The World of Contrasts Vol. 3 Chapter 7

“But what’s your business here?”

Daeyoung glanced at his phone and continued speaking.

“I don’t really need your help anymore.”

It was a way of saying if she had no business, she should leave. He was still the same man who wouldn’t bend, either in the past or now. Despite the years she had known him making her accustomed to this, Yoojin found him unfamiliar each time she saw him.

“Oppa.”

“Ha ha, who’s your Oppa?”

Daeyoung looked at her, furrowing his handsome brows with a smile. Even though he was smiling as leisurely as before, there was none of the softness from his university days, probably because of the years he had endured.

“Not Sunbae. Oppa.”

“…”

Yoojin internally scoffed seeing Daeyoung’s eyebrows twitch faintly.

“You found Jang Jaemin, didn’t you? Or should I not call him by that surname anymore?”

Daeyoung was silent. But his eyes, still smiling, looked at her with a darkness that could make someone feel sick.

“There’s no one around Sunbae to blab to me, so don’t think about messing with innocent people.”

Yoojin deliberately smiled more broadly as she continued. It wasn’t often she got to see Daeyoung flustered.

“Immigration records are there for moments like this. Oppa seemed to have had a hard time…”

“Who keeps saying he’s your brother?”

Daeyoung cut her off sharply. More important than how and how much Yoojin knew about Jaemin was something else.

“Eh?”

As Yoojin frowned with her round forehead, Daeyoung spoke clearly.

“Jang Jaemin has no family. So don’t call him that.”

“…”

This needed to be clarified. Daeyoung’s eyes gleamed black.

“He only has me.”

During the trials that stretched over nearly a year from the first to the third instance, ending at the Supreme Court, while Daeyoung was in detention, what tormented him the most wasn’t Junkyung’s death or not being able to attend her funeral. It was Jang Jaemin’s disappearance amidst the chaos.

The brilliant lawyers appointed by Chairman Jang for his long-lost son managed to secure an unusual sentence of five years for Jaemin, who had killed seven alphas, but Daeyoung rebelled against the verdict, causing a ruckus in court and being dragged out like a dog.

Jaemin’s disappearance while he was supposed to be looked after by Lee Seonho was maddening. Or perhaps, he should have praised Lee Seonho for keeping Jaemin, who was half out of his mind, alive for two years.

The extreme sense of powerlessness from being unable to do anything while in prison was a first for him. If Chairman Jang had somehow found Jaemin’s whereabouts… he didn’t even want to think about what would happen next.

He tried contacting Congressman Kwon through one of the bribed lawyers. He didn’t expect Kwon Sangdo to actively look for his biological son Jang Jaemin’s disappearance, but he at least thought he might hold some resentment against Jang Wonjung, who had reduced Jaemin to such a state. However, that expectation was off the mark.

Instead of Congressman Kwon, his secretary came for the visit and made it clear that Congressman Kwon only had one daughter. He added one more thing:

How could they prove the familial relationship when Jang Jaemin himself was missing? Even if found, wouldn’t it be best for both if he didn’t appear before the Congressman?

From the secretary’s face, Daeyoung confirmed that Kwon Sangdo was involved in Jaemin’s disappearance.

He screamed for Kwon Sangdo to be brought in, knocked out the guard who tried to stop him, and ended up in solitary confinement. He barely remembers how those 60 days passed in the pitch darkness without a ray of light.

But when he came out of punishment, feeling the scent of some omega’s pheromone carried by the wind as rotten fish smell, Daeyoung laughed like a madman. It meant his marking hadn’t broken.

From then on, he started expanding his list of nice gifts to give Jaemin for the day they would meet again.

“Must have been hard to find him, wasn’t it?”

Yoojin, clicking her e-cigarette only to find the battery dead, made an irritable face.

“Give me a cigarette, please.”

Daeyoung silently pulled out a cigarette and placed it on the desk. Yoojin grabbed both the cigarette and the lighter beside it, lighting it up.

She took a deep drag to calm her racing heart, then exhaled the smoke, speaking to Daeyoung, who was now looking at her with even darker eyes.

“I’m saying this because I know Jang Jaemin’s personality. Or honestly, even for a saint, it’s the same. After going through such a horrific ordeal and escaping to survive, wouldn’t seeing the person involved in the incident cause massive PTSD?”

