Chapter Text
It’s so early in the morning that the floodlights are on when Lee Felix steps onto the pitch that is going to change his life.
There’s two dozen football players currently running drills, their black and blue jerseys making them stand out against the ever green of the pitch. It makes Felix’s heart race to see them, to know that he is going to be one of them in a couple of minutes.
The shrill whistle of Coach Kang next to him makes him flinch, but it works well to gather the team all around.
As expected, everyone’s attention is immediately on Felix. Murmurs rise into the air, eyes dissecting him millimetre by millimetre. It’s unnerving, but Felix knows there’s no ill intent. His new team members are not gossiping, they’re assessing him.
It makes Felix’s inner omega quiver with nerves, facing a wall of unimpressed-looking alphas like this, but he pushes through. Alphas don’t get nervous so he doesn’t. Alphas don’t hide behind others, so he doesn’t move to stand behind Coach Kang like he wants to. Felix is not an alpha, but he needs these people, this team, to believe he is one and so he holds his head high, squares his shoulders and head-on meets the gaze of everyone who dares to look at him first.
Most of them have the decency to look away when they get caught staring and that satisfies Felix’s omega beyond belief. He knows it would be different if they didn’t think he was an alpha too.
“Everyone,” Coach Kang blows his whistle again as if the entire team isn’t already looking at him, anticipating Felix’s introduction because no matter what they see when they look at him, he is wearing black and blue and that means he is one of them. About to be. “Gather around! I’ve got someone to introduce you to. This is Lee Felix,” the coach says, clamping a hand on Felix’s shoulder. Felix does not flinch, because alphas don’t flinch. He stands his ground. “He’s our new striker.”
Immediately, the pitch is filled with voices.
“Our new striker?!” A bulky alpha with big biceps and an even bigger grin calls out, “And here I thought we’d have to go the entire season with just Minho.”
“Yeah, Minho,” the sharp-faced player next to him says, “looks like you’ll finally have some company out there.”
Minho doesn’t look particularly impressed by his teammate’s teasing. He spares Felix only a fleeting glance before he looks away, back towards the ball caught under his foot. Felix pretends that doesn’t sting a little.
“Lee Felix?” someone else mutters. “Never heard of that name before.”
“Maybe he’s from overseas,” his friend suggests. “Felix isn’t a Korean name, is it?”
“Who cares,” the third of their little group joins in, “as long as he plays well. The more important question is, do you think I could get my hair this blond?”
“Don’t even try, dude. You don’t have the mug for it.”
“Yah!”
A yip cuts through the noise before a fight can break out and suddenly the entire pitch is silent. It’s honestly the most impressive thing Felix has ever witnessed. Not even Coach Kang’s whistle was this effective in getting everyone’s attention. Felix didn’t think it was even possible to make a bunch of alphas shut up at the same time. Inadvertently, he looks at the man responsible.
It’s different, seeing Bang Chan in real life. He looks better in real life, Felix thinks before he beats the thought into submission. He won’t even go down that road. Bang Chan may be a living legend and hotter in real life than any newspaper articles have ever made him look, but he is not the reason Felix moved countries to join this team. He won’t allow himself to be distracted by Chan, or any alpha. He came to Korea to fulfill his dream of playing varsity league football, get recruited after graduation and become the next Son Heungmin. His dreams are big, and certainly more important to him than any alpha ever could be.
“Felix,” Bang Chan says. His dimples dig deep into his cheeks as he smiles, but Felix, with a foreboding sense of dread, realises that Bang Chan doesn’t look as happy to see him as he expected.
We’ve unexpectedly found ourselves down a striker since the beginning of the year, so your transferral, however late it is, is a blessing to our team, Coach Kang’s voice echoes in his head.
Chan doesn’t look at him like he’s a blessing.
It makes Felix wonder whether one of his scent patches leaked, whether he’s done something already that has given him away, but surely someone else would have noticed it if it suddenly started smelling like omega on the pitch and with how vocal the team has been about everything else about him, they surely would have called him out on that particular lie first.
“Bang Chan,” Felix gives back and he’s so, so glad that his voice, at least, is something he never had to worry about.
For just a split second, Chan’s eyes drop to his mouth. Maybe he’s surprised too by how deep it is.
His eyes, however, are still empty when their gazes meet and his smile is perfunctory at best when he says, “Welcome to the team.”
*
Bang Chan doesn’t like him.
It takes Felix a couple of weeks to figure this out, but once he’s noticed, he can’t unsee it. Unfeel it. Felix would probably freak out about it more if he wasn’t busy trying to juggle the most rigorous training schedule of his life with university classes, with trying to hide the fact that he is an omega.
“Doesn’t it hurt?” Jisung asks him as he watches Felix peel off the scent patches he wore to sleep. “It looks like it hurts.”
Felix shoots his roommate a confused look. “Have you never worn any of these?”
Jisung shakes his head. “My mom always said scent patches are bad for you. That it messes with your hormone balance if you wear them for too long. But she also thinks that mixing baking soda and coconut oil makes a great all-natural substitute for store-bought deodorant, so.”
Felix winces. He imagines trying that in a locker room full of stinky alphas.
Jisung laughs at his expression. “Don’t worry. I usually go for Dove.”
Felix grins back at him. He likes Jisung a lot, honey scent included. They make a great pair of roommates, in the sense that Felix orders for Jisung at the mess hall’s salad bar when Jisung gets overwhelmed by the amount of options and the expectant stare of the lunch lady, and in turn Jisung doesn’t tell anyone about Felix’s secret.
Felix was worried, at first, knowing he’d be assigned to the omega dorms.
There was no designated box on his team contract asking him about his subgender, because no one in their right mind would ever think that an omega would try to apply for a varsity football team, but there was one university office Felix couldn’t hide from, and that was the housing bureau. They asked him for a copy of his passport in order to assign him a dorm, which clearly states his subgender.
Felix spent more nights than he’d be willing to admit waiting for that angry phone call that would tell him he was a fraud and getting kicked off the team for lying about his status, but in the end it turned out that the communication between different university bureaus was as non-existent as he’d hoped.
So far, his biggest challenge has been sneaking in and out of his own dorm room so as not to be seen living there, but it’s been manageable.
“You wouldn’t be the first alpha caught sneaking around,” Jisung assuaged his worries when Felix brought it up. “Though, please don’t go around telling people you’ve been hooking up with me to cover your ass, especially your teammates.”
