Vol. 1 Chapter 1.4

Seong, the Chief Secretary, plastered a conventional smile across his face. He gestured with his eyes towards his men, and a soft handkerchief covered Yeha’s nostrils and mouth.

“Hng…!”

His back was pressed down by a large palm, his arms were twisted and held, and there were few ways to resist from a kneeling position; however, even those had little effect. Yeha’s eyelashes, which were contorting every movable part of him, fluttered. Soon, his eyelids slowly fell shut.

The bottom he fell to was far more terrible than he had imagined.

---

He opened his eyes to the sky above. Or rather, inside a Sky Car. Since the 22nd century, cars that flew in the sky had become a common means of transportation, and now even going to school and commuting were done in the sky, but he had never seen a sky without a single car.

He had heard that the altitude at which you could drive in the sky varied depending on taxes. Unlike the commoners who flew between buildings, the rich flew in a sky closer to the moon than the ground. But he never thought it would really be like this.

Yeha, who had not yet fully recovered from the drug, scanned the outside of the window with hazy pupils.

There were no advertisements in the high sky. If he went down a little, every cloud would be illuminated with advertisements for smart bands, nutritional water, hologram wallpaper, and the like.

Yeha’s gaze shifted from outside the window to inside. Chief Secretary Seong was not in the excessively spacious space that could be called a car. A stranger was looking ahead from the driver’s seat, which was in autopilot mode.

“Hey. Where are we going now?”

“……”

“Hey?”

“……”

“Hey! Are you deaf?”

The stranger did not answer. He wondered if he was a robot, but he slightly twisted his head before looking forward again, so he was definitely human. Yeha’s face crumpled. Were these bastards going to starve to death if they didn’t ignore other people’s words?

Yeha raised his foot. It was for an attack. If he was human and not a robot, he would get annoyed or angry, he thought. He aimed for the back of the driver’s seat and stretched his leg out. At that moment,

“Ugh!”

A thick partition instantly blocked the space between the stranger and Yeha. Thanks to that, Yeha ended up looking like a fool who had kicked the wall head-on. Not only his ankle but also his knee throbbed.

“Where are we going?”

Yeha did not give up. He slammed on the partition. When there was still no reaction, he turned his attention to the door this time. But the door, which didn’t even have a handle, threw the fighting spirit that had risen to the top of his head to the ground. He couldn’t break the transition window, which was made of the same material as airplane glass.

Should he just smash his head into it and die?

Wouldn’t that be the most infuriating thing for these bastards?

Yeha, with his forehead pressed against the cold window, seriously pondered.

The contemplation did not end easily. He regretted the life he had lived, struggling desperately. Still, he wanted to see Dad’s face one more time before he died.

In the meantime, the transition, which had been flying quietly, slowly descended. The landing site was not the ground but the courtyard of a building that popped up above the clouds. The quietly ringing engine sound completely stopped, and the door clicked open.

Fortunately, the place he arrived at was an ordinary restaurant. Ah, correction. It wasn’t ordinary. Because there was only one table in the empty, wide restaurant.

Yeha was relieved just by the fact that it was a restaurant. He had imagined a pale white bed.

The entire front of the wide restaurant was made of glass, and the clouds outside the window were full of the sunset. It must be a restaurant in a very tall building. Or maybe it was floating in the sky. The floor was covered with alternating black and white tiles like a chessboard, and the lighting was a bright gold that was not blinding.

“Please wait a moment.”

The anonymous person, who had been ignoring Yeha’s words all along, threw out a word and disappeared, closing the door. As soon as he left, Yeha ran straight to the door. But the door didn’t budge.

Yeha was alone in the restaurant, where the melody of a violin faintly flowed.

“Hey.”

Yeha tried to call out but stopped. It was also because no one had answered his calls so far, and even if someone appeared, he had nothing to say.

If this is a restaurant, will you give me food? I haven’t eaten a single meal all day. Or what are you going to do? You’re not going to make me have a baby with that Choi Han-geon bastard here, are you? It was a question he was afraid to ask because he was afraid of the answer.

Yeha, who had been standing blankly in front of the door, slowly moved his feet to the table. A white tablecloth was laid out, and on it were two wine glasses with a large jewel embedded in the center. Two champagne glasses. Two water glasses. Plates and forks of different sizes, and knives were neatly arranged.

Still, they must be giving him food. He thought he would be locked up in a gloomy place and suffer unspeakable things until he gave birth to an Alpha, but he was glad. He should think it’s fortunate.

“……”

Yeha carefully scanned the table. There was nothing to eat on the fancy table. Not even water.

So Yeha had to sit blankly in the chair, like a sack of barley placed there. Or like a doll that children play with during a playhouse game.

He turned his gaze out the window and wasted time on the leisurely floating clouds. Until the clouds, which had been crimson with the sunset, turned pale pink. And then to a dull purple.

“Ah, damn it. This is too much.”

By that time, curses naturally came out. Yeha thumped his head on the table. He was told to wait a moment. How many hours is your ‘moment’?

He rubbed his cheek against the good-textured tablecloth for a few more minutes. He was just breathing in different colors when the quiet air began to move wildly.

Air moving? Does that even make sense? But it was true. There was no way the wind could be blowing indoors, but the air was clearly churning roughly.

Along with that, a smell rushed into his nostrils. At first, he thought it was food. The more he inhaled, the more saliva seeped between his molars. It felt like he was standing in front of delicious food.

Yeha fearlessly flared his nostrils and inhaled the scent.

It was a scent that was hard to describe. It was even difficult to describe. It was similar to the scent of a deep forest. It was like the refreshing scent of the sea, but it also smelled like dried flower petals. Of course, Yeha did not know what the forest, the sea, or dried flower petals smelled like. If he were to describe it vaguely, that’s what it would be like.

