My Omega and I were both girls and both left-handed, but to my surprise, we had nothing else in common. The fact that we’d been one long ago and we’d soon become one again felt like a weird joke.
After going AWOL from the Omega Zone the day before our coming-of-age ceremony, the Omega had been on the run for three days before she was apprehended and brought here by the guards. With her handcuffed wrists hanging low, she wandered coolly through the living room and kitchen as if she were touring the house. From the porch entrance came the quiet but angry voice of my grandmother, who was blocking the front to keep the guards at bay. Maybe she was arguing with them as to whether they’d used excessive force after seeing reddish bruises on the cheeks and arms of the Omega.
I’d never been alone with the Omega before, and I didn’t know what to do. I followed her slowly, but she never gave me so much as a glance. It was as if she didn’t see me. For a long time, she gazed in seeming interest at the picture frames on the wall, the decorative plates on the shelf, and the glass teacups with wavy gold-trimmed edges. Then she walked to the side of the round table where I always enjoyed a late breakfast and early dinner with my grandmother and stopped cold. She began to inspect me directly.
Following her lead, I looked the Omega full in the face. Her lips had been pursed from the time I’d first seen her, as if she were keeping her anger in check. Yet strangely enough, depending on how her eyes moved, she also seemed to be holding back laughter. Only her large brown eyes revealed how she was feeling. She moved the muscles around her arched brows even in moments of stillness, indicating by turns curiosity or boredom with the vanity of the world. You could tell she was instantly registering objects in her sightline as either interesting or dull, and made no attempt to hide it.
With a glance, the Omega judged me, her Alpha, to be unworthy. Anyone could see it. You could tell she had a different energy from me by the stockiness of her back and the outline of her shoulders through her clothes. She was about ten centimeters taller. I had to lift my chin in order not to shrink under her gaze. But because I was clasping my hands together to hide my nervousness, I looked just like her—someone handcuffed and under arrest.
We were twins looking at each other for the first time. Originally, we were supposed to meet on our eighteenth birthday and observe the coming-of-age ceremony without incident after exchanging some pleasantries suited to the occasion. But our birthday had already passed three days ago, and I was uneasy that there might be a blot on my life that could never be erased. I’d been very anxious, and from the moment my Omega had walked into the house like a captured game animal, I thought only of how to salvage the situation.
But this girl just looked at me with an inscrutable expression. “What now? Shall we shake hands?” she asked.
When I held out my hand in confusion, she was like my own mirror image, offering her left hand at the same time. After taking it, I felt a shock. She was left-handed. Why did we share this trait of all things?
That evening, my grandmother lifted a portable charcoal grill onto the table and cooked a light mandu jeongol seasoned only with salt. It was a dish she was proud of and often served to company. I was particularly fond of the handmade mandu stuffed with minced meat and chives. But it turned out that the Omega did not eat meat.
My grandmother thought it a shame. “Oh my,” she said. “I had no idea.”
The Omega had seemed almost expressionless, but then she warmed up and laughed unexpectedly.
“It’s all right. There’s plenty to eat here.”
She’d grown up at my aunt’s house in the Omega Zone, and was not the least bit shy even though it was likely her first time meeting my grandmother. My grandmother, who’d been living with a sensitive granddaughter bereft of all cuteness and absorbed only in books, couldn’t disguise her joy at the appearance of an expressive new grandchild.
But I could tell the Omega was using her charms to some end. There was something she wanted that she was slyly hiding from us. Throughout the meal I kept a keen eye on this uncomfortable and unsettling guest as if she were an intruder. Oblivious to this, the Omega picked out mushrooms, mung-bean sprouts, and squash from the soup pot and savored them. The side dishes were nothing special, but the Omega would alternate putting some of each on top of every spoonful of warm rice, taking huge mouthfuls to please my grandmother. I would never spread oil or spices from the side dishes on my bowl of rice. I frowned at the very sight of such behavior.
While we ate, my grandmother said she’d chased away the guards and assured us they couldn’t force us to do anything.
“You two just have your coming-of-age ceremony whenever you like. It’s your affair, isn’t it? Of course, it is.”
“But I’d like to have the ceremony right now.” I spoke to my grandmother even as I looked straight at the Omega. “Everyone has to go through this rite of passage when it’s time, so there is no point in delaying or missing it. I won’t be left an incomplete failure.”
I couldn’t forget the sight of the Omega entering the house, a criminal in handcuffs. Was it that she would actually become a part of me? No, in fact, the scary thing was, she could be my future self.
“Of course, I’ll observe the coming-of-age ceremony one day.” The Omega spoke calmly, rummaging through the vegetables on her plate with her chopsticks. “I just don’t want to do it now. I’d also like to get to know you better.”
The Omega smiled sweetly while telling this unfunny lie that made my body stiffen. It was forbidden to meet or converse with your twin before the coming-of-age ceremony. This rule was stipulated by the law, but because it applied to minors, the penalty for breaking it was only a slap on the wrist. Even so, it was regarded as custom. Twins were raised apart in the Alpha Zone and Omega Zone respectively under the care of family members. Even though the Omega knew this full well, she was being childish and difficult.
“That’s right. You don’t have any sisters. It’s good for you to be sisters for a moment. How great it would be if you became friends.”
My grandmother obviously regarded all these things as a matter of her grandchildren experiencing growing pains and taking a little detour from their set path.
“Yes. I’d like to hear you tell some stories, too, Grandmother, before I become one with the Alpha and know you in that way.”
“Of course, you will. I’ll tell you as many as you’d like. We always have more time than we think unless we fritter it away mindlessly.”
I was the only one in a rush. The Omega who sat across the table made eye contact every so often as she ate. But the motion of her jaws moving up and down didn’t stop as she kept chewing her food, slowly, slowly, and she didn’t turn away from my gaze. She looked at me indifferently, like I was dessert on the next plate.
