Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Are you sure you have everything?” Riki looks up from his bag, smiling softly.

“I’m sure, hyung,” he says, standing up. “You worry too much.” Jungwon rolls his eyes, moving to look through Riki’s bag anyway. Riki lets him, leaning against the kitchen counter as he rummages through the bag, going over his fifth check of the hour. He finds it far more amusing than he probably should, likes watching Jungwon dote on him like this, and Riki can only smile at the leader.

Jungwon sighs as he finishes checking the bag, placing his hands on the table in front of him, and leaning his weight on them. “Okay,” he starts after a moment, “are you ready then?” Riki folds his arms over his chest, hugging himself. The twinge of anxiety he’s felt all week leading up to this moment slowly seeps deeper under his skin, expanding. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be completely ready for this, given it’s kind of like the start of the next chapter of his life, but it’s not exactly something that’s avoidable, so he’ll have to get over it, he supposes.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” he says, voice quiet. He watches as Jungwon licks his lips, brows knitting together. “I’ll be okay, though,” he attempts to reassure him, “nothing I can’t handle.” Riki offers Jungwon a shaky smile, and the leader drops the strap to Riki’s bag, letting it fall to the table. Riki opens his arms knowingly when Jungwon stalks over to him, sighing in contentment when Jungwon wraps his arms around his waist and presses their bodies together. Jungwon isn’t much of a hugger, his skin-ship usually very limited—and mostly going to Jongseong—but he knows that Riki is, so Riki always takes advantage of these moments, wasting no time in propping his chin on the top of Jungwon’s head, smiling when his hair tickles his chin.

“I’m sure it won’t be too bad, Riki-yah,” Jungwon assures, taking on a gentle tone. It’s music to Riki’s ears. It doesn’t stop his shoulders from sagging the tiniest bit, realizing that he’s moments away from having to leave, Jungwon now sure that he’s fully prepared for whatever’s to come. All he has left to do is say goodbye to the remaining members. He hates being away from them; it’s going to be a brutal week for a multitude of reasons.

A million worries are running through his head over this entire ordeal, but one does stick out significantly more than the others inside his head, poking out until it finally slips through his tongue, past his lips. “What if I don’t satisfy people with what I present as?” he asks. Jungwon pulls away from him the slightest bit, squinting.

“You’re worried about what you’ll present as?” Riki nods, and Jungwon sighs. Jungwon knows just as well as Riki that the media makes presentations one hell of a thing. There’s always talk about what a minor will present as when they officially cross the waters of becoming an adult. Jungwon may have only been in the spotlight for a little under two years—a little over one in the intense spotlight after their debut—compared to Riki’s four years, three under the intense spotlight, but he still faced the same thing Riki did. He knows how it is; he’s been in Riki’s shoes before.

Jungwon’s presentation as an alpha had turned the media upside down for an entire three days before it started calming down and people thought on it a little harder, their heads clearing after the initial shock. Everyone had expected him to present as an omega, and Jungwon was well aware of that. Well, everyone except for the people closest to him; the people who saw every part of him. Riki was kind of seventy-five; twenty; five with it. In his eyes, there was a seventy-five percent chance he presented as an alpha, twenty percent sure he’d be an omega, and only about five percent confident he’d present as a beta—that for reasons of his own on top of the whole thing with betas in society.

The truth is, Jungwon made a great alpha in Riki’s eyes far before his presentation, independent and reliable in many ways. He had a certain sureness to him that always made Riki feel safe and like he was in good hands; ones that would never let anything bad ever happen to him. All that led Riki to believe that Jungwon had a high chance of being an alpha. He wasn’t nearly as surprised as the media. But, he saw where they were coming from, too. Jungwon does have this unintentional, natural cuteness to him. It’s just in his nature. Still, that didn’t outweigh everything else. Not in Riki’s eyes, at least.

“No matter what happens, no matter what you present as, it’ll be okay, Riki.” Riki closes his eyes as Jungwon closes the distance between them again for a short hug, pulling away before Riki can revel in it any longer. Jungwon goes on his tippy-toes to ruffle Riki’s hair without having to reach up as much. “It’ll be alright, Riki-yah.” He doesn’t mention what he thinks Riki might present as, and Riki notices.

Riki’s presentation has been a rather…controversial topic if you will—especially in the past year. Many people see him as this big, strong alpha that will make an enticing mate to any omega, but then others see him as a soft, endearing omega. Betas aren’t really acknowledged openly, so Riki isn’t so sure where they stand with that whole thing. He’s not so sure he wants to find out either, as awful as that may be.

Riki opens his mouth to say something, anything, but nothing comes, so he clamps it shut again, tensing his jaw. He wants to believe Jungwon, but it’s proving to be rather difficult. There have been many times Riki wished he would have waited until he was a little older to be in the spotlight, wishing he wouldn’t have sacrificed his youth for such a cruel and unforgiving life, but now he really wishes things were different. Still, he doesn’t regret anything major that he’s done. He just hopes it stays that way.

“You heading out, Riki?” Jaeyun asks as he enters the kitchen, tailed by Sunghoon and Sunoo, who are arguing about something beyond Riki, followed by Heeseung, who’s wearing a bewildered look as he listens in on the argument. Riki nods in confirmation, pushing himself upright from where he was still leaning on the counter and opening up his arms as he walks towards Jaeyun. The latter smiles and accepts the hug easily, bringing up a hand to pet Riki’s hair. Riki takes advantage of the moment to take a deep inhale, smelling a hint of Jaeyun’s scent. It’s muted since Riki hasn’t presented yet, and he wonders what it’ll be like after. He’s always loved Jaeyun’s scent, even if it was hard to pinpoint and he had to really concentrate to even smell it in the first place.

He pulls away from the hug to engulf Sunghoon in a hug, relishing in the warmth of the alpha. “Sorry I don’t get to stick around for your birthday, hyung,” he apologizes. He feels Sunghoon shake his head from where he’s buried in the elder’s chest.

“It’s okay, I got to see you up until now.” He places a kiss on the crown of Riki’s head. “You’ll be back before you know it.” Riki pouts, burrowing further into Sunghoon’s embrace.

“But I’m scared,” he confesses. “And a week is a really long time.” He knows it’s really not in the grand scheme of things and he’ll be back before he knows it, the whole ordeal finally being over after being so anticipated his entire life, but that doesn’t change the fact that he hates being so…secluded. It’s a known fact that Riki has always been a child that thrives on attention, and he has a feeling that will change to being an adult that thrives on attention in the coming days.

“You’ll be just fine, kiddo,” Heeseung says as Riki pulls away from Sunghoon, suddenly buried in the eldest’s arms. “Although, I can’t really call you kiddo anymore, can I? Ah, they grow up so fast.” He sniffles as he pulls away from Riki, dramatically wiping his eyes of tears that definitely aren’t even there.

Riki laughs. “You’ll still call me it, old man. I know you,” Riki teases. Heeseung pinches his side, fighting his smile.

“I am not old and brittle.” He pauses, grimacing. “Yet.” Sunoo snickers next to him, shoving him away from Riki. He’s quick to give Riki a short-lived hug.

“Good luck, Riki.”  Riki purses his lips. Sunoo presented in the public eye as well. He knows what he’s going through as well, even if his experience was much shorter than both Jungwon's and Riki’s. Now that Riki’s thinking about it, the only members that didn’t experience this are Heeseung and Jongseong; Jaeyun presented as an omega fifteen days before their debut but had the intense spotlight on him since he was already a part of Enhypen at that point, their final lineup set in place much before that. That got mixed responses as well, but people got over it by the time Sunghoon presented as an alpha twenty-three days later, eight days after their debut. They mated just a little under a year later—it was by accident, to an extent. Sunghoon was spending Jaeyun’s heat with him when it happened. They had talked about mating before, the topic almost constant since they’ve been obsessed with each other for far longer than they’ve been presented, but they didn’t mean for it to happen so suddenly and without talking to the company about it, at that.

Sunghoon’s defense was something along the lines of ‘well, shit! He was begging me and I just—acted!’ which Riki grimaced at, understanding the underlying context of that situation and not too satisfied with the picture his mind conjured up. All the other members had numerous shades of red on their faces, but none of them compared to Jaeyun’s. It happens, though, or whatever. That whole thing left them with an astonished company and a very stressed-out Jungwon for about a week before things settled down, the company allowing it as long as it was hidden from the public eye. And for what it’s worth, Riki doesn’t think there could have been a better outcome in that situation. He even overheard Jaeyun and Sunghoon talking about it one night, the omega assuring Sunghoon that he genuinely did want to be his mate and he didn’t blame him for what happened.

Riki distinctly remembers hearing the words ‘omegas aren’t as out of it and detached as the media makes us out to be, Hoon. If I was begging you for something, it was because I genuinely wanted it.’ Riki promptly high-tailed it out of there after that, fearing he would hear about a couple of other things Jaeyun begged for during his heat. He didn’t want to hear it. But, he was sure to file that bit of information in the back of his head, in case he’d ever find it useful in the future.

The point is, they’ve almost all experienced backlash from the media on their presentations. Riki doesn’t know why, can’t see why people would be reprimanded for shit out of their control, judged for being who they are, but it’s just what the media does. People always find something to complain about, even if it doesn’t affect them in the slightest and makes them a bit pathetic. Society is stupid like that.

“What do you guys think I’ll present as?” he asks the room, watching as everyone tenses a bit. He frowns, folding his arms over his chest. “What?”

“I don’t know, Riki,” Sunoo replies honestly. “Only time will tell.” Riki knows the members have discussed it behind his back—it’s one of those things that are kind of hard not to talk about—so he expects them to at least give him something to work with here. He comes up empty-handed though, and it frustrates him to no end. But fighting with them won’t get him anywhere, so he relents. There’s also the very real possibility that they really don’t know, as well. Sometimes it’s hard to predict what someone will present as, and Riki is pretty sure he happens to be one of those people, given his rather complicated personality.

Riki sighs, officially dropping the topic. Instead of pushing it further, he asks, “where’s Jay hyung?”

“He’ll be out in a minute, he’s taking a shit,” Sunghoon supplies. Riki snorts, rolling his eyes.

Some rustling comes from the bathroom before they can faintly hear Jongseong yell, “hey! Bowel movements don’t stop for special occasions and you all know it!” The room bursts into laughter, and Riki shakes his head fondly. He’ll miss them while he’s gone, and he makes a mental note to try and remind himself that it won’t be long before he’ll be back to teasing them when he gets to the hotel.

Usually, he would go to their designated dorm for his presentation as that’s where the members go when their cycles come around, but it’s under renovation right now, a leaking pipe causing an onslaught of water damage. Now they’re forced to use a hotel room. It’s not like that’s an odd thing to do, many people use hotel rooms as a place to wait out their cycles when they don’t have a mate or have a roommate that has nowhere to lay low. It’s whatever, he supposes; he’s not distraught over it or anything like the other members have been, worried that something will happen to Riki while he’s vulnerable or something. They’re just being dramatic.

Riki hears the bathroom door swing open and Jongseong emerges from the hallway, quickly entering the kitchen and tackling Riki in a hug. “Oh, my baby! You’re all grown up now!”

“Oh great, not you too,” he teases. Still, he burrows into the omega’s comforting warmth. Jongseong laughs lightly, squeezing Riki a little harder at feeling him push himself further into the embrace. “I’ll miss you guys,” he admits. Jongseong coos and Riki immediately regrets the admission. He can’t be too disgruntled about it when Jongseong cards his hand through Riki’s hair though, his fingers gently massaging the top of his head.

“We’ll miss you too, but you’ll be back before you know it,” Jongseong assures him, his voice hushed beside Riki’s ear. “Do you have everything?” he asks, and Riki nods.

“Don’t worry, Jungwon checked it about a thousand times in the last hour alone,” Riki says. Jongseong chuckles knowingly.

“That’s our leader Yang for ya.” He pulls away from Riki just as the door to their dorm opens, revealing their manager. Riki’s stomach drops, knowing exactly what it means. Jongseong gives him one last pat on the shoulder before stepping away from him.

“You ready?” the man asks, wasting no time. Riki nods, hugging himself. “Okay, I’ll be down in the car while you guys finish up in here.”

Riki watches him as he goes, looking back at the members with an uneasy smile. “Bye, I guess.”

“Aish, don’t be so mopey,” Jaeyun reprimands gently. “You’ll be back before you know it, you overgrown puppy.” Riki frowns. They all keep saying that, but it doesn’t feel any more true than it did the first time. It’s like none of them have any other type of reassurance to offer him. He doesn’t know how to take that other than them being anxious about his presentation as well.

They share one last hug with him before retreating from the kitchen, a chorus of ‘happy early womb emancipation!’ and ‘happy Japanese legality!’ resonating through the room, as well as Riki, wishing Sunghoon a happy birthday one last time. Riki turns around to see the last remaining member. He offers Riki a small smile before stepping closer to him, enveloping him in a hug once more.

“If it gets to be too much, you can call me,” Jungwon breathes out, the words placid, like a secret shared amongst them, only to ever be heard by the two of them. Riki bites his lips. He’s not allowed to have any contact with anyone during the duration of his presentation, something about having to learn to be independent during the time in case you don’t have a mate, and bringing in another person would make you both dependent on having someone around during those times and could trick your body into thinking they’re your mate or something.

“Hyung—”

“I know, Riki. I know,” he says. “But I don’t care about the rules; I care about you.” Riki swallows. He knows he should deny Jungwon for a bundle of reasons, but he doesn’t want to. He knows part of the reason he’s so caught up on what he’ll present as is because he wants to mate with Jungwon. He knows this. Riki isn’t stupid, he knows his feelings for Jungwon are much more than a meaningless childish crush at this point, has for a long time now, and that has formed how he hopes his presentation turns out, in a way. He knows presenting as an omega won’t be his one-way ticket to mating Jungwon—there are about a hundred other things that would need to happen before that—but it would at least make Riki an option for Jungwon. Then again, Riki doesn’t even think Jungwon sees him as that; wouldn’t see him like that, even as an omega.

Riki pulls away from the hug, moving to grab his now zipped-up bag (Jungwon must have done that while he was bidding the others a final goodbye) and head out, but Jungwon stops him, grabbing his wrist. “Riki,” he starts, “I’m not saying you have to or anything, but I—” Riki watches as he bites his lip. “I just want you to know that I’d never make you go through something alone if you didn’t want to.” Riki should walk away. He should tell him no, that he won’t under any circumstances.

But Jungwon is offering, and it makes Riki’s heart swell in his chest even more than the hand around his wrist. And he’s never been one to deny Jungwon of anything, anyway.

“Okay.”

Riki shifts in the bed, grumbling as he changes which side he’s laying on for what feels like the millionth time. The anticipation is killing him; what exactly that anticipation is for, he’s not so sure, given nothing has happened yet. It’s driving him up the wall, but all he can do is wait. It’s all he could do at the start, and now it’s really all he can do since it’s already the day past his birthday.

He turned eighteen yesterday, but he’s shown no signs of presenting. Well, that’s not completely true; Riki has shown some signs, just none that indicate anything good. His scent glands have fully developed, for starters.

The soreness in his neck started bright and early in the morning yesterday, sometime around six. It was bad enough it jostled him awake—only a short two hours after he had finally succumbed to sleep, the anxiety having him tossing and turning all night, much like it still does now—and he was too addled with sleep to realize what was happening at first, only starting to connect the dots when he brought his hand to his neck, pressing down in a weak attempt at alleviating some of the pain, only to find that it was a little warmer to the touch in that specific spot than normal. He didn’t think much of it until he brought his hand away, catching a lingering scent on his hand.

It didn’t take a genius to realize the muted scent of something that reminded Riki of nature but couldn’t quite pinpoint was none other than his own.

Riki doesn’t really know the science behind scent glands—he cheated his way through biology, science never being his strong suit—but he does remember that they fully develop during your presentation. They’re there prior to it, the first signs of it appearing a little before puberty, but don’t fully do their thing, or whatever until you present. The part that stumps Riki is that it’s supposed to happen the same time as your heat or rut would hit, omegas usually develop the scent gland around the crux of their heat while alphas tend to have theirs fully develop near the end. But again, Riki cheated his way through biology; he could definitely have it completely backward.

That being said, the only people who don’t have a heat or rut are betas. Their presentations are very subdued, and they don’t have cycles they have to deal with. As far as Riki remembers, the only prominent thing that really happens during a beta’s presentation is that they develop their scent glands, and it happens rather quickly since it’s one of the only things their body has to accommodate at the time. Betas have it easy—in one thing in life, at least. Society doesn’t exactly make anything else easy on them, treating them with a cruelty that breaks Riki’s heart.

Riki sucks in a breath, stilling under his blanket. His scent glands have been the only thing that developed, and it’s midday the day after his birthday, the only other thing that really happened is Riki’s canines hurting a bit last night, but he can’t remember if that’s something to do with presenting—fuck, maybe he should have paid attention in bio.

All the signs are pointing at one thing, and it makes Riki’s stomach flip. He personally doesn’t have anything against betas and doesn’t see why so many people do, but he’s well aware of how cruel the world is towards them. Betas are definitely in the minority, and Riki can’t recall any beta idols. There’s a reason for that. On the off chance that there are idols out there that are betas but are presenting themselves as something else, that in itself says enough about how the world treats betas. Riki doesn’t know what would happen if he were truly a beta.

Would the company terminate his contract? Would everything be over, just like that? He doesn’t want to believe it, but it feels like a very real possibility. Shit, he’s heard of it happening before—more so about trainees being let go from companies after presenting as a beta, though. Their careers ended before they could even truly start. It sounds like a fucking nightmare.

How would the members react? Riki’s heart rate picks up, thumping in his ears. He can feel it in his right big toe. They’ve never really mentioned anything about betas before, never really seeing a reason to. Well, at least Riki didn’t think they did. They very well could have theorized that Riki would present as a beta and that’s why they were so standoffish when he asked them what they thought he would present as. Or maybe they never talked about it amongst themselves, but they all thought it, fearing the worst for their maknae. Riki has a hard time believing either of those things, it being much more likely that they were just a little upset that their youngest had grown up already. Whatever it was, Riki doesn’t know, but he does know two things for certain right now.

    1.) He’s not presenting as an alpha

    2.) He’s not presenting as an omega

He squeezes his eyes shut—a futile attempt at calming himself down—and rakes a hand through his hair as he sits up in the bed. Nothing. He feels fine. Slowly, he brings his hand up to his neck again, rubbing it against his scent gland, feeling the heat radiating off of his skin. The scent is faint as he pulls his hand away and meekly smells it, finding the same muted scent that he still can’t identify. But it’s there, nonetheless. Okay, so he knows three things for certain.

    3.) He’s presenting as a beta

The tingle that pricks at his skin as another wave of anxiety crashes over him has him wanting to crawl out of it, tempted to peel away at his skin until there’s nothing left of him except for his internal organs. It’s fucking awful, and he suddenly feels all hot and bothered under the collar, but not in the way that he’s heard omegas do during their heat and more in the way of how he feels before a big performance, anticipating the worst outcome in the moments leading up to it, despite knowing he’s mastered the choreography down to a T.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with presenting as a beta, Riki knows. It’s just who he’s meant to be, and there’s no changing it—well, naturally, at least. It’s just rather unfortunate that a whole new world of challenges is opening up for him because of it. Alphas and omegas have it a bit difficult since they have to put up with cycles, some people having it so bad they have to actually seek medical help for it, but they are what are viewed as the top dogs, or something like that. They’re the standard, is one way to put it.

Betas are just kind of…there. Most people see them as a waste of space, actually. They can’t reproduce, are infertile, and their bodies aren’t made to accommodate for a mate’s cycle in the way alphas and omegas are—the alphas are meant to have…stamina, while the omegas are, well…it’s not important. Anyway, what he’s trying to say is that alphas and omegas are made for each other, while betas have nothing to really offer in the mix. They just exist to exist, he supposes.

These thoughts just have him circling back to what the members could possibly think about him being a beta. They’re all people that he’s grown to love, caring people that Riki would like to believe aren’t total pieces of shits who frown upon betas for existing, but he doesn’t know where they stand here because he’s never asked. None of them ever have. Maybe it was just never a topic they saw as something that needed to be discussed, all believing that betas were their equal and there was nothing to talk about when it came to the topic. He hopes so.

But perhaps they never talked about it because they were so sure they were in the clear of having to deal with it. The group only consisted of alphas and omegas—prior to all this shit, at least—the alphas consisting of Heeseung, Sunghoon, and Jungwon, while the omegas consisted of Jongseong, Jaeyun, and Sunoo. They were probably wondering whether alphas would outnumber the omegas or the other way around leading up to Riki’s presentation. Now they’re still even, with one lone beta. That’s just fucking great.

Riki flops back onto the bed, swallowing down the whimper building in his chest and creeping up the back of his throat. He maneuvers the covers, grimacing at the feeling of them over top of him—seriously, what fucking material even is this shit—but he feels the need to crawl into a hole and die right now, so he settles for it. The realization that he’ll be the odd one out not only in society’s eyes but also in the group has an entire tsunami of anxiety building inside of him. Christ, he hates this. He wishes he weren’t alone right now, able to reach out to someone to reassure him that it’s not that bad.

He blinks, mouth falling open in realization before he scrambles out from under the covers, searching for his discarded phone. He had silenced it at some point yesterday, awaiting what was to come and had never really bothered to do anything with it since, a little too caught up in his head. He had said he’d call Jungwon if things got to be too much, and things are a bit too much for him right now; maybe not in the way that Jungwon was implying, but they are.

The device is found on the floor between the nightstand and the bed, probably being knocked over at some point from Riki’s lanky limbs on one of his bathroom escapades. His movements are hurried as he unlocks his phone with his passcode, his face ID being disabled until he enters his passcode due to going unused for so long, and he quickly navigates through his apps to his contacts, typing in Jungwon’s name so he doesn’t have to waste time in scrolling and potentially missing his contact two or three times like he usually does when on the hunt for someone’s contact.

Only a moment of hesitation is present before Riki clicks on the call button, clenching his jaw as he sets it to speaker. The familiar sound of the phone ringing feels like it’s taunting Riki as it goes on and on, slowly losing hope that Jungwon will pick up. He could be at work right now, the group continuing their activities and preparing for the year-end award shows while Riki is holed up for his presentation. He could very well be at dance practice right now, or even possibly a vocal lesson. Who knows.

All hope is almost lost on the fifth ring, but then the telltale clicking sound of the call being answered resonates through the room and Riki almost keens, relief flooding through his veins, clashing against the anxiety that’s been burning through his blood.

“Riki?” the familiar voice of Jungwon comes and Riki really does let out a whimper this time, unable to hold it back. He can hear Jungwon’s breath hitch, and he certainly took that the wrong way—Riki can’t blame him, though. “I—are you okay, Riki-yah?” He sounds more composed than Riki would have expected after that.

“I—I’m sorry. I’m sorry for calling, I’m just a little overwhelmed,” he starts, “I don’t want to be alone.” Jungwon chuckles gently, the sound a little muffled as if he tried to hide it from Riki by pulling his phone away from himself. It admittedly brings a small smile to Riki’s face as he pictures the sight in his head paired with one of his favorite sounds: Jungwon’s laugh.

“That’s alright,” he says easily, voice smooth. Riki can hear him moving around, his footsteps echoing. He must be walking through the HYBE building, everything echoing in that place when it’s quiet enough. One look at the time on Riki’s phone tells him it’s past six at this point, not too late but much later than he originally thought. He must have been caught up in his thoughts for a lot longer than he originally thought. “What’s got you overwhelmed? If you don’t mind me asking, that is,” Jungwon prompts, bringing Riki back into the moment.

“Err…” he croaks. He’s not sure he has it in him to reveal that he’s a beta to Jungwon. He trusts him more than anyone else and is most confident in Jungwon being understanding about this entire thing, but he doesn’t feel like he’s ready to face this head-on yet. “What are you doing? I can hear you moving around,” he digresses.

