Chapter Four #4
“Mister health conscious,” he says, I can hear the smirk in his voice without looking.
“Wasn’t it always you bitching at us behind the school?
Standing there with your arms crossed lecturing us about lung cancer while we tried to enjoy our cigarettes in peace.
You used to complain for hours about how the smell got into your uniform and your mom would think it was you. ”
“She did think it was me,” I say flatly. “More than once.”
Hongjoong snorts. “So what happened? What turned the anti-smoking crusader into this?” He gestures at the cigarette between my fingers.
I take a long drag, feel the heat fill my chest, and exhale. The smoke hangs in the still air between us for a moment before the breeze takes it.
“Probably you, honestly.”
He blinks.
“You always looked like it relaxed you,” I say evenly.
“Back then, whenever things got stressful, you’d light up and something in your shoulders would just..
. ease up. I remembered that.” I tap ash off the end of my cigarette and watch it fall.
“After particularly hard nights, when my body felt like it had been put through a machine and the mental drop afterward was bad enough that I couldn’t sleep, I started smoking to take my mind off it.
To take the edge off. It worked.” I shrug one shoulder. “So I kept doing it.”
Hongjoong doesn’t respond right away. I can feel him watching me, his gaze steady against the side of my face, but when I glance over his expression is veiled. He takes another drag instead, jaw working as he inhales, and turns his attention back to the skyline without commenting.
We smoke in silence for a minute. The city hums below us, distant traffic and the occasional siren threading through the quiet.
My phone starts vibrating on the small table behind us, the screen lighting up and casting a blue-white glow across the iron surface.
I glance at the caller ID and my stomach does a quick flip.
“Sorry,” I say, straightening up and reaching for it. “I have to take this.”
Hongjoong waves his cigarette hand in a go-ahead gesture, exhaling smoke through his nose.
I answer and angle my body slightly away from him, pressing the phone to my ear. “Hey.”
“Dad.” Sungyoon’s voice comes through clear, it’s the tone he uses when he wants something and is trying to sound casual about it.
“So Junhyung’s family is going to their cabin outside the city tomorrow, up past the reservoir?
His mom said I could come but she needs parental permission first. Can I go? ”
I lean my hip against the railing. “Who else is going?”
“Just Junhyung and his parents and his little sister. It’s not a party or anything, we’re just going to hike and his dad wants to teach us how to fish.” A pause. “I know you’re working this weekend so I figured it’d be fine since I wouldn’t be home anyway.”
The casual way he says working sends a small pang through my chest, even though he doesn’t know what the work actually entails. I rub the bridge of my nose.
“That’s fine. But you stay close to Junhyung’s family, okay? Don’t wander off on your own, keep your phone on you at all times, and if anything feels off you call me. I don’t care what time it is.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.”
“Sungyoon.”
“I will, Dad. I promise.”
“Okay.” I soften. “I love you. Be careful.”
“Love you too. Bye.”
The line clicks dead. I lower the phone and stare at the screen for a second, at the contact photo of Sungyoon making a stupid face at the camera that I took last summer, before I lock it and set it back on the table.
When I turn around Hongjoong’s eyebrows are raised, his cigarette paused halfway to his mouth. The unspoken question sits plainly on his face.
“Who was that?” he asks. “Someone you live with?”
I clear my throat and pick my own cigarette back up from where I’d balanced it on the edge of the ashtray. “My son.”
Hongjoong’s eyebrows climb higher. He inhales at the wrong moment and coughs, a short, sharp hack that he covers with the back of his hand, smoke escaping in a messy burst.
“You have a son?”
“Yes.”
He stares at me. I take a drag and hold his gaze, offering nothing else. Hongjoong shakes his head slowly, the way people do when they’re rethinking something they thought they understood.
“Wow.” He leans back against the railing, cigarette forgotten between his fingers. “How old?”
“He’s in high school,” I say, which is technically an answer without being a specific one.
Hongjoong’s sharp enough to notice the dodge, his eyes narrowing slightly, but he doesn’t push it.
Instead he blows out a long breath and threads his free hand through his blonde hair, pushing it back off his forehead as he processes.
Then his gaze tracks over me, a slow, deliberate sweep from my face down to the borrowed boxers hanging off my hips and back up again, and his expression hardens.
“What about his other father?” he asks. “He has to be an alpha, right? How is he okay with you doing this kind of work?”
My jaw tightens. I bring the cigarette to my lips and inhale, holding the smoke in my lungs longer than I need to, using the pause to keep my voice level when I finally exhale and answer.
“His father isn’t involved.”
Hongjoong’s brows shoot up so fast they nearly disappear into his hairline. He pushes off the railing and turns to face me fully, disbelief written across every line of his face.
“What kind of bastard leaves his omega with a child and doesn’t even claim him?”
The words dig into my ribs. I look down at the railing, at my own fingers curled around the cold metal, the cigarette trailing a thin line of smoke into the dark.
“It’s complicated,” I say. “It wasn’t like that.”
“What do you mean it wasn’t like that?” Hongjoong’s voice has an edge now, a sharpness that I recognize from the rare occasions he got genuinely angry back when we were young.
He stubs his cigarette out against the railing with more force than necessary, grinding the ember flat.
“Some alpha knocked you up and then what, just walked away? Left you to raise a kid alone and sell your body to pay the bills?”
“Hongjoong.”
“No, seriously, Yoonjae.” He tosses the dead cigarette into the ashtray and turns back to me, his jaw set hard. “That’s fucked up. That’s beyond fucked up. You shouldn’t let that bastard get away with abandoning you and your kid like that.”
“You don’t understand,” I say, unintentionally sharp, a crack in the composure I’ve been holding together all evening. I take a breath and force it back down. “And I don’t want to talk about it.”
Hongjoong holds my gaze for a long beat, the muscle in his jaw ticking, clearly wanting to push further. Then he stubs the remnants of his cigarette out completely, pressing it flat in the ashtray with his thumb, and exhales hard through his nose.
“Fine. You have money now anyway.” He says it like a concession, like he’s putting the topic down rather than letting it go. Then he straightens and eyes me, his head tipping to one side. “Does your son know what you do for a living?”
Heat floods my cheeks so fast I’m grateful for the dark. “Of course not,” I snap. “He just thinks I’m some kind of personal manager.”
“And what happens if he finds out?”
“I’ll deal with it when it happens.” I crush my own cigarette out and cross my arms over my bare chest, suddenly very aware of the cold.
“It’s better if he doesn’t know. He just presented as an alpha a couple of months ago and he’s already showing domineering traits, getting protective, questioning where I go and when I’ll be back.
The second he finds out what I actually do he’ll try to force me to quit, and that’s my business to manage when it becomes necessary. ”
Hongjoong watches me for a while. A thought or question turns over behind his eyes, one he considers carefully before deciding whether to voice it. The silence stretches, filled only by the distant sounds of the city below and the faint rustle of wind against the building.
Finally he relents, his shoulders dropping as he pushes off the railing.
“Fine,” he says. “It’s your business then.
” He reaches for the sliding glass door and pulls it open, the warm air from inside spilling out onto the balcony.
He glances back at me over his shoulder, and the hard edge in his expression eases, the lazy confidence settling back into place.
“Let’s go back in and get back to our business. ”
I follow him inside, sliding the door shut behind me and sealing out the cold.
My pulse is still uneven, my heart beating too fast against my ribs, and as I watch Hongjoong’s back disappear into the warm light of the bedroom I can feel how close he just got.
How close he came to the edge of the truth without even knowing he was standing on it.
I press my palm flat against my sternum and breathe until my heartbeat slows, then I walk back into the bedroom and close the door.