After a brief commotion.
Only after hearing the supplementary explanation that the young man in a Hanguk University department jacket, Lee Haram, was a close younger friend who had simply come over to his studio apartment late at night to eat chicken and got drunk, did the confusion among the group settle down.
“Ah, I see…… So, you were Gunho’s neighborhood friend since childhood……?”
“Yes! I grew up with Gunho-hyung almost like real brothers. Now we’re just family! Huh? Jaewook-hyung is here too? Hi, Jaewook-hyung!”
Kim Jaewook, who had been scooping up fried rice, waved in acknowledgment and then reached for the fried rice again.
“So, you’re a Hanguk University…… student?”
“Please speak comfortably. I retook the exam and went to the military as soon as I entered, so I’m just a freshman now! By the way, I enlisted around the same time as hyung. Because I wanted to go to school together with Gunho-hyung, haha!”
Because the sociable Lee Haram arbitrarily sat between the Changseong Global University Arts Department table and the Hanguk University Physical Education Department table, the bizarre phenomenon of the two universities merging occurred.
It was truly a meeting of Korea and the global. The scene of world unification.
“I totally bombed my first college entrance exam and was nervous I wouldn’t meet the minimum grade on the second one either, but Gunho-hyung helped me so much that I barely passed.”
“What! That Gunho guy?! Even though his grades are good, how……”
‘How could a Changseong Global kid teach a great Hanguk University student!’ The department head and Hanguk University students all looked at me with that gaze, so I added an explanation.
“I just bought him some snacks and cheered him on, Haram did all the studying himself.”
“Ah, right! Right. It definitely wasn’t tutoring or anything!”
Actually, I did tutor him.
However, telling the truth would lead to many other follow-up details.
At the university I currently attend, I didn’t let any talk about my family slip out of my mouth, just like in elementary, middle, and high school. My peers also just guessed that I must be from a well-off family based on my clothes and the car I drive around.
Lee Haram belatedly noticed my mood and changed the subject while breaking out in a cold sweat.
“Anyway! It’s all thanks to Gunho-hyung that I got into the Physical Education Department like this! Gunho-hyung is incredibly handsome, smart, kind, nice, really really cool, so he’s totally my role model! You all think so too, right, hyung’s friends?!”
I didn’t expect him to start listing my praises though……
At Lee Haram’s sincere flattery, the department head and classmates smiled with satisfaction.
“Huhu, a victory for Changseong Global.”
I told them to compete with something more productive.
In the end, there still wasn’t a water cup at my seat. Just as I was about to stand up to get a water bottle while everyone’s attention was on Lee Haram, I suddenly felt dizzy and my legs gave out.
“……Gunho-hyung!”
A firm arm caught my falling body and held me up.
It was Lee Haram.
“Hyung, your medicine……?”
At the voice so quiet that others couldn’t hear, I barely shook my head.
Lee Haram’s pheromones, which I’d only faintly felt from a distance, pressed down on my entire body like a strong restraint, and my lips wouldn’t part.
Suddenly Lee Haram’s body separated from me.
“Gunho, you bastard. How much beer did you guzzle yesterday to be like this?”
Kim Jaewook, who had approached at some point, had pulled my body away from Lee Haram and was supporting my shoulder.
“Dongsu, this guy seems to have a hangover. I’m going to get some fresh air.”
“Huh? Oh.”
Without giving the department head time to react, Kim Jaewook dragged my body outside.
“M-me too!”
Lee Haram also rushed out after us in a fluster.
* * *
“Feel like you’ll live now?”
“Haah……”
Only after emptying a bottle of ion drink did my breathing clear.
When I roughly stuffed the crumpled medicine packet into my pocket, Kim Jaewook, who had been watching, asked me.
“But did you always take 3 pills at a time?”
“For a while now.”
The dosage suddenly increased after I was discharged from the military.
Unfortunately, VIPS Syndrome had no effect at the military service examination. It was because there was no precedent.
