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Chapter Text

A chilly evening wind whips past Cheongsan, and immediately he regrets not bringing his heavier coat when he’d left home earlier. Shuddering, he reaches up with the hand not holding his bag of groceries to turn up his collar, hoping it’ll do something to protect him from the cold. It’d been silly of him really, not to leave better wrapped up. It may be mild outside, but the ground is still wet from the rain that’d pelted down all day, and when the wind picks up, the temperature seems to drop drastically. 

The streets of Hyosan are quiet this late in the evening, the clock having read just after six as he’d slipped out earlier. Few cars roll past him, and even fewer people walk by him on the sidewalk. However, in downtown Hyosan, it’s best not to loiter after dark. Cheongsan himself, if he were smarter, would’ve run to the store when the sun was still up. 

He’s nearly home, though, the journey back from the store not having taken too long, thankfully. The plastic bag of groceries in his hand weighs heavily against his palm, stinging slightly with each step he takes. He didn't need to go today; he could’ve easily just made himself and his Mama some chicken dish, but between the two of them, he thinks they’re both sick of chicken. So for variety, he’d counted up the remainder of his meagre wages, determined he’d had enough for fresh ingredients and set off for the store, kissing his Mama on the cheek before stepping out. 

She’d fussed over him leaving, her brows creased in worry as she asked him if he really needed to go. Cheongsan had reassured her he’d be fine, that it wasn’t too far a walk and that he’d stick to the main streets. Avoid any sketchy alleys that might provide a shortcut but potentially harbour danger. 

Ever since his Papa died six months ago, her overprotectiveness has grown significantly. She’s always been a tad overbearing, both of his parents were, the two of them never letting up fretting over him even as he’d grown up. He thinks his presenting as an Omega made them feel they could never truly be anxiety-free when it came to him. 

Stepping over a puddle, Cheongsan swaps the groceries from one hand to the other, the blood flow slowly returning to his creased palm. He’s looking forward to providing a meal tonight for his Mama that doesn’t contain any poultry, but rather a nice, fat pork belly. It’s been months since they’ve had it, and Cheongsan can’t wait to surprise her with it.

As Cheongsan Chicken comes into view, he notes with slight guilt the customers within the interior, hoping his Mama wasn’t put under too much stress to serve them in his absence. He’d only stepped out earlier because the place had been void of any paying customers. 

Pushing the glass door of the restaurant open, all three of the people sitting inside turn to his arrival. He smiles politely at a couple by a window seat and then at an older gentleman at the front, as he walks further inside. The couple smile at him warmly, the girl lifting her hand in a small wave, and Cheongsan recognises them as regulars. The older man merely nods at him, looking him up and down wearily. 

Shouldering the swinging door open between the front of the restaurant and the kitchen, he grins at his Mama when she glances up at him from her place before the grill. Eyeing the bag in his hand, Cheongsan raises it with a smile, excitement lighting up behind his sternum. 

She laughs quietly at him, her eyes moving between him and the fried chicken she’s currently ensuring isn’t overcooking on the stove. 

“Oh, what did you get for us, sweetheart?” She smiles, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes creasing.

“It’d ruin the surprise if I told you that,” He says, lifting the bag onto the counter before turning to leave, planning on running upstairs to their apartment to swap his coat for his apron. Passing his Mama, he turns back to her with a mock glare, “Don’t you dare peek inside that bag.” 

“I won’t,” She promises, raising her hand in a pledge. 

Nodding with a laugh, he turns and unlocks the door to the stairway before bounding up the steps two at a time. Reaching the entrance to their apartment, he slips inside, quickly moving down the hallway to his bedroom.

Discarding his coat onto his desk chair, he yanks his apron off the back of the door before securing it over his head and tying it around his waist. Glancing at himself in the full-length mirror on his wall, he reaches up to card his fingers through his hair, rearranging the strands across his forehead more to his style. 

He isn’t particularly handsome, his features sitting rather plainly on his face, his lips a little too feminine, his nose a little too long. He thinks he would be slightly more attractive with a bit more fullness to his cheeks, the tightness of the apron around his torso highlighting just how thin he is. 

He hasn’t always been this skinny, but it’s like he said; times are tough. 

Rolling his eyes at himself, he moves to leave his bedroom, laughing under his breath at his vanity. As he closes the apartment door, he reminds himself that it doesn’t matter how he looks or how skinny he is; He doesn’t have time to date. His priority is his Mama, and keeping their business running well enough to keep a roof over their head and food in their bellies.

He barely has time to see his best friend, Onjo, and she lives only across the street.

Bounding back into the kitchen, his Mama is no longer in front of the stove, but a peek through the circular window in the door reveals she’s serving the older gentleman at the front. He observes the exchange for a few moments, just to garner a feel for the guy, and when his Mama laughs before shoving the man gently on the shoulder and receiving a responding chuckle, Cheongsan relaxes, figuring all is well. 

Stepping up to the stove, he pulls the notes off the clips on the extractor fan and scans the orders, glancing down to see how much progress his Mama has made in completing them. Mumbling under his breath, he memorises the orders before placing them back on the clip. Years of doing this now make it easy for him to hold it in his memory. Just as he’s finished cooking the food he assumes is for the couple out front, his Mama returns. 

“Oh, thank goodness. I’d gotten so caught up chatting with Mr Fan that I completely forgot,” She admits, clutching her chest. 

Smiling sheepishly, Cheongsan hands over the plates to her as he silently thanks the universe she didn’t forget the stove was on whilst he was out. The last thing they need is their only home and source of income burning down to the ground before their horrified eyes. 

Her forgetfulness only drives home his earlier thoughts: His Mama needs him. Now, more than ever, with his father gone. 

Following his Mama as she leaves to serve the couple, Cheongsan glances out, spotting no new customers seated within the restaurant. It’s in stark contrast to how it’d been a little over six months ago, the memory clear in his mind of him and his Papa manoeuvring around each other as they’d cooked together, the bustle out front in the restaurant streaming into the kitchen when his Mama would step in to hand off orders. 

He’s learned within the past year just how quickly and drastically your life can change.

Sighing, he lets the door swing shut as he turns back into the kitchen, figuring he’ll make a start on dinner.

Ever since his Papa died, they’ve been struggling to make ends meet with the restaurant. They’d barely gotten by before, but the business had kept them afloat; the food was a hit with the locals. They live in a rather rough area of downtown Hyosan, the buildings surrounding them cramped and grey, crumbling apart in places and mostly held together by the barrage of electrical cables that swing from one facade to the other. The locals aren’t exactly wealthy enough to splash out on eating in Cheongsan Chicken every night, but before his Papa’s death, at least half of the tables would be occupied on the busiest of evenings. 

Now, every night the number of butts in seats seems to dwindle ever smaller, Cheongsan poking his head out to see fewer faces, and the orders brought to the back by his Mama barely keeping him occupied at all.

He suspects the nature of his Papa’s death is the reason for their sudden decline in business. 

Chopping onions, the tears that pool in his eyes from recalling that day, he blames on the vegetables. 

His Papa had been acting strange all morning that Saturday, the older Beta skittish and distracted, barely any help at all to Cheongsan as he’d readied the restaurant for the evening rush hour. When his Papa had barged into the kitchen from their apartment upstairs to mutter an excuse about needing to meet an old friend and that he’d be back shortly, Cheongsan and his Mama had been left dumbfounded as they’d watched him leave. 

Neither of them had known, as they watched him leave, that Mr Lee would never walk back through his own restaurant doors. That he would never explain where he’d gone, or who he had met or why. Those questions would simply remain unanswered and haunt Cheongsan continually after. 

His Papa’s ID in his pocket had allowed the police to find their address the following morning. Cheongsan had been anxiously pacing in his bedroom, listening to the dead tone that rang out in his ears when he tried calling his Papa’s phone, when a devastated scream had startled him near to death. 

Sprinting down the stairs to burst into the kitchen, he’d found his Mama crumbled to the floor, a police officer kneeling beside her, trying to provide comfort as she sobbed into her hands. Stood there in the middle of the kitchen, frozen in shock, the realisation that his Papa was dead had slammed down on him like a ton of bricks. 

He doesn’t remember much else from that day. 

Swiping his eyes with his sleeve, Cheongsan clenches his jaw, resolutely pushing away thoughts of that day, choosing to put all his focus into perfecting this meal for himself and his Mama. 

In his opinion, they both deserve a nice meal.

“I think the black skirt is nice,” Cheongsan hedges, tilting his head at Onjo, who’s looking at him expectantly. 

On his friend’s small bed, he leans back against the wall and smiles up at Onjo, waiting to see what she thinks of his opinion. The open window next to his ear lets a cool draft in, and the sound of rain coming down hard outside. 

Frowning slightly, Onjo looks down at the skirt across her hips, flattening the material across her legs before glancing back up at him. 

“It’s not too much with the shoes?” She asks, twisting her ankle to show him the length of the black shoes.

 He has no idea what skirt goes with what shoes or vice versa. He’s just trying to be supportive. 

Shaking his head, Cheongsan points to the grey blazer hanging up on her wardrobe door. “They’ll go nicely with that.” 

“I don’t know, Cheongsan,” she murmurs, frowning between all three items of clothing before sighing dejectedly. “God, this is such a pain,” She growls, reaching down to pull off the boots. 

The anxiety in her voice is more than obvious, and Cheongsan’s sympathy goes out to her. He can’t imagine sitting across from some snooty professor for a University interview, even the idea of it makes his stomach light up with nerves. He left school at fifteen to help run his family’s restaurant, though, so that’s not a worry he’ll ever have. 

“You’ll be fine, Onjo.” He encourages, hoping to ease some of the tightness in his friend’s shoulders, “They’d be crazy not to accept you.” 

Looking at him through the reflection of her bedroom mirror, Onjo sighs, “Of course you’d say that, Cheongsan,” she replies, rolling her eyes at him. “Maybe us downtown folk just aren’t made for this kinda life.” She mutters under her breath, the words barely reaching his ears.

“Hey,” He lightly chastises her, standing up from the bed to approach her from behind, holding her eye in the mirror, “You deserve your place in that University just as much as any of those uptown snobs. Maybe even more so.” 

Snorting, she turns around to smile up at him, humour alight in her eyes, “I hope to be one of those uptown snobs one day, you know.”

“And you will be,” He reassures with a smile, “Just don’t forget about us poor folk down here.” He mumbles, the anxiety of Onjo leaving town, leaving him, and never returning, rising in his chest. He’s felt that anxiety sharper and sharper the closer she got to leaving for Uni, Cheongsan knowing in his bones she’ll ace this interview.

“I won’t,” She replies quietly, both of them eyeing each other awkwardly for the blatant words left unsaid. “I’ll come back to see my Pa a lot anyway,” She nods, her eyes drifting to her bedroom door. “And you.” She finishes, a hesitant smile on her face. 

Smiling back, Cheongsan nods, no small amount of relief washing away his anxiety. Onjo is his only friend, and whilst he’s so happy for her to be getting out of this shitty town and making something of herself, a selfish part of him wants to beg her not to go. To stay living across the street from him, to continue popping in unannounced to eat their food and annoy Cheongsan to no end. 

He’d never ask that of her, though. This opportunity may be her only chance to escape these dilapidated streets and crumbling buildings. Cheongsan wishes her all the luck in the world, and even with the pain in his heart, soon he’ll wave her off to University with a smile on his face. 

“Who knows, maybe I’ll come back to find you with a boy on your arm,” Onjo teases, shoving his shoulder a little. 

“Not likely,” He snorts, the idea of him ever finding a mate in this hellhole laughable. “You might find some posh, upper-class Alpha to boss around, though,” He teases right back. 

“Not likely,” She mocks, throwing his words back at him in an exaggerated voice. 

Laughing now, the two of them grin at each other, Cheongsan knowing he’ll miss these easy moments with his best friend the most. 

At one point, for a few months when he was younger, he’d convinced himself he was in love with her, the feelings swirling in his chest when in her company warming him up from the inside. No desire to kiss her or hold her had ever arisen in him, though, and not long after he’d realised what he felt was just platonic love for his best friend. Outside of his Mama, Cheongsan loves no one else.

“Cheongsan…”

Lost in thought now, he blinks out of his reverie to look back down at her, noticing for the first time that she’s no longer looking up at him but frowning in concern out the window. 

Following her gaze, Cheongsan turns his head to look out into the street, gazing out to see what’s grabbed her attention.

Across the street, through the rain pelting down, his family’s restaurant is visible and squinting, Cheongsan can see three dark figures in the interior of the building. When he notices his Mama’s short frame before them, looking small before the three men, a wave of anxiety races through him. 

“I gotta go, Onjo,” he says quietly, already moving to the door, his eyes not leaving the view of his Mama before those three silhouettes until he’s forced to look away to open the door. 

Moving through the upper floor, Cheongsan races down the stairs, bursting into the laundromat. Throwing a quick goodbye to Mr Nam, the older Alpha waves a confused hand at him, staring at Cheongsan worriedly. 

Out in the rain now, Cheongsan steps out into the street to cross, before the blare of a horn has him stumbling back as a car zooms past, barely missing him. Righting himself, he stares through the rain soaking into his hoodie to see the three men turning away from his Mama, approaching the door to leave. 

Eyes flicking up and down the street to check it’s safe, he jogs across once he’s sure he won’t be run over, stepping up onto the pavement before Cheongsan Chicken right as the tallest of the men steps out of the building. 

Stopping before each other, Cheongsan eyes the man, taking in his sleek black hair, his long face and his tall frame. 

He is eyed back just as candidly, the narrow features on the man’s face creasing as he smirks down at Cheongsan. 

“Excuse me.” The man says pointedly, looking down at Cheongsan like he’s waiting for him to move. 

The Alpha’s scent reaches his nose in the next second, Cheongsan’s jaw clenching as its unpleasant aroma swims through his head. Not moving a muscle, Cheongsan holds this man’s eye, refusing to back down. 

The smirk on the man’s face widens into a full shark-like grin, an airy laugh leaving him before, surprisingly, he sidesteps around Cheongsan, holding his gaze the whole time. 

“Omegas these days,” He mutters as he turns, the exaggerated disappointment in his tone clear.

Cheongsan can’t help but flinch, not expecting the Alpha to be able to clock him so easily. Still, even as the fucker laughs at him, he pushes past the humiliation and glares with everything he has.

Exhaling through his nose in anger, Cheongsan follows the retreating form of the Alpha with his eyes before turning that gaze on his two comrades. One of them is short but bulky, a deep scar along one cheek giving him a dangerous look as he glares back. The next one is tall and quite handsome, but as his eyes fall on Cheongsan, a shiver of warning races up his spine, the leering eyes that look him up and down promising something sinister.

He’d rather be glared at with eyes promising violence than eyes like that. 

Watching them go, he frowns when down the street a long black car pulls up to the curb, the three men wasting no time in climbing in. As the car turns around on the street, earning blared horns and shouts of road rage from other drivers, Cheongsan finally looks away and steps up into the restaurant. 

“Mama?” He calls out immediately, finding her leaning heavily on the counter when he pushes through to the back. 

Her head is bowed between her shoulders, a visible tightness across her entire body as she peers at the tiles. 

“Mama..?” He asks again, approaching her gently as worry makes his heart speed up in his chest. 

“Oh, Cheongsan,” she stutters, immediately straightening up to stare at him in surprise. The reaction only makes him frown harder, reaching out to grip her arm as if to steady her. “I thought you were at Onjo’s.” 

“I was,” He replies, eyeing her as she looks anywhere but up at him. “I saw those men, Mama. Who were they?” 

His anxiety from seeing them towering over her has not abated a bit. 

An odd look washes over her face as Cheongsan watches, his Mama shifting on her feet, before what he assumes is supposed to be a reassuring smile appears on her lips. All he truly sees in her in that moment is fear. 

“No one, sweetie. Just some unsavoury types. I told them we hadn’t opened yet.” 

It being Sunday, they don’t open till noon, and it was currently just after ten according to the clock on the wall. Studying his Mama, though, Cheongsan doesn’t find it hard to see through the lie. He knows his Mama nearly better than he knows himself, and the anxiety all over her is sending alarm bells off in his head. 

She holds his eye, though, the effort she’s making in this lie signalling to him she really wants him to believe it. To drop this line of questioning. 

“Is everything okay, Mama?” He asks quietly, the anxiety in her frame causing his own to simmer hotly in his gut. 

“Everything’s great, honey. Why don’t you start prepping the veg? I have a feeling we’re gonna be extra busy tonight,” She smiles up at him, before sliding past him to retreat upstairs. 

Standing there after her, Cheongsan stares down at the white tiles of the kitchen, thoughts of cutting vegetables nowhere near his mind as his worry only grows. 

Dread coils tightly in his throat, his mind running over the last five minutes. 

Chapter Text

Sunday evening, they are busier, and Cheongsan actually needs to push himself to get orders out of the kitchen. When the last customer clears out, his back is left aching, his hands are burned in two places, and he’s pretty sure he has soy sauce in his hair. 

Sighing tiredly, he steps back from cleaning the counters with a damp cloth, eyes scanning the black surfaces for any remaining marks but deeming them good enough for tonight. Throwing the cloth into the sink, he leaves the kitchen, pushing past the doors into the restaurant to find his Mama sweeping the floors. 

She’s lost in her own world as he stops to lean on a table and watch her. Singing softly under her breath, her body moves in a slow dance of some old-timey song. When she holds the broom in front of herself like an imaginary partner before doing a twirl, he can’t help but laugh, and he only laughs harder when she yelps upon spotting him. 

“Don’t you have a kitchen to clean?” She chastises, embarrassment all over her face. 

“I’m finished, actually,” He grins, approaching her to hold out his hand. “I hate to get between you two, but would you like me to finish sweeping?” 

“No, that’s okay, honey,” She replies, smiling up at him. “You go on up to bed.” 

“Are you sure, Mama? I don’t mind finishing up.” 

“It’s fine, Cheongsan. Go. Sleep.” She orders gently, waving him off. 

Guilt squirming in his gut, he nods reluctantly with a quiet goodnight. Turning to leave, he makes it to the door before he remembers something. 

“Mama, my suppressants… I’ll run out soon. I don’t suppose I could get the money for them?” He turns to ask, guilt for a different reason in his gut now. 

“You need a new prescription already? Has it really been three months?” She asks. Exhaustion in both her tone and on her face. 

Nodding, Cheongsan sighs. “Yes, Mama. I know money’s tight right now, I’m sorry.”

“No, no, don’t apologise, Cheongsan,” His Mama replies with a shake of her head. “You need them. I’ll sort out the money tomorrow.” 

Smiling in thanks with guilt eating him alive, Cheongsan nods once before moving to leave. He hates asking for money for anything, knowing the strain they’re under financially to keep themselves afloat, but he can’t go without his suppressants. They’re expensive, in Cheongsan’s opinion, far too expensive, but he needs them. Not only do they prevent him from going into heat and mask his Omega scent, for the most part, but they also act as a contraceptive. The one time he’d gone into heat at fifteen when he’d presented, it’d been the most humiliating, degrading experience of his life. 

He’d awoken to the fever burning through him one morning, thinking initially he was sick before squirming in bed and noticing the slick he was already lying in. His parents seeing him like that had been humiliating, and it only got worse as he’d descended deeper into Omega heat and by day two, he’d been biting into his pillow with two fingers up his ass, keening for an Alpha to fuck him. 

Never again. 

He’d immediately gone on suppressants, swallowing the small pill daily, a tiny burden to pay in exchange for never having to feel that desperate need again. 

“What the hell am I going to tell them now…” 

The words are spoken softly, under his Mama’s breath as if she were speaking her thoughts aloud, but Cheongsan catches it and immediately steps back from leaving the restaurant to turn to her. 

“Who?” He asks, frowning in confusion at his Mama. 

She startles again, turning to stare at him in surprise before guilt washes over her features in a split second, before it’s replaced by what’s undoubtedly a forced smile. 

“No one, sweetheart. Go on to bed.” She practically coos at him, her voice overly sweet. 

Not moving an inch from the door, Cheongsan frowns hard at his Mama, his brain working overtime. That sentence had immediately filled him with concern, his Mama’s voice so full of dread and fear. Who could she be talking about? Why did his asking for the money for his suppressants alarm her so much?

“Mama, who were those men in the restaurant earlier?” 

There’s a suspicion creeping up Cheongsan’s spine, one he doesn’t like. Those men, clad in all-black suits, had immediately looked like criminals to him. 

“Who?” She asks, frowning up at him in an attempt to appear confused. His Mama is a poor actor, though, and Cheongsan can see straight through the attempted deflection, and it only makes him more suspicious. 

“Those three men in all-black suits? They were in here earlier? I saw them talking to you from Onjo’s.” 

“I told you, Cheongsan; just some unsavoury types,” She replies, seemingly giving up on the sweeping as she manoeuvres around him to enter the kitchen. 

