Taeon knew why Yuhyeon was growling at him like this.
When he welcomed his rut because of Sunjeong at the motel, Taeon had been heading to the motel to spend Yuhyeon’s heat cycle together. Because of what happened afterward, he couldn’t even contact him and ended up going dark. Afterward, messages poured in like crazy and he explained that he was sorry and that something had happened, but Yuhyeon’s anger clearly hadn’t subsided.
“Why did you shave your head? Looking at your face, you seem to be living well?”
Taeon had no will to deal with Yuhyeon, who was being sarcastic to the fullest.
Taeon just acknowledged him with his eyes, which seemed to annoy Yuhyeon even more.
“Shameless bastard.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I thought you were angry about the motel thing back then.”
“No, fuck. That’s in the past.”
“Then why are you like this?”
Continuing the conversation facing Yuhyeon like this, it felt like returning to the old days. Because there was a time when Taeon casually had such conversations not only with Yuhyeon but with any omega.
“Why have you been going dark lately?”
“Huh?”
Whether Taeon’s blank answer made him angrier, Yuhyeon huffed and opened his mouth.
“Fuck, how many times did I send you messages about your rut? But why aren’t you reading texts at all during heat lately? So I spent my heat with that ugly bastard before. I really didn’t want to do it with that bastard even if it killed me.”
“Ah…”
Since Sunjeong stopped appearing in front of Taeon, Taeon had somehow become lethargic about everything.
He started taking suppressants because things like heats and ruts were all annoying. At the same time, he turned off all notifications because it was annoying to reply one by one to messages sent by the omegas he used to spend nights with.
There were now over hundreds of unread messages, but he had no interest.
Yuhyeon’s message seemed to be one of them.
He was about to say sorry when Taeon paused for a moment. Do I have to apologize for not having sex? This thought crossed his mind, but he soon shook his head. It wasn’t just sex. They were helping each other out, but he disappeared without notice, so it was reasonable to be troubled.
“I’m sorry.”
Even at Taeon’s obedient words, the sharp edge of Yuhyeon’s gaze didn’t become round.
“If you’re sorry, then come on.”
Now even Taeon was a bit puzzled. He felt sufficiently sorry to Yuhyeon, but just because he couldn’t be a heat cycle partner didn’t mean he had to keep pleading sorry.
“Then let’s do it today, each other. My heat is coming soon.”
“Ridiculous. Your heat is at the end of the month.”
While saying this, Taeon could feel Yuhyeon’s intention in the pheromones he was spewing.
Yuhyeon was lying right now. There was none of that characteristic feeling of heat when entering a heat cycle.
“You know it’s better to do it in advance, right?”
Yuhyeon’s confidence was probably because he thought Taeon’s alpha pheromones would react to him.
But Taeon was now taking suppressants.
As a dominant omega, Yuhyeon’s pheromones were excessively sweet, but that was all. It was just a smell that felt good to smell. It didn’t stimulate Taeon at all.
“What’s with you?”
As expected, Yuhyeon sensitively retorted to Taeon’s reaction.
“Why are you okay?”
To Yuhyeon looking at him with a puzzled expression, Taeon decided to tell the truth.
“Why are you okay right now, Yoon Taeon?”
“I take suppressants now.”
“What, suppressants?”
In front of the surprised Yuhyeon, Taeon quietly nodded his head.
“Crazy. Yoon Taeon, did you win the lottery? Or the pension lottery?”
In front of Yuhyeon asking in an absurd voice, Taeon let out a hollow laugh.
In the neighborhood where they lived, in their class, there were hardly any cases of taking suppressants.
It wasn’t so expensive that accessibility itself was closed, but since it took up quite a large part of their livelihood, people who would live in this neighborhood for life anyway didn’t even think about taking suppressants from the start.
After turning twenty, past the time when they had to mandatorily take suppressants provided by school, they stuck together and tangled as they pleased like animals or with fixed partners during rut and heat cycle periods, and then got pregnant and married—that was the standardized route.
“It’s a strategy to make the lower class breed like rats laying eggs. Their population is important to us.”
Once during high school class time, a teacher teaching economics said this.
He was clearly the type who graduated from such a private school and had never set foot in the neighborhood where Taeon lived.
The reason Taeon wasn’t entirely offended by these words was because he felt a strange pity in his voice explaining how suppressants were excluded from insurance coverage and the average market price was higher than other necessities.
