Chapter Text
“Kim Soleum-ssi.”
“Yes?”
“Do you need advice?”
“Um, sure? What for?”
“Entering a Darkness with Baek Saheon’s scent on you is not advised. Please use a deodoriser.”
“What—”
“Full anonymity when entering Darknesses is recommended and that extends to masking scents, even if not your own. There is a possibility that they may mistake you for Baek Saheon given the high concentration of omega pheromones on you at the moment.”
“I’ll do it!”
Kim Soleum grabs the communal deodoriser in D Squad’s office and douses himself with it. If a Darkness got hold of Baek Saheon because Kim Soleum was parading his scent around, Baek Saheon would definitely find some way to drag him down to die with him and then they would both be screwed.
“Baek Saheon huh?” Supervisor Park Minseong grins at Kim Soleum from where he is sitting at his desk, a knowing look on his face.
“Which one is he again? Goat?” Assistant Manager Eun Haje asks, scrutinising Kim Soleum with a matching grin.
“That’s the one. He’s Roe’s housemate too,” Park Minseong confirms and Kim Soleum wonders how on earth he knows about that. Perhaps his cohort had their own group chat where they gossiped about employees.
“Isn’t he the one you beat? The guy who came in second after you for best new recruit?” Eun Haje smirks. “You really decided to conquer him in every aspect, didn’t you, Roe?”
“That’s our rookie for you. Dominating the Darknesses and more.”
“Please stop already,” Kim Soleum thinks to himself as he continues spraying himself with the deodoriser, making sure to get every last bit of Baek Saheon’s scent off him, even though he cannot smell a thing.
Cold sweat runs down his back as he realises that everyone he met on the way to D Squad’s office today could probably smell Baek Saheon on him and he prays that no one recognises his scent. At the same time, knowing this company’s scarily efficient rumour mill, most people probably already knew that he had come into work drenched in Baek Saheon’s scent while the omega was on leave.
Kim Soleum closes his eyes and mentally apologises to Baek Saheon. Sorry, I couldn’t protect your privacy, Goat-nim.
There is a chance that someone might message Baek Saheon about it and Kim Soleum prepares himself for the omega to chew him out for it. Not that Baek Saheon would dare do anything worse to him. Even after two full days of heat sex, Baek Saheon is still a little afraid of him and Kim Soleum had made sure to play up the psychopath tendencies right before leaving to remind him to be wary of him.
Kim Soleum glances at his phone, checking his private messages with Baek Saheon for any sign that he had heard something, but all he sees is the [“Beware of serial killers!”] message he had last sent him. He thinks about sending Baek Saheon a message to ask how his body feels but that seems too out of character for the persona he is keeping up.
“So, Roe.” A friendly arm slings itself over his shoulder and Kim Soleum looks into Eun Haje’s smirking face. “After being busy for the past couple of days, are you ready to go into a Darkness?”
Honestly? No. The answer will always be no for Kim Soleum.
But he has to do what he must, all for the sake of going back home.
Kim Soleum sighs in his heart but he just nods at her. “Which Darkness is it today?”
—
When Kim Soleum returns home, everything is normal at first. The Darkness that D Squad was assigned to today was unknown but one that Kim Soleum remembered from the wiki and he cleared it in his usual speedrun fashion. Even the Research Team and Kwak Jekang could not find fault with him today even though Kim Soleum is sure that they are plotting his downfall for another day. Whatever it is, Kim Soleum makes it home today and that means returning to the apartment he shares with Baek Saheon.
Baek Saheon is in his room when Kim Soleum returns, lying on his stomach and scrolling on his phone. Kim Soleum wonders if he had eaten yet. Without consciously meaning to, he had picked up two portions of dinner from a nearby eatery and was thinking of offering one to Baek Saheon.
“Baek Saheon,” he calls out into his room as he passes by and Baek Saheon jumps up so violently that his bedsprings shake. He looks back at Kim Soleum, his single eye wide and wary.
