Chapter 37: The Scent he thought still owned Me.

“Haa….”

Sayoung released his scent to shake off Han Jaewoo’s pheromones coiling around his body and slowly stood up.

His legs didn’t have proper strength, but he couldn’t delay any longer. If someone came and saw him in this state, it could cause unnecessary misunderstandings.

He stood up and fixed his disheveled clothes.

Finding stability in the place where Jaewoo had disappeared wasn’t that difficult.

To begin with, Sayoung had very stable pheromones and was skilled at controlling them.

Even if an Alpha forcefully released pheromones, if it were an ordinary opponent, he wouldn’t have crumbled like this.

The reason Sayoung collapsed so helplessly was because the opponent was Han Jaewoo.

The problem was that Sayoung, who had been trained by his coercive pheromones for a long time, was physically tamed.

Wiping the cold sweat lightly forming on his forehead, Sayoung took several deep breaths.

He felt anew that there were too many traces Jaewoo had left on him.

Not to mention mentally, the physical aspects were significant too.

Even if he gained a dramatic realization through death, it was natural that completely escaping all this overnight was impossible.

He shouldn’t be impatient.

It wasn’t something that could be done by rushing.

Sayoung had endured seven years in dark days with no visible future.

This much was nothing.

No, thinking back to what he said to Jaewoo just now, today’s event was actually quite a gratifying moment for Sayoung.

‘Approaching a successful actor to improve one’s lot in life… that sounds like a very familiar story.’

Although he couldn’t finish the sentence properly, just bringing up such words in front of him was nothing short of a miracle for Sayoung.

To think he would lose his temper at just that one word, when he had insulted him with words Sayoung couldn’t even imagine for so long.

Suppressing the laughter that leaked out on its own, Sayoung put strength into his legs again and slowly walked toward the hospital parking lot where Yoojun would be waiting.

Dragging Yoojun into this, risking considerable danger, was truly a good choice.

Even if it was a choice that would inevitably bring him another kind of misery, misery was already an emotion as natural as breathing to Sayoung, so it was fine.

It didn’t matter at all.

****

He wondered if he had ever been this anxious in his life.

Yoojun was someone who had never felt nervous even at annual film festivals or various award ceremonies.

When nominated for an award, Yoojun was the type to be convinced he would win, and even if he didn’t, his status wasn’t one to drop because of it, so there was no reason to be nervous.

Such a Kim Yoojun was now gripping the steering wheel in some hospital parking lot, not knowing what to do with his anxiety.

He didn’t know how many times he shifted in his seat, wondering if he should go back.

‘Why am I doing this? It’s their business, having nothing to do with me, so why? Doing this much is enough; getting involved further won’t benefit me.’

Yoojun endured by constantly persuading himself with such words.

The fact that he needed persuasion in the first place was strange, but he didn’t want to think too deeply about it.

Whether pity or curiosity, there were plenty of excuses he could give.

However, as Sayoung didn’t return even though quite some time seemed to have passed, it became hard to endure.

Jaewoo, knowing clearly that Yoojun was waiting, probably wouldn’t do anything to Sayoung, but his heart was anxious and an unidentifiable anger kept rising.

Eventually unable to wait any longer, just as Yoojun got out of the car to find Sayoung, he saw Sayoung walking from a distance with a pale face.

“Mr. Yoon Sayoung.”

The moment Yoojun, who had approached Sayoung almost running while calling his name, suddenly stopped walking was right then.

It was because of the offensive and foreign scent he felt as the distance closed.

Yoojun soon realized that the scent was another person’s pheromones and that it was coming from Sayoung.

“Wha… What….”

His mind went blank at the unexpected situation, then began to race rapidly.

Sayoung didn’t hesitate to ask for help to get revenge on Jaewoo, even while being treated like a crazy person by him.

There was no way such a person would voluntarily do something to share pheromones with Han Jaewoo now.

Yoojun hadn’t known the person named Yoon Sayoung for long.

So it was safe to say he knew almost nothing about him.

However, he didn’t think he would mix pheromones and have skinship with Han Jaewoo while knowing clearly that he was waiting.

He wanted to believe that.

Then there was only one possibility left.

f*ck.

Muttering a curse under his breath, Yoojun strode forward again, closing the distance to right in front of Sayoung’s nose, snatched his wrist, pulled it, and spoke.

