Bring You Down

Beep, beep, beep...

Damien's lashes twitched as his eyes opened. The steady beeping of a heart monitor and the sterile scent of disinfectant welcomed him. His eyelids felt heavy, each blink a struggle. For a moment, he lay there disoriented, staring at the ceiling tiles. Then, memories of the evaluation came flooding back—the judges, the fall, the surge of panic.

A heaviness spiked in his chest.

I failed...

The realization hit hard and cold.

He turned his head and found Kian and Yejun seated by his bedside. They both straightened when they saw his eyes open. Relief washed over Kian's face. Yejun immediately pressed the call button for a nurse with one hand while the other nervously fiddled with the edge of Damien's blanket.

"Hey, you're awake..." Kian said softly.

"What... What happened?"

Damien's throat felt dry. He tried to sit up, wincing at his stiff joints and slightly throbbing head.

Kian gently eased him back against the pillows. "Careful. You took a pretty bad fall. They brought you here yesterday after you collapsed."

"The evaluation...."

Yejun bit his lip, exchanging a quick look with Kian. "It's over." He said quietly. "They, uhm, moved on after... after you were taken to the infirmary."

Damien's stomach sank.

The monthly evaluation was a one-shot deal. Second chances were rarely offered, even due to medical reasons. Since Starlite Media was a company with a lot of trainees despite being a mid-tier company, time slots were limited. And his time in the company hasn't been that long—actually it had only been a month. Why would they give a second chance to someone like him when they have other trainees who've stayed here for longer? Worse, he'd collapsed in the middle of it. There was no recovering from that in the judges' eyes.

A heavy silence fell.

"How bad was it?" Damien managed to ask.

"It... wasn't great. You fainted in front of everyone. They had to call medics. The trainers were really concerned—they didn't seem angry, just worried. I think they knew something was off from the beginning." Kian offered a consoling smile.

Yejun chimed in. "Yeah. People weren't really blaming you. They thought you had some kind of condition or sudden stage fright. Rumours are all over the place, but mostly people are just freaked out."

Damien covered his face with a hand.

"Haah..."

How quickly fortunes reversed—just a few days ago he'd been praised as a rising star, and now he was the trainee who collapsed mid-performance. It left a bitter taste in his mouth.

All that progress for nothing...

Then, a soft knock interrupted Damien's swirling thoughts. A middle aged man in a white coat entered with a clipboard in hand. "Good to see you awake, Damien. I'm Dr. Cheon and I'm the doctor on the team looking after you. How do you feel?"

Damien mustered a polite nod. "I'm feeling alright, doctor. Just a little stiff. What exactly happened to me?"

The doctor consulted the chart. "Well, your tests came back mostly normal. No signs of infection, blood sugar fine. One thing we did notice, though—" he glanced up, "your hormone levels suggest you were on the verge of entering a rut."

A rut? That can't be...

As an alpha, Damien was familiar with his rut schedule—a biological cycle that came like clockwork two to three times per year. It was something Damien had monitored diligently especially since the environment he was currently in required it. But he wasn't due for another rut until well beyond this week.

"But Dr. Cheon, I know my own cycle. I've been taking my suppressants and my last check-in was fine."

Damien searched the doctor's face, hoping for some alternative explanation.

"Stress can do unexpected things, Mr. Yeong." Dr. Cheon explained. "Overexertion, anxiety—it might have triggered an early onset. That, combined with dehydration and exhaustion, likely caused your collapse."

Dehydration?

Damien's thoughts flashed back to the water bottle he had been sipping from all day. He had been drinking water, hadn't he? He remembered gulping down a lot the night before and that morning. So why would he be dehydrated? The pieces didn't add up.

The doctor continued, "For now, rest. Your body needs time. And be cautious. If your rut is truly arriving early, you'll want to take leave from training for a few days until it passes."

Damien nodded numbly as the doctor gave a few more general instructions and left. Then, he let out a breath.

An early rut felt wrong—like a puzzle piece forced where it didn't fit. Every trainee is required to meticulously track their condition. There was no way he'd miscalculated something so important.

"That's just bad luck," Yejun said, trying to comfort Damien. "No one could predict that happening."

Bad luck.

Was it just luck?

He thought of the night before the evaluation and how perfectly fine he felt, dare say even energized. But then the next morning, he suddenly felt all sick. How could everything change so fast?

His memories replayed the odd details: Hajoon's late visit, his cryptic words, and the water's slight metallic and bitter taste...

A chill slithered through Damien's neck as a new thought simmered.

