Hero Hunter is on Parental Leave C23

Chapter 23

From the moment Saeyeong—who normally never left his house unless contacted first—had gone out of his way to visit the convenience store where he worked, Yeongung had felt uneasy.

“Excuse me.”

Despite the polite tone, the man stepped inside without waiting for permission from the homeowner.

Won Iheun briskly scanned the interior of the house, and once again, without waiting for approval, sat down on the living room sofa.

It was a small home—one bedroom and one smaller room—so the distance from the entrance to the living room was tiny.

Yeongung had never once found the place too cramped while living alone with Jaehee.

But with a towering dominant alpha inside, the space felt suffocatingly small.

“Jjop jjop.”

Hearing an unfamiliar voice, Jaehee crawled across the wooden floor with his pacifier still in his mouth.

“Bu…? Jjop jjop.”

He was doomed.

Pale as a sheet, Yeongung scooped up Jaehee.

One hand cupped the small back of his head and neck, the other supported his bottom.

He angled the child so the man wouldn’t get a full look at his face—though it was already too late.

When an alpha and omega who’d once shared a bed encountered each other again, a trace amount of pheromones leaked out without their will.

And it wasn’t only the two adults who reacted to it.

“Bba…?”

Plop.

Jaehee’s brown eyes—so reminiscent of Yeongung’s long one-sided love—widened.

The pacifier dropped from his open mouth and fell to the floor.

At first, Yeongung thought the child was startled by an unfamiliar alpha scent rather than his parent’s pheromone.

But the boy’s reaction wasn’t rejection.

Cradled against his omega father’s chest, Jaehee reached out toward Iheun.

He was instinctively drawn to the biological parent who had passed down his genes.

Young Jaehee had severe stranger anxiety; he wouldn’t accept anyone’s touch except his father’s.

Even his daycare teacher had spent months slowly earning his trust.

Yet now, he smiled sweetly at the man, as if saying Look at me, as if pleading for more of that pleasant pheromone.

No one had ever resisted the baby angel’s smile.

Even Yeongung melted whenever his son burped or used the bathroom; he’d praise him for anything.

But Iheun… did not react.

“Uu…”

Rejected for the first time, the child whimpered, his face crumpling.

If he started crying, it would go on for at least an hour, so Yeongung lifted and bounced him, playing airplane to soothe him.

A quick glance at Iheun showed a reaction better than expected.

Not the adorably dying of cuteness expression he had hoped for, but neither disgust nor hatred crossed the man’s eyes.

And, to his surprise, Won Iheun did not ask a single question about the child.

“Looks alike.”

That was all he said.

From birth, Jaehee’s features were distinct.

As he grew, he resembled his alpha father more and more—

a miniature replica of Won Iheun, as if copy-pasted.

So when Iheun said looks alike, Yeongung assumed he meant himself and Jaehee.

Did he figure it out…?

He held the child tighter.

Feeling constricted, Jaehee whined softly.

Tap, tap, tap—Yeongung patted his back and the fuss subsided.

He pressed a good night kiss to his round cheek.

“Kooo… kooo…”

It was the sound he always made while teetering on the verge of sleep.

Won Iheun silently watched him create white noise with his mouth.

Tap.

After placing Jaehee in the rocking crib in the bedroom and closing the door, he exhaled.

They used to sleep together in the same bed, but because the child’s clinginess had worsened, he’d been practicing separated sleeping.

And now came the moment he could no longer avoid.

“…Even if I tell you to leave, you’re not going to, right?”

Hands clasped behind him, Yeongung gripped the doorknob tightly—

determination hardening his face as if he would never let the man step inside the room where his child slept.

Won Iheun, treating his tension as foolish paranoia, opened the refrigerator, took out a bottle of cold water, and drank.

“No need to be so scared. I know I’m not welcome, but still—your vigilance is excessive.”

Look at him acting like this is his house.

“Insane bastard.”

Iheun emptied the entire bottle in one go.

“As you said, I don’t expect a warm welcome. So let’s keep it simple—say what needs to be said and leave. This place doesn’t suit you.”

Places of glitter and height suited him—

not a remote, painfully peaceful island like Muhaedo.

“That blurry face—why don’t we switch it back to your real one?”

“Damn it, mind your own business regardless of what face I have.”

BANG!

In the blink of an eye, Iheun closed the distance, grabbed him by the collar, and slammed him into the wall.

“Stop thinking you can tell Hunter Yeongung not to care about you. If there’s a way to do that, tell me. I’ve been failing for two years.”

Iheun tilted his head toward him—

so close their lips would touch with one wrong move.

“Haa…”

His rough breath brushed against Yeongung’s skin.

Goosebumps prickled over him from toes to scalp.

Iheun’s face lowered further, burying into his collarbone.

Then, like an addict craving a fix, he inhaled Yeongung’s pheromone desperately.

His eyes were half-rolled back.

Following the line of his collarbone and up his shoulder, Iheun’s mouth reached his neck.

Crunch.

He bit down—

hard.

The pain was sharp, like flesh tearing.

A strangled groan escaped Yeongung’s lips.

“…Uhk!”

He grabbed the alpha’s hair and yanked him away from his nape.

When he touched his neck, his fingers came away stained with blood.

It wasn’t symbolic—he had actually bitten through skin.

Surely he’s not trying to imprint…?

Imprinting was a privilege of hyper-dominant alphas—

a binding of pheromones that tied two people for life.

In an era where divorce and remarriage were common, imprinting had fallen out of favor; few hyper-dominants ever did it.

Of course, there were still rare couples who stayed loyal to one another until death—

but neither he nor this man belonged to such cases.

“Shit, are you crazy…?!”

This time, Yeongung shoved Iheun against the wall, reversing their positions.

Since he’d already been exposed, he no longer bothered suppressing his power.

He began unlocking the core mana he had sealed—

but then Iheun spoke coldly, as if he had never been aroused moments ago:

“When you disappeared, at first I couldn’t accept it.”

“…”

“Because there was no reason.”

“…”

“I couldn’t believe someone who risked everything to restore my memories would simply vanish.”

The grip Yeongung had on his collar loosened.

“And I wondered—why was I so furious? Why was I staring at the empty space you left behind like some pathetic fool?”

“So what conclusion did you reach?”

Iheun fixed his disheveled collar, then continued:

“I realized it—all issues related to you were hidden in the memories I lost.”

Two whole years.

A short time if short, long if long—

but had his memories returned?

“Remember? You once told me you had a ‘small problem’.”

“I can’t tell you yet, but I have a small problem. I’m working on it, so don’t be impatient.”

Now that he mentioned it, Yeongung vaguely recalled something like that. The man asking him to wait, to give him time.

“I’ve solved that dragging homework now. That’s why I came.”

At his cryptic explanation, Yeongung’s expression clouded with confusion.

“I’ll stop here for today. I’d say it was quite a heartfelt reunion. You should get some sleep.”

Feeling the man’s gaze, Yeongung rubbed at his dark under-eyes.

“Oh. And living side by side could be nice too—parental leave.”

With a self-satisfied smile, the bastard disappeared.

Into the apartment next door.