“Hidden Omega.”
Hyunsu unconsciously repeated what Evan had said.
And he moved his lips alone, repeating the same word several times. He had heard of it.
Everything Evan was saying now, he had heard of it all.
Golden Alpha or Hidden Omega. He had heard about them in the mandatory classes that Alphas and Omegas had to take, classes related to their traits.
But that was, well.
“You might as well say Siwoo is a unicorn.”
“Why are you suddenly talking about unicorns?”
“You’re saying he’s a Hidden Omega. Hidden Omegas themselves are mythical beings, aren’t they? How is that different from a unicorn? You might as well say you saw the end of a rainbow. What kind of nonsense are you talking about?”
Hyunsu, recalling what he’d heard in the mandatory class, clicked his tongue without realizing it. Officially, Golden Alphas are 0.1% of Alphas. Though it’s an extremely small number, it’s at least measurable numerically. But when the teacher explained Hidden Omegas, they called them mythical beings.
Literally, hidden ones.
If they didn’t meet an Alpha suited to them, they were beings who would live their entire lives hidden, living as Betas.
But if there was an Alpha who recognized them.
Hyunsu, whose mind suddenly became complicated, roughly messed up his hair with both hands. So right now, Siwoo is a Hidden Omega, and Golden Alpha Evan has discovered it.
Evan, who can’t smell any Omega’s pheromones, can only sense Siwoo’s pheromones.
The two are a Pair?
“Pair.”
Hyunsu, who had fallen into his own thoughts and was muttering to himself, looked at Evan while firmly biting his parched lower lip.
For someone who had said something tremendous to him, he looked too peaceful. Sitting comfortably on the sofa with a glass in his hand, he was looking out the window.
“Let’s say Siwoo is a Hidden Omega. Then…”
“That’s why I can’t tell him. How do you think someone who’s lived their entire life as an Alpha would feel if you suddenly told them, ‘You’re an Omega’?”
Evan’s fingertips were tapping the sofa armrest steadily. And there was no emotion in his voice.
“What nonsense are you talking about?”
As soon as Hyunsu heard Evan’s words, he frowned and retorted.
“Don’t you think that would be exactly the reaction? You’re a Hidden Omega. And you and I are a Pair. Should I try saying it like that? What happens then? You wouldn’t care, but I can’t live without you. With this kind of modifier attached.”
Evan, wetting his throat with alcohol, spoke in a really light voice as if talking to a friendly companion, but the meaning contained in that voice was tremendous. Hyunsu covered his mouth with one hand.
“Are you surprised now? Then I’ll tell you one more thing. How do newly manifested Alphas and Omegas control their pheromones?”
“They can’t. Well, with a little practice…”
As expected, this time too, Hyunsu couldn’t finish his sentence.
“Siwoo doesn’t control his pheromones. No, he can’t. Because he doesn’t know he’s an Omega.”
“You. Why did you tell me this story?”
Hyunsu, who had only been drinking cold water thinking it would be a serious conversation, grabbed the bottle of alcohol. He had just heard stories in succession that were not easy for him to accept and handle.
Pheromones carry emotions. Siwoo can’t control his pheromones.
That meant from the beginning, Evan had been exposed to Siwoo’s pheromones, and at the same time, he was feeling Siwoo’s emotions completely.
Various situations mixed together in a jumbled mess and floated around in Hyunsu’s head.
In an instant, all of Evan’s strange behaviors until now made sense. At the same time, his gaze looking at Evan was filled with shock.
From the reason why Evan’s pheromones had been thickly covering him from the start to why he kept hovering around Siwoo. Those were the parts that felt strange.
He had treated Beta Siwoo like an Omega. He treated him like a lover and even revealed a thick possessiveness at moments.
Hyunsu leaned back on the sofa with a long sigh. He couldn’t distinguish whether he was dizzy from being drunk or frustrated from hearing a story too overwhelming for him to handle.
“There’s just too little information about Pairs.”
Though there was no information about Hidden Omegas either, there was even less information about Pairs. That too was only theoretical talk, not something you could actually see. He thought it was said to be similar to general imprinting. Was it different from imprinting that only forms through physical relationships?
Hyunsu tried hard to recall what he had heard halfheartedly a few years ago.
With a dark expression, Evan left Hyunsu trapped in his own thoughts alone and picked up his cell phone from the table. Then he called Siwoo.
During countless regressions, the futures he could choose were infinite. But the reason he had stuck to the same profession to the point of tedium was for one single reason. He wanted to find his Pair, the Hidden Omega.