“Did Han Jaewoo do this?”

“Mr. Yoojun…?”

“Did that bastard try something while spraying this disgusting scent? Did he?”

Sayoung frowned at the grip crushing his wrist.

Flustered by the sudden situation, Sayoung opened his eyes round and looked up at Yoojun.

“That f*cking bastard, seriously…”

Sayoung couldn’t answer because he couldn’t grasp why Yoojun was suddenly this angry, but Yoojun interpreted that silence as affirmation, let go of his hand, and started walking past Sayoung.

“M-Mr. Yoojun! Wait a moment!”

Even though he still didn’t know what was happening, Sayoung instinctively felt he shouldn’t let Yoojun go, so he grabbed his arm.

But Sayoung’s powerless body couldn’t stop Yoojun, who was walking determinedly.

Being dragged by Yoojun like a paper doll, Sayoung eventually twisted the ankle of his previously injured leg, let out a short groan, and collapsed onto the floor.

“…Mr. Sayoung?”

Fortunately, Yoojun reacted to Sayoung’s groan.

Only then did he stop and turn around, finding Sayoung fallen holding his ankle, and crouched down in front of him in surprise.

Yoojun couldn’t bear to touch Sayoung’s ankle and said, not knowing what to do with his hands.

“What’s wrong? Does the injured spot hurt again? Mr. Sayoung.”

“No, no. I just slightly… slightly twisted my ankle….”

“Let’s go back up to the hospital.”

“W-Wait a moment!”

Sayoung urgently stopped Yoojun, who was about to pick him up as if there was nothing more to see.

With such stormy situations happening one after another, he was out of it.

He thought he felt something akin to sadness when coming down from the ward, but now he was just flustered and out of breath.

Sayoung decided to resolve the misunderstandings one by one.

Holding Yoojun’s arm with both hands and looking straight into his eyes, Sayoung spoke.

“I’m okay. I just twisted it for a second, it doesn’t hurt anymore. If you help me up, I think I can walk on my own.”

“…Is that true?”

“Yes. I’ll try walking first, and if it hurts. Then I’ll go back and get examined.”

“If it hurts even a little, we are going.”

Yoojun looked Sayoung over with suspicious eyes and carefully helped him stand.

Sayoung stood straight, gently rotated his right ankle, and stepped firmly on the floor to check his condition.

Yoojun was watching him with an expression that looked like he would devour him.

“It doesn’t hurt, so I don’t think we need to go back up.”

“Really? You aren’t pretending to be okay?”

“…Yes. Really.”

Sayoung hesitated briefly.

It was because Yoojun’s question was overly unfamiliar.

Han Jaewoo, Sayoung’s husband, was someone who didn’t blink an eye even when Sayoung groaned, curled up in a ball sweating cold sweat.

Only when the illness became deep enough that he had to go to the hospital did he take Sayoung there, pretending to be the world’s most affectionate husband with a face like he was about to cry.

Then Sayoung liked those brief moments.

Because those false moments where he hugged him warmly, worried about him, and looked at him affectionately made him happy.

Memories of sitting alone with all the windows in the house wide open in the middle of winter, wishing to get severely sick, dizzily surfaced and vanished repeatedly.

Thinking about it now, there was no way to explain it other than it being a crazy act.

Back then, he thought it was such desperate love.

Sayoung now thought that perhaps it might have just been a sickness needing treatment.

That Han Jaewoo’s long emotional abuse had made Sayoung that sick.

“Then, what happened with Han Jaewoo?”

What stopped Sayoung’s thoughts from deepening further was Yoojun’s question, which stabbed in abruptly.

Sayoung blinked rapidly, pulling his mind from the past back to the present.

Through his vision that blurred and then cleared, he saw Kim Yoojun’s heavily distorted face.

The person who had made a fuss over just a twisted ankle was now interrogating him about what had happened with Han Jaewoo.

What had happened with Han Jaewoo just a moment ago surfaced upon that question.

Then he felt he understood a little why Yoojun was reacting so violently.

Unable to wait any longer for the short pause before the answer came, Yoojun asked again.

“What on earth did he do for the pheromones to be tangled like that….”

Yoojun trailed off and bit his lip. It was because the dirty feeling he had felt earlier surfaced vividly again.