The Villain Is Too Good at Cooking C17

Chapter 17

Even faced with his parents’ misfortune, there wasn’t a trace of sympathy or guilt in Jeong Iwon’s eyes. People who had cast him out so thoroughly, now showing up to talk about blood ties and keeling over, were nothing to him but a ridiculous farce.

In the end, an ambulance found its way into the country village with a loud, piercing wail of sirens. The paramedics rushed in, loaded the fallen Chairman Jeong onto a stretcher, and carried him out.

Through all of it, Jeong Siyeon glared at Jeong Iwon with resentment and venom right to the end. But that didn’t last long either.

Before long, they split between the ambulance and the sedan and hurried out of the village. Over the yard the storm had just torn through, a heavy silence settled, almost unbelievably.

The ones left were Jeong Iwon, Yoon Mujin, and Kwon Heeseong, the root cause of this entire insane mess.

Jeong Iwon pressed at his throbbing temple. Then he marched over to Kwon Heeseong, who was still watching him shamelessly, and started shoving him in the back with both hands without hesitation.

“Hey! You go too! Are you leaving or not? You turn my stomach inside out first thing in the morning and then just stand there? You’re revolting, get out!”

“Fine! Fine, just stop pushing! You’re wrinkling my clothes! I’m going, I’m going!”

Ordinarily, Kwon Heeseong would have thrown a fit at the audacity of anyone laying hands on him. But strangely, he let himself be pushed along by Jeong Iwon’s rough hands.

On the face of a man being shoved out through the gate there was, instead of annoyance or rage, a strange expression. The face of a seeker who had grasped the workings of the world.

I was an idiot too.

Only now did Kwon Heeseong realize it. He liked Jeong Iwon. It still felt like the level of mere interest, but who knew how that might change? Even the merciless shouting, even the sharp hands whacking his back, had reached the point of feeling exhilarating to him. Even as he was driven completely out past the gate, he looked back at Jeong Iwon with reluctance dripping from his eyes.

“I’m really going! Behave yourself while I’m gone! I’ll be back before long, so wait for me!”

He made a show of throwing a wink and a blown kiss at a dumbfounded Jeong Iwon, then climbed into his car and swept off without a backward glance.

With the marriage-proposal uproar and all that chaos finally past, Jeong Iwon sank down where he stood.

They say morning is the start of the day. His start was already exhausting.

A few days went by.

The blue-roofed house recovered its quiet, peaceful routine as though none of it had ever happened. Every day Yoon Mujin banged away at repairing the collapsing ruin next door, helped with Jeong Iwon’s fieldwork, and silently held his place.

Jeong Iwon was troubled by how used to Yoon Mujin’s presence he’d become, but he judged it was still all right. He believed Baek Hamin was still in the man’s heart. And above all, Yoon Mujin wasn’t a lunatic like Kwon Heeseong.

Then, one late afternoon.

Vrrrm.

At the entrance of a quiet village filled with nothing but cicadas, the low exhaust note of an unfamiliar car spread out. Not the sharp sports-car sound that had threatened to shred the whole neighborhood’s eardrums before.

Wondering whether another new guest had arrived, they looked, and a large imported SUV slid to a stop in front of the blue-roofed house.

Don’t tell me, again?

Jeong Iwon, taking a big bite of cold watermelon on the platform in the yard, and Yoon Mujin, crouched beside him honing a sickle on a whetstone, both turned toward the gate at the same time.

Clack.

The heavy car door opened, and the person who stepped out was none other than Kwon Heeseong. At least it wasn’t Jeong Iwon’s parents, which was something, but this man was every bit as much of a nuisance.

“Huh?”

But the car wasn’t the only thing that had changed. Kwon Heeseong had thrown out the suit and tie that suffocated everyone from head to toe and was wearing a clean knit sweater and comfortable cotton trousers.

What caught Jeong Iwon’s eye most, though, was what Kwon Heeseong was carrying, arms full, as he stepped into the yard.

“I’m here!”

He strode toward Jeong Iwon, flushed and swollen with anticipation. What he held was a bouquet the size of a grown man’s torso. No, far larger than that, and far more extravagant.

