1) The Use of a Dominant Omega
What does it feel like when rut hits?
There was a time when he was curious about it. He wondered what it would feel like for a fully grown adult to lay their raw desire bare in front of another person.
When he was younger, he sometimes felt resentful of a body that couldn’t go into rut, but now he know very well how grateful he should be for being able to preserve his dignity.
“Ha… this is driving me crazy, Kim Nalgae. Come on, can’t you at least tell me your real name? Just to me, just a little?”
“Sir, please sit properly.”
Ha-jin, called “Kim Nalgae,” firmly shoved away the Alpha’s palm that was creeping slowly up his thigh.
He’d met dozens of Alpha clients who wanted to safely bleed off their rut heat without sex through a pheromone manager, but he still couldn’t get used to this filthy lust they sprayed directly at him.
The damp heat of the man’s palm made Ha-jin shudder.
Even if this body of his—dominant among dominants—were to miraculously go into heat for the first time in my 27 years as an Omega, with this kind of atmosphere and that kind of face, it’d cool off instantly. He can’t tell if the Alpha really doesn’t know or if he’s pretending not to.
Pheromones like this should be considered violence.
“……”
Ha… He shouldn’t be thinking this way. Guess he’s still not desperate enough.
The Alpha in front of him is nothing more than a pitiful being ruled by a tiny organ weighing barely 30 grams—a pheromone gland. That’s what he should be thinking. Be professional, Ha-jin. Endure it. You need the money. Think of Yushin, your younger brother, waiting for you at home.
Don’t snap. Don’t resist… stop, endure.
Ha-jin, who’d been clenching both fists tightly, consciously relaxed his hands. No matter how anonymous pheromone managers were, it wasn’t as if records didn’t remain. A history of frequent contract terminations did nothing to help him make a living.
Quietly swallowing a sigh, Ha-jin put away the device measuring the Alpha’s pheromone levels and checked the medication the man needed to take before starting the actual pheromone care.
But that calm was Ha-jin’s wish alone. Feeling the breathing by his ear grow increasingly ragged, Ha-jin casually, naturally shifted about a handspan to the side.
“……!”
He thought he’d dodged quickly enough, but he couldn’t avoid the hand grabbing his ass.
Clench. Twisting his waist, Ha-jin seized the Alpha’s wrist and wrenched it hard. The man bent forward with a groan, trying to ease the pain in his twisted wrist by wriggling out of it.
“If you endure just a little and follow my lead, I can calm it down.”
“Hey, you fuck—let go! You not gonna let go?!”
Nalgae! Nalgae-nim! Even as shouting turned into pleading, Ha-jin didn’t release him. The Alpha glared at Ha-jin with bloodshot eyes.
“Have you calmed down a bit? If we’re going to start pheromone care, I need your cooperation too, sir.”
“What? ‘Calmed down’? Ha, fuck, you’re being such a drama queen.”
When Ha-jin didn’t look shaken by the harsh profanity, the Alpha put more force into his tone.
“While doing this pheromone care bullshit, is there even one Alpha bastard who doesn’t touch your ass?”
Caught off guard by the unexpected question, Ha-jin’s eyes widened.
“There is.”
“……Don’t fucking lie. If there is, he’s gotta be a eunuch.”
No—there really was. An Alpha like that.
The Alpha who would kill him exactly two years from now was that kind of person.
The memory surged up uncontrollably—his voice, still vivid in Ha-jin’s ears, the one he heard on the last day of his life.
***
“Why did you do that to me?”
The breath scattering over his philtrum was rough. His heart was pounding so violently it felt like his whole body had been flung wide open. The floor against his kneeling knees was cold and damp.
The ceiling of the dark, filthy warehouse was thick with cobwebs, and the bare incandescent bulb leaking through layers of dust stabbed his eyes with its sharp light.
Standing with that light at his back was Cheon Tae-seong.
Looking down at the panting Ha-jin, he called his name again.
“Ha-jin. Hm? Why don’t you try answering? It’s frustrating, you know.”
Ha-jin lifted his gaze to Cheon Tae-seong’s face. It was devastatingly beautiful. From between perfectly shaped lips flowed a sweet voice, and his flushed eyes brimmed with sensuality.
Ha-jin had always been weak to Cheon Tae-seong’s smiling face. Maybe that was why, more than the fear that he might die at any moment, the thought of disappointing him crushed his chest. Countless excuses scattered uselessly inside his mouth, never making it out.
“We were good together. I might’ve treated other guys however I wanted, but I never treated you roughly, Ha-jin. And yet you go and humiliate me like this.”
“I—I’m sorry……”
“The back of my head is still throbbing, Ha-jin. What did I ever do to you for you to even try to castrate me?”
Cheon Tae-seong spoke with resentment, but his eyes never left Ha-jin’s face. He stared as if he might devour his trembling pupils, then rubbed away the drop of blood clinging to Ha-jin’s chin. A red stain bloomed like a flower against his pale white skin.
