A CORTIS omegaverse au Masterlist:
Started: 7/5/2026
Last Updated: Ongoing
Total works: Ongoing
Brief Introduction: Class System and Dynamics
Chapter One: Vetting
Chapter Two: The Sweet Shop on Naeja-dong
Chapter Three: Summer Heat
Chapter Four: This one is not the best example.
Chapter 5: That's Red
Chapter 6: That's Green?
Chapter 7: Martin likes to clean at 3am
Chapter 8: Outside, Late at Night
Chapter 9: Morning Coffee
Chapter 10: Purple Rice
Chapter 11: Cold Feet
Chapter 12: Green Plums
Chapter 13: Red Adidas Jacket
Chapter 14: A Nest
Chapter 15: You Smell Like... Kebab
Chapter 16: Come Closer
Chapter 17: The shirt neatly folded at the bathroom counter
Chapter 18: Just tell me where I did wrong
Chapter 19: What Shouldn't Work
Chapter 20: Rush to a spot with no one in sight
Chapter 21: You didn't pay
Dr. Ahn hummed quietly to herself as she scrolled through the tablet in her hands, the soft blue glow of CORTIS's collective data casting faint light across her desk.
The three alphas' numbers sat near the top of the display, trending in a direction she hadn't seen from any of them in months.
Martin's steadily climbing, Keonho's smoothing out into something closer to a normal curve instead of the jagged spikes from weeks prior, even Juhoon's, slowest to move but undeniably shifting upward for the first time since his lowest reading.
That wasn't what currently held her attention, though.
She scrolled further down, to a new entry logged into the group's shared database only recently. Keum, _____. A name that, until a few weeks ago, hadn't existed anywhere in CORTIS' medical files at all.
A few paces away, perched stiffly atop the examination table, sat the boy himself, fidgeting with the cuff of his jacket, well, Juhoon's red jacket to be exact, sleeves bunched where _____ had pushed them up.
"So," Dr. Ahn said, setting the tablet down on her lap and folding her hands over it. "Walk me through it again. Everything, in as much detail as you can manage."
_____ exhaled slowly, gaze fixed somewhere near his own knees. "It started with the scenting," he said.
"The night we built the nest. Keonho noticed first, then Juhoon. I didn't even realize I was doing it until they pointed it out." He paused, fingers twisting slightly in the jacket sleeve.
"Since then, it's — it's been happening more. I feel weak around them sometimes. Keonho, Juhoon, Martin especially. Like something in my chest just gives out a little the closer they get."
He swallowed hard before continuing. "And then, when I left the dorm, there were two people at a street stall. They smelled it on me immediately. Strong enough that they noticed from several feet away, without me doing anything at all."
Dr. Ahn typed steadily through all of it, her expression giving little away until she finally set the tablet down and looked at him directly.
"This is a rare case," she said carefully. "But not unheard of. What you're describing sounds like what's documented, in a handful of case studies, as Triggered Class Activation from Class Proximity." She let the term settle a moment before continuing. "or just 'TAP' for short? I'm not sure what to call it short either... "
"Well back to topic — Some omegas with atypical presentations, like yours, aren't actually biologically absent the way it's usually assumed. They're suppressed. The capacity was always there. It simply never had the right conditions to switch on."
_____ blinked at her, uncomprehending.
"Your body was never broken, _____-ssi," she said, gentler now.
"Just under-stimulated. Consistent, close exposure to compatible alpha scent, which, from what you've told me about your background, you likely never had, growing up isolated the way you were, appears to be waking up biological pathways that had simply been sitting dormant this whole time."
She smiled faintly. "I actually suspected something like this might be possible, the very first time we met. My first real clue was your reaction during that initial introduction, specifically with Keonho."
She tapped the side of her tablet. "Most true betas or fully suppressed omegas don't register any physiological response to an aggressive scent approach like that. You did. Subtly, but it was there."
_____ sat with that for a long moment, memory pulling him backward without his permission.
His mother, at every village gathering, positioning herself just slightly between him and any alpha child who lingered a moment too long.
The quiet, careful way she'd steered him away from group projects that put him near alpha classmates.
He'd always understood it as protection, and it had been. But sitting here now, hearing Dr. Ahn describe exactly the conditions his body had apparently been starved of his entire life, something bitter and complicated rose in his chest alongside the gratitude.
"Your biology needed the bond to actually activate," Dr. Ahn continued. "And it's happening faster than we'd typically expect, because you're not bonding with just one alpha the way the textbook cases usually describe. You're bonding with five people at once. The company built partnerships around single alphas or small pairs for a reason, the intensity compounds. You're getting five times the stimulus a standard case would receive."
_____'s hand drifted slowly to his own chest, pressing lightly there as if he could physically hold something in place.
He'd spent years quietly grieving the idea that he'd never really be a proper omega, never bond the way he was supposed to, never be anyone's true mate, never matter in that particular biological sense the world seemed to prize so highly.
He'd built an entire identity around that grief.
And underneath all of that, stubbornly, some small part of him had never actually stopped wanting it anyway.
The bond. The idea of a mate. The proof that he could be enough for someone, in the specific way his body had always seemed to insist he couldn't be.
Now, sitting in this clinic, being told that everything he'd quietly wanted might actually be possible, he didn't know how to feel at all. Relief and grief tangled together so completely he couldn't separate one from the other.
The quiet was broken by the manager, seated in the corner of the room, who'd stayed silent through most of the medical explanation but finally leaned forward now.
"_____," he said, gently. "About the other day... when you left. I need to ask. Did the boys do something wrong? Something that made you feel like you had to go?"
_____'s face flushed immediately, hands waving in quick denial. "No — no, it wasn't them, none of it was their fault."
He scratched at the back of his neck, gaze dropping. "It was... partly, it was about being confused. About my own identity. Everything I thought I knew about myself, about what kind of omega I was, just... stopped being true, overnight. And I needed space to process that."
He hesitated, throat tightening around the rest of it.
"There's another reason too," he admitted, quieter now, more shaken. "I can't handle the idea of — of loving someone. Or a group of people. In something that's supposed to just be a contract."
His hands twisted tighter in Juhoon's sleeve. "I know it's my job to bond with them. That's literally what I signed up for. But I can't stop myself from actually falling for them. Not just doing the job. Really falling."
He looked down at his own hands, bracing for whatever correction was coming.
Instead, Dr. Ahn and their manager exchanged a glance, and, to _____'s confusion, both of them let out a small, quiet laugh.
"_____-ssi," Dr. Ahn said, setting her tablet aside entirely now. "Did you actually read through the full contract when you signed it?"
_____ blinked. "...Not all of it," he admitted, sheepish. "I mostly just... I agreed because of the payment. I thought it was a job. Like any other job."
Their manager scratched at the back of his neck, a small, wry smile tugging at his mouth. "It is a job, technically," he said. "But there's a clause most candidates don't think to ask about, because most candidates don't expect to need it."
Dr. Ahn picked up the explanation smoothly. "If a group and their Partner develop genuine feelings for one another; if an actual bond forms, beyond the professional arrangement, the contract explicitly allows for that to be recognized. Legally. Even after the contract term ends, or if the Partner chooses to leave the job entirely to simply be with one of the members, or all of them, the agency doesn't stand in the way of that."
_____ stared at her, something in his chest going very still.
Their manager leaned forward slightly, tone careful now. "Do you want to leave?" he asked. Then, more delicately, "I have to ask, are these feelings you're describing directed at just one member? Or—"
_____ shook his head immediately, firm despite the color still high in his cheeks. "No. Not just one. All of them. And I don't want to leave," he said, steadier now. "They need me. I want to be here for them. I'll do whatever I can to make sure I'm doing right by all of them."
Dr. Ahn's expression softened into something genuinely pleased. "Good," she said. "Because it's for the best that you don't."
She rose from her seat and crossed the small distance to him, tone shifting into something more clinical again, though no less gentle.
"There's something else you need to be prepared for," she said, pressing the back of her hand lightly to _____'s forehead.
He startled slightly at the contact, but she held it there a moment longer, nodding to herself. "Elevated temperature. Consistent with what I've been tracking through your data the past few days."
She pulled her hand back and picked her tablet back up, angling the screen so _____ could see. "Combined with the increased scent intensity you've already reported, I believe you're showing early symptoms of an approaching heat."
_____'s breath caught.
"Over the next several days, you should expect this to develop further," Dr. Ahn continued, matter-of-fact but not unkind. "Restlessness. Some mood sensitivity; you may find yourself more emotionally reactive than usual, more easily overwhelmed."
"Physical sensitivity as well, particularly around your scent glands here—" she gestured lightly toward his neck and wrist, "—which will likely feel swollen or tender as they become more active. Your body temperature will likely continue climbing gradually until the cycle actually begins."
She turned the tablet fully toward him. His own face stared back from a small profile photo in the corner of the screen, beside two columns of data steadily updating in real time:
KEUM, _____ — OMEGA — PRESENCE INDEX: 84% STABILITY: MODERATE.
"This will be your first heat cycle that actually behaves the way a heat cycle is supposed to," Dr. Ahn said, voice gentle but direct, giving him no illusions about what was coming.
"Given everything we've just discussed, I'd expect it to be significant. Possibly more intense than most first heats even under normal circumstances."
She set the tablet down and met his eyes fully.
"I want you to be ready for that, _____-ssi," she said. "Because this time, your body isn't going to hold anything back."
In the dream, it was only the two of them, some soft, half-formed version of his own bedroom, warm light spilling in from somewhere without a source.
_____'s shoulder bared beneath his hands, skin warm under his palms as he traced slow, careful lines along it.
The dream didn't rush; it lingered gently until it ended with the soft press of teeth against the curve where _____'s neck met his shoulder, something settling deep in Seonghyeon's chest as he did it.
Mine, the dream whispered, though no one said it out loud.
He woke murmuring _____'s name, voice thick with sleep, caught in that hazy space between dreaming and waking where the edges of the room hadn't fully sharpened yet.
Two voices drifted from just outside the bedroom door.
" ...are you sure this'll work?" One voice, small, nervous, unmistakably _____'s.
"It'll work," came the second, low and steady. James.
Seonghyeon's brows pulled together, still mostly asleep, mind sluggishly trying to piece together what plan the two of them could possibly be whispering about at this hour.
"Go on," James said, quieter now, and then the sound of a gentle push, footsteps shuffling forward.
_____ stepped into the room slowly, clearly intending to wake Seonghyeon carefully, only to find Seonghyeon's eyes already open, already watching him.
_____ flinched hard, dropping immediately to his knees beside the bed. "I'm sorry," he blurted, before Seonghyeon could even sit up properly.
"I'm so sorry, I should have said something before I left, I shouldn't have just disappeared like that—"
From the doorway, James let out a long-suffering sigh, dragging a hand down his face.
_____ kept going, voice tumbling out faster now that it had started. "You didn't do anything wrong. None of you did. It wasn't because of that night. It was — it was something in me, something I needed to work through on my own, and I should have told you that instead of running. Next time, I promise, I'll be more open instead of turning away."
Seonghyeon barely registered a word of it.
His gaze had already caught on what _____ was actually wearing.
Keonho's shorts, comically oversized, barely staying up despite being cinched with a hair tie at the waist.
Martin's sunglasses, perched crookedly on his nose, threatening to slide off entirely with every apologetic bow.
Juhoon's red jacket, sleeves swallowing his hands whole. And beneath it, just visible at the collar...
Seonghyeon's own shirt.
It took him a long moment to process the sight fully, and by the time he did, _____ had finally looked up at him too, vision half obscured by Martin's sunglasses, waiting.
"Seonghyeon?" _____ asked quietly.
Seonghyeon slid off the bed without another word, sinking to the floor across from him, and pulled _____ into his arms before either of them could say anything else.
His face found the curve of _____'s shoulder, breath shaking, though no tears came this time, just relief, raw and unfiltered.
"I forgive you," he murmured against the fabric of his own shirt, muffled and thick. "Just — please. Don't leave like that again. Please."
_____ sat frozen for a second, stunned by the sudden weight of him, before slowly wrapping his own arms around Seonghyeon in return, holding on just as tightly.
Over Seonghyeon's shoulder, _____ caught James's eye near the doorway and mouthed a small, silent thank you.
James only smiled, glancing toward the bed where Martin and Keonho were stirring, both caught somewhere between sleep and confusion, blinking at the sight of Seonghyeon on the floor wrapped around an omega dressed head to toe in their own clothes.
Keonho groaned first, sitting up fully, some of last night's frustration still sitting heavy in his chest.
"You have no idea how worried we were," he started, already climbing off the bed, voice rising with every step toward them.
"You just left, and all we got back was you barely even looking at us, and I get that something happened but you can't just... "
He stopped mid-sentence.
His eyes had landed on the shorts.
His shorts.
His whole face shifted, frustration draining out of it in real time as he took in the sight of _____ wearing them, the too-long hem bunched and tied at his waist.
