Prologue
“Um…….”
“This is the fast-acting suppressant.”
A flushed face, ragged breaths coming in bursts of color. There are things you can tell without even having to ask. The man standing in front of him was in a heat cycle. He quickly bent down and pulled out a suppressant from where it sat within easy reach. Pretty face like that, being an omega must be so hard…….
But the man only stared at the suppressant with a troubled expression. He might not have the strength to take it, or he could be the type the medication doesn’t work on. Is it recessive? Late-onset? Anything stronger than this would need a hospital visit. Does he not even have the strength to pick this up? The beta pharmacist reached worriedly for his phone.
“Um, I…….”
“If you’re feeling too unwell, please come inside for a moment. The smell of the medicine should help mask the pheromone scent a little. I’ll call an ambulance for you…….”
“I came to buy cold medicine…….”
I’m a beta. Hee-won muttered in a voice that sounded like he might cry, his face burning red with humiliation.
He hung his head, chewing on the bitter pill without any water. It was his own fault for forgetting to take it in front of the water dispenser — he’d felt too awkward around the flustered pharmacist to stick around. His mouth tasted awful.
Being mistaken for an omega or an alpha was something that happened quite often. Thirty years was long enough for the world to change three times over, so you’d think he’d be used to it by now — but he still wasn’t.
At this point, there was a strong likelihood that when God was making Jin Hee-won, He’d meant to pour in the omega or alpha solution, accidentally spilled the beta solution instead, and sent him down to the human world just like that.
He let out a sigh. Again today, the bag on his back held nothing but a laptop with dozens of résumés saved on it. He’d barely scraped by and graduated at twenty-six, narrowly avoiding the fate of becoming a fossil. And naturally, he’d hit the pavement trying to find a job like everyone else — but nothing had come of it.
Up until he was twenty-eight, he’d told himself I need to get hired before I turn thirty — but here he was, still running around even now, when thirty was yesterday, thirty is today, thirty is tomorrow, and thirty is the day after that.
“Are you by any chance the eldest child?”
“Pardon?”
“You just have such great energy…….”
The only ones who ever stopped him were these cult-like proselytizers. Apparently even they specifically targeted betas. Hee-won instinctively scrunched his face and looked at the man blabbering away in front of him. The man wore a grave expression, as if he were delivering a speech at some official occasion, rambling frantically about how to get the ancestral spirits on your side and make things go well. He even added that he truly and personally believed every word of it.
He forced back the urge to scoff. If there were ancestral spirits, wouldn’t they have gotten me a job first?
“Are you very busy right now?”
“Yes……. My sister’s waiting for me.”
“We’re in the middle of an important conversation, so if you could push that appointment back a little…….”
His face scrunched of its own accord. I’m telling you in the nicest way possible that even if I had all the time in the world, I have none to spare for you — and you can’t even read that? Though honestly, no matter how he looked at it, the man clearly wasn’t failing to read the room so much as choosing to ignore it.
Then there was only one move left.
“I need to get my sister’s rut suppressant to her right away. I’m sorry.”
Hee-won’s grave expression must have made the other man realize something, because he backed off. He walked straight past him and broke into a run. Alphas have rut cycles, omegas have heat cycles — what, betas get nothing?
Must be nice, having a sister who’s an alpha.
“So you used my name again today?”
“Yeah.”
“Poor Jin Hee-won. Not even an alpha like me — if you didn’t use my name, you’d never get away, never get a job.”
“I really hate you, sis.”
“I really love me.”
Chae-won cupped her face in both hands and laughed brightly as she headed into her room. So this is what it takes to feel better — teasing her one and only little brother like this. A thriving designer and an alpha at that, there was no way she could understand the heart of a beta job-seeker.
History had handed alphas and omegas the top spot in an invisible food chain. Dominant alphas and dominant omegas wielded influence in politics, and even recessive ones — as long as they had the alpha or omega label — could land decent company positions without much trouble.
He let out a deep sigh. The 21st century, and the world was in the grip of the few rather than the many. Between husbands and wives in high places lobbying from the inside, most companies these days had rules requiring them to hire alphas and omegas above a certain ratio.
And yet, laughably, betas had nowhere to go — same as it ever was. The medical field, where one couldn’t afford to be stirred up by heat cycles or ruts, had a comparatively higher number of betas, but Jin Hee-won was just an ordinary humanities graduate job-seeker.
He still didn’t want to lower his standards just because he’d gone to a decent university — but at the same time, most of the major corporations were already saturated with alphas and omegas, so he couldn’t get hired anyway.
He sprawled across the living room sofa and glared at the ceiling. The interview he’d had not long ago was the same story. His turn had probably never even come — they’d already been filled up before he got there.
