NUTMEG 30

Minje, frightened, nervously looked down at the small capsule in his palm. He was scared of what might happen, but at the same time, he also felt a desire to take it quickly and get it over with. In any case, he had a schedule starting in the afternoon tomorrow, so there was no way the leader would do anything to interfere with it.

‘When an Alpha goes into rut, an Omega has to help. That’s what they were made for. You can tell just by the fact that their estrus only subsides after knotting an Omega.’

‘…What is this?’

‘Something good. A medicine of salvation for Omegas like our Minje.’

‘A heat accelerant,’ Soohyuk finished, then took the capsule from Minje’s hand, pried open Minje’s mouth, and pushed it in with his finger. Minje hesitated for a moment, but then silently opened his mouth and swallowed it down his throat.

It won’t be a big deal. Heat, as he had learned in sex education, was a natural phenomenon for those with secondary genders, and it was said to subside in three or four days. Moreover, with Soohyuk, an Alpha, right beside him, he would do something about it.

At that time, Minje practically equated Sparkle, the company, and the leader. His only place to lean on, his only place to be.

At Minje’s submissive attitude, Soohyuk seemed pleased the entire time.

At the leader’s request to suck him until the drug kicked in, he knelt in front of the sofa for about ten minutes, when suddenly, a strange sensation wrapped around the nape of his neck. It was on a different level from the languid sensation of giving himself over to an Alpha’s pheromones while doing something like kissing. It felt as if some terrifying power was constantly flowing out from somewhere inside his body.

‘Heuk….’

His heart pounded as if it would leap out, unnaturally, as if something was wrong. Soohyuk, noticing Minje’s state, twisted his lips into a smile and released his own pheromones all at once. Alphas and Omegas respond to each other’s estrus. Following Minje, whose heat had begun, Soohyuk’s breathing quickly grew rough.

His pheromones in rut were completely different from usual. As if they existed solely for procreation, they crept up his body tenaciously and unpleasantly, as if to ravage it, in order to conquer his partner.

‘Heok, heok, heok….’

He could feel that he was thoroughly soaked with a sticky mucus down below. His entire body had become an erogenous zone; just the brush of a breath sent shivers down his spine. It was difficult to control any part of himself according to his will.

Scary. It’s scary. It was so scary.

If this was what heat was, he wouldn’t have accepted the medicine so easily.

And the memory of that day, buried in mud, would intermittently reveal itself whenever the wind blew or rain fell in his heart. He had let out moans that were like screams, and for the first time, he had received a man’s penis with his ass. The memory he didn’t want to recall was the fact that he had eventually been unable to overcome his excitement and had moved his hips on his own, tightening around the cock. Even though he had clearly thought it was horrifying and scary.

‘Our Minje, what will the fans do if they find out you’re this crazy for cock?’

It was his fault.

Soohyuk hadn’t been coercive at all. It was just that he was weak and stupid, and the things that would happen if he refused were troublesome, and he didn’t want to disappoint the leader, and he didn’t want to make a fuss over something that would pass quickly if he just endured it once, so, just like when the leader had first asked for oral, he had simply chosen the easy way out.

‘Knowing you’re like this, who would ever genuinely like you?’

He was right. Who would ever genuinely like someone like me.

‘There’s no one but me.’

Yes. Minje closed his eyes.

🍊

“Your internal pheromone levels have risen.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s not at a dangerous level, but. Since your levels have been so stable until now, it is a bit concerning. Have there been any changes in your living environment recently?”

“…”

Looking at the short-haired doctor, whose face was now familiar, Minje was flustered and only slowly moved his eyes. After having his blood drawn as usual at the clinical center he visited regularly every month, he had suddenly received a call the next day. Minje, who had been in his own studio apartment in Seoul as he thankfully had two consecutive days without filming, had been startled and rushed to the hospital.

