As If Transmigrating Wasn’t Enough, I’m Pregnant?!

He took his phone out of his pocket and opened the map app. Then, in the search bar, he entered an address that was both familiar and unfamiliar: “Blooming Villa.” It was the old villa in a hillside slum where Ryu Hae-sol lived in the novel.

A complicated web of routes appeared on the cracked screen of his phone. The subway lines, marked in unfamiliar colors unlike those he remembered, spread across the map of Seoul like a spiderweb. The “Blooming Villa” he needed to reach was located at the very edge of that web, in a remote area accessible only after several transfers and a long walk.

Just looking at the route was enough to make his chest tighten. He simply didn’t have the mental or physical reserves to embark on such an arduous journey right now. Fortunately, the bus routes were relatively straightforward compared to the subway. Two transfers, followed by a stop near his home. He’d never had much of a choice to begin with.

Ryu Hae-sol closed the map and silently made his way toward the nearest bus stop. The city’s noise buzzed in his ears, but none of it managed to penetrate his inner world. A single thought dominated his entire being: I have to go home.

But regardless of his will, the world refused to leave someone like Ryu Hae-sol alone. It was as though an invisible barrier had descended over the path he walked. People glanced at him, then furrowed their brows as if they’d seen something unpleasant and gradually edged away.

At first, he thought he was just imagining things. But when he realized the empty space around him was growing wider and wider, he finally sensed that he was the cause. It was the smell of pheromones. Two different scents were mingling precariously and wafting from his body.

One belonged to Do Won-hyung: the cool, intense scent of bergamot and musk from a dominant Alpha, so overwhelming it seemed capable of overpowering everything around it. The other was Ryu Hae-sol’s own: the citrus scent of a recessive Omega, faint and sweet, yet unable to conceal its presence entirely.

When the two scents mingled, it was like tossing a piece of rotten fruit into a bottle of the finest whiskey. At least, that was how it seemed to Ryu Hae-sol. The reactions of those around him made him feel as though he himself were something repulsive.

But to other people, the combination of these scents went beyond mere unpleasantness. It was perceived as a kind of warning signal.

This Omega belongs to someone.

And not just anyone, but a powerful, possessive dominant Alpha.

At the same time, the faint sweetness of the Omega leaking through beneath that mark became a spark that subtly grated on the nerves of other Alphas and Omegas. It stirred up a competitive instinct in Alphas and provoked jealousy in Omegas.

The looks people gave him weren’t expressions of simple disgust or distaste. There was contempt deeply rooted in them, along with a quiet, concealed hostility. It felt as though every emotion were lodging itself in his body like an arrow. Oblivious to the reason for it all, he pulled his collar tighter around his neck and lowered his head.

He had never experienced such openly malicious stares in his thirty-two years of life. He desperately wanted to hide, but there was nowhere to go in the middle of the street. The pheromones branded into this body were like a scarlet letter that could never be erased.

By the time he reached the bus stop, casting anxious glances at the people around him, several others were already waiting for the bus.

As he approached the bench, a woman who had been sitting nearby covered her nose and abruptly stood up, moving a considerable distance away from him. The blatant gesture made Ryu Hae-sol’s face burn.

Shame and anger surged through him at the same time, but he couldn’t say a word. All he could do was lower his head like a criminal and wait for the bus to arrive. At the same time, an ominous feeling washed over him: this was only the beginning of the horrific circumstances Ryu Hae-sol must have endured in this world.

A little while later, the bus with the number he needed pulled up to the stop with a screech of brakes. The passengers began boarding one by one. He deliberately waited until everyone else had gotten on before climbing aboard.

In the brief moment when he tapped his bus card against the reader, he felt the driver glance at him through the rearview mirror. That gaze, too, was full of wariness.

The bus wasn’t particularly crowded on a weekday afternoon. But it was hardly a relief, not when everyone looking at him wore such unfriendly expressions.

People stood or sat well away from him, as though he were carrying a contagious disease. Thanks to that, he was just barely able to squeeze himself into an empty seat by the window.