Chapter 1: The Heat and the Hopeless Best Friend
The key clicked in the lock like a gun cocking.
Hyukjae shouldered the door open and gravity took over. He didn’t so much walk into the apartment as pour himself across the threshold, his bag hitting the linoleum with a thud before he followed, collapsing onto the futon in a boneless heap. The air was a physical weight, thick and soupy, smelling of yesterday’s instant noodles and the faint, phantom trace of cedar and salt air. Donghae’s cologne. His stupid, perfect, unforgettable cologne on a jacket forgotten months ago, now a permanent stain on the atmosphere.
A slick, uncomfortable heat was building under his skin, a low-grade fever that had nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with the expired, off-brand suppressants he’d been rationing. They were crumbling in their foil blisters, about as useful as candy.
He fumbled for the fan, knocking over an empty water bottle. It spun to life with a metallic whir, chopping the stale air into hot, useless waves that did nothing but flutter the hem of his shirt. He was drenched. His light brown hair stuck to his forehead, and every breath felt like inhaling wool.
A rapid, precise knock at the door. Shave-and-a-haircut. Ryeowook.
“It’s open,” Hyukjae croaked, not moving.
The door swung inward, and Ryeowook bustled in, a blast of humid hallway air and the profound, sugary scent of fresh baking following him. He carried a cardboard box in one oven-mitt-clad hand. His nose wrinkled immediately.
“Wow. It smells like regret and despair in here. And burnt cinnamon.” He kicked the door shut with his heel, set the box on the microwave, and zeroed in on Hyukjae. “You look like death warmed over. Actually, death wouldn’t sweat through its shirt. What’s the verdict?”
“The verdict is my suppressants are a lie,” Hyukjae mumbled into the couch cushion. “A cruel, capitalist lie. I took one this morning and my body just laughed at it. It’s building. I can feel it.”
Ryeowook made a sympathetic tsk sound. He opened his box, pulled out a perfectly iced cinnamon roll the size of a saucer, and placed it on a napkin on the floor near Hyukjae’s head. Then he reached back in and pulled out a pristine, silver baking tray. He waved it in front of Hyukjae’s face like a fan.
The air it moved was marginally cooler. Hyukjae groaned, either in thanks or agony.
“This is what we call a preventable crisis,” Ryeowook stated, fanning with mechanical efficiency. “You’ve been low-grade pre-heat for a week. Your scent is all… wobbly. And you keep ‘accidentally’ walking past the auto shop where a certain Alpha with stupidly nice shoulders works.”
“I like cars,” Hyukjae lied, his voice muffled.
“You think a catalytic converter is a fancy coffee machine. Don’t play with me.” Ryeowook fanned harder. “You have two choices, Hyukjae. Well, three. The first is to let this full-blown heat rip through this studio apartment, which, given the flammable nature of your decor, is a safety hazard. The second is to go to a clinic and get a proper prescription, which you won’t do because you’re stubborn and broke.”
Hyukjae turned his head, the vinyl sticking to his cheek. “And the third?”
Ryeowook stopped fanning. He leaned down, his expression deadly serious. “You march your sweaty, desperate self over to Kim Donghae, you look him in those stupid, kind eyes of his, and you say, ‘Hey. My biology has decided you’re the one. Can we negotiate terms?’”
A jolt, sharp and electric, went through Hyukjae. He pushed himself up on his elbows, dizziness swamping him. “Are you insane? I can’t just… confess! Because of this?” He gestured wildly at his own trembling body. “That’s not a confession, that’s a biological ambush! It’s pathetic!”
“It’s efficient!” Ryeowook countered. “He’s an unmated Alpha. You’re an Omega who’s been making puppy-dog eyes at him since, like, 2012. The tension is so thick you could frost it and sell it as one of my cakes.”
“He doesn’t see me like that. I’m just… Hyukjae. The clumsy dance teacher from down the hall.” He sank back down, the fight leaving him as quickly as it came. The phantom cedar scent seemed to intensify, taunting him. “He’s nice to everyone. He carries old ladies’ groceries. He’d probably help me out of a misplaced sense of duty, and then I’d have to move cities. Or planets.”
Ryeowook sighed, a long-suffering sound. He resumed fanning with the tray. “Your self-sabotage is a work of art. Truly. So, it’s option two then? The clinic?”
Before Hyukjae could answer, a crippling cramp seized his lower abdomen. It stole his breath, curling him inward on the futon with a sharp gasp. A fresh, distinct wave of his own scent—oceanic, vulnerable, sweet—flooded the tiny space, cutting through the ramen and regret.
Ryeowook froze. The fanning stopped. “Okay. That’s new. That’s advance scouting for the main event.” His voice lost its playful edge. “Hyukjae. Listen to me. This is happening. Soon. You either get real medication, or you get an Alpha. There is no third option where you just tough it out in this oven.”
Tears of frustration, of pure helpless anger, pricked at Hyukjae’s eyes. He hated this. Hated the loss of control, the neediness it carved into him. He wasn’t some helpless creature. He could choreograph a complex routine, could land a perfect jump, could make a room full of kids laugh. But this? This reduced him to a trembling, scent-drenched liability.
“I can’t ask him,” he whispered, his throat tight. “Not like this.”
“Then it’s the clinic.” Ryeowook’s tone brooked no argument. He stood, setting the baking tray aside. “I’ll call. You’ll go. Tonight. Before you start properly broadcasting on a frequency that’ll bring every Alpha in a five-block radius to your door like confused, horny moths.”
He fished his phone from his apron. Hyukjae stared at the water stain on his ceiling, the shape of it blurring. The comforting, burnt-sugar and cinnamon smell from Ryeowook’s box was now cloying, overwhelming. It couldn’t mask his own truth, nor could it erase the other, deeper scent that haunted him—the cedar and sea salt that promised a stability he was too terrified to reach for.
Ryeowook was speaking into the phone, his voice professionally cheerful. “Yes, hello. We have a potential Omega pre-heat emergency. How soon can you see him?”
Hyukjae closed his eyes. The clinical, sterile solution. It was the right one. The safe one. It meant silence, and solitude, and getting through this alone in his sweltering box, just him and the ghost of a scent that wasn’t his.
Outside, the neon sign from the bar across the street flickered, painting the wall a rhythmic, pulsating red. It matched the pulse he felt deep in his core, a relentless, rising drumbeat his body was playing against his will. The decision was made. But as another slow, aching wave of heat rolled through him, a treacherous, secret part of him wished, with a clarity that shocked him, for a different kind of solution entirely.