Chapter Text
Before he presented as an alpha, Seungmin used to smell like shampoo and sour boy sweat. A little pungent, overall pleasant, not noteworthy in any way. Minho used to smell like that, too, before he woke up drenched in nauseating sweetness, convinced someone had poured a strawberry shake on his head in his sleep- his cabin mates at theater camp only survived because he was too sick to harm them in revenge. It took him the better part of a day to accept that he just smelled like that, now. Didn't stop him from getting defensive when his so-called friends told him it didn't match him.
Seungmin never minded it. He used to sit where the wind would carry Minho's scent to him, saying it calmed him down.
Now that he’s a respectable presented alpha, he sniffs Minho from a distance one singular time, and says: “hey.”
“Hey,” Minho nods back, like they see each other every day. “You stink.”
He doesn’t stink. He smells like wood. Minho was expecting wet dog.
“No, I don’t,” Seungmin says, unfazed. “But I’m happy to stink to you.”
Minho cat smiles, hands still deep in the pockets of his leather jacket.
“I thought you would be happy to have an older, experienced omega to spend your ruts with.”
“Say that again and I will vomit.”
Yeah, that didn’t taste good in Minho’s mouth either.
“Little alpha,” he coos fastidiously, “bark bark.”
Seungmin’s exasperation is extremely fond. Minho allows himself to crack a smile.
He missed the puppy. They never lost touch, but the three passive aggressive dots he gets by text aren’t the same as seeing his aggravated scrunched nose.
They don’t hug, but they brush shoulders while they walk.
Seungmin actually does smell kinda nice. There’s an almost metallic note nestled in the wood.
If Minho was in the business of being honest, he’d admit it’s nice to have an alpha friend. He loves his pack, but betas leave his nose itching for something more than plain, human sweat and cheap deodorant.
“People are watching,” Seungmin says, like Minho can’t tell.
Of course people are watching. Minho is voluntarily walking within touching distance of a new cute alpha recruit. People will be eager to get their gossip to go.
“Should we make out to appease them?”
“Are you in heat?”
As if.
“Just funny.”
“If that’s funny to you, never talk to me again.”
It’s nice to walk side by side like this.
“How was horny jail?”
“You’ve been to junior college.”
Junior college. So pretentious.
“Oh, so you too spent most of your time flirting with alphas and never putting out, I see.”
Seungmin shoves his shoulder into Minho. Minho knees the back of his leg.
“You’re too tall,” he says, dispassionately.
“I’m an alpha. It would be weird if I wasn't.”
“Gender essentialism is boring.”
“It’s statistics,” he enunciates, tired. “And you’re one to talk.”
Minho would defend his honor, but he can't. Seungmin was around during the worst two years of his life. He feels it all again: confidence slipping from his face, red waist corsets, a trophy being held in triumph over someone else’s head. Han Jisung, already an alpha at fifteen years old, being lifted in the air. Tiny. Growth debatably stunted by early presentation.
He hates being reminded of Han Jisung.
He trips Seungmin, but the dog senses it and avoids his outstretched ankle.
“It wasn't that bad,” he resumes, in a pathetic attempt to distract Minho from violence. “Little studying, lots of making out.”
Minho is a gossip. He can't help it. He wiggles his eyebrows.
“Making out only?”
Nothing in Seungmin’s face shows that he’s embarrassed. It’s easy for Minho to tell he is, and to associate the sticky smell of resin with it.
It’s one of his favorite things, to be able to scent pheromones. The world would be much less colorful without it.
“What do you think,” he mumbles.
“You never know. Maybe you took a vow of canine celibacy.”
Minho took one in feline celibacy. As in: he heard and saw enough of the passion of lots of newly presented, hormonal omega and alphas, to never want to experience even more sex. Without any heat sending him in a frenzy, and with betas assuming every omega on campus was claimed by at least one alpha, Minho got to leave horny jail a pure man, just to ruin it all on a scorching hot summer. He doesn't even remember the name of the cute beta who fucked him on the beach. He remembers the sand, though. Itchy.
“I didn't,” Seungmin mumbles, a little pale in the face. “I really didn't.”
Ah, yes. Post-hormonal regret, Minho’s favorite part. He relishes in the shame of their brain finally catching up with all they did while high on pheromones.
Sadly his teasing gets cut short by a girl calling for Seungmin and talking about campus orientation, or something. Minho isn't really paying attention.
He squints against the September sun. The air smells like crunchy leaves and hot cement. Of polished wood too, if he tilts his head towards Seungmin.
The thing is, he always knew Seungmin would be an alpha. He couldn’t say why , it was just something that was true and he didn’t question, like the sky being above him.
He smiles, unseen.
He’s got his pack alpha back.
🍋🟩
DominATE, despite the arrogant name, is somewhat of an underdog. Their excellent arrangements always get praised by the judges, they’re more often than not the best choreographed act of a competition, and their vocals are solid.
With that said, they lack star power. Or rather their star power gets drowned by light pollution: Changbin’s sophisticated rapping, Minho’s sharp dancing and Chan’s overwhelming leading power are lost to eleven other teammates who historically aren’t memorable in any way.
The material is there. God knows the work is too. It's the raw talent that they’re missing. The kind that can be weaponized.
Seungmin will fix that.
“Is this the wonderboy, finally?” Chan asks as soon as they step inside the auditorium. “Kim Seungmin?”
“I am,” he nods with his back straight and an undertone of violent shyness. Minho will either eat him or kidnap him and stuff him in his nest. He’s too cute to survive in the wilderness.
Minho preens as his favorite canines shake hands, all business-like. The dimples on Chan’s cheek are deep and sincere.
“Minho has been hyping you up as the vocalist of the century.”
“Minho should shut up.”
Chan laughs, delighted. Minho shoves two fingers in Seungmin’s side, where it's the most tender.
“I’m right. We’re getting our star power this year.”
“I really hope so,” Chan says, lowering his beanie on his forehead.
Minho understands well the emotion buried in it. He too got robbed of a National trophy in his High School senior year. He isn't going to let it happen to Chan. Especially because Chan got robbed of a win every year.
He has the inexplicable urge of not refusing a back hug, but Chan doesn't go for it. He claps his hands instead, walking back to the front of the floor.
It’s a familiar image, Chan standing in front of the stage, bare arms looking stark white against the black background. It almost gives Minho deja-vu. He shakes off goosebumps.
“Hello. Is everyone here? What time is it?”
“Two past nine,” Changbin says, his voice muffled by sleep. “Let’s wait five more minutes.”
Chan’s jaw clenches. He nods, humming.
“I’ll wait for three.”
Good enough. Chan and Changbin share a nod.
Minho is envious, sometimes. Of their easy banter, of the quiet way they support each other. Minho never really had a partner in crime that was only for him.
He doesn't know why he’d been so sentimental, today. Must be the impending feeling of change in the air. The smell of adrenaline.
He takes a sniff.
He’s either hallucinating, or- Minho stops on his tracks. Seungmin, already sitting down, turns his head as if challenged.
It’s a distinctive smell a beta would reduce to dish soap. Minho hasn't smelled it in four years. It sneaks up his nostrils, coils in his throat.
Han Jisung, on stage, narrow shoulders and a powerful kick.
His shoulders aren't narrow anymore. His arms are big, shown by a sleeveless muscle tee shoved in clingy low-rise jeans.
He’s blond.
Minho is blond. He owns it. He sneers.
“Oh, for God's sake,” Seungmin snaps.
Han Jisung turns his head, eyes finally stopping to fidget around the room like a lost rodent.
He looks like a man. His jaw is unsettling defined, especially for someone with cheeks that round.
He frowns, dark eyebrows turning his face hostile.
Minho licks the roof of his mouth.
“Not another alpha,” some background character whines.
“Not this alpha,” Seungmin corrects them.
“Look who’s alive,” Minho sneers before he can take the smart decision to shut the fuck up. “The alpha hamster.”
Dry, scorched grass overwhelms the stuffy air of the auditorium. Minho breathes it in.
Jisung opens his mouth, his lip curls up unevenly, showing teeth, but nothing follows it. He takes a deep breath and walks straight up to Minho.
Passes him by.
Seungmin catches Minho’s hand mid-air, stopping him from doing whatever he was going to do.
He stares at the back of Jisung's head as he sits down, dropping his bag to the ground.
Minho can see his ribs. His fingers twitch.
“Uhm,” Changbin says from the front, with a raised eyebrow but evidently no intention to bring up whatever didn't just happen. “It’s 9:07. I think we can start, Chan.”
Chan nods, snapping out of whatever trance he fell in. His eyes are made of steel. Minho has hardly seen a more commanding presence, and it’s all hard-earned. No alpha pheromones to help him out. It’s just pure ambition and determination, even in a too-big pink checkered flannel and sock beanie.
“Hello,” he starts. “Welcome to auditions.”
His speech is brief and to the point. As is the case every year, everyone is auditioning again. It’s not a formality. It has happened and will happen again that someone in last year’s formation won't be in this year. They’re looking for fourteen members total, the best N/S college has to offer. Seniority has no meaning inside the auditorium. Singing, dancing, rapping- he wants it all. He doesn't expect them all to have it down yet, but he will expect it by the time their first competition will take place in three months.
Minho has heard it all three times now, so he doesn't really listen. He stares at Han Jisung instead.
“Keep it down,” Seungmin mouths to him, wrinkling his nose. Rotten fruit is seeping out of Minho. He can't help it, with the thief so close to him.
He tries, though. For Seungmin's sake if anything- if he speaks one more time while Chan does, he won’t let that slide.
Somehow, they make it to the selections. Minho stands up the very second Chan instructs them to line up on stage as either dancers, rappers or singers. Not a single breath is issued as people follow, including Changbin.
Minho gives him a flirty cat smile, and Changbin air kisses him in turn. Chan likes them when they’re a bit silly, they can get away with it.
Dancers go first.
If there’s a little bit of a conflict of interest in Minho showing how well he can follow his own choreography, it doesn't really matter. If there’s one thing he knows how to do, it’s performing, specifically dancing. He’s by far the best on stage, but there are a few new good recruits. They’re both betas with somewhat long-ish hair. One dances like he’s possessed by the spirit of a not particularly nice pagan god, while the other has powerful footwork and is artfully aggressive. Minho assumes Chan got both of their names down, and if he didn't, he's going to scold him.
Most of the aspiring vocalists are downright boring. Pretty voices that Minho has heard dozens of times. Seungmin is second to last, and he’s good . He was good when he was fifteen and he’s good now. He's powerful, he’s precise, and his tone is one of a kind.
Minho can't see Chan’s reaction, but he sees Changbin's. He’s impressed, and that’s something he rarely is.
The last guy looks a bit younger, still got braces on. Minho almost feels bad for him for having to go after Seungmin, until he doesn’t. His voice is pretty. Interesting. A little old-style and metallic. Chan will like him.
Rapping is always the most fun part for Minho, if only because rappers are cool. And if they aren't, it means they’re ass. That’s the extent of his knowledge on the topic, and he isn't looking to expand it.
Changbin is objectively the coolest person Minho's ever met. He’s so good he sees a few of the kids in line pale, especially because with fourteen members, there's really not that much space on the rapping line. Two mains, maybe a substitute in case tragedy was to strike. Usually it’s hard to even find someone Chan likes well enough. This batch isn't horrendous, though.
Minho feels the urgent need to bite his hands off when Han Jisung, last in line, stands alone on stage.
“Sorry,” Chan says. “Did you send in a backing track with your application? I don't seem to have it.”
“I didn't,” Jisung says. “Is that a problem?”
Minho hates him, hates him, hates him. It’s coming back in waves, all that consuming resentment of his teenage years.
He misses Chan giving him the go.
He doesn't miss Jisung’s performance. It’s a fucking medley of raps, an insufferable best-of by an artist with no singles. He’s aggressive, he’s mellow, he’s fast, he’s melodic, he’s whatever the fuck else a rapper can be. Sharp water shaping whichever way it wants.
He remembers. Sitting in the audience in his junior year, riding on the high of two consecutive Nationals victories and a legacy of more. The shards of confidence shattering in front of an unknown skinny freshman taking up so much space he made the stage look tiny. Knowing that no matter how much better their group was, they didn't have a Han Jisung to bring the house down.
He hates it. He hates him. He hates Changbin’s impressed face and thunderous applause. He hates that Chan asks, a fucking smile in his voice, “where the hell did you come from?”.
Most of all, he hates Han Jisung’s genuine, heart-shaped smile.
He clutches at his own hands and swallows the bile.
The two dancers make it in. Hyunjin and Felix. Felix has a stupidly deep voice that makes Chan ask him what his comfortable singing range is, and make him try it out on the spot.
Seungmin obviously makes it, and so does the stretched ball of dough that sang after him, Jeongin.
No other rapper makes it in besides Changbin and Jisung. It's not surprising.
The other five members are picked through a second round and Chan’s delicate calibration of who’s going to be better for the harmonies and who looks like he won't be a burden on the choreography.
When auditions are over, Chan is the happiest Minho has ever seen him. He hops right to Han Jisung, an easy dimpled smile on his face, and joins him and Changbin to nerd out about whatever miracle Jisung just performed on stage.
Minho wants to hit, but he has no ammunition.
He can't scoff at his performance, he can't make fun of him for having the physical presence of a stick bug anymore, and Jisung isn't giving him anything else to work with.
In fact, Jisung hasn't looked his way once .
Still, when he’s passing by them because they're standing in the way of the nearest exit, he has to sneer.
“The pony didn't unlearn his one trick, hm?”
Dry grass. The smell of acknowledgement.
Minho swallows when he smells a sweet undertone of brown sugar.
“Me? A one-trick pony?” He asks, mockingly and almost incredulous. It looks like he doesn’t know where to begin. “You’re one to talk, dancing gem,” it’s what he settles on.
Minho’s ear blush. He tsk s. He managed to keep the nickname coveted for two whole years.
“Might come as a shock to you, but I know how to sing.”
“I would hope so, seeing this is not a dance crew.”
Minho is about to bite back, but Seungmin drags him away by the elbow, coming out of nowhere. He barely smells the wood.
“Not really,” he hears Jisung answers to a lost question. “We met like twice when we were in High School.”
It’s humiliating, that the hyperbole is not that far off.
“I really don't see the problem,” Seungmin gathers the courage to say at the end of the day. “He’s not taking anything away from you this time. If anything, it’s good to have him on our side.”
He doesn't know what’s worse: the thought of losing again, or to win thanks to Han Jisung.
“From us ,” he corrects him. “You never won against him either.”
“Yeah, but consider this: I don't care.”
Cough syrup rottens in the air.
“You’ll better care this time,” Minho says, disappointed. “It's not a game for us.”
“Then make me care,” Seungmin replies, throwing the can of cold coffee in the trash.
Minho will. If it's the last thing he does.
🍋🟩
Felix and Hyunjin approach him without shame during lunch two days after the auditions, on the day of the first official DominATE practice.
Or rather: Felix approaches him, Hyunjin just follows with a shy sting ray smile.
If Minho were in a better mood, he’d have fun teasing him for having a crush.
“Is Chan always that intense?” Felix asks, spreading peanut butter on an apple slice.
“Yes,” Minho doesn't lie. “Sometimes he just manages to hide it better.”
“He’s cool, though.” Hyunjin’s sigh is full of admiration. “Sometimes you really wonder if someone’s sub-gender didn’t get screwed up, don't you?”
Not really. Maybe because he’s an omega, Minho can tell at a glance Chan isn't an alpha.
He isn’t like Seungmin, who just wanders around the world like he's a rock star. Or like Jisung, whose insufferable cockyness is irritating even when he’s playing docile.
He does that now. Minho has seen him around. He shouts less, alpha-spreads less, doesn't seem to actively want to take up as much space as he can. Sometimes he even looks shy, especially when he’s alone. And yet. It’s something in the gait of his bambi legs, in the way his eyes always snap back to fiery determination.
Just because a gun has a safety lock, it doesn't stop being a firearm.
Chan is different. He’s like a piece of metal voluntarily sharpened into a weapon.
Then again, Minho guesses guns are pieces of inert material, too, at first.
