He answered the phone in an utterly composed manner — as if to say he hadn’t been waiting even a fraction of a second for this call. He figured the other person must have also called him under the guise of some business matter, bracing himself after delivering his breakup.
[Yeah. It’s me, honey.]
But the man’s voice was as warm and unchanged as ever, and he quickly jabbed at the volume button to turn it down. That was because he had declared to the others that they had broken up cleanly and decisively. That the sword of the breakup had been in his hand and he’d swung it with gusto! But even though he’d turned it down fast, it seemed they’d caught it anyway. The expressions on the faces of the men in the office were worse than when they’d been startled by the ringtone.
[Isn’t my Gang going to eat?]
Of all things to call and say, it was about food. The words go feed your fiancée surged all the way up his throat. And on top of that, why did that low voice have to sound so sweet — it was like honey was dripping right into his ear.
“You called just to ask something like that?”
He scratched at his collarbone as that low rumble tickled his chest and snapped back in an irritated tone, and he thought he caught the faint sound of the man laughing.
[If Gang doesn’t eat properly, wouldn’t daddy be worried?]
“Don’t say things like that——! If that’s what you’re going to talk about, I’m hanging up.”
The sudden use of daddy forced him to click the volume button down again, loudly and repeatedly.
[I even made the braised short ribs you like at home…… When are you coming? I miss you.]
His mouth was watering before the words braised short ribs had even finished leaving the man’s lips. His salivary glands reacted with an embarrassing swiftness. It hadn’t actually dripped, but he wiped around his mouth with the back of his hand anyway.
I know exactly how good those ribs are…… so tender. The kind where the meat just falls off the bone without any effort. Those braised short ribs! But he had to get a grip. Was he really going to cave over some braised short ribs?!
“I’m not eating! I hate braised short ribs! I’m going to starve for the rest of my life!”
He was so fixated on the short ribs that he didn’t even register the man saying he missed him.
He threw a tantrum like a child being nagged by a parent to eat, yelling back at the man in a fit of anger before hanging up abruptly. He slammed his phone down on the desk and buried his face in his arms right where he sat. His back heaved up and down as he fumed against the desk, his heart pounding like mad.
Go eat your braised short ribs and your steamed eggs with that fiancée of yours who you love so much you can’t stand to be apart — enough to let the smell soak into your clothes!
Braised short ribs were innocent, but the moment the man had spoken their name, he had come to hate them. No — he wanted to hate them. He wanted to despise them and never look at them for the rest of his life.
How could he be so unaffected? It was as if the breakup he had told the man about had been nothing but a dream he’d had alone. For a moment, he even fell into the illusion that nothing had happened between them at all. If it wasn’t something that had all taken place in his imagination, it meant his breakup hadn’t dealt the man any kind of blow — that it hadn’t even been a big deal.
“Damn it……”
Only he was hurting, only he was grieving. Perhaps what he had truly wanted to say to the man in that moment was I hate you! I never want to see you again! But what ended up coming out of his mouth was his frustration taken out on innocent braised short ribs. Because if he said, even in anger, that he truly hated the man — he felt like the man would never call him again. And that, too, was something he didn’t want. That was his true feelings.
He lay quietly with his forehead pressed against his arm, then sat back up, unable to bear the suffocation. When he did, he found the others watching him carefully.
He had answered with such confidence, acting like it was his superior calling — and yet the call had ended with him yelling at the man like a child throwing a fit at their parents. He cleared his throat awkwardly to cover his embarrassment.
“Clean up what you ate and all of you go get some rest.”
I’m embarrassed and I want to be alone — that was his second true feeling.
Not wanting to be caught with his face burning red, he spun his chair around to face the window. The full view of the hillside neighborhood in broad daylight came into sight all at once. The rustling and clinking sounds behind him let him relax his expression with some relief. He’d been bracing himself to be teased, so this was a relief.
From the makeshift lecture on secondary genders to the horror stories — in the end, the others had all been saying the same thing. That he had been walking a smooth, paved road with Director Lee on his back. Throwing punches using the man’s position and pheromones, and at times, inadvertently sowing discord and even commissioning violence.
The undeniable truth left him feeling drained. But he had been innocent — just like the braised short ribs — and he felt wronged and bitter! If there was any crime he’d committed, it was only that he had loved a remarkable alpha with all his heart.