“Hey, if you’re really struggling, just come work under me and do odd jobs. I’ll make sure the pay isn’t anything to complain about.”
“Right, come work under your sister.”
Chae-won poked her head out from her room and called out loudly. Hearing that, their father also appeared from the kitchen and nodded his agreement.
The men in this family seem to be cursed with being betas, generation after generation. Even at matchmaking agencies, the most sought-after partners were dominant omega and alpha men and women, followed by regular omegas and alphas, then recessives, and finally betas last.
Even among beta men and women, male betas were treated the worst. The reason being that the probability of a child born between a male beta and their partner also being a beta was the highest.
Hee-won’s mother, who had married his beta father, was an omega — a genuinely rare case. They’d barely managed to avoid the situation where his father couldn’t even cross the threshold of his mother’s family home, all thanks to his sister being born a dominant alpha. The odds of an alpha being born between a male beta and an omega were close to miraculous — and Chae-won had pulled off that miracle.
Hee-won still got the cold shoulder whenever he visited his maternal relatives. Unlike his sister, he’d attended public beta schools all through elementary, middle, and high school, then clawed his way into a prestigious university that admitted students regardless of trait — and even there, he’d faced every kind of discrimination imaginable. Didn’t you get in through the beta-only track? Is there even a track like that? Can betas even take notes? He’d heard it all, endlessly.
Hee-won shook his head. If it was like that even at a university where entry was decided by grades, there was no way job-hunting would be any easier. All he could do was pray that some extraordinary string of coincidences and miracles would line up for him. There are things in this world that truly can’t be solved by effort alone.
And then, it actually happened.
“So basically you don’t know the details either, but out of nowhere two spots opened up in front of you? They probably got offers from other companies or something.”
“Maybe. They must have gotten into better places and left in such a hurry — both of them at once. This is just my guess though.”
“Well yeah, it’s not like any company would tell someone who hasn’t even started yet why people dropped out.”
“And the next reserve number just happened to be me — a beta, of all things. I heard the other person who got in is also a beta…….”
“Who cares. Good is good.”
Chae-won, now on her third can of beer, laughed freely. The thought of my little beta brother being thrown into a place absolutely drenched in pheromones already breaks my heart. Hee-won chewed on the dried filefish set out as a snack for a long time.
It’s fine. Hee-won can’t smell any of it anyway — not the alphas’ fresh mint scent, not the omegas’ sweet peach scent. It’s obvious he’ll just go in, spend his days grimacing through the stench of sweat, and come home.
Just work. Only work. Work even if it kills me. He pulled a grave face.
“Jin Hee-won, let this older sister of yours — a dominant alpha — give you one piece of advice.”
“Right, so the primitive beta should listen up, is that it.”
“Exactly. First of all, the moment you walk in, everything around you is going to make your life difficult. I can’t say for certain, but there are plenty of alphas and omegas who have never even encountered a beta before. Even so — only make friends with betas. Alphas and omegas are all people above you, so don’t try talking to them.”
“Isn’t it a problem if I don’t get close to the people above me?”
“The moment you catch their eye, your life is ruined.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be careful not to let my life get ruined. The red carpet’s finally been rolled out for me.”
Chae-won shrugged. She was about to tilt the last of the beer from her can into her mouth when something seemed to occur to her, and she waved at Hee-won to bring his ear closer. Sis, you smell like alcohol. Even as he scrunched his face, Hee-won leaned in, and she whispered.
“I’ll teach you the magic spell that works on every single alpha and omega.”
“This is the break room for employees who are in their heat cycle, and over there is the break room for employees who are in their rut. Suppressants are stocked not only in each break room but also in the restrooms. Employees with allergies to certain scents have been identified in advance and assigned to different teams. Those employees will be given separate relocation guidance, so please come speak with me about it later.”
He tagged along among the new employees, listening to the orientation. Not that he’d expected any different, but sure enough — there was no break room for betas. Basically, while everyone around you is gasping for air, you can’t smell a thing, so go have a cup of coffee.
He didn’t even understand why they bothered stocking suppressants. Who goes around without suppressants these days? They sell them in subway vending machines, and while pricey, hospitals can even perform procedures to halt rut or heat cycles entirely.
Save the betas.
Was literally everyone either an alpha or an omega? Hee-won seriously looked around for where he was supposed to be. He and one other person were the only ones looking straight ahead. Looking at the new employee guide, there was even leave available for rut or heat periods.
“Our company proudly boasts equal employment with 45 percent alpha and 45 percent omega.”
So betas making up 10 percent has absolutely no bearing on equality — got it. He understood. Thirty years of living as a beta and being treated unfairly. This was nothing. You could tell just from the fact that in a group of nearly twenty people, only two were betas.
