Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Inside the vehicle, the entirety of the journey passed as quietly as possible. Aside from the sounds of breathing that occasionally filled the cabin, the orange glow of the streetlamps and the advertisements playing on the screens of tall buildings were their only companions.

The hours-long flight, the shiver that the climate change brought to the skin, and the annoying lump of feeling trapped inside the exact same clothes for a whole day were frustrating. It tightened Phuwin's throat, causing his eyes to close and open heavily, dazed with sleep.

Even though it was the middle of the night, the streets were crowded and dazzling. The discomfort of arriving in an unfamiliar place was hidden in every street turn, on every corner, around the shops, and in the ethnic features of the people's complexions.

Phuwin tried his best to define this with the familiar feeling of being a foreigner in a country he was merely visiting for a short duration. After all, the taste on his palate resembled that; his brain was stubbornly labeling it with the excuse that if he just took a few more breaths, there would be a familiar place to return to.

But the pressure in his heart was the greatest proof that the illusion he was playing on himself wasn't real. There is no turning back, I must not be afraid, I chose this. The sentences were constantly repeating inside him.

He couldn't deny that it felt highly melancholic. Terrifying, causing him to pull his shoulders in to shrink himself.

The world was too big, and it was as if he were still trying to hide back into his own body.

Yet, it could also naturally be a play of his imbalanced hormones and exhaustion. Deep down, Phuwin hoped it was exactly that.

Time would make one get used to it, time would teach one to surpass the pain, and time would surely give him the courage to create his own space in the place where he would live.

Pond didn't touch his phone. His hands were in his lap, and his eyes wandered as intently as his very first time across the buildings that owned the lights flowing past his face. Perhaps he wanted to understand what Phuwin felt when looking at them; wasn't the power of empathy man's strongest ability?

The blue light on his glasses passed the billboards like a film strip, and as Pond lightly bit his lip, he grew annoyed at how they were always bright enough to hurt one's irises.

As the streets tangled together, as eyelids grew heavy and chests slowly rose and fell, home was approached. The fact that it seemed to be in the center of the city, yet after turning a few avenues away from the crowded areas and shops, they stopped in one of the back neighborhoods, surprised Phuwin to a great extent.

Pond didn't live far away. He had built his life right among the people, in one of the red-brick buildings above the shops lined along the pavement, which were likely busy in the morning.

This must have been the reason why Pond complained this much about New York being expensive. Phuwin considered asking him, If you fell into a well you dug yourself, why are you whining?

An expensive rent due to its location, but regardless, buildings that stood unglamorous, domestic, and as normal as could be. For families. Not hidden penthouses in plazas where rich snobs lived.

Watching the reflection of the high mast of an construction crane standing abandoned in its night shadow project onto the road at the end of the street, Phuwin internally wished he weren't in one of the buildings right next to it.

And as if the vehicle were laughing in his face like a bitter joke, it came to a halt right in front of a building only two blocks away from the construction site.

It was a building laid with burgundy-colored bricks. While a full 7 floors could be counted, its face looking out at the road possessed small balconies lined one under the other, which a table and two chairs or a single couch could fit into.

The lights of 3 apartments were still on, and through the open curtains on the 2nd floor, it could be seen that the balcony was connected to the kitchen.

While Pond was unloading the suitcases from the trunk, Phuwin lifted his head and looked at this structure where he would play house for a while for a long moment.

Despite the anvil pressing against his chest, he took a powerful breath and lowered his hand down to his stomach to hold on, in an effort to stop his slightly twitching pinky finger. His palm held onto a corner of the roundness.

He imagined holding hands with it for support. The dominance of his urge to call out to his omega's child felt like too much at that moment. While a cool night breeze blew his long brown hair across his face, he did not stop standing tall.

His eyes narrowed slowly on the cylindrical bars of the black fire escape that remained on the outside of the building, perhaps if you leaped over the railings of the balconies. His facial expression was still calm, but he couldn't help but examine every single piece for its value as a home.

Whoever was on the 6th floor had stepped out from their own balcony onto the iron steps of the fire escape, and despite their silhouette being invisible in the darkness, the rise of cigarette smoke into the air seeped out from there. Yet another contribution to a smoky, starless city.

As the sound of the suitcase wheels striking the asphalt reached Phuwin’s ears, the image of a cigarette held in Pond’s hand appeared before his eyes on the balcony. Perhaps his own finest corner for his poison, too, was this fire escape.

They worked in cooperation. While Phuwin took both cabin suitcases into his hands, Pond became responsible for the other 2 large ones and his own messenger bag. At the door, acting as slowly as possible while pressing the buttons, Pond told him what the door code was.

July 4th, '76. America's Independence Day.

While holding the door for him to pass, Pond cracked a dry joke about how creative their building manager was, managing to make the corners of Phuwin’s lips curve.

Thank goodness, there was an elevator.

For a building whose peeled walls made it clear it was a bit old, the existence of an elevator was a massive blessing. Because Phuwin was quite certain that with this exhaustion in both of their bodies, they would likely faint if they took the stairs with the suitcases.

Pond pressed the 5th floor. And Phuwin liked this very much. Neither too low where people could see inside, nor too high to trigger a fear of heights. Furthermore, there was only a single apartment on each floor. Few people, yet still full enough to remind one of life.

Phuwin couldn't help but attribute these to Pond’s personality, which tried hard enough to handle everything. Pond was truly always in a balance when it came to adjusting the doses of events, people, and emotions.

Like being too much and perfectly sufficient all at once.

The door opened with the turn of the key in the lock. The short click sound following the metallic friction struck the tiles and echoed louder than expected for both of them.

When the lights were turned on, an orange glow reflected down the hallway. It was very warm, very soft, and extremely dim.

And a very powerful, unstoppable smell of coffee struck their noses with a wave of air, as if Pond had spent his entire day with those coffee beans and helped it seep into the walls.

Pond pushed the door open with his shoulder, stepped back, and gestured inside with his hand. “This is…” he said, drawing a slight breath, as if preparing himself, “…my palace.”

While Phuwin waited a step behind, right in the middle of the suitcases, as if hesitant to cross a threshold, Pond swallowed and lifted one of the suitcases; his arm muscles tensed for a second and vanished, and following Phuwin’s gaze, he paused for a second.

He looked around himself. His voice remained reflecting a more teasing yet sincere chuckle. He was making himself believe it too. “…A cozy palace.”

And Phuwin, at that moment, could see even from the narrow hallway that this house was an apartment far too small to pass anywhere near a palace.

Phuwin stepped inside. He paused. Pond did too. The door closed quietly behind them. And neither of them moved for a few seconds. The orange light striking from the side displayed their shadows intertwined on the wall.

Standing erect on their feet, they couldn't pass anywhere near being ready, but at least they were standing; there was no need for cowardice. Trying to take a step was half of moving forward.

The silence grew.

Phuwin’s eyes slowly scanned the surroundings: photo frames leaning against the floor, a large Canon camera hanging on the coat rack, a black hoodie dangling from the arm of the couch, half-open kitchen cabinets, a coffee mug forgotten on the counter, and a comic book left half-read on the table in front of the sofa.

It was a lived-in place.

Not a place trying to look clean. Truly lived-in. Where Pond lived.

A bead of cold sweat flowed from the back of his neck, down between his long brown locks toward his throat. While taking a deep breath, the corners of his eyes wandered across the mismatch of the details. It was like falling right into the middle of a life. A life that wasn't ready.

A flawless life.

Pond, meanwhile… had frozen.