Jungwon hums. “I, my friend, am on a wild goose chase right now, looking for one of the old props we used during our year-end award shows two? Two years ago now,” he says, accepting the digression. Riki almost sighs out of relief but catches it at the last second.

“Aren’t most of the props we’ve used over the years still in the practice room?” he asks. Jungwon clicks his tongue, seemingly opening a door based on the creaks Riki hears through his phone’s speakers, the noise faint.

Jungwon grumbles and Riki hears the door shut. “That’s what I said!” Riki bites back a laugh as Jungwon continues, “I told them we’ve kept all the props in the practice room throughout the years, but they insisted it wasn’t there and gave me a whole list of places it could possibly be,” he complains. Riki hears his steps falter for a moment, falling silent for a short beat before Jungwon says, “so, what did you do with them, Riki?”

Riki scoffs. “Why is it immediately my fault they’re missing?” he asks, incredulous. Jungwon snorts, and Riki can practically picture the way his eyes are definitely narrowed, biting his bottom lip in disbelief as he fights back a smile. It’s what Jungwon always does when they bicker, trying to hide the fact that he truly is amused by the maknae’s antics. “You’re all so mean to me; always blaming me for things I didn’t even do.”

“Do you really blame us?” Jungwon asks. He doesn’t, but he won’t admit that out loud, and definitely not to Jungwon like this. “You’re our designated little gremlin,” he says fondly. “Well, I guess you’re not so little anymore, though.” Riki rolls his eyes, pulling the blanket closer to his chin as he fights the smile that tries to form on his face. He’s almost afraid to say anything, sure that Jungwon would hear the amusement in his voice. He’d surely hear the smile that has won the battle as well, his face starting to hurt from how wide it is.

“Are you all going to be this sappy, now? I passed you in height years ago, hyung,” he comments. Jungwon’s soft huff of air tells Riki that he can hear the smile in his voice, the giddiness dripping from each word. He always gets like that when talking to Jungwon. “I haven’t been little in a long time, you know.”

“I beg to differ,” Jungwon starts, “you’re naturally cute, even though you deny it every chance you get. You make me want to punch a wall with how cute you are sometimes.” Riki feels his face burn up and quickly tries to turn the conversation around on him.

“Well you’re cute too,” he chokes out. “Don’t let that alpha aggression fool you, hyung.” Jungwon hums in contemplation, and Riki starts to think he’s finally one-upped him. He should know better, though.

“Okay, but I’m not going to try and deny that I’m cute. We can both be cute, Riki-yah.” Riki groans, shoving his face into the mattress. He hears Jungwon laugh at him, distantly. “My cute little dongsaeng that I adore oh so much,” he says sweetly. Riki groans again, shoving his face even deeper into the mattress, just to make a point.

“You’re mean,” he whines, “why are you so mean to me?” Jungwon openly coos at him, something he so rarely does, and a piece of Riki dies inside, all while something else blooms in his chest, spreading down to his stomach where it explodes in an array of butterflies. “I hate you, go away,” he quips, if only to irk Jungwon just a little.

It doesn’t work. “You can hang up any time,” he counters. They both know he can, but they also both know that he won’t. It ends up irking Riki a little bit, and he clams up. Jungwon, ever the attentive leader, notices the plummet in his mood. “I don’t want you to hang up, though,” he confesses. Riki swallows thickly. And, inevitably, Jungwon asks, “are you okay, Riki?”

Riki tucks the lower half of his face under the blanket, the bridge of his nose barely peeking out. He knew he had to tell Jungwon eventually—would have to tell the members and the company sooner than later, unable to hide everything all on his own—but the fact still stands that Riki has no idea how Jungwon will take it; or any of the others, for that matter. This could very well be the last time he bickers with Jungwon like this. He doesn’t want that, not at all, but it’s a possibility. Perhaps it’s a faint one, Riki still having faith in Jungwon being as good of a person as he thinks he is, but it’s there and that’s enough to scare Riki into silence.

He trusts Jungwon, he wouldn’t have called him if he didn’t, but this is a big deal. Presentations are known to flip dynamics upside down at times. What would happen to the group’s dynamic if Riki were to present as a beta? Well, he’s about to find that out he supposes, given he definitely presented as a beta, because of course he did. Riki’s never exactly had it easy in the spotlight.

“Riki-yah?” Jungwon calls. He squeezes his eyes shut. Jungwon’s not moving around anymore and hasn’t been for a while now, probably getting comfortable somewhere to talk to Riki at some point. Riki misses the noise that filled the silence when he was moving around because now there’s nothing to hide his fear and hesitation. And it seems Jungwon is tired of the diversions, as he heaves a breath before asking the one question Riki really doesn’t want to have to answer. “How’s your presentation going, Riki?”

“It’s been uh…” he trails off, searching for the right word. He hopes Jungwon can just connect the dots he lays out for him so he doesn’t have to outright say it. He doesn’t think he has it in him yet. “It’s been rather uneventful.”  Jungwon doesn’t say anything, doesn’t make a noise, and Riki realizes that he wants him to outright say it. Jungwon has always been like that, wanting him to face things he doesn’t want to face so he’ll grow from the experience. It’s an admirable trait, Riki supposes, but he kind of resents it right now. So, he keeps trying to get Jungwon to do this the way he wants, not the way Jungwon wants it to play out. “My scent glands fully developed.”

“Oh,” Jungwon says, surprised. “That’s—that’s good.” The hesitation doesn’t go unnoticed, and Riki hopes he’ll just outright confirm his own suspicions. Jungwon is smart, has one hell of a head on him, so there’s no doubt in his mind that Jungwon is realizing what that means. His inkling is confirmed when Jungwon asks, “you haven’t experienced anything else?”

“No,” he confirms, “nothing other than my canines hurting a bit last night. My scent glands developed early yesterday morning.” Jungwon makes a noise of understanding in the back of his throat.

“Your canines reach their full growth at the end of your presentation when your body is prepared to take on a mate,” Jungwon says, the words a bit restrained. Riki wonders why. “They don’t grow much, growing as you get older, but they do reach their peak at the end of their presentation. That’s when couples who have been together for a while and the other has already presented would mate.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that,” Riki divulges. “That—”

“You’re not stupid, Riki,” Jungwon says softly. “I know that you know what all of this means.” A beat. “I know why you were scared to say it,” he whispers, voice so soft Riki almost has to strain his ears to hear it. This feels like the moment he’ll truly find out how Jungwon feels about all of this, and the anxiety is gnawing away at his skin. His chest feels heavy and his vision blurs as tears well in his eyes.

“I—” his voice breaks and he can’t push anything else out, his sentence falling short. What that sentence was going to be, he has no idea, but he doesn’t really care when the tears start falling freely and he notices that he’s shaking. He doesn’t want to have to face this head-on. But, he feels like he owes Jungwon an apology. Why, he has no idea—for being who he turned out to be? “I’m sorry—” he forces out. “I’m really, really sorry,” for jeopardizing the group? For you having to be around me now?

“It’s okay,” Jungwon breathes, voice so, so soft. “There’s nothing wrong with being a beta, Riki.” Riki takes a shaky breath, reaching out to pull his phone a little closer on the bed if only to hear Jungwon a little better; to make it feel like he was a little closer than he actually is. Something shatters in Riki’s chest as Jungwon says, “you’ll never have anything to apologize for when it comes to being who you are, sweetheart.” Sweetheart. The pet name bounces around in Riki’s chest, attempting to pick up the shattered pieces of him there.

“But what about the group?” Riki asks, voice small. “You know how the world is.” Jungwon does know; everybody knows. This isn’t going to be easy on any of them. It may hit Riki the hardest, but it will take multiple lashes at the others. Riki doesn’t want that. He’d take everything on himself if it meant they got to keep going unharmed. “What about the company? What will they do when they inevitably find out?” He can hear the wetness in his voice as the tears keep coming, paired with a small sigh from Jungwon.

“Riki, you know we have to tell our manager right away, right?” Riki practically whimpers at the idea. “I know you’re scared, but we can’t take this on alone. I’m sure it won’t be nearly as bad as you think. Things usually are, yeah?” Yeah, but they can also sometimes be even worse, Riki thinks.

Still, Riki knows he’s right—about them having to tell the manager right away, that is. So he relents, asking Jungwon in a meek voice, “will you call the manager for me?”

“You know I would do anything for you,” Jungwon replies easily. “Are you okay with me hanging up right now to call him? I know you’re upset, but I’ll call you back the instant I get off the phone with him.” Riki bites his lip, pulling his phone even closer so it’s right by his head now. He feels like a child as he grips the device, like Jungwon will magically appear from it if he holds onto it tight enough.

“You promise?” he asks, brows knitted as he awaits Jungwon’s response.

“I promise,” he breathes. “I’ll never leave you alone during the times you need me.” Riki’s heart swells, and his chest feels the slightest bit lighter than it did before. Jungwon’s voice has taken on such a gentle tone, soothing Riki to his core. He’s always loved how comforting Jungwon is.

“Okay,” he relents. “Make it quick, please.” Jungwon humors him with a laugh, letting him be demanding. Riki’s not usually this needy, liking his own independence even though he thrives off of attention.

“It’ll be like I never hung up,” Jungwon assures. “Talk to you in a sec,” he says, the call beeping as he ends it before Riki can even say anything back. Riki turns onto his back, staring up at the ceiling as his phone falls asleep, the screen leaving Jungwon’s contact and going to a black screen. This is probably the part where Riki should do some breathing exercises or something to get himself to calm down and not overthink while he waits for Jungwon to call back. In retrospect, it’ll probably take him some time to discuss it with the manager before he can call Riki again. Five minutes at the least, but will probably easily push ten.

God, he hates this. He doesn’t want to cause a bunch of people stress, but now he surely will. People will be scrambling at the company to figure out something to do as a form of damage control. He’s always hated feeling like an inconvenience to others; it’s why he doesn’t ever ask retail workers for help; doesn’t want to make their days any harder than they already probably are. Maybe it’s poor logic, considering it’s their job, but that’s just how he thinks. If he could turn his brain off, he would.

There are plenty of times he would like to turn his brain off. Right now is a perfect example, actually. A million thoughts are swirling around his brain and he’s not so sure where to start dissecting them. He doesn’t really want to, though. He just wants to let them die out, never to be dealt with. Unfortunately, that won’t happen because he needs to face this problem sooner or later—and it’s looking like it’ll be sooner rather than later, given Jungwon is definitely on the phone with their manager right now. He feels kind of bad that he’s taking time away from preparing for their year-end award shows, but he supposes Jungwon is the one who offered to help.

It’s not like Riki is able to prepare for them right now. He was supposed to be holed up in this hotel room up until the day before their next award show appearance, and that was going to be absolute hell, Riki knew. The members had all argued that Riki wouldn’t be in any condition to participate in it, but Riki fought back that they shouldn’t underestimate him and that he’d be fine. It was just his pride talking, though.

It also sets in place that nobody expected Riki to present as a beta. This is going to catch everyone off guard, only a very limited amount of fans even open to the idea of betas being idols. He knows they’re there, mostly residing on Twitter these days because that seems to be where all the (relatively) open-minded people reside. It’s still a hellscape, but Riki has found it’s one of the most welcoming places for betas. He’s pretty sure the app has a big platform of betas, actually.

That place would still definitely chew him up and spit him back out though, just as they always have. It truly is one hell of a hellscape for idols, filled with people who complain for a living and are only activists until it comes to someone they don’t like, that’s for sure. Riki knows first hand.

If it were to get out there that Riki is a beta, his career would certainly be in ruins. He’d like to think that the members could continue on as six, but he’s not so sure that would be possible after this…scandal, as the media will definitely take to calling it. Some people will deny it, while others will run with it and make Riki’s life a living hell. Article after article will be written, Riki’s name plastered all over the place, and there will be nothing he can do to stop it. Even if the company were to release a statement saying he’s not a beta, that he presented as something else, it would only do so much. People can recognize damage control, and on top of that, if it were revealed somewhere along the line that he truly is a beta, that would cause an even bigger ruckus.

Maybe there’s truly no getting out of it, having to accept that this is his life now and he can’t change it. It doesn’t feel good, but life usually doesn’t, he finds. Life is harsh and has very few positives to offer—but when it does, those positives are great. It’s probably not balanced on the seesaw of life, but the highs and lows are there, so maybe that’s what makes life interesting. Riki may just experience a lot more lows from here on out.

His thoughts are interrupted by his phone vibrating. He glances over to it to see Jungwon’s name on his screen, his contact photo blurred and darkened behind it, and he quickly moves to answer it, sliding his thumb across his touchscreen. “Hi,” he says.

“Hey.” Riki can hear the small smile in Jungwon’s voice. “The manager is going to come pick you up, alright? We’ll all meet you at the dorm,” he says. Riki knits his brow, propping himself up on the mattress with his elbow.

“Huh?” he says, rather dumbly.

“Just—we’ll discuss it later, okay?” Riki nods minutely, momentarily forgetting that Jungwon can’t see him.

“Alright,” he says after a moment. He hesitates to ask, “is everything okay?” He can hear the uneasiness in his own voice and the slight tremor to his body is back—or maybe it never really left and Riki just didn’t notice it for a while—and Jungwon sighs on the other end of the call.

“We’ll figure it out,” is all he says in response. It doesn’t do much to quell Riki’s worry, but Jungwon doesn’t seem to be too keen on saying whatever it is he has to say over the phone, so he doesn’t push him any further. Instead, he remains silent and hopes Jungwon will fill the silence with something. Anything. He doesn’t.

Riki can only take so much silence, though. “Will you stay on the phone with me until the manager gets here?” he asks, deflating a bit at the embarrassment of having to ask. He doesn’t usually ask for attention and comfort outright like this—usually just picks and chooses a hyung to cling to and hopes they pick up on what he needs. But much like Riki isn’t one to deny Jungwon of anything, there are very few things Jungwon will deny Riki of.

“Of course,” he breathes, “you don’t even have to ask.” He hears Jungwon grab something and some muffled voices in the background, and Riki realizes that he’s back in the practice room, getting ready to head out alongside the others. He feels guilty for cutting their practice short, but it also wasn’t exactly his call, so he’ll try not to blame himself for it. It’s not like any of this is in Riki’s control. “What did you want to talk about while we waited?”

“I don’t know,” he admits. “Anything, really. Just don’t want to be alone with my thoughts right now.” This is the most honest he’s been about his feelings in a long time, so it doesn’t take him by surprise when Jungwon lets out his own little noise of surprise.

“Okay,” he starts, “that’s okay. We can think of something while we wait.” Riki curls himself under his blanket, glancing around the room in hopes of coming up with a topic. Nothing comes up, and frustration sparks in his veins. Jungwon, of course, comes to save the day when he says, “how about you tell me about all those ugly Pokémon evolutions.”

Riki snorts. “They are all pretty ugly, aren’t they? Their original forms are much better.” Jungwon hums his agreement.

“We could also discuss that time you killed me in The Sims,” he comments, and Riki groans.

“That was an accident,” he defends, “and at least I tried to bargain with the grim reaper!”

“And got Jake hyung killed in the process,” he snarks.

Riki opens his mouth but clams up. He bites back a smile as he says, “yeah, I did do that, didn’t I?” It eases some of the tension that was in his chest, relaxing his muscles and allowing him to feel like he was breathing for the first time since before the days leading up to his presentation. It feels good because talking to Jungwon has always been easy. Whenever Riki has a problem, he knows he can trust the leader to be there for him. It’s such a beautiful thing, really, and it’s no wonder Riki fell for him.

He swallows harshly as he thinks back to how he had hoped he presented as an omega so he could make an enticing mate for Jungwon. Now, his chances are pretty much zero. He could never be a good mate for Jungwon, not when he has nothing to offer him. It breaks Riki’s heart into a million pieces, but there’s nothing he can do about it. He’ll just have to try and get over him, he supposes. Betas are known to live lonely lives—a huge taboo with them mating with either omegas or alphas, but beta-beta relationships quote-unquote ‘give people the ick’, or something—and Riki has always been someone who loves being doted on (but denies it until the very end), so he can’t imagine how he’ll cope with this whole thing.

“You should get Sunghoon hyung killed now so Jake hyung won’t be lonely in the afterlife,” Jungwon muses, breaking the silence. Riki huffs a small laugh, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, I should let those two be disgusting in hell together. Make them the devil’s problem,” he says, “We could all use a break.”

“Mm, but that doesn’t save us from Heeseung hyung and Jay hyung.” Riki grimaces.

“They’re all disgusting; one of those pairs isn’t even dating.”

“Yet,” Jungwon adds. Riki smiles.

“Yet,” he agrees. “They’ll wise up. Hopefully.” Jungwon makes a noise of affirmation. Then a thought dawns on Riki, and he circles back to the sentence Jungwon said earlier. “Hyung, if Jake and Sunghoon hyung get to reconcile in hell, what about you?” he asks, “who do you get to annoy the devil with?”

A knock sounds on Riki’s door, and their manager calls out to him just as Jungwon says, “Sunoo hyung will kill you and I’ll have you, of course.”

Riki sits on the couch in their dorm with his hands in his lap, fiddling with them where they’re laced together. The manager dropped him off all but five minutes ago, leaving them to discuss things themselves before the group is brought into the company for a meeting first thing tomorrow morning. Nobody has said a word since he walked in, silently herding him over to the couch to sit down. Riki swallows around the lump in his throat, wishing they would just say something instead of wearing somber looks in silence. They sure know how to make his anxiety rise.

They’re all aware of the fact that he’s a beta, Riki can tell just based on their looks alone, and their lack of reaction is making his skin crawl. He wants to crawl out of it all over again. He was hoping things would be better once he finally made it back to the comfort of their dorm and was surrounded by the people he’s grown to love most in life, but now he wishes he was back in the hotel room, alone. Maybe on the phone with Jungwon because that seemed to help him calm down significantly. That’s not all that surprising, though.

Said boy has been just as silent as the others since Riki walked in, and it irks him. He was treating him normally over the phone, offering him comfort, but maybe that was all just for show; so Riki wouldn’t do anything drastic and ruin all of them. He feels bad for even thinking that, but it’s kind of hard to think anything else when they’re all so silent. It’s like they’re just trying to figure out how to drop the bomb on him that they hate him now and he needs to pack his shit and never look their way again. It’s enough to bring tears to Riki’s eyes, and he bites on his bottom lip as he tries to hold them back, eyes trained on the floor. He can see Heeseung's socked feet.

“Riki-yah,” Jungwon calls. He looks up to see all the members staring at him, and he grits his teeth. He hates this, hates that they can see the tears that have built up in his eyes that he refuses to let fall. He’s done enough crying over this, even if it wasn’t all that much. They all soften a bit at seeing the maknae’s current state, and Jungwon frowns. “Nobody is mad at you, Riki. I promise.”

“It’s not like you broke a vase or something. Again,” Sunoo comments, voice soft. “You’ve done nothing wrong.” A chorus of agreement flow through the room.

“But,” Heeseung starts, “we do have to discuss some things.” Riki goes frigid, flinching at the hand that comes to rest on his shoulder. He whips his head around to see Jaeyun, an apologetic smile tugging on his lips. Riki relaxes into the touch, letting the newfound seemingly permanent frown on his face quirk up the slightest bit. “It’s nothing too bad, promise. It just…you probably won’t like it,” Heeseung says, making Riki snap his attention back toward him. “But it’s ultimately your decision. Kind of.” Riki doesn’t question that last part.

“Okay,” he drawls. “What is it?” Again, he feels kind of stupid for asking so many dumb questions today. But nobody comments on it, so he pushes past the humiliation.

Jongseong is the next to speak up, voice timid as he says, “the company wants you to take on the persona of either an alpha or an omega. It’s…up to you which one.” Riki’s heart drops. He knew it would be a little stupid to be open about the fact that he’s a beta, but part of him was hoping he could just be himself. It’s incredibly hard to go against your natural instincts and act like something you’re not. It doesn’t feel fair in the slightest. Could Riki even pull it off? “Riki,” Jongseong calls, grabbing his attention, “if you really don’t want to, we will fight for you, though.” That at least brings a small smile to Riki’s lips.

“It may not be the safest option or the most practical one, but if it’s what you want, we’ll do everything we can to make it happen,” Sunghoon adds. “We won’t ever make you do something you’re uncomfortable with if we can help it.” He takes on a more grim tone as he confesses, “we can’t make any promises, though. The company will have the final say in it.” Riki expected just as much, and it doesn’t change the fact that he appreciates the support.

“I don’t really want to have to act like something I’m not,” Riki expresses, “but I don’t really see what else there is to do. It could ruin us if I make it public that I’m a beta, and I really don’t want that.” He drops his gaze back down to the floor and Jaeyun gives his shoulder another squeeze. Riki can feel the sympathy in it. He ignores it, trying to save some of his dignity, and instead asks for the others’ input on the situation. “What do you guys think I’d be? If I weren’t a beta, that is.”

The group all exchange a look—everyone aside from Riki—and the youngest sighs. “Come on, I know you guys theorized over this more than you’ll ever admit to.” At least they have the decency to look a bit bashful at that.

“Well, let’s think,” Jongseong suddenly blurts, clearly trying to move on from the topic. He looks Riki up and down, squinting. “What role would Riki fit best? He’s got a slender frame, but has a bit of muscle to him, neither soft nor incredibly defined; somewhere in between.” He bites his lip. Riki lowers his gaze back into his lap, squeezing his hands where they’re still laced together, watching as the veins in his hands flex.

“Not really hot-headed like an alpha, but not overwhelmingly soft and gentle like an omega,” Sunghoon observes. Riki feels his skin grow hot as the anxiety comes back, a light sweat starting at his temple and pooling on his palms. It makes him queasy. 

“Tall in nature but doesn’t carry himself like he’s trying to show it off,” Jaeyun throws in. Riki lets his fingers untangle from each other so he can clench his hands into fists, his nails digging into his palms as they shake in his lap. The tremor is back. If he were a little less anxious, he would realize that the members are subtly throwing jabs at their counterparts for fitting into the stereotypes. He’d find it amusing any other day.

“Fuck,” Jongseong breathes. “He’s a beta,” he says with finality, as if it’s impossible to argue with. Which, based on all of their observations, it is. Riki bites his bottom lip so hard he tastes the familiar metallic taste of blood, eyes brimming with tears. “Not—not because you’re a beta, there’s nothing wrong with that, Riki,” Jongseong quickly corrects when he notices Riki’s distress, backtracking. “But fuck because you…you fit the ins and outs of the role so well.” His voice softens as he goes on, and Riki sniffles.

“There’s no hiding it,” Heeseung reiterates. “I can’t believe none of us suspected it…” he trails off. “In hindsight, it seems obvious, doesn’t it?”

“Riki has always been a bit of a mediator with us. You know, when he’s not the one causing trouble,” Sunoo says. “I always just kind of thought it was because he was our maknae and held that above us.”

Riki pretends he doesn’t hear that part. Instead, he voices his innermost worries, “do you guys think everything’s going to be okay?” The silence that follows the question actually says a lot. None of them are sure of what’s going to happen next, and the guilt comes back to Riki for putting them in this position in the first place.

Jungwon clears his throat, speaking up for the first time in a while, “no matter what happens, we’ll be here for you, Riki.” Riki breaks his gaze with him to look down at the floor again. He wants to believe it, but he finds it hard to. He knows how the world treats betas. They all do. “And remember we’ll fight for you, whatever it is you want.”

Riki keeps his eyes trained on the floor. “You don’t have to answer us now,” Sunoo murmurs. “You’re allowed to think over it for a little while. Ideally, we’d come to a decision on your own time, but the company is persistent on getting it handled ASAP, so…you have until morning, at least.” Riki nods, the movement muted.

