The car he sent arrived at a grand mansion situated where the Hong Kong nightscape could be seen in full. The grounds were so vast that it took another two or three minutes by car just to reach the steps at the main entrance from the lower gate, where security guards were checking and admitting each vehicle.

This was a party hosted by a major gallery with significant influence in the Asian art market — one that had started in Hong Kong, continued its rapid growth, and successfully expanded by opening a branch in Singapore the year before last.

"It's the gallery where the Director and Manager Han used to work together," Yuni nuna said, snapping the clasp of her small clutch shut after slipping a mirror inside.

"They probably rented this place just for tonight's party. Hong Kong has a vibrant high-society culture, so there are quite a few places like this — mansions rented out solely for wedding receptions, luxury brand events, or private parties for the wealthy."

It was a world with no connection to me.

Many cars were lined up along the road that curved around a large installation piece — seemingly symbolizing a pair of lovers — leading up to the mansion's main entrance. Juhan hyung explained that they had likely invited almost all the major galleries that attended the fair, as well as art enthusiasts who had traveled from around the world to see it.

"Honestly, it's a show of force. This is their chance to demonstrate to every art-world figure across the globe that a gallery with this much power exists in Asia. It might seem like a nouveau riche mindset, but when you're targeting the global market, your clients are all extraordinarily wealthy, so you do need to make a display of economic power and influence to some extent. This is a business where works sell for billions, sometimes tens of billions of won. In a way, it's all promotion and investment."

As our car slowed to a stop, a doorman dressed in a black suit opened the door for us.

He had arrived earlier and was waiting at the entrance to greet us.

It was a different suit from the one he'd worn at the VIP Preview. Perhaps because it was black, he gave an impression of being far more formally dressed today. Even completely enveloped in that restrained all-black suit, the raw, primal energy and the deep sexual allure of his physique were unmistakably present.

Whether you were someone like me — young and unacquainted with the wider world — or a sophisticated member of high society who had attended countless such functions, no one could help but look at him. Like a leading man who had stepped out of a classic Hollywood movie poster, he was in his suit both timelessly classic and intensely sensual.

After complimenting nuna and hyung's styles in turn, his gaze finally settled on me. His eyes swept over me as if appraising a piece of work, and I found myself fiddling with my collar for no particular reason.

"Thank you for the suit."

"You must have been put in a difficult position having to attend so suddenly — of course I had to prepare something for you."

When I returned to the hotel after the final day of the fair, there was a suit hanging in my closet. A hotel employee had come directly to my room to deliver it, saying the Director had prepared it for me to wear to the party. It was the first suit I had ever worn in my life.

Juhan hyung had let out an almost envious screech when he recognized the brand — apparently coveted even among the most fashion-conscious — but the design felt too fashionable compared to the ordinary suits I knew, and I lacked the confidence to pull it off. It just felt awkward.

"It suits you well."

The man who had actually arranged the suit looked satisfied, though. He even took a couple of steps back to take in my whole figure at once.

"This looks expensive…"

"Did Yuni do your hair?"

The suit clung to the lines of my body with a supple softness, and the fabric alone looked so luxurious that it seemed like it would slip away at a touch — which kept me fixated on the price. He simply brushed the subject aside, lightly smoothing my hair.

"Yes."

His fingertips traced the edge of my neatly styled hair, grazing my earlobe as he smiled.

"You look even younger with your swept back."

He seemed to be in a good mood, and since he was unusually not hiding it, I decided against pressing him about the price of the suit and shoes right then. It wasn't money I could repay on the spot anyway, and I didn't want to spoil the mood.

As we ascended the stairs to move deeper into the party hall, nuna sidled right up next to him, buried her nose near his shoulder, and sniffed.

"Oh? What's that, Director — did you put on cologne?"

"……"

Following a few steps behind, I nearly lost my footing on the stairs.

"A little."

"Mmm, it smells good. Dark, totally my style. But this is custom-made, isn't it?"

To nuna's wistful question about a fruit hanging just out of reach, he only offered an ambiguous smile.

Scent is molecules spreading through the air — naturally indiscriminate in its effect — yet I suddenly realized I had never once acknowledged the possibility that others beside me could enjoy his unique fragrance.

Could there be a more foolish lapse of awareness?

Anyone standing as close to him as nuna was right now could smell his scent just as easily. Scent was something that could make an entire alley hungry from the smell of curry cooking in just one house.

And yet I had only ever focused on his scent as I experienced it.

The thought that someone else might smell that scent filled me with aversion. Whether I had any right to feel that way was a secondary concern. The fact that such presumptuous emotions were unsettling my mind was the problem itself.

Outside was a late evening that had turned completely dark, but inside, dazzlingly bright lights poured down — golden lighting designed to make everyone in the venue stand out spectacularly.

"Wow… this is the best party I've ever been to. Just how rich a gallery did you work for before, Director? I'm genuinely speechless."

Not just nuna but hyung and I as well widened our eyes at the interior: a spacious first-floor hall anchored by several makeshift bars, a grand piano where jazz was being played live, a grandly installed DJ booth — still empty — and perfectly arranged table and couch seating distributed throughout.

"I'm going to go find Manager Han. I'll follow her around and make sure to hand out business cards aggressively today. You never know, right? If I keep at it, maybe someone will check my blog or social media and recognize my talent."

Nuna — whose sparkling black sequined clutch was stuffed with business cards — pushed up her gold-framed glasses on their chain and disappeared toward the center of the hall. Juhan hyung headed upstairs, declaring he was going to find some shy Alpha struggling to fit in somewhere and burn up his last night in Hong Kong.

Just like that, in an instant, it was the two of us.

"Well... let's go together. It might not be the most exciting place, though."

He shrugged, hands shoved into his pants pockets. I thought about my own insufficient English and dry personality — which would only make a not-fun gathering even less fun — and shook my head.

"I'll just have something to drink at the bar. It's my first time at a place like this, so just sitting and people-watching should be interesting enough for me. Please don't worry about me."

"I went to the trouble of inviting all our gallery staff, so don't be like that. At least you, Seo Ihyeon, could go over and show your face to the gallery hosts. You only need to stay long enough to make polite introductions, and then you can leave."

Seeing his slightly troubled expression, I couldn't refuse any further.

His former colleagues were gathered at the most central table on the first floor. He introduced me as a staff member he was currently working with in Seoul, and the group of six or seven men and women welcomed me with polite smiles. They were all dressed splendidly and sophisticatedly, and naturally, they seemed accustomed to occasions like this.

"He's still very young. I'd appreciate it if you'd keep the teasing to a minimum."

"Wow… what's this? The great Liu Weikun saying that — it actually makes me want to tease him more."

Before we sat down, he placed a hand on my back and gave them a look that asked them to go easy. Someone made a joke, and everyone let out light laughter.

There were moments like this when the ten-year age gap between us felt suddenly real. It wasn't that he acted frivolously in daily life — but perhaps because of his generally non-authoritarian atmosphere, sometimes cool yet not fundamentally domineering, or perhaps because his appearance made it hard to gauge his age, I rarely felt that ten-year difference in our everyday interactions.

His introduction — that I should be treated gently because I was so young — didn't feel entirely unwelcome today, for some reason.

"What's it like working with Kun? It can't be easy, can it?"

To the question from his former colleague — who was apparently now a first-tier dealer — I smiled at Kun sitting beside me instead of answering. Everyone seemed generally familiar with his way of working, and the person who asked didn't seem to be looking for a specific answer.

"Ah... where would that temper have gone? He made several people cry and quit before, didn't he? Go on, tell us. Does he still say whatever comes to mind without filtering anything?"

The one who made that remark — cutting through the otherwise amicable atmosphere — was the man seated to my left.

Compared to the others at the table, he was dressed more loosely and looked free-spirited, blond hair slightly disheveled. He was smiling, but I could feel the thorns in his words aimed at Kun. The corners of his mouth, curling into a smirk, were twisted coldly.

"Um… please be kind to him."

At the thinly veiled hostility cloaked in a superficial smile, I found myself leaning my upper body back slightly as I replied. The man didn't seem inclined to back down.

"Hey, when else can you openly badmouth your boss like this? It's fine. I went through plenty of rough patches working with him before. Nobody here doesn't know Liu Weikun's temper."

Whether he was unaware of the table's atmosphere stiffening or pretending not to notice in order to achieve his goal, the face of the man who was so eagerly trying to cut Kun down under the guise of jokes betrayed a strange sort of agitation.

"No, really… he's very considerate."

The early Kun — who prioritized those precious to him, making me feel alienated, sometimes drawing out an unfamiliar defiance in me — had already faded within me. The excessive hurt I'd felt at his words and actions wasn't solely due to his attitude; it was also tangled up with my own feelings toward him.

"Considerate? Wow… considerate? Did everyone hear that? Liu Weikun is considerate to his staff?"

The man, who had been leaning back so loosely he seemed about to slide off his chair, sat up straight and raised his voice to the others at the table. The party had probably only been going for about an hour, but the smell of alcohol wafted out every time his clothes shifted.

Someone tried to calm the man down with a few gentle words, but he showed no intention of settling.

"Considerate — to what extent? Kind? Or sweet?"

"Stop it. I asked you not to be like this."

Unable to stand it any longer, Kun finally stepped in as the man persisted.

"Is this considered bad behavior at a party? Come on, you're being overprotective. This isn't the Liu Weikun I knew. Since when did you care so much about your staff?"

Kun leaned in and whispered to me in Korean — that I didn't need to engage with him one by one. An apology came with it.

"Ah — maybe he's not just staff?"

The man, reaching for his drink, bent his upper body sharply to peer at my face. His pale green eyes, the whites bloodshot, were filled with intense emotion.

"That's it, isn't it? People don't change that easily. Seems like you're doing other stuff besides working at the gallery?"

Beneath the man's relentless, almost passionate prodding and pushing, there was a kind of desperation.

Unless my instincts were wrong, the man seemed to want Kun to look at him — even in this way — to elicit some kind of reaction. It was a psychology I couldn't understand, but not all emotions in the world can be explained by clear logic.

"That said, you can't really blame Kun, can you? Anyone can see he's overflowing with charm. It would be harder not to make a move on him when you work together every day. But he really does look young. Kun — what's the story? He's not a minor, is he?"

The Asian man who had briefly called Kun away during the VIP Preview stepped in to ease the atmosphere, steering the conversation toward cosmetic procedures popular in Hong Kong these days for maintaining a youthful appearance. It wasn't a subject that would interest me — or, I suspected, Kun.

Letting out a breath of relief, I lifted my glass to wet my throat with champagne when the blond man addressed me again, this time privately.

"I'm sorry if I made things awkward. It was just a joke — Weikun has always been a bit of a purist about these things."

His voice was lower than before, perhaps somewhat calmed.

"No, I'm fine."

"Is this your first time in Hong Kong?"

"Yes."

Turning slightly toward him as a courtesy while keeping Kun behind me, I answered.

"You probably didn't get to do much sightseeing because of the fair."

As he spoke, he rested his chin on the table. The man looked generally disheveled, but up close his features were delicate. Above all, his blond hair was beautiful even in its tousled state, shimmering even in this light. It was my first time seeing such blond hair up close, and I found it somewhat novel. It might have been an odd observation given the circumstances, but the pale, fine blond hair — with very little yellow in it — suited the man's nervous and willful air well.

"You haven't even been to Victoria Peak yet, have you? The night view from a drive up the hill at this hour is truly romantic."

The man's eyes suddenly lit up and he looked directly at me.

"Why don't we slip out now, just the two of us, and go see it?"

I had assumed the man's real interest lay clearly elsewhere — namely, behind my back — so the suggestion was quite unexpected.

He placed a hand on my shoulder and leaned his upper body forward, bringing his lips close to my ear.

"You look incredibly bored too."

"……"

Before I could react, a hand reached over my shoulder and pushed the man back into his seat.

"Don't do anything unnecessary. He's a Beta."

The next moment, my body was gently pulled backward. Turning around, I found Kun glaring at the man with a fierce expression. The effort he had been making to suppress his displeasure until just moments ago had completely vanished from his face.

Only after hearing his words did I realize the man had been releasing pheromones. Just like with Inwu hyung, I hadn't sensed anything at all.

The man raised both hands as if to prove his innocence and leaned back.

"I didn't think he was an Omega. But you know — this isn't something you can control."

Even while feigning a defensive posture, the man was smirking.

"If you can't even control it around a Beta—letting it leak out like that—maybe you should be on medication?"

Kun grabbed my arm and pulled me toward his side, his voice tight and sharp as he warned the man across from us, each syllable clipped cleanly.

"Ah, right — for you, any Alpha who isn't Golden basically has a condition that requires medication. Not everyone gets to be a lucky Golden Alpha like you."

"Lucky?"

"……"

His voice snapped on that word, cracking sharply. The man seemed to realize he had poked a nerve, and closed his mouth, averting his gaze.

Kun took a sip of champagne, set it down, and stood up from his chair.

