METAL 6

“No, that’s not it. I was really just asking if you were okay. Are you eating properly?”

“That is really not Mr. Griffin’s business.”

Seething inside, Hyunsoo bowed his head, put his laptop into his crossbody bag, and slung the bag over his shoulder. Jun spoke urgently.

“Perhaps—.”

Hyunsoo looked back. Jun said, his face nearly buried in a blush.

“You have a little time before your next lecture, right? Would you like to go to the student cafeteria with me?”

Seeing the lecturer’s brow furrow instantly, he quickly added.

“I’m not suggesting we eat together. I’ll just sit at the table right next to you. If anyone tries to approach you or do anything strange, I’ll chase them away immediately. You can’t just eat things like that….”

Jun gestured with his chin toward Hyunsoo’s still-open bag. His eyes seemed to land on some of its contents and he flinched, but he quickly composed himself and continued speaking.

“…you know. You only ever eat snack bars, but you should eat properly at the cafeteria at least sometimes. With soup and rice and side dishes. I’ll keep a good watch on your surroundings.”

Trying hard to avoid obvious wording like ‘I will guard you’ or ‘I will protect you,’ Jun spoke carefully. It was probably because Hyunsoo had shuddered and refused him once before when he had approached him in that manner. Hyunsoo stared at him fixedly.

Jun knew that Hyunsoo would hide in a corner of an empty classroom or a bathroom stall and hastily tear open and eat only a snack bar. Of course, part of that was thanks to secretly following and watching him, but Hyunsoo thought it probably wasn’t just because of that. Jun had said he knew a dominant omega since middle school. So he had a rough grasp of what kind of worries a person born with that trait suffers from and how they live.

Jun Griffin was a rare dominant alpha who understood well how to be kind to an omega. That was why he always tried to approach by exploiting the other’s weakness.

He had been like that all last semester, and he was doing it again this semester. Last May, even when he was caught tailing Hyunsoo all the way to his studio apartment late at night, Jun had smiled shyly and mumbled something like ‘it was late so I was worried’ and ‘I was just trying to watch over you.’ He said it so brazenly that Hyunsoo had almost fallen into the trap for a moment, but thankfully, he had quickly come to his senses.

Pretending to be good, wearing only the mask of the good and upright model student Jun Griffin, he circles around Hyunsoo.

What a hypocrite.

While suppressing his churning stomach, Hyunsoo couldn’t look away from the other’s face, and soon their eyes met. As he held that turquoise gem captive in his own pupils, he thought to himself. His eye color is quite unusual.

Jun was what they called mixed-race, East and West. But Hyunsoo couldn’t even guess what genes mixed in what way to create such a deep, verdant green. The refreshing and amiable shape of his eyes formed a strange contrast, or perhaps harmony, with pupils reminiscent of a fir forest at dawn, and his dark brown hair, which looked like the pigment had been somewhat drained from the fine-stranded straight hair characteristic of East Asians, also suited those eyes well.

His jaw had a sharp outline and his neck and shoulders were broad-lined, but his cheeks were soft and his skin was so clear as to be translucent, so his overall face gave the impression of a boy in the midst of growing into a young man. His lips were not simply red but had a pastel tone, slightly leaning towards rose or coral. His teeth….

At that moment, Jun smiled.

The scent spread out like a stain before his eyes, making it hard to see clearly. Hyunsoo leaned his body against the lectern with a stoop. Did he do that on purpose?

The backs of his knees tingled and his lower abdomen throbbed with a stabbing pain. Even though he had taken a suppressant, Hyunsoo was in heat. When a dominant alpha sends out pheromones with intent, an omega in heat reacts, however faintly. Especially a dominant omega, who is sensitive to the pheromones of another dominant.

Jun knew that Hyunsoo was in heat. Just now, did he intentionally send out his scent this strongly?

The smell of intermingled light green and purple flowed directly from the body in front of him into Hyunsoo’s nose, and then down to his groin. As Hyunsoo held his breath and tightened his grip on the edge of the lectern, Jun smiled brightly.

“Or a café would be nice, too.”

He continued in a soft tone.

“There’s a faculty café on the 8th floor of the student union building, you know. Students aren’t normally allowed in, but my mother is good friends with one of the directors, so I go and hang out there sometimes. I even received a special access card. If you’d like, I could even reserve it for an hour or two. So no one else can come in besides you and me, Professor.”

Ending the sentence with a shy-seeming stammer, Jun blinked his eyes.

