Chapter 21: Subtle Shifts and Quiet Care

“I don’t really understand.”

“What?”

“You only properly smelled my pheromones recently, hyung. So how did you find me there when we met again?”

As soon as the question came to mind, Haejun turned his body toward the driver’s seat. Sijin, who was looking ahead, frowned slightly.

“I knew you’d become an Omega before you even graduated elementary school. Was it autumn? Pheromones had been leaking little by little since then.”

“You still remember smelling a little bit back then?”

“Yours is…”

As if he wasn’t sure how to say it, Sijin carefully chose his words. Sijin’s profile, still looking only ahead, was intermittently outlined by the road lights. His stubbornly closed lips looked quite serious.

“Your pheromones are a bit unusual.”

“…Is that a good thing?”

“I’ve never felt good smelling other people’s pheromones, but yours doesn’t do that to me.”

Sijin’s gaze brushed past Haejun’s temple as if recalling a distant past.

Baek Haejun smelled like the soft, cozy scent of young children. So at first, Sijin thought it wasn’t pheromones but just his natural body odor. The small, precious thing resembled him so much there was no room for doubt. Perhaps that was why. The illusion made his brain’s chemical reaction accept it naturally.

Even now, after time had passed, Haejun’s pheromones were cozy. Enough that Sijin thought if he placed Haejun on his bed and held him every night, it might help with the insomnia that had plagued him for years.

But then Haejun would be uncomfortable. He might also say he’s all grown up and doesn’t want to sleep together. In Sijin’s eyes, he was unmistakably a baby who smelled of powder, then and now. Sometimes Haejun kept pretending to be an adult, and Sijin didn’t quite like that.

Still, if he didn’t go along, Haejun would sulk. I have to give in. What can I do.

“And you?”

“Huh?”

“Does my pheromone smell unpleasant to you?”

The car stopped. Only when Sijin turned to look at him did Haejun realize they had arrived near home. The road was dark, casting darkness over his face, but his features were so clear it wasn’t hard to make them out.

There were words circling in his mouth, but they wouldn’t come out easily. It was the pheromone of the person he liked, so how could it be unpleasant? Sometimes when Haejun was defenselessly exposed to Sijin’s pheromones, his lips went dry and saliva pooled under his tongue. Not long ago, he had even wet his underwear.

Because of that, Haejun clearly realized he was looking at Sijin with sexual desire. With pheromones added on top, his body simply couldn’t lie.

Once he became aware of it, it felt like his patience had vanished. Even now, if he let his guard down, he felt like he might pour out pheromones so heavily that even he couldn’t handle it. Haejun had to keep swallowing dry saliva to soothe his throat before he could answer.

“Hyung’s pheromones… I like them.”

Perhaps worried that Haejun would find an Alpha’s pheromones too much, Sijin’s smile looked much lighter than before.

“That’s a relief, but…”

But he trailed off and added, staring at the reddened tips of Haejun’s ears.

“You shouldn’t go around carelessly telling an Alpha you like their pheromones. You’re already clueless enough, it’s like asking to be eaten.”

There was still so much to teach him. Sijin placed his large hand on Haejun’s round crown and ruffled it roughly as if playing. It was affectionate, but also plain.

At the hand pressing down on his head, Haejun shut his eyes tight and bit his lip. He liked being touched by hyung, but his heart ached as if pricked. Perhaps because he felt the truth that to Sijin, he was just a younger brother.

After the hand fell away, a greater emptiness rushed in. So without realizing, Haejun looked at him with regretful eyes. Unlike Sijin’s face, which wore its usual mischievous smile, Haejun’s expression was on the verge of crumbling.

Having realized not just affection but sexual desire, Haejun’s feelings were only complicated. So even something that would have just hurt a little on his own before now took his thoughts one step further.

I want hyung to be flustered and lose his composure because of me. Moon Sijin needs to know how much his thoughtless words and actions shake my universe. He didn’t hesitate to do the clever thing of convincing himself it was just a kind of childish whim.

He wanted to act impulsively like this at least once. Haejun knew all too well that he was like a younger brother to Moon Sijin. Special, but meaning no different from family.

To hyung, I’m just a naive, clumsy kid. Wouldn’t it be okay to use that as an excuse and confess like a child who doesn’t know any better? Haejun’s clenched fist trembled slightly. Just suppressing the urge to cup Sijin’s cheek, which held a warm body temperature, and kiss him right there was already an enormous act of restraint.

So hyung probably doesn’t know. The feeling of his heart dropping every time their eyes meet. The selfish joy he feels when he’s noticeably favored among many people. The trivial worries like whether to avoid or not when their shoulders brush while walking side by side. Unlike me, hyung won’t get sexually excited thinking about me.

‘If it’s hyung, I’d even let him eat me.’

“I like hyung’s pheromones.”

It was the same words, but Haejun’s face as he said it again in a shy yet clear tone held a strange emotion. It was the face of someone who knew the weight of what he had said.

The streetlight cast light over Sijin’s thick eyelashes. Haejun took in every detail of his pupils slowly disappearing and then rising again like the sun.

