Chapter Text
The sizzling scent of hot oil and the smoky haze from the griddle mingled with the sweet, spicy aroma of gochujang sauce, making the cramped space in their market stall feel stifling.
The sweltering heat of a late summer afternoon seemed to bake the air, blending with the steam rising from a pot of violently bubbling broth to form a thin mist that clung to the small stall of Hwang family.
Hyunjin kept his head down, his slender hands moving with practiced efficiency as he skewered cooked tteokbokki into a paper box for a hurried customer.
"How much?"
"5,000 won per skewer, ma'am."
"Too expensive. 4,000?"
"Well... but..."
The customer frowned, her nose twitching slightly as if trying to detect a scent from Hyunjin, then walked away without buying anything. He sighed, letting his hands drop to his sides.
Perhaps she was an Alpha or an Omega, her instincts making her uncomfortable around a 'blank' Beta like him. Or maybe she just didn't like his family's tteokbokki.
Who knew.
"Son, add some green onions to that plate for the gentleman over there." His mother's voice, raspy from a lifetime of hawking goods, called out from behind him.
Hyunjin nodded, his eyes dull and devoid of any spark.
He reached for the green onions, scattering them over the white rice cakes.
These hands, once praised by their small fanbase as 'golden hands' for executing complex dance moves, were now just tools for packaging, washing dishes, and collecting money.
Each finger felt heavy with fatigue and apathy.
A group of stylishly dressed young people, chatting and laughing animatedly, approached the stall.
Hyunjin caught a faint whiff of their scents—the sweet, citrusy aroma of an Omega and the sturdy, woody scent of an Alpha. Instinctively, he shrunk back, feeling utterly out of place and invisible. They placed their order, talking excitedly about a concert by a new, all-Alpha boy band. The names were unfamiliar, the music was foreign—a whole other world.
"Wow, you look just like an idol," one of the girls in the group suddenly said, her eyes curious as she stared at Hyunjin. "How come I can't smell anything on you? Are you using scent blockers?"
Hyunjin flinched slightly, lowering his head further. His heart constricted. He'd heard this too many times.
"Yeah, he's really handsome," another chimed in. "Are you an Alpha or an Omega?"
He stammered, his voice barely a whisper. "I... I'm a Beta."
The air grew still for a moment. Their curious glances quickly shifted to indifference, even a hint of pity. A handsome Beta was still just a Beta—ordinary, unremarkable, nothing special. They turned back to their conversation, promptly forgetting he was there.
That familiar pain gnawed at him, bit by bit. Every time someone asked about his secondary gender and met him with that indifferent stare, memories of his ten years under the stage lights flooded back like a wound that never healed.
"Hyunjin-ah, your face is a gift! But remember, in this industry, a pretty Beta is still just a Beta. We need something... more." The company CEO's words, delivered with a dismissive pat on the shoulder during a yearly evaluation, echoed in his mind. "Alphas have the power, Omegas have the allure. Betas... have diligence. So work harder."
He had thought becoming an idol, being known, would give him some worth. But that dream had shattered early on, during his trainee days. At fifteen, he'd dropped out of school, betting everything on a small entertainment company's promise of a debut within a year. One year turned into three, then five.
"Dad, Mom, I promise, it'll be worth it," he'd said, his voice full of a teenager's desperate conviction, standing in the doorway of their small, scent-neutral home. His father, a Beta whose hands were permanently calloused from a lifetime of repairing electronics, had just sighed, the sound heavy with worry. His mother, her own Beta scent a faint, comforting mix of laundry soap and garlic, had hugged him tight. "Just be happy, our son. That's all we want."
Endless days were spent in a damp practice room, sweat pooling on the wooden floors, brutal diets that left him dizzy, and nights spent crying silently from homesickness. He and his six roommates, all Betas like him, had become family.
"We'll make it," Jae, their leader, would say, his voice hoarse after twelve hours of practice, clapping Hyunjin on the back. "We'll show them Betas can shine too." They shared packets of black bean noodles, comforted each other after being cut from yet another debut lineup, and dreamed of a stage, even if it only had fifty people in the audience.
