RCKS 21

17 years old

Lee Yoonsan began to like the fact that he was an omega little by little as he exchanged DMs with Hwang Haekyung, and sometimes it made him dissatisfied. But he could swear that it was not the same dissatisfaction as before. The worry like ‘Wouldn’t it be a laughingstock if someone like me is an omega?’ from the past had almost been erased.

As time passed and the surrounding environment changed, it was also a change that happened gradually and stealthily. Above all, had not Hwang Haekyung, who used to find him annoying and tease and exclude him when they were young, smiled upon seeing him? Without teasing or ignoring him. That popular Hwang Haekyung.

So now, Lee Yoonsan was just dissatisfied with the fact that he could not meet Hwang Haekyung directly because he was an omega.

“Hey, I got someone I’m seeing.”

Kim Jihu said it in the middle of eating lunch from the school cafeteria. This time, it was with a nonchalant attitude without any particular fuss. It seemed like the partner had fewer things to boast about compared to the one he had been seeing before. It was only in such cases that Kim Jihu became so subdued that he looked downcast when bringing up stories about the person he was seeing.

The omega children at Wonan Middle School, including Lee Yoonsan, mostly entered Wonan High School unless there were relocation issues. It was because the foundation was the same, and for children with second genders, most of them advanced to omega-accepting schools or alpha-accepting schools nearby within the corresponding school district.

In the corresponding school district, there were fewer high schools than middle schools, and omega students from nearby middle schools also gathered at Wonan High School. As a result, unlike middle school, classes consisting only of omega gender students were created.

In that way, Lee Yoonsan, Shin Suhyeon, and Kim Jihu ended up attending the same school again. This time, Lee Yoonsan and Kim Jihu were assigned to the same class, and Shin Suhyeon ended up in a different one. But even so, since there were only two classes for first-year omegas per grade, Shin Suhyeon was in the class next door.

“This bastard, is he going to cram school or a booty call?”

“What can you do about it, shit. She likes me.”

Kim Jihu growled in response to Shin Suhyeon’s sarcastic remark while dipping the braised potatoes. Lee Yoonsan just thought that both of their words made sense and glanced at the phone placed on the table. It was a behavior he had been doing since the morning.

Kim Jihu was what people commonly called a cat-like face, so he was popular. That was why even during middle school, alphas approaching him from outside the school never stopped, and after entering high school and taking short-term classes at cram school, those opportunities seemed to have become more frequent. Even if the cram school itself took utmost care in gender separation, it was difficult to separate by gender even in short-term classes.

Because the number of students with second genders like alphas or omegas was not that large, it was hard to separate cram school short-term classes by gender outside of school. From the cram school’s perspective, it would result in a schedule that did not make financial sense. So inevitably, in cram school short-term classes, they pushed in several assistant teachers and conducted classes without distinguishing between alphas, omegas, and betas. But no matter how much the assistant teachers monitored the children, it was difficult to catch teenage kids who made eye contact within that sharply.

It seemed like Kim Jihu’s current relationship had started in that way too. He had first received a dash from a same-grade alpha in the same short-term class, and after riding the some phase for about a month.

“My ex-girlfriend was so pretty that seeing her face made you forgive everything, but this boyfriend is just average.”

“He might be average among alphas.”

“That’s true, but still. At least he studies well. I heard he ranks at the top of the whole school.”

“Get out with your boasting.”

Shin Suhyeon, who had shoved the braised potatoes into one side of his cheek, grimaced and made a sarcastic remark, and Lee Yoonsan, who had been glancing at his own phone, awkwardly smiled because his eyes met with Kim Jihu sitting in front of him. Even so, since he had kept his ears open, he could avoid making it obvious that he had overheard the story.

“Won’t you get in trouble if you get caught?”

“Of course, I’d be fucked. That guy’s a tennis player too, so if he gets caught by the coach or instructor, he’s fucked.”

“But how are you seeing him if you’re scared…?”

Lee Yoonsan cleverly continued the conversation before Kim Jihu’s eyes turned into axe eyes. Then Kim Jihu’s momentum softened a bit. Kim Jihu was an omega who only dated alphas, and whenever he started dating an alpha, he would make that alpha the topic of conversation all day. In a way, it was also a natural thing.

