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I (21m) have just presented as an omega. I don't know what to do. I'm in an all-alpha establishment, my fated mate is honestly a man i can't stand, i'm gonna get kicked out of uni and possibly disowned. help(r/dating)

submitted 7 hours ago by angel313

i presented late. like, super late. but strings were pulled so i got to go into this university like every other alpha in my family, with the assurance that i will be an alpha, too. except i'm not. like, it's so bad, i didn't think heats would be this awful. i can't go to my family's physician because he'll tell my dad and the secret will be out and i will be moved so far down the family branch it'll be somewhat funny. i can't even tell my brother because what if he lets it slip out. and my mate, ugh, he's so annoying, i don't know. he's my brother's best friend and two years above me in uni. i don't think he knows he triggered my presentation. this is hell, genuinely. i have no idea what to do. i'm literally scared.

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🧸🦊

Locked inside the bathroom down by the fourth-most important hallway in the building destined for the English Department, Choi Beomgyu tries not to freak out.

This isn’t how he had envisioned his day when he’d woken up that morning. He’s had classes back to back — a terrible feat when you feel as if someone is drilling right into your skull — for the better half of it, and he’d barely made it through them. By the time he’d gotten through his second elective for the semester — something related to Essay Writing, though by then, he’d long since stopped paying attention, he’d been covered in his own sweat, sticky and salty, thin droplets rolling down his heated skin. He hadn’t paid much attention to it, though, or, at least, tried not to, for the sake of his well-being.

When he’d been ten and Soobin had managed to break his foot, the older boy had told him that the more he thinks about it, the more it’s going to hurt. So Beomgyu tried not to think about it, though that pulsating feeling had him clenching his teeth hard enough to worry.

However, this nauseating feeling in the pit of his stomach doesn’t really go away if he doesn’t think about it. He doesn’t even think he’s ever felt like this before. Useless and tired, with his body weighing him down. Nauseous enough to have him heaving.

It’s new.

New enough that Beomgyu does not know how to deal with it. At least not when it keeps creeping up his throat slowly, like a bad omen.

It all started when he'd run into Choi Yeonjun earlier that morning. Fresh out the showers, with his patches off and a towel hanging loosely around his waist, almost as if to mock Beomgyu. He's never liked Yeonjun. If anything, they've been tolerating each other for Soobin's sake. Yet he's never been able to deny that Choi Yeonjun, unbearable as Beomgyu often found him, was hot. In that sickening way of his with a rull, red mouth and bright eyes and that small, narrow waist that Beomgyu would sometimes think about; with thick thighs and strong hands and —

More bile rises in his throat. It sits heavy and acrid and when he heaves into the palms of his hands, the only thing he can think of is still Choi Yeonjun.

Beomgyu fumbles for his phone. His hands shake as he types in his password, and he only gets it right on the third try.

It rings four times before Taehyun picks up.

“Hyung?”

Beomgyu chokes down a sob. “I think I’m sick,” he says, though he knows he is. He just doesn’t know why. “Like, so sick, Taehyun-ah. I think I’m dying.”

He hears Taehyun inhale sharply. “Where are you?”

“Bathroom down by the hallway where I take those classes on Joyce.”

“The out of order one?”

Impatiently, Beomgyu sighs. “Where else, Taehyun-ah?” He knows he’s being difficult, but the more he stands with his back pressed against the cold tiles, the more his vision seems to blur at the edges. He doesn’t think he’ll even be able to stand up straight for much longer, anyway.

“I’ll be there,” Taehyun mutters.

Before Beomgyu can plead for him to come faster, even if it’d make slightly no difference, the line cuts. He sighs, sliding down the wall, until he hits the floor with a soft thud. Beomgyu’s mouth waters in that unpleasant way it always does when he drinks a bit too much at parties; uneasy, heart thudding in his chest. He knows the feeling all too well — that teetering moment between being in complete control of himself and losing himself entirely to that burn at the back of his throat.

He lets out another sigh. One by one, he counts the tiles on the wall across from him. They’re grimy and they’ve long since lost that pale shine to them, but Beomgyu doesn’t care for it. Normally, he would. Normally, he wouldn’t really be caught dead in a public bathroom for longer than necessary. Yet now, he can’t even begin to fathom leaving whatever sanctuary he’s managed to build for himself in there.

Gross as it is, he thinks, it’s good it exists.

Phone numbers, scratched in blue marker litter the walls alongside crude remarks that have Beomgyu wincing. There are names of bands, too, and of departments from his university with skulls drawn around them. When his eyes find English Language and Literature, he snorts. Next to it, another crude message about some seminar professor Beomgyu has yet to have a class with, is scribbled in red, smudged ink.

He squints as another wave of nausea passes over him.

Before he can begin reading it, rapid knocks — hard enough to make him feel as if someone is trying to bust the door down — startle him.

“It’s me, hyung,” Taehyun, his savior. Beomgyu could cry. “I have a towel, though it was at the bottom of my gym bag, so I cannot guarantee its integrity, honestly, a blue Gatorade and — what the fuck? Why do you — are you presenting?”

Beomgyu wants to laugh. “What are you even talking about” He mutters. Beomgyu would know if he were presenting. He’d waited for that for years.

“You smell—,”

With a heavy sigh, Beomgyu manages to get himself off the ground. His eyes cross over for a second and he pauses for what feels like a second to regain his balance. Maybe he should look into drinking more water, or taking his vitamins, or whatever it was that Soobin was nagging him about.

When he opens the door, Taehyun’s mouth falls slack.

“—sweet.”

Beomgyu scrunches his nose. “I’m not presenting,” he says. He’d know. He hadn’t even felt the signs of it — not like how Soobin had described his to have been. “I’d know if I were, Taehyun-ah.”

“You’re —,” the boy takes a step back. He brings the towel to his face, pressing it against his nose. “You’re literally presenting right now, hyung. And you’re—,”

“I’m not presenting. Soobin-Hyung said it’d be different, when I asked. He told me his symptoms, and I’ve like, none of those, so we’re fine, really. I’m just… I think I ate something bad?”

Taehyun’s eyes flash. It’s a brief second, barely enough to last, but with it he takes another step backwards, pressing the towel harder to his nose. “You’re an omega, hyung.”

Beomgyu’s mouth dries. Before he can help it, he laughs. Loud and empty; it echoes into the room. An omega — it’d be funny if he were presenting as an omega. He’d have to drop out, or move to a different university, one that’s designated for anything other than alphas. He’d have to face his father and bare his neck in front of him and say goodbye to any shares in the company.

Beomgyu isn’t an omega.

He can’t be.

“You always say the funniest things, Taehyun-ah,” Beomgyu laughs, “but really, I’m fine. Maybe I overdid it on Saturday? You know how I am when Kai tells me I can’t do something.”

Something meant emptying out a keg. Something meant four too many rounds of beer-pong afterwards. Something meant mixing six and a half different types of alcohol in a cup and calling it The Huening Elixir. Beomgyu doesn’t have a good track record in general, but he does have his pride. Alpha-to-be-pride, which has been getting lower and lower by the amount of days that had passed since he’d first failed to present.

Twenty-one years old means three years.

A thousand-and-ninety-five days.

Taehyun shakes his head.

"Hyung, I'm not joking, you're really — you smell sweet. Like, sweet. Like worse than you'd think kind of sweet, really."

Frankly, Beomgyu can't smell himself at all. If he smells as sweet as Taehyun says, he's kind of grateful for it; he's always had a problem with scents — too sensitive for them, really; even if he, more often than not, enjoyed flowery perfumes rather than those pungent ones the kids in his middle school used to use. Perfumes that Soobin used to use.

"I just — what are you talking about? I'm fine. I'm not —," another wave of nausea passes over him. Beomgyu slides back down to his knees. His hands shake as he bends over the toilet and hurls. It rattles inside him — that unsettling feeling he hasn't quite been able to get rid of, no matter how much he'd tried. "I'm not an omega," he coughs. It burns his throat and his nose, and the smell of it is pungent. When even was the last time he'd thrown up? No matter how much he overdoes it with Kai every Friday and Saturday, Beomgyu doesn't throw up. It's quite a point of pride for him.

Vomit free since 03 or whatever.

