My Alpha Era Began with Gongjindan Chapter 52

I let my mother’s words, as she went on like a dreamer about the charms of a chaebol alpha male lead, go in one ear and out the other.

My mother had always been like this. Getting excited about princes on white horses, raving about Cinderella stories. The fact that I developed the sensitivity to sob loudly over traditional Korean melodramas is about 80 percent my mother’s fault.

Surely, one of the reasons my grandfather and my parents can’t live together must be differences in taste.

Righteousness and cooperation! My grandfather, who among all martial arts novels pursues only the orthodox faction, versus my mother, who insists on romance no matter what—even when reading martial arts novels, there absolutely must be romantic entanglements between men and women. Sometimes I can’t believe they’re actually parent and child.

Blood is thicker than water, my foot. A romance fanatic was born from a martial arts novel lover—genetics can’t always be the answer.

“Mom.”

“Hm?”

“If I said I was going to marry a beta instead of an alpha, would that be a problem?”

“Hmm….”

To be honest, whether beta or alpha, since they’d be marrying into a Korean medicine clinic, I didn’t really care, but I changed the subject to make the blind date talk go away.

My mother began pondering my question deeply. I didn’t think it was even worth pondering, but at least her silence allowed me to finally watch the drama.

Just then, on the drama, the female lead was reciting a line toward the male lead: “We live in different worlds! It can never work!” I had no idea why they kept saying they lived in different worlds when both of them lived on Earth.

“Yeonghwa, did you happen to get a beta lover?”

She’d been thinking so deeply, and that was her conclusion? I chewed my square-cut watermelon aggressively and shook my head.

“An omega and a beta don’t seem like a good match.”

“Why?”

“Because the beta would probably suffer too much mentally. They can’t even mark each other, so how anxious would they be for their whole lives? Pheromones aren’t something you can control as you please.”

That was true. Pheromones were always a variable.

Since a mistimed cycle could lead to forced infidelity, it was common for betas to date betas and for omegas to mark alphas before marrying.

The only reason I could send Jung Pureum those kinds of messages like “[How about we just get married?]” was because he had become an alpha. Usually, betas are the ones who avoid those with secondary sex traits, so if Jung Pureum had stayed a beta, I probably wouldn’t have been able to make those jokes either.

Of course, if the main house hadn’t been launching mental attacks with words like “marriage,” “blind dates,” and “are you seeing anyone good?” I wouldn’t have had any reason to make such jokes in the first place….

“Still, I think it’s fine if a beta becomes an alpha for some special reason.”

“Huh?”

“That’s romantic. Because they loved the other omega so much that they overcame their secondary sex trait and manifested late.”

“….”

“I heard the next KBC Wednesday-Thursday drama has exactly that. What was the title… <The Alpha Who Was a Beta Is Too Much!> or something?”

Wait, just from the title, it looks like that drama plagiarized my alpha-making tonic?

It didn’t seem like my mom was referring to my alpha-making tonic either. She said it would be fine if a beta became an alpha for some special reason. No matter how I thought about it, it wasn’t about my marriage but seemed to be about the upcoming drama.

“Mom, I’m not talking about dramas.”

“Aish, if it’s someone you like, Mom is fine with anyone.”

“Even if they’re not a chaebol?”

“Of course.”

“Even if they’re not a doctor? What if they can’t do medical romance?”

“Yeonghwa, I said it’s fine as long as you’re happy.”

The shift was too sudden.

I sprang up from my seat and stared at my mother suspiciously. She kept her eyes fixed on the television, unfazed.

“Just a moment ago you said you wanted a doctor for a son-in-law.”

“What, so you do have a beta lover and you were subtly testing your mom?”

“No, I don’t….”

Jung Pureum briefly came to mind. It just so happened that the drama setting my mom mentioned was similar to what Jung Pureum had gone through….

But he and I are neighbors, not lovers. Sure, we’ve done that kind of thing, but they say young people these days don’t think much of sleeping together a few times. There’s a reason the term ‘friends with benefits’ exists.

After I repeated several times that I didn’t have some hidden lover or anything, my mom’s face showed clear disappointment. She followed up with complaints about how raising a son was pointless when he kept refusing blind dates.

Even while enduring all that nagging, I was still thinking about <The Alpha Who Was a Beta Is Too Much!>. No matter how I looked at it, the drama’s setting overlapped too much with Jung Pureum.

Suddenly, I remembered the contact info of the broadcasting station PD I’d gone out of my way to block.

Just thinking about the time they ran that hit piece on my tonic still made me furious and choked up, but aside from that, I couldn’t think of anyone else to ask about the drama.

Day four of returning to the main house. Kim Miyoung had finally blocked me after I’d called her three times exactly at the clinic’s opening hours.

My mom, who had won rock-paper-scissors for the second day in a row and was stuck with me, clicked her tongue behind me.

“Son, the clinic runs fine without you. Relax your mind. It’s not like people die if you don’t work for a few days.”

But that very fact was what I couldn’t stand….

Why was the clinic running fine without me, the director? Something was seriously wrong here. Of course, I’d trusted my staff enough to leave, but Kim Miyoung and Nam Jungyoon hadn’t sent a single SOS in four days.

