MIM 6

As Jae-seung stepped back, the men rushed at Shin-woo. As if trying to maintain some semblance of order, they took turns hitting him once each without raising their hands further. After two punches to the cheek and two kicks to the stomach, Shin-woo’s knees finally buckled. The men surrounded him in a circle as he coughed, spitting out blood that had pooled in his mouth.

The blonde-haired man grabbed Shin-woo’s hair and pulled him up to a sitting position. Sensing what was about to happen, Shin-woo lowered his eyes. Five Alphas simultaneously released their pheromones onto his face, which was dirty with clotted blood.

A pheromone shower. Between lovers, it would be an act of affection, but when done to a beta who couldn’t detect pheromones, it was purely an act of humiliation.

Jae-seung stared blankly at Shin-woo’s eyes and his hands neatly laid on the ground. Though Shin-woo couldn’t sense the pheromones as a Beta, he must have known what the men were doing to him. Nevertheless, Shin-woo remained still with his head tilted back, until he was completely drenched in the pheromones of multiple Alphas.

When the act was over, the men quickly left. Shin-woo spat out blood-tinged saliva and stood up unsteadily. The strong scent of pheromones was so thick it was almost nauseating.

“Shall we go?”

Shin-woo smiled after roughly straightening his appearance. It was ridiculous how he pretended to be nonchalant while standing there disheveled, covered in Alpha pheromones. Jae-seung’s gaze, which had been scanning Shin-woo’s swollen cheek, stopped at the tattoo on his neck.

His father had a nasty habit of tattooing barcodes on family members. The locations varied – soles of feet, hands, shoulders – but none were as visible as Shin-woo’s. The large barcode tattooed on the side of his long, straight neck couldn’t be hidden by clothes or hair.

Jae-seung smirked and thrust the hockey stick into Shin-woo’s chest.

“You’re right.”

“…”

“Go donate mine too. On second thought, it’s a waste.”

He meant to send him back to the locker room full of Alphas they had played with for months, covered in the pheromones of the opposing team’s Alphas. He was curious how he would react to such a blatant insult.

Shin-woo blinked and then obediently took the stick. His calm expression didn’t waver, but he couldn’t hide the flush on his cheekbones and nape.

Is he angry? This should be enough to set him off.

Jae-seung bit his lip as he glared at the back of Shin-woo’s head as he started to walk away without hesitation. Watching him follow orders so compliantly made his blood boil. An emotion he couldn’t even understand himself clouded his mind. Jae-seung quickly ran and snatched the hockey stick from his hand.

“What now? Give it to me. You’re not going to use it anyway.”

“I’m going to sell it. Just because I have money doesn’t mean I can waste it.”

Jae-seung snapped, saying whatever came to mind out of irritation. He felt strange as Shin-woo’s face seemed to soften oddly as he stared at him. Docile drooping eyes and warm brown irises. While appreciating his strikingly ill-fitting appearance, an unpleasant smell stung his nose.

The smell of pheromones from unknown Alphas mixed together. As soon as he realized this, Jae-seung impulsively grabbed Shin-woo’s neck and pushed him against the car.

“Ugh…!”

The pulse under his palm throbbed rapidly. As his thumb pressed into the barcode tattoo, Shin-woo gasped and parted his lips. Even with his neck held, he didn’t resist. The absurd thought suddenly gripped Jae-seung that if he kept choking him, he would quietly die without resistance.

What exactly is this guy? Amidst the confusion, the only certainty was the disgust rising to his head at this moment.

“I don’t like my things smelling of others.”

With those quiet words, Jae-seung poured out his pheromones for a long time, drenching Shin-woo from head to toe, enough to completely cover the scent of the other men’s pheromones and then some. When the unpleasant smell had completely disappeared, he slowly loosened his grip on Shin-woo’s neck. As his head was freed, Shin-woo willingly met his gaze. Still with soft, playful, and persistent eyes.

Jae-seung glanced down at the large hand carefully touching his wrist. It was a rough and crude hand, full of scars and calluses.

* * *

The strong sunlight was dazzling. Jae-seung rummaged through his bag and put on sunglasses. The hat he used to carry around at the beginning of the semester had long since been stuffed into a trash can. His appearance wasn’t something that could be hidden anyway.

Jae-seung stretched out his long legs and watched the children playing on the outdoor basketball court. Their hair was black, brown, tinged with red, even blonde. Just as they all had different hair colors, their childhoods must have been different too. He was no different from them, just famous.

They said he must be an illegitimate child. Rumors were rampant that silver hair was unheard of, that he must be the child of his mother or father having an affair with a foreigner. Unlike his brother who was the spitting image of their father, many whispered that Ma Jae-seung didn’t look like anyone in the family. Other baseless rumors abounded, but it didn’t matter anymore.

