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It all starts one random weekday morning. They’re fresh out of promotions and they have just a little more time to themselves; no two hour microsleeps before another day of copious hairspray and scent blockers, but instead one of those days where half the members can and will sleep for fifteen hours straight.
This is exactly how Harua finds Maki as he ends up in Maki and Nicholas’ room to try and wake him up. They had been planning on going shopping today, but Maki seems to have made the most of their break and remains stubbornly asleep despite the fact he’s normally the first to wake out of the two of them. Maki’s tangled within a cocoon of blankets with his face smushed into his pillow. It’s such a funny yet endearing sight that Harua briefly thinks to take a photo of it, but he pokes at Maki’s shoulder before he can stop himself.
“Maki,” he barely calls, knowing Nicholas is also still sleeping just above. There’s not really a reaction; a bare twitch of Maki’s arm before he stills again. Harua frowns. In all the time he’s lived with Maki, he doesn’t really recall him being difficult to wake.
He tries again, grasping Maki’s shoulder and shaking him a bit. “ Maki ,” Harua whisper-shouts, eliciting a groan from him but not much more. “Come on, Riki-kun , wake up already,” Harua starts to laugh incredulously while Maki begins to turn over. Even Nicholas has woken from Harua’s attempts, peering down blearily from his top bunk.
Maki finally decides to open his eyes, and as Harua watches him gain consciousness the room rapidly fills with a thick, heady scent. Oh, shit, Harua thinks as he quickly looks at Nicholas, wide-eyed and overwhelmed. Maki’s eyes have turned golden; he’ll start his rut soon enough, and won’t be able to control himself when he fully wakes up.
From his top bunk, Nicholas puts his face into his hands and lets out an elongated sigh. “I’ll deal with it, Harua,” he says, looking like he’d really just like to go back to sleep on his well-deserved holiday. All Harua can do in the thick of whatever Maki’s releasing into the air is nod stiffly before he turns to leave, feeling those eyes on him as he evacuates as quickly as he can.
Fuma looks at him from where he’s standing just outside the bathroom, roughly drying his freshly washed hair with a towel. More than any of them, Fuma can easily sense when his members are feeling off.
“Everything alright, Harua?” Fuma questions, draping the towel around his neck.”You look a little shell-shocked.”
Harua thinks briefly back to being in the room behind him and how quickly he was overwhelmed by that scent. Suddenly, he can feel himself start to itch , in the same weird way that happens whenever his omegan instincts rise to the surface, and he wants nothing more than to get out of Fuma’s sight. “Yep,” he says, somewhat weakly, before scurrying off to his own room. Harua’s heart is still pumping furiously, and he turns to look at himself in the mirror.
Staring back at him are the same yellow eyes that Maki had greeted him with barely a minute beforehand.
–
So, Maki presents that morning as an alpha. Big deal; Harua’s already dealt with many of those. But nobody he knows has a scent that has triggered his instincts like this.
After a few days pass and Maki gets over his rut. Harua resolves himself to just go with the flow. He’s not going to wolf out, or whatever, on Maki just because he happens to smell nicer than the average wolf. If he waits long enough, maintains a sensible distance and doesn’t do anything reckless, nothing will happen.
This is going to be just fine , Harua reassures himself as he walks into the bathroom and finds Maki staring at himself in the still foggy mirror. His eyes are still that golden yellow; he won’t really be able to control it for a week or two, until he learns how to rope in his instincts.
“Ah, sorry!” Harua exclaims, but, against what are probably his best interests, does not leave the room. Maki looks at him - well, more like stares him down - with those eyes, and smiles weakly.
“No, it’s alright,” Maki replies, turning away from the mirror to lean against the sink. That scent still emanates from him in inconsistent waves. Harua tries not to gulp too visibly.
“Uh, how are you feeling…?”
“Mm, really weird. Like ,” he says the last part in English, as he always does, “I feel so off-kilter, like I’m vibrating out of my skin or something.” Maki bounces around on his feet restlessly as he speaks.
Harua nods, but he’s maybe only half listening. It really is hard for him to be in the room while Maki can’t control himself.
“Sorry we couldn’t go out that day. Guess I’m stuck like this for a little while,” Maki tries to act nonchalantly, but kind of misses the mark as the hesitance bleeds into his voice.
Harua gets it. When he presented only a few months before, it was right in the middle of promotions and he had to wear contacts and heavy-duty scent blocker the whole time. Thankfully at the moment they only have one or two things to film aside from practising so Maki won’t really have to force a calm appearance all the time to their fans.
“It won’t be too bad. And don’t worry about it, okay? It just happens,” Harua reassures Maki, looking into those glowing eyes. That’s what K had told him last year, with all his experience of four other members undergoing the same thing.
But Maki’s presentation is particularly unnerving for Harua; being a newly presented wolf himself he can’t help but react. There’s also the problem of the small crush he’s harboured on Maki for as long as they’ve known each other; something that he hasn’t told anyone in their little pack.
