CHDY 31

He heard the question. I am fine, he declined lightly and exhaled. He remembered what he had to do and attached himself to the reception desk.

Not long after he started filling out the form, his hand stopped. It was in front of the box asking for the patient’s secondary gender. Inha, who was looking down at it silently, checked the ‘O’ for omega.

Even after that, there was no information he could enter right away. He remembered Jaeon’s wallet that he had grabbed in the midst of the chaos and searched his pockets. When he opened the wallet, he was able to find the resident registration card without difficulty. His gaze paused for a moment on Jaeon’s expressionless photo and his date of birth.

It was after he had entered everything one by one. Once he finished filling in the information about the patient, the rest was for the guardian’s information. In front of the box asking for the relationship to the patient, he was once again lost in thought. After some consideration, Inha scrawled three characters in the blank space: fiancé.

After finishing the registration, all the strength drained from his body. As soon as he submitted the form and headed to the waiting room, he collapsed into a chair.

“Ha…”

He let out a long sigh with his head bowed. Fatigue washed over him. What washed over him more roughly than fatigue was regret. It was a sense of self-loathing for putting Jaeon in that state.

He had pushed him too far to the limit. What on earth had he done to a person who was not even eating properly. By the time he realized and regretted it, Jaeon had already collapsed. He felt like he was worse than a beast. An unbearable sense of nausea washed over him, and he closed his eyes as if to crush them.

It was when he had been holding his head for a long time. The emergency room door opened, and one of the medical staff came out.

“Patient Seo Jaeon is going into emergency surgery.”

Before he could even grasp the full story, the situation was unfolding rapidly. The explanation he received when he asked what kind of surgery it was did not register properly in his ears either. He was just nailed to the spot, dazed by the words that it could be dangerous if they did not operate now.

After completing the surgery consent procedure, he stood there blankly for a while. A nurse, who could not bear to watch, approached and said something to him as if to appease him. That, too, did not reach Inha’s ears.

The surgery took an hour and a half and was over. He felt a distortion of time, as if several days had already passed.

The doctor who came out after the surgery explained the progress to Inha. The surgery had all gone well, and he would have to be hospitalized for two weeks. At the end, he added that Inha’s complexion was worse than the patient’s, and that he should stop worrying and rest now that it was over.

As the hospitalization procedures were completed, Jaeon was moved to a private room. When Inha entered the hospital room as the sole guardian, Jaeon was sleeping quietly in the bed.

Inha stood by the door like a soldier. Instead of approaching, he just stared at the bed from the same spot. He stood there foolishly for a long time, and only approached the bed when dawn was breaking. He looked down at Jaeon’s sleeping face like a shadow.

The day broke, and it was not until morning that Jaeon woke up from his sleep. He complained of abdominal pain, and Inha pressed the patient call bell. Only after receiving a simple treatment did Jaeon finally feel comfortable. However, Jaeon’s expression was dark the whole time he was listening to a few words of explanation from the nurse.

Jaeon consciously did not look at Inha. He did not even ask about the circumstances of how he had been hospitalized. There was no answer even when Inha asked if he was okay. He would be in pain, then fall asleep. And he struggled, repeating the cycle of sleeping and waking.

In the afternoon, Inha had a consultation with the doctor. The doctor, who had been looking at the medical records for some time, asked Inha.

“Patient Seo Jaeon, is he an omega?”

“……”

The doctor added to Inha, who could not answer right away.

“I think this patient was a beta until recently.”

Is that right? Inha acquiesced to the question seeking confirmation.

“Yes.”

A deep sigh followed, and the doctor, who pushed up his glasses, continued his explanation with a dry expression.

“It’s not common, but recently there have been occasional patients hospitalized for similar cases. Drugs that induce omega presentation, and what not, from light pills to drinks, injections, and illegal surgeries, accidents related to secondary gender transformation have definitely increased.”

After finishing his words and glancing at the monitor once, he threw his gaze at Inha.

“Did you do it with mutual consent?”

At the question, Inha narrowed the space between his eyebrows.

“What do you mean by that?”

“The induction of presentation, I’m asking if you did it intentionally with the patient’s consent. Usually, alpha-beta couples try it for the purpose of pregnancy or other sexual purposes, I’m asking if that’s the case.”

Inha, who was lost in thought for a short while, parted his lips.

“No, that’s not… It’s not like that.”

The doctor, who looked to be in his 50s, frowned and moved the mouse. His expression was serious as he looked at Jaeon’s medical records on the monitor screen.

“No matter how much you try to induce presentation, it’s rare for it to actually happen… Occasionally, there are cases like patient Seo Jaeon where several conditions happen to coincide and presentation occurs.”

The explanation that followed was about Jaeon’s abdominal pain and fever. He said that as the presentation progressed rapidly, a womb had formed in an abnormal shape inside his stomach. And in that process, organ adhesion had occurred. He said that in this state, the fact that a womb had formed at all was a miracle.

