After the day he took a pheromone shower from Kanghyeon.
One of the weekend days that followed, he was half laid up in bed, and the other he had to be out all day because of an event the club was planning.
As time passed like that, Kwon Haeil’s head stayed packed full of curiosity about Baek Kanghyeon.
He couldn’t figure out why a Dominant Alpha like Baek Kanghyeon carried the faint sweet note you’d expect only from an Omega. He even considered whether someone else’s scent had been smeared on him, but the odds that he—who was absurdly sensitive to pheromones—had mistaken it were 0%.
Above all, the way it spread even more the moment the pheromone shower started proved that sweet note belonged to Baek Kanghyeon himself.
Of course he was curious.
Why that scent was there, since when, and whether anyone besides himself had noticed.
Since he was the type who couldn’t leave a special point of interest alone from childhood, his body itched to find out somehow.
But he couldn’t just ram in blindly because of that curiosity.
His last exchange with Baek Kanghyeon hadn’t been good.
The chill Kanghyeon showed could’ve been called outright killing intent; it was bone-cold. It was nothing short of an immense wariness.
He wasn’t so thoughtless as to suddenly pelt a person like that with questions and press for answers. Do that and it felt like he’d run smack into a towering wall and never be able to speak to him again.
That, absolutely not.
Ha… I just want to bury my nose and sniff.
The sweet note of Baek Kanghyeon that he’d tasted deep through the pheromone shower still shimmered in his mind. If he could smell it again, he felt like he could do anything.
I wasn’t even like this when I quit smoking after ten years.
The effect of the pheromone shower hadn’t only been on his body.
He was dying to pull that sweet note into his lungs again. Every time his head filled with curiosity and interest in Baek Kanghyeon, the desire to smell that sweet note grew more vicious.
One way or another, he had to close the distance with Baek Kanghyeon. Only if he broke down that ice-cold wall would he be able to breathe in that maddening sweet note to his heart’s content.
So Haeil decided to make one thing clear this time.
If Baek Kanghyeon was on extreme guard around him, it was probably because he had discovered his “secret.”
In that case, he just wouldn’t wield it as leverage. He figured it would be enough if he conveyed, properly, that he had no intention of telling anyone, so he could rest easy.
If he wanted to learn, piece by piece, about the Baek Kanghyeon who was driving him crazy with curiosity, he had to do at least this much.
No, but—fuck! I have to meet him to tell him anything!
Only belatedly did Haeil realize that past-him had thought about it far too simply.
After he made up his mind to spell things out to Kanghyeon.
By default an evening worker, Kwon Haeil had been deliberately pushing his start time back—an hour, then another hour. “Start time” just meant he looked around the club and enjoyed himself a bit before coming home anyway.
After delaying and delaying his start every day, he only left the house around midnight yesterday.
Even then, Kanghyeon’s place was as quiet as ever. He rang the doorbell for a full ten minutes straight, pressing it over and over, and even knocked while calling Kanghyeon’s name from outside, but it was the same story. Weekends were no different. This story is hosted at g.com.
It wasn’t that Baek Kanghyeon was staying away from home continuously.
When he came back at dawn, Kanghyeon’s car was parked neatly in the underground garage. He was definitely grabbing some sleep at home before heading out.
That didn’t mean he was clueless enough to wake him in the pitch dark before dawn. They had parted with the feeling that he’d planted a proper black mark on himself; wake him at dawn on top of that, and things would get even worse.
After holding out and holding out, he finally gave up on going in to work today at all.
He had a meeting scheduled tomorrow afternoon anyway with that new Division Head or whatever at BC Holdings. He couldn’t sleep in because of that, so he couldn’t party until dawn like usual either.
Since the meeting gave him an excuse to stay home, he was set on meeting Baek Kanghyeon today even if it got late.
As soon as he woke up in the afternoon, what Kwon Haeil did was very simple. He just paced between the underground garage and the corridor at intervals to check whether Kanghyeon had come back.
After that repeated and repeated again and it passed midnight, Haeil was slowly reaching his limit.
His face twisted more and more ferociously.
“Fuck, so I’m the only one who’s desperate, is that it?”
Letting out a voice like a knife, Haeil exhaled a long sigh.
“Whew… the one who’s desperate has to endure.”
