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Donghyuck has a secret.
On Monday it sits with him in class and keeps buzzing in his head, voices coming together in a soothing hum at the back of his mind. When he listens he can make out single voices, thoughts of other people flickering through his head like the light of countless candles caught in the wind.
Donghyuck can feel them reaching out for him, their touch bringing an insubstantial echo of safety and belonging, an endlessly yearning full of come here, you’re one of us, don’t deny us, why won’t you let us in.
Us, as in Omegas, all bound to the same secret as he is.
Donghyuck can’t let them in, because Donghyuck keeps a secret from them, a secret from the secret he is part of, an irony that isn’t missed on him. It’s a secret that is his alone, though, one he has to hide from the voices in his head so that they’ll never find out.
Being found out means the end, but his death won’t be private. Instead, he’ll drag another person with him, if the collective of all Omegas in his head ever finds out what he hides from them.
“You need to be careful,” Renjun tells him later when they sit together during lunch.
Their preferred choice of meeting up is on the roof of their highschool building, both not fans of loud crowds since they permanently carry the voices of half the nation in their heads.
“One day they’ll realize what you’re doing and then they’ll switch you off cold.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Donghyuck denies, but he has the decency to blush when his phone goes off in a soundless alarm, three flower and two herb emojis in a row flashing boldly on the screen before he hastily swipes it away.
When he looks at his friend with a caught expression on his face, Renjun only lifts an eyebrow and says nothing. Only for a moment, though, before he sighs and says, “You really need to stop doing that.”
“It’s just once a week,” Donghyuck murmurs, hands tightening around his phone. “I can’t see him in pain, Junnie. I can’t.”
Silence again. They both don’t know what to say even though they have this conversation every Monday, every week.
“Just... be careful,” Renjun says eventually, and Donghyuck wants to laugh (he wants to cry) at the worry in his voice, knowing full well that he has no other option than risking his life every week, every Monday.
But he nods, because what else can he do, and then he curls his hand around Renjun’s, their souls aligning, the voices in their heads quieting down for a moment.
-
Every Omega knows this one single thing: Omegas don’t exist.
They aren’t born, they don’t present, they don’t ever bond with anyone. They definitely don't know what happened sixty years ago to the missing Omega population, and if someone would coincidentally ask them about it, they’d shrug their shoulders like any Beta on the street, throw a poorly concealed look of pity at the closest Alpha they’d find and then murmur something about how the world’s fucked up.
The truth is that every Omega knows exactly what’s going on, and they’re bound by their lives to make sure that they stay the only ones who do. It’s not difficult for them to keep that oath, because from the beginning The Collective makes sure to explain why their secrecy is so important.
The story they’re told as soon as they awaken and connect to The Collective is as follows:
Sixty years ago a decision was made after one of the most gruesome chapters of modern history, when Omegas, still slaves of their Alphas back then, marched for basic human rights, but were met with arrests, torture and death.
In response to the horrors that were inflicted on them, the surviving Omega population connected in a telepathic link of an unprecedented scale and took a collective oath to hide every following Omega generation from the world.
It was the only way to ensure the safety and future of their unborn Omega children who, with their statuses hidden and undetected, would be free to live without being suppressed and forced into slavery.
That oath came with great sacrifices, because the world didn’t take kindly to not a single child presenting as an Omega ever again. But no matter how much the governments of the world intimidated and pressured their last known Omegas… not a single one broke the oath of secrecy to keep the Omega children of future generations safe.
Those children, sworn to secrecy as soon as they awakened as Omegas, never showed a single sign, never gave a sole hint, never left room for anyone to ever doubt that they were anything else than Betas. Their suppressed presentation left them genetically unchanged and made it impossible for anyone to find out what they really were.
And so the last recorded Omegas grew old and died, and with them the known existence of Omegas in the world.
Sixty years later the world is a different place with different dynamics, three generations of Omegas living undetected and free among Alphas and Betas.
But to this day, every child whose body might have even the most fleeting of thoughts about starting to prepare for an Omega presentation, immediately gets connected to The Collective.
Donghyuck was eleven when it happened to him.
One night his body had a vague genetic idea which didn’t even set in motion yet, but triggered a half-asleep awakening that changed his life forever.
Donghyuck was a Beta child, until the next second he wasn’t anymore.
