Chapter Text
STARFALL
"And my hopes, they are high, I must keep them small.
Though I try to resist, I still want it all.
I see swimming pools, and living rooms and aeroplanes.
I see a little house on the hill and children's names.
I see quiet nights poured over ice and Tanqueray.
But everything is shattering and it's my mistake."
Fools, Troye Sivan
Chapter 1: Positive
The entertainment industry had always followed two precise, unshakable rules:
- Forget who you are, become whatever the fans want you to be.
- Never reveal your secondary gender.
Companies claimed it was all about protecting their artists’ privacy, but even if nobody ever said it out loud, there was a more important truth behind those rules: a mysterious, perfect, untouchable idol sold far better than one who showed the world who they truly were.
Park Seonghwa had followed those rules without complaint for years. His life as an idol had always mattered more than anything else. Any sacrifice felt insignificant compared to the enormous privilege of making his dream come true in a world that saw him and every other omega as pretty, shining objects. Objects to be used whenever instinct took over body and soul. Objects unworthy of the respect automatically granted to people whose secondary gender opened the door to power, abuse, and all kinds of horrors so easy to ignore when your life was full of glamour, world tours, and the relief of never having to reveal the biological aspect that determined so much of a person’s life.
Even if his nature forced him to rely on suppressants so strong they often left him with pounding headaches and other unpleasant side effects, it was still only a small price to pay for someone who belonged to one of the most famous idol groups in Korea and the rest of the world.
And maybe that had been the problem. Maybe the problem was that Seonghwa wasn’t satisfied with that life anymore. Maybe the problem was forgetting that people like him had no right to dream about the kind of happiness Kim Hongjoong had made real for him.
Because Hongjoong knew who he was, of course he did. Everyone in ATEEZ had revealed their secondary genders to one another as a sign of loyalty and trust between members. Everyone knew that Seonghwa, Wooyoung, and Yeosang were omegas. Everyone protected them instinctively, and they were the only people who had ever sensed the floral, fruity scent characteristic of the three omegas.
All ATEEZ members were close, they had lived together in the same dorms for years and from the beginning, their group had felt like family, not just coworkers. All of them took care of each other, that wasn’t strange but at a certain point, Seonghwa had noticed that his bond with Hongjoong was slightly different. Maybe because they were roommates. Maybe because they were the eldest. Or maybe just because they were destined somehow, destined to be more than captain and right hand man of the group.
And whatever existed between Seonghwa and Hongjoong had started innocently or at least that was what both repeated whenever the guilt became too heavy and the fear of being discovered drove them into each other’s arms at night in the bedroom they had shared long before debut.
Even before any of that, they had already realized it was impossible to stop looking at each other. Sometimes the fans noticed too, and Hongjoong and Seonghwa had to endure endless teasing from the other members, who never missed the opportunity to call them “mom and dad” during interviews.
There was something about them, a kind of bond so undeniable that made their hearts burn. And they had fought it, of course they had. They resisted their feelings so fiercely that now fans constantly claimed there was something awkward between them.
Behind the scenes, however, inside the bedroom that felt like a tiny universe built only for the two of them, they were affectionate and gentle with each other. They smiled freely. Looked at one another without fear. They let themselves exist honestly because nobody else was watching. They had learned to love each other in silence without giving that love a label they didn’t need. And they knew they had each other. No matter what happened, at the end of the day they would always be able to laugh together, protected by the solitude of their room.
That was how they spent their first four years as a group: trying to hide a wildfire burning completely out of control beneath their skin that eventually became impossible to contain.
Everything had started without much thought the moment the other’s closeness began igniting a silent, agonizing desire neither of them could suppress anymore. And once they realized what was happening, they simply let it happen. Because something deep inside them whispered that fighting fate any longer was pointless. It happened during one of the first vacation weeks the company had allowed them to take. The two of them traveled to the United States together, where Hongjoong rented an isolated luxury villa in the middle of nowhere.
During that time, Seonghwa had decided to take a break from his suppressants and as if his body had been waiting to rebel against the chemicals for years, his heat struck with the force of a restrained hurricane determined to destroy him completely.
Seonghwa had never felt anything like it before: the unbearable heat seemed to burn him alive, the pain was horrifying, and for a moment he genuinely thought he might die. Then Hongjoong arrived. Hongjoong, carrying the comforting scent of cedarwood and honey which wrapped him, and the pain eased, only slightly, but enough. When Hongjoong placed a hand against his forehead, Seonghwa thought maybe he could survive it after all.
“Hwa… hey, what’s wrong?”
“Heat,” Seonghwa whispered, and Hongjoong’s cheeks flushed instantly.
“Do you want me to leave?” Hongjoong asked softly.
“No, no!” Seonghwa pleaded desperately. “Your scent… your… Joongie, stay with me…”
And that had been enough, Hongjoong stayed. He held Seonghwa tightly while a dangerous thought crept into the darkest corner of his mind. Had he done this on purpose? Had Hongjoong himself been secretly waiting for this exact moment? Because if something happened between them at that moment, it wouldn’t truly be his fault, right? It was the heat, the pheromones. It was just instinct; no one could ever rebel against instinct.
