"...Sunbae, when someone's done wrong... they need to apologize. Apologize."
The sunbae had clearly kept apologizing over and over,
But on the excuse that it lacked sincerity, that he didn't like it, he took several more strikes. Even though the sunbae was clearly bigger in build, he couldn't fight back and just took the dull hits echoing across the back building. Enough that any onlooker would flinch.
Watching, Kim Seongun had felt goosebumps rise all over him. Even doing that, Baek Yugyeong hadn't dropped his smile, like some psychopath who couldn't understand human emotions.
After that, forget the school violence committee, the incident never even surfaced. The sunbae just kept skipping school, and then transferred out on his own not long after. The students whispered that the sunbae, humiliated from the earlier incident, had left on his own.
But Kim Seongun, having seen that scene, was certain. Baek Yugyeong's family had probably buried it.
...Even if it's revenge for something unfair, isn't that a bit much.
Honestly, some beating would be brushed off as a fistfight between guys, but seeing the actual beating had made it feel vicious, which made it worse.
On top of that, the fact that he was smarmy and kind-hearted in front of others but skulked around behind their backs sat badly. To this day, at school Baek Yugyeong was still the image of the good, upright rich boy, and the way the girls squealed over him grated too.
Of course, that didn't mean he had the will to fight him. As a Beta, Kim Seongun would be at an instinctive disadvantage against an Alpha, and clashing with one was a losing move.
Kim Seongun, worried he might get pulled into something with that lunatic, felt like this Seo Chaheun sunbae approaching him was a bolt from the blue.
...Really, someone this clean-cut, why is he with that guy...
Then again. Omegas were the type to skip around whenever they saw a good Alpha. Two of a kind, definitely.
While thinking that, their eyes met. Chaheun met Seongun's gaze, smiled brightly, and opened by saying he was sorry to grab him when he was clearly busy.
"O-oh, no. But why...?"
"Hm, not much, just. Is there a student named Kim... ah, no, Min Haseong, in Class 2-4? I'm Seo Chaheun from the third year, and I came to return this because I think it belongs to Haseong, a second-year."
"Ah, ...Min Haseong. ...Uh, he's absent today..."
"Huh? Ah, is he?"
Seo Chaheun seemed to think for a moment, then handed him the nametag.
"He seems to have dropped this in the hallway, and this was the name... Could you please put it on his desk?"
"Ah, ...yeah. Yes, I understand."
"Thanks."
Kim Seongun briefly revised his earlier thought at how neat and proper Seo Chaheun's manner was, but then remembered he was a person who ran with Baek Yugyeong, and shook his head once.
After Seo Chaheun left, Park Jimin, who'd been walking behind him, spotted his friend standing blankly at the doorway holding something and clapped a hand on his shoulder.
"Yah, what's that? You dropping nametags now, you slob?"
"He said it's Min Haseong's."
The moment Park Jimin heard the name, his face went pale.
"Fuck, throw it out. Wasn't he absent from yesterday after talking with Baek Yugyeong?"
Kim Seongun nodded. Park Jimin had been the friend with him when they'd seen Baek Yugyeong's violence back then. Just that morning, Park Jimin had rattled off a whole theory about how Baek Yugyeong had definitely buried Min Haseong. Squealing that it was a re-enactment of what happened a year ago. For someone who was the ace of the kendo team, he had a filthy amount of nerves.
"...You think that's what it is?"
"What did he even do to piss off Baek Yugyeong?"
"...I don't know. That fucker's a total psychopath. Smiles in front, and behind, ugh--"
Park Jimin, looking like he didn't even want to imagine it, clapped a hand over Kim Seongun's mouth and shook his head back and forth.
"Ah, don't know, don't know. Why get involved. Hurry up. Just throw it out, you fool. You should never get involved with Baek Yugyeong."
"...Ah, fuck, I don't like this."
"So what if you don't like it. Hurry up, I said throw it out."
Kim Seongun tried a little bravado, but when he brought the nametag to the trash bin, he glanced around and,
...Slipped the nametag into his pocket.
