When Lee Hyeonseok came home after finishing his business, Seo Jiwoo, who had been sleeping soundly in bed, had already woken up and was sitting on the living room sofa. He had sent the housekeeper home early out of consideration for Seo Jiwoo, who probably didn’t want to see anyone right now, so he hadn’t expected Jiwoo to be awake.
Lee Hyeonseok hesitated for a moment. It was understandable—Seo Jiwoo was sitting in the middle of the sofa with his head almost buried in it, and he had a bottle of wine in one hand. His cheeks were quite flushed, as if he’d already drunk quite a bit, and he was even sporadically singing along to the song flowing from the AI speaker.
—When tears well up, lift your head.
“Why are you, hic. doing this to me….”
With his flushed face, unfocused eyes, drinking straight from the bottle without a glass, hiccupping non-stop yet stubbornly singing along—Seo Jiwoo looked like a complete wreck.
“What are you doing?”
When Lee Hyeonseok asked, thinking it impressive that he wasn’t crying at least, Seo Jiwoo’s gaze slowly turned toward him. Despite Lee Hyeonseok’s voice being quite cold, Jiwoo must have been considerably sad because he didn’t even straighten his head, only rolling his eyes. Since it didn’t seem like he intended to sing along anymore, Lee Hyeonseok turned off the AI speaker. However, Jiwoo’s state was so amusing that he didn’t stop his behavior, merely crossing his arms and waiting for Seo Jiwoo to open his mouth. He looked pitiful, which was quite arousing.
“How….”
“…….”
Of the two who had been staring at each other for a while, it was Seo Jiwoo who spoke first. Lee Hyeonseok simply waited for Jiwoo, who asked with his voice full of despair. Lee Hyeonseok’s eyes held faint heat, not even trying to hide his rising lust. It was a gaze as if he would devour Seo Jiwoo. However, Seo Jiwoo was looking at Lee Hyeonseok yet not really seeing him, so he didn’t notice Hyeonseok’s eyes.
“How can you be so okay?”
“About what?”
Seo Jiwoo asked as if genuinely curious. At the pure question without any sarcasm or mockery, Lee Hyeonseok had too many guesses, so instead of answering, he asked back. In the current situation, the most plausible answer would be asking why he was fine after manifesting as an alpha, but since Seo Jiwoo was a human with so many variables, it was better not to answer carelessly. Lee Hyeonseok had learned a bit of caution only after being hospitalized three times because of Seo Jiwoo. Otherwise, there was no telling what that drunk human might do with the wine bottle in his hand this time.
“Thinking about it, even when you went through all sorts of terrible things because of me, you quickly shook it off….”
He thought he was asking about his feelings after manifesting as an alpha, but this time he was ruminating on what he himself had done. Lee Hyeonseok’s expression instantly became menacing, but Jiwoo didn’t notice this time either.
“I used to hear that my mental strength was solid too, but this… this is so fucking shitty, wow….”
“…….”
“I’m really going crazy.”
For someone acting like they were about to collapse any moment, Seo Jiwoo seemed calm. Lee Hyeonseok couldn’t easily say that he was like this because he’d grown up seeing a lot of ugly things. No matter how strong an ordinary person’s mental strength was, it couldn’t compare to the mental strength of someone who had grown up seeing all kinds of dirty things right up close.
Lee Hyeonseok had already been exposed to all kinds of abuse since he was seven, and from fourteen, he had openly displayed violent tendencies that were built upon what he was naturally born with, reinforced by his family’s education. Then from sixteen, he’d played around disgustingly promiscuously. Fortunately, Lee Hyeonseok, whose temperament was rotten, lived quite satisfactorily.
However, Seo Jiwoo was just an ordinary person no matter how good his mental strength was. Though he was a slightly off-kilter ordinary person, in any case, accepting his suddenly changed body seemed overwhelming, so seeing him look precarious unlike usual, he uncrossed his arms and slowly approached Jiwoo.
“I’m so pissed off that I wish there was a culprit instead.”
“A culprit?”
“Yeah. At the very least, if someone made me like this, I could also… to that culprit bastard… you know?”
“Know what?”
After muttering to himself for a while, Seo Jiwoo smiled weakly with a regretful expression. Quite contrary to that expression, his eyes glittered with madness. Lee Hyeonseok, who had been approaching Jiwoo with a wicked face, took a step back again and became serious. Seo Jiwoo said, “What do you mean what?” and clenched his fist in the air so hard it made a cutting sound.
“But since it’s not like that, ah…! It’s not that I want to do something to your half-sister. Your half-sister didn’t put us into this book. Of course, it was your half-sister who wrote this book, but….”
Seo Jiwoo added as if making excuses, “I’m thinking a lot of thoughts I shouldn’t tell you, but originally when things are too hard, it’s easier to blame others, right?” then held out the bottle toward Lee Hyeonseok.
“To your and my smooth future, cheers.”
The mood of Seo Jiwoo, who drank straight from the bottle again like that, was quite up and down. Whether it was because he was still having a hard time or because he was drinking, at least he didn’t seem to be in his right mind now. Thanks to that, Lee Hyeonseok just let Seo Jiwoo speak informally to him. Because if he ignored only the madness dwelling in Jiwoo’s eyes, it was quite pleasant to see.
“I want to go home…. To my original home….”
“You said you were satisfied.”
Lee Hyeonseok retorted mockingly at Seo Jiwoo, who was looking for his original home that he’d never once sought after possessing this body. He was curious about the reason for seeking his home now, but seeing him weakened so much was also pleasant, so he wore a satisfied smile on his lips. Still, his eyes, which couldn’t focus properly and wandered here and there, didn’t notice such Lee Hyeonseok.
