SPM 4.5

Drive 14 (1)

The boy learned to restrain himself from the beginning.

“Terrence Everett Dante Hunt. Stand up.”

The boy’s much older brother, who spoke with the utterly aristocratic accent characteristic of the upper class, would pronounce the names ‘Terrence’ and ‘Everett’ very elegantly as if they suited his taste, while having the strange habit of twisting the corners of his lips when spitting out ‘Dante’, which reeked of Italian heritage.

That was probably a habit that even Bradley Hunt himself was unaware of.

A trivial inner feeling that only the boy, who had observed the mouth movements calling his name since childhood, had noticed.

Thus, whenever Terrence saw his brother calling his full name, he thought this,

It was like the artificial smile one makes when forced to chew and swallow after tasting food they absolutely dislike but cannot express their distaste outwardly in an undignified manner.

Even the action of holding a riding crop in his right hand and tapping his opposite palm matched so well with his stern expression. The boy, who had been sitting up, quickly arranged his face into an expressionless state. The boy’s older brother believed that easily showing emotional preferences outwardly was unbecoming of a Southern gentleman.

In truth, the older brother who watched over, protected, and taught his every move had never once harmed his body or administered corporal punishment, but seeing him always holding a whip as if training a horse by striking its hindquarters made him naturally become docile. Like a baby elephant that had been tied to an iron stake since childhood and couldn’t venture beyond its surroundings, he never felt any desire to rebel.

Of course, even without that, Terrence had never once thought of being hostile toward Bradley, who was the only one in this house who cherished and excessively cared for him.

The young boy instinctively knew very well that his lifeline and backer was his eldest brother.

He had personally brought home, washed, clothed, fed, and put to sleep the youngest son whom even their aging father wanted to abandon. Though he didn’t know who he resembled, it was probably obviously the genetics of his father’s bloodline, which was filled with those who had studied at prestigious universities as members of famous political families, the boy was very bright and understood that to survive in this coldly large house, he must not go against his older brother.

Moreover, what is a caregiver like? To a young child, the person who loves and raises them is literally like the entire world. The boy was no exception in this regard.

“Always control your emotions and behave with dignity. The same applies when dealing with pheromones.”

“……”

“Now, let’s try once more. This time, let’s time how long you can endure.”

Bradley Hunt said as he took out an old stopwatch from his riding breeches pocket.

Terrence had to stand straight in the center of the modern stable again and endure the threatening Alpha pheromones his brother released. Today the intensity was particularly high, to the point where he couldn’t even smell the harsh horse odor, but that wasn’t anything significant. It was training the boy always did.

Bradley Hunt was extremely proud of the fact that his half-brother was an excellent dominant. And accordingly, he insisted that he should be able to handle pheromones properly and perfectly.

Perhaps because he had an obsessive fixation about pheromones and traits, he was even more obsessed with training, Terrence concluded after his mind had matured somewhat.

Bradley was a person with great ambition.

Moreover, since his pride in his family and name was also tremendous, it wasn’t difficult to guess where his obsessiveness came from. It would have been around the time when his father Richard Hunt had scandalized his political activities with a young foreign woman and experienced a continuous downward trajectory thereafter.

For someone born as the eldest son of a senator father in a renowned political family, who had received elite education and walked a properly paved path, his father’s fall must have been a great shock. It must have been very shameful. He had heard from Elsa Bowman, who acted like the family’s butler, that he had avoided frequenting even the polo club he so enjoyed for a while because of the subtly mocking gazes directed at him at the time.

He thought his father had splattered filth on the Hunt surname.

“A person can only act rationally when they know how to perfectly control their emotions and instincts, little brother.”

And he believed he was the one who would polish the Hunt family name cleanly and stand it tall again.

“Terrence, you resemble me. Not our father, who loses to instinct and flounders helplessly against dirty pheromones, but me.”

Bradley wrinkled his face and twitched his nose as if he could immediately smell the lewd and dirty pheromones of an Omega, then lifted Terrence up. And with gentle hands, he brushed off things like straw stuck to his younger brother’s expensive children’s riding pants, making them clean.

