VDN Ch 21

“…….”

Turning his back on Nam-woon, who remained silent with his head deeply bowed, Seo-oh walked away.

His steps were firm, but all of his attention was entirely on the man standing behind him.

“Parasite, bug.”

In the past, Seo-oh wouldn’t have cared if Seok Nam-woon called him a parasite or a bug but today, for some reason, he strangely felt angry. He wanted to hurt Nam-woon.

He wished Nam-woon knew that it was his words that had made him so angry. He already knew that Nam-woon was a person who insulted people but still, he felt disappointed.

It’s because he had expectations from such a guy. Like an idiot.

Seo-oh laughed himself. Don’t worry about it. He told himself dozens of times to just look ahead and walk when, suddenly, Thud. A dull sound came from behind, as if something had fallen. Without thinking, Seo-oh turned his head slightly. There, where they had argued earlier, lay a long figure.

“…Seok Nam-woon?”

Standing still and blinking, Seo-oh quickly ran over. As he approached and saw the man’s condition, his eyes widened. Nam-woon’s face was covered in blood. Seo-oh kneeled down hastily and reached out with trembling hands and lift Nam-woon’s neatly arranged bangs.

“Ah.…”

As soon as Seo-oh touched him, Nam-woon groaned and shrank back. Even in his semi-conscious state, he seemed to be struggling to endure something. His body was shaking violently, and even a brief touch of his fingers felt scorchingly hot.

“Seok Nam-woon!”

Despite Seo-oh’s shout, Nam-woon still couldn’t regain consciousness and kept his eyes closed without responding. Seo-oh reached out again and gently lifted Nam-woon’s bangs.

“….!”

There was a fairly large wound on Nam-woon’s forehead. Seo-oh didn’t know how it happened, but the wound looked quite deep.

There was no time to think further. Seo-oh lifted Nam-woon onto his back. The blood that had flowed from Nam-woon’s face stained Seo-oh’s white shirt. Seo-oh, who didn’t care about it, bit his lip at the heat he felt on his back. Nam-woon groaned and seemed to try to push away from Seo-oh’s body.

“It’s okay, Hyung. It’s going to be okay.”

Seo-oh muttered to no one in particular as he rushed to the nearest hospital.

***

Nurse Young-min at Godong Hospital was enjoying an unusually quiet time. Was it possible to have a day without patients? It was almost eerie.

On the hospital TV, a gangster movie was playing, with handsome men covered in blood fighting each other.

That’s when it happened. The hospital door burst open, and a tall man appeared. Youngmin covered his mouth. ‘What? A movie shoot? An actor?’ He thought about this for a moment, but then quickly guided the man carrying a blood-covered person to a bed.

“Doctor!”

The hospital director began examining the patient’s condition. When he asked the man who had brought the patient to wait outside, he collapsed into a chair, gasping for breath. The nurses, who had gathered around the blood-covered man, whispered among themselves. One colleague asked Alpha Young-min,

“The fallen man, he’s an Omega, right? The one who brought him looks like an Alpha.”

Another colleague frowned and said,

“It’s really the end of days. There are still such people?”

A new recruit, unable to stay still, picked up the hospital phone.

“What should we do? Should we call the police? Now?”

Young-min calmly dissuaded him while glaring at the man.

“Let’s wait. We have to finish treating the patient first. We don’t know what kind of trouble he might cause.”

Meanwhile, Kwon Seo-oh clenched and unclenched his fists anxiously as he looked at the room where Seok Nam-woon had been taken. Then he looked at the blood on his hands.

Why did he suddenly collapse? Was he already unwell? And his forehead, why was it like that? Where did he get hurt? Could it be that bastard President Moon did something?’

Or did I do something wrong?

Kwon Seo-oh kept replaying the events at the perfume shop. He hadn’t noticed because Nam-woon had come with his hair neatly done today, but considering how much blood he was losing, Nam-woon’s injury must have been serious since he was at the perfume shop.

“Haah…”

It was when Kwon Seo-oh sighed deeply.

“Guardian of Mr. Seok Nam-woon, please come in.”

Kwon Seo-oh hesitated for a moment. The term ‘guardian’ felt unfamiliar.

“Guardian?”

“Yes.”

Seo-oh stepped into the treatment room.

***

As Seo-oh sat down in the treatment room, the doctor looked at him, pushing up his glasses. Seo-oh asked urgently,

“Is he okay?”

“For now.”

The doctor answered curtly and then questioned him as if interrogating him.

