Archive of Our Own

When it starts, Gunwoo thinks he must have eaten something funny. He wakes up with a roiling stomach, insides twisting like they’re angry with him for something. It’s not enough to interrupt his morning routine – hardly any illness ever is – but it does hurt.

“Are you okay, Gunwoo-yah?” Woojin asks, halfway through Gunwoo’s bicep curls.

Gunwoo nods, pushing through the last three reps with grim determination. His form is slipping, he can see that in the mirror, but it’s more important to finish the set than to do this rep perfectly.

“Just a stomachache,” he sighs, re-racking the dumbbells. “It’ll pass.”

Woojin nods. He adjusts Gunwoo’s scheduled sparring session to be a round of strengthening pilates instead.

“It’s better for you to have some variety at this stage anyway,” Woojin says, mostly to himself, leading Gunwoo to the reformer machines. “You’ve had a lot of bulking up lately and we don’t want your joints cold.”

Gunwoo accepts this, breathing through the ache in his stomach as he completes each of the complicated stretches as smoothly as he can. The pilates is soothing, actually, the hurt in his abs giving way to a gentle soreness.

“Good!” Woojin cheers, clapping when Gunwoo climbs off of the reformer. “We should keep that in your rotation. You liked it, right?”

Gunwoo nods, smiling. “It was a good idea, hyung. I feel better.”

Woojin beams.

The next time it happens, it’s a few days later. This time, it’s worse. Gunwoo winces through their morning run. Woojin checks in on him every time, eyes wide with concern, and Gunwoo tries to reassure him, but it’s not working, and he knows Woojin can see through it. They stop halfway to their gym, Gunwoo bent double.

“We should take you to the hospital,” Woojin says, pulling his phone off of his armband. “This isn’t like you. You look like - ”

“I’m fine,” Gunwoo says, shaking his head. He forces himself upright. Lays his hand over Woojin’s, stopping him from dialing. “I’m okay.”

Woojin looks as skeptical as Gunwoo knew he would.

“I’m fine,” Gunwoo repeats. “Let’s just go back home, hmmm? I can rest and it will pass.”

Woojin sighs, lips twisting into something uncertain. His eyes are heavy with focus as they meet Gunwoo’s, so Gunwoo tries to smile, but he fears it comes across as more of a grimace than anything.

“…if it doesn’t go away by tomorrow morning, I’m taking you to the hospital, whether you like it or not,” Woojin finally says. He points a finger at Gunwoo’s face. “And you’ll listen to your coach without argument, you hear me?”

This makes Gunwoo laugh through the pain. “You’re not my coach anymore, hyung.”

Woojin snorts, slinging an arm around Gunwoo’s shoulders as they turn around and begin walking back. “I’ll always be your coach.”

Gunwoo huffs out another laugh, nodding obediently. “Yes, hyung-nim. You’re just a coach with a belt of your own now.”

“That’s right. Hmmph.”

Woojin had come out of retirement with a bang, much to the chagrin of all the reporters who confidently proclaimed that a boxer who had been out of the ring for 3 years couldn’t possibly come back to win a title. Woojin had made fools of all of them, winning against Guevera in a stunning upset. Gunwoo had never cheered louder in his life, before or since. And afterward, he had made sure to frame each and every article proclaiming Woojin’s win, along with all the photos from that day, and hung them all over their house. Woojin had laughed at him and told him it wasn’t necessary, but Gunwoo knew he was pleased.

They get home without Gunwoo throwing up, and the stomachache does pass, thankfully. He wakes the next morning without any pain.

Well…maybe some pain. He climbs out of his bunk with his lower back feeling like he spent the night lying on rocks. And Gunwoo feels…antsy. Wrong. Something sits uncomfortably in the back of his mind. A despondent, weary feeling that he’s unused to. He wants to climb right back into bed. That never happens.

“Gunwoo-yah.” It’s Woojin’s just-waking-up-voice, raspy and coarse. “What’s wrong?”

Gunwoo doesn’t know how to answer. “I feel…”

Woojin rubs at his eyes, waiting for Gunwoo to finish.

“…I don’t know,” Gunwoo admits. He feels ashamed, somehow. Like he should apologize, even if he doesn’t know what for.

If anything, Woojin looks more awake now. More concerned. “We should go to the hospital. You’ve seemed sick for days now. Something’s not right.”

“Hyung - ”

Woojin fixes him with a stern stare. “What would Eomma say if I tell her you’ve been feeling bad and I did nothing, huh? Don’t put me through that. Just a quick checkup. It won’t take long. If it’s nothing and you’re fine, you can say ‘I told you so.’”   

Gunwoo sighs. This is Woojin at his most stubborn, he can tell, because it’s Woojin in protective mode. He’s much more protective than the average beta. If they weren’t already in their thirties, Gunwoo would wonder about his dynamic. But Woojin was a particularly strong beta, so maybe that had something to do with it.

Gunwoo was a particularly strong beta, too, after all. He was protective too. It made sense.

Well. If this would help Woojin feel better, Gunwoo could go along with it. It wasn’t too much to ask.

“Alright, hyung,” he sighs. “I guess if I’m coming down with something, it’s better to know sooner than later.”

Woojin nods firmly, already gathering Gunwoo’s jacket and sliding it around his shoulders. “Lemme just brush my teeth and then we’ll go.”

The hospital is not Gunwoo’s favorite place. In fact, it’s one of his least favorite places on the planet. They aren’t in the same one that Woojin had surgery in – Gunwoo is thankful for that – but still. Hospitals are sterile, cold, and haunted by other people’s misery. Haunted by Gunwoo’s memories, too.

“It’s okay,” Woojin whispers, patting his thigh reassuringly. “We’ll be done soon.”

Gunwoo nods. Gives him a smile. Tries to focus on how grateful he is to have such a caring friend. Not everyone does, after all. Not everyone has a friend they can call family.

Gunwoo has blood drawn, blood pressure taken, height and weight marked down, fifty questions asked of him on a clipboard. Age, gender….Everything.

“Sexually active?” one of them reads, and Gunwoo checks the box for “abstinent” because that’s what’s true. Most people are abstinent for religious reasons, but not him. He just has never wanted to have sex with anyone. And betas don’t have heats or ruts to worry about, so why should he? Woojin doesn’t either. It’s convenient, really, to be a beta. They can focus on their training. On their family. On the people who need their help.

Nothing to complicate anything. Nothing at all.

When the doctor comes in, he shuts the door behind himself and smiles tightly.

“Kim Gunwoo, is it?” he asks.

Gunwoo nods, bowing from his place on the exam table. Woojin does the same from the visitor chair at his side.

“I have the results of your blood work. Usually people want these kinds of things discussed in private. Would your guardian like to step outside for a bit?”

“Whatever it is, hyung can hear,” Gunwoo tells the doctor. It’s probably a flu or something. And even if it’s not…Woojin deserves to know. Something heavy sinks into the pit of Gunwoo’s stomach at the thought. What if it’s serious?

The doctor nods, taking off his glasses and rubbing at his eyes.

“Well. There’s no easy way to say this, and at your age, it’s almost unheard of…but then, there are some studies that show certain athletes display delayed gene expression…heaven knows that swimmer who won the gold in Milan went on until he was almost 34…and maybe muscle mass has something to do with it…says in your chart you’re a boxer?”

Gunwoo nods. The heavy thing in his stomach sinks further. 

“I don’t much follow boxing – more of a football person myself – you know how it is. Grew up playing for my high school team and then - ”

“Doctor,” says Woojin. Gunwoo can feel his anxiety. “What’s wrong with him?”

The doctor replaces his glasses, peering at the two of them over the rims. “Technically, nothing.”

“Then why is he feeling so bad?”

“He’s about to have his first heat,” the doctor says. “That’s all.”

Woojin whirls to Gunwoo. They stare at each other. Gunwoo knows Woojin is just as disbelieving as he feels.

Could that really be true? His eyes ask.

Gunwoo grimaces at Woojin, holding his gaze. I have no idea. Let’s hear him out, at least.

 “The symptoms you’ve described are all perfectly in line with an omega experiencing pre-heat,” the doctor says, like this is all reasonable and normal and not life-altering in any way.

“I’m a beta, doctor,” Gunwoo says. “I’ve always been a beta. I’m 31 already.”

“As I say, maybe it’s the muscle mass that delays presentation. More common in athletes. Presenting after 30 like this is rare, but it’s not entirely unheard of.” He snaps the file folder closed in a very final sort of way. “In any case, you’ll be needing information on what to expect. Are there any other omegas in your home you can turn to?”

Gunwoo blinks rapidly, not at all caught up on processing this news, much less the answer to the doctor’s question.

“None,” Woojin answers for him.

“Any alphas?” the doctor asks.

Woojin shakes his head. “It’s only his mom and I.”

At that, the doctor makes a thoughtful sound that Gunwoo can’t quite discern.

“Well,” the doctor says, clapping his hands together briskly as if to set his own thoughts aside for the time being. “I’ll have a nurse bring you some pamphlets. You’re very healthy, so the heat shouldn’t be prolonged. Any questions?”

Gunwoo shakes his head reflexively. But Woojin asks everything he would have wanted to know, if he had had the wherewithal to think in that moment.

How often can late-presenting omegas expect heat cycles? Every spring, summer, fall, and winter, just like the average omega.

How long Gunwoo will need to stay away from the ring before a heat? Two weeks or longer, depending on his level of fatigue.

What foods should he avoid and what supplements he should take? Many omegas find that spicy food before a heat can prolong their symptoms, but some have no trouble, and he doesn’t need special supplements. But extra protein would likely be a good idea.

Will birth control affect his matches? Hard to say, since the doctor doesn’t have another omega boxer in his practice, but there’s nothing in medical literature precluding someone from competing while they’re taking it. Gunwoo can return to the hospital if he finds that his prescription is interfering with his training and they can try an alternative.

Are omegas in the ring more at risk of injury – or assault – since most boxers tend to be alphas? As long as Gunwoo is careful to compete only outside of heats and pre-heats, he shouldn’t be at any more risk from alphas than he was when he fought as a beta. A trusted family member should always be there for competitions, in case of any rare, unexpected heats outside of his regular cycle, though.

“I’m always there with him,” Woojin says, laying a hand on Gunwoo’s thigh. “That’s not a problem.”

Gunwoo stares at Woojin’s hand there. The square knuckles and long fingers. The heavy, solid weight of his palm. Woojin has big hands. Boxer’s hands. Gunwoo knows if he were in the ring with an alpha who suddenly went into rut, Woojin would be able to protect him. Even if Gunwoo was far gone enough to start losing his rationality.  

He’s heard that can happen to omegas in heat.

Gunwoo takes a deep breath. In. Out. In again. Out again.

Is this really happening?

“Doctor,” he asks, his brain racing to catch up with everything. “Is there any doubt? I mean. Couldn’t the tests be….wrong?”

“We ran two, just to be sure. There’s really no chance of a false positive at this point. Everything is consistent. Being an omega isn’t what it used to be,” the doctor says, in what Gunwoo assumes is meant to be a comforting tone. “You can live your life just as you did before. Just block out time for your heats and really, nothing much changes.”

Woojin’s eyes are narrow, penetrating, when they look up at the doctor. “You’re an alpha, aren’t you?”

The doctor pauses. Nods. “Well. Yes.”

Woojin makes a sound of his own then, grim and decided. He takes his hand from Gunwoo’s thigh and stands up. “Thank you for the information.”  

He gives a small, nodding sort of bow to the doctor. With that, he steers Gunwoo out of the clinic, his arm around Gunwoo’s shoulders.

“Idiot,” he mutters, when they’re walking down into the subway station. “An alpha, acting like they know anything about what it’s like to live as an omega.” He puts on a mocking, sneering voice. “‘Nothing much changes.’ Fuck that. Everything changes. Alphas like to say everything’s the same so they feel better about their advantages. Pricks.”

Woojin’s mother was an omega. He had told Gunwoo once, when he had had too much soju, that she hadn’t been around much when he was growing up. That there were pills involved, and police officers who came to their house to ask questions. Woojin had said that he had a feeling – no proof, but a feeling sometimes – that she hadn’t been safe during all of her heats. That his alpha father had spent so much time becoming an Olympian that he had neglected her. Woojin thought that was why she turned to pills. Turned away from him.

Gunwoo sighs sadly, feeling awful for Woojin, but awful for his mother too. He thinks about what she must have gone through. Gunwoo already feels off balance. Vulnerable somehow, in a quiet part of his mind. His heart? He doesn’t know. He hasn’t even had a heat yet and already he can tell things are not the same. To imagine being taken advantage of during an already vulnerable time…he doesn’t want to imagine it. And the doctor spoke about the possibility like it was nothing.

No…things are not at all the same.

They step onto a train car, and Woojin turns to face Gunwoo directly, ignoring the handhold and taking Gunwoo’s shoulder instead.

“No matter what, there’s not a fighter alive who can beat you,” Woojin says. He smiles warmly. Confidently. “So omega or not, you’ll still be a champion. I know it. I’ll make sure you’re not scheduled for matches when you shouldn’t be. You won’t have to worry about it. And I can research what omegas need before they go into heat. You’ve had stomachaches and you’ve been tired lately...I can start with that. Maybe I can find some resources for late-presenting omegas. There’s gotta be things we can try to get you feeling better again. We can do this.”

Gunwoo feels that warm, cozy place inside him unfold – the same place that always opens up like a flower blooming when Woojin takes care of him. He’s really a wonderful friend. The best friend.

“There, see? You already look like you’re feeling better. You looked like you were really going through it when the doctor first told you.”

“I did?” Gunwoo thought he had been calm.

“Yeah,” Woojin chuckles. He nudges Gunwoo’s elbow with his. “Like you were in the middle of an earthquake. Not anymore, though. Maybe just some rain. Hey, you hungry? We could stop at the next station. There’s a place I’ve been dying to try. And this is a special occasion.”

Gunwoo tries to laugh. Normally he would. But he’s still processing everything. The world isn’t what he thought it was. He isn’t what he thought he was.

Woojin makes a sympathetic noise. He pulls Gunwoo into a hug, right there on the train. They get a few looks, but Gunwoo doesn’t step back. Even if he can’t rely on his own biology, he knows he can rely on Woojin. 

“I could eat,” he murmurs. He doesn’t need to say more than that. Woojin will understand.

As if reading his mind, Woojin murmurs, “Hey…Hyung’s got this. I promise. Just leave it to me.”

Woojin is better than his word.

He arranges to have Gunwoo’s birth control mailed to the house. It arrives the next day, first thing in the morning, and Gunwoo takes the pill that Woojin doles carefully into his palm.

“You have to take it at the same time every day,” says Woojin. “And a full glass of water too. That’s how you make it most effective.”

Gunwoo has no plans to need birth control, but he’ll listen to Woojin.

“It’s your first heat,” Woojin had said. “Why take any chances?”

Gunwoo finds him at his laptop at random hours of the day, his screen full of articles and forums about omegas, omega athletes, late-presenting omegas, omega nutrition, omega sleep, omega exercise…he even catches him reading an article about syncing exercise to heat cycle stages. Woojin reads faster than Gunwoo, devouring words the same way he devours rice and omelets.

