Chapter Text
Chaewon checks herself over in the mirror and adjusts her outfit a fifth time, ignoring the way she can see Hyunjin watching her judgmentally through the mirror. She leans closer to check her makeup, then rubs under her ear to do a scent test.
“Yes, you’re super smelly today,” Hyunjin says tiredly, “Is that what you want, or do you need to borrow my masking stick?”
Chaewon looks back at her sheepishly. “...can I?”
Hyunjin wordlessly tosses it over. “You really need to get one. All you need is a quick trip to the campus health clinic. I’ll even go with you.” Hyunjin pauses, then, more pleadingly. “Literally. Any. Time.”
Chaewon winces. “Is it really that bad?”
Hyunjin doesn’t say anything. Chaewon already knows it is.
Okay. Well it’s not exactly Chaewon’s fault. It’s that she and Hyunjin had somehow ended up living across from their RA, a friendly and high-energy Omega who’d popped in to check on them every day their first week, despite them being sophomores and very acclimated to the campus.
Or, okay, their RA, a devastatingly sexy and exactly Chaewon’s type Omega who had Chaewon working herself through a rut after she’d left the first time, her citrus scent lingering long after she’d gone. And if Chaewon had developed a Pavlovian response to the smell of oranges? It’s between her and God if she popped a stiffy while drinking orange juice in the dining hall earlier that week. Whatever. She’d taken care of it in the shower and ignored the subtle sniffing the two betas had done as she passed them on her way out.
“You know, you could just let her smell you. It’d take care of all this,” Hyunjin waves vaguely, “pent up…you know.”
“Oh come on, she’d never go for someone like me. Between the two of us, who’s someone as hot as Haseul going to choose?” Chaewon gestures between herself and Hyunjin before applying the masker over her scent glands.
“Not this again.” Hyunjin sets aside her book, flopping down on her bed, clearly tired of this whole line of reasoning. Chaewon didn’t care.
“The alpha who can knot her. Yeah.” She doesn’t miss the clear outline of Hyunjin’s cock showing through her gray sweats. Mocking Chaewon.
“I have a girlfriend, though,” Hyunjin frowns. “Anyway, it’s not like it’s something you can control—”
“I know,” Chaewon whines, “do you think I would choose to have a penis this small!?”
Hyunjin doesn’t respond, instead choosing to stare, alarmed, over Chaewon’s shoulder. “Hey, Haseul.”
“Hey guys,” Haseul replies, “what’s up?” She waves as she fishes her keys out of her pocket.
Chaewon stares at Hyunjin with equal parts humiliation and betrayal. Why didn’t you tell me?!?! she mouths.
I didn’t know! Hyunjin mouths back.
“Chaewon, you’re coming to the succulent activity I put together for this afternoon, right?” Haseul continues on like she hadn’t heard anything. Maybe she didn’t. Chaewon can only pray. “I saw your name on the sign up sheet.”
“Y-yeah,” Chaewon says. “You know me and gardening.”
Hyunjin rolls her eyes.
“Whatever,” Chaewon says, blushing. “I’m planting a succulent. Want one?”
The thing is, Chaewon doesn’t just pop totally horny-desperate knots over Haseul. She genuinely likes her. And that makes this so much more pathetic, the little voice in her head adds unhelpfully.
Chaewon glances over at Haseul, who’s scooping a cup of dirt for a latecomer to the succulent-potting session. She grins at the freshman, eyes disappearing into her smile and Chaewon’s heart lurches a little in jealousy, which is ridiculous because Haseul had done the same to her not even fifteen minutes before.
Haseul is so…Chaewon can’t even figure out how to articulate the kind of pretty she is, especially like this, with her hair thrown up into a messy ponytail, half of it falling out because it’s too short, too fine to stay in the hair and. No one should look so stunning in the drab olive hoodie that the university gave all the RAs.
