The space was so quiet that even the ticking of the clock’s second hand sounded loud. Cesare jerked his chin in a demand.
“Pardon? Oh — yes.”
Seohan answered in a small voice, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to sense the pheromones circulating inside his body. But Seohan, whose pheromones had been weak even among recessive omegas and whose presentation had come late on top of that, was clumsy when it came to pheromone control.
Dominants could open their pheromones freely, or so they said — but for Seohan, it was a struggle entirely. No one had ever taught him, and there was nowhere to learn.
In District 4 to begin with, there was never any occasion to encounter an alpha, and the amount of pheromones that flowed from him was so small that he never felt much need to regulate them in the first place.
“Do it properly.”
After Seohan had been straining and struggling for a while, Cesare spoke again in an irritated tone. His impatience was plain to see.
But Seohan was at a loss too. Being asked to open his pheromones was something that had never happened to him in his life before, and he’d thought he just needed to concentrate on his pheromones and will them out — but apparently that wasn’t how it worked.
“Um… how exactly is ‘properly’ supposed to go…?”
In the end, Seohan blinked his round eyes rapidly and asked Cesare. He heard a scoff as though the man found him absurd, but there was nothing he could do about it.
“Tch. What a pain.”
Cesare clicked his tongue briefly and rose from his seat. At the same moment, the man’s heavy body scent swept over him in a rush.
“Ah…!”
Before Seohan could even process that scent, a gloved hand took hold of his neck. He flinched at the cold touch of leather — and in that instant, the man buried his face in Seohan’s nape.
With only a low table between them, Cesare inhaled Seohan’s pheromones deeply. His breath drifted along the line of Seohan’s neck. It was hot, humid breath.
“Um — excuse me…!”
Perhaps because his hand was so large — it wrapped around Seohan’s nape and extended past it, encompassing the underside of his jaw and the space above his collarbone with room to spare.
Seohan, seized by a strange tension, held his breath without realizing it. That made the man’s breath feel all the more vivid against his skin.
“……”
“Hello?”
Even after a long while, Cesare didn’t pull away. The high bridge of his nose grazed Seohan’s nape just barely, tickling him. Every time Cesare drew in a deep breath and let it out, his chest in front of Seohan’s eyes expanded and fell with it.
That ambiguous distance — close enough to feel everything, yet not quite touching — made Seohan uncomfortable. It was because he was picking up on more than just the man’s breath.
A scent like blazing firewood, threaded through with the sweet notes of whiskey or rum. A scent far removed from anything subtle, as though it were a reflection of his personality itself. Heavy and faintly bitter, intense and dense.
It was surely the man’s own natural body scent, not his pheromones. Seohan, even being an omega, was not good at detecting other people’s pheromones.
A doctor had once diagnosed Seohan with a pheromone gland abnormality — and had mentioned, almost offhandedly, that his delayed presentation seemed to be the cause.
After presentation, his pheromone levels had fluctuated irregularly, and because he’d left it unaddressed without seeking a partner, the pheromone gland abnormality had worsened progressively. The fact that he’d gotten by on cheap suppressants the rare times a heat came on had played a significant role in that.
This is hopeless……
He’d somehow managed to land an interview through sheer luck, but he had a feeling it was going to come to nothing. That was a judgment born from experience.
There had been a time, once, when an alpha guest had come to the gambling den.
It was exceedingly rare for someone with a secondary gender to set foot in District 4, so even the betas had picked up that the guest was an alpha. Alphas, no matter how recessive, always stood out — their builds and presence were invariably larger than everyone else’s.
The last person to notice had been Seohan himself. Seohan was well-known for being oblivious, and even then, he’d only found out because the man had been dropping hints at him.
‘I’d already opened my pheromones thinking you were an omega — what a shame. A face like yours is wasted.’
The guest, still clicking his tongue in disappointment as he was on his way out, had run a persistent hand across Seohan’s shoulder. Only after the man had pressed a generous amount of his enticing pheromones into that shoulder had Seohan been able to perceive them — and even then, only the faintest trace.
That had been Seohan’s first experience with another person’s pheromones after his presentation. But that was all it was. It hadn’t been anything like what he’d always heard — he hadn’t lost his head over an alpha’s pheromones even a little.
Could someone who couldn’t even properly detect an alpha’s pheromones call themselves an omega?
It was a depressing thought, feeling like his very existence was a blend of nothing but the worst traits of both omegas and betas — but then again, he’d also thought it fortunate that he could keep hiding the fact that he was an omega. Because there was no life more wretched than that of an omega surviving in District 4.
But what had once seemed like a blessing was now the very thing shackling Seohan’s ankles.
An omega with a pheromone gland abnormality — sought out specifically to relieve congestion. On top of that, barely affected by an alpha’s pheromones, and able to secrete only a trace amount. Who would welcome that?
In short, he had absolutely no appeal as a partner for an alpha.
He knew that better than anyone, and yet he’d applied for a position like this anyway — probably because the terminal diagnosis had sent him momentarily out of his mind.
Only now, faced with this imposing alpha right in front of him, was his mind starting to come back to him. It had been reckless, as expected.
This morning, Eddie had given him a piece of advice — that Cesare Herald was someone who hated wasting time to an extreme degree. And right now, Seohan had no doubt that he was wasting Cesare’s time.
