RCKS 20

The stricter the alphas were controlled, the more it became evidence that they belonged to the upper class of society, and this created a new trend. After that, as rumors began to circulate that abstinence and self-denial were characteristics of chaebols who had old money or family offices, this phenomenon became even more solidified. Within the upper-class alphas, they even chattered about this as an extension of ‘noblesse oblige.’ No matter what depraved acts they committed among themselves behind closed doors, they displayed at least the appearance of making an effort in front of others.

Because the social atmosphere was like that, both Lee Jeongwon from long ago and the current Hwang Haekyung were living lives with no particular difference. Lee Jeongwon found this point bitter, and he hoped that his omega son would not shake Hwang Haekyung. For that reason, he decided to keep his son in check. Moreover, an alpha who was still immature and living while suppressing all desires under control was sufficiently dangerous to his son. Even if it was excessive protection, it was unavoidable.

Lee Yoonsan was the only child of the Lee Jeongwon couple, and if something happened, it would already be too late afterward. Even if that was a very slight possibility, Lee Jeongwon had the duty to protect his family. Even if the subject identified as a risk factor was the boy Hwang Haekyung, whom he himself cherished so much. So Lee Jeongwon tried to explain the situation to Lee Yoonsan roughly and make him understand.

Hwang Haekyung also has not finished his manifestation period yet, and just like you are sick, Hwang Haekyung is also taking medicine because he is suffering from growing pains, and he must be very tired due to school and sports. So until he becomes an adult after the manifestation period ends, it would be good not to create any situation where you meet Hwang Haekyung or have mutual curiosity.

The decisive reason that the camping gatherings, which could be enjoyed without any worries when they were young, came to an end was not just because of an accident. It was because the children’s second genders had diverged.

But Lee Yoonsan could not completely accept such words from his mother. He had consistently been educated about the instability of the manifestation period, including the desires of the second gender and their suppression, but when he thought of the other person as Hwang Haekyung, his guard lowered because of that.

The smaller and thinner Hwang Haekyung than him, the Hwang Haekyung who hated him but was not a threat to him at all, and even the Hwang Haekyung who brightly smiled and took off his clothes for him when they met again. Even if he recalled all of these Hwang Haekyungs, no danger whatsoever came to mind. To be precise, it was more accurate to say that the danger of an immature and unstable alpha did not connect to Hwang Haekyung.

So Lee Yoonsan nodded his head to his parents, who were giving him sufficient warnings, and then went into his room. He carefully folded the hoodie that he had proudly spread out on the bed, the one that Hwang Haekyung had dressed him in, hugged it to his chest, got into bed, and lay down. Even if he buried his nose in the clothes and sniffed, no smell came out.

So this time, he buried his face inside the clothes and sniffed the scent a little more carefully, and then he felt a refreshing scent like the wind. Since it was not a smell that could be encountered in daily life, it was a scent that made him certain it was definitely Hwang Haekyung’s pheromones. That night, Lee Yoonsan fell asleep hugging Hwang Haekyung’s clothes.

And starting from the very next day, Lee Yoonsan’s daily life began to change little by little.

First, he started frequently checking his SNS account, which had an empty feed, and the occurrences of looking at Hwang Haekyung’s ID in his friend list increased. No message came at all from Hwang Haekyung, whom he had expected would send a DM right away.

Around the time he was mindlessly consuming battery by pressing on the SNS account that he usually did not even check often, during the timeline that he absentmindedly pressed one period before the end of school, Lee Yoonsan was able to discover news of the person he desired.

It was a single photo uploaded by Hwang Haekyung along with the concise content ‘Low-carb meal plan.’ In the photo, there was a picture of a lunchbox balanced with carbohydrates, protein, and fats, and behind it, a part of a black bunny headband that was slightly caught could be seen.

