PO 1

“…Damn.”

Han Jaegang loosened his tie knot the moment the elevator doors shut. His smile vanished without a trace. He looked ahead and brushed off his suit jacket.

But the pheromone scent that wouldn’t fade made him furrow his brow, and when the chime sounded, he stepped out without hesitation. Han Jaegang walked along the carpeted corridor, he halted before the entrance, and he tilted his head.

The third floor was not a place anyone could enter. There had been no report of visitors, and he had no memory of leaving the door open on purpose. Then why was the door open?

Had someone come in?

Han Jaegang held the knob and focused on his hearing. As a dominant alpha he could detect even faint sounds with senses keener than ordinary people, but he caught nothing from inside.

He couldn’t have left the door open himself. Then was it the mistake of servants or Joo Yeongmo?

One way or another, he thought he must check, he opened the door without hesitation and went inside. The house looked no different from when he had left. He walked into the living room and lifted his head slowly.

Someone was in the house. If not the living room, then was it the bedroom? Or was it the dressing room?

Han Jaegang shrugged off his jacket onto the sofa as though nothing was wrong. As he walked toward the bedroom, he unfastened his shirt buttons and rolled his sleeves up to his elbows to loosen his attire.

Though he didn’t know who might be there, Han Jaegang began to search the house without concern. Overpowering a few people wouldn’t be difficult.

The living room had no place to hide a body. The bedroom with only a bed, a side table, and a stand lamp was the same. Han Jaegang glanced under the curtains pulled back to the windows but turned away without checking the dressing room.

He stopped again and fixed his eyes on the closed bathroom door. The intruder was surely hidden there. He didn’t need to see or hear to be certain.

A faint pheromone scent leaked through the crack of the door and hung in the air. It was an omega’s. Without knowing that discovery was certain, the pheromone thickened more and more.

“Bold.”

Han Jaegang snorted, it wasn’t hard to guess whose command the other followed. The one likely to stage such an act was his grandparent.

Why couldnt they still admit that this sickness wasn’t cured by shoving in just anyone?

Han Jaegang stopped before the bathroom and pulled the door open without warning. When he turned on the light, he saw someone crouched inside.

“……”

Even after being caught, the man didn’t move. Han Jaegang came close, but the man gave no response, and who could know what thought he held.

Han Jaegang looked down at him with his hand in his pocket. Fortunately today’s omega wasn’t naked in disgrace, nor did he charge at him with heat pheromones. He only sat crouched in silence.

Han Jaegang lowered himself before him and examined him. He didn’t reek of alcohol, which was a relief. His face was young, about twenty, or at most twenty-one. He looked too boyish to be tasked with seducing an alpha.

Han Jaegang tilted his head to see the man’s face clearly, and he faltered. A thick scent gushed forth like a broken dam. The sweet and gentle fragrance he had smelled from outside the bathroom now surged fiercely from the man.

Fragrant? …No way.

For Han Jaegang, omega pheromones divided into two kinds. The first had no color or smell and no presence, and the other was the repulsive kind that provoked nausea. On the rare occasions he met someone with a foul pheromone scent, Han Jaegang felt rejection so severe he could hardly endure it.

Yet the pheromone of the stranger felt fragrant. It was an incomprehensible thing.

The intruder moved, and the vial in his hand rattled and rolled across the floor. At the same time, his closed eyelids trembled. The man who looked about to wake let his head droop again.

“Why don’t you get up now?”

Han Jaegang, who wanted to set things in order, reached out and held the man’s jaw and lifted it. In the bright light the man’s face showed clearly.

Han Jaegang calmly studied the delicate features of the pale face, and he furrowed his brow. The moment he withdrew the hand that held his jaw, the man’s body slid down along the bathtub.

Han Jaegang reached out instinctively and supported the limp man.

“Hey.”

Han Jaegang’s hand that examined him was far from kind. His hand tapped lightly against the small cheek, and the man slowly raised his eyelids. Han Jaegang thought he was regaining consciousness, but in the next instant, the sudden turn of events made him open his eyes wide.

