Gin's partner...
Arthur climbed the emergency stairs to the office of the Invisible Scent project. He had been agonizing about this conjecture for days now.
An omega and beta couple was not that rare. It would be hard for the omega during their estrus, since betas couldn't provide pheromones to comfort the omega. Still, omegas who were afraid of alphas preffered going through their heat with artificial pheromone while having relationships with betas.
B-but...it didn't have to be anything romantic, right? They could be...brothers, or something. Gin, in his memory, had dark grey hair, an alluring gaze, a cheeky tone, and was physically slender yet toned.
Arthur would know--he embraced the man.
Eugene, on the other hand, had black hair, weighed more, and was rather reserved. Moreover, their fashion style and vibe were completely different.
Besides, Gin was a beta; Arthur was quite sure about it. The man didn't emit any scent despite not wearing a scent blocker, even while they were having sex. Meanwhile, he saw Eugene was wearing a scent blocker, so Eugene Kim was an omega.
Them having similar height and green eyes might actually mean they were related by blood.
Arthur stopped in the middle of the emergency stairs and crouched while grasping his head, groaning inwardly.
So what if they were partners? So what if they were lovers? What did it have to do with him?!
He was just...he just wanted to find Gin because he could speak so comfortably with the man. At most, he had a little crush on Gin. If Gin and Eugene were truly together, wouldn't it mean Arthur could finally have closure and move on?
Yeah...
Yeah, that was it.
Exercising his breath as if he had just done a set of cardio, Arthur stood up again. Clutching the laptop in his hand, he stepped out of the emergency stairs and headed to the Invisible Scent office.
His days with the pre-production team were almost over, and once the filming started, Eugene would only come randomly when Ashley wanted him to check on something. Even as her cousin, Arthur couldn't just ask Ashley to call Eugene often for his sake--that would be selfish of him--so these last few days might as well be Arthur's last remaining chance.
"Eugene," he called out the second he stepped into the office.
It saved him the time of looking for the omega and wondering if the person was the right one. There were two dark-haired men of similar height to Eugene after all, and one of them also wore glasses--like Eugene when he was working--that made it difficult for Arthur to determine their eye colors.
Calling the author's name also cast an automatic debuff freezing spell on the whole office, making it easier to identify Eugene because the omega was the only one who--could--move.
Did Arthur Crowley just call him 'Eugene' instead of Mr. Author?! --was probably what transpired in the minds of the frozen employees. Only their eyes were able to move, darting toward the omega in fright, expecting another cold response that would boost the onslaught of freezing spell in the room.
What they got was a chill--almost warm even--response. "Oh, you're here?"
What?!
"I bring my library," Arthur raised the laptop in his hand, ignoring the widened eyes of the employees. "Do you want to hear it now?"
Eugene saw that there was nothing else he really had to do until the regular progress meeting in the afternoon, so he nodded.
"Sure," Eugene turned toward the scriptwriters, who were looking at him in a daze. "Can we use the small meeting room?"
After all, the writers were the ones who usually used the small meeting rooms.
"...y-yeah," Diana nodded, almost stammered in her reply.
"Thanks," Eugene said with a subtle smile, before gesturing to Arthur with his finger while walking toward the opaque room.
Once the door to the meeting room was closing behind the alpha, the frozen employees gradually thawed. They looked at each other with lips parted in shock and confusion.
"What...happened?" they asked each other.
The last time those two met, they were still looking at each other with cold, suspicious eyes. The last time they interacted in the office, it was a war of nerves through sarcastic remarks. They had been working hard to separate the two to preserve the peace of their workplace, but suddenly, over the weekend, everything was...resolved?
Out of their supervision?!
The senior scriptwriter stared at the small meeting room sharply, fingers rubbing her chin. "Should we lock the door just in case?"
"Someone lock her again, please."
* * *
Ignoring the commotion outside, Eugene was immersing himself in the world of sounds that Arthur had created. A pair of the alpha's headphones covered his ears, sending strings of short melodies made of all kinds of instruments.
The screen in front of him was divided into two. One of them had the music library, and on the other half, there was a webcell with track titles on one column, and an extensive explanation on the other column. Each explanation consisted of pheromone notes and the instrument that Arthur used to express them.
For example, Eugene was currently listening to one of the tracks Arthur thought would be fit for the protagonist; the pheromone that could only be felt by his alpha. An elegant symphony of piano and violin in the background, like a faint base, under a chaotic electronic guitar. The label on the track was unstable dewdrop, and beneath it was a list of notes: adelhyde, lily, musk.
There was another similar track labeled morning dewdrop and sunlight dew with a similar base but different layered instruments. The scent label also contained one or two different notes, like an addition of citrus or white wood.
