Chapter 4

Jeong Iwon swallowed a deep sigh as he looked at that enormous body.

This is driving me crazy. After getting hurt this badly, does he even have anywhere to go?

Jeong Iwon discreetly gauged Mujin’s reaction.

He knew that although Mujin looked outwardly ferocious enough to bite the head off anyone who approached him, inside, he had already completely collapsed and was on the verge of crumbling to pieces.

What the hell is so great about a first love, anyway?

What would happen if he simply abandoned this guy on the streets of an unfamiliar town?

He would probably collapse in some secluded alley and starve to death the moment he walked out of the hospital.

No, knowing him, that was almost certainly what would happen.

Jeong Iwon hadn’t wanted anyone to disturb his perfect and peaceful country life.

But the part of his nature that simply wasn’t cruel kept pricking at his conscience.

His annoyingly soft-hearted personality was his own worst enemy.

In the end, Jeong Iwon was the first to break the suffocating silence.

“Do you have somewhere to go?”

He tossed out the question as casually as possible.

Mujin’s broad shoulders stiffened.

He stared at Jeong Iwon blankly for a moment before slowly shaking his head, his face drained of color.

As though he’d been waiting for that answer, Jeong Iwon let out a deep sigh that seemed to come from the very depths of the earth.

“Then stay at my place for the time being.”

“……What?”

Mujin’s eyes widened like saucers.

At the blatant stare of disbelief directed at him, Jeong Iwon suddenly felt awkward. He cleared his throat and turned his head away.

“What? Why? Are you deaf? I said stay at my place for the time being.”

“Why would you… take me in?”

“Don’t get the wrong idea! I’m not taking you in because I think you’re cute or anything. It’s just that if you loiter around my yard and end up starving to death, I’m worried some unlucky ghost will get attached to my property. And I don’t want the neighborhood becoming even more ominous. I have a spare room anyway, so just stay there quietly until your hand heals, then leave.”

Despite Jeong Iwon’s prickly words, Mujin couldn’t answer.

Unlike his brusque tone, the pheromones rising from Jeong Iwon’s body were softer and warmer than before.

A gentle, fluffy scent of white peach.

It seemed to soothe a wounded and abandoned beast.

Mujin unconsciously swallowed dryly.

In the end, he had no energy left even to resist and quietly followed Jeong Iwon.

Outside the hospital, Grandpa Chilseong was waiting for them.

“My goodness, did the treatment go well? Is your hand all right?”

“Yes, Grandpa. Thanks to you, we took care of the emergency. They put a proper cast on it so the bones won’t heal out of alignment. Thank you so much for waiting for us.”

Jeong Iwon bowed politely as he thanked him.

Yoon Mujin, standing behind him, awkwardly lowered his head as well.

“Oh, that’s a relief! All right, let’s go! Get in before the sun goes down! We need to get home for dinner!”

On the way back to the country house, the three men once again squeezed themselves into the cramped front seats.

Rattle, rattle—!

The old truck remained hot and sticky as it bounced along the unpaved country road, but somehow, the atmosphere was subtly different from before.

A folksy trot song played from the radio Grandpa Chilseong had turned on, while the early-evening breeze, now pleasantly cool, slipped through the gaps in the windows.

Whenever the truck jolted heavily, Yoon Mujin’s broad shoulder on the passenger side repeatedly brushed against Jeong Iwon’s thin shoulder in the middle.

Each time, the sweet peach scent mixed with Iwon’s body heat wafted toward Mujin.

On the way to the hospital, Mujin had been too consumed by rage and despair to properly perceive it.

But now that his storm of emotions had subsided somewhat after receiving treatment, the sweetness was so vivid that it nearly took his breath away.

Yoon Mujin rested his head at an angle against the passenger-side window and secretly stole glances at Jeong Iwon’s profile.

The tiger-like figure who had ferociously smacked the back of his head was nowhere to be seen.

Now, perhaps exhausted by the cramped seat, Iwon was curled up slightly, staring blankly at the crimson sunset outside the window.

A rounded forehead, a high nose, and unusually delicate red lips.

Jeong Iwon.

It was unmistakably the face of the arrogant, vicious Omega who had once looked down on him as though he were nothing more than a worm by the roadside.

And yet, strangely, the person sitting beside him shoulder-to-shoulder now felt like an entirely different person, as though only the shell remained the same.

The Jeong Iwon he’d met again was just as soft and gentle as the scent he emitted.

More than anything, he made Mujin feel strangely at ease.

His instincts as an Alpha wanted to lower their guard and lean into the sweet Omega’s scent.

The gloomy, damp-earth pheromones that had been pouring uncontrollably from Yoon Mujin’s body had also gradually settled down.