Hundreds of dark red roses and rare, expensive flowers whose names nobody here would know, arranged lavishly, filling the yard with a thick, sweet fragrance.

“Wh-what is this? Why have you crawled back here again? Aren’t you busy?”

Jeong Iwon set his watermelon down on the platform and asked, deep wariness in his eyes. At that, Kwon Heeseong made a show of clearing his throat and puffed himself up.

“I got a place in the next town over. Out by the town center. That area at least has a supermarket and looks like somewhere people actually live, so it’s far more livable than here. I bought a detached house with a big yard and had the whole thing remodeled. I’m not going back to Seoul for a while. I’ll be working remotely from here.”

“What? Why?”

Jeong Iwon asked, baffled, and Kwon Heeseong shrugged and answered as if it were nothing.

“Why do you think? I’d say you know the answer to that.”

I don’t. I don’t know a thing.

Jeong Iwon denied it desperately. He couldn’t work out why that bastard kept taking an interest in him.

Undeterred by the stunned expression, Kwon Heeseong walked right up and half forced the enormous bouquet into his arms.

“Here, take it. It’s how I feel about you.”

Privately, Kwon Heeseong was harboring expectations. No matter how foul-mouthed and blunt an omega might be, faced with a lavish, romantic bouquet from a dominant alpha who had set his mind to it, he would surely melt.

He’d blush with delight, or breathe in the scent and smile shyly. At the very least, he’d wear a slightly moved expression. Kwon Heeseong believed it without a shred of doubt. Other omegas rejoiced over a single flower as though they’d been handed the world.

But contrary to his imagining, Jeong Iwon looked down at the enormous bouquet in his arms with a blank, cold expression. Far from being moved, deep and forbidding creases began stacking up between his brows.

“This is a present?”

It was the first time in his life a man had given him flowers. It wasn’t that he disliked flowers, but why bother? And from Kwon Heeseong, of all people?

Jeong Iwon looked at the bouquet with a strange expression. Then he carefully handed it back.

“I don’t need it.”

Kwon Heeseong doubted his own ears, wondering whether he’d misheard.

“What?”

“I said I don’t need it. Why would I take a present from you? I’ll pass on the housewarming gift.”

At those plainly delivered words, Kwon Heeseong understood. Jeong Iwon didn’t hold even a quarter of the interest in him that he held in Jeong Iwon. To him, Kwon Heeseong was still nothing but a nuisance. Possibly someone he actively disliked.

It was as good as a flat rejection.

Watching it, Yoon Mujin wore an unusually gloomy expression. Because he knew that while he stood a little better than Kwon Heeseong, his own position was, in the end, no different. Still, for now, he felt relief in the fact that Jeong Iwon wouldn’t be accepting anyone.

That night, in the small hours, Jeong Iwon forced his eyes open. His body was heavy, as though sinking into the floor. A different texture from simple fatigue after hard work. An unfamiliar heat spreading slowly out from deep in his belly. And a strange, languid sensation crackling up the back of his neck.

He panted in short breaths and furrowed his brow. The air in the room was distinctly different from usual. Heat leaked out of him with every breath in and out. And then the soft, sweet scent of peaches began filling the room.

“…Haah. Of all the times.”

His heat cycle had come.

The omega instincts that had been quiet for a while had abruptly reared their head. Jeong Iwon staggered up and dug through the dresser like he might overturn it. He barely managed to find the bottle of suppressants shoved in a corner, shook out a pill and swallowed it, but it wasn’t nearly enough to put down heat that had already started.

“Hnk.”

In the past, taking the medicine, bolting the door, and groaning through a few days would have been the end of it. But the situation was different now.

In this small village, and just over his own wall at that, there was a strapping alpha. And another dominant alpha who crawled down here at every opportunity was a serious problem too.

No matter how many suppressants he poured into himself, an omega in heat staying in the same space as alphas was no different from strapping kindling to your back and jumping into a fire. If anyone lost their reason, there was no telling how ugly it could get.

Jeong Iwon staggered upright, splashed cold water on his face, and forced his hazing mind back into order. Then he half crawled out onto the wooden floor. In one corner of the yard, Yoon Mujin, silently splitting firewood, sensed him and turned his head.