“What?” Felix batted his eyelashes at him. “You wouldn’t like to be caught in a rumour with me?”
Jisung snorted, assuring him that there were worse things in the world, but he didn’t tell Felix the real reason for his discomfort either so Felix didn’t pry. He was too grateful for Jisung’s friendship to do anything that might have thrown a wrench in it.
He lets Jisung watch as he cleans his neck and then reapplies the extra-strong scent patches he wears during the day. Luckily, it’s mandatory for players to wear them during practice so he doesn’t stand out for using them. Emotions easily run high during the game so the air would be unbreathably thick with alpha pheromones otherwise.
It’s another trace covered, another worry off of Felix’s back that he’s going to get found out.
He holds the box of scent patches out to Jisung. “If you ever want to try one, feel free to take one.”
Jisung regards the box as if Felix was offering him contraband from the inner pocket of his trench coat at a school fair.
“Maybe,” is what comes out of his mouth. He takes the box, turning it over and over until he looks at Felix with curious eyes. “What do you smell like without these?
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?!” Jisung drops the box in shock. He’s so expressive, sometimes it’s like talking to a cartoon character, talking to him. “How can you not know what your own scent is?!”
Felix shrugs, feeling sheepish all of a sudden. “I’ve…kind of been pretending to be an alpha for a long time. Or well, to be scentless, at least. It’s been years, at this point.”
“Years?” Jisung’s eyes grow incredibly round.
Felix nods. “My teammates in high school knew I was an omega because I had the absolute shit luck of presenting at practice, but—There was a lot of debate on whether I should get kicked off the team or not, since it was all alphas just like here. The only reason I didn’t was probably because my coach stood up for me. I got lucky in that sense so I decided to make it easier for everyone and cover my scent. This way, it wouldn’t constantly remind my teammates that I was an omega and it worked. Of course, omegas smell strongly so I had to make sure my scent never really had a chance to settle on my skin, even off practice, but it was worth it. By the end, I think most of them didn’t even remember that I wasn’t an alpha like them.”
“But…don’t you—” Jisung’s cheeks turn red. He pretends to fan himself. “I mean, don’t you get—” Jisung pants for good measure.
Felix stares at him before he realises what Jisung is trying to do and bursts out laughing. “You mean my heat? No, I didn’t have one since my first one and my scent hadn’t fully developed then. I think it was gourmand like yours, but…no idea.” Felix shrugs. “I’ve been taking suppressants since literally the day after I presented and using scent blockers just the same.”
Jisung shakes his head, mulling Felix’s words over. He bends down to pick up the box of scent patches from the floor and when he comes back up, he scoots closer than before.
“My mother would have a field day with you.”
Felix laughs, wriggling his eyebrows at Jisung. “I mean, you can introduce me to her any time.”
“Ew, gross!” Jisung shoves him off the bed.
Felix keeps laughing until Jisung joins in, until it’s both of them on the floor, cuddling. It’s nice. Probably one of the nicest things about having another omega as his roommate. Male omegas are very rare, so Felix didn’t really have a close confidant like Jisung, back in Australia. And even if he’d known someone, he wouldn’t have sought them out because of how it would have looked to his team.
So, the closest omega-omega interactions he’s had in his life so far were the few times his sisters managed to wrestle him into a cuddle pile. Rolling around the floor with Jisung now opens him up to a feeling of comfort he didn’t even know existed. It kind of feels nice, to give in to this part of him.
He’s just careful that none of Jisung’s honey scent sticks to him as he leaves for practice.
*
As always, he’s the first to arrive at the stadium. As one of the top three universities for football in the country, Levanter Sports University has its own set of training facilities, from a state-of-the-art gymnasium to the stadium itself. It’s the kind of support, the kind of funding Felix used to dream of as a kid playing in mid-tier amateur clubs back in Sydney.
“Hello, Felix.”
Correction: Felix is always the second one to arrive at the stadium. At this point, he’s convinced Chan sleeps in Coach Kang’s office, and the man himself doesn’t even do that.
As is expected of him, Felix acknowledges his team captain with a deferential nod before he flees to the opposite end of the locker room. Finding out that Bang Chan is, in fact, not excited to have him on his team was a short and sharp heartbreak, but Felix has already gotten over it. In the end, Chan is just another alpha dickhead that stands between Felix and a Premier League trophy. Felix is not going to be deterred by Chan’s lack of excitement towards him.
Also, it’s not like Chan is unfriendly. He’s just…distant. There’s no warmth in his eyes when he looks at Felix like there is when he looks at any other member of his team. Felix has a good guess as to why, seeing that he’s read all the articles that came out at the beginning of the summer, about the unforeseen change to LSU’s starting eleven. He knows why he is here, and that it’s not just because he worked hard to be here. The team needs him too. Chan needs him too, whether he likes it or not. Knowing this has been what’s kept Felix from panicking about his captain's obvious dislike for him so far.
Despite his misgivings, Chan still waits at the door for him and they enter the pitch together. It’s cold this early in the morning, Felix’s breath fogging up in front of his face. Morning dew soaks through his tracky dacks as he sits down on the grass, but it’s fine. He’s worked under worse conditions. It’s second nature, to extend his legs in front of himself and reach for his toes. At this point, he’s got his stretching routine down to a tee.
“You’re flexible.”
Chan blinks when Felix looks at him, as if he didn’t even realise he said that out loud. It must be the morning cold, undoubtedly, that makes the alpha’s ears turn pink.
Felix swallows down the slew of petty responses bubbling up his throat. So what if Chan doesn’t like him? Felix is above being rude in return.
“It’s important to be flexible,” he says in as neutral of a tone as he can manage. “If you don’t warm up properly, you get hurt.”
Chan nods, still looking a little…dazed before his eyes fixate on a spot above Felix’s shoulder. Real warmth fills his gaze. “Hey, Seungmo.”
Felix freezes up. If he had to name one person associated with the team that scares him, Chan would be first place, but a close second would be Kim Seungmin. The beta is Coach Kang’s student assistant and, as far as assistant coaches go, a legend in his own right. Every good football player knows that a good strategy is a game half won and when it comes to strategies, Seungmin is a freaking mastermind. It’s the type of skill that ensures even the most knotheaded alpha on the team knows to keep his mouth shut when Seungmin is speaking.
Felix would probably spend half his time swooning over him and his brain if he wasn’t deadly terrified of Seungmin’s sharp senses and the subsequent likelihood of Seungmin figuring out his secret.