Several pitch-black shadows stood behind Cheon Tae-seong. One of them handed him a shovel. When he gripped the handle with his gloved hand, there was a creak, a twisting sound. For some reason, it sounded unbearably loud to Ha-jin.
Cheon Tae-seong’s shadows dragged several large burlap sacks from the corner of the warehouse and tossed them beside Ha-jin. From between the loosened seams, a single pale hand protruded. Blood leaking from the pile of sacks touched Ha-jin’s leg. The stench of blood filled the air.
Kneeling there, Ha-jin finally began to tremble violently, as if waking from a dream. His head rang with a single thought: I have to run. Right now.
But it was as if his entire body were paralyzed—he couldn’t move even a finger. Cold sweat poured down like rain.
“It’s—it’s a misunderstanding. Really, really… CEO……”
“A misunderstanding, my ass. Want to ask my dick? See if it thinks it’s a misunderstanding?”
Thud! The shovel Cheon Tae-seong slammed down embedded itself deep into the floor. Startled so badly he nearly leapt from where he sat, Ha-jin braced himself with both hands. Sweat pouring off him mingled with the filthy pool of blood.
Where had it gone wrong?
He’d definitely destroyed all of the pheromone disruptor the client told him to secretly feed Cheon Tae-seong.
So where had he taken that poison, how had his body ended up like this—and how did he find out Ha-jin was involved…?
“Tell me, Ha-jin. Is this why you liked me so much?”
“Huh?”
Had he overthought it? Ha-jin let out a hollow laugh, thinking he must’ve heard wrong. Liked him? Who liked who?
Cheon Tae-seong waited generously for Ha-jin’s answer. At some point his gaze had gone flat, the smile completely gone from his lips. In that moment, Ha-jin judged that his fate was already sealed, and that his answer wouldn’t change a thing.
Maybe that was why strength flowed back into Ha-jin’s trembling legs. He sprang up and turned, running without thinking.
A white rectangle… the open warehouse door, his lifeline.
“Lee Ha-jin! You fucking—get back here!”
Cheon Tae-seong’s ferocious voice thundered behind him.
“Huff—huff!”
Gasping desperately, Ha-jin burst out of the dark warehouse. Ignoring his pupils shrinking from the sudden light, he ran with everything he had.
The men standing outside the warehouse were startled by Ha-jin’s sudden appearance. Seizing the opening, Ha-jin weaved frantically between parked cars.
“Get that bastard!”
Running blindly in the opposite direction of the shouting voices, Ha-jin pushed on. Whether he died sitting still or died running, the result would be the same—but at least this way, there was a threadbare chance.
My little brother… he’s waiting for me…
At that moment—screeech! A sedan barreled in and slammed straight into Ha-jin.
His body lifted into the air before crashing violently onto the dirt. Rolling and tumbling, he fell straight off a cliff. Flailing in midair, Ha-jin smelled the damp sea breeze. In that fleeting instant, Cheon Tae-seong’s regretful warmth brushed his fingertips.
“Lee Ha-jin—!”
Maybe because of Cheon Tae-seong’s scream, there was no life-flashing-before-my-eyes moment at the instant of death.
***
People often say that when you encounter incredible luck, you’re given a second chance at life.
When you come back from the brink of death, or hit the lottery. But for Ha-jin, that second chance came in an extreme form.
Lee Ha-jin, 27 years old. One grueling life, plus one full regression.
A body that had definitely died came back to life by rewinding three full years.
It was a moment when God confused possibility with probability. They say the odds of being struck by lightning are one in 280,000—so what were the odds of coming back to life? One in several hundred million? A situation with zero possibility happened to Ha-jin with a 100% probability.
Anyway, Ha-jin intended to live this second life safely.
Even if life was hard, he wouldn’t hope for miracles. Not Cheon Tae-seong either—the very cause of his death.
In his first life, Ha-jin had foolishly thought that suspicious request handed to him was a “lottery win.”
How could he not? All he had to do was make sure Cheon Tae-seong took his supplements on time, and they’d pay him a whopping 500 million won. On top of that, the client was Cheon Tae-seong’s family.
Ha-jin was Cheon Tae-seong’s pheromone manager and handled his medication up close. It made sense they’d ask him. He naïvely accepted it, thinking that in a chaebol family, spending a few hundred million on health management was nothing.
No—if he’s being honest, he should say he lost his head because he was blinded by 500 million won.
Naive—no, stupid.
There’s no such thing as free money in this world. Even if it came from someone who spent ten million like pocket change, 500 million isn’t anyone’s dog’s name. There was no way it was just for making a family member take supplements.
Looking back now, maybe it was his instincts telling him to quit right before giving Cheon Tae-seong that first pill. Maybe it was his wit in secretly investigating the drug’s ingredients.
Maybe it was his humanity—valuing his loyalty to Cheon Tae-seong over 500 million won.
Maybe all of that is what granted him this second life.
Maybe God was startled by the conviction of a poor man who refused to poison Cheon Tae-seong—and because of that, his death was rewound.