"I think it's best we get going. I apologize for needlessly disrupting the mood."

I followed him, rising awkwardly from my seat.

"What — do cheap pheromones disgust you that much?"

The man was still desperately trying to elicit some extreme reaction from him until the very end. Despite the sharp jabs in his words, the eyes looking up at Kun from his seated position wavered with a confused mixture of resentment and pleading.

Suddenly I recalled my past self — the one who had once wondered what it would feel like to be specially hated by him. Among the crowd surrounding him at the Phantom exhibition hall, there must have been people who had wished to become special to him even through the vehicle of his hatred.

I could only vaguely guess that perhaps what the man wanted from him now was that same kind of misguided expectation.

"Still acting so refined on your own. Since pheromones that aren't Golden's disgust you, I suppose what you keep around is just a boring Beta?"

Knowing that Kun reacted sensitively to pheromones and held a near-obsessive fastidiousness about them, the man was relentlessly digging at exactly that. I wondered whether he had once been severely criticized by Kun because of pheromones, but no matter how I looked at it, the man's attitude didn't seem rooted in hatred or revenge.

As Kun finished buttoning his jacket and turned to leave, he finally paused and looked back at the man. The downward gaze held no temperature — not even coldness. It was lukewarm.

He let out a faint scoff.

"For someone who can't land a one-night stand without relying on pheromones, you certainly put on the airs of an Alpha."

If my hunch was right, I thought I would never understand what satisfaction the man gained from eliciting this kind of reaction from the person he craved. I turned my gaze away from the man, whose face looked carved open despite having been the one to provoke all of it.

"Even among Alphas, a Beta is better than trash like you. Even without the label of Alpha or anything else, anyone in this room would choose him over you."

"……"

"So don't ever let those cheap pheromones flow toward him again."

His voice was steady, devoid of agitation, yet the words came out as if ground between his teeth. He pulled me around by the back and changed direction. The rigid set of his jaw suggested he regretted bringing me here at all.

From what I understood, it was generally common for Omegas not to be able to smell each other's pheromones. Alphas could distinguish each other's pheromones by scent, but it didn't lead to sexual arousal.

Only Alphas and Omegas were supposed to be sexually stimulated by the pheromones they detected through smell.

The higher the ranking of a Golden Alpha, the stronger their reproductive ability — and they could emit powerful pheromones that Omegas found difficult to resist. Conversely, they also possessed excellent resistance to Omega pheromones. They could reliably protect themselves from the sudden acute heats — Ruts — triggered by Omega pheromone stimulation, making it entirely possible to live a life almost indistinguishable from a Beta's, according to their own will.

Not only were their offensive and defensive capabilities regarding pheromones simultaneously high, but they could also sensitively distinguish between the pheromones of Omegas and other Alphas. So it wasn't an exaggeration when Inwu hyung called him an Omega diviner. If he belonged to the very highest echelon among Golden Alphas, distinguishing between Alpha, Omega, and Beta would require about as much effort as telling an apple, a strawberry, and a banana apart by smell.

Knowing how strict he was about pheromones, I could gauge the extent of his displeasure caused by that man.

No — even setting aside his fastidiousness, the man had provoked him with excessive rudeness. If anything, I thought he had shown considerable patience. I didn't want to blame him, thinking his final retort was unnecessarily cruel.

Moreover, the reason he — who had tried to avoid conflict by leaving — ultimately reacted was, probably, because of me.

If the man hadn't expressed it as dragging around a pathetic Beta, he would have ignored the provocation and left. It might have been a reaction to being treated as someone who keeps pathetic things around, but that wasn't the whole story.

It meant that, at least now, I was not an entirely insignificant person to him — not someone whose insult could simply be walked past and ignored.

I was grateful for that, and a sweet resonance settled in the edge of my heart — a feeling of being moved. Why wouldn't I feel that way?

But perhaps because of the complex emotions I had seen reflected in the man's eyes as he looked at Kun, I couldn't feel purely relieved or happy about it. It wasn't for good reasons like sympathy or empathy for the man. It was a more self-centered thought.

Who could guarantee that if I spent more time by his side, I wouldn't end up looking just as pathetic as that man?

"Let's go out to the terrace and get some air."

Only after they had walked well away from the table — all the way to the stairs leading to the second floor — did he finally speak. The space between his brows was still tense, and he wasn't quite meeting my eyes, but his suggestion was soft.

The second floor was mostly arranged with comfortable couch seating. Groups of several people, or couples, leaned back in plush sofas enjoying music, drinks, and conversation.

Under dimmer lighting than the first floor, we passed a couple locked in a deep kiss — oblivious to those around them — and stepped out onto the terrace.

"Ah…"

Without any need to go up to Victoria Peak's observation deck, the Hong Kong nightscape unfolded right at our feet. It was a view spectacular enough to draw an involuntary gasp even from me — someone who isn't quick or intense with reactions.

It was a cliché, but the entire city glittered as if stardust had been scattered across it. Even knowing it was artificial light created by civilization, for a moment I felt overwhelmed — as though I had become a witness to some mysterious phenomenon crafted by nature.

He glanced back at me, my mouth hanging open in wonder like a child watching fireworks, and offered a faint smile. I felt embarrassed again for showing such a childish side, but if I could make him smile even a little in this moment, that was enough.

Large candles enclosed in transparent windscreens served as gentle lighting across the wide terrace, where plush sofas were spaced out just as they were inside. Jazz drifting up from the first floor flowed from speakers fixed to the walls, adding to the impression of the night view before us.

Whether they were couples who had arrived together or lovers hastily formed at this very party for tonight only, people had slipped away from the crowded hall in twos to whisper sweet nothings or exchange close, physical tenderness.

We sat side by side on a sofa at the far edge of the terrace. Champagne was set before us as soon as we settled in.

"We worked together before, and we never really got along even then. He's someone who wears being an Alpha like a medal, and he has a history of causing problems at the company because of pheromones — we clashed over that issue more than once. As expected… he couldn't let things pass quietly today either."

He frowned deeply once and shook his head, as though regretting that he'd said more than suited him.

In my estimation, the man seemed to be craving Kun's attention with his whole body rather than being hostile toward him… but that was only my uncertain instinct, coming from someone with zero romantic experience.

A breeze blew in, cool enough to make the air conditioning seem entirely unnecessary. Directly in front of our seats, dense garden trees obscured half the night view. That was probably why this spot — the most secluded on the terrace — had been empty.

His distinct profile, leaning forward with his arms resting on his thighs, still seemed to be chewing over the unpleasantness left behind by what had just happened. I was looking at him and wondering if there was anything I could say to comfort him when an unfamiliar scent drifted under my nose.

The source of the fragrance was clearly him, sitting beside me. But it wasn't the scent I was familiar with — the scent I knew. The dark, heavy fragrance that nuna had called his signature was different from the one I recognized as his. The realization brought a deep wave of relief.

As it was his cologne, it shouldn't have mattered which one it was — and yet I couldn't explain to myself what criteria made that scent unpleasant while this one was acceptable. In any case, it wasn't something I could stop even if I disliked it.

And still — foolishly — I was simply relieved knowing that at this moment, I wasn't sharing that other scent with anyone else.

After a long moment of staring at a spot on the floor, lost in thought, he looked up at me with a bitter smile.

"I'm sorry. For showing you a pathetic scene. It was rather unseemly for a grown man."

I shook my head firmly several times.

"Saying one can't even seduce someone without pheromones. Honestly… I don't really have the right to criticize in that way, either."

Muttering as if to himself, he emptied his glass in one go.

I didn't know why he judged himself so harshly. Even Inwu hyung — his close friend — had described him as someone who didn't use his pheromones, like a person trying to become a Beta.

Perhaps the argument over pheromones just now was driving him — already strict with himself — toward excessive self-criticism.

"Director… I'm sure you could seduce anyone without pheromones. Whoever you wanted."

He paused mid-pour and turned to look at me. It had been an attempt at a joke meant to make him smile, and I worried it might have come out sounding like a remark that completely missed the mood.

"You think so?"

But seeing his faint smirk, it seemed the joke had gotten through.

"Yes. I don't think you'd need anything like pheromones."

I don't really feel that way, though. — He muttered that in English, as if to himself, then lifted his refilled glass and immediately drained half of it again.

"Director, you're handsome… brilliant at business… always impeccably dressed…"

He suddenly burst out laughing. A low, distinct sound. And with the last traces of his laughter still playing on his face, he looked at me.

"Are you trying to cheer me up right now?"

"It's a little… clumsy, isn't it?"

Heat rushed to my earlobes at the sheer immaturity of trying to comfort him by listing one-dimensional compliments worthy of a kindergartner. I was glad it was too dark to see clearly.

"Still — it's not a lie. You know it yourself, honestly. If you pretended not to know, that would be even more irritating."

Sneaking a glance up at him, I saw that the initial stiffness and self-reproach had faded considerably from his eyes and around his mouth. That was enough. The embarrassment was momentary. He hadn't laughed at my childish attempt to console him. Rather than laughing… his gaze as he looked at me had deepened.

I tensed automatically beneath his eyes as they traveled slowly over my face, carefully tracing every feature as if touching them. Was this way of scrutinizing someone's face a habit of his?

The scent stirred my senses, carried on the wind rustling through the branches. This time, it was the one I knew well.

I leaned forward without realizing it and breathed in. His shoulder was barely a hand's breadth away from mine.

"I thought you weren't wearing that perfume today."

"I mixed several. Having my scent overlap with someone else's bothers me even more than running into someone wearing the same clothes."

He said that as he emptied his glass and set it on the table. Then, resting his arm over the back of the sofa, he turned his body to face me. His firm, long arm stretched out behind my back.

Just him turning toward me intensified the fragrance. With his arm hooked over the back like that, it felt as though the scent was pouring out from the opening of his chest.

"Do you really want to cheer me up?"

I nodded. The arm resting on the back bent, and he began fiddling with my hair. His hand, lightly rubbing the ends of my hair, slipped down, brushed past the edge of my ear, and softly cupped the nape of my neck.

He slid closer, sharply tilting his head and pressing his lips right against my ear. Even just the moist warmth of his breath made my shoulder flinch.

"There is… a way, you know."

His whispered voice was like the promise of a secret that piqued curiosity. The husky low tone was sweet, as if gently scratching the inside of my belly.

His high nose grazed lightly past my ear, then slowly swept across my cheek. When it neared the tip of my nose, his face tilted, changing its angle. I pulled back just slightly — but it wasn't a rejection. It was only an action born from panic, surprise, and a touch of fear.

Our lips brushed against each other, fleetingly. Then the next moment he pressed in a little deeper, and firmly. Each time he moved his head, the soft weight of him pushed and yielded against me. Even from that shallow contact, I couldn't move at all.

His hot, dry lips took hold of my lower lip first, then my upper lip, in turn. He held them between his lips and drew at them as if coaxing out the juice within — sucking strongly and then releasing, over and over.

Caught in a distant, dizzying sensation, I fumbled with my hand and grabbed the hem of his jacket. My breath trembled; my shoulders and back stiffened rigidly and then went limp, repeatedly. I didn't know how to regain control of myself.

When I slowly blinked, there were his eyes staring at me from an impossibly close distance.

"This is our first kiss."

He whispered, his eyes narrowing as he looked down at me from a distance where our lips could brush.

My memory hadn't failed me.

I had replayed that night's events countless times since then, but I couldn't find a single instance where our lips had met. It wasn't that I had forgotten — a kiss simply hadn't been part of what happened that night.

I couldn't understand what it meant that a kiss had been omitted, even though we had rubbed ourselves together until we both came.

"I didn't want to take a kiss from someone who was in a mental panic."

It felt like an explanation that had somehow read my mind.

He added, slowly sucking my lower lip in once more and then releasing it.

"Intuitively — it felt like it might be your first kiss too."

"……"

Something deflated at the thought that he considered me the kind of person who hadn't even kissed anyone by this age, and a sudden urge to deny it rose up — even though his guess was correct.

And yet, thinking that even in that situation he had deliberately held back from kissing me because it was my first, his unexpected delicacy and self-control coaxed out a small, almost involuntary smile and eased some of the tension from me.

Had he imagined I had treasured my first kiss and assigned it great significance?

I hadn't set some high standard and deliberately saved it — but I also hadn't thought it was okay to just do it with anyone, anyhow. If a kiss had happened that day and I couldn't remember it, I might have regretted it.

Thinking about it that way, his judgment had been right. It couldn't exactly be called excessive or unnecessary consideration.

He gently stroked the back of my neck as if massaging it, then lightly scraped the surface of my lips with his teeth.

"How much of that day do you remember?"

"……"

Up until now, I had taken his behavior since that day as an unspoken message that we should treat the entire incident as if it had never happened.

But for me, it was my first sexual experience with another person, and it had been a shocking enough stimulus to change even my mechanical, joyless masturbation patterns.

I couldn't meet his eyes as I thought of the times I had come while remembering his lewd words — the ones that had fueled my excitement — and the strong grip of his hand working between my legs.