It was just a lunchbox photo with not even Hwang Haekyung’s face revealed, but from the moment Lee Yoonsan discovered the bunny headband in the corner, his heart began to pound wildly and he could not control it. The bunny headband in the photo was exactly the one that Hwang Haekyung had taken yesterday. With his face flushed bright red, Lee Yoonsan kept glancing at the photo in his phone while checking his surroundings.

Under the image uploaded by Hwang Haekyung, comments and ‘likes’ were already flooding in. Everyone was surprised that something had been posted on his SNS, where the existing feed consisted only of clumsily taken sky photos or a few uniform and winter training ground photos. In the comments, questions like ‘Is this really player Hwang Haekyung’s personal account?’ and friends’ questions like ‘Are you doing personal posts now?’ that could not hide their surprise were increasing in real time. Even though it was a photo uploaded just 20 minutes ago.

Lee Yoonsan hesitated quite a bit and then pressed ‘like’ on that photo. With the thought that this much should be okay. Fortunately, nothing was tagged on the image uploaded by Hwang Haekyung, and since Hwang Haekyung’s SNS was not known, no one mentioned the bunny ears caught in the corner of the photo.

No, actually, if it were not Lee Yoonsan, the owner of that headband, it was to the extent that they would not consciously notice it. Because not the full shape of the headband was shown, nor the entire bunny ears, it was just some ambiguous middle part of the headband caught in the corner.

But there was merit to mustering up courage. Less than 5 minutes after Lee Yoonsan pressed ‘like’ on Hwang Haekyung’s photo, Hwang Haekyung’s profile picture changed, and

“Wow, ugh…!”

It was a photo presumed to be of Hwang Haekyung himself, taken together with the Semyeong High School volleyball club uniform and the black bunny ear headband.

On the uniform symbolizing the Semyeong High School volleyball club, the back number 11 was written in black letters, and next to it, the two ears of the pitch-black bunny ear headband stood straight up perkily. And soon after, a notification appeared that a DM had arrived for Lee Yoonsan. The sender was, of course, Hwang Haekyung.

My back number looks like your ears

It was a plain sentence full of playfulness, omitting any greeting.

---

After that, Lee Yoonsan often exchanged DMs with Hwang Haekyung, and photos were occasionally posted on Hwang Haekyung’s SNS. He was not good at taking photos, so they were always roughly taken meal plan lunchboxes or training grounds or auditoriums as the main background, and among them, there was not even a single photo of himself. Instead, whenever a meal plan photo was uploaded, the bunny headband was always photographed together.

Every time Lee Yoonsan saw those photos, he felt unnecessarily excited and his heart seemed to beat faster. It was common for him to check his surroundings, and he made it obvious that he had seen the photos by pressing ‘like’ every time. After doing that, without fail, a DM came from Hwang Haekyung that day. Most days, they could not have long DM conversations, and on days that were very busy due to training schedules, there were days when no DM came. Sometimes days were spent just waiting for contact from Hwang Haekyung, but even so, Lee Yoonsan only found this daily life, which was thrilling and strange day by day, to be novel.

“Hey, crazy, I heard Semyeong High’s Hwang Haekyung is doing personal posts?”

Like that, on a certain day while spending days like walking on clouds one by one, Shin Suhyeon hit Lee Yoonsan’s arm with a thwack and said it as if throwing it out.

Shin Suhyeon made a fuss that was not quite a fuss every time like this, and after the recent field trip, he had also tried several times to probe Lee Yoonsan regarding Hwang Haekyung. Mainly contents like ‘Did you get Hwang Haekyung’s number?’, ‘Are you in contact?’, and the two same-class omegas who had walked around together that day also seemed quite curious, often starting conversations by asking about Hwang Haekyung.

Of course, Lee Yoonsan lied that he had not received the number and was not particularly in contact. In fact, it was true that he had not received the number. Because he had received the SNS ID, not the number.

