The Scent is a Drug

The car he sent arrived at a grand mansion situated where the Hong Kong nightscape could be seen in full. The grounds were so vast that it took another two or three minutes by car just to reach the steps at the main entrance from the lower gate, where security guards were checking and admitting each vehicle.

This was a party hosted by a major gallery with significant influence in the Asian art market — one that had started in Hong Kong, continued its rapid growth, and successfully expanded by opening a branch in Singapore the year before last.

"It's the gallery where the Director and Manager Han used to work together," nuna said, snapping the clasp of her small clutch shut after slipping a mirror inside.

"They probably rented this place just for tonight's party. Hong Kong has a vibrant high-society culture, so there are quite a few places like this — mansions rented out solely for wedding receptions, luxury brand events, or private parties for the wealthy."

It was a world with no connection to me.

Many cars were lined up along the road that curved around a large installation piece — seemingly symbolizing a pair of lovers — leading up to the mansion's main entrance. Juhani hyung explained that they had likely invited almost all the major galleries that attended the fair, as well as art enthusiasts who had traveled from around the world to see it.

"Honestly, it's a show of force. This is their chance to demonstrate to every art-world figure across the globe that a gallery with this much power exists in Asia. It might seem like a nouveau riche mindset, but when you're targeting the global market, your clients are all extraordinarily wealthy, so you do need to make a display of economic power and influence to some extent. This is a business where works sell for billions, sometimes tens of billions of won. In a way, it's all promotion and investment."

As our car slowed to a stop, a doorman dressed in a black suit opened the door for us.

He had arrived earlier and was waiting at the entrance to greet us.

It was a different suit from the one he'd worn at the VIP Preview. Perhaps because it was black, he gave an impression of being far more formally dressed today. Even completely enveloped in that restrained all-black suit, the raw, primal energy and the deep sexual allure of his physique were unmistakably present.

Whether you were someone like me — young and unacquainted with the wider world — or a sophisticated member of high society who had attended countless such functions, no one could help but look at him. Like a leading man who had stepped out of a classic Hollywood movie poster, he was in his suit both timelessly classic and intensely sensual.

After complimenting nuna and hyung's styles in turn, his gaze finally settled on me. His eyes swept over me as if appraising a piece of work, and I found myself fiddling with my collar for no particular reason.

"Thank you for the suit."

"You must have been put in a difficult position having to attend so suddenly — of course I had to prepare something for you."

When I returned to the hotel after the final day of the fair, there was a suit hanging in my closet. A hotel employee had come directly to my room to deliver it, saying Mr. Liu had prepared it for me to wear to the party. It was the first suit I had ever worn in my life.

Juhani hyung had let out an almost envious screech when he recognized the brand — apparently coveted even among the most fashion-conscious — but the design felt too fashionable compared to the ordinary suits I knew, and I lacked the confidence to pull it off. It just felt awkward.

"It suits you well."

The man who had actually arranged the suit looked satisfied, though. He even took a couple of steps back to take in my whole figure at once.

"This looks expensive…"

"Did Yuni do your hair?"

The suit clung to the lines of my body with a supple softness, and the fabric alone looked so luxurious that it seemed like it would slip away at a touch — which kept me fixated on the price. He simply brushed the subject aside, lightly smoothing my hair.

"Yes."

His fingertips traced the edge of my neatly styled hair, grazing my earlobe as he smiled.

"You look even younger with your hair swept back."

He seemed to be in a good mood, and since he was unusually not hiding it, I decided against pressing him about the price of the suit and shoes right then. It wasn't money I could repay on the spot anyway, and I didn't want to spoil the mood.

As we ascended the stairs to move deeper into the party hall, nuna sidled right up next to him, buried her nose near his shoulder, and sniffed.

"Oh? What's that, Director — did you put on cologne?"

"……"

Following a few steps behind, I nearly lost my footing on the stairs.

"A little."

"Mmm, it smells good. Dark, totally my style. But this is custom-made, isn't it?"

To nuna's wistful question about a fruit hanging just out of reach, he only offered an ambiguous smile.

Scent is molecules spreading through the air — naturally indiscriminate in its effect — yet I suddenly realized I had never once acknowledged the possibility that others beside me could enjoy his unique fragrance.

Could there be a more foolish lapse of awareness?

Anyone standing as close to him as nuna was right now could smell his scent just as easily. Scent was something that could make an entire alley hungry from the smell of curry cooking in just one house.

And yet I had only ever focused on his scent as I experienced it.

The thought that someone else might smell that scent filled me with aversion. Whether I had any right to feel that way was a secondary concern. The fact that such presumptuous emotions were unsettling my mind was the problem itself.

Outside was a late evening that had turned completely dark, but inside, dazzlingly bright lights poured down — golden lighting designed to make everyone in the venue stand out spectacularly.

"Wow… this is the best party I've ever been to. Just how rich a gallery did you work for before, Director? I'm genuinely speechless."

Not just nuna but hyung and I as well widened our eyes at the interior: a spacious first-floor hall anchored by several makeshift bars, a grand piano where jazz was being played live, a grandly installed DJ booth — still empty — and perfectly arranged table and couch seating distributed throughout.

"I'm going to go find Manager Han. I'll follow her around and make sure to hand out business cards aggressively today. You never know, right? If I keep at it, maybe someone will check my blog or social media and recognize my talent."

Nuna — whose sparkling black sequined clutch was stuffed with business cards — pushed up her gold-framed glasses on their chain and disappeared toward the center of the hall. Juhani hyung headed upstairs, declaring he was going to find some shy Alpha struggling to fit in somewhere and burn up his last night in Hong Kong.

Just like that, in an instant, it was the two of us.

"Well... let's go together. It might not be the most exciting place, though."

He shrugged, hands shoved into his pants pockets. I thought about my own insufficient English and dry personality — which would only make a not-fun gathering even less fun — and shook my head.

"I'll just have something to drink at the bar. It's my first time at a place like this, so just sitting and people-watching should be interesting enough for me. Please don't worry about me."

"They went to the trouble of inviting all our gallery staff, so don't be like that. At least you, Seo Yeehyeon-ssi, could go over and show your face to the gallery hosts. You only need to stay long enough to make polite introductions, and then you can leave."

Seeing his slightly troubled expression, I couldn't refuse any further.

His former colleagues were gathered at the most central table on the first floor. He introduced me as a staff member he was currently working with in Seoul, and the group of six or seven men and women welcomed me with polite smiles. They were all dressed splendidly and sophisticatedly, and naturally, they seemed accustomed to occasions like this.

"He's still very young. I'd appreciate it if you'd keep the teasing to a minimum."

"Wow… what's this? The great Liu Weikun protecting him like that — it actually makes me want to tease him more."

Before we sat down, he placed a hand on my back and gave them a look that asked them to go easy. Someone made a joke, and everyone let out light laughter.

There were moments like this when the ten-year age gap between us felt suddenly real. It wasn't that he acted frivolously in daily life — but perhaps because of his generally non-authoritarian atmosphere, sometimes cool yet not fundamentally domineering, or perhaps because his appearance made it hard to gauge his age, I rarely felt that ten-year difference in our everyday interactions.

His introduction — that I should be treated gently because I was so young — didn't feel entirely unwelcome today, for some reason.

"What's it like working with Weikun? It can't be easy, can it?"

To the question from his former colleague — who was apparently now a first-tier dealer — I smiled at him sitting beside me instead of answering. Everyone seemed generally familiar with his way of working, and the person who asked didn't seem to be looking for a specific answer.

"Ah... where would that temper have gone? He made several people cry and quit before, didn't he? Go on, tell us. Does he still say whatever comes to mind without filtering anything?"

The one who made that remark — cutting through the otherwise amicable atmosphere — was the man seated to my left.

Compared to the others at the table, he was dressed more loosely and looked free-spirited, blond hair slightly disheveled. He was smiling, but I could feel the thorns in his words aimed at him. The corners of his mouth, curling into a smirk, were twisted coldly.

"Um… he treats me well."

At the thinly veiled hostility cloaked in a superficial smile, I found myself leaning my upper body back slightly as I replied. The man didn't seem inclined to back down.

"Hey, when else can you openly badmouth your boss like this? It's fine. I went through plenty of rough patches working with him before. Nobody here doesn't know Liu Weikun's temper."

Whether he hadn't noticed the growing tension at the table or was pretending not to notice to get what he wanted, the man so eagerly trying to get under his skin under the guise of joking looked strangely agitated.

"No, really… he's very considerate."

The man he had been at first — who prioritized those precious to him, making me feel alienated, sometimes drawing out an unfamiliar defiance in me — had already faded within me. The excessive hurt I'd felt at his words and actions wasn't solely due to his attitude; it was also tangled up with my own feelings toward him.

"Considerate? Wow… considerate? Did everyone hear that? Liu Weikun is considerate to his staff?"

The man, who had been leaning back so loosely he seemed about to slide off his chair, sat up straight and raised his voice to the others at the table. The party had probably only been going for about an hour, but the smell of alcohol wafted out every time his clothes shifted.

Someone tried to calm the man down with a few gentle words, but he showed no intention of settling.

"Considerate — to what extent? Kind? Or sweet?"

"Stop it. I asked you not to be like this."

Unable to stand it any longer, he finally stepped in as the man persisted.

"Is this considered bad behavior at a party? Come on, you're being overprotective. This isn't the Liu Weikun I knew. Since when did you care so much about your staff?"

He whispered to me in Korean that I didn't have to respond to every remark, adding a quiet apology.

"Ah — maybe he's not just staff?"

The man, reaching for his drink, bent his upper body sharply to peer at my face. His pale green eyes, the whites bloodshot, were filled with intense emotion.

"That's it, isn't it? People don't change that easily. Seems like you're doing other stuff besides working at the gallery?"

Beneath the man's relentless, almost passionate prodding and pushing, there was a kind of desperation.

Unless my instincts were wrong, the man seemed to want Kun to look at him — even in this way — to elicit some kind of reaction. It was a psychology I couldn't understand, but not all emotions in the world can be explained by clear logic.

"That said, you can't really blame Kun, can you? Anyone can see he's overflowing with charm. It would be harder not to make a move on him when you work together every day. But he really does look young. Kun — what's the story? He's not a minor, is he?"

The Asian man who had briefly called him away during the VIP Preview stepped in to ease the atmosphere, steering the conversation toward cosmetic procedures popular in Hong Kong these days for maintaining a youthful appearance. It wasn't a subject that would interest me — or, I suspected, Kun.

Letting out a breath of relief, I lifted my glass to wet my throat with champagne when the blond man addressed me again, this time privately.

"I'm sorry if I made things awkward. It was just a joke — Weikun has always been a bit of a purist about these things."

His voice was lower than before, perhaps somewhat calmed.

"No, I'm fine."

"Is this your first time in Hong Kong?"

"Yes."

Turning slightly toward him as a courtesy while keeping him behind me, I answered.

"You probably didn't get to do much sightseeing because of the fair."

As he spoke, he rested his chin on the table. The man looked generally disheveled, but up close his features were delicate. Above all, his blond hair was beautiful even in its tousled state, shimmering even in this light. It was my first time seeing such blond hair up close, and I found it somewhat novel. It might have been an odd observation given the circumstances, but the pale, fine blond hair — with very little yellow in it — suited the man's nervous and willful air well.

"You haven't even been to Victoria Peak yet, have you? The night view from a drive up the hill at this hour is truly romantic."

The man's eyes suddenly lit up and he looked directly at me.

"Why don't we slip out now, just the two of us, and go see it?"

I had assumed the man's real interest lay clearly elsewhere — namely, behind my back — so the suggestion was quite unexpected.

He placed a hand on my shoulder and leaned his upper body forward, bringing his lips close to my ear.

"You look incredibly bored too."

"……"

Before I could react, a hand reached over my shoulder and pushed the man back into his seat.

"Don't do anything unnecessary. He's a Beta."

The next moment, my body was gently pulled backward. Turning around, I found him glaring at the man with a fierce expression. The effort he had been making to suppress his displeasure until just moments ago had completely vanished from his face.

Only after hearing his words did I realize the man had been releasing pheromones. Just like with Inwu hyung, I hadn't sensed anything at all.

The man raised both hands as if to prove his innocence and leaned back.

"I didn't think he was an Omega. But you know — this isn't something you can control."

Even while feigning a defensive posture, the man was smirking.

"If you can't even control it around a Beta — letting it leak out like that — maybe you should be on medication?"

He grabbed my arm and pulled me toward his side, his voice tight and sharp as he warned the man across from us, each syllable clipped cleanly.

"Ah, right — for you, any Alpha who isn't Golden basically has a condition that requires medication. Not everyone gets to be a lucky Golden Alpha like you."

"Lucky?"

