JADE 24

So he ended up holding out until lunchtime. Well, it was Jin Sejun’s usual style to wait a little longer for a proper meal rather than fill up on something like that.

But even after that, he kept finding himself thinking about the thing in his pocket.

In any case, most of what he did today was trying to act cheerful so as not to seem annoyed by every person he ran into talking about his t-shirt. On top of that, perhaps because the start of his day had been so intense, he kept getting drowsy and had to do all sorts of things to stay awake.

By the time the back of Jin Sejun’s hand was mottled with pinch marks, he could hear the guardians who had come to pick up the kids from the junior competition class chatting in the lobby.

“Apparently, these days there’s a service that identifies and analyzes your pheromone scent. The waitlist is no joke, they say? They say you can use it to spray a matching perfume or to kill a scent you don’t like.”

“No way. That’s a bit scandalous, isn’t it? Young people these days are really different.”

“Can pheromone scents actually be killed? Like noise-canceling?”

“I don’t know, but I’d like to try it once.”

It was quite an interesting topic to overhear. Like personality analyses by blood type or MBTI, people were often interested in tools that could categorize them.

Jin Sejun thought it stemmed from the sense of security that came from being able to define oneself. A sense of belonging, that one fits into a certain type. Hadn’t Kwon Joowan called Jin Sejun a hipster? If he were a true hipster, he might have even enjoyed his special situation of being a half-and-half.

‘Still, that’s going too far.’

It wasn’t some shady adult entertainment business, but paying money to release pheromones for a complete stranger—it was the end of days.

Apart from Jin Sejun being a bit of an old fogey, pheromones were something whose impression changed depending on the situation and emotions in the first place. So, hearing a one-dimensional impression wasn’t something you could use to define your identity.

It’s because people buy it that such snake-oil businesses thrive, I guess.

“They say if the scent is spicy, you have a passionate side. And for Omegas, if they have a musky feel, they say they have a rough fate.”

“Is that so? What about you?”

“Ah… I’m just, you know…”

The person singled out was an Omega. Just as Jin Sejun was clicking his tongue, thinking that there were indeed people who were uncomfortable with such topics, the arrow was immediately turned on him.

“Mr. Jun, you seem like you’ve dated a lot of Omegas. What was it like?”

“What was it like?”

“Are people’s personalities and the impression their scent gives similar?”

Just then, Kwon Joowan, who had finished his class, was approaching and made eye contact with Jin Sejun. But instead of just going on his way, the guy, who couldn’t have known the context, crossed his arms in a spot where the guardians couldn’t see him.

He even lifted his chin as if expecting Jin Sejun’s answer. The gesture looked vaguely arrogant.

For a Beta, he’d been awfully interested in the love lives of manifested people since earlier. One couldn’t help but wonder how he broke up with his ex-fiancé.

‘How did they break up? He probably bolted. Got scared all of a sudden when he had to compete with an Alpha.’

Jin Sejun leaned forward and propped his chin on the desk.

“I tended to like the quiet types, but I think many of them had spicy scents. But then again, if you start liking someone, you end up liking scents you thought you disliked.”

Of course, that was a lie. He just tried spinning a tale.

“That’s true, too. Lijun’s dad, you’re a Beta, so you wouldn’t really know, right?”

“I might not know the emotional part, but it’s interesting to talk about scents. Just like how the same perfume can give a different impression depending on one’s body odor, the fact that manifested people are influenced by their emotions is romantic.”

“Oh my, you’re so well-spoken.”

It was true and a fact he already knew, but Jin Sejun’s mood sank. At one point, he too had found the folklore about pheromone scents interesting.

“Lijun’s mom is an Omega, so back then… I used to get jealous of the Alphas around her.”

So they were a Beta-Omega couple, a rare sight. The moment Jin Sejun unknowingly looked at Kwon Joowan with cold eyes, Kwon Joowan tilted his head as if he knew nothing.

“Right, they say Betas who date manifested people often develop delusional jealousy. It’s not like Alphas and Omegas are just flirting all day long.”

“What? Sometimes it looks like a total animal kingdom.”

Distracted by Kwon Joowan’s ‘head tilt,’ Jin Sejun missed the conversation and didn’t understand when Kwon Joowan used his thumb and index finger to pinch his own nose. The gesture one makes when something stinks.

‘What, what does that mean?’

Is it okay for the deputy director to act like that? It was probably meant to provoke Jin Sejun, not the guardians, but it was absurd all the same.

‘He really hates Alphas… No, does he dislike all manifested people? Because of the pain of his broken engagement?’

No, that’s not right. There was no need for Jin Sejun to try and understand Kwon Joowan’s crappy attitude.

At that moment, the person trying to reassure her Beta husband quickly changed the subject.

“Mr. Jun, what’s your scent like?”

“Me? My pheromones?”

“Yes. I’m curious.”

In context, it seemed to mean he should describe the impression someone he was attracted to felt… Perhaps to prevent a certain degree of incest, the closer the blood relative, the more scentless the pheromones feel (an interesting fact when you consider how much incest there is in the history of Betas).

So, Jin Sejun, who had never been in a proper relationship, didn’t know his own scent.

