Chapter 25

“Welcome,” Yu-gyeom greeted them with a gentle smile as he opened the front door.

Yu-gyeom welcomed Rian and his classmates inside. Yoon-seok, Su-hyun, and Taeju followed Rian into the entryway. Yoon-seok stepped forward and handed the fruit basket they had brought to Yu-gyeom.

“We’re still students, so we couldn’t get anything nicer,” Yoon-seok said bashfully, holding it out.

At Yoon-seok’s sheepish words, Yu-gyeom accepted the basket with a warm, pleasant expression.

“This is already more than generous,” Yu-gyeom said warmly. “Please come in, everyone.”

He was far kinder than they had anticipated. Stepping aside, he patiently waited for Rian and the other boys to step inside. The friends’ eyes rounded as they took in the two-story interior. While they vaguely knew that real estate in this neighborhood was exorbitant, the house was excessively spacious for just two people to live in.

The immaculate tidiness must be Yu-gyeom’s doing, while the charming knickknacks are probably Kwon Rian’s taste.

Taeju let out a quiet scoff. And Yu-gyeom did not miss that mocking sneer on Kim Taeju’s face.

“Whoa, your place is unbelievable, hyung-nim!” Yoon-seok marveled in awe.

Yoon-seok was unable to hide his admiration. Yu-gyeom patted him lightly on the back, showing easy, warm friendliness.

“It feels a little empty with just Rian and me, but thank you for saying so,” Yu-gyeom replied with an easy smile.

“Seriously, it’s insane. It looks like a celebrity’s mansion!” Su-hyun chimed in, looking around in wonder.

The friends filed over and sat down along the spacious living room sofa. Having brought friends home for the first time in his life, Rian was completely at a loss for what to do, his excitement bubbling to the surface. Watching Rian bite his lower lip with flushed, radiant cheeks, Yu-gyeom felt deeply satisfied.

In truth, having Kwon Rian’s classmates over was nothing but a nuisance to Yu-gyeom. What reason was there to invest time into friends who were destined to drift away eventually?

Yet Yu-gyeom had altered his mind for a different motive—to keep Rian under far tighter control. If he could hold Rian’s friends in the palm of his hand and maneuver them into monitoring Rian for him…

Yu-gyeom’s calculations were cold, deliberate, and absolute.

“Rian? Why don’t you show your friends your bedroom?” Yu-gyeom suggested with a gentle tilt of his head.

Having just set glasses of juice before his classmates, Rian stared blankly at Yu-gyeom.

“M-my room?” Rian asked, taken aback.

His heart swelled like a balloon. Giving friends a tour of his own bedroom was something he had only ever read about in childhood storybooks. Rian beamed with sudden, overwhelming flutter. Flustered though he was, genuine happiness flooded through him.

Rian’s face lit up with excitement. “Can I take them up right now?”

“Of course,” Yu-gyeom replied with a nod.

“B-but, hyung…” Rian hesitated, chewing his lip.

When Yu-gyeom gave his ready consent, Rian scampered over and whispered into his ear. Taeju stole a glance at Yu-gyeom, who leaned down to match Rian’s petite height, listening intently to him. A fleeting thought crossed Taeju’s mind that the atmosphere between the two was far too peculiar for simple brothers.

“Isn’t my room messy…?” Rian whispered worriedly.

At Rian’s anxious whisper, Yu-gyeom offered an affectionate smile.

“I cleaned it all up, so don’t worry,” Yu-gyeom assured him, murmuring softly.

With that, Yu-gyeom affectionately tapped his forehead against Rian’s. Only after receiving reassurance that his room was in order did Rian turn to his classmates with a bright expression.

“If you guys want, do you want to come see my room?” Rian asked his classmates.

Yoon-seok beamed, bowing his head in grateful excitement. “Oh, is that really okay? Hyung-nim, is that really all right?!” He and Su-hyun sprang to their feet. The house was so lavish that simply sitting demurely on the couch had begun to feel stifling.

