Ironically, just as the library reading rooms were packed with students because exams were only a few weeks away, the bars around campus were just as crowded with college students too.
The freshmen who hadn’t yet tasted the bitterness of grades were busy going on group blind dates, and the upperclassmen weren’t any different. Every time, they swore that for the next exam they’d study like their lives depended on it, that they absolutely wouldn’t drink a single sip, and yet the kind of creatures they were were exactly those who, after studying hard today, naturally headed to a bar as their reward.
“Hey, happy birthday!”
“Happy birthday, Gyeong-min!”
Today, Won-hyeok had been dragged to a classmate’s birthday party. Maybe because that classmate had an especially wide social circle even within the English Department, quite a lot of people had gathered. Out of all of them, Won-hyeok was seated right in the very middle, muttering curses to himself.
Hands kept reaching in from all sides, trying one way or another to fill Won-hyeok’s glass. Quite ironically, the one receiving endless attention instead of the birthday person himself was none other than the English Department idol.
“Won-hyeok, this is good. Try it.”
“Hyung, I heard you were sick recently. Are you okay?”
At a glance, Won-hyeok looked somewhat removed from the average, utterly commonplace Korean college student. Not just because of his exceptional looks and traits, but also because the fact that his family was wealthy was already common knowledge among anyone in the department who was even a little in the know. On top of that, there was his pleasant personality too—though that was really the result of him perfectly hiding his true nature.
It was only natural, perhaps, that attention flowed toward Won-hyeok from classmates, juniors, and seniors alike. Even the birthday person, who should have been the center of attention tonight, was busy trying to strike up conversation with Won-hyeok.
“Yeah. I rested a lot, so I’m fine.”
Won-hyeok thought this: How were humans any different from bugs, really?
In Won-hyeok’s eyes, there wasn’t much difference between moths rushing toward something shiny even though they knew they’d burn to death if they got too close to the flame, and these people who dressed him up however they pleased with nonsense like idol and came at him with reverent eyes, trying somehow to get close to him.
“By the way, I heard you’ve been going in and out of the library lately. Is that true?”
One of the classmates sitting across from him casually spoke to Won-hyeok and held out a glass.
“Yeah.”
“Wow, seriously? You’re doing all kinds of things you never used to do, you bastard. Hey, you come in first even without studying.”
“They say the scariest kind of person is a genius who actually works hard. That’s totally you, oppa.”
Maybe they had overheard the conversation, because the other classmates sitting on either side joined in. Toward the people chattering at him and practically spraying spit as they spoke, Won-hyeok replied lightly that it wasn’t like that.
As for being brilliant and a genius, he didn’t particularly feel any desire to deny it. But Won-hyeok was someone rather far removed from the word effort. Maybe he had taken after his father, but he’d been born with an excellent brain, so he had never needed to stay up all night during exam season like everyone else, or read through his major textbooks several times while agonizing over them.
Even so, the reason he had been planting himself in the library lately was because of exactly one person. At first, it had started with suspicion—wondering if, after saying he was going to the library, Han-gyeom might actually be off doing something pointless instead.
[I’m eating lunch at the library. Han-gyeom is here too lol]
Then, when he got that text from Kim Sun-woo, how should he put it—he’d been irritated. It infuriated him that Han-gyeom wasn’t answering his calls or texts, and yet he was hearing where the guy was from another bastard’s mouth.
Once he knew Han-gyeom had been quietly studying at the library all this time, the suspicion that he might be fooling around disappeared, but even then, Won-hyeok kept going to the library with Han-gyeom for several days.
He would sometimes catch Han-gyeom lightly biting his lips when he was concentrating, or nodding off after eating because of that post-meal drowsiness. His handwriting, as he wrote down key points in a notebook with a pencil—something hardly anyone used these days—was quite pretty.
“Won-hyeok, by any chance, do you want me to set you up with a girl?”
Won-hyeok had been thinking, Surely Kang Han-gyeom didn’t just eat convenience store food again tonight, did he, when a classmate sitting a little farther away threw out the unexpected question.
“Set up?”
“Yeah. A younger girl I know from my club is making a huge fuss asking me to introduce you to her. She majors in piano in the College of Arts, and she’s pretty.”
At that, several of the female students sitting nearby started glaring at that classmate like he was their mortal enemy. Among them, Lee Yeon-su, who had been sitting across from Won-hyeok and talking to him the whole time, looked about ready to fire laser beams from her eyes.
“I don’t know. I’m not really into setups…”
“But hyung, with that face of yours, how have you never dated even once?”
“Hey, you really think he hasn’t? He’s probably just keeping it secret. Imagine it got out who his lover was. They’d become public enemy number one.”
Why did all these pathetic little things always have to pile on with comments like that when the actual person involved was sitting still? Irritated, Won-hyeok tossed back a shot of soju for no reason.
