After the academic raccoon cotton candy incident, Saehyeon’s revised goal was this: First, put food on the table. And while extending his life so his feet wouldn’t burn to nothing, actively search for other viable solutions.
He had been so preoccupied with that immediate goal that he failed to keep one important matter in mind—a problem he only realized after getting a job first.
“I can’t exactly carry the kid around in a bag.”
Saehyeon had completely forgotten about the child who would be left alone while he worked.
“Hm?”
At those words, the child’s head snapped up. He had been rolling around on the fluffy dried blankets, so his hair was all puffed up and disheveled. Since he looked exactly like Gil Taeseo despite being miniature, it was somewhat comical.
Lee Taesol. That was the child’s name. Honestly, he still wasn’t used to the child’s existence or name, so he more often referred to him as “the kid” or “the child.” Perhaps because of that, the child now seemed to perk up his ears at any term that seemed to refer to him.
Watching the child like that, Saehyeon suddenly spoke up.
“Do you want to go to daycare?”
It was something he’d been thinking about for a long time. He wasn’t pleased about the additional expense, and he knew it would be troublesome to find a place that would provide childcare while he worked nights into dawn.
But he was bothered by how monotonous and isolated the child’s daily life was. Spending most of his time with a guardian whose body and memory weren’t intact, who had completely forgotten him.
The child was more sociable, smart, and quite adorable than expected. Their first meeting had been such a tearfest, and the childcare environment was like this, so it made his previous assumption that the child would be depressed and unstable seem ridiculous.
The child enjoyed even playing ball with crumpled paper, and laughed so hard during hide-and-seek that he seemed about to pass out.
That’s why he wanted to send him even more. To broaden his world and meet more people. He didn’t want him to be trapped with an imperfect guardian and think of home as a lonely place.
“I don’t want to! I can wait well.”
But the child was stubborn. The child wasn’t just bright and smart, but also quick-witted with a fox-like side to him, and now Saehyeon had to add obstinate tendencies to that list.
Once he decided something, it seemed he wouldn’t be satisfied until he carried it through. Yet while doing so, he’d glance around reading the mood and grin, making it impossible to dislike him.
“Ha. Fine… do what you want.”
In the end, Saehyeon postponed persuading the child to tomorrow and started his work routine for today.
First, he bathed the child and told him what not to do and what to do. Never use heat sources including the gas range, don’t open the door for strangers, etc.
And after the child fell asleep, leaving through the door was the final part of the routine.
After securing the door locks firmly, he passed through the long corridor. The old sensor lights attached to the corridor flickered as if they’d break at any moment.
Having descended all the cracked concrete stairs, Saehyeon cast a briefly worried glance toward the room where the child slept.
And not even a few hours later, Saehyeon was gasping for breath, thinking:
He should have worried more about his own safety than the child who was smart and in a relatively safe place.
Saehyeon had physically castrated a regular customer at his temporary workplace today. The reason wasn’t unreasonable. He should have stopped at groping in the store and not done this kind of thing. Ptui.
***
The saying that a leaky pot at home leaks outside too, and that a dog’s habit never changes, must mean exactly this. Saehyeon crossed his arms crookedly with eyes like rotten pollack.
The customers who came to this alley were mostly people who came thinking they could do something to omegas or women. Such people behaved similarly at convenience stores. There were even blatant cases where they acted as if this was some VIP room and the staff were hosts.
Most of them just acted a bit sleazy and left it at that, but there are exceptions everywhere. Among the problem customers, Mr. Gwak, whom Saehyeon hated enough to grind his teeth, was exactly that type.
The business card the man forcibly shoved at him went straight into the trash, and he tried to let all the blabbering pass through, but not all of it was successful.
While the sound traveled from his left ear to his right, some information remained in his brain like inadequately filtered dregs.
The man’s surname was Gwak, he was forty looking thirty, and seemed to be in management at an establishment nearby. Apparently he had a position in some corporate-style loan shark gang that controlled this area, or something.
Seeing how long he bragged, you could guess there was definitely a lot of exaggeration involved.
But just one thing—the fact that the man was an alpha would be true.
“Why work in a place like this? If you go over there, what you earn here is all pocket change, pocket change.”
