Min Ha-seong's Name Tag

…Senior, if a person does something wrong… they have to apologize. Apologize.

The senior had kept apologizing, over and over—

Yet under the excuse that there was no sincerity, that he simply didn’t like the look of him, Baek Yu-gyeong had beaten him again and again. The senior had clearly been the bigger of the two, but he never once fought back; the dull, heavy thuds of the beating kept echoing from behind the school building. Loud enough to make anyone watching jump out of their skin.

Watching it, Kim Seong-un felt goosebumps crawl over his entire body. Even while doing something like that, the smile never left Baek Yu-gyeong’s face—as if he were a psychopath who simply could not understand human emotion.

After that, the story never even rose to the surface, let alone reach the school violence committee. The senior simply stayed absent for a stretch, and before long he transferred out on his own. Students whispered that the senior, humiliated by what had happened before, had transferred by himself.

But Kim Seong-un, who had seen the scene, was certain. Baek Yu-gyeong’s family must have buried it.

…Even if it was revenge for something unfair, wasn’t that going too far?

If it had just been a rough fight between guys he might have thought nothing of it, but seeing the beating itself had been so brutal that it stuck with him all the more.

On top of that, the way Yu-gyeong played the kind, considerate guy in front of everyone and then turned dark and vicious behind their backs really rubbed Seong-un the wrong way. Even now Baek Yu-gyeong still held the image of the kind, diligent rich-boy young master at school, and the way the girls squealed over him grated on Seong-un’s nerves.

Of course, that didn’t mean he had any intention of picking a fight. As a Beta, Kim Seong-un already knew that picking a fight with an Alpha—creatures who held an animalistic upper hand—was a losing proposition from the start.

So when this senior named Shin Cha-heon came up and spoke to him, Seong-un felt as if a bolt from the blue had struck him, terrified of getting tangled up with that crazy bastard.

…With a face that decent, why would he hang around with that guy…

Well. Omegas were the kind of creatures who went all fluttery and weak-kneed the moment they saw a fine Alpha, weren’t they? Birds of a feather, obviously.

In the middle of that thought their eyes met. When Cha-heon’s gaze locked with Seong-un’s, Cha-heon smiled gently and spoke first, saying he was sorry for stopping him when he must be busy.

“Ah, no, it’s fine. More importantly, why…?”

“Mm, nothing special. Is there a Kim… wait, no—a student named Min Ha-seong in Class 4 of the second year? I’m Shin Cha-heon from the third year. This looks like it belongs to second-year Ha-seong, so I came to return it.”

“Ah… Min Ha-seong. …Uh, he’s absent today…”

“Hm? Oh, is that so?”

Shin Cha-heon seemed to think for a moment, then held the name tag out to him.

“This—someone dropped a name tag in the hallway, and it was his name…. Could you put it on his desk for me?”

“Uh… that. …Yes, understood.”

“Great, thanks.”

Kim Seong-un briefly revised the thought he’d had earlier at Shin Cha-heon’s unexpectedly neat and proper manner—then remembered that this was someone who hung around with Baek Yu-gyeong and shook his head once.

After Shin Cha-heon left, Park Ji-min, who had been walking up behind Seong-un, found his friend standing blankly in front of the door holding something and clamped a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey, what’s that? You been dropping your name tag all over the place like a slob?”

“It’s Min Ha-seong’s name tag, apparently.”

The moment he heard the name, Park Ji-min’s face went deathly pale.

“Are you insane? Throw it away right now. Didn’t that guy start being absent right after talking to Baek Yu-gyeong yesterday or whenever?”

Kim Seong-un nodded. Park Ji-min was the friend who had witnessed Baek Yu-gyeong’s violence with him back then. Just that morning Ji-min had been going on and on about how Baek Yu-gyeong must have finally buried Min Ha-seong for good—claiming it was a repeat of what happened a year ago and fretting like mad. For a starting member of the Kendo Club, the guy was ridiculously cowardly.

“…That’s probably right, isn’t it?”

“What the hell did that guy even do to get on Baek Yu-gyeong’s bad side?”

“…Dunno. That bastard’s a total psychopath. All smiles up front, and behind the scenes—urp—”

Park Ji-min clapped a hand over his own mouth as if he didn’t even want to imagine it, and shook his head hard from side to side.

“Ah, I don’t know, I don’t know. Why get involved? Hurry up. Just throw that thing away already, you crazy bastard. You shouldn’t even get near Baek Yu-gyeong.”

“…Ah, this pisses me off so much.”

“What are you gonna do if it pisses you off? Just throw it away already, I’m telling you.”