“It’s funny that they say it’ll happen if you fall asleep holding hands.”
It was the room I’d had all my life, and the room I expected to have when I became an adult after celebrating the coming-of-age ceremony with the Omega; a second-floor room where, not long ago, my grandmother had replaced the bedding and the curtains. The Omega entered and said, “It’s even more absurd than saying that you become pregnant if you fall asleep holding hands with a man. I heard that old wives’ tale from an older cousin when I was eight. Of course, I didn’t believe it. How about you?”
“How about what?”
“When did you find out?”
I didn’t respond. This person was my twin, but even so, we’d only just met, and she should have had the sense not to keep coming up with these distasteful stories. To think she was a part of me just made me angry.
The Omega, now smiling a little, sat on the bed and stretched her arms back, making herself at home. She was wearing one of my oversized T-shirts and shorts, exposing her long white legs. She watched to see how my expression would change as she grabbed hold of the new light green comforter as if it were her own. When I didn’t react, she shifted her gaze and glanced dismissively at the desk facing the window and the stacked piles of books.
“So this is the little princess Grandmother raised so prettily, and it turns out she’s a bookworm . . .”
She abruptly got up and strode toward the wall where I was standing. Her very approach was intimidating because she was so tall. Standing in front of me, she shook her head and said in a stage whisper, “On top of that, you’re little Miss Perfect and a fool who hasn’t experienced anything yet.”
At that moment, I resisted the urge to retreat a half step. “At least I’m not immature like you. And I’m not hurting anyone.”
“Who did I hurt?” The Omega put her hands on her hips and looked at me as if she really didn’t know. “You’re the one who’s scared. Scared because you can’t perform the coming-of-age ceremony properly. As if that’s some terrible event that will wreck your life.”
“Everyone becomes an adult in the ordinary way, so why are you deviating from it? Why in the hell would you do that?”
The smile left the Omega’s face. Her curiosity and interest disappeared again, and she looked at me coldly. My grandmother brought us a spare comforter, and the Omega brushed by me to get it. It was only when she stopped looking at me that I understood what her expression meant. She thought I was pathetic.
After spreading the comforter out between the bed and the desk, she asked, “Do you think of me as a nutrient, or maybe a toxin, that you’ll absorb?”
“What?”
The Omega shook her head slowly, as if she were going to deny a request even though I hadn’t asked for anything.
“I’ve known my other half for five hours and I’m already bored. It can’t be helped that you’re a stuffy, old-fashioned type, but I didn’t expect you to be stupid.”
“What?” I said, and then wondered if it was a stupid question.
The Omega shrugged her shoulders. As if genuinely curious, she asked, “Don’t you even think for yourself?”
I could neither acknowledge nor understand this criticism, and I was left speechless. What was this girl saying? As I tried to calm down and think up ways to defend myself, a truth gradually took shape in my mind. I’d been so impatient to perform the coming-of-age ceremony and become an adult that I’d missed something. I slowly began to realize what it meant to become one with this strange, boundlessly unknowable being and how unprepared I was for that frightening prospect.
Everything was terrible, but if I had to choose the worst thing, it would be the Omega’s language. She was as mild as a lamb in front of my grandmother and the neighbors, but when she wanted to knock me down, she suddenly changed and spewed this cruel and aggressive invective. Each time she managed to hit upon the very thing that made me most ashamed.
“So, do you have friends? How can you go without talking to anyone for a week?”
The Omega was glued to her phone every night, clamoring on about vulgar things to friends of the very same type. “You’re crazy. You’re really a crazy guy.” Sometimes she’d lower her voice a little and speak indirectly, which meant she was talking about me. “How can I put it? Super soft, and yet pretty hard?”
Of course, I heard everything she said. My grandmother had told me that she’d been raised at my aunt’s house in the Omega Zone. Even though I’d never been there, I could guess the environment: there’d be a room by the entrance so that she could sneak in fast even at dawn, and low windows through which her friends could come and go regardless of the hour. Stolen beer and loud music. Cigarette butts damp with saliva. Piles of trash. Ugly tattoos expressing blasphemy and blind rage. I was sure that she had a tattoo somewhere. What would become of these disgusting marks when we became one?
I already knew the answer. After the coming-of-age ceremony, the physical characteristics of the Alpha and Omega were randomly selected in the adult. Male and female twins wouldn’t even know what sex they would be after the ceremony.
When they became one adult, the only thing that was completely transferred over from both the Alpha and Omega was their memories. The twins’ memories and thoughts, their accumulated knowledge, would not be weakened or distorted, but combined harmoniously into one self. It was an amazing experience of course, but not unusual. That was how everyone became an adult. The coming-of-age ceremony was rather a clear and precise event that was scheduled for everyone.
At least, that’s what I’d believed. Admittedly, I saw the coming-of-age ceremony as a sort of certificate of completion for those who’d made it to their late teens and would finally develop new tastes and abilities that they didn’t have before. But what was left ahead of me now was a haze of confusion so thick I couldn’t see an inch in front of my face. How was I supposed to join with this girl for the rest of my life when I couldn’t even stand to live in the same house as her? Carelessly throwing the clothes she’d worn on a chair inside-out, always leaving streaks of toothpaste in the sink, never caring what traces she left of herself. Having a mint chocolate latte every day for lunch and drinking it hot; lazing around in the morning and running around wild at night; and even going to bed at dawn and listening to crime shows through worn out headphones with the sound leaking out of them. Would I really combine harmoniously with this person?
“Won’t I go crazy? Hasn’t that ever happened to anyone?” I asked my grandmother, who was sitting next to me knitting a small handbag.
“I’ve never heard of that. In many cases, you have a tough time facing real problems after the coming-of-age ceremony, but the process itself is very safe.”
