Chapter 7

Mugyeol barely fought back against Yi-seon’s onslaught. The difference in their builds was absurd—one careless swing from Mugyeol could probably send Yi-seon flying—yet he simply let himself be dragged around, even ducking his head closer instead of trying to free his hair.

“Let go. Before your hyung loses his temper.”

“What the hell did I even do!”

“You think that face lets you get away with anything!”

“When did I ever!”

Still yielding his head to Yi-seon, Mugyeol suddenly lost his balance. With his hair trapped in Yi-seon’s fist and no effort made to resist, his footing slipped.

Mugyeol pitched forward into Yi-seon, who instinctively threw his arms around his neck to keep them both from falling. Mugyeol’s much larger frame ended up awkwardly folded against him.

For a fleeting instant, their body heat pressed together. It was close enough that the frantic rhythm of Yi-seon’s heartbeat reverberated right by Mugyeol’s ear.

“Arrrgh!”

Somehow even more startled than Yi-seon, Mugyeol let out a bizarre shriek and shoved himself away. “Fuck, where do you think you’re touching!”

“You fell into me first!”

Both of them furiously scrubbed at every place they had touched. Mugyeol’s face was twisted into a scowl, but his ears had gone bright red.

❖ ❖ ❖

After the other club members left, only three people remained in the club room.

Yi-seon, Mugyeol, and Ham Su-ah.

“Both of you, apologize.”

“…”

“…”

Mugyeol and Yi-seon stood face-to-face while pointedly looking anywhere but at each other.

Su-ah might have forced them to face each other, but Yi-seon clasped his hands behind his back while Mugyeol slouched with both hands in his pockets, their heads turned in opposite directions. Every inch of them radiated refusal.

“Promise you won’t fight anymore.”

“…”

“…”

“Hurry up.”

Yi-seon sighed and was the first to look over. Mugyeol was still staring toward the window, jaw set. Yi-seon muttered curtly, “Stop acting like a damn psycho.”

“Hey, you little shit—”

Only then did Mugyeol snap his head around to face him. Yi-seon flashed a grin first.

“I’m sorry. For grabbing your hair.”

The apology was genuine. The physical gap between them was undeniable. No matter who had started it, a real fight should logically have ended with Yi-seon getting beaten black and blue.

Instead, Mugyeol had let Yi-seon keep a fistful of his hair without really retaliating, leaving Yi-seon to vent his temper almost entirely one-sidedly. There was no question Mugyeol had gone easy on him.

Several strands of Mugyeol’s black hair were still caught between Yi-seon’s fingers, deepening his guilt. Thank god Mugyeol’s father and grandfather both had thick hair; if baldness ran in the family, this might have counted as a genuine tragedy.

“Anyway, Ryu Yi-seon, stop pulling your shit on noona… Haah, forget it.” Mugyeol cut himself off, paused, then looked at Ham Su-ah. “Noona, go ahead. I have something to say to him for a second.”

“You’re not going to hit him, right?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Alright then, I’m heading out. Make sure you two make up properly! Bye!”

Ham Su-ah slipped out of the club room as if she had been waiting for permission to escape. Their bickering had clearly exhausted her.

The wooden door clicked shut, leaving the two of them alone in the pale evening light.

Yi-seon tilted his head up, eyeing Mugyeol with curiosity. Do we even have anything personal to talk about?

Mugyeol drew a shallow breath, let it out, and went straight to the point. “Didn’t I tell you to manage your heat better?”

“Heat? What the hell are you talking about all of a sudden?”

Mugyeol ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek. “I warned you last time. Control your pheromones in advance. Are you brain-dead?”

“Don’t talk like an idiot yourself. You probably caught a whiff of some air freshener and mistook it again.”

The hospital had not even given Yi-seon an estimated date for his first heat. As a Recessive Omega, the hormone levels that triggered heat were practically negligible.

“What kind of bullshit is that? Earlier, you…! Haah, fuck…”

Mugyeol raked a hand through his hair in irritation, bowed his head for a moment, then snapped it up and glared at Yi-seon.

In that instant, Yi-seon’s body swayed violently.

Gasp…!

The air caught in his throat. He had never felt pressure like this in his life. A dense, intoxicating scent flooded his lungs while his limbs locked in place as if chained. His heart hammered frantically against his ribs.

The pheromones were unmistakably Mugyeol’s: the scent of a forest carrying the chill of lingering wind. What irritated Yi-seon most was the faint warmth underneath that biting cold, like sunlight melting over frost.

It felt like being drunk or drugged. Even breathing became difficult, as though the air itself had thickened.

