"Your phone... don't forget to keep it on."
"..."
"...because I'm worried."
Watching him, uncertain, tack on that line, Ihyeon dropped his gaze and stepped out the door. What was left where he’d been was nothing but a cup of coffee, barely sipped and gone cold.
■ A Great Delusion ■
The cigarette he’d drawn on two or three tis and then set across the ashtray burned down on its own, sending up smoke without anyone to pull on it.
Inu watched the lengthening gray ash bow under its own weight and collapse into the tray, then slowly raised the glass in his hand to his lips, swallowed the amber liquid, and pinched his brow.
The first cigarette he’d ever tried wasn’t as harsh as he’d expected, so he didn’t end up hacking like an idiot—but it also wasn’t charming enough to explain why so many smokers keep failing to quit. The smoke that filled his mouth had none of whiskey’s fragrance, and when it slid down his throat it felt like swallowing the fus from burning poison.
Still, watching that long, dry, white body burn down little by little and send up smoke wasn’t bad. It didn’t exactly put him at ease, but it was a decent way to zone out and kill ti.
When the cigarette had burned to about halfway, Inu checked the ti. It had been about five minutes since he’d authorized a visitor’s car through the parking office. Was this how a bestiarius—one of those death-row gladiators tossed into the arena without training to wait for a starving beast to tear off a piece of them—must have felt? He gave a dry little laugh, shoulders twitching at his own grand taphor.
Just as he tipped his glass again, a hard, staccato pounding ca from the far end of the long hall—bang, bang, each blow spaced, deliberate. Inu paused for a mont, then drank a bit more. Only when the gaps between strikes tightened, the racket swelling like the door might break, did he set the glass down and stand.
He pushed the door outward, and Lau—wearing a long black trench coat thrown on any which way, hem falling below the knee—lowered the fist he’d been about to slam into the panel again, fingers loosening.
"Don’t you know where the doorbell is?"
Without answering, he shoved in past Inu’s shoulder, a gust of alcohol rolling off him.
"You didn’t drive yourself here, did you?"
Striding down the hall, he glanced back and curled one corner of his mouth like that concern was disgusting. He whipped into the living room, saw the smoke rising from the coffee table, and snorted. Then he pinched up the cigarette burned almost to the filter, drew so deep his cheeks hollowed, and shot words out along with the smoke.
"How is it?"
"What is."
"Seo Ihyeon. Seo Ihyeon’s body."
What else could it be? His testy snap ca back at the other man’s infuriatingly dense act. His face, when he looked back at Inu, was flushed and ragged with agitation and drink. A spark flared; he swallowed hard, scrubbed his face, and forced his voice steady.
"You said you examined him. What’s his condition? He’s all right, isn’t he?"
Lau rubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray as he averted his gaze—asking the question yet looking like he was afraid to hear the answer.
"Everything’s normal. Uterus position is stable, and the thickness and length of the Oga Road (Road) connecting to the uterus are ideal."
Lau squinted over at him. With his back straight and his head dipped, his ssy fringe slid down and spilled across his eyes.
"Who asked for that? I’m asking if there’s any abnormality anywhere else. Is he... healthy, no problems?"
"If you hadn’t done the changing, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation."
"..."
Seeing Lau’s eyes flare, his brow tightening even more, Inu let out a breath.
"He’s healthy across the board. The ovaries haven’t developed properly yet, so the uterus as a whole is about half complete, but the pheromones typical to an ordinary oga are extrely faint. He doesn’t even need suppressants yet. That special pheromone you say only reacts to you—I can’t speak to that."
Only then did so of the tension drain from Lau’s shoulders, but the rough, unstable charge coming off him didn’t quiet.
Still standing, coat on, he grabbed the pack on the table and lit a fresh cigarette. He pulled too fast, too shallow; a short huff of smoke shot out as he muttered,
"Not ‘uterus,’ it’s the ‘Triangle zone,’ right."
