METAL 7

Jun gazed at him blankly. Hyunsoo, not losing, met those turquoise eyes and stared back.

“Right, evidence.”

Jun nodded.

I haven’t been able to get any physical evidence yet, after all, he muttered as a final thought, then stood up. Hyunsoo also stood up soon after.

The two rode the elevator down to the first floor without a word. Lunchtime had passed, but neither of them had had anything but a cup of coffee. Jun smiled and suggested to Hyunsoo that they really go to the cafeteria together now, but Hyunsoo shook his head. While gripping the strap of his crossbody bag so tightly that the bones on the back of his hand showed white.

“Then at least take this, Professor.”

Jun stood about a step away from Hyunsoo, slid his backpack off one shoulder to his chest, opened it, and reached his hand inside.

Hyunsoo watched blankly as he put his hand into a small pocket inside the backpack. The hand, with its clean outlines and solid bone structure like it was carved from high-quality stone, rummaged through the long, elastic pocket. The area near his wrist bone was tightly caught in the elastic-banded opening, and as his fingers buried themselves in the inner wall, the shapes of his knuckles bulged out unevenly.

Jun finally took out two snack bars and held them out. But when Hyunsoo just frowned and stared without trying to take them, Jun forcibly pushed them one by one into the outer pocket of the crossbody bag and zipped it closed.

“These will be healthier than what you usually eat. They have nuts and whole wheat and dried fruit, and honey, too. But, I really hope you eat properly and take care of yourself. That way….”

Just before Jun could continue in a whisper, Hyunsoo cut him off and asked back. That way… what?

Even though he spat the words out quite sharply through his teeth, Jun didn’t show much of a reaction. He just gave a slight smile, bowed his head respectfully, and then turned and disappeared toward the back gate parking lot.

After Jun left, Hyunsoo also soon went out the back gate and stood in line at the shuttle bus stop, took the bus, and got off at the subway entrance. Then, after finishing his afternoon language class at another school just four stops away, he headed to Gangnam at five o’clock to tutor.

Yejin. He smiled lightly upon seeing the student who came out to the entrance to greet him.

Seeing the sixteen-year-old high school student’s face, Hyunsoo felt a part of his mind calm down as if purified, even amidst the chaotic situation. She was Hyunsoo’s only current tutoring student, and the younger sister of the person who had also been his only tutoring student during his university days. A precious memory, a precious connection.

Time flowed peacefully while he taught Yejin English and Spanish. Hyunsoo returned to his studio apartment in Gangbuk only around eight-thirty in the evening. To his own room in the omega-exclusive studio apartment building.

Although it was omega-exclusive, there was no such sign on the building, nor was it registered as such with a real estate agency. Advertising it openly could lead to bad things, after all. It was a building where you had to verify your trait-holder status with your resident registration number, enter a community portal where only verified users were given access, and then search with a specific keyword to be able to apply for residency.

The location of this studio apartment building was not a major security concern, and two security cameras were installed in front of the building’s common entrance, complementing each other’s blind spots. The common entrance had a password keypad, and then each room’s door had its own lock. Special attention was paid to security, with tinted windows and iron bars attached on the inside.

Another advantage was that each room had a private bathroom, even if it was just a showerhead attached above the sink. That was why Hyunsoo chose this studio apartment building despite the expensive monthly rent and security deposit for its room size.

Omegas have to spend more money and be more careful when finding a place to live. Especially if they are a dominant omega, it goes without saying. So hurry up and marry a good person, or else, for goodness sake, go to an acting academy before it’s too late…. Back in high school, Choi Jinwoo had told Hyunsoo this so often his ears hurt as he tried to comfort him. After showering, Hyunsoo toweled his hair dry, came out into the room, and sat on the edge of the bed right in front of the bathroom.

Although there was a ventilation fan in the bathroom ceiling, its performance wasn’t very good. Even if you turned it on while showering, so much steam would build up that when you opened the door, the room would get humid too. Hyunsoo opened both of the studio’s windows to let out the warm air and began to organize his bag. A laptop, writing utensils, a notebook, a book, three thin papers, and a water bottle.

Finally, two snack bars containing various kinds of nuts, honey, and dried fruit.

Earlier, Jun had kept the snack bars snugly in an inner pocket of his backpack before taking them out and giving them to Hyunsoo. Unlike Jun’s backpack, Hyunsoo’s crossbody bag didn’t have an inner pocket with an elastic-banded opening, only a square outer pocket that opened and closed with a zipper. Jun had forcibly stuffed the snack bars into that pocket and left.

Sitting on the floor of the studio with his back against the bed, Hyunsoo took out the two bars one by one. With the zipper half-closed on purpose so that they would come out with a tight squeeze.

When they were finally held full in his hands, Hyunsoo swallowed hard.