When Eugene closed his eyes to listen to the melodies after reading the scent notes, he could almost imagine it: the world he could never experience before, the thing that made him incomplete as an omega.
There were hundreds of such tracks in Arthur's so-called library.
Eugene's breath almost stopped when he realized it. An extensive catalogue of pheromones in the shape of sounds, and Arthur said there were still a lot of pheromone notes in the list that were still 'blank'--he hadn't had the time to make melodies for them yet.
Yet.
When he opened his eyes, Eugene glanced at the alpha who was waiting for his response. The man who had just given Eugene a whole new world was fidgeting nervously, like a schoolboy waiting for a teacher's appraisal. The alpha sounded so confident when he was explaining everything to Eugene earlier, but now he looked totally anxious.
Eugene smiled, taking the headphones off. "It's good," he said, and a bright, relieved smile bloomed on Arthur's face. "I think you captured their vibes well."
"Really?" Arthur perked up.
It wasn't empty praise. If Eugene, who had never been able to smell pheromone could imagine it that clearly through these strings of melodies, perhaps it truly had some magic behind it.
Eugene glanced at the laptop in contemplation, and in the end, decided to be a little greedy. "Can I hear the other tracks--the ones you don't plan to use too?"
"Sure," Arthur shrugged. "If you give me a storage disk, I'll copy it there."
How trusting--Eugene almost shook his head. What if he were a spy sent by Ervia's side? What if he decided to take the files and gave it to someone else? Maybe because he was friends with Sophie? Still, this alpha should be more careful.
But then again, this slightly naive personality, which made him seem like a sheltered, exiled prince, was what made Eugene not walk away--both that night six years ago, or in the mall last time. Well, he did walk away in the middle, but the alpha wasn't hateful enough for him to keep getting angry. He seemed kind of pitiful, but also genuine; the type that could make people feel gullible as well as tempted to swindler.
That was, if they could get past the frowning and face-scrunching period.
But once they got through the hard exterior, just like six years ago, Arthur was such an enthusiastic yapper--provided the topic was something he was passionate about. Eugene ended up listening to the man talking about which instrument he usually used for this smell or that smell.
He might not be able to smell pheromone, but Eugene could smell other things just fine, so he could still imagine it. He had to admit guiltily that it almost made him want to use perfume--until he remembered about his daughter.
Couldn't have his beautiful daughter started frowning and scrunching her face like Arthur.
"Did you have one for yourself?" Eugene asked--half to end Arthur's incessant yap. Of course, the other half was curiosity.
What was this alpha's scent like? Would Hannah have something closer to him in the future? Since Eugene knew he barely let out anything, he didn't think Hannah would inherit his characteristic.
"Huh? You mean my own scent?" Arthur blinked and suddenly started to fidget in his seat again. "Err...that feels a bit narcissistic, so..."
"So?"
Arthur swallowed and replied quietly, almost in a whisper. "It's embarrassing."
"Just making me curious," Eugene smirked, holding back laughter inside. Alpha was usually prideful, even the gentle one like Allen. But this one...
Eugene almost shook his head in amusement.
"Ugh--just don't laugh," Arthur pursed his lips and pulled the laptop toward him. "In fact, don't make any reaction!"
Eugene hid his smile as he donned the headphones again, this time deciding to listen without looking at the label first.
He closed his eyes as a harsh wind instrument started to play, along with a noisy string that tapered out into whispers. A bed of grass was spread beneath his feet, surrounded by a thick forest with tall trees that isolated him in the middle of the clearing. The whispering instrument was calming, before it was invaded by the thumping of the bass, as if drizzling rain was falling into the ground.
When Eugene took a deep breath, he felt like he could smell the soil after a light rain, and the fresh dampness of cut grass in the morning.
He opened his eyes in surprise, finding a line of petrichor, moss, fresh-cut wood among other things on the label. Glancing at the alpha, who was looking away while crossing his arms as if he didn't want to know what Eugene thought about this piece at all, Eugene suddenly understood why Arthur was hesitant.
It was such a peaceful, solemn scent that did not match the seemingly temperamental alpha.
How amusing, Eugene thought. So pheromones did not necessarily match their personality. It made sense, though; a biological component did not have a correlation with someone's upbringing. After all, personality and attitude were constructed by someone's life experience, not dictated by the complex biological composition in one's body--which they had no choice in.
Otherwise, all betas would be plain and bland with no personality whatsoever. Well...Eugene too, in that case.
Eugene suddenly wondered what his sound would be like, before shaking his head with a bitter smile on his lips.
It's not like I have pheromone, he chuckled inwardly, feeling slightly disappointed, without knowing the existence of an encrypted folder filled with several experimental tracks. The topmost track, the one with almost five minutes of duration, was Arthur Crowley's masterpiece symphony with only one word used as a title:
Gin.