A beast driven to the extreme of fear has two choices.
Give up and quietly wait to be eaten by the predator,
Or struggle desperately in desperation.
“S-so what do you want me to do about it!”
The male student chose the latter.
“I, I just thought Gunho lost his medicine, so I was trying to return it!”
“…”
“Do you have proof I stole it? Do you?!”
The note he wrote—he had snatched it out of Gunho’s pocket when he collapsed.
The physical evidence was gone, so it depended on Gunho’s choice.
If it was the Gunho he knew, he would lightly overlook a mistake like what happened yesterday. If he offered a sincere apology saying he wasn’t in his right mind for a moment because of his heat, he would surely accept it!
If it was Baek Gunho, the kind and gentle student council president to everyone…!
“Our hyung might let it slide.”
“…!”
“Since he’s such a goody-goody.”
Baek Seolheon slowly closed and opened his eyes for a moment, gazing into empty space.
Inside his navy blue eyes was reflected not this place but somewhere else, some other time.
A blue and bright light seemed to glow in both eyes, but…
“But what should we do?”
The child’s eyes returned once again to a dark navy blue.
“I’m not so good.”
At the same time, the smile disappeared from Baek Seolheon’s face.
“That… is medicine for hyung, only for hyung.”
The male student couldn’t say anything.
“It’s not something that a filthy, vulgar-smelling omega like you should covet.”
He could only…
Tremble at the boy’s gradually lowering voice and the inexplicable sense of intimidation.
“Not just the medicine, but ‘Baek Gunho’ as well.”
Once again, the boy showed a smile.
It was a warm and harmless smile, as if to reassure a small trembling animal that he wouldn’t harm it.
The male student recalled something from around last year.
Baek Gunho often made that kind of expression too.
‘You transferred today? It must be hectic since it’s near the end of the second semester.’
At that smile, the male student lost his heart.
He wanted to stay by his side for life and see that face.
‘Hang in there adjusting to school. At least the lunch here is edible.’
But that smile he had loved… he might come to hate it forever,
The male student thought while looking at the boy’s smile.
“Name, grade, class. You won’t tell me your personal information until the end, will you?”
Baek Seolheon returned to a polite tone and took out his phone from his pocket to take a picture of the male student’s face.
“Wh-what are you doing…”
“Since you won’t tell me your name, I thought I’d at least send a picture.”
“S-send? A picture?”
“You’ll be contacted soon. I don’t know if it’ll be the legal team first or the police first.”
“P-p-police?!”
When the male student jumped in shock, Baek Seolheon widened his eyes and showed a surprised face instead.
“You stole such an important medicine, did you think it would just pass as kids’ mischief?”
Then he let out a small sigh and raised the corners of his mouth mockingly.
“Really stupid. And your smell is disgusting too.”
“D-delete it…”
The male student felt anger rising at the fact that he was being toyed with by an elementary schooler, but the fear of the bleak future that would soon come was far more overwhelming.
Soon he reached out toward Baek Seolheon with bloodshot eyes.
“Delete the picture!”
Smack!
Like that, he swung his hand to snatch the phone and kicked the boy down.
The child who was hit in the stomach without being able to resist fell to the ground and rolled over once.
“Huff, huh…!”
The male student didn’t stop at just hurriedly deleting the picture from the snatched phone, but tried to throw it on the ground and stomp on it with his foot.
However, his foot stopped in midair.
His spine ran cold.
At the corner of the fallen boy’s mouth still—
A strange smile was spreading.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
At that moment, a sharp voice echoed through the passage.
A familiar face was standing at the end of the hallway.
“To my younger brother.”
* * *
“G-Gunho student. Let’s think this through one more time!”
The vice principal, whose hair was half balding, broke out in a cold sweat as he passionately appealed.
“At this rate, Heechan’s future will be ruined! He has good grades and has been quietly well-behaved until now—why catch an omega kid like catching a mouse? He says he wasn’t in his right mind for a moment because of his, what was it, cycle. Right? Originally kids that age can make mistakes like this.”
I took my eyes off the principal’s shiny crown and turned my gaze to the window.
The orchid pots the principal cherished were lined up by the window.
“Let’s go nicely, Gunho student. You’re kind, so you can understand your friend’s situation, right?”
“…Understand?”
I suddenly looked around.
Before my eyes stood the principal, vice principal, and two homeroom teachers wiping cold sweat with troubled expressions.