He doesn’t know. It’s confusing, this secondary gender shit. Doesn’t really make sense beyond an instinctual gut feeling. It’s why he never really thinks about it.
Hyunjin seems to think about it a lot.
Minho guesses it’s more common for betas, since they’re neither here nor there. Then again, Felix is a beta too, and he always searches for Minho’s eyes when Hyunjin makes a comment like that. Regardless of the reason why, it’s nice to have someone to share private looks with.
The first DominATE practice usually leaves everyone both disheartened and motivated. It's when weaklings are most likely to leave.
Chan demands complete focus. He doesn't see a performer, but his potential, and he makes it clear he wants it to be met.
He’s never unreasonable, but he’s strict. He immediately asks Felix if he did the exercises he instructed him to do privately, and has a word with some background singers when they can't follow a fairly easy rhythm. Frankly, he’s the kind of teacher Minho always worked the best with. Strict but fair. Ready to help and to criticize.
He’s a little soft on Jisung. He allows him to be a little sloppy when he wants to be. Minho compensates by being on his ass about the steps.
He’s not pointing out anything that doesn't deserve to be pointed out. He cleans up his lines, adjusts his balance, corrects the way he holds his weight.
He knows he’s being fastidious about it. Jisung bites his tongue, again and again, but it isn't in his nature to just take it.
“Will you get off my dick for five seconds?”
It pierces the practice room. Both in volume and intensity. Minho licks his teeth, battles his eyelashes.
“I'm dance captain, I'm doing my job. You’re not executing the step correctly.”
“Neither is literally anyone else but for The Shining twins,” Jisung doesn't back off. “It doesn't seem to me that obsessing over me is you doing your job.”
“And what do you know about my job?” Minho asks, fastidiously, tilting his head.
“That apparently even a child can do it.”
Oh. He isn't letting this one go.
“Then please, take my place. You’re more qualified than me. In attitude and in stature.”
“We’re the same height.”
“Is that the only measurement you round up?”
Someone snickers. Seungmin sighs.
“Minho,” Chan calls him. “This isn't a private lesson. Watch them all, will you?”
Minho can't believe his ears. He turns slowly. Chan raises both of his eyebrows.
It means don't start shit you don't want to see through .
Minho manages to compose himself only because the grass starts smelling burnt.
“I didn't need you to intervene,” Jisung says, walking off. “I’ll go drink something and cool off. I’ll be back in five.”
Nobody walks out without asking Chan for permission.
And yet. Minho stares as Chan nods and slaps Jisung on his back.
“Seriously?” He asks. “You just let him do whatever the fuck he wants?”
“I let you do whatever the fuck you want,” he replies, smiling like a wolf. “Do you want the privilege revoked?”
He wants the privilege respected. It took Minho three weeks, nine practices, to be given wiggle room. To be trusted.
He pushes his hair back and starts badgering Seungmin about everything he’s doing wrong. An alpha for an alpha.
When Jisung gets back he respectfully nods to Chan and walks straight to Changbin to ask for help with the step he isn't getting right.
He gets it in under a minute.
“I swear to you, Minho,” Seungmin mutters when they’re sharing an energy drink, shirts sticking to their skin with sweat. “If you keep making the atmosphere so joyful, I’m quitting.”
Minho hates that he can't have that. He sucks the bottle’s opening, staring at a crack on the pavement.
Chan ambushes him in the hallways.
Minho wordlessly screams while he gets squeezed within an inch of his life.
At least he calls Minho kitten .
“Why are you acting up?” he asks, cutely. “Pretty little omega doesn't like the new alpha?”
“Alpha rodents are hardly alphas at all,” he mutters.
“Is it because he’s blond?” Changbin asks, catching up to them while chugging a protein shake. “We had this conversation. You don't own blond hair.”
“Evidence was inconclusive.”
“Your brain chemistry is inconclusive.”
Minho leans over to Changbin as far as Chan’s arms will allow him.
“You want to kiss me so bad.”
Changbin leans in close, too. Puts his whole hand on Minho’s face to shove him away. Minho bares his teeth.
“Han is nice,” Chan goes on, ignoring them. “You should give him a chance.”
“You should give Seungmin a chance. Remember him?”
“I like Seungmin,” Chan says, rubbing his palms over Minho’s shoulders like he would torment a pillow. “I like Hannie too. You should try liking more than one person.”
“There’s only one alpha for every omega, it’s just a matter of finding it.” Minho loves dating services taglines, especially when they’re statistically wacky.
“It?” Changbin asks.
Chan giggles.
“I’m not telling you to date him, kitten,” Chan specifies to Minho’s uncomfortable gurgles. “I just think he’s got something special.”
Minho ignores the bad taste in his mouth.
“I don't want more than one alpha in my pack,” Minho insists.
“Good thing you got into show choir,” Changbin says.
“It’s so cute that you call us a pack,” Chan giggles.
Minho is finally bothered enough to wiggle out of his hold. It’s not cute. It’s serious.
“Beta brain,” he mumbles. “What do you know about packs.”
“I know that if we were one, there’d be room for two alphas,” Changbin says, pushing his glasses up with his knuckles. “As long as they respect Chan’s authority.”
He cocks his eyebrows.
“And Han Jisung does?”
“Yep,” Changbin shrugs. “Or at least he respects his reasoning.”
Chan doesn't give reasoning . He gives orders and takes decisions.
“I see,” Minho says, stealing Changbin’s protein shake.
He takes a slurp, grimaces, and gives it back. At least now his mouth tastes bad for a non-abstract reason.
“Cat piss would taste better.”
“How would you know?”
“Aren't you curious.”
“I’m really not.”
They only stop when they have to go in separate directions.
“I’m sure you put it together,” Minho says, fixing his bangs. “He’s the one I lost to.”
Chan nods, dimples out in pity. Minho allows it just because it’s Chan.
“You’re not losing to him again,” Changbin says, patting him on his back.
He isn't winning against him either, Minho thinks and lets go.
🍋🟩
Hyunjin buzzes around him like a bee. Minho doesn’t mind it. He’s got tips to spare and he always liked the idea of a minion. Felix is usually there too, but he’s not starstruck. When Minho asks him for stupid favors he doesn’t really have a need for, he doesn’t nod cutely and executes on the spot. He doesn’t stop Minho from ordering around Hyunjin either, amusement in his eyes whenever Hyunjin obeys on the spot.
“So,” he asks in his freaky deep voice, when Hyunjin comes back with a pink can of energy drink Minho will maybe open by the end of the week. “Are we close enough to ask about you and Jisung?”
Minho blinks. Slurps on his noodles.
“What about me and Jisung?”
“Are you exes? Did you date in high school?”
Minho blinks rapidly. He drags his chair back and stands up. Felix laughs, pleading with him with eyes narrowed by amusement.
“Fine, fine,” he says, “you haven’t dated.”
“He’s his mortal enemy,” Hyunjin says just when Minho sits down again. “So Seungmin says.”
“Since when do you talk to Seungmin?”
Hyunjin shrugs.
“We have a lot of classes together.”
“With Jisung, too,” Felix says, casually. “He’s nice.”
Minho picks up his chopsticks as a weapon. Felix snorts, having the courtesy of half-hiding it behind his hands.
“And yet you eat with me and not either of them?”
“Hyunjin is terrified of Chan and Changbin, and Seungmin says he can’t see our faces for more than a set of hours in a day,” Felix smiles. “He’s cute.”
Minho nods. He resumes to use his chopsticks as a utensil and steals french fries from Hyunjin’s plate.
“And you wouldn’t sit with us if you didn’t like us.”
True.
“Maybe I’m just too lazy to move.”
Stingray smile.
“ You sat down with us today.”
A shrug.
“Too lazy to think of an alternative.”
“You like us.”
“Why is it so important to you that I like you?”
“You’re older and cool,” Hyunjin says very boldly for someone that used to hide behind his shorter, narrow-framed friend. “If you want to hang with us, it means we’re cool, too.”
Minho blinks.
“You thrived in High School, didn’t you?”
He laughs, a smile hidden behind his hand.
“Maybe so.”
“I was so lame in High School,” Felix sighs. “I’ve been here a couple of weeks and it’s so much better.”
“What about horny jail?”
They both make disgusted sounds. Minho rejoices in them.
“Too soon, man,” Felix sighs. “For a week, we had a fight a day . Half of the alphas all went into rut at the same time. The stench was so bad, I can still smell it on me.”
“Everyone was having so much sex I stopped wanting to. My boyfriend broke up with me when I puked after I tried to push through the nausea.”
“Same,” Minho says.
Two curious sets of eyes on him.
“I take suppressants, haven’t you heard?”
It’s a lie that follows him since horny jail, when he was busy getting college credits, doing social work and generally being useful to society- utterly unusual practice for a young omega in good health. He doesn’t mind it. He finds it funny, actually. Gives him a little bit of an edge, too.
Felix looks a bit worried, the way caring people tend to when presented with alleged drug misuse. Hyunjin touches his arm in deep sympathy.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “It must be tough.”
Minho blinks. Even when people assume he’s taking them for medical reasons, they never act like he has to cut off a finger every two months in order to survive.
“Huh?”
“If I knew I could go through a heat but couldn’t, I’d go insane,” Hyunjin sighs.
Minho shares a look with Felix. As always, it’s inconclusive and companionable.
“I’d go insane if I had to go through one,” Minho says. “Wanna switch?”
Hyunjin’s stingray smile is a little tight. He steals back a fry.
“Why don’t you bring us to a party instead?” he asks.
Minho snaps Hyunjin’s fingers in between the chopsticks.
It’s not a terrible idea. He could use some sloppy kisses to blow off steam.
He gets into the off-campus party through Changbin, so, naturally, it’s a loud one. Beer pong, karaoke, a trivia game, house music blasting in the living room- it’s all there.
Minho is familiar enough that he’s already tired, but he takes his responsibilities seriously. When he feels like it. And tonight he feels like watching the ducklings.
“God, you look so hot,” Hyunjin slurs against his shoulder, slumped over him, fingers sneaking under the straps of his tank top.
He does indeed look hot. He even put on lip gloss and glitter for this- he wasn’t going to waste his favorite pair of chelsea boots with a bare face.
“You smell so good,” Hyunjin mumbles directly against his ear. “I wanna be you.”
This is a new one. People usually tell him they want to be in him, when it comes to it.
He searches Felix to exchange a look with, but he’s dancing on a table. He’s beautiful and half-naked, surrounded by people slipping him dollar bills. Minho hates when they do that- if he was going to put on a show he’d like to think he’d be worth fifty dollars bills minimum, but Felix doesn’t seem to mind.
Minho sucks on his straws, but nothing comes up. He shakes the glass and repeats, but only ice is left. He pouts and takes Hyunjin by the hand, walking towards the kitchen.
He circles around an alpha smelling of something like greasy french fries, and then surpasses him again when the guy puts himself in the way once more.
“Move,” he says, flatly.
“I can’t see two pretty omega friends hanging alone like this, it breaks my heart.”
“It’ll break your legs if you don’t move.”
It’s a little hard to sound menacing when Hyunjin is giggling into a puddle on his arm.
“Oh,” the hammered french fry grins, “a feisty one.”
Minho shows teeth. It’s not the flirty, stupid way he pulls out with his friends- it’s a proper snare.
“I said move.”
It tickles the alpha the wrong way. They always like someone who pushes back and never someone who pushes forward.
“Dang, man,” he says, almost disgusted. “What use is it being an omega if you’re that uptight.”
Minho is not getting into a fist fight not even three weeks into the semester. He’s not. He sucks air through his teeth and finally pushes Hyunjin into the kitchen.
There’s no peace, apparently, because Han Jisung is making out with a girl in the corner of the long counter, next to the stacks of ginger beers. She’s an omega, of course. Minho can smell her sickly sweet smell of cotton candy from there, despite the stench of weed, smoke and sweat hanging in the air.
He can smell the dish soap too, slightly herbal and sunny in the mockery of spring, but he blocks that out. He makes sure to slam the freezer shut when he takes out a new, unopened bottle of vodka.
“He was cute,” Hyunjin slurs, sticking his chest to Minho’s back. “That alpha. Why did you scare him off?”
“He was a dick.”
“He just didn’t want pretty omegas to go to waste.” His breath on Minho’s neck is sticky and reeks of alcohol.
Minho never wished for another person like he does for Felix now. He has no clue what to do with Hyunjin, his excessive amount of perfume and the deep loneliness in his words.
All that he can make up as a fucked up comfort method is tilting his head to the side and making out with Hyunjin.
He blames it on Han Jisung. He’s basically getting the girl to deep throat his tongue and he isn’t keeping it together- his scent is so strong that it’s getting under Minho’s skin even when he's breathing through his mouth. He still breathes through his mouth while he licks Hyunjin’s tongue. He’s got skills.
“Thank you,” Hyunjin giggles against his mouth when he’s sobered up a bit. “I need to puke.”
Minho takes the whole bottle of vodka with him to the bathroom. He drinks swigs of it while holding Hyunjin’s hair.
He smiles in a straight line when the door opens.
“Oh, come on, I need to take a leak, can I have one bath- oh.”
Changbin stares at them with wide eyes.
He takes a look at Minho. Minho nods to the shower. Changbin closes the door behind him.
The sounds of a college party: a zipper going down, a friend dry retching, pissing, and the sloshing of cheap vodka.
“Is he okay?”
Changbin asks while he washes his hands.
“He will be,” Minho shrugs. “We’ve all been there.”
Maybe not specifically where Hyunjin is, but to each their plight.
Changbin sniffs the air.
“Since when do you smell like flowers? Did you fuck an alpha?”
“It’s not me,” he says, pointing to Hyunjin with the bottle.
“Oh,” he says absolutely. “He put on a lot.”
“You should have smelled him when we came in.”
It’s a pretty perfume. Cruel. Static. Doesn't change on a whim and spikes at the most inappropriate moments.
It’s enough to fool a distracted beta or a fucked up alpha, when you look like Hyunjin does.
Changbin coughs. He scratches the side of his neck.
“Oh, well. I’ll get back to karaoke. Come and join us later.”
Minho nods. He rests his forehead against the bottleneck, exhaling a small sigh.
Thankfully, Hyunjin is a lightweight and has pretty much nothing to throw up. He looks apologetic and beaten after he washed his face and brushed his teeth with toothpaste on a finger. His make-up is still mostly intact. His smile is as pretty as always.
“Come on,” Minho says, slapping his ass. “They’re waiting for us. The party don’t start til we walk in and all that shit.”
Minho usually enjoys singing sad ballads that degenerate in wailing and screaming parties, but this is Hyunjin’s party and he needs to feel pretty, so Ke-dollarsign-ha time it is, in the wise words of his High School principal.
If Minho holds back a little on the sex appeal to make Hyunjin shine a little more, it doesn’t need to be acknowledged. The guy’s just out of horny jail and in his second week of college, barely more than a baby taking his first steps. Soon enough Minho will have to work not to be outshined.
He’s laughing and squeezing Hyunjin’s butt for fun when he catches sight of Jisung. He’s sitting on the couch with his omega in his lap. She’s wearing his flannel.
Minho sings three songs, and Jisung doesn’t look his way once.
“Can’t he just bring his hook up home?” He finally snaps when he has to witness Jisung and his girl slow dancing to Changbin singing girly pop.
“That’s his girlfriend,” Felix says, re-applying Minho’s gloss like he isn’t going home as soon as he isn’t too lazy to get his ass up from the floor. “Ally.”
He doesn’t give a fuck about Jisung’s girlfriend Ally. He drinks more vodka through two straws jammed inside one another to make it long enough to reach the bottom of the bottle.
🍋🟩
Life is extremely ordinary all through September.
Minho behaves. He corrects Jisung when he needs to, but he mostly leaves it to Changbin. He tries, once, to go through the ‘teach Hyunjin and get him to teach Jisung’, but it almost degenerates into a physical fight and Minho is blamed for it, so. Felix even blames him because Jisung won’t let him help him out either now, since he knows they’re friends.
Minho guesses they are. He let the two spend time in his apartment. Mostly because he has no energy to hang out anywhere else, but still. It counts for something.
