METAL 0 – Prologue

The counselor entered the room. It was a space set up on the second floor of a quiet, three-story mountain cabin in the Southern Alps.

The twenty-eight-year-old Omega was already sitting on the single-person leather sofa. He had his chest puffed out and his arms spread wide on the armrests, but the counselor knew that this was not a pose the Omega had struck himself. The Alpha who had arranged the counseling and was the lessee of this cabin had brought his partner, sat him down, and even arranged his posture before leaving.

“Have you been well?”

The counselor offered a greeting, but the Omega did not respond.

That Omega, Lee Hyunsoo, could not bring himself to lower his head. This was because Jun Griffin had held his chin, stretched out his neck, and rested the back of his head against the headrest before leaving, so he had to maintain that position. However, his gaze alone was cast nervously toward the floor.

Lee Hyunsoo was not intentionally releasing his pheromones. He was only giving off his natural body scent, yet the air in the room was moist as if captivated by a fog of fragrance. Although the counselor detected the scent, she did not have a sexual reaction, as she herself was an Omega. However, she could guess that an Alpha entering this room would feel entirely different.

No, in Lee Hyunsoo’s case, it would likely be the same even for a Beta male. She mulled it over again. He was a dominant Omega. A special trait said to be born in only one in a million Omegas, capable of drawing a sexual response not only from Alphas but from Betas as well.

A trait that is practically a curse, the counselor thought, letting out a light, internal sigh. She then sat in the chair opposite him and, after observing Hyunsoo’s face, tried asking a few questions.

As expected, her counterpart did not respond. It was the same, even though this was already the sixth counseling session. Jun Griffin always dragged Lee Hyunsoo to the counseling room by force, sat him down, and left. Hyunsoo would then sit quietly, just as he had been placed. But no matter how persistently the counselor asked questions, no answer ever came back.

So, the counselor decided to focus instead on Hyunsoo’s non-verbal cues. For example, the fact that bruises remained on his wrists and the nape of his neck. Seeing that stains were left even in visible places, there might be many more wounds etched in places unseen. Hyunsoo’s complexion was pale, his eyes always darted about anxiously, and most of all, his limbs would tense up if the counselor made even the slightest movement. As if trying to avoid violence from a person of power.

The counseling setting also takes on the nature of a stage for role-playing, she mulled over again. The patient is bound to project the problematic relationships they usually experience onto their relationship with the counselor.

So, the problem might actually be Jun Griffin, the counselor thought.

That third-generation chaebol dominant Alpha, who had confined Lee Hyunsoo in this cabin, claiming he had a mental illness and needed to recuperate, and then, again for his sake, had requested this counseling.

“Mr. Hyunsoo.”

She began to speak cautiously, worried that the room might be bugged.

“If you don’t want to talk about your parents, we can start with more recent events. Um, how did you first meet Mr. Jun? I’m curious.”

“…”

“Mr. Jun Griffin. I heard you met at Korea University after he returned to the country. You were working as a part-time lecturer in comparative literature, and Mr. Jun enrolled as a student there, correct?”

Hyunsoo did not answer. The counselor casually added another question.

“Was Mr. Jun a good student?”

Hyunsoo’s eyes widened slightly.

Silence fell. The counselor waited patiently. In truth, even if Hyunsoo didn’t tell her, she had already secured some materials about their initial interactions.

In particular, she knew in quite some detail about the comparative literature department group chat incident from about a year ago, as not only were official records kept at the university, but traces of the talk had also remained on the campus app and other online communities. An incident where several photoshopped images of the part-time lecturer Lee Hyunsoo had circulated in the group chat for a long time.

The group chat was shut down late last April when Jun Griffin came forward as a whistleblower. Jun not only requested the convening of a disciplinary committee but also put pressure on a school board member through his mother. Thanks to this, several students were severely disciplined, and the student who had photoshopped and distributed the pictures was said to have even faced criminal charges.

ʚଓ

Normally, the counselor should not have scraped together materials about a patient through unofficial routes. The standard procedure is to trust the people or institutions that requested the counseling and to record the information they provide in the chart. But in Lee Hyunsoo’s case, she found the information given by the client, Jun Griffin, to be utterly untrustworthy, so she had secretly started looking for other reference materials.

That was how she came across the posts related to the group chat incident. On the community within the campus app, there were traces of posts made by several students who identified as participants in the group chat. Some were protesting that it was unfair, while others were written in a whistleblowing manner, expressing belated remorse.

The counselor paid attention to a post made by a student who claimed to have participated in the group chat with the ID ‘Comparative Lit 19’—short for Comparative Literature, class of 2019. It was because it contained a rather unusual claim: that Jun Griffin was by no means a righteous whistleblower in that incident.

