He sat slumped on the front steps for a long while, blinking.
He stared blankly at the empty-feeling garden for a long time — then a bird fluttered away with a loud rustle, startling him back to his senses.
“……Ugh.”
He rubbed his lips hard and the corners of them protested with a stinging pain. He touched them gently with his middle finger and saw a trace of blood, and when he ran the tip of his tongue over them, he tasted it. He was pretty sure Kwon Wookyung had bitten him earlier.
The image of him rushing over desperately and frantically flashed through his mind, and he had to squeeze his eyes shut and shake his head. Even that didn’t help — the thick sensation that had swirled through his mouth and the heat that had pressed down on his body refused to leave.
Was Kwon Wookyung… in rut?
It was a possibility that hadn’t crossed his mind at all earlier, when he’d been too flustered to think. If it was heat — not illness — then the strange behavior made sense.
He hadn’t known who was in front of him and had gone straight for the lips — so he couldn’t have been fully in his right mind either.
Hah. Where had my awareness been.
Now that it had finally occurred to him, it was almost unbelievably obvious. He dry-washed his face and covered it with both hands. Even without looking, he knew his face had to be bright red.
Shin Haehyeon, you idiot.
What on earth were you thinking?
No — you weren’t thinking at all.
They say ignorance makes you brave.
……How am I supposed to face him now.
Today, of all days, even if Haechan called him an idiot — he’d just have to accept it. He had done something truly idiotic.
When his crouched legs started aching in protest, he finally got up from Kwon Wookyung’s front steps and trudged back home. He took off his shoes and walked into the empty house — and just then, the deodorant spray sitting on top of the shoe cabinet caught his eye.
Right. Pheromones.
His entire body was saturated with Kwon Wookyung’s pheromones. His arms where he’d been gripped were especially bad — the moment he lifted one and brought it close to smell, the strange sensation he’d felt earlier came crawling back up from his lower abdomen.
Ugh… this can’t be happening.
He hastily grabbed the spray and doused himself from head to toe. He kept spraying at a pace that threatened to empty the whole can before the piercing level finally just barely receded. Even so, it felt like anyone who came close would still notice immediately.
It wasn’t like a passing brush — it was more like an assault. The scent clung to him as if it had been absorbed into his skin and wouldn’t let go. His own natural pheromones were completely undetectable beneath it. The spray seemed like it would take care of what had soaked into his clothes, but not his actual body.
Not knowing how to deal with it, he quickly searched online and found posts saying to shower or take a bath. It said that even in extreme cases — the level of a pheromone shower — alternating between deodorant use and bathing until the scent faded would eventually help.
He went into the bathroom connected to his room, took off all his clothes, sprayed deodorant on them again, and rolled them into a corner. Then, following the advice, he started filling the tub — and someone banged on the door. He jumped in shock and instinctively covered himself with both hands.
“Hey, you in there?”
It was his younger-older brother.
“Agh, you scared me! What?”
He seemed to have already come back from the hospital.
You could have stayed and gotten some work done. He silently cursed Haechan’s attending professor.
“You weren’t in your room so I wondered where you were.”
“……I’m taking a bath.”
“Since when do you take baths? Want me to scrub your back?”
“Are you out of your mind? Go away.”
Haechan said something horrifying. When Haehyeon gave him a firm look, his hyung cackled — apparently joking — and disappeared with a “scrub yourself properly.”
That was close. If he’d come in even a little later, he would have been caught.
Haehyeon, who had gone rigid, only relaxed after the footsteps faded, and sank his body into the bathwater. He dissolved a bath bomb with a strong scent and lots of foam into the hot water, and the artificial fragrance quickly spread through the air.
Even to Haehyeon — whose nose was completely average — the scent was overwhelming, so if it were Haechan with his bloodhound-level sense of smell, he would have known the moment he walked into the bathroom that something had happened. The fact that his younger-older brother didn’t like Kwon Wookyung was one problem, but the bigger problem was that he was strangely, incongruously conservative.
It had been the same when Haehyeon was actively dating. Mom and Dad never interfered in his love life — but for some inexplicable reason, it was Haechan who bombarded him with endless nagging. Date cleanly the way students should, don’t do anything indecent, don’t cause trouble, don’t two-time anyone, only date someone with their head screwed on straight… He’d heard it until his ears bled. It was at a level that would make a Joseon-era scholar weep — thanks to which, his romantic life in school had been wholesome enough to air on an educational broadcast channel. Holding hands and a peck on the lips had been the absolute maximum.
Which meant — what had just been stolen from him was his first kiss.
“Ugh, ugh, ugh……”
Unable to bear the brutal truth, he held his breath and plunged his entire head into the bathwater.
He knew in his head that it had been his own fault — but he resented Kwon Wookyung.
You rotten bastard. Said you’d never dated anyone, and yet — where did that nerve come from?
I’ve dated way more than you have… you haven’t actually done everything except date for real, have you?
Launching straight for the lips out of nowhere — that was a reasonable suspicion. Besides, unless he were completely incapable, there was no way an alpha had held back through an entire rut.
The way he had thrown him onto the bed and pinned him down so he couldn’t move had been disturbingly natural… and why was he rubbing there too, not just his lips?
Whoosh —
Having held his breath as long as he could, he burst out of the water and wiped the foam off his face with his hands, glaring into the steam-filled air.
I should have gone around kissing more people ages ago. If he had, he wouldn’t have to be going through this absurd turmoil right now.
