves me. He didn’t look back, and with his usual straight gait, he moved away from me.

I knew I had to stop him. I also had a premonition that if I let him go now, it might truly be the end. But my body, stiff as if frozen, didn’t listen to what my head was saying.

Chase Choi Taegyeom. Stop him, tell him you like him. And then… then what?

‘You.’

‘Do you like me?’

Suddenly, a memory came to mind. The day I revealed I was an Omega to him, the day I asked if he liked me, and Choi Taegyeom’s answer to me that day.

‘You really.’

‘You only just realized that?’

You still don’t know, yet…

Ridiculously, I felt wronged. The resentment that had risen without a target was finally directed at Choi Taegyeom. Why didn’t you ask just once? Just once, gather your courage. If you had shown even a faint glimmer of hope, I wouldn’t have hesitated to take your hand.

The conclusion Choi Taegyeom reached was cruel. Before I could convey my feelings, he showed me the end of his emotions. I had hoped, and he had abandoned hope. The one step that couldn’t reach him was as disappointing as I had hoped.