“We’re here for you, little man,” Jaeyun assures as he wraps an arm around his shoulders, dragging him into his side. Riki doesn’t have it in him to fire back with his usual comment of I’m taller than you, Jackass. He’s too caught up in his head, and he’s realizing that he’ll be caught up in his head a lot for the remainder of the day, all the way up until the dreaded meeting at the company first thing tomorrow morning. He has a decision to make, after all.

It’s decided that Riki will take on the persona of an alpha. It’s not Riki’s decision, he never really came to one, but it’s what the company decided on. Really, Riki doesn’t think they were ever going to take what he or any of the members had to say into consideration, already making their own decision and running with it. They’d only ever humor them; make it look like what they said mattered to them. It’s bullshit, and it sours everyone’s mood as they realize what happened. It doesn’t anger anyone more than it angers Jungwon, though.

The leader seemed way more upset than anyone else—besides maybe Riki—that Riki didn’t get a say in what happened with his own body. It’s not like they can just say Riki is an alpha; they have to take measures to make it believable. At least they won’t try and actually change his biology; Jungwon might actually kill someone if they were to try that.

Jungwon’s anger doesn’t really come to the forefront until they actually start taking those measures to have him be perceived as an alpha, though. It happens shortly after Riki walks into the practice room, a scent patch over his scent glands to give him a quote-unquote ‘alpha musk’. Riki hates the feeling; it itches and he can feel it with every movement of his neck. The stylists will have to take extra care to cover it at all times, his concert wardrobe now consisting of shit that covers his neck and itches it even more than the patch itself, and Riki hates it. He doesn’t even need to be wearing it right now in the practice room, they’re all alone today, only their manager and their closest protocol team members present while Riki…adjusts. They all know of his predicament, had to in order to take precautions and keep an eye on him. They’re just making him wear it so he gets used to it. He won’t—get used to it, that is.

He’s whining over it for the millionth time on one of their ten-minute breaks during dance practice when Jungwon seems to blow up. Riki is itching at it and absently whining to Jaeyun when Jungwon bolts up from where he’s sitting on the floor and walks over to Riki, fury in his eyes. “Take it off,” he bites when he reaches him. Riki holds his hand over it, freezing mid-scratch, and recoils a bit at the evident anger in his voice. It’s easily mistaken for Jungwon being mad at him, annoyed with Riki’s constant whining. He always gets whiny when he’s overwhelmed, though. He knows this; they all do.

“What?” Riki timidly asks.

“The scent patch, take it off,” he seethes. Riki curls into himself. Jungwon blinks slowly, looking up at the ceiling before directing his gaze back down on Riki again. “Just—I don’t like seeing you uncomfortable. Take it off.”

“Jungwon,” their manager starts, “he has to—”

“There’s no reason for him to have it on right now,” Jungwon snaps. The atmosphere in the room is so tense Riki could cut through it with a knife. Heeseung coughs awkwardly from somewhere in the room and Sunghoon and Jaeyun grimace. Jungwon’s not one to talk back to adults, usually the most respectful of the group. He crouches down next to Riki and taps his shoulder, right by his scent patch. “Take it off.”

Riki glances over to their protocol team and when he’s not met with any protests, obliges. The relief is almost instant as he peels it away from his skin, scratching lightly at the area. It still itches, and it makes him even more agitated. They’re lucky he doesn’t have a strong scent; it’d surely be stinking up the room with how agitated he is.

“He’ll have to get used to wearing it,” Sunoo says softly from where he sits next to Riki, directing the words at Jungwon. “You know that.” Jungwon shoots daggers at him with a glare he directs at him. The omega goes unfazed, surprisingly uncaring over the fact that an alpha looks slightly murderous and it’s directed at him.

Jungwon grunts. “Then he can do it in the comfort of the dorm and not here,” he counters. Sunoo relents, holding up his hands in mock surrender. Jungwon’s scent is sour, Riki realizes as he picks up on it. It’s muted, just like every scent he can smell, but it’s there. He’s a little disappointed he’ll never get to smell it to its full extent. Well—betas can smell their mate's scent to their full extent, but that’s the only time. So basically, Riki will never smell it to its full extent. His statement still stands strong.

“Jungwon, please go take a walk or something,” Jongseong comments, his voice coming out funny as he pinches his nose. “You stink.” Jungwon whips his head around to shoot daggers at him this time, but the omega is just as unfazed as Sunoo was. Riki never realized how trusting everyone was with each other until now, so sure that they’d never elicit any harm to each other.

“Fuck off,” he grits. But, he does what Jongseong suggests anyway, spinning on his heels to walk out the door of the practice room. Riki watches him go, but not without frowning. He doesn’t know what’s upsetting Jungwon so much about this, but he supposes he should complain a little less from here on out. There’s already enough stress and tension circulating the dorm between Riki’s presentation and the weird sexual tension between Jongseong and Heeseung that they both refuse to acknowledge. It’s getting a bit ridiculous, really.

Riki turns to Sunoo, one of the only remaining sane people in the group. “What’s up with him?” Sunoo directs his gaze toward him, shrugging.

“I don’t know, but he better shape up or he’ll crack my crystals at home.” Riki blinks at him. Sunoo doesn’t falter in the slightest, instead continuing his thought. “My citrine is already losing its color from the sheer amount of bad vibes in the apartment.”

“Sorry,” is all he says, hoping Sunoo doesn’t bring up his tarot cards again, telling Riki doom is in his near future for the second time. Oh. Maybe that wasn’t complete bullshit. Whatever.

Sunoo shakes his head. “It’s not from you.” He shoots daggers at Sunghoon and Jaeyun. Riki furrows his brow, looking between the two, attempting to find any sort of tension. He comes up with nothing, finding them looking completely normal. Well, they look about as normal as they ever do, so Riki thinks there’s nothing worth worrying about.

“Did something happen while I was gone?” he tries. Sunoo sends him an unimpressed look.

“You were only gone for two days,” he says.

“Yeah, and a lot tends to happen around here in just one.” He expects Sunoo to try and argue with that, if only just for the sake of arguing, but he doesn’t.

Instead, he says, “true. No wonder the demon in the apartment is back on its bullshit; probably feels like it fits in.”

Okay, maybe Riki was wrong to say Sunoo was among the few remaining quote-unquote ‘normal’ members. They actually might be completely out of those—if Jungwon doesn’t shape up, at least. Riki’s the only remaining one at the moment. He thinks so, at least. He could be wrong.

Jungwon comes back a little under ten minutes later, smelling significantly better from what Riki picks up on. He also looks calmer, which is actually what Riki bases his conclusion on. And the rest of dance practice goes by relatively smoothly, with only a few setbacks here and there that they always seem to have when learning new choreography, and Riki thinks he’s able to deem the day as successful. Until the manager tells him he’ll have to wear his scent patch at home, that is. All night. Until morning. When he gets to the company building, if not longer.

He’s unhappy about it, and he starts whining about it again, despite telling himself he’ll stop complaining for Jungwon’s sake—and the others, of course. But he can’t help it, even when the manager doesn’t budge and Jungwon doesn’t step in to save him again. He does eventually resort to silently sulking in the backseat of the van, stuck between Heeseung and Jongseong. A perfect spot. Riki thinks they’re sending each other fuck me eyes. He really, really hopes he’s wrong. He shivers.

His sulking lasts the entire ride home and even overlaps with the time in the dorm. At least the sulking gets him a spot to shower first, everyone taking pity on his current predicament. That brightens Riki’s mood the slightest bit; they’re usually ruthless when it comes to showering, never showing mercy. He just wishes he saw this mercy under different circumstances. It sucks.

Falling into bed has never felt better though, he thinks. Even with the itchy scent patch on him that he put on after his shower, promising he’d wear it all night and most likely all day tomorrow…and probably the day after that. And the day after that. The point is, he missed his bed, even if he technically got to sleep in it last night—not like he actually slept, though. He wasn’t gone from it for long, only two nights, but god did he miss his bed. His own bed has always just been the ultimate comfort place. He figures that’s why he immediately relaxes into the mattress, pulling back the comforter to get nice and cozy.

Jungwon walks into the room about an hour later. Riki figures he’s come to do his own thing—this is his room as well, after all—but is surprised when Jungwon sits on the edge of his bed. Riki cranes his next to look over his shoulder at him, his body facing the wall as he lays down. Jungwon must have just gotten out of his own shower, his hair still dripping wet, soaking the towel draped over his shoulders, and Riki vaguely wonders why the sight makes his stomach erupt in—something.

They sit in silence for a long moment, Riki watching as he plays with his fingers in his lap. Eventually, Jungwon turns to him, and after a few attempts of opening and closing his mouth repeatedly, he says, “I’m sorry for scaring you earlier.” Riki cocks his head to the side, but the action hurts since he’s still straining his neck to look at Jungwon, his body turned to the wall still. He flips over onto his other side, facing the leader now, and furrows his brow.

“What are you talking about?” Jungwon bites his lip, sending Riki a quizzical look. “You didn’t scare me,” he assures. “Why do you think you scared me?”

“Because you kind of shrunk in on yourself when I snapped earlier,” Jungwon says, sounding defeated and utterly guilt-ridden. “I wasn’t mad at you, I didn’t mean to make it seem like I was.” He picks at a loose thread on Riki’s comforter. “I just don’t like seeing you so distressed,” he discloses. Riki raises his brow.

“Oh,” he says. It clearly doesn’t do much to make Jungwon feel better—he wonders why—and Riki quickly tries to come up with something to say, literally anything, to quell Jungwon’s unnecessary guilt. “I know you weren’t mad at me, though. I—admittedly maybe I did at first, but it didn’t take me long to realize you were just frustrated with something else.”

“I don’t like seeing you uncomfortable,” Jungwon repeats his words from earlier, back in the practice room. “I’m sorry I went all… alpha mode on you, or whatever. I didn’t mean to make you feel like you were in a lower position than me.” Riki knits his brow.

“Huh?” Jungwon frowns at him as he looks up, meeting his eyes. Riki shakes his head slowly. “That—you didn’t, though?” it comes out like a question, and it must make Jungwon even more confused.

“Was it not?”

“No,” Riki says simply. “That wasn’t about an alpha having dominance over me, or whatever. My discomfort had nothing to do with our secondary genders.” Jungwon has somehow gotten it all wrong, and Riki can start to understand why he feels so guilty for it. Jungwon thinks he made him feel less than him and that he was forcing him to submit or some shit. For some reason, it angers Riki. “I’m not an omega, Jungwon. That’s not how that works with me.” Jungwon visibly flinches at the coldness of the words.

“That’s not—I didn’t mean to make it seem like I thought you were,” he defends. “I just—I’m sorry. I’m not…used to being around betas. I don’t know their behavior.” Riki can get that; he himself hasn’t been around many betas. If any. It’s a learning curve all of them have to conquer. He’s going to have to be patient with the members as they all adjust.

Riki curls into himself under his comforter, sliding his arm under his pillow and pulling it a bit closer. The fabric is cool on the underside of it. He mulls over his words before he says, “I know, I’m sorry too. I know we’re all learning right now.” He pauses. “It really wasn’t about our secondary genders, though. I—” He gulps a bit. “I’ve just always hated you being mad at me because I never want to disappoint you,” he voices. Jungwon seems a bit taken aback by the information, and Riki decides he may as well just keep confessing shit. “I only ever want you to be happy with me.”

“I really wasn’t mad at you. I’m sorry I didn’t make that clear from the start and let my temper get the best of me.” Riki nods minutely. Jungwon’s usually so good about keeping himself in check, so his anger felt way out of place today.

“Why did you? Let your temper get the best of you, that is. You’re usually the best at keeping it in.”

Jungwon is silent for a long moment, and Riki starts to think he said something wrong and crossed a boundary that he wasn’t supposed to ever cross. But then Jungwon tenses his jaw, looking away from Riki, towards the doorway. “I don’t know,” he says. It sounds strained, and it’s a blatant lie, Riki can tell. But Jungwon’s not much of a liar, so if he is lying about it, he clearly doesn’t want to discuss it. Riki decides to respect that, backing up from the boundary he crossed that he shouldn’t have, and doesn’t comment on it.

The leader turns to him once more, pats Riki’s leg, and then gets up and walks away, out of the room. It’s weird, and Riki wants to call out to him to stop him and demand that he explain his behavior, but he lets him go. It’s been a long, stressful day for everyone, he supposes. And it seems that it’s nowhere near over either, his scent patch starting to irritate him again, itching and feeling like it’s clogging up his pores. Which, he supposes it kind of is, given what it is. That knowledge doesn’t make it feel any less disgusting, though.

Whatever. The day will blow over eventually and Riki will grow used to this damned thing…eventually. It’ll be fine. Super awesome. It’ll be like today never even happened, after a while. He just has no idea when exactly that’ll be.

For what it’s worth, Riki goes the next few days without a major mishap. It just so happens that the first major mishap manifests at the award show they’ve been preparing for. And it’s not even a huge deal, it just…it’s not exactly small, either. It’s enough to have Riki’s life—career—flash before his eyes and their manager to barely walk out of the night with blood pressure so high he should probably go to the hospital. Oh, and Jungwon is also uncharacteristically pissed for seemingly no reason. Riki’s really stumped on that part.

The events go like this:

Event 1: Riki has been wearing the scent patch for four days straight. They needed him used to enough for him to wear it discreetly for the duration of the award show—and fuck are these things long—and be able to dance with it without it distracting him. They also needed the stylists to get used to covering it since not only would it be live-streamed and broadcasted for people around the world to see at home, but there was also a live audience, as well as other idols and celebrity figures. They figured having him constantly wear it like that would have him used to it by the time the award show came around, even feeling natural from how long it's been there.

That’s not what happens. It just irritates Riki even more the longer it’s on. It didn’t feel natural at any point, making him feel stuffed up and the itch was practically unbearable at that point. Riki, already agitated from everything that’s been going on over the last week or so, ends up acting out. He goes against his better judgment and tears off the scent patch in the hallway that leads them to the stage, right before they’re set to go on stage. He just couldn’t take it anymore.

Event two: Heeseung panics when he sees Riki tear it off, and instantly leaps into action to rub his scent all over him.

Now, this is where things get a little complicated.

For one thing, betas can be scented and scent others, but it’s a very…tedious process. You have to get real up close and personal to get any sort of result from it. So, Heeseung tackled him to the floor, pinning him down as he pressed their bodies real close, and just kind of…went to town on it, rushing to do it since they had to be on stage. And if they were going with the scenting excuse as to why Riki smelled like Heeseung, Heeseung had to smell like Riki, as if he had scented him. The problem lies in the fact that the scent people think Riki has isn’t really his scent. So, Heeseung did what any genius would do during this specific time of desperation, grabbed the scent patch, and went to town on himself with it. It was a sight to see, for one thing.

Riki was kind of flabbergasted when Heeseung finally helped him up, seemingly satisfied after he sniffed himself more than what Riki thought was necessary, making sure he smelled like faux Riki. And for what it’s worth, Heeseung did seem a little bashful over it. But that’s not even what Riki would deem as the problem in this situation. Riki doesn’t mind what Heeseung did—sure, the reaction was a little overdramatic and made him the slightest bit uncomfortable at first, but it wasn’t all that bad; he’s comfortable enough with Heeseung that he didn’t feel like he was in immediate danger or violated, or anything.

No, the problem becomes apparent after their performance, when Jongseong picks a fight with Heeseung. Riki doesn’t pick up on most of it, but he’s pretty sure it’s over something pretty mundane. Still, he can see why Jongseong may have gotten upset over that…entire thing. They’re not mates, not even dating (Riki doesn’t even think they’ve admitted to themselves that there’s something there) but their dynamic has shifted at some point over the last few months. The dynamic was always weird, but there was a shift somewhere in there that opened everyone’s eyes (except for the two idiots involved) and accept that they’d be doing the devil’s tango in no time.

Riki didn’t mind at the time, project Jakehoon doing a lot more than that in recent times—knowledge that Riki would rather not have, but Jaeyun tells Jongseong everything and Jongseong tells Sunoo everything and Sunoo tells Jungwon everything and Jungwon tells Riki everything. A few details probably got mixed up in that complicated game of telephone, but the main point still stands. Jaeyun and Sunghoon have gotten kinky, and Riki just hopes and prays to every god that could be out there that he doesn’t become an eye-witness that could attest to it. Looking at how his luck has been recently though, there’s a good chance that will happen.

So anyway, Heeseung and Jongseong are fighting over something that probably doesn’t warrant a fight. Riki doesn’t think Heeseung has connected the dots as to why Jongseong is upset yet. He’s stupid like that; he probably won’t. They’re set to go back out and sit in the audience for the remainder of the award show—and are nominated for an award, so there’s also the possibility of having everyone’s full attention on them again—so they’re going to have to wrap up the bickering in a minute here, but Riki has a feeling they’ll play nice in the public eye, only for shit to go down in the safety of their apartment; behind closed doors. Riki’s already mentally preparing himself for that screaming match.

The fact that they’re fighting right now isn’t the weird part, though. Like Riki mentioned before, he can understand why Jongseong would be a little upset over the whole scenting thing, even if he himself doesn’t understand why his blood is boiling at the moment, so he doesn’t see that whole situation as weird. Complicated, yes, but not weird. What is weird though is the fact that Jungwon is seemingly mad. Not at Heeseung, but at Riki. He didn’t even notice at first, but then he stood next to Jungwon to take a jab at the two bickering dumbasses and Jungwon immediately tensed, clenching his jaw and narrowing his eyes.

Riki didn’t say anything after that, opting to move away and give Jungwon his space. He doesn’t know why Jungwon is mad at him, doesn’t know what he could have possibly done wrong from the time they went out to perform to now. Was it the fact that he was so irresponsible and ripped off the scent patch when he shouldn’t have? Riki can’t see why, Jungwon has been amongst the most understanding, if not the when it comes to that damned thing.

He tried and plays it off like it doesn’t bother him—the fact that Jungwon is angry at him and he doesn’t know why, that is—but it’s proven rather difficult for the remainder of the night. When they go back out to sit in the audience and watch the rest of the performances and wait to see if they get the award they’re nominated for, Riki kind of assumed things would naturally fall back into place. But they don’t. Jungwon was sitting next to him before they got up to perform, but now he’s not. Heeseung is, actually. Sunoo is on the other side of him, and he keeps muttering about the vibes at home and how the bad vibes are going to permanently damage the atmosphere of their apartment. He might also mumble something about needing a smoke, despite not smoking.

Sunoo shoots so many side glances at Riki and Heeseung, Jongseong, and Jungwon, that he thinks his eyes are going to roll out of his head at some point just from how much he’s darting them around. Riki doesn’t know what the big deal is. Sure, tensions are a little high, but they’re fine. Nothing is going wrong. They’re all good. That’s what Riki is trying to convince himself of, at least. Jungwon has been glaring at him all night, and Jongseong is glaring at Heeseung like he murdered his entire family right in front of him. Riki might have to join Sunoo for that smoke; Jaeyun and Sunghoon will surely want to join as well if their constipated looks are anything to go by from where they sit next to Jungwon and Jongseong. It’s a little ridiculous.

But despite all the subtle glares that get sent between them, nothing happens again. There are no inconveniences for the rest of the duration of the award show and they’re on their way home before they know it. Well, Riki does get scolded by their manager before he’s allowed to get in the car, lectured about how irresponsible he was to take off the scent patch. He gets himself so worked up over it that he even sheds a couple of tears of frustration during the lecture, but Riki doesn’t have the heart to make fun of him for it, understanding that it’s because he’s so worried about Riki and what would happen to him if the truth were to be revealed.

He ends the entire lecture—rant—wiping the few tears that remain and exasperatedly saying, “it’s fine, it’s fine. Things happen.” He lets Riki in the car after that. He has to squeeze his way in between Jongseong and Heeseung, out of all people. He sends a few pleading looks to Sunoo, hoping he’ll take pity on him and switch with him, but he just sends Riki a look that he reads as yeesh, a bad case of unlucky lately, huh? Riki doesn’t give up there, though, sending Jaeyun some pleading looks. He makes a point of avoiding eye contact with the youngest. Sunghoon doesn’t even look his way once.

And Jungwon—Jungwon is still mad at him. Riki still can’t figure out why for the life of him. At least the car ride is pretty much silent, something that would usually bother him but he’s grateful for now. Silence means nobody is fighting—verbally, at least. By the way Jongseong and Heeseung keep looking at each other, they must be fighting in their heads. Kind of like the arguments Riki has in his head in the shower on occasion. Or a lot. Riki gets bored easily.

While the car ride home could have been worse, it was so bad that Riki feels like kissing the pavement of the parking lot when he finally gets out when they arrive home. That would mean he has to stay next to Heeseung and Jongseong for even longer though, and he just can’t have that. He almost kisses the cheesy welcome mat in their entryway when he enters the apartment, though, since Jongseong had stormed off in front of everyone and made it inside before them. But Jungwon is still by him, and he is still mad at Riki. He still has no idea why, so he decides to sulk on the couch, away from Jungwon, until it’s his turn to shower.

It’s not like Jungwon gave him much of a choice in the matter, though. He made a point of keeping his distance from Riki, and whenever he did end up in the maknae’s vicinity, he went so frigid that it scared Riki a bit. There was a certain fury in his eyes that Riki would have missed if he didn’t always pay so much attention to Jungwon. But every time it manifested, Jungwon would clench his hands into fists, squeeze his eyes shut, and turn on his heels to create some distance between them. More like a lot of distance, though. It upset Riki a lot more than he’d like to admit.

The tense atmosphere somehow lasts, but nobody fights, and by the time Riki gets out of the shower, he’s so done with the day that he just immediately crawls into bed, not even bothering to upload a selfie to thank the fans for the award they got. He’ll do it in the morning. Probably. There’s no guarantee, though.

Sunoo comes into the room shortly after Riki and promptly passes out in his bed, something Riki wishes he could do right now. Sunghoon pokes his head in to grab a few things before walking out again, probably going to spend the night with Jaeyun. Gross. They should just room together, at this point. Jongseong should just move into Heeseung’s room, too. Maybe not right now, though.

Riki is half asleep when Jungwon finally comes into the room, shuffling around quietly as he gets ready for bed. He stops moving around at some point and Riki groggily turns to look at him, squinting to try and see him in the dark better. Jungwon stares at him for a long moment before he says, “you don’t smell like Heeseung anymore.” Riki gives him a perplexed look, unsure of how to take that statement.

“Yeah, showers tend to do that, I guess,” he replies. Jungwon nods curtly, approaching his bed. He stands there awkwardly for a moment, shifting his weight between his feet before he motions for Riki to scooch over and pulls back Riki’s comforter to lie down. Riki is a bit baffled, still thinking that Jungwon was mad at him, and Jungwon’s not doing much to prove him wrong. He’s tense next to Riki, and the younger bites his lip as he contemplates whether he should mention the situation.

The distance between them bothers Riki a lot. He long ago accepted his feelings for him, but he knows he should deny himself indulgences. Still, he wants Jungwon close, so he swallows around the lump in his throat and asks, “are you mad at me?” Jungwon whips his head around so fast his neck cracks, wincing as he brings a hand up to rub at it. 

“No,” Jungwon says simply. Riki frowns, downcasting his gaze toward their legs. “Why would you think that?” He sounds like he’s only asking to play dumb. They both know Jungwon has been avoiding him ever since the scenting incident. Both of them know the other is well aware of that fact.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Riki accuses. “Why?”

“You smelled like Heeseung,” he states. Riki furrows his brow and looks up at Jungwon, who’s wearing a cold look. “I didn’t like it.” He’s giving Riki more questions and little to no answers, and it’s starting to upset him.

“Why?” he pushes. Jungwon keeps up with his dead stare, cold eyes bearing into Riki’s soul. He hates it; wants to cower away.

“I don’t know.” He’s lying again. Riki grits his teeth, but doesn’t say anything. Instead, he turns back towards the wall, seconds away from grinding his teeth. He doesn’t want to get yelled at for it, though, so he bites back the urge. Riki thinks Jungwon is going to leave and go to his own bed when he sighs and shifts around, hoisting himself up a bit, but he surprises Riki when he tentatively wraps his arms around Riki’s waist, his right arm draping over it while his left snakes under him, between his body and the mattress.

