Lick Me Up If You Can Novel (Completed) - Chapter 203

“Ash!”

Ash suddenly turned deathly pale and began to vomit. Koi cried out in surprise and rushed to him as he instantly knelt, retching and curling up.

“Ash, what’s wrong? Pull yourself together, Ash!”

He called his name repeatedly, but Ash’s convulsions only worsened, showing no sign of improvement. Seeing him even having difficulty breathing, Koi turned pale and looked around. But he soon became even more flustered.

He’s gone.

No matter where he looked, it was the same. The person he was looking for was nowhere to be seen.

Angel had disappeared.

Koi, in a state close to panic, barely managed to think. While he had been preoccupied with Ash, Angel had vanished without a trace. All that remained were the man who had dragged Angel here, Ash, and himself. The man, at least, was completely unconscious and collapsed.

He was about to contact the front desk in a hurry, leaving Ash gasping and suffering, when Ash, who had suddenly stood up, grabbed Koi. Ash, forcing down the vomit that surged up, barely managed to speak to Koi, who looked down in surprise.

“Ph-phone.”

“Huh?”

Koi, who hadn’t heard him clearly due to the broken sound, hastily bent down to listen. Ash barely managed to utter the word between ragged breaths.

“My, cell, phone, on the, table.”

He followed the direction pointed by Ash’s barely raised fingertips, and soon his cell phone came into view. Koi rushed over, snatched the phone, and held it out to Ash.

“H-here.”

Pant, pant, Ash opened the phone screen, gasping for breath. After pressing a few buttons, a refreshing breeze was felt, and a faint mechanical sound was heard.

The ventilation systems installed throughout the large house activated simultaneously. Meanwhile, Ash continued to retch. Even though nothing more came out, he eventually spat out saliva mixed with stomach acid. Koi, not knowing what to do, hurriedly poured water into a cup and returned. By then, Ash, who had been suffering on the floor, had already lost consciousness.

“Ash!”

Koi hurriedly embraced him and tried to make him drink water, but even when he tilted the cup, the water only spilled around his mouth and wouldn’t go down his throat. He called his name repeatedly and shook his body, but there was no response. Just as he felt his heart drop, a voice came from the phone.

“…Mr. Miller? Are you okay? Mr. Miller?”

At the repeated voice, Koi hastily answered the phone.

“Um, Ash has lost consciousness right now. What should I do…?”

The person on the other end paused for a moment and then spoke.

“What happened? Explain it briefly.”

Koi hesitated for a moment, then finally confessed. He minimized the details about Angel and explained that Ash had become like this after smelling an Extreme Omega’s scent. Soon, she replied.

“I’ll be right there. You don’t need to call an ambulance.”

She hung up without asking who Koi was or explaining who she was. Koi was bewildered, but since Ash had called her first, he had no choice but to trust and wait.

She arrived as she said she would, not long after. And Koi learned the identity of the person who had answered the phone.

The moment he saw her, the color instantly drained from Koi’s face, and his entire body froze. Her face was much older than before, but he recognized her at first glance.

“Don’t you actually like Ash Miller?”

It was Ash’s father’s secretary.

& & &

Stepping out of the elevator, people immediately flooded into the living room and surrounded Ash without a word. Koi was pushed aside and thrown out without a chance to react. He tried to push them back and approach Ash again, but someone grabbed him. He flinched and turned around to see that she was indeed holding his shoulder.

“N-no, let go.”

Koi instinctively recoiled in fear but barely managed to squeeze out the words. However, she spoke with an expressionless face.

“There’s nothing you can do anyway, not then, not now.”

Just as before, she pricked Koi’s most painful spot.

“Aren’t you still completely useless? Junior ended up like that even though you were there.”

It was so true that Koi couldn’t refute it. He couldn’t do anything with just a feeling of injustice. But he couldn’t just back down either.

“Ash needs me.”

“No, what Junior needs are medical staff and employees to clean up. Those people are right there.”

The secretary gestured to them once, then looked back at Koi.

“Wouldn’t it be more helpful if you just stayed out of the way?”

There was nothing more he could say to resist. The secretary, who had been looking up at Koi biting his lip, took her hand off his shoulder. As she was about to pass by Koi, he spoke.

“Why did Ash suddenly become like that? You can tell me that, right?”

His voice was filled with desperation more than anger. Koi quickly continued to the secretary, who turned her head to look up at him.

“Ash is an Alpha, so it doesn’t make sense for him to have such a violent reaction to Omega pheromones. Don’t Omegas and Alphas usually go into… rut when they smell each other’s pheromones? So why is Ash like that?”