He nudged Seonghyeon aside without ceremony; Seonghyeon groaning in protest, still not quite ready to let go, and crouched down in front of _____ instead, scanning him head to toe.
_____ flushed under the attention, immediately trying to restart his apology. "I'm sorry, I was being selfish that night, I should have—"
"I can't stay mad at you," Keonho cut in, voice suddenly much softer than a moment ago, "when you look this cute wearing my shorts."
"Let me see," Martin mumbled from the bed, still half-asleep, rubbing at his eyes.
Keonho scooped _____ up without much warning, depositing him gently onto the edge of Martin's bed, still frowning slightly even as the annoyance melted further out of his expression, gesturing at _____ like presenting evidence. "Look at this, look!"
Martin blinked the sleep out of his eyes properly this time, and a slow, helpless smile spread across his face at the sight, his own sunglasses sitting crooked on _____l's nose, his silhouette reflected faintly in the lenses.
His hand drifted up on instinct, aiming for the top of _____'s head, before he caught himself mid-motion and pulled back, the memory of last night's flinch still fresh enough to give him pause.
"You look good," he said instead, quieter, careful.
_____ noticed the retraction immediately, and before Martin could pull his hand any further away, _____ reached out and caught his wrist, fingers locking gently around his.
"I'm sorry," _____ said softly. "For pulling away last night. I didn't mean it the way it probably looked. I like it when you touch me. I just... I couldn't handle it in that moment."
Martin made a low, helpless sound in his throat, arm curling around _____'s waist before he'd fully thought it through, tugging him down onto the mattress and wrapping him up in a tight, unhurried hug.
Keonho's voice rang out again, still carrying a trace of leftover irritation, though it had lost most of its bite by now. "Hyung." He turned toward the doorway, eyes narrowing at James, who still stood there with his arms raised slightly, caught. "Was this your idea?"
James only smiled, unrepentant.
A pillow came flying across the room a second later, Keonho's aim decent even half-awake, and James ducked just in time to avoid catching it full in the face.
But as the pillow hit the floor, another figure appeared in the doorway.
Juhoon stood there wrapped in a blanket, eyes tired and puffy, blinking slowly at the scene in front of him. "...What's happening," he mumbled, voice rough with sleep and something rawer underneath it.
_____'s head turned at the sound of his voice, and Martin loosened his hold immediately, letting _____ slip free to stumble toward the doorway.
He didn't even have to close the distance himself.
Juhoon was already moving, blanket slipping to the floor forgotten, arms reaching out and pulling _____ in before he'd fully crossed the room, hands cradling the back of _____'s head like he needed to hold on to something solid.
He couldn't stop the tears this time. They slipped free freely, silently, his face dropping into the curve of _____'s shoulder, and against the fabric of _____'s borrowed jacket, his own jacket.
Juhoon whispered, quiet and unguarded, the words slipping out before he could stop them.
James let himself back into the dorm well past midnight, the manager's scolding still ringing faintly in his ears,
you cannot just leave like that, not tonight of all nights, do you understand what could have happened
Though none of it had landed the way it probably should have. He'd take the lecture again without complaint, if it meant _____ came home safe either way.
The dorm greeted him in silence.
He checked Martin, Seonghyeon, and Keonho's room first, easing the door open just enough to look in. All three were asleep, Seonghyeon curled close against Martin's side, breathing slow and even, like the older boy had simply talked him down until exhaustion finally won.
James eased the door shut again, something small and grateful loosening in his chest at the sight.
His own room came next. Juhoon lay hunched beneath a tangle of blankets, breath coming shallow and uneven, the aftershock of crying still visible even in sleep. James crossed quietly, straightened the blanket over his shoulder, and left him to rest.
That left one door.
He stood in front of it a long moment, hand hovering just shy of the knob, some old caution keeping him from actually turning it. He told himself it wasn't his place, that _____ had asked for space, and space meant not opening doors uninvited, no matter how much James' own chest ached with the need to just see him, to confirm with his own eyes that _____ really had come home whole.
A sound broke the quiet before he could decide either way, the soft clatter of the refrigerator door, somewhere down the hall.
James followed it into the kitchen, half expecting one of the others, half hoping, without quite admitting it to himself, that it might be _____.
It was.
_____ stood at the open fridge, carefully sliding a familiar plastic jar inside it, the maesil-cheong, still cloudy and pale, weeks away from being ready.
He hadn't heard James approach, and the moment he turned and found him standing there, he froze completely, hand still curled tight around the jar like it was the only steady thing left to hold onto.
Something in James eased at the sight of him. Relief that _____ was here, safe, breathing, standing in their kitchen in the middle of the night instead of somewhere out in the cold city alone.
"Hey," James said softly, careful not to move too fast. "You okay?"
_____ didn't answer right away. Just closed the fridge slowly, gaze dropping to the floor.
🍵ྀི ₊ ⊹᭡.ೃ࿔*:･
They ended up at the small kitchen table a while later, two glasses of freshly steeped iced tea between them, the maesil-cheong now resting untouched in the fridge.
_____ had pulled down two glasses earlier, filling the kettle for tea; something to do with his hands, as he steal glances towards the beta from time to time.
Back in the present, _____ spoke first, voice quiet, eyes fixed on the condensation gathering along his glass.
"Last night wasn't too much because of you," he said slowly. "Any of you. That's not why I left."
James waited.
"It was... " _____ exhaled, hands tightening slightly around the glass. "I scented. Really scented, strong enough for Keonho to notice right away. My whole life, I've been told I couldn't do that. That I was basically a beta wearing an omega's body. I made peace with that a long time ago. Started thinking of it as a good thing, even."
He laughed, small and humorless. "And then last night just... undid all of it."
James listened quietly, something in his chest tightening with recognition he hadn't expected to feel this strongly.
"I understand that more than you'd think," he said, after a moment.
_____ looked up.
James hesitated only briefly before continuing, something in him deciding, finally, that _____ deserved this much honesty in return.
"Before CORTIS, I was in a different group. Trainee A. We had a Partner assigned to us too, four alphas and two omegas in the group, and a Partner who bonded with all of them so easily, so completely, it was like... watching something click into place from every angle except mine."
He turned his glass slowly between his hands, not quite meeting _____'s eyes now. "I was the only beta. I stood there watching everyone else find their place in it, and I never did. Not because anyone was cruel. Just because there wasn't a place built for me to find."
"James... "
"I built my whole idea of myself around that," James continued, quieter now. "Around being the one who doesn't get to have that kind of bond. I told myself it didn't matter, that I didn't need it, and I believed that for years."
He finally looked up, meeting _____'s eyes properly. "So when you say your whole identity got challenged overnight, I get it. Not the exact same shape of it, but the feeling. Not knowing who you are anymore once the thing you built yourself around turns out not to be true."
_____'s eyes had gone glassy, though he didn't cry, just held James's gaze like it was something worth holding onto.
But James noticed the way his hands still trembled slightly around the glass, the way his shoulders hadn't fully released their tension even now.
"There's something else," James said gently. Not a question, exactly. Just an opening.
_____'s breath caught.
"...I'm starting to feel something," he admitted, voice barely above a whisper. "Not just the job. Not just gratitude for being taken in. Real feelings. And I know I shouldn't... this is a contract, I'm not supposed to let it become—" He stopped himself, pressing his lips together like he could physically hold the rest of the confession in.
James went very still.
Something in him recalibrated all at once, every assumption he'd carried since _____ first walked through their door, every quiet worry that this was simply an omega's biology doing what biology did, no different from Keonho scenting on instinct or Juhoon melting at proximity.
But this wasn't instinct. This was _____, choosing, against every reason not to, to feel something real.
"Is it for Seonghyeon?" James asked carefully, voice quieter than he meant for it to come out, some complicated mix of hope and quiet ache tangled together in the question.
_____ shook his head slowly. "For all of you," he said. "That's the part that scares me most."
James let that settle, something warm blooming in his chest despite himself.
"If you weren't here for the job," he asked slowly, "would you still want to be our partner?"
_____'s face crumpled slightly, embarrassment flooding his features. "Yes," he admitted, voice cracking. "I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't feel this way about something that's supposed to just be work, I know it complicates everything, I—"
James reached across the small table and took his hand before the spiral could carry him any further.
"_____." His voice came out softer than he meant it to, softer than he usually let himself speak. "I don't think you understand how much every single one of us wants exactly that. More than the contract ever asked for."
_____ stilled, eyes searching his face.
"If what you're feeling is real," James continued, thumb brushing gently over the back of _____'s hand, "then let it be. Don't apologize for it. We want this too, I think all of us have wanted it since the night we built that nest together, we just didn't know how to say it out loud yet."
He paused, something small and genuine tugging at the corner of his mouth. "I'm glad you feel it too."
_____ stared at him, something helpless and hopeful warring across his face. "But it's supposed to be a job," he said quietly, more to himself than to James. "How do I let myself want something real out of—"
"Don't think of it as a job," James said gently, cutting the spiral off before it could take root again. "Not with us. I can't speak for what happens outside this dorm, or what the contract says on paper. But in here... this can be real. If you let it. I promise you, every one of us wants that."
The space between them had shrunk without either of them quite noticing, James's hand still wrapped around _____'s, their faces drifting closer over the small kitchen table.
James felt something settle in his chest; it was unlike the caution he'd carried for years.
He leaned in slowly, giving _____ every chance to pull away if he wanted to, and when _____ didn't, when his eyes fluttered shut instead, the gesture soft and trusting, James let himself close the last of the distance.
He nudged his nose gently against _____'s cheek first, a small, tender question, and felt _____ lean into it rather than away.
Then, slowly, James pressed the smallest, lingering kiss just at the corner of _____'s mouth.
It was nothing more than that; it wasn't rushed, just the warmth passed between two people who'd both spent far too long believing they didn't get to have this.
Mr. Bae handed _____ off at the front desk with a quiet word to their manager, something about tomorrow, something about Dr. Ahn, something that barely registered past the roaring in _____'s own ears.
Their manager nodded once, thanked him, and turned to guide _____ towards the group's dorm with a hand hovering near his back, not quite touching, just present, the way you'd guide someone who looked like they might startle at contact.
"You'll talk to Dr. Ahn and me tomorrow," their manager said gently, once the door had shut behind them. "Tonight, just rest. Eat something if you can. The group's been worried."
_____ nodded without really absorbing the words, following him down the short hallway toward the door, feet heavy, gaze fixed somewhere near the floor.
The moment he stepped into the room, everything shifted.
Keonho had been pacing for what felt like hours by that point, the same worn path across the living room carpet, and the second _____ silhouette appeared in the doorway he was moving before his own brain had caught up to the decision.
A full step forward, arms already lifting, the same instinctive rush that had carried him across a room once before, nose-first, no hesitation.
But he caught himself halfway.
It wasn't a conscious decision so much as his own body remembering, faster than his heart wanted it to, the flinch _____ had given the very first time Keonho reached for him too fast.
He froze mid-motion, arms dropping back to his sides, watching instead as _____'s shoulders drew inward at the sight of him.
He's scared of me now, Keonho thought, the guilt from the entire evening crashing back down at once. I did this.
"...You're back," he managed instead, voice smaller than anyone in the room had ever heard it.
Their manager's hand came to rest briefly on Keonho's shoulder, a quiet, wordless instruction: give him space, and Keonho stepped back, letting _____ move past him toward the couch without another word.
_____ sat down stiffly, spine straight, hands folded tight in his lap, gaze fixed on some indeterminate point on the floor. He didn't look up. Not at Keonho, not at Martin standing near the kitchen doorway, not at anyone.
Their manager lingered only a moment longer. "I mean it," he said, glancing around at the room at large, voice carrying the particular weight of a warning already given once tonight. "Remember what we talked about earlier. Give him room. I'll see you all tomorrow."
Then he was gone, the front door clicking shut behind him, and the silence that followed sat heavy enough to feel like its own presence in the room.
Martin broke it first.
He crossed the distance slowly, crouching down near the edge of the couch rather than looming over him, though even that careful distance didn't stop the apology from spilling out the moment he opened his mouth.
"_____, I'm sorry," he started, and then, when the words didn't feel like enough, kept going.
"I'm so sorry. If last night was too much... if I made it too much, joining in like that, I shouldn't have. I wasn't thinking about whether you actually wanted—"
He reached out, instinct guiding his hand toward _____'s, and _____ flinched before Martin's fingers even made contact, pulling back so fast that Martin froze entirely, hand hanging useless in the space between them.
"I'm sorry," Martin said again, quieter now, more shaken. "Did it feel like too much? Did I push too far?"
_____'s throat worked silently for a moment before anything came out. "You didn't do anything wrong," he said, voice thin, barely above a whisper. "None of you did. That's not why I left."
