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Chapter Text  章節正文

Beomgyu’s mother pulls him aside on the third day of Chuseok. 
中秋節第三天，范奎的母親把他拉到一旁。

“You look a little flushed, darling,” she says, brushing the hair off his forehead with the hand that isn’t carrying a plate of songpyeon. “Is it that time?” 
「親愛的，你看起來有點臉紅呢，」她說著，用沒端著松糕盤子的那隻手撥開他額前的髮絲。「是發情期到了嗎？」

Beomgyu ducks his head out of reach. “Eomma, no,” he whines. “It’s just hot in there. I’ve been sweating all day.” 
范奎把頭一偏，躲開她的手。「媽，才不是，」他嘟囔著。「只是裡面太熱了。我一整天都在流汗。」

“No one else is sweating,” she says, furrowing her brows. “Take your patch off. Let me scent you.”
「其他人都沒在流汗啊，」她皺起眉頭說道。「把抑制貼撕下來。讓我聞聞你的信息素。」

Beomgyu cringes further away. “I’m not a kid,” he complains. “I deal with my heats. I get my injections.” 
范奎更加嫌惡地往後縮。「我又不是小孩，」他抱怨道。「我能處理發情期。我有按時打抑制劑。」

His mother purses up her lips dubiously. 
他母親狐疑地抿起嘴唇。

“I know preheat when I see it,” she says. “Your pupils are enormous.” 
「我一看就知道你發情了，」她說。「你的瞳孔都放大了。」

Beomgyu crinkles his nose at her. “Because it’s dark in there. I’m not in preheat.” 
范奎皺著鼻子反駁：「因為裡面很暗。我才沒有發情前期。」

It’s bright in the hallway, though. He grabs a cake from the plate, stuffing it into his mouth, hoping she doesn’t call him out on it. 
不過走廊確實很亮。他從盤子裡抓了塊蛋糕塞進嘴裡，希望她別當場拆穿他。

“I can get you an appointment at the walk-in clinic, if you need emergency suppressants,” she persists. 
「如果你需要緊急抑制劑，我可以幫你預約免掛號診所。」她堅持說道。

“‘On’t need any-thing,” Beomgyu garbles, mouth full, and his mother pinches his arm through the sleeve of his modern hanbok. Maybe it’s the hanbok that’s making him warm all over, or just the sheer number of family members crowded into their living room.
「不-需-要。」範奎含糊不清地回答，嘴裡塞滿食物，他的母親隔著現代韓服的袖子擰了他的手臂。或許是這身韓服讓他渾身發燙，也可能是客廳裡擠了太多親戚的緣故。

“Swallow before you speak,” she says. “Beomgyu, you’ve got a temperature. I can practically feel it through your clothes.”
「吞下去再說話。」她說。「範奎，你在發燒。我隔著衣服都能感覺到熱度。」

Beomgyu swallows. “I’ll get checked out when I get back to Seoul,” he says. “Maybe it’s the inhibitor patches. Remember when I had that allergic reaction?” 
範奎嚥下食物。「等我回首爾再檢查，」他說，「可能是抑制貼片的關係。記得我之前過敏那次嗎？」

“Darling…”  「親愛的…」

“I’m not a kid, eomma,” Beomgyu says. “I’m twenty-six. I’ve got this. Don’t worry about me, okay?” 
「媽，我已經不是小孩了，」范奎說。「我二十六歲了。我能處理的。別擔心我，好嗎？」

His mother sighs. 
他母親嘆了口氣。

“Just let me know if you need anything.” she says. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
「有需要什麼就告訴我，」她說。「別做傻事。」

“What would I do that’s stupid?”
「我能做出什麼蠢事？」

She gives him a look that screams many, many, things, Beomgyu.
她給了范奎一個充滿千言萬語的眼神。

“I promise I won’t do anything stupid. I promise.”
「我保證不會做任何蠢事。我發誓。」

“Good,” she says. “For example, getting on a train back to Seoul tomorrow when you’re in preheat. That would be stupid.”
「很好，」她說。「比如說，明天發情期前兆時還搭火車回首爾。那就很蠢。」

“Yep, that would be stupid. Good thing I’m not in preheat.” 
「沒錯，那樣就太蠢了。幸好我還沒進入預熱狀態。」

She shakes her head at him, starting to smile. 
她對他搖了搖頭，開始露出微笑。

“Look at your rosy cheeks,” she says. “You always get so pink before your heat starts. I remember your first one, you thought you had a rash, remember?” 
「看看你那紅撲撲的臉頰，」她說。「每次發情期快開始前你總是這麼紅。我還記得你第一次發情時，還以為自己起疹子了呢，記得嗎？」

Beomgyu hides behind his cake. “Not flushed,” he says. “Just sunburn.”
Beomgyu 躲在他的蛋糕後面。「才沒有臉紅，」他說。「只是曬傷而已。」

It’s not a good excuse. Back home, he spends all day in his office. When would he get sunburned? But the last thing he wants to do is keep talking about his heats with his mother, and mercifully, she lets him get away with it. It’s a holiday, and no one wants to argue on Chuseok.  
這不是個好藉口。回到家後，他整天都待在辦公室裡。怎麼可能會曬傷？但他最不想做的就是繼續和母親討論他的發情期，而謝天謝地，她這次放過了他。畢竟是節日，誰會想在秋夕這天吵架呢。

The thing is, Beomgyu hasn’t been keeping up with his injections. He’s good about taking his birth control pills, but those suppressant shots hurt. Sue him for missing them every now and then. It’s a bit risky to skip a month — the shots keep his pheromone levels low enough for him to work in a mostly-alpha office without attracting much attention, and the inhibitor patches he wears do the rest of the work of erasing his scent. Missing a shot means his patches have to do more work, and missing too many of them means his heat cycle might kick in again. 
問題是，范奎最近都沒按時打抑制劑。避孕藥他倒是記得天天吃，但那些抑制劑注射實在太痛了。偶爾漏打幾次也不能怪他吧？跳過一個月確實有點風險——這些針劑能讓他的費洛蒙維持在低水平，讓他在滿是 Alpha 的辦公室工作時不至於太引人注目，再加上他貼的抑制貼片能消除氣味。少打一針就意味著貼片要負擔更多工作，如果漏打太多針，他的發情期可能又要來了。

That would be bad. Really, really bad. Beomgyu hasn’t been in heat since his last boyfriend broke up with him, and that was two years ago. Sure, it’s more natural to get your heats instead of suppressing them, or whatever — and all those trendy omega magazines have been pushing the natural heat movement pretty hard lately — but Beomgyu can’t imagine suffering through days of bone-shaking horniness without an alpha to help him through it. Or a beta. Anyone with a dick, really. 

He’s missed a monthly shot before without issue, though. He totally forgot about his appointment in March, and nothing bad happened. The monthly shots are more of a precaution; it takes more than a month for the hormone dose to wear off and for the heat cycle to kick in again. He should be fine. The fever that’s making him quake on the train is just a bout of the flu. Or a bad cold. 

The train is halfway to Seoul, but it feels like it’s crawling. Beomgyu curses himself for not splurging on the high-speed rail. If he had, he’d be at home by now, cuddled into his cozy bed in his studio and calling Kai to come over and bring him soup and medication. Instead, he’s huddled in a ball against the window of the train, trying to temper his shivers against the solid side of the train. The train’s constant jerking and lurching isn’t helping with his nausea, though. That’s a new symptom. He definitely didn’t feel nauseated before getting on the train. 

Beomgyu pulls out his phone to send a text to Kai, but his fingers are shaking too badly to type. This must be one bad case of flu. He curls up into a smaller ball instead, closing his eyes and pleading with the train to go faster. He can feel himself falling into a feverish daze, time passing intangibly, people coming and going as the train makes a stop, and then another. 

“Excuse me,” a voice says. “Sir? Wake up, sir.”

Beomgyu startles, his eyes flying open. A hand is shaking him by the shoulder, and his eyes focus on a stranger looming above him, a young woman with a pretty face and too-long eyelashes. An omega. 

“Sir, it’s dangerous for you to be here,” she says in a hushed voice. “Do you have pills you can take? Emergency suppressants?”

“Wha?” Beomgyu mumbles, rubbing one eye.

“Your heat,” the woman says, her eyes widening. “Everyone here can smell it. Those alphas at the end of the car are talking about you, and it sounds…well, I thought you should be aware of it. Just in case.”

Beomgyu shakes his head, trying to put the pieces together. 

“Not…in heat? I’m in heat?” he says, his voice cracking as it figures himself out. He lifts a hand to scratch at the patch over his scent gland, making sure that it’s still there, and instead he’s treated to a massive wave of his own scent. It’s usually so faint, just a whiff of peaches when he takes his inhibitor patch off at the end of the day. It hasn’t been so strong since the last time…

“Oh fuck,” Beomgyu gasps. He’s in heat, on a fucking train, and his mother was right. He doesn’t know if he’s done anything this stupid in his life. He needs to get home, stat, or to somewhere private where he can ride this out safely. 

Why is he in heat? He only missed one shot, right? Or did he miss two? Did he make his August appointment, or was that the one he missed because of Kai’s birthday party? What about July? Was that the one where he had to stay late at the office? 

“I can stay with you, if you want,” the woman says, sounding worried. “My boyfriend is a beta. He can keep an eye on you too.”

“Please,” Beomgyu chokes out, clutching his hands over his scent glands as if it could keep his pheromones from spilling out. “How long until Seoul?” 

“Not long,” she says. “A half hour.” 

Beomgyu finds his phone where it lays abandoned in his lap and holds it up with jittering hands. 

“Passcode is zero-three-one-two,” he mumbles. “Could you…could you call the contact ‘Hueningie?’” 

Kai barely manages to drag Beomgyu out of the cab and into the elevator. Beomgyu’s limbs have gone weak, flopping all over Kai’s body, and a dull ache is starting to grow in his belly. He’s trying to ignore the feeling of dampness building in his underwear, but it’s getting impossible to ignore it. 

“Just one more minute, hyung,” Kai says, clutching Beomgyu around the waist with one arm and hauling his overnight bag back up on his shoulder with the other. 

Beomgyu moans in return. His stomach is still churning. He’s still lucid, but only barely — his body is starting to take over from his brain, and he knows it’ll only get worse from here. He manages to resist the urge to grind up on Kai’s thigh. 

“Almost there. Almost there.” 

The elevator doors open, and Kai hauls Beomgyu down to the third apartment on the left. Beomgyu feels Kai’s hand brush by him as he reaches for the keypad, and the touch sends a fiery jolt through his body. 

“Fuck,” Beomgyu chokes.

“I got you, hyung. I got you.” 

Kai curses as he fumbles through the code, but a moment later Beomgyu hears his door swing open, and Kai pulls him the last few steps over to his bed. He throws Beomgyu down onto the mattress, collapsing next to him. 

“Kai-ya,” Beomgyu whispers. His scent glands are thrumming all over his body, in his neck, his wrists, his inner thighs, the backs of his knees.

“What can I get you?” Kai asks, out of breath. “Do you have, like, emergency pills?”

Beomgyu shakes his head feebly. He’s never prepared for this kind of situation. He’s always assumed his shots would prevent an unwanted heat, and those plan-b heat suppressant pills are expensive to buy for no reason.

“Do you think it’s too late to take them? I could go to the drugstore, but honestly…hyung, you’re pretty far gone.”

“Help,” Beomgyu says, waving a hand limply in the air and letting it fall again. He squeezes his thighs together to help with the burn in his scent glands, but it only makes his underwear feel wetter. 

“I can’t,” Kai says apologetically, and it’s true. Another omega can’t really give Beomgyu what he needs right now, even if Kai was willing to destroy their friendship and get naked with him. “You know I can’t. Is it…is it getting bad?”

“Need help,” Beomgyu says, his voice getting desperate. “Taehyun?” 

“Hyung, I love you, but I’m not letting you fuck my boyfriend,” Kai says. “Do you have…um. Like. Um. A dildo?”

Beomgyu moans. He does, but it’s not going to be enough. Fuck, he’s such an idiot. A heat without a heat partner will be absolute misery. Why was he so irresponsible with his health? Sure, life has been busy, and he’s never been too good at self-care. But this was beyond irresponsible. This was dangerous, and he’s about to pay the price. 

He should have recognized the symptoms. Even his mother could tell, but to be honest, it’s been so long since he’s had a heat that he barely even thinks about them. His pheromones are so thoroughly suppressed that he might as well be a beta. No one’s treated him like the omega that he is since…

“Let me call Yeonjun-hyung,” Kai says desperately. 

Yeonjun. Yeonjun has a dick. Beomgyu feels a flood of relief, all the heat in his belly cooling for a moment. 

“Junie-hyung can help,” he says. It’ll be awkward to spend his heat with one of his best friends, sure, but they’ll probably laugh about it afterwards. He’s always thought Yeonjun was hot, anyway, and he trusts him completely. He can think of worse things than spending a day or two fucking Yeonjun. 

Kai shakes his head, pulling out his phone. “He’s in Busan for a shoot,” he says. “But he’ll know what to do.” 

While Kai waits for Yeonjun to pick up his call, Beomgyu manages to stagger to his feet and off to the bathroom. His apartment is tiny, a one-room efficiency, so it only takes four steps for him to reach the sink and practically collapse into it. He runs the water as cold as it goes and slaps his wet hands over his burning-up face. He’s shivering and burning, starving and nauseated, wobbly on his feet but too restless to lay back down. He pulls the top two buttons of his shirt open, letting the cool air of his apartment flood his flushed skin, but it does little to alleviate the cooped-up feeling in his chest. 

He can feel his thoughts starting to take shape, veering towards that one track that they’ll stay on for the rest of heat. Alpha. Need alpha.

“…Might be dangerous,” he hears Kai saying anxiously. “What if he’s a creep?”

Beomgyu tries to splash more water on his face, but most of it goes down his front. 

“I can ask him,” Kai says. “Although maybe you should do it.”

“Ask me what?” Beomgyu croaks out, straightening up and looking himself in the mirror. He looks absolutely terrible. His too-long bangs are plastered to his sweaty forehead, and dark circles ring his brown eyes. His lips are torn up from gnawing on them during that terrible, stressful last half-hour of his train ride. 

“I’ll put hyung on speaker,” Kai calls out, and Beomgyu forces himself back into the main room. 

“Beomie?” Yeonjun’s voice says. “How you feeling?”

“Like shit.” Beomgyu waddles back to the bed, and Kai helps him lay back down, holding his phone in one hand and pulling the blankets up over him with the other. 

“I’m sorry this is happening, babe,” Yeonjun says apologetically. “Did you miss a shot?”

“Duh,” Beomgyu grumbles. “And don’t call me babe if you won’t come fuck me.”

“Hyung!” Kai says, scandalized, but Yeonjun laughs on the other side of the phone.

“My loss,” he says. “Look, I don’t know how you feel about this, but I was just telling Kai about some options for you. To help.”

“Help,” Beomgyu whimpers, clutching his thighs together again under the blanket. It’s far too hot under there, but now that he’s bundled in, he can’t imagine leaving. 

“How badly do you need an alpha?” 

Beomgyu moans.

“Pretty badly,” Kai supplies.

“I know a service,” Yeonjun says. “It’s super legit. Not shady at all. Wooyoung used to use them before he got on suppressants.” 

A service? An alpha service? 

Beomgyu’s eyes shoot open, finding Kai’s. Kai looks worried, like he’s afraid Beomgyu is about to blow up at Yeonjun for suggesting it. 

“A prostitute?” Beomgyu says faintly.

“I mean, if you wanna be like that about it, sure,” Yeonjun says. “It’s all very above board, though. I can get you the number. I think you’re supposed to book in advance, but they might do same-day service.”

“I’m not hiring a prostitute,” Beomgyu says numbly. “I can’t.”

It’s not that he has an issue with sex workers. It’s just… that’s not what heat has been about for him. Every time he’s had his heat, he’s been able to share it with someone he loves, and any time he hasn’t had someone to love, he’s suppressed his heats. He’s never shared a heat with a stranger. A dear friend like Yeonjun would be okay, but a stranger?

He’s never even slept with a stranger, honestly. Beomgyu’s friends tease him for being a bit of a prude, and he has to admit it’s not totally inaccurate. He’s picky, okay? And a romantic. Sex might not be about love for everyone, but it is for Beomgyu. 

“Suit yourself, Gyu-ya,” Yeonjun says. Beomgyu can practically hear him shrug. “But if you want to try it, you gotta call soon. Before you’re too far gone to consent. This place cares about that. I’m telling you, it’s all above board. Very legitimate.”

“How do you even know so much about it?” Kai asks, intrigued. “Not like you ever needed an alpha service.” 

“Oh, Wooyoungie spilled all the details after one of his heats, when they sent him a total hunk. He said it was the best sex he’d had since—”

A wave of pain hits Beomgyu straight in the guts, and he doubles over in bed, tucking his legs to his stomach and letting out a deep groan. 

“Damn,” Kai says immediately. “Hyung…”

“Help,” Beomgyu whimpers.

“Kai-ya, just give them a call for him,” Yeonjun says. “Check it out, Beomgyu, okay? You’re not the first omega to hire a service, and you won’t be the last. It’s for your own health.” 

Beomgyu can feel a heavy gush of slick working its way into his underwear. He squirms, trying to get comfortable, but it’s like his body is covered in mosquito bites, itching every time he moves. It’s enough to make a man desperate. 

Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad, letting a professional help him. It’s for his health, right? Beomgyu doesn’t have an ethical problem with hiring a sex worker — it’s just his own dumb romantic brain telling him that heats are for your partner. But it doesn’t really count as a stranger hook up. It would be like…getting treatment for a health problem. That’s what he can tell himself. 

“Fine,” Beomgyu gasps. “Call them. I’ll think about it.” 

“I’ll text you the number, Kai-ya,” Yeonjun says. “Beomie, get a heating pad. It’ll help with the cramps.”

“How are you so good at heat stuff?” Kai asks, sounding a bit awed. 

“Every alpha should know about heats. You’re telling me Taehyunnie doesn’t help you with yours? Pamper you and shit?”

“No, he pampers me just fine,” Kai says crossly.

“Texting you that number,” Yeonjun says. “Keep me updated, okay?” 

Beomgyu doesn’t own a heating pad. He presses on his stomach instead as Kai waits for Yeonjun’s text, balling his hands into fists and curling his body around them to try to punch his uterus into submission. He knows it’s no good. Nothing will help like a deep, hard fucking will help. He remembers it clearly, the relief of being filled up, the euphoria of being knotted. All the pain and anxiety and tension in his body melting away, replaced with the most beautiful calmness, a full-body high that left him floating. Fuck, he wants it. He needs it. 

Does he need it badly enough to fuck a total stranger?

“Hello?” Kai says into the phone. “Is this…um, Luxury Pleasures?”

Beomgyu can hear the cringe in Kai’s voice as he says it, but the phone isn’t on speaker anymore, so he can’t quite make out the person’s response on the other end. 

“Yeah. Good. Um, I’m calling to ask about…well, do you offer, like, same-day service? Emergency service? My friend is going into heat, and it’s bad.”

