Pheromone Off – Chapter 12

Author: nicotine

On the surface, he was the youngest of the Seongsan Group, but in reality, there was nothing he could do as he pleased within the family. When he said he wouldn’t go to college, even the father’s card he had barely been allowed to use was cut off. Thus, he wasn’t financially free either. The reason he was making a fuss about trying to be an actor was because there was nothing else he could do right away. He did part-time jobs from time to time, but that wasn’t enough to take responsibility for his future livelihood, and acting was the only thing he could even attempt to try.

Hajin, who somehow felt his future looked even darker, secretly broke into the wine cellar and grabbed the first thing he saw. At the moment he grabbed the wine opener sitting on the shelf and was about to skillfully uncork the entrance—

“What are you doing, acting like a rat?”

Hajin’s shoulders flinched at the refined voice coming from inside the cellar. As he instinctively hid the wine behind his back, a snort was heard.

“I knew it would be you.”

“…”

“I figured it was either you or one of the servants. The thief stealing my wine.”

The person happened to be, of all people, the owner of this wine cellar.

“…Sorry.”

Hajin confessed honestly. Since there were probably thousands of bottles of wine in this spacious area, he thought no one would know if one or two disappeared.

“You’re stealing it all.”

“…”

“Mine.”

There was a certain thorn felt in Seong Yeonwoo’s words. Hajin stopped his hand, which had been anxiously fidgeting with the wine.

“…Did your talk with Sayoung go well?”

“…”

Knowing full well what kind of talk he wanted to have, Hajin quietly nodded his head.

“It’s not like I gladly granted Sayoung’s request either.”

“…”

“But Sayoung asked. He begged. He said it had to be me.”

At the words he abruptly continued, Hajin subtly checked behind him. There was a table where one could sit lightly in the wine cellar, and it looked like he had been sitting there alone having a few glasses. A half-finished glass was placed on the table, and a couple of bottles of the wine he enjoyed were already opened.

“So don’t think about coveting him.”

The gaze of Seong Yeonwoo, whose eye level was about the same, looked straight at him. His eyes were packed to the brim with anxiety, anger, and chaotic emotions.

“…I have no intention of doing that.”

“Ha.”

“…”

“No intention, my foot. In truth, you like it. You like pretending to hate it on the outside, pretending you don’t on the outside. Isn’t that right?”

“…Hyung. I think you’re drunk.”

“Even so, it’s no use. Because Sayoung won’t even give a glance to someone like you anyway.”

Seong Yeonwoo was more talkative than usual, and exceptionally emotional. For decades, he had treated him as if he existed or didn’t exist, living while ignoring him, but when talk of marriage came up, it seemed to have become a fuse, throwing up his buried emotions.

“I know. I got it, so I think it would be better for you to go inside now.”

When he spoke softly, worried about his drunken appearance, Seong Yeonwoo let out a hollow laugh.

“…How hypocritical.”

“…”

“Did you covet my lover that much?”

“…”

“Do you want to have everything I possess? Just like my wine that you stole?”

“…”

“Do you covet everything of mine?”

Seong Yeonwoo distorted the corners of his eyes, staring at him as if looking at something hideous.

“But what can you do.”

“…”

“No matter how much you struggle, there won’t be anything.”

“…”

“So don’t misunderstand by any chance. Even if you get engaged, even if you go to that house and live together, the one getting married anyway is me. The person to bear that person’s child is also me. The person that person loves is… me too.”

Seong Yeonwoo spat out each word as if chewing them thoroughly. As if emphasizing and emphasizing again. These were things he already knew well enough, but he kept reminding him, as if anxious about something. It wasn’t that he couldn’t understand. In a way, he must be a tremendous villain to Seong Yeonwoo. So he felt a sense of guilt toward him too. Hajin didn’t bother to refute and was quietly listening to the words he hurled. Even if he refuted in front of a drunk person, it wouldn’t even be heard, and the other person didn’t seem likely to listen to whatever he said anyway.

“Next time if you get caught coming here again, I’ll report it to the police then.”

Seong Yeonwoo, who glanced sideways at the wine Hajin was holding, let out a murmur full of contempt and shoved past him as if to show off.

“…Beggar bastard.”

The shoulder he struck as he went past hurt quite a bit. Honestly, he didn’t know. Whether the shoulder he struck hurt, or whether it hurt from the words he spat out.

࣪˖ ִֶָ🍇་༘

Hajin quietly set down the wine and left Yu-jeong-je. He came out of the main house gate, went down the high uphill road, and walked for a long time. To go from the main house to a convenience store, he had to walk quite a bit. Since he got caught stealing wine to drink, he had no choice but to turn his steps outside.

