The Smell of Danger

The next morning, Yoon Dae-eon passed by the school’s back gate with a complicated expression on his face.

He had adamantly refused Seon Ji-ha’s offer to drive him early that morning and had escaped his house as if fleeing. Naturally, he hadn’t eaten breakfast.

Tud-tud, Yoon Dae-eon walked toward the building where his lecture was held, then suddenly stopped and pulled at his hair. Even when he tried to think of other things, nothing came to mind. Only the image of Seon Ji-ha in the darkness, which he had accidentally seen last night, kept floating to the surface.

……He masturbated, right?

While thinking of me?

Yoon Dae-eon stared down at the sweatshirt he was wearing with a grave face. When Seon Ji-ha had brought him his clothes that morning, he hadn’t shown it, but he had felt dizzy inside.

Seon Ji-ha had brought him new clothes before they slept last night, but Yoon Dae-eon had already refused them. After saying he would take them next time if he didn’t have anything to wear, the clothes were neatly shoved into Seon Ji-ha’s dress room. So, Yoon Dae-eon had come out this morning wearing the exact same clothes he had worn yesterday.

And these clothes were the ones that had been clutched in Seon Ji-ha’s hands last night.

Although they were clean and even felt brand new, without a single trace of having been used for such a purpose. It was clear that Seon Ji-ha must have washed his clothes once.

Yoon Dae-eon’s face, as he stared blankly at his clothes, turned bright red. Masturbation, masturbation, masturbation. Before he knew it, the word was popping up countless times.

Does Sunbae really like me?

It felt like it should be unpleasant to know he had done that while thinking of him, but strangely, it was okay. No, it even felt quite good. Seeing Seon Ji-ha masturbating while burying his face in Yoon Dae-eon’s clothes felt like he was desperately longing for him.

Even without asking himself such questions, as a matter of fact, even someone as oblivious as Yoon Dae-eon couldn’t help but know that Seon Ji-ha liked him. He couldn’t not know when Seon Ji-ha became sulky every time he tried to go home and showed so clearly that he wanted to be together.

Yoon Dae-eon, who had paused for a moment in the middle of the university campus, soon started walking again. Since he had come out as if escaping long before the lecture time, he still had plenty of time.

Ding. Ding-di-ding…….

As his phone rang, Yoon Dae-eon naturally took it out of his pocket. The name displayed was ‘Uncle.’ Had he renewed the imprint certificate he mentioned last time? He answered the call without much thought.

“Uncle, what’s up?”

“Yoon Dae-eon! Yoon Dae-eon, are you okay?”

“Huh? Of course, I’m okay.”

“Hah, right. I was just so startled.”

As soon as he picked up the call, Do Jeong-min suddenly asked something strange. There had never been a time when Yoon Dae-eon wasn’t okay, except for when his parents passed away several years ago. He found it suspicious that his uncle would suddenly throw such a question at him.

“What’s going on?”

“Are you still looking into whether any Betas are left in Korea?”

Yoon Dae-eon blinked, pondered for a moment, and gave a short, “Yeah.” Of course, he wasn’t searching with eyes on fire like he used to, but he still occasionally checked the Beta community to see if anyone was active. That was the best Yoon Dae-eon could do.

However, as soon as Yoon Dae-eon replied, a loud shout erupted from Do Jeong-min.

“You, you stop that right now!”

“What? Uncle, why are you suddenly like this? What is going on?”

“While preparing the imprint certificate this time, I looked into a few things. I wanted to see if there really were no Betas left in Korea.”

A sigh permeated Do Jeong-min’s tone. His voice trembled slightly, like someone facing a complex problem. The playful, fun uncle that Do Jeong-min usually showed was nowhere to be found.

“The Betas that were in Korea. It wasn’t just a simple disappearance for all of them.”

His low voice pierced his ears. It was an unfamiliar voice. Yoon Dae-eon swallowed hard and asked again.

“……What does that mean?”

“I looked into the Beta community without much thought, wondering if there was anyone other than you. But the more I dig, the weirder things get. I need to look into it more to be sure, but…….”

It smelled. That’s what Do Jeong-min said. Having lived at the bottom of society even as a doctor, Do Jeong-min knew very well when this kind of smell appeared. Usually, this smell occurred when something very dangerous, directly linked to life or death, was about to happen.

“That account you have there, was it your parents’?”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Hah, that’s a relief. Never log into that site ever again. The time when Betas started to disappear and the time that site was created match.”

A shocked Yoon Dae-eon couldn’t even think to answer and gasped for air. Just as Do Jeong-min said, something was wrong. A community created for Betas to find each other had made them disappear?

“Uncle will find out more and let you know, so be careful for the time being. Don’t let anyone find out you’re a Beta! You hear me?”

Do Jeong-min’s voice, warning him one last time, was not light. Whenever he disobeyed his uncle’s words at times like these, he would usually be scolded severely later. Yoon Dae-eon parted his lips and answered slowly.

