After taking the body-ache medicine and sitting for a while, I lay back down on the bed. Just being outside the blanket for a moment made me shiver from the chills that had set in. Eorin, who had been putting a cooling patch on my forehead, saw me trembling and tucked the blanket tightly around me.
“You’re cold. Just bear with it a little. When you wake up from sleeping, you’ll be okay.”
“…Yeah.”
“…Why do you keep crying, Chiwon-ah?”
Eorin rubbed around my eyes. Tears flowed out without pause.
“I don’t know.”
I wasn’t even gasping for breath. This wasn’t crying—it was just tears. That’s why no matter how much I bit my lips, I couldn’t stop it. If it had been sobbing, I could have swallowed it down.
Eorin slowly stroked my cheek. Then, without realizing it, the strength left my jaw and I released my lips. Eorin rubbed below my lips.
“I guess it’s because you’re sick… Right. When you’re sick, sometimes you feel lonely too… That’s probably why.”
“…Yeah.”
“Don’t bite them because it’ll hurt more if you do…”
Eorin didn’t tell me not to cry. I recalled that young day when he’d said not to hold my breath or endure it, and if it was hard to tell him, but just not to cry so painfully like this. Back when Eorin said he didn’t know what to do when I cried, he was still a child, but now he’d become an adult and seemed to have learned that sometimes saying nothing at all can comfort tears. Though he didn’t need to become an adult in that way too. Those words alone had been enough for me back then.
After stroking my cheek and head a few more times, Eorin sat silently by my side and wiped around my eyes with a wet towel. That made me feel strangely sad yet happy, so more tears came. I stared blankly at Eorin’s eyes. Eorin met my eyes too. Each time I blinked, tears seeped out, but Eorin, as if never tiring, endlessly wiped away my tears. I had to acknowledge it. Eorin, who was born with all the world’s kindness, was certainly sufficient even as a child, but even now he still knew how to reach the weak parts of my heart.
Crying was exhausting work. After being like that for a while, just staying conscious was too difficult. Perhaps noticing my state, Eorin patted me with the hand not holding the towel. I fell into sleep in an instant. And at some point, Eorin’s patting grew distant.
I slept straight through the day in a daze. In the middle, it seemed Eorin woke me to feed me something, but I didn’t remember it well. The initial headache had subsided considerably, but my body still felt terribly heavy. Like being caught in sleep paralysis, my mind was hazily awake but my body couldn’t move at all. My eyelids were no different, so a state of light sleep where I couldn’t even open my eyes continued intermittently.
Suddenly my surroundings felt dark. It seemed I’d spent the entire day and night had come. As I struggled to pull up my heavily sinking body, then gave up and was about to fall back asleep, I heard murmuring voices outside the door.
“…Yes. I’ll do that.”
A gentle, low voice. It was Eorin.
“…Yes, probably tomorrow too… I’m asking you. I know it’s hard but… I’m sorry.”
“…”
“Yes. I can’t go. I won’t go.”
Go where?
“I won’t go. Not anymore…”
Eorin’s voice faded. It seemed I faintly heard him say something like, “I want to stay by your side now.” Soon the voices cut off, and the door carefully opened with a creak. My closed eyelids were so firmly shut that not even the light that should have leaked through the door gap shone through. With small footsteps, a presence approached. But for a long while, the presence that stood close by just remained there.
Suddenly, a warmth like a small dot seemed to touch my palm. The warmth that wasn’t stroking or rubbing but just touching fell away before long. The figure that had just been standing there for a long while again slowly moved away. Feeling the figure disappear through the door, I too gradually became buried in drowsiness.
How much time had passed since I fell asleep? Sunlight shone over my closed eyelids. As I struggled to come to my senses and breathed slowly while lying still, I felt my pheromones floating in the air. Only after letting out a long breath did I notice something was strange. My pheromones weren’t strong enough that I could smell them myself.
My insides grew warmly hot. Up until now it had just been my body having a fever, but a somewhat different heat was beginning to bloom. As I tossed and turned trying to shake off that sensation, I suddenly opened my eyes.
Before I could even assess the situation, I felt it was dangerous. Goosebumps rose on my back. An anxious and impatient sensation was budding in my stomach.
It was a heat cycle.
I’d never had one come on suddenly without warning before. I drew in a breath. My lower half throbbed hot and I instinctively began to get agitated.
Why of all times, here, now? Since leaving Haebam Orphanage, I’d only experienced a heat cycle five times. Just five times in 12 years.
I threw off the blanket and got up from where I was lying. I’d think later—I had to take medicine quickly. Since it had already started, a medicine to delay the heat cycle wouldn’t work. I needed to use medicine to stop the heat cycle. The termination medicine was so harsh that even people who weren’t heat-type wouldn’t produce pheromones for a day or two, so it was only used in emergencies. But since you could suddenly face a heat in public places, some people carried it around as pills or fast-acting injections. I must have bought some for emergencies last time and had it somewhere.
