Strategic Mating Partner Chapter 119

“What am I going to do, this feels way too good. Hah, and it’s not like I can hide you away where others can’t see you either.”

As he said that, his face drenched in sweat, he pinched and pulled Sejin’s cheeks, and even though they had just done everything from heat to knotting a moment ago, his face turned bright red all over again. Taehyun was thinking the same thing as him. That it felt so good he wanted to hide him away where others couldn’t see. It was the fact that they were so completely fallen for each other that they wished for it, even though they both clearly knew it was impossible. At that bold confession, Sejin became shy. Taehyun took advantage of the opening while Sejin was frozen, unable to even run away with his face flushed red, and added.

“That’s right… I really have no choice but to love you.”

Taehyun recalled the moment he heard Sejin’s foolish confession. Looking back on it now, it was honestly funny, but when you thought about it, Sejin had never once properly confessed to him until now. He had said things like ‘marry me’ or ‘if you have my baby, I’ll raise it,’ but surprisingly, he had never said words like ‘I like you’ or ‘I love you.’ Of course, he had indirectly referred to Taehyun as ‘the person I like,’ but the fact that he had never said he loved him remained unchanged. Isn’t this guy an idiot. Taehyun himself was dumbfounded. I haven’t even heard the most important words, yet here I am, acting like I’d give him my liver and gallbladder. Taehyun swallowed another laugh and opened his mouth.

“I love you, Sejin-ah.”

Well then, I’ll just say it first. At the confession Taehyun threw out with a cool curl of his lips, Sejin blushed as if he had been hit by a bomb again. Sejin’s head felt like it would explode from the confusion of whether this was an empty remark due to his heat symptoms or Taehyun’s true feelings. Taehyun’s face looked exhausted from the intense sex, yet it also looked happy, so he didn’t want to believe that this confession was a lie. If this was a dream, he would rather die than wake up.

“…”

I have to say something. Anything… By the time Sejin, his mind gone completely blank, lifted his head, drip, drip, thick teardrops were falling from under the eyes fringed with long eyelashes like a butterfly’s wings.

“…!?”

Taehyun’s eyes widened in surprise at the moisture falling onto his cheeks.

“What, are you crying?”

As Taehyun, startled, sat up, Sejin scrambled backward. Then he crossed his arms and covered his face. Just as Sejin was about to back away and run, Taehyun quickly reached out and grabbed Sejin’s white arm. When he pulled his arm down to reveal his face, he saw a messy expression, confused yet happy and shy and at a loss for what to do. This is driving me crazy… It was a serious case of finding even this kind of state cute. Taehyun burst out laughing again.

“Why are you crying, when I said I like you.”

At that, Sejin wiped his eyes with the back of his hand again and bowed his head.

“It’s just, I was worried what if this is a dream…”

“Why would you think it’s a dream? After you came onto me so hard trying to seduce me.”

Taehyun again pinched his cheeks, which were red and blotchy with tears, and pulled them to make him look up. The gaze that finally met his again was full of moisture. What should I do with this fool. A silly laugh kept escaping.

“I said I like you too, no, I love you.”

At the repeated confession, Sejin ducked his head as if he were a dog tucking its tail and running away. At the answer that finally came after a long silence, Taehyun couldn’t help but shake his shoulders with laughter again.

“…I do more.”

Just a few weeks ago, he would have cleanly acknowledged it, saying, ‘Yeah, I guess so,’ but now was different. Well now. Is that really so? The impulse to wield his power over him and tease him flared up like an ember in his chest. Now that he had finally admitted it, he felt as if something that had been blocking his way had been cleared.

“Ah, you’re really making me lose my composure. It’s all your fault. You take responsibility.”

It was a fact he had only just realized now, that he could be this ridiculously sentimental. Even at the outlandish demand, Sejin obediently nodded his head. Standing before the second act of a newly started life, Taehyun had found a direction to move forward without wavering. It was thanks to this fool right in front of him.

