My Alpha Era Began with Gongjindan Chapter 27

After parking the car, we went straight to a raw fish restaurant. Following the wisdom of our ancestors that even Mt. Geumgang is best enjoyed after a meal.

“Have you been here before?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“In high school.”

I almost asked “With whom?” but stopped myself. I wasn’t interrogating him—why dig that far?

“I came alone.”

But as if he could read minds, Jung Pureum drew a line, saying he’d never come with anyone else. Was he bragging about being mature enough to come all the way to Incheon by himself? I just found him impressive.

“You came all this way alone, not even for training.”

“I was having a hard time back then.”

“Wait, you didn’t come to Incheon to drink, did you?”

“…”

“Goodness… I’ve never seen such a corrupted kid.”

When I started smacking his back, Jung Pureum feigned weakness with “Ow, ow.” A guy built like a mountain pretending to be frail.

When I asked what had been so hard, he evaded the question again.

Well, high school is a turbulent time for everyone. Jung Pureum wasn’t an alpha but a beta, yet he was on an elite athletic track—it must have been several times harder.

Things got better once Jung Pureum started placing in various competitions, but before that, even his parents hadn’t taken his career that seriously.

Jung Saebom was a born alpha who’d shown promise from a very young age, but Jung Pureum wasn’t an extraordinary prodigy compared to his sister.

It was only natural that he’d be compared. Even if the adults around him didn’t intend it, when the sister is an alpha and the brother is a beta, both in athletics, talk was inevitable.

That’s why the aunt next door had told Jung Pureum once or twice that it was okay to quit swimming. She probably thought that national team spots were monopolized by alphas, and that a beta like Jung Pureum couldn’t achieve greatness in swimming.

What could be more wasteful than clinging to something hopeless? Everyone knew that fact and, without malice, hurt others.

You can’t become great, so do something that can at least earn you a modest living. You’re just average, so get a grip early and give up.

Now that he’s an alpha, everyone believes in Jung Pureum’s potential, but back then it was different. Same person, different secondary sex—all because of that one fact.

“80% of what made me struggle was because of hyung.”

“Me?”

Why me?

I stared at Jung Pureum in disbelief. Unbelievable. I could understand 20%, but I didn’t remember making him 80% of his troubles.

“What did I do to make you struggle? Blowing up the kitchen?”

“That’s part of it.”

“Seriously.”

I pressed him a few more times, but Jung Pureum clamped his mouth shut with the pride-hurting remark that I wouldn’t understand even if he told me.

Since he’d shut up tight, I couldn’t press further, so we left the raw fish restaurant and walked along the night sea. It wasn’t a dramatically beautiful scene, but the sound of the waves coming in and going out somehow calmed my mind.

Streetlights were installed here and there along the path. Where the light reached, the surroundings were bright. I could see other people gathered in small groups too. Many were groups of friends noisily hanging out, but most were couples.

To others, me and Jung Pureum probably looked like a couple out for a night stroll too. Walking this close together like this.

Thinking that made my mood feel strange again. How fickle the human heart is—the less I thought about Baek Wonhee, the more I thought about Jung Pureum again. I should have killed off more brain cells so I couldn’t think at all.

“Hyung.”

“What.”

“Can I hug you?”

“Who?”

“You.”

Standing under the streetlight, Jung Pureum looked like a painting. Maybe it was because I was standing outside the light that he felt even more vivid.

“You said you didn’t want to stay the same as before.”

“It’s okay because I’m not hugging you with the same feelings as before.”

“Then what feelings are you hugging me with?”

“With the feeling of not being greedy and wishing you’d only think of me.”

I slowly spread my arms. I thought I understood why he was acting so spoiled. Since I’m not the type to ask for a hug first, he had to take the initiative.

“If you’re struggling, make sure you tell me.”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t keep it a secret just because I’m young.”

“Okay.”

“Promise me.”

“Alright, I promise.”

“Seal it with a stamp too.”

“So childish.”

I bumped my forehead against Jung Pureum’s chest. A headbutt stamp. Jung Pureum bowed his head and rested his chin on my crown. What a difficult stamp to make.

The body heat that reached me was warm. Because of our size difference, I ended up almost buried in Jung Pureum, but I felt a solid sense of stability.

“Hey, I can’t breathe.”

It’s truly fortunate that Jung Pureum is younger than me. If he were older than me, or the same age, I would have definitely fallen for him.

I would have wanted to lean on him without guilt. I would have shown him my greatest anxieties without hesitation, and spilled all my immediate worries without shame.

