Looking down at the banquet hall below the railing, the party was almost over, and only a few drunk people were clinging to each other and laughing. Were they all in their respective lounges? Alphas and omegas mixed together… Making pointless guesses, feeling empty at such useless thoughts, Wooyeon followed the man.
Following the man down the corridor and outside, a luxury sedan slowly approached Wooyeon and the man. The man opened the sedan’s back seat first, and an employee who got out of the sedan handed the key to the man.
When Wooyeon got into the back seat of the sedan as the man had opened for him, another waiting employee closed the sedan door. It was all luxuries he couldn’t handle.
“Could you tell me the address?”
Wooyeon’s and the man’s eyes met through the rearview mirror. His wariness hadn’t completely broken down. Instead of his home address, Wooyeon gave the name of a convenience store near his house.
“I’ll take you all the way home.”
“Cars can’t go beyond that.”
“Ah… I understand.”
It wasn’t a lie. In reality, Wooyeon’s house was in an alley that cars couldn’t enter.
The man who entered the address into the navigation didn’t speak to Wooyeon anymore and moved the car. The tree-lined street at dawn before daybreak felt different and bleak compared to what he’d seen yesterday.
The car that had been gradually increasing speed drove quite fast on the main road, and thanks to that, he was able to arrive near home faster than expected. He’d been worried about how to get back, but Wooyeon thought to himself that it was fortunate.
“Thank you.”
As soon as the car stopped, Wooyeon gave brief thanks and got out of the car. The man who had been driving also hurriedly turned off the engine and followed Wooyeon out.
“I’ll take you to your door.”
“No, it’s not that heavy.”
The polite attitude was burdensome, but more than that, he didn’t want to expose where he lived.
Wooyeon held the suitcase and bowed to the man in greeting. The man who had inadvertently returned the greeting to Wooyeon approached with an awkward face.
“What’s the matter?”
“President Choi Jongwan of DE Trading instructed me to take you to your door.”
“…”
With his mouth closed, Wooyeon looked at the man with a puzzled face. It seemed that taking him home was not a service provided by the ‘Night of Sponsorship’ organizers.
When Wooyeon remained still with a hardened face, the man quickly took out a business card from his chest and held it out. Inside the square black paper were only the three characters of the name ‘Choi Jongwan’ and the small letters DE Trading. The contact information was probably written on the back.
“How does this person know me?”
Beyond absurdity, it didn’t make sense. He’d been out in the Night of Sponsorship banquet hall for at most about an hour. He couldn’t comprehend how they knew him and were approaching him like this. Had everyone smelled the poverty that was encroaching all around him?
“I can’t accept it.”
At Wooyeon’s firm attitude, the man’s face colored with embarrassment. Since he was also in a position of receiving orders, this situation must be very awkward for him.
“I cannot accept it. I’m truly sorry.”
“He’s a respectable person.”
When Wooyeon was about to step away, the man hastily added.
“He said that Seo Wooyeon-ssi is a precious young man who is intelligent and talented. He truly wanted to help.”
What on earth did he know about him, and how much, to talk about intelligence and talent? Wooyeon looked at the man as if tired. And in front of the man who didn’t seem like he would give up at all until he accepted, Wooyeon eventually decided to back down. Wooyeon sighed and reached his hand toward the man.
“It doesn’t mean I’ll contact him.”
“…Thank you.”
The man who let out a sigh of relief bowed politely to Wooyeon again.
Wooyeon received the black business card from the man and stuffed it into his padding pocket as is. A business card or whatever, it didn’t cost money to receive it, and he just wouldn’t contact him. Further meaningless war of attrition was only tiring.
Overwhelmed by fatigue, Wooyeon just wanted to go home as soon as possible and fall asleep again.
6.
Wooyeon didn’t go to the logistics center part-time job he worked on short-term basis during weekends, and using fatigue as an excuse, he didn’t go see his mother either. He only went to his tutoring job, and the rest of the time he slept curled up in his narrow one-room like he was dead.
The weekend passed frighteningly fast, and the weekday when he had to go to school arrived. The school, which until now had been considered the most comforting place in Wooyeon’s life, had become the hardest place to go.