Hongjoong felt sick with himself for even thinking about it. His entire life, he had despised the ideology of uncontrollable, beast-like alphas. He had promised himself he would never look at omegas the way most alphas did. But the moment Seonghwa’s jasmine and strawberry scent hit him fully, Hongjoong thought maybe he was no different from the men he hated.
“I’m here, Hwa. I won’t leave,” he promised, silently swearing that nothing would happen.
He would stay by Seonghwa’s side until the end because Seonghwa was his best friend. And yes, Hongjoong was hopelessly, painfully in love with him but that didn’t matter. Seonghwa mattered. Seonghwa would always matter more.
“Joongie… it hurts,” Seonghwa whimpered weakly. “It hurts so much…”
“What do you need, Hwa?”
“Joongie… I…” Seonghwa trembled violently beneath his hands. “Touch me?”
Hongjoong felt heat flood his own face. His skin suddenly burned just as hot as Seonghwa’s.
“Hwa… you’re not yourself right now…”
“I trust Joongie,” Seonghwa whispered shakily. “Joongie would never hurt me…”
That confession made Hongjoong feel blessed and cursed all at once. Seonghwa trusted him. Seonghwa was placing his most vulnerable self entirely in Hongjoong’s hands, and that was both beautiful and terrifying because Hongjoong no longer knew whether he truly could avoid hurting him. Still, he closed his eyes and obeyed and the moment his hands touched Seonghwa’s skin, he was lost. Seonghwa was demanding; Seonghwa knew what he wanted, what his body needed. And something in Hongjoong’s body had known how to satisfy him, too.
That had been Seonghwa’s shortest heat, the first one he had ever spent with an alpha. When the last clouds of his heat finally began to fade away, Seonghwa had felt real fear. Fear that he had ruined everything: their friendship, the group, their career. Fear that Hongjoong would tell him he had only done what any alpha would do when an omega willingly offered himself to be taken the way Seonghwa had done.
When Seonghwa finally felt like himself again, he realized Hongjoong had cleaned his body and dressed him in comfortable pajamas covered in little stars. Seonghwa was surrounded by soft blankets, pillows, and plushies of Ddeongbyeoli and Jjoongrami, the very characters from the merchandise that sold so well among their fans.
Seonghwa’s heart had felt enormous and terrified all at once. Because it meant Hongjoong had taken care of him. Because it meant that even though his body ached from everything they had done, Hongjoong had cared about his comfort until the very last second.
Hongjoong had found him like that, buried beneath blankets, staring blankly into space. Seonghwa felt that Hongjoong’s eyes did not look at him any differently, but his cheeks flushed terribly anyway, and every part of his body screamed that he wanted to sink into the closeness and scent of the alpha who sat beside him.
“Do you feel better?” Hongjoong asked with an endless tenderness that made Seonghwa blush all over again.
“It’s over,” Hwa said softly. “It wasn’t so terrible thanks to you, Joongie.”
Hongjoong smiled and gently took Seonghwa’s hand. The omega intertwined their fingers together, and the two of them smiled as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
“I don’t want to forget that this happened,” Hongjoong had said with a shy smile. “I didn’t do it just because of the pheromones or because it’s what an alpha does. I… I’ve been in love with you for so long that after what we… what we did, I don’t want and I can’t keep hiding it anymore…”
Seonghwa’s heart had pounded so hard. That was a confession he had dreamed of for years, ever since they had both been trainees, ever since they had shared the first tiny room assigned to them before debut. Seonghwa had fallen in love with Hongjoong’s leadership, his determination, his talent, with the way he seemed almost untouchable to everyone else yet always had a soft smile reserved just for him. That confession was an echo of his own heart.
“Joongie? Really?” he had asked in a weak voice.
“Really. And you?”
Seonghwa blushed a little harder before looking into the eyes of his best friend, of the alpha who refused to be like everyone else, and he smiled. He smiled because his impossible dream was real. He smiled because, at that moment, he did not care about tempting fate.
“I’ve been in love with you for so long that I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but… I don’t want to hide it either, Joongie. Not from you.”
And that had been everything. From that day on, the two of them had sworn never to hide their hearts from each other, even though they both knew they still had to hide from everyone else, even from the rest of their bandmates. Both knew that romantic relationships between members were more than forbidden. They both knew that one wrong step could destroy not only them, but also the careers of the six boys who, over the years, had become family.
And yes, they knew they had been selfish, because it was so easy to forget all of that in the solitude of their room. Now Hongjoong searched for Seonghwa’s scent hidden beneath the expensive soap he used, beneath the perfume and stage makeup. Now Hongjoong knew how to calm him when suppressants could no longer contain some of the symptoms of his heat. And Seonghwa could also recognize that devastating instinct of an alpha who wanted to protect what he loved. Seonghwa knew now that, although Hongjoong was intense and powerful on stage, he was also terribly gentle at three in the morning while the two of them laughed and kissed with the lights turned off.
The two of them had spent three years like that. Three years that their fans had called “the MATZ divorce era” because they could not even look each other in the eyes when there was a camera nearby. The two of them had to make sure no one noticed. Both knew that a single glance could betray that enormous secret which, over the years, had become a talisman.
