The Onset of the Curse

Every corner of the school reeked of the pheromones scattered by Alphas and Omegas.

Being a Beta, Hyunwoo could not sense pheromones himself, but through Taegun—who would bury his face in Hyunwoo’s hair the moment they climbed into the sedan after school, complaining that he felt like his nose was rotting—Hyunwoo could guess that their scents must have been overwhelming today.

Originally, pheromones were a secretive means of courting a loved one, so it was rare for people to scatter them recklessly in front of others without regard for time or place.

However, since the entrance exams were over and the semester was nearing its end before graduation, everyone was acting like wild colts let off their leashes.

To prevent accidents, only Betas were appointed as teachers, but it was not easy for them to crack down on these deviations among the students.

Using pheromones to lure Alphas or Omegas they liked to the rooftop or the old building’s restrooms was becoming a trend, almost like a rite of passage to complete before graduation.

It was almost comical how everyone secretly enjoyed it, eagerly awaiting their turn while attending school more diligently than ever.

Even in this chaos, the reason no bold Omega dared to openly flirt with Taegun was that no one had forgotten the bizarre incident that occurred early in their freshman year.

It happened in the brief span of just a few minutes after Taegun disappeared, saying he had a headache and would get some sleep in the infirmary.

An Omega in heat had secretly followed Taegun into the infirmary.

During class, an ambulance suddenly rushed onto the campus.

At the sound of the siren piercing through the boring daily routine, the entire student body made a fuss and swarmed the windows; when they saw the figure on the stretcher, everyone was left speechless.

With at least ten syringe-type suppressants stuck into their exposed limbs and foam bubbling at their mouth, the Omega lay limp on the stretcher like a corpse.

Injectable suppressants were several times more potent than oral ones.

Because the side effects were just as significant, they were emergency suppressants that even the school infirmary only prescribed to students with a doctor’s note.

That Omega had been injected with a near-lethal dose and had gone into shock.

Red blood left a trail following the path of the stretcher.

The ambulance doors slammed shut, and the ear-piercing siren grew distant.

Inside the silent campus, no one watching could even let out a breath.

The next day, Taegun came to school as if nothing had happened, without receiving any punishment, while the Omega who was hauled off in the ambulance vanished without a trace.

It was as if they had never existed from the start.

Since the school foundation was sponsored by Taegun’s family, it was perhaps a natural outcome.

Hyunwoo was the only one who knew Taegun was the heir to the Taeryung Group, a leading enterprise in the biotechnology industry, but after that incident, the entire school became certain that Taegun’s background was anything but ordinary.

Groundless rumors circulated about the missing Omega—that they became sterile or paralyzed from the waist down—but not a single person dared to run their mouth about the perpetrator.

After that day, no Omega ever appeared to loiter around Taegun or flirt with him again.

Hyunwoo sometimes suspected that the incident wasn’t an accident but rather a deliberate show of power by Taegun, but regardless of right or wrong, his belief that the responsibility lay with the vulgar Omega remained unchanged.

Even after such an event, when he spotted the desire and greed that Omegas failed to hide in their eyes while glancing at Taegun, it made him feel utterly disgusted.

‘Is all they have in their heads the thought of doing that with an Alpha?’

He felt like he understood why Taegun recoiled from Omegas so much.

“…Haa.”

A hot exhale poured over the crown of his head.

Thump, thump.

The familiar sound of a heartbeat in his ear and the subtle scent of fabric softener eased the tension in his body.

Hyunwoo leaned his head against Taegun’s solid chest and stared blankly out the car window.

It looked like it was going to snow.

Watching the sky, which had turned completely grey and hazy, he felt a wave of drowsiness.

A well-defined bridge of a nose, which seemed ready to dig into his scalp, traced down Han Hyunwoo’s earlobe.

Taegun’s cold face buried itself into the nape of Hyunwoo’s neck, which was now exposed after unbuttoning his tie and shirt.

Hyunwoo, shrugging his shoulders at the chill, watched the scenery pass quickly through the window before quietly closing his eyes.

After the final exams were finished, the first and second years went on winter break two weeks early.

While the seniors, who still had to submit their university applications, continued to drag themselves to school, the New Year dawned.

At midnight on January 1st, while sitting on the sofa with his family listening to the tolling of the bell on TV, a roll cake with a candle suddenly appeared before Hyunwoo’s eyes.