He hesitated slightly, finding the embarrassing word awkward to say, and she quietly looked up at Koi. He was anxious, unable to figure out what she was thinking, when she suddenly raised her hand. The secretary reached out to Koi, who unconsciously recoiled, and then suddenly stroked his cheek. As Koi froze in surprise, she spoke in an unexpectedly soft voice.

“You’ve become a wonderful man, Connor Niles.”

Koi couldn’t react immediately to the unexpected situation and just blinked. She narrowed her eyes and muttered to herself.

“You used to not even dare to meet my eyes before. How commendable.”

Belatedly, Koi realized she was teasing him and shook his head, shaking off her hand.

“Please answer my question first. What happened to Ash? Why is he reacting so strangely to Omega pheromones?”

At his somewhat sharp tone, the secretary raised her eyebrows as if surprised, then withdrew her hand that was in the air and instead swept her bobbed hair behind her shoulder.

“Normally, an Alpha wouldn’t react so disgustingly to Omega pheromones. Even an Extreme Alpha wouldn’t be any different.”

“…Then, is it because it was an Extreme Omega’s pheromones?”

“That’s not it.”

The secretary cut off Koi’s cautious guess decisively.

“Junior reacts like that no matter what Omega scent he smells. He can’t bear it. It’s absurd for an Alpha to have convulsions from Omega pheromones, but it’s true.”

He understood everything she said, but he still couldn’t comprehend it. Why on earth? Why? Other Alphas don’t have such reactions.

Why only Ash?

“What happened to Ash?”

At Koi’s trembling voice, she seemed to think for a moment, then replied.

“You should hear that directly from Junior. It doesn’t seem like my place to tell you.”

“Excuse me!”

Koi urgently called out to her as she was about to turn away. The secretary stopped and turned around, and Koi hesitated before speaking.

“When Ash wakes up, if there’s still a pheromone scent remaining… will he react like that again?”

To his unconfident question, the secretary replied with an expressionless face.

“Probably? He’s always been like this when he smells Omega scents.”

The secretary, who was about to turn away, stopped with an “Ah.”

“It’s not ‘excuse me,’ it’s Bernice. Miss Bernice.”

After telling him her name, she readily walked away and approached the people who were giving first aid. Koi, left behind, stood blankly, just watching them.

& & &

Ash reacting negatively to Omega scents.

Koi walked down the street, lost in thought. He couldn’t do anything amidst the bustling crowd and was only a burden. He had no choice but to leave, saying he would be contacted when Ash woke up. His mind was complicated by the sudden situation. When he came to his senses, he had already walked for a long time.

Is that why Ash said it was better for him to be a Beta?

Then how was he getting rid of pheromones all this time? Were all his partners Betas then? I don’t understand anything…

He would have to ask Ash directly when he woke up. But there was still something bothering him.

What if Angel’s words were true?

Suddenly, a chill ran down his spine.

If I really am an Omega, I’ll only be a hindrance to Ash.

At that moment, his heart sank.

I might not be able to be with Ash anymore…

As that thought surfaced, he suddenly felt a heat inside his body. Koi stopped in his tracks, gasping for breath. The blood in his entire body surged, and his pulse pounded. He felt dizzy and breathless, and excitement overflowed from his toes to the top of his head.

He had felt this sensation before. When he was feverish alone and sick for several days, thinking he just had a strange flu, that very sensation had returned to him.

“You’ll know when your heat cycle comes.”

At that moment, Angel’s words came to mind, and his vision turned white.

Ariel paced the living room, her face anxious. Surprisingly, her house was overflowing with pheromone scent. When she stopped after circling the living room several times, her gaze always turned in one direction. It was the direction from which the pheromone scent was flowing. Ariel sighed again, a deep, boiling sigh, as she looked at the room where Koi was holed up, groaning through his first-ever heat cycle.

What on earth is going on?

She pressed her forehead, which felt feverish, and closed her eyes. When she suddenly received a call from Koi, she was just finishing an article and updating it. She cheerfully answered her friend’s call with a light heart, but the voice that came through was unexpected. Startled by the terrified, trembling voice, Ariel frantically rushed out of the office and wandered the streets, barely finding him. By then, his heat cycle was already well underway.

This is definitely an Omega’s pheromone scent.

She recalled it anew. She knew it well because she had smelled it before. There was no way she could be wrong. But what was hard to believe was something else.

How could Koi be?

Until now, he had definitely been a Beta. Otherwise, it would mean he had been taking medication to hide his scent, but Ariel was certain that wasn’t the case. Koi wouldn’t lie to her, and she was confident about that.

But then, how come there was no scent until now? Is this a mutation? Did that bastard Ash finally mutate Koi?

I don’t know.

