Chapter Text
The sound of the alarm clock pulled Alpha Chi Cheng from the world of dreams. He opened his eyes immediately, without a trace of sleepiness, and looked at the gray ceiling above his head. It was the unencouraging view that greeted him every morning; however, it added a familiar comfort to his monotony.
He let out a sigh before sitting up. His back protested with pain. The bed he slept on could barely be considered one: the mattress was so worn out that the slats could be felt through the material. If it were another day, he would be exhausted to the point of fainting from how uncomfortable it was to sleep on something so small and old.
Despite the pain, his mind had grown accustomed to it. Perhaps his body resented it, but he believed that eventually it would adapt, just as his mind had. Though it wouldn't be easy—the Alpha had spent almost his entire life sleeping on beds with mattresses that felt like clouds because of how comfortable they were.
But that was a long time ago, when he was an heir and the spoiled rich kid of his parents. He had left that life behind since coming to this place.
Now, the small room—comparable to a pirated shoebox—was his reality.
After all, it had the basics he needed: a kitchen, a bathroom, and a bed to sleep in. Maybe everything in one space, but at least he didn't lack anything essential.
He got up from the little bed. It was time to start his day.
Basically, it consisted of an exercise routine that kept him tied to his reality: sweating until he was soaked, pushing to the extreme until his muscles howled from overexertion.
One could say he sometimes had a self-destructive tendency, and if he was honest, he didn't regret using his body to clear his mind.
The Alpha positioned himself on the floor, with his hands supported on the rough cold of the cement. He began with push-ups, one after another, not really counting. He just went down and up, breathing lightly, letting the effort wake him better than anything.
Then he moved to sit-ups. Every time he came up, he felt his muscles complain, but he didn't stop. He couldn't.
When he finished one set, he moved to another. Exercise after exercise. His body moved as if on automatic, as if everything was programmed. Sweat began to run down his neck, gradually soaking his skin.
The air became heavy. The Alpha panted, his heart pounding hard in his chest, and for a moment he thought that if he stopped moving, if he paused, all the noise in his head would start screaming at him again. So he continued.
He didn't stop until his body trembled. When he did, he let himself fall to the floor, looking at the ceiling again, with his chest rising and falling quickly.
His agitated breathing was the only sound in the room that remained in shadows. Then, little by little, his breath normalized.
This was what he did to avoid thinking.
He got up from the floor, taking off his pajama pants carelessly. It was the only thing he was wearing; he had acquired the habit of sleeping with his torso naked and without underwear underneath.
The cold morning air on his body, hot from the previous activity and sticky with sweat, raised his hairs.
He headed toward the second of the two doors; there was the bathroom, equally small, but at least it had a shower, a sink with a small square mirror, and the toilet.
He emptied his bladder and saw his unshaven face in the mirror. Wow, he looked haggard, as if he'd had long nights of insomnia.
He took the small jar of shaving cream and spread it where he had traces of facial hair.
The sound of the blade scraping the foam filled the bathroom's silence. He passed the blade carefully, following the line of his jaw. He wasn't in a hurry, but neither patient; he just wanted to get rid of that rough feeling on his face.
Each movement was mechanical, repeated so many times that he no longer thought about it. He wet the blade, slid it, cleaned the excess with his hand. In the mirror, his reflection watched him with an empty expression, as if it were someone else shaving.
For a moment, he thought about how absurd it was to worry about looking presentable when no one was waiting for him. But he continued anyway. It was habit. It was the little he could control.
When he finished, he rinsed with cold water. The sensation burned his skin, but also woke him a bit more. He dried his face with an old towel and ran his hand over his jaw, checking that no beard remained.
The face staring back at him in the mirror wasn't the one from before, but neither a stranger. Just someone who had learned to live with less.
He slid the shower curtain, stepping under the shower. The artificial rain that fell on his body after turning it on washed away the traces of sweat, the dirt from the previous night, and relaxed his body in unimaginable ways.
If only his body would get used to his new reality just as his mind had, perhaps this solitary life he was leading for now wouldn't be so boring.