On top of everything, that sensation was still lingering in his mouth — so he stopped mid-bath, grabbed his toothbrush, and started brushing. He needed to shake off this ridiculous feeling as quickly as possible.
The fact that he had gotten a little wet down below from brief exposure to that bastard’s pheromones — he was planning to ignore that entirely.
He lay sprawled across his bed, freshly clean and dry.
Why am I so exhausted. He couldn’t even summon the motivation to pull the blanket over himself.
He was lying there staring at the ceiling when the bedroom door opened — he assumed it was Haechan again and looked up with a scowl — but it wasn’t his younger-older brother, it was Haeyong. Haeyong, who had boldly opened the door with his front paws, closed it with his back paws. He looked impressively practiced at it, as if it weren’t his first time.
While Haehyeon stared with his mouth open, Haeyong padded over and lay down beside him, leaning his body against him. Soft and warm. When Haehyeon scratched under his neck, Haeyong rolled slightly and tucked himself right into his arms and licked his chin.
“Our sweet little Yongyong.”
Giant and incredibly adorable. He could never get enough kisses. He showered Haeyong with a barrage of them, then picked up the booklet he’d left on the nightstand. It was the omega care guide the secondary traits clinic had given him before — which, naturally, he had thrown aside without reading until now.
They had covered secondary trait characteristics in sex education at school, but he’d barely listened back then. He had thought it had nothing to do with him. Also, since his whole family were secondary trait individuals, he figured he would naturally pick up a lot just from living with them — and assumed there was nothing he didn’t already know.
But was rut really like that?
There were three alphas in his house, and yet he had never once witnessed anything like that from his father or his hyungs. They had probably been thorough about hiding it out of consideration for him.
Same went for Kwon Wookyung. After his traits had manifested in middle school, Wookyung would sometimes be absent citing his cycle. During those times, Haehyeon had to stay diligent in class without dozing off, take careful notes, and show them to Kwon Wookyung and fill him in on homework. Other than briefly disappearing like that, Haehyeon had had absolutely no occasion to see Wookyung’s side as an alpha. So while he had always known Wookyung was an alpha, he had never really thought about what that meant.
That was why it had been quite a shock. The feeling of finding out that the gentle puppy you’d always thought was cute could, at any moment, be a predator capable of biting down on your throat — was that a fitting analogy?
He glanced at Haeyong, who was sitting perfectly still in his arms like a stuffed animal while Haehyeon scowled at the booklet. What if Haeyong’s true identity was actually an arctic wolf, not a Samoyed?
Come on… Pushing the ridiculous thought aside, he opened the booklet titled “Omega Secondary Trait Health Management Guide.”
He skimmed the table of contents first, then started reading from the section titled “What Is Rut.”
“Rut refers to the periodic state of arousal that occurs in alpha secondary traits. It generally occurs at intervals of several months and typically lasts around one to four days. During rut, the alpha’s body experiences a sharp rise in secondary trait hormones and testosterone. Key characteristics include increased pheromone secretion, heightened sexual drive, elevated olfactory and sensory sensitivity, increased aggression or protective instinct, rise in body temperature, and insomnia. Most alphas are able to manage their condition through rut suppressants or self-management. However, in cases where suppressants are not used or hormonal response is strong, behavioral control may become difficult.”
He turned to the next page, and a subheading appeared: “When Coming Into Contact With an Alpha in Rut.”
“Because an alpha in rut experiences stronger pheromone reactions than usual, there is a possibility of excessive response to an omega’s pheromones. Extra caution is recommended in the following situations:
- When the omega is in heat • When confined together in an enclosed space • When there is strong pheromone exposure
Recommended precautions include using pheromone blockers, avoiding being alone together, traveling with a trusted guardian or companion, and contacting a medical or safety institution if necessary. Most alphas manage their own rut and respect the safety of others. However, since physiological responses can be difficult to predict, prevention in advance is important.”
The phrases “when confined together in an enclosed space” and “prevention in advance is important,” alongside “respects the safety of others” — those hit him like a blow. That guy had even stabbed his own arm because of Haehyeon.
“Ugh……”
The fact that he had made such a serious mistake kept sinking in more and more, and it was agonizing.
He buried his face in his pillow and groaned — and Haeyong carefully tapped him with one paw. It seemed to be asking, “Are you okay?”
“Haeyong, your hyung really, truly messed up… I could die of embarrassment.”
He clung to Haeyong, who couldn’t say a word back, and poured it all out.
“You’re good at digging tunnels, right? Dig one in the garden for me. So your hyung can crawl in and hide… ugh.”
Haeyong, who had been digging furiously in the corners of the garden since he was a puppy whenever he got bored, could probably manage it easily enough.
Whether he understood or not, Haeyong just licked his whining cheek. Then his tail swatted the booklet with a thwap. Maybe it was Haehyeon’s imagination, but it felt like it meant: quit fussing and finish reading.
He read carefully from the first page, letting out one sigh per page turn.
At least for the next few days, I won’t so much as glance in the direction of Kwon Wookyung’s house — and I won’t even think about him.
……That had been his firm resolve.
To get straight to the point — that steadfast resolution crumbled completely.
The first moment he thought of Kwon Wookyung, making a mockery of his resolve, was that very evening.
“Haehyeon, what happened to your lips?”
He had stayed in his room until dinner, then came downstairs — and the moment Haejun hyung saw his face, he asked in surprise. At those words, Haechan looked over at him too.
