Chapter 16: Misunderstandings

“By the way. What did you even do over the weekend?”

“The weekend?”

Haejun flinched like he’d been caught and asked back in a cracked voice. He had barely managed to meet Sijin, lift his head, and look at his face, and he hadn’t even prepared his heart to face him. Now, when asked what he did over the weekend, he had no choice but to be more evasive than ever. How was he supposed to say that he still hadn’t shaken off the aftermath of a wet dream, that he’d thought of his hyung and had those kinds of thoughts?

“…I did homework.”

“And?”

“I helped Grandma.”

“And?”

“…Met a friend?”

Haejun’s voice rose at the end as if gauging the reaction. Meeting a friend was obviously a lie. It was the answer he’d picked because it seemed like the least unnatural response to the chain of questions that suggested Sijin was waiting for a particular answer. Of course, since he had no talent for lying, it was awkward all the same.

“When you talk to someone, you should look them in the eyes, Haejun.”

“Mm.”

He answered, but Haejun’s gaze still wandered around Sijin’s chest. It was the same even after Sijin, who had swallowed a sigh no one noticed, lifted Haejun’s chin with his fingertips. His head was raised, but his eyes still pointed down, so there was no way they could meet.

He’d expected a scolding, but Sijin only looked at him silently. Still holding Haejun’s chin, he seemed to be thinking something. Haejun felt heat gradually rise in his cheeks. What was stranger was that even as he wished Sijin would let go, he also didn’t want him to. The mixed feelings confused him.

It happened without thought. Sijin’s thumb pressed firmly just below Haejun’s lower lip, on the slight dip there. His lips naturally parted, and the tongue inside the wet cave of his mouth peeked out. Sijin’s brow almost furrowed, then quickly returned to normal. He withdrew his hand without lingering, straightened up, and kept his distance.

“Haejun.”

“…Yeah.”

“I thought about it over the weekend.”

It was a brief time, but his voice was serious, showing deep deliberation. Drawn by the force that focused the listener, Haejun nodded obediently as if waiting for what came next.

“Don’t meet that bastard. What are you lacking that you’d meet some guy who gets heat pheromone smeared on him at school?”

“…Huh?”

Haejun’s face filled with confusion.

When he said heat pheromone, he seemed to mean what happened in the empty lecture hall on Friday. Sijin had detected an Alpha pheromone from the pheromone perfume lingering on Haejun, and had asked whose pheromone it was.

He didn’t know whose pheromone had been used in the scent blend, but he knew the guy who’d sprayed the perfume. Still, that alone wasn’t enough to fully understand what Sijin was saying.

“You’re still young. You have three more years before you graduate. What will you do if a bad rumor starts? There must be a reason you didn’t tell me right away, so I tried to respect your privacy, Haejun. But if the guy you’re meeting is that kind of trash, it’s different. I can’t stand worrying about you. Don’t get tangled up with him anymore. End it.”

“No, hyung. Wait.”

The rapid-fire words were enough to make Haejun dizzy. Unable to understand what his hyung was saying, Haejun tried to calm him for a moment, but Sijin would act like someone calmly giving a lecture, then fail to contain his agitation and twist his expression fiercely.

“Is he threatening you? Are you meeting him because you have to?”

“Who am I meeting?”

“Which Alpha bastard is it? Bring him here. I’ll make sure he never touches you again.”

For Haejun, whose only Alpha was Moon Sijin, all of it was absurd. But now some pieces fit. His hyung seemed to think he was dating some Alpha. In his hyung’s words, Haejun’s imaginary lover was trash who went around school covered in heat pheromones.

The reason Haejun had hurriedly fled that day wasn’t the Alpha pheromone in the perfume, whose face and name he didn’t know. It was because he’d realized his body was acting strange after Moon Sijin, stimulated by it, reflexively released his own pheromones. But left alone, Sijin had clearly written an entire long novel with Baek Haejun as the protagonist.

Having fully grasped the situation, Haejun barely held back the laugh that almost burst out. The corners of his mouth and his cheeks twitched absurdly.

“The only Alpha I know is you, hyung. How would you punish him? If it’s about the pheromone that was on me Friday, that wasn’t a lover. It was my classmates messing around with pheromone perfume.”

