AOA 60

“I can smell your pheromones right now.”

“What?”

“I don’t want to say it twice. Stop with this pathetic act immediately.”

I frowned under his look of contempt. Usually, alphas and omegas couldn’t easily detect their own pheromone scent, and there was no way to tell if Baek Mugyeong was lying or not.

But he wasn’t the type to lie.

“Are you sure there’s a scent?”

“There is.”

“I took my suppressant this morning though…”

Every morning, without fail, I took a suppressant as soon as I woke up. Suppressants usually prevented pheromones from leaking due to emotional fluctuations. They also dulled the response to alpha pheromones.

As I tilted my head in confusion, a realization suddenly sparked in my mind.

“…Don’t tell me it’s a heat?”

Baek Mugyeong voiced the words I was afraid to say.

“Ah, maybe?”

It was a dumb and clueless response, but I honestly wasn’t sure myself. I’d manifested as an omega a few months ago during our honeymoon in Cebu, and hadn’t gone into heat since.

Before the regression, I had gotten pregnant immediately after manifesting, so I’d never experienced a heat.

I racked my brain, trying to recall the government-issued guides for second genders. They only vaguely stated that symptoms of manifestation, ruts, and heats varied greatly between individuals. Basic symptoms were fever and dizziness, with a weak explanation about how one’s libido spikes and leads them to seduce nearby alphas or omegas.

If this really was a heat, then being inside a car next to Baek Mugyeong was dangerous. I couldn’t let what happened in Cebu happen again. At a time like this, I needed to get as far away from Baek Mugyeong as possible.

“Please let me out there. If this really is a heat, I’ll go to a hotel.”

“That’s ridiculous, ha. Don’t even think about walking around a public space while leaking pheromones.”

“I’ll take a taxi.”

“The pheromones aren’t that strong yet. You can make it home.”

“But if it is a heat, we need to stay apart. I really think I should go to a hotel.”

“Do you know how many alphas are in a hotel? I’ll go instead.”

“But…”

“This is exhausting. Stop talking.”

Baek Mugyeong, sounding threatening, rolled down the window of the moving car. The harsh winter wind blasted in.

“Even if it’s cold, bear with it for a bit.”

I pulled my coat tightly around me and said nothing. Compared to the chill I’d felt when I caught his pheromones in the hallway and in the hospital, this wind was nothing. I couldn’t afford to lose control again.

I quickly pulled a suppressant from my wallet, where I always kept one just in case, and swallowed it dry. Though the dosage was typically one pill a day, they said taking an extra one wasn’t harmful.

As I felt the fever rising, I closed my eyes.

Thankfully, there was no traffic, and we got home fairly quickly. The fever had risen quite a bit, but I was still in good enough shape to get out of the car on my own.

My arms and legs moved without issue. I went to the bedroom, took a sedative, changed my clothes, and lay down in bed without any problem.

In the meantime, Baek Mugyeong messaged me to say he was heading to a hotel. He added that he’d speak to my biological father for me. I replied with a simple “Got it.”

Once I lay down and relaxed, drowsiness overwhelmed me. Unlike before, I had no reason to stay alert, so I let myself fall asleep.

*

I only woke up again because of the fever.

“Ugh…”

I groaned without thinking as I assessed my condition. No cough, no runny nose. My throat wasn’t sore either. The fever and aching limbs resembled the flu, but instinct told me it wasn’t a cold. And not just that, my instincts told me the fever would go down if I had sex with an alpha.

I finally understood why I had clung to Baek Mugyeong back in Cebu, saying his hand felt cool. At the same time, the memory of having sex with him resurfaced, and my fever spiked. It felt like my body was catching fire in multiple places.

To be precise, the heat rose because I was slightly aroused. If Baek Mugyeong had been next to me, I probably would’ve pounced on him. No, definitely would have.

“Shit…”

I cursed under my breath. If this was how bad it was even with the suppressant, I didn’t want to imagine how bad it would be without it.

Still, unlike the time I first manifested, I was mentally sound. I was sweating a lot, but it wasn’t impossible to move.

“Let’s eat something.”

It was already past 7 PM. I’d had a little food from the ancestral rites that morning but had skipped lunch. After the ordeal with Baek Jinseok, I’d slept straight through, and now I was starving.