(A lie, really, because Beomgyu hadn’t thrown up since his first year of university, at his very first party. Yet, if you ask him, he’s never lived through that. It’s a blocked out memory, too embarrassing to count as something part of his past)

Over his shoulder, he chances a look at Taehyun; the boy, already an alpha, has rendered himself almost completely useless — pressed against the furthest wall, with the towel as some sort of barrier between him and whatever Beomgyu is. Omega? That cannot be right — omega would be a funny thing to be. Not because Beomgyu thinks less of them, not at all — but because it'd change things in ways in which Beomgyu doesn't think he could handle.

He's at an all-alpha university, for fuck's sake.

Being an omega would ruin everything. Dramatic as it seems — though right now, with his head shoved halfway into a toilet bowl, in one of the grimiest bathrooms he's ever been in, with heat eating away at his bones, under his skin, he thinks he's more than allowed to be dramatic —, it's true. Intrinsically so, in the way most things are:

Being an omega means losing everything he's ever had.

Second born in a conservative family — a full alpha family, even, save for this mother and his grandmother, though they'd been married off especially for the lineage in their family — and sent to study at an all-alpha private university, Beomgyu doesn't really know how turning out to be an omega would factor in. He'd get disowned maybe, or, if not disowned, at least moved several branches away from the main inheritage. Even more so, he'd get kicked out of university. It had already been a stretch, anyway, for him to choose English Literature. For him to even be there, unpresented as he was. But they'd pulled strings for him the same way they always have; swore he'd be an alpha like the rest of his family, and paid enough in donations for the Dean to not care as much.

Then he'd picked English Lit, and his father had not been pleased; not even a little bit. He'd wanted him to be like Soobin: picture perfect athlete, elbows deep in business management and finance.

Frankly, Beomgyu would have rather died.

"I'm not an omega," he insists.

Taehyun doesn't tell him anything about it anymore. Instead, Beomgyu feels a hand on his shoulder, fingers gripping tightly at the flesh. "Let's — god, I don't even know. I'll call up Kai, okay? You need scent patches. If you're going to be an omega, we're going to have to, I don't know, hide you? I guess?"

"I'm—"

"Not an omega, yes, I heard you." Taehyun's face is still half covered by his towel. There's a faint grimace painted on his face, though Beomgyu can't see him clearly. "I'll call Kai, okay?"

Beomgyu nods. Another wave of nausea washes over him. He bends further over the toilet and heaves again. The feel of it pools in his mouth, heavy with saliva. He hasn't felt this sick in a long time. The heat that crawls under his skin burns harder; more and more, until he's sure there will be nothing left of him but ashes.

He hears the faint noise of a phone ringing as Taehyun steps outside. What the fuck, he wants to yell, as he finds himself alone again. Beomgyu's body doesn't feel like his own anymore. It's some sort of a coffin more than anything, cremated by that blinding, building heat rotting his bones. Claustrophobic. Beomgyu can barely breathe anymore. He heaves again and again, before he finally manages to vomit one more time. It burns his throat the same way, all acrid and unpleasant.

What if I am an omega after all? He can't stop thinking about the implications. What would he even do? Half-disowned and without a college degree to fall back on either. There are universities for omegas, too, just as prestigious, though Beomgyu has always thought of them as more like boarding schools than anything. Less freedom; omegas don't work for a living — at least not in his world.

They'd marry him off the same way they married off his mother. To some high-ranking alpha; some chaebol that Beomgyu doesn't know anything about. It isn't like he'd have much of a choice as an alpha, either, but it'd be easier —

At least, he'd have a say in it, one way or another. A batch of rich omegas to choose from, rather than have it chosen for him for the sake of getting rid of him.

When he was young — too young, really, to understand the gravity of his situation — Beomgyu used to dream of things like fated mates and that sole idea of belonging. They'd be gleeful dreams; unhindered and warm, stuck in the middle of his chest, beating in tandem with his heart.

Dreams — so many of them. Of meeting his soulmate, of branding his mark in the side of their neck, right over their pulse. He'd waste hours of his life like that: paralyzed and conjuring scents and images of blushed knuckles brushing against each other, of fluttered, bashful lashes and that sickening, crushing feel of falling.

Since then, Beomgyu had grown up. Taller than he'd thought, but not quite, broader in his shoulders, but not enough. Unathletic despite how many hours he'd spent on football fields at his father's insistence, averse to scents that weren't warm enough to stick to the soft fabrics clinging to his frame.

Since then, Beomgyu had learned to let go of things like dreams.

Even if he'd gotten to study what he'd wanted. Even if he'd never wanted for anything in his life.

The door opens. Beomgyu startles, but he doesn't have the energy to look over his shoulder anymore.

"Kai will be here with patches soon, hyung," Taehyun says.

Beomgyu hears the door close again. He sighs, pressing his burning forehead against the edge of the toilet seat. It's cold enough to be soothing, but it doesn't help cease the fire in his veins at all. He sighs.

Taehyun lowers himself next to him.

"Brave enough to sit next to me now?"

Taehyun splutters. "It's not like that, hyung. I was just — surprised I think. I don't know."

"I don't want to be an omega, Taehyun-ah," he says.

"You said you aren't."

"And you said I am."

"What do I even know, hyung. Maybe you're presenting as an alpha, who knows. Maybe you just smell sweeter than the rest."

Beomgyu barks out a dry laugh. "Sure. First alpha to smell like an omega enough to repulse another alpha. Just my luck."

"You never know!"

Yet Beomgyu knows. Even if he wants to deny it, he knows. Intrinsically, at the back of his mind, he knows the heat licking at his bones is nothing like that of a rut. He knows that soon enough slick will start leaking out of him. He knows that the cramps in his abdomen are nothing like the pain Soobin or Taehyun or Kai had felt when they'd presented. Even worse, he knows, in some fucked up way, that his delayed presentation has always been because he was not an alpha like they'd all thought he'd be.

And, at the back of his head, he knows, more than anything else, that it's all because of Yeonjun.

The thought of it makes him blush. Beomgyu moves his head higher, pressing his heated cheeks against the white porcelain. He'd been fine until that morning. He'd felt nothing of the sorts until he'd breathed Yeonjun in for the first time, all warm-skinned. Sea-salt and thunder. Beomgyu's word had felt as if it had tipped off its axis.

Choi Yeonjun.

They've never gotten along; not like that, at least. Beomgyu liked to push enough to test that bitterness of a limit, and Yeonjun never had enough patience. It was all for Soobin.

Yet Beomgyu can't help the warmth that pools in the pit of his stomach at the simple thought of the older boy.

Is this what a fated mate feels like?

Strange and almost unbearable, as if he's ready to collapse under the weight of his whole world, should it mean for Yeonjun to be near.

"I'm an omega," he croaks.

Taehyun doesn't say anything. Instead, he lays his hand on Beomgyu's shoulder, squeezing the flesh between his fingers.

"It'll be okay, hyung."

🧸🦊

🧸🦊

It'll be okay means Huening Kai arriving in a flurry of awkward limbs and a gasped out hyung, what the fuck. He's rosy cheeked and blurred around the edges like an oil paint smear and he shoves suppressants down Beomgyu's throat and lathers a white flaky balm over his scent glands, before covering them in scent patches. Then, they carry him to his dorm as quickly and subtly as they can, and lock him in there with the promise to be back with food.

Left to his own devices, Beomgyu cries for the first time that day. The pain is no longer unbearable now that he's surrounded by things he's always known, yet the situation itself is stressful enough to have the first tears build in his eyes. Then, as if a dam breaks open, he can't seem to be able to stop himself from crying. No matter what, the tears burn the skin of his cheeks over and over again. The more time passes, the more agitated he finds himself. He wiggles out of his clothes until he's bare against his blankets, though the itch in his skin doesn't seem to fade away at all. If anything, that fire in his veins, the agitated beat of his heart seems to only worsen.

Huening Kai had given him a high enough dose of suppressants to render him almost useless. Yet he cannot help the way his mind keeps wandering to Yeonjun earlier that morning. He'd opened the door to Beomgyu lazily, the necklace dangling around his neck wet with condensation.