He also needs new friends, since Chan and Changbin betrayed him. Sure, Minho is consciously avoiding them- but that’s because they hang out with the squirrel all the time. Three gym bros in snapback hats, it’s pathetic. A grotesque cosplay of the powerpuff girls. What do they even talk about all the time? Music and video games and, what, sports ? Maybe involving balls ? Horrifying.
He knows when they’re talking about anime because Changbin looks immensely confused by the other two geeking out with big smiles and wide gestures, and it’s both adequately amusing and vindicating. He wouldn’t be so lost, if he ever took any of Minho’s recommendations.
During the first practice in October, Chan tells everyone to work hard to solidify the basics they’ve been learning for the past weeks in boot camp, and that they will start to practice their first song. Sectionals competitions will be in the last week of November. They barely have two months to perfect their performance.
Minho accepts his music sheet and takes a quick glance. He’s got lines in the last chorus and it’s not even that high of a key. Standard. He can fuck with this.
He half listens to Chan and Changbin explaining line distributions. He’s busy thinking about the choreography. Something simple they can all follow, maybe a Hyunjin center moment when the music goes wa-wa-wa like an undulating piece of metal. The ferrety vibes line up.
Technically, he should have cooked something up already, Chan did send him the base to work with two days ago, but he didn't feel like it.
“Jisung, you've got the last belt on all of the choruses. Make sure not to overpower Jeongin, Seungmin and Minho when you come in, then build up-”
Minho realizes he laughed, and loudly enough to interrupt Chan at that, only when everybody turns to look at him. It does that, sometimes, his body. Act before he decided to acknowledge whatever is going on in his head.
“He’s a rapper,” he blinks. “Why would he get the belts?”
“Because I've got more than one trick up my sleeve.”
And he calls Minho childish. He wrapped that one around his finger tight.
“You don't even have sleeves.”
The brown sugar, Minho has to admit, is regrettably tasty. Whatever that is.
“Why don't we go through the song once, hm?” Chan sighs like he’s tired. Of Minho’s antics. He’s never tired of Minho's antics- Minho is his favorite.
“You're serious?” He asks, jaw slacks. “He’s getting the belts?”
Maybe it’s a cruel joke. The hamster has been put up for public humiliation. Maybe Chan finally descended into villainy.
“Let’s go,” Chan says, firmly, pressing play on the speakers.
Minho is so bewildered and borderline offended that he almost forgets to be proud of Seungmin’s vocals.
He misses his first line.
There’s no way, no way, Han Jisung just hit that note without warm-up with the sound of a rockstar. A memory he's been ignoring. Vocal runs and out of context lines of songs in the backstage of competition stages. Loud harmonies in staircases.
Han Jisung.
Minho is going to bite off that cocky heart-shaped smile from his face. He claws at the meat of his thighs.
He gets it together for his chorus. He’s not letting Jisung get to him. So he can sing. So what. Seungmin is still better.
Seungmin is a real singer, by birth and by trade, he isn't a repurposed rapper, a hamster with a decent squeak.
“Okay,” Chan says when he wraps it up. “Not bad for a first run. Jeongin, try not coming in all at once, you can’t build up if you start like that. Felix, make it breathier if you can. All of you, keep in mind you will be moving when you sing, so think sustainable and stable rather than impressive. You can ask Minho for help with that.”
Minho doesn't even nod back when people look at him. He’s waiting. Listening to Chan’s every word, every nitpick, every name coming out of his mouth.
“And that’s all,” he eventually wraps it up, while Minho is still waiting. “Let’s try again from the top- what, Minho?”
He’s pointing.
“What about him?”
Weirdly, it doesn't smell like Jisung is offended. If anything his own puffed up cheek makes it look like he was waiting too.
“Oh, Han,” Chan nods. “You can do that while dancing, can you?”
“Sure,” he says. No hesitation.
Chan slaps his shoulder, as happy as Minho as always wished to see him during practice.
Something ugly rears in his chest, claws up his rib, tears into his lungs until it’s lodged in his throat.
This is all wrong. That’s the smile Chan should have while talking to Seungmin .
Minho looks at him. He seems perfectly at peace, going over the sheet music with Jeongin. Like he hasn't just been robbed of the flashy, notable lines by a rapper .
“Where is your alpha pride?” he asks him after holding it all in for the whole two hours of practice, gritting his teeth through every note. “Are you just going to let him take your spot?”
“It’s not my spot,” Seungmin says, drinking his energy drink. “And I have more lines than him, anyway.”
“He’s got the showstoppers.”
“Then so be it. I’ll get them next time.”
He doesn't get them next time.
Chan gives them the second song to start and familiarize with three practices later, when they’re starting to get the hang of the choreography of their first number.
Minho seethes. In private.
He’s sure everyone can see it, and Felix rubs his back like he’s sick, but he doesn't say anything. He does the mature thing and keeps it down.
Until he smells dry grass.
“What do you want, now?” He snaps, eyes searching for Jisung.
He’s confused. He’s just then looking up from his phone.
Minho feels his ear warming up, but he isn't backing down. He can't, not when everyone is looking like the outburst was well overdue. Like he was always going to fail being indifferent to Jisung.
Jisung’s eyes go round, his mouth opens in shock before it morphs into an uneven snarl. The dish soap dries out so fiercely Minho wrinkles his nose.
“What do I want?” He asks, redundantly, like it can't be read on his face. “You’re the one who’s obsessed with me!”
He isn't. And if he was, he’d have good reason to be. Jisung robbed Minho of the victory that counted. The crowning moment of his adolescence. He stood on a stage and crushed Minho and his friend’s hard work, sweat and hopes by rapping three bars of a bad song. Worst of all, he didn’t even acknowledge Minho when he tried to be the better person and congratulate him on the win.
He pushes the memory deep, deep down where it belongs.
“You got in as a rapper,” he sneers.
“Because that's what I am ,” he snaps back. “As you would know.”
He didn't. He didn't just throw it in his face.
Minho bares his teeth.
Jisung growls. It’s very, very quiet, but so is the room, and the betas hear it. It’s barely nothing, much less dangerous than his stench, but that ’s what gets Chan to intervene- a threatening purr . He scoffs.
“I’m responsible for the line assignment, Minho. If you’ve got problems, take it up with me.”
Minho feels warm.
His breathing is rugged
He’s a little woozy.
He pulls at the collar of his shirt in an effort to breathe better.
He needs to get a grip.
He breathes through his teeth.
This is unbecoming behavior. The kind of display he’d make fun of in horny jail.
He concentrates on the drop of sweat running down his neck.
“He doesn't,” Seungmin says, after a very awkward amount of time. “Right, Minho?”
“I fucking do,” he snaps back. “You don't talk for me.”
He almost doesn't hear it.
What kind of omega starts this shit.
It’s quiet, mumbled. Exasperated. It’s a freshman Minho pretends not knowing the name of.
The spike of rotten fruit is so overwhelming it makes Minho himself feel nauseous. Everyone winces. Seungmin grimaces. Jisung covers his nose with both hands.
Han Jisung.
With his hideous chubby cheeks and small stature and tiny frame.
If he looked the part, maybe. If Jisung looked like the alpha he fucking smells like, overpowering and sharp, maybe they’d recognize his arrogance, his provocative confidence, his fucking pride- maybe Minho wouldn't be blamed for all this shit.
He shakes Felix off. Grabs his back.
He doesn't say he’ll be back in five. Chan will know.
He hears Changbin going off on the freshman.
🍋🟩
Minho is coming down with something.
He doesn't have a fever according to three different thermometers.
He’s just pissed off.
He’s hot, sweaty and irritable. He feels drowsy and nervous and pissed. He chews on pens and swallows hard retorts. He almost tells a T.A. to go fuck himself when he says his essay wasn’t admissible because the spacing was 0.1 points off.
He would have been right to, anyway.
“Maybe you should sit today out,” Felix suggests kindly when he sees him aggressively punching numbers into the vending machine. “Just because you don't have a fever doesn't mean you’re not unwell.”
“Practice will help.”
Felix sighs, pointedly making it sharp.
“I trust you to know when this will start doing more harm than good,” Felix says, not really talking about dancing.
They all think it’s the suppressants making him act out. That his hormones are flaring up after years of meddling. Seungmin flat out told him to cut it when he crossed him in the hallways.
How did Seungmin even hear about the suppressants, Minho has no fucking clue. Gossip, probably. Hyunjin. He keeps forgetting they’re friends. He’d rather forget Felix is friends with Jisung, but he can't.
It’s always in the back of his mind, that he’s sharing a friend with his enemy.
“It’s fine,” he says, collecting his pudding cup from the vending machine. “I’ll just show you the choreo changes and sit on the floor until we’re done.”
Felix rubs his back. Minho bends his neck, eager, and Felix takes his invitation to rub the base of it and massage his shoulder.
Minho is fine. He’s just in a bad mood. He’ll make it through the day.
He doesn't make it through the day.
Jisung chokes on his high note, out of nowhere. He isn't tired, because it’s the first complete performance they’re going through and he was laughing with Changbin with his full chest just now, not a hint of short breath. He slips, just like that.
“Don't worry, Hannie,” Chan laughs, hitting him on the back while he whines like a baby. “It happens.”
He hates it, how close Chan and Jisung have gotten and how fast it happened. He knows he has been acting a little insufferable, but he had hoped his opinion held a little more weight, when it came on letting a fucking new alpha joining their pack. Held any weight at all, really.
“Especially when you’re not a singer,” Minho snaps.
“Says you,” Jisung says.
“You’re not as good as Seungmin.”
“Don’t drag me into this,” he says, annoyed and annoying.
“I’m not, I’m making a point. We can’t have a lead singer who chokes like that.”
It’s just rehearsals, an ensemble member utters. Chan clenches his jaw.
“Just yesterday you tripped on a turn.” Jisung says back.
“So? The audience won’t even notice. It’s you who can’t fuck up.”
“I won’t,” Jisung says, lightly, like it’s a fact of life.
And it fucking is.
Tight waist corset, blinding lights. Han on stage. Hope lost.
“Minho,” Chan sighs, close to being too tired to be kind. “Han is the most stable and powerful singer that we’ve got, as of now.”
There. The reason he’s been avoiding Chan like the plague. He’s just lost any hope that there’s something, anything, logical behind the unsettling feeling of hearing Jisung breeze through those high notes. That there was something objectively wrong with his singing that Minho just didn’t have the notions to explain.
There isn’t. He’s the best singer they’ve got.
There’s just something wrong with Minho.
He needs to drink some fucking water.
He gets up. His hands are shaky.
“Five minutes,” Chan tells him.
Minho nods.
He doesn’t even look for Felix or Hyunjin, he knows he’s always been alone in this war.
One cat against seven and some spares. Great.
He crashes on the bench next to the vending machines.
He breathes into his hands.
With nothing else to try, he tries naming his feelings, even if he’s shit at it.
He’s annoyed. Frustrated. Uncomfortable.
Fuck it. Hot, that’s what he is.
His palms are sweating. He feels lightheaded.
He closes his eyes, tries to deepen fast breaths.
He uncurls himself as soon as he smells Jisung coming. His steps are a little hesitant. No, not hesitant- reluctant.
Minho clenches his teeth. Spreads his fingers over his knees. Breath through his mouth.
He calmed down enough that when Jisung sits down one chair away, he doesn't flinch.
“You're not on suppressants, are you?”
Minho whips his neck towards him so fast that it cracks.
“Huh?”
Jisung doesn't look particularly happy about having this conversation. Peculiar, considering he’s walked his ass to Minho to start it in the first place.
“Look,” Jisung says, voice deep, brushing his illegal blond hair back. “I can smell it on you. It’s not like I can help it.”
“Smell what on me?”
Jisung’s cheeks bunch up in a grimace. He swallows. His throat moves when he does.
“Your pre-heat.”
Something in Minho's snaps. His ears are on fire. The nausea builds up in a wave.
“My what?”
“Minho,” he whines. “I'm trying to help.”
Minho laughs. It’s high-pitched and malicious.
“Help? With my-” he chokes.
He can't even say it. He doesn't get heats .
“You’re sweating more than Hyunjin,” Jisung says. “Your eyes are glazed, and your whole neck looks like you’re getting over a bad sunburn. You feel hot, don't you?”
Minho feels unbearably hot. He feels like he’s one degree away from melting like plastic in an oven.
“You feel shitty,” Jisung goes on, like Minho’s silence was a permission to yap. “Like you might come down with some sickness any time now, but it never, never breaks. Your skin itches. Your eyes feel dry, and yet tears keep leaking out like sweating isn't enough to cool you down.”
“Enough,” Minho says, weak not in intent but in strength.
Any symptom Jisung listed has spiked in intensity. Like he can’t ignore it away, now. He can feel thick tears pooling in the corner of his eyes. He’s burning up. He needs to rip his shirt off. His skin, too.
“I presented very early,” Jisung says, like Minho didn’t already know, hasn’t known him since he was fifteen. “I had my first rut early, too. I wasn’t exactly agreeable even on my best days, so no one noticed the sign until I jumped straight into a violent rut. It was a whole thing. Not pleasant in any way. So, yeah,” he nods. Swallows again. “I just wanted to say something, before it becomes too late.”
Minho’s neck itches like crazy. He grips his thigh to keep himself from scratching it. He ignores how the rash seems to be right over his scent gland.
“Too late for what?”
“Not make it miserable. You should probably be nesting right now. Getting scented.”
There are two cats inside Minho.
One roars for alpha pheromones to bathe in. The other gags like the thought of being scented is a fur ball he needs to get rid of.
“Who are you, the omega whisperer?”
“They literally taught us in horny jail, Minho,” he says, watercolor splotches of blush spreading on his cheeks. “Some of us paid attention.”
“I paid attention,” Minho lies. He never did. He wasn't getting heats anyway. He mostly spent his time playing hangman with a stoner kid who smelled so much like weed that it was impossible to say what secondary gender he was.
“I wasn't talking about you,” Jisung blurts out.
“Then who.”
His jaw clenches. He pops his knuckles, leg bouncing in a 5-6-7-8.
“Look, Minho. You have an alpha who would scent you no question asked. I think it’d be smart to take advantage of it.”
It does sound smart. Minho is tired of feeling on edge.
Tentatively, he breathes through his nose.
His mouth waters with tangy citrus. The soapy, clean body of it makes Minho think that it would feel something like burying his face in clean sheets, if he were to properly breathe Jisung in.
“Okay,” he says, barely audible, mouth thick with spit. He tries to swallow it. “Fine,” he tries again, a little more dignified.
He winces when Jisung moves. His whole body is begging Minho to jump him and make his way inside his hoodie.
“Good,” Jisung nods.
And then he’s on his feet. His back is facing Minho.
He’s walking away .
Minho growls.
He doesn't mean to, and he stops as soon as he realizes, but Jisung hears it.
He turns, a frown somehow making his eyes rounder.
“What now? I was just about to get Seungmin.”
Minho blinks.
Seungmin. His friend. Who is an alpha. Who Minho trusts . Who Minho likes . If not right now, in general.
Of course he’s going to get Seungmin.
Minho breathes in dish soap.
He growls .
He never growled before.
It’s embarrassing. He’d blush, if he wasn't already flushed red.
Jisung takes a sharp breath through his nose. His mouth parts but no words get out. Minho can't blame him. He smells rotten . He can taste it, too, right at the back of his tongue.
They stare at each other.
“You don't want me to call Seungmin.”
“No shit,” he says, like it makes sense. Because it does. “He’s a baby alpha. I’m not asking a baby alpha to help me through my first-” he shuts up. “To help me.”
Jisung looks at him like he’s insane, and Minho can't fucking stand it. Not when they’re alone. Not when he’s got his attention beyond that standoffish what’s your deal .
He doesn't know what he’s saying. His neck is killing him. Bile is rising up his throat. Fucking tears are pooling in his lower lashes.
Jisung breathes through his mouth. His frown gets poutier.
“Then who should I call?” He looks confused. “I find it difficult to believe you’d want someone outside the pack to help.”
