No matter that they weren’t related by blood—Jung Sejin had been adopted at nine, as the elder brother. Jung Minjae would have been around four then, so whether they shared blood didn’t matter much. Judging by the mood, he’d liked him for quite a while, but it was a relationship a bit too immoral to flaunt in front of others.

“Ha, fuck.”

In the end, Jung Minjae turned away, his face flushing red and blue. Just then, sensing something, Jung Sejin also lifted his head. The face shaded with a sense of discomfiture was tolerable, but beyond that, it stirred nothing in me.

“Are you going to keep up that boring conversation?”

“...”

Out of place for the situation, Sejin still smiled at those words. That brief, snorting smile looked oddly refreshing. So he does know how to smile like that. It was a small change, but we weren’t far apart, so I saw it clearly.

“Even if we are, let’s go.”

When I turned my back first, I felt him fall in behind me. In that characteristically gentle voice, he spoke like a considerate older brother. Let’s finish the rest later; if anything urgent comes up, call me. After drawing out the tail of his words, he added something rather cruel.

“I’m going.”

My assessment of him ticked a little higher—from someone who managed his expressions well to someone who knew how to cut cleanly. Though that assessment changed again once we got in the car side by side.

“I’m sorry.”

He neither excused nor blindly defended his younger brother’s remarks. He obediently offered an apology and politely asked for forgiveness. He didn’t show any offense at what I said, nor did he bristle at apologizing for someone else’s fault.

“Whether Haesin Financial’s second son likes a non-blood-related omega is not something I need to involve myself in.”

“...”

Well, at that he did look a little embarrassed.

“At that age, people tend to lose their minds over who they like.”

I wouldn’t know, since I’ve never lost mine like that, but either way, it had nothing to do with me. People bad-mouth kings behind their backs; what did it matter what they called me? If gossip started circulating, that would be annoying, but given we’d heard nothing so far, it seemed they were handling themselves well enough.

“...I’m sorry.”

“I appreciate the lack of pointless excuses.”

That, at least, was pure truth. There’s nothing I hate more than someone droning on with a sob story. Sejin said nothing further, merely clenched his fists and turned his gaze to the car window.

***

The place where Jung Sejin would live from now on was a small room tucked in a corner on the third floor. With its own bathroom and dressing room, it was the minimum leniency I could extend him. By providing his food, clothing, and shelter, I considered my duty done.

As expected, Sejin made no complaints. The staff said he didn’t even show a hint of dissatisfaction. Even after hearing the house was monitored without blind spots by CCTV installed throughout, he didn’t ask the petty question of whether his room had one too.

He was better than I’d thought. No—quite decent. Except for the one needless time he came out to greet me the day after he moved in.

“...Why are you here?”

Unlike Sejin, who took leave after the wedding, I went to work as usual. The ring on my finger felt unfamiliar, so I’d taken it off in the car on the way back and had just gotten home. He appeared all the way to the inner door; while I stared at him, he offered me a troubled smile.

“I did something unnecessary.”

I don’t know why that apology, tossed out as easily as breathing, rubbed me the wrong way. When he said if it made me uncomfortable, he’d just stay in his room from tomorrow, a vague, sticky discomfort surged up. I hadn’t said it to reproach him, yet hearing it made me feel ill at ease.

“I’m telling you there’s no need to do this. You seemed to be under the illusion that you’re my actual spouse.”

I hadn’t brought home a dutiful spouse; I was holding a hostage according to contract. This omega was the contract deposit, and I assumed he knew that. So he must have nodded meekly and admitted fault.

“I’ll be careful from now on.”

Should I praise how quickly he conceded? Or should I double-check that he really understood what I meant? He said he’d live without presence just as I wanted, but that face with no hidden agenda felt all the more suspicious.

Yet for the four days after that, Sejin truly didn’t come out to greet me. He holed up quietly in his room and only received meals from the head chef on schedule. I hadn’t told him not to roam around, nor said he couldn’t step outside the house. It looked almost like a silent protest.

The incident happened on a day it rained, though the forecast hadn’t called for it. I was also debating whether to process the resignation for the security team leader I hadn’t managed to persuade. Then came word that the quiet Sejin was suddenly down with a heat cycle. Because I’d told staff not to contact me over trifles, they only informed me after I’d finished work and come home.

At first I didn’t think it was a big deal. With special traits, having a cycle come around was natural. If he had any sense, he would have taken his suppressants, and even if he didn’t have any, there were plenty of staff who could bring them to him.