Lee Yoonsan, who had not particularly had occasions to lie in his sixteen-year life, but this time he knew well that being honest would not be good. His parents, who cherished Hwang Haekyung so much, had told him not to meet Hwang Haekyung, and above all, just looking at the homeroom teacher’s attitude experienced at the amusement park showed well that contacting the alpha Hwang Haekyung was something adults told him not to do.

“Yeah?”

So, as always, this time too he pretended not to know.

“Yeah. He doesn’t even post his own photos, and there’s no verification badge or anything. Moreover, because his back number changed, people couldn’t find him and were in an uproar, and this time they found out, what a commotion.”

“He changed his back number?”

After the field trip, Shin Suhyeon’s interest in Hwang Haekyung, Semyeong High, and high school volleyball had become immense. He would find and show volleyball game videos that Lee Yoonsan had not even asked about, or even memorize which players were in the Semyeong High volleyball club and what their SNS accounts were.

Lee Yoonsan also became more interested in Hwang Haekyung and the Semyeong High volleyball club to which Hwang Haekyung belonged after that day, but in fact, he was distracted by exchanging messages or ‘likes’ with Hwang Haekyung. So he had not looked into it as much as Shin Suhyeon.

Because he was busy peeking into Hwang Haekyung’s feed and rereading the DMs they had exchanged, the statement that Hwang Haekyung had changed his back number was unfamiliar to Lee Yoonsan. That was also why, because the Hwang Haekyung that Lee Yoonsan knew had been back number 11 from the beginning.

Had not Hwang Haekyung, the day after they met at the amusement park, in the late afternoon, changed his profile picture and sent a DM saying that his back number resembled Lee Yoonsan’s bunny ear headband? So for Lee Yoonsan, it was a strange thing. Even after that, Hwang Haekyung was still the back number 11 player.

“There’s this player in that volleyball club named Lee Seokjae who plays as left? He’s mainly assisting from left, and that guy runs his personal posts like a total influencer. But earlier, he tagged Hwang Haekyung’s ID and after the account got revealed, it seems like all hell broke loose?”

“It broke loose?”

“It did. Because Hwang Haekyung is the most popular player in the Semyeong High volleyball team, you know?”

“Sh, shh, be quiet a bit!”

Shin Suhyeon was sitting on Lee Yoonsan’s desk and continuing to browse Lee Seokjae’s SNS on his phone.

Most of the friends that Lee Seokjae followed were school friends or the same volleyball team players, and among them, Ham Sejin’s account also existed. After learning that the female alpha who had smiled at him and Lee Yoonsan on the field trip day was Ham Sejin, Shin Suhyeon seemed to be paying quite a bit of attention to Ham Sejin.

However, most of the volleyball club players except for Lee Seokjae had sparse SNS accounts. Whether it was because they did not have time to actively run SNS or lacked interest, it was unknowable, but anyway, the majority were like that.

There were even many players with private accounts. It was probably not due to control by the coaching staff. If it were, then Lee Seokjae was running his SNS too actively. Therefore, Shin Suhyeon concluded that it was because they disliked the fuss or did not want to open their private space to an unspecified majority.

So he decided to zealously browse only the things that were shown. With that mindset, Shin Suhyeon began to scour the feeds of Lee Seokjae, Hwang Haekyung, and Ham Sejin thoroughly. However, there were only a few photos on Ham Sejin’s SNS, and if he kept browsing Lee Seokjae’s SNS, it seemed like it would never end, so he switched to Hwang Haekyung’s feed. And at the same time, he could not help but turn his head to Lee Yoonsan with an aghast expression.

“Hey, you cra, crazy bastard, you this…!”

“Hey, shh, shh. Be quiet!”

It was because he had discovered the black bunny headband that appeared fully in Hwang Haekyung’s profile picture. And subsequently, even the bunny ear headbands that occupied one spot each in the photos in the feed below that. Shin Suhyeon glared at Lee Yoonsan with an expression half aghast and half betrayed, and Lee Yoonsan broke out in cold sweat while covering Shin Suhyeon’s mouth first.

