My Alpha Era Began with Gongjindan Chapter 10

Jung Pureum’s first love began in the fifth grade of elementary school.

Compared to his parents, who met at a sports university and became a campus couple, this was quite a precocious start. From a young age, Jung Pureum had an abundance of romantic tendencies.

His first love was even a terribly painful unrequited one.

The love had started well enough, but the object of his affection was not ideal. Jung Pureum seriously agonized over why he had fallen for his neighbor hyung, Moon Yeonghwa, at first sight.

Frankly speaking, Moon Yeonghwa didn’t have a great personality. He wasn’t a bad person, but he had an enormous ego. True, he was a smart and competent Korean medicine doctor, but calling himself a ‘great genius’ with his own mouth was clearly not normal by any standard.

His first impression wasn’t great either. Twenty-year-old Moon Yeonghwa would periodically blow up his own kitchen, and it was precisely because of that that Jung Pureum’s mother, unable to watch any longer, brought Moon Yeonghwa over and fed him dinner.

A recessive omega university student who had just moved in next door. He’d heard he was attending the College of Korean Medicine, but at the time, the Moon Yeonghwa that Jung Pureum saw looked like a zombie controlled by a professor who was a dark wizard.

Having not eaten properly, his thin body and the dark circles under his eyes made him look tired. Though he was a sharp-featured beauty with long, slit-shaped eyes, the exhaustion from assignments and practice was more prominent.

But Jung Pureum liked that Moon Yeonghwa. So much so that his first wet dream partner in puberty was Moon Yeonghwa.

That day, miserably washing his sheets, Jung Pureum resolved. Since it had come to this, he would at least try confessing properly!

However, his confessions were frequently blocked. No matter what Jung Pureum did, Moon Yeonghwa only saw him as an adorable neighbor dongsaeng.

The eight-year age gap was the biggest obstacle to love. They say love has no borders, no gender, no age—but his unrequited love only had borders and lacked the other two.

And even if he consoled himself that having borders was something, there was no secondary sex either.

Moon Yeonghwa was a recessive omega. There was no law saying a beta couldn’t date an omega, but betas, who couldn’t sense alpha or omega pheromones, usually only dated among themselves.

To put it in analogy, even among rabbits, if alphas and omegas were hares, betas were rabbits. Only the broad classification was the same—they were different species.

Just because his sister Jung Saebom was an alpha, Jung Pureum seriously dreamed of becoming one.

Given his face and physique, Jung Pureum had a strong likelihood of being an alpha. If his mother was an alpha and he inherited the maternal lineage strongly, he should be an alpha too. Go, maternal genes, go!

But the secondary sex test results declared him a beta. It was a stubborn victory of the paternal genes.

That day, Jung Pureum’s world collapsed.

His mother was an alpha, his father a beta. They had married and built a family just like this! Though it was a very rare case, betas could marry alphas or omegas! So why did hyung show not even a speck of interest in him….

If he had no interest, he could at least not be so kind.

Moon Yeonghwa, despite his questionable personality, was a warm man toward his neighbor siblings. A man with a huge ego, but who bought chicken well. A man who nagged terribly, but bought beef….

And he was pointlessly pretty. (This was Jung Pureum’s personal opinion.) No matter how much he thought about it, Jung Pureum believed the biggest reason he fell for Moon Yeonghwa was his face.

Just once, when Jung Saebom listened to Jung Pureum’s love problems, she recommended an eye exam to Jung Pureum, who kept calling Moon Yeonghwa ‘pretty.’ To see a guy who’s always slurping herbal medicine like that. After that day, Jung Saebom stopped hitting Jung Pureum’s head. What if he got even crazier?

But regardless of Jung Saebom’s reaction, Jung Pureum was becoming a daily master at finding Moon Yeonghwa’s beautiful points.

You have to look closely to see beauty. Moon Yeonghwa was the same. Though he still moved around like a zombie, Moon Yeonghwa, who gave his best at everything, sparkled just the same after all these years.

He was handsome yet pretty. Pretty yet handsome. And on top of that, he was even kind. It was hard not to fall for him.

Moreover, Moon Yeonghwa, without even knowing it himself, had a profound impact on Jung Pureum’s athletic career. Whenever Jung Pureum, walking the tough elite sports path, wanted to give up, Moon Yeonghwa was always by his side.

When he was struggling with his coach, when he won his first medal in a middle school competition… Moon Yeonghwa always came to see Jung Pureum.

‘Don’t ever give up—it’ll hurt your pride.’

‘….’

‘If you think you can do it, then you really can do it.’

I believe in you.

The only one who consistently said such things to young Jung Pureum was Moon Yeonghwa. Even Jung Pureum’s parents sometimes doubted his potential as an athlete, but Moon Yeonghwa never once assumed Jung Pureum would fail.