His eyes darted from one spot to another, the muscles in his face tightening a bit more with everything he saw. The expression on his face was growing increasingly horrific. The dishevelment of the layout threw him into a panic.

The mug. The hoodie. The open cabinet. The bills on the table. Everything. Shit, shit, shit. Is he going to live here? Like this?

I wish I had told Joong to clean up the house a bit.

He seemed to come to a sudden realization. His eyes suddenly widened. “—Wait,” he said abruptly. He dropped the suitcases right where they were. “I forgot something.”

Wearily letting his shoulders drop, Phuwin lifted his hand reflexively at his departure, as if wanting to hold him. He wanted to warn him, to tell him that his stress was unnecessary. “Pond.”

But he was too late. His hand was left hanging in midair.

Pond had already moved. He walked quickly toward the bedroom. Almost running. The door remained open. Sounds began to come from inside. The pulling of something, the friction of fabric, a cabinet door being opened sharply.

Realizing what he was doing too late, Phuwin’s chest rose and fell with the shaky breath he drew as he lowered his arm with a flinch. He forced himself to turn around, to focus on something else, so as not to try and stop Pond from doing whatever it was he wanted to do again.

“When did this get here?” A drawer was opened. “No, no, no.” Fabric sounds again, and something even fell. “Shit.”

Phuwin remained at the head of the hallway. On his own. He was standing. But not as if frozen; more like… trying to understand.

Involuntarily, he closed his eyes. He was tired. He was so tired that while shifting the entire weight of his body onto one of his legs, he entered a hollow effort to relax his other limb.

Pond’s voice remained in his ears, yet the corners of his lips curved slightly anyway.

His eyes slowly shifted to the right side. To the kitchen. There was a coffee machine on the counter. A dark metallic-colored one that could be considered professional. Three different brewing equipments.

Beside it were jars and grinders. There were no labels on them. But it was obvious that they contained different coffee beans. Dark. Light. Some were larger. The reason why his house smelled so much like coffee was understood.

Phuwin didn't take a step. But his gaze paused on that machine. For a while. While admitting that this was endearing, he murmured to himself. “Obsessive.”

Right at that moment, Pond's voice came again. “Why did I leave this here?”

“Because you live here,” Phuwin said automatically, raising his voice just enough for him to hear.

Silence came from the bedroom. Then something like a grumble. “…Right.”

Phuwin truly laughed this time. Short, weary, but real. The kind where his eyes narrowed.

Then he turned his head. The refrigerator was right next to the door threshold connecting to the hallway. Its surface was filled with magnets. A haphazard dishevelment, yet one that still had a sense of order. Photographs and small squares.

Phuwin approached slightly. It was as if his feet pushed him there independently of his brain.

There was a photo of a baby holding up a magnet that read Domia is one year old!

On another, a San Francisco magnet balanced a photo of a large red truck standing in front of a massive bridge with an open back. Pond had his arms raised in the air, laughing in the truck's cargo bed, looking at the camera with a laugh alongside a boy with a darker, browner complexion.

That boy was alongside Pond in the photos beneath the magnets of nearly all the American states on the fridge. Sometimes there was another man between them, quite pale-skinned. Pond from canyons, beaches, and mountains.

Then he saw a familiar face. Gemini and Pond, side by side on the veranda of a house, throwing a funny facial expression at the camera while sitting with their legs crossed over one another. Gemini's chin was resting on Pond's shoulder.

Right beneath it, two unfamiliar small children were waving at the camera. They were wearing aprons that were too large for them. One had braces, while the other had glasses. Beneath it, written in messy handwriting, it read Gemini and Pond graduated from elementary school!

While Phuwin’s lips were adorned with a large smile, he tilted his head slightly to the side. Every new photograph was like a new story.

He saw a selfie of an unfamiliar youth blowing a kiss. It was a Polaroid. Beneath it, it read Sending support to my older brother for his project.

Then a very old photograph, evident from the blur of the camera, displayed a beautiful woman sitting on a cedar couch with a small boy on her knees and a baby in her arms.

It must be his mother...

A younger Pond. Wearing a school uniform, his glasses larger and his hair shorter, looking like hedgehog spines. A gym was visible in the background, and he was laughing with the boy who took the selfie. An arm was around Pond’s shoulder, but his height was shorter compared to Pond.

Then his eyes brushed against a crowded photo, and Phuwin’s breath caught softly. An older man in a suit, a beautifully dressed woman with short hair, and right between the two of them, a Pond wearing the gown that Phuwin knew all too well what it was. A cap sat on the head of the boy who had climbed onto his back.

Their high school graduation attire. The exact same black gown with red stripes that Phuwin had worn in his time.

The word background, which Pond had specifically emphasized on the balcony to describe his state in high school, came to Phuwin’s mind. And he swallowed hard with the feeling of his heart being squeezed with all its might.

Looking at Pond's short hair, his glasses, and his slightly flushed face, light struck the metal of his braces from his laughing teeth. He could see the peace in his smile. The light in the proud faces of his mother and father, too.

Phuwin’s gaze remained on those photos for a while. He didn't know why his eyes filled with tears. It was either Pond's happiness with his friends, or how much Pond loved his family.

Or at its simplest, it was because his wide-open eyes, while recognizing Gemini's face talking to someone in the crowd in the back, spotted his own strands of brown hair behind a silhouette.

He remembered that day. Fourth had come to the ceremony alongside him so that he could speak with Gemini, pretending to be busy with his phone so as not to disturb them.

And now, looking at a photo from years ago, he had just realized that he shared the same frame with Pond. Perhaps Pond was only 4 people away from him, at a distance where if he had just turned around, tried a bit harder, or squinted his eyes, Phuwin could have seen him.

If he had done that, perhaps he could have had a place large enough to occupy a spot on his fridge, in this beautiful life of Pond's.

Background, said the broken voice of Pond inside his head, and while Phuwin drew a breath in with difficulty, he thought, You were never the background, I was just a fool.

Then… another sound came from the bedroom. The hurried pulling of something, the sound of a bedsheet. Pond was murmuring to himself. “Clean— this is clean— okay—”

The rapid strides of a heel beating the concrete, a run from the door to the bathroom. The sound of things being stacked on top of each other.

Phuwin didn't stir. But now he understood. While the ghost of a man who cared about people occupied a spot on this refrigerator door, Phuwin could solve it by now from the care Pond had displayed on that balcony, in the cafe, and on the plane.

Pond was erasing his own scent.

He was changing the sheets in the bedroom, gathering his clothes. Trying to withdraw his own presence from the room. A slight tightening occurred in Phuwin’s chest.

Don't do it, Phuwin, don't lower your sails. It's too early. Don't believe this quickly.

A minute later, Pond emerged back from the bedroom with the frantic steps brought on by his state of panic.

In his arms, he held a massive pile of fabric gathered in a rush, as if he literally wanted to completely erase his own life from the house. Black t-shirts steeped in his own Alpha scent, a large towel he had presumably forgotten in the bathroom, and the pillow he laid his head on every single night, where his pheromones were most concentrated…

He had squeezed everything that had presumably been sitting on the bed for the past two weeks as part of his messy bachelor life into his arms in a single move.

He was carrying it all, pressing it against his chest like a disheveled mountain that strained even his massive frame.

Without budging a single millimeter from the front of the refrigerator door, Phuwin fixed his intent gaze on the Alpha’s caught-red-handed, childlike squirming.

