Chapter Text
Seoul, Spring 2026
Excerpt from "The Awakening: A Thirty Years History of the Second Gender Era" — Hanguk National University Press, 2026
Author: Professor Ryu Min-Seok, Department of Evolutionary Biology & Secondary Gender Studies
Thirty years ago, there was chaos. Not the chaos of war, though that came later. Not the chaos of revolution, though that followed too. But the chaos of becoming; of waking up one morning and realizing your body was no longer your own.
It was summer 1996, the people of Korean Kingdom were celebrating the first year of King Huijong’s ascension to the throne and the rest of the world looked toward the fast-approaching millennium; entirely unaware that the old century would end not with a bang, but with a fever.
That summer, a virus appeared in ten cities across the world simultaneously; Seoul, Hongkong, London, Berlin, New York, Moscow, Cairo, Johannesburg, and Melbourne. Literally and figuratively across the whole world. The virus was initially misdiagnosed as a benign respiratory anomaly, sweeping through the global population with unprecedented speed. In less than six months, ninety percent of the global population had been infected. Yet, it killed no one.
Instead, the virus acted as a silent genetic catalyst, permanently rewriting the human genome at a cellular level and unlocking primal secondary genders dormant since the dawn of prehistoric evolution. Everything we thought we knew about genetics was shattered to dust. Human beings, who had spent millennia defining themselves by biology and culture, suddenly had a new category to contend with: secondary gender. They divided them into three. Alphas. Betas. Omegas.
And later, the rumors began. Whispers of something beyond Alphas, Betas, and Omegas; something the governments refused to acknowledge. Something that, if it existed, would change everything. Years after the awakening, nothing really happened. The world thought rumors were just rumors and had learned to ignore them.
We call it the Awakening now, as if it were something holy; a rebirth, a second chance. But for those who lived through it, it was nothing of the sort. It changed people fundamentally, irreversibly, in ways that shattered families, communities, and entire civilizations. Imagine a world where your spouse wakes up one morning and no longer recognizes your scent; where your children suddenly possess instincts you cannot control and cannot understand. A world where the hierarchy you've built your life around gender, class, status becomes meaningless overnight. Literal chaos.
Newly awakened Alphas found themselves consumed by territorial rage, fights were inevitable. Omegas on the other hand was overwhelmed by their new biology, fell into heat cycles that left them vulnerable and desperate. While Betas, who had once been the backbone of society, watched helplessly as their neighbors tore each other apart.
There were riots in every major city. The stock market crashed multiple times. Governments toppled. Borders closed. The United Nations, which had once seemed like humanity's best hope, fractured into competing factions. Then in the midst of it all, King Huijong of the Korean Kingdom stepped forward.
That summer, he was awakened as an Alpha. He had seen what the Awakening had done to his family. His Beta wife, once his greatest love, had become a stranger to him. He was extremely worried about his two sons, the Crown Prince Hwan and Grand Prince Yi-An; worried about what would they become, as they are still underage. His Alpha instincts, which he had never wanted, had turned him into someone he barely recognized.
Crown Prince Yi-Kyeok was crowned as King Huijong, the 31st King of Korean Kingdom in 1995 when he was 32 years old. Yi-Kyeok was a rather quiet scholarly man, who had never wanted the throne; but was forced to ascend because his brother, the late King Gwangjong died without an heir. So, he must fulfill his duty to protect the realm as a King. He wanted his reign to be peaceful, unremarkable; the kind of reign that historians forget. But the world decided differently.
The newly crowned King Huijong was naturally good at leadership, so as soon as the outbreak happens, he demanded to build a close observation center for those who were first infected. He was included as the object, though he was observed separately than other patients.
After two months of close observation, they found out alternate and temporary solution to the symptoms, that is using the drugs invented by Crown Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary company of Castle Group. So, he called in Seong Hyeonguk, its chairman to order a prioritization of mass production for those specific drugs.
Seong Hyeonguk, despite being one of the wealthiest conglomerates in the kingdom, could not openly defy The Crown. He conceded to the mandate under a single, ruthless condition: an exclusive, state-enforced monopoly. Royal and state-owned hospitals would be legally bound to use Castle Group’s companies and only theirs, for post-Awakening treatment. King Huijong had no choice, for he needs to protect the kingdom. He agreed to the condition. The ink dried, the deal was signed, and within seven months after the first outbreak, the Korean Kingdom became the first nation on earth to stabilize.
Other than partnering with Castle Group and building a close observation center, King Huijong demanded every university in the realm to build a new major to do research on the awakening. He convened a council of scientists, doctors, lawyers, and theologians. He commissioned studies, held town halls. He listened, to the voices of the terrified, the confused, the grieving. He trusts that if something is inevitable, might as well learn and understand it. That’s the only way to survive. He believes that knowledge is the only true power.
King Huijong’s accomplishment catches the attention of the World Leaders Forum. Soon enough they reached out to him and asked him to share his knowledge on the pandemic and its solution. On 8 August 1997, King Huijong along with thirty other world leaders and the UN Secretary General signed The Treaty of Seoul.
Its terms were simple, but revolutionary:
- Universal recognition of secondary genders. Every nation would legally recognize Alphas, Betas, and Omegas as distinct categories. Any discrimination based on secondary gender would be prohibited.
- Mandatory academic study. Every university would establish a cross-disciplinary program dedicated to studying the Awakening; from medicine, to biology, to law and sociology.
- The right to control one’s biology. Suppressants and other treatments would be developed and distributed equitably. No one would be forced to suffer the worst of their biology.
- A global registry. All citizens would be diagnosed and registered by secondary gender.
In front of the people, live on camera, King Huijong signed the treaty with trembling hands. His hands shook not from fear, but from a quiet fury at the new rule of the world. As an Alpha himself, he experienced it first-hand; the changes, the danger, the desperation. He signed the treaty because he had to, because he desperately believed that the world could be saved.