Chapter 31

The world had been unraveling for quite some time. Gye Do-hyeop occupied a position that forced him to witness countless absurdities—grotesque, illogical, vicious, and downright bizarre. It had been true during his youth, throughout his tenure on the counter-terrorism team, and it remained just as true now that he was Deputy Director of the NSSA. He always had to stay one move ahead. No matter how wicked the target, no matter how cunningly they schemed or how many moves in advance they calculated, he had to stand above them; only then could he yank out their teeth, snap their spines, or leave them digging their own graves.

It had been a long time since he encountered such ordinary, decent thinking. Deputy Director Gye—whose venomous tongue was foul enough that he joked even Hell would bar its gates against him for out-cursing Satan—fell silent for a beat. What Geum Seoul said was undeniably true. When told that a parent was searching for their child, feeling sympathy or growing soft was simply human nature.

“I suppose so,” Gye Do-hyeop conceded simply.

Relieved understanding seeped into Geum Seoul’s amber-brown eyes, and the tension finally melted from his shoulders. Sensing the youth felt validated—as though assured that his gentle instincts had not been foolish—Do-hyeop took hold of the wrists still resting on his shoulders and pulled them closer. Wrapping the boy’s arms around his own neck, he tilted the slender torso forward until their chests meshed snugly together.

Wrapped in his embrace, Geum Seoul squirmed faintly in awkward hesitation, his stiff fingers twitching before gradually relaxing, until at last he rested a pale cheek against the man’s shoulder. Though the hardened erection crammed inside his slacks felt ready to burst through the fabric, Gye Do-hyeop focused on the body heat radiating through the layers of their clothing and the intoxicating scent of the boy’s pheromones.

Anyone could easily spout conventional morality, yet for someone like Geum Seoul—who had grown up in an abandoned ruin worrying about day-to-day survival—to cling to common human decency felt utterly paradoxical. Especially with that face, and cursed with the fate of a gemstone omega.

To survive in that pit, Geum Seoul ought to have been far more calculating, deeply suspicious, and a practiced liar.

Yet why the hell was this punk like this? It was almost painfully foolish—still searching for ordinary decency while drowning in the filth of survival.

“Pisses you off that I played you?” Do-hyeop asked bluntly.

“No,” Seoul replied softly. “You only did it to find Lee Hee-joong quickly. And we aren’t close enough that you’d need to feel sorry for lying to me.”

Cheap understanding. Compassion handed out so gratuitously could hardly even be termed forgiveness. Ceasing the conversation, Gye Do-hyeop inhaled deeply. He felt neither pleased nor displeased. But the pheromones were extraordinary. It was like stepping into a dense, sun-dappled forest where dazzling light filtered through thick green canopies, suffusing the air with radiant warmth. Pine needles. Crushed grass. A fragrance vibrant with pure life. After choking on noxious dust for years, breathing in that lush, restorative green relaxed the taut knots in his muscular frame.

Unaccustomed to physical intimacy of this kind, Geum Seoul squirmed occasionally, shifting his hips or slightly adjusting the arms draped around Do-hyeop’s neck, yet he never pulled away completely. Pausing for a moment to stroke the outer curve of the boy’s thigh, Do-hyeop’s long fingers slid purposefully beneath the hem of his shorts once more.

“Geum Seoul.”

“Yes?” Seoul answered timidly.

“It’s my turn now, isn’t it? For questions.”

Gulping down dry saliva, Geum Seoul nodded. Just as apprehension began to prickle at what interrogation awaited him, the man broke into a low grin.

“Are you a virgin?” Do-hyeop drawled crudely.

“…”

The man pressed without hesitation, “Front or back.”

The unvarnished bluntness combined with the vulgar diction made Geum Seoul snap his head back, peeling his chest away with lips parted in sheer shock. Convinced the boy couldn’t possibly fail to understand the terms after rubbing shoulders with deranged degenerates in that slum, Do-hyeop merely held his gaze. After mumbling in search of words, a rosy flush crept over the tips of the youth’s ears. He clearly understood.

“…No.”

“What about during heat?” Do-hyeop asked.

Seoul answered softly, “If I take suppressants, it hardly shows.”

“Ever met a dominant alpha?”

“I don’t think so,” the boy replied.

That explained it. Among the entire NSSA detachment deployed to that village, he had been the sole operative capable of scenting Geum Seoul’s pheromones. Being a dominant trait carrier—a rarity growing scarcer with each generation—did not earn one special reverence; rather, because their overwhelming scent could agitate and draw out the dormant pheromones of others, they were cursed as latent sexual predators. The odds of a rare dominant alpha drifting down to that derelict shantytown and stumbling upon Geum Seoul had been astronomically low. Had anyone caught this scent, their curiosity would have been ignited instantly.

Geum Seoul’s breathing was gradually quickening, matching the rapid thrum of his heartbeat. The body he had just been leaning against was so broad and warm that sensations he had never experienced surged through him, while the man’s pheromones—which had begun billowing thicker moments ago—kept tickling deep inside his lower abdomen.

‘You were gagging in front of that bastard earlier.’

The memory of their earlier exchange rushed back. Park Gil-pyeong’s pheromones had triggered violent nausea, filling Seoul’s mouth with sour saliva and making every breath agonizing. So why was this man’s scent different? Why did it carry no foulness at all? Why did breathing it in feel better the deeper he drew it into his lungs? His breaths grew heavier.

“Do you happen to know why?” Seoul ventured timidly.

Do-hyeop countered bluntly, “Why what? Why you managed to survive all this time without getting fucked?”