“Uncle, don’t do anything dangerous yourself.”

“Oh my. Am I hearing you worry about me, of all things?”

After that, the call ended with him saying he had sent the imprint certificate by mail. Yoon Dae-eon looked down at his phone screen with complicated eyes.

There was a problem with the Beta community.

Because his mother and father met there, Yoon Dae-eon had rummaged through the site with his parents’ account, wondering if he could meet his own match, too. Of course, since it wasn’t his own ID, he just kept an eye on things rather than being active.

He had heard that the Beta community wasn’t an internet site like this in the beginning. His parents told him that up until the old days, they just contacted and met among Betas they knew, but at some point, it changed into an internet site.

But that Beta community made Betas disappear?

No, no. It was too early to jump to conclusions. It wasn’t certain whether Betas disappeared because of the Beta community.

However, Yoon Dae-eon intuitively thought that the ‘Beta community’ must be related to the disappearance of the Betas. If it really was like that……. If that was why everyone disappeared.

The thought of telling Seon Ji-ha that he was a Beta, which he had been contemplating, now felt like something from the past. On the phone screen that Yoon Dae-eon was staring at blankly, a message from Seon Ji-ha arrived asking, ‘Did you arrive at the lecture hall?’ Yoon Dae-eon turned off the screen.

Not now. At least until he heard from his uncle about what on earth had happened to the Beta community, and then he would talk. It was too dangerous right now.

************************************************

Meanwhile, Seon Ji-ha was sitting still on his bed, staring down at his phone.

[Sunbae Seon Ji-ha: Did you arrive at the lecture hall?] 10:40 AM 1

No matter how much he glared at the screen, the ‘1’ next to the message he sent wouldn’t disappear.

Had Yoon Dae-eon arrived at the lecture hall? As soon as Yoon Dae-eon left his house, Seon Ji-ha followed him without being noticed, but Yoon Dae-eon had clearly gone into the back gate quietly. He hadn’t slipped away anywhere else.

It wasn’t because he doubted Yoon Dae-eon. He just followed him because it was strange that the person who hadn’t refused to let him drive him to school until a few days ago was suddenly adamantly refusing. He thought, ‘What if he’s trying to go somewhere else without me knowing?’

What if he’s going to meet ‘that’ imprint partner…….

Seon Ji-ha pressed down hard on his head to try and avoid that thought. At least since the moment Seon Ji-ha found out that Yoon Dae-eon had an imprint partner named ‘Do Jeong-min,’ Yoon Dae-eon had never met that man. He didn’t even try to contact anyone else.

From last weekend until now, Seon Ji-ha had carefully observed Yoon Dae-eon whenever he held his phone and snooped on his chat rooms, but except for the group chat rooms filled with ‘300+’, it was rare for him to receive personal messages. Even those were mostly familiar faces to Seon Ji-ha, like Oh Dong-cheol or Yoon Ju-myeong.

Seon Ji-ha, who had been sitting vacantly, eventually stood up from his seat. He hadn’t even taken off his outer coat after returning home, and he stood up as he was and headed to the entrance. His head ached as if it would split, so he couldn’t stay still.

He knew that this anxiety and restlessness were aftereffects of a one-sided imprint, but Seon Ji-ha didn’t care. Instead, he welcomed even the pain, thinking that this ‘one-sided imprint’ was his own, something he didn’t have to worry about losing.

The fact that Yoon Dae-eon actually had an imprinter was the same. From the moment he knew of their existence, he had wanted to find the partner and kill them, but he hadn’t actually acted on it.

As long as Yoon Dae-eon didn’t actually meet his imprint partner, Seon Ji-ha didn’t care whether Yoon Dae-eon had an imprinter or not. No, he decided to think that way.

He just needed to make sure his things weren’t taken away. Yoon Dae-eon wasn’t completely Seon Ji-ha’s yet, but the one-sided imprint was completely Seon Ji-ha’s. Seon Ji-ha scrambled to not lose this.

Seon Ji-ha, who had stuffed his feet into his shoes, was running at some point.

He knew which building and which lecture hall Yoon Dae-eon was attending classes in. He wasn’t planning to go and do anything to him; he was just going to check if Yoon Dae-eon really went there.

Running, it didn’t take 10 minutes to reach the back gate. It was when Seon Ji-ha arrived in front of the lecture hall where Yoon Dae-eon was taking his lecture.

A vibration sounded from the phone in his pocket. Seon Ji-ha was in a daze and took out his phone to check without realizing it.

[Yes, I arrived. 😀 Sunbae, what should we have for lunch!] 11:02 AM

Beyond the lecture hall with the door open, he could see the round back of Yoon Dae-eon’s head. Seon Ji-ha checked that and the message alternately, then whipped around. Then, he began to type slowly with his large hands.

Seon Ji-ha thought suddenly. If he had seen this message before leaving the house, would he have run all the way here? The answer came shortly after.

No, no way.