Chapter Two: Lior's Life

(Lior's POV)

The city smells like burnt coffee, cheap perfume, and capitalism.

I’m walking home with my headphones in but no music playing, classic fake-listening-to-avoid-eye-contact move. It’s been a long day of avoiding Adrian West like he’s the final boss of my anxiety, which, in a way, he is.

God, if someone had told sixteen-year-old me I’d end up working as a personal assistant to Adrian Valehart, the youngest CEO in the city’s history, net worth so high it’s probably illegal, I’d have laughed in their face and gone back to watching cat videos.

But here I am. Twenty-two years old. Shorter than I'd have loved to be if I had a choice. Male Omega. No college degree. And, somehow, still employed at ValehartCorp after a whole year.

A miracle. Or a glitch in the simulation.

People at work call me the Gen Z PA. Not because I wear crop tops to the office (I don’t, HR would faint), but because I allegedly “act like one of those TikTok kids who think sarcasm is a personality.” Which… fair.

They also like to whisper about how I got this job. Not “got” as in applied-and-was-hired—no, that would be too boring for office gossip. Instead, the popular theory is that Adrian Valehart hired me to make himself look like a woke, Omega-supporting saint. “Look! Our CEO doesn’t discriminate. He even has a male Omega PA. Aren’t we progressive?” Cue applause and corporate tax breaks.

They’re not entirely wrong. When I got hired, I was basically a pity hire. No qualifications, no fancy degree, not even a “relevant internship experience” line on my nonexistent résumé. Just me, my big eyes, and the vague desperation of someone who’d been rejected by every coffee shop in town.

Still, they didn’t fire me right after using me to make their company look good. And over the year, I learned. I trained. I improved. I can now schedule meetings, run damage control, and fetch overpriced oat milk lattes without spilling a drop. I’m good at my job now. But do the others care? No. They still look at me like I’m just the Diversity Hire Mascot.

And sure, maybe I am. But I’m also the Diversity Hire Mascot who knows how to work three email accounts, block spam callers, and convince the boss to eat lunch before 4 p.m. Somebody has to keep him alive.

I kick a pebble on the pavement. It bounces twice and disappears into the gutter like my will to live every time someone says, “Must be nice getting paid for doing nothing.”

Yeah. Totally nothing. Except I do things. Like—oh, I don’t know—accidentally sending my naked ass to my boss at seven a.m. this morning.

Yep. That’s a thing that happened even though I don't want to believe it did.

If there’s a God, He’s currently laughing His divine butt off at me.

I’m halfway through debating whether I should throw myself into oncoming traffic or just move to another country when something beautiful catches my eye.

Not a person. Not even a puppy.

A kiosk.

My kiosk.

The Holy Grail of street food: old metal cart, smoke curling from a tiny grill, and the smell of sizzling dumplings that makes my soul feel briefly healed.

My pace slows. My heart does a little drum solo. I pat my pocket, praying to feel more than lint.

Coins. A slightly crumpled bill. Oh my God, I’m rich. Well, dumpling-rich.

I glance up at the road. Cars zoom past like they’re competing in the “Make Lior Regret Crossing” Grand Prix. I step forward, waiting for the red light.

A van slows down. A motorcycle tries to overtake it on the wrong side, because of course it does. I hesitate, shuffle one foot forward, then back again like I’m doing the saddest cha-cha in history. Finally, there’s a gap big enough for me to survive crossing without becoming pavement art.

I dart across. My sneakers slap the asphalt. I can already taste the soy sauce.

I step into the line, eyes locked on the steaming dumplings like I’m in love—

—and my phone starts ringing.

I don’t even check the caller ID before answering. Rookie mistake.

“—LIOR!” comes the voice, sharp and immediate, like a slap across the ear. “Why won't you send us money? Your father is drowning me in debts.”

“Uh… hi? Good to hear from you, too.”

“You know your father owes money to loan sharks again? They came here today! Today, Lior! Said they’ll take the house!”