"……"

His voice snapped on that word, cracking sharply. The man seemed to realize he had poked a nerve, and closed his mouth, averting his gaze.

He took a sip of champagne, set it down, and stood up from his chair.

"I think it's best we get going. I apologize for needlessly disrupting the mood."

I followed him, rising awkwardly from my seat.

"What — do cheap pheromones disgust you that much?"

The man was still desperately trying to elicit some extreme reaction from him until the very end. Despite the sharp jabs in his words, the eyes looking up at him from his seated position wavered with a confused mixture of resentment and pleading.

Suddenly I recalled my past self — the one who had once wondered what it would feel like to be specially hated by him. Among the crowd surrounding him at the Phantom exhibition hall, there must have been people who had wished to become special to him even through the vehicle of his hatred.

I could only vaguely guess that perhaps what the man wanted from him now was that same kind of misguided expectation.

"Still acting so refined on your own. Since pheromones that aren't Golden's disgust you, I suppose what you keep around is just a boring Beta?"

Knowing that he reacted sensitively to pheromones and held a near-obsessive fastidiousness about them, the man was relentlessly digging at exactly that. I wondered whether he had once been severely criticized by Kun because of pheromones, but no matter how I looked at it, the man's attitude didn't seem rooted in hatred or revenge.

As he finished buttoning his jacket and turned to leave, he finally paused and looked back at the man. The downward gaze held no temperature — not even coldness. It was lukewarm.

He let out a faint scoff.

"For someone who can't land a one-night stand without relying on pheromones, you certainly put on the airs of an Alpha."

If my hunch was right, I thought I would never understand what satisfaction the man gained from eliciting this kind of reaction from the person he craved. I turned my gaze away from the man, whose face looked carved open despite having been the one to provoke all of it.

"Even among Alphas, a Beta is better than trash like you. Even without the label of Alpha or anything else, anyone in this room would choose him over you."

"……"

"So don't ever let those cheap pheromones flow toward him again."

His voice was steady, devoid of agitation, yet the words came out as if ground between his teeth. He pulled me around by the back and changed direction. The rigid set of his jaw suggested he regretted bringing me here at all.

From what I understood, it was generally common for Omegas not to be able to smell each other's pheromones. Alphas could distinguish each other's pheromones by scent, but it didn't lead to sexual arousal.

Only Alphas and Omegas were supposed to be sexually stimulated by the pheromones they detected through smell.

The higher the ranking of a Golden Alpha, the stronger their reproductive ability — and they could emit powerful pheromones that Omegas found difficult to resist. Conversely, they also possessed excellent resistance to Omega pheromones. They could reliably protect themselves from the sudden acute heats — Ruts — triggered by Omega pheromone stimulation, making it entirely possible to live a life almost indistinguishable from a Beta's, according to their own will.

Not only were their offensive and defensive capabilities regarding pheromones simultaneously high, but they could also sensitively distinguish between the pheromones of Omegas and other Alphas. So it wasn't an exaggeration when Inwu hyung called him an Omega diviner. If he belonged to the very highest echelon among Golden Alphas, distinguishing between Alpha, Omega, and Beta would require about as much effort as telling an apple, a strawberry, and a banana apart by smell.

Knowing how strict he was about pheromones, I could gauge the extent of his displeasure caused by that man.

No — even setting aside his fastidiousness, the man had provoked him with excessive rudeness. If anything, I thought he had shown considerable patience. I didn't want to blame him, thinking his final retort was unnecessarily cruel.

Moreover, the reason he — who had tried to avoid conflict by leaving — ultimately reacted was, probably, because of me.

If the man hadn't expressed it as dragging around a pathetic Beta, he would have ignored the provocation and left. It might have been a reaction to being treated as someone who keeps pathetic things around, but that wasn't the whole story.

It meant that, at least now, I was not an entirely insignificant person to him — not someone whose insult could simply be walked past and ignored.

I was grateful for that, and a sweet resonance settled in the edge of my heart — a feeling of being moved. Why wouldn't I feel that way?

But perhaps because of the complex emotions I had seen reflected in the man's eyes as he looked at him, I couldn't feel purely relieved or happy about it. It wasn't for good reasons like sympathy or empathy for the man. It was a more self-centered thought.

Who could guarantee that if I spent more time by his side, I wouldn't end up looking just as pathetic as that man?

"Let's go out to the terrace and get some air."

Only after we had walked well away from the table — all the way to the stairs leading to the second floor — did he finally speak. The space between his brows was still tense, and he wasn't quite meeting my eyes, but his suggestion was soft.

The second floor was mostly arranged with comfortable couch seating. Groups of several people, or couples, leaned back in plush sofas enjoying music, drinks, and conversation.

Under dimmer lighting than the first floor, we passed a couple locked in a deep kiss — oblivious to those around them — and stepped out onto the terrace.

"Ah…"

Without any need to go up to Victoria Peak's observation deck, the Hong Kong nightscape unfolded right at our feet. It was a view spectacular enough to draw an involuntary gasp even from me — someone who isn't quick or intense with reactions.

It was a cliché, but the entire city glittered as if stardust had been scattered across it. Even knowing it was artificial light created by civilization, for a moment I felt overwhelmed — as though I had become a witness to some mysterious phenomenon crafted by nature.

He glanced back at me, my mouth hanging open in wonder like a child watching fireworks, and offered a faint smile. I felt embarrassed again for showing such a childish side, but if I could make him smile even a little in this moment, that was enough.

Large candles enclosed in transparent windscreens served as gentle lighting across the wide terrace, where plush sofas were spaced out just as they were inside. Jazz drifting up from the first floor flowed from speakers fixed to the walls, adding to the impression of the night view before us.

Whether they were couples who had arrived together or lovers hastily formed at this very party for tonight only, people had slipped away from the crowded hall in twos to whisper sweet nothings or exchange close, physical tenderness.

We sat side by side on a sofa at the far edge of the terrace. Champagne was set before us as soon as we settled in.

"We worked together before, and we never really got along even then. He's someone who wears being an Alpha like a medal, and he has a history of causing problems at the company because of pheromones — we clashed over that issue more than once. As expected… he couldn't let things pass quietly today either."

He frowned deeply once and shook his head, as though regretting that he'd said more than suited him.

To me, the man seemed to be craving his attention with his whole body rather than being hostile toward him… but that was only my uncertain instinct, coming from someone with zero romantic experience.

A breeze blew in, cool enough to make the air conditioning seem entirely unnecessary. Directly in front of our seats, dense garden trees obscured half the night view. That was probably why this spot — the most secluded on the terrace — had been empty.

His distinct profile, leaning forward with his arms resting on his thighs, still seemed to be chewing over the unpleasantness left behind by what had just happened. I was looking at him and wondering if there was anything I could say to comfort him when an unfamiliar scent drifted under my nose.

The source of the fragrance was clearly him, sitting beside me. But it wasn't the scent I was familiar with — the scent I knew. The dark, heavy fragrance that nuna had said was her type was different from the one I recognized as his. The realization brought a deep wave of relief.

As it was his cologne, it shouldn't have mattered which one it was — and yet I couldn't explain to myself what criteria made that scent unpleasant while this one was acceptable. In any case, it wasn't something I could stop even if I disliked it.

And still — foolishly — I was simply relieved knowing that at this moment, I wasn't sharing that other scent with anyone else.

After a long moment of staring at a spot on the floor, lost in thought, he looked up at me with a bitter smile.

"I'm sorry. For showing you a pathetic scene. It was rather unseemly for a grown man."

I shook my head firmly several times.

"Saying one can't even seduce someone without pheromones. Honestly… I don't really have the right to criticize in that way, either."

Muttering as if to himself, he emptied his glass in one go.

I didn't know why he judged himself so harshly. Even Inwu hyung — his close friend — had described him as someone who didn't use his pheromones, like a person trying to become a Beta.

Perhaps the argument over pheromones just now was driving him — already strict with himself — toward excessive self-criticism.

"Director… I'm sure you could seduce anyone without pheromones. Whoever you wanted."

He paused mid-pour and turned to look at me. It had been an attempt at a joke meant to make him smile, and I worried it might have come out sounding like a remark that completely missed the mood.

"You think so?"

But seeing his faint smirk, it seemed the joke had gotten through.

"Yes. I don't think you'd need anything like pheromones."

I don't really feel that way, though. — He muttered that in English, as if to himself, then lifted his refilled glass and immediately drained half of it again.

"Director, you're handsome… brilliant at business… always impeccably dressed…"

He suddenly burst out laughing. A low, distinct sound. And with the last traces of his laughter still playing on his face, he looked at me.

"Are you trying to cheer me up right now?"

"It's a little… clumsy, isn't it?"

Heat rushed to my earlobes at the sheer immaturity of trying to comfort him by listing one-dimensional compliments worthy of a kindergartner. I was glad it was too dark to see clearly.

"Still — it's not a lie. You know it yourself, honestly. If you pretended not to know, that would be even more irritating."

Sneaking a glance up at him, I saw that the initial stiffness and self-reproach had faded considerably from his eyes and around his mouth. That was enough. The embarrassment was momentary. He hadn't laughed at my childish attempt to console him. Rather than laughing… his gaze as he looked at me had deepened.

I tensed automatically beneath his eyes as they traveled slowly over my face, carefully tracing every feature as if touching them. Was this way of scrutinizing someone's face a habit of his?

The scent stirred my senses, carried on the wind rustling through the branches. This time, it was the one I knew well.

I leaned forward without realizing it and breathed in. His shoulder was barely a hand's breadth away from mine.

"I thought you weren't wearing that perfume today."

"I mixed several. Having my scent overlap with someone else's bothers me even more than running into someone wearing the same clothes."

He said that as he emptied his glass and set it on the table. Then, resting his arm over the back of the sofa, he turned his body to face me. His firm, long arm stretched out behind my back.

Just him turning toward me intensified the fragrance. With his arm hooked over the back like that, it felt as though the scent was pouring out from the opening of his chest.

"Do you really want to cheer me up?"

I nodded. The arm resting on the back bent, and he began fiddling with my hair. His hand, lightly rubbing the ends of my hair, slipped down, brushed past the edge of my ear, and softly cupped the nape of my neck.

He slid closer, sharply tilting his head and pressing his lips right against my ear. Even just the moist warmth of his breath made my shoulder flinch.

"There is… a way, you know."

His whispered voice was like the promise of a secret that piqued curiosity. The husky low tone was sweet, as if gently scratching the inside of my belly.

His high nose grazed lightly past my ear, then slowly swept across my cheek. When it neared the tip of my nose, his face tilted, changing its angle. I pulled back just slightly — but it wasn't a rejection. It was only an action born from panic, surprise, and a touch of fear.

Our lips brushed against each other, fleetingly. Then the next moment he pressed in a little deeper, and firmly. Each time he moved his head, the soft weight of him pushed and yielded against me. Even from that shallow contact, I couldn't move at all.

His hot, dry lips took hold of my lower lip first, then my upper lip, in turn. He held them between his lips and drew at them as if coaxing out the juice within — sucking strongly and then releasing, over and over.

Caught in a distant, dizzying sensation, I fumbled with my hand and grabbed the hem of his jacket. My breath trembled; my shoulders and back stiffened rigidly and then went limp, repeatedly. I didn't know how to regain control of myself.

When I slowly blinked, there were his eyes staring at me from an impossibly close distance.

"This is our first kiss."

He whispered, his eyes narrowing as he looked down at me from a distance where our lips could brush.

My memory hadn't failed me.

I had replayed that night's events countless times since then, but I couldn't find a single instance where our lips had met. It wasn't that I had forgotten — a kiss simply hadn't been part of what happened that night.

I couldn't understand what it meant that a kiss had been omitted, even though we had rubbed ourselves together until I came.

"I didn't want to take a kiss from someone who was in a mental panic."

It felt like an explanation that had somehow read my mind.

He added, slowly sucking my lower lip in once more and then releasing it.

"I had a feeling… that might have been your first kiss, too."

"……"

Something deflated at the thought that he considered me the kind of person who hadn't even kissed anyone by this age, and a sudden urge to deny it rose up — even though his guess was correct.

And yet, thinking that even in that situation he had deliberately held back from kissing me because it was my first, his unexpected delicacy and self-control coaxed out a small, almost involuntary smile and eased some of the tension from me.

Had he imagined I had treasured my first kiss and assigned it great significance?

I hadn't set some high standard and deliberately saved it — but I also hadn't thought it was okay to just do it with anyone, anyhow. If a kiss had happened that day and I couldn't remember it, I might have regretted it.

Thinking about it that way, his judgment had been right. It couldn't exactly be called excessive or unnecessary consideration.

He gently stroked the back of my neck as if massaging it, then lightly scraped the surface of my lips with his teeth.

"How much of that day do you remember?"

