Flower Fiancé Chapter 17

‘I saw a rain forecast in the weather report. If you get caught in the rain in this weather, it would be terrible.’

He had said it while looking at the overcast sky as a wild guess, but to think it would actually rain. At this point, he was almost suspicious that even the heavens were helping him.

“The rain is coming down like this—how were you planning to go?”

Ji Yeonwoo looked flustered as he stared at the rain pouring beyond the windshield. Choi Moohyuk rested his arm on the steering wheel and propped his chin on it while studying Ji Yeonwoo’s profile.

“You don’t even have an umbrella, do you.”

“Still, I feel like I’m imposing on you, Managing Director.”

As if holding the falling rain within them, the corners of his eyes drooped downward. A strand of his bangs slipped down, covering Ji Yeonwoo’s temple and the top of his eyebrow.

“I don’t understand why you think you’re imposing.”

“Pardon?”

“Are you planning to date me but ride around in cars driven by other guys?”

“No, that’s not what I meant….”

“If there’s no special reason, let’s just go. With the traffic backed up like this, even turning around isn’t easy.”

Ji Yeonwoo’s lips twitched, and in the end, he nodded as if conceding to Choi Moohyuk’s words. The hands clutching his phone with both hands seemed unable to bear the awkwardness, not knowing what to do with themselves. Watching that, Choi Moohyuk unbuckled his seatbelt, took off the coat he was wearing, and handed it to Ji Yeonwoo.

“Would you mind holding this for me?”

“Uh….”

“Mr. Yeonwoo, if your legs get cold, you can cover yourself with it too.”

Having accepted the coat in a daze, Ji Yeonwoo blinked. Realizing belatedly that the real intention was hidden behind the words, Ji Yeonwoo quietly looked at the coat in his hands, then carefully spread it out so that Choi Moohyuk’s coat wouldn’t drag on the floor and pulled it up to cover his chest. Choi Moohyuk’s coat, which was large in the chest, was more than enough to wrap around Ji Yeonwoo’s entire body.

Perhaps it was because a warm heat was circulating. Ji Yeonwoo yawned softly while covering his mouth with his hand, then rubbed his eyes with his fingers, restless. Watching him quietly, Choi Moohyuk pressed the button for the passenger seat to recline it backward. When the seat suddenly moved, Ji Yeonwoo flinched and looked at Choi Moohyuk.

“It looks like it will take a while, so take a nap. I’ll wake you up when we arrive.”

Leaning comfortably against the half-reclined seat, Ji Yeonwoo wore a puzzled expression.

“Why do you keep trying to put me to sleep? I’m not sleepy at all.”

That was what he said, but his eyes, which kept closing and opening, were full of drowsiness, and his voice sagged like wilted cabbage. Choi Moohyuk, with one arm resting on the steering wheel, turned his body halfway toward Ji Yeonwoo.

“Are you afraid I might pounce on you?”

“…I can’t say no to that.”

And with that, Ji Yeonwoo pouted his lips slightly and wore a worried expression. Had he set his mind on being cute? He wondered if Ji Yeonwoo didn’t realize that making a face like that would naturally give rise to wicked thoughts.

“With your eyes closing because you’re sleepy, if you say that, do you think I’ll believe you?”

“N-no, I mean it.”

Quietly stubborn, aren’t you. Anyone could see it was a sleepy face, yet watching him insist until the end that he wouldn’t sleep was both amusing and endearing. The lips that had let out a soft laugh, pfft, slowly returned to their place.

Never before had a relationship that would have been endlessly light under normal circumstances been this cautious. He had yet to pinpoint exactly why. Whether it was because Ji Yeonwoo was unusually deeply guarded, or because, unlike a typical Omega, he had no pheromones and thus the perception of him as a person of a trait was weaker.

“Managing Director….”

Listening to the low voice calling him, Choi Moohyuk met the gaze that had been wandering. As he loosened the expression that had unknowingly stiffened, Ji Yeonwoo wore a pensive look.

“Don’t worry and sleep.”

And then, he slipped his fingers deep into Ji Yeonwoo’s bangs, which had been obstructing his view the entire time he’d been watching him, and swept them up.

“I don’t have a taste for pouncing on sleeping people.”

The feel of the scalp against his fingers was warm. The soft hair tangled between Choi Moohyuk’s fingers as it was pushed back, then fell back into place.