I dragged my heavy body to the kitchen. It was Lunar New Year, so the chauffeur and housekeeper were off duty.

Kim Juhyun had left meals prepared in the fridge, but I was too lazy to heat them up, so I made instant noodles and didn’t forget to crack in an egg.

It was the first time I’d eaten ramen since getting married. While sprawled out, slurping the noodles, I sent a message to Choi Jaeha asking what omega heat symptoms were like. Not even a minute passed before he called.

—“You in heat? First time, right? Symptoms? It’s shit. Fever, body aches, drowsiness, nightmares. Everything tastes like sand. What about you?”

“Same, except I still have an appetite.”

I smiled as I added rice to the leftover broth. I was burning up like I had the flu and aching all over, but I was still starving.

—“What about Mugyeong hyung?”

“He went to a hotel.”

—“You’re not gonna sleep with him? You know having sex with an alpha helps a lot, right?”

“…We’re not like that.”

I knew that having sex with an alpha could relieve the symptoms. But I didn’t want it to be Baek Mugyeong. That didn’t mean I’d even consider anyone else, I had promised him I would never cheat.

—“Didn’t you do it in Cebu? Just do it again.”

“You said you liked Baek Mugyeong, so why are you encouraging me to sleep with him?”

The old me would never have asked such a blunt question to someone I’d only known for two months. But since I knew what Choi Jaeha was like, I asked without hesitation.

Before the regression, around this time, Choi Jaeha really liked Baek Mugyeong. Not just casually, he stalked him. He was the kind of person who burned with obsession, declaring he’d sleep with him someday.

Eventually, he grew closer to me, but his obsession with Baek Mugyeong never faded. He was the one who sobbed uncontrollably at Baek Mugyeong’s funeral.

Given all that, I couldn’t understand why he was now advising me to sleep with him.

—“It’s not like it wears out. Just go for it. Oh right, you said Mugyeong hyung went to a hotel.”

His reply was so raw I flushed red. Sure, it’s not like it wears out, but hearing it aloud was embarrassing, even though no one else was around.

“I’m fine.”

—“Fine, my ass. You’ve already done it once. Why are you being coy? What, is he bad in bed? Didn’t satisfy you? Or is he into weird stuff?”

“That’s not it.”

—“Okay, I’m seriously asking: is he small? That it? Huh? That’s important. It’s really important.”

I had only reached out to get advice from a fellow omega. But the conversation veered wildly off course.

I ended up sweating more from trying to explain that no, that wasn’t the issue, than from the heat itself.

As people get older, they naturally accumulate all kinds of experience. Going through life’s ups and downs teaches you what a smart decision looks like, and how to make one.

This was my first time going through a heat cycle after manifesting as an omega. The symptoms were flu-like, and I practically fused with the bed.

As a kid, I was always catching colds because I loved running around. During seasonal transitions, I constantly had a runny nose. My childhood nickname was even “snot-nosed brat.”

But I was relatively healthy. Even when I got sick, I didn’t suffer much. I’d eat, take medicine, sleep, and be fine the next day.

I thought this would be the same. Since heat symptoms felt just like the flu, I figured that if I ate well and slept it off, I’d be okay.

The house was completely empty. Kim Juhyeon was on holiday, and Baek Mugyeong was at a hotel. Alone, I ate ramen with rice for dinner, then even ordered ice cream for dessert.

By the next morning, I still didn’t feel too bad. My fever went up and down, but I figured it was manageable.

When Kim Juhyun came back to work after the holidays, I told her I was just coming down with a cold. I also casually said Baek Mugyeong hadn’t come home last night.

I thought the heat cycle would end just like that. But I was completely wrong.

“Jeong Minchae? Wake up.”

Someone was shaking me awake. Just from the voice, I knew it was Baek Mugyeong.

He’d gone to a hotel after realizing I was in heat. Most heats ended within two days. He said he’d return after the holiday. So why was I hearing his voice now?

My eyes blinked open with difficulty, like something sticky was holding them shut. The artificial light stabbed into my vision, making me wince.

But I could already feel it, my body was much better. The fever had broken, and the aches had eased.