Heavy Rain Chapter 51

“…Ugh….”

“I told you not to do that.”

Lyle pressed down firmly with the palm that had been cupping Haejin’s cheek. Despite this, Haejin continued to tremble, refusing to stop biting his own lips until they bled. His eyes, which were gradually losing focus, signaled that his mind was sinking.

Lyle had already thoroughly torn apart the boy’s insides until now. Why did such a small scratch make him feel this angry? He felt as if the seeping blood was sticking to his very eyeballs. With an inexplicable thirst, Lyle spoke coldly.

“Why are you going this far? Is it because you don’t even want me to hear you groan?”

However, an unexpected answer came back to his mocking words.

“…Because… I don’t… huff… want my mouth… to be ripped open….”

‘If you don’t want your mouth ripped open, shut up. I don’t want to hear it.’

“….”

Lyle, who had been approaching Haejin as if he might knock over the chair, froze in his tracks at that moment.

“…Ugh, mm….”

Something about this was wrong.

He felt as if he had been drenched in heavy rain. Only now coming to his senses, Lyle suddenly realized he was being swayed by instinct. He thought he had been acting with cold reason, but in reality, he was being manipulated by pheromones.

“I….”

This wasn’t what he intended. He only wanted to take responsibility for his endless transgressions. He only wanted to care for the boy who hadn’t been able to eat or dress properly before sending him away. Simply because he felt sorry.

But, what had he just done?

“I….”

He hadn’t intended to pressure him this much with pheromones. He hadn’t meant to drive a boy already suffering from trauma this far just because he was a little angry.

Why did I do that?

“…I’m scared.”

At the voice that sounded like a sigh, Lyle recoiled as if burned. Haejin’s pheromones, carrying a faint trace of fear, pricked him like thousands of needles.

His movements as he stumbled backward were miserably pathetic. They were so pathetic that Haejin, who was still hugging himself with both arms as if for protection, inadvertently looked at him in wonder. In that gaze, fear was still dissolved.

He had made the boy like that again.

The moment he realized this, Lyle found himself so disgusting he couldn’t stand it. His hurried legs dashed into the bathroom attached to the drawing room. From his stomach, which had been empty all afternoon, a sour liquid born of discomfort surged up.

There had been a day when the pheromones of a newly brought Omega were so nauseating that he had bent at the waist in agony. In a manner not much different from that day, Lyle violently emptied his stomach. Yet, no matter how many times he repeated the act, his churning stomach would not settle.

He managed to splash cold water on his face, to the point where his clothes were a complete mess. When he absentmindedly lifted his head, he saw a wrecked face in the mirror.

Looking at himself in the mirror, Lyle recalled a very familiar emotion. On the day Haejin chose the heavy rain over Lyle’s side, the small seed that had been ruthlessly planted in him finally sprouted.

It was self-loathing.

‘This child will become a dominant, just like me.’

That was the oldest image of his mother that Lyle remembered.

His parents enjoyed showing off Lyle’s blonde hair and blue eyes to guests as if they were trophies. His hair, looking as if it were spun from gold, was like a symbol of a deep-blooded Alpha. Looking at his blue eyes, his mother and other relatives smiled, saying the blood of a dominant had emerged. His mother, a dominant Omega herself, was particularly proud of that fact.

However, none of those praises were about Lyle’s efforts. Every achievement he reached was treated as something that naturally followed because he was a dominant Alpha. It was the same on the day he was five years old, when he used his clumsy hands to do his best to make a flower for his mother.

On the day his perfect paper flower was found in the trash can, Lyle had a question.

If one took away his traits, what would actually be left of him?

‘This child will become a dominant just like me, a dominant Alpha of the Vermouths!’

Contrary to his mother’s wishes, Lyle manifested his traits at age fourteen, during a typical puberty like everyone else.

Dominants usually manifest their traits at an early age. When Lyle did not manifest by the time he turned twelve, his father began taking mistresses. Since his mother blamed that infidelity on the fact that Lyle hadn’t manifested, he assumed that must be the case.

Her actions, which bordered on obsession, and her subtle contempt for his father—who was not a dominant—seemed, unfortunately, invisible to his mother’s eyes.

Though he was young, Lyle was no longer easily swayed by talk of traits. Just because he lacked pheromones didn’t change the fact that his life was still at the top of the food chain. His academic grades were always the best, and his body grew rapidly until he was a head taller than others. His mother was the only one who looked at him as if he were somehow lacking.

The question he had held since he was very young now had a firm answer. Even if he failed to manifest as an Alpha like this, Lyle was still Lyle. He was still the legitimate heir of the Vermouth family and an outstanding individual.

So, when he manifested at fourteen as a regular Alpha instead of a dominant, Lyle just took it in stride, thinking vaguely that these newly acquired things called pheromones were a bit of a nuisance.

‘Hmm. Are you the young master?’

Suddenly, an unpleasant smell brushed the tip of his nose. That fateful day was always remembered by that stench.

The fourteen-year-old Lyle, who had only recently manifested, easily realized that this was the pheromone of an ‘Omega.’ It felt quite different from his mother’s warm scent. It was a lingering, nauseating smell.

Understanding pheromones was an instinctive realm. Therefore, it was easy for Lyle, who was just beginning to wake up to pheromones, to understand the intent behind that scent. A sticky, strange fragrance that looked down on people.

And above all, it wasn’t the kind of pheromone a mere mistress of his father should be wafting toward him.

‘Take that filthy smell away.’

‘Didn’t you learn in school that calling pheromones a “smell” is rude?’

In the gestures of the Omega, who spoke while twisting her waist as if indignant, there was a habitual coquetry. It was as if she always acted this way in front of his father. It wasn’t strange that it triggered his loathing.

Lyle did not hide his displeasure at such brazen behavior. As his mother and father began to fight, and as his father began to bring mistresses into the mansion, his loathing had been slowly taking root.

Still, the emotion the young Lyle felt most was boredom. Relatives who were utterly incompetent, relying solely on being Alphas; a father who made the household atmosphere terrifying just because he was enchanted by an Omega’s pheromones; and above all, a mother who was slowly going insane, obsessed only with the dominant trait.

There wasn’t a single thing he liked.

As expected, he couldn’t understand the situation where a mere mistress dared to speak to him in this mansion. Where were the bodyguards? He had long ago given up on trying to understand the mind of his father, who created such a situation in the first place.

‘Why do you dare speak to me?’

It was a pure question. What on earth was this Omega thinking, showing such behavior to Lyle? While even releasing such a strangely disgusting smell.

Lyle, who had been reading a book in the garden on the outskirts of the mansion where the sun happened to be shining, decided he must call a bodyguard. Since this was his mansion, it didn’t make sense for him to be the one to leave.

However, his question seemed to have offended the Omega.

‘Ha. “The likes of me”?’

‘If you understand, get lost.’

The moment he spat those cold words, a massive amount of pheromones suddenly surged toward him.

‘I don’t think I will. You’re just a young pup, acting like a Vermouth.’

It was a pheromone with a base purpose. It was also an action that should absolutely never be done to a child who had just manifested. Children whose pheromone glands haven’t properly settled are easily affected by external pheromones. Therefore, this was a extremely dangerous act that could even cause a malfunction in the pheromone organs.

However, the Omega before him poured pheromones onto him with all her might, as if she would only be satisfied if she saw Lyle collapse.

His heart began to beat as if it might pop out. Lyle hated, to the point of horror, that his body was reacting to that damp, clammy stench.

‘What… are you… doing….’