As I bit my lip and lowered my head, his lips followed. The tickling of his tongue at the spot where I'd bitten made me release it, and as if he'd been waiting, his lips sucked me in. The sensation of him chewing gently at the flesh made my shoulders curve inward.

"Judging by your reaction... you didn’t completely forget."

At the end of his voice, which held a hint of amusement, he moistened his lips with his tongue as if savoring a taste. Before I could say anything, my lips were swallowed again. From the moment our lips had first met, he hadn't pulled away for more than ten seconds.

The density of his scent, breathing at such close proximity, was intense. It felt as though he were breathing the scent itself into me through his lips. That fragrance, at this moment, was layering itself over my memories of last time, summoned by the stimulation being applied right now. It seemed that for me, this scent had become firmly linked to sexual imagery.

The hand stroking the back of my neck moved down to caress my shoulders and back, while his other hand unbuttoned my jacket.

His hand slipped inside my jacket and moved across my chest through the smooth fabric of my shirt. He found my nipple easily, pushed the bud upward with his middle finger, and pressed his lips back against mine. Lips still overlapping, he slowly rubbed them side to side, then up and down, drawing out the inner moisture until the deeper contact of wet flesh against wet flesh coaxed a faint moan from between my lips.

Beneath his middle finger, my nipple bent this way and that, growing harder. The harder it became, the more my body contracted — a thirst for his touch to crush and suck that spot more forcefully — and I grabbed his wrist in fear. But this time he pinched the flesh between his index finger and thumb and twisted it until it hurt. Yet it wasn't pain. It tingled.

"Here. Remember how I sucked here? You put it right in my mouth yourself."

I bit my lower lip. My brow furrowed without thinking, and my back arched. And yet, ridiculously, I wanted him not to stop this caress and teasing.

Because I remembered all of it — the pleasure that had shaken my whole body when he licked, sucked, and bit that spot I had never even been consciously aware of before.

His lips left mine and hovered near my ear, whispering low and slow.

"Ah… I want to suck it again."

His voice, playfully reminiscing about the sweetness of something delicious — yet undeniably full of want — made my blood vessels twitch and tighten. Instantly, that feeling surged powerfully upward. I felt like I might go crazy with the need to have him bite my nipple again, just like last time.

I clutched the lapel of his jacket as if clinging to something and let out a breath. Not missing the opening, his tongue pushed inside. He thrust it in so deep it felt like it could block my airway. My lower jaw fell open and his wet, supple flesh churned all through my mouth. It felt like drinking his scent as a liquid.

His hand wrapped around my thigh. The touch, gentle and soothing at first, gained viscosity and slid deeper. His hand rubbing the warm skin beneath my pants made not just my upper body but everything below my waist start to clench and tremble.

"Hhngh… ugh…"

Continuing the kiss was becoming difficult. I tore my lips away as if fleeing and buried my forehead in his shoulder. Embarrassingly, I was half-hard.

He, having lost the tongue he was sucking on, hugged my back as if patting it, lowered his head, and whispered close to my ear.

"Shall we go to the hotel?"

Already enveloped in his scent, I tilted my head toward the nape of his neck. The fragrance inhaled directly from his skin was like a drug. Greedily, I took one deep breath after another.

Looking down at me, he muttered a low curse and tried to quickly stand up.

"I…"

I grabbed him urgently and pulled him back. He shifted from standing to sitting back down beside me, made a show of sweeping my neatly styled hair behind my ear — there was nothing to sweep — and lowered his head close to my ear.

"What's wrong? I know you’re eager, but we still need to move. I have no intention of stopping within the limits of what's possible here, you know?"

"……"

Rather than confessing out loud that I was hard, it felt like it would be easier to simply open my shirt and show him my nipples. I resented my cock, swollen to the point of bursting from nothing but a kiss.

I lifted my head and looked at him. My eyes were clearly damp and swimming with desire and longing for him, but I had no choice but to hope he would notice my state.

He looked into my left eye, then my right, slowly, and then bumped his forehead gently against mine.

"I'm sorry. I was teasing, even though I knew. Honestly, I don't have any room to spare right now either… so there's no need to be embarrassed."

After calling for a car to be brought around, he made me take off my jacket. He draped it over my arm to roughly cover my lower half, and we stood up.

We squeezed through the crowded first-floor hall — where the jazz piano melody had by now been replaced by the DJ's dance track — and ran down the stairs hand in hand.

A different car from the one nuna and hyung had arrived in — probably the one he came in — was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. The moment he put me in first and got into the back seat, he lunged and kissed me before the doorman could even finish closing the door.

As I received the cascade of his shoulders and lips, I glanced toward the front seat, and he cupped my cheek with his hand, forcing me to focus only on him. The moment the car started moving, a sliding blind dropped down over the window separating the front and back seats.

His strength, pushing me toward the door, kept my body from facing forward; I was half-reclined with my back against the panel. He, too, ungracefully climbed halfway onto the seat and wedged himself between my legs.

Like a boy discovering someone else's lips for the first time and falling completely captive to them, he clung to mine. He kissed me countless times—pecking, biting with his teeth, pressing deep, sucking and chewing. He rubbed his tongue against mine, coaxed my tongue into his mouth, filled it, and squeezed down.

These were not the kind of kisses where you close your eyes and savor each other's presence. We never broke eye contact the entire time.

He pulled my shirt out from my pants and shoved his hand inside. The contact of his bare hand on my skin made my back arch. I let out a groan and grabbed his shoulders. Still kissing me, he yanked off his jacket and tossed it aside carelessly. Then he grabbed my arm, guided it around his neck, pulled me onto his lap and held my back tight.

My cock, already hard, pressed against his body and my whole frame trembled. Shame forgotten, I tightened my grip around his neck and ground my erection against his lower abdomen. Feeling the hardness of his shaft below my balls gave me a measure of reassurance.

In that locked position, we indulged in each other's clothed bodies and tangled our tongues. With half-lidded, languid eyes, we openly showed our desire. His scent — like music creating a seductive atmosphere, or a hallucinogen that numbed reason — made me bold.

If a Beta could detect an Alpha's pheromones, we'd probably be halfway down the stairs, tangled up in the back seat of my car by now.

Inwu hyung's words came back to me.

Along with his assertion that Alphas and Omegas could be drawn to someone regardless of pheromones.

It was exactly as he'd said. He, a Golden Alpha, and I, a Beta, were burning with desire for each other without pheromones — so much so that we couldn't even wait the short time it took to reach the hotel room, already entangled in the back seat of the car.

"Having to hold back again just to get to the room. This is absolute hell."

He muttered in despair as he confirmed we were entering the hotel's driveway. Even as he spoke, his hand hadn't left my ass.

"I'm sorry. Can you endure hell for five more minutes — no, just three?"

His serious expression as he said it made me laugh. I was surprised I could still laugh in this situation. I nodded.

Holding his hand, our clothes disheveled and our breathing ragged, we crossed the lobby. Fortunately the elevator hall was empty late on a Sunday. If we'd run into a family with a young child, I might have been consumed by self-loathing while hiding my erection under my jacket.

The express elevator shot up to the forty-second floor in an instant.

It should have been instantaneous, but it felt agonizingly long. Just as he'd said — it was hell.

Feeling something about to overflow inside me, I covered my mouth with my jacket to hold it back, and he pulled me into an embrace from behind.

His arms, joined over my lower abdomen, gripped my waist tightly. If anyone had seen us, they'd have thought he was holding me upright because I couldn't stand on my own.

Two opposing urges pulled at me simultaneously: the desire to twist away and flee, and the desire to turn around, pull him close, and grind my body against his solid frame.

The former was the me still clinging to reason and inertia. The latter was a new me — one who had awakened to the pleasure that comes from satisfying desire, and to the domain of instinct.

Though it had only happened once, based on experience, I already knew which hand I would let myself be led by.

As soon as the elevator doors opened, he snatched my wrist and strode quickly across the hall, and I followed, my legs barely cooperating, nearly dragged.

The moment he opened the door, we tumbled inside. No—he yanked me in forcefully. He tossed the card key carelessly onto the console table next to the entryway and wrapped his long arms around my back.

My jacket fell to the floor, and the next instant my back hit the wall of the corridor leading to the living room. But I didn't feel the pain. Our lips met again — as sweet as a single drop of liquor fallen at last onto the tip of the tongue after a long wait — and everything else was forgotten.

I, too, wrapped my arms around his back and held him so tightly his shirt wrinkled. As he bit and released my lips over and over, all my senses converged on my mouth, drawn by the stinging, dizzying suction.

Unable to withstand the force of him lunging as if to drive me to the bare floor, I staggered backward and hit my thighs against the back of the sofa. Then the round dining table — where we had all gathered for breakfast meetings throughout the fair — was shoved backward by him. A couple of chairs toppled over, but neither of us cared.

"Ugh."

After nearly losing my balance and falling several times as we pushed and shoved each other back, the dead end where we finally stopped was the floor-to-ceiling window.

He had cornered me against the forty-second-floor panoramic window overlooking the Tsim Sha Tsui nightscape, and for a moment he simply stared into my eyes from close range, breathing heavily.

His broad shoulders heaving right in front of me looked angry, as if I had betrayed him. Beneath his furrowed eyelids, his pale blue eyes seemed to fizz like carbonation. It was strange — even someone like him could become this undone because of desire.

Feeling the cool glass behind my back, I simply looked back at the desire radiating from him — a desire that felt like anger. I breathed in his scent, growing denser and darker in the space between us.

The next moment he tilted his head and pressed his lips against mine again — deeply this time, and despite his gaze, his mouth was purely soft. A shower of small kisses rained down, pressing and releasing, pressing and releasing.

As if demanding something, he grabbed the nape of my neck with one hand, then spread his fingers and traced downward. His hand moved down the smooth fabric of my shirt, drawing a large curve down to my lower abdomen, where he deftly undid the belt buckle and pulled down the zipper with just one hand.

The moment the zipper parted in a V-shape, his hand pushed urgently inside my briefs.

"Ugh, hng…"

I squeezed my eyes shut at the sensation of his fingers wrapping around my cock and bit my lip. His large hand working inside my underwear created a volume that pushed my pants down until they fell to my ankles with a soft thud.

Instinctively I opened my eyes and looked down. The movement of his hand stroking my cock through the fabric was starkly visible. More obscene than if I'd been exposed directly, it made my skin throb.

His hand disappearing inside my underwear felt like it symbolized the intimate friction of coupling — sex itself.

The arm that wasn't inside my briefs braced itself on the glass pane at the elbow, and he pressed his lips close to my ear.

"I thought this last time, too."

He continued in a rough voice, rubbing my cock with his entire palm from the base upward.

"You're bigger than I expected."

I leaned my forehead against his shoulder, which stood before me like a solid wall, and shook my head.

"Why? It's pretty big, isn't it?"

You shouldn't compare yourself to me. Next to mine, anyone else would seem pathetic. — He added in a teasing voice, licking the curve of my earlobe with his hot tongue. It sounded like a joke, but I couldn't laugh. Even if it was a joke, the content was also true.

My hearing, growing damp and sensitive, left me with nothing more than a twitch of my shoulder.

"You look so innocent, but when I actually got you undressed your cock was big — it made me think you'd be insatiable… and then grinding it against my stomach… God, it was so hot."

I shook my head vigorously again. I didn't know if I wanted to deny what he said, or if I wanted him to stop whispering these things in my ear. But honestly, I didn't dislike the content of his words, or his whispering.

In my lowered head, my eyes were fixed on his hand fumbling inside my underwear. My shoulders hitched as if I were about to burst into tears. I covered my mouth with one hand and grabbed his side with the other. His arm, propped on the glass above my shoulder, gently but firmly pulled my hand away from my mouth. Deep inside my briefs, his fingertip tapped my balls. My hips jerked involuntarily.

"Don't just say no… Tell me how mine was. You were staring so intently."

"……"

"Look up."

At the soft command, I reluctantly lifted my forehead from his shoulder. His lips immediately came to mine — swallowing me, pressing as if to wring out the juice, then releasing. By now I couldn't tell if these lips were mine or his. From the continuous suction I could feel their swollen weight even when he wasn't kissing me.

He pressed his forehead against mine to keep me from bowing my head again and rubbed his nose tip against mine. At this distance there was no gap to breathe in that wasn't thick with his scent.

"How was it? Mine."

"Hng, hngh."

The rhythm of my breathing shattered completely as his broad palm pushed deep between my legs, past my balls.

The repeated friction below revealed his own arousal while simultaneously dragging my desire — still hesitating at the edge of daily inertia — roughly outside the bounds of reason.

To support my body, which felt about to collapse, I moved my hands from his side to his shoulders. His arm rubbing below with a force that could have lifted me was bunched hard as rock. I could tell he was restraining himself considerably.

Yet the movement of his hand — demanding an honest confession — remained blatant. As the stroking sped up, my legs spread apart, unstable. It became a ridiculous posture, but neither of us laughed. If anything, that awkward stance seemed to announce the sexual meaning of the act, only heightening my excitement.

