Chapter 34

Blink, blink—…

Lying in a hospital bed, Yi-seon slowly closed and opened his eyes.

How many times had he drifted into unconscious sleep only to wake again? An IV needle was stuck in his forearm, and not a shred of strength remained in his body.

According to what he had heard from the doctor during a brief spell of consciousness yesterday, colliding with his very first heat made the aftermath all the more overwhelming.

A few days ago, Yi-seon met his first heat. A heat that was never supposed to arrive in his lifetime due to his remarkably low pheromone levels had been forcibly triggered. The cause, naturally, was the pheromones of Extreme Dominant Alpha Yeon Mugyeol.

Everything regarding Yeon Mugyeol had reached him solely through the words of others. When the responders arrived after Mugyeol called for help, Mugyeol was isolating himself in a separate room, gripping shards of glass to stay conscious whenever instinct threatened to swallow him whole.

He had also heard the entryway floor was slick with Mugyeol’s blood. Trapped in the room, Yi-seon had fallen unconscious; beyond fainting under the shock of his first heat, he suffered no other serious harm.

Yi-seon found it hard to believe. January first. Meeting his first heat the very moment he became a legal adult—and above all, the fact that the trigger behind that heat was Yeon Mugyeol.

As Yi-seon listened blankly, Doctor Seo Jinwoo, his attending physician, continued. Alphas who lost their reason often triggered a pheromone explosion. He explained that it belonged to the realm of pure instinct, making it difficult to control, and because Mugyeol was an Extreme Dominant Alpha, the impact was vastly magnified.

“The moment Yeon Young Master Mugyeol’s pheromones spiraled out of control, having Young Master Yi-seon by his side exacerbated the situation. Of course, that is by no means your fault, Young Master Yi-seon. It was simply a natural physiological reaction.”

The Extreme Dominant Alpha’s body had already triggered a pheromone explosion, slipping into an uncontrollable state, whereas the Omega beside him was extreme recessive and incapable of properly responding to the Alpha’s signals. Because the Omega’s body failed to react, the Alpha’s pheromones had poured out with even greater ferocity.

A preliminary barrage to forcibly awaken a dormant Omega’s body and prime it for mating. What had crushed and roughly engulfed Yi-seon’s body was a pheromone shower from an Extreme Dominant Alpha rampaging on pure, mindless instinct.

“To put it simply, you can consider yourself a standard Omega now rather than an extreme recessive. You will experience recurring heats from now on. We are currently testing your cycle and timing, so please wait a little for the results.”

A heat? A heat? Recurring heats were going to come…?

Yi-seon’s emotions swung chaotically between rage and guilt. If he traced it back, the reason Mugyeol lost his mind beyond all self-control was him. Because he had kissed Su-ah, the girl his best friend Mugyeol harbored an unrequited crush on.

He could understand the sense of betrayal Mugyeol felt.

Still, was that enough to make his eyes roll back in madness?

All sorts of thoughts tangled into a jumbled mess.

“Suppressants didn’t work well back in the day, right? They say back then, extreme dominant Alphas would drench Betas in pheromones and flip their secondary gender to Omega. Called it a pheromone shower or whatever.”

Words he had heard from Park Juhyeon in the past crossed his mind. He had never dreamed the pheromones of an Extreme Dominant Alpha could be this potent. Now that he had undergone living experimentation on his own flesh, he could no longer dismiss it as some cult leader’s ghost story.

“What kind of fucked-up situation is this…” Murmuring in a whisper, Yi-seon snapped his eyes open.

Was this reality?

To become a ‘proper’ Omega so abruptly.

Every time heat arrived, Omegas had to stay on high alert and protect their own bodies. If they missed the window to take their suppressants, it was practically equivalent to being hurled into a jungle of beasts.

“Bastard.”

No matter how furious and disappointed he was, how could he lose his mind to the point of altering his friend’s secondary gender?

No, no. If I hadn’t kept it a secret, none of this would have happened in the first place.

His emotions seesawed back and forth. He couldn’t tell whether he should be angry or apologizing. For one thing he owed an apology, and for another he deserved one. His head was such a mess that he wished someone would just step in and hand down a ruling on what he ought to feel.

Wriggling like a caterpillar in a body stripped of strength, he let out a hollow breath. Then, out of nowhere, a large hand reached in and pressed heavily against his chest. “Stay still. You’ll pull the needle out.”

“…Yeon Mugyeol?”

Pinned beneath the palm, Yi-seon looked up in utter shock.

Mugyeol was standing guard beside him with a remarkably serene expression. Wearing a calm face, as if he were merely a guardian wholly unrelated to the incident.

