My Alpha Era Began with Gongjindan Chapter 19

…To cut to the conclusion, the meeting between Lee Seolwoo and Jung Pureum was a catastrophe itself. No other word comes to mind besides catastrophe. Ruin? Disaster? Well, something along those lines.

I saw Jung Pureum put on that stern expression for the first time in my life. I almost lost both a regular clinic customer and my neighbor dongsaeng.

Since he always smiled brightly whenever he saw me, I hadn’t known, but when Jung Pureum frowned, he had quite a cold impression. They say kids who are usually expressive become several times scarier when they go blank—that saying was spot on.

“This is a regular at our clinic, Lee Seolwoo.”

Unlike Jung Pureum, who immediately turned stern, Lee Seolwoo bowed his head with a socially adept smile.

The way he shyly tucked his slightly long hair behind his ear was truly beautiful. Looking at him again, he had the kind of looks that could slap even an idol’s face a few times over.

With a face like that and a decent personality to boot, I assumed Jung Pureum would certainly show favor toward Lee Seolwoo. He’d quickly become close with Kim Miyoung too, and even with Nam Jungyoon, who was a bit prickly at first, he’d become close enough to treat each other like brothers.

Lee Seolwoo’s character wasn’t bad either, and he had feelings for Jung Pureum, so I figured if I just set the stage, their relationship would naturally form on its own.

But Jung Pureum, having apparently thrown away all his usual amiability, only nodded curtly at Lee Seolwoo with a cold face.

A kid who’d been in the sports world long enough to be thoroughly disciplined, who was polite to everyone—to act so rudely. Anyone watching would think he was deliberately trying to lower Lee Seolwoo’s interest.

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

I patted Jung Pureum’s back. Hey, do better! He clearly understood my signal, but Jung Pureum stubbornly maintained his cold demeanor.

In the end, “Pursuing Romance at the Clinic, Version 1” was wrapped up when Kim Miyoung took Lee Seolwoo into the examination room.

I sighed, holding my forehead.

It wasn’t like I was forcing them to imprint on each other right away. They were both dominant, similar in age—knowing each other would be a good thing.

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

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

If he’d just gotten angry at me for acting arbitrarily, it would have been easier to handle, but Jung Pureum asked this question with a serious face.

Nam Jungyoon disappeared into the examination room, saying please settle it between yourselves. I was supposed to be the one treating Lee Seolwoo. That person doesn’t like alphas just because they look decent….

But this wasn’t the time to leave Jung Pureum behind and go. This was an emergency. Our clinic didn’t have an emergency room, but it was certain that this was a crisis.

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

“Worried….”

“Yeah, you wouldn’t have said that kind of… you know? to me otherwise. I figured it was because I was the only omega you knew.”

Even I became a slave to lust during my heat cycles, so a young, fresh kid who already runs hot and even swims would be even worse. I’d heard that dominant alphas have longer rut periods than latent ones.

Actually, biologically, dominant and latent don’t have that much difference. It’s rare for survival advantage or biological superiority to be determined by curly or straight hair….

But secondary genders were a bit peculiar. You could say there was a clear hierarchy of dominance. It was truly the curse of lepidopteran insects.

Anyway, humans had made a bit of a wrong turn in biological evolution. Cycles were already terrible when you were latent heat, so being dominant was even worse.

My thought was this: wouldn’t two dominants be slightly less terrible? Originally, negative times negative equals positive.

Since I’d signed a contract, I prepared an event like “Pursuing Romance at the Clinic, Version 1” to take some responsibility in my own way. I didn’t know if this was the kind of responsibility Jung Pureum wanted, but it seemed like the most reasonable approach to me.

But Jung Pureum seemed to think differently. Maybe he was annoyed at me acting like a matchmaking agency consultant. I also feel reluctant when my mom periodically contacts me about blind dates.

I knew I was somewhat in the wrong for forcing a meeting on someone who didn’t want it. But I genuinely wanted Jung Pureum to do well. It’s unfair, unfair.

“I don’t need other omegas.”

Jung Pureum, with both hands behind his back as if receiving a scolding, muttered quietly. With his head half-lowered, I couldn’t see his face properly.

“Because I want to sleep with hyung.”

My thought circuits stopped. Oh my god. I needed to stop thinking “Is this kid crazy?” but the same thought kept repeating. Could this be… a side effect of the Gongjindan?

I seriously considered whether the Gongjindan I’d made had adversely affected Jung Pureum.

But objectively, Jung Pureum seemed perfectly sane. His eyes were clear, he wasn’t rambling, and he wasn’t feverish or hazy.

I casually glanced away to check today’s date. Hmm, it wasn’t April, so it wasn’t April Fools’ Day. Then why was he saying this? Could he really… like me romantically?

Thinking that far, I felt like a patient with delusions of being loved. The other person was Jung Pureum, of all people. We’d seen each other’s best and worst for about eight years—what….

I racked my brain to find the meaning of that remark.

The answer I arrived at was this:

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

“Oh, please—”

“Hyung understands everything, Pureum.”

Jung Pureum, with a face that looked several times more miserable, swept his hand over his face. You’re embarrassed because hyung hit the nail on the head, right? I patted Jung Pureum’s back with an amused expression.