Of course, I’m not saying what we did was right, Comparative Lit 19 wrote. He admitted it was true that several photoshopped images had circulated in the chat room, and that the picture made and posted by Comparative Lit 24, in particular, had crossed the line. The one where he had carefully scraped away lecturer Lee Hyunsoo’s black cotton pants in Photoshop and replaced them with the buttocks of an Omega porn actor found on some community site. White, soft, fleshy buttocks, with thighs slightly parted and the perineum lavishly wet.

But, number 19 continued to argue, the lecturer named Lee Hyunsoo’s trait should at least be considered grounds for extenuating circumstances. He was a dominant Omega. When Lee Hyunsoo came to Korea University as a new lecturer in March and first showed himself to the students, hadn’t all sorts of complaints erupted among them? That hiring someone like that as a lecturer was as good as telling them not to focus on the class. He heard an anonymous protest email had actually been sent to the comparative literature department office.

Besides, it wasn’t just the comparative literature students who took secret photos of him. Secretly filmed and photoshopped pictures or deepfake videos of ‘that dominant Omega from XX-dong’ were circulating all over general online communities anyway. Shouldn’t they acknowledge that a trait like Lee Hyunsoo’s just drove people who looked at him crazy? Besides, a university is a space for vigorous young people.

So, if a dominant Omega came into such a space as a part-time lecturer, wouldn’t he have had some idea of what might happen?

After rattling on like that, Comparative Lit 19 abruptly changed his tone and wrote about Jun Griffin. The dominant Alpha Jun had sat in on the class of that very dominant Omega lecturer. He always sat in the front row, pretending to be nonchalant.

Jun Griffin’s major was originally applied mathematics. He had unusually chosen comparative literature as his minor, but despite being a minor student from a completely different undergraduate department, Jun would always perfectly deliver his presentations and sit there in the classroom with perfect grades. His exam scores were apparently all top of the class, too.

On top of that, the two of them would sometimes exchange difficult questions and answers that no one else could understand, either during or even after class. While sharing inscrutable smiles with each other.

Written this way, it could seem like a piece of evidence. Evidence that even a dominant Alpha and a dominant Omega, as long as they were highly intelligent, could have a conversation where they regarded each other purely as human beings.

But how could that be possible? Comparative Lit 19 added a green, vomiting-face emoji at the end of the sentence and then continued his argument.

That kind of appearance is all just a shell. That dominant Alpha must have been completely in heat for that lecturer from the very first day. The presentations, the questions, the grades—they were all nothing but means to curry favor with Lee Hyunsoo, wagging his tail. Since dominant Alphas are born with good heads on their shoulders, getting good grades would have been no big deal.

Jun Griffin might be deluding himself into thinking that turning in the group chat evidence was some act of righteous judgment. He probably hasn’t realized it himself yet. No, that must be it. But what’s really filling his head is a sinister possessiveness. He couldn’t even stand other guys appreciating a picture of lecturer Lee Hyunsoo in a KakaoTalk chat—not even a real picture, but a fake picture of his ass—so he wasn’t satisfied until he had punished them all.

It’s absurd to think that such an exceptional dominant Alpha wouldn’t be seduced by an incredible Omega who drives even Betas wild. On the contrary, he maintained a cool demeanor on the outside because he was so severely in heat.

Jun Griffin, there’s no way he could treat Lee Hyunsoo as a human being.

Just you wait and see. In the last paragraph of that post, Comparative Lit 19 wrote, half-cursing, half-prophesying coolly. This disciplinary action is only the beginning. That young and powerful dominant Alpha will soon begin to try to monopolize the Omega Lee Hyunsoo according to his innate instincts. Just like a male lion of a pride.

ʚଓ

The counselor read not only that post on the anonymous message board but all the replies as well. As expected, there were quite a few comments that agreed. Saying that while Jun looked polished on the outside, there was something strange about him.

Had she read the post back when the group chat incident occurred, late last April, she would have thought that such a piece written by a perpetrator was not worth a moment’s consideration as testimony. But now, almost a year later, it was different. In her view, Comparative Lit 19’s claims were as good as confirmed.

Jun Griffin had kidnapped Lee Hyunsoo last October and locked him in the basement of his home in Seoul. Then, in February of this year, he had moved Hyunsoo again to this secluded Southern Alps cabin at an altitude of 1680 meters, completely isolating him from society.

Of course, Jun had an explanation. He was only trying to take care of his lover, Lee Hyunsoo.

He said he had started secretly dating the lecturer, Lee Hyunsoo, starting last fall semester. But after they started dating, he found out that Lee Hyunsoo was in a very unstable mental state, to the point where he worried about not just self-harm but also suicide. That was why, for his own safety, he had no choice but to quickly confine and monitor him in the basement.

Until winter, Jun tried to care for him all by himself. This was because Hyunsoo was reluctant to have a record of receiving psychiatric treatment on his resume. But after a certain incident, Jun finally realized that Hyunsoo needed a professional’s touch, and on his primary doctor’s advice, the two of them came to this cabin together for recuperation at the end of February. And that was how he came to request a visiting specialist for counseling.

