My Alpha Era Began with Gongjindan Chapter 39

Had he noticed my self-rationalization, or what? A few days later, contact with Jung Pureum suddenly ceased.

It was truly abrupt.

According to the neighbor lady I ran into in front of the elevator, he had been taken to some sort of training camp. There was no such training camp on Jung Pureum’s schedule that I knew of.

I felt a bit strange. The guy who used to laugh and show up at the clinic constantly even when I told him not to come had now gone over a week without a single message.

Kim Miyoung just said things I couldn’t understand, like, “I guess Pureum finally learned what giving up means…” Nam Jungyoon told me to just wait.

Honestly, why would I wait for Jung Pureum?

It’s just that I’m worried about Jung Pureum because I dislike his coach. I’m absolutely not upset that Jung Pureum has been completely out of contact for a week. It’s just that when contact keeps cutting off like this, I can’t help but be concerned.

“Hey, you really don’t know?”

So this time, I came to Jung Saebom again.

It’s absolutely not because I’m worried about Jung Pureum. I just felt like buying Jung Saebom an expensive dinner for no particular reason. I brought her out because the barbecue place she’d been wanting to try just had its grand opening.

We couldn’t go to our usual barbecue place anymore because I’d revealed my true nature as an aggressive oriental medicine doctor there. The staff who called the police back then must have been so shocked…

Thinking about that makes me angry too, doesn’t it? It wasn’t my fault—it was those alpha bastards, wasn’t it? But the grand opening was more important. Restaurants are always tastiest when they first open. Let’s eat first and think later.

Jung Saebom, who had been grilling pork belly with a serious face, dropped some perfectly cooked meat onto my plate.

“Just eat that.”

“You really… I’m older than you, you know. ‘Just eat that’? Really?”

“If you keep this up, I’m leaving.”

“Should I call you noona?”

“….”

“….”

“Noona, don’t you know anything?”

Jung Saebom looked at me with a pitiful expression. What could I possibly gain by being prideful with Jung Saebom of all people? I just had to grovel.

The neighbor lady, a former shot-put athlete, is scary, but Jung Saebom is also a walking human weapon. Even considering the size difference, if Jung Saebom put her mind to it, I could be subdued in three minutes. What am I saying, three minutes? She could do it in one.

Her frame is slender since she majored in dance, but that lean body is actually all muscle. Right before a performance, Jung Saebom’s body evolves into something like a living weapon with zero body fat.

So, if I want to live, it’s best to crawl on my own. Jung Pureum is similar, but unlike him, Jung Saebom could actually attack me with genuine intent.

I can say this because I’ve actually been hit a few times. I shoved the meat Jung Saebom had grilled so nicely into my mouth. It was several times more delicious than anything I’d grilled myself. This woman even grills meat well. Truly terrifying.

“Jung Pureum told me not to tell you.”

“What, cough… what did he tell you not to tell?”

“Chew and swallow first.”

“Noona, I’m so curious.”

“Say noona one more time and you die.”

“Okay.”

As expected, poking Jung Saebom yielded something. I smiled a vile smile inwardly.

When Jung Pureum goes silent, cling to Jung Saebom! This method was very effective. Though the only person I could interrogate was Jung Saebom, so there was only one method anyway.

If I buy her food, Jung Saebom spits out information worth the price. When I said she seemed to be in a good mood lately, she seemed to let it slide in exchange for the pork.

“But why is it only pork belly for me?”

“Huh?”

“You gave Jung Pureum beef.”

“Hey, that’s…”

“Stop with the favoritism.”

“….”

“Owner! Please give us three servings of the assorted beef platter!”

So she’s not letting it slide.

She forced the pork belly on me, saying it had too much fat, while she elegantly grilled and ate the beef.

With a detached, Buddha-like heart, I put down my chopsticks and told her to eat whatever she wanted. The meat was delicious, but I simply couldn’t keep up with Jung Saebom’s eating speed.

“So, what did Jung Pureum tell you to keep from me?”

“It’s a secret.”

“Spill it since you ate the beef.”

“Hmm…”

“What is it?”

Only after chewing and swallowing a whole piece of skirt steak did Jung Saebom stop playing tug-of-war with me.

“He did go to a training camp. His phone was probably confiscated, and he’s probably been rolling around dying by now.”

“Is it special training for the national team trials?”

“No.”

“Then?”

For Jung Saebom, who kept cutting off at the important parts, I placed some skirt steak on the grill.

“The coach dragged him off for some mental conditioning.”

“Isn’t the coach a real bastard? Looks like he’s headed for a head injury even if he falls forward.”

“Apparently he threatened Jung Pureum not to date omegas during his athletic career, and since he broke that rule, there’s no helping it.”

“Broke it? Since when does Pureum have a girlfriend?”

Jung Saebom, who had been stuffing medium-well skirt steak into her mouth, stared at me. Even that lovely face, when its eyes widened, was intimidating as hell.

“Where does Pureum have an omega girlfriend? That coach bastard, he’s just picking a fight out of nowhere…”

“You.”

“Me?”

…Why me?

A hellish silence fell between Jung Saebom and me. Only the sound of meat grilling lingered around us like ASMR.

“Stop playing around with Jung Pureum…”

Something had triggered her—the Jung Saebom who had been calm until just now now had a tiger behind her. Was that… fighting spirit?

“I’ve never played around with him…”

But even under that pressure, I had to say what I needed to say.

Why on earth would I play around with Jung Pureum? I even considered learning to swim, something I’d never thought of, just to get him exempted from military service.

