Clap - 42

Jaemin’s eyes twitched violently. Ihyun, seeing this, chuckled quietly. Jaemin’s fear and tears were an amusing sight to him.

“Don’t worry, we have no other intentions.”

“…Then why…”

“To an omega, alpha pheromones can sometimes be a poison, and other times, a medicine.”

As soon as Ihyun said this, their pheromones began to fill the air. It was the same scent that had stabbed Jaemin’s body like needles during sex. But now, it smelled more like a blanket freshly washed with a lot of fabric softener and dried well under the sun.

“To an omega just before manifestation, it’s more like medicine.”

“Besides, you need to manifest entirely because of us.”

Their pheromones became even denser. Jaemin’s body naturally relaxed. The tension that had made his limbs stiff now released.

The drugs he’d been taking all day had been useless, yet here he was, calming down just from a scent. It felt both absurd and fascinating.

Ihyun and Ichan moved a little closer. Ihyun wrapped an arm around Jaemin’s waist, while Ichan slid his arm under Jaemin’s neck, pulling him close. The pheromones grew stronger, pushing away the pain that had dominated his entire body.

Jaemin blinked with a dull expression. It felt strange to have someone lying next to him. Ever since his days in the orphanage, he’d lived in cramped spaces, often pressed against others, but he’d never slept in such an intimate position before.

Jaemin’s eyelids slowly closed. The wide chests, the warmth different from his own, the alpha pheromones, and the distinct scents of Ihyun and Ichan all enveloped him.

It wasn’t so bad.

***

Jaemin was bedridden for several days. Sometimes, when he regained consciousness, he’d find himself in a bathtub filled with floating ice, other times, wrapped in blankets near a heater, and occasionally, asleep in Ihyun or Ichan’s arms.

After enduring such a terrible illness, his body seemed to be slowly recovering. Two days later, Jaemin, who had been surviving only on porridge, could finally chew on food and stopped crying from the pain. The IV line that had been deeply rooted in the back of his hand was gone.

Then it should have been more bearable. But it wasn’t any better than when he was in pain. He would pass out and fall asleep, and while his mind was floating aimlessly under the influence of the drugs, he hadn’t noticed. The days were so long. Lying in bed doing nothing, then sitting up, over and over again, made time feel endlessly extended.

There was no TV, no phone, not even a book. He could only amuse himself by twisting the blankets for a couple of hours. He was on the verge of going mad.

Jaemin stretched out on the bed. And he just stared at the door, not knowing when it would open. Was the meal he had a few hours ago lunch or dinner? If it was dinner, what then? That would mean it was early morning now, and neither Ihyun nor Ichan would appear until daybreak.

Thinking that far made him overwhelmingly depressed. It didn’t have to be Ihyun or Ichan, but he wished someone would open that door and come in.

Jaemin clenched his lips and got up. Then he walked towards the door. With every step, there was an irritating clanking noise. Jaemin positioned himself as close to the door as possible without the shackles pulling on his legs.

By now, he could sense the pheromones of Ihyun and Ichan just by approaching their bedroom. Jaemin waited for them without any particular direction. He thought about calling out their names, but then he stopped, thinking he wouldn’t know what to say if they asked why he called them.

Jaemin fidgeted with his hands meaninglessly. His fingers, now thinner than before, felt unfamiliar as if they weren’t his own. His arms had become soft. His groin was slick, and his hips had become plump and round. His protruding ankle bones were a pinkish hue. He could feel with his entire body that his manifestation was approaching.

“⋯⋯.”

After a long time of kneading his body here and there, Jaemin’s eyelids drooped heavily. It must indeed be early morning. Without hesitation, Jaemin lay down on the cold floor. He tucked his arm under his head and curled his legs. The hard marble floor chilled his forearms, but it was bearable.

In winter, he had slept on floors colder than this. He might even sleep more deeply here than on a soft, cushy bed.