"Then why—" Keonho's voice cracked across the room, sharper than he probably meant it to be, frustration and fear tangled together into something that came out harsher than intended. "If it's not because of last night, then why can't you even look at us right now? Why can't you look at me?"
_____'s mouth opened, then closed again. He didn't have an answer that wouldn't unravel something he wasn't ready to unravel, not tonight, not standing in the middle of a room with all of them watching him like he might disappear again the second they blinked.
A door creaked open down the hall.
Juhoon emerged slowly, blinking hard against the brightness of the living room lights, eyes rimmed red and visibly swollen, the kind of raw that only came from crying alone for a long time without anyone there to witness it.
He stopped just past the threshold of his own doorway, gaze locking onto _____ immediately and refusing to let go.
He didn't move any closer. Didn't say anything at first. Just stood there, mouth trembling faintly, eyes glassing over further with every second that passed, until it became clear he was fighting, and losing, the effort to hold himself together in front of everyone.
_____ looked at him.
Looked at Juhoon's red eyes, at Martin's hand still hovering uselessly in the air, at Keonho standing frozen in the middle of the room with his jaw clenched so tight it looked painful, and felt something inside his own chest crack under all of it, too much feeling, directed at him, from people he'd told himself, over and over, existed in his life because of a contract and nothing more.
He couldn't hold it. Couldn't sit in the middle of that much raw emotion and not fall apart himself.
He stood abruptly.
"I'm going to bed," he said, voice tight, not quite steady. "Please eat something and... wash up before you sleep."
He turned before anyone could respond, crossing the short distance to his own door with his eyes fixed straight ahead, refusing to look at any of them, refusing to let himself see whatever expressions had settled onto their faces at his sudden retreat.
He'd barely gotten his hand on the doorknob when arms wrapped around him from behind, soft, but tight, unmistakably Seonghyeon, the shape of him pressed close against _____'s back the way he'd been the very first night, except there was no warmth in it now, no comfort.
Just pure desperation.
"Please," Seonghyeon whispered, voice already breaking apart at the edges, weak in a way _____ had never heard from him before. "I'm sorry. Whatever it was... if it was me, if it was the shirt, if I did something—"
A tear slid down the bridge of his nose, dropping onto _____'s shoulder, making _____'s breath caught hard in his throat.
"Just — please... "
For one unguarded second, he nearly gave in. Nearly let himself melt backward into the hold, nearly let his hands come up to cover Seonghyeon's where they rested against his chest, nearly turned around to wipe away the tears currently soaking into his shirt.
He caught himself just before he could.
I can't. I can't let myself feel this much for someone I'm only contracted to. I can't.
"I'm sorry," _____ murmured instead, voice cracking despite his best effort to keep it steady, and gently, firmly, he pulled free of the embrace.
He didn't look back. Couldn't. He opened the door, stepped through, and shut it quietly behind him, the small click of the lock sliding into place sounding, in that moment, unbearably loud.
Outside, in the hallway, Seonghyeon's legs gave out entirely.
He sank to the floor right there in front of _____'s closed door, knees folding beneath him, hands pressed against the wood like he might still reach through it if he tried hard enough, sobs finally breaking loose from wherever he'd been holding them all evening.
Martin was there in an instant, crouching down, arms wrapping around him, trying gently to pull him up off the floor, murmuring something soft and useless because there was nothing actually useful left to say.
Keonho stood frozen in the middle of the living room a moment longer, jaw working, eyes bright and furious with something that wasn't quite anger, before he turned sharply on his heel and disappeared into his own room without a word, the door shutting hard enough to rattle in its frame.
And Juhoon, still standing in his own doorway, finally broke completely, sliding down against the frame, face buried in both hands, shoulders shaking with quiet, exhausted sobs that nobody moved to comfort, because everyone left standing had nothing left in them to offer.
Inside his room, _____ stood with his back pressed against the closed door, staring down at the dark floor, his hand still locked tight around the doorknob behind him as if letting go might somehow undo the last few minutes.
His other hand curled into a fist against his own chest, pressing hard, like he could physically hold the ache in if he just applied enough pressure.
He could hear them, faintly, through the door.
Seonghyeon's broken crying, Martin's low, helpless murmuring, the heavy silence where Keonho's door had slammed shut, and somewhere further down the hall, quieter but unmistakable, Juhoon.
He squeezed his eyes shut, throat burning, and didn't move from that spot for a long, long time.
_____ sat motionless at the sujebi stall long after the bowl had gone empty, letting the warmth settle low in his stomach, in no hurry to decide what came next.
Where do I even go from here.
He couldn't go back yet. Not with the memory of that morning still raw, not with the thought of walking back through the dorm door and having to explain himself to five people who probably deserved better than his silence.
He felt sick thinking about it; disappearing without a word, without so much as a text, leaving all of them to wonder if something had gone terribly wrong.
Especially Seonghyeon.
He hunched forward over his knees, the thought of him settling somewhere warm and uncomfortable in _____'s chest.
It wasn't just the contract. He could admit that much to himself now, sitting alone on a plastic stool in the middle of a food street, far enough from anyone who might recognize the admission for what it was.
He felt something toward Seonghyeon he hadn't let himself feel toward anyone in a long time.
Yes, he had had a few crushes on girls and some boys back in high school, nothing he'd ever thought seriously about, nothing that had ever settled into his chest and stayed the way this had.
He remembered, unwillingly, the feeling of Seonghyeon's fingers wrapped loosely around his own the night before, the soft brush of his mouth near _____'s ear, murmuring something too quiet to fully catch.
He nearly groaned out loud at the memory, dragging both hands down his face instead.
I can't. I can't get attached like that. Not to any of them. This is a job.
The thought didn't stick the way he wanted it to.
He was still turning it over when a small commotion broke his focus, two people approaching the stall, asking the vendor something about hotteok.
The old woman blinked at them, clearly confused, gesturing at her handwritten sujebi sign like the answer should have been obvious.
_____'s stomach dropped before he even understood why.
His hands moved on instinct, rubbing quickly at his neck and wrists, a new, useless habit rising up from nowhere, as if he could scrub away whatever scent might still be clinging to his skin from the night before, whatever had drawn these strangers here in the first place.
The woman turned first, eyes narrowing slightly as she looked him over, leaning toward the man beside her. "It's him," she murmured, not nearly quiet enough. "That's where it's coming from."
The man's smile came easily, almost as if he had practiced it, the kind that probably worked on most people most of the time. He drifted closer, leaning down toward _____'s level, one hand settling lightly against his shoulder like it belonged there.
"You alright? You seem stressed. Lost, maybe?" His voice dropped lower, almost gentle. "You're putting off a pretty strong scent, you know."
_____ went rigid, saying nothing, eyes fixed on the counter in front of him.
"Aw, is he unbonded?" the woman said, grinning now, nudging her friend's arm. "Go on, then. Free real estate."
The man laughed, a short, uneasy sound. "She's kidding," he said to _____, though his hand didn't move, grip tightening slightly instead of releasing.
"Cute, though. Really cute." His knuckle grazed _____'s cheek before _____ could pull away, and he flinched hard at the contact, every nerve in his body screaming to move, to run, to do anything except sit still under that touch.
"That's enough."
The vendor's voice cut sharp through the noise, the older woman stepping around her cart with a look that could have curdled milk. "Leave the boy alone. He's a customer, not a toy for you two to paw at."
The man's easy smile dropped instantly. "Mind your own business, ajumma—"
That single second of distraction was all _____ needed.
He was up and moving before he'd fully decided to, bolting past the stall, past startled onlookers, ignoring the furious shout that chased after him from somewhere behind.
He didn't look back. Didn't stop, not for several minutes, not until his lungs burned and his legs ached and the noise of the food street had faded into something distant behind him.
He didn't even realize where he'd run to until he stopped.
A small, quiet park, mostly empty, a single weak streetlamp casting orange light over an old swing set.
He sank down onto one of the swings, chest heaving, and only then did the guilt catch up with everything else.
I didn't pay, he thought distantly, half hysterical with it. I ran out without paying her. The old woman who'd defended him, and he hadn't even settled his bill before fleeing.
I'm so selfish.
He gripped the cold chains of the swing tightly, throat tightening, close to tears despite himself, when a voice broke the quiet.
"_____-ssi?"
He flinched hard, head snapping up, and then went still, recognizing the voice before he'd even fully processed the face.
Mr. Bae stood a few feet away, dressed the same casual, forgettable way he had the very first time they'd met outside his uncle's shop, a small camera slung over one shoulder and a thin envelope tucked beneath his arm.
_____ scrambled upright immediately, bowing deep despite the tremor still running through his hands. "I'm sorry—"
"Never mind that." Mr. Bae's voice was calm, unbothered, though his eyes swept over _____ with clear assessment. "What are you doing out here, this late? You should be back at the dorm."
_____ said nothing, shame keeping his gaze fixed somewhere near the ground.
Mr. Bae pulled out his phone, glancing at the screen, brows lifting slightly at whatever he found there. "...Seems the company's been trying to reach you for a while now. Quite a few messages."
He tucked the phone away again, studying _____. "Do you want to quit?"
The question landed plainly, without judgment behind it.
"You're free to, if that's what you want," Mr. Bae continued, when _____ didn't answer right away. "I'd understand. This isn't an easy thing I've asked of you."
_____'s throat tightened further, the swing chains cold and solid under his grip, the memory of the sujebi stall and the man's hand on his shoulder and Seonghyeon's soft laugh in the kitchen all tangled together in his chest at once.
"...I want to go back," he said finally, voice barely above a whisper. "To the dorm..."
"I want to go home."
Something in Mr. Bae's expression eased at that, a small, quiet smile settling in.
"Alright," he said gently. "Let's get you home, then."
James kept to the quieter streets, some instinct telling him _____ wouldn't have wandered into anywhere too crowded, too loud, too exposed.
He seems like the type to enjoy quiet, James thought, then immediately caught himself. Or maybe he doesn't. Maybe he wanted noise tonight, something to drown everything out.
He winced. He didn't actually know which one was true. Didn't really know _____ well enough yet to guess with any confidence at all, and the realization needled at him more than it probably should have.
He winced again, harder this time, at the thought that followed close behind it: I'm a beta. I can't even smell him out like the others could. I'm walking these streets basically blind, chasing a hope that I'll just happen to look in the right direction at the right time.
He blamed himself for it more than the biology deserved, the old resentment surfacing faster than he wanted it to.
The street opened up into a small park, mostly empty at this hour, a single streetlamp casting a weak orange glow over an old swing set.
James slowed without meaning to, something about the quiet pulling a memory up from wherever he usually kept it buried.
Trainee A.
He'd stood at the edge of a room just like this once, watching a Partner who fit so effortlessly with the other members that James had simply ceased to matter in comparison; an outsider in his own group, watching a bond form around him instead of through him.
The irony of it settled over him now, standing here.
He was outside again. Except this time it was by choice, walking cold streets alone while the others stayed behind, watching, from a self-imposed distance, as _____ folded himself so quickly and completely into bonds with Keonho, Juhoon, Martin, even Seonghyeon.
But the fear sitting in his chest wasn't the old fear anymore. It wasn't I'll never belong.
It was closer to guilt.
Did we do to him what that Partner did to me? Not on purpose. But still, made him give more than he was ready to, called it bonding, when really it was just five people needing something and one person expected to provide all of it at once.
He sank down onto one of the swings, chains creaking faintly under his weight, and adjusted the mask over his face out of habit more than any real concern about being spotted out here.
Seonghyeon's voice wouldn't leave him alone.
I want to be his real mate, hyung. Not just be useful to him.
The words had lodged somewhere James couldn't easily shake them loose from, because underneath Seonghyeon's confession sat a question James had spent years actively avoiding asking himself.
He'd built an entire framework around expecting nothing, low stakes, no attachment, a contract and nothing more, because that was safer than hoping for something that might slip away from him again the way it had before.
But if Seonghyeon could admit to wanting something real, despite every reason to believe he didn't deserve it, why couldn't James even let himself consider the same thing?
What do I have to offer without scent? Without the qualities the other classes have?
Seonghyeon's fear, breaking down over that exact question hours earlier, had cut closer to James than he'd let himself feel in the moment.
Because it wasn't just Seonghyeon's fear. It was his own, quietly worn smooth from years of handling it alone, never once questioned, just accepted as fact the way you accept weather. Betas don't get to matter, not in the way that counts. Best you can hope for is useful.
Watching Seonghyeon nearly break under that same belief was the first time James had actually been forced to look directly at how corrosive it was, rather than simply living inside it, undisturbed, for years.
He pushed off the swing, chains rattling loudly in the empty park.
He'd spent years telling himself a beta could never really be essential to a bond like this.
And yet here he was, the one who'd walked out of the dorm against explicit instruction, wandering cold streets alone in late June, driven by nothing except a genuine, unprompted need to know that _____ was safe.
No scent pulling him forward. No clause in any contract requiring this of him. Just care, plain and uncomplicated, existing entirely on its own terms.