He was in the middle of thoughts so tangled and twisted that he questioned whether he had always been this much of a brooder, when Bulgom walked over carrying several large shopping bags.
“What’s this?”
Thinking there might be more of the perfume they’d bought, he took the bags — but inside were clothes, not perfume.
“You didn’t bring a single change of clothes from home, Hyung. So I brought some clothes for you to wear.”
“Oh, thanks.”
When he’d left the house as if running away, the only thing he’d managed to take was his phone. And even that, he’d sprinted to the front door before turning back to go grab it from the bedroom. He’d been needing a change of clothes anyway, so this was perfect. He couldn’t keep stealing clothes from these guys forever.
Feeling under the weather, he was thinking he should wash up and change quickly, when a scent both unfamiliar and somehow familiar brushed past the tip of his nose.
“Hm?”
“What’s wrong? Does the size not fit?”
He buried his face straight into the clothes he’d pulled from the shopping bag stamped with a luxury brand logo and sniffed. The soft fabric didn’t hurt no matter how many times he rubbed his face against it or pressed his nose in.
This is it. This is the one!
The scent he had been searching so desperately for all this time was deeply embedded in the fabric. It even felt far stronger than the scent he’d caught at home.
“Where did you get this?”
He lifted his face from the clothes and asked Bulgom, who rolled his eyes left, then right, and stammered, dragging it out and making him anxious.
“That, well…… a friend……? I asked a friend for them.”
The guy went on and on, rambling about how his friend had a similar build and lived near the office, so he’d asked him to bring over some clothes he’d worn. Yeah, yeah, save it.
“If you don’t like them or if the size doesn’t fit, I can get different ones——”
“This scent!”
“Pardon?”
A scent so good that just breathing it in felt like it was clearing his headache and restoring his low energy — a delusion, but it felt real. And on top of that, a scent that subtly stirred something low in his stomach!
“The scent I’ve been looking for! This is it!”
Had Bulgom ever looked this precious to him before today? Even Bulgom’s friend, whose name he didn’t even know, was utterly endearing to him. It seemed like Bulgom’s friend was the one who used the perfume he’d been searching for.
He grabbed Bulgom’s cheeks with both hands and shook them, and he could clearly feel the guy panic. Then, as if afraid of something, Bulgom looked around anxiously and struggled with everything he had to pry his hands off.
“Let go of me!”
Alright, alright. You’ve only ever had your collar grabbed by me — when have you ever been on the receiving end of affection? Of course you’d feel awkward. Sensing what almost seemed like desperation in the resistance, he let go and waved the others over who were scattered around.
“Come on. Everyone get over here and take a sniff! Once you smell this, none of those perfumes you were all going crazy over earlier will mean anything to you!”
At his call, the big guys lined up in a row and each took their turn sniffing. They were all clearly curious about the true identity of the perfume they’d gone to ridiculous lengths to find. It was a pretty funny sight, but he was eager to see their reactions after smelling it, so he just stood there bouncing on his feet while holding the clothes out. Well? Amazing, right? It’s so good I’m starting to wonder if this is why Director Kang got involved with that omega.
But their reactions were nothing like what he’d expected. Not even close.
“I don’t smell anything, Hyung?”
“Are you messing with us?”
“Are you talking about the fabric softener smell?”
“All I get is new clothes smell.”
“I’m only getting a hamburger smell.”
Thinking they were joking, he took out all the clothes from the shopping bag.
“What are you talking about? You really don’t smell anything?”
There were tracksuit pants, sweatshirts, a suit, socks, sneakers, and slippers — all easy to wear. Everything looked brand new — not a single crease, not a speck of dust.
“Are you sure your friend gave you these? Not that you bought them?”
It was strange to chalk it up to simply being well-maintained. Every single piece of clothing looked so unworn that it wouldn’t be surprising if they still had tags on them.
“Pardon? Yes. I, I received them!”
Well, fair enough — unless a clothing store had been doused in perfume, there was no way new clothes would smell like this.
He picked up a white short-sleeved t-shirt from among the clothes, brought it under his nose, and inhaled. Sure enough, the scent that subtly ignited something in him drifted out gently. The same was true of the others. Even the socks had the scent — that confirmed it. Feeling like he might get a reaction down there if he kept pressing his nose in, he hastily stuffed all the clothes back into the shopping bag.
“Didn’t you all just eat hamburgers? Are your noses collectively numb?”