“Chan.” Seungmin only gives Chan a perfunctory nod before he turns to Felix, his eyes filling with the warmth Chan’s lacked. “Hey, Felix.” Unlike his team captain, Seungmin’s been making an actual effort to make Felix feel welcome. “How are you this morning?”
“Good.” Felix swallows down the sunny smile that threatens to form on his lips. Alphas don’t smile that much so he shouldn’t. “I got here early to get some stretches in.”
“Hard-working,” Seungmin praises him before looking towards Chan. “Do you think we could get that type of work ethic instilled into the rest of the team?”
Chan lets out a soft scoff. “They work hard enough. Felix is just special.”
Felix doesn’t know if that was supposed to be an insult, so he chooses to ignore Chan like he has been doing all along.
He gets to his feet. “I’m going to run a couple of laps around the pitch,” he tells Seungmin. “Be right back.”
“You go.” Seungmin nods, visibly grateful that Felix is giving him time to speak to Chan one on one.
Despite the fact that Seungmin focussed on Felix first, it’s undoubtedly Chan he came out early to talk to. Felix doesn’t take it personally. He’s glad he’s no more than a player on the team, unburdened by having to strategise or organise anything. His only job is to score a goal once someone passes him the ball. He doesn’t have to be a leader and he wouldn’t want to be, knowing how much weight bears down on you.
He falls into a light jog and by the time he’s back to where Chan and Seungmin are standing, several more players have shown up.
“Morning, Felix!” Changbin greets him. “Mind if I join you?”
Felix shoots him a smirk. “If you can keep up.”
Changbin yells in indignance before he gives chase. Felix swallows down a giggle as he sprints towards the first corner flag. If he had to name a person on the team that he would be able to call his friend, it’d be Changbin. The defensive midfielder is so easy-going it’s impossible not to get along with him. It also helps that he’s mated, the mark on his neck greatly elevating Felix’s comfort levels around him.
“Hey, guys, wait for me!” Wooyoung calls and soon it’s the entire team jogging along the outline of the pitch. Felix feels kind of smug, having initiated the whole thing. Unlike the nightmares he had, the team has slowly come to accept him. They don’t know that he is an omega, of course, but there’s other factors that make Felix stand out too.
“Doesn’t matter, man,” Changbin told him when he had to ask what the Korean word for goal post meant. “You wear the black and blue, you’re one of us.”
“Yeah,” another one of his teammates named San reassured him, slapping his own chest. “These colours mean you’re family.”
Felix is glad for their steadily growing acceptance of him. He wishes it was the entire team, but. Whatever. Felix doesn’t need Bang Chan’s approval to live. He’ll excel without him just fine.
They gather around the center circle when Coach Kang shows up, Chan flanking him on one side and Seungmin on the other.
“All right,” the coach claps his hands, “we’re going to run our first scrimmage of the season at the end of today’s practice so pair off for now and work on getting your skills in order. Felix, you’re with Minho.”
Felix looks towards the only other striker on the team, who doesn’t look at him in return. Felix had high hopes that they’d stick together when he learned they’d be on the same team, but it’s become very clear that Minho has other plans. Instead of acknowledging Felix, the other striker moves to get one of the balls from the net. Felix tries not to pout as he trots after him. Even Chan finds the grace within himself to at least make polite conversation. Minho, not so much.
He’s been straight up avoiding Felix for weeks now and Felix would be kind of crushed about that if he didn’t have so many other things to worry about.
They still work well together.
Minho, despite the wall he’s raised between them, is not taking it so far as that he would exclude Felix from anything. On the contrary. If it’s about football, he’s all business.
“Bend your knee a little more,” he says as they pass their ball back and forth. “You’re too wobbly otherwise.”
Felix grits his teeth at the unsolicited advice, but that doesn’t mean he won’t take it. Minho’s unblinking eyes follow his adjusted movements before he nods. Felix is kind of proud of himself for that one, even if a singular nod is usually nothing to write home about. They pass the ball back and forth until Seungmin joins them.
“Nice,” Seungmin comments, scribbling something down on his clipboard before he smiles at Felix. “Your ball control is very good.”
“You wanna see a trick?” Felix asks him, more joking than anything.
“No, he doesn’t,” Minho immediately chimes in.
Felix scoffs, but refuses to actually get upset about it.
Seungmin watches them before he turns to Minho, “Try to be a little nicer to him, Minho.”
Minho shrugs, but it’s not an outright refusal of Seungmin’s order so Felix counts that as a win.
Seungmin explains the drills he’s planned for them and Felix feels himself perk up with excitement at the prospect of finally being able to shoot some goals. These past couple of weeks have mostly been short drills and agility training, so he feels like they’re finally moving towards playing an actual game of football, just like Coach Kang promised.
Shooting at a goal also means he’s coming face to face with Chan. At least, he thought so.
“Felix, Yunho’s already waiting for you!” Coach Kang points towards the goal at the far end of the field, where their reserve goal keeper, Yunho, is doing jumping jacks.
“Oh, I wanna see this,” Wooyoung grins, dragging San with him to watch.
“Yeah, Felix! Show us what you got!”
Felix feels more and more players abandon their drills to follow him as he crosses the pitch. He doesn’t begrudge them their curiosity. Because they haven’t played a full game so far, he hasn’t really gotten to show off any of his skills yet.
Yunho greets him with a grin, busy closing the second flap of his gloves with his teeth.
“Try me, Felix!” he calls out, jokingly spreading his limbs out like a starfish as if he could cover the entire goal this way. He’s tall so his fingers touch the upper bar, but Felix knows it isn’t about that. The best goal keeper in the league isn’t much taller than Felix himself.
He gets a ball from Minho, who hands it over with quiet intensity in his eyes, and that gives Felix another motivation to do well. He’s competing against no one but Minho right now, since they occupy the same position.
“Ready?” he calls out and Yunho gives him a thumbs-up.
Felix lets the ball drop at his feet before he takes several big steps back. Even without looking, he knows that everybody is watching now. It’d be a lie to say he didn’t feel a flutter of nerves at the prospect. He got scouted off of tapes and the tests he did at the training centre, but hitting light spots on a wall is very different from this.
“Ready when you are!” Yunho calls out, teasingly taunting him.
