Staring at the condensation left on the desk, Yeehyeon gently bit his lower lip. He couldn’t help but recall the days he had sat before this desk, trying to relieve even a fraction of his longing by smoking the same cigarettes Liu smoked.
“He must have wanted to come find me, to look at my face and apologize countless times, begging for forgiveness. That’s why….”
Even as he felt Liu’s gaze fixed on him, he couldn’t bring himself to meet it, afraid his emotions would quickly swell up.
“The time he had to spend just waiting, forgoing every chance to ask for forgiveness, to say he loved me… to persuade me that he wanted to start over… I know… that for A-Wei, that time, more than anything else, was the price of the changing.”
Having said his piece, Yeehyeon took a deep breath in and out, like someone who had just overcome a difficult ordeal.
He had thought about it for a long time, until the shock and sorrow that had stirred up the sediment and clouded his inner self slowly returned to its original clarity, and until he could look squarely at the future he truly wanted.
What had allowed him to endure that time was, funnily enough, none other than the conviction and faith that Liu, too, was passing through this time with the same heart, missing him.
Pressing his lips together once as if to firm his resolve, Yeehyeon raised his head toward him.
As if he had always been there, his blue eyes, now back to normal, were looking only at him. He didn’t rush him by saying he felt like he was dying, nor did he pester him with words of love.
“Thank you for waiting.”
“……”
Liu’s face showed no change in expression. Not because he felt nothing, but quite the opposite. Like Yeehyeon, he too was merely trying not to view this moment sentimentally.
Liu looked at Yeehyeon’s eyes one at a time, slowly, deliberately. The same old habit.
Swallowing dryly, as if forcing down several pills at once, he opened his parched lips.
“I was judged to be an Alpha and, almost simultaneously, identified as a Ghost… From then on, my life was a training exercise in learning how to control myself and suppress my desires. Being not only an Alpha but also a Ghost, I was a potential threat to others. No matter how affectionately the adults around me treated me, spending my formative years focused only on how to restrain myself and minimize my desires… I couldn’t help but subconsciously doubt the value of my own existence.”
As always, he spoke calmly, as if it were no big deal, but Yeehyeon held his breath, concentrating.
“Even if I had no intention of harming others… I knew that if anyone found out what I really was, they would have no choice but to avoid me….”
As if gazing at the past where he had to separate himself from the world because of an ‘ability’ he never asked for, his hazy eyes were fixed beyond the translucent green bottle. He then shifted his posture, changing his demeanor.
“That’s not to say that training was unfair or unnecessary. It was essential, an unavoidable choice. In reality… being able to turn a Beta into an Omega… can be a serious threat to the other person.”
From the moment he was identified as a Ghost, he had moved, stopped attending school, and tried to maintain only minimal relationships with a few close associates… but the thing he had feared most, the thing he had tried most to avoid, had happened in the end.
It occurred to Yeehyeon that to Liu, he could be evidence of a failure he didn’t want to face. Of course, he knew Liu would never think that way. But if one were to add a little selfishness to cast oneself as the victim, that line of thinking was entirely possible.
“It’s just that, as those times flowed in one direction and pooled inside me… eventually, it wasn’t the world, but I myself, who came to see me… as a ghost. That’s all.”
With a faint, bitter smile, he lifted the bottle and drank three or four gulps of beer. A heavy drop of water that had formed on the bottle’s surface trickled down and fell onto his jeans. The sound of a siren with an ominous aftertaste appeared from somewhere far away and receded even farther.
Yeehyeon looked down at the dark spot the water droplet had left on his thigh.
“I know how A-Wei feels about pheromones, and about being swayed and yielding to them… I know how strictly he’s controlled himself since he was a boy to avoid becoming that way. I heard the details from Marcus in Boston, but even before that, his closest friend joked about him trying to become a Beta.”
When he had heard Inwoo say that at the Spanish tavern, he hadn’t known what it meant. An Alpha who suppressed his pheromones. He had been ignorant of the level of endurance that required. He might have thought it was as simple as flipping a switch on and off.
He knew now that it was similar to the pain of enduring extreme drowsiness or hunger. One scholar had even compared it to the agony of having to hold in a sudden bowel movement during a stomachache.
For Alphas and Omegas, pheromones weren’t a secondary desire, like wanting to earn more money or have better looks; they were a matter of instinct and survival.
“Because I know he’s a man who has fought desperately against his pheromones to protect what he considers his humanity. That’s why… I was able to forgive A-Wei’s mistake.”
Liu’s eyes, facing Yeehyeon, trembled violently. He looked like someone witnessing an unbelievable phenomenon right before his eyes.
“That him breaking down and changing me was not the true nature of the man named Liu Wiekun, but a mistake he made after losing his way and being blinded…. When I looked back calmly over time, I was able to see the situation more clearly. Because Liu Wiekun was not the kind of person who wielded pheromones as a weapon and an excuse.”
Now he parted his lips, shook his head, and narrowed his eyes.
“What we talked about in Boston… the reason you’re different from others. The reason you’ve felt a loneliness that seemed like it could never be accepted by anyone…. That it wasn’t just because you’re an Alpha, but because you were a Ghost….”
Separate from the wrong he had committed, the thought of the heavy solitude his loved one had carried throughout his life made Yeehyeon’s voice tremble slightly. But he didn’t want it to seem like a decision made in a moment of weakness, led by affection. That wasn’t the truth, either.
Yeehyeon lowered his head.
“……”
Liu pulled his chair closer and gently placed his hand over Yeehyeon’s, which was resting carelessly on the table. He slipped his fingers into the loose gap between Yeehyeon’s thumb and index finger, squeezed lightly, and covered the entire back of his hand with his damp palm.
Afraid he wouldn’t be able to hold back his tears if he looked at Liu’s face, Yeehyeon focused all his consciousness on their two hands, now one.
“Actually… when I heard Yuni ask if we were dating again, I was thrilled, but… that wasn’t all.”
“……”
His story, starting from an unexpected direction, made Yeehyeon tense.
“At the same time I was thrilled, a certain uncomfortable sensation rattled around in my heart.”
His hand, which had been carefully covering the back of Yeehyeon’s, gripped him with a bit more force. Yeehyeon could feel his chest swell greatly, then slowly deflate with a tremor.
“Because I was prepared to wait much longer… what happened last night, and the fact that I’m with you like this right now, still doesn’t feel real… but that doesn’t mean I just let time pass without picturing a future with you. My declaration that I belong to you even if you don’t accept me has become clearer within me than before, and it was a time that made it even more certain that my love for you has nothing to do with the games pheromones play.”
As if asking Yeehyeon to look at him, he reached out his left arm, the one not holding Yeehyeon’s hand, and placed it on his shoulder. With a gentle pull inward, Yeehyeon tensed his body and slowly looked at him.
“If you’ve decided to restart our relationship, including the changing… the weight of that resolve is something I can’t dare to fathom. It’s not just a matter of forgiving me and pretending the past didn’t happen. To define such a relationship… as just ‘dating’… I felt that might not be enough.”
He was trying to be calm, but despite his efforts, a strange excitement seemed to be slowly, layer by layer, enveloping him. He paused for a moment to catch his breath.
His right shoulder overlapped with Yeehyeon’s left shoulder from behind. They were so close that Yeehyeon could feel his ragged breath on his left temple. The hand that had been on his shoulder gently caressed the tip of Yeehyeon’s chin. His heart was beating powerfully.
“It’s like… describing a boyfriend as just a friend. That word… it didn’t feel like it fit us perfectly.”
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