My grandmother’s brown eyes shone mischievously when she glanced at me over the thin round lenses of her glasses. I was a little taken aback to notice their resemblance to the Omega’s.
“The Alpha and the Omega combine naturally after the coming-of-age ceremony, like a pair assigned to be together from the beginning that grow to fit each other closely. They get along seamlessly.”
Terrified, I shut my eyes tight. My grandmother set her knitting needles down on her lap, stretched out her arm and gently rubbed my cheek with her thumb. This is what she used to do to praise me when I was a child. She would praise me when I carried the plates and dishes to the sink after a meal, or when I’d watered her favorite herbs in their beds, or when I got up from falling and went to her without crying. I remembered those times. But would I still really recall them with the same feeling after becoming one with the Omega?
“I’m not sure if I should really become one with the Omega now. I don’t like her, Grandma. I can’t understand what she’s thinking, and I can’t believe that her risk-seeking behavior will become a part of me. And what’s more, she looks down on me. She thinks I’m still young.”
“Take time to think it over.”
My grandmother stirred again, and began knitting an elaborate design. The thick blue yarn of the warp and weft woven in all different directions were coming together, and the form of a handle was close to taking shape. She promised to give it to me when it was finished. Once again, she offered some friendly advice.
“Thinking of that girl is like thinking of yourself. However much you worry about her, it’s never a waste of time.”
That evening, when I finished showering on the first floor and went up the stairs, the Omega pushed open the door, which was already ajar, and came out into the dark hallway. She put a finger to her lips. “Don’t scream.”
The room was cramped with four people. There were two girls and two guys. One was on the bed, two were on the floor, and there was even one perched up on my desk. Slowly, I saw that none of them had removed their shoes. They were all friends of my Omega from the Omega Zone who had braved the danger to secretly come see her. Two waved at me and said hello, and the others made eye contact with each other and snickered. Yes, they were Omegas, too.
“It’s forbidden for you to be in the Alpha Zone. My goodness, haven’t you heard of rules before?”
Even though I was overcome with anger, I lowered my voice instinctively as my grandmother was probably already sleeping on the floor below. Despite my admonition, the Omega’s friends were comfortably sprawled around, chatting and giggling. I could hear them saying, “As long as we don’t get caught,” and “Come on, Alpha, let’s go play.” The smell of beer wafted from their lips. It was quite a spectacle to see so many people in my room for the first time. I’d never seen someone with their rear end on my desk, kicking the bottom drawer steadily with their heels. Unable to take it anymore, I went up to the guy and said through clenched teeth, “Get down. You get down.”
“Oh, yes. Sorry.”
I pointed as if to pierce his chest with my finger, and the guy, who had dyed silver hair, raised his hands in surrender and meekly lowered himself to the floor. But then he made eye contact with my Omega and laughed unrestrainedly. I recalled the Omega’s words, “Super soft and yet very hard.” I blushed, wondering if they were thinking the same thing. It seemed like these guys were expecting the night to be unforgettable. I stared back at my Omega watching me calmly with folded arms. I announced, “This is my house, and this is my room.”
“Yes, but they’ll also be mine one day if we follow your wish and observe the coming-of-age ceremony.”
Trying to hide that I was breathing quickly, I said, “No, we will be a blend of the two of us. I’d never let this nonsense happen if I was part of a consciousness. Even if you were part of me, it would be impossible.”
My Omega’s friends clapped soundlessly and raised a cheer, but it was nothing more than to mock me.
“Send them back.”
“No way. They drove three hours to get here.”
My Omega wouldn’t back down, and she glared at me. But the next moment she burst out laughing as if it was all a joke.
“Okay, we’re going. We were planning to go anyway.”
“But not you,” I said, putting myself in her way.
“Oh, yes, me too,” she said, placing her hand lightly on my shoulder.
“You aren’t part of me yet, so you can’t affect my thoughts and feelings.”
My Omega gave a wink to her friends and they began stepping onto the windowsill and going out in single file. They’d clearly entered the room the same way. They took hold of the rusty balcony railing quite fearlessly and dangled for a moment before dropping down into the dirt-covered yard below.
When they all left, the Omega took my Alpha Zone pass out of her jeans pocket and waved it around. “And I’ll be borrowing this.”
“Did you go through my room? To steal my pass and use it without permission?”
My body was shaking, but my mind was cool and lucid. Everything was clear now. This girl was not on my side. She was my enemy, come to destroy me and my future.
“Do I have to come here in handcuffs again for being outside the designated zone? Do you really want to have those records and memories in your life?” This time the Omega tried to use the truth to convince me, and didn’t say anything deliberately malicious. However, it was the threat I’d feared most and it struck me to the heart.
“You’re incorrigible. Anyone would give up on a girl like you.” As I spoke, I realized my patience had run out. The Omega had been smiling, excited to see her friends, but now her mouth slowly closed. I went on. “You must have hurt those who approached to give you love. Just because you wanted to. You just did whatever you pleased. You’d excuse yourself by saying you couldn’t help it, it was a compulsion, right? Isn’t that how it’s been? But know this. There are people who disregard their desires and impulses and make hard choices. Not everyone lives as recklessly as you.”
The Omega was quiet for a long time even after I finished. While I could hear my ragged breathing, she looked at me in silence as if she’d stopped breathing completely. She shuffled toward the window without answering.
“I have no idea what you think you know about me to mouth off like that, but I do know one thing.” Placing one foot on the windowsill as if about to jump out into the darkness, the Omega finally turned around and looked at me. “If you criticize or hurt me, it will come back to haunt you. It’ll become a wound you’ll carry around with forever. You still don’t understand this . . .”