It was just a smell, but his shoulders shrank and his biosignals signaled danger. A red siren was blaring loudly in one corner of his head.

Yeha suddenly raised his head. There was no one there. Of course, there was no food either. But the smell was getting stronger and stronger. It was hard to breathe.

A sense of pressure. A sense of intimidation. Fear. Dread. Oppression. All sorts of terrible feelings rose simultaneously.

At that moment, the door opened. And someone entered. Yeha could tell without looking back. Because the smell that had been seeping into the air like a slippery snake was now raging like a typhoon.

Yeha wanted to turn around, but he couldn’t. His limbs were stiff. He only stared at the wine glass, which vaguely reflected someone’s figure.

Tap tap. The sound of neat shoes walked on the smooth marble. The footsteps became louder and clearer with each repetition. It was coming towards Yeha. Yeha tightly clasped his hands on his thighs.

The air moves with the footsteps. The air that was pushed and pushed in that way came to Yeha and wreaked havoc.

A dark shadow finally brushed past Yeha. Fortunately, it didn’t stop there and went to the opposite side of the table. Yeha was bowing his head like a sinner. It wasn’t because he wanted to, but it happened automatically.

“……”

The being that finally took a seat opposite Yeha, well, it seemed to be human. The fingers that were visible from time to time were five, and judging from the thick Adam’s apple rippling over the slightly loosened dress shirt.

Yeha glanced up. He only raised his eyes to check the person in front of him.

White skin. Red lips. Those were the first two things he recognized. After that, he saw the sharply slanted eyes and the thin but, in some ways, deep double eyelids.

Yeha was staring at him as if possessed by a ghost, but when he raised his hand, he quickly lowered his gaze again.

It’s Choi Han-geon. It’s really Choi Han-geon.

He was the protagonist that the anchor had been noisily talking about yesterday and today. No, he was the protagonist that the anchor had been noisily talking about lately. The second son of the Hanho Group, Choi Han-geon. Even Yeha, who had no interest in politics or economics, was familiar with his face.

Was it because he had only seen his face on TV? It felt like he was seeing a celebrity. His face, which was as handsome as a celebrity’s, also contributed to that feeling.

Yeha swallowed hard.

The fact that the person in front of him was Choi Han-geon meant that the person in front of him was an Alpha.

So this is what an Alpha smells like.

This is, what an Alpha is. This is.

Yeha was on the verge of losing his mind from the sensation he was experiencing for the first time in his life. Was it called pheromones? He felt a chill all over his body, but his stomach was warm. He had only been exposed to pheromones for three minutes. His body was already changing.

At the same time as Han-geon flicked his index and middle fingers in the air, a woman in a stylish chef’s uniform appeared. She bowed deeply and spat out the words she had memorized.

“We have angula that came in from Spain this morning, the highest grade of beef tongue, and truffle foie gras from Perigord, France.”

“Anything.”

Han-geon cut her off. His eyes were stubbornly fixed on Yeha. He was curious to see what the person who made him spend time and money looked like.

First of all, should he celebrate finding an Omega? Just finding an Omega would shut up the shareholders who had been badgering Han-geon to quickly produce an Alpha child, staging protests.

“Then shall I prepare the course you had last time?”

The chef, who had been restless, asked cautiously.

“No. That wasn’t good.”

Han-geon said, still fixing his eyes on Yeha. In his opinion, Yeha was small. Not as small as a child, but significantly smaller compared to the image that came to mind when thinking of a twenty-two-year-old man. He barely exceeded 170cm.

And he was thin. Not disgustingly thin, but it was as if he had thinly stretched out soft mochi on thin bones. If he pulled on those white cheeks, would they fall off and the filling would come out? Or would they stretch out like cheese?

“Ah, then… um…”

The chef’s pupils convulsed from side to side, and up and down.

“Are you going to keep thinking here?”

For the first time, Han-geon’s gaze fell from Yeha. He looked at the chef with a displeased look. Thanks to that, Yeha was able to exhale the breath he had been holding back.

“No. I’m sorry.”

The chef, who bowed as if her head would touch the table, quickly left the spot. Yeha saw it. He saw her taking a breath that she had been holding back, just like him, as she turned around.

Han-geon took out a familiar tablet from his pocket and unfolded it. It was the same one that Chief Secretary Seong had. A golden contract floated above the tablet. It was the contract that Yeha had been forced to press his thumb on a few hours ago.

“Your name is, Kang Yeha?”

He asked, staring at the hologram.

Yeha did not answer. Pressed by his force, he did not realize that he was calling his name. He had been feeling it since a while ago, but his voice was surprisingly low. His voice, which fell to the ground with a thud, tied Yeha’s ankles. Yeha slowly raised his head and met his eyes.

“……”

It was just the act of making eye contact, but sharp arrows were plunging into his chest, collarbone, and cheekbones. His gaze was something that transcended time and space. Light, air, walls. It seemed that nothing could hide Yeha from his gaze.

“I asked you. Is it Kang Yeha?”

Han-geon asked again, as the answer was not coming out easily. Only then did Yeha come to his senses.

“Yes. Kang Yeha.”

“Yes?”

Han-geon’s eyebrow twitched slightly at the short words.

“Yeah. That’s right.”

Yeha nodded his head and affirmed once more. How old was Choi Han-geon? He rummaged through the information floating in his head. But there was nothing to catch. What did he know about his age? Anyway, he was a director, or a president, or something like that, so he must be at least thirty years old.

“But it doesn’t matter whether my name is Kang Yeha or not.”

“……”

“Isn’t it enough that the person in front of you is an Omega?”

Yeha, who was leaning deeply in his chair, crossed his legs. The wine glass trembled as his knee bumped into the table, but he tried to maintain a nonchalant expression as if nothing had happened.