NAME 38

“I’ll head out first.”

Seowon turned around and left first. His heart felt heavy, as if a boulder had been placed on his chest. However, it was something that inevitably had to be done someday. He felt as if he had completed a long-overdue homework assignment. Not that he felt lighthearted by any means, though.

‘Baek Kanghyun, you bastard.’

He cursed him inwardly to his heart’s content. If Jaehwan knew about something that only the two of them should know, then Baek Kanghyun was undoubtedly the one who had blabbed about it. Hadn’t they agreed to act like it never happened? Why did he tell Jaehwan about that? What on earth was he thinking?

‘I really can’t stand this anymore.’

Without even the reward of eating at the cafeteria, he went back up to the office. Food wasn’t the problem. He had to see Baek Kanghyun right this instant.

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟

‘Where did he go? Why isn’t he coming?’

Baek Kanghyun, who was usually razor-sharp with his time commitments, had not returned to the office even after the lunch hour. Seowon waited, thinking he might be about five minutes late, but even after ten minutes, then twenty minutes, his status remained “away.” Had he sensed something and avoided his seat in advance? Seowon kept glancing at the office entrance until his eyes locked right with Assistant Manager Seo Jiyeon.

“Assistant Manager Jeong, what’s up? Are you waiting for someone?”

“The Team Leader. He hasn’t come in yet.”

“He said he had a lunch appointment today. He mentioned he’d be doing a client meeting while he was out too. It was posted in the group chat, I guess you didn’t see it. Is it something urgent? If it’s urgent, try calling him.”

“Ah… no. I’ll check the chat.”

The problem was that he had been tuned out from his mobile phone. He opened the chat window and checked the Sales Team 3 group chat. Just as Seo Jiyeon said, there was a message he had left.

[Team Leader Baek Kanghyun: I will head to a client meeting after lunch. I’ll be in before the end of the work day.]

Of all times, he’s out on business at a timing like this? Earlier, Seowon was so angry he felt he could have grabbed him by the collar, but now his energy just fizzled out.

Fine, perhaps it was for the better. If he had confronted him at the office and others saw, it would have been troublesome. However, he questioned whether he could actually get the result he wanted even if he did confront him. It was obvious that no matter how much Seowon barked, Baek Kanghyun would just snort in derision.

‘What’s the problem with that?’

Imagining his shameless face, Seowon roughly tore open a protein bar. Then, he began to type into a blank Word file.

Jaehwan, Baek Kanghyun, bastard, pheromones, partner, ending it… .

As he wrote down the words, his mind gradually settled.

‘Right, it was a relationship that needed to be ended anyway. Let’s just think of it as a good thing.’

Even though it happened abruptly, he had no regrets about ending the partner relationship with Jaehwan. He was just a bit worried about his future. Whether he could continue his social life without a pheromone partner… .

Jaehwan had been sending messages continuously since a while ago. Most of them were lingering words full of attachment, like “I’m sorry,” “Please think about it one more time,” and “Weren’t things good between us?” Between working, Seowon checked all his messages and sent a few replies. Although they were all just a single line saying “I’m sorry,” he thought it was better than not checking at all or leaving him on read.

This was because he knew better than anyone how agonizing the time spent waiting for the other person’s response after sending a message is, and what the heart of a person waiting for the number ‘1’ next to the text to disappear feels like. Completely ignoring him would certainly be better for cutting things off cleanly, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. The misery of knowing the other person checked but didn’t respond… . He would rather apologize a hundred or a thousand times than leave someone on read.

[Sorry. If you keep doing this, I won’t be able to see you, seriously.]

Hoping it would be the last message sent to Jaehwan, he sent that one line and closed the chat window. It was already past 3 o’clock. He maintained his expression as normally as possible, but in reality, his mind was a mess. Futile regrets—that he shouldn’t have gone to the cafeteria, that he shouldn’t have pried into why Jaehwan was acting that way—shook Seowon alternately.

Slap!

Seowon lightly slapped both cheeks and put strength into his eyes. Seowon was someone who had attended every single lecture even after ending things with Baek Kanghyun seven years ago. The breakup with Jaehwan was painful, but a mountain of work he had to take responsibility for was piled up in front of him.

