Chapter Sixteen #2
"You okay, Sihwan?" Seungchan asks, mouth full of lettuce wrap. "You look kinda... sweaty."
"It's the grill," I snap, grabbing the water pitcher with a shaking hand. "It's just really hot in here."
The door chimes, cutting through the din of sizzling meat and clinking glasses. Like a conditioned response, half the restaurant turns to look.
It’s Yoon Heesung. Of course it is.
He stands in the entryway, bathed in the harsh fluorescent light, looking like he just stepped out of a K-pop music video while the rest of us look like greased-up potatoes. He’s wearing a white sweater that looks impossibly soft, his hair perfectly tousled.
I watch, jaw tight, as his eyes do a quick, hopeful sweep of the room. He’s not looking for me.
His gaze lands squarely on the window seat. On Donghwa.
I feel a spike of irritation so sharp it almost overrides the nausea churning in my gut.
It’s pathetic, really. Even after everything—the cold shoulders, the obvious disinterest—Heesung still looks for the freshman first. He pauses there, lips parting slightly, waiting for acknowledgment.
Waiting for the "Dark Horse" alpha to give him a nod, a smile, anything.
Donghwa doesn't even look up from his glass. He’s visibly ignoring him. It’s a brutal, silent rejection that screams you don’t exist to me.
I should be happy. I should be thrilled that my rival is fumbling the bag so hard. But instead, I just feel annoyed that Heesung is wasting his time.
Heesung’s smile falters for a fraction of a second—a tiny crack in the porcelain mask—before he recovers. He stiffens, his chin lifting as he pivots. He scans the room again, more aggressively this time, until he finds me.
His face lights up. It’s a bright, dazzling expression that doesn't quite reach his eyes.
"Sihwan-sunbae!" he calls out, his voice sweet and carrying.
Oh no.
Before I can pretend to be deeply engrossed in a piece of pork belly, Heesung is making a beeline for our table. He moves with purpose, weaving through the crowd, and I realize with a sinking dread that he’s decided if he can’t have the freshman, he’s going to settle for the King.
"Make room," I hiss at Seungchan, kicking him under the table.
"Ow! What the hell—oh, hey Heesung!" Seungchan grins like an idiot, sliding over.
Heesung arrives in a cloud of scent.
It's practically assaulted with it. Peaches. Ripe, sugary, concentrated peaches. A month ago, I would have thought he smelled like heaven. I would have been inhaling deeply, letting it fuel my ego.
Now? It smells like fruit that’s been left out in the sun too long. It’s thick, nauseating.
"Is this seat taken?" Heesung asks, though he’s already sitting down. He drops into the empty chair right next to me—too close. His thigh presses against mine under the table.
"It is now," I manage to say, forcing a tight smile. I try to breathe through my mouth. "Fashionably late, Heesung?"
"I had a photoshoot," he sighs, leaning into my space. He picks up the soju bottle and pours into my glass, his movements fluid and practiced. "But I needed to unwind. I knew you’d be the life of the party, Sunbae."
He flashes me a look through his lashes. It’s textbook flirtation. It’s exactly what I spent the last few weeks trying to achieve. I have the campus idol hanging off my arm, pouring my drinks, and directing all his attention at me in front of the senior hierarchy.
I want to throw up.
"You know me," I say, my voice sounding strained. I pick up the glass just to have something to do with my hands. "Always... here."
Heesung giggles. He leans closer, his shoulder bumping mine.
The scent of peaches intensifies, mixing with the smell of grilled pork fat and cigarette smoke.
My stomach gives a violent lurch. The bond mark on my shoulder itches furiously, a warning flare from my nervous system. Wrong. Wrong scent. Wrong omega. Wrong.
"You’ve been so distant lately," Heesung purrs, lowering his voice so the others can’t hear. He rests his chin on his hand, staring at me with wide, glassy eyes. "I missed you in class."
"Busy," I choke out. I try to inch my chair away, but I’m blocked by the wall. "Midterms coming up. You know how it is."
"Mmm. You work too hard."
Then I feel his hand slide under the table. It lands on my thigh, fingers splayed.
My entire body locks up. It’s not a thrill. It’s a recoil. My skin crawls where he touches me, a cold sweat breaking out on the back of my neck. It feels invasive, wrong, like wearing a wet wool sweater.
