“Hey. ‘Kindergarten.'”
However, I couldn’t dismiss as an auditory hallucination the sound of Kim Jaeui’s voice calling my name.
“Walk quietly. Okay?”
I didn’t turn around. Kim Jaeui’s arm draped over my shoulder. Kim Jaeui led me across the crosswalk and turned into an alley. My head was like a blank sheet of paper. Why was Kim Jaeui talking to me?
Eorin’s words not to get close to Kim Jaeui came to mind and then disappeared. I consciously tried to breathe slowly. How many steps had we walked? When there were fewer people around, Kim Jaeui stood behind me and leaned down to whisper in my ear.
“Kindergarten.”
“…….”
“Not answering?”
“…….”
“Ah, are you so scared by the pheromones you can’t speak?”
I opened my eyes wide. My feet stopped. The mint scent was cut off abruptly and only the lingering scent remained.
“You’re an omega.”
Kim Jaeui laughed. Kim Jaeui’s face, properly seen for the first time under the streetlight, had not the slightest resemblance to Eorin.
“Right? The reason you couldn’t move and were scared that day was because you’re an omega.”
“……, …….”
“No one at school knows you’re an omega. Everyone calls you a beta. The orphanage you live in is a place that only gathers omega orphans to begin with.”
Father said so. Kim Jaeui smiled round and round.
“How did this happen?”
Kim Jaeui muttered. It was a tone that seemed genuinely amused.
The fact that our orphanage only protected omega children was information not publicly known. No, people wouldn’t know in the first place that orphanages were divided by pheromone disposition. Because no one cared.
To care for omega children, all the teachers at our orphanage were either betas or omegas, and there wasn’t a single alpha. But if it became known that young, helpless omega children with no immunity to alpha pheromones were gathered there, it would be very easy to expose them to crime, so related information was kept from being known outside. But if someone wanted to find out, they could find out easily enough. A place like our orphanage that didn’t accept volunteers meant it was most likely an omega orphanage. But it would have been even easier for Kim Jaeui. He only had to ask his father, who would know many people at the Haebam Foundation.
Since I kept not speaking, Kim Jaeui suddenly buried his face in the back of my neck. Goosebumps spread all over my body. I desperately forced strength into my legs that felt like they would give out and stood there with my eyes squeezed shut. My body trembled violently. Kim Jaeui took a deep breath and said.
“You smell like wood…….”
The moment I heard those words, tears and breath burst out together. Kim Jaeui giggled.
“D-don’t say it.”
“Why?”
“Don’t say it. Don’t say it.”
I only repeated those words. Unable to look at Kim Jaeui’s face, I closed my eyes tightly and lowered my head, and Kim Jaeui’s fingers tapped my cheek. Tears rolled down to the tip of my chin and fell.
“Don’t say it?”
“…….”
“To Kim Eorin?”
Kim Jaeui’s voice calling Eorin’s name was tinged with an emotion difficult to pinpoint. It was a thick, dank emotion.
“Yeah, I have no intention of telling.”
At those words, I raised my head.
“But just because I don’t tell, do you think Kim Eorin won’t know?”
Kim Jaeui grinned and rubbed the back of my neck with his thumb. I was almost in a panic, gasping for breath.
“Do you think Kim Eorin won’t smell the pheromones I smelled?”
Kim Jaeui said this and laughed until his eyes folded.
Kim Jaeui left me there and walked away. I didn’t remember how I got back to the orphanage. Without properly looking at the teachers’ faces, I ran into my room. Without even spreading out my blanket, I crouched on the floor and thought endlessly. What should I do? What should I do? What happened?
I didn’t want to become like middle school again. I shouldn’t go back to that. I shouldn’t. After teaching me this happiness where just looking makes me smile, after suddenly placing it in my hands without any effort on my part. As if mocking me floundering excitedly, it couldn’t be snatched away like that.
I had thought I would absolutely never let anyone find out I was an omega. How did they find out? Where did my pheromones leak out…….
Then Eorin too? Did Eorin know too? If even Kim Jaeui could find out with just one phone call to his father, what about Eorin, whose grandfather was the Foundation Chairman?
Suddenly those words flashed by. Didn’t he take you in out of pity?
It would be better if that were the case. I bit my lips tightly as sobs were about to burst out.
It was a terrible feeling. Why was I afraid of Eorin?
Because Eorin was an alpha? Because he was someone who held everything of mine? Because he was someone I admired? Because he was my first friend in life?
I was the worst kind of person who even doubted my friend. I couldn’t trust Eorin. Junsu too, Woojin too—if they found out I was an omega, it felt like everyone would change.
After crying silently for a while, I turned my gaze. At the end of my gaze was an old desk drawer.
At the end of April, there were midterm exams. Since it was the first test after entering high school, the atmosphere was strangely floating. Although there probably wasn’t a plan to look at them again, whenever teachers said they would test something, the kids drew lines in their books with shining eyes. When the bell rang and the math teacher left the classroom, and the kids got noisy, I laid my head down on my desk.