Entwining with Iwon’s white-peach scent, they created a pleasant lingering fragrance.

“Then stay at my place for the time being.”

Jeong Iwon’s brusque voice continued echoing in Mujin’s ears.

At the moment when he’d thought he’d lost everything, that his life was over and had been thrown into the gutter, there had been someone who took in the abandoned him and gave him warmth.

Mujin’s gaze fell upon the pristine white cast weighing heavily on his right hand.

He had thought his pitiful life was already over.

And yet, strangely enough, he no longer felt that desperate urge to die right that instant.

By then, the truck had left the blazing red sunset behind and stopped in front of Jeong Iwon’s blue-roofed house.

“Take care on your way home, Grandpa!”

Jeong Iwon waved toward the departing truck.

But as he stepped into the yard, he suddenly stopped.

He had remembered what Yoon Mujin looked like standing behind him.

Mujin had spent days sleeping rough on the streets, and he’d just come from a blood-soaked emergency room.

His condition was utterly miserable.

Dust had settled thickly over his tangled hair, while his clothes were filthy with dirt, sweat, and dried blood.

For neat-freak Jeong Iwon, it was absolutely unbearable.

“You. Get into the bathroom right now.”

“……?”

“Wash yourself. You’re so filthy I can’t stand looking at you. I absolutely refuse to have you walking around my beloved house getting dust everywhere.”

While continuing to nag him, Jeong Iwon went into the kitchen and brought back a large black plastic bag and a yellow rubber band.

He slipped the plastic bag over the pristine white cast covering Mujin’s right hand and securely tied the opening around his wrist with the rubber band.

“Be careful not to get any water on your right hand. Wash yourself with your left hand, even if you have to do it roughly. Got it?”

Still dazed, Mujin was ushered into the bathroom with the plastic bag covering his hand.

Only after the door closed did he stare blankly down at his right hand.

Seeing the crude but carefully secured rubber band, tied tightly enough to keep even a single drop of water out, a faint sigh escaped his lips.

When the sound of running water began pouring from the bathroom, Jeong Iwon tightened the strings of his apron and started cooking in earnest.

Tap, tap, sizzle—!

He turned on the gas stove and placed the soaked rice into a pot.

While waiting for the water to boil, he transferred the savory doenjang stew he’d made that morning into a small earthenware pot and reheated it until it bubbled.

“There has to be a meat dish with dinner. Since you’re a patient, I’ll give you plenty of protein.”

He drizzled oil into a heated frying pan and slit the skins of some plump sausages before grilling them until golden brown.

Sizzle—

The cheerful sound filled the kitchen, followed by the salty, greasy aroma of the sausages.

On one side of the pan, he cracked two eggs and fried them until the edges became crispy.

Then he opened the refrigerator and took out different kinds of kimchi: well-fermented napa cabbage kimchi, crunchy young-radish kimchi, and pungent green-onion kimchi.

He arranged them neatly on separate plates.

The nutty sweetness of freshly cooked rice, the deep aroma of doenjang stew, and the smell of sausages sizzling in oil combined into an almost violently appetizing feast.

“Perfect.”

Jeong Iwon smiled with satisfaction as he set the spoons and chopsticks on the table.

Then he suddenly sensed someone behind him and turned around.

“Gasp!”

A muffled scream escaped Jeong Iwon.

Yoon Mujin was standing in the kitchen doorway, completely naked except for a single towel covering him below the waist.

Beneath his dripping black hair, his broad shoulders, wide as the Pacific Ocean, and his tightly built, muscular chest were completely exposed.

Clearly defined abs and faint scars were barely concealed above the towel, seeming to testify to how fiercely he’d lived his life in the ring.

“Why are you standing there like that?!”

So startled that formal speech slipped out before he could stop himself, Jeong Iwon hurriedly covered his eyes with both hands.

Seeing Iwon peek through the gaps between his fingers while shouting at him, Yoon Mujin answered in an indifferent voice.

“I don’t have any clothes to change into. What I was wearing was ruined.”

“Oh…”

Only then did Jeong Iwon realize that he’d made a critical mistake.

He had shoved Mujin into the bathroom and told him to wash up, but completely forgotten to give him anything to wear afterward.

“Ah, fine! Wait! I’ll bring you something in a second, so just stay there!”

With his face burning red, Jeong Iwon rushed to the bedroom wardrobe.

He rummaged through his clothes and pulled out the largest short-sleeved T-shirt and a pair of gray sweatpants he owned before tossing them to Mujin.

“Put these on!”

Mujin struggled to pull the pants on with one hand before pulling the T-shirt over his damp hair.

And then, a moment later—

“……”

Jeong Iwon stared at Mujin fully dressed.

He was speechless.

His eyes narrowed.