Daeyoung remained silent. Yoojin, thinking his silence was due to having nothing to say, felt her excitement rise alongside her extreme tension. She also wanted to see if she could poke at his core, making him bleed even if he wouldn’t blink an eye.

“Indeed, it was a voluntary disappearance, right? Looking at you, who insists on finding someone who just wants to forget everything and live in peace, it shows that Sunbae is still very self-centered.”

“Yoojin.”

Finally breaking his silence, he leaned forward toward the sofa where Yoojin was sitting. His face looked pitch black against the backlight.

Yoojin tried not to show her agitation by bringing the cigarette to her mouth, but Daeyoung pulled it from her fingers and bit down on the filter, sucking in. Exhaling the gray smoke, he spoke in a low voice.

“I’ll handle matters concerning my lover.”

“…”

Yoojin tried to speak, but his fingers gently traced her face, making it impossible for her to move her head.

The cigarette, still smoking and not extinguished, was held like a matchstick in his large hand right in front of her eyes. Yoojin’s face, with its perfect proportions, froze like a statue.

“I’ve prepared several gifts to give to Jaemin when we meet.”

“…”

“Don’t make me include you in them.”

Yoojin couldn’t fully understand his meaning, but one thing was clear: Daeyoung was warning her.

His finger moved from her stiffened jaw down along the neatly ironed buttons of her shirt.

“You know there’s nothing good that comes from threatening a prosecutor, right? Businessman Seol Daeyoung, no, Mr. Jang Daeyoung.”

Daeyoung smiled, lifting his lips as he looked at her.

“Did that sound like a threat? If I really threatened you, our esteemed prosecutor might wet herself.”

“…”

Yoojin’s lips trembled with contempt. As Daeyoung pressed the lit cigarette against her prosecutor badge hanging around her neck, the smell of burning plastic filled the air. The man who extinguished the cigarette looked into her eyes and whispered.

“No smoking indoors.”

Yoojin stood up abruptly. There was no color in her hand as she grabbed her coat.

“It seems there’s a lot of tension from meeting your lover after so long, but taking it out on the wrong person isn’t a good habit.”

Trying not to show her agitation, she deliberately raised her voice. Daeyoung only frowned while checking something on his phone again, tossing the extinguished cigarette onto the table. Yoojin sighed deeply, seeing Daeyoung not even paying attention to her.

“If I had been the prosecutor in charge of your case back then.”

“Yeah?”

“I would have made sure you never got out of prison. I would have done anything to give you the maximum sentence because you’re clearly someone who would cause even bigger trouble.”

Daeyoung smirked without taking his eyes off the screen.

“But what can you do? I’m out now.”

And that was the problem. Yoojin’s intuition told her that Seol Daeyoung was now laying out time bombs, just waiting for the right moment to detonate them. Kwon Sangdo would certainly be at the top of his list of targets.

The disappearance of Chairman Jang’s secretary, who had visited Daeyoung in prison only once, didn’t seem ordinary either.

“Chairman Jang’s disappearance was your doing, wasn’t it?”

“…”

Unable to resist her impulse, Yoojin asked, and Daeyoung suddenly halted his movement. Looking up from his phone, his eyes held a dark, sticky emotion. Yoojin felt her lips go dry and swallowed hard.

“Did you kill him?”

Instead of answering, Daeyoung showed his teeth in a slight, chilling smile. The answer seemed evident in that creepy laugh.

Goosebumps rose instantly on Yoojin’s neck where her collar hid.

With a scowl, Yoojin turned her back and left his office. If her suspicion was true, he might as well have killed his own father. Crazy bastard. Yoojin walked as fast as she could to get out of the building.

“Ah… damn bastard, really.”

Looking at her prosecutor badge that now had two holes in it, as if horns had grown on her head, Yoojin let out the curse she had been holding in.

She wondered how Jang Jaemin must feel, living with someone who could turn people’s insides out so well, but then she received a call from an office clerk and hurried into her SUV. She roughly pulled out the bugging device she had prepared just in case and deleted all the content.

None of the sinister words Seol Daeyoung had spoken would harm him; instead, it only contained the critical fact that she, as a prosecutor, had joined hands with gangsters for personal revenge and gain.

“Ha…”

Yoojin’s ambitions aimed much higher than where she was now, and for that, it was better not to be at odds with Seol Daeyoung. Remembering how the air changed the moment she brought up Jaemin, she shivered involuntarily.

With things like this, should she send a welcome back gift to Jang Jaemin? Yoojin mocked herself as she stomped on the accelerator.