Behind them stood the omega male student named Im Heechan and his parents with anxious faces.
“Teacher.”
“Yes! Gunho student!”
“I don’t want to extend kindness even to someone who assaulted my younger brother.”
As soon as I finished speaking, Im Heechan rushed over as if flying and thrust his tear-covered face at me.
“Gunho-ya! I did that because I was so scared!”
“…”
“I, I didn’t know you’d be in so much pain… Y-your younger brother threatened me so terrifyingly that I did it without realizing!”
“Threatened? My younger brother?”
“Y-yeah! He opened his eyes all fiercely blue, and just grabbed my arm suddenly and threatened me—I was so scared…!”
“…”
“And, right! As soon as he saw you coming, he smiled! Actually, falling and getting hurt was all something your younger brother planned…!”
“Ha, fuck.”
And finally, I couldn’t hold back and cursed.
“You who stole my medicine bottle and threatened me, you think you’re qualified to make such bullshit excuses?”
“G-Gunho student! Don’t get excited…!”
“Say it one more time. What about my younger brother?”
“Let’s refrain from such harsh words to a classmate! Heechan’s parents are here too…!”
“I’m sorry, teacher. But this is the first time I’ve been this angry to the top of my head.”
Really.
Even in my past life, there were countless times I felt anger rising. But there was definitely never a time when my vision turned red and my hands trembled with anger to this degree.
I was an orphan in my past life,
And an orphan in this new life too.
Such a me had a family for the first time.
Such an existence, how dare…
A beast-like bastard blinded by mere ‘sexual desire’ alone, trampled them with his feet?
“Was it Im Heechan?”
“…”
“My younger brother right now. He’s continuously getting examined at the hospital. He got bruises on his stomach, knees, and arms, so it might be hard for him to even walk for a few days.”
“I, I didn’t hit him that hard…!”
“You. The teacher said you transferred from your previous school for a similar incident.”
“…!”
“Well, I might have let it slide, thinking you played a slightly excessive ‘prank’ to satisfy your sexual curiosity. But.”
I continued while placing my hand near Im Heechan’s shoulder.
“Hitting that young, good kid too—that’s not right.”
“N-no! I, I didn’t intend to hit him, really he was the one who first…!”
“You said you just saw him taking my medicine bottle. That’s what Seolheon said.”
Then I put strength into my grip.
Im Heechan’s shirt and knit vest wrinkled miserably.
“So he just wanted to let me know, and was just trying to take a picture. You call that threatening? So you hit the kid like that?”
“I, I told you I wasn’t trying to hit him! It was an accident that I knocked him over! No, maybe from the beginning he knew you’d come and was deliberately acting…!”
“That’s enough. I have nothing more to say to you.”
I roughly put down the hand gripping Im Heechan’s shoulder.
Since the other party had kicked away even the last chance, I had no more lingering attachment.
“Settlement will be difficult. So forget about the school violence committee or whatever. Let’s go by the law.”
“G-Gunho student! Wouldn’t it be better for you too to resolve this quietly within here? You just became student council president…”
“That’s exactly why. Shouldn’t the school take appropriate measures and help me?”
Originally, this school’s principal was famous as an iron rice bowl bureaucrat with a do-nothing attitude. But seeing him so openly trying to protect the perpetrator student, it seemed like he had received something from those silent parents besides just damage to the school’s image.
‘As expected, there’s no choice.’
I’ve been hiding it all along because I didn’t want to go through troublesome matters.
I didn’t know I’d have to reveal it right at the beginning of the semester like this.
Ding-a-ling.
As if confirming the message I sent, the bell rang at just the right timing.
“Contact just came.”
“C-contact? From who?”
“Is a video call okay for a moment?”
I opened my phone screen and brought it over to the marble table.
Though it was still a degraded old-generation phone, it was quite interesting that it was evolving into a smartphone form similar to my past life.
Soon a sharp-featured beauty appeared on the phone screen.
—Hello. Principal.
In front of a panoramic window overlooking downtown Seoul, a black-haired woman dressed in a suit opened her mouth.
—I’m Gunho’s mother, Baek Yeonhui.
For a moment, silence flowed as if everyone had swallowed their breath.
All gazes were fixed on only one point in the screen.
[Baekil Pharmaceuticals CEO. Baek Yeon Hui 白 然 熙]
It was a nameplate neatly placed in front of my adoptive mother.