"It was… big…"

And the excitement finally forced my mouth open.

"Is that all?"

He was grinning right in front of me, his face looking strangely exhilarated. My thoughts were tilting — preoccupied with images conjured by the hand moving between my thighs: insertion, thrusting, sex.

Each time his palm swept past below and pushed toward the back of my ass, the force jolted my body. His palm, slick with the pre-cum that had been dripping from me, created friction against the tender inner flesh and built heat down there. My heels lifted off the floor on their own.

I lunged forward and wrapped my arms around his neck. If I was honest, it would be a relief. The torment would stop too.

"I wanted to touch it…"

It was the beginning of the confession. I held his neck tighter so he couldn't see my face.

"I thought it was… dirty… and exciting, too."

The memory of the distorted pleasure I had gotten from whispering forbidden words into his ear, and the sweet praise he had given me afterward, urged me on from deep inside.

"It felt like it was made for sex... Just looking at it made my thighs go numb… Ugh."

I had to stop the confession and bite down.

His hand, which had been rubbing my behind, was now pressing hard against my closed entrance. He hadn't pushed inside, but the force was such that he could have at any moment. If the angle of pressure shifted even slightly, it felt like his fingernails would dig in.

"What do you know about sex."

"……"

As if angered by the careless words of someone who didn't even know what sex was, his breathing grew ragged. He turned his head and bit my ear, then began to lightly scratch around my entrance. At the primal itch — as if he were scratching my internal organs — I did the unbelievable: still clutching his neck, I shook my hips impatiently as if urging him on.

He roughly shoved my underwear down.

As he worked, my cock — wet and a mess — was exposed, and I pressed it against his clothed hardness myself. It was a succession of unbelievable things, but I had no choice but to accept that this was me, or at least part of me.

You look so innocent, but when I actually got you undressed your cock was big — it made me think you'd be insatiable. That was his assessment of me in bed, and somehow, no matter how things had turned out this way, I didn't dislike the way he looked at me like that.

His cock was also hard, pulling the front of his pants completely taut.

The distinct shape of his erection, suggested by the heavy, rising volume, sent an exhilarating wave through my head. As I writhed and panted, he grabbed my ass with both hands and squeezed the flesh.

"I want to put it in…"

His voice was one that savored pain, swallowing each word whole.

"You know what I mean, don't you? Seo Ihyeon — I want to enter you."

A moan escaped me at his desperate, anxious whisper. As my lips parted, he twisted his head and sucked on my lower lip. Simultaneously, he slid his hand — slick with my pre-cum — into the cleft between my cheeks and began rubbing in circles over my entrance.

"Will you let me find that sweet spot inside you... and rub against it with my cock?

"S-stop…"

I turned my head away from the excruciating arousal. As if he wouldn't allow me to look away, he immediately pursued me and swallowed my lips. He sucked both upper and lower lips in at once and pulled at them repeatedly. As he swallowed and sucked and ravaged me, by now I too had become part of his scent.

"Why? That's what sex is. You said mine was made for it. So I should do that for you."

A curse longer than his usual short Fuck followed. I couldn't be sure, lost in my daze as the fast-spoken words blurred past, but it sounded like he wanted to completely ruin me.

He gripped my ass hard enough to make the flesh ache, then forcefully spread my cheeks apart, stretching my unseen entrance to the side.

"I can't take it anymore. I want to put it in right now, thrust, and have sex with you."

It was the voice of a man desperate for penetration and release. The fact that I was the object of that desire made my insides throb. I, too, wanted him inside me.

· · · · ·

He tossed me onto the pure white bed, immaculately made without a single wrinkle. It felt as though I sank into thousands of feathers, only to resurface.

He looked down at me — my lower half completely bare, wearing only my shirt, my cock hard and exposed beneath the hem — and stripped naked beside the bed.

The bedroom had no separate lights on and was dim, but bright enough to make out everything in the room. Still, he showed not a trace of hesitation as he revealed himself entirely.

His muscles, tightly bunched from excitement and arousal, were like tempered armor. It was astonishing that such a muscular body could look sleek in a suit. That was partly the power of high-end tailoring — which probably made him appear at least a size smaller — but the proportions of his long limbs couldn't be ignored either. It was an ideal and beautiful body.

Without any hint of awkwardness or shyness, standing directly toward me, he slipped his hand inside the boxer briefs — the last piece of clothing on his body.

Stretched to its limit inside, his erection was clearly defined through the fabric, curved slightly to the right. He stroked himself through it, then pushed the underwear down with his fingertips.

The briefs rolled down at an angle and his semi-hard cock sprang free from the pressure, emerging above the dark hair that grew from his navel, swaying slowly under its own weight.

It was a cock that made you feel as though sex had already begun just by looking at it.

Without last time's experience, I wouldn't have believed that was only half hard.

As if showing off a little, he slowly stroked his shaft from root to tip and then climbed onto the bed on his knees. Looking up at him as he closed the distance, I began unbuttoning my shirt. It wasn't easy with one hand while supporting my upper body on my elbows. The excitement that had been building since the living room, compounded by the sight of his naked body, made it even harder.

Seeing my hands tremble as I struggled with buttons smaller than my fingernails, he crawled across the mattress on all fours and kissed me. I stopped fumbling with the buttons and kissed him back.

"You're swollen."

He whispered, sucking my lower lip and releasing it with a snap.

Without thinking, I touched my lips with my fingertips. The heat was more pronounced than usual — a lingering reminder of how often he had sucked and bitten them tonight.

"Well. I did go a bit overboard."

He laughed, acknowledging his own persistence — but there was no remorse in it. Our lips met again immediately.

"Ugh, mmm…"

This time the kiss was more insistent, more passionate.

As he pushed his thighs between my legs while I leaned back against the mattress, I wrapped my arms around his neck to keep from falling under his weight. A groan escaped me at the unpredictable movements of the wet flesh rubbing and tangling against my tongue.

His kisses seemed to dissolve his scent into his saliva, and every time I swallowed, that unique fragrance absorbed into my body and raced through my veins. It wasn't just my sense of smell — my entire being was becoming saturated with him.

Like a highly addictive drug I could never get enough of, I sweetly swallowed the saliva he poured into me. His scent, which never grew familiar or adapted — maintaining its initial shock throughout — felt like a mysterious force working in a realm beyond smell.

My tongue, steeped in that scent, completely blocked the inside of my mouth. I had no choice but to press against his tongue and suck, trying to force a gap for oxygen.

He wrapped one arm around my waist and with his other hand impatiently snapped off the last few buttons I hadn't managed to undo. His palm immediately plunged into my chest.

My back stiffened at the touch of his fingers on my nipple — soft on the outside but hardened at its core — as he pinched and tugged it between his thumb and forefinger. I tightened my hold around his neck and twisted our overlapping lips, grinding deeply. It was an action that seemed to beg for a more intense caress.

As if stimulated, he moved his tongue side to side inside my mouth. A moan simmered deep in my throat at the obscene sweeping motion.

One side of my shirt slipped off my shoulder. He bit the exposed skin before moving down to my chest. His pointed tongue teased my soft nipple, bending it back and forth.

"Ugh…"

I bit my lip to suppress the sound. One arm kept hold of his neck; the other braced my upper body against the sheets.

He was only tapping from below — light upward taps — withholding the stimulation I was craving, and I had to rub my toes against the sheets just to get through it.

I looked down at his thick lashes, focused on my nipple, and finally pushed one side of my chest further toward him. His gaze shifted upward.

My hardened nipple was pressed against his lips, but he didn't open his mouth — he just looked at me. I twisted my shoulders alternately, rubbing it against his lips myself, while the hand around his neck stroked the tense muscles of his shoulder and the back of his neck.

Looking down at his face, I was struck again by what an extraordinary face it was. The act of rubbing my nipple against that flawless face, demanding a sexual response from him… suddenly felt far more provocative than any direct act during sex.

"Please do it for me…"

It was a desperate whisper.

I pressed my chest closer, as if trying to embrace him. My nipple was completely buried between his sensual lips and disappeared from view. Overwhelmed by the arousal that had been building in layers and reaching its peak, I was already veering off course without any prompting from him. I hadn't known that the deliberate withholding of touch could be just as stimulating as the touch itself.

"Hngh!"

In an instant, he pursed his lips and drew the nipple in with a sharp suck. The strong pressure — as if compressing and wringing out a knob — made me throw my head back, my fingers tangling in his hair.

"Ngh, ah! Hnngh…!"

While tightening his lips around the tip, he scraped the edge with his tongue and then enveloped the entire areola, chewing at it, sucking my chest so hard that an embarrassing friction sound nearly escaped.

The quenching of thirst was followed by a tingling pleasure that flooded my body like a current running through it. I wrapped my arms around his neck and fell backward onto the large pillow stacked double-high behind me.

As he layered himself over me, our bodies fit together without a gap, and the seamless contact of our full lengths brought a deep sense of satisfaction. My cock rubbed against his lower abdomen, and his hardness pressed against my inner thigh. As he began to move his hips, that contact became friction.

Sucking at my nipples with enough passion that air escaped in a faint squeak, he slid his right knee inward between my thighs and pushed outward to spread my legs. His firm thighs dug into the outer sides of my ass. His thick cock pressed tightly against my entrance, and the moment our lower halves met, he immediately began to thrust.

The action brought immediately to mind his earlier declaration — wanting to put it in and thrust right away — and I couldn't keep anticipation from surging at the thought of being joined with him through our bodies.

Although I had never once considered the pleasure derived from taking another person inside me, wanting it now as if it were the natural next step felt strange. But looking back at my reactions in his bedroom last time, it wasn't entirely surprising either.

Perhaps the desires I had suppressed and ignored in every other aspect of my life were now erupting distortedly in the sexual realm. Or maybe this was a reckless, naive willingness to go along with whatever he wanted.

Either way, I wanted him too. Without adding or subtracting anything — that reality governed who I was in that moment. It was the principle and the rule. Nothing was happening through force or coercion.

He slid his hand between our pressed-together stomachs and plunged deep between my spread legs, groping at my entrance. In that instant I lost my grip on his neck and twisted his shoulder blade painfully.

"Why are you squirming?"

He pulled back from my nipple and rose slightly, licking the outline of my lips with a faint smile. He had noticed my heated reaction to the way he was grinding against me — and was enjoying it. I didn't dislike that expression, which looked almost sly.

"Here… it keeps twitching. As if expecting something."

His expression subtly hardened as he pressed the flesh of my entrance with his fingers, as if about to push one in right then. His eyelashes fluttered lightly at the edges of his narrowed lids.

After thoroughly feeling around the entrance, as if his fingers weren't enough, he started using his entire palm to rub below.

"Hngh, ugh."

His touch, as if searching for something, was almost entirely devoid of lewd intent — yet my already sensitized body flinched and recoiled even from this nearly clinical contact.

Had something gone wrong? I looked up at him with uneasy, yet still heated eyes. After rubbing below with his palm several times — pressing and rubbing around my entrance with particular care — he glanced back and forth between my eyes with furrowed brows.

I thought I understood.

He still hadn't completely dismissed the suspicion that I might be an Omega.

Last time, I had been nearly ignorant about Alphas and Omegas — but not now. I could guess his intentions to some extent.

Right now, he was probably searching between my legs for Omega arousal fluid.

He must have been thinking that it was useless for me to release pheromones since I was a Beta — that's exactly what he had told the blond man himself just a few hours ago.

Or perhaps he was hoping I was an Omega after all.

But he was an Alpha who didn't even use his pheromones in bed, so there was no reason I needed to be an Omega.

He finally ended his exploration by inserting just the tip of his finger into my entrance, turning it as if scooping out cream, and withdrew his hand from between my legs. Right in front of my eyes, he licked and smelled the hand — which had nothing on it at all.

His face as he licked between his fingers looked ecstatic, as if inhaling a scent that induced forbidden hallucinations. And yet it was clearly just his fingers, with nothing on them.

Keeping his eyes fixed on mine, he covered my face with his hand. His long fingers stretched across my cheeks, partially obscuring my eyes. When I blinked, my lashes brushed against his fingers.

He leaned in and licked my lips with his fingers between them. As his tongue delved inside and touched the inner lining at the back, I too became dazed, as if lost in a hallucination. Hesitantly, I pushed my tongue out and rubbed it against his hot, wet tongue. His tongue was like an unending fountain of fragrance.

Between his index and middle fingers. Between his middle and ring fingers.

We sought and explored each other's tongues as if playing hide and seek. What was this? Simply having his fingers between us made the kiss more tender, and imbued it with an even stronger sensation.

With rising impatience, I writhed my hips and scratched and bit his fingers. With half-lidded eyes, he absorbed every moment of my ascent and burning without missing a single instant.

As the kiss deepened, a stirring sensation grew deep inside my belly — precisely deep inside my entrance. His cock, rubbing against my crotch and inner thighs, was too distinctly present to ignore. With every subtle thrust of his hips, the twitching of it felt as if it were about to burrow right into my flesh.