“So you need to help me. You know. That I’m the one who held and raised you as a baby from the moment you were born. You must never forget that I’m the one who fed and put you to sleep when your mother was going around to parties with our father.”

He had no hesitation in boasting about his love and sacrifice in words. That was understandable, since Bradley was not the boy’s parent. He had no obligation to raise him. He had simply cared for him out of his own choice because he pitied his young brother.

“I’m teaching you like this because I love you. You know what your brother means, right?”

The boy slowly nodded as he looked up at his completely adult brother, who gently brushed back his dirty blonde hair, which was heavily mixed with dark brown, unlike his own clean blonde, while asking the question.

Bradley Hunt smiled as if his obedient younger brother was adorable.

“Smart boy. Now let’s go, we’ll be late for dinner.”

After briefly gesturing, he headed out first, and the boy followed behind him, walking neatly with long strides despite his short legs. The boy’s brother disliked frivolous running around.

A person who was strict yet affectionate at the same time, that was Bradley Hunt, the boy’s brother and father figure.

*

But there was no way a young boy growing up in such a vast, empty house wouldn’t be lonely.

Bradley Hunt was extremely busy with his studies, and so was his younger brother Cedric. Generally, Cedric was indifferent to his half-brother from a different mother.

Therefore, the boy was often alone.

This was somewhat intentional. Bradley Hunt often remarked that a man should grow up developing independence and self-reliance on his own, and that coddling and sheltering was not what an Alpha should do, so his philosophy of raising his younger brother independently was probably clear.

Interestingly, despite this, the eldest son, who had quite controlling tendencies, always monitored his brother under the pretext of protection. This was mainly done through the household staff. So when Terrence was young, he had several nannies and tutors.

However, after enrolling in the elementary program at the private Lloyd Jones School, Bradley began giving Terrence more freedom, seemingly to further develop his independence. His attitude was one of satisfaction as long as the given schedule was perfectly completed. He despised what he considered the non-autonomous life of blindly conforming to rules without backbone, viewing it as unworthy of a member of the Hunt family.

It was around this time that the boy began meeting his mother frequently.

The boy’s mother, Isadora Moretti—an Omega who had become Isadora Hunt like Cinderella at some point, then returned to being Isadora Moretti again like a midsummer night’s dream.

She was a woman who loved freedom to the point of loving even debauchery. In other words, she was someone who could never fit in with the overly rigid Hunt family for even a moment. Like a rose forcibly placed among neat pearl necklaces, equally beautiful but of different grain. The rose quickly withered on the display stand that was meant to highlight the pearls.

No one pays attention to withered flowers. Richard Hunt began to hate Isadora beyond endurance at some point, and the breakdown was instantaneous. For a rigid man blinded by momentary passion, three years was quite patient.

The woman was extremely enthusiastic about the glamorous drinks, parties, and glittering lights she had tasted, so just as she had neglected and abandoned her son when he was young, she naturally abandoned even herself in debauchery.

Sometimes the police would call, and there were frequent contacts about fights at bars, plus gambling debts from poker, blackjack, and casinos, with creditors often demanding payment even from her young son.

That day was one of those days.

Terrence entered the hotel room with a key, his face expressionless.

The boy had grown and grown until he had long since looked down upon not only his aging, reclusive father but even the crown of his brother who had raised him. The image of the small child who had been neglected for so long, crawling around dirty rental rooms in a shabby state, eating dried-up popcorn that served as his mother’s drinking snacks, was nowhere to be found.

The boy who had grown up receiving quality care in a strict but affluent environment looked more aristocratic than anyone, and sometimes like a titan awakened from the earth. Despite not yet being an adult, he was so reliable, large, and neatly restrained.

Terrence walked across the musty-smelling carpeted small hotel room and carefully lifted the figure sprawled on the floor without much effort.

From the drooping body came giggling laughter along with the thick voice characteristic of someone who had long enjoyed alcohol and cigarettes.

“…Did you come, son?”

“……”

“Hmm, where are you, let me see your face….”

Long fingernails with chipped red acrylic and fingers grabbed Terrence’s face.

Even as she collapsed onto the moldy bed, she couldn’t let go of her son’s face, who had now become almost a young man. The smell of cheap wine wafted from her lips painted with bright red lipstick.

