“Yuri! Come sit over here.”
When I entered Room 406, Daeju, whom I’d met during orientation, greeted me. I walked over toward Lee Daeju, who was calling me.
“So you’re in General Chemistry Section 1 too. Jisoo and Gi-hyeok are both in Section 2.”
“Really?”
Daeju seemed genuinely glad to see me and kept talking.
“Isn’t it kind of amazing, though?”
“What is?”
“At our school, alphas and omegas used different buildings. So.”
“Your school too? Ours was like that.”
We kept chatting until the professor came in. Daeju was a good conversationalist. He joked that he hated letting the audio go empty.
“Hey, hey, the professor’s here.”
The professor gave a brief rundown of how the semester would proceed. I diligently jotted down notes on my tablet about attendance points, assignments, and the midterm and final exams. I’d told Do Jihoon I wasn’t going to study, but once classes actually started, my motivation was surging.
Maybe because it was the first week, just like the seniors had said during orientation, the class ended quickly after the briefing. Since the school had created a massive gap in my schedule, I had classes during first and second period, and then not again until seventh and eighth.
I already had a four-hour gap, but since class ended early today, it turned into more than five hours. And it was the same for the others.
“What should we do……?”
Daeju said forlornly. I shook my head, meaning I had no idea either.
“Want to go to a PC café? Are you good at League?”
“No……. Not at all. I’m Bronze.”
“…….”
We left the building chatting about trivial things. While we were still debating what to do, a light descended upon us.
“Huh, isn’t that Yeon Yuri? Yuri, right?”
“Bae-hyun sunbae…….”
At our school, there was a buddy system where seniors helped juniors adjust. From what I’d seen during orientation, Gyeong Bae-hyun sunbae was my assigned senior.
We whined to him. When he heard we had a four-hour gap, he burst out laughing.
“That’s normal. In my first semester freshman year, I had first period four days a week.”
“What……? How did you survive?”
“I just skipped. Don’t you guys do that. You’ll get stabbed later.”
Thankfully, since we ran into him that day, we were able to walk around campus, look around, and kill time greeting the Hanguk University cats. On the first day of the semester, after attending all my classes and getting home, it was nearly 6 p.m. This wasn’t even high school.
After washing up, I rolled around on my bed and checked KakaoTalk. There were messages from Kim Bo-jin and Do Jihoon, and also from a group chat with four people including Lee Daeju and me.
***
[Kim Bo-jin: How’s university life?]
[Didn’t I tell you? I’ve got 1st period classes three days a week.]
[Kim Bo-jin: Cat laughing at you emoticon]
[Rabbit farting emoticon]
Contrary to my curse that he wouldn’t even get into a Seoul university, Kim Bo-jin had entered a fairly decent university’s Business Administration department. And he’d exchanged numbers with an alpha he met during OT and was currently in a situationship. If you really thought about it, this bastard was the biggest traitor.
[Do Jihoon: Did you get home?]
[Yeah yeah. You?]
The little “1” next to the message disappeared quickly. Surprisingly, Do Jihoon was attentive in relationships. Judging by his temperament, he seemed like the type who’d reply once every three hours, but whenever I sent a message, he usually answered right away.
[Do Jihoon: I only had a first-period class today, so I came straight home.]
[Huh? Really? Didn’t kids in your department ask your name or to eat together or hang out?]
[Do Jihoon: Are you a question mark murderer? They didn’t.]
That was unexpected. Do Jihoon was a face genius with superior physical specs, and unlike how he acted like a jerk to me, he didn’t treat other people badly. So I’d assumed people would at least ask his name or invite him to eat. Of course, he was the kind of guy who hadn’t even gone to orientation because it was annoying, so he probably preferred people not showing interest in him.
[Okay okay. See you tomorrow morning.]
[Do Jihoon: Get your license, Yuri. I woke up at 6:30 today to pick you up.]
[You overslept.]
[Do Jihoon: Brightly smiling round emoticon]
[Do Jihoon: Want to walk tomorrow instead? ^^]
[sry sry sry sry;;]
[Rabbit bowing deeply emoticon]
It took about twenty minutes by car between my house and Do Jihoon’s, and about fifty minutes from our place to Hanguk University. It wasn’t close at all. Thinking about commuting that distance every day made life feel exhausting.