"……"

Up until now, I had taken his behavior since that day as an unspoken message that we should treat the entire incident as if it had never happened.

But for me, it was my first sexual experience with another person, and it had been a shocking enough stimulus to change even my mechanical, joyless masturbation patterns.

I couldn't meet his eyes as I thought of the times I had come while remembering his lewd words — the ones that had fueled my excitement — and the strong grip of his hand working between my legs.

As I bit my lip and lowered my head, his lips followed. The tickling of his tongue at the spot where I'd bitten made me release it, and as if he'd been waiting, his lips sucked me in. The sensation of him chewing gently at the flesh made my shoulders curve inward.

"Judging by your reaction... you didn’t completely forget."

At the end of his voice, which held a hint of amusement, he moistened his lips with his tongue as if savoring a taste. Before I could say anything, my lips were swallowed again. From the moment our lips had first met, he hadn't pulled away for more than ten seconds.

The density of his scent, breathing at such close proximity, was intense. It felt as though he were breathing the scent itself into me through his lips. That fragrance, at this moment, was layering itself over my memories of last time, summoned by the stimulation being applied right now. It seemed that for me, this scent had become firmly linked to sexual imagery.

The hand stroking the back of my neck moved down to caress my shoulders and back, while his other hand unbuttoned my jacket.

His hand slipped inside my jacket and moved across my chest through the smooth fabric of my shirt. He found my nipple easily, pushed the bud upward with his middle finger, and pressed his lips back against mine. Lips still overlapping, he slowly rubbed them side to side, then up and down, drawing out the inner moisture until the deeper contact of wet flesh against wet flesh coaxed a faint moan from between my lips.

Beneath his middle finger, my nipple bent this way and that, growing harder. The harder it became, the more my body contracted — a thirst for his touch to crush and suck that spot more forcefully — and I grabbed his wrist in fear. But this time he pinched the flesh between his index finger and thumb and twisted it until it hurt. Yet it wasn't pain. It tingled.

"Here. Remember how I sucked here? You put it right in my mouth yourself."

I bit my lower lip. My brow furrowed without thinking, and my back arched. And yet, ridiculously, I wanted him not to stop this caress and teasing.

Because I remembered all of it — the pleasure that had shaken my whole body when he licked, sucked, and bit that spot I had never even been consciously aware of before.

His lips left mine and hovered near my ear, whispering low and slow.

"Ah… I want to suck it again."

His voice, playfully reminiscing about the sweetness of something delicious — yet undeniably full of want — made my blood vessels twitch and tighten. Instantly, that feeling surged powerfully upward. I felt like I might go crazy with the need to have him bite my nipple again, just like last time.

I clutched the lapel of his jacket as if clinging to something and let out a breath. Not missing the opening, his tongue pushed inside. He thrust it in so deep it felt like it could block my airway. My lower jaw fell open and his wet, supple flesh churned all through my mouth. It felt like drinking his scent as a liquid.

His hand wrapped around my thigh. The touch, gentle and soothing at first, gained viscosity and slid deeper. His hand rubbing the warm skin beneath my pants made not just my upper body but everything below my waist start to clench and tremble.

"Hhngh… ugh…"

Continuing the kiss was becoming difficult. I tore my lips away as if fleeing and buried my forehead in his shoulder. Embarrassingly, I was half-hard.

He, having lost the tongue he was sucking on, hugged my back as if patting it, lowered his head, and whispered close to my ear.

"Shall we go to the hotel?"

Already enveloped in his scent, I tilted my head toward the nape of his neck. The fragrance inhaled directly from his skin was like a drug. Greedily, I took one deep breath after another.

Looking down at me, he muttered a low curse and tried to quickly stand up.

"I…"

I grabbed him urgently and pulled him back. He shifted from standing to sitting back down beside me, made a show of sweeping my neatly styled hair behind my ear — there was nothing to sweep — and pressed his lips close to my ear as I bowed my head.

"What's wrong? I know you’re eager, but we still need to move. I have no intention of stopping within the limits of what's possible here, you know?"

"……"

Rather than confessing out loud that I was hard, it felt like it would be easier to simply open my shirt and show him my nipples. I resented my erection, swollen to the point of bursting from nothing but a kiss.

I lifted my head and looked at him. My eyes were clearly damp and swimming with desire and longing for him, but I had no choice but to hope he would notice my state.

He looked into my left eye, then my right, slowly, and then bumped his forehead gently against mine.

"I'm sorry. I was teasing, even though I knew. Honestly, I don't have any room to spare right now either… so there's no need to be embarrassed."

After calling for a car to be brought around, he made me take off my jacket. I draped it over my arm to roughly cover my lower half, and we stood up.

We squeezed through the crowded first-floor hall — where the jazz piano melody had by now been replaced by the DJ's dance track — and ran down the stairs hand in hand.

A different car from the one I had arrived in with nuna and hyung — probably the one he came in — was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. The moment he put me in first and got into the back seat, he lunged and kissed me before the doorman could even finish closing the door.

As I received the cascade of his shoulders and lips, I glanced toward the front seat, and he cupped my cheek with his hand, forcing me to focus only on him. The moment the car started moving, a sliding blind dropped down over the window separating the front and back seats.

His strength, pushing me toward the door, kept my body from facing forward; I was half-reclined with my back against the panel. He, too, ungracefully climbed halfway onto the seat and wedged himself between my legs.

Like a boy discovering someone else's lips for the first time and falling completely captive to them, he clung to mine. He kissed me countless times — pecking, biting with his teeth, pressing deep, sucking and chewing. He rubbed his tongue against mine, coaxed my tongue into his mouth, filled it, and squeezed down.

These were not the kind of kisses where you close your eyes and savor each other's presence. We never broke eye contact the entire time.

He pulled my shirt out from my pants and shoved his hand inside. The contact of his bare hand on my skin made my back arch. I let out a groan and grabbed his shoulders. Still kissing me, he yanked off his jacket and tossed it aside carelessly. Then he grabbed my arm, guided it around his neck, pulled me onto his lap and held my back tight.

My erection pressed against his body, and my whole frame trembled. Shame forgotten, I tightened my grip around his neck and pressed my erection against his lower abdomen. Feeling the hardness of his shaft below my balls gave me a measure of reassurance.

In that locked position, we indulged in each other's clothed bodies and tangled our tongues. With half-lidded, languid eyes, we openly showed our desire. His scent — like music creating a seductive atmosphere, or a hallucinogen that numbed reason — made me bold.

If a Beta could detect an Alpha's pheromones, we'd probably be halfway down the stairs, tangled up in the back seat of my car by now.

Inwu hyung's words came back to me.

Along with his assertion that Alphas and Omegas could be drawn to someone regardless of pheromones.

It was exactly as he'd said. He, a Golden Alpha, and I, a Beta, were burning with desire for each other without pheromones — so much so that we couldn't even wait the short time it took to reach the hotel room, already entangled in the back seat of the car.

"Having to hold back again just to get to the room. This is absolute hell."

He muttered in despair as he confirmed we were entering the hotel's driveway. Even as he spoke, his hand hadn't left my ass.

"I'm sorry. Can you endure hell for five more minutes — no, just three?"

His serious expression as he said it made me laugh. I was surprised I could still laugh in this situation. I nodded.

Holding his hand, our clothes disheveled and our breathing ragged, we crossed the lobby. Fortunately the elevator hall was empty late on a Sunday. If we'd run into a family with a young child, I might have been consumed by self-loathing while hiding my erection under my jacket.

The express elevator shot up to the forty-second floor in an instant.

It should have been instantaneous, but it felt agonizingly long. Just as he'd said — it was hell.

Feeling something about to overflow inside me, I covered my mouth with my jacket to hold it back, and he pulled me into an embrace from behind.

His arms, joined over my lower abdomen, gripped my waist tightly. If anyone had seen us, they'd have thought he was holding me upright because I couldn't stand on my own.

Two opposing urges pulled at me simultaneously: the desire to twist away and flee, and the desire to turn around, pull him close, and grind my body against his solid frame.

The former was the me still clinging to reason and inertia. The latter was a new me — one who had awakened to the pleasure that comes from satisfying desire, and to the domain of instinct.

Though it had only happened once, based on experience, I already knew which hand I would let myself be led by.

As soon as the elevator doors opened, he snatched my wrist and strode quickly across the hall, and I followed, my legs barely cooperating, nearly dragged.

The moment he opened the door, we tumbled inside. No — he yanked me in forcefully. He tossed the card key carelessly onto the console table next to the entryway and wrapped his long arms around my back.

My jacket fell to the floor, and the next instant my back hit the wall of the corridor leading to the living room. But I didn't feel the pain. Our lips met again — as sweet as a single drop of liquor fallen at last onto the tip of the tongue after a long wait — and everything else was forgotten.

I, too, wrapped my arms around his back and held him so tightly his shirt wrinkled. As he bit and released my lips over and over, all my senses converged on my mouth, drawn by the stinging, dizzying suction.

Unable to withstand the force of him lunging as if to drive me to the bare floor, I staggered backward and hit my thighs against the back of the sofa. Then the round dining table — where we had all gathered for breakfast meetings throughout the fair — was shoved backward by him. A couple of chairs toppled over, but neither of us cared.

"Ugh."

After nearly losing my balance and falling several times as we pushed and shoved each other back, the dead end where we finally stopped was the floor-to-ceiling window.

He had backed me against the forty-second-floor panoramic window overlooking the nightscape of Tsim Sha Tsui across the water. For a while, he simply stared into my eyes from close range, breathing heavily.

His broad shoulders heaving right in front of me looked angry, as if I had betrayed him. Beneath his furrowed eyelids, his pale blue eyes seemed to fizz like carbonation. It was strange — even someone like him could become this undone because of desire.

Feeling the cool glass behind my back, I simply looked back at the desire radiating from him — a desire that felt like anger. I breathed in his scent, growing denser and darker in the space between us.

The next moment he tilted his head and pressed his lips against mine again — deeply this time, and despite his gaze, his mouth was purely soft. A shower of small kisses rained down, pressing and releasing, pressing and releasing.

As if about to choke me, he grabbed the nape of my neck with one hand, then spread his fingers and traced downward. His hand moved down the smooth fabric of my shirt, drawing a large curve down to my lower abdomen, where he deftly undid the belt buckle and pulled down the zipper with just one hand.

The moment the zipper parted in a V-shape, his hand pushed urgently inside my briefs.

"Ugh, hngh…"

I squeezed my eyes shut at the sensation of his fingers wrapping around my erection and bit my lip. His large hand working inside my underwear created a volume that pushed my pants down until they fell to my ankles with a soft thud.

Instinctively I opened my eyes and looked down. The movement of his hand stroking my erection inside my underwear was starkly visible. More obscene than if I'd been exposed directly, it made my skin throb.

His hand disappearing inside my underwear felt like it symbolized the intimate friction of coupling — sex itself.

The arm that wasn't inside my briefs braced itself on the glass pane at the elbow, and he pressed his lips close to my ear.

"I thought this last time, too."

He continued in a rough voice, rubbing my erection with his entire palm from the base upward.

"You're bigger than I expected."

I leaned my forehead against his shoulder, which stood before me like a solid wall, and shook my head.

"Why? It's pretty big, isn't it?"

You shouldn't compare yourself to me. Next to mine, anyone else would seem pathetic. — He added in a teasing voice, licking the curve of my earlobe with his hot tongue. It sounded like a joke, but I couldn't laugh. Even if he was joking, what he said was true.

My hearing, growing damp and sensitive, left me with nothing more than a twitch of my shoulder.

"You look like you’ve just stepped out of the shower, but when I actually got you undressed you were so big — it made me think you'd be insatiable… and then grinding it against my stomach… God, it was so hot."

I shook my head vigorously again. I didn't know if I wanted to deny what he said, or if I wanted him to stop whispering these things in my ear. But honestly, I didn't dislike the content of his words, or his whispering.

In my lowered head, my eyes were fixed on his hand fumbling inside my underwear. My shoulders hitched as if I were about to burst into tears. I covered my mouth with one hand and grabbed his side with the other. His arm, propped on the glass above my shoulder, gently but firmly pulled my hand away from my mouth. Deep inside my briefs, his fingertip tapped my balls. My hips jerked involuntarily.

"Don't just say no… Tell me how mine was. You were staring so intently."

"……"

"Look up."

At the soft command, I reluctantly lifted my forehead from his shoulder. His lips immediately came to mine — swallowing me, pressing as if to wring out the juice, then releasing. By now I couldn't tell if these lips were mine or his. From the continuous suction I could feel their swollen weight even when he wasn't kissing me.

He pressed his forehead against mine to keep me from bowing my head again and rubbed his nose tip against mine. At this distance there was no gap to breathe in that wasn't thick with his scent.

