Pretending to Be an Alpha in an All-Alpha Boy Band - Chapter 11
Chapter 11 Susceptible Period
The forum posts were a confusing mix, and reading them left Ying Mingche questioning his life.
More than anything, he felt bewildered.
Why were so many Alphas fantasizing about Yuan Shiyuan? Fairly speaking, Yuan Shiyuan was indeed good-looking: fair skin, curled eyelashes, a slim waist, long legs, long hair, and naturally pink lips… but did that justify this level of craziness from so many Alphas?
Ying Mingche thought that, but when he looked at the half-a-head-shorter Yuan Shiyuan’s stunned face, his canines itched uncontrollably.
Clearly an Alpha, and yet wearing such an adorable expression.
“They rioted in my square, not me personally. Why that look?”
The next second, Ying Mingche’s expression shifted; he put on a pitiful face. “They’re just sending packages now—won’t they sneak into my dorm later and stab me?”
“I’m so scared, I feel so unsafe.”
“So let’s sleep together.”
If it were anyone else, Yuan Shiyuan would have nodded without hesitation. Sleeping with a good brother—what’s the big deal? Besides, when fans acted up, idols often picked up the tab; he should shoulder that responsibility.
But this person was Ying Mingche.
Ying Mingche was too enthusiastic; it made Yuan Shiyuan want to keep his distance. He actually preferred Bo Jin’s type—no interference, occasionally showering him with useful gear.
Yuan Shiyuan hesitated. Ying Mingche lowered his voice: “Are you refusing me again?”
“Of course not, but—” Yuan Shiyuan sighed, “you know Bo Jin is in his susceptible period right now. It wouldn’t be good for you to join us.”
Ying Mingche: “Isn’t that perfect? Just move in with me. Living with an A during their susceptible period would be uncomfortable.”
How could Yuan Shiyuan forget that? No Alpha would get close to a same-sex susceptible. Ying Mingche’s invitation to live together made sense.
“No more excuses, then.”
This guy was really hard to deal with; Yuan Shiyuan gave up pretending. “Ying Mingche.”
Hearing his full name, Ying Mingche felt his heart inexplicably tighten.
The more Yuan Shiyuan refused and ignored him, the more Ying Mingche pressed in. Maybe he liked being made to look foolish—seeing Yuan Shiyuan turn a cold face at him made him partly afraid but mostly exhilarated.
Afraid he might be ignored in the future; thrilled that Yuan Shiyuan finally showed a different reaction to him.
Like a dog frantically causing trouble just to steal a sliver of its master’s attention, yet terrified the master will get angry—that was how utterly shameless he was down to his bones.
Before he knew it, Yuan Shiyuan had been backed into a corner.
Fortunately his eyes were sharp; he caught sight of the elevator doors opening ahead, and froze as an ice-sculpted face met his.
“Captain!”
Without warning, Ying Mingche was shoved away. He staggered a few steps, dazed, bracing himself on the handrail—unable to believe Yuan Shiyuan had that much force.
“I want to move into Mingche’s dorm; does the company allow it?” Yuan Shiyuan tried desperately to exchange a look with Pei Yanbing.
Pei Yanbing was no fool. He said, “Not allowed.”
“Tch.” Ying Mingche sounded clearly irritated.
Yuan Shiyuan immediately fell into step with Pei Yanbing. “Captain, I happen to have something to ask you.”
The end of the corridor was very quiet; around the corner was a specially built music room. A Steinway piano sat by the window, and violins and other instruments occupied the other side.
A sign-in sheet was posted at the door, filled with Pei Yanbing’s name.
No wonder Pei Yanbing was rarely seen at the company—he’d been holed up in the music room all along.
Pei Yanbing stopped and turned. Black gloves wrapped his knuckled, defined fingers, matching his crisp shirt and lending him an air of restrained nobility.
“He didn’t come up.” The implication was that Yuan Shiyuan could leave.
His tone stayed cold, but Yuan Shiyuan realized Pei Yanbing wasn’t as indifferent as he seemed.
“Thank you, Captain.” He added, “Also, about the variety show—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lie to you.”
