L*st and Death

“...Gyeong handled it pretty calmly, didn’t he?”

“Calmly?”

Siron went silent for a moment, then slowly continued with a word he’d chosen carefully.

“I mean... um, he seemed to get over it pretty quickly, right?”

“Oh, you meant that.”

Popping a taco into his mouth, Lewis shrugged as he spoke.

“To be honest, he didn’t seem sad at all.”

While Siron struggled to express the doubt buried deep in his chest, Lewis picked up on the nuance of his feelings with startling accuracy.

“Who knows what’s going on inside, but yeah, on the outside, that’s how it looked.”

Siron thought back on the past two days since hearing the news of Choi Baekhee’s death. Contacting family, arranging the flight back to New York, and arriving at the airport—Baekgyeong had been subdued, sure, but he hadn’t shown any particular signs of grief. It was more like he didn’t quite know what emotion he was supposed to be feeling.

“What are you looking at?”

Siron responded sheepishly to Lewis’s question.

“Just checking if any new articles came out.”

He’d been combing through American news and Korean community forums alike. Headlines everywhere analyzed the ripple effects her death might have on the company and the impending transfer of management rights. Korean media, in particular, was spreading unverified reports about Catherine Choi’s will. Most of them claimed she had left the bulk of her shares and control of Vile Group to her eldest son, Baek Sang.

The comment sections on Korean portal sites unanimously argued that not a single share should go to the scandal-ridden younger son, and that all stock and authority should be passed to the elder. A part of Siron agreed—for the sake of Vile Group’s survival—but it still left a bitter taste, seeing how completely and unquestioningly the public had written off Baekgyeong.

Lewis, who had long since finished eating and was seated across from Siron, watching him in silence, suddenly looked around with a serious expression.

“...Pheromones.”

“What?”

Lewis asked in a grave tone.

“Can you smell them too?”

“You mean... alpha pheromones?”

Siron instinctively tensed up and asked in a small voice.

“There’s an alpha nearby?”

“Yeah. Doesn’t seem like he’s trying to hide his scent, either.”

Lewis slurped up the last of his now ice-only drink and replied.

“Who is it? ...Ah, that big guy over there. Right?”

As soon as Siron spotted the back of the man seated about twenty meters away, he lowered his head. He was shorter than Lewis and Baekgyeong, but with broad shoulders and a chest like a tree trunk—he looked like a massive bear.

“Yeah.”

Lewis had once told Siron that during the time he spent tailing him with Baekgyeong, he’d learned how to control his pheromones. Even now, the muscles in his neck were visibly strained with discomfort—he clearly didn’t enjoy sensing them unilaterally.

“He can’t smell mine, right?”

Siron’s question was met with a nod.

“If he could, we wouldn’t be sitting here eating pizza. And the alphas we passed on the way didn’t seem to notice you either.”

Baekgyeong’s decision not to take Siron to New York had partly stemmed from his trust in Anna McCarthy—but the decisive factor had been Lewis’s unusual ability.

Before leaving, Baekgyeong had explained—based on information passed down from Isaac Bazelli—that there were rare cases of alphas with hyperdeveloped Class-X receptors. These alphas could detect pheromones and trace chemicals at levels imperceptible to ordinary humans. They reacted to omega pheromones, of course, but also to those of other alphas—even ones who deliberately suppressed their scent. Lewis, Baekgyeong said, was one of them: a special alpha with overdeveloped Class-X receptors.

“You picked up a scent? So you’re saying there’s another alpha at the rest stop?”

Siron glanced around anxiously as he asked.

“One at the gas station, one right behind me now. Oh, and we crossed paths with one at the airport. So that makes three so far.”

“There are that many alphas around?”

“Ha. Alphas are everywhere.”

The words killed what little appetite he had left. Feeling nauseated, Siron lowered his half-eaten cinnamon roll back onto the plate.

“Everywhere... you’re joking, right?”

“Sorry to say, but just during the time I spent looking for you in Hel Sota, I ran into over a hundred.”