The man leaning on the counter chuckled and wiggled his hand. It was Mr. Gwak, who had shown up again today without fail. Every time he moved, the gold accessories hung all over his body glinted.
The man didn’t just brag about his wealth or position in the organization. He’d leak blatant pheromones in front of Saehyeon and examine his face, as if expecting some reaction.
“If you’re not buying anything, leave.”
But Saehyeon only made a contemptuous expression. The reason was simple. He was relatively free from the influence of pheromones.
For a while after first learning he had become an omega, he’d lived glued to the internet and books. Omega characteristics were largely two things: being extremely vulnerable to alpha pheromones, and having a heat cycle called the heat cycle.
Saehyeon naturally had no confidence he could handle all those characteristics.
But contrary to his fears, no matter how much time passed, the heat cycle never came. He had never gone into heat for any manifestor.
At most, under such blatant pheromones like this, his fingertips tingled a little.
Saehyeon could vaguely guess the reason. His damaged pheromone glands must have had an effect.
He curled his tingling fingers inward and made a fist. The pain like poking the soft flesh under his nails with sharp needles was severely irritating.
Even himself for being stressed by this.
He spat out warnings and rejections several times, but the other party was persistent. Saehyeon sighed as if there was no choice and delivered an ultimatum.
“I carry around a hatchet.”
The man who had been ignoring everything and only saying what he wanted to say abruptly shut his mouth.
His body that had been thrust forward also pulled back. Until just before, Mr. Gwak had been leaning on the counter as if he’d jump inside at any opportunity.
“…You’re quite the joker. Sure, you’re pretty. But bouncing around too much is also, eh?”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
Saehyeon raised the corners of his mouth very slightly, being careful not to smile too big. When he did this, his face, which already looked dull and mean-spirited, turned subtly worse.
To borrow his enemy’s words, it was a face like someone who had just buried someone in a drum barrel and returned.
Additionally, the mental load and physical fatigue that had continuously accumulated since waking up in a 28-year-old body, and the venomous heart that grew stronger the more this happened, made a strange gleam appear in his dead eyes.
Mr. Gwak flinched in surprise and stepped back several paces. Soon, seemingly deeply hurt in his pride at having been scared and retreated, he scowled.
To suffer such humiliation from an omega, not even another alpha. Weren’t omegas inferior beings who couldn’t even compare to alphas?
“Ha, really now.”
The man who had been huffing and stomping his feet irritably suddenly raised his head. His chubby fingers with gold rings on them came close enough to point right at Saehyeon.
“This one’s more impudent than I thought. Keep that up and you’ll get your nose broken one day.”
The man snorted, grabbed the cigarettes he’d placed on the counter, and turned around. He didn’t forget to spit phlegm on the floor either.
Saehyeon felt uncomfortable as he watched Mr. Gwak’s huffing retreating figure. Unlike usual, the aftertaste was unpleasantly sticky and lingering.
Still, even in that situation, Saehyeon didn’t forget to secretly raise his middle finger behind his back.
At the time, he just thought it was fortunate. No matter what, it wasn’t like he’d actually carry a hatchet around.
Thinking about it now, he shouldn’t have ended it at timidly cursing at the back of his head. Though it would honestly be impossible unless he could see the future.
The incident happened on the way home from work. The convenience store where Saehyeon worked required several more turns into the alley lined with establishments and clubs, so even on his way home, he had to go against all these routes.
Between alleys, when passing through a particularly deserted and secluded spot. An arm that suddenly shot out from behind strangled Saehyeon’s neck and pulled him back.
“What…”
At his breath suddenly being choked, Saehyeon made a choking sound and was about to scream when he was blocked by a large hand. The rough hand reeking of cigarettes could cover the nose and mouth of his gaunt face in one go.
As he struggled frantically, humid breath reached his ear. The man giggled and whispered.
“See? I told you you’d get your nose broken, didn’t I?”
At that moment, he remembered that uncomfortable feeling from earlier. That dirty sensation that kept clinging no matter how quickly he tried to shake it off.
The intense premonition he had tried hard to ignore had become an unfortunate reality, instantly choking his breath.