In Seowon’s position, with no one around to help or look after him, he couldn’t afford to stand around dazed just because he said goodbye to a partner. If he didn’t pull himself together, he would either be swallowed by society or trampled by Baek Kanghyun. He had to postpone all useless regrets and wallowing until after work.

It might not go as well as he intended, but it was better than doing nothing.

First, he chose the simplest task from his “TO DO LIST.” At times like this, it was perfect to do something that only required moving his fingers without thinking.

“… .”

However, Seowon’s concentration didn’t even last 30 minutes. This was because Jaehwan’s damp eyes and Baek Kanghyun’s confident expression intersected alternately even while he was performing simple labor. On top of that, the worry about pheromones was added, making Seowon’s head a complete cauldron of chaos.

‘I really need to find one.’

What he needed most urgently was a pheromone partner. If something went wrong with his body again while he hadn’t found one, he might end up calling Jaehwan for an S.O.S. Then the relationship he had struggled to finish would drag on sluggishly again.

<Receiving a lot of pheromones of the opposite type helps.>

The advice he heard from the doctor acted as a cause to make Seowon feel rushed. He wanted to find a partner quickly before the next heat arrived—no, before his fever rose again. Preferably an alpha who had normal thought processes while simultaneously having pheromones that were Seowon’s type.

‘Oh right, what happened to that app?’

Then, he suddenly remembered the matching app he had briefly accessed before his heat cycle. Cycle Gate—what had happened since that day? The cycle had passed so it was useless now, but he took out his phone out of curiosity anyway.

As soon as he launched the app, hundreds of notifications popped up in a flurry. Buzz, buzz—the mobile phone vibrated endlessly, so Seowon was startled and turned off the app and switched his phone to silent mode. Then he launched the app again and checked the incoming notifications.

[‘Premium Alpha’ has requested a match.]

[‘Extreme Dominant’ has requested a match.]

[‘Big John’ has requested a match.]

[… .]

[… .]

Just looking at the nicknames made him feel nauseated. To think there were so many alphas with such overinflated egos. Furthermore, the chats sent by the alphas who requested matches were more of a spectacle than their nicknames. It was a feast of all sorts of filthy words and sentences, ranging from “Can pound you for 3 days and 2 nights without stopping” to “Are you very wet?”

Seowon closed his eyes tight, then opened them narrowly and first deleted his profile. Then, after rummaging through the app, he finally found the “delete account” button, pressed it, and deleted the app.

<It’s a hit or miss, but if you look carefully, it’s not bad.>

It wasn’t just a hit or miss; it was just miss, miss, miss. How could anyone find a partner in a cesspool like that? A strong doubt arose regarding the reviews he had seen on the internet and YouTube. Isn’t it all just advertising?

“Whew… .”

Getting help from an app was out of the question, and the remaining method… there was none yet. Facing the naked reality made him realize once again what a good partner Jaehwan had been to Seowon himself. Even if he were to find a next partner, it would be hard to meet someone as dryly as Jaehwan. Not to mention kissing, and of course… .

‘I’ll have to have sex too.’

Suddenly, the future looked bleak. No, let’s not think so seriously. What was sex, anyway? He had done it with Baek Kanghyun, so there was no reason he couldn’t do it with someone else. He could just think of it as an act of treatment, intended to receive pheromones.

Is that… it?

‘Should I just date instead?’

If he met a decent alpha and started dating, they would naturally have sex too. Then his pheromone worries would disappear, and if they got along, they could get married and have children… .

‘That… won’t work.’

The brakes slammed on at the part about children. As long as his pheromone gland was in this state, pregnancy was as difficult as plucking a star from the sky, and in fact, Seowon, who had lived as a beta for over 20 years, couldn’t even imagine himself carrying a child. Furthermore, he felt guilt about trying to date—which should be premised on love—just because of pheromones.

He couldn’t create any more victims like Jaehwan. Therefore, what Seowon needed right now was someone who could cleanly provide only pheromones. If they demanded sex as a pretext for that… he was willing to grant it. No, he would absolutely have to grant it. Still, if his pheromone gland became normal and suppressants started working well, he would terminate the relationship immediately, so there would be no problem.