Minho laughs hysterically. Finally someone else calling their pack for what it is, and it’s fucking Han Jisung.
He’s staring blankly at him.
He looks confused. He smells confused.
Minho glares.
Jisung’s eyes go wide. He leans forward, pointing at himself. His hoodie slips down his bare, tanned shoulder.
“Me?” He asks. “You want me to help you?”
Aloof. Casual. Collected. Minho can do this.
He gracefully wipes away tears from the corner of his eye.
“It seemed like you were offering,” he shrugs. Unbothered.
“It really didn't,” Jisung snaps back. “And why would you say yes?”
Because now that Jisung used words like heat, and nesting, and scenting, he’s got nothing to stop him from thinking about it.
Because he’s desperate.
Because Jisung smells good .
“Damn, Minho,” he mumbles. “You’re starting to reek.”
“Then be an alpha and help me with it.”
Jisung makes an outraged little sound.
“Oh, no. Don't you think you can rile me up this easily.”
“I wasn't trying to,” Minho doesn't exactly lie. He has no clue what he’s doing. He just knows it feels way too good to scratch his gland raw.
“Yeah, sure,” Jisung mumbles.
“So?” Minho asks, locking away the fingers of his free hand between his thighs, so that he can pretend they’re not twitching. “Are you going to help, or are you going to get Seungmin against my will?”
His cheeks puff up. His eyes fall in a floppy way in front of his eyes.
“You’ll smell of me, Minho,” he points out, enunciating every word. “Do you want people to smell me on you?”
He doesn't give a fuck.
“No,” he sneers. “But I don't want people to smell dog on me either.”
“A little late for that,” Jisung bites. “It constantly smells like you’ve been out shopping furniture. Used to, at least.”
Minho blinks. Jisung shakes his wrist in a little stim before he pushes his hoodie up his shoulder.
A little growl purrs in Minho’s throat.
“Why do you care?”
“I don't.”
A single coherent thought.
“Were you talking about him? When you said you paid attention in class?”
Dry lime flares up.
“Look, Minho, I’ll help you if you want me to,” Jisung says. “But you have to be sure .”
“Answer me.”
“You can't order me around.”
“It’s a polite request, not an order.”
“That’s a polite request?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, really?”
“Hm-hm. Answer me.”
“And what if I don't?” Jisung asks. “I don't have to entertain you. I can go.”
“You won't,” Minho says.
He makes eye contact. He holds it despite the distracting feeling of a single drop of sweat rolling down his neck.
“I won’t?”
“You came here to help, didn't you?”
“If I leave and call Seungmin, I will be helping.”
“But you know I don't want you to,” Minho says, having no idea where this is going.
He only knows that he needs the wrist on his neck to be Jisung’s.
“You’re the one who noticed,” Minho insists, chin held high and embarrassment seeping through cough syrup. “Take responsibility.”
Jisung is pissed. His jaw clenches.
He takes off his hoodie in haste. For a second it looks like he might throw it, the muscle in his now very bare arms rippling, but he just hands it out to Minho.
It’s worse, because now Minho has to take it .
“Wear this. At least you’ll have a reason to smell like me. Pretend you spilled something on your shirt, or something.”
Minho stares at the black bundle. It looks soft and dangerous, like a black cat with his eyes closed.
“You’re not going to scent me?”
“Not now .” Jisung squeal is very serious. “You should take the edge off and sleep on it, first.”
Minho lets himself blush.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he says, lazily.
Tentatively, he reaches out his paw to touch the hoodie. It doesn't bite. It’s soft.
He gathers it up in his hands eagerly, and puts it in his lap. He wants to sniff it, but he isn't that far gone to think it’s a good idea to do it in front of Jisung.
He grabs the back of his own sweatshirt and takes it off. Jisung squeaks.
“Fuck, Minho,” he says, words muffled by hands pressed against his whole face.
Minho’s cheeks warms up so much that they almost feel cool.
“Don’t be so dramatic. Nobody but you noticed anything.”
“You didn't smell like this ten minutes ago,” he grumbles. “Stop folding your clothes and put my hoodie on.”
Minho raises an eyebrow.
The whiff of alpha scent in his lap is tantalizing, but it’s effectively redirecting all of the heat in his tummy. He feels hungry, but his skin doesn't buzz anymore.
“Are you ordering me around, now?”
“If that was an order, you’d know.”
The back of Minho's neck tingles. Must be a draft.
He puts his folded sweater down on the chair next to him. Carefully, he unravels the hoodie and slips it on.
Soapy lime seeps through his skin, ripples down his throat. The taste of it lingers behind his teeth. He burrows his hands in his pockets and pulls down, very intentionally pushing the neck of the hoodie against his scent gland the best he can.
It feels so good it pisses him off.
It would be better if Jisung wasn't still standing there, reminding him whose scent he’s currently wrapping himself in. He’s still standing there awkwardly, fixing his hair even if there’s no way they’ll do anything but fall back in his eyes.
Minho doesn't stare at his naked arms.
“Better now?” Minho asks, thumbing at his warm tummy in satisfaction. “Don't have to deal with the mortifying need to jump me anymore?”
Squeals. “I didn't- I don't-” More squeals. “Shut up.”
“Now, now, is that how you treat an omega in need? Did you pay any attention in horny jail?”
Jisung raises his fist up cutely, mouth straight and cheeks puffy. It’s adorable.
Minho blinks the thought away.
“You obviously feel better,” Jisung snaps, lowering his hand. “I'll go.”
Minho doesn't stop him.
He counts the steps he takes until he’s far enough that it's reasonable to think Jisung won't turn around anymore. He brings the hoodie up to his nose, breathing in like it's an oxygen mask.
The lingering sweat mixed in with the lime is intoxicating. His head empties and then fills itself with bubbles.
Warmth coils in his stomach. It's not like that first day of omega-ness, back in summer camp- there’s no uneasy cramps squeezing the life force out of it. It’s pleasant. Urgent.
A handful of minutes go by while his nose gets adjusted to the new smell. His skin cools down enough that he can tell he scratched his neck hard enough to leave marks.
He lets the hoodie flop down at once. He pushes his hair back and reassesses himself.
He feels like he just woke up from a good power nap. Alert. Ready.
He stands up, and he remembers at the last minute to grab his sweatshirt. He scrunches his nose when he picks it up. It’s sweaty. It does reek of powdered sugar.
He throws it in the washer as soon as he gets to his dorm. He takes a short, cold, shower, and then carefully slips into the hoodie, no shirt between his skin and the soft fabric.
It’s a calm, lazy evening. When sleep comes to him in the middle of an episode of Spy x Family, he only fights it to waddle to the bathroom and wash his teeth.
He falls asleep hugging the life-sized silly pillow of his cat Soonie, foolishly hoping the real one could get his own little passport and board a plane to come visit him.
Sleeping in an alpha’s hoodie was a mistake.
Minho wakes up wet.
Sticky.
He isn't even hard. He’s just a mess.
He takes the hoodie off and throws it violently in the washer. It doesn't smell like dish soap anymore. It’s useless.
Minho centers his morning around ignoring the fact he asked Han Jisung to scent him. More specifically, how he still doesn't think it’s a bad idea.
As abhorrent the prospect of people thinking they’re a thing is, he doesn't have many options. He surely isn't going to get some alpha’s number from the stupid SERVICE ALPHA FOR YOUR HEATS flyers that people stick everywhere around campus.
Jisung noticed. He figured out Minho was working up a heat when no one else did. He seeked him out, and he refused to scent him when he thought he was out of it. If Han Jisung really needs to be good at something else other than performing, it might as well be something Minho can benefit from.
Still, he goes to the doctor first.
Maybe this is all a big misunderstanding. Maybe he isn't going into heat, but he's suffering from some obscure illness that won't require an alpha’s help to cure.
He’s going into heat.
“Everything looks normal to me,” the (young, attractive) doctor says after checking his pulse and pupils and taking his temperature. “Without a blood test I can't tell you exactly when your heat will break, but it should be around ten days from now.”
Minho smiles in a straight line. He leans a little forward, fists bunching up his pants over his knees.
Doctor Kang laughs softly. He’s got a nice voice, a kind smile, and a generic, pleasant smell of just man.
“First heats can be intense, especially if unattended. Do you need some indications?”
Minho shouldn’t. He’s gone through horny jail, took his classes, got his average to high grades. He sat in rooms full of stinky people making eyes at each other talking about ruts and heats and courting, he should be knowing what he’s supposed to do to make things better.
He doesn’t. All he can make up right now is ‘alpha scent goes brrrr’.
“Yes, thank you,” he admits. He’s not going to put himself in an alpha's hands and just trust that he isn't going to take advantage of his ignorance.
Turns out, he’s not that ignorant. He spends the next several minutes going ‘ aah ’ and ‘ right ’ at the doctor’s words. At least some of the shit he sees in the media is correct.
It's best if he nests, has a regular sleep schedule, and eats a lot of red foods. He can exercise as normal, but he’ll need to hydrate more and make sure he has time to cool down after practice. Having an alpha scenting him will ease the process, even make it enjoyable.
Minho loathes it.
He loathes even more that his nose is disturbed by the lack of dish soap, or another equally dominant, reassuring scent.
He blinks and focuses his gaze on the doctor.
“What about betas?”
“What about them?” The doctor asks.
“If I was involved with a beta, how would I handle a heat?”
The doctor’s lips quirk up. He fiddles with his pen.
“I see junior college is still as useful as it was back in my days.”
Minho’s ears warm up. He tugs at one hastily, before shoving his hands between his thighs rather than fiddling with the necklace he foolishly put on knowing he wouldn’t be able to stop playing with it.
“I paid attention,” he mumbles. “Enough so.”
“Of course,” the doctor smiles very, very kindly. He’s obviously amused and Minho would like to flee. He plants his feet to the ground. “Beta pheromones can substitute for an alpha’s, given the pair is exposed to it in large quantities and for a sufficiently long period of time. I don’t have to tell you this is not going to be of use to you, at least this time.”
“I’m around betas all the time,” he protests. “It could work.”
A flash of dimples.
“Unless you’ve been sexually active with those betas you’re around all the time, it won’t. Beta pheromones are only released during sexual activities.”
“Ah, right,” Minho says, lips parted, before realizing what he just implied. He alpha-spreads to compensate for his shyness, staring at his bare nails. “Well. I guess calling a number written in a public bathroom is it for me, then.”
Doctor Kang frowns like Minho wasn’t joking.
He’s about to specify he was when the doctor speaks.
“Jokes aside, Minho,” he says, very seriously all of a sudden, “you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. There’s safe options to find alphas to provide their services, but if you’re not comfortable, there are ways to make it bearable for you.”
Minho’s fingers twitch.
He doesn’t like this. He doesn’t like the concern in his voice, how he seems to think Minho is vulnerable. Something to go to extra lengths to protect. Doctor Kang smiles.
“And yes, Minho. I would be saying this to an Alpha facing his rut as well. Safety and comfort concern more than one’s secondary gender.”
Minho raises his chin in defiance.
“What are those?”
The Doctor tilts his head cutely.
“What?”
“The ways to make it more bearable for me. What are my options?”
“Not many, not this close to your heat. Your best bet would be synthetic pheromones.”
Minho blinks.
“I can buy fake alpha pheromones? Over the counter?”
“ Under the counter. I’ll prescribe it to you,” he specifies, rummaging in a drawer to extract a pamphlet to hand Minho. “It does have several side-effects we should discuss, first.”
Minho takes the pamphlet. The happy single omega on the first page almost challenges him, taunting him with her happy mate-less life. He listens carefully to Doctor Kang as he lists all the hormonal risks, some wild side-effects like potential hair loss, and the embarrassing prospect of excessive slick production.
“The worst of it, however,” Doctor Kang says kindly, “are the possible psychological side-effects. Intense loneliness. Depressive episodes, at worst.”
It gets Minho’s attention. He looks up from the flier, banish any thought of slick from his mind, and asks:
“Shouldn’t the pheromones soothe you? Isn’t that the whole point?”
“Yes,” Doctor Kang says with a polite nod. “But while your body is getting what it needs, the head knows it isn’t getting it from a person.”
Minho blinks.
“Isn't that better?”
Not having to depend on someone else to be healthy is exactly what Minho would prefer. If he could have Jisung’s scent without Jisung, he’d be the happiest omega on the planet.
The doctor’s smile is almost fond.
“It’s something we can try out. Just bear in mind there’s nothing shameful in wanting a partner, Minho.”
Minho knows. He also knows he doesn’t crave one. That he’s happy on his own, standing a little on the sidelines, making fun of alphas and other omegas losing their mind to regular cycles and growling at innocent waiters for having been a little too kind to their date.
Minho doesn’t mind being an omega. He likes the scents, and he likes the slick. He likes that he can drive alphas crazy. He likes the idea of taking care of someone, some day, in a distant future he can’t really visualize- to cook meals for his mate, and possibly children.
He’s always liked being an omega more than the thought of being a beta. That was, when heat wasn’t a part of it. When growling at an alpha for even suggesting he called for a different one was something silly that, if it happened to someone else, he could and would make fun of.
“What about the actual heat?” He asks, cheeks ablaze, a few minutes later, a prescription and a suggested dosage in his hand. “Will the under the counter alpha pills do something for it?”
“Of course,” Doctor Kang smiles. “You’ll still feel the urgent impulse to engage in sexual activity, but it won't be painful. If this is something you take well to, artificial pheromones can be useful for a long time. Some omega couples take them for their whole life.”
It makes sense. Alpha-pheromones and a loving partner, almost no chance for the loneliness to creep in. Biology and love.
Minho thanks Doctor Kang and goes straight to the campus’ pharmacy.
The pill is a little bigger than he expected, and it’s pressed in the shape of a very tiny donut. Despite the color being an unsettling bright white, it reminds Minho of fruit loops. He downs the first one with a sip of strawberry milk.
He’s been taking alpha cereals for three days when they next meet for practice. He’s only been talking to Seungmin, Felix and Hyunjin over the phone, confined to the comfort of his nest.
Officially, he finally came down with the flu. He’s sure the most popular theory is that he’s detoxing from suppressants and currently going through horrible withdrawal symptoms.
In truth, he’s fine.
He doesn’t feel feverish anymore, although all that heat confined to his womb is making him cramp. Waking up continues to be a stickier endeavor than he’d like. He isn’t losing hair, or experiencing heartburn.
When he wanders back into society again, he’s almost agreeable. Felix feeds him brownies and Hyunjin fills him in on the gossip- apparently you can miss a lot in three days.
The small interactions he has with Seungmin, Chan and Changbin in the hallways are friendly. He can sense collective relief. It’s almost a little annoying.
They’re practicing in the auditorium today. They need to start getting comfortable with the stage rather than the comfort of the practice room, Chan says. It was free for the first time since early September, it’s the truth.
He sits next to Hyunjin and Felix, two rows behind Seungmin. When he turns over in his seat to hand him sheet music for their last song, a whiff of wood and iron hits Minho like a truck. He blinks rapidly, two, three times. Manly nods at Seungmin with his chin, and takes the sheet paper.
He doesn’t give it a second glance. He burrows himself in his leather jacket and bites the inside of his lip.
Doctor Kang didn’t fucking mention alpha cereals didn’t smell like anything. He feels like he should write a letter of complaint. Make sure it’s the first thing he mentions when he presents the pros and cons of synthetic alpha juice, especially for omegas going through their first heat.
“Minho?”
He jolts, eyes searching for Changbin who’s leaning against the front of the stage.
“Hm?”
He feels it right away. Round inquisitive alpha eyes drilling holes in the back of his head. His ears heat up in irritation.
He hasn’t said a single word to Jisung. Avoided any type of contact, including second-hand. He didn’t even touch the hoodie after taking it out of the wash- it’s still lying somewhere on the bathroom floor.
“Are you okay with singing the second chorus?” Changbin asks, patiently.
Minho nods. He has no idea what the second chorus entails, but if Changbin asked, it means it's something Minho can do but would prefer not to. If it’s some crazy high belting, he’ll whine about it later.
“Okay,” Changbin nods, looking at him a little weird. Minho sags back into his seat.