What are you doing here, he'd said— tired and rasped out, and Beomgyu had seemed to forget everything he'd ever known. He'd fumbled with Soobin's things— papers from another class, a purple binder from Taehyun that had been collecting dust on Beomgyu's desk because he kept forgetting to bring it over, and a sheet of bunny stickers that Beomgyu had picked up from the store on the whim because they reminded him of Soobin enough to make him soft — and felt himself flush the more seconds passed without him saying anything.

Now that he thinks about it, he should have known since then that the day would turn out horribly; he'd felt that distinct, strange stutter in his chest when he'd inhaled Yeonjun's scent for the first time, and he'd watched the way his hands had shook when they'd brushed against the older boy's. More than anything, he should have known by the way Yeonjun had seemed to ignite some sort of budding, unbearable fire in the pit of his stomach like never before.

Beomgyu buries his face in his hands with a heavy sigh. It should not have been like this. He's supposed to be an alpha. He's supposed to go into rut, to knot and mate an omega his parents set him up with, and inherit half of the family business. This — this is nothing but a burden. Unwanted, terrible thing: slick dampening his underwear and heat crawling underneath his skin like it wants to burn him alive.

Quickly, he thinks of every possibility. It's overwhelming — the way something so simple can ruin his life so quickly. He'll have to hide himself; suppressants, the kind of dosage that will mess with him for too long, flaky balms that smell rancid when you first apply them, before they simply fade into nothing; things that Beomgyu has never learned or worried about. They had all been so sure of his subgender. Sure enough that Beomgyu had never thought for a second it would turn out as some sort of catastrophe.

He lets out another sigh. Then, he fumbles for his phone again. Huening Kai and Taehyun won't be here for a while, and Soobin doesn't visit his dorms often enough for Beomgyu to worry. He opens Reddit, heart in his throat, and he starts typing.

🧸🦊

🧸🦊

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Three days post presentation, Beomgyu can barely bring himself to leave his dorm room. His heartbeat spikes with anxiety, and by the time he's dressed, his knees wobble under his weight. What if people can immediately tell? He knows it'd be impossible. As long as no one knows he's presented, no one can ask any questions, and as far as he's aware, only Taehyun and Kai should be in the know. No one had seen them haul Beomgyu out of the bathroom and into his dorm room, and he's lucky enough not to room with anyone. Had this happened a couple years ago, when he'd been a freshman, it would have been different. Back then, no matter what, roommates were assigned to you. Now that he's older, he's allowed to room by himself.

At first, he'd rejoiced for different reasons. No roommate meant intimacy; it meant being able to weigh down his shelves with trinkets and disposable things that he has no use for, but found himself attached to. No roommate meant no awkward posters on the walls of omegas from musical groups that Beomgyu had no interest in.

Now — now he thinks the universe was on his side for the first time in his life, even if halfway.

Presenting as an omega at an all alpha boarding university is hell, yet at least he can keep it a secret.

Somehow.

When they returned with food a few hours later, Taehyun had seemingly emptied out and brought back to him a whole pharmacy: four types of painkillers, three different sets of vitamins (they all do something different, hyung, he'd said, this has iron and b12, this is Zinc and vitamin D, and—), pads — though those had made Beomgyu blush a deep red, hot enough on his skin for him to feel it —, two jumbo sized jars of neutralizing balm, a spray can of the same scent neutralizer (it's like … air freshener, Kai had told him, and Beomgyu had never wanted to disappear more into the unknown than he did then), and a stack of suppressants; intravenous — the type that freaked Beomgyu out more than anything.

He's never been good with needles.

When he'd asked for scent patches, Taehyun had looked at him as if he were stupid.

That's how people will be able to tell you've presented, hyung, keep up.

All in all, Beomgyu had never felt so utterly hopeless as he did then. Knowing close to nothing regarding your subgender is, he'd decided, some sort of hellish punishment that he's never going to outlive.

When he'd woken up that morning, Beomgyu had made the executive decision that Choi Yeonjun will no longer exist as a concept for him. If he doesn't acknowledge his existence, or meet with him, then his presentation is not real. Yeonjun would be able to tell, that much he'd found out from Naver articles and shady Reddit replies. By feel, by scent — even if Beomgyu would take all measures to neutralize himself into essentially appearing as a beta.

By that terrible, ancient link between them.

Red string of fate.

Beomgyu thinks it's stupid; it's a rare thing, barely alive in this world anymore.

Throughout time, for convenience, people have learned to rupture them.

Throughout time, for that acrid fear of hindrance, people have learned to despise them.

Any ties to a mate, anything that could bind them to something lesser.

In a way, he knows that a bond like this is a gift. That more than anything, he should cherish it. That given its rarity, it should be a blessing more than a curse.

Yet now, standing in front of the door as if frozen in time, Beomgyu can't find it in himself to think of it as anything other than a burden. Something he has never asked for; something he has never wanted.

Least of all with Choi Yeonjun.

They've had their futures written ahead of themselves since the day they were born. The same course of actions: do well in school, show up to events they had zero to no interest in, marry for power rather than love. In the grand scheme of things, they'd been written into the same intertwined web. Now, he thinks that maybe, just maybe, they'd been written before they were even half a screamed breath under fluorescent lights.

The thought of it makes Beomgyu blush. More than anything, Choi Yeonjun has been made for him. Placed on this earth as a grim reminder of his own self; torn in two, waiting for Beomgyu to take half of him and give half back, like some ancient barter. He remembers tales, things he'd read on a whim as a child, stories that did nothing more than carve him open with unadulterated want, bleeding out with it until he'd no longer been able to tell between himself and crimson. Tales of guiding stars and prophecies, half fulfilled and written into dust, older than he could have even imagined. Things that he'd loved once in that terrible way of bare unawareness. Childish and clumsy and petulantly, as if he'd ever have a choice.

All for myself, made out of the same star, he thinks, yet Yeonjun has never been near nor far. Only half a glimpse for Beomgyu to catch, red-mouthed smudge, unintelligible and unreliable and uninterested.

He presses his hand over his heart;

mine mine mine.

It's a terrible thought to have.

-

He makes it through his first classes in a daze. People don't look at him more than they usually do, yet he can't seem to stop shaking, no matter how much he tells himself that no one knows. They can't know, because Taehyun and Kai had done everything in their power to make it disappear. That feverish feeling inside him, that sweetened scent of his presentation — it had all gone away as quickly as it appeared, with suppressants hot in his veins and balms flaky on his skin.

Still, it terrifies him. Every step he takes, Beomgyu thinks they'll find out. It's impossible. It doesn't ease his worries at all. Some way or another, he feels like there's a big, red warning sign stuck to his back reading newly presented omega!!!

If this is how he's going to live for the next two and a half years, at least, Beomgyu isn't entirely sure he can manage.

He powers through; first a lecture on James Joyce, one on generative grammar, then a seminar on English phonetics and one on Lexicology. He doesn't remember anything from any of them, and even if he spends his entire time mechanically writing everything he can possibly bring himself to understand when spoken out loud. Not enough to register in his brain, though, but Beomgyu decides that it can be something he can worry about much later. (read: four hours before his exam, two energy drinks and one coffee thumping in his blood, hair unwashed)

Now, he has other problems to worry about. It's funny, in a way, because Beomgyu had never quite thought he'd ever worry about anything other than his grades. Sometime along the line, growing up, he'd figured if I cannot be Soobin, I might as well get better grades. And he does. Because Soobin is busy with things like football practice and business meetings at the Company headquarters with boring, middle-aged alphas that don't know anything outside of gifting their wives jewelry they barely even glimpse at and numbers that rise and fall alongside the market.

Yet now his grades are the furthest thing from his mind. He wants nothing more than to disappear into thin air, if possible; to maybe be able to become some sort of hermit, holed up in his dorm room, where nothing can reach him. At least nothing of importance. It'd be so easy, too; Soobin doesn't really have time for him, and Kai and Taehyun already know, so it's not like he'd have to explain himself to anyone else. Yeonjun doesn't care — never really did, if Beomgyu's being realistic about it. It did not used to bother him. Now, in that fucked up, fated mates way, it kind of does. Still, he wills himself to forget about it.

What he doesn't think about, doesn't exist.

Beomgyu knows Taehyun would disapprove of his way of thinking.

