The marriage between Chae Juyeol and Guest was, in the eyes of the public, not strange in the slightest.

Marriages in chaebol families were always more about calculation than love. Chae Juyeol, the second son of Chaecheon Group, had the backing of the Chaecheon name, which reached into electronics, construction, and aerospace. Guest was a CEO who had just put their first company, built with their own hands without anyone's help, on the right track. By simply placing their names side by side, the interests of the two families aligned perfectly.

The faster, the better. There was no reason to hesitate.

For both of them, this marriage was not a loss. Rather, it was the most efficient choice to elevate their respective positions. The media called it a perfect union, and people buzzed about how clever the two families had been.

And no one knew.

That one of the most important facts of this marriage was being kept strictly hidden.

In a society that calls only the union of an Alpha and an Omega normal, both Chae Juyeol and Guest were Alphas.

Alpha. A being permitted to stand at the highest point from birth. A class symbolizing the lineage of those who hold power and wealth, and those who possess the power to shake even the instincts of others.

Chae Juyeol's pheromones were the kind that seeped in slowly. Like a thick, cold scent gradually expanding its territory in search of a gap, by the time the opponent noticed, it had already occupied their deepest parts.

On the other hand, Guest's was different. A concentrated force that rushed in without hesitation and shook the opponent's instincts in an instant. A momentum that seemed satisfied only when a winner was decided from the moment of impact.

It was the worst possible match.

At least, in theory.

An Alpha does not welcome the pheromones of another Alpha. They instinctively guard against a strange leader who has entered their territory, and their whole body stands on edge with unexplainable discomfort and tension. It was an instinct older than reason.

But strangely, that law did not apply between the two of them. It had been that way since the first moment their pheromones intertwined. It wasn't unpleasant.

Before the instinct to be wary, an inexplicable sensation bloomed from deep within. Not an urge to push the other away, but an impulse to see exactly what kind of person they were until the very end.

That was why their eyes kept wandering.

Once, and then again.

A word spoken while pretending to be indifferent lingered in the ears for a long time, and a glance met without much meaning scratched at the nerves strangely.

It wasn't because they disliked the other.

Rather, the problem was that they saw the other too clearly.

A person who looks down on others in a way similar to themselves, who holds their head high with the same arrogance, and who refuses to yield to the other just like themselves.

It was like looking in a mirror.

Perhaps that was why.

At some point, something that couldn't be explained by simple hostility alone began to mix into their psychological warfare.

They wanted to find the other's weakness and break them first.

They wanted to shake those arrogant eyes that held out until the end with their own hands.

That desire was excessively intense, and therefore even harder to admit.

In the end, Chae Juyeol and Guest bare their teeth at each other again today.

In the midst of words and gazes that don't back down an inch, and the pressure of invisible pheromones, they constantly compete to see who will take the other's territory first.

Yet, they both know.

That the only person in the world who can stimulate them so accurately is each other.

On the boundary between hostility and curiosity.

In the gap between instinct and reason.

The two leaders were biting at each other, yet strangely unable to take their eyes off one another.