Chapter Text
Saturday mornings were the only time Wooyoung allowed himself to pretend he was ordinary.
No board meetings. No investor calls. No fitting schedules from Paris, Milan, or Tokyo. No Mingi barging into his penthouse with three coffees in hand and ten new crises before nine in the morning. Just silence, rare and expensive, draped over his private apartment like cashmere.
The city below was already awake, the distant hum of traffic crawling through Seoul like a living vein, but up here, on the top floor of the sleek black high-rise that housed the headquarters of Ligati, the world felt muffled. Safe. Untouchable.
Wooyoung liked it that way.
He sat cross-legged on the deep cream sofa by the window, a ceramic cup of tea warming his hands. He wore loose grey lounge pants and an oversized black knit that had fallen off one shoulder, exposing the pale line of his protruding collarbone. His hair was still messy from sleep, soft black strands falling over his forehead. Without the sharp tailoring, the gloves, the expensive scent blockers, the mask, and the dark glasses, he looked younger than the press would ever imagine the elusive WY to be.
Human, even.
His tablet rested on his knee, screen glowing with the latest campaign reports for Ligati's upcoming autumn collection.
Sales were up again. International engagement had tripled overnight after a feature in Nkae Couture. Their signature structured coats had sold out in London within six hours. Another success.
Another reason for people to ask questions.
Who was WY?
Why did the founder of the fastest-growing menswear brand in the luxury market never show his face?
Why was Ligati built so ruthlessly around themes of masculinity, dominance, clean silhouettes, and power, when the mind behind it remained invisible?
Wooyoung let out a soft, humorless laugh and took a sip of his tea.
If only they knew.
In a world divided so mercilessly by secondary gender, anonymity was not simply privacy.
For him, it was survival.
Alphas sat at the top of the world, as they always had, stronger, dominant, born into a society that bent itself around their presence. Betas moved through the middle, ordinary and largely untouched by the politics of instinct and pheromones. And omegas...
Wooyoung's mouth tightened.
Omegas were never allowed to simply be people in this world.
They were fantasies first. Bodies first. Instinct first. Everything else came after.
People liked to call them precious, as though that made the cruelty kinder. As though wrapping a cage in silk made it any less of a cage. Omegas were described as soft, delicate, made to be cherished, but everyone knew what those words really meant. Weak. delicate. Meant to be claimed. Meant to be bent into devotion until they forgot where their own edges ended.
Their value was always measured in relation to an alpha. Never by themselves. Never for themselves.
What comfort could they offer? What kind of pleasure? What type of heirs? What type of loyalty? What kind of submission?
That was all the world ever wanted to know.
Female omegas were granted a prettier kind of objectification. People sought them out, adorned them with the language of marriage, legacy, family. They were still reduced, still cornered into roles they had not chosen, but at least the violence was dressed up as reverence.
Male omegas, however, were denied even that illusion.
There was no soft fantasy waiting for them. No respectable place carved out in society's cruel little hierarchy. Male omegas were spoken of in lowered voices and filthy assumptions. They were an object of desire, stripped of dignity. Something an alpha could ruin in private and disown in public. Something to satisfy hunger, not stand beside as an equal. Not to be loved openly. Certainly not to be followed.
Wooyoung had known that since he was young enough for the truth to sink into his bones and stay there.
That no matter how clever he was, how sharp, how ambitious, his secondary gender would always be the first thing the world used against him.
If people ever found out what he was, they would not see the founder of Ligati. They would not see the man who had built an empire out of instinct, obsession, and sheer bloody will. They would not see the sleepless nights, the ruthless decisions, the talent, the hunger, the passion.
They would only see an omega.
A male omega.
And in their eyes, that would make him lesser before he had even opened his mouth.
It would not matter how much power he held. They would still imagine him on his knees before they ever pictured him at the head of a table.
That was why Wooyoung hid.
That was why WY could exist, but not him.
