The Secret and the Scent

Not only the doctor but even the nurse standing by the door were frozen in shock.

The nurse, who had guided and helped Hyunwoo throughout his consultation today, looked at the doctor with a gaze as desperate as Hyunwoo’s, but the doctor remained silent.

Alternating his gaze between the chart and the boy as if checking Hyunwoo’s age, the doctor wore a troubled expression.

There was one way, but telling him carried the risk of encouraging another crime; after wrestling with the dilemma, the doctor finally pulled something from his desk drawer, handed it to Hyunwoo, and called the next patient.

What Hyunwoo received was a business card with the contact information for a detective specializing in Omega s*x crimes.

As he left the examination room and walked feebly down the empty hallway, a nurse called out to him, “Wait a moment!”

The nurse looked at Hyunwoo with eyes full of pity as he turned around with eyes as wide as a rabbit’s.

The image of him pleading with gathered hands earlier that day, begging to know the results, flickered before her eyes.

She figured there was a story behind it, but she never imagined it was for a reason like this.

Wanting to be of even a little help, the nurse who caught Hyunwoo began to speak.

“There is one method the director didn’t mention, but this is…”

As if it wasn’t easy to say, the nurse bit her lip hard before continuing.

“I’ll tell you instead. Since you’re an adult now and it’s not like there’s no way at all, I thought it would be better for you to know.”

The sky was pitch black, and evening had long since passed.

The blowing wind made the tips of his ears sting with cold.

Standing at one side of the bus stop, he let numerous buses pass by.

He didn’t know where he should go.

Because of his continuous exposure to Taegun’s pheromones since childhood, his body, which should have manifested as an Alpha, had grown into a halfway point that was neither Omega nor Beta.

He had become a mutant who had completely lost the reproductive functions of both sides.

Perhaps that was why even Taegun, a Dominant Alpha, could not detect him despite being so close to a manifested Omega.

Furthermore, everything was abnormal, from the sudden heat cycle that started simultaneously with his manifestation to his sense of smell, which could not detect pheromones at all.

Despite this, he didn’t feel a shred of resentment toward Taegun, who had made him this way.

Instead, a voice deep within his heart whispered in defense of Taegun, saying it couldn’t be helped.

At that, Hyunwoo swallowed a hollow laugh.

They had spent a childhood where each other was their entire world.

Even if he could turn back time, it was certain he would never be able to leave Taegun’s side.

Even if he had known in advance that the price would be becoming an Omega, the very thing Taegun loathed.

The reason he wanted to be an Alpha in the first place was to share a deeper emotional resonance and be in the same world as Taegun, yet he was told he had to leave Taegun’s side to achieve that.

There was no contradiction greater than that.

Standing in front of a trash can at the bus stop, Hyunwoo tore up his trait result sheet.

The finely torn pieces of paper drifted down into the trash like snowflakes.

‘As long as Choi Taegun doesn’t know.’

He had lost the possibility of becoming an Alpha and was no longer a Beta, but he wasn’t a complete Omega either.

So, he felt there was no need to feel guilty for not disclosing the fact of his manifestation.

As long as he successfully navigated the heat cycle that came once a month, his relationship with Taegun would change absolutely nothing, just as it had been until now.

As for his stripped reproductive functions, they didn’t matter since he had no plans to start a family even if he had manifested as an Alpha.

Thinking that way made his heart feel much lighter.

He randomly boarded one of the buses that stopped at the station.

He got off at a place as far from home as possible and searched for an internet cafe.

Only after taking his phone out of his pocket to check the time did he remember he had turned it off when leaving school.

As soon as he turned the phone on, alerts for missed messages rang out in succession.

They were all from his parents and Taegun.

He sent a reply to his parents first.

[I was preparing my university applications. Don’t worry. I’ll sleep here tonight.]

[Are you at Taegun’s? Why are you just contacting me now, I was so worried. Come home tomorrow not too late.]

The situation was resolved in an instant.

‘What should I tell Taegun?’

The reason he disappeared from school and had been out of contact until now.

Hadn’t they even promised to return together?

Hyunwoo pulled up Taegun’s message asking where he was and repeatedly wrote and erased replies, but in the end, he couldn’t send a single one.

They were friends who had been stuck together for over a decade.

It was obvious that any lie would be caught.

He had no skill to deceive Taegun, who knew him inside and out better than he knew himself.

‘It’s better to see his face and talk tomorrow. I’ll just say I went home early because I didn’t feel well and fell straight asleep.’

Taegun would act inconvenienced and annoyed all day, but he was the type to reluctantly accept an apology when it was offered with a much more gloomy face.

With those thoughts, he turned off the phone in his hand and put it back in his pocket.

Leaning his head against the bus window, he stared blankly outside.

The yellow lights decorating the bare tree branches gave off the distinct scent of winter.

The method the nurse had told him after calling him back at the hospital was none other than an Alpha’s Pheromone Shower.

