The amount of outrage in the hallways as Alpha's turn their heads in disgust.
"What's this I hear about Seol's?"
"P- Principal Sun." Eun-Ji stutters.
Ah-Reum's head turns lightly to glare, hair falling perfectly over her face. Tiger colored eyes searing, one eye visible to the Principal.
"Father? Aren't you supposed to be showing me and Hye-Rim around the school?"
The girl stops short and looks at the altercation ahead.
"No way, Ah-Reum?!" The two girls say in unison. Both catching they said the same name. "Huh?!"
"OMG! Hye-Rim-ah! I haven't seen you in a bit!" Eun-Ji gasps. The two girls hug.
"Eun-Ji? I haven't seen you since the end of high school." Nabi squeals. "You two know each other?" Nabi then asks.
"Yeah, of course we do we are cousins."
"Yeah, her dad is my uncle." Hye-Rim says.
"That makes you a Choi…" Eun-Seong sputters. "Why this school?"
"Because my older brother is going here." Hye-Rim says. "I got enough credits to transfer here."
"I would rather not talk about it right now." Nabi says twisting the tips of her sunflower brown colored hair.
"Who is he?" Hye-Rim asks pointing at Eun-Seong.
"My dumb a$$ little brother." Eun-Ji says rolling her eyes.
"Someone has gotten taller since I last saw her." Hye-Rim chuckles turning her attention to Ah-Reum.
Ah-Reum freezes.
It is too soon. She isn't ready, not for this.
She turns silently and walks away.
"Oh come on, your really aren't going to even answer your unnie?" Hye-Rim teases.
But for Ah-Reum, she has already made up her mind.
"Oh please, your really don't know how she was in high school. I was practically her only friend, you and the other girls didn't want anything to do with her. I was the only shoulder for her to lie on and she loved me and me only, of course she doesn't want to talk to you." Eun-Ji boasts.
Ah-Reum starts walking faster now.
But to her ears their voices get louder and more crisp.
"What are you talking about we dated off and on. Sometimes she would randomly break up with me saying that her fvcking ex came back." Hye-Rim folds her arms.
"What!!! You two dated Ah-Reum?" Nabi shouts in surprise. "I dated Ah-Reum too. She always broke up with me because her ex came back too!"
"Ah-Reum!!!! If you. Don't get your a$$ back here right now I will make you regret it!" Eun-Ji screams.
All the while Eun-Seong's laughter showers over her.
She runs faster.
Before being caught in the arms of a dark haired man, a face she remembered, but she couldn't put a name to.
"Well, if it isn't Ah-Reum… I used to be so impressed there was an omega who could actually beat me. Only to find out you were an alpha as well. To spend all this time planning on how to subjugate you, only to find out our sexes are not compatible."
"Choi Gun-Ho." She hisses.
Then a sudden realization comes to her.
She fights in his grip but his grip finds her neck faster.
"What?" He asks when he approaches them.
"Put her down." Eun-Seong orders.
"I don't think so. She is too strong to be released. Besides she will just run again, also I am quite enjoying the sight of tears running down her face."
Her hands reach for her neck trying to scratch his hands to get more air to fight.
She goes limp.
He switches hands and like a button was pressed she gasps for air.
He wraps his arms around her body holding her in place.
"Ah-Reum, what the hell? I thought I was the only one you were dating!" Eun-Ji yells at her.
"Well you would break up with me and cheat on me all the time!" Ah-Reum retorts.
"Oh please, that is hardly any reason to date anyone outside of me, I knew you for thirteen years." She scoffs.
"Oh please yourself, stop acting. I dated Nabi and then you almost got me expelled just because you wanted to get back together!" Ah-Reum scratches Gun-Ho's arm, deep, drawing blood, the coppery scent filling the air.
"Fvck!" He shouts holding her to him tighter.
"First it was Chen Soo-Jin, you hated seeing me with her." Ah-Reum spits.
"Next Sun Nabi and Kang Mi-Young. At first I thought you didn't think they were good enough for me or something like that."
"Time means nothing! You just controlled who I saw. Befriending my exes and who knows what else. By the time I was thirteen I went through not one, not two, but three relationships. I dated you not knowing what love meant in an actual relationship! You never loved me."
"Then what about me?" Hye-Rim frowns.
"I dated you because I didn't know what to do with myself during our breaks." Ah-Reum glares at Eun-Ji.
"Don't you pit this all on me!" Eun-Ji yells.
