To Byul (Omegaverse)-Chapter 24: Nari, are you out there?

"Ah, Nari Hyung, it's you." Chin-hwa said and his eyes fell on the cigarette. "And I can see you're still smoking. How awful."

"Hey, cut me some slack." Nari said, sitting down next to him and crossing his legs. "I did try to quit but it's just so difficult, you know. My withdrawal symptoms hit hard."

"That's why you shouldn't have started smoking to begin with."

"Hey now, don't lecture me when we're seeing each other for the first time in months." Nari said and glanced at Chin-hwa. "At least, I'm not the only one hiding and doing stuff they don't want the rest of the family to see."

"It's just beer." Chin-hwa said, clenching on the can and Nari nodded, taking a puff of his cigarette.

"And it's just cigarettes." He smiled and Chin-hwa laughed.

"How'd you know I'd be here, anyway? Didn't you guys send Kang-woo to my room knowing I'd be there?" He asked but Nari did not answer right away. The first thing he noticed was the fact that Chin-hwa wasn't calling Kang-woo Byul, which meant he was trying to sever the closeness they had, when using nicknames.

Well, who could blame him?

"I saw you walking around, spying if anyone was looking while heading out of the kitchen." He answered. "But don't worry, I believe I'm the only one who saw you."

Chin-hwa pouted and then looked up at Nari.

Nari, whose real name was Young Hee, was Kang-woo's elder brother, an Omega who appeared to be quite tough. Maybe it was because he hung out with the twins a lot but he got a lot of crazies like they did.

It was said that Nari was very quiet as a kid and often worried about his second gender since he didn't like the fact that Omegas needed to be protected by Alphas.

In other words, he worked hard to be an Omega who could be compared to an Alpha, and he was excelling at that. He could get just as much work done, just as Si-woo or Deok-Ryu could do.

He took self-defense classes with the twins from an early age, and, well... They were the baddest trio anyone could come across.

Nari was tall but not as tall as the twins, but it was okay by his standards. He could not exactly hide his slender and picture-perfect appearance, but that one did not bother him. He was more than fine owning up to his identity as an Omega, so long as it did not shadow his efforts and achievements.

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Well, there was one problem though. The problem was just Nari's heat circle.

He always took heat suppressants so that his heat never came unaware and ruined the perfect image he had built for himself.

But taking suppressants for too long would not do well for him, so his body would eventually grow past them and he would need an Alpha to calm him down.

"Nothing to say?" Chin-hwa heard Nari's voice and snapped out of it. "You've been staring at me like you've got something to say to me."

"Don't you... Have anything to say to me?" Chin-hwa asked and Nari paused. "Kang-woo is back from God knows where and it seems like everyone expects everything to just go back to the way it was." He clutched the can. "It's like everyone expects me to smile and play around like nothing had happened and Kang-woo had never left my side. How can you guys ask for the impossible?"

"No one is asking you for the impossible." Nari said and threw his cigarette to the floor, stomping on it so it wouldn't start a fire. "We're just giving it time."

"What does that mean?" Chin-hwa asked and watched Nari stand on his feet.

"Well, it's a mess that can't be solved with a simple apology, so we're hoping that he tries all he can and with time, all wounds will be healed." He simply and calmly said.

They fell into silence, only the night breeze blowing through them and getting rid of the cigarette smell.

Chin-hwa did not quite understand what he meant by that but before he could ask more about it, they heard Lee Ga-ram's voice,

"Nari, are you out there?"

Nari flinched.

"Oh, shit! Do I still smell like cigarettes?" Nari asked, frantically sniffing his body and Chin-hwa nodded.

"Yes, you do."

"Then I gotta hide." Nari looked around and then saw the wallflower decoration on the wall. It led to Deok-Ryu's room so he made that his escape route.

He hurriedly climbed up and went in through the window.

He smiled at Chin-hwa and then closed the window.

"Ah, he's as careless as ever." Chin-hwa exclaimed,

"Nari?" Ga-ram called out and made his way out, and Chin-hwa dropped his head to look at him. "Oh, it's you, Chin-hwa. Did you see Nari?" He asked but Chin-hwa did not respond. "Wait, what are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be in your room with Kang-woo?" He approached Chin-hwa. "I could've sworn Kang-woo went up to meet you."

"Yeah, he did." Chin-hwa said and then walked past Ga-ram. "I'll go back to him now." He said.

Ga-ram noticed he was still a bit distant but there was nothing he could do about it. He sighed and then caught a whiff of cigarettes in the air.

"Wait, Nari was just here." He said but could not even ask Chin-hwa about it because Chin-hwa was already walking away, and there was a wall that wouldn't allow him to be too close to him. "Hah, this is tough." He rubbed his face with his palm, having a mixed expression of regret as well as confusion.

He didn't want things to be like that at all. They just... Didn't have a choice.

Ever since that happened, Chin-Hwa never visited their place again, not even when the whole family decided to go visit them. He stayed behind and no one questioned him.

It was probably because going there would remind him of Kang-woo, and thus, the family gatherings were only held at Hae-won's place.

It didn't look like Chin-hwa would change his mind about it anytime soon.