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Sheng Shaoyou had a secret.
It was shameful. It’s disgusting. If anybody knew, knew what his mother used to do to him; who would want him?
The first instance was after Sheng Fang had left them to spend the night with a mistress. Again. He'd come home from class, the smell of vodka in the living room.
“Mom?” Sheng Shaoyou blinked, settling his school bag onto the floor. This has happened before. It wasn’t uncommon to come home to Mom downing a bottle or pouring vodka into a shot cup. Every time, after Sheng Fang didn't come home. She would either cry, scream or drink. Or all at once. He stepped closer, reaching an arm out so he could help his mother to her room.
He squeaked when a hand grabbed onto his shoulder, pulling him onto the couch.
“You look like your father.” Mom slurred, the scent of alcohol making his nose wrinkle. But he didn’t pull away. “You…you…”
“Yes, Mom?” Sheng Shaoyou asked, even as the fingers on his shoulders tightened in a way that left his skin aching.
“You won't leave me like him, would you?” His mother murmured.
He promised. “No!”
“Good.” Mom whispered, pushing him against the couch. Surprised, Sheng Shaoyou can't breathe.
And then, all Sheng Shaoyou can taste is alcohol, and nails scratching against his skin.
By the time he'd finally grown old enough to understand what she's done to him, to look past the grief of her death, he'd dream of strangling his childhood self.
“Stupid.” He'd murmur in his nightmares dreams, hands wrapped around the sobbing boy's neck. Why was the boy crying? This was the least horrible thing that anyone has done to him. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
Sheng Shaoyou laughed when his mother died. The giggles escaping his mouth would’ve sounded crazy to anyone had they gone into his room.
It soon dissolved into sobs.
Sometimes, he wished he could've killed his mother himself. Maybe he would blame his father, for leaving her so often, that she looked at Sheng Shaoyou and saw the man she wanted staring back. Other times, he choked on memories of her soothing pheromones and her soft voice lulling him to sleep.
Even in adulthood, Sheng Shaoyou felt…broken. A shard of himself missing, that his mother took from him in his childhood.
He tried. Tried to erase those memories. It came off with him looking like a whore who slept around, but it was better than the emptiness that came around whenever he blanked out alone for too long.
So he started taking omegas to bed. Everyone probably expected him to, being an S-Alpha and all.
Sheng Shaoyou picked the ones with the strongest possible scent, like sugar cookies, or sweet butter. Their scents made the lingering memory of alcohol fade if just for a little while.
They always just wanted sex, though. No one wanted to simply…cuddle afterwards. Even his first boyfriend expected their first night to end up with their clothes off.
The sugary scent was the only thing managing to keep Sheng Shaoyou from getting turned off when they had sex.
It was unfortunate that it never managed to last long.
It’s like the calming effect dampened whenever he spent too long with an omega. A special apology was owed to Song Huancheng, whom he'd shoved off the moment a hand came sliding under his waistband. He’d thrown up in the bathroom after, only able to remember the smell of vodka. The omega had rightfully been horrified, and their little relationship came to an end.
Most of them always ended up leaving after the first month, even before their scent's effect began to fade. It always had to do with the sex.
It's like you don't even want to! One told him.
He's tried to want it. So badly.
“Someday, it'll work.” He told himself. “My mother didn't ruin me.”
That philosophy started to crumble with each short-span relationship. Even Chin Pinming seemed to notice his mask cracking. The toll of work, the nightmares that would leave him gasping in the middle of the night, his mother–
That is, until an omega named Hua Yong weaved his way into Sheng Shaoyou's life.
Hua Yong didn't want to sleep with him. Most omegas did. It was a requisite that Sheng Shaoyou had become used to.
It was a breath of fresh air. He didn’t have to pretend to be immediately into it if a hand came sliding against his thigh.
“I'm glad.” He breathed one night, tucked in Hua Yong's arms.
“About what?” Hua Yong asked, eyes so breathtakingly kind that it almost hurts.
“You.” Sheng Shaoyou said, and Hua Yong laughed.
Beautiful.
Sheng Shaoyou hated his ruts.
He hated knowing even more that Hua Yong would see him like this. He didn’t respond to them like a regular alpha would. Another sign that ticked to Sheng Shaoyou being all wrong. A regular alpha would want to sleep with an omega during one. Not Sheng Shaoyou.
He usually stayed holed up in his room, wishing it would just end. It was painful, but preferred. The alternative of having sex during it was too…familiar. The sweet pheromones mingling with his own; accompanied by the stickiness and touch that would inevitably happen if he spent it with an omega?
The thought made him want to puke.
Stupid pheromones. Stupid rut. Even making Sheng Shaoyou have an outburst in front of Chang Yu like a little alpha experiencing his first one.