"I am not. It is all of you who are too fvcking much!" She growls. "You never actually listened to me. You only liked what I could do for you. Nothing about me was ever taken seriously." Ah-Reum's anger fizzles out. Tears streaking down her face all bare and naked, raw emotion in such a silent cry.
A river branching over her face.
Eun-Seong stares up at her. A conflicted look over his face.
"Eun-Ji. You will never have her heart." Eun-Seong smirks. "She never trusted you with it in the first place. She liked me first. You never had a chance." He chuckles lightly.
"What are you even talking about? Just because she is dating you doesn't mean that she won't come back to me."
"Is that so?" Eun-Seong's smirk widens. "Why would she come back to the person who hurt her multiple times than someone who hasn't hurt her as many times as you!"
"Why would a omega man even like an alpha woman? Alpha women only get one choice. Female omegas. You will too crave more than her."
Footsteps echo behind Ah-Reum and Gun-Ho as the faces of the ones debating on their understandings stare wide-eyed at the new person who snuck into the conversation.
"So this is the kind of bullsh!t you faced when you left, Ah-Reum." The voice is calm as if stating the most true of facts, an observation stated.
"Another male omega? This is rich." Eun-Ji's face twists with jealousy and possessiveness.
"You and Eun-Seong are nothing but trash, you should stop marring such delicacies with grubby fingers." The voice darkens.
"If your family never allied with my father and killed mine, I would have still had a connection with my great-grandfather. But you Kim's ruin the lives of everyone around you without care or second thought. I could have had a better life."
"Charlie?" Ah-Reum calls for him.
The room begins to get cold.
"Let her go." Charlie orders.
Gun-Ho concerned, releases Ah-Reum immediately.
Pushing Gun-Ho out of the way meekly he barrels into Ah-Reum's arms.
His head buried in her bosom.
"You're a Seol, Bamsaek Ah-Reum?" Principal Sun asks.
His glare hard.
"My daughter would have had the heir of the Seol family and be none the wiser."
"As much as you could fantasize, Ah-Reum would never dare to not wear a condom, too meticulously careful." Eun-Ji sneers.
"Really?" Charlie asks looking surprised.
"What she did you without a condom?" Eun-Seong asks surprised. "Ah-Reum! You lied, you said nothing happened between you two, you could have gotten him pregnant!"
"That would be true, I did lie. But what you are thinking, never happened."
Eun-Seong's "Huh?", plays faster than Charlie could smile.
"Hah, her heart doesn't belong to you either!" Eun-Ji laughs. "Anyways what makes you so special?"
Charlie looks confused.
He pulls Ah-Reum close to him.
Voice getting low.
"What did you tell them? Is this why I was taken for an emergency pregnancy check?" He whispers into her ear.
Eun-Seong crosses his arm.
Ah-Reum frowns.
"Why would I tell them about that?" She huffs.
"What? How you lost control for the first time?" Eun-Seong frowns.
"You never lose control, not even during rut." Eun-Ji states.
Ah-Reum's eyes fall on Charlie.
A sh!t eating grin spreads on his face.
"She was in rut. But I fvcked her." Charlie admits.
Thwack!
Everyone turns their head, some random kid just walked into the walk listening to the tea.
"An alpha submitting under the will of the omega?" Gun-Ho cracks a smile. "Getting your a$$ fvcked by an omega?"
But Ah-Reum knows that Eun-Ji, Hye-Rim and Nabi know.
"But…" Nabi couldn't find the words to speak.
Eun-Seong looks betrayed.
"Wouldn't that mean that you have to take the pregnancy test Ah-Reum? I was very surprised when I was pulled out of my room to be tested." Charlie says nonchalantly.
"Shut up Charlie. You're making this worse." Ah-Reum says taking a careful step back.
She pivots on her heel. Eun-Seong knows too now.
Pushing through a side door she continues to run.
Thunder ripples through the air. The sky a dark gray.
The light rain turns into a shower and then pouring to the point she is trying to swim through the air.
"There is more to this situation than it looks, things have just taken a turn." A husky voice says once she enters the dorm hall.
Turning to look around Ah-Reum catches sight of herself. A black hanbok covering her body, long red hair big fanning around the symbol of wang in the middle of her forehead. She squats down cheek in her hand, arm resting on her leg as she looks at Ah-Reum.
"Eh? Who are you!" Ah-Reum panics.
"You're inner spirit obviously. You released too much anger. Your tiger bloodline was forced out—"
Ah-Reum runs her hands down her face.
"I don't have time for this." She groans walking to her dorm.
Her spirit follows after her.
"She has all that fiery passion of a tiger." Says a soft soothing voice.
