“So. You’re saying you go around as a bread shuttle to remote mountain villages and isolated islands?”
“Haha. Does it work out that way?”
Even though he must have guessed why I came here, he’s deflecting like that? Knowing full well that Han Yeoul and I are inseparable, knowing better than anyone that there’s no reason other than Han Yeoul for me to come looking for him, watching Kim Yeonghyo feign ignorance like this makes my insides boil with anger.
The “alumnus” Kim Yeonghyo’s younger sister is talking about seems like Han Yeoul, it can’t make sense if it’s not Han Yeoul, yet he’s not saying a single word to me about Han Yeoul? Does he want me to say it with my own mouth?
“Han Yeoul.”
Kim Yeonghyo’s face, which had been grinning, stiffened.
“Have you met him recently?”
Without answering, Kim Yeonghyo looked down at his clasped hands. After staring at his hands like that for a while, Kim Yeonghyo opened his mouth.
“When I met you again in college, do you remember what I gave you?”
Kim Yeonghyo answering a question with a question is irritating. That’s not the answer I want to hear, yet he doesn’t answer my question and says something irrelevant.
“I asked if you’ve met Han Yeoul.”
“The bookmark I gave you then, you know. I asked you to pass it to Yeoul, but you didn’t give it to him, did you?”
“I asked if you’ve met Yeoul, Kim Yeonghyo.”
“Why did you do that?”
Kim Yeonghyo looked me straight in the eye and asked. For a moment, the feeling from those eyes was so chilling that I couldn’t answer and just stared back at Kim Yeonghyo.
Did Kim Yeonghyo have eyes like that?
He’s a guy who always looked only at the ground. For all three years of high school, he couldn’t speak properly to me, and just because Han Yeoul was nice to him, he followed Yeoul around.
That guy came to the same university and tried to cling to Yeoul again, so I barely pried him off, and now he looks straight at me and interrogates me without answering my question.
What on earth changed him like this? Unpleasant. So unpleasant. Because it feels like my Yeoul is at the center of that change.
“Is there a reason I should have given that to Yeoul?”
At my words, Kim Yeonghyo scoffed as if incredulous.
“You asked me to.”
Kim Yeonghyo crossed his arms, looked straight at me, and let out a sigh.
“I asked you politely, Seonjae.”
“Do I have to do everything you ask?”
Irritation surged. I can’t understand Kim Yeonghyo, who doesn’t answer my words and questions me as if bringing up an old matter I can’t even remember.
“Well, that’s the kind of person you were. Whatever, it doesn’t matter. Have you seen Yeoul?”
Kim Yeonghyo stalled, rubbing his face dry. Finally finding out about Yeoul’s whereabouts, I unconsciously swallowed dry saliva.
“No. I haven’t.”
“What?”
An unexpected answer burst from Kim Yeonghyo’s mouth. It’s a lie. He definitely left the island in Kim Yeonghyo’s truck.
“Liar.”
“What do you mean, liar?”
“I checked the vehicle registration before coming. He left in your car.”
“My car?”
“The factory car.”
“Ah. The factory car goes everywhere. I’m not the only one who drives that car.”
“So. The car Han Yeoul left in wasn’t one you drove?”
“Well. I don’t know about that.”
Kim Yeonghyo’s words as he grins are ominous. I have a feeling it’s not something “he doesn’t know about.” But since I don’t have grounds to press him right now, I can’t do anything more here.
“The alumnus who gave advice for your business… is it Yeoul?”
“Ah. Very capable. I received a lot of help when we were in school too, but Yeoul really seems amazing.”
Watching Kim Yeonghyo praise Yeoul with a flushed face makes me feel strange. Even though hearing through another person’s mouth how capable my Yeoul is should clearly be a happy thing, I wasn’t happy at all. Hearing stories about Yeoul that I don’t know in this way was unpleasant because it seemed like proof that Yeoul had grown that much more distant from me.
“So. Where is Yeoul now?”
