Chapter 49

Click—creeeak.

Yu-gyeom remarked quietly, “The hinge must be old.”

In the heavy, quiet air, the friction of the door opening rang out with distinct sharpness. Yu-gyeom gazed calmly around Rian’s bedroom.

The room was overwhelmingly flooded with Rian’s pheromones to an unnatural degree. Even to an Alpha like himself, the scent was dizzying. Yu-gyeom stepped slowly inside. Rian lay beneath the neatly drawn blanket, eyes closed, seemingly fast asleep.

“Hmm…” Yu-gyeom hummed softly.

Walking closer to the bed, Yu-gyeom looked intently down at Rian’s face.

Looking closer at the flushed cheeks, he murmured under his breath, “Is he sick?”

Placing a hand on Rian’s forehead, he felt a slight fever. Was the boy sick from shock after what had happened this afternoon? Even if that were the case, this was far too severe.

Bending down over Rian’s body, Yu-gyeom inhaled deeply. The heavy fragrance of pheromones filled his lungs.

Yu-gyeom stroked the damp inner curve of his thigh, whispering fondly, “Dripping like this even in your sleep… what am I to do with you, Rian?”

Fwip. Right then, murmuring to himself, Yu-gyeom yanked Rian’s blanket back in a single motion. Instantly, the thick musk of sexual arousal filled the air. Touching the bedsheet, he felt that it was damp and soaked through.

Yu-gyeom promptly stripped off Rian’s pants. Sure enough, even his underwear was completely drenched. He must have been masturbating by himself. After all, Kwon Rian was naturally prone to leaking, insatiably frustrated, and utterly lewd.

Ever since manifesting as an Omega, Kwon Rian went into heat at any given moment like someone starved for sex. And the only one who had ever soothed that insatiable hunger was Yu-gyeom himself.

With gentle hands, Yu-gyeom peeled away all of Rian’s wet clothes. The sleeping boy remained limp and compliant. Careful not to wake him, Yu-gyeom dressed him in clean underwear and fresh clothes with meticulous gentleness.

Gathering the discarded garments, Yu-gyeom paused by the doorway and looked back at Rian once more. Sleeping softly with flushed, feverish cheeks, Rian looked utterly endearing. A complex, shadowy emotion stirred in Yu-gyeom’s eyes as he watched him.

Suddenly, he recalled how, upon first meeting the young Rian, he had desperately wished to turn that lovely child into an Omega and take him as his bride. And now, the boy truly had become an Omega.

Just as Yu-gyeom gathered the bundle of laundry and turned to leave, he spotted Rian’s phone lying on the bed.

Yu-gyeom planted a tender kiss atop his head. “Silly boy…”

Picking up the phone, he gazed down at it for a moment before setting it onto the nightstand. A moment later, he walked out of the room.

Click.

Once Yu-gyeom had quietly left the room and the soft click of the closing door faded, Rian slowly lifted his heavy eyelids.

Staring blankly up at the ceiling with wide, rounded eyes, Rian’s heart hammered furiously against his ribs, knowing he had nearly been caught by his brother.

His pheromones must have been washing over the bedroom in waves, and his feverish body wasn’t sick at all—it was entirely from masturbating alone in secret.

Rian froze in cold sweat, whispering in terror, “Did hyung… see it?”

That my lower half was swollen and bright red. Maybe it was too dark for him to see.

When Taeju had abruptly tried to start a video call, panic seized Rian, and he had powered off his phone entirely. That Yu-gyeom had opened the door and walked in that very second was terrifyingly impeccable timing. And to think his brother had even changed his clothes for him.

His heart was still thumping erratically. Rian swallowed dryly. What in the world had gotten into him? To become aroused by another Alpha instead of his brother…

Burying his crimson face into the pillow, Rian muttered in despair, “I’ve gone crazy, totally crazy. He’s the weird one. This is so messed up…”

Putting Kim Taeju aside, why had he gotten so turned on by it? No, this must never happen again. If hyung finds out, he’ll be disappointed in me again…

Squeezing his eyes shut in heavy guilt as if he had committed an unforgivable crime, Rian pulled the blanket over his head. Releasing pheromones because he got turned on by another Alpha instead of his brother—he loathed himself for it.

No, the truth was that fluid was still leaking from his slit, wetting a dark, circular stain onto the clean underwear his brother had just dressed him in.

* * *

The next morning, when Rian stepped out of the house following Yu-gyeom, who had offered to drive him to school, Kim Taeju was standing right outside the front door waiting for him.

As Rian froze in shock as though he had seen a ghost, Taeju waved his hand vigorously in greeting.

Taeju raised a hand in cheerful greeting. “Morning, Rian.”

“Kim Taeju? H-How did you… why are you here?” Rian stammered.

Taeju matched his stride, complaining with an easy grin, “You suddenly turned off your phone at dawn yesterday, so I thought something happened. I rushed over at the crack of dawn, seriously.”

A corner of Taeju’s mouth curved into a smirk.

Rian was thoroughly bewildered. He had never dreamed Kim Taeju would show up at his front door. Not only that, but the guy was even shaking a pair of takeout drinks he had bought, behaving just like lovers in some television drama.

Checking Yu-gyeom’s expression in that instant was purely an instinct for survival. Surprisingly, Yu-gyeom greeted Taeju with polite warmth, which allowed Rian to breathe a small sigh of relief.

