“It seems like the meal is over, so I’ll show you to your room.”
The distance closed in just a few strides. Muksirok, the same as when they had come here, picked up the curled-in body without asking. The difference this time was that he didn’t bother to soothe the flinching Yeonwoo.
In that instant, the air went taut.
“What kind of godawful table manners are these?”
Kang Sihyeon’s voice came out harsh. His eyes were fixed on the hand supporting Yeonwoo — and the look on his face was one that said he wanted to sever Muksirok’s wrist clean off.
The pheromones Kang Sihyeon had been keeping pressed down under suppressants flooded out in all directions at once, and the staff standing nearby swallowed their breath and stepped back. The only beastman in the room who remained at ease was Muksirok. If anything, it was his mouth that curved into a faint sneer — the one on the receiving end of the pheromone threat.
After holding the stare for a moment, Muksirok turned his head away slowly, as though the other wasn’t worth engaging with, and gave instructions.
“Please call for Dr. Yu. Tell him to come to my room after administering the suppressant.”
“……Yes, understood.”
It was the tone of someone ordering a tranquilizer for an agitated animal. The staff member who had been holding their breath dipped their head a beat late. Having received the answer, Muksirok turned away without a backward glance, his business concluded.
Only after Muksirok passed through the door did the staff watching the standoff let out a silent breath of relief. Contrary to the fear that it might have exploded at any moment, Kang Sihyeon hadn’t moved. If anything, he sat exactly where he was — wearing the look of a man chewing something over, his expression muddled with something complicated.
The two of them had always been opposites. In their more hot-blooded younger days they’d come to blows so often the hospital had become a regular destination — and later, when they started throwing pheromones into their fights on top of everything else, there had been more than one or two dangerous moments.
The entire manor was rattling almost daily from the victims swept up in their pheromone clashes — to the point that even the Cluster Head, who had always said beastmen are meant to fight when they’re young, had eventually been moved to take drastic measures.
The problem was that those drastic measures had been, quite frankly, too drastic……. The staff member who had recalled that day barely managed to push down the shudder threatening to rise as they watched Kang Sihyeon get to his feet. The pheromones that had been strangling the air had, at some point, been reined back in.
“Young Master Sihyeon, would you like to see Dr. Yu?”
“No need — it’s not that bad.”
Kang Sihyeon answered shortly and rose from his seat. His expression was still complicated. He — a person who rarely hesitated — paused for a moment before speaking.
“……From tomorrow, tell them I’d like the suppressant dosage increased.”
Slam! The door closed before the staff member could even reply.
In the space Kang Sihyeon had left behind, the emotions he’d shed lingered like a tail. The staff who remained exchanged looks as though on cue.
It seems the young master has quite a thing for looks.
Well — it’s understandable, I suppose.
Even I would?
I mean. It’s not hard to see why.
That the young master — who had never once had so much as a first love — had shown a response to someone’s face was surprising, yes. But thinking of Yeonwoo, it wasn’t hard to understand. No — if it was that kind of thing, it actually made complete sense. Having long since mastered the art of speaking through glances alone, they nodded as one.
Muksirok had known full well that Yeonwoo had been badly startled — and in the end never soothed him. It was the same even after they reached the annex.
“This is the room you’ll be staying in for the time being.”
“Y-yes.”
Yeonwoo’s head bent as though it might snap right off. The pale nape exposed so plainly was utterly unguarded. The skin looked so tender that barely more than a graze of teeth would pierce it, without effort. Muksirok’s brow slowly narrowed as his gaze swept the vulnerable spot. In that brief span, Kang Sihyeon’s pheromones were smeared all over it.
It was, unmistakably, grating.
The fact that that blunt little tail — a tail by any name — was wagging away so earnestly. And that the one it was being wagged at was Kang Sihyeon.
Recalling the scene from earlier, Muksirok’s expression grew a degree colder. It wasn’t anything as petty as jealousy. He wasn’t so foolish as to invest feeling in a surrogate brought in out of necessity. It was simply that he could see the potential for things to become inconvenient.
Kang Sihyeon had always been the type, since they were children, to waste time unable to pass by anything small and insignificant — so the fact that he was behaving like a guardian wasn’t entirely unexpected. The problem was the timing.
It was far too soon.
At this rate, before a leash had even been fastened, Yeonwoo was on track to plant himself above Kang Sihyeon’s head entirely. He’d thought the trembling would keep him from doing anything at all — but here he was, batting his lashes. At Kang Sihyeon, no less.
He was going to need to put a few safeguards in place for what was to come.
Muksirok set the rabbit — still curled in on himself like a ball — down on the soft bed, and broached the subject.
“No one outside of designated people will be coming and going. Not to the annex, and not into this room.”