✽ ✽ ✽

Jaemin had spent nearly a month without stepping outside the mansion where his unfamiliar lover had led him.

Surprisingly, he didn’t feel claustrophobic. He ordered groceries online, and when he felt stifled, he would go out to the garden to get some fresh air. When he got hungry, he cooked with the ingredients that filled the fridge, watched movies with Daeyoung, had sex, and fell into an exhausted sleep.

Daeyoung went to work two or three times a week. The first time Jaemin saw him in his perfect suit, ready to leave, he couldn’t take his eyes off him.

His heart thudded, and he swallowed dryly, emotions of either envy or pride intertwining within him.

As Jaemin watched him through the mirror in the dressing room, Daeyoung smiled faintly while fastening his cufflinks.

“I’d like to take you with me, but work won’t get done with you around.”

“…I wasn’t planning on following anyway.”

“Then don’t seduce me.”

“What are you talking about?”

Feeling embarrassed, thinking he might have been looking at him too enticingly, Jaemin turned to leave, but Daeyoung grabbed his arm.

“I don’t want to turn the office into a sex room. Understand that.”

“That’s enough then… Hng…!”

After that morning when he had sex with Daeyoung, leaving semen all over his suit, Jaemin would push him out the door on the days he went to work.

“Kiss me goodbye.”

Despite the cringe-inducing request, Jaemin resigned himself to it, clinging to his neck at the entrance for a passionate tongue kiss before letting him go.

Whenever Daeyoung left the house, he would ask if Jaemin had any plans to go out, subtly indicating he didn’t like the idea of Jaemin leaving.

In fact, Jaemin didn’t much feel like going out either. He had no one to meet and nowhere special he wanted to go.

Like someone awkwardly returning to a hometown that had changed completely.

Jaemin watched the seasonal changes through the well-cleaned windows for a long time. The silence that filled the house when Daeyoung was gone wasn’t unpleasant.

He chuckled seeing the snow melt, new buds sprouting on dry branches, and red camellias blooming on trees whose names he didn’t know.

When looking at the garden became boring, he would stretch out on the comfortable sofa for a nap, something he could never do in Mama’s apartment where sirens and curses echoed daily.

Jaemin felt like a stray cat dragged in by someone unknown, holding its neck. It was like surviving a harsh winter by rummaging through trash only to suddenly be given gourmet cat food in a warm spot.

The comfort came with anxiety, probably because of his blank memory.

The name and birthdate on the passport Daeyoung had given him were still unfamiliar to Jaemin. Not remembering the days he spent with Daeyoung frustrated him and made him feel a little… guilty toward Daeyoung.

However, his lover, who wasn’t known for his temper, seemed to have great patience. He didn’t show any signs of impatience about Jaemin not regaining his memory.

But occasionally, when Jaemin woke up in the middle of the night, his eyes would meet Daeyoung’s, who was smoking on the bedroom terrace, and the weight in Daeyoung’s gaze would send Jaemin back to sleep, forgetting any urge to go to the bathroom.

Not long ago, there was an incident.

Daeyoung, who should have been at work, came running with a gray face while Jaemin was sleeping in the closet.

“…Why are you sleeping in here?”

Jaemin couldn’t give a clear answer.

He must have moved there while half-asleep, but why there? Why did he feel comfortable sleeping cramped and hidden in a dark, narrow space?

“Tell me. What happened?”

Daeyoung, looking at Jaemin with narrowed eyes, seemed genuinely concerned and somehow anxious, as if something had happened to him.

“Probably because it was too bright outside. Don’t overreact.”

When Jaemin made up an excuse, Daeyoung immediately brought and hung massive blackout curtains that very day.

Though Daeyoung could be suffocatingly intense at times, he generally treated Jaemin with kindness. The more time Jaemin spent with him, the more he questioned whether Daeyoung was really a dangerous person.

Whenever he saw Daeyoung smiling with his long lips stretched, he seemed far from being a thug, just a superior alpha who lacked nothing because of his excellence.

It might sound strange, but Daeyoung felt like he was a magnet for light. Even in the darkness, he seemed to emit his own light. From the perspective of breaking the stereotype that gangsters belong in the shadows, Daeyoung was indeed an impressive one. Frankly, as a man, Jaemin was incredibly jealous.

He must have fallen for such traits before losing his memory.

Despite his superior exterior, his taste in movies was a bit cheap, but Jaemin liked even that. The B-grade gangster movies Daeyoung chose were predictable, but there were good action scenes interspersed.