He steadied his breathing like a deep inhale and pushed his forelock up.
Should I just leave a letter or something? Slip a note in the door crack? Say I want to see him? But giving up now would be bullshit after I waited this damn long today.
Lost in what, for him, counted as serious contemplation, Haeil turned his body. His legs were headed not for his own place but for the elevator.
I’ll just wait in the garage. Tomorrow’s a weekday, so he’ll have to come if he’s going to work.
Kwon Haeil got into the elevator again, which felt like it had been used by one person all day long.
At the moment his long finger was about to press “B4.”
With the voice “Going down,” the elevator moved. He hadn’t even pressed a button.
The corner of Kwon Haeil’s mouth began to lift.
As for all the pent-up complaints—somehow, there wasn’t a grain of them to be found.
***
2:17 a.m.
A high-end black sedan rolled into Palace Skytower’s Basement Level 4 (B4) parking garage. As expected, it was Baek Kanghyeon himself at the wheel, not his dedicated driver.
It wasn’t that he drove himself because Driver Yoon made him uncomfortable.
Until he became an adult, a driver had been attached to him at all times, and even after he entered working life there were times he had to keep a driver. So there was no way it felt strange now.
He just didn’t like overworking Driver Yoon late into the night and then summoning him again at dawn. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
His executive assistant Jung Wonwoo was an Alpha, so fine, but for a Beta like Driver Yoon and the other staff it was extremely hard to keep to their own schedules. When that dragged down the efficiency of people around him, it made Baek Kanghyeon pointlessly tired.
Of course, that wasn’t the only reason.
Driver Yoon, like executive assistant Jung Wonwoo, was a personnel placement his father had forced on him.
Up to now, his father had left Kanghyeon relatively free.
He hadn’t dragged him around by force, and he hadn’t put him in front of the media. Even across the various subsidiaries where Kanghyeon had worked, rather than announcing his background and treating him accordingly, they pretended not to know and treated him like any ordinary employee. There was no helping the rumors that drifted subtly.
But since Kanghyeon had set foot in BC Holdings in earnest, it looked like he had no intention of leaving things that way.
The dedicated driver stuck to Kanghyeon and the executive assistant Jung Wonwoo were both examples.
On the surface they looked like a simple driver and a simple executive assistant, but in fact the two were trained professional bodyguards raised by Baekcheong Group.
Whether for protection or anything else, both were talents whose skill was more than worthy of recognition. For Kanghyeon, the problem was simply that they were a considerable encumbrance.
Even so, he’s probably going easy on me right now.
When told to go home early, both of them hesitated but ultimately obeyed orders. They were probably loosening up for the time being out of consideration for him, but that would be brief. Once the contract was signed and the project in full swing, there was no way they’d leave him alone like this.
Is he scared my brothers might harbor other designs? Now, of all times?
Thinking that was fairly funny.
I’d rather my brothers… would just do that, honestly.
Getting out of the car with a self-mocking thought, Kanghyeon took a thick document case and headed for the elevator. As he moved his heavy steps and checked the time, fatigue flickered at the corners of his eyes.
I can sleep about three hours.
Estimating how long he could rest, Kanghyeon pressed firmly on the elevator’s cold button. The elevator, which had been stopped at the top floor, began to descend quickly.
First, before I sleep, I should skim the proposal one more time.
In his head, Kanghyeon sketched the meeting with club WAVE’s representative. Since it was past midnight, it would take place this afternoon.
Whoever the representative is, unless he’s out of his mind, it’s a proposal he can’t refuse. Barring anything unusual, it’ll go through smoothly, so as long as I execute what I’ve prepared well…
Ding—
As if to cut off his thoughts, a clear chime sounded from the elevator.
Presently, the doors opened.
Still lost in thought as he stepped forward, Kanghyeon’s body bumped into something solid. He also felt two hands catch him—firm, but without hurting him.
“There we go again.”
At the familiar situation and a voice he hadn’t heard in a while, he came to himself. When he lifted his head, a familiar man filled Baek Kanghyeon’s eyes.
“Is charging straight ahead without looking your hobby, Mr. Baek Kanghyeon?”
With that well-known voice, Kwon Haeil grinned inside the elevator.
“So is mine.”