He shouted and ran a hand agitatedly through his hair.
At times like this, I wish I smoked. Growing up, he had done a little bit of everything he was told not to, yet for some reason, out of a stubborn streak, he had never touched cigarettes. But there were times in life when he wanted to numb, defile, and harm himself with a strong cigarette, just as he would with strong liquor.
“I thought it was a mistake. That something had just gone wrong for a moment.”
The man spoke like he was making an excuse, his gaze averted. He slammed his fist on the table and raised his voice.
“And you slept with him a second, a third time to confirm that? Fuck, knowing he could become a—a Changing or whatever it’s called?”
The man, who had been staring at a spot on the table, shot him a sharp look.
“Do you think I’m the type to sleep with someone just to confirm something like that? As you know, I’m not that curious about other people or pheromones. As long as they don’t affect me, that’s all that matters. Be it other people or pheromones.”
“Until now, I thought I knew your patterns, if not your true nature, to some extent. But hearing you talk today, I feel like I don’t know who you are at all.”
“……”
To that, the man kept his mouth shut and drank. His face was one of acceptance, that there was no room for excuses. But he wished the man would offer an excuse, at least enough for him to understand, or at the very least, to calm his anger.
As if he couldn’t continue the story without it, the man lit a new cigarette before finally opening his mouth, his tone a little calmer than before.
“When we had just started seeing each other. Around that time, it was just a strange feeling. Nothing I could detect precisely enough to be sure it was a pheromone. But as time went on… that strangeness deepened. I wondered if he might be a Golden Omega suppressing his pheromones, though I didn’t think too deeply about it then… but as time passed, I saw that wasn’t it either. At some point, it wasn’t just a strange feeling anymore; he started emitting a real pheromone. What’s more… he was completely unaware of the pheromone he was giving off, of course, and even when I released mine, he clearly detected it but had no idea that it was a pheromone.”
“You released your pheromones? You?”
“……”
The more he heard, the more he felt himself being driven into confusion. The man deferred his answer, instead bringing the cigarette to his lips and taking a deep drag, as if suddenly realizing he had stopped smoking while telling the story.
“Yes. Several times.”
Exhaling smoke, the man cast his gaze down at the cigarette in his hand, as if tracing back to his past self who had released his pheromones for a specific person, breaking the ironclad rules he had lived by. His gaze was not on the here and now.
After a moment of sorting through his memories, he shook his head firmly.
“No, no, that doesn’t make sense. Yeehyeon-ssi couldn’t detect my pheromones at all.”
“……”
The man’s fierce eyes were asking what he meant, but he had no time to be intimidated.
“Why? Did you think you were the only one who could release pheromones at Seo Yeehyeon? You’re not the only Alpha in the world.”
He brought the glass to his lips, recalling the evening he had met Yeehyeon alone at the rooftop bar and answered his questions about Alphas, Omegas, and pheromones.
A belated thought followed—perhaps Yeehyeon had felt an unusual energy in his relationship with the man and had asked those questions because of it. At the time, he had simply thought it was a natural curiosity about Alphas that came with being attracted to Liu Weikun…
“I may not be the only one who can release them, but… am I the only one with pheromones that can affect him?”
Reading the conclusion on his thoughtful face, the man’s face as he sneered… looked pleased. Though he was trying to suppress it, upon discovering the possibility that only his pheromones might actually have an effect on Yeehyeon, he couldn’t completely hide his joy of possession.
Finding it harder and harder to tell who the man before him was, he shrugged and laughed with a click of his tongue.
“So it seems. Unfortunately. If Yeehyeon-ssi had reacted to my pheromones back then and something had happened between us, he wouldn’t have had the misfortune of getting tangled up with a bastard like you and having his life ruined.”
A cold, blue gaze stabbed sharply at him.
“Provocative words. I’d appreciate it if you’d refrain for now.”
He could guess, to some extent, the confusion and anxiety the man must be feeling now. Not that he wanted to empathize with that shit, but… because he knew the man from before, who had unhesitatingly refused to be tied down by any particular person, he couldn’t help but know that he hadn’t approached Yeehyeon out of mere interest and let things get to this point.
Turning his gaze from the man’s eyes, which were filled with a seething anxiety he had rarely seen even in their youth, he reached for his glass. The man’s story continued.
“Whether Seo Yeehyeon thinks he’s a Beta, or some rare mutation, it’s none of my business. And I’m not the type to be interested enough in others to be curious about such things.”
“……”
“But I couldn’t ignore it. I found my eyes following his every move. I was curious, I wanted to know, I wanted to uncover it… I couldn’t stop myself from approaching and touching him….”