Lying in bed, watching the large screen on the wall, Daeyoung spent more time touching Jaemin than watching the movie.

“Do you know why people use such ridiculous weapons when they go to kill someone?”

Daeyoung suddenly asked while embracing Jaemin’s shoulders. Jaemin, who was trying to focus on the movie, felt Daeyoung teasing his nipples with his hands and inadvertently opened his mouth.

“So that they can’t identify who killed them. Ah, you’re stretching my T-shirt. You bastard.”

Daeyoung ignored his complaint and shoved his head inside his shirt. He then sucked on his nipple with his hot mouth and asked again.

“What if one person ambushes and kills? Wouldn’t there be no way out?”

Jaemin twisted his body, letting out a weak sigh. His nipples, darkened from the constant torment, released both pain and pleasure.

“You’d have to say there was no intent to kill.”

“…What if there was?”

Daeyoung mumbled from inside his shirt. Jaemin frowned, feeling something eerie in his voice.

“You’d still have to deny it. Isn’t that obvious?”

“…That’s impossible.”

“Hey, my shirt is tearing… Hng…!”

Daeyoung, muttering words that didn’t make sense, stripped off Jaemin’s already stretched T-shirt. He grabbed Jaemin’s flat, glossy chest with his large hands and pulled down his pants. As his cock, redder than Jaemin’s nipples, sprang out, Jaemin swallowed dryly.

“I have something to ask, haah…”

“Ask.”

They could no longer focus on the scenes playing on the screen. Jaemin, giving himself over to the sloppy sex, asked him to confirm.

“Was I, hng… a gangster too…?”

The faint scars all over his body, his instincts quickly picking up on signs of violence, tattoos that seemed excessive for just fashion, and crucially, the identity of the person who marked him, all supported Jaemin’s suspicions.

“No.”

Daeyoung immediately denied it, but Jaemin was sure he was lying. It wasn’t surprising since Daeyoung hated being called a gangster himself.

“Even if I were… I wouldn’t mind that much…”

“I said no.”

Daeyoung clicked his tongue softly. Jaemin felt a surge of heat within him seeing Daeyoung’s annoyed expression.

“Then what was I?”

“A university student.”

“I was just… an ordinary university student?”

“Spread.”

“Is there going to be blood? Suck it before you put it in, damn it.”

When Jaemin glared at him, unable to bear it, Daeyoung smiled faintly and slid down between his legs. In Jaemin’s blurry vision, he could see the muscles on Daeyoung’s broad back asserting themselves. As soon as Daeyoung’s breath touched his now eager hole, hot slick flowed out as if waiting.

“With a scent like this, you weren’t ordinary. Every time you rested your chin on your hand, frowning in class, I wanted to bend you over the desk and fuck you.”

He always says things like… Jaemin felt his nose heat up. He tried to push him away but couldn’t. Daeyoung had pressed down on the back of his thighs to expose his hole, then started licking the entrance with his soft tongue. The meticulous, slow movements seemed to count every wrinkle, igniting a fire within Jaemin.

“Hng, ah…”

“Instead, you had a great time at the festival in the clubroom. How insanely pretty you looked then. Haha. I can’t even remember how many times I jerked off thinking about that day.”

Even though everything he said was hard to believe, somehow Jaemin didn’t feel like he was lying. Jaemin was caught up in the illusion that he might have really been a university student.

“Damn, just put it in. Hng…!”

Whenever Jaemin was curious about his past, Daeyoung would caress him until he melted, have long sex sessions, and fall asleep with his cock still inside him.

Deep sleep was impossible in such a position. Jaemin would toss and turn, half-awake, and each time, Daeyoung would move his hips to increase the size of his shrinking cock.

Since they started living together, there hasn’t been a single day when Seol Daeyoung’s semen wasn’t inside Jaemin’s body.

✽ ✽ ✽

“What are you thinking about?”

Daeyoung approached from behind, breaking Jaemin’s reverie as he stared at the boiling water in the pot. He had just come home from work and was only wearing a towel around his waist after a shower.

“Wondering if it’s okay to live such a sweet life?”

Daeyoung slowly licked the corner of his lips. Silence filled the spacious kitchen, with only the sound of the water heating up in the pot echoing. Finally, Daeyoung asked shortly.

“Don’t you like it?”

Jaemin blinked at him, then shook his head with a slight chuckle.

