CHDY 10

Only after a long while did he manage to lift his trembling body. He made his way to the bathroom, barely managing to stand by holding onto his surroundings. There, under the pouring stream of water, he washed himself repeatedly, as if to peel off his own skin.

It was when he had finished everything and laid his body down to sleep. As if it had fulfilled its duty, the thread of consciousness that had been holding on snapped. His body, soaked in fatigue and pain, was sucked into the world of sleep as if fainting.

The eyes that had been shut as if in death opened in the morning.

“……”

Jaeon blinked with a tired face. He felt his mind was hazy and blurred. The fog in his head soon cleared along with the sleepiness. As his mind became clear, something flashed and came to mind. Today was the day he was supposed to watch a movie with Inha.

With a swish, he twisted his head to look up at the clock. There were still about 30 minutes left until the appointment time. He hastily changed his clothes and ran outside.

He ran recklessly without a thought for his aching knee. He pushed his way through the crowd without a moment’s delay. When he arrived at the movie theater, the meeting place, it was thankfully five minutes before the appointed time. With a long sigh, haah, he smoothed down his messy hair.

He might not come. No, he probably won’t come. While thinking this, he stubbornly held his ground. The option of waiting was the only one that existed in his mind from the start.

Waiting continued to beget more waiting. It had already been three hours since he started waiting on the spot. He tried calling a few times, but not once did it connect.

When he returned, his pace was endlessly slow, unlike when he had left. In the crowd, Jaeon walked as if he would be buried. The streets on the weekend were bustling with lively music and the noise of people.

When he got on the subway, it was similarly crowded. Jaeon hunched over and then stood in front of a seat. A pale, sickly person was reflected in the window opposite him. He smiled bitterly looking at the dying appearance. It might have been a relief that the man hadn’t shown up.

After returning, he suffered from a fever all weekend. As he repeatedly fell asleep and woke up from nightmares, the spot where he lay was soaked in a viscous sweat. For two days, the only thing he had consumed was water. It wasn’t until Monday morning that the fever finally subsided. Dragging his heavy body, Jaeon went to work.

“Do you sell motion sickness medicine here?”

A male customer who came in asked. Jaeon froze for a moment and stared.

“I’m asking if you sell motion sickness medicine.”

Jaeon’s tongue barely moved inside his mouth.

“……No.”

The customer, who had been staring at him with a strange look, left. Jaeon felt a sudden wave of cold sweat. Along with a slight dizziness, his heart pounded. Hoo, he took a deep breath and gripped the table.

It seemed to be an aftereffect of the incident on Friday. Just seeing a male customer of a similar age to those men made his heart sink.

Jaeon held up his hand. His arm, which had become gaunt in a few days, was trembling like that of a person with tremors. Ding-a-ling, the sound of the door opening was heard. Lowering his arm, he raised his voice with difficulty.

“Welcome.”

His eyes, which had been directed toward the entrance, fell to the floor in resignation. The person who came in was, as expected, not the one he was waiting for.

For three days, he could not see Inha. In the meantime, Jaeon suffered from nightmares every single night without fail. In his dreams, similar things were repeated. He was restrained, beaten, torn, and violated, then abandoned in an unknown place. It was a desolate place like a junkyard, where no one was. When he opened his eyes after trying his best to escape, it was the dim light of dawn.

He also dreamed of being injected with strange drugs here and there. Whether it was his imagination or not, Jaeon felt his stomach was bloated every day since that day. He belatedly felt uneasy about being injected. He had forgotten about it because he was fine right after, but he still didn’t know what kind of drug it was.

With nowhere to ask, he clung to internet searches. Through repeated portal site searches, Jaeon found out the identity of the drug.

‘Omega Heat Inducer’

It was clearly the unidentified drug they had injected. The more he learned about the drug, which he didn’t even know existed, the more shocked Jaeon became. It was a drug that could induce heat in an Omega who had just finished their heat cycle, and it could also induce heat in an Omega who had taken suppressants.

Unfortunately, it seemed Omegas had no defense against the heat inducer. It was described as a sort of selling point that once the drug took effect, they would go into heat helplessly, and new suppressants wouldn’t work. Jaeon felt sickened that such a thing was being openly distributed. The memory of what had happened in the alley came to mind, and his hands trembled and his stomach churned.

Through related searches, he soon found information about another drug as well.

‘Beta Heat Inducer’

It was a drug made for Betas. It was a drug that made a Beta go into heat ‘like an Omega’. It was written that a Beta who took it would have physical reactions similar to an Omega in heat.

