Chapter 2

Pencil in hand, Yi-seon studied the students racing across the schoolyard and sketched quick figure studies from the bleachers beside the podium. Around him, the other art-club members worked in quiet rhythm.

In contrast to the quiet atmosphere on the bleachers, the field was practically a war zone.

“Hey! Take the flank! Flank!”

“Ah, freshmen, get the hell out of the way!”

“That’s not our ball, you dumbass!”

First- and second-years screaming like pterodactyls packed the field, spending what remained of lunch in an all-out soccer match.

At a rough estimate, about five soccer balls were flying across the grounds simultaneously. Watching the boys sprint through the chaos, Yi-seon marveled that they could tell their own teammates apart at all.

Mugyeol struck a powerful shot. The ball arced through the air and drilled cleanly into the net.

“Whooooaa! Yeon Mugyeol! Yeon Mugyeol!”

Letting out feral roars, two boys running alongside swiftly pounced on Mugyeol. Mugyeol staggered theatrically beneath the boys dogpiling him and played up the celebration.

Everyone’s eyes were on him.

Yi-seon watched Mugyeol with mild fascination.

Every time I see him, he’s running around. Basketball, soccer… How does he keep his grades up when he lives like this? Are Alphas built differently or something?

Having finished sketching the goalkeeper’s back, Yi-seon lifted his head. Beyond the goalposts, Mugyeol stood over the ball with a playful expression, loosening up as though for a penalty kick.

For a split second, Yi-seon felt their eyes meet, but he quickly dismissed it as a delusion. Mugyeol was beaming in this direction with a gentle, affectionate expression he had never once aimed at Yi-seon since their reunion.

“Noona! Did you see me score?!” Mugyeol called out across the distance, acknowledging the person seated high on the bleachers.

The person he was looking at waved back from beside Yi-seon. “Of course I saw!”

It was Ham Su-ah, who had been sitting beside Yi-seon all along. She was a year older, a noona who had played with both Yi-seon and Mugyeol since childhood.

After moving back to Seoul from Jeju, Yi-seon had grown close to her again, eventually joining the art club where she served as president.

Thanks to Mugyeol’s sudden outburst, every student on the bleachers turned toward Ham Su-ah.

Su-ah scratched the back of her neck in embarrassment, and Mugyeol chuckled at the sight. His bright grin froze almost at once. One of the soccer balls flying across the field was hurtling straight toward Yi-seon and Su-ah.

“Eek!”

Startled by the incoming projectile, Su-ah hunched her shoulders. Reacting instantly, Yi-seon threw an arm out to shield her. At the same instant, Mugyeol sprinted toward the bleachers in alarm.

Thump! The ball struck Yi-seon’s shoulder and bounced away, rolling across the concrete floor.

Mugyeol arrived looking panicked, pushed past Yi-seon, and planted himself in front of Su-ah. Even though Yi-seon had taken the hit, Mugyeol bent down to inspect her face instead. “You okay? You didn’t get hit, did you?”

“Yeah. Yi-seon blocked it for me.”

Only after confirming Su-ah was unharmed did the tension drain from Mugyeol’s face. Then he grabbed the offending ball and booted it back onto the field with unnecessary force.

The first-year who had kicked it shrank back, bowing in apology, but Mugyeol didn’t even spare him a glance. “You saw me score four goals earlier, right?”

“Yeah. You were running hard.”

“I ran my ass off because noona was watching. Thought my slides were gonna fly off.”

“Oh please, you were just having fun!”

Their banter was warm and harmonious. Behind them, Yi-seon brushed the dirt from the shoulder that had taken the hit for Su-ah.

We used to hang out together all the time back then.

During his time in Jeju, so much had changed. His relationship with Mugyeol. The balance among all three of them.

The most shocking thing Yi-seon had learned since transferring was that Yeon Mugyeol liked Ham Su-ah and apparently showered her with declarations of affection. Then again, even as children, the two boys had bickered over Su-ah.

Yi-seon watched tree shadows dapple Mugyeol’s face before lowering his gaze. There, beneath Mugyeol’s oversized slipper, lay his sketchpad.

“Hey,” Yi-seon said.

Only then did Mugyeol bother to look at him. Following Yi-seon’s pointed gaze, Mugyeol naturally lowered his head.

Yi-seon pointed a finger at his sketchbook. “Your foot.”

Only then did Mugyeol lift his foot off the pad. With a dismissive, ‘Sorry,’ he nudged the sketchbook toward Yi-seon with the tip of his shoe.

Bending down, Yi-seon picked up the sketchbook himself.

Ah… Yeon Mugyeol, you ill-mannered prick…

Mugyeol had already forgotten him and was grinning at Su-ah again.

“Noona, library together this weekend?”

“Can’t. I’ve got plans.”

“What plans? A third-year not studying?”

Listening to their exchange, Yi-seon dusted off his sketchbook.

The Mugyeol Yi-seon remembered had been like this since elementary school.

He was boundlessly sweet and attentive to people he considered his own, and utterly ruthless to ‘outsiders.’ His moods swung wildly; one moment he would smile like an angel and shower someone with kindness, only to turn around on another day and treat them with icy indifference.

