Honeymoon

Yeehyeon couldn't stand on his own legs, as if all the strength had left his knees. When Liu forcibly helped him up, his thighs trembled violently, and the spot where he had been sitting was soaked with slick. Seeing the dark stain coloring the gray tiles, Liu felt like he was about to lose control and pounce on Yeehyeon.

He gritted his teeth and shook his head. Then he practically lifted Yeehyeon up and settled him onto the sofa.

He needed to find the suppressants and give them to him, but Yeehyeon clung to him, unwilling to let go. He wrapped his arms around Liu's neck and clung to him sweetly and desperately.

"Don't go..."

"I'm not going anywhere. I'll get the medicine. You need to take your medicine first, Yeehyeon."

Just in case, he had stocked plenty of suppressants and contraceptives at the atelier as well. In his current state, Yeehyeon seemed like he needed to take an extra dose of the strong sharp suppressant in addition to the balance suppressant he took daily. However, Yeehyeon gripped Liu's collar tightly and shook his head.

"You can't leave me."

"I'm not leaving."

"I feel like something terrible will happen if you leave. That's what I feel."

He wouldn't want to be separated from his Alpha. It must be the heat.

"Where would I go, leaving you sick like this?"

"You really aren't going anywhere, are you?"

"Even if you push me away, I won't leave."

Yeehyeon was soft and fragile right now, just like baby Parang, who cried whenever Liu set him down after holding him. Liu gently stroked the head of Yeehyeon, who clung to his collar.

"The medicine is right there, in the cabinet. See?"

Even as he pointed a finger at the cabinet visible before his eyes and tried to soothe him, Yeehyeon stubbornly shook his head.

"I'm scared... I feel like something will go wrong with my body if I'm separated from Kun. I'm really scared."

"I won't let anything go wrong with you. Do you think I would allow that?"

Tears welled up in the eyes that traced over Yeehyeon's face, lingering here and there. Behind the gaze, which seemed both terrified and confused, a dark, deep desire flickered — like a bare body glimpsed on a bed through the gap in the curtains.

Liu was on the verge of losing control as well. Maintaining this much rationality in the face of such potent pheromones was nothing short of a miracle. He was holding himself back without suppressants, driven only by the thought that he couldn't make Yeehyeon — already frightened by his first heat — any more anxious.

Liu gently unclasped Yeehyeon's hand from his collar and pressed a kiss to the palm and inner wrist. As his lips made direct contact with Yeehyeon's skin, Liu's pulse began to race even more violently.

"Take your medicine, and then I'll make things easier for you. You trust me, don't you, Yeehyeon-ah?"

Yeehyeon, his eyes wide with fear, nodded. Liu managed the gentlest smile he could muster. Even that smile soon froze awkwardly, twitching. He didn't know how much longer he could maintain his rationality.

Liu walked over to the cabinet in the corner of the atelier to look for suppressants. His broad shoulders trembled violently, like those of someone suffering from withdrawal. The pain felt as if his biceps were tearing from using too much force. Clatter, clatter. He dropped the plastic container holding the suppressants twice.

Beneath his soft loungewear, Liu's arousal was already rock-hard. The engorged hardness, straining as if about to pierce the fabric, jutted upward so sharply that anyone could tell just by looking at his silhouette.

He wanted release. He wanted to ravage the Omega behind him — his Diamond Dust — until he was completely empty. Wanted? No, this impulse was closer to an instinctual command.

Liu thought he knew what this was.

He felt like he was about to go into rut.

He bit down hard on his lower lip. Hard enough for his teeth to dig in. Not yet. Not here, at least.

Even pouring water into the cup was difficult. The moment he cursed and set the fallen cup upright, his back felt warm and heavy.

"......"

It was Yeehyeon's body heat and weight.

Liu was so out of his mind that he hadn't even noticed that someone who couldn't stand properly had made it all the way over here.