Felix takes a deep breath and then he takes a running start. One mistake a lot of new strikers make is that they look at the ball before kicking it. Felix doesn’t do that. Felix watches Yunho, his limbs and the way he’s been favouring his left leg while standing. It’s the same leg which folds first when he moves, just like Felix anticipated it would. Yunho’s body falls to cover the lower left corner of the net at the same time that the ball hits the upper right corner.
Cheers erupt around Felix and then he’s being lifted into the air by Changbin’s massive arms. “Yeah, Felix!”
“That’s my boy!” Wooyoung cheers, repeatedly slapping Felix’s butt.
Felix laughs, swatting at them to be let down, but the other members of his team want their moment too and it’s…the happiest Felix has been in a long time. He loves football and he’s proud of the skills he’s worked so hard for. Having that acknowledged by his teammates is a high like no other.
“Best of five!” Yunho calls out to him once Changbin has finally let him down, but his grin is as wide as it could go.
Felix grins right back, intercepting the ball Yunho rolls towards him with his foot. He waits until the rest of his team is out of the way before he goes again. He takes a running start before he kicks the ball full-force. Yunho is a good goalkeeper so he moves in the right direction this time, but it’s not quite enough. The ball slips past his fingertips and hits the net.
Felix gets scooped up again, by Wooyoung this time. “My aegi!” he exclaims. “You better thank me, guys! Everything he knows, he learned from me!”
Felix laughs, wriggling to be let down.
“Wow,” Mingi, one of their midfielders, mutters, “maybe we do have a chance at the championship, you know, even without—”
He’s elbowed in the stomach by Jongho, Changbin’s co-defense, before he can finish that sentence. Both of them look towards Chan, who’s slowly coming towards them. Towards Felix. Felix expects some words of acknowledgement, a pat on the back maybe or at least a nod, but then Chan walks right past him.
He’s on his way to the goal, Felix realises when Chan approaches Yunho, who hands over his gloves without question.
“Ohhhhh,” Wooyung sing-songs, “now this just got interesting. The Great Wall of Sydney versus the…uh, the Best Striker of Sydney?”
“You should probably work on that a little more,” San says, patting his back. Much like the rest of the team, the both of them fall into anticipatory silence when Chan rolls the ball to Felix.
Embarrassingly enough, Felix nearly slips on it when he stops the ball with his foot. It’s the kind of blunder that would have gotten him endlessly made fun of if he was still with his old team, but no one’s laughing right now. Everyone’s watching.
Felix makes sure the ball’s where he wants it to be before he takes several steps back. It’s only then that he allows himself to look at Chan, who’s already looking at him. He regards Felix from top to bottom before he settles on Felix’s legs. He’s watching Felix in the same way that Felix is about to watch him. It makes Felix’s skin prickle. It makes him want to make this goal more than he’s ever wanted to make any other goal in his life. He takes a deep breath, hopping up and down once before he moves.
It’s a good shot.
No one could argue against that and yet, and yet, Chan seems to know where the ball is going before Felix’s foot has even touched the leather. They move at the same time. Felix kicks the ball and Chan jumps, plucking it right out of mid-air. It looks effortless, how he does it, as if Felix didn’t put his all behind that shot.
The team erupts into cheers and hollers and Chan smiles. It’s so full of warmth. It’s so full of love, the way he looks at everyone who reaches out for him. He looks at everyone on the team like this except for Felix, who really is no more than a cheap, and apparently dysfunctional, replacement.
Felix stands frozen in his embarrassment, watching Chan bask in the joy of his teammates. He didn’t exert himself too much and yet his breaths come faster than usual. That is, until Chan steps out of the circle of their teammates. Felix’s breathing stops then.
Chan hands him the ball with a smile that is undoubtedly only on his face because it was put there by their teammates. The twinkle in his eyes looks nothing but mocking to Felix when he says, “Better luck next time, Felix.”
Felix just so keeps himself from lugging the ball at his head when Chan turns away from him.
*
The scrimmage game goes well only insofar that Felix gets put on the same team as Chan which means he’s a) as far away from him on the pitch as possible and b) he does manage to score another couple of goals against Yunho, even if it’s not every single shot he takes.
“Don’t worry, Felix,” Changbin tells him as they hit the locker room. For a loud, funny guy, he’s surprisingly emotionally perceptive, having noticed Felix’s rather downtrodden expression. “No one scores against Chan. That’s kind of his whole shtick. And you did just fine against Yunho.”
Felix can do little else but nod.
He goes to bed that night with sore muscles and a bruised ego, but the physical exhaustion guarantees that he falls into a deep, dreamless sleep. Jisung wasn’t there when he fell asleep, but he is there when he wakes up, lying on his bed freshly showered and playing with Felix’s Switch.
“Breakfast?” he asks once Felix makes it known that he’s among the living again. Looking at his friend, Felix realises that life isn’t all bad.
He tells Jisung about the entire thing over breakfast at the mess hall. Jisung suggested they go to a café before they realised that neither of them had the funds for that. So, the university cafeteria it is.
“I don’t think he meant to insult you. From what I know, Chan cares about the team a lot. He hand-picked every single member, which means he definitely had a hand in choosing you too.”
Felix nods before he notices something, tilting his head in confusion. “How do you know?”
Jisung’s eyes grow comically wide, a sliver of panic in his eyes. “Huh?”
“How do you know Chan hand-picked the members?” Felix frowns. “I’ve never seen you around the pitch before. Are you two friends?”
The thought makes Felix’s stomach churn. He’s been complaining about Chan a lot these past couple of weeks. He doesn’t think Jisung would blab, but if he accidentally let anything slip…
“Oh,” Jisung starts laughing, high-pitched and squeaky as he waves his hand, “no, I don’t really know him, I—uh, I mean…I have a friend who’s dating one of the football players on the team. He-He told me.”
“Ahh.” Felix relaxes. “Makes sense.”
Jisung nods, smiling at him before he reaches for his drink and finishes it in one go. Felix watches him with mild concern before his name is called from across the cafeteria.
“Yo, Felix!”
Felix lifts his head to find a couple of his teammates coming towards him. Jisung lets out a squeak and suddenly he’s piling empty bowls onto his tray, getting up from his seat and telling Felix he’ll see him at the dorm. He’s gone quicker than Felix can even ask him what’s going on. He genuinely didn’t know Jisung’s dislike for football players ran that deep.
He’s got bigger things to worry about, though, once his teammates arrive at the table.
“Who was that?” Wooyoung asks him at the same time that Mingi sniffs the air and says, “Smells like omega.”