“……”

The man stretched his arms and wrapped them around Han Jaegang’s nape in an instant. Han Jaegang, startled, tried to push him away, but the man pulled him even closer and buried his face against his shoulder. It was a desperate and yearning movement. He could have torn him off by force, but Han Jaegang didn’t.

Scent.

A thick fragrance rose from the nape of the man who took hold of him without permission, and it made him hesitate.

The deep and mellow scent that layered like tender grass made his sense of smell go numb in that instant. His mouth went dry and he felt thirsty.

Han Jaegang unconsciousness pulled the man’s back against him. With the hurried breath he drew in, the omega’s pheromone seeped into his lungs. He barely restrained the impulse to bury his face in the man’s nape.

His body that had recognized the omega’s pheromone began to release pheromones. Han Jaegang’s natural rhythm was broken. His heart hammered so fiercely it hurt.

Instincts made it impossible for Han Jaegang to control his pheromones as he usually did. His dominant alpha pheromones spread like a flood and filled the air of the bathroom.

The hair of the man who tightly wrapped his arms around his neck brushed softly against his cheek. The feel of the fine strands against his skin was strangely vivid.

“Ha…”

Heat surged into his head, and the thumping of his heartbeat boomed against his ears. Would it explode like this? His heart, pressed close to the man’s body, thumped as if it would jump out of his chest.

Bearing the man’s full weight, Han Jaegang held the rim of the tub and held himself steady for a moment. The thought that his heart would explode wasn’t a figure of speech to him.

He closed his eyes and drew deep breaths slowly to calm himself. He had to force his erratic heartbeat to calm.

He thought he must immediately push the man away, but he couldn’t. He only wrapped his arms around the back of the man who clutched him with desperate force.

“……”

The man was like a child unwilling to part from his mother. He held him so tightly that Han Jaegang almost smothered him, as though he was in dire need.

As time passed, Han Jaegang’s gaze grew colder. Who was this omega who appeared out of nowhere? And why was he shaken by the pheromones of such a young omega? The situation began to feel absurd.

At the same time he felt furious toward whoever contrived this. Wasn’t it time to give up such a low tactic?

Han Jaegang lifted his hand and reached to the man’s head. The hair coiled softly between his fingers, but he ignored the pleasant texture and the spreading fragrance, and he grabbed the man’s hair harshly.

The man’s head fell back weakly as he softly cried out in pain. His wide eyes wavered without focus as though he couldn’t understand the situation.

“Who are you?”

“……”

“Who sent you?”

“…I-I was wrong.”

Though his hair was gripped, the man didn’t resist. It seemed like he used to such a scene, he yielded his body without strength to Han Jaegang’s handling.

The stammered words of apology and eyes brimming with tears were not what Han Jaegang wished to hear or see.

“Speak. How did you come in here?”

“…I just…passed by.”

“Don’t talk nonsense.”

“I was wrong.”

The tears that welled in the man’s eyes spilled down. Han Jaegang narrowed his eyes and demanded who sent him. The man didn’t deny it or make excuses, he only repeated that he was wrong. Such a stance only fanned Han Jaegang’s anger.

Moreover, the man wasn’t fully lucid. The plea for pardon wasn’t directed at Han Jaegang.

“You’re not in your right mind, are you?”

“Huh…”

Han Jaegang tightened his grip on the man’s hair. The man, shaken without resistance, lifted tearful eyes toward him, and contrary to the wretched look on his face, thick waves of pheromones surrounded him.

Heat cycle. Han Jaegang recognized the state of the man. An omega in heat cycle responded sensitively to an alpha’s pheromones. Reason dulled, and craving only grew.

As Han Jaegang lowered his head and cursed, the man who feebly scratched his arm suddenly reached out his arms.

The man’s body was fevered, and he held him as if he would never let go. It didn’t seem enough to embrace him, since he reached to Han Jaegang’s face. Their cheeks touched, and his ragged breath tickled against his ear.

“What are you…”

Han Jaegang, who was about to ask what he was doing, froze as the man’s lips pressed against his.

“……!”

His courage was admirable, but it was no more than a child’s play. He only pressed his lips and pulled away as if he didn’t even know what a kiss was. But even with that line crossed, Han Jaegang couldn’t push him away.

