There were four crises in total.
First, the opening crisis.
“No hotel. Just go straight home.”
At my words, Baek Seol-heon pursed his lips slightly.
“But I’m tired.”
“Huh?”
“Can’t we go somewhere to rest?”
His low voice slurred into a faint mumble.
In other words, he was whining.
Ba- Baek Seol-heon, whining?!
A guy who hadn’t fussed even once as a newborn was now making this kind of face.
“Hyung...”
Under the glow of the streetlamp, those eyes sparkled up at me like a puppy’s, and...
“We’re here.”
...by the time I came to my senses, we were somehow already standing in front of a hotel.
It had been beyond my control.
Then the second crisis arrived.
“You said it was a hotel.”
“The only place near the hospital with an open room was a motel.”
The place I’d assumed was a hotel turned out to be a motel district tucked away in a seedy corner.
And the atmosphere was a little... pink.
There was even a vending machine at the entrance. It was selling little boxes and palm-sized bottles of clear liquid, so at first I figured they were snacks or cosmetics or something.
Damn it, adult toys.
I’d been baited.
There were even some kinds of electronic gadgets in there... but I’ll spare you the details.
“These days the facilities are all clean and the service is good, so it’s just like a hotel.”
“How would you even know that?”
“I saw it on Beetube.”
Maybe I really should set up a kids’ lock.
The third crisis came right on its heels.
“Ah. There were no rooms with twin beds.”
There was a single bed.
No couch, either.
“Still, lucky there was a room left at this hour on a weekend.”
“...”
“Right, hyung?”
...Sure. We’ve slept side by side plenty of times. And it’s not even a queen, it’s a king-size bed, so there’s plenty of room for two grown men to stretch out. Great.
But the last crisis was the real one.
“The bathroom’s got a full glass wall.”
“...”
“And the blind’s broken.”
“...”
“We’ve already seen everything there is to see anyway. Nothing to be embarrassed about, right?”
The bathroom had an excessively open feel to it.
“There’s a jacuzzi too. Want to get in together?”
“No. I’m not washing up.”
“Why not. That’s gross.”
The sense that there was a whole lot of intent behind all of this... was that just because my own mind was in the gutter? Really?
“I can shower at home tomorrow. I’ll just hurry up and sleep and... hk!”
The instant I went to take off my jacket, something soft brushed against the nape of my neck.
Goosebumps shot across my skin, and when I whipped around, Baek Seol-heon had his nose buried in my neck, breathing in.
“Wh- what are you doing.”
“You smell.”
“You mean the pheromones...?”
“No. Sweat.”
“Sweat?”
I immediately grabbed my shirt collar and gave it a sniff. I didn’t smell anything in particular, though?
But Baek Seol-heon said with a stony face,
“Have you actually washed up recently?”
“What, you think I haven’t?”
“You’ve been running around like crazy for days trying to find your friend, hyung.”
“Well, that’s true...”
Now that he mentioned it, my body did start to feel kind of grimy.
People are dull to their own smell, aren’t they? Especially with May coming up and the weather suddenly getting hot.
“Wash up. I don’t want to share a blanket with someone who smells.”
“What? Since when have you been such a clean freak?”
Granted, Baek Seol-heon was the tidy type. Keeping things neat was a given, and I’d never seen him smelling bad or looking disheveled.
But right now I had a bad feeling about something, so I was just grabbing at whatever I could, whether it made sense or not.
“Fine. Then don’t wash up.”
Baek Seol-heon suddenly switched his stance.
“That might be just as good.”
“Wh- what’s fine? What is?”
“The stronger your body odor, the more thickly your pheromones seep out.”
Baek Seol-heon ran a finger lightly along the nape of my neck. Then he brought his fingertip to his own lips.
“I think it might make me want to smell you more, too.”
“I’ll wash up.”
I went straight into the bathroom and slammed the door shut.
I’m losing my mind...
Maybe it was the embarrassment. The face reflected in the mirror was a little flushed.
Isn’t the physical contact getting more and more frequent?
No matter how much it was because of the imprinting, because of the medical treatment...!