“Hyung.”

“Yeah.”

I like you.”

“…”

“I really like you.”

“…Don’t hug me so tight. I said I can’t breathe.”

Even when I said I couldn’t breathe, Jung Pureum just held me tighter. As if he had no intention of letting go.

∞ ∞ ∞

As if he somehow knew that Jung Pureum therapy had cleared my mind, Baek Wonhee launched another mental attack a few days later.

[Gongjin-dan, the desire to become an alpha]

[How people’s aspiration toward alphas was exploited]

Just watching the trailer video edited and uploaded on YouTube made my blood pressure rise.

Of course I wasn’t the only one thinking about media play. But I never expected this kind of trial to hit me, since I hadn’t thought of using media play to attack others.

There is no justice in this world. Nietzsche was right. God is dead!

I had imagined something like this might happen, but I never expected to receive it from Baek Wonhee.

Moreover, that show is also run by that same PD. Like <Food Z-File>, they come out to investigate establishments, interview customers, edit, and splice it together.

Our clinic never agreed to filming, so I was genuinely curious when they came and left. Did they come disguised as patients?

“Should we respond legally?”

“Forget it. If we make a move now, they’ll spin it as us being guilty and making a fuss.”

That show has considerable public credibility. Though they occasionally strike out, the production team has physically investigated and exposed false or fraudulent listings before. The ratings are probably still decent.

When I decided to appear on that show, I’d carefully looked into what kind of program that PD was running, so I know. That show has more influence than the one I appeared on.

[All kinds of fraudsters are running rampant… the country is in decline]

[Oriental medicine is by nature a science that hasn’t been proven. It can’t even be called medicine.]

[The clinic is W Oriental Medicine Clinic in Gangnam, here’s the link to the director’s interview!]

[But a lot of people actually became alphas from that stuff though]

└ [It’s all staged, are you stupid?]

└ [Why are you suddenly picking a fight?]

└ [Comment deleted for violating community guidelines.]

[But if you become an alpha, does your core strength really improve?]

└ [Yeah]

└ [Lol you think it’s just core strength? Vitality too~]

└ [Eeyal~]

└ [I want an alpha boyfriend too, I’ll be reborn as an omega next life]

Sure enough, the internet comments were a mess. Though our clinic was never mentioned in the trailer, the clinic’s location and initials had already been fully exposed.

Articles about Jung Pureum, who became an alpha from beta, were also brought up again. Most comments were saying that was also staged, making the guy who actually became an alpha feel wronged.

People love to be judges of justice. Especially online. Nothing had even been confirmed yet, but watching people dig up my past appearances and articles, claiming to have uncovered my identity, left me completely drained.

Even if that show turned out to be false, they’d just say they didn’t know and wash their hands of it. I checked comments like “[I heard the director here is an omega? lol]” and closed the window. Reading these comments wouldn’t solve anything anyway.

“The main broadcast is next week, apparently.”

“Consider closing the clinic temporarily. Patients are one thing, but reporters will swarm.”

“Why would we close? What did we do wrong?”

“Nothing wrong… but you avoid poop not because you’re scared, but because it’s dirty.”

Nam Jungyoon let out a deep sigh. She followed up with lamentation that we should have struck first and destroyed Baek Wonhee’s Liri-tang.

I regretted that too. It was in the past, but if I’d known I’d be attacked like this, I would have struck first. I’d known Baek Wonhee was a bad guy, but I never expected him to collude with the PD and come at me so dirty.

Even if we’d done nothing wrong, once a bad image is attached, things get exhausting in an instant. Remember that Castella bread that was trendy? When <Food Z-File> reported on it negatively, regardless of the truth, stores closed down one after another.

With precedent like that, I couldn’t just adopt an attitude of “We’re innocent, so we can rest easy!”

“Let’s keep operating as usual.”

“Are you sure it’ll be okay?”

“Even if it’s not okay, we’ll make it okay.”

The trials of self-employment are insane. I muttered curses under my breath. Did I illegally dump my conscience in the Han River? These bastards with no business ethics…

But outwardly, I tried to appear as calm as possible. If I showed anxiety, Kim Miyoung and Nam Jungyoon would also become unsettled.

It wasn’t like they’d have trouble finding new jobs if our clinic went under right away, but they were my people and I didn’t want to make things difficult for them. I also didn’t want to hear “I knew you’d end up like that” if I failed here.

“Let’s see who wins.”

Above all, I will definitely destroy this bastard Baek Wonhee. You hit me? I’ll hit you back twice as hard.