He realises staying in the room was a mistake when Maki’s nostrils flare, and his eyes dilate a little as they make eye contact for a second. Harua’s quickly changing eyes and scent betray him too quickly and he looks away as quickly as he can; no matter how he tries to rein his instincts in, being stuck in the same square metre of space as Maki is doing no favours for him, or for the boy in front of him, either. It’s embarrassing to be losing control of his wolf so easily like this. He scrambles to leave before Maki can see the full extent of the impact he’s having on Harua.
–
Maki has been feeling really, really out of whack. It started with generally feeling crappy a few days prior, before he was suddenly waking up in rut, with Harua’s scent still lingering in the room. Now past that, he’s gone about his daily routine with each of the other members checking in on him, admiring his eyes and marvelling over being able to smell him properly. It’s everything people have always described presenting to him as, and more.
He doesn’t see Harua until later in the day. Apparently he was the one to wake him up for their day out, but he’s since been everywhere Maki wasn’t. It was unusually evasive for Harua, who was a straightforward kind of person.
And then he finally sees him while he’s finishing washing up. Focusing on his eyes in the mirror and how weird they look as the yellow colour ripples against his dilating pupils, Maki only registers Harua coming into the room when he apologises, and then that scent flares again. It’s like clean laundry; a powdery, fresh scent that fills the room. There’s a flush to Harua’s cheeks as they continue to talk and that scent flourishes more; something he seems to be extremely flustered by as he leaves Maki’s presence as quickly as he can.
Huh. Huh.
Maki wanders out of the bathroom feeling both refreshed and still confused by whatever just happened. For a second, he can’t resist the insane urge to follow the lead that he’s given with Harua’s scent, but Maki physically stops himself from moving any further. Clenching his teeth, he continues to his room, shutting the door quickly with a sigh of relief. Nicholas and Euijoo, sitting together up on Nicholas’ bunk playing some kind of game, look down at him in confusion.
“Everything okay, Maki?” Nicholas cautiously questions him in English, knowing Maki sometimes likes to broach these kinds of topics in his other native tongue.
“Uh, yeah, just a little tired, I guess,” Maki replies with no confidence. Nicholas and Euijoo share a look as Maki disappears beneath them to slump down on his bed, taking his phone off the charger.
“Let us know if you need anything, Maki,” Euijoo gently calls out to him from above.
Really, all Maki wants to do at this point is sleep the next few weeks off, but it’s not exactly possible to do that. Besides that, he can’t stop thinking about Harua.
Something about what had just happened between them reminded him of how they used to be when he and Harua were still trainees. Maki had always been the outgoing, friendly trainee friends with all the other foreign trainees, whereas Harua kept more to himself, even if they had been friends for longer than the others. Even on their audition program Harua deflected Maki’s attempts at skinship to the point that Maki became upset over it. During their time in &TEAM, Harua had become used to skinship with everyone - including him - and that’s when, over time, Maki’s feelings had blossomed.
But this felt like Harua was closing himself off to Maki again.
Maki couldn’t help but feel a little put out. What if his presentation as an alpha had somehow compromised the friendship he had with Harua? Was he uncomfortable with the way that Maki’s presentation had triggered his own instinctual reaction, and now wanted to stay away from him? Was this going to lead to an inevitable rejection followed by the ruining of their relationship, or something?
He’s pulled out of his thoughts by Euijoo and Nicholas suddenly climbing down the bunk bed.
“We’re going to the convenience store, so just text us if you want anything, okay?” Euijoo says as they both leave the room. Yeah, right. Definitely not an excuse to leave the room while Maki wallows.
As the door shuts, Maki unlocks his phone and scrolls through his contact list to his brother, quickly pressing the call button. After a short delay, a familiarly annoying voice picks up.
“Hey, what’s up, my lil alpha bro?” Maki’s brother drawls in the familiar accent he didn’t know he’d been craving to hear.
“I still feel like shit,” Maki groans. His brother lets out a laugh, before requesting to facetime him. Begrudgingly accepting the request, Maki’s camera turns on to his eyes beaming yellow at the screen.
“No shit, must be tough over there.”
“Mm,” Maki grunts in response.
“Not up to talking about it much yet, huh? You want me to just tell you about what’s going on over here?” When Maki responds in the affirmative (another grunt), his brother launches into a comedic retelling of his recent escapades that he listens to and occasionally replies to. It’s not the same as being back at home, but it feels good to just see his brother and hear him talk. But still, the thought of Harua, looking at him with those yellow eyes.
“You seem to be pretty distracted by something,” his brother quips. Maki runs his free hand over his face.
“I dunno, I just… everything’s all weird today, and I keep having weird interactions with, uh, everyone, I just feel like I’m out of control,” he confesses, though rather unspecifically.His brother may not be out to breach his privacy but it still feels wrong to outright share relationship problems he has with fellow idols, even those in his own group.
“Nah, don’t even worry about it, okay? You’ll be fine in like, two weeks. That’s how it was with me. You just have to go with the flow.”
Maki sighs. “Yeah, you’re right. I think I’m just… overthinking it, or something.”