"Hnng, hng…"

He looked down at me as I instinctively arched my hips, wanting him to press deeper. Then he lifted his upper body and grabbed my ankles.

Without warning or hesitation, he lifted my ankles toward the ceiling and spread my legs wide apart.

"Ugh."

The seriousness with which he did it only deepened my shame. My legs, splayed open in a wide V toward the ceiling, were being handled like a doll's by him, making me feel utterly helpless. As his intense gaze dropped to look directly between my legs, my body curled instinctively inward.

"I couldn't see properly last time."

His voice explaining the reason for this humiliating observation was huskier than usual.

"It's the place my tongue will lick and my cock will enter — I need to see it."

"W-what are you going to lick—!"

Before I could even finish speaking, he pushed my ankles toward my shoulders. My knees bent, folding my body in half. Any strength I tried to use to raise my upper body was nullified by the weight pressing down on my ankles.

My face was between my knees. My cock, my balls, even my entrance… the space between my legs — usually hidden away somewhere — was fully exposed and pointing upward. I felt blood rushing to my face at this embarrassing posture, the kind you'd only end up in under very specific circumstances.

And yet I couldn't deny that this embarrassment and shame only made it all the clearer that he and I were deeply immersed in an intensely private act, one we couldn't speak of to others.

Perhaps my head had grown dull from his scent, which hung heavily throughout the room like a diffuser's fragrance — to the point where I could no longer distinguish between shame and pleasure. In truth, too strong a scent can cause headaches. This sensation — languid and hazy, yet capable of sharply grasping the core of pleasure in an instant — was different from a headache in nature but similar in the way it clouded judgment.

Before I could struggle or resist, he immediately grabbed my waist and pulled me up. My upper body, which had been sinking into the pillows, was dragged down, while my lower half was lifted upward.

My legs, fully exposed upward, had risen to the height of his chest. It was a position where he could look right in and run his tongue over me with just a slight dip of his head.

I wrung out the last remnants of reason clinging to one corner of my mind, as if I wouldn't be able to face myself after this was over if I didn't even attempt this much.

I reached out to cover myself and stop him — but he was quicker. He lowered his head, sharpened the tip of his tongue, and drew a long line across the skin beneath my inverted balls.

"Haah, ugh."

The sensation that shot through my entire body made my suspended calves kick out involuntarily.

"It only makes me more excited when you seem like you want to touch it yourself."

He said this while lightly biting my fingers, which were belatedly trying to cover my entrance. Any attempt to interfere would only make it backfire.

I looked up at his face — his tongue pressed against my entrance between my fingers — and a slight self-mockery washed over me as I realized I was feeling a thrill stronger than shame.

"Are you still shy?"

"Hh, ugh."

After licking my entrance thickly, then rubbing it vigorously with the flat of his tongue, he asked.

"Don't worry. You'll forget all about it soon. Just like last time."

He scraped, bit, and nipped at the delicate skin of the entrance — tightly sealed as if being drawn inward — with his teeth. He repeated the motion of sucking so hard it made a wet, sticky sound and then releasing, until his saliva coated my entire perineum and it glistened.

The muscles around my entrance, which had been rigid, softened, and the sensation of my body opening and loosening melted gently between my legs.

The same process he had poured onto my lips with his kisses — he was now repeating on my entrance. On my most secretive and private place.

I couldn't tear my eyes away from the sight of his tongue — stiff and rigid with tension — slowly descending from above and penetrating inside. It was a position where he could see everything about me, and where I could also watch every kiss, every suction, every drag of friction, every penetration he performed between my legs.

His tongue, having descended to a depth where further entry was impossible, bent its tip and scraped the inner wall on the way out. Hooked precariously at the very edge of the entrance, it plunged back inside.

"Hhnng… hhh…"

I gripped the sheets at the movement of his wet tongue appearing and disappearing between my legs. Even lying still, I was breathless. My cock, inverted, swelled and twitched without him even touching it.

The pressure of his tongue thrusting inside at a rapidly increasing speed scrambled my breathing further. The spacious bedroom filled with gasps — a mixture of the wet friction between his tongue and my inner walls, and my moans.

"Ah, s-stop… Hnng, I don't like th-that…!"

With his tongue buried deep inside, flicking at my walls, he made me writhe. The maddening itch he inflicted on a spot I couldn't reach made me buck my hips, almost crying out.

In a voice tight with desperation, I begged him to rub against me harder, to hurt me.

He stared at my pleading form with anxious eyes, but didn't grant the request. When the tip of his tongue finally withdrew, my chest was heaving as if I had just sprinted flat out. The back of my shirt, which he hadn't fully removed, was damp with sweat.

Without giving me a moment to catch my breath, he pulled me tighter against him, buried his nose and mouth into my groin, and took a deep breath. He moved his head back and forth as if searching for the trace of a precious thing hidden long ago, licking and sucking at my entire crotch.

His eyes — glittering blue enough to be seen even in the dark — and his broad shoulders, repeatedly tensing and subsiding, proved that he too was not calm. That his reason was crumbling under the weight of this foreplay.

He sucked my skin in as if trying to draw it into his nostrils, then looked up at me while keeping his face completely buried between my thighs.

I'm sure I left it right here, but I can't find it anywhere. That was the look on his face.

"Seo Ihyeon-ssi."

"……"

Calling my name while burying his face between my legs — was this torment? Or part of the foreplay?

Was it because he had such a handsome face and a pleasant voice that I could feel pleasure even in this position, where he was freely playing with my most intimate parts?

Lost in such contextless thoughts, I stared up at his face with my breath still ragged.

"What exactly are you."

What was he asking about?

I tried to search for an answer in my clouded, flushed consciousness, but found nothing to grasp.

Perhaps right now, I was nothing. I was burning up from being so fully exposed, rubbed, and stirred by him — wanting him to reach deeper, wanting our deepest places to overlap and grind together — to the extent that this was the clearest piece constituting who I was in that moment. I was so completely nothing that this was all I was.

Burying his nose and mouth deep into my entrance and rubbing his face against it, he took another deep breath. He alternated between teeth and lips, gnawing around my entrance, and used his high, hard nose to prod at my tender inner flesh.

It seemed he quite liked my crotch. Otherwise, how could he cling so close and suckle like that?

Watching him, my lower belly clenched and tightened, and I couldn't help tensing down there without realizing it.

As if sweet fluid were coming from my entrance, he again enveloped the opening with his mouth, sucking and smacking as if squeezing out and drinking what was inside.

"Giving off a scent like this… and you're saying no."

My consciousness was too hazy to be certain, but he muttered something to that effect, almost to himself, before finally lowering my hips back down onto the mattress. He raised an arm to wipe the sweat from his face, then crawled past me to the edge of the bed.

His glistening, hard cock swayed, hanging heavy as he moved. I turned my head to catch my breath, and my gaze — probably wet with desire — fixed upon it.

He rummaged through the nightstand drawer and pulled out a tube. Lube.

He lifted my hips again and settled me back into his embrace — left leg stretched long toward his shoulder — then squeezed a generous amount of lube between my legs.

"Ugh…"

My shoulders tensed at the slightly cool sensation against my hot, damp skin. He barely glanced down at me, then silently poured enough to run down the cleft between my cheeks, over my balls and cock.

Just the feeling of the sticky fluid — now quickly warming — sliding over sensitive skin made my raised hips twitch.

Every twitch made the entrance of my hole clearly visible, changing shape before his eyes—but I couldn't stop reacting.

He spread the lube across my entire crotch with his palm, bit down on my right ass cheek, and pressed firmly on one side of my entrance with his middle finger.

"Hngh, hngh…"

As the opening widened and fluid flowed in, I twisted my hips from side to side. The entrance opened further, more lube seeped in, and seizing the opportunity, his finger slid smoothly inside along with the slick warmth.

It felt different from when his tongue had been inside. The sensation of insertion was distinct — the entrance being stretched, the inner walls being rubbed by something that possessed bones and joints, harder yet more flexible than a tongue.

He felt the space where his knuckles met the entrance, then rotated his wrist once, sweeping across my inner walls. The sensation of his fingertip lightly grazing inside — as if tickling — made the muscles of my ass twitch, and with that twitch I felt my body clench involuntarily.

At that unconscious tightening, his eyes narrowed as he looked down at me.

"Later, you can't do that. If you clench like that… it'll tear."

His strained voice revealed both his excitement and his effort to suppress it — moving slowly, opening me with consideration.

My unconscious clenching seemed to have stimulated him. The speed at which he moved in and out began to increase.

His brow furrowed and his jaw clenched, his expression like someone struggling to control an immense rage that threatened to consume him. His arm around my waist tightened until it chafed my skin, but I was in no state to care about that either.

It was just one finger, yet with the rapid vertical thrusts — devoid of wasted motion — my whole body jolted as if he were pressing down with his hips or lower body rather than just a finger.

"Ugh, nngh… Hnng, hah…"

My trembling breaths, matching the rhythm of the thrusting in and out, were unmistakably obscene — directly evoking the movement happening between my legs. Because of the lube saturating the walls and his finger, the sounds of the act were wet and raw.

A part of his body was entering and leaving my body through a place too intimate to name. He was immersed and aroused by the act of rapidly thrusting inside me while breathing heavily like an enraged animal.

Just being conscious of those two things made my cock twitch, and a rising sensation — similar to the thrill just before climax — washed over me.

"You're so soft. It makes no sense for you to be a Beta."

Thrusting inside so fast with his elbow bent at a right angle that the number of fingers was impossible to count, he kept biting at my right ass cheek.

"But if we're going to have real sex, this isn't enough. I need you to open wider."

He seemed desperate now.

Throughout caressing me and opening me up, his cock had been pressing against my back the whole time. No matter how superior an Alpha's endurance, if he had held out this long in this state of arousal, he had to be at the point where he couldn't bear it without direct stimulation.

He lowered my body down and picked up the lube again. I could bring my legs closer together now than when they were held up. As my leg position became more comfortable, the tension in the muscles around my entrance decreased accordingly.

Instead of applying the lube directly to my skin, he poured it into his palm and gently spread it across the tender inner flesh.

"Hngh, ugh."

My thighs — completely sensitized by the continuous ministrations — flinched at just the touch of his hand.

Now thicker and more numerous than before, his fingers slid in without resistance. He spread them inside to push in more lube. Every time I gasped and groaned, my entrance twitched and the gel seeped in a little further. I was astonished that this part of me possessed such sensitivity — that I could feel all of it.

"Ah, ugh, hngh…"

His fingertips slowly penetrated deeper, massaging and circling the inner walls gently, and my hips lifted off the mattress.

He watched my reactions carefully as he straightened up. With his fingers he continued tracing the entire inner wall as if spreading the lube evenly across every surface.

With my left leg stretched out along his right shoulder, he gathered both my legs and rested them over his right thigh. This time my legs were closed tightly enough that his hand was sandwiched between my thighs.

"Ughhh… hngh…"

In that position, with the deep insistent pressure of his fingers entering me, my jaw tilted back and my suspended hips trembled violently. Even though he was already fully inside, he twisted his wrist back and forth repeatedly as if demanding deeper entry.

And then the assault began.

My insides — melted down into something like soft ice cream, easy and pliant — were furiously thrust into and pulled out of with incredible speed and intense pressure.

Propelled by the full force of his shoulders and arms rather than just his fingers, my breath shook as if I were trapped inside a dehydrating washing machine.

He straightened his fingers, then curled them — probing shallowly around the entrance, or driving deep as if to push a fist inside. Varying the direction and depth, yet maintaining a relentlessly fast tempo, the persistent thrusting at my core made me groan and shake my head without even knowing what I was reacting to.

"Haa… ah, haugh…"

Being penetrated in this completely relaxed, tension-free state was far more stimulating than when my hips had been raised and my muscles taut. My insides were loose, leaving almost no strength to resist the foreign presence moving through me.

As he pushed in — filling me to the deepest point, a strange and stimulating fullness — I reached out instinctively and wrapped my arm around his calf, which was stretched beside my right shoulder.

"D-deeper… too fast…"

No words could be completed — all of them were cut off. My uncontrolled, erratic breathing left no room for denial; it sounded unmistakably like moans. Moisture welled up in my eyes as I looked up at him, trembling, as if pleading. His eyes, looking down at me with his lower lip bitten hard, were glistening too. Veins stood out clearly on his right arm as he worked.

"Ugh, mmph. Mmph!"

For a moment, he bent his fingertips and pressed down hard on some particular spot, and at the strange new sensation, my eyes flew open as I sucked in a sharp breath.

A tremor — like a brief bolt of lightning — struck through me, and I bit down on his calf, frantically rubbing and caressing his taut, bunched thigh.

"You're driving me insane."

"Hhhk!"

Like yanking the plug from the bottom of a full bathtub, he spat out an obscenity and his hand swiftly pulled out from beneath me.