He smiled at his parents, who offered the cake to celebrate him becoming an adult, and blew out the candle.

That night, Hyunwoo suffered from a terrible sleep paralysis.

A bizarre monster over ten feet tall chased him with a needle in its hand, and though he ran desperately, he was caught.

The large needle held by the monster began to sew his bare skin.

Even though he knew it was a dream, a searing pain, as if he were being burned, erupted wherever the needle pierced him, stitch by stitch.

He tossed his body to wake from the nightmare, but he could not move a single finger.

Only after enduring the pain of having his entire body stitched with red thread did Hyunwoo wake up drenched in a cold sweat.

His whole body throbbed.

A fever rose, leaving him unable to move from his bed throughout the holiday.

On Monday morning, with fatigue piled high, he hurried to get ready for school.

His body, showing no signs of recovery, refused to listen.

As if a severe cold was coming on, his whole body shivered and he felt chills.

His condition was so poor that cold sweat ran down his back.

He barely managed to grab his bag and open the front door, but at that moment, his vision flashed white.

Staggering from sudden dizziness, Hyunwoo narrowly regained his balance by grabbing the railing.

He almost tumbled down the stairs.

‘Why am I like this today…?’

Wondering why his physical condition was so different from usual, a thought suddenly crossed his mind and made him stop.

A suspicion arose that these symptoms might be the precursor to manifesting as an Alpha.

Usually, the signs of the third gender manifestation appear around the age of fourteen, but he had none until now.

Perhaps he still held onto the hope of manifesting as an Alpha even while considering himself a Beta.

Under the pressure of becoming an adult like this, he had been having frequent nightmares lately.

Coming from a family that only produced Alphas, he also felt a sense of inferiority for failing to meet the silent expectations of those around him.

His parents didn’t seem to care much about his gender, but he knew why they looked so pleased whenever he said he had something to tell them.

Though rare, there were cases where manifestation was delayed.

That was usually the case for recessive traits.

He knew that society treated recessive types as half-measures, but he wanted to manifest even if it was like that.

To fully understand the trauma that tormented Taegun like a curse, he had to become a member of that world himself.

He often felt self-loathing, feeling hypocritical for claiming to be Taegun’s sanctuary as a mere Beta.

In truth, he was like a blind man who couldn’t see anything.

Even for just a moment, he wanted to stand on the same ground as Taegun and look at the world from the same eye level.

Beep— Beep—.

The black sedan honked its horn repeatedly as if urging Hyunwoo, who was later than usual.

Hyunwoo hurried down the stairs.

When he got into the car, Taegun, who had been sitting with his legs crossed looking out the window, turned his gaze to Hyunwoo.

Hyunwoo’s hair, damp with sweat, was stuck messily to his pale forehead.

Taegun reached his hand out toward Hyunwoo.

“Did something happen?”

“I overslept.”

“That’s unusual.”

Hyunwoo was someone who kept his appointments strictly.

Taegun’s cool hand brushed from his forehead to his temple and down his jawline to check for a fever, and a suddenly unfamiliar sensation flowed down Hyunwoo’s spine.

Startled by the strange feeling, Hyunwoo unconsciously swatted Taegun’s hand away harshly.

It was the first time in his life he had ever had such a reaction, seemingly rejecting Taegun.

Hyunwoo, visibly flustered, offered an apology to the stiffened Taegun.

“I-I’m sorry…”

“…….”

Feeling the oddly cold atmosphere from Taegun, Hyunwoo aimlessly fiddled with his reddened earlobe.

No conversation passed between them until the sedan passed the school gates.

Finally, as Hyunwoo grabbed his bag to get out of the car after the engine stopped, Taegun caught his wrist.

“Wait for me after school. Stop by my house before you go.”

There were many things to discuss regarding university admissions.

Taegun wanted to go to a university in the countryside, as far away from the main house as possible.

He wanted to enjoy a free university life in a secluded and quiet place without the interference of adults, but Hyunwoo’s situation was different.

His mother was continuously opposing the idea of her cherished only son following the psycho-like Taegun to a remote university beyond her reach.

Because the wrist Taegun was holding felt so burning hot, Hyunwoo nodded his head frantically, saying he understood.

Suddenly, a strange scent wafted from Hyunwoo’s hair.

