LCS | Chapter 1.2

As the man straightened his bent knees and stood, it was clear his legs were long too. Chaegong, blinking at the burned-red toes he was putting his strength into, tilted his head back to look at the man. The orange light of the streetlamp shining from behind him somehow felt strangely sacred.

The man held out his hand, and Chaegong stared blankly at the hand that had stopped right in front of his nose. It was large and handsome. That long, straight hand was nothing like Chaegong’s own, which was covered in wounds and pitiful, and nothing like his father’s wrinkled hands either.

He had never once touched a hand so big and smooth, but for some reason it already felt as if its warmth were brushing his fingertips. After a long moment of hesitation, Chaegong reached out and took the man’s hand. The man helped him to his feet, then gently stroked Chaegong’s ice-cold fingers.

“My name is Kwon Hyeonjo.”

The alpha, Hyeonjo, smiled.

✿ • ✿ • ✿

Chaegong had lived exposed to countless acts of violence, and as a result, watching people’s expressions and keeping himself small had become second nature. But that only told him whether the other person was angry or in a bad mood. It told him nothing about whether they were a bad person.

Put simply, Chaegong had far too little sense of danger. No matter how sweetly someone cajoled him, for an omega to trust the first alpha he had ever met and follow him blindly was truly dangerous.

Fortunately, Hyeonjo really did take Chaegong home. His house was a luxury apartment Chaegong had never once set foot in. It was on the twenty-third floor, and even the elevator was large and gleaming. The living room alone seemed bigger than all the rooms and kitchen in the house Chaegong had lived in combined. No, even if you added the yard, it would still be smaller.

Hyeonjo smiled as he watched Chaegong look around the house with round eyes, then brought a first-aid kit from somewhere. Sitting down beside him, Hyeonjo opened the box and took out cotton swabs and ointment, but even when Chaegong said he would do it himself, he would not hand them over.

In the end, with Hyeonjo seated close enough for their breath to touch, Chaegong’s shoulders went stiff as the medication was applied. A heavy but strangely tempting pheromone drifted faintly through the air. By the time Chaegong was distracted by that, the treatment was already over. The large gauze on his cheek was clumsier than School Nurse’s work, but it was not especially uncomfortable. Perhaps because he was too tense, his heart kept pounding.

The two of them exchanged simple introductions. Chaegong had little to say about himself, but Hyeonjo was different. He was a dominant alpha, the same age as Chaegong, currently attending the economics department of a prestigious university, and he even had a lot of money at home. In fact, he never said the last part. Chaegong had only guessed it.

Anyone would think that if they knew a twenty-year-old was living alone in a house far too large for one person. What surprised Chaegong most of all was the fact that they were the same age. Handsome, strong, good-tempered, and even rich, Hyeonjo was a dominant alpha, while Chaegong was a recessive omega with nothing at all. How could they be the same age and yet be so different? Chaegong hid his reddened hands under the hem of his clothes.

Actually, Chaegong had intended to stay only one night and leave. He could not impose on someone he had just met any more than that. But Hyeonjo stopped him.

He said Chaegong should at least stay until the bruises faded, and Chaegong could not bring himself to refuse that warm hand. Even without knowing what kind of person Hyeonjo was, he wanted to trust him. To be honest, he was also afraid of the backlash after running away like that.

A week passed like that, and by the time the purple bruises had turned pale green, Chaegong had grown fairly close to Hyeonjo. He was kind, unreserved, and fun too. They were even the same age, so it was only natural they would become close quickly. It was his first-ever friend. To think his first friend in life was such an amazing alpha. It was enough to make Chaegong feel as if he himself were strange.

There had never been a time in Chaegong’s life so peaceful and happy. Even though he had to sleep on the sofa and live wearing clothes that were too big for him, none of it was difficult. In fact, it was so comfortable that it was almost frightening.

But as always, Chaegong’s happiness did not last long. On a late afternoon after eating with Hyeonjo, a call came in on his old phone. It was a call saying his father had been in an accident. Since he always kept the phone on in case of an unexpected call, Chaegong immediately rushed to the hospital. Hyeonjo, startled by Chaegong’s tearful face and after hearing the reason, drove him there in his own car, so they arrived quickly.

By the time Chaegong saw his father again, he was already covered from head to toe with a white sheet. They said it had been an accidental death. He had fallen while drunk in the early dawn, and of all places, there had happened to be a puddle there. It had been cold all week, but for some reason the weather had warmed up that day.

If it had been bitterly cold and the puddle had frozen solid, he might still be alive. No, if I had stayed home quietly, I could have supported him.