Two hot arms wrapped around Liu. Yeehyeon traced the contours of his firm muscles, then rubbed his face and lips against the back of Liu's shoulder. Yeehyeon's hot breath, thick with pheromones, brushed against the nape of his neck.

Liu gasped, lurching forward as if he'd been stabbed in the abdomen while letting his guard down. Heat rose to his eyes, making him blink slowly.

"Kun, quickly..."

What was that desperate voice urging him toward? Medicine? Or...?

Yeehyeon's right hand, which had been tracing Liu's chest, moved lower. Liu barely managed to stop him as he tried to slip his hand beneath the waistband of Liu's pants.

"You hate this side of me, don't you? You hate it, right?"

A voice thick with self-loathing drifted from behind him. Liu turned to face Yeehyeon. Yeehyeon, his ears and eyes flushed red, leaned against him. He was in such a state he couldn't stand without something to hold onto. Liu wrapped his arms around Yeehyeon's waist.

Yeehyeon must have been more surprised and confused by his own behavior than anyone. But intimacy with one's mate during a heat was never something sordid or shameful.

"Seo Yeehyeon, you don't mean that, do you?"

"I don't know... It feels like my insides are burning up. It's not even like being thirsty."

Liu pressed three pills into Yeehyeon's hand as tears threatened to spill from his eyes.

"Take these quickly, and let's go home."

Then he handed him the cup filled with water.

Hate this side of me?

How could he? Liu wanted to have Yeehyeon right there on the spot.

He didn't even have the luxury to undress him or engage in foreplay. He wanted to flip Yeehyeon's bewildered body over, just manage to pull his lower garments down to his hips, and then immediately thrust his own arousal deep inside.

Yeehyeon's body was no longer like that of a Beta male. His puckered, swollen, red inner walls would surely be deliciously soaked. He only wanted to press forward blindly toward that ecstatic pleasure of being tightly gripped and squeezed by that entrance.

Liu had never once had sex like that with Yeehyeon before.

But he felt like he was about to. Like it was going to happen this way.

He absolutely could not let things turn out like that.

A heat experienced in a space where one felt completely safe and comfortable, with a partner deeply trusted and loved — Liu absolutely wanted Yeehyeon's first heat to be exactly like that.

Liu bit down harder on his lower lip.

Holding Yeehyeon, who was struggling, Liu swallowed suppressants too. Although he felt it might be useless, he took more than the recommended dose. He also swallowed more contraceptives than usual — the kind specifically for Alphas to take before intercourse.

A wry smile touched his lips as he recalled the time when he first started sleeping with Yeehyeon. Back then, too, he had swallowed bottlefuls of these useless suppressants.

Having swallowed over ten pills, Liu turned his back to Yeehyeon and bent over.

"Let me carry you. Let's go home."

"My pants are wet."

"I don't care about that."

Judging that this wasn't the time to argue, Yeehyeon wrapped an arm around Liu's neck. Liu braced his thighs and lifted him. The sudden rush of pheromones made him dizzy for a moment, but he shook his head to regain his composure.

Slinging Yeehyeon over his back, Liu nearly ran across the dim garden outside the atelier as the sun set. He couldn't help but chuckle, thinking he looked like some scoundrel from the distant past escaping with a virgin he'd set his sights on. Sweat dripped from his temples as he endured the overwhelming rut threatening to burst out of him.

The front of Yeehyeon's pants and his backside were completely soaked. Enough fluid had seeped out that it squished when Liu placed his palm beneath him. Yeehyeon's arousal was pressing against his lower back.

The pheromone scent rising from the breath Yeehyeon poured onto his neck felt so potent he thought his nose might start bleeding. This wasn't a joke or a metaphor — his sympathetic nervous system was overstimulated by the excessive amount of pheromones.

Liu bit down harder on his lower lip. He bit so hard that his lip split, releasing a sharp, coppery scent of blood, yet he felt no pain. Only one thought repeated in his head.

Just to the bed. Just to the bed. Just to the bed.

Just to the bed.