Flower Fiancé Chapter 31

Ah, a low moan escaped Choi Moohyuk, yet his face remained largely unimpressed.

“Is that so?”

Choi Moohyuk answered flatly, drawing on the filter of the cigarette between his lips. Hoo, ashen smoke poured out with his exhale. Through the dispersing smoke, Choi Moohyuk’s gaze, sharpened like an awl, was revealed. Tension settled on Min Jiwon’s face.

“I have no interest in those gentlemen.”

Choi Moohyuk drew on the filter once more, then crushed it out in the ashtray. Min Jiwon, who had been watching the tragically crumpled cigarette butt dying white, raised his head. Before he knew it, Choi Moohyuk was standing right in front of his nose. Min Jiwon swallowed dryly.

“Manage them well. Aren’t they people President Min worked hard to bring in?”

Choi Moohyuk passed right by Min Jiwon and left the room.

∞ ∞ ∞

“If I get kicked out, Mr. Ji Yeonwoo will have to take responsibility.”

Choi Moohyuk walked out of Freeze while talking on the phone with Ji Yeonwoo. When the guards standing on either side of the entrance bowed in greeting, he raised a hand and walked towards the back of the building. Since smoking has been banned both inside and outside buildings these days, even if you smoke outside, it has to be in a spot that isn’t easily visible, like the back of a building.

[ You’ve seen my house, so you know. Since the Managing Director is there, it was packed. ]

A loose smile hung on the corner of Choi Moohyuk’s lips as he walked towards the back of the building with slow steps. Even just hearing the voice over the phone, he felt like he knew exactly what expression Ji Yeonwoo was wearing right now.

By the time he rounded the building widely and reached the back, he felt a faint tremor in Ji Yeonwoo’s voice coming through the phone. It sounded exactly like he was shivering from the cold.

“You must be cold. Your voice is trembling.”

[ I came outside briefly to take the call. A friend is inside the shop. ]

By friend, does he mean that friend he said he was meeting, the surgeon? There were many questions he wanted to ask, but he couldn’t keep him standing out in the cold.

“I see. Go back inside. You mustn’t catch a cold.”

When he gave a brief farewell, a response full of regret came through the phone.

[ Yes. Managing Director, please take care on your way home from work too. ]

Choi Moohyuk pulled back his sleeve to check the time. He had been about to ask if they could meet today, but the moment he saw the time, he swallowed the words back down his throat. It was nearing 8 PM, and he had come today to inspect overall operations, so he couldn’t know exactly when work would end.

In the end, Choi Moohyuk hung up the phone without asking anything and took out the cigarette he hadn’t been able to smoke inside the room, putting it in his mouth.

Tilting his face at an angle, he flicked open the silver Zippo lighter engraved with gold trim, lit the cigarette, and blew smoke into the air. Just then, two men passed in front of Choi Moohyuk.

Apparently, they had also come out to smoke, as each was holding a cigarette. In particular, he sensed a pungent pheromone from one of them. It was an omega’s pheromone. One is an alpha, and the other an omega? Exhaling white smoke, he watched the two take their spot nearby and light up.

“Seriously, what the hell is Seo Jaehyuk thinking? I can’t understand why he took that pathetic bastard back.”

Choi Moohyuk drew roughly on his smoke, flicked it out to extinguish it, and turned away, but the blatant conversation between the alpha and omega who had settled in pierced his ears.

“How would I know? There must have been some kind of lobbying. Otherwise, there’s no way they would’ve accepted JT, who is way, way behind.”

“That aside, did you see? Him constantly calling? I thought I was watching some stalker.”

“Anyway, he had no sense of shame then, and he still doesn’t. If they’re ignoring him that much, wouldn’t that mean they blocked him?”

Overhearing people badmouthing others wasn’t exactly pleasant, so he decided to ignore it and leave.

“Frankly, if it were you, would you want to answer? His life went to ruin because he got tangled up with that bastard Lee Hyunjoon.”

Just as he was rounding the corner of the building, a familiar name suddenly reached his ears.

Lee Hyunjoon?

Choi Moohyuk looked back. He narrowed his eyes and stared in the direction of the figures faintly visible beyond the corner.

He recalled the image of that alpha he had seen trying to make a phone call while spewing vulgar curses off to one side when he was entering Club Freeze.

