“See, I told this punk to hurry up and be born already… you okay?”
“…Yes.”
“Did you take your meds?”
“I did.”
“Knock it off and go home and rest.”
“It’s only five.”
“What does the time matter?”
A big hand patted his back, tap tap, then stroked it. When he jumped up from his seat at the alpha pheromones faintly brushing his nose, Jin Seunghu looked at him with a slightly baffled expression. Eunseo excused himself to the restroom and slipped away. Sometimes he was this sensitive to pheromones, and each time he felt his body heat up ever so slightly.
After splashing his face with cold water for a while, the slight flush in his cheeks subsided, and Eunseo stood still, catching his breath. Even doctors knew almost nothing about a constitution like his.
Omega-omega pairings were extremely rare to begin with, and on top of that, people with a constitution like his were nearly impossible to find. Every doctor he saw showed interest, but none of them could give him a clear answer; they only tried to use him as a test subject for hormones and pheromones.
Remembering how the alpha doctor who’d examined him most recently had suddenly gone glassy-eyed, Eunseo shuddered briefly.
He wasn’t even a proper omega — he didn’t have pheromones at all — and yet there were times an alpha would suddenly go into rut right in front of him. He couldn’t even figure out the mechanism, so Eunseo always had to stay sensitive to their pheromones.
On his way back to the lab, Eunseo stopped in his tracks. It was just past five; he needed to get the assignments out, but another déjà vu was unfolding.
“Ah, TA.”
“…I need to get the assignments. Move, please.”
Eunseo squeezed past Han Jaeheon, who was blocking the assignment drop box, unlocked it, and lifted the bin out in his arms. He tried to slip away quickly so things wouldn’t turn out like last time, but it was no use.
“TA, don’t I still have the rest to study?”
“…What?”
“I bombed the exam, and I can’t do the assignments this time either.”
“Aren’t we done with quantum mechanics?”
“I’m also kind of lost on the inorganic chemistry side.”
“………”
“I won’t take up much of your time.”
Han Jaeheon was really, truly relentless. Eunseo couldn’t understand why he was so obsessed with this.
Without a word, Eunseo picked up the assignment box and walked toward the seminar room. He wanted no part of running into Jin Seunghu or the other grad students while talking with Jaeheon here — he’d already gotten more unwanted attention than he could handle these past few weeks; he was saturated.
He entered the seminar room, shut the door, and slammed the box down on the desk with a bang. He was in no state for composed behavior. But Han Jaeheon wasn’t fazed by any of it.
“So, Wednesdays and Fridays, from five, about an hour?”
“Han Jaeheon.”
Eunseo realized instinctively that he wouldn’t be able to push Han Jaeheon away now. Han Jaeheon was the type to just do whatever he’d decided to do, deaf to what others said — and Eunseo was in no position to truly push him away.
He had no choice but to admit it. Eunseo clearly thought of Han Jaeheon as special; he treasured the time he spent with him, and his mood swung with every word and action. But Han Jaeheon didn’t. Han Jaeheon… didn’t.
“Looking at you… being around you is hard for me.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“May I ask why?”
“…I don’t think I’m obligated to answer that.”
“But I’m curious.”
“………”
“I’ve never heard anyone say it’s hard to be around me.”
“Why you’re doing this in the first place… I don’t understand, Han Jaeheon.”
Without meaning to, Eunseo blurted out the question he’d asked himself over and over, and answered himself. To torment me seemed the most fitting answer, but if there were some other reason — just maybe, though there couldn’t be….
“Didn’t I tell you? To graduate.”
Han Jaeheon smiled brightly, as if he had no idea why Eunseo would ask such a thing.
“What if I said I won’t fail you even if you don’t turn in assignments or reports from now on…?”
“Haha, TA, what’s gotten into you?”
“………”
“Someone who couldn’t do that even if they wanted to.”
I couldn’t… no. Eunseo was someone who couldn’t even imagine breaking his principles. He had no idea how Jaeheon had read him so thoroughly in such a short time.
Han Jaeheon’s glass-marble eyes shone clear. Just like that time — he felt like a mongoose with its neck in the tiger’s jaws.
Han Jaeheon, gazing down at Eunseo, spoke as if whispering. Like the serpent’s voice tempting Eve before the fruit of good and evil.
“I asked you last time, too.”
“………”
“Whether there was another reason.”
Does Han Jaeheon really know how I feel? Surely he’s not acting like this knowing… Eunseo wanted to wail at the top of his lungs. He’d never once done such a thing, but right now he truly felt like it.
