I had come here impulsively, wanting a clear answer to the question that had been weighing on my mind, but it seemed I had already found a partial answer from that simple experiment just now.
“You probably already know the basics since you can find them with a quick internet search… but Alpha and Omega pheromones aren’t just simple scents. They’re classified as a type of ‘releaser pheromone,’ which elicits an immediate response from the individual who receives them… Well, to put it simply, they’re sex pheromones.”
Perhaps thinking his explanation was getting unnecessarily technical, my hyung paused for a moment, his eyes shifting as if choosing his words, before defining Alpha and Omega pheromones in a single phrase. Sex pheromones.
That was it. Though it might be a bit embarrassing for some to hear, Alpha and Omega pheromones were, in the end, sex pheromones. A substance meant to induce sexual arousal in a partner to facilitate a physical relationship. For sexual arousal, not for affection or interest.
Inwoo hyung set down the glass he was holding and pushed it far away, next to his phone. I, on the other hand, swallowed the dark red liquid, moistening my mouth and throat, which had tightened for some unknown reason.
“In other animals, pheromones are detected by an auxiliary olfactory organ called the Jacobson’s organ, but in humans, that organ has completely degenerated. The same goes for Alphas and Omegas.”
“Then…”
My hyung rested his arms on the table, shifted his posture, and continued speaking as he crushed the shell of a nut that had been served with the wine.
“Alphas and Omegas do detect each other’s pheromones as scents, but that’s ultimately the result of a different effect the scent has on the brain, not a function of the olfactory sense itself. When you smell a pheromone, a certain process that substitutes the function of the Jacobson’s organ occurs in the brain. It uses the same pathway as smell, but the reaction it causes in the brain is different from a simple olfactory function. For a Beta, the brain is a place that receives and remembers smells, not an organ that analyzes them and triggers a powerful secondary reaction.”
Having completely shattered the shell of the nut, which was similar in size and shape to a ginkgo nut, and laid it bare, Inwoo hyung picked up another one and idly rolled it around in his hand.
His gaze, angled down toward my chest, seemed lost in his own nostalgia or sentiment. For him, an Alpha, pheromones might be a medium that brings back various memories. Things that a Beta would never have to experience, things they could live their whole lives without being conscious of—the events that unfold under the influence of pheromones.
“Unpleasant, fragrant, comforting… Betas also have a sense of smell, but it’s hard to say that it compels action. It’s not like smelling a certain scent makes you so uncontrollably violent that you start breaking things, or so endlessly peaceful that you fall asleep on the spot as if you’ve taken a sleeping pill… Or, swept up in an uncontrollable sexual urge, you find yourself wanting your partner in a daring position in a risky place you’d never have considered in your usual state of mind… A mere scent doesn’t lead to such extreme behaviors, not for Betas.”
After crushing the shell of the second nut, my hyung placed the smooth, revealed kernel on the plate and rubbed his fingers together to brush off the crumbs.
I met his gaze as it rose from my chest to my face and nodded in affirmation… but the ‘me who, swept up in an uncontrollable sexual urge, exhibits extreme behavior unlike my usual self’—the confusion over that very thing was the reason I was here today.
But my first sexual contact with another person had been that day. I had no point of comparison to know if my inherent disposition was that passionate (by my standards, it was plenty passionate; at least compared to when I masturbated), or if my reaction at that time had been special. Besides, it had also been a special situation where I was not mentally stable.
Feeling my throat go dry again, I reached for the wine.
“How can humans distinguish so many different smells with only about 1,000 olfactory receptors? The physiological basis for that hasn’t even been discovered yet. So there’s even less to say about the principles behind how Alpha and Omega pheromones work. As for how Betas can’t even detect the scent, there’s nothing but a flood of various experiments and hypotheses. That’s the state of science today.”
The media’s attitude toward Alphas and Omegas was extreme.
In movies, dramas, and variety shows, they were consumed as romantic beings with beautiful looks and superior abilities (despite the fact that it had long been proven they were not genetically superior to Betas), who became utterly helpless in the face of love. In the news, they were treated as troublesome individuals lacking self-control, due to the sex scandals of Alphas and Omegas in the establishment and the sex crimes committed by those in relatively unstable social positions.
The fact that many socially successful people were Alphas or Omegas did not mean that most successful people were Alphas or Omegas. The majority of the world’s population was Beta. I had never known how Alphas and Omegas went about establishing their identities and living their lives in a world where Betas were the ‘norm.’
