Chapter 20: Unspoken Truths and Lingerings

‘So, what did you just say, hyung…?’

“H-Hyung, how did you know my pheromones? No, ah, how did you know?”

Haejun was flustered and didn’t know what to do.

He hesitated, hit the back of his head against the door he was leaning on, but didn’t even feel the pain.

He acted busy as if he would leave any second.

But Sijin, frowning, was blocking the entrance, so there was nothing he could do.

‘How did I even manage to meet hyung again?’

He hadn’t even enjoyed this time to his heart’s content, and now he was about to be hated.

No, of course he had meant to reveal his secondary gender first, but this was never part of the plan.

Of course, hyung was kind, so he wouldn’t openly show that he disliked him, but Haejun would have no choice but to sense in that strange atmosphere that he made him uncomfortable.

He wouldn’t dote on him anymore. He wouldn’t pat his head, wouldn’t pinch his cheeks, and wouldn’t smile every time their eyes met.

In that moment, Haejun’s thoughts regressed to something one-dimensional, and he was terrified. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Sijin. He even thought about snatching the suppressant and water in front of him and hiding them behind his back.

…

…

Sijin sensed Baek Haejun’s Omega pheromones wavering precariously and tilted his head. They had exchanged only a few words, but the pheromones creeping through the break room were a little stronger than before, showing how much they had made him tremble with fear. It wasn’t his own pheromone, so this soft sensation could only belong to Haejun.

Moon Sijin didn’t look flustered at all. Rather, he was calm, as if he had known for a long time.

“Hmm.” Sijin let out a low hum and wondered how to keep this little one from being afraid of him anymore.

He moved the suppressant aside and bent his knees to sit. Now that his eye level was lower, Haejun carefully met his eyes. Only then did Sijin speak in a flat voice.

“When we met again at the bar, how do you think I recognized you right away?”

…

“You were leaking pheromones like this back then too.”

The eyes meeting his were dazed. Haejun’s face looked bewildered, eyebrows twitching slightly as if he’d heard something unreal, and Sijin laughed out loud.

“You recognized me first that day, didn’t you?”

Haejun bit his lip hard and nodded.

As he said, Haejun had noticed Sijin the moment the bar door opened and he walked in. But although Haejun had leaked pheromones because he was flustered by the unexpected meeting, the place had already been mixed with the pheromones of several other secondary-gender people besides Haejun.

“Hyung waited for Haejun to tell him first. In the end, I was the one who said it first.”

“…!”

Sijin turned his head away as if he were truly hurt. It felt like being scolded for a mistake, and hyung’s cold shoulder made Haejun anxious.

“But hyung.”

Haejun clenched both fists and trembled pitifully.

It seemed hyung had known from the beginning that he had a secondary gender. He hadn’t known it would turn out like this, but Haejun truly had meant to tell him first. He had never intended to deceive him. So Haejun had something to say too.

“You said you’re uncomfortable with people who have secondary genders. I was afraid you’d hate me if you found out I’m an Omega…”

His voice trembled and his throat tightened as if he might burst into tears at any moment. Just thinking about the possibility that Moon Sijin hated him was already terrifying. Haejun’s eyes reddened. Sijin raised one eyebrow at Haejun, whose eyes were beginning to well up with tears.

“Did I say that?”

“You definitely did. And you also said I’m still young, so don’t try to find out.”

Sijin asked back as if he couldn’t remember at all, and Haejun’s face crumpled even more with indignation.

His small features twisted so easily. Sijin gently stroked the corner of Haejun’s eye with his thumb and smoothed the wrinkles away.

“If I said that, it was probably because you were a Beta then.”

…

“I was thoughtless. No matter how young you were, I shouldn’t have said that in front of you. I really didn’t know you would remember it, Haejun.”

Haejun’s brow, which he had tried to smooth, furrowed again.

He felt relieved by Sijin’s apology, but at the same time a deeper question surfaced. Why did he dislike people with secondary genders? There had to be a reason he came to think that way.

But that wasn’t important right now.