So Taeon thought that was the path he would walk. However, he didn’t want to irresponsibly have children like his parents, so condoms were essential. He just firmly solidified this level of thinking.
“What suppressants for a slut like you, Yoon Taeon? It doesn’t fucking suit you at all.”
“Kim Yuhyeon, watch your mouth.”
Perhaps because Taeon’s voice was quite fierce, Yuhyeon quickly shut his mouth. But his expression full of dissatisfaction remained the same.
Eventually, forcing a smile on his face, Yuhyeon said one more thing.
“You are a slut though.”
“Then you.”
Saying this, Taeon thought he’d fallen for Yuhyeon’s provocation. He shouldn’t have answered in the first place.
“I’m a slut too. Kids who aren’t sluts are rarer in this neighborhood.”
“…”
“Even if betas suck, it would have been easier to live if we were born as betas too.”
“Betas would have their own difficulties.”
The conversation between the two eventually deflated and continued with the sense that everyone had their own difficulties.
Even if it’s difficult, what can you do? Living people have to live.
Taeon didn’t have useless hope, but he also hated falling into unnecessary pessimism. However, he decided not to open his mouth further since it was obvious his feelings would sound like nagging to Yuhyeon in front of him.
“Hey, Yoon Taeon.”
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t take suppressants no matter what Go Sunjeong said.”
“…”
“Why are you taking them now?”
“…”
“Did you really find someone?”
“It’s not like that, so mind your own business.”
Taeon’s mood began to sink. If he talked longer, he felt like his mood would be greatly spoiled.
I should quickly buy cigarettes, smoke a few, go home and sleep more, then go to work.
At the same time as this thought, Yuhyeon grabbed the arm of Taeon who was turning his steps.
“Contact me when you have time. It’s okay even if it’s not a rut.”
A subtle tone somewhat different from Yuhyeon’s usual snippy voice.
Even when Taeon turned his head to look at Yuhyeon, he just feigned ignorance with his usual face.
“If you’re taking suppressants so we don’t have to fuck, let’s try doing other things. When we meet.”
“Why would I with you?”
At the firmly bursting voice, he could see Yuhyeon’s face stiffen. But if he wasn’t firm at times like this, when should he be firm?
“Ugh, rude bastard.”
Yuhyeon clicked his tongue and moved away, now being the first to distance himself. At Yuhyeon’s back, Taeon shouted “Take care.” Yuhyeon raised his right hand high in greeting. With only his middle finger extended long.
After briefly watching Yuhyeon’s back, Taeon headed to his original destination again.
At the convenience store, he bought one can of coffee and one pack of cigarettes.
When he’d smoked about half a cigarette, he downed the coffee can in one shot. Now he felt like he could live.
As his mind cleared a bit, the surrounding scenery came into his eyes more vividly. The utility poles were full of volume-based trash bags and food waste bags, and he could also see the remnants of vomit that someone drunk last night must have carelessly spat out.
When he turned his head, a hair salon. It was a place most people living in this neighborhood had been to at least once. Taeon also stopped by occasionally.
The owner with dark blue eyebrow tattoos badmouthed this neighborhood’s young people to Taeon.
“My kids grew up too well, way too well.”
To Taeon, who was likewise one of this neighborhood’s young people, she boasted about her children who had successfully escaped to another neighborhood along with college enrollment. He thought it was worthy of pride, so he didn’t particularly feel displeasure.
Taeon, who was quietly looking at the door of the hair salon that now looked too worn out, was suddenly gripped by one question.
Was the current life truly the only life given to Taeon?
It was a question where he could know the answer clearly without pondering long.
Taeon had several branching paths. He could have gone to college on a scholarship, or he could have accepted Sunjeong’s parents’ proposal and gone to Hanguk University with Sunjeong. It was Taeon who gave up those opportunities.
At the time, he didn’t even think of it as giving up. He just thought they were futile somethings passing through his empty hands because they weren’t opportunities for him in the first place.
If I had grabbed those opportunities, what would Taeon be like now?
It was quite difficult to find an answer to this question.
His imagination about a life he’d never lived, a life that wasn’t Taeon’s, was narrow.
“I’m going to try doing it properly for once.”
When he tried hard to imagine a life he couldn’t even imagine, Sunjeong’s voice echoed in Taeon’s ears.
The sparkling eyes Sunjeong had shown at that time. It was the expression Sunjeong used to make when looking at Taeon once.
Sunjeong was refusing the path rightfully given to him and trying to walk a different path.
That confidence was sparkling and transparent without any stains.