It landed like a quiet, devastating rebuttal to every single thing he'd told himself since Trainee A.
He was still standing there, letting that settle over him, when his phone buzzed sharply in his pocket.
He pulled it out immediately.
We found him. He's safe. Come back to the dorm, I'll fill everyone in there.
It was from their manager. James stared at the screen for a long moment, something in his chest loosening all at once, relief and exhaustion crashing into him together so hard his knees nearly buckled with it.
The warmth had lasted only as long as the memory itself.
Lying there that morning, still wrapped in the fading heat of everyone's bodies pressed close around him, _____ had felt it first, the kind of feeling he hadn't let himself have in a long time.
But the thought curdled almost as soon as it fully formed, replaced by something colder, something that had been waiting patiently at the edges of his mind since the moment Keonho's nose had first found his neck.
I scented.
Not faintly. Not the way it was supposed to happen for him, according to every doctor, every specialist, every hushed conversation his mother had ever had on his behalf.
His whole life, he'd been told what he was, basically a beta, the village whispers had settled on eventually, an omega too broken to properly be an omega, someone who'd never bond right, never matter the way he was supposed to.
He'd spent years grieving that quietly, and then, slower, learning to see it as something closer to a gift. No suppressant costs. No unwanted alpha attention. No matchmakers circling at family dinners. A blessing, disguised as a defect.
Last night had undone all of it in a single moment.
If he could scent like that, strong enough for Keonho to notice from across a room, strong enough to make Juhoon melt entirely into it, then everything he'd built his sense of self around for nineteen years might simply not be true anymore.
And that didn't feel like relief. It felt like the ground giving way beneath something he'd trusted to hold his weight for a very long time.
He didn't examine the feeling much further than that. Just got up quietly, careful not to wake anyone, and went to shower.
He scrubbed everywhere twice, his neck, his wrists, the faint places behind his ears where scent tended to settle, until the water ran cold and he was fairly certain nothing remained of the night before.
He dressed in fresh clothes afterward, the ones that hadn't been touched by anyone's hands, and reached for the door.
But before he could, something slipped off the counter as he moved past it, Seonghyeon's shirt.
The one Seonghyeon had draped over him that night, the one _____ had discarded into the laundry basket before showering.
It fell to the floor with a soft-sounding thud, as if it had decided, on its own, that _____ wasn't allowed to simply walk out.
He stared at it a long moment.
Then he picked it up, folded it with more care than the moment probably called for, and set it neatly back on the counter.
He didn't notice, in the process, the way his hands lingered on the fabric a beat too long, or the faint trace of scent he left behind on it without meaning to, the smell softer than anything from the night before, something closer to grief than panic, care folded quietly into every crease.
Then he left.
⋆. 𐙚 ˚🍮ྀིྀི⋆｡𖦹ᯓ★
He walked without any real direction, the city stretching out ahead of him in every direction that wasn't home.
He couldn't go back to the dorm. Not yet. Not with the memory of last night still sitting so raw and unresolved in his chest.
But he couldn't go to his uncle's either; the old man would take one look at his face and know something was wrong, would ask the kind of gentle, patient questions _____ didn't currently have honest answers for.
So he just walked, phone in his pocket, city noise pressing in from every side, feeling more lost with every block than he had since the day he'd first stepped off the bus from Yeongwol.
He pulled his phone out eventually, more out of habit than intention, and found himself staring at a half-written message still sitting in his drafts.
I would like to formally resign from my position as—
He couldn't finish it. Had never been able to finish it, not in the three separate times he'd started typing it over the past few hours.
The company had paid off his tuition already, in full, faster than any of them technically owed him. Walking away now, after that, after everything they'd already given him, felt like a debt he hadn't earned the right to cancel.
He closed the draft and, almost without deciding to, opened his messages instead, scrolling until he found the thread with his mother.
Everything's good here. Work is going well. Don't worry about me.
Lie after lie after lie, stacked neatly on top of each other, going back weeks.
He hadn't told her about juggling three jobs before Seoul just to keep them afloat.
Hadn't told her about the Idol Partner contract, the NDA, the mask and sunglasses.
Hadn't told her, not once, that the omega class she'd spent his entire childhood hiding from the village had turned out, apparently, to not be nearly as broken as either of them had assumed.
He missed her so fiercely in that moment it nearly buckled his knees.
But he couldn't call her. Not now. Not with this many lies sitting unresolved between them, not without breaking down the second he heard her voice and having to explain all of it at once.
He sank down onto a low step somewhere between two buildings, knees pulled up, the evening chill cutting strangely deep for late June, and let himself just sit there for a while, lost, in the streets, in himself, in everything he no longer understood about his own body and the life he was supposedly building.
Then a smell reached him.
Faint at first, carried on the breeze from somewhere nearby, broth, and flour, and something achingly, specifically familiar.
He stood without deciding to, following it before he'd even registered what he was doing, and realized only once he'd rounded the corner that he'd wandered, without meaning to, straight into the middle of one of Seoul's busy food streets.
Stalls lined both sides, steam rising from dozens of pots, the air thick with grilled meat and sweet syrup and fried dough. None of it called to him.
Except one small, unassuming stall tucked into the corner, a hand-painted sign reading simply Sujebi.
His chest ached at the sight of it.
His mother had made sujebi often growing up, not because it was some cherished tradition passed down through generations, but because flour was cheap and rice wasn't always guaranteed, because torn dough stretched further than noodles when there wasn't much else in the house.
It had never been a treat for the simple person. It had been survival, dressed up in a warm bowl to make it feel like something more than what it actually was. Yet, for him, it had always felt the other way.
The irony wasn't lost on him, standing there now. He'd come to Seoul, taken this job, sold pieces of his own comfort and privacy specifically so he'd never again have to eat food born out of not having enough.
And here he was, ordering a bowl of the exact thing he'd been trying to leave behind, because right now, it was the only thing in this entire city that felt like home.
He sat at the small plastic stool the vendor gestured toward, and waited, and when the bowl finally arrived, broth steaming, dough torn unevenly by hand the same way his mother had always done it, never quite uniform. Something in his chest loosened just painfully, at the familiarity of it.
He ate slowly, not crying, though something heavy and aching sat behind his ribs the entire time.
Live a good life in the city,
His mother's voice echoed, the same words she'd given him the morning he left, folding his shirts like a kind of prayer.
A good life. Not just enough money to survive it.
He wondered, chewing slowly, spoon trembling faintly in his hand, whether he was actually managing that at all, or whether he'd simply traded one kind of not-enough for another kind entirely, dressed up in mask and sunglasses and a job that asked more of his body than he'd ever agreed to give.
He finished the bowl in silence, the taste of home sitting bittersweet on his tongue, and didn't move from the stall for a long while after.
By evening, the dorm had settled into a restlessness none of them could quite shake.
Keonho was the loudest of it, though not in volume so much as motion. Pacing the length of the living room for what had to be the tenth time, hands dragging through his hair, muttering under his breath.
"I pushed too hard," he said, again, mostly to himself. "I know I pushed too hard. I didn't even ask the first time, I just — I grabbed him, and then I kept going back for more, and he probably felt like he couldn't say no, and now—"
"Keonho." Martin's voice, tired, not looking up from his phone.
"We should go find him. Right now. It's been hours, Martin, we should already be out there looking—"
"We can't just wander Seoul hoping to run into him," Martin said, though the words came out flatter than he probably meant them to, more exhaustion than actual conviction.
He stood near the couch rather than sitting on it, phone gripped tight in one hand, thumb hovering over the same conversation thread he'd been refreshing for the better part of the afternoon.
Are you okay?
he'd sent first, hours ago. Then, when the silence stretched long enough to fray his patience,
Did we do something wrong?
Please just tell us you're safe.
And then, later still, more frantic than he wanted to admit out loud,
I'm sorry if I made things worse. I shouldn't have joined in like that, not without really thinking about what it meant for you.
No response to any of it. Not even the small mercy of a read receipt.
Martin's mind kept circling back to the same moment: himself, sliding into the middle of that nest, sighing like he'd been waiting his whole life for permission, letting his own scent bloom into the room for the first time in front of everyone.
He'd felt so certain in the moment, so sure it was what _____ wanted, what all of them wanted. Now the certainty had curdled into something closer to guilt.
I was the one who really let go. I was the one who made it real instead of just Keonho being Keonho. Maybe that's exactly what tipped it too far.
He didn't say any of that out loud. Just kept refreshing the thread, waiting.
Juhoon had disappeared back into his room hours ago, and nobody had gone to check on him.
The others assumed, without really discussing it, that he'd retreated to his old habit: cocooned somewhere under a duvet, shutting the world out the way he always did when things got to be too much.
Nobody blamed him for it. Nobody had the energy to go verify it either, too caught up in their own separate spirals to notice that the room had gone entirely silent, and had stayed that way for a long time.
Seonghyeon sat stiffly on the edge of the couch, his own discarded shirt clenched gently but firmly in both hands, fingers worrying at the hem the way they had been for the better part of an hour.
He wasn't angry at _____. He'd made peace with that part almost immediately; whatever had made the boy leave, it wasn't malice, it wasn't disgust dressed up as something else.
But that only left room for a different kind of dread to creep in, quieter and harder to shake.
Was it me? Was it the shirt? Was it something about the way I held him, or how I hesitated at first and then gave in anyway, or...
He looked at his phone. No messages. He looked back down at the shirt in his hands, worn soft from years of actual use, the same one he'd hoped might mean something small and comforting to _____, and felt the beginnings of something wet and hot pressing behind his eyes.
⋆. 𐙚 ˚🍮ྀིྀི⋆｡𖦹ᯓ★
Outside, the evening air had cooled more than the day's heat suggested it should, a thin, unseasonable chill cutting through late June's usual thickness.
James walked fast, hood up, eyes scanning every side street and convenience store window he passed, phone gripped tight in his pocket in case anything came through.
He knew the risk. Knew exactly what it meant for a member of CORTIS to be wandering the streets alone, unaccounted for, against explicit instruction. He didn't care, not tonight.
It was James who found Seonghyeon like that; knees pulled up slightly, shirt held like it might disappear if he loosened his grip, eyes glassy in the low evening light.
"Hey." James crouched down in front of him. "What happened?"
Seonghyeon shook his head first, before the words came anyway, quieter and more fractured than James had heard from him in a long time.
"I don't know if it's me," he said. "The reason he left. I keep thinking, what if it's because I'm a beta. What if the whole thing, the shirt, the hug, all of it, felt wrong to him because there was nothing behind it. No scent. Nothing real for him to actually respond to." His grip on the fabric tightened.
"I want... " He stopped, swallowed hard, pushed through anyway. "I want to actually mean something to him. Not just as convenient. Not just as the beta who helps. I want him to be mine too, not just something the company assigned to the alphas and let me stand nearby for."
James didn't say anything right away, letting the confession sit in the space between them.
"But how am I supposed to compete with that," Seonghyeon continued, quieter still, almost to himself now.
"Keonho and Juhoon and Martin, they have something to actually offer him. Scent. Something his body responds to on instinct. What do I have? Nothing he can smell. Nothing that pulls at him the way theirs does." He laughed, short and humorless. "I don't even know why I'm saying all this to you."
"Because I get it," James said simply. "More than you think."
Seonghyeon looked up at that, something searching in his expression, but James didn't elaborate further, just squeezed his shoulder once, stood, and grabbed his jacket off the back of the couch.
"Where are you going?" Seonghyeon asked.
"To find him."
"Hyung, the manager said—"
"I know what he said."
That night, Seonghyeon's voice kept replaying in his head.
what do I have that he can smell, what do I have that pulls at him,
and beneath it, a version of the same fear James had carried since Trainee A. He knew exactly what it felt like to wonder if being a beta meant being fundamentally unfit for this kind of bond.
He'd spent years convincing himself the answer didn't matter, that he didn't need it to matter.
But watching Seonghyeon fall apart over the same fear, clutching a shirt like it was the last piece of proof he had that he mattered at all, James couldn't just sit at home and wait for a text that might never come.
He kept walking, deeper into the winding streets, eyes searching every face that passed beneath the streetlights, looking for the one that wasn't there.
Chapter 17: The shirt neatly folded at the bathroom counter
James woke feeling more rested than he had in longer than he could easily remember, rubbing at the crick in his neck as he blinked slowly against the morning light filtering through the curtains.
For a moment he just lay there, taking in the sight of the room, the nest sprawled out around him, five people's worth of clothing and blankets somehow arranged into something that actually worked, despite none of it matching in any conventional sense.
Keonho's old trainee shirt sat stacked beside Seonghyeon's soft pajama set. Juhoon's collection of worn jackets lay folded near Martin's hand-decorated hoodies, patches and doodles peeking out from beneath the pile.
And there, near the middle, resting just above the pillows, not shoved to some forgotten corner, not treated as an afterthought, his own shirt.
