By Zephyria 
Haon’s pheromones and now Cha Jeong-won’s pheromones too. Jeong-won’s pheromones were familiar, but it was rare for him to smell his own.
He hardly ever let them slip at school.
He wondered if it was okay to go to the classroom like this, but there was also no time to change clothes.
“Is there no way?”
The thought that someone might be able to smell them made him incredibly self-conscious.
Haon, who had been pondering, turned his steps toward the convenience store.
＊ ＊ ＊
Cha Jeong-won entered the lecture hall carrying a drink carrier. Then, he silently looked around.
The students who had arrived first glanced at Jeong-won. Among them, someone even waited to make eye contact and offered a greeting, but Jeong-won passed by indifferently, so they couldn’t even properly finish their greeting.
It seemed he was looking for someone. From behind, someone cautiously called him.
“Jeong-won sunbaenim?”
Jeong-won slowly turned his head and looked at Kim Hyun-gyu.
“Why are you alone?”
“Huh? Ah… Haon? Yeah. We’re not always attached at the hip.”
Kim Hyun-gyu made a somewhat subtle expression. Jeong-won asked, unconcerned.
“Why?”
“Well, because we take different classes?”
Jeong-won looked at Hyun-gyu, who had answered clearly, with a dissatisfied gaze.
Wondering why on earth he was like that, Hyun-gyu soon noticed the drink carrier in his hand.
“Huh? You have two drinks. Are you perhaps going to give one to me?”
“Why would I?”
“Well, Haon bought you coffee, sunbaenim. So I thought maybe you were trying to look out for your hoobae too.”
Why would that hoobae be Kim Hyun-gyu?
But Hyun-gyu, while reminding him that he was also a hoobae, glanced around the lecture hall.
Haon was nowhere to be seen. Jeong-won didn’t move his house-sized body out of the way.
“Sorry.”
Even with Hyun-gyu’s quick response, thinking apology was the only way at a time like this, Jeong-won didn’t change.
“I’m asking where Yoon Haon is.”
“He’s probably at the convenience store with Seo-jun, right?”
A name that suddenly popped up.
“Cha Seo-jun?”
“Yeah, yeah. I came with Seo-jun after eating, but I saw Yoon Haon heading to the convenience store and following him. So I came first. Our classes are different anyway.”
From the stream of words, he easily figured out Haon’s whereabouts. Moreover, the additional fact he learned made his mood sink on its own.
“Should’ve come together.”
“Huh? I didn’t catch that, could you say it again?”
At Jeong-won’s muttering, Hyun-gyu asked again. But Jeong-won had no intention of kindly repeating himself.
He just moved his body, which had been like a gatekeeper, and went inside.
“Really… a difficult person.”
Kim Hyun-gyu, who was sociable enough that being second would be an insult, clicked his tongue while looking at Jeong-won.
And as he was about to follow, he suddenly tilted his head.
“But Yoon Haon, how did he become close with him?”
Muttering that it was strange, Hyun-gyu tried to sit right next to Jeong-won.
＊ ＊ ＊
Haon was looking at deodorants at the convenience store.
At first, he thought of suppressants, but from last time’s experience, he realized those were no help at all, so he chose this as an alternative.
How long had he been doing that? A shadow fell beside him.
Thinking someone might be trying to pass, he slightly stepped aside, but the shadow showed no sign of leaving.
Unable to stand the nagging feeling, Haon finally looked to the side.
Then, a bottle-shaped strawberry milk filled his vision.
“What’s this.”
The one holding out the strawberry milk was a familiar face.
Seeing that brightly smiling face, Haon felt an indescribable emotion.
It wasn’t Cha Jeong-won, but seeing a face resembling his smile so broadly was a bit strange.
“You really smile a lot.”
“I only smile a lot in front of you, Oni-hyung.”
Cha Seo-jun shook his head, pinpointing it accurately. And he held out the strawberry milk to Haon.
“Here.”
“For me to drink? It’s okay…”
Having said that while accepting it, it became hard to refuse.
“You used to drink this a lot before. Do you dislike it now?”
“Ah, it’s not that.”
Turning the strawberry milk this way and that, Haon smiled faintly.
He really did drink a lot of strawberry milk back then. It wasn’t so much that he liked it immensely, but rather because he didn’t have the leisure for proper meals.
Haon’s daily routine was going to school during the day, working in the evening, and after finishing work late at night, going back to school to sleep.
Unable to have proper meals, he often made do with milk. Drinking plain milk felt too bland, so after much choosing, he settled on this strawberry milk.
