The Sleepwalker’s Mansion Chapter 28

Dad entered the entrance with a leisurely smile, as if accustomed to the men’s excessive greetings. Jeong Taeseok quickly followed behind him like an attending secretary.

Doeon looked around him. He craned his neck to look beyond the entrance. He had Jeong Taeseok attached like an accessory, but he was alone. The fiancée and such, it was clearly Doha’s lie.

It’s a relief. It’s really a relief.

While he let out a sigh of relief and relaxed his tension, Dad approached Doeon, who was standing at the very end. From the moment his obsidian-like pupils met his eyes, his heart started pounding wildly.

How could he look like a dutiful eldest son? How could he make the abnormal acts he had done with Doha seem like they never happened, and appear like a normal sibling relationship? Doeon was completely absorbed in those thoughts.

“Doeon-ah.”

“Yes, Da, Dad….”

The title of Dad sounded awkward even in his own ears. The existence of a dad that had appeared after 19 years was still unfamiliar. It might be because his appearance looked too young to be called Dad. He cleared his throat with a hum hum and calmly waited for his next words.

“Have you been well all this time?”

How had he been all this time? The memory of being savagely devoured by Doha suddenly resurfaced, making his lower part tingle. At the physiological reaction, Doeon blinked his large eyes and shook off the afterimage lingering in his mind.

“Yes… I’ve been well.”

“Didn’t Doha cause you any trouble?”

“What did I do?”

Doha, standing beside him, suddenly cut into the conversation and answered in Doeon’s place. It was rather fortunate. If he met those black hole-like endless pupils, he might unwittingly confess the truth that far from being well, he had been busy glued to his own little brother.

“We’ve been… well.”

Doeon forcibly pulled up the corners of his mouth and smiled at Taeoh. His tense, stiff mouth corners twitched finely.

“That’s a relief.”

“Yes….”

“While I was away, did you get closer with Doha?”

“…….”

He should answer ‘yes,’ but his mouth clamped shut. If he said they had gotten so close they had even matched navels, how would Dad react? Would he treat him like a bug that seduced his cherished second son?

“What kind of question is that? We’ve become very de-ep friends.”

Doha answered in particularly staccato bursts. It was a pointed remark. Deep bond was right. They shared a secret that couldn’t be told to anyone. The secret that they had mingled bodies on the pretext that he was a recessive omega.

“Is that so? I’m jealous.”

“…….”

Dad laughed cheerfully. It seemed Taeoh didn’t notice Doeon’s lips trembling with a shiver. Doeon swallowed dry saliva and mulled over the documents hidden at his waist.

He needed to create a timing when the two of them were alone and carefully ask if he could review and process these documents necessary for the mansion inheritance. To him, the debts attached to this mansion wouldn’t be a big deal. And it didn’t seem like such a wealthy Dad would have any interest in this rundown mansion.

After 19 years of meeting, handing over his late mother’s legacy safely to her pitiful firstborn who lost his mother and each returning to where they had been living, could there be a more perfect happy ending than that?

The chance to make a happy ending was still in his hands. Doeon believed that. Until another figure appeared through the open entrance door.

“The garden is so beautiful that I lost track of time just looking around.”

“……!”

A man dressed in a sky-blue knit entered the entrance. The pheromone carried on the fresh breeze resembled the mille-feuille whose fragrance traveled a thousand miles. The thickly wafting pheromone was unmistakably that of a dominant omega.

A dominant omega…?

Doeon, who had never particularly distinguished between dominant and recessive traits, couldn’t help but recognize the strong pheromone. The soft dominant omega’s pheromone, different from an alpha’s. Even Doeon, the same omega, felt like he would be intoxicated by the scent he was smelling for the first time.

The man, who appeared to be in his early 30s, approached Dad’s side and freely linked arms with him. Doeon’s face cooled coldly at the sly attitude.

‘Dad plans to bring his fiancée to this mansion and live together until the marriage.’

‘And after the wedding, he plans to sell this mansion.’

The words Doha had said before echoed in his mind like an echo. When he rolled his panicked pupils sideways, Doha shrugged his shoulders as if to say see, I told you so.

Doeon glanced at the man. The man was smiling radiantly like sunlight. At the end of the smile, an unhidden sense of superiority as a dominant trait holder oozed out. Doeon ground his teeth while looking at the man’s face. All his expectations were crumbling away with a whoosh.

“Couldn’t we turn the garden into a golf practice range? It already has some bunkers, and we could connect the stream to make a lake.”

The man rested his chin on Dad’s shoulder and said while smiling brightly. Even as he openly acted coquettish in front of others, the sight felt entirely natural. Taeoh tilted his head slightly toward the man as if finding him cute and drew a curve with his straight lips.

“Such things, gradually.”

Doeon felt like his insides were burning away. Who was deciding to turn his garden into a golf practice range on their own? Who was deciding to cut down the trees in the garden and turn the small stream where the yellow iris flowers he considered his only refuge bloomed into a lake to hit golf balls?

His eye rims heated up hotly. He bit the inner flesh of his mouth hard, feeling like tears would burst out at any moment. An inexplicable headache surged in. Get a grip. Seo Doeon. To not lose his mind, Doeon clenched his fist so hard that his nails dug into his palm.

“First, introductions. This is the eldest son, Seo Doeon.”

In the midst of his heart pounding fiercely, Taeoh introduced Doeon to the man. The man with distinct double-eyelid sharp eyes scanned Doeon from head to toe for a while with an even sharper gaze. Doeon felt burdened to meet his eyes and lowered his pupils.