Riki’s heartbeat is so loud, he’s sure Jungwon can hear it. Still, he doesn’t say anything, even if he melts a little into Jungwon’s embrace. Or maybe he melts into it a lot, who’s to say? Jungwon is still against him for a while, as if he’s contemplating whether the position is okay or not, and Riki wonders why he’s so uneasy around him all of a sudden. It’s not like they’ve never cuddled before.

A bitter taste settles in his mouth when he questions whether Jungwon’s newfound behavior is over the fact that he’s a beta. He’s getting tired of having to throw these accusations, but Jungwon just isn’t helping his own case. He’s been acting so fucking weird ever since Riki presented, timid and uneasy around him, and his anger towards him for seemingly no reason just sets everything into place in Riki’s mind.

“Were you angry that someone as disgusting as a low-life beta smelled like an alpha?” Riki spits, venom lacing the words. Jungwon goes rigid against him. “Is that why you hate that stupid scent patch so much? Because you can’t stand me smelling like an alpha?” He doesn’t want the words to be true, but they feel nothing less than the truth. He can’t deny the fact that Jungwon has been acting weird around him ever since he presented, so what is he supposed to think? That Jungwon is just conveniently going through a weird patch? Sounds like utter bullshit to Riki.

Jungwon’s hand finds Riki’s as he lets out a breath, rubbing his thumb over Riki’s knuckles. “Of course not, Riki,” he says. “God, I can’t believe you would even think that.” It’s not very condemnatory, but there’s a hint of disappointment in the words, like Jungwon is disappointed Riki could accuse him of such a thing.

“You make it hard to think anything else,” Riki chafes. Jungwon noses at the back of his neck, giving his hand a light squeeze. Riki hates that he leans into the touch on his neck and finally holds onto Jungwon’s hand so they’re properly intertwined. A breath of hot air hits the back of his neck as Jungwon exhales slowly.

“I know, I’m sorry,” Jungwon says, penitent. Riki clenches his jaw, nosing at his pillow in a similar manner that Jungwon nosed at his neck.

“Why can’t you just give me a proper answer?” he squeezes his eyes shut, burrowing deeper into his pillow. “How do you expect me to believe you when you can’t even answer me?” he croaks.

He feels Jungwon swallow. “I don’t know,” he replies, still lying, “I’m sorry.” Riki wants to believe him but he can’t even find a reason to believe that Jungwon is truly sorry when he keeps lying. He could, in theory, believe Jungwon truly doesn’t know why he’s been acting the way he has been, but the thing about Jungwon is that there is very little that he doesn’t know—at least when it comes to himself.

Jungwon is the type of person to know what he wants when he wants it. And, most of the time, he goes for whatever it is that he desires; it’s how he became an idol, after all. That in itself goes to show how much of a fighter Jungwon is when it comes to the things he wants. He knew he wanted to become an idol, so he fought his way to the top and made it happen.

Riki likes to think he’s similar, but only to an extent; he knew what he wanted, much like Jungwon, and went for it. But, Jungwon is a level higher when it comes to everything else. Riki’s not very good at knowing when he needs extra care and attention, but Jungwon excels at it—even if he doesn’t actively seek out the solution to his problem (ie: attention and care), he’s aware of its existence. Riki also isn’t very good at understanding his emotions, whereas Jungwon always has his under control. Until now, that is.

Still, Riki can recognize a few things. He can recognize the heavy weight in his chest and the way he’s exhausted beyond what a good night’s sleep can fix. He understands some things about himself, just not a whole lot. He’ll use that as an excuse as to why he timidly calls out to Jungwon, voice cracking a bit when he says, “hyung?”

“Hm?” Riki fiddles with their hands where they’re still intertwined, Jungwon never letting go. He understands he doesn’t want to be alone—understands he needs comfort right now, even if he’s unsure as to why—but what he doesn’t understand is why it’s seemingly so hard to ask the question that is on the tip of his tongue; that he wants to ask so badly. “What is it, Riki?” Jungwon prompts in the quietness between them.

Riki’s breath hitches before he asks, with tears in his eyes, lip wobbling, “will you stay with me?” He doesn’t add in tonight, and it’s another thing he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand a lot of things about himself, he knew this already, but now it’s becoming even more apparent.

Jungwon squeezes his hand. “Always,” he promises, placing a delicate kiss on the back of Riki’s neck, pulling him closer to his own body with his arm that’s still draped over his waist. He doesn’t let go of his hand, keeping it in Riki’s as he nuzzles against the back of the younger’s neck, as far away from his scent glands as possible.

His heart pangs in his chest as he realizes that Jungwon will never see him as an alluring mate for one very specific reason that overshadows every other reason out there.

“Hey, got room for one more?” Riki looks up to see Jaeyun wiggling his eyebrows and he sighs, moving over on his bed to make room for him. Jaeyun smiles, flopping onto the bed with about as much grace as a two-year-old, eliciting a grunt from Riki as he bounces from the impact. He doesn’t put up a fight as Jaeyun snuggles into him, softly petting his head.

“Can I help you?” Riki asks, despite pushing his head further into Jaeyun’s hand. The elder chuckles, ruffling his hair a bit before continuing his soft ministrations. 

“I just wanted to check in on you,” he replies. Riki practically purrs as a response, relaxing against Jaeyun, letting the stress drain from his body. Jaeyun has always been somebody he could rely on and go to when he sought out comfort. In a way, he was like a real big brother to him, right alongside Jongseong in the whole ordeal. It was nice to have someone he could lean back on like that—well, that he didn’t wish he could mate with, at least.

That entire thought has him circling back to how he feels about Jungwon and his presentation. As much as he may want to tell Jaeyun everything, he’s still unsure of everything he feels. Feelings are hard, harder than he ever could have imagined, and Riki finds it kind of hard to tell something he’s not certain of. It’s like telling an unfinished story—you can try and put off the end all you want, but you’ll eventually have to reach it, giving the story a proper conclusion. It doesn’t matter how many details Riki adds to his story; he’ll have to give Jaeyun a proper answer eventually. And he doesn’t have one, not even close.

Sure, he likes Jungwon. He likes Jungwon a lot, more than a friend. But he thinks that’s the extent of it. Maybe. Possibly. He’s not entirely sure. It’s a bit too scary to think about whether he loves him or not. It’s…he feels something for Jungwon, he’s just not sure how far that something goes. He’ll figure it out one day, as he always does, but not today. He doesn’t owe anyone an explanation, not yet at least.

Jaeyun taps his head. “Whatcha thinking about?” He prompts. Riki’s lips form a thin line. He doesn’t owe Jaeyun an explanation. It doesn’t even involve him. Yet he still finds himself heaving a sigh, coming so close to spilling his deepest, darkest secrets. But he still holds back. Jaeyun, of course, notices. Riki is grateful when he lets the topic drop, instead asking, “how have you been? You know, after your presentation. I feel like you haven’t talked about it much, and there’s a lot to talk about—in my eyes, anyway.”

Riki chews on the inside of his cheek, moving his head against Jaeyun’s hand so he’ll start petting his hair again. Jaeyun lets out a small laugh but easily complies. He lets his eyes fall closed, shrugging as he says, “I don’t know. It’s been a lot.” Jaeyun hums, understanding as ever. They all have to know this isn’t easy on Riki, the incident at the award show fortifies it, and Riki feels a little bad about causing everyone so much stress lately. The guilt seeps away when he remembers the circumstances Jaeyun and Sunghoon mated under, though. They’re up a few levels on him when taking that incident into account.

“What’s been the hardest part?” Jaeyun throws his leg over Riki’s own, holding him a little more effectively. Riki takes his socked foot and rubs it against Jaeyun’s shin, knowing Jaeyun has always found the spot ticklish when it comes to his cotton socks. He lightly kicks at Riki to get him to stop, huffing a small laugh as he hooks his chin over Riki’s shoulder. “Is it the whole ‘pretending to be someone you’re not’ thing?” he asks. Riki nods slowly. “I can get that.”

“I just wish I had more of a say in the matter,” he discloses, “or any say at all.” He grabs Jaeyun’s hand that’s against his stomach, intertwining their hands. “I don’t know, I just feel like I was forced into something that I really didn’t want.” 

Jaeyun clicks his tongue in thought. “Would you have asked to make it public that you’re a beta?” he inquires, sending Riki's brain into overdrive. Would he? He thought about it a lot, at least as much as he could in the short timeframe he was given, but he never came to a definitive answer. He couldn’t even decide whether he would rather be portrayed as an alpha or an omega, much less whether he’d be willing to push back against societal norms and the views they have of people who don’t fit their ideations. Publicly being a beta idol could have changed some things, and made people feel seen, but it could have also ruined everything. Riki never really could come to a conclusion on what path he should take when he approached this particular fork in the road.

Whether he would have gone public about being a beta feels like the million-dollar question. It could risk so much, but it could also change so much. Or maybe it wouldn’t at all. Riki doesn’t know the outcome, just the possibilities. This is why he replies honestly, with a soft, “I don’t know.” He feels Jaeyun shift behind him, picturing him poking his tongue out as he mulls over his words like he so often does.

“It’s okay not to know,” he settles on, “maybe it doesn’t matter whether you know or not. It’s over anyway.” Riki frowns, shaking his head.

“I don’t know about that,” he says, frustrated. “It feels like it matters.” Jaeyun presses their hands against Riki's stomach, extending a finger to lightly trace designs onto it through Riki’s shirt. Riki thinks he’s trying to draw a dog.

“Then maybe it does,” he says simply. “Even if it does matter, you don’t need to know. It’s like… ‘Maturity, one discovers, has everything to do with the acceptance of ‘not knowing.’’. Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves,  I believe it was,” he says. Riki twists his body, squinting at him. Jaeyun rolls his eyes. “What I mean is that part of life is accepting that you won’t know things, even if you feel like you need to know everything.” He pauses, smirking. “I don’t know though, I never read the book; been on my reading list for ages, ever since I first saw that quote somewhere.”

“You’ll never read it,” Riki comments, laying his head back down on his pillow. “That would require you to use your brain, and we both know you can’t do that.” Jaeyun scoffs behind him and Riki fights back a smile. “You know, if I were an actual stereotypical, asshole alpha, this is the part where I’d say you were just some stupid omega,” he snickers.

“Ay…” he drawls, “don’t be like that.” Riki can hear the smile in his voice regardless. “But, you know, glad you’re not one of them then,” he says. Riki nods.

“Yeah, I couldn’t imagine living with all that pent-up aggression,” he says. “How do the others handle it?” He sees Jaeyun frown out of the corner of his eye, the elder’s chin still hooked over his shoulder.

“Sunghoon says it’s not that bad, so long as you keep yourself in check.”

Riki bites his bottom lip, chewing on it. “I don’t know, maybe he’s just lucky.” He hesitates as he says, “Jungwon has been angry lately.” He knows the others have noticed, it’s hard not to, so he’s not surprised when Jaeyun sighs, cocking his head a bit, his chin digging into Riki’s shoulder. Riki doesn’t protest, even if it aches. “I don’t know what’s going on with him,” he admits.

“I figured you would be the one to know if anyone did,” Jaeyun says. He starts talking again before Riki can question what he means by that, cutting him off before he can even start properly forming his thought. “What’s been going on between you two, anyway?” Riki swallows, feeling anxiety prick at his skin. What has been going on between them? He doesn’t know himself.

“I don’t know. It’s just us being us, I guess.” Jaeyun pokes his stomach, evoking a groan from Riki. “What was that for?” he whines, kicking at him. Jaeyun snorts, ruffling his hair again. “You’re so mean to me,” he complains, pouting. Despite the joking manner they’ve suddenly taken on, what Jaeyun asked still irks him, and he feels inclined to properly address it. “Jungwon and I are just Jungwon and I, though. I don’t know what you’re trying to imply.”

“‘Just’ has never belonged with you and Jungwon,” Jaeyun breathes. Riki glares at the wall, biting his tongue. “Take that as you want.” Riki doesn’t know how he wants to take it. He doesn’t know what the fuck it means. Sometimes, nobody in this apartment makes any goddamn sense. Jaeyun is usually pretty good about making sense, but it seems like he’s been hanging around Sunghoon too much recently—and that’s saying something, given they’re attached at the hip on a regular day.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he settles on saying. Jaeyun scoffs. “Jungwon and I are just Jungwon and I,” he repeats as if saying it enough times would make it true. “There’s never been anything more than that.” Jaeyun slowly cards his hand through Riki’s hair, giving his hand a gentle squeeze with the other.

“Okay,” he utters. Riki can hear the disbelief coating the words in a thick layer. “But have you ever wanted there to be more than that?” Riki has no idea where any of this is coming from. Sure, he wanted to present as an omega to have a chance at being Jungwon's mate. And sure, he longs to have Jungwon as close as possible at every single moment of every single day. Sure, he likes Jungwon. Possibly as more than a friend. But has he ever wanted more than just friends? He doesn’t have a chance to answer, Jaeyun softly asks, “how do you really feel about Jungwon?” It’s Riki’s turn to remember his own quote.

‘‘I never let the truth break me before, and I’m not about to start now.’ As awful as it was, as difficult to swallow as it might be, knowing was always better than not knowing.’ Bianca Scardoni, Infernal, a book his older sister read once—a line she shared with him because ‘I think this is the only good part of the book, Riki.’

“I don’t know,” is what he finally says. He doesn’t know whether it’s a lie or not.

Riki should have known his conversation with Jaeyun would have resulted in some conspiring. He should have seen it coming a mile away, but he somehow didn’t, even going as far as being shocked when Jaeyun suggested Riki and Jungwon are put on Christmas decoration duty this year. He’s not sure if he wants to kiss Jaeyun on the lips to convey his gratitude or shove him off a bridge.

And, for the record, Riki is no decorator. The extension of his decorating skills only reaches so far—a max of maybe a birthday cake and a half-assed banner that reads ‘it’s a girl your birthday!.’ His sister was rendered speechless at that one. He’s pretty sure he’s recited that story a couple of times, a little proud of himself over the whole thing, so it makes no sense for him to be put on decoration duty—especially buying the decorations. He’s going to walk out of this store with the most out-of-pocket banner known to man, that much is a given. Maybe that’s their whole plan, though.

Jungwon makes a little bit of sense for the task. He’s not much of a decorator—the only two real decorators, in Riki’s eyes, would be Sunoo and maybe Jongseong. Hard on that maybe. Jaeyun, in theory, could make a decent decorator, but he might accidentally bring out his inner frat boy again, and they can’t have that. Jaeyun babygirl era is in, Jake fratboy era is out. At least, that’s what Riki thinks the fans are saying; and Sunghoon that one time when Riki walked in on a bad time.

Heeseung doesn’t care enough to decorate to the best of his abilities. He’d half-ass it just to get off the hook and be able to go back to whatever it is that Heeseung does in his free time. Riki has a weird feeling that he doesn’t play League of Legends nearly as much as he lets on. He doesn’t exactly want to know the specifics of those events, though. He’s a little too confident what goes on behind closed doors consists of a hand, a lack of pants, and thoughts of a certain Korean-American. Gross.

Sunghoon is just useless in everything. He would never make a good decorator. Not to be an asshole or anything, but Sunghoon is just too unserious. He would probably burn the entire apartment complex down while attempting to decorate. There’s a reason they banned him from the kitchen, dammit.

“I don’t get why we were chosen for this,” Jungwon complains, dragging Riki out of his thoughts. He looks over at the elder, smiling softly as he shrugs. Jungwon smiles back before turning to the shelf of Christmas knickknacks. “When would we ever use these? I feel like we’re just wasting money here.” He sighs, pulling his phone out of his pocket and snapping a picture of a few of the items, presumably to send them to Sunoo for his opinion.

Riki shoves his hands in his pockets, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “Sunoo definitely would have been a better option,” he voices his thought from earlier. Jungwon's phone dings and he looks down at it, frowning. Riki is only humoring him when he asks, “what did he say?”

“That they’re all ugly,” Jungwon deadpans, shoving his phone back in his pocket after locking it with a sigh. “Fuck me.” Riki stops himself from making a joke at the last second. Instead, he decides to be nice.

He bumps his shoulder against Jungwon’s. “Hey, at least we thought they were all ugly too, right? Must mean we have something going for us,” he says. Jungwon stifles a laugh, nudging him back.

“Yeah, but we would have bought them anyway,” he counters. Riki can’t say that he disagrees, so he doesn’t. Instead, he walks away to find more decorations, moving to the next aisle, Jungwon hot on his tail. They both let out suppressed giggles when they see their manager and a bodyguard staring at the shelves with blank looks, sending them a glare at the sound.

Their manager shakes his head. “Christmas decorations have really gone downhill,” he says, disappointment evident, “they’re all ugly.” Riki starts to say something, ready to stir the pot a bit and just disagree with him to be a little shit, but is stopped when Jungwon elbows his side, eliciting a groan from the younger. Jungwon shoots daggers at him, sending him a look that Riki easily reads as ‘ don’t you fucking dare.’

“We’ll be over there,” he says instead. He sees Jungwon break out into a triumphant smirk out of the corner of his eye, and he internally groans. He doesn’t usually give up a good teasing session so easily. But Jungwon has already bruised his ribs enough, so he figures he’ll take the L this time.

Turning into the next aisle, they scan the shelves for literally anything that they could put in the dorm to give it the ‘Christmas vibe’ like Sunoo wants. If he wanted it so bad, he should have gone shopping. Although, Riki can’t lie; he is enjoying the opportunity to spend some one-on-one time with his favorite person. Jungwon seems to be enjoying himself too, despite all of their complaining. It’s not like they get to spend time together alone a lot, even though they’ve both expressed that they’d like to. It’s nearly impossible to equally divide the time spent between six individual people, but they all try. In all honesty, even the two mated people don’t get very much alone time. Riki could consider this a blessing.

Their manager and bodyguard catch up with them, seemingly losing interest in all of the ugly Christmas decor. Riki can’t say he blames them, but he does let out a gasp when something catches his eye. “Oh, an elf on the shelf!” Riki exclaims, a giddy feeling taking over him as he reaches for the plastic box it resides in. “We used to have one when I was growing up. My mom put me in charge of it one year for my younger sister.” He bites his lips, fighting back a smirk as he glances at Jungwon. “I was banned from elf duty when I made it snort lines of sugar, though.”

The manager gives him a disapproving look, and it only takes Riki a short moment to realize that it’s not about the elf. Despite popular opinion (Sunoo’s), Riki isn’t stupid—he knows he doesn’t exactly fit the alpha role very well. Right now is a perfect example, and Riki shrinks into himself. Sure, alphas can get excited about things, they do all the time, but Riki always takes on this childish glee whenever he gets happy that alphas just don’t seem to have. Jungwon is a good example of that.

Jungwon is cute. It’s a well-established fact at this point. But, Jungwon is also very…serious. Reserved. Riki knows all of this. His glee is usually more subdued, and easy to spot only if you’re looking for it. Jungwon is all gentle smiles and even gentler touches, but there’s a certain aura to him that is just very alpha. Riki doesn’t have that—for obvious reasons.

And he doesn’t mean to compare himself to Jungwon, but it’s proven difficult not to when Riki is expected to live up to this title that doesn’t belong to him, but fits Jungwon so perfectly, despite the controversy it started online at first. It’s whatever, though. Riki doesn’t hold anything against Jungwon, never could, and he pushes all the bitter feelings inside of him down. It’s not Jungwon’s fault Riki doesn’t fit the persona the company wants him to.

The main thing Riki has struggled with when it comes to all of this is trying to fit into a box that he shouldn’t even be near. It’s not too small nor too big, but it’s not a comfortable fit. In theory, betas are good at blending in as something they’re not. They’re so normal that it’s easy for them to squeeze into spaces and present themselves as something that they’re not. Perhaps it was a survival thing, all of them well aware of how they are perceived by the general public and opting to pass as something that they would be accepted as. Riki just seems to have not developed that skill.

Riki’s getting a stomach ache from all of this thinking, if that even makes any sense. He’s tired of trying—and failing—to fit into a box he doesn’t belong in; tired of the disapproving glances when it’s proven that he can’t, no matter how hard he tries. He hates that he can’t just be himself when Riki has always prided himself on being someone who stays true to himself. And with one glance over to Jungwon, he’s reminded that he hates that he wants what he can’t have.

Jungwon, ever the observer, notices Riki’s mood drop, wearing a deep frown. He wordlessly grabs Riki’s wrist, his hand delicately wrapping around it, making Riki’s heart flutter in his chest, and starts tugging him away. But then Jungwon stops, a look of what Riki could only call endearment in his eyes. “Do you want one?” he asks, voice soft. “I think nobody could ever make a better perpetrator than you,” he says. Riki smiles, making a point of not turning around, unwilling to see the look on their manager’s face, surely disappointed with the sight before him.

He nods slowly, mood still sour. Jungwon quickly grabs the box Riki had put back and drags him away, muttering something about how they need to get something useful or Sunoo will kill them in their sleep by smothering them with a pillow. Riki doesn’t think that sounds all that bad at this point.

Especially when Jungwon moves his hand down from his wrist to lock their hands together, threading his fingers between Riki’s. He clenches his jaw, hands starting to sweat a bit from the action and he hopes Jungwon doesn’t mind. It all just pushes the fact that Riki is not—and never will be—an alpha, because one wouldn’t feel this way about another alpha.

Something changes after Christmas and the new year. Riki, at first, couldn’t put his finger on it, trying to write his feeling off as the exhaustion from everything finally caught up to them. It made sense, so he didn’t think too hard about it. The members all went off to their own homes for the holidays and Riki stayed behind. Jongseong tried to drag him to his home again, but in all honesty, Riki needed some time to himself. He kind of just wanted to de-stress, let himself think and finally properly adjust to everything that’s been thrown at him in the past month. It works relatively well, and he does feel refreshed by the end of it, so he takes it as a win, even if he spent another holiday all alone.

It’s two weeks after everyone returns to the dorm that Riki starts to realize what’s changed. It took just about all the brainpower he had to connect the dots, but he did eventually get there. He kind of wishes he didn’t, but maybe it’s better that he did. Being clueless could have gotten people hurt—although, being aware is also probably going to get people hurt. He and Heeseung specifically.

Jungwon and Jongseong have been spending a lot of time together since they got back from their homes for the holiday. This wouldn’t usually bother Riki, and it in itself doesn’t, but something about it makes his skin crawl. It only took a little bit more brainpower from him to realize he’s jealous, to which he decided he could make a joke about possibly fitting the alpha role a bit more than he originally thought—in his head, of course, because he would never in a million years admit to anyone that he sees something in Jungwon that he definitely shouldn’t.

That being said, he’s not the only one who has noticed the very abrupt change in dynamic between the two, one of those other people not so happy about it. Riki already knew he wouldn’t like the looks of it, but he didn't realize the extent of what Heeseung’s jealousy (and anger) would be. In summary: it isn’t pretty, and Riki is once again reminded that he does not fit the alpha role. He’s a little relieved to realize that part, especially when Heeseung gets so upset he storms out of the practice room in the middle of a ten-minute break.

“What’s his problem?” Sunoo scoffs from next to Riki. The younger turns his head and raises a single brow at him. Sunoo snorts. “Don’t give me that look. I’m just trying to have some faith in him that he’s not a stereotypical, possessive alpha,” he says. He sighs, leaning his head back against the wall to stare up at the ceiling. “He’s making it rather difficult, though. Fucking alphas.” Riki can get behind that. But, then again, feelings are hard; maybe Heeseung’s emotional constipation shouldn’t immediately be chalked up to him being an alpha.

Riki says as much, albeit quietly and a bit unsurely. “Maybe Heeseung just doesn’t know what he wants.” Sunoo scoffs, shaking his head.

