SPW 47

Relief washed over Sarang’s eyes. On the other hand, there was also a sense of tension. Because it seemed Florian hadn’t finished explaining why he had come all this way. Inwardly, Sarang couldn’t let his guard down. Knowing this, Florian continued the conversation calmly and in order. His teacup was half-empty. He usually just pretended to drink wherever he went, but he couldn’t tell if he was nervous now, or if his tension had eased, so Florian feigned a slight tilt of his head.

“For the past two years, I haven’t been able to open my eyes comfortably for a single day.”

Heat spread to the nape of Sarang’s neck, which was darkening again.

“Let’s just wait and see, shall we?”

Sarang’s eyes, which were quietly taking in Florian, trembled faintly. The scent of vanilla brushed past the tip of his nose. Had the scent ever been this strong?

“If my pheromones stabilize, if my pheromones get better thanks to spending my heat with you, Sarang, then there will be new things to discuss.”

“Rian.”

“Yes, Sarang.”

“Were you… not displeased?”

In his trembling voice, something like a sense of guilt that could never be resolved could be felt.

“Of course not, Sarang.”

Florian replied with a faint smile.

“It was the most refreshing morning of my life.”

The round, clear pupils clouded over slightly.

“You gave me a morning like that, Sarang.”

“……”

“Thank you, Sarang.”

The moment the eyes, which looked like they would spill tears at any second, blinked, a thick vanilla scent wafted out with a scorching heat. At that moment, Florian’s eyes sharpened, and he moved quickly. He reached out and touched Sarang’s cheek, then his neck. Along with the heat that hadn’t been released from inside his body, the vanilla scent was slowly seeping out.

“Oh, dear.”

Sarang’s flushed skin was not an expression of his honest emotions, and the vanilla scent that had brushed past Florian’s nose was not the scent of an alpha on his own body. What enveloped Sarang was a heat-induced fever.

Instantly grasping the situation, Florian crossed over the table and pulled the barely conscious Sarang into his arms. While gently stroking Sarang’s head as it dropped onto his shoulder, Florian took out his phone and made a call. A voice answered immediately.

“Doctor. Is Kim Sarang in heat?”

…Yes, Boss.

“Wasn’t his heat supposed to be about two weeks away?”

That’s correct.

“…So he was influenced by my heat.”

The doctor, silent for a moment, cautiously opened his mouth.

It was moved up, but it doesn’t seem to have overlapped with your heat, Boss. When I examined him in Mansion Building 1, the heat fever was just beginning.

Florian, who was concentrating on supporting Sarang as he lost his senses while breathing hot breaths onto his neck, raised an eyebrow. Unaware of this, the doctor on the other end of the phone earnestly confessed what was weighing on his mind.

I heard that he used a condom the entire time he was intimate with you, Boss, and that he also took contraceptives.

“What in the world are you talking about?”

The doctor’s flustered reaction to his cold voice was plain to hear.

“Who said I was curious about that sort of thing?”

Ah, well, isn’t that what you were worried about, Boss?

“Do you think conception is even possible when my pheromones are unstable? Doctor. Are you really a doctor?”

B-but, there are always exceptions. And you and Kim are dominant traits, aren’t you, Boss?

“And for that, you fed the kid contraceptives?”

…….

“Don’t you know that an irregular heat cycle is a side effect of contraceptives?”

Rendered speechless by Florian’s interrogation, and also flustered by the reason for Florian’s anger, the stammering doctor ended up saying something he shouldn’t have.

B-but it was Kim who requested the contraceptives, Boss.

I see, so if the kid said he was dying, you’d be willing to bring him poison.

The sarcastic voice on the other end of the phone was abruptly cut off.

“Why?”

Allen, who had been devouring a tasteless sandwich as if it were the most delicious thing in the world, was lying sprawled on the sofa and turned only his head to look at the doctor. The doctor, who was looking down at his phone with a baffled expression, seemed confused.

“What is it?”

Miller, who had been chewing a sandwich as if it were the most tasteless thing in the world, also chimed in.

“The Boss’s and Kim’s heats almost overlapped this time, didn’t they?”

“Yeah, it was a close call.”

“It’s just the kid who’s suffering because of the wicked deeds of bad adults.”

It was the doctor, Miller, and Allen, in that order.

“I thought the Boss was worried about conception.”

The doctor, still unable to hide his puzzled expression, continued.

“He’s throwing a fit, saying I fed contraceptives to Kim.”