Those words, even if they’re not directed at him, are enough to make Felix’s heart race in his chest. “Just…” He clears his throat. “Just a friend of mine.”
“Mhm, sure.” Wooyoung smirks as he takes the seat next to him. “I’m also friends with a ton of male omegas.”
“Please,” Changbin says, setting his tray down opposite of them. Minho is right next to him, but as always, he’s not looking at anyone and certainly not at Felix. “You couldn’t get any type of omega to look at you even if you tried.”
“Yah!”
“What?” Changbin raises an eyebrow at Wooyoung and the usually light-hearted expression on his face doesn’t look so light-hearted now. “Did I tell any lies?”
“I heard they feel fucking amazing,” Mingi sighs. “It’s a pity they’re so rare. I’d love to know what fucking one feels like.”
Even Wooyoung wrinkles his nose at him. “Gross, dude.”
“What? We can all smell the honey in the air. Doesn’t it make your mouth water? Don’t you want to—”
Minho shoves him off his chair before Mingi can finish his sentence. It’s a little too forceful to be playful. Judging by the way Mingi yells, the landing really hurts too.
“Thank you,” Changbin tells Minho. “You did it so I didn’t have to.”
“I was just joking,” Mingi complains from the floor.
Changbin points his chopsticks at him. “You need to keep your fucking mouth shut, is what you need to do.”
“Wow.” Mingi grumbles, but he does look properly scolded at the realisation that no one’s on his side here. “Just because you got mated to the hottest male omega on campus doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t make a joke anymore, Changbin.”
“And he did that by not being a fucking loser idiot like you,” an unfamiliar voice says and Felix freezes with his spoon halfway to his mouth.
The scent of roses fills his nostrils, instantaneous and inescapable as if he was standing in the middle of an actual flower field. It’s the type of scent that’s heavy yet light, intoxicating in its sweetness. The smell of an omega. He lifts his head to find himself looking at the most stunning man he’s ever seen.
“Hey, baby,” the omega smiles at Changbin, who turns in his chair so he can hook his arm around the man’s waist.
“Hyunjin.” Changbin says his mate’s name with the reverence of a man looking at his god. Instinctually, his hand wanders to his plate to make an offering, “You hungry?”
Hyunjin shakes his head. He runs his fingers through Changbin’s curls, but rejects the food in favour of dropping a white paper bag onto his mate’s lap. “I just came to give you this.”
Changbin lets go of him only to take a peek inside. “Oh, shit, thank you! Channie-hyung would have had my head if I showed up without shin covers again.”
Hyunjin’s eyes fill with a pleased sense of contentment before he looks around the table. His eyes catch onto Felix, who feels like a spotlight was just pointed at him.
Hyunjin tilts his head to the side, clearly trying to place Felix’s face. When he can’t, he looks back at his mate. “Who’s this?”
“This is Felix!” Wooyoung exclaims, throwing an arm around Felix’s shoulder. “He’s our new striker!”
“Hello,” Felix chokes out.
He just so suppresses the urge to pat down his scent patches, making sure they haven’t come loose with how much he’s sweating. Among all three subgenders, omegas have the best sense of smell. It was fine meeting Jisung because Felix never tried to hide from him, but if Hyunjin can smell anything he’s undoubtedly going to tell Changbin, who’s going to tell Chan, who’s going to tell the university board—
Hyunjin’s face breaks into a smile. “Wow, finally an alpha who looks like he showers after practice!”
“Yah!” Mingi complains.
“Every practice,” Hyunjin corrects himself, shooting Mingi a look out of narrowed eyes.
Mingi lowers his head, grumbling into his food, but it’s with all the deference of a man who knows he got caught red-handed.
“Hwang Hyunjin,” Hyunjin introduces himself to Felix. “I’m Changbin’s mate.”
“Lee, uh, Lee Felix,” Felix stumbles through his own name.
“Close your mouth, Felix,” Minho says, only looking up from his food for long enough to make sure Felix can see the unimpressed expression on his face. “You’ll catch flies, otherwise.”
Felix hastily snaps his mouth shut. Wooyoung coos at him.
“Don’t even bother developing a crush, Felix,” Wooyoung whispers loudly, tapping the patch-covered side of his neck, “as you can see, Changbin has long since locked that down.”
Despite Wooyoung’s rather crude wording, Hyunjin preens where he stands, tilting his head to show off the scar on his neck. It makes Felix feel funny, looking at it. Hyunjin is, in essence, everything an omega should aspire to be. He’s beautiful and elegant, well-dressed and smells like fucking roses.
And Felix doesn’t care that he’s not like that. He doesn’t care that he’s lanky and crude and probably smells like grass. He never aspired to be like Hyunjin, but a part of him, a very, very small and deeply buried part of him, still wonders what it would be like, to move through the world and be admired, to have such an effect on people that there would be an alpha out there who wanted to mate him.
Felix knows that this is not going to happen for him because no alpha in the world wants a football-obsessed omega who’s pretending to be an alpha to live out that obsession, but he also knows that it’s okay that his dreams are different. His mother has always told him so and his mother knows everything.
Felix knows it too.
“Felix is crushing on who?” an all too familiar voice asks and Felix briefly considers sinking into the floor. This simply cannot be his life. As if this moment could get any worse, it’s Chan who’s decided to join them at this moment.
“Welp,” Wooyoung whispers as he pulls on Felix to make more space on their bench, “Fun’s over. Daddy’s here.”
“Are you guys being gross alphas again?” Seungmin asks from beside Chan.
“Nope.” Mingi grins at him. “We’re just making fun of Felix. He’s just met Hyunjin for the first time.”
Chan looks between Hyunjin and Felix and whatever he finds seems to displease him. Felix has no doubt that he’s at fault. He nearly jumps when Chan sets his tray down with enough force to make the cutlery clatter. Right beside Felix’s. The rest of his body follows. Felix swallows. Chan is sitting so close to him that their elbows are brushing.
And even so, Chan still doesn’t pay any attention to him.
“Do you want to eat something, Hyunjin?”
“Ah, don’t worry, Channie!” Hyunjin beams at Chan. “My alpha already asked.”
Changbin preens where he sits.
Chan nods, dropping the piece of chicken he picked up with his chopsticks onto Seungmin’s plate instead. Seungmin eats it without fanfare, nose buried in some type of report. The relationship he has with his clipboard honestly seems more stable than anything Felix has got going on in his life.