“No.”

As Jaemin turned down the gas, Daeyoung hugged him from behind and kissed his ear.

“Who taught you to cook?”

“Yami Kim.”

Daeyoung visibly flinched at that moment. Jaemin let out a sarcastic laugh as Daeyoung asked if there was another roommate.

“He’s a cooking YouTuber. A guy living alone. Check it out.”

As Jaemin went to add the broth pack, Daeyoung turned him around. He turned off the gas and lifted Jaemin with incredible strength, setting him down in front of the wide dining table like pulling a radish from the ground. After stripping off Jaemin’s pants and underwear in one go, Daeyoung asked with narrowed eyes.

“What does he look like? Does he look tasty?”

“Just, he has eyes, a nose, and a mouth in the right places.”

“Describe him in detail.”

Jaemin frowned, trying to recall someone he barely remembered, as Daeyoung started to stroke him while sitting him on the table.

“Big build… and he laughs a lot.”

“That’s all?”

“…Was he diligent? Ah…”

As his glans was rubbed by the large palm, pre-cum dripped down. Daeyoung made a strange face, then bit his lip and spoke.

“You’re really like Hangyeol, our Jaemin.”

Jaemin raised his eyebrows, sensing some thorns in Daeyoung’s words.

“You’re not jealous, are you?”

“No way.”

It seemed like he was, though. Jaemin tried to move away, but Daeyoung was faster.

“Have you ever jerked off while looking at your phone? Got hard looking at someone who looks like me? Tell me honestly.”

Jerked off while looking at his phone? That was Daeyoung for the first time, and Yami Kim didn’t resemble him at all. Maybe…?

“Go away… Hng!”

Daeyoung firmly gripped Jaemin’s cock as he tried to escape. Jaemin couldn’t move, his face contorted. The features of the alpha in front of him, whose eyes seemed to go wild, were far more handsome than the one he could barely remember.

Even beyond looks, Daeyoung was a presence that made Jaemin feel relaxed just by being in the same room, something he had never felt with any alpha’s scent before. But strangely, he didn’t want to say that out loud.

“Why did you get hard talking about that guy?”

Spouting such nonsense, Daeyoung threw off the towel around his waist. Jaemin wanted to retort that it was natural because he was playing with him, but his lips were preoccupied.

Daeyoung, kissing him while pressing the back of his head, stood up, overlapping their cocks and shaking them together. Jaemin, unable to hold back, trembled between his legs, releasing a sticky mess, but Daeyoung, unsatisfied, moved his lips downwards.

He laid Jaemin’s limp body on the table, spread his legs by bending his knees, and cleaned up the mess below by sucking and licking.

He swallowed the omega’s fluids like juice, spread his hole to make it melt, and made Jaemin cry out moans mixed with sobs in a beastly mating.

“Looks like I’ll have to cook you some ramen now.”

As Jaemin spoke, unable to move a finger, Daeyoung kissed his cheeks with a “smack, smack” sound and finally withdrew his cock. Naked, he sauntered to the pantry and brought out a packet of instant noodles.

Jaemin protested that he wouldn’t eat it, but when the spicy aroma started coming from the pot, he couldn’t resist his appetite.

“Is that, um, spicy?”

“Come and check for yourself.”

In the end, he stood in the kitchen eating ramen with Daeyoung. With Daeyoung’s shirt on top and completely naked below, Jaemin found the situation amusing and burst into laughter, which made Daeyoung smile, not knowing why.

“Let’s go out tomorrow to buy some clothes.”

“…Do you want to go out?”

Daeyoung still had a smile on his face, but it seemed somehow displeased. Jaemin pulled at the chest of the shirt he was wearing, grimacing at the ill-fitting size.

“We can’t keep living like this. They don’t even fit.”

“But they look good on you.”

Since Jaemin’s few belongings had all disappeared the moment he entered this house, he had no choice but to wear Daeyoung’s clothes.

“I’m uncomfortable. But why did you throw away my stuff?”

“…Objects hold memories.”

“And then?”

“I told you. I want to erase all the memories from your head where I’m not in them.”

“…”

“You might not understand my feelings, but that’s how I feel.”

Every time he said things like this, it felt like someone was squeezing Jaemin’s heart. Swallowing dryly due to the sudden sentimental feeling, Daeyoung smirked.

“Eat. My prince.”

“…Don’t call me that.”

“I told you, you’re so spoiled you wouldn’t eat unless I fed you.”