He spends the entire practice trying to stand away from both Seungmin and Jisung. It takes him a few rearrangements and a little abuse of his role as dance captain to manage it, but once they’re in formation he even forgets about it.
Thank God show choir isn’t a typical alpha activity.
His tentative peace is interrupted by his phone ringing.
“Fuck,” he says, in the middle of demonstrating a step.
“Minho,” Changbin complains, more pro forma than anything.
Minho jumps down the stage, trashing his jacket’s pocket to take out his phone. When he took the first pill, he didn’t think how terrible of an hour it was to discreetly take a daily medication.
Oh, well. He pops one off the blister.
“You’re still on that shit?” Changbin says as discreetly as he can in a quiet auditorium, with a frown Minho doesn’t appreciate.
“Isn’t respecting an omega’s bodily autonomy the only lesson they all make sure get through your head in horny jail?”
“If I was taking steroids would you say nothing?”
“Yes,” he cat smiles. “No one ever said anything about a beta’s bodily autonomy.”
Changbin laughs sarcastically. Minho softens just a bit. Enough to lie for a laugh.
“It’s just birth control, if you must know.”
Changbin splutters and blushes in the cutest way, adjusting his glasses on his face.
He can feel Jisung’s eyes on him. He knows it’s bullshit, of course.
For all Minho cares, he can lose his sanity wondering about Minho’s hormonal changes all his life.
He glares at Jisung. Jisung glares back. His hair is flopping cutely into his eyes, but it’s effective all the same.
“If we could avoid the dick measuring contest,” Hyunjin intervenes after the staring match has been going on for a while. “I have a date in three hours and I need at least two to get ready, so. Can we hurry up?”
He shrivels when Minho turns to glare at him. He looks at the ground and shily puts a strand of black hair behind his ears.
“Fine,” he says, only because it’s Hyunjin. “The sooner we’re done, the earlier I’ll get to airfry you. From the top.”
They call off practice ten minutes earlier as a personal gift to Hyunjin and his haircare routine. Minho hurries out of the auditorium faster than a cat stealing fish from the market. He’s not going to have a conversation with Jisung about how he’s handling his pre-heat.
He cooks dinner to distract himself. Meatballs and berry sauce. Tomato salads as a side dish. Cherry pudding for dessert, as a treat. An all red-colored food diet. Vitamin C, A, potassium and antioxidants. All things his body is supposedly craving while it gets ready for a mating session that won’t occur.
He doesn’t use dish soap when he washes the dishes, mixing baking soda with water to make a paste instead. He threw the bottle under the sink, somewhere behind the garbage can. It irritated him, how it didn’t smell like dish soap to him. Not limey enough, not clean enough, not grassy enough. Artificial.
Jisung’s hoodie stares at him when he showers.
It smells like Minho’s laundry detergent. There’s no scent clinging to it. Useless piece of fabric.
He falls asleep laughing at cute cat videos on youtube, hair fluffy and skin raw from aggressive scrubbing.
Alpha cereals work, and Minho is fine.
Minho isn’t fine.
“I need my hoodie back.”
He buries his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, throws his head back to nonchalantly smirk at Jisung.
The party is a mess. The music is shitty and loud, the air smells like sickly sweet weed and people are vomiting everywhere thanks to the horrible concoction of liquors Hyunjin mixed together because the colors looked pretty.
Jisung looks like he’d rather be everywhere else. Every time he swallows, his throat collapses.
“Tough luck,” Minho cat smiles. “I sold it. Turns out there’s a whole market for clothing scented by non-threatening alphas.”
Jisung’s mouth twitches. There, again, what’s your problem , implied so loudly Minho wants to claw it out of him, dare him to say it out loud.
“Minho,” he says, voice low and deep and dripping with discomfort. “I need it.”
“Why?” He asks, not bothering turning in a more comfortable position. He’s fine where he is, sitting on the kitchen counter talking to a cute beta who smells like nothing and drives Minho insane. “What is it, a cheap family heirloom?”
A spark of challenge deepens Jisung's eyes.
“You’d give it back, if that was the case?”
Minho takes a swig of beer, condensation kissing his lips.
“Tiny men, the Hans.”
“Maybe it comes from my mom’s side of the family.”
“Double set of tiny genes,” Minho says fastidiously. “I can see it.”
Jisung isn’t having it. He almost entirely smells like arid, dry grass.
It’s strong. It’s making Minho dizzy. His mouth waters.
“Is he bothering you?” The beta he was talking to asks from Minho’s other side.
It’s cute. That despite his wavering voice he would be willing to pick a fight with an alpha on Minho’s behalf.
“Constantly,” Minho says, sweetly. “Don’t worry about it. We go way back.”
He hops down the counter, making sure to smile kindly at the poor guy. He makes sure not to brush Jisung’s shoulder on his way out of the kitchen.
“You don’t smell like an alpha,” Jisung tells him as soon as they’re in front of the house, breathing in fresh air rather than the horrible smell of the party.
“Shrewd observation.”
“But you’re not on suppressants either.”
“No,” Minho admits.
He crouches down on the lawn, hands in his pockets and necklace in his mouth.
Jisung walks two steps closer.
“I do need my hoodie back.”
“You want your hoodie back.”
“My ex-girlfriend wants it back,” he snaps. “Not that I should be required to give you any reason to get my stuff back.”
Ever since Minho growled that one time, the temptation to do it again is burning him up. It’s like his muscles finally understood how to do it and they’re itching to perform their new trick.
He doesn’t do as much as purr.
“Sharing clothes,” he says instead, sinking his teeth into the waxed rope of his necklace. “Cute. How come it ended? Did she want an alpha who didn’t drown in her shirts?”
He closes his eyes right away. The grass isn’t just dried, it’s scorched.
Despite the smell lingering, Jisung sighs and crouches down next to him.
“Whatever you’re on, it’s not working.”
“No shit,” he says, choking on it.
It’s impossible to lie when he feels uncharacteristic tears swelling up in his eyes. He doesn't know what’s worse, the desolate absence of a scent or to smell an alpha so close and know that it isn’t his pheromones that are keeping him from burning up.
He shudders when he feels Jisung’s fingers brush his mussy bangs. He rolled out of the house throwing a plain white t-shirt on, without even brushing his hair. Desperate to remind himself being on his own is a choice, not something he’s suffering from.
“Can I?” Jisung asks, dry and combative. Like he’d rather do anything but offer help.
Minho presses his lips together. The waxed rope digs in the soft flesh of his mouth.
Jisung doesn’t want to help Minho himself, but he isn’t going to leave him unattended to. Minho should get angry that he thinks he can’t take care of himself, but the truth is that Minho wants his help. It’s humiliating.
“Minho,” Jisung calls him, voice way gentler than the way he smells. “Can I scent you so that we go back to awkwardly avoiding each other?”
“It won’t work,” he manages to say, voice small.
“Avoiding each other?”
“I’m kind of terrible at avoiding you,” he says after a moment.
Jisung’s smell gets a little soapier. Minho breathes it in.
“I’m taking synthetic alpha pheromones,” he continues.
“Oh,” Jisung says, casually adjusting the collar of Minho’s jacket. “My brother is on them. They work really well for him. Maybe it’s the dosage that’s off.”
“No,” Minho says, baselessly. “I feel great and I don’t smell like anything. I hate it.”
“I thought you’d like that,” Jisung muses, gently. “Not having to smell like an alpha.”
Minho laughs, high-pitched. He let his head drop down.
He doesn’t think about how he exposed his nape until he can smell something rich and fresh spiking Jisung’s scent.
He freezes. He doesn’t straighten his neck up.
“You can,” he says to his knees.
It’s so low he’s sure Jisung didn’t hear it. He isn’t going to say it again.
He shudders when Jisung covers the back of his neck with his hand. No hesitation. His thumb presses into Minho’s non-swollen scent gland.
It doesn’t change anything. Minho doesn’t feel better, his hormones already balanced by the pill.
But, God, doesn’t it smell good to have Jisung rubbing his scent against his neck, where it will linger.
You don’t really have to help me , Minho would like to say, because it doesn’t matter how much he dislikes Jisung, he isn’t going to guilt him into anything.
He says nothing, because it smells too good and Jisung doesn’t smell like dry grass anymore.
“Come on,” he says, more quippy. “Let’s go get my hoodie.”
As if the impulse to giggle wasn’t embarrassing enough, he almost chokes on it.
It’s such a considerate way to answer yes, I’ll come home with you , to a question Minho could never bring himself to ask.
It’s a short walk. Minho didn’t exactly pick and choose what party to be at- he just walked into the first one he crossed by.
He still feels a little exposed when they climb the three flights of stairs and close the door behind them. Jisung kicks his shoes off and politely stares around, eyes round and jaw relaxed enough that a hint of his teeth is peeking through his lips.
“You’ve got this place to yourself?” He asks, impressed.
Taking off his leather jacket is the equivalent of jumping off a cliff into the open sea during a storm, but Minho is brave. His fingers shake a little when he unblankets himself and casually throws the jacket on the back of his couch. He feels naked in his plain tee. He fiddles with his wrists.
“I’m actually a trust-fund baby,” he jokes, dead serious. “If anybody finds out, I’ll know it was you.”
Jisung hums in tiny after a little too long of a pause.
When Minho looks back at him, it dawns on him- Han Jisung is standing in his living room. To help him through his pre-heat. Somehow, the two things he’d bet good money on never having to deal with are both there, interwoven.
He feels a little feral. A little raw. He scratches the skin just below his ear. He stops right away when the lime gets a little fresher, like it’s just been squeezed.
“Want something to drink?” He asks because he might be on the brink of insanity, but he isn’t impolite. At least not when he doesn’t feel like degrading Jisung. He winces.
“I wouldn’t have broken up with you because you were small,” he blurts out, before Jisung gets a chance to answer. “Bulky alphas are boring.”
He’s not on the brink of insanity- he’s completely insane. Gone. No lucidity to speak of left in his brain.
His ears are on fire. He feels the urge to hide in his sleeves, but he doesn’t have any.
Jisung smells so awkward it only makes him more uncomfortable.
“I mean,” he says, not knowing shit about what he meant, “I would have broken up with you because you’re insufferable.”
Sometimes, just sometimes, Minho understands what it’s like to hate himself. He doesn’t like it. He opens his mouth again, probably to make things even worse, but a bright note of brown sugar makes his way to his nose.
“Sit down,” Jisung mumbles, wrist stimming in one, two shakes while he circles the couch. “Let’s make you smell like dish soap so you can go back to being convincingly mean to me.”
Minho blinks.
“Hm?”
Jisung hesitates just a second before widening his eyes and slacking his jaw open.
“You’re insufferable,” he quotes, blinking, eyes round and pleading, like the worst omega stereotype.
Minho’s whole chest is on fire. His cheeks, too. He grabs a pillow and hits Jisung with a single, powerful hit. Jisung yelps, but he cracks a chuckle that drips brown sugar.
He smells so intensely like mojito that Minho suddenly remembers why he let the enemy inside his home.
He drops the pillow and sits down. Jisung is half sprawled on the couch, gently biting at his lower lip. He swallows, his soapy, neutral scent taking over again. Minho doesn’t mind. He likes it. A little too much, in fact.
“So we just,” he says, hands crushed between his own thighs, like it’s a complete sentence.
“We just,” Jisung nods, sitting up.
This time, Minho’s eyes are open when Jisung gently brushes his bangs. His fingers are crooked. They look longer than Minho’s, but not freakishly so, like Hyunjin’s are.
Minho blinks rapidly.
He knows Jisung won’t touch him if he doesn’t tell him to, but he’s too shy to. Especially now that his brain has reconciled the pheromones with an alpha’s scent, and his head is clearing up.
He bares his front teeth.
Jisung looks deeply unimpressed. He pouts, eyes staying focused. He brushes his hair again.
Minho wasn’t aware scenting could involve edging, and yet. Blushing, he rips the band aid off. He leans his head into Jisung’s touch, bumping his head into his fingers.
Turns out Minho was edging himself, because Jisung doesn’t make him suffer further, now that he has permission. He rubs his wrist right onto Minho’s scent gland.
Minho closes his eyes and breathes in the lime.
It takes him only a handful of seconds to understand just how weird this is going to be when he’s not getting any true relief out of the act. He fidgets with the inseam of his jeans.
He’s as stiff as a passed out cat, but Jisung isn’t much better. He’s got a blush on his cheeks and he keeps bouncing his leg.
Minho snorts.
“The omega whisperer is embarrassed?”
“Shut up,” he mumbles, rubbing Minho’s neck more aggressively. “This is not how you normally scent people.”
A rotting note taints the cough syrup.
“Are you slacking?” He taunts, trying to cover it up.
Jisung drops his hand and takes Minho’s in his. Minho stares, mouth twisted in a grimace, as Jisung’s cups Minho’s right hand in his and rubs theirs wrists together.
“I’m improvising.”
If Minho was a little braver, he’d ask what scenting normally looks like. He’d taunt him a little, tell him to make himself useful, that Minho isn’t settling for a job done poorly. He even knows what words he’d use.
But tonight, he isn’t.
He looks down at their hands. Jisung’s darker skin makes Minho look paler than he is in contrast. His nail polish is reduced to black chips.
Minho remembers teasing him about it, back in High School- how Jisung had barked back, easily riled up. He remembered it being funny.
It doesn’t sound funny now, with Jisung so attentively taking care of him even when he’d have every reason to turn him down.
“Is it,” he says, before he can stop himself.
He swallows the rest down. Jisung looks up, big, dark brown eyes round despite the slight frown of his eyebrows.
“Hm?”
It’s barely a hum. Just a question mark soundfont, really.
“Is it normal to feel so sensitive during heat?”
“As far as I know,” Jisung nods, taking his other wrist between his hands. Minho is glad he did- his left hand was always his favorite. “It’s anger, for me,” he adds. “During pre-ruts. I get angry at the smallest things when I’m overwhelmed.”
Overwhelmed. That’s what Minho feels like, now.
He smells too much like Jisung. And what little of himself he gets, it’s whiffs of powdered sugar. It’s a private note. One that belongs between sweaty sheets, or someone’s bathroom at a random party. It’s not a scent he wants Jisung to smell on him on a couch, not like this.
Not in any way.
Jisung stops rubbing his thumb over his skin. He looks up at him.
“Do you want me to stop?”
Yes. No.
Minho shakes his head. Nods.
Jisung’s nails graze his skin absentmindedly, and Minho takes a sharp breath.
“I think it’s best if we stop here tonight,” Jisung says, scent uncertain but words assertive.
Minho nods. He takes his hands back, burying them between his thighs.
“Your hoodie is on the bathroom floor,” he mumbles, looking up with dignity.
Jisung nods. When he stands up, Minho smells a whiff of cough syrup.
Shame sours him. He didn’t even think how he wouldn’t be the only one to smell like someone else.
He breathes in and out, trying to get a grip, but when Jisung is back he’s still a little out of it.
“Are you okay?” Jisung asks, taking small steps towards him.
Thank you .
It’s not hard to say. Minho is polite and respectful, despite how much fun he has being cheeky. He knows how to say his please s and thank you s, and yet he can’t say either to Han Jisung.
He nods.
“Do you want my sweater?” Jisung asks, indecisive. He gestures at him with his hoodie. “I can wear this one to get home.”
It will smell like him again.
If he won’t wash it, it will smell like him when he gets it back to his ex-girlfriend.
His scent turns downright foul.
Jisung is confused. Minho speaks before he can see it on his face, that damn question. Minho doesn’t know what’s his fucking problem.
“Wash it,” he says, swallowing.
Jisung stares, thinking. Minho would say more, but he’s got nothing else to say. Hit today’s word-cap.
He’s about to tell Jisung to go, when Jisung makes a sound.
It’s small, breathy and deep. Pleased. He smells like overly sweet strawberry mojito.
“Of course,” he says. “What do you think, that I go around giving scented clothes for free to just about anyone?”
Minho’s ears are too warm. His tummy, too. He’s heating up.
