“At the hotel… we get medication for the Allocation System.”
He looked thoroughly displeased with Marvin’s answer, his face twisting.
“That’s given out so the Allocation hospitality staff can take it in emergencies. Are you confessing in front of me that you’ve illegally obtained medication that’s not for your use?”
“No, it’s not that…”
“If it’s not, are you saying you provide hospitality at the hotel, Kim Ma-bin?”
“No, it’s not like that… Ha…”
Marvin didn’t even have the strength to argue anymore. His head hurt. No matter how you looked at it, this was too much to put a patient through. He was grateful to have been brought to the hospital, but if Jin-woo was going to interrogate him like this, it would have been more helpful to just dump him at the entrance and leave.
Who cares if someone pays their insurance or takes their meds or not? If he didn’t like it, he could report him.
“Inspector, I’m sorry, but as you can see, this is the situation.”
With a sigh, he showed the arm with the needle still stuck in it. The IV bag had long been empty. Marvin didn’t care what misunderstandings Jin-woo had anymore. All he wanted was to get back to the hotel, take his medication, and rest at home.
“I don’t think I’m obligated to answer all your questions, either. Can I go now? I really need to take my meds.”
It wasn’t like Jin-woo had any real justification to keep holding on to a sick person. Marvin really did need his suppressant. Jin-woo looked unsatisfied, but finally nodded as if telling him to do as he pleased.
Marvin immediately got up. The sudden movement made him dizzy and he swayed, but he wasn’t so weak that he couldn’t walk.
“Thank you again for your help. Goodbye.”
He gave a polite bow and was about to pull the curtain aside and leave when suddenly something flashed through his mind. If he was going to go, there was one thing he absolutely had to ask.
“But Inspector, how did you know? That I’m an omega.”
Looking back, Jin-woo had been certain from the start. Yesterday and today, even though they’d only briefly shared the same space—and even though Marvin wasn’t emitting any pheromones—he had identified him as an omega with absolute certainty. It didn’t seem like a guess. He had been sure.
Marvin immediately regretted waiting for Jin-woo’s answer. As expected, he didn’t respond right away, just looked at Marvin with an expression that said, “Do I really have to answer that?” Then he slowly stepped closer.
Marvin clenched his fist. If Jin-woo started talking nonsense, he was ready to just turn around and leave.
“Have you ever heard of trait ratio?”
What came out of Jin-woo’s mouth was unfamiliar.
“Yeah, I’ve heard it a few times, at the hospital.”
He remembered being told about it when he was first diagnosed—a ratio over 50% was considered high.
“What was yours, Kim Ma-bin?”
“Sixty-seven percent… I think.”
“Mine’s quite a bit higher than that. If your trait ratio is extremely high, you can sense the trait type of others. When I run into someone with the same trait for the first time, I get tense. When I meet someone with a different trait, I get hard. It means I get an erection. Of course, if I’m not attracted at all, it’s just a feeling and nothing more.”
That was the end of the explanation. His conclusion was so ambiguous that it left Marvin feeling oddly curious. Jin-woo gazed at Marvin, who stood there silently, with an unhurried look.
So do you want me to tell you how it was for me yesterday?
Somehow, the way he looked at him seemed to be saying exactly that.
Marvin was suddenly seized with the urge to ask, “So, how was it?” His lips parted on their own, but then he snapped out of it.
What was the point of being curious about that?
Marvin exaggeratedly turned his head away.
“I see. Thank you.”
He turned to leave, almost running away.
“Take a taxi. You might collapse again on your way home. Do you have money for the fare?”
Jin-woo reached into his inner pocket as if to take out his wallet. Because Marvin had said he was in debt, Jin-woo was now treating him like some penniless credit delinquent.
“…I have enough for that.”
Even if he didn’t, he wasn’t about to borrow from him.
“How much is enough?”
Jin-woo latched onto the words again. Marvin involuntarily glared at him.
“Enough not to starve.”
“Good. That’s a relief.”