Kim Jihu’s dating style was to be in contact and talk with the alpha he was dating all day, and everything else was a daily routine no different from usual. And regarding such Kim Jihu, Shin Suhyeon evaluated him as ‘a bastard crazy about alphas,’ and Lee Yoonsan thought ‘It could be like that.’ It was true that at this age, interest in the opposite sex was at its peak.

The reason Shin Suhyeon could be a bit detached toward alphas was largely influenced by the Semyeong High alphas he had seen at the amusement park last year. After seeing that group of alphas who seemed more adult-like than him at that time, his taste had solidified into ‘older ones.’ So Shin Suhyeon had no choice but to be nonchalant about the stories of the alphas Kim Jihu was dating.

Because all the alphas Kim Jihu dated were the same age. It was unavoidable. Kim Jihu mainly dated alphas he had become close with at study cafes or cram school short-term classes. He was sharp toward flirting that came in while walking on the street or hanging out at fast food places or arcades. It seemed like he had his own line that unknown alphas made him anxious. Both his dating style and that showed he was an unexpected safety enthusiast.

And Lee Yoonsan was….

“Hey, humanely, now that we’re in high school, isn’t the atmosphere less strict than in middle school? Seriously, it’s not like you’re a real bunny, why are you so scared?”

“No, what.”

He still had no spare energy to care about anyone other than Hwang Haekyung.

“And anyway, your boyfriend is far away, so there’s no worry about getting caught.”

“I, he’s not my boyfriend!”

“Say it with your hand on your personal account, you idiot.”

A cracking sound came from Lee Yoonsan’s throat as he denied it with his face flushing bright red. Then Shin Suhyeon, who was eating next to him, laughed as if it was absurd, and Kim Jihu, who was cynical about others’ stories, snorted. Then Shin Suhyeon hummed ‘It’s a problem, it’s a problem’ with a melody attached. It was an old song, but thinking of the title, the intention to tease was evident.

The fact that Lee Yoonsan had someone was already a problem that everyone around him had noticed during the third year of middle school. At least the omegas at school, if not his parents. Lee Yoonsan, who had always attended school with an indifferent expression, suddenly started spending more time looking at his phone from some point, and during breaks, he frequently checked his phone in bits and pieces.

When they peeked to see what he was looking at, it was always the personal account screen. Shin Suhyeon naturally knew whose account it was, and Kim Jihu, after persistent nagging and prodding, finally found out that the object was Hwang Haekyung.

It might seem like no big deal now, but at the time, it was an incident where Kim Jihu had even considered cutting ties with Lee Yoonsan. If Lee Yoonsan just liked Hwang Haekyung alone, he would have thought it was a common fan thing, but he noticed that the black bunny ears visible in Hwang Haekyung’s SNS profile picture were a sign certifying that something was going on mutually. Of course, it was a subtle sign that only people who knew Lee Yoonsan’s nickname ‘Black Bunny’ would notice.

Kim Jihu had tried to understand up to that point. Until he learned the fact that Lee Yoonsan had not confessed to him, whom he prided as the closest friend among Lee Yoonsan’s narrow social circle, that he and Hwang Haekyung were originally acquaintances.

When Kim Jihu learned that Lee Yoonsan and Hwang Haekyung were originally acquaintances, that they had met very briefly during the field experience learning, and that they exchanged SNS DMs occasionally, an inexplicable anger rose.

Whether it was jealousy because Lee Yoonsan was meeting a better alpha than him, or irritation because he had hidden such a secret despite thinking they were close, did not matter. For sixteen-year-old Kim Jihu, the most important thing was that he was simply angry at his friend.

But when he acted distant, seeing Lee Yoonsan looking crestfallen made him soften his anger. Lee Yoonsan had absolutely no tact, so he had not made any excuses to Kim Jihu, who was angry because of jealousy whose target he did not know. He just glanced at him with a face dripping with lingering regret as if sad that the friend was drifting away, or distanced himself with a dejected expression.

So he could not get any angrier. Because of Lee Yoonsan’s personality, fights could not even establish themselves. Whether the object of jealousy was Lee Yoonsan, the relationship as friends itself, or an inferiority complex, he realized that in the end, it was not more important than the friend. Of course, Shin Suhyeon had also thrown tantrums in the middle telling him to stop.