“What is it?” Baek Saheon asks, adopting the polite tone he usually does with Kim Soleum.
“If you haven’t had dinner, I bought something extra. You can have it if you like. I left it on the dining table.”
The dining table that they had so thoroughly desecrated just the day before.
Kim Soleum tries not to think about it and he can tell that the same train of thought had crossed Baek Saheon’s mind from the way his eye darts away self-consciously, his pupil quivering.
Kim Soleum goes back to his room, taking a quick shower before returning to the dining table. Baek Saheon is already there, chomping down on his portion of galbitang and rice while watching a video on his phone. Without saying a word to each other, Kim Soleum sits across from him, trying not to think about the last time they were both at this table.
That is when Kim Soleum feels the first glare prick him but when he looks up, Baek Saheon is watching the video on his phone like nothing had happened. This goes on throughout their meal and by the end of it, Kim Soleum is certain that Baek Saheon is mad at him over something.
Kim Soleum thinks back to the start of the day when his coworkers were teasing him about having Baek Saheon’s scent all over him. Was it because of that? The rumour mill sure is effective if Baek Saheon had already heard about it without even stepping foot into the office.
“Hey, Baek Saheon,” Kim Soleum starts and Baek Saheon flinches before shoving his last spoonful of soup and rice into his mouth like he is getting ready to bolt from the table.
A bit of an extreme reaction but then again, Kim Soleum had been conditioning that reflex in Baek Saheon ever since they moved in together. Maybe he should go with a gentler opening.
“How’s your body today?” asks Kim Soleum.
“What’s your problem— Huh?” Baek Saheon blinks back at him.
“Your body,” Kim Soleum says, the very paragon of calm. “How is it? You had a hard time those past two days, didn’t you?”
“No thanks to you, sir,” Baek Saheon mutters. He props his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand, his other arm resting horizontally on the table before him like a physical barrier between Kim Soleum and him. “It’s not too bad. I’ve had worse heats.”
“Have you?” Kim Soleum finds himself asking. “With other people?”
“No way,” Baek Saheon scoffs, “not since—” He cuts himself off abruptly, squinting at Kim Soleum suspiciously. “What’s it to you?”
Kim Soleum raises an eyebrow. “Can’t I just ask a simple question?” He smiles deliberately at him. “Why? Hiding something after being so open with me over the past few days?”
Baek Saheon glares at him. “Just because we slept together doesn’t mean you get to know everything about me.”
“I don’t want to know everything about you,” Kim Soleum tells him. “I just need to know enough about you, Baek Saheon.”
At that, Baek Saheon goes quiet, a strange, abrupt silence falling over the table. Kim Soleum cannot read the expression on his face, the emotion in his normally expressive eye shuttered away. He sees Baek Saheon’s fist on the table clench tightly.
“Well, you know enough about me, sir,” Baek Saheon says shortly. “That should make you happy.”
He stands up from the table and shoves his trash into the plastic bag, dumping it into the rubbish bin in the kitchen before stomping back to his room and shutting himself in it. The door slams shut behind him.
That night, Kim Soleum sleeps alone in his bed for the first time in three nights. The same goes for the nights after that. Baek Saheon no longer comes to his room and Kim Soleum thinks that everything between them has returned to normal.
—
After that, things happen one after another and in the time between entering Segwang Technical High School and Death Lane, Kim Soleum barely has the time to think about Baek Saheon in between all the dangers trying to kill him or worse. He still wants to go home more than ever, scared and sick and tired of all the ghost stories he keeps getting dragged into.
He forgets so completely about Baek Saheon that it does not even register that he has not seen him around their shared apartment in a long time. Only after staggering out from the Hellfare Taxi with a fever that burns up his head does Kim Soleum spot Baek Saheon’s polished shoes by the front entrance, which makes him wonders deliriously if it is time for his heat already.