But Taehyun doesn't know that Yeonjun is, according to Beomgyu's calculations (read: blood rushing too quickly for comfort through his body, lust pooling in the pit of his stomach in a very telling way (i… want him? him!? fuck, maybe I do) and the sudden, unpleasant dire situation he has found himself in (slick pouring out of him, scent glands itching, fever all-consuming, scent unable to be tamed (to the extent in which Taehyun had found him unbearable — which Beomgyu should find at least mildly offensive (he can't smell that bad now, can he?))— and had taken enough steps backwards and covered his face to block it out), his fated mate.

And Beomgyu, sure as hell, won't tell him.

Just like anything else, what Taehyun doesn't know, doesn't exist. Can't exist, because Taehyun wouldn't be there to whip out a forty-five questions long questionnaire (drafted on paper, of course, so he doesn't feed into Google (some sort of aesthetic objection to it that Beomgyu never really understood)) that is mildly invasive and somewhat shameful.

What would he even tell him? I think Choi Yeonjun is my fated mate.

It's silly. It's stupid. It sounds hellish and embarrassing, and he can't even bring himself to believe it when he says it to himself in his head. Beomgyu can't imagine uttering it out loud.

By the time the last class of the day wraps up, Beomgyu is sporting a massive headache and is more tired than he ever remembers being. He's out of the class in a flash, before anyone can stop him on his way out. Distantly, he hears his name being called out — by Heeseung, maybe, though he can't really tell with how fast he's going— but it only spurs him on. Eventually, he finds himself on a light jog, even though he's never been particularly athletic. It doesn't do anything to ease his headache. If anything, it only seems to worsen it, if he takes into consideration the careful pulse in his temples as soon as he comes to a halt outside his dorm building. Still, he dashes up the stairs anyway, headache be damned, and only exhales with relief once his door is locked behind him.

Inside the privacy of his own dorm room, Beomgyu breathes in and out, pressing his forehead against the door. His shoulders sag, and the tension built up throughout the way slowly bleeds out of him. He doesn't think he can make it through the next two and a half years at all. Maybe he'll get used to it; endurance is key, or whatever. Change is constant. He doesn't really know. It's not like he's ever taken it into consideration.

"You're back."

Beomgyu startles. His muscles lock in tight, pulling painfully around his shoulder. He hisses in pain and turns around.

On his bed, Kai and Taehyun sit almost angelically, with their ties loose around their necks, collar unbuttoned, and bright, unblinking eyes. It'd be funny, cult-ish, even, if the suddenness of it would not have sent Beomgyu's pulsing headache into some sort of automated self-war. It blooms behind his eyes, like there's someone actively drilling a misplaced hole into his skull.

With a wince, he brings his hand up, pressing down on his forehead.

"What the fuck," he croaks.

"Oh!" Kai is on his feet in a second. "Are you okay, hyung?"

Beomgyu waves him off. "Overwhelmed. Maybe overstimulated. I don't know. It's funny, that I can handle anything except two different noises happening at the same time." He mumbles. Usually, it'd be the truth. But now, it's less about overlapping noises, and more about the lacerating fear that people will know.

In the grand scheme of things, being an omega isn't shameful. Not like how it used to be, all those years ago, before rights and regulations and group activism started being a thing. In a way, Beomgyu's kind of proud of it. Alphas aren't great by any means. Every day he opens social media and there's another headline stating some devious alpha-made horror of the day. At least he's not ever going to be lumped with the crowd. Or, at least, in two years and a half from now, when he's safe and graduated, he won't be lumped in with the crowd. Maybe, by then, society will advance a bit more. Maybe, by then, Beomgyu will get used to the idea.

It's not like he hates it. He doesn't, really. A subgender is simply a subgender. But he's gotten used to the idea that he'll present as an alpha, that he'll get all these benefits from it, that he'll run his half the company and not have a care in the world. It was an easy enough future.

Some sort of dystopian hamster allegory.

Beomgyu spins in his little wheel and his parents take care of everything else.

Easy.

"Do you want to take a pill for it?"

Beomgyu makes a face. "Honestly, Taehyun-ah, I'd do anything not to take any other pill anymore. I feel like, with all these suppressant things and those vitamins my mom sent me, if you shake me hard enough, I'll start rattling like a pill bottle myself."

Kai laughs. Full-bodied, the kind that shakes him to the core. "I figured it out, hyung." He says.

Beomgyu sighs. He doesn't think he can handle another way of figuring things out. Not after they presented him with pads and injections and flaky, nauseating balms and the promise that it will be fine. If you ask Beomgyu, it is not fine.

"Hit me with it," he says after a beat. Resigned, because it's not like he has anything else to lose. He's already living through his worst dream.

"I made a list," he says, conspiratorially. "I think— oh, hear me out," Kai takes a deep breath—

Taehyun chuckles. "He made a whole PowerPoint presentation, you know?"

"Really?"

"Well, yes." Kai nods. A faint blush blooms on his cheeks. "And a list—,"

"Can I see the PowerPoint presentation?"

"I mean, yeah, but that isn't the point. The list is where it's at, because—"

"What's the title, at least?"

Kai lets out a shuddering sigh. "Why I think you should pretend to be an alpha instead of hide your presentation—"

Beomgyu startles. He hadn't even thought about that. His heart kicks in his chest, beating unevenly. "Wait, oh my God."

"Brilliant, right?"

Beomgyu finds himself nodding. He doesn't even know how he could pull this off. Biologically speaking, rendering himself entirely scentless like a beta makes more sense than trying to figure out how to pass by as an alpha. He's sure that if he allows Taehyun enough time and gives him a piece of paper and a stubby, long forgotten crayon with the graphite half-missing, he'll be able to figure out the Venn diagram of subgenders (that is, if he hadn't already; Beomgyu would not put it past him) (if anything, maybe in Kai's PowerPoint presentation, there already are Venn Diagrams on subgenders; the common intersection between all three, where beta and alpha overlap when it comes to core strength and alpha and omega overlap when…)

If he closes his eyes and tries to channel those years he'd forced himself to understand Logika, Beomgyu thinks he can actually land on a syllogism all by himself.

Taehyun takes out his laptop from his backpack. With jerky movements, he powers it on, holding it in front of Beomgyu. The screen takes half a second to load.

Why I think You Should Pretend to be an Alpha Instead of Hiding Your Presentation glows at him in a funny font.

Huening Kai, Year 1, Law & Sociology sits beneath.

For all its worth, the PowerPoint presentation looks good enough for it to be an actual thing. The colors are all in the same palette, not too bright, there is enough space on the slides that Beomgyu's eyes don't strain.¹

"Ta-da!" Kai exclaims, pointing at the screen. He clears his throat. "Today, I will be arguing Why I Think You Should Pretend to be an Alpha Instead of Hiding Your Presentation," he begins. It's funny. Kai had taken it seriously enough to write down flash cards, and when he moved to the next slide, he barely had anything except one sentence written on it.

Beomgyu nods, signaling him to continue. "Go ahead, Kai-ah."

"First, I believe that eventually, given your delayed presentation, people will start questioning your lack of subgender. While it is not as uncommon for someone to present late nowadays due to various hormonal factors — should you skip to the fifth slide, you will see a chart comparing government data between the presenting age in between the 1990s and the last decade and observe there has been a decline when it comes to its frequency before the age of 19 — it would certainly raise some question if you would fail to present sometime between the age of twenty-two and twenty-three, and, therefore, you would be found out, inevitably, through a mandatory medical check up."

Beomgyu wants to laugh. It's all so clinical; he doesn't know what to do with it. It's cute that Huening Kai had gone through all the trouble to figure all these things out while all Beomgyu had done over the weekend was wallow in self-pity, locked away in his dorm room. Though he thinks, in some way. that he's allowed to wallow in self-pity. Kai isn't an omega in an all-alpha establishment. Kai is an alpha, and so is Taehyun, and everyone else Beomgyu knows, so no one can understand. Maybe they can sympathize, like Kai and Taehyun are in that distinct way of theirs: Kai overcompensates by finding solutions and Taehyun talks clearly and surely, like whatever he says cannot be doubted. Always grounding.