(...)
He left the bathroom with his hair still damp, drops sliding down his neck and back. He took the towel he had left on the bed and passed it over his head with slow, almost lazy movements.
He chose a black cotton T-shirt and gray sweatpants; he put them on without much care. He didn't have much to choose from anyway.
He searched for his phone on the small table next to the bed. The screen was cracked in one corner, but it worked. He put it in his pants pocket and slipped on the worn shoes he always left by the door.
Upon leaving the room, the morning air greeted him with its smell of old gasoline and dust. The room where he slept was right behind the convenience store he managed; a small space he had turned into his refuge and his punishment at the same time.
He crossed the narrow hallway to the door that connected to the store. The sign's lights flickered weakly, as if they were tired too.
He took the keys, turned the lock, and the sound of metal opening was the only thing that broke the silence.
He turned on the interior lights. The shelves with water bottles, snacks, and cigarettes lit up with that white and sad glow from the fluorescents. He walked to the counter and settled behind it, letting his body drop with a sigh.
In the midst of the silence, his phone rang with an incoming call.
Guo Chengyu.
Strange. The other Alpha almost never called him, respecting the distance Chi Cheng had set between them. However, the times he had, it was always for something important.
He answered without hesitation, expecting Chengyu's voice on the other end, but instead, a cheerful, childish little voice spoke.
"Dad!"
Chi Cheng's breath caught. It was Chi YuAn, his little Alpha pup.
"Xiao Yu," he greeted breathlessly.
"Good morning, Dad," the little one greeted, with the sound of a noticeable smile through the speaker. "I missed you so much, Dad, that's why I made Uncle Chengyu call you."
The Alpha was sure that if YuAn were in front of him, he'd be making a cute pout. The vision brought a small smile to his face.
"You know what, pup? Dad missed you too, more than you could miss Dad."
The giggle from his son at his words made him feel warm.
"I know Dad misses me more."
For a moment, the Alpha's chest ached at the distance between his pup and him.
"How long have you been at Chengyu's?" he asked.
"I came yesterday morning after our call. Uncle Shuai came to pick me up; he said he wanted to be with me."
Jiang Xiaoshuai, a pediatrician and Chengyu's Omega. An ironic smile tugged at his lips. At least, of the two, Chengyu had been lucky to find a mate after that disaster that fractured their friendship in unimaginable ways.
Resentment still had its foundations in his heart. He couldn't let go of the pain from that time so easily. And although they were things he didn't want to think about, sometimes he was cornered by the memories.
Despite the distance between both Alphas, the memories of that night reached him, sometimes keeping him from sleeping, and the next morning his day turned out to be complete shit.
"Dad, Uncle Shuai took me to eat ice cream yesterday afternoon!" his son's sweet voice on the other end of the phone brought him back to reality.
"Mmm," he hummed, indicating he was listening.
"I wanted to eat two ice creams, but Uncle Shuai said my stomach would hurt afterward, so I only ate one. Am I a good boy, right, Dad?" his pup's innocent question made the Alpha smile.
"The best boy that can exist in this world."
The laughter that followed his words made Chi Cheng's smile deepen.
The only good thing in his life was his son, Chi YuAn: a little Alpha who had been born from his past union with his ex-Omega, Wang Shuo.
The reason why the Alpha and the Omega ended was something he preferred to leave in the past. If possible, he wouldn't have communication with that Omega. But the little son they both shared made that wish impossible.
Wang Shuo was one of the many reasons why he had taken his father's abandoned gas station in the middle of nowhere to manage it.
It had been three years since he last saw his little one, who was now turning six. He missed him madly: hugging his small body, scenting him so he had his smell and didn't feel abandoned.
Chi YuAn was an intelligent child. Despite the distance between them, he had never complained. Although he always said he missed him, he seemed to understand that the distance was best for Chi Cheng for now.
