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Euijoo’s life is small in the ways he prefers.
Predictable mornings. The same coffee order. The same walk from the parking lot to the building, the same nod to the security guard who has never once remembered his name. His classroom smells faintly of dry erase markers and paper and whatever detergent the janitors use on Fridays.
He likes it that way.
As an omega, predictability is safety.
It means his suppressants work as intended. It means his scent stays low and neutral, something people register and then forget. It means no one looks at him twice, no one asks questions, no one expects things from him that he cannot give. It also means he has learned how to live with wanting things he will never have.
Nicholas is part of that predictability.
Nicholas brings him coffee when Euijoo forgets. Nicholas reminds him to eat lunch. Nicholas walks with him to his car sometimes, not because Euijoo asks, but because Nicholas does things like that without making them feel like favors. Nicholas’s presence is steady, familiar, safe in a way that does not demand anything of Euijoo’s body.
Fuma is not.
Fuma is someone Euijoo sees often enough that the wanting has settled into him instead of burning out. Too broad, too warm, too present. An alpha who laughs easily and smells like sunlight and sweat, who tries not to loom and fails anyway. Someone who fills rooms without realizing it, who touches when he laughs, who remembers small details and repeats them like they matter.
Euijoo knows, with humiliating clarity, that he has been in love with Fuma for a long time.
Not loudly. Not recklessly. Just enough to ache.
He keeps his distance anyway.
Because Kei exists.
Not as an abstract idea. Not as a possibility. Kei exists as a fact. As Fuma’s partner. As the person whose hand Fuma reaches for without thinking, whose scent settles easily into Fuma’s clothes, cool and sharp under the warmth. Euijoo sees them together often enough to know the shape of it. Comfortable. Chosen. Real.
He notices everything and pretends he does not.
That is the life he has built.
This is his baseline.
It is quiet. It is survivable. It is already lonely.
The heirloom he was given when he presented lives in the back of his drawer.
It is a thin ring on a chain, dull silver worn smooth by hands long gone. It belonged to his grandmother, and to her mother before that, and to women whose names he does not know. Omegas, all of them. Euijoo was told once, half joking, that it helped you find your way when you were lost.
He never believed that part.
He keeps it because it feels wrong to throw it away.
On Tuesday night, after a long day of grading and meetings and watching Fuma and Kei leave together with their shoulders brushing, Euijoo comes home exhausted in a way that feels deeper than sleep deprivation.
He showers. He eats something tasteless. He stands in the bathroom brushing his teeth, staring at his reflection like he might recognize himself if he looks hard enough.
His phone buzzes on the counter.
Fuma: you up?
The ache in his chest is immediate and familiar. He ignores it.
He types yeah, deletes it. Types not really, deletes that too.
He reaches for the drawer to put his phone away and his fingers brush the chain.
For reasons he cannot articulate, he lifts it.
The metal is warm against his skin.
The taste hits suddenly, metallic and sharp.
Euijoo freezes, toothbrush still in his mouth.
He spits, rinses, spits again.
The taste does not fade. His ears ring faintly, like the pressure before a storm. His chest tightens, not with fear, but with something worse.
The overwhelming sense of being unmoored.
He lifts his head.
The bathroom looks the same. Almost.
The towel is the wrong color. The soap smells different. The air feels occupied, like someone has already been here and left warmth behind.
Euijoo turns slowly.
The door is open.
It should be locked.
Fuma is standing there.
Not the careful, friendly Fuma from Euijoo’s real life. This Fuma’s presence fills the doorway effortlessly, his scent unchecked and warm enough that Euijoo’s pulse stutters before he can stop it.
“Oh,” Fuma says, smiling softly. “You’re still awake.”
Euijoo cannot speak.
Fuma steps closer and wipes toothpaste from the corner of Euijoo’s mouth with his thumb. The touch is casual in a way that implies history. Intimacy. Choice.
“You okay?” Fuma asks.
Euijoo nods because opening his mouth would ruin everything.