"How was it? Mine."

"Ngh- hngh."

The rhythm of my breathing shattered completely as his broad palm pushed deep between my legs, past my balls.

The repeated friction below revealed his own arousal while simultaneously dragging my desire — still hesitating at the edge of daily inertia — roughly outside the bounds of reason.

To support my body, which felt about to collapse, I moved my hands from his side to his shoulders. His arm rubbing below with a force that could have lifted me was bunched hard as rock. I could tell he was restraining himself considerably.

Yet the movement of his hand — demanding an honest confession — remained blatant. As the stroking sped up, my legs spread apart, unstable. It became a ridiculous posture, but neither of us laughed. If anything, that awkward stance seemed to announce the sexual meaning of the act, only heightening my excitement.

"It was… big…"

And the excitement finally forced my mouth open.

"Is that all?"

He was grinning right in front of me, his face looking strangely exhilarated. My thoughts were tilting — preoccupied with images conjured by the hand moving between my thighs: insertion, thrusting, sex.

Each time his palm slid beneath me and pushed farther back between my cheeks, the pressure jolted my body. Slick with the pre-cum dripping from me, his palm rubbed against the sensitive flesh, building heat between my legs. My heels lifted off the floor on their own.

I lunged forward and wrapped my arms around his neck. If I was honest, it would be a relief. The torment would stop too.

"I wanted to touch it…"

It was the beginning of the confession. I held his neck tighter so he couldn't see my face.

"I thought it was… dirty… and exciting, too."

The memory of the distorted pleasure I had gotten from whispering forbidden words into his ear, and the sweet praise he had given me afterward, urged me on from deep inside.

"It felt like it was made for sex... Just looking at it made my thighs go numb… Mmph…"

I had to stop the confession and bite down.

His hand, which had been rubbing between my legs, was now grinding hard against my tightly shut opening. He hadn't pushed inside, but the pressure was strong enough that he could have at any moment. If the angle shifted even slightly, it felt as though the tips of his fingernails would dig into me.

"What do you know about sex."

"……"

As if angered by the careless words of someone who didn't even know what sex was, his breathing grew ragged. He turned his head and bit my ear, then began to lightly scratch around my entrance. At the primal itch — as if he were scratching my internal organs — I did the unbelievable: still clutching his neck, I shook my hips impatiently as if urging him on.

He roughly shoved my underwear down.

As he worked, my erection — wet and a mess — was exposed, and I pressed it against his clothed hardness myself. It was a succession of unbelievable things, but I had no choice but to accept that this was me, or at least part of me.

You look so fresh and clean, like you've just stepped out of the shower, but underneath you're so big that I'd imagine you had quite an appetite. That was his assessment of me in bed. I had no idea what was happening to me, but I didn't dislike being looked at that way.

He was hard too, the front of his pants stretched tight over a pronounced bulge.

The distinct shape of his erection, suggested by the heavy, rising volume, sent an exhilarating wave through my head. As I writhed and panted, he gripped my buttocks with both hands and twisted the flesh.

"I want to put it in…"

His voice sounded as though he were savoring the pain, swallowing it one small piece at a time.

"You know what I mean, don't you? I want to put it… inside you, Seo Yeehyeon-ssi."

A moan escaped me at his pleading, impatient whisper. When my lips parted, he tilted his head and sucked in my lower lip. At the same time, he slid his hand — slick with my pre-cum — between my cheeks and rubbed circles over my opening.

"Will you let me find that sweet spot inside you... and rub against it with mine?

"S-stop…"

I turned my head away, overwhelmed by an arousal that was almost painful. As though refusing to let me turn away, he followed at once and swallowed my lips. He took both lips into his mouth and sucked at them again and again. As he swallowed me, sucked at me, and worked me apart, I too had become part of his scent.

"Why? That's what sex is. You said mine was made for it. So I should do that for you."

A longer curse followed his usual brief Fuck. Dazed as I was, I couldn't be certain what the rapidly spoken foreign words meant, but it sounded as though he wanted to make a complete mess of me.

He gripped my buttocks hard enough to make the flesh sting, then spread my cheeks forcefully, stretching the opening I couldn't see.

"I can't take it. I want to put it in right now, thrust… have sex with you."

It was the voice of a man desperate for penetration and release. Knowing I was the one he wanted made me ache inside. I wanted him inside me too, wanted him to find that release with me.

He tossed me onto the immaculate white bed, untouched and perfectly made. It felt as though I sank into thousands of feathers, only to resurface.

He looked down at me, bare from the waist down with only my shirt on and my erection exposed beneath its hem, as he quickly stripped beside the bed.

The bedroom had no separate lights on and was dim, but bright enough to make out everything in the room. Still, he showed not a trace of hesitation as he revealed himself entirely.

His muscles, tightly bunched from excitement and arousal, were like tempered armor. It was astonishing that such a muscular body could look sleek in a suit. That was partly the power of high-end tailoring — which probably made him appear at least a size smaller — but the proportions of his long limbs couldn't be ignored either. It was an ideal and beautiful body.

Standing directly in front of me without a trace of awkwardness or embarrassment, he slipped his hand inside his boxer briefs, the last thing he was wearing.

His briefs were stretched tight over an erection whose outline was unmistakable, curving to the right. He stroked himself inside them, then pushed the fabric down with his fingertips.

His briefs rolled down at an angle, and his half-hard length sprang free above the dark trail of hair leading down from his navel, dipping slowly under its own weight.

Just looking at it made me feel as though sex had already begun.

Without last time's experience, I wouldn't have believed that was only half hard.

Almost as though showing off, he slowly stroked himself from his balls to the tip, then climbed onto the bed on his knees. Looking up at him as he drew closer, I began undoing my shirt. It wasn't easy with one hand while propping myself up on an elbow, especially with the sight of his naked body adding to the excitement that had been building since the living room.

Seeing my hands tremble as I struggled with buttons smaller than my fingernails, he crawled across the mattress on all fours and kissed me. I stopped fumbling with the buttons and kissed him back.

"You're swollen."

He whispered, sucking my lower lip and releasing it with a snap.

Without thinking, I touched my lips with my fingertips. The heat was more pronounced than usual — a lingering reminder of how often he had sucked and bitten them tonight.

"Well. I did suck on them a little too much."

He laughed, acknowledging his own persistence — but there was no remorse in it. Our lips met again immediately.

"Mmph… Unngh…"

This time the kiss was more insistent, more passionate.

As he pushed his thighs beneath my legs and leaned into me, I wrapped my arms around his neck to keep from falling backward. A groan escaped me at the unpredictable movement of his wet tongue rubbing and tangling with mine.

His kisses seemed to dissolve his scent into his saliva. Each time I swallowed, I felt that strange fragrance sink into my body and race through my veins. It wasn't only my sense of smell anymore; even the inside of my body was becoming soaked in his scent.

It was like an addictive drug I could never get enough of, and I eagerly swallowed the saliva he fed into my mouth. I never grew used to his scent; it kept its first startling intensity. Whatever it was doing to me seemed to reach beyond my sense of smell.

His tongue, steeped in that scent, filled my mouth completely. I had to press against it and suck just to make room for a breath.

He wrapped one arm around my waist and reached with the other hand, impatiently snapping off the couple of buttons I hadn't undone. His palm slid straight onto my chest.

My back stiffened as he caught my erect nipple between his thumb and forefinger and tugged. The flesh was soft, with a firm point at its center. I tightened my arms around his neck and twisted my parted lips against his, rubbing deeper, as though begging him to touch me harder.

Perhaps it spurred him on. His tongue swept from side to side inside my mouth, and a moan simmered deep in my throat at the obscene movement.

One side of my shirt slipped off my shoulder. He bit the exposed skin before moving down to my chest. His pointed tongue teased my soft nipple, bending it back and forth.

"Mmph-"

I bit my lip to suppress the sound. One arm kept hold of his neck; the other braced my upper body against the sheets.

He only flicked his tongue upward against it, teasing me without giving me the stimulation I wanted. I rubbed my toes against the sheets to bear it.

I looked down at his thick lashes, focused on my nipple, and finally pushed one side of my chest further toward him. His gaze shifted upward.

My hardened nipple was pressed against his lips, but he didn't open his mouth — he just looked at me. I twisted my shoulders alternately, rubbing it against his lips myself, while the hand around his neck stroked the tense muscles of his shoulder and the back of his neck.

Looking down at him, I was struck again by how extraordinarily handsome he was. Rubbing my nipple against that flawless face, asking him for a sexual response… suddenly felt more intimate and provocative than any of the more direct acts during sex.

"Please do it for me…"

It was a desperate whisper.

I pressed my chest closer to him, as though holding him close against me. My nipple disappeared between his full lips. With the excitement building layer upon layer until it was almost unbearable, I was already straying from my usual self without any encouragement from him. I hadn't known that the deliberate withholding of touch could be just as stimulating as the touch itself.

"Hngh!"

Suddenly, he pursed his lips and sucked in the nipple he had been holding. The fierce pressure, as though he were squeezing it dry, made me throw my head back and bury my fingers in his hair.

"Ngh, ah! Hnngh…!"

He tightened his lips around my nipple and scraped the tip with his tongue, then took the whole areola into his mouth, biting and sucking at my chest so hard that embarrassing wet sounds escaped.

As he finally gave me what I wanted, tingling pleasure swept through my whole body. With my arms still around his neck, I fell back onto the two large pillows stacked behind me.

He settled over me, and the close fit of our bodies, pressed together without a gap, was deeply satisfying. My erection rubbed against his upper abdomen; his pressed against my inner thigh. When he began circling his hips, contact became friction.

Still sucking my nipple so fiercely that escaping air squeaked, he slid his right knee between my thighs and pushed outward, spreading my legs. His firm thighs pressed beneath the outer edges of my buttocks. His thick length pressed firmly against the skin between my balls and my opening, and as soon as our lower bodies met, he began rocking his hips.

It recalled his heated declaration that he wanted to put it in and move right now, and I couldn't help anticipating what it would feel like to have him inside me.

I had never thought about how it might feel to have someone inside me. It felt strange to want it now, as though it were the natural next step. But remembering how I'd responded in his bedroom last time, perhaps it wasn't so surprising.

Perhaps the desires I had suppressed and ignored in every part of my life were finding a distorted outlet in sex. Or perhaps I was simply, dangerously blind — wanting to give him anything he wanted.

Whatever the reason, I wanted him too. That alone was enough to govern me in this moment. Nothing was being forced on me.

He slipped his hand between our stomachs and reached deep between my spread legs to feel my opening. I immediately lost my hold on his neck and gripped his shoulder so hard I twisted the flesh.

"Why are you squirming?"

Leaving my nipple, he moved up and traced my lips with his tongue, smiling faintly. He had noticed how his hips moving, his erection grinding against my crotch, had excited me, and he was enjoying it. I didn't dislike that almost wicked expression.

"Here… it keeps twitching. As if expecting something."

He pressed steadily against my opening as though he might slide a finger inside at any moment, but his expression suddenly tightened. His lashes trembled at the corners of his narrowed eyes.

He felt all around my opening, then began rubbing with his whole palm, as though his fingers alone weren't enough.

"Hngh, ugh."

He seemed to be searching for something. There was almost none of the lingering sensuality or lewd intent in his touch now, yet my body was so sensitive that it flinched and trembled even at this almost clinical examination.

Had something gone wrong? I looked up at him, anxious but still flushed with excitement. He repeatedly rubbed beneath me with his palm, pressing and stroking around my opening with particular care, his brow furrowed as he kept looking back into my eyes.

I thought I understood.

He still hadn't completely dismissed the suspicion that I might be an Omega.

Last time, I had been nearly ignorant about Alphas and Omegas — but not now. I could guess his intentions to some extent.

Right now, he was probably searching between my legs for Omega arousal fluid.

I was a Beta, so no amount of pheromones would have any effect on me. He'd said so himself to the blond man only a few hours ago.

Or perhaps he was hoping I was an Omega after all.

But he was an Alpha who didn't even use his pheromones in bed, so there was no reason I needed to be an Omega.

He ended his search by slipping just a fingertip inside me, turning it as though gathering a dab of cream, then withdrawing his hand from between my legs. Right in front of my eyes, he ran his tongue over his hand and sniffed it, though there was nothing on it.

As he looked down at me and ran his tongue between his fingers, his face seemed rapt, as though he were breathing in a scent that brought on erotic hallucinations. Yet there was clearly nothing on those fingers.

Keeping his eyes fixed on mine, he covered my face with his hand. His long fingers stretched across my cheeks, partially obscuring my eyes. When I blinked, my lashes brushed against his fingers.