Pond froze. He paused as his dark eyes brushed against Phuwin’s unwavering expression, which had already solved everything. Then, with embarrassment, he looked down at the massive mountain of laundry he held in his arms.

He cleared his throat through the frustration of being caught. “These…” he said, trying to gather the jumbled defense mechanism in his voice, “…weren’t actually living here.”

Tilting his head slightly to the side from inside the massive jacket, Phuwin hurled a single word, keeping the teasing tone in his voice intact: “Of course.”

Pond squared his shoulders, feeling his ears catch fire once again in the darkness. “Really.”

“I believe you,” Phuwin said, without shifting his tone of voice a single millimeter.

Pond narrowed his eyes at this incredibly fake submission. “You don't believe me.”

The corners of Phuwin’s lips stretched into a nearly invisible curve in the dim orange light. A challenging spark gleamed in his eyes. “A little.”

Pond let out a deep, frustrated sigh as he wilted under the weight of the pile in his arms. He had to accept that after the New York pavement, his pride was completely reduced to rubble in this narrow hallway as well.

“Okay,” he murmured, giving in. Then, lowering his gaze to the floorboards of the hallway and dropping his voice significantly, he slowly added, “Fine. Maybe they were living here a little.”

Bowing his head slightly, Phuwin asked as if wanting to make him suffer just a bit more: “A little?”

Pond rolled his eyes wearily as the sleeve of one of the t-shirts in his arms dangled toward the floor. “Quite a lot.”

Phuwin exhaled softly, carrying a hidden satisfaction brought on by this threshold of honesty between them. “Makes more sense.”

To avoid further disgrace, Pond carried the massive pile of belongings toward the bathroom with rapid strides. It was obvious from the solid sounds coming from inside that he dropped them all onto the laundry basket or the machine with a disheveled fury.

When he returned to the hallway, he was truly out of breath, as if he had run for miles; his chest rose and fell with his irregular breaths. He stopped, tensely tugging at the collar of his loose green t-shirt as he looked at Phuwin.

“Okay,” he said, with a relief as if he had finally finished the great war that saved the world. “Now it's done.”

For a few seconds, Phuwin silently watched this man standing in front of him with his massive frame, who had plundered his own room in seconds just for his comfort and so that he wouldn't be bothered by the scents.

He played dumb. “What changed?” he asked softly.

Anxiously pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, Pond mumbled, “Nothing,” still trying to trivialize the situation.

Phuwin whispered his name with a soft yet inescapable authority in his voice: “Pond.”

With that voice, all of the Alpha’s shields were reduced to dust once more. His shoulders dropped, and fixing his eyes onto Phuwin’s clear brown irises, he poured his heart out honestly. “A lot of things.”

The fake tense line on Phuwin’s face vanished completely; a vast acceptance and a very deep tenderness seeped into his gaze. “More honest.”

Seeing the delicate softening on his face, Pond felt the wolf inside him soothe completely. A disheveled yet genuine, sincere smile reappeared at the corners of his lips. “Thanks.”

Wrapping himself a bit tighter inside the massive jacket, Phuwin shrugged. “You're welcome.”

A split-second, immensely long and seamless silence fell over the hallway. Both of their breaths mingled into one another in the dim orange glow of the hallway.

Then Pond cleared his throat with an artificial movement, as if wanting to completely disperse the lingering traces of being caught.

Anxiously shoving his hands in and out of the pockets of his green t-shirt, he asked, trying to hide the franticness in his voice, “Are you hungry? Joong must have filled the entire fridge. Shall I offer you some bird’s milk?”

Phuwin felt that Joong’s name sounded familiar from somewhere. It was as if Pond had uttered this name while talking on the phone at the airport too. But still, without dwelling on it and without moving his shoulders a single millimeter inside the massive jacket, he said calmly, “No.”

“Water?”

“No.”

“Tea?”

“No.”

Pond continued with a stubbornness, as if wanting to deplete all the bullets in his magazine. “Orange juice?”

Slightly narrowing his eyes at the Alpha’s never-ending attempt, Phuwin whispered his name again with a warning tone in his voice: “Pond.”

Pond stopped instantly, as if slamming into a wall. The way Phuwin did that resembled the purr of a cat, and though he confessed it scared him a little, he couldn't help but find it sweet. He surrendered, raising his hands in the air. “Okay.”

A brief, clear beat passed between them. As the smell of coffee wafted through the hallway, Pond drifted his gaze across Phuwin’s facial features and lowered his voice a bit more. “If you want anything, tell me.”

“Okay.”

Another beat passed; after the never-ending drone of the plane's engine, the settled silence inside the house was slowly drawing them both in.

In a tone that was still not entirely convinced, Pond pressed on, “Really.”

Phuwin nodded his head slightly. He was exactly two seconds away from purring. “Okay.”

“Because if you don't say it, I won't understand,” Pond said, leaning his frame lightly against the wall of the hallway. There was a honesty in his voice that roasted his own clumsy and cue-missing nature. “I miss the hints. I absolutely need to hear it in flat sentences.”

Phuwin drew a deep breath to avoid bursting into a laugh. This time, he didn't feel the need to hide the delicate curve at the corners of his lips; checking the old photos on the refrigerator door out of the corner of his eye, he then turned back to the Alpha.

And once again, he chose violence. “I've noticed.”

Pond groaned in frustration at the head-on blow, covering his face with his large palms. “That was a bit hurtful,” he murmured in a muffled voice from behind his fingers.

Tilting his head with a millimetric curve to the side, Phuwin laid his velvet mockery on the table. “Because it's true?”

Slowly lowering his hands from his face, Pond looked at him with a spent expression from behind his glasses. “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry,” Phuwin said, though his tone of voice didn't sound sorry at all.

Fixing his eyes on his facial features, which were far too lovely for a tired face, Pond knit his brows slightly. “No, you aren't.”

The narrowed, bright spark in Phuwin’s eyes unveiled itself completely in the dim orange light. “No, I'm not.”

Unable to help himself, Pond involuntarily let out a short laugh. It was nice to see that Phuwin had relaxed enough around him to tease him. Then again… thinking about it, Phuwin had never hesitated to clap back at him from the very first moment they met.

He had to be the type who liked to bicker. Yet another trait Pond wouldn't have expected from him.

The rigid wave of tension occupying the inside of the apartment dissolved at least a little bit. It was as if the heavy transoceanic burden had lifted off them at that exact millisecond; they had finally become capable of breathing in this narrow hallway together, completely equalized.

“This… this is my palace,” Pond said again, this time stripped of his previous showman persona, using a much more cautious and delicate tone of voice.

Yet the raw pride in the sentence he constructed while pulling his large shoulders back wasn't quite enough to cover up the narrow hallway of the apartment, the half-open kitchen door, and the maximalist dishevelment of his life. Inside, the sharp smell of coffee beans that had seeped into the walls still hung heavily in the air.

But with the bedsheets that had just been carried to the bathroom withdrawn from the house, the dominant undertone of the scent had completely shifted now.

More neutral. Emptier.

Sterilized completely so that Phuwin’s sensitive pregnancy hormones wouldn't be bothered, what remained behind was a peaceful void devoid of expectations, one that could belong to just two strangers.

Phuwin slowly pulled the zipper of the jacket down; with the gliding of the fabric, the chill tightening his chest gave way to the cozy orange glow of the hallway. He shifted his steps slowly backward, toward the side of the door, right into the middle of the rigidly standing suitcases.

Opening the front of the jacket, he gently placed his hand over his pregnant stomach—the tiny roundness that became even more prominent beneath the fabric. Feeling the presence of his baby inside his palm, he drifted his eyes across the emptied air of the apartment.

