A notification sound chimed in Gu Jongyeol’s ear as he stood there, face drawn serious, sniffing the air. He pulled out his phone and checked it — Yeo Mujin had sent him a message. Gu Jongyeol lifted his gaze from where it had been angled downward and looked straight ahead at the window of the VIP room that had come into view.
Inside the VIP room, everyone from the Chairman of KK Corporation’s Construction Division down to the executives, along with the secretary team employees who had no work today, had gathered to drink, sing, and dance.
Despite it only being nine o’clock, Gu Jongyeol glanced at his already-wrecked colleagues and absently fiddled with his phone keypad.
I’m fine. Don’t worry. I’m not drinking.
But—
I said I’m not drinking.
…
What the hell are you doing with the ellipses. And Mujin. Are you going to send me messages like this every time I have a work dinner? This is seriously a lot of pressure.
What? Oh, hyung, I just—
Forget it. I’ll contact you if I need something, so don’t message me.
He must have checked Gu Jongyeol’s curt message right away, because a reply came immediately. Gu Jongyeol only glanced at the notification preview and didn’t open the message itself.
But the notifications kept coming.
Wow, this little bastard’s got nerve.
Or maybe he’s just persistent.
Gu Jongyeol looked down at his phone buzzing away without pause — ding, ding, ding — and pressed the power button. He’d said flat out that it was too much pressure.
Of course, from Yeo Mujin’s perspective, worrying this much about an older guy he knew who had just presented as an omega was understandable — but you had to read the room before showing that kind of concern.
This was Gu Jongyeol.
The Gu Jongyeol who barely reacted to anything, the Gu Jongyeol who had been forged into iron having gone through every imaginable thing in a den of alphas, the Gu Jongyeol who, even as a beta, was no less than any alpha — and…
“Oh, hyung! What took you so long? How much did you pee?”
Gu Jongyeol tucked his phone into his coat pocket and opened the door to the VIP room, and there was Kang Yeonkyu, waving him over the moment he spotted him.
He couldn’t exactly ignore Kang Yeonkyu, who had even saved him a seat as if beckoning him over, so he dropped into the chair beside him. Kang Yeonkyu grinned.
“I held it for a while.”
“Our Jongyeol hyung really has incredible endurance, doesn’t he?”
“Sure, I guess.”
“Ah, hyung! You haven’t had a single drink yet, right? Have one.”
“……”
“I know you don’t drink, but have one. I’m so grateful to you today. You have no idea how relieved I am that you got rid of that persistent bastard! Come on, come on, hurry up.”
Gu Jongyeol stared blankly at Kang Yeonkyu holding out a glass of whiskey to him, then let out a sigh. Knowing Kang Yeonkyu’s tenacious personality, if he didn’t drink this one glass, he’d definitely drape his arm around Gu Jongyeol’s shoulders and whine until the glass was empty. Gu Jongyeol fixed his gaze on the Young Master’s slick, beaming face and reached out.
“Ooh! That’s it, that’s it — our Jongyeol hyung!”
Kang Yeonkyu, seemingly overjoyed for some reason, clapped for Gu Jongyeol and broke into a wide smile.
“Come on, one more! One more!”
Apparently set on it, Kang Yeonkyu had already drained his own glass and was now pouring a generous stream of new liquor into Gu Jongyeol’s empty one. When Gu Jongyeol made a face, he just grinned and said, “It’s because I like you, hyung.” What a headache. Gu Jongyeol looked at Kang Yeonkyu with cool eyes.
“This is the last one.”
“Yep!”
Gu Jongyeol shot a sideways glance at Kang Yeonkyu’s enthusiastic reply and drained the second glass too.
Come to think of it, I said I wasn’t going to drink.
Well, it’ll be fine.
57 hours before the incident.
“Ugh—!”
Gu Jongyeol was hunched over a toilet, retching. How had things come to this. He’d only drained the glass Kang Yeonkyu handed him about three times — and he wasn’t even a lightweight — yet here he was, completely out of his right mind.