🤺

Sejin left the villa before the morning sun rose. Perhaps the condition for his leave was to return before the morning schedule began, as Sejin dropped Taehyun off at the external lodging and hurriedly started the engine to return to the athletes’ village. Saying that he had already overexerted himself and worried that his leg might get worse, he tried to carry him inside the lodging in his arms, forcing Taehyun to smack him on the back a few times. Taehyun, who had barely managed to walk in on his own two feet, saw Sejin off and immediately pricked his fingertip to check his pheromone level.

[04]

The rate at which his pheromones were dropping was definitely faster than usual. Having achieved the goal of ‘going into heat in response to an alpha’s excitement and proceeding through the steps for pregnancy,’ everything had subsided overnight without any aftereffects of the heat. When he looked up other people’s experiences, there were those who suffered for days because their heat symptoms wouldn’t calm down if they couldn’t find a medication that worked properly, but thanks to having knotted properly without contraception, his body felt refreshed to a strange degree. Looking at people whose symptoms didn’t subside for a long time even after receiving a partner’s pheromones, it seemed that using contraception had an effect in most cases. They said that during heat, a hormone that causes an analgesic effect is also released to withstand knotting, and thanks to that, his ankle felt lighter as well, which was even a bit baffling.

‘Then I can pretty much assume pregnancy is 100%…’

Considering the omega reproductive process he had learned about ad nauseam, it was a matter of course. Due to the characteristic of male omegas having weak wombs, early miscarriages were frequent, so excluding cases where one miscarries without even realizing they were pregnant, the process up to fertilization and implantation could be considered a certainty. Then is it about the time when it’s trying its best to settle in, going heave-ho, heave-ho. Taehyun lay still on the bed and placed a hand on his lower abdomen. For now, he only felt a slight soreness from the intense sex, and he couldn’t feel any difference from before. That was natural. It would still be a time when it was so small it could only be seen with a microscope.

‘Somehow… this is embarrassing…’

Taehyun, feeling inexplicably shy, turned over and buried his face in the pillow, then lay down properly facing the ceiling again. He knew it was a useless and strange worry, but for some reason, he felt that lying in a proper posture wouldn’t interfere with the baby settling in. Since both heat and pregnancy were things he was experiencing for the first time in his life, there were inevitably points of confusion.

By the time he had barely collected his complicated thoughts and woken up after another nap, the sun had risen. Taehyun was officially in a position where he was relatively free, from returning to his home country to going out, as he had finished all his scheduled competitions. Like the other athletes, it was also possible for him to request a seat in the cheering section officially provided to the national team and go watch other athletes’ matches. Ah. Come to think of it, what happened with other people’s matches. Belatedly remembering familiar faces, Taehyun turned on his phone screen. Yesterday, before the finals, he had deliberately turned off notifications for all contacts except Sejin, worried his resolve might waver, and no sooner had he switched the notification mode to ON than the previews at the top of the phone screen scrolled up at a terrifying speed.

Hyung, congratulations on the gold medal

Taehyun-ah, you really worked so hard

I was watching the broadcast and I cried with my family…

Oppa!!!! You’ll buy me a meal now, right???

I knew you would do it. I’m so proud and…

Nearly several hundred messages congratulating Taehyun on his win had piled up. Taehyun, who belatedly received the barrage of congratulations that seemed to pour down like hail, first checked the important contacts. He first called the director to tell him his condition was fine and not to worry, figuring that if he called the director, the coach would be next to him and hear it too. He hurriedly reported that he had slept well, his condition was very good now, and the swelling in his ankle had gone down a lot more than yesterday, so he thought he could move without much trouble with just a lightweight crutch. After that, upon being told to rest well for the rest of the day, it finally felt real that it was all over.

‘I don’t have to do anything… huh…’

Having been plunged into a hell of training every single day, being suddenly released felt both refreshing and empty. Not that he wanted to drag this leg to the training room as usual. It was just… he couldn’t help but feel a sense of emptiness now that his routine, driven by inertia, was gone. Now, when I go back to Korea, I’ll have to adjust to a new daily life, different from this one. The thought that Sejin would be with him in that process made it not so scary.