Suddenly, he was pulled into a network made of countless minds, all of them reaching out, all of them cooing reassuringly when the onslaught of voices and feelings overwhelmed him, all of them wrapping love and acceptance and belonging around him until Donghyuck calmed down enough to feel his single consciousness turn into many and his small soul into more.
Omegas, Donghyuck learned, mind and body reeling from shock when he was told that he was one, always awaken mentally first before their bodies go through transformation. But before that can happen, before Donghyuck’s body had a chance to even think about turning into that of an Omega’s, The Great Omega Collective intervenes and suppresses the presentation.
The process is as scientifically unexplainable as the emphatic link that all Omegas share. After all only Omegas know how deeply connected and mentally interwoven they are, their network unprecedented, unparalleled, and hard to understand for anyone who isn’t part of it.
Back in that night, when Donghyuck’s mind connected with the others, he wasn’t asked, his suppression was just explained to him the moment it happened, the omnipresent will of every living Omega’s mind pressing down on him and cutting the active genetic strings of his transformation from his system.
Years later, Donghyuck only remembers the vague feeling of a door being forced shut even though it hadn’t even opened yet. A door that Donghyuck hadn’t been actively aware of until it was gone.
That’s how Donghyuck, at the tender age of eleven, was made part of the secret world of Omega’s, sworn to keep it secret with his life, bound to an oath so old, so powerful, so omnipresent that there was no escape from it.
Not that Donghyuck wanted to escape it.
For the longest time he was nothing but thankful for the safety and for the freedom it gave him. Without presenting as an Omega he never lost his human rights, was never collared, nor made property of an Alpha the way it had been the norm just sixty years ago.
After more than 2000 years of recorded systematic slavery, Donghyuck’s kind lives free and happy, his life, his decisions, his future - everything his own to decide, not a single worry on his mind…
...until Mark Lee.
-
Three flower and two herb emojis flash through his mind when he sits in his advanced English class and smells lavender, chamomile, hyacinth, rosemary and valerian.
The buzz in his head is the only thing that keeps him from inhaling the scent any deeper than he must, hands balling to fists in an attempt to keep himself from reaching out to the Alpha right in front of him.
Mark Lee sits quietly bent over his books, more asleep than awake as far as Donghyuck can tell, his sleepy soft scent floating around him like an insubstantial cloud, alluring and calm.
To everyone who knows about Mark Lee’s scent it smells like a herbal tea infusion, but it’s the exact kind of blend that makes Donghyuck’s knees go weak.
He sighs as he forces his tense body to relax, class starting with the entrance of the teacher who greets them all in English and marks the start of Donghyuck’s weekly one hour long sacrifice.
From his peripheral he sees Mark Lee sitting up, the scent of flowers and herbs intensifying for a moment before it mellows out again. Donghyuck closes his eyes just as his thighs squeeze shut, face flushing when heat starts coiling in his abdomen.
The Collective made sure that his body can’t react any more than that when they suppressed him, but it’s still dangerous to sit so close to who he knows to be his Alpha, his body reacting instinctively to what it recognizes as his intended mate, his mind reeling from the conflicting feelings of want and fear.
As a matter of fact, Donghyuck shouldn’t be able to tell that Mark’s his Alpha. He shouldn’t be able to smell him, shouldn’t feel a connection, shouldn’t feel drawn to him in any way. No other Omega feels the way he does, but then most Alphas aren’t as dominant as his intended mate, and Donghyuck realized fast that Mark Lee’s instincts call out stronger for his missing Omega mate than it is common.
Donghyuck used to be reluctantly impressed, until he realized the tragedy of it. Whispers of, Strong Alphas live short lives, followed Mark wherever he went, and Donghyuck’s indifference started to crumble when he saw how much the Alpha suffered.
Not that it came as a surprise to him, because when the Omega population on Earth stopped presenting, the following generations of Alphas took the worst hit as a direct consequence of it.
While hidden Omegas lived just fine without ever being bonded, Alphas started to die young, the stronger their instincts the shorter their lives. Without mates to stabilize them emphatically and physically, their lives burned out fast, the strain on their minds and bodies too much to handle for too long, none of them living more than some forty years without an Omega mate to balance them out.
