The Main Character is Obsessed With a Foreign Substance

Now I felt like I could do anything if I set my mind to it.

Is this what they call self-confidence? Seunghyun muttered inwardly, raising his head again when he heard the tinkling sound.

“Welcome.”

Seunghyun, who had perfectly assumed the role of a cafe employee, smiled as if painted.

Though Suhwan had mentioned a month, Seunghyun believed the end would come sooner. And at this point, he still didn’t realize that the kind of ending they each wanted was subtly different.

***

“Hmm, is this enough?”

Back in the hotel room, Suhwan tilted his head as he packed his belongings haphazardly. Since he had mostly used supplies provided by the hotel, there wasn’t much to pack. Besides, once he returned, Jin Suhwan’s belongings would be there. After all, it was originally Jin Suhwan’s home.

“Haah.”

Honestly, it was still hard to fully understand how things had turned out this way. He only felt that he had a lot of karmic debt to settle.

Sighing, Suhwan picked up his small bag and left the hotel room again.

Returning home wasn’t particularly difficult. Despite the twists and turns, he had visited once before, so the memory remained in his mind.

Suhwan stood in front of the door with a tense face. Seunghyun’s part-time job wouldn’t be over yet, so there should be no one at home. Yet, for some reason, he felt nervous, his heart pounding.

This was like feeling tense before meeting a boss you didn’t want to encounter. Sighing, Suhwan reached for the door lock and pressed the passcode firmly.

Beep-beep-beep-beep, click.

Beep!

Fortunately, the password remained the same. 0912. When he pressed the number that had somehow remained vivid in his memory, the door unlocked and opened.

“Um, hmm.”

After clearing his throat unnecessarily, Suhwan carefully pulled the door. He pushed his body through the door that opened smoothly without resistance.

As soon as he stepped into the entrance, a tangy citrus scent brushed Suhwan’s nose. Do they place diffusers even in the entryway? He looked around, but there was no diffuser placed anywhere.

Well, Jin Suhwan wasn’t that meticulous a character. And Seunghyun wouldn’t go out of his way to care about someone else’s house. Thinking it was just his imagination, Suhwan took off his shoes. Then he proceeded through the hallway connected to the entrance and trudged into the house.

“Wow…”

A spacious living room greeted Suhwan just past the hallway. He had thought the house would be desolate since Jin Suhwan did so many obsessive, crazy things, but it wasn’t. The wallpaper had a subtle beige color that gave a cozy feeling, and the furniture was matched in dark brown, providing a sense of stability. Suhwan couldn’t close his mouth, surprised by the unexpectedly normal interior.

“Amazing.”

The expensive Tower Palace penthouse located by the Han River had one wall of the living room made entirely of glass. Sunlight was pouring in abundantly. The blue river, visible at a glance, sparkled in the sunlight.

So this is why rich people live in expensive houses. Suhwan muttered inwardly, somehow feeling like it was someone else’s affair.

“Maybe living as Jin Suhwan wouldn’t be so bad.”

He hadn’t realized it while busy figuring out how to survive, but indeed, the power of capital is supreme. Suhwan smacked his lips unnecessarily. When he came to this house a month ago, the feeling was different. The alcohol Jin Suhwan had poured in all night hadn’t fully worn off, and his mind was jumbled as if someone had kneaded it.

In that state, someone who had come into the living room quietly called his name.

‘…Jin Suhwan?’

‘Gasp!’

Seeing the main character for the first time, Suhwan stepped back, inelegantly terrified. Looking at him, he somehow felt a strong impulse. But since it was an emotion so unfamiliar to him, Suhwan didn’t know what to do.

He turned around and left the house immediately. As he wandered around the area, pieces of the novel’s content began to surface in Suhwan’s mind one by one. Afterward, Suhwan couldn’t think of returning to Jin Suhwan’s home where the main character was, and ended up staying at a hotel near the house.

“Hmm.”

Even recalling it now, it seemed quite foolish. If the real Jin Suhwan had seen that behavior, he would have immediately clicked his tongue and cursed. From his perspective, a feast had been laid out right in front of him, and Suhwan had kicked it away.

Still, he didn’t regret it at all. If he had been engulfed by that strong impulse and violated the main character just like Jin Suhwan, a dead end would have been confirmed without question. As long as he could preserve his life, Suhwan was willing to live as foolishly as needed.

“But, my room…”

As Suhwan wandered around the living room, he moved to find his room. Walking aimlessly, he saw a long corridor connected to the living room. There was one closed door at the end of the corridor, and one more door on each side of the corridor in the middle. Those doors were also all closed.

After contemplating, Suhwan stopped in front of the first visible door. A familiar scent was flowing from there. The fresh citrus scent he had first smelled at the entrance. The same scent that had been subtly spread throughout the living room. But beyond this door, the scent was felt more intensely.