“As expected, my masterpiece! My son Dante. You’re the best thing I’ve ever done in this world.”

When calling her son, the woman stubbornly chose only the middle name “Dante” that she had given him.

When Terrence was very young, she used to call his name with a pronunciation heavy with her native accent—”Terry,” or more precisely closer to “Tteri”—but had received contemptuous looks from her husband’s eldest son several times because of this.

‘Making such a fuss over just a name when it’s not even gilt! Fine, you call that old, noble name properly!’

Trembling with anger, she fought with her husband’s son, who was only a few years older, and eventually threw that name out of her heart.

Even as his cheek was crushed in his mother’s hand, Terrence offered his face without particular reluctance and spoke in a stiff voice.

“You said you’d never drink again.”

“Mmm. I did say that….”

“You also said you’d never play poker again.”

“Hahaha, right. I said that. I did say that.”

“……”

“Really, really, it seemed like I’d win if I just played once. I really! Really tried not to drink, but some kind gentleman bought it for me~”

The woman who had been giggling while rubbing her son’s face began to relax her whole body and breathe slowly again. And soon she fell asleep again. When she woke up, she probably wouldn’t properly remember what conversation she had with the son who had taken a plane to Atlanta to take care of her.

As Terrence was sighing deeply and covering her with a white blanket, someone came out of the bathroom with a completely fed-up expression.

“Oh my, Terrence dear. Did you just arrive?”

The middle-aged woman wiping her still-stained wet blouse with tissues was Bradley Hunt’s secretary. She had previously been one of Richard Hunt’s secretaries and was now the eldest son’s secretary. Having been with the Hunt family since before Terrence was born, she still tended to treat him like a little child.

“Virginia. Thank you for your hard work.”

“What. This is my job after all. Ugh, but having vomit on my clothes is still not pleasant.”

She replied nonchalantly while wiping again with a towel dampened with water.

“I’m sorry. I suddenly got a call that she was caught causing trouble at an illegal gambling den, and I had nowhere else to turn for help.”

“Oh, Terrence sweetheart. You did the right thing calling me. Of course you should. Who else but me could handle this.”

She was indeed the right person for this kind of situation, seeming like an invincible mother who could solve any problem. Being a secretary with long experience and having earned the family’s full trust made her even more suitable.

“Besides, I’m the only one with authority to execute the budget from the trust account you inherited from your grandfather, so naturally I have to handle it. He left it for you in preparation for situations like this, so don’t worry.”

Withdrawal was possible because part of the trust had been designated for “family protection and maintaining dignity.” Without this, it would have been difficult to respond legally whenever such incidents occurred.

“But I don’t know how long we can keep doing this. At least it’s not Alaska like last time…”

“…Please help me just a little longer. I’ll persuade her well so this won’t happen again.”

“Sigh… Alright. I’m an employee, so I’ll do whatever you decide.”

Though she spoke sparingly as befitted an employee, Terrence could detect all the hidden meanings within her words.

He knew too. That this kind of behavior had to stop. That a young son shouldn’t have to clean up after a mother who constantly caused trouble. But even knowing all this silent reproach, Terrence gave no response.

After sending the secretary ahead who had suggested they return together, he wiped his mother’s smeared makeup with a warm, damp towel, then went out to buy drinking water and some food. He also left a debit card loaded with $500 by her bedside.

With payment restrictions set for gambling establishments and liquor stores, if Isadora really put her mind to it, she could maintain a decent lifestyle for a while with this.

She liked to have fun and was weak to impulses, but lately she had been trying to live properly, just like when she’d made promises with him several times before. Terrence decided to trust his mother once more.

Terrence tidied the room and quickly left the place.

Though it was summer vacation, that didn’t mean he had no scheduled routine. He had already wasted half a day rushing here to handle the situation. Since he needed to return quickly, Terrence hastily searched and purchased a flight ticket to Nashville. It was a small plane from a budget airline that he would never have taken with family, but for him it wasn’t particularly problematic.

It probably had been that way from the beginning.