After waiting for the humidity in the room to dissipate, closing the windows and drawing the curtains, and turning off all the lights in the room, Hyunsoo went back into the bathroom. The snack bars were stacked neatly on his desk; instead, he was holding the water bottle.

He closed the toilet lid, then took off his pants and underwear, folded them neatly, and placed them right in front of the bathroom door. Then he closed the door, knelt down, and lay prostrate with his chest on the well-wiped lid.

“Hh, mmm.”

As if someone was covering his mouth, Hyunsoo intentionally muffled his moans as he opened the water bottle with his hand. While unscrewing the cap, he lowered his waist deeply, and conversely, raised his bare buttocks higher, twitching his anus.

The suppressive effect of ‘Pre-Fill’ is strong. Hyunsoo knew well that even masturbating would not be easy today. The suppressant inhibits hormone action and also blocks the secretion of related bodily fluids. It would be difficult to even reach ejaculation with his penis, and his hole was out of the question. No matter how accurately he poked the spot, almost no fluid would come out.

An omega who takes suppressants during their heat is worse than an omega not in heat, hadn’t that alpha sunbae said so eight years ago? And then he had taken Hyunsoo’s suppressants and instead injected an enhancer into the vein in his neck.

About ten minutes later, looking down at Hyunsoo who was writhing from the drug’s effects but still resisting to the end, the sunbae had asked, surprised, as if he had been betrayed or insulted. You… me, right?

I know everything, what am I supposed to do if you act like this now.

His tone was even tinged with sadness.

“Ung, ugh, heuk.”

As if someone were holding his waist, Hyunsoo moaned and twisted his hips from side to side as if resisting. At the same time, he slowly brought the mouth of the water bottle toward his anus. While pressing it with his thumb so that the water wouldn’t leak out.

Only after burying the mouth of the bottle between the cheeks of his buttocks did he remove his thumb, and quickly shoved it into his hole before the water could overflow.

“Hiek, ack!”

Even though he had pushed it in himself, Hyunsoo’s jaw trembled as he let out a muffled scream. And while tightening his grip on the plastic bottle, he changed the angle of his hand to bury the mouth deeper into the mucous membrane. After squeezing it hard a few times until the bottle dented, the contents poured into his insides.

“Ugh, uuunng, hiek, ah.”

His stomach suddenly churned from accepting a foreign object, and Hyunsoo twisted his waist, spreading his pelvis wide. His tailbone trembled. The bottle was now buried in his anus not just by its mouth, but halfway up to its sloped top.

It hurts, Hyunsoo thought, and even while thinking it, he twisted the mouth of the bottle this way and that, rummaging through the inner walls. It hurts.

His anus, which was not relaxed at all and produced no fluid, quickly swelled up, and the more he pushed the bottle in, the more it tore rather than spread. Blood mixed with the water, gathered at the point of contact, and then trickled down the creases to his perineum, one drop at a time.

“Ah, uh, uunng.”

Hyunsoo thrust the bottle deep into his anus and then slowly pulled it out. Then, with only the very tip inside, he pushed it back in again roughly. The dented and uneven surface of the bottle rummaged through the inner walls and the opening, causing the bleeding to worsen.

As the pain intensified, Hyunsoo recalled Jun’s hand taking the snack bars out of his bag. Inside the black smart backpack that doubled for hiking, there was an inner pocket with an elastic-banded opening.

A long, narrow pocket made of elastic mesh material. Into that opening, Jun inserted his middle and index fingers, their knuckles prominent. Then, almost his entire hand was swallowed. The band instantly tightened and bit into his wrist just below the protruding triangular bone.

Not just his hair, but Jun’s entire body had light pigmentation, so the skin on his hands was also fair and bright. As it went into the opening, the thick bones on the back of his hand stood out even whiter, and when it finally penetrated deep inside, the pocket instantly bulged. As it thrust in and out repeatedly, the mesh and the band stuck to the skin of his hand with a chewy stickiness.

Jun’s hand finally, slowly, came out of the opening. Very slowly, gripping the two snack bars tightly, as if taking out some tool he had placed there beforehand.

The bulging, taut lower belly of the bag’s inner pocket deflated. But ung, ung, the pocket moaned regretfully. As if sad about what had been taken away.

Uuu, ah, making sounds inside his mouth, Hyunsoo continued to stir his insides with the top of the bottle. Squeezing the bottle in his hand to dent it even more, trying to wring out even a little more water. But the plastic bottle was now flattened. The water had collected in droplets along the inner folds of the plastic container and would hardly flow out.

“Ah, ugh….”

Hyunsoo crawled down from the toilet lid and lay prostrate on the bathroom floor, his chest and cheek pressed against it. As if he wanted to imitate the image of someone stepping on and pressing down on his head, he deliberately pressed his face hard against the tiles, enough to leave a mark on his cheek. After making moaning and sobbing sounds, Hyunsoo finally pulled the water bottle out from behind him.