“Come back to bed,” Fuma says, like it is obvious.
Euijoo follows him.
The apartment is wrong in quiet ways. Lived in but not his. There is a familiarity to it that makes his chest ache. On the table, another phone lights up.
Kei: tomorrow still works ❤️
The sight hits him like a bruise.
Fuma sits and pulls Euijoo down beside him, arm settling around his shoulders like muscle memory. Euijoo lets it happen because pulling away would raise questions he cannot answer.
Fuma presses a kiss into his hair.
“You’ve been overthinking again,” Fuma murmurs.
Again.
Euijoo watches the clock without knowing why.
Midnight arrives without ceremony.
Then the world yanks him backward so hard he gasps.
He wakes on his own bathroom floor, toothbrush clattering into the sink, heart racing like he has been dropped from a height. The chain is tangled around his wrist, the ring warm against his skin.
His phone buzzes.
Fuma: hello? 😅
Only minutes have passed.
Euijoo sits there shaking until the ringing in his ears fades.
He does not sleep.
—————
In the morning, everything is normal.
Too normal.
Same classroom.
Same security guard.
Same neutral scent clinging to his clothes.
Nicholas notices anyway.
“You look awful,” Nicholas says mildly, handing him coffee.
“Didn’t sleep,” Euijoo replies.
Nicholas hums. “Join the club.”
Euijoo almost laughs.
He tells himself it was a dream.
The second slip destroys that lie.
This time, he wakes in a bed that is not his, with an arm around his waist that does not make his body panic.
Nicholas’s.
Nicholas breathes evenly behind him, scent steady and grounding.
Euijoo’s body relaxes before his mind catches up, and the relief is immediate and humiliating.
Nicholas stirs. “You’re awake.”
Euijoo swallows. “Where are we?”
Nicholas blinks, then smiles faintly. “Home.”
Euijoo does not argue.
He stays.
That is what makes it real.
The days fit together too cleanly. He eats. He works. He laughs once without meaning to.
Across the street, at a café, he sees Fuma with Kei. Close. Familiar. Clearly together.
Nicholas finds him staring.
“He’s here,” Nicholas says gently.
“You’re with me,” Euijoo says.
Nicholas nods. “Yeah.”
That night, the pressure builds again. The metallic taste. The ringing.
Nicholas holds him while it happens.
Midnight tears him away.
Back in baseline, Euijoo vomits and cries in the shower until the water runs cold.
He starts keeping notes.
Duration several days
Return midnight
Baseline time barely moves.
By the fourth slip, he no longer needs proof.
Different rooms. Different jobs. Different weather.
Same alignment.
Fuma and Kei together.
Nicholas steady at his side.
Euijoo watching.
On the fifth slip, Euijoo sits on the bed watching the clock, ring heavy on his wrist.
He knows now.
Five days. Return. No exceptions.
What he does not know, what keeps him breathing through the ache, is whether the heirloom only shows him what already exists.
Or whether, once, it might show him something else.
.
Euijoo becomes very good at pretending nothing is happening.
That is, after all, a skill omegas are encouraged to learn early.
You learn how to smile through discomfort.
You learn how to adjust your posture when your scent sharpens without permission.
You learn how to excuse yourself from rooms before anyone has to notice.
You learn how to survive quietly.
So Euijoo lives his baseline life with care.
He teaches. He grades. He attends meetings and nods at the appropriate moments. He laughs at jokes that are not funny. He applies his suppressants at the same times every day and keeps extras in his bag in case the first dose does not take.
He does not tell anyone about the ring on the chain.
He does not tell anyone about the notes on his phone.
He does not tell anyone about midnight.
The slips continue.
They come irregularly enough that he can almost convince himself they are stopping. Sometimes weeks pass. Sometimes only days. There is no pattern to when, only to how long.
Five days. Always five.
He learns the rhythm without wanting to.
The first day is disorientation.
The second is adjustment.
The third is when his body starts betraying him.
The fourth is dread.
