Shin Saebyeok, who had instantly gone from being a proud son to a pitiful child, couldn’t lift his head due to guilt.
“Mom will find a way…”
While Gong Pyeonghwa spent his vacation playing with friends and getting ahead on high school studies, Shin Saebyeok suffered daily, taking various experimental drugs and suppressants.
Whether it was because he had become an omega, or because of the medications, his head always felt heavy and his body lethargic.
Still, Shin Saebyeok studied through drowsiness and fatigue. He felt like defeating Gong Pyeonghwa would reduce his guilt.
His head felt like it had a stone on it, his body was drooping, and he felt sleepy even while standing.
And when he dreamed, Gong Pyeonghwa appeared in those dreams.
Gong Pyeonghwa would disappear into the distance with a smug smile, and that distance seemed to represent the insurmountable gap between them. As he desperately tried to close that gap, his father would suddenly appear, sigh deeply, and then turn his back and vanish.
Shin Saebyeok had nightmares every day.
Just when Shin Saebyeok thought things couldn’t get any worse, having endured by tasting the worst every day, he heard shocking news like a bolt from the blue.
“I heard their second son presented as an alpha.”
A reality more frightening than his nightmares had suddenly appeared.
They said Gong Pyeonghwa had presented as an alpha.
There was already a gap between them when they were beta and omega, but now he had gone and become an alpha.
‘What more should I do…’
Shin Saebyeok tried to convince himself that it would be okay, that there wouldn’t be much difference whether Gong Pyeonghwa was an alpha or a beta, that it wasn’t a big deal.
But that self-hypnosis shattered to pieces on the day of high school entrance ceremony.
“Gong Pyeonghwa. I heard you became an alpha. You don’t seem any different though?”
“What would you know… beta kid.”
He sensed a new scent from Gong Pyeonghwa that hadn’t been there before. He found himself terrified by how his heart raced at the ticklish scent that made him want to bury his nose in it.
Gong Pyeonghwa had really become an alpha, and he had really become an omega.
It felt like receiving a death sentence.
▶▶▶
“It was destiny.”
“Which part exactly?”
“Saebyeok and I, we disliked each other simultaneously. We had the same emotions at the same time. Plus, we were in the same class. That’s fucking destiny.”
‘Shit. By that logic, school uniforms are couple outfits.’
Seonwoo Jeong felt an intense wave of fatigue.
He just wanted to agree, summon what was left of his soul, quickly return to the home he had exhausted himself to buy, lie down, and get his money’s worth.
With a mountain of bank loans, he couldn’t believe he had to attend a first birthday party. Thinking he shouldn’t have come to this reunion, Seonwoo Jeong opened his mouth.
“Right, what was it? A fated attraction? Between you two? After many fights, you finally found love. Since you started dating back then, you must have worked hard hiding it from the world, how touching. Ah, how romantic. Fine, I’ll come to the first birthday party, but for now I should head home…”
“What are you talking about?”
“Why. What now.”
“You really have no sense of romance.”
Gong Pyeonghwa clicked his tongue and looked at Seonwoo Jeong as if he pitied him.
“We followed the proper steps from flirting onwards. If we had just started dating right after finding out each other’s secondary gender, it would seem like we gave in to carnal desire. We were so platonic. Don’t reduce our love to physical desire.”
Seonwoo Jeong was about to retort, ‘Then just hold hands when you sleep—how did you end up with a baby if that’s the case?’ but he closed his mouth, feeling it would only exhaust him more.
“Anyway, do you have no sense of romance at all? Tsk tsk tsk.”
‘What’s he saying? The guy who got stranded on a romantic trip.’
Seonwoo Jeong prayed for Gong Pyeonghwa to get stranded right this moment, but there was no god listening to Seonwoo Jeong, who only became religious intermittently when he needed something.
“I guess I have no choice but to tell you how we flirted first. My poor friend with your dead romantic cells, are you listening?”
Gong Pyeonghwa tapped Seonwoo Jeong’s chest as if feeling sorry for him.
“No, I don’t want to hear…”
“It was during the midterms of our first year of high school.”
Gong Pyeonghwa spoke while gazing nostalgically at the sky with eyes full of melancholy.
‘This bastard…’
◀◀◀
Believing without a doubt that his only value was as Shin Saebyeok’s rival, Gong Pyeonghwa threw himself into studying.
Shin Saebyeok would still be their son even if he did poorly in school, but Gong Pyeonghwa could be removed from the family register if he didn’t study well.