He hadn't expected that. Some part of him had quietly assumed it would end up buried at the bottom somewhere, the least significant piece in a nest full of things that actually meant something.
Instead it sat close to the center, deliberately placed.
He let himself look at the others a moment longer.
Keonho, sprawled diagonally in exactly the shameless way he always slept, limbs thrown everywhere.
Martin curled loosely against Juhoon's side, breathing slow and even, some of the tension he carried even in sleep finally smoothed out of his face.
Juhoon himself, mouth slightly open, snoring so quietly it was barely audible.
And Seonghyeon.
James's gaze lingered there longest. He remembered the exact moment from the night before, Seonghyeon hesitating at the edge of everything, unsure if _____'s invitation had really been meant for him too, and then finally crawling in behind _____ anyway, arms wrapping loose and careful around him from behind.
James remembered the look on Seonghyeon's face in that moment, lips nearly grazing the curve of _____'s neck, as he murmurs sweet nothings and small reassurances towards the boy, something soft and unguarded settling over his features that James had rarely seen from him.
In a way, that made something warm settle in James's chest just remembering it.
And then, unwillingly, his mind drifted to his own moment. The hesitation at the doorway. The shirt he almost hadn't offered at all. _____ reaching for it without hesitation, scenting it without a second thought, letting James settle in close beside him even though... as far as either of them technically knew, there was nothing for _____ to actually smell from him in return.
He'd been given that anyway. No conditions attached.
James let himself sit in the warmth of it a moment longer, something dangerously close to happiness humming quietly under his ribs, before his gaze drifted toward the center of the nest and the warmth cut off all at once.
It was empty.
_____ wasn't there.
James blinked, sitting up slightly, scanning the room again like he might have simply missed him somewhere in the tangle of blankets.
But no, the space where _____ had been sleeping just hours ago sat bare, blankets pushed back, nothing left behind except the faint impression of where a body had been.
He didn't think much of it at first. _____ had woken early every single day since arriving, some deeply ingrained habit from years of work, he had always said. It made sense he'd be the first one up again today too.
James pulled himself out from under the blankets carefully, careful not to disturb anyone else, and made his way toward the kitchen, half intending to start his own morning, half quietly looking for _____ along the way.
The kitchen was empty.
No coffee brewing. No sound of _____ moving around the counter, no sign of the quiet routine that had, in barely two weeks, already become something James expected to walk into every morning.
_____ at the stove, or sharing coffee with Seonghyeon despite visibly disliking the bitterness of it, just to have something to do with his hands while they talked.
None of that.
The kitchen felt strangely too still.
Something small and uneasy started turning over in James's chest.
He checked the bathroom next, telling himself there was nothing to actually worry about yet. The door was unlocked, the room empty, no sign of _____ there either.
James was halfway through turning to leave, ready to check the last unlikely spot, _____'s own room, maybe he'd simply gone back to it, when something caught his eye.
Folded neatly atop the bathroom counter, placed with obvious care despite how out of place it looked sitting there alone, was Seonghyeon's shirt.
James's eyes narrowed slightly. He stepped closer, reaching for it almost without thinking, fingers brushing the edge of the fabric.
"Hyung?"
He turned. Seonghyeon stood in the doorway, hair still mussed from sleep, eyes searching James's face for an answer before he'd even fully asked the question.
"Have you seen _____?"
James didn't answer right away. He watched Seonghyeon's gaze drop past him, toward the counter, toward the shirt sitting there, folded carefully, scentless now in a way that made the quiet unease in James's chest tighten into something closer to real dread.
_____ woke slowly, disoriented for a moment by the warmth pressing in from both sides of his body.
Seonghyeon was curled close on his left, one hand loosely fisted into the fabric of _____'s — no, Seonghyeon's own — borrowed shirt, mouth twitching faintly as he mumbled something incoherent into the pillow.
"...Don't, Keonho." A small huff. "Not the... " The words dissolved into nothing, and _____ blinked, confused for a second before realizing Seonghyeon was simply talking in his sleep, chasing some half-formed dream that had nothing to do with the room they were actually in.
On his right, Juhoon's head had slid fully into the crook of _____'s neck sometime in the night, breathing slow and even, a quiet snore rumbling faintly with each exhale.
_____ felt his face warm at the closeness of it, glancing away instead toward Martin, who lay curled against Juhoon's other side, peaceful in a way _____ hadn't seen from him yet.
Further down, at the foot of the makeshift nest, Keonho had sprawled diagonally across nearly the entire remaining space, one arm flung over Martin's leg, taking up far more room than a single person reasonably should.
And there, just beside Seonghyeon, lay James.
His eyes were only half shut, not quite asleep, not quite awake either, caught somewhere in that hazy middle place, and looking at him now, _____ found himself pulled backward into memory, piecing together, slowly, everything that had actually happened the night before.
*ੈ✩‧₊˚ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁
It had started with Martin.
After Keonho and Juhoon had already claimed their places, scent thick and warm in the small room, _____, loose-limbed and a little drunk on the sheer overwhelming comfort of it all, had murmured, without quite thinking it through, that they should come too.
Martin hadn't hesitated for even a second.
He'd slid in against the curve of _____'s neck, against the bump of his adam's apple, like he'd been waiting his entire life for permission to do exactly that, exhaling hard the moment he settled, his usual careful composure slipping away entirely.
And then, like something inside him had finally stopped holding back, his scent bloomed into the room for the first time.
Warm cinnamon, with a heavy cedarwood base note, rich and steady, filling the space alongside Juhoon and Keonho's scent, until the whole room smelled like something _____ couldn't quite name, only that it felt...
The two betas hadn't known what to do with themselves.
Seonghyeon had lingered near the edge, clearly unsure whether _____'s earlier invitation had really extended to him too, given that he had no scent to offer, nothing that would actually contribute to whatever this was supposed to be doing for the alphas curled around him.
He'd busied himself instead with straightening a blanket that didn't need straightening, eyes carefully anywhere but the pile forming in the center of the room.
It was James who'd finally pushed him forward, a light hand at the small of his back; the nudge was wordless, insistent, and Seonghyeon had gone, hesitantly crawling in behind _____ and wrapping both arms loosely around him from behind, hands clammy despite the warmth radiating off everyone else.
James himself had lingered only a moment longer before turning, quietly, to leave the room altogether. They don't need you here, James. You don't belong, They don't—
"James."
_____'s voice, soft, had stopped him at the door.
Then Juhoon's, muffled against _____'s shoulder. "Stay."
Martin had added something too, low and easy, and Keonho, from his sprawled position, had cracked one eye open just enough to fix James with mock offense.
"Don't be rude, hyung. Get in here."
James had stood there a moment longer, caught in that same old hesitation, before finally giving in, crossing the room slowly, letting Keonho shift just enough to make space, settling down beside _____ with a stiffness that hadn't fully eased even once he was actually there.
The room had felt different after that. Warmer. Looser at the edges, the way a held breath finally let go all at once.
They'd stayed like that for a long while, nobody quite ready to move, nobody quite willing to break whatever fragile, unfamiliar comfort had settled over all of them.
Until Martin, even half-melted into _____'s shirt, finally sat up. "It's getting late... _____looks tired, let's finish the nest." He pointed out, voice rough with reluctance.
They'd worked in pairs after that, more slowly now, Keonho and Seonghyeon on one side of the room, still bickering lightly over placement even as their energy waned; Keonho even drapes himself over the half-finished nest, claiming that he was "testing it".
Martin was adjusting blankets near the window one final time. And James was still staring at each piece of clothing.
And through all of it, someone had always stayed close to _____.
Seonghyeon had drifted back over more than once, quietly checking: are you doing okay, do you need water, is anything itching, tell me if something's wrong.
His hands went flushed onto _____'s chest, Seonghyeon's fingers roaming, ever so slowly, as if to feel the fabric.
Juhoon had barely left his side at all, fingers occasionally brushing along the inside of _____'s wrist, coaxing more of that faint sweetness into the air without ever asking for anything beyond the privilege of being near it.
"Keonho was right," Juhoon murmurs into _____'s ear. "Keonho was very right... "
By the time exhaustion finally caught up to all of them, nobody had really decided to sleep there. It had simply happened, blankets pulled loosely over shoulders as people dozed mid-conversation.
Lying there now, morning light filtering faintly through the curtains, _____ let the memory settle over him fully.
_____ noticed the hesitation before anyone else did.
He glanced over at James still standing near the doorway, the plain shirt bundled tight in his hands like he hadn't quite decided whether offering it was even worth doing.
"Is that for the nest?" _____ asked gently, holding a hand out.
James hesitated a beat longer, then crossed the room and set it into _____'s palm without a word.
"Wow," Keonho said, grinning from where he sat cross-legged near the pile. "Look at him. Practically had to pry that thing out of your cold, stingy hands."
James huffed something that was almost a laugh, though it didn't quite reach his eyes the way it should have.
Martin caught it, the small weight underneath the sound, and smoothly changed course before anyone could linger on it too long. "You don't have to give clothes, you know," he said, glancing between James and the nest taking shape on the floor. "Blankets work too. Pillows. Whatever you're comfortable with."
"Snacks, even," Seonghyeon added, settling back against the wall. "Which reminds me, we haven't actually told _____ what any of us like to eat. That feels like a pretty basic thing to be missing two weeks in."
"Oh, easy." Keonho perked up immediately, already counting off on his fingers. "Strawberries. Salted caramel ice cream. And classic salty fries, McDonald's specifically, none of that gourmet imitation stuff."
"A very refined palate," Martin said dryly. "Mine's Hawaiian pizza. And mint chocolate chip."
Seonghyeon made a small, disgusted noise. "Please don't listen to him," he told _____ solemnly. "Pineapple does not belong on pizza and mint chocolate chip tastes like toothpaste."
"It does not taste like toothpaste—"
"It does, hyung."
Juhoon, quiet until now, tilted his head slightly, something clearly surfacing in his memory. "Ah... Remember the kebab."
James groaned immediately. "Don't remind me."
"What kebab?" _____ asked, looking between them.
"Martin's greatest failure," Seonghyeon said, delighted. "We couldn't agree on food one night; everyone's arguing for ten minutes straight, and Martin, our leader, just declared kebab and ordered it for everyone. Nobody in this group even likes kebab."
"I didn't know!" Martin groaned, dragging a hand down his face. "The manager scolded us for wasted food that night. It was humiliating."
"Aw." Keonho reached over and patted his shoulder with mock sympathy. "It's okay to have bad taste sometimes."
"I don't have bad taste," Martin protested. "I like acai bowls. Same as Seonghyeon."
"Acai bowls are fire," Seonghyeon said flatly. "Kebab is not. Those are different categories entirely."
...
The room dissolved into laughter, easy and loud, the kind that filled a space without anyone having to try very hard for it.
Once it settled, Martin turned toward _____. "So... what about you? What's your favorite—"
He trailed off.
_____ hadn't answered. He wasn't even looking at Martin, gaze dropped instead toward the nest slowly taking shape around them.
Hoodies and blankets and jackets, some already tucked into place, some still folded neatly beside the pile. His eyes had settled, quietly, on the single plain shirt still resting in his own hands. James' shirt.
"_____?" Martin tried again.
Nothing.
Keonho went very still, nose lifting slightly, eyes narrowing with sudden focus. "...He's scenting."
The room froze.
"He's what?" Martin asked.
"Scenting," Juhoon repeated, quieter, something almost reverent in his voice as he stared at _____. "He is. Look at him."
Keonho didn't wait for further confirmation. He was moving before anyone could stop him, crossing the small distance in an instant, taking both of _____'s hands in his own and pressing his nose against one wrist, inhaling like a man who'd been starving for exactly this.
"You smell like—" His voice came out muffled as he buried his face into the crook of _____'s neck next, chasing the scent deeper. "Pancakes. Like a hot hotteok, fresh off the pan—"
The shirt slipped from _____'s hands, forgotten entirely. He didn't push Keonho away. Didn't move much at all, actually, beyond a small, anxious swallow, letting the boy nuzzle closer against him.
Martin was up in an instant, hands on Keonho's shoulders, trying to physically peel him back. "Keonho! _____, I'm so sorry, he doesn't usually—"
Keonho didn't budge, latched on like gravity itself had shifted in _____'s favor.
"It's okay," _____ said, though his voice came out a touch higher than usual, a little uncertain despite the words. "Really. It's fine... "
Seonghyeon, recovering from his own shock, reached over and tugged sharply at the back of Keonho's collar. "Don't be so animalistic," he scolded, though there was no real heat behind it, more exasperated affection than anything.
_____ brought a hand up to rub gently along Keonho's back, the motion instinctive, soothing, more comfort than complaint.
Juhoon watched all of it with wide, unreadable eyes, something shifting rapidly across his face. Shock first, and then, unmistakably, something sharper underneath it.
