By Zephyria 
“Your two older brothers also live together. The eldest is a surgeon; he’s married, but they don’t have children yet. The second is an internist and isn’t married yet. I don’t know if you remember, but those two are from my previous marriage. I was told the previous wife passed away when the second one was ten because of poor health.”
“Geez, you’re really hugging all your kids close. Maybe it’s because there’s so much to inherit, but none of them have moved out. So you’re saying those people are all swarming around in one house? No wonder I couldn’t breathe or stand tall because I was crushed by those two. They must have plenty of money, so why keep grown-ass kids around? Just thinking about it gives me a headache.”
“If you continue to act this way at home, the hospital director will be displeased. Then it will be difficult for me to defend you. So, if you want to go home, you must first correct your attitude.”
“No, why are you only pointing out my attitude? The family is the one that’s messed up. You say I wasn’t seriously injured, but someone actually died in that accident—why didn’t I see a single person visit? Is this what family is? I honestly can’t understand. Even the man who is my father leaves his child with a caregiver and only shows his face every now and then, and even then, he only comes to get angry.”
“Everyone is busy with their work, so it can’t be helped. They can’t just abandon their duties and be tied only to you.”
“Still, I think not coming for a single hospital visit is wrong. At this rate, I won’t even recognize my family’s faces when I get home.”
“That… I’ll bring some photos next time I come. If you see them, your memories might return.”
“What a great method. Learning my family’s faces through photos.”
“Then what is it you want? You’re doing nothing but complaining about everything right now. Doesn’t it occur to you that none of this would have happened if you hadn’t done something strange by trying to commit suicide in the first place?”
“Then have you thought about why I tried to commit suicide? How frustrated must a kid have been to think of dying alone? If I were the parent, that’s the first thing I would have wondered. Why do you put all the blame on the child? You’re really impossible to talk to. How could a child have grown up properly in this environment?”
“Now, it seems the atmosphere is heating up again. Let’s stop talking for a moment and all take a deep breath.”
The doctor intervened as if trying to mediate. If things were going to be like this, it felt like the doctor wasn’t needed at all. In fact, his constant interruptions made his presence feel annoying.
“I’m in a very calm state right now, so let’s keep talking. Cha Soo-kyung—well, I’ve learned there’s nothing wrong with my body. But are there any other diseases? Like, cancer, tumors, or some congenital chronic illness.”
“There are no physical illnesses, but you have depression. There is medication you were originally taking, but we’ve temporarily stopped the prescription as we don’t know how it might affect your memory. You’ll have to start taking it again once you go home.”
“Well, let’s see and decide on that. Since my memories flew away, it feels like the depression disappeared along with them.”
“Doctor. Could you give my son some advice to take the current situation a bit more seriously? To me, it seems my son is completely thoughtless.”
“Let’s decide on that part through future consultations. Since the patient’s condition has changed, we may change or discontinue the medication accordingly. Even if it doesn’t put a strain on the body, medication is generally not a good thing regardless. If it’s truly not necessary for the patient, there may be no need to take it.”
Right. For once, the doctor said something helpful. I nodded vigorously with a deeply satisfied expression.
Honestly, even if Cha Soo-kyung suffered from depression and took medication for it, that medicine was useless to me now. I wasn’t depressed; on the contrary, I was in a very hopeful state, facing a new life.
“Ah, and this is a personal question. I feel like there’s something missing from my body. Is this congenital?”
“What are you talking about?”
“That thing. The one I mentioned last time. …I don’t have balls. It’s not something you walk around showing off, but it’s precious to a man. Since you’re a man too, you’d know. You know how important of an issue this is.”
The fact that I’d swapped bodies with Cha Soo-kyung was already a headache, but on top of that, this was one of the issues that had been making me anxious. Whether Cha Soo-kyung was born without balls or had to have them removed due to some past accident, I didn’t know. For now, finding out the whereabouts of my missing balls was extremely important.
At my question, the man’s face flushed. I couldn’t tell if he was embarrassed, ashamed, or angry about discussing private parts, so I stared at him intently, waiting for an answer.
“They’re not there.”
“What? You never had them? Isn’t that a huge problem? Why did people with so much money and a hospital of their own leave their child like this? In an age where gender reassignment surgery is possible, can’t they easily make some balls?”
“They’re not there! I said they were never there! Omegas don’t have them!”
The man snapped, shouting in response to my reprimand about neglecting a child’s incomplete body part. Not understanding the answer immediately, I wore a blank expression.
“…Omegas… don’t have them?”
“Yes, they don’t. It’s normal to be born without them. So I hope we don’t speak of this any further.”
