Chapter 4
Part 2: Your Problem
Kihyuk’s gaze faltered slightly. He’d thought the offer to hire him as a regular cleaner was just an excuse to get him here, but he could only gape at the amount written in the contract.
[Article 1. Party B shall be employed by Party A at $4,000 per month. If the first encounter does not result in ejaculation, this contract shall be void.
Article 2. Party B may not refuse Party A’s request for an encounter. However, encounters shall take place only once or twice a week. If Party A demands more than that, this contract shall be void.
Article 3. Neither Party A nor Party B shall attach emotional significance to the encounters.
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.
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Article 10. If either Party A or Party B unilaterally refuses the once- or twice-weekly encounters, the contract may be voided.]
So Party A is the client, and Party B is me. As Kihyuk read it over several times, his eyes narrowed. At the word “ejaculation” instead of “cleaning,” he tipped his head to one side.
“Um, sir, there seems to be something strange in this contract.”
“There’s nothing strange about it. It means exactly what it says.”
“I came here to clean, though…?”
Woojin folded the daily paper resting on his knee twice, set it on the sofa, and met Kihyuk’s eyes. The moment their gazes locked, Kihyuk clamped his mouth shut. It was as if the man were signaling him to shut up.
“It’s exactly as written. If you can make me ejaculate, Mr. Jung, I would like to hire you. If my condition improves over time, I also intend to pay bonuses.”
Kihyuk blinked several times. So that was the deal: sleep with Woojin, make him come, and get hired as his sex partner? He set the contract on the table and clenched his fist. From the sound of it, the man couldn’t ejaculate. But then what had Kihyuk seen that day?
“What do you mean by your condition improving?”
“It means I’ll be satisfied.”
Woojin spoke plainly, but the proposition made Kihyuk deeply uncomfortable. After thinking it over for a long while, Kihyuk answered firmly.
“I refuse.”
One of Woojin’s eyebrows twitched upward, but he said nothing. Kihyuk wondered if he’d gotten on the man’s nerves. He swallowed hard before speaking.
“I don’t do that kind of work for money. I’m a decent person.”
“I did not tell you to do anything indecent.”
“No. This could actually become a problem.”
Kihyuk rejected the offer outright, pleased with himself. Jung Kihyuk had his pride. He didn’t turn people away when they came on to him, but at least he didn’t take their money. He might indulge a guy begging to sleep with him just once, but he never expected anything in return.
Hearing that, Woojin let out a dry laugh. Then he picked up the pen on the table and looked at Kihyuk.
“$4,000 a month, plus another $500, makes $4,500. Will that do?”
“Excuse me?”
Kihyuk’s eyes widened again. What kind of man was this, tossing around $4,000 or $4,500 a month like it was nothing? Woojin smirked at Kihyuk’s reaction and changed the amount written in Article 1 of the contract.
[$4,500 per month]
The figure of $4,500 lodged deep in Kihyuk’s brain. A few months of work at that pay, and he could buy the Porsche he’d been wanting. That kind of money would be hard to save even after years of work!
Woojin smiled lazily, as if he could hear a calculator clacking inside the man’s head. While Kihyuk roughly ran the numbers, Woojin looked him over slowly.
Tall and striking, he seemed at least two inches taller than Woojin. His clean-cut looks would hold their own anywhere. Woojin tapped his nose. The guy seemed like an alpha, but Woojin couldn’t detect any scent from him. As a recessive omega, he had trouble picking up scents unless they belonged to extremely dominant alphas. Anyway, as long as the man made him come, alpha or beta wouldn’t be a problem.
“All right. How many days a week would I work?”
“Once or twice a week, like it says. More than that is impossible. I’m too busy.”
“Let’s sign right now.”
With a solemn look, Kihyuk clenched his fist and raised his thumb. He looked like a squirrel that had just found an acorn, and Woojin let out a low laugh despite himself.
“Hah. Very well. Let’s sign.”