The man’s pheromone seeped through their touching lips. Han Jaegang was an alpha too, and he couldn’t be immune to the pheromones of an omega in heat. The scent of an omega he had never met before made his nerves stand on edge. It felt like his chest opened wide as if he had broken free for breath at the point of suffocation.

The man’s pheromone spread like waves and grew thicker, and it shook Han Jaegang when he tried to hold calm.

Now he needed a stronger stimulus. Han Jaegang pulled the man’s head closer and tilted his own.

His tongue slipped between parted lips. The man shrank, startled by a real kiss though he had initiated it first. Han Jaegang pushed his tongue deep inside through the parted lips.

Han Jaegang searched the smooth lining of his mouth and the even teeth and then found the tender tip of his tongue and sucked. Saliva of unknown origin filled their mouths, and their breaths tangled.

“Ha…”

The man couldn’t follow his rough kiss panted. Han Jaegang ignored it and held the man’s lips deep between his own. His lips tasted sweet as if steeped in honey, and he couldn’t let them go.

But at some point the grip of the man’s hand that held Han Jaegang’s shirt hem lost its strength. His hand slid down Han Jaegang’s chest, and his head fell back without will.

Han Jaegang caught the limp man instinctively. For a moment he laughed and felt as if cold water had been poured over him.

It was already the second time the man lost consciousness. Was he a broken human? Why couldn’t he hold his body steady? Han Jaegang clenched his teeth as he supported him in an unstable stance and then loosened them.

“You try every way.”

Han Jaegang slipped his arms under the man’s shoulders and knees, lifted him lightly, and rose from the spot. His limp body was lighter than expected. Han Jaegang kept his eyes off the man’s face that shook helplessly with every step and quietly left the bathroom.

He couldn’t leave an unconscious man inside the bathroom. But he had no thought of laying him in his own bedroom.

He set the man down carelessly on the living room sofa and stood with his hand against his waist and looked down at the pale face. The man was too feeble to have entered his home under someone’s order. Whatever command he had received, he looked incapable of carrying it out.

It irritated him that he had been shaken and swayed by such a person even for a moment.

Han Jaegang picked up his phone and tapped the man’s cheek to check his state. His faint reaction showed he didn’t immediately need a doctor called.

As he pondered what to do with the intruder, his phone began to vibrate. The moment Han Jaegang raised it to his ear, an urgent voice came.

-This is Secretary Joo, Executive Director. Where are you now?

“In my room, Secretary Joo. Did you plan to put someone in my room?”

-No, absolutely not.

Secretary Joo denied. He had grown under his grandmother’s hand and usually couldn’t refuse elderly women. That was his only flaw despite his skill. For example, he once couldn’t refuse his grandmother’s plea and hid an omega in heat in Han Jaegang’s bedroom.

“Are you sure?”

-I swear. But what happened?

The quick reply carried a hint of grievance. Han Jaegang had forgiven that past act only because he considered his subordinate’s concern for his health, and since he had warned him firmly that a repeat would cost his job, his answer didn’t seem like a lie.

“Someone is inside my room.”

-What? Inside your room, Executive Director? No, how could that…

“Is it time to change the security firm, or is it time for Secretary Joo to retire?”

-I apologize. I’ll immediately take action. But more urgent, Executive Director, you must come down to the first floor now.

“Why?”

-Andrew Sterling of N&K is about to arrive. He postponed even his return schedule to come, so you must greet him yourself.

Hearing Joo Yeongmo’s pleading voice telling him to come down, Han Jaegang traced the inside of his cheek with the tip of his tongue slowly. It was news he had been waiting for, but now it felt a little bothersome.

But he couldn’t ignore the visit of a business partner. Since it wasn’t something that would take long, he could go and then decide what to do with the man who trespassed into his space.

Han Jaegang straightened the sleeves he had rolled up and knotted his tie again. Restored to a polished appearance, he reached for the doorknob then paused and glanced down at his own palm.

Would it be better to wash his hands before he went? On any other day he would have headed to the bathroom without thought, but now he gripped the doorknob as it was. The urge to cleanse himself wasn’t as strong as usual.

Han Jaegang turned his head and looked once at the man lying on the sofa and then left the room. At the sound of the door closing, the man’s fingertips twitched faintly.