Strategic Mating Partner Chapter 37

After staring at the ossuary for a long time, Taehyun stepped outside, feeling a craving for alcohol. Samgyeopsal with kimchi, bean sprouts, and plenty of enoki mushrooms, washed down with soju, would be perfect right now. It had been so hot during the day, like midsummer, but as the sun set, it became incredibly chilly. Let’s just go home, wash up, and sleep. Taehyun resisted the urge to head straight to a barbecue restaurant, call any acquaintance from his contacts, and drink himself silly, instead turning towards home. It was truly a triumph of self-control.

The empty studio apartment was too quiet and desolate. Taehyun immediately turned on the TV and put on a random variety show, filling the living room with the sound of the audience’s roaring laughter. Even though it was irrelevant, meaningless white noise from strangers, the mere presence of sound lessened the loneliness somewhat. Taehyun collapsed onto the sofa and then checked his contacts again.

“…….”

Even after scrolling through his contact list of hundreds of names, there wasn’t anyone he could readily call. This guy recently got a girlfriend, that guy lives with his parents, these guys are all busy preparing for the Olympics, and these guys have qualifying rounds soon…. Contacting someone he was only vaguely acquainted with could lead to unnecessary misunderstandings.

In the end, after making all sorts of excuses about why he couldn’t contact this person or that person, Taehyun was alone. If it weren’t for his foot, it would have been fine. Being stuck at home alone made him feel empty. Having a lover would be nice in times like these, but Taehyun hadn’t pursued any relationships since his last breakup early last year.

‘When I’m with you, I don’t know if I’m dating an alpha or an omega.’

Taehyun’s last lover was a male alpha. Taehyun generally preferred not to disclose his secondary gender, so dating an alpha was purely due to an accidental slip-up. He had forgotten his daily suppressant, and a college classmate who happened to be using the same training room discovered his secondary gender. He thought it wasn’t a big secret anyway and that there wasn’t much he could do even if the guy went around telling everyone he was an omega, but unexpectedly, the guy confessed to him.

‘Do you know your scent is really unique?’

Taehyun couldn’t smell it, so there was no way he would know. Taehyun didn’t have a habit of rejecting confessions if the person and timing were right, and this guy was no different from the other fleeting relationships Taehyun had had. The relationship with the alpha was certainly unique, but it wasn’t as dramatic and passionate as depicted in the media. Since they hadn’t been passionately in love in the first place, the moderately light, moderately clingy relationship ended before long. The excuse was that Taehyun wasn’t an “omega-like” omega.

‘Okay, then let’s end things here.’

It wasn’t a particularly convincing reason, but there was no need for an argument when neither of them felt any lingering attachment. The guy let out a light chuckle at Taehyun’s dry response and then left the cafe. Even after breaking up, Taehyun felt nothing. It was just another relationship that reached its predictable depth limit, like all the others. He reflected on their time together, thinking he’d been fairly devoted while they were dating, but still felt nothing in particular.

His inability to experience the kind of passionate love others had was clearly his own fault. He was afraid to let anyone in too deep, and he was afraid of burdening others with his father’s issues. Because of this, he drew a line the moment someone tried to get too close, so perhaps these moments of loneliness were his karma.

“…….”

Well, it can’t be helped. Taehyun sighed deeply again and then got up and headed to the bathroom. Melancholy had a tendency to dissolve in water and evaporate in the wind, so in times like these, he needed to take a shower or get some sun and fresh air. Since it was too late for the latter, he had to quickly immerse himself in hot water. He carefully wrapped his cast in plastic to keep it dry and turned on the shower. Warm water poured down from above. He thawed his frozen body, warmed up, dried himself, and stepped out of the bathroom to find that the variety show had ended.

‘Oh, right. I haven’t finished watching season 2 of [Fatal Mother].’

Taehyun roughly dried his hair and quickly connected to the OTT platform to play the makjang drama. The battle of wits between the daughter-in-law demanding a divorce and the husband who refused to divorce was in full swing. Just get a divorce if you hate each other that much. Taehyun stretched out on the sofa, engrossed in the story on screen. He finally fell asleep on the sofa when the scene he had watched at least three times already was replaying.

°❀•°❀°•❀°

The next morning, Taehyun woke up on the sofa, stretched his stiff body, and then prepared breakfast. A diet salad with microwaved frozen chicken breast for breakfast was incredibly frugal, considering Taehyun’s income. Complaining wouldn’t change anything; it wasn’t like his athletic career was ending anytime soon, and it would continue even after this competition. He chewed and swallowed the tough, bland salad and got up from his seat. Bright morning sunlight was streaming into the house through the living room windows.

Another dreadful day has begun. Taehyun looked at his leg, still encased in a cast. He was halfway there; he just had to endure a few more days. Fighting. He lightly cheered himself on, finished the morning dishes, and it was already lunchtime.

I don’t think I did anything wrong… but still. Having heard the boy cry, Taehyun couldn’t feel at ease. It would be good to buy him some things today as well. Taehyun stopped by the French bakery he had checked out earlier than usual. There are no weight classes in fencing, so anything that’s not excessively high in calories should be fine. While picking out pastries one by one, he noticed the sliced cakes displayed in the cake display case.

Taehyun’s gaze was captured by a palm-sized, oblong cake layered with cream, sponge cake, and chocolate.

[Opera]

[Sweet comfort in everyday life]

[Coffee Cream, Vanilla Sponge, Chocolate]

Taehyun stared at the small tag and then called the employee who was organizing boxes inside.

“Please pack one of these too. Just one fork is fine.”

°❀•°❀°•❀°

A little while later, heading to the center with an armful of pastries, Taehyun realized there was no way the two of them could eat this much. As a result, on his way up to the 5th floor, where the individual training rooms were located, he ended up handing out pastries to everyone he encountered in the elevator. Having successfully unloaded about half of the pastries, Taehyun headed to room 509 with the lighter paper bag and the small cake box. He knocked lightly to announce his arrival and entered. Sejin was doing interval training on the treadmill.

“Good morning.”

Taehyun didn’t add anything else and sat down on a chair near the door. Sejin glanced at him without replying and then immediately looked away. Well, he already knew the kid was rude. Taehyun brushed it off and massaged his stiff leg, then, as if he had forgotten something, he got up and placed the bag of pastries on the table.

“I bought some pastries. Eat them for lunch. There’s also a small cake, so eat that too.”

Sejin didn’t respond. Tsk. Still a long way to go. Taehyun sighed inwardly. If things went well, this would all be over next week. He had been showing up almost every day for the past week, so he felt he might miss it a little when he stopped seeing Sejin.

Though once they stopped seeing each other and the distance grew, he’d probably forget all about it. Taehyun picked up the research paper he had been reading yesterday. There’s no way this hyung wrote this himself. The topic and writing style were so impressive that he suspected it was ghostwritten. How much longer had he been focused on the text on the screen? Sejin, having finished his interval training, suddenly approached Taehyun and said,

“I didn’t throw the first punch.”

“What?”

Completely taken aback by the unexpected sentence, Taehyun looked up at Sejin, questioning his ears.