By Zephyria Lee-eum paid the taxi fare, grabbed his wallet, and got out. The lights pouring out from the bustling street stimulated his vision. He let out a soft sigh and entered the crowd. After walking for a while, he saw a familiar bar name and, as soon as he went inside, found Roh Seon-gyu drinking on one side.
“Hey, Kim Yi-eum! Over here! Lee-eum-ah!”
Judging by his booming voice, he must have drunk quite a bit. If he drank, he should have just gone home quietly. As he got closer, Seon-gyu grinned with a flushed face. As soon as he sat down across from him, his beer glass was filled with soju. He tried to stop him, but the liquor was already sloshing over the brim.
“You little punk, how long has it been since Hyung called you? Huh?”
The slurred speech meant he was completely drunk. Yi-eum, counting the number of soju bottles with his eyes, noticed that Seon-gyu wasn’t wearing his ring. The fact that the couple ring he wore 24 hours a day, dead or alive, was gone was a sign that something was wrong with his love life.
“Did you fight with Ji-yeon?”
“What did you hear just now? We broke up. Broke up! She likes some other guy better than me! To me, she’s now, what was it, damn it, ah, I can’t think.”
He pounded his head with his fist, then gulped down the liquor. He poured it to the brim and tried to drink it again, so Yi-eum snatched the glass and drank it himself. Then Seon-gyu sighed deeply and began to complain.
“When she said she was going on a business trip with a colleague from work, I really believed her. When she said they were carpooling, I praised our Ji-yeon for being so frugal. But they were secretly meeting each other. Only me, huh? Only I was the fool who didn’t know! Only me!”
Yi-eum filled Seon-gyu’s glass halfway.
“I get it, so just drink this and get up. I’ll take you home.”
Seon-gyu finally started to shed tears, and Yi-eum crossed his arms and leaned back. It seemed he had no intention of leaving easily. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand Seon-gyu’s feelings. Four years was quite a long time, and it was true that they couldn’t live without each other. But feelings can change at any time. Like the expiration date of a product, only the duration is different.
“I… really… sob… how am I supposed to live now? Huh? Should I go and beg her every day? Huh? Wouldn’t her mind change then? If I call her every day and visit her every day…”
“Seon-gyu-ya.”
“Huh?”
“We call that stalking.”
“……”
“Let her go nicely. Don’t do revenge or anything like that, and don’t cling to her pathetically. You’ll only get hurt if you hold onto a relationship that’s over.”
No sooner had he finished speaking than Seon-gyu sobbed and shook his shoulders before slamming his head on the table. Frustrated, Yi-eum emptied the remaining alcohol, got up from his seat, paid the bill, and came back.
Supporting the large guy took all his strength. He barely managed to catch a taxi and took a breather, but Seon-gyu couldn’t hold himself up and leaned to the side.
“Baekhyeon-dong, please.”
“Ji-yeon-ah. Ji-yeon-ah.” He kept calling her name and shedding tears, and Yi-eum could only sigh as he watched him. The taxi arrived near his house, and Yi-eum supported Seon-gyu and carried him to his house. His parents, whom he hadn’t seen in a while, clicked their tongues and lamented at the sight of their son being so drunk.
“Goodness, what is going on? Seon-gyu-ya. Roh Seon-gyu! Go inside and sleep, you little punk! Aish, Yi-eum, you’re going through so much. You’re already having a hard time catching criminals, and now you have to deal with this bastard, I’m so ashamed, I can’t live.”
“Don’t scold Seon-gyu too much when he wakes up. He seems very upset.”
After comforting his mother, who was only sighing, Yi-eum came outside. He smoked a cigarette in the nearby smoking area and then started walking home, his whole body stiff.
Thinking of sobering up on the way, he picked out an ice cream at the convenience store, and when he saw Jaws bar, he tore open the wrapper, put it in his mouth, and headed home.
Taking the elevator, Yi-eum stopped in front of the door, looked up, and checked the small thread wedged in the doorframe, then put it in his pocket.
“What is this because of that damn Choi Won-joon…”
Grumbling, he threw the empty ice cream wrapper in the trash can, then stripped off his clothes and went into the bathroom to take a shower. He wet his hair with hot water and washed for a long time before coming out and changing his clothes, but something felt wrong with his body.