Jun didn’t find a counselor locally but sought one out in Seoul, signed a long-term dedicated contract, and flew her here. He said that he had heard it was better to use one’s native language for psychological counseling, so he had deliberately looked for a Korean speaker.

However, after just her first visit, the counselor had already begun to doubt the narrative Jun had laid out from its very foundation. Lee Hyunsoo showed the typical signs of someone who had suffered in a dominant-submissive relationship. And a very physically violent one at that.

She had searched for other posts on the Korea University campus community, paying particular attention to those posted since October, when the confinement began. Jun claimed that even after confining Hyunsoo, he had allowed him to maintain a so-called minimal career. For example, he had permitted him to continue teaching his major courses at Korea University.

According to his academic record, Lee Hyunsoo did indeed teach the comparative literature course until the end last fall semester. But when she dug into the surrounding circumstances, there were more than a few suspicious points. Most of the related posts from that time had been deleted, but after digging through the cache via an administrator, a list came up. There were numerous posts with titles like, “Jun is making that Omega lecturer do some kind of play in public,” and “He’s torturing him by deliberately covering him in pheromones.” It seemed that it wasn’t just idle rumors; evidence like photos or videos had been uploaded with them. Of course, the files themselves were now deleted.

And in February of this year, Lee Hyunsoo left Korea on a plane with Jun. And so, the beautiful dominant Omega ended up confined with only Jun and a few of his employees in a mountain cabin, far from his home country and any human settlement.

It wasn’t Hyunsoo who had a mental illness. The counselor was almost certain.

It was Jun. It was Jun Griffin who was pushing the narrative that Lee Hyunsoo was crazy, in order to lock him up and control him. He was deceiving the people around them, and now he was even trying to deceive Hyunsoo himself. Because if he received counseling and was even prescribed medication, he would start to feel like he really was a patient.

“Mr. Lee Hyunsoo?”

Calling his name, she tried to meet her patient’s eyes.

A sense of responsibility for her patient and pride as a doctor swelled in her chest. If Lee Hyunsoo gave her even the smallest sign, she was mentally prepared to help him actively. Even if she herself were to be endangered at the hands of the dominant Alpha grandson of the chairman of an international pharmaceutical company.

“Was Jun a good student?”

Hyunsoo slowly raised his head and looked at the counselor’s face. The counselor also met the gaze of the pitiful Omega, who was haggard with fatigue and pain.

Finally, their eyes met. The area under Hyunsoo’s eyes was dark and bruised with exhaustion, and there was even a faint bruise on his cheek. But the counselor was surprised to find that Hyunsoo’s eyes were unexpectedly steady and deep. They were strangely serene eyes.

In that moment, Hyunsoo smiled.

The counselor unconsciously clenched her fists. It was because a chill had run down her spine. In fact, the expression ‘Hyunsoo smiled’ was insufficient. It wasn’t just that a person’s expression had changed. It was as if something, a shell, had been washed away and peeled off, revealing something entirely different inside.

She could not fully comprehend the change before her eyes. She simply reminded herself again. The counseling setting also takes on the nature of a stage for role-playing. Not only the patient, but the counselor, too, will try to project the problematic relationships they have experienced onto their relationship with the patient.

The counselor realized that she had automatically been assuming Lee Hyunsoo was a victim. Her Omega patients until now had, for the most part, actually been victims who had suffered severe trauma in their relationships with Alphas, and there were also the things she herself had experienced her whole life as an Omega.

She thought she knew why she had been drawn to Comparative Lit 19’s post. The author of that post had depicted Hyunsoo as a passive object, to be only seen and desired by others, and had described Jun as a predator lurking at the top of the food chain. Because it was a schema that fit with the narrative she already had in her head, the counselor had easily empathized with Comparative Lit 19’s perspective.

Isn’t it obvious? the counselor thought. How could that fragile, emaciated dominant Omega, whose arms and neck are bruised from being grabbed and dragged around by a chaebol Alpha, not be a one-sided victim? But right now, Lee Hyunsoo’s—no, that thing’s—expression is…

Hyunsoo let out a small sigh.

It was clearly a sigh of fatigue. But the counselor felt it was closer to an actor’s gesture than something genuine.

Not an actor performing something that was fiction from the start. The bony limbs, the pale complexion, and the pained expression were real. A real-life situation forced upon the Omega Lee Hyunsoo. But the moment he breathed it in and then exhaled, Hyunsoo digested that appearance into his own performance. As if everything had been part of the script from the very beginning. As Hyunsoo’s fine lips parted, he began.

“Well.”

“…”

“Let’s start from the beginning. Now…”

The counselor realized why Hyunsoo had not answered any of her questions until now.

He hadn’t agreed to be in this seat to answer someone else’s questions. He had needed a fellow actor to help direct a part of his own script, and he had postponed delivering his lines until now to gauge that actor’s level and disposition. The master of some absurd play, whose identity she had yet to grasp despite having already stepped into it, uttered in a somewhat languid voice.

“…Shall we start with the story of my parents?”