Haseul glances over at her curiously, and Chaewon flushes, knocking over her own cup of dirt in her haste to look like she’s doing something other than staring at Haseul like some kind of obsessed idiot.
Hyunjin sniffs Chaewon when she drags herself out of bed after a particularly sweaty night sleep. Chaewon feels gross, and it doesn’t make it any better when Hyunjin contorts her features in muted disgust. She feels, like, the opposite of cute.
“Chaewon…” Hyunjin trails off.
Chaewon frowns in response.
“Please skip your eight am and come with me to get a scent stick.”
Chaewon’s frown deepens. “It’s not really that bad.” She watches as Hyunjin tries to weigh her words. That’s when she knows it is. Hyunjin was always so blunt with her. “…okay fine.”
She sees Hyunjin’s palpable relief.
“So, scent stick I presume?” The receptionist at the health center doesn’t even look up.
Chaewon flushes at the assumption, but she guesses it makes it easier than having to bring it up herself. She adjusts her baby pink hoodie and tugs at the hoodie strings. “…yeah.”
The receptionist looks up. “Nothing to be ashamed of.” She hands Chaewon a clipboard. “Has your insurance changed since the beginning of the year?”
Chaewon shakes her head.
When she hands the form back, it doesn’t even take the nurse a minute to usher her inside.
“Have you been struggling with pheromone control for a while now?” The nurse sits back on his stool as Chaewon gets comfortable on the exam chair, crunching the paper underneath her.
Chaewon hesitates. “I guess?”
The nurse types something, then turns back to her. “Is it being triggered by your roommate?”
“No!” Chaewon says, then because it sounds a little suspicious and she really means it, “no, really. No.” She looks away. “It’s my neighbor. Uh, and RA.” She flushes further when even thinking about her makes her body pump out a little scent.
She watches in embarrassment as the nurse tries to be subtle about sniffing the air before he says, “Well, that’s all I need from you. It seems like a perfectly normal pheromone reaction. Nothing to be concerned about. I’ll send you home with a scent stick. Wait one moment.”
Chaewon tugs off her hoodie when they get back, pulling her shirt back down when it sticks to the fleece lining. “Do you think people think I’m a better alpha than I am because I’m so smelly?”
“Better…alpha?” Hyunjin scrunches her eyebrows, frowning. She prods at Chaewon’s sloppily painted succulent pot. “Alpha is just a designation.”
“No, I mean like hung and dom and everything.” Chaewon asks, rubbing a finger over one of her scent glands before breaking the seal on the scent blocker and rubbing it just below her ear.
Hyunjin gives her a once-over and Chaewon suddenly feels silly in her huge, sparkly cat shirt. “Uh,” she trails off.
“At least tell me I seem like I have an average penis.”
Hyunjin glances down again at Chaewon’s sweats. Chaewon doesn’t have the equipment to sport the bulge most alphas bought the gray uni sweats for, but they were comfortable nonetheless, and if Chaewon leaned back and tilted her hips just right, she could totally see a little dick action with the right lighting. Which she’d snapped a pic of and added to her tinder profile, of course. “I mean, it can’t be that bad…” Hyunjin trails off, eyes flitting away from the ties on the sweat.
“You want to see it.” Chaewon surmises.
“Well, yeah.” Hyunjin shrugs, “You complain so much about your dick. I wanna see what you’re working with.”
Chaewon sighs. “Okay, but no making fun, and also you gotta show me yours.”
“You’ve seen mine, though,” Hyunjin frowns.
“Yeah, well that’s because your dick is so hard to hide and you totally had a thing for helicoptering it in the showers freshman year.”
Hyunjin has the decency to be a little embarrassed about the second part.
“Anyway,” Chaewon trails off, she lifts her baggy shirt and holds the hem between her teeth before working her waistband down to below her cock, tucking it under her balls. She purses her lips, waiting for Hyunjin’s reaction.