Hyunsoo reached his arm far behind his back and stood gripping the corner of the lectern tightly. Only after standing like that did he realize his posture had changed.

A moment ago, he had been standing with the lectern between him and Jun, but now he stood with the lectern behind him, facing Jun. He had stepped down from the platform, braced his hands behind him on the table, and lowered his head and torso, in a posture where the tip of his nose was almost, but not quite, touching Jun’s chest.

It was because Jun hadn’t let up on his scent the entire time he was speaking in that soft, low voice. With every movement of the dominant alpha’s thick lips, with every flutter of his glistening eyelashes, the chains of fragrance holding the omega lecturer’s breath grew thicker and thicker, and the lecturer was finally dragged down in dog-like submission.

It was by no means because Hyunsoo himself wanted to come down to smell him. It was because the alpha had pulled him, and he couldn’t help it. Every time Jun’s chest heaved as he breathed, as if his lips were moving, his body scent wafted up like steam from the navy blue cotton shirt he must have been wearing for half the day, and the omega in heat felt his head grow faint.

Still, this is better. Hyunsoo thought.

It’s better now that he’s showing his true colors. He repeated inwardly, suppressing the urge to take another suppressant out of his bag and swallow it right away. Is he finally making his move?

He had thought from the beginning that it wouldn’t just end with background checks and stalking in the dark. That someday he would blatantly reveal his true nature and try to move on to the next step. That was why Hyunsoo was always tense whenever he came to his Korea University lectures, and why he had gritted his teeth and remained on guard earlier when he had been accosted on the stairs in front of the pharmacy.

Still, since he had backed off after just handing over that suspicious water bottle, he thought today wasn’t the day, but now he was spraying his pheromones like this after the lecture had ended.

…there’s no way.

There’s no way to avoid it or resist it, Hyunsoo thought.

If Jun began to reach out in earnest, no one would be able to do anything. According to Forbes, the wealth and power of the Liberator company chairman’s family were within the top 100 in the world, and that family’s connections extended deep like a spiderweb all over the globe. Jun’s emphasis just now that his parents were close with a director at Korea University must have been a kind of indirect threat. Wanting to change the subject, Hyunsoo quickly blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

“There are a lot of police on campus today.”

“Yes, Professor. They said it’s because of the Camellia Faction.”

Jun, surprisingly, nodded and replied right away. Hyunsoo followed up.

“Is it because of the theft incident, or the murder incident?”

“It seemed to be the murder.”

Hyunsoo suddenly got the impression that Jun answered too quickly. As if trying to prevent some sort of unpleasantness from intruding.

Then, like a crack forming on an eggshell, a premonition cracked open along the folds of his mind. Hyunsoo felt that his choosing this question might not have been a mere coincidence. Perhaps, deep in his heart, he had been suspicious all along.

“…It seems the police are walking around asking students questions, too. Did they ask you anything, Mr. Jun?”

This time, Jun was silent for a moment.

“Yes.”

But he answered soon after, smiling so wide his eyes closed completely.

Hyunsoo remembered reading the police press conference statement in the newspaper. Three weeks ago, the chief of the Jongno-gu police station had announced. That they had found traces of a male dominant alpha, estimated to be in his early twenties, at the last murder scene.

A dominant trait-holder is a rare being. On top of that, a dominant alpha in his twenties and a festival participant.

With almost one hundred percent certainty, it would be a direct descendant of a Camellia Faction sponsor family. Hyunsoo suddenly felt goosebumps run all the way down his back. Why was he only realizing this now?

Despite Jun’s pheromonal scent, Hyunsoo felt his blood run cold. The man in front of him seemed different, as if another layer had been peeled away. Though his appearance looked pure and fresh, an alpha’s scent doesn’t change, nor do they get marked, just from sleeping with an omega. Unlike an omega, whose body becomes saturated with an alpha’s scent for a long time, all an alpha has to do is shower meticulously.

Could it be possible that Chairman Lee Yong-ha of Liberator or a member of his clan was sponsoring the Camellia Faction? Of course, on the surface, the Camellia Faction and pharmaceutical companies are enemies, but because of that, perhaps… His hands were shaking, so Hyunsoo gripped the strap of his crossbody bag tightly and tried to reorganize the details of the Camellia Faction festival serial murders in his head.

The five murders, or as the police presumed, serial murders by the same person, had occurred over the last 10 months, primarily in the Gangbuk area of Seoul. Since the first body was discovered in early January of last year, it meant they had been happening almost as soon as Hyunsoo arrived in Korea.