“No need to apologize,” Pei Yanbing said. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Shows need entertainment value. Yuan Shiyuan was naturally good at variety—he made the program lively. Without him, their group variety would have been dull and dry, and it wouldn’t have attracted such a large audience.
The apology was just a way to close the distance. Though Yuan Shiyuan seemed to be chatting with Pei Yanbing, his eyes had already swept the music room at least ten times.
He held himself back several times, but finally gave in. “I’ll be off first, then.”
The music room was left with only Pei Yanbing.
Pei Yanbing was used to it. He was always alone—living alone, practicing alone. He sat by the piano by himself, but his mind involuntarily conjured images of Yuan Shiyuan laughing and joking with others.
So talkative in front of other people, Yuan Shiyuan could barely get a sentence out in front of him.
Well—who would want to hang out with someone as boring as him?
Many people said Pei Yanbing was cold and uninteresting. It was true: he was born emotionally distant, seemingly lacking the ability to connect with others, yet he possessed astonishing talent in music.
As usual, Pei Yanbing played the piano alone. He took off his gloves, and the black-and-white keys produced long, flowing notes beneath his fingers.
Suddenly, he smelled a faint scent of bluebells—like a breeze through a summer corridor, fleeting and delicate.
Pei Yanbing almost thought he was dreaming.
He had just been playing a piece called “Bluebell.”
With a trace of uncertainty, he turned his head. On the windowsill sat a bluebell. His fingertips lingered on the dying vibrations of the keys as Yuan Shiyuan perched on the sill, half his body and face bathed in the sunset. His pink hair fluttered; the two moles beneath his eyes seemed tinted pink by the light.
Against the glow of the dusk and the scent of the bluebell, Yuan Shiyuan braced one hand on the sill and climbed into the music room. “This flower is for you.”
The world seemed to turn pink.
“For me?”
“Yes.” Yuan Shiyuan forced a brilliant smile. “You played so beautifully.”
They were so close that Pei Yanbing couldn’t avoid it. The faint floral fragrance rose to his nose—so vivid that it seemed the scent was coming from Yuan Shiyuan himself.
Pei Yanbing hesitated for a moment, then took the flower. “Thank you.”
He had not expected Yuan Shiyuan to come back halfway, nor that Yuan Shiyuan would give such a boring person as him a flower.
After Yuan Shiyuan left the music room, he asked the staff about the instruments. Sure enough, most of the instruments in the room had been purchased with Pei Yanbing’s own money. No wonder—no matter how generous Starry Night Entertainment was, they couldn’t have bought such expensive instruments.
Yuan Shiyuan hadn’t played piano in a long time; his fingers were itchy, but he wasn’t sure Pei Yanbing would agree to let him. After all, Pei had a cleanliness obsession.
But asking cost nothing. If denied, so be it. It was worth a try—there was at least a chance.
“Can I try?” Yuan Shiyuan looked at the black-and-white keys bathed in sunset. “I happen to know a bit.”
Pei Yanbing looked as if he didn’t understand why Yuan Shiyuan would ask and said, “You can use it.”
The twilight-drenched music room was soaked in amber light. Yuan Shiyuan sat on the piano bench, back straight and composed; the polished piano reflected his pink hair.
Indeed, it had been ages since Yuan Shiyuan had practiced. When his fingertips pressed the first keys, a dormant instinct seemed to awaken. The light, delicate notes began to sound, then the tempo suddenly quickened, making Pei Yanbing’s pupils contract.
Yuan Shiyuan’s “a bit” was pure modesty.
His fundamentals were solid. His long fingers could easily span more than a tenth, and as the tempo accelerated and the difficulty increased, he showed no strain. Instead, he appeared calm and at ease, as if this were his home turf.
The evening breeze carried the bluebell’s delicate scent through the room, billowing the hem of his plain white shirt. When the piece ended, Yuan Shiyuan’s face flushed with excitement; turning his head, the hollow of his collarbone rose and fell with each breath.
