MIM 104

The scream-like cry echoed for a while. Shin-woo, who had frozen with his lips parted in surprise, slowly blinked. Ma Jae-seung, red to the top of his head, whirled around, then paced the room restlessly while Shin-woo remained silent.

After a moment, only after barely containing his tears, he asked in a choked voice, “When did you start? Tell me everything—how many times, how often you took it, what effects it usually has at this point.”

“It hasn’t been long.”

“When did you start?”

Looking into those bloodshot eyes, words came out automatically. Shin-woo answered with an expression that still seemed unable to understand.

“Since you said you wouldn’t meet with omegas.”

“That was ages ago!”

“It hasn’t been long. It’s once a week, so I’ve only had it a few times. It takes at least half a year to have any effect. Right now, I’d have to bury my nose in your neck just to maybe catch a hint of pheromones.”

“Why? What were you thinking?”

Ma Jae-seung snapped before the other man could finish. The reason was so obvious it was actually difficult to explain. It was the same unchanging reason he had been directly handling Ma Jae-seung’s ruts all this time. Shin-woo rolled his eyes slowly and continued calmly.

“If you imprint on an omega, ruts are less difficult. Your pheromones would be much more stable too.”

“So? You took trait transformation drugs for such a trivial reason? It’s not even safe, and the research failed—you saw all the side effects I went through?”

“Alphas have more side effects—their bodies grow and skin tears, and rut symptoms are worse, but omegas have it easier.”

“‘Easier’? What are these easier side effects?”

“…I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?!”

Ma Jae-seung shouted loud enough to burst eardrums. When Maro whimpered in surprise, Shin-woo carefully closed the room door and furrowed his brow.

“What’s the problem?”

“The problem is you don’t know what the problem is!”

“It was still in development. Margin invested much more in Alpha trait transformation…The omega transformation research was smaller in scale, but less dangerous.”

“So you’ll become a test subject yourself? Are you insane? No sane person would think that way. Why did you keep the drugs instead of destroying them all in the first place?”

“Ma Jae-seung.”

The low, resonant voice calmed Ma Jae-seung. Shin-woo, who had called his name firmly, met Ma Jae-seung’s gaze with unwavering eyes.

“You were unstable enough to kill someone.”

“So, in the end, it was because of me?”

Ma Jae-seung sneered with a distorted face. The whole situation felt so unfair it made him feel stifled and wronged. He sharply knocked away Shin-woo’s hand reaching toward him and bared his teeth fiercely.

“Did you think I was too weak to handle the truth because I’m a sheltered young master? That my trauma made me crazy, so I couldn’t make decisions for myself?”

“…”

“If you’re going to do it, do it properly. In the end, you couldn’t hide anything. Here you are in front of me, covered in rashes and groaning, forcing out ambiguous pheromones that are neither beta nor omega. You’re not going to tell me you didn’t know this would happen while injecting yourself.”

Ma Jae-seung stepped closer and roughly grabbed and turned over Shin-woo’s arm. His breath trembled as he saw the faint needle marks on the inside of the elbow. Ma Jae-seung rubbed the marks hard with his fingers as if trying to erase them, then looked down painfully at the marks that only became clearer rather than fading.

“You come here like this and now say it was all for me?”

“…”

“No. That was your cowardly, selfish, and arrogant choice. I never asked that of you. I never wanted or needed you to sacrifice yourself by throwing your body away like this!”

“I know.”

Shin-woo, who had been listening silently, spoke. His blunt and indifferent voice seemed cold, but his face couldn’t hide his emotions.

“I know that you don’t need it.”

His eyebrows rounded, momentarily revealing a youthful face like a child’s. As that fleeting moment passed, Shin-woo returned to his usual composed expression, turning his head slightly while adjusting his grip on the notebook. With his reddened hand, he tucked Ma Jae-seung’s doodle between the pages to keep the protruding memo paper from falling out.