He scolded the others, saying their sense of smell was seriously dulled if they couldn’t catch this — and they all looked back at him, thoroughly baffled.
“Anyway. Bulgom. Ask your friend and find out about the perfume. Got it?”
“Pardon? Oh, right, yes. But that, my friend is currently traveling abroad——”
“Find out as soon as possible. Do I look like I have time to worry about your friend’s travel plans?”
He mimed smacking him, and the guy bowed his head saying he’d find out as fast as he could.
Whether from running around the office, from the impromptu secondary gender lecture, or from taking the man’s phone call — his body felt heavy and drained. He washed up quickly in the shower room attached to the side of the office and changed into the clothes Bulgom’s friend had provided. He made sure to check every corner several times to confirm all the cameras had been properly confiscated.
“Fits perfectly.”
The black long-sleeved shirt and grey tracksuit pants fit as if they’d been measured precisely for his body. The slippers, too, were exactly his size without the slightest discrepancy. Overcome by a wave of drowsiness, he collapsed onto the sofa. He kicked the slippers off carelessly, propped a cushion under his head, and pulled a blanket over himself — it was nothing short of heaven. What a considerate friend. Seems like we have the exact same build — I don’t know who you are, but next time we meet, I’ll treat you to something big.
It was somewhat annoying to think that the scent of the unknown omega fiancée was wrapping around his body, but finding the scent meant a lead had opened up, and that thought lifted his mood. It wasn’t the reckless idea of tracking someone down based on a single perfume — it was the satisfaction of having taken the first step toward uncovering the omega’s identity.
His head was full of tangled thoughts about the faceless fiancée of Kang Jaeho, the braised short ribs Kang Jaeho had said he’d made, the perfume — but the exhaustion was greater than all of it, and it felt like he’d fall into a deep sleep the moment he closed his eyes.
“You guys, go home already!”
If not for these idiots, that is.
“Hyung. It’s morning now, so we’re clocking back in……”
“God, gangster bastards and their punctual clocking in, I swear…… I’m shutting the place down today so just go.”
It was a work schedule he had invented himself to appear like a normal office worker to his boyfriend, but he shooed away the guys who were following it all too faithfully, waving his hand at them to just leave already. He didn’t have the energy to bicker with them any longer.
“If you insist, then we’ll head out.”
“See you tomorrow, Hyung!”
He must have been genuinely tired, because they poured out of the office the moment the words left his mouth — and he called out to stop them in a rush.
“Hey, hey!”
He stopped them in their tracks and added one more thing.
“Lower the blinds and turn the lights off before you go.”
These guys really have no sense. He muttered under his breath about how he was supposed to sleep with the sun shining that bright — and then in an instant, he plunged into a deep slumber, falling into a sound, dreamless sleep for the first time in a long while.
✻
“Are you feeling any better, Hyung?”
“No……”
“Take your medicine and sleep a little more.”
He swallowed the medicine and water they handed him in one gulp and melted back into the sofa. At first it hadn’t been this bad, but as the days passed, his body grew heavier and heavier as if weights had been tied to it, until he could barely move. And that wasn’t all — his temperature would shoot up on its own, then plummet without warning until he was shivering like someone who’d been doused in cold water.
He’d be drowsy and wilting like a sick chicken, then suddenly develop insomnia he’d never had in his life and go entire nights without sleep. The unpredictable symptoms wore on his nerves and put him on edge.
At first he’d assumed it was a mild body ache, a cold, or perhaps a bad case of the flu, and downed whatever medicine he bought from the pharmacy — but the symptoms only worsened, and he even ended up going to a beta specialty clinic he’d never set foot in before. But whether the doctor was a quack or the old pharmacist had bad eyesight and dispensed the wrong prescription, the medicine was doing absolutely nothing. The only time he felt even a thread of relief, a slight sense that he might survive——
“Haah……”
He buried his face in the freshly delivered shopping bag and inhaled deeply, repeatedly. It felt like pushing crisp, clean forest air deep into his lungs. The way one seeks lavender for sleep and stress, or chamomile for calm — he craved this scent with a desperate, aching need. In this moment alone, it felt like the throbbing headache, the erratic body temperature, the strange and exhausting aches all over — all of it was returning to normal.
It was only after his nose had grown accustomed to the scent — after the scent had, at some point, faded away — that he suddenly realized the smell he was clinging to was the same as the perfume worn by the man’s secret fiancée.