“If you do have a lover, they’re probably an omega, right?”
At the probing question, Won-hyeok just smiled. It wasn’t simply a forced smile to avoid answering—he had genuinely found it funny for a moment.
He did have a lover now. Because recently, one absurd situation after another had piled up and piled up. But Kang Han-gyeom wasn’t an omega. He was a beta. One who, on the outside, really looked like an omega.
“What, from that smile it really seems like you do have someone.”
“Do Won-hyeok, you seriously have someone you’re dating?!”
Even Kang Yubin, who had been drinking his fill at another table, widened his eyes.
“Why is everyone so interested in other people’s love lives? Think whatever you want.”
“Wow, you’re getting out of it like that?”
Why the fuck did everyone want to know every detail of his private life, whether he had a lover or not? Won-hyeok swallowed down another curse internally. And even in the middle of all that, he just kept wondering whether that loser Kang Han-gyeom had at least eaten dinner properly.
“But why isn’t Kim Sun-woo here?”
“He said he just left the library. He’s bringing a junior with him.”
“From our department?”
“Looks like it. I told him to bring them since it’s better with more people.”
Won-hyeok was so wrapped up in thoughts of Han-gyeom that he barely even heard the chatter going on right beside him. Then, deciding he should satisfy his curiosity first, he picked up his phone, said he’d step out for a moment, and slowly made his way outside.
The greasy, humid smell. The stench of alcohol pricking unpleasantly at his nose. And all those mouths so loud he wanted to shove gags into every last one of them. Once he got away from all of that, it became just a little easier to breathe. On the way out, he had texted asking what Han-gyeom had eaten for dinner, but Han-gyeom still hadn’t replied.
“Does he carry that phone around as decoration? Fuck, how am I supposed to fix that habit…?”
He was fiddling with the cigarettes he kept tucked deep inside the inner pocket of his jacket, about to head into the alley, when unexpectedly, someone opened the bar door and came out after him.
With quick reflexes, Won-hyeok pulled back the hand that had been about to take out a cigarette.
“You came out for some air?”
“Yeah.”
Lee Yeon-su, who had held onto the seat right across from Won-hyeok from the moment the drinking started, glanced up at him and gave him a shy smile.
“Actually, I wanted some air too. I think I drank too much. My stomach already feels off.”
“You should’ve mixed it with soda. We have first period tomorrow.”
Why couldn’t she manage her own alcohol tolerance, and why was she telling someone else about being drunk? Naturally, Yeon-su had no idea what Won-hyeok was really thinking, and perhaps taking his words as concern in her own way, she edged a little closer to him, narrowing the distance.
Won-hyeok gritted his teeth while staring at the still-unanswered chat with Han-gyeom, when he felt his sleeve being tugged.
“My head hurts a little… can I lean on you for a second?”
At that moment, as pheromones brushing his nose tickled the air, Won-hyeok’s eyes turned cold. Was she an omega? He had more or less noticed the interested looks she’d been sending him, but he hadn’t expected her to be this annoying—subtly leaking pheromones and all.
“But Won-hyeok, about what they were saying earlier… Do you really have a lover?”
“So what if I do?”
“Huh? No, I was just curious.”
The cigarette in his jacket suddenly appealed to him even more. Unlike ordinary people, trait-holders possessed special elements.
The most representative example was the unique pheromones released by alphas and omegas. Among them, alpha pheromones had quite a variety of uses. They could be used to check other alphas, to mark someone as their possession, or to easily drive an omega into heat.
That last use, in particular, applied to omegas too. The special pheromones they possessed could send an alpha into rut, and because of that, the theory widely accepted was that the two traits were designed to be instinctively drawn to each other.
But right now, Won-hyeok felt deeply disgusted. He simply hated the omega pheromones slipping into his nose. It wasn’t that he hated omegas in general. But unlike ordinary alphas, he had never once in his life gone crazy over omega pheromones or gotten excited without thinking.
Seen in that light, what had happened with Kang Han-gyeom on that rut day could only remain deeply questionable. His body, which hadn’t even reacted to omegas, had responded to that guy.
“Do you really have someone?”
When Won-hyeok delayed answering a little too long, Lee Yeon-su must have grown uneasy, because she asked again. Won-hyeok stared right at her.
“No.”
“Really?”
There was no reason to talk about Kang Han-gyeom to someone who had nothing to do with him. Smiling brightly like someone who had just received an unexpected gift, Lee Yeon-su grabbed Won-hyeok’s arm and leaned into him even more.
“Oh? What are you two doing out here? Nice picture, huh?”
At that moment, a voice called from the front. Kim Sun-woo, who had apparently just arrived, strode up to them with his hands shoved in his pockets.
“Kim Sun-woo, you’re only getting here now?”
