Chapter Nine #4
“Fixated on what, exactly? Your lunch schedule?” She takes another bite and narrows her eyes at me, and I can see the gears turning behind them—Ye-eun is a beta, so she can’t smell anything different about me the way an alpha or omega might, but she’s sharp and observant and she’s known both me and Hyunwoo long enough to recognize when something in our dynamic has shifted.
“He’s been like this for weeks now. Picking you up, dropping you off, texting you constantly, lingering after workouts to fuss over you.
And you’ve been eating differently. And you stopped drinking coffee.
And—” She pauses, her eyes dropping to my midsection for a fraction of a second before snapping back to my face.
“Is there something you want to tell me?”
“No,” I say, too quickly, and then add with more composure, “He’s stressed about the resort project and his family stuff. He gets clingy when he’s stressed, you know that. He’s always been like this.”
Ye-eun holds my gaze for a long, uncomfortable beat. Then she shrugs, takes another bite of her protein bar, and says, “If you say so.” But the look she gives me as she walks back to the check-in station says very clearly that she does not, in fact, say so, and that she’s on to me.
I make a mental note to tell Hyunwoo to dial it back at the gym. The last thing I need is Ye-eun connecting dots that aren’t supposed to be connected yet.
At home, the hovering intensifies to a degree that would be suffocating if it weren’t so familiar.
Hyunwoo and I have always spent an unusual amount of time together—even before I moved in, we saw each other nearly every day, ate most meals together, spent our weekends joined at the hip.
But there’s a new quality to his proximity now, a gravitational pull that keeps him physically close to me beyond our usual companionship.
He follows me from room to room without seeming to realize he’s doing it.
If I get up from the couch to refill my water in the kitchen, he’s there thirty seconds later, leaning against the counter, asking what I’m doing as if I might have wandered off to do something dangerous in the twelve steps between the living room and the refrigerator.
If I’m in my bedroom reading or scrolling through my phone, he’ll drift in and settle on the end of my bed with his laptop, working on resort plans or answering emails, not saying anything but just being there in the periphery of my space.
During movie nights on the couch, he starts on his end and I start on mine, the dogs arranged in the gap between us.
But by the time the credits roll—or more often, by the time I wake up the next morning having fallen asleep halfway through whatever we were watching—Hyunwoo has migrated across the cushions and is pressed against my side, or his head has ended up on my thigh, his face slack and peaceful in sleep, one hand resting on my knee.
The first time it happens I freeze, unsure what to do, staring down at his sleeping face with his cheek squished against my leg and his mouth slightly open.
Kal is wedged between us and Machete is curled on my other side with her head on my hip, and I’m pinned in place by a combined weight of one alpha male and two Belgian Malinois, unable to move without waking all three of them.
I don’t move. I sit there in the blue glow of the TV’s idle screen, Hyunwoo’s breath warm through the fabric of my sweatpants, and I tell myself it’s just because the couch is comfortable and he’s a restless sleeper who gravitates toward warmth.
It doesn’t mean anything. We’ve fallen asleep on each other before—on long car rides, during boring movies, that one time we both passed out in the back of a cab coming home from a bar in Itaewon and the driver had to shake us both awake.
This is the same thing. Just proximity and comfort and years of familiarity.
One night, a few weeks into this pattern, Hyunwoo comes into my room while I’m already in bed, propped up against the headboard watching a replay of a judo tournament on my phone.
He’s in sweatpants and no shirt, only his gold chain on, and he sits down on the edge of my mattress with his own phone in hand and an expression on his face that signals incoming information I’m not going to enjoy.
“I found something important,” he says, pulling up an article on his screen and angling it so I can see the header.
It’s from a medical journal—one of the legitimate-looking ones with a long name and institutional affiliations listed beneath the title.
The article is titled something about hormonal regulation in gestating omegas and the role of alpha proximity in prenatal outcomes.
I lower my phone and eye him warily. “What now?”
Hyunwoo clears his throat and begins reading aloud.