“It’s definitely a Steinway.” The right hand’s ring finger, resting on the keys, brushed them unconsciously—so tender and slow it looked almost fond, as if caressing a lover.
Pei Yanbing looked away.
His voice was slightly hoarse. “It’s not about the piano. You have real talent.”
“Captain, don’t flatter-kill me,” Yuan Shiyuan laughed.
Pei Yanbing came from a musical family and had been called a prodigy since childhood, proficient in many instruments. Praise from him was often polite formality.
Yuan Shiyuan was used to compliments like that.
All his life, no matter what he practiced, his teachers praised his talent. He’d heard it so often he took it in stride.
“I wasn’t lying.” Pei Yanbing, after all, wasn’t good at small talk; he paused for a moment and asked, “Did you learn before?”
“I did, but then I stopped.” More than stopped—he’d sold the piano.
Pei Yanbing intended to ask why he quit, but two intensely clashing S-rank pheromones hit him.
He hadn’t noticed earlier; perhaps Yuan Shiyuan’s pheromone barrier had relaxed. Pei could actually smell two S-rank alpha pheromones on him.
A dark gleam passed through Pei Yanbing’s eyes as they fell to the back of Yuan Shiyuan’s neck. The obedient pink hair was dampened by a little sweat, lying against the skin; the glands were a more vivid rosy red than the hair, their surface dusted with a glossy sheen—probably sweat.
“Is your susceptible period coming?” he asked.
“Huh?”
“Your glands are very red.”
“Ah?”
Yuan Shiyuan blinked, tilted his head to look—indeed, his glands were quite red. More precisely, they looked pink, because his skin was so pale that the glands’ color appeared especially bright.
“Maybe it’s just hot?” He scratched at his hair casually, unsure.
Pei Yanbing: “It could also be stimulated by another alpha’s pheromones.”
That was indeed possible.
In that short time, two S-rank alphas had left pheromones on him, one of them an alpha in a susceptible period.
Fortunately Yuan Shiyuan hadn’t had an adverse reaction; aside from his glands feeling a little itchy and warm earlier, he felt nothing afterward. If Pei Yanbing hadn’t pointed it out, he probably wouldn’t have noticed.
But sometimes, if you don’t notice you feel nothing—once attention is drawn, every sense zeroes in.
Suddenly Yuan Shiyuan felt his glands a bit hot.
“Captain, do you have any pheromone cleanser?”
“No.”
“There is another way to wipe alpha pheromones aside from a cleanser,” Pei Yanbing said calmly, speaking two words: “Covering.”
Have another S-rank alpha release pheromones to mask the original ones.
Pei Yanbing meant simply to explain the method, but Yuan Shiyuan misunderstood and thought Pei Yanbing was offering to do it for him.
When he turned his back to Pei Yanbing and reached up to toss his hair aside, exposing the fragile, sensitive glands, the iceberg captain—known for his emotional detachment—suddenly had his pupils widen, fine crystalline fissures appearing within them.
The glands were an extremely private place.
An alpha—an S-rank alpha at that—bowed his head submissively before Pei Yanbing, exposing the vulnerable back of his neck. Like a soft, beautiful lamb, he offered himself up.
Where Yuan Shiyuan couldn’t see, an aggression unique to alphas broke out in Pei Yanbing’s eyes. His gaze roamed the glands as if a predator were calculating where to strike.
After a long moment, a slight coolness rose up around them.
A gust of cold air swept through the room; the temperature was pleasantly comfortable, like the fresh air of a snowy mountain, like the pure scent of a snow-covered forest.
The icy-cool touch settled on his glands and indeed eased the heat and discomfort, making Yuan Shiyuan squint in relief.
Seeing that Yuan Shiyuan showed no aversion, Pei Yanbing quietly increased the concentration of his pheromones, preparing to completely mask Bo Jin’s and Ying Mingche’s scents.
At that moment, Yuan Shiyuan’s phone rang.
It was Bo Jin: “Are you coming back tonight?”
It was true the evening had fallen, but it was still early—why was Bo Jin nagging him to return to the dorm? And why did that tone sound so odd?