Kai casts Beomgyu another worried look, as if Beomgyu is about to deny it, but he won’t. It’s true. This is bad.

“Oh…cool. No, he’s not a returning customer. Yeah. Um, let me ask him.” Kai lowers the phone, covering it with his hand. “She says they still have one alpha available for today, but you’d have to pay a premium fee for using same-day service as a new customer. Oh, but there’s a discount on this guy, because he’s a rookie. So maybe that evens out.”

“When could he get over here?” Beomgyu chokes out. “Soon?”

“You don’t wanna know the price?”

“Soon?” Beomgyu moans again. The price doesn’t matter. He’ll pay whatever it takes to end this. 

Kai quickly lifts the phone again. “I think he’s fine with that. When could you send him over? We’re in Sillam-dong, if that…oh, great.” He mouths within the hour at Beomgyu, and Beomgyu just nods frantically. 

“What else would we have to do?” Kai asks, and then falls silent as the voice on the other end starts talking, and talking. It feels like an eternity before Kai finally starts talking again, and in that eternity, Beomgyu can almost palpably feel the pheromones start pouring even more heavily out of his scent glands. 

“Okay, so he’ll sign the form when the alpha gets here,” Kai says. “Yeah, he’s on birth control. Right?” He shoots a look at Beomgyu, and Beomgyu nods again. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll show him the profile. Can you send it to this number?” 

There’s a bit more back and forth as Kai fumbles for Beomgyu’s wallet and gives the woman on the other line a bunch of information: his date of birth, his height and weight, his credit card number for the deposit. Noticeably not his name, though. Beomgyu figures most people hiring an alpha through a service would rather remain anonymous, and he doesn’t blame them. If this information somehow leaked, that he’d hired a sex worker, it would probably make life difficult for him at his boring office job. Plus, this kind of thing is questionably legal, existing in a gray area where there are laws against it that go generally unenforced. Probably better for the service to not have a record of his identity, just in case there’s a crackdown one day.

When Kai hangs up the phone, Beomgyu sits straight up in bed.

“Someone’s coming?” he says. 

“Wow. Quick change in mood, huh?” 

“Shut up,” Beomgyu snaps. “You have no idea how wet I am.”

Kai’s eyebrows shoot up, but he manages to regain his composure. They don’t talk about the details of their heats that often — well, Beomgyu has barely had heats. Kai gets it, though. He hasn’t taken suppressant shots in years, not since he started dating Taehyun. He’s used to this feeling. 

“Like I said. The alpha will be here within the hour,” Kai says, scrolling through his phone. “She said she’d send me a text with, like, the dude’s info. Normally you’d get to pick who you want, but this is the only one who’s free today. He had a cancellation or something.”

“And what else do I need to do?”

Kai shrugs. “Sign a consent form when he gets here, something saying you agree to the terms of service. So try to keep yourself lucid, because apparently he can deny you service if you’re too far gone. Oh, and you’re supposed to promise that you’re clean. But he’s gonna use a condom anyway.”

Beomgyu swallows. Kai is saying it all matter-of-factly, to try to not make it weird, but the word condom makes it all feel much, much realer. It’s starting to sink in that there’s a stranger on his way to his apartment to fuck him. He casts a glance down his body, at his sweaty, half-opened shirt, at the waistband of his slick-drenched pants. He’s not exactly going to be putting his best foot forward, looking like this. 

But the dude’s just coming to fuck him. He’s seen much worse, probably. 

Kai’s phone buzzes. 

“Wanna see him?” he says, spinning the phone around towards Beomgyu. 

Beomgyu leans in. There’s a picture of an alpha on Kai’s screen, a selfie taken in a mirror. The man isn’t wearing a shirt, and his gray sweatpants are slung low on his hips, revealing decently chiseled abs and a hint of a v-line disappearing into his waistband. Normal alpha material. The shape of his defined waist reminds Beomgyu of someone, though he immediately beats that thought out of his head. He’s tried very hard to not think about him too much over the last two years. 

The phone is positioned over the man’s face, blocking all but a strip of his forehead and his short-cropped black hair. 

“I guess he wants to stay anonymous too,” Kai says, peering over the phone to get an upside-down glimpse of the photo. “Makes sense. It’s not exactly a job you could put on a resumé, is it?”

“What if he’s ugly?” Beomgyu whines. 

Kai slaps his thigh over the blanket. 

“Don’t be mean,” he scolds. “And anyway, you’re not really in a position to reject him for being ugly, are you?”

No, he isn’t. At the very least, the man looks tall, from how high up he rises against the nondescript door behind him. Beomgyu’s always liked tall alphas. 

Beomgyu gives the phone back to Kai, curling up on the bed again. 

“Any other info?” he asks.

“Yeah. They sent a few facts. His name…well, this isn’t his real name. Apollo,” Kai scoffs. “Wow. I bet he’s a douchebag, picking Apollo for his fake name. And shouldn’t he have chosen, like, a god of love? Cupid or some shit?”

“Anything else?” Beomgyu is too flustered to laugh about this with Kai. Sure, it’s a tacky name, but if anything, the fact that this dude has such a dumb pseudonym makes it easier to remember that this is just a service. It’s nothing major, nothing significant. Just a day or two of meaningless sex with Apollo the sex god. 

“He’s twenty-seven. His favorite animal is a rabbit. Why do they think you need to know that? Hmm…oh my god. His favorite sex position…”

“What is it?”

“Maybe I’ll let you discover that,” Kai chortles, locking his phone. “He’ll be here for a whole day, after all. And you can re-up for another one after that. Plenty of time to learn his kinks. Which are apparently many, by the way, according to this profile.” 

Beomgyu tries to stick his tongue out and ends up licking his dry lips instead. 

“Water,” he rasps. “Help me stay together.”

“Just another half-hour or so,” Kai says, getting off the bed. “You can do it, hyung.” 

They pass the time watching TikToks on Kai’s phone, pointless videos that somehow both race by and move at a snail’s pace. Around fifteen minutes into the wait, Kai gets up to do some tidying, putting away the clothes in Beomgyu’s overnight bag and wiping down his kitchen as if he has a guest to impress, and Beomgyu just lays in bed in the tiniest ball he can crunch himself into, murmuring weak words of gratitude every few minutes. 

“It’s nothing, hyung. You’d do the same for me.”

“You’re gonna leave before he gets here, right?”

“I kind of want to see him, actually,” Kai says, shifting from one foot to the other and twiddling Beomgyu’s broom between his hands. “Just to make sure he doesn’t look like a psychopath. Or an axe murderer. That okay?”

Beomgyu normally would be embarrassed about the prospect of Kai coming face to face with the mysterious Apollo, but he can’t find it within himself to protest. It’s sweet, actually, the way Kai cares about him. 

“Did you tell Taehyun?” 

“I will when I get home,” Kai says, turning back to his sweeping. “And he won’t judge you, hyung. Well, he’ll judge you for missing your shots. He’ll put a reminder in his own calendar and bug you monthly.”

Beomgyu doesn’t know what he’d do without his friends. They rallied around him in his darkest days, and now that he’s back on his feet, they’re the found family that keeps him going. 

“Kai-ya, thank you,” Beomgyu croaks out. “This means everything to me.”

“I know,” Kai says, dropping the broom. He comes over to the bed, reaching out a hand to grab Beomgyu’s sweaty one. “Your first heat since he left, right?”

Beomgyu nods. 

“I’m sorry you have to spend it like this,” Kai says quietly. “It’ll be over soon. It won’t be too bad.”

Beomgyu squeezes Kai’s hand and closes his eyes.

“Just wake me up when he’s here,” he says, dropping their grasp and burying his face in the pillow. He needs to focus on his breathing, tap into some supernatural calm inside him that will let him last another half hour without giving in and humping anything in sight. All he needs is to last until he signs that consent form, and then he can give in to the all-consuming desperation gnawing at his edges.

It feels like just a minute until Kai is shaking him awake. 

“Buzzer rang,” he says. “Hyung, hyung. He’s here.” 

Beomgyu blinks, trying to untangle himself from his blanket. 

“Here?”

“The alpha. Apollo.”

As if on cue, he feels a fresh swell of warmth between his legs. Holy fuck, this heat is coming on strong. 

“Shit,” he curses, managing to swing his legs out of bed. “How do I…do I look?”

“Um,” Kai says, not able to get the lie out in time. “Fine.”

Beomgyu rubs his eyes. Whatever. It’s just a stranger. No need to impress him.

A knock echoes through the door, and Kai’s eyes go wide.

“Answer it,” Beomgyu says.

“O—okay,” Kai stammers, scurrying for the door. Beomgyu thinks he sees his hand trembling as he reaches for the handle, and drops his own eyes to the floor. This is unbearably awkward. He can’t look.

Kai pulls the door open.

“Oh,” he says. “What?” 

“Kai-ya?” 

The voice is familiar. Far too familiar. 

“Did…did you hire me?”

No fucking way.

“Choi Soobin-ssi,” Kai stutters, and Beomgyu’s eyes fly to the open door. 

It’s him. Choi Soobin. The only man he’s ever truly loved, the only person who’s ever swept him off his feet. The only alpha he thought he would ever want.

The man who broke his heart two years ago, leaving their apartment and never coming back.

Soobin’s eyes wander over Kai’s shoulder and land on Beomgyu. 

“Fuck,” he says. “Beomgyu?” 

Beomgyu’s tongue is frozen behind his teeth. His breath is stuck in his throat, like his body forgot how to inhale.

“You hired me?” 

Beomgyu doesn’t answer. 

Soobin stands on the other side of the threshold, as frozen as Beomgyu’s speech. He’s as tall as Beomgyu remembers, filling out most of the doorframe, though his body seems thicker under his tight long-sleeved shirt. In one hand he carries a leather satchel, the other clutching a folder with papers haphazardly sticking out of it. The hand spread out on the back of the yellow cardstock is large and thick, covered in defined veins that catch the raking, sparse light of the hallway.

Beomgyu’s eyes walk up to his face, and then he has to look away. He’s tried so hard to forget that face. Full, pouty lips, pinchable cheeks, sly, turned-up eyes. A long, pale neck that Beomgyu has layered with hickeys dozens — no, hundreds — of times. 

Choi fucking Soobin is the alpha that’s supposed to fuck him through his heat.

“I should go,” Kai squeaks.

Beomgyu looks at him in a panic. No way. Kai isn’t leaving him, is he? With Soobin? His ex? There’s no way. This is a joke. Soobin isn’t going to stay, right?

But before Beomgyu can muster up the strength to command Kai to stay, he’s already grabbing his jacket from the back of one of Beomgyu’s dining chairs and sprinting for the door again. 

“Good to see you, Soobin-ssi,” he says in a forced, tiny voice, casting a look over his shoulder at Beomgyu that Beomgyu can’t quite read. “Text me if you need anything, hyung, okay?”

“Kai-ya,” Beomgyu pleads weakly, but Kai is already gone, brushing past Soobin’s shoulder on the way out and knocking him half sideways. Soobin rights himself, still stuck in the doorway, and Beomgyu sucks in a deep, long breath for the first time, his lungs screaming out for oxygen after being deprived for far too long. 

Cinnamon. The most intoxicating, overwhelming wave of cinnamon hits him, sinking in through his nose and settling in his throat. Cinnamon and cloves and allspice, a warm mug of apple cider. The scent of autumn, a wool sweater, cuddling by the fire. Soobin’s scent was always the one Beomgyu craved the most. He’s hated the whole season ever since Soobin left. He hasn’t drank cider since. 

“Um,” Soobin says. “It’s…it’s good to see you, Beomgyu.”

Beomgyu shakes his head.

“Should I come in?”

“I don’t know,” Beomgyu chokes, but his body is reacting to Soobin’s scent, and fast. His legs are starting to tremble, his thighs quivering. Alpha, alpha. Soobin’s head between his legs, Soobin’s hips parting them, Soobin’s cock entering him. He needs it. 

He hates how much he needs it.

Soobin steps over the threshold and closes the door behind him. 

“I didn’t know it was you,” he says quietly. “I wouldn’t have come. Let me just…let me just fill out the form, saying I showed up and you weren’t in the right state. You can just sign it, and I’ll get out of your hair.” 

Beomgyu squeezes his eyes shut and nods. It’s for the best. 

He can feel Soobin entering the room, his scent growing stronger as he grows closer. There’s the dull thud of his satchel landing on Beomgyu’s table, and the rustling sound of him rifling through his folder. 

Something about that rustling reminds Beomgyu of the sheets in their old apartment. Soobin liked to change them twice a week, so they’d always be crisp. Beomgyu remembers the way they felt sliding over his skin as Soobin inched towards him in bed, wrapping his strong arms around him and pulling him tight. The coolness of the pillowcase on his cheek as Soobin turned his head to the side and ravaged his neck, teasing his teeth over his scent gland, want me to bite you, Gyu-ya? Want to always be mine?

Beomgyu moans. The rustling sound freezes.

“Everything okay?” Soobin says warily.

“Fine,” Beomgyu gasps, clutching his hands to his neck again. But just like it did on the train, it does nothing at all to block his pheromones. All it does is nudge into his patch, jostling it. 

“Holy shit,” Soobin says, and suddenly he sounds affected. The room is filling with Beomgyu’s pheromones too, peaches mixing with the cinnamon. Soobin knows that scent as well as Beomgyu knows his. “Shit. How long have you been like this?”

“None of your business.” Beomgyu ducks his head, trying to swing his hair over his neck.

“You’re in heat. Properly in heat,” Soobin says. His voice is growing deeper, and Beomgyu feels it behind his navel. And then lower, and lower. 

“What’s it to you?” Beomgyu says, trying to sound tough. His voice is a whimper.

“You hired me,” Soobin says. “It’s literally my job.”

“Since when?” Beomgyu spits back. “And I hired Apollo. Not you. You’re supposed to be designing airplanes, or whatever.”  

Two years ago, Soobin was a fucking engineer. He wore a tie to work every day and complained about the coffee in the break room. He wasn’t working for an alpha service, selling his chiseled body. He didn’t even have a chiseled body. 

Whatever happened in those two years that caused Soobin to be here instead of in that office is a complete mystery to Beomgyu. His friends all told him to cut off all contact, to let himself heal. And he had. Well, he’d cut off all contact, at least. The healing has been a slower process.

“I’m not here to talk about myself,” Soobin says shortly. The rustling resumes. 

“Good. ‘Cause I don’t want to hear it.” 

Beomgyu’s heart is starting to pound arrhythmically. He can hear it in his ears. He wonders if Soobin can hear it too. 

He was so attuned to Beomgyu’s body, back when they were together. He could detect the slightest changes in his mood from across the room. Any hint of a shift in his scent would send Soobin into high alert, racing to check on him.

But that was Beomgyu’s Soobin, and this is Apollo. 

“Here,” Soobin says. “Just come sign this, and I’ll get going. It’s the denial of service form.”

Beomgyu staggers to his feet. He holds his breath again, inching across the room on shaky legs. He feels like his heartbeat is getting more and more manic the closer he gets to Soobin. It’s as if the alpha has a magnetic field around him that’s making Beomgyu’s body go haywire, and the worst thing is, Beomgyu doesn’t hate it. He remembers this, too. He used to love this feeling, the feeling of giving up all control, of letting Soobin take care of him. 

Soobin holds a pen out towards him, and Beomgyu’s eyes fall on his fingertips, the bulging veins on the back of his hand. He reaches out his own hand, watching it quiver in midair, clutching his thighs together just in case his body decides to gush slick at the worst possible time. 

His hand lands on the pen, and his fingertips brush Soobin’s skin. 

Beomgyu is on fire. Alpha came back for you, his brain screams. Soobin came back for you, alpha wants you, wants to care for you—

“Help,” Beomgyu gasps, collapsing into Soobin’s outstretched arm. 

“Oh, Beomgyu,” Soobin exhales. His arms are warm around Beomgyu’s back. The waffle knit of his shirt rubs roughly against Beomgyu’s cheek, cradled into his chest, and Beomgyu whimpers. Oh, he’s missed this. He hates himself, he hates himself for missing this. He told himself he’d never smell this scent again, and that he didn’t need it. That he was stronger than this, but here he is, breaking into a thousand pieces in Soobin’s arms. 

“Hurts,” Beomgyu whines.

Soobin’s hand falls to Beomgyu’s back, right to the sore spot in the small of it. Exactly where his back pain always hits a few hours into his heat. Beomgyu faintly wonders if Soobin remembered, or if it’s just chance. It’s been so long.

“Sign it, Beomie,” Soobin says. “Sign—sign it. Take the pen.” 

His fingertips are digging, digging into Beomgyu’s back. His words rumble through his chest, echoing into Beomgyu’s ear.

“Alpha,” Beomgyu whimpers. 

“No,” Soobin grunts out. “You’re—you’re in no…you don’t mean it.” 

His other hand is cupping Beomgyu’s jaw, falling right into place. His thumb lands in the soft spot against the high point of Beomgyu’s neck, where he used to poke him to make him giggle. 

Beomgyu is in agony, so many types of agony. 

“Take care of me,” he whispers. “I mean it. Take me before I pass out.” 

Soobin’s face scrunches up like he’s in acute pain. Beomgyu knows that look. He’s trying to hold out, to resist the clarion call of Beomgyu’s scent. Back when they were dating, he never could for long. And today, Soobin heaves out a deep breath and pushes Beomgyu off his chest, prodding him towards one of the dining chairs at his little table.  

“Sit,” he commands, and Beomgyu drops immediately. A shiver of relief cascades down his spine. Alpha.  

Soobin rifles through his folder again, pulling out a different document. 

“Read,” he says, placing it in front of Beomgyu. “You need to fill it out completely. If you miss a row, it’s proof that you’re not capable of consenting anymore, and I’ll leave. Sign at the bottom, and call me over when you’re done.”

“Call you—”

Soobin turns on his heel and strides over to the window, tossing it open and sticking his head out of it. 

“Just—your scent is strong,” he says, his voice barely carrying over the sudden influx of street noise. “Better if I’m over here.” 

Beomgyu drops his eyes to the document. His vision is starting to get wavy around the edges, and he blinks five times, trying to clear it. Read the document. He can handle this. He’s not too far gone yet, and all he has to do is get through this document, and then he’ll get to get fucked. 

It shouldn’t come as a shock that the document is all about sex. It starts with a lengthy disclaimer waiving the alpha service of liability in the case of any sex-related injuries, and goes on to inquire in great detail about Beomgyu’s preferences, “to inform your alpha of the best way to fulfill your specific omegan needs!” Beomgyu feels himself blushing as he reads row after row of specific kinks, checking off “no” for most of them. He’s immensely glad that Soobin’s head is halfway out his window, his broad back turned to him instead of watching him check off no to ‘puppy play.’

Reading all these sex words isn’t helping Beomgyu with the problem between his legs, even when most of them aren’t things he’d want to try. He wonders if Soobin can smell how his scent is surely growing riper, tarter, an acidic edge of need creeping into it. He finds himself staring at the back of Soobin’s wide shoulders, jolting himself out of a mild daze and dropping his eyes again to hesitate with the pen hovering over the no next to ‘spanking.’

