A vague memory surfaced in Lewis’s dazed mind.
“You... like you... rut cycle... hard to... link...”
Ever since becoming an Alpha, Lewis had suffered intense growing pains. In just two months, he’d grown nearly a full handspan taller, and his senses would occasionally spike into overdrive. Sometimes, his hearing became so hypersensitive that even the smallest background noise would sweep through his brain like a storm. Especially near the final phase of his transformation into an Alpha, the condition had worsened to an extreme. It got so bad, he couldn't even remember what had happened during parts of it. Even the words of the doctor who had completed his Alpha transformation, spoken just before discharge, remained in his memory only in fragments.
“Link?” he muttered.
Clutching his throbbing forehead, Lewis pulled out his phone. Among the hundreds of unread messages from the past two months, he started checking unfamiliar numbers one by one. Then he found a message that stood out.
---
[Dealer H]:
#SpecialMoments #RomanticExperiences #Connection #YouAreNotAlone
The latest trends, hot topics, and fiery new encounters—just for you.
Join us on ○○ Community!
※ You can enter the community after installing the 'H-Pay' software.
The link is one-time use. Click it right before installing. :-)
---
“Huh? What’s this?”
It looked like spam, but something about it felt more calculated. A one-time link. A community only accessible through specific software. There was clearly something hidden beneath the surface.
Lewis downloaded the software through the link and installed it. A new app called H-Pay appeared on his phone. The kind of app you’d usually ignore even if it were sitting on your home screen.
Why disguise a community login as a payment app?
Just as Lewis was about to launch it, he heard:
“What the hell are you doing?!”
Anna was standing in the doorway, her face stricken with horror.
“You’re here? Since when?”
Her voice was rising as she rushed toward him, face flushing red.
“Since dawn.”
“Dawn? What time?”
“Dunno. After midnight, I think.”
“Then why didn’t you call?!”
Her fury exploded into a full-blown scream. Lewis winced, clapping a hand over his ear as the echo made his skull ring.
“I wasn’t in any state to.”
“What?! ‘Not in any state’? Do you have any fucking idea how I’ve been running around like a maniac trying to find you?!”
Her fist raised as if to punch him, trembling in the air in front of his face—then suddenly froze. She had seen his face.
It shut her down instantly, like someone had poured ice water over her head.
“You... did something?”
“...Yeah.”
A shadow fell across Anna’s face. Her whole body began to tremble.
“So that’s how you got hurt?”
“...”
“Was it... a sex crime?”
“...I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Lewis! Don’t act like a damn child. Say it before I kill you!”
“Fine! I did it!”
Anna’s ice-blue eyes instantly filled with tears. She didn’t say a word, but her eyes screamed everything. While Lewis’s own remained dry, Anna wept violently enough for both of them.
“You bastard. Where’s the victim?”
“I don’t know. He ran before I could catch him.”
“Ran?”
Tears burst from her eyes in fat drops and spilled down her cheeks. But then—as if she’d never cried at all—her eyes cleared, cool again. Her rapidly shifting expressions made her look like the heroine of a psycho drama. Lewis stared, dumbfounded.
She wiped her face with one hand and spoke, tense again.
“Wait. Don’t tell me... it was the Curry King employee?”
“Curry King?”
“Yeah. The curry place in Riverland!”
“Riverland? Curry place?”
Lewis echoed her words, eyebrows raised. Then after a pause, he muttered to himself, lost in his own thoughts.
“Yeah. I was there.”
“You got beat up there?”
“Yeah.”
“You... raped the employee?”
“I tried. But I failed.”
Anna’s face twisted in horror. Lewis watched her blankly, massaging his temple as a pulse throbbed beneath his skin. Why had he gone all the way there? Across the river, to a curry restaurant so far from home? Was it fate? Was there some magnetic pull?
Was it that man—reeking of strange pheromones—drawing him in with raw, primal instinct?
In a haze, Lewis turned the idea over and over.
Something was there. He knew it. A mystery only he could solve. The perfect answer—something etched into his soul, destined to overturn his entire world.
Like a man and woman drawn together by sexual attraction since the dawn of time. Like anacondas mating during monsoon season. Like lions rutting during heat—Lewis was sure he’d found someone. A being who could fulfill a warped, interspecies coupling—driven purely by instinct.