It was a mess. Tears threatened to fall, though he didn’t know why it hurt. Ma Jae-seung stopped thinking and let his body move on its own. He strode forward, reached out blindly, and pulled Shin-woo into a tight embrace.

His bare upper body was warm. Though scarred, his muscled contours were firm and strong. Ma Jae-seung’s energy mixed chaotically with the faint drug-induced pheromones. Though that disharmony was unstable and messy like a discord, it was fine as it was. Only when the throbbing pain in his chest gradually subsided and his breathing finally eased did Ma Jae-seung speak in a cracked voice.

“If you don’t want me broken, you need to stay whole too.”

Ma Jae-seung mumbled with his nose buried in Shin-woo’s neck. It was a threat. A tear that had gathered on his long eyelashes fell and rolled over the burn mark. When Shin-woo pushed against Ma Jae-seung’s chest to look at his face, Ma Jae-seung resisted, refusing to back away.

“You need to stay whole, understand? I’ll give you everything I have, so don’t do anything stupid, don’t go anywhere, just stay by my side.”

Part of his heart collapsed at the news that Shin-woo had used trait transformation drugs. It felt like the ground he stood on had shattered, leaving him falling endlessly. When Shin-woo broke, he felt himself breaking too. Since he guessed that such feelings from Shin-woo must be love, he must feel the same way.

“I like you.”

Ma Jae-seung confessed without hesitation, grabbed Shin-woo’s head with both hands, and kissed him. He pressed forward against that round-eyed face, pressed his lips against Shin-woo’s with a smack, and held him in place for a while.

When he finally pulled his lips away after the long kiss, perhaps from not breathing properly, both of Shin-woo’s ears had turned reddish. Ma Jae-seung rubbed away the dried tears around his eyes and reached out impetuously.

“Hand over any remaining drugs, don’t hide them.”

“I didn’t bring any here. There’s only so much since you destroyed most of it. In the annex wardrobe at the mansion.”

“Call Butler Hwang and tell him to dispose of them. What happens if you suddenly stop taking them?”

“I don’t know.”

“Damn it. Still, stop for now. Don’t do any more dangerous things.”

Though Shin-woo nodded obediently in his arms, Ma Jae-seung wouldn’t easily back down. He had a reasonable suspicion that if Shin-woo were the type to listen right away, he wouldn’t have done such a dangerous thing in the first place.

“This is a threat. I’ll completely break down if you don’t. I’ll go off the rails, do dangerous things, and even use social media.”

Shin-woo’s eyebrows twitched at the mention of social media. Ma Jae-seung quickly picked up his phone and demonstratively logged into social media. He showed Shin-woo his DMs full of various explicit photos, threatening to chat with these perverts all night and throw a party at the mansion, inviting them all.

“Okay, okay. I won’t do it again. I promise.”

Shin-woo promised with visible disgust on his face. Only after confirming that he had sent a message to Butler Hwang right there did Ma Jae-seung let him go.

“Fine. Now get out.”

Still not appeased, he wanted to be alone. Ma Jae-seung lay down sideways on the bed, turning his back to Shin-woo. The emotional roller coaster had drained him completely. It hadn’t even sunk in yet that he’d confessed his feelings to Shin-woo. His head throbbed with worry about what to do if Shin-woo suffered other side effects.

“Hah.”

Shin-woo sighed deeply and tossed his notebook into his bag. Instead of leaving immediately, he stood with one leg crossed, staring at Ma Jae-seung’s curled back. After lingering there, lost in thought, what he suddenly said was something Ma Jae-seung couldn’t even predict.

“Imprint on me now.”

He thought that he must’ve heard wrong. Ma Jae-seung kept his eyes tightly shut and ignored it. Despite being ignored, Shin-woo sat on the bed and explained firmly.

“If I stop the drugs now, the effects will gradually wear off. Even though I’m in an incomplete omega state now, if we keep trying, you might be able to imprint.”

“What are you saying, you psycho! Do you have no empathy?”

“What’s done is done. Might as well make the most of it.”

Having no interest in a response, Shin-woo started taking off his pants without hesitation.