Thinking that far, suddenly all my conversations with Jung Saebom started to make sense.

Swimming? Why did I go to the pool again? I went because the move seemed like a lost cause and I wanted to avoid holding Jung Pureum back. Right, since I’m a latent heat omega, getting entangled with Jung Pureum would be problematic. …Wow, I’d been so focused on Jung Pureum’s enlistment that I’d forgotten about that. The desire for the national team is truly powerful.

“Wait, don’t tell me? That omega girlfriend the coach says not to date—is that me?”

“This bastard, you’re lying that you graduated from oriental medicine school. If not you, who else is there?”

“…For real?”

“How the hell do you survive in this world with that level of perception?”

The razor-sharp cold response made my heart ache. Maybe the reason I haven’t been scammed yet is how I survive…

“Even though you’re not dating, you’ve been hanging around together? You even went to the pool together, so I thought… ha, fuck. Forget it. What was I expecting from you.”

Jung Saebom, with a worn-out, exhausted face, chugged her cider. Watching her drink zero-calorie cider like soju made me feel like I was losing my mind too.

Just because we went to the pool together, they misunderstood like that? It seemed Jung Saebom didn’t know about the contract that had been exchanged between Jung Pureum and me.

Eighty percent of the reason I keep hanging around Jung Pureum is because of the contract. It’s not my free will at all—it’s because Jung Pureum keeps lingering around me using the contract as leverage….

At that thought, I stopped myself.

Why eighty percent? What’s the other twenty percent… was it really free will? In fact, that contract probably doesn’t even have legal standing…

“The pork must have gone bad…”

“Why are you like this all of a sudden?”

“Strange thoughts keep popping up.”

“What thoughts… no, don’t tell me. Talking to you lowers my IQ too.”

“What? My IQ is high, you know?”

After going back and forth with me a couple of times, Jung Saebom let out a deep sigh.

“Then if you’re not really dating, why did that bastard go to training like an idiot without even defending himself?”

My thoughts exactly…

At this point, I wanted to dissect Jung Pureum’s brain.

I understand up to the point that Jung Pureum’s acquaintances saw him hanging out with me, a latent heat omega, misunderstood him as a girlfriend, and tattled to the coach. So I also understand that the petty coach dragged Jung Pureum off under the guise of training camp to harass him.

But why on earth is Jung Pureum just taking that harassment? He could just snap back, “She’s not my girlfriend, she’s my neighborly older brother.”

“In my opinion, Pureum is just not very tactful. He’s only twenty, so that’s understandable.”

“….”

“This won’t do. I need to go to the coach myself and tell him it’s all a misunderstanding. What kind of training camp lasts over a week? This is swimmer abuse.”

“Moon Yeonghwa.”

“Yeah?”

“Just finish your meat.”

I chewed the ssam wrap Jung Saebom had made for me with the words “eat this and shut up.”

Jung Saebom, who seemed to have reached nirvana from holding back her frustration, was scary, but the ssam wrap was delicious. As expected, restaurants are best when they first open.

∞ ∞ ∞

It’s already been a week.

Jung Pureum sighed inwardly. He had expected the coach to act like this someday, but the timing was a bit early.

The coach, who had given up his athletic career early because of his traits, had an unusual obsession with Pureum, who had been a beta. And after Pureum became an alpha, a subtle mix of jealousy and deprivation made him even harder to deal with.

When he was a beta, it was still bearable. But now, even the great Jung Pureum found the coach difficult at times.

It wasn’t just once or twice that the coach badgered him—he called Jung Pureum’s name at every opportunity. Even when he was doing well, Jung Pureum! Even with a small mistake, Jung Pureum! Whenever something came up, he threw Pureum’s name around. It was to the point that his name might wear out.

The coach’s instructions had long since lost any sense of fairness, and the training intensity had increased to the point of physical harm. It was at a level where following orders but not knowing how to slack off tactfully would cause problems.

“Jung Pureum!”

And this time, the intensity was particularly severe.

He thought if he followed along without complaint for about three days, the coach would let him go, but the coach held the national team trials hostage to threaten Pureum.

“You know how important this time is, right?”

“Yes.”

“And you, knowing that, are fooling around with an omega?”

His phone had been confiscated long ago. Jung Pureum listened to the coach’s tirade with one ear and let it out the other. He just bowed his head as if reflecting, while thinking of Moon Yeonghwa in his head.

He’d been out of contact for a whole week, so surely he was thinking about him too. Maybe not before, but at least recently, he seemed to be paying attention to him.

Knowing Moon Yeonghwa’s personality, he was probably asking his sister Jung Saebom about his whereabouts right about now. If he just knew it was training, he might not worry more than that.

Jung Pureum mentally weighed which was better: getting worried about by Moon Yeonghwa versus not making him worry unnecessarily.

“Don’t make pointless scandals. Even if it’s an omega you knew as a beta, you need to keep your distance now. Act like an alpha if you’re an alpha.”

If Moon Yeonghwa had heard those words, he would have retorted, “Act like an alpha?” He would have definitely snapped back, asking what it meant to be alpha-like.

Thinking of Moon Yeonghwa made him laugh involuntarily. Jung Pureum did his best to bow his head to look like a deflated person. If he laughed here, it wouldn’t end with just a scolding.

“Got it?”

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

“Good.”

He didn’t know what he’d understood, nor what he was supposed to keep in mind, but Jung Pureum answered quite obediently. Because he knew that was the only way to get his phone back.