“…You don’t hate me?”

“Why would I hate you?”

Sijin let out a hollow laugh and playfully pinched Haejun’s nose, as if asking what nonsense he was saying.

The tears that had piled up layer by layer evaporated in his chest. All that came out of his mouth was a trembling sigh. Haejun slumped all over like someone who had scraped the bottom of his energy and burned it up.

There were hands that steadied Haejun’s precarious body, which looked as if it would collapse at a touch. As if handling a doll, Sijin untied Haejun’s apron strings and unbuttoned his uniform shirt. He undid one button and, perhaps finding it too stifling, made Haejun raise both arms and pulled the clothes off over his head.

His fine hair got messed up by the rough motion. Because Sijin’s hands moved so unexpectedly, only a bewildered gasp escaped Haejun’s lips. He tried to smooth his hair by pressing down on the crown of his head, but when the short-sleeved T-shirt underneath rode up and threatened to expose bare skin, he hastily tugged it down.

Regardless, Sijin brushed back the stray hair and muttered calmly.

“Anyway, so you weren’t trying to lie.”

“I won’t lie to hyung…”

“Yeah. You shouldn’t.”

When Sijin laughed out loud, Haejun’s face finally brightened. He hadn’t cried, but the tip of his nose and the corners of his eyes were already red. Sijin watched the crying-then-smiling face quietly and added mischievously.

“If you’re going to lie, you’d better be prepared to get your butt spanked.”

By the time the two came out of the break room, there was no one inside the cafe. The guys who had seemed more or less clear-headed had mopped the floor and put the fallen chairs and tables back in place, and it seemed they had even taken Lee Seungmin and disappeared.

Haejun turned off the interior lights and sniffled once belatedly. It wasn’t the scene he had imagined, but after honestly confessing to hyung, he felt lighter and seemed to relax. In fact, now he was even secretly embarrassed.

‘Hyung, really… If you knew from the start, you could have at least given a hint that you knew.’

How anxious he had been the whole time he met him. He had even taken suppressants for the first time in years and watched his pheromones. Anyway, thinking about it now, if Sijin had openly asked whether he had a secondary gender, Haejun would have smoothly confessed the truth right there.

“Hyung, let’s go now.”

After finishing locking up, Haejun turned to him. Sijin, who had parked nearby and was smoking, dropped the cigarette butt on the ground. When Haejun came over as if running, he crushed the ember with the sole of his shoe and waved his hand through the air. Even the lingering smell of smoke dispersed into the air.

He opened the passenger door himself and jerked his chin for him to get in. He even buckled the seatbelt for him. Haejun secretly felt shy at Sijin’s kindness, but he breathed in with relief. Now he didn’t have to pretend to be a Beta who knew nothing whenever he smelled hyung’s pheromones.

Sijin walked around the hood, got into the driver’s seat, and skillfully shifted gears and turned the wheel. Familiar streets passed by outside the car window. They were naturally heading toward Haejun’s house.

Since it had never been awkward even when they were alone, he realized only now: Moon Sijin had always been a man of few words. Since childhood, Haejun was the one who chattered away, and hyung was mostly the listener. He was the type whose single sentence carried enormous weight, so Haejun might not have felt the conversation was lacking.

Now, because an unavoidable gap in time existed between them, whenever Haejun felt awkward and kept his mouth shut, silence quickly settled in. But Sijin didn’t seem to mind this silence either; he looked unbothered. Haejun’s energy for the day was already completely drained, so he didn’t bother chatting either. He alternated between looking at Sijin’s profile as he drove and the view outside the window. Even that wasn’t boring.

As the calm atmosphere continued, trivial thoughts took the opportunity to follow one after another. His thoughts stayed on what had happened in the break room earlier.

Thinking about it, there was something strange.

The claim that he had found Haejun thanks to smelling his pheromones at the bar that day meant he had already known what Haejun’s pheromones were like. Haejun had manifested as an Omega as soon as the year changed and had moved away right after, so by timing alone, there was no way Sijin could have known his pheromones.

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