Ariel, whose head throbbed, eventually took a headache pill and anxiously looked at Koi’s room again. She had given him emergency medication, so he would calm down soon. She would be able to hear his story then. She closed her eyes and firmly rubbed her deeply furrowed brow.

Experiencing heat for the first time, Koi kept letting out moans. His stomach itched, and he wanted to scratch it wildly with his hands, but it was impossible. He could only groan helplessly and twist his body.

Ash, Ash, Ash.

He kept repeating the same name in his mouth. If Ash were here, he would immediately give him what he wanted. He would fill his stomach and thrust inside. Would this heat disappear then? He didn’t know. His thoughts weren’t functioning properly, and all that came to mind was desire. It was the first time his entire body had burned with such craving. He eventually burst into tears, tearing at the sheets on the bed.

& & &

Koi finally managed to calm the heat and regain his senses a full day later. Perhaps due to the medication, he had fallen into a deep sleep and woke up to Ariel’s serious expression. Instead of asking questions, she first fed him warm soup and waited for him to calm down.

“Are you feeling better?”

At her gentle question, Koi nodded with difficulty.

“Thank you, Ariel.”

He thanked her in a hoarse voice, and Ariel silently patted his arm. Koi, seeing her gaze fixed on him, drank some water and finally spoke.

“I don’t really know what happened either.”

“Just tell me whatever comes to mind, it’s okay.”

Encouraged by Ariel, Koi hesitated for a moment, then began to speak haltingly. When he talked about meeting Angel and hearing about Extreme Omegas, Ariel seemed surprised but listened quietly to his next words. When he finished his story, concluding with Ash collapsing after smelling the Omega pheromones, Ariel, who had only been listening until then, spoke.

“So that Angel person is gone now?”

“Yes,” Koi nodded.

“I don’t know where he went. He just disappeared.”

“I see.”

Ariel, lost in thought for a moment, changed the subject and asked.

“Were you okay? Nothing happened?”

“Uh… yes.”

Koi hesitated and nodded. It was natural for Ariel to worry, as his heat cycle had suddenly erupted on the street. He searched his remaining memories and spoke.

“A few people did rush at me, but I managed to get away. I’m taller now and in pretty good shape. If it were like before, I would have been completely helpless.”

Seeing Koi lift his arm demonstratively and laugh, Ariel smiled back.

“Right, that’s a relief.”

She spoke gently but soon adopted a serious expression. Koi’s smile also faded, and they both remained silent for a while.

“I still don’t know, Koi.”

Ariel was the first to speak.

“Until now, you also thought you were a Beta, didn’t you? It’s a bit much to believe everything that Angel person said, isn’t it? I don’t know how much to trust someone I’ve met for the first time. Of course, if what he said is true, it all makes sense.”

Ariel was just as confused by the unexpected situation. But she thought that no matter how flustered she was, it couldn’t be as much as Koi, the person directly involved, and she composed herself.

“You can stay here for a while. There’s a spare room anyway, and I haven’t found a roommate yet.”

“Thank you.”

Koi thanked her in a still hoarse voice. It would be best if he could afford to pay rent, but unfortunately, he couldn’t. Ariel squeezed Koi’s hand as if to encourage him, then spoke.

“Ash still doesn’t know you’re an Omega, right?”

“Yes… probably.”

Koi mumbled unconfidently.

“I might have emitted pheromones… but if Ash knew, he would have told me.”

Would he really?

Ariel secretly doubted it, lost in thought. The Ash she knew wasn’t that honest and straightforward. He used to be, but at least not anymore. He was cunning, and she couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

What if that bastard’s feelings for Koi haven’t changed yet…

It was entirely possible. But Koi’s subsequent words shook her conviction.

“Besides, Ash has convulsions from Omega pheromones. If I had emitted such a scent, he would have shown abnormal symptoms right away, wouldn’t he? But Ash never did.”

There was no counter-argument to that. Ariel reluctantly said, “Right, I guess so,” but a sense of unease still lingered. Unable to shake off the unsettling feeling, she pondered deeply, then decided that stabilizing Koi was important first. She asked if he needed anything else, then stood up.

“Get some rest, Koi. We’ll think about it when you’re feeling better.”

“…Okay.”

Koi smiled with difficulty and lay down on the bed. Ariel, confirming that her friend had quickly fallen back asleep, quietly left the room.

Koi was right. If Ash reacted so negatively to pheromone scents, everything would have been revealed long ago. At the very least, he would have smelled the pheromones when they were intimate.

Even though it was logical to think that way, Ariel still couldn’t shake off her doubts.

But what if.

What if Koi really was an Extreme Omega, and Ash knew and hid it?

Something irreversible might happen. Even as she shook her head, thinking it couldn’t be, Ariel felt a chill run down her spine.