“Of course,” Yu-gyeom agreed with an accommodating nod.

Yu-gyeom gave a nod of permission. Like an excited child, Rian dashed up the stairs, and the other boys followed while continually admiring their surroundings. Only Taeju lingered behind, ascending the stairs last with a distasteful scowl on his face.

* * *

Ugh, the smell of Omega is practically suffocating.

The moment Kim Taeju stepped into Kwon Rian’s bedroom, he wrinkled his nose. A sweet scent hung thick in the air, a sugary yet suggestive fragrance brushing aggressively against his senses. Intertwined within it was an unfamiliar odor distinct from an Omega’s pheromones, though he could not identify what it was.

Is it an Alpha’s scent?

As someone still in the middle of his manifestation, Taeju could not discern exactly what a fellow Alpha smelled like, but the scent lingering beneath Kwon Rian’s fragrance was undeniably foreign.

The classmates wandered through Rian’s room, curiously inspecting everything.

“It’s spotless,” Yoon-seok observed in awe. “How can two guys living together keep a place this clean?”

Yoon-seok ran a finger over the desk and shelves before wearing a stunned expression. Without a single item out of place, the room clearly reflected someone’s meticulous, devoted care.

Taeju plopped down onto the edge of Rian’s bed. Rian stole a startled glance at him. He almost stopped Taeju, but ended up keeping his mouth shut.

Never before had an outsider set foot inside a bedroom in this house. Because it was an intimate sanctuary belonging purely to Yu-gyeom and Rian, the thought of anyone else invading it had been utterly unimaginable.

At the thought of another Alpha’s body odor staining the bedding saturated with Yu-gyeom’s pheromones, an uncomfortable tension crept through Rian. What that discomfort truly meant, he could not entirely decipher.

Meanwhile, Yoon-seok and Su-hyun pulled books from the shelves to flip through them and toyed with various small decorations. Soon, they sank onto the two-seater sofa in the corner of Rian’s room and began chattering about school gossip.

“No, seriously, Yeon-joo went around spreading rumors that I’m into her,” Su-hyun complained, scoffing. “It’s completely absurd.”

“Didn’t you start that rumor yourself?” Yoon-seok teased. “I totally thought it was you.”

Yoon-seok laughed mockingly at Su-hyun’s grievance. Su-hyun barked at him to stop talking nonsense, and the two began playfully bickering. Listening to their banter, Rian offered a faint smile. Yet in truth, all of his attention remained anchored to Kim Taeju.

Kim Taeju picked up Rian’s pillow, buried his nose directly into it, and took a deep, deliberate breath. Rian’s eyes rounded in shock. Why is he sniffing someone else’s pillow…?

Just as Rian was about to tell him to stop, Taeju set the pillow down with callous indifference, as if he had never done anything at all.

The gesture left Rian’s chest tightening with uneasy fluttering. Was it an instinct that Taeju was constantly looking for a fault to pick? The sense of being interrogated and scrutinized grated on his nerves.

Sure enough, Taeju raised his eyes to meet Rian’s watchful gaze.

“There’s an awful lot of Omega scent all over this house, isn’t there?” Taeju remarked, looking around.

Rian froze, caught completely off guard. “…What?”

Leaning forward slightly, Taeju pressed, “What’s the other smell, though? Your hyung’s?”

“Wh-what do you mean by that?” Rian asked, his voice tightening.

“Your hyung is an Alpha,” Taeju said pointedly. “Why is there another scent reeking in your bedroom besides your own pheromones?”

“…” Rian remained frozen, unable to form a reply.

That’s because hyung and I roll around in bed together every day… was something Rian could never bring himself to say aloud. No matter how much he wished to boast about his brother, he had been thoroughly taught that broadcasting their private affairs to others was unacceptable.

In other words, Kwon Rian did not believe having sex with his brother was the problem; rather, he simply believed that blabbing about what happened between them was shameful.

