He Can’t Love Him… Right?

“I’m so pissed, I’m so pissed… I’m so pissed, f*ck!”

Seonwoo, who had been speeding down the road, eventually couldn’t control his surging emotions and pulled over onto the shoulder.
He pounded the steering wheel wildly, his rage evident in every blow.
“How does this make any sense….”
After thrashing around like a madman for a while, Seonwoo eventually rested his forehead on the steering wheel and muttered.
He had tried to calm himself with a drive, but it was all useless.
‘I guess you didn’t know. Actually, Haeyoon and I are dating.’
Baek Jeongha’s voice, spouting such nonsensical words while looking him straight in the eye, came back to him vividly.
The memory of Baek Jeongha, at his own wedding, holding Seo Haeyoon’s waist affectionately and daring to kiss his cheek, made him feel like his head was going to explode.
Wasn’t this what Ahn Seonwoo had longed for?
How desperately had he wished for Jeongha to stand by his side as his lover, to look at him affectionately, to kiss him?
For that, Seonwoo would have sincerely sold his soul to the devil.
So why was that desperately desired person standing by Seo Haeyoon’s side, not his?
In the end, Ahn Seonwoo became the most miserable and pathetic person at his own wedding, which should have been his happiest day.
Today of all days, Seo Haeyoon should have been the one envying and admiring him more than anyone else.
He had come this far for that.
“How could that happen? How?”
He kept muttering the same thing.
He simply couldn’t believe it.
‘Rather than dating you, I’d date Seo Haeyoon.’
Baek Jeongha’s words, which no matter how hard he tried he could never forget, tightened around Seonwoo’s neck again.
It was around the time his conflict with Baek Jeongha had reached its peak.
Around then, Ahn Seonwoo knew his actions were tantamount to stalking.
But even knowing, he couldn’t stop.
No, he didn’t want to stop.
He thought that even if Baek Jeongha rejected him now, once things were resolved soon, everything would be fine.
There was no Alpha who could resist Ahn Seonwoo’s seduction forever.
Seonwoo was certain of that.
But in the end, Jeongha never coveted anything Ahn Seonwoo had to offer.
Saying instead that the more he tried, the more tiresome it became.
Even then, Ahn Seonwoo wasn’t deeply wounded.
He thought that if ten attempts didn’t work, he’d try a hundred.
He believed Jeongha would eventually come to him.
To Ahn Seonwoo, Baek Jeongha was worth that much.
That’s when Baek Jeongha said it.
He said he’d rather date Seo Haeyoon than be with him.
Those words brutally shattered Ahn Seonwoo’s heart, which had been like an impregnable fortress.
Even being compared to Seo Haeyoon was an insult to his pride, so he couldn’t cling to Baek Jeongha any longer when he treated him as inferior to Haeyoon.
So, instead of giving up on Baek Jeongha, Ahn Seonwoo resolved to take revenge on Seo Haeyoon.
He could no longer tolerate Haeyoon, who used his naive personality as an excuse to always covet what he had, steal it, yet still pretend to be the good guy.
He wanted to return the misery he felt, exactly.
In truth, Ahn Seonwoo knew.
He knew Baek Jeongha didn’t really have an interest in Haeyoon when he said that.
He hadn’t given up back then because he thought Jeongha liked Haeyoon.
It made no sense for Baek Jeongha, who wasn’t even interested in Betas, to take an interest in Haeyoon.
Even if Haeyoon had subtly tried to seduce him, Jeongha wasn’t the type to fall for it.
Jeongha was simply using Seo Haeyoon as a weapon.
There were no real feelings involved.
But even without real feelings, Ahn Seonwoo had taken an irreparable blow from that attack.
Seonwoo couldn’t stand that someone like Seo Haeyoon had become the weapon that destroyed him.
So he decided to break Haeyoon as much as he himself had suffered.
That should have been the end of the story.
“There’s no way Baek Jeongha could really like Seo Haeyoon… No way.”
Seonwoo muttered like a lunatic, biting his nails.
He tried desperately to grasp and understand the situation, but his mind wouldn’t work.
Then, suddenly, a sentence flashed in his mind.
“Could it be… because of me?”
Seen in a certain light, it was an obvious assumption.
Jeongha appeared today as Haeyoon’s boyfriend, but the more important fact was that he had been expressing his feelings to him before the wedding.
‘I’m dating Haeyoon.’
‘I’d rather date Seo Haeyoon.’
Slowly, other messages began to surface over Jeongha’s heart-wrenching words.
[You won’t regret this marriage, will you?]
[I had a bit to drink.]
[Forget it. Have a good marriage.]
[Sleep well.]
This wasn’t delusion or wishful thinking.
This was Baek Jeongha’s real, tangible trace left for Ahn Seonwoo.
There was no way someone like Baek Jeongha, who had been so cold and cruel to him, would stir up his feelings without a reason.
There must be a reason he swallowed his pride and contacted him.
In other words, it meant there was desperation.
It was only possible if he was so desperate he couldn’t bear it without contacting Seonwoo.
That feeling couldn’t be anything else.
Late-blooming love, regret, a desperate desire to reclaim what was lost—only that could be Baek Jeongha’s reason.
Perhaps Seonwoo had been overly conscious of his feelings for Oh Jaeyeol.
How deeply in love would stealing your best friend’s lover and marrying them appear to others?
Even though he contacted impulsively out of desperation, from Jeongha’s perspective, unaware of the circumstances, it was natural to think Ahn Seonwoo truly and deeply loved Oh Jaeyeol.
“Could it really…?”
Once his thoughts turned in this direction, his speculation gradually transformed into certainty.
It was only natural.
This was a far more logical and plausible hypothesis than Baek Jeongha truly loving Seo Haeyoon.
What had Baek Jeongha’s expression been like at the wedding?
Seonwoo stopped biting his nails and desperately tried to remember.
Come to think of it, hadn’t he seemed overly conscious of him?
There was no need to go that far.
There was no need to show off like that, yet Jeongha had precisely timed the moment Seonwoo was looking and kissed Haeyoon’s cheek.
It was an unnecessary action.
Whatever the reason, Baek Jeongha wasn’t the type to boast in front of others.
And yet, he deliberately acted like that in front of him, in front of people who knew the situation?
There must be another reason.
It couldn’t be otherwise.
Seonwoo grabbed his phone, which he had irritably thrown onto the passenger seat.
Remembering Jeongha’s messages, his mind calmed down as if by magic.
Whatever the truth, he could find out after the honeymoon.
It didn’t make sense for Baek Jeongha, whom even Ahn Seonwoo had failed to win, to be taken by a Beta like Seo Haeyoon.
He would uncover everything—what happened between Baek Jeongha and Seo Haeyoon, what tricks Seo Haeyoon used, what Baek Jeongha’s true feelings were.
He would shatter Seo Haeyoon’s futile dream once again.
At this moment, Oh Jaeyeol, who had just exchanged rings with him, promising a hundred years of happiness, was completely absent from Ahn Seonwoo’s mind.

