After An Alpha Discovered I Have Pheromone Deficiency Syndrome - Chapter 25

Chapter 25: Will You Take the Clip With You?

The hospital invoice was daunting—pages long and filled with numbers that made Hua Che’s head spin.

Every medication, every scan, every treatment used the best of the best. None of it was covered by insurance. All of it had been paid for in full.

At the bottom of the final page, in clean handwriting, was a name: Pei Yu.

Hua Che stared at the document, stunned, his mind momentarily blank.

“Don’t worry,” the nurse at the desk said with a kind smile. “Professor Pei paid everything in advance. There’s even enough credit left to cover your ongoing treatments.”

“You can just focus on getting better now.”

But how could he possibly feel at ease?

Hua Che let out a soft breath and asked for a pen and paper. Without giving himself time to hesitate, he scribbled out a handwritten note—an IOU. A promise to repay what he owed someday.

He couldn’t let this debt go unspoken, not when he had already taken so much from Pei Yu.

As the door to his hospital room creaked open, Hua Che quickly stuffed the note behind his back, eyes darting to the figure entering.

He wasn’t sure how to explain it, how to justify writing something like that, but the pink-furred ears atop his head twitched nervously.

“You have something for me?”

Pei Yu had something in his hand, too.

“…Yeah.” Hua Che turned his face away as he hesitantly held out the note.

He didn’t dare look Pei Yu in the eye. His fingers trembled as the seconds stretched. When the note wasn’t taken right away, his anxiety deepened.

“…Why did you write this?” Pei Yu asked, his voice cooler than usual.

Hua Che froze. His grip tightened around the paper, crumpling it slightly.

“I saw the bill…” he murmured, his voice shaking like a frightened animal. “I… I’ll pay you back…”

Pei Yu’s expression turned sharp.

“Pay it back? How? By going back to Lingguan and selling yourself again?”

His tone was ice-cold, and his Alpha presence—usually restrained—came out in full force. Hua Che shrank back a little, his arms sore but still stubbornly holding out the note.

“I have something for you, too.”

Pei Yu placed a small pile of objects atop the note: a USB drive, a belt key, a few signed statements from the Lingguan manager.

Their weight pressed down on the crumpled page. The IOU could barely support them.

“These, too. Should we itemize them in your little debt ledger?”

Hua Che blinked and saw what he’d been given. His lips trembled. Tears pooled again.

He shook his head, then nodded faintly—conflicted and overwhelmed.

Pei Yu had more to say, but seeing the fox’s tears already spilling over, he held his tongue.

He rubbed at his temple, trying to rein in his frustration.

“No one’s even willing to click on me anymore… Why go so far just to buy those things?”

Hua Che clutched the items to his chest. The tears that had been quietly falling now came in sobs.

“But I have nothing, Professor Pei…” he whispered, barely audible. “I have nothing to give you. Why would you spend so much…?”

His red eyes shone under the harsh hospital lights, shimmering with confusion and despair.

“Why would you buy me? What do I even have to offer you?”

He looked like someone drifting at sea—unanchored, searching, lost.

Since arriving in Sakurazuru, and then Lingguan, Hua Che had only known one thing: being used, being wanted for what he could perform. Outside of that… he had nothing.

“Does there have to be something?” Pei Yu asked gently.

Hua Che clung to the IOU and the items it now carried, as if they were the last remnants of his identity.

“I have nothing…” he repeated.

Pei Yu stepped closer, his voice quiet but firm.

“Isn’t it enough that you’re you?”

Hua Che didn’t answer. He just lowered his head further, ears drooping beneath his pink hair.

It wasn’t that Pei Yu had a reason—it was that Hua Che needed one. Something solid he could point to. Something that could make him believe he was worth this kindness.

Pei Yu sighed.

He’d seen this before. One of his old patients—a man who had spent years in prison—couldn’t function normally after being released. Everything about him had been broken down by the system. He had to be given purpose before he could even try to live again.

That was what Hua Che needed: meaning, value, something to hold on to.

“You are valuable,” Pei Yu said.

He pulled out his phone and opened a flyer for an international psychiatry research competition. As the head of the world’s top psychiatric institute, Pei Yu had no real reason to enter. But he showed it to Hua Che anyway.

“Your case is unique in my career,” he explained. “I want to design a research project based on your experience. If you agree, we can enter this competition together.”

“During that time, you’ll receive the most advanced psychiatric treatment available.”

He paused. “You’d be participating as a volunteer. Does that make enough sense for you?”

Hua Che studied the flyer with teary eyes, blinking at the complicated language. Then he nodded solemnly.

Pei Yu smiled, gently tousling his hair. The fox ears twitched happily under his hand.

“In short…” he said, softly, “I need you.”

With that, he took the IOU and tore it to shreds.

“You’re worth far more than anything written on that page.”

He tossed the scraps into the trash.

Hua Che grabbed Pei Yu’s wrist, eyes wide with determination.

“I’ll cooperate—I promise!”

His tail wagged with enthusiasm, moving so fast it created afterimages. Thick, fluffy, and full of energy—it curled into ripples like a flag in the wind.

Pei Yu stared, amused.

Foxes really are just… dogs, aren’t they?

He pulled Hua Che into his arms.

“Anything left at Lingguan? Want me to come with you to get it?”

“…Yes, please. Let’s go together.”

There was no way Hua Che was walking back into that place alone.

While Hua Che packed, Pei Yu waited outside and chatted with Fujiwara Yebai, Hua Che’s former roommate.

Yebai, a native Omega from Sakurazuru, had been raised in Lingguan since childhood. Pure in temperament, he didn’t seem to carry the same emotional scars as Hua Che.

“You don’t seem to hate this place,” Pei Yu observed.

Fujiwara smiled. “Brother Hua Che’s different. He’s not from here. He doesn’t understand how our culture views artists.”

“For us… it’s tradition. But the store manager wouldn’t dare treat us the way he treated him.”

Pei Yu raised an eyebrow.

“Why not?”

“Because we have the Omega Protection Association. They don’t touch us. But Brother Hua Che… he has no citizenship. No protections. No rights.”

No citizenship…

Pei Yu fell silent, the words echoing heavily in his mind.

He turned to look at Hua Che—kneeling on the floor, cleaning out drawers. He wore no makeup, and his face looked younger, softer, more vulnerable.

His fox tail, normally drooping with fatigue, now stood tall and swayed with excitement.

He looked like a boy who had finally escaped a nightmare.

There wasn’t much to pack. Hua Che ignored the flashy costumes and props. Instead, he carefully folded a ceremonial outfit—the same one he’d worn when Pei Yu came to see him at the bar mitzvah—and gathered a few printed MOOC certificates.

Then something shiny caught his eye in the drawer.

He picked it up. A small bell jingled in the quiet room.

His cheeks instantly turned red.

The clip.

He tossed it into his bag like it burned to the touch, his entire face flushing with embarrassment. His tail wobbled so fast it nearly created a breeze.

Naturally, Pei Yu noticed.

He leaned in with a smirk.

“So… are you taking the clip with you too?”