DHG Ch 17
by soapa“Shit, does that bastard have gonorrhea?”
Just then, the bulky bodyguard intervened.
“Shouldn’t you be taking a separate car? Damn it. Filthy bastard—.”
“He said he’s clean.”
Jang Seungyung smiled.
As the car started and drove up the cement driveway, out of the alley, Heewoo couldn’t even breathe comfortably.
Was he really going to the Department of Trait Medicine with Jang Seungyung like this? Should he reveal that he’s an Omega?
The midday sun cast a slanted shadow across his face through the car window. The car passed between the tall buildings of the city center. Since it wasn’t rush hour, it took less than ten minutes to reach the mixed-use building where the hospital was located.
Jang Seungyung got out first, and Heewoo, who had been clasping his own hands together, followed. The bodyguard, as usual, stayed in the car. The two men walked towards the elevator connecting to the main building.
It was nearing November. Heewoo, who hadn’t expected to go out, was only wearing a hoodie, but he didn’t feel the cold due to his nervousness. His back was simply damp with cold sweat. The only consolation was that his black clothes didn’t show it.
He pressed the elevator call button. He looked only at the electronic pad at his waist, where the numbers changed every second, and clasped his hands together again.
“Do you need to pee?”
At the sudden question, Heewoo forgot his caution and looked up.
He met a piercing gaze, as if Jang Seungyung had been watching him the whole time. Heewoo’s pupils trembled almost imperceptibly. The voice continued.
“I asked if you need to pee.”
“…No.”
“Then why have you been fidgeting like that since earlier? Like a puppy in heat.”
“…….”
“Shall we stop by the restroom?”
The deep, smooth voice asked with a hint of laughter. Combined with the mesmerizingly handsome face, it sounded as if he were genuinely concerned.
Heewoo stood there for a moment, as if he had been struck. A puppy. The man in front of him was the second person to compare him to a puppy, but the feeling was completely different from when his grandmother called him that. It was so strange that the same word could feel so different.
A sudden wave of dizziness washed over him. When he closed his eyes tightly and opened them again, the man was still looking at him. Heewoo forced his clasped hands apart. For a moment, he felt as if he had lost a lifeline, and the ground beneath his feet seemed to disappear.
“I’m fine.”
He answered, looking down at his feet again.
A suffocating silence followed. The heavy gaze pressing down on him. The cold air thick with silence.
An unbearable silence built up around Heewoo. Just as he wrapped one arm around his other elbow defensively, unable to bear it any longer, the elevator arrival chime rang.
Fortunately, there were a few people inside. Perhaps because of the man’s unusual appearance, those who had been talking amongst themselves hesitated. Heewoo quickly slipped into the awkward gap. The man followed, and they reached the F floor with the tension diluted just a drop.
“Here?”
“…Yes.”
Heewoo entered the hospital first.
As the automatic doors slid open, once again, perhaps due to the man’s all-black attire, they drew attention. Ignoring them, Jang Seungyung looked around the interior, decorated with Modigliani paintings, and sauntered toward a nearby seat. Heewoo watched the large man plop down on the waiting couch and approached the desk.
“This is my first time here.”
Soft classical music played in the hospital. The lecture on the importance of mental health playing on the large TV on the wall also masked Heewoo’s voice.
The nurse asked, “What are your symptoms?”
“I have frequent nightmares.”
Heewoo was in the Department of Psychiatry.
There were many different departments in this building. He had chosen this building specifically to receive pheromone treatment while avoiding the bodyguards’ eyes. The bodyguards, seemingly satisfied with just Mingeon, hadn’t accompanied him to the hospital. Filling out a new patient information card, Heewoo kept his senses alert to what was happening behind him. Fortunately, there was no sign of Jang Seungyung approaching.
Was this the right choice?
What if they found out he lied? Wouldn’t it have been better to go to the Department of Trait Medicine? No, he didn’t want his Omega trait to be discovered. This was the best option.
When he returned to his seat, sweating, Jang Seungyung was flipping through a book, seemingly uninterested in him. It was a poetry book. Judging by the way he was quickly flipping through the pages, he seemed to be just glancing at whatever caught his eye.
Heewoo sat two seats away from the man and stared at the TV screen with tense eyes. Finally, his name appeared on the announcement popup.
[(Kwon Heewoo) Please come to the examination room.]
Thankfully, the man didn’t follow him to the examination room.
✮⋆˙
He didn’t know how he got through the appointment.
“If your symptoms don’t improve, please visit again.”