However, their apartment does not smell anything like the flowers he associates with Baek Saheon’s heat. When Kim Soleum checks Baek Saheon’s bedroom, the door is ajar and a quick peek through the gap tells him there is no one there, not even curled up under the duvet on his bed. Maybe Baek Saheon decided to spend his heat outside this time. He never said that had no other options besides Kim Soleum and it is not like they were ever close enough for him to tell Kim Soleum where he was going when he left the apartment.
Standing outside Baek Saheon’s empty bedroom, Kim Soleum feels a pang of… something in his chest. Guilt? Concern? He does not want to think about it too deeply, not when he was the one who completely forgot about Baek Saheon over the past few weeks.
The sound of the toilet flushing reaches Kim Soleum’s ears and he pushes Baek Saheon’s door open wider to stare at the closed bathroom door attached to his bedroom. No one emerges from the bathroom and quietly, very quietly, Kim Soleum hears the sound of retching. Was Baek Saheon unwell too?
Kim Soleum is torn between wanting to check on him or pretending he did not hear him. After the events in Death Lane and the ride back home in the Hellfare Taxi, all he wants to do is crawl into bed and pass out. Besides, it is not like they have a close relationship as housemates. They don’t care about each other like friends; they just happen to stay in the same apartment.
Still, Kim Soleum stays standing in Baek Saheon’s doorway for some reason, blocking the light from seeping into his bedroom, his shadow looming large on the floor right before the bathroom. If he stands there long enough…
The door to the bathroom creaks open and Baek Saheon emerges from it, looking haggard. His brown hair falls in limp locks over his forehead and his face is soaked in sweat. His single eye swivels around and spots Kim Soleum immediately and something almost feral sharpens in their green depths as he hones in on him.
“You,” Baek Saheon says hoarsely, his voice so low that Kim Soleum cannot read the emotion in it.
“Me,” Kim Soleum replies, just to gauge what kind of reaction he gets from him. There is something crackling in the air around Baek Saheon and the wild look in his eye makes Kim Soleum think of a cornered animal.
“I am going to kill you,” Baek Saheon threatens, looking straight at Kim Soleum with his green eye blazing.
Kim Soleum shrugs. “You tried.” Back in Segwang Technical High School, he is certain that Baek Saheon wanted him dead for real.
“Watch your back.”
“You know I already do around you,” Kim Soleum responds and it is an honest answer but he does it with a smile, the one that he knows puts Baek Saheon on edge. “Now, what’s wrong with you?”
Baek Saheon glares darkly at him. “Nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me. I heard you throwing up.”
Baek Saheon shifts his weight from one leg to another. “I just ate something that turned bad. Why do you want to know? It’s not like you care anyway.”
That same weird pang from before tugs at Kim Soleum’s chest and he has to fight to maintain the fake smile on his face for a brief moment.
“If you have a moment, come outside. I have an item for you.”
Greed flickers in Baek Saheon’s eye, overriding the wild light in them for a moment, but then his eye narrows in suspicion. “What’s the catch?”
“Give me the item that you’ve been using to hide from me.”
Baek Saheon flinches.
But he comes out of his bedroom all the same, unable to resist the lure of an item that could be useful for surviving Darknesses. He is wearing a hoodie and baggy sweatpants, arms hugging himself around the stomach loosely as he follows Kim Soleum into the living room. In the light, Kim Soleum can see how pale Baek Saheon is and the way he hunches in on himself, looking oddly small and vulnerable in his oversized clothes. He really does not look well.
Facing each other like this, Baek Saheon is forced to look at Kim Soleum and he does so sulkily, murderous rage in his eye. When Kim Soleum produces the purple and black eye he bought for him, Baek Saheon looks like he is about to reach out and strangle him, but he still hears him out when he explains the properties of the eye, interest flashing across his face. As promised, Baek Saheon hands over the fountain pen that he had been using to hide from Kim Soleum these past days and snatches the eye from him like he is afraid Kim Soleum would try to cheat him out of it.