“Careful there, might be hard for your tiny brain to do that much work,”
“Yeah? Really funny.”
“That’s why I’m here, broski,” his brother says with a yawn at the end.
Maki inadvertently yawns in response. “Thanks for talking with me for a little while. It helped, I promise.”
They talk for a little while longer before Maki eventually ends the call out of exhaustion. It’s at times like this he wishes he could have been with his family when he presented. Doing this while having to keep up the idol act at the same time was going to be an interesting experience, to say the least.
-
The next day they all have a group variety filming, so they spend the morning preparing with the stylists. Euijoo and Fuma had been hesitant to let Maki join in so soon after presenting, but the schedule couldn’t be changed so abruptly and Maki said he’d be fine with it.
Harua watches as Maki is wrangled into wearing uncomfortable coloured lenses that cover the glow of his eyes. He had apparently already applied copious amounts of scent blocker before leaving the house because any remnant of his scent was undetectable to Harua. Not that he really wants to admit it to himself, but Harua is already finding comfort in the woodsy smell Maki suddenly has since presenting - the same one he’s been actively avoiding - and he’s feeling a little uneasy now that the scent has gone.
The semi-audible sigh that Harua lets out at this thought has the stylist in front of him pausing.
“Aw, you sound kinda sad, Harua,” she comments to him quietly, and she’s doing that thing that many people do when they see him and starts cooing even though he doesn’t think he’s doing anything particularly cute. “You’ll be filming for a while, so make sure to put on a smile. Fighting,” the stylist gently taps his nose and continues to touch up his eye makeup.
“Thank you, noona,” he replies, attempting a smile. As he does, he makes eye contact with Maki, across from him with his makeup now being done on the other side of the room, and his smile falters.
Maki’s expression is unreadable, but it appears he’s been watching Harua for some time and the thought makes Harua squirm a little and look away again in embarrassment. He knows Maki just wants to talk to him about what happened the day before, but Harua’s still not really ready to face reality about his feelings for Maki.
“Hey, Harua,” he hears from somewhere next to him. Turning, he sees Taki, whose stylist is finishing with his hair. “Look at your phone.”
Harua turns his phone over to see a message on LINE from him.
Taki:
what’s going on with you and maki ww
why is he staring at you like that
Harua:
idk
Taki:
you sure about that? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Harua:
don’t send me faces like that
i was the one who woke him up yesterday and he was like that
It’s just kinda intense to be around a presenting alpha
Taki:
ehh? it wasn’t that bad to be around yuma when he presented, though
Harua:
i know, but this time it was different
i couldn’t even stay in the room with him for more than a minute
Taki:
ohhh
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Harua:
seriously
Taki:
but really though
isn’t it just because you like him
Harua looks up at Taki in dismayed shock. He hadn’t told anyone, and it wasn’t like he was super outwardly affectionate toward Maki enough for anyone to realise he thought anything more of Maki. He looked back down at his phone to type furiously.
Harua:
when did i ever say that!!!
Taki:
juju hyung guessed it early last year
said it was cute
Harua:
well fine it’s true
but then why does he keep staring at me!!
They both pause to look up at Maki, who this time at least attempts to feign ignorance and look away.
Taki:
i don’t know
hopefully he stops during the filming though
it’s kinda unnerving
he’s so unusually quiet
Harua:
yeah
must be tough for him
Taki:
you could probably help him when we’re done though
Harua:
?? how
Taki:
scent him or something
Rather than the sensible option, Harua’s imagination immediately runs to the thought of his nose in Maki’s neck, directly taking in his scent from the source. Or even the other way around. He turns scarlet.
Taki:
your ears wwwwwww
bright red
i just meant wrists dude
but sure you can neck him if you want
either way it helps
Harua:
i’m going to throttle you when we get home
i just don’t know if i can handle it
i can’t hide my own reactions
Looking down in embarrassment as another stylist begins to fiddle with his hair, Harua feels Taki’s hand grasp his own and rub their wrists together, scent marking him. It was reassuring to have an omega of the same age to share these kinds of experiences with for the first time, rather than just the all-knowing older members of their group.
“It’s going to be fine,” Taki reassures him quietly. “It’s just Maki, after all.”
-
Soon enough, they’re called into the filming studio. Set up for them today is some kind of modified mafia game, where Harua is named as one of the mafia. He’s not particularly good at these kinds of games, but resists being found out until the final round. The remaining citizens - K and Yuma - turn on each other, with Harua’s final vote sealing the fate of Yuma, who is eliminated.
When it is revealed that Yuma was not the mafia, K gasps in an exaggerated expression of shock.
“Not Harua, no! I don’t believe it!” He shouts dramatically, and runs over to squeeze Harua into a back hug. At this point, he’s used to the weight of members like K on his back and doesn’t flinch at the sudden skinship, instead laughing at his success at the game against all odds.
There’s suddenly a rumbling sound coming from Harua’s left. All of the members and production staff immediately turn to Maki, who is baring his teeth at K, growling.
All hell breaks loose in the studio, with the producers yelling to cut the cameras while Maki is surrounded by the other members, still glaring at K, veins protruding from his neck grotesquely.
