From chest to shoulder.
From shoulder to the back of the neck…
At something subtly creeping up, he reflexively clenched his fist tight.
“How is it, does it hurt?”
“Mm.”
“What about this much? Is it okay?”
Cold sweat trickled down his jawline and reached his Adam’s apple.
His face gradually heated up as he gasped for breath from the faint pain.
“You can… go harder.”
“Then, should I go stronger?”
“Yeah.”
As soon as his permission fell, something pressed against his body even more forcefully.
Like a snake coiling around his entire body, a groan flowed out naturally at the feeling of being tightly constricted.
“Noow…”
Lee Haram, who had been whispering carefully, raised his voice.
“3%! Here it comes!”
“Mm.”
“Seems like you can endure it? 4%! How is it?!”
“Ugh.”
“5%! There’s still a long way to go!”
“Stop. Stop. Stop.”
When he struck the floor with his palm, the pheromones that had been gushing out from Lee Haram’s body instantly disappeared smoothly.
Lee Haram sprayed the pheromone deodorizer he was holding in both hands all around with repeated spritzes, then let out a deep sigh.
“Hyung, I only released 5% so far. Are you struggling already?”
“W-water…”
“Wow, look at that cold sweat. Wait.”
A water bottle was handed to him as he sat on the floor panting.
He put the medicine he’d prepared in advance into his mouth, swallowed it in one gulp, then leaned his head against his knees.
“Without medicine, I can only… endure up to 3%.”
“We have a long way to go. Normal alphas would be fine even taking 50%.”
“50%?! That’s almost 17 times…”
“As expected, hyung’s smart. You calculate fast.”
How could they endure 17 times that monstrous pheromone?
The standard for ordinary people—it’s so far and harsh once again.
“Haram-ah, how much do you usually release when you’re out?”
“If I’m not conscious of it, maybe around 15%? For reference, omegas can comfortably withstand 20%, even 25%.”
15%, 25%…
“You always go around thinking about that?”
He threw out a question at the suspiciously detailed figures.
“Do you always go around testing how much people can endure? This person’s limit is 28 percent, check complete. Like that?”
“What! Do you think I’m some kind of pervert?! Like other alphas and omegas, I just instinctively adjust thinking ‘this much wouldn’t be a nuisance,’ and live like that! It’s normal!”
“You normally… adjust it down to percentage units when you go around?”
Realizing he wasn’t asking to tease him, Lee Haram scratched his cheek and answered calmly.
“Most people don’t go that far, I think. But I can do it.”
“Because you’re a dominant alpha?”
“Honestly, even for a dominant alpha it’d be difficult, right? I can do it because I trained hard.”
“…Trained?”
At those words, he couldn’t help but ask Lee Haram.
“How much are you suppressing in front of me?”
“Hm? A lot.”
“Exactly how much?”
“Why are you curious about that?”
“Tell me.”
At his continued urging, Lee Haram hesitated awkwardly before opening his mouth.
“1…”
“1%?”
“0.1%.”
What?
0.1?
“Haha, I put in some effort after learning about hyung’s constitution.”
Effort…
Zero point one percent, some effort.
[Lee Haram, Seoul Municipal Youth Judo Competition Winner!]
Suddenly the image of Lee Haram from when he swept national martial arts competitions came to mind.
Lee Haram’s brilliant award history was partly due to his innate physicality, but he couldn’t forget the image of that hot-blooded boy who ran every evening against the sunset with废 tires strapped to him.
The embodiment of blood, sweat, and tears—Lee Haram.
He never imagined that he’d trained to control not just his muscle strength but also his pheromones to the level of 0.1%—not 50%, not even 1%.
“So, you know when you came to me at night saying you wanted to practice control methods? I thought you really knew how to pick people.”
“…”
“No matter how much I suppress my pheromones, in the end they’re poison to hyung. I felt bad thinking that… but I’m happy I can help hyung like this at least!”
His chest somehow ached at Lee Haram’s face smiling bashfully.
“Haram-ah… Thank you.”
“Why do you keep saying thank you embarrassingly! Let’s just have class. You said you need to learn the control method as quickly as possible.”
That’s right. There’s no end if he gets moved by Lee Haram’s top 0.1% character every single time.
