December

Kim Shin looked away with a confused smile.

“I just got off the bus too.”

Oh right, he was at the bus stop because he came here riding the bus. Now that there was some space behind me, I quickly took a step back but he was still holding my arm so I couldn’t get further away from him. Why was he holding my arms? I raised my eyes and looked at him but he shook his head and shrugged off my arm.

“No. Nothing.”

I felt like saying something , but the breeze at the stop was chilly. Even if it wasn’t, I had to leave that place quickly. My heart was pounding. The scent of his forest-like pheromones reached me and tightly held my body close.

There were no empty seats inside the library today. He naturally put his bag next to me and sat down. Even though he was sitting there without much thought, I was the one getting nervous. Sitting next to him, he was so close that I could touch him with a single movement of my arm.

Unlike me, who was armed with a tee and a thick sweatshirt under my padded coat, he was only wearing a thin navy knit under his half-coat. The knitwear was billowy around the waist, but it fit his shoulders, chest, and forearms perfectly, so I could fully imagine how toned his body was wrapped under that soft clothing.

I tried not to look at him as much as I could, but the right side of my body which was towards him became sensitive. My right arm and right leg were almost frozen, so I had a cramp later. So when he excused himself in the middle of the session saying that he had a call, right after he was out of my sight, I let out a sigh.

Let’s not care. I can do it. If we could find the Alpha high school student, we wouldn’t have to see each other again…but then again wouldn’t I see him at school? No, perhaps we wouldn’t meet because we had different majors. When I tried thinking how I could avoid him, he suddenly returned to his seat and turned to look at me.

He held down my chair with his left hand and stuck out his upper body. It felt like I was trapped in his embrace which blocked my surroundings with his arm acting like a wall stretching out behind my back. I was surprised and tried to pull aside but there was no way out.

His chest touched my shoulder. And his face. His hair was so close that it touched my cheek. Surprised by the sudden proximity, I belatedly noticed what he was trying to do. He was scribbling some words in my notebook with a pen.

‘I have something to do, so I’ll go first. I’m sorry.’

“No……”

No, I was going to say it out loud but I realized I shouldn’t make a noise so I moved my right hand as well. Whenever I moved the pen, my arm touched his chest, making my handwriting worse than that of a grade school student.

‘Hurry up and go.’

I answered but he just stared at my notebook and didn’t move. Was he so shocked by my monstrous handwriting?

‘Yeonwoo sunbae, you can talk informally to me.’

‘No, this much is comfortable.’

Once the Alpha students would be found, we wouldn’t meet again so there was no need for us to be more informal with each other than we were. I was still convinced of this fact but yet, the pen continued to move.

‘I’m uncomfortable.’

‘About what?’

‘Honorific words are usually longer…so.’

Haa, I held back my laughter and raised my hand. Avoiding his large hand on the notebook, I pressed hard with my pen in the space of my notebook and wrote the answer.

‘Then we won’t talk. Isn’t that better?’

‘No. You can’t do that.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s fun.’

‘This is?’

‘Yes.’

I looked at the last words in a bewildered way and then looked back at him with that expression. He was smiling, his eyes brightly sparkling. That time, my heart thumped even though it had nothing to do with pheromones.

***

As a lesson from yesterday, I crouched down in the warehouse during the part-time job break. It was a relief that I was not at a food refrigerator, however, it was a place where there was no heating so my fingers fumbling on my phone screen froze and hardened. I clenched and unclenched my fist a few times and answered the text message which said that my friends at my university would be having a get-together

– I don’t think there are many people at university because they have a job.

– There are a few people including me. You hurt me.

I laughed when I thought of my friend sulking but I also smiled out of chilliness. I quickly moved my numb fingers.

– I thought the rest of the kids don’t come to school because they don’t have a lot of classes.

– No, they do. They are preparing for jobs. You know me, how much I like my school.

When I predicted my friend crying at the graduation, three text messages stacked up one after another.

– But thanks to coming to school today, I  watched one Omega go bollocks.

– But it wasn’t just an Omega. Beta girls were all over the place, too.

– There’s this amazing dominant Alpha who’s a first-year, and he must have come to school today. The whole school turned upside down.

An amazing Alpha. That hoobae of mine was almost 3 meters…like no joke, like people could see that he was a dominant Alpha at first sight. The owner of that big hand wrote in my notebook this morning. The long fingers that were moving along with the pen, and his arms that could be seen as his sleeves were rolled upwards, showed off his tensed muscles and came to my mind like a clear picture. Was he the first year that came to school?