Yuan Shiyuan was about to answer when his glands’ pheromones began fighting. Before Pei Yanbing could finish wiping them away, Yuan Shiyuan suddenly shuddered.
The alternating cold and heat sent a current up his coccyx to his crown; as if unable to endure the high concentration of pheromones, his body pitched forward. Although Pei Yanbing caught his waist in time, he still collapsed over the piano, hands pressing the keys and producing disjointed, chaotic notes.
“Haah…”
“What’s that sound?”
Yuan Shiyuan fumbled to hang up the phone, then weakly grabbed Pei Yanbing’s sleeve, his whole body trembling unnaturally.
How strange.
This feeling was hard to describe—if he had to put it into words, it was like being fed; a little pleasurable.
Pei Yanbing said, “You don’t dislike my pheromones.”
“No.” Yuan Shiyuan spoke incoherently. “Bo Jin’s pheromones are very warm, yours are very cold…”
The mind felt shattered under the battle of alternating hot and cold pheromones.
“My glands are very sensitive, so I can’t take it…”
After saying this, Yuan Shiyuan still looked dazed, out of breath and not fully back to himself.
He never wore that expression.
Pei Yanbing looked at him a moment longer, then reacted and said, “I know.”
To prevent Yuan Shiyuan from falling, Pei Yanbing’s hand remained pressed to his waist. Pei’s pheromones were cold, but his body heat was warm; through the thin fabric it felt as if his palm were pressed directly against Yuan Shiyuan’s skin.
Yuan Shiyuan struggled a bit; the large hand at his waist silently tightened its grip and half-forced him back.
Surrounded by the icy air, Yuan Shiyuan looked down and saw Pei Yanbing’s fingers trembling unnaturally.
“The covering wasn’t completed; my pheromones are still on top of the others.”
“Sorry.”
Pei Yanbing, unusually warm in manner, took a soft silk handkerchief and slowly wiped the sweat from Yuan Shiyuan’s hands, while also releasing pheromones to help cool him down.
As his awareness gradually cleared, Yuan Shiyuan thought in confusion: doesn’t Pei Yanbing have a cleanliness fixation?
…
Once he was fully awake, embarrassment hit him belatedly.
Asking someone to do a favor can bring people closer. Yuan Shiyuan had meant to use this as a chance to loosen the bond between him and Pei Yanbing, hoping the captain would come by the practice room more often.
Instead, he’d made a fool of himself.
S-rank alpha pheromones were extremely long-lasting, not something ordinary fresheners could remove. Originally he’d only had Bo Jin’s and Ying Mingche’s on him—now Pei Yanbing’s pheromones had been added, too.
Yuan Shiyuan returned to the dorm in mixed emotions, pushed the door open, and found Bo Jin leaning against the wall as if waiting for him.
Bo Jin accused, “On your body…”
“It’s his cologne?” Yuan Shiyuan said. “Ah no, sorry, it just slipped out.”
“You have their pheromones on you,” Bo Jin said, his voice carrying an anger even he didn’t seem to notice. “More than one.”
Are all Alphas this sensitive during their susceptible period? Yuan Shiyuan said, “Sorry. I should have washed properly before coming back.”
Bo Jin sneered coldly: “You do realize I’m your roommate, right?”
“Of course I know my roommate is you,” Yuan Shiyuan said. “If anyone offered to swap with me, I wouldn’t agree.”
That wasn’t a lie.
Bo Jin had heard that Ying Mingche had been trying to switch dorms; Yuan Shiyuan had once teased him during the roommate selection, but he was resolute about being friends with him.
Thinking that, Bo Jin’s mood slowly improved, though his face remained cold.
He said he wanted to be friends, yet his body reeked of other Alphas’ pheromones.
And he was like a central air conditioner—so warm to everyone.
Yuan Shiyuan assumed Bo Jin was just in a bad mood from the susceptible period and tried to minimize his presence, but unexpectedly Bo Jin’s expression grew colder.
He carried his clothes into the bathroom and checked his glands in the mirror. They didn’t look as red now, but still showed a faint pink tint.
