METAL 4

Nowadays, there’s such a thing as an image search. So that guy probably found Hyunsoo quickly too. Hey, I ran a search on the kid, and it turns out he’s an instructor at your university? Then you guys go talk to him first. It’s weird if an outsider like me suddenly shows up. You guys slowly get close to him and coax him into having a meal or something. If you bring him to a company dinner and get a few drinks in him, I’ll be nearby and come over… Just like that in the high school club, and when he tried to work part-time at a cafe, and at the university end-of-semester party, the people he had thought he had finally gotten close to were, in fact.

Distant memories choked Hyunsoo. As he held his breath, the other person asked once more. This time, not in a whisper, but with a clear voice.

“Are you okay, Professor?”

Only then did Hyunsoo remember that soft tone of voice.

And the refreshing and unique body scent. Hyunsoo slowly exhaled and smiled. Not out of relief, but because he was several times more on guard.

“I’m fine.”

Turquoise eyes pushed into Hyunsoo’s. They were Jun Griffin’s eyes.

There was a time when he had naively believed that this student was only kind. It was definitely like that until early May. Until that very moment on the night five days before Teacher’s Day.

Not anymore.

Jun hesitated for a moment, studying Hyunsoo’s complexion, then tilted his head and opened his lips to say something. As always, his expression was clear and innocent. But the moment he saw the beautiful dominant alpha’s tongue move, a sentence flashed white in Hyunsoo’s mind. As if snatching the words that would come out of the other’s mouth in advance, as if unfolding an irrefutable inductive reasoning.

[Someone asks you if you’re okay out of concern.]

Hyunsoo felt something foreign on his jaw. It was because, in his hallucination, the owner of the voice was grabbing his chin and pushing his head against the wall.

[You could at least look at their face when you talk, no? You prissy, omega bastard…]

The shoulder that had been grabbed on the subway stairs just now, no, the shoulder that had been grabbed hundreds, maybe even a thousand times in his life, ached. But Jun Griffin wouldn’t need to grab his shoulder and just ramble on. He could grab Hyunsoo by the hair right now and drag him away. Of course, it would be difficult to do in broad daylight on campus, but if it was Lee Yongha’s grandson, the chairman of Liberator, he could certainly commit such an act and get away with it.

As he unconsciously clenched his fists in defense and pressed his back tightly against the wall, a voice crawled into his ear in fragments.

“…you?”

“Yes?”

Hyunsoo asked back, as if waking from some dream with great difficulty.

“You just look really unwell.”

Jun said, bending his knees slightly to match his eye level.

“Would you like to go up and have a cup of coffee or something? There’s still about ten minutes until class.”

“I’m fine.”

[A cup of coffee… If you don’t like a motel, how about a public restroom?]

The man at the subway station had said. But Jun Griffin was incomparable to that recessive alpha. His physical strength, power, wealth, and pheromones were as well.

Besides, Hyunsoo was in heat now and hadn’t even taken a suppressant. If Jun were to drag him to some secluded corner on campus right now, lock the door, and release his pheromones, it would literally be game over. Hyunsoo managed to smile brightly and reply, then turned his back.

“See you in the classroom soon.”

“Professor, just a moment. This.”

Hyunsoo glanced back as Jun called out urgently.

“This.”

He saw the other person putting his hand into his bag.

Then Hyunsoo’s brain reacted like Pavlov’s dog. A phone.

It couldn’t even be called a thought. Just like a frog’s nerve would automatically twitch when an electrode was attached, disjointed sentences flickered in his mind. Phone, taking, out, photo, taking.

The motion he had seen countless times on the subway stairs, on the bus, in alleys, even in restaurants and public restrooms, the way alphas or betas would stealthily put their hands into their bags, back pockets, or inside jacket pockets. While Hyunsoo was frozen, Jun took out a long 500mL bottle of water and held it out.

“You look really unwell. Hey, I heard. The Dongbaek Faction is now even resorting to theft…”

Jun trailed off pitifully and then quickly added.