It’s why Donghyuck sets an alarm of three flower and two herb emojis (lavender, chamomile, hyacinths, rosemary, valerian), and why he takes the risk to be close to his forbidden intended mate. He sits with him, every week, every week, every week, since the day he watched Mark crash and burn years ago, when the Alpha broke down, lost in pain and suffering from the imbalance of not having Donghyuck in his life.
Donghyuck may have to inhale through his mouth and he may have to keep everything, especially the way he can feel and smell his Alpha, a secret from what he is part of, but it’s worth it. It comes with the price of feeling disconnected from the others, of being disconnected from home, but it’s worth it.
Whenever he sees all the color return to Mark’s face after a long week of Donghyuck keeping his distance from him, whenever he sees the way traces of pain disappear from the Alpha’s face, it’s worth it.
-
“You’re so stupid,” Renjun murmurs to him when the school day ends and he comes to collect Donghyuck after his English class.
Mark Lee passed them both five minutes ago, cheeks a healthy blush of pink, a spring to his steps, smile on his lips and the spark of life back in his eyes. It will be like this for the rest of the week before all the feelings of support and comfort and hidden ’you’re mine, I’m here, you’re not alone, I got you’ that Donghyuck pushed into him will wear off and leave him sleepy soft and exhausted again.
The cycle will cleanse and repeat, every Monday, every week, but Mark Lee will never know.
Donghyuck is left clinging to his best friend after each time, tears threatening to spill where they fill up his eyes as he reels from the feeling of disconnecting from his Alpha. It’s a pain he has to endure in private, because The Collective can never know, no one besides Renjun can, the only one Donghyuck trusts with his life.
“Why would you do this for an Alpha,” Renjun continues, but his hands are soft when they run through Donghyuck’s hair. “He doesn’t deserve you.”
The resentment in his voice makes something inside of Donghyuck wither and die.
It’s only been sixty years, he knows. It’s only been three generations of Omegas growing up free and unchained, but with The Collective’s resentment deeply ingrained in them, an endless grudge that turns them all indifferent to the suffering of Alphas around them. Compared to the countless decades Omegas were enslaved and exploited it’s close to no time at all.
Renjun and him, they both grew up fearing and hating Alphas, and there should be no pity, no pain, no effort wasted on Mark Lee, an Alpha just like all the others.
And yet… and yet, Donghyuck can’t help but hurt when he sees Mark being a shadow of who he’s supposed to be. He can’t help but feel sorrow when the Alpha’s gentle scent sharpens from exhaustion, then fades into nothingness from resignation.
The worst, though, is the look of acceptance in the Alpha’s eyes whenever he exhausts himself from the smallest things. Mark Lee knows that he won’t live long even compared to other Alphas, and that’s what hurts most, what makes Donghyuck take the risk, again and again, every week.
If anyone ever finds out, they’ll both be dead. Whatever that nameless thing between them is, it will make sure that Mark goes with him should The Collective ever get wind of what he’s doing with the Alpha. If they ever find out and shut his brain off, Mark will die with him.
But the half-life that Mark is suffering through is close to no life at all, and Donghyuck... Donghyuck can’t bear to see him wither like that, can’t bear to see life pass through him without leaving a trace, not when he’s supposed to be so much more.
Even if it costs Donghyuck his own comfort and safety and home.
Ah, Renjun is right, Donghyuck thinks. I really am stupid.
But Renjun is also wrong, because Mark Lee… Mark Lee deserves it all. He deserves so much, and Donghyuck can’t help but reach out to help him live just a little easier, just a little longer, even though it’s painful, even though it’s dangerous.
The spark of life in Mark’s eyes... the smile on the Alpha’s face, the warmth of his voice, the softness of his scent... it’s all worth it. Even if he’ll never know, even if he’ll never be Donghyuck’s.
Lavender, chamomile, hyacinths, rosemary and valerian spin in Donghyuck’s head, flowers and herbs blooming in the garden he creates in his soul. The feeling is that of home, one that feels soft and gentle and calm, one that fills the emptiness in his chest, one that feels like Mark.
Donghyuck inhales the fading scent into his lungs and knows that he can’t ever hate Mark Lee. Donghyuck knows, he knows, he knows, he knows, tears in his eyes and heart hurting in his chest, that he can’t ever have Mark Lee.
Because Donghyuck has a secret and Mark will never know.