"Hyung~"
Kim Seongun hadn't cleared the second-year hallway fast enough, so he ended up dragging Baek Yugyeong on behind him again, and was prepared for the usual clinging, but,
"You came to give the nametag to Haseong, right? Did you hand it over?"
Baek Yugyeong walked beside him, without any usual contact, and asked politely. Chaheun felt the odd difference but nodded evenly.
"That kid was absent, so I asked another friend to give it to him."
"I see."
"...Why?"
Since yesterday, Baek Yugyeong seemed strangely interested in that kid. Was there some kind of personal grudge with Min Haseong?
"Hmm? Well... because I don't like you paying attention to any other guy but me, hyung."
Chaheun immediately regretted asking. Because Baek Yugyeong immediately whined that and hugged him from behind.
"Hey, could you let go a bit?"
"You've never come to see me, and now you're off looking for another guy."
The fact that this counted as another "man" was ridiculous. Chaheun was speechless.
"Yugyeongie's upset."
The upset one was on this side.
There was no way a day wasn't upsetting when a late-teen male over 180 was baby-talking about himself in the third person, and the object of that baby talk was you.
Was this how a marine animal with barnacles felt? So this is why turtles sank underwater and died.
Since he couldn't physically shake him off, today too Chaheun, with Baek Yugyeong stuck to his back, trudged forward.
Even through this kind of school life, he did make one friend.
The reason "this kind of school life" came out was, of course, clearly because of Baek Yugyeong.
Because of the rumor that spread through school of him being a dominant Omega, the vast majority of Beta students, said to make up 80 to 90 percent of the population, kept their distance, and thanks to Baek Yugyeong, his social gap with friends widened threefold. On top of that, he didn't have the confidence to get close with teenagers so he didn't approach anyone, ending up practically an outcast.
Fortunately, a Beta male student named Kang Ihyeon happened to become his friend.
They were seat partners, and during Korean class, Ihyeon had dozed off and gotten caught by the teacher and started panicking, and Chaheun had just pointed out where they were reading.
He'd been kendo team captain, and as a fellow former athlete, Chaheun knew how hard it was to balance training and academics. Even if he passed out at home, he'd have to be up in the morning for training, and being captain meant private drills, so he'd probably be doing basic conditioning at the crack of dawn. After burning through all that energy, class time would obviously be hell.
But this big-framed guy insisted on friending him over that small thing.
"Wow… That kid's really good."
Today, Kang Ihyeon had said Chaheun could come watch kendo practice, and as he watched, one kid stood out among all the others, and Chaheun let out an admiring sound without thinking. Wearing kendo gear and a helmet, the student was nearly 190 centimeters tall, and had crisp, agile movement. Even the footwork was on another level.
"Ah, him? He's good, real good, but... he's decided to quit. Apparently he even won a championship or something back in the day, but even in first year he skipped all the tournaments."
"Huh? Why? He's this good?"
He'd never done kendo, but roughly watching someone move, he could tell how good they were. The movement in how he thoroughly subdued opponents had no wasted motion, brimming with power and spirit, so even someone who didn't know anything would say that was the ace.
"No clue. Hard to ask more because it's too..."
"Too what?"
"...I hate saying I got intimidated by a junior a year below me, but look at that guy's size. His expression under the helmet's even scarier."
At Kang Ihyeon's words, Chaheun looked quietly forward.
Tall too, and his frame was solid and broad-shouldered. Just from the size alone, forget challenging him, even speaking to him looked rough.
When the match ended and he took off the helmet, the face was familiar. It was the boy who'd stared at him for a while in the hallway before walking past. And he'd seemingly been glaring at him every time they'd crossed paths since.
...It's not that his expression's fierce, it's more that his face is... fierce-looking, maybe.
He did seem a bit pretty-faced, but with a sharp, blank expression, it was the kind of face that could stop traffic. And not in a good way, the kind where the sculptural quality made you think "if you provoke this, you're done for" before you thought "handsome." Says it all.
Chaheun nodded.
"Right. Ihyeon-ah, it makes sense you'd get intimidated."