As his hand closes around the box containing the eye, he brushes Kim Soleum’s hand and looks startled, looking up at Kim Soleum warily, scrutinising him properly for the first time since Kim Soleum stepped in through the door.
“Hey, what’s wrong with you?” Baek Saheon asks.
“Hey?” Kim Soleum says softly.
“Sir,” Baek Saheon tacks on impatiently. “Are you unwell or something?”
“I just came out of a Darkness. I’m tired.”
“Liar,” Baek Saheon accuses him, tucking the newly acquired purple eye into the pocket of his hoodie.
“I’ll tell you what’s wrong with me if you tell me what’s wrong with you,” Kim Soleum bargains, his head throbbing and vision swimming. All he wants to do is go back to his room already.
Baek Saheon clams up immediately.
“Thought so,” Kim Soleum murmurs. He brushes past Baek Saheon, barely managing to make it through his door and passing out on his bed.
—
As a raging fever fries his brain, Kim Soleum dreams. Nightmares about Darknesses plague him, along with memories of home which has his heart aching so badly in his chest he feels like throwing up. He thinks he dreams about Baek Saheon too and his disarmingly sweet floral scent, only instead of the wildly sexy scenarios he once imagined Baek Saheon in, he hears his grumbling instead and sees a blurry image of him looming over him.
“…you can’t even die properly. I should take this opportunity to kill you off for real, stupid Kim Soleum.”
“You’ll miss me,” Kim Soleum responds, his tongue thick in his mouth, his voice slurred.
Baek Saheon swears colourfully. “Even listening in on me when you’re fully passed out. You’re crazy. Crazy or possessed.”
Something damp touches his forehead, cooling his fevered brow, and Kim Soleum sighs in relief, leaning into it. Fingers brush his sweat-soaked hair back from his face, a hand resting on his neck contemplatively like it wants to strangle him.
It doesn’t. Instead, Kim Soleum hears Baek Saheon say, “I’m going to get rid of this thing you put inside me. It’s not like either of us want to raise it. You don’t even care about me.”
“What..?”
“… Nevermind.”
Baek Saheon moves his hand away from Kim Soleum’s neck. He hears the sound of water sloshing and then something damp and cool rests on his forehead. Kim Soleum blinks, the room fading in and out of his vision, the brown of Baek Soleum’s hair and the vivid green of his eye blurring together. He cannot see his face. He tries to reach for him, to ask him exactly what he was saying, but he thinks he misses Baek Saheon’s wrist by a mile.
Baek Saheon gets up and walks away.
—
Baek Saheon disappears for a couple of days, his shoes gone from the front entrance and his bedroom door locked firmly as if to tell Kim Soleum to mind his own business. Kim Soleum chalks it up to the new eye he had handed over to Baek Saheon and, sure enough, when Baek Saheon returns to their apartment, there is the unmistakable shape of something under the medical eyepatch he wears over his left eye. It had taken longer that Kim Soleum thought it would, given Daydream Inc’s crazy efficiency in ensuring employees took as little days off as possible to keep working.
“How’s the new eye?” Kim Soleum throws out before Baek Saheon can vanish into his room.
Baek Saheon fumbles with the key and doorknob, muttering out, “Fine.”
“Not even a ‘thank you’ of gratitude?”
Baek Saheon curses and kicks the door, the key half-stuck in the keyhole, and Kim Soleum has to stop himself from jumping at the sudden, violent action. The other man looks up at him, his hair falling into his eyes, loose and dishevelled. There are shadows under his eyes and his gaze is hollow as he stares at Kim Soleum.
Unease creeps up Kim Soleum’s skin. He knows that Baek Saheon hates him, hates him enough to kill him, but these days the depth of that emotion he feels for Kim Soleum seems a little different. Baek Saheon has been looking at him a lot more instead of avoiding him entirely. While this might be partially because he can no longer hide from Kim Soleum after his fountain pen item was confiscated, Kim Soleum cannot help but think that he is missing something here.
“Thank you, sir,” Baek Saheon says, his voice dripping venom. “Whatever would I do without your generosity?”
