“...Hhkk!”
The hiccup came out sounding more like a gasp of admiration, and Hanbyeol’s mouth fell open.
The man standing in front of him, presumably Managing Director Cha. His name-match, the one whose name would be carved somewhere on his body in the not-too-distant future.
And his very first impression on laying eyes on him?
‘I want to live just one day with that face...!’
Precisely that. And no wonder — Managing Director Cha looked like someone had taken Hanbyeol’s personal ideal of beauty and given it a body.
Solid build, impressive height. Shoulders that spread out wide. A long, well-set neck, a sharp jawline above it, clean straight eyes, and a nose bridge with strong opinions of its own.
What a waste. If I’d been born an alpha, I’d have looked exactly like that.
He smacked his lips for no reason at all. The other man seemed to be reading his mood a little, like he knew he’d kept him waiting, so Hanbyeol promptly spoke up in a stuffed-up, nasal voice.
“Um... Managing Director Cha?”
“Yes.”
“Hello! First of all— ah! First of all, please have a seat! Your secretary said, um, that you’d come right over once you were done with work, so I guess you must have been really busy.”
Well, if I’ve got the material, I may as well use it.
He shot to his feet, slipped in that pointed little remark, and grinned, heh heh. There was a reason people said you couldn’t spit on a smiling face.
He watched the man settle onto the sofa across from him without much of a reply, then asked a question. Even to his own ears, his voice rang out bright and clear.
“Have you eaten yet? I heard that HS and our company almost worked together once, so coming here in person like this, it really hits me all over again!”
“We did. Though it fell apart in the development stage when DB Group landed in the middle of a scandal and paid the penalty to break the contract.”
“...”
Huh. Turns out there are guys who’ll spit on a smiling face.
Message received. Judging by the way he talked, neither he nor Managing Director Cha had been struck by love at first sight. Granted, Hanbyeol wasn’t having any special reaction either, so apparently a name wasn’t quite the all-purpose miracle he’d expected.
...Then I’ll just have to work harder.
Hanbyeol pinched his own thigh where Managing Director Cha couldn’t see and got his eyes nicely damp. He had zero confidence in producing big sparkling eyes under his own power, so a coating of tears would have to do instead.
“Forgive me, but may I hear what you came here for first? I still have work left, so it’ll be difficult to talk for long.”
“Ah...”
“...If it’s hard to get into right now, you’re welcome to set a date and come again. You waited a long time today, so I’ll make sure to give you plenty of time then.”
“Ah...! N-no, no. It won’t take long.”
He’d faltered at how firm the man was being, and Managing Director Cha had spoken first, in that ambiguous way that could have been a subtle hint to hurry up or genuine consideration. Four whole hours of waiting — no way was he getting kicked out now, so Hanbyeol rushed to open the topic.
“It’s nothing big. It’s just, there’s something I wanted to say to you, so...”
Hold on, what is that smell?
Hanbyeol broke off mid-sentence, letting the words trail away, and rolled his eyes around the room. For a little while now he’d kept catching a faint scent, like laundry dried properly in the sun.
The exact kind of expensive soap they’d sell at a department store, plus white musk.
‘And... black tea? No. Pu’erh, maybe?’
And yet, how to put it. There was something like rain-soaked earth in there too. If he had to describe it: a clear morning after the rainy season has finally lifted, fresh out of the shower, pulling on a dry shirt and sitting down with a cup of tea.
He had no interest in perfume and had never once sprayed any, but the image just painted itself inside his head. It was such a curious feeling that Hanbyeol twitched his nose for a moment, sniffing like a dog.
“...”
Managing Director Cha looked at him the way you’d look at a pervert, the skin around his eyes giving a fine twitch. The scent hovering at the tip of Hanbyeol’s nose thinned out.
“...?”
“...”
“Ah, ...! ...!!!”
Only then did it click. What the doctor had told him, now that he’d been reborn as an omega or a gamma or whatever.
That comparison about how it would seem like more and more people were spraying perfume out on the street.
‘Don’t tell me this is it? Pheromones?’
His lips moved uselessly, his face blank and stupid. He hadn’t gone anywhere near the man, but if that really had been pheromones, he’d just buried his nose in Managing Director Cha’s nape and had himself a good long sniff.
Molestation via Bluetooth, basically.
“N-no, wait!”
He flung both hands up and flapped them frantically at the air. He shook his head side to side too, face crumpling toward tears.
This isn’t fair, I didn’t do it on purpose!
But it didn’t seem like saying so would get him believed, so in the end Hanbyeol dropped his gaze all the way to the floor. His face had gone red as he mumbled.
“S-sorry. I only manifested yesterday, so I-I didn’t know those were pheromones!”
It was the truth. Secretary Kim was recessive too, sure, but he was still an alpha, and Hanbyeol hadn’t caught a single trace of scent off him when the two of them were shut up alone in a car.
He’d passed dozens of people at minimum on the way here, and he hadn’t smelled anything even resembling pheromones.