He had started a conversation at the basketball court just to pick an absurd fight about heat management, yet now acted as though Yi-seon were invisible. Somehow, other people even treated that selfish, erratic streak as part of his charm.

Once the dust was gone from his sketchbook, Yi-seon dropped back onto the bench. Mugyeol finally turned his gaze toward him. “Did you say you’re in the same club as noona?”

“Yeah.”

Mugyeol simply took the sketchbook from Yi-seon’s hands and flipped through it: the sketch of the goalkeeper’s back on the last page, and on the reverse side, Kwon Jeongjin.

“It’s Kwon Jeongjin. Why’d you draw this ugly bastard?”

Jeongjin was objectively good-looking, but Yi-seon did not bother arguing. Flipping a couple of pages forward, Mugyeol fixed a steady stare on Yi-seon.

“Why didn’t you draw me?” he demanded as if collecting a debt.

“Was there any reason I should?”

“You drew all those rockfish-looking bastards.”

“I don’t draw baby squids.”

Mugyeol, abruptly demoted to baby squid, let out a low chuckle. Then, with a clean rip, he tore out the drawing on the last page, gripped it in his hand, and tossed a chocolate bar from his pocket onto the bench. Apparently, it was payment for the sketch.

“Borrowing this.”

“Are you going to return it?”

Without bothering to answer, Mugyeol walked away. Yi-seon scratched near his ear as he watched his back. The moment Mugyeol left, the air around Yi-seon seemed to settle—the strange calm after a violent storm.

Mugyeol ran onto the field, hooked an arm around Kwon Jeongjin’s neck, and shoved the drawing in his face.

“Hey, he says this is you! Seriously fucking ugly!”

“What is it?! Give it here!”

Jeongjin wrestled to snatch the sketch while Mugyeol dodged to keep it out of reach. Watching them fight over his drawing while mocking it as terrible irritated Yi-seon.

Why is he making such a fuss with someone else’s drawing?

Ham Su-ah watched the spectacle with him and patted his shoulder. “Let’s just be understanding. Yeon Mugyeol has always been like that.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“Ah, right. You know him well too.”

Su-ah nodded as if recalling an old fact.

The more they talked, the more a faint bitterness settled in Yi-seon, though he understood. He had no way of knowing what kind of friendship Su-ah and Mugyeol had built during his absence, or what feelings had grown between them.

The shape of their relationships had changed. Whatever they might have been in the past, to the present Yeon Mugyeol, Ryu Yi-seon was merely an ‘outsider,’ while Ham Su-ah was still ‘one of his own.’

“Still, weren’t you and Mugyeol really close back in the day?”

“We were.”

Yi-seon answered firmly in the past tense and reopened his sketchbook, though his restless thoughts kept the pencil from moving.

Why did Mugyeol’s voice from earlier suddenly echo in his mind?

“Why didn’t you draw me?”

Yi-seon let out a soft smirk.

Dumbass. You’re on the very first page.

❖ ❖ ❖

“I heard you transferred. Long time no see, Ryu Yi-jeong.”

That had been Mugyeol’s first greeting when they reunited at Soram High after six years apart.

And so, Yi-seon had answered with equal cheer, “Right. Long time no see, Yugyeol-ah. How have you been?”

“It’s Mugyeol.”

Of course Yi-seon knew his real name; it was merely petty retaliation.

Ryu Yi-jeong was his older brother’s name. Yi-seon had not expected a tearful childhood-friend reunion, but Mugyeol could at least have remembered his name. Did his IQ plummet while I was away?

Sliding open the back door of the classroom, Yi-seon ran into the target of his petty revenge once again.

“If you take a hit from that, the bug breaks. The second you get hit, half your damage output vanishes into thin air—how does that make any sense?”

“Yeah, that’s just a skill issue on your end.”

Slouching lazily in a chair, Mugyeol was snickering over gaming talk with Kwon Jeongjin. When Yi-seon’s eyes met their group, Jeongjin greeted him first. “Oh, Yi-seon!”

“Hey.”

“Want some of this?”

“No, I’m good.”

Yi-seon declined the snack Jeongjin held out. Mugyeol stared intently at Yi-seon without offering any greeting of his own. Instead, he snatched the snack Jeongjin had offered Yi-seon and tossed it into his own mouth.

Passing them, Yi-seon took his seat. His desk mate, already present, greeted him warmly. “You’re here?”

“Yeah. Morning.”

“Class prez said to turn in the Career Reading worksheet on the teacher’s lectern.”

“Ah, got it.”

After dropping the worksheet off at the front, Yi-seon returned to his desk and organized his bag.

His seatmate was a petite, sharp-looking model student named Park Juhyeon. An Omega by secondary gender, he had been assigned next to Yi-seon before Yi-seon ever manifested, so it wasn’t an intentional pairing.

Naturally, special secondary genders like Alpha and Omega were exceedingly rare. Typically, there were only one or two alphas per grade, and omegas were just as scarce. Having multiple individuals with special genders in a single classroom was an anomaly in itself.

