After speaking, Andrea checked the time. Ah, it’s almost time? His nonchalant expression seemed to say so. Icanoth’s slightly parted lips trembled. He couldn’t accept what had happened to him, or what was about to happen. Unconsciously, he grabbed Andrea’s arm.
Please stop this.
Andrea would have understood the meaning conveyed by that gesture. His gaze briefly turned to the hand desperately gripping him, but he didn’t look for long, merely covering the back of that hand with his own. Chillingly affectionate.
“If Icanoth-ssi is crying like this… how worried he would be. Especially since you’ve been out of contact since that day.”
“…”
“Don’t worry too much. You’re a recessive, so unless you’re mixing bodies with an alpha, your pheromones won’t spread far. At most, only I would be able to smell them.”
The car, which had momentarily stopped at a signal, started as soon as the light turned green. It was heading to the company, but it was also the path to meeting Bjorn. This time, he sensed it wasn’t a lie. Only Andrea, sitting in the seat next to him, could have turned this path in a different direction, but he didn’t.
Icanoth wanted to ask. Why he was being so cruel to him.
The reason he couldn’t ask was complex. Fear of Andrea, last remnants of pride. Or the terror that the reason Andrea might give would be something he could never stop with his own power.
What if knowing would only bring greater despair?
If he came to know that too, would he be completely broken and become subordinate to Andrea? The image of himself kneeling at Andrea’s feet, begging for mercy that Andrea would offer like a kindness, was vivid.
* * *
“I’m sorry. I needed Icanoth-ssi for some urgent matters to resolve until morning. Are we too late?”
Upon arriving at the company, Icanoth had no idea what to do or how to do it.
“You brought him just in time! Icanoth-ssi, over here! Come quickly!”
“M-me?”
“There’s no time for this. We need to get your photo taken first.”
“What?”
Having barely stopped his tears and followed Andrea into the company, Andrea said something incomprehensible and pushed him toward an employee on the same floor. His wrist was grabbed, and he was hurriedly led somewhere. He had his photo taken in front of people holding large cameras, received documents he had never seen before, and—
“Oh, we’re going to be late. We need to hurry.”
Once again, he was helplessly dragged away while among other people. Andrea, who had been at a distance, smiled and gestured toward Icanoth.
“Have a good time.”
Though his whispering voice quickly faded, it was as if it stubbornly clung to some part of his ear. Icanoth walked unsteadily. Following Lasi, who was holding his wrist. It seemed like he was saying something, but honestly, Icanoth couldn’t hear anything. He could only think about what had happened yesterday.
Hadn’t he noticed anything strange while entering the office and talking with Andrea? He was afraid that they might be deliberately pretending not to know. Only after facing them did he roughly guess that they really didn’t know, but there were other things afterward.
They said it was the day for presenting an important project. The presentation was just 10 minutes away, yet Icanoth didn’t even know what this important project was. Standing stupidly in his place, he belatedly replayed what Andrea had said in his mind.
A matter heavily related to that company.
Bjorn’s company.
It was natural that he knew nothing. He had only followed Andrea around and just had sex with him. Doing it, and doing it again. Doing it to the point where his body had completely changed. What else was there besides that? Since breaking off the engagement with Bjorn, his life had been full of such incidents. Wasn’t it still a continuation of such incidents? The foreign sensation inside his body made its presence known.
Why can’t I resist even once while enduring such things for someone who abandoned me? While Icanoth was mocking himself, the others moved quickly. The people right in front of him seemed like people from another world, or like people beyond a screen.
“Icanoth-ssi, over here.”
And even in the midst of such busyness, they handed him presentation-related materials.
[Bailey Grown]
[Lasi Enoch]
[Ran Icanoth]
The document, where not even a single sentence, let alone a paragraph, was familiar, had his name written on it. Had they hired someone else to substitute for his work? The team members all spoke words Icanoth couldn’t understand, and they all collectively gave him eyes that seemed to say thank you and sorry.
“Finally, today’s the presentation. Everyone worked really hard, especially Icanoth-ssi. You must have had a lot of work with Carp-ssi too. It must have been tough with this additional work on top of that?”
“That’s right. You worked so hard. You didn’t stay up all night yesterday too, did you?”