“…Nice,” he said, his voice dropping with the smooth acceptance brought on by exhaustion. “It’s enough for me.”

Then, he locked his gaze directly onto Pond’s dark eyes and murmured the truth he already knew, simply so that Pond, as the owner of the house, could voice it comfortably with his own confidence. “…Where am I sleeping?”

This was exactly the core question Pond had been waiting for since the terminal. But still, due to his nature, it couldn't be said that he was prepared for this moment a single bit; faced with Phuwin’s flat question, his hands and feet got tangled up for a moment.

“The bedroom is yours!” he said instantly, detaching his frame from the wall and darting forward in a tone that was too fast, too eager. His voice echoed in the hallway.

He opened his hands to both sides with great generosity, as if presenting the grandest prize in his kingdom on a golden platter.

Idiot.

“I’ll stay in the living room. The couch—” throwing his large shoulder back with pride, a goofy yet business-like serious smile settled onto his face, “—is incredibly comfortable. It aligns the spine. A total orthopedic miracle.”

Right after the sentence, he experienced a brief pause upon noticing Phuwin’s eyes drift toward the ripped and disheveled fabric on the couch. Pouting his lips, he softly lowered his voice with embarrassment.

“…I bought it from a flea market. New York second-handers are a miracle when it comes to this.”

Phuwin contented himself with merely shaking his head slowly at the Alpha’s tragicomic couch marketing. He didn't offer a single comment, granting the man a reprieve.

Grasping the handle of the small cabin suitcase by the door, he walked with heavy strides toward the bedroom Pond had plundered just moments ago.

Compared to the rest of the apartment's dishevelment, filled with photo papers and bills, the room stood far more simple, far more serene. Pond had practically insulated this place from the world for Phuwin.

A sizeable bed, a small nightstand beside it with slightly worn wood, and a wardrobe left half-open because its doors had been shut in a rush… The thick curtains of the windows were tightly drawn, but the dim, neon lights of New York’s never-sleeping avenues seeped through the edges of the fabric into the room, forming faint strips on the floorboards.

Leaving the suitcase in his hand at the foot of the bed, Phuwin slowly let his body drop onto the clean, newly laid white sheets. The mattress trembled with a delicate vibration beneath the omega's weight.

At that moment… his shoulders, his legs, and his entire rigid body shuddered with a deep relaxation in the coldness of the white fabric.

Phuwin closed his eyes. As the tense line between his brows was completely erased, right in the heart of the world’s loudest city, he truly stopped. Time stopped, the anvil fell, he welcomed a safe breath into his lungs.

In the open door frame of the bedroom, a massive shadow appeared, completely blocking the pale orange dimness of the hallway.

Pond.

He was standing right there, and in his hands, he held something as the final proof of his tender nature. Taking a step inward extremely slowly, pressing onto his tiptoes as if scared to death of startling Phuwin’s silhouette sitting on the bed.

“…Hey,” he said, with a clueless awkwardness in his voice. He quickly lowered his gaze to the large pile in his hands. It was a thick blanket, folded four times with care. A bright red, a dark blue… And right in the center, a massive Spider-Man print stood between the folds, looking up at Phuwin.

“It catches a draft here sometimes at night,” Pond said, using the back of his free hand to anxiously push his horn-rimmed glasses up his nose. “Since you’re pregnant…”

He paused. The words lined up in his throat, and he swallowed hard while fighting a massive battle of will to keep his eyes from drifting to Phuwin’s stomach. “…I mean, you shouldn't catch a cold.”

Anxiously searching for words in the archive of his mind as if wanting to invent a scientific cover for this situation, he continued with knit brows: “The omega system… becomes more sensitive than normal during pregnancy. Maintaining the thermal balance is important.”

Ultimately, the sentence died in a somewhat awkward, quite jumbled manner in the silence of the room, between the two strangers. To avoid sinking any deeper, Pond extended the pile of laundry in his hand slightly forward.

“…Wrap yourself in this.”

Phuwin looked toward the brightly colored blanket resting on the bed’s white sheet. Peter Parker, gliding between the folds of the fabric, seemed to blink mischievously as if reminding him of the AirPod they shared during the flight, of the cracker theft.

Phuwin slowly lifted his head, locking his eyes onto the Alpha’s features as his long brown locks spilled across his forehead. Pond’s large eyes… were filled with complete, unadulterated sincerity at that moment.

Just… an uncalculated, childlike seriousness felt simply so that Phuwin and the small life in his stomach wouldn't freeze.

Cute.

“…Spider-Man?” Phuwin said, leaving his mockery in the room this time with a softer tone. A brief, serene beat illuminated by the room's neon strips passed between them. “…Again, Pond?”

The heart beating beneath Pond’s rib cage completely skipped a beat for a moment. Hearing his name in the soft voice escaping from between those lips… His own name coming to life in Phuwin’s cadence still shook the Alpha like the very first day, catching his breath.

He swallowed hard. Beginning from the roots of his ears and spreading toward his cheeks, the raw blush could be distinguished quite clearly now, even in the dimness of the room.

“It— it was the cleanest one,” he said quickly, his hands and feet getting tangled up as he tried to polish the words one after another. “I mean, it smells like detergent, it’s completely washed, but if you don't want it— I mean— the others were a bit… well— dirty— they were all left at the studio—”

Collapsing completely alongside Pond’s panic attack, the sentence split right down the middle.

“I can call Joong right away if you want,” he said instantly, “He— …Dunk has sweet, pastel-colored things. Soft. Fluffy. Aesthetic— I'll go grab it right away—”

“No need.”

Stopping the frantic man, Phuwin extended his hand and took delivery of the Spider-Man blanket from between his large palms. Extremely quietly, with a delicate movement.

He unfolded it layer by layer; the fabric, gliding through the air in the room's neon dimness, settled softly over Phuwin’s legs dangling from the edge of the bed.

The fabric was truly very soft. Perhaps it wasn't warm just yet as it brushed his skin, but… due to Pond’s gentleness, it carried a heavy promise of becoming cozy inside.

Looking at the red mask on the blanket, Phuwin lightly trailed his fingertips over the fabric. “…Peter Parker will protect my stomach too,” he said, dropping his voice significantly as if releasing it into the wind.

And at that exact millisecond, right in the center of his features, a very deep smile sprouted. Lifting his head slightly, he looked softly at the Alpha’s flushed ears, at his messy black hair. “…Thank you.”

Hearing the whisper, looking at the one-in-a-million smile leaking from the corners of Phuwin’s lips, Pond was left frozen right where he stood.

One second. Two. Three—

Time stopped, the fierce, panic-filled wolf inside the Alpha calmed down as if finally finding its sanctuary, and Pond’s rigid, massive shoulders dropped down with a visible lightness.

“Sure,” he said, far too quickly with the franticness of feeling caught.

He backed away rapidly to return to his own territory, his veteran couch. Just as he was about to spin around and flee from the bedroom’s narrow exit—

His massive, broad shoulder struck the hard wood of the door frame head-on, at a terrible angle.

Thud.

In response to the solid, bony sound echoing in the silence of the room, the back of Pond’s eyes stung, his face contorting in pain. “Ah— fuck—” he groaned through his teeth, his hand reflexively flying to his shoulder.

I absolutely cannot handle this embarrassment. Damn it.

But refusing to let himself sink a single second further in front of Phuwin, he immediately gathered his pride. He corrected his spine with a snap, straightening his back.