“Can that really be scientific?” Gunwoo asks, looking over Woojin’s shoulder.

“They did studies!” Woojin insists, eyes darting around the screen ferociously. “We can use a lot of this. Especially targeting your heavy lifting days to your peak-performance cycle days. See?”

He turns his laptop around, showing Gunwoo a frankly embarrassing diagram of omegan anatomy. Each section is color-coded with a corresponding period of an omega’s three-month cycle. There are little pictures of different exercise equipment next to each color. Apparently when Gunwoo is post-heat, he should be swimming laps in cool water to get his core temperature back to normal faster.

It’s too sweet of him for Gunwoo to voice any more skepticism. Woojin is doing all he can for Gunwoo’s benefit alone. And he is grateful, even if he’s also embarrassed. So he nods.

“Thank you, hyung. I’ll do whatever you want.”

Woojin beams. He starts scribbling notes down on one of the many half-open notebooks around him. Books and pens and multicolored highlighters surround him. It seems chaotic, but Gunwoo knows that having everything visible in front of him works for Woojin.  

“You even got books from the library?” Gunwoo asks, seeing several stacked precariously nearby, the little library tags taped onto the spines.

“Of course,” Woojin says, turning back to his laptop. “You can’t trust everything you read online. I’m verifying.”

A few days later, packages start appearing on their doorstep.

“Woojin-ah!” Eomma calls. “Another delivery!”

Woojin races to the door before Gunwoo can, pulling in several large boxes with childlike satisfaction. “Yes, it’s all on time!” Gunwoo hears him cheer to himself.

Woojin even helped Gunwoo tell Eomma the news. Gunwoo doesn’t know what he would have done without him - how well he communicated what had been happening, how clearly he explained everything. How steady and certain he was that everything would be fine and that Gunwoo’s boxing career wouldn’t be derailed. Gunwoo would have stumbled and second-guessed himself to death, trying to find the words to tell his mother that all of sudden, the beta son she raised was not really a beta at all.

But Woojin….Woojin just said it all, in his Woojinnie way. And Eomma nodded along and listened and hugged Gunwoo tightly and then Woojin too and told them she loved them both and that everything would be fine. 

Gunwoo has the world’s best mom.

The boxes turn out to contain heating pads, herbal teas, magnesium supplements, premium lotion-infused Kleenex…

“Hyung, how much did you spend on all this?” Gunwoo asks, lifting up a box of luxury dark chocolate truffles.

Woojin just waves a hand at him, going for the last box.

“You should probably open this one later,” he tells Gunwoo, handing it to him. “Probably not something Eomma wants to see. I hope I chose right….I keep reading that different omegas want different things. Some omegas want them realistic but others like fantasy shapes or bright colors or huge ones…anyway, you have a selection. At least one of them should work.”

Gunwoo blinks. Then, realization dawning, his face goes warm.   

“Woojin-ah,” calls Eomma from the kitchen. “Can you get the charcoal ready? I have the meat marinating.”

Woojin springs up immediately. “Right away, Eomma!”

Gunwoo watches him through the window in the backyard, cleaning their barbeque and scrubbing the grates and heaving charcoal in. Stacking it into a pyramid shape that slides into nothing almost immediately. Re-stacking it enthusiastically again.

Woojin embodies everything that Gunwoo’s father never was. He is loving, devoted, kind, strong, selfless, just, faithful, patient, present….everything Gunwoo never saw in a man.

Dinner that night is delicious.

“Gunwoo-yah. Gunwoo. Kim Gunwoo.”

Gunwoo is pulled from sleep to wakefulness in gradual steps, each one a higher awareness based on Woojin’s voice.

He blinks against the lamplight, finding Woojin’s familiar face very near.

Gunwoo’s heart kicks into overdrive and he scrambles up so quickly that he bangs his head on the ceiling. “Hyung? What happened?”

“No, Gunwoo-yah,” says Woojin. He speaks softly. Apologetically. “You were just…making sounds. I think you were having heat-dreams. Are you okay?”

He strokes Gunwoo’s hair, his palm warm and stabilizing against Gunwoo’s crown.

Gunwoo nods. He rubs at his eyes, shifting down to prop himself up on one elbow. Woojin’s soft smile greets him from over the rail of his bunk.

“….What’s a heat dream?”

Woojin knows more about heats than Gunwoo does these days. Gunwoo’s never heard of heat-dreams. All he remembers is restlessness in the night. He woke up several times.

“Omegas have these intense dreams before their heats sometimes,” explains Woojin. “It signals that they’re close to their time. Do you remember anything?”

Gunwoo shakes his head. He can’t remember any dreams at all. He just feels tired still, and antsy underneath his skin.

Wait…maybe he does remember something. An image flashes into his memory.

Gunwoo feels himself blush suddenly. Hotly. He can’t meet his hyung’s eyes.

In the dream, Gunwoo was begging…and not for anything he’s ever begged for before.

As always, Woojin seems to know what’s in his head. He takes it in stride though, nodding like they’re discussing deadlifts or lateral lunges. It helps. Gunwoo feels less embarrassed. “You were making some sounds. I’ve read that hugging can help with the restlessness that the dreams bring.”

“…Hugging?”

Woojin nods. “You know. Human touch. Your body going into heat is your body craving contact. Alpha contact, of course, but…” Woojin coughs. He runs a hand through his hair, scratching at his scalp, then ploughs forward. “From a beta, it can calm you down instead of speed things up. Want to try?”

Gunwoo nods instinctively. Hugging Woojin has always helped him. Even back when he was a beta. Or when he thought he was a beta. So it stands to reason that it would help him now too.

Without another word, Woojin clambers into the top bunk with him. His long arms and legs tangle themselves up with Gunwoo’s in a bizarre, natural bundle. Gunwoo is guided to rest his head on Woojin’s shoulder and immediately, something restless and clawing inside his stomach settles down.

“How’s this?” asks Woojin, shifting to sink deeper into Gunwoo’s pillow. He sighs in happy contentment.

Gunwoo nods, smiling quietly to himself. This feels good. This is helping.

“Good,” Woojin murmurs, sounding close to sleep again already. His voice comes out raspy and husky. Deeper than usual.

Gunwoo’s eyes shoot open at once.

A sound echoes in his mind. From the dream. Suddenly he’s flooded with the echo of it: Woojin’s voice exactly like that – husky and deep in Gunwoo’s ear.

Good. Good, Gunwoo-yah.

Was he dreaming about….Woojinnie-hyung?

Why would he…?

No. No, it couldn’t be. Could it? Omegas crave alphas in their heats. Woojin is... He can’t be what….what Gunwoo will crave. He couldn’t.

…can he?

Gunwoo’s heart stutters painfully against his sternum. Maybe the doctor was wrong. Maybe Gunwoo’s not an omega after all.

Or maybe…

Good, Gunwoo-yah. You’re being so good for me.  

The echo makes him startle hard enough to wake Woojin up from his light snoring.

“You okay….?”

“Y-yeah,” Gunwoo says, willing it to be the truth. “I’m fine. Go…go back to sleep, hyung.”

Gunwoo hears a drowsy sound of assent and then Woojin’s light snores.

He’s still awake when his 0500 alarm sounds, listening to the sound of Woojin’s heart beating under his ear.  

Gunwoo starts to…to smell Woojin.

It’s subtle that morning on their run. Just a few wafts of something woodsy now and again. Gunwoo would think they were passing Nam San Park if it were not for their going in the opposite direction at the time.

By dinnertime, the smell has bloomed into something cedar-rich and vibrant. Like stepping into a forest and being surrounded by life and beauty on all sides.

“Have you started wearing cologne, hyung?” Gunwoo asks. He leans in, sniffing Woojin’s neck. That’s definitely where the scent is strongest.

Woojin laughs. “I haven’t worn cologne since you told me it messed with your allergies. I threw it out.”

Gunwoo blinks. Sniffs again. “You smell like you’re wearing something.”

Eomma laughs at him from across the table, shaking her head. “I don’t smell anything, son.”

“Do I smell good?” Woojin asks, laughing softly. His breath ghosts over Gunwoo’s earlobe.

Gunwoo’s skin erupts into goosebumps all over. Some aching little sound bubbles up from his chest, threatening to come out and embarrass him.

Gunwoo rears back, afraid of what he’ll do if he doesn’t, and returns to his rice bowl. He nods once, aware of how jerky the movement is. Aware of how he can’t meet Woojin’s eyes.

“I think you’re just getting sensitive to scents,” Woojin says, patting Gunwoo’s thigh under the table. “Probably won’t be long now.”

He and Eomma talk about the jjigae and how they’re running low on kimbap and how the upstairs closet needs organizing.

Gunwoo eats mechanically, breathing slowly through his mouth.

Try as he might, he can’t ignore that scent.

The dam breaks the next day. Really, it’s less a dam breaking than a hurricane coming ashore, gale-force winds and roiling rain. 

He wakes up thinking about sex.

It’s because of that stupid heat-dream, he tells himself. But when he sees Woojin changing into his training clothes, the sight of his Marine tattoo arrests Gunwoo completely.

His mouth waters and he has the bizarre urge to bite. What would that deltoid taste like? Gunwoo wants to know.

“Gunwoo-yah. Gunwoo, you ready to go?”

Gunwoo is not ready to go. At least not on a run. But at least the question is enough to get him moving. He hurries himself into his sweats, stumbling so badly that Woojin has to steady him.

Stop thinking of him like that! He scolds himself. He’s your friend, not an object!

But the thought of objects reminds Gunwoo of the toys Woojin bought for him. Did Woojin choose any of them with any resemblance to himself in mind?

How stupid. Of course he didn’t.

Training that day is pathetic. Gunwoo runs so slowly that Woojin has to double back a few times. The third time this happens, he holds a hand out to Gunwoo, catching his forearm and stopping them.

“I think today is the day, Gunwoo-yah,” he says. “We should go back. You don’t need this. You need rest. And food. I’ll make you some of that tea. And you should have some of those chocolates. The caffeine will help when the cramping comes on.”

Gunwoo is furious with himself for it, but he knows Woojin is right. He’s exhausted already whereas Woojin hasn’t even broken a sweat.

The oh-so-delightful night of writhing in sexual need is upon him.

When they get back home, Gunwoo sees Woojin exchange a few looks with Eomma.

“I’m going to go and visit my friend in Seongnam, boys,” she announces, suspiciously apropos of nothing. “I’ll be back tomorrow, hmm?”

“Ne, Eomma!”

“Ne…” How can even speaking be difficult? Why is Gunwoo so weak?

When the door closes after her, Gunwoo has to know.

“…Did you plan that with her?”

Woojin rubs the back of his neck. Nods. He looks both guilty and proud. “I figured you wouldn’t want…”

“You were right,” Gunwoo breathes, thanking whatever kindness in the universe for Woojin’s foresight. “Thank you, hyung.”

“It’s nothing, really.”

Gunwoo thinks of the way Woojin made him feel, way back when they were just rookies. Woojin never questioned his mannerisms, or his lack of consistent eye contact, or the way he searched hard for words sometimes or sometimes couldn’t find them at all. He listened to Gunwoo’s thoughts – his dreams – and somehow always knew how to shield him from the world while still bringing him into it.

And here he was, all these years later, still doing that for Gunwoo. Still making him feel like something precious – like someone. A person. Gunwoo might now be just an omega to some people - to many people - but to Woojin, Gunwoo was still Gunwoo. Gunwoo, who would rather suffer something without his mother’s watchful eyes and ears. Gunwoo, who would rather suffer in silence if he must suffer at all. Gunwoo, who was so grateful that he could cry.

Woojin politely doesn’t comment on the tears that escape. Just tucks Gunwoo into his favorite spot on the couch and brings him tea, chocolate, and his pillow. A warm blanket.

They sit there together, ESPN humming quietly in the background on the tv. They don’t talk much, and Gunwoo dozes off from time to time. Each time he wakes, Woojin is there, sometimes with his glasses on and a manhua in front of him, sometimes asleep himself, forehead tilted toward Gunwoo on the couch.

Gunwoo wakes at one point to find Woojin’s arms around him, wrapped warm and snug around his middle, unsure of how or when it happened. Did he crawl to Woojin’s side of the couch? Did Woojin scoot to his and gather him close?

When Gunwoo wakes for the last time - to a setting sun and the tv switched off and silent - he feels something undeniable coursing through him. He and Woojin must have separated at some point. Woojin is stretched out across the couch, one arm hanging off the side. Gunwoo’s eyes are pulled the sharp line of his jaw. The breadth of his shoulders. His big hands, and how they could be put to good use.

Gunwoo’s mouth absolutely floods with want. He actually has to wipe at his lips.

Woojin’s thighs are splayed apart as he sleeps. Strong and tight with muscle. Gunwoo could climb right on top of them and –

Enough! He’s not even an alpha. Enough, before you can’t stop yourself.

“Hyung…Hyung, I…” Gunwoo whispers.

Woojin startles awake, alert at once. His eyes meet Gunwoo’s. “Oh god. It’s starting, isn’t it? You – can you walk? I have all of your – everything – in your bunk. I can get you there and then I’ll just be here if you need – I mean – if you – if there’s anything you need me to bring you.”

He scrambles up off the couch. Takes Gunwoo in his arms, one under his back and one under the crook of his knees.

“Hyung – you don’t have to - ”

“I do,” Woojin says, and something about his voice makes Gunwoo stop protesting.

He takes Gunwoo to their room. The room is dark, and Woojin dips awkwardly to switch on the desk lamp without putting Gunwoo down.

The soft yellow light casts sharp shadows under his cheekbones. Looking at them, at the beauty of his face, Gunwoo can barely breathe.

Woojin looks down at him. His eyes are deep and dark, warm brown and terribly focused.

All of a sudden, Gunwoo feels it. The wet, slick slide of something dripping down between his legs.

Woojin inhales sharply.

Gunwoo wants to say something - tell him it’s okay, that he can go now – that Gunwoo can handle getting into his bunk – can handle – everything – the toys will –

But he can’t speak. And he can’t look away from Woojin’s eyes. Something in them is…is….

Oh god, it’s everything Gunwoo craves. Power and possession and need and strength and…and…

Woojin tosses Gunwoo into the bottom bunk – Woojin’s bunk – and then turns away. Gunwoo nearly sobs with the fear that he’ll go, that he’ll leave. But Woojin is only going to the door, slamming it closed with a bang, and then stalking back to him.

Gunwoo smells it again – the forest, the cedar, the wild bloom of life and energy. It bursts into being and quickly floods the room. He feels drunk on it, absolutely drunk. His mind is fuzzy and light and floating. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do to keep smelling this always and forever. He wants to bathe in it. Hold it in his lungs and keep it near to his heart.

Woojin climbs into the bunk, long arms and legs crowding Gunwoo in on all sides – and oh, it’s so good that Gunwoo really does sob. He feels himself nodding over and over again, answering some silent question in Woojin’s eyes. It’s impossible for this to be happening – but it’s here – Gunwoo feels it, deep and instinctive and unstoppable. A rush of that wetness (slick, he thinks, remembering one of Woojin’s articles) slides down between his thighs.