It felt as if the scent was coming from the nape of his neck rather than his hair.

It was the moment Taegun was about to bury his head in Hyunwoo’s neck without thinking.

Hyunwoo, having quickly grabbed his bag, sprang out the door like a coiled wire.

A hollow laugh escaped Taegun’s mouth, finding it ridiculous that Hyunwoo was suddenly wary of him with a face as red as a tomato.

They had to clash again at home over the admission issue after school anyway.

Taegun, not wanting to drain his energy over something trivial already, leaned back deeply into his seat.

“S-See you later!”

Taegun stared blankly at the back of Han Hyunwoo, who bowed to the driver, saying “Thank you,” before disappearing.

Since they were in different classrooms, he felt a sense of relief for now.

Seated in his spot, Hyunwoo pressed his palm against his forehead, which was covered in beads of cold sweat.

‘What on earth is wrong with me today?’

It wasn’t as if Taegun hugging and manhandling him was anything new.

Thinking naively that his burning body and thumping heart would soon get better, Hyunwoo bit his lip at a pain that felt like his intestines were being twisted into a braid.

As time passed, the pain of his organs being squeezed intensified.

“Ugh.”

When he couldn’t hide his groans while clutching his stomach, the homeroom teacher, who was explaining application strategies for different universities at the podium, asked Hyunwoo where he was hurting.

A few friends sitting in front of him looked back with worried eyes; only then did Hyunwoo ask for permission to go to the infirmary and hurried toward the restroom instead.

The sensation of his underwear, wet from who knows when, sticking to his skin was disgusting.

He entered a restroom stall, locked the door, and lowered his clothes.

The inside was a complete mess with an unknown mucus.

‘What is this…?’

Hyunwoo’s face turned deathly pale as he inspected his body with a bewildered expression.

The source of the mucus was not the front, but the back.

With a face turned white, he pulled out his hand that had been checking his lower half.

His fingers, wet with something, were shimmering stickily.

‘Has something gone wrong with my body?’

While worry surged within him, a realization struck his mind like a bolt of lightning.

…He thought he knew. What this was.

Hyunwoo’s face began to turn the color of ash.

The pre-symptoms of an Omega manifestation.

It seemed his body, which had been strange lately, was preparing for this.

‘Why now? Why me?’

Through his blurring vision, the first thing that came to mind was Taegun’s face.

Just imagining Taegun’s hateful gaze toward Omegas directed at him made him feel like he was suffocating.

‘It can’t be. An Omega? That’s impossible.’

His body was sending clear signals of manifestation, but Hyunwoo denied and denied reality until the very end.

He didn’t want to admit anything until a doctor gave a diagnosis.

‘First, let’s go to the hospital.’

It was a priority to get a clear diagnosis of why his body was in this state.

The moment Hyunwoo, barely holding onto his senses, tried to pull up his pants, even that brief contact with the sensitive area sent a strange stimulation through his spine like a lightning strike.

Hyunwoo’s body froze solid from the shock.

…D*mn it. I’m in trouble.

He instinctively realized that there wasn’t much time left until the heat cycle.

He had to hurry. He had to get out of school first.

If he dawdled and missed the timing, he too might lose his reason and act as disgracefully as other Omegas did toward Taegun.

He didn’t even want to imagine it. It was filthy and horrifying.

‘At least not where Taegun is.’

He didn’t want to show such an ugly side to Taegun. No, in fact, he didn’t want him to know he had manifested as an Omega at all.

But there was no hope.

The expectation that he could deceive Taegun—who wasn’t just a regular Alpha but a Dominant Alpha with a terrifyingly sharp intuition regarding Omegas—using something like suppressants was an absurdity in itself.

‘Is there no other alternative?’

While seeking a way, Hyunwoo suddenly recalled Taegun burying his nose into his neck this morning and was horrified.

‘No way. Did he already notice…?’

No. Hyunwoo shook his head. If he had noticed, he was not the type of person to let it slide so quietly.

Turning pale again at the sensation of his underwear becoming soaked once more, Hyunwoo hurried to the infirmary.

After confirming no one was inside, he gulped down two suppressants, stuffed a few extra into his pocket, and quickly left the school.

‘As long as it’s not an Omega. Please, let it not be an Omega.’

He would rather it be a symptom of some nasty disease.