Seo Jiwoo only removed the bottle from his mouth after spilling wine on his lips because he couldn’t swallow it properly while drinking continuously. Lee Hyeonseok, who had approached at some point, wiped the wine flowing on Jiwoo’s lips with the back of his hand while sneering. Otherwise, with his unfocused eyes, flushed cheeks, lips moistened by alcohol, and lithe body, he might not be able to hold back any longer and devour Seo Jiwoo.
Lee Hyeonseok, who still wanted to talk a bit more, sat down next to Seo Jiwoo, exercising patience unlike himself.
“…….”
“Orphan? Debt? Loan shark?”
The questions Lee Hyeonseok asked seriously were rude but also natural questions. Indeed, if it weren’t so, it would be stranger to adapt to this world so nonchalantly. Seo Jiwoo giggled and answered that he grew up very ordinarily, that he was exactly a normie. Lee Hyeonseok thought he must have experienced an unhappy life or be a psychopath or sociopath, but looking at his current state, he also wondered if he wasn’t quite a crazy bastard.
“Whether there or here, in places not much different from each other, couldn’t I prefer the side that loves me more actively?”
Seo Jiwoo hadn’t been unaffected from the beginning either.
It’s just that after getting employed, he only exchanged greetings with his parents once a month by phone, and his relationships consisted entirely of business friends and work colleagues. It was just that kind of uneventful life. Then one day when he opened his eyes to go to work, he was literally in a situation of “where am I and who am I?”
The people around him treated him exactly as if they were acting in a play. Watching such behavior, it was true that he had felt countless times that they were fake, just as Lee Hyeonseok said. Otherwise, he couldn’t have been so unaffected.
Only Kim Hyeonmin’s parents acted like they were real living people and cherished Kim Hyeonmin. It was maddening with guilt, but since he couldn’t help it, he just enjoyed it. You could say he compromised. That didn’t mean his self-loathing or guilt disappeared, but after becoming acquainted with Lee Hyeonseok and Seo Jiwoo, the people around him changed, allowing him to discard those feelings too. Like that, he felt that this life, which paid him a bit more attention, wasn’t bad, and even went so far as to feel it was good.
“Is it because of affection deficit?”
“A bit?”
Lee Hyeonseok, who had been listening to Seo Jiwoo’s words, thought for a while then asked as if he’d found the answer. Though it was a question, it was also somehow a confident tone, so Jiwoo answered without particularly denying it.
“What should I do now….”
“What’s there to do, just stay like you are now.”
Lee Hyeonseok tilted his head back and muttered after pouring all the remaining wine into his mouth. Setting aside the body itself that goes into heat every month, he worried whether he could attend school well and work well with that body. Lee Hyeonseok carefully swept up Jiwoo’s bangs and whispered low.
“Like now?”
Jiwoo, who got goosebumps involuntarily, asked while frowning one eyebrow slightly. It was because of Lee Hyeonseok’s pheromone scent that he suddenly felt faintly. He wanted to point it out, but he comforted himself to endure just a bit more and let him do as he pleased.
“If you stay obedient and listen to me well like now, I’ll dote on a bastard with a bit of affection deficit.”
“Ahahaha.”
At Lee Hyeonseok’s words, Seo Jiwoo let out a dry laugh without realizing it. Because he thought he was really properly fucked. The truth was this. The moment Lee Hyeonseok closed the front door to go to the Trait Research Center, thinking he’d put him to sleep, Seo Jiwoo’s eyes snapped open at the sound of the closing door. Because Lee Hyeonseok showed no signs of losing interest quickly, he needed to reconsider.
And this was the result of his thinking. In order to know Lee Hyeonseok’s true intentions, he thought that if he drank and tried hard to act weak, he might let his guard down and let slip one or two truths. Fortunately, as Seo Jiwoo hoped, Lee Hyeonseok spat out his true feelings without knowing Jiwoo’s such intentions. So rather than having other feelings about his words, it was natural to think ‘I’m fucked’ because it seemed he’d be tormented for quite a while.
“You’re the type who’d cause big trouble drinking somewhere.”
He wasn’t completely sober but was appropriately drunk, though thinking was still possible. However, this was what Lee Hyeonseok said, mistaking it for Seo Jiwoo being perfectly drunk and letting out a deflated laugh. At the voice that seemed displeased somehow, Seo Jiwoo immediately stopped laughing. Silence suddenly fell over the living room.
“…You….”
“What?”
Seo Jiwoo frowned with both eyebrows and called Lee Hyeonseok. Lee Hyeonseok’s pheromone scent, which had felt faint earlier, gradually grew stronger. At the same time as the air became heavy and hot, Seo Jiwoo’s body also began to heat up. It was from arousal, not from alcohol. Seo Jiwoo, who still didn’t properly know about pheromones, turned his head away from Hyeonseok, who was acting shamelessly, not even knowing whether Lee Hyeonseok was deliberately releasing his scent to arouse Jiwoo.
“Adapt.”
Lee Hyeonseok turned Seo Jiwoo’s head back toward him to make eye contact. At Lee Hyeonseok’s words, Seo Jiwoo, who missed the timing to avoid his eyes, froze without being able to say anything. Like that, Seo Jiwoo and Lee Hyeonseok, who had been staring at each other for a while, drew close to each other as if pulled by magnets.
“…Mmph.”
The kiss was a natural result.