This... wasn't an accident. Could he have deliberately—

Then he suddenly stopped himself. It was a dangerous line of thought without proof. And the system had yet to come back from its little 'trip'. Had 110 been here, it would've blown up his ears because of his first ever failure. And if the little cube were here, he could gather proof more easily...

His gut roiled with more than just disappointment now—a trickle of anger and betrayal was stirring. It wasn't as if he and Hajoon had ever been on great terms. But Damien never thought that someone like him could stoop so low. Wasn't he afraid of the consequences? What made him so confident that he wouldn't get caught?

"Hey you alright? You're spacing out." Kian touched his arm gently. Both Kian and Yejun looked at him with worry.

"I'm okay. Just processing it all." Damien forced out a smile.

"You'll get another shot at it in the next evaluations. This isn't the end." Yejun said.

Damien just nodded.

For now, an unsettling hypothesis gripped him. If this collapse wasn't a freak accident, if someone had a hand in this... Damien would find out.

And the fact that his mind kept circling back to one name set his teeth on edge.

...

After a few days in the hospital—and spending his early rut in one of the hospital's pheromone stabilization ward—Damien was finally discharged. He stepped into the sunlight feeling like a half-dried corpse with a barking dog by his side. Predictably, the moment his system reconnected, it exploded in his brain like a cannon, asking all kinds of questions one after another.

Apparently, during its absence, Damien had the audacity to fail. The system, understandably, lost its synthetic mind. There were dramatic accusations. Holographic pitchforks and knives were thrown. And somewhere in there, a cry of how 110 had bragged about its host to other systems only to met with a notification of failure the next second...

And now, along with his 'crying system', he had to worry about his penalty.

"Haah..." He exhaled deeply.

Now—emotionally depleted—Damien just wanted to shower, sleep, and possibly ignore every living being for the next week or two.

As Damien stepped back into his apartment, he closed the door softly behind him. Diving onto the sofa, he sighed.

"Maybe I should eat something and then just head to bed... I have to go back to training tomorrow after all."

So, he headed to the kitchen. Everything looked the same as before. In the small kitchen area, the afternoon light slanted through the half-drawn blinds, illuminating the countertop.

There he saw something he forgot about: the water bottle he'd used the night before the evaluations. Damien's eyes widened and he immediately ran towards it.

Usually, he would wash his dishes before going to bed. But that day, he was so exhausted that he left it on the kitchen counter.

Damien's fingers curled around the bottle.

It was ordinary, slightly scuffed from use, yet could it be the culprit? Damien could not believe the doctor's evaluation. It didn't add up for him.

Doing his own investigation, he carried the bottle to the sink and carefully removed the cap. Bringing it to his nose, he sniffed. The water was days old and stale and there was no obvious smell. Still, his gut told him this bottle held answers.

"System."

The system, who had yet to finish crying, sniffled before answering.

System: [Yes, host?]

Damien: "…"

He stared at the system and sighed. "Don't worry about the missions. I promise I'll do my best to complete them."

System: [Really? Promise?]

"Yes, yes, I promise. My life depends on it after all." He chuckled. "Now, come here."

The system bounced up and down, happy that its host is back on his feet. It swiftly moved to Damien's side.

"Can you run an analysis on this water bottle?"

System: [Yes I can, host. What would you like me to find out?]

"Anything suspicious that might have caused my condition." Damien instructed.

System: [On it.]

A translucent progress bar materialized before him and hovered mid-air above the bottle. Damien watched, heart thudding in his chest, as the scan inched toward completion. Finally, he heard a soft ping.

System: [Host, I've completed the scan. There are trace amounts of a compound. It's a rut inducer.]

Damien's blood ran cold.

A rut inducer. It was a powerful substance that could artificially trigger an alpha's rut or wreak havoc on anyone's system if misused. It was strictly regulated and nearly impossible to obtain. This was undeniably sabotage if it was slipped into his drink.

Some bastard laced my water... And only one name comes to mind.

But he still couldn't be hasty.

Damien forced himself to calm down and think logically. It was evidence, but not a confirmation of the culprit. Anyone could have gotten to his bottle if they knew where to look. It could have been sitting unattended even briefly during their training session.

Depending on the dosage of the rut inducer, the time that symptoms start to appear is different. But he knew that it could take no longer than two hours. The only person who was there with him was indeed... Hajoon.

System: [Host, I also detect an unidentified fingerprint and traces of DNA.]

"What!?"

System: [The fingerprint has been covered up, but the DNA is still present, although mixed.]

"Then... will you be able to match DNA?"

System: [Yes, host!]

Hearing this piece of news, Damien smirked. Then, he'd watch, remain quiet, and gather the evidence he needed.

And slowly bring him down.