If it wasn’t an Omega, he felt he could willingly endure whatever terminal illness it might be.

In the taxi to the hospital, Hyunwoo folded his hands and prayed repeatedly, calling out to every deity and saint he knew.

[Han Hyunwoo (Ω-)]

The symbol for a recessive Omega was stamped next to his name like a brand.

This was the result he received after waiting all day, having sneaked out of school to a distant hospital where he wouldn’t run into anyone.

He had hoped and hoped it wasn’t true, but faced with the worst-case scenario he most wanted to avoid, Hyunwoo could not take his eyes off the cruel result sheet.

“…This is a bit strange.”

The doctor sitting opposite him spoke with a dissatisfied face.

“To be honest, your genetic traits are not ones that should manifest as an Omega. Rather—.”

Listening intently to the doctor’s following words, Hyunwoo’s eyes gradually filled with confusion.

So, in summary, he should have manifested as an Alpha genetically, but it seemed he manifested as an Omega due to some powerful external factor—that appeared to be the explanation.

‘…What kind of radioactive tomato-like story is this…?’

His head was dizzy. It was difficult to maintain proper thought.

The doctor held out a few sample sheets to the dazed Hyunwoo.

“Would you like to smell these?”

These were things he had already smelled once during the main examination. He still couldn’t detect any particular scent.

“Those sample sheets have Alpha and Omega pheromones on them. You can’t smell them at all.”

“…….”

“Recessive traits tend to be relatively insensitive to pheromones. Sometimes there are issues with the sense of smell as well. But I’ve never seen a pheromone level this low. It was only measurable because it was done by a machine; at this level, biologically, no one would be able to detect it.”

“…….”

“And most decisively, the Omega reproductive organs themselves do not exist. It means you are facing a heat cycle purely with a Beta’s body. Logically, how can such a case exist…?”

The doctor’s voice trailed off as he fell into thought, then his eyes suddenly flashed as if something had occurred to him.

“By any chance, is there a Dominant Alpha around you?”

At that question, the face of Hyunwoo, who had been wearing a blank expression, slowly turned ashen.

‘As expected.’ The doctor nodded.

There was no verbal answer, but the reaction was answer enough.

‘I heard there’s a monster-like pheromone that even changes the surrounding traits to be advantageous for reproduction.’

During his undergraduate years studying biology, the doctor remembered hearing a colleague talk about Dominant Alpha traits like a joke and laughing it off as an urban legend.

The doctor, never dreaming he would face the reality of that hypothesis this way, tried to hide his awkwardness and gave Hyunwoo some advice.

The advice was to rest rather than take suppressants when the heat cycle came.

Long-term use of suppressants with his current trait—belonging to neither Beta nor Omega—was no different from drug abuse.

He warned that since there were no research cases for such a situation, he didn’t know what side effects might appear in the future, but it was certain to have a negative impact on his body.

The doctor advised that since there are good adult products for Omegas using Alpha pheromones these days, using those to get through the heat cycle would be less burdensome on the body, but to Hyunwoo, it all sounded like unrealistic stories.

He had to deceive Taegun, yet he was told to spend the heat cycle without suppressants.

Without medicine, it was unclear if he would suffer for three or four days with those toys, so he was supposed to disappear once a month like that? He might as well announce to the whole neighborhood that he manifested as an Omega.

Hyunwoo, biting his dry lips and picking at his fingernails throughout the doctor’s unacceptable advice, quickly worked his brain.

“…Excuse me, Doctor.”

Hyunwoo spoke, deliberately pausing for a moment.

“The… that Dominant Alpha you mentioned who is around me. That person is actually my older cousin. I can’t let him find out I manifested as an Omega. I really can’t. It’s already so hard now, I don’t know what he might do to me. I’m scared. Doctor, I’m scared. Please.”

As he spoke, Hyunwoo’s fingertips trembled. Red blood began to seep from under a hangnail he had been picking at.

With every word he spat out, his determination that the fact of his manifestation must not be discovered grew stronger.

He couldn’t even distinguish whether his burning eyes and trembling voice were an act or his actual surging emotions.

“My parents are not in Korea, so I am staying at his house right now. Is there a way for me to hide from him that I’m in heat?”

“…….”

“There is, right?”

“…….”

“Please tell me, Doctor. Please.”