"You’re thinking a lot."
"…"
"If you’re going to think, do it looking at my face, not the floor, Secretary Seo Eunwon. I called you because I wanted to see you, and just looking at the top of your head is starting to make me cranky for no reason."
"…Uh…"
"No, just—"
Muyoung unfolded his elegantly crossed legs and spread them, tapping his thigh.
"Sit and think. I’ll wait quietly."
Tap tap. At the urging gesture, Eunwon approached hesitantly. And quite naturally, he lightly perched his bottom on Muyoung’s thigh. Muyoung, as if it were obvious, wrapped his arms around Eunwon’s waist to support him.
For a full 25 years, it had been a natural posture for them, so there was no fresh awkwardness. If their builds had been similar, a man sitting on another man’s lap might have looked funny, but before Muyoung’s long, solid physique, well over 190cm, Eunwon, at a slightly above-average 176cm, was just the right size to hold in one embrace.
Contrary to his words about giving time to think, the moment Eunwon settled into his arms, Muyoung rubbed his back and knees and whispered.
"Are you really better? You weren’t feverish and sick last night too? If you couldn’t even hear your alarm."
"That’s not it… I wasn’t sick."
"Then. Where was uncomfortable that you tossed and turned? Your back? Your waist?" "Back? Waist…?"
"Or… here?"
The asking voice was unusually low and slow. At the same time, Muyoung’s large hand traveled past Eunwon’s back and waist and burrowed into his inner thigh. When the hand reached deep enough to touch the hem of his underwear, Eunwon jumped in surprise.
"Oh…!?"
"Oops, that was a mistake."
Muyoung chuckled, pulling the awkwardly risen Eunwon back down by the waist to sit again.
Ah, it was a mistake…
Even though he’d been startled, at that one word Eunwon was instantly relieved again and nodded meekly. Apart from understanding, the embarrassment and fluster wouldn’t easily subside, and Eunwon’s face burned red.
But Muyoung seemed unbothered, gently stroking Eunwon’s hair, which he hadn’t slicked back as neatly as usual in the morning rush. At that familiar, kind touch, Eunwon gradually regained stability and unknowingly let out a long "hoo—" breath.
"Such a tiny thing sighing."
"It wasn’t a sigh, I just… breathed out long." But as if he had no intention of believing the explanation, Muyoung snorted "Hmph" and continued.
"Don’t overthink. You tend to inflate worries needlessly. Shake off what you need to shake off, accept what you need to accept… hm?"
"Hm… yes."
Eunwon nodded, empathizing dumbly. There couldn’t be advice better suited to his situation.
He’d resolved to shake off the weekend heat-cycle incident as if it never happened, yet here he was, inflating thoughts and creating worries. Hearing it now resonated more.
With the kind words like comfort, plus Muyoung’s hand patting his waist—tap tap—the anxiety that had continued since morning and the dull pain throughout his body felt as if they’d cleanly subsided.
Sneaking a glance back, their eyes met, and seeing the kindly spreading smile, a vague relief and conviction washed over him like waves.
‘Hyung doesn’t know anything.’
Having shaken off all his worries, Eunwon ended up smiling bashfully as his tension released. Muyoung, quietly looking at Eunwon’s smiling face with their eyes locked, added grumblingly.
"You smile without knowing how I feel."
"Why… what’s wrong?"
Eunwon’s expression hardened. Having shed the burden on his heart, Kim Seoyeon’s words belatedly bothered him.
—He must have something he’s seriously worried about, or a change of heart, or some decision he’s made… something like that.
At the eyes full of worry, Muyoung instead sighed deeply and turned his head away. With an incomprehensible mumble.
"Really hateful."
"…Me?"
"Forget it. I’ll let you off with just this for today, so now go do what you need to do and return to your seat, Secretary Seo."
It was indeed time to go, as he said. Eunwon nodded for now. He was still curious why he was hateful, why he’d sighed, and why he’d blown off all his schedules from Friday through the weekend, but as a secretary, prying further didn’t seem polite.
Of course, perched on the lap of the CEO he served, he wasn’t in a position to talk about propriety, but Eunwon, who was making his own efforts to keep the line between his position as the ‘younger brother’ he knew and as the ‘secretary’ serving his superior, faithfully performed his task.
He raised both arms, wrapped them around Muyoung’s neck, and pulled his face to lean against his chest. Trying his best not to inhale Muyoung’s alpha pheromones wafting over, Eunwon slowly began counting numbers.
"One, two, three…"
While the essential 60-second routine between just the two of them, which continued whenever Muyoung needed it, progressed, Muyoung’s large hand roamed Eunwon’s back and waist. It was a very familiar touch too, but perhaps due to the ‘accident’ over the weekend, he felt strangely tense.
His heart pounded violently enough. Worried he might notice his unusually changed reaction, as he sped up counting, Muyoung patted his waist and slowed the pace.
"…thirty-seven, thirty-eight… thirty… nine."
"Good boy."
At the patting that matched him, regaining his composure, a low laugh spread across Eunwon’s chest as if to say well done. Muyoung then continued patting Eunwon at the same steady pace until the very end.