Kim Soleum is speechless for once, unsure of how to respond to him. In that silence, Baek Saheon shoves his key into the keyhole and forces it to turn, throwing the door open and disappearing into his room immediately. The door slams shut behind him.
—
“So, Roe, how have things been with your housemate?” Park Minseong asks Kim Soleum one day over lunch.
Kim Soleum pauses for a moment in the middle of bringing his chopsticks to his mouth. “… Fine.”
That catches the attention of both his seniors immediately and he can sense exactly when their attention shifts away from their lunch to hone in on him. To the side, he sees the lizard eat a roll of kimbap, foil and all. Maybe if he follows in the lizard’s example, his seniors will turn their attention on that unusual feat instead…?
“Trouble between the both of you?” Eun Haje asks, propping her chin on her hand. “Whose fault is it?”
Kim Soleum feels defensive. He didn’t do anything to Baek Saheon… he thinks.
Park Minseong looks at Kim Soleum carefully, his face thoughtful. “Are the two of you dating?”
“No,” Kim Soleum blurts out and adds hurriedly when the expressions on his seniors’ faces change. “It was just that one time. I just helped him out with one of his heats.”
“Did he ask you for help?” Eun Haje asks, drumming her fingers on the table in a faintly threatening manner.
“He approached me. I didn’t say no,” Kim Soleum tells them, condensing the two days of non-stop sex Baek Saheon and him had into the blandest non-answer he could.
“Your relationship with him before this… How was it, Roe?” Park Minseong asks, his brows furrowing.
Kim Soleum absolutely cannot tell them that he has been acting like a psychopath in front of Baek Saheon to keep him in line. Without telling them the full truth about where he actually comes from and how he knew about the future Section Chief Viper, it just sounds like workplace harassment.
“Not great,” Kim Soleum admits. “We mostly leave each other alone and avoid each other when we can.”
“Figures. I hear that Goat is a piece of work. Ruthlessly efficient, ready to sacrifice others for his survival, greedy for items. Perfect Daydream employee, but doesn’t sound like someone your type, Roe,” Eun Haje says. “So what, after that one time you’re back to ignoring each other?”
“Something like that.”
“Did you at least talk to him after his heat?” Park Minseong presses on. “Even if the two of you are on bad terms.”
They did not. Right after Baek Saheon’s heat had subsided, they spent it in awkward silence, too drained physically and mentally to speak to each other. Kim Soleum was surprised that Baek Saheon came to him the night after it ended to do nothing but sleep with him in his bed, his body pressed flush against his and arms wrapped around Kim Soleum’s middle as he slept soundly. Kim Soleum had left him tucked in on his bed when he left for work the next morning and he actually thought Baek Saheon looked cute like that with his fluffy, brown hair peeking out from under the duvet, his expression fully relaxed.
Then, Baek Saheon had been mad at him when he returned home from work for some reason that Kim Soleum never figured out and their relationship, already bad, took a nosedive after that.
“No, we didn’t really speak to each other,” Kim Soleum admits. He can see the point Park Minseong is trying to get at.
Park Minseong looks sympathetic. “Look, your housemate doesn’t sound like the easiest person to get along with but sometimes being in heat makes omegas behave in ways they aren’t proud of when they come out of it. It’s why we seclude ourselves at home or find people we trust to spend it with. I’m not sure what he thinks of you but I think it’s worth a try to find out. You were with him at his most vulnerable for a couple of days after all.”
Park Minseong is not wrong. Kim Soleum owes Baek Saheon that much at least. He had been so caught up in surviving this world that he forgot that the people he is now living amongst are no longer just characters in a wiki he reads in his free time. He had spent all that time with Baek Saheon, intimately, in ways that Kim Soleum would not have just brushed off if he had been back in his world. Just chalking up Baek Saheon’s heat to being a strange trope in a fictional world was doing him a disservice when the omega himself suffers through it frequently.