Woojin growls.

Gunwoo grabs him, clutches him close. He must be drunk, must be, because he realizes too late that he’s got his face pressed into Woojin’s neck, taking deep inhales of his scent, gorging his lungs on it. He can’t get enough.

“Stay…stay, stay, stay….hyung, stay with me…”

The words escape out of his mouth like runaway trains. They’re muffled by Woojin’s skin but Woojin hears them all the same. He listens, he answers, just like he always does, and Gunwoo’s fear slips away until there’s nothing left in him but want.

“I’m here. Hyung’s here. I’ve got you. I’ll take care of you. Oh, I’ll take care of you…”

There’s a rumble to his voice, promising dark things that Gunwoo can’t help but imagine. Things that he wants to give Woojin here and now. Things he’s never craved before but suddenly desperately needs.

Woojin’s hands are everywhere, in Gunwoo’s hair, at his collar, the waistband of Gunwoo’s shorts. Clothes go flying here and there and places Gunwoo can’t see because Woojin’s dark eyes are swallowing up his vision.

More words bubble up out of him from some desperate place. “Please – please, I need you – please - ”

Gunwoo’s hands are at Woojin’s waistband, tugging at the button and zip with more force than he realizes. The button pops off and goes flying. The zipper breaks.

Woojin’s deep, breathy laugh wakes him up enough to realize what he’s done. Gunwoo pulls his hands back. A small but insistent voice in the back of his mind tells him that he’s got no right – that Woojin-hyung isn’t his to maul – that he’s crossing a line –

But Woojin takes his hands in his own and puts them back very firmly where they were, low on his open jeans.

It shuts the voice up.

“Go on, Gunwoo-yah,” Woojin murmurs, with a smile that steals Gunwoo’s breath. “Show me what you want.”

Woojin pulls his shirt up and off, tossing it away. Woojin is chiseled. He looks down at Gunwoo like a dark angel, descending to collect some promised treasure.

Flames break out all over Gunwoo’s body. His skin crackles and burns. He’s hot all over, burning up with fever, and the only places where he finds any relief from the feeling are the places where Woojin is touching him.

Gunwoo couldn’t resist even if he had thoughts to consider it. Greedy hands scramble to shove down Woojin’s jeans, shove his boxers down too, and there’s no time wasted after that. Woojin braces himself with one hand on the mattress, kicking them off as Gunwoo pulls them down. Together they push the clothes aside somewhere. It’s like they’re both offended at anything that would keep them apart. Gunwoo can barely stand even this much delay. He clutches at Woojin’s shoulders, pulling him down so that Gunwoo can bury his face in his neck. He wants to kiss and bite and suck and so he does. It’s blind and voracious and Woojin growls like he approves.

Gunwoo wants so badly that he can’t think of anything but getting the two of them as close as they can be.

“Hyung, do it,” he hears himself say, right before he dives in for another sucking bite.

Woojin takes his jaw in one hand, igniting another minor firestorm in Gunwoo’s body. He forces Gunwoo’s gaze to meet his.

“Tell me how you want it,” Woojin commands.

“Hyung,” whines Gunwoo. He wraps his legs around Woojin’s hips and bucks up. Both of them are rock hard and it feels so good – Gunwoo has to do it again – and again –

But Woojin surges forward, pressing Gunwoo to the mattress with the strength of his hips alone. Forcing him still.

Gunwoo shudders.

“Tell me,” Woojin murmurs. He sinks his hand into Gunwoo’s hair and tugs. “You have to tell me, baby.” 

Gunwoo whines, the delicious force everything he needs and still not enough. He wants to cry for want of Woojin. His body, his attention, his pleasure…Gunwoo wants it all.

“I want it the way you do,” Gunwoo confesses, tears burning his eyes. He can’t handle the heat in his body. It’s a wildfire coursing through him. “However you want it, hyung.”

Woojin surges forward, catching Gunwoo’s earlobe between his lips. He mouths at it, biting softy and cradling it in the curve of his tongue.

“You’re wanting to be good for me, aren’t you?” he whispers hotly. 

Gunwoo nods, over and over again, mindless with Woojin’s breath in his ear.

He feels one of those big hands of Woojin’s taking his hip, pulling Gunwoo up against himself. He starts up a filthy grind.

“What if I told you I want it rough?” Woojin growls out. “What if I wanted to bend you in half under me and make you scream? What if I wouldn’t stop after just one round? Or two? Or three? What if you’ve gotten me all worked up and now I want you to take responsibility?”

“Oh, yes, yes, hyung, please - ”

Gunwoo wraps his thigh around Woojin’s hip, getting both of them messy with his slick. He tries to shift up, tries to nudge Woojin’s cock down and in.

“Oh, you’re such a pretty thing – fuck, you’re gorgeous – fuck - ”

Woojin fumbles between them, and Gunwoo sobs with relief when he feels him grab his ass and squeeze.

“Put those legs on my shoulders, baby,” Woojin whispers harshly. He’s shifting and scrambling, getting his knees under him. Gunwoo can only obey – wants to do nothing but obey – needs Woojin to be pleased with him – so badly, he needs to make Woojin feel good –

“Fuck, you’re perfect…smell so good….” Woojin breathes. His hips slot into place in the cradle of Gunwoo’s pelvis and somewhere between one panting breath and the next, their eyes meet.

The wildfire blazes up all at once, crackling and popping. It’s too much – too intense – the look in Woojin’s eyes too full of driving lust for Gunwoo to handle. If he doesn’t fix the clawing emptiness inside Gunwoo, Gunwoo will go insane. He’ll lose his mind and there’ll be nothing left of him, no words or thoughts, just this unfulfilled need –

All of a sudden, Gunwoo feels a hint of cool relief. Woojin, he – inside –

“Is this what you need, baby?” Woojin asks, a feral smile spreading across his lips. “You need hyung inside?”

His wrist twists, finger easing out and then thrusting forward, and Gunwoo shouts with pained joy at the relief it brings.

“More! More, I need - ”

A second finger, and the stretch it makes down below makes Gunwoo press his face into Woojin’s shoulder and sob.

“Exactly like that – exactly like that – oh god, more – it hurts without you - ”

“Shhh, baby, you’re going to get me – I promise I’ll give you every centimeter,” Woojin bites at his shoulder, teeth sharp pinpricks of delicious pain. “You’re so fucking wet, god in heaven, how did I get so lucky, huh? How did I…fuck, so tight…like a vice on my fingers - ”

Gunwoo has one knee up by his ears, splayed open for Woojin’s eyes. The thought sends shocks of pleasure all down his spine. His cock is so hard it hurts, leaking against his stomach. They’re so wet, so messy already, and they haven’t even –

When Woojin gets three fingers in, a low, animal kind of sound starts up in the back of his throat. Gunwoo revels in it. It’s like an engine revving, lovely and deep, and Woojin is so hard when Gunwoo peaks down between the two of them. He’s bigger than Gunwoo could have hoped for – everything he needs and more. He’s perfect and he’ll feel so good sliding in. Gunwoo’s going to get that inside him. He has to. He’ll die without it.

“Hyung, fuck me,” Gunwoo sobs.

“I will, baby, I will – trust me…”

But Gunwoo can’t wait anymore. He clenches down on Woojin’s fingers, his body trying to pull Woojin deeper. There’s an empty place deep inside that Gunwoo can’t stand any longer.

“Fuck, Gunwoo-yah.”

Woojin’s fingers stretch him deliciously, moving in and out with rhythmic certainty. It’s glorious. But it’s not enough. Not at all enough.

Gunwoo curls forward, brushing his nose against Woojin’s. Breathes in his scent. Chases the cool relief his skin brings. Some strange tinny sound of need starts up in Gunwoo’s chest, whining and wordless with the craving to be used.

Gunwoo’s not above begging. Tears spill down his cheeks. “Please…”

“Okay, baby, okay – I’ve got you – let me - ”

Woojin touches his forehead to Gunwoo’s, eyelashes fluttering closed. Gunwoo can’t stand how beautiful he is. His perfect face, the careless fall of his hair, the curves and angles of him all just what Gunwoo needs. Everything he could never live without. He forgot how to do that long ago. 

Woojin slides into him with one deep, smooth stroke, filling up all the empty places inside. Immediately, it’s like Gunwoo’s body can breathe again – can be okay again. It’s all better now – it’s all going to be okay now because Woojin – because he’s –

“Yeah, baby, it’s me – it’s me - ” Woojin breathes. His eyes open, cloudy with something that Gunwoo can’t name. It’s mesmerizing to see. This thing between them is pulling them both under. “You ready?” 

Gunwoo nods right away, better now that they’re connected but not nearly well again. He can’t stop touching Woojin. Something has possessed him. He watches his own hands like they’re someone else’s, coursing over Woojin’s shoulders, his arms, his muscled chest. The dip in his waist where a sharp v lies shadowed and tempting. Gunwoo grabs and kneads and worships every bit.

“Do your worst,” Gunwoo hears himself say.

Woojin nods, eyes narrowing. They’re gleaming now with something greedy. Something fierce.

And then it starts.

Fast and feral, driving with just the kind of focused intent that Gunwoo’s insides have been crying out for. The slick eases everything, allowing them to move together with a fluidity that steals Gunwoo’s breath. Every time Woojin drives forward, Gunwoo grinds down, chasing some elusive miracle even as he’s bent in half – even as Woojin pushes him into the mattress like he’s a ragdoll. The selfish ferocity of it makes Gunwoo lose his mind. He goes dizzy with the feeling of Woojin pistoning in and out of him, strong as an engine and twice as loud. Babbling filthy, beautiful things into Gunwoo’s ear.

“So pretty – such a perfect boy – look at you, fuck, look at you – feel like a dream – god, you’re taking all of me – shit, I’m gonna give you everything – look perfect and feel perfect and – god, I’ll give you the moon - ”

He bends Gunwoo even further, pressing his knees into the mattress. It changes the angle something glorious.

Gunwoo shouts, scrabbling his nails down Woojin’s back.

“That’s it, you pretty thing – there it is, huh?” Woojin pants. “That’s where you need me, isn’t it?”

Now Gunwoo’s babbling too. “More more more more, please god, more - ”

Woojin slams into him, over and over, pressing right into that perfect place inside. It feels like it’s too much – the pleasure of it will kill him –

“Taking me so well – sound so pretty, baby - ”

Sobbing and grinding and mewling for more, Gunwoo doesn’t know where he is anymore. Everything in him is reduced to that spot inside that wants to write symphonies about Woojin’s cock.

“Say my name, baby…let me hear it…”

It’s already on the tip of Gunwoo’s tongue. The command rips it forward, loud enough to echo, loud enough to be heard over the violent creaking of their bunk.  

Woojin bites down hard on Gunwoo’s shoulder. The sharp sting of it makes Gunwoo’s eyes roll back in his head. Before he knows it, he’s coming all over himself.

“Fuck, you came just from – just because of my – oh fuck that’s so hot - ”

Woojin redoubles his efforts, slamming inside with reckless, stuttering thrusts. It’s all Gunwoo can do to hold onto his shoulders for dear life. Something inside starts to shift, change, and Gunwoo realizes with a hazy, dawning clarity that Woojin is actually getting bigger inside him.

“Hyung…” he pants, using every bit of brainpower he has left to form the words. “Hyung…”

Woojin seems to lose his words. He presses his face into Gunwoo’s neck and drives forward again. Again.

It keeps happening, though, that swelling inside. So much so that Woojin stops being able to pull out. He drives forward once more, Gunwoo aching and sore, and when he pulls back, something lodges deep within and gets stuck there.

Woojin makes a sound that sends shivers all over Gunwoo’s skin. He jerks once. Twice. And then Gunwoo feels the heat of his spend. Woojin undulates slowly on top of him, licking a heavy stripe up Gunwoo’s neck.

At last, the wildfire blazing all through Gunwoo’s body seems to be put out. He’s cool now, floating in a pool of cool, cool water. Not even smoldering embers remain. Just relief.

“…alpha,” he breathes.

The next morning, Gunwoo wakes to an illicit soreness between his legs and more energy than he’s had in weeks.

Woojin is still sleeping, and something about the peacefulness of his face makes Gunwoo go out for a morning run alone.

That’s what he tells himself. That he’s just trying to let Woojin sleep in peace.

The run helps. He sinks into the rhythm of it, into the burn in his thighs, and the first rays of sunrise on his skin. But it reminds him of all the times he’s run with Woojin. Their perfectly matched strides. The sound of Woojin’s steady breathing next to him.

That thought brings flashes of memory from the night before, when Woojin’s breathing was heavier. When his voice was rougher.

They’d gone for three rounds before Woojin tired enough to rest. Four before he tired enough to sleep. Gunwoo stumbles a bit turning a corner, thinking of the last time, when Woojin had held his wrists down and whispered promises that Gunwoo would be ruined for anyone else…

When he gets back home, Gunwoo is still thrumming with energy and nerves. Woojin is awake. He’s sitting up in bed, his hair going in fifteen different directions. But his eyes aren’t bleary like they usually are when he first wakes up.

He’s been awake for a while, then.

“You went without me?” is the first thing he asks, scanning Gunwoo’s body like it holds the secrets of the universe.

Gunwoo’s cheeks burn with something he doesn’t want to name. It’s not guilt, exactly, but it’s something close. He went without Woojin because he was too cowardly to wake him, too cowardly to face him, and too cowardly to say all the things they might (should) say to each other.

Too many things could change.

“I couldn’t calm down,” Gunwoo blurts out. “And you were tired…”

Woojin’s mouth settles into a disappointed sort of line. He looks away, yanking a hoodie on. Makes a sound of acknowledgement (not agreement, Gunwoo knows him too well not to know the difference).

“Hyung, we should - ”

Woojin turns back toward him. There’s a wall behind his eyes that Gunwoo can’t climb. For the first time, Gunwoo can’t tell what he’s thinking. Not at all.

“We should what?” Woojin asks. His voice is entirely unreadable too.

It breaks whatever small bit of courage Gunwoo had been cultivating.

We should talk.

We should stay together always, just like before.

We should make a plan, like we always do. We can solve this together.

Nothing comes out, and Woojin turns away again, evidently giving up on waiting. With an exasperated-sounding huff, he leaves their room.

“Hyung!” Gunwoo calls, hurrying after him. But Woojin is already jogging down the stairs. He catches up to him at the front door, where Woojin is yanking a headband on like it’s personally attacked him. 

“I need some air,” Woojin tells him flatly. Their eyes meet, and then Woojin deflates a little. Sighs. “Just…just let me get some air. I’ll be back soon.”

A little piece of Gunwoo curls in on itself, shriveling down to fit into the smallest box it can. He nods silently, staring down at their floor. It’s a light colored wood that Woojin had called ‘millennial chic’ and charmed the salesperson into giving them a discount on. That floor.

Gunwoo can’t watch, but he hears it when Woojin jogs away.

Eomma returns before Woojin does. She has shopping bags in her hands, and Gunwoo helps her bring them into the kitchen. Hugs her and then sets himself to putting everything away.

