ATGRA 19

To put it bluntly, the meeting between Lee Seolwoo and Jung Pureum was an absolute disaster. I can’t think of a better word than disaster. Catastrophe? Calamity? Something along those lines.

It was the first time in my life I’d seen Jung Pureum get so serious. I nearly lost both a regular clinic patient and my neighbor kid brother.

I never noticed because he’s always grinning ear to ear around me, but when Jung Pureum gets serious, he has quite a chilling presence. They say people who are usually expressive become several times scarier when they go stone-faced, and that was exactly the case.

“This is our clinic regular, Mr. Lee Seolwoo.”

Unlike Jung Pureum, who immediately turned cold, Lee Seolwoo bowed with a socially polished smile.

The way he shyly tucked his slightly long hair behind his ear was strikingly beautiful. Even on second glance, his looks could give any idol a run for their money.

With a face like that and a decent personality, I was sure Jung Pureum would take a liking to Lee Seolwoo. He got close to Ms. Kim Miyoung quickly, and even with Nam Jungyoon, who was initially awkward, he’s now buddy-buddy. So I figured, if I just set them up, their relationship would naturally fall into place.

But Jung Pureum, tossing aside all his usual friendliness, gave Lee Seolwoo a curt nod with a cold expression.

This guy, who’s been in the sports world long enough to be disciplined and polite to everyone, was acting so rudely. Anyone watching would think he was deliberately trying to tank Lee Seolwoo’s affection.

Lee Seolwoo must have sensed Jung Pureum’s attitude, as a question mark appeared on his previously flushed face.

I tapped Jung Pureum’s back. Hey, come on, do better! Even though he clearly understood my signal, Jung Pureum stubbornly maintained his icy demeanor.

In the end, the “Pursuing a Meeting at the Clinic, Version 1” plan came to a halt when Ms. Kim Miyoung took Lee Seolwoo into the treatment room.

I sighed, holding my forehead.

I mean, I wasn’t pushing them to bond immediately or anything. They’re both dominant, around the same age, so I just thought it’d be good for them to get to know each other.

But contrary to my intentions, Jung Pureum seemed deeply betrayed. He didn’t even seem to consider that I did it for his sake.

“…Is it because I said we should sleep together?”

If he’d just gotten mad at me for acting on my own, I could’ve handled it, but Jung Pureum asked this with a serious expression.

Nam Jungyoon vanished into the treatment room, practically begging us to sort it out ourselves. I’m the one who’s supposed to treat Lee Seolwoo. That guy doesn’t even like decent-looking Alphas…

But I couldn’t just leave Jung Pureum like this. This was an emergency. Our clinic doesn’t have an ER, but I knew this was a crisis.

“No, I did it because I was worried about you.”

“Worried…”

“Yeah, you were so desperate you said that to me. I thought it was because I’m the only Omega you know.”

Even I become a slave to desire during my heat cycle, so for a young, vigorous guy who’s already full of energy and swims to boot, it must be worse. I heard dominant Alphas have longer rut periods than recessives.

Biologically, there’s not much difference between dominant and recessive. Curly or straight hair doesn’t determine biological superiority or survival odds, after all…

But secondary gender is a bit peculiar. It’s like there’s a clear hierarchy of dominance. It’s practically the curse of the moth order in insects.

Anyway, humans messed up their biological evolution. Cycles are bad enough as a recessive, but they’re even worse as a dominant.

Here’s what I thought: if two dominants pair up, maybe it’d be less awful? Like multiplying two negatives to get a positive.

Since we signed a contract, I felt responsible and set up this “Pursuing a Meeting at the Clinic, Version 1” event. I don’t know if it’s the responsibility Jung Pureum wanted, but it seemed the most rational approach to me.

But Jung Pureum clearly thought differently. Maybe he was annoyed because I acted like a marriage agency consultant. I get miffed when my mom periodically nags me to go on blind dates, so I get it.

I know I was somewhat in the wrong for forcing a meeting on someone who didn’t want it. But I really did it for Jung Pureum’s sake. It’s unfair, so unfair.

“I don’t need another Omega.”

Jung Pureum, standing with his hands behind his back like he was at attention, muttered softly. His head was half-lowered, so I couldn’t see his face clearly.

“Because I want to sleep with hyung.”

My brain froze. Oh, mom. I need to stop thinking “Is this kid crazy?” but the thought kept coming back. Could this be… a side effect of the Gongjindan?

I seriously wondered if the Gongjindan I made had negatively affected Jung Pureum.

But objectively, Jung Pureum seemed perfectly sane. His eyes were clear, his speech wasn’t incoherent, and he didn’t seem feverish or dazed.

I glanced at the date. It’s not April, so obviously not April Fools’. Why is he saying this? Does he actually like me as a romantic partner?

At that thought, I felt like I had an inflated ego. This is Jung Pureum we’re talking about. We’ve seen each other at our best and worst for eight years, so what…

I racked my brain to find meaning in his words.

