Chapter Text
When he opens his eyes, the ceiling he can see above him is unfamiliar.
At first, he thinks that he might have crawled into a motel somehow, after drinking himself silly the other night. At the very least, that can be counted as one good thing he manages to do, after the failure he experienced yesterday.
His head is hurting like a bitch, however, not to mention the sickening citrus-sweet scent he can smell all around the room is making him feel a bit nauseous as well. Unwittingly, he scrunches his nose, frowning at the intense scent he can feel invading his nose.
Did the previous tenant in this motel not clean up after themselves? Are they a fan of intense scent like this? He is fairly sure that he can’t possibly be the one who caused this scent to fill the room like this. After all, Ryu Gunwoo has never been a fan of intense smells.
He wants to be angry towards the motel employees for not cleaning up the room properly before he rented this room. Surely they could’ve aired this room or something? Or perhaps they simply let him in whatever room, when they could see how drunk he was the other night…
…Whatever. It doesn’t matter.
He needs to… recover from this shitty headache he has right now. Surely, it is the aftereffects of his hangover, which makes him slightly regret his binge drinking the other night as well.
But what’s done is done, and all he can do is clean up after himself and face the real world once again.
Sighing, he slides out from the bed, stumbling towards the bathroom.
However, when he takes a glance towards the mirror in the bathroom, he curses out loud.
“What the fuck?”
Raising his trembling hands to his face, he watches as the reflection in the mirror does the same thing as him. A skinny young man with dark brown hair, his face pale and seemingly sickly, staring straight at him with wide eyes.
“...Huh?”
Belatedly, he realizes that the voice he lets out from his mouth is not the one he’s used to.
Ryu Gunwoo, now in an unfamiliar body, feels this body of his tense up as he realizes the absurd reality of his situation. His shoulders hunch up as his expression stiffens, an expression he can see clearly being reflected on the mirror.
Just as he can feel his panic mounting, so does the stinging citrusy scent seem to spike at the same time.
“...Fuck!”
He cannot help it. He curses again as he quickly realizes the situation.
This sickeningly stinging citrus-sweet scent…
It comes from him. The sudden spike of this scent follows along with the spike of his emotions, a phenomenon that occurs when you have an omega or alpha status as your subgender.
Ryu Gunwoo, who used to be a beta without any particular scent glands or any ability to detect alpha and omega scents… Is now in the body of someone who can produce and smell such a scent.
“...Shit. What the fuck?”
He seems to curse a lot this morning. It is understandable, considering his situation. However, he can’t just idle now that he realizes the situation he is in.
Clicking his mouth shut, he forces himself to calm down, choosing to focus more on the problem than his own inner shock.
As if in response to his stabilizing emotions, the previously stinging scent that flows uncomfortably into his nose whenever he breathes starts to recede, stabilizing into something less citrusy.
However, as his mind is currently a mess at the moment, the slight tang in the scent does not seem to diminish entirely.
Ryu Gunwoo, who knows nothing about scents or its regulation, cannot really do anything much about it.
He is simply glad that it is no longer being too much of a pain for his poor nose, and thus he walks out of the bathroom, intent on finding more information about the body he is currently inhabiting.
Upon reaching the bed, he finds the things that missed his attention previously.
A note and an empty bottle of medicine. The sight is so damning that it renders him speechless for a short moment.
“...”
Is this a suicide case?
Is he inhabiting the body of a boy who wanted to commit suicide?
Opening the note, he quickly reads the written content, which more or less answers his suspicions.
An orphan who dropped out of school, choosing to die because of feelings of unfairness and hopelessness.
For some reason, he feels a bit bitter. It is also annoying how the scent around him has also started to turn bitter, as if responding to his emotions.
Even when he changes body, his background is still one full of suffering, it seems.
At the very least, he’s found some useful information as well.
First of all, this body is called Park Moondae. He is years younger than Ryu Gunwoo, and different from Gunwoo who is a beta…
Park Moondae is listed as an awakened omega.
“...” As he expected, this body is not that of a beta. It explains everything about the scent he’s letting out, as well as the sensitivity of his nose when it comes to scents like this.
How can alphas and omegas live like this, with their emotions being exposed to the public through their scents? He cannot begin to comprehend it, especially when he’s never cared much about it before, being a beta and all.
And the bitter, tangy, citrus scent that filled the room when he woke up… It must’ve come from the boy’s emotions before he went to sleep last night.
How is he supposed to interpret that kind of scent? Judging from the note left behind alone, he can more or less guess.
Bitterness. Sadness. Hopelessness.
Suffocating with these kinds of feelings and the scents that symbolized it, all alone in this motel room…
“...”
No, now is not the time to think about this.
Closing his eyes, he tries to think calmly. After a few moments, he manages to calm down as he tries to analyze the situation before him.
Nevertheless, it is undeniable that he is now in Park Moondae’s body after drinking too much last night. And this Park Moondae most probably is in his body right now after he drank too many sleeping pills last night.