“Omegas don’t have balls? All of them? You don’t have them either? It’s normal not to have them?”
“Please stop… Just how much more do you intend to humiliate me?”
The man spoke as if sobbing, and even after pushing the man who was my parent to the brink of tears, I still couldn’t understand the situation, so I turned my gaze toward the doctor.
“Doctor. Is this true? Really… do Omegas not have balls? Even if they’re Omegas, they’re still men? You’re lying, right?”
“Uh, well. …It is a fact that Omegas do not have that part. If they were born with them, that would actually be the abnormality.”
This was for real. The fact that the Omega Cha Soo-kyung had no balls, and the fact that I, now living in Cha Soo-kyung’s body, would have to live without balls from now on, was all reality. Feeling as though something precious had been stolen, I felt an indescribable sense of loss.
“Patient, you are aware that you are an Omega, right? It’s unclear what you remember and what you don’t, so it seems both you and those around you are confused… Do you perhaps have no general knowledge about Omegas remaining?”
“I don’t know what ‘general knowledge’ means. For starters, the fact that I don’t have balls is shocking enough…”
“It seems you will need to receive sex education again.”
Sex education at this age. Even when I lived as Min Jae-hee, I’d never had formal sex education. Isn’t that something you just pick up naturally? Having lived as a Beta for twenty years, the sudden situation of becoming an Omega made my head ache.
This wasn’t a problem to be thought of simply.
Anxiety surged that not only the balls, but perhaps something else might be missing. I realized that I shouldn’t just be relieved about having rich parents and a body that wasn’t about to die.
“Come to think of it, some guy I saw yesterday told me not to let my pheromones leak.”
“You… did you walk around without any pheromone masking at all?”
“How can I mask something when I don’t even know what it is?”
“My goodness, then who was that Alpha you met? Where on earth did you wander for an unknown Alpha to say such a thing to you?”
“How should I know? I was just smoking, and I thought some guy next to me was talking nonsense.”
“What? Smoking? You smoked?”
“I’m an adult now, so let’s not nag me about smoking. If my chest feels tight, I can have a puff.”
At my nonchalant response, the man let out a groan of distress.
“How could you smoke? Do you not even think about what others would say? Don’t you think it’ll cause health problems and be bad when you have children later? Do you have no awareness that you are an Omega?”
What is this? Omegas can’t even smoke? I used to think the guys who spouted things like ‘How can a woman smoke?’ were just practicing various forms of discrimination, but this is even more ridiculous. I’d heard that discrimination against women was serious, but discrimination against Omegas is a serious problem too.
Furthermore, I had obviously never considered the idea of having a child. My god, I give birth? I didn’t even intend to make a child, and now I’m giving birth? And from my own stomach? What a joke.
“While it’s true that smoking is bad for health, that’s not what’s important right now. Omegas and Alphas have pheromones that they can sense from each other, and masking them well is a very important matter. Since this is an issue the guardian must specifically care for and instill in the patient, please make sure not to forget to provide the patient with sex education.”
The doctor finally gave some advice that sounded like a doctor’s. Though to me, it was advice that felt completely devoid of reality.
“Ugh, being an Omega is really a thankless job. There are so many things missing, and so many things to know. And how do I mask pheromones? Do I just put them in a pocket or something?”
I said it as a joke, but the listeners didn’t find it funny at all, as their stiff expressions didn’t soften. Rather, the looks they gave me were mixed with complexity, as if it were a very grave situation.
“Why is everyone so serious? I can just learn that stuff as I go.”
“Honestly, it is a very serious situation. In truth, pheromones are not something you learn, but something you feel instinctively… I don’t know if this can be learned through words. Even with sex education, there will be limits since it’s learned through text, but as you hear about it, the concepts will be established, and sensing and masking pheromones won’t be difficult. Yes, it will be.”
There was no conviction in the doctor’s voice. Is it really that important? Having lived as a Beta until now, I’d never thought about or tried to know the ecology of Alphas and Omegas, but it seems like a matter I should pay some attention to.
“It’s okay, it’s okay. Everything will be fine.”
The more I expressed confidence, the stronger the distrust grew on the faces of the doctor and the man. Was Cha Soo-kyung’s face really that untrustworthy?
“I said it’s okay. I think I’ve figured out everything I roughly need to know. Today’s consultation was great. The doctor was great, and Father was wonderful. Shall we wrap this up with a round of applause?”
Thinking I had grasped the gist of what I needed to know, I tried to hurry the meeting to an end before any more headache-inducing nagging flew my way, but it seemed to have the opposite effect, as cold gazes turned toward me.