L*st and Death

Siron, who had been writhing under the covers, curled up like a pill bug at the sound of Lewis’s voice outside the blanket.

“Asleep?”

Siron remained silent, pretending as if nothing had happened. Lewis placed his hand near Siron’s head and asked again.

“Were you crying?”

“I wasn’t.”

Siron snapped, his voice sharp. Right now, he didn’t want comfort from anyone, nor did he want to talk. He simply wanted to embrace the humiliation he’d suffered, chew on it alone, and be miserable in silence. Yet Lewis was still seated by the bed, staying by his side.

“Then let me see your face. Just your face, and I’ll go.”

“I’m not in the mood to talk.”

Undeterred, Lewis climbed onto the bed and gently shook Siron’s shoulder.

“How about a movie? There’s a new comedy up on Netplux.”

“Don’t touch me. Just fuck off already!”

The moment he shouted unreasonably, Siron regretted the words that had left his mouth. After spending the past few days with Baekgyeong, he’d gotten used to throwing out barbed words without thinking. Given the shaky familiarity he had with Lewis, it was definitely crossing the line.

In the end, Siron sat up, and like a turtle poking its head from its shell, emerged from the blanket with a sheepish expression. Lewis was leaning close in front of him, propping himself up on his left arm as he stared intently. Because he was wearing a sleeveless shirt, the muscles of the arm supporting him on the bed were clearly visible, bulging with strength. Siron glanced at Lewis nervously and said firmly:

“I told you more than once I’m not in the mood to talk.”

“Bebe.”

Siron felt his patience fray at the unpleasant nickname.

“What!”

“There’s a scientific reason people get angry more easily with family or lovers.”

Where was he going with this nonsense? Suppressing his urge to throw Lewis out, Siron asked:

“And what’s the reason?”

As if he’d been waiting, Lewis playfully tapped the center of Siron’s forehead with a finger.

“The part of the brain that recognizes the self is here.”

Then he lightly tapped the area between Siron’s temple and the back of his head.

“And the part that recognizes others is here. But the closer someone is to you, the more your brain reacts to them as if they’re part of yourself. The brain treats close people as extensions of you. That’s why it’s irritating when they don’t act the way you want.”

“So what?”

“So the reason you snapped at me earlier—was just a side effect of you seeing me as someone close.”

Lewis tapped the center of Siron’s forehead again with his index finger.

“When you think of me, this spot reacts.”

Siron, listening silently, replied with a displeased expression.

“You’re just twisting it however you want.”

“Why? Doesn’t it make sense?”

“Same identity, my ass. I’m just rude, that’s all.”

Siron scratched at his tangled bedhead and finally crawled all the way out from under the covers. Thanks to Lewis spouting off empty nonsense next to him, the heavy gloom in his chest had lifted a bit.

“What are you even doing here at this hour? And what’s that thing standing up?”

It was past 11 p.m.—a time when most people had gone to bed. Siron averted his eyes from the noticeable bulge in Lewis’s pants, the half-erect shape of his heavy cock making its presence known.

“Your pheromones are stronger than before. I could smell them all the way from the hallway.”

“What?”

That was a chilling statement. It sounded like his body was undergoing another stage of omega transformation—without his knowledge—and it made his chest tighten.

“Bebe, can you help me with a suppressant shot?”

“Huh?”

“At this rate, my rut cycle might kick in early.”

Siron looked at him with suspicion.

“Suppressant...? So what you’re saying is—your cycle is approaching, and that’s why you’re sensing my pheromones more strongly?”

“Seems like it.”

“Didn’t Gyeong say that if you take the suppressant too early, it loses its effect?”

Baekgyeong had said that if the suppressant was injected before the rut cycle, not only would it lose its effectiveness, but even additional injections during the cycle wouldn’t help.

“We don’t know what might happen tomorrow. Even if the effect’s weaker, I think it’s better to take it in advance. Can you give me the shot?”

The suppressant Baekgyeong left behind was an injectable. It had to be prepared by drawing saline into a syringe, injecting it into the vial, waiting for the powder to dissolve, then transferring it back into the syringe for IV injection—a cumbersome process. In an emergency, there might not even be time to attempt it, leading to disaster.

Besides, Lewis was scheduled to meet with members of the alpha community tomorrow. If he suddenly entered rut in a shopping mall and lost control, it would be catastrophic.

“You want me to give you a shot?”

“Yeah. Inject it into my vein.”

Lewis pulled out the supplies he’d brought in a case and placed them on the bed. Then he injected sterile saline into the vial and rolled the glass bottle gently to dissolve the medication.