Soobin used to spank him over his knee, leaving red handprints that lasted for twenty-four hours. He’d kiss every long red mark afterwards, the best boy for me, Gyu-ya.  

Beomgyu checks off yes next to ‘spanking’ and speeds on to the next row. He must be as red as those handprints. 

Filling out the form isn’t hard, even with his hand trembling and his vision slowly getting blurrier and blurrier. He knows he’s approaching the point of no return, but he’s been holding himself together for so long by now that another few minutes of lucidity is a manageable hurdle. It’s only the last question that gives Beomgyu pause.

I consent to sexual intercourse with the alpha that has been provided by Luxury Pleasures, with the caveat that I may retract my consent at any time during my heat by stating my established safe word (indicated on line twelve above) and ask for the immediate departure of said alpha. 

Soobin offered to go. Soobin knows this is a bad idea, just like Beomgyu does. Beomgyu shouldn’t sign this. No matter how horny he is, how comforting Soobin’s arms felt wrapped around him, Beomgyu knows this will set him back two years of healing. 

He’s never understood why Soobin left. As far as Beomgyu was concerned, everything had been going smoothly; three years of unfettered happiness, unblemished devotion. It had only been a minor rough patch, a few weeks of tension leading to a fight that Beomgyu had assumed would blow over. But Soobin had left the apartment, fuming and keyed up from that temper that had always leaned slightly too volatile, and he’d never come back. Two days later, Beomgyu returned from work to find Soobin’s belongings gone from their apartment. All that was left was a note on the table. You’ll do fine, angel. Chin up.

Chin up. Six months of absolute devastation. Another year of spontaneous breakdowns in the bathroom at work, grief coming on with no warning. And now, just as Beomgyu has barely gotten back on his feet, Soobin is here in his new apartment, asking for him to consent to heat sex. Beomgyu should say no.

How many times has he thought about getting closure? About what it would be like to have one last night together, to show Soobin everything he’s been missing out on? To make him regret it, and to sate his own tiny, nagging desire for one final memory? 

It’s not healthy. It’s not responsible. Yeonjun would slap him if he heard him talking about it, and his therapist would tell him it’s just another manifestation of his masochistic urge to feel something, even if it’s feeling pain.

Yeonjun isn’t here, though. His therapist isn’t here. The only thing that’s here is Soobin, and this pen in Beomgyu’s hand, and this one little document that stands between himself and Soobin’s warm touch all over his body, one last time.

Beomgyu signs his name on the dotted line. 

“You done?” Soobin asks immediately. He must have heard the scratching of the pen.

“Yeah,” Beomgyu says. “Check my work?” 

Soobin doesn’t laugh. He pushes himself off the window frame, slamming it shut again, and strides back over to the table. When he picks up the form, he gives it a five-second scan, not nearly long enough to have read all the information on it, and his eyes settle on the bottom line. On Beomgyu’s signature. 

“Looks good,” he says, lowering the paper and dropping it on the table. “Hm.”

“Hm?” 

Beomgyu peers up at him, trying not to blink. It might make him seem stronger, like he isn’t trembling inside about the prospect of what’s about to happen. 

Soobin meets his gaze. His expression is steely. 

“You’re absolutely sure about this?”

Soobin was always delicate with Beomgyu. Tender and deliberate, until that day when he left. 

“Sure,” Beomgyu says. 

Soobin swallows, and Beomgyu watches his Adam’s apple bob. “This is professional, okay? Remember that. I’m a professional, and you’re my client.”

“Client,” Beomgyu repeats. His head falls to one side, and he struggles to right it. His neck is going weak.

Soobin watches his motion, his fingertips playing with the corner of the signed document. 

“You still like it when the alpha takes charge?” he asks in a formal, composed voice.

Beomgyu feels a massive spike of adrenaline, plunging straight to his core. 

“You’d know that if you read the sheet,” he says, breathless.

“I don’t have to read the sheet to know what you like,” Soobin says. “I have you memorized.”

He lowers his head, his eyes raking over Beomgyu’s face. Beomgyu tries not to imagine what he must look like: flushed, sweaty, needy. It’s certainly not the casual, collected look he’d always pictured he’d have in his fantasy scenarios of what would happen if Soobin ever showed up again. In the version in his brain, he’d look extremely cool, not sickly and gross. 

“Go to the bed,” Soobin says, and Beomgyu’s blood churns. He stands, faster than he realized he could, swaying on his feet, and Soobin reaches out a hand to steady him. He raises his eyebrows. 

“Still obedient, huh?” Soobin says softly.

Beomgyu holds in a moan, his eyebrows tensing. It isn’t fair for Soobin to use their history against him like this, to pull up memories that Beomgyu has long suppressed. Not if he’s trying to be professional about it, at least. And Soobin seems to read Beomgyu’s cue, letting his own face fall.

“I’m sorry,” Soobin says. “This is a service. I won’t keep…just forget who I am, Beomgyu. Go to the bed and take off your clothes. I’ll take care of you.” 

Beomgyu steps the three steps over to the bed with his eyes closed. It feels like the temperature is skyrocketing, that every piece of clothing he removes is only making him hotter. He peels off his shirt and starts working on his pants, and behind him, he can hear the sound of Soobin rifling around in his satchel. 

His pants fall to the floor, and the rustling noise ceases. 

“Fuck, Beomgyu,” Soobin says in a strained voice. Beomgyu’s underwear must be visibly wet, even from behind. “You’re so far gone.” 

“Shut up,” Beomgyu chokes. He falls face forward onto his bed, still wearing his soaked underwear, and a second later two hands come to rest on his hips.  

“Can I help with this?”

Yes, yes, yes. Can’t he tell how badly Beomgyu needs him? It doesn’t matter how reckless this is. Every second thought that Beomgyu had when Soobin first stepped over the threshold is long gone. 

“Do what I’m paying you for,” Beomgyu says to his bedspread, wriggling his hips in Soobin’s hands.

Soobin doesn’t wait a moment longer. His fingers hook under the elastic of Beomgyu’s underwear, tugging it down his legs, and the moment the elastic has slipped over his feet, Soobin spreads them wide. 

Beomgyu can practically feel Soobin’s stare between his legs. God knows how many times Soobin has seen him like this — they dated for three whole years, for fuck’s sake. But in the two years since their break up, Beomgyu has hardly been with anyone else, and it’s only the pulsing, itchy desperation of his heat that’s saving him from a crippling wave of self-consciousness as Soobin’s eyes rake over his cunt. He’s glad he can’t see Soobin’s face, just in case something about Beomgyu isn’t to his liking anymore, and it shows in his expression. Soobin’s features were always painfully transparent back when they dated. 

The omega inside Beomgyu has no time for self-consciousness, though. It wants to show off, to make his alpha want him. 

He spreads his legs even wider, and his clit rubs on the bedspread. He whimpers needily.

Soobin exhales. “You—you should get on your knees.”

“Knees?” Beomgyu repeats, struggling to get his weak legs under him.

“Knees. Present for me.” 

Oh, present. Present for his alpha. Beomgyu can do that. 

Beomgyu crawls forward onto the bed, steadying himself on his knees. He drops his head and shoulders to the bed, arching like his life depends on it. Anything to get fucked sooner. He finally peers back at Soobin, catching a glimpse over his shoulder, and the alpha’s eyes are glued to Beomgyu’s crotch, his hands working through his own belt buckle. His cheeks look pink, Soobin’s signature sign of getting horny, and Beomgyu’s omega sighs in relief. Alpha wants him. 

Beomgyu wiggles his ass in the air. 

“No need to show off,” Soobin says, just above a hiss. “You’re paying me for this, you don’t have to earn it.” 

“Alpha,” Beomgyu whines. He sounds like a bitch. Was he always this pathetic in heat?

“I’m almost ready, babe.” 

Beomgyu can’t remember if Soobin used to call him babe. Maybe Apollo says that to all his clients. 

He watches Soobin’s pants fall to the floor, and the mattress sinks as Soobin kneels behind him in his boxers. 

“Finally,” Beomgyu gasps. “Fuck me.”

“Too soon. I’ll hurt you.” 

One of Soobin’s broad hands comes to rest on Beomgyu’s ass, fingers spanning its curve. Beomgyu presses it back into his hand instinctively. Even just this touch, just a palm on his fiery skin, feels like a salve to his raw nerves.

“This first,” Soobin almost whispers. 

Beomgyu can’t spare a thought for why Soobin’s voice sounds like that, tentative and dry and laden with heaviness, because his fingers are pressing into Beomgyu’s cunt, and Beomgyu wails. Something is filling him, finally. 

“Please,” he moans, bucking back on Soobin’s hand to take him deeper. He can’t tell how many fingers Soobin has in him; he barely notices what he’s even doing with them. All that matters is that Beomgyu is full of alpha. 

Soobin curses, sliding his other hand up to Beomgyu’s back to stabilize him.

“Just one minute,” he says. “You’re…you’re more ready than I thought.”

“Fucking duh,” Beomgyu chokes. Soobin’s fingers are seeking out his g-spot, and Beomgyu’s toes curl up as he nails it. “Please p—please, alpha. More. Fuck me.” 

“Not yet. Gotta—follow protocol.”

Fuck his protocol. Beomgyu wants more now. Fingers feel nice, but cock is better. He slides his knees even further apart, arching as far as his back will bend, and drops a hand between his legs to rub his clit. His vulva is throbbing with need, and every little bit of pleasure helps.  

“Beomgyu,” Soobin says in a choked voice as Beomgyu’s fingertips nearly brush against his own palm. “Okay, okay. Gimme a sec.” 

His fingers withdraw, leaving Beomgyu achingly empty. He lets out a frustrated, angry sound, slithering his own fingers into his empty hole. They’re so much smaller than Soobin’s, and his body hates it. He still feels empty, even with three of them inside him. 

Beomgyu hears fabric dropping, and a crinkling sound, and his brain can’t process why Soobin isn’t fucking him already. He asked for it, he’s paying for it, he needs it.

“Fuck me?” Beomgyu asks childishly. He pulls his useless fingers out and scrunches his fists into the blanket to distract from the pain building back up in his belly.

“Condom,” Soobin grunts. 

Right. Condom. Beomgyu sighs as he waits, starting to wiggle his hips again, but Soobin is back in just a moment. 

“Ready?”

“Yes, yes, I’m—”

Oh, fuck. Beomgyu almost screams. Soobin is everything his body has been demanding. His grip is rough around Beomgyu’s waist, his thick thighs already nearly flat against the backs of Beomgyu’s as he rolls into him in one long motion. Beomgyu feels hot, heavy pressure inside him, his jaw going slack as Soobin fills him incessantly.

His shape is too familiar. Beomgyu spares just a moment to think it — Soobin, his Soobin, back inside him — but then Soobin bottoms out, and Beomgyu gives his thoughts over to that primal side of him. The side of him that needs to get fucked badly enough that he’s fucking his ex again what the fuck —    

“Beomie, holy shit,” Soobin groans. “Holy shit.”

That can’t be professional. 

Soobin draws out, and Beomgyu’s body itches with how badly he needs him back.

“Go, go,” Beomgyu whimpers, and immediately, Soobin slams into him. 

All that matters is that it’s sex with an alpha. That’s all Beomgyu’s body needed, an alpha, any alpha. It feels like pain relief is being injected straight into his veins, each one of Soobin’s rapid, heavy thrusts mellowing out the ache in his core. Beomgyu lets out a long, happy moan, punctuated by the rhythm of Soobin pounding into him, oh-ohh-ah.

“Good?” 

Soobin’s voice sounds distant, like it’s floating through fog. It’s only been a few moments, but Beomgyu’s omega is already relaxing, his burning need giving in to an overwhelmingly sated warmth. His weakening knees tremble, and Soobin’s hands tighten around his waist to keep them anchored together. 

“More. More,” Beomgyu begs.

Soobin lifts his leg, propping it up by Beomgyu’s side for more leverage, and the motion buries his cock even deeper into Beomgyu’s body. 

“Tell me if it’s too deep,” Soobin says gruffly, just as Beomgyu’s brain thinks deeper deeper deeper.

The details are a blur. Soobin pounds him like a machine, over and over and over. Silent and accurate, exactly what Beomgyu is paying for. It’s scientific, but Beomgyu doesn’t mind the clinical quality of his thrusts, the way his hands stay firmly put on Beomgyu’s waist instead of wandering over his skin. His body is getting what it needs, and that’s what matters.

He forgot how everything is magnified during heat, how the slap of Soobin’s balls into his vulva triggers waves of crippling warmth, how the friction on his g-spot sends pleasure spearing through his core. Beomgyu closes his eyes to focus on the sensation, exhaling and letting his lungs stay empty until he starts to feel lightheaded. He doesn’t want anything inside him but Soobin’s dick, not even air. 

“Breathe,” Soobin commands, and Beomgyu immediately obliges, sucking in a breath. The hairs on the back of his neck stand up. “Is this what you need?”

His voice still has that clipped, sharp quality, like he’s gathering information in a study. It’s a strange question. Of course it’s what Beomgyu needs. Soobin’s never had to ask before. Maybe this is just part of his protocol, checking in. 

“Fucking more,” Beomgyu pants.

“Here.” Soobin angles Beomgyu’s hips down, forcing him into a deeper arch. He leans over Beomgyu’s back, blocking out the overhead light, and one hand works its way into Beomgyu’s hair while the other wraps around his front, sliding down his belly. 

“Want it harder?” he mutters. “Need to get taken, right?” 

He yanks Beomgyu’s head back right as his fingertips meet Beomgyu’s clit.

Beomgyu doesn’t need to say yes. Soobin rails him, hard, just how he always wanted it years ago, and nothing’s changed. The harder Soobin takes him, the more he feels nothing but full, and that’s what his body is demanding. He feels himself tipping closer to delirium. Sweat is trailing down the sides of his neck, dripping under his chin, and his mind starts to blank on who exactly is doing this to him. It’s an alpha, filling him and stretching him and rhythmically circling his clit with his rough, heavy fingers, and soon that alpha will give him the knot he needs. That’s all that matters. 

Nothing about this feels like Soobin anymore, anyway. Years ago, Soobin used to bite beautiful marks into him, nip frantic lines across his back and up his neck, lave his tongue over his red skin and praise him for taking the pain so well. Soobin would yank his hair so hard that strands came out, blabber his name so many times that by the time they were locked together by his knot, Beomgyu barely knew what it meant anymore. Years ago, the air would fill with such a heavy layer of cinnamon that Beomgyu could almost swear he could see Soobin’s scent, not just smell it. 

But this time, Soobin does none of it. His rhythm is methodical, formulaic, like he learned to fuck from a textbook. The room smells only like Beomgyu, with just the faintest whiff of spice. When Beomgyu squirms, his arms caving in, Soobin holds him in place with a firm hand in his hair, but nothing more. The angle of his cock is brutal into Beomgyu’s g-spot, almost too on-target, with none of the erratic frenzy that used to send his rhythm all off-kilter whenever he got worked up. 

Beomgyu feels himself sinking further and further into his pose, his soaked cunt embarrassingly high in the air and his noises growing needier and needier, bitchy little squeals that should be driving Soobin’s alpha absolutely crazy. He wants to know — is it working, does alpha want him? Will alpha breed him, is he good enough? His omega is in charge, and it’s desperate, but Soobin is an anonymous, silent entity above him, nothing but a cock in his hole. Might as well be a fucking machine.

And when Beomgyu whimpers a pathetic, satisfied sound, clenching up and falling apart as his orgasm finally overtakes him, all Soobin does is murmur “that’s it. Just there. You want a knot now?” 

“F-fuck, yes,” Beomgyu gasps out. He’s ready to get pushed under, to be fully sated. Just needs a knot, any knot. 

Maybe it’s for the best that Soobin doesn’t speak again. The only thing Beomgyu thinks Soobin used to say when his knot hit him was love, love, love you so much, Beomgyu-ya.

Soobin grips Beomgyu’s shoulders in his hands, bracing himself, and drills him. No languid, lingering thrusts. It’s brutal and efficient, working himself up as fast as he can. 

“Knotting,” Soobin grunts. “C-coming.”

There’s too much air between them. No contact but Soobin’s hips slapping Beomgyu’s ass, his fingernails digging into Beomgyu’s shoulders. 

Suddenly, the pressure triples inside Beomgyu’s cunt, and then some. Beomgyu screams, sliding his legs as far apart as they’ll go, and he can practically feel the gush of pheromones pouring through his body and out through his scent glands. He’s still wearing an inhibitor patch, but it’s doing absolutely nothing. 

The stretch is impossibly painful yet more pleasure than his body knows how to handle, a debilitating mix of sensation that he hasn’t felt in years. “Can’t,” he moans, “can’t handle it…”

Soobin massages his thumbs into Beomgyu’s back, murmuring, “you can. You need it.” 

He’s right. As the sudden shock of the knot inflating subsides, something new settles into Beomgyu’s body: an all-encompassing calm. His cramps have washed away, his desperate need sated. He starts sliding down onto his belly, and Soobin follows him, cock still lightly jerking inside Beomgyu’s cunt as the knot locks into place. He hadn’t made a single sound. If not for the knot that’s now threatening to tear him apart, Beomgyu wouldn’t have known that Soobin came at all. 

For a fleeting moment, Beomgyu wants to look back at Soobin’s face, to see if the bliss that he’s feeling is painted over Soobin’s features, too. Instead, he lets his eyes close. Too tired.

Beomgyu tilts his hips down under Soobin’s weight, arching up automatically as if he could direct all the cum that’s shooting into him deeper into his womb, but it’s useless. There’s no gush of hot feeling inside him, just latex stretched thin around the bulging knot. Beomgyu had forgotten about the condom, in all his desperate horniness. They never used to use condoms. Something feels wrong about it this way, like his body is thirsty and unable to quench it. 

The words for the best wander through Beomgyu’s hazy thoughts. Fuck knows how many people Soobin has slept with, and he hadn’t shown Beomgyu any proof of being clean. It was probably in that folder, but Beomgyu hadn’t cared much about asking for it. It’s for the best that this sex is protected, no matter how strange it feels for there to be a layer of latex between them. 

He barely notices that Soobin is moving, rolling onto his side and carefully pulling Beomgyu onto his, too. The knot tugs at Beomgyu’s entrance, and Soobin shushes his tiny whimpers at the little pricks of pain. 

“You take it easy,” he says, draping an arm over Beomgyu’s front to stabilize him. “Relax. This is part of it.”

Cuddling? Cuddling is part of the service? Beomgyu supposes that makes sense, when knotting is part of the service, and there’s not much else to do while you’re knotted. Somehow, he hadn’t anticipated this, though. And now he’s trapped, locked onto his ex for god knows how long. All he wants to do is slip under, let go of consciousness, give into the all-encompassing warmth flooding his brain, and for him to do it, he has to give himself over to Soobin.

It’s hard to resist the instinct to melt back into Soobin’s arms. His body isn’t quite the same as it used to be — it feels firmer against Beomgyu’s than it did back then, the arm across his chest far more muscled — but it’s still Soobin. With his eyes closed, they might as well be back in bed in their old apartment, falling asleep knotted together like it’s any normal heat.

