If You Want Me - Episode 21
<Episode 21>
Bang bang bang!
“Yoon Seo-won! Open the door!”
Arriving quickly by car at Yoon Seo-won’s house, Do-gyeom roughly knocked on the apartment door and called out his name, but there was no sign of life inside.
He knocked just in case Seo-won was perfectly fine inside and hadn’t charged his phone like last time, but this time the feeling was different.
Could he really have collapsed?
Thinking that, there was a sudden sound of something snapping in his head. Do-gyeom took out the key he had brought in advance and opened the door. Although there was a double lock including the digital door lock, he knew the passcode since he had installed it himself.
“Yoon Seo-won!”
Do-gyeom roughly swung open the door and rushed inside.
As Do-gyeom turned his head this way and that as if wandering, looking for Seo-won, something strange caught his eye.
“What the hell is this…”
Unlike last time he came, there was not a single piece of luggage in the house.
There were still some traces that Yoon Seo-won had stayed here, but there was only furniture sitting there like when Do-gyeom first gave Seo-won the apartment.
Thinking maybe he had cleaned up to change the interior, Do-gyeom looked through all the rooms, but couldn’t find even a single strand of Yoon Seo-won’s hair.
Come to think of it…
– I’m quitting being your partner… and living in your house too. I’ll move my things out of the apartment soon. I’m sorry.
It seemed Yoon Seo-won had said something like that a few days ago.
He didn’t care what happened to the apartment. Since he had been his partner for a long time, he could have just given it to him as a reward.
But that day, Do-gyeom was only focused on Seo-won saying he was quitting as his partner. That he was quitting as a partner, and that he couldn’t continue because he had come to love someone else. It was so shocking that he didn’t even think about what Seo-won said he would do with the apartment. In hindsight, he should have forcibly handed it over to him.
“So… you already moved out?”
Although he said he would leave soon, how many days had it been since then that he already found another place and moved? It was absurd and ridiculous.
What was so urgent that he moved so quickly… He had once interrogated Seo-won, asking if he was running away when he took consecutive days off last time, but this was the scene of an escape.
“Why the hell…”
For a moment, the day in the US when Yoon Seo-won’s heat cycle hit and he spent the night with him came to Do-gyeom’s mind.
At that time, Yoon Seo-won had shed tears, fearing contract termination, so he couldn’t understand how he decided to terminate the contract again in just a few days. If only he had terminated the contract that day due to his own fault, Seo-won could have received several times the penalty fee…
Above all, Yoon Seo-won had demanded contract termination, giving the reason that he had found someone he loved and couldn’t continue being a partner anymore. Looking back, in the US, he had begged and pleaded not to terminate the contract, so did that mean he found someone he loved in the meantime?
After returning from the US, as far as Do-gyeom knew, Yoon Seo-won had been sick in bed at home for a few days… There’s no way he could have found someone in that short time, right?
He had no idea what change of heart had occurred and what the problem was.
As Do-gyeom looked around the house with a ridiculous gaze, his pocket vibrated. His eyes sharpened considerably as he took out his phone and looked down at it.
* * *
“If he’s not at his parents’ house either, where the hell did he go?”
“I apologize. I found out his phone number and tried contacting him now, and just in case, I also requested location tracking.”
As soon as Do-gyeom returned to the company after the wild goose chase, he asked Secretary Bae accusingly. Secretary Bae was mindful of his reproachful tone even though it wasn’t his fault.
Because it was a short time, he thought Seo-won would have at most gone to his mother’s house. Yoon Seo-won had terribly cherished and loved his mother since he was young.
But Yoon Seo-won wasn’t at that house. On top of that, he had changed his number too. Saying he changed his residence and number in that short time, as if he wasn’t running away overnight, was strange.
“Where else would he go?”
“I’m sorry. I will find him as quickly as possible.”
Secretary Bae bowed his waist as if there was nothing else to say besides apologizing.
Do-gyeom looked at the apologizing Secretary Bae disapprovingly. Although Yoon Seo-won’s actions were a bit unusual compared to normal, the fact that he still hadn’t completed the task instructed in the morning felt incompetent. Even if Seo-won moved, he would be somewhere near Seoul, so how could it take this long to find him?
It was a way of handling work that Do-gyeom couldn’t understand. As Do-gyeom looked at Secretary Bae with a chilly gaze, he seemed to think Do-gyeom had become very sensitive due to pheromones and changed the subject.
“It doesn’t seem possible by today… Should I look for another omega?”
“Never mind. You can go now.”
“…”
When Do-gyeom nodded his head, telling him to leave, Secretary Bae carefully left the room.
Do-gyeom pressed his temples with his fingertips again, trying to subdue his headache. However, there was no way a headache that couldn’t be quelled with medicine would be relieved by pressing it with his hand.
“Sigh… Yoon Seo-won, what are you thinking?”
Do-gyeom blamed Yoon Seo-won for his current state and closed his eyes, leaning back in his chair.