That’s ridiculous. But as Jaemin listened to his story, he felt his heart beating faster. And what followed was even more absurd. As Daeyoung blew on the noodles to cool them down and then put them in his mouth with a smirk, Jaemin suddenly felt tears welling up.

What the hell. Fuck.

“Ha…”

Jaemin knew this feeling well. The tickling in his stomach and the heart beating painfully hard was far from the unpleasant anxiety or surging anger he sometimes felt when with him. It was something very warm and cozy.

Was I really this happy being with this bastard…?

“What’s wrong, suddenly?”

Daeyoung frowned, sensing something off. Jaemin tried to ignore it and slurped his noodles, but Daeyoung wasn’t one to miss Jaemin’s reddened eyes.

Daeyoung hugged Jaemin and slipped his hand inside his shirt. As his large, rough hand gently stroked his bare skin, goosebumps rose all over Jaemin’s body.

“Are you cold? Let’s take a bath.”

“I haven’t finished my noodles yet.”

“I’ll cook more later.”

“I’m going to finish this now.”

Jaemin glared at him while snatching back his chopsticks. He looked a bit odd to Daeyoung, but not like there was a problem. Just… a bit embarrassed, perhaps. Thinking that Jaemin’s threshold for embarrassment was lower than most people, Daeyoung went to get a blanket.

“Then don’t get sick.”

Cocooned like a newborn baby, Jaemin finished his noodles. Daeyoung’s gaze, looking at him with affection, seemed coated in honey.

Jaemin vaguely thought that maybe everything Daeyoung said could be true. Even the part about him liking him to the point of almost being a stalker.

It was the first time he felt such a strong urge to remember his forgotten past. Or more precisely, he wanted to recall every detail of the daily life he must have shared with him as lovers for a long time.

“I’m getting frustrated because I can’t remember.”

“Take it slow.”

As if telling him not to rush, Daeyoung touched Jaemin’s hair. Jaemin wanted to shave off his now long hair, but there were no suitable tools in Daeyoung’s house.

“I want to shave my head.”

Daeyoung didn’t respond to Jaemin’s sudden statement. From what Jaemin had figured out in a short time, the alpha who marked him had a strong control freak tendency. Could it be that his personality, loathing interference from others, was different in the past?

“You don’t like me shaving my head?”

Jaemin asked tentatively. Daeyoung, who seemed to be deep in thought without answering, finally shook his head.

“You look good with anything.”

“My passport photo… my hair was a bit long there.”

“You looked good then too.”

“No. I didn’t like it.”

Daeyoung looked at him intently and asked again.

“What didn’t you like?”

“Just everything from one to ten. I feel like a kid desperate to stand out.”

Jaemin’s voice twisted unintentionally. Honestly, remembering his flamboyant self that even showed through a small ID photo made him feel inexplicably bad.

“More honestly…”

“Go on.”

“I felt like a narcissist, and it’s annoying to advertise being an omega with my whole body.”

Why did he like this version of me?

After a moment of silence, Daeyoung asked in a low voice, his expression still unreadable.

“Do you hate being an omega?”

Even though omega rights consciousness had increased compared to the past, rebuilding a playing field long tilted in favor of alphas was difficult. For example, in Japan, politicians emphasizing reverse discrimination against alphas were gaining popularity.

“Is that a hard question?”

Jaemin bit his lower lip, pondering the answer, but… he didn’t really dislike it. He couldn’t react to alpha pheromones, and for some reason, he was used to suppressing his own pheromones.

In Japan, everyone thought he was a beta, so his traits weren’t that important to Jaemin. It was just bothersome. And more importantly…

“Isn’t it because I’m an omega that I could be marked by you?”

Daeyoung’s lips slowly curved into a smile. His voice, asking softly again, was tinged with a slight excitement.

“Then do you like being an omega?”

“…Not really, I haven’t thought deeply about it.”

“Then think deeply about it. Now.”

✽ ✽ ✽

“…”

“Jang Jaemin. Do you dislike the fact that you’re an omega? You can speak honestly.”

Jaemin hesitated for a moment, looking into Daeyoung’s eyes, which were fixed on him. He knew what kind of answer Daeyoung was waiting for, but he didn’t want to lie.

“…I don’t know.”

“…”

Perhaps that wasn’t enough. Jaemin cleared his throat once before continuing.