Because he had to go himself if he wanted to buy and drink even a bottle of soju, Hajin walked with heavy steps toward the convenience store located far below. Somehow, it felt like he wouldn’t be able to sleep today unless he drank alcohol. He wasn’t the type to enjoy alcohol, but whenever he faced a matter difficult to handle, he often drank it.

The neighborhood where the main house was located was swarming with only rich people’s detached houses, so there were only a few convenience stores. It wasn’t a place where luxury villas were gathered either, so there were few commercial shops around, and when he saw a convenience store lit up on a dark road, it was somehow welcoming to a certain degree. Hajin entered familiarly, bought a bottle of soju and a dried squid, and took a seat at the front table.

Hajin, who downed two glasses of soju in succession, munched on the squid and stared blankly at the residential districts that boasted high walls.

He knew the reason Seong Yeonwoo was getting that angry, but on the other hand, he couldn’t understand it. No matter how much Kwon Sayoung accepted this proposal, he didn’t think of breaking up with Seong Yeonwoo. He was in a state where he had marked Seong Yeonwoo as the partner to marry anyway once this contract ended, and he had conveyed that entirely to the partner too, but Seong Yeonwoo somehow looked anxious.

But on the contrary, he envied Seong Yeonwoo. Because despite any shaking, Kwon Sayoung was not letting go of Seong Yeonwoo. They had been dating for quite a long time, and that relationship looked stable. Looking at the way Seong Suhyun, even after getting married, headed toward other Omegas and Seohyeonje, and the parents, who had a wife and a husband, solved their sleeping together with other Omegas and Alphas with the excuse of rut and heat cycles, Seong Yeonwoo and Kwon Sayoung were a truly stable and sound relationship. Then couldn’t they trust each other well enough?

“What are you doing, you?”

Around the time he emptied half a bottle of soju silently, with a jingling sound, he ran into someone who came out of the convenience store. It was Kwon Sabin, who, just like him, was munching on a dried squid while dangling a black plastic bag.

“Ah…”

Hajin stared at him with quite surprised eyes. Each other’s main houses weren’t far apart. Main houses of chaebols were mostly crowded here, so there were times they ran into each other occasionally, but running into each other at a convenience store was a first.

“…What are you doing?”

Hajin asked with a dazed face. He heard words that he was busy appearing in the media here and there lately, but contrary to the talk of being busy, he was a bit puzzled by the appearance of Kwon Sabin roaming the neighborhood comfortably in a training suit.

“Tsk, look at your state. How wretched.”

Whether the appearance of opening soju alone at a table in front of a convenience store looked pitiful, he clicked his tongue and shook his head. But his own appearance didn’t look all that grand either.

“…If you’re going to pick a fight, go.”

Hajin replied quietly to him, who picked fights habitually. He didn’t particularly want to hear Kwon Sabin’s spiteful nitpicking right now.

“With your place, where do you dare tell me to go or not to go.”

Kwon Sabin sat across from him naturally while giving him a piece of his mind. Funnily enough, what was contained in his black plastic bag was also a soju bottle. He thought he only enjoyed expensive alcohol like whiskey or vodka, but it seemed that wasn’t the case either.

“You drink soju too?”

“Why, am I not allowed to drink it?”

At the ordinary question, he replied while picking a fight habitually. But Hajin continued his words nonchalantly, as if used to it.

“It’s strange.”

“What?”

“I thought you would order people around to buy soju for you too.”

“Of course, that’s how it originally is.”

He replied composedly, responding firmly as if telling him not to say obvious things. Hajin shut his mouth, feeling like the conversation was going to flow predictably. He was always that way, so when they went to school, they didn’t even talk well. Whenever he said anything, he would pick a fight, or if he talked to him, he would give him a piece of his mind saying how dare he talk to him, so he didn’t bother dealing with him.

Hajin downed another glass of soju without a word. It was bitter but sweet, sweet but bitter—he thought that taste somehow felt like his current situation.

“…You.”

When he silently emptied two more glasses like that, Kwon Sabin, who was chewing squid frivolously, subtly asked.

“What.”

“…I’m asking why are you doing this alone like an idiot.”

That way of speaking, of all things.

“I won’t tell you.”

Hajin shot back ordinarily. When he spoke indifferently without any ups and downs, Kwon Sabin distorted his face terribly and shouted out abruptly.

“Ha, why?!”

“Because you called me an idiot.”

“…Ha. Fuck, I really…”

Whether Hajin’s calm retort was absurd, Kwon Sabin let out a dumbfounded hollow laugh, then soon after continued his words slowly.

“…Take, take out the ‘like an idiot’ part.”