Water still dripped from the hair of the guy who had just stepped out of the shower. His cheeks, flushed with steam, looked even fairer than before.
“Fucking hell, the more I think about it, the more ridiculous this bastard is.”
That guy was the problem. Charging in to do something like this with zero experience.
Cesare didn’t have any perverted tendencies or tastes himself, but there were plenty of alphas out there who did. It was a good thing he’d ended up with him — had things gone differently, there was a real chance Seohan could have given away his first time to some creepy middle-aged man.
On top of that, there was something about Seohan that seemed to provoke a sadistic streak in people. It didn’t look intentional on his part — his face itself was just fundamentally wrong for this world.
“……”
“……A-are you angry?”
When Cesare stayed silent and just seethed, Seohan leaned forward and asked. The movement closed the distance sharply between them — Cesare had been resting his elbows on the table, chin propped in his hands. A drop of water dripped from Seohan and landed on the back of Cesare’s hand.
“Why, you little shi——!”
Cesare bit back the curse and shot to his feet. The table lurched and nearly toppled — Seohan barely managed to catch it.
“What, what’s——”
Whether or not the flustered Seohan was looking up at him, Cesare’s face flushed red with a rage that had risen all the way to the top of his head. The clueless display only made the back of his neck pull tighter.
The moment Yi Seohan had leaned in, the body scent of someone fresh from the shower had hit him full in the nose. He’d washed in Cesare’s bathroom, so he’d clearly used the same unscented products Cesare used — and yet it felt completely different.
“What are you?”
Cesare started in on him, eyes flashing.
The hem of Seohan’s robe, which had been steadying the table, grazed the area near Cesare’s hand. In an instant, the skin around it flared hot, as if a flame had been lit.
“Oh — pardon?”
Seohan blinked his wide eyes at Cesare’s sudden reaction.
He hadn’t even known whether he was supposed to mention his lack of experience — was that really worth getting this angry over? Seohan genuinely couldn’t understand why Cesare was acting like this.
“What kind of person comes to sell their first time for money?!”
He twisted his face into something ugly, as though Seohan had done something wrong. At this point, Seohan had quite a lot to say back.
“But, you know……”
Surviving in District 4 of the Graven Federation left no room to agonize over things like first times. He hadn’t had the luxury of attaching meaning to something like that.
It was simply that, up until now, fear had always come first — and beyond that, he just hadn’t been interested, so he’d never tried. Now, with four months left to live either way, he’d found a courage he’d never had before.
“We came here to finalize a contract regardless, so — wh-what does it matter if it’s my first time or not? You never said no experience allowed.”
“What?”
“Isn’t it actually, uh, g-good for you? I’m not asking for more money because of it — I genuinely don’t understand why you’re angry……”
Seohan blinked his eyes with an air of mild indignation and laid out his points one by one. He’d heard of people charging extra because it was their first time — but he’d never heard of anyone being turned away for it.
“I’ll work hard so it doesn’t show that I’m a rookie.”
Seohan nervously wet his lips and gripped Cesare’s shirt firmly. He couldn’t let this opportunity slip through his fingers now that he’d come this far.
“T-take it off. No — I’ll take it off for you.”
At this point, it seemed like a perfectly good plan to knock him off course before he could back out. If Cesare, who was supposedly repulsed by omegas, could still be alone with him in a closed room like this, then his pheromones themselves weren’t the issue.
If his inexperience was the problem, then he’d simply take care of that himself. Seohan really did not want to lose a job that paid 500 Krang a week.
He’d work hard for three months and live out the most brilliant final month of his life. In his mind, Seohan was already picturing the dazzling sea and white sandy beaches of a resort.
“You need to take it — this thing, why won’t it——”
But reality and fantasy were miles apart. For all his grand ambitions of knocking Cesare flat, Seohan couldn’t even manage to undo a single button on his shirt. His trembling hands kept slipping off course.
“Good grief.”
Cesare, who hadn’t taken his eyes off those chattering lips and fidgeting fingers for even a second, drew in a breath of disbelief.
“Shameless little——”
Cesare grabbed Seohan’s hands. Seohan, who had been laser-focused on the buttons, looked up and met his eyes. Those eyes held nothing but him.
Cesare let out a short, involuntary laugh. The dazed face trembling in front of him wasn’t something he could bring himself to dislike. That was the problem.
There was a faint urgency on Yi Seohan’s face. It was probably because he was afraid Cesare wouldn’t hire him — which was why he was pushing like this. Who’s the one who’s actually gotten worked up over this idiocy right now.
“You said you’ve never done this. What exactly do you plan to ‘work hard’ at?”
“If you teach me, I’ll learn quickly and——”
Seohan scratched the back of his head. Whatever bold energy he’d had grabbing onto Cesare’s shirt was long gone — the strength was draining from his voice by the second.