Why did strawberry milk, which he only bought for his siblings and never tasted himself, suit his taste so well? Was taste also genetic?
“I’ll enjoy it.”
“But what did you come to buy?”
“Ah.”
Haon reflexively looked down at the display in front of him. Only then did he become conscious of the deodorant he was holding. He felt a bit awkward.
“I came to buy deodorant, but I don’t know which one is good.”
He usually never bothered with things like deodorant.
“Ah, I had meat for lunch.”
It was a shabby excuse.
To say it was because of the meat smell. It was a convenient excuse to use, but Haon himself knew best that the real problem was something else.
It was because of his and Cha Jeong-won’s pheromones faintly permeating inside his collar.
“Then this one might be good.”
Cha Seo-jun stretched out a hand and picked up a different product right next to Haon. His wrist brushed near his face, giving a ticklish feeling as if it had touched fine hair.
Only then did Haon realize he was closer than he thought.
Cha Seo-jun’s face was right in front of him.
“And it’s better to use a pheromone deodorant separately.”
At that one remark, Haon’s finger twitched. The thought that he should act nonchalant came first, but before that thought could properly settle, his chest first sank with a thud.
He just said pheromones. Not meat smell, pheromones.
“To my eyes… they all seem about the same.”
While pretending to look around, the words Cha Seo-jun just said came to mind.
Could it be that the smell was still strong right now?
Whether Cha Seo-jun didn’t notice Haon’s reaction or was pretending not to, he continued explaining without turning his head.
“Pheromones and body scent are distinctly different, you know. So to get rid of them properly, this is better.”
A calm voice brushed his ear. It was something only someone who had distinguished pheromones from other smells could say.
Haon forced himself to nod. Unable to meet Seo-jun’s eyes, he followed the direction his finger pointed. His cheeks felt a bit warm.
“I’ll use it well.”
Cha Seo-jun, who had been watching Haon’s back as he headed to the checkout, asked, having already withdrawn his smile.
“You hang out with Jeong-won hyung, right?”
Haon’s back stiffened slightly. Even though, taken literally, it was an innocuous question, he became self-conscious for no reason.
Still, he couldn’t show such signs. Haon forced his expression to relax.
“We might hang out together. He’s a department sunbae, and we’re in the same semester, so many classes overlap.”
“If that’s the case, there’s also Hyun-gyu hyung.”
Cha Seo-jun slightly lowered the end of his sentence as if pressing it down and closed his mouth for a moment. It seemed like a joke, yet not. His words felt like they had a bone in them.
He lowered his gaze to the floor as if catching his breath, then raised it again.
“Be careful of hyung.”
The sounds inside the convenience store strangely grew distant.
The barcode sound from the checkout, the rustling noise of snack bags—it felt like they were all pushed back one layer.
“‘Hyung’—does that include me? Or Hyun-gyu?”
He deliberately played dumb.
But his voice carried an undertone he couldn’t hide.
Cha Seo-jun didn’t take it as a joke.
“I know Jeong-won hyung better than anyone.”
Cha Seo-jun’s voice was laid out calmly, but the very end was pressed down ever so slightly, making it sound more like a warning than an explanation or a joke.
“Of course you’d know him well, being cousins.”
Haon shrugged his shoulders slightly.
“Jeong-won hyung isn’t a bad person. But he’s a dangerous person to be with.”
“……”
So he was talking about Cha Jeong-won’s misfortune.
Still, he had no intention of nodding in agreement.
“Wherever hyung goes, something always happens. More often than good things, things get strangely tangled. It’s not so much that hyung does anything wrong, it’s just… it’s always been like that.”
He felt fortunate that he, and not someone else, was hearing Cha Seo-jun’s words.
No matter how true it was, if someone else or Cha Jeong-won himself heard it, they wouldn’t feel good.
“Why are you saying things like that?”
“I’m saying don’t get deeply involved.”
Cha Seo-jun’s gaze was serious. It was mixed with worry and anxiety.
“You, Oni-hyung, really… take good care of people.”
“What good care do I take?”
Haon retorted immediately.
“No, that’s not it. Why do you think I like you, hyung?”
In context, that ‘hyung’ seemed to be Haon, himself?
“You’re so good to me that I can’t help but like you, and you approach me comfortably…”
As Cha Seo-jun trailed off, the air felt like it sank for a moment.
“Seo-jun-ah.”
Haon slowly put the deodorant he had paid for into his bag and turned to face Cha Seo-jun.
“Say those nice words to Jeong-won sunbae, not me. He’s your cousin hyung, after all.”