Kim Seong-un tried to put on a show of bravado for a second, carried the name tag all the way to the trash can, glanced around—

…and slipped the name tag into his pocket.

“Hyung~”

Having failed to get out of the second-year hallway quickly enough and ending up with Baek Yu-gyeong stuck to his back as a result, Cha-heon braced himself for another cling—

“You came to give Ha-seong his name tag, right? Did you hand it over?”

Baek Yu-gyeong walked alongside him and asked neatly, without any of his usual physical contact. Cha-heon felt a strange sense of dissonance but nodded calmly.

“He was absent, so I asked another friend to pass it on.”

“I see.”

“…Why?”

Ever since yesterday Baek Yu-gyeong had been oddly interested in that friend. Did he have some personal grudge against Min Ha-seong?

“Hmm? Well…. Because I hate it when hyung pays attention to some other guy instead of me?”

Cha-heon immediately regretted asking. Because Baek Yu-gyeong whined just like that and promptly hugged him from behind.

“Hey, could you let go a little?”

“You never come to see me, but you’ll go looking for some other guy.”

The idea that this counted as some other “guy” left Cha-heon speechless.

“Yu-gyeong is sad.”

I’m the one who’s sad here.

There was no way a day when a late-teen male student over 180 cm tall was pouting at him in the third person with aegyo could be anything but a thoroughly miserable one.

Was this what a marine animal felt like with a barnacle stuck to it? So this was why turtles sank beneath the water and died.

Unable to peel him off by force, Cha-heon ended up trudging forward once again with Baek Yu-gyeong stuck to his back.

Even in the middle of this kind of school life, he had managed to make one friend.

The reason the phrase “this kind of school life” came up was clearly Baek Yu-gyeong.

Rumors that there was a Dominant Omega at school had spread, so the vast majority of Beta students—who made up 80–90% of the population—kept their distance, and because of Baek Yu-gyeong the distance from friends had tripled on top of that. On top of which Cha-heon himself had no confidence he could get close to teenagers, so he never approached anyone, and ended up living a life that was practically social isolation.

Fortunately, a Beta male student named Kang I-hyeon had coincidentally grown close to him.

They were desk partners. During Korean class I-hyeon had dozed off, gotten caught by the teacher, and been flustered, so Cha-heon had simply pointed out where they were reading. That was all.

He had heard I-hyeon was the captain of the Kendo Club, and as a fellow former athlete Cha-heon knew how hard it was to balance training and academics. Even if he collapsed into sleep at home, he would have to get up from early morning for training, and as captain he would have personal training as well, so there was a high chance he was doing basic conditioning from the crack of dawn. After draining his strength like that, of course class time would be pure agony.

Yet this big guy had been grateful for something so minor and asked to be friends.

“Whoa…. That kid’s really good.”

Today Kang I-hyeon had said it was fine to come watch Kendo Club practice, so Cha-heon had tagged along—and among the many kids, one in particular stood out so much that Cha-heon let out an involuntary exclamation of admiration. The student in full kendo gear with the face mask on was clearly close to 190 cm, yet his movements were crisp and agile. Even among so many students, his footwork was on another level.

“Ah, him? Yeah, he’s fucking good…. But he decided to quit. I heard he even won championships back in the day, but ever since first year he’s skipped every single tournament.”

“Huh? Why? When he’s that good?”

Cha-heon had never done kendo himself, but when you watched someone move you could roughly tell how skilled they were. There was no wasted motion in the way he thoroughly overpowered his opponent, and the power and spirit overflowing from him were such that even a complete amateur would look at him and think, that one’s the ace.

“Dunno. Asking any further is a little too…”

“Too?”

“…I don’t want to say I got scared of a junior a year younger than me, but look at that bastard’s size. And the face under that mask is even scarier.”

At Kang I-hyeon’s words Cha-heon quietly stared ahead.

He was tall and well-built, with a broad, solid frame that filled the eye. Just looking at that bulk made it seem not only unwise to pick a fight but even a little dangerous to speak to him.

When the match ended he took off the face mask, and the face was familiar. It was that boy who had glared at him for a long time in the hallway before walking past. And every time they crossed paths after that, he seemed to glare.

…It’s not that his expression is vicious—it’s more like… his face itself looks vicious.

He was a little pretty, actually, but with that sharp blank expression he looked like someone who could kill a man with a glance.

When someone looked that sculpted and yet the first instinct you got was “if I mess with him I’m screwed,” that said everything.

Cha-heon nodded.

“Yeah, that tracks. No wonder you got scared, I-hyeon.”