Beomgyu must have stiffened up in Soobin’s arms at the memory, because Soobin freezes up, too, and he lifts his hand to Beomgyu’s throat, stroking a thumb slowly over his scent gland. He picks at the edge of Beomgyu’s inhibitor patch, just barely hanging onto his skin, and it triggers an immediate reaction, calming pheromones flooding Beomgyu’s system.

“Really, Beomgyu. Relax. It’s my job.” 

“How…how long until…” Beomgyu breathes. How long will they be like this, locked together? This was always his favorite part of heat sex. Whispering to each other as the minutes stretched on, whining that it was taking too long, Soobin grinding the knot up into his g-spot to render him useless again and teasing him for being such a good omega. But it’s not exactly like any of that’s going to be happening this time, and Beomgyu feels overwhelmed and exhausted. He doesn’t want to have to think about this. He’s afraid if he does, he’ll only start regretting it.

“Just sleep. We’ll talk when you wake up.”

Beomgyu gives in to the numbness overtaking him. It’s only right as he drifts off that he thinks he smells it: cinnamon, a single, harsh tendril of it filling his chest with warmth.

The first time Beomgyu opens his eyes again, it’s to the feeling of Soobin carefully sliding out of him after the knot finally deflates. He has no idea how long it’s been, but by the time he’s regained consciousness enough to realize what’s happening, he feels a hollow vacancy between his thighs, his own dried slick and nothing else. He wriggles his hips instinctively, trying to seek out his alpha again, but Soobin is already gone, crawling over him on the bed with the spent condom in his hand. He doesn’t notice that Beomgyu is blinking his eyes open until he’s on the way back from the trash can in the bathroom. 

Beomgyu rubs a hand over one of his unfocused eyes, trying to focus on Soobin’s naked body. All he can really see in this bleary state is that he’s so tall, too tall for Beomgyu’s tiny studio apartment. 

Soobin notices Beomgyu’s hand moving and pauses, halfway back to the bed.

“Awake? Anything hurting?”

Beomgyu frowns, focusing on his own body. Does anything hurt? He tries to move his legs, but they feel like they’re weighed down. He thinks he has a low fever. 

“Back to sleep,” Soobin murmurs. “You’re not ready for more yet.”

More? Definitely not. Beomgyu turns his head into the pillow. He knows that carnal need will rear its head again, but right now, he just feels groggy and half-dead.

“Here.” Beomgyu feels soft cloth sliding over his legs, and the mattress sinks as Soobin lays back down next to him, pulling the throw blanket from his little sofa over both of their bodies. “Get on my chest.”

Beomgyu shakes his head childishly into the pillow. 

“Get back over here, Beomie. You need an alpha.” 

Soobin doesn’t let Beomgyu refuse again. He pulls Beomgyu’s head off the pillow, guiding it towards his chest instead, and Beomgyu doesn’t complain. The moment his cheek makes contact with Soobin’s broad sternum, all his muscles relax, like his limbs are exhaling. 

“That’s it,” Soobin says quietly. His hands are laced firmly together on on the small of Beomgyu’s back, as if keeping each other from wandering. “I knew this would help. Just keep sleeping it off.” 

“Stop acting like…an omega expert,” Beomgyu breathes. “Annoying.” 

Soobin doesn’t say anything. He holds very still, and Beomgyu feels his own fever melting into Soobin’s cool skin, as if the alpha’s presence is melting away his pain. His head is turned so that his breathing doesn’t skate down Beomgyu’s face and disturb his slumber. 

Beomgyu’s eyelids flutter closed, the side of his lashes tickling Soobin’s bare skin, but Soobin doesn’t flinch.

“Sleep,” Soobin whispers. “I’ve got you.”

The second time Beomgyu opens his eyes, it’s to a crippling pain lashing through his belly.

“Ah, fuck,” he gasps, suddenly wide awake. His eyes shoot open to find that it’s gone dark in his apartment. He’s nearly face-down on Soobin’s chest, their bare legs entwined, but the pain is too sudden and severe for him to dwell on how much of their skin is in contact with each other’s. 

“Cramps?”

Soobin is already flying into action, rolling Beomgyu off his body and onto his side on the bed so that he can clamber over him and head to his satchel. Beomgyu wonders for a second if Soobin had been asleep at all, turning his head to watch him opening his bag and fumbling in it. It’s too dim for Beomgyu to properly size up his body, which is a shame. If he just made the grave mistake of fucking his hot ex, he might as well get to appreciate his looks.

“What…what’re you doing?”

“Making you tea,” Soobin says, no-nonsense. “Chamomile and ginger. Anti-inflammatory.”

He pulls a tin out of his satchel and looks towards the kitchen nook.

“Do you still have that kettle? The purple one?”

“You carry tea with you?”

“Yeah, duh,” Soobin says, not looking at him and turning to Beomgyu’s cabinets. “What kind of heat service would this be if I wasn’t taking care of you during your heat?”

“I mean, you did,” Beomgyu points out. “You knotted me.”

His belly twinges at the words. 

“You’re paying for a minimum of twenty-four hours of service,” Soobin prattles off, opening and closing a cabinet. “That means me helping with your symptoms between knots. Unless you want me to neglect you?”

He shoots Beomgyu a look over his shoulder, dark eyes piercing through the dimness above his blurry features, and Beomgyu’s uterus chooses that exact moment to hate him again. He grimaces as another wave of pain pummels him. 

“Thought so,” Soobin says, turning back to his search.

“Lower left,” Beomgyu pants, and Soobin finds the kettle in the lower left cabinet. 

They don’t talk again until Beomgyu is delicately propped up against his headboard, a hot mug of tea in his hands and two ibuprofen pills on his nightstand, also whipped out of Soobin’s satchel.

“That thing is bottomless,” Beomgyu says weakly, nodding at the bag and taking a sip as Soobin settles down on the edge of the bed next to him. Luckily Soobin had the presence of mind to pull a corner of the throw blanket over his naked lap, because Beomgyu isn’t sure how he’d be able to sit casually next to him, sipping tea and making small talk, if they were both fully naked. 

Soobin grunts affirmatively, but doesn’t say anything, and they both fall silent again. Beomgyu tries not to look at his face, but there aren’t many other places to look in his apartment, and his eyes inevitably wander over Soobin’s body instead. Safer to look there than at his face.

“You work out now,” he says, stupidly. 

“Mhm,” Soobin says. “Helps with the job.”

“How so?”

Soobin scoffs. “People tip better when you’re hotter,” he says, and Beomgyu lets his eyes fall to his mug. 

Right. They haven’t talked about his job yet — they’ve barely talked. There are so many unspoken things sitting between them, so many changes neither of them has acknowledged. Things that were never supposed to have to be acknowledged, when they were never supposed to see each other again. That’s what happens after break ups: your whole history disappears, along with the future that never was. The story they had been making together is over, and this strange epilogue was never supposed to be written. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Beomgyu notices Soobin’s hands fidgeting in his lap.

“Nice apartment,” Soobin says awkwardly. 

It’s Beomgyu’s turn to scoff. His apartment is completely unextraordinary.

“No, really. You got that velvet couch you wanted.”

“Yeah, the loveseat version,” Beomgyu says. Not enough room here for the sectional he had always wanted to get for their old apartment. “And guess what? It’s as hard to clean as you’d said it would be.” 

Soobin gives him one single laugh. “Glad I was right,” he says. 

Beomgyu doesn’t know what to say to that, and thankfully, Soobin seems to recognize that as the one who killed the conversation, it’s his job to restart it. 

“Seeing anyone?” he asks. “Oh. I mean — sorry. Dumb question.”

“Obviously not,” Beomgyu says wryly, lifting the mug of Soobin’s tea. “Last-minute call to an alpha service doesn’t exactly scream in a relationship, does it?”

Soobin shrugs. “Not exactly. But I don’t know your life.”

No, he doesn’t.

“Well, I’m not. Seeing anyone, that is. Um, you?”

Soobin shakes his head.

“Not since this job. It’s not a great one for dating,” he says, and now all that Beomgyu can think is that he was dating. He’s dated since they broke up, while all Beomgyu has done is mope and stew and cry and patch up his broken heart. Great. Just great. Exactly what he wanted to hear. 

“So why’d you take the job? Easy way to get laid?” 

It’s a stupid, rude thing to say, and Beomgyu immediately regrets it. He wishes his eyes didn’t flutter up to Soobin’s face, because Soobin just gives him a withering look, and Beomgyu lifts his mug to his lips, ducking behind it. 

Soobin’s face is as pretty as it ever was, even with this stern expression. His cheeks might be a smidge thinner, but Beomgyu knows his dimples are still hiding in them. He hopes he doesn’t have to see them tonight. So far, he’s been too consumed with his heat symptoms to have an emotional breakdown, but the dimples might push him over the edge. Too many memories of those dimples smiling at him.

“I didn’t mean that,” Beomgyu says in a small voice. “Just…um, yeah. How’d you end up here? What happened to the Boeing job?”

“I lost it, obviously,” Soobin says, flicking a piece of lint off the blanket. “There was a big round of lay-offs at the beginning of last year. I wasn’t senior enough to make the cut.”

“Ah. Sorry to hear that.”

Soobin shrugs. 

“Tough job market out there,” he says. “I got tired of waiting tables. And this pays better, while I keep sending out a billion applications.”

Beomgyu gives him a tiny nod. 

“You? Still at that law firm?” 

“Mhm. And it’s still boring.” Soobin has spent hours of his life hearing Beomgyu complain about his dull receptionist job, so he just nods too.

“And the guys? They’re all good?”

“You haven’t heard from any of them?”

Soobin shakes his head, and Beomgyu feels a rush of cruel pride. At least all their friends stuck with Beomgyu after the break up. Even Kai, who Beomgyu had always assumed was more Soobin’s friend than his own. Beomgyu never asked them all to stop seeing Soobin, but as far as he knows, they all did anyway.

“Junie-hyung’s gotten a lot of jobs lately. He walked in Paris fashion week.” Soobin makes an appropriately pleased sound. “And Taehyunnie and Kai are still sickening about each other.”

“It was nice to see Kai, even for just a second,” Soobin says. “Would you mind…if I texted him some time?”

“I just told you he’s taken,” Beomgyu says, but Soobin shakes his head. 

“I just meant, like, he’s your friend. That could be weird.”

Beomgyu shrugs. It probably would be, but it would make him seem overdramatic to say it. 

“I’d just like to catch up. He’s…well, he’s one of the things I miss most.” Soobin picks at the loose weave of the blanket, dropping his voice. “Maybe second most.” 

It takes Beomgyu’s brain three times as long to process the implications of that statement than it should, because his body chooses that exact moment to start shivering uncontrollably. 

“Fever?” Soobin says automatically, looking up. “Take the meds, they’ll lower—”

“Hold up,” Beomgyu interrupts. Soobin is lifting his hand toward Beomgyu’s face, as if about to feel his forehead for his temperature, and Beomgyu slaps it away. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

“What’s rich?” Soobin frowns, furrowing his thick brows.

“You’re saying you miss me?”

Soobin hesitates. His thoughts must be racing to think of a smooth follow-up. After all, it’s fucking bold to tell the person you dumped that you miss them. Bold, and shitty, and fuck, here come the emotions, a swell of bitter longing in Beomgyu’s throat.

Beomgyu clutches his mug tighter, like a shield between them, and swallows. He cannot get upset. He won’t let himself get upset. There’s nothing to get upset about, right? He doesn’t even want Soobin anymore.  

“Is that not okay?” Soobin asks in a small voice. 

“Not okay,” Beomgyu tries to snarl. It comes out limp. 

It’s quiet, for a moment. Beomgyu watches Soobin’s face fall. He looks weirdly hurt, which feels unfair. 

“Sure, whatever,” Soobin says. “I shouldn’t have said it. Sorry.”

He grabs the pills, handing them over wordlessly and watching Beomgyu swallow them. When he reaches for the now half-empty mug. Beomgyu doesn’t relinquish it. 

“I’ve just thought about you a lot,” Soobin says. “Wondering if I should look you up, just to see how you’re doing. And I’m glad I got to see for myself that you’re…doing well.”

Yeah, maybe now, Beomgyu thinks bitterly. Not last year. Not before that. Not after you fucking left.

The last thing he wants is for Soobin to know how much it hurt. 

“Yeah, doing…doing well,” Beomgyu says. 

Soobin wraps his hand around the handle of the mug, his fingertips grazing Beomgyu’s. “Let me refill this.” 

His fingers are twice the size of Beomgyu’s, and the moment they come into contact, a slice of pain cuts through Beomgyu’s core. He winces, doubling over his belly as heat flashes through his collar. It feels like the universe is punishing him. Touch his ex, get smited.

“Lay down,” Soobin says quickly. “On your back.” 

Beomgyu obeys. Soobin pulls the mug from his weakening grasp and moves it to the night stand, the refill forgotten. Instead, he curls his fingertips over Beomgyu’s belly through the blanket, pressing right where it aches, and Beomgyu gasps as another wave of pain hits him. 

“The meds will help in a few minutes,” Soobin says, rolling his fingers firmly into Beomgyu’s aching womb. “Try and focus on your breathing.”

“I fucking know,” Beomgyu grits out. He scrunches his eyes closed and breathes out slowly, four counts. He hasn’t had to do any of this since his last heat with Soobin, and Soobin was always so good during his heats. Always took such good care of him. My eomma raised a good alpha, he’d laugh. Just get back in bed, angel. I’ll get you something to eat. 

The more Beomgyu lets those locked-away memories creep in, the more he hurts, physically. It’s like his thoughts are gnawing at his chest, giving him heartburn along with his cramps. 

Somewhere to his left, a phone buzzes. 

“Yours,” Soobin says. “Do you want it?” 

“Could you…” Beomgyu grimaces through another cramp. “Tell me who it’s from?”

There’s the sound of Soobin fumbling around in the clothes that Beomgyu had dropped on the floor. 

“Kai,” he says. 

Beomgyu reaches out his hand for the phone. Fucking Kai. He could have stopped this, if he’d only…

Soobin puts the phone into his hand. Beomgyu cracks an eye open, unlocking it.

hueningie
Update? Round one done?

me
you’re a bastard
leaving like that

hueningie
U rather I stay and watch? :P
Sorry hyung 
Honestly I felt so much better leaving u with him than a stranger
Ur safe with him
Even if he sucks

me
fuck that

hueningie
Be mad when heat’s over 
Why are u even texting me 
U should be getting dick

me
:skull:

Soobin’s fingers dig into the soft flesh of Beomgyu’s belly, and Beomgyu lets the phone slide through his fingertips. 

“You wish he’d kicked me out, right?” Soobin says quietly. 

Everything hurts so much. It’s starting to get hard to think again, just like at the start of all this, but not because of lust, because of pain. Beomgyu wishes Soobin’s touch wasn’t helping, but he knows that it is. It’s taking the edge off. Alpha cares. His body feels it in its bones, even if it’s a lie.

“Sort of,” Beomgyu mutters.

Soobin doesn’t respond right away. Beomgyu can’t look at him. He doesn’t want to know how he reacted to that. 

“Makes sense,” Soobin says finally. His motion stills on Beomgyu’s stomach, and almost instantly, Beomgyu cries out again.

“Fuck,” he curses, curling onto his side around his evil, angry womb.

In an instant, Soobin is there again, sliding under the blanket, pressing their naked bodies together. He hauls one of Beomgyu’s legs up over Soobin’s own hips, hugging their fronts as close as they can go. Beomgyu barely notices that one of his hands is dropping down below his own waist until it dips between his legs. He squeals, but Soobin is only checking to see whether he’s slicking up again. His fingers ghost over the folds of Beomgyu’s cunt for a split second before they disappear, leaving Beomgyu aching for something he didn’t realize he wanted yet. If he wasn’t slicking up before, he will be now.

“Soon,” Soobin says. His hand floats to Beomgyu’s forehead, brushing his bangs off his sweaty skin.

Beomgyu begs, “give me.”

“You’re not ready yet. Soon.”

Soobin’s face is so close, and this time, Beomgyu has nowhere else to look. 

“I’m helping, right?” Soobin whispers, his eyes unblinking. 

Of course he’s helping. If he wasn’t helping, he wouldn’t be here. Beomgyu nods weakly. 

“You…you still want this?” 

Beomgyu can’t fathom why his voice sounds so thin, why his eyes are so fucking big. 

“Yeah,” he breathes.

“You can tell me to leave. If you don’t want me.”

“Hyung, shut up,” Beomgyu spits out, as sharply as he can muster. “I know.” Don’t make me think about it. The last thing he wants is a reminder that yes, he’s doing this to himself. He could do the right thing for his mental health, tell Soobin he’s done more than enough, and suffer through the rest of his heat alone. The pain wouldn’t be too bad. It would be better in the long run than spending hours cuddling with Soobin as if they were still lovers, letting him dote on him like nothing has changed. 

But he won’t tell him to leave. He’s a coward. A masochistic, hedonistic coward, and he needs this comfort, this pleasure. He wants the shadow of being loved like this, just for one more day.

“Hyung,” Soobin repeats faintly, and Beomgyu almost snaps I’m not your fucking hyung, dumbass before he realizes it was just an echo. Oh. 

“S-sorry,” he stammers. “Soobin…Soobin-ssi.” 

“No, don’t. That’s too fucking weird.” Soobin lowers his head on the pillow, bending his long neck until their foreheads are pressed together. He closes his eyes, and Beomgyu stares at his lashes, full and dark. “Keep calling me hyung, Beomgyu-ya.”

Beomgyu hesitates, and then gives Soobin a quiet okay.

“Unless you don’t want to?”

It would feel much weirder to call him anything else. Beomgyu opens his mouth to confirm, but just then his back twinges, right behind his left ovary. His hand flies to it, and just a moment later, Soobin’s palm is pressing there too. 

“Oh,” Beomgyu says, letting his own hand relax as Soobin massages his sorest muscle.

“Tell me when the other side starts,” Soobin says. The words sound so casual, meaningless, as if they don’t belie so much history, the significance of how he even knows the right side will start aching any moment now. 

“You’re good at your job,” Beomgyu says without thinking.

“Hm?” Soobin’s eyes open.

“I mean. Caring—caring for omegas. You must be popular.”

“Eh,” Soobin says. “Not every omega’s like you.”

“What d’you mean?”

“I mean, if every omega winced just like you did when your back starts hurting, then I’d always know when to rub their backs,” Soobin says. “But they don’t. So I’m pretty average at my job.” 

“So does that mean I’m getting special treatment?” Beomgyu says, his voice wavering.

Soobin laughs. “Not special treatment, Beomgyu-ya. Just…the only treatment I really know how to give. Your treatment. You trained me well.”

Beomgyu’s mind races. He needs to keep joking around, keep this light. “So now you’re saying you treat all your clients the way you used to treat me? Way to make a guy feel special.”

“Well, that happens when you break up with someone,” Soobin says lightly. “You lose exclusivity rights.” 