My adoptive parents pleaded desperately for me to at least be assigned to the so-called ‘Beta military’ where there were no Alphas, but in the end, I had to spend my military life in a unit with Alphas.
If I had borrowed the power of a chaebol family, there would have been plenty of ways, but I didn’t particularly want to go that far. I thought optimistically that it would be fine since I had medicine.
As a result, I developed tolerance. If I could turn back time, I’d go back right now and beat up my complacent self.
“Once I overused the medicine back then, it didn’t work like before if I took it the same way.”
“Isn’t it getting worse?”
“No. It has to not be.”
“You just said with your own mouth that it doesn’t work……?”
I know too. I’m already taking medicine close to the limit.
If the symptoms get worse than this…… now there really is no other way, so I have no choice but to trust Baekil Pharmaceuticals’ technological capabilities.
“What did your doctor or your aunt say?”
“They said I have no choice but to control it myself while refraining from going out.”
“Sorry. It’s my fault for suddenly calling you to a crowded place.”
Kim Jaewook rarely showed me an apologetic look.
Feeling like the atmosphere was getting gloomy for no reason, I deliberately threw out a playful question.
“You’re not sorry for selling me out for three meals?”
“Gunho-hyung…… I’m sorry too.”
Just then, Lee Haram, who had been sitting on the convenience store outdoor table fidgeting with his fingers, interjected.
“I was so happy and excited to see you outside, hyung, that I guess I couldn’t control my pheromones well……”
Lee Haram’s large frame was all shrunken down.
“Should I not come to visit hyung’s studio apartment anymore? Like Seolheon said, if a dominant Alpha hangs around nearby, it’ll only be hard on you, hyung……”
“No, you weren’t the problem. This time I missed the timing for taking my medicine, that’s why it happened. It’s my mistake, so don’t feel too sorry.”
While looking for information related to pheromones, I once read a post on some Alpha community.
It was content saying that for Alphas to suppress their pheromones from leaking out involves difficulty equal to or greater than maintaining a ballet pose with feet that have ingrown toenails while holding one’s breath tightly.
I couldn’t help but feel for Haram, who willingly endured pain equivalent to balancing with ingrown toenails every time he met with me.
“Thank you for always being considerate, Haram.”
“Hyuuuung……”
When I patted the shoulder of Lee Haram with his head bowed, his watery green eyes sparkled.
Kim Jaewook, who had been watching this, stood up brushing himself off.
“Go in first for now. I’ll make up an appropriate excuse to Dongsu.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
Kim Jaewook went back inside the restaurant again.
Lee Haram looked back and forth between Kim Jaewook and me, conflicted, but eventually followed after Kim Jaewook.
“Hyung. If you’re sick, contact me. There’s nothing I can do, but still……”
“It’s okay. Go have fun. It’s your first university life.”
When I smiled comfortably and saw him off, Lee Haram reluctantly waved his hand.
* * *
Kim Jaewook suddenly stopped walking and pulled out a cigarette from his pocket.
When Lee Haram tried to pass by him and return to the gathering place, Kim Jaewook spoke.
“Lee Haram. You sure go to that house a lot.”
“Gunho-hyung’s house?”
Lee Haram and Kim Jaewook had become acquainted through Baek Gunho during middle school.
The outgoing Lee Haram quickly became close with Kim Jaewook too.
“Yeah. Since it’s right near hyung’s studio apartment. But why?”
“Won’t he be living there together too. Gunho’s younger brother.”
“Ah. Seolheon? Why Seolheon?”
When Lee Haram asked back nonchalantly, Kim Jaewook looked at Lee Haram, stopping short of lighting his cigarette.
“Baek Seolheon. He was especially snappy with you. Is he still like that these days?”
“That’s what this was about? I thought you were going to say something else.”
Lee Haram put his hands in his department jacket pockets and stood side by side next to Kim Jaewook.
Beyond the alley commercial area, skyscrapers towering high came into view.
“He’s Gunho-hyung’s younger brother. He’s just a bit shy, but if you look at him, he’s cute.”
“Sh…… shy? Cu, what?”