It seemed they could also release something called ‘pheromones,’ which were slightly different for each individual. The fact that they couldn’t smell the other person’s pheromones but could faintly produce their own caught his eye. To summarize, it was a drug that helped one ‘pretend to be an Omega’ to a level similar to a recessive Omega.

It was also written on the sales page that it helped. It was described not as a drug someone uses on a Beta, but as a drug that a Beta uses for their own heat induction, that is, for pleasure.

In fact, the internet was rampant with reviews of people who had sex with Alphas while pretending to be an Omega through it. Jaeon, who was reading with serious eyes without realizing it, was engulfed in an unprecedented sense of disgust and closed the window.

He curled up like a dead mouse and clenched his hands. Crushed by the miserable and terrible fatigue of a world he hadn’t known until now, he didn’t want to move an inch. More than ever, he didn’t want to go to the convenience store. But also, more than ever, he wanted to go to the convenience store. He wanted to see Inha’s face. The only thing that made him forget the fear and physical limitations was the hope of being able to meet him.

He knew that Inha had come to dislike him. He had ignored the appointment and his calls, and he wasn’t showing up at the convenience store he always came to. He couldn’t help but feel that he would no longer be able to maintain even a formal friendship.

Still, he thought he wanted to see him. He wanted to clear up the misunderstanding, even if it was late. He wanted to let him know why he had no choice but to do that back then. He felt like he would understand after hearing it. He couldn’t let go of the hope that if he cleared up the misunderstanding, he would treat him like before. It was pathetic, but he only wanted to restore the relationship, even if it meant doing that.

He couldn’t see him for a week. Jaeon was barely able to eat properly. He also couldn’t sleep well because of the nightmares. He was breathing, but it felt like his breath had stopped. He lived like a ghost, wrapped in a shell. It was at the end of the week that he saw the face he thought he would never see again.

“Ah…….”

The moment Jaeon saw Inha’s face, he let out a groan without realizing it.

Inha didn’t even give Jaeon a glance. He placed the items he was going to buy on the counter and was quietly looking down.

Jaeon stood frozen for a few seconds with a paralyzed body. He couldn’t move. Feeling the stare, he barely managed to extend his arm and scan the barcodes. The total price appeared on the machine, and after a short hesitation, he raised his gaze. His eyelids widened, and the eyelashes attached to them trembled. When he found the two eyes directed at him, his breath stopped.

“……”

It felt as if he were tightly bound by invisible threads. He felt a tight, constricting sensation. Frozen like a bound person, he even forgot to breathe.

“Payment.”

“……”

“Aren’t you going to do it?”

The card was in the terminal. Jaeon discovered it only by rolling his eyes.

“……Ah, yes, sorr…….”

It was hard to speak, as if he was short on oxygen. He couldn’t even finish the word “sorry.” With a face on the verge of crumbling, Jaeon took a small breath.

His body wouldn’t move as he wanted. All he had to do was press the POS screen, but he couldn’t move an inch, as if he were paralyzed. He desperately moved from his fingertips. When his fingertips loosened, only then did the other parts move. After being released from the restraint, he hurriedly finished the payment.

“……Thank you.”

He mumbled like a person apologizing. Until the very end, he felt a gaze that was steadily pressing down on the air. Before long, he averted his gaze, and Inha left the convenience store. Jaeon, who had been looking down the whole time, lifted his head. He looked outside with a vacant face.

I just finally saw his face. I had so much to say. It might have been my last chance. He clenched his fist and struck his chest, thump. He was resentful and regretful of himself for not being able to do anything.

He sat on the chair with a shrunken body. He took out his phone and opened his contacts. There were about 10 contacts saved in his contacts. Mom, a few bosses, a few hyungs he got to know while working part-time, and the last one was the contact of the man saved as ‘Yoo Inha’.

His finger hovered over the call icon next to Yoo Inha’s name. In the end, he couldn’t muster the courage and pressed the message icon.

‘I was sorry about that time.’

He typed the words he wanted to convey the most. For some reason, his shoulders trembled as if he were cold. The look he had just faced floated up above the screen. The expression, as if facing something disgusting, wouldn’t erase from his mind.

In the end, Jaeon couldn’t send the message.

When the long day ended and night came, he received a message.

He stared all night at his mom’s message, which said that she had been to the hospital, that she had been told she needed to have surgery, and that she was sorry.