“How are you feeling, son?” she asks, more gentle and loving than Gunwoo deserves.

“Better,” he says, making himself smile at her. He doesn’t need to upset every member of this family.

“Good,” she says, stroking his hair. “It’s not so bad, then? If anyone can manage it, it’s you.”

Gunwoo forces another smile, then takes one of the bags and hides himself in the pantry.

“Where is Woojin-ah?”

There it is. The question he knew was coming.

“Went for a run,” Gunwoo says, hoping his voice doesn’t sound as terrible as he feels. “He’ll be back soon.”

Eomma makes a little sound of surprised acknowledgement. “I didn’t know you two ever ran without each other anymore. Huh. …well, how does Western sound for dinner? I’m sure you’re hungry?”

The thought of eating while things between him and Woojin are like this makes Gunwoo’s stomach turn.

But he says, “That’s fine, Eomma” because what else can he do?

When Woojin returns, he greets Eomma with all his usual effusive affection.

For Gunwoo, he nods jerkily, and then announces that he needs a shower and darts upstairs.

After that, he and Gunwoo enter into some kind of strange dance where they orbit each other like moons of equal weight: neither one a planet, neither one’s gravity enough to ensnare the other into any meaningful conversation. When Eomma is around, they talk, but it’s basic, surface-level chatter. And when she’s gone, they go so stunted and silent that both of them end up on opposite ends of the room. Sometimes opposite ends of the house. Just…orbiting each other.

Woojin starts sleeping in the spare room, and the empty silence of their bedroom without his snoring or energetic tossing and turning make it impossible for Gunwoo to rest well.

Sometimes Gunwoo catches Woojin looking at him with guilt in his eyes. It’s awful and raw and Gunwoo wants to ask him what on earth he could possibly be guilty for. But trying to speak feels like throwing himself off of a cliff and hoping there’s a trampoline at the bottom and he just can’t do it. He just can’t find the words.

So things remain exquisitely awkward. They start to avoid each other like the plague, and after a few days of the house being blanketed by their anxious energy, Eomma reaches a breaking point.

She orders them both to the table, sitting them down in front of her. Both of them hang their heads. Gunwoo feels bizarrely like he’s back in elementary school again.  

“Alright, boys,” she says. “What’s going on?”

Woojin looks up suddenly, Gunwoo feels it beside him. His color, his whole being, announces very clearly that something had happened. Even if he can’t see his face, Gunwoo can feel it. So there goes Gunwoo’s plan to insist that everything was fine and fake it till they made it.

When neither of them says anything, Eomma huffs.

“Nobody wants to speak up?” she gestures at the pair of them. “You want to just let this continue? You’re happy like this?”

“It’s my fault,” Woojin says. “Gunwoo-yah had nothing to do with it.”

“I had something to do with it,” Gunwoo snaps, and Woojin looks at him like he’s grown two heads. His eyes command Gunwoo to stop talking and just let him take the fall.

“I did,” Gunwoo says, softer this time. “You know I did.”

“You weren’t in your right mind,” Woojin says. All at once, he turns his whole body to face Gunwoo. Lays a hand on Gunwoo’s knee. The warmth of it does more for Gunwoo than the past three restless nights combined.

“Neither were you,” Gunwoo says.

Woojin has shadows under his eyes. The sight makes Gunwoo want to force him back into their room, into his bunk underneath Gunwoo’s, so that the two of them can finally get some sleep again.

“That doesn’t matter. I’m the one who’s supposed to - ”

“Because alphas get to decide everything?”

“Of course not! Because I’m hyung and you’re dongsaeng!”

Gunwoo should have known that Woojin would look at it that way. Like he was supposed to overcome biology simply by virtue of being older.

Gunwoo turns in his chair too, facing Woojin down and willing him to listen. “It doesn’t work that way.”

“Woojin-ah…you’re…You too?” It’s at this point that Gunwoo realizes his mother is probably putting together a lot of the puzzle pieces. She must have sat down at some point, her mouth forming a perfect ‘o’ of surprise. 

Woojin, gallant fool that he is, stands up immediately and goes to her, bowing deeply like he’s committed some kind of atrocity.

“I’m deeply, deeply sorry, Eomma,” he says. His head is nearly at his toes, and he sounds terribly sincere.

“What on earth…it’s nothing to apologize for,” Eomma murmurs, reaching out to take his shoulder. “You…”

But Gunwoo can see the realization start to dawn in her eyes. His mother goes to church every Sunday, reads her Bible every night, and can hardly be an expert on the workings of alpha and omega pheromones. But she is a mother. And sometimes Gunwoo thinks mothers have a special ability to zero in on the most acutely embarrassing thing in their children and drag it out.

Woojin rises only enough to look up at her from his absurdly deep bow, and Gunwoo sees the confirmation in his eyes.

“If you want me to go, I’ll go,” Woojin murmurs. A few tears well up in the corners of his eyes. “I would understand.”

Gunwoo can’t stand it any longer. He gets up and pulls Woojin back to his place at the table.

“Stop being this way,” he mutters, pressing Woojin’s shoulders down and making him sit. “No one’s going anywhere. Eomma, it wasn’t his fault – it was mine – I was the one who - ”

Only the threat of Woojin leaving their family – leaving their family – could make him get the next words out.

 “I was the one who went into heat and manipulated the situation. It’s not Hyung’s fault.”

It disturbs Gunwoo that Woojin goes quiet. He doesn’t even argue. He just sits there waiting for Eomma’s judgement. Gunwoo’s never seen Woojin without anything to say. It’s not right.

Gunwoo is eternally grateful that his mother doesn’t ask questions, or get into particulars about what did or didn’t happen during the heat. It’s enough for her to understand that something did, and she’s too kind to make him more uncomfortable than he already is. She blinks rapidly, looking from him to Woojin and back again several times, and then reaches out for both of their hands across the table. Without even hesitating, she reaches for them. Something about her quiet strength makes Gunwoo think for the first time in days that things will be alright again somehow. Maybe not immediately, but somehow.

Somehow, they will get through this.

“Woojin-ah,” she declares. “You are a part of this family as much as anyone else. You will not be going anywhere.”

Woojin lets out a sob, and then he’s crying and squeezing her hand, and Gunwoo is rubbing his back. Woojin clutches Gunwoo’s knee under the table like it’s a lifeline.

“What nonsense. And the idea that either of you would hurt each other is nonsense, too,” Eomma says, with the same firm love. “Maybe if one of you were someone else, there might be cause for concern, but the two of you have always trusted each other. You’re family already and you’re both fighters. Professionally! What on earth could make you think you could force one another into something?”

Suddenly Woojin huffs out a laugh. Gunwoo is getting whiplash at this point. He watches as Woojin laughs, then laughs some more. He eventually loses so much control of himself that his forehead falls right onto Gunwoo’s knee.

“You’re right, Eomma…you’re right…” he wheezes. Finally he gets enough control of himself to sit up straight and look Gunwoo in the eye. “Gunwoo-yah, how dare you? You think I couldn’t take you if you tried something? I’m a champion too!”

Gunwoo socks him in the middle of his chest, hard enough to feel but soft enough to carry an apology. I’m sorry I’ve been acting like such an idiot, hyung.

“You were just saying it was all your fault,” Gunwoo reminds him. “If it can’t be my fault, it can’t be yours either.”

Woojin laughs, wiping at his eyes, and nods. “Okay, okay…”

He smiles into Gunwoo’s eyes, and Gunwoo sees that boxer he met three years ago, mischievous and showboating and playful. 

“You want to get some ramyeon?” he asks.

Gunwoo nods, suddenly ravenous, and turns to his mother. “Are you hungry, Eomma?”

But she shakes her head, watching he and Woojin with a strange, thoughtful look in her eyes. Gunwoo can’t make heads or tails of it. “You boys go without me. And don’t eat so much that you won’t be hungry for dinner.”

“When are we ever not hungry?” Woojin calls cheekily over his shoulder. Eomma flaps her hand at him.

They find themselves at the place two blocks down where the aunties give them extra banchan just because.

The food is good but the way that Woojin is talking again, the way that they’re back together again, is what Gunwoo relishes. He inhales his first portion.

“You want hyung to get us another?” Woojin asks, grinning at him.

Gunwoo nods eagerly. He’s never been able to resist Woojin feeding him.

Woojin calls out to the auntie, and when she brings another pot, he puts a huge serving into Gunwoo’s bowl. Sets extra kimchi in front of him, too, just like Gunwoo likes.

When he’s gotten through several more mouthfuls and his appetite has slowed down a little, Gunwoo realizes that really…Woojin doesn’t seem so different. He’s always had those broad shoulders. Always been boisterous and energetic. Always made an effort to provide for Gunwoo – even when he had next to nothing himself. From the start, he indulged Gunwoo. Isn’t that an alpha stereotype?

Especially when they were around an omega.

“You’re staring, Gunwoo-yah,” says Woojin. One eyebrow quirks up. There’s a certain smugness to his grin.

Gunwoo looks away, caught. His cheeks burn and he blames it on his hormones.

“Sorry,” he says. Because Woojin was right. He was staring.

“Hey, it’s fine,” Woojin says, easy as that, and nudges his foot under the table with his own. “It’s a compliment, isn’t it? Especially coming from an omega.”

Gunwoo tries to fight it, but a little smile pulls at his lips. Woojin laughs and laughs, like life is just fine. And maybe it is. Maybe their dynamics don’t have to threaten their friendship after all.

“What does it feel like to be…you know…” Gunwoo gestures vaguely at all of Woojin. “All alpha now?”

Woojin makes a thoughtful sound. “It’s weird. Really fucking weird. I can smell all these things I never smelled before. And sometimes my brain gets hijacked by the sight of - ” he cuts himself off, waving away whatever he was about to say. He nods his chin at Gunwoo. “What’s it like to be an omega?”

Gunwoo wants very much to know what it was that Woojin was going to say, but Woojin’s privacy matters more than his own curiosity. If he doesn’t want to share it with Gunwoo, Gunwoo will not pry.

Maybe Woojin was thinking of the omega ads they passed on the big screens at the corner. They’re designed to distract alphas, after all.

“…weird. Very weird. It’s like I never knew myself. And now…”

Now I wonder if sex is always that good, or if it was just because I was in heat.

But Gunwoo shakes his head. He’s not voicing that thought.

“Gunwoo-yah…what are we going to do when it happens again?”

Gunwoo blinks. Sets down his chopsticks. Woojin looks like very serious all of a sudden. The kind of serious he only gets when something is a potential problem for their little family.

“I don’t know,” Gunwoo admits. His voice comes out small. “I don’t know, hyung, but you can’t leave. You can’t.”

Gunwoo’s heart kicks up, thumping madly against his ribs like something wild. The thought of Woojin gone – of Woojin away - even temporarily…Gunwoo clinches his hands together, clutching one against the other and twisting his fingers into a knot.

“Breathe, Gunwoo-yah,” comes Woojin’s voice. His eyes are steady when he looks into Gunwoo’s. “Just breathe.”

He reaches out and lays one hand, simple and solid, on Gunwoo’s shoulder.

Instinctively, Gunwoo reaches up and lays his hand on top of Woojin’s. The touch soothes whatever wildness had taken over him, quieting it enough that his heart will settle down.

Woojin smiles, nodding encouragingly.

“I won’t go anywhere,” he says. “I…I have an idea. I don’t know if you’ll like it. If you don’t, just tell me. We’ll find some other way. But…it could solve our…problem.”

Gunwoo scoots forward in his seat. “What is it?”

Woojin coughs, taking his hand from Gunwoo’s shoulder and sitting normally again. Now Gunwoo’s shoulder is cold.

“Well…first…” Woojin fiddles with his napkin. His cup of water. Picks up a piece of kimchi and then sets it down again. “What did you think about…about how it was?”

Gunwoo’s face heats immediately. He doesn’t need to ask what Woojin is referring to.

He’s never been able to lie well, and especially not to Woojin. He’s never tried to. He can tell Woojin the truth. Woojin won’t laugh, even if it’s embarrassing.

“I don’t have anything to compare it to,” Gunwoo admits. That’s not an answer, though, not really. He goes on. “But it was….it was really good, hyung.”

He glances up, checking Woojin’s reaction to this. The unwavering focus in Woojin’s gaze sends something electric up Gunwoo’s spine.

“It was the best I’ve ever felt,” says Gunwoo softly.

Woojin licks his lips, and Gunwoo has a bizarre thought about other things his tongue might do.

Stop it. He’s trying to talk to you. You’re talking right now.

They stare at each other.

Suddenly Woojin looks away, running a hand through his hair. “In that case, okay. Okay, good. Maybe my idea will work. Listen, Gunwoo-yah. Maybe we can just…help each other out. The next time your heat comes.”

“The next time I send you into a rut, you mean?” Gunwoo clarifies.

“Maybe my rut coming triggered your heat,” Woojin shoots back, and that kind of stops Gunwoo’s brain for a second.

“…do you think that’s what happened? Is that possible?”

Woojin shrugs, looking around as if looking into his own mind. “I’ve read that it can happen. I didn’t notice anything different at the time, but…looking back, I do think I felt kind of…..protective?”

“You’re always protective though.”

Gunwoo isn’t sure, because Woojin doesn’t blush often, but he thinks he might see two spots of pink pop up on Woojin’s cheekbones.

“More than usual,” Woojin says quietly. He clears his throat. “Anyway, what do you think?”

Gunwoo thinks it’s a brilliant idea. He doesn’t want to writhe in need alone, and Woojin makes everything better – even this, apparently – and Gunwoo recoils automatically at the idea of looking for some other alpha to help him.

“…honestly, it would help so much, hyung,” Gunwoo admits, blowing out a sigh. “But it’s not fair for me to use you like that.”

“What if I want you to use me like that?” Woojin asks. He smirks in the sort of way that reminds Gunwoo of his grunts and growls and needy, searching hands.

“It wasn’t bad for you?” Gunwoo asks. He doesn’t need to ask, really – the look on Woojin’s face is enough to tell him the answer. But something in him wants to hear the words anyway.

Why does he need so much reassurance now? He knows Woojin loves him. They’re friends. The very best of friends.

“Gunwoo-yah.” says Woojin. “It was not bad for me.”

His eyes lock onto Gunwoo’s and hold them.

Woojin really is handsome. Really quite especially good-looking. Like the-kind-of-bone-structure-that-belongs-on-magazine-covers level. Gunwoo swallows.

“A-alright then.” He can’t help but smile, glancing up at Woojin almost without his own permission. Something that feels like a hot air balloon is rising up in his chest.

Woojin smiles back at him. He puts more of the ramyeon into Gunwoo’s bowl.

That night, when Woojin is back where he belongs and sleeping in the bunk under Gunwoo’s, Gunwoo stares up at the ceiling, relieving the relief of the day. Sending up a small prayer of thanks that things are back to normal.

Well… maybe not exactly back to normal. Something feels just a little bit off. It feels like when his right straight doesn’t land quite where he wants it to. Everything is good again between them. So why can’t Gunwoo sleep?

It must just be his hormones, he decides.