Sitting up, she then sees a woman in a golden robe, with long white glowing, flaming hair, sharp blue eyes watching her.
"Now if that one is my tiger spirit…" She points to the one on her right. "Who are you?"
The spirit rolls her eyes.
"Of course she doesn't know her own bloodline. This side is long gone Ah-Reum. Only your great-grandfather will know."
"Then I will know." She says lowly.
A soft knock at the door, brings her back.
When she opens the door, there waiting for her, is her family.
"Ah-Reum, we need to talk." Her mother says.
____
Long ago there existed many gods, spirits, beings of higher power, each with their own ideas and purpose.
They soon intermingled with the humans. Of those were the Kims, the Parks with the most important of the powers.
Their true abilities sealed within their families.
They searched and searched on how to bring the last two powers to the Min and Soo families.
It was too late they have chosen homes outside of the alpha families.
Hwang Ahri, the last one to be born to this world, before the artificial inception of the Tiger.
To keep the bloodline of betas without change, they were given a chance to return the world to how it was three hundred thousand years ago, everyone would be the same without the lie of alphas.
___
"But you see things don't work that way." Her grandfather says. "The tiger bloodline was forced into this world, she didn't want anything to do with humans, but she was forced to reincarnate."
"So you are going to tell me something important?" Ah-Reum lifts an eyebrow.
"These people know too much and they have seen the power we hold. It won't take long for them to connect base with their ancestors."
"What your great-grandfather means is we must reestablish control before the alpha families find out." Ah-Reum's Grandmother explains.
"So you are here." The door opens.
Charlie's eyes only focused on her.
"What is happening in here?" Charlie questions, surveying the room.
Sang-Won responds first.
"Oh, Charlie. How are you?"
"We have to get going, we can talk about this later." Beom-Gyu says.
We're back… And we will dominate the world.
_________
At the Beta House, a new tiger is now found.
"So what you mean to say was that Ah-Reum might be pregnant? What kind of absurdity are you even going off of? Alpha's cannot get pregnant." Beom-Gyu, her great-grandfather says. "Right?"
He looks over to her grandmother, Beom-Ya and her mother, Beom-Yeong.
"How would that be possible? Alpha women can't possibly have a womb or eggs." Beom-Ya huffs.
Her great-grandfather's smile widens.
"Let's test that theory."
The doctors check the alpha women. Each one having similar results.
"It seems to be a similar to how male omegas have two types of genetic material sperm and eggs." The doctor says looking at his papers confused. "I don't even know how this is possible."
The doctor hums.
"Here, female alpha secondary sex is less than that of the female beta secondary sex. However, the most is the female omega sex, for males it makes sense that beta men are the most then omega then alpha as in prehistoric times alpha men used to have multiple partners."
The doctor adjusts his glasses.
"Omega women were the most coveted for boosting the population and alpha women were considered undesirable amalgamations that lack feminine qualities most alpha men look for which is submissiveness. After a few hundred thousand years forward after the start of human history, omega men became more desirable. Perhaps the sexes were no more than an illusion of how society works?" The doctor sputters.
Ah-Reum's great-grandfather smiles.
"An illusion of control over society enforced by the strong… Who maintains control in a society that cannot be led by women in their perspective." He hums. "Well this is quite the find."
"W-what shocks me more is that alpha women are the inverse of omega men. Perhaps because the population is too low to study?" The doctor seems to feel sure of himself.
"I already knew." Ah-Reum says.
"What?" The doctor says smile already fading.
"The library keeps records, the big library that was in White Tiger's mansion. It had many old documents, some holding ancient information."
"I remember, but I don't have any memory about books about female alphas." Her great-grandfather shook his head.
"It wasn't about female alphas. It was about the biology of male omegas. There were red splotches on some of the pages. And the pages smelled old. It was in Chinese. I used a translator to understand much of it."
"Blazing— no, Ah-Reum, why didn't you tell anyone?" Her great-grandfather asks.
"I didn't want to say anything, because I didn't understand it. I knew that I was predisposed to become an alpha. But it does make sense. Before the secondary sexes there were just men women and intersex type sexes. Intersex leaned towards one sex more heavily than the other while being born of the opposite sex that your body leaned towards, that or it was too ambiguous."
"But what does that mean to us?" Her mother asks trying to coax out her thoughts.
"Technically, it has never changed, alpha women and omega men are one in the same. Just which sex we express more on the outside and internally are swapped." Ah-Reum finally spits it out.
Water is still water whether it is frozen or gas.