The parallel of bad decisions made by the two of them may or may not be the thing that connects them together and makes them switch places. Who knows? This certainly does sound plausible, if he is to judge based on the famous webnovels about switching bodies and what-not.
It is absurd to follow the cliches of fiction such as that, but his reality right now is already absurd, so what the hell.
“...Ha.” Regardless, it does pinpoint him to a certain goal, at the very least.
He needs to find his body. The body of Ryu Gunwoo who probably passed out because he drank too much. The boy, the original Park Moondae, is still young and obviously troubled, so if he really does end up in Gunwoo’s body, he’s probably panicking right now. That, and he will be suffering with an intense hangover right now.
Hangover from drinking in the summer… It can be pretty dangerous and a bitch to deal with, so he needs to quickly find his body and probably talk to the boy if he really is in Gunwoo’s body…
Decision made, he swiftly picks up the boy’s wallet and opens the motel door, only to freeze in place a moment after.
…Snow?
…Isn’t this July? He is sure he drank during summer night in July.
Feeling another spike of scent coming from him, he quickly backtracks and closes the door in front of him. Looking around the room, he quickly spots a calendar and picks it up, breath hitching as he sees the date displayed.
[202x Month 12]
…December 3 years ago.
There is no way that the motel places such an outdated calendar in their rooms, no matter how shabby it is. Which means that today is really a day in December, three years ago.
‘There’s also the falling snow outside. Which proves that it is winter right now.’
For a moment, he feels a bit dizzy. His legs feel a bit weak, and thus he drops his butt on the bed once again. However, he quickly regains control over himself, somehow finding it easier to accept that he is in the past. After all, he’s switched bodies somehow, therefore it is not all that implausible for him to be in the past.
Too many shock factors stacked into one after another, it is not surprising that he is able to recover from it much faster this time around.
‘...Still.’
It’s still absurd. This whole situation, that is.
Waking up in a body that is not his, suddenly finding himself three years in the past… What’s the use of it, when he doesn’t even remember any lottery numbers to win big prizes?
That is the cry of his nonsense heart that ceases to be in mere moments after it bursts, though the indignity stays for another short moment.
The more he thinks about it, the situation is just absurd.
Now that he’s experienced two tropes from these fantasy novels, what to say he’s not experiencing yet another?
‘...For example, if this world turns out not to be the world I was from.’
It’s driving him crazy to even think about it, but it is possible.
With that thought in mind, he supposes he should try to find as much information as he can. About this place, and about this body he is in right now.
Opening the wallet in his hand, he counts the money available for him to use, mind categorizing the many things he’d need to afford for the foreseeable future.
“Okay.”
First of all, information gathering. With that thought in mind, he walks outside the motel and visits the nearby PC cafe.
Unfortunately, his searches don’t really bring a lot of satisfying information.
First of all, although he tried to call his—Ryu Gunwoo’s—number, it ended up being said that the number was not available.
He tried to log into his university account as well as his existing SNS account, but it seemed as if they never existed to begin with.
It all points to the same conclusion.
It seems that there is no “Ryu Gunwoo” in this world.
“...” Then it is safe to say, that this is really a different world from his, despite the many similarities.
Although he did not see any suspicious media or any glaring differences from the ordinary Korea as he walked in the streets to the PC cafe before, it is mostlikely still a different world.
Because “he” does not exist here.
Then what of the original Park Moondae?
…He does not know.
It is best not to think too much about it for now, not when he doesn’t even have any more body to “return” to in this world. Nor is he able to contact “Park Moondae” somewhat.
He needs to prioritize himself right now, who is in an unfamiliar body with unfamiliar sensations and situations.
For reference, he does not really have many regrets or any ongoing grievances about the loss of his body or identity as Ryu Gunwoo.
This is because Ryu Gunwoo does not really have anything much to his name either.
His parents had been dead for a long time, and he had lost contact from his relatives by the time he entered college. He had no important personal connections either, whether it was friends or lovers.
All he had been doing was trying to survive in the modern world by working as best as he could. Therefore, there isn’t really anything that he particularly misses either.
With that in mind, he focuses back on the present as seamlessly as he is able to, tapping the PC table with his fingers.
If this is just like those popular webnovel tropes… From waking up inside another body and waking up in the past, as well as the possibility of being in another world…
“Then perhaps…” There’s also that thing? That thing called…
“...Status window…?”
A few seconds pass, and yet nothing happens.
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit. Fuck! That’s embarrassing!
Covering his red face with his hands, he resists the urge to scream from the cringe.
Of course nothing will come out! He beats himself up again inwardly for a short moment, dragging his palms down his face with an exasperated and embarrassed groan. What was he thinking, seriously—
“...?”
A semi transparent blue hologram screen is hovering right in front of his eyes.
[Name: Park Moondae - Omega (Ryu Gunwoo - Beta)
Level: -
Title: None
Vocal: C
Dance: -
Visual: C
Skill: -
Trait: Infinite Potential]
“...”
Hey, what the fuck. Isn’t this the status window?!