I was alone. I could finally be alone.
I slowly sank down to the floor. The tears I had held back in front of Eorin earlier, biting my lips as they felt like they would burst out any moment, didn’t come out now that I was actually alone.
Where did it go wrong? What should I have done…….
No, I actually knew the answer. Me having courage.
But what came after scared me. If I had courage, what then? What if that courage turned out to be useless?
I took out my phone that I had turned off before taking the exam this morning and hadn’t turned on since. While the phone was turning on, I imagined all sorts of things. What if there’s a message? What if there isn’t one…….
The phone turned on, and a messenger notification came.
[Chiwon-ah]
Just three letters.
Only then did I start crying.
Holding the phone in my hand, I cried all evening. I wanted to stop the hard things. But since what made me suffer the most was myself, there was nowhere to run and I didn’t know what to do. I felt like if I held onto something, my heart might feel a bit more at ease, but I knew that holding onto a pill bottle wasn’t the right way. Then what should I lean on?
After crying until my throat choked up and I even dry-heaved, I slumped against the wall, exhausted. After sitting there blankly for several minutes, I picked up my phone. The whole time I was crying, I had been staring at the names on the screen. Eorin. Junsu. Woojin.
I was scared. That these kids might come to hate me too. That they might detest me. Earlier, Eorin seemed angry, and it was clearly my fault. When Eorin asked if I couldn’t trust him, I couldn’t answer.
Would it end like this if I stayed this way? Would your names be erased from here?
I looked at the bear plushies I had lined up. I still hadn’t eaten any of the jellies Eorin had given me. Because they would disappear if I ate them.
I didn’t want to end it like this. I liked the kids too much for that. I thought it was over, but tears fell from my eyes again.
I picked up my phone.
Ring ring ring. My heart trembled along with the ringtone. But the ringtone stopped immediately. For a moment I was shocked, thinking Eorin had hung up.
-Hello.
But no. I heard Eorin’s voice.
“…….”
-Hello.
“…….”
-Chiwon-ah.
“……Yeah…….”
-Chiwon-ah.
“……Eorin-ah.”
My crying voice must have reached beyond the receiver. I wiped my face with my hand and repeated to myself. Courage, courage.
“E-Eorin-ah. Right now, where are you? I, right now, you know.”
-Yeah.
“Right now, I want to meet with you, and there’s something I want to say.”
Trust. Trust. It’s okay. It’ll be okay. I can trust.
“I’ll come…… so please wait for me a bit…….”
-……Come outside.
“…….”
-I’m in front of the orphanage right now.
I ran out of my room.
In the evening after sunset, under the faint navy sky, Eorin was standing there. I ran toward Eorin and then stopped. Was it okay to approach closer? He had been angry. I took a deep breath. Let’s stop thinking.
“Eorin-ah.”
I approached Eorin. There was something I had to say first.
“I’m sorry.”
“…….”
“I’m actually, o…… an omega……. I couldn’t tell you. I lied that I was a beta.”
“…….”
“If you’re not too angry…….”
Tears flowed out again. It felt like I was using up a lifetime’s worth of tears today. The area around my eyes, which must have been swollen, stung.
“Will you…… listen to my story?”
Eorin raised his hand and brought it to my eyes. Hot fingers touched my hot eyes, and ironically, the pain seemed to subside a little.
“Tell me. I’ll listen to everything.”
After only saying that, Eorin took me to the empty lot behind the orphanage.
In the empty lot, only a ball that the younger siblings had been playing with was lying there. Eorin sat near the streetlight and pulled me to sit beside him. Not knowing where to start, I fumbled for words. It was even more so because it was a story I had never told anyone.
“I, you know…….”
“Yeah.”
“I told you before, that I had no friends in middle school.”
“Yeah.”
“That…… I didn’t say it properly.”
“…….”
“More than having no friends, I was bullied.”
Maybe Eorin, Junsu, and Woojin had all sensed it. But I didn’t particularly want to say it with my own mouth. Those words I had avoided even to myself, only saying ‘I have no friends.’
The words that I was bullied.
Having no friends and being bullied were completely different. After saying it directly, it felt like my breath was blocked, but also like my breath opened up. Admitting it wasn’t as difficult as I thought. My pride didn’t hurt either. Because it was a fact I had known anyway. I had never defined it in words even once, but that’s what it was.
“Since I had no friends in elementary school, I thought it would be nice if I could make friends when I entered middle school. But I’m not good at making friends either…… and in first year, the homeroom teacher talked about lunch subsidy support and brought up my story, so all the kids found out I lived in an orphanage.”
