ATGRA 57

I tried to sort out the situation rationally, but a beeping alarm sounded from the heating pad. It was time to go remove the needles from Lee Seolwoo’s wrist.

I shoved the contract back into the drawer and got up from my seat.

Maybe I was just overthinking things. Jung Pureum had been telling me he liked me at the drop of a hat since he was young. Thanks to that, Jung Pureum’s admiration, affection, and reverence for me… all of it had been relegated to something completely ordinary.

Could those feelings suddenly transform into romantic interest? I couldn’t be sure that it wasn’t a side effect of his trait transformation.

If he had liked me from the past, that in itself would be a huge problem. An elementary schooler liking a university student. An elementary schooler who likes a university student hyung, not someone his own age? That was a bit much.

The fact that I was feeling something for Jung Pureum was an error for a similar reason. Because I graduated from a long-program oriental medicine university, I was still a university student when Jung Pureum entered high school.

But apart from that, liking a kid who would have been playing freeze tag in the schoolyard while I was drinking at a freshman welcoming party was something that deserved condemnation from the Global Association of Ethical Standards.

A four-year age gap might be one thing, but why would people say you don’t need to check the marital compatibility for an eight-year gap? If I went to get my fortune told, the fortune teller would undoubtedly say, ‘Your fortune is to be shameless.’

“Director?”

I mindlessly removed Lee Seolwoo’s needles. Perhaps my soullessness was showing, because Lee Seolwoo called out to me in a worried tone.

“Are you okay? You’ve looked pale since a while ago.”

My attempt to separate my personal and professional life is a complete failure…

I put on my business owner’s smile and shook my head, saying I was fine. To be so obviously lost in thought in front of a patient… this was truly unlike me.

“It’s because my blood pressure is a little low. I might not look it, but I’m in a very healthy, fine, and fresh state right now.”

“…Come to think of it, your pheromones aren’t exactly stable either, Director. You should take good care of your health.”

Lee Seolwoo looked at me with a worried expression. It felt strange to be getting health advice in return from a clinic patient.

I wasn’t a particularly large person either, but compared to Lee Seolwoo, I was quite sturdy. I was at least 5 centimeters taller than Lee Seolwoo. So, Lee Seolwoo worrying about me was like a Chihuahua worrying about a Poodle.

“Um, I’m just asking, just in case.”

“Yes.”

“Do you still like Pureum?”

At my question, Lee Seolwoo stopped packing his things and just blinked. Every time his long eyelashes fluttered, the four-character idiom for a beauty that could ruin a country came to mind.

With a dominant omega like this showing interest, would there be any alpha who wouldn’t be swayed? If I were an alpha, I would have confessed to Lee Seolwoo just now. I probably would have spouted some nonsense like, ‘Would you like to run a clinic with me?’

“I do like him. You don’t find many alphas like him these days.”

“…”

“He’s kind and polite… and he doesn’t speak carelessly even if you bother him a little. He probably would have been popular even if he wasn’t an alpha, right? I was originally going to make a move on him, but I pretended not to know because it seemed like there was a strange vibe between you and him, Director.”

He’s quite the smooth talker. I nodded along to each of the good points about Jung Pureum that Lee Seolwoo listed.

Indeed, Jung Pureum was a so-called ‘unicorn.’ Hadn’t even Kim Mina regretted not asking Jung Saebom to introduce him to her after seeing how good he was at housework? It was just that he himself had no interest in dating, but if he put his mind to it, he was a man who could live like an emperor with a harem.

“Well, it’s become difficult to approach him any further since I was rejected so flatly. So, by any chance, does Mr. Jung Pureum still come here often?”

“…No? He doesn’t come anymore.”

“Hmm, I see.”

A lie slipped out before I knew it.

Jung Pureum still shows his face at our clinic every day. I’ll have to tell him not to come today.

“I thought it was one-sided, but maybe it’s mutual…”

Lee Seolwoo muttered something unintelligible under his breath. Before I had a chance to ask what he meant, he paid his bill and left the clinic.

It felt like a huge storm had just passed. If I had to feel this distraught every time a regular patient returned, it seemed better not to send out any web advertising messages.

[Pureum]

[Don’t come to the clinic for a while.]

Just in case Lee Seolwoo and Jung Pureum ran into each other at our clinic, I left Jung Pureum a message.

At my words telling him not to come without any explanation, Jung Pureum sent a series of crying puppy emoticons. I had no way to answer his question of why he couldn’t come.

[Your competition is coming up soon.]

[Don’t even show your face until you become a national athlete.]

After long deliberation, that was all the message I left.

There was no other way. I couldn’t honestly confess, ‘Lee Seolwoo has become a regular at our clinic again, and it gets on my nerves when you two run into each other, so don’t come.’ That would seem too petty.

At first, I was desperate to set the two of them up, but I have no idea how things ended up like this. Even to me, it was a truly strange change in attitude. Jung Pureum would surely be confused too, seeing me go back and forth like this.

I shook my head. Romantic feelings, my foot. If I just stayed away from romance dramas for a few days, these thoughts would naturally disappear.