It was the only means of ending a heat cycle without suppressants, but for him, the act of drenching himself in an Alpha’s pheromones was the more significant matter.

Though they were said to be pheromones so weak that no one could detect them, he planned to cover his own with an Alpha’s pheromones to prepare for future heat cycles, just in case.

No matter how much he thought about it, there seemed to be no more suitable method to deceive Taegun.

“Ha.”

Hyunwoo let out a hollow laugh.

Pheromones so pathetic that even Taegun, who was in the same enclosed car, couldn’t notice.

Yet, it was somehow funny how he was so anxious and on edge for fear of being caught as an Omega.

He thought the Pheromone Shower the nurse mentioned would be a good tool in many ways.

If he used this method, he wouldn’t have to take suppressants as the doctor advised.

At most, it would just be the trouble of pretending to have an Alpha boyfriend, which was much better than being caught having manifested as an Omega.

After getting off the bus, Hyunwoo spotted a brightly lit internet cafe sign next to an unfamiliar apartment complex and walked inside.

He had to find an Alpha.

An Alpha to have a relationship with.

It certainly couldn’t be someone he knew, and it had to be someone he would never meet again.

That was the reason he had taken the bus all the way to this distant place.

Not long after he started surfing the web, he easily found an Alpha-Omega meeting community.

After completing the adult verification for registration, the cursor flickered in the nickname box.

Suddenly, a game he had played with friends on a school trip came to mind.

Hyunwoo typed Bunny Bunny Carrot Carrot into the blank space.

He labeled his trait as a Recessive Omega and finished the registration after filling in all the remaining blanks.

Then, he immediately searched for Alphas currently online at the top of the site and scrolled his mouse wheel while sending messages.

He didn’t pay much attention to the opponent’s profile.

It was someone he would just roll around with once.

He decided not to give much meaning to this act.

To Hyunwoo, there was no difference between the adult products for Omegas the doctor suggested and the body of a living Alpha.

[Seoul OO-dong / Heat Cycle / Let’s meet now.]

By the time he sent the fourth message, a reply came from the first person he had messaged.

[Twenty? You’re just a kid. Do you have experience?]

Hyunwoo furrowed his brows.

‘A kid? How old are you then?’

When he clicked on the Alpha’s profile, a window appeared showing his age, height, weight, trait, and occupation.

‘Twenty-two? You’re not that much older, stop acting superior.’

He was about to snap back but changed his mind.

He didn’t want to waste time or drain his emotions on someone he would never see again.

And his physical condition had reached its limit.

The medicine he took an hour ago was the last suppressant he had taken from the infirmary.

He had to avoid a situation where he would cling to just any Alpha on the street.

Hyunwoo immediately clicked the 1:1 chat button.

[system / You have invited the other party]

[Bunny Bunny Carrot Carrot]: I’m not a kid, I am an adult, and I don’t have experience yet.

[Bunny Bunny Carrot Carrot]: But can’t you teach me well?

[I!i!i]: Beginners are no fun.

[Bunny Bunny Carrot Carrot]: I can do well. I definitely won’t pretend to be innocent.

[Bunny Bunny Carrot Carrot]: I’ll learn hard as you teach me.

[Bunny Bunny Carrot Carrot]: I haven’t even kissed yet.

[Bunny Bunny Carrot Carrot]: I’ll give you all my firsts.

[Bunny Bunny Carrot Carrot]: Teach me.

He desperately held onto the Alpha.

Perhaps attracted by an Omega younger than him saying such bold things so casually, the Alpha soon accepted the meeting.

Hyunwoo chose the meeting place.

It was a small motel on the outskirts of the city, five subway stops away from where he was.

The probability of meeting someone he knew was close to impossible.

It was a place he chose with the thought that since there was a police station near the motel, he could run there if anything happened.

Before arriving at his destination, Hyunwoo took off his school jacket and put it in a storage locker inside the subway station along with his phone.

He hid everything that could identify him.

Before long, a man in a white padded jacket approached the meeting spot.

Recognizing each other, the two immediately entered the motel.

There wasn’t even time to wash.

The Alpha immediately climbed on top of Hyunwoo’s body after pushing him onto the bed.

Hyunwoo was equally pressed for time. His mind kept getting hazy.

Burying his nose in the nape of Hyunwoo’s neck, the Alpha took a deep breath.

He had clearly heard it was a heat cycle today, but he couldn’t feel even a bit of pheromones.

Since he was recessive, he seemed to be extremely recessive.

Both the pheromones and the appearance were definitely different from the typical flashy and seductive feel of an Omega.

However, his neat features and pure atmosphere drew more attention the more he looked.

The physique seen under his shirt was also decently sturdy and well-balanced rather than just fragile and slender, and every gesture had a neat and elegant quality, showing he was clearly well-raised.

The Alpha’s heart raced at the appearance of an Omega that exceeded his expectations.

Hyunwoo desperately endured the touch of the Alpha who was frantically indulging in him.

