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Giwook’s first heat comes a few weeks after his 14th birthday. He wakes up on a Saturday morning to an empty house and excruciating cramps in his abdomen. Sweat has soaked into his bedsheets and his head is pounding. With the small amount of strength he can find, he sends an SOS message to Dongmyeong (his neighbour, best friend, and secret crush). It feels like someone is twisting a knife into him and his brain is foggy. He curls into a ball to wait for Dongmyeong.
Less than 10 minutes Giwook hears the rattle of keys in the door, and he is eternally grateful for Dongmyeong knowing where the spare key is. The beta heads straight to Giwook’s room and is immediately hit with heat pheromones.
“Shit Giwook, you’re in heat.” The omega just groans in pain, cursing his secondary gender for the pain it is now causing him. Sex ed in school had been far from comprehensive but he knew he’d eventually have to deal with heat pain, but this is so much worse than he expected. “Where do you keep painkillers?” Giwook rolls over to face the door.
“Kitchen… drawer… below the… microwave…” Each word takes considerable effort, and his mouth feels unbelievably dry. Dongmyeong nods and rushes to the kitchen. He grabs a cereal bar and a sports drink before rifling through the drawer to find ibuprofen.
“Can you sit up for me Wook?” The omega curls further into himself. “Just for I little while.” Giwook starts to push himself up and Dongmyeong reflexively reaches out to help him sit against the headboard. “Good boy.” Giwook blushes at the praise, glad his face is already flushed from his heat. “I brought some food, eat that first and then you can take some ibuprofen and go back to sleep.” Giwook takes the cereal bar, that Dongmyeong had already unwrapped, and slowly eats it. He can barely taste it and it sucks even more moisture out of his mouth. He makes grabby hands at the drink and Dongmyeong holds it to his lips. The bright blue liquid doesn’t do much for his dehydration but it’s cold and is a nice reprieve from the heat that rolls under his skin.
Giwook finishes the bar and dongmyeong drops four tablets into his hand. “Dongju is usually fine with just paracetamol, but he’d never been this bad so I’m also giving you ibuprofen.” Giwook nods and pops the pills one at a time. When he’s finished, Giwook flops back onto his side and wraps his arms around his knees. Dongmyeong starts to get up, planning to leave the younger boy alone.
“Stay,” Giwook implored. Dongmyeong freezes. The boy he’s been trying not to fall in love with, wants him to stay.
“What do you need?”
“Don’t want to be alone.” Giwook’s words mean more than he wants to admit. It’s not just this heat he wants Dongmyeong to stay for, but that is a conversation for a time when he’s clearer minded.
“Let me throw this trash away and I’ll be right back.”
***
At age 16 Dongmyeong and Giwook have been dating for six months, they’ve spent most of Giwook’s heats together, finding the younger suffers less when he’s with Dongmyeong. He still has worse heats than the average omega, but he has a routine for dealing with them now.
However, when his heat hits early in the middle of band practise with Hyungu and Harin, he doesn’t know what to do. They’re two of the most important people in his life and they know his heats are bad, but they don’t know how bad until Giwook collapses, still holding his bass. Hyungu jumps up form his chair, hangs his guitar in its stand, and carefully pulls the instrument out of the young omega’s arms and pulls him into his lap. The beta sniffs the air and notices the faint scent of heat and immediately locks eyes with Harin.
“He’s gone into heat.” Giwook regains consciousness and curls into Hyungu’s side.
“Shit, Dongmyeong’s out of town for the next few days. Do you have any painkillers on you?” Hyungu shakes his head.
“My bag,” Giwook murmurs into Hyungu’s cardigan. Harin immediately starts fishing through Giwook’s bag until he finds a pack of mefenamic acid tablets.
“Are these the right ones?” Harin holds up the pack for him to see. Giwook peeks out from the darkness of Hyungu’s cardigan and nods. “Have you eaten?” Giwook shakes his head. He skipped breakfast that morning because he had felt rough. “I’ll go grab a snack from the vending machine then you can have these.”
Hyungu runs his fingers through Giwook’s hair. “How are you feeling, is there anything me and Harin can do?” Giwook groans and buries his head further under Hyungu’s cardigan. “Do you want me to turn the light off?” The omega nods but immediately starts to panic as Hyungu pulls away from him. “You have to let me go, if you want me to turn the light off.”
“Changed my mind.”