Disappear, my ass!

I raised my middle finger to the me of a few days ago. As time went on, my distress, far from diminishing, only grew.

No matter how I thought about it, it seemed Jung Pureum liked me. It looked like, as his trait changed, he had come to feel something romantic for me, the closest omega to him.

This whole mess happened because Jung Pureum is surrounded by nothing but alphas. If he had had many omega friends from a young age besides me, Jung Pureum wouldn’t have necessarily liked me.

Did Adam and Eve get together because they were each other’s type? They just fell for each other because they were the only ones in the world.

To be blunt, I am not a particularly great person. My skills in oriental medicine and my character are two separate things. The number of people who have disliked me so far could fill a truck.

However, Jung Pureum, as Lee Seolwoo said, had an excellent personality. The kid would sometimes get influenced by me and do strange things, but overall, he was kind to everyone. A world of difference from me, who is picky about people.

So, it’s understandable that I might feel something for Jung Pureum. Because Jung Pureum is a guy worth feeling that way about. However, Jung Pureum feeling something for me is a bit of a problem. There are plenty of better people out on the streets, so why me of all people?

It was nothing short of lamentable. Not even knowing how in-demand of an alpha he is. Since he’s only twenty, he’s probably just drawn to a nearby omega. People can’t make rational judgments when they’re young, can they?

My wicked and selfish heart whispered, ‘Since it’s come to this, should I just pretend not to know and stick to Jung Pureum?’ If my last remaining conscience hadn’t been screaming, ‘Are you trying to block the kid’s future?’ I might have been slightly swayed.

[hyung]

[Did I really do something wrong?]

[You won’t let me come to the clinic]

[And you changed the front door passcode]

[ㅠㅠ]

Now that I was aware of this attraction, the best method was avoidance. …Yes, from now on, I am an avoider!

I may be an aggressive oriental doctor who fights against injustice, but right now, avoidance is the right answer. I couldn’t stab Jung Pureum with a large needle. If I had to stab something, it should be my own head, which was swayed just because the kid acted a little cute.

[I don’t even wear cologne anymore]

[If you tell me what I did wrong]

[I’ll fix everything]

Jung Pureum had done nothing wrong. My heart broke seeing Jung Pureum say he would fix things even though he had done nothing wrong.

This is the problem, being so soft-hearted. What are you going to fix! What’s wrong isn’t you, but everything else in the world, including me.

[Come after the selection trials are over.]

[I think becoming a national athlete is]

[the most important thing.]

Jung Pureum started sending a stream of [ㅠ] and crying puppy emoticons.

Still, it was a real relief that the national team selection trials were just around the corner. He would think I was avoiding him because of the trials.

Once he becomes a national athlete, Jung Pureum will naturally get busy, and I can just take that time to leisurely get my act together.

I will distance myself from romance dramas and avoid my family to keep from hearing about marriage and blind dates. While doing that, I’ll devote my life solely to the work of the clinic. Then, the feelings that were momentarily drawn to Jung Pureum should subside.

I, at least, had to keep a level head. Jung Pureum, being soft-hearted and good-natured on top of that, would surely fall for me head over heels without even knowing what his own feelings were.

I couldn’t give a shocking dating experience to a kid who just turned twenty for my own sake.

[National Athlete]

[You must become a national athlete.]

I sent a few more messages that were close to brainwashing. A reply came back from Jung Pureum quickly, but I closed my phone without checking it.

It had already been three weeks since I started skipping my dates with Jung Pureum using the national team as an excuse. If Jung Pureum even brought up the ‘C’ in ‘contract,’ I would immediately bring up the ‘N’ in ‘national team’ to defend myself.

I was surely being more obsessive than the lady next door or his coach. Because right now, I was acting like an overbearing parent who would die if their child didn’t get first place in the entire school.

However, even though I was pushing Jung Pureum away to this extent, the feelings I had once become aware of did not disappear like smoke. Rather, I kept thinking about him.

How great would it be if I could turn back time to the past when I was like a fool, thinking nothing?

They say that when you realize you like someone, your heart flutters and you feel happy, but my hands were trembling and all sorts of worries came first. Is it a magnesium deficiency… The kid really has no idea how scary the world is! What would he have done if I had come at him with dark intentions?

Besides, I was also part of the problem for having accepted him so thoughtlessly all this time. Why did I only now recognize the attitude of Jung Pureum, who was chirping ‘I like you’ like a chick by my side?

If it weren’t for Lee Seolwoo, I probably would never have thought to look at the contract again. If my mom hadn’t been so pushy, I wouldn’t have even had this worry in the first place.

While my distress remained the same, my phone, oblivious to my inner turmoil, began to vibrate. Thinking it was Jung Pureum, I intentionally didn’t answer, but instead of the call ending, the vibration just kept getting longer.

I eventually flipped over the phone I had placed face down. The two characters for ‘Mom’ were displayed on the screen.

This was also a problem. I had to fix this habit of automatically assuming it was Jung Pureum whenever the phone rang.

“Hello.”

I answered the phone in a dying voice.