“Here, with this water, take your medicine here. Then go up. If you wait a little for the people, there’ll be fewer. It’s because it’s the break between classes right now, but it’ll end soon. If it’s still crowded, I’ll ask them to move aside in front. Then you can just follow me.”

The water bottle was held out in front of his chest. Hyunsoo took it meekly but didn’t drink, and instead stared intently into the other’s eyes.

As if asking, What did you put in it?

How would I know what’s in it?

The cap seemed to be sealed, but it could have been already opened, something like an aphrodisiac added, and then sealed again. Indeed, the water looked a little cloudy.

He would have been scared even if just any alpha had given it to him, but it was Jun giving it to him. Jun Griffin, the dominant alpha student who had been stalking Hyunsoo for the past few months.

It wasn’t just stalking. Hyunsoo had circumstantial and physical evidence that Jun had not only played various pranks on him, such as sending him strange texts, letters, and gifts, but had also hired people to do a background check on him. He had been so tormented that he had developed a neurosis, to the point where if someone took a picture of him on the street, he would first suspect if Jun had hired them.

After doing that behind his back, Jun always puts on such a radiant face in front of him when they meet on campus during the day. As if he was just trying to be kind and nice to a professor he liked. So, Hyunsoo had no choice but to play along for now so as not to be conspicuous, which was frustrating.

“Thank you.”

After articulating clearly, Hyunsoo put the water bottle straight into his bag and turned toward the stairs.

The people who had been trying to push their way down to the pharmacy earlier were now standing in a long line, three or four deep, occupying the entire staircase. Hyunsoo started walking, sticking as close to the wall as possible. But pushing through the crowd and going against the flow was not easy.

Hyunsoo pressed one shoulder against the wall, hugged his crossbody bag to his chest, and moved his arms and legs mechanically. Like an NPC blocked by an obstacle. He was barely climbing about one step for every four steps, bumping his arms and legs against people’s, thump, thump, when Jun ran up.

The alpha’s and omega’s shoulders touched. Jun’s firm arm wrapped around Hyunsoo’s shoulder, and the twenty-two-year-old student’s brown hair swayed lightly. Jun’s pulse was beating fast. Perhaps because of that, his body scent spread in a rhythm from the area of his carotid artery under his ear and on his neck, reaching the tip of the instructor’s nose.

Hyunsoo inadvertently breathed in.

“Professor, come this way.”

Jun climbed the stairs, protectively wrapping his right arm around the extreme dominant omega who was about two hands’ breadths shorter and more slender than him.

As Jun strode forward and pushed with his shoulder, the crowd parted like a stream of water hitting a rock, opening a path. It was a light movement, but it probably carried immense weight. They looked up at Jun for a moment, but they didn’t get angry, as if they had been hit by a natural phenomenon. Jun expressed both his apologies and thanks to each of them and went up the stairs, his arm spread as if to shield Hyunsoo.

When they reached the first-floor lobby, it was much less crowded. Hyunsoo thanked Jun. Jun smiled and said he would see him in the classroom soon.

“You can come a little late. I’ll tell the kids something.”

Jun quickly added, looking at Hyunsoo’s complexion.

“I mean I’ll say something appropriate. Without saying anything unnecessary. Don’t worry.”

And then he bowed deeply, his own face turning red, and turned away first.

Hyunsoo clenched his fists. Crazy bastard.

Such a powerful alpha, and he pretends to be so kind and innocent. In front of people, he always wears the mask of a good student and grins foolishly.

Hypocrite.

After confirming that Jun had exited through the student union building entrance, Hyunsoo turned and went to the second-floor restroom. The entrance was only visible after going down the hallway opposite the elevator and turning a corner once more, so some students didn’t even know there was a restroom in this corner. It was probably a space left over like a gap when the building was extended. He entered a stall, opened the toilet, and threw up.

He knew well how to vomit without making a sound. His stomach always churned during his heat, but he frowned, thinking that it had been a long time since he had actually vomited.

It’s because of Jun’s pheromones. He was too close to a dominant alpha. Hyunsoo pressed his solar plexus hard with his hand and leaned against the stall door. His brain swirled as if it would melt, conjuring the image of a familiar flower. Rafflesia.