– What’s his name?

– I don’t know.

Looking down at the cell phone in the cold, I recalled how my friend usually was. Someone who had a lot of information and yet was useless at important times.

– Why? Are you interested? Since you are an Omega, it would be good to meet an Alpha like him. But he doesn’t have a good personality, from what I’ve heard. So you can give up on that.

Huh? That first year didn’t have a good personality then it was safe to say that it was not Kim Shin. As I sniffed in the cold space, I couldn’t help but admire how quickly humankind was developing that there was someone who was more Alpha-like than Kim Shin. The evolution of Alpha was rather quick.

– The guy looked really rude. He doesn’t really interact with his sunbaes and rather stays within this close Alpha group of his. People shouldn’t be that unapproachable. But I heard that being rude is a factor in becoming popular. His voice is so amazing that with one word he says, everyone faints.

Kim Shin had a nice voice. But Kim Shin was friendly so he must not be that person. I changed the subject because I felt pathetic connecting everything back to him.

– I’m starting my part-time job, so let’s meet up on my day off.

– Okay, by the way, Yeonwoo… one hoobae asked me about you today.

Me? Why? I asked back, but unlike him, the answer came up a while later.

– At first, he said that he was looking for an Omega who took a leave of absence but then he asked me if the reason for taking a leave was because of an Alpha. I thought he knew something so I asked why he was asking me that and he said that he has a friend who is an Omega so he wanted to know if he has to watch out for any particular Alphas. So I told him the name of the Alpha who bullied you. Even though he graduated, he is still a bastard.

I looked at the screen for a while without replying and stood up when I realized the break was over. Since I was crouching down for a long time, my legs felt stiff. I should get to work.

Since I get cold easily, my hands and feet usually get frozen and my bronchioles were weak too, so I couldn’t use that much strength in winter, but there was something good about this winter. As the wind cools and the breath thickens like a dragon’s flame, the number of people on the streets decreases.

That meant that people who experienced rut just about anywhere would disappear. The country promoted campaigns for Alpha and Omega to take medicines to control their ruts and heat cycles, but surprisingly, many people didn’t take medicines. It was because the sexual pleasure during such cycles was enormous and many people choose instinct over having an ethical control of it.

The movement not to curb people’s instinct lasted for a few years and it also contributed to the fire. So it was not that rare to hear an embarrassing sound somewhere in the alley and to have two people stuck together like beasts in a dark park.

Even though our population mostly consisted of Beta, the reason why such a strange scenery is tolerated was because our politics and world were controlled by Alpha. Among Beta, many wanted to take a stance against Alpha’s rutting.

The social hurdles against sex gradually decreased and the elderly were concerned. There were Omega like me and they were wary of being victimized. But I knew that the days of moderation and reasoning had already passed. I got off the bus and crossed the road to the alley and while heading home, I heard a large groan somewhere. The origin of the sound was in the building at the entrance of the alley.

“Ha! Ah! Ha!”

It was night, but some people loitered around. I was there at the entrance of the alley. However, no one cared and passed in front of the building. Seeing that the sound was loud, it seemed that he wasn’t that far from the entrance, but the door to the building was open so the breeze came in.

They were doing such things in such cold weather. Their dicks were going to freeze. However, unlike others, I stopped walking in front of the building because I wasn’t that worried about getting frostbite. There was no scent. So the people who were working there were Beta. I walked quickly again. The population was going to increase.

“Side dishes are in the refrigerator, and frozen beef soup is in the freezer, so you can take those out and eat it when you can.”

Yes, I got it. I kept answering the same thing to my mother’s instructions and pointed to the bus.

“Come on, get in. It’s time for the bus to start.”

My father suddenly went down to the country house yesterday because something happened even though they were supposed to head there on the weekend, my mother thought to go there today separately. But she couldn’t board the bus and looked at me with worried eyes. I was well aware of my mother’s worries so I laughed out loud.

“I’ve eaten well for the past 23 years so are you afraid that I can’t eat without you?”

“Yeonwoo, it’s the end of the year soon…”

“Oh right, the owner of the part-time job told me not to come out because he was going to close his store and head abroad at the end of the year. So I’m just going to stay at home.”