The gaze of Choi Moohyuk, who had been stroking his hair, lingered on one spot. Perhaps because he had tossed and turned, the coat he had draped over him had slipped down a little. Choi Moohyuk pulled his coat back up to cover Ji Yeonwoo’s chest.

“You look tired. If you were sleepy, you should have said so earlier.”

“I know. I thought I was fine, but I guess I really wasn’t.”

Choi Moohyuk looked at Ji Yeonwoo as if he didn’t understand what he meant.

“I haven’t been able to sleep well lately.”

“Why?”

“Because I was waiting for a call.”

Caught completely off guard, Choi Moohyuk felt his mind snap wide awake at that one remark from Ji Yeonwoo. A strange sense of anticipation rose at those words, which might carry so much meaning.

“You were waiting for my call?”

“Yes.”

Ji Yeonwoo said, clutching the coat with both hands and pulling it up. There was no hesitation in his answer, but unlike that, Ji Yeonwoo’s voice was drowsy, drunk on sleep.

“You left like that in front of the convenience store and then there was no news from you for a whole week. Managing Director, you were so mean.”

Had some spell of honesty been cast on Ji Yeonwoo today? He hadn’t even been drinking, yet there was no hesitation in expressing his feelings. He even thought that perhaps this was Ji Yeonwoo’s usual self.

His eyes, exposed above the coat, were full of drowsiness, but he couldn’t fall asleep easily. Watching that fidgety, gentle demeanor made him want to tease him for some reason.

“Hmm, as for that matter, I think I already heard your answer.”

“…Your, your answer?”

“Didn’t you say you weren’t waiting?”

“D-did I say that?”

“Ah, are you going to play dumb now?”

There was no way he couldn’t remember something that had happened just a few days ago. Cruelly, at the thought that brushed past, Ji Yeonwoo’s eyes wavered, unable to find their bearings.

“Uh…. I’m too sleepy, I can’t. I’ll sleep just a little, Managing Director.”

After hesitating, Ji Yeonwoo pulled the coat up to cover his face and disappeared right into it. He had evaded because he thought further conversation would be disadvantageous to him. Choi Moohyuk watched that sight as if it were adorable.

A moment later, inside the car, the faint noise of the engine mingled with the even breathing exhaled by Ji Yeonwoo.

Choi Moohyuk gently pulled down the coat, which had covered Ji Yeonwoo’s entire face and looked stuffy. Ji Yeonwoo, who had turned over and shifted his head toward Choi Moohyuk, fell back into sleep.

Turning his body halfway and resting his elbow on the steering wheel, Choi Moohyuk gazed at the sleeping Ji Yeonwoo’s face, lost in thought.

‘Managing Director, I vowed never to date someone who hurts me ever again.’

The words Ji Yeonwoo had said oddly refused to leave his mind. Along with them, Ji Yeonwoo’s voice, which had sounded evasive when asked if it was a congenital pheromone deficiency and had answered that it was an accident, lingered.

He didn’t seem to have much dating experience, but it occurred to him that even with what little he had, he might have only met rotten guys. If his guess was correct, then his own behavior, pushing forward like a bulldozer from the very beginning, might have been quite a burden for Ji Yeonwoo.

He did need to approach slowly, but how long that patience would hold out was an unknown. He wasn’t the temperament to just sit and watch a good person who had caught his eye and heart, and he had no history of ever holding back to that degree. However, even putting up with all of that, Choi Moohyuk wanted to continue a good relationship with Ji Yeonwoo. It wasn’t because of pheromones; he simply enjoyed talking with Ji Yeonwoo and spending time together. That was all.

The more he got to know Ji Yeonwoo, the more curiosity and a protective instinct arose. Except for the fact that he was an Omega, on the outside he was a man not much different from himself, but the more they talked, the more he felt a desire to protect Ji Yeonwoo.

What was peculiar was that this attraction didn’t simply rely on pheromones. For Choi Moohyuk, whose standard for seeing Omegas until now had solely been a pheromone that matched his taste, a person like Ji Yeonwoo was definitely an unfamiliar counterpart.

The light from the headlights reflected in the rain poured over the sleeping Ji Yeonwoo. Ji Yeonwoo was asleep, receiving the light pouring over him.

How much time had passed like that?

From somewhere, the siren of an ambulance was heard. Soon after, two ambulances passed by on the shoulder with loud, blaring sounds.

Only then did Choi Moohyuk straighten the posture he had maintained, sitting half-turned toward Ji Yeonwoo.

It seemed the accident was nearly cleared.