Ha…… fuck.
I should’ve skipped the dinner altogether.
He’d only shown up to this rare work dinner because Kang Yeonkyu had thrown a fit saying he wouldn’t go if Gu Jongyeol wasn’t going — he hadn’t expected to be pressured into drinking like this.
Nights like this were especially dangerous. On a night where everyone lost their heads, there was no telling what Kang Yeonkyu might do. I should be the one keeping it together, at least.
“Ugh—!”
Gu Jongyeol felt his vision going white as the nausea kept surging up.
“H-hyung. Are you… are you alright?”
After dry-heaving five or six times, he stepped out to find Park Gangsu watching him with worried eyes. Gu Jongyeol took the handkerchief Park Gangsu offered him, wiped his mouth, and looked at him.
“Thanks…… hey, what’s wrong with you.”
“Pardon?”
“Why are you drooling?”
Gu Jongyeol frowned at Park Gangsu, who had been staring at him intently and then suddenly flinched. What’s this guy’s problem? Park Gangsu let out a low sound — a sort of strangled breath — and muttered,
“I, well. I’m not sure why I’m doing this either. Since a little while ago…… there’s been this good smell coming from somewhere around here. W-where is it coming from?”
Gu Jongyeol watched Park Gangsu scrunch up his face and sniff around.
“Oh, right — hyung. Did you happen to drink the liquor the Young Master gave you?”
“Why do you ask all of a sudden.”
Park Gangsu, who had been sniffing around trying to locate the source of the smell, spoke to Gu Jongyeol, who was still wiping his mouth.
“I heard from Usik that the Young Master spiked the drinks with an accelerant as a prank on the B Team who came to the hotel earlier.”
“……What?”
“That might be exactly why you’re throwing up right now, hyung. Apparently that accelerant can trigger rut or heat in alphas or omegas. So you should be care—— oh wait, you’re a beta, hyung, aren’t you? Then, well, it should be fine. Hmm, though maybe that smell is because of it too. But where is it really coming from……”
Gu Jongyeol drove his fist straight into Park Gangsu’s face as he kept puzzling over it and sniffing around. Thud. Park Gangsu crumpled limply to the ground, having taken Gu Jongyeol’s punch square on. Gu Jongyeol stared down at Park Gangsu, who had lost consciousness in an instant, then dragged him into the bathroom.
“……Fuck.”
Gu Jongyeol shoved Park Gangsu into the farthest empty stall in the bathroom and locked the door. Then he slowly stepped outside and looked around.
This bar where the work dinner was being held had been rented out entirely by KK Corporation, so no one outside of the employees was coming in and out. That was at least something.
Gu Jongyeol lowered his head.
The tips of his gloved hands were trembling.
The shaking, the chills that had been running through him since earlier — was that from the accelerant? The twitching between his legs and the shortness of breath too? But I was told it would be a long time before the full symptoms set in.
[As long as patient Gu Jongyeol doesn’t take something like a heat accelerant, you can prepare at a leisurely pace. Ha ha!]
Kim Juwon’s cheerful voice echoed in his head. Gu Jongyeol let out a hollow laugh.
Young Master…… you little son of a bitch.
No wonder he’d been pushing drinks on him so strangely tonight — so this was what he’d been setting up to screw him over with. Gu Jongyeol took a deep breath. Then he rummaged through his pocket. His hand closed around his phone.
He had no way of knowing whether this was the onset of what he’d only ever heard called heat, or simply symptoms caused by the accelerant — but he found himself wanting to contact Kim Juwon. After a brief hesitation, Gu Jongyeol turned his phone back on.
A cacophony of frantic notification sounds rang in his ears. Right, that’s why. He only now remembered why he’d turned the phone off. Gu Jongyeol listened to the relentless notifications and narrowed his brow. Before dealing with this guy, first that doctor——