K lets go of Harua, pats his shoulders and walks over calmly to Maki.
“Hey, it’s alright, Maki. Harua’s fine,” he says with an even tone, eyes flashing golden.
Maki falters for a second, breathing harshly, and seems to snap out of whatever trance he was in, immediately looking guilty.
“I- K-hyung, I’m sorry. I don’t know what just happened” Maki says ashamedly.
K smiles and runs a gentle hand through Maki’s heavily styled hair.
“You’re okay. It happens to all of us.”
They resume filming to finish up the episode. The tension is palpable; Maki doesn’t speak or even react much for the rest of the filming, much to the annoyance of the production staff. But they manage to wrap it all up, and are soon on their way home. Maki and Harua are both seated at the back of the van, a seat in between them. The rest of the van is quiet; they haven’t been dancing today, but variety is just as exhausting mentally.
When Harua looks in Maki’s direction, he’s staring out the window, his hands fiddling tensely over his lap. He knows Maki is upset over what happened, and over not being able to control his own instincts in front of others. From his own experience, the period where they lacked control over their wolf was the most mortifying time.
His inner omega wants him to crawl over to him; to scent Maki liberally until all he can think of is Harua. But Harua isn’t as comfortable expressing his omega instincts through overt actions as their other omega members, instead relying on comforting others with his words. With Maki now presenting as an alpha, Harua is acutely aware that their relationship is going to change in the future whether he likes it or not, even just in the way he perceives Maki as a person.
Harua is suddenly reminded of his conversation with Taki earlier. How quickly Taki was able to calm him with such a simple gesture.
He reaches out to Maki before he even considers the thought properly, squeezing his hand in between Maki’s own.
Maki instantly whips his head around, glowing eyes staring into Harua’s deep brown eyes in shock. His gaze is so intense, especially with his contacts once again removed, that Harua has to resist the urge to look away. He doesn’t want to just hide away. He wants to show Maki that he’s not alone in dealing with his presentation.
Gripping Maki’s right hand and pulling it to his own lap, Harua presses their wrists together. Their scent blocker is only just barely wearing off now so it doesn’t really allow their scents to intermingle which Harua is glad for at the moment, but the sentiment of the gesture is enough for Maki to slump down into his seat, all tension from his body disappearing.
Huh. So maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all.
-
Okay, so maybe that was an exaggeration, Harua thinks grimly, staring at his eyes in his bedroom mirror.
They had come home that night and everything had been fine. Maki had been more upbeat, Harua wasn’t lacking so much confidence in himself as an omega and as Maki’s friend.
They had all showered off the copious amounts of scent blocker, gone to bed and woke up refreshed. They had another rest day in between schedules, with only some dance practice later in the day. Nothing about this was unusual, except for Maki deciding to latch himself onto Harua. With Maki following him around all day like a lost puppy, Harua was forced to continually school his expression and pretend that he wasn’t extremely affected by Maki’s consistent presence, much to the amusement of the other members.
It isn’t until they both settle on the couch and Maki casually picks up his wrist to scent it that Harua immediately becomes overwhelmed. Feigning an excuse, he immediately runs to the bathroom and shuts the door.
“Oh, Harua,” Harua hears from behind him.
Whipping around, his eyes seem to surprise Euijoo, who has applied some kind of sheet mask to his face.
“You okay?” Euijoo asks slowly.
“ Don’t look, ” Harua whines, covering his eyes. He can hear Euijoo briefly laugh.
“It’s okay to react like that to him, you know,” Euijoo says, moving to stand face to face with him. Harua removes his hands from his eyes to look up at Euijoo and pout at him.
“You know too, hyung?” he cringes. “How am I supposed to stay around him when I keep doing that ?”
Euijoo hums, moving back to stand at the sink.
“Don’t forget what happened during &Audition,” Harua’s cheeks redden, and he looks away. “He’ll get sad again if you pull away without telling him why, so you should be honest.”
Harua groans, fully knowing Euijoo is right. But at the same time, honesty means being candid about the reason why he’s reacting to Maki so strongly. Why would he tell Maki that, not knowing if he feels the same way?
“Hey, there’s no need to do it right now. Just.. think it over a bit.”
Harua nods, before leaving. Maki has already left, so he has a clear path to his and Jo’s room, immediately flopping down onto his bed. He pauses, before slowly bringing up his wrist to sniff it. Maki’s scent has already permeated his skin long enough to smell it distinctly. Imagine how strong it would be if you let him do it for longer, some evil, evil part of him thinks.
Harua smashes his face into his pillow.
-
So. Weird things were just going to happen to Maki this week, and he needed to accept that. Strangely, every single one of them involved Harua, and he found that a part of himself was extremely pleased to know that, but not when things like this happened.
Right after Harua leaves the room in a flurry, he returns to his and Nicholas’ room in a state of confusion. As normal, he is greeted by Nicholas on his bunk.
“Is Harua upset with me?” Maki blurts out without thinking. Nicholas looks at him amusedly, raising a brow.