Perhaps it was because he thought Seo-won was someone who would naturally be by his side. When he first heard Seo-won say he couldn’t continue being a partner because he found someone he loved, he felt as dirty as if his mood had been thrown into a dumpster.
He was a partner he would regret losing. His mouth was tight, he was kind, obedient, and had become even prettier when they met as adults to the point Do-gyeom couldn’t recognize him at first.
Moreover, Seo-won had a special pheromone. It was such an attractive pheromone that Do-gyeom impulsively kissed him because of his scent even though he didn’t like him.
It was so faint that it was hard to smell when still, but when he buried his nose in Seo-won’s nape and inhaled deeply, it made him feel good. Seo-won probably didn’t know that he had such an attractive pheromone.
However, with Seo-won, he was nothing more or less than a pheromone partner, so no matter who he met or what he did, it had nothing to do with Do-gyeom. He thought the unpleasant feeling would disappear as soon as he found a new person, and terminated the partner contract.
But who would have thought it wouldn’t work with others?
He had even openly instructed to bring a low-fertility omega with a slender build and black hair similar to Yoon Seo-won. He thought it might be similar if he embraced them without looking at the face. However, unfortunately, even that method didn’t work.
He hadn’t told Secretary Bae about the state of his lower body, so he wouldn’t know it was urgent to find Yoon Seo-won, but it was a very pressing situation.
He wanted to meet Yoon Seo-won quickly to relieve this suffocating feeling and find out if there was something wrong with his body.
* * *
“Hnng… It’s already this time.”
Seo-won, who had been sitting in front of the computer like a turtle, noticed it was almost lunchtime by looking at the clock at the bottom.
Seo-won stood up from his seat, stretching, and opened the large veranda window right next to him. Opening the large window, fresh air filled his lungs with a rattle.
Until just a month ago, when he opened the window, what he saw was the skyline of high-rise apartments in Seoul. But now, he saw sparsely located single-family houses, people working in the fields, and the sea.
The light half-sleeve linen clothes fluttered gently in the wind blowing from outside. His hair, which had grown a bit longer, flew in the wind. Summer had come unnoticed, and even the wind was humid, but it was much better than no wind at all.
“The country air is really nice.”
Now he could pleasantly look out the window, but actually, until a few days ago, he had been very depressed.
He had recklessly told Do-gyeom that he was quitting as a partner and moving out of the apartment, but in fact, he hadn’t planned for his future residence or life since he decided it in a day after hearing the pregnancy news.
Unfortunately, his financial situation wasn’t comfortable. He had been paid generously as Do-gyeom’s pheromone partner, but with that money, he had prepared a house for his mother in Gangnam and paid for his mother’s knee surgery just a few days ago.
The surgery didn’t end in one go, and he was told he might need a few more surgeries, so he had to save money just in case. And above all, if he stayed in Seoul and ran into Do-gyeom’s people… If they found out he was pregnant by seeing his bulging stomach, it would be awkward.
‘Should I go to the countryside?’
So the idea he came up with was going to the countryside. Going abroad was burdensome due to airfare, rent, and especially medical expenses. Plus, taking a plane in early pregnancy would greatly increase the risk of premature birth. So he thought it would be fine to go somewhere in Korea where Do-gyeom wouldn’t bother to go.
It wasn’t that he had any particular longing for the countryside, but Do-gyeom probably wouldn’t have much reason to come down to the countryside, and if it was the countryside, he could save on housing prices…
It was unfortunate that there wouldn’t be many places to get a job, but even without that, there wouldn’t be many places that would accept a low-fertility omega who was already shunned by everyone, and was pregnant on top of that. And low-fertility omegas especially needed to be very careful, so it was good to take it easy. He would probably have to go down and make a living doing freelance work from time to time.
‘…Yeah. Let’s go down. I’ll find a way to make a living once I’m there.’
Seo-won had graduated from a well-known national 4-year university, and had frequently traveled abroad unintentionally while following Do-gyeom, so he was particularly good at foreign languages. He thought he could make a living by tutoring students or doing translation work around there.
With that thought, Seo-won found a house and moved to a countryside he hadn’t planned on and didn’t even know the name of.
Country life wasn’t as difficult as he thought. It was a bit disappointing that there were no peers due to the high age group, but all the neighbors seemed friendly. He was worried that regional exclusiveness might be severe like he saw on the internet, but rather, most people were happy to see a young person from Seoul, saying it had been a long time. Fortunately.
The only regrettable thing was probably the lack of famous franchise coffee shops. Due to pregnancy, he could only drink decaffeinated coffee, but there was no coffee shop large enough to sell decaf, so he was forced to quit coffee.
“Coming to a place with good air and quitting coffee too. Thanks to that, I’ll become healthy…”
He wasn’t sure if he should like this, but he thought he could never quit coffee in his life.
He was leisurely walking towards the front door to buy lunch after resting, when he heard a familiar female voice from outside. It was the voice of the lady living next door.
“Seo-won, are you inside?”