The conclusion he reached in his repeated lives was that he was a mutation. What he found while digging into the part where he couldn’t smell Omega pheromones was related to Hidden Omegas. Golden Alphas, the beings who could find Hidden Omegas.
Most Golden Alphas weren’t much different from regular Alphas. They were just classified based on pheromone levels. Though they had the modifier attached that only Golden Alphas could find Hidden Omegas.
It was no different from finding a needle in a sandpit. Finding a Hidden Omega hiding among Betas was close to impossible. That’s why he chose a profession where he could meet many people. One concert lets you meet tens of thousands of people. Considering overseas tours, it was the most efficient profession in terms of meeting people of similar ages from various regions in a short time.
Through such endless repetition, the conclusion Evan reached was that Hidden Omegas didn’t exist. Until he met Siwoo.
From the first time he saw him on TV, Siwoo had captivated him. And when they met again on the plane, the emotion Evan felt was indescribable.
Because the entire world was filled with just one person, he vividly learned what an Omega’s pheromones were like.
He knew he should consider him who knew nothing, but suppressing his instincts wasn’t such an easy thing. And at some point, he realized. That Siwoo could feel his pheromones.
Whenever he released pheromones, without fail, his gaze would reach him. And when he drew his pheromones back in, hesitant reactions would follow.
The reason he hadn’t been able to do anything as he pleased until now was because of anxiety. He didn’t know how to explain all this to him, and he couldn’t predict the reaction when he learned the truth either.
Lastly, he wasn’t confident he could endure being rejected by him.
When they had become close enough, when stability settled between the two of them, he had planned to confess someday.
But their relationship kept getting twisted.
When the waiting tone was followed by a guidance message, he put down Hyunsu’s cell phone on the table with a long sigh. He would misunderstand. Even he would misunderstand in this situation.
What would he think of him, who had just said let’s go on a date a moment ago? It was such an absurd situation that all that came out was an empty laugh.
“Are you sure you’re a Pair?”
At Hyunsu’s words, who had been lost in thought, Evan just shrugged his shoulders.
“Right now, I’m the only one confirming that Siwoo is probably a Hidden Omega. Hyung, honestly, I don’t know either. As you said, there’s no data. There’s nothing at all. It’s something I have to figure out by bumping into it and experiencing it. What’s certain is that when I’m close to Siwoo, emotional synchronization happens. I’ve experienced it quite a lot, but Siwoo must have experienced it at least once too. Though he doesn’t know what it is.”
Evan rubbed his face with both hands. The amusement park.
Siwoo had escaped that situation saying it was nothing, that it sometimes happens like that. But what happened then was emotional synchronization. He must have felt his messy, complicated, and dark emotions.
“What are you going to do now? After hearing the story, the scandal seems like a big problem right now.”
“I’ll have to start over.”
With a long sigh, Evan slowly lowered his hands that had been covering his face. Idol, celebrity. These things weren’t important to him anymore.
He had to hold a press conference tomorrow morning at 10 AM.
They would think it was a press conference acknowledging the scandal with Yuri. But at 10 AM tomorrow, something tremendous would happen. Because he would announce his withdrawal from Ocean and retirement from the entertainment industry at the same time.
“Where are you going?”
Evan, who had been gathering his outerwear, chuckled at Hyunsu’s action of grabbing him.
“I wonder. I don’t know where I should go. Are you worried I’ll go find him in this state? Don’t worry. I won’t do that. I won’t do anything Coco would hate. When he already hates me, what would I do if he hated me more?”
His chest feels like it’s going to burst and his overloaded mind can’t think normally. There are probably reporters swarming in front of his house too. Evan took out his turned-off cell phone and pressed the power button.
As soon as it turned on, seeing the piled-up messages and missed calls, all that came out was really an empty laugh. He never knew he would be used to cover someone else’s mistake that wasn’t even his. The old men whose heads didn’t work properly literally knew one thing but didn’t know two.
Who holds the most shares in the company now? Who has the greatest influence? There’s no way they don’t know. But the reason they’re using him like this was too transparent to say anything.
The position of leader of the most popular idol group. They probably expected Evan wouldn’t let go of that position.
For him, it was something he could throw away before anything else in the world, but most people didn’t want to lose that position.
Evan’s fingertips, ignoring all the useless contacts, stopped at one place.
[When your work gets sorted out and you’re okay, let’s eat then. And congratulations.]
“Damn it.”
The curse he had been holding back and suppressing until now burst from his mouth. The one person he hoped would deny it, please say it wasn’t true, had acknowledged it first.
When everyone asked if it was true. He left a message of congratulations.