When he was very young, from the time Bradley brought him back, separating him from Isadora again, Terrence had accurately recognized even with his young mind that he could be cast out at any time.

He had originally been an unwanted son whom even his father showed no interest in. He was clearly aware that if someone put their mind to it, they could send him back to Isadora, or even to his maternal grandparents in Italy, and that the things he enjoyed as part of the Hunt family could cease to be his in an instant. Therefore, he couldn’t fully enjoy the Hunt name as completely as it appeared, or as much as his other brothers and cousins did.

A prestigious political family notable enough to frequently appear in the media. Despite being a direct member, his aristocratic appearance was merely external; unlike other family members, he had no reservations about dealing with commoner life. Rather, he was familiar with the musty rental rooms his mother moved between.

Perhaps that was also why, unlike other family members, he threw himself into sports.

He liked that other distracting thoughts didn’t intrude when moving his body, but from a very young age he had thought he needed something of his own. Something uniquely his that had nothing to do with the family.

However, just because he had no reservations about commoner things didn’t mean this was comfortable. Especially since he had a particularly large frame, he usually avoided small planes from budget airlines like this, but this time he had no choice.

But looking back later, this would be a once in a lifetime revelation of fate.

As he sat awkwardly cramped in the narrow, uncomfortable airplane seat.

He discovered a brilliant, multicolored star approaching him from afar.

A boy was walking with difficulty down the narrow airplane aisle. Each time he smiled awkwardly as if embarrassed to pass through with his armload of luggage, sparkling tiny lights shattered like jewels across the surface of his face. Even though he wasn’t close and his features under the black hair were smaller than a fist, the fact that he sparkled so much was almost unbelievable to himself.

‘An angel…?’

His first impression was ridiculously childish.

But that’s really how he felt. Like an angel who had gently opened heaven’s gate and briefly descended to earth to carry out the Almighty’s commands. There was no better expression to capture the excessively beautiful, delicate features and the pure, kind smile that seemed like it wouldn’t be tainted no matter where you placed him.

Actually, unlike other boys his age, Terrence originally had no interest in the opposite sex.

He could only speculate that perhaps because he had received thorough management from his protective brother from a very young age to the point of obsessiveness, he had become indifferent from being overly troubled.

Bradley Hunt greatly disliked the fact that there were people clinging to his youngest brother.

‘Terrence, you must always be conscious that you have blood weak in self-control. You must constantly guard against temptation. Always remember what shameful end our father met.’

Though their father hadn’t actually lived such a shameful life, for the eldest son this was already an established fact.

According to him, their father, who had stood at the pinnacle of success, couldn’t advance further and fell to temptation, was ridiculed by people in the media, and eventually withdrew from all political activities to live in seclusion, and his son’s assessment was extremely harsh. He didn’t hesitate to criticize him as a loser who lost the fight, saying his end was miserable.

Moreover, his education wasn’t entirely wrong in some aspects.

Terrence actually had not only a father but also a mother who was extremely weak to temptation. Don’t they commonly say that patience and self-control are also hereditary? Depending on alcohol and getting involved in gambling was the crystallization of weakness. So the thorough education to be vigilant was probably very necessary for him.

Terrence’s strict guardian believed that even biological factors could be corrected through the power of education, and this was true to some extent.

Patience. Patience was what Terrence could do best. That’s how he had always been educated.

Enduring, persevering, quietly doing his work, not turning his eyes to anything else, solving what was given beyond expectations, not expressing joy or sorrow outwardly while not acting weakly, not being tempted by anything and walking his path strongly. Not losing to others. Always being the best.

Though Bradley Hunt probably didn’t intend it, in that respect Terrence had essentially received early education from childhood to become an outstanding athlete.

He was educated to become indifferent to the opposite sex, and especially taught to stay away from omegas.

Bradley had embarrassed and separated Omegas who showed interest in Terrence several times. Each time, he would repeatedly expound on how their parents, who had fallen to temptation and possessed each other, had ended up, trembling with disgust.

‘When you know how to take perfect responsibility for your life, then I won’t say anything about whoever you meet.’

He always concluded with such declarations, but whether this was really a trustworthy promise was questionable.

