“What do you usually do during it?”
“Me? Same as always. I take medication and sleep. Then I spend the worst day by myself. It's probably the same for you.”
“......”
“My cycle's normally pretty regular—every three months exactly. But this time it's about two weeks late. What about yours, Hyeonchae?”
Hyeonchae's eyes rolled aimlessly before he finally looked away.
At this point, there was no way Seonwoo could miss that something was strange.
A thought suddenly occurred to him.
“Haven't you said you're an Alpha?”
“I am.”
“Then why aren't you answering? You're acting like an Alpha who's never experienced rut.”
Silence.
That alone was enough of an answer.
Seonwoo's eyes widened.
There was already one Alpha around him who never experienced rut.
Choi Iwon.
“...You don't have rut either.”
The words escaped him almost like a groan.
Hyeonchae froze.
His head lowered, hiding his expression.
After a long silence, he slowly nodded.
“...Do you know because of Choi Iwon?”
“Yeah.”
Something about that answer clearly bothered him.
His brows knitted together as if he wanted to say something, only to stop himself over and over.
Eventually, after moving his lips a few times, he spoke cautiously, almost as though he were testing the waters.
“I heard it's a hereditary disease from my mother's family. It only appears occasionally... in dominant Alphas.”
“So you're... too...”
Seonwoo didn't know how to continue.
He spent a long time searching for the right words before finally giving up and asking the closest thing he could manage.
“Are you... like Iwon too?”
* * *
From his very earliest memories...
That boy had always been beside him.
'Don't fight with Iwon. Get along with him, okay? You have to become Iwon's best friend.'
Best friend.
'Our Seonwoo is such a good boy, isn't he? Iwon is practically family.'
Family.
'After what happened with Junwoo, we planned Seonwoo's birth on purpose, remember? Thank goodness Iwon was born in January. Imagine if he'd been born after New Year's, hohoho.'
Even his own birth had been planned around Iwon.
Which meant...
To Seonwoo, Iwon was his best friend.
His family.
His future boss.
Wasn't that practically everything?
He only realized how strange it all was much later.
The devotion that had begun with the adults closest to him naturally shaped Seonwoo into doing the same.
To be honest, he had never minded.
Compared to his older brother, whose temper could sometimes be rough, Iwon had always been gentle and warm.
As a child, whenever Seonwoo read fairy tales, he thought every prince looked just like Iwon.
Tall for his age.
Handsome.
Confident enough to speak to adults without hesitation.
Loved by everyone.
No matter where they went, the center of attention was always Iwon.
Whatever group he belonged to, he naturally stood at the very top.
And Seonwoo had been genuinely happy that he, of all people, was Iwon's closest friend.
Just as much as Seonwoo treasured Iwon...
Iwon always looked after him too.
It was a special kind of treatment reserved only for his best friend.
'Seonwoo. Don't hang out with him. He doesn't seem like a good kid.'
Okay.
'Seonwoo. Join the broadcasting club instead of the soccer club. It'll help you more later.'
I will.
'Seonwoo.'
Yeah, Iwon.
There had only ever been one time Seonwoo couldn't do what Iwon asked.
It happened during a family winter vacation, when Chairman Choi noticed him at the ski resort.
The Chairman wanted Seonwoo to join the ski team he had arranged and begin formal training.
He had to attend a different school from Iwon.
'Nam Seonwoo. Don't go.'
But that time...
He couldn't say yes.
Both of them already knew.
Within the pyramid called Myeonghyeon...
No one could defy Chairman Choi.
Iwon cried for days afterward.
Then he came to Seonwoo and made a promise.
He'd make sure nothing like this ever happened again.
He would take control of Myeonghyeon himself.
The way Iwon shone while saying those words was so dazzling that Seonwoo never once doubted him.
Almost without realizing it...
Friendship quietly became love.
During the summer vacation after entering a middle school different from Iwon's, Seonwoo left the country for training.
The moment he experienced the joy of carving across endless mountains...
Something appeared in his life that became just as precious as Iwon.
After joining the junior ski team, he met friends whom Iwon had never filtered or chosen for him.
At Nives, he received more affection and pampering than he'd ever gotten from his parents or his brother.
For the first time...
He even found himself grateful to Chairman Choi—the very man he'd once resented for separating him from Iwon.
He fell in love with skiing.
It happened on a day when everyone had gathered at Chairman Choi's residence after a long time.
It was Iwon's fourteenth birthday.