In a single blink, his smile was gone. What replaced it was a calm, expressionless face that gave no hint of his thoughts. Sometimes when Sijin wasn’t conscious of it, his smileless face gave off a cold air, and now was exactly like that.

The initial momentum was good, but Haejun felt a chill creep down the back of his neck. He only now realized he had gotten too far ahead on his own. He wouldn’t have anything to say even if Sijin scolded him to keep his boundaries. Unable to bear the endlessly continuing silence, Haejun turned his head away from the gaze that was staring blankly at him.

“…You told me not to lie, hyung.”

In the end, Haejun took a step back. He could be sure it wasn’t the wrong choice because the cooling atmosphere began to thaw again. Belatedly, a burst of laughter came from Sijin.

“I couldn’t tell you because it seemed like you were deliberately hiding it from me, but now you don’t need to take suppressants just because you’re meeting me.”

Sijin said that and stared at Haejun’s wrist. The half-sleeves that reached the elbows revealed Haejun’s pale skin. His frame was thin and he had little flesh. Unexpectedly, he had a little muscle, but to Sijin, even that looked like nothing more than the minimum amount necessary for a person to live. It wasn’t enough to feed him only good things and fatten him up, so he couldn’t feed him suppressants that might burden his body.

“…You knew all that too.”

He had known all along that Haejun was controlling his pheromones with suppressants, but pretended not to. More precisely, he had waited for Haejun to tell him first and pretended not to know. Haejun, who seemed embarrassed enough, felt embarrassed again and lowered his eyes. He thought he wouldn’t be able to lie to hyung in the future either.

An early frost fell at dawn.

Waking from sleep, Haejun felt something off in his body. The nape of his neck felt chilly and he had a slight fever. Having seen people coughing several times as the daily temperature range grew severe recently, Haejun easily diagnosed his condition. It seemed he had caught a cold.

Even wearing long sleeves and long pants, the air inside the house felt cold and he shivered. A cool sensation brushed past the tip of his nose. Blinking in a hazy state, Haejun noticed his pheromones felt thicker in the air than usual. Maybe because his condition wasn’t good, he tried to consciously contain his pheromones, but it didn’t work as he wanted.

Haejun opened the sliding door and came out to the kitchen. It was only two steps to the entrance, so the kitchen felt colder than the room. He rubbed his forearm where the chill touched and took out a suppressant from the cupboard. The one he had taken every time he met Sijin was no longer in his bag.

Hyung had said he didn’t need to take it anymore, but judging by his condition, he thought he should take it today. He couldn’t walk around school giving off pheromones.

He washed up simply, applied lotion, and ate rice mixed into the beef radish soup his grandmother had boiled the night before. He had given her living expenses not long ago, so the chunks of beef in the soup were quite large.

As usual, Haejun put on a short-sleeved shirt and closed the dresser drawer. He was about to shoulder his bag but stopped and stood in front of the closet again. He put on a knit cardigan that he had worn fine until last year, and suddenly noticed the sleeves were a little short.

Come to think of it, it was clothes he had bought around when he graduated middle school. They must have gotten a little shorter every year, but it was a bit funny that he only noticed now. However, he had no other clothes suitable for the season, so he had no choice. Haejun pulled at the sleeve ends and left the house.

He had a lecture in the morning. The morning wind was chilly, but he knew the day would quickly get hot once the sun rose high. Perhaps because of that, his body heat rose as he walked.

How long had he been lying face down on the desk with his eyes closed? The seat next to him felt noisy, and then Kang Hangyeol began shaking his shoulder to wake him.

“Why aren’t you answering your phone? I brought coffee.”

It was a lively voice as always. Haejun, still lying face down, glanced at him with one eye open. Only then did Kang Hangyeol seem to realize something was wrong with Haejun and suddenly opened his eyes wide.

“What’s wrong, why are you so weak?”

“I think I caught a cold.”

“Then you shouldn’t drink something cold.”

Haejun, who had been rubbing his face against his forearm, blinked slowly. He finally noticed two drinks on the desk. One was an iced choco latte, and the other was a warm Americano.

“You bought these? Thanks. How much do I owe you?”

Haejun staggered to sit up and felt hot breath from himself. He was pulling his cardigan a little tighter when Kang Hangyeol shrugged nonchalantly.

“Not me. Moon Sijin bought them.”

“Hyung did?”

“I ran into him on the way here. He asked me to bring them to you. I’m the errand fee.”

He called himself an errand boy but didn’t seem to mind. Then he held out the warm cup. Originally Haejun’s share was the iced choco latte, but seeing his sickly state, Sijin must have judged it better to give him something warm rather than cold.

Haejun quickly realized hyung had chosen his menu. Kang Hangyeol, even though they had been friends for half a year, was insensitive enough not to notice Haejun only drank caffeine-free beverages, but Moon Sijin was different. Just from going to a cafe together a few times, he must have figured out Haejun’s eating habits.

“Give me the cold one.”

“So you can put it on your forehead?”

“…Yeah.”

Kang Hangyeol held the cold cup to Haejun’s flushed face and laughed like a cheerful troublemaker. Only when Haejun flinched at the cold did he finally put it in his hand.

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