Private Korea High School.
If you hadn’t heard the name, people joked you were either a foreigner or a spy. It was an institution that boasted the highest status and prestige in the country.
The days when a few offended politicians took shots at a private school for daring to slap the country’s name on itself were long gone. Now it had settled in as an elite high school where the top one percent nationwide scrambled to apply.
"Ah, fuck! Are you really not coming? I’ll be pissed if you bail!"
"Yeah! Everyone else heard you were coming and got super hyped."
"My uncle’s penthouse is crazy huge! We even invited a famous DJ and celebrities—how can you pass that up?"
"You can drink until you puke!"
Of course, there were always a few kids from business and politics who slid in after topping things off with a “small donation.”
In short, Korea High was a madhouse where model students and rich delinquents coexisted.
"They’ve got meth, too."
"You’re insane, saying that out loud at school."
"Why? Who’s gonna snitch? Anyone here gonna report us?"
Students at Korea High fell neatly into two types.
Those who wore their uniforms properly and thick-lensed glasses.
And those who barely wore the uniform, flaunting two-block cuts, tattoos, luxury watches, and high-end styling.
The louder the latter laughed and showed off, the more the former couldn’t even meet their eyes and glued their gaze to their desks.
"Hey, I’m begging you! Let’s hang out this weekend! Yeah? Seolheon!"
And there was one student who didn’t fit either group.
Black hair and dark blue eyes against pale skin.
Long lashes and delicate features.
Shoulders broad and legs long enough to make the desk set look undersized.
The uniform was immaculate, yet not plain.
Unadorned, yet singularly dazzling.
Like a lone black-furred wolf with a perfect coat, inexplicably settled in a birdcage where chickens and peacocks flapped together, he shone all by himself.
A student so striking it felt almost alien finally opened his mouth.
"Sorry. Next time."
A voice low enough to raise goosebumps and smooth as rolling jade carried across the campus.
Then came a faint smile, and faces all over flushed red.
"Damn it! Playing hard to get."
"When will you finally hang with us? You pricey bastard."
Peacocks didn’t get told no often, so their pride was towering.
Even so, instead of getting mad, they just melted.
"Give it up. Seolheon Baek’s a fortress."
"Such a waste. If he weren’t ‘that’..."
"Shut up. I’d have had him first."
When the peacocks left the cage, the pressure vanished, but a suffocating silence dropped.
"...Hey, um. Seolheon."
After a moment, the senior class president of Class 1, Song Changu, who was basically the cage’s head bird, worked up the courage to speak.
"You okay?"
"With what."
"Th-they hit you up all the time... Doesn’t it wear you out?"
“Those kids” meant the students of Class 5, the ones pushed down the rankings—so-called rich screwups.
Seolheon Baek answered without a flicker.
"They’re the same as me."
"N-no! You got in without any donation... and as top scorer! You came here fair and square, so it’s, like, totally different..."
"Fair and square?"
Seolheon’s lips tipped up and he let out a short, air-leaking laugh.
Whatever he found funny, that smile made the class president’s face relax, too.
"It has been noisy since the new term. I’ll step out and deal with them next time."
"T-that’s not what I meant to say..."
"Either way everyone must be uncomfortable."
Seolheon Baek was flawless.
With grades that could punch a free pass into the best department at a top university and looks to match, he’d still never once been caught up in scandal.
He kept a measured distance from the rougher students to avoid conflict, showed consideration so as not to hurt the study vibe for his classmates, and never once flaunted his superiority. That was Seolheon Baek.
So those who disliked him on campus were few, and even they just picked at him clumsily because they didn’t know the real him.
If you had to nitpick for a flaw in Seolheon... with that face and those abilities, and yet his secondary sex was—
Just then, while Song Changu’s thoughts were drifting, Seolheon slung a plain black backpack with no logo over one shoulder and stepped out of the room.
"Huh? Where are you going?"
"Home."
"I-I’ve got tutoring! Let’s go together."
Seolheon didn’t stop him from tagging along.
"Seolheon, did the practice exam go well?"
"Decent. You?"
"Me, me too—decent? You’ll rank nationwide again, right?"
"You can’t know before results are out."
"R-right? Haha..."
Smiling kindly, Seolheon nodded but didn’t bother to keep the conversation going. He didn’t slow to match steps, either, staying about five paces ahead.
