“......”

It was like cold water had been thrown over me. Nothing he had ever said made me angry, but this time I felt a flash «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» of humiliation. He could insult me in every other way, but not about that. That, at least, was not something Kwon Yido had the right to demean. My vision went white, as if my eyes had turned inside out.

“......Why.”

Clutching the edge of the blanket, I looked up at him. At some point, tears had welled and slipped down from the corners of my eyes.

“What would you have done, then.”

I was furious. Since meeting him... no, since I had begun living as my father’s son, for the first time. Not once had I ever felt such injustice, and it burst out now, directed only at Kwon Yido.

“If I had been screwing around with your brother while pissing myself.”

“......”

“Then it would’ve been filth—hahk!”

A crushing pain ripped through me. Yido had forced himself too far inside. I had thought he’d never gone easy before, but this time it felt like he had reached somewhere that was never meant to be touched.

“I should never have trusted someone like you.”

He spoke as if he were the one truly wounded. Without giving me a chance to say more, he flipped me over like an object, the way he had the very first time we had sex.

“Ahk, ah, wait, ahhk... huuhk!”

After that, there was no chance left to be angry. My face was shoved into the pillow, my whole body flattened under his weight. I pushed back with my arms, but Yido didn’t budge. Instead, he pinned my wrists behind my back and kept driving his hips.

“Stop, hhk, ahk...!”

Even if a heat cycle had come, not every act could be taken as pleasure. His reckless thrusts felt more like being beaten. His pheromones poured down over me until it seemed I might suffocate and drown.

“Hhuhk...!” 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

“......Haa.”

Thud! He buried himself deep and hunched forward. Near my navel, his cock began to swell. The head, bloating like a clenched fist, jammed against a place it should never have reached. While I choked and gasped for air, Yido pressed me down hard.

“Sejin-ah.”

I didn’t know why his voice still sounded so gentle, even at a moment like this. Even through the haze in my head, that call reached me clearly. And then, the small whisper that followed.

“I told you I’d regret it.”

That low murmur coiled around me. Before I could answer, he rubbed his nose against my nape. No... surely not. Anxiety surged just before I felt the sharp snap of teeth sinking into tender flesh.

“......!”

My chest collapsed inward. My insides twisted, then snapped back into place. From the forcibly crushed pheromone gland, pheromones burst out in torrents.

“Ah, ahhk...!”

Like an animal, he drove his teeth into me. My pheromones spilled and bound with his. Pinned to the bed as if mounted and stuffed, I was torn apart by unbearable pain.

“Ah, aahh, ugh...!”

I was being imprinted. There was no other way to describe it. Whatever freedom I had left was stripped away, and I was made to belong to him like an object. The feeling of being forced into someone’s possession was like having my organs sliced open with a knife.

“Hhuuhk...!”

It hurt so much that being raped outright would have been better. What was trampled wasn’t only my body, but my very self. The act was degrading and shameful, and it made me think that somewhere, something had gone irreparably wrong.

“......”

I don’t know why Yido said nothing then. Why he clung to me as if to crush me, and yet froze in place. It had been his choice, and still he looked shocked in that moment.

They said that with special traits, an imprint could be forced, depending on superiority of traits. I was dominant, but Yido’s traits were stronger still. What no one knew was that with a forced imprint, nothing could truly be shared.

“......Aahh.”

Maybe because our hearts didn’t connect, I felt none of his emotions or memories. The pain was like nothing I had ever known, to the point I couldn’t even breathe. So until I collapsed like a power cut, I never knew what Yido was thinking.

When I next opened my eyes, I was back in Yido’s room. The wide bed and high ceiling felt like a prison I would never escape.

Just two days. Two days after I had resolved to run, I had been dragged back into that huge house.

***

A special-trait imprint was normally something shared between married partners. A binding of souls, a romantic promise. Sharing memories and feelings, sensing only each other’s pheromones.