“Wait… ngh…”

Just as Yi-seon, overwhelmed by the sensory deluge, began to collapse in a daze—

The pheromones vanished as suddenly as they had appeared. Even so, Yi-seon’s rubbery legs gave out, and he sagged against the desk for support.

Nausea churned in his stomach, and his head spun as though he were still trapped in that stifling cloud. Through his lowered gaze, all he could see were Mugyeol’s feet planted squarely in front of him.

Over Yi-seon’s ragged breathing came Mugyeol’s flat, low voice.

“Shitty, isn’t it?”

“…Haah, hah…”

“It pisses you off when I pull this shit, right? So let’s observe some basic manners.”

Still staring at the wooden floorboards, Yi-seon slowly raised one hand and extended his middle finger straight at Mugyeol. “Fuck… off.”

“…”

Mugyeol looked down at Yi-seon’s raised middle finger, then reached out and calmly folded it back into his fist.

“I’ll fuck off, and I let you pull my hair, but if you leak pheromones in front of me again, you’re dead. Seriously.”

Clack! The heavy slam of the wooden door echoed loudly through the room.

With Mugyeol gone, silence settled over the club room. Yi-seon took several deep breaths and did not lift his head until his body had steadied. Even then, his vision still swam from the lingering effects of Mugyeol’s pheromones.

“Unreal.”

Are all Alpha pheromones like this?

Probably not. After manifesting as an Omega, Yi-seon had undergone trait education at the hospital and experienced an Alpha’s pheromones firsthand, but that had been completely different. He had barely registered the scent at all. The doctor had explained that his recessive trait made him unusually insensitive to external pheromone stimuli.

A Dominant Alpha really is built different, though. Seeing how thoroughly it scrambled my head.

Yet Mugyeol seemed to have exerted some degree of restraint, as no humiliating physical arousal had occurred. He had merely applied enough commanding pressure to force submission before walking away.

Not that Yi-seon felt the least bit grateful. How could anyone be that tyrannical and self-centered? All he wanted was to chase the bastard down and plant a kick in his stomach.

“Rotten bastard.”

Yi-seon sat dazed in that spot for a long while.

Eventually, Yi-seon pulled himself together and stood. He rolled his neck until it popped, stretched his arms overhead, and packed his bag. As he gathered the sketchbook containing his studies of Ham Su-ah, he noticed another sketchbook on the desk beside him—the one Mugyeol had left behind.

Cursing Mugyeol under his breath, Yi-seon flipped to his drawing of Ham Su-ah. The page was full of erased and redrawn lines, evidence of how hard Mugyeol had wrestled with it. The result was clumsy, but the effort was obvious.

How did he draw me?

Yi-seon flipped to the preceding page. Three random circles and two straight lines greeted him. The circles were the head and eyes; the nose and mouth were crude dashes.

By any standard, it was a stick figure scribbled together in three seconds flat.

It takes real talent to draw something with this little effort.

Yi-seon set the sketchbook down.

He tried so hard to draw noona pretty. If he’d put in even half—no, a quarter—of that effort for me, it might have actually resembled a human being.

On second thought, comparing the two made no sense. To Mugyeol, Ham Su-ah and Ryu Yi-seon occupied entirely different worlds.

Ham Su-ah was the object of romantic yearning; Ryu Yi-seon was merely an old childhood friend.

Stop throwing a self-pitying fit.

After tidying the room, Yi-seon pulled the door shut behind him. He adjusted his backpack straps and headed for the stairs, only to spot someone leaning against the wall around the corner.

“Ack!”

Clutching his chest, Yi-seon glared at him. Mugyeol slowly pushed away from the corridor wall. Why the hell was the guy who had stormed off earlier lurking here like some roadside bandit?

“What are you doing here? Looking to pick another fight? Fuck off.”

Without a word, Mugyeol looked Yi-seon over from head to toe. After one last glance at his face, he turned on his heel.

“Guess you’re fine.” With that muttered aside, Mugyeol headed down the stairs. Flabbergasted, Yi-seon gripped the railing tight.

“You look anything but fine, you crazy psycho!”

Why on earth do I even like a guy like that?

Yi-seon saw him every day and still could not understand him—just as he examined his own heart every day and still could not fathom that either.

Yi-seon made up his mind. When the chance came, he would get his revenge.

If the opportunity ever presented itself, he wanted to bind Yeon Mugyeol’s hands and feet, gag his mouth, blindfold his eyes, and pin him down. He wanted to make Mugyeol experience firsthand the sheer helplessness of being trapped and unable to twitch a muscle, just as Yi-seon had felt under his suffocating pheromones today.

Without fail.