Then, he quickly repositioned himself, driving his knees between my thighs. The force spread my legs open again, and he settled himself kneeling between them.

He slid his thighs under mine and took his cock in his hand.

Considering the weight one could roughly estimate from its girth and length, the rigid angle it was currently maintaining made no sense. Rising from the dense, sweat-slicked hair, it looked utterly impossible to fit inside me.

Grasping the middle of his shaft, he aimed the head at my entrance and rubbed the glistening pre-cum from its thick tip around the opening several times — as if it were a magical elixir that would make the seemingly impossible somehow possible.

All the while, he licked his lower lip with his tongue several times. Then he took my limp, exhausted hand and pulled. As I rose, I naturally settled into a position straddling his thighs.

He pulled my shirt — half-off, half-on — from the back of my neck and kissed my collarbone and upper chest.

"This is the best position to keep it from hurting. Just let it go in as far as it can without pain. I know my own size — I have some conscience. That's enough for me."

Perhaps the anxiety in my downward gaze was visible. He took my hand and guided it down to where we were already rubbing against each other, letting me feel around my entrance myself to confirm.

"See? It's still open."

The strange sensation of his fingers overlapping with mine as we both explored the entrance together was indescribable. My eyelids twitched lightly, and my chest swelled. He rubbed his lips against my chest, then lifted his chin to lick my lower lip and whispered,

"Inside is even softer. I'm going crazy with anticipation."

His eyes, looking up at me as he sucked and bit at my lower lip, were damp as if in a dream.

Barely supporting myself on my knees, I gripped his shoulders and slowly lowered my body. He held his shaft firmly from below to keep it from slipping out. The sensation of the slick head parting my entrance and slowly pressing in was smoother than I had expected.

The vivid reality of a part of me that had never been opened being forcibly parted and filled by an external force was real — yet it wasn't accompanied by pain or agony or discomfort.

To keep my consciousness from focusing entirely below, he kept guiding me into kisses.

Exchanging saliva, rubbing tongues, savoring the ticklish sensation of his tongue tip tracing the delicate lining of my inner cheek… I felt like I was dissolving into a wad of cotton soaked through with his scent. His naked body, glistening with sweat in the dim darkness, was fragrance itself, and I — being licked, opened, and filled by him — was now a complete part of that fragrance.

As the layers of scent surrounding us grew thicker, so did the density of our arousal. Perhaps this unprecedented level of sexual excitement was temporarily numbing all pain.

"Huu… huu, ugh."

My grimaces, the short gasps as I bit and released my lip, the sudden collapse as I bowed my head and gripped his shoulder in a plea of pleasure —

He was scrutinizing every reaction I offered, as if monitoring and recording each one.

I didn't want to hide anything either. On the contrary, my chest burned with a desire to lay everything bare before him — down to the very bottom, whether it was the depths of my body or the depths of my mind.

Each time his cock sank further inside me, I slowly let my eyelids close and breathed out a sweet ah… And when I saw his face — the way a moan formed there — I felt an impulse to just shove him all the way in at once, rather than endure this agonizingly slow penetration.

"Harder… suck harder."

To suppress that impulse, I demanded pain from him. He had been licking my lower lip — and immediately responded by biting down on the inner lining hard enough to hurt.

"How long do you think I've been waiting for this?"

His hand, which had been holding himself still and occasionally reaching up to caress around my entrance and help widen it, traced the place where we were joined — deliberately, lewdly — as he asked.

I thought he had held back for a long time.

He hadn't gotten hard from just the terrace kiss the way I had, but throughout the long foreplay he had been suppressing the urge to release the heat concentrated in his cock.

"See how well you're doing."

He took my whole lip in, gave it a light bite, and released it, then guided my hand downward again.

I had thought it would be a miracle if even just the head made it in — and I couldn't help being amazed by my body's adaptability. His cock, which looked ferociously sized, was already more than a third of the way inside me. The sensation of being tightly filled was definite, but with the pain so faint I hadn't even realized it had progressed this far.

Even though looking back wouldn't let me visually confirm the point of connection, I unconsciously turned my head and looked down at my own backside. As if stimulated by that movement, he—who had been waiting for me to move on my own until then—thrust his hips up and drove deeper inside.

"Fascinating, isn't it? I knew you could do it. But… you’re doing even better than I expected."

He placed his hand over mine to feel the wetness of our joined area together, confirming how wide the opening was around him. I undulated my hips at the eroticism of the act, drawing him deeper inside.

"Was my imagination always this poor?"

He offered a faint smile, expressing the satisfaction he felt inside me. Though he was smiling, his face was full of an impatience that longed to run wild.

What exactly had he imagined, and how?

Even without hearing an answer, I thought I could roughly guess, and my hips twisted again.

Ugh. At the clenching that seemed to chew on his cock, he grimaced, grinding his teeth and biting down on his lower jaw.

"From here on, I'll take over."

I brushed back the hair that had fallen over his eyes, and nodded. Like a child who had finally received permission to eat candy, he lunged forward urgently. With a kiss, my body was lifted for a moment, and I was laid back down onto the bed just like that.

"I'd rather get myself off than hurt you. I would never do anything to hurt you. Don't be scared. Okay?"

He pressed his lips to mine. I nodded and wrapped my arms around his neck. His heavy body pressed down on my chest, and he slipped his hand between my back and the mattress to grip my hip.

"I've been patient long enough."

He muttered that as if to himself, pulling at the flesh of my ass to stretch the entrance wider. At the same time, his cock — hot and hard as a thick iron rod heated in fire — forced its large body one notch deeper inside me.

"Hah, hah, hah, h-nph."

My breath hitched inward, pulling my insides taut. His expression contorted from the pressure that seemed to crush him. Seeing how my movements directly triggered his reactions, I felt a vivid realization that we were connected.

"You would have been uneasy doing this in the same house as the others, right?"

"…"

Looking at his face as he whispered that with warm breath — ah… a delayed, dazed exclamation escaped me.

"Even with separate rooms, it's still a little… inappropriate, isn't it?"

His face slick with sweat, he arched his back and ground his lower body against mine, a smirk on his lips.

I had assumed that him preparing this hotel instead of his usual apartment was an arrangement for nuna and hyung — but maybe that wasn't the case. Still, thinking that he had planned this night with me specifically and booked the hotel in advance… felt like too great a leap. He was probably only half-joking.

While I was still interpreting and arriving at that conclusion, he covered me completely and rubbed his whole body against mine. The contours of his thick chest constricted my breath, and my cock pressed against his hard, clearly defined abdominal muscles. Our legs became tangled, binding us to each other.

I, too, traced the broad expanse of his back — where large and small muscles rippled — touching him freely, twisting my body to cooperate in the lewd friction. As we lay naked and pressed together, skin seemed to melt, and it felt as if my entire body, not just below, was becoming slickly mingled with his.

At first, he didn't try to push deeper. He only circled his hips from this awkward, partially inserted position, widening the entrance. He seemed more focused on kissing, on caressing, on stroking my back and waist and lightly pinching my ass in play.

But soon the playing stopped being just play, and a potent fragrance rose from every place that was rubbed and pressed. Locked tightly together, he began repeatedly lifting and lowering his hips.

He retreated — scraping against my inner walls as if pulling everything out of me — then slowly pushed back in, twisting his hips to one side. Not just pushing in but withdrawing and filling again, the piston-like motion made my breathing tremble as if I were sobbing.

Still, I didn't close my eyes. We never broke eye contact, watching every trace of penetration bloom on each other's face — as if missing a single moment of this would be the height of foolishness.

His hips moved with surprising flexibility — sometimes circling in large arcs to grind against the entrance, sometimes undulating from shoulder to hip in wave-like curves, sometimes trembling finely while holding perfectly still without advancing or withdrawing further.

Each time, an unfamiliar pleasure convulsed inside me. Spasms that surged sharply upward, flared intensely, and then receded — just within reach yet never quite caught — forced my hips to twist.

I moaned as if pleading and pulled his body closer, hugging him tighter. I massaged his rigid neck and shoulders, traced the outline of his bulging arm muscles with my hands. Keeping my gaze locked on his eyes, I curled the tip of my tongue and hooked it against his, rubbing.

His hips pulled back until only the head remained, then slid back in. My inner walls, which had momentarily clenched, convulsed and then opened wide again. The sensation of his head rubbing against that tingling spot felt as if it were grabbing my throat and toying with it.

"Hhh, hhh… hah. Ugh."

Clutching his neck tightly, burying my lips in the nape of his neck, I forgot all shame and inhaled his scent through my nose and lips.

"Do you like my scent?"

His breath was uneven as he asked. I nodded frantically. He too bowed his head, biting my ear and neck.

"Your scent too... drives me crazy."

Keeping his upper body pressed tightly against mine, only his lower half moved rapidly as he bit at my lips.

"Where is it coming from? Here?"

Sucking on my lips — swollen as if about to burst — he panted, in a state of completely lost reason, just like me. Only a faint glint remained in his eyes, the blue of them almost entirely faded.

"Or, here?"

"Haah, ugh."

The force with which he grabbed my shoulders and pulled me down while simultaneously thrusting his hips upward made my eyes widen momentarily. It felt as if his head were pressing against my heart. His pubic hair brushed against my crotch. He was fully inside me.

Without giving me time to feel the pressure filling my body, he immediately pulled back out. The clearly defined head of him swept across the throbbing spot. Then he accelerated and pressed back in with a forceful grind.

"Hah, ugh… th-there…"

I kept adjusting my grip on his neck, biting and releasing my lips over and over. A pleasure that felt like he was setting fire inside me — making my whole frame contract — seized my limbs.

The sticky fluid — a mix of the lube already inside me and what he had been releasing — squelched and oozed out, painting a vivid picture of the thrusting below even without looking. Every circuit in my head ignited and my thoughts ground to a halt.

"You said just looking at my cock made your thighs go numb. So you like fucking it… that's why you're leaking your scent here? Fuck, it's here… isn't it?"

Every time he emphasized here, he drove himself all the way in and ground against me, pushing me to the breaking point with his words. The penetration was so merciless it could have been called violent if there had been pain.

And yet I wrapped my arms around his neck, spread my legs, and moved my hips.

That sex felt good. That the sex I was having with him — which I was only just discovering — felt so incredibly good that just his scent made my body ache, that just seeing his cock made me frantic. That everything he said was right. That I wanted him to shatter me.

…I poured out those words.

It wasn't like last time — clinging to his neck without seeing his face, whispering secrets into his ear.

This was while looking straight into his eyes. While sucking his lips the way he did to mine, tangling my tongue with his, twisting my hips to work against his cock. While spouting those unbelievable words.

The scent I inhaled with my nose pressed against his skin was like a drug.

My thoughts were correct. Last time, and now — being in bed with him made me feel like someone who had been injected with narcotics.

Being exposed in a shameful posture, revealing myself to another person, feeling heat from lewd whispers, getting excited from pouring those words into his ear… My state — completely detached from my true self and yielding my body to the thrill of sexual pleasure — seemed consistent with the shallow, vague knowledge I had about what drugs do.

It wasn't just drugs; sex addiction existed in the world too. I felt like I understood why. The stimulation of a variation that breaks away from the everyday rhythm is more electrifying than anything else.

The words I had spilled out — entirely outside the ordinary category I belonged to, in a state of lost reason — made his eyes churn fiercely, and a deep, rough kiss sealed my mouth. Completely different from the careful initial entry: now that he had confirmed my body was fully open, he didn't hesitate.

The sensation of climax rushed right up to me as the craving was satisfied by the continuous friction against those sensitive places. I unconsciously wrapped my legs around his waist and pulled him closer, wanting more stimulation.

"Uhng, hng. Haaah!"

The next moment, I spat out his tongue — which was fiercely filling my throat — and writhed from a pleasure so intense it was frightening.

The sensation of his cock — which I had thought reached to its maximum size — swelling and expanding for a moment, as if pushing my entire inner wall from inside out, sealing the entrance completely.

It was knotting.

I knew it instinctively, even without prior experience.

With the feeling of my belly swelling and all my organs being pushed upward, I was still suffocating even after pushing his tongue away. I tried to gasp for air with my mouth wide open but could only choke — like someone who had forgotten how to breathe.

A tingling pain — like a faint current of electricity flowing through every blood vessel — along with a pleasure that felt capable of destroying and transforming my very existence, resonated deep inside me, pounding like ominous sound effects signaling something terrible.

It was a pleasure of a kind and direction I couldn't have imagined — similar to having my entire body crushed repeatedly by a massive boulder, yet not merely dull or heavy.

Saliva dripped from the corners of my mouth, and my dilated pupils searched for him in terror.

Driven entirely by instinct, he too was completely gone — panting and thrusting inside me in pursuit of climax. The forceful insertion and withdrawal of his cock, which demanded the transformation of my very being — incomparable to anything his fingers had done — drove me rapidly toward the threshold of climax.

I struggled and writhed against the ecstatic pleasure boiling through me, trying to push his shoulders away, but he grabbed my hands, interlaced our fingers, and pressed them down onto the sheets.

