On Tuesday afternoon, Jihong finished his work early and cleaned up his workplace. As soon as he turned off the computer and forwarded calls to his mobile phone, assistant manager Nam poked his head out from behind the partition next to him and asked, "Mr. Jeong, are you leaving now?"

"Yes, but I'll be back

"Even if not, it's okay, just take Kwon Jaekyung with you

"I'll hurry up, and I'll continue my work at night

Assistant Manager Nam laughed. It was clear that his words were a joke anyway. He knew it, but he wasn't laughing now.

"Senior manager, I'll go," Jihong said goodbye to his boss before leaving the office.

When he left the building, he was immediately suffocated by the heat. Summer promised to be hotter than usual, and with the onset of July, daytime temperatures in Seoul soared to 34 degrees Celsius. Jihong caught a taxi right in front of the company building. Since it was an important meeting, he chose his shirt and tie carefully, and did not smoke all day, fearing that it would leave him with a foul smell. However, the scorching sun made it difficult to remain calm.

"Please go to Jamsil," he said the name of the hotel to the taxi driver, who immediately started the car without checking the navigation. Jihong looked at the time again and leaned against his seat. As the air conditioner cooled his bare forearms, Jihong looked out the window with his arms crossed over his chest. Even though he was in a similar situation because of work, it still seemed unrealistic to him.

The fact of meeting Kwon Jaekyung was simply incredible. Kwon Jaekyung always ignored any agencies, even when they begged him. However, he decided to give a chance to the young Spoin company, and it had to do with Jihon directly, which was even more surprising. Isn't that so? Ten years had passed, and the most they did was just say hello from time to time. Jihong wasn't close enough to him, and he also couldn't remember doing anything meaningful for him. Therefore, yesterday's call took Jihon by surprise. He had no idea that Kwon Jaekyung's mother would be so happy to see him.

But then again, she's always been like that. In a good way, she is exceptionally sociable. And in a bad way, she was just acting very friendly, even with strangers. She is even several times friendlier and outgoing than her son, as if trying to compensate for Kwon Jaekyung's harshness. And this was especially evident in relation to Jihon. She never acted indifferent and greeted him warmly, asked how he was doing, about his shoulder injury and joint pain, and even talked about swimsuit materials that he wasn't particularly interested in. And at the end of the conversation, she always said: "I hope Jaekyung will grow up soon and train with you. You have no idea how much he likes you. We came here after he saw a video from the World Championships on TV, and he wanted to train in the same place as you..."

She repeated it every time, as if for the first time. Jihon always replied nonchalantly, "Oh, really?" This answer became a standard pattern for him, because not only Jaekyung's mother, but almost all the parents of children from elementary and middle school held on to him and said similar things. At the time when Jihong had just won a medal at the World Championships and became a hot topic, many children began to visit the pool where he trained. Staff at the center were concerned about frequent requests from parents about whether their children could also be trained by coach Jung Ji-hong.

Despite this, rarely did anyone move to Ilsan, as Kwon Jaekyung's family did. It was tiring to travel such a long distance every time. Most parents from distant provinces preferred to leave their children with close relatives or to have only one guardian look after the child. However, Kwon Jaekyung's mother boldly decided to move the whole family to Ilsan. Jihong didn't know how Kwon Jaekyung's father reacted to this decision, but it was obvious that his older brother was not happy. How could it be otherwise? He moved from Seoul to Ilsan quite unexpectedly because of his younger brother. At that time, Jaekyung's brother was in high school. He couldn't be happy that his family's attention now revolved only around his younger brother. Almost every day after school, Kwon Jaekyung's brother would come to the sports complex to wait for his training to finish and drive home together in his mother's car.

Jihong watched several times as Kwon Jaekyung's brother sat in the living room and waited for them. He looked like Kwon Jaekyung, but he was different from him and always looked at his notebook with displeasure. This reminded Jihon of his younger sister, who often complained that their mother only cared about him. However, unlike Jaekyung's mother, Jihong's mother was not as keen on visiting the pool, as her husband was a military man, and this could cause some excitement.

Naturally, Jihon's mother did not follow the typical pattern of other parents who took their children out of training. She mainly communicated with the coach by phone. However, his sister was disappointed with both the diet that the whole family followed because of his brother and the atmosphere in the house. After all, his parents gave priority to Jihon's competitive schedule. As a child, he couldn't understand his sister's feelings, as his own family was different from other athlete families. He found his sister's behavior somewhat strange. However, as he grew older, he realized the difficulty faced by parents of such children and began to better understand his sister's frustration.