“Wook. Do you want me to take you home?” Hyungu’s voice is soft and soothing.
“No, don’t want to be alone.”
“I could stay with you, or Harin could.”
“Want both.” Harin comes back into the room with a pack of Quavers and a Twix. “Eat these, take some pain killers, and then we’ll take you home.” Giwook complies.
When the three boys get to Giwook’s house, the omega leads them to his bedroom. He gets into bed and gestures for the other two to join him.
“Will Dongmyeong be ok with that.” Harin asks. Giwook looks confused for a second. He and Dongmyeong had talked to each other in detail about how much they both wanted to date the older beta and alpha duo, but Hyungu and Harin didn’t know that. Giwook blushes at the thought.
“Yes. Now come here.”
“You’re so commanding, for an omega,” Harin teases.
“And you’re annoying for an alpha. I’m in pain! Somebody please hug me.” Giwook says matter-of-factly. Harin chuckles and joins the omega on the bed.
“I’m your favourite alpha.” Giwook can’t even argue with that.
***
At 18 Giwook has started to consider mating with Dongmyeong, Hyungu and Harin. The four of them have been dating for over a year and they couldn’t be happier. The thoughts get stronger whenever he's in heat. He’s read on forums that being mated to another person can help reduce the symptoms and when his boyfriends are all curled round him in bed, helping reduce his suffering, it takes everything in him not to beg to be bitten.
“Yes!” Dongmyeong shouts.
“He just fell asleep Myeong.” Hyungu sighs, petting Giwook’s head.
“Sorry, Ju just messaged. We’ve got a gig. Session musicians at a singing contest. This could be huge.”
“That’s great, but I think I’m gonna throw up.” Harin grabs the bucket from the floor, as Hyungu helps the youngest to sit up. Harin sets the bucket in front of Giwook just as he empties the contents of his stomach into the bright blue plastic. He slumps against Hyungu’s side and whimpers. “This sucks.”
“I know baby.” Hyungu rubs his back and Harin takes the bucket to the bathroom. “I wish I could do more to help.”
“You could bite me.” The way Giwook says it, makes it sound like he’s suggesting it be added to the weekly shopping list. The two boyfriends that hear it are in shock.
“Wook, that’s a massive step. I’ve wanted to mate you since we were 15 but that’s still something we should talk about first.”
“Yeah, like Dongmyeong said, I want to mate you, but we should talk about it properly.” Giwook shrinks in on himself.
“I just thought…” Giwook can’t even finish his sentence before he starts crying.
“Baby, it’s ok. We’re not saying no. We’re just saying not right now.” Dongmyeong is thankful for Hyungu’s intelligence. “You’re in heat and this is the first time we’ve brought it up. As soon as you’re out of heat we’ll talk about it yeah.” Giwook nods as Hyungu wipes the tears from his cheeks. “I love you.”
“I love you too, and you Dongmyeong.” Harin comes back into the bedroom with the, now clean, bucket and a toothbrush. “I love you as well Harin.”
“I love you too,” Harin and Dongmyeong say in unison.
***
A few months later the four mates are sat in a café after a successful day being the session musicians for a competition. They’re all pretending not to be swooning over the tall alpha who won. By pure chance, said alpha is in the same café as them. They play a quick round of rock paper scissors to decide who asks him to join them for coffee. Hyungu loses.
“Hi, I’m Hyungu. I was the guitarist earlier. I don’t know if you remember me, but my bandmates and I were wondering if you might want to join us for a drink.” The tall boy smiles and Hyungu’s heart rate increases.
“I remember you. You’re quite talented. I’m Yonghoon, drinks sounds good.” Hyungu nods and leads Yonghoon to their table.
“This is Harin, Dongmyeong and Giwook.” The three boys wave bashfully as Hyungu says each of their names.
“Nice to meet you, I’m Yonghoon. You guys were so good; it’s not often I get to sing with such incredible musicians.” The four boys are blushing messes at this.
Giwook is so engrossed in meeting Yonghoon, he misses the usual warning signs of an early heat. He doesn’t notice until he feels a stabbing pain tear through his abdomen. He tries his best to hide it, his mates notice him being less involved in the conversation. Harin places a hand on his thigh and quietly asks if he’s ok. Giwook shakes his head and rests it on Harin’s shoulder.