Acting with an incredible theatricality, he stood tall in front of him as if he weren't the one who had just tried to demolish the door with his shoulder.

“…Good night!” he said, his tone of voice turning out excessively loud and explosive, contrasting the serene dimness of the room.

And following this final disaster, he literally fled the room.

The beating of his large strides down the hallway, the dropping of his body into the living room couch like a weary sack could be heard very clearly from inside.

The door of the bedroom behind him, however, had remained completely open.

For a while, Phuwin looked toward the empty door frame. He slowly leaned back against the headboard of the bed, abandoning his body to the serenity of the clean sheets. Grasping the thick, red-and-blue Spider-Man blanket with his fingers, he pulled it all the way up to his chin.

Right before closing his eyes, he buried his face slightly into the fabric with a curve at the corners of his lips. It was an instinctive, very fragile urge to sniff.

There was nothing.

Neither a harsh chemical detergent scent nor the slightest shred belonging to anyone else who might have entered or left this house, to a foreign skin…

Only—

A tiny bit of a coffee smell. Fresh, dense, leaking from the unlabeled jars in the kitchen, slightly bitter but strangely… Pond’s signature stamped onto this house.

Still, compared to a biological pheromone scent, to an Alpha’s dominant, possessive skin scent, this was merely a simple external factor.

Phuwin knew all too well that he ought to appreciate Pond’s politeness. But the omega inside him couldn't help but wonder about the Alpha’s pheromone. How was he to block his instinct anyway?

What was it like?, he wondered. If an Alpha’s primitive, protective scent mingled among these coffee beans, what kind of ecosystem would it create?

Would it be dominant, would it be suffocating… or would it just be Pond?

Phuwin’s long fingers gripped the edge of the blanket tightly. Then, as he heard the Alpha’s deep, chest-heaving breaths drifting from inside, his fingers slowly relaxed. The heavy pressure catching his breath in his chest eased at least a little bit.

From the living room side, another small sound broke the heavily solidified silence of the night.

A slight, jumbled cadence he was becoming quite familiar with… The brief creak rising from the rusted springs of that flea-market-bought couch, which allegedly aligned the spine, drifted down the hallway.

The friction sound of Pond anxiously trying to salvage his balance at the last second while presumably trying to fit his large legs onto the narrow cushion leaked into the room. “Come on..”

Following that, a silence settled once more upon the 5th floor of the burgundy-brick building.

Phuwin didn't laugh out loud at this final mishap; but beneath the fabric of the thick Spider-Man blanket pulled up to his chin, the corners of his lips shifted slightly with a curve, with a warm familiarity.

He slowly closed his eyes beneath New York’s pale neon strips leaking from the edges of the curtains. He tried to blink back the traces of tears clinging to his eyelashes.

An unfamiliar place, an unfamiliar bed, an unfamiliar man. I am a stranger.

When the door of the refrigerator gained a distinct image in his darkness once more, his lips pouted. He swallowed hard. And as if his brain wanted to hurt him, it reminded him of the message box with his mother.

This isn't you, Phu. You aren't ready for that child, and we can still find a way out. Stop being stubborn. You are making us very sad.

What a bizarre game of life this was. Beside a man who loved his family deeply, he was left staying as a child fleeing from his own.

He was too far away, too stubborn. He had attached himself too deeply to his baby.

The sounds of raindrops striking the glass arrived. At first slow and scattered, and then the roar of a downpour, as if it knew he couldn't cry, weeping in his stead.

Perhaps the urge to stay on guard, which he had been trying to maintain for weeks, broke down entirely; a wave of peaceful sleep, heavier than any he had felt, capturing his soul completely, settled softly over him.

Because yes, perhaps he might be in the wrong place, isolated and a stranger. But at that moment, that house had succeeded in making him feel safer than anyone else.

*

When New York’s morning struck the windows of the burgundy-brick building with a ruthless, raw gray light, the peaceful illusion of the night was shattered into dust by a deafening metallic roar.

The deep growl of the engines from the massive construction crane two blocks away, blending with the shrill, rhythmless clatter of iron bars smashing against the asphalt, vibrated the thin glass of the apartment.

Phuwin cracked his eyes open at the crack of dawn to the nightmare-like drone of metallic sounds. The very first second he tried to straighten up from the bed, a leaden heaviness brought on by sleeping continuously and deeply settled over his entire body.

And immediately after, the inescapable, notorious morning sensitivity of pregnancy made itself known. Along with a mild, world-spinning dizziness in his head, a delicate wave of nausea rising up his throat pulled his ribs completely taut.

He clenched his teeth, his face involuntarily contorting. Tensely tugging down the loose, wafer-thin cotton oversized t-shirt he was wearing, he slowly dangled his legs—which had gone rigid inside his baggy sweatpants—over the edge of the bed.

Phuwin got out of bed, trying to dissolve the nausea in his chest without letting the blowing wind shiver his skin as he cracked the windows open to let some air into the stuffy room.

To soothe the sensation drying out his throat and to grab something cold from the kitchen, he directed his steps out of the room and toward the narrow hallway.

However, he had to pass through the small living room to reach the kitchen, and the exact millisecond he stepped into the room hit by the freezing morning light, he froze dead in his tracks at the sight before him.

Yes, he was well aware that he was quite tall for an omega. Standing at 1.80 meters, the fact that he had been skating on ice since he was nearly 7 years old had rendered his body fit and well-proportioned, making him look rather imposing.

But Pond was much taller than him, and his body was much broader. Practically like a towering giant refrigerator.

He didn't think there was a massive height difference between them, but because of the sheer size of the Alpha's body, Phuwin couldn't help but feel small.

And that long, massive Alpha was stretched out across the flea-market-bought, narrow couch as an absolute logistical disaster.

Pond hadn't fit onto the delicate cushion a single bit; his long, muscular legs hung out from the edge of the couch at a jumbled angle, his ankles suspended in midair.

The brightly colored Spider-Man fleece he had been tossing and turning in since last night was tangled around his broad shoulders, chest, and legs practically like ivy, trapping him inside a comical cocoon.

Spider-Man again… and to top it off, what he was wearing this time literally possessed the design of the costume. Complete with the hood up, featuring the mask made of two black eyes and spiderweb lines.

On top of all this physical dishevelment, he hadn't even taken off his glasses. His thick horn-rimmed glasses hung incredibly crooked on his face, dangling at a dangerous angle that nearly slid behind his ear.

His hair was scattered in every direction like flying hedgehog spines, his mouth was slightly open, and one of his palms hung from the edge of the couch with loosened knuckles toward the freezing cold of the floorboards.

He looked incredibly vulnerable. And ridiculous.

Right in the middle of the construction noise, Phuwin left the chaotic picture behind and reached the kitchen counter.

As he poured himself some cold water from the pitcher he took out of the fridge, the glass mug lightly struck the marble counter with a clicking sound in a brief moment of distraction.

Just a tiny snap.

However, Pond, who had been dead to the world on the couch, yanked out of his sleep in a split second, flinching as he fell victim to his on-guard instincts.

Before he could even open his eyes fully, while his crooked glasses slid from the tip of his nose at a dangerous curve, he bolted upright like a coiled spring with his massive frame.

"Mama?!" he panicked, his voice literally tearing with the muffled rasp of sleep. He flailed his hands in the air as his eyes blindly scanned the surroundings. "Did something happen? Is it the baby?! Have we arrived, where is the hospital?!"