“Since you’ve just become an alpha, everything is confusing, and you might feel wary of new people. This is a completely natural phenomenon.”

“….”

“But you and I are practically family, you know.”

Jung Pureum looked like he was about to collapse from emotional stress.

They say if you only speak the plain truth, the listener can feel repulsed. That was from “Conversation Skills of a Wise Socialite,” Volume 2, which my mom used to read.

“Of course, if our cycles suddenly happened to coincide, there’d be no helping it….”

So I added a bit of empty talk.

Even if our cycles coincided, I wasn’t crazy enough to sleep with my neighbor dongsaeng, but it was still a more socially adept way of speaking than repeatedly saying it was absolutely impossible.

Whether thanks to my wise conversation skills, Jung Pureum quickly calmed down. Then he asked again.

“If our cycles coincide?”

“Yeah.”

“If our cycles happen to coincide while we’re together, and it’s really unavoidable, can we sleep together?”

“Sure. But that’s unlikely to happen. How effective do you think my herbal medicine is?”

“There’s always a ‘what if.’ If that really… happened, hyung would actually take responsibility for me, right?”

What if, my foot. Conditional sentences are conditional because they’re unlikely to happen. I laughed amusedly and nodded. How could such a tragedy occur?

Jung Pureum finally smiled with a brightened face. As expected, books don’t lie. Whether martial arts novels or Conversation Skills Volume 2, the things written in them generally worked.

I proudly ruffled Jung Pureum’s hair. Though it was a patch-up job, I felt like I’d resolved the issue well.

I hadn’t lived all these years for nothing. Until that moment, I thought I was a mature adult.

∞ ∞ ∞

The incident happened a few weeks later.

At the time, I was insanely busy with clinic work. After starting Gongjindan sales, all sorts of inquiries poured in. Some people asked out of genuine curiosity about its efficacy, but a minority approached me to test whether the Gongjindan I’d made was a fraud.

This is why groundbreaking inventions take time to be recognized. Originally, no medicine works after just one or two doses. Jung Pureum becoming an alpha after a single pill was a miraculous case—quick-acting drugs are usually poisons.

For a while, aside from Jung Pureum, there were no cases of alpha presentation after taking the Gongjindan. At this point, I was starting to get nervous. If there had been a mistake in the formula or if Jung Pureum really was a special case, my Gongjindan business would completely fail.

But recently, fortunately, word came that a fourteen-year-old girl had presented as an alpha after taking our clinic’s Gongjindan.

It looked like she’d just presented naturally due to secondary sexual development, but… causality is all about fitting the pieces together. Couldn’t a kid who was going to become an alpha anyway become an even better alpha after taking our Gongjindan?

That was the same principle as height-increasing herbal medicine. The kid was going to grow that much anyway, but the placebo effect made it feel like they grew faster.

But we don’t call that fraud. If you don’t know whether it works or not, you might as well try it. Whether they were going to grow that much anyway, whether they were going to become an alpha anyway… even the heavenly gods don’t know that.

After that, the Gongjindan’s effectiveness was verified, mainly among adolescents. Actually, “verified” was a stretch—about half of it was testimonial. “Our kid was supposed to be a beta, but guess what, they became an alpha…” and so on.

Thanks to the sincere interviews of parents, the number of patients visiting our clinic increased exponentially. The waiting room became so packed you couldn’t find a place to step, and we eventually had to expand.

“Whoever said I was born to die working—they were right.”

“Who said that? They’re amazing.”

“If you got your fortune read, Senior, it’d probably say you’ll die working too.”

“Yeah. Let’s be buried together from overwork.”

“Isn’t that human sacrifice?”

Thanks to that, Vice Director Nam Jungyoon, who had been receiving patients like crazy, was dying from overwork alongside me.

We tried to hire new staff, but every time we hired, they were either spies sent by Baek Wonhee or industry insiders trying to steal the Gongjindan formula, so we could only use part-timers.

Jung Pureum visited the clinic regularly, but knowing I was busy, he didn’t bother me. He even made a considerable effort to be considerate in his own way. Instead of meeting outside, he adjusted the contract’s date schedule to dining together at home.

Actually, I was grateful for even that. Though it’d be even more appreciated if he could just pretend the contract never existed. The contract with Jung Pureum was still safely stored in the director’s office drawer.

Having dinner after work was a piece of cake. Since I often finished later, Jung Pureum usually prepared the meals.

Even though he must have been tired from training and coming back, after checking my refrigerator once, Jung Pureum started bringing loads of ingredients from the supermarket like a devoted wife.

“How did you learn to cook so well?”

“I mastered it to become a lovable husband later.”

“Wow, whoever marries you is going to be really lucky.”

“….”

All the convenience store retort foods I used to eat were confiscated. Instead of three-minute curry, I ate homemade curry that Jung Pureum had carefully simmered, and I genuinely envied his future spouse.

That’s when the problem happened. The cause was skipping the heat-suppressing herbal medicine a few times because I was too busy.

I was already somewhat addicted to the medicine so its efficacy had diminished lately, and having a dominant alpha in my house, sitting across from me and eating meals together for days—it was a predictable outcome, when you thought about it.

Astoundingly… I went into heat while eating curry. I hadn’t even finished it all.