What’s the point of arguing about illegitimacy when he’s the child of a couple who didn’t even register their marriage? When his father died and Shin-woo was appointed as his guardian, their broken marriage became known nationwide. Whether related by blood or not, he was now the only person qualified to inherit Ma Group. Beyond that, he couldn’t care less about people pointing fingers and gossiping behind his back.

The sunglasses suited him better than a hat anyway. Jae-seung grinned after checking his reflection on his phone screen. Frankly speaking, his family should be the ones regretting that he doesn’t resemble them, not the other way around.

When Jae-seung looked up after checking his face for a while, all the kids playing basketball had disappeared somewhere. Noticing the ball left alone on the court, Jae-seung got up, dusting himself off. He was feeling restless anyway.

He picked up the basketball and looked up at the rim. As he approached, the rim seemed close enough to touch. Maybe it was because he’d grown five centimeters taller since last year. It hadn’t been long since he’d started proper exercise seriously, but his growth rate was unusually fast. Even the pro fighter who’d been coaching him in martial arts commented that it was an abnormal growth rate.

That wasn’t the only exceptional thing. The allergy test results that Butler Hwang had given him to be aware of were jaw-dropping. Allergies he had two years ago disappeared, and new ones appeared. His ruts, which started at the beginning of this year when he became an adult, occurred too frequently and were extremely painful. While others experienced ruts quarterly, he suffered through them every 5 weeks.

Life was pure hell.

Jae-seung jumped with all his might toward the rim he had been staring at for a while.

“Ugh!”

Although the ball bounced off, grabbing the rim wasn’t difficult. Hanging from the rim with one arm, Jae-seung followed the ball with his eyes. For a moment, the rolling ball overlapped with the image of a severed head. His father’s head that still hadn’t been found.

“That’s amazing!”

An energetic clapping sound came from behind. Startled back to reality, Jae-seung dropped to the ground. Turning around, he saw an unfamiliar guy approaching with a bright, smiling face.

“Are you good at basketball?”

“…No. I was just trying to jump.”

“That’s so cool. Not everyone can grab the rim.”

Last time it was some Omega, and today it was this neat-looking guy who approached him first. Both times happened to be when Shin-woo wasn’t around.

Could it be a coincidence? Maybe the reason he hadn’t made any friends until now was because of that guy. Perhaps it was actually Shin-woo that people feared and were wary of, not himself. Feeling a bit more confident, Jae-seung boldly introduced himself.

“I’m Ma Jae-seung.”

“Is there anyone who doesn’t know you? I’m Gong Ji-un. Nice to meet you.”

The man who introduced himself as Gong Ji-un was a tall, handsome Alpha. He had light-colored curly hair and healthy-looking skin with a very good complexion. Faced with Gong Ji-un, who was smiling brightly and acting as if he knew nothing about the murder case, Jae-seung was momentarily at a loss for how to react.

Since no one had ever treated him normally before, he didn’t know how to respond to an ordinary student. Should he talk about the weather? As he was staring at the clear sky, wondering how to start a conversation, fortunately, Gong Ji-un spoke first.

“I heard you quit the hockey club. Are you looking for a new club?”

“…How did you know that?”

“Everyone talks about you so much, there’s probably no one who doesn’t know. I even heard that one of the opposing team’s players was taken to the hospital.”

“That wasn’t my fault.”

“Haha, anyway,  it’s fun seeing you in person. The sunglasses suit you well.”

“…Ah, it’s just because the sunlight’s so bright.”

Jae-seung, who had just remembered he was wearing sunglasses, lowered his chin awkwardly. Did he look arrogant? He casually took off the sunglasses and put them in his bag, and the harsh sunlight stung his eyes. It was truly an unbearably hot day. Gong Ji-un seemed to have the same thought as he fanned himself with his hand and asked,

“Want to go grab a coffee nearby? If you have time.”

“Sure. But wait a moment.”

He couldn’t miss this golden opportunity to make a friend, so he was planning to go along no matter what, but he had to wait for Shin-woo to return. He had sent him on a short errand on purpose as part of his separation anxiety treatment.

How should he introduce Shin-woo? Friend? The whole country probably knows they’re not friends. But he couldn’t say he was a bodyguard either.

“I brought drinks, but you’re going out for more?”

Just then, Shin-woo appeared without a sound and held out a drink. Jae-seung, pretending not to be surprised, took the drink with both hands. He had sent him to buy just a bottle of water, but Shin-woo had arbitrarily bought cocoa instead.