When a drama-obsessed alumnus asked with gleaming eyes, Saebyeok opened his mouth.
“No, even after I revealed I was an Omega… it was quite a while after that.”
“But how was it revealed that you’re an Omega? I really didn’t know. Do Alphas have some kind of ability to recognize it immediately?”
Surprisingly, Gong Pyeonghwa didn’t know Saebyeok was an Omega even after a semester had passed.
Perhaps if Saebyeok hadn’t told him first, he might never have known.
“You’ve watched too many dramas. When an Omega and Alpha meet, it’s like, huh? Pheromones just burst out and, like? Huh? That kind of thing.”
His lewd smile revealed explicitly sexual intentions.
No matter how romantically the media portrayed it, Alphas and Omegas are attracted to pheromones and have heat cycles. Having heat cycles despite being humans, not animals.
“Ah, my heart hurts so much right now. Honey.”
Gong Pyeonghwa handed the now dozing Iseul to Seonwoo Jeong and forcibly squeezed out tears.
“My pure love and devotion are being tainted by this virgin-small-dick-bastard, my heart is breaking. Fu-uck. My Alpha’s pure love is being… sniff… by this Beta bastard who’s probably never even dated!”
Saebyeok compassionately took artificial tears from his bag and gave them to Pyeonghwa.
The cheek of the virgin-small-dick, no, what’s it called, F-class, no, alumnus trembled as he watched in disbelief as Gong Pyeonghwa openly inserted the artificial tears and cried profusely.
“Do you like any woman as long as she’s female? There has to be emotional exchange and something between you first to develop feelings, and dating comes after that.”
When Seonwoo Jeong, who couldn’t bear watching anymore, offered advice, everyone around nodded in agreement saying, “Right, right.”
“It’s because Alphas get aroused when an Omega’s heat cycle comes. Who said I’m like that? Can you ignore body chemistry?”
Though no one had said anything, the Beta alumnus who felt personally attacked shouted angrily.
“Why are you getting so serious about something that’s not a difficult topic? Huh?”
He spoke even louder, insisting that everyone agreed with him and claiming the good mood was being ruined.
“Isn’t a couple’s sex life a difficult topic? What an incredible guy.”
Seonwoo Jeong said while covering the little angel Iseul’s ears.
“Why are you so curious about that? Do you ask every married couple if they had sex when they were students? Why ask only them such things?”
Everyone unconsciously held the social perception that if someone was an Alpha or Omega, their privacy could be freely invaded out of curiosity.
After all, both Alphas and Omegas are minorities.
“Don’t you consider how I feel hearing this? Shi-“
“Whoa, whoa.”
Seonwoo Jeong, who had been listening to uninteresting talk continuously, didn’t want to know about this amazing couple’s past sex life.
Whether they did it or not! Whether they dated or not! Whether this was a hidden camera or not! He just wanted to go home.
Someone forced a smile and changed the subject in the cold atmosphere created by the unbiased and unusually aggressive Seonwoo Jeong.
“I’m so curious about how you two started dating!”
“Well, of course…”
“Not you, Gong Pyeonghwa. We’re not curious about you.”
An alumnus who had once had a crush on Shin Saebyeok gave Pyeonghwa a stern look, then gazed at Saebyeok with yearning eyes.
“I’m curious about how Saebyeok fell for you.”
Gong Pyeonghwa, who firmly believed Saebyeok had obviously fallen for his incredible face, was about to slap the alumnus’s back, saying it was a silly question.
“Fish-shaped bread, perhaps.”
“Honey, what are you saying? Fish-shaped bread? You’re supposed to say it was my face here.”
Why bring up fish-shaped bread?
“Well…”
◀◀◀
There was a time when Gong Pyeonghwa had become obsessed with finding foods Saebyeok had never eaten before and feeding them to him.
When Saebyeok ate spicy cup noodles, he cried because of food for the first time in his life. He even wailed, pounding the ground.
The organic Shin Saebyeok, experiencing capsaicin spiciness for the first time, hated Gong Pyeonghwa after a long while.
Since Gong Pyeonghwa didn’t know Saebyeok would cry so miserably, he ran from the rooftop to the school store, sweating profusely, and bought all the milk he could find.
By the time Saebyeok had gotten used to MSG, the season had already changed to winter.
“Are you sick?”
Seonwoo Jeong asked, looking at Gong Pyeonghwa who was sweating profusely. Saebyeok also glanced sideways at him.
Gong Pyeonghwa, clutching his stomach and sweating, looked sick to anyone’s eyes. Saebyeok’s attention was completely focused on him.
“I’m hot.”
“Then take off your clothes.”
“Ah, did I say I was hot? I’m cold.”
Was he experiencing chills? Saebyeok put his hand in his desk drawer as Pyeonghwa often did during class and sent a text.
Are you okay?
He hadn’t expected a reply, but one came immediately.
Yeah, rooftop later
What rooftop? You should leave early and go to the hospital. Saebyeok pressed the keypad firmly. A reply came right away.
LOL
It was ridiculous.
You’re laughing?
LOL!
The strangely king-receiving, no, infuriating laugh made Saebyeok’s temperature rise too. But as the teacher entered, the message he’d typed with firm presses couldn’t be sent.