“He’s not taking suppressants?”

But what spread out in that room deserved to be called a spectacle. Sejin was hidden under the covers, but his pheromones were starkly palpable. The floral scent, thick enough to make my head spin, laid bare exactly what he wanted.

“Pulling every trick in the book, aren’t we.”

I was angry. Maybe I also felt a little contempt.

So he’d laid low just waiting for the right moment. That omega-sweet pheromone, lewd as an animal in heat, was filthy beyond words. When I grabbed his jaw and forced it up, even the look in his eyes staring at me was soaked in lust.

“Jung Sejin.”

The leash on my reason shortened, and my grip tightened. I’d been suspicious, since he’d had no pheromones at all before, but he was indeed of superior traits. Any ordinary alpha might have lost his mind and lunged. The pheromones surging in waves had a presence so dense it felt like my brain would go numb.

“Whatever you were expecting... I’m not giving it to you, so keep yourself in check.”

“H—hah...”

This sort of seduction sickened me. It was obvious he’d deliberately refused suppressants, holding out to entangle me somehow. So he was flooding the room with that filthy pheromone and playing tricks with his paltry body.

What I hadn’t expected was that even I, a superior alpha, nearly responded in earnest to his pheromones. So I flung out my own, sharpened like a blade, as if to lash out—but even his face streaming tears looked like he was begging for sex.

“Ah—what about his meal...”

“If he won’t eat, force it down. As for the suppressant, call the doctor and have it injected if you have to.”

Instinct. If I stayed in that room any longer, something unintended would happen—that was the premonition. I was certainly angry, yet my reason was blurring; if I relaxed for an instant, I felt like my consciousness would drift far away.

I fled his room and washed the pheromones off my whole body more than three times. But the lingering note clung as thickly as if I’d doused myself in perfume; it wasn’t the kind that rinsed away with water. Even after a long, cold shower, I couldn’t calm down, and I had ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) to keep chewing curses under my breath.

“Ah... fuck.”

It felt like a rut. Over some omega who was nothing special. The feeling was a first in my life, and irritation rose without end.

According to the staff, Sejin ultimately didn’t take the suppressant. When they decided enough was enough and called his attending physician, he even rejected the injected suppressant and vomited it back up.

I learned the reason the very next day—after a night of not sleeping a wink myself.

***

Tock, tock—I tapped my finger lightly against the papers. Work hours had long since started; soon a staff member would come call me to eat. The paperwork I should have handled already lay in front of me, but what filled my head was something else.

'They say suppressants don’t work on his constitution.'

So suppressants didn’t work on him. Haesin had hidden that flaw—if it could be called one—flawlessly until now. Seeing as there was no mention of it in the medical records Secretary Park had brought, they must have tried hard to leave no trace.

It was clear enough what Chairman Jung had been thinking when he sent that omega. If I gave in and slept with him, he hoped there’d be a link called an heir. A superior omega’s pheromones were enough to rile an alpha, and if what I wanted was an heir, I would have taken him without hesitation.

“...”

The tear-streaked face flickered before my eyes. The heaving breath, the trembling lids—that was why I hadn’t slept last night. Even while I was, out of season, jerking off, that tidy face, sullied with every kind of desire, wouldn’t leave my mind.

I didn’t think I had misunderstood him. Even if the reason he hadn’t taken suppressants was constitutional, his intention wouldn’t differ from what I’d expected. Sejin was Haesin’s man; his desires would align with Chairman Jung’s.

Knock, knock.

While I was deep in thought, there came a light knock. I told them to enter, without much sincerity, and someone cautiously opened the study door.

“I’m busy, so keep it brief.”

There was no need to check who it was. A staff member—or Secretary Park. Those were about the only people in this house who would come find me. What was strange was that, contrary to habit, the person said nothing for a while.

“What is it?”

I scrawled a signature with the pen in my hand. I’d read the contents a while back; I’d just been staring too long. I should go in to the office this afternoon, I thought—and just then, I heard a familiar voice.

“I apologize for coming suddenly.”

“...”

It wasn’t a staffer or Secretary Park who’d come to the study. That smooth voice, without anything grating in it, belonged to the omega who’d tormented me last night. A beat late, I raised my head and saw Sejin, dressed comfortably.

“I have something to say, briefly.”

He looked so put-together it made last night’s scene feel like a dream. The hair falling over his brow was slightly mussed, so straight brows came into view. In those lightly colored eyes there was none of yesterday’s heat; his slow blinks were nothing but gentle.

