Chapter 6: An Unexpected Visitor

During the two days he spent like that, Noah felt like he was going to die of boredom.

He was a people person, so helping at the restaurant suited him perfectly, but being cooped up at home made him antsy.

He tried calling his friends over, but they all said it was exam period and they’d see him afterward.

Those disloyal jerks.

Noah spent his time doing housework, catching up on dramas, and watching movies he had wanted to see.

The thing he worked on the most was practicing pheromone control.

“…Heup! …Heup! …Heup!”

He was diligent because he had to practice quickly and stop his pheromones from leaking so he could go outside.

It felt like the practice was starting to pay off, as the concentration of his pheromones seemed to be gradually weakening.

Presenting as an Omega had been a shocking event, but as he idled away his days at home, he started to think it was just like a slight change in his constitution.

Something on the level of declaring, “I’m a vegetarian from today!”

He would have to think more about dating and marriage, but he didn’t have a crush on anyone right now, so he figured things would work out somehow.

Noah thought optimistically and patted himself on both shoulders, proud of how well he was mastering his pheromone control practice.

Ding-dong.

A delivery?

Hearing the doorbell, Noah picked up the intercom receiver and asked who it was.

– Yunoah? It’s Yunoah, right?

“Who is this?”

– It’s Lee Seungho. You don’t know me?

“Who’s Lee Seungho? And why are you speaking so informally?”

– You don’t know me? We saw each other at the hotel the other day.

“…Hotel?”

– Come out for a sec.

The intercom, as old as the house itself, was a model that didn’t show faces.

He saw me at the hotel… Don’t tell me, is it that psycho who wrecked my body?!

Suddenly, his heart began to pound.

If this was the guy, what should he say?

Was the money not enough?

And how on earth did he find this place?

“Ahem, w-what did… we do?”

– You got scolded because of me when you broke that plate. I came to apologize.

“Ah…”

He remembered something he had forgotten because of the shocking events that followed.

On the day he presented as an Omega, Noah had been working part-time as a server at the same hotel’s banquet hall and was about to go home when he was suddenly called by another manager and asked to work one more event that afternoon.

They needed a neat and experienced employee, or so they said.

They offered to pay him 200,000 won in cash on the spot, so he thought it was a sweet deal and readily agreed.

But then…

A sudden memory of injustice surfaced, and Noah stormed out into the yard, fuming.

He felt like he had to let it all out to calm his anger.

“Hey! Who are you? Because of you, I got completely chewed out and only made 50,000 won!”

“Open the door. How can I apologize properly otherwise? I was just happy to see you.”

The banquet hall he had been suddenly called to was small, but the atmosphere was different.

He had vaguely heard it was the engagement party of a chaebol’s child, and everything from the overly lavish flower arrangements to the tableware and napkins was on a different level from anything he had seen while working in banquet halls before.

It definitely smelled of money.

Perhaps because of that, the managers overseeing the banquet were on edge, creating a somewhat tense atmosphere.

He had been extremely nervous, trying not to make any mistakes as he served the food course by course.

It was when he was clearing the empty dishes from a table, relieved that he had served the main course of steak and was almost done.

As Noah reached for a plate, someone suddenly grabbed his wrist.

Startled by the sudden grip, Noah lost his balance, and a plate on the tray he was holding fell.

There wasn’t a loud crash since it was a carpeted floor, but the atmosphere around that table instantly froze.

While a manager rushed in and apologized, bowing repeatedly, Noah sat on the floor, frantically cleaning up the broken plate and spilled food, before being kicked out of the banquet hall.

He hadn’t even had time to feel wronged.

By the time the manager was furiously yelling at him, a fever was already starting to consume his body, and he was barely conscious.

A 50,000 won bill, thrown by the manager, fluttered down in front of him.

He thought his presentation must have already started back then.

“…How do you know me?”

He seemed to recall the person who grabbed his wrist calling his name.

But Noah, who was born and raised in this neighborhood, couldn’t possibly have known anyone who would be invited to a chaebol’s engagement party, so he had thought he’d misheard.

“You’ve forgotten me?”

The voice, light and flighty, sounded somewhat familiar.

Was it really someone he knew?

Noah cautiously opened the main gate.

He couldn’t see the person’s face without opening it.

“Yunoah!”

“Hah!”

Startled by the man’s face pressed right up against the gate, Noah slammed it shut with a loud bang.

“Aaargh! Ack! My arm!”