As if spellbound by Han Jaeheon, who’d stepped closer and was looking down at him, Eunseo slowly looked up. He bit his lip and released it, over and over, until beads of sweat formed on his lips — then feigned as much calm as he possibly could.
There was only one way. Even if this decision tore his heart apart, Eunseo had no other recourse. If it was a choice between being torn a little less or a little more, he had no choice but to take the less-torn path. If he learned how Eunseo felt and came to hate him, to cut him off — rather that. Rather that would be better.
“If I… liked you, Han Jaeheon — would that be reason enough?”
“…Hm.”
“This, then….”
“When you say ‘like’ — does that include sex?”
“………”
“Well, we’re not elementary schoolers.”
Han Jaeheon didn’t even flinch.
“Ah, sorry. I don’t really think about anyone besides omegas.”
His smiling face looked no different than usual — the slightly drooping eyes, the narrowed pupils, even that smile whose intent couldn’t be read.
“I guess I’d say having sex with a beta is on the same level as doing it with a dog.”
He couldn’t exactly say I’m not a beta, I’m an omega. He wasn’t even sure of it himself — and who would take someone as an omega when he didn’t have a hint of scent?
“Ah, not that I’ve ever done it with a dog, of course.”
“….”
“It’s not that you seem like a dog, TA. Though, ah, sometimes you do seem a bit like a puppy….”
The corners of Han Jaeheon’s narrowed eyes were full of genuine amusement and fondness. But then, in the firmest voice Eunseo had ever heard from him, he said:
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, TA.”
“….”
“So there’s no other reason, then?”
And so the first confession of his life was gently brushed aside. And Eunseo realized his mistake — that he had just shackled his own ankles and neatly braided a chain, handing its end to Han Jaeheon; and that while Han Jaeheon would do nothing at all holding that chain, Eunseo would be helplessly yanked around by its slightest tug.
What the hell have I done? Alone in the empty lab, Eunseo spent a long time going back over what had happened a few hours earlier. Trying somehow to push Han Jaeheon away, he’d played the worst possible move — and far from getting what he wanted, he’d done something tantamount to handing Han Jaeheon everything he had.
“This is really bad….”
He was in no position to curse out Han Jaeheon for not understanding quantum mechanics. Eunseo knew he was bad at forming and ending relationships, but he hadn’t known he was this bad. He clutched his head, bowed it low, then shook it wildly.
No — I’m not the weird one. Han Jaeheon is. By his own account, he heard the confession of a human “no different from a dog” and said he’d pretend he didn’t hear it — and then acted like absolutely nothing had happened afterward. Isn’t he the weird one?
Eunseo was an omega, but his way of thinking had come to resemble a beta’s in many ways. Naturally — he’d never once been part of that world. His confession just now had been no different from a man confessing to a straight man.
So normally… wouldn’t the normal mindset be to hate the person who confessed, or dislike them, or want to keep your distance?
Thinking this far, Eunseo let out a long sigh. If he’d overlooked one thing, it was that Han Jaeheon didn’t think like normal people.
“He’s insane.”
Maybe something’s broken in a corner of his brain. The frontal lobe, or whatever. Eunseo sighed again. Falling for a guy like that and spouting nonsense — I’m the crazier one.
“…I want a drink.”
Never knowing how hormones or pheromones might affect him or manifest, Eunseo had always avoided anything that could cost him his sobriety. He barely even drank. But today he really wanted to get blackout drunk, bury his head in a corner of his room, and pass out without even knowing he’d fallen asleep.
Eunseo alternated between looking outside and inside, both sunk in complete darkness, and only after a long while stood up, packed his bag, and left the building. He’d been lost in pointless agonizing so long that the buses had stopped running — even the last one — so he had no choice but to walk.
Crossing the empty campus, Eunseo kept pressing his burning forehead hard, then letting go. How can he act like nothing happened at all? Han Jaeheon acted as if those words had never even reached his eardrums, but Eunseo couldn’t do that. He’d been cornered — it hurting just to look at him — badly enough to confess, and now he was supposed to pretend it never happened and face him again?
Walking in a daze, Eunseo sank down and collapsed where he stood. It was clear the broken frontal lobe belonged to him, not Han Jaeheon. Thinking he’d still rather see his face in this situation — wasn’t that truly insane?
“I really must be crazy.”
What’s so great about his stupid face. Well, not just his face — his body, his voice too… ugh, does my skull need to crack open before I come to my senses? Looking at him was agony. Not looking was agony. Holding on to these feelings was agony. Letting go
was agony too.
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