Even as he said it, he felt too embarrassed to meet anyone’s eyes. He was the one who’d brought lube out when told to untie his sash, then asked how to use it.
If he’d known it would come to this, he should have asked Eddie to find him some adult content to watch. Going in without having seen anything relevant, and then failing to even ask Eddie for advice before coming here — that had been his downfall.
“What am I supposed to do? I’m not exactly in a position to teach you either.”
Cesare said with a light smirk. His tone and attitude were far more arrogant than his words suggested.
“What? What does that mean?”
Cesare carelessly swept his hair back and walked past Seohan to lie down on the bed. Then he tilted his chin up toward Seohan, as if to say, go ahead and try. The posture was impossibly confident and haughty.
“It means figure it out yourself.”
Up until moments ago, Seohan had been the one ready to leap — but now that Cesare had done this, he froze, at a complete loss for what to do.
Where do I even start. Knowing Cesare’s personality, kissing was probably out. He’d be lucky if all he got was a string of curses telling him to get lost.
Then I should probably start by getting undressed. But should I undress myself first, or should I be the one to undress Cesare? His mind was in chaos. The knuckles gripping his robe’s sash had gone white.
“……Come here.”
“……”
Seohan swallowed hard as he watched Cesare lying there in unhurried, almost provocative repose, lazily beckoning him with a finger.
Was it because he was lying on a bed? The well-defined muscles stood out in a way that was hard to ignore. Whether it was the hair he’d carelessly pushed back, or the taut body visible through the open buttons of his shirt — even fully clothed, something almost indecent hung in the air.
Seohan hurried over to him. But he couldn’t bring himself to actually climb onto the bed. Some inexplicable tension locked his throat tight. The reality that this man was an alpha suddenly hit him.
“I — I’m here.”
“Get on.”
“Yes.”
Seohan lifted the edge of the blanket, hesitated, and barely managed to perch just the very edge of his backside on the corner of the mattress.
Cesare clicked his tongue briefly, impatient, and grabbed Seohan by the arm, yanking him in. His body, having lost its balance, crumpled helplessly onto that solid chest.
“Oh——!”
“It’s not that far. Not the bed — I said get on top of me.”
Cesare’s body scent hit him as intensely as his personality. The scent of rum and dry wood, the moment he inhaled it, sank heavy and deep all the way into his lungs.
It was the scent he caught every time he got close to him. A dangerous scent that somehow, inexplicably, brought a sense of calm. Without realizing it, Seohan buried his nose in Cesare’s chest and breathed him in.
When he was young, he used to vaguely dream of a scent like this. Believing that when he grew up, he would be a man who smelled like this too.
“You’re quite the little pervert.”
A lazy laugh scattered above his head. Only then did Seohan realize how his actions must have looked. Embarrassment bloomed red across both his cheeks.
“……”
Cesare lightly traced one of those cheeks with his index finger. It was soft and pliable. For some reason it looked like it would taste of fruit — he dragged the finger that had stroked Seohan’s cheek to his mouth and licked it, but it tasted of nothing.
“Oh——!”
With a vague sense of disappointment, Cesare clicked his tongue and wrapped both hands around Seohan’s waist, lifting and resettling him into a better position. Pulling that slender body fully on top of his own added a satisfying weight.
The moment their bodies overlapped, Seohan shivered visibly. His damp hair tickled Cesare’s jaw.
The dark auburn of his hair had deepened further with the water soaking through it. Because of that, his already pale skin looked even more stark against his hair.
Has this guy been living without a single drop of sunlight. Every inch of his body was either white or red — nothing in between.
“No need to tremble like a cornered mouse. We’re not doing anything tonight.”
“We’re not?”
Seohan snapped his head up and asked with a face full of confusion. The soft lines of his face were lit up clearly under the lamp. Those dewy eyes darted around and his full lips parted slightly.
In that instant, Cesare wanted to take back the words he’d just declared. He forcibly cut off his gaze from drifting toward Seohan and fixed it out the window instead.
“Yeah. Not doing it.”
“Why?”
“Lost the mood.”
“Oh……”
Seohan fidgeted with his hands where they rested on Cesare’s chest. Embarrassingly, the moment he heard those words, a wave of relief washed over him. Reality and imagination really were worlds apart. He’d been too naive. He’d thought that being an alpha and an omega meant things would somehow just work themselves out — they wouldn’t.
He felt pathetic for getting so nervous from nothing more than a hug. Could he really handle something bigger than this?
Lying in his arms and drawing an even breath, he finally understood. Today was simply too much.
But paradoxically, worry came along with the relief. Seohan needed Cesare to like him right now. So the fact that he didn’t want to be physical with him — no matter how he thought about it — wasn’t a good sign.
“It’s a hassle, pushing into someone who doesn’t know anything.”
Sure enough, exhaustion was plain in his voice.