* * * *

– You really worked hard, Haeyoon.

The voice on the other end of the phone was Sua’s.
Haeyoon was exhausted, having showered almost half-asleep, but he couldn’t ignore his friend’s call, who must have been worried all day.
In fact, Sua and Sumin had wanted to attend Oh Jaeyeol and Ahn Seonwoo’s wedding today.
They said this time, they’d make sure to properly embarrass them.
Haeyoon had stopped them.
He said it was enough that he and Baek Jeongha were involved in their wedding, and he didn’t want them to get talked about either.
Sumin and Sua understood how Haeyoon felt.
At the sincere concern in his friend’s voice, Haeyoon bit his lip tightly.
Even though to others it was nothing but a ridiculous melodrama, the affectionate words made his nose sting for no reason.
“Thank you.”
Haeyoon nodded, pulling the blanket up to his chin as he lay in bed.
Today had truly been a hard day for him.
– They didn’t try to contact you or anything, did they?

Even amidst the careful question, the rough language used for the couple was still there, so very Sua, and it made him laugh unexpectedly.
Throughout the painful and confusing times, the unwavering presence of his friends had always been a great comfort to him.
“Yeah. No contact.”
– That bastard Ahn Seonwoo, with his temper, will definitely contact you after the honeymoon. Don’t answer, and definitely don’t meet him alone. Got it, Haeyoon? He’ll absolutely, one hundred percent, go crazy.

“Hmm….”
– If you have to meet him, make sure you take us or Woojin with you. Okay?

“Okay. Don’t worry so much, Sua.”
What was there to worry about like that?
Sua made him promise repeatedly in a serious voice.
Honestly, Haeyoon didn’t think something like what Sua was worried about would happen, but he readily agreed.
He didn’t want to worry his friends any further.
Suddenly, he felt a strange sensation.
Haeyoon had thought today was the end.
But now, with Jeongha and even Sua talking as if it was absolutely not the end, it felt odd.
Ahn Seonwoo had already fallen in love with Oh Jaeyeol.
He might have been upset by Jeongha’s sudden appearance, but now that they were married, what point was there for Haeyoon to do anything more?
To Haeyoon, who wouldn’t have even imagined revenge if Seonwoo hadn’t shamelessly kept bothering him, it was utterly incomprehensible.
– What about Baek Jeongha…

Just then, a name suddenly jumped from Sua’s lips and sharply pierced his ear.
Haeyoon, lost in complex thoughts, flinched reflexively.
After letting the word hang for a moment as if hesitating, Sua quickly continued.
– No, never mind. You must be tired, get some rest. Let’s talk in detail when we meet. Sleep warmly and soundly. Don’t think about anything.

Haeyoon was curious about what Sua was going to say, but asking felt strangely awkward, so he swallowed the question.
“Yeah, I will. Thank you. It seems like I’m always just owing you guys.”
– Hey, what are you saying that for between us? Enough, get some rest. Contact me when you wake up. Hanging up.