Those three years passed in careful distance and flawless performances in front of the media during interviews and live shows. Three years of loving each other in silence without even their bandmates suspecting anything, or at least not enough for anyone to say it out loud.
But neither of them had counted on how exhausting it would be to be in the middle of a world tour, constant flights, countless hotels, and a new stage every night. Neither of them had considered that forgetting suppressants for a single day, sometimes two, could trigger that catastrophe which, like every catastrophe in history, arrived without warning.
It was Seonghwa who discovered it first, not because he showed symptoms at the beginning, but because Hongjoong would not stop repeating the same thing he had said that afternoon in his room: you smell different, softer.
That alone was enough to make Seonghwa’s blood run completely cold. Because alphas knew, that was what everyone always said. An alpha knew when your scent changed. And what was the main reason an omega’s scent could change?
Seonghwa felt as though the ground beneath his feet shifted in seismic waves that erased the smile from his lips and left him dizzy. No, of course not. Hongjoong and he had been careful. Hongjoong and he had been responsible. No, of course not. Maybe he was simply experiencing hormonal imbalance; that was very common among idols because of the overwhelming number of suppressants they had to use. Yes, it was the cause of everything, it had to be.
“Seonghwa, do you think…?” Hongjoong asked, his voice full of worry, perhaps understanding what was happening inside his beloved’s mind.
“No, of course not,” Seonghwa said, as though saying it aloud could make the universe hear his plea. “Don’t say that. Don’t even think about it.”
“Hwa, we need to be sure,” Hongjoong said, because of course he was the captain, and the damn captain always thought about practical things first.
“I’ll go to the doctor tomorrow. I’ll ask our manager to make an appointment with an omega specialist,” Seonghwa said. “It must be a hormonal imbalance, Joongie. During the tour I forgot to take my suppressants for a few days, but I was so distracted that…”
“You stopped taking the suppressants?” Hongjoong asked quietly.
“One day, maybe two,” Seonghwa answered in a faint voice, and that made both fall silent because deep down, they knew that maybe, just maybe, Seonghwa would need to see a very different kind of doctor.
“Hwa, we need to take a test,” Hongjoong suggested, once again using his most serious, I’m the leader and I always know what’s best for you tone.
“Now?” Seonghwa asked fearfully, raw terror flooding his chest.
“It’s better to know what we’re dealing with, Hwa. Better than uncertainty.”
Seonghwa looked at him in silence, his eyes glassy because he was holding back tears. Hongjoong had said we’re dealing with, not just Seonghwa alone, both of them.
“Joongie, I can’t…” he said, tears falling down his cheeks.
“Maybe you can’t alone, but the two of us, Hwa, we’ll do it together, okay?”
Hongjoong pulled him into his arms, and Seonghwa began to cry uncontrollably. The omega was terrified because idols caught up in scandals like that were treated horribly, and an unplanned pregnancy could destroy not only the group or their careers, but their entire lives. Seonghwa did not want to know. He did not want to deal with any of it. But Hongjoong stayed there. Despite the suspicions, despite the fear, Hongjoong was not accusing him of sleeping with another alpha or implying that the hypothetical baby probably was not his.
No, his alpha was holding him close before whispering that he would order a pregnancy test online. It’s better to know, Hongjoong kept repeating, and Seonghwa slowly began to believe that maybe he was right.
The minutes until the delivery arrived felt endless. Hongjoong had asked for the package to be left at the reception desk of their apartment complex; he was not going to risk someone starting rumors because of this. When the receptionist called their apartment to let him know he had a package waiting, Hongjoong simply went downstairs to pick it up. And when he came back to Seonghwa, he noticed how pale the omega looked, and his first thought was not we’re screwed but rather, could this kind of stress hurt the baby?
“Do you want me to stay with you?” Hongjoong asked while reading the instructions for the test without moving away from Seonghwa’s side.
“I can do it alone,” the omega whispered, thinking that if Hongjoong was being strong for both, then he had to follow suit.
“I’ll be here the whole time, Hwa, okay?” Hongjoong said, hugging him gently. “You’re not alone. You’ll never be alone.”
Seonghwa nodded and stepped into the bathroom, wishing for the impossible, but something deep inside him already knew there was no fixing this anymore. Suddenly, his body itself seemed to be screaming that it was certain that the word he refused to say out loud was real.
With his heart pounding wildly, Seonghwa followed the instructions on the test box, and now all he could do was sit and wait. Those were the longest minutes of his existence. The omega sank onto the shower floor as the seconds dragged on, and Seonghwa felt like he could barely breathe.
Finally, his phone alarm went off, telling him it was time to check the result. There was no turning back now. He had to know. His eyes searched for the test trembling in his hand, and when he saw the two colored lines that seemed to mock him, Seonghwa felt as though the world had stopped moving.
Positive.
Of course it was positive.
Seonghwa had tempted fate by daring to have both the life of a famous idol and the existence of an omega deeply loved. His greed had been sinful enough for the gods to decide to punish him this way.
Positive.
What was he supposed to do now?