Chapter Text
Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, Seoul’s night skyline glittered in excessive splendor. To most people, it would have looked impressive—aspirational, even. To Sanghyeok, it was nothing more than a familiar sight. Another territory measured in numbers, influence, and control.
Everything he had gained up to this point had been wrested from a system never designed to favor an Omega. He had advanced not by charm or narrative, but by competence sharpened to a ruthless edge. Each promotion had come at a cost he no longer bothered to tally. So to learn that the final justification for all of it was a strategic marriage—to a wealthy heir barely out of his twenties, a man rumored to be incapable of managing even his own excesses—registered not as surprise, but as an insult too mundane to merit reaction.
Sanghyeok held a slender fountain pen between his fingers, tapping it once, then again, against the edge of the document. At the bottom of the final page sat a single name.
Jung Jihoon.
The youngest son of one of the country’s most powerful conglomerates. Born late, raised carefully, indulgently. The stories that reached Sanghyeok were vague but consistent enough to form a picture he found unpromising. Immature. Impulsive. A boy accustomed to consequence-free living, mistaking indulgence for freedom and money for authority.
His expression tightened almost imperceptibly as he removed the pen’s cap.
Affection had never been part of the equation. This marriage was not a reward, nor a compromise—it was a transaction. A structure designed to reassure shareholders, stabilize markets, and merge two names into something more palatable for public consumption. Whatever emotions might exist were irrelevant. They always were.
Somewhere else in the city, the man whose name now bound itself to his own reacted far less quietly.
Jihoon tore his wristwatch off and hurled it onto the table.
The heavy clatter of metal shattered the silence—yet did nothing to loosen the suffocating grip of the political marriage tightening around his throat.
His father’s order had been absolute.
To more firmly cement the strategic cooperation between the two conglomerates, and to send an unmistakable signal of stability to an increasingly uneasy market—this union had been declared necessary from the outset. There had never been any intention of offering a choice. What investors, boards, and the public demanded was not sentiment, but reassurance, and a marriage—conservative, visible, and unmistakably binding—was the most reliable instrument available.
Against that image, Jihoon’s life never stood a chance.
Why the hell do I have to marry someone like that…
He dragged a hand through his hair, teeth grinding.
The name Jung Jihoon had always carried obscene wealth and influence, a gravity powerful enough to bend everything around it—but now, he felt reduced to currency. A bargaining chip tossed onto the table to sweeten a deal already finalized without his consent.
It wouldn’t have mattered who they chose.
But one name—known only through rumor—left a particularly bitter aftertaste.
Lee Sanghyeok.
An Omega polished to the point of inhumanity. Efficient. Immaculate. Devoid of warmth. The type of person who would turn anything—anyone—into a tool if it meant climbing higher.
And if that cold-blooded Omega intended to use Jihoon as a stepping stone for his ambitions, then Jihoon had no intention of submitting quietly.
After all, there were countless ways to turn a marriage into hell.
The lounge on the top floor of the hotel—their designated meeting place—was unnervingly quiet.
Sanghyeok sat already, his posture straight, eyes flicking down at his watch with an expressionless mask. Two hours had passed. The espresso in front of him had long gone cold, steam dissipated, untouched.
Exactly two hours and fifteen minutes later, the glass doors slid open with a crisp click of polished dress shoes. The sound cut through the silence like a knife.
Jihoon dropped into the sofa across from him without so much as a glance of apology, legs crossing deliberately. His suit was immaculate—every thread screaming wealth—but his eyes burned with defiance, sharp and unreadable, sweeping over Sanghyeok like a predator sizing up its prey.
“More patient than I expected,” Jihoon drawled, the mockery in his voice curling around the words like smoke.
Sanghyeok didn’t twitch. His gaze remained flat, unreadable, before sliding a single sheet of paper across the polished table toward him.
“You’re late. My schedule had to bend around you,” Sanghyeok said, voice calm, unyielding. “Mr. Jung Jihoon, I don’t have time to entertain childish tantrums.”
The coldness in his tone carved through the room. Jihoon let out a short, amused laugh, as if he’d anticipated no less, and shoved the document aside without a glance.
“You know what people clawing their way up from the bottom all have in common?” Jihoon leaned forward, eyes narrowing. The space between them shrank, and their pheromones collided—subtle, electric, charged.
“They’ll bend, break, manipulate… do whatever it takes to get what they want. Just like you.”
Sanghyeok’s lips curved in the faintest, icy smile. He didn’t flinch. He leaned back slightly, letting the tension pulse between them, measured and precise.
“Getting what you want… that’s not about pride, nor about soul. It’s business,” he said, voice low, deliberate. “A concept that might be difficult to grasp for someone raised in a greenhouse. But it’s the reality you’re up against.”
“I don’t care what you do outside. Who you see. What kind of trouble you stir up—just don’t interfere with my path until I reach my goal.” He paused, letting the words sink in. “Accomplish that much, and I’ll guarantee you the freedom you think you’re so desperate for.”
Jihoon’s gaze flickered—finally, recognition. The raw, unyielding ambition in Sanghyeok’s eyes wasn’t the simple hunger of a businessman chasing money. No. It was the predatory, calculating stare of someone intent on dominating the entire boardroom… including Jihoon himself.
A low, bitter chuckle escaped Jihoon as he snatched the pen from the table. “You’d better take responsibility for your words,” he warned, eyes dark. “Because if you don’t, you won’t even begin to imagine how thoroughly I’ll make this marriage hell.”
He scrawled his name across the paper with deliberate force, tossing the pen aside. The room seemed to hum with the tension between them, sharp enough to spark at any moment. This wasn’t the beginning of a marriage.