Every single word and action of Baek Seol-heon’s nagged at me so much I thought I’d go crazy.
“Get out.”
When I glared at his reflection in the mirror and said it, Baek Seol-heon tilted his head askew.
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why? It’s cramped. Wash up separately.”
“There’s plenty of room.”
“No. It’s cramped.”
A taut tension hung in the air of the glass-walled bathroom.
After a standoff that lasted a while, Baek Seol-heon was the first to speak.
“By the way, hyung.”
“What now.”
“We haven’t done it in over four days.”
“...Done what.”
Cold sweat trickled down.
“Pheromone exchange.”
I knew it.
Maybe out of consideration for how frantic I’d been searching for Kim Jae-uk, Baek Seol-heon hadn’t even attempted a kiss — no, an oral pheromone exchange — for several days.
I’d had a feeling that topic would come up soon.
“Isn’t it better to take care of it all at once and then rest?”
“Seol-heon, I’m sorry, but... seriously, I’m seriously tired today. So let’s do it next time.”
“Are you going to keep putting it off like that?”
When Baek Seol-heon stepped closer, his familiar scent washed over me.
“Until when?”
The overwhelming scent flooding the bathroom nearly buckled my knees for a moment, but I planted my feet with everything I had.
His handsome face looked down at me indifferently, then he abruptly turned his back.
“Whatever. Fine. Take your time washing up.”
“...Huh? Yeah.”
Baek Seol-heon obediently left the bathroom.
Him acting like that only amplified my unease... but now that I was in the bathroom, I might as well wash up.
Through the glass, I could see Baek Seol-heon perched on the edge of the bed, looking at his phone.
“...”
This was my chance.
I tossed my clothes aside and sprayed water over myself.
As the warm water ran down my shoulders and over my whole body, the muscles that had been stiff with tension loosened a little.
Only then did what happened earlier come back to me.
Just as Lee Ha-ram had said, Kim Jae-uk’s face had been half-gaunt.
That bastard really seemed to have been through a lot...
Baek Seol-heon had thrown me off for a moment, but just an hour ago I’d been reuniting with Kim Jae-uk.
I’d blurted out, with no real plan, that there was an opening on the personal secretary team, and somehow I’d actually ended up hiring the guy.
The way he kept up his pride to the very end somehow overlapped with my own past life, so I’d done it on impulse, out of irritation.
Should I hurry and get him a place to stay first?
Now that it had come to this, I might as well keep him close, work him hard, and at least vent a little.
The real problem is...
LK Chairwoman Lee Han-na.
Whether it was her doing or her subordinate’s, she’d been watching me from far longer ago than I’d thought.
Was the group’s information really all she was after?
My head started to ache.
I was lathering shampoo vigorously into my hair and rinsing it off, when —
“...”
“...”
“...What are you staring at.”
“Staring at you, hyung.”
My eyes met Baek Seol-heon’s.
At some point he’d turned to face the bathroom entirely, sitting there and gazing right at my face.
“What’s there to look at?”
“Just struck me that you’ve got a good body.”
You stare at your hyung’s body for that? And another male alpha’s body, at that?
I glared at him with my face all scrunched up, but Baek Seol-heon didn’t so much as flinch.
“Turn on the TV and watch Beeflix or something.”
“Nothing to watch.”
Once that guy dug in his heels, he rarely backed down. And the one who ended up embarrassed during these standoffs was always me.
“I don’t get you, seriously...”
In the end, I was the one who gave up first. I’d just wash up fast and get out.
Forcing my gaze away from the glass, I squeezed body wash into my palm, worked up a rough lather, and rubbed it over my arms, my neck, my chest.
Don’t mind it. Don’t mind it...
But it was strange.
Even though it was nothing more than ordinary touching, the lower my hands went, the more my skin flushed for no reason. My palm, slick with water and suds, felt unusually clinging.
As if that guy’s gaze were trailing along behind my fingertips.
Finish fast. Fast...?
In that instant, the scent grew thicker.
Pheromones, to be exact.
It was not an amount that would leak out in everyday life. A thick, blatant scent, plainly carrying the air of arousal.