According to Min Jiwon, that alpha was Lee Hyunjoon, the Head of Planning at JT Trading Co., Ltd.

Of course, it could be a different person with the same name. But given that they referred to JT in their earlier conversation, it was highly likely that the Lee Hyunjoon they were talking about was the Lee Hyunjoon he knew.

He stopped walking and leaned his back against the corner wall. Overhearing someone’s badmouthing wasn’t pleasant, but no one would refuse when private information about a client—information you couldn’t easily pick up just anywhere—was being handed out so freely for them to hear.

“Crazy bastard, the moment he saw my face, he asked about him first. Asked if I knew what he’s doing these days. I seriously thought I was looking at some lunatic.”

“When was Lee Hyunjoon ever in his right mind? For a guy like that to be an alpha, fucking hell.”

“But he managed to snag a position this time, didn’t he? I heard he went in as the Head of Planning at JT Trading.”

“It’s embarrassing. What kind of position even is Head of Planning?”

“How lacking in positions must they have been to give him such a low-ranking post? The Chairman must have had quite a headache too.”

They continued badmouthing him casually and laughed, kik kik.

Choi Moohyuk glanced sideways at these people running their mouths recklessly, not even aware that someone was listening, and let out a hollow laugh. A group like JT couldn’t quite be called a chaebol, but they were a wealthy family close to being a mid-tier chaebol in their own right. For people who placed such importance on how they appeared in front of others, he hadn’t thought they were ordinary from the moment they were cursing so casually on the street.

Looks like he’s more of a blockhead than I thought? Seeing as he’s acknowledged by neither his family nor his friends. Ah, even the term ‘friends’ might just be for show.

Choi Moohyuk took his cigarette case out of his pocket.

“Speaking of which, isn’t that family itself a total mess? Seeing how they ruined a person and then brazen-facedly carried on?”

“How much must they have tormented the kid for a dominant omega to end up with a problem in his pheromone gland? Everyone was shocked back then. They said his mom was absolutely furious, throwing a huge fit. Telling them to save her son.”

“Think about it the other way around. If the kid you gave birth to lost his pheromones and got divorced, would you just sit still?”

“Why did he get pheromone deficiency?”

“I don’t know. Everyone’s keeping it hush-hush. And what would you do knowing someone else’s family history anyway? But, if he stayed silent even after the divorce, doesn’t that mean it was mutual?”

Choi Moohyuk’s hand, which had been lighting the cigarette in his mouth, faltered. Staring into the dimly lit alley air, Choi Moohyuk furrowed his brow.

Dominant omega? Pheromone deficiency? Divorce?

Tilting his head slightly, Choi Moohyuk shifted his eyes to look at the ones conversing beyond the corner.

“What’s he doing these days? Do you know?”

“How would I know that? And why are you so interested anyway? Are you trying to make a move too?”

“He did have quite a delicate face, that’s for sure. Tsk, his pheromone was such a turn-on, though.”

“Son of a bitch. Seriously, you guys have no conscience.”

Having finished their cigarettes, the alpha and omega came back around the corner, snickering. Feeling like crap, we should order more drinks. Where should we go for the third round? As they were just turning the building corner while chatting about trivial things, they flinched and stopped in their tracks.

Choi Moohyuk, who had been leaning against the wall beyond the corner, pushed himself upright with slow movements. Choi Moohyuk said nothing, but they couldn’t bring themselves to pass in front of him.

Blocking the path, Choi Moohyuk raised his eyes and looked at them.

The alpha and omega flinched and stepped backward. Though invisible to the eye, a threatening pheromone overflowing from a dominant alpha was pouring out of Choi Moohyuk.

As he glared at them as if he would kill them, the alpha and omega, overcome with fear, glanced around nervously before hurriedly running back into the club.

Left alone, Choi Moohyuk gritted his molars—grinding them—and narrowed his eyes.

Fragmented thoughts floated in his mind.

Lee Hyunjoon, the Head of Planning at JT Trading, who had utterly ruined an omega’s life.

And it was said that the omega whose life he had wrecked was a dominant omega, and that his pheromones were broken so he couldn’t function properly.

Choi Moohyuk knew very well one omega in a similar situation.