Following her, he can tell she’s still lying; her attempt to put distance between them only proves it to be true. 

“Mama, I know you’re lying… who were they?” He asks gently, carefully watching her as she turns to him from putting the broom away. 

Her eyes narrow at him as she straightens up, her face closing over in an expression of annoyance. He’s seen this look on her numerous times in his life. After he’s been disrespectful or unruly or done something he knows he shouldn’t have. 

“Who am I?” She demands, a sharp edge to her voice. 

Eyes widening slightly at the sudden change in demeanour, Cheongsan shifts where he’s stood. 

“You’re my Mama.”

“Exactly,” She responds immediately, her right index finger raising to point at him. “And who are you?” She continues, that tense edge to her voice not moving an inch. 

“I’m your son.” He mumbles back, lifting one arm to hug himself, feeling about five years of age.

“Exactly!” She fires back, her two hands coming together in a loud clap. “You’re my son, and I’m your Mama. So when I tell you something, you listen. When I tell you to do something, you do it. And when I tell you to go to bed, what do you do?” 

Swallowing thickly, Cheongsan looks everywhere but at the anger in his Mama’s eyes. “Go to bed,” He replies quietly. 

Smiling expectantly, the anger in her eyes still directed at him, the raised hand with the palm facing outward towards the door leading to the apartment is all he needs before he nods once and turns to go.

His Mama is still terrifying to him, even at seventeen years old. 

The money for his suppressants had been waiting for him the next morning, the notes of cash staring up at him from the dining table. Waking up early, he’d showered, gotten dressed and eaten his breakfast in quick succession, knowing he was making the trip to the pharmacy that morning. Even with the guilt in his belly making it hard to enjoy his breakfast, as he’d swallowed the last suppressant pill – the empty box featherlight in his hand – the mere idea of going without them quickly overpowered those feelings. 

No Omega goes without their suppressants unless they’re trying to conceive, and even then, those Omegas are usually mated, so they smell bonded and unappealing to other Alphas. No Omega would go off their suppressants otherwise. If Cheongsan were to walk out into the streets, his scent unsuppressed and reeking of unmated Omega, it wouldn’t be long before an Alpha took that as an open invitation. He’s heard horror stories about homeless Omegas or those unlucky enough to be allergic to the medication. 

In this regard, society doesn’t care much either. Society and the law with it, always back Alphas in cases of forced mating or rape. An Alpha raping a mated Omega is highly condemned, mainly because it’s seen as taking another Alpha’s property, but an Alpha claiming an unmated, suppressant-free Omega? That’s just nature taking its course in the eyes of society. Alphas just doing what biology designed them for, unable to deny their natural urges. 

Cheongsan can’t imagine a worse hell than being forced to bond with a strange Alpha. 

That’s the only reason he can push past the heavy guilt in his chest when he sees the financial strain these suppressants put on his Mama. 

It brings him nothing but monumental relief to push the door of the pharmacy open and walk out with his prescription refilled in a bag in his hand.

Walking home, he keeps a tight grip on the bag, his pace brisk as he turns corners and weaves around people. He always gets anxious on the journey back, only able to relax and take a breath once his suppressants are safely locked in his bedside table. 

Waiting at a pedestrian crosswalk, he taps his feet, jittery with nerves as he waits for the light to turn green. An old lady next to him gives him a weary once-over, probably assuming the worst about his behaviour. 

He’s just about home, passing by the alleyway that runs along the back of the restaurant, when he skids to a halt. 

A truck is parked at the end of the alley, and their usual delivery man, Kim Baek-hyun, is standing at the back door of the restaurant with a confused frown. Cheongsan is tempted to smack himself upside the head. How could he forget they have a delivery today! It’s one of his responsibilities. 

Jogging down the alley towards Baek-hyun, upon noticing Cheongsan, his face lights up in recognition, the back of the man’s truck already open and the foodstuffs they’d ordered visible. 

Cheongsan makes it halfway down the alley before he trips over a pothole and falls flat onto his front, his hands flying out to absorb his impact as he hits the ground with a yelp. 

The skin of his palms stings with friction burns, his knees throbbing from hitting the tarmac. Grimacing, he rises slowly onto his haunches, noticing he’s also now wet in several places with pothole water. Wonderful.

He adds mortification to his pains when Baek-hyun is suddenly standing before him, with his hand outstretched to help him up. The guy is huge, built like a house and towering over Cheongsan when he’s standing, even more so as he is now, kneeling on the ground. He’s got a kind face, though, even with the broken shape of his nose and the scar through his right eyebrow. 

All Alpha too. 

Cheongsan hesitates but takes the proffered hand in the end, looking away as he’s pulled to his feet, his face heating. 

“That was a bad fall. Are you okay, Mr Lee?” 

Cheongsan has told him countless times to call him by his first name, but the guy refuses. Mr Lee, to Cheongsan, will always be his father. 

“I’m fine, Baek-hyun,” Cheongsan murmurs, about to ask about the delivery for today, when he remembers his suppressants. 

Baek-hyun holds them out to him at the same moment, and Cheongsan’s heart drops out of his ass to see they’ve come out of their bag, the prescription box plain before their eyes. 

He’s quick to snatch them back, his heart racing, his anxiety mounting as he frets over whether Baek-hyun knows what they are. Maybe he just thinks they’re painkillers or antibiotics or something. 

The stare he’s been given, practically being studied closely by the Alpha, makes Cheongsan think otherwise, though, and he forces himself to push past his panic, coughing as he straightens up. 

“I’ll get the door now. Sorry, I forgot we had a delivery today.” 

“That’s okay, Mr Lee. It happens.” 

Cheongsan nods with a forced smile, feeling unnerved as he steps around the delivery driver and feels the man’s gaze follow him to the back door of the restaurant. Pulling his keys from his pocket, he’s quick to unlock and shove the door open. 

“I’ll be right back,” He mumbles, perceiving a nod out of the corner of his eye as he heads straight for the door to the apartment upstairs. He’s quick to rush to his bedroom and securely hide away his suppressants, sighing in relief knowing he’s got another three months’ supply. 

Walking back down to the kitchen, he enters with anxiety creeping back over him, wondering if Baek-Hyun has clocked him as an Omega or not. 

The guy is busy carrying in crates of fresh supplies, fruits and vegetables, packets of sodas and water bottles. Side-stepping past him, Cheongsan goes to help, feeling like an asshole just standing there watching. 

Reaching for one of the few remaining crates at the back of the truck, he stiffens when he’s gently nudged out of the way, the crate taken out of his hands. 

“No, no, don’t worry yourself, Mr Lee. I’ve got them.” 

Cheongsan whirls a little, knowing Baek-hyun has never stopped him from helping before. Nodding absently, he follows the man back into the restaurant, staring at the Alpha’s broad back flexing under his shirt as he carries the supplies inside. 

Walking along the kitchen space, he begins unloading the crates as the last of them are brought inside, trying to just focus back on his daily tasks. He’ll feel better once Baek-hyun leaves, and thankfully, the guy isn’t one to stick around to chat. 

Entering the small storeroom, he refills the shelves with several different vegetables, replenishing his dwindling supply of potatoes, bell peppers, carrots, cabbage, and lettuce. Stretching on the tips of his toes, he slots the last bag of cabbage in place before turning to exit the storeroom. 

He freezes upon noticing Baek-Hyun standing under the doorway, having finished bringing in the crates, but lingering there with a smile on his lips. 

“Everything okay, Baek-Hyun?” Cheongsan enquires, swallowing when he realises the Alpha’s large frame is taking up the entire space under the door, blocking his exit. 

“I-I couldn’t help but notice, Mr Lee…”  Baek-hyun begins, his voice tripping over itself, the Alpha’s face blooming crimson, “Forgive me, but my sister uses the same suppressants.” 

Cheongsan wonders if he could fight the guy off with vegetables around him, maybe bash him in the head with a cabbage.

“W-would you be interested in going out with me sometime?” 

Cheongsan’s face goes slack in surprise as his eyes widen, staring blankly at Baek-hyun. The guy seems to get even more nervous with his reaction, barreling on. 

“I mean, I know I’m not particularly handsome, or… rich or anything, but… I’d treat you really well, and I could please you, I’m a really selfless lover!” 

Cheongsan supposes the guy means it to be an offer he can’t refuse. Maybe he thinks Cheongsan is some lonely, virginal boy, dying to get his cherry popped. 

Weirdly, though, he can tell Baek-hyun is sincere, that he doesn’t mean it in a mocking or derogatory way. The big idiot is actually kinda sweet, but Cheongsan can’t overlook the guy’s size; he’s a head taller than him and probably double his weight in pure muscle. 

In truth, that terrifies Cheongsan, the sheer power Baek-hyun could have over him physically. 

Trying to push past his shock, Cheongsan hasn’t failed to notice the increasing embarrassment on Baek-hyun’s face as he leaves the Alpha hanging. Unfortunately, he’s about to let the guy down entirely. 

“You’re a handsome guy, Baek-hyun, and I’m flattered but… I’m not looking for a mate.” 

Baek-hyun winces a little, nodding softly as his eyes drop down to the floor. A glimmer of hope rises into his gaze again quickly as he lifts them back up to smile at Cheongsan. “How about just… some fun, then? Like I said, I could really satisfy you, Cheongsan…” 

Cheongsan feels embarrassed, a quick image of being bent over his kitchen counters and “satisfied” by Baek-hyun flitting through his brain. 

He doesn’t miss the way Baek-hyun has used his given name for the first time. 

“I’m… not interested, Baek-hyun. I’m sorry,” Cheongsan murmurs, wishing more than anything the man would leave now and end this painful encounter. 

“Oh,” Baek-hyun frowns, a sad sigh leaving the Alpha, “That’s…fine. Sorry for bothering you, Mr Lee.” 

Smiling awkwardly, Cheongsan bids the man goodbye as he backs away and retreats out of the kitchen, unable to meet his gaze anymore. Following him, Cheongsan grabs the handle of the back door and slams it closed, a heavy sigh of relief leaving him as he knocks his forehead against the metal. 

That… could’ve been very bad. He needs to be more careful.

Chapter Text

Cheongsan has been busy prepping the kitchen for the evening rush hour for nearly forty minutes now, chopping up vegetables and replacing the oil on the stove. He’s feeling optimistic today that they’re going to get a respectable number of customers. Maybe not what they got before his Papa’s passing, but something decent that’ll keep him busy.

His Mama seems to be holding the same opinion as him. Cheongsan watches her flit around with a damp cloth to shine the restaurant's tables till they’re reflecting the fluorescent lighting above with a gleam.

If it is busy, he’s grateful he’ll be here in the kitchen rather than out there taking orders and serving food. Not only because Cheongsan doesn’t exactly have the best social skills, or the delightful personality his Mama can easily slip into to charm the customers, but also because after presenting, he’d immediately noticed the change some people had towards him.

The first time a man had grabbed his ass whilst Cheongsan was taking orders, only a week after he’d presented as an Omega, he’d dropped his notepad and pen in pure fright. The man had eyed him suggestively, his gaze lingering along Cheongsan’s frame in a way that’d made his skin crawl. Not only because of how unwanted the touch or leering gaze had been, but also because he was fifteen at the time, and the man must’ve been at least forty. He’d been taking his suppressants for the first time then, but his Omega scent hadn’t completely faded yet.

He’d gotten very good in the kitchen after that, simply from the desperate desire to never have to experience that again. Most Alphas can’t tell a beta from an omega on suppressants. The drug does a fine job of dampening an omega’s scent, allowing us to traverse through the world, to everyone else, as Betas. Some Alphas, though, have sharper noses, or maybe just an intuition for Omegas that are keener, and they can clock you regardless. It’s a thought that never leaves Cheongsan’s mind.

Blinking out of the memory, Cheongsan watches the first customers of the evening walk in, a woman relatively similar in age to his Mama with a young girl by her side. Smiling at how cute the little girl is, her hair in little pigtails, Cheongsan steps back from the window in the door to prepare for the first orders of what’ll hopefully be a busy evening.

Another busy evening it was too!

Locked in concentration, Cheongsan moves across the kitchen swiftly, his mind focused on the sheer number of orders he’s trying to complete at once. Sweat slides along his hairline, his breath a little shallow as he bounces from one counter with an assortment of vegetables, to the stove with fried chicken sizzling in grease, to the fridge laden with sodas.

Glancing through the window in the door briefly, he wipes his sweaty forehead on his apron, knowing without caring that he’s getting flour on his face. There must be at least 15 people in the restaurant tonight, more than he’s seen in months, and Cheongsan’s heart jumps with joy in his chest.

Maybe things are improving after all.

Grinning like a lunatic, the sight of so many people in the restaurant renews his strength instantly and turning away, he flies back into action.

It’s not long later that his Mama pops back in with more orders, the bustling sound of multiple conversations pouring into the kitchen before the door swings shut after her. The tiredness on her face kills his joy a little as he watches her approach him at the stove. As she clips the orders above him on the extractor fan of the stove, he reaches out to place a hand on her back.

“Are you okay, Mama?”

“Huh?” She exhales, turning to him before nodding quickly. “Fine, honey. Just gotta keep going, you know how it is.”

Nodding in sympathy, Cheongsan makes a mental note to offer her a shoulder massage later. “This is good, though, no? It hasn’t been this busy since…” He tapers off, not needing to finish that sentence for her to understand.

“It is, sweetie. It’s really good,” She agrees with a smile, squeezing his upper arm. “Who knows? Maybe if it keeps up, we can hire an extra hand to help us out, too.”

Nodding, Cheongsan watches her return to the front, the idea of extra help immediately sounding appealing as he adds the two new orders to his memory.

Perhaps they could hire additional help in the kitchen with Cheongsan. Perhaps they could hire a handsome Alpha, broad in the shoulders and tall. Maybe Cheongsan would immediately take to the guy and they’d spend hours after the restaurant closed just talking or cooking meals for each other or sneaking upstairs to Cheongsan’s bedroom to–

Cutting that fantasy off there, he focuses back on the fried chicken sizzling before him, not wanting it to burn or for him to accidentally burn himself. He’s already singed his fingers too many times tonight; he does not need to be adding any more.

Rolling what feels like his hundredth chicken drum in flour tonight, he glances over his shoulder when his Mama returns. Collecting the two dishes he has waiting for her, they share a small smile before she leaves again.

Life has always been hard living in such a run-down part of Hyosan, with barely enough money to keep themselves afloat, and with the loss of his Papa, it’s only been harder in recent times, but as he stands in the heat of the kitchen, he decides to hope for better times ahead.

He can still somewhat hear the noise and bustle of the restaurant through the kitchen doors; the collective voices of the customers, their knives, forks, and chopsticks connecting with the ceramic of the plates, the scraping of chairs against the floor when someone stands to leave or use the restroom.

Reaching into the fridge for two more sodas to fulfil the next order, the sudden hush of that cacophony behind the double doors makes him pause, coming to a halt in the middle of the kitchen as he strains to listen. Suddenly, it’s eerily quiet, the voices dropping, the cutlery freezing before a raucous erupts of multiple chairs being scraped along floors and dozens of feet moving quickly together before they fade to nothing.

The hairs on Cheongsan’s neck stand on end as he sets the sodas down, creeping closer to the kitchen doors till he can peek through the circular window in the centre. Moving slowly, he isn’t sure why, but he knows he needs to be quiet, to softly place one foot in front of the other.

Coming up to the doors, he angles his head around the edge of the window frame, his right eye peeking past the glass to a scene that immediately makes him tense.

They’re back. The three men dressed in all-black suits stand in the centre of the restaurant, every customer gone, having no doubt fled at the arrival of these men who radiate danger. Food, half-eaten, lies across numerous tables, to go to waste, to go in the trash.

Well, not all of it. The smaller of the three men steps up to one table and lifts a chicken drum to his mouth, biting into it messily before dropping it back to the plate and sauntering back to his companions like he owns the place.

What makes Cheongsan’s hands clench into fists, though, is his Mama, standing before the three men, back against a table as the tallest of them steps up into her personal space.

This close to the door, Cheongsan can just about hear the tallest Alpha’s sneering voice as he smiles down at his frightened Mama.

“Mrs Lee, I did warn you we’d be back,” He starts, his eyes full of exaggerated pity even as a grin tugs at his mouth, “It’s been days and yet you still haven’t paid the lump sum this month.”

Lump sum? Cheongsan frowns in bafflement at that, not understanding what money his Mama could possibly owe these foul Alphas.

“You don’t understand, things have been very hard this month,” His Mama replies, her voice full of pleading. “The restaurant isn’t doing as well as it used to.”

Sighing tiredly, the Alpha cranks up the faux sympathy. “Mrs Lee, we’ve discussed this. You meet the payments every month, or you’re out on the streets.” The Alpha continues, leaning down to speak to his Mama.

“Please, if I could just be given some more time, I’ll find the money.”

“You already got more time, bitch. You’re lucky we haven’t just thrown you to the streets already like the dog you are.” The shorter of the three growls, BBQ sauce smeared across his mouth.

“Shut up, Myeong-hwan,” The other Alpha in the room speaks for the first time, smirking over at his comrade from where he’s sitting on a table.

“Who are you telling to shut up, Chang-hoon? I’ll kick your perfect teeth down your throat.” Myeong-hwan threatens, anger contorting the features of his face.

Chang-hoon simply smirks wider in reply, laughing soundlessly, clearly enjoying riling up his comrade.

Myeong-hwan. Chang-hoon.

Cheongsan mentally notes both their names. These details will be important when going to the Police later.

“Shut the fuck up,” The tallest of them barks, turning briefly to glare at both.

With how the other Alphas drop their eyes to the floor, Cheongsan assumes this is their leader, the one in charge and making all the rules. The lead Alpha turns back to his Mama, the faux sympathy right back on his long face.

“I’m sorry, Mrs Lee, but I’m afraid that if you can’t pay up this month, we’ll need to find other means of paying our boss.”

It’s all clicking into place in Cheongsan’s head then, the aggression radiating from these men, the confidence with which they carry themselves even as they harass a small lady, and now the mention of a ‘boss’.

These men are no petty criminals.

Shifting where he’s stood, he swallows nervously, the seriousness of this situation hitting him hard at that moment. Trying to breathe through his mounting anxiety, Cheongsan watches as in the next moment, the fat one, Myeong-hwan, suddenly jumps forward towards his Mama with a mean grin.

“This should do nicely!” The Alpha crows and Cheongsan’s heart leaps up into his throat when the man violently grips his Mama’s left hand, relentlessly tugging on her wedding ring to pull it free from her.

“No, stop! You can’t! Please not my ring, please, my husband…” His Mama cries, attempting to pull away from the Alpha’s hold on her finger.

Every single one of Cheongsan’s muscles tenses as he stares wide-eyed out at the scene, his lungs barely moving as his heart pounds in his chest. He needs to do something.

“Give it up, you old hag!” Myeong-hwan warns, before with a vicious growl, the Alpha backhands his Mama straight across the face, sending her falling backwards to bounce off a table behind her.

Cheongsan’s steak knife is in his hand before he even knows what he’s doing, bursting through the kitchen doors with fury like he’s never felt in his life. His sudden appearance alarms everyone in the room, Myeong-hwan in particular, startling where he’s stood admiring his Mama’s wedding ring.

“No! Cheongsan!” His Mama shouts desperately, but he barely hears her.

The best Myeong-hwan manages before Cheongsan is right on top of him is a widening of his eyes in alarm and a desperate attempt to protect himself from the knife in Cheongsan’s grip by raising his arms over his head.

He brings the knife down so hard that it embeds itself to the hilt in the Alpha’s forearm.

With a scream, the foul man tumbles backwards to trip over a chair, his weight flipping him completely to hit the floor with a thump.

Adrenaline soaks every inch of Cheongsan’s flesh, his breathing rapid, his eyes wildly swinging from the Alpha mewling on the floor to the two staring at him in abject shock.

Then the leader suddenly grins widely at him, his eyes lighting up with so much delight that Cheongsan’s utter confusion seeing that on the man’s face distracts him enough for the other Alpha to charge him. Chang-hoon’s full weight collides with his torso and sends them both crashing downward.

Hitting the floor, Cheongsan’s skull bounces off the tiles, a gasp ripping out of his throat as dizziness washes over him, his stomach flipping over in a wave of nausea.

Lifting his spinning gaze, he spots Chang-hoon standing from his fallen position not far from him, a slow smirk rising on his lips, and pushing through the unsteadiness, Cheongsan pulls his feet under him.

The Alpha gazes at him with mirth dancing in his eyes, looking Cheongsan up and down like he’s the cutest thing he’s ever seen.

“I’ve always loved an Omega who puts up a bit of a fight.”

Fucking creep.

No idea what he’s doing, Cheongsan lets his rage guide him in the next moment, swinging his fist out for the man’s face.