Bradley himself had chosen and married a partner who could help with his political activities as a spouse.

She was a Beta close to being recessive, so she would have been perfect conditions for him, who greatly abhorred being bewitched by pheromones. Gender and traits, family and wealth, her personality, and even her tendencies and abilities. Just like getting a haute couture suit tailored at a tailor shop, Bradley had chosen even his spouse by thoroughly examining each aspect. It was a very strategic marriage.

And the assumption that he wouldn’t later force such methods on Terrence would be overly optimistic.

But he didn’t particularly care whether his guardian and paranoid brother who obsessed over him did such things or not.

Terrence knew best himself how his parents had ended up, and how Isadora had lived until now—unable to settle anywhere, pretending to champion a free spirit while living lonely and debaucherous, doing as she pleased.

If that was the end of love and passion, he didn’t want to be interested in it. The stark reality had stripped all romance from the boy from the beginning.

But his world turned upside down. He learned for the first time that love comes suddenly, that it just gets lodged in the center of your heart in an instant, beyond reason and stubbornness. The mythological expression of being struck by Cupid’s arrow to describe love wasn’t wrong at all.

‘Angel…’

He didn’t know how long he stared like a fool at the boy with black hair, pale white from not seeing sunlight. And with his mouth stupidly agape at that.

That image of him smiling awkwardly with a vague upturn of his lips, as if troubled, came slowly, splitting second by second, beautifully etched like a brand left on his eyes and heart.

Terrence instinctively realized he would never forget this day when he first met Ian until the day he died.

What followed was messy but vivid. As soon as he saw him panicking because there was no space to put his luggage, he jumped up and helped the troubled boy. He only realized he had done such a thing after organizing all the luggage. It felt like someone was controlling his body. Even imagining what kind of foolish expression he must have had during that time was beyond ridiculous.

“Th-thank you.”

The soft accent and voice confirmed he was indeed an angel.

There was even one more reason why he could never forget him, and it wasn’t anything else.

Pheromones.

It was because of his shocking Omega pheromones.

How absurd that the person he fell for at first sight had such attractive pheromones. No matter how many times he recalled it, it was ridiculously bewildering.

Ian’s existence was like a massive problem thrown at him to test Terrence’s life.

‘Always be wary of Omega pheromones. Omega pheromones attractive enough to shake your foundation are not the kind an Alpha can refuse. The very thought that you can endure it is arrogance. If you encounter such pheromones, leave the scene. Distance yourself physically from that person. That’s how you can overcome temptation. Remember that if you fall for it, you could end up like our father.’

His brother’s stern voice brushed past his ears.

He instinctively put up walls from that moment. After all, once he got off this narrow airplane, he would never meet this person again.

Terrence called the flight attendant, paid $10 to purchase a paid blanket, and carefully covered the Omega sitting next to him. Hoping this cheap polyester blanket would block even a little of the Omega pheromones seeping out during sleep.

It was truly a moment difficult to endure.

When he came to his senses, he would find himself slowly inhaling as if breathing in the most pleasant scent in the world, and be startled. If his everyday pheromones released during sleep were this breathtakingly sweet and alluring, how dizzying would it be if he properly released pheromones with sexual implications…

“I’m going crazy…”

Despite all that training in restraint and patience, he was born an Alpha after all, and he had even indulged in lewd imaginings while smelling Omega pheromones. He couldn’t stand how disgusting he found himself. It was fortunate that it was a short flight and he would soon get off the plane.

Thanks to this, his sense of urgency to distance himself from him immediately grew stronger than his fondness for the angel like beautiful boy, and as soon as they landed, Terrence immediately fled from the airplane.

His first meeting with Ian left such a huge shock on him.

But the merciful God must have been particularly harsh only to him, determined to properly test Terrence.

In Whitmore Town, conservative and stuffy enough to smell musty, and in the class of Mr. Hollingsworth, a chemistry teacher who perfectly matched it, he met the angel again.

For a moment, he really thought life was cruel.

At the same time, he was shocked, wondering if destiny really existed for people. Ian’s appearance was that much of a meteor impact for Terrence. A massive accident that predicted a new beginning along with the rupture that would destroy all his foundations.