It felt like being handed a death sentence. He wished the changes in his body would just stop here. But if he fully became an omega, his body would eventually be torn to shreds by these animal-like alpha bastards.

“There are really that many alphas? That many guys with brain disorders?”

Lewis fell silent, as if mulling over Siron’s words, then finally opened his mouth again.

“That’s... actually something I’ve been wondering about too.”

It couldn’t be that every young man suffering from neurological symptoms or brain death turned into an alpha—yet Lewis was encountering them far too often. And considering that they all experienced rut cycles, it was strange that society hadn’t already exploded with the consequences. The fact that ruts hadn’t become a known issue—or that the presence of alphas remained undisclosed—was suspicious in and of itself.

If their rut cycles were truly uncontrollable, then the exposure of alpha existence would’ve been inevitable. But somehow, they were still kept secret—too thoroughly. This had to be more than coincidence. It might be the result of a deliberate cover-up.

When the two returned home, they cornered Anna after her shift and brought up the topic.

“So I figured we should try verifying it ourselves.”

Anna answered offhandedly as she tossed her sweat- and dust-covered police uniform into the washing machine.

“Verify it? But how exactly do we do that?” Siron asked.

Anna pointed at Lewis.

“Lewis.”

Siron and Lewis both stared at her blankly. They had no idea what she was getting at.

“I figured if you charged Lewis with attempted rape, it would cause quite a stir. I mean, Lewis was kind of a rising star, right? Got some sympathy as the poor kid who survived a tragic car accident?”

“...And?”

“And if that same Lewis suddenly recovered from brain death and was accused of trying to rape another man? That would make headlines. I wanted to see how the public would react to someone coming back from brain death. But more than that, I was curious how a rape case caused by a rut cycle would be handled legally.”

Anna continued in a calm, thoughtful voice.

“In recent years, rape and violent crimes have been steadily rising in Hel Sota. But more and more of those cases are getting buried or handled without proper punishment. So I wanted to investigate the process by using Lewis as a test case. The original plan was to have him charged with attempted rape—but when you refused to press charges, I dropped it.”

Siron had thought Anna was helping him out of moral conviction—that she was righteous. But now he saw the truth: she hadn’t spared Lewis out of kindness. She wanted to put him on the chopping block. While she stared evenly at their shocked faces, she gave a small shrug and turned her gaze to the TV.

“But I think Catherine Choi’s death already gave us our answer. Just like she was murdered before the suppressant clinical trials could get FDA approval, I’m sure some kind of measure would’ve been taken before Lewis’s case ever reached the public. ...Probably all three of us were marked for disposal.”

Just then, a news segment aired regarding Catherine Choi’s death. A news outlet had obtained her official autopsy report. It stated she had been shot four times—twice in the chest and twice in the head—at close range, and died from the direct trauma.

Siron couldn’t help but think of Baekgyeong. If his mother hadn’t been killed, the name flooding the TV and internet wouldn’t be Catherine Choi. It would be Baekgyeong—the new alpha subspecies. Like Darwin’s theory of evolution reborn, he would’ve shocked the world. His past and present would’ve been ripped apart for public scrutiny. But instead, his mother lay in a cold drawer at the New York Medical Examiner’s Office.

Anna, too, in her own way, had tried to get Siron to accuse Lewis—a man revived from brain death—of a sex crime. Her plan had only fallen through because Siron refused.

Lewis hesitated before asking,

“Did you mean that, Anna? Really?”

“To a certain extent, yeah. I probably would’ve hesitated if it came down to it. But in the end, nothing happened, right?”

Lewis furrowed his brow, staring at her hard, then forced a smile, trying to shake the unease.

With mock politeness and a playful air, he placed a hand on Siron’s shoulder and met his eyes.

“So I guess I should thank you, huh? I almost ended up making one hell of a comeback announcement.”

“I only did it because I’m just as screwed if my face ends up in the news.”

“I know. I get it.”

Lewis moved to kneel in front of Siron and looked up to meet his eyes.

“Need anything? Anything you want...?”

“Clothes.”

Siron answered immediately, as if he’d been waiting for the question.

“Take me home. I need to get my clothes.”

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