Even the teacher asked if Gong Pyeonghwa was sick, as he was dripping with sweat.
Before the teacher could say anything, Gong Pyeonghwa spoke in a composed voice.
“Teacher, it’s freezing to death in this record-breaking cold snap. I think global warming is a real problem.”
The science teacher, who donated to environmental organizations monthly, began to passionately discourse on the current state of the Earth’s ozone layer at the mention of global warming, and a discussion session began.
Global warming was indeed a serious problem.
After the informative class ended and lunchtime arrived, Gong Pyeonghwa clutched his stomach, pretending to be in pain.
“Gong Pyeong. Food.”
“I can’t eat because I’m sick…”
“Today’s meal is pork cutlet, and you’re not going to eat?”
“Pork cutlet?”
Gong Pyeonghwa’s method acting lost its luster in front of pork cutlets.
“…I’ll go to the health room, take medicine, and be better in 30 minutes, so get my meal for me too.”
“You’ll eat pork cutlet?”
“Yes!”
Seonwoo Jeong picked up two trays with a regretful look.
Gong Pyeonghwa raced to the rooftop with steps completely different from his sick face. He climbed the stairs four steps at a time.
Arriving at the rooftop first, Gong Pyeonghwa kept calling Saebyeok, urging him to come.
Saebyeok got painkillers from the health room, filled a tumbler with water, and headed up to the rooftop.
Gong Pyeonghwa, who had rarely worn outerwear even before presenting as an Alpha, was waiting for Saebyeok wearing a long padded jacket.
“Hey. Why are you so late? I need to eat pork cutlet. Hurry up.”
“Are you faking being sick?”
Saebyeok approached Gong Pyeonghwa, rolling the painkiller in his pocket.
Gong Pyeonghwa grinned playfully and took off his long padded jacket. His school uniform sweater was revealed.
Was he crazy? Gong Pyeonghwa seemed about to perform a striptease on the rooftop.
When he took off the long padded jacket and the sweater vest, and was about to remove the uniform shirt as well, Saebyeok wondered if Gong Pyeonghwa had some kind of abnormal sexual desire. He momentarily debated whether to call 112 or pretend not to know and scream at the sight of his nakedness.
Fortunately, it wasn’t an abnormal sexual desire.
“It was so fu-cking hard.”
Gong Pyeonghwa reached inside his stomach, which he’d been holding since morning, and pulled something out. A paper bag emerged with a rustling sound.
“What is, what, hey…?”
“Fish-shaped bread.”
Gong Pyeonghwa handed the bag of fish-shaped bread to Saebyeok and proudly showed his navel.
“The heat pack is so hot. Look at this. It turned red here.”
He had an impressive set of muscles above his navel, which explained his above-average activity level. But what caught Saebyeok’s attention even more was the skin that had turned red, exactly the size of the heat pack.
The combination of the heat pack, abs, fish-shaped bread, and long padded jacket momentarily short-circuited Saebyeok’s brain.
“Hey. Do you know how hard I worked to keep that warm for you? Hurry and eat it while it’s still warm.”
Saebyeok hurriedly took the fish-shaped bread out of the paper bag.
“So you were hiding the fish-shaped bread? Is that why you’ve been like this all day? You rarely wear outerwear.”
“Yeah. I had to hide it. Otherwise, the other kids would take it all.”
No matter how you look at it, that’s…
The fish-shaped bread was still warm. Even after quite some time had passed, it was probably still warm because of the heat pack.
Knowing that Gong Pyeonghwa had so much body heat that he didn’t wear outerwear even in the middle of winter, he had not only worn a coat but also attached a heat pack to keep the bread warm?
“Why…?”
Saebyeok couldn’t understand.
“Because temperature is the life of fish-shaped bread.”
Just for that?
“Hurry up and eat it! The cream filling will harden!”
At Gong Pyeonghwa’s urging, Saebyeok put the fish-shaped bread in his mouth. He could taste the savory, sweet dough and the red bean paste that was almost like syrup.
“That’s a red bean one.”
Gong Pyeonghwa also took out a fish-shaped bread from the paper bag and bumped it against the one Saebyeok had bitten into.
“Cheers.”
Then he too bit into the head of the bread with a crunch.
“This one is red bean too. Cream ones are good too, but red bean is the original. Isn’t it delicious?”
“…Yeah. It’s delicious.”
“It’s good, right? It’s good, right? Mr. Organic, it’s good, right?”
“Yes. It’s delicious.”
Given the weather, the fish-shaped bread had cooled a bit by then. Saebyeok took another bite.
To maintain that warm temperature from earlier, Gong Pyeonghwa had kept the bread close to his body until his stomach turned red.
Had anyone ever dedicated themselves like this for him in his entire life?
“Hey. Doesn’t it taste better eating it on the rooftop?”
In Saebyeok’s heart, Gong Pyeonghwa, Pyeonghwa…
“Yeah.”
He liked him so much his heart felt full.
▶▶▶
“I just liked that temperature.”
He liked that temperature meant solely for him, that temperature resembling human body heat.
Saebyeok received the sleeping Iseul into his arms and nuzzled his nose against her chubby cheek that smelled like milk.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
