MORE 4

Siyul tried to break free from the man’s grip, but even as he twisted his shoulders, grabbed the man’s wrist, and struggled with all his might, the man didn’t budge an inch. It was as if he were shackled by thick steel chains. The man seemed to have no intention of letting Siyul go until he was finished with his business.

“Just this—”

Siyul was about to ask him to let go, but the man finally loosened his grip. Siyul tried to bolt, but failed. This time, the man’s hand thrust deep into the front pocket of Siyul’s hoodie. After rummaging inside and confirming there was nothing there, he then shoved his hand into his pants pocket. Even though Siyul stood frozen in shock, the man steadfastly searched his pockets before pulling his hand out.

Siyul took a step back. If he just threw himself into the crowd, he might be able to escape. He clung to this hope, but the man ruthlessly shattered that possibility by thrusting his hand into Siyul’s back pocket. Siyul’s shoulders jerked, and his eyes widened.

“W-w-what are you…”

Even though his pants were clearly covering him, the man’s hand felt as hot as if he were touching his bare buttocks. The man nonchalantly glanced at Siyul, who was trembling as if he had been sexually molested, and pulled out the wallet tucked in his back pocket.

He opened it, compared Siyul’s face to his ID card, and pulled out the bills and cards one by one. After flipping the worn corners of the wallet inside out to search it thoroughly, he shoved it back into Siyul’s hoodie pocket. However, the ID card remained between the man’s fingers.

“Get this reissued.”

“Give it back!”

“That’s the penalty for lying. Didn’t you read ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’ when you were little? It’s not good to tell such lies to adults. If you get caught by a bad guy doing that, you’ll really get hurt badly.”

The man scolded him in a deliberately stern voice. If it were someone else, Siyul would have just picked his ear and thought, ‘A dog must be barking,’ but in front of this man, he couldn’t move an inch and curled his shoulders inward. He looked just like a puppy with its tail tucked and ears pinned flat against the back of its head.

Snap! The man flicked Siyul’s forehead. For a moment, stars exploded before his eyes. It was a pain as if a pebble the size of a fist had flown and embedded itself right in the center of his forehead while he was running at full speed. “Ack!” Siyul stumbled, clutching his forehead.

“This is my place of business too, so try not to come here if you can help it. I’m letting you off this time because you’re a kid.”

He said the other club was his, too, and now this one as well. Siyul rubbed his throbbing forehead vigorously and looked up at the man. The man let out a mocking chuckle and patted Siyul’s shoulder.

“But, if you get caught a third time, I’m really going to punish you severely.”

The voice whispering low beside his ear was more eerie and terrifying than the sound of a Grim Reaper telling him it was time to go. Siyul, turned pale as a sheet, whipped his head around to stare in the direction the man had disappeared. The man’s broad back had already melted into a darker place.

Even after the other hulking man who had come with him had completely vanished from sight, Siyul couldn’t move from that spot for a long time, clutching his forehead. He felt as if the man would return at any moment, grab him by the scruff of the neck, and flash those terrifying eyes while telling him to get into a drum can right then and there. His legs were frozen in fear, and it wasn’t until a passerby bumped into his shoulder that he finally broke free from his paralysis.

He almost collapsed right there. Only now did his body start to tremble. Siyul rubbed his arms, which were covered in goosebumps.

You said you were lucky, you said you were lucky!

Today’s horoscope had lied to him. It felt like this place was cursed, so Siyul didn’t care about beer or anything else; he tucked his tail and scrambled out of the club as fast as he could.

At first, Siyul had no interest in what kind of drugs he was distributing. It was enough to just drop them off at the locations he was told. He had no intention of getting deeply involved. Even though he was a lonely orphan with nothing but his two testicles, he still wanted to do legitimate work and eventually live as a respectable head of a household, with a fox-like wife and a couple of rabbit-like kids.

However, as the work gradually increased, he came to know what the products he was handling actually were. They were drugs, yes, but they weren’t marijuana or hallucinogens. They were unique drugs.

“They say if you eat them, you temporarily become an Omega.”

At Kwon Yuwon’s reply, Siyul’s eyes went wide. He didn’t know much about Omegas or Alphas, but he knew that wasn’t a property that could be changed with medicine. Weren’t those things determined by nature when the time came for manifestation?

“Is that even possible?”

“To be precise, it makes you feel like an Omega. As if you’re in a heat.”

Kwon Yuwon sneered bitterly. He threw an annoyed look while shaking the salt pack loosely.

“In a heat, you don’t even see Alphas or Betas. You just want to fuck. Before, date-rape drugs or stimulants were popular, but they say this is so popular now. Things obsessed with reproduction.”