"What? No, I didn't get intimidated, okay?"
"Let's just go with that."
"Aoh, Seo Chaheun, I'm really only letting this slide because you're on the small side."
"So you're the big one, huh."
Chaheun smiled, side-eyeing Ihyeon. The mouth curved impishly, eyes crescent-narrowed like a fox, a strangely lascivious flutter.
"Ah shit. Saying that with that face--"
Kang Ihyeon's manly face flushed red as he waved his hand and let out a heavy sigh.
"Yah, you... didn't you say you were an Omega? The one-confession-a-day thing from Alphas is all on you, seems like."
At least once or twice a month, he heard, and Kang Ihyeon had been teasing him with it. Chaheun, whose failed attempt to tease Ihyeon had earned him this, made a sour face.
This crazy world. A world where it's okay for a man to hit on another man.
Of all things, more Alphas were male and more Omegas were female, which made it worse. Chaheun let out a sigh and looked away from the big-framed student and back to Ihyeon.
"Then, could you date me?"
"Bleh. God no. ...Ah, not to hurt your feelings or anything--"
"No, I get it. Dating's something you do with someone you like."
That was a normal male reaction. Far from finding it rude, Chaheun actually preferred the dramatic disgust. Ihyeon looked a little sheepish and scratched the back of his head.
"Yah, honestly speaking... I don't even know what pheromones are, and just because I catch a nice scent from Seo Chaheun doesn't mean I could date a guy. ...Unless I fell for you as a person for some reason, but even then, I can't imagine consciously seeing a man in that way."
Right, exactly. Just like Kang Ihyeon said, on his end too, catching a nice scent off someone wasn't going to make him able to date them.
Whether that was a Beta way of thinking or not, he wasn't sure, but because his body was Beta, he could physically pick up an Alpha's scent through the body's organs and receptors, but he'd never felt drawn or pulled by it.
"Yeah, same on my end."
"...Aren't you an Omega?"
"Me... well. Basically Beta?"
"What, recessive or something? Regardless, whatever's going on, if that's your taste, so what. You said you like women, right."
At Ihyeon's plain response, Chaheun huffed a laugh.
He'd been rumored to be dominant, and Ihyeon, not knowing, was still asking "recessive?"—it showed Kang Ihyeon was a genuinely solid friend. He judged and decided based on what he saw, not on what he heard. And that hedging about whether he'd been rude toward another person was admirable in a kid this young.
Setting aside his warm thoughts about Ihyeon, Chaheun watched the student in the distance.
...He really is good. With that skill national team should be a given, why quit?
Somehow, he wanted to watch a bit longer. Chaheun moved closer to where the student was.
About ten minutes in?
The student he'd been watching started packing up already, and,
"It's such a waste that he's quitting..."
He murmured it out loud before he knew what he was doing. In just that short span, Chaheun had gotten a little absorbed in the student's movements.
Wasn't it a shame of a talent? People said there was no age for doing things, but there was a set period for shining talent.
At that level of skill, he obviously knew, so Chaheun was curious what reason had made him quit.
"..."
That thought must've been too strong, because their eyes met. Actually, meeting eyes had happened several times already, so that would've been fine.
...The problem was that the distance was closer than expected.
...Did he hear it?
He must've, because the guy over there was staring back like he'd noticed something odd. Aside from wondering what was going on behind that cool face, there was a bit of grown-up embarrassment about being overheard.
Ahem, ahem.
Chaheun cleared his throat twice, weighed about five times whether the boy in front of him had heard or not, and ultimately decided he couldn't not have heard, and just owned up.
"Ah, um... I heard you're quitting... why are you quitting?"
He hadn't intended to ask this far, but since it had come to this, he'd play through it, if only to break the awkward atmosphere.
The boy's clean brow tightened sharply.
"...What's my quitting got to do with--"
The boy's low voice paused briefly. His deep, ash-toned gaze swept over the nametag, and,
"To you, sunbae."
Absurdly, he tacked on formal speech at the end. Even though his voice held an oddly prickly, subtle hostility.
