Uh… why is he doing this? He’s never done this outside until now.
Seonjae was well-mannered. Whether out of consideration for those with the same trait or consideration for those who weren’t trait holders, he always kept his pheromones tightly contained. Though he did unconsciously leak pheromones slightly when looking at me sometimes.
“Seonjae. Remember? Kim Yeonghyo.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Seonjae didn’t look at Kim Yeonghyo and looked at me, smiling softly as he spoke. He was clearly smiling, but maybe because he released too many pheromones, all the hairs on my body stood on end.
Kim Yeonghyo must have felt his pheromones too, as he cleared his throat with a “hmm hmm” and opened his mouth.
“Didn’t Seonjae tell you? We met a few times. I was curious about you so I asked around here and there, and when I met Seonjae, I asked him to tell you—”
“Yeoul, why are you dressed so lightly? You must be cold. You have goosebumps on your neck?”
Seonjae cut off Kim Yeonghyo mid-sentence and kissed my neck lightly. No, I do have goosebumps but that’s not because I’m cold, it’s because of your pheromones.
As if he didn’t care at all how this sight in front of Kim Yeonghyo would look, Seonjae buried his face in my neck and slowly licked my neck while inhaling my pheromones.
And what followed was beyond my control.
When he, a dominant alpha, opens his pheromones, I, being recessive, naturally open my pheromones to match him. That was unavoidable—it was the ‘superiority’ of the trait Seonjae possessed. It seemed no different for Kim Yeonghyo either, as Kim Yeonghyo was floundering, not knowing what to do.
Kim Yeonghyo, who had clearly looked like a coolly well-grown alpha until just now, had returned to being the tiny little kid from high school.
“So, what did you have to say to our Yeoul? Yeonghyo?”
Seonjae asked Kim Yeonghyo. At the cold gaze asking in a sweet voice, Kim Yeonghyo smiled awkwardly and said let’s talk again next time, then hurriedly left.
…Did he remember some urgent business? His hurried departure looked just like he was being chased by something, so I was secretly worried about him.
“Maybe only his body grew. In high school too, he was used like that by others…”
“Yeoul. Are you worrying about Kim Yeonghyo right now?”
Ah, crap.
What I thought I was thinking internally, I said out loud without realizing. I withdrew my gaze that had been following Kim Yeonghyo and looked at Seonjae. Seonjae looking at me with round eyes was just like the famous character “Puss in Boots.”
Though judging by his build, he was a “tiger” not a cat.
“What worry? I’m just curious because he was really small.”
“Was he small and cute?”
“Huh?”
What does that mean? Why are you adding “cute?” at the end?
“You did that in high school too. You picked out bread to give to a kid you didn’t even know well more carefully than my bread.”
“Haha, hey, what are you talking about? When did I—”
“You did. Until I went off on the ones bullying him, you did.”
“…Did I? I just bought a few more while getting yours.”
While I scratched my head lost in thought, I heard Seonjae’s sigh.
“Was he cute enough for you to think about other things when you don’t even have enough time to think only about me? He didn’t seem particularly cute though.”
“What are you talking about? When did I say he was cute?”
“Yeoul is always like that. You like small, cute things. You were like that when I was young too.”
Well… that was because it was you.
“Do you dislike me now that I’m bigger? Am I not cute anymore, not attractive?”
“Ah, seriously, what are you saying? Did you drink? What nonsense is this in broad daylight?”
Just as I was starting to get annoyed, Seonjae grinned. Then he added “Just kidding, just kidding” while waving his hand.
Right…? I thought.
“And don’t worry. After he manifested as an alpha, he’s been fairly popular at school and doing well in school life.”
“Really?”
I see. But how do you know that?
As far as I know, Seonjae doesn’t keep in touch with high school friends separately. Same for me too.
Actually, we didn’t really have friends. Anyway, as the son of a chaebol family that would be second to none in the country, and the only son of a small but strong company that was a subcontractor for that family, time was too precious for us to just look at each other, so we didn’t make friends widely.
Everyone was nice to us anyway, and whether their kindness was sincere or not, we did well in school life smoothly without rough edges. High school connections don’t continue into society anyway, and if it’s a connection meant to continue, it’ll reconnect somehow, so we didn’t worry much about it.
So even at university, it was just the two of us. We had no interest whatsoever in alumni gatherings or class reunions. But Seonjae, how do you know Kim Yeonghyo’s news?
“You know, Yeoul.”
Seonjae smiled brightly.
“I don’t have secrets from you.”
Of course I know that. But you just got caught making a secret from me, didn’t you?
“Kim Yeonghyo—I just talked to him a few times while taking a general education class. That’s such a trivial thing that there’s no need to tell you about it—does that count as a secret?”
“Huh?”
“No. Your expression looked like you were thinking that.”
“Thinking what?”
“…Oh, our Seonjae made a secret from me. How could he do that? I’m hurt.”
What the. Can you read minds or something?
I said nothing and just quietly looked into Seonjae’s face. He looked back at me and smiled without changing expression, then quietly pulled me into an embrace.
His pheromones that had spread thickly and bound me when he was with Kim Yeonghyo earlier had changed to warm pheromones that gently wrapped around me like usual. Ah, right. This is Seonjae. Just as Seonjae is the center of my world, I am the center of Seonjae’s world too.
I can be certain of it more than anyone.
Right. Well, he might not tell me things that aren’t very important. I don’t tell Seonjae how many times I went to the bathroom in a day or how many breaths I took either. That’s exactly the level it is. Kim Yeonghyo’s matter to Seonjae.
But wait. I think he said he was trying to give me something.
I pulled away from Seonjae’s embrace, quietly looked into his smiling face, and just chuckled.
Hey, well, it probably wasn’t anything important. If it was important, Seonjae wouldn’t have ignored it so casually like that. Yeah, right. That must be it.
“Anyway, Yeoul. What should we eat for dinner tonight?”
After entering university, we started living together at some point. The biggest reason was that home was far from school. Actually, for Seonjae, it didn’t matter much how far home was from school because he had a driver, but the problem was me. To be precise, I thought there was no problem, but it would be more accurate to say Seonjae judged there was a problem with that situation.
Actually, when we first entered university, we commuted from home. Though there was some distance, it wasn’t particularly difficult to use public transportation. But as time passed, Seonjae started to be dissatisfied with me using public transportation every time.
“Yeoul is too pretty, so the subway is too dangerous.”
When I laughed incredulously at such nonsense, he spoke with a rather serious face.
“Don’t you even watch the news about how many perverted bastards there are on the subway?”
…Has there ever been news about subway perverts? Well, of course, there are occasional newsworthy incidents like an omega whose heat cycle suddenly hit on the subway causing near chaos, but those are really ‘rare’ incidents.
Why is he talking like such things are everyday occurrences, Seonjae?
“Seonjae. You worry too much.”
“I worry too much?”
“Right? You worry about things that don’t even happen like they happen all the time.”
At that time, someone else should have seen Seonjae’s face.
With a face like he’d lost the whole world, mouth wide open, looking at me incredulously—I was the one who was incredulous at that expression.
“Yeoul. Don’t you even look in a mirror?”
“What?”
“If your eyes are attached properly, you shouldn’t say such things.”
It was genuinely funny. What on earth does that even mean? No, okay. Say I’m as pretty as Seonjae says. But no one follows me around, and not a single person hits on me saying they like me. I’m not the kind of “bewitching omega” Seonjae talks about that everyone tries to do something about.
“Seonjae.”
“Why?”
“Don’t say such things anywhere.”
“What?”
“Really, ha… what should I do with you?”