Heesung’s fingers walk higher, squeezing my quad. He’s doubling down, trying to provoke a reaction, trying to prove to himself—and probably to Donghwa across the room—that he’s still desirable.
"Maybe I can help you relax," he whispers, his breath hot against my ear.
I am going to vomit. I am one hundred percent going to vomit all over this expensive cashmere sweater, and then I will have to move to Antarctica and live with the penguins because my social life will be officially dead.
The heat in the restaurant seems to spike twenty degrees.
My shirt is suddenly sticking to my back, a layer of cold, clammy sweat breaking out across my forehead.
Heesung’s hand is still on my thigh, squeezing rhythmically, and every press of his fingers sends a wave of revulsion curdling through my stomach.
It feels wrong. It feels like wearing a shoe on the wrong foot, but magnified by a thousand.
I can’t breathe. The air is too thick, too sweet, too much.
Desperate for an anchor—for anything that isn't the sick scent of peaches—my eyes snap up. I don't even have to search. My gaze bypasses the crowd, the smoke, and the partition, locking instantly onto the one thing in the room my body actually recognizes.
Donghwa.
He hasn’t moved, but the vibe has shifted. He’s not looking at the girl with pink hair anymore. He’s looking right at me. And he looks pissed.
His eyes are dark, heavy-lidded, and fixed on where Heesung is leaning into my space.
Even from this distance, I can feel the weight of his attention.
It’s heavy, possessive, a low-frequency growl vibrating in the base of my skull.
The bond flares hot under my skin, a sharp, stinging reminder of who I actually belong to.
Mine, the look says. Get him off you.
I want to. God, I want to. But I’m paralyzed, caught between the social pressure of being the "King" and the biological reality that I am currently a mated alpha about to have a panic attack.
"You're so tense, Sunbae," Heesung laughs, the sound tinkling like wind chimes. He mistakes my rigidity for arousal. "You really need to unwind."
He leans in closer, his nose brushing the fabric of my shirt, and then he does it. He pushes.
A fresh wave of pheromones rolls off him, concentrated and deliberate. It’s meant to be seductive. It’s meant to make an alpha drool. But to me, it smells like rotting fruit left in a hot car. It hits the back of my throat like a physical solid, thick and oily.
My stomach gives a violent, traitorous lurch.
Urk.
I slap a hand over my mouth, my eyes watering.
"Sihwan?" Heesung pulls back, looking confused. "Are you—"
I don't wait for him to finish. I don't excuse myself. I don't make a charming exit. I shove my chair back with a screech of metal on tile that silences half the restaurant.
"Bathroom," I garble through my fingers.
I scramble up, nearly tripping over my own feet, and bolt. I sprint past the partition, past the confused faces of my classmates, and shoulder-check the door to the men's room like I’m breaking down a drug den.
I grip the edges of the porcelain sink so hard I think I might crack the ceramic.
"Get it together," I wheeze, staring at my pale, sweaty reflection in the mirror. "You are Oh Sihwan. You are the apex predator. You do not vomit because a pretty boy touched your thigh."
But my stomach disagrees. It gives a violent, rolling lurch that sends me dry heaving over the basin again. Nothing comes up, just the burning taste of bile. The air in the bathroom is stale, but it’s still better than the suffocating cloud of rotten peaches I just escaped.
It’s sticking to me. I can still smell Heesung on my clothes, that clingy, sugary scent that feels like it’s coating the back of my throat with syrup.
I scrub at my face with water, splashing it frantically, but the nausea won’t recede.
The world is tilting on its axis, spinning in a sickening, blurry circle.
The bathroom door creaks open behind me.
I flinch, my shoulders hunching up to my ears. If that’s Heesung coming to check on me, I am going to have to jump out the window. I can’t take another hit of that scent. I physically cannot survive it.
"I'm fine," I choke out, not turning around. "Just... bad pork."
But the scent that hits me isn't peaches.
It’s cold. Sharp. Clean.
It hits the back of my neck like a blast of air conditioning on a humid day. Winter air. Ginseng. Dark ink.
The relief is instantaneous. It washes over me so fast my knees actually buckle. The nausea doesn't just fade; it is violently shoved aside by a biological imperative that screams safe.
I spin around, gasping for air, and he’s right there.
Donghwa is standing with his back against the door, effectively locking us in. He doesn't say a word. He doesn't have to. He just takes one step forward, and I collapse into him like a building with its supports kicked out.