The funny thing is, alphas in the ring never used to bother Woojin. More than half the time, Gunwoo’s opponent would be an alpha instead of another beta, and Woojin would cheer for Gunwoo and shout directions from his corner like any other coach. Well, maybe more enthusiastically than the other coaches, but Woojin was always enthusiastic. That was just Woojin being Woojin.

Even after he stopped coaching Gunwoo and went back into the ring himself, he treated every boxer the same. He’d taunt them, sure, and run his mouth, and then beat them bloody and win. Alpha or beta, it didn’t matter.

But now it’s like Woojin gets a special kind of crazy when Gunwoo comes up against an alpha. Every taunting comment, every sneering jab from one of them, makes Woojin pull at the ropes and slam the mat like he’d rather it was him up there with the gloves on.

Gunwoo’s in the qualifying rounds for the Eastern title, his opponent an outfighter with a long reach. Gunwoo’s getting some good shots to his flanks each round, but the guy isn’t strictly respecting the holding guidelines. In the last round, he’d cut Gunwoo with a left hook in the middle of a clinch. Truthfully, the punch had been easier to endure than the alpha’s stale-beer smell. But Woojin had gone ballistic.

He’d climbed into the ring and tried to charge the guy.

“Hyung,” Gunwoo murmurs, laying his gloves on Woojin’s chest and walking him back to Gunwoo’s corner before any damage can be done. “You’re going to drive that ref to drink.”

The referee was indeed blowing his whistle like his life depended on it, jabbing his finger from Woojin to Gunwoo’s corner and back again.

“He fouled him!” Woojin shouts, before he tries to lunge again. He reaches out over Gunwoo’s shoulder like he wants to snatch the other alpha from midair.

“Yeah, you tell yourself that,” scoffs Gunwoo’s opponent, standing just out of Woojin’s reach. “Keep your boy out of the ring if he can’t stand the heat.”

Woojin leaps and he’s almost too fast for Gunwoo to stop this time. The other alpha shouts an unkindness toward them, and Woojin yells back - something he would never say in front of Eomma.  

“Hyung,” Gunwoo says, putting some steel into his voice. “It’s not worth it. We’ll beat him in the match.”

“You should hospitalize him,” Woojin snarls. “Bastard is asking for it.”

Gunwoo presses on Woojin’s shoulders with his gloves until Woojin settles down enough to look him in the eye. It takes a few seconds, but Gunwoo can see Woojin start to come back to himself.  “I’ll get him, hyung. You know I can beat him.”

“You can beat anyone,” Woojin mutters, nodding. “That asshole’s not even a challenge.”

“He’s not,” Gunwoo agrees, with a gentle smile.

He tells himself to finish this in the next round, for the sake of Woojin’s peace of mind if nothing else.

“’M not about to be beaten by some omega,” says the other boxer with an ugly sneer, just before the next round starts.

Gunwoo can’t say he’s surprised, but it’s disappointing in some distant, impersonal way all the same. He’s been in the ring with alphas who didn’t comment on his dynamic. Even sparred with some who seemed to be impressed by it. But some, like this one, seem to take competing against Gunwoo as a personal insult.

Well. All the more reason for Gunwoo to stop holding back.

One flurry and one straight left later, the alpha is knocked out cold, and Gunwoo is the returning Eastern champ.

When he climbs into his bunk that night, he finds flowers on his pillow. There’s a card attached, a single boxing glove emoji printed on it.

Gunwoo smiles, burying his nose into the bunch and inhaling deep.

“Hyung?” he calls out softly.

Woojin’s answering hmmm? comes out a little hesitant.

“You got me flowers?”

“They’re orchids,” is Woojin’s answer. He says it like it’s one of those things where someone says one thing on the surface, but they mean something else underneath too.

“Are orchids supposed to mean something?” Gunwoo asks.  

He hears Woojin turn in his bunk. Hears the sheets rustle. Hears the thump thump thump of Woojin fluffing up his pillow.

“Hyung?”

Woojin sighs. Maybe his wrist is hurting him again. Gunwoo needs to go back to making him wear his brace during the day. 

“I just wanted to say thank you,” Woojin eventually says. “You probably saved me from a murder conviction today.”

“There’s no jury in the world that would convict you,” Gunwoo says, surprising himself with how soft his voice sounds.

“Huh?”

Gunwoo realizes he’s up against the ropes now, with no one to blame but himself. Evasive maneuvers.

“I just meant…” Gunwoo racks his brain. A joke! That’s it. “It would have been manslaughter at the worst.”

“Ha!” laughs Woojin. “You’re right. Manslaughter.”

“I should get some water for these,” Gunwoo says, suddenly needing to move. He climbs out of his bunk, very conscious of the way his legs are bare as he goes down each rung. It was too hot tonight for his sweats.  

He comes back with a vase and settles the flowers inside, making sure to submerge every stem in the water. The bouquet goes on the desk in their bedroom. Gunwoo can see them from his bunk, he realizes, when he gets back in it. He smiles. That happy little hot air balloon is rising up again in his chest.

Long minutes pass. Gunwoo can’t sleep, and he feels Woojin awake below him. He doesn’t know how he knows, but he can tell. Woojin is still up.  

Gunwoo listens to the quiet. Imagines Woojin’s face, staring up at the bottom of Gunwoo’s bunk from his own bunk below. He’s so expressive all the time – Gunwoo can easily picture what he’ll look like right now. He’ll be trying to sleep, only to snap his eyes open again after a minute. A wrinkle of irritation will appear between his eyebrows, slight but still there. Woojin will rub at it, massaging it away. And then his mouth will pull into a smile as he laughs at himself silently.

Woojin has such a beautiful smile.

Gunwoo realizes that he stays that way, awake and quiet and thinking about Woojin, for a long time.

After that night, something shifts inside Gunwoo’s mind. There’s a piece of his heart he’s discovered, waiting quietly, patiently, for his acknowledgement. It’s like a key that fits into a small, golden lock. One that he didn’t even know was there. But everything makes sense now. Why he asked Woojin to eat with him even though he’s normally more introverted than a hermit crab. Why he could laugh and play with Woojin – talk to Woojin – when he was normally so shy around people. Why Woojin struck him differently, so differently, from everyone else in Gunwoo’s life.

Now Gunwoo knows the answer.

The orchids do well in their new home. Gunwoo changes the water religiously. Looks up ways of caring for them to make them live as long as possible. Cut as they are, they won’t survive forever, but he reads that with proper maintenance, they can stay alive for weeks. He puts a few drops of vodka into the water each time he changes it, so that infection won’t start in the stems. Adds plant food to the water too, so that they’ll have nutrients. Even sang to them once, when Woojin was in the shower, because he read that plants can react to human voice. The orchids are precious to him now.

Something about the way Woojin had said “they’re orchids” sticks in Gunwoo’s mind and won’t leave. The memory of it echoes in Gunwoo’s head at odd moments. Like when he’s climbing stairs for a delivery. When he’s in the shower. When he’s sliding his gloves on for a match. He can’t stop thinking about it. Was there something Woojin wasn’t saying?

Try as he might, he can’t make his heart listen to his brain. It was just a statement of fact. The flowers were orchids. No more and no less. Gunwoo is trying to complicate it all. Mix it up and twist it and reframe it into something else.

But still, it plagues him. When he’s eating, when he’s training, everything…all the time. Gunwoo looks at it from every possible angle and can’t stop trying to find some….some hope. Some reason to wish. Stubborn fists, stubborn heart. He saw that painted on a gym window once. Maybe it was true. Maybe he had that stubborn fists, stubborn heart combination. Maybe that’s why he can’t let go of fantasies. 

Woojin was a kind person. A devoted person. A proud person! He was proud of Gunwoo’s win. Giving him flowers was a congratulations. It was a normal thing to do. It didn’t have to mean anything beyond that, and looking for more meaning in it was just Gunwoo’s own selfish heart wishing for something he couldn’t have.

Woojin was already well aware of their sexual compatibility. He had already pledged to spend his life at Gunwoo’s side. If there was any romantic feeling there, Woojin would have acted on it. He was an emotional person. He would throw himself into anything, rash or otherwise, if he felt strongly enough about it. The fact that he hadn’t must mean that he didn’t desire Gunwoo that way.

Gunwoo ought to just accept it.

They’re orchids.

But Gunwoo’s treacherous heart still whispers. What if there was something Gunwoo wasn’t seeing? What if Woojin had done something subtle to test the waters? Deep down, underneath all his Marine Corp pride…Woojin had an insecurity streak a mile long. What if he wanted to try something small first and see if Gunwoo would show him some kind of…encouragement? What if the orchids were that small something?

Gunwoo’s stomach somersaults at the thought.

And that’s how he ends up googling flower language. There is no one authority on the subject, which he finds frustrating. If it weren’t for a literature class he’d taken in high school and mostly forgotten, he wouldn’t even know there was such a thing as flower language in the first place. The idea that Woojin would know or care about it strikes him as unlikely at best. But stubborn fists, stubborn heart. So he scrolls through the endless charts and blogs and Instagram posts about Victorian love affairs and hidden romances. All he wants to know is if orchids could mean anything!

Finally he sees it. 

The orchid is often perceived to be a most luxurious flower in bouquets. Their naturally elegant appearance make them fitting offerings for congratulations on professional achievement or for serious romantic overtures. Never present someone with orchids if you only want something short term! In flower language, the orchid symbolizes exotic beauty and strength.

Well. That doesn’t settle the score at all.

What on earth…it’s almost as if Woojin deliberately found a flower that would confuse Gunwoo. One that was deliberately ambiguous!

Gunwoo sets his phone aside. Nevermind it all. Forget it.

Woojin doesn’t know about flower language. It was silly of Gunwoo to spend so much time researching something like that.

But that night in his bunk, he reads the words over and over to himself.

And wonders.

One ordinary day in one ordinary week, something happens.

Gunwoo’s returning to the café after a delivery, jogging through the doors with a smile. That last customer had given him two meal coupons for the new Chinese restaurant a few streets over. He said he had watched Gunwoo’s last match and he would really like it if Gunwoo could come by and try the food. So Gunwoo looks for Woojin. The only thing the pair of them like more than food is free food, after all. And Woojin will get a laugh out of the cute little smiling dragons printed on the coupons.

He sees Woojin behind the counter, wrapping up a sale. He’s wearing his red apron this time, which makes Gunwoo smile because it’s Woojin’s “lucky” apron. Why the apron should be lucky is anyone’s guess, but Gunwoo suspects the reason is just that red is Woojin’s favorite color. Regardless, his smile steals Gunwoo’s breath. It’s not right that such a smile, such a face, should be paired with shoulders that broad. With a waist that narrow. With legs that long.

How did Gunwoo ever believe that he only viewed Woojin as a friend? He’s painfully hot.

There’s a customer in front of him at the register. It’s a woman that Gunwoo can immediately tell is an omega (he smells something overly sweet like cotton candy in the air). Gunwoo’s nose wrinkles. He hurries forward, almost calling out Woojin’s name, but he stops short when he realizes that the omega isn’t leaving. She’s saying something to Woojin that makes him laugh. And it’s not his polite, customer laugh, either. He sounds genuinely charmed by whatever the comment was. His eyes sparkle and Gunwoo can see each one of his white teeth.

It’s odd to see Woojin spend extra time with someone who isn’t Gunwoo. So odd that Gunwoo just waits. Is Woojin going to spend more time with this omega? Surely another customer will come in soon and will need help? Should he really be chatting when there are grinders to refill and cups to wash? Eomma took the day off today to visit her friend so the work must be piling up.

The corners of the coupons in Gunwoo’s hand start to flutter. Maybe Gunwoo is shaking. That’s odd too. That his hands would shake.

The omega is pink-cheeked and bright-eyed, tucking her hair behind one ear with far too much implication than Gunwoo thinks is really decent. It could be considered an overture, and this woman doesn’t even know Woojin. Gunwoo would know if she did. He would have met her at some point. Because he’s always with Woojin. Every day. Every night too, and does this omega know that? Does she know that Gunwoo is an omega too? Does she know that he’s an omega who knows what Woojin’s knot feels like? Who knows what his eyes look like when he sinks into a rut?

Woojin is more than this omega could ever handle. She’s not strong enough for him. Only Gunwoo is. Only Gunwoo. He -

The omega leans in to speak again, laying one hand over Woojin’s and Gunwoo just – just –

He feels his world expand rapidly and then contract to a single point, like a reverse big bang, right down to the place where Woojin’s hand lies under that omega’s. On the counter of his mother’s café.

Gunwoo whirls around, right out the doors again and onto the street.

He can show Woojin the coupons another time.

He wants to go home and lick his wounds, but he can’t leave the café in a bind. They have no one else for deliveries, and leaving in the middle of the day would put a burden on Woojin. They would start to have unhappy customers and the business that Eomma worked so hard to build would be damaged.

So Gunwoo does his job, making every effort to avoid Woojin’s questioning eyes. He’ll know that something is wrong, though. He always knows. And Gunwoo doesn’t know how to find the words to explain. So he hurries the deliveries even more than he usually does, keeping his helmet on as much as possible to hide his expressions.

When they’re closing up for the day, Woojin locks the café doors behind them and turns to Gunwoo. The streetlights above make his skin glow. Gunwoo thinks this isn’t fair. He shouldn’t be so handsome. What chance did Gunwoo ever stand? And why should the sight of him strike Gunwoo now, mocking him with how blind he’s been for so long?

“Gunwoo-yah. What happened? Something happened.”

Gunwoo sighs. Looks away.

“Tell me,” Woojin says. He doesn’t seem to be in a mood to be distracted.

“Let’s go home,” says Gunwoo. He fiddles with his backpack to avoid Woojin’s eyes.

“No.” Woojin grabs Gunwoo’s wrist. “Tell me.”

His voice and the concern in it make Gunwoo want to punch something. Or maybe cry. Gunwoo doesn’t really know. All he knows is that standing out here in the evening chill under these damned streetlights with Woojin’s fingers branding his skin like this is dangerous for him.

“Hyung…”

Gunwoo’s eyes get pulled to Woojin’s by some mystery of nature. The heat that comes after arrests his bones and his blood and his too-loud heart.

Woojin waits there, patient as a statue, watching Gunwoo with sad eyes.

Gunwoo presses his lips together, holding back the words.

“Gunwoo-yah,” murmurs Woojin. “Gunwoo-yah…”

He ducks his head just a bit, just enough to make himself short enough to peer up into Gunwoo’s eyes from below. He reaches out, laying his palm on Gunwoo’s cheek, and that’s all Gunwoo can stand before a broken sound escapes him.

“Oh, Gunwoo-yah…what happened, huh? What happened?”

Before he knows it, he’s wrapped up in Woojin’s scent, Woojin’s warm jacket pressed against his nose.

“I saw you talking to her.”

Time seems to stop around them as soon as Gunwoo says it. He stays in the circle of Woojin’s arms, hoping that this isn’t the last time he can be so close.

“You…what? Who?”

“That woman.” Even saying that much makes Gunwoo feel like throwing up. He’s never identified much with jealousy. Never felt green with envy or possessive or any of those kinds of feelings that he hears other people describe. But the full force of it is hitting him now, all at once, and it’s a sick, twisting emotion that seems to want to choke him.

