Chapter 52
“…We’re out of cold medicine at home. I feel bad, what should I do?”
“Oh, it’s okay.”
It seemed she hesitated to answer, feeling sorry about not having medicine. As Hyeon-woo was about to put on his coat and head to the pharmacy, the aunt stopped him.
“You said you’ve been having headaches, right? And a slight fever too?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you go to the hospital for a check-up instead?”
“…I can’t go to the hospital.”
Hyeon-woo couldn’t fully explain his situation to the aunt. Her attitude seemed cautious and careful as she looked at Hyeon-woo, who remained silent with his mouth shut.
“It might be better not to take any medicine for a while. Not just cold medicine.”
As she was listing out incomprehensible advice, she suddenly exclaimed to Hyeon-woo as if she remembered something.
“Oh! Look at me! I have something to give you. Would you like to sit down for a moment?”
Hyeon-woo pulled out a chair opposite the aunt as she stood up. When she returned, she was holding a large glass jar filled with something yellow.
“It’s quince syrup. You’ve been looking unwell lately, so I asked a friend who’s good at making fruit syrups to get one for me. It’s good for colds too. Would you like to try some now?”
It was hard to refuse the aunt who was suggesting it with sparkling eyes. When Hyeon-woo nodded, she happily put water in the electric kettle right away. Soon the water boiled, and the tangy scent of quince spread throughout the house.
Trying quince tea for the first time in his life, Hyeon-woo strangely felt his uncomfortable stomach becoming more at ease.
“How is it?”
“It’s delicious.”
“Don’t hold back, drink a lot! When you finish it, I’ll bring you more.”
Her kindness was appreciated. Feeling his throbbing headache ease a bit, Hyeon-woo sipped the sweet and sour quince tea with a comfortable heart.
*
“…Huk… Heuk….”
Near dawn, another attack began.
Tae-geon’s rough breathing cut through the night’s silence. It felt like the blood in his entire body was boiling. The bed sheets were damp with Tae-geon’s cold sweat.
What used to happen once or twice while sleeping had recently become several severe bouts of fever each day for Tae-geon. He couldn’t sleep at all. Tae-geon, who had been groaning in pain on Hyeon-woo’s bed, twisted his whole body once again.
The personal physician who used to make house calls once a week to diagnose Tae-geon’s symptoms was now almost living there. This doctor was the one who had raised the young Tae-geon like his own child, caring for him as he suffered from severe trauma.
Born with an inherently volatile temperament and the added trait of being an extreme alpha, Tae-geon had a nature that no one could control when he exploded. It was thanks to this physician, Kwon Hak-gyu, that Tae-geon was taught to control himself, that he was able to meet Hyeon-woo, and that he was able to grow up to be somewhat human-like.
At Tae-geon’s request not to inform his family, Kwon Hak-gyu drove his car every night from a distant region to examine Tae-geon. He knew that Tae-geon was living with Hyeon-woo after they entered the same university, but Tae-geon was always alone in the house.
Just as suspicion was beginning to arise, Tae-geon preemptively said:
‘Hyeon-woo is staying at another friend’s house.’
‘…’
‘Because I can’t let him see me like this.’
Looking at Tae-geon with an unreadable expression, the doctor advised that it might be better to take a break from school for a while, but Tae-geon shook his head.
‘I have something else planned.’
Kwon Hak-gyu suddenly felt a chill down his spine at the look in Tae-geon’s eyes as he murmured this. Sensing this, Tae-geon quickly softened his expression.
‘It’s a lousy school, so shouldn’t I at least have good grades? If I want to get even a few more crumbs later.’
‘…’
‘And I need to go to school to see Hyeon-woo.’
The doctor didn’t say anything more after Tae-geon’s additional comment. And soon after, the winter break began.
“Kugh…!”
Hearing the sound of a suppressed groan, Kwon Hak-gyu entered the room to check on Tae-geon’s condition. He examined Tae-geon thoroughly with his experienced hands, but he couldn’t figure out what kind of illness this was.
Looking at the symptoms alone, it was similar to the signs of an approaching rut.
Tae-geon in rut…
Kwon Hak-gyu shook his head.
Rut was a kind of alpha heat that occurred in alphas who had imprinted on an omega.
He had been working for years to cure Tae-geon’s severe trauma towards omegas. However, the roots were so deep that Tae-geon’s childhood ended without being able to properly address it. A sense of guilt about this always remained in one corner of Kwon Hak-gyu’s heart like a grudge.
For such a Tae-geon to imprint on an omega? It was nonsense.
Not only were cases of alphas imprinting first rare, but Tae-geon was an extreme alpha. Imprinting by an extreme alpha was biologically almost impossible. Being bound to a single omega was a significant loss in the reproduction process, so the more dominant the trait, the more often there was no option for imprinting in the genes.