Just picturing the man made his limp cock twitch faintly.
Shuddering with pleasure, Lewis knew his guess was right. It had to be him.
He whispered in a low, electrified voice, thick with excitement:
“It was that man.”
---
[Under Repair]
Siron was boiling inside.
The elevator had broken again. Someone else, equally pissed off, had crossed out the words “Under Repair” and scribbled “Abandoned” in thick marker.
“At this point, even a fixed elevator would be terrifying.”
It broke down nearly every week. Even if they claimed it was repaired, no one trusted it. But it was still better than nothing. So Siron, prepared to die in a metal box if it came to that, continued using it instead of walking up nine floors.
“God, I’m dying.”
Clutching his pounding heart, Siron entered the apartment at the end of the 9th floor hallway and collapsed face-down onto the lukewarm floor.
“Oh, my pathetic life.”
The first thing he saw from his position on the floor was the calendar. It was already August, but the wall calendar still sat frozen in July.
He tried to ignore the outdated date, but the number 7 kept catching his eye. With a sigh, he dragged himself up.
Today was August 3rd. The 17th—the day he’d promised to send Jiyeon’s tuition—was fast approaching.
“If Kyung would just throw me, like, two billion won in pocket money, that’d be perfect.”
If Baek Kyung paid off his debt and casually tossed him 2 billion won, Siron would reluctantly accept it and live frugally and happily until the age of eighty.
He reached into his pocket out of habit, wondering what Bael Group’s stock was worth these days—
“Ah, fuck. My phone.”
He’d thrown it away like some spy evading villains in a thriller. Right after calling Ikbal from the Uber, he’d tossed his phone onto the street. Even though all the personal info he used to register it had been fake, he was paranoid about being tracked. On top of that, afraid Baek Kyung might be tailing him, he’d been hopping from one grimy motel to another for four days straight—places where the bedsheets probably hadn’t been washed in years. Even just stopping by home to grab his things had taken incredible nerve.
But looking around now, seeing everything in place with no signs of intrusion, his paranoia had been unwarranted.
“Ugh, of course. That’s Baek Kyung for you.”
If he’d really pulled out all the stops—hired private investigators, broken communication laws—he could’ve found Siron easily. The fact °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° that he hadn’t meant Baek Kyung’s competence only went so far. And that made Siron seriously concerned for the future of Bael Group.
Back at the motel, suitcase stuffed with clothes and shoes, Siron sat on the bed and searched Bael Group on his beat-up laptop.
“Market cap... 67 billion dollars?”
He stared blankly at the encyclopedia entry.
“So that’s why he walks around like he owns the place among the chaebol elite.”
Bael Group was a global pharmaceutical company headquartered in the U.S. but operating primarily in Korea. After developing phenol-based IV anesthesia in the late ’80s and sildenafil-based erectile dysfunction meds in the late ’90s, they’d shot to prominence—and gone public on the NYSE five years ago.
“Five to seven years, at most.”
But what good is money if you’re dying?
Apparently, there were limits to treating Baek Kyung’s condition. Siron briefly felt sympathy for the chairman, who was about to lose his precious youngest son—then shuddered, remembering the man’s cold, insect-like stare.
“Whatever. What’s it got to do with me.”
Baek Kyung was just a piece of the past. He didn’t see it that way, but Siron had no intention of watching him die—or staying by his side until the end. Knowing Baek Kyung, he’d probably try to drag Siron into the grave with him.
Thinking ahead to Baek Kyung’s death made Siron’s shoulders slump. He kept telling himself he’d never be with him again—but just imagining his death made him feel like all his limbs had been ripped off. That unnameable sense of loss crept in.
To chase it away, Siron forced himself to think practically.
The most urgent issue: Jiyeon’s tuition.
First, he needed to move out and get his deposit back—two months’ rent. That would be enough to buy a used motorcycle. Until he found a new place, he could stay at the motel and work delivery for Fresh Eats. He’d scrape together the tuition somehow.
But there was a faster, easier way.
He logged into his email. Scanning through the usual spam, his eyes caught on a message from Dr. Johnson.
Siron straightened up and clicked immediately.
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