“I’m sorry.”

Looking down at the bewildered Yi-seon, Mugyeol cleanly offered an apology first.

“I got worked up back then and lost control. I’ve never lost my head like that before… Thanks to that, I got tied down by my arms and legs and quarantined for the first time in a while. Like a fucking beast in an iron cage.” Mugyeol added with a blank expression, “Guess the shock I took that day really was fucking awful.”

“I’m the one who’s fucked over.”

Yi-seon let the tension drain completely from his stiffened body. Whether blood had pumped too fast from the stress, a sudden dizziness took hold. He distinctly felt the control drugs circulating through his system. It felt bizarre, as though even his heartbeat relied on the medication.

“Because of you, I’m… I…”

I became a ‘real’ Omega.

Lifting an arm that barely obeyed him, he shielded his burning eyes. The tip of his nose stung.

“Forget it.”

Drained of strength, Yi-seon let his head slump to the side. Resentment toward Mugyeol felt pointless. It had already happened; stewing in it was nothing more than a futile waste of emotion. All the more so because the reason for Mugyeol’s rut was none other than himself.

Yet right after thinking that, an urge surged to jump up and grab Mugyeol by the collar. With his mood fluctuating by the second, Yi-seon found himself utterly confused. Was he angry, apologetic, resigned, or furious?

From above his head, Yeon Mugyeol asked casually, “How do you want me to compensate you?”

“…What?”

“You’re the victim, so you choose.”

“…”

“Money? Or something else?”

“…”

“I’ll talk with my grandfather and come up with the most reasonable compensation plan possible.”

Yi-seon slowly moved the arm covering his eyes. Compensation? What did he want? Could he even give whatever was asked for? A surge of fury boiling inside, Yi-seon fumbled across the bedside shelf and hurled whatever his hand caught straight at Yeon Mugyeol.

“Get lost!”

What flew toward Mugyeol was a roll of white toilet paper. He had hoped it would hit Mugyeol square, but with animalistic reflexes, Mugyeol deftly snatched the roll out of the air. The hand clutching the roll was wrapped thickly in white bandages—wounds evidently sustained that day when Mugyeol gripped the shattered glass.

Handing the caught roll back to Yi-seon, Yeon Mugyeol shamelessly murmured that it was a relief he had cleared away the fruit knife earlier. “I put a paring knife out to peel an apple for you. Almost saw blood again.”

“Haa… Just get out. My head hurts.”

Mugyeol stood right up from his chair. “You seem fine enough, so I’ll get lost. But.” Grabbing his coat and moving the water cup closer, Mugyeol looked quietly down at Yi-seon and said, “Don’t keep avoiding me.”

“…”

Leaving those final words behind, Mugyeol turned and walked away. His demeanor was so immaculate that it stirred doubt whether he was truly the same bastard who had poured out pheromones in a feral mess and pounced on him a few days ago.

Recalling that day made him feel intensely strange. Because it was an undercurrent that should never have flowed between Mugyeol and himself, it felt all the more alien. How many people in the world would ever experience their childhood friend losing his mind to a rut, rubbing his lower half against them in blind heat?

While he was lost in thought clutching the toilet paper, the firmly closed hospital room door opened again.

“I left some chestnut cookies on the drawer, so make sure you eat them.”

With those parting words, the door clicked shut once more. Feeling strangely defeated, Yi-seon felt hollow inside.

“Now I’m the only one who looks like the bad guy again.”

Nibbling anxiously on his lower lip, Yi-seon lay back on the bed and pulled the blanket over his face.

Nausea had churned in his stomach for a while now. It was because faint traces of Mugyeol’s pheromones still lingered inside his body. Perhaps that was why his heart had pounded so hard it was unbearable from the moment Mugyeol drew near. If he hadn’t hurried Mugyeol out by telling him to get lost, he might have ended up showing a humiliating state—panting raggedly or flushing bright red.

Today, Mugyeol hadn’t released any pheromones. He, too, had likely spent days hospitalized to suppress his heat cycle, so the medication’s effects would still be active. Even so, Yi-seon could sense Mugyeol’s pheromones. The pheromones Mugyeol had showered over his body were still coursing through his bloodstream.

He had heard they would dissipate completely in a few days, so facing Mugyeol should be easier by then.

The first Alpha pheromones he had ever experienced in his life. A piece of Yeon Mugyeol still warming his flesh.

“…”

His body had become entirely different from before.

All because of Yeon Mugyeol.

❖ ❖ ❖

Yeon Mugyeol showed up the very next day as well.