"Don't hog him," he muttered, arms crossed, clearly fighting the urge to physically insert himself into the moment too.
Finally, satisfied, Keonho pulled back, cheeks flushed, grinning wide. "You smell amazing," he said, entirely without shame.
_____'s whole face went red.
Martin nudged Keonho hard in the ribs. "Thank him properly. And ask before you do that again."
"Right. Right—" Keonho turned back to _____, still grinning, entirely unrepentant. "Thank you. That was incredible. Can I do that again sometime?"
_____ finally laughed despite himself, scratching at the back of his neck. "It was nothing, really. I'm surprised you could even smell anything from me at all."
He hesitated, glancing down at the shirt still lying forgotten on the floor. "Sorry, James-hyung, I think I might've scented on your clothes a little. I got excited, hearing everyone's stories today. I... wasn't really thinking."
"Don't apologize," Juhoon said, before James could respond at all.
He'd already moved closer, taking one of _____'s hands gently in both of his own. "Can I?" he asked, quieter than Keonho had bothered to be, giving _____ the chance to actually answer this time.
_____ nodded, shy, and Juhoon lifted his wrist slowly, nose brushing against his skin, breathing in deep. Whatever composure he'd been holding onto through the past few days seemed to slip entirely the moment the scent hit him properly, his shoulders dropping, his whole body curling in closer, wrapping both hands fully around _____'s wrist like he never intended to let go.
And then, softly, unmistakably, the scent of clean linen; a crisp and quiet, floral fragrance, began to bloom through the room, faint at first, then steadily stronger, wrapping around all of them.
Keonho's head snapped up immediately at the smell of it. "Can I come back?" he asked _____, already halfway across the floor again. "Please?"
_____, still slightly dazed by the whole exchange, simply nodded, letting Keonho settle in against his other side, nose pressed to his shoulder, and within seconds, the air within the room was filled with the suffocatingly sweet scent of heavy golden honey and warm vanilla bean.
Martin, Seonghyeon, and James stood frozen through most of it, none of them quite finding words.
Seonghyeon broke first, laughing softly under his breath. "Pancakes, huh," he said, glancing at Martin. "Does he really smell like that?"
Martin nodded slowly, gaze still fixed on _____. "Pancakes," he confirmed.
"Freshly made, with fruit, I think... And melted sugar.... With sticky maple syrup..... " He said it carefully, like he was cataloguing something he badly wanted to experience for himself.
Both betas nodded in unison, taking his word for it.
James, watching Martin's face the entire time, finally nudged his shoulder. "Go," he said simply.
Seonghyeon grinned, nudging him from the other side. "You basically just gave us the whole scent profile, Martin. You can't deny you want in on this."
"It's fine," Martin said, though his voice lacked any real conviction. "I don't need to—"
"Martin." _____'s voice cut through the room, clear now, some of the earlier shyness burned away by the sheer amount of affection currently surrounding him from both sides.
"Come here. You too, Seonghyeon." He paused, glancing toward the doorway. "James, too. I want all of you, too."
You can change your scent to whatever you like, it doesn't have to be pancakes. I'm just hungry for pancakes...
The water ran hot against James's face, steam fogging the small mirror above the sink, and still Seonghyeon's words sat there in his head, refusing to rinse away with everything else.
'Your turn's next.'
He hadn't asked for that observation. Hadn't particularly wanted it, either. Being seen that clearly, that easily, by someone who'd apparently been watching him watch _____ without James realizing anyone had noticed at all.
He tipped his head back under the spray and tried to think about something else. It didn't work.
A knock sounded at the door before he'd made any progress on the matter.
"James." Juhoon's voice, muffled slightly through the wood. "Hey... thanks. For earlier."
James turned the water down slightly so he could actually hear. "...You're welcome."
"Martin, hang on—" A pause, Juhoon's voice pulling away from the door for a second before returning. "_____'s making a nest. Bring some of your stuff if you want in."
Then footsteps retreating, Martin's voice calling something impatient from down the hall, and James was left alone again with the water running and a question he didn't have an easy answer to.
A nest.
He knew the concept, technically; every idol did, it was basic industry knowledge drilled into every trainee alongside choreography and vocal warm-ups.
But knowing about something and having any real relationship to it were different things entirely.
Trainee A had built one too, back when James was still convinced the whole system might work out for him. Their Partner had made it carefully, methodically, exactly the way Dr. Ahn had probably just spent an afternoon explaining to _____.
James remembered watching from the doorway of a room he wasn't really invited into, remembered the way the Idol Partner had gathered clothes from the four alphas and two omegas with obvious care and consideration, remembered being asked, almost as an afterthought, if he wanted to contribute anything too.
'You're a beta, though... It probably won't make much difference either way. But if you want to.'
He'd given something, back then. He couldn't even remember what anymore. Some old shirt, handed over quickly, more out of obligation than anything else, tucked into a corner of the nest where it likely made no measurable difference at all.
Nobody had ever mentioned it again. He hadn't expected them to.
He turned the water off, wrapping a towel around his waist, staring at his own tired reflection in the fogged mirror.
Maybe _____'s just including us to be polite, he thought, the old, practiced cynicism rising easily, comfortably, the way it always did when something asked him to hope for more than he'd learned to expect.
Not leaving anyone out. That's probably all this is.
The thought sat wrong the moment he finished forming it, and he sighed at himself in the mirror, dragging a hand down his face.
That's not fair, he admitted, quieter. Not to him. He hasn't given me any reason to think that yet.
He got dressed slowly, deliberately not thinking about it, and failed at that too.
⋆.ೃ࿔:･🍂๋࣭ ⭑⋆.ೃ࿔:･
By the time James made his way down the hall, _____'s room had already turned chaotic.
"It goes on top," Keonho was insisting, holding his own faded practice shirt aloft. "Scent rises. Everyone knows that."
"Scent doesn't rise, Keonho, it's not smoke." Seonghyeon, arms crossed, clearly unmoved. "It goes in the middle, where it actually gets surrounded by other fabric. That's how scent-layering works."
"Since when are you the nest-building expert—!"
"Since I actually read the pamphlet Dr. Ahn gave us."
Martin, meanwhile, had appointed himself structural engineer of the entire operation, crouched at the edge of the growing pile with the serious expression of a man diffusing a bomb.
"This can't go near the outlet," he muttered, dragging a folded blanket a full foot away from the wall. "And nothing goes directly under the window, the AC vent blows right there, it'll dry everything out too fast."
Juhoon sat close beside _____ through all of it, seemingly unbothered by the surrounding chaos, content just to be near enough to occasionally point at something and ask, "There? Or there?" clearly less interested in being right about placement and more interested in simply being consulted.
James lingered at the doorway, unnoticed for a moment, watching the four of them fold themselves so easily into this, Keonho and Seonghyeon still bickering, Martin adjusting a blanket for the third time, Juhoon smiling faintly at something _____ said.
He held his shirt a little tighter against his chest.
It was Keonho who spotted him first.
"James!" The shout came loud enough that Martin actually flinched, spinning around fast enough to nearly knock over the careful pile he'd just finished arranging, hand pressed to his own chest like he'd genuinely been startled by a ghost rather than a very normal person standing in a doorway.
"How long have you been standing there," Martin demanded, still recovering.
"A minute. Maybe two."
"You could've said something!"
Juhoon, unbothered by any of the commotion, simply brightened at the sight of him. "James. Come in."
James stepped inside slowly, the shirt still clutched in one hand. It looked simple, plain, nothing special about it, the kind of thing he'd grabbed without much thought because, in his mind, there hadn't seemed to be much point in agonizing over the choice.
He had no scent. There was nothing for the fabric to carry beyond fresh laundry detergent, nothing that would actually make a difference to a nest built specifically to soothe alphas through their ruts.
But then his gaze caught the pile already assembled at _____'s feet. Seonghyeon's well-worn hoodies, still faintly holding onto him even now; Keonho's mismatched, overly enthusiastic stack, including a shirt with his own trainee number stitched crookedly into memory; Martin's hand-decorated jackets, each one carrying some small story; Juhoon's favorite jacket, frayed and ink-stained and clearly given without a single second thought.
Every single item had a story behind it. Every single person had given something that actually meant something to them.
James looked down at the plain shirt in his own hands and felt something small and sharp twist in his chest.
He'd stood in that doorway longer than he'd admitted to Martin, long enough to watch all of it unfold, long enough to feel, uncomfortably, a flicker of something he didn't want to name.
Not quite jealousy. Something closer to it than he was proud of, though. A quiet ache at watching everyone else give so easily, so readily, while he stood there turning the same shirt over in his hands, unable to decide if it was even worth offering at all.
They didn't hesitate, he thought, throat tight. None of them did. Not even Seonghyeon, and he's a beta too. So why can't I just...
The jar sat on the top shelf of the refrigerator by the time everyone finally scattered to shower. Plums, sugar, and syrup layered exactly the way _____'s mother had taught him decades of summers ago, sealed and waiting now for weeks of quiet transformation nobody would get to see happening in real time.
"Few weeks, at least," _____ had told them, wiping his hands on a towel. "Maybe longer before it's really ready. You just have to be patient with it."
"Story of our lives," Keonho had muttered, already halfway to the bathroom.
_____ waved the rest of them off to shower first, opting instead to head back to his own room and finally make a dent in the boxes still stacked against the wall. Clothes half-unpacked, a small shelf of university textbooks he hadn't touched yet, the wooden box his uncle had sent now empty and sitting on his desk like a keepsake he wasn't ready to throw away.
He'd barely gotten through folding one drawer's worth of shirts when a knock came at his door.
"Come in."
Seonghyeon stepped inside, hair still damp from the shower, a laundry basket balanced against his hip. He looked, for a moment, like he wasn't entirely sure how to start.
"Here," he said finally, setting the basket down and pulling out a couple of hoodies, a well-worn t-shirt, and a soft, slightly faded blanket, holding them out toward _____. "For the nest. If it still needs stuff."
_____ them carefully, something warm rising in his chest at the weight of them in his arms. "Thank you. Really."
"Some of them are... " Seonghyeon scratched at the back of his neck, gaze fixed somewhere on the laundry basket rather than on _____'s face, color rising faintly along his cheeks. "Some of them are actually clothes I sleep in. Not just clean stuff from the closet. I figured that'd work better."
_____ looked down at the bundle in his arms, and something in him settled at the admission. Even without a scent to detect, betas apparently understood exactly what mattered here.
He almost brought the hoodie up to his face, out of instinct more than anything, before catching himself and just holding it a little closer instead.
He didn't want the others walking in and seeing him sniffing their clothes like some kind of scent-starved cliché, even if, quietly, he did appreciate having something from each of them equally, scent-bearing or not.
He didn't want to make anyone feel like their contribution mattered less just because betas didn't carry the traditional pull.
The moment didn't last much longer before it was interrupted.
"Ohhh," came Keonho's voice from the doorway, having clearly overheard enough of the tail end of the conversation to invite himself in without hesitation. "So that's the clothes you meant earlier." He looked between the two of them. "What's it for?"
Seonghyeon sighed, long-suffering. "_____'s making a nest, Keonho."
"A nest?!" Keonho's voice cracked slightly on the word, face flushing an immediate, undeniable pink. He didn't even wait for further explanation, just spun on his heel and bolted down the hallway toward his own room, already shouting something about needing five minutes.
Seonghyeon watched him go, shaking his head with fond exasperation. "He's going to bring you something ridiculous. Just a warning."
Martin appeared next, drawn by the commotion, leaning into the doorway with obvious curiosity.
"Is it true?" he asked. "The nest thing?"
_____ nodded, a little shy under the direct question. "If that's okay."
"More than okay." Martin's expression softened immediately, something warm and reassuring in it. "I'll grab James and Juhoon too, if they want in."
He disappeared down the hall, leaving _____ alone with Seonghyeon for a moment longer, quietly folding the new additions into a neat pile on the bed.
-ˋˏ✄┈┈ᝰ.ᐟ༘⋆
Martin found Juhoon toweling off his hair in his shared room, James' shower still running behind the closed bathroom door.
"_____'s making a nest," Martin said, without much preamble. "You in?"
Juhoon's face did something complicated for half a second: surprise, maybe, or something closer to relief that he didn't have to be the one to bring it up first, before settling into an easy smile. "Yeah. I'd love to."
Martin grinned, already turning to leave, before pausing at the door and glancing back with a knowing tilt of his head. "So," he said, drawing the word out. "What was that earlier? With the plums?"
"What was what?"
"You know what." Martin leaned against the doorframe, clearly not going anywhere. "You went stiff as a board the second he leaned in close to show you how to pull the stems out."
Juhoon huffed, tossing his towel at Martin's face, which Martin dodged with an unfair amount of ease given how little effort he seemed to be putting into standing upright.
"Shut up."