Yuan Shiyuan was a bit sensitive about gland-related illnesses, so he immediately pulled out his phone to search.
The results started with cancer; the treatments were either chemotherapy or surgery.
“….”
Never mind—I’ll go to the hospital and get checked.
The exams he hadn’t had before could be done now. He used to be short on money and had to scrimp; now that he had more, spending a thousand or so for tests was doable.
Not everyone followed the law and put on pheromone-blocking films. When people went out, they inevitably picked up others’ pheromones, so many body washes and shampoos on the market advertised some ability to wash away pheromones.
S-rank pheromones were exceptionally strong but not impossible to handle. Yuan Shiyuan released some of his own pheromones to suppress them; soon only his scent remained.
Bo Jin had just returned from outside and happened to meet Yuan Shiyuan coming out of the bathroom. Yuan Shiyuan had just finished a hot shower; his body glowed a tempting rosy hue. He wore thin shorts that covered half his thighs, but water droplets on his legs hadn’t been wiped dry, trailing down his marble-like skin.
Yuan Shiyuan wasn’t wearing the pajamas Bo Jin had given him.
He had promised to wear them to show him, but he was still in those shabby, nearly see-through white shorts.
Not only was he like central air, he was a little liar too. Bo Jin was furious. The next second, a captivating, otherworldly fragrance hit him and distracted him for a moment. “What’s that smell?”
Maybe the susceptible period really was coming—Yuan Shiyuan suddenly grew sleepy. “Maybe it’s the body wash.”
Body wash?
The dorm’s body wash was purchased uniformly by the company. How could Bo Jin not know it smelled like that?
He was about to ask more when Yuan Shiyuan flopped onto the bed and no longer paid him any attention.
Bo Jin’s expression grew complicated.
He had just said he wanted to be friends; it hadn’t even been that long before Yuan Shiyuan lost patience with him and became so perfunctory in his speech.
Good thing Bo Jin hadn’t taken it to heart and hadn’t seriously wanted to be friends.
He didn’t care.
Bo Jin tried to catch that scent. It arrived strangely and vanished in an instant, impossible to chase.
The bathroom steamed mistily, still warm from Yuan Shiyuan’s shower.
After hesitating a while, he pushed the bathroom door open.
Yuan Shiyuan lay on the bed for a moment; sleepiness gradually took over.
Pei Yanbing: [pheromone remover.jpg]
Pei Yanbing: Want it?
Pei Yanbing was surprisingly helpful.
Yuan Shiyuan: No need, thanks, captain.
He asked again: Captain, can I use the practice room later?
Pei Yanbing: Just ask the staff to register your fingerprint.
Yuan Shiyuan: Captain, you’re so nice! Honestly, I’ve wanted to chat with you for a while, but I was afraid you’d dislike me, so I never reached out.
Pei Yanbing: I don’t dislike you.
Yuan Shiyuan yawned and typed slowly: Really? Then we can chat often from now on.
For the next few minutes there was no reply from Pei Yanbing, but his status repeatedly showed “typing…”
Yuan Shiyuan held his phone, already half asleep and half awake.
After a moment, Pei Yanbing finally said: Hmm.
He added: But I’m not very good at chatting.
Yuan Shiyuan, too sleepy to respond properly, messaged back: That’s fine! I’m the best at finding topics. Let’s chat all night—no leaving until we’re drunk.
At that moment the phone flashed a low-battery warning. Groggily he sent a voice message: Captain, wait for me, I’ll go get the charging cable.
About two minutes passed.
Pei Yanbing: I’ll wait.
Yuan Shiyuan had meant to go get the cable, but he was so tired that after struggling to sit up his eyelids immediately drooped; his head bobbed like a little spinning top, his pink hair flicking. It felt like an irresistible pull dragged him back into the blankets.
Yuan Shiyuan fell asleep.
Ten minutes later
Pei Yanbing: Are you done?
Half an hour later
Pei Yanbing: Still chatting?
Two hours later
Pei Yanbing: Not talking.
Three hours later
Pei Yanbing: Are you there?
…
7:00 a.m.
Pei Yanbing: …