“You crazy bastard. You just have the nose of a damn hound, Kim Taeju,” Yoon-seok scoffed, waving a hand dismissively.

While Kim Taeju stared fixatedly at Rian, awaiting an answer, it was Yoon-seok who shattered the awkward silence.

“Pfft,” Taeju scoffed, waving a hand dismissively, “I just asked because there’s some rank smell in here.”

Taeju had derided Yu-gyeom’s scent in this room as a rank stench. Having neither interest in nor understanding of an Alpha’s pheromones, Yoon-seok and Su-hyun merely assumed Taeju was spouting nonsense again and laughed it off. But Rian could not do the same.

“A… rank smell?” Rian demanded, his voice stiffening.

“Why? Are you offended? I was just saying,” Taeju replied with an insolent tilt of his head. “Is it your hyung’s scent after all? No matter how close brothers are, I doubt an Alpha’s scent would linger this heavily in someone else’s room.”

Taeju held a steady, insolent smirk toward Rian, who could no longer hide his mounting displeasure. In that smile lurked a distinctly derogatory nuance directed at both Rian and his brother.

“Uh… Hate to break it to you, but that’s probably hyung’s pheromones,” Rian retorted coldly.

“Ah, so it is?” Taeju replied with a nonchalant drawl. “I thought so… Well, as you know, it’s pretty sickening between two Alphas.”

“Sickening?” Rian shot back sharply.

Rian snapped back without missing a beat. Even the other two boys could clearly tell that an edge had sharpened in Rian’s expression and tone. In the end, it was Su-hyun who broke the taut tension stretching between them.

“Hey, Kim Taeju. Your choice of words is pretty harsh,” Su-hyun chided, cutting in. “He’s still Rian’s hyung, after all.”

“Is it? Sorry if that offended you,” Taeju said flippantly.

Only when Su-hyun scolded him did Kim Taeju drop his brow and offer an apology. Yet Rian remained thoroughly offended. Never in his life had anyone dared to mock Yu-gyeom in such a vulgar manner. In truth, Yu-gyeom was a figure revered, loved, and adored by everyone around him. How dare someone insult his brother like that?

“No, forget it. Just be a little more careful next—” Rian began, cutting himself off.

Knock, knock.

It happened right then. What fractured the heavy silence was Yu-gyeom leaning against the bedroom doorway. He stood there, quietly observing them.

How much of their conversation had he overheard? Had he caught the offensive remarks Taeju had just made?

Rian anxiously scrutinized his expression. Surprisingly, however, Yu-gyeom looked completely serene, appearing as though he had not overheard a single word.

“If you’re all finished looking around the room, should we head downstairs to eat?” Yu-gyeom suggested pleasantly from the doorway.

“Ah! Yes, that sounds great!” Yoon-seok replied eagerly, jumping to his feet.

It was Yoon-seok who revived the atmosphere, and Su-hyun followed right behind him out the door.

Yu-gyeom remained by the door, sweeping his cold gaze over Kim Taeju, who was still seated on Rian’s bed.

He’s smearing his pheromones all over the place.

Watching Kim Taeju’s insolent posture, Yu-gyeom’s eyebrow twitched with subtle venom. Yet Taeju was the only one who registered that faint fracture in Yu-gyeom’s composure; Rian noticed nothing at all.

Yu-gyeom offered a courteous smile. “Taeju, won’t you join us downstairs as well?”

With a slight tilt of Yu-gyeom’s head, Taeju finally rose to his feet and strolled past the two of them. As he brushed past Yu-gyeom, Kim Taeju cut a sharp glance sideways, and Yu-gyeom returned it with a cryptic smirk.

“Hyung, let’s head down too,” Rian said, moving to follow.

Rian stepped toward the hallway behind them. Just as Rian grasped Yu-gyeom’s wrist to lead him out—

A soft call halted him from behind, “Rian.”

“Huh?!” Rian let out a startled sound.

Abruptly, Yu-gyeom shoved Rian back into the bedroom, slamming him against the wall.