"Were you the only one at Minton who took sex ed?"
"If you’re an alpha and also a doctor, then use the right terms in daily life, too. Don’t act like one of those alphas who are indifferent and ignorant about any gender but their own."
Inu walked around to the far side of the coffee table to face him, arms folded over his chest, a frown cutting his face.
"Are you really in a position to be preaching at anyone right now?"
Lau tipped his chin, exhaled a long plu, and answered,
"What’s stopping from preaching at you?"
He clicked his tongue, and then the big black silhouette in the coat stepped right up into Inu’s space.
"Why did you tell him?"
"..."
"You said hearing it from directly... was the only way to lessen the shock, even a little. Why did you tell him?"
He hadn’t raised his voice, but the anger leaking through the held-down tone said more about its force. His whole body was coiled. The slate-blue irises burned bluer than usual, as if sparking. He stepped in closer and twisted his lips in a vicious sneer.
"To ease your guilt you told him the truth, took him to the hospital... left him shaking with fear... made him go through the tests alone.... Was that so you could co out of this looking like the good guy to Seo Ihyeon?"
"It bothers you that he took the tests alone? Now? And who do you think put that fear in him!"
"At the very least, before you took him to the hospital, you should have told !"
Lau jabbed a finger into Inu’s chest; Inu smacked the hand away hard and lifted his chin, squaring up.
"And if I had told you? You think Seo Ihyeon would have wanted to hold your hand and walk into that hospital?"
"..."
Lau ran the tip of his tongue along both corners of his lips and stared into Inu’s eyes, one and then the other. Blood-shot, still boiling, but for a beat he said nothing, like he’d been hit. He turned his back on Inu, dragged once on the cigarette, and flicked the ash. His aim was careless; most of the gray dust missed the ashtray and scattered across the table.
Inu stepped in close behind him and needled into his ear.
"Watching him was really painful. I wanted to do sothing—anything—for him."
Lau turned, frowning, at Inu’s deliberately bright, jeering tone. Inu’s eyes t his—glassy with a mad shine. Then he twisted his mouth into a cold smile, forcing out a laugh.
"We kissed, you know. Guess he didn’t tell you that?"
"..."
The muscles along Lau’s jaw bunched and twitched, and his cheek under the eye spasd. Without realizing it he’d clenched his fist so tight the cigarette crumpled into his palm; he didn’t even feel the heat as he flung it aside and lunged, seizing Inu’s throat. Inu’s face flushed red in an instant; blood-shot eyes locked on Lau as he clawed at the hands on his neck, trying to pry them off.
He wasn’t holding back at all. Only when Inu started choking, snorting through nose and mouth, did Lau finally fling him away onto the sofa. His shoulders heaved, fists clenched like he might dive back in and lay into him without rcy.
"Soone like you... and still I called you a friend..."
"Sa goes for you!"
Inu sprang up and shoved his face right up to Lau’s.
"I won’t deny I ca on like I always do, thoughtless and light. But who knows. If you hadn’t looked interested, maybe it would’ve turned real. No, with soone like that... watching from that close... maybe not turning real would’ve been the harder thing. You’re not the only one with eyes."
"..."
Inu ranted, heated, about the Seo Ihyeon he saw. About soone who tried to pass every sensation life threw at him exactly as it was, painfully, without any tricks. He admitted that for people like him or Lau—born and raised where most things were already in place, able to live without needing to be desperate or wrecked, always acting like they were at ease—that kind of stance could only be more compelling.
"Standing in front of soone who doesn’t try to wrap himself up in a protective shell—who shows himself honestly, no shield—you feel like you could be honest, too. And even if you are honest, Seo Ihyeon is the kind of person who’ll listen without mocking you."
Lau’s shoulders lifted and fell in silence as he listened; then he spun away like he was fleeing. He bent to reach for the glass on the table, and Inu yanked him back, rough.
