I’ll Always Come When You Call

“How did this happen…? Who did this?”

Haeyoon’s tone was like that of an older brother tending to a younger sibling.
Normally, he would have hated being treated like a child, but right now, Jeongha found it immensely satisfying.
If Haeyoon saw him as someone who needed protecting and caring for, he wouldn’t run away or avoid him.
Seo Haeyoon was that kind of person.

“Well….”

Jeongha deliberately paused, then slowly opened his mouth.
“Oh Jaeyeol… came by.”
“What?”
“I ran into him in front of the studio on my way here.”

He had considered whether it would be better to hide the fact that Jaeyeol had come.
But judging by how that bastard was acting, he’d definitely show up again soon.
He’d been lucky today that Jeongha had stopped him, but there was no telling what would happen next time.
First, it had been pathetic drunk messages, and now he was showing up in person.
Jeongha knew exactly what this meant.

It wasn’t surprising.
From the start, Jeongha had expected Oh Jaeyeol wouldn’t just disappear from Haeyoon’s life like this.
Since he couldn’t prevent them from running into each other entirely, the only option was to build a stronger wall around Haeyoon’s heart.
“Did Oh Jaeyeol… hit you?”

Haeyoon’s eyes wavered.
Jeongha answered, looking dejected, like a dog caught out in the rain.
“I figured if he ran into you, you’d just end up getting hurt, so I was trying to stop him from going in… I just got hit once, it’s no big deal. Doesn’t even hurt.”

He knew that if he said it didn’t hurt, he’d look even more pitiable.
Sure enough, Haeyoon muttered, his voice full of distress.
“It doesn’t hurt, your lip is split and bleeding.”
“…….”
“I’ll put some ointment on. Bear with it even if it stings.”
“Okay.”

Jeongha answered meekly, then watched Haeyoon squeeze ointment onto his finger and leaned in.
What was a scratch like that?
But Haeyoon’s face as he applied the ointment was so serious it kept making him want to laugh.
When he twitched his lips trying to hold back the smile, Haeyoon thought he was holding back pain and looked even more sullen.
Then Jeongha found that face unbearably cute and had to suppress his laughter, and then Haeyoon would…
It was like a sitcom.
And Jeongha liked this atmosphere.

“Now he’s gone so far as to hit people….”

Haeyoon muttered, carefully applying the medicine and closing the ointment cap.
He looked genuinely shocked.
He turned back to Jeongha.
“You’re going through all this because of me.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Jeongha shook his head firmly.
“It’s not because of you, it’s because of Oh Jaeyeol.”
“But….”
“And maybe about one percent? That’s on me.”
“……?”
“I kind of provoked him with my words. Actually, a lot.”

Haeyoon, who had looked dazed for a moment at the unexpected statement, soon let out a puff of laughter.
“Huh? Why are you laughing?”
“Nothing… I was just thinking that if it’s Baek Jeongha, you must have really laid into him with your words.”

Saying it out loud made the scene even clearer, and Haeyoon covered his mouth with the back of his hand, laughing.
Jeongha sat quietly and watched his face.
The deeply curved corners of his eyes, the small laugh filling the space—it all stirred something in his chest.

He wanted to protect this laughter.
He wanted to make him laugh like this, without a single worry, trouble, or pain.
Even if he ran from defining what this feeling was, even if he cowardly avoided it, he couldn’t deny the feeling itself that automatically filled his heart whenever he was with Seo Haeyoon.
This was definitely what Baek Jeongha was experiencing now.

A euphoria he had never felt when acting on mere physical desire filled his entire being.
He turned to Haeyoon, who had stopped laughing.
“Oh Jaeyeol will probably come again.”
“Ah….”
“Then you have to call me, for sure. Got it? Don’t meet him alone, ever.”

Haeyoon didn’t answer immediately.
Not because he was hesitating, unsure of what to say.
And certainly not because he was worried or nervous that Jaeyeol might come again.
It was Jeongha who had silenced him.
The look in his eyes, his voice, every breath between his words—all filled with unmistakable concern.
He could clearly feel Jeongha’s desire to protect him.
So Haeyoon couldn’t easily say anything.
“Anytime, anywhere, it doesn’t matter. Even in the middle of the night, at dawn, if you call, I’ll come running.”
“Jeongha….”