“Sounds like someone else I know,” he says. It feels targeted, specifically at him, and Riki scowls. He doesn’t know why Sunoo would be reminded of him with the whole Heejay situation, but it irritates him to no end. Sunoo notices his annoyance and rolls his eyes, dismissing him easily with a stern, “don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

Riki crosses his arms over his chest defensively, brooding. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” to an extent. “What do you think it is that I don’t know if I want or not?” he digs, unsure if he wants the answer. He’s not overly emotionally constipated, he knows he likes Jungwon to an extent, but he doesn’t see how that could be relevant. Nobody even knows about any of that—but Jaeyun did try and confront him about it. And Riki did confess that he didn’t know how he really felt about Jungwon. Shit.

But Riki has already built himself this hill, so now he’ll die on it. He feels like Sunoo is only indulging him when he says, “Jungwon.” Plain and simple. Riki stiffens, diverting his gaze. It just so happens that his gaze lands on his problem. Jungwon. More specifically: it lands on Jungwon and Jongseong. His even bigger problem. If someone (Sunoo) were to ask him if he was jealous, he would deny, deny, deny. If he kept pushing, he’d even throw in the ‘oh, sorry, no Korean!’ in Japanese. And if he pushed even after that, hitting him with a firm ‘Riki,’ he would act even dumber, responding with a ‘who’s Riki?’

In theory, that is. Riki can reiterate that he’s not stupid as many times as he would like, but one fact still stands: he can be stupid. He can do very stupid things. He does them a lot, actually—he’s just a teenager, after all. This fact is brought to attention when Riki, despite doing his best to avoid the situation, says, “I don’t have feelings for Jungwon.” Now, this wouldn’t have been so bad because it’s just him stating a fact—to an outsider, that is, because it’s a very practiced lie he’s told himself time and time again—but it is bad because Sunoo blinks rapidly at him, fighting back a smirk.

“I never said you did,” he counters. And, well, shit. That’s true. Sunoo didn’t say he had feelings for him, he just implied he wanted him. That could have…numerous, colorful meanings that Riki would rather not get into. But Riki chose one specific meaning—one that wasn’t even said—to deny. He involuntarily dug himself a hole that he has no idea how to get out of. Riki’s never claimed to be a good person, so he’ll justify his upcoming actions with that fact.

“Fuck you,” he says impetuously, his body shaking with the force of it.

Sunoo glowers at him, eyes darkening. “Don’t be fucking immature,” he spits. Riki turns his head away, staring at the wall in the opposite direction of him. Sunoo doesn’t even lecture him about being disrespectful to someone older than him, not giving him the excuse of apologizing because he’s obligated to. No, instead Riki has to swallow his pride and own up to his mistakes without being held accountable by somebody else.

“I’m sorry,” he says genuinely. He still isn’t looking at Sunoo, refuses to look him in the eye, and the only reaction he can dissect from him is the sigh that escapes him. Riki purses his lips, trying not to let the guilt eat away at him. He can’t take it back, so he shouldn’t dwell on it. All he can do is apologize, and he’s already done so. Not much else left for him to do.

“Just don’t let your jealousy over something you shouldn’t even worry about turn you into an asshole that does things you’ll regret,” he voices. Riki turns back to him, brow furrowed. He cocks his head and silently fishes for answers—answers Sunoo is seemingly unwilling to give, as all he says in response is a soft, “don’t do anything you’ll regret, Riki.”

They leave it at that, much to Riki’s annoyance, but Heeseung returned looking slightly calmer and they had to resume practice, so there wasn’t much he could do to pester Sunoo for answers to his responses that only raised more questions in Riki’s head. It’s fine though, he’ll just corner him at the dorm and demand answers or something. Or he won’t do anything, like a coward.

And, as it turns out, he’s a coward. The logical thing to do when dealing with this new…problem in the form of Jungwon and Jongseong. Jaywon, if you will. The fact that they’re had a shift in dynamic isn’t what bothers Riki; they’ve always had a very specific relationship that looks like they’re about to get married. Or maybe they already are married and are on a brink of a divorce, but everyone knows they’ll run back to each other and get married again. It just depends on the day.

But no, none of that is what bothers Riki. It’s something he doesn’t understand. So to stay true to himself, instead of confronting this issue head-on and talking it through with Jungwon, attempting to sort everything out between them and fix whatever has gone off the rails, he runs away from his problem. Metaphorically, of course; he would never do something such as run away from Jungwon to make him look so stupid. His earlier statement can also be taken literally. He does run away from Jungwon. He runs away from him a lot.

He tried to be discreet about it at first, he really did. But Riki ran out of plausible excuses as to why he needed to leave the room so abruptly whenever Jungwon walked in—someone might start worrying about him if he says he has to shit one more time—so the discreet escapes turned into more obvious ones. Ones that were so obvious that Sunoo usually shook his head in disappointed disapproval, based on the times Riki has caught a glimpse of him during the escape. Riki doesn’t care what he thinks, though; fuck Sunoo and everything he stands for, especially after that bullshit in the practice room.

Unfortunately, running away from your problems only solves so much. Or nothing. Riki knew this already, but he relearns it all over again when it just makes his problem worse. Because Riki is avoiding (running away from) Jungwon, he’s spending even more time with Jongseong. Why? Because why not, apparently. Or at least that’s what Sunghoon, unhelpful as ever, says when Riki asks him why they’ve been hanging out so much lately. Riki is going to take away from his Jaeyun time for that one, the bastard.

The problem gets worse when Riki walks into the room to see them cuddling, though. Like, cuddling, cuddling. He has to physically fight back a gag, which surprises even him because he’s arguably walked in on much, much worse in this apartment. All of those events, weirdly enough, consist of Jaeyun and Sunghoon—except for one account of Riki walking in on Sunoo making out with a guy from another group, but that’s…not important. He’d rather not dwell on the details, anyway.

Now’s the part where Riki should probably take Heeseung’s advice and psychoanalyze the shit out of himself because, ‘you’ve got some fuckin’ issues, kid,’ but Riki’s not all too fond of doing that, would rather let his demons die in the pits of hell, so he won’t. Hypothetically, if he were to do it, he would probably come to a few realizations about himself that would change the trajectory of his life. But again, the demons are fine where they are.

A part of Riki has already accepted that he likes Jungwon—more than a friend. But that realization pretty much ends there, not really thinking he wanted anything more now that he didn’t present as an omega. Or at least it did, until the very moment that Riki spotted them cuddling. This is the moment that the stupid fucker at the company that presented the idea of Riki taking on the persona of an alpha would be praised for their decision because Riki did have alpha potential if they were there to witness it. But if Sunoo were there to witness it, Riki would be smacked across the face as he seethes, ‘get a fucking grip, you alpha wannabe.’

“You guys are so fucking gross,” he says, nose scrunched in disgust. For what it’s worth, he does immediately regret it. He probably should apologize or let them yell at him, but instead, he does the same thing he’s been doing for the past week. He runs away. He would argue that this could be considered a smart choice since a fight couldn’t break out, but any sort of logical reasoning added to the conversation would have him admitting that it was a very dumb thing to do.

And maybe Riki did psychoanalyze himself at least a little bit because he comes to a few more realizations that day. The first and foremost one made him cry. He’ll never admit that to anyone, but he did do it. It was probably a little overdramatic, but he felt the need to do it, so he did. The realization? He’s in love with Jungwon. He doesn’t just love Jungwon as a friend would, and it’s much deeper than the admiration that comes with a crush. He’s in love with him. Completely and utterly so, too. He cried over this for several reasons, and it kind of leads him to his next realization.

Society has norms. The most basic way Riki can put this is something he learned from a class on criminology he took online for an electoral credit because apparently school can teach you things you’ll hold with you for the rest of your life. Who would have thought? Society has norms—what they deem as normal—and those norms can be divided into three categories: folkways, mores, and laws. Folkways are what is considered polite, but not morally necessary. Mores are behaviors that are considered essential for society, such as wearing clothes in public, and laws are things that have been specifically written down and have stated consequences.

Stay with him, he’s not trying to give you a boring school lecture. This information is important to Riki because when those norms are broken, there’s this thing called deviance, which can overlap with crime in some areas. Riki just so happens to be full of deviance. For one thing, he’s a beta, which is out of his control but is still seen as a taboo in society, even if it’s a bunch of bullshit. And now, with his previous realization, he realizes that he is somewhat of a glitch in the system. Why? Because he’s in love with an alpha. Jungwon.

And again, this is not inherently bad; it’s just what society has deemed unacceptable. One of society's biggest norms is that the only people who should mate with each other are alphas and omegas. It’s the default media that is shown with very few coverings of other scenarios when compared to the bigger picture. It doesn’t even make a dent. So because it’s seen as such a bad thing, Riki is inclined to think he’s fucked up for falling in love with Jungwon, even if his own morals tell him he hasn’t.

What he’s trying to say is he can’t love Jungwon. There are reasons why people think betas would make an awful mate and why omegas and alphas are meant to be. Betas don’t have the same traits as others do, which leads to the idea of their mate being unsatisfied. In theory, that means a beta and a beta could satisfy each other, but most people say that they still wouldn’t be able to satisfy their mate. Something about not having anything to offer or get. It’s probably bullshit. No, it is bullshit.

But just because something is bullshit doesn’t mean society will accept it or change their minds on the matter. In the grand scheme of things, there are very few open-minded people, which means fewer and fewer people are susceptible to change or things out of the ordinary. Now, looking at the situation Riki has wound up in, what would be acceptable to society? Jongseong and Jungwon. An alpha and an omega. Their recent shift in dynamic on and off screen probably has people losing their minds because they see them as people who are supposed to be together. If Jungwon and Jongseong have a lingering touch on screen? A dating scandal starts. If Riki and Jungwon make out on camera? Historians will say they were really good friends. Why? Because Riki’s a beta.

Well—maybe that’s not what would happen, but only because everyone thinks Riki is an alpha. If they were to make out on camera while everyone is under the impression he’s an alpha, there would be a very complicated social media love triangle going on. Riki almost wants to stir the pot a little.

Yet Sunoo's words from last week do mean something, apparently. That whole thing about not getting worked up over something he shouldn’t even worry about, or something like that, does actually hold some importance. The matter of the fact is that Jongseong is in love with Heeseung, even if he can’t admit it to himself yet, and the same goes for Heeseung—that he’s in love with Jongseong, not that he’s in love with himself and won’t admit it. Anyways, that reassures Riki that Jongseong and Jungwon are nothing more than friends because one of those people are in a bit of a relationship crisis right now, minus the relationship.

None of that changes the dynamic they have, though. And Riki doesn’t mean to push stereotypes, he really doesn’t, but when he looks at Jongseong and Jungwon, they are very ‘omega and alpha’. This really shouldn’t bother Riki given that’s literally what they are, but when he really looks at the dynamic—without gagging—he sees that being with an omega makes Jungwon happy; puts him at ease. He’s not just basing that off of Jongseong and Jungwon, but also Sunoo and Jungwon. He can’t deny that a part of Jungwon just looks lighter when he’s with them. When he’s with the other members who are alphas he’s chill, but something about him is just different when it comes to the two unmated omegas of the group. His dynamic with Jaeyun is pretty much indifferent to when Jungwon was unpresented, but the reasoning for that can go unsaid, he thinks.

The moral of the story: Riki cannot make Jungwon happy in the way that an omega can. Or at least, he thinks. He really isn’t trying to push stereotypes and norms here, he’s just building off of his observations, and his observations consist of gentle, caring touches with both Jongseong and Sunoo—and sure, on occasion, Jaeyun—with a certain look in Jungwon’s eyes that he just can’t quite pinpoint. Maybe he could chalk it up to Jungwon’s naturally caring nature—there’s a reason they elected him as the leader, after all—but the shift in both his and Jungwon’s dynamic and Jongseong and Jungwon’s points to one direction that Riki doesn’t like, despite the whole Heeseung and Jongseong thing.

The shift in the dynamic between Riki and Jungwon can be summarized into one simple sentence: it’s not there anymore. Who exactly is at fault for that? Both, maybe, but Riki thinks Jungwon is the one who started it, and now Riki is just finishing it. The logical thing to do to fix it is the same thing he should have done when the shift in dynamic first happened, and again when Riki was dealing with the untold events of what must have happened over their short Christmas break. But, history tends to repeat itself, so Riki does just that.

He runs away again.

Riki actually succeeds in avoiding Jungwon for a lot longer than he originally thought he would. Two weeks of avoiding somebody that you not only live with but also work with for an insane amount of hours every day should get him some sort of award. It wouldn’t exactly be one he would flaunt like the actual awards the group has gotten, but it would be some sort of accomplishment at the end of the day. All this isn’t to say he’s in the right for it, but the fact that he succeeded in it for this long is pretty impressive.

His efforts all come crashing down again when they’re left alone in the dorm together, though. It’s their day off and quite literally everyone went off to do their own thing—together, mostly—except for Riki and Jungwon. Jaeyun and Sunghoon went on some sort of date that Riki doesn’t want to think about what that could lead to because it always leads to something, and Jongsoeng and Sunoo were apparently having a ‘designated omega day’ according to Sunoo. Heeseung is the only person who is actually doing his own thing, and Riki didn’t actually catch what it was that he said he was going to be doing all day. He’s probably sulking over Jongseong though, the emotionally constipated idiot. Communication would get them a long way.

So, it’s just Riki and Jungwon. Jungwon and Riki. All alone, in the apartment, without anybody else, after Riki has avoided him for the past two weeks. He has a feeling that his recent actions are what pushed Jungwon to stay home today if only to corner Riki and make him talk about why he’s been avoiding him for so long. His assumption is somewhat confirmed when Jungwon repeatedly tries to approach him, but Riki has mastered the art of running away from him, so he manages to completely avoid him for about half the day. He spent most of it in bed pretending to sleep, and it worked like a charm because Jungwon, caring as ever, let him sleep. It’s their day off, after all; the perfect opportunity to catch up on sleep after their grueling schedules. Who would Jungwon be to ruin said opportunity?

Everything falls apart when Riki goes to take a shower after laying in bed for so long, though. Or, a more accurate depiction of the events would be that everything falls apart after he showers. But in all honesty, Riki probably won’t think what unfolds is that bad somewhere down the line. The events are pretty easy to follow, unlike everything else that has happened since he presented—at least in his eyes.

Riki risks looking stupid—and making it obvious that he’s avoiding Jungwon—and pokes his head out of the doorway to the bathroom, looking both ways to see if he’ll catch a glimpse of Jungwon. When he doesn’t see him, he decides the coast is clear and he definitely won’t run into Jungwon from point A to point B, the bathroom to his room, and exits the bathroom, rushing to pretend he’s sleeping again, even if that would make Jungwon suspicious. But apparently, Jungwon was waiting for him to get out of the shower because before he knows it, he’s stopped in his tracks.

“Riki.” He gulps, freezing at the authoritative tone. It reminds Riki of the way he talks to the members when they’ve done a little fuck-up and Jungwon has to lecture them. But this time, it’s a little more authoritative than that, which is what makes Riki think that maybe, just maybe, he should do whatever it is that Jungwon says. Granted he hasn’t outright said anything other than Riki’s name, but the underlying meaning to his words is there, and Riki knows it’s there, and Jungwon knows that Riki knows—you get it.

He turns around, facing Jungwon, and instinctively folds his arms over his chest, hugging himself. He’s never liked being lectured, much less over things where he knows he’s in the wrong, but he’s always hated getting lectured by Jungwon. It’s nothing against Jungwon, he just admires him, so being talked down to has always hit him extra hard when it’s coming from Jungwon, even if the elder always tries to be gentle with it. It’s like being told by your favorite person that you’ll never meet their expectations, even if Jungwon has never outright said it and most likely never would. He’s too nice for that.

Jungwon is wearing an unreadable expression, and it doesn’t help Riki's nerves in any way shape, or form. The only real indicator that Jungwon is mad at him is the tone he used when he called out to Riki. The agitation in his voice when he asks, “why are you ignoring me?” definitely doesn’t help either. Worst of all, Riki can’t bring himself to admit the truth, so he opts to stay silent, gaze dropping to the floor in the area between them.

Jungwon’s socked feet eventually enter his line of sight and he slowly looks up to see Jungwon standing in front of him, an incandescent look on his face, heavily contrasting the unreadable one from earlier, the mask finally slipping. Jungwon really isn’t an angry person, never has been even after his presentation and all those alpha hormones came into play inside of him, so Riki does feel a prickle of fear go from the top of his neck all the way down his back, raising the hair as it travels down his body. He involuntarily takes a step back, because instinct is instinct and everyone knows not to mess with an angry alpha, and he tenses when Jungwon mirrors the movement.

“Riki,” he calls out again, “this would be a lot easier to solve if you just talked to me.” Riki kind of wants to argue that this would be easier to talk about if he wasn’t doing exactly what Jungwon was so concerned about doing a few weeks ago—going all alpha mode on him—but his survival instincts are screaming at him to not do anything stupid that could potentially get him killed. Not that he thinks Jungwon would kill him, that is. But again, alphas can be unpredictable with their anger, so it’s probably in his best interest to not aggravate him further.

But much like Riki has never claimed to be a good person, he’s never claimed he’s smart, either—he’s just said he’s not stupid. And he does know that what he’s about to do is downright stupid, so that does at least tell him he’s smart enough to know that and he’s just about to do a knowingly stupid thing. So no, he’s not stupid, even when he turns away from Jungwon and walks away to the room. In theory, that is. In reality, Jungwon grabs him by the wrist and pulls him right back into him, the seemingly permanent frown etched on his features only growing deeper.

“Jungwon—” he’s cut off by his back hitting the wall, a harsh breath of air rushing out of him at the impact. He raises his brow at Jungwon when he keeps him pinned against it, a part of him willing to challenge Jungwon, even if he very well knows he shouldn’t.

“You don’t get to run away from this,” Jungwon seethes, “not anymore.”

Riki, just for show, wastes no time in biting back. “Who’s to say?” he challenges, pushing against Jungwon. Because he’s so taken aback by Riki’s response, Jungwon lets him go relatively easily, not putting up a fight when Riki pushes him away, but that only lasts for so long. By the time Jungwon sobers up from the shock, he’s grabbing Riki again and putting him back exactly where he started. Riki’s gaze darkens at him and he wastes no time in pushing at him again, but Jungwon doesn’t relent this time. “Jungwon, let go,” he fumes. Jungwon doesn’t.

“What do you think you gain from running away from me for weeks on end?” Jungwon taunts, his tone taking on a carefree feel. Riki can see right through the act, and his assumptions are only proven to be right when Jungwon's jaw tenses and his grip tightens against Riki, pushing him further into the wall. “Why are you running away from me?” There’s a hint of hurt in the words, causing guilt to fester in the pit of Riki’s stomach.

Still, Riki wouldn’t be Riki if he wasn’t as stubborn as he is. “Fuck off,” he bristles, pushing against Jungwon to walk away again. But it seems Jungwon has finally had enough of Riki’s games, only tightening his grip until he’s holding Riki’s wrist with a bruising force—one that he will be confronted about later, and he’s not so sure whether he’ll cover for Jungwon after this or not—and Riki grunts in frustration. Riki may be taller than him, but Jungwon is strong, even more so now that he’s angry. Stupid fucking alpha hormones.

“Riki,” Jungwon warns, “don’t.” Riki knows what he’s warning him about, and has been seeing all the warning signs that tell him to back down from this fight before something really bad happens, but he still doesn’t (metaphorically) tuck his tail between his legs and back down from this. He really is too stubborn for his own good, but at least he’s self-aware.

In a last, futile attempt at getting Jungwon to let go of him and let him scurry off to the bedroom, Riki pushes against Jungwon with all his might, effectively making him stumble back. But Jungwon is at least somewhat ready for it, quickly wresting Riki back into his grip. It’s exhausting and beyond frustrating, and perhaps even downright humiliating, but above all it’s shocking. Jungwon has never been anything other than gentle with him—even during stern lectures, he’s always been gentle. This—this isn’t gentle.

“Stop—just…stop,” Jungwon forces out, voice growing softer by the word. Riki stills against the wall, relenting. He’d rather them have something to repair when they walk out of this than keep going down this path just to save his pride. And for what it’s worth, it seems like Jungwon has had enough of this as well. He takes what Riki assumes is supposed to be a calming breath, giving himself a moment to take a long, deep inhale, tilting his head back towards the ceiling and letting his eyes slip shut. But the breath is cut short when his eyes go wide and his breath hitches, head snapping back down to look at Riki properly—although, he still has to look up a bit to do so.

Jungwon stays silent for a long time, and it genuinely starts to bother Riki.

“Uh, what are you— oh.” Riki’s breath catches in his throat. Jungwon noses at Riki’s scent gland, pressing against him, and Riki shudders at the feeling, going a little weak in the knees. It takes no more than five seconds for Riki to realize what’s happening—Jungwon’s nose rubbing at his scent gland where he’s taking deep breaths, the sensation tickling with every inhale, but even more with every exhale Jungwon lets out; the low rumble Riki can hear that he realizes is Jungwon growling lowly; his brain turning to mush. Jungwon is scenting him. And it’s—really nice. It feels good.

Riki has never really gotten the idea of scenting, and once he presented as a beta, he thought he never would. Even when Heeseung scented him at that award show, it didn’t feel like this, not in the slightest. That time felt more like a panicked last-minute attempt to fix what Riki had fucked up—because it was. Riki in all honesty—and this isn’t to be anti-Heeseung or anything—didn’t like smelling like Heeseung. It’s why he was so relieved to take a shower, despite the sweat and grime that had built up on him throughout the day. But this time, with Jungwon scenting him, Riki just feels good. He doesn’t think he’ll mind smelling like Jungwon for the next—well, however long it takes for it to wear off. Riki still isn’t all that familiar with this whole thing. He won’t dwell on that thought anyway. Not for too long.

He’ll blame his brain feeling like mush for the reason behind him bringing up his hand to rest at the back of Jungwon’s neck, his hand enclosing it before coming up to thread through his hair, pushing him deeper into his neck. And if he feels Jungwon smirk against his skin, he decides to pretend like he doesn’t. It’s not like Jungwon is satisfied with Riki’s reaction—no, he won’t dwell on that thought, either. But it’s not like he really can; his eyes flutter shut and he goes slack against the wall, and he would have fallen to the floor if it weren’t for Jungwon reaching out to hold him steady, one hand still on his shoulder from when he originally pinned Riki against the wall and the other coming to his waist.

Things start getting a little fuzzy after that—Riki can barely register the soothing circles Jungwon is rubbing on his waist and his hand on his shoulder sliding over to his neck. But he does, and the noise he makes in response to it would horrify him if he weren’t so out of it. The quiet, high-pitched whine that bursts out of him would be downright humiliating under any other circumstance—it’s the most canine-like sound he’s ever made, and the only reason he really registers it is because Jungwon goes rigid against him, stopping all of his movements, no longer scenting him.

Riki flutters his eyes open and slightly turns his head to see Jungwon, nose still pressed into his neck, wide-eyed, panic evident in them. Riki goes to say something, unsure of what since he’s not all that present at the moment, feeling drunk on Jungwon, but it doesn’t matter in the end because Jungwon beats him to it, letting out a breathless, “fuck.”

He pulls away from Riki, taking a couple of steps back, and looks at him in horror. “Fuck—fuck, I’m sorry—shit, I’m so fucking sorry I—” Riki reaches for him, wanting him back in his vicinity, but Jungwon stumbles back. “Riki, I’m—” the sound of the door opening catches both of their attention, heads snapping over to the sound, albeit Riki’s movements are much slower than Jungwon’s, still a little foggy in the brain.

Before anybody can say anything else, Jungwon launches himself for the door, slipping on the nearest pair of shoes—Riki thinks they might be Jongseong’s house slippers; he won’t be too happy about that—in the blink of an eye, and he’s gone before Riki can even really process that he’s running away. Running away from him. After scenting him. He didn’t let Riki do it back. And again, Riki’s not overly familiar with this stuff, but one thing becomes apparent as tears well in his eyes and his lip wobbles, a pang in his chest hitting him unlike anything else—what people say about rejection when it comes to scenting is downplayed by a whole lot.

