JADE 41

Could this be fate?

My heart fluttered at the sudden thought, but seeing the eyes full of hostility brought me back to my senses. Even Kwon Joowan would have wanted to kill him. Who would take off while the other person was in the shower unless they’d been seduced for the purpose of stealing their wallet?

My mind was a complete mess, but I felt I should at least apologize, so I unblocked him on the messenger app and wrote out a long, pathetic string of words.

After dashing off the message without even knowing what nonsense I had spewed, I approached the now-familiar sedan and knocked. Then, Jin Sejun, who had been mouthing something, spoke clearly.

“…Get in for a moment. Just for 30 seconds.”

I glanced at Jin Sejun’s nephew in the back seat and dazedly got in, only to have Jin Sejun grab me by the ear.

“You dissed me and even blocked me, and now you want to contact me whenever you feel like it? Do you take people for morons? What, are you scared that the person who knows your secret is a student’s guardian?”

“Secret?”

“The sex account, you bastard. You proudly babbled on about your tax problems and all. Do you even have the right to teach kids?”

Even while being cursed at, and even though the situation was not lighthearted, my sensitive ear grew hot and flushed, less from shame and more from the fact that Jin Sejun’s hand was touching it and that we were face to face in such close proximity.

…How pathetic.

I naturally assumed Jin Yiseo would transfer to another academy. Or that the director would call Kwon Joowan in and ask if he ran an account where he posted videos of himself masturbating. But neither of those things happened. Instead, Jin Sejun started coming to the academy.

‘…’

I was puzzled, then felt a flicker of hope, then realized it was a scheme to screw me over and calmed my seesawing emotions again—it was a repeating cycle. I figured Jin Sejun was done with me now, so he would go back after he’d taken out his anger on me enough.

‘He really is big for an omega…’

He must have had a tough time. People go crazy when the image others want from them doesn’t match their true identity.

Did Jin Sejun pretend to be an alpha because he hated being an omega? We could have had some common ground in the sense that we were both hiding our true selves, but Kwon Joowan was a psycho alpha among alphas, so it was all ruined.

But the more I observed, the more I saw that Jin Sejun was steeped in alpha pride and said and did things that were so shockingly out of character for an omega. Besides, based on what I felt the day Jin Sejun bought me an americano instead of a lactose-intolerance-terror-drink, I thought my assumption that he was an omega might have been a mistake.

Apart from my attraction, there were many times I got swept up in my emotions when facing Jin Sejun, and it was precisely the kind of volatility that occurs when the aggression of two alphas becomes entangled.

Right… Whether it was through drugs or surgery, not all the side effects had been revealed. When it came to pheromones, Kwon Joowan couldn’t trust his own senses 100 percent.

But I liked that he was stuck to the academy and would talk to me, so I didn’t want to send Jin Sejun away. Whether it was a jab or something else, I was happy that I could still meet his eyes and talk with him…

It was because of Kwon Joowan’s selfishness that he remained by Jin Sejun’s side, so he had to treat him without showing any emotion. That was why, even while being crazy with attraction, he acted so blandly.

Somehow, thinking it was for Jin Sejun’s sake made it much easier to be dull, and the fact that he had a surprisingly childish side also helped. The way he would grind his teeth yet not take any real revenge, just hovering around, also seemed like a peculiar personality trait.

I thought he was a perfect alpha, but at times he made me mistake him for an omega, and at other times he acted like a cool friend. And yet, I heard he also fooled around with his hospital patients…

When I found that out, I felt an inexplicable sense of betrayal. Even though we were nothing to each other, and the one who ran away was Kwon Joowan.

‘He must have a fetish for his hospital clients.’

Did he approach them the same way he approached Kwon Joowan? Once my thoughts reached that point, I wanted to kill the bastards who had slept with Jin Sejun.

‘Ah, no.’

If Jin Sejun was a weird bastard, Kwon Joowan was a crazy bastard. I shouldn’t be conscious of my emotions, whether positive or negative. Jin Sejun is just an annoying male alpha… I want Jin Sejun, but I absolutely can’t.

As I kept pushing him away like that, Jin Sejun finally exploded once.

“Why do I have to be covered in the shit from your past? Someone else got hurt, so I don’t understand why you’re acting like you’re the one in pain.”

As expected, Jin Sejun is a person who opens up a path. So from now on, instead of pretending to face a great disaster alone, Kwon Joowan had to squarely face the fact that he himself was the problem. Even if being scolded by Jin Sejun was blissful, even if the way he came back every time I pushed him away was lovely, I must not dare to want him. I even had to be careful about touching him.

I had resolved to do so, yet Jin Sejun casually poked at Kwon Joowan’s emotionlessness, which had been forged through drugs and self-suggestion. Was it thanks to the insensitivity that came from his natural alpha-ness? After I returned the words he tossed out thoughtlessly, I somehow even felt relieved.

So I would get swept up in the thought that we could remain as friends, but then I would become aware of my own desires and Jin Sejun’s heart, and the ground would feel like it was collapsing beneath my feet.

I just wanted to do everything he asked, but the thought that I absolutely couldn’t coexisted with it, so I couldn’t even be consistent with Jin Sejun.

When someone approached the Jin Sejun I had given up on, I became jealous of all of them, even Ahn Saeha. The situation was serious. If I didn’t take action, I would cause trouble with these intensified emotions…

✶⋆.˚

Jin Sejun lay on his bed in his room, staring at the ceiling even though the sun was high in the sky. When he got bored of that, he would stare at the flamenco dancer figurine.