The man must have shoved his arm through the briefly opened gap, because it was now caught in the closed gate.

When Noah opened the gate a crack, the man clutched his trapped arm and spun around frantically.

It must have hurt a lot.

‘So he’s the type to act before thinking.’

Watching the frantic display, Noah clicked his tongue with a “Tsk, tsk.”

“Does it hurt a lot?”

“…You hurt someone and don’t even apologize? You haven’t changed, Yunoah. And you remember me now, right?”

“You’re the one who should be apologizing. …And what you just did is practically a crime. Trespassing!”

The moment he saw the arm stuck in the gate, Noah was reminded of a scene from a crime reenactment documentary he often watched with his mom, and to be honest, he had gotten scared.

That’s why he had slammed the gate with all his might, even though he knew the arm was there.

It was a reflex, but it must have hurt.

In any case, he did recognize the man’s face.

He was one of the Alphas who had followed him around, a part of the group that had made his high school years miserable.

His eyes, reddened from the pain, peered at Noah’s face through the slightly ajar gate.

Then his expression went blank, and he suddenly started fixing his hair and clothes.

His perfectly styled hair, slicked with some product, seemed to be getting ruined by his clumsy hands.

“Ahem. Can I come in?”

“No! Stay about five meters away from here!”

Noah gestured for him to back away, and the man reflexively looked behind him.

The narrow alley, barely wide enough for one car, was less than five meters across.

“My arm really hurts, and also, I bought you a gift to say sorry for getting you kicked out of your job.”

“W-what is it?”

“You liked sweets, right? Macarons, truffle chocolates, eclairs, dacquoise, and also…”

“Leave it here in front of the gate. I’ll accept your apology.”

How did he know I like sweets?

Except for the macarons, he didn’t know what the others were, but they sounded incredibly delicious.

His mother wouldn’t even let him go to the convenience store alone, so he was desperate for a sweet snack.

Normally, he would have thrown the gate wide open, but he couldn’t do that right now.

“Are you serious? Aren’t you happy to see me?”

“…Heup! Not right now. Let’s meet in a month.”

“…A week.”

“Two months.”

“…”

The man, who seemed to have forgotten about his painful arm, frowned at Noah in displeasure.

He had seemed like a total delinquent punk in school, but seeing him now, dressed respectably, he didn’t seem like such a bad guy.

“Then at least give me your phone number.”

“…Heup! 010-XXXX-XXXX.”

When Noah obediently gave his number, the man put down the large shopping bag he was holding, raised both hands in a gesture of surrender, and backed away.

Keeping his eyes on Noah, he backpedaled to the end of the alley.

When he saw Noah come out and pick up the shopping bag, he waved his hands enthusiastically.

“I’ll text you! I’ll come back tomorrow!”

What a ridiculous guy.

Noah chuckled and went back inside.

He sat at the dining table and opened the luxurious shopping bag.

Just as the guy had said, it was packed with all sorts of desserts.

“Wow.”

Except for the macarons, they were all pastries he had never seen before.

He took a bite of a macaron, a familiar treat.

It was on a completely different level from any he had eaten before.

As he was lost in eating, his phone buzzed with a message notification.

[Your pheromones smell really good]

Noah, who had just taken a bite of an eclair, froze, his hand and mouth stopping mid-motion.

It seemed pheromone control was still impossible for him.

He remembered the guy was an Alpha, but since it had never affected him when he was a Beta, he had let his guard down.

Even now that he was an Omega, he hadn’t met any Alphas other than the one he’d slept with while unconscious, so he didn’t really grasp how they affected each other.

The only reason he remembered this guy, whose name he couldn’t even recall, was because he had been the most annoying one to stick to him.

The hanger-on Alphas around him had treated this guy like some kind of leader, and the Omegas who claimed to like him would show up in groups, which had been incredibly bothersome.

Whether they were Alphas or Omegas, to Noah, it all just looked like the childish love drama of a bunch of dark-haired men.

There were occasional female Omegas among them, but the ones who came to him were mostly guys.

And at the center of this absurd love drama, Noah, who was ironically unaffected by pheromones, witnessed all sorts of strange scenes that he couldn’t understand from a Beta’s perspective.

Like an Alpha and an Omega who had been fighting over him suddenly catching fire and kissing.

Or an Omega who had come to catch a cheating Alpha running off with another Alpha after their eyes met.

The unpleasant memory suddenly surfaced, and Noah shivered as he typed a message.

[Don’t try any tricks on me, you b*stard]