Chapter Text
Shivering, Hyunjin huddled further into his blankets. His back ached from the position he had squeezed himself into, curling his long limbs as close to his body as he could get, trying to keep any skin from being exposed. His heart raced faster than it should, his fight-or-flight response in permanent flight mode. His skin felt stretched over his bones like he was one burst of cold wind away from being split open. He couldn’t feel his fingers or toes anymore, and his hands were growing alarmingly warm. Even with as much weight as he’d lost, he couldn’t compress himself any further into the front seat of his car. He wore every piece of clothing he had. Still, the temperature outside was dropping lower than he could remember, the wind howling with a fierceness he equated with summer hurricanes.
Breathing was hard with the weight of all his clothing. There was pressure behind his eyes, and in his ears, his neck too warm despite every other part of him being too cold. In a rare moment of bravery, he had parked on the small side street that fed onto the street with his Gallery on it. The lights were dark, windows boarded up and taped over. It sent a stab of longing and fury through his chest. A few months ago, he would have been in the cozy apartment upstairs, warm and snug in his bed. He’d have ordered Samgyetang from the shop down the street to get over the cold he wasn’t admitting to having yet. He could take a hot shower and breathe in the steam. He could sneak down to the studio in the back and paint the way the stars came out and glittered over the city.
A few months ago, he wouldn’t have had to worry about staying in one place too long, and being chased away for parking where he shouldn’t have for too long. He wouldn’t have to worry about something he was hired to do, before he realized that what he was doing as a teen would get out to the public as an adult and tarnish what was left of his image.
The art scene thought he was off on some wild adventure, maybe to some tropical island to “find himself.” They didn’t know he was skin and bones, living in his car, ghosting the streets of Seoul, with all his possessions amounting to just enough to fill one backpack.
He was an accountant, and a prestigious one at that. He had money; no one was worried about him.
He still technically had money, but all his accounts were frozen “pending an investigation.”
It was a bullshit charge meant to drive him out of hiding. It had no teeth, and he hadn’t done anything wrong, so even if it was a real investigation, they wouldn’t find anything.
His only crime was refusing a job to the wrong person.
He dozed off and on, sleeping in fits and waking at every noise. Once the sky started to lighten with the first hints of dawn, he uncurled from his cramped position, taking deep breaths to ward off the nausea from the sudden movement. Once his stomach settled enough, he closed his eyes and held his breath while he started the car. He was dangerously low on fuel, but there should be just enough to get him to the small bookshop that hired him under the table.
***
He didn’t remember the drive when he arrived, and parked around back, worry settling into the pit of his stomach as he got out of the car, his head swimming again with the movement. He slipped his backpack on and pulled the little packet of scent blockers from his pocket. As he walked, bracing against the wind, he stuck them to his neck and wrists; the small lines indicating effectiveness were already at half strength. The cold drained them, and he’d tried to keep the little patches warm with his body heat. But, well, he didn’t really generate a lot of body heat anymore. Even without the blockers, his natural scent wasn’t that strong anymore either. He'd long since ran out of the perfume he used to augment his scent, a smoky pomegranate that was now discontinued. The blockers were his only option.
Knocking on the door, Hyunjin waited against the side of the building where it blocked some of the wind. The owner was an eccentric old man, an Alpha who had lost his mate and retired to the city. He had been a bank patron years ago and had bought one of Hyunjin’s early paintings. He wasn’t sure how much the old man knew of his situation; he’d never told him anything.
Earlier that week, Hyunjin had been sure he was being followed back from the public bathhouse, where he had done laundry and taken a shower. He used the last of his money after putting it off as long as he could, but he needed to be clean to get a job to make money. It was bad enough that the clothes he wore were now ill-fitting and threadbare. He couldn’t use his real credentials, so the jobs he could get weren’t official. They had all the power. Power they used to underpay him, or not pay him at all. He had spent the last several months taking on little side jobs that paid so little he barely had money to cover the day’s food. He was tired, and idly cataloging what he had left for change in his backpack to afford a small bowl of rice before his instincts sounded the alarm.