[Hey.]
[Do Jihoon: What?]
[Should we just live on our own?]
There was no reply from Do Jihoon. The “1” disappeared, so he was reading it.
[I mean, driving all the time is tiring for you too.]
[And if I say I’m living alone by myself, our parents will 100% tie me to you anyway.]
[Since that’s probably going to happen, let’s just live together, yeah?]
I earnestly laid out my argument.
[Do Jihoon: If you promise to keep taking suppressants during your cycle.]
[Okay okay, of course. It’s not like I have anyone to do it with anyway…….]
[Do Jihoon: Bear covering its mouth while laughing emoticon]
[Fuck, and you—]
Alphas and omegas each had rut and heat cycles. For about two days a month, manifesters chased pleasure and became instinctual. In other words, they went into heat.
The cycle first appeared during adolescence. Until a child became an adult, they were given suppressants to inhibit the cycle. The suppressants weren’t particularly harmful, and it was a law set by the World Health Organization to prevent teenagers, who weren’t yet able to take responsibility for themselves, from doing something reckless.
Once you became an adult, you were given the right to decide whether to keep taking suppressants or not. Those who chose to take them said they hated becoming animalistic and wanting only sex during their cycle. Those who chose not to said they were adults now, and the sex during their cycle brought immense pleasure, so why restrain themselves?
If I had to choose, I was the former.
As each day passed, memories of my previous world were fading rapidly, but somewhere deep in my subconscious, I still felt uncomfortable with animalistic ruts and heats.
[21 Lee Daeju: Heyheyheyheyhey]
[21 Lee Daeju: Wow, you’re only seeing this now?]
[? What is it]
[21 Kwon Jisoo: Turns out we have the same major class 5th and 6th period tomorrow]
[21 Kwon Jisoo: So we were saying let’s eat lunch together before class]
[21 Lee Daeju: What do you think?]
Not bad. I had general education in the morning anyway, so I had to go early. Might as well eat together.
[Yeah, let’s do that.]
[21 Lee Daeju: Then I’ll take that as everyone agreeing? Let’s meet at the student cafeteria at 11:30.]
[21 Shin Gi-hyeok: Oki.]
The conversation more or less wrapped up, and I was about to put my phone away when I noticed the chat room and announcement room below. The chat room had 999+ messages, so I didn’t feel like going in. I clicked on the announcement room instead.
[21 Choi Younghak (Class Rep): Pinned as announcement.]
[21 Choi Younghak (Class Rep): We’re having the department welcome party this Friday!! The after-party location and time are pinned in the notice. Please check and vote whether you’ll attend!]
[21 Choi Younghak (Class Rep): Created a poll.]
A welcome party! Of course I wanted to go. Happily, I entered the poll and clicked attending.
***
“Yuri. If you’d been a little later, I was going to leave you behind.”
“Sorry, sorry. My alarm didn’t go off.”
“Go see an ENT. I think there’s something wrong with your cochlea.”
Like always, we bickered as we headed to school.
“But you surprisingly don’t drive some flashy car?”
“I’m not interested in cars. I just took whatever they bought me.”
“Wow……. As expected of rich bastards.”
“It’s pretty funny hearing that from you.”
“This weekend. You kept it free, right?”
“Yeah.”
We were moving into our place this weekend. When I told my parents I wanted to live on my own, they looked extremely pleased and said the place was already prepared. When I stood there with my mouth hanging open, my mother explained.
‘You two get along so well. I figured you’d want to live together soon enough. It’d be a hassle to look for a place then, so I signed a contract in advance. It’s an apartment near the school. It’s fully furnished, so you’ll just need to move a bit of your things.’
Apparently, Do Jihoon’s parents had agreed as well. They were remarkably quick.
“Hey. Get out.”
“Yes, yes.”
We got out of the car and walked toward the classroom for our writing class.
But oddly enough, attention seemed to be focused on Do Jihoon and me. I thought maybe it was delusion of reference, so I turned my head—and locked eyes with an alpha who had been staring at me. Confused, I turned the other way, only to make eye contact with an omega this time.
“Shit, what is this……?”
“Let’s use nice language.”
“Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black?”
Compared to my flustered state, Do Jihoon looked completely used to this. Why was he so calm about it?