He was flustered because a sense of rejection kept rising.

It wasn’t like this at all when Taegun touched him.

When Hyunwoo, who was enduring with clenched teeth, unconsciously made a gesture of rejection, the Alpha poured pheromones over him.

“Ugh…”

Suddenly overwhelmed by the high concentration of pheromones, Hyunwoo collapsed sideways, gasping for breath while his whole body trembled.

“You really don’t have experience.”

“…Huff… Hah.”

“There’s no need to be so tense.”

The Alpha slowly withdrew his pheromones and began to undress Hyunwoo.

In that way, Hyunwoo had his first experience with a partner whose name he didn’t even know.

From the Alpha’s touch, which had been nothing but rejection, unknown sensations gradually began to bloom.

As time passed, reason disappeared and only instinct remained.

Self-loathing accompanied by pleasure surged like a tidal wave.

What tormented Hyunwoo even more was the fact that he thought of Taegun throughout the entire night.

In the Alpha who was fondling him, Hyunwoo saw Taegun over and over again.

Both his body and mind were a mess.

Every time he imagined the Alpha before him was Taegun, a terrible ecstasy ran through his entire body.

In the body of an Omega that Taegun loathed so much, he reached a climax while imagining Taegun.

Tears flowed endlessly from the corners of Hyunwoo’s eyes as he writhed in pain from the first pleasure he had ever felt and a horrific sense of immorality.

It was dawn when he regained consciousness.

His whole body was stiff, but the crazed sensations and heat had all disappeared.

Yesterday’s memories felt like a dream.

The Alpha was nowhere to be seen.

Instead, a note was left alone on the nightstand. It had the Alpha’s contact information on it.

Hyunwoo, shivering with disgust, threw it into the trash can.

Hyunwoo’s hand stopped mid-air as he went to pick up the showerhead to wash.

He had gone through that humiliation to obtain an Alpha’s pheromones; he couldn’t just wash them away like this.

Standing in front of the mirror, his body was reflected, mottled with red marks on his neck and chest.

Over that, the ugly image of him crying out in pleasure while thinking of Taegun overlapped.

It was filthy and impure.

Hyunwoo slumped onto the bathroom floor and buried his face in his hands.

Senseless tears burst out uncontrollably.

After barely pulling himself together, he left the motel and headed to school.

Everyone looked at Hyunwoo with curious faces as he entered the classroom.

Since the guy who said he was going to the infirmary suddenly vanished, there seemed to have been quite a bit of talk about his whereabouts.

The guys who were gathered in small groups approached Hyunwoo’s seat and exchanged meaningful glances.

“Whoa, Han Hyunwoo. What was the rush?”

“The scent is really radiating. How did you even think of coming to school in that state?”

A friendly interest was embedded in the sly tone.

It was just that they couldn’t easily approach him because he was best friends with the terrifying Choi Taegun, but most classmates had a favorable impression of Hyunwoo, who had a bright personality and neat appearance.

Since Hyunwoo, who looked like a well-raised Alpha noble, appeared emitting seductive pheromones as soon as he became an adult, an atmosphere naturally formed that he must have manifested as an Alpha.

‘Do they think the Alpha pheromones on me are mine?’

While Hyunwoo was bewildered by the unexpected situation, one guy sitting in the back seat twitched his nose and asked.

“Sniff, sniff. Hey, but why is there only Alpha pheromones? Did you do it with a Beta?”

“Why did you emit so many pheromones against a Beta? Did you forget because your manifestation was delayed? They can’t smell it anyway.”

“Whoa, hey, hey. Be quiet…”

“…….”

The guys who were surrounding him and talking nonsense fell silent and parted like the miracle of Moses.

Taegun was standing at the end of the opened path.

Since when had he been there?

Had he heard all the pointless things his friends were babbling?

Hyunwoo’s shoulders stiffened at the sound of Taegun’s footsteps approaching him.

Taegun, who had reached him in an instant, buried his nose in Hyunwoo’s hair and inhaled.

After a long while, a low voice dropped over the crown of his head.

“When did you manifest?”

Hyunwoo felt his heart drop.

Manifestation.

Alpha? Omega? Which side was he talking about?

Taegun, who was staring down at the stiffened Hyunwoo who couldn’t say a word due to tension, suddenly furrowed his brows.

Hooking his finger into the collar of Hyunwoo’s shirt and pulling it to look inside at the opening, Taegun let out a hollow laugh as if it were absurd.

Below the white nape was full of red bruises.

Taegun’s voice, whispering low into Hyunwoo’s ear, was cold.

“It seems you were doing something else instead of preparing university applications, with an Omega.”

Taegun sneered, mentioning the lie he had told his parents last night.

His heart throbbed.

Taegun added to the stiffened Hyunwoo, who couldn’t make any reply.

“Behave yourself so you don’t become a nuisance later.”

“…….”

“Well, you seem like a half-baked Omega with mediocre pheromones anyway.”