Lee Yeon-su raised a hand in greeting, and then someone else suddenly poked his head out from behind Kim Sun-woo.
“S-sunbae.”
It was Han-gyeom. Won-hyeok, who had been absentmindedly acknowledging Sun-woo’s greeting, widened his eyes.
“…Why are you here?”
“Ah, well…”
Han-gyeom looked at Won-hyeok’s face and smiled out of habit. Then his gaze lowered a little. The place his eyes landed was on Lee Yeon-su’s arm, which was wrapped around Won-hyeok’s like she was linking arms with him.
Realizing where Han-gyeom’s eyes had gone, Won-hyeok frowned and sharply knocked her arm away. The motion was cold enough that the atmosphere in front of the bar instantly turned frigid.
Flustered, Lee Yeon-su’s eyes darted anxiously, and after leaving behind a quick apology for clinging too much, she hurried back into the bar. An awkward smile hung at the edge of her mouth, and her eyelashes trembled as though she might burst into tears at any moment.
“Hey, what’s wrong with you? I think you startled Lee Yeon-su.”
“Why is Han-gyeom here?”
As if the other matter didn’t concern him in the slightest from the beginning, Won-hyeok asked in a voice edged with sharpness.
“Huh? Ah, I brought him. We ran into each other on the way out of the library, and he said he hadn’t eaten dinner yet. I was gonna feed him.”
As if backing up Kim Sun-woo’s explanation, Han-gyeom nodded, saying that was how it happened.
“…Kim Sun-woo, they were looking for you inside. You should go back in.”
“Oh, right. Let’s go, Han-gyeom.”
“Leave Han-gyeom here.”
Won-hyeok grabbed Han-gyeom’s wrist to stop him from going.
“I was about to go to the convenience store anyway. I’ll take him.”
“Huh? Why would you bother taking him—”
Ignoring Sun-woo’s words that followed, Won-hyeok led Han-gyeom down the street and across the road. Only after they had moved to the opposite side and he confirmed they were far enough from the bar did he stop.
“If you were coming, you could’ve at least told me.”
“I was going to, but things got hectic.”
“You know any of the people in there?”
Han-gyeom shook his head as though there was no way he would.
“Then why did you come along? It’s a place full of people you don’t know.”
And on top of that, it was a drinking party.
“Because you’re here, sunbae.”
“……”
“Sun-woo sunbae said you were here…”
So I came, Han-gyeom said, lightly catching hold of Won-hyeok’s sleeve. It was such a stark contrast to Lee Yeon-su, who had linked arms with him earlier without permission.
“W-would it still make you uncomfortable if I’m here after all?”
“…Did you hear what I said earlier?”
“Huh?”
“What I was saying with my classmate in front of the bar.”
Han-gyeom stared out into empty space as though retracing what had happened a few minutes ago, then slowly nodded.
“Han-gyeom, that…”
Won-hyeok ran a hand back through his bangs with a gesture that looked slightly annoyed.
“She’s a classmate of mine, and I think she drank too much and got dizzy.”
Even as he explained that he had only been holding onto her for a moment because of that, Won-hyeok felt like, What the hell am I even doing? But if he didn’t get ahead of this now, then later Han-gyeom might start pestering him with something like, That time, weren’t you even standing there with someone else linked to your arm?
“I thought so. She really did look a little unwell. If you’re going to the convenience store, should we buy that sunbae some hangover medicine too?”
Han-gyeom asked. At the words and behavior that showed not even a trace of suspicion, malice, or anything resembling the jealousy one ought to have in a relationship, Won-hyeok blinked slowly.
“Fuck, do you not have any jealousy at all?”
“Huh?”
Ah, no, that’s not it. Realizing his usual self had almost slipped out without him noticing, Won-hyeok hurriedly rubbed at the corner of his mouth.
“And also, about me saying I didn’t have a lover…”
Won-hyeok hastily changed the subject. Han-gyeom had directly heard him answer “no” when asked if he had a lover, so even if, letting it slide a hundred times over, Han-gyeom could somehow be okay with someone else leaning on him, this was the kind of thing that could really become a serious problem between lovers.
Right now, Kang Han-gyeom was smiling like an adorable fool, but he might just be hiding the fact that his feelings had been hurt, so Won-hyeok needed to at least make some excuse.
“Ah! Come to think of it, I was so startled because I thought your classmate had found out. It’s a relief you immediately said you didn’t have a lover.”
As Han-gyeom smiled brightly and said how relieved he was, Won-hyeok’s brows slowly rose and his eyes turned cold.
“…It’s a relief that I lied and said I don’t have a lover?”
“If we got found out, it’d be a little difficult.”
If it would be difficult, then difficult for whom exactly? At that one sentence, Won-hyeok’s expression grew complicated—no, more than that, it turned somewhat dangerous.