He takes his silence as a cue to continue. “ I mean, I just tried to scent him like he did to me yesterday and he’s running off, like, like I burned him or something,” he ruminates out loud, mostly in Japanese, some in English, pacing the small length of their room.
“Harua’s not as good as you are at expressing himself through skinship, you know,” NIcholas starts. “Maybe you overwhelmed him, or something.”
“But you’ve scented him before, and he never reacted like that then.”
Nicholas squints and looks up, briefly considering this thought.
“Eh, well. You can’t really control yourself like we can. You probably blasted him with alpha scent,” Nicholas continues, gesturing weirdly, but also appearing to avoid the subject slightly. Maki isn’t going to push it.
Maki groans frustratedly, slumping onto his lower bunk.
“It’s not the end of the world, Maki. Just talk to him about it. And also, maybe tell him about your feelings.” Nicholas suggests, slyly adding that last part on.
Easier said than done, Maki thinks glumly.
-
Everything starts to calm down at this point. Though neither Harua and Maki are game enough to talk to each other about what happened yet, the other members aren’t pushing it, and they seem to have reached an understanding over Harua’s reaction that day. They’ve returned to their normal banter, even though it’s easy to tell that there’s still an underlying tension between the pair of them.
Tonight, they’re all cramming into one of their dorms for a movie night requested by K, met by other packmates with the usual joking complaints.
“Dibs on picking the movie,” Yuma calls before anyone else has the chance.
“You picked it last time, though,” Jo reminds him.
“I haven’t picked it in ages ,” Yuma argues back, the Kansai lilt to his petulant tone stronger as he gets more defensive.
“Eh? You definitely picked it when we watched that weird British film last time,” K tilts his head, also speaking in the dialect that he accidentally picked up from Yuma and Hayate and never dropped after. They all use it sometimes; it’s apparently infectious.
Euijoo has already turned something on in the meantime.
“Arguing about the movie is banned,” he says, half in Korean and half in Japanese, putting down the remote and settling back down next to Nicholas. Everyone groans.
So they’re all sitting, packed together onto the couches and the floor around the TV. With some wrangling from Taki, Maki somehow manages to be sitting right next to Harua, thighs pressed up against each other with how they’re all squeezed onto the couches.
It’s becoming just slightly easier for Maki to discern between the scents of all his pack members. There’s the fancy cologne scent that emanates from K, always strong but never overbearing; Yuma and Taki’s more fresh, citrusy scents; Fuma’s rich chocolate-like scent; Jo’s subtle fresh grass scent, as well as whatever the usually amalgamated scent of Euijoo and Nicholas is, clean yet with some spicy undertone to it.
He’s a little distracted from those by the still overwhelming clean musk coming from directly next to him. Maybe he’s biased, but the other members’ scents just don’t really compare. Maki might be losing his mind over it still; there’s a pretty, nice-smelling boy right next to him, one who his alpha is telling him to climb onto and scent liberally, and he can’t do anything about it.
Just his luck.
The movie’s not super interesting. It’s just some recent action movie that follows the same formula as all the others, so his attention drifts to Harua once again. It seems that Harua’s thinking the exact same thing about the movie, because Maki watches as his eyes continue to droop every few seconds, head falling forward before he snaps himself out of it again, nose scrunching cutely as he blinks the sleep away. Maki forces himself to look away before he does something insane.
But not even a minute later, Harua’s head is dropping onto his shoulder. Maki freezes as Harua gets comfortable in his sleep, nuzzling into the soft fabric of Maki’s hoodie. He can feel himself flushing, and it doesn’t help when the other members start looking at him in amusement, because of course he can’t control whatever happy pheromones he’s releasing right now.
Eventually, the movie ends and the members start heading to bed, but not without making faces at Maki as they pass by.
Face red, he turns to Harua, and shakes him lightly on the thigh.
“Harua,” Maki whispers, not really wanting to end the moment.
Harua stirs slightly, groaning, before sitting up. Rubbing his hands over his eyes, he opens them groggily to reveal golden eyes.
Maki has to resist making a noise. He hasn’t seen Harua’s eyes like this really since Harua had presented; he always had really great control over his own instincts even compared to the other members. He suddenly feels like he’s intruding on something Harua’s too tired to control. Breathing out a sigh, he ruffles Harua’s hair.
“Come on, it’s time to go to bed.”
Harua makes a noise, blinks sleepily, and presses himself against Maki again, close to his neck.
Maki’s mind blanks.
“You can’t sleep here, Harua,” he insists. Harua just holds on tighter, gripping him by the hoodie.
Maki sighs resignedly before placing an arm around Harua to support him, bringing them both to the bathroom to clean up before they sleep. He watches Harua work slowly yet semi-automatically to brush his teeth and apply skincare, but he’s still somewhat plastered to Maki’s side. It’s almost like he’s drunk.
Maki blanches.
That’s what this is. He’s just accidentally made Harua high on his pheromones like some classic alpha and omega romcom. It makes the alpha in him swell up with pride, but it also just feels like he’s taking advantage of Harua, so the guilt quickly overrides any positive feeling he has in this situation.
