* * *

The sound of a quiet, soft voice made me lift my head.

My vision was so blurred with tears that I could barely see.

I wiped them away with my palm until my raw, sore eyes stung.

Only then did Doha’s face come into view.

Half-shrouded in darkness, I could still recognize him as Han Doha.

When he took a step closer, his slender frame in a suit emerged under the moonlight.

“Why… Why did you only come now?”

A surge of resentment erupted without reason.

Maybe it was because my emotions were so frayed.

My voice, choked with tears, made Doha slowly approach me.

Standing beside me, he gently pried the chart from my grip, placing a soft kiss on my palm, the sound faint and dry.

“I thought you didn’t want to see me.”

His low voice resounded in my ears.

Before I could pull myself together, facing him again left me vulnerable.

He was just as warm as ever, his unchanged presence triggering a flood of emotions that I had kept suppressed for so long, culminating in tears that spilled heavily down my cheeks, soaking the bedding beneath me.

Doha, our fingers interlocked, moved his hand slowly, erasing every line of defense, filling each lingering anxiety.

Finally, he cupped my cheeks with both hands.

“Why are you crying again? Crying just makes your head hurt.”

“Do… Doha…”

“When you cry, your face gets all scrunched up, you know. Don’t cry.”

His teasing made the tears fall even harder.

I clutched at his coat, gasping for breath, my shoulders shaking uncontrollably.

My vision blurred again as I pressed my face into his chest, whispering the same words over and over through trembling lips.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry for lying, for shouting. I know I shouldn’t have…”

Silently crying, I felt his arms tighten around my shoulders, pulling me close.

Doha pressed his face against my shoulder, holding me tightly.

“It’s okay. It’s really okay.”

“…I’m sorry, so sorry. I know I shouldn’t have…”

“How could anyone not notice someone as beautiful as you? Still, I should’ve said something first. It was my fault, not yours.”

Shaking my head in denial, I gripped him tighter, my fingers trembling.

Doha continued to comfort me, gently soothing my back, and then he laughed softly, his tone playful.

“If you’re really sorry… then promise me, no matter what I do, you’ll forgive just this one thing.”

With my head buried in his shoulder, I nodded silently, feeling another wave of tears coming on from his boundless kindness.

It wasn’t until much later that I realized how swollen my eyes had become, how I had cried out every last tear and even sniffled openly in front of Doha, who teased me for it, laughing at my tear-stained face.

It was embarrassingly mortifying—enough to make me want to vanish from existence.

---

For the next two months, I was confined to the hospital room without a choice.

Though I recovered faster than expected, the doctor insisted I still needed absolute rest.

During that time, I learned some surprising things.

Just two weeks after surgery, I could already move slightly.

Despite years of taking stomach medicine daily, I had somehow endured thanks to my genetic traits.

My mother, one of only three people in Korea with this rare trait, had passed it down to me.

I had always assumed it was recessive since it appeared so late—learning this now was quite a shock.

‘I could distinctly sense pheromones even in my beta phase…’

‘Betas may sense the presence of pheromones but can’t fully identify them. It could be related to your traits, though the hospital records don’t show any signs of this. We might want to conduct additional tests.’

‘No, no. It’s alright.’

The doctor continued to explain, barely glancing up from the chart.

The late onset was due to a mix with my father’s recessive trait.

Without Doha’s consistent pheromone presence, it might never have manifested, or it would’ve only been half-formed.

Doha was the reason why it fully emerged, even after all this time.

‘If you’d been exposed to pheromones steadily since childhood, you would have manifested your traits naturally. Usually, this exposure comes from parents.’

The doctor’s matter-of-fact explanation about my parents’ absence nearly made me cry.

‘Then, is there a chance I could develop pheromone keratosis too?’

Familiar with my mother’s medical history, I tearfully asked the doctor.

He glanced at Doha before saying that regular pheromone exposure should prevent it.