Diligently taking lessons from the best teacher is the top priority of what he needs to do now.
“Hyung, you said up to 3% of my pheromones was okay, right?”
Lee Haram handed him a printout he’d edited himself again.
“Here. Write down all the sensations and feelings you experienced from my 3% pheromones.”
“Hmm.”
He picked up the pen and wrote down what he’d felt without hesitation.
[Seasickness / Chemical warfare training / Waterboarding / That thing… what was it? Something like the centrifugal force test the Air Force takes…]
“Not the sensations hyung normally feels!”
Lee Haram immediately stepped in to stop him.
“I mean a unique smell or characteristic you only felt from me! You need to find something like that.”
“Your characteristic…?”
“Yeah. Not unpleasant sensations!”
But it really was just painful…
He felt slightly wronged, like he’d been scolded for saying persimmons taste like persimmons after eating a persimmon.
“Wasn’t there some kind of distinctive smell or energy?”
At Lee Haram’s words, he propped his chin and thought carefully.
Looking back… aside from the strong dominant alpha pheromones, he did catch something heterogeneous.
A subtle fragrance floating in the heavy air. An air freshener smell that wasn’t too bad.
…No way.
“Flower scent?”
“Right! That! That’s it!”
“Wasn’t it the deodorizer scent?”
“No!”
Lee Haram grabbed the deodorizer spray and thrust it before his eyes.
[Ultra-Strong Pheromone Deodorizer / Unscented! No additives! Natural ingredients! / We take care of your health. Baekil Pharmaceuticals.]
Then he spritzed the contents into the air. Really, there was no smell at all. It was perfectly unscented.
By the way, his adoptive mother’s company makes all sorts of things. He only now realized it was from Baekil Pharmaceuticals.
“Air fresheners or diffusers…”
“We don’t have anything like that at my place.”
Suddenly Lee Haram began releasing pheromones gradually, making him reflexively step back.
Fortunately, the concentration was quite faint. Based on his earlier experience, maybe 1% to 2%?
Within that weak pheromone, a sweet flower scent began to be felt.
‘This is… pheromones?’
His head went blank from the shock of smelling something other than a foul odor from pheromones for the first time.
He’d heard that normal alphas usually have something more sophisticated, weighty—that kind of macho scent. But a floral scent? Is this right?
Moreover, this wasn’t an ordinary flower scent. It was a rich fragrance that seemed to gather all kinds of lovely flower scents together, yet it wasn’t burdensome and rather achieved harmony.
Furthermore, the sweetness felt from the dense honey scent… He even briefly thought he should ask what brand of air freshener it was before going home.
‘To think such a scent was hidden within those oppressive, heavy dominant pheromones…’
To him, the pheromones of both alphas and omegas were felt equally as the same foul odor.
But now it’s different. He’s become able to catch the individuality contained in pheromones. Though if the concentration gets thick, it would be felt as a foul odor like before.
As his sense of perceiving pheromones was honed more keenly, it felt like his vision was opening wide.
“So pheromones are… originally like this.”
“It’s a scent that doesn’t really suit an alpha, right? I know.”
“No, you just… you look like a flower yourself, so… it suits you.”
“Really? Hehe. Hyung complimented me saying I’m pretty.”
He just had nothing else to say, so looking at that face as bright as a flower, he unconsciously gave the compliment.
That moment. A familiar sense of déjà vu struck his head.
[Lee Haram. You go around emitting pheromones that match exactly how you look.]
A line from someone in the novel.
[It’s a whole flower shop. Haah…]
“…”
That line—he’s hazy on whether it was Baek Wooheon or ‘Baek Gunho’ who said it. Moaning sounds and 19+ descriptions naturally came to mind after that, but he desperately self-censored.
‘Even though he became an alpha, is the scent itself similar?’
Then the question naturally followed.
Then what about ‘Baek Gunho’ too?
Would my pheromones now have the same scent?
[Put away your pheromones, Baek Gunho.]
This newly surfaced sentence—
naturally, it wasn’t ‘Baek Gunho’s’ line.
[…Because it smells like shit.]
Filled with anger, he seemed to have said something like this.
[You don’t know, do you? How disgusting and… filthy your smell is.]