I had never had an interest-driven curiosity about their physiological uniqueness, but I hadn’t paid any healthy attention to it either. The person closest to me, Morae, was an Alpha, but because she herself didn’t reveal that fact, I had, as if it were only natural, treated and accepted her as just another Beta. Even if she lived hiding the fact that she was an Alpha, even if she was in a relationship with Yeehan hyung, who wasn’t an Omega, the fact that the person named Lim Morae was an Alpha didn’t change.
The curiosity-driven misinformation and novel-like rumors I had frequently encountered while searching for information online flashed through my mind. Perhaps it was because the mechanism of pheromones remained scientifically unexplained even in modern times that Betas who attached romantic interpretations to their existence or produced baseless rumors about them kept appearing.
My hyung stopped talking and gazed at me intently, as if he wanted to hear my thoughts. I fiddled with the edge of the coated paper coaster and opened my mouth.
“Hmm, it’s difficult…”
“The explanation?”
I shook my head. His explanation was so easy and kind that even someone like me, almost completely ignorant about Alphas and Omegas, could understand it without effort.
“I understand your explanation itself, but… what it must feel like to live being influenced by such principles… I feel like the word ‘feeling’ can’t contain it all, that it’s a realm difficult for a Beta to understand.”
It wasn’t that I thought they were in a more disadvantageous situation than Betas. It wasn’t a topic on which I could make such a rash judgment.
My hyung chuckled, making my words feel a little less serious.
“You know that saying. If women are from Venus and men are from Mars, then Betas are from Pluto, and Alphas and Omegas are from a different solar system altogether. It’s only natural that we find it hard to understand each other. I don’t really know what it feels like to live a whole life without the influence of pheromones, either.”
My hyung shrugged.
It was literally true. Due to structural differences in our bodies, and the various differences that stemmed from them, it was inevitable that we would find it difficult to understand one another. Even without the differences caused by pheromones, humans were classified into countless different strata based on nationality, culture, age, income, occupation, education level, and so on, and conflicts between members of different strata were commonplace everywhere.
Society was made of a complex structure where it was common to speak with one voice for the same interests as a member of the same class under one standard, only to belong to opposing sides as different classes under another standard.
As I took another sip of wine to pull my thoughts back from straying too far, the phone I had placed on the table vibrated lightly. Judging by the short buzz, it seemed to be a messenger notification.
“It’s okay, go ahead and check it.”
I had no reason to expect an urgent message, and we were in the middle of a conversation, so I tried to ignore it, but Inwoo hyung pointed at the phone and urged me to check.
While I checked the message, my hyung leaned forward, showing his active interest. A characteristic, playful smile seemed about to spill from the corners of his lips.
“What’s it say?”
“He’s asking if I’ll be late tonight.”
“Hmm… Is he telling you to come home early? And to only drink a little?”
“No, he doesn’t meddle in things like that.”
I’m… not… going… to be… that… late… As I typed my reply in the messenger window, I glanced at my hyung’s face. His expression, which had been cheerful until then, changed in an instant. The disappointment was palpable.
“Liu Weikun. It’s not him?”
“Uh… it’s the Director.”
I didn’t know on what grounds Inwoo hyung had been so sure the message was from him, but it reminded me of my own mistaken assumption a little while ago, when I hadn’t expected him to ask to speak to my hyung after that long silence.
While I took a sip of wine to hide a bitter smile at my own private embarrassment, another message arrived immediately from the Director. After replying to his message asking if I was free for dinner tomorrow evening, I placed the phone face down again.
I didn’t know what my hyung had been expecting or what had disappointed him about a situation I hadn’t even been anticipating myself, but it was certain that there was nothing I could do about it.
Seeing my hyung slumped against the armrest, looking dejected after confirming that the message wasn’t from the lover he’d been waiting for, I made an effort to speak first, feeling a strange sense of responsibility to quickly change the subject back.
“So Betas can absolutely never detect pheromones, then.”
My hyung gave his shoulders a single shrug as if to psych himself up, then straightened his slumped posture.
“There are a lot of movies and dramas where a Beta exposed to Alpha or Omega pheromones describes it as an ecstatic scent… but that’s all just fantasy. According to research results to date, it’s impossible for a Beta to detect pheromones and react to them. Impossible.”
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