In the eyes of Kwon Yuwon, who was an Omega and had to periodically suffer through a heat, the world was going crazy. He felt pity and sorrow for those who sold their lives for such crude synthetic drugs, but at the same time, he felt rage. Some people couldn’t live an ordinary life even if they wanted to, yet some bastards reached for drugs like aristocrats in the slums just because they wanted to taste that kind of life.

“They advertise that if you take it continuously, you’ll become an Omega permanently. Both the ones taking it and the ones selling it are crazy bastards struggling to ruin their own lives.”

Siyul sat cross-legged and listened to Kwon Yuwon’s flashy condemnation, then eventually bowed his head and filled a small teaspoon with salt. The two of them were sitting side-by-side in the cramped room, doing portioning work. When Kwon Yuwon brought a pack, Siyul would divide it into small bags according to the weight. Because not even 1 gram could be over, his hand movements as he placed the salt on the scale were very careful.

“There really are a lot of crazy people in the world.”

He hadn’t lived an incredibly long life, but it seemed Siyul had met the most intense crazy person in his life recently. They hadn’t exchanged many words yet, so he couldn’t definitively label him a ‘crazy bastard,’ but the personality he’d seen—contrasted with a face impossible to forget and a voice that felt like it was piercing his eardrums—seemed like it had spun around a full circle and then another half-turn.

A temperament that seemed twisted like a ship’s hawser was clearly visible even to Siyul, who hadn’t even clashed with him a few times. Filling stomachs with concrete, punishing him, telling him not to lie to adults…

He was a person he shouldn’t even brush sleeves with. Never getting involved again was the best policy.

Recalling the sensation of the hand patting his shoulder, Siyul shivered. The hand holding the spoon trembled, and some of the medicine spilled onto the floor.

“Oh no.”

Siyul sprawled flat on the floor and carefully scraped together the powder with his fingertips. He was only wearing a loose white tank top, exposing his fair chest and pink nipples. His nipples were small and his areolas narrow, a shape that unintentionally aroused an impulse to reach out and touch them.

Even with skin as fine as an Beta’s and nipples that caught the eye whether he wanted them to or not, Kwon Yuwon didn’t even cast a glance in that direction. He just meticulously sealed the salt packs and gathered them in one place.

That was when Kwon Yuwon’s phone rang. After checking the name on the screen, Kwon Yuwon muttered a foul curse and answered the call. His voice, saying “Yes, hyung,” was strangely sweet compared to when he was cursing.

“Today? Yes. I have time, but… Yes? Siyul, too?”

Kwon Yuwon glanced at Siyul. Surprised to hear his name, Siyul also looked up and stared at Kwon Yuwon. He pointed at himself with his index finger and mouthed silently, “Me?”

“Why Siyul? Ah, you want to see him once…”

The mumbling coming from the other end of the line died down. Kwon Yuwon’s expression, as he turned down the volume, gradually hardened. Since it was about him, Siyul stopped what he was doing and pricked up his ears.

“No, hyung. That friend is busy today… Yes? You’ll adjust to our time? Today is a bit… Ah, you must see him today?”

Kwon Yuwon, who had been trying his best not to set a date, twisted his face at the words the other side threw at him. He gripped his phone as if he were going to crush it and pressed his temples hard with his index and middle fingers. It was an expression of impending migraine.

“…Yes, yes. I understand. Then we will go today at 10 PM.”

After checking several times that the person on the other end had hung up, Kwon Yuwon squeezed a curse out of his gut: “Ah, fuck!” At the loud shout, Siyul hurriedly put down the salt pack he had finished.

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“This pig bastard is low-class, and I don’t want to show you to him, but he keeps saying to bring you. Says he has to see the business partner’s face. Fuck, he already took my ID, copy of my proof of identity, and family registry certificate at the beginning, so why the hell is he being such a pain in the ass about wanting to see more!”

“I’m okay. Well, since he wants to see me that much, I should at least show my face once.”

“We’re going to leave this life once we make enough, so what’s this talk about showing your face? The best thing is for us to never see each other until it’s time for our funerals. Ah, fuck, should I just say you’re sick and cancel?”

“Isn’t that the person we get the salt from?”

“Yeah.”

“Then let’s just do what he says. What if he doesn’t give it to us in the future because we refused for no reason?”

“Even so—”

Kwon Yuwon, who had been speaking up to that point, clamped his mouth shut and chewed his fingernails. No matter how much he had turned down the volume, in this cramped inn room, the other person’s voice hadn’t been completely inaudible. It seemed highly likely that if he didn’t bring him, there would be repercussions.

Having made up his mind, Siyul smiled brightly and patted Kwon Yuwon’s shoulder.

“Don’t worry so much. Nothing will happen. If something does happen, I’ll bolt right away. You know how fast I can run.”