For some reason, Jin-woo chuckled as he stopped taking out his wallet. In that subtle smile was an arrogant generosity, as if he was letting Marvin off easy today. Then, with one hand in his coat pocket, he walked past Marvin and even gave a little wave.
“See you next time.”
As Marvin watched Jin-woo’s retreating back, he muttered to himself.
No, I really hope that never happens.
He truly meant it.
Faint light seeped into the tiny officetel through the curtains. Marvin, lying flat on his bed, opened his eyes. As if he’d never even slept, he immediately raised his wrist to check the time.
2 PM.
He’d hurried back to the hotel, taken his meds, and come home around nine. So he’d slept four or five hours.
Thankfully, the medication had kicked in and his body felt a lot lighter. With Yang Jin-man’s permission to take the day off, he had no intention of going in to work at all.
He started to sit up, then paused, clutching his head. The headache was still there. Last time, the symptoms had lingered too. Even though he’d taken the meds in time, the dizziness had tormented him for hours. Yang Jin-man had said it was all from pheromones building up in his system.
“Omegas don’t get better just by taking medication, you know. You have to have sex regularly to release it. Right? A man’s alpha cock works best. Just go meet someone and get it over with. It’s quick between guys anyway. You don’t look it, but why are you so celibate?”
Yang Jin-man was a beta, but he knew a ton about omega biology. It was his business, after all, and he had a keen eye. Even without Marvin saying anything, he could tell his condition just by looking at his face or the color of his irises. Sometimes it was convenient, but at times it was a burden.
From the start, Marvin had asked him not to tell the other employees about his trait. He’d made up some excuse about not wanting to seem like someone with a complicated past, but even Yang Jin-man didn’t know Marvin was registered as an alpha.
Thankfully, Yang had just kept quiet about it. He said there was nothing to be gained by prying into Intelligence Agency business, and that sometimes it was better not to know.
A whole season had passed like that. For Marvin, this life wasn’t physically hard or inconvenient. In fact, it wasn’t much different from his old life.
Even back then, he had no freedom in mind or body and relied on suppressants. When he ran out of expense money, he’d reluctantly find someone for a night, but ongoing relationships were rare. That was just the job, and he’d liked it anyway.
There was pride in serving his country, but more than anything, the pay was good. Marvin knew he couldn’t make money like that anywhere else. With regular expenses going out, stable income was the most important thing.
That was the root of his current anxiety. The higher-ups who told him to wait still hadn’t contacted him. He’d expected it to take a while, but months had passed and lately, the wait was dragging on too long.
He’d thought someone would come before autumn ended, but there hadn’t been a single call. And now, someone had discovered he was an omega—for the most ridiculous reason, too.
Marvin picked up his phone and started searching for something.
High-ratio carriers. High trait ratio. Trait gene high ratio.
Of course, he didn’t find the answer he wanted. There was no medical basis for the kind of ability Jin-woo had described. Marvin had never heard of it before.
Jin-woo, after all, was a naturally manifested carrier, one of the rare few who lived more as an alpha than as a man. Maybe there were things about their kind the world still didn’t know. Even Marvin was a rare case whose pheromones had vanished.
He typed “natural alpha” into the search bar.
“How to Knot: Sex Like a Natural Alpha”
“In-Depth Coverage: 24-Hour Rut Cycles”
“5 Types of Omegas Preferred by Natural Alphas”
A string of videos with clickbait thumbnails popped up. There wasn’t a single medical opinion or research result worth referencing.
Everything was basically the same: the claim that after sleeping with one of them, you’d never be satisfied with anyone else. These days, that was a selling point—and it made money.
Society’s obsession with trait carriers was only growing. Not just in Korea. Now, excited stories from regular people who’d slept with one were flooding the internet. Even with all the side effects of distorted sex fantasies, articles like “A Night with an Alpha Man” still racked up tens of thousands of clicks.
On the survey, “If you could, would you want to manifest?” more than 60% of people answered yes. The number went up every year. So it wasn’t surprising that drugs promising to “make you knot” or “bring on a heat” were floating around on the market.