Because the world would accept a ghost before it ever accepted the truth: that someone they had been taught to see as weak, submissive, and consumable had built something untouchable with his own hands.
A custom pheromone suppressor patch rested against the gland at the nape of his neck even now, despite the privacy of his home. Years of habit made him keep it on longer than necessary. The patch dulled the rich sweetness of his honeyed jasmine scent and replaced it with something musky, sharper, more commanding, something closer to an alpha. Enough to confuse strangers. Enough to protect him.
Enough to let WY exist.
Only one person knew the truth. Mingi, the only alpha Wooyoung kept in his life. His oldest friend, his co-founder, his anchor, and the most infuriating person in his life.
The public knew Mingi.
Everyone knew Mingi.
With his sculpted face, irreverent grin, endless stream of luxurious photos, and shameless flirting with every camera pointed in his direction, Song Mingi was the perfect distraction. He was the visible pulse of Ligati, the charming co-founder who appeared at launch parties and press dinners wearing silk shirts half-unbuttoned and a watch worth more than most apartments. Journalists adored him. Investors bet on his raw pull over the general public. Customers wanted to be him.
Mingi wore attention like it had been tailored for him.
Wooyoung wore secrecy like an armor.
It had always been that way.
Mingi had been the first person to look at Wooyoung's sketches, his fabric samples, his impossible sketchbooks full of cuts and silhouettes and obsession, and say, Let's build it, then.
No hesitation. No fear. Just that ridiculous grin and that unwavering certainty that made Wooyoung want to throttle him and trust him in the same breath.
He was friendly where Wooyoung was sassy. Flashy where Wooyoung was guarded. He loved the camera, loved the crowd, loved turning every room into his stage. Wooyoung, meanwhile, preferred the shadows. Preferred watching over speaking. Preferred being the hand that built things rather than the face that sold them.
And somehow, impossibly, they worked.
Mingi had been there before Ligati became Ligati. Before the investors. Before the campaigns. Before the world started whispering WY's name like it meant something untouchable.
He had seen Wooyoung at his absolute worst and stayed anyway. Stayed through the silence, through the sharp edges, through the days when Wooyoung had been more wound than person.
If Mingi and his family had not pulled him out of the darkness back then, Wooyoung knew—deep in the quiet, ugly parts of himself that still remembered—he would not be alive now. He would not have made it to this point. There would be no Ligati. No WY. No carefully built empire for the world to envy.
Wooyoung owed Mingi his life. It was as simple and as devastating as that.
Maybe that was why Mingi had always been the exception to every rule. The one person Wooyoung never truly shut out. The one person allowed to see the ruin beneath the polish, the fear beneath the control, the man beneath the myth.
That was the thing about Mingi. He was ridiculous, dramatic, impossible to manage, and often unbearably loud, but he had loved Wooyoung enough to drag him back into the light when Wooyoung had long since stopped looking for it himself.
And every time someone asked, "But who is WY, really?"
Mingi would laugh, sip his champagne, and say something maddeningly vague like, A genius with bad social skills and a prickly personality.
Wooyoung had allowed that narrative to live because it served him.
He had never needed applause.
He had only ever needed control.
The tablet buzzed in his hand.
An incoming message flashed across the screen.
Mingi:
Don't tell me you're working already. It's 8:14 in the morning. Even demons sleep in on Saturdays.
Wooyoung rolled his eyes and typed back with one thumb.
Wooyoung:
Some of us built an empire. Others are the decorative face of it.
Three dots appeared instantly.
Mingi:
Decorative and beloved. Anyway, don't forget the partner meeting on Monday at eleven.
And before you complain... yes, you need to be there.
This one matters.
Wooyoung stared at the text for a second longer than necessary.
Usually, he stayed far away from partner meetings unless it was necessary. Wooyoung was more than happy to leave public relations to Mingi, keeping himself focused on what actually mattered.
But not this time.
And Mingi had made sure of it.
