If You Want Me - Episode 22
<Episode 22>
“Ah, yes! Just a moment!”
What could it be about without any prior notice? Seo-won roughly fixed his hair and quickly headed to the front door, slipping his feet into the slippers scattered by the shoe rack.
As he unlocked the old iron door, it opened with an unpleasant screeching sound.
“What brings you here?”
“I came to share some deliciously steamed potatoes, but… looks like a guest arrived before me?”
“Pardon? A guest?”
I don’t know many people in the village so there’s no one to visit me though?
Thinking it strange, Seo-won turned his gaze to the side where the lady was looking. A familiar man was standing there.
Clean black shoes and a black suit that didn’t match at all with the dusty countryside, hair slicked back with pomade…
“Hello, Mr. Seo-won.”
“…Secretary Bae?”
Bae Jeonghun. Seo Do-gyeom’s secretary.
Seo-won widened his eyes at the unexpected person’s appearance.
When he was Do-gyeom’s partner, he did occasionally talk with Secretary Bae. However, they were only acquaintances at the company level. There shouldn’t be any reason for him to seek out Seo-won…
Above all, Seo-won hadn’t told anyone that he had moved to the countryside. He didn’t even tell his mother where he was moving to, and just in case Do-gyeom asked about his whereabouts, he had asked her to say she didn’t know.
But how did he find this place…
As Seo-won looked at him with surprised eyes, the secretary spoke with an awkward face.
“It’s a bit inconvenient to talk here, may I come inside to speak with you?”
“…F-first, please come in.”
Although he was a bit reluctant since it was someone he didn’t want to meet, he couldn’t chase away someone who had come all the way here. And they had already found out where he lived…
Seo-won had no choice but to step aside. Then Secretary Bae lowered his head so as not to hit it on the gate and entered.
After letting him inside, Seo-won felt conflicted. Sighing softly as he looked at his back, he belatedly noticed the neighbor lady standing in front of the gate with a surprised face.
Ah, right… Seo-won had forgotten about her existence and awkwardly took the basket in her arms.
“Thank you, ma’am. I’ll enjoy the potatoes.”
“Mmhmm. Well. But Seo-won.”
“Yes?”
The lady glanced at Secretary Bae who had entered Seo-won’s house first.
Why is she doing that? As he tilted his head to one side in wonder, the lady lowered her voice and asked secretively,
“Could it be… you have a huge debt? Is that why you ran away to the countryside?”
“What?! Debt? N-no! It’s not like that.”
“If it’s not that, why is someone like him looking for you? Judging by the way you called him secretary, you don’t seem to be friends…”
“I-it’s not that scary. Don’t worry.”
Seo-won eagerly reassured the lady that it wasn’t like that. Come to think of it, Secretary Bae was an alpha who was so big and had such a fierce appearance that you could believe he was a bodyguard. Wearing a suit like today, he looked several times more intimidating. So he could understand her being frightened.
After soothing her well and sending her off, Seo-won gulped while hugging the basket full of boiled potatoes.
* * *
When Seo-won carefully entered the house, Secretary Bae was standing blankly in the living room.
Wondering why he was doing that, Seo-won now noticed the inside of the house was a mess with nowhere to sit. He had been too busy lately to clean. Feeling embarrassed, Seo-won hurriedly tidied up the surroundings to make a place to sit.
“Ah, please sit.”
“…Pardon the intrusion.”
Secretary Bae looked like he was wondering if he could sit alone on the fluffy sofa, but when Seo-won pulled a chair from the dining table to sit, he sat on the sofa with a resigned expression.
Sitting face to face with Secretary Bae, who he wasn’t even close with, an awkwardness came over him. He thought he should serve something, but he had no coffee nor tea…
Seo-won fidgeted awkwardly and opened his mouth first.
“You should have called before coming.”
“You changed your contact information.”
“If you could find the house I moved to, I thought you could have easily found out my number…”
“I can’t say that’s not true, but I felt like if I contacted you, you would disappear somewhere.”
“Am I some kind of criminal? Disappearing…”
“That’s not it, but it hasn’t even been a week since you decided to quit being the vice president’s partner, and you changed both your contact and residence. I searched like crazy.”
