BABY 1

“Hey, this is your kid.”

At the flat voice, the noisy cafe became as silent as if cold water had been poured over it. Everyone’s eyes shifted to one spot.

Keok, keok, cough, keogh, keok….

The chocolate Frappuccino that had been sweetly coating his mouth just moments ago got stuck in his throat.

Junyoung, spitting out loud coughs as he choked, scanned the two people across from him—Seojin and a young boy—with wide, bulging eyes. Seojin was only now removing his two hands that had been covering the child’s ears until the moment he said, “Hey, this is your kid.”

The child’s eyes remained fixed on the phone set up on a stand. A thin straw was held between lips that had a decent amount of color. What the child was drinking was ordinary strawberry milk.

“He needs pheromone treatment.”

Seojin threw out a remark while looking displeased at Junyoung’s dazed face. The last time he saw that face was six years ago, and it was still as sleek as ever, unchanged from then to now.

“I heard this happens occasionally if you don’t receive enough Alpha pheromones during pregnancy. They say it’s because the pheromone gland fails to develop properly.”

Junyoung remained frozen like a stone statue, his mouth still hanging wide open. Because of Seojin’s dry tone, the whole situation felt distant and surreal to Junyoung.

My kid? Pheromone treatment? What’s this about a pheromone gland?

If even one thing made sense, he would at least argue, but his stiff brain wouldn’t turn at all. It was definitely because of Team Leader Baek, who had grilled him since morning, asking if he had the conscience to receive a salary after writing a report like that.

Junyoung roughly loosened the tie tightening around his neck. It was because he felt like that insignificant scrap of cloth was choking the life out of him.

“They say it improves a lot if he’s steadily exposed to Alpha pheromones for at least six months. Even if he gets better, he’ll need to be tested once a year until he manifests, but I heard he can be fully cured as long as he receives the treatment properly.”

“……”

“Instead, there’s a condition that the Alpha providing the pheromone treatment must be blood-related to the child, which is why I came looking for you.”

Junyoung still hadn’t understood Seojin’s words.

After not showing a single hair at school since that day, he suddenly shows up after six years and says, “This is your kid”?

It’s not like he dropped out of the sky out of nowhere, and it’s not like he hatched from an egg like some founding myth, so how could there be a kid of mine?

“Daddy, I want to watch something else…”

“Which one?”

“World Explorers!”

“Okay, just a second.”

The fact that he even called Yoo Seojin “Daddy” made it make even less sense. No matter how much of a dominant Alpha he was, born with superior traits, he couldn’t get a male Beta pregnant.

That meant Yoo Seojin was lying right now.

“Hey, Yoo Seojin.”

Junyoung pulled up the corner of his mouth crookedly, putting on an air of arrogance. Where does he think he is, trying to pull a scam with such obvious ulterior motives? When a scoffing Junyoung even crossed his arms and took a haughty posture, Seojin hurriedly covered both of the child’s ears with his palms.

“At least make your bullshit believable. You’re a Beta. How is he my kid?”

By the looks of it, he probably fooled around with some woman and ended up with a kid, and it seems the kid’s mother ditched the child and ran, but he can’t fool my eyes. Did he think I’d tremble like I’d been caught in a weakness just because he said it’s my kid?

Junyoung took an even more arrogant stance, making no effort to hide his mocking expression. However, Seojin didn’t even blink. Rather, he let out a dry laugh as if he had expected Junyoung to act that way.

“Hey.”

“What.”

Junyoung didn’t back down and retorted despite the anger and irritation felt in Seojin’s tone.

Just looking at his face, he looked so gentle and neat that he wouldn’t be able to say a single swear word, so how did he end up with a temper like that? Junyoung clicked his tongue, tsk, and checked the time on the expensive luxury watch on his wrist. Unfortunately, there were still 20 minutes left of his lunch break.

However, Junyoung had no intention of continuing this meeting with Seojin for long. There was no reason to drag out the time and face each other when they were both uncomfortable, was there?

Just as he was about to snap something at Seojin with those thoughts, Seojin, who had removed his hands from the child’s ears, lunged his body toward Junyoung. Startled by the sudden closeness, Junyoung’s eyes flew wide.

Seojin glared sharply and whispered in a sinister voice.

“Consider yourself lucky that I didn’t go to your parents or reporters first.”

“……”

“I could reveal everywhere that Cha Junyoung, the son of Sunwoo Group’s Chairwoman Baek Jinseo, has an illegitimate child, but I just came to you. I also hate having more things to worry about when the kid is sick.”