The entire time he talked to the doctor, he was on pins and needles. All his attention was focused on the thin door. He felt like Jang Seungyung would burst through the door at any moment.
It was just his imagination; nothing happened. Heewoo was swallowing a sigh of relief and listening to the nurse explain the prescribed medication when suddenly a large shadow fell over him, and a familiar pheromone scent enveloped him. It was Jang Seungyung.
A long arm reached over his shoulder. Heewoo, forgetting to breathe, stared frozen at the man’s large hand, the black credit card, and the strong wrist wrapped in a watch strap.
“Payment complete.”
Would you like a receipt? At the nurse’s voice, Heewoo suddenly came to his senses. He realized that Jang Seungyung had simply paid for his hospital bill.
Heewoo awkwardly touched his elbow where the man’s hand had brushed past.
“Thank you.”
He thanked him as they left the hospital. He felt relieved that he had been unnecessarily tense, but also had a headache. Perhaps it was because he had been too rigid. His neck and shoulders were stiff. It had been over ten years since he started hiding his Omega trait, but today was the most exhausting day yet.
“What did the doctor say?”
Jang Seungyung asked. Heewoo rubbed his trembling lower lip with the back of his hand and tried not to mumble as he answered.
“…He said that if I take the medication I was already taking along with this new one, I should be fine.”
He had actually told the doctor during the appointment that he was taking pheromone suppressants prescribed by the Department of Trait Medicine. The doctor had prescribed him an anti-anxiety medication that was safe to take with them.
Heewoo suddenly recalled the details of the appointment he had received in a daze. If he had the chance to visit alone, he wanted to answer the psychiatrist’s questions more properly. Although he knew that would never happen.
Heewoo hugged the medicine bag to his chest, feeling much more relieved. He was waiting for the elevator with Jang Seungyung when—
Cling—.
The door to the Department of Trait Medicine, the one he usually visited, opened.
Reacting to the familiar chime, Heewoo looked up involuntarily. His eyes stopped when he saw the person coming out of the Department of Trait Medicine.
It was that person.
The familiar person he had seen in the elevator with Mingeon. Small build. Dyed hair. Haggard eyes. The man he felt like he had seen somewhere but couldn’t quite place.
And now, seeing him for the second time, Heewoo finally remembered where he had seen him.
“…….”
That man was the one Kim Jinhwan had brought to the motel once. An old motel with stained gray wallpaper and a palm-sized window. The male Omega who had cleaned up after Heewoo two or three times after he had passed out from his interactions with Kim Jinhwan.
Kim Jinhwan hated anything dirty. This often happened after the long, arduous hours that continued until Heewoo collapsed. This man would clean Heewoo up to meet Kim Jinhwan’s hygiene standards before he returned.
As the memory resurfaced, the man’s voice from that time also came flooding back.
‘You’re like this because you just lie there stiff as a board.’
‘Why do you even bother living like this? Being a burden to others.’
‘I’d rather just die cleanly than live so pathetically.’
The reason he hadn’t remembered immediately was because of his bad habit of unconsciously forgetting unpleasant things. He wanted to forget that man, or rather, the time and place he had met him, and the words he had heard.
A black terror instantly enveloped him. Just as he lowered his head to look at the floor, exposing the back of his neck, a large hand suddenly wrapped around his shoulder. Jang Seungyung pulled him towards the elevator. The man with the dyed hair didn’t get on with them. He went towards the pharmacy.
Nothing happened, and the doors closed.
“That… That person just now…”
Heewoo squeezed out a strangled voice.
His mind was in turmoil. It was his survival instinct that moved his lips. Heewoo jerkily raised his head. He saw a breathtakingly beautiful, almost frightening face looking down at him.
Unlike the hand that had gripped his shoulder, the gaze was languid and bored. Heewoo’s eyes wavered.
What if he was ignored?
His fear was fleeting, and he continued speaking.
“He’s Kim Jinhwan’s person.”
He moved his jaw, which was twitching as if the anesthetic hadn’t worn off completely. His extreme panic distorted his pronunciation, but he tried to speak nonetheless.
“The person with the dyed hair… who came out of the hospital next door just now…”
It must have been the tail Kim Jinhwan had put on him. He thought he had finally escaped, but why was he being tormented again? Just then, the nightmarish image of Kim Jinhwan climbing up to his bedroom window last September flooded his mind.
Ding, the elevator arrived at the basement parking lot with a chime. Heewoo was led out of the narrow, enclosed space by Jang Seungyung, still dazed.