It was a declaration of war—an unspoken battle to break the other first.
From the moment the marriage contract vanished into the vault, their lives were carved with ruthless precision.
For Sanghyeok, the house was never a refuge; it was an extension of work. He rose every morning at five, slipped into a suit pressed to surgical perfection, and left without a backward glance. Even in the evenings, his path never lingered in the living room—he walked straight to the study, closing the door like a dam sealing off any distractions.
Behind that door came only the steady clatter of a keyboard and the muted cadence of English video conferences. Sanghyeok never asked when Jihoon returned, who he dined with, or which clubs he haunted. To him, Jihoon existed no differently than an expensive ornament in the corner of the living room—present, visible, but irrelevant. On the rare occasions that Jihoon’s heavy cologne seeped into the hallway, Sanghyeok merely creased his brow by the barest fraction and shut the study door a little tighter.
Jihoon, conversely, treated the house like a luxury hotel he merely slept in. Days were spent sweeping through department store VIP lounges, buying rare editions without a second thought. Nights dissolved into a carousel of glittering clubs and private parties. In open defiance of Sanghyeok’s cold detachment, Jihoon became louder, more indulgent, more deliberately reckless.
Sometimes, he timed it with cruel precision—friends in tow, music blasting through the living room at hours he knew Sanghyeok would be buried in critical reports. And still, Sanghyeok never emerged. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t scold. He didn’t even acknowledge the intrusion. That absolute lack of reaction gnawed at Jihoon far more than any argument ever could.
Staring at the tightly shut study door, Jihoon smirked to himself.
“Go ahead. Marry your work and live with it forever.”
On occasion, in the gray hours before dawn, Sanghyeok would appear in the kitchen for a glass of water and find Jihoon stumbling home, drunk and disheveled. Even then, Sanghyeok’s gaze remained unmoved as he checked his watch.
“You have a morning schedule tomorrow,” he said flatly. “Handle yourself.”
And with that, he passed Jihoon without another word. Jihoon raised his middle finger at Sanghyeok’s retreating back—but Sanghyeok never so much as glanced over his shoulder.
Eventually, their mutual indifference translated into numbers.
Stocks that had soared under headlines dubbing it the marriage of the century began to waver. A couple that never appeared together in public. Jihoon photographed nightly in a different club or party venue. Sanghyeok’s reputation as an excessive workaholic. To the market, these were all ominous signs.
“Show-window marriage.”
“Strategic alliance on the brink of collapse.”
Provocative headlines dominated the financial pages. Investors grew uneasy, and the stocks of both conglomerates plunged for days, glowing red across every trading screen.
In the end, the elders of both families intervened.
The condition was singular, nonnegotiable.
They were to prove—before the watchful public—that they were the perfect, and affectionate, married couple.
The underground parking garage of the high-rise complex was swallowed in silence. Their car rested in the most secluded corner, where shadows merged with a blind spot in the CCTV in precise, calculated overlap. No one stirred nearby—only the chill in the air, and the low hum of distant machinery. Inside the car, the stillness was suffocating, stretched so taut it seemed ready to snap.
Sanghyeok pressed his fingers to his brow, the faint crease of fatigue visible between his eyes, while his other hand tapped the steering wheel in a steady, measured rhythm. Far behind the tinted glass, hidden in the shadows of a concrete pillar, a paparazzo adjusted his lens, preparing for a shot. To Sanghyeok, this was not drama—it was risk, a problem to be assessed, contained, and neutralized.
“Something moderately affectionate will suffice,” he said flatly. “Just cooperate until the cameras get their angle.”
The words fell like a boardroom memo—dry, precise, utterly devoid of warmth. Even now, Sanghyeok was pure calculation. And the perfection of that mask—the control, the cold precision—made something in Jihoon’s gut twist with impatience. He wanted to rip it off, expose the man beneath.
Jihoon let out a low, crooked laugh, pushing himself up from the passenger seat. With one fluid motion, he crossed the center console, invading Sanghyeok’s space. His large frame eclipsed the driver’s view, a solid thigh brushing Sanghyeok’s knee as he shifted fully into the driver’s side. Alpha pheromones pressed in from all directions, heavy, suffocating, and irresistible. Sanghyeok’s body reacted before his mind could—the back pressing against the seat, muscles taut, instincts screaming caution. A distance he would never have allowed in any other context had been obliterated.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Sanghyeok snapped, voice tight. “Back in your seat.”
Jihoon didn’t move. He planted his arms on either side of Sanghyeok’s waist, a cage of muscle and heat, locking him in place.
“If we’re doing this,” Jihoon murmured, low and deliberate, “we might as well do it properly.”
He shifted, pressing down against Sanghyeok’s upper body. The sudden weight knocked his glasses askew, edges of his vision blurring. Jihoon’s warm breath spilled over the space just above his lips, noses nearly brushing—a slow, deliberate proximity that left a taste of heat and tension.
“So when people see the photos,” Jihoon continued, voice a dangerous whisper, teasing, “they’ll think—ah. Not that we were fighting like we were about to tear each other apart… but that we already were. Just not in the way they imagined.”
His solid chest pressed through Sanghyeok’s shirt, pinning him firmly, every movement claiming control. From the outside, it would read unmistakably: a dominant Alpha restraining his Omega, indulging in open, unapologetic possession. Jihoon lingered on Sanghyeok’s unsteady gaze, savoring every flicker of reaction before lowering his head to the hollow of his neck, inhaling in a slow, deliberate rhythm—as if marking him.
“Let’s give them something they won’t dare crop,” he murmured, the words both a challenge and a promise.