For a Beta, his instincts to detect predators were stronger than average; a gift he was thankful for. Each sub-gender had a soft type or a strong time. He was a Strong Beta; to him, that meant it was just not enough to be an Alpha, but too much to be an Omega. He wasn’t actually strong like an Alpha; he couldn’t use Voice to compel or influence anyone (not that he wanted to), and he wasn’t gentle like an Omega who could calm a room just with their presence (or pheromones, but he wasn’t sure how it worked). Enigmas were so rare, and he hadn’t paid all that much attention in school for him to really understand what the difference was with them. He knew they weren’t just stronger than a Strong Alpha, or more soothing and gentle than a Soft Omega. It was all very basic, and he wanted someone with imagination to have named things, but that was beside the point.
His point was that he had to fight for respect as a Beta, and his characteristic strength gave him just enough push to convince people who didn’t look too closely that he was a Soft Alpha. It gave him more credibility because, of course, the person who came up with the stupid names was also the person who decided that the sub-genders should count as a hierarchy and that being powerful was desirable. All through school, he hated being different and not like the other Betas, Soft or Strong ones; he wasn’t an Alpha, but was just enough of one for it to stand out.
Now, he used that to his advantage.
The old Alpha, Park Min-Jun, opened the door, his scent overpowering the small alley with stale cigar smoke. He grunted what sounded like “Good morning” and stepped back to let Hyunjin into the dimly lit space. He pushed away the memories crowding in about how he got roped into this cluttered fire-trap of a job, ignoring the warning bell feeling of being followed even here, to focus on staying upright. He took several deep breaths in and blinked until his vision cleared of the spots before following deeper into the ruins of what used to be a storage room.
Boxes towered almost to the ceiling, stacked precariously, just waiting for the wrong one to be bumped and tumble down to avalanche the space so they would be trapped in there forever. His job, as a young Alpha looking to make a name for himself (ha! The most basic of cover stories, but it had worked), was to inventory the stock and arrange it in a way that made sense so that it could be moved to the sales floor.
It was … a lot.
But it paid enough to put fuel in his car and at least one meal a day in his belly, so he did it.
Putting on a mask, Hyunjin ducked his head and got to work. His hands shook and his belly cramped with every box he moved, but he kept pushing because what choice did he have?
At lunch time, he took the few minutes he was allotted to duck out to the front of the shop and hide next to a bookcase by the window to feel the sun on his face. He could smell the warm food coming from the bookshop’s cafe. He skirted off to the side, but not too far that he couldn’t bask in the comforting scents, but enough out of the way that no one would spot him. It was warm there in the sun, and he closed his eyes to let the rays warm his face. He hadn’t eaten in too long, and nearly collapsed against the edge of the window while trying to sit down, his knees wobbling and not supporting his weight. He caught himself just in time, but his whole body was trembling now.
“Whoa, are you okay?” a deep voice asked from behind him, and Hyunjin startled so hard he hit his head and his knee on the windowsill.
Hyunjin closed his eyes, trying to quiet his racing heart, when he felt a hand gently cup his elbow.
“I didn’t mean to sneak up on you, but you looked like you were about to fall through the window.”
Turning slowly, mindful of the dizziness that had been plaguing him since the previous evening, Hyunjin looked up into dark brown eyes and a cute nose covered in freckles. He blinked mutely up at the man in a tailored three-piece suit, his long blond hair pulled loosely back at his neck. “Ss-ssorry,” Hyunjin stuttered, finding his mouth dry enough that the words got stuck inside. He breathed in deep, almost swooning at the deeply sweet and a little bitter notes of something he couldn’t place, something decadent and expensive.
