NAME 14

“Team Leader, about yesterday, once again…”

Seowon wanted to wrap up this uncomfortable conversation before lunch ended. Just as he was about to apologize again, an unexpected name popped out of Baek Kanghyun’s mouth.

“Assistant Manager Lee Jaehwan from the Public Relations Team, is that person Assistant Manager Jeong’s partner?”

“…”

Seowon shut his mouth tight like a clam. He knew his silence would be taken as an affirmation, but he could not bring himself to say it out loud.

“Lee Jaehwan is a colleague from my hiring class.”

“And a partner.”

“…”

A question blossomed in Seowon’s mind as to why he had to be having this kind of conversation with Baek Kanghyun.

“That has nothing to do with what happened yesterday.”

“Whether it has something to do with it or not is for me to judge.”

It is not strange at all for manifested individuals to have pheromone partners. However, it was a deeply private area, so it was rare to reveal it. To the eyes of ordinary people, it would look no different from a sex partner. That was why Seowon took meticulous care even when meeting Jaehwan. He kept the time for exchanging pheromones as short as possible and in secret locations, and he struggled to maintain a dry, professional relationship with him normally.

“Team Leader, what is it that you want to say?”

Seowon, exhausted just from exchanging words with him, decided to simply ask for his intent. He must have some ulterior motive for bringing up the partner.

“You have a head for work, you are quick-witted, and you have good relationships with people. From my position as Team Leader, Assistant Manager Jeong is a fairly decent subordinate. Though it would be hard to say our relationship is particularly good.”

“You flatter me.”

“I do not think the reason the relationship between Assistant Manager Jeong and me went sour lies solely with me. It takes two hands to clap, after all.”

“Are you saying the fault lies with me as well?”

Seowon’s tone became somewhat agitated.

“I still do not really know. Why Assistant Manager Jeong dislikes me. No, why you disliked me from the very beginning.”

“I have already explained that. I am also making an effort since you gave me that warning.”

He felt that Baek Kanghyun’s talk was circling around the subject. He was frustrated by the man who would not move toward the core. Surely that wasn’t what he wanted to say, yet he kept laying out useless explanations as if he were hesitating.

“At first, I thought Assistant Manager Jeong was just being careful because I am an Alpha and you are an Omega. Since I didn’t want to cause any unnecessary misunderstandings.”

“Team Leader, lunch is almost over. I would like you to say what you have to say quickly.”

As he became anxious, his speech quickened along with it. Baek Kanghyun stared out the window. Tsk, he clicked his tongue briefly, and his lips wavered.

What kind of story is he trying to tell that he’s stalling like this? Seowon held his breath, fixing his gaze on the man’s lips. Soon, Seowon doubted his ears upon hearing the words that jumped out of Baek Kanghyun’s mouth.

“Change your partner.”

“…Pardon?”

“If you understood, let’s not ask again. I told you to change your partner.”

His mind went blank as if he had been struck hard on the back of the head. Being a son of a bitch, he certainly knew how to talk nonsense. It was appalling enough that the topic of a partner came up, but to tell him to change it. Within Seowon’s range of common sense, he could not understand his meaning at all, nor did he want to.

“Why is there no answer?”

“I do not feel it is worth answering.”

His tone was polite, but the content was defiant. However, Seowon did not think that was wrong. No matter how much of a superior Baek Kanghyun was, there was no reason for him to interfere in his private sphere.

“Whomever I have as a partner is a matter unrelated to the Team Leader. You were extremely rude just now.”

“I think begging your superior to release pheromones, and at the office at that, is more rude.”

His face flushed hot. The events of last night, which he had forgotten for a moment, come back vividly. He begged for pheromones and begged for his lips. He hung on frantically, greedily swallowing his thick pheromones. Seowon had even groaned for a long time after arriving home, intoxicated by Baek Kanghyun’s pheromones. His excessively stimulated body heated up and kept craving an Alpha. How miserable he felt looking at his soaking wet underwear.

As if Seowon’s visibly shaken appearance was quite entertaining, Baek Kanghyun pulled up one corner of his mouth.

“There is no reason to change. And it’s not as if I can just be partners with anyone.”

