Chapter 7: A Heavy Grip and an Old Habit

From early morning, Haejun went to the pharmacy and bought one pheromone suppressant. His balance, which had been 23,000 won, dropped to 18,000 won. He felt strength drain out of him by the exact amount that had left.

But there was no helping it. He never knew when or where Sijin would appear.

Was telling him his schedule the problem? Regardless of where Haejun’s lecture hall was, Sijin would pop up and surprise him. If he had waited in front of the house like that, Haejun really would have turned his back and run away, but fortunately, nothing like that had happened yet.

When noon had passed, Haejun checked his balance again on the banking app. He confirmed that the part-time wages still hadn’t arrived, and frowned as if troubled.

They’d said the money would be in before noon, but the balance was still the same. That meant it would only come after the bank’s end-of-day processing. If he was lucky. Otherwise, it might come the next day.

And today he’d planned to ask his hyung to eat first.

Haejun had already looked it up. To eat at a decent place near school with good food and atmosphere, he needed at least 50,000 won in hand. What could he do with 18,000 won?

Feeling troubled, he frowned but swallowed the suppressant. It had been so long since he’d taken one that his body already felt clamped down. Since graduating middle school, he’d become rather skilled at controlling his pheromones, so he’d had no need for them.

He didn’t have a tolerance, so even half the usual dose might work well. That way, even one bottle would last a long time. A small mercy.

The bitter taste was still on his tongue. Haejun rolled his tongue around his mouth, trying to erase the taste.

“Baek Haejun.”

His body froze in the middle of putting the medicine into his bag. The voice, which usually stayed in a mid-low range, was low today, as if scraping the ground.

Since suppressants only worked on one’s own pheromones, the Alpha pheromones felt from behind made Haejun’s skin prickle. When Sijin grabbed his shoulder, he nearly jumped out of his skin. The grip pressing down on his shoulder was so firm that he only managed a flinch.

Haejun rolled his eyes and looked back cautiously. The first thing he saw was Sijin’s face, smiling in that irritated way.

“Aren’t you going to say you already have plans today?”

Sijin was still smiling, but he didn’t look happy.

“Brother… Hi.”

Haejun forced an awkward smile, remembering the past two weeks he had been avoiding him with every excuse he could think of. Sijin’s mouth hardened, and then a low voice came out.

“Making a person wait without any time for days is rude. As your hyung, I can’t just overlook it.”

He muttered it as if to himself, but it was clearly spoken for Haejun to hear.

“Are you mad, Brother?”

At that, one of Sijin’s eyebrows twisted sharply. The muscles around his jaw trembled. Only then did he actually look angry.

“No. Why would I be angry.”

His eyes nonetheless looked like he couldn’t understand Haejun’s words, so Haejun quietly looked away. His pheromones alone said he was mad. But he couldn’t say that honestly.

Maybe Sijin thought the lowered head meant Haejun was scared, because he finally held back his pheromones and let out a deep sigh. Haejun praised himself for having taken the suppressant just now. Even briefly feeling Sijin’s pheromones had tightened his thighs. If not for the suppressant, he might have unknowingly let out his own.

“Haejun.”

“Yeah.”

Sijin could have nagged as much as he wanted. He was a man who talked about manners and doing right by an older brother figure. But he only said one thing.

“Even if you have plans, hang out with me today, okay?”

If Haejun said no again, he sensed that something terrible would happen. Even someone with only 18,000 won worth of energy could feel the weight in the air.

The two walked out of the building, side by side, across the campus. Haejun didn’t know where they were going, but he trusted Sijin to deal with it, so he stayed quiet.

His heart began to beat faster, and he couldn’t help it. They’d run into each other at school all the time, but it was always brief glimpses. Walking in step with him now felt strangely ticklish.

There was a time when hanging out with Sijin was more fun than playing with friends his own age. Whenever he felt the age gap, it made him upset, and he would whine that he wanted to go to school with Sijin. If Sijin hadn’t taken a few years off for an internship, none of this would even be possible.

It was practically a wish come true, as Sijin had said. Haejun carefully tucked the tingling sensation into his memory.

Haejun suddenly looked back at Sijin. His shapely lips were level with Haejun’s crown. He remembered that the last time he’d seen him, he only came up to Sijin’s chest. A strange feeling of something new washed over him.

‘I wonder how much difference there is now.’