Beomgyu is grateful for them. Even when Kai begins talking too fast for him to follow, even when Taehyun flips through the slides with a delay. They're messy and disorganized, and Beomgyu would not have them any other way.

Fifteen or so minutes later, Kai is red in the cheeks and wound up, breathing heavily, yet it comes down to only one rational solution.

"Hiyyih made you a potion." He says. All serious, like he's telling the most factual thing in the world. Like he's announcing the weather forecast for the next week.

Beomgyu laughs. It bubbles inside him too fast for him to be able to suppress it, and it comes out like an avalanche. "What?"

Huening Kai rolls his eyes. "What, you're not pagan enough for this?"

"I — what's that gotta do with anything?"

"You know she's been into magic lately, right?"

Beomgyu doesn't know. Huening Bahiyyih, by all means, is wonderful. Brilliant, too, in the way all the Huenings seem to be. But she's always going through a phase: emo phase, between the age of ten and fourteen, though Beomgyu isn't sure she actually let go of that yet in the same way neither he or Kai have, some religious awakening for a couple of months at fifteen and a half when she'd decided that going to Church every Sunday was a must — which lead to shoving Kai, and Beomgyu (sometimes Taehyun, too, though he's less indulgent of christian spiritualism, so it was harder to get him there than most) into uncomfortable dress shirts and pants at eight in the morning every week (eventually biweekly, when Beomgyu had figured out how to lie better), a slight goth phase in some sort of corporate aesthetic at seventeen, though she was ages away from actually stepping foot into a corporation — but, oppa, she'd whine, don't I look so cute in this goth office attire? i think if i find the right eyeshadow combination, I can make that soulless look happen for myself, too — and a brief alternative bi-seasonal mood of dark and light academia, in which she'd tried to teach herself Ancient Greek by translating Homer and the likes to modern Korean.

It's always hard to keep track of things.

"No, Kai, I don't know."

"Well," the boys grins, "she's very into it. And it's freaky, really, because it works, hyung. I swear."

"Oookay?"

"So she made you a potion. It was simple, apparently, but she did not want to tell me the ingredients. Or any details, really, huh," Kai frowns, "makes you wonder what's actually in it." He does a half shrug, procuring a set of neatly arranged bottles from his backpack. "Anyway, drink this regularly and you should be fine."

Beomgyu wants to laugh. He doesn't know if he should hug Huening Kai or kill him. Half-torn in between ideas like he always is; I love idiots, he thinks. Complete, fucking idiots. But such affection blooms inside his chest that he can't help but feel overwhelmed. Especially when he feels Taehyun's hand settle on his shoulder in that way of his where he squeezes a bit too hard like he doesn't know his own power. Beomgyu supposes he doesn't.

"What do you mean by regular? Like, is it a schedule? In the morning? While I'm eating? After I'm eating?" Beomgyu doesn't even know why he's taking this so seriously. It's a potion. Those things aren't real. Or they are — but in peculiar, limited cases. He knows that witches do exist, but they're rare, and he doesn't think Bahiyyih out of all people could wind up as being one. Yet, at the end of the day, he also did not think he would present as an omega.

Or that Choi Yeonjun would be his fated mate.

Kai sighs. "You ask too many questions, hyung. Just — Hiyyih didn't mention any of that, so I assume you're fine to take it anytime. I'd do it in the morning. Like a smoothie or something, I don't know. Just —"

Taehyun snorts, "It's fine, hyung," he says. "As soon as you join the football team, there will be no problem for you to add protein powder to this and call it a day." 

Beomgyu jolts. "What?" 

"Oh!" Kai beams at him. "The list."

"Kai made a list," Taehyun tells him.

He's still clutching Beomgyu by the shoulder, as if that's going to solve anything. He supposes it does, because Taehyun has that kind of calming aura, like nothing bad can happen to you as long as you're around him. In more ways than one, it's why Beomgyu keeps him around. Sure, there's always that fourteen-year-old friendship they have going on for themselves, but, more often than not, it's because Taehyun is grounded. And funny, and Beomgyu genuinely likes him. Now, he thinks he definitely likes him more than Kai, though they've always been kind of one-upping each other in Beomgyu's heart. It mostly depends on whether or not they'd been nice to him that day.

Their hyung — though they don't care at all about that. 

"Show me your list," Beomgyu sighs. It can't be worse than the PowerPoint presentation and the potion. Though the PowerPoint presentation hadn't been that bad. It was mildly informative in the same way a pamphlet dated five years back in the doctor's office is when you're running out of fashion magazines to read while you wait. Beomgyu would even consider himself more enlightened, even. He hadn't known the difference between an omegas status back in the 1970s and now. He just hoped it would have been better, 

Kai thrusts a piece of paper in his hands. It's one of those crumpled bits Beomgyu knows Huening Kai has laying around at the bottom of his bag. The extra ones he carries on the day of his exams — he's always been the type to show up with maybe around a quarter of a ream, sweat beading at the back of his head, down his neck; Taehyun used to ask him what will you even do on your Bar Exam; Kai never answered — that are folded messily at the corners (or ripped) and have bits of graphite smudged across from his half pencils. 

"Here you go!" 

Beomgyu blanches. 

"I'm not going to do a keg stand, Kai!" 

"It's not that bad, okay? You have to be more open-minded, hyung! You're only in your early twenties. If you're already acting like this, what will you do when you'll reach thirty?" 

Beomgyu makes a move to swat at him with the list. Kai shrieks, moving out of the way. 

"It's — chest bump three members of the football team per week?" 

Taehyun nods. "Yes," he says, solemnly. "It's only customary." 

"If you're going to join the football team, hyung," Kai tells him, "you have to abide by their traditions." 

"And that's..." Beomgyu squints; maybe he should get his eyes checked again — it's been getting harder for him to read lately; "...to attend parties every Friday?" 

"And Saturday!" 

"And don't forget, you have to yell if you're not a brother or fucking a brother at least once!" 

Beomgyu scrunches his nose. "That's customary?" 

Kai grins, sheepishly. "Well, no," he says. "But you have to do it for me. As payment. I'm helping you out, you know?" 

Taehyun nods again. "He really is." 

They're conspiring against me, Beomgyu whines to himself. They're literally conspiring against me. 

Still, he sighs. He picks up the potion again. He doesn't really want to look at it, lest he wants to get sick. It's some sort of neon green sludge, and Beomgyu doesn't want to think too hard about what could have possibly contributed to the color of it. Then, he looks at the list. 

Defeated, he lets out another sigh. 

"You're forgetting one thing," he says. The two boys lean toward him, conspiratorially. Eyes wide open, pupils shaking with wonder. It would make Beomgyu laugh, if he weren't so stressed. "How the fuck am I supposed to get into the football team?" 

Huening Kai flashes him another terrifying grin.

Beomgyu looks back at the piece of paper in his hands.

The hearts drawn before every item on Kai's How To Be An Alpha 101 ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡ list stare him down.

🧸🦊

🧸🦊

Beomgyu knows he's fucked the moment he wakes up the next morning and his eyes lock in on the neon green bottle Kai had left on his nightstand. It's an offensive color — at least at 6 in the morning, it is. How is it even going to work? For two and a half years, until he graduates, Beomgyu will drink Bahiyyih's potion every other morning (though Huening Kai had advised him to maybe only drink it on important days where he will be around enough alphas that he will have to use it) and then? Then, the secret will be out. What if they take away his diploma? It's an English Lit diploma, so it's not like it'd be that useful (or at least that's what his father grumbles under his breath anytime he thinks Beomgyu isn't paying enough attention to register his words (he always is)), but still. He likes it. And he's mildly attached to James Joyce in a weird way — mostly to Molly Bloom, though she wasn't that great, either. 

Plus, Bahiyyih's phases are temporary. Monthly, sometimes, though rarely, annual. What will he do, when she decides that her interest in magic is not so hot anymore? 

Before Kai and Taehyun had left the previous night, they had devised a plan. At 7 in the morning (Beomgyu had gasped; seven in the morning is a horrifying hour — all his classes are later in the day; maybe at around 10AM, when he's already had time to smoke six cigarettes and a half and have two cups of coffee back to back, with the coffee grounds still stuck to the bottom of his cup) Kai's plan doesn't seem so wonderful anymore. In truth, it makes little to no sense. 