When they’re both done, he pushes Harua into his room and helps him up onto his bed, Jo watching them both curiously from his lower bunk. It doesn’t seem like Harua wants him to go; he whines as Maki attempts to leave the room. Hesitating, Maki briefly considers his options. If he stays, he probably won’t be able to resist scenting Harua even more, so that’s not happening. Having a small lightbulb moment, he pulls off the hoodie and hands it up to Harua. Harua accepts it, lying down. Maki breathes a sigh of relief while Jo laughs semi-incredulously.
As Maki returns to his own room, settling down into his blankets, he resigns himself to gain more self control over his instincts as quickly as he can. It was unfair to put Harua in these situations when Maki knew that Harua would never have done those things if he were totally lucid.
-
Harua wakes the next morning feeling particularly foggy. As he sits up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, the memories of the previous night come flooding back to him. The soft fabric of Maki’s hoodie and the woody scent that he’d unconsciously breathed in as he slept on Maki, before he was dragged around by Maki until he was put to bed with the hoodie in hand.
Harua flushes in complete mortification. In his scent-drunkenness he had completely given in to everything his omega side wanted him to do, and in the end, all Maki could do to stop him was give him his hoodie. He looks down at the soft material and can’t resist the urge to slip it onto himself. It’s like instantly being wrapped up in Maki’s alpha pheromones, and he has to take a second to calm down his instinctive reaction.
He climbs down his bunk and leaves the room, walking into the lounge room where some of the members are lounging and talking before practice. There’s an abrupt coughing noise as he walks into view of the members, and he turns to see Maki with barley tea dripping down his chin and onto his sweatshirt. Harua follows Maki’s eyes down to his hoodie as the other members worry over Maki for choking (almost all of them - Jo is watching them with a raised brow and a small smile) and flushes again, quickly leaving for the kitchen before he makes a fool of himself somehow.
Practice is mostly uneventful, other than the fact that he receives multiple looks for wearing Maki’s hoodie and smelling of him so strongly (including one particularly devious and suggestive look from Taki, who Harua shoves when the instructor’s back is turned). The only other thing he really notices is that he and Maki are awkward. He can see Maki trying to avoid looking at him, clinging onto Nicholas in an attempt to annoy him.
Harua must be looking at him rather forlornly because a hand grips his hand from behind, and he turns to see Fuma smiling down at him. Fuma briefly scents him, the comfort immediately running through Harua, before they continue with practice.
Later, once they’ve all finished and gone back to the dorms, he’s abruptly pulled into Fuma’s room. Fuma motions for Harua to sit on his bed with him, and he does, sitting cross-legged at the other end of the bed.
“You’ve had a tough time recently, haven’t you, Harua?” Fuma asks in that gentle tone of his. As their oldest omega, Fuma was the one both he and Taki relied on for the past few months as presented. More than ever before, Fuma was someone that he could confide in for these kinds of problems.
“Have you ever gotten scent-drunk before?”
Fuma blinks, pausing for a second as if he hadn’t expected Harua to ask a question like that.
“Not… really,” he says slowly. “Did that happen to you?”
Harua looks down at the hoodie he’s still wearing, fiddling with one of the sleeves loosely.
“Whenever I smell… him,” Harua very hesitantly admits, gaze on Fuma’s blankets, “I lose control, and it’s like I can’t think of anything else. And then last night, after the movie, I kept following him around until he gave me his hoodie.”
Fuma hums in acknowledgement, before letting out a deep breath.
“When we first started training for the audition show I felt the same way about K-hyung,” Fuma admits. Harua’s head snaps up to look at him. “I had to stop myself from thinking about it. I had to avoid him just enough for it to not stick, just in case I didn’t debut. Then we did, and I allowed myself to lose that control I had a bit more, and it was nice. We talked about it a bit later on, and… yeah.”
Harua is familiar with parts of this story. K and Fuma aren’t heavy on PDA in front of them, but you can smell them on each other often enough to know the claim they have on each other.
“What I mean to say is that it’s okay for you to feel out of control around Maki. It means your omega has found someone that they really like, and who’s safe and comfortable for you. What you do with that feeling is up to you, though.” Fuma places his hand on Harua’s knee, making eye contact with him to reassure him.
“But what if he doesn’t…” Harua trails off, but Fuma nods at him to continue. “What if he doesn’t reciprocate that feeling?”
Fuma smiles at him like he’s increasingly endeared by everything Harua says.
“You won’t really know unless you ask. Most importantly, you just need to talk to him about what happened. I bet he’s feeling confused about last night, too,” Fuma nudges him slightly.
Harua whines, falling forward to rest his head in Fuma’s lap. “I can’t just tell him, it’s embarrassing !”
Fuma laughs at his childish behaviour, smoothing Harua’s hair under his hands.
“Of course it’s embarrassing. It’s awkward, difficult, uncomfortable… but I think you should talk to him first. Just.. give his hoodie back, and see what he has to say.”