The lecture hall before class was noisy as always. Wooyeon stood at the open entrance of the lecture hall, hesitated for a moment, then adjusted his bag again and went inside. Kwon Jeonghan wasn’t visible. Wooyeon, who let out a sigh of relief, put down his bag in the corner of the lecture hall and spread out his spot.
He should have studied during the weekend, but he hadn’t looked at a single character. Wooyeon didn’t even have time to indulge in depression as much as he wanted. Wooyeon hurriedly opened his textbook before class to review the previous content.
“Hey, I heard from Teaching Assistant Yoon that there’s a quiz today. Did you know?”
Not long after, male students rushed in and sat in the seats in front of Wooyeon. And Kwon Jeonghan, entering last among that group, caught Wooyeon’s eye. Wooyeon thought about moving seats and got up, but ended up making eye contact with him as he leisurely placed his bag on the seat the other male students had saved. Kwon Jeonghan was reigning like a king in this jungle as always.
Jeonghan sat down and gave Wooyeon an eye greeting, and Wooyeon didn’t respond. At that casual eye greeting, Wooyeon even felt like his strength was draining away.
The kiss on Friday really meant nothing to Kwon Jeonghan. Wooyeon repeated to himself. There was no longer any need to avoid his seat. Wooyeon pulled his chair and sat down again.
“Somewhere there’s a fucking omega smell…”
The man sitting in front of Wooyeon pretended to hold his nose and giggled, and the male students sitting around him laughed and patted his shoulder. Wooyeon’s gaze, which had been reading down the textbook again for review, stopped.
“You crazy bastard.”
“Is it true there’s a quiz? They’re shaped so distractingly I can’t concentrate on the quiz. Ah, what should I do. Don’t you smell it?”
“Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”
Wooyeon’s fingers placed on the textbook trembled finely. Wooyeon carefully lowered his trembling hands under the desk. All his nerves were focused on the conversation happening in front of him. He couldn’t even breathe loudly. In case the smell they were talking about was mixed in his breath…
“That tiny bastard who doesn’t even show any signs is talking shit.”
“You crazy bastard, did you see it?”
It felt like his blood was freezing. Until now, although there had been many people who suspected Wooyeon might be an omega, no one had ever had such low-class conversations about omegas openly in front of him like this. Wooyeon’s pupils trembled anxiously under his long eyelashes.
Wooyeon raised his head to look at Jeonghan sitting in front of him. Jeonghan was silently looking at them with his chin resting, with an expression that seemed uninterested. Wooyeon’s teeth chattered with indescribable betrayal. As far as he knew, Kwon Jeonghan was the only one at school who knew he was a recessive omega.
“There are no dominant omegas in our department. Those precious bodies aren’t common either.”
“Even so, surely there can’t be a recessive in here, right? How could you go to school with something like that? How could you even study when you’re turned on?”
“This crazy bastard, pretending to be an alpha when you’re a beta.”
As if they were so amused by their own conversation they didn’t know what to do with themselves, they kept giggling.
“Everyone has their own place. Recessive omegas should be faithful to their main profession.”
The man sitting in front of Wooyeon made a circle with his left index finger and thumb, then with vulgar teasing, thrust his right thumb into the circle several times. The sound of both hands rubbing together sounded obscene, and the male students sitting around the man couldn’t stand it and either laid their heads on their desks or hit his shoulder while laughing.
Just don’t listen. It was when Wooyeon, who had bitten the inside of his lips, turned the page of the textbook again and shifted his gaze.
“Hyung, did you spray perfume by any chance?”
He, who had been sitting in front, suddenly turned back toward Wooyeon and asked. One side of the man’s lips was raised all the way up.
“…No.”
“No, there’s a good smell coming from somewhere. Hyung, don’t you smell it?”
From the man’s eyes he was facing, it seemed like madness was flowing. At the face with lips torn long in a smile, Wooyeon couldn’t say anything.
At that moment, the professor entered the lecture hall and gave a simple greeting along with talking about the quiz that would take place today. The multiple gazes that had been directed at Wooyeon turned forward again as if they had no choice.
Wooyeon barely gathered his desire to run out of the lecture hall right then and there. It felt like tears would come if he was provoked just a little more, but that was all, and it shouldn’t happen either.
Until the professor called attendance, Wooyeon’s gaze, soaked somewhere in resentment, remained stopped on Jeonghan’s back.