“…”
At Secretary Bae’s words, Seo-won was at a loss for words. It was a choice he made to go off the grid from them, so he couldn’t say his hunch was completely wrong. If he had really received contact, he would have run away before they came.
Seo-won tried to explain that it wasn’t like that, but then realized that explaining to him wouldn’t change anything and brought up the main point right away.
“So why did you come looking for me?”
“The vice president is looking for you.”
“…”
At Secretary Bae’s words, Seo-won’s face stiffened like a lump of stone.
He had expected it to be related to Do-gyeom since his secretary came to find him, but now that he heard it clearly from his mouth, his mind went blank for a moment.
Do-gyeom is looking for me? They were trivial words, but his heart raced. The face of the man he had been trying to forget for a month was vividly drawn in front of his eyes.
Seo-won squeezed his eyes shut to erase the afterimage drawn before him. The reason Do-gyeom would be looking for him wouldn’t be as romantic as he hoped.
“Has the young master’s partner not been found yet?”
“We found some, but he said he didn’t like any of them.”
“Didn’t like them… Putting that aside, wasn’t it simply an act of relieving pheromones?”
If he was looking for a partner who only demanded pleasure, that would be one thing, but the partner Do-gyeom was looking for was someone he had no choice but to find due to the penalty of pheromone buildup in dominant alphas. Wasn’t it enough to find a low-fertility omega with a low probability of pregnancy who could keep their mouth shut?
When Seo-won asked, finding it strange, Secretary Bae made a pained face as if he also found it odd.
“Actually… we don’t know either. Even if they went to the bedroom, they all got kicked out in less than ten minutes.”
“What? Kicked out?”
“Yes. It’s not like there was a problem with the omegas…”
The work processing ability of the employees under Do-gyeom’s management was frighteningly excellent. Finding out his home address without making a sound was nothing, and they were capable of quietly killing and burying a person. Of course, he wasn’t a gangster so there was no need to do that.
Anyway, those with such abilities wouldn’t have brought an unbelievable omega… He was curious what happened inside the bedroom.
When Seo-won also narrowed his brows, saying it was really strange, Secretary Bae brought up the main point as if he had been waiting.
“Anyway, he told me to call Mr. Seo-won back again. He said if you make a new contract this time, he will accommodate any regrets to the fullest.”
“…”
“He is a very picky person, but it seems he really likes you, Mr. Seo-won.”
Secretary Bae spoke as if it was impressive and laughed. It wasn’t in a sarcastic tone asking if he was just Do-gyeom’s partner, but with a voice filled with pure admiration.
That was understandable since Do-gyeom was very sensitive. He was usually fine, but when it came to work, if something bothered him, his personality was bad enough to immediately suppress it. Because of that, his subordinates had to handle work perfectly so as not to touch his nerves.
For such a Do-gyeom to offer better conditions and tell him to call Seo-won back, it was a pure admiration of how well he must do his job.
However, Seo-won gave a bitter smile. They had overlapped bodies for over five years, but he had never heard the words “I love you”. Even if he liked him, it was probably nothing more than liking his body.
He still hadn’t been able to erase his feelings for him, so it was nice to hear praise, but he shouldn’t continue the relationship any longer.
From the outside, Seo-won’s stomach wasn’t bulging yet to the point no one could tell he was pregnant. Thinking it was fortunate that Do-gyeom found him quickly, he shook his head.
“I’m sorry but… I have no intention of continuing a partner relationship with the young master.”
“Without even hearing the conditions? We reduced the relationship to once a week to lessen the work burden, and the salary and benefits have been drastically increased.”
When Seo-won firmly refused, Secretary Bae clung to him a bit desperately, asking him to reconsider. He added that he should read the new contract he took out from his bag and think about it.
Seo-won looked down at the contract Secretary Bae presented. The contract was surely filled with incredibly good terms. It was true that he stayed by his side as a partner for a long time because he had one-sided feelings for him, but it was also true that the conditions were good.
Reducing the frequency to overlapping bodies only once a week, it must be a drastic level.
However, Seo-won shook his head again without even taking the contract.
“No matter the conditions, I won’t do it anymore. I’m sorry.”
“No. Sigh…”
Secretary Bae opened and closed his mouth, then let out a deep sigh as if the ground would cave in. He seemed flustered, as if he never imagined Seo-won wouldn’t even glance at the contract.