The fifth is unbearable.
The heirloom is always warm when it happens.
The next slip starts at work.
He is standing at the copy machine, watching the paper jam for the third time, irritation blooming sharp and unreasonable in his chest. His scent flickers in response, just enough that he notices the alpha down the hall pause, nostrils flaring before he catches himself and looks away.
Euijoo swallows and reaches for a wipe, pressing it discreetly to his wrist.
Then the world tilts.
Not violently. Not all at once. It feels like missing a step on the stairs. A moment of weightlessness, then wrongness.
He blinks.
The hallway is brighter. The walls are a different color. The copy machine hums smoothly, no jam.
His hands start shaking.
Someone touches his elbow.
“Nervous?” a voice asks, amused.
Euijoo looks up.
Nicholas.
This Nicholas looks slightly older. Same eyes. Same careful distance in his posture, even as his hand remains steady on Euijoo’s arm.
“You okay?” Nicholas asks, concern threading through the humor.
Euijoo nods, because nodding is safer than speaking.
He lasts two days in this universe before he sees them.
Fuma and Kei are in the teacher’s lounge, sitting too close on the couch meant for three people. Kei’s legs are tucked beneath him, shoulder pressed into Fuma’s side. Fuma’s hand rests on Kei’s knee, thumb moving in slow, absent arcs.
It is not sexual.
It is worse than that.
It is unconscious.
Euijoo freezes in the doorway.
Fuma looks up first. “Oh. Hey, Juju.”
The nickname lands wrong. Too familiar. Too easy.
Kei smiles at him, warm and unguarded. “Hi.”
Euijoo forces his face into something polite. “Hey.”
Nicholas appears behind him, close enough that Euijoo can feel his warmth without being touched.
“We were just leaving,” Nicholas says smoothly.
Fuma nods, distracted, already turning back toward Kei. “Yeah. See you.”
They leave.
Euijoo does not look back.
That night, the pressure builds behind his eyes earlier than usual.
His scent turns restless, sliding between sharp and sweet without settling. He scrubs his skin in the shower until it stings. He reapplies suppressants and still feels wrong.
Nicholas knocks softly on the bathroom door.
“You alright?”
“Fine,” Euijoo says, voice too tight.
There is a pause. Then Nicholas says, “I’m going to make tea.”
Euijoo sinks to the floor once the door closes.
On the fourth night, Euijoo wakes shaking.
Not cold. Not feverish. Just wrong. Like his body is bracing for something it cannot reach.
Nicholas sits with him on the bed, back against the headboard, not touching unless Euijoo leans into him first. When Euijoo finally does, collapsing sideways, forehead pressing into Nicholas’s shoulder, Nicholas’s arm comes around him without hesitation.
“Breathe,” Nicholas murmurs. “I’ve got you.”
Euijoo grips Nicholas’s shirt like it is an anchor.
He hates himself for how much it helps.
Midnight takes him home.
—————
Back in baseline, the aftermath worsens each time.
Not physically, though the headaches linger longer and the nausea cuts sharper, but emotionally. Like something inside him is being scraped thin.
He stops trusting quiet.
Quiet means waiting.
Nicholas notices before anyone else.
“You’re always watching the clock,” Nicholas says one evening as they walk to the parking lot.
Euijoo forces a smile. “Am I?”
Nicholas nods. “Like it’s going to do something.”
Euijoo laughs softly. “Occupational hazard.”
Nicholas stops walking.
Euijoo takes two more steps before realizing he is alone. He turns.
Nicholas is watching him, expression careful and serious.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Nicholas says. “But don’t disappear on me.”
The words land heavier than they should.
“I’m not,” Euijoo says.
Nicholas does not look convinced.
That night, Euijoo slips again.
This universe is harsher.
He knows it immediately from the way people look at him. Longer glances. Careful avoidance. Omegas here are expected to manage themselves better.
His scent does not cooperate.
By the second day, he is subtly redirected out of meetings, offered breaks he does not need, watched.