She shook her head again as if I were pathetic, and then suddenly glanced at a desk drawer, the bottom one that one of her friends had been thoughtlessly kicking with his heels earlier. I felt my heart sink. I thought, No, it’s impossible, even as I was already feeling a powerful wave of dread. The Omega raised her head again to look at me, and this time you could see the malice in her eyes.
“I read your story. You hid it deep inside there, didn’t you? It’s your secret, right?”
She laughed seeing my face blanch.
“So, it’s an important part of you that you never wanted the likes of me to see. Well, even if I hadn’t seen it and you didn’t tell me about it, this secret would be meaningless anyway, as I’ll know all about it when we become one.”
After everyone left and I was alone, I turned off the light and lay down in bed, only to get up again. I dissolved some detergent in warm water, dipped a sponge in it and began to scrub off all the dirty tracks crisscrossing the white windowsill. Even though the Omegas had only stepped lightly on the windowsill, the stubborn black marks were hard to erase completely; if I didn’t give them immediate attention, they’d smear and become stains.
They reminded me of a wound I’d suffered a long time ago, so I couldn’t just leave them. Even now, the people responsible wouldn’t know that they’d hurt me. It was their very indifference that made me feel like a trampled windowsill. So I had this wound, but it made me feel a little better to think that the Omega’s heart would be scraped like this when we were united.
I opened the third drawer and saw a familiar old chocolate box. I removed the lid to find a messy pile of notebooks inside. I couldn’t remember ever placing them in the wrong order, so I concluded that the Omega must have really seen them when they were meant to be private. I hadn’t opened the box for six months, partly because my writing had stalled, and partly because I realized I no longer found reading or writing any fun. But the most important reason was that I didn’t find my writing to be honest. Even though I’d never planned to base my fiction on true stories, I ended up quitting when I realized that my writing was different from the truth.
Maybe something happened inside me at that time, but I still don’t know which pebble caused the first soft ripples. My feelings changed from moment to moment and when the colorful, dancing waters struck a momentary balance, the mood appeared for a moment only to disappear again. I couldn’t believe in anything. My mind was made up of haphazard feelings back then, so I wasn’t able to really know myself. I was surprised to realize that I was as ignorant of myself as I was of the Omega.
The Omega returned at dawn, just as the sun was starting to come up, and she shook me from my sleep. She kept asking me something. I wasn’t fully awake, so I had to focus on her lips to understand what she was saying, even though she was right in my face.
“I’m talking about the swamp. Was your friend’s hand really eaten by a crocodile?” The hot, buzzy odor of alcohol on her breath hit me each time she exhaled.
I turned my head away, irritated. “Are you talking about my story?”
“Did you really throw that guy’s watch into the swamp? And did he lower his hand in the murky, muddy water and swirl it around for a long time? Until the crocodile appeared?” As I lay still, listening, the Omega’s words seemed a little slurred. I finally just closed my eyelids, weighed down with drowsiness, and lay an arm across my forehead to block the view.
“It’s a story. Of course, it didn’t really happen.”
“It’s not real?”
“What, you think it’s real?”
I opened my eyes a little because the Omega didn’t answer. In the dark, I could dimly make out the uncomprehending expression on her face.
She asked again. “Then what was the story supposed to represent? The story of someone who believes he’s separated from his hand, who imagines the lost hand moving and is finally controlled by suggestions from the hand?”
“It wasn’t representing anything.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing. It’s just a story.”
When I said it, I realized that it was true. I wasn’t thinking of any incident or particular facts when I wrote that story. Still, the feelings and cast of mind I had when I wrote it had remained with me.
My pulse beat faster than usual. I felt some tension, or maybe it was only anticipation. Just from the fact that someone knew this story besides myself set my mind moving like moss in a current of soft, warm water. I found out for the first time that this story could be shared. We both knew the riddles from hints in the debris, even if I didn’t tell her exactly how I was feeling then. But still I felt that it was improbable.
“Then you aren’t the person who’s looking at the friend and feeling guilty?”
I was about to automatically agree when I stopped myself. The Omega seemed absorbed in thought while I took time to answer. It was only then that I noticed my notebooks physically scattered over my neck, chest, and stomach. I’d taken them out of the box and stuffed them in the trash can before I went to sleep. It was clearly my Omega who’d retrieved them and put them back in my arms. I felt the skin on my back and arms tingling, as I realized what the Omega’s motive was. I was shocked to think I knew how the Omega felt. If my feeling was correct, she was sorry.
Inside me, I felt one part of an infinitely long stone wall crumbling. Only when it crumbled a little did I come to learn it had existed at all. A narrow stream of water came over the ruined part, and I saw the scene on the other side, like a small part of a picture. Even though I couldn’t see it for certain, I could tell it was the Omega’s world. I didn’t feel this way because she felt apologetic, but because I could see she was a person like me who’d made a mistake and regretted it. I imagined how many rash decisions she’d made, and how she’d regretted them and yet repeated the same mistakes anyway. At that moment, I felt compassion for her.
Now the Omega burrowed into her bedding with her back curled up like a dried shrimp. I saw her all hunched over as the pale morning light seeped into the room. I watched her shrink to the point where she might soon disappear from the world, and it was as I was registering this movement, static but intent, that I eventually fell asleep.
The Omega and I had our birthdays at the beginning of the summer. By then, enough time had passed that I’d somewhat adjusted to living with her. On Sunday mornings, we took the bus three stops to Big Mart to do our shopping. We bought items that were too heavy for our grandmother to carry, like fruits and vegetables, orange juice and soy milk, and large boxes of cereal. When we finished, we’d go to the Big Mart basement food corner and order gelato ice cream. I’d have chocolate hazelnut and Omega would have mint chocolate. We didn’t concern ourselves with each other’s tastes at all. Even God didn’t know whose tastes would survive after the coming-of-age ceremony.