This, could it be…

Suhwan raised his increasingly trembling hand and grabbed the doorknob. With a little force, the door opened easily with a click. Suhwan pushed the door with force.

Creak.

As soon as the door opened, an overwhelming scent rushed toward Suhwan. He barely managed to stop his knees from buckling involuntarily. Covering his nose with his hand, he exhaled a shallow breath with difficulty.

“Haah.”

This was not simply a diffuser scent.

It was an omega’s pheromones.

To the numbing, tangy scent, Suhwan slowly closed and opened his eyes. His heart was pounding.

He hadn’t sensed any scent from Seunghyun when they met in the morning. That would be because he was a dominant omega skilled at hiding his pheromone scent. But in a house where he had lived for a month, the pheromones he had inadvertently released would inevitably accumulate.

“Haah, ha…”

Seunghyun’s pheromones seemed to scramble his mind. Though it was clearly a calm and subdued pheromone like him, it was inexplicable why it excited him so wildly.

Suddenly, Suhwan realized that he had no immunity to someone’s pheromones. Jin Suhwan, who changed omega lovers almost daily, might be different, but he was just an ordinary person who had newly manifested in an alpha’s body.

It had been a month since he manifested here. Of that, he spent a week holed up in a hotel room assessing the situation, and the rest of the time he worked lazily as an intern at the company and met with elders to get permission to break off the engagement. Most of the people at the company were either alphas or betas, so Seunghyun was practically the first omega Suhwan had met.

Regret belatedly flooded in. Would he really be able to resist without being swayed by an omega’s pheromones? Meeting it directly, fear washed over him. What if he became a monster swayed by pheromones?

“Urgh!”

Terrified, Suhwan barely straightened his increasingly trembling knees and stepped back. The scenery inside the room didn’t register in his eyes at all. Stepping backward, Suhwan hastily left the room and grabbed the doorknob of the room across the corridor.

“Huh…”

A monochrome room that looked like a replica of a hotel room gave Suhwan a sense of security. Above all, since he couldn’t sense any scent, Suhwan could breathe freely.

“Whew.”

Although he had somewhat calmed down, the tangerine scent that still seemed to linger at the tip of his nose made him queasy. Suhwan walked weakly and plopped down on a gray chair. Then, groaning, he raised his hand and held his head.

He thought he might have been thinking too easily. Whether he could stay here for a month without incident…

Trembling with anxious thoughts, Suhwan hurriedly gathered himself and shook his head from side to side.

Hadn’t he already promised Seunghyun? That he would prove his innocence by not touching even a hair on his head for a month. Now, there was no other way but to listen to the main character who held his lifeline. Somehow, he had to endure the temptation of pheromones.

With firm resolve, Suhwan first unpacked his bags. After sweating a bit, he showered again and sat on a leather chair that resembled a sofa, dozing off as the day began to darken.

Soon, it would be time for Seunghyun to return.

Suhwan got up from his seat and quietly went to the living room. Then he entered the kitchen he had only seen with his eyes.

It would be better to live without encountering Seunghyun as much as possible, but he thought that on the first day, today, they should at least have a meal together to ease the atmosphere. After all, it’s customary for Koreans to become somewhat close after sharing a meal.

However, upon entering the kitchen, Suhwan’s expression quickly turned to dismay.

“Why is there nothing?”

Don’t housekeepers usually come to these expensive houses, make meals, and leave whenever they have time? Surely Jin Suhwan wouldn’t have cooked meals with his own hands.

After thinking various thoughts, Suhwan’s mouth opened stupidly with an “Ah.”

A housekeeper? If someone had decided to imprison a person, they wouldn’t have kept someone who comes and goes from the house.

Suhwan guessed that Jin Suhwan, before he manifested, would have chased away the housekeeper. In the novel, only the main character’s miserable situation was depicted, so eating wasn’t well described.

Surely this conscienceless bastard wouldn’t have starved the main character? Frowning, Suhwan looked at the empty refrigerator and clicked his tongue.

Setting aside Jin Suhwan, what about Seunghyun who had lived here for a month? Seeing that there were no ingredients, it seemed he hadn’t been cooking and eating here. Did he eat at his part-time job place? Or ordered delivery?

As he tilted his head, he vaguely heard the sound of the door lock being unlocked.

Beep!

His fingers stiffened with tension. Suhwan closed the refrigerator and turned around slowly. Small, trudging footsteps came closer and closer.

“…”

“…”

Seunghyun, who saw Suhwan standing in front of the refrigerator, stopped abruptly. His bright brown eyes gazed calmly at Suhwan, who was standing awkwardly. Unable to bear that gaze, Suhwan spoke first.