Chapter Text
It is a bleary day. Overcast skies, low light, and humidity spiked even when it’s an hour before noon. The café he’s sitting at is expectedly empty, with people who usually frequent it being at work or college. Having been visiting it for quite some time, Kim Seungcheol knows. It isn’t a place someone like him would frequent—at least according to those that think they know of him—but he prefers nothing but a quiet, chaos-less hour to himself every day.
Away from guns. Away from blood. Away from runts and mutts who think they are better than someone else. Constant competition that always keeps the base on edge and, most of all… his unruly children, who are no better than pups that first stepped foot into crime.
The gentle hum of people’s low voices blends with the soft melody that rings through the café. Vines that bloom small, white flowers with the faintest smell climb and twist through the pergola affixed to the main indoor area, creating a shaded and somewhat romantic space. The scent of coffee brewing in the air masks the alpha pheromones that he emanates.
Here, Kim Seungcheol is simply a man. Not an alpha. Not a boss to a few faithful followers. Not a bearer of death. And certainly not a father to a bunch of monsters that don’t know their limits of power. He is simply… a man. One who enjoys a cup of black coffee made out of Italian roasted beans with a cinnamon cookie on the side. And maybe enjoys the view of a certain omega that-
“Master…”
A sigh escapes him as if it has been waiting for it.
“Hmm?”
He swirls a mouthful of coffee, letting the bitterness coat his inner mouth and linger on his tongue, and then swallows it.
“The housekeeper at the estate just quit.”
Another sigh.
He should have expected it. With the way the man couldn’t even hold eye contact with his son on the first day, he had not expected the beta to even last a month. It’s a surprise that he did for three.
Kim Seungcheol doesn’t glance at his right-hand man standing behind him. He doesn’t have to. He knows that the expression on his face mirrors his own. This is the...which one? He doesn’t even remember what the number of people he has seen and heard quitting or disappearing over the years because they couldn’t survive a house of wolves. A pack that has a bond deeper than age-old scars embedded into their skin.
Still… he does not blame any that quit. After all, his sons are…quite a handful.
Time ticks slowly.
The alpha is suddenly distracted. The corner of his eye catches the sight of the person he has been observing for the past few months.
An omega.
Someone around his sons’ age, but with the eyes of someone who has seen all and experienced all.
Someone who has a smile on his face no matter what is being spewed at him, no matter how he is treated.
His hair sways gently as he steps out into the outdoor area, hands clutching a tray that holds a yellow cup with intricate paintings of blue leaves around it. He delivers it to the table across from him with the most practiced mask of a smile on his pretty lips and a grace forged in fire. He carries a softness that endures hard, and it intrigued him so much that some time ago he did a background check. A little snooping around just to find out who he is.
Park Seonghwa. Twenty-six. With no other family than his older brother, who has been lying on a hospital bed surviving on feeding tubes and oxygen tanks. Which ended the omega’s studies in culinary arts and forced him to take up four jobs just to cover the hospital bills and to simply live.
He has seen reports of Seonghwa working at a bar downtown, taking midnight shifts and dealing with drunkards. He has also seen reports of the omega doing cleanup jobs at a few brothels hidden deep in the slums at early hours of the morning, kicking out lowlifes in between. And then again, a soju restaurant near the college he used to go to. Getting constantly reminded of the life he could have had, if not for the freak accident that left his parents in the hands of death and his brother in a coma.
So yes, Kim Seungcheol has done his research, and yes, the omega is someone in need of money. An omega whose every shift is a sacrifice, every coin a lifeline.
If only it is the sole reason for him to feel intrigued over Park Seonghwa.
It’s not.
Park Seonghwa is strong. He holds a kind of strength that is different from that of his sons—quiet, yet prominent. The kind of strength that trembled walls and shamed empires. People see the apron, the bowed head, and the soft, polite voice—but they never see the raw hands, the cracked phone full of pending bills, or the nights he walked home with blood under his shoes.
Many people would say they would kill for money, yet only a few know the weight of such words. At his base, everyone gets reminded that they are simply human, that their lives can be ended in a fraction of a second. At the estate, one would have to live and serve with the understanding that one’s masters have survived an environment such as this and lived to tell the tale.
Clang!
Kim Seungcheol’s attention is pulled from his thoughts as his eyes fall upon the seething omega just a few tables away. His face is twisted in unhidden anger, mouth downturned in disgust as he holds the empty tray in his hand in a death grip. He hisses at the ‘customer’ who stares dumbfounded in shock at the omega who dared to hit his hand with a tray, causing his phone to drop to the floor and smash to pieces.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he says, serious and unapologetic, yet with thinly veiled venom in his voice. Those words please, yet the eyes are dark, hardened by something Seungcheol is very familiar with. “I have no excuse to give for how clumsy I was. Please allow me to cover your expenses.”
Now, Kim Seungcheol does not know what the omega has seen on the phone for him to react as such and why he would even bother. It would probably cost him a good chunk of his paycheck, if not his job, yet he has done what he felt was right so that he can live with no regrets. As the alpha watches him with interest while Seonghwa is spewed curses at by the customer, he chuckles.
“Jinsik-ah…”
“Master.”
“Tell Hongjoong that I have already found him a housekeeper.”