My insides twisted. Nausea kept surging up. The butter smell lingering at the tip of my nose mixed with the pungent alpha smell subtly flowing from Kim Yeonghyo made my stomach churn. I just wanted to get out of here quickly. I wanted to escape from this place where traces of Yeoul I didn’t know were left, and return to the house full of Yeoul’s traces.
“Why are you asking me that?”
Kim Yeonghyo answered indifferently.
“You must know.”
“Why do you think I know? I just said I haven’t met him recently.”
“Didn’t I say he left the island in your company car? Even if you didn’t meet him directly, you must have heard where he went.”
I pressed my temples hard and spat out the words through gritted teeth, trying not to make a groaning sound. Kim Yeonghyo stared at me like that for a while before responding.
“Do you monitor every single move of your company employees, what they do and where?”
“What?”
“Ah. No, that’s right. You said you work alone. Then I should change the question. Does a boss need to know all the personal affairs of their employees?”
As Kim Yeonghyo stood up, I stared at him with a dazed face, and he raised the corner of his mouth crookedly.
“Maybe I just gave him a ride in passing. I don’t know anything about it.”
“Kim Yeonghyo.”
Kim Yeonghyo let out a deep sigh.
“Look, Seonjae. Even so, we’re alumni and I could look into it out of goodwill, but if you act so rudely, would I feel like doing that?”
What? The rude one isn’t me, it’s Kim Yeonghyo. He’s been on edge with someone who came all this way from the start, yet he’s calling me rude—
“Control your pheromones properly. I feel like throwing up.”
“You’re the one—”
“Looks like you still haven’t kicked the habit of smothering Han Yeoul with them. Or can’t you control them? This is a bread factory. But from the moment you came in, all I can smell are your pheromones. I feel like I’m going crazy.”
No. I didn’t release my pheromones or anything, he’s lying. When did I—
“I feel like my nose is rotting.”
But as if I really was leaking pheromones, Kim Yeonghyo frowned deeply and opened the window. I stood there blankly and stared at Kim Yeonghyo like that.
Returning without any results, I stopped by the main house before going home. Kim Yeonghyo’s words had been bothering me. If I couldn’t feel it but my pheromones were that terrible, when I went into the house, I was afraid that even the faintly remaining scent of Yeoul’s pheromones would completely disappear.
Unusually, my second older brother had returned to the main house. He was busy with hospital work and only came home occasionally on holidays, so wondering what brought him here, I approached with a surprised face, and my second brother frowned. I wondered if running into me was such an unpleasant thing to warrant that expression, but then I thought maybe it wasn’t me but my “pheromones” that were the problem.
Really… are my pheromones strongly scented?
“Hyung… do I smell a lot of pheromones?”
“Why? Can’t you tell yourself?”
“……”
So it is like that.
My second brother let out a sigh and tapped the table as if telling me to sit in front of him. I sat across from him.
“You weren’t doing that for a while, are you anxious?”
“Hm?”
“That.”
When he gestured with his chin and pointed at my hand, I finally realized I’d been continuously picking at the hangnail on my thumb. It was a habit that came out when I was nervous. I was fine now, but I used to do this often when I was young. When learning to swim, when learning taekwondo, when learning to cook… Every time I learned something new, it was a habit that came out unconsciously when I was tense, wondering if I could do well.
“Ah.”
“It could be an aftereffect of imprinting. It’s not my field, so I’m not certain, but I’ve seen similar cases. Stop by the Trait Medicine Department once. It might be uncomfortable for other alphas.”
“…Are you uncomfortable too, hyung?”
My second brother looked at me as if asking what I meant.
“Are you also… uncomfortable with me?”
“I’m not so callous that I can’t understand a patient. It’s not like you deliberately released your pheromones, so as a doctor, I can fully understand—”
“No, I’m not talking about pheromones.”
“What are you saying?”
My second brother asked with his brow deeply furrowed. The expression my second brother wore when looking at me had become the default since that day. An expression filled with endless contempt, as if even my presence beside him made him shudder.