“No, no,” Seoul stammered, waving both hands frantically as his cheeks flushed crimson. “Not that.” Swallowing twice to steady his breath, he voiced his question quietly: “I don’t know why your scent smells so wonderful, Deputy Director. With other alphas, I couldn’t bear it and kept throwing up…”

As though sharing an intimate secret when there were only the two of them in the room, Seoul closed the gap between them and murmured near the man’s ear. This little bastard was whoring around again. Unaware that Do-hyeop was cursing him internally, the helpless creature merely fidgeted with his fingers, waiting for an answer. Do-hyeop tossed out a casual retort.

“Because I’m a dominant alpha?” the man suggested with an easy shrug.

“Ah…”

Do-hyeop lowered his voice, “Or else.”

Ready to nod in immediate acceptance, Geum Seoul perked up to listen to the rest, looking for all the world like an attentive pup pricking its ears. Flicking the hem of Seoul’s shorts with his thumb, Do-hyeop splayed his palm across the back of the boy’s head and drew him close until their breaths mingled. As his vision blurred at point-blank range, Seoul shut his eyes tight. The deputy director thought to himself how easily the boy yielded, his lips curling into an amused smirk.

“Because you’re fucking horny for me too?”

Geum Seoul’s eyes snapped open. Yet under the sudden, dense deluge of pheromones crashing over him, his lashes fluttered helplessly.

“Hey,” Do-hyeop called out.

“…Yes?”

“What did I say would happen if you breathed in my pheromones again?” the man asked.

Having drenched the room in his own scent, the deputy director’s shamelessly posed question lilted with mockery.

Billowing in intoxicating waves, the sweet pheromones crushed Geum Seoul into melting submission within seconds. Panting in ragged gasps, Seoul curled inward and buried his face, inadvertently brushing his lips against Do-hyeop’s shoulder.

“You said… we’d fuck…” Seoul whispered against the man’s shoulder.

“Splendid memory,” Do-hyeop praised lazily.

Seoul repeatedly wet his parched lips with the tip of his tongue. His wits were entirely scattered. The pheromones hazing his vision clung to every inch of his flesh as though melting him from the inside out.

“The pheromones… are too… thick…”

“Want me to tell you in case you don’t know?” Do-hyeop asked with a chuckle.

Do-hyeop’s fingers inevitably burrowed into the gap of his shorts. Sliding up from the outer thigh to cup the fabric over his underwear, he prompted Geum Seoul to flinch and cling closer in sheer fright. Pressing his lips to the boy’s ear, Do-hyeop mimicked that same conspiratorial whisper.

He whispered against the boy’s ear, “Didn’t you even check if your underwear was soaked back then?”

“Ngh…”

The words were so intensely lewd that Geum Seoul clung tighter to him, whimpering as though in feverish pain. Every time their pheromones tangled, his slender fingers gripped and tugged at the black dress shirt.

Geum Seoul realized instinctively. Scenting Do-hyeop’s pheromones back at the lodging had ignited the same fiery heat throughout his body, setting his lower abdomen fluttering. This was entirely different from the repulsive nausea he had always suffered around other alphas. His spine and belly curled inward, his hips tightening involuntarily, and…

“Ah!” Seoul cried out.

The hand creeping toward his backside firmly seized the pliant flesh of his buttocks. Geum Seoul let out a sharp cry, trembling all over. Because he was clinging so hard around Do-hyeop’s neck, the boy’s voice felt as though it reverberated straight through their locked chests rather than his ears.

“These clothes, your underwear—I had every piece bought and brought here,” Do-hyeop said. “That bastard Yu Jeong-ham just parroted what I told him like a trained bird.”

“I… I know. Ah…”

Do-hyeop murmured, “Yeah. Remember it well. Everything put in your hands, everything you eat, everything you wear—I personally ordered and arranged it all.”

“Yes, but… the phero… mones, please…”

“Does it make sense to thank someone else?” Do-hyeop asked.

Geum Seoul shook his head in a panic. “N-no…”

Smack. The four fingers kneading his cute rear slipped toward the tight crevice between them. As though anticipating where the hand was headed, Geum Seoul trembled even harder. Though Do-hyeop stroked the boy’s back with his other palm, it offered no genuine comfort. His fingers relentlessly rubbed against the cleft of those parted cheeks. A voice laced with amusement drifted past his ear.

“Look at that, you’re wet,” Do-hyeop murmured.

“Hng… ah…”

Burying his head while clenching tight down below, Geum Seoul behaved exactly as he had during the oral examination: meekly offering himself up and awaiting the verdict without the slightest resistance. Wrapping an arm around his waist to lift his hips slightly higher, Do-hyeop gently caressed the rim of his entrance. Seoul’s fingers dug into the nape of the man’s neck, shivering breaths tumbling out in rapid succession.

Do-hyeop asked in cool amusement, “Why are you staying so still? Like someone who’s used to it.”

Had Yu Jeong-ham witnessed this, he would have gagged in disgust: complaining about the lack of resistance after deliberately coaxing a gentle kid and saturating him in pheromones was textbook Gye Do-hyeop. Yet Geum Seoul merely moved his lips, struggling to articulate his thoughts.

“Because… it smells good. I wanted to smell it more…” Seoul murmured.

It was a first. In all of Geum Seoul’s twenty years of life, scenting pheromones this exquisite was truly unprecedented. Raised among omegas who naturally harbored instinctive revulsion toward one another’s scent, Seoul had only ever been sickened by the alphas he rarely encountered.