“I don’t dislike it, but I don’t particularly like it either. I thought traits didn’t matter. Just… I’m glad the person who marked me is you. There are too many idiots with bad traits in the world.”

A sigh-like exclamation slowly escaped from Daeyoung. Seeing his eyes light up and narrow, Jaemin felt that Daeyoung liked his answer very much.

“That’s enough. Well done, Jang Jaemin.”

Daeyoung hugged him tightly, taking a deep breath. What’s this? Jaemin felt awkward, like he was being awarded for doing nothing.

“It’s hot.”

As he tried to move away, clearing his throat for no reason, Daeyoung remained silent for a moment before speaking.

“No one from your past would think you’re an omega, except for me.”

“Really?”

Surprised by this unexpected information, Jaemin looked at him with disbelief. Daeyoung nodded silently, and Jaemin bit his lip slightly.

“Honestly, I thought I must have been leaking pheromones all over the place.”

That’s why he was annoyed when he saw old photos.

“No. It was actually the opposite.”

Daeyoung said, looking at him with his long eyes. Jaemin listened attentively to his words.

“You were just as cool back then as you are now, so don’t worry.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s true. You could do anything.”

Jaemin felt his face flush and raised his voice.

“I can’t believe I actually handled someone as sentimental as you.”

“You liked it when I sucked you off.”

Every time he said such silly things, Jaemin would glare at him like an animal baring its claws. Daeyoung smiled faintly, then gently wrapped his hot hand around the back of Jaemin’s neck.

“Is there better proof than this?”

Thump. Jaemin’s pulsating heartbeat was felt through Daeyoung’s palm.

“What was it like when we marked each other?”

After a bit of hesitation, Jaemin asked the question, and Daeyoung smiled faintly.

“Well… it was chaotic. Both of us, it was our first time after all.”

Jaemin thought there was something strange about the twitching at the corner of Daeyoung’s mouth, but he interpreted it as an alpha’s embarrassment and cleared his throat.

“I didn’t think it was a mark because of the scar on my neck. I thought the lack of pheromone response might be a side effect of the injury.”

“How did you see the scar on your neck?”

“Mama took a photo saying the tattoo looked cool. But… I only noticed the knife scar.”

Swallowing dryly while looking at Jaemin, who was smiling vaguely, Daeyoung spoke.

“I’m the one who caused that.”

Jaemin frowned slightly before asking him. He didn’t think their relationship was just about sweet romance like normal people, and it seemed they had some fierce fights too.

“…Did you try to kill me?”

“There was an incident. It was a hot summer day, and you suddenly went into heat. I couldn’t let others see you in heat, so…”

“So you stabbed me.”

“It wasn’t a situation for sex.”

Jaemin, who had been looking at him with a furrowed brow, chuckled.

“Well done.”

Daeyoung bit down on his lip. Jaemin, in his arms, had gone into heat, and unable to control himself, he had stabbed his own neck with a blade. This precarious first memory of theirs slipped into Daeyoung’s mind. Jaemin, with a refreshingly bright smile, repeated the same words. Well done, thank you.

Even now, with his memory lost, Jaemin’s strong personality remained the same. Daeyoung licked his dry lips while looking at Jaemin. If Jaemin had grown up away from Chairman Jang’s influence, what would he have been like? He thought he would have fallen for Jaemin anyway and eventually marked him. Just, the process might have been a bit different.

“If I acted crazy back then, please forget about it. Rather than being publicly embarrassed in front of others…”

Jaemin cut himself off, realizing it was a sensitive topic for Daeyoung. Daeyoung looked at him intently and spoke softly.

“Back then, and now, you’re the same Jang Jaemin.”

Just discovering your lovable traits daily that I didn’t know before. Feeling his heart pounding, Daeyoung clenched and then unclenched his fist.

“Let’s buy hair clippers when we go shopping for clothes tomorrow.”

“Huh?”

Jaemin, who had been feigning indifference, looked at him with well-shaped eyebrows raised.

“Are we really going out tomorrow?”

For Jaemin, this was an innocent question. He had never stepped outside the walls of this vast mansion in over a month of living with him.

“Yeah, why?”

“Oh, I’m just… surprised.”

Daeyoung looked at him with a smirk, eyes narrowing in disbelief.

“Did you think I brought you here to keep you confined?”

“Yeah, kind of.”

Jaemin tried to follow his gaze, but he couldn’t because a second round of sex had already started. That day, Daeyoung bit and sucked on the scar on Jaemin’s neck, taking him from behind for a long time.