Unbelievably, he connects with the Alpha’s cheek hard enough that the asshole stumbles backwards, astonishment all over his face.

Trying not to cringe through the ache in his fist, Cheongsan spots a small knife discarded on a plate beside him and snatches it up, the Alpha’s mirth disappearing as anxiety widens his eyes.

He takes a step forward, no idea what he’s going to do with the knife, but knowing in his bones that should he need to, he’d kill to protect his Mama.

A gunshot behind him immediately makes him tense up, his shoulders locking up around his ears.

Turning slowly around, Cheongsan stares at the other Alpha with renewed fear.

Smoke whisps out of the top of the barrel as the lead Alpha holds it to the ceiling, the man smirking widely before dropping his arm and aiming the pistol right at Cheongsan’s head.

“Well, aren’t you something?” He giggles, his lips stretched in a shark-like grin, “Drop the knife, Omega.”

Cheongsan squeezes his hand around the knife’s wooden handle, his gaze shifting away from straight down the barrel of that firearm to meet his Mama’s eyes.

She’s still on the floor, her lip split, her eyes full of tears.

Cheongsan doesn’t drop the knife. Rather, he clenches his jaw, squares his shoulders, and glares back up at the Alpha.

An expression of utter disbelief jumps up onto the taller man’s face, the delight in them not fading a bit.

“You really are something!” He laughs aloud, shaking his head slightly in amazement, before, to Cheongsan’s horror, the Alpha moves the gun’s aim from his head to his Mama’s.

“Drop it now, or she dies.”

The knife clatters to the floor, Cheongsan pleading with his eyes for his Mama to forgive him before pain explodes at the back of his head, a dull thud registering in his ears.

Tumbling to the floor, Cheongsan blearily blinks behind himself to see Chang-hoon smirking down at him, the gun he just used to pistol-whip Cheongsan with in his left hand.

If he had a pistol this whole time, why didn’t he just threaten to shoot Cheongsan when he was wielding the knife?

Were they just playing with him? Toying with him like a cat does a mouse? Cheongsan feels hopelessness seep into him with the realisation. He never stood a chance against these men.

When Chang-hoon crouches down in front of Cheongsan, he can’t stop the rise of fear in his belly from what he can see in those eyes.

“What’s your name, sugar?” The Alpha murmurs sweetly, his eyes leering down at Cheongsan’s body.

“Forget what his fucking name is!” Myeong-hwan suddenly shouts, Cheongsan nearly forgetting he was there, whimpering on the floor with a knife in his arm. “He fucking stabbed me! Kill him!” He exclaims further, the Alpha’s expression a combination of agony and rage.

“No! Please!” His Mama pleads from somewhere behind Cheongsan.

As he watches, Myeong-hwan reaches for the knife in his forearm with a quivering hand, but before he can even grab it to pull it out, the tall Alpha behind Cheongsan speaks.

“Don’t fucking touch that knife, you stupid fuck,” He growls, aggravation obvious in his voice. “Myeong-hwan, you let this, what?… Fifteen-year-old Omega get the drop on you? You deserve every inch of that blade in your arm.”

“Gwinam, man, listen, I’m about to pass out,” Myeong-hwan breathes, his pallor indeed looking pale. “We need to get back. Like right now!”

Gwinam. The lead Alpha, smiling down at him from behind his shoulders, is Gwinam.

Cheongsan scoots across the floor to put distance between them and to come to his Mama’s side. She’s shaking like a leaf, immediately grabbing onto him as she stares up at the three men before them.

Silence persists for a few seconds, Cheongsan and his Mama eyeing the Alphas standing in their restaurant, whilst they’re eyed back just as intently. Chang-hoon hasn’t glanced away from Cheongsan once, his lascivious gaze locked onto him.

Somehow, though, it’s the contemplative gaze Gwinam is gazing at Cheongsan with that makes dread settle into his bones. Something is churning behind those eyes, and his fear intensifies, knowing it involves him.

When Gwinam walks forward to tower over him and his Mama, Cheongsan glares up at the Alpha in warning, even as his heart pounds in his chest and his breathing refuses to remain calm.

Tension so thick fills the room as they stare each other down, Cheongsan unwilling to show even an ounce of the fear running through his body.

It’s the blaring of a fire alarm that startles him out of his staring contest, his Mama beside him releasing a shriek as Cheongsan whips his head around to the kitchen. From his place on the floor, he can see a cloud of smoke building up behind the glass.

Tensing, he attempts to stand, desperate to prevent the restaurant from going up in flames.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Gwinam chastises him, and Cheongsan freezes at the sound of a gun being cocked, “Don’t move, Omega.”

Turning slowly back to the Alpha, despite the disgust that squirms in his stomach for the action, Cheongsan can’t stop the pleading words that fall out of his mouth. “Please. If there’s a fire! I can’t let the restaurant burn down.”

“Move and you die, little one,” Gwinam warns evenly before his eyes move sideways to Chang-hoon.

“Sort that,” He orders, nodding towards the back.

Chang-hoon finally looks away from Cheongsan to frown at Gwinam, before he sighs in annoyance and starts walking toward the kitchen.

As they wait for Chang-hoon to sort the smoke that has begun to billow out of the kitchen, Cheongsan settles back down on the floor and turns to his Mama, finding her attention already on him. Without saying anything, he tries to convey comfort to her, holding her gaze and putting as much strength into his eyes as he can. Gripping her hands in his, he gives them a reassuring squeeze.

Another gunshot sounds out from the kitchen, and they both tense, the alarm above their heads suddenly ceasing.

“It’s fine… just a small oil fire. I’ve put it out, turned everything off.” Changhoon shrugs, returning from the kitchens looking bored.

“Good,” Gwinam comments, his eyes moving away from his fellow Alpha and back to Cheongsan and his Mama.

Chang-hoon sidles past them all to approach Myeong-hwan, who’s gone quiet where he’s lying on the floor. If not for the ragged breathing he could see moving the Alpha’s chest, Cheongsan would think the man dead.

Chang-hoon pulls the Alpha to standing, grunting in effort till Myeong-hwan is upright, the injured man growling out a curse in pain as he’s yanked onto his feet. If looks could kill, the subsequent glare that Myeong-hwan aims at Cheongsan would’ve knocked him stone-cold dead.

Suddenly, Gwinam is crouched right before him, so suddenly that Cheongsan jumps slightly, shifting back away from the Alpha’s proximity, his fear slipping out.

“So, Mrs Lee, who is this interesting little Omega you’ve been hiding from us?” Gwinam asks, smiling pleasantly.

“He’s n-no one. A local boy I hired to help in the kitchens. No one important,” His Mama shakily replies, and Cheongsan’s eyes widen in shock, hearing the words, turning to his Mama as a wave of cold disbelief washes over him.

Gwinam hums thoughtfully, his eyes moving between Cheongsan and his Mama, studying them. “Now, Mrs Lee, you’re not lying to me, are you?”

“No! He’s no one. Just a poor Omega from down the street! I felt sorry for him so I hired him!”

Cheongsan breathes shakily through the hurt that stabs into his chest, tears pricking his eyes. His Mama must have a reason for lying like this about him. She’s making him sound so unimportant, so discardable, and Cheongsan suddenly can’t take his eyes off the pistol gripped in Gwinam’s hands.

“So, the striking resemblance between you two is just a pure coincidence, then?” Gwinam grins at his Mama, enjoying this far too much.

Unable to stop himself now, Cheongsan turns to his Mama.

“Mama, why lie? It’s not–”

“Ah! So, he is your son!” Gwinam crows loudly.

Cheongsan stares between the Alpha and his Mama, not understanding why Gwinam looks so elated or why his Mama looks suddenly even more afraid, her face visibly paling.

“Mrs Lee, I think I know how you can sort out that debt of yours.”

“No! No, please! Please! He’s all I have!”

Cheongsan understands then, he understands too late, and the shock that hits him is quickly followed by horror as he feels his face drain of colour right alongside his Mama’s.

Oh, God, please, no.

“You’re coming with us, Omega.”

Cheongsan is grabbed roughly by Gwinam, his shock numbing him to the core so thoroughly that he feels too far outside his body to react. As he’s forced up onto his knees, his Mama’s sudden grab of his arm and desperate sobbing snap him out of himself.

His fist swings up and connects with Gwinam’s chin before he can think better of it. Before he can remember the pistol in the Alpha’s hand.

Gwinam’s head snaps back, the Alpha stumbling a few steps away. As Cheongsan stares upwards, strewn out on his hands and knees, the taller man raises his hand to his lip, his fingers coming away red.

Everything slows down to a standstill, Cheongsan’s breathing loud in his ears as he stares up at the Alpha, his Mama’s fingers gripping his upper arm tightly. He's struck so hard across the temple by Gwinam that he hits the tiles of the restaurant’s floor like a rag doll.

Lying there, his senses leave him as black spots dance across his vision, his Mama’s distressed yelling fading into the distance as a ringing fills his head, growing louder and louder till he’s sure his eardrums will rupture. Something red appears at the corner of his eye, and Cheongsan blearily realises it’s his blood that’s rolled down from his temple.

Blinking sluggishly, a pair of shiny black loafers approaches him, Cheongsan begging his muscles to move, to fight or flee, but the only response he gets is his hands sliding uselessly across the smooth surface of the black and white floor. Behind those loafers, he can see through the rain-splattered front door, the Nam laundromat in his direct line of vision. Onjo’s bedroom light is on, and Cheongsan wonders if she’s busy preparing for her interview.

As he’s kicked onto his back, his head lolls upright, the panelling of the ceiling above him briefly before his face is taken into his Mama’s hands, her devastated expression looking down at him as she cries and cries and cries.

Unable to witness her dismay anymore, for if she’s that upset, he must truly be doomed, Cheongsan turns his eyes to his other side, toward the kitchen doors.

Forgotten on the floor, not far from him, something small and gold catches his attention, his vision zeroing in on the small treasure.

Sliding his hand slowly across the cold surface, he picks up his Mama’s wedding ring at the same time he’s dragged upright.

Dizziness swims through his brain from the sudden change in position, but with everything he has left, Cheongsan reaches out and grasps his Mama’s hand in his, staring up at her through his bangs.

As he’s lifted under the arms and bodily dragged away, his fingers slip out of his Mama’s grip just before he can pass the ring into her hand, his hand clasping around the metal to stop it falling free.

She’s shoved back into the restaurant when he’s dragged out, the gun barrel aimed at her head the only thing stopping her from pursuing them further.

Cheongsan doesn’t feel the cold air of the night hit his skin. He doesn’t see the streetlights burn across his retinas. He doesn’t register being deposited into the trunk of a car.

The last thing his brain perceives before he passes out is his Mama’s agonised face, snot and tear streak, blood on her lower lip as she screams his name.

Chapter Text

He awakens with a jolt, his body bouncing hard against an uncomfortable surface beneath him. 

Hilariously, for a few seconds, he wonders if he’s fallen out of bed back home. Until the awful pain in his temples registers, and everything flashes back through his mind. 

Panic slams down on him, Cheongsan throwing his hands out in the total darkness surrounding him as his breathing goes from slow and sleep-deep to gasping and heaving. His hands collide into the shell around him, the terrifying sensation of claustrophobia closing in on him right as nausea rolls around in his stomach. 

He’s in a fucking car boot. 

Whether from the injury to his head, the constant swerving and bouncing of the car he’s in or the overwhelming fear inside him, he isn’t sure, all he knows is he starts gagging and retching before he even realises he’s about to be sick. 

Thinking that adding his stomach contents to the enclosed space around him isn’t a fantastic idea, he grips his hair in both hands and focuses on the pain in his scalp, attempting to breathe evenly to push back the queasiness. 

As his stomach stops threatening to empty itself, his very loose control of his panic wavers when all the details of his…his fucking kidnapping, click in his mind. 

The arrival of three Alphas, their assault on his Mama, his desperate attempt to defend them and ward them off. The leering grin from Chang-hoon, the fury in Myeong-hwan’s eyes, and the terrifying contemplative gaze from Gwinam. 

He’s not stupid. He knows there’s only one possible reason he’s been taken, and Cheongsan clenches his teeth and squeezes his eyes shut when sobs threaten to spill out of him, even contemplating what may be ahead of him. 

When the car jolts hard again, he startles out of his panicking mind, reaching out to brace himself against the interior walls.

It’s cold, his hands in particular freezing to touch and slightly numb, difficult to move. 

By the speed at which he can feel the car moving, and considering how cold he is, he surmises he must’ve been unconscious for a while, and that wherever they’re going, it’s far from home. Pulling his limbs closer to his core, he curls up into a fetal position to try to retain some heat, his teeth starting to chatter. 

Something scrapes oddly against his elbow as he moves, the small, hard object pressing into his arm. Monetarily distracted by it, Cheongsan reaches out and feels across the floor of the boot, his fingers sliding along before he taps the small trinket. Immediately, he knows what it is once it’s between his fingers, and he has to breathe carefully not to break down holding onto his Mama’s wedding ring. 

Gripping it tight, Cheongsan brings his lips to it to kiss it once, thanking the universe he miraculously didn’t lose it. Mind racing, he ponders how to keep it safe, knowing he’ll need to hide it, very much doubting one of the Alphas won’t find interest in it still. 

Scrunching up even further, he reaches down and pulls off a sneaker. In the darkness, he can only rely on touch alone to do this, but after successfully pulling out the insole, Cheongsan presses the ring into the bottom of the sneaker and then slips the insole back in.

He tugs his sneaker back on, the pressure of the metal object against the sole of his foot obvious. He prays this will work, that he’ll be able to hide it from his captors. 

Eyes moving in his head, he can see nothing but black, no light bleeding into the boot’s interior from any crack or crevice. Straining his ears, he clamps down on his breathing, his shallow breaths too loud in the small space. Besides the rumble of the car under him and the occasional sound of traffic outside, he can hear nothing either. 

Frowning into the darkness, Cheongsan listens harder until he blinks when a soft sound reaches him. Straining, the sound is far too low for him to discern what it could be, but its pattern of coming and going makes him realise it can only be one thing. 

His kidnappers, conversing in the passenger seats, not a metre from him. 

Scooting closer to the back of the boot, Cheongsan groans when his head protests his quick movement, a blinding pain searing across his skull. Pausing, he has to swallow repeatedly before the nausea subsides again, pain induced this time rather than panic. 

Squirming backwards slowly, he presses himself bodily against the far end of the boot, enough to plaster his ear against the cold surface. 

“...as if Mr Lee would ever allow you to pursue her, you’re fucking delusional, man.” 

“Hey, I’ve convinced the old man of similar things time and time again…” 

“Fuck off, Chang-hoon. You dragging some banker's daughter back to the main house isn’t the same as doing this to a celebrity as big as her…” 

Cheongsan has no fucking clue what they’re talking about, wholly confused as he tries to make sense of their words. It sounds as if they’re ribbing each other as friends do, but the contents of their conversation disturb him.

“What did you even end up doing with that banker's daughter anyway?” Myeong-hwan, he thinks, asks with humour in his voice. 

“Introduced her to Mr Cho and his family…” 

They all erupt into laughter at that, Cheongsan not thinking it’s possible for him to feel any more bewildered than he does right then. Myeong-hwan in particular, no longer sounds like he’s in pain, his voice casual, if maybe a little slurred. He understands why in the next second. 

“How’s that morphine hitting?” Chang-hoon asks, and Cheongsan registers the blissed-out laugh from Myeong-hwan. 

“Fucking perfectly, man,” The Alpha slurs, “I can barely feel it anymore.” 

More laughter, before Gwinam speaks. “Try not to get blood on the seats. I know from experience how hard that can be to get those stains out.”

“Gwinam, I have to say, you surprised me tonight. It’s not like you to pluck something off the street like we’re so fond of doing.” Chang-hoon says, a grin clear in his voice. 

That immediately makes Cheongsan freeze, every inch of him waiting in awful anticipation for Gwinam’s reply. 

“Well, sometimes, even in shitholes like downtown Hyosan, you find something worth taking.”

Cheongsan’s heart is pounding so hard in his chest that it’s difficult to hear over the rush of blood through his head. He can’t listen to this. He doesn’t want to know, but at the same time, he can’t force himself to pull away. He lies there, frozen in place. 

“So, we’ve more in common than we thought, ey? You laid eyes on that sweet little Omega and couldn’t imagine not shoving your knot into him.”

His stomach bottoms out, tendrils of panic rising in his core. He squeezes his eyes shut, clenches his teeth as his breath turns ragged. 

“It’s not like that,” Gwinam replies, and Cheongsan gasps, daring to hope he was wrong about this. Maybe they’re just using him as ransom till his Mama pays them whatever money she owes? Or maybe they’ll force him to work for them, to cook, until the debt is paid off. 

“It’s not?” Changhoon asks, his tone sceptical as all hell. 

“No, Changhoon, it’s not. The second that fiery Omega burst through those doors to come down on Myeong-hwan with that knife, well, let’s say he caught my attention.” 

“....and you want him to also catch your knot!” 

“Will you let me finish? It's more complicated than that,” Gwinam responds, sounding tired of Chang-hoon altogether. 

“My Father is constantly badgering me about settling down. About getting serious with a partner and continuing the family lineage. That I need to start thinking about the Yoon legacy.” Gwinam says casually.

Cheongsan doesn’t think the tension in his body can crescendo any further until it does, into a horrible breaking point on the loose hold of his panic. 

“Well, I’ve found the perfect little Omega to do just that with,” Gwinam continues, his drawl wistful and humming with glee, “Who better to make little babies with than an Omega with enough fire in him to take down a grown Alpha? I think I'll continue the Yoon legacy starting tonight…” 

As Chang-hoon and Myeong-hwan break out laughing about how crazy Gwinam is, Cheongsan loses his mind, his fear so deep in his core that his rational self takes a backseat as he starts kicking the top of the boot with everything he has. 

Tears sliding down his temples into his hairline, he raises both feet and pulls every ounce of his strength into the muscles of his legs, slamming them upward into the unyielding metal. 

He hears the moment the Alphas a metre away register that he’s awake and panicking because they laugh harder before one of them smacks on the seats separating him from them and orders him to shut the fuck up. 

Not relenting in his desperate attempt to escape, Cheongsan kicks and kicks, trying different areas of the boot door to try to force it open. 

On one hard kick, his foot meets an uneven surface, like a groove in the structure of the metal, and that’s all it takes for a bone in his ankle to snap, the ‘pop’ bouncing around the interior. 

The scream that rips out of his throat is completely involuntary, agony washing down his leg with a molten wave. Even dropping his leg down to the bed of the boot is so painful that stars dance across his darkened vision. 

He lets the sobs out then, lets the tears stream down his face. 

If he wasn’t fucked before, he is now. 

It is as he is mewling in pain, shivering with either the agony or the cold, that the car gradually slows, descends a ramp, before coming to a final stop. Cheongsan faintly registers the passenger doors being opened before slamming shut. 

Light burns his eyes as the boot door is suddenly pulled open, Cheongsan’s vision a blanket of white as his irises desperately try to adjust to the change. 

“Jesus,” One of the men says, sounding both amused and surprised, “He looks like shit. You'd better get him cleaned up before you try anything, Gwinam.” 

“C’mon you,” Gwinam orders, his tone unimpressed, before Cheongsan feels a hand roughly grab his collar. 

He’s yanked upwards hard, the jarring movement instantly igniting the pain in both his temple and ankle.

“No, wait!” He yelps, past the point of caring about appearing strong in front of these men, with how much pain he’s in. 

They don’t wait, they don’t let up, and soon he’s pulled forcefully from the boot, falling to the concrete floor as his broken ankle connects with the ground. A scream leaves him as he drops to the dusty surface, the pain blooming from his lower leg overwhelming; a molten, drumming heat.

“My ankle,” He manages between clenched teeth, his voice strained as tears slip off his nose. 

Gwinam is before him again, crouched similarly to how he was back at the restaurant. There’s no curiosity or delight on his face this time, only annoyance and mild confusion. 

“Your ankle?” The Alpha enquires, his eyes flicking to the appendage and back to Cheongsan’s pleading gaze. “You injured yourself with all that kicking, huh, Omega?” 

“Probably just a sprain,” Myeong-hwan offhandedly says behind Cheongsan. 

The maimed Alpha, his anger and need for vengeance still clearly burning hotly inside him, places his foot on Cheongsan’s ankle then, and presses down, hard. 

Cheongsan manages another scream before his cheek bounces off the floor as he passes out.

He comes awake to the sensation of floating, his head lolling on his shoulders, his limbs limp and feeling as if they weigh a ton. Blinking his eyes open sluggishly, Cheongsan first sees the long corridor he’s travelling down before he registers he’s in someone’s arms, being carried bridal style. 

Gwinam, when Cheongsan peeks up, hasn’t noticed he’s awake yet, the Alpha frowning forward toward the double doors they’re approaching. 

