“No. I don’t wear perfume.”
If there was any scent lingering on him, it was probably the aftershave Jo Yeon-oh kept stocked in his bathroom. The Alpha had been using the same brand for years.
At the answer, Cheol-jin’s expression turned strangely awkward. His face reddened instantly, and he cleared his throat several times before shifting uncomfortably in his seat.
Completely unaware of what the reaction meant, Gi-hyeon asked casually, “Are your pants uncomfortable? You’re dieting, so it’s not weight gain. Did you buy the wrong size?”
“Ah, no, it’s not that…”
Cheol-jin’s ears turned even redder.
Gi-hyeon, still oblivious, stood up.
“I’m going to the restroom. We can head out after.”
“Already?”
“It’s nine. Your doctor is basically an old man with a ten o’clock bedtime.”
Ignoring Cheol-jin’s flustered insistence that they looked the same age, Gi-hyeon chuckled quietly.
It was always fascinating to him how athletes who seemed so mature in some ways could still be so young in others.
Patting Cheol-jin lightly on the shoulder, he headed toward the restroom.
The moment he stepped inside, Gi-hyeon stopped cold.
There was an unmistakable feeling of wetness between his legs.
Alarm shot through him instantly.
Skipping the urinals entirely, he hurried into a stall and shoved his pants down.
“…What the hell?”
The moment the fabric slid down his thighs, a string of thick, transparent fluid stretched downward before snapping against his skin.
Gi-hyeon froze.
“…What the fuck is this…”
His thoughts stalled completely.
His body had felt strange all day, but this—
Panic hit him all at once.
He pulled his pants back up immediately and rushed out of the restroom.
“Oh, Doc—”
“Cheol-jin, something came up. I need to leave right now.”
“What? What happened—”
Before the swimmer could finish speaking, Gi-hyeon had already reached the counter and thrown down his card to pay.
His thoughts spun wildly.
Taxi or running?
The apartment wasn’t far.
Running would be faster.
…And sitting in a taxi like this would be a disaster.
The thought alone made him squeeze his eyes shut briefly.
Just as he started toward the street, someone grabbed his wrist.
“Doc! You forgot your phone! It kept ringing.”
“Oh— right. Thanks. Cheol-jin, I’ll contact you later. Go straight home. And ice your shoulder after training.”
Even in the middle of panicking, therapist instincts still surfaced automatically.
After snatching the vibrating phone from Cheol-jin’s hand, Gi-hyeon turned and hurried away.
He knew the swimmer probably found his behavior bizarre, but he didn’t have the mental capacity to care.
Why the hell is this happening to me?
As he practically ran down the sidewalk, another wave of warmth spread between his legs.
His face drained of color.
Sweat was one thing.
This wasn’t sweat.
And the fluid soaking through his underwear looked disturbingly similar to slick.
His breathing grew uneven.
Ignoring the pain shooting through his ankle, Gi-hyeon broke into a run toward his apartment.
“Hah… ngh—”
By the time he reached the building, he was completely out of breath. Bent forward with his hands on his knees, he struggled to steady himself before stumbling toward the entrance.
As someone passed behind him, he heard them mutter quietly:
“What’s that smell…?”
Smell.
Gi-hyeon stiffened.
Pretending he hadn’t heard it, he forced himself into the elevator.
By the time he reached his floor and raised a shaking hand toward the keypad, a thought had already settled heavily in his mind.
For the past twenty minutes, he’d been vaguely aware of a strange scent coming from his own body.
Something sweet.
Heavy.
Vanilla-like.
At moments, it felt overwhelmingly strong, only to disappear completely the next second.
He didn’t want to think about what it meant.
The moment he got inside the apartment, Gi-hyeon kicked off his shoes and started stripping his clothes off as he walked toward the bathroom.
By the time he reached it, he was down to his jeans and soaked underwear.
“Fuck…”
When he shoved his jeans down, the truth became impossible to ignore.
A dark patch of moisture had soaked through the denim.
Swearing under his breath, Gi-hyeon touched the damp fabric carefully.
The slick texture made his entire body shudder.
That scent—
It had to be coming from this.
But why?
Why was his body producing something like this?
His mind refused to process it.
He tore off the ruined clothes and threw them into the sink before rinsing them quickly with cold water and dumping them into the laundry basket.
Then he stepped directly into the shower.
He’d thought the fluid was limited to between his legs, but it had spread farther than that.
“What kind of nightmare is this…”
Grinding his teeth hard enough to make his jaw ache, Gi-hyeon forced himself to stay calm.
Standing beneath scalding water, he scrubbed himself repeatedly until his skin turned red. He practically emptied half the body wash bottle onto the shower sponge and cleaned himself over and over again.
Only after washing his hair did he finally step out with a towel around his waist.
“….”
Not knowing what was happening terrified him more than anything else.
No matter how desperately he searched through everything he knew about medicine, anatomy, and pathology, nothing explained this.
A male body should not produce something like this.
If even he couldn’t identify the symptoms, then what the hell was it?
He needed to go to a major hospital immediately.