“Don't tell Hua Yong.” He mumbled, the beta’s arm around him as he helped haul Sheng Shaoyou out of the car to the front of the house.
Chen Pinming frowned. “But Mr. Sheng, you can hardly move.”
“Don't worry.” He said. Chen Pinming seemed to visibly worry even further.
In the back of his mind, he knew it wouldn't work. His scent was too strong. But he could try! Sheng Shaoyou managed to creep past the front door without falling.
Even as his body felt sluggish with each step, trying to get into the master bedroom and lock the door before Hua Yong came out of the bathroom. Perhaps send a quick test if he could find the will to move his fingers. Hopefully the text wouldn't send as a sleepy string of random letters and numbers.
He just barely managed to get the bedroom door open, before collapsing onto his knees. The door banged against the wall loudly, but he could barely bring himself to care as he curled on the floor. Sheng Shaoyou didn't want to move. He felt safe like this. Safe–
An arm wrapped around him. He jolted. Holding him. Tight. His mother's arm was tight. Tight when she pinned Sheng Shaoyou onto the couch, and he began to struggle as he felt the mattress against his back.
“–please calm down!”
That's almost what Mother slurred, when Sheng Shaoyou started to fight back.
“–need to change out of your clothes, Mr. Sheng–”
He shuddered when his coat slid off, his shoes dropping onto the floor next. It should've made him feel less stuffy, but it only made him panicked.
A hand lifted his leg, tugging his pants down.
No, no, no–
And then the words were leaving him aloud. “No, no, no.” Sheng Shaoyou whimpered. He couldn’t hear. Couldn’t see, not when everything was so blurred and there was his mother on top of him again. “Not again, please–Mom...I don't want to. Please.”
Sheng Shaoyou couldn't breathe.
Couldn’t.
Breathe..?
Orchid. A light scent of spring. Not bitter at all. The pheromones wafting around him felt like a lifeline. He breathed in hard, as if it were one. The dizziness lessened, and suddenly, he was bare to the world again. He was still a sluggish mess, but now he was actually conscious. It was a relief, until he blinked the blurriness out of his eyes to see the person with orchid pheromones.
“Mr. Sheng.” Hua Yong whispered above him, horrified.
The utter relief left him in a blink of an eye.
He knew.
Hua Yong knew.
The secret Sheng Shaoyou had kept since childhood, for fifteen years. The secret that had left him panicking under the omega like a scared little child. Like he was that scared little child, acting like a replacement for his mother in the role of her absent husband. He was a grown man, an S-Class Alpha, heir of Shengfang Biotech. He shouldn't be breaking like this.
He wouldn't want Sheng Shaoyou now. Nobody wanted him when they knew the truth behind his perfect mask.
Hua Yong was leaning away from him and Shang Shaoyou launched himself forward, clinging to Hua Yong's sleeve. Maybe if he begged, his orchid wouldn't leave.
“No. Please don't go.” His voice broke. “I know. I'm disgusting, but don't leave. Please. Don't leave. Everybody leaves.”
Sheng Shaoyou was crying now. He couldn’t look Hua Yong in the face, well prepared to see the revulsion.
“Shaoyou.” A hand wiped away a tear dripping down his cheek. Finally, he lifted his gaze up. Hua Yong didn't look disgusted. All he could see in the other was love that Sheng Shaoyou didn't deserve. “I'm right here. I'm not going to leave you.”
“Even though I'm disgusting?” He closed his eyes, a hand smoothing his hair. Tucking a strand behind his ear.
“You're not disgusting.”
“Promise?” Sheng Shaoyou asked, almost disbelievingly.
“Promise.” Hua Yong said soothingly, and Sheng Shaoyou believed him. The arms holding his body are soft. Unhurting. Loving. Like he wasn’t something rotten. They stay like that until he falls asleep, the smell of orchids lulling his already tiring body into unconsciousness.
All the while, Hua Yong didn't leave, just as he promised.
...
He sent a text to Shen Wenlang.
There's been a change of plans.
Sheng Shaoyou was curled on the bed, lines from tears running down his face. Hua Yong wanted to make it so his little alpha would never cry again. He hadn't accounted for Shang Shaoyou being as broken as him. No, broken wasn't the word. Survive. To have survived the cruelness of the world in ways Hua Yong couldn't believe.
It was a shame that Mrs. Sheng had died so early. Hua Yong could've given her the most painful death possible. To touch your own son like that was something that deserved more than torture.
Hua Yong couldn't think of manipulating the odds like before, his carefully crafted plot falling at his feet.
Instead, he had to wait. Wait for his little alpha to be ready. Wait for him to heal. Hua Yong had already spent fifteen years. What was a few more?