I had relations with Josef for the seventh time.
A Beta’s body, unable to relax elastically to accommodate an Alpha’s knotting, cannot have continuous relations at short intervals, which is why it always takes several months to become a complete Omega.
To be honest, in that we both agreed to his proposal to minimize unnecessary contact and finish as efficiently and quickly as possible, he is an easier ‘client’ to deal with than anyone I have had relations with so far, but….
Nevertheless, this job is the most painful for me. More so than in the early days when this ‘business’ began, when I didn’t yet know how to block the window of my emotions and lock myself inside it, when I would sometimes vomit, go into shock, or attempt to take my own life.
Not because of Josef, the person I am working with, but because of Erich.
I cannot close the window of my emotions, and I cannot stop the abundant light and fierce storms from pouring directly into the depths of this desolate ruin.
Who I think of whenever I enter Josef. And after it is over, who I think of as I sink into guilt and sorrow. The true essence of the pain of sleeping with someone you do not love was something I could not clearly know before I had someone to love.
The dreamlike reward given to me after finishing my work with Josef is only the care of Erich, who pities me when my vision temporarily blurs.
Although the duration and intensity vary slightly each time, it is generally to the extent that the edges of all things blur hazily for a few hours; it is not so bad that I cannot see ahead, making daily life or movement difficult.
But perhaps because of my pupils, which grow murky like the ashes left in a fireplace or like the ghost they call me, along with the decline in my vision, Erich takes the situation more seriously than it is and always worries over me with utmost devotion.
I hope he will forgive my pathetic acting and exaggeration… how I deliberately bump my thigh on the corner of the bed, wanting more of his attention because his gentle sympathy and kindness feel so good, and how I press closer against his body, relying on him as he supports me.
That the times spent listening to his stories of yearning for adventure and travel while looking into his shining eyes, and receiving his sincere comfort for my ghost-like life of having turned several Betas into Omegas as part of the ‘business’ to restore my family… that those times are the most human and fulfilling happiness I have ever had since I was born….
I want to tell him… that the pheromones flowing through my entire body are demanding that I live as your Alpha, not Josef’s, not anyone else’s.
Erich was a Beta.
No, I don’t know if he could even be called a Beta, seeing as he possessed pheromones. In any case, what is certain is that he has never once experienced a heat cycle, and not once has he ever detected the pheromones of Josef’s friends or other Alphas who frequent the mansion, nor have they ever perceived Erich as an Omega, even when in the same space.
This evening, Erich was slapped and insulted by the master.
It wasn’t because he did anything particularly wrong; the master was simply taking out his anger.
Josef’s father, who had been one of the figures who strongly insisted on dispatching troops jointly with Prussia to thwart Denmark’s attempt to annex Schleswig and Holstein, had gained the emperor’s trust and wielded strong influence within Austria until just a few months ago.
Afterward, he also joined the faction that argued for going to war against Prussia for violating the Gastein Convention, and it was almost certain that if this war ended in victory, he would be elected to an agency directly under the emperor to spearhead unification in earnest.
However, according to rumors, the situation did not seem to be flowing in Austria’s favor.
The master of the Reuss house was unable to return home most days, busy wringing out stratagems with his like-minded colleagues. Even on the days he did return, the atmosphere was not good.
When I first came here, he used to observe etiquette even with me, who had been sold as a ‘stud,’ and would invite me to dinner or concerts, but these days, when I go down to greet him upon news of his return, he merely glances at me with a contemptuous gaze, as if looking at a disgusting, deformed monster.
On the days he returned, the entire mansion would freeze with tension, not knowing when or for what reason he would find fault. Today’s scapegoat was Erich, for failing to neatly manage Josef’s attire.
I was not there, but news within the mansion was bound to spread to every corner in less than thirty minutes.
Erich, who was tending to my bed with his usual cheerful attitude as if nothing had happened, eventually showed his tears.
My heart broke at his tears, so much so that I felt revulsion at myself for feeling a small joy at the thought that he relied on me enough to reveal his weak side in front of me, so much so that even that joy felt like a sin.
Erich said that while meeting a good young master like Josef was certainly a stroke of luck, a life where he could decide nothing for himself, could not leave this city, and had no choice but to keep his mouth shut even when treated unfairly, was just hopeless and bleak; he said he was like dust.
Who would even remember the name of someone as common as dust in the future, he’d asked, briefly confiding even his thoughts on life that he usually kept buried deep in his heart, unrelated to today’s incident.
I could hold his shoulders and wipe his tears, but I could not say a word.
A Beta with pheromones that only one person, me, can detect.