…Why had he come out in the middle of the night? Could he have been looking for me? The thought would not leave Chaegong’s mind. It probably was not that. If it had been, then he would at least not have been drunk. He would have been moving with a clear head. But, what if, really, what if. What if he had run into trouble while looking for me?

“…”

Still, he was family, and tears kept flowing without end. There were dozens of memories that hurt and burned more than the kind ones, and yet for some reason, only the days they had laughed together kept circling in his head. It felt as if thick self-loathing were chewing through his chest. Chaegong curled up on the sofa Hyeonjo had given him and sobbed into himself. It felt as if something were tightly choking his throat.

If he had known this would be the last time he would ever see that face, he would not have said what he said. He had not even been able to thank him for giving birth to him once. Chaegong, who had often wanted to die because of his father, thought that. He should have just borne it. He should have taken a few hits and been done with it. Everything felt like his fault.

Chaegong was an omega. Worse, a recessive one. His body, unlike a dominant omega’s, had an irregular heat cycle, and the hormones in him had begun to run wild with violent emotional swings. And at last, the pheromone that had been barely held back by the cheap suppressant issued by the state burst loose.

Chaegong panted and bit his lip. Unlike a recessive omega’s usual heat, this one was not all that intense, but perhaps because he had been stuffing himself with suppressants for months and finally overpowered the symptoms, even the tips of his fingers were burning hot.

To make matters worse, since he had only intended to go straight home, he had not brought any medicine with him. He could feel, in vivid detail, his underwear growing damp. Dirty slut. Rutting omega. It had never felt so real when he heard those words before.

His father was dead. He could never see him again, and his omega body was heating up and gasping obscenely. Chaegong wanted to die right then and there. On the very day he lost the only family he had in the world, he wanted to strangle his own throat for panting with heat. But even the smallest movement of his fingers sent a sharp sensation roaring up his back, and in the end Chaegong squeezed his eyes shut.

That was when it happened. The bedroom door opened, and the alpha walked out into the living room.

“…Did your heat cycle break?”

Even in the dark, the fierce, beastlike glint in his eyes was vividly clear. A heavy scent rushed over him. To be honest, Chaegong’s scent was neither especially strong nor especially pleasant compared to the dominant omegas Hyeonjo had met so far. It was only the faint fragrance peculiar to a recessive, thickened a little by what was supposed to be a heat cycle, filling the living room, and for some reason it stirred his appetite.

It was a scent that somehow felt a little damp. The pheromones Chaegong usually gave off faintly were, if he had to compare them, like the smell of flowers in a forest after rain. Quiet, humid, with a touch of sweetness mixed in.

Now that scent had grown several times stronger, stimulating every part of him. A laugh rose on its own at the sight of Chaegong’s face, frozen stiff, tears hanging from his lashes bead by bead.

Chaegong, flustered by Hyeonjo’s sudden appearance, fumbled to sit up, but even that small movement drew out a groan. Everything except the air itself was stimulating Chaegong. A low voice reached his ear as he covered his mouth.

“Are you trying to seduce me right now?”

“No, no, I’m not. Ah, I’m not doing it on purpose. Sorry. I’ll figure something out by myself…”

“There isn’t a suppressant in our house. Are you going to go out and buy some on your own? Is sleeping with some alpha you don’t know your thing?”

Chaegong fell silent. In truth, there was no real solution. If he just bit down and endured it, it would be fine even if Chaegong suffered a little, but the problem was Hyeonjo. He couldn’t tell an alpha standing in front of an omega whose heat cycle had burst through just to endure it.

And this was Hyeonjo’s home. If he threw Chaegong out right then and there, the moment he stepped outside he would surely be surrounded by passing alphas. Just thinking of that made a primal fear swallow Chaegong whole.

Hyeonjo slowly came closer. Moonlight poured in through the open curtains across the front glass window. He wanted to run, but the alpha’s pheromones held Chaegong in place and would not let go. The back of his underwear was already soaked through. His breathing grew ragged, and he could feel his face twisting into something ugly. The face revealed in the moonlight was unmistakably that of an aroused omega.

“Don’t worry. I won’t get you pregnant.”

Was it because he had given up on everything? At those words, what rose in Chaegong’s chest was relief. The firm hand of the alpha lifted the hem of the omega’s clothes, and beneath the pale moonlight, a lean body was revealed. On that naked form, modest but not wholly plain, hot lips came down.

Those lips, which only moments ago had been speaking gentle words of comfort, were incredibly soft. At the kiss, his toes curled of their own accord, and hating that reaction, Chaegong bit down hard on his lip, then at last reached out with the hand that could not quite strangle his own neck and wrapped it around Hyeonjo’s back.