Months passed in the blink of an eye since Yido imprinted me. I still felt nothing. My heat cycles had stopped entirely. All trace of Kwon Ijeong was gone, but the bite mark at my nape lingered like a scar.

This time, Yido locked me not in a third-floor corner room but in his own. The door wasn’t locked, but it was imprisonment all the same. I always had to sleep in his bed, and whenever I left the room, a bodyguard was attached to me.

Confinement. Surveillance. A new kind of neglect. I grew sick of seeing the bodyguards’ faces, yet Yido’s face was the hardest to see. He was gone, busy with something else, leaving the room empty.

Honestly, it was a relief. Whenever I happened to face him, I froze in uncontrollable terror. Because of the memory of being forcibly claimed, even knowing it was phantom pain, I suffocated.

'I told you I’d regret it.'

I had died that day. What remained now was only an empty shell. At first I wandered the house, but eventually I stopped even leaving the room. When I starved myself into collapse, a doctor arrived with impeccable timing to hook me up to IV drips.

When you prepare for death, there are always things you sort through inside. Old hopes you could never let go, shabby feelings clung to for the future, but that in the end are just worthless regrets.

I had no more desires. I wasn’t afraid of being abandoned by him, nor of stumbling barefoot through the snow. All basic impulses had faded, and I felt like nothing more than a machine left to breathe.

Then came autumn, the edge of winter. The sudden cold left me feverish. When I lingered sickly in bed, Professor Shim appeared, again with impeccable timing. She drained three vials of my blood and begged me at least to eat properly.

“At this rate you’ll really die.”

If Yido hadn’t come, I would have died that day. I had nearly succumbed to the sleeping pills, but Yido had dragged me back. He had raped me like Ijeong, and unlike him, picked me up instead of walking away.

Why imprint me, then?

That thought came sometimes. He never looked at me, never spoke to me, and yet never let me go.

And why did he only come when I was asleep?

“Sejin-ah.”

The season had turned close to winter, but perhaps Yido’s winter was ending. Maybe the imprint had softened him. At some point, his voice calling me had gentled. He would come close when I lay still with eyes closed and sometimes whisper:

“What should I do for you.”

“......”

“I’ll do whatever you ask....”

Should I tell him to get on his knees? I thought about it, then gave up. Too late, I realized that when Yido said those words, he never meant to forgive me. It was just a flare of temper, vented in passing.

“Sejin-ah.”

If he was going to call my name, I wished he would do it while I was awake. Why wait until I was drifting into sleep? It made no sense if he didn’t realize I was awake. It made no sense even if he did.

Maybe if I’d had a little more strength, I would have asked him. Looked at him, and asked: I want nothing anymore. What is it you still want from me?

“You’re pregnant.”

The next day, Professor Shim told me something unbelievable. Even I, sunk in blankness, was startled. After a long silence, she left me with just one line:

“Please, make sure you eat.”

I was an omega, but I had never once thought about pregnancy. When I had spoken of it to Yido, it was only because I thought I ought to do what was required of me. Because even a defective omega like me had one role left to play: to bear him an heir.

“......”

That night, I walked down the dim hallway toward the study. Bare feet against carpet, I dragged myself along the endless corridor. My knees kept buckling after so long without walking, but I forced my heavy body onward.

'Whether it’s mine or that bastard’s, it won’t matter much....'

Whose child was inside me? Ijeong’s, or Yido’s? Both had raped me, both had knotted inside me. It had all happened within three days; there was no way to tell.

Well... whoever’s child it was, it had little to do with me.

Click, I opened the study door. Thankfully, Yido wasn’t there. Staring into the empty room, I moved toward the wall where the decorations hung.

'You asked me, didn’t you. If the gun in the study was real.'

In a wooden frame hung a sleek weapon. Black body, silver muzzle gleaming. I’d first thought it a lighter, but he had told me it was real.

'Pull the trigger and it’ll fire.'

Slowly, I reached for it. If someone asked me what I was thinking, I’d say: nothing. I had always been waiting for this moment, drifting because no turning point had come.