On our way back and forth to the supermarket, we’d run into many kids I knew from school. We weren’t very close, so I usually didn’t stop the cart and just waved as we continued on in the opposite direction. Sometimes kids would recognize the Omega at my side and say, “I heard the news! Are you okay?” and make a fuss. Automatically I’d say, “Yes, of course, I’m fine.” But even so, it was hard to distinguish between what was fine and what wasn’t. Only, if we didn’t undergo the coming-of-age ceremony by the end of summer vacation and the start of fall, then the Omega and I would both have to attend school together, and I was unsure as to how we’d do that.
I’d just found out something about the Omega. She was smarter than I thought, and she knew lots of things as well. She wasn’t exactly good at studying, but she was interested in logical reasoning and learning the ways of the world. Like a walking dictionary, she had a knack for explaining in simple language the concepts and issues that she was knowledgeable about.
One day, we were out grocery shopping. We were sitting on the bus with our bags on our laps when the Omega told me about the horrors of single-crop cultivation. Like a livestock farm, a single plant species grown densely in a designated area was an artificial environment created by humans, she said, and as a part of this process, thousands of living things were regarded as pests and weeds, and exterminated for no good reason.
“But this can’t be helped, as pests damage our food supply,” I remarked, but the Omega firmly shook her head.
“In the age of primitive cultivation, insects weren’t a major worry for farmers. The problem became worse back when crop varieties were streamlined in the age of large-scale farming. This created the right environment for certain insect populations to explode. We’ve turned these insects into a problem, and now we’re trying to kill them.”
The Omega added that it was obvious that a continuous monoculture would destroy sections of land. She pointed out that you had to leave this kind of land fallow, or it would become sand where no seed could sprout. Also, she said that if a typhoon hit, land cultivated with single crops just got swept away, unlike in a natural ecosystem where the roots of trees and weeds and other plants were evenly entwined.
“A crop like this can’t protect itself, nor the surrounding area. So, streamlining is always a problem.”
I had a strange feeling as I watched my Omega become absorbed in cause-and-effect systems and natural cycles, and seeing her ardently wish for a better future. It seemed inconsistent, thinking of the aggression and selfishness she showed from time to time. Couldn’t she sense her own contradictions? Moreover, I, her Alpha, never cared about these distant, obscure things. What was meaningful to me was knowing who I was and what I was becoming. Since meeting the Omega, however, the outside world had become something inseparable from me that couldn’t be stripped away.
I’d been going through transitions as well. In fact, something happened, and I didn’t know how to reconcile myself with it. I started hanging out with the Omega’s fearless friends, who took their parents’ cars and crossed into our zone every weekend. At first, my intention was to protect the Omega, who’d eventually become a part of me. I just closed my eyes and followed, but in time, I naturally accepted the alcohol and crackers they offered me. At first glance, they were rebellious and acted like delinquents, and it was true there was this aspect to them, but they regarded themselves as revolutionaries.
“We’re trying to make a choice. We’ll no longer accept a given situation out of ignorance, and instead become true agents, conscious of how things work.”
I half admired the Omegas’ aspirations, but at the same time I thought they were pathetic. They put on a good outward appearance, but to me, they were just silly kids shirking adulthood.
Even so, Suho was the real reason I went to the empty tennis court parking lot and sat with the group. Suho was the silver-haired guy who had been sitting cockily on my desk the first evening they’d descended on my room. The Omega was able to tell me this before I knew it myself.
“Do you really like him?” she asked when we returned to our room together. I denied it. But from that night to the next morning and even all the way to the next weekend—for a whole week—her words rang in my ear. I finally blurted out that I guess I did like him.
“Then why don’t you call him before we get together this weekend? Just make small talk about something.”
I perfunctorily refused her suggestion, but that night, I called him in secret. I thought about how badly the Omega would mock me when we became one and she found out.
“Oh, hi.” When I told him who I was, Suho said my name once, surprised. The Omega and I had the same name. This was the first time he’d called me by this name, and not the Omega. I’d never expressed fondness like this for anyone before, so I was very tense. Fortunately, he read my intentions and kept things relaxed.
The Omegas came faithfully that weekend, and when he saw me, Suho came and sat down on my right side. He stretched his arm back and propped himself up with his left hand on the floor, close to my back.
Today the revolutionary party was discussing some twins who refused the coming-of-age ceremony due to strong feelings of love or hate.
“Some twins in the Alpha Zone fell deeply in love. They avoided the coming-of-age ceremony and ran away out of fear that it would change how they felt. One of them was captured by the security forces and ended up becoming one with his Omega. The one who remained an Alpha evaded detection but when she found her boyfriend, who was now an adult, he’d really become a different person. They say he had no love left for her.”
“So what happened then?”
“Oh, things got pretty ugly. The girlfriend kept stalking him and one day he grew exasperated and told her to get a hold of herself.”
“Oooh, that gives me goosebumps.”
“There’s a well-known story about two Omega friends, as well. They snuck out of their zone just like us to see their Alphas. They were curious as to what their other halves were like. But one of them saw his Alpha and they fell in love, and the other hated his Alpha and she hated him back. The two of them, actually all four of them, had reasons they couldn’t undergo the coming-of-age ceremony.”
“What was the problem with the twins who’d fallen in love?”
“They thought that the one-of-a-kind person that they loved would disappear in the ceremony. If they combined to become one with each other, their half would no longer be a separate person that they could love.”
At this point, Suho whispered in my ear so that only I could hear. “Let’s go to the car later.”
I nodded.
“So what happened to the Omega friends?”
“There was nothing they could do. They were caught, and they performed the coming-of-age ceremony. I heard that once they became one, their problems disappeared. The strange thing is that the friends, who’d been close, broke up with each other permanently. Thinking of each other reminded them of how they’d anguished over their feelings of love and hate.”
