“Oh, is that so?”
The man named Lee Gyumin seemed slightly surprised but soon smiled and nodded. I immediately put on my shoes, came out of the house, and followed Lee Gyumin.
“Are we going to Kwon Yujin’s house?”
“No. Tomorrow’s advertisement shoot was urgently scheduled, so the athlete is at a hotel right now. We’re going there too.”
When we got into the car parked in front of the villa, Lee Gyumin took the wheel. Then he glanced at me sitting in the passenger seat.
“I heard you’ve been helping a lot with the athlete’s recent condition recovery. As his agent, I’m truly grateful.”
It’s ambiguous to say I’m helping a lot. I was still confused whether pressing our bodies together and rubbing lips was really helping.
“Is that so?”
“Of course. I’m not just being polite—he’s really improved a lot thanks to you. Before, his records kept dropping slightly, and there was even talk about whether he wouldn’t be able to submit his entry at this rate.”
“……”
“Fortunately, since last week he’s been participating in all his training and his records have been going up, so we’re planning to submit his entry right away next Monday. Oh, by the way, entry means document submission. It’s like an official competition participation application.”
“Then is he definitely competing in the tournament?”
“Yes. There’s about a month left now.”
His records came back—that’s good news. Seeing him talk this much, it was definitely not empty words. The content I saw on the restaurant TV last time seemed to be mostly true.
“We’ve arrived. Take this card and go up to room 1620.”
“Understood.”
I took the card Lee Gyumin held out to me.
“I’ll be going now.”
When I got out of the car, I could see the tall hotel building. This was my first time entering such a large hotel.
I was worried that the employees in uniforms at the door might stop me, but fortunately that didn’t happen.
The hotel interior had very high ceilings, and wooden decorations were placed here and there. It must take incredibly long to carve and work on wood like this. Is it the work of an artist rather than a carpenter?
While having such pointless thoughts and looking around, I couldn’t see the elevator.
“Sir. Is there anything you need?”
As I awkwardly loitered around, an employee approached me.
“How do I get to room 1620?”
The employee checked the card I was holding and gave me directions. They personally got the elevator for me and even pressed the floor number. It was the first time someone had treated me so kindly, so I couldn’t even say thank you and just stiffly bowed my head.
Arriving on the 16th floor and finding room 1620 was easy. When I stood in front of the door and pressed the bell, Kwon Yujin soon came out.
Fortunately, unlike last week, he wasn’t bare-bodied. Instead, he was wearing what looked like athletic wear—a jersey. Whether he’d been to practice today too, the ends of his hair weren’t completely dry and looked slightly damp.
“Come in.”
He tilted his head and moved his body aside so I could enter. As I nodded and entered the room, Kwon Yujin seemed to be in a good mood today.
It wasn’t clearly shown in his expression, but the corners of his mouth were lighter than usual, and the pheromones I felt from him were softer than before.
People commonly say you can grasp another’s state or mood through pheromones, but it was always a story distant from me. But now I could clearly feel his condition.
“I heard you’re submitting your entry—is it true?”
“You heard? Yeah.”
Ah, this time his mouth corners definitely went up. Until now, the only expressions he made while looking at me had displeasure in them or were just expressionless—just those two kinds.
Kwon Yujin clasped both hands together and stretched them up, did some stretching, then walked into the room first.
“Then you’re participating in the tournament?”
“Right. Next week I’ll submit my entry and go straight to Australia for training camp.”
“Is that okay? The tournament isn’t far away.”
“Originally going to training camp a few weeks before a tournament is common. I need to make up for the practice I couldn’t do properly and get coaching too.”
“I see.”
I nodded. It’s strange—unusually for Kwon Yujin, he’s sharing his schedule with me in detail. Why? If I had to say, it felt closer to the good side.
“If I finish this tournament well, I’ll start treatment properly too.”
“Treatment?”
I asked him back and then came up with the answer myself. Imprint treatment.
“Ah, right.”
“Anyway, it’s been more effective than expected, so there’s been more progress than originally planned. Even when other pheromones mix in, it bothers me much less than before.”
“That’s good.”
“It seems pheromone showers from your imprint partner are definitely important.”
I agreed, nodding my head enthusiastically. Kwon Yujin looked down at me and continued.
“You said your pheromones are originally weak, right?”
“Yeah. Because I’m recessive.”
Strictly speaking, I was a somewhat special case even among recessives. I was insensitive to others’ pheromones, and even my own pheromones were very faint, so people often mistook me for a beta.
It was the same with my heat cycle—there wasn’t much change. Resting at home for about a day or taking the weakest suppressant was enough for me to maintain daily life.
If I had been a bit smaller in build like a normal omega or if my pheromone scent had been sweet, there might have been alphas who noticed, but I was far from that image. The faint pheromone I did have was a heavy woody type. They said it was a scent often seen in alphas.
On top of that, I resembled my father and was tall for an omega. When I was young, I was always the tallest in class, but whether it was because of my trait, after manifestation, I grew less tall as I went into my late teens and now I stopped at 180cm.
Still, I was fortunate to have inherited the genes for physical strength. Thanks to that, I could work at construction sites to my heart’s content. That was the only one thing I was grateful to my father for.
“So, how about getting help from medication?”
“What medication?”
“Something like pheromone enhancers.”
At those words, I looked up at Kwon Yujin.
Telling me to take medication? I didn’t expect this situation. Aren’t pheromone enhancers essentially heat cycle inducers?
“I’ve never taken anything like that.”
“If I go to training camp next week, I have to be in Australia for 2 weeks. I want to practice in top condition there just like now.”
That was natural. To improve his records, he’d need to keep maintaining his current physical state.
“Can’t we just do it like we did last week?”
“It’s hard to last 2 weeks with just that.”
“Ah.”
“No matter how much we rub lips with a body like yours where pheromones come out tantalizingly, it doesn’t even reach marking level.”
What can I do about having naturally faint pheromones? That said, I couldn’t follow him to training camp either.
So it seemed he meant to make me take an inducer, receive a pheromone shower, and then go. Certainly that side would have longer-lasting effects, but I don’t think it would last for 2 weeks.
Anyway, since Kwon Yujin imprinting on me was entirely my responsibility, I wanted to do anything for him.
“Even if I take that and my pheromones get stronger, I don’t think the effect will last that long.”
As if agreeing with those words, Kwon Yujin suddenly unzipped the jersey he was wearing. After taking off his clothes, he held out the jersey to me.
“Take the medication and wear my clothes for a while. I’ll take them to Australia.”
I accepted the clothes in a daze. Wearing clothes with the pheromones of one’s lover or imprint partner was common among trait-bearers.
This way, Kwon Yujin’s assertion made sense. If he took several pieces of clothing saturated with my pheromones, thickened by the inducer, he might be able to maintain adequate condition for 2 weeks.
“Then should I go out and buy the medication?”
Having quickly agreed to his request, I asked while putting on the jersey. Then Kwon Yujin shook his head.
“No need.”
Then he held out a small box containing pills to me.
“I already got it.”
The package said ‘Omega Pheromone Enhancer.’ Judging by the indicator showing enhancement strength with only one bar drawn, it was the weakest inducer. It was basic knowledge taught even in elementary school trait sex education, so I knew this much too.
I accepted the medication without much resistance. At most, my pheromones will just get a bit stronger than now. Actually, if it helped Kwon Yujin, I would have taken even more powerful medication.
I hesitated for a moment, then took off my mask and took out a pill to swallow. Kwon Yujin watched without missing the process of me pushing it down my throat without water.
“Good job.”