Kihyuk dabbed his thumb in the red ink paste and pressed it firmly onto the contract’s name field. Woojin watched with satisfaction.
“Then when shall we start ‘that’?”
“Let’s start now.”
Watching Kihyuk flinch and shrink back again like a startled squirrel, Woojin laughed, then suddenly recalled the jerk who had caused this whole mess. If it hadn’t been for that bastard, he probably wouldn’t have done something this insane.
* * *
Sitting in his office chair, Woojin rubbed between his eyebrows with both hands, like someone lost in thought.
“Woojin, it’s about time you got married too.”
Woojin looked at his mother and nodded. He knew she had been searching far and wide for a match for him, now that he was more than old enough. He lowered his hands and offered a faint smile.
“I’ll have good news for you soon, Mother.”
Yang Woojin was the Senior Managing Director of Inpyeong Construction Co., Ltd. Inpyeong had several affiliates, and Woojin had been involved in its construction business for more than three years. How many people held a Senior Managing Director title in their thirties?
Inpyeong was one of Korea’s leading family-run conglomerates. His father and mother were both dominant alphas, and his older brother and younger sister were likewise dominant. Everyone in that impressive family was a dominant alpha except him.
As if being the second child weren’t bad enough, he was also the only recessive omega in a family of dominant alphas. In middle school, he’d holed up in a corner of his room and cried for days, clutching his trait test results, unable to confide in anyone. His father insisted the test was wrong and demanded an immediate retest, while his mother, having heard that drugs could alter a person’s traits, pressed untested medication on him.
Before he knew it, his once-close siblings had begun to ignore and look down on him for being an omega. That included his older brother, who wanted to become their father’s successor, and his younger sister, who wanted that seat too. They didn’t show it openly, but their disgust surfaced in subtle ways.
Outsiders were no different. Those who had sought him out because of the Inpyeong name looked down on him simply for being an omega. The proud Inpyeong family’s sole blemish, recessive omega Yang Woojin. That was how people in business circles talked about him.
But Woojin did not want to be despised just for being an omega. Hadn’t he been born to the same dominant-alpha parents, just as much their child as the others? Woojin wasn’t weak enough to settle for the life he’d been given.
He’d pushed himself relentlessly to catch up with alphas, training himself half to death to match their stamina and physique. By the time he became an adult, no one saw Woojin as an omega. Fortunately, being recessive, he was not swayed by pheromones either.
Recessive traits. Woojin considered them a blessing. He was so insensitive to dominant alphas’ pheromones that he might as well have been a beta, and he never gave ground in a battle of wills with an alpha.
But being recessive had proved a disadvantage in one area: marriage.
Woojin’s mother, Kim Jinhee, reached out and patted his shoulder.
“Woojin, you’re such a good, kind child. It’s my fault you’re a recessive omega. That’s why alphas aren’t interested in you, and…”
When Jinhee began to cry, Woojin pulled out a tissue and handed it to her. He’d heard the same routine so often that her tears no longer moved him. Dominant alphas wanted other dominant alphas, or dominant omegas.
Marrying another dominant alpha would strengthen the family’s position, while a dominant omega could bear plenty of dominant children. In fact, Woojin’s parents, both dominant alphas, had three children, a feat remarkable enough to astonish researchers.
“Don’t worry, Mother. I’m taking care of things with the alpha from Daesan Corporation I met before.”
“Oh my, Seonwoo? You’ve met him?”
Woojin smiled bitterly. Hwang Seonwoo. Daesan Corporation’s heir apparent, a dominant alpha. Jinhee was delighted, but the thought of Seonwoo left a bad taste in Woojin’s mouth. That bastard who made him wish he’d been born a dominant omega or a dominant alpha instead.
Daesan Corporation had been the first to propose a match. Woojin knew they had actually been quietly hoping for his younger sister Yeonwoo, a dominant alpha, not for him.
“Hello, I’m Hwang Seonwoo. You know, don’t you? I was going to propose a match with Yeonwoo.”
That unpleasant first impression came back to him.