"I'm just saying—"
Juhoon shoved past him toward his dresser, though the tips of his ears had gone faintly red, betraying him more than his voice did. He checked his watch out of habit, the small numbers ticking across the display, still low, still not where they should be, but marginally higher than they'd sat just days ago.
It wasn't that dramatic. But it was there.
He stared at it a beat too long before Martin's continued teasing pulled him back.
"Come on," Martin pressed, grinning now, reaching over to poke at Juhoon's side until Juhoon swatted his hand away with a laugh he couldn't quite suppress. "Just admit it."
Juhoon sighed, giving in, the fight draining out of him all at once. "...He's cute," he admitted, quiet, almost embarrassed by how easily it came out once he let it. "Really cute. Okay? Happy now?"
Martin's whole face lit up, looking, for a moment, like he wanted nothing more than to physically squeeze his best friend in half. "Extremely happy."
"Don't make it weird."
"No promises."
-ˋˏ✄┈┈ᝰ.ᐟ༘⋆
Back in _____'s room, Keonho returned first, arms overflowing with a haphazard stack of clothing he'd clearly grabbed without much thought beyond more is better.
Seonghyeon took one look at the pile and immediately started laughing.
"Keonho. These don't even match."
"They don't have to match, they just have to smell like me."
"You gave him a scarf. It's June."
"It's a versatile scarf."
Seonghyeon pulled another item free from the pile and held it up, a worn, slightly stretched-out practice room t-shirt, faded gray, a trainee number printed across the back that had cracked and peeled with age and use. "And this? Really?"
Keonho blinked at it like he hadn't fully registered grabbing it in the first place. "...I panicked, okay? I just grabbed whatever was closest."
But _____, taking the shirt gently from Seonghyeon's hands, ran his thumb over the faded number on the back, something soft settling into his expression. "This one's perfect," he said, quiet and certain.
"...Really?"
"Really." He held it a little closer, and even without meaning to, caught the faint, unmistakable thread of honey and vanilla clinging to the worn fabric, stronger than anything he'd smelled from Seonghyeon's clothes, warm and familiar in a way that made something in his chest ease slightly.
Keonho, watching _____'s small, genuine smile, seemed to deflate with relief. "Okay. Good. That's good."
Martin returned a few minutes later with Juhoon in tow, both of them carrying armfuls of their own.
Martin went first, laying out an assortment that was, unmistakably, the most colorful pile in the room so far, a couple of jackets he'd clearly customized himself, small hand-drawn patches sewn onto the sleeves, one hoodie with a doodled constellation across the back that had faded slightly from repeated washing.
_____ reached out, running his fingers carefully along the stitched patches, genuinely taking his time with each one, something like wonder in his expression.
"You made these?"
"Some of them." Martin rubbed at his ear, a flush creeping up his neck at the attention. "That one... " he pointed to the constellation hoodie, "I drew that during our trainee days. We used to sneak up to the roof sometimes, when we could get away with it. Look at the stars, complain about choreography."
He nodded toward another jacket, sleeve patched with a small embroidered flower. "Keonho's mom taught me that stitch. First thing I ever sewed. It's crooked, but—"
"It's not crooked," _____ said softly. "It's really good."
Martin's ears went fully red at that, and he cleared his throat, gesturing instead toward Juhoon before he had to sit with the compliment any longer than necessary.
"Your turn," he said, nudging Juhoon forward with more excitement than Juhoon himself seemed to be projecting outwardly, though his hands were notably careful as he laid his own pile down.
Mostly jackets, worn ones, the kind clearly reached for often rather than saved for special occasions. And on top, folded with more care than the rest, a red Adidas jacket, cuffs slightly frayed, a small ink stain near the pocket that had never quite come out.
"That's his favorite," Keonho said immediately, pointing at it like he needed to make sure everyone understood the significance. "Like, the favorite. He's had that thing since before debut." He turned to Juhoon, half teasing, half genuinely checking. "You sure you want to give that one up?"
Juhoon looked at the jacket for a moment, something quiet and unreadable passing behind his eyes.
Then he nudged it gently toward _____ with two fingers, a small, easy smile settling onto his face. "Yeah," he said simply. "I'm sure."
_____ picked it up carefully, running his thumb once over the frayed cuff, feeling the years of wear worked into the fabric, years of a version of Juhoon he hadn't known yet, before debut, before comeback pressure, before any of this.
He looked up to thank him properly, and found Juhoon still watching him, gaze lingering a beat longer than it probably needed to before he glanced away, scratching idly at his own neck like the moment hadn't happened at all.
Their manager had given permission easily enough, a rare free morning, a change of clothes that weren't his own (apparently even scent-neutral fabric mattered, since sasaengs had gotten frighteningly good at recognizing the members' scent from anywhere), and a simple instruction: keep the mask on if it gets crowded, and text if anything feels off.
_____ walked slower than he needed to, in no particular hurry to be anywhere. Seoul in late June had a different texture than he remembered from his first arrival months ago, the heat pressing warm and heavy against the pavement, cicadas starting their low drone in whatever patches of green the city allowed itself, the particular smell of a summer market morning, all overripe fruit and grilled skewers and the occasional gust of air conditioning escaping through a convenience store door.
He checked his bank balance out of habit while waiting at a crosswalk, more from disbelief than actual need. The number sat there, larger than it had any right to be, and beneath it, a memo line: tuition — Konkuk University, paid in full.
He'd checked that transaction at least six times over the past two days, and it still hadn't stopped feeling slightly unreal.
I did it, he thought, something warm rising in his chest that had nothing to do with the summer heat. Mom, I actually did it.
The thought immediately tangled itself with guilt, the way most good things in his life seemed to lately, because doing it had meant lying to her, still meant lying to her, every phone call carefully edited down to 'the shop job is going well' and 'the dorm is nice' and nothing at all about mask requirements or nesting instructions or three alphas whose bodies he was now, apparently, partially responsible for stabilizing.
He pushed the thought aside and let himself wander instead, weaving through market stalls with no real destination, thinking distantly about how he might repay the group for what they'd already given him.
He found the answer without looking for it.
A small stall near the corner of the market street had crates of fresh green plums stacked in uneven pyramids, a handwritten sign advertising them as newly harvested, the season nearly at its end. Haneul stopped walking entirely.
Maesil-cheong.
His mother had made it every June for as long as he could remember — the same ritual every year, plums washed in the sink, stems plucked one by one at the kitchen table while she told him stories about her own childhood, the syrup left to sit in glass jars on top of the refrigerator for months until it turned the deep amber color that meant it was finally ready.
He hadn't thought about it in years. Standing here now, the smell of raw green plum sharp and bright in the summer air, it hit him harder than he expected.
He came home with far more than he'd planned to buy, the ajumma at the stall throwing in an extra handful when he mentioned, almost shyly, that he was planning to make maesil-cheong.
"Good boy," she'd said, patting his arm. "Not many young people bother anymore."
Alongside, he also bought a bottle of oligodang syrup, a bag of sugar, and, remembering Dr. Ahn's instructions almost as an afterthought, several bottles of electrolyte drinks tucked under one arm.
Seonghyeon met him at the door, took one look at the size of the plum bag, and laughed outright.
"That's..." He peered into the bag. "That's a lot of plums, _____."
"I got carried away," _____ admitted, face warming. "I saw them and just... kept grabbing more. I don't even know why."
"It's fine." Seonghyeon's expression softened, something understanding in it. "You're allowed to get carried away over something that reminds you of home. It's probably harder being away from it than you let on."
_____ didn't answer that directly, just set the bags down on the counter and started unpacking them instead, grateful Seonghyeon didn't push further.
₊˚✿𑁍.ೃ࿔*:･
The washing came first, plum after plum rinsed under cold water, set out to dry completely on clean towels across the counter, because any lingering moisture would spoil the whole batch months down the line.
_____ explained the process as he worked, falling easily into teaching the way his mother had once taught him.
"After they're dry, we have to pull the stems out," he said, holding one up to demonstrate. "If you leave them, it makes the syrup taste bitter."
Seonghyeon eyed the sheer number of plums laid out across the counter. "That's... a lot of stems."
"It is." _____ managed a small, sheepish smile. "You really don't have to help with this part. I can do it myself, it's kind of mindless work anyway. You should rest."
"I want to help," Seonghyeon said simply, already pulling two bowls down from the cabinet and settling onto the kitchen floor, back against the cabinet, plums gathered into his lap. "Come on. Floor's more comfortable for this than standing at the counter anyway."
_____ settled down across from him, and for a while they worked quietly, small woody stems piling up in a bowl between them, the sharp green smell of raw plum filling the kitchen.
Seonghyeon filled the silence eventually, the way he seemed to naturally do: stories about the group, told with the fondness of someone who'd witnessed years of them and found the memories funny in hindsight even when they probably hadn't been at the time.
Martin's first real broadcast, so nervous he'd introduced himself with the wrong debut date.
Keonho always being mistaken as Seonghyeon, even the media gets it wrong.
James falling asleep standing up during a fitting, still upright, until someone finally noticed he hadn't blinked in several minutes.
_____ laughed more in that half hour than he had in the entire month prior, the plum stems slowly piling higher between them.
Then, mid-story, he cleared his throat, something clearly sitting on his mind now that the moment had gone soft and easy enough to risk it.
"Can I ask something?" he said, not quite meeting Seonghyeon's eyes, focusing instead on the plum in his hands.
"Sure."
"Do you... " he hesitated, "or the others, have any clothes you don't really use anymore? Or wear a lot?"
Seonghyeon blinked, plum halfway to the bowl. "...Sure, probably. Why?"
_____'s face warmed further. "I want to make a nest," he said, quieter now. "For... Dr. Ahn said it helps if — if there's something familiar. Something that smells like you all already. It's supposed to make it easier, more comfortable."
Seonghyeon went still for a moment, plum forgotten in his hand entirely.
The color that crept up his neck wasn't subtle at all, and _____ misreading it, rushed to clarify. "It's not — it's not a big deal, really, it's just a practical thing, for comfort—"
"No, I—" Seonghyeon cleared his throat, looking down at the plum in his hand like it required his full attention.
_____, still slightly confused by the sudden shift in mood but taking the cue to drop it, simply nodded and went back to the plums, the quiet settling between them again, different now, warmer at the edges in a way neither of them fully addressed.
The quiet didn't last long, though.
Keonho appeared in the kitchen doorway less than a minute later, nose visibly working the air. "Something smells like fruit," he announced, like he was reporting a crime scene. "Why does something smell like fruit and why wasn't I invited."
"You weren't invited because this isn't a party, Keonho," Seonghyeon said, though he was already sliding the extra bowl toward an empty spot on the floor.
"It looks like a party. There's snacks." Keonho dropped down beside _____ without waiting for further permission, immediately reaching for a plum.
Martin trailed in a moment later, arms crossed, with the look of a man who'd followed Keonho purely out of paternal obligation rather than actual curiosity, though that resolve lasted exactly as long as it took him to spot the plums.
"...Maesil-cheong?" he asked, some of the wariness draining out of his posture.
"Trying to be," _____ said. "If we ever finish the stems."
"I'll help," Martin said immediately, settling down across from Keonho, and just like that, the small quiet project had ballooned into four people crowded on the kitchen floor.
Seonghyeon coughed lightly, glancing at _____ with a small, private smile. "I'll bring you those clothes later," he said.
Keonho's head snapped up immediately, plum forgotten. "Clothes? What clothes? What are you giving him?"
"Nothing that concerns you," Seonghyeon said mildly.
"It very much concerns me, we live in the same three rooms—"
_____, face rapidly turning the same shade as the plums weren't yet, busied himself intensely with a stem that didn't require nearly that much attention.
Martin, catching the color rising in _____'s cheeks and apparently deciding mercy was in order, cut in smoothly. "Focus on the task, Keonho. In fact..." a competitive glint entered his eye, "let's see who can clear their bowl of stems first. Loser does dishes tonight."
"Hell nah," Keonho said instantly, already reaching for a fresh handful of plums, already forgetting his earlier question.
₊˚✿𑁍.ೃ࿔*:･
From the living room doorway, unnoticed by the competitive chaos now unfolding on the kitchen floor, Juhoon lingered.
He'd wandered out of his room sometime during the noise, drawn by the sound of Keonho's protests more than any real intention to join, and now stood at the edge of the kitchen threshold, watching the four of them with the same distant, unreadable expression he wore most days.
James, who was settled on the couch the whole time with his phone in hand, glanced up and caught him standing there.
"Go join them," James said simply.
Juhoon didn't move. "I'm fine here."
"You've been standing in that doorway for two minutes."
"I'm observing."
"You're hovering." James set his phone down, standing up with a small sigh. "Go, Juhoon."
Juhoon shot him a flat look and took one step backward instead, clearly aiming for the safety of his own room, but James was faster, crossing the distance and placing a firm hand between his shoulder blades, steering him bodily toward the kitchen with the same patient insistence he'd used on Keonho more than once.