As consciousness returns fully to Cheongsan, so do the sensations in his body, or more so, the pain. The slight jostle of being carried tugs awfully at his broken ankle, and with renewed concern, Cheongsan feels fresh blood dripping from his hair. He must’ve reopened his split temple when he passed out and his head bounced off the floor. 

Glancing behind himself, he makes instant eye contact first with Myeong-hwan, who gives him a murderous glare as if offended that Cheongsan is still breathing, and then with Chang-hoon, who smirks at him in that way of his. Disgust rolling through his belly, Cheongsan turns away, forwards, towards the double doors now right in front of them. 

Gwinam kicks them open, the harsh movement pulling a mewl out of Cheongsan. 

“Sorry, sweetheart,” Gwinam apologises with a glance before he saunters forward into the room. 

It’s a large, dark rectangular room, the air heavy and coiling with cigar smoke, enough to make him cough when it stings his throat. A huge open fireplace is set in the wall connected to the door they just burst through, lighting the space up in oranges and yellows, whilst shadows dance on the walls. 

Cheongsan’s attention is immediately pulled away from the grander of the room to the occupants of a long table set in the middle. 

There must be a dozen men, of varying ages, sitting around the shiny mahogany surface, their attentions all now fixed on Gwinam and his entourage and by extension, Cheongsan. His heart squeezes in his chest as he looks into each of the men’s faces, their scowls, the hardness in their expressions. They look dangerous in a way that Gwinam and his two cronies never could, and Cheongsan feels the dread of his situation saturate his lungs.

This is bad for him. Really bad. 

“Gentleman,” Gwinam says above him, a smugness to his tone, “We’ve returned.” 

There’s a lingering, shocked silence inside the room, each of the men staring up at the four new arrivals in disbelief. Men, and one woman. Cheongsan notices the lone woman at the end, sitting to the immediate left of the head of the table. She smiles slightly at him when they lock eyes, a bizarre kindness in her gaze that looks utterly out of place in this room. He must be truly desperate now because he holds that gaze and the kindness within it for as long as he can, pulling as much of it into himself as he can bear. 

“Gwinam!” The man at the head of the table suddenly barks, startling Cheongsan enough that he glances away from the woman. The man, in his late fifties maybe, glares unimpressedly at Gwinam, his eyes briefly falling to Cheongsan. “You have thirty seconds to explain yourself, barging in here like this.” 

Gwinam clicks his tongue, his carefree attitude not receding a bit as he gazes around the table with boredom. 

“As I said,” Gwinam starts, and Cheongsan nearly baulks on the Alpha’s behalf for the attitude, “We’ve returned. All late payments have been collected. All debts settled.” 

“All of them?” The man, whom Cheongsan is keenly getting the impression is in charge, asks. 

“All of them, Mr Lee”, Gwinam confirms, bowing his head in a show of humility. Cheongsan guesses there is some respect in the Alpha after all. 

“Good,” Mr Lee nods before the older man turns to another further down the table, “He did you proud today, Mr Yoon.” 

Cheongsan blinks sluggishly in the direction of the new man, seated and looking somewhere between embarrassed and pleased. Nodding, the man makes brief eye contact with Gwinam in what Cheongsan assumes is supposed to be a gesture of approval. It falls flat. 

“And the boy in your arms?” The only female voice in the room suddenly asks, Cheongsan shifting his eyes to her to see her own gaze switching between him and his captor. 

“Well…” Gwinam laughs, grinning out at the room in delight, “One repayment, from a restaurant in downtown Hyosan, couldn’t be made formally in cash, so I took the Omega in exchange. I’ll be happy to wire the money lost, from my own account, of course.” 

Shivering, Cheongsan drops his eyes to his lap, when instead of concern or alarm rising in men’s eyes, only gazes of appreciation and interest rake up and down his body. The lack of shock, disgust, or outrage in the men’s eyes tells him this isn’t anything new for the people in this room. Kidnapping, with the intent of… he can’t even think it, is clearly commonplace here. 

Even the woman whom Cheongsan found comfort in earlier looks only regretful but resigned for him. 

“Well, if there are no more questions, I’ll be going, then,” Gwinam says, bowing his head as he turns to go, “My new Omega and I have plans.” 

Cheongsan feels what must be a panic attack crawl up along his skin, his chest becoming painfully tight, his heart jackhammering behind his ribs. As he is carried back across the room, what lies ahead of him threatens to suffocate him, sheer horror bubbling inside him. 

“Gwinam.” 

The clear, young male voice rings out and straight through the panic in Cheongsan’s head, the tone cutting through his spiralling thoughts to leave him blinking back tears. Gwinam pauses before the exit, his arms tensing around Cheongsan, a glare of hatred rising on his long face. 

When he is turned back around, Cheongsan blinks his vision clear of unshed tears to see a man standing from his seat at the table. He’s directly next to Mr Lee, standing tall and proud, with a calm smile on his full lips. There’s a mischievous edge to it. 

He’s handsome, well-groomed, and in a black suit that sits flawlessly on his shoulders.  

“Where did you say you picked up the Omega again?” The man enquires, glancing briefly at Cheongsan before raising a questioning eyebrow at Gwinam. 

If anything, that only serves to enrage Cheongsan’s captor even more, Gwinam’s jaw clenching in tandem with the heated glare on his face. With a scraping tone through clenched teeth, Gwinam answers. 

“Downtown Hyosan.” 

A flash of a smirk tilts up the man’s mouth before it’s hidden away, but Cheongsan catches it, and by the way, Gwinam’s hold of him tenses painfully; he thinks the Alpha does too. 

“My district,” The young man says, looking at Gwinam pointedly. 

“And what?!” Gwinam nearly yells in response, a red flush of anger rising up the Alpha’s neck. 

“You already know what that means, Gwinam…” The man sighs tiredly, like the Alpha is slow on the uptake. “Anything within my district…belongs to me.” 

Cheongsan stares between the two men in disbelief, the ridiculousness of the situation only surpassed by the sheer horror of it all. They’re fighting over him. He’s being fought over. That’s now clear by the challenge in the young man’s eyes, staring Gwinam down, holding the Alpha’s murderous glare with ease. 

“He’s a skinny, peasant rat from downtown Hyosan… why would you want him?” Gwinam seethes lowly, and Cheongsan offers the Alpha holding him the best hate-filled look he can manage, even if he can’t see it, ignoring Cheongsan as he is. 

“I’ve been looking for a new Omega, actually. Grown tired of my old one, you see.”

There’s an awful length of silence after that. The room becomes so still that Cheongsan is sure everyone is holding their breath. Gwinam and the other man don’t relent in their stand-off, the seconds ticking by agonisingly slow as they all wait for something to happen, for someone to crack. 

When Gwinam does, Cheongsan is only momentarily relieved. 

“Fine,” Gwinam shrugs, suddenly appearing without a care in the world, “He’s all yours. Enjoy.” 

Cheongsan frowns at the anti-climactic nature of it all, half expecting the two men to challenge each other to some sort of duel or something. However, his feelings on the matter disappear instantly when Gwinam suddenly turns and throws Cheongsan to the floor, discarding him onto a large Persian mat. 

He hits the hardwood-covered floors like a rock, gravity slamming him into the fabric of the mat that, for a moment, he only gasps in surprise at how jarring the fall is, his breath knocked from his lungs. The explosion of pain in his leg finds his brain not long later, a howl forcing its way from Cheongsan’s throat as he reaches down to shakily feel along the broken joint. 

Watching Gwinam stroll out without a care in the world, having discarded Cheongsan onto the floor like a piece of trash, in combination with the agony radiating from multiple points across his person, tips him over the edge. Cheongsan feels something inside him slip as tears race to fill his eyes, sobs threatening to spill out past his lips. 

Lowing his head, he hides behind the curtain of his bangs, splaying his hands across the rough fabric of the carpet as a tsunami of overwhelming emotion cripples him. This can’t be happening. This can’t be his life now; he can’t stay with these people. He knows the stories; he’s heard it all before, but he never thought this could happen to him. 

He’d been good. He’d been careful. This can’t happen to him. 

The open fire behind him heats his back as he stays there, splayed out on the floor, doing everything he can to reel in his downward spiral. Sniffling, shaking like a leaf, Cheongsan reaches up to swipe both his eyes, his hand coming back stained with tears and crusty blood. 

Opening his eyes, a pair of shiny, black leather shoes before him makes him pause, catching his attention enough that they briefly distract him from his own inner turmoil. When the man before Cheongsan crouches, his black, slaked knees appearing in front of him, Cheongsan hesitantly glances up past his hair. 

The young man smiles gently down at Cheongsan, looking even more handsome this close with his round, brown eyes and perfect golden skin. An alluring scent finds its way to Cheongsan’s nose, its aroma fresh, earthy and all Alpha.

“You’re even prettier up close,” The Alpha smiles, hilariously mirroring Cheongsan’s thoughts. Reaching out, the man carefully pushes aside Cheongsan’s bangs. 

He’s surprised the man even wants to touch him right now, given the combination of sweat, blood and tears collected in his hair. 

“What’s your name? I’m Lee Suhyeok.” This Suhyeok introduces, the charming smile ever present on his lips, “You belong to me now…what’s your name?” 

Holding the Alpha’s eye, taking in that sweet smile and even sweeter tone of voice, Cheongsan feels utter loathing begin to boil in his gut. To speak to him like this, when Cheongsan knows for sure this Alpha, this Suhyeok, plans to… rape him in the future, makes him so angry his teeth grind painfully against each other.

Straightening up, Cheongsan raises his head to the monster crouched before him and spits directly in his face. 

There’s a collective gasp that rings out throughout the room, and from over the Alpha’s frame, Cheongsan can see the shocked faces of the other occupants. 

Suhyeok doesn’t react much, the Alpha freezing, his eyes squeezed shut, even as the saliva trails down his face. 

Cheongsan, in any other circumstance, would recoil at his own actions, but as the Alpha reaches up to yank his handkerchief from his breast pocket to carefully wipe his face clean, he feels nothing but satisfaction. 

Staring up at the Alpha, he knows what he’s done is not in his best interest and that he’s going to be punished for it. The fear of what’s to come for him is there, but he holds it at bay, thinking that if he’s about to die, he’ll die without showing these people any more of his tears or imploring words. 

Suhyeok eventually blinks his eyes open, taking his time to clear his face of saliva before he flicks the handkerchief into the heat of the fireplace behind Cheongsan. 

When he does return his gaze to Cheongsan, his earlier thoughts of showing these people no more fear nearly leave him at the empty, soulless depths of those brown eyes. Something inside Cheongsan shrivels up, staring into those voids. His base instincts push against his tentative hold on his panic with everything they have, but Cheongsan refuses to let them free. 

If he’s about to die… if the man before him is his end, Cheongsan will hold his gaze; he won’t look away. 

Suhyeok moves faster than Cheongsan thought a person could move, his hand flying out to slam into his throat. He’s slammed into the mat on the floor as his larynx burns in pain from the force of the hold. Forced onto his back, Cheongsan understands where this is going when Suhyeok’s left hand joins together with his right on his throat, coming together to seal around his neck. 

There’s a jolt of panic in him as his throat is squeezed hard, his fingers flying up the claw at the Alpha’s large hands. He claws and attempts to tear Suhyeok’s hold of him free, but quickly realises how powerless he is against the man’s strength and gives up. Instead, Cheongsan digs his nails in as deeply as he can, flicking his eyes away from the fists around his neck to the eyes of the man killing him. 

Cheongsan almost expects to see a fury or murderous rage on the Alpha’s face, but it’s mostly blank, and that’s almost worse. There’s focused anger and strain on Suhyeok’s face as he takes Cheongsan’s life, but little else, and it bounces around his brain just how insignificant he is, how insignificant his life is to this monster. 

With everything he has, he pours his loathing, his rage, every ounce of venom and bile he has for men like Suhyeok into his eyes. For every Alpha that’s ever leered at him, made foul comments towards him or touched him inappropriately. He wants the last thing Suhyeok sees in his eyes to be the utter despisement Cheongsan holds for him and every Alpha like him. 

It takes longer than Cheongsan expects to die, but when the world eventually does grow hazy before blackening completely, he never falters in holding his murderer’s gaze.

Chapter Text

Heaven, when Cheongsan opens his eyes, is a cold, rectangular room with walls and floors of smooth concrete. 

Or, he thinks sluggishly, maybe Hell.

He’s lying on a thin mattress on the floor, his body heavy and numb as he peels his eyelids open again and again. He wakes slowly, not understanding how he’s still breathing. He was so sure that Alpha meant to kill him. He'd seen death in Suhyeok's eyes. He'd stared it down as the world turned black, yet here he is. Breathing. 

His arm has fallen off the mattress in his sleep, his hand lying limply against the cold, dusty concrete. He stares at the appendage and wonders why he can’t feel it, not even the frigidity of the floor under his skin. 

With a grimace, he forces the limb to move, and pain tingles up his arm as he drags it back to the mattress. 

As if he’s ignited his body back into the land of the living, agony awakens across his flesh. Rolling over onto his back, Cheongsan gasps when his broken ankle flares to life before he moans brokenly behind clenched teeth. 

He tenses so hard as waves of pain wash up his leg that his teeth squeak against each other, the sound registering in his ears beyond the torment flooding his brain. He’s never broken a bone in his life. Once before, he sprained his wrist after falling on his hands chasing after Onjo. That pain in comparison to this had been minor, coming to him in waves that made him grimace, but nothing like the unrelenting torrent washing up his calf. Alone, he lets the tears spill down his face.

He lies like that for a long time, crying till his tears run dry and he’s left staring into space. He doesn’t move a muscle but to breathe and blink, and doesn’t dare try to adjust his leg again, even as his calf begins to cramp. The broken bone is humming under his skin, the discomfort just about bearable. Discarded where he is, the stillness of his surroundings is blanketing, his breathing so loud in the eerie quiet, only intermittently interrupted by his heart that he can hear pushing blood through his head. 

Sniffing, Cheongsan scans the small rectangular space he’s been deposited in. The bare concert walls and floors, the lack of windows, the lone toilet and sink, the complete lack of privacy. He’s in a prison cell, essentially. The rusted metal door adds to the crude look of the place, and he wonders if this is his new home. 

If this is where Suhyeok plans to keep him. Keep him confined here like a prisoner, like a kennelled pet. 

One he can pay visits to and… 

Cheongsan squeezes his eyes shut as another sob threatens to break free, the events that may lie before him terrifying to him. 

Breathing carefully through his mouth, he tries to regain his composure, if only so he can figure out a way of solving a matter that’s made itself known between his legs. His full bladder has been bugging him since he woke, and he eyes the toilet across the small room. It’s only a few feet from him, and yet it might as well be a mile away. How he’s going to get across the room with his ankle in its current state, he doesn’t know. 

But he has to try. Try, or piss himself here and now, and Cheongsan can’t handle the humiliation of that. 

The fear of the pain sharpens as he becomes determined to do this, and his heart rate spikes as a result. Drawing his gaze down, he stares at his ankle and mentally begs the appendage to behave, to not make this any worse than it already is. 

With his arms, he carefully rises upwards, supporting his weight with his palms flat on the mattress. Pain tingles up his spine, but it’s manageable, and he clenches his teeth against it as he breathes in and out. The dizziness that befalls him when he’s vertical is powerful, as are the waves of nausea that make him feel as if he just turned a shade green. 

Something’s wrong with him. Something other than the broken ankle, cuts and bruises. He can feel it. 

Trying not to retch, he locks his gaze back on the cracked porcelain of the toilet and shifts his uninjured foot.

The sink screwed into the wall of his little prison is closer to him than the toilet, and if he stretches, he should be able to grab it and pull himself upwards. It’ll mean he’ll have to shift bodily to reach it, and there’s a voice inside his head screaming at him not to. To not inflict any more agony on himself. 

Cheongsan leaps forward for the sink, and when his hands slap down the cold porcelain, he tears himself up off the floor with all his might. His ankle ignites in so much pain that he cries out as he rises, lifting his broken foot off the ground and jostling it so much he nearly buckles to the floor. 

Instead, he stands on one foot, breaking out in a sweat and gasping as he shakily grips the sink for support. 

Then he pukes into the base of it, big powerful contractions of his abdomen and back sending what little is left in his stomach up through his oesophagus. 

When he finishes retching, he spits into the basin, watching his saliva swirl down the drain with what could only be stomach acid, its ugly yellow colour assaulting his vision. 

Turning the tap, he almost expects nothing to come out of it, as that would be just his luck, but blessedly, clear, cold water bursts forth, and Cheongsan wastes no time bending over to wash out his mouth. He doesn’t drink any of the water, despite wanting to, but he has no idea if it's sanitary. 

Feeling slightly better now, with sweat cooling uncomfortably on his skin, he turns his gaze to the toilet beside him and dreads trying to shimmy or even hop over to it. 

He realises he can’t do it at the same time he realises… It’s all pipes. 

Yanking down his zipper, he frees himself hastily and sighs in relief as he pisses straight into the sink, his forehead falling forward to rest against the concrete wall. It seems to go on forever as he stands there, the tinkling of his urine in his ears. When he finally slows before stopping completely, Cheongsan feels little regret as he runs the tap to wash away his pee. 

It’s just like a urinal, he figures. 

No sooner does he tuck himself back into his pants and zip up than a harsh noise startles him from behind, and he locks up in fright. Twisting around, he gasps as he expects someone, maybe Gwinam or Suhyeok, to swing the metal door open and barge into the room. 

Instead, a small rectangular opening at the bottom of the door is pulled open. A tray of food is propelled into the room, followed by a bottle of water, before a hand disappears to slam the little opening shut. 

He blinks down at the tray, the food set on it looking entirely unappetizing. So much so, his stomach gurgles unhappily, threatening to make a second start on heaving itself free of his body.

He zeroes in on the water bottle instead, and this he wants, no, this he needs. Once again, the challenge of retrieving said item stresses him far more than it should. Turning sideways, the only way he can think of reaching for it whilst jostling his injury as little as possible is to sit back down on the floor and stretch out his good leg to pull it towards him. 

Heaving a miserable sigh, he’s starting to wish he were still unconscious. Or maybe that he just never woke up. 

Turning to the side is easy enough; it’s lowering his body to the floor that scares him. Gripping the porcelain so tightly that his fingers go white, he feels fresh sweat break out across his skin as he tightens the muscles of his arms and begins lowering himself to the floor. 

He holds his breath and gradually descends, his eyes on the water bottle teasing him just a few feet away. He bends the knee of his injured ankle to keep it off the floor, careful to manoeuvre it out of the way. The muscles of the leg supporting his weight tremble from the strain, and Cheongsan grits his teeth against the effort to hold himself up. 

His sweaty fingers slip free of the porcelain, and his efforts are in vain anyway as he goes crashing down onto the hard floor. 

He clamps down on the scream that tries to rip out of his throat, his head feeling like it may explode with it as pain assaults his senses. He eventually can’t hold it in any more, and a miserable wail echoes off the walls as he curls inward. 

He lurches forward for the bottle on his knees and cries out again, both in relief when his hand seals around the plastic and in agony at the new angle on his leg. 

Falling sideways against the door, his head bounces off the metal a little, and the vibrations threaten to spin the world before his eyes. In his hand, the bottle of water appears to double, then triple, but Cheongsan doesn’t care. With trembling fingers, he clasps the cap and twists it till it falls off to the floor. 

Water sloshes over the edge to soak into his already ruined clothes as he lifts the bottle to his lips. The first pass of the cool liquid down his parched throat is incredible, and he’s immediately chugging the contents down his neck, his eyes slipping closed.

It’s only the need to breathe that forces him to gasp free of the bottle, his eyes unwilling to reopen as he sags against the door.

Something like sleep but far heavier washes over Cheongsan as he lies there, splayed out in his new home.

He awakens next time peacefully, his mind rising out of sleep in gentle increments. 

The room he’s in is dark when he opens his eyes, but lit enough that he can see enough details to know he’s no longer in that cold, concrete room. That makes him frown, and he blinks his vision clear to see he’s in some sort of hospital room. Which makes no sense. 

How did he get here? Has someone rescued him and brought him to the closest hospital? Or is he… here with Suhyeok? As his Omega?

That thought kills any hope he might have had that he’s escaped. There’s no way it’d be that easy for him; something’s not right.

There’s a privacy curtain pulled two-thirds of the way around him, so what lies behind it, he can’t be sure. To his right, there isn’t a whole lot either, a small space empty save for a table by his side, a monitor and an unoccupied chair in the corner. On the matt white wall, a large monitor sits alcoved, the screen dark. 

Shifting his arms, Cheongsan realises his current condition one thing at a time. His clothes are gone, and horrifying enough, even his underwear has been removed from him. He’s in a hospital gown, a stark white thing that stands out awfully against his tan skin.

