Chapter 13: Traces, Heat, and the Edge of Control

Afternoon sunlight filtered into the empty lecture hall, filled with the sounds of Haejun shaking out his clothes.

His grandmother used to say that wet laundry should be thoroughly shaken out before hanging to prevent wrinkles. Maybe that’s why Haejun, having inherited her tricks, handled the task with skill. Even on dry fabric, each shake produced a popping sound.

Water droplets rolled smoothly down Haejun’s pale, slender neck. He wiped the tickling moisture away roughly with the back of his hand. Would this be enough? He buried his nose in the fabric and breathed in, but unfortunately, the pheromone still lingered.

Haejun’s face crumpled. It was ridiculous that he’d ended up washing his face and neck at school, and now he was reduced to doing laundry too. He couldn’t do that here, so he’d settled for shaking out his clothes instead, but the perfume’s trace clung on more stubbornly than he expected.

So annoying…

Thinking of the ugly face that had apologized sheepishly, Haejun shook the clothes out as if venting his anger. Pop! The sound was louder than ever.

The dry dust had barely begun to swirl when the closed door of the lecture hall crashed open.

“Baek Haejun, why aren’t you answering your phone?”

It was the handsomest man Haejun knew. Sijin, holding a basic statistics book in one hand, tapped his shoulder playfully with a cheerful laugh.

Haejun froze mid-action, clothes still in hand. The dust that had burst upward floated lazily around him, making time seem to slow. But when he blinked, Sijin was already right in front of him.

“What were you doing without your shirt on…”

“……”

The moment his words trailed off, Haejun realized Sijin had taken a deep breath. Haejun’s own sense of smell had already dulled to the pheromone seeping in the air, but Sijin, who had just stepped into the space, was different.

He wasn’t given time to explain it was some other person’s prank of spraying pheromone perfume. The instant Sijin’s straight brows twisted, he seized Haejun’s forearm. Haejun’s thin body swayed as he was dragged forward.

“Whose pheromone is this?”

His voice, clipped coldly, word by word, was haunting. And the grip on Haejun’s forearm hurt as if it were being crushed.

Haejun knew exactly why Sijin was so wary. The pheromone perfume they’d been carrying contained Alpha pheromones—the kind that sexually stimulated Omegas like Haejun while agitating Alphas like Sijin.

That was why this infuriated him so much, when at any other time he would have just felt annoyed briefly. Haejun was an Omega who had yet to experience his first heat cycle. Having his sexual senses stimulated by an Alpha pheromone belonging to an unknown person was an extremely unpleasant experience.

The inside of Haejun’s thighs trembled. If Sijin weren’t holding some of his weight, he might have dropped to the floor right there. It wasn’t just the perfume. Moon Sijin, detecting the heat-laden Alpha pheromone on Haejun, had instinctively begun releasing his own as well.

“Hyung, my arm, it hurts…”

It was almost a relief that it hurt enough to make tears well up. At least he could claim his trembling was from pain, not pheromones.

He hated those who were controlled by their instincts. So he’d expected Sijin to be displeased knowing pheromones were on him, but never anticipated such a violent reaction.

The trouble didn’t end there. An innocent Omega not yet in full bloom crumbled easily, even under pheromones laced with an Alpha’s fury.

Unconsciously, Haejun was clenching muscles around his groin. His pelvis twitched. It felt like electricity pooling at his tailbone, then surging up his spine to burst like fireworks at the top of his head. That tingling sensation erupted repeatedly in such short, incalculable bursts. Hot blood rushed through his body, excitement climbing. Haejun sucked in a sharp breath and held it.

“Baek Haejun.”

“Ugh…”

The grip on his arm loosened, but that low voice, as if scraping along the floor, sent a sensation like a tongue licking up Haejun’s ear. Haejun curled one shoulder up as if his ear had been bitten, hunching into himself protectively.

“Are you hurt? Let me see.”

Sijin’s brow furrowed. He must have remembered Haejun mentioning almost tripping during their phone call earlier. As if searching for an injury, Sijin reached out his other hand, tilted Haejun’s chin up, and scanned his face.

His eyes were damp, so wet that a single blink would send tears down. His eyes, nose tip, and cheekbones were flushed like a ripe peach, and from his slack open lips, warm breath trembled out.

The soft skin under his fingertips was hot. Like a fever rather than an injury…

Before Sijin could finish the thought, Haejun shoved both arms against his chest. The force was strong enough to create a thud, catching Sijin unprepared and pushing him back.

“Ah, hyung. I’ve got a class next.”

