ATGRA 28

……is what I thought, but I was always the one who got shattered.

“If you don’t give me a refund, I’m calling the police!”

“Get out of the way, I was here first!”

To think there were so many customers who came empty-handed demanding a refund after finishing all their medicine. No matter how kindly Ms. Kim Miyoung explained the reasons why a refund was not possible, people would not listen.

If it is already this bad with just the preview and not even the main show, then next week will be even more spectacular. I came out of the director’s office and stood in front of Ms. Kim Miyoung.

I knew they would not listen to reason, but I still felt the need to explain to the customers myself why a refund was impossible and for what reasons there was no problem with the pills.

“I don’t need that, just give me the money!”

Of course, no one listened.

I was hit in the face by a hand swung by a middle-aged man. It seemed that he had not intended to hit me either, as he looked greatly flustered.

The people who had been swarming around me also finally shut their mouths when my head snapped back from being hit by someone else’s hand. An excellent price for assault.

I turned my head as pathetically as possible. I think you are all acting this way after just seeing the broadcast, but we have passed a safety inspection, and we have passed this inspection, and we have passed that inspection…… a stream of words that sounded like excuses even to me followed.

Though some of these inspections were arranged by my grandfather. Anyway, in a crisis situation like this, my family’s help is also my ability. I have to survive first, after all.

Whether my lengthy explanation worked, or whether they sensed that I would not give them a refund, the majority of the people who had flocked here returned empty-handed.

I was worried about these people, but what bothered me the most was that my regular customer, Lee Seolwoo, came for a consultation, saw the situation at the clinic, and went back. Oh my, oh my…… at this rate, I will lose all my regular customers.

When this situation is over, I will definitely sue Baek Wonhee and that PD for obstruction of business. I will win the criminal lawsuit, and then file a civil lawsuit again to get a hefty settlement. And also compensation for my mental distress.

After the commotion subsided and we entered a lull, Ms. Kim Miyoung suggested to me again that it might be better to close the clinic, at least for a while.

Pride and all aside, if something like today happens again, it is right to close for a while. Though I think it would be counterproductive to close off refund inquiries as well.

But, I was really so upset. Leaving everything else aside, it felt like I was losing to Baek Wonhee, and my blood was boiling and my insides were burning.

To have to feel defeated without even being able to properly counterattack the bastard who hit me. This is ridiculous. Oh, God of Omegas! If you really exist, you should have bankrupted that discriminatory bastard first!

“It’s so infuriating that our opponent is Baek Wonhee.”

Nam Jungyoon came out of the consultation room looking five years older. It is a good thing that he and I have a common enemy. Because he says everything I want to say.

“Seeing a discriminatory person thrive makes my blood boil too.”

“Since it has come to this, I will go into Wonhee Oriental Medicine Clinic and buy some Riritang.”

“They probably won’t sell it to you.”

If he is my junior, he is also Baek Wonhee’s junior. No matter if Baek Wonhee has the memory of a goldfish, he would not forget the face of the junior who made him get dental treatment.

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and despicableness for despicableness, but I was not keen on grabbing each other by the hair over herbal medicine. I also accidentally developed a gongjindan that makes one an alpha, so there is no law saying Baek Wonhee could not do the same.

However, Baek Wonhee was too annoying to just sit back and do nothing.

The advertising banner hanging on the building across the street, which read in huge letters, ‘Wonhee Oriental Medicine Clinic is the only truly trustworthy oriental medicine clinic,’ was annoying from the start.

My mood should not become my attitude, but the world will not leave me alone.

“I’ll get the Riritang.”

It would be most natural to ask Jung Saebom to buy it for me. If Baek Wonhee does not remember Jung Pureum, I could also ask Jung Pureum.

It pained my heart to assign a spy mission to the siblings next door without their knowledge, but as things turned out, evil and grit once again took root inside me.

Jung Saebom surprisingly helped me easily.

“Is one dose enough?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“……It’s nothing. It’s not a big deal.”

The people next door did not say anything, but it seemed they all knew what had happened to me after watching the broadcast.

Originally, I had asked Jung Pureum, but Baek Wonhee remembered Jung Pureum’s face. I do not even remember when the two of them met. To think that Baek Wonhee’s memory being better than a goldfish’s would become a problem.

In the end, thanks to Jung Pureum first sending an SOS to Jung Saebom, she also ended up helping me.

“Actually, you don’t really need to buy a new one.”

“Huh?”

“This, the kids in my department drink it quite a bit.”

“But it’s 800,000 won per dose?”

“Our department is strict about weight management.”

It’s dance. Jung Saebom muttered as if in passing.

“But there was a kid who got a bit…… unwell after drinking it, so everyone’s not really drinking it anymore. But anyway, they said the effect was good.”

“Got unwell?”

“Well, it’s just a common side effect of diet pills.”

My ears perked up at her words that I could get the leftover herbal medicine by talking to her classmates without having to spend money.

