Baekgyeong’s limp body, having lost all strength, was suddenly yanked back and thrown out of the car. Siron, utterly exhausted, blinked as he panted in shallow breaths. The headlights fired from outside poured into the car, making it hard to see.
Baekgyeong was being mercilessly beaten by someone. It was a level of violence so extreme that Siron didn’t even dare try to stop it. Once Baekgyeong’s resistance died down, someone opened the trunk, threw out all the luggage, and shoved Baekgyeong’s crumpled body inside.
Clang! The thunderous slam of the trunk snapping shut finally jolted Siron back to his senses. A man whose silhouette gleamed like gold in the backlight entered the car carrying an armful of luggage, then turned on the interior light.
“Bebe. Did I interrupt a good time?”
Somehow having followed them all the way here, Lewis grinned with a wicked, nasty look.
“...You—how did you even get here?”
“I borrowed—no, hijacked a motorcycle.”
Lewis stared blankly at Siron, as if even he couldn’t believe what he’d done.
“Robbing someone at gunpoint... I didn’t know I was the kind of guy who could go that far.”
“Baek—Baekgyeong? You stuffed him in the trunk? Don’t tell me you killed him?”
“I didn’t. Just hit him with a tranquilizer dart. He passed out.”
Lewis’s voice was indifferent.
“A tranquilizer dart? ...Is that okay? That thing?”
“It’s fine. I’ve been hit with it before. He’ll wake up in a few hours. We just need to get home before then.”
But even though he said they were going home, Lewis remained seated in the back with Siron. He frowned as he looked at Siron, who was slumped in the corner of the car like he’d been shoved there, completely disheveled.
“Are you okay?”
“Huh? Oh, uh... yeah.”
“Your lip’s swollen. Looks torn.”
Siron frowned slightly as he looked at Lewis. Lewis was staring at Siron’s wet lips like he was yearning for something.
If you try to kiss me, I’ll bite you.
Siron let out a sigh inside. He could feel that familiar hunger radiating from Lewis’s gaze. He instinctively knew what Lewis was about to ask for. Lewis awkwardly twisted his body, placing his large hand over the bulge between his legs.
“Hey, would it be okay if I pulled one out next to you?”
“No!”
“It’s been a while. It hurts.”
Lewis grabbed his heavy testicles and jiggled them seriously.
“They’re all puffed up and purplish. I think I’ve got cyanosis or something. Wanna check?”
“We just exchanged names today! Cut the crap already!”
“Then should we do it together? You’re hard too.”
Both of their eyes went to Siron’s pants, where a clear tent was pitched. Siron had shown this man—who’d gone from attempted rapist to potential crush—every humiliating thing imaginable.
“...Can I help you out?”
“Absolutely not.”
Take back what I said about him being upgraded from attempted rapist to someone I liked.
“I can feel your pheromones a lot more strongly.”
“Pheromones?”
Siron’s expression turned grim. Up until now, every mention of alphas, omegas, and pheromones had felt like some vague fantasy to him—like a hidden camera show the world had prepared just for his misery. But the sensation he’d just felt earlier was dangerously close to real.
“Why? Did you feel the pheromones?”
“You think what I smelled was pheromones? ...As soon as I smelled something on Baekgyeong...”
Siron bit his lip, then hesitantly said,
“...I got aroused.”
“Aroused? ...Alpha pheromones cause sexual arousal?”
Lewis muttered to himself, falling into thought.
“Well, I guess that makes sense. Every time I smell Bebe’s pheromones, it’s hard to keep it down below.”
Lewis stared directly at Siron. After several seconds of silence, still gazing at him, Lewis asked,
“You don’t smell anything from me?”
“What? You mean pheromones?”
“Yeah.”
Lewis didn’t break eye contact. Sweat started to bead on his forehead. He clenched his jaw, face reddening, like he was summoning something up from deep inside.
“I don’t smell anything... but my skin feels prickly.”
“If your skin’s reacting, then your pheromone glands must be developing.”
“Then what about that scent I smelled?”
“Maybe your vomeronasal organ isn’t mature yet. Could be it only reacts to rut-cycle pheromones.”
“What’s that?”
“The pheromone receptor. Probably.”
Lewis continued in a tone caught between doubt and certainty.
“Yeah, I guess {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} getting a few injections wouldn’t instantly change your whole biology.”
Siron felt unsettled. All those subtle physical reactions he’d ignored when he was with Isaac... maybe they really had been caused by alpha pheromones.
He didn’t want to believe any of this about alphas, omegas, or pheromones. But the evidence kept stacking up. Siron didn’t want to admit it was all true—but he couldn’t ignore it anymore either.
“...Fine. Move.”