He stretched out his hand above his head, like he was measuring with a span. Sijin, who had been facing forward, turned his head to look at Haejun, his eyes asking what he was doing.

“What?”

“Did you get taller again, Brother?”

Sijin laughed at the question, looking dumbfounded. Then, with one arm, he pulled Haejun’s front chest close. His scent came rushing from behind, and his firm chest muscles pressed against Haejun’s back. As Sijin stepped forward, Haejun, who was walking ahead, felt his expression stiffen with nervousness.

“Haejun, are you about 175?”

“How do you know?”

“Now that I’ve held you like this, I can tell.”

Sijin’s breath tickled the soft down on Haejun’s ear. Haejun wanted to touch his own itching ear, but he just squeezed his eyes shut and endured. After all, Sijin was behind him. He couldn’t see how red Haejun’s face had become.

“You used to be at the perfect height for an armrest. You’ve really grown a lot.”

His unoccupied hand ran through Haejun’s hair gently. A cheerful, bright laugh tickled Haejun’s senses. Haejun wanted to see Sijin’s smile, so he slipped his head free and turned. He stopped with his breath caught. The handsome face smiling broadly was right there, right in front of him.

As if drawn, his eyes moved downward a little. Red, moist, soft-looking lips. Lips that felt like they would be soft to the touch. It seemed they would brush his cheek.

“I’m, I’m going to grow even more!”

For a twenty-year-old, the thought of the person he liked touching his lips was too stimulating. Haejun flapped his arms and struggled to get out of his embrace.

“Taller, my foot.”

Sijin easily overpowered his struggling with a tight hug, then grabbed his chin and made him look at him, speaking in a soft, friendly tone.

“The current height is perfect. I can see your face well.”

Sijin’s dark pupils moved slowly as if he truly was examining Haejun’s features. Thin hair disheveled from the slight struggle, cheeks that burned red against his pale skin, an upright nose, and small, delicate lips. Haejun’s face still had some baby fat, so his cheeks were soft, and his jawline, which Sijin felt with his fingertips, was fairly slender. When Haejun’s eyes wandered helplessly, then slanted downward, his thick lashes came into view.

Sijin was confident he could recognize Baek Haejun at a glance even if he passed by. His face was exactly as he remembered.

Fragile beings were nothing but an annoyance and a hassle, but whenever Haejun looked up at him silently, his sharp temper and wariness melted away without a fight. Those clear eyes had a way of pleading not to be hurt. When that happened, Sijin could only tolerate the annoyance and hassle, at least for Haejun’s sake.

Sijin felt the urgent pulse from the neck he was holding. He narrowed his eyes slightly, then his expression smoothed out. He let go of Haejun, whom he had been holding so tight he couldn’t move, and took a step back.

“You get told you’re handsome a lot, don’t you? Our Haejun, you’re so cute that you look perfect for some bastard to run his mouth, trying to get a piece of you.”

“…No, I don’t.”

“If someone calls you pretty and hands you food, don’t you dare do anything stupid.”

The feeling of that tight embrace still lingered. Haejun shivered at the goosebumps creeping up his spine, then tilted his head and mulled over his words.

‘Someone who calls me pretty and feeds me something delicious?’

“That would be Grandma and you, Brother, right?”

The only people who approached him without hesitation, doted on him, and readily gave him their food were his grandmother and Moon Sijin. In fact, Haejun never accepted anyone’s kindness without suspicion. That, too, had been taught by Moon Sijin from an early age. Eat whatever I give you, but if someone else gives you something, it’ll bring trouble, so don’t even look at it.

That lesson had actually saved Haejun several times. No one in this world helped him without expecting something in return, except his grandmother and Sijin. A boss who secretly whispered that he had added a bonus was actually trying to wrap his arm around Haejun’s waist. When he reported an Alpha who had gone into a sudden cycle, he got used as a rumor that he was the Alpha’s lover. And closer to home, his biological father treated Haejun as his possession and schemed about how this body could make money.

Even as those unpleasant memories came up, Haejun’s expression stayed composed. It looked as if he had never been hurt by such little things.

Sijin raised his hand and tidied Haejun’s disheveled hair. The hand that came toward him didn’t feel dirty, not like someone else’s. Haejun knew exactly why.

“Grandma and I are the exception. We’re family.”

He knew it all too well. And that was why his hyung’s words stung.

Haejun’s face, which had never seemed wounded even once, squeezed into a faint grimace.

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