December

“Sir, it is central heating and the room temperature is set to the appropriate temperature recommended by the district. It would be difficult to raise the temperature separately….”

“Why can’t you? There’s an air conditioner in there! Just turn that on!”

The library staff kept calling the middle-aged man several times in a troubled voice and took the protesting man to another place. The temperature in the study room wasn’t that bad and I thought it was okay, but the middle-aged man who returned to the study room had a remote control in his hand. I wasn’t the only one who felt ominous about the villain, who persisted in heating the room, victory. Sure enough, summer arrived in the study room in less than 30 minutes.

Tap tap, his pen lightly tapped on my notebook. I turned around to see if he had anything to say, and he turned to me and stretched out his right arm to write.

‘Isn’t it hot?’

Kim Shin took off his jumper before I knew it and was wearing a white short-sleeved T-shirt underneath. I found myself in a similar situation. I took off my cardigan first and rolled the sleeves of my striped T-shirt to my elbows, but it couldn’t stop the heat from rising to my face.

‘Let’s go.’

As soon as I spoke, he got up from his seat and I followed suit and quickly left the study room. The air outside was not cold, but it was still breathable. Because of this, I forgot my decision to keep a distance and spoke to him first.

“It feels like July.” [1]

When I expressed the heat in my own way, Kim Shin looked at the study room and spit it out as if it were absurd.

“If it’s really July, it wouldn’t have felt this unfair.”

He didn’t seem to be sensitive to the cold but he seemed to hate the heat. It was cute so I smiled involuntarily and asked.

“Do you put up with summer even if it feels unfair?”

I teased him.

“Swimming feels relaxing.”

Oh, I guess he likes to swim. The information I learned about him felt more important than the contents of the book I had been looking through for an hour.

“It’s not that I hate summer.”

He might not like it but he emphasized it as if he was making an excuse. For the first time, I felt that he was younger than me, so I laughed again unintentionally. Right, he was 21 years old. Then, he quickly smiled as he stared at me. What am I doing? What if we get close? I went ahead first.

“Let’s have a drink. Something to drink in the summer.”

I bought an iced drink from the cafe on the first floor and drank it in the lobby where the cold air lingered, only then did I realize that it was winter. I regretted buying a cold drink for a moment, but I only thought of the positive, thinking of the villain who would have sat there with the books piled up. It was summer there, July.

So having a cold drink in the middle of winter was not a problem. I don’t know if it was because I was with someone comfortable. After meeting him three times, I was already trying to get used to him. I shouldn’t be interested in him and I shouldn’t get close to a dominant Alpha. I tried to be aware of the boundaries that I always set high, but when I talked to him, I ended up chatting with him, unbridled.

So this time, I thought to keep my mouth shut, I had the drink in the cold without a break and I eventually blanked out. I waited for him to drink but then I noticed the timing. We should go to the 2nd floor now…

“Do you like summer?”

He asked first. He talked to me as if he had no intention of going to the upper floor after his drink. It wasn’t a problem for us to hang out like this since we weren’t exactly students, but it was uncomfortable to spend time with him face-to-face. Maybe that was why I couldn’t answer his casual question so easily, and I looked down impassively for a while but the latter smiled with the corner of his mouth.

“Was the question difficult?”

For a moment, I felt a bit ashamed because I felt like he had caught my heightened boundaries. No. I shook my head.

“I get very cold. Summer is better than winter.”

I didn’t particularly like summer, but I didn’t like winter because it made me nervous due to the awful memories of December. His gaze grazed my arm which was naked with the sleeves up all the way. His gaze came up to my eyes and said lightly.

“Are you cold now? I have something warm.”

“A hand warmer?”

“No. Me.”

It must have been a joke, but I couldn’t laugh right away. I wanted to make an excuse but the low-pitched voice saying ‘Me’ was sweet and soft like melted chocolate. It might have been that heat particles were mixed with the sound waves, but when his voice touched my ears, heat rose. Because of his serious stare, I smiled awkwardly.

“Haha, you’re too big for a hand warmer. You’re more like a big heater.”

The joke didn’t work. Rather, he looked at me as if he had stopped breathing, so I quickly opened my mouth to deal with it.

“Yours will not cool for a while, um.”

I added, but there was no expected reaction. Rather, his eyes trembled in his stiff face, and he suddenly turned his body around. Huh? Why? However, leaving me bewildered, he headed for the emergency stairs. Ah, the hand warmer, the body warmer, and the puns were not good. Feeling guilty, I strode after him as he walked fast.

Arriving at the entrance, he first opened the thick iron door and waited for me, but strangely, he refused to look at my face. It was not that I didn’t understand. He must have been dumbfounded by my awful gag ability. Would he let go of me on his own accord if I kept on gag rather than being vigilant and distant? While climbing the stairs in serious contemplation, I noticed him suddenly stopping in front of the second floor. Because of that, I also stopped. Huh? I figured out why before the question even came up.

“Hng-!Ahh! There!”

A thick male voice let out a nasal moan. Someone was doing something on the library steps. At least I could faintly feel the Alpha’s pheromone, so it seemed like someone was in a rut. Kim Shin glanced at me.

“Let’s take the elevator.”

“Please.”

Kim Shin smiled and walked down the stairs again. As he headed for the elevator, we both talked in amazement.

“If the Alpha is going through a rut, shouldn’t they close the emergency stairs?”

“There is no need for that.”

Kim Shin asserted.

“How do you know?”

“The other person can’t last that long. He’s a Beta.”