“Icanoth-ssi was probably the busiest among us. After this is over, we must—”
What is everyone talking about?
Contrary to his decaying inner feelings, Andrea was watching Icanoth’s face, which was barely maintaining a blank expression. As always, he pulled up the corners of his mouth. Behind him, leaning on his chair, were several people.
Company executives, people from affiliates related to this project… among them, Bjorn.
“Ah—”
It was a face he saw clearly again after two days. His calmness, like a sand castle, crumbled into pieces with a short sigh. Not because he saw Bjorn. It was because when Bjorn’s eyes met Icanoth’s, as he sat at the lower part of the stage, he lowered his gaze. Although his straight lips were trembling subtly, Icanoth was once again turned away by the person he loved dearly.
“…”
Before the devastation could dig into his heart, every part of the hall except where the screen was turned dark. From a bright place, you couldn’t see the dark places, but from a dark place, the bright areas were clearly visible. The thought that Andrea and Bjorn might be watching him together made it impossible for him to hide his agitation.
He seemed to understand why he had been forcibly placed on stage. Although there was a separate person holding the microphone and making the presentation, and Icanoth was just standing in a corner of the stage with five or six other people, the thought of receiving Bjorn’s full gaze made it feel like a shower was pouring over his head.
“Uu. Ungh.”
Andrea is looking this way. He didn’t have the composure to realize the meaning of the gaze sent to him by the man who captivated attention wherever he was, but it was frightening just to be touched by it.
“Hu…”
In an instant, he clearly felt the presence of the device buried inside his body. No. Andrea, no. He could only mutter inwardly without making any sound. But soon, a dull pleasure began to approach, resonating inside his body. The tingling in his lower abdomen was instantaneous.
“Icanoth-ssi, you need to stand.”
Lasi, sitting next to him, whispered and pulled Icanoth’s arm. His trembling thighs twisted in various directions while pressed together. As he leaned against the wall, his vision spun.
Whenever his teeth were about to clash, the inside of his lips between them was bitten. He didn’t even know how he was holding back his voice. The device pressed against the mucous membrane vibrated. It wasn’t thrashing inside or vibrating severely like yesterday, but the slow sensation was like a harbinger of what was to come. Icanoth’s face, after struggling to stand up and then sitting down when others did, was red one moment and pale the next.
“Ah.”
The tips of his feet curled inside his shoes. The vibration inside his body was gradually intensifying. As it began to move inside like rolling, the sound from the device was transmitted through his body. And… it was gradually rising. Even as he exhaled with difficulty, it kept rising bit by bit. If it went up any further, a section might come where it would be difficult to suppress sound. His hands gripping his knees tensed up.
What would Bjorn think if he saw me? Would he notice the discomfort? He had relations with Bjorn just as much as with Andrea. He was afraid that actions that might seem trivial to others would appear different to him. Even if everyone else in the room found out, he didn’t want Bjorn to discover what had happened with Andrea.
“Haa, hup…”
How long had he endured, breaking into a cold sweat? After the presentation ended, loud applause was heard. Icanoth, who had been clapping in bewilderment, stood up from his chair along with others. Mercifully, Andrea temporarily stopped the device only when Icanoth was descending. But after sitting next to him, he turned the switch back on.
“Huup. Keuk.”
The one fortunate thing was that since the surroundings were dark, covering his mouth with both hands didn’t attract attention from others. Everyone was watching the video coming from the screen. Andrea mostly kept his eyes there too, occasionally turning his gaze to the seat next to him. The sight of him biting the back of his hand, the veins rising in his neck as he tried to suppress sounds.
…Wanting to see all of that more clearly, he moved the small remote control in his hand. Icanoth, who had barely managed to suppress his voice, trembled with his hands clasped together. His breath, mixed with sound, leaked from around his neck and lingered in his mouth.
“Ah, ha… aah…”
His curled toes straightened. When he pressed down on his knees to stop his excessively trembling legs, his thighs continued to shake uncontrollably. Already erect but pressed by the belt Andrea had put on, his lower region, unable to stand properly, felt stiff. Icanoth hurriedly narrowed his legs that had spread apart. The sweat that had formed on his forehead dripped onto the back of his hand.