Magical potions. 

When he's dressed for the day and staring down at the bottle filled with green sludge, Choi Beomgyu can only ask himself, when did I get so desperate? 

🧸🦊

At 7 in the morning, the football pitch is more crowded than any other place, with maybe the exception of the medical department. Beomgyu's throat feels funny and there's that lingering, awful licorice after taste in his mouth from Hiyyih's potion, and he's sure enough that he's induced about four different variants of life-altering symptoms ever since he swallowed the first drop of it. He's gone through all of them: mild fever for about two minutes, shivers right afterwards, but somehow throughout it, too, a headache for thirty or so seconds, and this lingering shake to his hands, like he's too cold. He knows that it's all in his head. He's always been some sort of hypochondriac, so it makes sense. It's less about the actual symptoms (made-up, truly) and more about the fact that Beomgyu has not known peace regarding these things ever. In between frantic Naver searches titled am I dying and the same messages sent to Kang Taehyun at four in the morning over a sore throat, Beomgyu has never quite learned the difference between being okay and experiencing latent, slow-burn death. 

Still, he feels stronger in his body, despite all. He doesn't know if it's still some sort of made up symptom, if he's induced that to himself, as well, but it doesn't matter. 

On the football pitch, with Choi Yeonjun in his direct view — terrible thing to look at when Beomgyu's heart had settled on the newfound knowledge that they're fated; especially when the older boy looks the way he looks — at the end of the day, Beomgyu isn't a liar; Choi Yeonjun has always been beautiful, unfairly so, with the softest, brightest eyes and red lips — Beomgyu thinks he won't make it. His heart kick starts in his chest, rapid and unbearable, and his hands shake hard enough for him to shove them in the pockets of his hoodie. He doesn't know how to handle Kai's idea. 

Join the football team. 

Beomgyu is wildly unathletic. In that particular way in which he's always favored books over kicking a ball in the backyard with Soobin. His father has always been disappointed in it — for what? Beomgyu doesn't know. It's not like they were ever going to head down some particularly athletic path to stardom — but Beomgyu has never quite paid attention to it, because he's never quite been impressed with his father either. Soobin has always been there to make up for what Beomgyu couldn't do, and Beomgyu has always considered himself both the golden child and the worst thing to have ever happened to the Choi bloodline. It's hard to do both; when you're actively a disappointment and somewhat close to the second coming of Christ, it gets stressful enough. 

Still, he marches down the football field like he's never been a day off of it in his life. Confidence is key, is what Kai had told him. Who cares if you can't hit a ball; just act like you meant to do it that badly. How are they going to know?

Beomgyu wanted to argue that they will know. It's hard not to. Beomgyu has the athletic abilities of a slowed down turtle. He can't jump that well (though he's learned to do it over fences out of necessity), he can't run without his side hurting like he's going to burst into a million fragments, and the one time Taehyun had brought him to the gym with him (before Beomgyu had semi-imploded and decided to never ever step foot in that god forsaken place again — not while they had the stairmaster up) he almost fell flat on his face six times in a matter of ten minutes.

So — all in all, Beomgyu shouldn't be there. 

Not when he's in between alphas with a high drive and the speed of a slowed down bullet train running late trying to catch up. 

He knows Soobin is surprised to see him. He expected that from the moment he'd decided the previous night that football is something he will have to do. 

So he gathers all his might, and before the older boy can tell him anything, Beomgyu speeds up to him, jolting in place, bumping their chests. 

Bump chests with at least three alphas on the team in a bro way. 

Per week. 

Beomgyu's got one down, at least.

"Hello brother!" he greets. It comes out less cheery, and more on the grumbled, choked out side, but he sticks to it nonetheless. His chest hurts, sore from his presentation and semi-heat he'd experienced for a total of four hours before Taehyun had shoved enough suppressants down his throat to kill your average person. 

"I — Beomgyu?" Soobin's eyes are wide as they take him in, a gentle flush blooming on his cheeks. "What are you doing here?"

With all the confidence he can muster, Beomgyu flashes him a grin. "I'm here to try out for the team, what else!" 

Confidence is key, he repeats to himself. Even when Soobin falters and eyes him like there's something wrong. He watches the boy's nose scrunch as he scents the air, and then sees his eyes zero in on the patch on the side of Beomgyu's neck. "Are you... did you present?" 

Alarmed, Beomgyu repeats the same thing to himself again and again. Three times, like a mantra. 

CONFIDENCE is key.

 Confidence is KEY.

 Confidence --

"Well, yes," he nods. His heart thuds in his chest. What if they'll know? What if Soobin can tell? For a split second, when the older boy doesn't answer right away, Beomgyu's mind begins working overtime, the same way it always seems to do. 

They'll know,  is what he settles in. I'm on the field, he thinks, with twenty-seven alphas. They'll know. How could they not know, when Beomgyu's solely running on vibes, semi-spite (if you count the fact that he's yet to get over the fact that out of all things that could have happened to him, it just had to be a late presentation as an omega) and Hiyyih's bastardized neon-green sludge of a potion that he doesn't even know if it will work. And enough suppressants to kill your average person, he reminds himself. If they figure it out, Beomgyu will fly out of the school faster than he can blink. He hasn't heard horror stories, per se, because while their circle runs pretentious enough to be a bother, none of them come close to his father's level of elitism and classism and whatever other thing is out there that could determine that he's just a rich snob. So, as far as Beomgyu knows, there has not been a moment before, where someone had been admitted to this university without having the "α" branded by the side of their name on some sterile document locked away in their personal file cabinet. 

I'll live on the streets, he tells himself, I'll live on the streets without a college degree, and no one will want me anymore. My father will sell me off -- that'd be the best case scenario, actually, if he'd sell me off, at least I'd prove useful to him for once but then again what the hell will I-- 

Soobin's hand falls on his shoulder. He squeezes hard. Pain shoots down Beomgyu's arm. "An alpha?" 

Beomgyu can feel himself start to sweat. "Yes." 

"Did you tell father?"

"No." 

"You should, he'd be very happy." 

Beomgyu makes a face. "I'd rather not talk to father," he says, "you know how him and I are." 

"Still, maybe..." 

He rolls his eyes. "Ah yes, because that's what is going to make him suddenly love me. Twenty years of solitude, twenty years of why can't you be like Soobin, and suddenly, I get a knot and I'm worthy." It's a crude way to talk, but Beomgyu thinks that's what would make him more alpha anyway. At the end of the day, Kai told him to fake it until he makes it. So, naturally, this is what makes sense.

Soobin gives him a weird look. Too calculated, like he's trying to read behind every single one of his words. Beomgyu hates it. Hates that it makes him feel small and that it makes him feel as if there's something wrong. He knows there is something wrong, that isn't the issue. The issue is, as always, that Soobin can never seem to mind his business. It's always been like that. With a distant father, Beomgyu has learned, over the course of way too many years (he hates to admit it; if anyone asks, he's been nonchalant and avoidant since birth. Born to be an ice-cold prince with the visuals of a god) to not let things bother him. Soobin, however, hasn't. He's some sort of a self-assigned mother hen, hovering over Beomgyu's side like he's a wounded chick, ready to dive in to save him from his next mishap. Which is why, at the end of the day, Beomgyu thinks that he could, in eventuality, tell Soobin what's going on. Maybe he'd help him. But, just as much of a self-assigned mother hen as he is, he's also too righteous for his own good. A sort of a fifty-fifty type of deal with the devil, if you are to ask Beomgyu, in the sense that you never know what comes next. 

"Okay," Soobin drawls. He gives him one more calculated look before he nods to himself, almost like he's figured out what he needed. Then, he throws a heavy arm around Beomgyu's shoulder, pulling him into his side. Beomgyu tries not to wince. Ever since he presented as an omega, his skin has been more sensitive, his muscles more tender. Soobin turns them around to face the team, "My baby brother wants to join the team!" He announces. Loudly. Way too loudly for 7 in the morning, on a pitch semi-covered in early autumn fog. The kind that's somewhat cold, as if to remind you what's coming.

Beomgyu flushes. He feels the heat of it everywhere. On his cheeks, on the tips of his ears, down his chest.

"Shut up," he whines. "That's too loud."