“You must be an adopted child? You don’t resemble the president at all.”

Their physiques couldn’t help but be different. Because their traits were different from the start. His heart raced anxiously at the thought of being found out as a scrawny recessive omega.

“I said introduce first.”

Dad tapped the man’s cheek with his index finger. The man chuckled and extended his hand toward Doeon. Even though they were the same omega, the man was so tall that he cast a shadow over Doeon’s forehead.

“I’m the president’s fiancée, Jeong Yubin. Nice to meet you.”

Fiancée. It was the moment Doha’s story was proven true. Swallowing the low sigh about to escape his mouth, Doeon clasped Yubin’s hand. The thick pheromone transmitted from the palm seeped into his hand.

“I’m Seo Doeon….”

He couldn’t bring himself to say nice to meet you frankly. Under the gaze scrutinizing his face, his eyelashes trembled heavily.

“You probably know this one well. The second son, Seo Doha.”

“I know him very well. Young master Doha.”

Yubin laughed heartily and released Doeon’s hand, extending his hand to Doha. Doha furrowed his brow in a stiff posture.

“Lawyer. No, what should I call you now? Stepmom?”

As Doha twisted one corner of his lips and sneered, Yubin burst into a puff of laughter.

“If the president agrees, I like whatever I’m called. President, should I be young master Doha’s stepmom?”

Yubin asked while looking straight at Dad. Dad tucked Yubin’s fine hair behind his ear and said softly but firmly.

“Don’t go too far.”

Then Yubin opened his round eyes narrowly and pouted his lips as if his expectations were dashed.

“Got it, President. I’ll keep being Lawyer.”

Doeon’s insides filled with a sense of despair as he watched them. Dad had returned to the mansion with his fiancée. An unwanted intruder. And next?

‘Words and actions differ, abandon in a foreign land.’

Since the situation Doha had warned about had occurred, was studying abroad really the planned next step? He couldn’t leave the mansion. He might be killed by the spider monster. Doeon barely covered his trembling hand with the other hand and glanced at Taeoh and Yubin.

“President, lunch is prepared.”

Jeong Taeseok announced the early lunch. Taeoh said affectionately to the frozen Doeon.

“Will Doeon guide us to the table?”

“Yes? Yes….”

At Dad’s voice casually asking him to guide them, it felt like tears would burst out. At times like this, he needed to keep his wits about him even more. Doeon barely put a smile on his face and headed to the kitchen first.

The meal was served so formally that it could be called a full-course banquet without shame. In the golden round plate, the lamb ribs steak was appetizingly placed with vegetable roast skewers. There was also a plate with various dipping sauces, and curiously, mint jelly was included among the dipping sauces.

Was the jelly for dessert? Doeon sat down and looked at it curiously. As he just looked without eating, Taeoh, seated at the head, placed mint jelly on the lamb ribs and demonstrated himself.

“If you put mint jelly on lamb ribs and eat it, the compatibility is excellent.”

“Like us?”

Not missing the opening, Yubin asked coquettishly, and Doha, who had been watching, grimaced as if his appetite had soured. Taeoh, on the other hand, gave Yubin a faint smile and turned his gaze to Doeon.

“Try it once. It’s not bad.”

“Yes….”

After Mom got sick and they had their assets taken by a fraudster claiming folk remedies, they had always lived frugally, so meat was something he couldn’t even dream of. But seeing the lamb ribs steak served lavishly on the table, without tact, his empty stomach growled with a rumble.

Doeon placed the green mint jelly on the golden-brown well-grilled lamb ribs and took a bite. A refreshing mint scent filled his mouth, and the crisp aroma enhanced the flavor of the lamb meat.

Doeon unwittingly chewed the lamb meat voraciously. He couldn’t remember when he had last had a proper meal. He had always thought he was a light eater because he ate small amounts, but that was just because there wasn’t food to eat; in front of a full-course banquet, Doeon couldn’t help but faithfully follow his instinct to store as much food as possible in his stomach. In the midst of chewing away mindlessly.

“Young master Doeon is an omega?”

“Cough, ahem…!”

Barely swallowing the lamb meat that had almost caught in his throat, Doeon set down his fork. Yubin was leisurely savoring the wine glass poured by the staff, swirling it once. A curious gaze fixed on him piercingly.

The one not at leisure was Doeon. Pretending nonchalant, he steadied his breathing and opened his hypocritical lips to lie.

“N-no. I, I’m… a beta….”

“Ah… You’re the hyung, but your build is smaller than young master Doha’s, so I thought you were an omega.”

Yubin nodded with an expression as if it made sense. Yubin seemed to have a straightforward personality that didn’t mince words. An unpleasant feeling made his nape heat up.

“Isn’t it old-fashioned to divide into trait holders and non-trait holders at the dinner table?”

At that moment, Doha, seated opposite, spat out dryly. At the remark that seemed like it was taking his side, Doeon blinked his light-colored pupils.

“Is that so? I was rude then. Young master Doeon.”

“Ah, no….”

Yubin smiled brightly while meeting Doeon’s eyes. It was a bold face that didn’t think it was rude at all.

“Still, among us, the cutest is young master Doeon, right? Isn’t that so, President? His face is small, and his eyes are like a deer right before being hunted.”

At Yubin’s words, Dad fixed his gaze on Doeon for a moment.

“That’s true.”

At Dad’s agreement, Yubin sipped the wine to his lips and scanned Doeon with an inscrutable gaze. Had he recognized that he was the same kind, even if recessive?