Heeseung, the culprit who entered the apartment at the wrong time, stays frozen in shock for a long moment until he realizes Riki’s predicament. It’s a little embarrassing—okay, it’s downright humiliating—as Riki stands there, pressing himself against the wall and hugging himself as he starts crying, and he tries to hide his face from the elder, kind of hoping he’ll leave him to wallow in his own self-pity in peace, but of course, Heeseung won’t let him have that sort of peace. Instead, what he gets are words of pity, the sympathy dripping from the words, said almost like an inconvenience, words soft, yet understanding despite everything else.

“Oh, Riki.”

Jungwon is avoiding him like the plague. And okay, fair is fair, Riki did spend like two weeks avoiding him like his life depended on it. But that was different. At least, Riki thinks it was. Riki was avoiding Jungwon because—well, he’s not entirely sure why he did that. Because he felt like Jungwon was a betaphobe? It certainly doesn’t feel like that after the incident in the hallway. Yet it kind of also does because, well, Jungwon didn’t want to smell like him and ran off like it was the biggest mistake of his life. Ouch.

It’s whatever though. Riki doesn’t care. That much. He cares a little, maybe. Alright, he does care a lot, but that’s not important. What is important lies in two things:

1. Jungwon is avoiding Riki
2. Riki, Jungwon, Heeseung, and Sunoo were called into a meeting at the HYBE building, and that’s where Riki finds himself now. 

The first factor is important because it kind of interrupts Jungwon’s scheming, to an extent. It prevents him from being able to run away from Riki, but Riki isn’t exactly going to confront him under these circumstances. Never in the eye of the company, and probably not in front of Heeseung and Sunoo either, even though Heeseung has seen some of what’s been going on between them. The other members have noticed that things have switched from Riki avoiding Jungwon to Jungwon avoiding Riki, but none of them know why—Heeseung only knows that something went down between them. Riki had run away from him into the comfort of his bed before he could ask what just happened and why he was so upset.

Naturally, he’s taken on some sort of vendetta against Jungwon for ‘hurting their precious maknae’ or whatever it was that Heeseung had said to Riki when he asked why Heeseung was being so cold towards Jungwon lately. Needless to say, the tension in the apartment is impeccable. All the harsh glares and cold words at any given moment between Heeseung and Jungwon and the way Jungwon is avoiding Riki like his life depends on it now is stressing out Jongseong, which makes Heeseung even more stressed (for obvious reasons that everybody but Heeseung and Jongsoeng see) which leads to Sunoo being stressed, the bad vibes finally getting to him, which makes Jaeyun stressed because he is nothing if not a sweetheart empath, and that makes Sunghoon stressed, which just…makes a circle and they repeat the process until everyone is biting off their fingernails and pacing around the apartment at ungodly hours.

It’s exhausting, in Riki’s humble opinion, and this meeting doesn’t help in the slightest. They don’t even know what it’s about yet, were waiting on the higher-ups to come in and start the meeting until they got here a minute ago, but Riki can guess it’s pretty bad, given the silence in the room and the way their manager has looked like he’s ready to throw up since he came to pick them up from the dorm. For some reason, Riki thinks this is about him because everything seems to be his fault recently, all at the hands of the fact that he’s a beta. It’s getting a little repetitive actually, but he supposes problems tend to repeat themselves until the doer finally learns from their mistakes.

Jungwon clears his throat, catching everyone’s attention. “Uh, what’s this all about?” he asks, voice steady as ever, even though Riki can tell he’s fearing the worst, just like the rest of them. What the worst might be, Riki doesn’t know, but he fears it nonetheless. Fears the unknown, he supposes. He’s known Jungwon long enough to read him well—sometimes. He hasn’t been able to read him much ever since his presentation, as frustrating as that is, but he can read him now. Can read him well. Jungwon is scared.

“We tried really hard to…fix the mistakes that were made at a recent award show,” Bang Sihyuk says. Riki blinks slowly, cursing internally. Of course this is his fault; he predicted just as much. “We thought we could get the situation under control without bringing you all into it and risking the creation of an even bigger mess, but our attempts have been in vain.” He turns to Riki and Heeseung, the two suddenly regretting sitting next to each other, if Riki is right about the expression on Heeseung’s face. Riki casts his gaze down to the table. “You two were very careless with your actions.” If Riki's going down as a culprit, he’s glad it’s with someone else, he supposes.

He feels eyes burning directly into him, and he looks up from the table to see the chairman staring directly at him, and his face falls, knowing he’s about to get the worst of the hit. It makes sense; it was his fault. Bang Sihyuk only confirms just as much as he says, “especially you, Nishimura.” Right, he’ll go fuck himself then. Brought out the last name and everything.

“I’m sorry,” he apologizes, feeling inclined to do so. “I didn’t mean to cause everybody problems.” The honesty doesn’t go unnoticed, and the chairman relents after a moment, breaking his gaze from Riki to glance around the room. He still feels eyes on him, and he finds them to be Jungwon's, but he turns away when Riki looks his way. Right, he’s still avoiding him.

Bang Sihyuk sighs and scrubs his face with his hand, leaning back in his chair. “It’s fine—mistakes were made, it’s alright. It could have been worse, I suppose,” he says. Riki nods minutely, shame burning in his gut. “But—we have decided to take some…precautions to get this all to blow over.” Everyone hurriedly looks over at him, different looks of worry painting their faces.

It only takes a few seconds of silence for all of them to understand why Sunoo was called into the meeting.

Riki looks down at his hands, pursing his lips. “Please don’t make me do it,” he whispers, barely audible. But they all hear it, and Sunoo doesn’t look hurt—more sympathetic than anything, like he knows something Riki doesn’t. Riki hasn’t figured out his shit yet, and this feels like that’s really going to get in the way of that.

“We think the best course of action to take is for Riki and Sunoo—an…alpha and an omega,” he starts, hesitating to call Riki what he’s not, like it pains him to have to go through with this, “to distract people from the ongoing situation.”

“Because a scandal between an alpha and an omega is better than a scandal between an alpha and an alpha,” Sunoo says, speaking for the first time since the meeting started. Riki looks over at him, frowning at his words. He’s right, but that doesn’t mean Riki likes it and what it says about society.

“Yeah,” their manager says around an exhale.

“Then make Jongseong do it,” Sunoo says. Jungwon and Heeseung practically break their necks to look at him, and Riki would have done the same if his gaze wasn’t already locked on him. Riki can tell he’s just stirring the pot, and he almost wants to tell him this isn’t the time, but Heeseung beats him to it, unaware of his games.

“Absolutely not,” he barks out, making Riki flinch next to him from the volume of his voice. “Don’t even go there, Sunoo.”

“Why not?” Sunoo challenges, crossing his arms over his chest. “I think they’d make a good couple to the public eye.” Riki and Jungwon exchange a look, the first one they’ve exchanged in days, and Riki is relieved to finally know something that seemingly everybody does except for the people it’s about. He’s tired of feeling like everyone knows something he doesn’t, so he’s glad to at least be in on this.

“The decision has already been made,” the chairman says. “Just—please cooperate, it’ll make everyone’s lives so much easier.” Except for ours, Riki thinks bitterly. “You two are closer in age anyway, and it’s only temporary—just to avert people’s attention. You know how the media is: give them one thing and they’ll be distracted by the next and all will be forgotten before that.” Riki nods slowly, starting to accept his fate. Jungwon looks pissed across from him though—Riki can tell he’s digging his nails into his palms, but the assumption is confirmed when Sunoo gently places a hand on his thigh, trying to distract him. Jungwon directs his gaze at him, scowling, but Sunoo goes unfazed, understanding that his anger isn’t directed at him. Riki feels like he doesn’t know something everybody else does again.

Riki doesn’t know when they announced the meeting was over, but everyone is getting up to leave, so they must have. Riki’s fate is set—and Sunoo's. It doesn’t make Riki feel any better having Sunoo being dragged down with him, though. If anything, it makes him feel a lot worse. It was different when Heeseung was getting in trouble alongside him. At least Heeseung deserved that. Sunoo doesn’t deserve this.

But Riki doesn’t feel like he deserves any of this either.

Riki definitely doesn’t deserve the shit that’s been thrown at him time and time again since his birthday—presentation, whatever you want to call it. He doesn’t deserve to be thrown into everything without any say in it. It should have been his decision whether or not he went public about being a beta just like everyone else gets to be honest about their presentation. He should have been allowed to decide what he wanted for himself.

But that doesn’t mean it would have been a good idea to go public about being a beta.

It seems award shows are just disasters waiting to happen because that seems to be where everything goes wrong. Things go wrong for Riki, at least. And maybe the group, considering everything. The incident with the scent patch wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened. Riki is actually lucky that Heeseung acted when he did because while it opened up the door to a scandal of an alpha dating an alpha, it saved Riki’s ass from being exposed as a beta.

Riki probably should have learned his lesson to just wear the stupid fucking scent patch so nothing like that happens again, but the truth is Riki has always been the type of person that has to make the same few mistakes a couple of times before he learns his lesson. It’s just how he is, and it’ll probably never change.

Things go wrong when Riki takes off his scent patch in the dressing room. He can’t stand to wear it, no matter how much the company has tried to get him to adjust to it. He just—can’t. He can’t do it. It’s really frustrating because Riki is also the type of person who doesn’t like to be bad at things. It’s a bit of a flaw, but it’s how he is. Riki is bad at being bad at things in the sense that he can’t stand it and he has a tendency to overwork himself until he excels at whatever he was struggling with. He and Heeseung differ in that; Heeseung is naturally good at seemingly everything, while Riki is only good at the things he does because he can’t stand being bad at anything.

Which is probably why he hates that damn scent patch so much. It almost makes him sick to his stomach whenever he so much as thinks about it—but especially when he has to actually wear it. He hates it so much. Taking the damned thing off in the dressing room wasn’t such a big deal because everyone knows how much he hates it. The problem occurs when he doesn’t put it back on to leave.

In his defense, he did actually just forget. He’s not used to wearing it in many ways.

When he came rushing back into the dressing room rambling about how he fucked up and they have a problem, everyone gave him looks that said they assumed he dropped his phone in the toilet or something. Even if it wouldn’t be the first time, Riki was still offended that they thought so little of him. Fuck those guys, honestly. But when he pulled them out of the dressing room towards the direction of where everything went wrong, things started to click in everyone’s head. Especially when they saw a rookie group standing there snickering amongst themselves.

Their worst fears were confirmed when they heard someone say ‘beta’ and Riki wanted to jump out the nearest window right then and there. He would have loved to take a walk in front of a moving train, too.

“What’s going on here?” Heeseung asks, voice bellowing through the hallway. They’re alone, only a few staff members running around for other groups, preparing for their appearances, and Riki thanks whatever higher power there may be for making it so he only exposed himself to like eight people. Thank fuck, even though he would have personally preferred it to be zero people he exposed his sub-gender to. He’ll take what he can get.

“Oh, nothing,” one of the members of the rookie group says, taking on the tone of somebody without a care in the world. Riki, admittedly, has no idea who they are, so maybe they don’t have a care in the world, unworried about the public eye because it’s not on them. Bitches.

“Really?” Heeseung challenges, crossing his arms over his chest and taking a step forward. “Why are you snickering amongst yourselves, then? I feel like assholes who are conspiring some bullshit are the only ones who do that type of shit.” Riki gulps, understanding where Heeseung’s going to try and go with this conversation. The problem is that they know. Riki fucked up really bad by not wearing his scent patch, and they’re clearly not stupid enough to be fooled about it. They know what the absence of Riki’s scent meant—especially when they saw that he wasn’t wearing a scent blocker.

“Don’t treat us like idiots when that is the one who fucked up,” another member says. Riki shrinks into himself, unable to deny that they’re right. Riki did fuck up. Clearly, nobody liked his word choices though, since he hears Sunghoon growl from beside him and Jongseong gently pulls him away from the three alphas that have moved to the front of the group. A few of the members from the other group backed off while the rest dared to take a step closer—four omegas, four alphas, it seems. Riki tries not to think about the fact that their group is outnumbered so if a fight were to break out, the odds would be against them. Although, Heeseung and Sunghoon look to be about twice the size as all the other alphas in both height and muscle, and Jungwon easily has muscle on them, so maybe it wouldn’t be unfair in the way one would originally think.

“Guys,” Jaeyun starts, voice steady, “not here. You can’t—”

“So what if he’s a beta?” Sunghoon cuts him off. Jaeyun looks appalled at the action, furious that it was done by his mate of all people, and Riki feels like Sunghoon is going to get bitched at for a long time when they get home. “What’s wrong with that?” he presses when the others remain silent. The member that confronted Riki to begin with steps forward and Riki gulps as Heeseung, Sunghoon and Jungwon mirror the action, getting closer. The other alphas from the rookie group linger back, the head alpha becoming obvious to Riki, as well as the lack of trust they have in each other. They must be a really new group.

“He’s a bit useless, don’t you think?” he says coldly, a small smirk toying on his lips as he takes another step forward. “I mean, what? Are you going to bitch him into an omega?”

Heeseung has always been the hot-headed member of the group. He’s just more inclined to get angry than other members. But more than anything, he’s protective. He’s always doing his best to shield the members from harm. Heeseung is the first person Riki expects to blow up after the comment. After Heeseung it’s Sunghoon, another protective member that isn’t afraid of using his muscles to protect the people he loves. Sunghoon is a bit of a hazard to society, in all honesty. Sunghoon would make sense if he were to lash out here, just like Heeseung.

Jungwon isn’t hot-headed. He’s calm and likes to think through his actions before he does them, ensuring that he won’t regret them later. He has his moments, especially in recent times, but the statement still rings true. Jungwon is very good at diffusing situations before they get out of hand. He’s one of those ‘violence is never the answer’ people. Riki can’t see him having a violent outburst; especially in a situation that could jeopardize them as a group or land his ass in jail. Jungwon is too righteous to do something like that.

That’s why when it’s Jungwon who lunges forward, nobody immediately moves to stop him. Funnily enough, both Heeseung and Sunghoon had raised their arms to stop each other. But nobody moved to stop Jungwon. Nobody even considered it a possibility that Jungwon would be one to react. It’s why jngwon moves with so much ease, successfully grabbing the other alpha by the throat and shoving him into the nearest wall. He does it with so much ease—the fact that the other alpha didn’t see Jungwon as a threat becoming increasingly obvious—that Riki thinks they’ve all underestimated Jungwon’s strength at least a little bit.

“What the fuck did you just say?” he asks, voice disturbingly calm; steady as ever. It sends shivers down Riki’s spine and he can see Sunoo and Jongseong take a step back. Heeseung and Sunghoon hesitate to step forward and they end up staying in place, disgruntled looks on their faces. The alpha Jungwon has pinned against the wall whimpers, of all things. Riki can see the sadistic smirk that Jungwon fights back, his eyes darkening as one side of his lips raises. “Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that. One more time?”

“Fuck you,” the alpha spits. Jungwon visibly tightens his grip on his throat and Riki would worry he was choking him if he couldn’t hear the harsh breaths from the alpha. He’s making the mundane task of breathing difficult at most, but it’s doable. “You’re telling me that’s not your plan? To bitch him into an omega so he’ll be something you can put up with? What a shame, really.”

The crack that sounds through the room as Jungwon’s fist makes contact with the alpha's nose is toe-curling disturbing. It makes Riki physically recoil and he feels like he’s going to throw up, despite not being the type of person who gets disturbed by this type of thing, even going as far as enjoying it in some forms of media—when he knows it’s fake, at least.

“Jungwon, stop!” Heeseung bellows, both him and Sunghoon rushing forward to pull him away. “Come on, he’s not worth it,” he says as they pull him away. It’s a bit of a struggle—Jungwon is determined to put this alpha in his place—but they succeed; just in time for their manager to come racing down the hallway. He seems to read the situation on his way as he quickly ushers everybody back to the dressing room to get out of sight and tells Jungwon to take a walk and meet them back in the dressing room when he cools off. Jungwon is reluctant to go, much like the others, but he complies fairly easily. A few more managers show up to resolve the situation with the rookie group, and Riki hopes they don’t have to worry about it from here on out.

But of course, he does have to worry about it, because he’s the one who keeps fucking up. He’s the one who keeps causing problem after problem. No wonder everybody is so stressed these days. It’s set in stone when their manager starts hounding in on Riki once they get back to the dressing room.

“How could you be so careless?” he asks, indignant. He rubs his hand down his face, holding it at his chin. “This isn’t even the first time you’ve been so careless with your actions. What has gotten into you, Nishimura Riki?” Riki bows his head, staring down at his hands in his lap. He’s always been a bit careless, inclined to say and do things that he shouldn’t do because he’s a teenager and everybody does stupid shit at his age, but admittedly their manager is right in a way—he’s been extra careless ever since his presentation.

“Is it because you’re mad you didn’t get to choose whether you were public with your sub-gender or not? Well doesn’t this put everything into perspective for you? Does it not show you how you’ll be treated if word gets out about this—and my god, it’ll be by your hand if you keep this up.” Riki can’t even bring himself to argue. He’s right. Their manager sighs, looking around the room before settling back on Riki. He steps forward and places a hand on his shoulder and Riki looks up from his lap. “You don’t need to worry about word getting out this time, this will easily be contained,” he starts, “but Riki you can’t keep being so careless. If it were fans that weren’t under a company’s control—”

“I know, I’m sorry,” Riki repents. Jungwon chooses that moment to walk in, and he meets Riki’s eyes with a certain look that the beta can’t pinpoint. But it’s there, and it makes Riki’s skin crawl. Riki turns back to their manager. “It won’t happen again, I promise.”

Their manager gives him a solemn look, condolence composed on his face. “I know it won’t.” Jungwon’s face hardens from behind him, and Riki once again feels like he doesn’t know something everybody else does.

Riki’s temporary, indefinite hiatus from all activities for ‘personal issues’ is announced the following day.

When the time for Riki’s presentation was nearing, Riki had a lot of fears. He feared what his presentation would mean; what people would think of it. But none of those fears rooted back to being forced into a hiatus, unable to attend any group activities for an uncertain amount of time. Nobody saw it coming, Riki thought so at least, but he doesn’t think it took anyone more off guard than it did Riki. Even when he presented as a beta, he didn’t genuinely think it would come down to this. He feared the worst, but deep in his mind, he didn’t think it was a genuine concern that elicited an immense amount of worry. It was a mere worry in the heat of a moment.

But now Riki has about a million unresolved problems, and no way to fix any of them. Not even his problem with Jungwon can be resolved, the alpha still avoids him at all times. Riki hasn’t even gotten the chance to thank Jungwon for what he did for him at the award show. Riki hasn’t been able to show his gratitude towards Jungwon, even though he wants to more than anything—except for maybe just having an opportunity to spend time with Jungwon again. Perhaps that is what he desires most at this point. He misses Jungwon dearly.

This is the part where he would start seeking advice. Jaeyun will always be his first choice in these matters, but unfortunately, the omega is a bit busy at the moment, his heat hitting the other day. He can’t go to Sunghoon for advice—although in what universe would he—because he’s with Jaeyun, and Heeseung and Jongseong are far too caught up in their situation to be of any help. And Sunoo…is just Sunoo. Riki would rather die than go to him for advice—he’s just not very good at it. And he obviously can’t go to Jungwon about this.

So Riki does what anybody who can, would do at this point: he calls his mom.

The phone doesn’t ring long—she answers on the second ring—and Riki feels guilty because he knows deep down she answered it so fast because she’s aware that something is going on with him but has no idea what. They’re all under the impression he’s an alpha—Riki hasn’t told them the truth. He doesn’t really want to, fearing the worst again.

They’ve never discussed betas much in their household, mainly only talking about them in passing. Riki doesn’t know what that means, but it could be as simple as them not having a reason to talk about betas because they’re not acquainted with any. That still doesn’t answer any of his questions, though.

“Riki?” his mother’s voice reverberates through his phone’s speaker. He can hear the worry in her voice and he feels guilty all over again. He shouldn’t hide from his family like this, even if he fears the worst possible outcome. It’s not fair to them.

Still, he would prefer to keep this conversation short, avoiding every possible bad outcome—or more like dealing with them. The specifics don’t matter, because Riki dives head first into it, refusing to allow his worries to get the best of him. “I have something to tell you,” he confesses, not beating around the bush. He has too much going on in his life to keep adding stress to it.

“Is it about your hiatus?” she inquires, genuinely curious. There’s still a hint of worry, but Riki pushes that aside. She’s his mother, she’ll always worry about him. It’s what she does, and will continue to do until the very day she takes her dying breath.

“Kind of,” he starts, “it’s a bit more than that, though.” He chews on his bottom lip as she hums, encouraging him to continue, letting him know she’s listening. She’s always been willing to listen. “I—” He licks his lips, hesitant. Maybe he should have beaten around the bush for a little while, starting off with small talk. He wonders how his younger sister is doing with school and how his older sister is dealing with, well, everything it is that she does, the restless woman. He could ask about how she’s doing as well, along with his father. But he’s already up to his waist in the water, he may as well just plunge himself under—no point in backing out to warm up only to find himself having to start all over again when he goes back in.

“It’s about my presentation.” He pauses. “About what I presented as,” he clarifies. There’s a long moment of silence between them. And then, it clicks.

“Did you not present as an alpha?” she asks. Riki finds himself faltering again, but he forces himself to admit the truth. They deserve to know. He can’t hide this from his family. They don’t deserve to be deceived their entire lives, not knowing the true identity of their son. What kind of person would Riki be to do that to them? Selfish and ignorant of their feelings. Nothing less, but probably a lot more.

“No,” Riki establishes.

“Did you present as an omega?”

“No.”

Another pause. She clicks her tongue in thought, his lungs burning with anxiety. He sucks in a breath as she asks, “did you present at all?”

“Yes,” he says. The pregnant pause that follows gnaws away at Riki’s gut, his stomach churning. He hates this—the anticipation; the anxiety of not knowing what’s to follow. It’s why Riki kind of likes cliche movies. The fact that he can predict everything, even what are meant to be plot twists, is enjoyable for him because not only does he feel like he’s outsmarted the film, but he also doesn’t have to deal with the anxiety of not knowing pricking at his skin, filling every crevice of his lungs. But he does still love the thrill of horror movies and plot twists when the film outsmarts him, just in contained experiences like that. It’s too unpredictable in real life. Too real.

“You’re a beta?” she checks. Riki nods in response, momentarily forgetting she can’t see him. He makes a noise of affirmation in the back of his throat, and she seems to immediately understand. “Oh, okay. That’s okay, Riki.” He can’t find any traces of disappointment in her voice, but Riki isn’t a hundred percent convinced she’s not disappointed in him and what he turned out to be. “So the company—”

“They think it’s for the best that I hide my sub-gender from the public,” he informs her, cutting her off—knowing what she was going to ask. “And looking at everything that’s happened, I think it may actually be for the best.” He doesn’t elaborate on that, and she doesn’t press.

“I think it’s your safest option, honey,” she comforts. “Being a beta—it’s going to be a hard life,” she says. Riki purses his lips. “It’s going to be a really lonely one, too.” Riki’s blood runs cold, stiffening where he sits on his bed. It takes a moment for the true meaning of her words to sink in, but when they do, it hits Riki. Hard.

He doesn’t bother asking her what she means by that; knows exactly what she’s insinuating. It’s not even an opinion that bigoted people hold at this point, just a fact: betas can’t satisfy a mate. Riki will never be able to get someone to love him the way he loves them because he has nothing to offer. He’s never going to be loved in general. Jungwon will never love Riki the way Riki loves him.