When the cigarette Kim Jaewook was holding dropped, Lee Haram skillfully snatched it from the air.
Kim Jaewook, who received the cigarette back from Lee Haram, asked with a pale face.
“Are you, seriously saying that?”
At the same time, he recalled a memory from one day.
A boy who smiled brightly while wearing a child’s face.
Then the ice-cold face that would be revealed when his older brother disappeared.
Lee Haram had known Baek Gunho for a longer period than he himself had.
There’s no way such a Lee Haram wouldn’t know.
Baek Seolheon’s strangely distorted favoritism……
“It’s because I bullied him a bit when we were young, Seolheon is more innocent and nice than you’d think.”
“Innocent……”
“He gets a little too embarrassed sometimes, but…… he’s a kid!”
When Lee Haram answered with a bright smile, Kim Jaewook gave up on the conversation.
Speaking with the conviction of a benevolent face as if he were some kind of clergyman, it made him look back on his past actions, wondering if he himself had been viewing Baek Seolheon in a twisted way.
“I wonder if Gunho-hyung is groaning at home. I’m worried.”
Lee Haram looked up at the sky and blushed.
The weather was pleasantly cool and warm, just the right temperature.
In other words, it wasn’t a blush from the cold.
Thinking that, Kim Jaewook suddenly asked.
“So when are you going to confess?”
“Huh?”
“To Baek Gunho.”
“……Huh?”
“You like him.”
“……Huh?”
Lee Haram, who had been chewing over Kim Jaewook’s question for a while, gaped his mouth wide.
“Wh-what, what ki-what kind, what kind of……!”
“Are you playing the perfect pitch game?”
“Gunho-hyung is like an older brother, a role model, a hero to me! I’ve never had such impure feelings! Not once!”
“Is that so?”
That said, his face was completely red and ripe.
Lee Haram passionately argued without knowing his face had become a colorful mess.
In Lee Haram’s mind, memories with Baek Gunho passed by like a revolving lantern.
Gunho-hyung…… helped him get satisfying revenge when he was bullied by bad kids,
When his father’s company was shaking, he worried and cheered alongside him,
He seriously listened to his career concerns and didn’t spare sincere advice so he could run toward his desired dream.
He doesn’t know the detailed circumstances, but…… even while mentally preoccupied with family matters, Gunho-hyung personally picked up a pen to teach him.
When he was sitting down crying, a benefactor in life who encouraged him to stand properly on his two legs……!
That great person was Gunho-hyung!
“It’s true that I like Gunho-hyung! Because he’s such a good person! But I can’t tolerate you misinterpreting it as liking him that way!”
“You’re going to burst my eardrums.”
“Take that back!”
“Okay. I’ll take it back. Calm down.”
“I said take it back!”
“I already did.”
Seeing Lee Haram huffing with a reddened face, rather than finding it funny, pity came first.
‘Gunho has many sins.’
And yet the person himself hasn’t been able to date even once because of his unusual constitution.
Kim Jaewook, who had watched Baek Gunho from nearby for over 10 years, knew.
Baek Gunho wasn’t only popular with Omegas. The Beta women whom Baek Gunho so admired also adored Baek Gunho.
However, all the Beta women gave up their hearts beforehand at the single fact that he was an Alpha. A prophecy close to instinct struck their heads like lightning that if he was an Alpha perfect in wealth, appearance, and personality, he would someday be taken by an Omega. Of course, there was also some damp interference from a few Omegas, but Kim Jaewook decided to pretend not to see it.
What was left in the end were only people emitting pheromones and people with pheromone allergies. Only those sad about an impossible love.
Kim Jaewook was puzzled whether to call this a trick of fate or a dilemma.
“Y-you won’t say weird things to Gunho-hyung, right?”
“I won’t. I won’t.”
“You really won’t, right? It’s not me? It’s absolutely not like that, okay?”
“I said I won’t.”
“It’s really not, okay?!”
“I got it.”
Kim Jaewook eventually put the cigarette back in the pack and took refuge in the pork belly restaurant.