I slowly turned my head.
“...”
Before Baek Seol-heon’s handsome face, my gaze first dropped lower.
“...Baek Seol-heon.”
My voice lowered without my meaning it to.
“What are you doing.”
“Getting myself off.”
“No. I mean. Why.”
“You said you wouldn’t do it today, hyung. So I was doing it alone.”
“No, no. That’s, that’s not...”
With my gaze stolen by the thing of vicious size, I asked again.
“Isn’t there such a thing as a time and a place...?”
Baek Seol-heon was masturbating.
And while looking at my body, no less.
“There’s no one here.”
“You don’t see me...?”
“You’re not just ‘anyone,’ hyung.”
Taken on its own, that line was almost touching.
But it was the last thing he should be saying right now.
“Your, your cum, you said it was a waste. Why are you doing it alone...”
“What am I supposed to do when it builds up. If it’s a waste, want to do it together right now?”
“No...”
The only word coming out of my mouth was “no.”
“Getting yourself off — fine, I’ll bend over backwards and grant that you’re a man, so it happens...”
I asked the eyes that were roving over my body.
“But why while looking at me?”
“Who knows.”
Baek Seol-heon moved his hand slowly and lifted the corner of his mouth.
“Maybe it’s the imprinting.”
The sight of it was so overpowering.
“Looking at you gets me worked up, hyung.”
I had no choice but to look away.
Pleeease, why are you doing this...!
The urge to slam my head into the wall and pass out rose up in me.
No matter how I thought about it, no matter how much it was because of the imprinting.
This had soared far, far beyond the range of remarks my willpower could withstand.
“Don’t mind me, hyung, just wash up.”
How am I supposed to not mind it, you bastard?!
I wanted to scream it at the top of my lungs, but I was better off washing up fast and getting dressed in the time it’d take to do that.
I poured water over myself to rinse off the remaining suds, when —
Shk, shk.
“...”
Shk, shk, shk.
“Haa.”
Shk, shk, shk, shk.
“Hoo...”
Block out the sight, and now the sound was the problem.
“Mm.”
...Hey, you don’t make any noise normally!
I had no idea why a guy who’d never let slip a single moan under any circumstances was making sounds today, of all times, right now.
Then he opened his mouth.
“I ate yours, hyung. Last time.”
That bastard — what is he starting to say while jerking off?
“Your pheromones. They were thick.”
Please... if you’re going to do it, can you do it with your mouth shut?
“You only came when I licked the underside, long, like that. You looked like it felt good.”
That was information I truly did not want to know.
“Next time I’ll focus on sucking there.”
Next time, he says.
Sucking, he says.
“You like finishing fast, don’t you, hyung.”
Bang —!
In the end, I slammed my head against the shower fixture.
The memory of that day, the sensation, the pleasure all came back so vividly that I wanted to shake off the intrusive thoughts even by physical impact.
...But.
“Hyung.”
“...”
“Don’t tell me.”
It was already too late.
“Did you get hard just from listening to me?”
“No.”
I barely managed to lift my burning face and glared at Baek Seol-heon.
“Your pheromones, they rubbed off on me...”
“Really? Sorry.”
With a face that wasn’t the least bit sorry, Baek Seol-heon asked indifferently,
“Do I have to take responsibility?”
Baek Seol-heon took his hand away and rose from the bed.
“Want me to help?”
With only the thin glass wall between us, Baek Seol-heon’s face drew close.
“But you’re the one who said let’s do it next time because you’re tired, hyung.”
The lower half of me ached.
My core, heated and throbbing, pulled taut, making it hard even to steady my breath.
“So, still each on our own?”
I had no idea what crack it was seeping through, but Baek Seol-heon’s pheromones were filling the bathroom completely.
“We’ve got to do it anyway. The two of us.”
Like during the rut, like in the bathroom, my thoughts slowly went dull.
“I’d rather we did it together.”
Baek Seol-heon rested his forehead lightly against the transparent wall. His eyebrows had drifted just a fraction downward.
“Hm? Hyung...”
At that face whining like a child.
In the end, I...