Here’s what I came up with:

“You want to spend your rut with a familiar, trustworthy Omega… Yeah, that makes sense.”

“Oh, come on…”

“I get it, Pureum-ah.”

Jung Pureum’s face grew several times more miserable as he ran a hand over it. You’re embarrassed because hyung hit the nail on the head, right? I gave him a hearty pat on the back with a generous smile.

“You just became an Alpha, so everything’s confusing, and you might feel wary of new people. That’s totally natural.”

“…”

“But you and I are practically pseudo-family.”

Jung Pureum looked like he was about to collapse from frustration.

They say speaking too bluntly can make the listener defensive. That’s from volume two of “Wise Social Skills” that my mom read.

“If our cycles happen to sync up, we’d have no choice…”

So I threw in some empty words.

Even if our cycles synced, I’m not crazy enough to get physical with my neighbor kid brother, but saying it’s outright impossible repeatedly isn’t very socially savvy.

Thanks to my wise conversational skills, Jung Pureum calmed down quickly. Then he asked again.

“If our cycles sync?”

“Yeah.”

“If we’re together and our cycles sync, making it unavoidable, we could sleep together?”

“Sure. But that’s unlikely. My master herbal medicine is super effective.”

“There’s always a ‘what if.’ If… that really happens, will you really take responsibility for me?”

What if? Hypotheticals are called that because they’re unlikely. I nodded with a hearty laugh. As if that tragedy would ever happen?

Jung Pureum finally smiled brightly. See, books don’t lie. Whether it’s martial arts novels or “Wise Social Skills” volume two, their advice generally works.

I proudly ruffled Jung Pureum’s hair. It was a bit of a patchwork fix, but I felt I’d resolved the issue well.

I haven’t aged in vain. At that moment, I thought I was a mature adult.

*

The incident happened a few weeks later.

I was swamped with clinic work. After starting Gongjindan sales, inquiries flooded in. Some were genuinely curious about its effects, but a few were testing if my Gongjindan was a scam.

That’s why groundbreaking inventions are hard to get recognized quickly. Most medicines don’t work after just one or two doses. Jung Pureum becoming an Alpha after one pill was a rare case, and fast-acting drugs are usually poisons.

For a while, aside from Jung Pureum, there were no cases of people becoming Alphas after taking Gongjindan. At this point, even I was getting nervous. If there was a mistake in the formula or Jung Pureum was a fluke, my Gongjindan business would be ruined.

But recently, thankfully, word came that a fourteen-year-old girl became an Alpha after taking our clinic’s Gongjindan.

It looked like she just hit secondary puberty and manifested, but… correlation can be framed as causation. A kid destined to be an Alpha could become an even better Alpha with our Gongjindan, right?

Height-enhancing herbs work the same way. A kid destined to grow that tall feels like they’re growing faster due to a placebo effect.

But we don’t call that a scam. If you don’t know whether it works or not, it’s better to try it. Whether they’d grow that much anyway or were destined to be an Alpha… even the heavens don’t know.

After that, Gongjindan’s effects were “verified” mainly among teenagers. Half of it was more like testimonials. “Our kid was supposed to be a Beta, but lo and behold, they became an Alpha…” and so on.

Thanks to parents’ heartfelt interviews, the number of patients visiting our clinic skyrocketed. The waiting room was so packed we ended up expanding.

“Someone said I’d die working, and it’s true.”

“Who said that? They’re spot on.”

“Sunbae, if you got a fortune now, it’d say you’ll die working too.”

“Yeah, let’s get buried from overwork together.”

“ Isn’t this like being buried alive?”

Thanks to that, deputy director Nam Jungyoon and I were drowning in work.

We tried hiring new staff, but every new hire was either a spy sent by Baek Wonhee or someone from the industry after the Gongjindan formula, so we could only use part-timers.

Jung Pureum visited the clinic periodically but didn’t bother me, knowing I was busy. He even went out of his way to be considerate. Instead of meeting outside, he arranged our contract “dates” as meals at home.

That alone was more than enough. I’d be even more grateful if he’d void the contract. The contract with Jung Pureum was still safely tucked away in the director’s desk drawer.

Eating dinner after work was a piece of cake. Since I often finished later, Jung Pureum usually cooked.

He must be tired from training, but after checking my fridge once, Jung Pureum started hauling ingredients from the market like a dutiful sprite.

“How are you so good at cooking?”

“To become a beloved husband someday.”

“Wow, whoever marries you is so lucky.”

“…”

My usual convenience store microwave meals were confiscated. Instead of three-minute curry, I ate Jung Pureum’s homemade curry, and I genuinely envied his future spouse.

Then the problem hit. Because I was too busy, I skipped the cycle-suppressing herbs a few times.

I’m already hooked on herbs, so their effects have weakened, and sitting across from a dominant Alpha, eating together for days, made it almost inevitable.

Shockingly… I went into a heat cycle while eating curry. I didn’t even finish it.