It was because he suddenly remembered one fact that he had forgotten in the past few days since Hwang Haekyung’s SNS had not been known. Namely, that the same-class omega kids, including Shin Suhyeon, knew about the bunny ear headband that Hwang Haekyung had taken. Naturally, the homeroom teacher too.

Of course, if he made excuses saying that Semyeong High had also been playing at the same amusement park at the time, so maybe Hwang Haekyung had coincidentally bought the same one, it could be a possible issue. However, it would be hard to fool Shin Suhyeon. Because Shin Suhyeon already knew well that Lee Yoonsan and Hwang Haekyung knew each other. Had not Lee Yoonsan himself said it with his own mouth to Shin Suhyeon?

“Hey, if the homeroom teacher finds out, you’re totally screwed, for real.”

“The teacher doesn’t seem like the type to… do that.”

“Anyway, if they find out you’re meeting an alpha, it’ll become a big deal!”

“I, I’m not meeting him!”

“But you gave your black bunny ears to that guy? You’re crazy, that big clothes you wore that day, that’s his, right? Huh?!”

“……”

Lee Yoonsan, who had become speechless because it was all facts and had nothing to say, shut his mouth. Then Shin Suhyeon, with an expression as if he was utterly exasperated, flicked Lee Yoonsan’s forehead with a knuckle rap.

“Ah…!”

“By any chance, did Hwang Haekyung rub his pheromones on you? With those clothes?”

“No, crazy, what nonsense is that! I told you we’re not like that?”

“But why are your ears with him, and you showed up wearing his clothes.”

“He just gave it to me because I looked cold.”

“Fuck, or shit.”

“Why are you pronouncing Korean words like English curses….”

“I thought the one who would cause alpha trouble would be Kim Jihu, but it turned out to be Lee Yoonsan.”

“It’s not like that, I told you?”

“Bla bla bla!”

Even knowing that Shin Suhyeon was just teasing him for no reason, breaking out in cold sweat was unavoidable. He was scared of getting caught by the homeroom teacher and getting scolded and disciplined, but according to his mother’s words, Hwang Haekyung was in an even stricter environment. So if it got found out that he and Hwang Haekyung were communicating privately like this, it was unknowable what kind of discipline would fall on Hwang Haekyung.

“Don’t say it, anywhere. And don’t make it obvious.”

“You’re crazy, me? I’m not messing around just to screw you over.”

In the end, only after getting a firm promise from Shin Suhyeon did Lee Yoonsan make a slightly relieved expression. On the other hand, Shin Suhyeon, looking at such Lee Yoonsan, became convinced that the things he had thought were correct. For Shin Suhyeon, seeing Lee Yoonsan, who had been attending school indifferently, making such a fuss like this was a first. He only looked like a black bunny in appearance, but in fact, Lee Yoonsan’s behavior was close to FM bear. Slow, steady, and obedient to adults.

“But… that, the back number change, when did he change it?”

“Hwang Haekyung?”

“…Yeah.”

They had exchanged several conversations while calling Hwang Haekyung’s name until now, but to the three syllables of Hwang Haekyung’s name that belatedly came from Shin Suhyeon, Lee Yoonsan, who checked his surroundings, hesitated and affirmed. It seemed like a part he had been curious about throughout the conversation, so he had wanted to ask as naturally as possible, but it seemed like his inner thoughts had inevitably been revealed. Seeing Shin Suhyeon snort with a sly face.

“These days, I was looking up Semyeong High volleyball game videos on the video streaming platform, and Hwang… that guy was originally back number 10. When I looked it up, it said that in volleyball, the position and back number are not greatly related, but if you look at the games he played after entering school or their school’s practice videos, he has number 10 on in all of them. Even in middle school game videos.”

“Now it’s 11…?”

“It seems like it hasn’t been long since it changed.”

