Might as well sleep. Achim said, stretching his mouth wide open in a long, drooping yawn, and Dora gave a single vigorous nod.
“You doing alright?”
“What do you mean.”
“Your ass, I mean.”
At the playful remark, Achim tightened his grip on the beer mug he was holding. Half-expecting it to come flying at him, Linus quickly crossed both arms in an X.
But contrary to expectation, Achim neither threw the mug nor cursed.
Linus was just starting to find the unusual reaction strange when Achim stared into the air with the beer mug still in his hand.
“More than alright — it’s practically stuck.”
“What does that mean?”
Linus blinked and asked, and Achim gulped down a mouthful of beer before wiping the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Actually, I had something to tell you, Linus.”
“Yeah.”
“Michael Bernhardt hates me.”
“……”
“Well — to be precise, he hates Yvonne.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Linus twitched an eyebrow as if to say, what on earth does that mean — but Achim seemed to genuinely not know, exactly as he’d said.
As if the reason might be floating somewhere in the beer mug, Achim did nothing but stare hard into the translucent liquid.
“And the man is cunning and sharp.”
Achim added, keeping his gaze fixed on the mug, and Linus asked, “What?”
“Everyone’s been fooled. When you get down to it, Michael might not be the director of Maaconi at all — he might be a cult leader with a legion of devoted followers.”
“Babe, what on earth are you talking about?”
Linus crossed his arms and asked at the insufficient explanation. Achim let out a sigh and filled Linus in on everything that had happened at the estate.
Naturally, after hearing it all, Linus widened his eyes as if struggling to believe it. “Really?” Linus asked, and Achim just waved a hand loosely, as if he didn’t have the energy to say another word.
“If that’s true, that really is something.”
“It’s true, I’m telling you. Part of me wants to use a recorder and report him to the press.”
“Hmm……”
Linus hummed to himself, then spoke.
“But why?”
“I don’t know either. If I knew the reason, I’d at least feel less hard done by.”
Achim irritably ruffled the back of his head. Linus tilted his head and murmured almost to himself.
“What reason could he even have to dislike you?”
“……Beats me.”
Achim briefly thought of the lace-trimmed underwear he’d shoved into the drawer — but didn’t bother bringing it up.
Linus sat mulling it over, scratching his jaw where stubble had grown in sparsely from not having shaved.
“It’s not as if he knows you’re a man.”
“……”
“Then what reason could that man possibly have for disliking you……”
“What?”
“Hm?”
Linus returned the question mark as-is.
Achim sat for a moment with an expression like something had clocked him, then shook his head clear. Right, that can’t be it. If he’d known he was a man, he’d have been thrown out long ago. And it might not have ended with just being fired.
Achim sorted through his thoughts quickly.
“That aside — it really is surprising.”
“What is?”
“I didn’t think he’d end up disliking you.”
Linus shook his head with a thoroughly serious expression.
Achim was just shrugging, thinking it odd that it would be so surprising — when Linus suddenly slammed a fist down on the old wooden table with a bang.
“This can’t be happening, babe!”
Startled by the sudden outburst, Achim looked up — and Linus launched into speech in an agitated tone.
“We had a bet going on when your ass would get tapped. I naturally bet on the shortest window because I believe in you — within two weeks. After that was a month, and the longest bet was four months. ‘Never’ wasn’t even an option!”
“……”
“……”
“……What?”
Achim broke the long silence and asked. As if only then realizing what he’d let slip, Linus — who had been spitting out words at full speed — made a sharp sound and clamped his mouth shut.
Achim’s expression hardened murderously.
“What the hell, why is everyone putting bets on my——”
Linus scooted his chair backward. This time around, it wouldn’t have been strange if the beer mug actually came flying. Linus spoke up in a hurry.
“Calm down, babe.”
I didn’t say names. At Linus’s added remark, Achim’s brow pinched hard together. That’s supposed to make it better? He’d been about to lay into him — but pulled up every last scrap of patience he had left. Because losing his temper would only drain his own energy.
As Achim was busy rationalizing for the sake of his own mental health, Linus — convinced he was about to take a hit — rattled out words like a man being chased.
“Achim, I dug up some interesting news instead.”
“……”
“About Michael Bernhardt, of course.”
Achim hesitated, and Linus caught the opening without missing a beat, eyes lighting up.
It was Linus’s unparalleled survival technique. Tickling the soles of someone’s feet with a feather, then right when they were about to snap — pressing a sweet candy into their hand. A truly perverse method.
But right now, it was also the most effective excuse that could possibly work on Achim.
Achim narrowed his eyes, and Linus, sensing his moment, hurried to speak.
“Michael Bernhardt. Apparently he hates Omegas.”
“……Omegas?”
Sure enough, Linus, true to his signature survival technique, managed to redirect the conversation with practiced ease. Because it was undeniably an interesting subject.
Linus nodded with still-gleaming eyes, and Achim tilted his beer mug and asked:
“Is there even such a thing as an Alpha who hates Omegas?”
“That’s exactly why it’s interesting.”
Achim agreed with that.
Because Alpha to Omega, Omega to Alpha — like an absolute, immutable law, they were placed in a relationship where they could not help but be drawn to one another.
The reason was pheromones.
Alphas and Omegas responded to the opposite trait — that is, to each other’s pheromones — and became physically aroused. There was no reasoning behind it. Alpha, Omega, pheromone. Just as humans had always been divided into male and female since the beginning of time, it was simply the natural order of things.
To this, ordinary Betas were of course excluded. Betas neither emitted pheromones nor were capable of sensing theirs.
Precisely because they were, in every sense of the word, ordinary people.
“Even coming from you, Linus, my confidence in this is a little shaky.”