“I know,” Riki admits. He has known for a while, just hasn’t wanted to admit it. But now he has, and he wishes he could say it took a weight off his shoulders. If anything, it added onto it and even spilled over to his chest, weighing down his lungs and crushing his heart, shattering it into a million unfixable pieces. But that’s okay, because Riki had to come to accept it at some point, and it’s better that it happened sooner rather than later. “That’s alright, I guess. I’ll learn to live with it. I just…wanted to let you know the truth, mom.”

They talk about the things that don’t matter after that because talking about the things that don’t matter will always be easier than talking about the things that do. Riki doesn’t talk to his mom about Jungwon, even though it’s the entire reason he called his mom and admitted all of this in the first place.

Riki isn’t very fond of having nothing to do. They won’t allow him to go to the HYBE building, and barely let him leave the dorm in general in fear of him exposing himself again. They being the company. The members are all pitying him; if it were up to them, Riki would be one with the streets right now, doing something stupid and very teenager-like in an alleyway with a drug dealer so he could smoke out his problems like Jongseong would be doing if he were still in America. But Riki isn’t American and they aren’t even in America, so Riki doesn’t do that. He can’t.

They do their best to cheer him up, but Riki also isn’t very fond of getting out of bed these days. He’s just tired, stressed out, and constantly feeling like he’s trapped. His bed feels safe and comforting, and everything good. Everything he apparently can’t have, given everything that has happened over the course of a month and a half. Being under dorm arrest warranted by the company and unable to interact with Engenes wasn’t on his list of 2024 New Years resolutions, but it’s still only January, so he may as well just write it down and cross it off; cheat a little just so he can feel like he accomplished something and all of this isn’t for nothing.

At least Jungwon isn’t avoiding him anymore. They’re not exactly talking, but he’s not running away from Riki whenever he can, instead just sending him sympathetic look after sympathetic look. Riki doesn’t know which situation he preferred, honestly. At least he’s able to sit next to Jungwon now, he suposses. Like right now at dinner, even though the silence is maddening. Of course, it’s Sunghoon who breaks it, trying to ease the tension at the table.

“Oh my god,” Sunghoon moans around his mouthful, “it’s better than sex.” Riki rolls his eyes as he shakes his head, feeling less indulgent in Sunghoon’s stupidity than he usually is.

“Fuck you,” Jaeyun quips, an appalled look taking over his face. Sunghoon shakes his head, grabbing some more food with his chopsticks and raising it to Jayeun’s mouth, lightly touching his lips with it.

“No, try it, babe.” Jaeyun complies with a dramatic sigh.

“Oh, fuck,” he moans. Riki cringes, glancing over to Jungwon, who looks equally as mortified. Riki’s just glad there’s still one remaining normal member—other than him, of course. Still, Jaeyun isn’t finished, letting out an earnest, “I would make love to this if I could.” Riki shivers. 

He watches as Jungwon shakes his head, grabbing some of his own food and taking a mouthful. As much as he would like to have faith in Jungwon, he knows how every single person in this hellscape of a group can be, so Riki mentally prepares himself for whatever he’s about to say.

“Ah shit, this is the pussy part of the chicken,” he says. Riki moves his plate over from in front of him and bangs his head on the table. He raises his head again and leans against the back of his chair, looking around the table with a look of defeat.

“What the hell ever happened to ‘it tastes good?’” He picks up his chopsticks, pulling his plate forward again. “What ever happened to ‘mm, mm, mm?’” he asks. Still, he isn’t feeling all that indulgent in any of them, and even though he knows what they’re doing—trying to cheer him up by lightening the mood; trying to make him laugh—he just doesn’t feel up to any of it. Even with all of their stupid comments about the food being exceptionally good, he still doesn’t feel like eating. He gets up from the table, setting his full plate on the counter, not willing to be bothered with even scraping it into the trash. He’d feel bad about wasting Jongseong’s cooking like that anyway.

“Hey, where are you going?” Sunoo asks. “We haven’t even gossiped about how Heeseung wants to fuck Jongseong yet today!”

“Excuse me?” Jongseong asks at the same time as Heeseung lets out an undignified, high-pitched, “what?” Riki would laugh at them if he had the energy for it. Instead, he just shrugs, walking off to his room.

It can’t be more than ten minutes later that a knock sounds at the door before it opens, only serving as a warning. The room does belong to three other people. Riki looks over his shoulder from where he’s lying on his bed to see Jungwon poking his head through the doorway, smiling softly. “Hi,” he says, “mind if I come in?”

“It’s your room, too,” Riki replies. Jungwon doesn’t seem disheartened by it, moving into the room and approaching Riki’s bed. He lingers there for a stretch of time before Riki shifts so he’s laying on his back. He raises his brow at him, silently questioning him. Jungwon switches his weight between his feet, bouncing on his heels every once in a while, clearly uncertain whether or not he should say whatever’s on his mind. “What?” he probes.

“I have an offer for you,” Jungwon says, voice steady. Riki quirks a single eyebrow, cocking his head to the side the slightest bit from where it’s resting on his pillows. Jungwon takes it as permission to go on with his offer. “I was wondering if—I’ve been doing some reading on betas lately,” he backtracks. Riki perks up at that bit of information. “I’ve been trying to understand them a bit more so I can understand you a bit more, or more so the things you may or may not need.”

“Okay,” Riki drawls, “and?”

Jungwon bites his bottom lip. “Well, I was wondering if—in one of the readings I—would you want me to scent you?” Riki’s eyes widen and his mouth falls open in surprise. “You don’t have to!” Jungwon rushes out, syllables jumbling together so badly that Riki can barely understand him. “You really don’t have to I just—I’ve read that it helps betas just like it does other people—it can just be a little harder to do since betas’ scents are so faint.” He takes a small step back, giving Riki more space. “I don’t want you to think you have to—”

“You want to scent me?” Riki interrupts. Jungwon’s face turns to a deep shade of red, and Riki smiles.

“I do,” he discloses, “but only if you want me to—and to scent me, as well.” Riki tries to shove his excitement down, not wanting to look desperate. But truth be told, he is. That time Jungwon scented Riki in the hallway, even if they didn’t mean to—it was addicting. Riki hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it in more ways than one. Jungwon may have done it under some odd circumstances, but that didn’t mean Riki didn’t like it. He also ran away before Riki could even think to scent him, leaving Riki feeling rejected, but that hasn’t been the most prominent thought about the whole thing. Actually, it was how good it felt. The calmness and warmth that envelops him are as addicting as Riki would think nicotine is. Once he got a taste, all he could think about was how he wanted more.

Still, the rejection hurt, and Riki doesn’t want to feel that a second time. “You’re not going to run away this time, are you?” He watches as Jungwon’s face falls, a look of what Riki could only label as regret washing over Jungwon's face, his lips down turning and eyes falling to the floor.

“Of course not,” he says, eyes still downcast, “I never meant to do that to you. I’m sorry, Riki.”

“I know you didn’t,” Riki says easily because sometimes the truth is the easiest thing to say. “I’m not mad at you for that. I never was,” he clarifies, the last sentence soft, like he doesn’t want to admit it. Maybe he doesn’t.

“I know,” but you were hurt. Riki knows what Jungwon wants to say—what goes unsaid. Riki has always been able to read Jungwon well—which makes the fact that he’s been struggling to do so recently so out of place—and Jungwon has always been able to read him like he’s his favorite book, familiar with the bends in the pages where he was a little careless with the thin paper; has memorized countless lines from it, as if he was the one who wrote the words.

Jungwon sits on the edge of the bed, barely on it, and Riki sits up, making more room. Jungwon hesitates, but he moves so he’s fully on the bed, settling next to Riki. It’s a position that they definitely can’t scent each other, thighs and shoulders pressed against each other, both of them stiff as a board. Neither of them moves to adjust, and the awkwardness in the air between them is seconds away from suffocating Riki.

Jungwon is the one who breaks the silence between them, clearing his throat. “I uh, I think it might be better if you lie down,” he stumbles around the words, “or whatever makes you comfortable. I—to get the best results, I mean.” Riki studies his face for a moment, then watches as Jungwon swallows, hard. Jungwon's eyes move from Riki’s eyes to somewhere lower, then back to his eyes. The movement was too fast for Riki to pinpoint where. Jungwon swallows again, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Think if you start comfortable, it’ll just add to it,” he notes. Riki can get behind that logic.

He takes his time adjusting himself, settling on top of the throw blanket he keeps on top of his comforter for the times that the dorm is too warm for the thick blanket and Riki refuses to even attempt to sleep without one at all. He lays his head back on the pillows, looking up at Jungwon, who’s hovering over him, laying on his side. It feels so intimate, driving Riki mad. But to be fair, they are being intimate. Scenting is amongst the most intimate things a person can do. Some argue it’s even more intimate than sex—Riki wouldn’t know about that, though.

“Okay, I guess I’m just gonna—” Jungwon shifts a bit, moving closer to Riki’s neck before stopping. “Actually, did you…did you want to scent me first?” Riki blinks up at him, mouth going slightly agape at the proposal. “I just think it might be nice. I don’t know if it’ll make any difference, though.” Riki nods minutely.

“Yeah, okay. How do I—”

“Here, just—” Jungwon leans down, stretching his neck above Riki. Riki lifts his head the slightest bit, not having to move very far with Jungwon hovering over him like this, and takes a hesitant sniff. Jungwon chuckles lowly, finding amusement in how timid he is, and Riki rolls his eyes. “Just—do what I did that day, Riki,” Jungwon breathes. Riki nods again, closing his eyes as he noses at Jungwon’s scent gland. He wishes he can say he was confident with his next inhale of Jungwon’s scent, but he’s still hesitant. But then the scent hits him—the sharp, sweet, and refreshing smell of pine needles with a hint of the airy, cool smell of cucumber mint. Riki can’t get enough of it.

He’s shameless with the next inhale, taking a breath at a depth he didn’t even know he was capable of, a bit startled at the sudden onslaught of emotions that sparks in his chest the second he inhales. They’re all emotions he can’t think to name, the calmness that takes over him in waves drowning everything else out. He can’t even think. If he thought Jungwon scenting him felt good, this was heaven. He can’t wait to see how it feels for Jungwon to scent him after this.

Jungwon lets out a breath above him and brings his hand up to the back of Riki's nape, fingers wrapping around the backside of his neck, much like Riki did that day, and pushes Riki deeper into his neck, hand dragging up from his nape to thread through his hair, resting there with his fingers tangled in the strands. It’s such a heavenly feeling, and Riki feels a sense of pride fill him at the prospect of Jungwon enjoying this—that he’s making Jungwon feel good. He wants to take away all the stress that Jungwon undoubtedly carries, being the leader a very stress-inducing job, even if only for a moment.

Each inhale has a new wave of relief and calmness crashing through Riki, flooding his veins and entering his heart, filling him with nothing but pure bliss. The fog in his head doesn’t even bother him, his thoughts uncharacteristically quiet for once. It’s all so nice. Even better than the first time when Jungwon scented him. He thinks Jungwon made the right call for getting him comfortable before doing this. He just feels so good, and he hopes Jungwon can say the same.

He doesn’t count against it when Jungwon pulls back, Riki selfishly chasing his neck for one last inhale, and Riki finds him smiling softly, a somewhat drowsy look in his eyes. “Feel good?” he asks, voice barely above a whisper, his words a bit slurred. Riki nods, closing his eyes as he lets his head fall back onto the pillow. He can’t bring himself to string together a response, the fog surrounding his brain and contentment deep in his bones blocking all of his other senses. He does feel Jungwon nosing at his shoulder after a moment, and he hears him softly ask, “can I?”

And who would Riki be to deny him? It’s not in his nature to deny Jungwon of anything. Never has been, and probably never will be.

Riki feels Jungwon’s nose brush against his skin as he drags it from his shoulder to the junction of his neck, and then finally up just a bit more to his scent gland. He feels Jungwon’s deep inhale before the volcano of emotions erupts inside of him, the white-hot feel of it flashing through him, hitting him deep in the bit of his stomach and wrapping around his heart, and his mouth falls open. This— nothing compares to this. Especially so when he feels Jungwon smirk at the juncture of his neck, feeling the tug of his lips drag on his skin. It mirrors the first time so well, but this time everything is heightened to an intensity that has Riki keening.

The first time Jungwon scented him, it felt good. There’s a reason why his brain turned to mush that time as well, and why he let Jungwon scent him in such a tense moment. It felt good, and Riki didn’t want it to stop. It was as simple as that. This time, however, Riki feels everything at an intensity that almost feels too intense. But he doesn’t want it to stop—no, never. How could he when he feels so euphoric, all of his troubles and worries seemingly vanishing into thin air? He doesn’t even think about how wrong this is supposed to be, because if something is so wrong, why does it feel so goddamn good; so right.

“Hyung,” Riki breathes, “Jungwonie hyung.” It’s all he can say, all he can think aside from the emotions channeling through him. The only thought that can get past the fog is Jungwon, Jungwon, Jungwon. It’s all he wants to think aside from how amazing he feels. How amazing Jungwon feels. Fuel is only added to the fire when Jungwon smirks again, even deeper this time, and pushes himself deeper into Riki’s scent gland.

Jungwon takes one last inhale and slowly pulls away, eliciting a small whine of protest from Riki which Jungwon merely chuckles at. He brushes Riki’s hair back from his forehead and frames his face with his hand, smiling down at the younger. “You okay?” Riki can tell he’s only asking out of common courtesy. He knows Riki is more than okay right now, based on the gentle smile he’s wearing.

“I’m good,” Riki mutters, having to force the words out, “‘m really good.” Riki blinks slowly, movements slow as he reaches for Jungwon’s hand that’s framing his face, placing his own overtop Jungwon’s. His hand is warm against his cheek, and Riki smiles up at him. Jungwon, still lingering above him, smiles back, his dimples appearing.

“Good,” he replies in earnest, “I’m glad.” This is probably the part where they should separate, at least put some space between themselves since the intimate part of this is over, but neither of them moves away. Instead, Riki swears Jungwon moves closer. He stares down at him with fervency, and Riki watches as his eyes flicker between his eyes and lips once, twice, three times. Riki burns with anticipation as he leans in further, too far away to feel his breath hitting his skin, but close enough that Riki's heart rate increases significantly.

Riki drags his eyes from Jungwon’s to his lips, bringing them back up to his eyes after a blink of an eye. He can’t help but lick his lips, and he watches as Jungwon traces the movement with his eyes, pupils blown wide. “Hyung—” he’s cut off by Jungwon’s lips crashing against his, a surprised gasp muffled as Jungwon presses against him. He gladly opens his mouth for Jungwon, whimpering when he feels Jungwon's tongue slip past his lips, overwhelmed.

Jungwon seems to want Riki to reach his limit, as he finds Riki’s hand with his, never breaking apart from him, and threads their hands together, dragging their interlocked hands up the mattress toward Riki’s head, stopping when they’re right next to it. His other hand finds Riki’s waist, hand gripping him with a bruising force as it wraps around his waist. It sends white-hot pleasure through Riki all over again.

He truly does treat Riki like his favorite book. He knows when to keep going and when to ease up, pulling away from the younger to let air back into their lungs, only to peck his lips before going back in for another deep, passionate kiss; knows where to hold Riki so his pages won’t close up on him, the book’s weight imbalanced as he progresses through the story; knows when to push his tongue past Riki’s lips and lick into his awaiting mouth. He knows the ins and outs of Riki, and he’s reading him well based on everything he’s doing, paying close attention to every reaction Riki gives.

“Riki,” Jungwon says against his lips as he pulls away for air. Riki whimpers and reaches up to wrap his free arm around Jungwon’s neck and pulls Jungwon back down, their lips locking together in a messy, uncoordinated kiss, their teeth clashing together. Jungwon laughs lowly at his eagerness and Riki feels the rumble of his throat against him. Riki tries to pour every emotion he feels for Jungwon in the kiss, the passion burning in his veins, and Riki wants to say three words right then and there—wants to let the confession slip past his lips and into Jungwon’s.

I love you, I love you, I love you, he thinks as their tongues brush together. Everything is on fire within Riki, thoughts racing a mile a minute, and all of them seem to only consist of Jungwon. Jungwon and how he kisses, how he feels pressed against Riki, how he’s all Riki can smell right now, drunk off his scent and addicted to the feeling he gets. He loves that he’s going to keep smelling like Jungwon for some time, and Jungwon is going to smell like him, even if it’s more subtle. Riki will take what he can get.

He’ll settle for anything on his high. Jungwon’s hand on his hip and his other squeezing Riki’s hand, pinning it against the mattress, pressing his body against Riki’s until Riki isn’t sure where he ends and Jungwon begins, slotting his leg between Riki’s thigh and—

The door bursts open and a high-pitched scream erupts from someone. Riki and Jungwon break apart, although Jungwon stays hovering over him, as they both snap their gazes to the door. There Sunghoon stands, hand to his chest and face blank, only the smallest hint of disbelief present, like he can’t believe that noise just came out of him. “I—that wasn’t me,” he says, voice strained. Riki and Jungwon exchange a look. Sunghoon gasps, grabbing their attention again. “Wait were you two just—”

“Oh, would you look at the time! Gotta go!” Jungwon hurries out, scrambling away from Riki and off the bed. His foot gets wrapped up in the blanket and he falls off the bed, but he quickly recovers and rushes past Sunghoon, out the door.

“Wait, but this is your room too,” Sunghoon says, twisting his body so he can watch Jungwon go. “Jungwon-ah!” he yells, raising his arms to his sides, palms up. “Where are you going?” He turns back to Riki, Jungwon presumably out of sight, and scrunches his face. “Were you two just—”

“No,” Riki says hastily. Sunghoon raises his chin, squinting at him.

“Okay, well, you’re lying to me,” he replies, “but that’s fine. Yeah no, that’s totally fine because this means we’re even now for all the time you’ve…you know…” he gesticulates vaguely. Riki’s jaw drops, offense taking over his features as he scrunches his nose and furrows his brow.

“No, we’re not even,” he says, perplexed, “we’re not even fucking close to being even, hyung.” Sunghoon frowns but doesn’t try to argue further. He also doesn’t comment on the pleased smile that tugs on Riki’s lips and the deep blush that dusts his cheeks.

Riki thinks it’s fine that Jungwon ran away this time because he wasn’t running away from Riki, but simply running away from the embarrassment of the situation, not wanting to face Sunghoon after what he witnessed.

Jungwon wasn’t just running away from the embarrassment, apparently. No, he ran away from Riki. Again. All the other times this has happened, Riki has at least been able to come up with a reasonable reason as to why. The first time one of them started avoiding the other, it was Riki. He can’t remember his exact reasoning for it, doesn’t know if he ever actually did have a valid reason for it, but he does remember it was around the time of Jungwon and Jongseong’s change in dynamic after Christmas—a short-lived one, but it’s still kind of there. Riki still doesn’t know what that’s all about, but maybe he’s not meant to know, the events going down in history as something only Jongseong and Jungwon need to know about, and that’s okay.

He doesn’t really know his reasoning behind why he started avoiding Jungwon when his actions could have led to Jungwon and Jongseong growing even closer with Riki not around to take up a great portion of Jungwon’s time, so he doesn’t try and figure it out. It could quite simply just be that Riki did something stupid, letting his emotions blind him and act out. The reason why he was an emotional mess during that time isn’t just one single reason, but it does have one major reason. Riki was jealous. He was jealous that Jungwon and Jongseong were being so cuddly and spending so much time together. He knew this from the start, but didn’t want to admit it to himself because admitting it meant acknowledging it for what it was, and Riki just couldn’t have that.

Acknowledging it for what it was meant Riki had to accept the fact that he was not only in love with his best friend, his bandmate, his leader, but also the fact that he was so deep in this shit that he was able to get jealous over something so stupid. Childishly, Riki didn’t want to accept any of it. It was too hard to do so, and Riki didn’t want to put the work into it.

Jungwon was the one who started avoiding Riki after that. He had meant to solve the problem, but accidentally created another while doing so—at least Jungwon must have thought he did. Truth be told, Riki didn’t think Jungwon had fucked up as badly as he did. What he did wasn’t exactly great, but Riki one hundred percent believes that if he would have shown any sort of discomfort, Jungwon would have stopped in a heartbeat. That could make him naïve, but it’s what Riki genuinely believes. Jungwon isn’t somebody who takes advantage of others, even if he sometimes fears he does because of his sub-gender. That’s just not who he is; Jungwon has never lived up to the negative alpha stereotypes.

He was angry for a while there and Riki still isn’t sure about the reason for that, but he’s sure Jungwon had a valid reason for it. Riki doesn’t think he should just immediately chalk it up to him being a moody alpha who can’t control his emotions, even though he’s kind of implied it before while talking to Jaeyun. He shouldn’t have done that, but it was the only explanation he could come up with during a time of desperation. He still doesn’t have an explanation, but now that he’s thinking more clearly, he doesn’t think it could possibly be just an alpha thing. Jungwon’s never been like that before.

That was the main reason behind Jungwon’s prolonged avoidance of Riki, but then that was seemingly resolved. But then practically immediately after its resolution, something else came up and Jungwon started avoiding Riki all over again. It’s truly one thing after the other for Riki recently.

Riki’s not completely sure why Jungwon is avoiding him now. His first explanation for why Jungwon ran away after Sunghoon walked in on their…rather intimate moment was because he was embarrassed to be caught doing something like that. It was awkward, Riki felt it even though he was able to laugh it off with Sunghoon after Jungwon made his escape, and the way Sunghoon looked between Jungwon and Riki all morning over breakfast had Riki flushed and wanting to get out of there as soon as possible. But Sunghoon’s curiosity made sense; it was quite random to walk in on given Jungwon and Riki’s relationship has been so weird recently. It probably kept the elder up all night trying to figure out what the fuck was going on between them. And to be fair, it was weird for Riki as well.

To go from not talking to scenting each other and then making out was an interesting experience, to say the least. If Riki were allowed to go back and do it all over again, he wouldn’t change anything when it came to that, satisfied to the bone with what happened between them, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t weird. The buildup doesn’t make any sense and Riki feels like there’s a huge plot point missing in this story, but maybe it’s there and he’s the only one not seeing it. He doesn’t know.

It all comes down to Riki not understanding why it happened and why it made things weird again after they had just sorted things out between them. If Jungwon didn’t want it, why was he the one who made the move? Why was he the one who closed the distance between them and kissed Riki with fervor? It doesn’t make sense for him to be the one running away from Riki right now.

Pushing his romantic feelings aside, Riki just misses Jungwon and wants him to stop avoiding him. He wants his running to come to a halt; to come back to Riki, even if only as a friend. Riki would give up the opportunity to ever kiss Jungwon again if it meant he could at least have him as a friend, even if he was absolutely addicted to the feel of Jungwon’s soft lips against his. He would deprive himself of his desires so long as it meant Riki could rekindle their friendship and have Jungwon by his side again. He just doesn’t know how to do that.

And when Riki doesn’t know how to do something, he seeks advice from one of his favorite people. Thank god he’s not in heat this time because literally nobody else is useful in this goddamn apartment—seriously, is it that hard to give decent advice?

Riki finds Jaeyun in his shared room with Jongseong, laying down with Sunghoon as they both watch something on Sunghoon’s phone. Riki doesn’t know why they don’t do some dorm rearrangements because Riki is sure Jongseong is tired of sleeping in the same room as those two ever since he stopped sleeping in Heeseung’s room. That’s a story for another time, though. Riki doesn’t feel like getting into that mess while his own mess is splattered all over the walls like the time Heeseung picked up a pot of spaghetti sauce and dropped it, causing the pot’s contents to go everywhere. Riki got a real kick out of that one, but cleaning the mess was not fun, much like attempting to clean this mess.

“Hyung, can I talk to you?” he asks as he enters the room, catching the attention of both of them.

“Sure,” they reply at the same time. Riki and Jaeyun both level Sunghoon with a look. He sighs, locks his phone, and gets up from the bed. “Fine,” he drawls with a heaving breath. He rolls his eyes as he grumbles, “acting like I don’t know what I know, pfft.” He walks past Riki, shaking his head, and closes the door behind him as he exits the room. Riki turns back to Jaeyun and raises his brow. The omega waves him off, and Riki gets the silent message of ignore him.