“If it’s all right, could I have just a moment—”

“...”

“...Is something the matter?”

I looked him over slowly from head to toe. Only a few hours had passed, yet the sight of him in heat felt like a mirage. All the more because I couldn’t feel a trace of pheromone from him.

“So you washed.”

I’d had to wash more than three times to scrub his pheromones off. How had the person himself left everything behind without a trace? That heat still burned on my skin, yet he himself stood there lukewarm, as if nothing had happened. Even the sheepish pinch at the corners of his eyes felt like a different person from yesterday.

“Yes, I washed before coming.”

“Speak.”

His return to near-nonexistence displeased me. With no change in expression, he looked peaceful—unlike me, who hadn’t slept a wink. So while I stared, not entirely pleased, he quietly lowered his eyes and suddenly bowed from the waist.

“I was very rude in several ways yesterday.”

An abrupt apology. I wasn’t flustered; I was only curious what his aim was. Whether he’d quickly sensed he’d offended me—or whether he was here to attempt another negotiation.

“My cycle is normally regular, so I didn’t expect a heat to come on suddenly. I should have prepared in advance; I behaved irresponsibly. I’ll be careful from next time.”

He didn’t sound like he was lying. As if the heat truly had come on suddenly, and it hadn’t been deliberate. Enough that I wondered if I’d misjudged him.

So I was about to send him back when the one thing I least wanted to hear slipped out, casually prefacing itself.

“I’m a man, so the chances of pregnancy aren’t high, but they said with superior traits it wouldn’t be a problem.”

It felt like a douse of cold water. Words that forced me, trying to see him in a better light, to face reality.

“They also said there’s no particular illness, and that the hospital said it would be fine as long as the timing was right.”

What had I been thinking. He was, after all, Chairman Jung Cheol-ho’s son. For all that he looked dry, wanting nothing—what he wanted in the end was only a link to Seonho.

“So...”

“There’s a type I hate most.”

In truth, I didn’t have to speak so coldly. I didn’t intend to brand him as someone selling his body, nor to insult him as a wretched piece of flesh. But the more I spoke, the worse I felt, and my face and mouth started to stiffen.

It was disappointment in myself, for nursing expectations on my own. If I had to pin part of it on him, it was blame for declaring, despite having been discarded by his own parents, that he’d irresponsibly have a child. Marriage was a contract between two consenting adults, but a child born that way had no say at all.

“...I’m sorry.”

As expected, he apologized again without argument. What surprised me was that the emotion flickering over his face wasn’t what I’d anticipated.

“In the future... this won’t happen again.”

It was anxiety. More precisely, fear. Not at my words offending him, but at his own wrong choice.

I didn’t know why he wore that expression. I could only vaguely guess it was because his plan had gone awry. Whatever he wanted of me, he at least didn’t want to fall out of my favor.

“Aren’t you going?”

He ended by saying he’d return to the office, then bowed. Apologizing came easy to him, as did bowing, as did keeping an unruffled face at my stiff replies. Those actions, natural as if ingrained, were a little ill-fitting for someone who’d grown up as the eldest son of a conglomerate.

“Ah.”

What made me stop him was nothing but a fit of irritation. My eye fell on his left hand at the doorknob—on that bare finger that was a thorn in my eye.

“Don’t forget to wear your ring.”

“...”

To talk about having a child and go around without a ring—weren’t his words and actions too far apart?

His lips parted, like he might immediately offer some retort. But contrary to my expectation, all that came out again was, “All right.” Only then did I look away, and that was where our conversation ended.

***

My marriage to Haesin didn’t affect my life in any way. The good was that no more annoying proposals would come; the bad, perhaps, was the occasional curiosity when someone saw my wedding ring. Of course, even that was nothing as long as I ignored it—too trivial a discomfort to even count.

Meanwhile, Sejin smothered his presence exactly as I’d wanted. Sometimes I forgot he was even in the house, so when we did cross paths now and then, even I was inwardly startled. What I didn’t like was the attitude he showed me in those moments.

“Ah, I’m sorry.”

Every time, he spit out an automatic apology like a guilty man. Anyone watching would think I abused or mistreated him. The latter might not be wrong, but the former was a bit unfair. Still, the way he left with a light nod and a polite glance was exactly what I’d wanted in a spouse.

So why did it keep rubbing me the wrong way? What first snagged like a tiny thorn gradually became a feeling I couldn’t ignore. The more carefully he moved, the fewer points of contact we had—the more, in his absence, I found myself looking for Jung Sejin.