Out of rational rejection, Terrence sat ridiculously at the edge of his desk, as far away from Ian as possible. And he obsessively focused on class. He sneered at how Mr. Hollingsworth, who pretended not to be but subtly revealed his white supremacist tendencies, sharply directed his gaze toward Ian.

Seeing that made him think that this Omega who appeared bearing the surname Bailey of his neighbor probably didn’t have an ordinary life either, like himself.

He tried his best not to pay attention, but whether due to instinct or the attraction of love at first sight, even while forcibly clinging to the corner of his desk, his gaze kept turning toward the person sitting beside him. When he seemed flustered by his behavior and brought his sleeve or something to his nose, tilting his head, and finally sat dejectedly, he wasn’t without regret, but there was no other way.

Terrence fled once more as soon as class ended.

That was the second day he met Ian.

*

Don’t Think of an Elephant!

Just like they say that if you’re told not to think of an elephant, you end up thinking of an elephant instead, as in Lakoff’s book about how the human brain cannot think in negatives alone, Terrence’s brain kept thinking about Ian—the hot topic transfer student who had newly arrived at Lloyd Jones and whom he absolutely had to avoid.

But he swore this was somewhat beyond his control.

The group he was part of, though he had never intentionally created a clique to move around in herds with others, it naturally formed around him, perhaps because it had always been sports teams and he’d been at this Lloyd Jones School from elementary through his current 11th grade. Especially this smelly Alpha pack obsessed with athletics, gathered in the locker room and opened their mouths with the most serious faces in the world, not even having properly put on their shoulder pads yet.

“Did you see the transfer student?”

“Yeah.”

“Of course. He’s fucking pretty.”

From a distance, they looked like they were having a serious, in-depth discussion about the increasingly severe global warming. Terrence, sitting apart by himself and putting his protective gear into his football pants pocket, snorted quietly.

“He’s not just pretty. There’s something… something mysterious about him. Is it because he’s Asian mixed?”

“Really? I didn’t know he was mixed.”

“I didn’t either, but Amber said so? Della Bailey told her that. After hearing that and looking closely, he does have some features. His hair color too… Oh! Did you look closely at his hair and skin? They’re incredibly glossy.”

“Oh, right. I sit behind him in statistics class. His skin is like… how should I put it? Like the marble statue in the middle of our garden… I usually don’t like pale skin, you know? It looks kind of sick. But he’s really different. Transparent and smooth…”

That bastard looked pretty closely, didn’t he?

Here he was deliberately restraining himself from looking properly, and that damn bastard really… He was suddenly getting angry at David, who said he sat behind him in statistics class.

“Really? Isn’t he just a guy?”

When a big Beta asked in a tone that suggested he couldn’t understand, something like a dirty sock immediately flew like a grenade.

“Ha, that bastard, that thing, doesn’t know how to judge people.”

“Hey, get out of here if your nose is blocked.”

When someone subtly dropped hints about pheromones, everyone melted like they’d tasted a spoonful of heavenly ice cream.

“He’s an Omega, right? I don’t know what it is, but I just want to be next to him. My instincts are definitely telling me he’s an Omega.”

“What are you going to do with that stupid shit instinct of yours? Last time you went crazy saying Riley Jones seemed like an Omega…”

“Riley Jones is a Beta, isn’t he? Crazy bastard.”

“Ah, this time it’s real!”

For a while, they argued whether he was an Omega or not, holding uniforms they hadn’t even put on yet, pushing and scolding each other in complete chaos. But one guy completely ended the commotion.

“He’s an Omega. Real true pheromones were insane…”

“Have you smelled them?”

“Yeah. I took weight training class with him yesterday.”

He was talking about catching the pheromones that naturally flowed when he sweated during PE class, but that couldn’t sound more perverted. He had to kill all these stupid bastards…

But unaware that unknown murderous intent was rising in Terrence’s heart, the football team continued their chatter.

“Actually, I also… It was my first time with something like that. I just smelled it very briefly while passing by… If I got hit properly, I’d be done in one shot, right?”

“Ha… I’d be fine being a total loser and going down in one shot, so I want to smell it properly just once…”

When someone even started twitching their lower body, Terrence couldn’t listen anymore.