Hyunjin looks at it almost appraisingly, lips pressed together like she’s trying not to make any expression at all. “It’s…it’s cute?”
Chaewon flops back on her bed, cock sort of bouncing, but not flopping, with her movement. “I’m tired of being cute! Maybe I just wanna fuck hard!”
Hyunjin clears her throat awkwardly, and waves to the doorway. “Hey Haseul.”
Chaewon’s head buzzes with horror. Oh god. Oh god. She slaps her hands over her dick to shield it from view. Why did they never close their door?!?
“Hey guys, I’m not going to ask.”
Perhaps the worst part of the run-in is the way her brain supplants any humiliation she might have felt about the whole matter by making her unbearably horny instead. Everything reminds her of Haseul. The walk to her dorm, her faint scent still lingering on the succulent, even the university logo had Chaewon thinking of her. It cannot be healthy to have a hard-on this near-constantly. Like, she’s sure that it could qualify as a health issue now, and maybe she should go to the health center, but she can’t. Not without a) dying of embarrassment or b) missing class, which she absolutely cannot do in the run-up to finals. So instead, in a move that might make her even crazier than usual, she just tucks herself into her waistband and ignores it.
On day three of Chaewon trying not to grind up into her own waistband like a loser, Hyunjin tells her, “Chaewon, you’re in a rut.”
Chaewon ignores her because she really has to get this paper done and she really can’t think about how ruts are broken.
“Chaewon.” Hyunjin tries again, and when Chaewon continues to ignore her, she huffs and shuffles around, opening the drawer to Chaewon’s nightstand.
Chaewon feels something hit her in the side and looks down her scent blocker stick. She flushes and pops the cap off, smearing it over her scent glands as Hyunjin opens the window. Chaewon watches her for a second before shutting her laptop and grabbing her shower caddy. “I’m, uh, gonna freshen up.” She gestures awkwardly and Hyunjin just nods, thankful for the respite from what Chaewon knows must be overwhelming.
“Actually, could you stay out for a few hours?” Hyunjin glances away when she asks, a faint blush on her cheeks. “Heejin and I just got back together and—”
“Yeah, no problem,” Chaewon is quick to agree. It’s the least she can do.
She tosses her laptop and a few of her notebooks into her backpack and leans it next to the door so she only has to reach inside to grab it after her shower, and grabs her towel from the closet.
The shower is thankfully empty, no one else thinking of taking a shower mid-afternoon during exam week, and Chaewon enjoys the water pressure as she pushes her hair out of her face.
She washes herself quickly before she feels herself harden again, and she listens for anyone else in the shower before making a decision.
She closes her eyes, running a hand over her own hip and imagining it’s Haseul’s hand instead as it cups her package, fondling her balls before it brushes over her cock, which is the most sensitive she thinks it’s ever been. It twitches into her hand, and she can’t afford to waste any time so she wraps two fingers and her thumb tight around it and starts stroking.
She squeezes her eyes closed, imagining Haseul walking her backwards into a wall and dropping to her knees, looking up at her teasingly and saying, “I’m gonna give you the princess treatment.” And it might be totally out of a porno, but the image is effective nonetheless and Chaewon groans, bringing her other hand in to rub her palm over the head.
That’s all it takes for her to shoot her load, hitting the tile wall of the shower a few feet in front of her and Jesus, she’d never gotten that kind of distance before. What’s wrong with her?
She takes a deep breath to recover and flushes when she realizes she’d stunk up the whole room. Not wanting to be caught at the scene of the crime, she splashes some water at the cum on the wall and finishes up, hiding her face from the freshmen she passes on the way out.
And it only resolves things for a few days before she’s in a state of near-constant arousal again. Which is, at this point, going to make her fail her history final because the dates all keep swimming in her head. She can’t focus when every time she shifts, her underwear slides against her cock and reminds her of the problem. She’s pretty sure she’s developed a Pavlovian reaction to succulents as well, which…she needs help, clearly.