Hyunjin pushed to standing, his legs trembling with the effort. He was surprised that the other man was only about shoulder height. His presence felt much larger. Sparkling eyes, a kind smile, and a gentle touch, but he wasn’t an Omega. He felt like an Alpha even if Hyunjin had missed the tingle of electricity from his strength. It was a disconcerting feeling that he didn’t have the energy to pursue. He bowed, belatedly, in thanks. He was saved from trying to think of what to say by the stranger’s phone vibrating on the table beside them, where a plate with a half-eaten pile of pastries and a tall cup that was still steaming amid a sea of papers and a laptop.
The man cursed and let go of Hyunjin’s arm to grab for it, upsetting the papers, and a few drifted down to the floor. He took the call in a clipped English that was too fast for Hyunjin to catch any of the words. It had been a long time since he’d studied the language in school.
He bent gingerly to pick up the papers, straightening them without looking at them, not wanting to invade privacy. Without stopping his phone call, the man grabbed a leather bag from the seat and took the papers from Hyunjin with a nod of thanks, then shoved his laptop in and snapped it closed. He motioned with a dismissive hand at the remaining pastry and coffee, then patted Hyunjin on the shoulder and strode out of the bookshop’s cafe area like a man on a mission.
And maybe he was.
Hyunjin may be down on his luck, but he wasn’t dumb. He checked that there wasn’t anyone paying attention to him before he wrapped up the pastries in a napkin, put the cap back on the cup, and took his found lunch with him back to the farthest corner of the stock room he could hide in. He didn’t care that some of them had been bitten into. After the first bite of a flaky, warm, buttery croissant, he imagined he could feel the strength flowing back into his hands from the sugar.
***
In the darkest part of the night, Hyunjin crept on silent feet from where he had parked to a small bathhouse, one he hadn’t been to before. He made sure not to visit the same one too many times, and he often had to drive a way before he found somewhere safe, as there weren’t many still in the city. His hair was long enough now to braid back out of his face so it could dry, but he had to tie a scarf over his head so that it wouldn’t freeze in the cold winter air. He walked through a park, his steps squeaking on the frozen ground, the kind of sound that signaled just how cold it was. When snow sounds like Styrofoam, it’s better to stay at home.
His backpack tugged at his shoulders, the weight pulling him off balance. He kept remembering the stranger, his eyes, the scent he couldn’t place, the freckles, and that voice that vibrated like a bass guitar in his chest.
He was so distracted that he didn’t hear it at first.
Once he did, his pulse spiked, and he crouched, ready to run. Ducking behind the nearest hedge, Hyunjin crouched down and looked around with wide eyes for the sound.
There. A dark shape moved back along the path from the direction he’d just come.
It was a familiar shape. A tall, rectangular brick of a man, carrying something heavy so that he was off balance. “I know you’re out there, Beta,” the man called, voice raspy.
Hyunjin startled and ducked down lower into the shadows. With a racing heart and shaking hands, he tightened the straps of his backpack, breathing harshly in the cold air, trying not to make a sound.
The man strolled closer, and two more shadows joined him from the other directions of the park. The wind picked up, and he couldn’t hear what they said, but it was blowing toward them, and he saw the moment they scented him.
The first one lifted his head, sniffed loudly, then turned his head slowly like a doll in a horror movie until he was staring straight at Hyunjin, hiding in a hedge. “There you are, pretty. Boss has a job for you, and he doesn’t take no for an answer.”
It was very B-movie cliche, but it worked, and Hyunjin moved before his brain caught up.
Running in peak physical condition wasn’t one of his strengths, but fear is a great motivator, and he could hear the three men chasing him as soon as he popped up to his full height and took off. His head swam, his stomach gnawed at him, the pastries from that morning’s meal at the bookshop long since worn off.
But he ran as if his life depended on it.
It did.
He darted out of the park and into the streets, trying to make his way back to his car. It didn’t take all that long before they gained on him and were close enough to scent. An acrid, bile-inducing smell that was worse than the time his eomma had found a decaying mouse hidden in the basement by their cat when he was a child.
