It’s a best-friend V-log, but we’re not actually best friends - Chapter 19

Eun-Sol swallowed his salad, his Adam’s apple bobbing first.

“Hey, at this point, aren’t we basically family?”

“Sounds like we weren’t before.”

Min Baek-Ha answered lightly at Eun-Sol’s pointless question, rolling his eyes for a moment before smiling faintly.

“We don’t even need a formal meeting between families. Want to just move in together while we’re at it?”

Since it was the kind of joke Baek-Ha always made, Eun-Sol looked completely fed up.

“…Starting the day with something so original, huh.”

Baek-Ha just smiled silently. Then he poured water into a cup and slid it toward him.

“Thanks. By the way, what time is it?”

Eun-Sol smiled as he accepted the water he had been craving and asked casually.

“7:50.”

Baek-Ha tapped his phone on the table to check the time and answered. Eun-Sol nodded, then suddenly a thought crossed his mind.

“Didn’t we have some pheromone education thing?”

“Oh, right. They told all the trait-types to come to school by 8.”

“That’s Thursday, right?”

Eun-Sol said, picking off bits of cabbage stuck to the nearly empty salad bowl. Baek-Ha, who had just broken an egg yolk, nodded.

“Yeah, Thursday. Today’s Wednesday, right?”

Meeting his gaze, Eun-Sol reached out and tapped his phone. Looking at the date and day on the bright screen, he said absentmindedly—

“No, it’s Thursday.”

“Really?”

Baek-Ha looked just as unconcerned.

“Yeah, Thursday. The trait education is today—hey! What time did you say?”

“7:5—”

Baek-Ha’s relaxed voice suddenly cut off.

The two of them stared at each other with wide eyes. Eun-Sol suddenly kicked his chair back and shouted,

“Shit, even if we run, we’re late.”

“If we skip the trait education, don’t we get penalty points?”

“Hey, don’t say that—just move!”

Baek-Ha sprang up belatedly, drying his hair with a towel. In his panic, he forgot the towel was blocking his vision and slammed straight into the wall.

His body jolted back slightly.

“Ah, fuck.”

If one person panicked, the other should’ve stayed calm…

But Eun-Sol, who was running toward the room, also slipped forward and crashed down.

“Ugh—”

Groaning, Eun-Sol rolled across the floor, while Baek-Ha clutched his reddening forehead and glared at the wall.

…It was complete chaos.

***

It felt like his soul had left his body since morning.

With his mouth hanging open like his spirit had escaped, Eun-Sol lay slumped over his desk, completely drained.

It had all happened because he had been dumb enough to forget what day it was. Luckily, he and Baek-Ha had sprinted like crazy and avoided being late—but during the entire pheromone education, he had been too busy catching his breath to focus on anything.

Eun-Sol lifted his heavy upper body and looked around the classroom. It was completely empty and eerily quiet. Outside the window, he could hear students enjoying gym class—his class’s second period.

“If we had P.E. like this, I would’ve passed out…”

Muttering, Eun-Sol clenched his fist and lightly thumped his lower back. He had been worried the session might end early and force him into P.E., but thankfully, the omega trait education ended near the end of second period.

“Is Baek-Ha still in his session?”

Stretching his back, Eun-Sol glanced at the empty seat beside him. Resting his chin on his hand, his gaze slowly drifted toward the front door.

“I wonder what kind of education alphas get.”

Probably something like sex ed, right?

Rolling his eyes upward, Eun-Sol began organizing what he had just learned.

Among omegas, dominants had the strongest pheromones. Most of what the health teacher said was familiar, but the part he agreed with most was that omegas were naturally sensitive to alphas.

After what had happened that morning with Min Baek-Ha, a dominant alpha, Eun-Sol understood that perfectly.

And then there was the important topic: the heat cycle.

Eun-Sol continued piecing together the information in his head, but then suddenly raised one eyebrow. There was something he didn’t understand.

He had always thought that the only way for an omega to relieve their sexual urges was through being with an alpha—but the teacher had said something unexpected.

“There’s another method. An alpha can release their pheromones directly onto the omega.”

That one sentence snapped Eun-Sol’s dazed mind awake, his eyes widening.

The teacher continued calmly.

“It depends on how precisely the alpha can control their pheromones.”

“For high school students, it’s usually difficult. Most people receive help from family members of the same trait to suppress it. Otherwise…”

It could turn into a pheromone shower.

The teacher’s voice faded from Eun-Sol’s mind.

“…Well… that probably won’t happen, right? They give suppressants until graduation anyway. As long as I take them properly…”

If he felt even a slight fever from now on, he’d just take suppressants. The troubled look on Eun-Sol’s face gradually faded.

As he lowered his gaze, the classroom door opened—and Min Baek-Ha stumbled in like a paper doll, completely drained.

“Sol…”

“Where’s Chang-Soo? Wow… your soul is about to leave your body.”

With all his strength gone, Baek-Ha dragged out his words.

“That bastard… bathroom…”

What elegant word choice.

Seeing him like that reminded Eun-Sol of himself earlier, and he let out a small laugh.

Baek-Ha walked over and collapsed onto his desk, frowning deeply.

“I feel like I turned into a chicken inside a fried egg.”

“Are you insane? What kind of chicken is that? How was the class?”

“The class?”

Rolling his eyes upward briefly, Baek-Ha lifted his upper body and looked at Eun-Sol.

“It wasn’t anything hard. I just learned how to treat omegas nicely.”

“…What’s that supposed to mean? Did you learn how to flirt with omegas or something?”

Eun-Sol laughed incredulously.

“Isn’t the health teacher single? Even if they teach it, it’s pointless. Try it out on me. Let’s see if it works.”

It was the kind of meaningless joke they always made. Eun-Sol laughed so hard he clutched his stomach.

Baek-Ha just smiled at him.

When no response came, Eun-Sol’s laughter slowly faded.

Baek-Ha stared at him quietly, then slowly reached out.

He grabbed Eun-Sol’s small, slender chin and pulled him closer.

The chair scraped loudly against the floor. Eun-Sol was pulled in without resistance, and at the suddenly close distance, he sucked in a breath.

“You should breathe.”

The cold, low voice sounded slightly forceful.

Eun-Sol frowned and parted his lips.

“What—”

But he couldn’t finish his sentence.

Baek-Ha’s entire atmosphere had shifted.

Along with that oppressive presence, his pheromones spread—and they felt different from that morning.

The scent was the same—cool and warm—but much stronger.

A dizzying stimulation wrapped around Eun-Sol instantly. Caught off guard, his breath came out in short bursts.

They were friends—definitely friends—

But he was trembling. It tickled.

His slightly shaking eyes lifted, and Baek-Ha’s indifferent expression came into view.

The unfamiliar, threatening pheromones tore through his senses. Starting from his pale neck, Eun-Sol’s face flushed red as his eyes slowly unfocused.

“…This is what they taught us.”

Baek-Ha released his chin and withdrew his pheromones.

As the overwhelming presence faded from the classroom, Eun-Sol gasped for air, clutching his chest in shock.

“…Did they teach you how to kill omegas?”

“…?”

That was definitely not the expected response.

At Eun-Sol’s question, Baek-Ha felt like he had just been hit over the head.

“…That’s all you got from that?”

After catching his breath, Eun-Sol nodded, fanning his face.

“Yeah. I seriously thought you were trying to kill me.”

“…No… I mean… instead of that… didn’t you feel something else?”

“No? All I felt was survival instinct. Damn… is the health teacher insane? Have they been teaching alphas how to kill omegas this whole time?”