“What? No, I wasn’t scared, okay?”

“Let’s just say that’s what it was.”

“Aish, Shin Cha-heon. I’m only putting up with you because you’re tiny as a dick.”

“Wow, so you’re packing serious heat, huh.”

Cha-heon grinned as he looked at I-hyeon. The corners of his mouth lifted like a mischievous kid’s, and his fox-like narrowed eyes fluttered with a strangely sensual air.

“Ah, fuck. Saying that shit with that face—”

Kang I-hyeon’s manly face turned bright red; he waved his hands and then heaved a deep sigh.

“Hey, you…. Didn’t you say you were an Omega? The reason you get one confession a day from Alphas is all your own fault, I bet.”

That was what Kang I-hyeon said whenever he teased him after hearing that Cha-heon got confessed to at least once or twice a month. Cha-heon, who had gotten nothing out of the teasing, made a sour face.

This crazy worldbuilding. A worldview where a guy can confess to another guy and it’s fine.

It only made things more awkward that the Alpha population was mostly male while the Omega population was mostly female.

Cha-heon let out a sigh, pulled his gaze away from the big male student, and looked at I-hyeon.

“So then, could you date me?”

“Ugh, fuck no? …Ah, I don’t mean that to hurt your feelings—”

“Yeah, I get it. Dating is something you do with someone you like.”

This was a normal guy’s reaction. Far from finding it rude, Cha-heon actually liked the dramatic rejection. I-hyeon scratched the back of his head, looking awkward.

“Hey, to be honest…. I don’t even know what pheromones are, and even if I smelled something nice coming off you, Shin Cha-heon, I don’t think I could date you when you’re a guy. …Unless I fell for your personality as a person, maybe…. But no matter how I think about it, being aware of a guy in that way is physiologically impossible.”

He was right. As Kang I-hyeon said, Cha-heon himself didn’t think he could date someone just because they smelled good either.

He wasn’t sure if this was Beta thinking, but maybe because his body was a Beta’s, even though he could technically smell what were called Alpha scents through his organs and receptors, he had never felt drawn or attracted by them.

“Yeah, I feel exactly the same way.”

“…Aren’t you an Omega?”

“I…. Well. Pretty much a Beta?”

“What, like a recessive one or something? But whatever the case, if that’s your preference it doesn’t matter. You said you like girls.”

At I-hyeon’s easygoing words Cha-heon huffed a quiet laugh.

Even though the rumors already had him pegged as a Dominant all over the place, the fact that I-hyeon could still say “maybe a recessive one” without knowing that made Kang I-hyeon seem like a solid, decent friend. He judged and decided based on what he saw rather than what he heard. And the way he carefully checked whether he might have been rude also made Cha-heon think this young student was pretty cool.

Cha-heon set aside the warm thoughts about I-hyeon and watched the student far away.

…He’s really good. With skill like that he could make the national team for free—why quit?

Somehow he wanted to keep looking a little longer, so Cha-heon moved a bit closer to where the student was and started watching.

About ten minutes passed like that?

When the student he had been watching for so long started packing up already—

“It’s such a waste to quit…”

—he found himself saying it out loud without meaning to. In that short span of time Cha-heon had gotten a little absorbed in that student’s movements.

What a waste of talent. People said age didn’t matter for anything you did, but there was still a set time to bloom with shining talent.

If he was that good he had to know it himself—so why was he quitting? Cha-heon was curious.

“…….”

Maybe the feeling had been too strong. In that moment, their eyes met. Actually, their eyes meeting itself had happened any number of times, so that was fine.

…The problem was that the distance was closer than he had thought.

…Did he hear me?

Judging by the way the other side was also staring as if he had noticed something strange, he probably had. Leaving aside the worry over what thoughts might be under that chilly face, as an adult Cha-heon felt a little embarrassed.

Ahem. Ahem.

Cha-heon cleared his throat a couple of times, then spent about five rounds guessing whether the boy in front of him had heard or not—then decided there was no way he hadn’t, and finally admitted it.

“Ah, no…. I just overheard that you were quitting…. Why are you quitting?”

He hadn’t meant to ask that far, but since things had already gotten to this point he just went for it, if only to break the awkward atmosphere.

The boy’s neat brow furrowed rapidly.

“…What does me quitting have to do with you—”

The boy’s low voice cut off for a moment. His deep ash-gray gaze swept over the name tag, and then—

“You’re Shin, I see.”

Oddly enough, he had tacked on honorifics. Even though his voice carried a strangely prickly and peculiar hostility.