“You’re done with classes for today…”

“I’ll go first!”

Fearing being caught, Haejun clutched his clothes and bag to his chest and dashed across the lecture hall. He ran nonstop, blindly, until the door slammed shut, severing their views, and he burst outside the building.

The creaky old front door opened cautiously. Haejun glanced around, worried his grandmother might be home, but only silence greeted him, confirming that the house was empty. Only then did he let out a deep sigh and drag his weary feet inside.

He went straight to the bathroom. Traces of Omega pheromone followed behind him in a trail. His grandmother, being a Beta without sensitive traits, wouldn’t detect the pheromone, but guilt still pricked at him, as if he were doing something wrong behind her back.

Probably because of the wind during his run, the perfume’s residue was almost entirely gone. Instead, sweat beaded on his spine and rolled down. He knew the running had warmed him up and made him hot, but feeling dampness between his legs was strange and unfamiliar.

Locking the bathroom door behind him, Haejun leaned his back against it and felt his lips go dry. With nervous, trembling hands, he pulled his pants down just a bit, and at that moment, goosebumps erupted across his entire body.

“…Ugh.”

The cool air touched his heated groin, and his thighs quivered. Worse, he could distinctly feel a sticky liquid seeping against his skin.

That can’t be…

His underwear was wet. There was no denying it.

“Haejun. Look at me. Okay?”

The voice was deep and dry, but with the ends dragged out in a way that was rather affectionate.

“Come play with hyung.”

Sijin pressed close from behind, folding his huge frame to rub his cheek against Haejun’s shoulder. His arm had already wound around Haejun’s waist like a vine. Purring and acting adorable, he looked like a clingy cat. Haejun would normally have petted his head, but his eyes stayed fixed on his laptop screen.

“Wait. Let me just finish this.”

“You’ve been staring at that laptop all day. Time to give me some attention too.”

No matter how Haejun pretended to ignore him, Sijin showed no sign of sulking. Instead, he kept breathing warm air into Haejun’s ear, fanning the flames. His arms, seemingly calm, branched like tree roots, one kneading Haejun’s flat chest while the other slipped between his legs.

“Hyung, ah, wait, I still have my assignment…”

At the touch exploring his fragile skin from top to bottom, Haejun jolted and shivered. His fingers, trembling over the keyboard, accidentally pressed the wrong keys.

“Did you go without underwear to make it easier for hyung to touch?”

Sijin chuckled mischievously. When he breathed hot air again onto the earlobe he’d moistened with his tongue, Haejun’s face and neck turned scarlet in an instant.

Haejun, flushed with heat, threw back his trembling chin and leaned against Sijin’s shoulder. Sijin’s scent, which had spread peacefully around him, seeped into his nose and spread through his brain and lungs with a dizzying thrill.

“Save, let me, save, just save!”

Haejun cried out desperately. It was, as he said, an assignment he’d spent all day painstakingly working on. With pleasure slowly taking over his body, he grew anxious about losing it all.

Sijin sneered at Haejun’s desperate attempts to hit Ctrl+S. Instead of using Haejun’s fumbling fingers, Sijin saved the file, then closed the laptop and sat Haejun on his lap. Now he had a comfortable position. With a satisfied smile, Sijin began touching Haejun’s genitals in earnest.

“Does it feel good when hyung touches you?”

He didn’t know why Sijin whispered such words into his ear so insistently. It did feel good, but he couldn’t admit it honestly.

Embarrassed by his half-erect cock in his hyung’s hand, Haejun grabbed Sijin’s wrist as it explored inside his pants. He shook his head fiercely, telling him to stop, but there was no way he could overpower Sijin’s strength.

His hand was big enough to cup both cock and balls in one hold and massage them. The onslaught of pleasure was overwhelming, and when Haejun twisted his waist to escape, his nipples got pinched. His sensitive nipples quickly swelled, looking inviting between Sijin’s fingers.

“Since you’ve got no hair, it’s so soft to touch. You know?”

“I-I don’t know…”

“Want to feel?”

Haejun panted heavily, his gaze hazy. His dazed eyes fixed on Sijin. Despite the crude words, Sijin had a noble, dignified face that contrasted sharply with his speech, and that gap jarred Haejun to his core.

Sijin placed his hand over Haejun’s, who was staring blankly up at him, and gripped his cock. Even relaxed, Sijin’s strength closed tight around him, and Haejun finally jolted his hips, letting out helpless moans.

Just as his hyung said, his groin was hairless, smooth and soft, which embarrassed him even more.

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