Chapter 40

Ding.

Receiving a text message from someone, Yi-seon sprang up from his seat in utter disbelief. Mugyeol had just sent over several photos. They were commemorative photos taken together at school on graduation day. Only the photos had arrived, without a single word attached. Being in a state of tentative war, that was only natural.

At graduation, Mugyeol had been pummeled twice by Yi-seon. Once behind the school building, and once more in the infirmary.

That day, Yi-seon had fled the infirmary without waiting to see Mugyeol’s reaction. Cursing the lunatic who was ridiculously good at everything, even kissing, he had been crossing the schoolyard when he ran into Mugyeol’s grandfather, who was watching the graduates while waiting for his grandson.

“Hello, grandfather!”

“Ah, yes. You came out before Mugyeol. That punk is in the restroom cleaning his clothes, isn’t he? Why did a nosebleed burst out of nowhere? Has his stamina weakened or something?”

“Ah…”

“Come over here. When Mugyeol arrives, the three of us will take a photo together with this old man.”

“Yes, sir.”

Unable to simply brush off an elder’s request, Yi-seon had been caught by Chairman Yeon and waited anxiously for Mugyeol.

A moment later, Mugyeol appeared. Having wiped the blood off his clothes in the restroom, the front of his shirt was soaking wet. Mugyeol, who brushed it off with a vague excuse that he had tripped and gotten a nosebleed, gladly placed Yi-seon in the center when his grandfather suggested taking a photo together.

Afterward, Yi-seon took photos with Mugyeol alone as well. Beside him smiling clumsily, Mugyeol slung an arm around his shoulder and smiled brightly. The funny thing about these photos was that both of them looked completely carefree and cheerful.

“At least we managed to take graduation photos, so that’s a relief.”

The more he looked at the pictures, the more he laughed in disbelief. In more ways than one, it was an unforgettable graduation.

Thinking Mugyeol’s face turned out well, Yi-seon zoomed in on the picture, only for the strength to suddenly drain from his legs, making him slump down. While magnifying Mugyeol’s scraped lip, the tactile memory of those lips rushed back vividly.

“Seriously, when am I going to forget this…?”

Even though time had passed, it didn’t fade easily. Just thinking about it made his heart flutter and heat pool in his fingertips as though they had just kissed a moment ago.

Yeon Mugyeol must be experienced with kissing, right? He kissed so damn well; he must have done way more than that too, right? That’s why he shoved his hand into someone’s pants like some complete slut…

His cheeks burned just imagining it, yet what made the memory feel so surreal was Yeon Mugyeol’s nonchalant attitude. Because the other party acted so brazenly, Yi-seon felt pressured to act just as unbothered.

Having heard what his mother had said regarding the two of them, he felt all the more self-conscious. While lost in various thoughts, Yi-seon’s phone began to ring. The caller was Ham Su-ah.

“Yeah, noona.”

— “I heard you got proposed to!”

“…”

This noona really gets news fast…

Who on earth spread rumors so far that word reached Su-ah noona…?

The fact that Ham Su-ah, an alumna, already knew meant that the entire student body knew. His head suddenly spinning, Yi-seon squeezed his eyes shut. Ham Su-ah’s cackling laughter rang through the receiver.

— “Come down. Let’s talk. I’m in front of your apartment right now.”

“Got it.”

Tossing the bag he had been packing into a corner, Yi-seon headed downstairs. Ham Su-ah was sitting on a bench beside the parking lot entrance. Stamping her feet and complaining that she was freezing to death, Su-ah flipped back the hood of her padded jacket the moment Yi-seon sat down.

“What on earth have you two been up to?”

Since the day they had fought in front of Ham Su-ah, he hadn’t properly updated her on their situation. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to tell her that Yeon Mugyeol had lost his mind and caused a pheromone explosion that day, or that his own secondary gender trait had altered because of it. He had merely told her vaguely that he and Yeon Mugyeol had a rather severe fight.

“I only knew you two fought, but then out of nowhere, they’re saying Mugyeol proposed to you on graduation day. Publicly, no less!”

“…It wasn’t public. The other kids just happened to see it.”

“Let’s hear it from the person involved. What on earth happened?”

“Um… well…”

Yi-seon began explaining hesitantly. He wanted to give a logical explanation, but the flow of events was so illogical that it proved impossible. Trying to explain while leaving out the pheromone shower created huge plot holes, making it even harder.

After a massive fight with Mugyeol, graduation day arrived. And there, they abruptly fought again. When he got to the part where he shouted that marrying Mugyeol would be terrible… Ham Su-ah’s eyes went wide as saucers.

“Why did marriage come up all of a sudden? Why did you say marrying him would be terrible?”

“Uh… I don’t remember clearly… but Yeon Mugyeol is an Alpha and I’m an Omega, so we were bickering back and forth and the conversation kind of derailed to that point…? Something like that…”

“Aha. Context-free soap-opera melodrama. That can happen. Keep going for now.”

Though Ham Su-ah wore a completely baffled expression, she nodded along, agreeing that things could end up that way when talking to Yeon Mugyeol. So Yi-seon continued rambling on with the story.