Seonwoo nervously presented him with the gift he'd spent so much time choosing.
A snow globe containing the scenery of the ski resort he'd bought while overseas for training.
Its price hadn't mattered.
He simply wanted to share something he truly loved...
With the person he believed loved it just as much.
Fortunately, Iwon seemed delighted.
He rolled the snow globe around in his hands and even carried it with him into the dining room.
Realizing that Iwon intended to proudly show it off to all the adults present, Seonwoo became a little embarrassed and lowered his head, quietly eating his dinner.
Then...
Everything fell apart.
“Iwon!!”
Iwon suddenly collapsed into violent convulsions at the table.
Everyone present cried out in shock and rushed toward him.
A heartbeat later, Seonwoo finally lifted his head.
He stared blankly at Iwon lying on the floor...
And the shattered snow globe that had slipped from his hand.
Everything afterward felt like a dream.
Diagnosis after diagnosis.
The manifestation of a dominant Alpha.
Abnormal symptoms.
Seizures.
A hereditary disease.
Dissociative identity.
The first time Seonwoo heard the words "dissociative identity," he panicked.
Had the Iwon he knew disappeared?
Crying, he ran straight to the hospital room.
But when he opened the door...
There was Iwon.
Smiling as warmly as always.
Seonwoo leaned against Iwon's legs and cried for a long time.
That didn't mean everything was fine.
Just like an Alpha's rut...
Whenever his pheromones spiraled out of control, that other side of him would occasionally appear before disappearing again.
He wasn't an entirely separate personality.
He possessed Iwon's memories.
He behaved like Iwon.
But he was extremely sensitive.
And violent.
Whenever that personality disappeared, Iwon remembered nothing.
Almost like sleepwalking.
The problem...
Was that no one knew when he'd appear.
During the first year, Iwon's pheromones were especially unstable.
Taking care of him became Seonwoo's responsibility too.
He transferred into Iwon's school.
Though it was exhausting, he balanced looking after Iwon with ski training.
The other Iwon treated everyone with equal hostility.
Naturally...
He hated Seonwoo too for constantly interfering.
The first time they met, Seonwoo was beaten badly enough to end up in the emergency room.
The second time wasn't any different.
Yet...
Perhaps because Seonwoo was always there every time he opened his eyes, the other Iwon eventually found it strange enough that he simply stopped hitting him.
As Iwon's pheromones gradually stabilized, the other personality appeared less and less frequently.
Once a week.
Then once a month.
Then once each season.
The more stable Iwon became...
The more completely Seonwoo devoted himself to skiing.
Then one day...
After not seeing Iwon for a while...
He told Seonwoo that he loved him.
And...
And what had Seonwoo said in return?
Was it the other Iwon who confessed?
Or was it the Iwon he had always known?
He couldn't remember.
His memories from that period were blurry.
During the winter when he was sixteen, Seonwoo suffered a devastating knee injury after a training accident in which his ski binding failed to release.
He spent six months in rehabilitation.
By the summer he turned seventeen...
He had completely given up being an athlete.
Seonwoo returned to the life he'd had before.
He attended the same high school as Iwon.
They studied together.
Iwon still became sensitive from time to time...
But the other Iwon never appeared again.
Where had he gone?
Seonwoo felt a faint sense of regret.
But he had no room left in his heart.
Little by little...
He erased the other Iwon from his memories.
Iwon's goal had never changed.
He still intended to stand at the very top of Myeonghyeon.
But because he now had a "defect," he seemed convinced he needed to become even more perfect.
He constantly talked about marrying a dominant Omega of equal standing immediately after graduating from university.
Every time Seonwoo heard those words...
He thought,
You're already perfect.
After losing skiing...
Iwon was all Seonwoo had left.
He didn't want to lose something he loved ever again.
“You always smile whenever you look at Iwon. Do you really like him that much?”
It had only been an offhand remark from a friend.
But from that day on...
Seonwoo developed the habit of biting at his lips, afraid his expression might betray him.
“Seonwoo, why don't you date anyone? Don't tell me there's someone you like?”
Faced with that casual question, a nameless panic overtook him.
Frightened, he contacted an upperclassman who had been showing interest in him for quite some time.
He spent the night with him.
After becoming an adult...
He kept doing the same thing.
Again...
And again...
Truthfully...
He had never been dissatisfied.
Iwon had always been gentle.
Always warm.
The problem...
Had simply been himself.