Minho knows that look on Jisung’s face, fond and a little smug- he’s seen it when Jisung talks to Felix, to Changbin when he’s not looking, to some pretty omega in the hallways. He’s seen it when he talked to his girlfriend back in High School. When he wouldn’t look at Minho, ever. Unless Minho said something so unpleasant and out of pocket that he couldn’t ignore him.
Minho’s smell is tangled up in itself. It barely smells like anything other than sticky.
Jisung doesn’t bring it up, pretends not to notice.
He takes off his shirt.
He isn’t wearing anything underneath.
He’s got a tattoo. Gaudy, big, right across his chest. He can’t really make up what it is in the time that he has, not when his pecs look like that. Or maybe they only look insane because of his hideously tiny waist. If Minho didn't have baby hands, he could fit them around it.
He takes a relieved breath when Jisung's tanned skin disappears from view. Follows the zip as it comes up, stares while Jisung tugs the hood on.
He looks round. The black of the hood makes his features pop. He looks boy , in the way that Minho has a weakness for.
“I’ll go then,” Jisung smiles. It’s easy, and beautiful. Heart shaped in a way Minho has only seen from afar or from the side. “See you tomorrow.”
“Oh,” Minho says, astutely. “We’re doing this again tomorrow?”
Jisung stops in his tracks. Smiles at him wickedly.
“I meant at practice. But sure, I’ll come by later.”
Minho ignores the flaming heat in his ears.
He’s still cursing himself when Jisung closes the door behind him.
It doesn’t stop him from taking off his shirt and pulling Jisung’s sweater on. The wide collar is an obstacle to burying his nose in it without exposing his tummy, but Minho curls up in it dutifully when he gets to bed.
🍋🟩
Practice is tense, but for once Minho has nothing to do with it.
He ignores Jisung, and Jisung ignores him. He makes sure to stand around him, so that their scents would mingle anyway.
Their singing is good, they’ve got the choreography down. They make jokes and laughs. No one seems particularly happy to be there all the same.
Chan, Minho has to admit to himself, is a little intense. Every praise sounds too grand, every criticism too serious.
Minho gets it, though.
Sitting with his legs spread open in the corner of the room, looking at DominATE going through the routine, Minho can see what Chan sees. How good they’re going to be. How Seungmin and Jeongin will sound without the heavy breathing cutting up their notes, how Felix and Hyunjin will look like in stage costumes, how Changbin and Chan will just eat up the stage without being dulled by a group that doesn’t match them. How Jisung will stand out less. How he’ll belt out an insane note immediately after rapping his lungs out and it won’t even look impressive.
Minho pulls his knees to his chest.
They’ve got it. It’s just a little somber that they won’t be able to have that much fun until they’re there.
He stops by the library after practice. He’s got an essay to finish, despite how passionately he pretends to not attend any classes.
He gets iced boba on the way home, even if the temperature has dropped drastically in the past few days. By the time he climbs up the apartment’s stairs, he’s a little chilly.
He blinks a couple of times when he sees Jisung sitting in front of his door, hair flopping on his face and pouting at his phone in concentration. He changed. He’s wearing a black tank top, and a cozy looking wide-knit sweater over it. Minho can’t wait to steal it.
“Hi,” he says, pushing his hair back while he walks his way up to him. “Eager to help?”
Jisung rolls his eyes. It’s weirdly amicable.
“We didn’t set a time. I stole your number from Felix’s phone, but you have me blocked.”
Ah. Right. He did that on one night Felix stayed over. He was a little tipsy. Angry. He’s been angry a lot since Jisung showed up.
He has his reasons.
“Wise of me,” he says, a little too dry. Just like Jisung’s scent.
“You know,” Jisung says, tapping his phone against his knuckles. “One would say I should be the one with a bone to pick.”
He’s right. Minho is sure every time Jisung noticed him, it was because Minho was being a bitch to him.
“You’re not forced to be here.”
There. The age old question. What is Minho’s problem? A classic mystery.
“I know,” Jisung says.
He stands up. Minho tugs on his sleeves, covering his whole hands.
“Calm down,” Jisung says, sniffing the air. “You smell like rotten fruit.”
“Then make it better, alpha.”
Now Jisung gets angry. At something Minho intended as teasing.
“You know, it’d be nice if you could be a little less awful since I’ll have to go around smelling like you for days.”
Minho doesn’t like being misinterpreted, nor chastised. He cocks his eyebrow.
“Being a little sensitive?”
He scoffs. Wraps his arms around himself.
“I don't give a fuck if I'm not alpha enough for your taste, but don't call me that to mock me when I’m helping you.”
Minho’s lips part. He tugs at his bag.
He can't say he didn't mean to. It will sound like a lie.
“Okay,” he says, pushing the strap of his bag back up his shoulder without any need to.
“Good.”
Minho digs the keys out of his pockets and shoves them into the door, letting them both in.
The silence is hostile. It's glaringly obvious they would both like to be anywhere else but here.
Minho craves dish soap.
“Are you going to scent me properly?” Is somehow what he decides to break the silence with as he takes off his shoes.
“If you can take it.”
Minho ignores the spicy spike in the air. He glares at Jisung over his shoulder.
He’s smirking, the little shit. The damn see-through sweater is slipping down his shoulder. His neck must smell so good.
He'll show him who can't take it.
He’s determined when they sit down in the same spots as last night. The slow build up of heat is already curling up in his stomach, caged by alpha pheromones that finally smell like something.
He fidgets. Jisung is looking at him, eyes falling to his neck and hands before shooting back up.
It’s so awkward Minho actually thinks of kicking him out and building some desperation up, just so he would be needy enough to endure this.
“So?” He asks, almost without volume, fingers tugging at his sleeve. “Are you showing me what you learned by paying attention in horny jail?”
A tiny snort.
“It would be worrying if they taught any of this in horny jail beside scent gland positions,” he says, with a little amused smile. “Imagine the practical test.”
“I can't,” Minho says, with confidence he doesn't have. “I really don't know what doing this properly looks like.”
Jisung suddenly smells like spring. It’s lime, clean cotton, fresh mint, freshly cut grass all at once. It’s overwhelming.
As quickly as it flared up, it tones down. Minho would like to mock him, but he doesn't know what he just smelled. He only vaguely remembers smelling it before. Jisung’s face isn't of any help. He's frowning, like he pretty much always is when Minho is involved.
He swallows. Minho looks at his throat when he does.
“It just looks like cuddling,” he says.
Minho shows teeth.
“I don't like cuddling. It’s warm and uncomfortable.”
Jisung looks downright offended.
“No, it's not. Well,” he adds, pouting. “It doesn't have to be.”
“Show me sooner rather than later?” Minho bitches, itching with the need to smell like an alpha.
Jisung’s eyes flicker around.
“We should put on a tv show,” he rushes out. “It’ll make it more bearable.”
Minho picks up the remote and throws it at him. Jisung throws it back.
“I don't know what non-freaks like to watch, so unless you want to be trapped in a Naruto marathon, it’s your choice.”
Non-freak. Minho is too stunned to do anything but blink.
He knows why Jisung thinks that. He remembers far too well seeing him goofing off with his high school friends before a competition and making sure he’d know Minho thought he was lame.
It's uncomfortable to be forced to face the image of himself he didn't notice he was projecting while torturing Jisung.
Even more so because he can't possibly tell him now that he thought Jisung was lame only because he was using the wrong hand gestures for the chidori. It would be too embarrassing.
“I watch animation,” he says, small and combative instead. “Sometimes.” All the time.
“Ghibli, I bet,” Jisung scoffs.
“What's wrong with Ghibli?”
“Nothing, it’s fucking great,” he sighs. He pushes his hair back. Minho almost leans forward at the sight of his bare wrist. “And that’s the problem. All kinds of people watch it and then look down on you for enjoying anime. Quick to dip their toes in and run when the animated dragons aren't critically acclaimed enough.”
“I don't only watch Ghibli.”
“Put something on, then.”
Minho has to choose carefully. It can't be anything too dorky, but it can't be something mainstream either. He thanks the gods the TV is already set to Netflix when it turns on, because he was not going to show Jisung the Crunchyroll icon, or worse his Crunchyroll homepage. He’s fairly sure Black Butler is still in his top for you pick.
“You’re watching Alice in Borderland?”
Minho’s eyes flicker to the Keep Watching titles. Luckily there’s nothing compromising. He’s never been happier to have finished the whole of Kuroko’s Basket two days ago.
“Hm-hm,” he nods. “Too mainstream of me?”
“Yes,” Jisung confirms, “but I still have to finish it. When my ex broke up with me I lost her Netflix, too.”
Something way too similar to a growl bubbles deep in Minho’s throat. He stubbornly looks at the screen.
He jumps when Jisung brushes his bangs. He seems to like doing it.
“Sorry,” he says, like it’s something they say. “I’ll stop bringing her up.”
“I don't care.”
Jisunf sniffs once, pointedly. Minho’s ears are suddenly warm.
“It’s okay if you do,” he says. “I guess hearing about another omega while I’m scenting you isn't nice.”
“It’s not like you're doing much scenting,” Minho decides to mumble, aggressively pressing start on episode three. “I don't care where you stopped watching, I’m not-” his breath gets cut short by the blissful, long awaited sensation of Jisung’s wrist on his neck.
He stiffs himself to resist the urge to lean against it, but it’s no use: Jisung is cupping his neck, inviting him to lean on him.
He says nothing, eyes on the screen, and Minho does the same.
He can't really see anything with the reflection of the light hitting the TV, but it’s the last of his problems.
He’s lying on Jisung's shoulder. His sweater is so soft against his cheek. His hands are in his own lap.
Minho’s heart is erratic. His scent is so strong it almost overpowers Jisung’s to his own nose, it’s like he’s consuming it.
Minho forces regular breathing when Jisung takes one of his hands.
Minho has never been more tense.
“Is it so horrible?” Jisung mumbles.
“You tell me,” he snaps back, a soft growl in his stomach.
Something in him doesn't like the implication he’s not good enough of an omega. That he’s not having the right reaction to an alpha. It’s animalistic, and it’s wrong, because as Minho, he’s having the right reaction to Jisung.
And vice versa. He’s not the only one who’s as stiff as a board.
“It’s your fault,” Jisung protests. “Omegas are supposed to let alpha scent them.”
“Try harder,” Minho meowls . It’s a desperate sound, like he needs Jisung to stop trying to be nice about this and just-
He slips his hand around Minho's waist and tugs him closer. It’s not a nudge. It's powerful.
Minho shudders, hand flying to Jisung’s forearm to break free out of sheer instinct.
He staggers to his feet.
“I’m getting something to drink,” he fumbles, fixing his hair and hoping it will conceal the state of his ears.
Jisung catches his wrist as soon as he lets it down.
“Maybe we can just hold hands.”
No, they fucking can't. Minho doesn't need to say anything. Rotten fruit and a growl is more than enough.
“Or maybe we should make out.”
Minho blinks, so fast he can't barely make out Jisung’s face.
He’s determined, a little embarrassed and completely serious.
“I mean,” he mumbles, eager to explain himself. As he should be. “You seem more like the type to enjoy making out with a stranger more so than holding hands with them.”
“Are you calling me easy?”
“You said yourself that you don't like cuddling,” he enunciates, dry grass clinging to him. “And I know you make out with people at parties. So if that feels less intimate for you, maybe we should just try that.”
“Yeah, it does,” Minho says, bewildered. “With strangers . I know you .”
A scoff. A sharp puff of hair.
“No, you don't.”
Yes, Minho does. He’s always paid too much attention not to.
For some reason the cough syrup smells expired and thick. Minho can't have it.
“Okay,” he says, hastily, sitting down again. “Let’s make out.”
Jisung looks at him with wide eyes and his lips parted in utter shock, as if it was Minho’s idea. Minho slaps his chest, ears on fire.
“Are you taking it back?”
“I just didn't think you'd agree,” he whines, pushing his hair back and then wiping his hands on his thighs. “Okay. Making out. We can do that.”
Minho is losing his patience. His hands feel fidgety, but they've somehow renounced any movement.
Jisung smells so good. His neck is so close and so thick and his throat keeps clenching.
He leans in to cut it short.
Jisung doesn't stop him.
Their lips crash together clumsily, and neither moves for what feels like forever.
It’s awkward, it’s embarrassing, it makes Minho’s inside turn over.
It feels wrong.
They’re Minho and Jisung. They’re not supposed to kiss. They're supposed to glare at each other and hold grudges. At least Minho is.
And yet. He melts into Jisung’s hand when he finally, finally makes himself useful, cradling the back of Minho’s neck.
A wave of soapy fresh lime hits Minho’s lungs. He gasps for air he doesn't need, turning his head just right to make it easier to be kissed.
It is easier than cuddling.
He can lose himself in the slide of their mouths, the barely there hint of stubble on Jisung’s upper lip, the way his whole mouth tastes like soap.
When Jisung takes one of his wrists in his hands, his eyelashes flutter and something like a soft moan bubbles up in his throat. Jisung’s mouth curves in a smile against his. It’s annoying. Minho grips the front of his sweater with his free paw, kissing him harder.
It’d take courage he doesn't have, to cup Jisung’s neck and press down his scent gland, like Jisung is doing to him.
Jisung moves Minho’s hand up himself.
Minho’s fingers twitch in Jisung’s hold. He has no stability. He’s an open wire, ready to jolt at every contact.
Jisung’s mouth is so soft. His hands are so steady. Minho is glad he can blame the pre-heat for the needy moans escaping his lips. Jisung doesn't need to know he’s always this loud.
He isn't, however, always this wet.
He should have foreseen it, honestly, with the sticky conditions he woke up in while wrapped up in his scent. He should have known it’d only be worse now that he's wrapped up in him .
He’s making out with Han Jisung.
He moans, loudly, and grips the front of his stupid soft sweater. He tilts his head more, crashes into his chest. Their legs are in the way.
And now are Jisung’s hands on his shoulders, gently but firmly pushing him away.
“I think,” he pants, too far from Minho’s mouth and smelling like spring all at once. “That should be okay for today.”
Minho blinks.
Jisung licks his wet lips, softly bites his swollen, plush bottom lip.
Minho grips his sweater harder before letting go at once. He wipes his mouth, rubbing spit between his fingers.
“Jee, thanks,” Jisung mumbles.
Minho rubs his lips harder. He jolts when Jisung touches the corner of his mouth with his thumb, eyebrows furrowed in concentration, cheeks pink.
“At least do a proper job of cleaning up.”
Minho shoots up. He doesn't trip, miraculously.
“Okay,” he says. “Leave.”
Jisung sticks out his tongue like a twelve year old, but he stands up. His blond hair is falling into his eyes, but he doesn't move it away. It looks honeyed against his tan skin.
Minho didn't touch it. He hides his hands inside his hoodie.
Jisung wrinkles his nose.
“I think you should be fine for a couple of days.”
Minho parts his lips but says nothing.
He had assumed it would have to be a daily thing, like taking his pill, but apparently real alpha pheromones aren’t as precise as alpha cereal.
“Okay,” he says instead. “Leave.”
Minho’s stomach coils when Jisung narrows his eyes, in something he could pretend it’s the usual, sour, what’s your problem (aggressive) , but it’s more of a what’s your problem (curious) .
He steps away. Leads by example.
His bangs are bothering him, but he doesn't fix them. Neither does Jisung.
“I’ll leave then,” he says. “See you.”
He walks to the door, but he stops.
Minho knows why, he was the one to growl somberly, but he doesn't feel like acknowledging it. He bares his teeth.
Brown sugar is quick to fill the air. Amusement.
Minho looks in satisfied terror as Jisung slips out of his holey sweater and hands it to him.
“Here,” he smiles, way too smug. “Just don't leave this one to rot on the bathroom floor, I quite like it.”
Minho quite likes it, too. He buries his nose in it and takes a quality-control sniff. He smells so much of Jisung he barely smells him on the sweater. Perfect.
When he looks up, Jisung is looking at him with rounded eyes and a reluctant hint of a smile on his lips. Minho throws the sweater on his shoulder and nods his chin to him in a manly, assured dismissal. Jisung shakes his head, cheeks rounding up further.
Minho doesn't like the cheeky attitude, but he likes the smell all right.