‘Then I would become a beggar wandering the streets…’
Gong Pyeonghwa studied as if study was all that remained in his life. He studied so intensely that even Seonwoo Jeong had to hold his hand and take him to the hospital.
Shin Saebyeok was anxious about Gong Pyeonghwa’s unprecedented behavior.
He had only completed half of the planned studying during vacation, while Gong Pyeonghwa, who had never even pretended to study before, was now openly studying.
Shin Saebyeok, his mind soaked in medication, often dozed off during class.
Gong Pyeonghwa, being tall, sat behind Shin Saebyeok.
The sound of turning pages and the scratching of mechanical pencils made Shin Saebyeok anxious. It felt like someone was constantly chasing him from behind.
Even at his physical and mental limits, Shin Saebyeok achieved the impressive rank of second in the school.
But he was devastated by the fact that the one person above him was Gong Pyeonghwa.
“Wasn’t this test fucking hard?”
“Yeah. It was fucking hard.”
“Says the guy with this test paper?”
“There are just some things… beta kids don’t need to know.”
Shin Saebyeok couldn’t help but hate Gong Pyeonghwa—waving his test paper full of perfect marks, with his smooth face that seemed oblivious to fatigue, laughing while exuding a cool pheromone.
***
Gong Pyeonghwa, completely unaware of Shin Saebyeok’s feelings, returned home without energy.
It seemed Shin Saebyeok was ranked second. Although he might have won by luck this time, it seemed unlikely for the final exams.
Shin Saebyeok kept dozing off every time he saw him. To look at the blackboard, he inevitably had to look at the back of Shin Saebyeok’s head, and each time, that small head would spin around so much.
‘How much does he study all night to spin his head like a top throughout the entire class?’
Gong Pyeonghwa was afraid of Shin Saebyeok.
It was as if he was possessed by a study ghost.
And he resented his parents. If they wanted him to fight, they should have matched him with someone in the same weight class; pitting him against a study ghost seemed too cruel.
As soon as the exam was over, Gong Pyeonghwa reluctantly opened his problem sheets with tears.
He had read so many books that the letters seemed to wiggle. Experiencing visual illusions he had never felt before, Gong Pyeonghwa thought anew how intense Shin Saebyeok was.
‘Looking so innocent, yet he’s been doing this since he was five. What a persistent bastard. I should have known when he completely ignored me when I tried to talk to him.’
Even his grudge from when he was five years old resurfaced.
Gong Pyeonghwa studied with trembling hands, and his family couldn’t hide their astonishment at the sight.
“I told you not to make him study.”
“He’s gone crazy, he’s gone crazy…”
“Is he being bullied at school?”
***
“I’m home…”
Losing twice wasn’t a mistake. He could no longer cowardly excuse it as a fluke.
They said there wouldn’t be much difference from a beta if he just took his medicine properly, but maybe the medicine wasn’t right for his body?
Anyway, he had lost.
He had lost to Gong Pyeonghwa.
Really lost.
Even though he tried his hardest, squeezing out everything he had, it wasn’t enough. To win, he should be studying one more word instead of feeling empty like this, but he couldn’t do it.
His eyes were too dry, and his head felt heavy. His body was drooping, his stomach seemed to hurt, and his whole body ached as if someone was beating him.
“Saebyeok is ho—, Saebyeok? Saebyeok? Oh my!”
Shin Saebyeok’s mother discovered him shivering in the living room and rushed over in shock.
She was about to call an ambulance immediately, screaming shrilly at the sight of Saebyeok sweating profusely and trembling with chills, but Saebyeok grabbed her hand.
“Why, why, why, hospital, you need to go to the hospital, okay?”
It seemed like going to the hospital wouldn’t solve the problem. His lower body had been tingling for a while. His stomach was bubbling, and there was a heat filling his insides.
‘So this is what a heat cycle is.’
It seemed the problem was that he had briefly stopped taking his medication because he wanted to focus entirely on the exam.
“I think I just need to take more suppressants. Today, I was just… a bit too nervous…”
When Saebyeok trailed off, his mother stomped her feet anxiously.
Saebyeok had been sickly since childhood. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the current Saebyeok was the product of his mother’s meticulous care.
Saebyeok’s mother used to feel her heart drop even at the slightest cough from him.
“Saebyeok, if you’re sick, you need to go to the hospital. Especially since you’re an omega…”
“Mom, please.”
Saebyeok cut off his mother’s words.
“Especially since you’re an omega.” He knew exactly what would follow these words, and he didn’t want to hear it.
“I’m really fine. I’m just tired. I’ll rest.”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