He leaned closer and licked my lips through the gaps between his fingers. When his tongue slipped past my lips and touched the soft inner surface, I grew hazy too, as though hallucinating. Hesitantly, I put out my tongue and rubbed it against his, hot and wet. His tongue seemed an inexhaustible source of his scent.

Between his index and middle fingers. Between his middle and ring fingers.

We sought out and tasted each other's tongues as though playing hide-and-seek. What was it about this? Just having his fingers between us gave the kiss a tenderness edged with longing, making it all the more arousing.

Growing impatient, I rocked my hips and scraped and bit at his fingers. Through narrowed eyes, he watched every moment of my mounting excitement, every flare of it.

The longer we kissed, the stronger the twitching in my belly became—or rather, inside my entrance. His erection rubbing against my crotch and inner thighs was impossible to ignore. Whenever he gently ground his hips against me, it twitched as though it might push into me at any moment.

"Hnng, hng…"

He looked down at me as I twisted my hips, wanting him to rub more deeply against me. Then he raised his upper body and took hold of my ankles.

Without warning or hesitation, he lifted my ankles toward the ceiling and spread my legs wide apart.

"Ugh."

His serious expression made it more embarrassing. Spread in a wide V toward the ceiling, my legs were being handled like a doll's, so helpless I wondered if they had always been this way. He bent his head to look between them, and I shrank instinctively under that intent gaze.

"I couldn't see properly last time."

His voice was huskier than usual as he explained this embarrassing inspection.

"This is where I'm going to lick you with my tongue and fuck you with my cock. Of course I should get a good look first."

"L-lick me with what…!"

Before I could finish speaking, he pushed my ankles toward my shoulders. My knees bent, folding me in half. I tried to raise my upper body, but the weight pressing down on my ankles defeated the effort.

My face was between my knees. My erection, my balls, even my opening… everything I normally kept hidden between my legs was on full display, facing upward. I couldn't remember ever being in such an embarrassing position, one I'd have no reason to try under ordinary circumstances. I felt blood rush to my face.

And yet I couldn't deny that this embarrassment and shame only made it all the clearer that he and I were deeply immersed in an intensely private act, one we couldn't speak of to others.

Perhaps my head had grown dull from his scent, which hung heavily throughout the room like a diffuser's fragrance — to the point where I could no longer distinguish between shame and pleasure. In truth, too strong a scent can cause headaches. This sensation — languid and hazy, yet capable of sharply grasping the core of pleasure in an instant — was different from a headache in nature but similar in the way it clouded judgment.

Before I had time to struggle or resist, he caught my waist and lifted. My upper body slid down off the pillows while my lower body rose.

Everything between my legs was exposed at the height of his chest. He only had to lower his head a little to look or rub his tongue against me as he pleased.

I wrung out the last remnants of reason clinging to one corner of my mind, as if I wouldn't be able to face myself after this was over if I didn't even attempt this much.

I reached out to cover myself and stop him, but he was quicker. He lowered his head and drew the pointed tip of his tongue in a long stroke along the skin beneath my upturned balls.

"Haaa... ah!"

The sensation shot through my entire body, making my legs kick helplessly in the air.

"It only makes me more excited when you seem like you want to touch it yourself."

He lightly bit my fingers, which were belatedly trying to cover my opening. Any attempt to interfere would only make it backfire.

Looking up at his face as his tongue pressed against my opening between my fingers, I felt a trace of self-mockery. The thrill of it was stronger than my shame.

"Are you still shy?"

"Hngh, mmph..."

After licking firmly over my opening, he pressed the full flat of his tongue against it and rubbed hard as he asked.

"Don't worry. You'll forget all about it soon. Just like last time."

He scraped his teeth along the soft skin of my tightly puckered opening, taking it between them and biting. He kept sucking and releasing it, hard enough to make wet sounds, until the whole area between my opening and my balls glistened with his saliva.

The tense muscles around my opening softened. As my body loosened and opened, the sensation seemed to melt everything between my legs.

He was repeating the kisses he had lavished on my lips, but now down below… on the most intimate, private part of me.

I couldn't look away as his tongue, held firm, slowly descended and pushed inside me. He could see every part of me in this position, and I could see everything he did between my legs too — every kiss, every suck, every stroke, every push inside.

When his tongue couldn't go any farther, he curled the tip and dragged it along the inner wall as he withdrew. It barely lingered at the edge of my opening before pushing in again.

"Nnngh… hngh…!"

I gripped the sheets as his wet tongue moved in and out between my legs, appearing and disappearing. Even lying still, I was breathless. My erection, pointing upward, swelled and twitched without being touched.

His tongue thrust rapidly inside me, further breaking the rhythm of my breathing. The spacious bedroom filled with wet sounds as it rubbed against my inner walls, mingling with my panting and moans.

"Ah, s-stop… Hnngh! I don't like th-that…!"

With his tongue pushed all the way in, he flicked it against my inner walls and made me writhe. The unbearable tickling in a place I couldn't scratch made me buck my hips and nearly cry out.

In a tight, strained voice, I begged him to rub harder instead, to make it hurt.

He watched me plead, his gaze restless, but didn't give me what I asked for. When he finally drew his tongue out, my chest was heaving as though I'd just sprinted at full speed. My back was damp beneath the shirt I still hadn't fully taken off.

Before I could catch my breath, he pulled my hips closer against him, buried his nose and mouth against the skin between my balls and my opening, and inhaled deeply. He moved his head from side to side, biting and sucking all over my groin as though searching for traces of something precious he had hidden long ago.

His eyes flashed blue even in the darkness, and his broad shoulders, held tense, repeatedly rose and fell. They showed that he too was far from calm, that this foreplay was breaking down his reason.

He inhaled as though he might draw the soft skin into his nostrils, then raised his eyes to look down at me, his face still buried against that same spot.

I'm sure I left it right here, but I can't find it anywhere. That was the look on his face.

"Seo Yeehyeon-ssi."

"……"

Calling my name while burying his face between my legs — was this torment? Or part of the foreplay?

Was it because he had such a handsome face and a pleasant voice that I could feel pleasure even in this position, where he was freely playing with my most intimate parts?

I looked up at his face in a daze, my breathing still unsettled, thinking such disconnected thoughts.

"What are you, really?"

What was he asking about?

I searched my hazy, heated thoughts for an answer, but nothing came.

Perhaps, right now, I was nothing at all. Laid bare before him, rubbed and probed by him, I burned for him to reach deeper, for us to meet and rub together somewhere deeper still. That desire was the clearest part of me now. Beyond it, I was nothing.

He buried his nose and mouth against the soft skin beneath my balls, rubbing his face against me as he took another deep breath. His teeth and lips took turns nibbling around my opening, while the firm bridge of his nose prodded the tender flesh again and again.

He seemed to be quite taken with my groin. Otherwise, would he really press so close, biting and sucking like that?

As I watched him, my belly tightened in little spasms, and I kept clenching down below without realizing it.

As though something sweet were flowing from inside me, he took my opening into his mouth again, working his lips as he sucked, as if squeezing out and drinking what was there.

"Giving off a scent like this… and you're saying you aren't."

My consciousness was too hazy to be certain, but he muttered something to that effect, almost to himself, before finally lowering my hips back down onto the mattress. He raised an arm to wipe the sweat from his face, then crawled past me to the edge of the bed.

His glistening erection hung downward and swayed. I turned my head, panting as I watched it, my gaze probably heavy with desire.

He rummaged through the nightstand drawer and pulled out a tube. Lube.

With his left leg stretched out alongside my shoulder, he lifted my hips and adjusted his hold on me, then squeezed lube generously between my legs.

"Ugh…"

My shoulders drew inward at the slight chill against my hot, damp skin. He only glanced down at me and kept squeezing out lube, enough for it to run over my balls and erection and into the cleft between my cheeks.

Just the feeling of the sticky fluid — now quickly warming — sliding over sensitive skin made my raised hips twitch.

I could picture my opening changing shape with every twitch, every change exposed to him, but I couldn't stop reacting.

He spread the lube over my groin with his palm, bit my right buttock, and steadily pressed one side of my opening with his middle finger.

"Hngh, hngh…"

I twisted my hips from side to side as my opening parted and the liquid trickled in. It opened farther, letting in more lube, and his finger slipped smoothly inside along with it.

It felt different from his tongue. I distinctly felt my opening stretch and the inner walls being rubbed by something with bones and joints, firmer than a tongue and yet more flexible.

I felt the base between his fingers catch against my opening. He turned his wrist in a full circle, sweeping the inner walls. His fingertip lightly scratched inside, almost tickling, and the muscles of my buttocks twitched. Each twitch made me tighten around him involuntarily.

At that unconscious tightening, his eyes narrowed as he looked down at me.

"Later, you can't do that. Squeeze like that and… you'll snap it off."

His strained voice revealed how aroused he was, and how hard he was holding himself back to work me open slowly and carefully.

My unconscious clenching seemed to have stimulated him. The speed at which he moved in and out began to increase.

His brow furrowed and his jaw clenched; he looked like someone struggling to contain an overwhelming rage. His arm tightened around my waist until my skin stung, but neither of us had the presence of mind to notice.

It was only one finger, but he drove it straight down inside me so quickly, without a wasted movement, that my whole body jolted as though he were pressing with the strength of his hips and lower body.

"Hah! Ah… Ngh…"

My trembling breaths followed the rhythm of his movements, so closely echoing what he was doing between my legs that they sounded obscene. The lube between his finger and my inner walls made the sounds wet and raw.

A part of his body was moving in and out of mine through a place too intimate to name. He was absorbed in thrusting rapidly inside me, aroused by it, panting like an angry beast.

Just being aware of that made my erection twitch. A thrill rose through me, like the feeling just before coming.

"So soft. Hard to believe you're a Beta."

With his elbow bent at a right angle, he thrust his finger inside so quickly I couldn't even make out how many he was using. All the while, he kept biting my right buttock.

"But this won't be enough for real sex. You need to open up more."

He seemed impatient now.

All through his caresses, as he worked me open, his erection had been pressing into my back. However great an Alpha's sexual stamina, after holding out this long in such a state, surely he couldn't bear much more without direct stimulation.

He lowered my hips and picked up the lube again. I could draw my legs closer together now that they weren't held in the air. The more comfortable position eased the tension in the muscles around my opening.

This time he squeezed the lube into his palm instead of directly onto my skin, then rubbed another layer over the soft flesh.

"Hngh, ugh."

Everything between my legs was so sensitive from his continued touch that even the slightest contact made me flinch.

With more fingers this time, the greater thickness slipped inside without difficulty. He spread them apart inside me to work in more lube. Whenever I gasped and moaned, my opening twitched and a little more seeped in. I hadn't imagined it could be so sensitive that I would feel every part of it.

"Ah, ugh, hngh…"

My hips lifted as his fingertips slowly moved deeper, circling against my inner walls as gently as a massage.

Watching my reactions closely, he straightened up. His fingers continued exploring inside me, as though spreading the lube evenly over every surface.

Keeping his left leg extended beside my right shoulder, he gathered my legs and laid them over his right thigh. This time they were close enough together that his hand was caught between my thighs.

"Ughhh… hngh…"

In that position, the deep, insistent pressure of his fingers tipped my chin up and made my raised hips tremble. Though his fingers were already all the way inside, he kept turning his wrist from side to side as though trying to reach farther.

Then he began pounding.

My insides had softened like ice cream melted just enough to eat. His fingers drove furiously in and out, fast and hard.

He pushed me upward with the full strength of his shoulder and arm, not just his fingers. My breath shook as though I were caught in a washing machine on its spin cycle.

With his fingers straight or curled, he worked shallowly around my opening, then drove deep as though he might push his whole fist inside. He varied the angle and depth but kept the same relentless speed. I could only shake my head and moan, no longer knowing which sensation I was responding to.

"Haa… ah, ngh…"

With my muscles loose and all the tension gone, his fingers moving inside me felt far more intense than when my hips had been raised and the muscles pulled tight. There was almost no resistance to the unfamiliar intrusion.

With each push, he seemed to fill me to the deepest point. The unfamiliar, stimulating fullness made me reach blindly for his calf beside my right shoulder and wrap an arm around it.

"D-deeper… too fast…"

I couldn't finish a word; every ending broke off. My breathing shuddered out of control, sounding unmistakably like moans. Tears gathered as I looked up at him, trembling, almost pleading. His eyes shone too as he looked down at me, biting hard on his lower lip. Veins stood out on the right arm he was using to make my body shake.

"Ugh, hngh. Mmph!"

Suddenly, he curled his fingertips and pressed hard against a particular spot. The unfamiliar sensation made my eyes fly open as I drew in a sharp breath.

A shudder struck inside me like a brief flash of lightning. I sank my teeth into his calf and frantically rubbed and caressed the hard muscles of his thigh.

"You're driving me insane."

"Hngh!"