There’s an intravenous line coming out of his right arm; the tube is connected to a bag of some clear fluid just above his head. Examining one of the drugs, Cheongsan has no idea what sodium chloride is, but it must be helping him because he does feel better. He lifts his left arm to see there’s also a wire clamped onto his finger, the cord connected to a monitor beside him. 

An increase in the frequency of an incessant beeping from that screen makes his brow crease, a heart rate monitor picking up on his increasing stress now that he’s awake. He doesn’t know what any of it means, whether the numbers present are good or bad for him, so he turns away from it and tries to put it out of his mind. 

He does feel better now. Better than how he’d felt earlier when he woke in that cell.

Lying there, he does a full check of his health, gently shifting each area of his body. His ankle has now been bandaged, and when he moves it slightly, it lights up with pain, but a lot less than earlier. His throat, when he swallows, is raw, and he could really do with a sip of water. He reaches up, and the laceration to his temple, once crusted with blood, has been cleaned and tended to.

Overall, he feels better than he did, and that lingering sensation throughout his body that something wasn’t quite right has faded. He still feels clammy and gross and like he could use a hot shower, but physically, he feels okay. 

He doesn’t know whether to celebrate that or curse it. 

Sitting up in the bed, he grimaces slightly when the aching muscles of his back and abdomen protest the movement. He ignores them, needing to figure out where the hell he is and how he got here. He’s reaching over to unclip the clamp around his finger when a new sound reaches his ears.

Soft voices, as if in the distance, become apparent, and he freezes as he listens intently. When they begin to grow louder, approaching, Cheongsan throws himself back down onto the bed, cringing only briefly from the brisk movement before he closes his eyes, relaxes his features and pretends to be dead to the world. 

The voices, two of them, both male, grow in volume as they near, the conversational back and forth illegible to Cheongsan until it feels like they’re right outside the room. 

“...the necessary blood tests to see if he’s an appropriate subject, the results could be disastrous if it goes wrong,” 

“Forget all that, Doctor, just give him the serum. You have my reassurance that any negative outcomes won’t be your responsibility.” 

“I really think we should wait. It won’t take me more than a day–” 

“I said no. You’re giving it to him today. Am I understood?” 

There’s a tense pause, and Cheongsan’s mind spirals with their conversation. That voice. It sounds like…

“Yes, of course, Mr Lee.” 

Mr Lee…Lee Suhyeok.

Cheongsan feels his whole body go rigid with the realisation, and at that same moment, there’s a click and a swoosh of what can only be the door to the room being pushed open. Doing his damn hardest to relax and appear asleep, he forces his mind to picture his Mama, Onjo, the restaurant, his Papa. Anything comforting to calm his frayed nerves and racing heart. 

Two pairs of footsteps enter the room, neither of the men talking any more. The curtain surrounding Cheongsan is ripped back in the next second, the sound loud and nearly enough to pull him away from the mental image of Onjo helping him in the kitchen. 

“I’ve cleaned the wounds on his face as best I could before stitching the laceration on his temple,” This Doctor tells Suhyeok, quietly, “He’s also got a nasty bump to the back of his skull, a clean fracture to his ankle and, most worryingly, deep bruising around his throat. His voice is likely to be very weak, if present at all.” 

“Yes, Doctor, you said all of this already,” Suhyeok replies, his tone bored. 

Cheongsan’s desire to flee doubles when he notices how close Suhyeok’s voice is. He must be standing directly over him, and when the bed dips, the scent of the Alpha fills Cheongsan’s nasal cavity, and it becomes the hardest thing in the world not to panic. 

“You can go fetch what you need, Doctor,” Suhyeok says, dismissing this Doctor. 

The man’s footsteps move away as he leaves, the swoosh and click of the door signalling his departure. Cheongsan nearly wishes he’d stay. Despite the fact that he doesn’t know this man, he has taken care of him, soothed his pains. Besides that, he needs to believe that not everyone around him is a monster.

Suhyeok shifts slightly next to Cheongsan, a hand coming down hard on the mattress as the Alpha uses it to lean forward, over him. 

When Suhyeok’s exhalations first ghost over his face before shifting low down to his ear, it’s only through sheer force of will that he doesn’t leap out of the bed. 

“Do you think I came down here to see you sleeping, Omega? I know you’re awake.” 

Cheongsan jolts, his eyes springing open to lock gazes with a smirking Suhyeok, now inches from his face. 

“There you are,” The Alpha coos, his eyes jumping over Cheongsan’s startled features. 

Cheongsan attempts to twist away and lever himself out of the bed and away from the smirking Alpha, but barely gets a few inches before Suhyeok’s arms are on his shoulders, pinning him down. 

He struggles against the man’s hold, anger igniting in his tummy when he sees the humour in Suhyeok’s eyes, the desire to punch the grin straight off his lips burning hot. 

“Now, now, calm down, or I’ll be forced to have Dr Lee sedate you,” Suhyeok complains, the Alpha all but climbing onto his knees on the bed to restrain a struggling Cheongsan. “I’d like us to chat, and preferably with you coherent and capable of answering.” 

Pissed off by the condescending tone of voice the Alpha is using, Cheongsan reels his arm back and swings his fist up at Suhyeok’s face, hoping to land a punch. Suhyeok’s eyes widen seeing the fist coming before he just barely manages to dodge it, grab Cheongsan’s wrist and pin it to the bed. 

“Get the fuck off me!” Cheongsan growls, or attempts to, but his voice comes out more air than words. Kicking his legs, his broken ankle bounces off the mattress, and even with the bandaging, it still blazes with pain. Gasping, the pain only burns his anger hotter, till frustrated tears pool in his eyes. 

Seeing the way Suhyeok is nearly giddy with how much he’s enjoying tussling with Cheongsan, as if they’re two childhood friends wresting playfully, that ugly part of himself coils inside him like a snake and with no regrets despite the outcome last time, he prepares to spit in the Alpha’s face again. 

Catching on, Suhyeok’s eyes widen briefly before the Alpha’s broad hand slaps over Cheongsan’s mouth, halting his attempt. The amusement in Suhyeok’s eyes has vanished as he uses his hand over Cheongsan’s lower face to push him down into the bed, lowering his own face to glare a warning straight at Cheongsan. 

“You dare spit in my face again, and I’ll have you collared and chained to my car’s tailgate.” Suhyeok growls, the threat sounding completely real to Cheongsan’s ears. “They’ll be cleaning bits of you off the streets for months. Now stop fucking squirming.” 

Cheongsan stops fucking squirming, going limp under the Alpha as they glare at each other. 

“Good,” Suhyeok says, breathless as he slowly backs up and off Cheongsan, watching him closely. 

Looking away from the Alpha, Cheongsan swallows against his raw throat, choosing to glare up at the ceiling. It’s childish, but ignoring the Alpha is all he’s got. Offhandedly, he notices he’s torn free his IV line, blood pooling on his skin. 

“You still haven’t told me your name,” Suhyeok says to Cheongsan, the Alpha actually expecting a reply. 

Returning his gaze to the ceiling, he traces the tiled pattern with his eyes and ignores the Alpha.

He’s keenly aware of Suhyeok sitting next to him, every inhale and exhale from the man, every slight shift of movement not going unnoticed.

“I can see why Gwinam plucked you out of whatever shithole he found you in,” Suhyeok continues, unperturbed by Cheongsan’s rudeness. “He loves a challenge, and being the men that we are, it’s rare any Omega would dare disrespect us, let alone insult us.” 

Cheongsan is half tempted to tell the Alpha just what he thinks of the type of men they are. Despite the temptation, after his near-death experience with Suhyeok, he thinks he’ll keep his mouth shut. For now. 

“He didn’t defile you before I took you from him, did he?” Suhyeok asks, and the question is so shocking that Cheongsan actually turns to him in disbelief. “If he did…” Suhyeok muses unpleasantly, his mouth twisting in disgust, “I’m afraid you’re of little use to me, Omega.” 

The meaning behind the words isn’t lost on Cheongsan. Looking into Suhyeok’s brown eyes, he can see that the Alpha is serious. For his own self-preservation now, he parts his lips to answer. 

“He didn’t touch me,” Cheongsan rasps out, coughing a little after his throat spasms. 

Suhyeok eyes him carefully as if making sure Cheongsan isn’t lying before he nods, looking satisfied with the answer. 

“Good,” The Alpha smiles, abruptly standing from his seat. 

He moves away to fully draw the privacy curtain back, revealing to Cheongsan’s eyes the room in its entirety. At the back, a small table against the wall holds a pitcher of water and some glasses. To the left, there’s another door, closed to him now. He guesses it to be a private bathroom.

“Where am I?” He manages to rasp out.

Suhyeok leaves his side further to take up the pitcher and fill a glass, and for a hilarious moment, Cheongsan expects the Alpha to bring the water to him. Instead, the man, dressed in a casual burgundy suit, ignores him as he downs the glass in a few gulps. He doesn’t look away from him as he drinks.

The eye contact is uncomfortable, so Cheongsan stares down at his hands, at the small wound crusted over with blood now from the IV needle.

“You’re still in the main house,” Suhyeok replies, and Cheongsan’s stomach drops. Looking up, his disbelief must show plainly on his face because the Alpha smirks. “You thought you were in a hospital?”

Looking away, he glowers down at the sheets, the satisfied smirk on his captor's face burning hatred in his gut. How could this be the same building Gwinam brought him to? How big is this place that they, what? Have a hospital floor? 

“You won’t tell me your name, no?” Suhyeok asks him again, moving on from the subject as he turns back to the pitcher of water and refills the glass in his hand. 

He returns to ignoring the Alpha. 

When Suhyeok turns and begins approaching, Cheongsan tenses a little, expecting anger, violence or at the very least, more threats. Instead, the man plops back down beside him, an easy smile on his face. In his hand, a full glass of water threatens to spill with his quick movements. 

“If you tell me your name, I’ll let you have some water,” Suhyeok smirks, teasingly offering the glass to Cheongsan. 

Cheongsan’s throat clicks painfully as he swallows, the dry expanse of his tongue suddenly feeling ten times worse with the water mere inches from his face. Nevertheless, he turns his head away from Suhyeok, staring at the right corner of the room in answer. 

A snort registers from beside him, the Alpha clearly loving this, finding some sick enjoyment in trying to crack him. 

“Stubborn, stubborn, stubborn Omega.” The Alpha chuckles, shifting on the bed to make himself more comfortable, folding one of his knees. “I’ll tell you what, in exchange for your name, I’ll let you drink this glass and any further glasses of water you want, and I’ll sweeten the deal. I’ll answer honestly one question you have for me. I know there must be dozens flitting around in that brain of yours.” 

Cheongsan frowns a little at that; the Alpha’s words, unfortunately, pique his interest. A hundred and one questions are filling his brain, many of which spring to the forefront of his mind: What do you plan on doing with me? What is this place? Who are you? But lying there, there’s one question that he feels a burning need most of all to know the answer to. One, that he’s been agonising over from the moment this all started.

He flicks his eyes in Suhyeok’s direction, finding the Alpha already watching with that annoying smirk of his. It’s obvious by the way it widens that the man can see he’s caught Cheongsan’s interest. 

“So? Do we have a deal?” Suhyeok grins, leaning forward to try to catch Cheongsan’s eye again when he drops his gaze down to his lap. 

“How do I know you’re not lying to me? That you won’t just refuse to answer my question?” Cheongsan questions, glowering with mistrust at the Alpha. 

“How about I answer the question first, and then you tell me your name? Can’t do any better than that, Omega,” Suhyeok replies, leaning forward to rest his chin on his fist. 

Cheongsan bites into his bottom lip, debating it. Really, it’s a no-brainer. What difference would it make if he gave Suhyeok his name? It’s only a name. It’s not as if it gives the Alpha magical powers over him or something. It still stings, though, the idea of giving it to this foul man. Cheongsan is clinging to any authority he has left -given his current circumstances- but thinking about why he’s here to begin with settles the matter in the end. 

“Fine,” He concedes, eyeing Suhyeok mistrustfully. “I’ll tell you my name after you answer my question.” 

“Great,” Suhyeok grins, wiggling his eyebrows excitedly, “Let’s hear it then.” 

Nervous of the answer, Cheongsan exhales shakily, mentally preparing himself for whatever truth Suhyeok may reveal to him.

“Why did my Mama owe you people money?” 

Suhyeok blinks in surprise as if he weren’t expecting that question, his eyebrows raising on his handsome face. Swallowing hard, Cheongsan’s stomach squirms as he worries he’s asked the wrong thing, that his question will anger the Alpha. He doesn’t know this man, but he’s seen how quickly he can go from calm to violent. 

“To answer that, you’d need to answer a few questions of mine,” Suhyeok shrugs, frowning quizzically at Cheongsan. 

“That wasn’t our deal,” Cheongsan protests, thinking the Alpha’s trying to trick him now. 

“It’s not a simple question, Omega. I need to know who your Mama is, or I can’t tell you why she owed me money. I can tell you she’s not the only person under my thumb, so without further information, I can’t give you anything useful.” Suhyeok replies, shrugging. 

Cheongsan sighs in annoyance, looking away to debate giving this Alpha any more information, most especially about his family, his Mama, but then he realises they already know about her. Otherwise, they’d have never shown up at Cheongsan Chicken. 

“My Mama owns a restaurant in Downtown Hyosan, a small fried chicken place.”

He purposefully leaves out the restaurant's name out of pure embarrassment. 

Suhyeok seems to pause at that, the teasing edge to his eyes fading into a more serious expression. Being gazed at by the Alpha with such a severe countenance, Cheongsan swallows as the seconds tick by, wondering if he’s enraged Suhyeok. Eventually, the man breaks eye contact, turning his head away with a sniff. 

“I own that restaurant. I own your Mama’s restaurant.” Suhyeok replies, shrugging as if bored when he turns back to Cheongsan. 

Gawking at the Alpha, Cheongsan’s mind whirls with that information, none of it making any sense to him. 

“That’s not possible,” He replies lowly, his brow creasing further the more he turns over the implications of the Alpha’s words. “You’re wrong.” 

Suhyeok doesn’t seem to take kindly to Cheongsan’s accusation, the Alpha’s eyes narrowing slightly before he begins leaning over. Forced back into his pillow to try to maintain some distance between them, Cheongsan’s heart speeds up again from the short reprieve it had been given. 

Glaring practically into Cheongsan’s soul, Suhyeok’s words when they leave his mouth are derisive and almost mocking. 

“Maybe you don’t know your parents as well as you think you do…” 

Cheongsan is about to reply with a succinct ‘fuck you’ when he’s interrupted by the door to the room opening. Suhyeok sits back to turn to their arrival. 

Doctor Lee walks in, holding in his hand a silver metal case, and Cheongsan immediately frowns worriedly at it. He’s distracted from the metal case by the two men who follow in after the doctor, both eyeing him briefly sitting up in bed before they turn their attention solely to Suhyeok, coming to stand before him. They’re dressed in the same all black suits that Gwinam and his men were. These must be Suhyeok’s henchmen.

Cheongsan feels his fear double as all these men step into the room. Suhyeok, by far, is the cause of his biggest worry, but with the four against one odds now, he’s beginning to feel dread build behind his sternum. Something is going on. 

“You called for us?” One of the young men asks Suhyeok. 

“I did, Wujin, ” Suhyeok replies in confirmation, finally standing from the edge of the bed to give Cheongsan some space. The Alpha’s attention leaves Cheongsan, leaves the two young men, and zeroes in on Dr Lee, who, when Cheongsan turns to look, is busy popping open this mysterious metal case. 

His tension crescendos, waiting to see what’s inside, a million potential horrors filling his mind. From where he’s lying in the bed, he can’t see the contents once the doctor does pop the lid open, but without caring for subtlety, he cranes his neck to take a peek. 

A foam lining in the bottom half holds safely five syringes, filled to the brim with a translucent, pale yellow fluid. When Dr Lee extracts one and props it into his hand ready for injection, Cheongsan only needs to turn to Suhyeok to confirm what he already knows to be true. Suhyeok’s already watching him and locking gazes, the Alpha’s lips turn up at one corner, the glimmer in the man’s eyes running a chill down Cheongsan’s spine. 

He tears the covers from his body, his heart galloping in his chest as he attempts to flee. 

“Restrain him.” 

The two men are on him not a second later with the word from Suhyeok, yanking him forcefully back down onto the mattress, their combined strength too much for him, especially in his weakened condition. Flat on his back, Cheongsan kicks his leg, spasms of pain firing up from his fractured ankle. 

Panicked, his breath comes in gasping inhalations. The shining, silver tip of that needle flashing in his mind over and over. 

His fist swings out, and he punches one of the men right in the nose. 

“Fuck!” The beta yells out, reaching up to grasp his quickly reddening nose. Cheongsan’s brief moment of freedom allows him to sit back up, but that’s all it takes for the men to re-engage him. 

“Shit!” The uninjured Beta exclaims, “Hold him, Joon-Yeong!” 

“I’m fucking trying, Wujin,” The other Beta spits back, letting go of his now bleeding nose as he grips Cheongsna by his shoulders and slams him back into the pillows. 

His legs are eventually forced flat to the bed too by Wujin, the two men with strain clear on their faces, still managing to hold Cheongsan prone. Unable to move, he falls back on the only thing he has left. 

“No!” He yells, a wave of blind panic filling him, when from over Wujin’s shoulder, he catches Dr Lee approaching, needle in hand. “Don’t! Suhyeok!” 

The Alpha in question walks up to the top of the bed to stare passively down at him. 

He’s terrified of the contents of that needle, for whatever it is, it can’t be good for him. 

“Stop! You don’t need to do this!” He shouts, trying and failing to force himself out of the betas’ grip. 

When Joon-Yeong yanks his arm straight so forcefully that heat blooms in his socket from the action, Cheongsan moans in pain. With his forearm now presented to Dr Lee, Cheongsan’s panic reaches new levels. When he notices just how close the Doctor is with that needle, its pointed tip lowering towards his skin, he loses it completely. 

“No! Suhyeok!” Cheongsan screeches, his voice rising high in alarm as he turns to the Alpha, past the point of caring now about maintaining his ire, “Don’t do this. You don’t have to do this! Please!” He begs, pleading with his eyes to the Alpha. 

Suhyeok continues to watch him before he begins lowering his head, leaning over the bed till his face is mere inches above Cheongsan’s. The Alpha seems to curiously study him in the throes of panic, his eyes gliding from his wide eyes to parted lips. There’s a momentary pause in everything around Cheongsan as Suhyeok absorbs the details of him, the world slowing down to just the two of them. 

Eventually, Suhyeok smiles mildly, locking eyes with Cheongsan again. “Tell me your name, and I’ll tell them to stop...” 

Eyes wide, Cheongsan gazes up at Suhyeok, already knowing the Alpha is serious, that he’s doing this to further erode Cheongsan’s defences. 

Worst of all, it works. 

“Cheongsan,” He gasps, staring pleadingly up at Suhyeok, “Lee Cheongsan.”

Suhyeok’s smile widens into a grin, his straight white teeth shining in the fluorescent lights of the room. 

“Cheongsan,” Suhyeok muses, seemingly liking the sound of his name in his mouth.

“Please,” Cheongsan continues, hoping to win the Alpha over enough now to prevent this from happening. The next words out of his mouth make him die a little internally, but he forces them past his lips. “Please, Alpha. You don’t have to do this.” 

Suhyeok stares at him, an incomprehensible expression on his face. Cheongsan tries not to flinch as the Alpha leans all the way down, but Suhyeok doesn’t force himself on him. He simply presses a kiss into Cheongsan’s hair, the smile still on his lips.

“You’ll thank me for this later, Cheongsan.” 

The needle plunges into his arm like a red-hot poker, a pained groan leaving him as it slides home into his flesh. Tears flood his eyes watching the contents plunge into his veins, a combination of the betrayal and pain rocking through him, Suhyeok’s impassive face blurring in his vision as he turns to stare up at the Alpha in disbelief. 

The molten agony that begins creeping up his arm then pulls his attention away from Suhyeok, the needle removed from his skin going unnoticed. The pain is so intense that Cheongsan nearly bites his tongue off, his jaw clenching shut as the burning fills his shoulder before descending into his chest. 

It's like his muscles are being torn apart fibre by fibre, as if the liquid in that needle is destroying his flesh with every vein it travels along, turning them to mush. Behind his teeth, Cheongsan screams, his eyes squeezing shut as it continues to flood through him. It moves through his body like a creeping poison, its tendrils travelling through every inch of him, every limb to the tips of fingers and toes. When it meets the fracture in his ankle, Cheongsan feels the agony so brightly, so intensely, that he thinks his mind might break.

Chapter Text

The pain takes him as he lies there in that hospital bed. He isn’t sure for how long; it could be minutes or hours. 