That you, with your unique arrangement that overlaps with no other being, are, at least to me, a being beyond the world’s distinctions of Alpha, Omega, or Beta, which you render all meaningless.
I could not tell Erich.
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Yeehyeon sat up straight and slowly turned toward the window.
It was already nearing evening, but the sky visible outside the window was still as blue as midday. Yet, whether it was a trick of his mood or the angle of the setting sun, the room seemed to be cast in shadow, regardless of the scene outside.
Yeehyeon set the bundle of papers down and got up from the bed. He went to the small sink in the corner, opposite the bed with the door between them, and poured himself a glass of tap water. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, he began to wash his face.
He splashed his face with cold water several times, but his sense of reality would not easily return. Like someone who had been held captive for a long time and had just returned home, everything before his eyes was both familiar and strange.
Without even thinking to wipe the water from his face, he stumbled back like a man in a daze and leaned his body against the sink. The contents he had taken out of the box, which he had opened as soon as he returned to his room in his delight, were scattered messily on the bed.
What Marcus had sent was a long, handwritten letter, a diary in the most worn condition of any object Yeehyeon had ever actually seen, and a stack of paper with a typed version of the diary’s contents, which were difficult to make out in parts due to smudging or mold.
There were still nearly half the pages left, but he didn’t have the courage to read any further.
Swallowing dryly, Yeehyeon slowly wiped his wet face with his hands. Just as Ben had said, the room was sweltering, but goosebumps rose on his skin. The surroundings were strangely silent. As if the entire room was submerged in water, the familiar ambient noises he always heard were blocked out.
As if relieved to have thought of something to do, Yeehyeon suddenly walked to the desk in front of the window and took out a cigarette and a lighter from the drawer. It was the same brand that Liu smoked. About half of the pack he had bought around the beginning of spring remained. It tasted stale from being old, but he wasn’t smoking for the taste anyway.
Knowing that he was watching over him did not alleviate the pain of longing.
Yeehyeon, who started his day early, worked in two sessions in the morning and afternoon, studied English and French, and helped with odd office jobs in his spare time, was often teased admiringly by his other colleagues at ‘The Hands,’ who said he lived like a diligent office worker or a public servant rather than an artist, like a monk unswayed by worldly passions… but the reality was different.
He was not okay, and he was not at peace.
“Whether it’s mentally or physically, when things are tough, it’s best to try to maintain your usual routine as much as possible.”
By not breaking his usual pattern, by maintaining the same appearance, he had simply endured the pain. So that the gloomy fellows inside us could not find a place to step forward.
The reason Nicholas couldn’t tell his father that he had presented as an Omega. The reason the diary’s owner couldn’t readily tell Erich about the pheromones he sensed from him. And the reason Liu couldn’t reveal his own identity. They all took slightly different forms, but the foundation was not so different.
He now knew that his own neglect or indifference—though he had not looked upon Alphas and Omegas with contempt, he had not sought to know and understand them as members of society living together—was also another form of Beta-centric thinking.
Leaning against the open window, Yeehyeon slowly exhaled smoke with a finely trembling breath. Before he had even taken three drags, tears streamed down his cheeks. But he made no effort to hold them back.
He had held back for a long time. He wanted to say he missed him, to say he still loved him, to abandon his whole life here and return to Seoul and hold him. He wanted to feel his lips, strongly sucking on his lower lip.
He wanted him inside his body, wanted to feel the sensation of his knotting, and wanted to see him groaning low as he felt an Alpha’s pleasure because of him.
The cause of all those desires he had endured was not just because of the pheromones from Erich that only the diary’s owner could sense, the pheromones from himself that only Liu had sensed. The accumulation of understanding and connection he had shared with Liu could not have been the manipulation of pheromones.
But his own passionate and bold self in bed with him, which had been bewilderingly unfamiliar, was not just because of his spiritual love for him either.
Leaning his head against the window frame, Yeehyeon forgot even to smoke his cigarette, his hand hanging limp, and thought of him freely, without any restraint, avoidance, or reduction.
If the changing was Liu’s greed, his mistake, and his clear sin, then his silence at the moment he was questioned about it, his refusal to try to lessen the weight of his sin by mentioning the existence of his own pheromones, could not be condemned as anything other than love.
His love, which had sought to let him choose his future in a state unbound by any guilt or responsibility, was not the influence of pheromones either.
To his confession, where he could say nothing but that he loved him, he was glad he hadn’t said his love was a lie, that he hadn’t denied the entirety of his love, which he had clearly felt through the trembling of his skin and his soul.
Like catching one’s breath slowly while looking back at the end of a long climb, a gentle sobbing continued for a long time.
It was approaching 9 p.m., but the Paris sky was still a bright blue.
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