The man stopped there, shaking his head and taking another drag of his cigarette. He seemed to think he had divulged too much, overly personal feelings that didn’t need to be said. Though he had only taken two or three puffs, the cigarette, having burned down on its own, was already short.
“There’s so much I don’t understand. Then you… since when could you detect Yeehyeon-ssi’s pheromones?”
The man let out a short snort and stubbed out his cigarette.
“You seem to have forgotten. I called Seo Yeehyeon an Omega from the very beginning.”
“But you said he’s not an Omega. You said he’s turning into an Omega because of you. So how could you have felt Yeehyeon-ssi’s pheromones before that? Then what is Seo Yeehyeon? What is he?”
This time, the man chuckled and lightly clenched the hand he had placed on the table.
“I, too… asked him that several times. ‘What are you?’ No, it was more like talking to myself… He doesn’t know himself. Even now, he only knows himself as a Beta. The current situation is that even the professor in Boston, who has seen me since I was a child, knows nothing about such a being.”
The man, whose empty hand grasped at nothing, picked up his glass, slowly turning it in his palm as he lightly bit and released his lower lip.
“But now, whatever Seo Yeehyeon is… it doesn’t matter. That’s not why I came all this way.”
He said it quickly, as if muttering, and then swallowed all the remaining liquor in his glass in one go. Watching him, he clicked his tongue.
“After dragging things this far… it’s not for you to judge… whether it matters or not.”
“……”
“Most people who present after becoming adults have trouble accepting the changes in their bodies and become confused. If a man presents as an Omega, or a woman as an Alpha, the psychological shock is even more severe… some can’t adapt and end up committing suicide. It’s not a rare story, as you know. But… for his body not to have presented on its own… but by someone else….”
He couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence and rubbed his face roughly with his hands.
Once he had a somewhat realistic grasp of his friend’s secret and the absurdity of what he had done, he was now faced with the daunting task of telling the truth to Yeehyeon, the actual victim in all this. That must be why the man had come to him. Otherwise, there was no reason to suddenly share a secret he had kept so carefully until now.
“I won’t let it come to that. He’s not… that weak of a person.”
The man said, pulling another cigarette from the pack.
“If he’s not that weak, if he’s a person with the spirit to endure and overcome… is it okay to do… do something like that to someone like him? No matter how I think about it… this is absolutely not like you. Where did the Liu Weikun who loathed all that pheromone crap more than anyone in the world go?”
“You, who have never loved someone as an Alpha, can’t understand.”
He doubted what he had just heard. It felt as if a sudden brake had been slammed, causing his center of gravity to lurch forward and making him feel like he would trip. The choice of words was as shocking as anything else the man had said today.
“……”
“……”
He stood there, mouth agape and speechless. The man, too, became conscious of the word he had unconsciously chosen—love—and for some reason, averted his eyes. But he didn’t try to correct or retract the word he had spoken.
Like an oblivious, unwelcome guest, one of the two cell phones the man had placed on the table began to vibrate. Both of them glanced down at it, and the man stood up from his chair, picking up the phone.
“Just a moment.”
He didn’t move far enough away to be out of earshot, but walked to the back of the sofa that was directly in front of where he sat before answering the call.
“Yes, it’s me.”
It was an utterly ordinary and calm voice, impossible to believe it belonged to the person who, just moments ago, had been talking about his despair and confusion with a look like he was about to tear his hair out. In contrast, he scowled, glaring at the man’s back with a look of disbelief.
“No, it’s fine. Go ahead. It’s a casual atmosphere, so I just stepped out for a bit…. I’m eating here. Did you have dinner? Mm… You didn’t leave any? …Wow, good job. I’m glad the new diet seems to be working. …Uh… I’ll probably be a little longer…. I might be in the middle of work, so I’ll send you a message when I leave.”
It seemed he had lied to the person on the other end of the line, Yeehyeon, telling him he was at a dinner meeting with a client. With a voice even tinged with laughter, the man chattered on without a hitch.
He was dumbfounded. The Liu Weikun he knew was someone who couldn’t even muster a fake smile to curry favor, even when doing business. Moreover, any way you heard it, the call had the atmosphere of someone dealing with a lover they were head over heels for. He felt like he had aged ten years all at once from the shocks he’d received over the past few hours. Feeling like he couldn’t endure it without another drink, he drained his remaining glass in one gulp.
When the man finished his call and returned to the table, he was back to the same gloomy, dark expression he’d had before leaving his seat. As soon as he sat down, the man wet his lips with whiskey, then looked at him with an expression that said he didn’t understand the meaning of his silent stare.
“Ha, do you have a split personality?”
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