"Hyung—"
"Go sit down. It's plums, not a firing squad."
Juhoon stumbled forward a step, right into the doorway, right into _____'s line of sight.
_____ looked up at the movement, and something in his expression shifted the moment he registered who it was.
'Juhoon's line sat lowest of all of them, refusing to level out the way Martin's and Keonho's finally had.'
He set his own bowl aside without hesitation.
"Hyung," he said, patting the small space of floor beside him. "Come sit. There's room."
Juhoon glanced back over his shoulder, at James, who stood in the living room doorway now, arms crossed, expression giving nothing away except the smallest, expectant tilt of his head that clearly meant go on, then.
Juhoon exhaled through his nose and sat.
His posture stayed rigid the entire way down, shoulders squared like he was bracing for something, though nobody had asked anything of him yet beyond simply sitting.
He reached out toward the basin of plums after a moment, picking one up, turning it over in his hand with the vague uncertainty of someone who'd never actually done this before and wasn't about to admit it.
"Like this," _____ said gently, reaching over to demonstrate, his fingers finding the woody stem at the top and working it loose with a practiced little twist. "You just pull it out. Careful not to bruise the fruit too much."
He held his own hand out for Juhoon's plum, showing him again slower this time, close enough that his hand hovered just above Juhoon's own, close enough that Juhoon caught, without meaning to, the same faint sweetness Keonho had sworn up and down was there since the very first day.
It hit him harder this close.
Juhoon's train of thought derailed somewhere in the middle of a sentence he hadn't even started yet, his head tilting slightly, unconsciously, toward the source of it before some old, stubborn part of his brain caught the motion and yanked it back.
Keonho wasn't wrong, he thought distantly. It's sweet. Really sweet. I want—
He didn't let himself finish the thought. He straightened abruptly, scratching at the back of his neck, eyes fixed pointedly on the plum in his other hand instead of on _____'s face, which was somehow worse, because now all he had to focus on was the warmth radiating faintly off _____'s skin from this distance.
"...Got it," Juhoon muttered, plucking the stem out himself this time, a little too forcefully, nearly crushing the plum in the process.
_____, either not noticing or kindly choosing not to comment, just smiled and reached for another one himself. "You're a fast learner."
Juhoon didn't answer, focusing very hard on the next plum in his hands.
From across the kitchen, still nominally competing with Keonho, Seonghyeon glanced over at the two of them, then back toward James, who had settled down beside him at some point without either of them fully registering when.
"He's warming up," Seonghyeon murmured, low enough that it didn't carry past the two of them, a small, knowing smile tugging at his mouth. "Look at that."
James followed his gaze, Juhoon, rigid-backed and silent, sitting a fraction closer to _____ than the available floor space really required, ears faintly pink at the tips in a way that had nothing to do with the summer heat.
"Your turn's next," Seonghyeon added, glancing sideways at James now, something too knowing in his expression for James's comfort.
James opened his mouth to deny it, found nothing immediate to say, and settled instead for picking up a plum and focusing very intently on its stem.
The lights in Dr. Ahn's office always felt a shade too bright, like the whole room had been built to keep people awake and alert rather than comfortable.
_____ sat across from her desk, hands folded in his lap, listening... or trying to.
"—and nest-building isn't optional, even if it feels unnecessary to you personally," Dr. Ahn was saying, tapping through a slideshow on the monitor angled toward him. "I understand your own heats don't typically call for one. But the alphas' ruts respond very specifically to environmental cues. A proper nest, soft materials, scent-layering, enclosed but not claustrophobic, can shorten a rut's most volatile phase by a significant margin."
_____ nodded, though the words were starting to blur together, less like instructions and more like a wave he was standing in, letting wash over him without fully absorbing any of it.
"Hydration is non-negotiable," she continued. "Electrolyte drinks, not just water; regular water actually worsens dehydration risk during a rut spike, oddly enough. High-protein, easy-to-digest food before and after, nothing heavy. You'll be given a stocked kit for all three of them individually, since their preferences differ slightly."
Three of them.
The thought landed heavier than it should have, considering he'd known the number since the very first meeting. Three alphas. Three separate bodies, three separate cycles, three separate sets of needs he was now expected to learn intimately enough to manage on instinct.
His stomach turned, low and unpleasant.
"_____." Their manager's voice cut in gently from beside him. "You look a little pale."
"I'm fine," _____ said automatically, though it came out thinner than he meant it to.
Their manager studied him a moment longer, then set his own folder down on the desk. "If this is too much," he said, carefully, "if you're not ready for this, if you want to step back... that's allowed. Nobody's going to force you into a role you can't handle."
Beside him, Dr. Ahn's head turned sharply, something tight in her expression as she looked at the manager, not quite disapproval, but close to it, the look of someone silently asking can we actually afford to lose him right now, this close to their next comeback window, with no other candidate in the pipeline.
But _____ was already shaking his head before either of them could say more.
"I'm not quitting," he said, quiet but firm. Then, after a breath, more honest, "I just... I don't know if I can actually do this well. That's different from wanting to quit."
He looked down at the tablet in his hands, the one Dr. Ahn had passed him earlier, open to the group's latest data readouts. Three numbers sat there, stark against the screen.
Juhoon's, lowest of all of them, still creeping downward in small increments day over day.
Keonho's, volatile, swinging in ways that made the graph look almost jagged.
Martin's, steadier but still well below where a healthy alpha baseline should sit.
Real people. Real bodies, quietly breaking down under the weight of a job that had never given them the option to simply rest properly.
And now, apparently, resting on him.
_____ curled forward slightly, elbows braced against his knees, breath catching somewhere tight in his chest.
"_____." Dr. Ahn's voice softened, losing its clinical edge.
"You're already doing well," she said. "Better than well, actually. I know it doesn't feel that way to you, sitting here with all of this thrown at you at once. But look at this... " she reached over, tapping something on the tablet, pulling up a comparison graph _____ hadn't noticed before.
"Martin and Keonho's stability index. Small movement, I'll grant you, nothing dramatic yet. But it's moving in the right direction. Upward, for the first time in weeks."
_____ stared at the graph. The numbers had, in fact, ticked upward, modestly but undeniably.
"That's not a coincidence," Dr. Ahn continued. "Close, consistent interaction with an omega presence tends to have a stabilizing effect even before an official bond is formalized. Simply having you here, in proximity, sharing meals, existing in the same space, it's already doing something. You haven't even started the more involved parts of this yet."
It should have felt like good news. _____ understood, logically, that it was good news.
Instead, it only tightened the knot sitting low in his stomach further, because good news meant expectation. It meant the group was already, quietly, starting to rely on something he wasn't sure he could keep giving them, not steadily, not for months or years, not without eventually running dry the way every resource eventually did.
He couldn't back out now. Not with numbers like that already shifting because of him.
Not with Juhoon's graph still sinking further than the others, waiting for whatever came next.
He looked down at the tablet again... Juhoon's line, red and low, refusing to level out the way Martin's and Keonho's had begun to. Then back up, toward Dr. Ahn, toward their manager, both of them watching him now with the careful, measured patience of people waiting to see what he'd decide.
His expression wasn't determined, not exactly. There was still hesitation sitting plainly in his eyes, the same uncertainty that had been there since he'd first stepped into that overly bright meeting room days ago.
But underneath it, quieter and steadier than the fear, was something else.
"...Tell me what I need to know," _____ said finally. "All of it. Properly this time. I want to actually understand it, not just nod along."
Dr. Ahn's expression eased into something like relief, and beside him, their manager let out a slow breath he'd clearly been holding.
"Alright," Dr. Ahn said, pulling the slideshow back up, voice settling back into its careful, clinical rhythm. "Let's start from the beginning."
By the time everyone made it to the breakfast table, the pajeon had gone from fresh to merely warm, though nobody seemed to mind much.
"You're getting sauce on the table, Keonho," Martin said, already reaching over with a napkin before Keonho could protest. "How does that even happen. It's a pancake, not soup."
"I'm 'efficient'," Keonho mocked, mouth still half full, which did nothing to help his case.
"Yah! You're so dirty."
"Bleh."
Juhoon sat at the end of the table, quiet as ever, slowly working his way through a bowl of heukmi bap without much enthusiasm, eyes half-lidded in the particular way that made it hard to tell if he was tired or simply uninterested in existing this early.
He'd come out for breakfast at least, which James privately counted as a small win.
_____, seated between Seonghyeon and Martin, had barely touched his own plate yet, too busy refilling water glasses, sliding the banchan dishes closer to whoever seemed to be reaching for them.
"Eat," Seonghyeon said finally, nudging _____'s own bowl toward him before scooping up a spoonful of pajeon and rice himself and holding it out. "You made this. You should actually taste it."
_____ hesitated only a second before leaning in and taking the bite, and Seonghyeon huffed a small laugh as a stray piece of rice stuck to _____'s chin, reaching over without thinking and brushing it away with his thumb.
The table went very quiet, very fast.
Keonho set his chopsticks down with theatrical slowness, one hand pressed to his chest like he'd been personally wounded. "Excuse me. When did you two get like this?"
"That's what I said about Martin's protein shakes and you told me I was being weird."
"That's because you were being weird."
Martin, grinning now, reached over and grabbed Keonho's hand, dragging it up toward his own face with exaggerated tenderness. "Here, let me show you how it's done," he said, mock-solemn, rubbing Keonho's palm against his cheek like it was the most romantic gesture in the world. "You made this. You should actually taste it."
"Get off—" Keonho yanked his hand back, laughing despite himself, shoving Martin's shoulder hard enough that he nearly toppled off the bench.
The table dissolved into noise after that, Keonho's indignant protests, Martin's unbothered laughing, even _____ managing a small, surprised smile at the chaos of it.
James, quietly working through his own plate, found himself watching Seonghyeon instead of the commotion. There was the faintest color high on Seonghyeon's cheeks, barely there, easy to miss if you weren't looking for it, and James was fairly certain he was the only one who had noticed at all.
He didn't say anything and went back to his food.
Beside him, low enough that it was nearly swallowed by the noise of Keonho and Martin's continued bickering, Juhoon muttered something under his breath.
James caught maybe half of it, something that sounded like a complaint, or possibly just a sigh with consonants attached, and glanced over, but Juhoon had already gone back to his rice, expression unreadable, and James let it go for now.
⋆. 𐙚 ˚🍮ྀིྀི⋆｡𖦹ᯓ★
After breakfast, the kitchen turned into its own kind of chaos, _____ and Seonghyeon at the sink, sleeves pushed up, while Martin and Keonho hovered nearby under the loose pretense of "helping," which mostly amounted to flicking water at each other and nearly dropping a plate twice.
James lingered in the doorway for a moment, watching the four of them fall into easy noise together, before deciding the kitchen didn't need a fifth person crowding it.
He slipped away quietly, back toward the hallway, back toward the room he shared with Juhoon.
Inside, the curtains were still drawn, the room dim despite the late morning hour. Juhoon sat on the edge of his bed, blanket pulled up over his shoulders like a cape he hadn't bothered to take off from the night before.
"Hey," James said, closing the door softly behind him. "You okay?"
Juhoon nodded, not looking up.
James studied him a moment, then crossed the room and sat down on the edge of his own bed, facing him. "The others are cleaning up. _____, Seonghyeon, Martin, Keonho. Mostly just messing around at this point more than actually washing dishes." He paused. "You could go join them, if you wanted."
"I don't want to," Juhoon said, flat, immediate.
James didn't push. He'd learned a long time ago that pushing Juhoon rarely worked.
Juhoon lay back slowly, pulling the blanket up over half his face again, staring at the ceiling instead of at James. "What's the point," he muttered, mostly to himself. "Meeting him. Sitting there. He's not gonna fix anything just by me standing in the same room."
James stayed quiet, letting the silence hold space for whatever else might come.
It took a while, but eventually, much quieter than before, Juhoon added, "...I'm scared that needing him this much, this fast, means something's wrong with me."
James felt something in his chest tighten at that, not surprise, exactly, more like the confirmation of something he'd already half-suspected watching Juhoon's numbers creep downward over the past weeks.
He sat down on the edge of Juhoon's mattress, patting the blanket gently where it covered his shoulder.
"There's nothing wrong with needing help," James said, keeping his voice even, steady. "Needing it fast doesn't make it weak. Your body's been running on empty for weeks, Juhoon. That's not a character flaw. It's just biology catching up to you."
Juhoon didn't answer right away, eyes fixed somewhere on the ceiling, unreadable.
"And for what it's worth," James added, quieter now, "_____'s not just there for Seonghyeon. Or for Keonho, or Martin. He's a partner for all of us. That includes you."
A pause.
Then Juhoon turned his head slightly, finally meeting James's eyes from beneath the blanket, something sharp and searching in his expression despite the exhaustion sitting heavy underneath it.
"...If that's true," he said slowly, "then why do you look at him like a brick wall every time he's in the room?"
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