Nicholas stays close.
At lunch, an alpha at the next table wrinkles his nose faintly. “You should really take care of that.”
Euijoo flushes, shame burning hot up his spine. “I am.”
Nicholas’s chair scrapes back loudly. “He is,” Nicholas says calmly. “Mind your business.”
The alpha scoffs and looks away.
Later, Euijoo presses his forehead to the cool tile in the bathroom, breathing shallowly, fighting tears.
Nicholas waits outside.
Not leaving. Not intruding.
Just there.
That night is worse.
His body crashes hard, halfway toward something it cannot complete. His scent spikes and falls, erratic and humiliating. He curls in on himself, nails digging into his arms.
Nicholas sits on the floor beside the tub, close enough to ground him without touching.
“You can ask,” Nicholas says quietly. “If you need—”
“No,” Euijoo snaps, panic sharp and immediate. “Don’t.”
Nicholas stills. “Okay.”
The restraint hurts almost as much as the hunger.
Euijoo presses his face into Nicholas’s shoulder anyway, desperate and ashamed.
Nicholas does not move.
Midnight comes.
Euijoo wakes back in baseline sobbing into his pillow, body aching like it has been denied something essential.
—————
By now, he knows the rule well enough to hate it.
Five days. Return. No exceptions.
What he does not know is why.
He starts noticing the differences more clearly now, not just the similarities.
Nicholas changes across universes. Different jobs. Different apartments. Different lives.
But the way Nicholas looks at him does not.
There is always relief. Always concern. Always an instinctive awareness of Euijoo’s limits.
Fuma never looks at him that way.
Fuma is kind. Friendly. Warm.
But Fuma’s attention bends, inevitably, toward Kei.
Even in universes where they are not officially together yet, Euijoo sees it in the way Fuma orients his body, the way his scent softens in Kei’s presence.
The realization is slow and humiliating.
Euijoo starts bargaining with the universe.
If I do not watch.
If I do not let it matter.
If I stop hoping.
Nothing changes.
The next slip is quieter, almost gentle.
He wakes alone in a bedroom that smells strongly of cedar.
The apartment is small and domestic. Signs of two people everywhere.
On the counter sits a photo frame.
Fuma and Kei, smiling, pressed together.
Euijoo turns it face down without thinking.
He does not make it to the bathroom before the tears start.
The door opens softly.
Nicholas steps inside, relief flooding his face like he had been afraid Euijoo would not be there at all.
“There you are,” Nicholas says.
Euijoo breaks.
He cries into Nicholas’s shoulder, silent and wrecked. Nicholas holds him without comment, arms firm and steady.
“I don’t understand,” Euijoo whispers.
Nicholas does not lie. “I know.”
On the fifth night, Euijoo does not wait for midnight.
He sits on the bed, knees drawn to his chest, watching the clock.
Nicholas kneels in front of him.
“You’re scared,” Nicholas says gently.
Euijoo nods.
“I can stay,” Nicholas says.
“You always do,” Euijoo whispers.
Nicholas’s jaw tightens. “I want to.”
Midnight takes him anyway.
—————
Back in baseline, Euijoo stares at his notes.
Fuma to Kei.
Nicholas to me.
Five days. Midnight.
He adds another line, fingers shaking.
This is not changing.
And yet.
Because the universe has not shown him everything.
Because there are still combinations he has not seen.
Because hope is a disease that does not respond to evidence.
The next slip comes sooner than he expects.
And when it does, Euijoo is too tired to brace himself.
He just lets go.
And that is the moment right before everything breaks.
.
Euijoo wakes slowly.
Not with panic. Not with the instinctive scan for wrongness. He wakes the way people do when they have nowhere else to be, when their body feels heavy in a pleasant way and the world has not yet asked anything of them.
There is warmth at his back.
An arm around his waist, solid and loose at the same time, the kind of hold that does not worry about being rejected. Euijoo registers the scent before he opens his eyes. Alpha warmth, familiar and softened, threaded through with something domestic and calm.