“As you know, just because your pheromones aren’t outwardly apparent doesn’t mean you’ve become a Beta. A few days ago, another patient inserted a loop and spent a rut with an Alpha, which caused an abnormality in her pheromone nervous system. That person was also suffering from a psychogenic illness commonly called imprinting, so her prognosis was particularly poor.”

“Since something like that happened recently, I was just wondering,” the doctor concluded, and the mouth that had been shut finally opened.

“…I’ve been spending a lot of time with a dominant Alpha recently.”

“Have you also been exposed to the dominant Alpha’s pheromones?”

“…Yes.”

“Hmm.”

Listening to the clicking of the mouse, Minje lowered his gaze to his own knees. How honest should I be? That I have a relationship where I also regularly have sex with that dominant Alpha? But that it will end soon? He felt like he should make an excuse for no reason and just chewed on his lips. However, contrary to Minje’s thoughts, in modern society, being exposed to pheromones meant sexual contact.

“The loop is interfering with your pheromone nervous system, but it hasn’t been determined yet how the nervous system, under pressure from both sides, will react to prolonged exposure to Alpha pheromones. Therefore, it’s best to avoid such situations as much as possible.”

“Yes….”

“The worst thing is to suddenly get caught up in a rut. Because at that time, your partner will also have difficulty controlling themselves.”

“…Yes.”

The doctor repeated the simple warnings he had heard yesterday and said he would see him next month. Minje bowed his head in farewell and slowly descended the hospital stairs with a dazed mind.

A rise in internal pheromone levels. Abnormality in the nervous system. Alpha pheromones and rut.

These were things he hadn’t even considered when he first decided on the procedure. He had thought everything would become easier as long as he didn’t produce pheromones. His head started to ache. But he couldn’t just remove the loop either.

Having thought that far, Minje was startled and stopped in the middle of the staircase. People whose path was suddenly blocked glanced at Minje once before passing by.

Why did he think of removing the loop first? Of course, he should stop sleeping with Wonoh.

But.

I don’t want to do that….

Minje’s mind was a mess, and he furrowed his brow.

5.

Past midnight, Choi Wonoh was at a recording studio in Sinsa-dong.

It was a place he rarely had reason to visit after a recording studio was built in his agency’s building. One wall of the studio was packed with signed albums from famous singers, including Uncontrol.

Studio A there. There was a man nervously biting his nails, looking at Wonoh like a puppy that needed to poop. It was Kim Geon, who used the stage name Shotgun.

“How is it?”

“Hmm.”

“Why, why? Is it weird? I fixed all the parts you said you didn’t like. Ugh, damn. Why, again?”

“Sit down.”

Wonoh pointed to the chair in front of him. Geon had been getting on his nerves for a while, moving around restlessly. Geon, who had apparently spent three nights in the workroom and a full day in the recording studio, had a completely haggard face, unable to even shave the stubble that had sprouted.

“Ha… fuck. I hate it the most when Choi Wonoh tells me to sit down.”

Geon, who had been wearing a black ball cap backward, pulled it down low over his face and looked like he was about to die. In the midst of it all, dangling silver accessories hung in abundance from both his arms, fingers, and earlobes.

Wonoh smiled faintly at Geon, who had finally sat down quietly. A dimple pressed deep into one cheek.

“It’s gotten a lot better, though.”

“…Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Fucking bastard. Do you always have to wait until a person is about to wither and die before giving the okay? Huh?!”

The limited-edition basketball shoes Geon was wearing kicked the wheeled chair Wonoh was sitting in—thump, thump. With a brightly smiling face. Such a simple hyung.

“If it was bad this time too, I was going to send it all for re-arrangement. Our hyung has improved a lot.”

“Hah… you bad bastard. Ugh, damn. I don’t know what it is, but I feel pretty proud.”

“I have to tell Jin Jung-joon,” Geon said, and humming a tune, he picked up his phone. Wonoh also let out a small laugh and took his phone out of his pocket.