Of course, while the impression of a scent changed from moment to moment, it was possible to pick out the underlying unique scent even from a negatively received pheromone, but it was highly unlikely that a guy you were fighting to the death with would suddenly remark, “You… are a citrus type.”

Not everyone was sensitive to smells, so there were many times when emotions took over and the scent went unnoticed. Also, the very act of explicitly commenting on someone else’s pheromones felt a bit embarrassing and intimate.

And it was strange to tell the parents about his own scent.

He knew that many people had started to criticize such ‘pheromone puritanism.’ Most of those who ran ‘sex accounts’ were also free-spirited, but Jin Sejun, who watched them, was an old fogey.

In the first place, he had already spent a lifetime frantically hiding his pheromones or denying that they were his. The little bit that had leaked out in the hospital counseling room was truly unintentional, and he was repentant.

Besides, seeing Kwon Joowan, who had been watching from the side since earlier, spread his hand wide by his ear as if expecting an answer, made him really not want to say anything at all.

“Me, I’m nothing special, haha. Oh? Mr. Jon, you’re out?”

“Oh my, you’re looking as handsome as ever today.”

“It’ll still be a while before the director’s class is over, right?”

People immediately forgot the topic and welcomed Kwon Joowan.

“Lijun’s father, did something good happen? Your already bright expression has gotten even brighter.”

That shameless bastard Kwon Joowan put on his usual soulless smile over his dead-fish eyes and deftly continued the conversation. Then, he suddenly turned back to Jin Sejun, who had thrown him to the wolves.

“Actually, I have something urgent to tell Mr. Jun. Just a moment… See you later.”

“Ah, ah, you’re busy. Okay.”

“Me? Now?”

If it were that urgent, he wouldn’t have been loitering around watching. But Jin Sejun’s energy for playing along with the uncomfortable topic had also run out, so he followed obediently.

“What is it? After sneakily eavesdropping like a creep.”

“I need you to organize the scrap paper.”

“Scrap paper? Why organize scrap paper. Throw it away.”

“Just do it. If you don’t want to, you can go back to the lobby.”

“Hey, isn’t this workplace harassment?”

Kwon Joowan glared and faced off against the defiant Jin Sejun, then suddenly let out a deep sigh.

“…You look tired. You can catch some sleep while you’re organizing.”

“Uh…”

“You’re really dense, Mr. Sejun.”

It wasn’t a teasing tone at all; he said it as if he were genuinely worried.

In the corner room where the printer, chemicals, and miscellaneous items were kept, there was also a cot. Come to think of it, it seemed to be used as a nurse’s office, but that wasn’t important. Jin Sejun furrowed his brow and pushed Kwon Joowan’s shoulder.

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what. The consideration?”

“That pitying expression, that. Only my marriage partner can do that to me.”

“……”

“If you’re going to sneak me away, you should’ve done it sooner. I’m getting off work soon, so if I sleep now, what, are you telling me to work overtime? I probably won’t even be able to sleep when I lie down at night anyway.”

“Then just close your eyes.”

Although Jin Sejun was rambling and picking an absurd fight, Kwon Joowan just nodded. It was like the attitude of someone who knew that reacting to every little thing would only make him more infuriating, or it could have just been a way to tell him to calm down.

‘So annoying!’

In the end, Jin Sejun obediently listened as if under a spell. As soon as he lay down and closed his eyes, Kwon Joowan turned off the light and left the room.

After Jin Sejun stopped coming to the academy, would Kwon Joowan seek him out separately?

It seemed absolutely unlikely. The way he was taking care of him now seemed to be half out of duty as an academy teacher, and half to repay Jin Sejun for his meddling.

His mental state had been really bad lately. A look at how the insides of his eyelids had grown damp as soon as Kwon Joowan’s footsteps faded proved it.

If he did more cardio, would he be able to stop feeling depressed at crazy times like this?

No matter how much Kwon Joowan helped him with his daily workouts or snuck him away during awkward moments like just now, he had already been rejected twice.

If he made another move and got rejected again, it would be three strikes, and it was obvious he’d be heading to a hell with no loser’s bracket.

‘No, it sounds like I have one more chance…’

He had pride and intelligence; he would never make a move. He just had to hang out moderately until May and then go back. In the first place, it was Jin Sejun who had set the one-month time limit for Kwon Joowan, who had come as a hospital counseling client.

‘We’ve seen each other for longer than I thought.’

He was tired, but he couldn’t sleep even with his eyes closed. Jin Sejun lay there for a long time before turning the light back on and rummaging through things like the computer connected to the printer and the first-aid kit.

Then, around the time the last class of the day ended, he staggered out of the room. In his hand was a piece of paper that had been lying around the printer.

All the students who came today were picked up by their guardians, so there was no need for Kwon Joowan to go out. As soon as the send-offs were over, Jin Sejun approached Kwon Joowan and held out the paper he had picked up earlier.

“There’s a typo here that says ‘hung but strong’.”

When printing the academy’s promotional pamphlets, Kwon Joowan writes the copy. On the draft he had seen while snooping around the printer earlier, there was a fatal typo in the phrase that should have been ‘a small but strong first step.’

When he discovered it, it was so funny that the depression that had briefly visited him completely vanished. He was dying to tease him about it as soon as possible.

“Yes, I was introducing myself.”

He hadn’t expected such a confident response, but…