"Dad, yesterday when we went out to eat the ice cream, I saw a fox plushie! It looked like you! I wanted to buy it but I didn't have money with me and I got very sad." The change in tone in YuAn's voice let him know how sad he was yesterday in that moment. "Uncle Shuai saw me and bought me the plushie, and it's called A-Cheng. It's like having you by my side, Dad!" But then it was replaced by joy, and while his son was happy, Chi Cheng withered inside a little more.
It was cruel, unfair, inhuman, to deprive YuAn of being raised by both parents; sometimes it gnawed at his conscience, but the times he had thought about returning had him seeing red, with rage swirling in his chest. He wasn't ready to go back yet, and if his son forgave him in the future, anyway, the Alpha would kiss the ground where his son walked just for his forgiveness.
"How do you manage not to miss me? Do you also have a plushie like me?"
"I wish I had a plushie like you, pup. It would be good to hug something every night to sleep, but I look at your photos so I don't miss you so much," he said.
"Oh! Then maybe Dad wants to see me; Uncle Shuai took photos of me yesterday," he said excitedly. "I'll send them to you, Dad."
Right after that, notifications arrived on his phone. A series of photos of Chi YuAn, which made Chi Cheng's eyes tear up. The pup was big, almost six years old. He looked healthy; Wang Shuo seemed to be doing a great job taking care of YuAn.
"Have these so you can see YuAn and not miss him so much."
"Of course, Dad's little Alpha."
On the other end, unintelligible noises of voices were heard; his son remained silent. He could recognize Chengyu's and Wang Shuo's voices in the background.
"Dad..." his son's voice was now small and plaintive. "Papi has come for me; we can't keep talking until tomorrow." The sadness eclipsed the excitement that now seemed like a distant memory.
"It's okay, champ. Dad will call you tomorrow without fail."
"I love you, Dad."
"Dad loves you too, A-Yu."
The sound of the call ending brought a void to Chi Cheng's chest.
(...)
The morning continued its course, slow and meaningless. Few people had stopped to buy something or, in other cases, to fill their car tanks. It was a little-traveled road, heading north.
Years ago, it had been a very busy area, but the number of accidents that occurred per year led to the creation of a safer alternate route for travelers, leaving this one practically deserted.
But it suited Chi Cheng fine that way; he didn't have to deal with so many people at once. It wasn't like he could split himself to attend to the number of people who arrived on a normal day when this was in its golden era.
At least he wasn't bored; there was an old and small television in the store that kept him entertained. Sometimes he watched movies so old that the color was part of his imagination, or the news when he felt like it.
Anyway, anything on TV served to distract him, just as it was now. Watching a soap opera on one of the national channels while eating what was his fourth bag of chips that morning.
Before, when his mother watched those kinds of things, he didn't understand why she did it; he thought they were too exaggerated and with too many plot twists that would give anyone a headache.
But in the midst of this solitude with nothing to kill time, he found the soap operas fascinating and could now understand a bit of his mother's obsession.
A sobbing female voice came from the TV; it was the heroine crying because her boyfriend decided to leave with a rich and more attractive woman and left her forgotten.
"Pathetic," Chi Cheng mocked her, as if she could hear him through the screen.
Of all the soap operas aired, this one amused him because the protagonist was so stupid that even a fool would be smart next to her.
But he supposed that perhaps at some point she would have some development where she would see that that man didn't suit her and maybe find someone better.
If only she stopped being so stupid.
Different voices continued coming from the TV, but the sound of the convenience store door bell interrupted the flow of the fictional conversation.
Chi Cheng shifted his eyes from the device, seeing who was entering the store.
The sight intrigued him, as the one who had entered was a disheveled Omega with a nervous air around him.
Chi Cheng tried to sniff the air, trying to find a trace of the foreign pheromones. It might be invasive, but he felt curiosity about the trembling little man.
But there was nothing, not the slightest hint of scent. He thought maybe he was mistaken and it was a Beta, but the delicate body said the unmistakable: it was the anatomy of an Omega in every sense of the word.
He saw him get lost among the many aisles of the store, searching for who knows what.
And although he was too curious for his own good, he decided to ignore it.