Fuma.
The realization does not hit him like a shock.
It settles.
Euijoo lies still, breath shallow at first, then deeper as his body accepts what his mind is too afraid to name. Fuma shifts behind him, presses his face briefly into the back of Euijoo’s neck, and exhales like he belongs there.
“Morning,” Fuma murmurs.
The word feels normal.
That is what undoes him.
Euijoo opens his eyes.
The room makes sense. Sunlight spills across the bed in a way that feels intentional, catching on familiar furniture, dust motes floating lazily. The sheets are tangled around his legs. His phone is on the nightstand. The clock reads 8:14 a.m.
He waits.
Nothing happens.
No pull. No ringing. No sense of being dislodged from his own skin.
This universe lets him stay.
The knowledge is so quiet it feels like permission.
Euijoo turns carefully, afraid to move too fast, and Fuma is right there. Hair a mess. Eyes still heavy with sleep. He looks ordinary in the soft morning light, like a person who exists outside of Euijoo’s yearning.
The sight of him is so ordinary it almost makes Euijoo laugh.
Fuma smiles when he sees him looking. “You’re staring again.”
Euijoo huffs out a quiet laugh. “Sorry.”
Fuma reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind Euijoo’s ear, thumb lingering as if there is no reason to hurry. “You don’t have to be.”
Something in Euijoo’s chest loosens.
He lets himself lean closer, just a fraction, testing the world for consequences.
Fuma only hums, content, and pulls him in more firmly, like this is the easiest thing in the world.
Euijoo closes his eyes and lets himself have it.
Just this morning. Just this warmth.
He tells himself he will be careful later.
—————
The first few days are easy.
Not euphoric. Not dramatic.
Just easy in a way Euijoo has never been allowed to experience for long. Fuma moves through the apartment like it belongs to both of them. He makes coffee. He opens windows. He complains about the neighbor’s music. He asks Euijoo what he wants for dinner like the question has always been his to answer.
Euijoo answers without overthinking it.
That alone feels like a miracle.
They grocery shop together. Fuma pushes the cart and lets Euijoo pick fruit, teasing him gently when he squeezes avocados too carefully. Their hands brush and neither of them pulls away. Euijoo’s body warms in response, his scent shifting without anxiety, without the familiar edge of restraint.
He keeps waiting for the sharp twist of guilt.
It does not come.
It is as if this universe does not know what he has done in the others. As if it does not care. As if it only knows that Euijoo is here and Fuma is here and this is what happens.
At home, Fuma cooks while Euijoo sits at the counter and watches him with a fondness he does not try to hide. Fuma moves with easy confidence, sleeves pushed up, hair falling into his eyes. He complains about the knife being dull and refuses when Euijoo offers to sharpen it, insisting he can manage.
Euijoo finds himself smiling at nothing.
When Fuma catches him looking, he smiles back instead of asking why.
“What?” Euijoo says, embarrassed.
“Nothing,” Fuma replies, turning back to the stove. “Just like it when you’re here.”
The words land in Euijoo’s chest and stay there.
At night, Fuma curls around him in bed, fitting himself to Euijoo’s body with unconscious precision. Euijoo sleeps deeply, dreamlessly, the kind of sleep he has not had in months. When he wakes, Fuma is still there, arm heavy and reassuring, breath even.
By the third day, Euijoo forgets to count.
He forgets to watch the clock.
He laughs more. He talks without measuring his words. He lets Fuma touch him without flinching or bracing. His omega instincts soften fully, scent warm and settled, no longer searching for an exit.
He feels safe.
That is what makes everything else possible.
That is what makes it cruel.
On the third night, Fuma wakes and finds Euijoo staring at him in the dark.
“Hey,” Fuma mumbles, voice sleep thick. “What’s wrong?”
Euijoo swallows. His throat feels tight for no reason he can say out loud.
“Nothing,” he whispers.
Fuma reaches out, fingers finding Euijoo’s wrist like a habit. “Come here,” he murmurs.