“Do you have to go already?” Changbin asks Hyunjin, who nods but soothes over the sad news with a kiss.
Felix hastily looks away, which unfortunately means he accidentally makes eye contact with Chan. Chan, who is already looking at him. He doesn’t look happy. His brows are furrowed and there’s an unhappy tilt to his mouth.
What? Felix wants to ask, but he’s afraid of the answer so he quickly lowers his gaze to his tray instead. He doesn’t touch his food for the rest of lunch and then regrets it at practice that evening when he has no energy.
Chan doesn’t hesitate to call him out on every goal he misses.
*
Felix’s first game with the team is that weekend and while the excitement rises among his teammates, so do Felix’s nerves.
“Do you want me to come?” Jisung asks him that Saturday morning, but he’s shaking like a leaf as he asks so Felix shakes his head.
“It’s no big deal.”
It’s probably one of the biggest deals of Felix’s life, but he knows by now that Jisung doesn’t like football and Felix himself will be too busy to make it worth Jisung’s while anyways. It’s going to be fine in any case. He’s always made it work so far.
Even so, he can’t help the way his heart races inside his chest as he lines up with the others to walk out onto the pitch. Even inside the tunnel, Felix can hear the clamour of the crowd outside. By the sounds of it, the entire student body is here. The cheers are so loud they drown out the voice of the announcer reminding everyone to take their seats.
Felix is just wondering whether he’s actually going to throw up from nerves when Chan takes him aside just before they walk onto the pitch. “Are you ready?”
Felix tries really hard not to scowl at him. “Of course, I’m ready.”
The vein on Chan’s neck bulges. He’s tense, but Felix expected this. Chan may not pay much attention to him, but Felix has been paying a lot of attention to his captain. Chan takes football very seriously. It’s expected of one of the best players in the league, but Chan is…borderline neurotic about it. Every detail has to be right, no minute of training is wasted on a useless exercise ever. Seungmin makes their schedules, but Felix knows he makes them based on what Chan tells him each member of the team needs.
They all work hard, but no one works harder than Chan.
He lives football. It’s not normal, the degree to which he does and it’s not something someone outside of that life could understand, but Felix is in it and he finds it inspiring. If his captain is giving it his all, how could Felix give any less?
It’s why Felix is in the best form of his life. It’s why he has the confidence to say, “I can do this. We can do this. Dankook is no match to us any day, but especially not today. We are going to win, Chan.”
Chan stares at him, his eyes so dark and piercing Felix feels it, but then Chan nods. The corner of his mouth twitches, and not with disappointment. “You know it, Felix.”
Felix grins, and he likes the way Chan’s eyes fix on his teeth. “I do.”
Still looking at his mouth, Chan nods again. The hand he places on Felix’s shoulder burns right through the fabric of Felix’s jersey, setting his entire being alight. There is fire, warmth, in his eyes too, when he says, “Don’t get hurt.”
Felix’s voice comes out a little more breathless than he would have liked, but it carries over the noise from above them all the same, “You too, Captain.”
Chan doesn’t smile like Felix may have hoped, but the squeeze of his hand on Felix’s shoulder is enough. It’s definitely enough to make Felix follow him when Chan turns back to their team. Felix joins the row behind Minho and Chan takes his place at the front.
As a team, as one, they walk onto the pitch.
The noise of the crowd is deafening and Felix’s heart beats in his throat when the announcer gets to his name. He gets cheers in response. People are cheering for him. It’s the type of moment he used to dream of as a child, watching football on TV. The amateur leagues back home didn’t draw this type of crowd so this is all new to him. Blindly, he waves.
He doesn’t know why Changbin is laughing at him once his eyes adjust to the floodlights, but then he sees the row of girls at the bottom of the stands who pretend to be swooning once he looks in their direction. Felix laughs too because he can’t quite believe it. After Seungmin cornered him on his third day and told him in no uncertain terms to never go on social media ever, Felix hasn’t.
Just because he hasn’t looked himself up online doesn’t mean that other people haven’t, it seems. This boy in the third row has a picket of his face. Felix doesn’t even know where he got the photo, but it has to be recent, judging by the cobalt blue hoodie he’s wearing. It was part of the swag bag he got when he signed onto the team.
The singular picket of his face is no comparison to the amount of Bang Chans and Minhos and Changbins that stare back at him, but it’s there. His face is there, in a crowd full of people someone came to the game for him. It’s the weirdest moment of his life.
It’s also kind of the greatest moment of his life.
“Now, now,” Changbin’s voice pierces through the noise in his head and Felix finds himself pulled by the shoulder to face the other way, to face the goal of the opposing team where he’s supposed to go, “don’t get lost looking at pretty omegas, Felix. We’ve got a game to play!”
Immediately, Felix snaps out of it. Right. They’re about to play the penultimate team of their group assignment. If they win today, they automatically move on to the next stage of the championship. It’s an important game today, just like every game is.
He jogs to catch up with Minho, who’s already on his way to their part of the pitch.
“Play well,” he tells Felix before they part for opposite sides of the field and Felix decides that he doesn’t care if Minho wants to keep a distance between them. He smiles.
Minho blinks at the sight of it, his expression softening before he turns away. He also puts his game face back on because assuming their positions also means not so subtly getting circled by the opposing teams defense players. Felix mimicks him.
The noise and his nerves fade away once the referee blows his whistle. Suddenly, Felix is the calmest person in the world. The smell of grass and leather and polyester is enough to remind him of who he is, that he absolutely is ready.
This is his sport, his dream and he’s ready to take the next step up. He’s going to win.
*
They win 0:3.
Chan is a wall in front of their goal, keeping up his reputation of being the best goal keeper in the league. Not a single shot gets past him. At the other end of the pitch, Felix is working hard to make sure they come out of this game with some points. In the end, it’s Minho who scores two out of three goals, but the last one is all Felix’s.
He accepts the ball one of the midfielders passes him and then he’s dashing towards the goal. The opposing line of defenses is big and scary, but Felix is quick. Quicker than anyone on the field, and unafraid to take a shot at the goal when he has the chance.
The ball hits the net and the stadium explodes in cheers.
Felix is promptly bowled over by his teammates, buried under a mountain of black and blue jerseys, but even without any air left in his lungs he laughs. When he comes back up, even Minho is smiling at him before he seems to remember himself.