He fixed his gaze on the program again, but the wolf within him was unusually alert, looking from side to side.
He wanted to calm the wolf inside him, but it kept vibrating between curiosity and distrust. Concentrating on the TV screen was difficult.
He didn't understand such agitation; it was just someone else like the other people who had arrived at the place that morning, but something felt different, and he didn't know what.
Chi Cheng growled frustrated, bad mood mixing with that feeling he didn't understand, giving him a headache.
Who was he? Absolutely no one, so he didn't understand it.
His wolf paced just as nervously, with bared fangs ready to attack anyone who approached him.
It was shit that a stranger could unsettle him like this.
He didn't understand it, really he didn't.
His thoughts were cut off by the sound of objects being placed on the counter.
Chi Cheng turned his gaze again to the person in front of the counter.
He had seen many handsome Omegas, all kinds of beauties, but the one of the Omega in front of him left him breathless, even with the haggard face, sunken cheeks, and too dark circles under his eyes; one could glimpse the beauty he possessed.
He looked at the products placed on the bar; they were quite a few, and most of them, besides being junk food and water bottles, were hygiene items, some bottles of liquor, and cigarette boxes.
What kind of life did this Omega lead? Clearly, he was in a state of malnutrition; the skin on his arms clung to his bones, and he looked so tiny in the clothes he was wearing.
"ID," he asked.
"Uh... yes... yes, here it is," his trembling voice, just like his body, left Chi Cheng captivated; it was soft, just as an Omega's voice should be.
The boy handed over his ID with trembling hands.
Wu Suowei
Suowei? Really? What parents wouldn't love their child to give him such a ridiculous name?
"Payment method?" he asked, returning the ID.
"Cash... cash."
"It's two hundred yuan."
The boy took out some crumpled bills from the pocket of his worn pants.
The Alpha bagged everything for the boy in two bags. From what it seemed, he would be taking a long trip, maybe for a few days.
"Do you need help carrying this?" he offered, but the Omega, Suowei, refused with panic shining in his large brown eyes.
"I can- I can do it alone, don't worry," he rejected the help, took the bags, and left the place staggering.
Clearly, he couldn't handle all the weight alone; if he were in an ideal state, maybe yes, and perhaps the Alpha wouldn't have offered his help, but it was evident how bad the Omega was.
This only made Chi Cheng's inexplicable curiosity increase.
His wolf became even more restless when the boy left.
On impulse, which he didn't know where it came from, he left from behind the counter and consequently from the store.
The Omega was finishing putting the bags in the trunk of the car when he turned and saw toward him. This seemed to increase his nervousness, so he quickly got in the car and left the place.
Chi exhaled a sigh and returned to the store.
At the moment he was about to sit again behind the counter and continue with the program, the soap opera was interrupted by the news.
"Breaking news," the presenter announced with a grave and contained voice. "Authorities have issued a national alert for the disappearance of Wu Qiqiong, twenty-three years old, who is under the custody of Dr. Xu Hao, owner of the genetic laboratory ABO Genetics.
According to the preliminary report, the young man was last seen Tuesday night, leaving the laboratory facilities. Since then, there is no trace of his whereabouts.
Dr. Xu Hao stated that Suowei presented episodes of confusion and disorientation, so he fears his safety is compromised.
A reward of fifty thousand yuan is offered for any information that helps locate him."
The Alpha was going to ignore it, he was going to. But the photo of Wu Qiqiong, the missing Omega, prevented him from doing so. Because the one in the photo was the same Omega who moments ago was inside the store, breathing the same air with fear.
The photo displayed in the news showed the Omega healthy, with filled and flushed cheeks, his appearance looked clean and pretty. A true beauty.
His brown hair, now dyed pink, looked shiny, not dull as he had seen it moments ago.
In the news, they declared him missing, but his erratic behavior that morning indicated something else. The Omega was fleeing from something.
Or from someone.
"Fucking shit," the Alpha muttered, still with his eyes fixed on the Omega's photo in the news.