He swore and pulled his hand abruptly out of me, like yanking the plug from a full bathtub.

He quickly changed position, pushing his knees between my thighs and spreading my legs outward again, then settled on his knees between them.

He slid his spread thighs beneath mine and wrapped his hand around his erection.

Given the weight its thickness and length suggested, the upright angle of his erection hardly seemed possible. Rising from thick pubic hair damp with sweat, it looked as though it could never fit inside me.

Holding the middle of his shaft, he positioned the head at my opening and rubbed the pre-cum glistening on its thick tip around the opening several times, as though it were some magical aphrodisiac that could make this seemingly impossible penetration possible.

He kept licking his lower lip as he did it. Then he took my hand, limp after his prolonged caresses, and pulled me upright. I found myself sitting on his thighs, straddling him.

He caught my half-removed shirt at the back of my neck and pulled it off, kissing my collarbone and upper chest as he did.

"This is the best position to keep it from hurting. Only let me in as far as you can without pain. I know my own size—I have some conscience. That's enough for me."

Perhaps I looked anxious as I gazed down. He took my hand and brought it to where our groins were rubbing together, letting me feel my opening for myself.

"See? It's still open."

His fingers overlapped mine as we fondled my opening together. The feeling was indescribably sensual. My eyelids fluttered and my chest rose. He rubbed his lips against my chest, then lifted his chin to lick my lower lip and whisper.

"Inside is even softer. I'm going crazy with anticipation."

He sucked in my lower lip and bit at it, looking up at me with eyes glistening as though he were dreaming.

Barely holding myself up on my knees, I gripped his shoulders and slowly lowered myself. He held his shaft firmly beneath me to keep it from being pushed aside. The wet head parted my opening and slowly eased in, more smoothly than I had expected.

I vividly felt a part of me that had never opened like this being stretched apart and filled. Yet there was no pain or discomfort.

He kept coaxing me into kissing him so I couldn't focus entirely on what was happening below.

We exchanged saliva, our tongues moving against each other. Savoring the tickling touch of his tongue against the soft inside of my cheek, I felt like a wad of cotton soaked through with his scent. His naked body, glistening with sweat in the dim darkness, was fragrance itself, and I — being licked, opened, and filled by him — was now a complete part of that fragrance.

As the layers of scent surrounding us grew thicker, our arousal intensified. Perhaps an excitement stronger than anything I'd felt before was numbing all pain, if only for now.

"Haa… ah, ugh."

Every time my face tightened, every little gasp as I bit my lip and released it, every time I bowed my head as though giving way and gripped his shoulder in pleasure—

He watched every reaction as I took him inside me, as though observing and recording each one.

I didn't want to hide anything either. Instead, I felt a fierce desire to lay myself completely bare before him, down to the deepest parts of my body and mind.

Each time I took more of him inside, his eyelids lowered and a sweet ah… escaped him. Seeing his face made me want to push him all the way in at once, rather than endure this tantalizingly slow entry.

"Harder… suck harder."

To hold back that impulse, I asked him to hurt me. He immediately obliged, biting painfully into the soft inside of my lower lip, where he'd been licking.

"How long do you think… I've been waiting for this?"

He had kept hold of his shaft, occasionally reaching up to caress around my opening and spread it to help himself in. As he asked, his hand explored the place where we were joined in a deliberately lewd caress.

I thought he had held back for a long time.

He hadn't been holding back as long as I had—I had been hard since our kiss on the terrace—but throughout the prolonged foreplay, he had resisted the need to relieve his intense arousal.

"See how well you're doing."

He took my lips into his mouth, bit lightly, and released them, then guided my hand down again.

I had thought getting even the head inside would be a miracle. Now I couldn't help marveling at how my body had adapted. More than a third of his intimidating length was already inside me. I could clearly feel how tightly it filled me, but the pain was so faint I hadn't realized we had come this far.

Without thinking, I turned my head to look down at my backside, though I couldn't see where he entered me from that angle. Perhaps the movement excited him. Until then, he had waited for me to move on my own, but now he thrust his hips upward and pushed deeper.

"Surprised? I knew you'd do well. Though… you're doing even better than I expected."

He laid his hand over mine so I could feel how my opening had stretched around him. Together we explored the slick place where our bodies met. The eroticism of it made me rock my hips, drawing him deeper inside.

"Was my imagination always this poor?"

He smiled faintly, showing how good it felt to be inside me. Yet his face was full of impatience, of wanting to let loose.

What exactly had he imagined, and how?

Even without hearing an answer, I thought I could roughly guess, and my hips twisted again.

Ugh. I tightened around his erection as though biting into it. His face contorted, and he sank his teeth into my jaw.

"From here on, I'll take over."

I brushed the hair out of his eyes and nodded. Like a child finally allowed a piece of candy, he eagerly lunged forward. He kissed me, and for an instant my body lifted before he laid me back on the bed.

"I'd rather get myself off than hurt you. I would never do anything to hurt you. Don't be scared. Okay?"

He said it with a quick kiss on my lips. I nodded and wrapped my arms around his neck. His heavy body pressed against my chest as he slipped a hand between my back and the mattress and gripped my buttock.

"I've held back long enough."

Muttering to himself, he pulled at the flesh of my buttocks to stretch my opening wider. At the same time, his thick, hot length forced its way deeper inside me, hard as an iron rod heated in a fire.

"Hah, ah... Mmph!"

My breath hitched and my belly pulled tight. His face contorted at the intense pressure of my body tightening around him. Seeing how my movements immediately brought a response from him made me keenly aware that we were connected.

"You would've felt uneasy doing this with the others in the same house, wouldn't you?"

"…"

I looked at his face as he whispered, his breath warm. Then, belatedly, a dazed ah… escaped me.

"Even in separate rooms, it's still a little awkward, isn't it?"

His face wet with sweat, he grinned, rolling his hips and grinding his lower body against mine.

I had thought he'd booked this hotel instead of the apartment where he said he usually stayed as a treat for nuna and hyung. But perhaps that wasn't the reason. Still, imagining he'd booked it in advance with a night like this with me in mind… seemed too great a leap. He was probably half-joking.

While I was reaching that conclusion, he covered me completely and rubbed his whole body against mine. The curves of his thick chest made it hard to breathe, and my erection pressed against his hard, sharply defined abdominal muscles. Our legs tangled, holding each other in place.

I stroked his broad back, tracing the contours of its muscles and touching him as freely as I wanted, twisting my body to help create that obscene friction. As we rubbed against each other, naked and pressed together, our skin seemed to melt. It felt as though my whole body, not just down below, was mingling wetly with his.

At first, he didn't try to push deeper. Still only partly inside, he circled his hips to work my opening wider. He seemed more intent on kissing and caressing, stroking my back, waist, and buttocks, and playfully pinching them.

Soon, though, the teasing was no longer just teasing. His scent rose strongly wherever our bodies rubbed. Holding each other close without a gap between us, he began lifting and lowering his hips.

He drew back, dragging against my inner walls as though pulling everything out of me, then slowly pushed in again, twisting his hips from side to side. He was no longer simply pushing inside; he kept withdrawing and filling me again. The repeated thrusts made my breathing tremble as though I were sobbing.

Still, I didn't close my eyes. Neither of us looked away as we watched every reaction to the penetration appear on the other's face, as though it would be foolish to miss this moment.

He moved with astonishing flexibility. Sometimes his hips traced wide circles against my opening; sometimes his body undulated in a wave from his shoulders to his buttocks. Sometimes he stayed at the same depth and moved in quick, small pulses, neither pushing farther in nor drawing back.

Each movement stirred an unfamiliar pleasure inside me. Spasms surged and flared, then receded, almost within reach but never quite caught, making my hips twist.

I moaned as though pleading and pulled him closer. I kneaded his tense shoulders and the back of his neck, tracing the curves of his bulging arm muscles. Keeping my eyes on his, I curled the tip of my tongue, hooked it against his, and rubbed.

He pulled back until only the head remained, then slid in again. My inner walls briefly tightened, shuddered, and were stretched open once more. As he rubbed past that tingling spot, the sensation seemed to seize my throat and toy with it.

"Haa, haa… hah. Ugh."

Holding him tightly around the neck, I buried my lips against his nape and breathed in his scent through my nose and mouth, forgetting my shame.

"Do you like my scent?"

His breathing was uneven too. I nodded frantically. He lowered his head in turn and repeatedly bit my ear and neck.

"I love your scent too… so fucking much."

Keeping his upper body pressed close to mine, he moved only his hips in quick pulses and caught my lips between his teeth.

"Where is it coming from? Here?"

He panted as he sucked at my lips, swollen as though they might split and bleed. Like me, he had lost all reason. The blue of his eyes had paled, leaving only their fierce shine.

"Or, here?"

"Haah, ugh."

He gripped my shoulders and pulled me down as he thrust his hips upward. My eyes flew open. It felt as though the head of his erection were pressing against my heart. His pubic hair touched my crotch. I had taken all of him inside.

Before I could take in the pressure filling me, he drew back. I distinctly felt the shape of the head drag across that tingling spot. Then he pushed in again, faster, rubbing hard against it.

"Hah, ugh… th-there…"

I kept readjusting my arms around his neck, biting my lip and letting it go. Pleasure seemed to set fire inside me, making my whole body draw inward and my limbs contract.

The lube already inside me mingled with the pre-cum he must have released there, and the sticky liquid leaked out with a squelch. Even without looking, I could vividly picture the thrusting between my legs. Every circuit in my head seemed to ignite, and my thoughts stopped.

"You said looking at my cock made your crotch tingle. Does it feel that good when I fuck you… is that why you're giving off your scent here? Fuck, it's here… here, isn't it?"

Every time he stressed here, he pushed all the way in and ground against me. By the end of his sentence, he was driving into me as though he might break me apart. Had I been in pain, the thrusting was merciless enough to call violence.

And yet I wrapped my arms around his neck, spread my legs, and moved my hips.

Sex felt good. I was discovering how good it felt with him, so good I could lose my mind. His scent alone made my body ache; just seeing his erection made me desperate. Everything he said was right. I wanted him to break me apart.

…I poured out those words.

It wasn't like last time, when I'd clung to his neck without seeing his face and whispered into his ear.

I looked straight into his eyes as I said those unbelievable things. I sucked his lips the way he sucked mine, tangled my tongue with his, and twisted my hips to stimulate him inside me.

The scent I inhaled with my nose pressed against his skin was like a drug.

I had been right. Last time and now, being in bed with him made me feel as though I were on drugs.

Exposing myself to someone in an embarrassing position, growing hot at his obscene whispers, becoming excited by saying such things into his ear… I was so unlike my usual self, surrendering to the shudders of sexual pleasure. It seemed to fit what little I vaguely understood about the effects of drugs.

There was sex addiction too, not just drug addiction. I thought I could understand why. Nothing was more exhilarating than breaking out of the rhythm of everyday life.

The things I said, so unlike my ordinary self and spoken when I was out of my senses, made his eyes flare fiercely. A deep, rough kiss sealed my mouth. Unlike his careful movements at the beginning, he no longer hesitated now that he knew my body had opened completely.

As he rubbed repeatedly over that sensitive spot, satisfying my craving, I felt myself nearing climax. Without thinking, I wrapped my legs around his waist and pulled him closer, seeking more stimulation for my erection trapped between our lower bellies.

"Ungh, ngh. Haaah!"

The next moment, I pushed his tongue out of my mouth—it had been blocking my throat—and writhed with pleasure intense enough to frighten me.

I had thought he was already as hard as he could be. Then I felt him swell inside me, expanding as though pushing my inner walls outward and sealing my opening completely.

It was knotting.

I knew it instinctively, though I'd never experienced it before.

My belly felt swollen, as though all my organs were being pushed upward. Even after pushing his tongue away, I still couldn't breathe. I opened my mouth wide and struggled to draw in air, but could only choke and gasp, like someone who had forgotten how to breathe.

Pain tingled through every blood vessel like a faint electric current. Alongside it, a pleasure that seemed capable of destroying and remaking me drew closer, pounding inside me like a sound that warned of something ominous to come.

It was a pleasure unlike anything I'd imagined, as though a massive boulder were crushing my whole body again and again. Yet the sensation wasn't merely blunt and heavy.

Saliva ran from the corners of my mouth. With my pupils dilated, I searched for him in terror.

Driven by instinct, he was completely gone too, panting as he thrust inside me in pursuit of climax.

The force of his erection thrusting in and out was beyond anything I'd felt from his fingers. It was as though he were demanding that my very being change, driving me swiftly to the edge of climax.

I writhed as the pleasure of coming boiled through my whole body and tried to push his shoulders away. He caught my hands, laced his fingers with mine, and pinned them to the sheets.

"Ngh, hnngh. Hah. Ugh!"