But Song Changu, fixed on getting just a little closer to Seolheon, doggedly stuck with him. Two years had gone by like that, and they were now seniors about to graduate.
Those five steps had never once closed.
He stole a glance at Seolheon’s face. Seolheon’s eyes were focused far away.
Song Changu always wondered what he was looking at, but he had no way to know.
"..."
Then a different light flickered in Seolheon’s eyes.
"...Hyung."
Murmuring under his breath, he suddenly quickened his pace.
"Seolheon Baek?"
"Go on ahead."
In the blink of an eye, the distance between them stretched.
All Song Changu could do was blink and stare at Seolheon’s back as it grew small.
Seolheon half jogged to the external visitors’ parking lot. Without hesitation he walked up and stopped in front of a black midsize sedan.
The driver’s window came down. After a few exchanged words, Seolheon stood there a moment, then slid into the passenger seat like it was habit.
In that instant when he turned his body—
Song Changu saw Seolheon’s face and nearly jumped.
"H-he smiled...?"
Seolheon always smiled. He smiled evenly at everyone and treated people gently.
So it shouldn’t have been strange...
"He smiles like that, too."
A smile that bright, with that much color in his face—he’d never seen it since the day they entered school.
Dazed, Song Changu just stared after the car as it pulled away.
"You said you were swamped getting back in after leave. Why’d you come?"
That’s the first thing he said the second he got in the car.
He clammed up and dropped it just like that, and I snorted as I shot back.
"I came to pick up my senior-year exam-taker little brother."
"You have a driver. Why you, Hyung..."
"You saw my car and came running like an excited puppy. You didn’t like it?"
"..."
No answer from Seolheon.
I glanced over. A beautiful kid with black hair and navy eyes filled my sight. The dark blue uniform matched his eye color and suited him absurdly well.
A few years ago his cheeks were still soft; now, in the time I hadn’t seen him, every trace was gone. In his place sat a solidly built sculpture of a man with a strong jawline. He was nearly an adult, and his height kept climbing by the day; the roomy midsize cabin felt full with him in it.
Strange, how my little brother’s face was shedding boyishness day by day.
But the cute parts I knew were still there. Like the way his brows drew in a touch now—his face when he was embarrassed and weighing his answer.
"Even the grumpy face is handsome, kid."
I chuckled and eased the wheel.
I was already twenty-four. I’d long since caught up to my age from my previous life, and Seolheon was now a third-year in high school.
"Looked like you were heading home with a friend. Maybe I shouldn’t have come?"
"...No."
"I heard from Dad earlier—while I was in the army, our Seolheon cried every day saying he missed me."
"What?"
A deflated sound of disbelief came from the passenger seat.
I held in a laugh and patted his shoulder with the hand not on the wheel.
"With my chest aching like that, how was I supposed to not come to school?"
"As if. You believe what he says?"
"Hey, don’t ‘that guy’ Dad. Sure, he loves exaggerating a rumor, but he doesn’t make things up."
"I didn’t cry."
"Yeah? When I think about how you had a scary dream and clung to me real tight..."
"Stop. How long ago was that."
A sigh of resignation came from the passenger seat. But his brows pinched again and his face was a little red.
I hit a light and stopped, then promptly hooked an arm around his neck and scrubbed his hair all over.
"See? I know you love me."
"...Let go."
"Nope. My crybaby little brother, Seolheon."
"I said stop."
He stayed stiff, but he didn’t really try to fight me off.
A body pushing one ninety being this cute wasn’t easy. He was almost my size now, but inside he was still adorable.
"I was an idiot for once mistaking this cute kid for some psychopathic sex criminal."
Sure, on the surface he matched the image I’d had back when I read the novel—that deranged top—
—but the core was different. Completely different.
The reason went without saying.
Because the Seolheon of this world—unlike Baek Uheon, the Alpha lunatic with a legendary sex drive—
"If our Seolheon had been an Alpha, what would I have done? I wouldn’t even be able to hold you like this!"
—had manifested as a Beta.
And with that, I’d thrown off the shackles of something called an R19 drug fueled gay smut novel,
and could finally, truly enjoy a peaceful, happy second life.
"I’m happy!"
"I can’t breathe."