Harua sighs. “Alright, I’ll try.”
Fuma pats his shoulders, and Harua sits back up, climbing off the bed.
“Just remember, Harua,” Fuma speaks again. “This is Maki we’re talking about. Don’t doubt how much he loves you.”
Harua feels his cheeks bloom at the thought as he leaves.
-
Harua holds the hoodie in his arms. Admittedly, after wearing it the whole day it now smells more like him than it does like Maki.
The door to Maki and Nicholas’ room is ajar, so he pushes it open. Nicholas isn’t there, but Maki’s sitting there on his bed with his airpods in, quietly singing along to the English track he’s playing. Still weak at controlling his pheromones, Maki’s scent fills the room strongly but still pleasantly, and Harua doesn’t feel the urge to run as he did the first few times. Maki looks up to see Harua, mouth opening slightly before he takes his airpods out and puts them away.
“I came to give your hoodie back,” Harua starts hesitantly, closing the door before moving closer to Maki and offering it to him. Maki tentatively takes the hoodie from him.
“Thanks,” Maki smiles up at him. “I was beginning to think I wouldn’t see it back.”
Harua flushes slightly.
“That’s not true,” he complains weakly, a joking pout on his face.
There’s silence for a moment until they both try to speak at the same time.
“I wanted to-”
“I just-”
Harua gestures for Maki to continue, so he does.
“You know I can’t really control the whole alpha thing yet, but… I wanted to apologise for last night. If I had woken you up earlier, you wouldn’t have been… uh, overwhelmed like that.”
Harua takes a seat on Maki’s bed opposite him.
“I don’t blame it on you, Maki,” he replies. “I’ve had a lot of trouble this week too, and plus,” Harua smiles slightly, nose twitching up, “I slept really well.”
Maki grins toothily for a second but it’s quickly replaced by a look of confusion.
“What’s been giving you trouble?”
Harua grimaces. Well, here goes nothing.
“Um, well,” he begins, looking at the wall, “My omega goes a little crazy whenever I catch your scent.”
He looks back at Maki, who blinks for a second, eyes wide. Harua suddenly feels the need to backtrack.
“No, I mean, not in a bad way! I just thought I might have… done something you wouldn’t have been okay with, had I not run away all those times…” he trails off.
Harua can see Maki’s ears turning red as he processes the thought.
“Get your head out of the gutter,” Harua says, whacking him lightly on the arm but also blushing at having admitted that.
“I felt like that too, sometimes,” Maki admits. “You smell really nice, Harua.”
Harua smiles, but tries to hide his face behind his hands. He kind of wants to scream.
“I kept having to resist the urge to, uh,” Maki trails off, and doesn’t continue for a second. Harua’s curiosity is killing him, though. He uncovers his face again.
“To what?”
“To like, I don’t know… jump you…” he mumbles out into his hands that have covered his own face in embarrassment.
Harua’s breath hitches and at this point, he can’t tell what shade of tomato he’d be, but his happy pheromones are going all over the place.
“Ah, stop it,” Maki whines out. “You’re doing it again! Ack,” he says, yet he can’t resist the urge to breathe in Harua’s scent deeply, now that he has the chance to do so without feeling as much guilt.
Harua laughs breathlessly, much of the tension he had been feeling over the past week already gone just from a short conversation.
Maki closes his eyes for a second, clearly overwhelmed, before he opens them for Harua to see that glowing gold dominating his irises once again. Maki had controlled it better the past few days since their filming, but this was apparently a bit of a stretch for him.
Harua can’t help but just stare at them. He’d always thought Maki was cute, but the eyes, and the alpha pheromones he was continually spreading across the room; they’d both grown up before the other’s eyes. Harua couldn’t resist the pull he felt towards Maki anymore.
“I’d let you,” Harua blurts.
“Do what?”
Harua doesn’t respond, but he bares his neck; a minute action that still catches Maki’s attention and flares his scent across the room even more.
“You-you’d let me do that?”
Harua nods shyly in response.
Maki comes up so close to him that their noses are almost touching, and he has to resist the urge to pull away.
“You sure?” and Maki’s looking so deeply into his eyes that he’s kind of entranced, but he still manages to whisper quickly.
“Yeah.”
That’s clearly enough for Maki to drop all of his restraint as he presses his nose directly into Harua’s scent gland, nuzzling into him and breathing in as deeply as his alpha demands of him, hand on Harua’s shoulder to steady himself.
The sensation is euphoric, and Harua clenches the back of Maki’s sweatshirt so as to not make a noise as he continues. He lets out a shaky breath, Maki’s lips barely ghosting the tiny, sensitive hairs of his neck. It’s more intense than any other person scenting him has ever been, and the feeling dials his omega instincts up to eleven immediately.
Maki pulls away to make eye contact with him once more, Harua’s grip on his top loosening.
“You okay? Woah,” Maki says as his eyes trail up from his neck to his similarly golden eyes. “I saw your eyes yesterday, but…”
“But what?” Harua murmurs, looking straight back at him.
