Chapter Fifteen
Isit stiffly in the passenger seat of Hyunwoo’s Maserati with my leg bouncing against the floorboard, the nervous energy working through my body with nowhere to go.
My hands are folded over the top of my belly, fingers laced together, squeezing tight enough that my knuckles ache.
I glance over at Hyunwoo for the fourth time in as many minutes, but he’s got his gaze fixed on the road ahead, his jaw set, both hands on the wheel at ten and two, completely unlike his usual one-handed, elbow-out-the-window driving style.
The silence between us fills the car. It’s been like this for days now, this stiff, uncomfortable quiet.
Ever since the fight we haven’t talked about it.
Not a word. Hyunwoo sleeps on his side of the bed with his back turned toward me, a gap of cold sheets between us that might as well be a canyon.
I lie awake on my side staring at the ceiling, listening to him breathe, feeling the bond ache between us like a bruise that won’t stop being pressed on.
During the day we move around each other in the apartment with the careful, overly polite distance of strangers sharing a hotel room, saying things like “excuse me” and “the bathroom’s free” instead of the easy, overlapping chaos that used to define our cohabitation.
The dogs can feel it too. Machete has taken to lying in the hallway between our bedroom and the living room like she’s trying to bridge the gap, and Kal follows me from room to room with his ears pinned flat, pressing his body against my leg whenever I sit down.
I genuinely don’t know what to say to fix it.
Part of me is angry, still, because Hyunwoo isn’t being fair.
He’s acting like an unreasonable alpha, possessive and territorial, making declarations about ownership without ever sitting me down and asking what I actually want.
Saying things like “you’re my omega” as though that settles the matter, as though my feelings and my autonomy are secondary details that don’t require consultation.
But another part of me knows that Hyunwoo’s only being like this because of the pregnancy and the bond and the months of sex that blurred every line we drew.
It’s instinct talking, not genuine feeling.
He’s not thinking through what any of it actually means, not considering the implications of a relationship that goes beyond the friendship we’ve had for our whole lives.
The hormones and the instincts and the pheromones have gotten tangled up with real emotion, and he can’t tell the difference anymore.
That’s what I tell myself, anyway. So I let him stew.
Except now we have to go meet his family together, and the tension between us is spectacularly bad timing.
Hyunwoo’s parents and grandmother have been asking to meet formally with me since Hyunwoo told them about the pregnancy months ago, but Hyunwoo’s been putting it off at my request, making excuses about my condition, saying we wanted to get through the first trimester safely before celebrating anything official, then simply dodging whenever a date was proposed.
His mother would call and suggest a Sunday lunch and Hyunwoo would invent a conflict.
His grandmother would send a formal summons through the family secretary and Hyunwoo would have his assistant reply with regrets and a vague promise of “soon.” But the birth is coming soon and we can’t stall any longer.
His grandmother made it very clear through his mother last week that “soon” had arrived, and that if Hyunwoo didn’t bring me to the estate this weekend she would come to the apartment herself, which is a threat neither of us wants to see carried out.
My stomach twists as Hyunwoo turns the Maserati onto the long private drive and the house where we both grew up comes into view through the windshield.
The sprawling Seo estate sits at the end of a tree-lined approach, elegant and imposing, pale stone and dark roof tiles surrounded by manicured grounds that stretch out in every direction.
The gardens are bare now in late winter, the trees skeletal, but I can see them in my mind the way they looked in summer when Hyunwoo and I were kids, tearing through the hedgerows and climbing the old oak by the east wing and driving his nursemaids and nannies to the absolute edge of sanity trying to wrangle us.
I skinned my knees on that gravel path a hundred times.
I learned to ride a bike on that lawn. I got my first bloody nose right there by the fountain when Hyunwoo accidentally elbowed me during a wrestling match and then cried harder about it than I did.
The house might belong to the Seo family officially, but it’s my home too.
The only home I knew until I left for college.
Which only makes me more nervous as Hyunwoo puts the car in park at the front steps, because the people inside that house know me as the servants’ boy, the kid who tagged along after their son, the omega who grew up underfoot.