'It was my resolve, my vow. That until I achieved what I wanted, I would never compromise.'

Maybe part of me hoped it was fake. Hoped that his words about resolve and vows had been mere bravado. I had chosen this weapon so as not to compromise, but maybe at the end I was wavering.

I perched on the table where I had once taught him French and hooked my finger around the trigger. I had never held such a thing, but its weight was nothing like a lighter. It felt far too heavy for the weakened me.

'...What does it mean?'

That you’ve lost your sense of reality....

If only I hadn’t kissed him then. Or if I had told the truth. Maybe then something between us would have changed.

“Does my head look... too grotesque?”

My voice came out hoarse from disuse, embarrassing even though I was only talking to myself. Just recalling a memory of him made my heart pound, as though it had never stopped.

So slowly, I lifted the muzzle to my chest. I didn’t even know the exact spot—just aimed somewhere around there. It might misfire, but I didn’t consider that possibility.

'They said you were a decent omega....'

Pathetically, in the moment before pulling the trigger, I thought of Yido. From our first meeting until now, every scene flashed by like a panorama. His gaze looking down at me, the moment it softened, and finally, that warm smile.

'Will you sleep in my room tonight?'

Ah, I never said I loved him. We had shared our bodies so often, and never once spoken it aloud. He had never said it to me either, so maybe it was the same for both of us.

“...Kwon Yido.”

The last name I called felt chillingly unfamiliar. Though I had repeated it endlessly in my heart, I had only spoken it aloud a handful of times. If I had the chance, I would have said it more. That thought lingered as I closed my eyes.

“......”

The door creaked open. Through the half-opened crack stepped a familiar figure. He entered, saw me, and his eyes widened.

“...Jung Sejin?”

I don’t know why I smiled then. Maybe because he looked worried. Maybe from the intoxication of startling him. Or maybe because I was simply glad to see him once, at least.

“Have you been well, Mr. Kwon.”

I was glad for the chance to say goodbye. I thought that, and gave a hollow laugh. Days I had lived as though frozen now felt like they were flowing. Maybe that’s why I spitefully added one more line.

“...Try to be well.”

Would you be able to? I hoped not. I didn’t need you to regret, but I wanted you not to forget me. I didn’t want to hurt you, but at least I wanted to remain as a memory.

“No....”

Yido whispered like a breath. His face, stiff with shock, burned into my mind. I shut my eyes and pressed the muzzle hard against my chest. As my finger tightened on the trigger, at last he shouted in a cracked voice:

“Jung Sejin!”

Bang! The gunshot split the air. Pain seared through me, but what I felt was peace. Finally it was over. No more worries. The endless repetition would not continue.

“No, no....”

After that, my memories came in fragments. Him rushing toward me. A despairing face I had never seen before. Hands pressing against my bleeding chest. His hand clutching mine and dragging it to his own face.

“Sejin-ah....”

If I had one wish, it was to have known whole, genuine love. If I could start over, I wished someone would show me how. If I had done wrong, I wished for forgiveness. And this time, to live without being abandoned.

“No, please....”

Like winter snow melting away, tears spilled from his frozen eyes. Droplets falling that seemed almost suited to the moment. Was he crying because he had lost me? Or because of the futility of everything? I hoped, at least, that it was for the feelings he still had for me.

Did I hear the ambulance then? Or had the world gone dark before the sirens came? All I knew for certain was that until the moment my eyes closed, Yido never let me go.

“Hhuhk....”

Slowly, the world distorted. Instead of the Yido crying above me, another Yido appeared, looking down. The fog lifted from my mind, the chaos settling into order.

“What the hell....”

The gun on the wall was no longer there. The table where I had taught him French was gone. Same time, different scenes. Memories of him I had forgotten until now.

“...Sejin-ah.”

At the end of that memory, there was Yido. The Yido before me now was no longer a vision of the past. Embraced in his warmth, I lost consciousness.