Furthermore, the very first step he tried to take forward got caught in the tail of the massive Spider-Man fleece dangling from his arms. Completely losing his balance for a moment, he lunged forward; he was literally a millimeter away from slamming head-on into the TV unit in the living room.

Wildly waving his arms in the air, he stabilized his balance on the floorboards at the last second with a massive thud.

Firmly holding the water mug between his fingers, Phuwin drifted out from the kitchen threshold, his voice soulless and carrying a mild trace of a rasp from being fresh out of sleep: "I'm just drinking water, Pond. Calm down. Besides, your neck is about to snap, how on earth could you sleep on that couch?"

Pond released a deep breath once he registered that the danger had passed and the omega was safe. While tensely adjusting his crooked glasses back up the bridge of his nose with the back of his fingers, he ruffled his black hair with his other hand.

His eyes were completely shrunk from sleep, bloodshot with grogginess, but the moment he looked at Phuwin’s face, a childlike and massive 32-tooth grin plastered onto his face like a sticker.

"Good morning!" he said cheerfully. He knew the importance of starting the day on a positive note. "What do you mean snap, I always sleep like this. It develops my bone structure. Uh..."

He paused for a moment, drifting his eyes over Phuwin’s pale features as he approached the kitchen threshold with large strides. His detectors had gone into an immediate alert. His brows knit tensely.

"...Are you nauseous? Your face looks pale. Hold on, Joong told me about a cracker brand that’s good for morning sickness in pregnant women. Where did I put that stupid packet..."

That guy named Joong again…

Internally, Phuwin wanted to roll his eyes. This man was probably Pond’s logistical brain or something. His name popped up everywhere.

While Pond began frantically opening and closing the kitchen cabinet doors, plundering the place to find the cracker packet, Phuwin watched him while leaning against the counter.

He masterfully hid the tiny smile that made its way to the corners of his lips by bringing the mug to his mouth.

"No need, I'm fine," he said, feeling the sharp coldness of the water in his throat. "Go wash your face."

Pond came to a halt in front of the cabinet door at this flat command. Bringing his left hand back to idly rub his hip through his baggy gray sweatpants, he struggled to cover his mouth with his large palm as it stretched wide open, practically tearing from a yawn.

He hummed as he wiped away the sleepy tears leaking from his eyes, letting out a muffled, obedient sound from the back of his nose.

Phuwin shot him a calm look. After finishing the last sip in his mug, he slowly directed himself toward the coffee jars and brewing equipment sitting on the black, professional metallic-colored counter.

But right at that moment, Pond jumped in place all of a sudden, as if a new disaster scenario had just crossed his mind.

While his eyes snapped wide open, stripping away all the grogginess, he focused on the void of the kitchen and shouted, “Shit! Oh my fucking god!”

His voice was so loud and sudden that even Phuwin lost his balance for a moment, nearly dropping the heavy glass coffee jar onto the marble counter.

Just as he was about to turn to Pond to ask what on earth was going to happen and to throw him a knit-browed look putting him in his place, the Alpha had already sprung into action.

He slipped with a agile, chaotic speed past the wooden table that connected the open kitchen to the living room and practically acted as a thick pillar between the two of them; he practically ran toward his phone charging at the outlet right behind the couch.

“What time is it?” he muttered in a hopeless, spent tone. He seemed to be talking to himself, trying to rationalize the timeline in his mind. “Damn it! It's already 12, how did my alarm not go off? Fuck…”

Phuwin was left standing in the kitchen, a ceramic coffee cup in one hand and the heavy glass jar in the other.

He threw a blank look into the middle of the living room, trying to make sense of the Alpha's crack-of-dawn chaos. His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Is there something important going on that I don't know about?”

“Yeah!” Pond didn't even turn his face toward Phuwin as he let out a whining, frustrated breath. He was rapidly sliding his fingers up the phone screen.

He looked a mere few seconds away from ripping his hair out in that familiar state of panic.

“I have class at 1. I need to be at the studio at 3. The stop where Joong picks me up by car is exactly 3 blocks away!”

And then, all of a sudden, driven by the urgency of the tightening timeline, Pond grabbed the loose fleece he was wearing by the collar. He didn't think for even a single second.

Completely forgetting in his moment of panic the presence of a foreign omega in the house—let alone a pregnant omega—he pulled the shirt off in a single move with the casual comfort left over from his usual bachelor life.

At that exact millisecond, the Alpha’s upper body suddenly glistened beneath the raw New York noon sun leaking in through the windows.

Fair-skinned, his well-proportioned torso with broad, muscular, distinct lines brought on by a structured background in sports was laid bare right in the middle of the living room.

His broad shoulders, the firm contours of his chest muscles, and his abdominal muscles tightening with the breath he drew stood erect like a statue in the dim room.

Phuwin’s eyes, while leaning against the kitchen counter, practically popped wide open like saucers.

His gaze shifted downward at a speed entirely independent of his own will; falling past the waistband of Pond’s boxers sagging slightly from his sweatpants, right onto the distinct, masculine veins tracking up toward his groin, looking as though they might burst from power and tension.

While the raw draw of being an Alpha filled the neutral air of the kitchen with a burning electricity within seconds, Phuwin swallowed hard, feeling his throat go dry.

He turned around so quickly, in such a massive panic, that those long strands of brown hair whipped sharply across his eyes.

Feeling his pulse suddenly begin to thunder in his ears, he struggled to lock his trembling irises onto the marble counter in front of him, trying to focus on the textures of the coffee jar he had just tightly grasped.

His heart was pounding as if it would tear through his rib cage. His omega was literally kicking the walls of his body over this unexpected move. He had come dangerously close to releasing his pheromones, venting a scent as an inappropriate response.

And Pond's words filtered through his mind once more at that moment. I have class at 1, I need to be at the studio at 3...

As his eyes widened even more, a slight tremor passed through his body. His voice cracked uncontrollably. "Are you still studying?"

"Yeah!" Pond’s voice came from the hallway, accompanied by the sound of his feet beating the floor. "My 3rd year. How else, why else would I be able to live here?"

As Phuwin's brows knit, he exhaled in anger, triggered by the tone in Pond's voice that sounded almost accusing, as if Phuwin was supposed to know this.

In truth, that hadn't been Pond's intention when saying it, but with his body tightening up, Phuwin chose to interpret it exactly how he wanted.

"How on earth could I know, for god's sake? You didn't tell me anything other than the fact that you're a photographer, is this my fault?"

The frantic footsteps of Pond coming from the hallway came to a halt for a brief moment.

"Sorry, sorry!" Pond called out immediately, sounding exactly like a thoroughly scolded child. The rustling of fabric could be heard. It was glaringly obvious that he was trying to put his clothes on in the completely wrong order. "I didn't mean it that way."

Phuwin leaned against the edge of the kitchen island with his brows knit. Without realizing the mug in his hand was empty, he was trailing his thumb across the ceramic surface.

Pond's voice came from the hallway again. "I study finance!" A silence, followed by a lower murmur. "Unfortunately."

Phuwin blinked his eyes involuntarily. "...Finance?"

"Yeah." Something crashed onto the floor. "Ow." Then fabric sounds again. "Orders from my folks."

Both of Phuwin's eyebrows shot up. Pond reappeared around the corner of the hallway. He was struggling to pass one foot through his pant leg, trying hard to maintain his balance on his other foot.

"I do everything in my power not to finish school, but I have to attend some classes." He finally managed to get his foot through the leg. Lifting his head for a brief moment, he looked at Phuwin. "Now you know."

