When Ha-jin briefly blanked out, lost in thought, the Alpha must’ve taken it as permission. He pushed himself up and shoved Ha-jin back onto the sofa.
“Ha! Fuck, with a face this slutty, what management? You should just spread your legs and—”
Ha-jin slipping out from under him took only an instant. Before the Alpha could even react, Ha-jin seized his wrist again and, without hesitation, twisted it sharply in the opposite direction of the elbow.
With a crack, an “Aaaagh!” screamed out right in front of him. The pig-slaughter squeal snapped Ha-jin’s dazed expression back into focus.
Seeing the client beneath him screaming while clutching his dislocated shoulder, Ha-jin belatedly realized he might’ve gone too far—but the water was already spilled.
“You crazy bastard! Let go! Let go! You fucking psycho!”
“……I clearly warned you once.”
Like a dog with its tail tucked, the lust drained from the Alpha’s face. Ha-jin keenly sensed the man’s pheromone levels steadily dropping.
As Ha-jin loosened his grip, the large Alpha slid limply down onto the floor beneath the sofa. He frantically mashed the keypad, calling for his secretary. Secretary Kim! Secretary Kim!
“My arm… my arm! Fuck! Is your body plated with gold or what?!”
“I did give prior notice earlier, but just in case you forgot—I’ll remind you that everything happening right now is being recorded.”
“Recorded? Do whatever you want! Where’d you learn this shit? You’re so small—how the hell are you this strong?”
“Ever been beaten while growing up?”
“What kind of bullshit is that!”
“People learn through experience.”
An Omega who regressed and immediately started learning combat sports? That was Ha-jin. He didn’t have the talent to completely change careers, but at least he no longer suffered humiliation like he used to in situations like this. He could now protect his own body from Alphas in rut.
Leaving the Alpha whose shoulder had popped out as payment for groping his ass, Ha-jin stepped outside—only to be grabbed by the secretary who came running in a panic.
“Manager! You start working and immediately pull something like this? Do you have any idea how important our athlete’s shoulder is? We’ll sue you.”
“I came here to manage his pheromones and check his pre-match condition. Not to relieve his sexual urges.”
Ha-jin spoke calmly, pulling a pen-shaped recorder from the inside pocket of his jacket.
“I always give a heads-up before starting work, but for some reason everyone forgets.”
— Tsk, so what if I touched your waist a little? It’s because you’re so stiff that you don’t even have a scent. A half-baked Omega doing work like this, acting all high and mighty.
The secretary’s face flushed bright red as he lunged for the recorder. Ha-jin simply pivoted his body aside, snorting as he added,
“The moment it’s saved, it uploads to the cloud, so it’s useless. I’m telling you because I don’t want to break an expensive recorder—so don’t even think about stealing it.”
Secretary Kim, sprawled on the floor, glared up at Ha-jin with humiliation burning in his eyes. Ha-jin knew exactly what that look meant—the look of people who served monsters they barely considered human, calling them their superiors.
He was no different in being an employee himself, but right now, his own survival came first. There was no room for mercy.
“This is a contract termination due to fault on your athlete’s side, so I’ll be sending an invoice for triple the contract fee in damages, plus compensation for sexual harassment.”
It took less than thirty seconds to leave what had been his workplace just ten minutes earlier. Whether a place you quit on the spot upon seeing the client’s face even counted as a workplace was debatable—but even so, wrapping things up cleanly left Ha-jin feeling oddly proud and satisfied.
In his previous life, every time something filthy like this happened, he’d cry, get beaten, suffer endlessly—and eventually drift into Cheon Tae-seong’s orbit.
“……Tsk.”
And then he’d died, blinded by 500 million won.
Ha-jin stared quietly at his reflection in the elevator mirror. A half-formed dominant Omega with no alluring scent to entice Alphas. Yet in this new life, his expression looked solid—firm.
The moment he stepped into the lobby, his phone began to ring loudly.
[PHE Management — CEO Kwak Mari]
Seeing the name on the screen, Ha-jin let out a long sigh. The instant he pressed the green button, shouting exploded from the other end. He hadn’t put the phone to his ear, nor was it on speaker, yet every word came through crystal clear.
— Lee Ha-jin! You got fired again?!
Tic, tic, tic—Ha-jin lowered the volume with his fingertips while briskly exiting the building. His shoes clicked cheerfully against the pavement. After steadying his voice, he brought the phone to his ear.
“I endured up to the waist, noona.”
— What?
“I couldn’t endure the ass. And that bastard sat on me.”
— ……You recorded it?
“Of course.”
A heavy sigh came clearly through the phone. Ha-jin waited silently while she gathered her thoughts.
— Well, whatever… we’ll just find you a new client right away. Even if you’ve got a grasshopper résumé, it’s my job to line up work for you. If I’m taking my cut, I’ve gotta hustle too.