Yet Soobin lives to embarrass him. Always has —

"Why? You're an alpha now!" He cheers. Too loudly, for everyone else to hear.

Murmurs rise from the crowd. A gasp, too, somewhere further than Beomgyu would have liked Soobin's words to reach.

"Baby Choi's an alpha?" It's Changbin who asks, even louder than Soobin had been. Too loud. Beomgyu wishes for the ground to split and swallow him whole.

He knew that by making an appearance, spinning the story around to benefit him, it would mean everyone being aware of it. He knew. Yet, now, with the team hollering at him, with the phrase baby Choi's an alpha, too spoken with such glee, like it was expected of him, Beomgyu can't help the dread fluttering in his chest. Rapid, in the same rhythm of his heart, again and again, until he's almost nauseous. He pushes through. Confidence is key, Kai had told him prior that day, with such a sureness to him that Beomgyu had caved in. He could never disappoint him, that much Beomgyu knew. Neither Kai, nor Taehyun, who had done everything to make this possible for him. In a world where things never seemed to go his way, what would be one more? One more thing that doesn't work out; one more thing to lie about, like he's done countless times. Things like i'm fine and that sweater is beautiful, totally matches your style and i'm not falling behind, father, no despite the abysmal grade on his latest math test. Things like I'm okay to live the life you want to give me and I don't mind that I will never get to pick or fall in love or all those things I thought held any meaning to me. 

Now, Beomgyu thinks that he never really understood the consequences of his choices. Not when he presented in the bathroom down by the English Department, heat pooling in his gut, with Taehyun meters away from him, like he could barely stand the sight of him, and not when he'd taken the green bottle out of Kai's hands, swirling the liquid inside and watching with rapt attention the way it caught the moonlight in its sheerness. All these, narrowed down, one second too fast, into the entirety of his present then: a football team around him, patting him on the back and grabbing him by his shoulders like he meant something for the first time. Even more so, in the distance, almost as if frozen, Choi Yeonjun, just as beautiful as he'd always been, with dark, sharp eyes and a pouted mouth, hesitating just a second too long before joining the rest in. 

"Congratulations, Beomgyu-yah," is what he tells Beomgyu, his hand squeezing at the meat of his shoulder just as tightly as everyone else had, if not maybe tighter, almost as if to brand him. "You're one of us, now," he adds. though Beomgyu thinks Yeonjun doesn't believe it one bit. 

He's never cared before, he tells himself. Yeonjun has never once cared, and that had pissed off Beomgyu more than anything else. In a world where everyone had always seemed to care, Yeonjun hadn't. Not when he'd been young and toddling after him on unsteady feet, Soobin's name on the tip of his tongue — hang out with me, too, hyung, Beomgyu used to babble, high pitched and whiny, and all annoying, the way he thinks all younger brothers tend to be. With me, too, hyung, please — and Soobin used to, every now and then, when he felt particularly brotherly. And that would mean Yeonjun, too, even if the older boy didn't want to at all. Even if he whined at Soobin, too, to leave Beomgyu behind because Beomgyu was young and his feet were too unsteady to climb up trees and run the way they used to. Yet Yeonjun has always been somewhat more bark than bite, because he'd agree anyway, reluctant as it were, and Beomgyu would waddle after him, too, whining hyung in that same way he used to do it for Soobin. 

Now, when he looks at Yeonjun, the word mate sits heavy on his tongue. Mine, in the way nothing quite seems to ever be. Beomgyu's — all maddening and beautiful and no one else's. Left on this Earth for him like the stars had told them to. Yet Beomgyu can't tell him any of that. Even when Yeonjun's touch zaps down his spine like electric current, all pleasant and wonderful and warm, like no one in this world was meant to touch him if not for him, Beomgyu can't tell him. Even when Yeonjun steps just a smidge closer, his cologne dizzying and body warm, Beomgyu can't tell him. 

So, instead, with gritted teeth, almost as if tearing at his heart raw, Beomgyu meets Yeonjun's eyes. "Thank you, hyung," he tells him, even when it feels all wrong and mangled on the tip of his tongue. "I'm an alpha like you and Soobin-hyung," he says. Yet there is none of that pride; confidence is key, Kai had told him, yet the more Beomgyu remembers about it, the less truth it holds to it. Confidence is key, though Beomgyu has never shaken this way in his own body, like his bones were not made to branch around his organs anymore, and his muscles to keep him uprooted. Almost as if he were nothing more than half of himself. 

"You are," Yeonjun nods, "took you long enough." 

When Beomgyu dares look at him — truly look at him — there is none of pride he had expected to find. None of that boredom either, nothing that Yeonjun had ever shown him before. Instead, Yeonjun's gaze is lingering, like he knows something isn't quite right. Like he knows, thought that's impossible. Even if the initial posts he'd come across had said that a mate can tell, the deeper he'd sought an answer, the more things came to light, like near-deadly doses of suppressants and, then, after Beomgyu had done even more research, the green potion staring him down  he'd found some particularly strange Subreddits, where Kai's potion hadn't seemed so strange and far fetched anymore. It had almost seemed like the only natural solution. And Beomgyu had allowed it to make sense to him, for just enough time to throw it back like a shot of medicine despite the pungent taste of licorice. 

"Yeah," Beomgyu breathes out. He can't look away from Yeonjun. He's beautiful, Beomgyu thinks. Then, just as quickly as the thought had come, Beomgyu dismisses it. I can't think of him like he's my alpha; not now, when there's so much at stake. "Took me long enough," he agrees. Fugitively, like an afterthought. Took me long enough, because I never got to breathe you in before, the way I did that morning. All rain and thunder and sea-salt, like those days you'd spend with Soobin at the beach, breathing in the air without me.

Yeonjun flashes him a grin. It's a rare sight when it comes to Beomgyu, but it's devastating every time. Even when he'd been young, Beomgyu had wished for nothing more than to see him like that, over and over again. A smile stretching at his plush lips, directed toward Beomgyu, too, and not just Soobin.

Awkwardly, with his heart beating out of his chest, Beomgyu offers him a smile, too. My mate, he thinks, and, for the first time since, it doesn't feel quite as strange as it had before. Natural and beautiful, like there's never been a day in which Yeonjun hadn't been his. 

"You're gonna do well at practice?" Yeonjun asks him. It's half conversational, like he's trying to pass time. 

Beomgyu flushes red. "Well," confidence is key, "no." he settles on, flatly, There's no point for him to lie. Yeonjun knows him. He's known him for decades now. 

Stifling a laugh, Yeonjun's fingers dig into the meat of Beomgyu's shoulder. Beomgyu's mouth dries. He shakes blindly, right to his core. "Figured," Yeonjun says. "But that's fine. Coach will let you into the team, anyway." 

"Huh?" 

Yeonjun gives him a weird look. "What do you mean, huh? You're a Choi, you know. You've got enough privilege to last you four lifetimes." 

Beomgyu feels his blush deepen. "I mean, yeah, but Soobin—" 

He watches Yeonjun roll his eyes. Yet the fondness still stretches his red mouth into a soft, toothy smile and when he leans in, close enough for Beomgyu's stomach to flip and squeeze, heart thundering in his chest as if  ready to crawl its way out. Yeonjun leans in closer and closer, until his mouth hovers by Beomgyu's ear, lips brushing against his skin. Goosebumps erupt on his skin. Head to toe, all pleasant and unpleasant at the same time. Mine, Beomgyu thinks again, even if he's not allowed to have him. 

"Soobin," Yeonjun whispers, "isn't some athletic resurrection of Jesus either, you know?" 

His tone is light, teasing, yet Beomgyu can't help the blush deepening on his cheeks. He knows, for a fact, that Yeonjun is just as much of a chaebol as everyone else. Yet everything he has ever done has been so effortless, like he'd been born to do anything he'd ever wanted. School had come easy to him, that much Beomgyu knows, and sports, too. Talking to omegas, and charming the world around him until it pooled at his feet — it had all come easily to him. Too easily, almost like there had never been a day in his life where Yeonjun had been inadequate. Even on his worst days, Yeonjun had done better than everyone else. 

"Still —" 

Yeonjun squeezed Beomgyu's shoulder one more time. "You'll be fine, baby Choi. You'll see." 