Seojin, who spat out each word with emphasis, only pulled his body back after letting out a short, hollow breath. Junyoung, who had been high and mighty until a moment ago, lost his words and only mouthed stupidly with bloodless lips.

It was because of a terrible imagination that popped into his head.

‘Cha Junyoung, the second son of Sunwoo Group, illegitimate child scandal spreading far and wide… Owner risk, is it okay as it is?’

The thought that he might be introduced with such a headline on tomorrow morning’s news made him snap to his senses.

Seojin let out a dry laugh as he watched Junyoung, who had become serious in the meantime, and opened the bag placed behind his back to take something out. What was soon pushed in front of Junyoung was a small zipper bag and a yellow document envelope.

“If you can’t believe it, do a paternity test.”

Inside the transparent zipper bag were a few strands of black hair. Even without asking, he could tell that much—that it was the child’s hair. Inside the document envelope were two papers titled Birth Certificate, Family Relationship Certificate, and Genetic Testing Consent Form.

“One consent form is mine, and one is yours. I’ve checked and signed mine, so you just have to do one. You can put your hair in and send it. I could send it, but in case you don’t trust me.”

Junyoung barely swallowed the saliva pooled in his mouth and picked up the zipper bag with a trembling hand. It definitely made no sense—there was no way the Beta Yoo Seojin could have had his child—but Yoo Seojin’s attitude was so excessively confident that it was flabbergasting.

Junyoung, clutching the zipper bag in his hand tightly, barely opened his mouth. The voice that flowed out was pathetic.

“Hey, you… you said you were a Beta. How could a Beta…”

“I thought so too.”

“What kind of bullshit is that…”

“I think I manifested on the day I was with you.”

Seojin, who had been staring blankly into the air for a moment as if retracing the past, turned his gaze back to Junyoung. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand Junyoung’s confusion, but he didn’t want to act submissively toward a guy like that.

Seojin turned back and took out his wallet from his bag. Because Cha Junyoung wouldn’t believe anything without solid evidence.

“Check it.”

What he took out of his wallet and handed to Junyoung was an ID card. It was one he had reissued after confirming he had manifested as an Omega six years ago. On the ID card, which had “Beta” written in the trait column until the first time it was issued, the word “Omega” was now engraved.

“Crazy…”

Junyoung, unable to close his wide-open mouth, muttered in a low voice. Indeed, on Seojin’s ID card, the trait “Omega” was stamped right there.

He rubbed his eyes and closed and opened them several times, but no miraculous thing happened to change what he saw. Junyoung weakly dropped Seojin’s resident registration card onto the table and rubbed his face hard with his palms.

Yoo Seojin is an Omega?

So he was carrying my child back then?

…Does that make sense?

“Hey, fuck, seriously, stop with the bullshit. Huh? You have to say something that makes goddamn sense for me to even pretend to believe it, but this is…”

Junyoung, who absolutely could not believe it, began his final struggle. He decided to deny the whole situation once more.

If Yoo Seojin wasn’t lying, it meant that on that one day they happened to sleep together during their sophomore year of college, Yoo Seojin manifested as an Omega, happened to get pregnant, and had been raising that child alone until now.

“Daddy.”

Just as Junyoung was about to retort once more, the child next to Seojin opened his mouth. Even though the gaze was directed at Seojin, Junyoung clutched his heart in surprise, thinking the child was calling him “Daddy.”

“I want to drink this too…”

“This? Daddy’s?”

“Uh-huh, it has ice and looks like it would be cool…”

What the child requested with sparkling, bright eyes was the iced Americano Seojin was drinking. Seojin said while gently stroking the child’s hair.

“Only adults can drink this.”

“Why?”

“If Jinseo drinks this, your heart will go pitter-patter. You won’t be able to sleep at night and you won’t grow tall, either. And Jinseo was very sick not long ago. You might get even sicker if you drink it.”

“I don’t like being sick…”

“Daddy doesn’t like our Jinseo being sick either. So let’s drink this later when Jinseo grows this much and becomes an adult like Daddy.”

“Uh-huh…”

Junyoung looked at the two across from him with a disgruntled expression while crossing his arms. They seemed like a close father and son, but they didn’t look alike at all. While Seojin had a soft and gentle face, the child already had distinct features even at a young age, and the corners of his eyes were slightly turned up, making him look more like… me.

“Crazy…”