He added that my long-term use of suppressants had likely helped.

Normally, that would create dangerous pressure in the body, but the timing of Doha’s presence had stabilized my pheromones.

It felt like the work of fate, how everything fit together so perfectly.

Recalling the doctor’s words, I looked at Doha sitting beside me, slicing a melon.

He glanced at me and asked, “Is there anything else you want to eat?”

“Not really.”

“No desires, no cravings…,” he muttered with a hint of exasperation, moving his hands as if he were my personal chef.

Wasn’t he supposed to be some big-shot, the type to wave a finger and have people serve him?

But here he was, humbly tending to everything I needed.

Over the two months, Doha was practically the only person I saw, aside from the medical staff during check-ups.

“Alright, all done. Open up,” he said, feeding me a slice of perfectly cut fruit and planting a kiss on my cheek.

As I chewed, he offered me another piece, treating me like a baby bird.

I wanted to say something more but quietly accepted it, savoring the sweetness of the melon as it melted down my throat.

―In other news, recent debates about suppressant side effects are creating a social stir. Experts weigh in…

At that moment, the TV began broadcasting a report on the side effects of suppressants, which were becoming a hot social issue.

Watching the broadcast, I asked, “Doha, what happened to the person who attacked me?”

“I piled on every charge I could, all strictly by the book—so he could serve his time in the safest place possible, where he’ll eat well, sleep comfortably, and exercise when it’s time. But his mind? That won’t be at peace. Each day, he’ll live in fear, wondering who might come for him.”

“And Kim Jungha?”

He closed the lid on a box of carefully arranged fruit, dusting off his hands before disposing of food scraps in a bag and rinsing his hands in the nearby sink.

All the while, the news broadcast was still reporting the same subject.

“I haven’t touched him yet.”

“…”

“I wasn’t sure what you wanted. If you want him to suffer somewhere worse than death, I can do that. If you want me to leave him alone, I’ll leave him.”

I lowered my head, sorting my thoughts as I absentmindedly fiddled with the blanket.

Finally, I spoke.

“Back in second grade, I read a children’s version of the Talmud. It said, ‘Evil sprouts in the human heart from the womb and grows stronger as a person ages.’ I remember thinking about that line. I don’t believe in the inherent goodness of people, but I didn’t buy into the inherent evil either. But my perspective changed once I entered society.”

If you want to know someone’s true nature, give them power.

Staying by Doha’s side, I saw many people reveal who they really were.

People are born with evil in their hearts.

Whether they grow to care about others or not determines the person they become.

Objectively, Doha wasn’t a “normal” person.

As his mother said, he was a brooding, twisted alpha.

Still, he knew how to blend in.

At least, he never harbored thoughts of killing anyone.

He knew how to follow the law, or at least pretended to live like an upstanding citizen.

But Kim Jungha was different. It takes a certain kind of person to orchestrate another’s murder.

People all over the world tolerate their boss’s tantrums and clients’ nonsense not because they couldn’t eliminate them if they tried, but because they cling to the basic tenets of humanity.

At least he left me my share.

The time has finally come to use the evidence I gathered ages ago while stomaching the filth.

I once collected it to help Doha, but now, it was for me.

As I sketched my plan, I looked up at Doha and smiled.

“Doha.”

“…Yeah?”

His clear gaze met mine, and I was struck by how beautiful his face was.

No, maybe “handsome” was the right word. I remembered his confident words from long ago, claiming he was the handsome one and I was the pretty one.

Briefly, memories of all the times he called me beautiful and held me close flashed through my mind.

“Wanna go to the beach?”

He blinked slowly as our eyes met.

His warm hazel eyes, reminiscent of summer, sparkled under the bright lights, and his red lips parted slightly in surprise.

There was a beach where I was happiest—a quiet, secluded shore my parents and I would often visit.

We’d gone to the mountains last time, so this time, it was the sea.

* * *