He’s smiling, those terrible dimples popping into his cheeks. He’s capable of laughing about their break up. Beomgyu wants to nitpick at Soobin’s phrasing, don’t put it on me, but if he does, he might burst into tears. 

“Who were you supposed to be with today? The cancellation?” Beomgyu has to move on. He’s not sure why he’s asking, but talking about Soobin’s job is the furthest possible conversation topic from the life they used to share together. It feels like the safest thing to talk about, if they’re going to talk about anything while pressed together so intimately, with Soobin’s hand massaging circles into the small of Beomgyu’s bare back.

Soobin shrugs. He adjusts his touch, shifting it towards the other side of Beomgyu’s back just as the pain starts to migrate. “No idea. New client.”

“Do you have any favorites?”

Soobin shakes his head.

“Regulars?”

“Regulars, sure. But no favorites.”

Beomgyu ponders that for a moment, and Soobin’s brows furrow slightly. 

“You sure you want to talk about this? You don’t want to rest?”

“I like…hearing your voice,” Beomgyu admits. “It feels…soothing.”

It does. Like a second round of painkillers, hitting just as the first ones are starting to sink in. The right side of his back isn’t hurting nearly as much as the left side was.

“I can just talk to you, then,” Soobin says. “Read something out loud. Or talk about the show I’m watching. Would that be good?”

“It’s an anime, right?”

Soobin makes a face. “A drama, actually. You know I don’t just watch anime.”

“I don’t know,” Beomgyu says pointedly, and Soobin squeezes him the slightest bit tighter, fingers firmer into his sore muscles. 

“Fair,” he says. “What if I told you I’d kicked the anime habit entirely?”

“You’d be lying. Right?”

Soobin laughs. His laugh is higher than his voice, piercing. Beomgyu’s brain registers his happiness as if serotonin is flooding his own body instead. Alpha happy. 

“Completely lying,” Soobin says. “You sure you don’t want me to just put some music on or something? My voice is so weird.”

“Not weird,” Beomgyu exhales. He cuddles his forearms into Soobin’s chest, pressing one palm to his heart. They’re close enough he swears he can hear it pounding. 

Soobin shakes his head. “You’re the one with the nice voice,” he says. “Not to, like, bring up memories. But…”

“I remember,” Beomgyu murmurs. 

“Yeah,” Soobin says softly. “It always helped me sleep. Better than any sleeping pill.”

Beomgyu focuses on his breathing. In, out. They’re just talking, just Soobin’s low, hushed voice filling his ears, calming his omega. No need for this to be meaningful.

“Glad I could help,” Beomgyu says.

“Did you ever sing for anyone else?”

Beomgyu shakes his head, and Soobin purses his lips. 

“You really should,” he says. “You’re too good to only sing lullabies to your insomniac boyfriends.”

Boyfriend, singular, but then Beomgyu basically already told Soobin that he hadn’t dated anyone else. Soobin’s just being polite. 

“Keep talking,” Beomgyu whispers, ducking his chin to his chest and closing his eyes. 

“About you?”

“About…whatever.” 

Soobin hums, thinking. 

“There was this one song you used to sing for me. It had kind of like a…I dunno, a refrain or something at the end. Like, la la la — I mean, it sounds stupid when I try to do it, but it was different when you sang it. Do you remember that one?”

Beomgyu remembers, but he doesn’t say anything. He’s supposed to be trying to rest, which is a good excuse to not engage. His brain is slowing down, anyway, from all this alpha attention. 

“It was pretty,” Soobin says simply. He lowers his hand to Beomgyu’s hip, just barely cupping his ass, but it’s only to hike Beomgyu’s leg farther up on his own body, locking them a little closer together. 

Beomgyu’s breathing stutters.

“I know, babe,” Soobin says quietly. “You feeling a little better?”

“Babe,” Beomgyu repeats, his stupid mouth saying it before his lazy brain can stop it.

Soobin pauses. “Fuck, I’m sorry. It slipped out.”

“S’okay,” Beomgyu says. “Just a word.”

“Yeah. A lot of people like hearing it.” 

So it’s just an Apollo thing.

“I guess I did say yes to ‘pet names,’” Beomgyu mutters, and Soobin chuckles.

“I know. Well, I don’t know, actually. Didn’t read your form.”

Beomgyu’s eyes open to Soobin’s smug grin, and a little fire ignites in his belly.

“Isn’t that…wrong of you? Like, dangerous?”

“Why is it dangerous? I told you. I have you memorized.”

“What if I’ve changed? Could…could get you fired.” 

It’s a feeble attack, but all of a sudden Beomgyu can smell the tiniest hint of cinnamon in the air. Soobin’s eyes flash wide for a moment, and Beomgyu’s heart thrums. 

“Your safe word is blueberry,” Soobin says. “You said yes to five things on that form, didn’t you? Want me to name them?”

“Show off,” Beomgyu chokes out. Oh, fuck. It’s building up inside him. Alpha knows him so well, alpha can take care of him—

“And you thought about saying yes to ‘choking,’ too, but you pussied out. Right?”

Beomgyu feels his face crumple, and Soobin just laughs, gleeful. 

“Look at this,” he says, skimming his fingertips straight down the cleft of Beomgyu’s ass to his perineum, where slick is beginning to drip. “Oh, poor baby. So eager.”

“Not eager. Can’t help it.”

“Your pussy’s eager, then,” Soobin says, tenderly prodding at Beomgyu’s entrance. Fuck, when did he get so wet? Just a few minutes ago he was in crippling pain, and now it’s like someone flicked a slick-production switch in his cunt. “It’s hungry, Beomie. Let me feed it?” 

He presses in two fingers, and Beomgyu gasps as his hole swallows them up.

“Good?” Soobin asks, lowering his voice to something gentler.

Beomgyu nods frantically. The pads of Soobin’s fingers are sinking deeper into him, nudging up against something tender. He can feel his body responding, slick gushing around his opening, getting him ready for more. Eager.

“Keep talking,” Beomgyu croaks in a dry, unflattering whisper. 

Soobin’s eyebrows raise, but he gives him an exaggerated, pitying look, pouting out his full lips.

“My omega’s still in pain? Need more attention?” 

It’s borderline condescending, role play. Beomgyu feels woozy. “Yes, yes.”

Soobin lifts his head, leaning it over Beomgyu’s ear to whisper right into it. 

“Don’t worry about a thing, baby. Alpha’s got you now. You just focus on getting wet for me, and then I’ll take you just the way you need it.”

Beomgyu feels his features contort. He’s pathetic. “Faster,” he breathes, squirming desperately on Soobin’s thick fingers. 

“Oh, you’re not coming like this,” Soobin says, though Beomgyu feels his fingers dig deeper. “You’re coming on my cock. It’s what’s best for a heatsick boy like you.” 

“‘M not heatsick,” Beomgyu gasps, though his skin is aflame and his thoughts are blurry.

Soobin pulls his head back, propping himself up on his free elbow and using that hand to feel Beomgyu’s forehead. “No? So what’s this fever? What about all the cramps, Beomie?”

Under the blanket, his fingers are still buried in Beomgyu’s cunt. He flicks his thumb back down Beomgyu’s crotch, grazing over his untouched asshole, and Beomgyu flinches. He definitely didn’t say yes to ‘anal’ on that form.

“I know,” Soobin smiles. “Just teasing.”

He combs his fingers back through Beomgyu’s hair, fanning them out on the crown of his head and gripping onto his hair with just a hint of bite.

“You’d let me, though. If I wanted to. Wouldn’t you?”

Beomgyu whines noncommittally.

“You’d be a good omega for your alpha,” Soobin murmurs, his eyes fixed on Beomgyu’s lips. “You’d take my cock up that tiny ass, if I asked nicely.” 

“Hyung,” Beomgyu gasps. “Hyung, oh my god...”

Soobin blinks. “Too much?” he asks, but Beomgyu doesn’t answer fast enough. Instead, Soobin is moving, rolling Beomgyu flat onto his back, unwinding his fingers from his hair and his cunt. 

“You ready now? Worked up enough?” Soobin asks, kneeling between Beomgyu’s spread legs and casting a glance down his sweaty body, as if evaluating it. It’s shockingly cold without the blanket around them, without Soobin’s body all over his own, and Beomgyu whimpers. “I’m sorry, Beomie. Am I pushing you too far?”

What? No, he’s everything Beomgyu needs, he’s just right. Is something wrong? Does he not want Beomgyu? 

“Okay, okay,” Soobin says, seeing the panicked reaction flash across Beomgyu’s face. “You’re all good. I got a little… let me get the condom, okay?”

Beomgyu watches him scurry away through slitted eyes, hurrying back with a yellow foil package retrieved from his satchel. Knotting condom, XL.

“Big,” Beomgyu mumbles. He lets his knees flap out wide to the sides and stares at Soobin’s crotch. He hasn’t really gotten a good look at his cock yet, and now that he’s sizing it up, he’s just glad that he knows from experience how well it fits inside him. It truly looks massive, too many inches of bulging flesh. Its skin is flushed a dark pink, redder around the base where Soobin’s knot will form. 

“Checking me out?” 

Soobin drops back onto the bed, tossing the condom aside and grabbing Beomgyu’s thighs in his hands. He presses them back towards his head and fixes his gaze back on Beomgyu’s cunt. His tongue darts out, wetting the corners of his lips, and the sight of it, pink and glistening, makes Beomgyu feel actively crazed. 

“You…you fit,” Beomgyu says, trying to explain his gawking.

Soobin chuckles.

“‘Course I fit. I’m made for this, Beomgyu-ya,” he says, eyes still glued to Beomgyu.

His hands drop, and Beomgyu feels his touch on his labia, spreading them, oh god. They must be sticky, thick heat-slick coating his soft skin in layers.

“I don’t really need to lick you, but I want to. Is that okay?”

“Okay, that’s okay.” Beomgyu can barely think, he’s so pent up. It’s all building up so fast. Of course it’s okay, it’s more than okay.

“I really should give you the full slate of options,” Soobin says, circling a fingertip around Beomgyu’s entrance, biding his time. “I’m supposed to, but I sort of forgot.”

“Op—options?”

“Yeah. Foreplay options. I have, like, eight different vibrators. The little egg ones, and one that bends to hit your g-spot. And I know it’s not really your thing, but if you wanted, I’ve got a few things for here—” A fingertip grazes Beomgyu’s puckered asshole again, and Beomgyu squirms, trying to dodge.

“The fuck,” he gasps in surprise, his eyes finding that cursed satchel across the room. “No, just licking’s fine.”

“Figured,” Soobin says, dragging his finger back up to Beomgyu’s pussy. “But if you wanna take a peek, let me know.”

“Don’t need yours.”

“Oh?” Soobin’s touch pauses. “Really? Sex toys, you?”

“Keep moving,” Beomgyu begs, and Soobin obliges. “Why’s that a surprise?”

“What do you have?” Soobin says. When Beomgyu looks at him he’s frowning, almost disappointed, and Beomgyu feels a bit shriveled inside. Alpha unhappy. 

“Uh, vibrator, and...” 

Soobin plunges a fingertip through Beomgyu’s folds.

“I…I can’t think,” Beomgyu stammers.

“Hm.” Soobin drops his gaze again. “Less of a prude than you used to be, then.” He lowers himself onto his elbows, broad shoulders overwhelming the space between Beomgyu’s legs. “If you want a round three after this, maybe you give me a demonstration first?”

Beomgyu can’t imagine why he would. Not when Soobin is so good at pleasuring him, and when Beomgyu’s paying good money to get to be a pillow prince. Well, he assumes it’s good money. Kai never told him the price. 

Soobin lowers his lips to Beomgyu’s cunt and presses a kiss to his clit. Just the tiniest moment of contact, but Beomgyu’s back arches sharply in response, and he whines, mmhh.

“Such a pretty cunt,” Soobin murmurs. He kisses him again. “Cutest little clit.”

He drags the tip of his tongue across it, a slow, heavy motion.

Beomgyu can’t watch this, but his eyes won’t look away. Soobin’s head fills the space between his legs perfectly, and he looks up at him as he does it again, licking him in slow motion.

“Hyung,” Beomgyu gasps. His hands fly to Soobin’s hair, twisting into its roots. His hair is shorter than it used to be, harder to grip onto. 

“That’s it, Gyu-ya,” Soobin says. “Pull as hard as you want.”

He grins, his dimples popping out for just long enough to make Beomgyu’s heart skip.

Beomgyu can’t breathe. Soobin’s tongue is sloppy at first, lapping all over him, flicking down to his hole to taste his slick, tracing over the folds of his labia like he’s exploring. But then he zeroes back in on Beomgyu’s clit, his eyes closing as he concentrates, and all it takes is thirty seconds for Beomgyu to shatter into a gasping, writhing, begging mess.

Soobin’s lips are latched on around him, his tongue licking fast, hot lines over Beomgyu’s most sensitive spot, and a mind-numbing swell of sensation overtakes him. He can’t think, he can’t move, his face must be frozen into something hideous. He’s yanking Soobin’s hair so hard it must be torture, gripping on to help him ride out the wave. Soobin doesn’t seem to notice, though. He doesn’t stop until Beomgyu is twitching, hips bucking with overstimulation, and even then when he finally pulls back, panting and soaked all down his chin, his fingers are still digging white spots into Beomgyu’s thighs. 

“Taste so good,” he grunts. “Beomgyu-ya…”

Soobin licks him one more time, from bottom to top, drinking his slick. 

“No, no, not that,” Beomgyu moans. He just came, but it doesn’t matter, he needs more, needs a knot. Sanity gone. Just thirst, hunger, need. “Hyung, quickly, fuck—”

Soobin hauls his head up, and for the first time, he looks as desperate as Beomgyu feels. His pupils are blown wide, racing across Beomgyu’s torso and across the crumbled up blankets next to them, searching for the condom. When he finds it, he lifts himself up on his knees between Beomgyu’s spread legs, and Beomgyu writhes in his hulking shadow. 

“You’re so—so…”

“I know,” Soobin says under his breath, brushing whatever compliment Beomgyu was about to spill out aside. He leans down onto Beomgyu’s chest with one hand, splaying his fingers out from nipple to nipple and pressing him flat into the bed to keep him from squirming. With the other, he lifts the condom wrapper to his teeth, tearing it open. Beomgyu wants those teeth in his skin, ripping into his veins, opening him instead.

Soobin rolls the condom on with one hand, stretching it down his thick length, and Beomgyu pulls his legs back, spreading himself. Ready, ready, so ready — but Soobin doesn’t thrust into him. Instead, he lowers himself down over Beomgyu, twinning their bodies. He smears his rubber-clad cock over Beomgyu’s wet cunt with one hand and nuzzles his nose into Beomgyu’s ear, hovering above him on one elbow. Beomgyu can feel the heat of his chest scorching his own tender skin.

“You okay looking at me?” Soobin whispers. 

“Yes. Yeah—anything. Just do it.”

Beomgyu probably should think before he speaks, but in the moment, all he wants was a cock in him, and faster.

“Whatever you want,” Soobin says, looking down their bodies, flicking his cock up Beomgyu’s slit and back down it. “Fuck, you feel so…”

The head of his cock catches on Beomgyu’s hole, and Beomgyu twitches his hips just enough to press himself down on him. Oh, feels just right.

“Gyu-ya,” Soobin gasps. He feels even thicker at this angle, even with just an inch of him inside.

“Go slow,” Beomgyu whimpers. “Take me slow.”

“Slow,” Soobin repeats. He lets go of his own dick, lifting his hand to Beomgyu’s leg instead, and hooks his calf over his own shoulder, splitting him open to tear him in half. “Bit by bit, okay?”

Slowly, methodically, Soobin thrusts into him, inch by inch. Beomgyu feels like he’s already moulded to him, like his cock is snapping back into its rightful place. Their first session earlier pounded Beomgyu’s body into submission enough to be able to take this second round easily. The hard part is that this time, Soobin’s face is right there, huffing heavy breaths into his ear. And when he finally sinks in all the way, he lifts his head to gaze into Beomgyu’s eyes, stroking his hair back off his sweaty forehead. 

“Good?” he asks softly, giving his hips a final grind into Beomgyu’s pelvis. His cock grazes Beomgyu’s cervix. Shit, it makes his whole belly seize up. “Fuck, too deep?”

“Good pain,” Beomgyu breathes.

Soobin’s face is already soft, but it softens more.

“You,” he says, lowering his voice to something hushed, low, “are such—” fuck, he’s thrusting again, shallow jerks of his hips that leave almost his entire shaft still buried in Beomgyu —  “a good omega. Take it better than anyone.”

‘Praise.’ It’s on that sheet, marked off with a yes. Soobin knows what Beomgyu likes.

“Oh,” Beomgyu breathes. “Ahh, pl-please.”

“Taking me even though it’s too fucking deep. Taking all of me. So good.” 

Beomgyu nods, lips falling open, eyes frozen on Soobin’s jaw. 

“Stay with me,” Soobin murmurs. “Don’t slip away.” 

He splays his hand out flat on the underside of Beomgyu’s knee, ticklish, and builds up a slow, deep rhythm. Each thrust is disgustingly wet-sounding, so smooth with slick that Beomgyu hardly feels the friction of the latex on his sensitive opening. It’s stopped hurting inside, the hollow ache in his cervix melting into a warm numbness. All his body wants is to take it exactly the way his alpha wants to give it to him, to be the perfect hole for him to fuck—

“Faster, now, faster,” Beomgyu whimpers, and Soobin’s brows tense up. His fingertips dig into the meat of Beomgyu’s thigh, and his next thrust is so forceful it almost feels like a stab. Beomgyu’s neck seizes up, his jaw goes slack, feels so good, he’s an animal.

“Just like that,” Soobin groans, “take me, Gyu-ya…”

It’s so hot underneath Soobin’s overwhelming body, sweat pooling in Beomgyu’s navel. He rakes his nails down the back of Soobin’s neck, every thrust of Soobin’s hips fucking a weak ahh ahh out of his lips, and Soobin’s teeth are cutting into his own lower lip, grimacing through his pleasure. It’s like he’s trying not to speak, like he’s already said too much, and Beomgyu wants to hear him, hear him saying all the things he used to say. 

Why did Soobin stop talking? Why didn’t he talk the first time? It’s so much better with Soobin’s low voice in Beomgyu’s ears, his perfect face right there to look at. This time, it’s really, really Soobin, like a dream. Beomgyu’s alpha is back. 

“Hyuu—nng. Gonna, ahh, wanna…”

“Say it,” Soobin orders, choked. “Say—say it. Tell me?”

What does Beomgyu want?

“Pup,” he whispers. Fuck.

“Pup you,” Soobin groans, ramming his hips in suddenly and pinning them there. Beomgyu wails. “How much, babe?”

“Always,” Beomgyu whimpers. It’s clicking together in his brain, why they’re doing this, what he’s here for — “wanna always be pupped…”

‘Breeding play.’ Yes number two on that form.

“Fuck, Beomie,” Soobin curses. He drops his hand, fingers raking across Beomgyu’s damp, tender belly, scratching red lines into it with his nails. “Want a baby in here? Want me to put one in you?”