He already knew what this one meant.
Choi San.
The current UFC world champion. The nation's newest obsession. Twenty-six years old, brutal in the ring, magnetic outside it, and rising so fast he was starting to eclipse even veteran names in endorsements and media pull. Brands loved him because he sold a fantasy no advertising team could manufacture: discipline, masculinity, danger, devotion. He wasn't just a fighter.
He was a symbol.
And Ligati had signed him.
Not as a one-time face for a campaign, but as the frontman of Ligati's most ambitious launch yet and their official entry into the sports sector. A new campaign, darker and more physical than anything they had done before. If it succeeded, Ligati would stop being merely a luxury menswear phenomenon and become something global, more dominant, more impossible to ignore.
Wooyoung had opposed it from the beginning.
Not the expansion. Never the expansion. He was the one who knew how to scale a brand without diluting it.
What he had opposed was him.
An actual MMA fighter.
Too obvious. Too expected. Too raw.
Too pretty.
That part irritated Wooyoung most of all.
Because every time he glanced at the portfolio Mingi had shoved at him, he felt that faint, treacherous heat settle low in his stomach. A slight tingle, a quiet pull, something warm and unwelcome every time those stupid dimples and those dark hooded eyes stared back at him from glossy paper.
Annoying. Deeply annoying.
At the board meeting, he had said as much in a tone that turned the whole room cold.
"We are not selling sweat," he had said flatly. "We are selling silhouette. Luxury. Precision. If you put a cage fighter in the center of the campaign, you risk reducing the brand to brute force."
Mingi, sprawled carelessly in his chair with a grin that said he had come prepared to be insufferable, had pushed San's portfolio across the table.
"This," he had said, tapping the cover page, "is not brute force. This is controlled violence. There's a difference."
Wooyoung had not touched the file.
"A difference that the public will not care about."
"The public already cares," Mingi had countered. "That's exactly the point. Choi San is the sweetheart of the MMA world right now. He's a champion, but he's polished. Fans love him, the media love him, and brands want him. He's disciplined, handsome, intense, and somehow still polite enough that every mother would probably want him for her daughter."
A few board members had laughed under their breath.
Wooyoung had not.
Mingi kept going, leaning forward with his elbows on the table.
"We want Ligati to be the front runner in the sports sector? Then we need a face and persona that makes sense. Not some model pretending to know hunger. Not some actor pretending to know strength. Someone real. Someone who already moves like an apex predator."
Wooyoung remembered the irritation that had tightened across his shoulders then.
Real.
As though men like Choi San had a monopoly on what masculinity looked like.
As though elegance born from suffering was somehow lesser than violence performed under bright lights.
He had still refused.
However, when the numbers came in; market projections, audience overlap, engagement forecasts, media value, international reach. The board had grown greedy in that familiar, inevitable way.
And Mingi, traitor that he was, had looked almost gleeful when the votes shifted.
So yes, Wooyoung knew why this mattered.
He still did not have to like it.
With an exasperated sigh, he had signed the approval alongside Mingi's.
Another message lit up the screen, breaking his train of thought.
Mingi:
Also don't be weird. I know how much you hate alphas.
A beat later:
Mingi:
And don't glare at our model like he personally ruined your life.
Wooyoung snorted.
Wooyoung:
I haven't even met him.
Mingi:
Exactly. Try to preserve that innocence.
Wooyoung groaned and dropped his head back against the sofa.
"Great," he muttered to the empty room. "Another pain-in-the-ass alpha."
That was the problem, really.
Wooyoung had never liked alphas.
Not because every single one of them was awful, but because too many of them moved through the world with the same instinctive entitlement. Some were loud about it. Some wrapped it in expensive manners and polished smiles. Some hid it so well that people mistook it for charm. But underneath, it was always there, that quiet certainty that the world would bend for them if they pushed hard enough.
Wooyoung despised that.
