Chapter Text
The world was truly cruel.
Sunoo knew that well. Even on the day he was born, the world was already reshaping itself to suit those who sought to destroy the peace that had been won through blood and sacrifice a century ago.
People with stronger secondary genders rose up. At first, it was nothing more than a smoldering spark, but later it spread into a wildfire. They united into colonies, each ruled by a family that preserved and passed down powerful bloodlines from generation to generation—the Enigmas.
Whispers once locked behind closed doors during gatherings of powerful people spilled out into the open. Like a devil wearing the face of an angel, someone gathered the hesitant, the doubtful, and the faithful, leading them forward.
Then the war began—brutal and bloody.
Parents grabbed their newborn children and fled across borders into the unknown, searching desperately for even the illusion of safety. Some were not fortunate. Children were torn from their mothers' and fathers' arms, while the parents themselves were sent to specially prepared camps.
The adults were subjected to conditioning until their minds turned to mush. Alphas who accepted the ideology were sent for training and re-education under the new hierarchy. Those who resisted were dispatched as cannon fodder to war zones, promised that they would one day see their families again.
They never did.
There was only death.
Betas were screened repeatedly for signs of a secondary gender. If even a small percentage of a recessive Alpha or Omega gene was discovered, meetings with an Enigma were arranged automatically to awaken and strengthen those traits. Those who possessed no potential became the supporting workforce of the new order. Those who resisted simply disappeared.
Special camps were built for Omegas. They were called the Temples of Divine Fertility.
If an Omega accepted their new life peacefully, God was said to bless them. They would be placed into a new family where Alphas and an Enigma lived together but struggled with childbirth. The Omega's role was to become the bond that held the pack together.
A single pack could consist of up to three families, along with the pure-blooded dynasty that followed them.
In packs without an Enigma but possessing a rich family history, the Omega best suited in upbringing and scent was chosen to continue the bloodline. It was considered an honor to bear the heirs of the family.
Sunoo's parents escaped and survived in another part of the world.
There, where people fully understood the horror of this new flame consuming the world, the brave went to the front lines. They rescued others and helped rebuild what had been lost.
Sunoo grew up surrounded by love. He became a remarkable young man, courageous and kind. He studied medicine, where he met many extraordinary people, formed friendships, and joined various gatherings.
They lived their youth to the fullest. They spent evenings watching movies together, and whenever the mood struck, they drank, danced, and stayed awake until sunrise.
That was how Sunoo met Taki.
His soulmate.
His first love was overwhelming. He still remembered how his hands and feet had gone cold when he confessed his feelings, and how happy he felt when he shared his first kiss.
Taki responded with tenderness. He spun Sunoo around in his arms while he laughed helplessly. He wrapped his arms around Sunoo's neck and kissed his forehead while breathing in his natural scent of apples.
Their scents mingled together like a soft mist, creating the feeling of standing in an apple orchard beneath the warm spring sun.
Sunoo believed they would now share everything and always remain by each other's side.
But when military recruiters arrived at the university and interviewed every student, Sunoo realized something.
The war that had existed only as distant background noise throughout his life had finally taken its first step into his world.
Taki and he talked a lot, pressed close to one another, breathing in their shared haze, and spent the rest of their time in silence. The military needed new minds, new strength, and they searched through universities everywhere. Teenagers and graduates, lives still sparkling within them, followed with fierce determination—to defend, to save, to repay the debt they owed to their homeland and to the people who had protected them.
If anyone were to say that Sunoo wasn't afraid, it would have been a foolish lie. Of course they were afraid, but what had taken root in his soul after General Kim's speech showed no signs of fading away; it flowed through his veins like molten lava and demanded its due. And so, Takayama Taki and Kim Sunoo joined the ranks of the new recruits.
During ten months of training they were expected to learn everything known at the time about the New Hierarchy, complete countless exercises, master the use of bladed weapons, memorize even the smallest details as though committing them to a photograph, and acquire a basic understanding of programming. Even in such conditions Sunoo felt loved; Taki would wrap his arms around him from behind, resting his chin on his shoulder and tickling the sensitive skin of his neck with warm breaths.
In the evenings they hid away in Sunoo's room, which he shared with Hanbin, a classmate and partner for most pair assignments, who usually left for walks around the stadium behind the dormitory. They would sit on the balcony floor with their legs hanging over the railing, watching the sun disappear beyond the horizon and breathing in the fresh air left behind by the rain. If God truly existed, He would have allowed Sunoo to stay with Taki forever, until old age, until the very last second, until his final breath was taken surrounded by their shared scent.
There was no God.
There was only the cruelty of the world.
Takayama personally let Sunoo cross the border, covering their retreat while Sunoo and several other Omegas successfully began their mission of infiltrating the Hierarchy.
The purpose of the mission was to gather information, to become the eyes and ears hidden inside the large residences of commanders who occupied high-ranking positions, sat on councils, or were connected to those who did.