As always, the doctor had nothing to prescribe for Tae-geon except for a nerve stabilizer.
“Kuugh…!”
Tae-geon desperately twisted his limbs and clutched at his chest. There were bruises all over the inside of his torn T-shirt.
It was only after the cursed nights had passed a week that Tae-geon realized what these symptoms were.
When he pulled down his underwear, his erect dick sprang out, almost touching his lower abdomen. Sticky pre-cum from his urethra made a slimy trail along the valley formed by his abs. Tae-geon’s eyes were half-glazed as he looked at his own fully erect organ.
He thought it couldn’t be, but it was a rut.
As soon as Tae-geon realized this, he sent the doctor away immediately. The fact that it was a rut must not be revealed. If this fact became known to his family, they would surely badger him about who his partner was.
He wanted to avoid complicating the situation further while Hyeon-woo’s whereabouts were still unclear. He didn’t want to ruin what he was planning regarding Hyeon-woo’s disposition.
Rut. Evidence of imprinting on an omega. It was clear as day who the partner was.
“Han Hyeon-woo…!”
Tae-geon gritted his teeth.
An alpha imprinted on their partner experiences heat periods similar to the omega’s heat cycle. The alpha’s heat period was called a rut. As it was a symptom accompanying imprinting, naturally, the desire caused by rut could only be resolved through the imprinted partner.
It was similar to the mechanism by which Tae-geon had tried to make Hyeon-woo’s body develop a tolerance using his own pheromones to monopolize his flesh, but there were two crucial differences.
One was that an alpha experiencing rut could only feel pleasure through the omega they had imprinted on, and the other was that unlike tolerance induced by pheromones, imprinting had no expiration date.
Because it was like an absolute and eternal subordination that would never break even if an omega with superior traits than the imprinted partner appeared, some called the alpha’s rut an ‘invisible circumcision ritual’.
However, the probability of alpha imprinting was extremely low, and even then, it didn’t apply to dominant alphas. That was why Tae-geon hadn’t suspected rut despite several precursor symptoms.
Because he had been intimate with Hyeon-woo during each of his heat cycles for over half a year, he couldn’t know exactly when the imprinting had occurred. He hadn’t even had a chance to become aware of the rut because he had been mixing bodies with his imprinted partner each time. Tae-geon’s brows furrowed as he recalled his nights with Hyeon-woo in sequence.
…Come to think of it.
Recently, there was exactly one time when he couldn’t penetrate Hyeon-woo.
On that night when Hyeon-woo had said goodbye to K and tried to spend his heat cycle with suppressants, Tae-geon didn’t insert himself into Hyeon-woo. Given that there were no particular symptoms despite not mixing bodies, the imprinting must have happened after that.
The night before Hyeon-woo disappeared, he must have mixed bodies with Hyeon-woo during his heat cycle. For some reason, he had no memory of that time, but all circumstances pointed to a single truth like a signpost.
The smell of lovemaking that filled the room. The bodily fluids that were stuck all over his genitals, the bloodstains on the blanket. The rut that came after.
He tried to recall the memory, but still, nothing came to mind.
Tae-geon buried his face in Hyeon-woo’s pillow. Hyeon-woo’s body scent had almost disappeared. The pillow he had buried his head in and inhaled every day now had his own scent more strongly permeated than Hyeon-woo’s.
“Kuugh…!”
Tae-geon’s limbs twisted once again. Breathing roughly, Tae-geon grabbed Hyeon-woo’s pillow and hurriedly covered his lower parts. Then he began to stimulate his dick by roughly rubbing the pillow in his hand up and down.
“…Ugh!”
A frenzied scene unfolded in his mind. As his symptoms intensified, the level of his imagination became more violent with each passing day.
Imagining forcefully shoving his thing, which he had never put in Hyeon-woo’s mouth that he had only thought of pampering with precious delicacies, Tae-geon ejaculated onto Hyeon-woo’s pillowcase. Yet the pain like his whole body was boiling showed no signs of subsiding at all.
“Huk…!”
Sweat droplets gathered at the tip of Tae-geon’s sharp nose as he lay face down, dripping onto Hyeon-woo’s bed.
It was pain of a different dimension.
It was a level of pain that couldn’t be compared to the sensations that had been tormenting him until now.
Feeling the agony of his whole body burning up, Tae-geon curled up into a ball. The muscles stretching symmetrically along his spine undulated wildly like flames. A itchy and hot foreign sensation spread rapidly throughout his body through his blood vessels, as if parasites were wriggling. The beads of sweat that had formed on his straight back flowed down his sides as if licking them.