In the end, both Taeju and Rian climbed into Yu-gyeom’s car. With Rian in the passenger seat, Taeju sat in the back, glaring at the two in front of him with a sour scowl as though he had chewed on a bitter weed.

“I didn’t expect Taeju to come by so early in the morning. You must have had business nearby,” Yu-gyeom remarked pleasantly.

Yu-gyeom was the one to break the awkward silence. At his remark, Rian flinched, his shoulders tensing. Rian had been walking on eggshells and breaking into a cold sweat the entire time, oblivious to the fact that he was leaking faint traces of pheromones without even realizing it.

If hyung ever found out he had gotten aroused while on the phone with Taeju last night… What if Kim Taeju blurted out something reckless without thinking? Rian was consumed with anxiety, constantly checking Taeju’s face in the rearview mirror.

Sweat gathered within the fists clenched tightly on his knees.

“I just came by. There wasn’t anything nearby, I just thought of Rian,” Taeju answered casually from the back seat.

“Hmm, is that so?” Yu-gyeom asked evenly.

At Taeju’s answer, Yu-gyeom turned his head to look at Rian’s face. Rian was flushed crimson all the way down his neck. The sight of him leaking pheromones without even realizing what he was doing grated on Yu-gyeom’s nerves.

An unpleasant suspicion surged within him that something was going on between the two of them that he was not privy to, making Yu-gyeom’s stomach churn. Kim Taeju was undeniably getting on his nerves. What should I do with him?

“Uh… d-didn’t you? You told me yesterday that you were meeting a friend around here,” Rian chimed in hastily, trying to diffuse the tension.

In his fluster, Rian threw out a pointless excuse to smooth over the situation, but neither of the two men looked remotely convinced. At their skepticism, Rian offered a bitter, self-conscious smile. He wasn’t even good at lying; he should have just kept his mouth shut.

Feeling his cheeks burning, Rian rolled down the car window for no reason.

Taeju snorted softly at the lame excuse, while Yu-gyeom reached over and laced his fingers firmly with Rian’s. As Rian started in surprise, Yu-gyeom offered him a gentle smile.

From the backseat, Taeju remarked, “You two seem really close, way more than normal brothers.”

Taeju glared at their intertwined hands with an expression even more disgruntled than before. What kind of crazy brothers laced their fingers like that?

“We’re a bit unusual, yes,” Yu-gyeom replied with a relaxed tone.

Resting his arm on the door frame and propping his chin in his hand, Yu-gyeom smiled warmly.

Yeah, right, not unusual—downright perverted. Barely swallowing the retort that surged up to his throat, Taeju turned his head away.

In truth, Taeju found this entire situation agonizingly uncomfortable as well. The sweet scent of pheromones Kwon Rian had been exuding this whole time made his dick throb and itch so badly he felt like he might lose his mind. He wanted nothing more than to pin that Omega face-down right this second and ram his cock into him until they both lost their senses.

Taeju had masturbated so furiously while on the phone with Rian yesterday that his cock felt rubbed raw when he woke up that morning. That was how intensely Taeju was hung up on Kwon Rian right now. It was only natural for an Alpha to be hooked on an Omega, regardless of what his heart felt.

Taeju was growing impatient. He wanted to see that sweet, innocent face pinned beneath him, flushed crimson and thoroughly ripe with lust. More than anything, he wanted Kwon Rian to be his very first Omega.

Yu-gyeom sliced his steak with clinical precision. “Did you say Taeju was in the middle of manifesting as an Alpha?”

“…Yes,” Taeju replied.

Taeju’s sharp, guarded gaze met Yu-gyeom’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Sensitive and perceptive as Yu-gyeom was, there was no way the older Alpha could miss the faint Alpha pheromones Taeju was exuding.

To Yu-gyeom, the scent was hopelessly crude, nothing more than the raw, clumsy stink of greenhorn pheromones. Yet even that irritated him, threatening to unsettle Rian. The sheer nerve of a half-baked novice who couldn’t even rein in his own scent, daring to covet what belonged to Yu-gyeom, was almost laughable.

“I heard Rian only manifested when he was twenty,” Taeju said. “Could he have manifested in response to you, hyung, because you’re an Alpha?”

“What do you mean by that?” Yu-gyeom asked calmly.

Taeju offered a casual shrug. “People say that being around an Alpha can cause a Beta to manifest as an Omega.”

It felt like a thinly veiled insinuation, hinting that Yu-gyeom and Rian were sleeping together despite being brothers.

“Is that so? Rian, did you turn into an Omega because of me?” Yu-gyeom asked playfully.

Instead of answering Taeju directly, Yu-gyeom shifted the topic toward Rian with an amused tilt of his lips. Taeju thought Yu-gyeom was as slick and slippery as a snake. Being older than them, Yu-gyeom possessed an undeniable masculine authority, and though Taeju couldn’t smell his scent, it was bound to be potent—especially seeing how Kwon Rian sat there dazed, leaking enough pheromones to drench his underwear.

Flustered by the unexpected suggestion, Rian stammered, “Huh? Di-did it happen because of hyung? Maybe that’s true.”

Seeing Rian blush with shy embarrassment soured Taeju’s mood, prompting him to snap his head away. In the end, Taeju’s probing had done nothing but confirm the unbreakable bond between the two brothers.

The scent of cunt juice hung in the car. Taeju could vividly imagine Rian’s pussy soaking through his underwear, growing swollen and dripping wet. And every drop of it was undoubtedly because of Yu-gyeom, parading under the mask of a damn hyung.

Taeju felt thoroughly disgusted.