"But it’s because it was you. Because you—who’ve never wavered for anyone, never fixated on anyone—looked like you were breaking yourself down, getting dragged. So I stepped back—gladly—and watched."
Lau shoved his hands into the trench coat pockets. He tipped his chin down, eyes up, and snorted.
"So what, you’re telling you ceded Seo Ihyeon to ? That if you’d gotten serious, he would’ve chosen you?"
"That we can’t know."
"..."
"And now, after what you’ve done to this, we’ll never know."
Inu cocked a brow and gave a thin, crooked smile. Lau squinted like he was standing in hard sunlight.
"You probably ca here to use as a punching bag, but when you got here—he already knew."
Lau’s eyes narrowed further.
"He said he heard it from Shushu."
This ti his eyes went wide, and the shoulders he’d been hunching spread broad.
"Of course, Shushu thought you and Ihyeon were in agreent and doing the changing together."
Face set, Lau mouthed through Inu’s words; then, without a beat of hesitation, he turned and cut across the living room toward the hall.
"Where do you think you’re going."
Inu caught up and wrenched him back with ugly force; Lau shook him off in one snap. Refusing to give up, Inu planted himself outright in his path.
"Now that you know it wasn’t , you’re going to go throttle Shushu instead?"
"Nothing stopping ."
"Get a grip, Lau Wikun. Whoever you spit your words at right now—beat half to death, go after Shushu—even then, the one who turned Seo Ihyeon away was you."
"..."
"You said so alphas are ignorant about any gender but their own. You think you have the right to condemn them? Think about what you did to the body of the person you love while you let yourself be hauled around by your damned pheromones."
You crazy bastard.
Inu ground out each word like he was chewing it to shreds. For an instant his face looked like he had no friend standing there at all—only a raw, fishy contempt held at a cool, clinical distance, cold enough to chill the nape of the neck.
Maybe in that chill Lau felt the world’s objective judgnt of what he’d done settle on him. He let his hands fall and stood there, slack, as if he’d lost his words; then, leaving his eyes a ss, he only moved his lips and forced an awkward smile.
"You’re making one hell of a mistake, Choi Inu."
"..."
"Up to now you’ve just been lucky—you’ve managed to keep your dignity without being Golden. I don’t even have to go as far as the strength of the pheromones that dragged to Seo Ihyeon. If you were exposed to nothing more than the pheromones a Golden oga decides to release, you’d turn into a toy they could control with a single finger. You’d lose your human dignity and will, crawling on the floor begging because you just want to stick it in and co—a re ejaculation machine, nothing but an erect cock."
It was like he’d prepared it in advance; the line flowed without a hitch. He put force into each word, giving every phrase a hard edge as he poured it out. The flush of alcohol had completely drained from his face. If anything, he looked pale now. Only the blood-shot glare and that strange glitter in his eyes told the tale of how wound-up he was.
Lau stepped in closer, his face twitching.
"So people treat being an alpha like it’s a lofty rank, like pheromones are so kind of superpower—but that’s what an alpha ruled by pheromones really looks like. You wouldn’t be any different."
The long-held distance between them—a range inside which they never showed their depths, never allowed approach and never tried to approach—collapsed completely. They were invading each other now, trading the cruelest words they could wield to leave a mark.
"Yeah. Maybe you’re right."
Inu, who’d been staring at him with a numb, sucker-punched expression like Lau’s a mont ago, scrubbed his face and dropped his eyes.
"Maybe I really have been lucky, and I’ve skirted away from the dangerously extre side of that world with a neat little trick—or maybe I’ve just never taken a serious hit from pheromones. No, that’s probably the truth. I only ever dealt with partners I could defend against and handle. I used pheromones, moderately, as toys for sex. I never thought hard about what an alpha is, what an oga is."
His gaze, gone soft with regret as if tracing back over his past, hardened again as he t Lau.
"But thanks to you, I woke up."
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