And now I’m showing up eight months pregnant with the family heir in my belly, bonded to their only child through a series of decisions that started as an ill-conceived money scheme and spiraled into the mess we’re in now.
I sit in the passenger seat and don’t move, my hands gripping my knees.
Hyunwoo gets out, comes around to my side, and opens the door.
He extends his hand to help me out of the low-slung car, which I need since getting in and out of the Maserati at this stage of pregnancy is an engineering challenge that requires leverage and careful weight distribution to avoid tipping sideways.
I take his hand and let him pull me upright, steadying myself on my feet as my lower back protests.
Hyunwoo looks me up and down, his gaze traveling over my face, and whatever he sees there, the anxiety that must be written across every feature I have, makes his resolve soften.
The tightness he’s been wearing for days eases slightly, the hard line of his mouth relaxing, and for a second he looks like my Hyunwoo again instead of the cold, wounded stranger who’s been sleeping with his back to me.
“Hey,” he says. He grips my chin gently with his thumb and forefinger, tilting my face up so I have to meet his eyes. “It’s going to be fine. My parents have known you since you were in diapers, Yuggie. You’re practically family already.”
“I know,” I say, and my voice small. “But doesn’t that make it worse? It’s the plot of a bad drama.”
Hyunwoo shakes his head, the corner of his mouth twitching. “What are they going to do, tell me to put it back?”
I crack a smile at that despite myself, some of the tension bleeding out of my shoulders. “I guess not.”
Hyunwoo leans in and kisses me. Light, brief, just a press of his lips against mine that’s over before I can feel it.
It catches me completely off guard given the distance between us lately, the days of cold silence and turned backs, and I blink at him with what must be a startled expression because his mouth curves into something close to his usual smirk when he pulls back.
“Come on,” he says, taking my hand. “Let’s go get the scolding we’ve been putting off.”
Inside, we follow the familiar halls I know like the back of my hand.
The polished hardwood floors that I used to slide across in my socks as a kid.
The artwork on the walls that I grew up staring at without understanding.
The way the afternoon light falls through the tall windows along the east corridor, making long golden rectangles across the floor that Hyunwoo and I used to pretend were stepping stones over lava.
Everything looks the same as it always has, immaculate and grand and smelling faintly of the fresh flowers that the household staff replaces in every room twice a week.
The eyes of those staff follow us as we pass, and apparently Hyunwoo wasn’t lying when he said his family had kept the situation confidential, because the servants we encounter, many of whom have known me since I was a toddler trailing after Hyunwoo through these very halls, look genuinely stunned when they see my condition.
Faces I recognize from childhood do visible double takes at my pregnant belly straining against the soft knit sweater Hyunwoo picked out for me this morning.
One of the older housekeepers, a woman named Mrs. Park who used to sneak me extra rice cakes from the kitchen when I was small, actually stops in her tracks and presses both hands over her mouth, her eyes going wide and shiny.
My cheeks burn hot enough to fry an egg on, but Hyunwoo tows me forward, his hand holding mine lightly, his thumb rubbing a small circle against my knuckle that I’m not sure he’s even aware he’s doing.
We reach the formal sitting room and my pulse kicks up hard.
Through the open double doors I can see Hyunwoo’s mother and father waiting inside, both standing near the window, both impeccably dressed.
His mother is in a tailored cream blouse and dark slacks, her hair swept up, her posture effortless elegance.
His father stands beside her in a charcoal sweater and pressed trousers, his hands clasped behind his back, looking distinguished and composed in the way that wealthy men of a certain age always seem to manage.
They both turn when the doors open wider and Hyunwoo guides me through.
I drop automatically into the deep, respectful bow my body has performed thousands of times in this house since I was old enough to stand, the greeting drilled into me by my parents who served this family with quiet, unwavering dignity.
But the bow nearly tips me off balance now with my shifted center of gravity, the weight of my belly pulling me forward past the point of easy recovery, and I wobble dangerously before Hyunwoo’s hand catches my elbow and steadies me, pulling me gently upright.