Achim narrowed his eyes and leaned back against the backrest.
There was no better informant than Linus, but even so, this time Achim found it hard to believe. It was certainly an enticing subject — but by the same token, it was far too unrealistic to hold much credibility.
“Hmm, at Michael Bernhardt’s mansion, you say.”
Linus folded his arms on top of the table and leaned his upper body forward slightly; the old table let out a creak.
“Apparently, someone got in by violating the job posting’s conditions.”
“What kind?”
“Achim, do you remember?”
The hiring conditions, I mean. Linus said it with his eyes curving into thin lines.
“Beta female.”
At that, Achim’s eyes opened a little wider. As if taking that as encouragement, Linus continued.
“Apparently there was an omega who hid their nature and got hired under false pretenses. But get this — the moment they were found out, they met a terrible end.”
“A terrible end?”
When Achim asked back, Linus nodded, then dropped his voice to just barely above a whisper — low enough that only Achim could hear.
“They died.”
“What?”
Achim asked with wide eyes. Linus scratched his sideburns out of habit.
“I figured disliking omegas was one thing, could understand that — but the part about actually killing one, I never believed that.”
“……”
“The more extreme something is, the more sensational it sounds, darling.”
Linus said the rest with the corners of his eyes curving up.
“Everything except the fact that an omega was hired under false pretenses is unconfirmed, but still……”
“……”
“Interesting, isn’t it?”
Surely they wouldn’t go so far as to kill someone. It was most likely just a rumor floating around, but as Linus said, it was more than enough to pique interest.
Concealing one’s nature, huh. As if agreeing that it was indeed interesting, Achim gave a nod.
“So then — they took ‘that’ drug?”
It wasn’t that he didn’t know the method. There were ways to block pheromones, either temporarily or over a medium-to-long period. Most came in pill form. The major drawback, however, was that the known drugs had components far too potent and harmful to the body.
It was different from ordinary suppressants. Suppressants were something alphas or omegas took when they wanted to bring their heat cycle forward or push it back — during use, the pheromones would temporarily thin out, but they didn’t disappear entirely.
In other words, to conceal one’s nature and pass as a beta, one had no choice but to take that ‘harsh’ drug.
How harsh? Harsh enough that even a person with a perfectly healthy body could die within just a few months.
That was why the state had classified it as an illegal substance — yet even so, it was still being traded in secret.
“Why go that far, cutting into their own lifespan like that?”
Achim muttered, sounding as though he genuinely couldn’t understand. At that, Linus suddenly clapped his hands together as if he’d just remembered something.
“What am I thinking. I almost forgot to mention this part.”
Achim lifted his eyes from his beer glass.
“That drug the omega was taking.”
“……”
“Apparently it was different from the harsh ones we know.”
Different? How? When Achim asked, Linus turned the question back on him.
“Have you heard of something called ‘Henet’?”
“Henet?”
“Yeah. Never heard of it, right?”
Achim shook his head. Linus said he hadn’t either, then went on.
“It’s the name of a plant — apparently a rare one that only grows in high-altitude regions above four thousand meters above sea level.”
“And that’s an ingredient in the drug the omega took?”
Linus nodded.
“It’s so rare that people apparently call it a medicinal herb. Of course, as precious as it is, it’s not yet widely known, so it’s only a fact that a handful of dealers are aware of. Even those who do know keep it hush-hush, like me. And on top of that, apparently it has no harmful components and doesn’t damage your health.”
A rare drug that could conceal one’s nature — and one that, unlike the harsh ones they’d known before, caused no harm to the body.
Despite the lengthy explanation, from a beta’s perspective, that was all it amounted to. The unbridgeable distance that came with not sharing the same nature made it inevitable that there was a limit to how much he could truly relate.
Achim nodded, casually unbothered.
“Darling, why do you think I brought this up?”
“……”
“That drug you take, you know.”
“Drug?”
Achim asked with wide eyes, then — a beat late — a brown glass bottle flashed through his mind, and a soft ah slipped from his lips. He’d realized it was the drug Linus had given him before, the one used for voice modulation.
Linus nodded as if to confirm he was right.
“I’d been thinking it sounded familiar, and it turns out that drug has Henet in it too. So the moment I heard about that omega, I wanted to tell you right away. I’d been worried there might be side effects, after all. But now that it’s been verified as having no harmful components — all’s well that ends well, I’d say.”
Linus seemed to think himself quite commendable, because he lifted his brows high and wore a proud expression. The side of him that had been obsessing over Achim’s backside was nowhere to be seen — in its place was the face of a professional wearing a well-fitted mask.
A drug that conceals pheromones. But one that, since I’m a beta, would have no effect on me whatsoever.
Feeling lighter than before, Achim smiled back at Linus — the way you would to offer praise.
It was the first day off since entering the mansion.
The place where he’d met Linus was a bar tucked inside the outskirts of a small city, a little ways away from the mansion.
He left the brief meeting behind, said goodbye to Linus, and then, out of nowhere, found himself missing the days when there had been no distinction between days off and any other day — so Achim quickly brought 500,000 euros to mind instead.
— Let it go.
— Let what go?
— That kid you call your roommate.
Before leaving the bar, Linus had shrugged his broad shoulders as he spoke.
— You don’t even know when you’ll be getting out of the mansion. Getting attached to them will only make things harder for the kid.
I was never getting attached. Linus must have read what Achim was about to say, because he shook his head.
— You care too much.
— ……
— You probably don’t see it yourself, Achim, but…… well, that’s also exactly why I was able to get close to you.
Achim shifted his gaze away from Linus. He hadn’t been trying to get attached in the first place — but was this really something to be so serious about? Granted, having the shared background of coming from a facility did give him a sense of kinship, but……
— You tried to help that kid and ended up earning Michael Bernhardt’s resentment because of it. When you look at it that way, you’re not entirely without responsibility, darling.
— ……
— It’s not like you’re invisible here. Going and putting on a whole performance right in front of that man was practically the same thing.
You know that, right? Linus had criticized him, and bluntly at that.
Achim couldn’t find much to counter with. He’d failed to hold back a moment’s impulse and singlehandedly thrown away the worth of a grueling week — and on top of that, had ended up earning Michael’s resentment in the process. Not even ten mouths would be enough to talk his way out of that.
Achim conceded to Linus’s words in the end. Because he knew — for all that Linus was usually laid-back and seemingly thoughtless — when it came to work, he was more thorough than anyone.
When Achim raised both palms in a gesture of surrender, Linus let out a snicker.