Then he vanished from sight once more. Phuwin stared at the empty hallway for a few seconds. "...This is not a normal way of giving information."

"I've noticed!" Pond's voice came from the bathroom. "I'm incredibly late!" A drawer slammed shut. A cabinet banged. Something else dropped. "Shit."

Phuwin let out a deep breath. He had only just realized he still hadn't filled his coffee mug. He was truly trying to understand.

A photography studio, and now university. To top it off, in New York.

This house. This life. Where on earth was he cramming all of this at the exact same time?

Pond reappeared at the kitchen threshold. This time, he had a blue toothbrush in his mouth, along with white foam seeping from the corners of his lips.

His hair still retained the wild, semi-disheveled state of someone just getting out of bed, and his thick, horn-rimmed glasses sat slightly crooked again, as if actively feuding with the anatomy of his face.

Passing through the kitchen, just two steps away from Phuwin, he pressed the button on the coffee machine without a single thought, guided by the years of effortless muscle memory in his fingertips. The electrical components inside the device instantly sputtered to life with a thick grunt.

Pond roughly slid the toothbrush toward the left corner of his mouth and tried to speak, pursing his lips. “Mmffh. Jfng dksn…”

Without moving his fingers holding the ceramic mug a single millimeter, Phuwin fixed his eyes directly on the Alpha’s tragicomic face.

Pond stopped in his tracks. Through the foam in his mouth, he looked at Phuwin’s rigid frame, then pulled the toothbrush out and anxiously cleared his throat. “…What?”

“Nothing.”

Pond narrowed his eyes. “You’re judging.”

Phuwin didn't flex his voice a single millimeter as he trailed his thumb across the ceramic surface of the mug. “A little.”

Pond let out a deep, frustrated sigh, dropping his shoulders as he turned his back to check the water reservoir on the coffee machine.

Feeling the pieces in his mind slowly click into place, Phuwin finally asked the actual, rational question on his mind: “Wait a minute. Are you running the studio and going to school at the same time? In New York?”

This time, a genuine, bewildered expression formed on Pond's groggy face. He raised his eyebrows slightly, as if Phuwin were hearing the most absurdly ordinary thing in the world for the very first time. “Of course.”

“…Of course?”

Pond nodded his head in approval, reaching for one of the jars. “Joong and I run the studio together.”

The loud, rhythmic, and harsh sound of coffee beans fracturing between the grinder gears began to fill the kitchen completely.

Pond carried his voice over the noise to continue. “He’s mostly at the forefront, handling the logistics.” Then he shrugged his large shoulders slightly. “As for me, well… I just try to run away from classes.”

Without shifting his body leaning against the counter, Phuwin knit his brows. “Running away from classes is not a management model, Pond.”

Pond grinned as he watched the first drops of coffee filter through the dark metal strainer. “I think it’s an excellent model. It’s kept me alive so far.”

“Pond.”

With the inescapable warning tone in his voice, the Alpha threw up the white flag once more. He anxiously adjusted his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “Okay. It's not a very good model.”

Phuwin involuntarily let out a short breath through his nose. He was almost laughing. His shields were almost reduced to dust. But his gaze slowly, completely stilled, locking onto the Alpha's features, which were red with exhaustion.

How else, why else would I be able to live here.

The sentence Pond had uttered in the hallway just moments ago had been said so casually… But for some reason, amidst the smell of coffee in the kitchen now, it struck a massive echo inside Phuwin’s head.

Because until he had touched down from Bangkok to New York, he had assumed a vastly different scenario in his mind.

He knew Pond's family very well. They played for the top ranks among Thailand’s most respected, untouchable wealthy elite. In all likelihood, most of the luxury plazas piercing Bangkok's skyline, the glamorous holding buildings, had risen with the concrete of their construction company.

It was a century-old, deeply rooted, and aristocratic family; some of the historic, palace-like structures featured in brochures and tourism guides had been built by Pond's grandfather or someone back in the day. Phuwin had read this on the internet.

And just moments ago, he had seen the photographs on the refrigerator door with his own eyes. That graduation frame, the proud, noble mother and father standing behind Pond…

He had very clearly sensed the safety net backing an elite kid living alone in New York.

Perhaps Phuwin had thought that Pond's family paid for everything—the rent, the bills, the studio's expenses down to the last penny.

Perhaps he had assumed that life here had been handed to him ready on a golden platter. Wouldn't that be the normal, logical thing anyway?

But the man standing right in front of him now… was none other than a university student scrambling to put on his pants at the crack of dawn to make it to his class, fighting to keep a photography studio afloat with his partner, preparing his own coffee, and whose eyelids were burning red from a lack of sleep.

A brief silence remained between them. Then Phuwin, succumbing to his curiosity and his urge for control, involuntarily asked in a very low voice: “…Isn't your family helping?”

The moment the question escaped his lips, the tense rhythm in the kitchen eased slightly. The coffee machine hissed as it dropped its final yields into the cup, the loud drone giving way to a steaming silence.

Pond didn't give any answer for a few seconds. He merely fixed his eyes on the dark metallic marble counter, on the dark liquid filtering into the cup. Then, he lifted his shoulders slightly, as if wanting to lighten an invisible burden on his back.

“They do,” he said. He drew a deep breath inward, large enough to burn his lungs. “But I don't want it.”

Pond was watching the dense, bitter coffee steam rising from the machine now. His tone of voice had calmed down. It was almost too calm, a highly naked tone. “I have other plans for that money.”

Phuwin’s large eyes couldn't break away for even a millimeter from the wave of melancholy that suddenly settled across Pond’s features. Just how annoying this topic was for him was glaringly obvious from the way the Alpha's jaw clenched and from the twitch at his temples.

He had ground his teeth helplessly, as if there wasn't much he could do about this situation.

Phuwin’s mind instantly flew backward, back to the cabin on the plane. He replayed the thin, calculating, anxiously pausing look that had appeared in Pond’s eyes while staring at the prices of the menu brought by the flight attendant.

And Phuwin felt the massive, throat-drying enlightenment hit him in all its raw nakedness. The Alpha in front of him hadn't fled to a comfortable life.

Financially, Pond's budget wasn't perfect. Pond wasn't living with billions.

“My family has been waiting for me to stand on my own two feet for a very long time,” Pond continued, shrugging his shoulders with a broken movement as if wanting to disperse the lingering traces of melancholy in his voice. “But they still send money to my account regularly every month anyway. That is exactly why I'm studying this damn major.”

Beneath the morning light, a very bittersweet, very tiny smile gently sprouted at the corners of his lips. “There's a life they want me to build in Bangkok.”

Phuwin set the empty mug tightly held between his fingers down onto the marble counter with a delicate clink, asking without breaking his seriousness: “And you?”

Pond slowly tilted his head to the side. He finally lifted his groggy eyes from behind his horn-rimmed glasses away from the counter, locking them directly onto Phuwin’s brown irises.

“It depends on the topic of the day,” he said, with the unfiltered honesty in his voice. “Some mornings, with the way New York's weather is, I just want to burn everything down and leave; other days, I'd rather carry suitcases on the pavement than be stuffed inside holding buildings.”

Faced with this helpless answer, Phuwin lost his defense mechanism for a split second, and an involuntary, brief smile caught at the corners of his lips. It had to be admitted that Pond's stance was impressive.

The moment Pond saw this, he threw his index finger up into the air with a childlike exuberance, as if he had just won a massive victory. “Look,” he said, his eyes sparkling.

Phuwin instantly returned to his poker face. A single eyebrow shot up in suspicion. “What?”