Euijoo lets himself be pulled closer.
Fuma presses a kiss to his temple, then settles again, like the world has been put back in order.
Euijoo lies awake a long time after, staring at the ceiling, thinking how terrifying it is to be held like this when your whole life has been practiced at not reaching.
—————
It is Fuma who notices first.
They are eating breakfast on the fourth morning, sunlight warming the kitchen, when Fuma pauses mid bite and looks at Euijoo with a slight frown.
“You okay?” Fuma asks.
Euijoo blinks. “Yeah. Why?”
“You’ve barely eaten,” Fuma says. “And you’ve been tired.”
Euijoo shrugs. “Just been busy.”
Fuma studies him, gaze thoughtful, not accusing, as if he is listening to Euijoo’s body instead of his words.
“Your scent’s different,” Fuma says quietly.
Euijoo stiffens despite himself. “Different how?”
Fuma hesitates, then reaches out and presses two fingers lightly to Euijoo’s wrist, just below the pulse. His touch is gentle, careful.
“Not wrong,” he says. “Just deeper. Quieter.”
Euijoo laughs nervously. “That’s not very scientific.”
Fuma smiles faintly. “Instinct isn’t.”
He does not say anything else. He does not push. But Euijoo sees the shift in him, subtle and immediate. An alpha recalibrating. Attention narrowing. Something protective settling into place.
The conversation follows Euijoo all day.
He finds himself watching his own hands. The curve of his stomach. The way his body feels a fraction heavier, as if it is holding something he has not earned the right to name.
By evening, Fuma comes home with a small paper bag and sets it on the counter without ceremony.
“What’s that?” Euijoo asks.
Fuma looks a little nervous now. That alone makes Euijoo’s stomach drop.
“I don’t want to freak you out,” Fuma says. “But I noticed a few things. And I figured it’s better to know.”
“Know what?” Euijoo asks, too quickly.
Fuma reaches into the bag and pulls out a small white box.
Euijoo stares at it.
His mouth opens. Nothing comes out.
“Just in case,” Fuma says gently. “We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to. I just… I’d rather you not be alone in it.”
The last part hits harder than anything else.
Euijoo’s hands shake when he takes the box.
In the bathroom, the world feels too quiet. The test is cold in his palm. He sits on the edge of the tub, breath shallow, heart pounding like it is trying to warn him.
He thinks of all the universes where he has been an observer.
He thinks of all the universes where the future belonged to someone else.
He tells himself this cannot be real.
The result appears quickly.
Too quickly.
Positive.
Euijoo stares at it for a long time, waiting for the panic to come.
It does not.
What comes instead is warmth. A strange, blooming warmth low in his body, as if something inside him recognizes itself.
His eyes burn.
He laughs once, sharply, like his body does not know what else to do with the shock of being given something.
When he opens the door, Fuma is right there.
Euijoo holds up the test with shaking fingers.
Fuma’s breath leaves him in a soft, broken sound. He looks at the test, then at Euijoo, then back again like he is afraid it will disappear if he looks away.
“Oh,” he whispers.
He reaches for Euijoo without thinking, pulling him close. One hand settles warm and steady at his lower back.
“Hey,” Fuma says softly, as if Euijoo might shatter. “Hey.”
Euijoo presses his face into Fuma’s chest and lets himself cry, the sound muffled and helpless. He does not know if it is joy or grief or the terror of wanting something so badly it feels like punishment.
Fuma laughs too, breath shaky, and holds him tighter.
“Okay,” he says. “Okay. We can do this.”
The words settle into Euijoo like a promise.
Euijoo wants to believe him.
He does.
That is the cruelest part.
—————
The days that follow are the happiest of Euijoo’s life, and happiness does not feel bright.
It feels like exhaling after years of holding his breath.
Fuma becomes careful in a way that feels reverent rather than restrictive. He reminds Euijoo to eat, not like a scolding, but like it matters to him. He walks more slowly. He adjusts without complaint. He watches Euijoo drink water and looks satisfied like he has accomplished something important.