With that he lets go of Beomgyu all together. The older boy takes a step back, letting the air rush back between them, like nothing had ever happened. Then, with one last grin, he walks away from Beomgyu, as if nothing had happened at all. Beomgyu takes in a deep breath. He hadn't realized just how maddening it would be to have Yeonjun so close to him, one split molecule, two halves teetering on the very edge of the world, ready to come together.

It takes him a second to gather himself. With his heart just as loud inside his chest, seemingly bursting at the seams, and the skin of his body warm and bright red, Beomgyu breathes deeply enough to make the blood flow through him easily. Yet even after minutes, his quickened pulse doesn't deter; if anything, the longer he thinks about Yeonjun, about the closeness of the older boy or the way  his touch had felt on his skin, the more lightheaded he gets. 

That same lightheaded feeling follows him through the entirety of the two hours set out every morning for football practice. When the coach seems more than happy to have him on the field despite how bad Beomgyu seems to be at coordinating his limbs, when he joined them for warm ups, when they play a scrimmage and Beomgyu doesn't seem to be able to get himself to kick the ball hard enough to pass over the middle of the field. If anything, it sinks even more into his skin, like needles ready to dig into his bones. And halfway through, when he knows Yeonjun is frustrated enough with him, and he lifts his the hem of his shirt enough to wipe at the sweat beading around his hair line, Beomgyu's limbs feel almost like jelly. Gooey mass under his weight, ready to collapse. Yet he ignores the way his mouth dries or the hard planes of Yeonjun's stomach. He ignores the whisper of his scent that he can catch under those patches stuck to the sides of the older boy's neck. If he didn't. Beomgyu doesn't think he would be able to stand through it at all. 

By the time practice comes to a halt, Beomgyu is bruised purple and blue, and his skin is more tender than it has ever been. Over his wrists and his knees, scrapped raw. His whole body aches. After years (read: a lifetime, almost) of striving to make as little effort as possible, a full football practice with the university team has probably, among many others, not been Kai's most brilliant idea. Yet Beomgyu can't blame him at all, because Kai had at least an idea. Beomgyu had nothing. If anything, he would have wallowed in his own misery, left alone to his devices until someone would have stumbled into his room, nose twitching with a new, foreign scent. However, with pain blooming in all of his joints, Beomgyu thinks there could have been more sensible ways to approach his situation than this. Things like trying out for vice-president of the student body or maybe challenging enough alphas to arm-wrestling matches. Hell, there are multiple sports teams on campus; enough for Beomgyu to find something less self-sacrificing; like fencing or tennis or, hell, track. Though Beomgyu isn't entirely sure he would have survived running for the next two years and a half. 

Still, he thinks, panting, maybe it would have been kinder. 

Especially when he watches Yeonjun grab his shirt by the back and hauls it over his head.

Instantly, Beomgyu averts his gaze, heat flooding his cheeks.

He can't look. 

It's the stupid bond, he tells himself. Even as pleasure seems to pool in his tummy, heated and coiled tightly. The stupid, ancient bond. 

"Choi Beomgyu," he hears, though it's muted in his ears. All Beomgyu can focus on is not looking at Yeonjun, though it's proving more of a herculean task than anything. Desperately, and so unlike himself, he wants to turn around, just enough to catch another sliver of Yeonjun's sun-kissed skin. Just enough to see the dip of his hipbones and the soft curls fading beneath the waistband of his shorts. 

Beomgyu exhales through his clenched teeth. He squeezes his eyes shut. He doesn't know how the omega thing works at all. Or the potion thing. What if it's failing him? He has a near lethal dosage of suppressants in him, and that'd be enough to render him scentless like a beta, and two scent patches layered on top of each other on either side of his neck. As well as a pad lining his boxers, despite the itchiness and discomfort of it. Yet he can't risk it — letting his scent run its course, or slick dripping out of him. 

Especially not because of Choi Yeonjun of all people. 

"Stupid ancient bond," he mumbles to himself, "so fucking stupid. Absolute overkill, if you ask me."

Another heavy hand latches onto his shoulder. Beomgyu jumps in his skin, stepping to the side. Yet the foreign fingers remain anchored into place. He hadn't realized just how common of a thing it had become to grab someone so casually.  "Congratulations!"

He turns to the side. The coach — a man somewhere in his forties, with a hair curling behind his ears and a reticent smile — looks at him warmly for the first time since he'd stepped foot onto the football field. 

"I'm sorry, what?" 

"Welcome to the team, Choi Beomgyu-ssi," the coach tells him. 

Beomgyu wants to laugh. He'd done miserably throughout the entire morning, and there's more mud to his clothes than anything else. He'd tumbled into the grass enough to feign playing rugby more than anything, and he'd stumbled over his own two feet an unbearable and embarrassing amount of times. 

"Wait," he frowns, "really?" 

The man gives him a weird look. "Is this not a good thing for you?" 

"I mean —," Beomgyu feels himself flush for the hundredth time that day. "No. I mean, no it's a good thing. I was just... surprised, I think. Because, you know." He gestures, vaguely, to himself; to the bruises littering the expanse of his uncovered skin, to his reddened knees and the blood crusted by the side of his mouth from when he'd taken a ball to his face. 

The coach nods. "Oh, I know." 

More heat blooms over Beomgyu's cheeks. He feels it dip beneath the collar of his shirt, too, spreading everywhere. "Then?" He asks weakly.

Maybe it's some shaming ritual, he thinks. One of those things where they pick the weakest link they can find, give him hope and let him get attached, only to cut him off. The kind of fucked up psychological test Taehyun watches at four in the morning on YouTube when he can't sleep — like that one with the kids and the marshmallows, jesus, if it were me instead of them I —

"I believe there's potential in everyone," the coach — Jung! Coach Jung, Beomgyu cheers, that was his name! — tells him. "Even in the most ... particularly complicated cases." Such as yours remains unspoken, yet they both know it. 

Beomgyu doesn't say anything about it anymore. He's not sure he'd have anything to say related to it, anyway. Thank you for rigging my way into the football team? Or will you bench me the entire season? It's not like Beomgyu could actually play — or, at least, play well. The scrimmage had been proof enough. He supposes he's grateful for the Choi name for the first time in a long while. Rigging your way into things does have its perks after all, he thinks. Being a Choi and all that. So, instead, he nods despite the strain his neck — Beomgyu would not put it past himself to have not strained some unknown muscle too — with heart in his throat, and when he sees Yeonjun approach him, still shirtless, with warm, sunkissed, sweaty skin, he stammers and apology and a half-hearted see you tomorrow Coach! and some faux salute with his less energy than he had intended before hurrying off the football pitch.

It's not like Beomgyu doesn't want to see Yeonjun. At the end of the day, it's hard not to want to see the older boy, unformed bond and all. He knows, for a fact, that the pull is there; Beomgyu hates it.

Though, deep inside him, even if he'd like not to think about it, he isn't entirely sure he hates it all that much. Only because it does not feel as unnatural as he thought it would. That probably pisses him off more than anything else.

Still, he ignores when Yeonjun calls after him. Instead, he hurries even more, sore legs be damned. It's not like Beomgyu has anything to lose. He'll be in terrible pain the next day, anyway. What's one more light jog added to his list of suicidal ideas.

So, naturally, in that avoidant way of his — something that his therapist (his therapist is a bit of a stretch, though, because Beomygu had stepped inside her office two or three times at best and simply vented forty-five words per second in an attempt to keep it light and short) had insisted they would need to work on (read: Beomgyu never showed up again) — Beomgyu breaks out into a sprint. And when he thinks he's put enough distance between him and Yeonjun, he comes to a halt, dizzy and out of breath, leaning against the damp brick of the Business department.

"I'm so fucked," he mutters.

Because, even with a high dosage of suppressants simmering in his blood and that green potion swirling around in his stomach, licorice aftertaste stuck on the tip of his tongue even hours later, Beomgyu can feel the slick drip out of him with every memory of Yeonjun's faint scent and unmarked skin that flashes before his closed eyes.

"So, so, fucked."

🧸🦊

1. "Why I Think You Should Pretend To Be An Alpha Instead of Hiding Your Presentation by Huening Kai".

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