“Noona……”
— You need money, don’t you? Who doesn’t know how bad it’d be if your income stopped? It’s fine, so don’t worry about my feelings.
Even after ending the call, Ha-jin stood there for a while. Maybe he should’ve just clenched his eyes shut and endured it this time. He blamed himself out of habit—then let his shoulders slump.
A warm spring breeze brushed past his frozen spot. White and pink petals piled thick on the ground scattered messily into the air. Standing in fragrant sunlight, thinking of Cheon Tae-seong felt like an inevitable sequence.
Ha-jin’s gaze shifted to the colorful campaign posters plastered on the wall. The middle-aged faces looked so carefree you’d believe they were in their twenties based on skin alone.
He wasn’t particularly interested in politics, but this general election held special meaning for Ha-jin.
On this exact day in his previous life, he met Cheon Tae-seong for the first time.
“Did you just come back from voting?”
The man had asked, then immediately crinkled the bridge of his nose with a grin, flashing white teeth.
“It’s cute how you stamped your hand with the ballot seal.”
Ha-jin could manage an Alpha’s rut—that is, their heat—by using his own dominant Omega constitution.
Among dominant trait holders, those seeking to compensate for the weakness of having a “rut” made up Ha-jin’s main clientele.
They wanted to keep perfect control over their lives without a single misstep by keeping an Omega like Lee Ha-jin close at hand—an Omega who didn’t go into heat, a dominant among dominants, with almost no pheromones, but a keen understanding of pheromones, an Omega bordering on Beta.
At their first meeting, Cheon Tae-seong clearly didn’t believe his pheromones could actually be managed. It wasn’t even him who handed over the contract—it was one of his close aides.
The expressions of Alphas who’d exhausted every possible method to avoid rut were usually the same. Extreme fatigue, along with eyes dulled by shattered pride at being unable to even control their own bodies—resigned, self-loathing gazes.
Cheon Tae-seong maintained an indifferent expression throughout, as if daring Ha-jin to try, simply handing himself over. Maybe that was why his attitude was the way it was. He thought of pheromone management as child’s play, and looked at Ha-jin the way one would at a child absorbed in a game.
That was how his meeting with Cheon Tae-seong began—like a joke.
A man like an incomprehensible work of art. At the moment he signed that high-value contract, Ha-jin never dreamed that this man stood directly at the edge of his death.
***
When Ha-jin entered the hospital room to process his brother Yushin’s discharge paperwork, an unwelcome face was waiting.
“What’s with that face? Did you forget? Today was my turn to handle Yushin’s discharge.”
Kwak Mari scolded him, eyebrows raised high, as Ha-jin stood frozen in the doorway. Right—under normal circumstances, he should’ve still been at the Alpha client’s office.
“They say that Zhu Bajie bastard cracked his arm. Osteoporosis or something? He was screeching into the phone so hard my ears are still ringing.”
Feeling sheepish, Ha-jin rubbed his face repeatedly. Yushin flashed a shy smile, trying to lighten the mood.
“Hyung, you’re here? The weather’s nice today. You hungry? I’ll make sujebi when we get home. Noona, you should stay and eat too.”
“Yeah, sure. Let’s get going.”
Kwak Mari relaxed immediately, smiling as she patted Yushin’s shoulder. She draped the cardigan she’d brought over his bony frame, then began tidying up the scattered hospital gown and slippers.
Consciously lifting the corners of his mouth, Ha-jin walked over to the two of them as they packed. He took the large tarpaulin bag from Kwak Mari and efficiently cleared out the fridge and cabinets.
After handing out the leftover fruit and drinks to Yushin’s hospital-room friends, they were ready to head home. Frequent hospitalizations and discharges had taught him nothing but tricks like this—and idle banter.
As they walked silently toward the elevator and down to the hospital lobby, Kwak Mari suddenly patted Ha-jin’s shoulder, as if to comfort him.
“Hey, it’s fine, Lee Ha-jin. Don’t get discouraged. You’ll get the penalty fee and damages anyway. We can always find another client. And if the next one pulls shit again, just break his bones outright. Make sure everyone hears about it. ‘PHE Management has a manager who does MMA with clients!’”
Kwak Mari stretched both arms wide, sketching an imaginary banner in the air.
“CEO Kwak……”
“Ah, seriously, it’s fine. Should we change industries while we’re at it? Maybe run an insurance fraud ring. Though it’s not actually fraud, so does that even work?”
“Noona, the kid’s listening.”
“Is Yushin a kid? He’s twenty now. He knows everything there is to know, idiot.”
Just as Yushin—suddenly labeled a kid—scratched the back of his head awkwardly, Ha-jin abruptly pulled him into a tight hug. Even in the middle of the crowded hospital lobby, he didn’t hesitate for a second.
