Even after their brief exchange, Cesare lingered at Seohan’s nape for quite a while before finally pulling away. He didn’t forget to complain that Seohan’s pheromones were far too faint.
“Want something to drink?”
Hearing Cesare’s offer, Seohan realized he hadn’t had so much as a sip of water since stepping foot in this place. Being around this man left him with absolutely no room to think.
“Anything is fine with me.”
“Anything?”
“Something like cocoa would be nice…… but if you don’t have it, water is fine too.”
Seohan said what he wanted, his eyes drifting thoughtfully. He didn’t feel like he’d had a particularly long conversation with Cesare, but he was so drained that he was craving something sweet.
Cocoa was actually a processed good and quite expensive — Seohan himself had only tasted it a handful of times — but for some reason it felt like there was nothing Cesare’s home wouldn’t have, so he’d gone ahead and said it.
“Tch.”
Cesare clicked his tongue, muttering that he only drinks things like that, and headed toward the minibar behind the sofa.
In the meantime, Seohan quietly drifted over to the glass railing and looked down below the stairs. He could see Colin pacing anxiously after having been dismissed by Cesare. Beside him stood a woman who appeared to be a housekeeper.
It seemed that pouring drinks for guests wasn’t something Cesare would normally do himself. Judging by the two cups that had been neatly set out on the table downstairs, it seemed like Seohan coming up to the second floor hadn’t been part of the plan to begin with.
Feeling vaguely like he was sitting on pins and needles, Seohan stepped back from the railing and settled into the corner of the sofa, gazing blankly around at his surroundings.
“There’s no cocoa or anything like that, so just drink this for now.”
A while later, Cesare returned with visible irritation written all over his face, holding out a glass of fruit juice. Behind him, the minibar had been thoroughly rummaged through and left in disarray.
It was becoming clear that cocoa had no place in his home. It seemed he’d barely managed to find even the fruit juice. Plain water would have been perfectly fine. Seohan looked at the ransacked minibar with a small pang of guilt.
“Are you going to take it or not?”
“Oh, thank you.”
Receiving the glass politely with both hands, Seohan stared down at the deep pink-tinted drink. A fresh strawberry scent wafted up from the appealing-looking beverage.
Somehow, he felt reluctant to drink it. He was someone who scraped by on cheap ingredients — discounted canned goods and bread on the verge of going stale, haunting the sale corners of convenience stores. Fresh fruit juice like this wasn’t something Seohan had much opportunity to come across.
I should tell Eddie about this later.
Pleased to have something to brag about, he also thought it would’ve been nice if Eddie could drink it too, so he couldn’t quite bring himself to down it. It felt wasteful, drinking something this good all by himself.
“It won’t kill you to drink it. It probably hasn’t been here long.”
Misreading Seohan’s hesitation, Cesare gave the base of the sofa a couple of light kicks. He added that the drinks and light snacks in the minibar were swapped out once a week, so he could put away whatever suspicious look that was.
I was just looking at it because it looked good. Feeling vaguely wronged, Seohan muttered under his breath.
“I was looking at it because it looked fresh.”
“……”
Even after Seohan’s answer, he continued staring down at the glass and the two hands wrapped tightly around it with suspicious eyes.
Seohan downed the juice as if to prove his own words. Even as the glass emptied, Cesare’s gaze didn’t lift. He could clearly feel those eyes sweeping over his throat and his hands.
“It’s good, thank you.”
Having finished the juice, Seohan set the glass down pointedly and met Cesare’s eyes. Those brightly shining eyes carried what almost looked like confidence.
“It’s just juice.”
He furrowed his brow and grumbled, as if saying you don’t need to thank me for something like that. Though he’d been the one staring so intently first — another injustice, that was.
“Want another glass?”
“Can I really have more?”
But the next words washed away his mild resentment in an instant, and Seohan’s round eyes lit up with a sparkle. Cesare gave a quiet smirk and this time brought him orange juice. Seohan took it eagerly and sipped away. It was tangy and sweet. An entirely different world from the bitter orange peel he’d chewed on a few days ago.
Generosity born of plenty — his character might be difficult, but at least he wasn’t stingy.
“No STIs, for what it’s worth. No record of working at any establishments either.”
While Seohan drank, Cesare had retrieved a stack of papers from somewhere and was flipping through them one by one. Peeking over, Seohan caught sight of his own resume tucked among them.
It seemed he’d done a background check — and the sheer volume of it was startling. Was there really that much information to dig up on him?
“So it was true that you haven’t been around the block?”
“I told you it was true back then too……”
Seohan recalled what Cesare had said the first time they met.
He’d said he had no taste for cheap things.
People living in District 4 — even betas — often ended up selling their bodies if they were even slightly small-framed or pretty-looking. Since people’s tastes varied, even rougher-looking individuals sometimes looked into that line of work.
For those who had nothing, their body was their only asset. So Cesare’s suspicion didn’t offend him. If anything, he thought it was a fair one.
But in this regard, Seohan held his ground. He had no sexual experience whatsoever, so there was no way he could have an STI.
“I don’t lie.”
“That remains to be seen.”
It seemed Cesare fundamentally didn’t trust people easily. Running a lending business probably made distrust his default setting.
“Your pheromones are extremely unstable. Do you even go into heat?”