“That’s enough.”

Several who had been gathered stiffened at the low, ominous voice.

“Go any further and it’s sexual harassment. Get your heads straight.”

Originally, when close teenage boys secretly engage in sexual banter due to vigorous interest in the opposite sex and sexual desire, who would know? But private conversations break the moment someone mentions propriety and principles.

And Terrence knew he made other Alphas nervous.

There was an invisible hierarchy among Alphas. Most male-dominated groups experienced similar situations, but it was more intuitive among Alphas. The instinctive pressure that inferior Alphas couldn’t go against superior Alphas as fellow Alphas.

Unlike the adult world where other requirements like one’s abilities, job, or wealth were more important, the fact that everyone was similarly in their teens played a part.

Moreover, being in athletics where bodies clashed with bodies, hierarchy was clearly divided by extremely primitive things like strength, control, and pheromones.

Terrence was undoubtedly at the top there.

Though he wasn’t even the captain, teammates who had spent long periods with Terrence didn’t rebel against his words. They just shut their mouths and followed.

Thanks to his sensitive reaction, this transfer student, who was quite rarely admitted as a junior, didn’t attract attention and soon quieted down.

However, there was a separate part that Terrence was thankful for. Because his group had particularly many Alphas, it had developed into this kind of romantic interest, but among other students who were mostly Betas, Ian was just a somewhat rare existence.

He was the half-brother of Della Bailey, who was famous for being lively, confident, and pretty. Just like that. Whatever. That kind of level.

Lloyd Jones, with its snobbish nose held too high due to excessively high individual pride and little interest in others’ affairs, couldn’t be more welcome right now. Thus Terrence felt relieved by himself, unaware that the elephant in his mind was growing bigger.

His eyes kept unconsciously following him.

Ian looked a little lonely.

‘Why won’t anyone become friends with him?’

When he saw him going around alone without fitting in with anyone, he got angry as if asking when he had ever welcomed these individualistic Lloyd Jones people, and when he occasionally saw him eating with Dylan Burns, he resented why he had to become friends with such a guy. That guy acts like a noble deer, ignoring everyone else and going around alone, wondering if he even knows that.

When he later learned that Della Bailey had publicly posted on SNS making subtly disparaging remarks about her brother, his head blew off.

‘Treating him like a poor stranger.’

As he scrolled down the school SNS page he’d barely ever visited, he let out a hollow laugh. It was truly full of people whose heads and lungs were packed with prejudice and superficial pretensions.

Sympathy, subtle disregard, looking down on, drawing lines.

These were things Terrence knew very well too. They matched exactly the gazes directed at him when Bradley Hunt brought young Terrence back to Greenwood Hill.

The illegitimate product of a vulgar, young foreigner who didn’t even know refinement.

The discriminatory gaze that saw something different that could never completely belong to them was now directed at Ian as well.

To think he could feel such kinship with him.

Rather than being pleased by this unexpected commonality between two people who didn’t even resemble each other in appearance or traits, he was bewildered. Waves arose in the heavily sunken abyss. The place that would never be shaken no matter what began to surge, overlapping with his most precarious and difficult boyhood years.

So there was no way he could remain still seeing Ian Bailey left alone on that dark road with no one coming to pick him up. Like seeing a lost child dropped on dangerous Harem Street, he felt so sorry and angry that he absolutely couldn’t leave him there.

“Yeah, Ian Bailey. That’s you. I’m calling you.”

The feeling when he first spoke to him through the car window like that is another moment Terrence thinks he’ll never forget in his lifetime.

Ian. Ian Bailey. Ian. And Ian again.

Only after putting that name in his mouth did he realize how much he had wanted to call him by name.

It felt like murmuring with a spoonful of sweet cream held in his mouth.

“Get in. I’ll give you a ride.”

And as he put Ian in his car for the first time, someone other than himself had never ridden in it, Terrence opened the castle gate that had been locked solid like a fortress on a cliff.

The castle walls that would soon completely crumble opened for the first time like that.

* * *

Actually, Terrence had never looked closely into his own heart until Ian appeared.