Woojin makes a confused sound, and then Gunwoo can hear him thinking.

“That omega earlier?” he asks.

Gunwoo didn’t want to have to explain further, but he also doesn’t like that Woojin can identify her based on so little. He wishes Woojin had no idea. He wishes none of it had happened.

Gunwoo pulls himself out of Woojin’s arms. Or tries to. Woojin holds him tight and doesn’t let him leave.

“She was flirting,” Woojin says, shrugging like it was nothing. Like Gunwoo shouldn’t want to lock Woojin away where other omegas can’t see him or speak to him or touch him. “I wasn’t interested and she left.”

Gunwoo breathes. Breathes again. This, at least, is a reality he can accept. Woojin wouldn’t lie to him. If he says he wasn’t interested, Gunwoo believes him.

“That’s what...made you so upset today?” asks Woojin. “That’s why you wouldn’t look at me, or make me a protein whip like normal?”

Gunwoo nods. He can’t lie to Woojin either.

Woojin steps back, putting his hands on Gunwoo’s shoulders and looking him over.   

Gunwoo has a sudden urge to bare his neck. To kneel at Woojin’s feet and present his nape. Some needy and desperate thing stirs within him. He wants to find some way of captivating Woojin – to make it so that no other omega would ever get his attention. Not even for a second. And not just the one who made eyes at him today in the café. All of them. All of the omegas in the world that Woojin has never met. Gunwoo wants to warn them all off. He wants to plant a flag in Woojin’s heart that would render all of them invisible to him, even if they tried.

“I’m not going to go sleeping with another omega,” Woojin says. “We agreed we would help each other, remember? Don’t you trust hyung?”

Gunwoo nods. He does trust Woojin. More than anyone. Except maybe his own mother, of course.

Woojin’s lips are so full, so shapely. The curve of his mouth so enticing. Gunwoo knows he shouldn’t stare, but he can’t help it. And he can’t blame it on his heat. That won’t come again for months.

He waits for Woojin to smile. Laugh, or make a joke. Step back. Maybe nudge Gunwoo’s ribs and tell him that dinner’s waiting and they should hurry home.

But he doesn’t do any of that. Woojin is looking at him too. Do his eyes dart to Gunwoo’s mouth? Do his hands clench Gunwoo’s shoulders in a firmer grasp?

Does Woojin only want to ‘help’ Gunwoo during heats?

Would he ever want to do more than ‘help?’

“You really are a possessive omega, aren’t you?” Woojin asks. He smiles at Gunwoo, and there’s a hint of that night they shared in the glint of it.

Gunwoo blushes spectacularly. He hopes the setting sun can hide it. He hopes the streetlights aren’t highlighting his face the same way they’re highlighting Woojin’s.

But Woojin’s smile grows, and Gunwoo suspects he’s out of luck.

“Does it bother you that much when your alpha gets a little attention, huh? Does it make you crazy?”

Gunwoo looks away, studying the pavement. There’s a dandelion growing in the crack between two cobblestones. Woojin ducks this way and that, trying to hold eye contact. It’s like their rookie match, when Woojin danced around him and kept him off-center.

“Should we ban that omega from the cafe? Would that make my omega happy again?”

My omega.

Gunwoo finds his fist clenched around the bottom of Woojin’s jacket. The stretchy band of stitching there feels stiff and solid. It bends, but only when Gunwoo squeezes.

“Hyung…” Gunwoo lets their eyes meet then. He wants Woojin to know that saying things like that has consequences. That Gunwoo is only human.   

Woojin steps in closer. Their chests are pressed together now. Woojin’s breath comes in warm puffs against Gunwoo’s temple. Gunwoo can feel his nose and mouth pressed there. Woojin’s next words hit him like a freight train.

“Should I take you home and show you that it’s you I want to fuck?”

“Please, yes.”

Both of them step back just enough to see each other’s faces. Woojin’s lips twitch and then Gunwoo smiles and then Woojin is laughing, and then Gunwoo is laughing too. It’s all terribly funny somehow. They clutch at each other, laughing like teenagers, right there on the street.

Woojin keeps his arm around Gunwoo the whole way home, his hand toasty warm at the small of Gunwoo’s back. They keep looking at each other along the way. Gunwoo wants to ask Woojin if they can just sprint the rest of the way home, but he doesn’t want to lose the feeling of Woojin’s hand on him, so he settles for just walking faster. Woojin matches him, teasing Gunwoo about the hurry he seems to be in and what could it possibly be for?

“You know very well what it’s for, alpha,” Gunwoo dares to say. He feels a rush of power when Woojin misses a step.  

“Where did you learn to say stuff like that?” Woojin asks when he’s back in Gunwoo’s stride.

Gunwoo only shoots him a smile. It’s delightful, the way Woojin swallows. The way his cheeks go pink.

The counter punch comes for him, though. Woojin’s hand slides lower, until Gunwoo feels it resting on his bottom. It fills him so full of lust that his vision blurs.

When they get inside the house, the smell of beef and rice hits them. And for the first time, they look at each other in dismay at the realization that dinner is waiting.

We have to wait until after?

We have no choice, Gunwoo-yah. Fighting.

Woojin sighs, pulling his hand away and patting Gunwoo’s back a few times.

His timing is fortunate. Eomma comes right around the corner with a pot of something steaming.

“Go wash your hands,” she says. “It’s all ready.”

In the downstairs bathroom, the two of them can’t seem to get it together. Woojin hip-checks Gunwoo at the sink. Gunwoo whines at Woojin.  Woojin pretends to snap his teeth at Gunwoo’s face. Gunwoo makes a needy sex face at him. Woojin opens his mouth, no doubt to say some debauched thing –

“The food is getting cold, boys!”

That jumpstarts them, and they actually do get their hands washed after all.

Eomma asks about the café, about Gunwoo’s next match, tells them about how the friend she visited recently is buying a new car and wants recommendations.

Gunwoo shovels food into his mouth like it’s a race. Woojin is no better.

“This is even worse than usual,” says Eomma, staring between them. “Did the two of you skip lunch? What did I tell you about missing meals?”

“No no, Eomma,” Woojin says, with a full mouth. He pauses. Swallows. Tries again. “Just a busy day.”

A light bulb goes off in Gunwoo’s head. “Yeah, lots of deliveries. We’re both really tired.”

“Probably will go to sleep early tonight.”

“Yeah, good idea. Training in the morning, too. Can’t miss it.”

“Can’t. Coach says you need your sleep, Gunwoo-yah.”

“Coach needs sleep too. Lots of sleep.”

There’s a pause then. Gunwoo sticks a too-big piece of beef into his mouth and nearly chokes himself.

“Goodness, son, eat slowly,” Eomma scolds him. She puts a cup of water in front of him.  “Both of you are acting so strangely.”

Woojin looks like he wants to laugh and is doing his best not to. (His best is not good enough.) 

“So what kind of car does your friend want?” blurts Gunwoo, desperate for a subject change.

Eomma tells him about the research she did and what models she thinks would be a good fit for her friend and how she plans to ask around for local discounts. Something about her friend needing something reliable for volunteer work. It’s hard for Gunwoo to keep the details in his head for long. All he can think about is how he’s going to get Woojin’s hands on him again. Soon.

He nearly rockets out of his chair when he feels something brush his ankle under the table. It’s Woojin’s foot, sliding back and forth distractingly.

Gunwoo gives him a Look.

Woojin ignores it completely, nodding along to Eomma’s story, and doing it again. Slower.

He torments Gunwoo throughout dinner, and Gunwoo races to the do the dishes just to avoid making a fool of himself in front of his mother. He listens distantly to the sounds of Woojin telling her to go and rest and thanking her for her cooking and generally charming her, just like he always does. Eomma calls out her goodnights to them, and Gunwoo hears her slippers going up the stairs, and then the sound of her door shutting.

Then, with his wrists deep in soapy water, he feels Woojin come up behind him and wrap his arms around Gunwoo’s waist. He rests his chin on Gunwoo’s shoulder, smelling like green leaves and home.

“Leave it,” Woojin says into his ear. “Let’s go to bed.”

Goosebumps break out all over Gunwoo’s neck and shoulders. It’s like his knees actually start to liquify. 

“I’m almost done,” says Gunwoo. He doesn’t know why he’s protesting. He’s been craving sex just as badly. But Woojin’s arms around him feel so good right this second that he doesn’t want to move.

He sinks back against Woojin’s chest. Something luxurious and indulgent takes over his mind. Woojin has him. Woojin will keep him on his feet. And so Woojin does. His hands slide down low on Gunwoo’s waist, taking his hipbones in his hands and holding them firm.

“Leave it,” Woojin repeats. He nips at Gunwoo’s ear.

Gunwoo embarrasses himself with a whimper.

It seems to enflame Woojin. Suddenly he’s pressing forward, trapping Gunwoo between himself and the sink. He’s getting hard; Gunwoo can feel it against his bottom. Woojin rocks forward and back, forward and back, and Gunwoo loves the feeling of that motion so much that he arches his back. His hips start rolling to meet every one of Woojin’s little grinds.

Woojin sucks on Gunwoo’s ear, panting into it. Gunwoo can hear his need.

“I can’t fuck you against this countertop,” Woojin mutters. “No matter how much you make me want to. Come to bed.”

Those hands on his hips slide forward, palming Gunwoo through his sweats. Gunwoo is hard too and it feels – it feels –

“Hyung,” he gasps.

And that’s all it takes. Woojin spins him around in his arms and Gunwoo clutches his shoulders, wet hands and all.

Whatever beautiful thing that links their minds makes it so that Woojin understands him immediately. He lifts Gunwoo up by the thighs and carries him right out of the kitchen.

Gunwoo is attacking Woojin’s neck with his mouth. There’s a heavenly scent there that makes him bite, needy and sucking. He’s so distracted by how good it is to taste that he doesn’t realize Woojin is carrying him up the stairs.

He’s too heavy!

“Hyung - !”

But Woojin interrupts him with a short little noise. He keeps going, stair after stair. “Keep that up,” he says, lifting his chin to indicate his neck. “What you were doing.”

And oh, that’s not a command that Gunwoo can resist. He lets his teeth sink into the muscle there. Woojin lets out an approving sigh and Gunwoo smiles despite himself, doing it again.

They get into their room and Gunwoo lands on the bottom bunk with a soft thump. He reaches out automatically - even this small parting is too much for him to endure - and Woojin crawls in too, on all fours over him.

How could Gunwoo ever have missed seeing the alpha within him? He’s like a lion.

Slick starts to trickle down between Gunwoo’s legs. It’s not as much it was during his heat, but it’s enough – and even if it wasn’t, Gunwoo wouldn’t let that stop him. He needs it so bad.

“It was too fast before,” Woojin is saying, pulling at Gunwoo’s shirt. Gunwoo sits up and together they get him out of it. His pants too, which involves a lot of kicking and squirming. “I didn’t get to touch you the way I wanted to.”

“Jesus,” Gunwoo whispers. Can it be legal to feel this way? Is this why people do so many stupid things for sex?

Woojin pushes him back against the mattress. He kneels between Gunwoo’s spread thighs, running his palms up Gunwoo’s legs. When he gets up to his thighs he squeezes.

“Fuck, you have the perfect body,” Woojin whispers. He looks like he means it too. His eyes look over every inch of Gunwoo like he’s a starving for the smallest detail. “What the fuck…”

“Hyung,” Gunwoo urges, lifting up his hips. He’s got no words for what he wants but he knows it involves Woojin doing more than just looking at him.

That seems to get Woojin moving. He pulls Gunwoo’s boxers down. Rather than be embarrassed like he thought he would be, Gunwoo is just desperate. He’s so hard that it hurts and if Woojin doesn’t touch him right this second –

“Oh hyung, yes,” Gunwoo sighs. He can’t keep his eyes open. He can’t stop his hips from rolling forward over and over, chasing Woojin’s strokes. “God, please…”

“I thought it was your heat, but it’s not,” Woojin breathes, looking at Gunwoo in wonder. “You smell so good, Gunwoo-yah…god, it’s mouth-watering.”

Gunwoo whimpers, arching into a particularly good upstroke of Woojin’s wrist. It’s so good that he fears it will end things far too soon.

“Hyung, stop – stop - ” he hurries to say, and Woojin pulls his hands away immediately.

“What is it?” he asks, eyes wide.

“Too good,” Gunwoo laughs. He sees the fear in Woojin’s eyes. Fear he doesn’t need to have, because Woojin could never do anything to him that he doesn’t want. “You’re going to make me…”

He looks up at Woojin meaningfully, and Woojin laughs, clearly relieved, pushing his hair out of his eyes.

He’s so, so beautiful.

Gunwoo sits up, crawling toward him. “Sit back.”

Woojin shoots him a confused but intrigued grin, scooting back to sit against the wall. “You have something in mind?”

Gunwoo nods. “Take off your clothes.”

Woojin laughs. He lets out a low, impressed little whistle. “Look at you, ordering around your alpha.”

“Hyung,” Gunwoo murmurs, letting his eyes go soft. He needs.

Woojin freezes. He’s staring at Gunwoo, slack jawed. “Shit, that look…do you know how much you could…nevermind. Nevermind. I’m listening.”  

Gunwoo feels a little shiver of pride run up his spine as he watches Woojin pull his shirt up and off over his head. Gunwoo gets to look now - really look - and he plans to take advantage of it. When they train, Woojin has his shirt off a lot of the time, it’s true, but Gunwoo doesn’t get to watch. And now he does. It’s even better when Woojin shimmies himself out of his pants.

“Those too, hyung,” Gunwoo whispers, nodding at Woojin’s boxers.

Woojin pulls those off too, no argument. He’s hard, girthy and needy-red and it makes Gunwoo’s mouth water. He moves forward like he’s entranced. Like he can’t help it. And maybe he can’t, because….because…

“Can I…” he tries to say. He has to swallow and try again. “Can I use my mouth, hyung?”

“Holy fuck,” Woojin breathes. His cock twitches. He startles like it surprises him. “You can do whatever you want, fuck. Come here.”

Gunwoo kneels between his thighs. He takes Woojin’s cock in his hands, marveling at the size of it, at the slight swell near the base where his knot forms during ruts. The thought of how it felt inside him, the memory of that delicious stretch, makes something fuzzy take over his mind. Before he knows it, he’s curling forward, brushing his lips against the silky head.

Woojin inhales sharply.

“Is it okay?” Gunwoo asks, looking up at him. He sees the expanse of his muscled chest and then the sharp edge of his jawline. Then the glassy look in his eyes.

Woojin nods frantically. He shifts his hips in a way that makes Gunwoo think he’s asking for more.

Gunwoo grasps the base of his cock more firmly. Dares to lick at the underside. He tastes something musky, woodsy, and it makes him want more. He slides his lips fully around the head, very mindful of his teeth.

“Gunwoo-yah.”

Gunwoo feels Woojin’s hands in his hair, caressing him with reverence in every touch. He feels a rush in his blood like pure power coursing through him. It’s intoxicating. Completely intoxicating.