“…Pheromone perfume?”

“When I was on the phone with you, they were joking around and sprayed it on me. That’s why I was surprised.”

“You weren’t about to fall?”

“…I couldn’t tell you the truth because I thought you’d hate pheromones.”

That was why he’d lied about almost falling, and why he’d fled, leaving Sijin alone. In truth, if Sijin hadn’t reacted so strongly, he might have corrected the misunderstanding that very day. But Sijin was more sensitive to Alpha pheromones than Haejun had expected, and because of that, Haejun had been so flustered that he’d felt sexual arousal for the first time in his life.

After Haejun’s explanation, Sijin shut his mouth for a moment. He seemed to compare the truth with what he’d guessed over the weekend. Even though he must have realized he’d been mistaken, there was no trace of embarrassment. But another point seemed to have made him angry.

“What kind of crazy bastard uses pheromone perfume…”

A thick vein rose on Sijin’s jaw, then subsided. His deliberately vague ending was filled with harsh curses Haejun couldn’t even imagine. Haejun had no idea that Sijin had carefully chosen every word, but he could clearly feel the suppressed rage, and he trembled slightly.

He’d tried to pass it off as a joke, but that bastard had probably done it on purpose. For a brief moment, Haejun had the nasty thought of tattling to his hyung, but he decided against it. He didn’t want his hyung tangled up with that kind of person because of him. They were classmates, Haejun had no intention of quitting school, and neither would that guy. So he thought the best thing was to pretend not to know him if they ran into each other, just like now. Eventually, the fun of provoking him would disappear, and he’d lose interest.

Haejun looked up at Sijin with an innocent face. This was exactly why he couldn’t quit school.

“So who is it?”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to worry about it, hyung.”

Haejun replied calmly. It was an aloof attitude that showed he might think of running away himself, but never considered making the other person run. Sijin didn’t like that mature face. If Haejun would just ask him to, Sijin would hold him in his arms and spoil him every day, but Baek Haejun always acted grown-up at the decisive moments.

Baek Haejun was simple, but Moon Sijin was not. It meant that just because Haejun wouldn’t say it himself, it didn’t mean there was no way at all for Sijin to find out. Sijin didn’t press further. He pulled up the corners of his mouth in a clean smile.

“Are you doing that because you’re worried about me? You’re so needlessly kind, our Haejun.”

A warm, large hand landed lightly on top of his head. Haejun’s gaze followed the hand that tenderly brushed his hair, up to Sijin’s face. It was a compliment that felt a little uncomfortable and strange, but Sijin’s smiling face was the same as usual, so it also sounded like a nice thing to say with no other meaning. But his bewilderment lasted only a moment. Haejun smiled innocently back at his hyung, who was smiling at him.

“But where were you headed?”

“Cafe part-time job. The manager needed someone to cover a shift, so I said I’d go just for today.”

You had time to get a call from your manager, but no time to take my call?

Sijin barely held back the urge to say that, and one corner of his mouth rose bitterly. Whether Haejun noticed or not, he hesitated and checked Sijin’s reaction.

“If you have time, want to come with me, hyung? I’ll buy you coffee.”

Sijin checked the time on his phone. 5:47 p.m. Below the digital clock was a message from the president of the Business Strategy Society club. They’d agreed to meet at the club room at six, and the message was confirming the time Sijin would arrive.

He’d taken a leave of absence and quit the club, but Sijin had agreed to a Q&A session for the club’s juniors. It was to pass on his experience and know-how from his exemplary club activities, school life, and internship at a management strategy consulting firm. Today was the day of the preliminary meeting before the mentoring session.

Of course, it was a huge bother to Sijin, but the club president, an acquaintance, had begged him earnestly, so he had no way to refuse anymore. Rather than let him chase after him for days, it was simpler to grant the favor once and be done with it. It took about ten minutes from here to the club room, so if he left now, he’d arrive roughly on time.

“…You don’t have time?”

When Sijin’s answer was late because he was checking the message, Haejun asked cautiously. Sijin quietly looked down at Haejun, whose pale face was somehow flushed pink.

If he didn’t want to be late, he had to go now.

Reminding himself of that obvious fact, Sijin smiled.

“No. If Haejun wants me to go, I should.”

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