Finally, she sighs, dropping her pen. She has to do something about it.
Chaewon gets Hyunjin’s attention to ask a sheepish, “you mind if I—” she looks down at her lap meaningfully, and Hyunjin sighs.
“Fine. But block your scent.” She pauses. “And you owe me one.”
“That’s so not fair! You were totally jerking it last night on the phone with Heejin!” Chaewon whines.
Hyunjin has the decency to blush. “You knew?”
“What else would you be grunting over?” Chaewon huffs. “I put my headphones in, so don’t worry if you said anything embarrassing.”
Hyunjin shrugs. “I’m not leaving, so don’t stink up the room as much as you usually do.” She mutters, “glad you have the scent stick now though,” to herself.
Chaewon rolls her eyes, but she shoves her hand under her covers anyway, closing her eyes and picturing their neighbor dropping to her knees in front of her.
Chaewon is finishing wiping her hand on a tissue when Haseul gives a cursory knock and pops her head in. “Hey you two,” Chaewon watches in embarrassment as Haseul takes a subtle sniff before continuing. Like, that’s her post-nut pheromones. As faint as they are through the blocker, Haseul shouldn’t have to suffer that. “It’s semester one-on-ones. Either one of you wanna go first?”
“You actually do those?” Hyunjin asks from her bed, one earbud popped out. “Like, I mean that in a good way. Last year, our RA barely did any activities, let alone the peer check-ins.”
Haseul frowns. “Yeah, it’s part of the responsibilities, so…”
“Chaewon’s going first.” Hyunjin volunteers her without warning, and Chaewon startles at the sudden decision and at both of their eyes on her, she makes a face at Hyunjin who just mouths, this is your penance, before returning to her laptop.
Chaewon subtly looks down to make sure everything is tucked away into her tighty whities and skirt before shrugging (what she hopes is) casually and sliding out of bed. For once in her life, her small size is beneficial. She doesn’t have to worry about the half-chub she’s currently sporting as she follows Haseul across the hall and into her room.
“So,” Haseul starts after they’ve gotten settled. “How are classes treating you?” She gestures for Chaewon to sit on the bed as she pulls out her desk chair for herself.
“Uh, classes are good.” Chaewon tries very hard to will her half chub away, but every time she takes a breath, she can smell Haseul’s pheromones.
Haseul nods encouragingly, and Chaewon feels like such a knothead when Haseul leans forward in her spaghetti strap tank and has to force her eyes to stay on Haseul’s face. “Social life?”
“Also good,” Chaewon replies distractedly, trying desperately not to pop a stiffy. Like, how had she just taken care of this problem only for it to pop back up?
Haseul’s smile is so pretty. Chaewon tries to focus on that as Haseul runs through winter break campus rules and dorm checks. She evens her breathing and lets out a tiny bit of her own pheromones to calm her heartbeat.
“Oh, one more thing,” Haseul adds. “I feel bad having to say this because I know it’s not necessarily in your control, but I’ve been getting some pheromone complaints.”
Chaewon’s stomach drops. Oh god. How bad has she smelled this semester? She suddenly feels much worse about letting her pheromones out in Haseul’s room, too. “I’m so sorry,” she says, not even able to look Haseul in the eyes.
“I’m partially bringing it up because the adjustment to mixed-designation rooming can be hard for some people.” She scoots forward, the cheap desk chair wheels squeaking a little as they roll. “Like, are you good..?”
Chaewon swallows, and as she opens her mouth to respond, Haseul slides a hand casually onto Chaewon’s thigh. And like, it’s all over after that. No matter how small Chaewon is, there’s no way to get away with the boner she pops in her little blue skirt. Oh, she knew a little skirt would be a bad idea some day. She squirms, not sure if she wants to get away from Haseul’s hand, which slides slowly up her thigh, or will it closer to her cock, which pokes embarrassingly up from her lap.