I don't think. I don't plan. I just grab the front of his expensive black shirt and bury my face in the crook of his neck, inhaling like a drowning man breaking the surface.
"Fuck," I breathe, the word vibrating against his skin.
The scent is a drug. It’s an antidote. It clears the fog in my brain instantly, replacing the sick, roiling feeling in my gut with a heavy, grounding warmth. My heart, which had been trying to beat its way out of my chest, syncs up with the steady, slow thud of his pulse against my cheek.
Donghwa’s arms come around me, solid and heavy. One hand splays across the small of my back, pulling me flush against him, while the other comes up to cup the back of my neck, his thumb pressing into the sensitive spot right over the bond mark.
"Breathe, Hyung," he murmurs, his voice a low rumble in his chest. "I've got you."
I shudder, pressing closer, trying to get as much surface area contact as possible. The friction of his body against mine sparks a different kind of heat—not the feverish sickness from before, but the electric, addictive pull of the bond.
"He smells..." I gasp, my nose brushing against his collarbone. "He smells like garbage."
"I know," Donghwa says, his nose skimming along my hairline, inhaling my scent in return. "You smell like distress. It’s annoying."
"Shut up."
I lift my head, just an inch. I shouldn't. I should push him away. I should punch him for following me. But I can't make my hands let go of his shirt.
We’re standing toe-to-toe in a grimy restaurant bathroom, surrounded by graffiti and the sound of a dripping faucet, but all I can focus on is the dark ring of his iris.
His eyes are half-lidded, focused entirely on my mouth.
The air between us is suddenly thick, charged with a static tension that makes the hair on my arms stand up.
His hand slides from my neck to my jaw, his thumb tracing my bottom lip. His skin is rough, warm.
"Better?" he asks softly.
"Yeah," I whisper. My gaze drops to his lips. They look soft. I remember exactly what they feel like.
He leans in. I tilt my head back. The distance between us shrinks to nothing, the magnetic pull inevitable. I can feel his breath on my lips, smelling of whiskey and mint. My eyes flutter shut, my body leaning forward to close the gap—
Creak.
The door handle rattles.
We spring apart like two magnets with the polarity suddenly reversed.
I stumble back into the sink, my hip checking the porcelain hard enough to bruise. Donghwa takes a smooth, calculated step back, his face instantly transforming from intense lover to bored indifference in a millisecond.
The door swings open.
Seungchan stands there, hand still on the knob, blinking at us.
The tableau must be incredible. Me, clutching the sink like a lifeline, face flushed and hair disheveled. Donghwa, standing three feet away, calmly adjusting his cufflinks, looking like he just finished a business meeting.
The silence stretches for three agonizing seconds. The air is still thick with our combined pheromones—a chaotic mix of my distress and Donghwa’s heavy, protective winter scent.
Seungchan’s eyes dart from me to Donghwa, then back to me. His brow furrows. He sniffs the air, confused.
"Uh," Seungchan says eloquently. "Everything... good in here?"
Panic, cold and sharp, douses the heat in my veins.
"Food poisoning!" I shout. It comes out way too loud. I immediately turn on the faucet full blast and splash water onto my face, ruining my foundation. "It was the pork! I knew that pork looked suspicious! I told you the ventilation was bad!"
I grab a paper towel and scrub at my face, refusing to look at either of them.
"Oh," Seungchan says, stepping fully into the room. He looks at Donghwa suspiciously. "And you are...?"
"Just washing my hands," Donghwa says smoothly. He walks over to the sink next to me, pumps the soap once, and rinses his hands with agonizing slowness. He catches my eye in the mirror. He doesn't smile, but the mockery is there, dancing in his dark eyes.
"Right," Seungchan says slowly. He’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, but he knows tension when he walks into it. He looks at me, concern warring with confusion. "Do you need to go to the hospital? You look... really red, dude."
"No!" I crumple the paper towel and toss it at the trash can. I miss. "No hospital. I just need air. Fresh air. Away from the pork."
I spin around, keeping my eyes strictly on the exit sign.
"I'm leaving," I announce to the room at large. "Don't wait up."
I shoulder past Seungchan, practically running. As I hit the doorway, I risk one glance back.
Donghwa is drying his hands. He brings the paper towel to his face, just for a second, and inhales.
I bolt into the hallway, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs, praying to every god I don't believe in that Seungchan didn't see the way my knees were shaking.