“…….”
“So the kids thought I was…… pitiful, and tried to help me…… but I hated that.”
I hated pity. I felt miserable. If I willingly accepted it, it felt like the orphanage and I would really end up positioned somewhere down there.
“Because I rejected it, the kids gradually distanced themselves from me. So I became alone…… when I was fifteen, I manifested as an omega. But when I became an omega…… I don’t know. I don’t know why, but…… the kids…….”
Tears flowed out endlessly. My breath trembled.
Why was it like that? Why did those kids hate me? What did I do wrong? Did it bother them that I rejected their ‘help’?
It was the day after manifestation ended and my body stabilized. When I went to school, someone grabbed my shoulder from behind and brought their face to my neck, asking if I was an omega. I nodded hesitantly. But from the next day or so, suddenly alpha kids swarmed me and started mocking me while smelling my pheromones.
What’s this, a wood smell? It’s kind of sweet though. Hey, let out some pheromones. Fuck, even this kind of thing smells like an omega. But you just manifested recently, right? Is there something wrong with you? Hey, stop it. They grew up in an orphanage, so it could be like that.
Verbal violence soon led to physical violence within a few days. When I started keeping my pheromones shut, the alpha kids released their pheromones to forcibly pry open my pheromone glands and laughed while smelling the scent. They looked down laughing at me unable to withstand the alphas’ pheromones, crouching on the floor and trembling. There were few days when my locker didn’t have garbage someone threw away, and my desk always became a target for alpha kids’ marking skill contests. After the alpha kids marked it, I couldn’t even approach my desk and had to stand at the back of the classroom to listen to lessons.
I couldn’t go to the bathroom. If I went to the bathroom, someone would always stand behind me and bury their face like they were going to bite my neck, then giggle watching me get scared. When I grew my hair to cover my neck, one day someone suddenly cut my hair with scissors. There was a time I ran away when they dragged me, saying they were curious if I’d go into heat if I smelled their pheromones.
No one tried to save me. The beta kids didn’t even approach me. There were even kids who laughed with the same expression as those who bullied me, saying what kind of scent was I giving off that made them go into heat like that.
I had nowhere to go. Was it because I lived in an orphanage that they looked down on me so easily? Because they knew there was no one to protect me?
There was no way the school teachers didn’t know. But those teachers did nothing. I didn’t go to the teachers either. Even if I went, nothing would have changed. And I was afraid the story would reach my family at the orphanage. I absolutely didn’t want the orphanage to know about this.
A year and a half. I gave up on human relationships. Knowing that these kids would be there even if I graduated middle school and went to high school, I just lived days quietly enduring. I had no expectation that things would change.
Then when I received the suggestion to enter Haebam High School, I decided to completely hide myself. If I became a beta, and if I lived quietly without standing out, wouldn’t it not turn out like middle school? Fortunately, the high school I had been attending was far from Haebam High School, and there were few kids from that area who were planning to advance here.
So now, the days when Eorin, Junsu, and Woojin were by my side…… were like a miracle to me. I had given up on everything, thinking it would be nice if I could just have a quiet and peaceful high school life, but friends who suddenly came like a gift.
I thought I should hide even more.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. You guys…… shine too brightly to me.”
“…….”
“I was afraid that if you knew I was that kind of kid, you’d leave me too…….”
I sobbed and cried. I couldn’t look at Eorin’s face. I kept looking only at Eorin’s feet, when suddenly I felt warmth on the back of my head and my head was embraced in Eorin’s arms. The vanilla scent spread fully. Eorin, who hadn’t said anything the whole time listening to my story, opened his mouth for the first time.
“What do you mean ‘that kind of kid’?”
“…….”
“You…….”
Eorin’s voice trembled.
“You…… didn’t do anything wrong. Don’t lower your head.”
“…….”
“Don’t hide either. Don’t endure either. If it’s hard, tell me…… that’s all you need to do. Don’t cry like this…….”
I don’t know what to say because you’re crying. Muttering like that, Eorin patted my back.
“I’m sorry. I…… feel like I found you too late. I don’t know what to say to you. I’m sorry.”
It wasn’t something Eorin needed to apologize for. Eorin and I back then were complete strangers, and if we hadn’t met like this, we would have continued living in different worlds. So I should have been grateful that Eorin became my friend. But Eorin kept muttering apologies.
He was a kind child. Kind enough to say ‘I’m sorry for being too late’ about a meeting that had been like a miracle to me.
That’s why it was good. I couldn’t let go. Even while pushing me to my limits, Eorin’s scent was only sweet. Just like now.
