But thinking about it, Chae Songhwa had had those kinds of thoughts himself at times. Situations that left him with no choice but to think that way came around more often than not. They weren’t particularly good memories.
“Well, now that you mention it — just going by pheromone scent alone, I’ve been mistaken for an omega quite a few times myself.”
“Pheromones — who cares about something like that.”
Yong Cheonha said it, but inwardly he was thinking how nice it would be if he and Chae Songhwa could swap pheromones.
Yong Cheonha himself had smelled Songhwa’s pheromones and mistaken him for an omega, after all. Partly because of his appearance, sure — but still.
An alpha with omega pheromones, and an omega with alpha pheromones. If only they could trade.
Because if his pheromones had been even a little more omega-like — a little less alpha — maybe Yong Cheonha would already be with a fairly decent alpha by now.
“We’re kind of alike, aren’t we.”
……
Damn. Should I just marry him? Is he actually trying to reel me in right now? Is he?
Yong Cheonha had been lost in thoughts about a pheromone swap — and then Chae Songhwa hit him with a premium display of eye-smile charm.
His lashes fluttered like a flirtatious tail-wag, and his softly curved eyes smiled with a gentle, teasing warmth. His lips slid upward in a smooth, unhurried curve. Those glass-like eyes that had always felt quietly melancholic — now lit with a hint of playfulness — were somehow even more beautiful for it.
It was an absurdly, lethally endearing sight.
He was using his entire face to reel him in! This was not the work of an amateur. Could someone pull off being this perfectly pretty at exactly the right moment without any planning or practice?
“Hyung. Be honest. You’ve dated a lot, haven’t you?”
“Out of nowhere?”
The sudden question made Chae Songhwa tilt his head in confusion. They’d been talking about pheromones — why had it jumped to relationships?
“Not particularly. I’d think you’ve dated way more than me, Cheonha.”
“What are you talking about, that makes no sense. If I’d been dating,”
Would I be walking you home right now? In the opposite direction of my place, at this hour, for a full hour?
“……I wish I had been. Sadly……. But I’m working on it.”
Chae Songhwa found himself studying Yong Cheonha’s face without meaning to.
He was good-looking. His features weren’t delicate exactly, but they weren’t bluntly coarse either — they were just right, in a way that struck a perfect balance.
His brows were thick, his nose bridge proud, and his jawline clean. His eyes in particular were quite deep-set, and strikingly attractive.
Unlike Songhwa himself, there was a weight to his face — his gaze intense — and he gave off an air of easy charisma. If he was already like this at twenty, what kind of presence would he have by thirty?
He had the kind of face that drew people to him effortlessly, even just standing still. His personality seemed bright and uncomplicated too.
With those qualities — how could someone not be dating at twenty? It wasn’t like he had no interest in relationships, and he clearly wanted one.
“You’re lying.”
“No, seriously.”
Yong Cheonha felt wronged.
If only it were a lie. He was so bitter about it that he almost felt like recounting the entire history of alphas he’d met.
His romantic history was genuinely devastating — not fit to hear without shedding a tear. For one thing, he had high standards and an equally high sense of self-worth, which made finding the right person difficult.
“I have pretty high standards.”
So even though all he looked at was appearance, it was still hard to find people who met that standard.
People always looked back on school days and thought — at least one person per year had been decent enough, right?
The problem was that the one person in his year had been Yong Cheonha himself.
Since internal supply couldn’t meet demand, he’d gone rummaging through other classes, and when that wasn’t enough, he’d searched high and low through seniors and juniors alike.
“Sounds like you tried a lot, at least.”
The ones who skipped studying to look good for a good time tended to have better faces than the diligent, hardworking students. So in seeking them out, he’d somehow ended up — against his own intentions — becoming the ringleader of the school delinquents.
……Wait, no. That wasn’t quite right. In middle and high school there had been a few he’d been with for a decent stretch of time. About nine of them — though how exactly he’d ended things each time escaped him now.
Yong Cheonha tried to recall faces he couldn’t even picture anymore. Fluorescent lime-green shorts. Visible tattoos. A gold necklace like a motorbike chain…… Right. That’s how it had gone.
“All the ones I was into ended up in juvie. So that’s how that went.”
“……”
Where exactly are these high standards?
Chae Songhwa hadn’t had an easy school life himself — circumstances had made it hard to be a diligent student — but juvie? What kind of life did you have to lead for that to happen? It wasn’t easy to end up there.
And to have met a string of people like that — the kind you’d be lucky to encounter even once in a lifetime. And to have had something like a flirtationship with them, at that.
“As an adult, too, it’s been……”
“Good grief……”
A sigh escaped him involuntarily.