The man might blow up at him — ask how he was supposed to relieve his pheromone congestion with a body like this. It was entirely possible that he’d hold Seohan accountable for having the audacity to apply for something so beyond his reach.
All of a sudden, a bolt of fear hit him.
There was nothing to be gained from falling out of favor with Cesare Herald in the Graven Federation. He should have listened to Eddie. Seohan couldn’t easily shake the worry rising in his mind.
The reason Cesare had been lingering at his nape for so long — that too seemed to be because he couldn’t detect any pheromones. Thinking about it that way only made him feel more anxious and on edge.
“Um — that is, I……”
Maybe it would be better to confess before Cesare figured it out himself. To tell him about the abnormality in his pheromone glands.
Seohan started to raise his hand to push Cesare away. But he couldn’t actually bring himself to shove the man, so he ended up just flailing his hand around uselessly in the air.
“What.”
The man who’d had his face buried in Seohan’s nape lifted his head, brow creasing. The way he demanded an explanation was outrageously brazen and assured. The slant of his arched eyebrow and the cool edge of his voice made it clear he was displeased.
“If you could let me know how much longer this will be…… ah…!”
Before he could finish, Cesare’s thumb pressed down on his nape and dragged slowly downward. The touch descended unhurriedly from below his jaw all the way to just above his collarbone. The feel of the cold leather glove was different from before — it seemed to cling more thickly to his skin before pulling away, and Seohan drew his shoulders in.
“So, what I mean is……”
“……”
Cesare said nothing and bowed his head again, turning his focus back to Seohan’s nape. Seohan even began to wonder whether the man was going to bite into it.
He looked up at Colin, who had guided him here, wondering if omega interviews were always like this. But Colin, standing a few steps back, seemed just as flustered as he was.
So his guess had been right, it seemed. Cesare must be doing this because something seemed off — because he couldn’t detect any pheromones. The anxious Seohan was just about to reflexively try to pull back when —
“Fucking hell, you’re annoyingly impatient.”
As Seohan kept squirming, Cesare let go of his slender neck with a disgruntled thud.
Having pulled away from Seohan, he leaned back lazily against the sofa and crossed his long legs loosely. Maybe it was the large frame and the dark complexion — the sight of him was like a languid jaguar resting after a hunt.
The breath that had been hovering near Seohan’s nape had retreated, but the gaze remained. Tilting his head to one side, Cesare watched Seohan as though something about him was not to his satisfaction. From his hair to his neck, his clothes to his shoes, he swept over him one piece at a time, very slowly, as if taking him apart.
“……”
Truly uncomfortable, and mortifying.
Last night, Seohan had prepared likely interview questions and drilled himself on answers until they were memorized. But instead of any questions, the man just kept studying him like he was weighing something up, and as time dragged on, Seohan only grew more flustered.
If he didn’t like what he saw, he could just throw him out quickly. It was like sitting on a bed of thorns.
“Can I…… have some water?”
Unable to endure the long silence, Seohan pointed at the glass set in front of him and asked. Of course it must have been prepared for him to drink freely, but even the glass alone looked like it cost a considerable amount, so it felt like he needed to ask permission.
“Go ahead.”
At Cesare’s ready answer, Seohan’s hand crept hesitantly toward the glass.
The man’s gaze moved in order — to Seohan’s hand, then to his lips touching the rim, then to his throat working as he swallowed, and then back to the table where the glass was set down.
The direction of that gaze was so deliberate and unmistakable that Seohan could feel every bit of it himself.
Seohan touched his nape, which still felt as though the warm breath were lingering on it. At that, Cesare’s gaze followed directly to his hand.
He’s a strange one.
Strange in a different sense from what Eddie had described. Seohan lowered his hand and stole a glance at Cesare.
Intimidating as he looked, the impression that he was a strikingly handsome man by anyone’s standards hadn’t changed. The golden hair that called to mind a field of wheat and the olive-colored eyes in particular looked as though they belonged to the hero of some ancient myth.
But his aura was somewhat unexpected. As one of the heirs to the prestigious Herald Financial and the Executive Director who held real power in his grip, Seohan had expected someone a little more refined. The kind of handsome that came with the air of a well-bred young lord, for instance.
But the man before him was starkly different from what Seohan had imagined. An entirely unfiltered, raw quality seemed to pour off him.
In particular, the dimple carved long into his left cheek looked almost like a scar, which made the distinctive edge-of-danger quality about him stand out all the more. The tattoos that showed here and there also played their part in making him look like someone dangerous.
Despite wearing a high-end, tasteful shirt, he gave off an intensely dissolute atmosphere. He looked like the type one might run into in some back alley. Maybe it was because the top few buttons were undone carelessly. Or maybe it was the muscle packed solidly into that large frame.
“Hey.”
“Yes — yes?!”
While Seohan was busy sneaking glances, Cesare gave the table between the sofas a light kick and called out to him. Seohan, who had a guilty conscience for no reason, startled badly and stumbled over his words.
At the reaction that nearly sent Seohan flying off the sofa, the corner of Cesare’s mouth twitched upward. A low laugh followed, along with a taunting voice.
“Look properly, look properly. Why are you peeking like some kind of creep?”
Like some kind of creep. His mouth was something else for a first meeting.
This man in front of him seemed to have a worse temper than Eddie had described. He was jaw-droppingly handsome, but Cesare’s first impression on Seohan was decidedly not a good one.
“I wasn’t…… peeking like a creep.”