“I’ll speak to him when I get back home later,” Kim Soleum promises. “Thank you for the advice.”
The both of them pat his back in sympathy.
“At the very least, if he kicks you out, you can look for another place to stay,” Eun Haje adds. “You’ve been earning so much, surely you can afford a bachelor’s pad of your own. Just look at Section Chief. He’s doing well for himself as a single alpha. All the omegas want him. Even some alphas and betas, I bet. But our Section Chief is just as stoic as ever.”
Kim Soleum looks at him. Lee Jaheon’s food tray is sparkling clean, not a wrapper in sight.
Maybe being a lizard was the true advantage in this confusing world of alphas, omegas, and betas.
“Back to work,” the lizard says and the three of them scramble to finish their lunch.
—
Kim Soleum catches sight of his elusive roommate on a weekend when neither of them are working.
He had been spawn-camping in their living room, body angled towards Baek Saheon’s bedroom door so that there is no way he could slip by him. Sure enough, the door eventually creaks open and Baek Saheon emerges from his sanctuary. He is dressed in casual clothes and carrying a backpack, the sleek, black eyepatch he had taken to wearing over his new eye at work swapped out for a plain, white medical eyepatch. He looks like a university student going out to meet friends and Kim Soleum is struck by how young Baek Saheon seems. Maybe Daydream Inc is even his first job. How unlucky.
“Baek Saheon,” Kim Soleum calls out and Baek Saheon jumps and swears, his eye darting to where Kim Soleum is sitting on the sofa. “Are you going somewhere?”
“Now what do you want?” Baek Saheon asks without answering his question, tugging on the straps of his backpack.
“To know where you’re going.”
“Out, alright?” Baek Saheon is still standing in the doorway of his bedroom, watching Kim Soleum warily as if he is about to jump up and get him if he walks by him. “It’s just regular stuff.”
“Do have some time?” Kim Soleum decides to just bite the bullet.
Baek Saheon checks his watch, his eye still brimming with suspicion as he grits out unwillingly, “What is it?”
“Are you mad at me for some reason?” Kim Soleum asks. It is a delicate question, one that could upset how Baek Saheon sees him as a psychopath with no regard for others, but he has to ask.
Baek Saheon stares at him incredulously, a little fearfully even, but also in what seems to be clear annoyance. “What the fuck?”
The psychopath housemate Kim Soleum was pretending to be would not be asking this question. He would not care at all if Baek Saheon was mad at him. In fact, he would relish in making Baek Saheon run circles around him until he collapsed from exhaustion. But Kim Soleum, at the end of the day, is still Kim Soleum and he does not actually want Baek Saheon to suffer. He wishes Baek Saheon would stop making attempts on his life, sure, but it is not as if he wants actual bodily harm to befall Baek Saheon. At most, he just wants to scare him a little into behaving.
If Kim Soleum was being entirely honest, he would never have done what he did with Baek Saheon during his heat if either of them were in their right mind. He is sure that Baek Saheon would not have done that either.
“Look, if you want, we can forget what happened during your heat. You weren’t in your right mind and neither was I.”
That… seems to be the wrong thing to say, going by how Baek Saheon stiffens up, crushing his backpack straps in his grip.
“You really don’t know what it feels like, you stupid beta,” Baek Saheon hisses out, voice dripping with venom.
“No, I don’t,” Kim Soleum responds, frustration rising in him, “and you’re not telling me anything either. Was it ok? Was it not ok? Are you angry because we had sex? What is it, Baek Saheon?”
Baek Saheon throws his backpack at Kim Soleum’s head and Kim Soleum just barely catches the surprise projectile before it connects.
“I DON’T KNOW!” Baek Saheon shrieks at him. “Why are you asking? Cornering me like this, intruding into my personal space, buying dinner for me, telling me you don’t care about me, treating me so nice, but being a completely sick-in-the-head psycho. What’s your problem? What do YOU want, Kim Soleum? Either leave me alone or DON’T!”