After what had happened at his house, Haeyoon had tried to sort out his thoughts.
After agonizing over it, the conclusion he reached was a resolve to be careful not to let Jeongha overly concern himself with his affairs.
Jeongha had already done more for him than he deserved.
The wedding was actually trivial.
Jeongha had made him laugh when laughter was hard, and lent him courage when he had none.
He had helped him continue his daily life even with wounds still unhealed.
He couldn’t ask for more from Jeongha.
He didn’t intend to cut ties entirely, but he thought he should draw a line, at least so Jeongha wouldn’t worry about things related to Oh Jaeyeol and Ahn Seonwoo.
That’s what he’d decided.
He had.

“Hm? Make sure you call me.”

What kind of magic did Baek Jeongha have?
Jeongha’s voice, almost pleading with him, was so earnest and so reassuring that he couldn’t bring himself to ignore it.
“…Yeah. I will.”

In the end, Haeyoon once again found himself helplessly reaching for his hand.
He would never know that the wound on Baek Jeongha’s face was solely a means to that end.

* * * *

– By the way, are you feeling okay now?

Seonwoo, who had been pretending to care while listening to someone he wasn’t particularly interested in, looked puzzled at the sudden question.

The person on the phone was a colleague from the company where Jaeyeol currently worked, the same company Seonwoo had quit when he got married. They weren’t particularly close. The person was known within the company for being tactless, so many people kept their distance. Seonwoo had no reason to be close to someone like that either.

But after he quit, and gossip about the wedding and its aftermath spread through the company, he’d lost touch even with colleagues he’d been close with. They’d answer if he called, but their discomfort was obvious.

The real reason they distanced themselves was more because of Seonwoo’s usual rudeness and his habit of subtly looking down on people than his personal life, but Seonwoo blamed it all on Seo Haeyoon.

The person he was on the phone with now was the only colleague who welcomed his calls. With few friends or colleagues left to contact, Seonwoo couldn’t bring himself to cut ties, even if the conversation was tedious and the person wasn’t to his liking.

Of course, Seonwoo rationalized it as him being forced to look after someone who had no one else at work.

“Feel okay? What do you mean?”

Seonwoo asked, still not understanding the question. An exaggerated voice came through the phone.
– Well, at our team’s couples dinner the other day. I was worried because I heard you couldn’t make it since you were sick.
“Couples… dinner…?”
– Yeah. Jaeyeol seemed really worried too. Are you feeling better now?

Seonwoo’s grip on his phone tightened. A couples dinner. He hadn’t heard anything about that. He gripped the phone so hard his hands trembled, but he couldn’t show how pathetic he was. He forced himself to steady his voice and answered.
“Oh, that… yeah, much better now. I was looking forward to seeing you after so long, too bad.”
– Glad you’re better. Let’s definitely meet next time.
“Yeah. Let’s do that.”

He couldn’t even remember how the rest of the conversation went. Barely managing to end the call, Seonwoo bit his lip and threw his phone onto the sofa.
Jaeyeol must have deliberately not told him. He’d made sure not to bring him to the couples gathering. It didn’t make sense. How could he leave him out of a gathering with people who were also Seonwoo’s former colleagues?

“Could this bastard… be cheating?”

The thought that suddenly pierced his mind made his hair stand on end. Logically, he knew it couldn’t be, but he couldn’t help the flicker of doubt.
This was a man who had left a lover of eight years for him. If a tempting Omega appeared now, taking advantage of the fact that Seonwoo had left the company…

“No. That’s ridiculous. No way.”

Seonwoo shook his head, trying to dispel the endless negative thoughts. It was nonsense.
Jaeyeol had come to him because he was that beautiful, that attractive an Omega. Unlike stiff, boring people like Seo Haeyoon, he was fundamentally different, which was why he’d been able to win Jaeyeol over.
There was no way another Omega attractive enough to take Oh Jaeyeol from him would appear by his side. Seonwoo hurriedly dismissed the futile fantasy.
“This isn’t the time to worry about that.”

Seonwoo steeled his resolve again. Being deliberately left out was annoying, but considering their recent cold war, it wasn’t entirely incomprehensible. It would have been hard to suggest he come along to a gathering when he was clearly so angry.
Instead, Seonwoo began to reorganize a more important plan in his mind. A person he thought he’d never get back had reappeared. Now that he had something to lose, he needed to be more careful, more deliberate.

If his guess was correct. If things went according to his plan…
Seonwoo’s eyes sparkled with eager anticipation, as if he had never been trembling with rage moments before.
Baek Jeongha.
He was always the only one who could move Ahn Seonwoo’s heart.