He rests his hand on Euijoo’s stomach without thinking, protective and gentle, like his body already knows the shape of what is coming.
Euijoo pretends not to notice how often it happens.
Euijoo lets himself imagine it.
Not loudly. Not arrogantly. Just in quiet flashes that sneak up on him when his guard is down.
He imagines telling Nicholas someday, carefully, from a distance, that he finally landed in a universe that wanted him.
He imagines names.
He imagines a small hand curled around Fuma’s finger.
He imagines a room painted a color Fuma chooses and Euijoo pretends to hate.
He has never allowed himself to think this far ahead.
That is how he knows he is truly happy.
At night, Fuma presses his forehead to Euijoo’s and whispers, “We’re going to be okay.”
Euijoo believes him.
That is what makes it unbearable.
Because belief makes roots.
Roots make loss feel like tearing.
By the time Euijoo remembers midnight, it is already too late.
He wakes in the dark on the final night with sudden, awful clarity, hand flying instinctively to his stomach. Fuma sleeps beside him, arm draped protectively across him, breath steady and trusting.
Euijoo stares at the ceiling.
He tries to tell himself he is being ridiculous.
He tries to tell himself the universe has changed its mind.
He tries to tell himself he is allowed to keep one thing.
His throat tightens until it hurts.
He watches the clock until the numbers blur.
When midnight comes, it does not announce itself.
It simply takes.
The pain is not sharp.
It is total.
The last thing Euijoo feels is Fuma’s hand tightening over his stomach, instinct flaring into panic as if Fuma senses something slipping away.
“Juju,” Fuma says, voice breaking. “What’s wrong?”
Euijoo cannot answer.
He only clutches at him, desperate, as if holding tighter could change the rules.
It does not.
The universe tears him out of it anyway.
.
Euijoo wakes without screaming.
That is how he knows the miracle is truly over.
He lies still in the dark, curled slightly inward, hand resting low on his stomach out of habit before his mind catches up. The bed is cold. The room smells like nothing. No sunlight trapped in fabric. No alpha warmth lingering in the sheets. The air feels untouched, like it has never held anyone at all.
The clock reads 12:03 a.m.
It is always a few minutes after, like the universe wants him to understand that it does not do tenderness. It does not do mercy. It does not soften the edges of endings.
For a moment, terror flashes through him, sharp and instinctive. His hand presses more firmly to his stomach, breath hitching as his body braces for a loss it does not yet understand.
Then something else settles.
Not emptiness.
Absence.
His body is quiet. Balanced. There is no tearing ache, no hollow pull, no sense of something being ripped away. His scent is subdued but steady, neutral and obedient.
Euijoo exhales slowly.
He did not lose the baby.
He left it behind.
The realization hurts in a way that has no clean edge.
Somewhere, another Euijoo is waking up warm, Fuma’s arm draped possessively around him, Fuma’s scent still tangled in the sheets. Somewhere, life continues without interruption. Somewhere, the universe chose differently and kept going as if Euijoo had never been borrowed at all.
Euijoo turns onto his side and presses his face into the pillow, breathing carefully until the ache in his chest dulls enough that he does not fracture.
He stays there until morning.
—————
It is impossible not to remember Fuma now.
Not just the other-universe version of him, warm and certain and devastating, but the boy he grew up with. The alpha who used to walk him home when they were younger, who learned Euijoo’s tells before Euijoo knew he had them. The one who shared headphones on late buses and borrowed jackets without asking. The one who used to look at him like Euijoo was something solid, something worth protecting.
They were very close once.
Close enough that people assumed things.
Close enough that Euijoo had once believed, quietly and foolishly, that closeness might be enough.
That was before he learned the difference between being important and being chosen.
The first time Euijoo saw Fuma with Kei, really saw it, it had felt like standing outside a window and realizing the warmth inside was not meant for him. Two alphas, both sure of themselves, fitting together without effort. Fuma had looked different then. More anchored. Less restless.
