Forced to Date 3 Alphas in a Comic: CHAPTER 3

Forced to Date 3 Alphas in a Comic: Chapter 3: What Do Pheromones Smell Like?

Reality, however, was cruel. Chao Xun opened his brand new math textbook and decided to review the material for the next class. He understood none of it. He flipped back to page one. The content felt familiar and foreign at the same time, like memories from a previous life. Well, it was from a previous life. He suspected he would have to start from the beginning of first year. Meanwhile, the school tyrant he was supposed to be pursuing seemed to either sleep through class or skip it entirely, and his exam scores were consistently near the bottom. But that was entirely because he simply couldn’t be bothered to try. His grades had at one point been near the top of the class. If you wanted to pursue someone exceptional, you had to become exceptional yourself. Chao Xun understood that clearly enough. It was precisely why the original comic had dropped a perfect male lead into the story to be his love interest. And right now, in his current state as a completely hopeless student, he had to compete with that perfect male lead before third year even began. Chao Xun thought to himself that maybe learning makeup would actually be faster. His expression as he frowned over the textbook happened to catch the eye of Mi Yu over by the door. The campus heartthrob privately sneered: this human leech is a terrible student on top of everything else. Suddenly decides to study now. Too late. Ji Yonging called him to go walk around outside. He looked away and stopped paying attention. Chao Xun had completely lost any interest in keeping an eye on his mission target. He went through every textbook one by one without giving up, until he had accepted the fact that he was hopelessly behind in every single subject. Good heavens. Studying was suddenly very hard. There was no way he could bring these grades up in the short term. He had no choice but to abandon the image of a reformed, studious student and look for another angle. He mentally apologized to the homeroom teacher. The mission came first. He would study properly whenever he had the chance. Chao Xun decisively put his book away, pulled out his phone, and searched: How to pursue a very handsome boy? He thought about it for a moment and changed the query to: How can a beta boy pursue an alpha boy? He spent several class breaks reading through answers to this question, and eventually found a blogger who appeared to have a wealth of experience on the subject. Chao Xun noted down the titles of the recommended books listed in the comments under one of their videos and planned to go to the bookstore that evening to buy them. Ke An’an, seeing him so absorbed in his phone, assumed he was still looking at those posts about himself online and was about to say something, when Chao Xun suddenly asked: “Can you recommend some of those makeup looks you mentioned this morning, the ones that suit betas?” Ke An’an: “……” He had been worrying for nothing. This person was doing just fine. Chao Xun was not doing just fine at all. He was still trying to remember where the original host had put that notebook, the one filled with information about Mi Yu. It was going to be important for the mission. Ke An’an studied his face carefully: “Let me take a photo first, then when I get home I’ll have a proper look and find you some bloggers with similar face shapes.” Very professional. Chao Xun nodded and let Ke An’an take a straight-on photo of his face. The boy in the frame had fair, clean skin and dark hair slightly tousled from not being styled. A pair of gently rounded almond eyes, softly pink lips, a narrow jaw and slightly flat chin, all of it full of the collagen that belonged to youth. “Oh! You’re really versatile looking, I think you could pull off a lot of different styles!” As he said it, Ke An’an grew increasingly enthusiastic and asked to take a few more shots, getting multiple angles up close and even a half-body shot, saying he needed it to find bloggers who could advise on hairstyles and outfit combinations. “Changing your style isn’t just about changing your makeup. Everything has to come together,” Ke An’an explained. Chao Xun nodded. Leave expert matters to experts. He thanked him and offered to buy lunch. At noon while the two of them were standing in line in the cafeteria, Chao Xun felt someone tap him on the back. He turned around to find Ke An’an looking sideways with wide eyes: “Look over there, quick. That’s the little omega. The one who was always hanging around Mi Yu while you were gone.” Following his gaze, Chao Xun immediately spotted Mi Yu sitting by the window playing with his phone, legs stretched long, that model-like presence visible from across the crowded room at a glance. Two classmates sat across from him eating and chatting. A boy with chestnut curly hair walked over carrying his tray and seemed to say something. Mi Yu didn’t look up. The two boys sitting across from him smiled and said something, and the omega, face flushed red, went and sat down in the row behind them instead. So cold. “That’s the power of being the campus heartthrob,” Ke An’an remarked. Chao Xun found it somewhat puzzling: “Aren’t you an omega? How come you don’t seem that interested in Mi Yu?” Ke An’an’s eyes went wide: “I have a very clear sense of my own limitations, thank you.” Then he snapped his mouth shut. The Chao Xun who lacked said sense of limitations had nothing to say to that. Seeing that Ke An’an had gone quiet, Ke An’an quickly changed the subject: “The basketball team is training tonight and Mi Yu will be there. I saw everyone talking about it in the group chat. Are you going?” Basketball team? Chao Xun thought about it and shook his head. “I have something on tonight.” He needed to research how to pursue an alpha. He couldn’t just act without a plan. Ke An’an gave him a slightly odd look, feeling more convinced than ever that his seatmate had genuinely changed, and quite a lot. This was the first time he had ever skipped watching Mi Yu’s training. Though he was acting very calm and unbothered, he probably still hadn’t recovered from the gender exposure incident. With that thought, Ke An’an felt a pang of sympathy. Across the cafeteria, the two of them found seats with their trays. Behind them, Ji Yonging caught a glimpse of this and poked Zhuang Xu beside him again, gesturing for him to look. Zhuang Xu looked over without knowing why, and saw Chao Xun four rows away, eating quietly while occasionally smiling and nodding at the person across from him as though agreeing with something they had said. “Is that Chao Xun?” Zhuang Xu asked, uncertain. Ji Yonging immediately