As I rubbed the back of my head against the sheets and came, something like an explosion struck inside my belly at the same instant.

The Alpha's release.

His semen burst into me so forcefully it seemed to batter my insides. There was enough to leak out even with the knot filling me completely. As I felt my inner walls grow wet and full, I too spilled my semen between our pressed-together lower bellies.

My moans were almost sobs. No, perhaps I really was sobbing. Even pinned beneath him, my whole body trembled. As he bit my lower lip and sucked at it frantically, I whispered that I was scared.

"It's okay. I'm right here."

Even after coming, he kept moving his hips to sustain the pleasure and showered my face with kisses. He licked around my eyes with such tenderness that I finally realized I was crying. The tears were a physical response, not sadness or loneliness. Even so, the moment I noticed them, something welled up inside me.

It's okay. I'm right here. Was he really saying that to me? His eyes were still unfocused, as though instinct had overtaken him, yet strangely, his words reassured me. With our fingers still interlaced, I gripped his hands tightly in return.

We kissed for a long time, still joined below, breathing in scent instead of air, so strong it seemed to numb my sense of smell. Just as the fear that had struck when he knotted began to fade, he suddenly stopped everything.

He reached down and felt where we were joined.

He tried to withdraw his penis quickly, but it was still knotted, gripping my inner walls and refusing to let go. Or perhaps I was the one who wouldn't let him go.

Whichever it was, he couldn't pull out of me, like a finger that needed a size-ten ring forced into a size-seven one.

His eyes had been drifting, languid with the pleasure of an Alpha's release... Now his gaze sharpened with sudden awareness, though it remained unsteady.

He spread my opening with his hand, trying to force his penis out.

Embarrassingly, even the difficult drag of his thick length against my inner walls as he withdrew made me twitch and shiver.

Frantically, as though out of his mind, he spread my legs and pushed his fingers inside to scrape out the semen. His erection hadn't subsided; it still twitched, wanting more — but he seemed unaware of it.

"I'm sorry… Truly, I am so sorry."

He kept apologizing, at least twenty times. It was strange to see him react so strongly to having knotted and come inside a Beta, when he seemed like someone nothing could fluster.

He seemed completely unaware that this attempt to clean me out was unnecessary. I caught his wrist and slowly sat up.

I was still feeling the aftereffects of coming after such prolonged foreplay. But from his reaction, there seemed little chance of enjoying any lingering touches, let alone building toward a second release.

"Director… you're an Alpha, right?"

"……"

It was a belated question, but we'd never spoken about it directly, so I asked anyway.

"I'm definitely a Beta. So… you don't need to worry."

"……"

"About pregnancy, or anything like that…"

He stared at me in silence for a long time, his eyes desolate, as though everything had been taken from him. They looked drained and empty, as though he had come face-to-face with the shabby, sordid side of life. For a moment, this large, solid man seemed as helpless and fragile as a boy. A clear, unclouded sadness pooled in his eyes.

"Yes… you're a Beta, Seo Yeehyeon-ssi."

Only after a long silence did he murmur those words. But he didn't look relieved. His eyes remained dazed and unfocused. It hardly seemed possible that we'd been so heated only moments before.

He withdrew his hand from between my legs and rubbed his face several times with his palm.

"I've probably… hurt you inside. As a Beta, Seo Yeehyeon-ssi, you wouldn't have been able to withstand the knotting."

He worried about whether I felt even the slightest pain from a tear or scrape and said I should go to the hospital right away. So far, though, all I felt was a tingling emptiness inside. And, although I couldn't tell him, the lingering pleasure was stronger. I almost felt it would be more comfortable if he filled that hollow space again. Contrary to his fears, I felt no particular pain.

One moment we'd been at the height of pleasure, whispering obscene things into each other's ears; the next, we were discussing practical concerns. The abrupt change made me draw inward, leaving me feeling off balance. But with him looking so shocked, I couldn't take his hand and pull him back, telling him I was fine and asking him to continue.

Besides, once he'd pulled out of me, exhaustion and sleepiness washed over me, making my whole body feel as though it were sinking. My energy was spent, wrung out. It was just like last time.

I told him I'd let him know how I felt tomorrow, once everything had settled, and that for now, nothing seemed particularly wrong. I hoped it would reassure him a little. He nodded, but his expression remained serious.

I was too sleepy to keep trying to convince him. Seeing the drowsiness on my face, he pressed my shoulder down and had me lie back. Saying we'd talk again tomorrow, he let the matter rest and pulled the covers out from beneath me, spreading them over my naked body before lighting a cigarette.

I blinked hard, wanting to watch him a little longer as he sat on the edge of the bed, slowly smoking and looking down at me. I didn't want to leave him alone with whatever was troubling him, but sleep was pulling me under with almost violent force.

He looked as though he'd come to his senses and realized with shock that he'd been hurting the person he'd just been so passionately entwined with… His gaze was confused and conflicted, with what seemed like a trace of fear of himself.

That was the image of him I held as I closed my eyes.

It was the sound of a telephone ringing. The realization that it was a telephone rather than a cellphone brought awareness to where I was.

My mind woke before my eyes, but the throbbing pain throughout my body kept me facedown and groaning for quite some time. All the while, the telephone kept patiently waiting for me.

When I opened my eyes, I was alone in the bed, and the room — curtained by blackout drapes — was so dark I couldn't even guess the approximate time. I had to answer the phone.

"Hello?"

I cleared my throat several times as I crawled to the edge of the bed on my elbows, but my voice was hoarse and cracked — truly pitiful.

The caller was a hotel staff member. The staff member said he had requested that I wake up, eat something light, and then perhaps go back to sleep.

I tried to gauge whether I had an appetite, but I absolutely did not. My mouth was dry and rough, and my stomach churned as if all my internal organs had shifted from their original positions. And down there… there was still a heavy, full sensation, as if he were still inside me.

However, I couldn't ignore both his kindness and the awkward position that staff member might be placed in if I refused.

We had always gathered in his living room to eat breakfast together — but what about the others? We were supposed to leave the hotel at eleven, but what time was it now? Various problems cluttered my mind, but I agreed for the time being.

As if expecting exactly that answer, the reply came that the meal was almost ready in the living room, and I could just slip on a robe and come out comfortably.

The call ended, but I remained facedown, holding the phone blankly for a while. It seemed preparations for the meal had already been underway in the living room while I was asleep.

I put down the phone and first checked on the state of my body.

As I woke up more fully, the discomfort became increasingly distinct. My whole body ached as if every joint had been knocked out of alignment — not just my organs. While my body felt heavy and sluggish, as if I were suffering from a severe flu, my entrance and the area inside it burned fiercely. It felt as if an independent pulse was throbbing on its own between my legs.

That vivid pain inevitably brought to mind the previous night's intimacy — the passion with him that had culminated in him knotting inside me and coming — and a flush of heat rose to my face even though I was alone.

Clearing my throat with a dry cough, I swung my legs out of bed. The unfamiliar sensation of his semen — which he had tried to clean up but hadn't managed to remove completely — trickling down the insides of my thighs made me Ugh, stop moving, hunch my shoulders, and bite my lower lip.

Startled by the swollen fullness of my lips — much thicker than usual — I touched them with my hand.

I had thought that lips swelling from kissing, or kissing enough to make your lips swell, was something only possible in pornographic videos or cartoons. But my lips were actually swollen — not quite as severely as if I'd been stung by a bee, but close. That tautness brought to mind his suction and kisses, which hadn't left my lips all night.

This was completely different from last time, when there had been no kissing and no penetration, so nothing had remained on my body the next day. Every part of me was evidence of last night.

I had to cup my hands between my legs to keep it from dripping onto the floor before heading straight to the bathroom. I had intended to rush out to the living room, but I realized I couldn't do that without completely dealing with what was inside me first.

After showering, I put on a robe without even drying my hair. I didn't know when he had left the room, but he had neatly folded all my clothes and placed them on the table by the window. However, since all the bottom buttons on my shirt were torn off, I couldn't wear yesterday's clothes.

My underwear was damp in the front from the pre-cum I had released during the kissing and caressing, but I had no choice but to put them back on. Even with a robe on, I didn't have the courage to go without underwear in front of others.

As I was tidying up my clothes, the thought that he had probably seen my wet underwear filled me with a sense of defeat — as if I'd been caught with a dirty book hidden away. This despite knowing we had done far more than just get my underwear wet.

I left the bedroom trying my best not to show the lingering, uncomfortable sensation inside. Seeing the intense summer sun flooding the entire long, vertical living room, I realized it must already be well past noon.

His personal butler — a middle-aged man who had helped us every time we had breakfast here — and two other staff members dressed in uniforms with aprons were waiting beside the dining table.

Contrary to the suggestion that something light to eat and then more sleep might be good, the table — set with both Western and Hong Kong-style breakfast options — had no room for even one more spoon. As if that weren't enough, more dishes were ready on a cart beside the table.

Rubbing my robed arms, I offered an awkward greeting and hesitantly took my seat.

They first offered fresh juice, so I accepted the orange juice — which looked freshly squeezed, pulp still visible — and drank the whole glass in one swallow, realizing I must have been thirsty. When they asked whether I would prefer shrimp congee or wonton soup if I had little appetite, I chose wonton soup, and a covered bowl appeared on the empty white plate as soon as I finished speaking.

Next, they asked if I would like to speak briefly with Mr. Liu before the meal, and I agreed.

I suddenly found it amusing how I was moving exactly as suggested, like a well-behaved child. Or perhaps I was moving as he wished, through the butler. He might not have dictated the menu, but it still felt as if he were issuing directives to me via the butler.

The butler handed me a phone connected to him. Even after taking the simply designed business cellphone, it took me a moment to respond.

"Yes."

[You… didn't sleep well, did you?]

He seemed to have started with the usual polite inquiry, then realized mid-sentence it was a foolish question and shifted direction. I could almost picture the slight awkwardness on his face.

"No, I slept soundly. I didn't wake up even once."

[How is your body? I can arrange for a doctor to see you right away, anytime.]

Even assuming they couldn't understand Korean, I broke into a cold sweat at the thought of discussing my condition after intimacy in front of other people.

"I'm fine. Other than some soreness… there were no specific injuries."

I fiddled with the warm ceramic spoon resting beside the wonton bowl, bowing my head to hide my flushed face. It wasn't just awkward talking in front of the three people around me — discussing my current physical state with him while completely sober was just as embarrassing.

He let out a long sigh, clearly unconvinced I didn't need to see a doctor, but he seemed to accept it for the moment.

[I've changed your flight to this evening. The butler will go over the schedule with you. Rest a little longer and get ready slowly. I had an urgent matter come up that required me to leave first… but I'll take you to the airport myself.]

An explanation followed that his return to Korea had been rescheduled to tomorrow due to the "urgent matter."

"What about the others?"

[They left according to the original schedule. So don't worry about what excuse to make — just rest well.]

Just like last time, he had probably made some excuse about my condition. Likely the same one as before — that I was unwell. I realized this meant I was now firmly established within Phantom as a weakling prone to frequent illness. It wasn't an image I desired, but I understood there probably wasn't any other plausible excuse. It wasn't illness — but I genuinely wasn't well, either.

I told him he didn't need to drive me since the hotel ran a shuttle bus, but he cut the conversation short, saying he needed to hang up. Along with an admonition to eat a proper meal, even if I had no appetite.

I remembered what he had told me last time — to eat at least a little for my own sake, even without an appetite — and tried to finish at least the wonton bowl. However, the awkwardness of dining alone while strangers watched, combined with the growing physical discomfort below, made it increasingly difficult to remain seated.

After finishing just enough to slightly appease my stomach lining, I excused myself and took only a cup of coffee before getting up from the table.

The butler suggested I get a massage — mentioning that this too was his idea, and that it would help me feel much lighter. A therapist from the hotel spa could be called to my room for a comfortable massage. But there was no way I could feel comfortable in that situation.

It was enough simply knowing that he had anticipated my condition and made considerations in advance on my behalf.

No — I was certainly grateful, but receiving this kind of luxurious treatment after spending the night with him gave me a feeling of something jarring, as if gears were turning wrong.

It was my own fault for falling asleep without hearing an alarm, but after spending the night with him — having a meal served by others in his hotel room, having him rearrange the schedule in consideration of my physical state — that level of care was unnecessary. Especially if this was simply the standard courtesy he habitually extended to everyone he spent the night with. There was no need to extend it to me. I hadn't sacrificed myself to his desires in exchange for anything; I had agreed to that night because I wanted it too.

The luggage from the room where I'd been staying had been completely packed, and the carry-on I had borrowed from Manager Han was placed in the hallway by the entrance. It seemed his final instruction was for me to rest in this room until he came to pick me up.

I returned to the bedroom with a rather heavy feeling, leaving behind the staff who were clearing away the meal I had barely touched.