“Is ‘throwing a fit’ the right phrase? If so, the doctor’s head should be separated from his neck by now, shouldn’t it?”

The doctor, who shivered at Miller’s words which were impossible to tell if they were a joke or serious, retorted as if he had been wronged.

“The Boss even questioned my doctorate, I tell you.”

“Haha. Do you think there are only one or two quacks in the world? So don’t be too disheartened.”

“Are you implying that I’m a quack right now?”

Allen, who had finished the rest of his sandwich in one bite with an attitude that was neither comforting nor playful, neither confirmed nor denied the doctor’s protest.

He tried to lift Sarang into his arms, but it was beyond his strength. He had grown by at least 10 cm and 20 kg. Florian smiled, remembering Sarang who had firmly said that he wasn’t a growing kid anymore.

“A real adult doesn’t protest that they’re not a child, Sarang.”

Florian supported the now even hotter Sarang and helped him up, heading for the first-floor bedroom. Sarang couldn’t even stand on his own, so when Florian pulled his waist in more tightly, his round head slumped onto Florian’s shoulder. Florian, who managed to walk while barely holding Sarang’s large body, which was hanging off him almost entirely, found the feeling of his arms being so full a little unfamiliar.

“It’s a relief that the bedroom here is on the first floor, at least.”

“Uungh.”

As soon as he was laid on the bed, Sarang curled up his large body and whimpered fretfully. His wildly disheveled hair and untidy clothes were traces of him tossing and turning from the heat fever.

‘Mr. Kim Sarang is still taking suppressants. He said he has no intention of using the partner system.’

Florian swept back the hair that had fallen over his face and sighed.

What on earth are you trying to do, Sarang?

An alpha well past his teens, especially a dominant alpha, could not get through their heat with suppressants alone. They absolutely had to be intimate with their fated pair or a partner to resolve the desires demanded by their instincts. Knotting was a prime example. Unless the heats of the two people sleeping together matched, they couldn’t have a child no matter how much they knotted. It was merely an instinctual act stemming from the reproductive drive of the alpha species.

Even so, Sarang had taken contraceptives and put a condom on his penis every time before insertion. Just in case Florian were to have an unwanted pregnancy. Any other alpha would have seized the opportunity and made every effort to plant their seed.

The way Sarang loves me is a little strange, but it’s not unpleasant.

Muttering inwardly, Florian loosened his tie and undid three or four buttons on his shirt. In much more comfortable attire, he got on the bed and sat beside Sarang.

“Umm.”

A vanilla scent, on the verge of scattering, wafted from Sarang, who was groaning as if suffering from body aches. He must have taken the suppressant too late. If his heat started as soon as Florian’s ended, then he was very, very late. He needed to have taken it at least two days prior for it to be effective.

The suppressants probably don’t work well on him anyway. Empty pill bottles were rolling around on the nightstand and the mattress. The doctor wouldn’t have brought a lethal dose of suppressants into the mansion. If the kid was in this state, he should have at least pushed an omega on him. Frowning for a moment, Florian changed his mind.

No, I wouldn’t like that, Sarang. You also have the right to spend your first heat with someone you want.

Remembering again that the person Sarang wanted right now was him, Florian placed a hand over Sarang’s flushed, feverish cheek. Florian was on the warmer side, so it wouldn’t be much help, but it was still cooler than the heat Sarang was emitting.

“……”

The image of a roadside where a luxury sedan lay overturned and half-demolished came to mind. The bright red blood that had flowed out through the shattered car window, staining the Wellington company emblem. The article title printed in bold over the scene. The ridicule of the Commonwealth public opinion regarding the accidental death, clearly a suicide, of a young man of twenty-four.

Just recalling that scene from the dream made Florian dizzy.

「Former National Team Player, Premier Leaguer Kim Sarang (Sarang Dietrich Wellington Debussy Kim, age 24) has ended his life at the young age of 24.」

Whether I had that dream or not, Sarang would have come to love me.

What happened was bound to happen, but the outcome could be changed. The seventeen-year-old Sarang was led out of Matthew Caia’s villa by Florian’s hand instead of being dragged there and subjected to horrible acts.

The Florian in the dream, who suffered from a pheromone problem, took in Sarang, who had been abandoned by Caia less than a year later, as his ward. That was a clear preemption. There was no reason to preempt Sarang, who was already an adult, but for the Florian in the dream, procedure and justification were important.