He had clawed for every ounce of power he had. Built Ligati with his own hands, his own mind, his own obsession, all while hiding the very thing that would make the world question his right to lead it. Men born into power had always unsettled him.
And Choi San should have been exactly that kind of man.
A champion alpha. Beautiful. Famous. Strong enough that people were already rewriting entire brand strategies around his name.
But the more Wooyoung looked, the less neatly San fit into the box he had prepared for him.
He was polite with fans. Measured in interviews. Careful with reporters. Never crude. Never thoughtless. He always knew what to say, when to bow, when to smile.
That should have made him easier to dismiss.
Instead, it made Wooyoung uneasy.
Because men like that were dangerous in an entirely different way.
There was something in San's eyes that kept catching him off guard. Wooyoung had noticed it even in still photographs and silent clips. Something dark beneath all that polish. Something banked down and restrained. Haunted, almost. Predatory in a way that made his instincts bristle.
As if Choi San had something feral in him and had simply learned how to put it on a leash.
Wooyoung did not trust men like that.
More importantly, he did not trust the strange, restless pull that came with every thought of him.
That was the part he hated.
The way his attention lingered too long on the curve of San's mouth. The severe line of his shoulders. The dimples that softened absolutely nothing. Those hooded eyes that looked warm one second and dangerous the next.
A flicker of heat coiled low in his stomach again, uninvited and unwanted.
Wooyoung scowled at the skyline.
Absolutely not.
He knew better than to trust instinct where alphas were concerned.
Especially one like Choi San.
Whatever charm the man had, whatever polish, whatever devastating public image had half the industry tripping over itself to secure him, Wooyoung would not be swayed by it.
He would attend the meeting. He would do what was necessary for the brand. He would make his assessment with a clear head and a professional distance.
And then, if fate had even a scrap of mercy left, he would hand the rest of the ordeal back to Mingi.
Still, as he lifted his tea again, now lukewarm in his hands, Wooyoung could not shake the feeling that Monday's meeting would undo something in him.
Not because he wanted it to.
But because some instincts arrived long before reason, and every one of his was already bracing for the kind of trouble that came wearing a fighter's smile and the name Choi San.
Then there was a ping from his work email.
Wooyoung did not even need to check the sender to know who it was.
Obviously, only Mingi would think normal working hours were a personal suggestion rather than a rule.
He clicked it open anyway.
From: Mingi
Subject: check it outtt
Cc'd : Ligati's Production
It's the latest preview of Choi San.
Attached below was a video file.
Wooyoung stared at it for a second too long.
"Fuck," he muttered under his breath.
He should not.
He absolutely should not.
And yet his hand moved before the better part of his brain could stop it.
The video opened.
There San was shirtless, muscles pulled taut beneath flushed skin, body coiled in the middle of motion as he aimed for a strike. Every line of him looked deliberate. Violent. Controlled. His shoulders flexed. His abdomen tightened. His eyes were sharp, dark, fixed with the kind of focus that made him look less like a man and more like a weapon.
Something in Wooyoung stirred.
Hard.
Ugly.
Immediate.
His heart started beating too fast.
Heat rose beneath his skin in a way that made him want to throw the tablet across the room and then maybe himself after it. He could not stop staring. Could not stop the image from sinking under his skin, branding itself there in all the worst places.
Shirtless.
Sweat-slick.
Beautiful in that dangerous, infuriating way men like Choi San had no right to be.
Wooyoung shut the video off far too late.
His pulse was still racing.
He was fucking screwed.
Then another message came through.
Mingi:
I know he's 3000% your type.
Should we ask the stylist to do nude instead?
Ahhahahaha
Wooyoung stared at the screen in mute horror.
Then he typed back with savage force.
Wooyoung:
Die.
Wooyoung stared at the screen, heart still beating too fast, and realised with sudden, sinking clarity that Monday was going to be a disaster.
Because if Choi San could do this to him through a screen—
Wooyoung did not want to know what would happen in person.