Chapter 1
Looking back now, that’s how it was.
I shouldn’t have met that guy… Han Taekyung. I shouldn’t have met him again either.
â—†
They say everyone encounters an unwanted rival at least once in their life. At first, Seo Igeon thought the same. That name he kept hearing day after day. Unlike his belief that it would quickly disappear if he ignored it, that name had been tormenting Seo Igeon since elementary school and had now followed him all the way to high school. Thanks to that, he was now irritated just by hearing that name. Of course, the owner of that name wasn’t at fault. Perhaps he was in the same situation as himself. However, everyone around them, except themselves, seemed determined to make the two not just simple rivals but the ultimate competitors, bringing up each other’s names over every little action or word.
Han Taekyung.
A second-year at Gongwha High School, a prestigious school said to be attended only by children from well-established families and dominant alphas.
Except for being the same age and both being alphas, Seo Igeon and he had no connection. After all, alphas made up 1/3 of the world’s population, so it wasn’t anything special. Of course, while they had no personal connection, there was one commonality they couldn’t avoid.
That was the fact that both were taekwondo prodigies who were expected to become national representatives. Han Taekyung had been sweeping international taekwondo competitions since childhood, and Seo Igeon, who started taekwondo two years later than Han Taekyung, had swept domestic awards and was recently achieving good results in international competitions. Both were junior national representatives and were facing the senior national team selection for the upcoming Olympics.
Strangely enough, despite all this, Seo Igeon and Han Taekyung had never faced each other in competition. So everyone who knew them eagerly awaited them becoming third-year students. They were certain that the inevitable encounter between the two in the national team selection would be the most intense match they had ever seen.
“I’m dying. Seriously.”
Lying on the floor, drenched in sweat and trying to catch his breath while looking at the ceiling, Seo Igeon narrowed his eyes as he heard footsteps approaching.
“Aren’t you getting up soon? Where’s the time to rest? While you’re doing this, Han Taekyung would have done ten more kicks.”
“Ugh, please stop!”
Seo Igeon jumped up, ruffling his hair, and Instructor Jin smirked. Seeing that triumphant smile, as if everything had gone according to plan, Seo Igeon felt he’d been tricked. After all, Seo Igeon, who had been groaning that he couldn’t go on, had sprung up as soon as he heard Han Taekyung’s name.
“That’s not fair. Really.”
“You shouldn’t say that. Then either pay less attention to that guy.”
“I told you. I really don’t care about Han Taekyung.”
“Oh, did you?”
Instructor Jin received Seo Igeon’s kick with an indifferent face.
“But Han Taekyung is really handsome.”
“What now? Are we still not done talking about Han Taekyung?”
“No, I’m just mentioning it since I thought of it. They say he’s a dominant alpha, and he certainly looked the part.”
“What, did he boast about being a dominant alpha and release pheromones or something?”
He thought the noble young master must have been like that. Someone might think he was jealous of Han Taekyung, but it definitely wasn’t jealousy. After all, Seo Igeon himself was an alpha, if not a dominant one. If someone asked why he was being sarcastic, the answer was simple. Seo Igeon knew nothing about Han Taekyung beyond him being a man, a dominant alpha, a taekwondo athlete, and the son of a wealthy family. He didn’t even know his face properly, except for glimpsing him competing on a sports news broadcast when he was very young.
“No, no, how could that young master do something so rude? It’s just… how should I say it… the aura he gives off just by standing still. The omegas were absolutely swooning.”
“You must be disappointed, Instructor. Since you’re not an omega.”
“You brat! Are you making fun of your instructor?!”
‘But you started it first?!’ he wanted to say but held back. After finishing all the exercises the huffing instructor assigned, Seo Igeon showered, changed clothes, and had to listen to the instructor’s stories about Han Taekyung once more. It was really getting unbearable.
“But he wasn’t arrogant or anything like that, he greeted me very politely too.”
“…How did you meet him?”
“Oh, I saw him at the regular Taekwondo Association meeting. Han Taekyung’s instructor is Kim Tae-woon, right? He brought him to show off, of course.”