"Hhh, hhhk. Hah. Ugh!"

As I rubbed the back of my head against the sheets and reached the moment of climax, a sensation like an explosion struck deep in my belly simultaneously.

The Alpha's climax.

The semen, forcefully expelled as if battering my insides, was copious enough to leak out even while the knot filled me completely. As my inner walls grew drenched and full, I too came between our joined lower bodies.

My groan was close to a sob. No — perhaps I really was sobbing. Even pinned down under him, my entire body trembled violently. I bit my lower lip and whispered to him — as he frantically sucked at my mouth — that I was scared.

"It's okay. I'm right here."

Even after climaxing, he continued to move his hips to maintain the pleasure, raining kisses all over my face. He licked especially tenderly around my eyes, and only then did I realize tears were falling. They weren't tears born of sadness or loneliness, only a physiological response — yet the moment I became aware of them, something surged within me.

It's okay. I'm right here. — I wondered whether he was actually saying those words to me. His eyes were still unfocused, as if consumed by instinct, yet strangely those words brought me a sense of calm. I interlaced my fingers with his where they were joined and held on tightly.

Breathing in the fragrance — so dense it felt capable of paralyzing the sense of smell instead of air — we were absorbed in the kiss, our lower bodies still joined. Around the time the terror that struck during the knotting began to fade, he abruptly stopped all movement.

Then he reached his arm down and groped for the junction between us with his hand.

He tried to pull away quickly, but his cock — still knotted — held tight to my walls and wouldn't let go. Or perhaps it was I who wasn't letting him go.

Regardless of which was true, he couldn't withdraw from inside me — like a size-10 finger forcefully jammed into a size-7 ring.

His eyes — which had been languidly dissolving and floating from the profound pleasure his Alpha's climax had brought, a pleasure I couldn't even begin to fathom — snapped back to reality and shook coldly.

He used his hand to force open my entrance, trying to pull out.

Embarrassingly, even as the thick length of his cock, which had thoroughly filled me, scraped against my inner walls while struggling to withdraw, I flinched and felt a chill move through me.

Even as he spread my legs aggressively and used his fingers to scrape out the semen inside, his still-hard cock twitched, wanting more — but he seemed incapable of thinking that far ahead.

"I'm sorry… Truly, I am so sorry."

He repeated the word sorry countless times — easily more than twenty. It was strange that he — someone who seemed capable of handling any situation without panic — was reacting this strongly to the act of knotting and coming inside a Beta.

I grabbed his wrist, noticing he seemed completely unaware that what he was doing was unnecessary, and slowly sat up.

Though I hadn't fully recovered from the lingering effects of the climax that followed the long foreplay, seeing his reaction, it seemed unlikely I could enjoy aftercare or anticipate a new arousal toward a second climax.

"Director… you're an Alpha, right?"

"……"

It was an odd question to ask now, but since we had never discussed it directly, I asked it anyway.

"I'm definitely a Beta. So… you don't need to worry."

"……"

"About pregnancy, or anything like that…"

He stared at me silently for a long time, his eyes empty, as if everything had been taken from him. His eyes looked vacant and slackened — as if he had just been confronted with the shabby, crude underbelly of life. He looked so utterly helpless and fragile, like a young boy, despite his large and solid build. A clear sort of sorrow seemed to pool in his eyes.

"Yes… you're a Beta, Seo Ihyeon."

After a long while, he finally muttered. But he didn't look relieved. His eyes were still dazed and unfocused. It felt like a lie that we had been so heated just moments before.

He removed his hand from between my legs and rubbed his face several times with his palm.

"You probably… have internal injuries. A Beta like Seo Ihyeon wouldn't have been able to withstand the knotting."

He worried about me, insisting I should go to the hospital right away to check for even the slightest tear or scrape — but all I felt at that moment was a dull emptiness between my legs. And, though I couldn't tell him honestly, the lingering afterglow of that tingling pleasure was stronger. I felt like it would be more comfortable if he would just firmly fill the space that had become so hollowly empty. Contrary to his concern, I felt no particular pain.

As we shifted in an instant from whispering filthy things into each other's ears at the peak of our most intense climax to exchanging words about practical matters, I flinched, thrown off balance by the abrupt change. Yet I couldn't reach out to him — looking as shocked as he did — and pull him by the hand to say I was fine, let's keep going.

Moreover, as his cock withdrew from my body, a wave of sleepiness washed over me, making my entire body feel heavy and sunken, accompanied by a sense of complete depletion. My energy was exhausted, wrung out. It was the same symptom as last time.

I told him I would let him know how I felt once tomorrow came and everything had settled down — that for now, there was nothing particularly wrong. I said this hoping he might be at least a little relieved, but though he nodded, he couldn't shake the serious look on his face.

Exhaustion weighed me down so completely that I couldn't persuade him further, and the sleepiness dragged me under. He noticed the signs of drowsiness on my face, pressed my shoulder down, and made me lie back. He said we would talk again tomorrow, then backed away, pulling the comforter from beneath me to cover my bare body, before lighting a cigarette.

I sat on the edge of the bed and blinked hard, wanting to watch him a little longer as he slowly smoked and looked down at me. I didn't want to leave him alone in his distress — but the sleepiness was pulling me under with violent force.

The look in his eyes as if, having come back to his senses after being so passionately entwined with someone just moments before, he had realized he had done something terrible and was shocked by it… a look so confused, so complex, tinged with a hint of self-fear.

That was the last image of him I saw before closing my eyes.

· · · · ·

It was the sound of a telephone ringing. The realization that it was a telephone rather than a cellphone brought awareness to where I was.

My mind woke before my eyes, but the throbbing pain throughout my body kept me facedown and groaning for quite some time. All the while, the telephone kept patiently waiting for me.

When I opened my eyes, I was alone in the bed, and the room — curtained by blackout drapes — was so dark I couldn't even guess the approximate time. I had to answer the phone.

"Hello?"

I cleared my throat several times as I crawled to the edge of the bed on my elbows, but my voice was hoarse and cracked — truly pitiful.

The caller was a hotel staff member. He had requested that I wake up, eat something light, and then perhaps go back to sleep.

I tried to gauge whether I had an appetite, but I absolutely did not. My mouth was dry and rough, and my stomach churned as if all my internal organs had shifted from their original positions. And down there… there was still a heavy, full sensation, as if he were still inside me.

However, I couldn't ignore both his kindness and the awkward position that staff member might be placed in if I refused.

We had always gathered in his living room to eat breakfast together — but what about the others? We were supposed to leave the hotel at eleven, but what time was it now? Various problems cluttered my mind, but I agreed for the time being.

As if expecting exactly that answer, the reply came that the meal was almost ready in the living room, and I could just slip on a robe and come out comfortably.

The call ended, but I remained facedown, holding the phone blankly for a while. It seemed preparations for the meal had already been underway in the living room while I was asleep.

I put down the phone and first checked on the state of my body.

As I woke up more fully, the discomfort became increasingly distinct. My whole body ached as if every joint had been knocked out of alignment — not just my organs. While my body felt heavy and sluggish, as if I were suffering from a severe flu, my entrance and the area inside it burned fiercely. It felt as if an independent pulse was throbbing on its own between my legs.

That vivid pain inevitably brought to mind the previous night's intimacy — the passion with him that had culminated in him knotting inside me and coming — and a flush of heat rose to my face even though I was alone.

Clearing my throat with a dry cough, I swung my legs out of bed. The unfamiliar sensation of his semen — which he had tried to clean up but hadn't managed to remove completely — trickling down the insides of my thighs made me Ugh, stop moving, hunch my shoulders, and bite my lower lip.

Startled by the swollen fullness of my lips — much thicker than usual — I touched them with my hand.

I had thought that lips swelling from kissing, or kissing enough to make your lips swell, was something only possible in pornographic videos or cartoons. But my lips were actually swollen — not quite as severely as if I'd been stung by a bee, but close. That tautness brought to mind his suction and kisses, which hadn't left my lips all night.

This was completely different from last time, when there had been no kissing and no penetration, so nothing had remained on my body the next day. Every part of me was evidence of last night.

I had to cup my hands between my legs to keep it from dripping onto the floor before heading straight to the bathroom. I had intended to rush out to the living room, but I realized I couldn't do that without completely dealing with what was inside me first.

After showering, I put on a robe without even drying my hair. I didn't know when he had left the room, but he had neatly folded all my clothes and placed them on the table by the window. However, since all the bottom buttons on my shirt were torn off, I couldn't wear yesterday's clothes.

My underwear was damp in the front from the pre-cum I had released during the kissing and caressing, but I had no choice but to put them back on. Even with a robe on, I didn't have the courage to go without underwear in front of others.

As I was tidying up my clothes, the thought that he had probably seen my wet underwear filled me with a sense of defeat — as if I'd been caught with a dirty book hidden away. This despite knowing we had done far more than just get my underwear wet.

I left the bedroom trying my best not to show the lingering, uncomfortable sensation inside. Seeing the intense summer sun flooding the entire long, vertical living room, I realized it must already be well past noon.

His personal butler — a middle-aged man who had helped us every time we had breakfast here — and two other staff members dressed in uniforms with aprons were waiting beside the dining table.

Contrary to the suggestion that something light to eat and then more sleep might be good, the table — set with both Western and Hong Kong-style breakfast options — had no room for even one more spoon. As if that weren't enough, more dishes were ready on a cart beside the table.

Rubbing my robed arms, I offered an awkward greeting and hesitantly took my seat.

They first offered fresh juice, so I accepted the orange juice — which looked freshly squeezed, pulp still visible — and drank the whole glass in one swallow, realizing I must have been thirsty. When I said I had no real appetite but would take wonton soup if possible, a covered bowl appeared on the empty white plate as soon as I finished speaking.

Next, they asked if I would like to speak briefly with the Director before the meal, and I agreed.

I suddenly found it amusing how I was moving exactly as suggested, like a well-behaved child. Or perhaps I was moving as he wished, through the butler. He might not have dictated the menu, but it still felt as if he were issuing directives to me via the butler.

The butler handed me a phone connected to him. Even after taking the simply designed business cellphone, it took me a moment to respond.

"Yes."

[You… didn't sleep well, did you?]

He seemed to have started with the usual polite inquiry, then realized mid-sentence it was a foolish question and shifted direction. I could almost picture the slight awkwardness on his face.

"No, I slept soundly. I didn't wake up even once."

[How is your body? I can arrange for a doctor to see you right away, anytime.]

Even assuming they couldn't understand Korean, I broke into a cold sweat at the thought of discussing my condition after intimacy in front of other people.

"I'm fine. Other than some soreness… there were no specific injuries."

I fiddled with the warm ceramic spoon resting beside the wonton bowl, bowing my head to hide my flushed face. It wasn't just awkward talking in front of the three people around me — discussing my current physical state with him while completely sober was just as embarrassing.

He let out a long sigh, clearly unconvinced I didn't need to see a doctor, but he seemed to accept it for the moment.

[I've changed your flight to this evening. The butler will go over the schedule with you. Rest a little longer and get ready slowly. I had an urgent matter come up that required me to leave first… but I'll take you to the airport myself.]

An explanation followed that his return to Korea had been rescheduled to tomorrow due to the "urgent matter."

"What about the others?"

[They left according to the original schedule. So don't worry about what excuse to make — just rest well.]

Just like last time, he had probably made some excuse about my condition. Likely the same one as before — that I was unwell. I realized this meant I was now firmly established within Phantom as a weakling prone to frequent illness. It wasn't an image I desired, but I understood there probably wasn't any other plausible excuse. It wasn't illness — but I genuinely wasn't well, either.

I told him he didn't need to drive me since the hotel ran a shuttle bus, but he cut the conversation short, saying he needed to hang up. Along with an admonition to eat a proper meal, even if I had no appetite.

I remembered what he had told me last time — to eat at least a little for my own sake, even without an appetite — and tried to finish at least the wonton bowl. However, the awkwardness of dining alone while strangers watched, combined with the growing physical discomfort below, made it increasingly difficult to remain seated.

After finishing just enough to slightly appease my stomach lining, I excused myself and took only a cup of coffee before getting up from the table.

The butler suggested I get a massage — mentioning that this too was the Director's idea, and that it would help me feel much lighter. A therapist from the hotel spa could be called to my room for a comfortable massage. But there was no way I could feel comfortable in that situation.

It was enough simply knowing that he had anticipated my condition and made considerations in advance on my behalf.

No — I was certainly grateful, but receiving this kind of luxurious treatment after spending the night with him gave me a feeling of something jarring, as if gears were turning wrong.

It was my own fault for falling asleep without hearing an alarm, but after spending the night with him — having a meal served by others in his hotel room, having him rearrange the schedule in consideration of my physical state — that level of care was unnecessary. Especially if this was simply the standard courtesy he habitually extended to everyone he spent the night with. There was no need to extend it to me. I hadn't sacrificed myself to his desires in exchange for anything; I had agreed to that night because I wanted it too.