Not just my ears perked up, but my head also cleared up as if struck by lightning. I had heard that the side effects of diet pills were severe, but seeing Jung Saebom’s reaction, it seemed it was not an ordinary side effect.

No wonder, it was not Jung Pureum but Jung Saebom who helped me so easily. If she had been watching her college classmates rolling around after drinking Riritang, I could understand why she was being unusually proactive.

“Hey.”

“Huh?”

“Are you okay?”

Just when I finally understood the reason for Jung Saebom’s help, another confusing question came at me. Is she actually worried about me? Is all that electric-roasted chicken finally paying off?

“I’m fine, aside from being a little pissed off.”

Despite my response, Jung Saebom looked at me with a suspicious expression. This is why you cannot have people who have lived next door and known each other for a long time. They do not believe anything you say.

I subtly raised my hand and touched my face. It has not been long since Ms. Kim Miyoung said I had become firm, but even I could feel that my face was in a sorry state.

This is why she is asking if I am okay. I hurriedly lowered my hand. As I waved my hand, telling her not to worry, Jung Saebom frowned.

“Mom said to come over for dinner when you have time.”

“The mister’s wife?”

“Yeah. You haven’t come over at all lately.”

That is because everyone in your house probably knows that I slept with Jung Pureum. No matter how shameless I am, I do not yet have the courage to crawl into the house next door while sober.

“I’ll go when I have time.”

Even to the young man next door who had abruptly turned her son into an alpha and then gobbled him up, the mister’s wife was generous. To be honest, I was confident I would not have been surprised if she had thrown me like a shot put instead of offering me dinner.

*

The force of him cutting through the water sent droplets flying everywhere. His speed was fast, but his breathing was unstable. For Pureum, whose main event was long distance, not short distance, this was not a good sign.

“Jung Pureum!”

As expected, the coach’s angry roar fell. Pureum came out of the lane and stopped.

“Do you think you’re a 100-meter swimmer?”

A nagging about focusing on endurance rather than speed followed. The coach had a tendency to particularly pick on Pureum. The reason was obvious. It was because of that damned secondary gender.

Paradoxically, the coach was a beta. As a beta who managed alpha athletes, he was quite strict not only with Jung Pureum but also with other athletes.

The coach also swam, but he was not a former athlete. Since his secondary gender was beta, he could not even dream of being a national representative in the first place. Because the sports world was practically the exclusive domain of alphas.

Thanks to having good connections, he was able to secure a position in the sports world, but since he was neither a former athlete nor an alpha, he would not be able to climb any higher.

So when Pureum was a beta, he nagged him under the pretext of his own good, and when he went from beta to alpha, he bothered him with belated envy and jealousy.

“……I’m sorry.”

“Is that an insincere attitude?”

Still, Jung Pureum was good at tolerating this kind of coach. He did not gossip about the coach like other athletes or file a complaint to have him replaced.

Because this much was tolerable. Because there was no need to create problems over trivial matters.

“Go back to the beginning again.”

“Yes.”

“Your condition was good for a while, what’s wrong with you these days?”

At the mention of his condition, Pureum’s back stiffened slightly. He tried stretching his arms a couple of times, but a body that had once tensed up did not easily relax.

The answer to the coach’s question of what was wrong with him these days was actually obvious. Of course, it was because of Moon Yeonghwa. It was always Moon Yeonghwa who had a significant impact on Jung Pureum’s condition.

Just when he thought a gap had finally opened. He had not expected anything to change just because they slept together once, but he had thought that at the very least, he had earned a chance to properly appeal to him.

But that precious opportunity was snatched away again by that damned Baek Wonhee. What the hell is that damned Baek Wonhee!

While enduring the coach who was making all sorts of fuss at him, Jung Pureum came to truly hate Baek Wonhee. It was because he had made Moon Yeonghwa suffer, not himself.

He himself was healthy, so it was fine, but Moon Yeonghwa would collapse at the drop of a hat. To make a person who gets rushed to the emergency room for just a little bit of overwork suffer again.

Every time Jung Pureum saw Moon Yeonghwa’s face getting more gaunt by the day, his own blood ran dry. Even though he was suffering so much, there was nothing he could do for him.

That Riritang or whatever, he could not even get it himself in the end, so he had to ask his noona, Saebom. Jung Pureum felt a deep sense of powerlessness for the first time in a long time.

When Moon Yeonghwa was having a hard time, there was nothing Jung Pureum could do besides being by his side. It was the same even after he became an alpha. He was no longer a minor, and he was no longer a beta, but it was just the same as before.

Even when he tried not to be greedy, he became impatient. He wanted to be not a cute neighborhood dongsaeng, but a person he could trust and rely on. Not a person to be cherished and cared for, but a person who could firmly support him in his most difficult times.

“Maintain your pace properly!”

Even though he heard the shouting from outside the water, Pureum did not slow down and cut through the water. The fluorescent lights installed in the indoor swimming pool made the surface of the water glitter.

“I, I think I know why Jung Pureum’s condition is bad.”

While Pureum was chasing that cluster of light and making a turn, one athlete hesitantly approached the coach.