# Chapter 11
[Kim Bojin: Sent a video.]
[Kim Bojin: LOLOLOLOLOLOL]
The KakaoTalk screen looked ominously foreboding. I clicked the play button with trembling hands.
By the time the video was ending, I had decided to jump out the window. But the balcony was too cold. I had no choice but to naturally close the door and return to my bed.
Do Jihoon wasn’t a devil. That bastard was a fucking angel. To witness that chaos and not even mention breaking off the engagement. If it were me, I would have thrown a complete fit.
I need to correct what I said earlier. Do Jihoon truly was an Alpha among Alphas, with the capacity and character befitting the main character of a novel.
❖ ❖ ❖
The days of trembling in fear about what Do Jihoon might make me do passed one by one, and before I knew it, time had flowed to early February, the day of graduation.
All the Gyemyeong High students gathered in the auditorium to listen to the principal’s instructional speech. It was cold as death, but the speech seemed endless. I passed the time by counting each individual hair sprouting sparsely on the principal’s shiny head.
After the speech came the award ceremony. Among the many awards, there was only one I remembered—the academic excellence award given to the top student in the school.
“Year 3 Class 2, Do Jihoon.”
That’s because the award belonged to the main character. Do Jihoon walked up to the platform, showing off his superior physique. He received the award with an incredibly fake smile and came back down.
Nothing special happened after that. The official ceremony ended with everyone returning to their classrooms to say final goodbyes to their homeroom teachers. I could hear some students sniffling and crying. After saying their last farewells to their homeroom teachers, students went out in groups of three or five to find their friends from other classes.
I first caught Kim Bojin who was trying to dash outside.
“Hyung. What’s wrong? You’re scaring me.”
“I’m upset. Can’t we even take one picture together?”
“Oh, you want to take pictures?”
Only then did he relax his tense face and smile.
“Hey! Everyone who wants to take pictures, come over here! Let’s take pictures here!”
Kim Bojin was definitely popular. As soon as he shouted, more than a dozen students swarmed over. We finished taking pictures happily, making the same poses and doing face close-ups.
Just as we were about to part ways, a pheromone scent I’d never smelled in the east building rushed in.
“Hey. Doesn’t it smell like Alpha somewhere?”
“Are you sick? How could there be Alphas in the east building… Wait. It really does smell!”
I wasn’t the only one who noticed. All the students were in chaos. I looked curiously at Kim Bojin, who didn’t show any sign of surprise, and said:
“It’s Alpha pheromones, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Kim Bojin, you’re so calm?”
“Oh, didn’t I tell you? Year 1 and 2 spring vacation dates are different from Year 3 graduation date.”
According to Kim Bojin’s explanation, Gyemyeong High, which pursues perfect separation of Alphas and Omegas between east and west buildings, lifts that restriction for just one day—graduation day.
“Why are you only telling me this now…”
“Well, you have a Noona too… Oh, right. Your Noona went to Hanguk High, didn’t she?”
Unlike Kim Bojin’s brother Kim Gyejin who graduated from Gyemyeong High, my Noona graduated from Hanguk High and couldn’t tell me about Gyemyeong’s traditions.
“Anyway, so you’re saying Alphas are coming to the east building right now?”
“Yeah. And Omegas are going to the west building too.”
“It’s like a complete animal kingdom…”
“I agree.”
As if venting the oppression they’d endured for three years, students invaded the territory of the opposite trait right after graduation. With pheromones wafting everywhere.
The problem was that Yeon Yuri’s body was quite sensitive to pheromones.
That is to say, when the unfamiliar Alpha pheromone scent mixed with the Omega pheromone scent I was used to, I felt a momentary wave of nausea, just like when I went to the club recently.
I grabbed Kim Bojin’s arm.
“Hey, let’s get out of here quickly.”
“Why? I have lots of friends to meet.”
Kim Bojin seemed to be a passionate Omega with less sensitivity to scents. With no choice, I tried to leave on my own, leaning against the wall.
At that moment, amid the awkward Alpha pheromones, a familiar stove scent wrapped around me. It felt comfortable. This was Do Jihoon’s pheromone. Sure enough, Do Jihoon was planted firmly in front of the back door.