The luggage from the room where I'd been staying had been completely packed, and the carry-on I had borrowed from Manager Han was placed in the hallway by the entrance. It seemed his final instruction was for me to rest in this room until he came to pick me up.

I returned to the bedroom with a rather heavy feeling, leaving behind the staff who were clearing away the meal I had barely touched.

I started to pull the curtains open but stopped, turning on the lights a little instead.

Looking around the room anew, various items of his remained as they were. Files related to the fair piled on the display cabinet. The tablet PC on the nightstand. The robe draped over the sofa — probably taken off just before he left.

And on the table by the window lay a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, placed neatly.

Five or six cigarette butts were stubbed out in the ashtray — he must have smoked them while I slept. I had slept so deeply I hadn't noticed him smoking that much, finishing getting ready, and leaving the room. Or perhaps he had moved carefully so as not to wake me.

I wondered if he had managed to get even a little sleep after I fell asleep.

The last thing I had seen before closing my eyes — his fragile gaze mixed with confusion, futility, and a trace of self-fear — came back to me, and along with the clamor in my body, my mind grew complicated as well.

If I turned on my phone, there were probably worried messages from Yuni nuna, Juhan hyung, and Manager Han waiting for me, and I also needed to contact Morae nuna and Yeehan hyung, with whom I was supposed to have dinner after arriving back in the country today. Even though these were trivial matters, they felt overwhelmingly complicated to handle right now.

"Don't think about anything, and don't worry about anything. Just like flipping a switch in your brain off. You can do that, right?"

Recalling what he had told me that night, I switched off the thoughts in my brain for the time being.

I set the coffee down on the table, sat on one of the two single-person sofas, and picked up the cigarette pack. The cigarettes were from a common global company, easily found anywhere in the world. I took one out and lit it.

Even if it was just a single cigarette, I wasn't the type to touch someone else's belongings without permission… No — having already done it, it turned out I was apparently the kind of person who could, depending on the situation, touch another's things without permission.

Having already witnessed myself treating even self-pleasure with mechanical indifference, clinging with hot passion and boldness to union with him — this was hardly surprising.

"I'll buy you a new pack when we get to Seoul."

I muttered idly to the empty room and took a drag. My throat still stung, and my lungs tightened, making me squint. I didn't cough, but it didn't go down smoothly either.

I rested the cigarette, after two or three puffs, in the groove of the ashtray. I preferred watching the thin smoke rise slowly. The smoke, appearing gray or sometimes blue depending on the angle, resembled his eyes.

Inevitably, my thoughts drifted to him. It was a topic I couldn't avoid.

Last night, he had been kind — even restraining his urge to run wild, considering my inexperience. He had knotted inside me, but judging by his reaction, that hadn't been intentional on his part either. Besides, I was a Beta, so there was no risk of pregnancy even if he had come while knotted. He hadn't injured my inner walls, contrary to his fears, and I didn't want him to feel excessive guilt or responsibility over that.

He had even gone to the trouble of preparing various things out of concern for me, so as someone he had spent the night with, he certainly hadn't lacked in manners.

However, the night had marked no fundamental change in our relationship.

Two adults had slept together consensually, and I had come to this room myself because I wanted it — so I wasn't about to blame anyone for not getting more out of it.

It was actually the opposite. I wanted to mock and ignore the part of myself that was trying to find hopeful hints or meaning in a coupling that had been purely impulsive, driven by sexual attraction.

Despite such meticulous kindness, if no explanation followed — what did that imply? Though I lacked experience in this area, I wasn't naive enough to misconstrue it and get carried away with false hope alone.

If only I hadn't known. If I could have indulged in a foolish, sweet dream for just a moment — would I feel better now, sitting alone in this room, recalling his gaze through the smoke of a cigarette I couldn't even properly smoke?

The fact that I was thinking such things meant I was already foolish enough.

I picked up the robe draped over the back of the chair and buried my nose and lips in it. The cigarette resting in the ashtray had burned down close to the filter. I gently rubbed the ash — about the length of one knuckle — into the tray and rose from my seat.

I could no longer smell his scent anywhere in the room — not even on the robe he had taken off and left behind.

· · · · ·

He was waiting for me in the back seat, dressed casually rather than in a suit. Even though the sun had completely set, he was wearing sunglasses inside the car.

Though momentarily puzzled, I didn't press for a reason — he was someone with occasional odd whims.

The dull ache still lingering between my legs and the strange sensation of not quite being closed up made it awkward to settle into my seat. The reality that I — a male Beta — had just had sex with him — a male Alpha — was suddenly striking, made all the more pronounced by the discomfort that followed penetrative sex.

The doorman closed the door, and the car pulled away. It was the same driver from the day I went to meet Ms. Suki Kim.

"I'm sorry."

Just as the car completely cleared the hotel vicinity and merged onto the elevated highway, he spoke for the first time — an unexpected opening. I turned to look at him, but I couldn't tell where he was looking from behind the sunglasses.

"You must have been uncomfortable all day."

"I didn't think there would be any issues the next day… I'm fine. You really don't need to worry about it anymore. I've gotten much better while resting."

Frankly, I felt it would be awkward to receive any more consideration from him regarding my physical discomfort. Besides, the pain wasn't as unbearable or as bad as he seemed to fear.

Above all, this wasn't something he needed to apologize for. We had spent the night together because we both wanted to, and he had been perfectly considerate—taking his time to ensure I was fully relaxed, even though we weren't lovers. An apology from him would only make me feel used, and I would rather not hear one if at all possible.

"You're quite resilient, Seo Ihyeon. I thought you might be a little more… shaken."

Tapping the slender paper bag in his hand against his crossed leg, he muttered without looking at me.

"I'm glad you're a resilient person, Seo Ihyeon."

I couldn't be entirely certain what he meant by shaken.

If he meant the kind of upheaval that comes from mistaking impulsive sex — born of mutual attraction and chemistry — for the kind that naturally follows after confessing feelings and confirming them. Mistaking the intimacy felt after a night together for genuine romantic feelings.

It might not have been entirely untrue.

No — to be precise, the sex was merely the catalyst for any upheaval, but it was true that my current state was far from stable or serene.

"Well… you just have to accept things for what they are after they happen, right?"

Whether you liked it or not.

I added that almost to myself, looking out at the Hong Kong cityscape receding in the opposite direction from when I'd arrived.

The experiences and emotions that filled me — in different colors and textures — were things I never could have anticipated when I first encountered the city while listening to Prince's Kiss in the Phantom vehicle, as Yuni nuna and Juhan hyung had been so wild about.

Looking back, ever since meeting him, it had been a relentless series of variables I couldn't foresee or prepare for. Not just the events — the feelings I had facing him as well.

I recalled myself just a few days ago, thinking the meeting with Ms. Suki Kim was the biggest event of this trip to Hong Kong, feeling a shy excitement from just a single glance meeting mine in the rearview mirror. To put it kindly, I had been naive; to put it bluntly, I had been emotionally naked — without even a thin layer of fabric to protect myself from danger.

I hadn't expected anything.

I couldn't claim I hadn't held any expectation that last night's incident might become the catalyst for a change in our relationship, in his stance toward me. That was why I was ashamed of the hope that only I knew about.

I searched his demeanor—consistently flat-toned as he stared at the screen attached to the back of the seat in front of him—but couldn’t find a trace of anything resembling attraction, desire, or affection.

He handed me an envelope, explaining that he had arranged for me to expedite departure procedures upon arrival at the airport. Inside were the fast-track documentation proving my VIP status and a first-class ticket.

"Take tomorrow off. I told them you were showing the same symptoms as last time, so everyone will understand."

The excuse he offered skillfully danced between a lie and the truth.

"I'm fine. Thanks to your consideration, I rested well. I expect to be back to full condition by tomorrow."

The first class printed on the ticket, combined with the day off I was receiving as the person he had spent the night with — it all felt inappropriate.

I think I finally understood the source of the discomfort that had been building inside me the more consideration he showed.

It wasn't just the awkwardness of unfamiliarity with such luxurious treatment. Within all that kindness, I felt something akin to an obligation.

From his perspective, I knew that not pretending to be unaware of someone whose body was made uncomfortable by sleeping with him was simply good manners. I understood that. But still.

Manners. Kindness.

At first glance, those words sound rooted in affection — but they also meant treating someone outside a certain boundary with politeness.

Perhaps I had expected everything he provided to resemble the affection one shows a lover. That was the naked truth of my feelings — my unguarded self.

I let out a hollow laugh thinking about whether returning the ticket — rejecting the kindness he extended equally to all his partners — was the way to preserve my pride. I wasn't the heroine of a drama, after all.

Suddenly, I remembered something he had said when he was absentmindedly eating the nuts Juhan hyung had brought to the VIP Preview. It had been an insignificant comment, tossed out casually as he passed by.

"Someone take these away. I don't even like these, but if they're in front of me, I just keep eating them."

If our first time together had been emergency first aid for him, perhaps last night's sex was just an incident that occurred on the same principle as reaching absentmindedly for a snack.

It just so happened that a sensitive spot had been attacked in a rather messy way, and I happened to be the one right beside him trying to ease the mood — which somehow led to a sexual atmosphere. Perhaps having slept together once before had made the temptation easier to give in to. This isn't an attempt to paint him as depraved by casting myself as a victim of the encounter. After all, I was the one who willingly gave in to that temptation.

But if I had felt even a flicker of genuine human affection for him — if I hadn't been certain I could stay composed after sleeping with him — I should have protected myself by being more cautious in my choices.

The car slowed as it approached the departure gate area.

"I hope this business trip turns into a good opportunity for you."

"……"

I turned to look at him, but his face remained fixed on the dark, unlit screen — entirely blank.

"I look forward to a positive response regarding the paintings."

I briefly considered the possibility that an experienced man like him might have his emotions shaken by a sudden one-night encounter. The answer was already evident in his demeanor: a steady calmness and composure, neither more intimate nor even colder than before we had spent the night together.

The car came to a complete stop. His face, still hidden behind sunglasses, turned toward me. I couldn't be sure if he was looking at me even behind the lenses.

"See you in Seoul."

Perhaps it was a relief that I couldn't confirm the look in his eyes as he regarded me.

Sitting in seat 1A — a seat I'd likely never occupy again in my lifetime, given as a kind of payment for the night — I looked down at the last receding view of Hong Kong and calmly accepted the reason why I had been reacting to him with such uncharacteristic emotion.

It was no more than a slight emotional release from having to witness the ending I had already braced myself for. Because of that, I felt neither shocked nor as if I were plummeting to the ground.

I was starting to like him.

The hopes and disappointments that existed only in my own mind, the uncharacteristic sensitivity that caused me to exaggerate things beyond what they were — those were signs that, unfortunately, I liked him.

There wasn't a distinct starting point from which this had begun. At least, I couldn't identify that point now.

I had been bothered by the way he treated me, sometimes felt rebellious toward him, and had hoped that he, too, would feel provoked by me — that his expression would change, that he would see me again.

Perhaps the feelings had begun to take root much earlier than I had expected.

It wasn't particularly strange to dream of him as someone I could be with romantically. He wasn't a gentle or easy person to deal with, but he was undeniably someone I wanted to know better, to get closer to — a person I found deeply attractive.

I simply hadn't known I would develop feelings of expectation and desire for another person. Even less did I know I would harbor the foolish greed of choosing, as the object of those feelings, someone who stood at the very pinnacle of everyone's attention and favor.

Because the me I knew was a coward who tried to minimize the exhaustion of emotions like disappointment and misery by asking for the absolute minimum, and choosing accordingly.

Did I, by wanting him, become brave?

Not at all. I had simply witnessed a new side of myself — one that responded to the temptation of sex far too easily, even before I had truly acknowledged the feelings themselves.

A flight attendant approached and asked if she could prepare the meal. Staring blankly at her flawless, neat smile, I requested a glass of beer. A cold can of beer and a glass were quickly set on the small table. The world he lived in was like magic, where everything was instantly prepared with just a word.

The flight attendant closed the sliding door and disappeared after telling me to rest comfortably. Though isolated from my surroundings and alone, I began drinking the beer straight from the can in an unfamiliar comfort that offered no ease at all.

He had said, after the Old Future shoot, that sleeping with someone who wasn't a lover didn't automatically make one promiscuous — that an adult of his age couldn't always resolve their sexual urges through masturbation just because they didn't have a partner.

That's what he had said, and nuna and hyung — and even I, though I didn't say it aloud — had generally agreed with that view.

Back then, I had wondered if someone I liked could hold the same position regarding others — whether they could avoid being hurt if the person they liked slept with someone else.

In a way, my thinking back then had been wildly off the mark. Someone I liked could feel miserable even from sleeping with me, rather than someone else.

I smiled wryly as I realized, belatedly, that his comment about Seo Ihyeon being resilient was perhaps another way of saying he was glad I hadn't confused impulsive sex with genuine romantic feelings.

By then, the lights of Hong Kong had completely disappeared from my view.