I am going to vomit. I am one hundred percent going to vomit all over this expensive cashmere sweater, and then I will have to move to Antarctica and live with the penguins because my social life will be officially dead.
The heat in the restaurant seems to spike twenty degrees. My shirt is suddenly sticking to my back, a layer of cold, clammysweat breaking out across my forehead. Heesung’s hand is still on my thigh, squeezing rhythmically, and every press of his fingers sends a wave of revulsion curdling through my stomach. It feels wrong. It feels like wearing a shoe on the wrong foot, but magnified by a thousand.
I can’t breathe. The air is too thick, too sweet, toomuch.
Desperate for an anchor—for anything that isn't the sick scent of peaches—my eyes snap up. I don't even have to search. My gaze bypasses the crowd, the smoke, and the partition, locking instantly onto the one thing in the room my body actually recognizes.
Donghwa.
He hasn’t moved, but the vibe has shifted. He’s not looking at the girl with pink hair anymore. He’s looking right at me. And he lookspissed.
His eyes are dark, heavy-lidded, and fixed on where Heesung is leaning into my space. Even from this distance, I can feel the weight of his attention. It’s heavy, possessive, a low-frequency growl vibrating in the base of my skull. The bond flares hot under my skin, a sharp, stinging reminder of who I actually belong to.
Mine,the look says.Get him off you.
I want to. God, I want to. But I’m paralyzed, caught between the social pressure of being the "King" and the biological reality that I am currently a mated alpha about to have a panic attack.
"You're so tense, Sunbae," Heesung laughs, the sound tinkling like wind chimes. He mistakes my rigidity for arousal. "You really need to unwind."
He leans in closer, his nose brushing the fabric of my shirt, and then he does it. He pushes.
A fresh wave of pheromones rolls off him, concentrated and deliberate. It’s meant to be seductive. It’s meant to make analpha drool. But to me, it smells like rotting fruit left in a hot car. It hits the back of my throat like a physical solid, thick and oily.
My stomach gives a violent, traitorous lurch.
Urk.
I slap a hand over my mouth, my eyes watering.
"Sihwan?" Heesung pulls back, looking confused. "Are you—"
I don't wait for him to finish. I don't excuse myself. I don't make a charming exit. I shove my chair back with a screech of metal on tile that silences half the restaurant.
"Bathroom," I garble through my fingers.
I scramble up, nearly tripping over my own feet, and bolt. I sprint past the partition, past the confused faces of my classmates, and shoulder-check the door to the men's room like I’m breaking down a drug den.
I grip the edges of the porcelain sink so hard I think I might crack the ceramic.
"Get it together," I wheeze, staring at my pale, sweaty reflection in the mirror. "You are Oh Sihwan. You are the apex predator. You do not vomit because a pretty boy touched your thigh."
But my stomach disagrees. It gives a violent, rolling lurch that sends me dry heaving over the basin again. Nothing comes up, just the burning taste of bile. The air in the bathroom is stale, but it’s still better than the suffocating cloud of rotten peaches I just escaped.
It’s sticking to me. I can still smell Heesung on my clothes, that clingy, sugary scent that feels like it’s coating the back of my throat with syrup. I scrub at my face with water, splashing it frantically, but the nausea won’t recede. The world is tilting on its axis, spinning in a sickening, blurry circle.
The bathroom door creaks open behind me.
I flinch, my shoulders hunching up to my ears. If that’s Heesung coming to check on me, I am going to have to jump outthe window. I can’t take another hit of that scent. I physically cannot survive it.
"I'm fine," I choke out, not turning around. "Just... bad pork."
But the scent that hits me isn't peaches.
It’s cold. Sharp. Clean.
It hits the back of my neck like a blast of air conditioning on a humid day. Winter air. Ginseng. Dark ink.
The relief is instantaneous. It washes over me so fast my knees actually buckle. The nausea doesn't just fade; it is violently shoved aside by a biological imperative that screamssafe.