“…”

“I am telling you once more, in the future, so that it does not interfere with company work…”

“You can do it with me, the partnering.”

His words were blocked and his breath was stifled. He felt as if his every cell had stopped its life activity. Since the words that jumped out of Baek Kanghyun’s mouth seemed like an auditory hallucination, Seowon slyly put his pinky finger in his ear and took it out.

His ears weren’t blocked, so why was this so blocking his spirit?

Toward Seowon, who could neither ask back nor answer, Baek Kanghyun continued speaking without hesitation.

“Since we are in the same department, even if something like yesterday happens again, it will be easy to deal with immediately, and I don’t think I fall into the category of ‘just anyone.’ Looking at yesterday, it seemed Assistant Manager Jeong quite liked my pheromones, was that not the case?”

Seowon gathered his crumbled spirit and barely managed to speak.

“Team Leader, are, are you saying this while in your right mind?”

“Is that even a question? It’s not just being in my right mind; it’s a conclusion I reached after my own deliberations.”

Does one even need to deliberate to spout such nonsense? Seowon, with his eyes and mouth wide open, shook his head side to side.

“I refuse.”

“You cannot.”

Baek Kanghyun acted willfully. The fact that Baek Kanghyun, of all people, was meddling in an issue that even Seowon’s parents wouldn’t interfere with was appalling, and furthermore, it made him angry.

“Team Leader, have you gone mad? Why, why did such a conclusion come out?”

Seowon, who had almost lost his composure, did not even know what he was saying and spoke whatever came out of his mouth. Forgetting the fact that the other person was his superior, he failed to exercise caution in his word choice and raised his voice.

“In any case, I hate it. I said I refuse!”

And he stood up abruptly from his seat, huffing. Baek Kanghyun also stood up from his seat and looked down at Seowon. Seowon tilted his chin up as far as it would go and glared at him.

Is this a new method of workplace harassment? Does he even know what a partner is to be spouting such things? Baek Kanghyun, who has lived as a manifested individual much longer than himself, could not possibly be ignorant of that. In other words, the proposal he made to Seowon just now was harassment, and furthermore, violence.

<I was getting bored… want to go together?>

<Together? Where to?>

<A place where only the two of us can be.>

The image of Baek Kanghyun reaching out his hand seven years ago overlapped. He had grabbed it recklessly back then, but not now. Even for the sake of his past self who had been so hurt by that one momentary choice, he must never get entangled with him again.

“I said no.”

“Even if you are the Team Leader, you do not have that kind of authority. If you keep acting this way, I will not stay still either.”

“Let’s hear the reason at least.”

Then and now, he was full of confidence. To him, whom people naturally clung to even if he stayed still, Seowon’s attitude might feel fresh, or rather, pathetic. As if asking how you could possibly refuse me, he even let his pheromones drift slightly, scraping at Seowon’s nerves. Seowon twisted his lips hard into a diagonal line and spoke.

“Because even I have tastes.”

There was a meeting in the afternoon. Meetings were always burdensome because once they started, they could last from as short as 30 minutes to over 2 hours.

“I would like to talk about which direction we should strengthen our strategy in order to achieve this quarter’s target.”

“Our company set the target for this quarter as a 20% increase in total sales, and to achieve this, prioritizing the breakdown of targets and establishing specific action plans seems necessary.”

“In the last quarter, we saw a sales increase in the 10% range, so I wonder if a 20% target is too excessive.”

“It would be important to set the goal high for now and put in the maximum effort to achieve it. We should establish a strategy to increase the repurchase rate of existing customers. It is also necessary to provide customized services for customers or establish a system that can identify and respond to customer needs through periodic feedback.”

Assistant Manager level employees with similar years of experience to Seowon mainly offered opinions, and the new hires added their views in between. The meeting proceeded with the Section Manager and Team Leader listening to the statements and evaluating them or adding their own opinions.

As the general direction was set, the pace picked up. Seowon, whose condition had hit its peak, offered opinions more actively than usual and even added an analysis of the current situation.

“If you analyze the data from the last quarter on page 17, a specific product group is showing high sales performance. It would be considered good to think of a strategy to intensively strengthen marketing and promotions for that product group.”

“Is that so? How do you plan to set the price?”