A giant, purple rafflesia.

Hyunsoo hated his heat. He hated those three days that made him realize with his whole body that he was an omega. He often thought that if he had been born in a world without suppressants, he would have killed himself as soon as he presented.

He hated it even more after what happened eight years ago. When Hyunsoo was a college freshman, a sunbae had gotten him drunk, taken him to a motel, and injected an amplifier into his vein, targeting him when he was in heat.

That was the first time Hyunsoo had learned that such a thing as an amplifier existed. Officially, only suppressants were sold, but under the table, drugs that amplified heats were also illegally traded. The black market for aphrodisiacs targeting trait-holders was said to be quite large. Leaning against the steel door, Hyunsoo closed his eyes for a moment and exhaled in several short breaths.

This damned heat.

I have to take a suppressant and get rid of it quickly. I’ll kill it. Possessed by an impulse close to murderous intent towards his own body, as he always was once a month, Hyunsoo put his hand in his bag and fiddled with the paper box containing the medicine. He planned to take out one pill, go out, get tap water from the sink, and swallow it.

Thinking that he should also pour the water Jun had given him down the sink, he reached for the water bottle next to the medicine box. But the moment its damp surface touched his skin, he felt a strange sensation.

Ah.

He almost let out a moan.

His anus clenched. His rear became slippery.

Mmm, ah.

A nasal sound leaked through his nose as if fluid were leaking from inside.

I have to take the pill quickly. He reminded himself as if making a vow, but his lower abdomen was melting stickily, and his hands were trembling so much that it was hard to even open the box. The subsidized ones are given in a bottle that you just have to open the lid for, but why are the ones sold on the market in a sealed paper box with individually packaged capsules? It’s excessive packaging.

Disjointed thoughts swirled in his head. His uterus and prostate had taken all the blood, so there wasn’t enough blood in his head. Those two organs were contracting and relaxing as if pulsating in his lower abdomen, boiling a fluid, and then pouring out the boiled substance so hot that it felt like it was scalding the mucous membrane of his internal organs.

This can’t be happening, he cursed inwardly. Just an hour after the pre-symptoms?

It couldn’t even be considered the heat period yet. Usually, the three hours immediately after the pre-symptoms are called the pre-heat, and if you take a suppressant quickly then, you can get through it without the full-blown symptoms. But why was it already like this?

Hyunsoo tried to pull himself together and gather his thoughts. The first thing he suspected was, of course, the water. The water that Jun Griffin gave him. But Hyunsoo hadn’t drunk it yet.

He hadn’t drunk the water. It probably contained stimulants, or inhibitors that make suppressants less effective, or promoters that encourage heats, so he hadn’t drunk it. Water and food given with good intentions by an alpha are like that. Being fooled once eight years ago was enough; he wouldn’t be fooled again.

He wouldn’t fall for such an obvious trick. If Jun wanted to drug Hyunsoo, he would have to come and find him himself, force his jaw open, and pour it down his throat. He wasn’t so easy as to be played by such a prank. But as he stood there, his perineum spasmed on its own, and his groin spread open.

No way, Hyunsoo bit his lip. Just now, his hand had only touched the outer surface of the bottle. No matter what, there couldn’t be a drug that takes effect just from the back of his hand getting wet from the condensation on the surface, without even drinking the water. But why was it having almost the same effect as if he had drunk it?

Mulling it over, Hyunsoo ended up picturing the shape of the plastic bottle clearly in his mind. The heavy and hard feeling, full of water, the uneven surface with its indentations. Even though it had only brushed against his hand, its outline appeared in his head as if he had seen it with his own eyes and began to roll around. Hyunsoo quickly unbuckled his belt.

What am I doing right now? He thought, barely stopping his hand as he was unzipping his fly.

After clenching his teeth and staring at the ceiling for a while, he caressed his private parts over his pants without unbuttoning them. It was definitely hard.

Hic.

He had accidentally touched an overly sensitive spot. His genitals twitched, and a gush of fluid flowed from his rear, soaking his underwear.