It’s all he knows, a traversive series of waves through his body. It becomes almost rhythmic, and this sensory dance seems to have no end. Until it does, until he’s on his side, breathing raggedly through his mouth, skin damp. He blinks the sting of sweat from his eyes as the world comes back to him, the white walls of the room sharpening into focus. 

His hearing returns to him next, the scrawling sound of pen on paper. He very cautiously moves his limbs one at a time, both arms dragging across the mattress in an easy enough manner to surprise him. With a hard swallow, he begins bending his knees, expecting the pain to return in full force, but is again shocked to feel nothing. Nothing but two fully functional and pain-free legs.

Reaching up, his fingers glide across his temple where the skin had split under Gwinam’s attack, finding nothing but smooth, unmarred skin in its place. The three paper stitches that had been holding the cut closed fall away with his touch. Even the bump on the back of his skull is gone; every injury Cheongsan had received miraculously healed.

He can’t understand it, and that frightens him. 

“Oh, good,” Someone says, Cheongsan tilting his head to lock eyes with Doctor Lee at the end of the bed. “You’re not dead.”

He’s left staring at the man following that statement, feeling increasingly unnerved. 

“What did you do to me?” Cheongsan rasps, his voice leaving his mouth coarse and thin. 

“I…” Dr Lee starts, holding Cheongsan’s eye with a deadly serious expression on his face, “...did nothing to you. You’ll have to redirect that question to your Alpha.” 

Cheongsan’s anger returns with a vengeance upon hearing mention of Suhyeok, combined with the implication he’s the Alpha’s Omega. It gives him enough energy to weakly push himself up onto his elbow, glaring hotly at Dr Lee. “He is not my Alpha. He fucking kidnapped me! Nearly killed me!” 

Dr Lee doesn’t verbally offer him much in reply to that, the man evenly holding his gaze despite Cheongsan’s rage. With a tired sigh, Dr Lee tilts his head down to a chart in his hands, resuming whatever he was doing before Cheongsan woke up. 

Being ignored by the doctor, Cheongsan turns his attention back to his physical state, wondering if maybe he’s too out of it on whatever drug they injected him with to feel pain. But no, that wouldn’t explain the healed cut to this temple. Nothing can explain that.

Reaching down, he feels across his ankle, tentatively at first, before he squeezes the joint where his calf meets his foot. No pain in any form rises from the touch, not even when he uses all the force he can muster, which admittedly isn’t a lot. 

“What the fuck did you people do to me…” he mutters under his breath. What was in that needle? Fear threatens to steal his breath. 

“I recommend getting some more rest. You must be exhausted, even more than you were,” Dr Lee says, before he flips his clipboard closed and eyes Cheongsan. “Suhyeok won’t be gone forever. If I were you, I’d take my respite from the Alpha whilst I had it.” 

With that, the Doctor leaves, turning and walking out of the room without a care in the world, the door slipping closed. Left staring after him, Cheongsan tries to process those parting words, the implications of which are not lost on him. 

Suhyeok isn’t done with him. The Alpha will be back, and now that Cheongsan is injury-free…

He needs to get the fuck out of here. Adrenline sharpens his resolve as he finds the energy to do just that.

Cautiously, he slips his feet out from under the covers, keeping his eyes trained on the door. When his toes touch the linoleum floor, he drops his gaze to his bare feet, still expecting that horrendous pain to fly up his leg when he places it down. No such feeling comes as he applies further weight on the limb; the injury truly healed. 

He’ll ponder the impossibility of that later. Right now, he slides off the mattress to stand, his wide gaze returning to the door. He half expects someone to burst through it to restrain him as he walks up to it, for Suhyeok himself to barge in with a growl and throw Cheongsan back down on the bed. 

No such commotion occurs, and he minutely relaxes, his heart slowing in his chest the longer he’s alone. Swallowing against his dry throat, he lifts his hand to the steel handle of the opaque glass door and gives it a pull.

It doesn’t budge an inch. 

Frowning, he pulls more forcefully, his muscles giving it their all in his weakened state, but still the door refuses to open.

He should smash the glass. He’s sure that if he swung something at it hard enough, the tempered glass would shatter. Looking around the small room, he bites his lip as he examines the furniture, thinking maybe the bedside table would do the trick. 

Stepping away, he crosses the room to the table and, without caring now, throws the contents atop it to the floor with a swipe of his hands. Attempting to lift it, the solid wood structure proves heavier than Cheongsan was expecting. He succeeds in getting to the door by dragging it noisily along the floor, huffing in breaths from the strain. 

Turning sideways, he readjusts his grip on the frame of the table, takes a few deep breaths in preparation and focuses his aim right on the centre of the glass barricade in front of him. 

Tightening his muscles, he pulls and swings. 

The table goes flying at the door, right as a young man pushes it open. His eyes widen comically at the sight of Cheongsan throwing a table at him. 

The guy dodges just in time as the table flies past him into the corridor beyond, landing loudly onto the floor with a clatter, before it hits the opposite wall and stops after leaving a sizeable dent. 

Out of breath, Cheongsan swivels his eyes away from the table to the man left strewn out on the floor a few feet from him. They stare at each other, matching expressions of surprise on their faces before Cheongsan bolts. 

He sprints out into the corridor, the man behind him yelling out. Cheongsan doesn’t listen. He catches sight of the elevator at the end of the corridor and, with everything he has, focuses on shortening the distance between himself and it. 

Slowing to a stop before it with his panting breaths catching in his throat, he zeroes in on the elevator buttons. Yet no such buttons exist. In front of him, a keypad protrudes from the wall, its ten digits a baffling sight. 

Cheongsan types in four zeroes, and nothing happens. He tries one, two, three, four and gets the same response. Typing in any random combination of numbers he can think of, it’s only the man’s voice behind that that has him swivelling around. 

“Unless you can read minds, I’d suggest you stop wasting your time, dude, and just get back into bed.” 

Cheongsan glares down the corridor at the other man, now standing next to the toppled-over bedside table, his arms crossed, an equal parts bored and unimpressed expression on his young face. 

“Tell me what the code is!” Cheongsan demands, tension rippling through him. 

With a snort, the man approaches, completely unfazed by Cheongsan’s rage. “Fat chance. I do that, and I might as well throw myself down that elevator shaft.” 

When the man gets close enough, Cheongsan’s anger is cut through when he catches a distinctive scent.

“You’re an Omega,” he blurts, the man now a few feet in front of him and raising an unimpressed eyebrow. 

“Keen observation, Omega.” The man fires back. 

“No, I mean… I’ve never met another male Omega. Well, only one other.” 

“Good for you,” the Omega replies, turning sideways to wave a hand back down the corridor. “Now, will you get back to your room? I need to check your vitals and redo your line.” 

Stepping away, Cheongsan’s fascination for the other man fades as his shoulder blades bump into the closed doors of the elevator, a glare returning to his face. “I’m leaving. You can either help me or stay out of my way.” 

The man nods sarcastically, even reaching up to rub his chin, “How about this? I call Suhyeok and inform him of your little stunt. He’s actually really busy at the moment, so I’m sure he’ll love to hear about what you’ve done.” 

Cheongsan’s glare threatens to crack with the mention of the Alpha, a sliver of dread sliding through his abdomen. Swallowing against it, he feels his resolve falter, replaced with a cold wave of hopelessness. 

“How can you help him do this? You’re an omega too.”

The mocking look falls off the other Omega’s face as he sobers, staring at Cheongsan with an unreadable expression on his face. 

“Get back into bed, now,” the Omega orders him quietly, a warning rising in his eyes as he steps forward to square up to Cheongsan. 

Cheongsan clenches his jaw, his frustration a terrible thing as his options dry up. He steps around his latest captor to return to his room, his mind so full and weighted that he doesn’t even notice the walk back, only coming out of himself when he’s in bed and his new nurse is reaching out for his arm. 

“Hold out your hand,” The man orders as he takes hold of Cheongsan’s arm. Coming out of his daze, he blinks down at the back of his hand, where dried blood stains mar his skin. With wide eyes, he notices the first injection site he tore free from earlier has also healed over completely. 

His nurse replaces the line, Cheongsan cringing briefly from the sharp sting of the needle.

“You’ve made a right mess. I’ll need to clean that, thanks to you.” 

Not bothering to answer, Cheongsan drops his head back against the pillows to stare up at the ceiling, his mind a million miles away. Without being able to help himself, he can no longer distract himself from his thoughts, and he feels slightly breathless with panic when he ponders his miraculous recovery.

Realising he doesn’t even know what day it is, he turns to the omega quickly, desperate for something to distract him.

“What day is it?” He asks, half expecting to be ignored. 

“It’s Tuesday, just after eight.” 

“In the evening?”

His nurse nods absently, busy tidying up the mess on the floor, placing the knocked-over items on a table against the far wall with the water pitcher.

It had been Sunday night when Gwinam and the others had taken him. He’d really thought it was Monday, but he supposes he shouldn’t be too surprised he missed a day. After Suhyeok had damn near strangled him, he’d floated in and out of consciousness constantly in that cold concrete prison.

“What happened to me?” He finally asks, knowing there was something wrong with him. 

Gyeongsu turns to him, and for a second, Cheongsan thinks he’s going to be ignored, but the Omega seems to decide in that moment to continue answering him. 

“All I know is, when they went down to bring you breakfast, you were passed out on the floor by the door.” Gyeong-su says with a shrug, “Daesu panicked, as he tends to and half-dragged, half-carried you up here with Wujin’s help. He was convinced he’d let you die on his watch.” 

“Why would he care about whether I live or die?” Cheongsan asks, knowing these people aren’t exactly the most charitable. 

“He wouldn’t.” Gyeong-su replies with a flash of a smirk, “But Suhyeok might. And Daesu would rather not have to inform Suhyeok that his new toy died on his watch”

Cheongsan swallows, looking away from the smirking Omega. He doesn’t want the man to see the fear in his eyes every time Suhyeok is mentioned. 

“When you got here, you were in pretty bad shape, but nothing life-threatening. Like I said, Daesu always overreacts.”

His nurse turns back to his work, squinting at the screen of Cheongsan’s vitals and jotting the details down. Cheongsan flicks his eyes between the rhythm of his heart rate and the young man beside him. 

“What’s your name?” he asks the omega. 

“Gyeong-su,” the man says absentmindedly, briefly raising his eyes to Cheongsan before returning them to the sheet in his hand. 

“How do I get out of here, Gyeongsu?” 

“You don’t.” 

Cheongsan’s frustration returns with the swiftness of that cold response, his hands clenching the sheets under him. How can another Omega have a hand in doing this to him? How can he assist these Alphas in kidnapping him? Cheongsan feels revulsion for the man standing before him. 

“How can you help them?” He seethes.

Gyeongsu stares at him, pen frozen on the notepad as he maintains Cheongsan’s gaze. The pen drops onto the pad, and the omega steps closer till there’s only a few inches between them. Cheongsan grows weary of his proximity. 

“If you know what’s good for you, omega, you’ll stop fighting and accept this as your life now,” Gyeongsu whispers, and Cheongsan swears he sees tears fill the omega’s eyes. “Fight them and you’ll only make it worse.” 

And then he’s gone, dropping the notepad into a tray at the end of the bed before the door slides open in a whoosh, and he disappears out of sight. Cheongsan is left staring after him, dumbstruck. 

Like Hell is he going to give in and make this easy for any alpha in this building. Suhyeok or otherwise. Cheongsan won’t let them brutalise him, won’t let them… violate him. He could never forgive himself if he just gave up. 

Dropping his head back against the pillow, he glares up at the ceiling, an ugly mix of fear and responding rage swirling in his gut.

He starts awake the next morning when the door opens, his muscles tensing all over. Gyeongsu strolls in with a pep in his step, and behind him, the alpha and beta that had restrained Cheongsan the previous day follow. 

They pause by the door, already wearing warning glares. Gyeongsu stops beside him, throwing a casual glance across his form. 

“Wakey, wakey, sunshine,” He quips, a grin tugging at his lips, “It’s time for you to get a wash, you stink.” 

Cheongsan glowers, turning over onto his back. In truth, he does stink. Days of sweat and grime have accumulated on his skin, and he feels grungy as hell. However, he does not like the idea of getting washed up. 

That would involve being naked, and like hell is he–

“You can get up on your own, or I can get the boys here to help you,” Gyeongsu smiles, indicating with his finger the henchmen waiting by the door.

“I’m fine,” he responds, shifting uncomfortably, “I don’t need–” 

“I’m not asking, friend,” Gyeongsu interrupts with an eyeroll. “You’re getting washed up.” 

Cheongsan doesn’t respond, too busy trying to find an excuse to get him out of this. The tension in his body grows when he draws a blank, finding no excuse past his terror.

Gyeongsu rolls his eyes again. “Okay, fine… Wujin, Daesu, if you would–” 

“Okay!” Cheongsan barks, shifting away when the two men approach him with their hands up. “I’ll go…”

“Good,” Gyeongsu grins before yanking the covers off Cheongsan. “After this, we’ll get you a hearty breakfast. You’re still recovering, so you need all the protein you can get.” 

Cheongsan slides his feet out of the bed and stands. Gyeongsu wastes no time heading for the door, so he follows, tension rippling across his shoulders when the two men follow behind him. 

Instead of taking him left to the elevators, the omega leads him right, past several rooms similar to his. They stop outside one such room before Gyeongsu pushes it open. When he steps inside, Cheongsan realises this room is nothing like the one he’s staying in.

It’s a shower room, with a line of benches in the middle and on either side, empty stalls. Beside him, there are lockers along one wall. Gyeongsu is currently rooting through one, muttering under his breath. 

“Ah, here.” Gyeongsu smiles and turns to Cheongsan with a plain white shirt and grey sweatpants. “This’ll have to do before we get you some new clothes.” 

“What happened to my clothes?” Cheongsan wonders as he takes the set; the very fact that he was undressed still bothers him deeply. 

And his Mother’s ring. If no one found it in the sole of his shoe… it must be lost. His stomach clenches in dismay.

“Discarded, most likely,” the Omega shrugs, only deepening that feeling, before he throws out a hand indicating the showers. “Go on, there should be shampoo and body wash in the stall. I’ll go fetch you a fresh towel and a cloth.” 

Cheongsan doesn’t move. He can’t stop his gaze from flicking to the two men standing by the door, looking bored now. 

Gyeongsu catches where his eyes went and sighs. He turns to the two men. “Let’s give the omega some privacy, boys…” he says, waving his hands toward the door. 

“Suhyeok said–”

“I know what Suhyeok said, Daesu, but we’re in a windowless room with one exit. He can’t go anywhere.”

Daesu and the beta share a look before relenting and turning to leave. Cheongsan exhales in relief; the very idea of showering with them metres away was not something he could handle. 

Gyeongsu leaves too, and Cheongsan is alone again. He walks into the room and stops by the first shower stall. Horrifyingly, it doesn’t have a screen or a curtain. He understands that a lot of men are perfectly comfortable seeing each other nude, but he reckons those men aren’t omegas. 

He’s still standing there, staring at the cubicle, when Gyeongsu returns. The omega blinks at him. 

“Right now, you’re supposed to be in there, dude. Not staring through it. Do I need to get Wujin and Daesu back in here?” 

Glaring, Cheongsan decides he hates this fucker, omega or not. “I’ll get in when you leave.” 

Gyeongsu barks a laugh, strutting over to shove a towel and cloth in his arms, causing Cheongsan to stumble back a step. 

The omega turns to walk away, muttering under his breath. 

Cheongsan stares daggers at his retreating form. He throws the bundle in his hand on the bench and pushes away the spiral of panic trying to pull him under. He can’t let it take him. If he loses his mind now, he’ll never figure his way out of here. He needs to be strong. He needs to hold himself together. 

He strips off and walks into the cubicle with the washcloth. The water is freezing when he turns the knob, and he gasps when it hits his skin. It warms up quickly, though, and soon the temperature is perfect, hot enough to turn his skin red.

He stands there for a time under the spray, simply enjoying the blissful feeling washing across his skin. When enough time has passed and he fears Gyeongsu might come to see what’s taking so long, he starts washing up. He shampoos his hair twice before scrubbing himself raw with the washcloth provided. He’s in the middle of getting between his toes when movement out of the corner of his eye makes his head whip up. 

“You done yet?” Gyeongsu asks, all casual as he leans on the cubicle. 

“Hey!” Cheongsan yells, covering his privates with the washcloth whilst he gawks at Gyeongsu in outrage. “Get out!” 

“Oh, calm down,” Gyeongsu says, his eyes rolling. 

The worst part is that Gyeongsu is scrutinising him in real time, the omega’s eyes raking up and down his frame. 

The omega hums, a thoughtful expression on his face. “I’m not seeing it…” 

“What?” Cheongsan replies, slapping the water off and slipping out of the shower to snag the towel on the bench. He wraps it around his waist and drops the washcloth. 

“I’m not seeing what’s caught Suhyeok’s attention,” Gyeongsu replies, finally looking away from Cheongsan’s body to lock eyes with him. “You’re nothing special.” 

Ridiculously, Cheongsan’s actually a little offended. He doesn’t reply, though, just hopes the hatred in his eyes speaks for him. 

Gyeongsu’s mild expression doesn’t falter even with Cheongsan’s glare, but the omega does eventually notice he’s not drying off. With a snort, he turns and walks away. 

“Don’t worry, little omega, I’m going, I’m going…” 

Cheongsan dries off quickly and shrugs on the overly large shirt and sweatpants. He has to tie the string of the sweatpants tightly around his hips to stop them from falling down. He’s not given any socks or shoes and does not enjoy the feeling of his bare feet on the cold tiles. 

When he’s finally dressed, he awkwardly folds his towel and lays the washcloth on top, having no idea what to do with either. 

“Oh, don’t worry about those,” Gyeongsu says, popping into existence once again to frighten him. “Someone will pick them up for cleaning.”

Cheongsan nods, wrapping his arms around himself as he walks up to Gyeongsu. “Now what?” 

“Breakfast,” the Omega promises with a smile, and begins leading him out of the bathroom and back to his room. Or rather, his cell. 

The omega at least hadn’t lied about breakfast, and Cheongsan is rewarded, quite literally, with a full tray of food in bed. Gyeongsu takes more blood from him before he’s allowed to touch any of it. When he’s filled a few vials, his stomach growling between each, Cheongsan is permitted to eat as the omega skips away to leave him alone. 

Despite his circumstances, his appetite is ravenous from days of not eating, and he wolfs down all that he can manage. He’s left feeling cramped and overly full, but doesn’t regret any of it as he lies back with a sigh.

It’s only as he’s sipping some tea that he realises he’s gone days without his suppressants. 

The realisation makes the food in his belly flip over. This is the longest he’s gone without his suppressants since he first started them, and he doesn’t think this is a mistake. Suhyeok likely wants him off them for the same reason Gwinam would have. 

He’s nauseous and shaky by the time Gyeongsu returns. 

“Whoa, you look pale,” the omega says, eyes wide but holding very little in the way of actual concern. “Did you eat so much you’ve made yourself sick?” 

Cheongsan shakes his head slightly, not even bothering to lower his head to glance at Gyeongsu. He stares up at the ceiling unseeingly, his mind a mess. 

“Well, the good news is your blood tests came back normal. Or rather, normal enough for us to be happy you’re in the clear.” 

That makes Cheongsan tilt his head down, his brows furrowing, “What?” 

“Never mind,” Gyeongsu hums, smiling in that way of his. He casts his eyes up and down Cheongsan’s form. “Time to get up now, omega. Your time here is done.” 

Cheongsan blanches, his frown disappearing as he feels his features slacken. Before he can ask what he means, Gyeongsu leans in closer. 

“Your Alpha eagerly awaits your arrival.” 

Cheongsan contemplates trying to run again, and when he turns his eyes to the door, he notices Gyeongsu has left it open. 

He bolts, throwing the sheets aside as he leaps out of the bed. The tray of the remaining food clatters to the floor, and he hears Gyeongsu curse loudly in anger as he runs. 

He sprints out into the corridor, thinking he’ll turn right and see what’s at the end, see if he can find a fire exit or a stairwell. 

He’s not two feet out of the door when both of his arms are snatched up as Daesu and Wujin restrain him whilst he kicks and flails. They turn him around to Gyeongsu, who walks out with annoyance radiating from him. Cheongsan sees that the tea he was drinking has spilt all over the Omega’s shirt.

Gyeongsu fixes him with a look. “You seem determined to make enemies here, you little brat!”

“Fuck you,” Cheongsan seethes, still struggling a little.

Shaking his head with a sigh, Gyeongsu turns away to begin leading them to the elevators. Cheongsan stops fighting, if only because this could be his chance. He needs to be ready and preserve his energy if an opportunity arises where he could escape.

They enter the elevator, and he does his best to catch his breath. Gyeongsu turns to the buttons on the console to their left, and before Cheongsan’s eyes, he taps the fiftieth floor and, after, uses a keypad to type in a lengthy sequence of numbers off the top of his head.