Beomgyu scrunches up his face and lifts his other leg back towards his head too, trying to open up more, make more room for him, to take him deeper. Let him right into his womb. “Two, give me two.”

“God,” Soobin moans, grabbing both of Beomgyu’s ankles and hammering into his soft flesh. “You—fuck, fuck my seed into you—”

Ugh, Beomgyu wants to tease him for that. It’s such a cringy thing to say. But he can’t, not when Soobin’s seeing through him. Soobin knows that he wants it, he’s always wanted it, he’s missed it so much. He cries out instead, clamping down on Soobin’s cock. Soobin is losing control, and Beomgyu knows all his signs too well. He sees that vein going mad in Soobin’s jaw, feels his tempo getting erratic inside him. 

“Knot, knot me, please,” Beomgyu pleads. He can barely speak from the weight of his own legs pressed back into his chest. His words are half air. “Knot so I can—I can…” 

Soobin grabs Beomgyu’s hands and pins them back to the pillow, their fingers interlaced, clammy palm to palm. His lips mouth something soundless, and oh, Beomgyu’s memorized that face. He’s so entranced by it that at first, he hardly feels the knot. The way Soobin’s lower lip quivers, how his forehead wracks with tension while his jaw slackens. All that’s missing is the words that Beomgyu knows he won’t say anymore. Love, angel. 

Then Soobin pulls back a bit too far, the knot nearly ripping through Beomgyu’s tight entrance, and his thoughts white out. 

“Babe,” he thinks Soobin is whispering. “So good. Taking me so good, so good.”

“B—baby,” Beomgyu whimpers. Baby. 

“We’re making one, right?” Soobin breathes into his ear, grinding the knot into him. “Right now, making one. Let me feel you come, Gyu-ya. You want to, for me.” 

Soobin came in him, he filled him, alpha wants him.

“Always wanted to fuck you pregnant,” Soobin whispers. “Oh, Beomgyu. You’d be so pretty, round like that.”

Beomgyu feels like the walls are closing in on him. Soobin leans his weight into him a little deeper, something slotting into place inside his cunt, and Beomgyu surrenders. It’s all-encompassing, warmth splintering all through his limbs, his muscles clenching up tight on the knot. There, oh, good. 

Soobin’s chest is heaving on Beomgyu’s own, his neck inches from his lips. Beomgyu inhales, filling his hollow lungs with Soobin’s scent. It’s concentrated when he’s so close to his scent gland. Spicier. 

“I’m sorry,” Soobin says quietly. He’s out of breath. His face is pressed into the pillow next to Beomgyu’s head, and his words are barely audible. “I didn’t mean to. I promise I didn’t mean to.”

“To what?”

“Bring all that back up again. All the…the shit we used to say. I’m sorry. That was over the line.” 

Beomgyu comes shattering down to earth. He clutches the back of Soobin’s neck, clinging on like a baby.

“S’okay,” he whispers. “Was on the form. Breeding.”

Beomgyu started it, anyway. He’s pathetic. He’s so weak. 

“Right,” Soobin says. “On the form.”

He wraps his arms under Beomgyu’s shoulders and finally lets his full weight compress Beomgyu into the mattress, guiding his legs out to either side of him.

“Legs around my back,” he murmurs, and Beomgyu crosses his limp ankles around Soobin’s hips. He coughs, his chest caving in. 

Soobin is enveloping him, squeezing him tight, and Beomgyu is totally stifled. He thinks he wants fresh air, but he isn’t sure, and he can’t escape, anyway. They’re knotted. 

Fuck, this is awkward. 

“Um,” Beomgyu says. Soobin’s face is still tucked into the pillow, but he’s only inches away. There’s no hiding from him this time. There’s no hiding from everything that just spilled out of both of them.

“Tell me if you’re uncomfortable,” Soobin says, an edge of sterility slipping back into his voice. “I can flip us around.”

“Nah, it’s…it’s good like this,” Beomgyu says, faintly. 

“Cool,” Soobin says. His hips twitch, and Beomgyu’s breath hitches as the motion jerks the knot. But Soobin steadies himself immediately, and neither of them says anything. Instead they just breathe together, intertwined and totally silent. 

Oh fuck, this is awkward. Beomgyu closes his eyes and wills himself to fall asleep again. He’s supposed to fall asleep. He’s content and sated and his omega should be ready for a nice, long nap. He’s wrapped up in a cocoon of alpha scent, alpha arms and alpha cock. His body certainly feels like it’s bedtime, all his muscles limp and leaden. But he’s far too alert to fall asleep. 

“If you can’t relax, maybe try to sing,” Soobin murmurs.

“Sing?”

Soobin turns his head, and Beomgyu turns his to match. Their lips are just centimeters away from each other.

“Like you would sing for me,” Soobin says. “Sing for yourself. It might calm you down.”

“I’m calm,” Beomgyu insists. His eyes are fixed on Soobin’s lips, and he feels restless. Something feels like it isn’t enough. That fraction of space between their lips. The silence that they can’t quite fill. Maybe it’s the fucking condom, keeping them separate even as they’re locked together.

“You’re not,” Soobin says. “Sing, Beomgyu-ya. A lullaby, please.” 

Beomgyu closes his eyes and picks a song at random. Something he’d been listening to on the way to Daegu, on his peaceful train ride, not the catastrophic one back home. He doesn’t know the words, but his alpha wants him to sing, so he sings it, filling in the blanks with solfège syllables. 

Soobin doesn’t seem to mind. Beomgyu feels his breathing slowing down, as if this singing was to soothe Soobin, instead of Beomgyu. 

Halfway through, Beomgyu feels his grip give out on the back of Soobin’s neck, and his arms drift over Soobin’s broad, square shoulders, flopping out to their sides. His voice falters. 

In an instant, one of Soobin’s hands shoots out from under Beomgyu’s shoulders, snaking its way down Beomgyu’s wrist to settle heavily on his hand.

“Keep going,” Soobin commands, lacing their fingers together. 

It’s not fair that it works. Soobin knows him too well. Beomgyu wants to stay alert, but he barely notices when the song runs out. Soobin is stroking his thumb to the rhythm, and it’s easier to drift than to keep singing. Beomgyu feels calmer with every breath, lulled by cinnamon and cloves.

It’s not that he sleeps, it’s that he…stops thinking, stops worrying. He hibernates under Soobin’s warmth. 

“Good boy,” Soobin whispers into his ear, an unknown quantity of time later. “You stay here. I’m pulling out, okay?”

Beomgyu exhales. He tries to clench around the knot, and there’s no knot anymore. At least thirty minutes must have passed, maybe more. That must have been at least a half-hour knot, from the sheer size of it. 

For such a large person, Soobin is feather-light as he pulls out of him. His hands ghost over Beomgyu’s chest, tucking the blanket up to his chin and making sure both his arms are fully covered. 

“I’ll make you something to eat. When you’re ready.” 

Beomgyu’s eyes float open. He watches Soobin peel off the condom, tying it neatly where it flares out at the base and inspecting it for leaks. Part of his protocol, probably. 

“Time?” Beomgyu croaks. He has absolutely no sense of it. For hours now, he’s been in every state but fully lucid — in a fog, in pain, in desperate need, asleep. He knows it was light when Soobin got here, and then dark, and now his vision seems vaguely gray. 

“I don’t know,” Soobin says. “It doesn’t matter.” 

He stands, reaching for his boxers. When he pulls them on, he looks back over his shoulder at Beomgyu, swaddled up in the bed and half-dazed.

“Beomie, eyes closed,” Soobin says, and the world goes dark again. 

As awkward as it was to be trapped underneath Soobin, it’s somehow even more awkward to sit across the table from him, eating a bowl of porridge under his watchful glare. Soobin’s foot is tapping under the table, the only noise in the room, and Beomgyu pulls his bathrobe tighter around his chest as he brings another shaky spoonful to his lips. Considering that it’s a mysterious bowl of instant porridge that materialized from Soobin’s satchel, it tastes pretty decent.

“Sure you don’t want me to help?” Soobin says warily. 

Beomgyu shakes his head for the third time, but his hand trembles, some of the porridge slipping off the spoon. Soobin’s foot stops jittering.

“I mean it,” Beomgyu says, trying to sound forceful. “Stop…stop watching me. I’m fine.”

He is feeling fine, actually. Pretty much fine. He slept for long enough that it’s fully bright out, and resting helped burn off his fever. Plus, Soobin made him drink some purple electrolyte beverage that tasted like garbage but did give him the promised energy boost. His brain feels woozy, but his slick production has tapered off, for now. Really, all he wants right now is to nest.

Beomgyu doesn’t even remember the last time he felt a nesting urge. His suppressant shots cut off all those omega instincts, and he certainly didn’t feel any of them in the lead up to this heat, or else he’d have figured it out long before that train ride back from Daegu. Now, though, it feels like all his missing urges are catching up with him, and he longs to burrow into a soft, warm pile of Soobin’s old university hoodies. Soobin used to set aside all his worn clothes for the week before Beomgyu’s heat, any shirt and sweaters and sweatpants that weren’t too gross, so that when the need started, Beomgyu would have a nice pile to burrow into.

There’s nothing good to nest with in this apartment. Everything smells like omega. The only thing that smells right is Soobin himself, and now Beomgyu wishes he was sitting in his lap, tucked into his arms. Maybe that would scratch the nesting itch.

Soobin is still staring at him, and Beomgyu wonders if he should just ask. Soobin would say yes.

“Could you just go away?” Beomgyu says instead. “Just give me a bit of space.” 

For a moment, Soobin doesn’t move, and Beomgyu thinks he’s going to scold him. He shouldn’t be fighting his omega instincts. If his omega wants more alpha, he should give him more alpha. But then Soobin stands up, his chair squeaking on the floor as he slides it back. 

“Make sure you finish eating,” he says, wandering pointedly towards the corner of the room that serves as Beomgyu’s little living room. He stations himself at the narrow bookcase with his back turned and busies himself with reading the book titles, the only real way to give Beomgyu any privacy in this tiny apartment.

“Thanks,” Beomgyu mumbles, and tries to focus on eating. It’s hard to do so when Soobin is only in his boxers, and now Beomgyu’s just staring at his ass, the shape of it barely visible through the striped fabric. 

“Eat, Beomgyu,” Soobin commands with his back still turned, and Beomgyu is glad he can’t see him blush. 

He eats with as much gusto as he can, willing his lazy muscles to work faster. If he finishes faster, he can hide in his pillows again, and maybe not have to interact with Soobin again until the next wave of arousal hits him. And then it will surely be the twenty-four hour mark, and Soobin will leave. There’s no way Beomgyu is re-upping for another day, even though he knows he has at least another twelve hours left on the worst of his heat. 

Just as Beomgyu’s spoon scrapes the bottom of the porridge bowl, Soobin speaks again. 

“You still have this,” he observes. 

“What?” 

“This.” Soobin bends to lift something tucked into the narrow space between the bookcase and the loveseat. It’s a laptop case, a red-and-blue canvas sleeve with a leather zipper pull. Nothing special, except...

“Oh. Yeah,” Beomgyu says, heat flaring in his chest. He drops his spoon. “Sorry.”

“Why sorry?”

“You can have it back, if you want.”

“Nah. I mean, I bought a new case, obviously,” Soobin says, fingering the pull. “Don’t really need it back.”

“Um. I probably should have thrown it out,” Beomgyu says. “I just figured…you left it behind when you left, and the one I had was shittier. Might as well upgrade.” 

Soobin lets out a quiet scoff, shaking his head. He bends to put the case back. 

“What was that?” Beomgyu asks. 

“Nothing.”

“No, what was that for?” 

Soobin looks up at the ceiling for a moment, exhaling. 

“You mean when you kicked me out,” he says. “But semantics, right?”

“Are you…are you serious?”

Beomgyu’s fingers fly together, twisting into a knot. He didn’t kick Soobin out. That’s a joke.

“Uh, yeah,” Soobin says to the bookcase. “I left the case by accident, because I had to get all my shit out in a rush, because you wanted me gone. So, like, you can keep it, but it’s a little—”

Beomgyu hears him like he’s underwater. The words are all distorted.

“You’re not fucking serious,” Beomgyu says. “You’re not…” 

He starts to rise out of his chair, panic bubbling inside him. What the fuck? 

“Look, let’s not start this,” Soobin says, back still turned. “Did you finish—”

“Too late,” Beomgyu says. “You’re not telling me you left…because I told you to? You’re not saying that.”

“Get the fuck out,” Soobin says, imitating a high voice that sounds nothing like Beomgyu. He turns around, finally, and his face is flushed around the jaw. “You told me to leave, Gyu-ya.”

“I didn’t mean for good! We were—we were fighting, I just wanted—”

“You wanted me out,” Soobin repeats.

“But you’re the one who didn’t come back! You’re the one who made the choice!”  

Beomgyu presses his fists into the table to support his wobbly legs. He feels like the world is crumbling around him, like all the careful walls he’s built to protect himself are collapsing at the foundations. 

It had been a bad fight, sure. Beomgyu remembers saying those words — get the fuck out, hyung. I can’t do this anymore. But who hears those words, and just leaves? Who hears them and gives up on three years of love, all because of a dumb fight about…god, what had it even been about? 

Beomgyu knows he remembers, and that he’s stewed about it hundreds of times before, sitting in that hurt and wondering why Soobin cared so much about whatever it was that it made him leave. His brain can’t put the details together right now, though. It’s only been working half-time for a full day, and now his body is in revolt too, struggling to process every terrible, reality-shattering word that Soobin is saying.

Soobin narrows his eyes into slits.

“That’s bullshit,” he says, in a quiet voice. “You made it very clear you didn’t want me back, Beomgyu.”

“How?”

“Fucking blocking me, for one. On every type of social media.” Soobin lifts his hand and ticks down a finger. “Hiding from me. Not coming back to the apartment the whole next day, when I tried to find you. I even called your mother, and she said if you didn’t want to see me, I shouldn’t follow you.” He puts another finger down. “And then Kai. Telling Kai to tell me you were through with me, when I saw him. How else was I supposed to take that?” 

One of Beomgyu’s legs gives out, and he staggers against the table. 

“I didn’t tell Kai that,” he says faintly. He’s sure he didn’t. He wouldn’t have done that.

“I met up with him the week after, and he told me to give it up,” Soobin says, crossing his arms. “So I did. What other choice did you leave me?”

No. Beomgyu can’t listen to this anymore. He lets his elbows buckle, sending himself careening back into his chair, and blinks at his lap. Breathe. He knows he’s supposed to breathe when he feels the panic starting, his therapist told him to, but he isn’t sure how. He’s about to hyperventilate in a way he hasn’t in months, and his fucking heat is only making this worse. He’s shivering again, like a cold, clammy hand is gripping him around the neck. 

Beomgyu thinks Soobin might be saying anything, but his ears are filled with white noise. He’s not equipped to handle how upside down this all is, how backwards it is from what he knows to be the reality. Beomgyu didn’t do this to them. Soobin is the one that broke up with him and ruined their whole life together, the future that Beomgyu had longed for. This feels like a sick, terrible joke. 

“Oh, fuck,” Soobin’s voice says. “Okay, Beomie. Breathe.”

Beomgyu wants to speak again, but he can’t figure out what to say next. You— you’re the— I never—

“This was a mistake.” Soobin crouches next to him, resting a heavy hand on Beomgyu’s shoulder, trying to steady him. “I never should have said anything. Not during your heat. Let’s forget it, Gyu-ya, just try and relax, okay?”

“You have— no idea,” Beomgyu shudders out. Fuck, he’s going to cry. “No idea what it was like—”

“Do you need me to hold you? Will that help?”

“Can’t do this to me,” Beomgyu sniffs. Soobin’s other hand finds its way into Beomgyu’s lap, and Beomgyu grips it like a lifeline, his little fingers clinging onto Soobin’s thick ones. The hand on his shoulder feels like an anchor. “Can’t do this to me.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Soobin says, anguished.

“Why did—why did you, in the first place, you left, why did you leave in the first place—even if you…”

“Gyu-ya, really, let’s just drop it, let me carry you to—”

“Why did you leave?” Beomgyu chokes out, scrunching up his eyes. “You left, I said it but you’re the one who left, and, I don’t know why you were even mad at…”

“You don’t remember?” Soobin says. “Beomie, I was so frustrated. I was just trying to help you, and you were being so…so cruel to me about it. You don’t remember?” 

Beomgyu tries to make sense of that. Cruel?

“Forget it,” Soobin says. He slides the hand on Beomgyu’s shoulder around to hook under his armpit, starting to lift him. “Really, this was a bad idea. You’re not in a state to talk about—”

“Help you,” Beomgyu echoes, trying to place those words. “You wanted to help me.”

“Yeah.” Soobin hesitates, and Beomgyu hangs from his hand, still half-seated. “Which is what I should be doing now, so let’s get you over to the bed, okay?”

“I remember,” Beomgyu says faintly. The pieces are all coming back together, and of course he remembers. He’s spent hours remembering, trying to rationalize why it all went wrong. “You made me feel so worthless.”

Soobin lets out a frustrated sound. 

“I wasn’t…wasn’t good enough anymore,” Beomgyu says. “You hurt me so much.”

“See, we’re just gonna go in circles if we keep talking about it,” Soobin says, yanking Beomgyu all the way to his feet. “I’m just gonna upset you more. I’m not here to upset you.”

“Hurt for months,” Beomgyu whimpers. He doesn’t want to keep talking and show how weak he is, but he’s losing control. “A year. More.” 

“You know, I’m setting a lot aside to help you right now, and I don’t appreciate that you’re acting like the only one who gets to be hurt about it,” Soobin says angrily. “Alphas aren’t goddamn rocks. I have feelings too, and I’ve been trying to ignore them to help you, and then you go and blame me—”

“You don’t get to hurt,” Beomgyu cries. “Only me. You didn’t want to be with me anymore.”

“What the fuck did I do to you to make you think that?”

Beomgyu doesn’t understand. He’s just sobbing now, held up by Soobin’s strong hands, his face crumpled and collapsing. He can’t see Soobin through his tears.

Soobin waits for an answer. When he doesn’t get one, he pulls Beomgyu into his chest, and Beomgyu sobs into his bare skin.

“I’ve wondered it so many times,” Soobin says, almost to himself. “Why this is what you wanted.”

“You…left,” Beomgyu chokes out, hiccuping. Squeaky, panicked, desperate syllables. “Wanted…to leave.” 

“And you wanted me to stay away.” Soobin says it to Beomgyu’s scalp, pressing the words into his sweaty hair.

Beomgyu is so confused, so overwhelmed. No matter what Soobin is saying, the fact is that Soobin left. He’s the one that opened that door and walked through it. Beomgyu never would have done it. He didn’t want it.

His breath is catching in his throat, coming out in stutters. He wants to tell Soobin how wrong he is, how terrible he was, make him feel all the hurt that Beomgyu remembers so viscerally, but all he can do is tremble and choke on his saliva.

“Don’t leave,” he whimpers. “Please…”

“Gyu-ya, your heart’s going crazy,” Soobin says, pressing a hand around the back of his neck to feel his pulse. “I fucked this up. Whatever…whatever happened back then, we don’t need to talk about it. I’m supposed to be helping, not hurting.” 