“Y-yes……”
An immediate answer — and yet the head stayed bowed. Earlier he’d been sneaking glances as the hand withdrew, clearly reluctant for it to leave — and now he was pretending it had never happened.
It was grating, as expected. Wagging his backside at Kang Sihyeon with an offer to share his food — and then tucking his tail away in front of him. He hadn’t factored in that he himself was being intimidating.
Muksirok reached out once more.
“The ones who can enter will be myself, Kang Sihyeon, and the staff assigned here.”
A light brush against the back of the neck — the very spot he’d been itching to bite since earlier — was enough to send those curled-in shoulders shooting upward. The head snapped up at the same instant. Every other feature was impossibly small — but the eyes alone were as large as a newborn’s.
Only then did a faint satisfaction spread across the line of Muksirok’s mouth as he looked down at the startled face. Seeing those wide-open eyes settled his frayed nerves, just a little. Finding it somewhat pitiable that Yeonwoo didn’t know that trembling only made him want to torment him more — Muksirok stroked the goosebump-raised nape slowly and continued.
“Anyone beyond that will be restricted. There’s no need for unnecessary misunderstandings.”
From the blinking eyes to the parting lips — it was plain that he had no idea what kind of misunderstanding was being referred to. For Yeonwoo’s sake — who wanted to ask but didn’t dare — Muksirok added at an unhurried pace.
“Of course, once you’ve successfully conceived, your accommodations will change.”
He deliberately chose not to explain beyond that. It was a statement that left endless room for vague interpretation. How it was received was entirely up to the rabbit. As expected, those eyes — catching the light and gleaming — wavered helplessly.
He hadn’t been planning to confine him yet — but it was the fault of the rabbit, who had gone and acted freely in front of just anyone. Until he was properly trained, he intended to make things clear.
“Hut——”
As he withdrew his hand, he deliberately grazed the tip of an ear — and the reaction came like a burn. A sound that could only be called a moan slipped out, and the face that flushed immediately afterward, looking up at him — was quite something.
There really was no reason to let this out in the open.
“Seeing you trembling like this — you must have had quite a fright. If you’d like to avoid getting swept up in pheromones, you’d do well to be careful.”
Muksirok nodded toward the shuddering waist. The words seemed to look out for him at a glance — but the gaze was closer to a reprimand. It was an eye not so different from one trained on a cat in heat.
“I’m, I’m sorry.”
Yeonwoo apologized without knowing why. It simply felt like the right thing to do. And when Muksirok stroked his head as though confirming the answer was correct, a belated certainty followed.
I did something wrong.
The problem was that he couldn’t even begin to guess what. Perhaps it had been sitting on the chair earlier.
For Yeonwoo, who believed with absolute conviction that attending to someone’s meal was a way of pleasing one’s master, there was no way to make sense of it. As Yeonwoo sat there at a loss, Muksirok spoke again.
“Among the unmated beastmen, the only dominant alphas are myself and Kang Sihyeon. And we’ve been holding out through heat suppressants all this time.”
The hand stroking his hair slid slowly downward. The soft sound of fingers tracing the curve of an ear rang out unusually loud. Yeonwoo, who had let a moan slip on instinct, froze at the sound of his own voice — but Muksirok paid it no mind and continued moving his fingertips in slow circles.
“A dominant who hasn’t released pheromones is closer to a beast than a person. Ruled by irrational impulse — they’ll become violent and relentless.”
“Hnn, ah——!”
“They wouldn’t even realize they were tearing something narrow apart in their haste to fill a hunger.”
Those impassive golden eyes tracked slowly over the lips parted around the escaping moan. At the same moment, the air pressed down and grew heavy. Muksirok’s pheromones flooded the surrounding space in an instant. From Muksirok — who never so much as touched sugar — a sweet scent drifted out.
Yeonwoo couldn’t move, as though caught in a snare. Unlike Kang Sihyeon’s, it wasn’t ferocious — but it was entirely deliberate. With each breath he drew, dense pheromones poured in whole and seeped into his lungs. Yeonwoo, bound hand and foot with nowhere to go, had just begun to pant — and then.
“So it would be best not to provoke things too much. In any way.”
Muksirok, who had been watching in silence, reined the pheromones back in and delivered his warning. As though telling him to remember this — the way he had been pinned down and helpless just now — he held Yeonwoo’s gaze steadily.
“There will be an examination soon. When the schedule is confirmed, I’ll come to collect you.”
His goal of frightening him achieved, Muksirok turned his back without hesitation. He still kept his words spare. Unaware that the act of fastening a leash would instead become the very thing that pushed Yeonwoo away.
Click. The door through which the man had passed closed quietly.