The locker room is alive afterwards, everyone cheering and dancing and singing along to the pop music Wooyoung is blasting from a portable speaker. Felix is thrown into an affectionate headlock by everyone he looks at, his butt is slapped so many times it’s going to be bruised next morning and he feels it in his bones, that sense of euphoria that only a win can bring.
“Oh, Felix,” Changbin sing-songs as he plops down on the locker room bench next to Felix.
Years of exposure therapy have done nothing to help Felix get used to this particular occurrence. It still makes Felix’s heart race, having an alpha come so close to him while he’s essentially sitting there in his underwear, but Changbin is mated and he thinks Felix is an alpha too. Felix has nothing to fear from him, except for the twinkle in his eye.
“What do you want?” Felix asks, even though he already knows the answer.
He’s been coasting by well so far, but there is one thing he has been avoiding and it seems like Changbin won’t allow him to do that any longer.
A massive arm settles around his shoulder, effectively preventing any form of escape. “So, Felix, there’s this party tonight…”
“I don’t drink.”
“Well, yes, duh, none of us drink during the season.” Changbin rolls his eyes. “That’s not the reason we’re going. We go there to dance and have fun and celebrate our win, which you are partially responsible for, so you’re really not allowed to skip out on us.”
“Right!” Wooyoung calls from where he’s holding a selfie session with San and Yunho by the mirrors. “It’s team building!”
“Does our captain agree?” Felix asks, because apparently he’s incapable of making any decision in his life without considering Chan’s opinion on it.
Chan, who’s emerging from the showers at that moment, dressed in nothing but a towel. Felix looks away so quickly he nearly snaps his neck. It’s worth the extra stretching sessions he’ll have to do before going to bed. No scent patches in the world could cover up the smell of his slick in the air.
The feeling of Changbin’s very muscly arm tightening around his neck doesn’t help his case. “Oh, don’t worry. Channie’s coming too. Captain’s honours. Everything I said about us going there to celebrate is true, but we’re also going to nail our flag to the mast.”
“Uh,” Felix frowns at the foreign idiom, “what?”
Done with his photo session, Wooyoung joins them on the bench. “What Changbin is trying to say is that we won’t be the only varsity team attending. All of Seoul’s finest will be there, so we have to make sure there’s some black and blue jerseys among the crowd.”
“Yep. Can’t let anyone forget who’s winning the trophy this year.”
Felix rolls his eyes, but it’s not like he doesn’t like what Changbin is saying. “Fine,” he agrees. “But if I don’t like it, one of you is paying for my Uber.”
“Oh, baby, don’t worry.” Changbin shows off the car key in his hand. “I’ll even drive you home.”
*
The party is at the alpha dorms. It’s just not LSU’s alpha dorms.
Felix honestly isn’t sure what part of the city he’s currently in, but Changbin hasn’t yet abandoned him so it’s fine. Felix thought his friend might, when Hyunjin showed up at the party, looking like an Adidas model in his jersey with a big Seo printed on the back, but it seems that Felix worried for nothing.
It’s more so that he can’t get rid of them at all.
“You need to try this,” Hyunjin says as he thrusts a red solo cup under Felix’s nose.
Felix shakes his head. “I don’t drink.”
“I know.” Hyunjin rolls his eyes. “None of you footballers do during the season. Well, if you don’t want Daddy Chan to scold you, at least, but this isn’t alcohol. It’s fruit punch.”
Felix sniffs the cup. “Like, actually?”
“Actually! I even cut the oranges myself.”
Hyunjin looks so genuinely proud of himself that Felix can’t help but give in, taking a curious sip. He scrunches up his nose at the overbearing sweetness hitting his tongue, but Hyunjin didn’t lie to him. There is no alcohol in this.
“Do you like it?”
Felix takes another sip to avoid answering, which is actually worse in retrospect, but he has committed now so he’s got to see it through. He swallows the syrupy mixture. It seems good enough for Hyunjin, who adds a shot of vodka to his own cup and pulls him towards a two-seater which just got abandoned by two alphas in matching red jerseys.
Hyunjin makes a shooing motion after them before he plops down with a smile. Felix has little choice but to follow. Then again, he’s not mad about getting to sit down. He can see flashes of his teammates amongst the crowd and Changbin’s broader frame in the kitchen, entertaining a whole host of people with some story that, judging by the gesturing of his arms, involves throwing things, but Felix prefers the two-seater. It’s not ideal, but it at least means he’s not forced to squeeze himself in between another grinding couple.
“I like this better,” Hyunjin says as if he’s reading Felix’s mind.
“Me too,” Felix says, looking around until he feels a weight settle on his thighs.
Then, he’s only looking at Hyunjin’s legs, which are in his lap. “Uhm, Hyunjin?”
Hyunjin hums from where he’s unabashedly people-watching.
“Won’t Changbin mind if you do this?”
“What? Oh.” Hyunjin laughs. “My mate’s dick is way too big for him to worry about getting cheated on. Don’t worry.”
Felix splutters. Hyunjin doesn’t even look at him until he freezes, lifting his legs at once. “Why? Does it bother you? I’m sorry, I’ll sit properly!”
“No!” Felix places a hand on Hyunjin’s shins so his legs stay right where they are. “No, I don’t mind. Sorry, I…thank you. For hanging out with me. You didn’t have to do that. Please, be as comfortable as you’d like.”
Hyunjin studies him for a moment, visibly searching Felix’s eyes for the truth, before he smiles. “Binnie told me about you before we met,” he confesses. “He said you might need someone. Which fits me well because I…” Hyunjin points at the dancing crowd. “...don’t like this.”
Felix strains his ears. “You don’t like early 2000s pop music?”
“Parties,” Hyunjin corrects. “I don’t like parties.”
“But…” …you look like you would, Felix doesn’t say.
Hyunjin smiles at him, the straw of his drink caught between his teeth. “Surprising, right? Am I not so pretty that I must love parties and glamour and people fawning over me?”
“You are pretty,” Felix replies because it’s the truth and he doesn’t know what else to say. Only belatedly, he realises how that might come off, considering that Hyunjin thinks he’s an alpha. “I mean…”
Hyunjin coos at him. “Oh, Felix, you’re pretty too.” A giggle escapes him. “I know alphas don’t want to hear this kind of stuff, but it’s true. You’re probably the prettiest alpha I’ve ever seen. Do you enjoy parties?”
Felix can’t help himself. It’s the omega in him that finds comfort in Hyunjin. It’s his omega that wants to be close to the other, just like he knew he could trust Jisung within minutes of meeting him.