Kim Soleum gapes as Baek Saheon unleashes a tirade upon him, throwing at him everything that has obviously been weighing down on him. He looks like he is about to cry, his face scrunched up fiercely, and Kim Soleum is so sure that if he had been standing closer to Baek Saheon, the other man would be pummelling him with his fists and not just his backpack.
“Wait—”
“Is this fun for you, sir? Not only do you get to mess around with my head but now you get the chance to do the same with my body. And I can’t even do anything about it when I’m in heat,” Baek Saheon continues railing at him, even though he is noticeably losing steam, his voice dropping in volume as pure misery seeps into it. “I can’t even go back home. I need this place and you won’t even let me feel safe here.”
Every word from Baek Saheon feels like a stone dropping into the pit of Kim Soleum’s stomach. He is finally getting the honesty he wants from Baek Saheon but it does not feel good at all, as raw and forced as it is from Baek Saheon’s lips.
“I’m sorry,” Kim Soleum says honestly when Baek Saheon pauses to take a breath. “You’re right. I didn’t know anything.”
Baek Saheon swipes a hand over his eye furiously. “You got that right. You don’t know anything, Kim Soleum.”
“What do you want me to do?” Kim Soleum asks. “I’m sorry for what already happened but during your next heat, I can stay somewhere else for the time being.”
He hears Baek Saheon curse him out under his breath, his crisp Seoul city boy accent dropping into a dialect Kim Soleum does not quite catch. His single, exposed eye bores into Kim Soleum, alight with the same mad, green light he had seen in him the day he handed over the purple eye to him.
“Make it up to me.”
Alarm bells ring in Kim Soleum’s head. The whole reason why he had created his psycho housemate persona was to avoid situations where Baek Saheon had the upper hand. He does owe it to Baek Saheon but he will not let Baek Saheon shove him right off a cliff.
“What do you want?”
Baek Saheon’s eye curves up in a smile, glittering with greed. “First of all, your items.”
“Not everything, Baek Saheon.”
“What a shame when you have so many. We can negotiate this later. Next,” Baek Saheon ticks off a finger, “if we enter a Darkness together, I want you to protect me.”
Fair enough. Kim Soleum has already done his fair share of looking after Baek Saheon in various Darknesses so it is not anything new to him. However—
“I’ll do that on the condition that you don’t try to kill me either. No convenient accidents either.” Kim Soleum gives Baek Saheon a mirthless smile, his eyes dark. He cannot give Baek Saheon an inch or he will take a mile. “If you do that, you’re coming with me.”
Baek Saheon holds his gaze and moves on, not acknowledging that but not saying no either. “One last thing.”
Kim Soleum nods, telling him to go on.
“Spend my heats with me.”
“What?”
Kim Soleum thought that the point of this whole conversation was to apologise for what they did over Baek Saheon’s heat and to prevent the same thing from happening. Why was Baek Saheon moving it in the opposite direction?
Baek Saheon’s expression turns sour. “That’s the worst one for you, Kim Soleum?”
“Don’t you want me to stay away from you when you’re in heat instead?” Kim Soleum wonders just what is going on inside Baek Saheon’s head.
“You don’t want to do it?” Baek Saheon asks and, very faintly, just barely, Kim Soleum thinks that he seems hurt.
Kim Soleum thinks very hard about what Baek Saheon is asking of him. If asked upfront if he wanted to sleep with Baek Saheon, Kim Soleum would say no. He is not in the habit of having casual sex with other people but circumstances in this world have turned that on his head. To be fair, it is not as if Kim Soleum is throwing himself actively into sleeping with all sorts of people; it is just this one omega standing here before him, who is trying desperately not to show how much Kim Soleum’s answer will affect him.
Baek Saheon is cute after all, noxious personality aside. Kim Soleum already experienced that up close and personal once. Plus, when he is in heat, he can barely do anything but beg for it.
Feeling a little like scum for thinking this way, Kim Soleum thinks he would not mind.
“I’ll do it.”