From there, he bobs and sucks greedily. There’s so much desire in him that he can’t stop. Wouldn’t want to even if he could. Woojin belongs here, under Gunwoo’s mouth. Gunwoo belongs here, bringing him pleasure. Listening to his gasps and groans. No one else should ever hear such things. Gunwoo wants each and every one all to himself. He would tattoo them onto his own skin, even, if it were possible.

Suddenly Woojin’s hands are clenching down on his hair. “Baby – baby, you gotta stop – I’m gonna – shit - ”

Gunwoo pulls back, wiping at his mouth. He’s slightly out of breath. Slightly achy in his jaw. But still, he wasn’t done.

What would it feel like to finish Woojin that way? What would his spend taste like? Gunwoo wants to know. He decides that if he can’t do it now, he will in the future. He wants to experience it. He wants to give Woojin that, the alpha that deserves every pleasure in this life.

“I wanna be inside you,” Woojin murmurs. “You gonna let hyung be inside, baby?”

And yeah, that knocks all the thought right out of Gunwoo’s head. He hurries forward, throwing one thigh over Woojin’s and then the other so that he’s sitting in his lap. Their cocks brush against each other and the feeling is amazing. Gunwoo rocks his hips, chasing the silky, sexy slide of it.

“Fuck, look at that,” breathes Woojin.

Gunwoo nods. It’s searingly hot to look down between them right now.

He tears his eyes away, and so does Woojin. They seem to both look up at each other at the same moment. The eye contact is brief but scorching. Woojin glances down at Gunwoo’s mouth, and Gunwoo feels his heart nearly stop. Woojin leans forward, lips parted…

But then he pulls back, wrapping a hand around both of their cocks instead and stroking.

Gunwoo gasps. His forehead falls to Woojin’s shoulder as he fights to catch his breath.

It goes on for one, two, three strokes, and then Woojin takes his hand away, grasping at Gunwoo’s bottom and pulling him closer.

Gunwoo feels his fingers searching out his hole, thick and solid, working at him. It enflames him with memories of how good it felt to be stretched and filled and claimed.

“Hyung, I need it,” he whines.

He feels Woojin nod, feels him spread the slick around and then slip one finger past the ring of muscle there. Gunwoo presses back against it, needing it deeper, suddenly painfully.

“More more more.”

“Already?”

Gunwoo nods frantically. He needs it. He needs it so much.

“Fuck, okay, baby….okay, here…”

Another finger joins the first. It makes Gunwoo’s hole stretch deliciously but it’s still not enough. He rocks back with more force, driving Woojin’s fingers deeper inside. Again and again he pushes back. He feels desperate. An echo of that clawing, empty sensation he felt during his heat vibrates through him.

“Make it better,” he finds himself pleading into Woojin’s shoulder. “Make it better, hyung, please - ”

“I will, baby, I - ”

But Gunwoo can’t stand it any longer. He raises himself up onto his knees over Woojin, Woojin’s fingers coming out of him with an obscene, wet sound. He takes hold of Woojin’s cock and holds it steady.

“Gunwoo-yah - ”

But Gunwoo doesn’t stop. He can’t breathe for need of Woojin to be closer. He needs.

It takes every instinct for self-preservation within him to go slowly. In one smooth slide, he sinks down down down on Woojin’s cock. Both of them gasp, clutching at each other, until Gunwoo bottoms out.

“My god, Gunwoo,” Woojin whispers. He stares at Gunwoo with that glassy, overwhelmed stare.

Woojin is deliciously big inside him, just shy of painful, stuffing him full and Gunwoo feels wild with what he’s just done. He raises himself up on his knees again, just enough to keep the tip inside. Then he sinks down again, faster this time.

Woojin groans, throwing his head back so hard that it thunks against the wall.

“Hyung,” Gunwoo pants. “Are you - ”

“Fine. I’m fine, you just – fuck – again – can you? – again - ”

And Gunwoo obeys. Over and over and over, spearing himself on Woojin’s cock until he starts hitting that place inside that makes Gunwoo cry out. There it is, oh he’s so thankful, oh, he worships Woojin…

He fucks himself on Woojin’s cock like his life depends on it. His thighs burn and his lungs ache and every delicious slide inside his body brings Gunwoo that much closer to fulfillment.

Woojin’s hands roam over his arms, his sides, his waist, touching every bit of Gunwoo that he can reach. His hands are even on Gunwoo’s bottom, squeezing handfuls of it like he really, really likes the feel.

And it’s that, more than anything, that makes Gunwoo sink down on Woojin’s cock hard one last time, grinding himself down on it so that the place inside lights up like a firework.

“Hyung!”

His orgasm takes him over completely. He thinks he must black out, or do something close to that, because he can’t keep his eyes open. When he can see again, Woojin is pulling Gunwoo’s hips toward himself, groaning a long, satisfied sound into Gunwoo’s ear.

“Jesus Christ, I’m never letting you out of this bed,” Woojin whispers, half laughing and half deadly serious. “You gotta do that again.”

Gunwoo nods, tired and sticky and ready for a long, heavy sleep.

“Fine by me…soon as I…recover…”

Woojin lifts him gently, separating them with a squelching sound. Gunwoo is too exhausted to be embarrassed by it. Woojin lays him back against the pillow, arranging him ever so gently, before crawling out of the bunk.

“Where’r you goin’?” Gunwoo slurs. He feels the world start to fade already.

“Just gonna get something to clean us,” he hears Woojin say. “You just rest…”

Gunwoo wants to say something, but he’s so tired…his eyes slip closed.

When he wakes up in the morning, he’s clean and dry and wrapped up in Woojin’s arms.

From that point on, Gunwoo lives in small bursts. It’s like his life starts and stops, the restarts coming when he and Woojin are alone together.  

He starts finding Woojin’s laundry in the wrong places sometimes. His soft band t-shirts end up inside of Gunwoo’s pillowcase. Woojin’s hoodies appear on Gunwoo’s side of the closet. Even Woojin’s headbands find their way into Gunwoo’s backpack.

Once, memorably, he found Woojin’s boxers in his underwear drawer. Gunwoo wonders if his eyes are playing tricks on him, but there’s no mistaking it. No one but Woojin would ever buy boxers that looked like that – red boxing gloves against an orange background, yellow zigzag stitching around the waistband and the thighs.

In a fit of daring, Gunwoo had put them on and wore them all day. When Woojin pulled Gunwoo’s sweats off that night and saw that he was wearing them, he’d eaten Gunwoo out like a man starving. Gunwoo saw stars.

They have sex when they go to bed every night, without fail. Sometimes Woojin wakes Gunwoo up in the middle of the night after they’ve already fallen asleep, nosing at the back of Gunwoo’s neck and running his hands over Gunwoo’s stomach and whispering that he needs him again. Sometimes they even do it twice in a row. Gunwoo wakes up deliciously sore and reminded of Woojin all day long.

It’s like now that he has permission to eat, Woojin is ravenous.

It’s heaven. Woojin sends him texts sometimes when he’s out on a delivery, filthy implication in every line, driving Gunwoo to distraction. And when Gunwoo gets brave enough to reciprocate, they spend every free moment revving each other up for the night to come. Sometimes when Gunwoo is in the back room, stocking supplies, Woojin will catch his eyes from the front counter. Gunwoo will check his phone and find that Woojin has sent him something unspeakable. And then Gunwoo will send something back, looking up to catch the exact moment when Woojin sees it. Woojin will bite into his lip and shoot a look in Gunwoo’s direction that leaves his knees weak.

Gunwoo has never felt more wanted.

Woojin wakes him one morning with his hair all different. It’s gelled and slicked back like he’s trying to play The Great Gatsby in a school play.

He runs his hands over Gunwoo’s bottom and squeezes. “One time before our run, huh? Real quick, I promise.”

But Gunwoo is aghast. “Hyung, what did you do to your hair?”

“Changed it,” says Woojin, pulling back slightly. “Do you like it?”

“No,” says Gunwoo. He realizes that he was too blunt when Woojin’s face falls. “I like your hair always,” he adds, trying to make up for it. “I like how it is normally.”

Woojin pauses. Nods, then ruffles at his hair, shaking some of the shaping out of it. “Okay, but can we? You owe me now. To fix my hurt feelings, Woo-yah.”

And of course Gunwoo can’t deny him, even if he wanted to. Which he sincerely does not, bad hair or no.

He’s so wrapped up in the bliss of it that he’s terrified of upsetting the balance. Terrified of reaching for more.

Because even after all of the sex they’ve had, they’ve still never kissed.

Gunwoo thinks about trying it sometime. Catching Woojin’s mouth with his while they’re in the middle of things. He could act like it was just part of the sex if Woojin didn’t like it. At least then Gunwoo would have his answer.

But the thought of Woojin’s rejection freezes all of his courage. Gunwoo would rather face five heavyweight pros in the ring at once than face a Woojin who didn’t want his heart.

He considers talking to Woojin about it instead. There are times when Gunwoo feels the words on the tip of his tongue, precious words about the place Woojin holds in his life that no one else ever could. The way that the ends of Woojin’s hair falling into his eyes make Gunwoo’s fingertips itch. The way his smile is the sun in Gunwoo’s life. The way the sound of his voice sometimes makes Gunwoo want to weep for want of him. 

Gunwoo wants Woojin to belong to him. He wants to be the one to make Woojin happy. He wants to hold a unique place in Woojin’s life and give him everything he could ever want. Gunwoo wants to make him happier than he’s ever been. The way he makes Gunwoo happy.

Gunwoo never says it, never betrays his own spun-glass heart. When he was little, his father told him that boys who cried were boys who wanted black eyes. And Gunwoo fought that lesson with as much fight as he had in him, young and headstrong as he was, but some small part of him internalized the idea. He came to believe that his heart was small and fragile and something to be kept hidden.

Gunwoo’s mother kept it safe – even during the worst of her suffering at his father’s hands. And when they’d fled together, Gunwoo promised himself that he would be the protector she never had. Somewhere along the way, he packed his spun-glass heart away and put it up on the highest shelf, out of sight and out of mind.

But Woojin had sniffed it out like a bloodhound on the hunt. And instead of mauling it, he had dusted it off, buffed away all the scuffs and scratches…and hung it up where the light would catch it, shining on every facet.

That was already so much more than Gunwoo ever hoped to have. Woojin cared for him, genuinely. Profoundly. More than Gunwoo deserves. How can Gunwoo get greedy now, wishing it were romantic? Wishing Woojin would hold his hand? Kiss his hair and cradle him on the couch and declare himself?

How can he look at Woojin and say he’s not given Gunwoo enough already?

How can Gunwoo throw himself into Woojin’s arms and ask him for forever?

One morning, Gunwoo leaves Woojin asleep in bed to get some water. It’s so early that the first rays of sunlight have only just started to peek out. He comes down the stairs to find his mother at the kitchen table. There’s a mug of something in front of her, steam rising from it in gentle curls.

She’s on the phone, talking in hushed tones.

Gunwoo is immediately on guard. Why is she speaking so quietly? What is she trying to hide from him and Woojin?

But when he steps closer, he sees that her eyes are happy. She’s got one hand over the phone speaker, like whatever she’s saying is a secret, but her eyes are plainly visible. They look like those cartoon cat eyes he sees on stationary sometimes, sparkly little half-moons.

When she sees him, she goes strangely red. If Gunwoo didn’t know any better, he would think his mother was blushing.

“I’ll have to call you back, dear,” she says into the phone. “Yes. Yes, I’ll be there. Oh, honestly, you – no, I absolutely won’t say such things – I’m hanging up now.”

Gunwoo can only stare. What?

And then she sets down her phone with a sigh. She beckons him over, and he takes the chair opposite her. She’s still red-cheeked, fiddling with the string of the tea bag in her cup.

“Eomma, who was that?” he asks.

“I think it’s time we talked about something, Gunwoo-yah,” she says.

His heart pounds.

“Gunwoo-yah,” she says, straightening up. She takes a deep breath. Wraps her hands around her cup. “That was the friend I’ve been seeing.”

Gunwoo blinks.

Eomma takes another deep breath and then looks at him squarely. She gives him the kind of smile someone gives when they’re about to deliver some news that the other person really will not like.

“The friend is a man, you see,” she says.

A man?

…a man?

He stares at her. She looks back, patient as always, and she must see some kind of realization forming in his eyes because she nods, just slightly, just once, and Gunwoo knows the truth.

‘Friend’ wasn’t the right word. Not the whole word anyway.

Gunwoo is dumbfounded. His mother has this whole other life, separate from her being a mother, that he never knew. He’s ashamed of himself for never imagining that she might want one. He never dreamed it.

It’s been so many years now, since the divorce. Gunwoo always assumed that his mother had no more interest in romance. She never spoke about it, and he never asked, and the assumption just sat there in his mind. Sat there for so long that it fossilized. But why did he assume such a thing in the first place?

Because she’s always been such a good mother to him. Meeting his every need for his whole life. And he took that to mean that she could not want for anything else. But ‘mother’ was only part of what she was. The largest part, maybe, but not the whole. And all the while that she was playing it, she was leaving her own needs far, far behind.

“We met at the church, and we really have been friends. For years now. He volunteers for the homeless outreach with Father Kim. And I never expected…I never set out to…we just get along so well. It’s like he knows what I’ll say before I say it. Sometimes we don’t even need words. …Are you upset with me, son?” she asks, so purely honest that Gunwoo feels fresh rage at his father all over again. How could someone so innately good have been treated so poorly? He’ll never understand it.

Gunwoo shakes his head, carefully setting his anger aside. Now is not the time. He looks around, seeing the yellow kettle on the stove that she uses to make tea. Her apron. The stack of notepads she uses to make grocery lists. All these pieces of the life she’s lived for him, and for him alone.

Isn’t it time that she lived a life of her own?

“Does he treat you nicely?” Gunwoo asks.

They both know what he’s asking. How important the question is, and how he’s trusting her to tell him if this friend – this man – were ever to try – were ever to think –

She reaches out for his hand and squeezes it between both of her small ones.

“He does,” she says, looking into Gunwoo’s eyes. “He always does.”

Gunwoo can see that it’s true. Eomma smiles, and it comes out a little shy. A little sweet. Gunwoo can imagine that’s what her smile must have looked like when she was just a girl. When her whole life was before her. When her concerns could be her own. Before other people’s needs came first.

Gunwoo nods. Looks down at the table. His eyes burn.

“Oh, son…” Eomma murmurs to him. She comes around to his side of the table and puts her arms around him. “I’m not going away or anything like that. It’s only dating. It may not last.”

But Gunwoo knows that no one except a very, very special person could get his Eomma’s attention. Not after what she’s been through. He thinks it will last.

He hugs her close.

“I want you to be happy, Eomma,” he murmurs into her shoulder.

“I know,” she murmurs back.

When they pull away, they’re both wiping at their cheeks. Eomma goes back to her seat across from him. She hands him a tissue and one for herself too. They’ve done enough crying at the kitchen table together over the years not to have this down to a science by now.

A few minutes of quiet follow. And then she says, “I want you to be happy, too, son. Are you happy?”