“Heu, uwaa, ack!”

As soon as his hand was free, Hyunsoo grabbed his own penis. He gripped it and twisted it as if intending to render it useless, scratched the shaft until it bled, poked his urethra with his fingernails, and squeezed and pressed his glans relentlessly. Unable to bear the pain, his anus relaxed, and water gushed out, pouring down his groin and inner thighs.

Hyunsoo tortured his penis, twisting and scratching it until all the water had flowed out. Filthy, you filthy bastard, he cursed, and as if being beaten while hearing those curses from someone, he hit his own head with his fist and rubbed his forehead and lips on the floor.

Filthy.

With only his lower half naked, kneeling on the bathroom floor and propped up with his buttocks raised towards the ceiling, Hyunsoo thought. He had not masturbated for a very long time. After leaving Korea, he had never had a reason to touch his penis. Others might laugh if they heard it, but life was sufficient with just studying. He only took extreme care to take his suppressants on time.

But today he had done it twice. Once in the front, and once in the back.

Of course, the second time, Hyunsoo himself had not come. But the alpha who was behind Hyunsoo had played with him to his heart’s content and then came inside him. Judging by the amount, he had poured it out as if he had knotted. An omega should count that as ‘himself’ having come.

Jun Griffin.

With the flesh between his legs soaked with traces of blood, Hyunsoo thought of that name only in his mind. Jun Griffin, Jun.

Then his buttocks lightly convulsed again, spreading the creases.

This is intense, he thought, as he slowly got up. Dominant alphas and dominant omegas are sensitive to each other’s scents, but this was extreme.

Hyunsoo had grown up hearing things like, You don’t just stop at dominant, you’re obviously an extreme dominant, aren’t you? Look at that smell. It’s intense. Perhaps Jun Griffin was of that kind too. From the classroom to the café and the elevator, he had only been exposed to his pheromones for about an hour, yet the heat had lingered until night and left him in this state.

Still, a dominant omega can control his own pheromones even in front of a dominant alpha. Today, for the first time, Jun had seriously released his pheromones in front of Hyunsoo, but despite the other’s ‘seduction,’ Hyunsoo had not released his own pheromones.

When it comes to a contest of pheromones alone, a dominant alpha and a dominant omega are an even match. But recessive omegas are different. They are forcibly subjugated by the seduction of a dominant alpha.

If an alpha like Jun Griffin sets his mind to it and releases his scent, a recessive omega’s pheromone blockade is broken on a physiological level. As a result, in response to a dominant alpha’s light seduction, the omega ends up seducing back with much greater intensity. In other words, the alpha might have just winked, but the omega spreads his hole and grinds his hips. That’s why people say it’s extremely difficult to distinguish between consent and rape between a dominant alpha and a recessive omega.

If Jun Griffin wanted to, he could have mated with as many recessive omegas as he pleased until now. Hyunsoo mulled it over again.

He could have taken them wherever he wanted, mated with them in any way he wanted, and perhaps even killed them. As if the omega himself had wanted it. Believing with all his heart that he had clung to him, that he had spread his legs, that he himself had wanted to be fucked until his last breath.

Of course, a recessive alpha is also forcibly subjugated by the pheromones of a dominant omega. That is why people say it is difficult to distinguish between rape and consent between a dominant omega and a recessive alpha as well. In the case of an extreme dominant omega, they say it’s difficult even with a beta male.

Hyunsoo recalled reading the records of the omega human rights movement history on the peninsula. About forty years ago, a certain dominant omega publicly declared his celibacy in the newspapers. He was found dead in the street a few weeks later. Several recessive alphas had surrounded him while he was hiding at home in heat and dragged him out.

The alphas adamantly denied the charge of gang rape. They claimed they had just been drawn by the dominant omega’s scent. And they testified that he had died while they were ‘serving him’ ‘as he wanted.’ A few days later, the medical examiners announced the autopsy results; although there were other factors in the omega’s death, a heart attack caused by excessive excitement during sexual activity was indeed fatal.

In the end, most newspapers at the time ran the headline ‘Celibate Omega’s Death by Ecstasy.’ The poor recessive alphas were left as victims who had been sexually exploited, bewitched by the omega’s pheromones, and even burdened with the trauma of indirect murder.

Hyunsoo mulled it over as he put the towel he had used to wipe himself into the laundry basket in the corner of the room. Physical evidence, that’s ridiculous.

He muttered to himself, recalling the conversation at the faculty café today. It’s been eight years. How could they find those plastic bags now? They would have sunk deep under the water, the flesh all rotted away, with only the bones left. But as he thought that, a throbbing, headache-like pain pricked his temples. The bones would still be there.