“You played a doctor once, right? Said in an interview you practiced finding veins dozens of times.”

“That was just an interview. I only did it five times.”

Siron turned red and waved his hand in denial.

“And like I even remember? It’s been over five years since I practiced.”

After tying off his upper arm with a tourniquet, Lewis handed Siron a disinfectant swab.

“Then just poke around until you find it. It’s fine.”

“Can’t I just give it subcutaneously? Gyeong did that before.”

“This suppressant was tailored to Baekgyeong’s body. It might be less effective for me, so we have to do it textbook.”

Reluctantly, Siron disinfected Lewis’s arm and, relying on vague memory, tried to locate a vein. He had Lewis open and close his fist a few times, then gently palpated with his fingers, searching for a soft, elastic vein.

“...Is it here?”

After finishing the disinfection, Siron took a deep breath, summoned all his courage, and slipped the needle under the skin. The moment he felt the slightest resistance, he gently pushed the needle deeper, adjusting the angle.

“Fuck... I’m scared out of my mind. Is this the right spot?”

No blood appeared in the syringe. With shaking hands, Siron repositioned the needle, and finally—he found the right spot.

“I think this is it... right? I’m injecting it now, okay? Here it goes.”

Siron pushed the plunger slowly with trembling hands, injecting the full dose of medication. Because he’d been holding his breath and focusing so hard, his heart was racing, and his face flushed bright red.

“Press the alcohol swab down so it doesn’t bleed. I’ll put the patch on right away.”

Siron’s hand trembled as he dug through the case for the patch sticker. At last, he found it and gently pressed it onto the inside of Lewis’s arm. With an exhausted expression, he let out a smile.

“Never doing that again.”

All the while, Lewis had simply been watching him.

If Siron’s pheromones could be visualized, they’d look {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} like emotional photographs capturing everyday wonders: cotton clouds floating in a twilight sky, dandelion seeds drifting in the breeze, sparklers glittering against a dark beach backdrop.

Lewis suddenly thought—maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if Yoon Siron’s pheromones weren’t like a full-bloomed rose that anyone could smell, but like a rosebud, hiding its nectar so that no one could even guess what it held. So long as no one else could sense them, and he alone could feel and savor them.

Flushed with heat, Lewis stared wordlessly at Siron’s blushing face.

***

The grief of losing his mother so suddenly was made easier to bear by the crushing demands of reality. Baek Sang, head of Vile Group’s finance division, was shouldering the full weight of the world, with no time to even process her death. The tangled ownership structure, legal disputes, and financial complications left no room for mourning.

His mother had been a legendary figure—transforming a small domestic pharmaceutical company into a global powerhouse. The very identity of Vile Group was inextricably tied to Choi Baekhee. And yet, now that she was gone, the company felt like a sandcastle—on the verge of collapsing with a single wave.

Worst of all, he’d never received proper training as a successor. With her death, he felt as if he would remain forever incomplete. The one person he had idolized, looked up to—his compass and guiding star—was gone from his universe forever.

Had he even had a father or siblings to lean on, perhaps it wouldn’t have felt so bleak. But the father who had always seemed so strong was now broken, sobbing endlessly, day and night. His younger brother hadn’t even returned home yet, as if trying to ignore the entire reality. Their plane had landed in New York some time ago, but his brother was still nowhere to be seen.

Baek Sang was completely alone. It felt as though he alone bore the weight of it all. As if he were the only one who truly respected and understood the legacy of Vile Group left behind by his mother. He’d inherited a massive fortress without even knowing how, and now he would spend the rest of his life guarding its gates.

He sat in the darkened dining room, watching the TV screen. The late-night news was reporting some details from the autopsy of his mother, Catherine Choi. The broadcast soon shifted to a crude CG reenactment of the murder scene.

Baek Sang stared at the screen with glassy eyes as it depicted two men brutally killing his mother and her driver. The investigation into who had ordered the hit was still ongoing, but three days after the incident, the police had yet to provide any update.

There were countless people who held grudges against her and the company. Vile Group was constantly embroiled in lawsuits—product liability over vaccine side effects, patent infringement cases with rival firms, contract violations with subcontractors. The legal team was always overloaded.

Was it one of those cornered parties who, in their fury, had orchestrated her assassination?

But Baek Sang also considered another possibility.

His estranged uncle—his mother’s mortal enemy—lingered in his mind. He had encouraged Baekgyeong’s downfall, accused his mother of being an incompetent wife and CEO who failed both at home and in the boardroom. He was also the one who had bribed Siron’s manager, ensuring that the sex scandal between Baekgyeong and Yoon Siron would be exposed to the world.

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