After fighting their hearts out, when he told him marrying him would be terrible, Mugyeol suddenly said he’d show him what was really terrible, dropped to his knees, and told him to marry him. The look in his eyes was terrifying.

At that part, Ham Su-ah burst into roaring laughter. She seemed to dismiss the whole commotion as a mere prank. While he was telling the story with total seriousness, she was laughing so hard tears formed in her eyes, making him feel a bit offended; when he glared at her, she gave him a sharp scolding for glaring at his noona.

“The plot progression is totally unhinged, but the fact that it sounds completely plausible for Yeon Mugyeol makes it even funnier. I never thought he was that type of character, but in front of you, he kind of seems like one.”

Even though he had left out all the crucial parts and glossed over the rest, Ham Su-ah grasped the situation with remarkable ease. That only left him feeling more conflicted.

Just how strange was Yeon Mugyeol in the eyes of others? Someone who, when pushed to the brink of frustration, would propose in a fit of rage?

“Anyway, after that, he suddenly told me completely seriously that my qualifications were decent.”

“Qualifications? Mmh. Well, yeah. Yi-seon’s qualifications are great. Where else in the world could you find someone like you?”

“How do our qualifications even match? Our families aren’t even in the same weight class.”

“What’s wrong with you? You’re handsome, your face is pretty, your body is pretty, you smell nice, you’re good at studying, you’re kind, you’re diligent, your family background is good even if not on Yeon Mugyeol’s level… …Do you want to marry me instead of Yeon Mugyeol? Now that I think about it, there’s no one like you! Noona won’t let a single drop of water touch your hands! Just stay home modestly as a househusband!”

“If I do that, wouldn’t Yeon Mugyeol literally kill me…?”

Imagining marriage with Ham Su-ah, Yi-seon gave a slight shudder.

Yeon Mugyeol had already lost his mind and triggered a pheromone explosion just because he had kissed Ham Su-ah, and now marriage? Throwing himself into the crater of an active volcano would be a much safer option.

“Anyway, so Yeon Mugyeol caused that scene because he couldn’t control his temper, right?”

“Yeah. Noona really is good at summarizing.”

“All the kids think it was totally genuine, though. They said Mugyeol was clinging to you like crazy. Everyone’s calling him Ryu-obsse—the Ryu-obsessed freak.”

“Ryu-obsessed freak…”

The absurd nickname made his head spin.

“The rumor got distorted.”

Yi-seon let out a deep sigh.

If they had watched the two of them up close instead of spectating from afar, they wouldn’t dare use the word Ryu-obsessed freak.

❖ ❖ ❖

To anyone watching, a guy screaming like a madman with the whites of his eyes showing, bellowing for them to get married, was hardly a romantic throwing himself on the line for love. He was far closer to a rabid dog throwing a fit because he couldn’t master his own temper.

This was why people said life was a comedy from afar, but a tragedy up close.

A flicker of worry for Mugyeol suddenly crept inside Yi-seol. How on earth was Mugyeol supposed to endure carrying around rumors like that? If Yi-seon were the one saddled with a nickname like Yeon-obsessed freak—he would genuinely want to jump into the Han River.

What made it even more cruel was that they had already graduated, leaving no opportunity to set the record straight.

On top of that, Mugyeol had served as student council president—a prominent figure famous enough to deliver the valedictory address. By now, the fact that Mugyeol had turned into a Ryu-obsessed freak was common knowledge to far more than just the entire student body.

“Anyway, Mugyeol didn’t hit you anywhere, did he? Everything got sorted out okay that day, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then that’s all that matters.”

Fidgeting with his fingers on his lap, Yi-seon asked Ham Su-ah, “Are there… any other rumors about Mugyeol?”

“Yeah. Kids have been playing detective, tracing everything back in time.”

“…”

“They’re saying the whole reason Mugyeol joined the art club was because of Ryu Yi-seon; that when the two of you went on a trip abroad over summer break, Mugyeol actually tagged along on your family vacation; that after that, Mugyeol followed you around non-stop, so everyone’s dying to know what happened in Guam… They’re saying all kinds of wild stuff.”

“Haah…”

“And they’re saying that seeing an ultimate Alpha like Mugyeol show such devotion by getting down on his knees and proposing in public makes all other boys look like they aren’t even men. Saying they’re all just children.”

“…”

“Still, if some ugly squid of a bastard had gotten down on his knees in public instead of Mugyeol, wouldn’t that have been purely humiliating? People are only reacting this way because it’s Mugyeol. Normally, it would’ve been an absolute public nuisance of a scene.”

A headache throbbed behind Yi-seon’s temples from worrying about Mugyeol.

What are you going to do about your reputation, Yeon Mugyeol…?

From the school’s proud genius and dazzling student council president, he had devolved into a madman who dropped to his knees before a male classmate on graduation day, throwing a tantrum and screaming to get married. Granted, that was the truth, but still.

“To be honest, I was a little worried too, so I texted Mugyeol. He didn’t say much, but…”