“Chiwon-ah, are you sleepy?”
“Yeah, a little.”
Actually, I wasn’t sleepy. I closed my eyes while lying down and breathed slowly. My head was dizzy.
“Is Chiwon sick somewhere?”
I heard Junsu’s voice. And someone’s fingers touched my forehead. I struggled desperately not to shrink my shoulders.
“I’m fine.”
“Your face is pale.”
“I couldn’t sleep last night.”
It wasn’t a lie. Strong medicine on a body with no immunity even brought insomnia.
Two weeks had passed since I met Kim Jaeui. That meant it had been two weeks since I started taking the medicine. Right now, not a trace of pheromones could be smelled from me. Because it was that kind of medicine.
Pheromone suppressants were on the expensive side. At least for me they were. But because they were also used to regulate heat cycles or endure heat, suppressants were classified as daily necessities, and suppressants were provided to the orphanage monthly according to the number of children. Since omega abuse issues like forced suppressant consumption were sensitive matters, it was a principle that matters regarding pheromones were entirely decided by the individual, and above all, since all the children had different cycles that weren’t regular, it was impossible to manage each one individually. So the teachers periodically distributed medicine to all of us while earnestly admonishing us never to take it carelessly and to always consult when taking it. Since I only experienced heat cycles about two or three times a year, the medicine rationed to me was piled up neatly in my desk drawer. I didn’t know it would be helpful like this.
Originally, it was medicine that shouldn’t be taken like this. But I was backed into a corner. In a world where one wrong step felt like it would all end, the option of completely erasing my pheromones with medicine seemed the best I had.
“I’ll wake you up when class starts, so do you want to sleep a bit?”
“Yeah.”
I forced my eyes closed. I felt Eorin’s hand stroking my hair. I leaned into that warm touch. While condemning my own cowardice for not trusting my friend yet trying to be comforted by that warmth.
Whether Kim Jaeui’s words about not telling Eorin were true, Kim Jaeui didn’t deliberately walk near me and Eorin. But there were times we occasionally ran into each other, whether going to different classes or during lunch time. During lunch today too, Kim Jaeui, walking with his tray, greeted Eorin casually and as he passed by me, subtly released his pheromones. I turned my head to hide my face that must have gone pale and curled up my trembling fingertips. Three alphas followed Kim Jaeui, glaring this way as they walked away.
“They’re starting again.”
Junsu grumbled.
“What?”
Woojin seemed not to have felt anything. Junsu pondered for a moment, then continued speaking, taking advantage of Eorin getting up to drink water and leaving the cafeteria.
“The guy in front earlier was Kim Jaeui and the other guys are Kim Jaeui’s followers, and they hate Eorin terribly. I hate them so much too. From what I see, it’s because Eorin won’t play with them, right? So freaking childish. They went around saying alphas should only play with alphas or something like that. They even said to me, what was it? To know my place?”
They’re so fucking petty and old-fashioned. Junsu showed rare genuine irritation. It seemed there were many incidents with that side while hanging out with Eorin in middle school. Unable to swallow my food, I swallowed my saliva.
“Don’t worry about what they say, you guys too.”
Before Eorin returned, Junsu finished speaking and shook his head. Even so, since Kim Jaeui was Eorin’s sixth cousin, it seemed he was a bit reluctant to openly say he disliked him in front of Eorin.
When Eorin returned, as if to refresh the atmosphere, Junsu gobbled down his food and raised his spoon to shout.
“Let’s play basketball!”
At those words, Woojin’s eyes lit up and he followed Junsu, starting to shove food into his mouth. The basketball club we had joined had many people, but above all the atmosphere was free, so they said that on the first and second week of every month, everyone officially practiced together to build fundamentals, and the rest of the time we could freely play basketball. Woojin, for whom properly learning basketball was a first, came to like basketball much more after the official practice, and now whenever Junsu said to play basketball, he would run out first. It was a surprising change for a kid who had been so lethargic.
If we ate lunch quickly and ran to the playground, we could claim the basketball court first. Even though it seemed like he’d only taken a few bites, Woojin’s tray started showing the bottom. A moment later, Woojin stood up abruptly from his seat and said.
“I’ll go first and save us a spot.”
“Ah, I’ll go with you. If you go alone, you’ll get pushed out by numbers. You go first and I’ll grab the basketball and come right down.”
Junsu put the last spoonful in his mouth, gathered his tray and stood up while speaking. Eorin tapped Junsu beside him.
“Don’t run too much. You’ll get indigestion.”
“Okay!”
The excited two disappeared in a hurry, and when it got a bit quieter, Eorin asked me.
“Do you want to play too?”
“Mm…….”
To be honest, I didn’t really want to. My body felt heavy. But perhaps it showed in my expression, as Eorin shook his head.
“Looking at you today, you don’t seem well, so don’t push yourself.”