Euijoo had stepped back without anyone asking him to.
He told himself it was maturity. Self control. The right thing to do.
In truth, it was survival.
Distance was the only way to keep wanting from turning into something dangerous.
And after the last universe, the one that broke him open completely, Euijoo understood something he had not allowed himself to before.
Fuma had never been cruel.
But Fuma had never chosen him either.
That universe had not shown him loss.
It showed him certainty.
And certainty was something Euijoo could not unsee.
—————
The days after are quiet.
Not shattered. Not dramatic. Just muted, like the world has been turned down and no one else has noticed.
Euijoo moves through his baseline life competently. He teaches. He grades. He answers emails. His suppressants work as intended, his scent returning to neutral with unsettling efficiency.
His body does not grieve the way his mind does.
That feels cruel.
There are no lingering symptoms. No physical reminder of what he touched and left behind. Only memory, and the way his hands sometimes rest low on his stomach when he is tired, as if checking for something he knows is not there.
In the hallway at work, he passes Fuma and Kei together.
Baseline Fuma smiles easily. Friendly. Careful.
Baseline Kei moves with quiet certainty, scent clean and steady and unbothered. Euijoo has always known that part of him, even when he pretended not to. Alpha scent is difficult to ignore when you are an omega who has trained himself to read rooms before entering them.
They move like a couple that has stopped proving itself. Fuma’s hand finds the small of Kei’s back without thinking. Kei leans in just slightly, shoulder brushing Fuma’s arm.
Euijoo smiles because that is what he does.
Fuma says, “Hey, Juju,” like nothing has changed.
Kei nods politely.
Euijoo nods back.
He is safe.
That is not the same as being happy.
—————
Nicholas starts staying later.
Not dramatically. Not like a vigil. He just does not leave when he usually would. He sits on the couch and scrolls through his phone. He brings groceries without comment. He asks if Euijoo has eaten and accepts the answer without pushing.
Euijoo does not let himself lean into it at first.
He has learned what happens when he mistakes presence for promise.
Months pass before he allows himself to see Nicholas clearly.
Not as an anchor across universes. Not as the one who always caught him. But as a person standing in front of him, choosing to stay even when nothing extraordinary is happening.
Nicholas never rushes him.
He never asks Euijoo to forget.
He never competes with a ghost.
That is what makes the choice possible.
When Euijoo finally lets himself imagine a future, it is not a miracle. It is small. Quiet. Domestic. It scares him more than the universes ever did.
Choosing Nicholas is not the absence of grief.
It is the presence of agency.
—————
The heirloom goes quiet.
Euijoo notices one morning, absentmindedly touching the ring at his throat, that it no longer feels warm. The faint hum he has grown used to is gone. The metal rests against his skin like an ordinary object.
For the first time, he understands.
It was never meant to give him everything.
It was meant to show him what he was reaching for.
And when Euijoo finally chooses something for himself, the heirloom lets him go.
He stops wearing it a few weeks later. Not ceremoniously. Not with bitterness. He places it back in the drawer where it lived for years before all of this began.
It does not call to him again.
—————
When Euijoo realizes he is pregnant, months later, it does not feel like a miracle.
It feels real.
It feels frightening.
It feels earned.
Nicholas is terrified.
Nicholas stays.
They sit on the couch together, hands tangled, breathing through the knowledge that this time, nothing is waiting to take it away.
Later, when the city settles into evening and the light fades the way it always does, Euijoo stands by the window with Nicholas’s arms around his waist.
Somewhere, Fuma and Kei are still living a life that fits them.
Somewhere else, a version of Euijoo is still waking up warm, still carrying forward the future Euijoo was allowed to touch only briefly.
Euijoo does not reach for them anymore.
He does not ask what might have been different.
He rests his hands over his stomach, over the future he chose, and breathes through the simple, astonishing fact of this moment.
Not every universe he touched was meant to keep him.
But this one did.
And at last, he stays.