DHG Ch 8

Facing her mother after what felt like a lifetime, Heewoo’s mom seemed conflicted. That night, she leaned against the yellowed wallpaper, chain-smoking and sighing repeatedly. 

She pretended not to hear her son’s unusually chatty voice: 

“Dinner was delicious today. I like being with you.” 

Heewoo probably sensed it instinctively. That his mother was planning to send him away.

“What am I supposed to do….”

Heewoo, pretending to be asleep, overheard her murmur. An inexplicable anxiety kept him awake, but the late hour eventually forced his young eyelids shut.

The next day, when his grandmother visited again, his mother pushed Heewoo towards her.

“Take him.”

As she let go of Heewoo, she let out a short moan, as if in pain, but that was all.

Noona. No, Mom. Heewoo protested. He, who had rarely cried and had always been cautious since he was young, whined for the first time. But when his mother finally turned away from him, his cries became dry and choked.

Eyes that refused to meet his. A hand trembling violently as she lit a new cigarette. That was the last image Heewoo had of his mother.

Heewoo took his grandmother’s hand. His face soaked with tears, he silently left the street, which was as dark as night even though it was daytime.

His grandmother’s wrinkled hand smelled of the sweet earth. He later learned that she sold brightly colored flowerpots at the rural market.

Inhaling the earthy scent that tickled his nose, the two boarded the bus. Their destination was a quiet fishing village nestled between rice paddies and the sea. Heewoo, with wide eyes, looked around the old house, covered in flowering trees and portulacas, with small, jar-like flowerpots stacked neatly on one side.

“Here you go. A present for you.”

His grandmother, leading him to a room, handed him a new schoolbag. His lemon-colored crop top was taken off. Instead, his grandmother dressed him in a soft, thick, short-sleeved T-shirt with a yellow puppy character on it.

“Bought it in town. They said it’s what the young’uns like these days.”

Heewoo’s eyes widened, and he mumbled in agreement, his fingers tracing the puppy’s white, 3D wings.

That’s right. Do you like it? His grandmother smiled, her thin lips, missing half their teeth, stretching wide. Her face, which had initially seemed scary, softened instantly. Heewoo, his face still swollen, managed a clumsy smile.

The silent tears he shed every night stopped soon after. The new house gradually filled Heewoo’s small heart.

The fluorescent floral pillow and the patchwork quilt, sewn piece by piece with quilting cotton, smelled of sunshine and fresh air. He didn’t have to play shadow games until the sun disappeared, waiting for his mother to wake up. The bustling market he visited with his grandmother and the field full of unfamiliar vegetables became exciting playgrounds. He didn’t have to skip meals like before. For the first time in his life, Heewoo ate three meals a day.

“Why doesn’t this child have any yin energy….”

However, his grandmother would occasionally sigh, turning Heewoo over on the quilt with her wrinkled hands, expressing her bewilderment.

Heewoo knew his grandmother was an “omega” like his mother because he could faintly sense her pheromones. Unlike Heewoo, who was certain, his grandmother seemed unsure if her grandson was truly an omega.

Heewoo knew how to conceal his pheromones well. His earliest memory was of being hit on the back by his mother because he couldn’t control his pheromones. It was a day when his mother brought a man to their room, and for some reason, she kicked him out and got very angry.

Why are you like this? Can’t you even do this right? Don’t upset Mom! That day, he relearned how to control his pheromones until his tears ran dry. It was a lesson he received before learning how to read or brush his teeth. That was why he could manage his pheromones so flawlessly that it confused his grandmother.

“It’s a good thing.”

His grandmother said so after realizing that Heewoo could completely mask his pheromones.

“Being an omega isn’t good. Hide it and live.”

Her face was dark as she muttered those words. Heewoo wouldn’t understand their meaning until he grew older. It was probably around the same time that he became grateful for his mother’s teachings. An omega child who had to grow up in the dim shadows of the world, where his mother worked. His mother must have suffered greatly too.

As Heewoo grew, he became more adept at controlling his pheromones. His grandmother was deeply relieved. My goodness, that’s amazing. My grandson, he’s as slick as a dominant omega. The praise continued.

“Oh my, my puppy can get himself a wife now.”