He felt like he could live again now that he was unemployed and had gotten rid of Kwon Joowan.

Or was that wrong? Did he feel like he was going to die?

It was probably because he was pissed off.

A little while after quitting, he got a call from Kwon Joowan, but he just said a normal farewell. It was exactly the kind of thing a typical working person would say to a colleague they weren’t very close to.

The cowardly bastard would probably be so pricked by just that, he wouldn’t even dare to contact him. Unlike Kwon Joowan, Jin Sejun wasn’t going to block him or anything. They didn’t have the kind of personality or relationship to actively run away like that.

Of course, he couldn’t say that quitting the academy in secret, even begging the director to keep it quiet, wasn’t running away…

Was he trying to get revenge for being abandoned once and then dumped again, even though they were nothing to each other? For it to be revenge, Kwon Joowan would have to feel a sense of loss greater than Jin Sejun’s, but in the current situation, it was hard to tell.

Laughing self-deprecatingly, Jin Sejun pulled out his vibrating phone.

010—XXXX—XXXX: Hello, this is tour leader OOO from OO Tour. I will be accompanying you on the Spain and Portugal trip on Month O, Day O.

He had signed up for almost the exact same package tour that his older brother and his wife had gone on. He got lucky and snagged a spot that someone had canceled. With the departure date just around the corner, Jin Sejun plundered all the travel supplies that Jin Youngjun’s family had bought.

“Hey, leave the electric kettle. I think every place had one except for one spot. Bring stuff like citric acid to clean the kettle.”

“Everything comes out if I just ask…”

“I’m worried about sending off an ignoramus who calls tacos Spanish food. Here, you have to tie this anti-theft cord to your phone and wallet before you go.”

“It’s a pain…”

“You know it’s a hundred times more of a pain if something happens because you thought it was a pain, right? Anyway, keep everything attached to your body, and don’t get robbed and cry because you were spacing out and gawking around in a crowded place because you found it interesting.”

“Being rich-looking is a disadvantage at times like this, I see.”

“The most important thing: don’t be an asshole.”

“Yes, sir.”

Only after receiving a heap of nagging disguised as concern from his older brother did Jin Sejun start to look up information about the country he was going to. But for the most part, nothing but stories about pickpockets caught his eye, so he gave up midway.

He wasn’t going on the trip with much excitement anyway, so he just planned to be dragged around wherever the tour leader took him. He had no expectations. Did he say before that he wanted to meet a passionate beta from Spain? For crying out loud, just the thought of doing anything remotely like courting someone was exhausting.

On the day of departure, Chae Yoonmi, for some reason, drove Jin Sejun to the airport. Jin Sejun only opened his mouth just before they arrived at the terminal.

“What’s up with you, sister-in-law? I thought you only used me as a driver.”

“Sejun, you need to speak more nicely. Here.”

The envelope Jin Sejun received was thick with euro banknotes. He forgot to give an appropriate reaction and fumbled a bit.

“What? Why? You can exchange currency on your phone these days.”

“I’m giving it to you to buy presents on your way back.”

“You guys were complaining that you bought too much and had a ton left over…”

He suddenly realized that he had been grumbling disgustingly, like a teenage son or a younger brother. Only then did a strained smile spread across his face.

“I’ll put it to good use.”

“You can just say thank you.”

“Thank you.”

“There you go. Have a good trip.”

“Yes, and sister-in-law, don’t you go getting all swoony over Yiseo’s academy director and vice director again…”

“Go!”

Who was it that had been swooning over that vice director and then ran away? Jin Sejun bowed his head with a self-mocking thought.

It had been a long time since he had come to Incheon Airport alone. Jin Sejun watched the carts and suitcases rolling here and there before heading to the travel agency’s meeting point at the scheduled time. After receiving a guide receiver, itinerary, and other items and listening to the explanation, he went straight to the lounge, bypassing the duty-free shops and everything else.

He didn’t have an appetite, so he was just going to have some water, but the gloomy mood that had settled over him recently wouldn’t go away, so he got a simple snack and some whiskey. As he was quickly sipping his first glass, it just so happened that he was surrounded by honeymooning couples.

‘I’d like to avoid dynamic couples…’

Because they might leak pheromones while being lovey-dovey. His rut was supposed to be coming up soon, but there was no sign of it, so he didn’t want to create any variables.

His previous cycle had come when he was holed up after Kwon Joowan’s hotel-run incident, and his memory of it was a bit hazy, so it had passed uneventfully. No, perhaps because he was a half-assed alpha, his ruts, which were said to be so difficult that others would seek out omega partners to spend them with, had never been particularly hard for him.

Of course, his cycle had rarely changed either… He had read in some paper that while one’s physical condition can affect the rut cycle and make it irregular, another person’s pheromones are a stronger factor. It must be a valid argument, as it’s supported by actual cases.

But he hadn’t been exposed to anyone else’s pheromones lately. The dynamics he had seen recently, other than his family, were mostly genteel, and it was said that unless you were practically soaked in pheromones, it wouldn’t affect someone else’s cycle, so there must have been another reason.

Speaking of pheromones, he didn’t think he had accidentally leaked any since his time in the counseling office. Or perhaps people were exposed to Jin Sejun’s pheromones but couldn’t connect them to Jin Sejun himself, an alpha.

In any case, he had brought his medication.