I started to pull the curtains open but stopped, turning on the lights a little instead.

Looking around the room anew, various items of his remained as they were. Files related to the fair piled on the display cabinet. The tablet PC on the nightstand. The robe draped over the sofa — probably taken off just before he left.

And on the table by the window lay a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, placed neatly.

Five or six cigarette butts were stubbed out in the ashtray — he must have smoked them while I slept. I had slept so deeply I hadn't noticed him smoking that much, finishing getting ready, and leaving the room. Or perhaps he had moved carefully so as not to wake me.

I wondered if he had managed to get even a little sleep after I fell asleep.

The last thing I had seen before closing my eyes — his fragile gaze mixed with confusion, futility, and a trace of self-fear — came back to me, and along with the clamor in my body, my mind grew complicated as well.

If I turned on my phone, there were probably worried messages from Yuni nuna, Juhani hyung, and Manager Han waiting for me, and I also needed to contact Morae nuna and Yeehan hyung, with whom I was supposed to have dinner after arriving back in the country today. Even though these were trivial matters, they felt overwhelmingly complicated to handle right now.

"Don't think about anything, and don't worry about anything. Just like flipping a switch in your brain off. You can do that, right?"

Recalling what he had told me that night, I switched off the thoughts in my brain for the time being.

I set the coffee down on the table, sat on one of the two single-person sofas, and picked up the cigarette pack. The cigarettes were from a common global company, easily found anywhere in the world. I took one out and lit it.

Even if it was just a single cigarette, I wasn't the type to touch someone else's belongings without permission… No — having already done it, it turned out I was apparently the kind of person who could, depending on the situation, touch another's things without permission.

Having already witnessed myself treating even self-pleasure with mechanical indifference, clinging with hot passion and boldness to union with him — this was hardly surprising.

"I'll buy you a new pack when we get to Seoul."

I muttered idly to the empty room and took a drag. My throat still stung, and my lungs tightened, making me squint. I didn't cough, but it didn't go down smoothly either.

I rested the cigarette, after two or three puffs, in the groove of the ashtray. I preferred watching the thin smoke rise slowly. The smoke, appearing gray or sometimes blue depending on the angle, resembled his eyes.

Inevitably, my thoughts drifted to him. It was a topic I couldn't avoid.

Last night, he had been kind — even restraining his urge to run wild, considering my inexperience. He had knotted inside me, but judging by his reaction, that hadn't been intentional on his part either. Besides, I was a Beta, so there was no risk of pregnancy even if he had come while knotted. He hadn't injured my inner walls, contrary to his fears, and I didn't want him to feel excessive guilt or responsibility over that.

He had even gone to the trouble of preparing various things out of concern for me, so as someone he had spent the night with, he certainly hadn't lacked in manners.

However, the night had marked no fundamental change in our relationship.

Two adults had slept together consensually, and I had come to this room myself because I wanted it — so I wasn't about to blame anyone for not getting more out of it.

It was actually the opposite. I wanted to mock and ignore the part of myself that was trying to find hopeful hints or meaning in a coupling that had been purely impulsive, driven by sexual attraction.

Despite such meticulous kindness, if no explanation followed — what did that imply? Though I lacked experience in this area, I wasn't naive enough to misconstrue it and get carried away with false hope alone.

If only I hadn't known. If I could have indulged in a foolish, sweet dream for just a moment — would I feel better now, sitting alone in this room, recalling his gaze through the smoke of a cigarette I couldn't even properly smoke?

The fact that I was thinking such things meant I was already foolish enough.

I picked up the robe draped over the back of the chair and buried my nose and lips in it. The cigarette resting in the ashtray had burned down close to the filter. I gently rubbed the ash — about the length of one knuckle — into the tray and rose from my seat.

I could no longer smell his scent anywhere in the room — not even on the robe he had taken off and left behind.

He was waiting for me in the back seat, dressed casually rather than in a suit. Even though the sun had completely set, he was wearing sunglasses inside the car.

Though momentarily puzzled, I didn't press for a reason — he was someone with occasional odd whims.

The dull ache still lingering between my legs and the strange sensation of not quite being closed up made it awkward to settle into my seat. The reality that I — a male Beta — had just had sex with him — a male Alpha — was suddenly striking, made all the more pronounced by the discomfort that followed penetrative sex.

The doorman closed the door, and the car pulled away. It was the same driver from the day I went to meet Ms. Suki Kim.

"I'm sorry."

Just as the car completely cleared the hotel vicinity and merged onto the elevated highway, he spoke for the first time — an unexpected opening. I turned to look at him, but I couldn't tell where he was looking from behind the sunglasses.

"You must have been uncomfortable all day."

"It's not as though I expected to feel completely fine the next day… I'm fine. You really don't need to worry about it anymore. I've gotten much better while resting."

Frankly, I felt it would be awkward to receive any more consideration from him regarding my physical discomfort. Besides, the pain wasn't as unbearable or as bad as he seemed to fear.

Above all, this wasn't something he needed to apologize for. We had spent the night together because we both wanted to, and he had been perfectly considerate — taking his time to ensure I was fully relaxed, even though we weren't lovers. An apology from him would only make me feel used, and I would rather not hear one if at all possible.

"You're quite resilient, Seo Yeehyeon-ssi. I thought you might be a little more… shaken."

Tapping the slender paper bag in his hand against his crossed leg, he muttered without looking at me.

"I'm glad you're a resilient person, Seo Yeehyeon-ssi."

I couldn't be entirely certain what he meant by shaken.

If he meant the kind of upheaval that comes from mistaking impulsive sex — born of mutual attraction and chemistry — for the kind that naturally follows after confessing feelings and confirming them. Mistaking the intimacy felt after a night together for genuine romantic feelings.

It might not have been entirely untrue.

No — to be precise, the sex was merely the catalyst for any upheaval, but it was true that my current state was far from stable or serene.

"Well… you just have to accept things for what they are after they happen, right?"

Whether you liked it or not.

I added that almost to myself, looking out at the Hong Kong cityscape receding in the opposite direction from when I'd arrived.

The experiences and emotions that filled me — in different colors and textures — were things I never could have anticipated when I first encountered the city while listening to Prince's Kiss in the Phantom vehicle, as Yuni nuna and Juhani hyung had been so wild about.

Looking back, ever since meeting him, it had been a relentless series of variables I couldn't foresee or prepare for. Not just the events — the feelings I had facing him as well.

I recalled myself just a few days ago, thinking the meeting with Ms. Suki Kim was the biggest event of this trip to Hong Kong, feeling a shy excitement from just a single glance meeting mine in the rearview mirror. To put it kindly, I had been naive; to put it bluntly, I had been emotionally naked — without even a thin layer of fabric to protect myself from danger.

I hadn't expected anything.

I couldn't claim I hadn't held any expectation that last night's incident might become the catalyst for a change in our relationship, in his stance toward me. That was why I was ashamed of the hope that only I knew about.

I searched his demeanor — consistently flat-toned as he stared at the screen attached to the back of the seat in front of him — but couldn’t find a trace of anything resembling attraction, desire, or affection.

He handed me an envelope, explaining that he had arranged for me to expedite departure procedures upon arrival at the airport. Inside were the fast-track documentation proving my VIP status and a first-class ticket.

"Take tomorrow off. I told them you were showing the same symptoms as last time, so everyone will understand."

The excuse he offered skillfully danced between a lie and the truth.

"I'm fine. Thanks to your consideration, I rested well. I expect to be back to full condition by tomorrow."

The first class printed on the ticket, combined with the day off I was receiving as the person he had spent the night with — it all felt inappropriate.

I think I finally understood the source of the discomfort that had been building inside me the more consideration he showed.

It wasn't just the awkwardness of unfamiliarity with such luxurious treatment. Within all that kindness, I felt something akin to an obligation.

From his perspective, I knew that not pretending to be unaware of someone whose body was made uncomfortable by sleeping with him was simply good manners. I understood that. But still.

Manners. Kindness.

At first glance, those words sound rooted in affection — but they also meant treating someone outside a certain boundary with politeness.

Perhaps I had expected everything he provided to resemble the affection one shows a lover. That was the naked truth of my feelings — my unguarded self.

I let out a hollow laugh thinking about whether returning the ticket — rejecting the kindness he extended equally to all his partners — was the way to preserve my pride. I wasn't the protagonist of a drama, after all.

Suddenly, I remembered something he had said when he was absentmindedly eating the nuts Juhani hyung had brought to the VIP Preview. It had been an insignificant comment, tossed out casually as he passed by.

"Someone take these away. I don't even like these, but if they're in front of me, I just keep eating them."

If our first time together had been emergency first aid for him, perhaps last night's sex was just an incident that occurred on the same principle as reaching absentmindedly for a snack.

It just so happened that a sensitive spot had been attacked in a rather messy way, and I happened to be the one right beside him trying to ease the mood — which somehow led to a sexual atmosphere. Perhaps having slept together once before had made the temptation easier to give in to. This isn't an attempt to paint him as depraved by casting myself as a victim of the encounter. After all, I was the one who willingly gave in to that temptation.

But if I had felt even a flicker of genuine human affection for him — if I hadn't been certain I could stay composed after sleeping with him — I should have protected myself by being more cautious in my choices.

The car slowed as it approached the departure gate area.

"I hope this business trip turns into a good opportunity for you."

"……"

I turned to look at him, but his face remained fixed on the dark, unlit screen — entirely blank.

"I look forward to a positive response regarding the paintings."

I briefly considered the possibility that an experienced man like him might have his emotions shaken by a sudden one-night encounter. The answer was already evident in his demeanor: a steady calmness and composure, neither more intimate nor even colder than before we had spent the night together.

The car came to a complete stop. His face, still hidden behind sunglasses, turned toward me. I couldn't be sure if he was looking at me even behind the lenses.

"See you in Seoul."

Perhaps it was a relief that I couldn't confirm the look in his eyes as he regarded me.

Sitting in seat 1A — a seat I'd likely never occupy again in my lifetime, given as a kind of payment for the night — I looked down at the last receding view of Hong Kong and calmly accepted the reason why I had been reacting to him with such uncharacteristic emotion.

It was no more than a slight emotional release from having to witness the ending I had already braced myself for. Because of that, I felt neither shocked nor as if I were plummeting to the ground.

I liked him.

The hopes and disappointments that existed only in my own mind, the uncharacteristic sensitivity that caused me to exaggerate things beyond what they were — those were signs that, unfortunately, I liked him.

There wasn't a distinct starting point from which this had begun. At least, I couldn't identify that point now.

I had been bothered by the way he treated me, sometimes felt rebellious toward him, and had hoped that he, too, would feel provoked by me — that his expression would change, that he would see me again.

Perhaps the feelings had begun to take root much earlier than I had expected.

It wasn't particularly strange to dream of him as someone I could be with romantically. He wasn't a gentle or easy person to deal with, but he was undeniably someone I wanted to know better, to get closer to — a person I found deeply attractive.

I simply hadn't known I would develop feelings of expectation and desire for another person. Even less did I know I would harbor the foolish greed of choosing, as the object of those feelings, someone who stood at the very pinnacle of everyone's attention and favor.

Because the me I knew was a coward who tried to minimize the exhaustion of emotions like disappointment and misery by asking for the absolute minimum, and choosing accordingly.

Did I, by wanting him, become brave?

Not at all. I had simply witnessed a new side of myself — one that responded to the temptation of sex far too easily, even before I had truly acknowledged the feelings themselves.

A flight attendant approached and asked if she could prepare the meal. Staring blankly at her flawless, neat smile, I requested a glass of beer. A cold can of beer and a glass were quickly set on the small table. The world he lived in was like magic, where everything was instantly prepared with just a word.

The flight attendant closed the sliding door and disappeared after telling me to rest comfortably. Though isolated from my surroundings and alone, I began drinking the beer straight from the can in an unfamiliar comfort that offered no ease at all.

He had said that sleeping with someone who wasn't a lover didn't automatically make a person promiscuous. An adult his age couldn't be expected to satisfy his sexual needs through masturbation alone just because he didn't have a partner.

That was what he'd said after the Old Future shoot. Nuna and hyung had generally agreed, and so had I, though I hadn't said it aloud.

Back then, I'd wondered whether they could hold to that view when their own feelings were involved—whether they could avoid being hurt if someone they liked slept with somebody else.

In a way, I'd been entirely wrong about where the hurt might come from. I could feel miserable even when the person I liked slept with me, rather than someone else.

Perhaps his relief that Seo Yeehyeon-ssi was so resilient had meant he was glad I hadn't mistaken impulsive sex for romantic feelings. The possibility occurred to me belatedly, and I smiled bitterly.

By then, the lights of Hong Kong had disappeared from view.