‘So that’s what extreme recessive means. I can’t smell a thing unless the other person’s at least dominant?’
Honestly, that might be a plus.
His thoughts had wandered off somewhere else again, and Hanbyeol blinked. Which meant, now that he thought about it, that woody scent he’d smelled at the hotel the other day had been Kang Taeseo’s...
“Urk!”
“What— no, are you all right?”
“Yes. I mean, no...”
“...?”
“I’m sorry.” When Hanbyeol offered the polite apology, Managing Director Cha accepted it with a slightly bewildered air. He even knew how to smooth over the awkwardness, steering the conversation along naturally by asking whether the hospital stay had been because of the belated manifestation.
Maybe he’s not such a bad guy.
Hanbyeol, guard already dropped, gave a short nod of agreement, and then something snagged. Hold on.
...I haven’t even told Mom and Dad yet. How do you know that?
Come to think of it, the voice was oddly familiar. Hanbyeol’s eyes dropped on reflex and ran over Managing Director Cha’s legs, and then his lips parted. No way.
“Pardon me for asking, Managing Director. ...Did you happen to be at a hotel the day before yesterday?”
“Yes. I called the ambulance for you, too, Dan Hanbyeol. You didn’t know?”
“And here I thought that was why you came.” At the quietly murmured words, Hanbyeol replied as though in a trance.
“The staff told me the caller didn’t want to give their name, so...”
He’d had absolutely no idea.
How could a coincidence this ridiculous happen? He didn’t believe in fate by so much as a crumb, but at this point he was starting to wonder whether there really was such a thing as a tie between two people.
Ah. I shouldn’t be just sitting here.
Line change! Line change!
He scrubbed away the opening sentence he’d been polishing the whole bus ride over. A much easier hook for working his wiles had just landed in his lap, and there was no reason not to use it.
Hanbyeol laced his fingers together, nodded furiously, and cried out.
Everything from here on out mattered.
“I-I knew it! I had a feeling it’d be like this!”
“Pardon?”
I’m a crazy bastard. I’m a crazy bastard.
Chanting it inside his head, Hanbyeol lifted his backside off the sofa and stretched awkwardly across the table. He caught both of Managing Director Cha’s hands in a tight grip and said,
“Sorry to bother you, but I’m scheduled to become your destiny in a few months. Do you have a moment?”
“...Pardon?”
And right about here, Step 2.
Bright-eyed-lunatic sunshine heroine/shou cosplay!
He had plowed through several hundred novels and webtoons in total, for the sole purpose of imitating them. Thinking back on all those hours with his nose buried in his phone, his eyelids trembled at exactly the right moment.
“I never thought a prince on a white horse actually existed, and here you are, this gorgeous! It was love at first sight, Managing Director!”
Logic can’t solve it?
Then you just act like an idiot. No logic at all has always been harder to refute than clumsy logic.
Take an example right now. Look.
[So actually, I remember a past life, and this world is a B-grade gay novel, and I’m scheduled to die pretty soon, and after I die you come down with depression and suffer for five years. Before things get rough for both of us, how about you call it cooperation and just quietly help me out?]
↓
-Sounds like a cult.
-Takes forever.
-Pedantic and boring.
-Odds of being treated as insane: 100%.
-If persuasion fails, I get locked in a psych ward and my world ends.
Whereas?
[It was love at first sight we’re destiny! Wow babe you’re the best right? I love you!]
↓
-Sticks in the memory for a long time.
-Fast and crystal clear.
-Simple, no need to rack my brain inventing plausible-sounding nonsense.
-Odds of being treated as insane: 50%.
-If persuasion fails my world still ends, but I can keep poking at him!
Behold. This perfect plan!
Hanbyeol read the mood for a second, then quietly drew the hands he’d seized up against his own chest. Judging by how the man had gone stiff as a rock, he figured he could get away with at least this much.
Of course, this method turns people off if you use it wrong, so I’ve got to regulate the dosage.
One slip and you weren’t sunshine, you were just a nuisance, so tasting the broth carefully and not crossing the line was crucial.
Hanbyeol recited the magic incantation once more.
I am!
A craaazy bastard!
“There’s no doubt about it. We’re destiny, so the name is definitely going to show up any minute now!”
“...”
“Really, truly! I’m certain of it, you know? I really am!”
Had his desperate, pleading eyes finally gotten through?
Managing Director Cha let out a deep sigh, rose from the sofa, pulled Hanbyeol in and folded him into his arms. There was no cushion to him at all, what with all that muscle, but thinking of it as the hand of salvation made it not half bad.
He went slack to make the hug easier, and the man promptly hoisted him clean off the floor and opened the reception room door. He headed to the secretary’s office right next door and looked for his personal secretary. Song Minseok, was that the name?
And then.
Creak, slam!
“...Secretary Song.”
“Yes, Managing Director.”
“Clear this away.”
He got thrown out.
Hng!