His grandmother said that Heewoo, taller and more handsome than his peers, should get married someday. It was a time when male omegas forming families with women were not uncommon. Heewoo, realizing the ideal future his grandmother envisioned for him, tried even harder to appear like a beta.

No one noticed that Heewoo was an omega, not when he entered elementary school, nor when he transferred after his small branch school closed, nor even when he started middle school. His friends only knew him as a somewhat pretty beta. Eventually, Heewoo himself came to think of himself as a beta.

“You’re Kwon Heewoo, right?”

Until the day Kim Jinhwan suddenly appeared in the alleyway of his life.

“What a shame. I came knowing you’re an omega.”

Therefore, the moment he heard those words from Kim Jinhwan, who had barged in so abruptly,

“Heewoo, you’re fucked, aren’t you?”

Heewoo felt a strong sense of aversion. He was so angry that even the fear that had briefly surfaced quickly receded.

He had lived well as a beta so far. Besides, even if his omega status were revealed, so what? The omegas he occasionally encountered as classmates were no different from betas.

The strange man was just an acquaintance of his long-lost mother. Moreover, he barely remembered his mother’s face, so what right did this frivolous man have to threaten him? Just because he was an omega?

“I’m going to report you to the police.”

He had already taken out his phone. He was about to dial 112 when Kim Jinhwan, whose name he didn’t know at the time, grinned, revealing his teeth.

“I don’t need a fortune teller to know. With that face of yours, you must be covered in more bad luck than good, just like your mother.”

“…….”

“Such impudent eyes.”

The man, his unpleasant smile still plastered on his face, scrutinized Heewoo before disappearing around the corner of the stone wall.

He reported the incident to the police station afterward, but they said they couldn’t take any action unless there was a direct threat. Heewoo wasn’t particularly disappointed. He wasn’t afraid of the man, having lived in a normal, sunlit world with his grandmother as his support.

That was until his grandmother suddenly had an accident.

“Grandma…!”

It was a hit-and-run, and because they were in the countryside, it took a while for her to be found.

His grandmother underwent emergency surgery. With the help of the village head and a few neighbors, he managed to scrape together the surgery and hospital fees, but the situation only worsened.

Like pouring water into a bottomless pit, the hospitalization and treatment costs drained away. Heewoo learned for the first time that the money his grandmother had diligently saved in jars over the years could disappear so quickly.

It was during those days, when he was constantly absent from school to save on caregiver fees, that Heewoo encountered Kim Jinhwan again, as if he had been waiting.

“Kids these days grow up fast. It’s only been a year, but you’ve matured.”

You’ve blossomed, blossomed, Kim Jinhwan said, offering to pay the exorbitant hospital bills.

Heewoo ignored the offer. Instead, he heeded the village head’s advice to sell their beloved house. However, the difficult times weren’t over. Just when his grandmother seemed to be regaining consciousness, she collapsed from a cerebral hemorrhage. Because she was already hospitalized, she was found and treated quickly, but it was useless unless she had immediate surgery.

Even as he hesitated for a few minutes, his grandmother’s condition became critical. In the end, Heewoo took out the business card Kim Jinhwan had left behind.

“Surgery? Do it. I’ll pay whatever it takes.”

A blatantly amused voice came through the phone.

Heewoo lied to his grandmother, telling her that the insurance company had taken care of it. Diligent-looking con men in smart suits, sent by Kim Jinhwan, put on a show with thick files, claiming that her condition wasn’t covered by insurance. They were a replacement for the real insurance company, which had flatly refused to pay.

His grandmother was relieved.

“That’s good.”

Puppy, you need to study. You’re a high school student now. Grandma is alright. His grandmother smiled brightly for a moment, believing the con men’s lies about the insurance covering the caregiver costs.

In truth, Heewoo wanted to be her caregiver. He didn’t want to leave his grandmother’s side as she grew thinner and weaker. He wasn’t even in a position to attend high school as she wished. He told Kim Jinhwan that he wanted to take care of her himself, but he was met with a barrage of curses.

“Fuck, then who’s going to pay me back? You want to add the caregiver fees to your debt?”

If you want to be filial, you little shit, you’ll have to work your ass off, right? True to his sarcastic words, Kim Jinhwan informed him that as soon as he graduated middle school, he would work at a restaurant of Kim Jinhwan’s choosing.