dropped his head and pretended to focus on his food, while across the table Mi Yu’s face darkened as though he had just heard something out of a horror story: “What the hell, Lao Zhuang, did you have to say that in front of me?” Zhuang Xu was entirely straightforward: “Ji Yonging told me to look.” Mi Yu stood up and punched both of them once each, then walked away with a black expression. Ji Yonging rubbed his arm and grumbled: “Lao Zhuang, are you dense? I just wanted you to look. I didn’t say announce it out loud.” Zhuang Xu had thick skin and didn’t much care that he’d been hit: “Honestly didn’t recognize him just now.” And he silently added to himself: the smile really was nice. Unlike Ji Yonging who treated the whole Chao Xun situation as entertainment, Zhuang Xu’s position was much simpler. His friend found Chao Xun annoying, so he found him annoying too. But as an alpha himself, he had always privately thought that even during the period when Chao Xun was pretending to be an omega, he had looked decent enough. And now that he was a beta, Zhuang Xu actually thought the clean, unadorned version was better looking. He said mildly: “Stop bringing him up from now on. Mi-ge will get irritated.” Ji Yonging shrugged: “Fine, fine, I know. I’m not looking to get punched.” …… Ke An’an was a person whose mouth could not stay still. He ate, scrolled through his group chats, and talked all at the same time: “The group is saying they’re organizing a cheer squad to go support the school basketball team. You really aren’t going?” Chao Xun knew about that group. He had been in it when he was still officially an “omega.” By now he had already been removed. He shook his head again. Ke An’an: “Alright.” Then he casually shared more from the group: “They’re saying one of the regular players on the basketball team got injured and a substitute was brought in, so tonight Mi Yu is going to be training with the replacement to build chemistry. Apparently it’s going to be like this for a while.” The Mi Yu encyclopedia in Chao Xun’s head automatically loaded: height 186cm, jersey number 7, official member of the school basketball team, position small forward. Accompanied by countless gorgeous images of the campus heartthrob playing basketball. He shook his head again and scattered the images away. That was really quite enough. Ke An’an: “Probably just as well you’re not going. Most of the cheer squad are omegas and the basketball team are all alphas, so pheromones could easily get out of control and cause problems. The school probably won’t let them in to watch casually anyway.” He had nearly forgotten that detail. Omegas and alphas released pheromones. A shame that he was a beta and couldn’t smell the legendary pheromones, with no way to experience whatever the fuss was about. Ke An’an: “Don’t worry too much about any of that. None of those omegas have managed to win over the great campus heartthrob Mi over all these years. Maybe now that you’ve become a beta it’ll actually get his attention somehow?” Chao Xun was at something of a loss for words: sure, Mi Yu doesn’t bother with those omegas, but he doesn’t bother with betas like me either. Because what he actually wants is an alpha who can match him. Sigh. This was really difficult. Seeing that Ke An’an was about to start reading out more messages from the group, Chao Xun changed the subject: “I’ve heard pheromones all have specific scents. Have you ever smelled Mi Yu’s?” Ke An’an went pink: “What are you saying, why would he ever just let us smell his. But I did see someone in the group claim it’s sea salt. No idea if that’s true or not.” So pheromones had that specific a scent? Chao Xun was mildly fascinated and made a mental note to find some sea salt when he got home and smell what it was actually like. Now even more curious, he asked: “What about you? What’s your scent?” Ke An’an went even redder. He flicked a glance at Chao Xun’s open, guileless expression and said quietly: “……Tomato.” That sounds like a flavor of crisps. Chao Xun was taken aback. He said with complete sincerity: “That actually sounds delicious. I’d really like to smell it.” Ke An’an was practically burying his face in his bowl. Why had Chao Xun gotten so forward since he stopped pretending to be an omega? Saying his pheromones smelled delicious and he wanted to smell them… how was that any different from flirting? Had he forgotten again that he was a beta? Chao Xun meanwhile was thinking that pheromones really were a fascinating thing. What a shame he was a beta. That afternoon Chao Xun sent a message to Uncle Lin saying he was going to the bookstore after school and didn’t need to be picked up. Uncle Lin was not at all comfortable with this and insisted on driving him there. Chao Xun was by nature someone who didn’t like inconveniencing people, but Uncle Lin had already offered, and being overly resistant would seem strange. He agreed. The moment the end-of-school bell rang, he was the first one out. This unusually swift departure caught the attention of a few classmates, who started whispering among themselves: “Chao Xun running that fast, he’s probably going to grab a good spot at the basketball court.” “That’s what I figured. He’s always this eager.” “He was so quiet all day I thought he’d had a change of heart. Guess he just couldn’t hold back in the end.” “He did have a change of heart. He changed from O to B, hahaha.” “I genuinely respect the thickness of his skin for keeping up that omega act for so long.” “……” The whispers were pitched just right to carry to Mi Yu in the back row. He ground his teeth. A whole day had gone by without any harassment from that person. Freeing as it was, something about it felt off. He had the nagging feeling the human leech was building up to something big. Hearing them say Chao Xun had gone to stake out the basketball court actually gave him a sense of relief. The moment that thought formed, his expression froze. Damn. Was this Stockholm syndrome or PTSD? Why was he actually looking forward to that human leech coming to bother him? It was all because of that brief eye contact this morning. And because these people wouldn’t stop bringing it up. With that, he stood up with a dark face: “All of you. Shut up.” The classroom fell instantly silent. Mi Yu picked up his bag and headed for the basketball court. Ji Yonging and Zhuang Xu followed him out. If that beta actually dared to show up and stake out the court, he would beat him badly enough that he’d never dare come back. Mi Yu thought this with considerable menace as he walked. Author’s note: Chao Xun: Sorry in advance. I’m about to start clinging to you. Mi Yu, later: Why don’t you follow me around the way you used to anymore?!