Siron pushed Lewis aside and got out of the car. Circling around the vehicle, he climbed into the driver’s seat. He backed out through the section of fence Baekgyeong had crashed through earlier, then parked on the shoulder and turned on the GPS. He tried to search his apartment address, but Lewis, who had already gotten into the passenger seat, was one step ahead.
“You’re in danger. Let’s go to my place first.”
“Your place doesn’t sound much safer.”
“You think you can control a rutting alpha?”
Siron wanted to dump the massive problem named Baekgyeong on Lewis and run. But it was also awkward to accept his help. Reluctantly, he answered.
“He’s unconscious. Just lock him in the trunk.”
“That won’t be enough.”
The words of the rapist who had torn open the iron gate and broken into Curry King on that stormy night seemed to carry weight. Siron nodded and offered another idea.
“Then we leave him here.”
He deleted the address Lewis had input into the GPS and searched for his own again. But it was all in vain. Lewis quickly deleted Siron’s input and re-entered his own address as the destination.
“If we leave him here, he’ll go into heat and try to rape whoever’s nearby.”
With that warning, Siron gave up on returning home. In the end, the car with Lewis’s home set as the final destination started down a road with no streetlights.
As they drove away from the Secreta area toward the city, Siron couldn’t shake the unease in his chest. It felt like he’d left something behind in that swamp—like his heart was still anchored there.
---
Well past midnight, a sedan with a severely wrecked front bumper passed through the silent, subdued streets of Linhart.
“Turn into that alley.”
Though he’d been here a few times delivering curry, Siron could never quite get used to the place. Linhart was a peaceful, quiet world completely divorced from the chaos of Buggas City.
Following Lewis’s directions, Siron turned the steering wheel into the alley—then blinked in surprise.
“I’ve been here before.”
“Yeah? When?”
“Last month, I think...”
Lewis smiled silently as he typed out a message on his phone.
“...Why are you smiling?”
“Just—felt like I could smell the scent from the curry again.”
Lewis gave an inexplicable answer, then casually brushed the back of Siron’s head. Uncomfortable with the familiarity, Siron quickly turned his head to dodge the touch.
A few dozen seconds after Lewis sent the message, a door made of opaque plastic panels opened with a smooth hiss. What appeared before Siron’s eyes was a parking garage that looked like a teenage boys’ secret hideout.
“Just park between those two cars.”
Siron parked between the vehicles, but even after Lewis got out, he remained seated in the driver’s seat. After four straight hours of tense driving, his entire body ached unbearably.
Curry King. Curry deliveries in Linhart. The scent in the curry.
As he strung those keywords together, Siron felt the synapses in his brain clicking vividly into place. And when he locked eyes with the tall blonde woman who entered through the garage door, it all became clear.
“So when you said you changed the menu from curry to me... that’s what you meant?”
Now everything connected. On the day Siron spilled the curry during a delivery, the bastard who’d gone mad from rut had caught his pheromone.
Lewis, who had been grabbing things from the back seat, chuckled aloud.
“Yeah. So get out of the car and help me already.”
He opened the trunk and slung Baekgyeong’s limp body over his shoulder like a corpse. Siron hesitated a moment before stepping out—because the blonde woman outside was staring right through him. As soon as he got out of the car, she strode over.
“Siron Yoon. We meet again.”
“We’ve met before, haven’t we?”
“Yeah. I’m Anna McCarthy. That big lump over there is my little brother.”
“I heard quite a bit about you on the way here.”
“And I’ve heard Lewis caused you a lot of trouble.”
Without warning, she seized both of Siron’s hands, binding them, and asked in an interrogative tone.
“If you want Lewis to be punished, just say the word. He’s already admitted his crime. Your testimony alone is enough to make it legally binding.”
“Anna!”
From behind Siron, Lewis cried out in shock.
“You shut up!”
Anna clamped down harder on Siron’s wrists and continued.
“You know we could prosecute for attempted rape.”
Good god, what a scary thing to say. Siron, who’d grown deathly allergic to police investigations, cautiously pulled his arms free and forced a stiff smile.
“I-it’s fine. Well, not exactly fine, but I’ve decided not to make an issue out of it.”
“It’s okay to make it an issue.”
“I’m not okay with it.”
If the world found out that a once-declared-dead Hollywood rising star had resurfaced as an attempted rapist—and that the victim was none other than Yoon Siron, previously involved in sex scandals in Korea—it would unleash a deluge of sleazy curiosity across every tabloid in existence. Siron, already sick of scandal, had no desire to become gossip fodder in America too.
“I just want it to blow over quietly.”
“Is that so? ...I did have something I wanted to ask, personally.”
“...Yes?”
“No, forget it. It’s nothing.”
Anna looked at Siron with an expression that was both satisfied and regretful. Siron couldn’t understand why she seemed disappointed when he’d just decided not to press charges against her brother.
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