“You smiled.”

“I didn't smile."

“You smiled,” Pond pressed on, that 32-tooth grin plastering itself back onto his face.

“Pond.”

When Phuwin's warning tone drifted into the room, Pond raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. I’m shutting up.” But the grin didn't vanish from his facial features by even a single millimeter.

Glancing at his phone for a moment before tossing it into his pocket, he disappeared once again into the darkness of the narrow hallway for a few seconds.

When he returned this time, he looked significantly more like a person ready to mingle with the outside world, having managed at least to camouflage his exhaustion.

He was wearing a striped green shirt with the sleeves roughly rolled up to his elbows, paired with a pair of loose-fitting dark navy jeans underneath. Hanging down from his broad shoulders was his famous green messenger bag.

The dark-colored cap on his head largely tamed and hid his messy black hair, which usually scattered in every direction. At least at first glance, when viewed from a distance, that was the case.

But upon taking a second look, it could easily be understood from the single button left open on his shirt, the rebellious strands hanging out from beneath the cap, and the still millimetrically crooked stance of his glasses that he was still the exact same clumsy man.

The moment Pond stepped into the kitchen, right into Phuwin’s territory, he quickly opened one of the cabinets above the counter. From inside, he pulled out a long, matte metallic-colored steel flask.

Without losing any time, he began pouring the fresh drip coffee that had pooled in the glass carafe beneath the coffee machine directly into the flask. While steam rose into the air, his movements grew even faster with the tightening timeline.

Phuwin was still leaning against the edge of the kitchen island. He was hypnotized while watching the Alpha's rushing, unable to tear his eyes away for even a single moment. The thing tightening his chest—the sensation making his skin shiver—grew as he held back the appreciation striking his lips.

While Pond tried to quickly twist the cap of the flask with his fingers, one of the thick gears in his brain suddenly ground to a halt, as if striking a hard wall.

Lifting his head swiftly, as if a completely untimely, brand-new detail had just crossed his mind, he asked: “You know English, right?”

Faced with his absurd question-asking algorithm, Phuwin merely threw him a flat look. He let out a weary grunt from the back of his nose. "What do you think?"

Pond waited in the kitchen for a logical response for a few seconds. Then, in the face of Phuwin’s silence, he finally realized just how massive a piece of nonsense, how huge an error code his own question was.

“…Right,” he murmured, his tone of voice dropping all at once. Knitting both of his brows, he tensely closed the cap of the flask. “We both went to an international high school. Right in the heart of Bangkok.”

Slightly narrowing his eyes at this situational comedy the Alpha had dropped himself into, Phuwin asked: “Why do you ask?”

“Ah.” Pond tightened the cap completely, the sound of metal friction against metal echoing in the kitchen. “Right.” This time his voice was much slower, stripped entirely of his previous frantic rhythm. He fixed his eyes onto Phuwin’s slender frame. “I’m going to get a doctor's appointment at a good clinic sometime this week.”

Phuwin went rigid instantly, and his eyes involuntarily turned toward the Alpha's features at great speed.

Pond, however, as if failing to notice this sudden flinch of his, had already moved on to the next rational thought in his mind. “For the baby's checkups,” he said, his voice echoing in the silence of the kitchen.

While carefully settling the steel body of the flask into the special compartment inside the green messenger bag, he continued to speak, listing his plans. “The hospital systems here are a bit bureaucratic, but through an acquaintance of Dunk's, we’ll definitely find a good, reliable doctor. Set your mind at ease.”

He had uttered those words so naturally. They had spilled from between his lips as if it were something so prepared, so thoroughly thought out beforehand.

Phuwin couldn't respond with a single word. His chest narrowed with a massive tightening, as if a heavy anvil were resting upon it. A doctor. Checkups. Appointments. And that tiny, uncanny life in his stomach… The baby.

Pond had already planned it out in his mind, carrying it upon his back. Presumably while he himself was sleeping peacefully inside, beneath the clean sheets and the Spider-Man blanket.

Phuwin grew angry at his own thoughtlessness at that moment. With his eyes out of focus, involuntarily biting his lower lip, the urge to smell Pond's scent fell upon him once again.

Like a search for warmth, a highly detestable omega desire for support.

Pond wasn't expecting an answer from his frozen state anyway. He pulled the thick zipper of his messenger bag shut in a single, sharp motion; the sound of the metallic teeth sliced through the tense air in the kitchen once more.

Tapping his phone screen quickly to check his notifications, he glanced at the time, and with his brows knitting tensely, he began walking with large strides toward the dark front door.

The exact moment he reached for the doorknob and grasped the cold metal, he stopped again. It was as if something else had surfaced from the logistical folders in his mind. He turned his head over his shoulder toward the kitchen.

“There’s a small market right under the adjacent building,” he said, pointing toward the floorboards—down below the building—with his large finger. He had injected that unnecessary business-like seriousness into his voice again. “Just in case. You know, if you crave something sudden, like a pregnancy craving or whatever… Keep it in mind, just in case.”

Following that, he lifted his eyebrows slightly from behind his glasses, locking them onto Phuwin’s pale features. “But if you can’t find what you want there, or I don't know, if you want something specific, text me right away.”

He threw the door wide open, and while one of his feet was already out on the concrete floor, the elevator-scented air of the hallway seeped inside. “I’ll find and buy whatever is needed on my way back from the studio.”

Say something, Phuwin. Stop him. Say there's no need. Don't give him this permission.

But Phuwin, contrary to his thoughts, said nothing. He just watched Pond. Feeling his pulse in his ears, knowing that the Alpha was beginning to seep into his blood, everything felt too beautiful.

He wanted to permit it.

A second passed. With one foot outside and his torso inside, he stood frozen like a monument of pure indecision. Then he stopped again.

Completely losing the invisible war between leaving and staying, he poked his head back inside through the narrow opening of the door.

It was as if everything would remain incomplete if he left this house without saying the core sentence that had been circling in his mind while staring at the ceiling on the couch all night, tightening his chest.

He was out of breath. Time was running out, and he was literally counting the minutes to make it to his class. Joong had probably already hurled a string of curse-filled text messages at him.

But Pond stopped and looked anyway.

For a moment, beneath the noon sun leaking through the kitchen curtains, it felt like the delicate silhouette was expanding the entire halo, rendering it brighter.

Phuwin was standing alone right in the middle of the kitchen, by the edge of the marble island. Inside his oversized, baggy white t-shirt, he looked like a sculpture far more fragile than usual.

Those long strands of brown hair spilled over his shoulders. His pale features, his eyelashes fluttering with sleep, his rabbit teeth peeking through his slightly parted lips...

On Pond's features, at the corners of his lips, a very delicate smile slowly rose. It was a small, exceptionally calm, and unadulteratedly real smile.

His utterly soft voice echoed down the hallway. “Make yourself at home.”

And then, he left, leaving no open doors behind him. The door shut with great speed; the mechanical sound of the metal lock clicking into place struck the empty walls of the apartment.

Click.

For a few seconds, the only sound inside the massive house was the rhythmic, low drip-drop produced by the last few droplets filtering into the coffee machine's dark metal reservoir on the counter.

Phuwin reached his trembling hands toward the counter and squeezed the empty mug with his fingers, freezing right where he stood. His shoulders rose and fell breathlessly, as if he were the one who had been working in a rush for minutes, just like Pond.

The house suddenly felt much larger to his eyes, as if its walls had expanded. And he didn't like the silence—

not one bit.