What? Was the thick-voiced man a Beta? Kim Shin was an Alpha, so he must have smelled Omega’s pheromone better than I do.

“No, then they are not doing it because they can’t control their heat…but because it’s cold outside. If you do it in the cold, you’ll be in trouble.”

I struggled to find a sensible reason to defend their love. They probably didn’t want to get frostbite from the cold either.

“Yeah, because your genitals get frostbite when it’s cold.”

Huh? He’s so well-versed about this. I looked up at him in surprise. He was giving strength to the corners of his mouth as if he was holding back, but his eyes were revealing a smile that could not be hidden. I was glad that we were thinking the same thing so I wanted to pretend that I knew it too but then the elevator arrived.

But was having frostbite on someone’s genitals that funny? The question was short-lived, and soon a group of middle school students poured into the elevator, pushing both of us into a corner. The middle school students were all cluttered here and there with their bags on their backs.

Among them, a middle school student in front of me had a warm drink in his hand. The elevator was not a place where drinks were banned, but the movements of the middle school students caught my eye. The elevators were already full, but the middle school students moved their bodies busily, making loud noises as if they had rented the elevator for themselves.

“Why did you come all the way here since we’re going to the internet cafe right away?”

“Hey, shouldn’t you send proof that you came to the library to your mom? Oh, drink yours!”

The middle school student in front of me suddenly shouted and raised his hand holding a drink. I, who was right behind him, was surprised and squeezed my body as close as possible to Kim Shin next to me, but it was already too late to avoid misfortune. The drink that had been shaking in the middle school student’s hand lost its balance in an instant and spilled toward me.

“Oh my God!”

“Ahh!”

The frightened screams of the children echoed in the narrow elevator. Even when I saw the pouring drink, I couldn’t think of avoiding it. There was no place to hide anymore in this crowded place, but the spilling of the drink was really unexpected. But there was a force pulling me from behind.

I stumbled and hit his chest which was as hard as a wall. In an instant, my back touched him as if I was being hugged by Kim Shin but that was not important. It was later that I realized that he was pulling me up and blocking the drink with his other hand. The drink, which was stopped midway in the air, was dripping onto his hand.

As the drink poured out, the middle school students’ mouths instantly closed, and were silent. Everyone looked up at Kim Shin, who was standing behind me. A short silence filled the inside of the elevator. I couldn’t see his expression because I had my back to him, but I could clearly see the fear on the middle school students’ faces all at once. Why were their faces so pale?… As I was about to turn around, I heard a cold voice above my head.

“Aren’t you going to apologize?”

The middle school student who spilled the drink muttered, “I’m sorry,” as he trembled. The elevator stopped and the door slid open. However, none of the students thought of getting off, and only then I realized the important point. The drink the middle school student spilled was little, but it was steaming. In an instant, his red hand caught his eye.

“Hey, we should cool it down quickly…”

I couldn’t respond to all the talk behind us and grabbed his arm before running to the bathroom. Splash– As soon as I turned on the cold water, he put his hand under the running water. I was more flustered than he was, while I was distracted. But I couldn’t help but feel guilty for the fact that he was hurt while blocking me. If I had avoided it beforehand, this wouldn’t have happened. I didn’t even know that I was pulling his body to hold his left arm with both hands so I was full of worry and nervousness and muttered about how he should cool down the faint burn on his hand.

“I don’t know how deep the burn is from the outside. If there is a problem inside the skin, swelling, and blistering…Oh, you have to cool off your burn with cold water for a long time. Doesn’t it hurt? Let’s cool down and go to the hospital together…Is there a dermatologist nearby? Oh, there is a large pharmacy near the station, so I will go there first and buy some ointment and apply it. Then it will be much better. Minor burns can be cured with ointment only. But in case it’s serious, it’s better to find a dermatologist and visit the hospital right away….”

Kim Shin was really hurt but didn’t say anything, but I was the only one who rattled on. Even amid my panic, I thought I had to calm him down, but I don’t know if I was the one who had to calm down. I grabbed his arm, and he twisted his body toward me, almost standing still.

If I had been even slightly sane, I would have noticed right away how close he was to me and how his eyes were only on my face, but I wasn’t. The reason I realized the distance from him belatedly was because of another person who came to use the sink.

Kim Shin moved to make room for the person. I was still holding his arm, so he was forced to stand close to me. So he gave me his hand with his arm extended as if he were holding me from behind. The tap water kept dripping, and neither his hand was cooling off under it nor my hand holding it changed anything.

We remained in that position until the person next to him washed his hands and left. But I didn’t speak anymore. Only the sound of running tap water dripping into the sink could be heard. I raised my eyes and I could see him staring at me through the mirror. I met his eyes. I was breathless for a moment.

“…It’s fine now.”

The man in the mirror muttered to me. When he tried to pull his hand away, I was startled and lowered my eyes, and quickly removed my hand. Just like that, he removed his hand, stepped back, and left the bathroom. I should have followed along to make sure his wounds were okay, but I couldn’t move.

I couldn’t even raise my head to look in the mirror. I could tell that his face was blushing without even checking the mirror. All I could do was keep my head down and let go of the shame and feeling I had just a moment ago. But the memory did not fade easily. Behind my back, the feeling of his erect penis was still clear.

Having lived with someone all his life, it wasn’t often that I was left alone at home. No matter where my parents went, my sister was always at home. But my sister was now living in her own room near the local university. The house, which used to be small when the whole family gathered, was wide enough to leave a man alone.

[1] December is the omegaverse spin-off of samk’s another book called July.