The top floor. Cheongsan concedes any hope of escape will be made damn near impossible if he’s atop this very building, and as the elevator rises, he realises it’s no small building. He must be in one of those skyscrapers in Upper Hyosan, in the business district.

Up and up they go, and with their rise, he feels his anxiety rise in tandem. He does not want to see Suhyeok again. He would be perfectly happy never seeing that Alpha again in his life. Gwinam had frightened him. He’d made him afraid for his life, but Suhyeok unnerves him in a way the other Alpha never did. There’s a coldness to him that threatens to freeze Cheongsan’s lungs in his chest just being in his presence. 

He’s about ready to start hyperventilating when the elevator stops and, with a happy little chime, opens its doors. 

To a short hallway. It’s a fairly fancy hallway, with shining marble floors leading to a set of wooden doors and spotlights sparkling in the ceiling. But still, just a hallway.

“Well…” Gyeongsu says, raising his eyebrows impatiently at him. Cheongsan hesitates. 

And he’s shoved into the hallway by one of the henchmen. He stumbles into the space and turns to stare daggers at the three laughing men.

“Remember what I told you,” Gyeongsu says, sobering up before he jabs the elevator button and disappears behind those closed doors, leaving Cheongsan alone. 

Well, not alone, he thinks as he turns to the two doors in front of him. The only place he can go. He’s already checked, but the elevator is the same on this floor as it was on the other one: Activated by a keypad. 

He stares at the dark wood of the double doors and feels like he’s staring at the gates of hell. He does not want to go in there. There can be nothing good for him past those doors. 

It’s with a sinking sensation like a stone in his gut that he faces the fact that he has no choice. He hasn’t had a choice in any of this since it started. 

The metal handle of the door is solid and cold when he pushes it down. By the weight of the door and by how smoothly it swings open, the air of opulence in this place grows. 

It crescendos into a jaw-dropping sight when he gets his first look at the room beyond the doors. He’s in an open-plan living space, a short foyer expanding out into a luxurious living room. Straight in front of him, two sprawling sofas face each other, separated in the middle by a low coffee table. A large mat covers the floor underneath the space, leading up to the right, where a huge fireplace is built into a partition wall. 

Opaque glass windows, floor to ceiling length, span the other side of the room, blocking Cheongsan’s view beyond. With his eyebrows halfway up his forehead and his mouth hanging open, he steps further into the living room, turning his head to the left. A large open kitchen takes up the entirety of an opposing partition wall, a wide island in front of it completing the space. 

He stands there in disbelief. In his life, he’s never seen such luxury, such extravagance. 

It’s hard to imagine that such a monster lives here. 

It’s with that thought that Cheongsan remembers that he might not be alone here. Suhyeok could be anywhere in this sprawling home. 

He isn’t sure what he should do. He feels slightly adrift standing there. His mere presence here feels as if it’s tainting the air. To say this isn’t what he’s used to is an understatement.

He can’t just stand here either, and he most certainly doesn’t feel like calling out to the alpha. He decides to turn left and pads slowly over to the kitchen, his bare feet totally silent as he nears the island. There’s not a utensil out of place here, not a used dish or glass; the countertops are clean and tidy.

He walks around the island and tries to find any signs that someone actually uses this kitchen. The stovetop is huge and spotless. The sink is dry and without a scratch. It doesn’t look like Suhyeok uses this kitchen at all. 

Cheongsan opens the fridge carefully and finds the first proof of life in this place. Alcohol. And lots of it. There are a few sodas, too, but besides that, not much in the way of food or ingredients. He closes the fridge and walks out of the kitchen. 

He travels into the space behind the partition wall and finds a dining table, the centre of which holds a vase full of white flowers. The walls here are the same opaque glass, and they follow along from the living space and turn a corner to close off this end of the penthouse. Cheongsan doesn’t understand why someone would block what must be a stunning view.

In the right corner, there’s a spiral staircase that leads to another floor above, as if this place needs additional space. Biting his lip, he turns his head back the way he came, nervous about venturing any further. He proceeds cautiously, simply because his only other option is standing around and waiting for Suhyeok to come for him. He climbs up the spiral staircase and arrives on a landing. In front of him is a small grand piano, another vase of flowers atop its shiny black surface. 

Despite the unease slithering across his skin, he smiles as he passes the instrument. In any other circumstance, he’d be unable to stop himself from fiddling with the keys. 

He proceeds further and enters a long, narrow hallway overlooking the living space below. He runs his hands along the bannister as he walks, no idea where he’s going or what awaits him. 

He walks along the hallway, the walls white and broken up by art deco pieces hung up every few feet.

He arrives at the turn of a corridor to the right and cautiously peers down it to discover a narrow set of stairs leading to a solid black door. A keypad next to it. On either side of this corridor, two other doors exist, these with simple keylocks beneath their handles. Cheongsan doesn’t turn right into this corridor but continues forward, peering down at the living space for any sign of Suhyeok.

It’s only because of how slowly he’s moving and how alert he is that he hears the door click open below him. 

He freezes immediately, even his breathing locking up as he listens. 

Footsteps register as someone enters the living room below him. They stroll into the space, casual and patient. Cheongsan backs carefully away till his back meets the wall, away from the balcony overlooking. His heart takes on a speed in his chest. 

The footsteps stop, and silence prevails for a few seconds. 

“Cheongsan?” 

Suhyeok’s voice is amused, playful, and that only makes Cheongsan’s tension climb.

“Where are you, little one?” the Alpha wonders aloud, a grin in his voice. 

Cheongsan starts moving again when he hears Suhyeok’s footsteps stroll further into the space. To find him. 

He doesn’t feel like he’s been searched for, however. He feels like he’s being hunted. 

He reaches the end of the corridor and finds himself in a square landing, similar to the one on the opposing side of the penthouse that contained the piano. This one is empty, however, save for a low corner seat. 

There’s another spiral staircase here, too, and Cheongsan debates going down it. 

In truth, he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Suhyeok is going to find him. This is the Alpha’s home, an enclosed space he probably knows like the back of his hand. Cheongsan can’t hide from him here. Yet he continues to try anyway. Some part of him, some instinctual, deep-rooted part of his being, is screaming for him to run, to hide, away from the Alpha in here with him, who registers as nothing more than danger, a threat. 

Worse of all, Cheongsan can’t hear Suhyeok’s footsteps anymore, causing sweat to break out across his skin. He’s not sure his heart can take much more of this. 

He descends the stairs, cringing every time his footsteps cause the metal to groan a little under his weight. At the bottom, he finds himself in the biggest closet he’s ever seen. 

Along the wall, drawers and floor-to-ceiling cabinets exist, most of the doors closed, hiding their contents, but one or two are open. Inside, Cheongsan glances over the array of pressed suits, shirts, slacks, and ties. There’s an entire section of wall containing shoes, the majority with their leather gleaming in the light. 

A nook in the centre of the room houses an array of jewellery, from Rolex watches, dark metal rings, bracelets and necklaces. Valuables he’s never seen the likes of. 

He turns away, annoyed with himself for getting distracted for even a moment. 

“You’re not planning on robbing me, are you?” 

He gasps, more like yelps, and stumbles away from Suhyeok, leaning casually against the partition wall, smirking at him. 

Panting, Cheongsan clutches his chest as he stares into those dark eyes. Suhyeok looks as well-dressed as ever, his suit pitch black, sitting perfectly on his broad shoulders. His hair is styled, without a strand out of place, and his shoes gleam where they’re crossed at the ankle. 

“Or were you just looking for something to wear?” the Alpha wonders, eyeing Cheongsan critically. “What has Gyeongsu put you in?” 

Cheongsan swallows, and then swallows again before he feels he can reply. “I wasn’t robbing you.” 

Suhyeok looks away and harrumphs, shaking his head slightly before he looks back in Cheongsan’s direction. 

“You wouldn’t be that stupid, would you, Omega?” he asks softly.

He stares into Suhyeok’s eyes, into their dark depths and for a moment, he’s under the Alpha again, struggling to breathe, thinking he’s about to die. He hates more than anything the fear in his veins, and it makes him furious enough to glare at the Alpha. 

“My name’s Cheongsan,” he grits out, fists clenching by his sides. 

Suhyeok breathes another laugh, and he’s seriously close to taking a swing, likelihood of death be damned. 

“Well, Cheongsan, nothing in my closet will fit you, so you’ll have to wait before we can get you something else to wear,” Suhyeok replies, ignoring his ire, and Cheongsan feels his rage fizzle out with nowhere to go. 

“Something that won’t make you look like a psych ward patient.” Suhyeok muses, devilment entering his eyes.

Cheongsan shifts, uncomfortable with how Suhyeok’s eyes travel up and down his person. 

“I’m fine,” he argues quietly, crossing his arms for sheer benefit of covering himself. 

Suhyeok doesn’t reply, just continues staring at him in that way. Cheongsan feels goosebumps race along his arms. 

“I can’t stay for long, I’m afraid,” Suhyeok tells him as he straightens up. “I have business to see to, but continue to make yourself at home.” 

Cheongsan doesn’t know what he could say in reply to that, so he says nothing.

“I’ll be back later,” Suhyeok continues, half turning away but holding his eye. “Someone will bring you lunch in a while, and later, we can have dinner.” 

The alpha seems to be looking for a reply because when Cheongsan gives him nothing but a cold stare, his eyebrows raise, and tension enters his face. 

“Yes, Omega?” 

Cheongsan is clenching his jaw so hard, he couldn’t possibly speak, so he nods instead, really hoping it’ll appease this psycho. 

It seems to appease Suhyeok, but by the annoyed sigh, it certainly didn’t please him. 

“Don’t break anything.” 

And with that, the alpha leaves, sauntering out of the room till his footsteps drift away before vanishing completely with the click of a door closing. 

Cheongsan sags in relief, the energy in the room dissipating instantly. 

Suhyeok’s presence seems to fill every inch of any room he’s in, till you’re left suffocating in it. 

Chapter Text

To say Cheongsan feels out of place in this penthouse is an understatement. With Suhyeok gone for the day, he’s left wandering around, exploring the rest of the rooms he hasn’t seen yet. He pads into the master bathroom just beyond the closet, not surprised to find the bathroom bigger than his living room back home. In the room following that, he finds the master bedroom, mostly occupied by the biggest bed Cheognsan has ever seen. 

He still can’t phantom why Suhyeok needs all that space. He’s only one person.

That concludes his tour, with Cheongsan reentering the living area from the right, next to the partition wall containing the fireplace. With little left to do, he ambles over to one of the sofas and sits down on it, the suede soft under his hands. 

He feels like even touching it, and its snow white fabric was tainting the sofa. But Suhyeok had told him to make himself at home, so Cheongsan was going to, within reason. 

There’s a stack of tabloids on the coffee table, so he decides to try to amuse himself for an hour by flipping through them. They don’t hold his attention for long, unsurprisingly, considering he’s never been into tabloids. After, he’s bored and lying on this sofa with little to occupy his mind. Bar, of course, the events of the last few days, and he’s trying not to linger on those for too long. 

He’s staring up at the ornate chandelier suspended above the centre of the room when he dozes off without meaning to. He drifts into a light sleep, the cushion under his head and the ambient temperature of the penthouse lulling him into a nap. 

In his half-asleep state, he hears something from behind the front doors, and his eyes spring open. Jumping up, the haze of sleep is forced from his system with a spike of adrenaline. 

The double doors open, and a small, grinning woman enters, pushing a trolley laden with food. 

She seems delighted to see him, smiling brightly as she approaches. Considering that, she must have been informed of his presence here. No doubt, by the smirking Omega that follows her in. Gyeongsu enters with a swagger in his step. 

“Getting settled in?” 

Cheongsan’s jaw clenches, a familiar glare for the Omega rising on his features. Turning away from the asshole, his eyes flicker to the contents atop the tray, and he wonders briefly if all this food is for him. Surely not, there’s got to be at least seven plates atop it, covered with metal cloches.

“It’s so lovely to meet you, Mr Lee,” the serving lady greets, overly friendly. “Would you like to eat here at the kitchen island or in the dining room?” 

Cheongsan shifts on his feet, throwing a glance towards the kitchen island. This entire situation is ridiculous. He’s been pampered like a luxury pet, all the while trapped here like a prisoner. 

“Uh, the island, I guess,” He mumbles.

She nods politely and moves to the island, laying out each plate across its smooth surface. Cheongsan turns his gaze back to Gyeongsu. The Omega simply stands there watching everything with a small smirk. He’s in that familiar all black suit today, not the nurse outfit he usually wears, and Cheongsan would bet there’s a gun hiding under the waist of that suit jacket. 

He’s here to ensure Cheongsan doesn’t do anything untoward, clearly. 

But what would he do? Beg and plead with this maid, or whatever she is, to tell him the elevator code so he could go home? He’s realising that for someone to tell him such information in this place, they’d have to forfeit their safety, perhaps their lives. 

He could always threaten her, he supposes. Use one of those knives he saw on the kitchen counter to force her to tell him the codes. The only problem with that is… well, he couldn’t do that to someone. Let alone a seemingly innocent enough woman just doing her job.

“Enjoy your lunch,” Gyeongsu interrupts his thoughts to voice. “I didn’t know what you’d enjoy, so I had Kim Min-ji here prepare you a little of everything.” 

Cheongsan’s eyes flicker between the two, not entirely sure what would be the appropriate way to respond. They’re doing him a kindness whilst…keeping him trapped here. It’s a bizarre situation. 

“Omega, say thank you, Min-ji.” 

He knows how to respond to that, and his glare towards Gyeongsu could turn the Omega to stone. Nevertheless, the strange lady has never done anything to harm him. 

“Thank you, Min-ji.” He says sincerely, bowing gratefully. 

She beams, returning the gesture before she turns away and begins leaving. 

Cheongsan glowers at Gyeongsu, just waiting for the guy to do the same and leave him in peace. He’s waiting for the final taunting remark because he knows the guy can’t help himself. 

“So, you do have manners, Omega. You didn’t offer me any when I was nursing you back to health.” 

The burn of humiliation drives anger into Cheongsan, causing his fists to clench. 

“My name is Cheongsan.” He grits, enunciating each syllable. He’s beyond sick of being referred to by his sex.

Gyeongsu simply grins in delight, loving that he inspired such an emotional reaction, before he turns and saunters away to the elevator. 

Cheongsan’s anger wisps away once the metal doors close, his head dropping between his shoulders. When it comes to that guy, he really needs to learn to give him nothing, to not react, despite how hard that is. 

The smell of food teases his senses on his next inhale, and tilting his head, the plates across the room call to his appetite. Padding over, he figures he should at least inspect what was brought up to him by this Kim Min-ji. 

Lifting the cloche one plate at a time, steam wafts out on more than one, an enticing aroma drifting up to remind him how hungry he is. One or two plates aren’t exactly to his liking, but thankfully, he’s never been a picky eater.

After his lunch, he’s visited again by Min-ji, but this time she’s accompanied by a man he doesn’t recognise. This beta glares at him in warning the entire time Min-ji is collecting his empty dishes. Cheongsan simply glares back momentarily before wandering away. He needs to be alone. Ever since everything happened, he hasn’t felt like he’s had a moment to sit down and think. 

He settles down on the piano stool upstairs, briefly pressing a few keys absentmindedly before his hand falls away and he’s left staring blankly down at the ivory.

It isn’t easy to recollect everything that happened. He has to clench his jaw and breathe carefully as he remembers. 

He’s been kidnapped.

How has his life been upended so quickly? He was having a great day up until Gwinam sauntered into his family’s restaurant. He never could have imagined he’d end that day by being assaulted, thrown in a car boot, and finally, nearly strangled to death. 

And that very man who had tried to kill him is now his captor.

What followed his near-death experience was no less traumatising. From waking up in that cell before falling unconscious, only to find himself in the care of Doctor Lee. A man who still gives Cheongsan the creeps to think about.

His heart squeezes in his chest simply recalling the panic and terror he’d felt when he was held down and approached with that needle. Suhyeok’s cool gaze swims in his mind’s eye, the Alpha’s trickery and betrayal stinging just seconds before that needle plunged into his skin. 

What truly unnerves, what truly scares Cheongsan, is what was in that needle. It had felt like his blood was boiling as it moved through his arm and then down his chest. The pain had been so bright and overwhelming that Cheongsan’s mind still shies away from remembering. 

So much pain, only to wake up without any at all. His injuries, from the split lip to the cut in his hairline, all the way down to his broken ankle… all of them miraculously healed.

He doesn’t know what kind of freaky shit these people get up to, but he did not like getting a sample of it. He still doesn’t know what kind of effect that substance had on his body, what kind of effect it may still be having. Running his eyes over his body, he almost expects some extra limb or growth to spring free from him, every sci-fi and horror movie he’s ever seen flicking through his mind. 

He realises he’s starting to freak himself out, lingering on this, and letting his mind run rampant with paranoia and fear. Pulling his thoughts away from that needle and the substance inside it, Cheongsan's current situation doesn’t exactly inspire joy and hope either. 

He’s trapped in this penthouse. He’s trapped in Suhyeok’s penthouse, and he’s not naive or stupid enough not to realise why. 

He’s an unmated, young Omega. He’s never been touched, never even kissed anyone, and now a powerful Alpha has him trapped and completely vulnerable. 

Suhyeok could do anything to him, and Cheongsan would be powerless to stop him. He wouldn’t make it easy for the Alpha. He’d fight with everything he has, but he knows he’d inevitably lose. Suhyeok is taller and heavier than him. He’s strong, and Cheongsan briefly got a taste of how skilled he is when he wants to be violent. 

He wouldn’t stand a chance. 

He jumps up and begins pacing when the anxiety climbs to panicking heights. His only hope is escape. He needs to get the hell out of here and back home to his Mama. Suhyeok will be able to find him there, though; the Alpha knows where he lives now. He’d have to flee with his Mama. Maybe leave Hyosan altogether because who knows how deep Suhyeok’s connections go in Hyosan?

It’s his only option.

With that in mind, he spends the next few hours scrutinising as much of the penthouse as he can. He finds another bedroom upstairs, a guest room, one that looks very seldom used but immaculately kept. There’s an ensuite bathroom attached to it, fully stocked. Cheongsan decides he’ll sleep in here when he inevitably has to in a few hours. 

He’s not touching Suhyeok’s bed. He doesn’t ever plan to. 

Stepping out of the guest bedroom, along the narrow hallway he’s in, the left connects the walkway that overlooks the living room below. In front of him, another door exists across the hall, but Cheongsan had tried it earlier only to find it locked. To his right, a set of stairs leads up to a solid, black door. 

This door is also locked, but Cheongsan swears he can feel a draft coming through from under the frame.

His search for anything to help him in his escape ends downstairs in Suhyeok’s bedroom. He walks into the room and peers curiously around the space, finding the room the most personable of all. The penthouse is spotless and furnished perfectly, but it’s too perfect, feeling more like a showpiece than a home.

The bedroom’s interior is dark, but masculine and modern, like most of the penthouse. The floor is a cream, plush carpet, different from the hardwood floors found everywhere else. The walls are a smoky, matte grey, with alcoves set in the surface on either side of the bed. The silk bedsheets are inky black, and Cheongsan can’t deny that the bed looks extremely comfortable. The duvet is thick and falls over the edge plumply. The pillows are abundant and full, and it’s as he’s staring at them that he realises how tired he is. 

It must be only four o’clock, but he’s strangely exhausted. 

Turning away from the bed, there’s a wall-to-ceiling bookshelf on the opposite wall, flanking a large cityscape painting. Scanning the book titles, Cheongsan murmurs some under his breath, finding it fascinating that a man like Suhyeok could be such a bookworm. There’s no TV to be found in the penthouse, so maybe this is how the Alpha unwinds. When he’s not out murdering people or whatever it is he does.

He should be back soon, Cheongsan realises with a hard swallow, dinner time fast approaching. 

With little to entertain himself and not seeing any more progress to be made in his plan to escape, Cheongsan steals a book, gently pulling it free. There are enough on the shelf; he doubts the Alpha will notice one missing. Leaving Suhyeok’s bedroom, he takes a left, walks past the bathroom and massive closet to take the spiral staircase up to the first floor. 

When he arrives back in the guest bedroom, he sits against the headboard and cracks open the book, beginning to read. He’ll take any distraction he can get. 

He falls asleep not long into the book, finding it difficult to invest in the story. He sleeps deeply, his body more than willing to rest for the night, even with it being so early. He thinks his body is still recovering, physically at least. 

Hours later, he feels fingers in his hair, fixing his fringe from where it’s fallen across his forehead. He jerks away, gasping as he opens his eyes to a shadow looming over him. It’s late, judging by how dark it is, very late, but Cheongsan can see enough to make out Suhyeok standing over him. 