Shin Suhyeon personally found and showed a video from the video streaming platform of the Semyeong High volleyball club. Indeed, in the video, the back number of Hwang Haekyung doing a meeting practice was 10. It was a video shot from far away, and since it was a vlog of a volleyball club player from another grade, he appeared only briefly, but it was clear. Lee Yoonsan blankly stared at the back number of Hwang Haekyung in the paused screen. Looking at the upload date of the video, it was this summer, so that meant that really until just a while ago, Hwang Haekyung’s back number had been 10.

“Hey, look at that guy’s profile picture again.”

“Huh?”

While he was glaring at the back number of Hwang Haekyung in the video, after a long while, Shin Suhyeon snatched his own phone and said it while taking it away. Whether he had been looking at Hwang Haekyung’s SNS account with Lee Yoonsan’s phone that was placed on the desk, he handed that phone back to Lee Yoonsan.

And Lee Yoonsan’s eyes widened as he checked the profile picture of Hwang Haekyung in his own phone. The profile picture on Hwang Haekyung’s personal account that had changed the day after Lee Yoonsan and Hwang Haekyung had met was still the same, but in the photo, there was no name written above the uniform’s back number. It was not the official player uniform with Hwang Haekyung’s name engraved on it, but a temporary uniform. In other words, it was like he had to hurriedly wear it because he intentionally changed the back number.

“He switched numbers with another player, that guy.”

“…That can’t… be.”

“The one who was originally 11 is wearing 10 now.”

It was as Shin Suhyeon said. Shin Suhyeon seemed to have already dug into Lee Seokjae’s SNS with his own phone that he had taken, and there he checked the back numbers of other players and showed them to Lee Yoonsan as well. Indeed, in the older photos below, the player who had originally worn 11 was now wearing 10. As Shin Suhyeon said, it seemed like he had switched back numbers with Hwang Haekyung. It seemed like something possible because they were high school students and first-years.

Even if Lee Yoonsan did not know much about volleyball, he knew that a once-determined back number was not something that could be changed on a whim like flipping the back of one’s hand.

Lee Yoonsan sent Shin Suhyeon, who was looking at him with a strange expression, back to his own seat and opened the DM window with Hwang Haekyung. And he sent a message.

Why is your back number 11?

It was a disjointed and sudden question. So he did not even question the fact that the message that should have been sent as ‘since when’ came out as the question ‘why.’ But because his emotions swelling up in his chest like a balloon being filled were overwhelming, he could not think of anything else.

He was curious about what it all meant: the back number of Hwang Haekyung that had suddenly changed the day after meeting him, the nameless 11 uniform, and even the bunny ear headband that was photographed side by side next to it. Moreover, because he had exchanged conversations with Hwang Haekyung for several days while looking at the profile picture without any particular thoughts.

Fortunately, Hwang Haekyung’s reply came back quickly. It was a rare occurrence for the protagonist of a schedule squeezed between training and classes.

It’s cute. It looks like bunny ears

And Hwang Haekyung who sent that reply probably did not know. That with just that one reply he sent, Lee Yoonsan could not concentrate on classes at all that entire day.

From then on, for several days, Lee Yoonsan kept replaying and recalling and looking again at that reply sent by Hwang Haekyung, not knowing what to do. He would look at the message remaining in the DM and look again, and then he would exit the DM several times in case Hwang Haekyung suddenly sent a DM and realized that he was looking at the screen. While trying this way and that to interpret it and attempting to calm his excited heart, unnecessary anticipation would well up.

He could not even dare to gauge exactly what kind of anticipation it was aimed at, and it was overwhelming just to think up to there. Lee Yoonsan was already overwhelmed just by ruminating on the back number that Hwang Haekyung had changed, the bunny ears, and that brief moment they had crossed paths at the amusement park.

Such a state of Lee Yoonsan continued for quite a long time. It was unavoidable. It was a situation and emotions he had never experienced before, and the interest shown to him for the first time by someone his age, along with the affection included in it, shook his heart to the point that it kept him from sleeping for a while.