Salt Society Chapter 79

He could not understand why asking for some pheromones would suddenly mean sleeping together. He wanted to cross-check this with Bumhee, but Lee Bumhee would currently be in dreamland, entirely unaware of the happenings in this rural village.

Cho Yeonoh looked at So Kihyun with narrowed eyes and let out a hollow laugh.

“Have I ever even cracked a joke with you about this kind of thing?”

“…”

“Have I ever once asked you what you use for jerk-off material, which hand you use to masturbate, made a joke about it, or giggled?”

What Cho Yeonoh was talking about were the sexual comments and jokes that had been absent between the two of them. He was right about that. Cho Yeonoh was said to have a mouth like a rag, but he had never once made sexual remarks like that to Kihyun. Not even once. Because that was a territory So Kihyun, Cho Yeonoh’s lover of seven years, could not possess.

Kihyun blinked with a blank face and replied in a mutter.

“…Then to Bumhee… I can just ask Bumhee.”

Cho Yeonoh sneered at Kihyun, his eyes not laughing while only the corner of his mouth tilted upward.

“Do that if you want to see Lee Bumhee become a highly educated unemployed person.”

The moment he heard that, Kihyun, who had been caught off guard, slowly regained his senses. It was because, thinking about it, the situation was beyond absurd.

Even if the current situation truly required an Alpha’s pheromones, why did they have to be Cho Yeonoh’s? He had chosen a trip to the provinces, something not in his destiny, just to completely end things with the guy who wanted to break up; there was no reason to pathetically reach out his hand to receive such a thing.

“Whether I get them from Lee Bumhee or some other guys, why do you care. What kind of relationship do we have.”

“…”

The mouth that had been babbling only irritating words finally stopped. Kihyun watched the veins bulge on the forehead and neck of Cho Yeonoh, whose eyes were rimmed with red. He waited, thinking the fellow was bound to spout more bullshit since he seemed significantly pissed off, but instead, he just stood there silently meeting Kihyun’s gaze.

It was Kihyun who grew tired of the persistent eye contact.

“Don’t worry about me anymore.”

As if showing he was spitting it out reluctantly, those words scraped all the way out of Kihyun’s throat. He didn’t know why he felt this dirty. Was it because he was hiding the truth from the child’s biological father, or was it something else? A sudden regret washed over him, thinking that he had come down here just to think of his own body but was experiencing all sorts of things.

Meeting the junior and the fact that there were many incomprehensible parts in Cho Yeonsin’s words were also factors that caused a headache. There were many things to worry about, but his body, which had to protect the child, was prioritizing something else over Kihyun’s circumstances. It was a situation that elicited a sigh.

While Kihyun was lost in those thoughts, Cho Yeonoh was staring at him without a word. Lowering his crossed arms, Cho Yeonoh gripped the frame of the bed Kihyun was on. The veins on the back of his hand stood out prominently. It was the moment Kihyun was about to tell him to stop because it looked like the frame would bend further.

“…No.”

“What?”

“I said no. Don’t waste your words and take the pheromones from me.”

Kihyun reflexively furrowed his brow at that. Cho Yeonoh stared at the deep furrow etched between his brows. A light seemed to spark in his eyes, and then he tightly grabbed Kihyun’s wrist. Startled, Kihyun reflexively cried out.

“Let go of this, ah…”

A groan leaked from between his lips. Just as he was about to shake off the hand, telling him to let go, the thought occurred that something was seeping through the touching skin. No, it felt as if something unknowable was clinging even to the parts that weren’t touching.

“Ugh…”

He couldn’t stop the groan that escaped unawares. Startled by his own pained voice, it was the moment Kihyun muffled his mouth with his free hand. The thing that had been weighed down in his chest all this time loosened, and his on-edge nerves calmed down.

It felt as if his entire body was being submerged under water where all sorts of beautiful and fragrant things had been crushed. Down, down. He felt as if he were sinking more and more into a swamp of stability. Cho Yeonoh observed Kihyun, who had quickly become dazed, and said with an expressionless face.

“You don’t know. What it is I can give to you.”

“…”

Kihyun was falling into stability so rapidly that he could do nothing but blink his dazed eyes. He wanted to ask what this was, what he was doing, but no words actually came out, and his lips only twitched.