“Oh my… If I had known, I should have gone too. I should have made my instructor proud.”
“Don’t say things you don’t mean.”
“Yes, sir.”
Seo Igeon answered halfheartedly while tying his shoelaces.
“When Tae-woon introduced me, he mentioned you, and Han Taekyung already knew your name.”
It would be strange to ask ‘How does he know me?!’ After all, he must have heard about him endlessly… Seo Igeon suddenly felt a sense of kinship with Han Taekyung. How tired he must have been of hearing his name.
“He said he really wants to compete with you and is waiting for that day. He asked me to send his regards to you.”
They should have faced each other when they were younger to establish some kind of hierarchy. Maybe things would have been different then. It was still amazing to Seo Igeon how they had missed each other at every competition, as if by some twist of fate.
“Man, thinking about it now, his voice was so deep and low, like Olympian Zeus would step aside, it was really cool.”
“Instructor, have you heard Zeus from Olympus’s voice?”
“What nonsense are you talking about?”
You just said that, though. Leaving behind the instructor who was looking at him with an incredulous face, Seo Igeon left the gym. The worn-out gym door was still precariously hanging today. Thinking that he should definitely replace the gym door first if he won this competition, Seo Igeon looked up at the darkened sky. Today too, he had given his absolute best. Hoping that tomorrow would also be a day without regrets, he headed home.
â—†
The reason Seo Igeon started taekwondo was simple. He needed a place to protect his young and weak self in place of his father who was busy working hard for a living, and that place was Cheonghak Gym. That’s also where his relationship with Instructor Jin Cheol-woon began. From first grade in elementary school, he ate, did homework, and learned taekwondo at the gym. At first, it was just a place to hang out until his father came to pick him up, and he wasn’t particularly interested in taekwondo. But as he learned, he gradually began to enjoy it and realized at some point that he had talent for it. Of course, it was Instructor Jin Cheol-woon who noticed his talent first. But the instructor didn’t act hastily. After observing for about two years, when Seo Igeon entered third grade, he seriously informed Seo Igeon’s father of his talent for taekwondo, and his father, with a sad heart, asked Seo Igeon what he wanted.
Seo Igeon loved taekwondo. He wanted to do it. But he also knew that given their family circumstances, he couldn’t choose sports. So at first, he lied. He said he didn’t like taekwondo, that he didn’t need to do it. The person most shocked by those words was Instructor Jin, but there was nothing he could do. He didn’t want to make his father, who was already struggling alone, any more difficult.
And that day, Seo Igeon quit taekwondo. After living normally and advancing to fourth grade, he cried a lot when he saw children doing taekwondo as an after-school activity. He cried while doing homework alone at home, and while cooking and eating ramen. A father couldn’t ignore his son like that.
‘Igeon, I have something to show you.’
After finishing his manual labor and returning home, his father called his depressed son after their meager dinner of rice and kimchi, and handed him a box.
‘Father… this is….’
Inside the box were certificates and photos. On the worn taekwondo first place certificate was the name of his deceased mother, and in the photo, a pretty young man with blue eyes that he could no longer remember was smiling brightly with friends, wearing a taekwondo uniform.
‘Your father was a taekwondo athlete like you, Igeon.’
‘You were, Dad?’
The person who gave birth to me. Both mother and father… He was German, an omega, who had dreamed of becoming a taekwondo athlete but, against his family’s wishes, came to Korea, the home of taekwondo, alone as a high school student, naturalized to become Korean, and dreamed of becoming a national representative.
‘Yes. I wanted to be a national representative. I could have been. But I had to give it up.’
‘Why…?’
His father stroked his son’s head with a bitter smile.
‘Because that’s how heaven made it.’
Looking at his father’s eyes full of sadness made his heart ache. Seo Igeon looked at the photo of his smiling father with a gold medal from a domestic competition. Someone he wanted to see but… someone he had never been able to say he wanted to see. His father sometimes said that he had exactly the same eyes as his father. That was true. Although Seo Igeon looked completely Korean with jet-black hair and features that gave no hint of being mixed-race, his eye color alone was a light sky blue.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
