By Zephyria 
Nothing, nothing more.
Joo Tae-hyun’s voice, muttering as if in disbelief, felt distant.
“What… what are you saying?”
Seo Baek-han, momentarily speechless with bewilderment, belatedly regained his senses.
“That can’t be.”
He denied it reflexively, without even having time to deeply consider it. Because really, it couldn’t be.
“It’s exactly as I said.”
Prying off Seo Baek-han’s fingers, one by one, from his torso, Joo Tae-hyun turned his head slightly.
“I can’t feel Hyung’s pheromones anymore.”
With an ambiguous expression, impossible to tell if he was crying or laughing, Joo Tae-hyun spouted unbelievable words. Not only could he not smell his unique scent, but no matter what he tried, he could no longer sense his presence.
“That… is that even possible?”
Seo Baek-han couldn’t understand what Joo Tae-hyun was talking about. His scent still filled this hospital room. Mingling with his pheromones, the scent of fruit and trees overflowed. On his skin, in his breath, in every single nerve cell, all of him was so heavily present. And to Joo Tae-hyun, it had become a void where nothing could be felt anymore?
“An Alpha reacting like an Omega to the point of getting pregnant, it wouldn’t be impossible for them to suddenly become a Beta, right?”
Still sounding tearful, Joo Tae-hyun cleared his throat a few times before smiling briefly, saying, “Or…”
“Maybe the imprinting… is broken.”
He added that the aftereffects might have made it impossible to perceive Hyung’s pheromones, a statement that carried a faint hope. Seo Baek-han was overcome with a strange emotion, clearly sensing that he hoped for the latter rather than the former.
Joo Tae-hyun, who had confessed his love for him as if he would die if he didn’t, Joo Tae-hyun, who had proposed marriage trying to act nonchalant, Joo Tae-hyun, who had begged to be held when they first slept together, Joo Tae-hyun, who had buried his face in the gown he wore, longing for his pheromones.
Now, he was noticeably relieved at the mere possibility that he could no longer read his traces. He was smiling through his tears, as if relieved.
“…That’s not it.”
Seo Baek-han firmly denied it, pulling Joo Tae-hyun, who was trying to get away from him, back into his arms.
“That can’t be. Even if the imprinting is broken, you should still be able to perceive the other person’s pheromones.”
Even now, when they were touching like this, he still felt the fullness of new flesh filling the empty space inside him. The imprinting was broken? His pheromones were useless to Joo Tae-hyun? That was nonsense.
“There may be a temporary paralysis of the pheromone glands.”
“…”
“Due to the shock of the miscarriage… it’s not impossible for the endocrine system to show abnormal symptoms temporarily.”
So, it couldn’t be. As he rattled off words that were half conviction, half wish, the hospital room door burst open.
“Young Master? What’s wrong…”
Doctor Woo, who had rushed over in a hurry, thinking it was an emergency because he had received a couple of calls, paused for a moment upon seeing the two men clinging to each other.
If they were just hugging, he would have thought nothing of it. But Joo Tae-hyun had a blank, dazed expression, and Seo Baek-han was holding onto him with a fierce glint in his eyes. The sight of the two men was somehow eerie, like a painting drawn by a mad artist burning his last artistic soul.
“Did you perhaps have a pheromone shock?”
He asked cautiously, assuming that the only reason to call a doctor after stuffing his imprinting partner into his arms was that, and Seo Baek-han nodded sullenly.
“Something like that. Please get me equipment that can simultaneously test Tae-hyun’s and my pheromone levels.”
As if he had pressed a search button, the phenomena he suspected flashed through Seo Baek-han’s mind. But they were all ominous things that he didn’t want to say out loud, so Seo Baek-han vaguely avoided explaining.
“And.”
Seo Baek-han smiled, slightly dragging out the end of his sentence. The way he only slightly raised the corners of his mouth made him feel even colder.
“Does Donghwa Hospital have AP-S series injections?”
“Excuse me? That’s…”
No, why was he looking for that now? Doctor Woo had a reason to be taken aback. What Seo Baek-han was asking for was an Alpha pheromone amplifier.
It was very rare to administer to an adult a drug that artificially stimulated the circulation of the endocrine system by releasing pheromones, an injection that was usually prescribed to adolescents suffering from manifestation fever.
“If Young Master’s levels have dropped sharply, you shouldn’t use such an injection first-“
“No, I’m going to use it.”