I blink. “Wow. Straight to the trauma. Not even a ‘how’s the weather.’”

She’s not listening. “Can you believe it? After everything I’ve been through, after raising you since you were little, now I have to deal with this?! And your father—”

The guy behind me clears his throat loudly. The vendor glares at me like I’ve just committed the sin of blocking access to dumpling heaven.

“Hold on,” I mutter into the phone, stepping out of line before I get pelted with chopsticks.

I start walking, weaving around pedestrians. “Look, I’m sorry about the house, but what’s Dad doing about it? He’s an Alpha. Shouldn’t he—oh, I don’t know—get a job instead of gambling himself into a personal apocalypse?”

“That man is your father! Show some respect!”

“Respect is earned, and last I checked, he’s been earning beer bottles, not rent money.”

“Don’t talk back to me. You’ve been working for a whole year now. You’re earning money. You could help your family.”

I snort. “Family? You mean you and the guy who’s allergic to employment?”

“Stop being ungrateful. We raised you,”

Here it comes. The speech. The Greatest Hits of Guilt Trip Vol. 46.

“Yes,” I cut in, “you raised me. To no college degree, no trade skill, no savings. Just raised me until I was ‘old enough to work’ and then shoved me out there like, ‘Good luck, sweetie, don’t get eaten alive.’”

She gasps. “How dare you—”

“I dare because it’s true,” I say, but my voice is quieter now. “You know I got this job through a pity hire. Basically because the company wanted to parade a baby Omega around for their ‘we don’t discriminate’ PR campaign. I didn’t even finish college. HR literally told me I ‘don’t work enough to get paid well.’ And the CEO— he has no idea how little I make. If I tell him, it’s just me using the same pity card that got me hired in the first place. And I know you'll tell me that I've been gone all this time, never visiting, never sending money— but that's because I can barely afford my own rent, okay?”

“Excuses.”

“It’s not excuses. I’ve got rent. Electric and water bills cuz I gotta keep the lights on and water running. Food. Basic survival. I’m not making enough to send you money every month.”

“You could try harder.”

I laugh, sharp and humorless. “Sure. I’ll just ask my boss for a raise because I ‘deserve it for existing as an Omega.’ I’m sure that’ll go over great.”

“We're your family, Lior, you should always think about our wellbeing no matter what.”

“Again, I pay rent. I keep the lights on. I feed myself. I’m only twenty-two, five-foot-two, and trying to not get eaten alive in a company full of people who think I’m just there to be the diversity poster boy. I can’t play savior for Dad’s bad habits.”

There’s a pause. Just long enough for me to think she’s letting it go.

Then: “After all I’ve done for you. After I took you in when no one else would. After I raised you—”

I stop walking. Close my eyes. Count to three. “I know. You remind me every single time we talk.”

She’s still talking, piling on guilt about how she took me in when my parents died, how she could’ve let me rot in the system, how I “owe” her.

And here’s the truth: I do think of myself as an orphan. The man she’s married to— my biological father— was the worst kept secret in family history. My mother had an affair, got pregnant, and he’s been blaming the world ever since. She raised me, sure. But half the time, it felt like raising me was just another way to collaborate with him in making my life miserable. It's not my fault my mother decided to cheat on her husband with an alcoholic gamble addict, I'm just unfortunately the result of that affair and if I wasn't unlucky enough, I lost my mom at a really young age and had to live with this woman that won't let me go a day without reminding me how my mother slept with her husband and had me and she still had to raise me because she's a “good person,” blah blah blah… life could've built me up with anything else, anything else but this.

She launches into more guilt-trip territory, but I let her voice fade into background noise, just like traffic. Because here’s the thing: yeah, she raised me. But I’ve been raising myself ever since I learned the hard way that her version of love comes with a bill attached.

By the time she’s done, I’ve walked past three bus stops, I hang up, my dumpling money’s still in my pocket. But my appetite? Gone.