He tries to jump away from the man, tries to put distance between them. His hip collides with the bedside table in his drowsy state, pain blooming as he stumbles across the room to the far corner. Suhyeok jumps back, startled by Cheongsan’s reaction in turn. 

The bedside light is clicked on a moment later, and Cheongsan squints against the sudden light as Suhyeok turns to him. 

“I had wondered where you’d disappeared to.” The Alpha says, mirth entering his eyes. “You know, you missed dinner. But so did I, so I can’t be too mad at you.”

Cheongsan doesn’t say anything; he simply stares at the Alpha and remains tense and ready. What Suhyeok may want with him at this hour of the night has his heart pounding. 

“I thought the door to this room was locked,” The man wonders aloud, glancing around the space before returning his eyes to Cheongsan. “Unless you know how to pick locks, Omega?” 

“My name’s Cheongsan!” He shouts, surprising himself as anger surges up through his chest, feeling rattled and unsteady in his current state. “And I didn’t pick your lock. The door was open.”

Suhyeok’s humour has faded a little at his outburst, the Alpha studying him with an intensity that Cheongsan does not like.

He’s striding over a second later, his gaze sharpening as he approaches, stalking forward like the predator he is. Cheongsan’s not sure his heart could beat any faster, adrenaline making his hands shake by his sides as he readies himself. 

He’ll fight. He won’t make this easy for the Alpha. 

Suhyeok stops before him when they’re a foot away from each other, and it’s only the most challenging thing in the world for Cheongsan to maintain his glare. The man before him doesn’t say anything for seconds that seem to drag on. Cheongsan is about to demand that he get on with it, purely because he can’t stand the dreadful anticipation, when Suhyeok’s right hand swings up to him. 

Cheongsan locks up like he’s been electrocuted, but feels his mind freeze when the book he’d stolen is held out to him. 

“I don’t appreciate my stuff being taken without my permission,” Suhyeok murmurs, glancing pointedly at the book. “But, I can see that it’s going to take a while before you settle in and learn your place here.”

The temptation to release a scathing reply to that soars within Cheongsan, but he feels like the Alpha is about to leave, and that’s all he really wants right then. Suhyeok pauses, as if he’s waiting to see if Cheongsan will verbally lash out before continuing just as softly. 

“You can keep this for now, until you finish it at least. I realise you don’t have much to do when I’m working, so feel free to read this book to your heart’s content.” He continues, before he turns and places the book on the bedside table. 

“If you’d like to read any others, ask me first,” Suhyeok continues, straightening up to lock eyes with him again. “Whether you get to or not, depends on how good you’ve been.” 

Cheongsan couldn’t stop the hate-filled expression on his face if he tried.

“Do you understand?” 

He opens his mouth, the rage in his belly taking over, venom rising in his throat as he inhales to verbally lash out at this psychotic, motherfuc–

“Think before you speak,” Suhyeok cuts him off before he even gets a word out, a warning glower taking over his expression. “I’m tired. And most certainly not in the mood for any theatrics tonight.” 

Cheongsan’s practically vibrating with rage where he’s stood, the urge to spit insults at this man brimming in him.

He’s tired too, though. He just wants to go back to sleep. 

“I understand…” He grits out lowly. 

Suhyeok decides to ignore the tone because the Alpha smiles, somewhat tiredly, before he nods. 

“Good.” He replies, blessedly turning and walking to the door. The Alpha depresses the handle, but before stepping out, turns. 

“Good night, Cheongsan.” 

Cheongsan looks away, glares at the floor and waits for the man to leave. Suhyeok waits for a moment, waits for his reciprocal ‘good night,’ but Cheongsan won’t play nice with this Alpha. Not even for that long. 

A disappointed sigh, footsteps, and the click of the door as it closes. 

With Suhyeok gone, Cheongsan feels his strings abruptly cut, and he almost collapses to the floor in relief. Walking forward, he falls on the bed with a heavy sigh. Rocked by his latest encounter with his captor, he holds his head in his hands and stays like that for a long time, till he feels stable enough to turn and lay his head down on a pillow to fall into a restless sleep.

He wakes the next morning feeling rough from a night of fitful sleep. Blinking his eyes open, he cringes against the headache he can feel brimming in his temples. He could do with some paracetamol or ibuprofen. 

Turning over onto his back, he lies there for a little while staring unseeingly up at the high ceiling. He doesn’t want to get out of bed. He doesn’t want to go downstairs and see what horrors today might hold for him. 

After another twenty minutes of stalling, he’s brought out of his sour musings by sounds coming from downstairs. There are voices, more than one, and that makes him anxious. 

Sitting up, he creeps across the room until he’s at the bedroom door and as quietly as he can, he presses down on the handle and pulls the door open. He tiptoes out into the hallway, turning left towards the railing. Out here now, the voices are more distinct, and he’s familiar enough now with Suhyeok’s baritone to recognise it as his.

He’s speaking with another man. 

“Despite the recklessness of your actions, I’ve completed his blood tests, and it appears he’s the perfect subject after all.”

Cheongsan realises the man speaking must be Doctor Lee, the content of their conversation giving away the man’s identity. He walks up to the railing, and despite not being able to see the two men below, he can hear them clearly.

“Good. Then there was nothing to worry about after all,” Suhyeok replies, sounding completely uninterested in the conversation.

“No. This time, you got lucky,” Doctor Lee shoots back, and Cheongsan can detect real notes of contempt in the man’s voice. “Maybe next time you won’t be so lucky. Maybe next time you’ll sentence some poor Omega to an agonising death.”

“Maybe,” Suhyeok replies, a grin in his voice. “You can leave now, Doctor Lee. If there’s any further medical attention the Omega needs, please inform one of my men, and I’ll see he’s brought down to you.” 

Cheongsan does not want that. He did not enjoy his time under Doctor Lee’s care and would much rather never see the man again. 

“I’ll be sure to.” 

With that, the Doctor leaves, and there’s silence throughout the penthouse once more. 

Where he is, Cheongsan leans over the railing. From his vantage point, he can see the living room in its entirety and the kitchen to his left. Straining his neck, he can just about see past the partition wall between the kitchen and the dining area. 

Suhyeok’s there, sitting at the head of the dining table with a tablet in one hand and a steaming cup of coffee or tea in the other.  He’s frowning at the screen of his tablet, reading what looks to be a news article. 

Cheongsan nearly falls over the rail when a woman appears directly under him, entering the apartment quietly. He recognises her instantly as the young woman who served him his food yesterday. Minji. 

She walks right up to Suhyeok before bowing a few feet away. 

“Your breakfast will be up shortly, Mr Lee,” She assures, her head low, her posture stiff. “Alongside, your…guests.” 

Suhyeok smirks briefly at her stammer before his head rotates towards her. “Good. Be a dear and wake him for me, will you?” 

Cheongsan locks up in tension, and when Minji nods and moves to do just that, he bolts back into the bedroom, closing the door behind him. He doesn’t want to go down there. He does not want to have breakfast with that Alpha. Not today, not ever.

He looks around and tries to find some way of getting out of it, but no solutions jump out at him. Spotting the ensuite bathroom, he disappears inside it and closes the door. If nothing else, it’s another barrier between him and Suhyeok. Noting the blessed lock on the handle, he flicks it over and leans back against the sink.

Listening intently, he stops breathing altogether when the door of the bedroom clicks open and a second later a meek voice registers through the wood.

“Mr Lee, are you awake, sir?” 

Minji seems to realise he’s not in bed, for her small footsteps sound louder as she closes in on the bathroom and Cheongsan cringes, wishing she’d just leave. A small rasp of knuckles on the door makes him want to pull his hair out. 

“Mr Lee, are you in there, sir? Uh, breakfast is soon to arrive and, um, your presence is requested downstairs.” 

Cheongsan bites into his lip and agonises over a way to get out of this. 

“Could you– could you tell Suhyeok that I’m not feeling too well, and that I won’t be able to make it?” He stammers, pressing his forehead to the door as he prays this will work. 

There’s silence on the other side of the door for long enough that Cheongsan begins to become concerned for Minji. She replies just when he opens his mouth to ask if she’s still even there. 

“Oh, um, okay…” Her meek voice replies, and Cheongsan relaxes when she begins stepping away. 

Her footsteps pause, however, when she hasn’t made it far at all, and he freezes, his momentary relief drying up. 

“Sir, I’m sorry… could you please come down?” She whispers to him, a raw edge to her voice, and Cheongsan’s stomach bottoms out. “If I tell Mr Lee that I failed in getting you to join him…”

She trails off, but Cheongsan understands explicitly what she’s saying. Standing there, he realises that he isn’t the only one afraid of Suhyeok. Even the people who work for him are terrified of the Alpha, and what does that say about how he treats his staff? Cheongsan knows one thing for sure. He can’t let Minji be punished for this. Not when he can help it. 

“I’ll be right down,” He hears himself say, but doesn’t say anything further when Minji thanks him sincerely before leaving. 

He turns to the sink in the ensuite and blinks at himself in the wall-mounted mirror. He looks tired, with dark circles under his eyes, but beside that, all evidence of the assault he suffered only days before is nowhere to be seen. That still frightens him too much to think about, so he looks away and notices a brand new toothbrush sat on the porcelain of the sink. Beside it, an unopened tube of toothpaste. 

Suhyeok must keep this bathroom stocked for any guests he has staying over because Cheongsan also finds fresh towels and facecloths under the sink. 

He washes his face with one of the pristine cotton cloths before ripping open the toothbrush and brushing away days of neglect from his mouth. He feels almost human again, with his mouth tingling with minty toothpaste and his face clean and refreshed.

He would really like to shower again, as that was always his routine back home, but he figures he'd best not keep Suhyeok waiting any longer. As he’s thinking about home, about his daily routine, he’s reminded once again of his suppressants.

He hasn’t taken them for days now, and that realisation makes his mouth go dry.

He wanders downstairs with that realisation plaguing him. When he turns down the last few steps of the spiral staircase into the dining room, he finds Suhyeok already peering at him. Cheongsan pauses on the last step, feeling pinned under the Alpha’s gaze as the man scrutinises his appearance from his socked feet all the way up before locking eyes with him. 

“Sit,” Suhyeok instructs, nodding to the seat directly to the right that’s been set for him, with an empty glass and plate. 

Cheongsan wills his feet to move, to walk across the space separating them and take the seat beside the Alpha. He feels stuck on that last step, though, his soles glued to the metal as he stares between Suhyeok, the seat prepared for him, and his own feet beneath him. 

Suhyeok doesn’t say anything as the seconds tick by, just glowers harder at him from his place at the head of the table. He lifts his mug of coffee to his lips and doesn’t break eye contact as he takes a sip.

Cheongsan swallows, his feet sliding backwards, about to flee back up the stairs. 

Suhyeok’s eyes flick down to the movement before his gaze drops to his tablet, and he opens his mouth. 

“There’s tea or coffee, if you’d like some.” 

Cheongsan pauses. Sensing what the Alpha is offering beyond the hot beverage, he hesitates before fleeing entirely. 

He slips off the last step and slowly comes around the end of the table to approach his seat. Suhyeok doesn’t look at him as he moves; the Alpha apparently invested in the contents of his tablet’s screen. 

Pulling out the chair, Cheongsan sits, and immediately wonders if he’s made a mistake when Suhyeok finally turns to look at him. This close, his gaze is no less intense than it ever is, with an ever-present crease in the man’s brow. 

“So, tea or coffee?”

“Tea,” Cheongsan replies, and it’s only when Minji suddenly moves into view in his peripheral vision that he realises she’s been here the whole time. She serves him his tea, the pour flawless and Cheongsan thanks her when she finishes, receiving a nod in acknowledgement. 

Suhyeok returns his eyes to his tablet, drinking his own beverage as he continues to read. Cheongsan takes a sip of his tea, and he finds it helps ease some of his tension as the hot, earthy liquid flows down into his stomach. They sit in silence, and he’d like to say it’s an easy silence, but he’s sure he’s never been so tense around another person before. 

Suhyeok lifts his cup to his lips, taking a careful sip of his tea, and Cheongsan stares at the crescent, angry indents healing on the back of his hand. His skin is smooth and flawless, save for the injuries. Recalling how Cheongsan put them there, in his desperate attempt to pry Suhyeok’s hold from his neck, he goes cold all over. 

This Alpha nearly killed him, and here they are, drinking tea together. 

Suhyeok catches his eye, notices where he’s looking in a flash, and a dangerous smirk tilts his lips. “Admiring your handiwork?” 

The sheer audacity of this man. Cheongsan’s momentary calm vanishes as he opens his mouth, straightens up to give Suhyeok a piece of his mind, but is interrupted when a cart full of silver cloches is wheeled into the room. 

Minji flushes when she notices their sole attention on her. Closing his mouth, Cheongsan deflates against the chair, turning his gaze away from the smirking Alpha beside him. 

He tells himself Suhyeok isn’t worth it, but there’s so much anger swirling inside him. It’ll find an outlet inevitably; the Alpha only needs to say the wrong thing once. 

They’re served breakfast, an entire spread of dishes, both hot and cold cuisine. Freshly prepared somewhere else in the building and brought up here, Cheongsan can’t believe the luxury of it. Suhyeok doesn’t seem to take notice of how extravagant this all is. The Alpha removes small portions of several of the dishes to fill his plate, eating away without blinking an eye. 

Cheongsan just continues to stare at the spread, not sure how to proceed. He is hungry, but he’s also uncomfortable and tense. Suhyeok notices his hesitation and seems to think he’s simply shy. 

The Alpha sighs through his nose before placing his own cutlery down and reaching out to fill Cheongsan’s plate. He selects several of the safer options and fills the plate till Cheongsan can’t see the white porcelain anymore. Satisfied, the Alpha returns to his own meal with one word for him. 

“Eat.” 

Cheongsan ignores the flare of annoyance the order brings and instead reaches out to eat small bites of the breakfast. The food is as delicious as it looks, and it doesn’t take long for his taste buds to convince him to dig in for real. 

It’s one of the nicest meals he’s had in some time, and when he’s full, the heavy feeling eases some of his tension. 

Suhyeok turns to him when he’s finished. “I’ve sent Gyeongsu out to purchase some clothes for you. We got your sizes from the clothes you were brought in with.” 

That makes Cheongsan’s eyes widen, and he sits up, interrupting Suhyeok when the Alpha opens his mouth to continue speaking. 

“My clothes. Where are they? I’d like them back.” 

That earns him a quizzical frown. “Why? They were hardly worth keeping. They’ve been discarded.” 

A sinking sensation, one that drags down through his chest before crashing into the depths of himself. His Mama’s ring. Tossed in the trash. The loss is devastating enough that a lump forms in his throat. 

“Your new wardrobe will be an improvement. I’ve given Gyeongsu orders to purchase quality outfits. For various occasions. Outfits that won’t make you look like a street peasant.” Suhyeok says dismissively, swiping down his tablet’s screen. 

Cheongsan frowns, unable to help it when the Alpha so casually talks down about who he is. He’d rather be a lowly, downtown Hyosan peasant than whatever Suhyeok and these people are. 

“Better a peasant than…” He murmurs pointedly, glaring at the side of Suhyeok’s face. 

The Alpha pauses, his eyes drifting from the tablet to Cheongsan, a lengthy few seconds of staring taking place before a grin rises. 

“Such nerve,” Suhyeok says with a breath of laughter. “Even after…” 

He trails off, but Cheongsan knows what he was going to say. ‘Even after I nearly killed you.” 

He just glares harder and hopes the man opposite him understands that not even his brush with death has broken him. 

“We’ll work on your manners in due course,” Suhyeok remarks, looking back down at his tablet. 

Quietly seething, Cheongsan grinds his molars to dust in his mouth as he tries not to let the Alpha get to him. 

They sit in tense silence for another few minutes, Suhyeok reading something on his tablet whilst Cheongsan simply stares down at the table. 

Minji returns a few minutes later to take their plates and offer them refills. Cheongsan declines with a shake of his head. He can’t stomach anything else. 

Suhyeok finally looks away from his tablet once she begins gathering plates, and with a quick check of the time, it seems breakfast has come to an end. 

“I should be back a little later. I’ll make it to dinner, anyway,” the Alpha says, and Cheongsan wonders if the man’s thinking aloud or actually expecting a reply. The raised eyebrows he gets a moment later answer that question. 

He offers a nod. 

Suhyeok rolls his eyes before turning away from him. “Minji, would you let the sun in? It’s a much nicer day today than it has been.” 

Cheongsan frowns, confused by what the Alpha means by ‘letting the sun in’, the ceiling's tall windows completely opaque, even if they are letting light in. Minji seems to understand the Alpha, humming in response before padding over to a dial on the wall. 

She turns the dial, and before Cheongsan’s eyes, the walls of opaque glass surrounding him shift. Evaporating like vapour, the glass brightens and brightens till the sunlight is beaming through its now transparent surface.

And the view beyond takes Cheongsan’s breath away. 

He’s standing up and walking over to the corner of the room without thought, amazed by the sheer elevation. The city sprawls out before him for what looks like forever, a jungle of concrete and glass. Down below, traffic moves in various degrees of congestion; some streets are backed up, others are moving freely. 

Cheongsan stares at the tiny moving masses, dozens of people filling the streets. Going about their day, working, socialising, shopping. 

He’s been in this part of the city before, once or twice, but he’s never seen it like this. 

“I imagine this is something new to you?” Suhyeok murmurs, as if reading his mind, and Cheongsan startles. Turning, he takes a step away from the Alpha, now little more than a foot away. 

When he doesn’t reply, Suhyeok’s eyes leave his to return to the city below, brown eyes glowing in the morning sunlight. His perfect hair shines, his pink lips seem to gleam, and all in all, Cheongsan can’t deny that the view in here isn’t too bad either. 

Yet, gazing at the man, his outer beauty does not prevent Cheongsan’s stomach from curdling. 

“If you behave yourself, Omega, I’ll even let you use the pool.” 

Blinking, Cheongsan’s confusion must show on his face because Suhyeok tilts his head to the right. Following the man’s direction, Cheongsan realises he had been so shocked by the view that he missed the wide terrace spanning the width of the penthouse. 

A wooden deck spans the breadth of the external space, a series of steps leading down into a rectangular pool, its water glittering in the sunlight. A patio table and chairs are situated to the left, shaded by a pergola. To the right, a fire pit is surrounded by sprawling sofas. Ferns and palm trees in pots fill in the corners and far balcony of the area, softening the space. 

Just when he thought this penthouse couldn’t get any more luxurious, sprawling or affluent, it does. 

It’s like a castle fit for a King, but Cheongsan supposes up here, Suhyeok is King. 

“I can’t swim,” Cheongsan blurts, a little dumbfounded. Looking back at Suhyeok, the Alpha breathes a laugh, opening his mouth to reply. 

“Good morning!” Gyeongsu sings as he saunters into the dining area, reaching out to snatch a piece of fruit off the table. “I’m glad to see you two getting along. No one’s been strangled this morning yet?” 

Cheongsan glares, feeling his face flush as he lets out a breath of disbelief. Suhyeok exhales hard through his nose beside him, straightening his suit jacket before turning fully to Gyeongsu. 

“Watch yourself, Gyeongsu. My patience for you lately is thin enough.” 

Hands up, the Omega mock surrenders to the Alpha, but the turn of his lips demonstrates his lack of sincerity as he stops a metre away.

“I’m only teasing. You know I mean no harm, boss.” 

“Regardless, rein it in, or I’ll see to it that your Alpha teaches you a lesson in my place.” 

The room goes cold, the sunlight streaming into the space doing little to warm the frigid tension between Gyeongsu and Suhyeok. For once, the teasing, goading edge to the Omega’s eyes is gone, and in its place, something dark and hateful fills. 

Cheongsan’s throat tightens with the building strain between the two, his eyes switching from one to the other. The standoff feels like it’ll end in violence, Gyeongsu even brazen enough to challenge Suhyeok like this, but in the next moment, those narrowed, spiteful eyes drop to the floor and when the Omega tilts his head to the side, displaying his neck, Cheongsan baulks. 

“I trust you’ll find him attire that is suitable to his needs. Don’t test me anymore today, Gyeongsu, by dressing him like one of Chang-hoon’s whores.” 

“Don’t worry, Mr Lee,” Gyeongsu replies, in a tone of voice Cheongsan’s not heard the Omega use before as he returns his eyes to the Alpha. “I’ll make sure he’s dressed to meet all your needs.” 

“Good,” Suhyeok replies, and with a final glance for the two Omegas, the Alpha leaves, his footsteps fading out of the room before the click of a door signals his departure. 

Cheongsan is left staring at Gyeongsu, studying the Omega, the glassy reflection of his eyes, the tension in his jaw. When he’s caught staring, Gyeongsu offers him a bitter laugh. 

“Boy, do I not envy you.”