“Excuse me? Why would Director Seo…”
But Seo Baek-han fell silent, as if he didn’t want to say anything more.
He glanced at Joo Tae-hyun’s face, intending to ask him to explain, but he had closed his eyes as if he was very tired. He felt a sense of ennui from him, like an old man in his twilight years, even though he was only twenty-six.
* * *
It wasn’t something that required other medical staff to be present. Joo Tae-hyun only needed to have one more line plugged into the vital check device in the hospital room, and Seo Baek-han was skilled at operating the device.
Joo Tae-hyun was impassively watching the panel screen. Perhaps because he had encountered the device frequently recently, he knew what each number and graph meant, and his gaze was constantly fixed on the lower part.
The part where pheromone levels and imprinting status could be checked. Among them, the imprinting item was adjusted to be activated when measuring the levels of both people simultaneously.
“Look. There’s nothing wrong.”
Joo Tae-hyun’s pheromone levels were perfectly normal.
Seo Baek-han also inserted the testing device into an empty port and attached a patch to the inside of his wrist. The sticky pad began to wriggle lightly, as if it were pulsating. At the same time, the screen split in half, and Seo Baek-han’s levels began to appear on the right.
“I’m normal too.”
“…”
“It must be temporary stress. If you rest well and recover slowly, it’ll be fine. I’ll help too.”
Yes, it was absurd that Joo Tae-hyun had become a Beta.
Only then did Seo Baek-han realize that his nerves had been sharply on edge. His nape and shoulders were stiff and tight because he was so tense.
“The imprinting…”
Beep-
Before he could even add that it would be good to measure the imprinting levels together since they were in a mutual imprinting state, and that he was about to start, a sharp burst of noise that seemed to tear his ears echoed.
Red graphs were chaotically jumping around on the panel screen. Even a layman would know that something was wrong.
Why is this happening?
Seo Baek-han stared at the screen in disbelief.
The respective pheromone levels were all normal.
The graph that could confirm the presence of imprinting was plummeting like a falling star. To be exact, Seo Baek-han was fine, but on Joo Tae-hyun’s side, the imprinting was decreasing so rapidly that it could be said that the imprinting had been broken.
“Not being able to perceive Hyung’s pheromones right away could be due to stress or… well, various factors.”
Was it because he had been crying the whole time? Joo Tae-hyun’s voice was choppy, as if he had swallowed molten iron. Even though it was painful for the listener, he stubbornly continued what he was trying to say.
“Anyway, it seems certain that there’s a problem with the imprinting on my side.”
Judging that it was no longer meaningful, he casually removed the cumbersome devices and looked up to stare straight at Seo Baek-han.
“…It’s broken, isn’t it?”
Seo Baek-han only stared at the screen without answering. Until the dancing curve fell into a flat line.
“Hyung.”
At the same time as Joo Tae-hyun called his name softly, Seo Baek-han hurriedly picked up an alcohol swab.
“Hyung!”
There was no hesitation in Seo Baek-han’s hand as he took the injection from the metal tray and plunged it into the blood vessel inside his wrist.
The moment he pulled out the needle, a fierce energy swirled inside his body to the point where he staggered. In contrast to Joo Tae-hyun’s, Seo Baek-han’s graph soared steeply. Even though it was his own pheromones, the thick fruity scent coming from him made his head feel like it was going to break.
But Joo Tae-hyun was just calm. He was only surprised by Seo Baek-han’s bizarre behavior, but he didn’t seem to mind the pungent pheromones that seemed to grip his nasal cavity.
Like a Beta who really couldn’t feel any pheromones, he didn’t feel unpleasant as an Alpha, nor did he feel overwhelmed with sensuality like before.
He was just sitting on the bed, all alone.
“I’ll… get discharged.”
“…”
“Now that I can’t feel Hyung’s pheromones anymore, it’s strange to stick with Hyung under the pretext of recovery.”
“…That’s not true.”
“What do you mean it’s not true?”
“Not being able to even sense the pheromones of a specific person is definitely a big problem. In addition, the imprinting level… look, it has decreased sharply, but it’s still connected to this extent. So—”
“Yes, I know what you mean. But there’s no need for Hyung and me to be in the same space like we have been until now, right?”
Joo Tae-hyun turned to look at Seo Baek-han, pressing the power button on the loudly ringing device. His smile, as if he had barely raised the corners of his mouth, was somehow similar to the expression Seo Baek-han often wore.
“I’m sorry that things have turned out this way.”