“What’s up, Riki?” he asks, patting the spot on the bed Sunghoon recently inhabited. Riki walks over and flops on the bed face-down, with a groan, the sound muffled by his face being smushed into the pillow. He doesn’t want to talk about this, but he knows he has to if he ever wants to rekindle his friendship with Jungwon. It’s inevitable. And Jaeyun seems to put together the pieces of the puzzle before Riki can think to run away. “Ah, this is about Jungwon, isn’t it?” Riki groans again. Jaeyun chuckles and pats his head a couple of times before dropping his hand back down to his lap.

“I don’t know what to do anymore,” Riki admits.

Jaeyun quirks his brow, smirking. “The ‘anymore’ there implies that you did at some point,” he says. Riki lifts his head from where it’s buried in the pillow to send Jaeyun an unamused look, down mouth forming a frown and eyes narrowing. Jaeyun throws up a hand in mock surrender. “Sorry,” he says; like he doesn’t mean it. Riki lets it go anyway, tuning his head forward again and letting his head fall back onto the pillow, his nose hurting a bit at the impact.

“I really think your problem is easy to solve, though,” Jaeyun starts after a minute, “I mean, come on, he clearly likes you too.” Riki whips his head back up. Jaeyun only gives him an amused look. “Don’t try to deny anything, Riki-yah; you know Sunghoon tells me everything.”

Riki sighs. “That fucking rat,” he hisses half-heartedly. “Wait, hold on—” he quickly sits up, twisting his body towards Jaeyun. “If Sunghoon told you, and you tell Jongseong everything, and Jongseong tells Sunoo everything, does that mean everyone knows?” Riki asks incredulously.

“Well…Heeseung isn’t anyone in there—I think,” Jaeyun tries to tease but it falls short when Riki glares at him. He relents, voice gentle as he says, “I haven’t told anybody else, Riki-yah. And Sunghoon only told me because he was so shocked to walk in on you two…well, making out.”

Riki’s face flushes and he groans. “Hyung, don’t say it like that.”

“Well, that’s what it was, right?” Jaeyun replies easily with a shrug. “There’s nothing wrong with that,” he says, sounding like he has more to say. It’s quiet as Jaeyun seemingly ponders over his words. Riki fiddles with his hands as he watches him think it over. Then, quietly, Jaeyun says, “just like there’s nothing wrong with you liking Jungwon, and him liking you.”

Admittedly, it’s a little hard to believe. As much as Riki looks up to the members and sees them as people who don’t have a bad bone in their body, there’s been a lingering fear inside of him that they won’t accept Riki’s feelings towards Jungwon—a beta’s feelings for an alpha. Deep down he knew they would be supportive, that they were too kind-hearted to view something as uncontrollable as love as wrong, but he could never fully get rid of the fear. The fear that he would be rejected by the people he loves most; is what his own mother unknowingly did, even if she never flat-out said anything about Riki and Jungwon specifically. She didn’t have to.

“I think you two just need to talk,” Jaeyun startles Riki out of his thoughts, “be honest with each other and lay everything out in the open. I feel like that would solve literally every single one of your problems.”

Riki chews on the inside of his cheek. “But what if I lay my heart bare and he doesn’t feel the same way?” he pushes, allowing his fears to show. Jaeyun levels him with a look.

“How can you still have doubts after everything that has happened? In the past month alone?” Jaeyun says with bemusement, “fine, you guys made out and people make out without there being feelings involved from time to time, that’s a thing.” He shakes his head in disbelief. “But Riki, he scented you.”

“Friends can scent each other,” Riki attempts.

Jaeyun purses his lip. “Friends who are in love with each other, maybe,” he snarks. He softens after that, letting his shoulders drop and he tilts his head a bit. “You know how intimate scenting is, don’t try to feign ignorance.” That’s true, Riki does know how intimate scenting is. That’s why it meant so much to him. Everything Jungwon does means a lot to him. “Why else would Jay be so upset that Heeseung scented you at that award show, even if it was under very specific circumstances?” he adds on. Riki can’t even argue with his logic, so he bites his tongue instead.

“Just talk to him,” Jaeyun all but pleads, “it really will solve every problem you two currently have.” Riki doesn’t miss the underlying meaning of those last words, and he swallows around the lump in his throat.

If he and Jungwon were to move forward, they would open a door to a million other problems. None of them would be directly between them, but they would involve them. They would have the company to deal with, unknowing of where the staff member’s bigotry stands, and would constantly have to hide from the public—more so than Jaeyun and Sunghoon have to. One slip-up could cost them, and the others, everything. There’s a reason the company wanted Riki to appear closer to Sunoo in front of the camera: he’s an omega that would make an enticing mate to any alpha, what Riki was to the public, and it would get everyone’s eyes off of the alpha-alpha scandal that occurred after the scenting incident at the award show. The only reason they’re not pushing it anymore is that Riki’s not in front of the camera anymore, for the time being. Who knows what will happen when Riki makes his return?

An alpha-alpha relationship getting exposed would set the world on fire, but it being revealed that Riki is a beta, having lied to them, but also that said beta is in a relationship with an alpha—one who would make such a good mate for an omega—could ruin them in an instant.

There’s so much to lose, but also so much to gain. Riki thinks he might be willing to take those risks, if only for Jungwon.

“I need to talk to Jungwon,” he says after a long period of silence. Jaeyun smiles at him nodding his approval. And Riki means it; he needs to talk to Jungwon, and he’d rather do it sooner rather than later. Even if he lays his heart bare and Jungwon doesn’t feel the same—although, Jaeyun has made a very good point of indicating that it’s near impossible for Jungwon to not reciprocate his feelings—it’ll be okay because at least they’ll hopefully be able to rekindle their friendship. Riki misses his best friend.

Riki doesn’t care what happens, as long as he gets Jungwon back.

It’s not Riki who approaches Jungwon to talk—it’s Jungwon who approaches Riki first. He wordlessly approaches Riki while the younger is drinking some green tea, taking slow slips so as to not burn his tongue, the steam emitting from the top a clear indicator that the drink is still hot. Riki raises his brow at him when he sits in the seat across from him, but doesn’t say anything; continues taking slow sips of his tea, savoring the taste. It’s a Japanese brand that Riki hasn’t had in a while, unable to find it outside of Japan. Jungwon bought it for him during their last visit to Japan for a promotional event Back in October. Things were a lot different back then.

Riki had talked to Jaeyun about everything only about two days ago now, and Riki has still been trying to figure out what he’s going to say to Jungwon when the time to talk comes. He’s been brainstorming a million different conversations they could have, but they all fall short in his head. They don’t fix anything. He’s still empty-handed up to this point, and judging by the solemn look on Jungwon’s face, Riki has run out of time to think of what he’s going to say to Jungwon, the leader taking the first step; taking the lead just as he always does. It’s what he’s meant to do.

“Will you come with me?” Jungwon finally asks after long minutes of them sitting in silence. Riki places down the now almost empty mug, pursing his lips.

“Come with you where?” He turns to look out the window, frowning. Leaving the apartment sounds like a great time, the company still has him on dorm arrest, but he doesn’t know if now is the best time to do so. Sure, the streets will be pretty empty at this time, making it easier for Riki to not get caught, but who knows what awaits them in the darkness. “It’s dark outside,” he says. “And cold,” he adds as an afterthought.

“Would you rather I go alone, then?” Jungwon asks, brow raised. Riki turns back to him and shakes his head. “Then come with me,” Jungwon pushes. “What, you think I’ll kill you out there or something?” he teases when Riki still shows hesitancy. Riki has it in him to smile.

“Not you, no,” he responds. Jungwon rolls his eyes, smiling. “Aren’t you the alpha? You can take care of yourself.”

“Doesn’t the company want you to be an alpha?” Jungwon tries to joke, but it falls flat when Riki tightens his jaw and furrows his brow. Jungwon clears his throat as if it would get rid of the awkwardness around them, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Sorry,” he whispers. Riki trains his eyes on the oven.

“It’s fine,” he says. He doesn’t want to make a big deal out of something that’s true. This would also give him the perfect opportunity to talk to Jungwon and let everything he’s been bottling up out, and the whole purpose of talking to Jungwon is to fix things between them, not make it worse, so he bites his tongue, brushes off his shoulders, and raises his white flag. “I’ll go with you, wherever that may be.” Jungwon beams at him, jolting up from his seat, and quickly makes his way over to the coat rack and their shoes in the entryway.

He doesn’t say anything and Riki takes it as his cue to just follow his lead. It’s not like Jungwon has ever been someone who leads him into immediate danger, Jaeyun on the other hand—well, that’s a story for another time. It feels natural to follow Jungwon’s lead in any situation, but especially so now when he seems so calm and…knowing. He knows what he wants to do, and Riki is simply along for the ride. A weird turn of events, the tables turning on them.

Jungwon doesn’t take him far from their dorm—far enough to have Riki’s cheeks stinging from the cold, but not far enough that Riki thinks they’ll get lost if they don’t pay attention to their surroundings. They’re maybe a block away when Jungwon comes to a halt, turning to his immediate right to an alleyway. He steps towards it as he unzips his coat pocket and shoves his hand in it to dig something out. Riki can only watch in bewilderment as he squats down only a couple of feet from the alley and starts clicking his tongue and making kissing noises.

“Hyung, what the fuck are you—” Riki gasps as he sees what Jungwon must be trying to summon, eyes going wide as he steps beside Jungwon, squatting down next to him. “Oh my god,” he whispers as Jungwon finally pulls the item from his coat pocket. Riki thinks he falls in love with Jungwon even further.

“I found him one day while I was on a 7-Eleven run,” Jungwon comments as he reaches his free hand out, not moving to touch, but putting out an invitation. The small feline sniffs Jungwon’s hand for what seems to be a millisecond before it rubs up against Jungwon’s hand, immediately purring. “He’s a Ragdoll, I think. Can’t be more than six months old,” Jungwon says with a frown, “He’s really affectionate so I have a hard time thinking he’s been a stray his entire life. Some bastard must have dumped him here.” It’s Riki’s turn to frown now, biting the inside of his cheek as he stares at the purring cat.

“He’s so cute,” he says as Jungwon opens the can of cat food—one of the more expensive brands, Riki notes—and he tentatively reaches his hand out for the cat to sniff, smiling softly when he pushes his head against his hand, much like he did to Jungwon’s. The cat quickly abandons Riki when Jungwon sets down the cat food and gently calls it, but Riki doesn’t mind; can’t when he sees how fast the cat starts devouring the food. His heart pangs in his chest at the sight—the little guy must be so hungry.

Riki enjoys the silence between them besides the sounds the cat makes as he scarfs down the food, the silence is comfortable between them instead of awkward. Then, a thought dawns on Riki. “Have you named him?” he asks, tearing his eyes away from the cat to look at the elder.

Jungwon shakes his head. “No. I thought I’d get too attached if I did, and I know I can’t bring him home.”

“Sure you can,” Riki beams. Jungwon smiles softly but shakes his head again.

“Jay hyung is allergic to cats, remember?”

“So?”

“Like, really allergic,” Jungwon reiterates. Riki waves him off.

“We don’t need him,” Riki argues. Jungwon lets out an astonished laugh, breaking into a grin that brings out his dimples. He looks down between his feet where he’s crouching and bites his lip, stifling another laugh.

“Never change, Riki. Never change,” he says, fondness evident in the words. It makes Riki break into a smile and his face flush, burying his face into his coat to hide it. Jungwon must see it despite his attempt, as he smiles even harder. He turns back to the cat, face falling a bit. “I think I got attached anyway, though,” he says, circling back to the topic at hand. Riki offers him a look of remorse before he reaches out to stroke the cat’s back.

“Have you looked at any shelters to take him to?” Riki asks, shifting his gaze between the cat and Jungwon as retracts his hand from the cat’s back.

“They’re all full,” Jungwon says. He sighs. “They’re always full this time of year.” Riki knows it’s like that back in Japan, but he hoped it was different in Korea. Apparently not. “I can’t take him home, can’t take him to a shelter, so I do what I can. I bought a blanket and a cardboard box to make a little home for him. I hope it keeps him at least a little bit warm.”

Riki stares at Jungwon, and he’s pretty sure if Jungwon would look back at him, he’d see stars in Riki’s eyes. All Riki wants is to hit Jungwon with a soft ‘I love you,’ completely overtaken with emotions as he realizes if there’s one person he could fall in love with when he’s young, he’s glad it was Jungwon. But instead of that, he says, “you’re such a good person,” Jungwon whips his head around, giving him a perplexed look.

“What?” he asks, puzzled. Riki continues staring at him, his lips forming a thin line as his eyes glaze over Jungwon’s features. Riki means to say something, but every time he opens his mouth, nothing comes out. He’s sure he’s starting to look stupid. Jungwon doesn’t comment on it. Instead, he turns back to the cat with a blank expression. “I don’t feel like a good person,” he admits.

“Why not?” he interrogates. “I think you’re great. You’re like, my favorite person.” Jungwon side glances at him. Riki swallows, licking his lips before he confesses, “you are my favorite person.” Jungwon puts his full attention back on him again and lets out a sad chuckle.

“That actually makes me feel worse for everything I’ve done,” he says. Before Riki can even ask what he means, Jungwon goes to explain himself, his voice barely above a whisper. “I haven’t exactly been good to you lately,” he breathes out.

“You haven’t exactly been bad, either.” The cat brushes against Riki’s knee, done with his meal and now in need of immediate attention, and Riki has it in him to chuckle. “You’re always good to me, you know. Even if you do things that hurt me from time to time.” He scratches under the cat’s chin as he mulls over his next words. “You always make it up to me after you make a mistake.” He pauses, directing his gaze at Jungwon to see the elder already looking at him, an unreadable look on his face. “You’re a really good person, and I think that’s what I struggle with most.”

Jungwon cocks his head to the side, scrunching his face as he tries to read Riki—tries to understand what he means. He remains silent and Riki gnaws on his bottom lip, unsure of how to get himself out of the corner he’s accidentally backed himself into. He’s not sure if he’s ready to lay his heart out bare just yet, so he opts to stay silent, prolonging their time out in the cold, even if Riki’s shivering and he can’t feel his hands anymore. Jungwon seems to gather his thoughts though, taking the lead of the conversation as he asks, “do you know why I brought you out here, Riki?”

Riki tilts his head back, looking up at the polluted sky as he thinks over Jungwon's question. “Because you wanted to show me the cat since I like cats?” he tries as he brings his gaze back down. A smile quirks Jungwon’s lips and Riki wonders what’s so amusing about what he said.

“Sure, that’s one reason,” he says. “Do you want to know the other?” Riki simply nods, words caught in his throat. Jungwon hesitates, reaches out for the cat as a distraction, and clicks his tongue. “I wanted to fix things between us,” he says softly, “without interruptions and snooping members—just us.” Riki nods again, accepting that it’s time to have this conversation.

There are a couple of routes Riki can take here. He can either lay his heart bare, wrapping it in a blanket before presenting it to Jungwon, and hope he doesn’t reject him—or despise him—for it. Or he can do the bare minimum, only repairing what’s broken, not making any advancements. Riki knows which one he wants, but he doesn’t know if he’s willing to take his chances with the outcome. The second option is safer—but it’s not what he desires. Riki finally knows what he wants with Jungwon, he just doesn’t know if he’s willing to take his chances. And Jungwon doesn’t seem to know how to go about this either, whatever that could mean.

“Do you remember that day in the practice room when you worse the scent patch for the first time?” Jungwon asks. Riki furrows his brow but follows the route Jungwon has chosen for them to take. He nods slowly. “I was so mad that day,” he confesses. “I was furious with seeing you so uncomfortable, but I hated the company for forcing you to do something you didn’t want to do when it should have been your choice.”

“I don’t know if I would have chosen to be honest about me being a beta or not,” Riki counters.

“It doesn’t matter,” Jungwon says harshly, but not unkindly. “Whether or not you would have chosen to take on the persona of an alpha doesn’t matter; what matters is the fact that you didn’t even get the opportunity to decide.” Riki can’t argue with that, so he doesn’t. Jungwon takes it as his cue to continue. “I saw how upset you were with the entire thing, and it made me so mad. You didn’t deserve to be forced into that situation. That’s why I was angry that day.”

Jungwon reaches for Riki’s hand, pulls Riki’s coat sleeve over it, and wraps his hand around it before pulling it into his own coat pocket in an attempt to warm it up. He snakes his fingers under Riki’s sleeve and intertwines their fingers. “That day after the first award show we went to after your presentation,” he starts, “I was mad again. I was mad that you smelled like Heeseung hyung.” Riki gulps.

“Why?” he whispers, remembering the events of that day fairly well. “You said it wasn’t because I was a beta that smelled like an alpha,” he says.

“And that’s true,” Jungwon confirms. “I was mad that it was Heeseung you smelled like.”

“Huh?”

“I was mad that you smelled like anyone other than me,” Jungwon reveals. Riki’s stomach drops as his blood runs cold, his heart picking up its pace in his chest. “I was so mad that you smelled like someone else—that Heeseung had made a public claim on you, even if it didn’t really mean anything and he was just trying to prevent your sub-gender from being exposed.” Jungwon clenches his hand into a fist and digs his nails into Riki’s hand. “I wanted to make a claim on you.” Riki feels faint. Jungwon doesn’t—he can’t mean what Riki thinks he means.

“Hyung—”

“I’ve always wanted to claim you as mine,” Jungwon rushes out. “I was hoping you would present as an omega so I could. But then—you didn’t. You presented as a beta, and I lost all hope. I know what people say about betas being in relationships; that they don’t belong. But then that day—that fucking day that I regret for reasons that probably aren’t the right ones…the one where we fought in the hallway and I—” He licks his lips, eyes trained on Riki. Riki shivers, but it’s not from the cold this time. “You smelled so good,” Jungwon says after a moment, “and when I started scenting you I wanted to claim you so badly. I think I would have mated you if Heeseung hadn’t walked in when he did.” Riki’s eyes widen, his mouth falling open slightly. “I never would have forgiven myself for it, but I wanted it to the point where I couldn’t even think straight. I’m sorry for that. For that entire day, really.”

“What do you regret most of that day?” Riki asks, a little breathless.

“Not walking away smelling like you,” Jungwon responds, not missing a beat. “Your scent is like the ocean breeze, but very specifically you, and I think it’s my favorite scent to ever exist.” His eyes dart to Riki’s lips and back up to his eyes, the action quick but notable. “When I came back to the dorm you still smelled like me, and I was filled with so much pride, even if everything about the situation was wrong.”

“I liked it,” Riki discloses, “I liked the feeling and...smelling like you.” He feels a bushy tail brush up against his thigh through his pants, but he pays it no mind, too focused on Jungwon. “I was just hurt that you didn’t let me scent you back.”

“I’m sorry,” Jungwon apologizes, “I’m so sorry.” Jungwon takes their hands out from his coat pocket and places them against his cheek, smiling softly. “I liked the feeling of you scenting me as well, and I loved smelling like you.” Riki smiles back at him, leaning into Jungwon’s hand when he brings it up to frame his face. “Loving such an intimate thing  with you made loving you so much better.” Riki’s heart stops. It starts again, beating so rapidly that he thinks it’s going to burst out of his ribcage just so it can lay itself bare in front of Jungwon itself, tired of Riki’s hesitancy.

“I’ve been so scared of loving you,” Riki forces out, voice wobbling with emotion. “I know what people will think—how they’ll treat us if they find out.”

“Fuck what they think,” Jungwon spits. “And they don’t need to know. As much as I would love to scream from the rooftops that I love Nishimura Riki, a beta, I don’t care if I never get to tell anyone because all I’ll ever care about is the fact that I have you by my side.” Jungwon slides his hand from Riki’s cheek to the back of his head, pulling him forward so their foreheads press together. “Even after you presented as a beta, the only person I could ever imagine by my side—as a best friend, as a lover, as a mate—was you.”

“You really love me?” Riki feels the breath of Jungwon’s soft laugh hit his lips.

“More than you could ever imagine, Riki.”

Riki takes the lead this time as he clashes his lips with Jungwon’s. Jungwon smiles into the kiss, and Riki giggles against his lips. It’s short and sweet, but Riki really is addicted to everything related to Jungwon, so he goes back for more, and he finds that he can. Jungwon readily kisses him back, even going as far as deepening the kiss; tilts his head as he swipes his tongue on Riki’s bottom lip and pulls Riki closer. He even drags Riki’s bottom lip between his teeth as he pulls away, smirking when Riki greedily goes back for more. Riki feels like if heaven really exists, this is it.

“I love you,” Riki says as they pull apart for the last time.

“I love you too.” Jungwon presses a kiss on Riki’s forehead. “I don’t care what anyone has to say about it, I want to be with you and only you.” Riki hopes this is going where he thinks it is, and he preens when Jungwon asks, “Riki, will you—”

“Yes!”

“You don’t even know what I was going to ask!” Jungwon protests in disbelief.

“You could literally ask me to mate you for life right now and my answer wouldn’t change,” Riki argues. Jungwon shoots him a smile, remaining silent. It even starts pulling into a smirk, Jungwon clearly satisfied with Riki’s response. Fucking alphas, man.

“Maybe we should hold off on that one…for now,” Jungwon chuckles. “But in the meantime, be my beta?” he asks.

“Only if you’ll be my alpha,” he responds. “Dipshit,” he adds just for good measure.

“Of course,” Jungwon says easily. Riki nods and seals the deal with a quick kiss that turns into a longer, deeper kiss as Jungwon goes in for another, and Riki sighs into it. “I don’t care what the company has to say about it,” Jungwon says when they pull apart again. “Nobody can stop me from being with you.”

“I don’t care either.” He doesn’t, he finds. Even though he’s feared what people will think about it—what Jungwon would think—he doesn’t care now that he knows that he can have Jungwon in the way that he’s wanted for as long as he can remember. Jungwon is his, and he is Jungwon’s. It’s music to Riki’s ears—the cause of the euphoria in his veins and the butterflies in his stomach.

It’s probably too cold for them to still be out here like this, but Riki finds that he doesn’t care as Jungwon kisses him again, like he can’t get enough of Riki, just like Riki can’t get enough of him. It feels good to feel wanted like that, and Riki can’t help but giggle into the kiss again. They only break apart when they hear a soft meow next to them, the cat bumping into both of their thighs, rubbing against them as he starts purring and demanding attention again.

A thought dawns on Riki, and he glances between the cat and Jungwon. “What’s your favorite name?”

“Eden,” Jungwon replies in an instant, barely giving it any thought. It shows how true it is.

“Then the cat’s name is Eden,” Riki says, “and he’s our son. He’s ours now—even if we have to raise him on the streets,” he says seriously, meaning every word of it.

Jungwon laughs a full guttural laugh, his shoulders shaking with the force of it, and Riki breaks into the biggest grin he thinks he’s ever pulled. Jungwon is so pretty when he laughs, and Riki wants to make it so Jungwon never stops laughing and smiling like he has been tonight. And when their eyes meet when Jungwon starts calming down, Jungwon looking at him with nothing but unadulterated love and care, Riki's heart melts.

Right here, at this moment, Riki feels at peace. Nothing matters outside of Jungwon—the risks, the opinions, the fallbacks. None of it means anything, because Riki has Jungwon, and that’s all he could ever ask for. He would have settled for staying as friends, repairing their friendship, and keeping it as that, but Riki thinks this is much nicer; having Jungwon this way is everything he’s ever wanted. Kind, loving, and beautiful Jungwon whom Riki doesn’t think he could ever live without. All the care and love Jungwon is looking back at him with is mind-boggling, and it causes Riki’s heart to soar.

He doesn’t think he’s ever been more in love with someone, and he’s forever grateful that he gets to call that someone his.