“The idea that a beta can present as an omega is something that drug sellers say irresponsibly, but in reality, it’s something that can be life-threatening.”

“……”

“With such an unstable body, even when a heat comes, it’s incomplete, and the hormones are also unstable. It’s difficult to control the pheromones, and in a word, the body’s cycle becomes a mess. A womb has formed, but this can’t even be considered a womb, and you should probably assume that there will be no possibility of pregnancy in the future.”

At the word pregnancy, Inha stiffened for a moment.

“You shouldn’t think of him as a typical omega. In cases of presenting from a beta to an incomplete recessive omega, there are several times more things to manage and be careful about compared to typical omegas. The one who will be his husband will have to pay a lot of attention to him in the future.”

Inha, who was listening, asked back with a stiff face.

“…If you mean things to pay attention to…”

“First of all, in the case of a patient like Seo Jaeon, autonomous pheromone control is impossible. He simply doesn’t have the ability to control it. He must always take his medication, and when he’s out and about in his daily life, he must manage it with a powerful spray.”

“……”

“The heat cycle also cannot come regularly. Compared to typical omegas, it’s much harder to predict and manage. It will also be difficult to find the right suppressants, and since he takes a lot of medication on a regular basis, taking suppressants constantly or getting continuous injections throughout the period will be a great burden on his body. And the aftereffects of one cycle are also greater than others.”

Hmm… After a long hum, the doctor continued.

“The pheromone receptors are also a big problem. As he presented as an omega, he became able to detect alpha pheromones, but the problem is that his ability to receive them is significantly lower than that of a typical omega. So, if he is excessively exposed to alpha pheromones for sexual purposes, the physical burden becomes enormous.”

The doctor glanced at Inha and showed signs of hesitating for a moment.

“Before you came here, you intentionally exposed him to an excessive amount of pheromones… Pheromone showers and what not, people talk about them lightly and couples do it a lot without thinking. In fact, that’s not good for typical omegas either. Especially in the case of a recessive omega like this patient, such acts are strictly forbidden. In severe cases, it can lead to fainting and even death.”

If the two of you want to have a healthy relationship in the future, the alpha side will have to pay particular attention to pheromone control.

Inha could not even give a short reply to the dry advice that followed.

Two bleak days had passed.

“…What, a baby, why do I have a womb…”

Jaeon, who had been given an explanation by the doctor who came up to the hospital room, was in a state of utter confusion. The doctor’s explanation of the sudden presentation continued, but his reaction was not much different. Jaeon could not readily accept what had happened to his body.

“I’m twenty-three now, and I’ve been a beta my whole life since I was born. It doesn’t make sense.”

“A hormone-disrupting heat-inducing substance was found in your system. You did take a heat cycle inducer for betas, right?”

“That’s right, but how can I suddenly…”

“…Have you ever taken or injected a similar drug before?”

At the doctor’s question, his lips parted blankly. He had a look of being lost in thought. His eyes, which had been rolling around erratically, stopped moving. Jaeon, who suddenly turned pale, shut his mouth tightly.

After that, the doctor’s explanations and precautions continued, but Jaeon was not listening. He just stared at a point in the air with a dazed face.

The situation was similar even after the two were left alone in the hospital room. As if he had been given a terminal diagnosis, Jaeon could not escape from the shock. He remained silent to Inha’s questions, lost in thought with a serious expression.

“…I’m just going to go get some things we need.”

Jaeon did not reply to Inha, who was speaking casually. Inha, who had been waiting for an answer, soon left the hospital room quietly.

When he arrived home, he first packed a suitcase. He put everything he thought was necessary into the bag. The bedroom was in the same messy state as when he had left. He put the fallen objects back in their places and briefly cleaned the floor and the surrounding area.

Right before he left, a tired face was reflected in the mirror. Inha swept up his disheveled hair and put on a baseball cap that was lying next to it.

And when he returned to the hospital room, Jaeon was lying down and looking out the window.

I’m back, Inha, who had given a short greeting, placed his hand on the suitcase to unpack.

“…Are we engaged?”

The hand that was undoing the lock flinched. Inha’s gaze turned to Jaeon.

“Why did you pretend to be me to my mom… and lie as you pleased?”

“……”

Inha could not answer anything to the following question. At the end of the continuing silence, Jaeon asked in a tired voice.

“…Please leave now. I’m fine now.”

“Mr. Jaeon, you just had surgery, so you shouldn’t be alone.”

“No. I want to be alone.”

“…If it makes you uncomfortable, I’ll stay outside.”

Inha put down his luggage and came out without even having time to unpack.

He stood blankly in front of the door for a while. His thoughtful eyes fell powerlessly. The light coming in through the window at the end of the corridor poured over his face. His face, which was as pale as plaster, was submerged in the light. He, who had been lowering his long eyelashes, turned around and walked down the long corridor.

He had no intention of leaving the hospital. He walked and sat down on the first chair he saw. He leaned back and tilted his head back. A long sigh poured out at the same time as he closed his heavy eyes.