Like the assessment that he was perfectly suited to be an athlete with his steadfast, patient personality of digging one well, he was naturally born without many branches of thought in everything. If he were a tree, he’d be a giant tree made of a few trunks with almost no small branches.

Therefore, even knowing that contradictory emotions existed within him, he lived leaving them as they were.

His feelings toward his mother and brother were exactly like that. Loving while simultaneously being tired of them. But knowing that even thinking deeply about it wouldn’t change anything in reality, he left it alone. If it wasn’t something that would develop through worry, it was easier to clear it from his mind. Because it was a useless waste of time and energy.

Therefore, Terrence had no hesitation about things he had already decided.

His feelings for Ian were like that. Though he had unconsciously avoided him because of past remnants, once he decided against it, should we say his hesitation disappeared?

Bradley might have criticized him for reason being defeated by emotion if he had seen, but Terrence didn’t dare want to think so. Ian was too beautiful to be described as a “loss,” and just being with him made favorable winds blow in his heart.

When his heart was beating like this and he felt this good, losing was nonsense.

Defeat is inherently bitter, painful, and hurtful. Such warm, lovely feelings couldn’t be defeat. He instinctively felt that getting close to the person called Ian was extremely close to victory.

So as soon as Ian said he might return to Korea while talking with his family back home, he frantically held onto him. Demanding like a tantrum that he’d be his friend and sticking him right next to himself, he couldn’t be more pleased with that.

‘Right. This is how it should have been from the beginning.’

Ian seen up close was such a delicate creature. His face, pale white enough to seem sickly, contrasted with his black hair and looked whiter the more he looked, making it seem like he should take him around and let him get some sunlight.

When he actually stood next to him, he wasn’t that short, but it was amazing how small and delicate he looked. Perhaps it was from seeing him staggering with armloads of luggage from the beginning.

‘Is it because his frame itself isn’t thick…’

Standing at the library entrance, Terrence stared blankly at Ian’s back as he sat at a desk earnestly looking into his book, unable to continue speaking for a while.

The sight of him waiting without forgetting his request to go together from now on, to wait and not go alone anymore, was unbelievably pretty.

His shoulders weren’t narrow and he wasn’t a scrawny bag of bones without any muscle. But strangely, his fingers were so slender that the common pencil with a yellow body and hard to erase green eraser that he was gripping tightly seemed no different from those fingers. Looking at him made one want to carefully hold and cherish him.

When eating alone, his gentle eyebrows drooped slightly in a somewhat melancholy way, and the deep eye hollows beneath them were slightly purplish, perhaps because blood vessels showed through. The black eyelashes draped like wings over those tender violet petals were truly as delicate and beautiful as flower petals sprouting in early spring. Wouldn’t they be unbearably soft to touch?

And what about those pale blue-gray eyes revealed beneath blinking eyelids?

When alone, they pooled like a quiet pond, but when he spoke to him, they quickly turned this way, and seeing those clear, cool blue eyes sparkling clearly as they looked at him made his chest tickle as if someone were brushing it with a feathered broom, making him want to stick his hand inside his t-shirt and scratch vigorously.

Even the slightly upturned nose tip below and the deep pink lips like Georgia peaches. Each part was beautiful when examined separately, but when all gathered together, they were even more breathtakingly lovely. If he smiled shyly toward him with that face, he would be an angel just like his first impression.

So kind like this. So pure like this. Seeing people ignore or subtly gossip about such a person, and watching him silently endure it, made surging emotions rise up. He wanted to become a solid protective barrier that wouldn’t let anyone hurt him. Like the heavy linemen’s pocket that surrounded the quarterback during games.

Yes, pocket. It was an even more appealing word when put together with Ian. Taking care of him like keeping him in his pocket while being together every day. Didn’t it fit perfectly?

Terrence silently approached and pulled out the chair next to Ian to sit down. Then, staring intently at his face as he remained concentrated as if buried in his book, he rested his head on his arm placed on the desk. He quietly appreciated Ian’s face as he studied for quite a while like that.

“Huh…?”

Ian only discovered Terrence sitting next to him and watching him after more than 5 minutes had passed.