The problem was that he didn’t even know what department he should contact.
Drying his hair roughly with the towel, Gi-hyeon pulled on a clean pair of boxers and let out a long breath.
At that moment, the front door lock beeped.
The door opened.
Knowing immediately that it was Jo Yeon-oh, Gi-hyeon didn’t bother asking who it was as he pulled on sweatpants.
Yeon-oh’s voice echoed from the entrance.
“What the hell happened here? One person makes a mess, and someone else always ends up cleaning it.”
He didn’t sound genuinely angry.
It was the usual complaining tone he used whenever he acted like Gi-hyeon’s apartment belonged to him.
From the rustling sounds, he was probably lining up the shoes Gi-hyeon had kicked off earlier.
“And why are your clothes thrown all over the place like—”
His voice stopped abruptly.
Gi-hyeon had just opened a bottle of water in the kitchen when he noticed Jo Yeon-oh standing motionless near the entrance.
The Alpha was staring at him.
Hard.
Only the bathroom and kitchen lights were on, leaving the living room mostly dark, so Gi-hyeon couldn’t clearly make out his expression.
Before he could ask what the problem was, the motion light near the front door clicked off, plunging Yeon-oh into shadow.
Then the Alpha spoke.
“Did you bring an Omega into this house?”
Gi-hyeon stared blankly at him.
The question was so absurd that the only thing his brain managed to produce was:
“Omega-3?”
“Stop fucking around.”
Without another word, Jo Yeon-oh started searching the apartment.
At first, Gi-hyeon assumed he was heading to the bathroom to wash his hands like he always did after coming home, but instead the Alpha checked the bathroom before immediately moving on to the bedroom.
“What are you doing?”
Yeon-oh ignored him completely.
He searched the bedroom, the walk-in closet, then the study.
Watching him storm around the apartment, Gi-hyeon stood frozen in the kitchen in total confusion.
Finally, after checking every room, Jo Yeon-oh stopped in the middle of the living room with his hands on his hips.
“I told you I’d handle it. I told you to go through me. Were you not listening?”
“…Yeah, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Putting the water bottle back into the refrigerator, Gi-hyeon stared at him in disbelief.
Jo Yeon-oh looked furious.
Genuinely furious.
And Gi-hyeon couldn’t understand why.
“…What time did you get off work?”
“Just now. I had dinner with Cheol-jin and came home.”
“Park Cheol-jin? The Alpha swimmer? Four-hundred freestyle?”
Slightly impressed that Yeon-oh even knew his event, Gi-hyeon nodded.
The Alpha’s gaze swept over him again.
His damp hair.
His pale skin.
His bare chest.
Only then did Gi-hyeon realize he’d walked out of the bathroom wearing nothing but sweatpants.
Years of military service and physical therapy work had left him with a solid build, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed being stared at by another man.
Especially not like this.
Jo Yeon-oh had never looked at him this way before.
The intensity of it unsettled him.
Quickly grabbing the towel around his neck, Gi-hyeon turned away.
“Why were you eating with him?”
Even as Gi-hyeon walked toward the walk-in closet, he could still feel Yeon-oh’s stare fixed firmly on his back.
Why is he acting like this?
Unnerved, he answered a moment later.
“Cheol-jin came to the hospital, and we went together from there.”
“I thought his treatment already ended.”
“Sometimes athletes stop by to say thanks.”
“A national team athlete in the middle of training season just stopped by casually?”
“Probably. More importantly, aren’t you going to wash your hands? You complain if you don’t do it the second you get home.”
Yawning heavily, Gi-hyeon brushed past him toward the living room.
Thankfully, after showering, the slick had stopped.
He still needed medical tests immediately, but the immediate panic had faded, leaving only exhaustion behind.
He was too tired to keep dealing with Jo Yeon-oh’s interrogation.
Realizing Gi-hyeon wasn’t going to answer anymore, the Alpha finally hung up his suit jacket and headed to the bathroom. Soon, the sound of running water filled the apartment.
Taking advantage of the temporary peace, Gi-hyeon immediately retreated to the bedroom and crawled into bed.
It was exactly ten o’clock.
Just like he’d joked earlier, an exhausted office worker really did need to sleep by then.
His only goal now was to fall asleep before Jo Yeon-oh came back out and started talking again.
He briefly thought about plugging in his phone, but he had no idea where he’d dropped it earlier while panicking.
It didn’t matter.
Military habits guaranteed he’d wake up on time anyway.
Closing his eyes, Gi-hyeon let the sound of the shower pull him toward sleep.
The bathroom door eventually clicked open.
A familiar presence approached the bed.
Warm fingers brushed lightly through his damp hair.
“Sleeping with wet hair again.”
Jo Yeon-oh’s voice was low, carrying the faintest trace of amusement.
A moment later, Gi-hyeon heard movement near the nightstand, followed by the soft sound of a phone being placed onto the charging dock.
Then silence.
Yeon-oh remained standing there for a long time.
Too exhausted to care anymore, Gi-hyeon finally slipped fully into sleep.