There were things that had changed.
Surprisingly, while I had been asleep, I had grown four centimeters — making me 182 centimeters tall.
My appearance had changed too. I had lost both fat and muscle, so I looked gaunt, but my nose bridge had become more defined with age and the baby fat had disappeared. Had someone been watching me every day for six years, they might not have noticed — but from my perspective, it was as if it had all changed overnight, and at first it was quite a shock.
But changes like these were trivial compared to the biggest change of all.
I had become a secondary gender type.
“What? A dominant omega? But I was unconscious — how is that even possible……?”
“Even in a comatose state, it is possible for hormones to be secreted from the pituitary gland in the hypothalamus. Since the manifestation four years ago, the hormone cycles have passed rather faintly.”
The attending physician explained that now that my body was returning to a normal state, I would need to pay careful attention to my hormone cycles as well — but the words barely registered. More than that, what shocked me was that I could now detect the pheromone scents of the people around me — something I had never been able to feel before.
It was fascinating, yet somewhat disorienting, to have a world I had never known suddenly open up to me.
I used to date omega and beta girls — and now I’m not even an alpha, but an omega. And as the doctor had warned, I would soon be going through a proper heat cycle too. It was hard to even imagine.
Back in the day, when a secondary-type classmate with a sensitive nose would comment on other people’s pheromone scents — saying things like it’s floral, like perfume or more on the herbal side — I used to think, what on earth is that person talking about? It was a topic that came up while a group of us were huddled by the classroom window during break, giggling — and only the secondary types nodded along.
I had been quietly annoyed at being left out of a conversation I knew nothing about, while dominant alpha Kwon Wookyung, sitting in the next seat, read the book in his hands as if none of it concerned him.
“Hey, why are you all talking about something I don’t know?”
“If you’re jealous, just go ahead and manifest already.”
“Ugh, it’s rough being a beta. My mom always said I had a sharp nose.”
Maybe I could smell it if I got close enough? Resting my chin on my hand, I felt a sudden surge of stubbornness — so I grabbed Kwon Wookyung’s left arm and buried my nose straight into his skin and sniffed.
“What do you think you’re doing.”
“Ah, just hold still for a second.”
Why can’t I smell anything? Why?
It sort of smells warm and cozy? Or is that just… skin?
A startled Kwon Wookyung yanked his arm back, and since I couldn’t match his strength, I aimed for his nape instead. His expression twisted, and he stood up from his seat, took a few steps back, and glared at me. The back of his neck was red.
“Are you crazy. Shin Haehyeon, you’re such a pervert!”
“Ahahaha! Like that’s gonna work? What are you, a dog?”
The kids watching bent over laughing. I wrinkled my nose and slumped back against my chair.
I wonder if at least our Haeyong could smell it.
Once I gave up, Kwon Wookyung sat back down and picked up his book. The way he held it straight up and furrowed his brow just slightly made it perfectly clear — I’m going to focus on this book, so don’t talk to me. So petty, honestly.
“So what does Kwon Wookyung smell like?”
I asked Choi Seonho, our class’s self-appointed pheromone critic. Choi Seonho, who had been giggling, answered.
“Kwon Wookyung’s is something mysterious — like a chypre fragrance. More on the woody and patchouli side.”
Chypre? Patchouli? What even is that. Hearing it didn’t help at all.
After that day, having developed an interest in scents, I had gone around sniffing all kinds of perfumes. They say pheromones from secondary types are actually quite different from plant-based perfumes — but it was more that I had gotten competitive about it.
My friends hadn’t meant anything by it — they were just teasing — but as a non-type, I had often felt a strange sense of being left out. That was because in a family where both my parents were dominant alpha and omega, and both my hyungs were dominant alphas, I was the only beta. Back then, I had quietly harbored a secret hope — maybe I’ll manifest late, as an alpha like my hyungs?
Anyway — that was how I had at least a rough sense of what my own pheromone scent was like.
If I were to compare it to a perfume, it called to mind a fresh, bright citrus with fruity floral notes.
In general, it was common for people to barely be able to detect their own scent. But perhaps because this was essentially the first time I was smelling my own scent since manifesting, it still came across only faintly to me.
As I was pressing my nose to my own arm and sniffing, Haechan hyung looked at me like I was pathetic.
“What are you doing?”
“I mean, it’s fascinating. I guess I won’t need perfume anymore.”
“Still, wash yourself often. Don’t go around looking like a mess just because you’ve got a nice scent.”
“…I wash every day, you know?”
“What about the times you’d sleep drenched in sweat, all grimy?”
“Oh, come on! How long ago was that?!”
You’re really going to keep bringing up that one time I passed out on the living room sofa because practice was too brutal?
I fumed, but hyung ignored me and stepped out of the car, walking off with long, confident strides.
Shin Haechan, I swear. The day I can run again, I’m kicking you in the shin. Just you wait.
