Title: Surge Towards You

Author/Artist: Cheongyeon

Rating: Adult

Genre: romance, drama, sports, omegaverse

Hosted On: Lezhin

Official Link(s): English

Official Summary:

Cheong-ho is a national swim team member who has been struggling with poor records. As an alpha, his physical condition could be improved greatly through sex with an omega, but he has a fear of omega pheromones. His hopes of being a top swimmer seem to be sinking, but that all changes when he meets Yi-rim, an omega whose pheromones don’t give off any scent. Yi-rim is only too happy to help Cheong-ho out, and thus the two of them start a purely physical relationship. It’s almost like they’re a match made in heaven. But…why is it so hard for them to close the distance between each other?

My Thoughts:

This is a little cringe, I’m sure, but do y’all wanna know why I picked up this webtoon?

It’s because of two reasons. First, the male lead in black and white kinda looks like a soft and fluffy version of Megumi Fushiguro from Jujutsu Kaisen. Basically, he looks like fanon Megumi. Second, and this is a spoiler, there’s a cute little baby at the end of the series and I am exceedingly weak to babies.

Surge Towards You is an incredible and compact BL webtoon that blends a romantic sports drama with an omegaverse angle. Yi-Rim is a scentless omega and the nation’s top figure skater. After he goes into heat in public, alpha swimmer Cheong-ho is captivated by the fact that Yi-rim’s scentless pheromones don’t trigger his trauma responses… and he takes Yi-rim back to the dorms where they share his heat.

What comes next is a complicated “friends with benefits” relationship. Yi-rim has fallen for Cheong-ho hard and fast… but the alpha only wants to do enough to stave off the anxiety that comes from his trauma responses to omega pheromones. (His backstory, btw, is stressful and explains his reactions to omega scents, but there is ZERO sexual violence in this story. The absolute most is that I don’t know how alphas/omegas can consent during their hardcore breeding/mating seasons, but I wouldn’t tag it as “dubious consent” if it was my fic on AO3.)

I really love this series, honestly. I bought it a couple months ago but only finished the series (so far, we’re still on side stories lol) today. It’s got brief moments of really sharp and well done relationship drama and the sports story is pretty good too… and of course, I actually really like what feels like a decent speedrun through omegaverse tropes? There’s a lot of insecurity and miscommunication happening to get in the way of the relationship but the happy ending is well-earned and it’s just a really cute and sexy comic.

(No this series does not skimp on the NSFW content. Aside from the periods of time where the characters are avoiding each other, they go at it like bunnies. Even when they have a baby together, they still find time and privacy to smash cakes. And Cheongyeon is a master at super steamy sex scenes. Truly, this book was an experience just on the sex scenes alone.)

If you loved both Yuri on Ice!!! and Love Is An Illusion, this is a series that you’ll probably click with deeply. It’s not super heavy – I’d say it’s a CW pregnancy plot at the most – and the way that trauma features in both characters’ lives wasn’t particularly triggering to me. Your mileage may vary but I think it’s very well done for something like this!!

Do y’all have any omegaverse webtoon recs to share? If you check out this series, what did you think? Love it? Hate it?