✽ ✽ ✽

The next day, when Jaemin went out with Daeyoung, luxury shopping bags were placed in front of the gate. Daeyoung got out of the car, checked the contents, and threw them straight into the trash.

“What’s this…”

Even at a glance, they were brands you’d see in department store windows. Jaemin, frowning, couldn’t hold back his curiosity and asked Daeyoung as he returned to the car.

“Who sent them?”

Stepping on the accelerator, Daeyoung answered nonchalantly.

“A prosecutor I know.”

“…Is that okay?”

He had heard of gangsters bribing prosecutors but never the other way around.

“No, it’s not okay. That’s why I threw them away.”

“…Isn’t this some kind of threat from them?”

Jaemin raised his eyebrows, and Daeyoung swallowed dryly with a smile. It seemed that even with his memory lost, his intuition hadn’t completely vanished.

“Why do you think that?”

“Someone coming right to the front of the house to drop off stuff like this, it looks like a declaration of war, doesn’t it?”

“What kind of declaration of war?”

“A declaration of ‘I’m going to get you.’ For sure.”

A low chuckle escaped from Daeyoung’s closed lips. Yoojin’s card, written with “To my one and only brother,” was crumpled and tucked into his suit jacket.

“You got it wrong. It’s the opposite. It’s an attempt to curry favor.”

Jaemin, who was speaking seriously, glared at him with displeasure for taking it as a jest.

“You must have thrown them away because it felt off to you too.”

“…”

Daeyoung knew that Yoojin’s gift wasn’t just out of kindness. She might not know about Jaemin’s lost memory yet, but if she found out, there was a possibility she would come up with some cute scheme.

“Be careful, acting too relaxed might get you killed.”

Jaemin leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes. Daeyoung glanced at him, who was naturally using him as a chauffeur, and let out a sarcastic laugh. Seeing Jaemin with his eyes closed made Daeyoung’s bizarre sexual desire to make him cry with pleasure surge again.

“If I go down, you’d follow me, right? Even in death, that would be fun.”

His black eyelashes fluttered up, revealing his eyes of black and white.

“…Are you insane?”

Seeing Jaemin’s lips twist in disbelief, Daeyoung smiled and retorted.

“Aren’t I?”

“Oh, you were always insane. Sorry.”

Shaking his head at Daeyoung’s talk of dragging someone into death with him, Jaemin thought he had meddled unnecessarily.

“But that driver, I haven’t seen him around lately.”

Jaemin changed the subject, and Daeyoung, looking ahead, spoke.

“Who?”

“The one you had in Tokyo.”

“Why, do you miss him?”

Daeyoung said something absurd. Jaemin sighed in disbelief.

“Let’s not talk about it.”

He remembered the hand that handed him suppressants in the Tokyo hotel. He had ignored it back then, but if he had taken the medication, he wouldn’t have had such an intense heat. Thinking about it, he was just curious about the well-being of someone who treated him with respect and courtesy.

“Lee Seonho, the manager who went to Tokyo with us, is now working hard at the company, earning much more than just being a driver.”

“Ah.”

Jaemin mumbled to himself as if he was finally relieved.

“I thought he was good at his job.”

Daeyoung tapped the steering wheel lightly, his expression sour. It’s hard to let go of someone you want to kill, but he was glad he held back. If Jaemin’s memory ever returned, he didn’t want him to misunderstand unnecessarily.

“Do you like that beta by any chance?”

Entering the department store parking lot, Daeyoung asked Jaemin. His face, smiling leisurely, showed only a subtle playfulness, not the thick anger boiling inside.

“Ha ha…”

Jaemin laughed briefly with a husky voice. Then, wrapping his arms around Daeyoung’s head, he pressed his forehead against his and whispered.

“My type is you.”

“…”

Words one could never imagine coming from the mouth of the old Jang Jaemin.

Every time Jaemin, who had become completely honest with his emotions after losing his memory, threw such counterpunches, Daeyoung felt like he was knocked down in the ring.

“You really take my soul out, Jang Jaemin.”

As Daeyoung slowly curled his lips into a smile, Jaemin chuckled and whispered back.

“I like it.”

“Yeah, it’s fucking thrilling.”

Daeyoung, speaking in a low voice, suddenly lost his composure and showered Jaemin with kisses. Jaemin could only escape after having his lips and neck thoroughly sucked in front of the valet attendant in the car.