They finally debuted. But the world outside was harsher than they'd imagined. In an industry where Alpha pheromones and Omega allure were the attractive commodities, an all-Beta group like theirs was practically invisible. Singing well and dancing skillfully weren't enough.
At a music show, a famous Alpha idol from a rival group had passed them in the hallway, his potent, aggressive scent of sandalwood and ozone making the air crackle. His entourage didn't even look their way. One of his managers had chuckled, not bothering to lower his voice, "Look at them. Trying so hard. It's almost cute."
They lacked the captivating 'scent' to draw crowds, the 'it factor' that drove people crazy. At events, reporters often ignored them to swarm groups with powerful Alphas or charming Omegas. They had some fans, but most expressed disappointment in online forums he should never have read: "I thought you were an Alpha, what a shame, Oppa!" or "They're talented, but they just don't have that spark, you know?"
They struggled on, fighting every day. The bond between the seven of them grew stronger through those difficult times. They were confidants, comrades in a trench.
But no matter how strong their bond, it couldn't defeat fate. Their small company couldn't afford to invest much, their few advertising deals slowly dried up, and the stage lights gradually dimmed. When their contract ended, not a single offer for renewal came. They sat together in their dorm for one last meal—takeout fried chicken—in silence, the absence of any defining scent in the room a bitter reminder of their shared struggle. No one able to find the words. That silence was more painful than any dramatic farewell.
They had lost their gamble on becoming idols, and the price was their entire youth.
Now, the labels of 'Beta' and 'failed idol' kept him relegated to a lower status, a half-existence. Ten years of effort had only brought him back to the starting line, worse off than before—a former idol with no diploma, no practical skills, a massive gap in his resume, and a heart that was slowly bleeding out. He had returned to the small, quiet house filled with the scent of his Beta parents—a smell of home that now felt less like comfort and more like a confirmation of his own mundane destiny.
After the market closed, Hyunjin helped his mother clean up. His body ached, but the mental anguish was far worse. He had tried everything.
Working at a café, but the young Alpha owner had taken one look at him and said, "Sorry, man. Your look is... distracting. I need staff who blend in, not cause a stir with the customers."
Working as a delivery driver, but his stamina, worn down from years of intense training, couldn't keep up with the demanding pace. His Beta body, never designed for the raw, sustained endurance of an Alpha, gave out.
Applying for office jobs, but the blank spaces under 'Education' and 'Work Experience' on the application forms said it all. The Beta HR manager, a kind-faced woman who smelled faintly of paper and ink, had given him a look of pity he despised. "Your... idol career is very interesting, Mr. Hwang, but we're looking for someone with more traditional qualifications."
He had also poured all of that passion into the canvases. And he had tried, truly tried, to pivot, to find a new vessel for the intensity that still churned inside him. He bought tubes of paint in colors that were supposed to be joyful—cadmium yellow, cerulean blue, vermilion red. He would stand before the blank canvas in the small, oil-scented room, his body humming with a need to create.
But his hands, once so precise in their choreography, now betrayed him. The vibrant pigments, under his brush, would coalesce into scenes that were heavy and somber. A field of sunflowers would look like they were waiting for a storm. A smiling portrait would hold a profound, unsettling grief in its eyes. The colors were technically correct, bright and pure on the palette, but they bled onto the canvas with a melancholy he couldn't suppress. They were paintings of silence. Of absence.
No one bought them. The few who stopped at his makeshift online gallery would comment, "They're so... sad." The paintings piled up in the corner of his room, a leaning tower of failed exorcisms. The money from his dwindling savings bled away, spent on canvases and paints that only served to document his despair. Eventually, even the act of picking up a brush felt like a mockery. The blank canvas became just another form to fill with his inadequacies. So he stopped. The tubes of paint hardened in their caps, and the silence in the room grew thicker, now accompanied by the ghost of linseed oil and failure.
Hyunjin had gambled his entire youth on a fragile dream and lost spectacularly. And now he was here, back where he started, in a world that only had three notes: the sizzle of oil, the silence of his family, and the crushing absence of his own scent.