Right after his return to the country, Hyunsoo was a mess, both mentally and practically, so he hadn’t been able to read things like the newspaper for a long time and was ignorant of the news. It was only around the end of March that he learned about the incident after seeing the news while visiting a portal site to gather materials for class. The second murder had already occurred by then.

At first, the police suspected it might be a murder due to a personal grudge. This was because of the gruesome state of the body. The body parts were found in a location quite far from the presumed murder scene, and the flesh was all melted, so it took time to identify the victim. Even considering that the melting was for the purpose of reducing volume and delaying the investigation, the police announced that a grudge was evident just from the number and shape of the remaining stab wounds.

However, as similar murders were repeated afterwards, the theory of a personal grudge faded. If it were a murder of vengeance, they concluded, the perpetrator held a severe hatred for a specific type of trait-holder, not a personal grudge.

Especially three weeks ago, when a trace of a dominant alpha’s dried semen was found at the last, fifth murder scene, the police finally became certain. The murder of the Camellia Faction member was not only a serial murder, but also a serial rape-murder. A rape-murder mixed with the twisted hatred of one type of trait-holder for another.

Thanks to that, the investigation was accelerating. With his fists clenched tightly behind his back, Hyunsoo looked Jun straight in the face and asked.

“What kind of questions did the police ask?”

“They were ordinary. They asked if I had seen anyone suspicious-looking on campus around a certain time on a certain day.”

“To come all the way inside the university and ask such questions, they must have a particular suspicion.”

“Yes. They said a part of the body was discovered in the school’s trash dump.”

Jun replied calmly.

“It was divided among several dark-colored plastic bags. They said they weren’t sure if a school affiliate discarded it, or if an outsider came in and discarded it. In any case, they said they were questioning people because there would surely be a witness on campus, if not the perpetrator.”

“I see.”

Hyunsoo nodded quickly as well.

The question of why the police had chosen Jun Griffin, of all the many students, to question couldn’t help but linger in his mind. They must have some inkling of something, too.

But even if they had gathered evidence, they wouldn’t be able to lay a hand on Lee Yong-ha’s grandson rashly. They had no choice but to approach cautiously, pretending to know nothing and asking mundane questions in a public place. He had only intended to change the subject, but the conversation had veered off in a strange direction, Hyunsoo thought, and he glanced toward the classroom door.

“Well then, I’ll see you next time. I’ll be on my way….”

“You’re surprisingly interested in the murder case, Professor.”

Just before the other man could say his goodbyes and turn away, Jun tilted his head and asked. Hyunsoo just quickly shrugged his shoulders. In a way that said, with so many police officers roaming the campus, it was only natural to be interested. But a soft voice soon followed.

“Is it perhaps because you have experience yourself? From around eight years ago, for instance.”

Hyunsoo completely froze.

With his gaze fixed on the door, he could not move a single step. He could feel for himself that the tips of his fingers and toes had frozen as cold as ice. In the eerie silence that surrounded them, only Jun’s insinuating voice pooled in Hyunsoo’s ear like a cold stream.

“The café I mentioned earlier, let’s go up together. Actually, I already reserved it in advance to match the time your lecture ends. There won’t be anyone there right now. I sent all the staff out, too. Ah, I paid them extra, so don’t worry.”

“…”

Hyunsoo remained silent.

Jun waited without saying another word.

But the outcome was already decided. Jun led the way, and Hyunsoo silently followed him out into the hallway. The two crossed over to the student union building through the third-floor sky-bridge, then took the elevator in the student union building and pressed the button for the 8th floor, where the café was located. Jun opened the café door with a key card.

The café was neatly arranged and empty. Why did he even bring up the student cafeteria when he had prepared a place like this? Hyunsoo thought.

Could it be that he had hesitated until the last moment? About whether to call me out and threaten me, or to just let it go for today. While he mulled it over, Jun chose a table and offered Hyunsoo a seat, then went behind the bar himself and personally brewed two cups of coffee.

“Black, right?” After asking, he placed a mug in front of Hyunsoo, then sat down across from him and drank his espresso. After taking the cup from his lips, he threw out a few questions, and Hyunsoo, while wrestling with them in his mind, answered calmly.

There’s no proof, Hyunsoo blurted out at one point, almost scoldingly.

It’s all just speculation. There’s no real proof that I did it.