Anyway, at least Kim Jihu and Shin Suhyeon knew the fact that something was going on between Lee Yoonsan and Hwang Haekyung. Even after coming up to high school, Lee Yoonsan was indifferent to alphas in general but still clung to the personal account. Even though Kim Jihu had said several times that he would introduce an alpha through the friends he was seeing, saying they were not dating, he refused every time.

Even on the day when Lee Yoonsan and Shin Suhyeon had come all the way near Kim Jihu’s short-term cram school to eat and go back, there was an alpha who specifically picked Lee Yoonsan and asked to be introduced. So Kim Jihu, to drag his friend along too, refused with the words ‘My friend already has a good alpha.’ And that statement became a rumor and came back around to Lee Yoonsan’s school.

In the end, now at school, Lee Yoonsan had suddenly become an omega who ‘has an owner’ or ‘has a high nose.’ The former was the gaze of children who believed the rumor, and the latter was the gaze of those who thought that no matter how you looked at it, there was no alpha he was seeing, so he was just making excuses appropriately.

Since they were words that could lead to stress, Shin Suhyeon and Kim Jihu threw non-consoling consolations like ‘Don’t worry too much since they say it without knowing,’ but in fact, Lee Yoonsan had no spare energy to care about that because he was always pouring all his attention into Hwang Haekyung’s account and DMs.

So it was too natural that Lee Yoonsan hardly felt stress from rumors or words around him. To be precise, it was more accurate to say that they did not enter his ears or eyes in the first place. Originally, when people have something more important, they take care of other places less, right?

If he tried to pay attention to his surroundings, a DM would fly in from Hwang Haekyung, or things like meal photos with ‘bunny ears caught’ uploaded to Hwang Haekyung’s feed would steal away all that attention. As if turning the topic back to him. It was strange but never a bad thing.

“Hey, don’t be so scared. The teachers are starting to catch less too.”

“Yeah. The manifestation period, well, they say it ends around the third year of high school.”

“Now we’re in the latter half of the manifestation period too, and pheromone control is getting more proficient.”

Shin Suhyeon and Kim Jihu said to Lee Yoonsan, who still had a flushed face and did not know what to do while checking his surroundings.

In fact, it was not wrong. The rote education and control regarding second genders was the harshest during middle school, and for omegas, from high school, the atmosphere started to loosen up little by little.

The heat cycle was a problem, but if controlled well with medicine, no big issues arose, and it was because it was an age where pheromone control was gradually becoming familiar. Although for alphas, since the nature of the secreted hormones was different, the control to suppress their vigor was maintained more tightly for the time being.

Anyway, around 19 years old, the manifestation period entered its tail end, and usually, it all ended right before becoming an adult. This point was exactly the difference between those with second genders and betas. Unlike betas who grew until their early twenties, alphas and omegas finished all growth right before becoming adults. That was why they also started a faster growth period (manifestation period) than betas.

Once they became adults, from then on, even those with second genders were given the same freedom as ordinary betas. Because the social education procedure of self-administering medicine for the heat cycle ended, they could sufficiently control pheromones on their own, and a lifestyle no different from betas became possible.

In the first place, unless it was the heat cycle itself for alphas or omegas, or the pheromone problem that triggered that heat cycle, there was no hindrance to living mixed with ordinary humans, so the reason for social control disappeared.

“Lee Yoonsan, you should go watch that guy’s, Hwang’s game. Isn’t there the national sports festival volleyball in October?”

“No… What if I go and it becomes a disturbance.”

“Just watch secretly from afar and come back.”

“Well, if hormone levels are high and sensitive to pheromones, it could disrupt concentration. Lee Yoonsan might not control his emotions and leak pheromones too.”

When Kim Jihu, who had scooped a big bite of rice into his mouth, said that, Lee Yoonsan, who had become somewhat dejected, replied. And Shin Suhyeon pointed out the most worrisome part. Then Lee Yoonsan nodded as if agreeing.

It had been about a month since the second semester started after the first-year summer vacation ended. From the second semester of third-year middle school to now, the Hwang Haekyung that Lee Yoonsan knew had already played in several games. Of course, the national sports festival held last fall, as well as the president’s cup game and the game held in Taebaek, Gangwon-do, where he had played as a starter, and just a while ago in the summer, he had also been selected as a starter in two games of the middle-high school federation tournament. And in mid-October, he would participate in the national sports festival game again.