Suho took my hand and got up. “We’re going to get some more water.”
“Great. Come back soon.”
Quick as a cat, the Omega raised her hand to wave and send us off. I thought that it was lucky that it was so dark. If we’d gone into the light, my face would have been bright red for everyone to see.
That night the Omega climbed onto my bed and pestered me with questions.
“So what did you do with him?”
“I didn’t do anything,” I protested, but it was useless. The Omega was all wound up.
“Don’t be silly. You didn’t do anything, but you kissed?”
“It just happened.”
“Tell me everything. Don’t leave anything out. Tell me. I’m going to find out anyway.”
I’d never had a conversation like that with anyone before. To tell the truth, I’d never had such a close relationship before. At times I had worried whether I had a serious problem.
“Who else can you confide in, if not me?” The Omega was right. I gave a nod in agreement. So I told her about the unexpectedly clean smell of soap on his wrist when he was leading me away and holding my face in one of his hands, and his careful manner when he smoothed down my hair. Because our lips felt a little dry, I was confused as to whether they’d really touched. I felt braver talking to the Omega than I had felt with Suho.
The Omega, who laughed and laughed during my story, took things a step further and said, “Do you know how pretty you look today?”
I’d never been complimented in this way before. I was a little surprised that my Omega was the first to tell me this, so I filed it away in my memory.
When that horrible call came, I was scrubbing the spaces between the bathroom tiles with a worn-down toothbrush. The Omega was out jogging across a river bridge. Even though I was fed up with her for still leaving toothpaste and shampoo bubbles thoughtlessly all over the bathroom, I scoured the marks anyway. She was hopeless. Sweat was streaming from my forehead and neck, and even though I’d rolled my pants up to my knees, the edges along the bottom were damp and dark when I finished cleaning and returned to my room. Now the summer days would soon cool down. Every year at around this time, the fall sky would drape down over the world like a magic canopy, and cool, refreshing winds would blow in all directions.
“Hello.” It was Suho, and I was glad to have answered his call, so my voice was louder and higher than usual. Maybe it was loud enough for the Omega to overhear it coming up the stairs as she returned from jogging. And that’s why she could guess what the call was about.
“Hey, look . . .”
When I turned around with the dead receiver still in my hand, the Omega and I faced each other all in a sweat. We looked at each other like strangers, just as we had when the Omega first came to the house in handcuffs. Displeased, she frowned and took a step towards me.
“Did he tell you everything?”
“Do you find this amusing?” The Omega stopped where she was, and I kept talking. “It’s pretty fricking hilarious, isn’t it?”
“Hey, don’t misunderstand this. I’m not interested in him.”
“He likes you, and you knew it. So you goaded me on, and laughed at how ridiculous I looked in my enjoyment.”
“You’re talking about last year. I didn’t know that he still liked me.” The Omega stamped her foot as if she too was indignant. “He thought that if he went out with you then he could win me over as well when we observed the coming-of-age ceremony and I became your other half. What a jackass.”
Suho hadn’t told me that in so much detail. On the phone, he just said he was sorry and that he’d been late in realizing that he had wronged me. He hoped I would forgive him. I just hung up on him without answering.
“Don’t be hurt by something so trivial. Just forget about it,” the Omega said in what was almost a comforting tone.
“Trivial?”
“Yes, let’s not get all sensitive.”
“You’re saying I’m being too sensitive right now?” She’d used the word that cut me instantly. I was always struggling to not be sensitive.
“If you think about it, it’s not something to freak out about.” The Omega spoke irritably as she smoothed back her sweaty hair. “When we become one, this guy will also be attracted to you.”
“You think I want that?”
“You don’t?” Now Omega was in her customary attack mode, and she smiled mockingly. “You don’t think I know that you’re jealous of my friends?”
“What? Jealous of your kind of friends?”
“Yes. You’re squeaky clean and so full of prejudice, and you think you hate us, yet you can’t stop looking at us.”
I fiddled with the dry towel around my neck, using it to wipe the sweat off my chest and back. Then I bent over to carefully wipe the sweat that had dripped onto the floor.
“Oh, God. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” It was only then that the Omega realized I was crying and apologized to me in confusion. She felt sorry and at a loss, but she couldn’t understand the sorrow flooding into me. She’d never understand. What was the meaning of acting thoughtlessly, and the price of tearing up other’s hearts and wounding them? And the ridiculous contradiction of wanting to be forgiven? My heart was stabbed with pain.
Then an peculiar thought occurred to me, quite unexpectedly. I still felt sad, with my lips trembling and tears streaming down, but inside, I had this thought. I’d forgive the Omega right away. She’d felt remorse for her mistake, so that was enough, I’d say, telling her that the important thing was to not repeat it. Then she’d nod, apologize again, and remember this day with a clear conscience. And I’d hate the Omega forever. My plan was to hide my hatred deep inside even as I looked at her warmly, patted her hand affectionately, and became one with her. I shuddered at the great hatred I had for the Omega. I wondered if I’d end up a broken, self-hating adult.
I was terrified and wanted to flee the room right then. But the Omega held me by the hand.
“Sometimes I don’t understand what I’m saying.” She wasn’t speaking in her usual confident voice, but fumbling for words, so I listened carefully. “This isn’t the way I wanted to live. It’s so hard. Sometimes things inside me are so dark and sharp.”
Her eyes wavered as if she was the one confused. Then she said, “But you’re not like that. You’re all right. So I wonder if it’s really okay for you to become one with someone like me.”
Oh, the poor Omega, I thought to myself. What should I do with you? What should I do?