Two of those days were the weekend, so I could let that slide. But the fact that nothing happened during the weekdays was shocking. If a fish-shaped bun had no red bean paste inside, why wouldn’t anyone complain?

Plus, it wasn’t like I was in a heat cycle—being idle for this long was driving me crazy with restlessness. I want to go back to the clinic! Even a headache started setting in from withdrawal symptoms. What if my regular patients were desperately looking for me!

When I started groaning, my mom clicked her tongue and said I took after my grandfather in this regard. She said my extremism and fussiness were exactly like his. I felt a bit wronged. I’m cooler than Grandfather, at least.

“Instead of doing that, just tell me, your mom.”

“Tell you what?”

“It’s not for recuperation that you came down. There’s no way my son would take care of himself. Don’t you remember? When your college entrance exam was approaching, you put acupuncture needles all over your own body. Grandfather saw his grandson turn into a hedgehog and passed out.”

“….”

“And what about when you were in college? I told you to take it easy, but you ended up with nosebleeds and even coughing up blood while studying, didn’t you?”

“….”

“And yet you’re taking a whole week to recuperate? Mom never believed you from the start.”

Have you been watching mystery dramas lately? My mother grabbed my shoulders and shook me back and forth, demanding I tell her the real reason I came down to the main house.

“Don’t tell me… you have cancer?”

When I kept my mouth shut, my mom started using her imagination. She said the fact that I was refusing blind dates and saying I wouldn’t get married was suspicious to begin with, and she shook me even more violently on top of that.

I was caught in my mother’s grip, helplessly shaken.

Mystery dramas, my foot. She’s definitely watching medical dramas.

“It’s nothing like that.”

“Then what?”

“It’s just—do you remember those neighbors I sometimes mentioned?”

“Of course I do. ‘Sometimes’? How often did you talk about them. You said you wouldn’t have starved to death thanks to the aunt next door. She’s truly a grateful person. I should send her some herbal supplements for the holidays.”

When I didn’t immediately continue, my mom started pressing me again, asking if I was being harassed by the neighbors. My beautiful, iron-gripped mother… at this rate, you’re going to kill your son.

I’d talked about the neighbors often, but I’d always been careful about mentioning Jung Pureum. If I got caught that the person I’d turned into an alpha and the one who lived next door were the same person—setting my mom aside, my grandfather would be utterly shocked.

After repeatedly telling my mom that what I was about to say was a secret from grandfather, her eyes sparkled. She’s my mom, but every time she does this, she’s really too much to handle.

“You know that tonic I made? The neighbor’s son took it and went from beta to alpha.”

“Oh my goodness.”

“Before that, since it was beta and omega, it wasn’t a big problem for us to be close, but because he became an alpha, we started affecting each other a bit… Ah, what’s that look for.”

“Are you two dating?”

I really can’t keep anything from my mom. I shook my head coolly. Despite my denial, my mom urged me with an excited face to tell her more.

“Ah, really! Mom! He’s twenty! If I date him, I’d be a criminal!”

“An eight-year age gap doesn’t even need a compatibility reading.”

What more could I say to someone blinded by romance? Because of the fact that Jung Pureum’s pheromones had become unstable, my mom seemed to have mistaken Jung Pureum and me for lovers.

I let out deep sighs and repeatedly told my mom that she absolutely had to keep this to herself. She said she’d definitely keep it a secret, but honestly, I couldn’t trust her.

While we were still arguing about eight-year age gaps and compatibility readings, my phone started vibrating roughly.

Was it finally contact from the clinic?

With lightning-fast reflexes, I grabbed my phone.

―Hello? Hyung?

But the person calling me wasn’t Kim Miyoung or Nam Jungyoon—it was Jung Pureum.

I immediately glanced at my mom. The timing was bad. The moment she found out it was Jung Pureum calling, she’d giggle and pounce on me. It was impossible to defeat a romance fanatic with logic.

“Oh my. An emergency has come up, you say?”

―Huh?

“Another emergency patient like that at the clinic! Please hold on a moment. I’ll move to another spot right away.”

I hurriedly went into the master bedroom as if something urgent had happened and locked the door. My mom gave me a suspicious look, but a little lie like this was worth it to talk freely with Jung Pureum.

“Hey, Pureum.”

―Hyung, what was that just now?

“I’m with my mom. I made a bit of a fuss to move to another spot.”

Through the receiver, I could hear Jung Pureum laughing. After seeing each other every day, being apart for four days made me miss him more for no reason.

“Are you doing well? Training? Your coach? The national team qualifiers?”

―I’m not doing well.

“Why? Did that bastard coach bully you again?”

―How can I be doing well when you’re not here, hyung?

Anyway, Jung Pureum sure knows how to talk cute and pretty. I felt pleased and repeatedly emphasized that even if he wasn’t doing well, he absolutely had to compete in the national team qualifiers.

―Ah, about the qualifiers.

“Yeah.”

―The ban on my participation got lifted.

“Really?”

No way! I thought it wouldn’t be lifted even after a week, but I couldn’t believe the ban was lifted in just four days.