Could someone really have that little instinct for reading people? That was a recipe for ruining your life. And with a face like that — solid enough, reassuring enough to want to lean on——
Was it because he was the same age as his younger sibling? Was it the warmth of his personality?
He’d only met him twice, and already he was worried.
“If something comes up, contact me. Please. I probably won’t be of much great help, but……. Still.”
It was a rough enough era that the term “safe breakup” existed. And these were people who’d ended up in juvie — what if they decided to pull something later?
“Can I message you? Call? Text?”
“All of the above.”
Oh no. He has no one to lean on.
Chae Songhwa fell into quiet concern.
A twenty-year-old omega with no one to lean on. Someone so starved for warmth that he’d reached out to someone he’d only met twice.
He worried the guy might be the type to hand over everything — heart and soul — the moment someone was a little kind to him.
“Where did you say you live? Around here, you said?”
Was his home in a safe location? A semi-basement or first floor would be worrying. He’d lived in both — a semi-basement and a first-floor unit in a villa — and he knew from experience.
And Hoyong-dong wasn’t known for great public safety, especially given the lower rent — which made omegas an easier target for crime.
At least if he lived with family it would be——
“Ah. I live alone, actually.”
Oh no. No family to fall back on either. Living alone! Someone with this kind of track record with people, living by himself in this neighborhood!
When Songhwa asked exactly where he lived, Yong Cheonha suddenly seemed to catch himself and started giving vague, deflecting answers.
Only now you’re getting suspicious of me, huh? It was a bit late in the game, but at least he had some minimal survival instinct left.
Just the fact that he wasn’t giving away the exact address was enough to bring a small measure of relief.
“Get home safe.”
And with that, Chae Songhwa — having walked Yong Cheonha home — kept thinking back to his face and his pheromones. Because of his handsome face and wonderful scent? No.
How is this person going to survive in this harsh world……
He was just genuinely worried about him as a person.
But Yong Cheonha, having no way of knowing any of that, wiped the cold sweat from his brow and grinned to himself.
Ah. That felt so good. He seems interested in me too.
It felt good? It was a complete case of two people on entirely different pages.
Yong Cheonha headed home smiling in satisfaction and reached out to the uncles.
In the dead of night when taxis were barely running, a black sedan arrived a short while later.
The moment he settled into the backseat, a grin spread across his face and refused to stop. He kept breaking into quiet little smiles.
“Boss. Did something good happen?”
“Does it show? Ah. Nothing major. Just in a good mood.”
This time, he was sure of it.
What else could explain someone walking a perfectly healthy twenty-year-old man all the way home in the opposite direction in the dead of night, then repeatedly reminding him to be careful? The other person clearly had feelings for him.
He’d broken into a bit of a cold sweat at the end, scrambling to give a vague answer when Songhwa asked exactly where his place was — but the overall feeling had been good.
And then, right on cue, a text arrived asking if he’d gotten home safely. He was losing his mind. Outrageously cute.
“I think I can call off the search for the shaman.”
“What’s going on, boss?”
“Uncle. I think I might actually be getting into a relationship soon.”
He turned the memory of that face over in his mind. The last face he’d seen before they parted. The face of a beautiful person with worry behind his eyes.
Just recalling it sent a spark of electricity through him. The thought that he might actually get to hold that beauty close.
Twenty-three years old, a not-yet-famous actor. The timing was perfect — date him before he got famous, get everything out of it, and by the time he started rising to fame, they’d have already run their course.
Satisfy the fantasy of a first experience, and after that, keep things light and easy with whoever came along.
Break the jinx of his twentieth year, and a world all for himself would unfold. He’d become a free spirit like his maternal uncle — not clinging to any one alpha.
Deokbae — a member of the Yongmun faction and one of the bodyguards assigned specifically to Yong Cheonha — glanced up at the rearview mirror.
Watching the youngest young master humming to himself, saying he’d probably be falling into a relationship soon, a wave of pity and worry washed over him.
Three years now he’d been by Yong Cheonha’s side.
At least when it came to relationships, Yong Cheonha’s instincts were spectacularly terrible. Just from the way someone breathed, you could tell — this one’s sketchy. This one’s going to cause trouble soon — and yet those were exactly the kinds of people he went out and chose, one after another.
Just looking at the ones he’d been involved with in high school — every single one of them had ended up in juvie. And plenty of those went on to actual prison after that.
The type that any creature with eyes and basic instincts would run from — he’d been actively seeking them out. Maybe it was because they posed no real threat to him.
Having lived a life so sheltered from any real danger, it seemed like his hazard-detection sensors simply didn’t exist.
Well. Would a dragon flinch just because an earthworm bit it?
Either way — whoever it was that had gotten his attention this time — it seemed like someone was going to have to take a look. First things first: report to the other bosses.