“‘Pregnancy can render omegas significantly more susceptible to heightened stress, anxiety, and emotional distress due to the dramatic hormonal fluctuations that occur during gestation, particularly in the first and early second trimesters.’” He glances at me over the top of his phone to make sure I’m paying attention, then continues.
“‘These symptoms have been shown in repeated studies to be significantly alleviated by the steady physical presence of the omega’s alpha partner and regular exposure to the alpha’s pheromones, which have a documented soothing effect on the pregnant omega’s nervous system.
Alpha pheromone exposure during pregnancy has been demonstrated to lower cortisol levels, promote oxytocin production, and contribute to a more stable emotional baseline for the gestating omega. ’”
He pauses for emphasis, watching my face. I stare back at him, waiting for the other shoe to drop, because there is always another shoe with Hyunwoo.
It drops.
“‘Furthermore,’” he reads, his voice gaining a subtle edge of triumph that he’s not even trying to disguise, “‘omegas have been frequently noted to show improved physical health, emotional stability, and overall well-being when they are regularly seeded during pregnancy.’” He looks up at me, eyebrows raised, and repeats the word for emphasis. “Seeded.”
“I heard you.”
He looks back down at the screen. “‘Studies indicate that omegas are often physiologically comforted by the sustained presence of their alpha’s semen within the reproductive tract, as the hormones and proteins contained in alpha ejaculate have a direct calming effect on the omega’s womb environment, reduce uterine inflammation, and promote healthy fetal development.
Researchers recommend that alphas maintain consistent insemination throughout the gestational period to maximize these benefits. ’”
Hyunwoo lowers his phone and turns to me with gravity. His face is serious, his brow slightly furrowed with concern, but his eyes—those sharp, cutting brown eyes—are gleaming with the fact that he’s just found peer-reviewed justification for what he’s about to propose.
“This is clear evidence,” he says, his voice measured and reasonable, “that I need to make sure you always have my cum inside you. Not just from when we have sex at night, but maintained consistently throughout the day for maximum benefit to you and the baby.”
I open my mouth. Close it. Open it again.
“That seems…” I start, grasping for the word. “Excessive.”
Hyunwoo turns his phone toward me, pointing at the screen.
“It’s right there in the journal, Yugyeom.
The Korean Journal of Reproductive Omega Health.
Published this year. Peer-reviewed.” He taps the citation at the bottom of the article with his index finger.
“You can look it up yourself if you want.”
I squint at the citation. The journal name does look real.
The author names are Korean, with university affiliations I vaguely recognize.
I don’t possess the knowledge or the academic background to evaluate the quality of a medical study—I barely passed my general education courses in college, and the only science I’m fluent in is exercise science, which doesn’t exactly qualify me to critique reproductive health research.
Hyunwoo knows this. He’s counting on it.
“I just think—” I try again, but Hyunwoo is already setting his phone on the nightstand and shifting closer to me on the bed, his hand landing on my thigh with casual possessiveness.
“Think about what?” he asks, his thumb rubbing a slow circle against my inner thigh through the fabric of my sweatpants.
“About the health of our baby? Because that’s what I’m thinking about.
I’m thinking about making sure you’re as comfortable and healthy as possible, and if the research says that keeping you full of my cum is beneficial, then that’s what we’re going to do. ”
I look at his face—the earnest set of his jaw, the concerned furrow of his brow, the absolute sincerity in his expression that I know, I know, is at least partially manufactured—and I sigh.
Because he’s right that I can’t argue with a medical journal, and he’s right that I don’t know enough to question it, and he’s right that I care about the baby’s health.
“Fine,” I say flatly. “Whatever.”
Hyunwoo’s concerned expression breaks into a grin so fast it gives him away completely, but by the time I open my mouth to call him on it he’s already pushing me back against the pillows and reaching for my waistband.
From then on, Hyunwoo makes it his personal mission to keep me constantly filled with his cum, and he approaches the task with a thoroughness that borders on obsessive and a complete absence of self-consciousness.