Since I had to come in for outpatient rehabilitation and check-ups, I had to go back and forth to the hospital almost every day. We had Driver Park who helped with household matters, so I could have gone alone — but my younger hyung insisted on coming along every time, finding any chance he could to hassle me.
Shin Haechan had just finished his internship at the very hospital where I was receiving treatment, and was supposed to enter his first year as an orthopedic resident in March — he was in a position where even two bodies wouldn’t be enough. And yet, claiming he’d been wanting an excuse to slack off and that this worked out perfectly, he declared he was taking a few months off — then abruptly submitted his leave of absence and spent every day at home with me. Someone who had skipped ahead in life by graduating high school early seemed to have grown tired of everything.
Dad, who ran a food trading company, and my older hyung, who helped Dad with his work, were both terribly busy with frequent business trips. The two of them had pushed back a lot of work over the past two months to visit the hospital often, and these days it was hard to see their faces. According to Mom, Dad and older hyung would slip in and out of the house while I was asleep, but always made a point of looking at my sleeping face before leaving.
When I came through the front door on my crutches, Mom was standing on the other side, smiling.
The smell of freshly cooked food. And faintly, a soft floral and herbal scent drifted to me.
“My little rice pup. Was the treatment tough?”
Haeyong, who genuinely looked the part of a little rice pup, came over and gave a loud bark.
“It was manageable. I think my handwriting has gotten a little better. Want to see?”
I pulled the paper I’d tucked in my pocket and handed it to Mom.
Dad
Mom
Haejun hyung ♡
Shin Haechan ^ㅗ^
☆Haehyeon Shin★
“My, it’s starting to look like your handwriting from elementary school.”
Mom wrapped the paper carefully in her hands and muttered that she should put it in a frame. Just like how the drawings I’d brought home from kindergarten had ended up pinned all around the living room — I could already picture a future where my handwriting would decorate every corner of the house.
I started to object, then closed my mouth. As long as Mom’s happy, that’s fine.
“Wait just a little. I’m making dinner with the housekeeper and it’s almost ready.”
“Okay. Mom, can I have a glass of water?”
Honestly, I didn’t have the energy to go up to the second floor and come back down, so I went and sat in the first-floor living room. When I settled onto the sofa, Haeyong quietly followed and sat at my feet, then gently rested his head against my leg.
I was the one who had named Haeyong when he first came home as a newborn, and the one who had played with him the most. Whether he remembered all the walks and playtime, Haeyong, bless him, kept trying to stay close by my side.
“Yongyong, were you doing okay without your hyung~?”
“Kyung~”
“Want to watch TV with hyung~?”
“Woof.”
I was gently scratching under Haeyong’s chin when Mom brought me a glass of water.
I gripped the water glass tightly with one hand and clumsily pressed the remote control on the table with the other. I had rarely watched TV to begin with, so it had been quite a long time.
〈If you’d like to enjoy fresh seasonal seafood, this is the place to be…〉
〈A price like this for a duck-down puffer, you won’t see again…〉
Pressing the remote buttons as practice for strengthening my fingertips, the channels flipped quickly. A reporter with a booming voice gave way to a confident shopping host’s gestures, which then shifted to the calm smile of a female presenter.
〈It’s the talk of the town — the star of the hit new release Black City! We have actor Kwon Wookyung with us today!〉
…What?
The camera’s focus shifted to a man who dipped his head in a slight bow.
〈Hello. I’m actor Kwon Wookyung. Thank you for having me.〉
It was the Kwon Wookyung I knew.
I stared blankly at the screen, not even noticing the water glass slipping from my hand after I had just taken a sip.
Why are you showing up here?
Clatter—!
It was only when the cup hit the floor with a loud crash that I caught my weakened right hand with my left.
“What was that? Are you hurt?”
Haechan hyung, who must have just come downstairs to the first floor, walked quickly into the living room.
“Huh? No, my hand just suddenly gave out and I dropped the cup.”
Fortunately, it was a plastic cup, so it hadn’t shattered. All that happened was the water it had been full of spilled all over the floor.
“Damn it, I thought you got hurt! You’re so careless. Should I feed you the water too?”
Hyung grumbled as he yanked out tissue after tissue, wiped the floor roughly, and set the cup back on the table.
“Hyung.”
I still couldn’t take my eyes off the TV screen.
“That’s Kwon Wookyung, isn’t it? Right?”
His expression was a little unfamiliar, but the face — the voice — was the one I knew. There was no need to confirm it, yet I felt like I had to. If hyung said it wasn’t him, I felt like I could somehow accept it — “Oh, not Kwon Wookyung after all.”
Haechan hyung, who had been crouched on the marble floor wiping it up, glanced at the screen and frowned.
“Yeah.”
That was all. To my ears, it was answer enough.