“‘M…nng, hyung, I don’t—don’t leave, you—”

“And up,” Soobin says, and suddenly Beomgyu is horizontal, lifted up in Soobin’s arms, bridal-style. “This is getting us nowhere. I’m not leaving, Beomie. Let’s not make this miserable.”

“T-too late…” Beomgyu hiccups, breaking up his syllables. 

“Breathe,” Soobin says, walking him over to the bed. “Here. Please, let’s drop all this and get through this together, okay?”

He lowers Beomgyu to the mattress, and Beomgyu can’t help his instincts. He reaches for him, grabbing at his shoulders, trying to pull him closer. Alpha will calm him. It doesn’t matter that alpha is the problem. Alpha is the solution, too. 

Fuck, he’s so weak during heat. Beomgyu feels like he’s going to vomit. He barely holds in a retch, turning it into a sob instead.

“Beomgyu-ya,” Soobin says softly. He lays down beside him, taking Beomgyu’s hand in his own. Beomgyu’s vision is too teary to make out his expression. “Let’s just…let’s just let this be a bubble, for a few more hours. A little bubble of good things, and I can help you with your pain, and we don’t have to hurt each other.”

“You don’t want that,” Beomgyu breathes. 

“Yes, I do,” Soobin says, and Beomgyu sniffs deeply. “I want to enjoy this, if you can too. Yeah?”

Beomgyu doesn’t answer. 

Soobin fumbles for the blanket again, tucking it up around them. He reaches a hand inside the front of Beomgyu’s bathrobe and strokes his bare chest, caressing his flat breast almost absent-mindedly. Beomgyu feels a twitch of arousal in his nipple.

“Can I make you feel safe again?” Soobin says quietly. “You did earlier, right? Even though…it’s me?”

Beomgyu nods. He’s felt a lot of things over the past day, but he hasn’t ever felt unsafe. Kai was right about that, in his text.

“Tell me something you liked about today,” Soobin says. “Something that made you happy. Good things.”

Beomgyu’s brain latches onto the task. Soobin strokes over his sensitive skin, flooding his body with calming and gentle sensations, and that wildfire of panic is dying down inside him. He can pull himself together enough to answer a simple question. Something that he liked about today, before everything went to shit. 

“Um, you…you got hotter,” Beomgyu says, and scrunches up his nose. Mortifying.

But Soobin just laughs, a giddy cackle.

“You like my new body?” he asks, and Beomgyu nods. “Glad to put it to good use.”

“Hate these,” Beomgyu murmurs, gesticulating limply in the general direction of Soobin’s abs and letting his hand fall to the bed.

“Yeah, I know,” Soobin says unapologetically. “Sorry they come so easily. Alpha genes.” 

His thumb hesitates over Beomgyu’s hardening nipple. 

“Let me say something about you?” he asks, and keeps talking before Beomgyu can answer. “You still keep magazines in the bathroom. Reading material, right? That made me smile, when I saw that. It’s cute.”

“Supposed to…compliment me,” Beomgyu says, pouting out his lower lip and blinking his eyes rapidly to try to clear his tears. Soobin stamps his thumb down on Beomgyu’s nipple, making him gasp.

“Fine. Bratty,” Soobin says. “You finally grew your hair out. You had talked about it for so long.”

“You like it?” Beomgyu asks.

“Looks great,” Soobin says simply.

Beomgyu squeezes his thighs together under his robe, just in case.

“More, please.”

It’s all a facade, an illusion. But it’s so much easier than living in reality, the one where Soobin came back and told Beomgyu that his nightmare was all his own fault. 

Soobin exhales and scoots his body closer to Beomgyu’s, slithering an arm under his neck.

“Okay. Um, I liked… well, you smile in your sleep,” Soobin says. “It’s so fun to watch you.”

“Creep,” Beomgyu breathes. 

Soobin pinches his nipple. It shoots a yelp out of Beomgyu’s throat, and his cunt clenches. 

“I smell that, you know,” Soobin says, flicking his eyes down towards Beomgyu’s pelvis. 

“I like your voice,” Beomgyu says mindlessly. “Like it so much, hyung. When you talked me to sleep.”

“Yeah. Anything to make you sleep-smile.” 

Beomgyu ducks his head towards Soobin’s body. That word, anything. He used to think he’d do anything to have this again, and now he does. Just a few more hours in this bubble of Soobin being his, even though the wound was just freshly opened. 

“I wanna smell you,” he murmurs. 

“Oh,” Soobin says. “Um…”

He tugs Beomgyu even closer, crooking his elbow around his neck.

“Don’t…don’t actually scent me,” he says, hesitating, but Beomgyu doesn’t have to. Soobin’s scent gland is an inch away, and it’s radiating calmness and relief and anxiety and desire, detectable even without Beomgyu making physical contact. Beomgyu lets each of Soobin’s emotions wash through him, inhaling with his eyes closed. He can feel Soobin’s fingers splay out across his ribs, wrapping around his side and gripping him tight, hanging on. 

“Beomgyu,” Soobin whispers. “It’s okay if I fuck you again, right? When you need it again. You’re okay with that?”

“Mhm,” Beomgyu hums.

“Because I’m going to have to. If we keep it up like this. I’m going to have to. Probably one more time before your session ends. And if it’s going to upset you, I don’t want to…”

Worry flares in Soobin’s scent. It almost annoys Beomgyu to smell it. Why does Soobin get to act like the good guy, when he’s done so much damage? 

“Yeah, yeah. Want it.”

“I made you cry, though,” Soobin says, and Beomgyu whines. He doesn’t want to second guess himself, and Soobin is only making it harder. 

“Don’t ruin the bubble,” Beomgyu says. “Take care of me?” 

Soobin’s hand is so warm on Beomgyu’s chest. 

“That’s what I’m here for,” Soobin murmurs.

Fifteen minutes later, Beomgyu is back on his knees, the bathrobe falling down his shoulders and Soobin’s nails digging into his hips. Good? Soobin asks between thrusts, anything hurts, Gyu-ya? It might as well be yesterday, might as well be that first time again. Clinical, efficient, effective. Beomgyu is too afraid to ask for more again, and Soobin wouldn’t give it, anyway. Not after the breakdown that just happened after they crossed the line.

Beomgyu moans into his own drool, face-down on the pillow. He balls his fists into the mattress, and one of his fingertips snags on the torn condom foil. He grips that instead, its jagged edges rough on the lines of his palm, and braces his core for another mind-numbing release.

This is all that he’s paying for. He’s just an omega in need, and Soobin is just the alpha he hired. Their past is over, and it has to stay that way.

It’s weird how time passes during heat. Some of Beomgyu’s favorite heats felt like they lasted forever, like time just ceased to exist entirely. Not sleeping, not eating, not feeling anything but Soobin’s skin on his own, his moans underneath him. Those heats felt as if they’d never end, like they’d never have to leave the other’s embrace. 

Other heats passed in a blink, just a flash of squealing and yelping as Soobin chased him around the apartment and tackled him onto the couch. Just falling asleep knotted and waking up a full eight hours later with his cramps calming down and his fever abating. 

Most heats existed somewhere in the middle. Half in pain, half in pleasure, time creeping as Soobin massaged his aching muscles and then flying by as Soobin pounded him into the mattress. Heat wasn’t all good, or all bad. Just part of life with Soobin, always with Soobin. 

Beomgyu had barely even gotten heats before they met. He was late to present, eighteen years old, and as soon as his heats had settled into a regular schedule, his pediatrician put him on the suppressant shots. He didn’t have another heat until he was twenty-one, three months after Soobin had walked him home from dinner with all their university friends and kissed him breathless on the stoop outside his tiny student apartment. 

I know it’s soon, Soobin had said, but I’ve wanted you since first year, Gyu-ya. I want to take care of you. Don’t you trust me? 

It felt good to be so wanted. Beomgyu didn’t need him to ask twice. Three years of sharing his most vulnerable self with Soobin, and he’s never felt so loved since. It envelops him in his dreams, that feeling of Soobin wanting him. What a cruel dream. He hasn’t had it in years, but it’s back with a vengeance. 

Beomgyu is only half awake, and the first thing he notices as he begins to regain consciousness is that he’s hungry again. Completely ravenous. He must be on the downswing of his heat, when his normal body functions start to slowly regain control over his sex drive. If Soobin were here, he would feed him, like he always does. But even in his dreams, Beomgyu knows that he’s been alone for years.

Dreams feel so real during heat. He inhales, and he can almost swear that Soobin’s scent is really present, like he’s is back with him. That can’t be, though. When he cracks his eyes open, he’s in his studio apartment, the one that Soobin has never been a part of. Just him, alone in his bed, with a very uncomfortable dampness between his thighs.

He stretches, smashing his hand into the headboard and cursing. 

The toilet flushes beyond the closed bathroom door. 

“Kai-ya?” Beomgyu croaks. Kai is the only one who he can imagine would be there during his heat. 

The bathroom door opens, and Soobin steps through it. 

“What about Kai?” 

Beomgyu blinks. Soobin, here? Weird dream.

A look of realization washes over Soobin’s face. “Oh. That must have been a deep sleep.”

He steps towards the bed, and Beomgyu just stares at him, mouth gaping. He looks so real. Long, handsome face, weirdly chiseled body. The sun is setting, and harsh orange rays cut across his bare chest, shadows pooling between his collar bones. 

“That’s a good sign,” Soobin says, looming closer. “I think the brain fog would always hit when things were wrapping up, remember?” 

Soobin slides into bed, and Beomgyu realizes that there’s already a warm spot next to him. Soobin isn’t just here. He’s been here.

Maybe this is real, and everything else was a dream. The worst nightmare: Soobin leaving. It’s the only way to explain why Soobin would be here. He never left at all. 

“Hyung?” Beomgyu whispers, almost mouthing it.

“Mhm?” Soobin is tucking Beomgyu back into his rightful place, head to his chest.

“Cuddle.”

Soobin huffs out a breath. “Is this not enough cuddling for you?”

For some reason, it feels like it isn’t. There’s a hollowness inside Beomgyu’s chest that he desperately needs to fill. He splays his hand out over Soobin’s ribs, tracing their familiar lines. 

“Never enough,” Beomgyu says. His usual answer. 

Soobin coughs, bringing one of his own hands to Beomgyu’s and stilling its motion.

“Um, I hope it’s okay that I stayed,” he says. 

“Hm?”

“Technically I should have left two hours ago, but you were asleep, and I…uh, I didn’t want to leave you if you weren’t ready to be alone,” Soobin says. “And I didn’t want to wake you up and ask. So…I stayed, but I can leave, if you’re…”

Beomgyu furrows his brow.

“Leave?” 

“Yeah. If you wanted me to leave I can just not charge you for the last two hours, seeing as I didn’t ask you for an extension, either, so it seems unfair to charge—”

Beomgyu’s heart plummets. It…it wasn’t a nightmare. The head fog is clearing, the confusion is washing away, and…Soobin isn’t his anymore. He’s just here because Beomgyu is paying him.

“Oh my god,” he gasps. A crippling pain shoots through his chest, like years of loneliness are striking him at once. His panic is so visceral every time it strikes. He has Xanax, but even if he could walk himself to his medicine chest, he can’t imagine anything numbing this pain. 

“Beomie?” 

“Oh my god. Hyung, you’re—you’re—”

“Right here,” Soobin fills in, clutching Beomgyu around the waist. Beomgyu can’t see his face, he can’t place his tone, but he’s barely listening. He’s clawing at Soobin’s chest, he needs Soobin to stay here, Soobin is back and he’s about to slip away again and he just wants to leave him again and—

“Beomgyu, baby, breathe,” Soobin urges. “I can stay. Let me stay.”

“You—you want to be with me?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Beomgyu has no idea what that means. Now, or forever? He just wants this nightmare to end. Please. He tilts his head up on Soobin’s chest, drilling his chin into Soobin’s sternum as if he could nail it to his bed and keep him here forever, and Soobin’s free hand flies to Beomgyu’s cheek, thumbing over his cheekbone. His face looks pained. 

“You…you know what’s going on right now, right?” Soobin asks, and something in Beomgyu’s eyes must tell him what went wrong. “Gyu-ya, fuck. Maybe it’s best if I do leave—”

“God, no,” Beomgyu chokes out. “I just want—just want you to—”

His chin is quivering. It’s sinking in, the panic fading to a numb resignation, and he hasn’t felt grief this fresh in years. Like he’s losing him all over again.

“Want me to?”

“Be…be here. Be with me. Mine.” 

He says it so mindlessly, his thoughts driven only by his need. The desperation of heat, the need for togetherness, the way his rational thoughts are muted and his body is driven only by raw emotion. 

“Shit,” Soobin curses, gliding his other hand up to Beomgyu’s neck, burrowing in his fingertips.

“Pl-please…can’t be…alone.”

“I’m here, angel,” Soobin says.

A terrible, weak whimper rips out of Beomgyu’s throat. Soobin’s eyes go wide. 

Angel. Two years since he’s heard it. Time rewinds in an instant, like it never passed at all. Beomgyu can’t breathe.

“Fuck,” Soobin whispers. 

“S…Soobin,” Beomgyu whimpers.

He barely has time to process the hunger that washes over Soobin’s face before Soobin hauls him up by the neck and kisses him. He’s rough, yanking him into place and prying Beomgyu’s lips open, and Beomgyu goes pliant on top of him, his shock melting instantly into aching desire. 

Their lips slot together, the perfect fit. Soobin plunges into his mouth, licking a hot stripe across Beomgyu’s teeth, and he tastes like apple cider, like warm, cozy comfort. Beomgyu claws at his cheeks, digging his thumbs into his dimples, pressing his lips heavily into Soobin’s full ones. They’ve barely been out of contact for the last twenty-four hours, but it might as well be the first time they’re touching for how badly Beomgyu needs to feel him. 

This is such well-worn territory, yet the newness of it is startling. Soobin kisses him like he’s conquering his body, painting the inside of Beomgyu’s mouth with his own spit, drowning out Beomgyu’s peach taste with his cinnamon. Beomgyu doesn’t remember if he ever kissed him with such urgency, but he hardly wants to think about their past anymore. Just wants to live here, in this moment, with Soobin’s hands all over the nape of his neck, their tongues tumbling together. 

His lips glide across Beomgyu’s, over to the corner of his mouth, then down his cheek, kissing everywhere. Down his chin, across his jaw, hot and wet and lingering, like each kiss could tattoo his skin. 

“Mine, mine,” he murmurs. “All for me.”

Every noise Beomgyu makes comes out as a whine. Mmm, he breathes, shuddering deeper into Soobin’s arms. Soobin’s kisses drop lower, lips trailing down the side of Beomgyu’s neck now. “Oh, hyung. Oh, please do, please—”

“Here?” Soobin growls. He bites down on the corner of Beomgyu’s inhibitor patch, ripping it from his skin and spitting it off into the bedding. Beomgyu cries out at the sharp pain of the adhesive tearing off of him, but then Soobin rolls the tender, thin skin covering Beomgyu’s scent gland through his lips, and the sweet aroma of peaches explodes into the room. 

“Oh my god,” Beomgyu squeals. The room is spinning. A rush of pheromones floods through Beomgyu’s body, pooling in his cunt. He grinds down on something, anything, wiggling his pelvis against Soobin’s thigh below him, and Soobin loves it. Even if Beomgyu couldn’t feel the swell of his erection against his stomach, he can smell his satisfaction. 

Soobin scrapes his sharp canines over Beomgyu’s scent gland. His fingers clench up on Beomgyu’s neck, like he’s barely holding back. 

“Would you let me?” 

Beomgyu’s head lolls on his spine. Oh fuck, fuck. 

“I could have you forever,” Soobin hisses to Beomgyu’s skin. “Just one bite, and you’re mine. Could have you however I wanted, you’d be so…so good for me…”

‘Mating play.’ The final yes on that form. But Soobin didn’t read the form.

Soobin presses his teeth into him again, just the flat fronts of his incisors, and Beomgyu whines for his canines back. He just wants Soobin to bite him, to have him, to want him. He grinds his pelvis down again and honest-to-god almost comes, just from the friction of Soobin’s thigh on his clit. 

“Fuck, feels good?” 

“Have me,” Beomgyu begs, clawing at his chest. 

Soobin grabs his ass, hauling him closer, and Beomgyu settles around his hips. His cunt glides over Soobin’s shaft, wet lips along his hot length, and they both moan. 

“Angel, fuck…”

Beomgyu kisses him this time, and he can’t stop. He’s frantic, grinding his clit on Soobin’s cock, bringing their lips together so forcefully that Soobin’s head slams back into the headboard. He kisses him over and over, first his top lip and then his bottom. Soobin’s hands tug at Beomgyu’s ass cheeks, pulling them wide apart, and he works one fingertip all the way down to Beomgyu’s opening. 

Beomgyu gasps, and Soobin clutches his other arm around his waist desperately. Beomgyu can feel his heartbeat pounding against his own chest. 

“Needed this,” Soobin groans, two fingers buried inside him. His voice is tight, almost pained, and Beomgyu just wants him to take whatever he wants from him, to use him for his pleasure. Wants to be his omega. He feels Soobin’s cock twitch under his belly, and his brain snaps onto a new track: please him. 

“Wanna suck you,” Beomgyu whimpers, trying to peel their chests apart, but Soobin shakes his head. 

“No. Let me take care of you.”

Beomgyu is salivating. He won’t take no for an answer. “Wanna taste,” he says. “Miss your taste, hyung.”

“Yeah? You still think about it?”

Beomgyu darts his tongue out of his mouth hungrily, and that’s enough of an answer for Soobin. “Fuck, angel,” he swears, furrowing his thick brows. “What do you…do you think about?”

“Swallowing you,” Beomgyu whispers. He has, so many times. The satisfaction of those first bitter drops hitting the back of his throat.

Soobin’s face seizes up. He works his fingers out of Beomgyu’s cunt, sliding them between their bellies instead to stroke over the tip of his cock, and in a moment he’s pressing two fingers roughly through Beomgyu’s lips. Beomgyu can taste both of them on his fingertips, Soobin’s salty precum and the tang of Beomgyu’s slick. 

Beomgyu closes his eyes and sucks. Soobin’s skin is rough, but his motion is gentle, the pads of his fingers pressing softly into the flat of Beomgyu’s tongue.

“Prettiest like this,” Soobin murmurs. Wish you could always have something in your mouth, he used to say. 

With his eyes closed, Beomgyu could probably convince himself that nothing has changed, if he wanted to. That they’re still back then. But there are just enough clues to prove to him that no, everything has changed. Soobin’s chest is too firm under his own for nothing to have changed. He can feel his own long hair tickling the back of his neck, longer than it ever was when Soobin was his boyfriend. And — “I should get a condom, right?” Soobin whispers, tentatively. That’s changed.

Everything has changed, but not what they really want from each other. Beomgyu’s wanted it the whole heat, and he’s not heatsick anymore. Maybe, now, he can finally have it.

“No,” Beomgyu pleads around Soobin’s fingers, his eyes flying open. “No.”