Even though Yi-seon had warned him over the phone never to come, Mugyeol simply replied that he understood and waltzed right in shamelessly. He looked exactly like a loan shark keeping tabs on a debtor to make sure he was still there and hadn’t run away.

The moment Mugyeol walked in, he set down a fruit basket, washed his hands, and began peeling an orange. “Hey. Ryu Yi-seon.”

Watching the orange turn into shredded rags, Yi-seon answered, “What, Yeon Mugyeol.”

The precious young master Mugyeol, who had never once peeled an orange with his own two hands in his life, was practically cold-pressing it into juice.

“Did you put your tongue in?”

“What?”

Yi-seon ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek, trying to make sense of Mugyeol’s sudden question. Mugyeol looked up, clutching the half-peeled orange so tightly that juice dripped from the crushed fruit.

“When you kissed noona, did you put your tongue in?”

…Haa. Yi-seon let out a heavy sigh and lay back on the bed. Pulling the thin blanket over his head, he shut out Yeon Mugyeol’s gaze.

Is this guy completely out of his mind…?

While he thought it was an abhorrent question, it felt even stranger because he realized it was something Yeon Mugyeol might genuinely wonder about.

There was no need to blame Mugyeol. This was all his own karma. Pointlessly liking Mugyeol, pointlessly revealing his emotions to Su-ah, and pointlessly kissing noona. On top of that, getting caught in the act by Mugyeol.

While he was rubbing his ear vigorously as if to wash away the absurdity he had just heard, Yeon Mugyeol roughly yanked the blanket back.

“Did she touch you?”

“What?”

Curled on the bed, Yi-seon glared at Mugyeol with his arms wrapped around his own shoulders. Ignoring Yi-seon’s glare, Mugyeol gripped the metal frame of the bed and leaned over him. As Mugyeol’s shadow cast over his body, Yi-seon felt an uncanny sense of pressure.

“Where did she touch you?”

Slipping slowly inside Yi-seon’s hospital gown, Mugyeol’s hand—

“What did noona do?”

Gently swept up along his waist before tracing the lean curve of his ribs with a slow thumb.

For the sake of his own and Ham Su-ah’s innocence, Yi-seon snapped, “She didn’t do anything! It was just a light brush! Noona didn’t touch me anywhere!”

When Yi-seon slapped away the insolent hand shoved under his clothes and lashed out, Mugyeol finally ceased his barrage of questions. Straightening his leaning torso, Mugyeol sat at the table and resumed peeling the half-finished orange. Peeled by clumsy hands, the orange’s surface was entirely crushed.

“So why’d you kiss? Did you do it first? That’s not it, right? You said you weren’t dating. Did you confess to noona by any chance?”

After rattling off several questions one after another, Mugyeol looked up again. This time, the orange he had worked so hard to peel was completely squashed. Finding it ridiculous that he peeled it only to mangle it himself, Yi-seon clicked his tongue in disbelief.

“I didn’t confess.”

“Then why’d you kiss? Out of boredom?”

“Noona said she heard from the underclassmen about what happened between you and me in the infirmary. While talking about that, we were messing around and our faces just brushed against each other.”

“…”

“It was an accident milder than that headbutt between you and me in the infirmary.”

Mugyeol seemed to finally calm down, tossing the mangled orange onto the plate. He went to wash his hands again and started peeling a fresh orange.

“Why is this orange so soft?”

Yi-seon was genuinely at a loss for words. It wasn’t as if he were grilling some freeloading gigolo who had run off with his wife. Glaring with terrifying intensity and demanding whether he had put his tongue in or where she had touched him—it felt as though his condition was taking a turn for the worse all over again.

“Eat.”

A moment later, Mugyeol held out a plate neatly lined with orange segments for him to eat. They looked in surprisingly decent shape, but on the table sat about five squashed oranges turned to mush. It appeared he had picked out only the prettiest pieces of fruit from everything he had painstakingly peeled.

“By the way, how did you know I liked oranges?”

Yi-seon picked up a piece and popped it into his mouth. Before moving to Jeju, he hadn’t cared much for citrus, so Mugyeol shouldn’t have known his preference. He had grown fond of them only after moving to Jeju and eating mandarins to his heart’s content, making it intriguing that Mugyeol was peeling only oranges for him.

“What do you mean how? Whenever there’s fruit around, you only ever pick mandarins or oranges.”

“Did I…?”

Yi-seon munched on the intact orange pieces while watching Mugyeol clear the table. As expected of someone smart, his powers of observation were sharp. He wondered why a guy like that couldn’t read his feelings, but thinking it was rather a blessing in disguise, he stretched his legs out long.

❖ ❖ ❖