Like a climbing plant wrapping around a support as it grows, Jung Pureum’s feelings for Moon Yeonghwa deepened day by day.

‘Hyung, I like you.’

‘Huh? I like you too, our Pureum.’

But Moon Yeonghwa thought of Jung Pureum as practically family.

While Jung Pureum lost sleep over Moon Yeonghwa, Moon Yeonghwa casually did all sorts of ridiculous things next to Jung Pureum. It was thanks to Jung Pureum being a beta.

When with the alpha Jung Saebom or the aunt next door, Moon Yeonghwa seemed somewhat tense, but when with Jung Pureum, he often sprawled out like melted cheese.

‘Hyung… are you comfortable with me?’

‘Of course. No matter what anyone says, betas are the best.’

‘….’

‘I can just relax like this and it’s safe. The best.’

Is it reasonable for an adolescent to go through this much trial and tribulation?

Of course, objectively speaking, Jung Pureum wasn’t experiencing any particular trials or tribulations. But the heart of a middle schooler enduring a painful unrequited love was torn to shreds. What the hell was this secondary sex thing that it was separating him and hyung like this….

Moon Yeonghwa, oblivious to Jung Pureum’s feelings, just shoved chicken legs into the crying boy’s mouth. Despite such atrocities from the object of his unrequited love, Jung Pureum cried even more because he liked Moon Yeonghwa.

I’m going to date this hyung no matter what.

Chewing on chicken, young Jung Pureum vowed. No matter what he did, Moon Yeonghwa treated him like a kind, cute, adorable, and sly neighbor dongsaeng, which only fueled his determination.

That determination reached its peak after entering high school.

Jung Pureum began to support Moon Yeonghwa in various ways, who was busy with university life. Jung Pureum himself was busy with his athletic career, but Moon Yeonghwa was the type of person who wouldn’t respond at all unless Jung Pureum contacted him first.

Moreover, Moon Yeonghwa couldn’t easily notice whatever support Jung Pureum gave him. For someone who called himself a great genius, he was a complete fool. Even after being told ‘I like you’ about 3,891 times, he would just brush it off with ‘Yeah, I like you too.’

The more Moon Yeonghwa acted like this, the more Jung Pureum began to feel frustrated about being a beta.

Even as an athlete, betas were treated worse than alphas, but he’d never wanted to become an alpha for his career—he’d wanted to become an alpha for love about 9,125 times.

Every night, as if punching for regime change, Jung Pureum prayed to the alpha god. Even if such a god probably didn’t exist, praying for vain hopes to major religions like God or Buddha felt too blasphemous.

‘I don’t care about anything else. Just let me become an alpha so that Yeonghwa hyung will pay attention to me.’

It was a truly simple wish. Jung Pureum firmly believed that even a non-existent alpha god would grant a wish this simple.

And perhaps that faith moved the alpha god, because Jung Pureum really did become an alpha. Shock! The alpha god exists!

Manifesting during the CSAT was a bit embarrassing, but for Jung Pureum, who was preparing for university entrance as a swimmer anyway, it was nothing but good.

After manifesting as an alpha, love calls poured in from several major universities. As Moon Yeonghwa had said, this world judged people by their secondary sex.

Not only had his secondary sex changed from beta to alpha, but he’d also gained plausible leverage to shake Moon Yeonghwa.

Late at night, Jung Pureum poured water and gave the alpha god a double thumbs up. I don’t know what it was, but thank you. Now I’ll only step on the accelerator without brakes. Alphamen.

Having lived next door for a long time, Jung Pureum had come to know as much as he needed to about Moon Yeonghwa. That’s why he used ‘lawsuit’ and ‘contract’ as tools.

His unrequited love object was a bit cowardly. He said he’d take responsibility with words, but it was obvious he was trying to brush it off. Right now, inside Moon Yeonghwa’s small head, there were only thoughts about how to sell this Gongjindan and make it known as a successful product.

So Jung Pureum decided to take advantage of Moon Yeonghwa too. Since that hyung probably wouldn’t think much of it, he decided to tie him down with a contract so he’d have to think.

Watching Moon Yeonghwa sign that contract without a second thought, Jung Pureum felt a bitter taste.

Moon Yeonghwa would sooner die than see him as a man. After shouting love against a wall for about eight years, anyone would go crazy.

Thanks to swimming like crazy whenever he felt like he was losing his mind, Jung Pureum’s personal records improved by leaps and bounds every day.

But even after becoming an alpha, Moon Yeonghwa still wouldn’t properly look at him. Fortunately or unfortunately, he seemed to react properly to his pheromones, but that was all.

He considered releasing pheromones or even trying to physically get close around Moon Yeonghwa’s heat cycle, but he was afraid that if he used physical force, Moon Yeonghwa would never look at him again, so Jung Pureum endured and endured.

Against a hyung who saw him only as a child no matter what he did, he had no idea how to start a proper relationship.