“They’re beautiful,” Maki admits with perhaps the most raw honesty Harua’s ever heard from him in the years they’ve known each other now.
“Yours too,” he breathes out. His eyes flit down to Maki’s lips unconsciously for a second, but Maki catches the action and purses his lips together, eyelids fluttering as he looks down at Harua’s lips.
It occurs to Harua that this is actually happening for real as they inch toward each other, twisting his head slightly as Maki’s hand slides up to cup his jaw before their lips press together. They both let out a breath they had been holding, Harua’s hands both pulling Maki in closer by his sweatshirt. It’s his first kiss, and he’s pretty sure it’s Maki’s, too, but it’s them, so it’s amazing.
They disconnect for a second before slotting their lips together even more deeply. Harua’s letting out little noises that he can’t really control, and Maki groans quietly in response, gently pushing him backwards without parting until Harua’s back hits the bed. After a few minutes more, Harua needs to breathe properly, so he slowly pulls on Maki’s sweatshirt until he reluctantly inches away from his lips.
“That’s enough,” Harua laughs out. “I can’t breathe, alpha .”
Maki sputters at the name, laughing before falling to lie on the bed beside him. There’s something particularly intimate about this moment in itself, the two of them just lying and facing each other quietly while the other members continue to make a ruckus outside the room.
“So,” Maki slowly speaks. “Was that just, like, an instinct thing, or…?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Harua chastises. “I like you, Maki. Not just you as an alpha.”
“Oh. Uh, same” Maki stutters out, flustered. Harua is looking at him with curious eyes, still a glowing tinge to them. “What’s wrong?”
Harua fidgets a little.
“I want to scent you, too,” he says, maybe for the first time in a while. The other members usually just do it to him; he doesn’t usually offer scenting other members.
“Mm, sure,” Maki says, baring his neck back to Harua in a moment of vulnerability that would probably be difficult for a freshly-presented alpha, but he doesn’t seem to be affected either way.
Harua mimics what Maki had done to him not that long ago, but the heat and tension are already gone. Maki scratches his fingers through the nape of Harua’s hair, already getting longer again. When he feels like their scents have intertwined as much as they possibly can, he stops to rest his head against Maki’s chest.
“ Craziest fucking two weeks of my life ,” Maki exclaims randomly, sighing loudly, and while Harua’s English isn’t amazing he sure understands what he means. Maybe he’s just super high on pheromones again but it makes him absolutely cackle.
The door suddenly bursts open, causing both of them to jolt, and they lift their heads to see who it is.
“Oh, good,” Nicholas says in relief. “They’re fine!” He calls out into the hallway, before coughing. “Jeez, that’s strong. Please open the window before I have to come back to sleep!” Nicholas chides them before strolling back out the door and shutting it.
“Bold of him to say that,” Maki grumbles. Harua giggles.
“We’re still his favourites, though,” Harua reminds him. “It’s just a taste of his own medicine.”
-
They take a while to just lie there together before Maki’s stomach starts growling (something something, growing alpha idol boy who has to eat every hour or he’ll starve) and they decide to leave to get something to eat.
Entering the living and dining area, the other members are around the room eating bowls of takeaway abura soba, watching the pair of them and making amused jeering noises at their appearance. There’s still two warm bowls in the bag on the kitchen table, so they take them out and sit on the couch together, eating quietly. As Harua is eating, Maki wipes away a piece of noodle that ends up on the side of his mouth, and he flushes again.
There’s a jokingly forlorn sound that comes from the other side of the room. K is standing at the table with his bowl, looking at them both with an infinite amount of affection.
“My children have grown too quickly,” he pretends to cry.
“We’re not your children, damn grandpa,” Taki gripes, pausing before attempting to run as K stands. The rest of them are laughing at the pair of them as they start to wrestle around, Fuma avoiding them and jumping over to the couch. Maki and Harua make eye contact while they both smile at the situation, attempting not to choke on the soba.
“Agh, they’re being all lovey-dovey. Get it away, I’m homophobic now,” Nicholas complains until Euijoo whacks him over the head.
“You’re dating a man, dumbass,” Euijoo chides in Korean.
“So are we all okay now?” Jo manages to speak over all the chaos, somehow projecting his quiet voice loud enough for everyone to hear him. They all look at Maki and Harua again.
“Mhm. Crisis averted,” Maki says, mouth still full of food but with a thumbs up clasped around his chopsticks. He slides the other arm over Harua’s shoulder, pulling him closer into his side without any complaint as Harua snuggles into Maki slightly. Harua makes eye contact with Fuma, who he gives a thumbs up to as well. Fuma gives him a warm smile. Presenting had been hard, but it would’ve been impossible to deal with this without having first spoken to Fuma.
It feels like their pack is more complete than it has ever been. From the times the five of them who won the audition show first had tried to meld themselves into the existing pack, to now, sitting here, the room sweet with the intermixing of their nine different scents. Maki’s scent is still a little strong, but it’s no longer overwhelming, and instead fills him with a deep sense of comfort and love.
As Maki’s head rests on top of his, Harua realises he wouldn’t have it any other way.