That touch was not uncomfortable at all unlike before, so Eunwon didn’t even notice that the rhythm was much slower than usual.
"…sixty."
Today’s task done. Eunwon murmured the last number and tried to pull away, but the arms wrapped around his back were too strong to allow it. Eunwon tilted his head and looked down at Muyoung, who still had his face buried in his chest.
"Do you… need more?"
Sensing Muyoung’s unmoving intent, Eunwon asked with quick tact. Soon came the childishly whiny answer, "Mm-hm." It had been so long since he’d asked for ‘more’ that Eunwon had to recall Kim Seoyeon’s words again.
He must really have some serious worry…
Even a dominant alpha born with everything others envied could have times when his heart was unsettled with various thoughts.
Thinking the quite obvious thought as if for the first time, feeling a strange kinship and even pity for him, Eunwon nodded and slowly pulled away. This time, Muyoung smoothly loosened his arms.
Eunwon’s face slowly tilted toward Muyoung. Close enough to hear each other’s breathing, their lips nearly touching. Eunwon’s long eyelashes fluttered as he calmly closed his eyes.
Muyoung, who had been watching each and every one of those actions as if engraving them in his eyes, moved his head and did his part. He buried his nose in Eunwon’s white, soft cheek and slowly inhaled, as if savoring a precious scent.
The hand that had earlier caressed Eunwon’s sensitive back, waist, and inner knees now broadly wrapped his nape, sliding fingers between his shirt collar.
Even as he nonchalantly stroked the mottled kiss marks remaining there, Eunwon, not knowing such marks were on the back of his neck, merely accepted even that touch meekly.
While Eunwon, docilely offering himself, dimly thought ‘anyway, it’s a relief the CEO doesn’t know anything,’ he suddenly flinched his neck at a stinging sensation on his cheek.
"Ouch…"
Muyoung had suddenly bared his teeth and gone chomp on Eunwon’s cheek. Startled, Eunwon cupped his cheek and straightened up, looking at Muyoung. For some reason, Muyoung looked triumphant, even satisfied. Without a hint of apology, he gazed at Eunwon and whispered.
"Strawberry scent is hateful."
"…Pardon?"
"Hoo… will you wait nicely for hyung anyway?"
Unlike the mischievous behavior and the ‘hateful to death’ expression, the voice delivering those words was so kind that Eunwon could only nod dumbly. Without daring to ask why he’d bitten him or what waiting meant.
Dazed as if spellbound by the hand patting his bottom like soothing a child, he even greeted him before returning to his seat, covered head to toe in Muyoung’s pheromones that had filled the office.
Fortunately, the spot where Muyoung had bitten left only a faint teeth mark. It didn’t look like it would bruise.
Well, it’s not like hyung bit my cheek once or twice… He must have controlled his strength well, Eunwon thought, but puzzled by the unusually stinging pain today, he took out a mirror as soon as he returned to his seat and checked his face.
As he tried to rub away the surprisingly neat trace of teeth with his finger, his eyes met Kim Seoyeon’s, who was just returning from the meeting room to her seat.
"…Ah."
In that moment, Eunwon realized.
That the subtle atmosphere he’d felt on his skin from the secretarial staff since arriving at work wasn’t just his imagination. It must have come from the CEO’s special instructions that he alone hadn’t been told. And those instructions were probably…
About ‘Seo Eunwon.’
Kim Seoyeon’s expression, glancing at the teeth marks Muyoung had left on Eunwon’s cheek and smiling awkwardly, wasn’t much different from the seniors’ earlier. No matter how dull a fool, he couldn’t help but notice by now.
***
As soon as the plane had fully taken off and the seatbelt sign went off, Muyoung slowly lifted his firmly closed eyelids. He’d shortened a week-long business trip to four days, digested the schedule without a moment’s rest, and boarded the plane right after finishing the main meeting—enough to tire even a dominant alpha.
But the real cause that had made him this tired was hardly the murderous schedule.
Muyoung sat up straight instead of reclining his seat. To calm the anxiety and impatience that had tormented him for days.
With sharp eyes fixed on empty air, what Muyoung mulled over were the nonchalant reactions Seo Eunwon had shown over the past week, which he hadn’t been able to press about because he’d promised to wait nicely.
Even right up until departure, Seo Eunwon had been slyly serene.
Muyoung, unable to bear the impatience and breaking his resolve to show the generosity of an elder, had thrown the first question, but he’d only given a dumb answer.
—Secretary Seo Eunwon. Do you still have nothing to say to me?
—Yeees…?
—I’m leaving on a business trip starting tomorrow. Don’t you have anything to tell me before that?
—Ah! Have a safe trip.
—…That’s all?
—Uh… take care of your meals. Dress warmly at night. And watch your condition…
—Enough. Hoo… just do today’s task.
How much longer do you need to think?
Out of spite, he’d mischievously gnawed both cheeks, but he’d only heard two cute little "Ouch! Ouch!" groans, which didn’t quench his thirst.
Even before the business trip schedule began, Muyoung had boarded the journey with his heart already in tatters.
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