“What’s your relationship with Mr. Seok Nam-woon?”

“…We’re strangers.”

At his hesitant answer, the next question came immediately.

“How did the patient get the wound on his forehead?”

“I don’t know.”

“When did he start feeling unwell?”

“…I’m not sure.”

As Seo-oh answered, his face grew darker. ‘Hmm.’ The doctor, observing Seo-oh, threw out a routine question.

“Has he been under a lot of stress or overworked recently?”

Seo-oh remained silent. The doctor, looking at him with cold eyes, checked something on the monitor.

“Mr. Seok Nam-woon is a Beta, right?”

“Yes. That’s what I understand.”

“And you’re an Alpha?”

“Yes.”

The doctor then took off his glasses and placed them on the desk, looking directly at Seo-oh.

“As you know, due to their traits, Alphas are often physically dominant. But forcing a relationship is a criminal offense. Did you spray Omega scent on a Beta person and get their consent?”

Although it was a principle not to interfere with a patient’s privacy, the doctor quickly pressed the man in front of him, who was persistently having poor answers. Seo-oh quickly denied it.

“No, it’s not like that.”

“Are you two in a romantic relationship?”

“We’re not in that kind of relationship. I just found him collapsed and brought him to the hospital right away.”

“But right now, Mr. Seok Nam-woon is…”

The doctor stopped speaking. The patient had been exposed to an excessive amount of pheromones. Normally, betas are not affected by pheromones, nor do they pick up on other’s pheromones as much as alphas or omegas do.

However, for some reason, this patient was strongly affected by the artificial Omega scent and the pheromones of the man in front of him. The man who had been denying everything seemed suspicious, but at least his concern for the patient seemed genuine. The first thing he asked upon entering the treatment room was about the patient’s condition.

The doctor spoke expressionlessly.

“The patient is very exhausted. It seems like he’s been under a lot of stress and overworked. The wound on his forehead appears to be recent, and it seems to have worsened due to overexertion without proper treatment. We’ve treated the wound and will administer an IV.

The doctor spoke each word clearly.

“Please stay quiet.”

***

Click.

In the hospital bed, Seok Nam-woon lay as still as a mouse. Seo-oh approached him slowly. Nam-woon had a large bandage on his head and a big cotton pad on one shoulder.

Seo-oh looked down at him quietly. Nam-woon’s face was much paler than usual. With no color in his face and his eyes tightly shut, Kwon Seo-oh felt an inexplicable anxiety.

He put effort into his hair today.

Perhaps he was trying to cover the wound on his forehead.

“The patient is very exhausted. It seems like he’s been under a lot of stress and overworked.”

He couldn’t say anything to the doctor’s question about whether there had been any stress or overexertion.

Seok Nam-woon had been coming to pick him up every day recently. Seo-oh suddenly remembered Nam-woon’s nape, sweating profusely as he pedaled on a hot day. He also remembered Nam-woon climbing uphill with a heavy bag of rice and refusing to take the rice money.

He remembered Nam-woon hitting President Moon, threatening the shop’s manager, and bowing his head to his own words not to hurt Se-han.

“……”

Bloodstains were still visible on Nam-woon’s neck and face. Seo-oh stared at them for a while, then looked around. He picked up a tissue from the room and brought it to Nam-woon’s face. He tried to wipe off the bloodstains, but they had already dried and wouldn’t come off easily.

Thinking of getting a wet wipe, he stepped out of the room, and his eyes met with Deok-chil, who was sobbing and holding onto a nurse. Deok-chil rushed at Seo-oh and grabbed him by the collar as soon as he saw his face.

“You bastard! Because of you…”

Hospital staff, watching from a distance, gathered again.

“It seems like that person grabbing the collar is the real husband. He was crying while trying to pay the hospital bill.”

“Then what about the Alpha who brought the patient in earlier?”

The new recruit asked with a surprised expression.

“Just look at that Alpha’s face. Just standing there, he could seduce anyone.”

“They say reality is worse than dramas, it seems like it’s true.”

“Well, if you stay here for a few years, you’ll see all kinds of things.”

Young-min clicked his tongue. It was true. In just a few months here, you could experience all kinds of people. There were many people in the world who looked normal but did crazy things.

In the meantime, Yong-deuk, who was holding onto Deok-chil’s arm, said,

“Don’t cause trouble for the others and go inside.”

“You follow too. You bastard.”

Deok-chil said, releasing his grip on Seo-oh’s collar.