He was out of breath, his vision narrowed to what lay before his feet, when he reached his car. What should have been a welcome sight punched him in the gut, and he let out a sob.
The tires were flat.
Frantically looking over his shoulder, he had to think quickly. They were definitely slashed; the gaping knife hole on the one closest to him wasn’t even trying to hide. The sound of boots on pavement behind him brought him out of his momentary panic, and he set off.
Not knowing where to go, Hyunjin ducked down alleys and tried to find somewhere to hide.
But there was nothing.
His chest and head pounded in time with his feet, each step sending a shock of impact into his knees and a spark of pain all through his body. He was nearing the outskirts of the city and the rich forest beyond it before he realized where he was.
He knew this road. He’d been down it before, years ago, but there might be hope.
It was dark, the tall, dense trees blocking out the traces of moonlight, but he darted in anyway, lungs aching. He couldn’t see his feet anymore and stumbled his way through the underbrush and tree roots.
There was shouting as his pursuers reached the edge of the trees. They complained about not having flashlights, not wanting to get mud on their shoes, and just shooting him and dragging him back. Their leader argued back, louder, but the more Hyunjin ran, the further their arguing voices became.
They weren’t going into the forest. Hyunjin quickly abandoned the road, if you could even call it a road; it was more like a deer path that was wide enough for a truck with good suspension to brave going down. He found a tree with low enough branches and used the last of his strength to haul himself up to wait.
He was sweaty from running, and quickly cooled off until he couldn’t feel his fingers and toes. Digging through his backpack while carefully perched on a tree branch, he pulled on as many of his clothes as he could in his position. Catching his breath, wishing he had water. He could still hear the voices over the sound of his racing heart.
***
Hyunjin waited until the first hints of daylight before taking his cold and sore body down from his perch in the tree. He was debating going back to his car, but he had no way to fix the flat tires, and it was probably already towed for parking too long by now.
With a tired sigh, he walked on silent feet, keeping his ears ready for any sound not his own. Sometime in the middle of the night, he stopped hearing the men who were chasing him, but the fact that they had found him after all this time meant he wasn’t as safe as he thought he had been.
Maybe when he’d first ducked into the bookshop because he thought he was being followed, he really had been followed, and wasn’t just paranoid. He’d made up the story on the spot, being a young Alpha just trying to make it on his own, and the old Alpha hadn’t questioned him, just took him at face value and put him to work. Hyunjin had found that Alphas of the older generation didn’t ask too many things if it benefited them, and he used their bias of trusting their own sub-gender against them by pretending to be one of them. He used his anomaly to his advantage.
Which was probably the most Alpha thing about him.
It wasn’t great money, but it was enough to survive for a little while. He couldn’t go back there.
The light filtered down through the trees, the snow crunching underfoot as he made his way parallel to the path that led deeper into the forest. His bag pulled at his shoulders, and he felt himself swaying on his feet, alternating between being too hot and too cold, shivering and sweating at the same time.
A dark shape loomed in the distance, and he breathed a sigh of relief that turned into a groan. Almost there.
The swaying and shivering that his body was doing without his permission, almost knocking him off his feet a few times, until he found himself on the ground. Blinking at the sudden lack of movement, Hyunjin struggled to get his feet under him. The tears that slipped from his eyes in frustration froze on his cheeks, burning the sensitive skin there. The cold seeped into his body too quickly, and he trembled, finally staggering to his feet.
His vision swam, and everything faded into grayscale. Hyunjin gasped at the pain in his head, taking two staggering steps before his body gave up on him and he slammed into the ground a second time.
Or, he would have, if two strong hands hadn’t caught him around the chest just in time.
He gulped in the comforting, familiar scent of smoky honey and vanilla, like the dark chocolate cake baked with coffee liquor his father used to eat for his birthday. “Hyunjin-ssi, what are you doing all the way out here?” a soft voice asked just before his body gave up on him for good; the arms still holding him up were warm, and the chest was strong, and he lost the battle with consciousness.