“Uh…… I do. About once every four months……”
Seohan counted off on his fingers, calculating when his last heat had been. About a month ago. Sometimes heat only came once every six months. If he were to contract with Cesare, there was a good chance heat wouldn’t come even once during the contract period.
“Doesn’t sound like you’d function much as an omega.”
Cesare remarked carelessly. At that indifferent tone, the corners of Seohan’s eyes drooped.
“……”
Cesare’s gaze, which had been passing over the documents, landed on that dejected face.
The already grimy-looking face made worse by the rain, now layered with a sullen expression — it was a pitiful sight.
“Why is your face doing that?”
“……You said I don’t function. Isn’t that the same as telling me to go home?”
“What do you have hidden away at that place of yours? Every time I open my mouth you’re already scheming to run.”
Cesare flung the papers down onto the table and twisted his face into a scowl.
“Oh — no, that’s not it.”
Seohan quickly shook his head and waved both hands in frantic protest. Run? Every time he so much as opened his mouth, the man jumped to wild conclusions — it was enough to make him afraid to speak at all.
“I thought you meant you didn’t want me……”
“I’d sooner take one that can’t function. Watching an omega dripping pheromones all over the place makes me want to kill something.”
“Well, that’s a relief then……”
Seohan nodded along obligingly. His small nose scrunched up as if he genuinely meant it.
Cesare watched him quietly, then slowly dragged his tongue over his bottom lip. His mouth parted soundlessly, then closed again.
It had only been about ten minutes since he’d breathed in that faint scent, and it was already becoming hazy. An ordinary omega would have had the room more than saturated by now, but the faint wisps this one produced weren’t nearly enough.
This was definitely better, for Cesare. Omega pheromones were nothing but an irritant to him. Beyond merely tolerable — he had never encountered pheromones that didn’t grate on him at all.
But this one’s were so faint they did the opposite: they stirred a wanting in him.
“Oh — I won’t drip, I promise.”
Snapping to attention at Cesare’s warning, Seohan steeled himself with firm resolve to learn pheromone control by any means necessary. Because he knew the man’s words about wanting to kill an omega who let their pheromones run loose were no idle threat.
Cesare was a man who could kill several people without blinking. He likely already had, many times over. There was no guarantee Seohan himself wouldn’t become one of those people.
“Ha.”
Meanwhile, Cesare let out a short, dry laugh watching Seohan parrot his words back without understanding their weight. It was because I won’t drip had somehow come out sounding a little obscene.
He’d felt it since the first time they met — the man had an oddly sensual quality to his face. It was probably the reddish tinge to the corners of his eyes and the perpetually damp-looking irises.
“That said, it’s also a problem if you produce too little. Then there’s no reason for me to keep you around.”
He raised an eyebrow at an angle and spoke with his characteristic arrogance. Seohan nodded along in agreement.
“Yes.”
But even as he answered, he felt uneasy — it wasn’t something he had any real control over. He’d made the resolve, but would learning to manage it actually change anything?
“I’ll assign you a doctor, so going forward, manage it properly.”
“A doctor too?!”
This was good news.
Medical and hospital fees were prohibitively expensive, so Seohan only ever went when things were truly urgent. But if he could have regular access to a doctor’s help, maybe he really could learn to manage his pheromones properly.
And yet, at the same time, he felt uneasy. If a doctor was being assigned to him, didn’t that mean there was a chance his terminal condition might be discovered?
No — more than anything else, setting that aside — the meaning behind manage it properly going forward was…
“Does that mean…… am I fully in? Like, officially?”
Seohan stumbled over his words, but asked as calmly as he could manage. He’d been worried about going through a second interview only to be turned away at the end — but if a doctor was being assigned, it seemed like he’d passed.
“For now.”
He’d looked up at Cesare full of hope, but the man gave no definitive answer — only something vague. For now — what did that mean? While Seohan was still turning it over, Cesare seemed to have sorted his thoughts and rose to his feet with quiet composure.
“Get up. Come inside.”
He gestured toward the inner door with an indifferent tilt of his eyes. From the implication, it seemed to be the bedroom.
“Don’t we — aren’t we signing a contract first?”
Seohan had been about to get up and follow, but stopped short and asked. It was because Eddie’s repeated warnings before he’d left home that day had suddenly come back to him.
The truth was, Seohan’s characteristically unsuspicious nature had led to him being taken advantage of more times than he could count. Not getting paid for his work was among the least serious of those incidents.
Eddie had lamented that at least he had nothing to lose, calling him hopeless. If he’d had even a little bit of savings or credit to his name, the bad ones would have stripped him down to his last sock.
So Eddie, knowing Seohan’s nature well, had given him advice — barely advice, really — to make sure he got the contract sorted first, above all else. He’d even grabbed Seohan by the head to make sure he wouldn’t forget.
“If we’re going to make a contract, then the contract paperwork……”
But trying to act decisively in a way that didn’t suit his nature at all, Seohan’s voice gradually shrank to almost nothing. Cesare tilted his chin and looked down at him with what seemed like amusement.
I thought he might be a bit more sharp than he looks — but then it turns out he’s too awkward at it to be anything but funny.
“Shouldn’t we see if we’re compatible before deciding whether there’s even a contract to sign? Everything has its order.”
Cesare shrugged and smiled, the meaning behind it unmistakable.