“I’d love to stay, but we should get Giwook somewhere he can lie down. We have a hotel room and you’re more than welcome to come join us.” Harin is already helping Giwook to his feet and grabbing their bags.
“Is that ok?” Yonghoon asks. “I don’t want to intrude.”
“We’d love for you to spend more time with us.” Hyungu nods in agreement and the five boys walk the short journey to the hotel. Harin makes sure Giwook takes some pain killers and tucks him into one of the beds.
“So, are you and Giwook mates?” Yonghoon asks Harin.
“We’re all mates,” Dongmyeong responds. “We only mated recently but we’ve been together for a while. Since Giwook’s heats were so bad, mating was something we talked about rather early on.”
“Cool. I get why your chemistry was so good on stage now.” Yonghoon chuckles.
“Not to be really forward, but we all think you’re really hot and want to get to know you better, so if you want to, do you want to get to know us?” Dongmyeong’s voice holds both confidence and insecurity.
“I’d like that.”
***
At age 23 Giwook wakes up one day to only three of his mates in bed with him and a dull ache in his body. Hyungu is sat against the headboard with a book, Yonghoon is next to him on his laptop and Harin is curled up by Giwook still asleep.
“Good morning baby,” Hyungu cooed.
“Where’s Myeong?”
“Dongju took him to the hospital. He’s going to be fine. How are you feeling?” Yonghoon closes his laptop and places it on the bedside table.
“Sore, and hot.” Giwook crawls into Hyungu’s lap and buries his head in the older’s shoulder.
“I’ll grab you a drink from the fridge.” Yonghoon climbs out of bed and leaves the room. Giwook sighs and Hyungu leans over to wake Harin up. Harin slowly pulls himself to sit next to Hyungu and rubs a hand on Giwook’s back. Yonghoon returns with a cold isotonic drink, hands it to Giwook and sits on the opposite of Hyungu to Harin.
“I miss Dongmyeong.”
“I know baby, he’ll be home before you know it,” Yonghoon soothes. Since mating Yonghoon, every heat spent with all four of his boyfriends had been bearable and the fear that this one would be bad stayed in the back of his mind.
“You can nap, we’ll wake you up when Dongmyeong gets home.” Hyungu tightly wraps his arms around Giwook.
“Too worried to sleep, and hungry.” Giwook speaks into Hyungu’s neck.
“We can order in samgyetang, or do you want something else?” Harin asks.
“Samgyetang sounds good,” Giwook hums. He loves having the full attention of his mates on him; it makes him feel warm and wanted.
When the food arrives, the boys manage to coax Giwook into the living room. They eat quickly and Hyungu and Harin clean up the mess from the takeout and Yonghoon gets dragged back to bed by a fatigued Giwook. The omega pushes the alpha onto the bed and falls into his lap. When Hyungu and Harin re-enter the bedroom, Hyungu wiggles his way under Giwook so he’s lying across both Hyungu and Yonghoon’s laps.
“I smelt Dongmyeong by the door; should I see if he’s alright?” Harin asks.
“He’ll come in when he’s ready,” Yonghoon says.
“But what if he’s scared?” Harin pauses “I’m going to open the door.”
Harin leaves the room and comes back hand in hand with Dongmyeong, who joins them on the bed by burying his face in Giwook’s hoodie.
“Hey baby,” says Yonghoon. “Myeong’s back.” Giwook shifts slightly to take Dongmyeong’s hand.
“You’re ok right, you’re not going to die?” Dongmyeong chuckles softly at Giwook’s weak voice.
“Well they don’t think I’m ill, but the nurse was really shocked by my results.” Giwook manages to turn around to face Dongmyeong and stroke his cheek.
“What is it?”
“I… well… I’m… the nurse thinks I might be pregnant.” He refuses to make eye-contact with any of his mates, his voice muffled by Giwook’s soft hoodie. They all tense up almost imperceptibly. A burst of jealousy fills Giwook, followed by guilt. His beta mate is pregnant and he, an omega, has never had so much as a pregnancy scare.
“How is that even possible? You’re a beta?” Harin says incredulously. Dongmyeong’s four mates form a circle around him. Giwook tries to hide how he feels, so he tunes the conversation out slightly.
He tunes back in to hear. “I also am fully behind you in this,” Hyungu hummed.
“I’m here for you every step of the way,” Harin whispered into his hair.
“Me too,” Giwook mumbled. “Can we nap.”
“Of course baby.”