Realizing that he was in heat, his expression hardened. Yi-eum frowned and took out the suppressant he had. He opened the lid, swallowed a pill with water, and sat crouched on the sofa, waiting for the heat to subside, but strangely, the symptoms became more severe.
He had no choice but to take another pill. He waited for it to stop, but instead of subsiding, it got worse as time passed. Eventually, it became difficult to support his body, so he lay down on the sofa and panted.
Then, he was startled to realize that he was unknowingly rubbing his lower body against the sofa and stopped.
Am I crazy…?
What should I do? Is it because of the alcohol that the medicine isn’t working? I heard that injections are more effective than pills. If Yoo Seol-ah were here, he would have asked her to come home, but she wasn’t in Korea right now. Should he have been introduced to that acquaintance?
“Ugh…!”
His thoughts slowed down as if his brain was melting, his vision blurred, and his body was constantly heating up, making it impossible to control. Without further hesitation, Yi-eum put his hand down his pants. Touching his genitals directly with his hand wasn’t good, but frustrating and painful.
“Damn it…”
He was thirsty. He vaguely knew, even in his messed-up state of mind, that it wasn’t just simple thirst. He tossed and turned to escape the pain and accidentally fell off the sofa. Lying on his back, he put his hand inside his clothes and groped around.
However, the boiling desire could not be suppressed, and the clumsy act only brought greater pain.
I’m going crazy, really.
Yi-eum, experiencing this sensation for the first time, briefly considered calling 119. Then his family would be contacted, and everyone would know that Kim Yi-eum wasn’t a Beta. The disappointment and betrayal of the people around him would be indescribable.
In his fading consciousness, Yi-eum curled up and groaned. He could no longer think and judge, and later, like a beast with only instinct left, his mind was filled with nothing but sex.
I want to hug. I want to have sex. I want to mingle bodies. I don’t care who it is. Ha, ha, his phone rang while he was panting. He was limp and twitching, but the phone kept ringing. Yi-eum crawled to the table and barely managed to bring the phone to his ear.
【I’m in front of your house, come out for a minute. Let’s talk.】
His ears were ringing, so he couldn’t immediately recognize who the owner of the voice was.
【Detective Kim?】
“……”
【Hey, Kim Yi-eum.】
Realizing it was Choi Won-joon, he got angry even in that state and pressed the end button to turn it off. But then the phone rang again. Even if he tried to ignore it, it was difficult to turn away any longer because of his heightened hearing.
Reluctantly, he answered, and a pleasant laugh was heard from the other side of the receiver.
【Should I come up?】
You son of a bitch. What the hell did you feed me? What did you feed me to make me like this? Don’t you dare show up in front of me. I’m really going to kill you. He wanted to pour out all sorts of curses and harsh words, but his mouth moved on its own.
【Help me….】
Then he dropped the phone and crawled back to the floor. If he had been stabbed with a knife, the pain would have ended, but he didn’t know how to describe this. His body wasn’t his will, and he felt dirty being dominated by lust. That’s why he was happy when he was first diagnosed as a Beta. Because he didn’t want to live like this.
In the end, he went into heat and even called that man. He blamed himself for being consumed by desire, but that didn’t last long either. With his forehead on the floor, he gasped for breath, and then the door opened and he heard footsteps. Before he could even check who it was, his body was lifted up. Yi-eum couldn’t even open his eyes properly and tried to see the man in front of him.
“Did you drink too?”
A good smell. A cool smell. I want to smell it more. Closer. Yi-eum instinctively pushed him over and climbed on top of him. He didn’t know who taught him, but when he put Choi Won-joon underneath him and shook his hips, his lower body rubbed against him. From below, he heard a dumbfounded voice.
“Damn, I never imagined this.”
He heard the words, but he didn’t even understand what they meant. He was just doing what he used to do with his lovers. His body flipped over, and someone’s face was blurry. A twisted corner of the mouth and a sharp nose… and eyes that looked like they were hunting prey….
Ah, this face. That unlucky bastard.
“Detective Kim, listen carefully.”
His lips touched, and his earlobe tickled.
Then he heard a wet voice.
“I’m the one who’s going to fuck you, not the other way around, you idiot.”