Gunwoo opens his mouth to say yes, but something holds his tongue. He is happy. Generally. Only…only…

His mother nods.

“You’re close to it, I think,” she says. “So close. You’ve come so very far, and I’m so very proud of you. You know that, don’t you?”

Gunwoo nods, looking down at his lap.

“You’re the best, best part of my life and you always will be,” she goes on. “I still can’t quite believe that God saw fit to give me a son like you. You were always so good, through it all, and I could not have asked for better. Never could I ask for better. You shine so brightly, son.”

Gunwoo has to wipe at his cheeks again. He nods, accepting her words, even if he can’t quite believe them.

“It is scary, sometimes,” his mother goes on. “When you love someone so much. Heaven knows I’ve done my share of worrying over you. Your mind wraps itself up in all these knots, imagining the worst-case scenarios, or the things that you think would destroy you. It makes it hard to take any risks. To go out on any limbs. But sometimes you have to. Sometimes you have to jump, even with the most precious thing in your hands, and hope that there’s a soft landing. Do you know what I’m saying, my precious son?”

Gunwoo looks at her, trying to see if she knows. If she even suspects. He can’t quite tell. He’s rearranging so many things he thought he knew about his mother this morning that he can’t analyze it properly. All he really knows is that there is more to her than he previously – shamefully – supposed.

Maybe she does know everything that’s been going on. He could never ask her. Surely, he couldn’t. But if she did know…if she already understood…

Who else’s advice could he turn to besides hers? She, who knows him better than anyone, except perhaps Woojin himself.

“But how?” Gunwoo hears himself murmur.

He lifts his eyes to his mother’s and finds her looking at him with such soft affection that it almost hurts.

“With kindness,” she says. “And with courage. You have both of those things. More than I do, and more than most people on this planet. You already have everything you need, son.”

A tear escapes from the corner of his eye. Gunwoo swipes it away hastily.

“You could never do anything that would disappoint me,” Eomma says to him. “Not you or Woojin-ah either.”

Gunwoo inhales sharply.

“And I’ll always be here,” Eomma tells him. “Whenever you need me. No matter what, son.”

She knows. She absolutely knows. There’s no mistaking it.

“What if - ” Gunwoo has trouble getting the words out.

This thing inside his chest is too big, too momentous, for him to speak properly. It feels like the whole weight of the rest of his life depends on him getting the words right, and he never does. He never does. Talking is – talking is - 

“What if it – it - doesn’t work?” he says. “What if I – what if he – he doesn’t - ”

“Oh, my precious son…” she sighs, with a gentle smile. “You have a choice now. Life gives us so few real choices, but this is one of them. You can choose to act on a fear, or on something else. Remember: God has not given you a spirit of fear, but of power and of love.²”

Gunwoo thinks about this. He takes a deep breath, remembering all the times that he was afraid and took action anyway. Why should he be different now? Why should this make him choose a different course, when taking the difficult but honest road has never failed him before?

If Woojin doesn’t feel that way about him…Gunwoo will have to deal with that. As he’s dealt with every other devastation in his life. Woojin wouldn’t abandon him. He’ll still be there. They’ll be awkward with each other. It will hurt. But they will overcome that. Gunwoo will endure the pain of it. He can endure the pain. What he can’t endure is losing Woojin, and keeping secrets from him will eventually make exactly that thing come to pass.

He nods. Then he nods again, more resolutely this time. The lump in his throat eases.

“I understand, Eomma,” he says. He gives her a smile, and she smiles back.

And he does. Now he understands.

When Gunwoo has decided something, he can’t stand waiting. Figuring out what course of action he should take is the hard part. Once he knows, he has to act. Which means he goes straight to his and Woojin’s room.

By this time, morning light is filtering in through their bedroom window with a gray-blue softness. Woojin is flopped on his stomach at an odd angle, drooling into his pillow. One of the rays is striking his cheekbone, cutting a line of brilliant light against his jaw.

Gunwoo watches him sleep, realizing that this may be the last time he gets to watch Woojin like this. It feels precious. He knows the risk he’s taking, and even though he’s settled on taking it, he can’t help but give himself this one last indulgence.

Just in case.

Then, he kneels at Woojin’s bunk. Reaches out and shakes his shoulder gently.

“Hyung.”

Woojin grunts. His mouth twitches a little.

Gently, Gunwoo cards his fingers through Woojin’s hair. “Woojin-hyung.”

“Gunwoo-yah?” Woojin mumbles. He opens one eye. “Wha time ‘sit?”

“A little after seven,” Gunwoo tells him. “I have to tell you something. It’s important.”

Woojin rubs at his eyes, nodding. He yawns hugely and scoots forward to sit at the edge of his bed. “Lemme brush my teeth, hmm? I’ll be right back and then we can talk.”

Gunwoo nods. Woojin goes to their adjoining bathroom, and Gunwoo listens to the sounds of him brushing and swishing and spitting. He feels like he’s standing on the top edge of a fence, teetering precariously between total panic on one side and perfect, tranquil acceptance on the other.

The rest of his life begins right now.

When Woojin comes back, he looks drowsy but focused. “Okay. What do you need to tell hyung?”

Gunwoo takes a deep breath.

“Hyung…” His heart pounds, a forceful lub-dub lub-dub inside his chest. He has Woojin’s full attention, he knows. Woojin stands in front of him, waiting patiently, a question in his eyes.

“Hyung…” Gunwoo starts again. But he shakes his head, stopping again. He takes Woojin’s hands in both of his, leading him to sit on the edge of his bunk. Gunwoo kneels in front of him. It seems like the best way. Standing is so formal, after all, and –

Kneeling there, with Woojin’s beautiful eyes looking down at him, Woojin’s unimaginable soul there for Gunwoo to see, Gunwoo feels a strength he didn’t know he had.

“Hong Woojin.”

Woojin nods, making a questioning sound. Still he waits, so patiently. His hands are strong and solid in Gunwoo’s palms.

“I’m in love with you.”

Woojin gasps softly. Gunwoo scoots forward on his knees, holding onto his hands. The words pour out of him like a fountain. It’s like talking is suddenly no difficulty.  Like he can take the stopper off of his heart now. Like he can let the words flow.

“You’re everything I want. It’s not just what we’ve been doing, or that we live together, or that you’re always with me. It’s who you are. I’ve thought you were wonderful from the day we met and it’s never stopped. It just keeps growing. You’re so wonderful, hyung – you’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met - and you know me – really, really know me - and I just want – I just want to make you happy. I want you to be mine. I want to hold your hand and go with you everywhere, always, and be your person. You might not feel the same, and if you don’t, please, please tell me. Tell me if this isn’t what you want. I’ll never talk about it ever again. But I need you to know. I can’t stand it anymore, keeping it a secret. I’m yours, and not just my body. You have my whole heart. You’ve had it for years now. First I was too stupid to realize it, and then when I knew, I was too afraid to tell you. And now I just can’t keep it from you any longer. You deserve to know. You make me feel…you make me feel like flying, hyung. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted and I can’t imagine anyone else in my life but you. If you want me…if you want me, Hong Woojin, I’m right here for you. And I swear I’ll do whatever I can to make you happy for the rest of your life.”  

Woojin’s lips part. He stares at Gunwoo with a glimmer in his eyes that might be tears welling or might just be the magic of his soul shining through.

And says nothing. It’s like they’ve reversed somehow. Gunwoo is the chatterbox now and Woojin is the quiet one.

“Hyung, say something,” Gunwoo pleads. It comes out wet, stunted by the lump in his throat.

“I cannot believe you just said all that,” is Woojin’s answer.

His eyebrows draw together. His jaw drops. He actually looks angry, and Gunwoo doesn’t really know what to do with that reaction. He fully anticipated that Woojin might not return his feelings. Maybe Woojin would be closed, or uncharacteristically quiet, or even apologetic. An angry Woojin never entered into Gunwoo’s head.

“Why not?” is all that Gunwoo can think of to reply.

Woojin huffs, staring at him with huge, disbelieving eyes. “Because I’ve been trying to – to -” he huffs again. “To fucking woo you for weeks now!”

Gunwoo stares at him. “What?”

Woojin pulls his hands away, flailing his arms out from either side of himself. “I changed my hair for you, for god’s sake!”

“I liked your hair how it was.”

“Gunwoo, that’s not the point! I did so many things!”

“What things?” Gunwoo asks.

“The idea that you don’t even know is - the scenting! God, the scenting! I’ve been scenting you for weeks!”

Gunwoo doesn’t have the faintest idea what scenting is. He says so.

Woojin makes a frustrated sound. He looks like he wants to tear his hair out. “Did you not read any of the articles I left there for you? I had it all spelled out!”

He gestures at their desk, where there are indeed a few haphazardly stacked medical journals with titles like Alpha Beta Omega Today and Biopheromones Monthly.

Gunwoo blinks. He was supposed to be reading those?

“Scenting is when an alpha leaves their stuff around so that an omega starts to smell like them! It’s how you let your omega know you want to claim them one day! It’s supposed to be romantic!”

Gunwoo is so stunned by this that he can only close his eyes and try to collect himself for a second. Try to reprocess his whole world.

But there’s more, apparently.

“I’ve been challenging any alpha who touches you! Surely you noticed that?? You had to pull me off a guy just a few days ago!”

“That was in the ring, hyung.”

“It doesn’t matter! They touched you! I was supposed to let that go?” Woojin cries. “I got you flowers, too! Weeks ago!”

“But those were for my win,” Gunwoo says.

But he remembers that the flowers were actually something that did strike him as odd. That made him question. The flowers….he did wonder what Woojin meant by them. He really did.

But in the end, he let his own doubt decide for him. Eomma was right. He’s been leading himself from a place of fear.

Gunwoo really doesn’t know what to do now. None of this is going how he imagined it might go. And that would certainly figure, wouldn’t it? Woojin has been taking him by surprise since the very beginning. From the very moment they met in the ring. That’s part of what Gunwoo loves about him.

And Woojin is angry now. He’s angry because…. because…

“You like me?” Gunwoo asks. He looks Woojin over, searching for any sign of rejection. Finding none. “The same way I like you?”

“Gunwoo,” Woojin sighs, looking at him flatly. “What the hell are you even saying? I live with you. I love your mother like my own mother. Well, not like my own mother – you know that story, you know what I mean – Jesus, that’s not the point either. We’ve been having sex all this time, and you made me present as an alpha! How the hell could you possibly think that I didn’t like you? I fucking love you, Gunwoo-yah. I don’t want any other alpha near you.”

Gunwoo starts to feel tingly in his hands. His feet. It feels like he’s getting lighter, like his whole body could levitate right off of the floor.

He really can’t help himself. He throws himself into Woojin’s arms, hitting his chest hard, and Woojin lets out a little oof of surprise but nevertheless puts his arms around him. He holds Gunwoo close and doesn’t let go.

“I love you too,” Gunwoo says. “I love you so much, hyung. I don’t want anyone else forever. Only you.”

“What the hell took you so long, then?” Woojin asks, but Gunwoo can hear his laughter in it. Can hear his tears too. “Throw a guy a bone sometime, huh?”

Gunwoo won’t let him go, but he does pull back enough to look at his face. “Hyung, you never kissed me.”

Woojin turns pink at once. He swallows, looking anywhere but at Gunwoo’s eyes.

“Why?” Gunwoo presses. “Why didn’t you ever kiss me?”

“Because…because!” Woojin scratches at his hair. Gestures vaguely with one hand. “I didn’t want our first kiss to be…To be just because we were having sex. I wanted it to be romantic!” He sighs and pulls Gunwoo close. His next words come soft and warm into Gunwoo’s ear. “I wanted it to be perfect, baby. You deserve that.”

Gunwoo feels himself grinning like a fool.

Woojin pulls back suddenly, holding Gunwoo by the shoulders.

“I didn’t want you to think I wasn’t serious!” Woojin goes on. “And apparently that made you think I didn’t love you – which is crazy, you know, absolutely crazy – you are batshit insane, Kim Gunwoo - you’re lucky you’re so damned cute – and I kept waiting for the right moment but the right moment never seemed to come – and then - ”

Sometimes Woojin talks too much, Gunwoo thinks, and kisses him.

There’s a split second where Woojin just freezes. But Gunwoo trusts him. It’s just surprise. He keeps their mouths pressed together, a bell chiming continually in his mind that says finally. Finally.

Then Woojin surges forward, cupping Gunwoo’s face between his palms. Gunwoo is smiling into the kiss – he can’t help it, and it’s probably making things difficult for Woojin – but Woojin just keeps kissing him, soft but firm too, and Gunwoo can feel that he means it. And then Woojin’s hands are sliding down his sides and to his waist, trapping Gunwoo in place between his thighs. Gunwoo’s smile eases away, taken over by desire. It’s everything Gunwoo ever wished for. The rightness of it. The fulfillment. It feels like the first time he put on boxing gloves. The first time he ever won a match. Like the first time he met Woojin, when the world shifted itself into a brilliant new configuration - a configuration that finally worked for him. One where he felt a bond. Belonging.

Woojin makes a sound and pulls Gunwoo impossibly closer. The kiss gets slower, softer, and Woojin starts opening up Gunwoo’s mouth in small movements.

The slide of their open mouths moving against each other makes Gunwoo feel like he’s melting. It’s really not possible for him to stop. Nothing short of the world falling down around them could motivate him to stop.

When they eventually break apart, it’s reluctant. Woojin keeps pressing little kisses to Gunwoo’s mouth. Gunwoo keeps chasing his lips. Finally, they have to come up for air, and Woojin presses his forehead against Gunwoo’s.

“I love you so much,” he breathes. His voice is that same gentle murmur that Gunwoo remembers from every one of the hardest times in his adult life. Each of those times, Woojin was there, keeping him from losing control. From losing himself. Every time. “Believe me. Please, believe me.”

“I do,” Gunwoo tells him. “I really do.”

He doesn’t doubt. He’s not afraid. Not anymore. He cups the back of Woojin’s head in his palm; his hair is thick and soft under Gunwoo’s touch.

They stay like that, forehead to forehead, just breathing each other’s breath.

“I love you too,” Gunwoo says again. The words glitter in his mind.

Woojin’s hands clench down into Gunwoo’s shirt, nodding.

Gunwoo opens his eyes. “Hyung.”

“Hmmm?” Woojin opens his eyes too.

“What do those medical journals of yours say about claiming bites?”

Woojin leans back a bit. Gunwoo can see him smile, and it’s a beautiful, fierce, feral thing.

“Claiming bites? ….Oh, Gunwoo-yah…” Woojin’s voice is a low rumble, waking up all the places in Gunwoo that crave his touch. “Ask me what they say about babies.”

Gunwoo rears back, astonished, and Woojin smiles wider at him. Raises his eyebrows a few times in an eager little bounce.

Gunwoo imagines the rest of their lives unfolding into the future, bright and warm. He imagines children who grow up the way he and Woojin never did. Imagines the sounds of their happy laughter as they sit on Woojin’s knee, never knowing a world where both of their parents don’t love them dearly, or treat them well.

He can’t wait.

The End