The fever hadn’t gone down yet, so my head was dizzy. Desperately trying to remember where I’d put the medicine, I walked unsteadily and just as my knees gave out and I clung to the bed—
Click. The sound of the door opening came.
Time seemed to flow very slowly. As I slowly turned my head while face-down, I met eyes with Eorin looking at me.
“…”
Silence hung in the air. I was the first to come to my senses.
“L-l-leave. Eorin-ah. Pl-please.”
My body was trembling so much that my words came out in broken fragments. I knew very well what effect an omega in heat cycle’s pheromones had on an alpha. I was terrified. But my omega body, upon discovering Eorin’s pheromones, urgently began inhaling them. Eorin’s pheromones were terribly sweet and pleasant. I covered my nose and mouth and trembled. Eorin’s pheromones as a dominant alpha were too strong for me.
My lower half ached with a throbbing pain. Just from smelling Eorin’s pheromones, I’d gotten hard. Not wanting to show that sight, I curled up where I was and pulled the blanket over with trembling hands. I wanted to cover myself somehow.
Until then, Eorin hadn’t moved as if nailed to the spot. Suddenly, fluid burst out from down below. At the sensation of my clothes getting wet in an instant, goosebumps rose on my back.
Eorin’s pheromones gradually faded. It seemed Eorin was suppressing them. Then my body, having smelled an alpha’s pheromones once, surged trying to grab onto the disappearing pheromones. Even I could tell how desperately my pheromones were raging. I desperately suppressed my pheromones. Medicine—where did I put the medicine?
Eorin, who had been frozen like stone, took a step. Startled that he might be heading toward me, I looked at Eorin, but what Eorin was looking at wasn’t me but the dresser.
“Is there… medicine… here?”
His face was deathly pale. Perhaps even more than mine. Eorin’s hand slipped as he opened the drawer and he lost his grip on the handle. Even from my side I could see Eorin’s hand was trembling.
There… what was in there were suppressants. The termination medicine wasn’t there… I should tell him that, but clenching my jaw was my limit. If I made one wrong move, it felt like the old emotions that had been blackened and stuck would burst out in the form of pleading. I barely shook my head. Hoping Eorin would look at me.
But Eorin couldn’t look at me. Suddenly making a sound like his throat was being choked, Eorin sank down right there. Veins bulged on the hand gripping the dresser handle. Eorin, who had put so much strength in his hand that the bone showed white, covered his own face tightly with his remaining hand.
“…Eorin…”
I couldn’t continue speaking. Because Eorin’s pheromones, which had faded, suddenly began to rage. The vanilla scent that had only been sweet came at me very urgently and stickily. Eorin’s back trembled.
It was a rut. I’d never seen or experienced it, but that was definitely an alpha’s rut. I bit my tongue. My body, having smelled rut pheromones, began to go crazy with agitation wanting Eorin. But it couldn’t be. Absolutely not.
Eorin gasped for breath. Sweat dripped from Eorin’s forehead. Gripping the dresser, Eorin was barely holding on. I crawled up onto the bed and tried to get over to the other side. To get as far away from Eorin as possible. But the moment I reached the edge of the bed, my sweat-soaked hand slipped on the bed and my upper body pitched forward. I squeezed my eyes shut thinking I’d hit my head on the floor, but I didn’t feel any pain.
Hot hands were gripping my waist. At the alpha’s rut pheromones reaching me from behind my back, my legs began to tremble violently. An intense impulse I’d never felt once in my life boiled up. I bit my lips tightly. The fishy taste of blood spread.
When I tried to push Eorin away with the reason I’d barely managed to grab onto, Eorin, who had sat me on the bed, dropped his forehead onto my shoulder and gasped for breath. Through my sensitized skin, I could feel my shoulder getting wet in an instant.
Eorin was crying.
“St-…ay… h-here.”
Eorin, who had wrapped the blanket tightly around my body, slowly backed away with his head lowered. As if strength had left his knees, he almost sank down several times but got up again and moved away from me. Eorin, gripping the door handle, went outside and closed the door. After a moment, there was a thud from the door.
Eorin’s rut pheromones floated in the room. My head was dazed from the excessive stimulation. Only then did I realize my body was drenched in sweat. The exposed parts felt burning hot. Having caught a body-ache and then a heat cycle on top of that, plus smelling an alpha’s rut pheromones, I couldn’t endure any longer.
Black dots appeared one by one before my eyes. Those dots grew larger and larger, swallowing my vision. I lost consciousness just like that.
When I opened my eyes again, the person in front of me was, surprisingly, Secretary Cha. Seeing I’d come to my senses, Secretary Cha jumped up from his seat.
“Teacher!”
“…Secretary Cha?”
“Are you a bit more conscious? Are you okay physically?”
I slowly sat up. The heat cycle had ended. It didn’t seem enough time had passed for it to end naturally, so it seemed the termination medicine had been used. My hands trembled from the aftereffects of the forcibly closed pheromones.