Still with an expressionless face, Cho Yeonoh looked down at Kihyun lying on the pillow with insensitive eyes, as if looking at inorganic matter. Because he had his back to the ceiling light, a shadow was cast over Cho Yeonoh’s face. He didn’t know if he couldn’t read the fellow’s gaze because it was hidden in shadow, or if he couldn’t read his thoughts because he was wearing a face he had never seen before.

Even while that was happening, his body still couldn’t twitch a single finger, and Cho Yeonoh continued his next words without waiting for Kihyun.

“Why don’t you know that there is nothing I cannot give to you.”

That was a lie. What So Kihyun wanted was something Cho Yeonoh could not give. As someone who had been silent ever since being greedy just once, he couldn’t help but want to refute it. Despite that, Kihyun still couldn’t say anything. It was because his body, soaked in Cho Yeonoh’s pheromones, stimulated Kihyun’s parasympathetic nerves and put him into a state of light sleep.

“Since you take them so well. Kihyun, hm? Give me an answer.”

“…”

With a face that looked relieved because no answer came back, Yeonoh confirmed Kihyun’s pupils, which were dilated. He even stroked his smooth forehead. He felt Kihyun’s lukewarm body temperature beneath his palm.

He had to deliberately push the past time into hell just to find this simple warmth. If Kihyun thought he would back down at a few words now that he had finally found it, then So Kihyun was still being nothing but soft toward him.

Kihyun still had dazed eyes. In his slightly loosened expression, relief and an underlying anxiety could be read. Since he had good intuition, he would realize that the phenomenon happening to him right now was not a very comfortable thing.

Kihyun didn’t know that Alpha pheromones had such an effect, nor that it was among the most special of pheromone reflex reactions performed unconsciously by a dominant Alpha who has met his mate. And Cho Yeonoh, as always, welcomed So Kihyun’s ignorance.

“Even if there are many Alphas who can give you pheromones.”

“…”

“The Alpha pheromone you truly want will be someone else’s.”

His explanation was regarding pheromones. Pheromones coated by higher Alphas for their mates can only be overlaid by an even higher Alpha. It was a pheromone created by the possessiveness toward the person one wants as a mate. It was more unstable than imprinting, but it carried its own effect, rapidly stabilizing Kihyun’s body.

However, because such a strong medicine was used on a body that had no prior stimulation, Kihyun would now be unable to be satisfied by the pheromones of other dominant Alphas. It was exactly what Cho Yeonoh wanted.

Yeonoh lowered his head and whispered near Kihyun’s earlobe. Thinking that his breath would touch So Kihyun’s peach fuzz made him nauseous and heavy in the crotch at the same time.

“If you like it here so much, I, busy as I am, will rot away in this damn place with you.”

“…”

“Let’s do the homecoming together. Got it?”

Kihyun didn’t answer. Cho Yeonoh stood up and called a passing nurse. He asked her to process the discharge since they would be doing a pheromone shower. The nurse nodded and soon relayed Yeonoh’s words to the emergency physician.

“Are you the spouse?”

Earlier he had just said he was the guardian, but perhaps the emergency physician found it suspicious that he was doing a pheromone shower and came over to ask. It was the doctor who asked, but Yeonoh instead glanced back at Kihyun.

Kihyun’s eyes, staring at Yeonoh with a blank expression, were flickering shut. However, Cho Yeonoh, who had known So Kihyun for a long time, could sufficiently read the look in his eyes. That is a gaze chewing out curses toward me. Yeonoh, recognizing that all too easily, gave a smirk and turned his head back to the emergency physician before answering.

“…We haven’t filed the marriage registration yet.”

What kind of expression would you be making? You are probably struggling even with a sluggish, dazed mind to show your annoyance.

But what he just said was not a joke. Because everything that had happened to him today was nothing but a terrible joke, Cho Yeonoh decided not to make any jokes until the child was born.

To think you are carrying another bastard’s child. There couldn’t be a more absurd joke than that. He was currently fed up with So Kihyun’s pathetic sense of humor, babbling such fucked up things as if they were a joke. Cho Yeonoh smiled thinly and added to the emergency physician.

“More than that, I want to take the patient information to Haeseong Hospital; what should I do? His primary care physician is at that hospital.”

The country doctor was surprised by the fact that the patient, who came in with a mess of a pheromone system while pregnant, had a separate primary care physician at Haeseong Hospital. He soon nodded and explained something to the nurse. It seemed they only needed a personal consent form.

At that point, Yeonoh looked back at Kihyun. Will you consent? I hope you consent. Otherwise, I don’t know exactly what kind of things I might end up doing.