The infiltration plan was painfully simple and cruel. Several trucks carrying containers of chemical compounds were supposedly meant to pass near the border and reach a military checkpoint, but they never would, because the route had already been leaked to the other side long in advance. The team consisted of several Omegas and Betas, with only two Alphas among them, one of whom had spent years working as a double agent and was the very person responsible for delivering information about such an "important" route to the Hierarchy.
Hanbin sat behind the wheel while Sunoo occupied the passenger seat, trying to calm himself, to slow the pulse that had begun to race faster and faster. The breathing techniques helped little by little, right until an explosion sounded somewhere behind them; the truck ahead came to a halt and armed soldiers climbed out, Hanbin leaning his head out of the window to receive a nod from one of them before beginning to climb down as well.
"Sunoo, stay where you are. I'll come back for you."
The Vietnamese man threw the words over his shoulder as he jumped down from the truck.
Sunoo didn't want to stay seated. Everything inside him tightened painfully, he wanted to follow, to make sure no one hurt him. Gunshots began to ring out, but Kim remained where he was; he couldn't disobey, too much depended on the success of this mission.
When he glanced through the side window, he caught sight of Hanbin running, the other man giving him a nod that granted permission to move.
Sunoo climbed out quickly, loading his rifle as he did so, his fingers trembling around the weapon. He had never shot at a living person before and, if luck remained on his side, perhaps he still wouldn't have to today.
The explosion had been large, even taking into account that the chemicals transported were among the least dangerous and only a portion of the cargo they had been carrying. As they moved alongside their truck, they noticed several strangers approaching the rear containers.
"Omegas, we have no intention of harming you. We ask that you lay down your weapons and surrender peacefully for your own sake."
The shout came from one of them as a suppressive scent flooded the area.
An Alpha.
The suffocating scent of vetiver, woody and grassy with a bitter undertone, forced its way into Sunoo's lungs, coiling around him, causing pain to bloom in his nose and a knot to tighten in his throat.
Sunoo struggled for breath, gripping the rifle harder and harder as he fought to focus his blurred vision. He could see Hanbin's knees threatening to give out beneath him, the tension in his shoulders, the sweat gathering at his temples while dark strands of hair clung to his face.
They needed to show resistance.
A surrender that came too easily would draw attention.
Raising the rifle, Sunoo aimed beneath the truck and fired at the ground near their feet, not even certain whether the shot would come close to anyone. The response came swiftly; while their attention remained fixed in one direction, two soldiers who had been waiting on top of the truck were already prepared for the capture, dropping down onto the Omegas and pinning them against the asphalt, wrenching their arms behind their backs.
Sunoo's cheek scraped against the rough ground and, caught off guard, he bit down on his tongue. His partner fared little better, scratches marking his face and, judging by the swelling already beginning to form, his right eye would likely bloom into a bruise within hours.
Blindfolds were placed over their eyes and they were dragged away, judging by the direction, toward wherever the rest of the captives were being gathered.
"Collect everything that survived and stay alert. We'll be taking these ones with us, there are Omegas among them. Where is Commander Lee?" ordered the voice belonging to the Alpha with the scent of vetiver. "We need to coordinate. First, we'll deliver our guests to the nearest laboratory, they need to be examined and interrogated."
"Greetings, Commander Choi. I didn't expect you to lead the operation personally."
The reply came in a low, soft voice and, judging by the footsteps, Sunoo guessed the man had approached to salute him.
"There are some rather interesting specimens among this group, samples with exceptionally strong genes."
The man's attention settled directly on the Omega with wheat-blond hair and, for the first time, he inhaled carefully, as though he had been holding his breath until now.
His lungs burned.
He could almost imagine the Omega's scent slipping through his body like a serpent, carving a path toward his heart, surrounding him from all sides before tightening around him.
He hated it.
He wasn't personally acquainted with this specimen. He had only ever seen him from afar: the blond head visible every morning during training exercises, passing him on occasion, sitting somewhere in the first-floor cafeteria among the newer cadets. And yet the scent pulled at him just as strongly as it had during their first meeting, when those eyes had met his during the welcoming ceremony, when a looped cord had slipped around his neck and begun tugging him along ever since.
He hated sinful temptations.
This specimen was the embodiment of the Sin his Beta instructors had warned him about when he was twelve years old and being prepared for the time of Blooming.
His first Blooming had long since passed, yet no suitable partner specimen had ever been chosen for him. They brought him those with dull eyes whose skulls he wanted to crush, or those too similar to obedient dogs, carrying sinful coquetry beneath lowered lashes; he had used some of them before, but none were worthy, his mark never burned beneath their kisses, his pulse never faltered, only disgust remained, thick and dark as tar, coating every part of his existence.
The specimen's name was Kim Sunoo.
And Lee Heeseung believed he had been created by the Devil with particular love and care.