As Yi-seon finished packing away his bag and reached for his pencil case, a sudden clatter broke out beside him. His seatmate, Park Juhyeon, abruptly sprang up from his desk and scrambled toward the lockers at the back.

The instant Juhyeon vanished without a word, a massive shadow loomed over Yi-seon’s head. Looking up in confusion, he saw Mugyeol standing there with a slouching posture. His hulking, solidly planted frame felt like an imposing mountain. Perhaps because of that presence, whenever Mugyeol appeared, everyone’s eyes naturally gravitated toward him.

Rummaging through his pocket, Mugyeol tossed something onto the desk. Thwip. “Present.”

It was a haphazardly crumpled piece of paper. Mugyeol added that he was repaying the paper he had borrowed earlier.

“You really shouldn’t have…”

Yi-seon smoothed out the wrinkled paper. Drawn upon it was what looked like a sorrowful sesame seed. Mugyeol helpfully explained that it was a portrait of him. Yi-seon did not feel particularly grateful for the clarification.

“Isn’t my drawing skill way better than yours?”

“Right on. Go become a painter.”

Crumpling the paper back up just as Mugyeol had given it, Yi-seon shoved it into his pocket. Even if he wasn’t grateful, accepting the sender’s effort was the civilized response.

“Heard you’re meeting noona this weekend. Leaving me out, again.”

“Which noona? Are you talking about Su-ah noona? And what do you mean, again?”

Yi-seon couldn’t make heads or tails of what Mugyeol was getting at.

Even as a kid, Mugyeol had always lacked the ability to explain things coherently using the basic five Ws and one H.

A good beating might have beaten some communication skills into him, but who on earth could beat up an Extreme Dominant Alpha standing over 190 centimeters tall? That was an open question.

“Heard you’re hanging out with Su-ah noona this weekend.”

“Ah, that. It’s not hanging out, it’s volunteer work.”

“If you two meet up and spend time together on a weekend, that’s hanging out.”

“Mmm… I guess that’s true. But why do you ask?”

Mugyeol offered no further answer. As if delivering the sesame drawing had fulfilled his life’s purpose, he turned on his heel and walked out of the classroom.

The “hanging out with noona” Mugyeol referred to was a volunteer event. Five or six times a year, Yi-seon’s art club partnered with a local community center to help repair the homes of neighborhood seniors and paint murals.

Normally, third-year seniors rarely participated in club activities, but Ham Su-ah, having served as club president the previous year, showed up occasionally. Once Mugyeol left, his seatmate Park Juhyeon crept back to his desk.

“How do you know Yeon Mugyeol?”

“We were friends back in the day.”

“Back in the day?”

“Yeah. I used to live around here. Went to elementary school with him too. Moved away to Jeju and then transferred back.”

“Ah, I see,” Juhyeon nodded. This neighborhood had a particularly high concentration of returnee students who had lived abroad, making such relocations easy to comprehend. Studying Yi-seon’s expression, Juhyeon added in a hushed murmur, “Still… Yeon Mugyeol kind of terrifies me…”

That explained why he had bolted to the lockers in fright the moment Mugyeol walked over.

“Why? He’s not a bad guy.”

Probably.

“It’s not that he’s a bad person… it’s just, he’s an Extreme Dominant Alpha. There’s stuff betas don’t really get.”

Juhyeon gave an awkward chuckle. He seemed to assume Yi-seon was a Beta, unaware that he had manifested as an Omega. He added that whenever he crossed paths with Yeon Mugyeol, he felt like a mouse cowering before a lion.

“I heard somewhere that if an extreme dominant deliberately unleashes their pheromones, omegas can’t even move. They say it’s hard to even breathe.”

“Wouldn’t they die, then?”

“Would it go that far? Back in the old days when suppressants didn’t work as well, extreme dominant alphas used to drench betas in pheromones to forcibly turn them into omegas. A pheromone shower or whatever they called it.”

“Isn’t that just an urban myth you see on StarTube?”

“No way. They said it’s real.”

Until now, Yi-seon had regarded such claims as roughly equivalent to cult leader ghost stories about knocking people down with invisible energy blasts. Pouring pheromones over someone to forcibly change their biological gender sounded utterly preposterous. Still, listening to his seatmate made Yi-seon ponder. He had never felt that kind of oppressive intimidation around Mugyeol. It was likely because he was an Extreme Recessive Omega, virtually indistinguishable from a Beta male.

Honestly, Yi-seon was far more terrified of Yeon Mugyeol’s fists than his pheromones.

Physical trauma is definitely scarier than gender therapy.

“So… if you’re close with him, I was kind of hoping you could hang out somewhere else. Sorry.”

Juhyeon awkwardly apologized as he revealed his real motive. Mugyeol’s mere presence was deeply uncomfortable, so he was asking Yi-seon to meet him elsewhere in the future.

“Got it. But he won’t be coming over anyway.”

“Why not?”

“We’re not really close anymore.”

Yi-seon easily nodded to the request. That much, he could say with certainty.

❖ ❖ ❖