🍋🟩
“Fuck,” it’s how Seungmin chooses to greet him that morning in the cafeteria. “Jisung told me you're giving him private dancing lessons, but it smells like you tripped and fell into the dishwasher, and somehow decided to stay inside for the whole cycle.”
“It was cozy inside,” Minho mumbles, bent in two over the table, arms slack by his sides. “Dark.”
Seungmin sits down in front of him. Minho doesn't move his cheek from the now warmed up faux wood of the table.
Jisung made up an excuse for him. He doesn't know what to do with the knowledge.
He knows what to do with Seungmin pretending they haven't been quietly disapproving of each other at a distance- go along with it.
“Do you expect me to ask why you’re so exhausted?” Seungmin asks.
“No,” Minho answers truthfully, refusing to elaborate.
He’s merely burdened by the humiliation of waking up in a puddle of his own slick, drenched in the smell of powdered sugar, plagued by vague images of a tiny waist crushed between his thighs. Nothing Seungmin will ever have to know.
As if he heard Minho’s thoughts, the dog sniffs loudly. It’s a rather annoyed sound.
Revitalized by it, Minho hooks his chin over his now crossed arms, a knowing cat smile on his face.
“Is the puppy jealous?”
The puppy looks murderous.
“The puppy is angry. My rut is coming up.”
Minho blinks. He doesn’t really think about Seungmin having ruts . The image is disturbing to say the least. He wrinkles his nose.
“Ew.”
“I guess you’re not helping, then.”
Minho blinks.
“You wanted me to?”
“If I ever did, it died the minute you started to smell like the house cleaning aisle of a supermarket.”
“You wanted me to?” Minho repeats.
Seungmin sighs. He eats a mouthful of omlet.
“Would that be so weird?” He asks. “I'm an alpha, you’re an omega, we’d both pretend it never happened and move on.”
An alpha who would help no question asked, Jisung said. It sounds reasonable. Desirable, even- having a friend helping out and not having to struggle to find a way to help. Still, the idea of letting Seungmin help him through his heat sounds repulsive. He's good looking enough, Minho guesses, staring at him with the intent of understanding what the fuck is wrong with him. He’s handsome, and gentle if not kind, and he’d take good care of any omega. But not of Minho.
He nibbles on his bottom lip.
It’s the wrong texture. He wants to nibble on Jisung’s.
“You’re really off suppressants, hm,” Seungmin says after a huff.
“You just want me really bad.”
“Right now, I do. So keep it together.”
Minho’s ears are blushing.
Disgusting. He doesn't mind alphas going crazy over him, but it’s different when it’s Seungmin. They’re friends. They're not supposed to want to jump each other. It’s icky.
Or maybe it isn't, and Minho is just weird, conception warped by his lifelong lack of heats. Classes and sex aren’t the only things he missed out on in horny jail: there’s a whole alpha/omega etiquette that he’s blind to.
Even Jisung thought asking Seungmin to help would make the most sense.
He straightens up, pulls himself together.
This is his heat. His choice. And he chose Jisung.
It’s the right choice.
Minho wouldn't die if Jisung helpfully knotted him for the season. It wouldn't be weird after. They barely make eye contact as is.
They made eye contact last night while Jisung was fucking him into the mattress. Granted his eyes were glowing alien neon green for some reason, but still.
“Stop thinking about sex,” Seungmin almost chokes.
“I'm not,” he lies.
“You are,” Seungmin says with a rusty edge.
Minho doesn't like that edge. He might be an alpha but Minho isn't his omega. He can keep the knife in his pocket.
Half a minute of tense, uncomfortable eye-contact later, it's Seungmin who budges. Sighs. Takes his tray and stands up.
“I can't be here. Have fun being miserable.”
Minho flips him the bird, but he has no energy for anything else. He slumps against the back of his chair, throwing his head back.
Good for a couple of days, Jisung said.
He isn't. Well, he probably is, he just doesn't feel like it. He’s exposed and dream-deep into wet, sloppy sex he can't fucking stop thinking about.
And he isn't even in heat yet.
He skips the next class.
He spends the next two hours sitting upside down on the couch, wearing Jisung’s sweater and pretending he doesn't want to touch himself. He practices his vocals instead.
🍋🟩
Making out with Jisung is like finally drinking a glass of water after accidentally going dry for the whole day. Except he’s been hyper-aware of the fact he wasn't groping Jisung’s chest the whole time.
They didn't even say hi.
Jisung might have, actually, but Minho just grabbed him by the front of his sweater and shoved his tongue in his mouth. No room for embarrassment. They’re doing business here.
He lets out the neediest, loudest moan when Jisung grabs him by the waist to reposition him across his lap.
So what, he likes to be manhandled. Sue him. It’s hot.
Jisung laughing softly against his mouth is hot, too.
Whatever comment he’s about to make won't be hot, but Minho will deal with it.
“I smell good on you.”
Minho freezes. His eyes are wide open while Jisung presses open mouthed kisses on his lips, the heel of his hand digging in Minho’s neck.
Minho slaps his chest. Jisung whines, holding his (tattooed) boob like Minho just stabbed him. Minho slaps his hand away and gropes him again. It’s his real estate for the day, Jisung can touch his own chest any other time.
“Where did that come from?”
“You moan, I yap,” Jisung mumbles, hugging his waist tighter. “Let me have it.”
“No.”
“No?” He asks, eyes growing impossibly round. “I'll go, then.”
No, Minho says against his lips. No, you’re not going anywhere , he kisses down his neck.
He rubs his nose against Jisung’s scent gland, where it smells the most like soap, despite sticky cherry syrup fruitlessly fighting for dominance.
“You told Seungmin I’m teaching you dancing,” he mumbles, scratching Jisung’s chest.
“Didn't do it for you,” Jisung half laughs. “I stared death in the eyes when he figured out I was smelling like you. Had to think quickly.”
“That’s so animalistic,” Minho mumbles, teeth grazing Jisung’s neck with every word. “I'm not his mate.”
He licks. Just a tiny kitten lick, right along the vein he can't see now but now it’s there because it peeks out when he sings high notes.
“That’s what you get for calling him your pack alpha all the time,” Jisung says, voice deep and scratchy. “You crawled into his primal brain.”
His hand flattens against the small of Minho’s back, and Minho settles into it. Gently sucks on his neck. It’s so peaceful that it makes his brain go static a bit.
“Minho,” he hears Jisung mouth. “Can I-”
Yes , he bites down gently. Yes, he can do anything to him, whenever he wants, however he wants. As long as it doesn’t involve Minho moving away from his lap.
It involves, it turns out, quite the opposite. Jisung hooks his hand under his knee and hoists it up over his lap. Minho moans shamelessly when Jisung flattens his palm to his inner thigh and squeezes . Thank God for that hormonal excuse, because Minho’s pride wasn’t going to survive it. Any of this, really.
“You’re going to leave a hickey,” Jisung says gently, bruising his hair.
Minho hums. He slides his hand up, grips the other side of Jisung’s neck. Jisung’s finger jerks over his thigh, but it doesn’t shut him up.
“Minho.” He nibbles. Jisung takes a sharp breath, but doesn’t give up. “Do you want to spend your heat with me?”
It’s such a stupid question that it gets Minho to stop suckling on him like a blanket. He blinks and pulls away, making no effort to wipe away spit from his parted lips.
Jisung has the gull to look confused. To smell offended .
“I’m just asking.”
“I thought that’s what we were doing.”
He realizes his mistake the moment he’s done forming words.
They weren’t. Jisung merely offered help managing his pre-heat symptoms, or rather Minho demanded he did. Clothes and cuddles. They’re only making out because Minho is an animal and won’t let an alpha scent him if he isn’t getting pacified by sexual arousal, apparently.
Jisung looks and smells extremely smug. It’s disgusting. Minho breathes in a mouthful of air. He paws at Jisung’s chest and pushes him away when Jisung tightens his arm around his waist and pulls him closer.
He’s already bracing himself for the teasing to come. He closes his eyes when Jisung puts his lips close to his ear, mouth brushing flushed skin.
“Okay,” he says, voice so deep Minho feels it in his sternum, somehow still stinged in mirth. Minho’s eyelashes flutter at the same frequency of the indignant bees flapping their wings in his head.
A squeak escapes him when Jisung gently kisses his scent gland.
He scurries away from Jisung’s hold when he laughs, pulling himself together astonishingly quickly, if he ignores the accidental suicidal attempt when he stumbled into the coffee table.
“Leave,” he says, hands on his hips and gaze stiffly anchored to Jisung’s platform shoes.
“Can I have something to drink, first?”
“No,” he says, bewildered he’d even ask. As if he’s in the position to.
He regrets raising his eyes the minute he sees Jisung smiling, hands curled over his stomach and head leaning on the back of the couch. It’s tilted, his hair bunching cutely under it.
His neck is red and well kissed. It looks obscene. Minho knows most of it will fade come the night, but it’s still disturbing. The deep feeling of betrayal in his guts is humiliating- like he should still be making a mess of his neck but he’s been ripped away from it.
Worst of all, it’s Jisung’s heart-shaped smile. It’s not even smug. He just looks happy.
Smells all happy too, like a wild berries mojito served in a freshly washed glass.
Minho needs him out of his apartment yesterday .
He pushes his hair back and adjusts his sweater, shoving it back into his pants. He ignores the situation going on there. His rapidly rotting smell. He doesn’t want to smell bad. He doesn’t want the perfect haze surrounding him to go to waste. He can’t fucking tuck his shirt properly. Jisung is starting to smell weird, too, and he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t want him to know he’s affected. He doesn’t want him to know-
He yelps when Jisung gently wraps his hand around his thigh. He jerks his head up, meets his eyes. He’s frowning. There’s concern in them, but mostly he looks like he’s trying to figure something out, solve a puzzle like he’s fucking Detective Conan or something.
“Stop,” Minho manages to say. “Leave.”
“In a minute,” Jisung mouths. It’s barely audible and yet it makes Minho shake.
He needs to get a grip.
He needs to make Jisung angry, to make him storm away from Minho and the tangled knot in his chest.
The gentle, firm swipe of Jisung’s thumb along his inner thigh makes him choke on his own breath.
“I want you out of here.”
He’d take it back right away if he could.
It sounded wrong. Trembling. Slightly twitchy on the here .
Jisung wets his lip, catches his bottom lip between his teeth for a second. Minho is close to hyperventilating and he doesn’t even know why.
“Okay,” Jisung nods.
It’s completely different from the way he pressed it into his neck, but Minho is there once again. He doesn’t want to leave the memory of it. He wants Jisung to hold him close and kiss his neck like Minho is the only thing worth paying attention to.
He doesn’t move back when Jisung stands up. He yelps when, ever so gently, he reaches out for his shirt, sorts out the mess of folds, and tucks it neatly in Minho’s jeans.
“Here,” he smiles while Minho’s reaction is still booting up. “All tucked in.”
There’s a glint in Jisung’s eyes.
He knows something. Minho has no idea what, but dread pools in his stomach.
If only he could be back shoving his tongue into his mouth.
He glares when Jisung takes off his oversized flannel, leaves it on the couch for Minho, and gets out of his apartment. Then, once he can’t hear the steps anymore, he screams. It’s wordless but he hears it booming in his chest.
He feels better, after. He thinks.
🍋🟩
He wakes up dry.
He’s swaddled up in Jisung’s hoodie, and he’s got no slick between his legs. No lingering images of a tattoo peeking out from in-between his fingers.
He sits up.
He feels fine. His head is suspiciously quiet and he doesn't feel the immediate need to take a cold shower to regulate his body temperature.
He waddles to the bathroom bringing imitation Soonie with him, the pillow dangling from his fingers.
He looks pale and puffy. His cheeks aren't flushed.
It’s like, he ponders looking at the dull shine in his eyes, he’s not working up a heat anymore.
He resists the urge of wearing the same sweater he slept on under his leather jacket, but he puts on his necklace and chews it on his way to class.
Hyunjin takes a quick sniff at him when they sit together for lunch, but he shakes his head right away. They sit in a row, and Minho nibbles on a slice of bread without the aid of his hands looking at Felix’s phone over his shoulder. He’s tapping the screen fast, shaking with rage. Minho knows nothing about video games, but he’s sure Felix is losing.
“You suck at this,” Hyunjin says, his smile stingraying.
“It's a new character!” Felix complains.
“How come we never heard about your date?” Minho asks, not sure why he remembered now.
Hyunjin looks at him while Felix starts over a new match.
“What date?”
“The one you went on the other day.”
He thinks for a minute.
“More like a week ago.”
“It wasn't a week ago,” Minho says even if he doesn't believe in the concept of time.
“Fine. Five days or so,” Hyunjin flings back.
“Why is nobody fucking healing me!” Felix shouts under his breath.
“The longer it’s been, the worse it is that you said nothing.”
“I did. To Felix. When he asked.”
Minho cocks his eyebrows. Hyunjin nervously fixes his short bangs.
“Fine, it was a shitstorm and I was embarrassed. I hope you would just kinda. Forget.”
“I didn't.”
“Obviously.”
“He gave him a blowjob but couldn't make him come,” Felix says, in between a “die!” and a “motherfucker!”.
Hyunjin blushes profusely. Minho blinks rapidly, ears a little red.
“I told you, it’s his problems, not yours,” Felix says, throwing his phone on the table and grabbing Hyunjin’s shoulders reassuringly.
“I don't know,” he mumbles. “I did kind of choke. And there was a little crying going on.”
“That’s hot,” Felix insists, his thumbs fully massaging Hyunjin’s muscles. “You were perfect.”
“You don't know that.”
“Your lips alone are proof enough.”
“Are you saying I have a whore’s mouth?”
“I'm saying your lips are plush and pink and beautiful. I'm sure they feel amazing.”
“Hm,” Hyunjin wets them. He looks at Minho. “Do they?”
Minho chokes on nothing. He fixes his bangs again.
“They’re soft.”
“Excuse me?” Felix asks, bewildered.
“We just made out a little,” Hyunjin half-giggles, flushed.
“What? When?” Felix whips back his head until he’s staring at Minho. “Where was I?”
“That one party we went to? You were getting tipped in dollar bills while dancing on a table.”
“And nobody told me?” Felix shrieks.
Hyunjin shrugs.
“It was a pity kiss. I was a little sad and he cheered me up. It was a little embarrassing.”
Felix looks betrayed. He clings to Minho’s sweater.
“Where was my cheer up kiss when I sobbed on the sidewalk when I counted my tips and it wasn't enough for a boba tea?”
Minho blinks.
“I don't think I was still there.”
“Yes, you were! You laughed your ass off!”
He blinks again.
“That does sound like me.”
Felix shakes him.
“You owe me a kiss, Lee Minho.”
Minho doesn't like being in debt. He leans in and pecks Felix straight on the mouth.
He melts into it like a kitten. Sighs all happy. He hides his face against Minho’s neck and pets his hair.
Minho could never, ever, be that cute and affectionate in a public space. Not without wanting to chew his arm off. Resign his identity and escape to a new country.
Felix takes a pointed sniff. He buries his nose in Minho’s scent gland.
“You smell like Jisung.”
“No, I don't.”
Felix leans back and glares.
“Yes, you do.”
Minho shakes his head in tiny movements.
“I showered in dish soap.”
Silence embraces them.
“Please tell me that’s not true,” Hyunjin exhales, horrified, clutching his chest.
“Of course it’s not true,” Felix snaps back, slapping him on his thigh.
“I was out of body wash,” Minho insists. “And it said gentle wash on the bottle.”
Felix licks the inside of his tongue, hands curling in fists.
“You’re only getting more suspicious.”
“Delicate omega skin,” Hyunjin gasps. “Marred by dish soap. No poetry is left in the world.”
“He didn't wash himself with dish soap!” Felix insists, throwing his head back.
“What is more likely, Felix? That he washed himself in dish soap or that he got scented by Jisungie?”
“I hate,” Felix says after a moment. “That you’re making me doubt this.”
Minho likes being weird, sometimes. It’s fun.
The discussion degenerates and he keeps playing dense.
He almost forgets about his heat. Almost.