“Lemme know if I’m misreading things. I overheard you and Hyunjin the other week talking about me.”
Chaewon shakes her head. “You’re,” she swallows, eyes locked on Haseul’s hand as it slides slowly up to tease at the hem of her skirt. “You’re not misreading.”
She forces herself to keep her eyes open as she feels Haseul trail a finger up her cock through two layers of clothing. Her cock jumps at the feeling and she lets out a strangled, embarrassed groan. “I…might be in rut,” she says. It’s the only thing that explained the near-constant erection.
“Do you know who triggered it?” Haseul looks at her like she already knows the answer.
“You,” Chaewon whispers.
That’s all the confirmation Haseul needs to stand from the chair and push Chaewon back to lie sideways on her bed, skirt tenting dramatically even with just her little cock. Haseul rubs her a few times through the fabric, palm warm even through the layers, and Chaewon bucks up a little at the feeling. “Poor you. Ruts can’t be comfortable.” She pushes up the hem of Chaewon’s skirt a little, looking for confirmation, and Chaewon nods, face flaming. Haseul had to know what she was working with at this point and she hadn’t laughed yet.
At the confirmation, Haseul smiles, flipping Chaewon’s skirt up and, without even a moment of pause, pulls Chaewon’s underwear down. She would have worn something cuter than her white Hanes if she’d known someone else was going to be subjected to them, but then Haseul wraps two fingers and her thumb around Chaewon’s cock and—oh—there’s not a ton of room left in her brain to worry about it.
Chaewon pants desperately at the feeling of Haseul’s hand on her. “Oh, fuck,” she hisses when Haseul twists her wrist. She bucks up, eyes slamming shut.
Haseul laughs, but it’s not mean. It’s almost…breathless, and Chaewon cracks her eyes open to see a bright flush high on Haseul’s cheeks, and that may do more to push Chaewon closer to orgasm than Haseul’s thumb sliding slickly over the head of her dick, aided by the precum that’s wetting the slide of Haseul’s grip as well. Like, Haseul wants her. Thinks she’s sexy and everything.
Chaewon can’t take it any more. She sits up and tugs Haseul in by the collar of her shirt, and of course Haseul is a good kisser. Haseul nips at her lower lip and teases at her mouth with her tongue, and Chaewon tries not to feel totally lame as she bucks up into Haseul’s hand and whines into her mouth as she tries not to cum.
Haseul pulls back, eyes bright and hungry. “You have no idea how hot this is,” She says. Like it’s a fact. And hearing it in that tone of voice, Chaewon has no grounds to disagree at all. “I’ve wanted this since you came to the succulent potting activity.”
Chaewon lets out a strangled whine because, Jesus, maybe Haseul really did want her. She squirms under Haseul’s hand, burying her face in Haseul’s neck and taking a breath, nearly choking on the potency of Haseul’s pheromones.
And it’s not like she could help cumming over that, right? She gasps as Haseul continues to stroke her, using her cum to aid the slide of her hand, and it’s so dizzying all Chaewon can do is whine pitifully into Haseul’s neck, suffocating herself on Haseul’s scent.
Haseul wipes her hand on the sheets next to Chaewon, pulling back to grin at Chaewon, who’s sure she looks so stupid right now, but she’s an alpha who just got a hand job. What is she supposed to look like?
“Let’s do that again sometime.” Haseul leans in part way.
Chaewon closes the distance to kiss Haseul, weaving a hand into her hair and pulling her back to straddle her, all too aware of the way her skirt is still flipped up as Haseul crawls into her lap and grinds down playfully. Chaewon groans into the kiss, bucking up before she pulls back. “Wait. Date me?” Oh, ugh, shoot her now. Even she was smoother than that. But she’d already said it, so she tries to look as earnest as possible as Haseul pulls away as well.
“I’ll pick you up Friday,” Haseul says. Like it’s a done deal.