“No?” Soobin’s face softens in surprise. He lowers his hand, grazing his wet fingertips over Beomgyu’s lower lip. “You don’t want to—”

Beomgyu fumbles for Soobin’s erection, sliding his little hand along its length. He tries to clamber over it on his knees, his mind singly fixed on his goal, and Soobin curses.

“Shit, I’m not supposed to— fuck, you want me raw?” 

Beomgyu lunges for his lips again, straddling Soobin’s hips. Needs him raw.

“God, I’m— Gyu-ya.” Soobin grabs Beomgyu’s face, pulling it an inch away and holding it there in his strong hands. The head of his cock is twitching in Beomgyu’s palm, just an inch from his cunt. “You’re in heat, Beomie, you’re not thinking—”

It’s not about the heat. Beomgyu forgot about his heat.

“I want this,” Beomgyu begs. “Hyung, I want this. Don’t you want this?” 

Soobin groans, agonized.

“I need this,” Beomgyu whispers, and Soobin pulls his head in for another kiss, just a quick one.

“Beomgyu, I…” 

Beomgyu knows he’s won. Soobin wants it as badly as he does, and he won’t deny his omega. Beomgyu watches Soobin’s Adam’s apple twitch as he swallows hard, his eyes flicking down to his cock in Beomgyu’s hand.

“I’m…I’m clean. I promise,” Soobin mutters, cheeks pinking. 

Beomgyu hadn’t thought about that for a second, to be honest. His face must show it, because one of Soobin’s dimples quivers into his blushing cheek.

“God, no self-preservation at all,” he says, barely smirking.  

“Hyung,” Beomgyu complains, and Soobin lets go of his face, dropping his hands to loosely cup Beomgyu’s waist. Beomgyu is finally free to take what he wants, and all he wants is Soobin, so badly. 

“All yours, angel,” Soobin breathes. 

Beomgyu sinks down on him without another word, skin on skin, flinging his head back and letting gravity do the work. 

Soobin lets out a long, low, wounded sound as Beomgyu takes him to the root, every inch of him. The slide feels smoother without the latex between them, and Soobin’s shape is carved into him by now. He goes in so easily. It feels so right. Beomgyu’s jaw falls open. 

“Oh, Beomgyu,” Soobin moans. He heaves one heavy thrust upwards, sinking in even deeper. Beomgyu arches back to fit him instinctively, flinging his hands back to rest on Soobin’s thighs. His knees are trembling into the mattress, a flash of warmth rushing through his neck that he doesn’t think has anything to do with his heat cycle.

Beomgyu moves like he’s in a dream, even though this is achingly real. His hips grind down, well practiced, and Soobin’s hands race over his chest, gripping him higher and higher on the ribs until they’re practically in his underarms. They’re huge around his narrow ribcage, making him feel so safe. 

It’s different to be on top, riding him, giving him pleasure. Soobin never used to be able to control himself during sex, and this time is no different. His nails are harsh on Beomgyu’s skin, his breath is coming out like gasps, his hips slam up heavily up to meet Beomgyu’s. Soobin sinks in everywhere. Beomgyu’s ears, his cunt, his hands around Soobin’s thighs, even the lingering taste in his mouth — Soobin, Soobin. 

“Here, come here,” Soobin begs, and Beomgyu collapses onto his chest. He barely gets a glimpse of Soobin’s flushed, anguished face before he falls into the pillow next to him, the world going dark. 

“There, god, just like…oh my god.” Beomgyu’s words are muffled in the pillow, but Soobin knows what he means, that the angle is just right like this for Beomgyu to grind his clit down on him. He clutches Beomgyu’s body, so small on his chest, one hand gripping his ass and the other snaking up the nape of his neck. He’s murmuring something, a kind of desperate, throaty hushing sound. 

He smells ecstatic. This is what sex should smell like, to Beomgyu. Like Soobin, overwhelmed with pleasure.

“Pretty baby,” Soobin mumbles. His face is all over Beomgyu’s neck now, and he nips him again, right where his neck meets his collar bone. And again, under his scent gland, Beomgyu writhing tight in his arms. He lets go of Beomgyu’s ass just long enough to bring his hand back down, hard. It’s a quick, harsh slap, an outburst from his need to press his shape into Beomgyu’s flesh. “Beomgyu, baby.”

Beomgyu feels his handprint on his ass as if it’s red-hot.

“‘M pretty?”

“Beautiful, beau—fuck, so beautiful.” 

Bite me, bite me, Beomgyu thinks, wildly. All Soobin does is nip him again, but it’s so close to what he wants. He feels Soobin’s legs sliding up on the bed, planting his feet so that he can thrust into him harder, and Beomgyu wants that, too. 

Something about this sex feels…unafraid, like Soobin is himself again, like Beomgyu can give him everything and hold nothing back. Soobin babbles, on and on, incessant nonsense against Beomgyu’s skin, throaty groans getting headier and headier. His teeth and lips and tongue are all over Beomgyu’s neck, his fingers drilling into Beomgyu’s skin, and Beomgyu combs his own fingers through Soobin’s hair, one hand bracing himself against the headboard so he can grind down harder, take Soobin deeper. Made for me, fucking take me, Soobin can’t hold his thirst in anymore, and Beomgyu is fading, his willpower eroding. He jerks his hips at a new angle, a final, desperate motion before goes totally boneless on Soobin’s body, and Soobin inhales as if he’s in pain.

“So close, beautiful,” Soobin pants, and noses into Beomgyu’s scent gland, dead on. 

Why is it this that pushes him over the edge? No one’s scented him in years. The pillow swallows up Beomgyu’s wail, and perfect, golden numbness washes up his body. He wants to say his name, Soobin, Soobin hyung I’m coming I’m coming, but the words don’t make it out of his mouth.

Soobin is groaning below him, fuuuck. He wraps his lips around Beomgyu’s scent gland and sucks, drinking him in. Oh, fuck, he’s knotting, and Beomgyu just manages to relax his muscles, to make room for the bulge between his still-convulsing thighs. 

“Hyung,” he chokes. 

Soobin tears his lips away. 

“Angel,” he whimpers. “I—I—”

Beomgyu kisses him. He can’t stand to hear him say anything when he’s knotting, anything other than what he always said, but he can’t stand to hear him say that, either. 

All of a sudden, he finds himself on his back, with Soobin’s heavy weight compressing him. Soobin had rolled them over in half a second. His knot is somehow, incomprehensibly, still inflating, and now his tongue is deep in Beomgyu’s mouth. They’re so entwined that their skin is stuck together with their sweat, sharp pains when Beomgyu tries to peel his leg off Soobin’s hip. 

Soobin only stops kissing him to dive back down to his neck. “Fucking beautiful,” he whispers, “full of me, like you should be,” and Beomgyu moans back yes, yes, yes. Soobin thrusts the knot deeper inside Beomgyu’s cunt, and Beomgyu can feel exactly how full he is, how his load is barely escaping around Beomgyu’s entrance, dripping onto the bedding. He thrusts his head back to give Soobin better access, and Soobin nips at the soft spot below his chin, where Beomgyu is most vulnerable. 

They had this down to a science, back then, and apparently, old habits die hard. 

“Thank you,” Soobin whispers. “I needed to stay.”

Beomgyu just nods, limp on the bed.

“Couldn’t leave…couldn’t leave you,” Soobin breathes into Beomgyu’s neck, and then he sniffs, and Beomgyu knows he’s crying. 

Maybe Beomgyu’s the one that cried first, actually. All he knows is a moment later, when Soobin kisses him again, his own cheeks are damp too. 

The knot lingers, and lingers, and still Soobin is kissing Beomgyu. He feels like he’s floating. His lips ache, his tongue tires, but Soobin won’t leave his mouth, and Beomgyu keeps him there with his hands as tight as they can be in his short hair. The tears fade, wiped away by Soobin’s thumbs, and Soobin only pulls away to kiss him elsewhere. His chin, his nose, his eyelashes. 

He kisses Beomgyu’s ear, and Beomgyu seizes the moment. He noses into Soobin’s scent gland, too. 

Fuck, Beomgyu will smell like him for days. His scent is a downpour. 

“So good,” Soobin murmurs. “Baby, you’re so soft.” 

Beomgyu just presses in harder. He knows he’ll regret this, but he won’t let himself think right now. No consequences yet. No need to process what just happened. He’s still technically in heat, and that can be his excuse for the enormity of the mistake he just made.

Soobin doesn’t roll off of him as the knot fades. He props himself up on his elbows, digging them in on either side of Beomgyu’s head, and stares down at him, his brows creasing. His pretty cheeks are still a bit damp, and the redness under his dark eyes make them look enormous. 

“Hey,” he says softly. 

His cock is soft enough that it slides out of Beomgyu as he repositions himself, and Beomgyu feels a hot trickle of cum leaking out of him and down his perineum. It would be gross if it wasn’t so satisfying. 

“We don’t have to talk about it.”

Beomgyu blinks up at him. God, Soobin is so beautiful. So beautiful, and so close to him. It’s hard to clear his mind when Soobin is inches away, pensive and tear-streaked. 

“What is there to say?” Beomgyu asks. 

“I don’t know,” Soobin says. 

He falls quiet, and Beomgyu gazes up at him. He’s trapped, but he doesn’t want to move anymore.

“Just…thanks for that, I guess.” Soobin drops his own gaze to Beomgyu’s throat. It must be purple all over. 

Why thanks? Did you…did you want that? Did you miss that, like I did? Beomgyu doesn’t ask any of his questions. 

“Thank you, too,” Beomgyu says softly, and his lip quivers. 

He doesn’t really know what emotion is spilling out of him. Sorrow, at the loneliness that he knows is ahead. The pain of nostalgia, that wound that never heals. A hint of something beautiful, that they were able to do this, one more time. Beomgyu doesn’t know when he’ll have it again, when he’ll find someone who makes him feel the way Soobin does. Did. 

Soobin kisses his teary cheek. 

“I think you were always too good for me,” he says. 

Beomgyu scrunches his eyes up, but no more tears fall. The statement is so final, and something in him can’t bring himself to be sad about it anymore.

They broke up for a reason. No matter how good this felt, there was a reason. And Beomgyu remembers it now, clear as day, the more his heat fades away. 

Months of little comments, Beomgyu, are you happy like this? Beomgyu, don’t you want to be more? Soobin thriving at his perfect job, his life coming together while Beomgyu’s stayed stuck in the mud. Beomgyu watching from the sidelines as Soobin grew into someone who needed more, more than just a homebody of an omega with a dead-end job and no ambition. 

He remembers the paranoia that ate away at his confidence every time Soobin came home late from a work function, smelling like liquor and high on his blossoming future. The pit in Beomgyu’s stomach growing heavier and heavier each time he realized that maybe, they just didn’t fit anymore. And Soobin dismissing all of it, of course I want you, Beomgyu-ya. But it wouldn’t kill you to grow up a little, you know? Have you thought about grad school?

There were a lot of reasons. Soobin didn’t just leave. Somewhere inside him, Beomgyu wanted him to. He must have wanted him to. 

He thinks Soobin can feel it too. That this was the last hurrah, and it’s over. 

“I loved you so much,” Beomgyu says. 

Soobin rests his forehead on Beomgyu’s. 

“I loved you too, angel. I…”

Beomgyu kisses him. He’s afraid to hear anything more. There were so many reasons, he tells himself, but a little flame is flickering to life deep in his chest. 

Soobin’s voice sits heavily in his ears. You were always too good for me. I loved you too, angel. 

Soobin stays for another half hour, holding him, stroking his hair and his neck and his lips.

“Your fever’s gone,” he says, finally straightening up to mop up between Beomgyu’s legs with a comically large wad of tissues.

“Would you leave if it wasn’t?”

Soobin smiles. 

“Absolutely not,” he says. “Taking care of you, remember?” 

“You did good,” Beomgyu says, and smiles back.

Soobin’s smile falters, and his motion halts. But just as quickly as he stopped, he starts back up again, giving Beomgyu’s inner thigh a final wipe and hauling himself off towards the bathroom. Beomgyu stays in bed as he reassembles himself, watching him wipe his body down with a damp washcloth through the open bathroom door. 

“How’d you pick Apollo, by the way?” Beomgyu asks, as Soobin pulls his pants back on. 

“I can’t believe it took you this long to give me shit about that,” Soobin says. “They gave me two options: Apollo or Adonis.”

Beomgyu snorts, and Soobin grins sheepishly. “Yeah. Wasn’t a hard choice.” 

It’s almost completely dark out, and Soobin switches on the side lamp next to Beomgyu’s bed, the first light they’ve had on all heat. Beomgyu’s apartment is painfully ordinary in the incandescent light, haphazardly assembled from secondhand furniture and lacking all the warm little touches that their shared one used to have. He never got around to hanging up his photographs in this one. 

“I’ll leave you some tea, okay?” Soobin says, turning back to his satchel, stacking up the forms scattered around the table. “Your heat’s not really over, you know.”

“I know,” Beomgyu complains. “Fuck, it’s my own heat, hyung. I know how it works.”

“Anyone you can call if you feel sick again?”

He shoots Beomgyu a look over his shoulder, and Beomgyu nods.

“Who? Kai?”

Beomgyu nods again.

“Let me call him,” Soobin says. “He can come be with you, in case you get sick in the next few hours.”

“No need,” Beomgyu mumbles. “I can take care of myself.” He’s absolutely going to call Kai the instant Soobin leaves, but for some reason, he doesn’t need Soobin to know that. He’d rather Soobin think he was extremely chill about this, that he isn’t about to pour all the details of what just happened out to his best friend and possibly have another good cry about it. 

“Sure thing,” Soobin says, though his voice sounds dubious. “You could…um, you could call me back here, if you need me later. I don’t have anything scheduled for a few days.”

“Yeah, sure,” Beomgyu says. He doesn’t have Soobin’s number anymore. He blocked and deleted it years ago.

This might be the last time I see you, Beomgyu thinks, watching Soobin put on his shoes. If it is, he thinks he’ll be okay. All things considered, it could have been much worse. He was safe with Soobin. Soobin…Soobin still cares about him enough to have taken very, very good care of him. And whatever happened at the end there, that last time…whatever happened is over now. It doesn’t have to mean anything. 

Soobin stands. He’s all dressed, his satchel closed up, his shoes on.

“Well,” he says. “So. Um, I guess…I’ll head out.”

“Yep,” Beomgyu says, swallowing. He lets his eyes circle around Soobin’s face one more time. He already has him memorized, but one last look won’t hurt. 

“Be well, Gyu-ya,” Soobin says, shifting from foot to foot. “Get your suppressant shots on time, okay?” 

Beomgyu huffs out a single, dry laugh. 

“Take care, hyung,” he says, trying to sound as normal as possible. He tightens his thighs together under his blanket, just in case. “Um, good luck with the job search.”

Soobin steps to the door, his broad shoulders filling out the doorframe. He opens it, and doesn’t look back. 

Beomgyu listens to his footsteps grow softer down the hallway. The moment he hears the distant ding of the elevator doors opening, he scrambles for his phone, abandoned on the end table. 

He needs Kai, now. He scrolls through his contacts so fast that he overshoots Kai’s number and almost calls his dentist instead, and when he makes the right call, it feels like it rings for an eternity. 

When Kai finally answers, he barely gets through the first syllable of Beomgyu’s name before Beomgyu is blubbering at him.

“Kai-ya, holy shit. Oh my god, oh my god.”

“Hyung, calm down,” Kai’s voice says. “Are you okay? Did he leave?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m—I’m fine. I’m not fine. He literally just left, and…holy shit, Kai-ya.”

“Is that Beomgyu hyung?” 

Taehyun’s voice, more distantly.

“Can you come over?” Beomgyu begs. “I need you, like, now.”

“What happened?” Kai asks, his tone slightly frantic.

“I don’t even know,” Beomgyu says. “But I need to tell you everything. Literally everything.”

“Is he still heatsick? He shouldn’t be alone if he’s symptomatic.”

“Taehyun-ah, shush,” Kai says. “Hyung, calm down. How’s your heat?”

“Eh. Mostly done. But that’s not the—”

“If you’re not still blasting pheromones, I’m coming over too, and I’m making you eat a real meal,” Taehyun interrupts. Kai must have put Beomgyu on speaker, because his voice is a lot louder than it was before. “We have galbi-jjim and I’m bringing it.” 

“Shut up with the heat shit. I’m fine,” Beomgyu complains. “Not the point.”

“What’s the point, then?” 

“He called me angel,” Beomgyu whines.

Silence on the other side.

“Fuck,” Kai says. “We’re coming. Put a fresh patch on for Taehyunnie, okay?”

“What do you think I’m going to do, jump him?” Taehyun’s voice says dismissively. 

“Come now,” Beomgyu says. “No patch needed. The whole place smells like Soobin, anyway.”

“Fuck, fuck,” Kai says, more panicked this time. “Okay, we’ll be there in…”

“Fifteen minutes,” Taehyun cuts in. “I’m calling a cab.” 

Kai cuts right to the chase.

“Tell me everything,” he says, settling in cross-legged on Beomgyu’s bed. “Every single thing. That you remember, at least.”

He’s staring at Beomgyu’s neck, but he doesn’t say anything about the hickeys. At least not yet.

“Taehyun can’t yell at me,” Beomgyu says. “You promise you won’t yell at me, Taehyun-ah?”

“Why would I yell at you?” Taehyun turns the stove on underneath the pot of galbi-jjim to reheat it. He’s already set Beomgyu up with one of Kai’s heating pads, in case his cramps come back, and turned the kettle on to boil for another cup of tea. Truly, Beomgyu doesn’t know what he did to deserve his friends. 

“Because I did a dumb thing. A really dumb thing.”

“Oh, hyung,” Kai breathes. “You didn’t, like…”

He doesn’t finish, so Taehyun does it for him. 

“Tell him you want him back, or something?” he says, no-nonsense. “Because you don’t. Think about how well you’ve been doing, hyung. You don’t need someone who doesn’t want you.”

“No, no, nothing like that. I, like…um, we fucked without a condom,” Beomgyu says in a rush.

Kai squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, and over in the kitchen, Taehyun groans.

“Hyung,” Kai says. “God, please tell me you’re actually taking your birth control.” 

“I’m not that stupid,” Beomgyu says. “Kai-ya…he…he cried. Like, we both cried. And he thanked me.”

“He thanked you?” 

“He…he told me I was too good for him. Oh my god, and…” It’s coming back to him. Kai. Soobin had talked about Kai. 

“And what?” Kai asks, anxiously.

“Did you tell him not to contact me?” Beomgyu says. “After we broke up. Did you see him?” 

Kai blinks, furrowing his brow.

“I…I did,” he says. “You didn’t know that? I thought that’s what you wanted, hyung.”  

Beomgyu flings his hands to his face. The flame in his chest is catching on something, growing stronger.

“Okay, pause,” Taehyun says. “You’re getting ahead of yourself, hyung. I think you need to start from the beginning. From when Kai left. What happened?” 

What happened? Beomgyu doesn’t know anymore. 

“From the beginning,” Beomgyu says, dropping his hands and taking a deep breath.