Perhaps this was the reason why he felt sorry for Kwon Jaekyung's brother when he saw him sitting alone in the living room. He was the same age as his sister. And this made him empathize with him even more. The jihon greeted him in a friendly manner and sometimes treated him to drinks or snacks. So when he saw Jihon, he would always call him, "Hyung, hyung," and follow him everywhere. Sometimes he wouldn't let go of Jihon until the training time was over. Now that Jihong thought about it, it became clear that Jaekyung's older brother was very similar to their mother. Interestingly, despite his frequent interaction with Jaekyung's family, he rarely spoke to him himself. They didn't even say hello when they crossed paths by the pool.

However, it was Kwon Jaekyung's problem, not his. After all, the child did not greet anyone in the sports complex, except for the head coach. But even with him, he did not talk much, but simply followed instructions with an absent expression on his face. In general, he did not care about his own entourage. Kwon Jae-kyung treated Jihon in a similar way: he did not greet him, did not notice him when they accidentally bumped into each other. This behavior persisted regardless of the meeting location, whether it was a swimming pool, a living room, or a cafeteria. Even if he had approached during the conversation between Jihon and his brother, he would have simply ignored both of them as if they did not exist. Given this behavior, Jihong couldn't believe Ms. Shim's words when she said that Jaekyung liked him very much and asked Jihong to come to the pool to train with him. It would be better to just ignore it.

About six months later, on the day Jihong last visited the sports complex, he was caught off guard. Kwon Jaekyung followed him outside and caught him.

"Hyung, are you really giving up swimming?"

Jihon felt a mixture of surprise and even embarrassment at how briskly the child rushed after him. He just wanted to say, "Yes, try your best." Just like he had answered the other kids, but he found that he couldn't pronounce a word and just stared at the toddler, feeling confused.

"Why are you leaving?" Is it because you're beta, hyung? You're not an alpha, so you're leaving?

Believing that Jihon hadn't answered on purpose, he grabbed his arm even harder. Jihon didn't care about the insistent tone or the conclusion that the child had somehow reached. He's been through it many times. Every time he told his coach, federation officials, members of the athletes' association, and the school class teacher that he was quitting swimming, they all repeated the same thing. But for some reason, as soon as he heard such words from Jaekyung, he couldn't bear it.

— No, this is not true.

The reason why he was angry at Jaekyung's words was obvious.

"Hyung, you knew from the beginning, didn't you?" There are a lot of alphas in the world, but the hyun is still as tall as those alpha athletes, and he has a big wingspan! You can continue training, so why do you quit without even trying?

That's what a 12-year-old boy said, who just a few days ago was confirmed to have his secondary sex "alpha". Of course, Jihon knew. It wasn't Jaekyung's fault. After all, being born alpha is not something that can be chosen or controlled. Jihon himself would like to become one if he had the opportunity. He had no reason to react harshly to Jaekyung's remarks. Will he continue to be influenced by the words of a boy who knows nothing about the situation? Or perhaps this is something he will have to go through in the future? While Jihong tried to calm himself down with such thoughts, Jaekyung continued to speak.

– Even the alpha needs to take medication in order to stay in the sport. They say everyone's medications are different, so there may be some side effects, but at least you won't have to take them, hyung.

As he spoke, Jihon's barely calm heart trembled again.

"Medications? Are you saying that medication is a pain in the ass? What the hell? I'll have to live with the chip in my body for the rest of my life, and you can only count on drugs," Jihon thought. People said that when an emotion reaches its limit, it can be expressed in the opposite way, and that was true. Jihon only laughed at the child's words, spoken without malice.

"Hey, I've never seen you talk so much before. Smiling, Jihong removed his hand and continued. "I haven't heard your voice for a year, but today it's too much."

Jaekyung tried to catch him again, calling him hyung, but Jihong pretended to pick up the bag he was carrying on his shoulder, naturally avoiding touching. Taking a step back, he said proudly, "But what you're saying is so typical of alphas. I didn't know, because I never communicated with you normally."

Jaekyung stopped. His hand, which was reaching for Jihon, froze in the air. Jihon looked at his hand and smiled at him again.

"But today it was nice to realize it," he added jokingly in a slight tone, but the child obviously understood the true meaning of the words. That was probably why Kwon Jaekyung looked so offended.