That night the Omega and I talked for a long time in the darkness. She talked about her relationship with our aunt, who’d given her everything she needed but was so indifferent. As long as the Omega’s bag was on the sofa, the aunt didn’t notice no matter how long the Omega was out. And our aunt had been very insensitive to tell the Omega honestly about our parents when she was still very young. “What story?” My grandmother still hadn’t told me the story. Then the Omega gave in and told me the secret of our birth, which was a little shocking. “The person who bore us was our mother’s Omega, but the person our father had loved first was our mother’s Alpha.”
“She stole him?”
“That’s what happened.” The Omega sighed. “And since they couldn’t forgive each other, the three of them just up and ran away.”
“It sounds like a lie.”
“Doesn’t it?”
Admitting that she was blunt like her aunt, the Omega let me in on a secret. “I like one of the revolutionaries. Even though I’ve already been dumped.”
I bolted up from the bed. “Jihoon?”
“Jinju.”
“Whoa.” I flounced back on the bed and laughed, and the Omega laughed too.
After deliberating for a while, I told the Omega the story of how I stole my art teacher’s palette knife in elementary school. My art teacher was a middle-aged man who wore his long, thick, gray hair tied back in a ponytail and dressed in a modern hanbok always smeared with paint or grayish-brown clay. The children disliked him because he smelled bad when he came near.
“I hadn’t thought of him at all until the incident.”
“What happened?”
“I was classroom helper one day, so I came before class and filled a jar of water at every desk. It was just me and that teacher alone in the room together. Even though I greeted him and carried the jars, making quite a racket, he didn’t pay any attention to me. I had the strangest feeling, as if he wasn’t ignoring me, but failing to see or hear me at all. So I began to watch him very closely. My teacher kept acting as if he didn’t know I was doing this. He was wiping a palette knife with a red cloth. It was a flat, lightning-shaped blade with a wooden handle. It wasn’t sharp at all. I’d seen him use this palette knife during class to take paint, then press and spread it. But this was the first time I’d seen him wipe it. I had the feeling I was seeing something that I shouldn’t have, like stealing a peek at the dark side of the moon. My teacher was focused on his task, oblivious to whether I watched him or not. He buffed the metal along the grain, and where the cloth had passed, the blade was shiny. He turned the knife over several times in front of him, to check that it was free of paint, and then nodded and put it with the others on a pile to the side. He’d always nod once to indicate when work was done. It was a little strange, but looking at him, I thought he seemed very lonely, and it wasn’t just a passing state; his whole life seemed drawn out and lonely. Class started and then finished, and even though I’d returned to my homeroom, I thought about his loneliness all day. Before I returned home, I went back to the art room and stole one of the palette knives. I picked it up, slipped it into my skirt pocket, and left. It was very easy.”
The Omega asked, “Why did you do it?”
“I have no idea.”
It seemed like the Omega was immersed in thought, so I waited, and then she said, “I have a similar story. Actually, it didn’t happen all that long ago, maybe last winter. There was a small grocery store in my neighborhood, and it was always bustling with customers. So there was hardly a time when the woman who owned the place was away from the counter, but that day, the store was empty and she was nowhere to be found. I was waiting to pay for a cola and potato chips. But even though I’d waited a while, no one appeared. It was as if everyone in the world had disappeared into another dimension. I don’t know what got into me, but I went to the canned goods section and opened a tin of peaches and ate it. The yellow juice that clotted in the can was sweet, lukewarm, and sticky. On an impulse, I threw it to the floor and brazenly opened other cans and ate their contents. I tasted one and threw it down, tasted another and threw it down. It was very simple. I was making a mess, getting the floor and display counter filthy, but no one saw me for a very long time. Inwardly, I yelled, ‘Look at me! I’m so fed up right now!’ but there was nobody around. I was exhausted. I was so exhausted that all I could do was look at the mess I’d made. I got out of there and never went back.”
I thought about what a strange conversation we were having. It was so strange that we fumbled for words and kept talking on and on, not really knowing what to say. I could see that even when we became one, we wouldn’t understand everything that had happened to us.
“How do you feel when these memories resurface?”
“They torment me. I can’t stand myself.”
Even though I knew the Omega wouldn’t see, I nodded once.
“You know, after a few days, I put the palette knife back.”
“Really?”
“Actually, the teacher must have seen me leaving the art room that day. One day, he called me over.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing special. He just said he had something for me, and gave me the palette knife as a present.”
“He said it was a present?”
“Yes. There were no ribbons or wrapping paper, but it was new.”
The Omega contemplated this for a moment.
After waiting a while, I continued, “The next day, I went into the empty room and put the palette knife back. Then, everything returned to the way it was. When I got home, I placed the new palette knife that the art teacher had given me on the desk. It was the same size and shape as the one I’d stolen. I was looking at it calmly when I suddenly felt goosebumps. I understood what had happened. I might have kept that stolen knife with me my whole life. But now I just had the one I’d received as a present. My teacher had forgiven me and saved me as well.”
“That’s really an astonishing story.”
“When I remember that, my conscience feels so clear. I feel like I have a single ray of light following me.”
“Wow.”
“So . . .” I told her what was really on my mind. “Why don’t you try going back to the store and apologize if that memory is a burden for you? I’ll go with you.”
The Omega hesitated a bit, but finally agreed to go.
The next day, I called Suho and forgave him. I told him to give us a ride, and he came in a flash. The Omega was tense all the way to the Omega Zone. Actually, I was also afraid to leave the Alpha Zone for the first time. But I thought it was necessary for all of us, so I was determined. When the Omega lost her way and fell into despair, when she wandered astray, she needed that single ray of light. Everyone needed that.
But it turned out that this was my arrogant presumption, as I’d been very lucky.