He could, maybe, if he didn’t feel a chill- he couldn't stop thinking how hot he was just yesterday, when the temperature was even colder.
The normalcy of his body is both comfortable and unsettling.
Jisung looks up the second Minho puts foot inside the practice room.
He’s confused, eyebrows furrowed and eyes round. Minho hugs himself, tugs the sleeves of his white sweater down. He gives him a little nod. He isn't sure what he wants to say, but Jisung seems to understand he doesn't want to talk about it now. He nods back.
And yet, he circles around him. Steals glances. Keeps an eye on him. It’s a little annoying.
“Stop,” Changbin tells him on a water break. “You either smile or you don't- it’s freaky to see your face stuck in-between.”
Minho bares his teeth and tries to stretch his rigid hamstring again in front of the mirror.
They're freestyling today- following the beat and trying out ad-libs. It means Chan thinks they’re not making any significant improvement so they might as well do a little team-bonding instead.
Felix and Han are a little double act by themselves. They laugh, lean on each other’s shoulders and have a jumping contest. Of course Jisung can jump ridiculously high for no reason at all. It’s not that egregious though: he obviously has hollow bones.
It’s cute, Minho guesses. Like a little hamster squeaking around a pretty cat.
He just threw a glance to them, when he sees a mirrored Jisung gripping Felix's neck and leaning in for a kiss. Felix plays along, grabbing his chin.
Minho didn't growl.
No matter how much staring they all do, they've got no proof it happened except for their own faulty memories. He stretches his legs wide.
“Minho?” Chan asks. “Is everything all right?”
Minho really doesn't like mojitos. They’re grainy and sugary and he’d much prefer straight rum.
He hums, fixing his bangs.
Chan looks both amused and confused. Minho weaponizes his cute blinking.
He sniffs the weirdly attractive smell of turpentine before he hears a door slamming shut. Blood rushes to his ears. He stops playing cute at once.
“Well, that's awkward,” Chan announces, hands on his hips. “I guess we’ll be down one alpha vocalist for a couple of days.”
Someone snickers. They stop when Minho glares at them. Hyunjin scratches his cheek looking intently at the floor.
“You’re an inconvenience,” Changbin tells Jisung.
“Me?” He protests, eyes wide, pointing at himself.
“Alphas in rut,” Changbin scoffs. “Disgusting.”
Minho agrees. He can't even flirt a little without them going crazy.
“I know how to handle my ruts!” Jisung protests like his honor in the line, even when Changbin is obviously taking the piss. “Don't rope me in with puppies!”
“Oh, because you’re not one.”
“No, I'm not,” he scoffs. “I’m really not.”
It sounds a little sensitive. Rough around the edges. Minho never really thought about it, what it would be like to present earlier than almost everyone else. Regular teenagers get thrown in horny jail to deal with it, stashed away from society in convenient single rooms without any mandatory course to follow other than health class, basic biology and a physical activity of their choice, with no expectation to be reasonable or productive. Jisung had to go to High School everyday.
“He’s an old dog. They call him the omega whisperer, haven't you heard?” Minho asks, deliberately annoying.
Jisung sputters and rolls his eyes. For a minute Minho thinks he might even stick his tongue out at him.
“No, they don't,” he says, instead. “You made that up.”
“Why and when would you have made that up?” Felix asks, suspicious and evidently anxious to test his privileges. “You guys hate each other.”
Jisung makes a fake hissing sound.
“Oh, baby. Quick, think of a cover up for our torrid love affair.”
Minho rushes to his feet.
Hyunjin takes several tiny steps back. Felix yelps. Jisung doesn't budge. He stays there, stupid grin on his face and smelling like brown sugar.
“What?” He asks, eyes stupidly round and sparkly.
Minho knows what he’s doing. It’s irritating.
“You can't do that,” he says.
“Do what?”
“That,” he says, nodding to him with his chin. “You’re an alpha. Weaponized cuteness is an omega thing.”
The fucker chuckles.
“Thanks.”
“For what.”
“For calling me cute.”
He’s blushing.
“Why would you thank me for that? You’re an alpha. You shouldn’t want to be cute. You’re already tiny. Where’s your pride?”
Jisung makes his eyes sparklier somehow. His lips curl down in a pout.
He’s smug and amused and Minho doesn't know why.
Minho bends down, grabs the water battle and throws it at his chest.
“Minho!” Chan shouts.
Jisung laughs. He curled into a ball to catch the bottle with his arm.
“It’s empty,” Minho mumbles. “He’s an alpha. He can take it.”
“The cutest omegas are always the most genderist,” Hyunjin sighs because he never shuts the fuck up.
Minho pounces. The coward scuttles behind Felix.
“Easy,” Jisung laughs, barely brushing Minho’s elbow. Minho gapes. The audacity.
He has no words to throw at Jisung’s heart-shaped smile.
Hyunjin sighs, again.
“Such a pretty smile wasted on an alpha. Truly, there’s no justice in this word.”
“How isn't that genderist, now?” Minho shouts.
“Because it’s ironic. He knows I know I truly appreciate he’s both pretty and an alpha. Right, Jisungie?”
Jisung winks at him.
Minho is bewildered. He opens and closes his mouth but he has nothing to say.
Jisung gently presses two fingers onto the inside of Minho’s wrist.
“Let’s get back into position,” he laughs. “I have a feeling Chan has us on a timer.”
Chan nods with his eyes closed and a dimpled smile.
Minho sneers at Jisung, and he smiles back. Peak condescending alpha behavior.
Minho doesn't bite him only because he has a healthy fear of Chan. He walks in front of the mirror again.
When he runs away at the end of practice, for once he isn't running from Jisung but from Felix. He doesn't want to hear a single word. Doesn't want to see a single look. He’s ignoring him until further notice.
It’s getting pretty long, the list of people Minho’s avoiding. It’s okay, really. It was weird that he knew all those people to begin with.
He cat smiles when Jisung opens the door of the utility room Minho burrowed himself in. It’s small, dark and a bit dangerous with all the exposed wires lying around. He likes it.
He left the door ajar, so that Jisung would smell him on his way. He hasn't been explicitly told, but he knows he’s got a sensitive nose.
“Hey,” he says, deep voice regrettably reassuring. He sits down, making himself really tiny next to Minho’s open legs.
“Hey.”
“What happened?”
Minho shrugs. He spreads his ten fingers on the floor, between his thighs. His sweater covers almost the entirety of his pinkies.
“I woke up like this.”
Jisung hums. He rubs Minho’s neck with the back of two fingers. Goosebumps bubble up under his skin and run down in rivulets down his spine.
“Are you okay?”
He nods.
“I think so. I’m just- normal.”
“Maybe you should go see a doctor.”
“I know. I’m going now.”
Jisung flattens his whole hand against his neck, squeezes him. Then his hand is gone.
Minho looks at it, now that it lays on top of Jisung’s knee.
His nails are freshly painted. Black and white. There’s a star design on his crooked index finger.
“They’re pretty,” Minho says, because it’s true.
“Thanks. Hyunjin got bored during class.”
Right. They share classes.
Jisung giggles.
“What?” Minho asks.
“Nothing you want to hear.”
“Tell me.”
“I don't enjoy putting myself in danger.”
“Tiny alpha afraid of feisty omega,” he says, like a news anchor.
There, again, that insufferable aftertaste, like Jisung’s seeing through Minho's words. There’s nothing to see. Everything is to be taken at face value.
“You do remember I know you like I’m tiny, now, right?”
Minho short-circuits.
“Lie.”
“It’s really not. Bulky alphas are boring, was that it?”
Minho presses his lips together. He ignores the whiff of embarrassed tartness.
“I never said I liked it, I said I wouldn’t break up with you because of it.”
“Right.” Jisung’s voice is very round. “You’d do that because I’m insufferable.”
“Hm-hm.”
“Well, that’s a shared trait and you don't seem like someone who doesn't like himself, so- ouch!.”
Minho pointedly doesn't squeeze his boob after he hits it.
“You’re annoying.”
“I am,” Jisung whines. “I like that about myself.”
Minho doesn't connect dots. Doesn't do math. He lets the words come and go, takes them at face value.
He looks at Jisung. His hair is parted weirdly. Probably because Felix messed with it.
Minho’s fingers twitch.
“I won’t need your help anymore,” he says, quietly. “So. You can leave.”
It’s missing something. A single word.
Minho always says his thanks.
Jisung pouts. He smells a little like dry grass, but not in a hostile way. It’s more like-
“I guess you won’t.”
-disappointment. Minho blushes. Wildly.
“You’re desperate and it’s pathetic. Are you that bitchless?”
“Well, yes. Freshly.”
Right. That Ally girl. Minho pulls at a string on the hem of his sweater. He breathes in fresh lime juice.
“And you’re the most beautiful omega on campus and I just lost my shot. I’m mourning it a little.”
Minho slaps him again. His ears are on fire. He’s fighting with the pleased purr in his stomach.
“Stop mocking me!”
“I'm not!” Jisung whines. “I am an alpha, after all. However tiny.”
He leans into Minho’s shoulder and back.
Minho draws his knees to his chest, hands curled in his lap.
He hates that he’s at ease. That Jisung’s smell is making him feel safe, like there’s nothing wrong with him.
He didn't go into heat, and his alpha is still here. Calling him beautiful.
His hands are sweating, and his scent is tangling up.
Suddenly he needs Hyunjin. He doesn't know what for. He just knows Hyunjin would have something to say about the out of character biological pull he feels toward Jisung.
Maybe he’s working up a heat again. Then he’d have an easy explanation.
Minho freezes when Jisung pulls down the hem of his shirt, right around his hip. He looks down immediately, catching a glimpse of skin before he’s covered, shirt pulled down to his thighs.
“Here,” Jisung mumbles in a very low voice that carries the lightest hint of warm spring sun. “All covered up.”
Minho is at once very aware that all the times they’ve been this close, he's had Jisung’s hands on him. His lips against his mouth.
He stands up. Quickly.
“I'm going,” he announces, squaring his shoulders.
“Sounds smart,” Jisung nods, hopping on his feet.
Minho should be pushing the door open, not just holding his palm against it.
“Maybe let me know?” Jisung asks softly. “Just that you’re okay.”
Minho should tease him. He can't.
He knows he needs his omega to be alright, at least while Minho still smells like him.
Personally, right now he’d rather sit through a whole football match than knowing Jisung is inconvenienced in any way.
He nods.
It’s the most he can do.
Jisung’s smile is insufferably sweet, and the scent of lime is all soapy.
Obnoxious. Minho munches on his necklace and makes it through the door.
Minho is fine, at least as far as Doctor Kang can tell without the blood test Minho is now being prescribed.
He doesn't look worried. Maybe just a little curious, like some doctors get when the easiest solution doesn't seem to fit.
Minho looks at his hands, at his rugged nails. He stopped munching on them when he found out it wasn't polite from someone who wasn't his treacherous parents, who were apparently unbothered by their child acting like a little wild kitten testing his teeth on his own bones.
“And of course, you can stop taking your alpha pheromones now,” Doctor Kang says, tapping away on his keyboard.
Minho blinks.
Oh, right. His cereals. Which he stopped taking without telling his doctor.
He risks a look at (still young, still attractive) Doctor Kang. He’s humming to himself, round cheeks smooth and a little crease in between his eyebrows.
He didn't notice Minho’s weird silence. He could get away without mentioning it. It probably doesn't matter, he subbed out the subs for the real thing. It’s not like he toyed with blockers.
Still, he is back in the office for a reason. He hides in his sweater paws.
“I already stopped.”
“Uh?”
Minho valiantly fights a blush.
“I, uhm. I didn't like the alpha cereals all that much. They smelled like nothing and it pissed me off.”
Minho doesn't know about medical professionalism, but he’s fairly sure Doctor Kang shouldn't be that amused.
“And when would that be?”
“A few days ago. I found a replacement.”
“A replacement.”
He nods. He fixes his bangs. He’s not trying to be cute, but Doctor Kang’s eyes get warmer all the same.
“Found a tiny alpha I liked the smell of. Did I mention how incredibly off-putting it is that the cereals smell like nothing?”
“I got the idea, yes,” Doctor Kang chuckles. His round cheeks squish his eyes into crescents.
Minho blinks. He’s very attractive, actually. It's a good thing he’s a doctor and Minho is kind of allergic to the idea of being monitored and examined and probed.
“I didn't mess up, right?” He asks, in an incongruous aggressive tone.
“I would have preferred if you said something before going off meds,” Doctor Kang says, an easy smile and a glint in his eyes, “but it’s good that you found an alpha you could trust.”
Minho shows his teeth, ears warm.
“I’m not sure I like unsolicited comments on my sentimental life.”
“Sorry,” Doctor Kang nods, not sorry at all. “I will refrain from that in the future.”
“Good,” Minho says, shuffling on the chair a little.
Silence engulfes them again as Doctor Kang goes back to typing God knows what on his computer.
Minho hates the silence. It's uncomfortable and unequal.
He hates it so much that words slip through his mouth.
“I didn't find his number on a bathroom stall,” he says. “Or on a flier. I don't have his number at all, actually. I know him.”
Doctor Kang’s attempts at not showing amusement are tampered by his cheeks filling up.
“I see.”
Minho plays with his necklace. The cord is wearing thin in places.
“He would have come with me, today,” he adds, because apparently he just can't shut up. “If I asked.”
“That’s a good thing,” Doctor Kang nods with a click of the mouse. The small printer starts whirring.
It's unnerving. Even more so than the silence.
“Here,” Doctor Kang says gently, pushing papers towards him. “Your blood test prescription. You can have it done anywhere you’d like, or you can just drop it off at the front desk.”
“Thank you,” Minho says because he’s polite and he doesn't have years of resentment for Doctor Kang tampering with his personality traits.
He could build it up though. If Doctor Kang doesn't stop being a little shit.
“I’m going to comment on your sentimental life now,” he says, hands politely joined over the desk. “For medical purposes.”
Minho shows his teeth again.
“Fine,” he grumbles.
“It’d be useful to get that alpha’s number. I can't exclude the possibility of symptoms of a pre-heat to show up again.”
Minho is thankful he has something to focus on that’s not having to save Jisung’s number in his phone.
“ Symptoms of a pre-heat?” He asks.
Doctor Kang gives him a small nod, mouth curving into pure kindness and concern.
“It’s unusual for a heat to just dissipate. So it is to experience a false heat, so,” he shrugs with a cute, easy smile that comforts Minho more than any professional terminology could. “Can't exactly Occam razor my way out of this.”
Minho smiles. It’s a little more strained than he’d thought it would be.
“Have the blood test done as soon as possible, will you?” Doctor Kang asks, voice low and kind. “Let’s make sure you're healthy before anything else.”
Minho nods.
Doctor Kang walks him to the door and gently rests a hand on his shoulder.
He’s significantly taller than Jisung.
Minho doesn't know why his brain processes the information like that. Maybe because the angle he’s looking at him feels weird all of a sudden. Unfamiliar.
Weird. He shakes it away.
The last thing he’s expecting to find when he makes it home is a squirrel taped to his door.
It’s a sticky note. There’s writing on his belly.
A phone number, and a few too many words.
Please unblock me , Minho reads, and in case you canceled my number all together, there it is again. Thought about catching you outside the clinic but I didn't want weird rumors to spread since the whole campus has his eyes on you. I waited for you here for a bit but it seemed stalkerish, so. I left you a note. Please tell me if you’re okay. Also I know I'm the only one who knows, so. If you need anything. Just text me.
Jisung is an idiot.
Minho blinks rapidly, gets his phone out, and texts him such.
He doesn't elaborate.
He puts his phone on do not disturb and then leaves it to charge in his room while he takes a shower. A pleasantly warm one.
He isn't going in heat. Maybe he never was.
He shouldn't care.
He thought he never would until a few days ago. It’s silly to be upset over something he thought was true for years already.
He’s just tired, surely.
Upset by the whiplash of his body temperature.
He settles on the couch even if it’s early in the evening.
He hides his face in Soonie’s belly, wishing it smelled like the real one. It would make it easier to ignore how the blanket smells like the wrong kind of soap.