Do Jihoon was accepting greetings one by one with an artificial mask on his face. After desperately preventing my brain from going on strike again due to cognitive dissonance, I walked toward Do Jihoon.
“Do Jihoon. What’s going on?”
When I spoke to him, I could hear classmates whispering.
“Were those two acquainted?”
“Yeah, that’s strange.”
“What’s this, so the dominant ones meet each other after all? The world is unfair. Sob.”
Do Jihoon looked at me when I called him. A crooked smile briefly crossed his lips and then disappeared.
“Are you feeling okay?”
“…Yeah. Thanks for worrying.”
“It’s nothing. Between us.”
Trying hard to suppress my boiling insides, I tugged at Do Jihoon’s sleeve. Surprisingly, he followed willingly. Only after escaping the building that had turned into a jungle did I stop walking.
“Why did you come?”
“Yuri has gotten much colder since we last met.”
“What’s your point?”
“I came to take pictures with you.”
My ears must be failing lately. I dug in my ear and asked again.
“I’m hard of hearing these days. What did you say?”
“…Chairman said to take pictures with you.”
“So your father told you to do that, right?”
“How many times do I have to say it? Yes, Yuri. Can’t you hear well? Should I clear your ears for you?”
“No. I can hear perfectly fine.”
It seemed the novel didn’t guarantee the main character’s personality. I sighed deeply enough to sink the ground and called out to Do Jihoon.
“Hey. Come closer here.”
I pulled Do Jihoon’s hand. Holding my phone in one hand, I adjusted it to capture both his face and mine.
“I’ll take it on the count of three. Smile nicely.”
“…You’re asking for a lot.”
“Weren’t you the one who wanted to take pictures?”
While I was staring at Do Jihoon in disbelief, he moved his finger and pressed the shutter button.
With a click, the photo of us was saved to my phone. While I stood dumbfounded as the victim of his shameless violation of portrait rights, Do Jihoon kept pressing the button rapidly. Now my phone was making click-click-click-click-click-click-click sounds.
“You crazy bastard! You’ll break my phone!”
“Don’t worry. It won’t break from that.”
“That’s not your phone!”
“Right. It’s not my phone.”
“……”
Do Jihoon was fucking shameless.
“Let’s at least take a proper one. We need to send it to your father.”
“How unusual to hear human speech coming from your mouth.”
I couldn’t be bothered to respond to every jab. What the old man wanted would be a picture befitting an engaged couple. I grabbed Do Jihoon’s cheek and pulled him toward me. The guy was unnecessarily tall, so even when I stood on my tiptoes, he had to bend his waist for our heights to match.
When our cheeks touched, Do Jihoon’s eyelids opened wide. I didn’t miss the opportunity and rapid-fired the shutter button.
After the click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click sound, I smiled brightly with the satisfying feeling of successful revenge.
“Hey, you smile too.”
At my words, the corners of Do Jihoon’s mouth rose crookedly. Unlike the angelic smile he had given to the classmates earlier, this was more of a mischievous grin.
Click—
Our photo was captured on my phone. It was the last photo of high school.
“Let’s see our pictures.”
I went to the gallery to check the photos we took. There were over 50 photos with Do Jihoon. Crazy. I couldn’t help but snicker.
In the first photos, I had a stupid expression, and in the next ones, Do Jihoon had his eyes wide open in surprise. There was only one decent photo of both of us—the last one we took.
“Just need to send this one, right? I won’t send the rest?”
I pressed the share button in the gallery and sent the photo to Do Jihoon’s KakaoTalk. Do Jihoon was silent until the message “Photo has been sent to KakaoTalk” appeared. I looked at him curiously.
“Do Jihoon?”
He was making an expression I’d never seen before. At a glance, his face looked so hardened that I thought he might be angry. But as I continued to look, he seemed somewhat confused, and perhaps flustered. The emotions hidden beneath his static expression were truly diverse.
“Hey.”
I nudged him. He flinched. Anticipating whatever this guy might blurt out, I quickly added:
“I didn’t hit you hard, did I? I tapped you gently. You were just spacing out.”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