When we first came to the grocery store, the owner seemed a little drawn and pale, but she looked at us warmly. She spoke with affection, saying she remembered the Omega’s face. She’d guessed that the reason she didn’t frequent her store anymore was because she’d observed the coming-of-age ceremony and had gone away. When the Omega approached and told her what had happened the winter before, the old woman never changed her expression. Yet once in a while, she nodded as if she were listening intently. When the Omega had finished speaking and informed her of her intention to apologize, she just shook her head slowly.
“No, you can’t, dear.”
“Pardon?”
“I always blamed my son for that mess. Until you came in and told me the truth, that’s what I believed. But it turns out I was wrong. He wasn’t lying, and I made a mistake.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know I caused this misunderstanding.”
“Do you know how strongly I cursed him for that? I poured out all the hate that had been building up in my heart. I didn’t know how much I hated him. I really didn’t. Until I saw the condition of the shop that day.”
I was just behind the Omega, watching her from behind. I could sense that things had gone badly, but there was nothing I could do. Her shoulders shook and her head dropped low as she listened to what the old woman was quietly saying. I couldn’t even move. I was reminded of the way she’d looked in the dark room, curling up ever more tightly until it looked like she’d disappear from the world.
“My son couldn’t take it anymore, ran outside and got into an accident. He never woke up, and the last words he’d heard from me were so dreadful. He managed to hold on until last month, but then it was over. What I’d said was something he couldn’t overcome.”
“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Looking at the Omega trembling in horror, the old woman slowly shook her head once more. “No. I said no.”
Oh no, no. It can’t be. It can’t be. It can’t be.
On the way back, I wanted to apologize to the Omega.
“I did something that turned out to be useless. I didn’t know this would . . .”
“No. It’s not your fault.” The Omega shook her head as the old woman had done. I felt horrible. “I’m the only one who’s at fault.”
Now the Omega wouldn’t forgive herself. She would sink herself in deep water. But I wanted to forgive her. I could forgive her. Only I could do that.
That night, the Omega came up into my bed. She looked into my eyes without saying a word, but I instantly knew her intentions. She extended her left hand, and slowly taking it, I felt a vague, far-off fear. No one could be sure whether the coming-of-age ceremony would extinguish two personalities or transcend oneness. But it was clear what terribly incomplete and uncertain beings we were.
At the same time, as we left ourselves behind, we were becoming more complete at every moment.
“Do you have any memories of when we were little? I mean, from when we were still one?” the Omega asked.
“We were divided into twins when we were about three.”
“Right.”
“I have one memory.”
“What?”
“Mixing coarse salt with pastel powder and playing. We put layer upon layer of beautiful colored salt into a glass bottle to make something like a five-colored cloud.”
At that moment, the Omega’s expression softened. “Soon I’ll remember that, too.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“In terms of your story,” the Omega said, “I’ve tried to think up an ending. I hope you’ll like it.”
I nodded. Then the Omega closed her eyes. I felt hurt that she hadn’t given me any kind of farewell, but I didn’t want her to know about this feeling when we became one.
“Good night. See you tomorrow,” I whispered, my eyes closed.
It was noon before I awoke. I was a little dazed, as if waking from a long dream, but I soon felt refreshed. I felt so good that I wondered if my mind had ever been so clear before. It seemed like everything was organized and in its rightful place.
“Well.” When I didn’t get up for a long time, my grandmother came up to the room and stopped at the doorway in surprise, but just for a moment, as soon her face radiated happiness and affection. “Did you have a good sleep?”
“Yes, Grandmother. Did you sleep well, too?”
She came over and sat at the edge of the bed. “How do you feel?”
“Good. Really. It’s more natural than I expected.”
Then an emotion flashed across my grandmother’s brown eyes. I didn’t know what it was and felt puzzled.
She asked, “Shall we have a cup of tea to celebrate now that you’re an adult?”
“Sure.”
My grandmother made some aromatic bean tea, cooled it to room temperature and offered it to me. We sat at the round kitchen table and drank it. She looked at the empty chair between us for a while, and then told me a story about herself when she was still divided into Alpha and Omega. She’d never told this story while my Alpha had lived with her.
“Actually, my Alpha was in love with someone and did not want to go through with the coming-of-age ceremony. She convinced my Omega to run away and get out of it. Luckily, my Omega also had a special someone. She said that he’d died, but she agreed to run away because she couldn’t forget him.”
“You never told me you had this kind of adventure.”
“It’s all in the past.”
“So then what happened?”
“A very sad thing. Sad things have always been lying in wait for me my whole life.”
“What was it?”
“The person my Alpha loved fell in the water. At first we thought we could save him, but ultimately, it was no use. All we could do was dredge him up after he’d already died.”
“How tragic. Your Alpha and Omega both lost the ones they loved.”
“Yes. They did.” My grandmother took a sip of her tea and swallowed it slowly. “I still can’t forget the horror I felt the day of my coming-of-age ceremony.”
“Horror?”
“Yes. It was my Omega’s horror to be exact. The person my Omega loved was actually my Alpha. My Alpha would discover that when they became one. But my Omega knew that then, they both would no longer exist. It was a dreadful and confusing night.”
I was shocked by my grandmother’s story. But I didn’t ask how she felt when her Alpha and Omega became one, or what went on in her heart. I now knew that no one could talk about such things.
“By the way, my dear,” my grandmother said. “You’re really pretty.”
“Oh?”
I hadn’t seen my face yet after becoming one. At that moment, I recalled who it was that first told me this, and the pure joy I’d felt upon hearing it. I recognized that neither the person who gave the compliment nor the person who received it were with us anymore, and the pain pierced my heart.
“Grandmother?”
“Yes.”
“Will I always have to live with the pain of longing for someone?”
My grandmother gave me a surprised look, but then smiled. She stretched out her hand and gently rubbed my cheek with her thumb. That was how she’d praised my Alpha. I felt surprised by the love I already knew.
Translated by Kari Schenk