Messages had piled up, turning the icon red on his phone, which had been on silent. Skipping all the useless messages, he opened the message window at the very top. The text he had sent before coming to the studio hadn’t been read yet, so the number 1 remained.

‘Is Minje hyung asleep?’

He put his phone back in his pocket nonchalantly, but Geon was staring at him intently. What. He asked with just a raise of his eyebrows, and he suddenly asked.

“Are you in touch with Danbi?”

Ever since appearing on Jeong Danbi’s radio show together a while ago, Kim Geon had been testing the waters like this whenever he had the chance. Wonoh recalled the chat window that had been at the top of his phone screen just now with a red number 3 on it and said.

“She contacts me.”

“Are you really going to have Danbi do the narration?”

“Narration?”

“Yeah. I think she’s kind of looking forward to it since you mentioned it.”

Wonoh slowly cracked his stiff neck, making a popping sound, and tried to recall.

Ah. I think I might have said something like that on the radio.

“Chief Shin let me listen to the monitoring of the radio show, and it seems the fans’ reactions weren’t very good. I’ll have to tell her it’ll be difficult.”

“You psycho. There wasn’t even a part to put a narration in, so I was wondering why you were suddenly saying such random stuff.”

“Then you should have said so there.”

They had been together for years; he wasn’t the type of hyung to be clueless on a live radio show, but the motive behind bringing this up now of all times was not good. Wonoh deliberately smiled brightly and looked at Geon. Geon, who had been with him for 5 years now since their trainee days, was at the point where he could recognize that Choi Wonoh made that kind of smile whenever he was about to make a threat.

“Let’s not even talk about it. You scary bastard. You’re probably trying to get something out of this again.”

Wonoh didn’t bother to correct him. Geon, stretching his back out long, gestured with his eyes, “Smoke break?” Wonoh’s mouth was also starting to feel bored, so he followed him out. From the recording studio in the basement, going up the emergency stairs led directly to the back of the building. It was a place they used as a smoking area.

It was slowly becoming the beginning of fall, as the night air was quite cool. Wonoh lit a cigarette with the lighter Geon passed him and took a deep drag, his cheeks hollowing. He held the smoke and then exhaled, and it scattered here and there. Geon, who was sending a message with both hands while a cigarette dangled from his mouth, nudged Wonoh’s side.

“Choi Wonoh. Danbi says to check your KakaoTalk.”

“…”

Swallowing a bit of annoyance inwardly, he took out his phone. The number 1 at the very top was still unerased. Geon was trying to peek at the screen, so he deliberately frowned at him. Tsking, Geon readily backed away. Wonoh opened the second chat window. There were a selfie and some trivial messages Jeong Danbi had sent an hour ago.

She seemed okay when I saw her in the movie. In person, her clinginess is annoying. She’s pretty, but…. It was a relief that she had the pride of a moderately successful actress and kept her distance without getting too clingy.

After the radio show, as planned, he was introduced to writer Son Ji-eun by Jeong Danbi. Since he wanted his next project to be a public broadcast drama, he had naturally had writer Son in mind. Son Ji-eun was a star writer who had recently had three consecutive hits in the drama department. It was a coincidence that Kim Geon had suddenly brought up Jeong Danbi’s radio show. But this was also why he had readily agreed to go on.

Because Jeong Danbi had acted as a bridge, writer Son was favorable to him even though he didn’t have a proper filmography yet. It was worth the effort he put in, hearing that she only cast actors she was close with. It seemed she was considering him for her next work as a set with Jeong Danbi, so even though it was annoying, he had to hang out with her for a while.

Wonoh typed out the reply she wanted, something like, ‘You’re pretty, noona ^^’ and sent it. Just then, a notification that a new message had arrived popped up.

[One Ent Cheon Minje:

Ah I dozed off for a sec

Did it go well? You must be tired] 2:34 AM

“Why are you grinning like that while texting. Is it Danbi?”

“None of your business. Mind your own.”

“Don’t string Danbi along too much. She’s a pretty and nice girl.”