“Not one bit.”
*
Hyunjin and Felix stay on the two-seater, talking about everything and nothing and the art gallery Hyunjin went to the day before until Changbin comes, reaching for his mate.
“My wife!” he exclaims. “Will you let me have this dance?”
Hyunjin giggles, letting Changbin whisk him away. Unlike Felix feared, he doesn’t look unhappy dancing with Changbin. It’s just everyone else he doesn’t seem to be interested in. Felix is glad.
Felix is in no way prepared for the body that replaces Hyunjin’s.
“Felix.”
If someone had told Felix just this morning that Bang Chan, of all people, would willingly squeeze himself into a loveseat with him, he would have probably laughed in their face. As is, he can do little else but stare at Chan. Chan, who is very close to him right now, and steadily leaning closer.
“How are you, Felix?”
This is the kind of stuff that teenage Felix would have written about in his diary, including lots of exclamation points and gel pen hearts. He’s not fifteen anymore, though, so he manages some actual words.
“Good, how are you?”
Chan grins at him. He grins warmly at him with blunt teeth and smoldering eyes, even if they’re a little red-rimmed and—Felix’s brain screeches to a halt when he realises why Chan seems so nice all of a sudden. It’s the smell in the air that tells him.
Felix saw Chan take a shower so that’s what the other man should smell like right now, considering that they’re both wearing medical-grade scent patches, but that’s not the smell that fills Felix’s nostrils. It’s too sharp, almost making him recoil when Chan breathes right against his mouth.
“Are you drunk right now?” Felix can’t believe he’s even asking.
It can’t be true. Football players don’t drink. Alcohol is terrible for stamina and muscle recovery and sleep cycles and what reason could Chan ever have to break that rule? One he usually enforces, according to what Hyunjin said.
“Oh, please.” Chan rolls his eyes and Felix expects him to give him some explanation about how he just hung out with people who were drinking, maybe someone spilled something on his shirt, but what comes out of Chan’s mouth instead is, “It was one beer.”
Felix closes his jaw with a click. If he doesn’t, it’s gonna hit the floor and he’ll never, ever be able to pick it up again. “One beer,” he echoes.
Chan nods. “No one’s ever gotten drunk from that.”
“One beer can do a lot of damage to someone who never drinks.”
He genuinely expects his words to fly right over Chan’s head, but that’s not the case. Chan’s expression darkens, a light slur to his words when he says, “You don’t know me, Felix.”
Felix swallows down the hurt these words cause him. “Correct.”
“Hyunjin is mated.”
The sudden change of topic confuses Felix. “I…know that?”
He’s not prepared for the way real anger takes over Chan’s expression. “Do you?”
“I do.” Now it’s on Felix to be confused. “What is this about?”
Chan scoffs.
Felix hates it. “Chan,” he tries because he is that desperate for just a single sign of good will, of approval from Chan and he thinks maybe he’ll get it this way, “What is going on?”
“You’re not pretty.”
Privately, Felix thinks that getting kicked in the face with a football would have probably hurt less. He takes a deep breath, mostly he won’t start crying on the spot. Alphas don’t cry.
“I get that you want to protect your friend’s relationship,” he says slowly, very slowly to keep the air flowing in and out of his lungs, “but you don’t have to insult me, Chan. Nothing happened between Hyunjin and I.”
Chan sounds so unbelievably, asshole-ishly unconvinced when he says, “Didn’t it?”
Felix scoffs.
Chan scowls. “Stop doing that, Felix.”
If Chan wants anger, fine. Felix can be angry too. “Stop doing what?”
Chan’s scowl deepens. “Look so…upset, every time I talk to you.”
“Well,” Felix drags out the vowel for as long as he can, “maybe that’s because you never have anything nice to say to me?”
“That’s not true.”
“It’s not?”
“No.”
“I think I disagree. Because, you know, ever since I joined the team you’ve really made absolutely zero effort to make me feel welcome.”
Chan looks genuinely shocked at his words. “That’s—”
“—the truth. Don’t try to deny it. You don’t treat me like you treat the others, and that’s the truth.”
Finally, Chan looks properly scolded.
“And I know why,” Felix continues on because he knows, he knows he will never find the courage to say this again if he doesn’t say it right now, “I know it probably hurts when you look at me. I’ve read the news just like everyone else. I know I’m not the striker you expected and I’m definitely not the striker you wanted on your team, but I’m here now, okay? I am part of the team. Really, I’m all you’ve got.” Felix lets out a dry laugh. “So maybe, if you can find it within yourself, try to give me a chance, Chan. We don’t have to become best friends, but I’d really appreciate it if you gave me a chance.”
Chan’s mouth falls open. He’s the biggest person in the world, to Felix, and yet he looks very small right now. “Felix.”
Felix smiles because if he doesn’t, he is going to cry. He won’t. “Just give it a thought, Captain.” Getting up is easy. He didn’t drink. “I’ll be waiting, because you’re kind of all I’ve got too.”
“Felix!”
For the first time since he walked onto the pitch that first day, Felix genuinely doesn’t care what Chan has to say. He leaves, pushing past the noise and the grinding couples and the teammates calling his name until he’s outside. Summer is over so it’s cold outside, but he doesn’t feel it. He doesn’t feel much at all at that moment. He knows he should probably go back inside, find Changbin and cash in on that ride home, but his pride forbids him.
“Fuck you, Bang Chan,” he mutters and pushes his hands into the pockets of his zip-up hoodie.
His phone is dead because he didn’t expect to be out this long, but he can see Namsan Tower so he can guess where he is. If he just keeps going left, he’ll eventually find his way back to his own campus.
Without giving it any more thought, Felix starts jogging. He’s a high-performance athlete so he can get home by himself just fine.
*
Shockingly enough, he has found his way back home an hour later. He had to stop two different people on his way to ask them for directions on their phone and avoid a lot of drunken passers-by, but he made it.
“Never again,” he vows to himself and mentally makes a note to buy a portable charger the next day. It’s something he should have done before he even left for Korea, just like his mom told him to, but Felix could never be bothered.
Stupid Bang Chan, he thinks, it’s all your fault. He knows that he should be above insulting Chan in his mind, but the truth is that it’s tempting, very tempting to let his anger consume him. After weeks of swallowing it all down, it consumes him now.
He really should have kept it inside himself for just one more night, though. If he had, then maybe the heavy scent of honey clogging the air of the dorm corridor would have alerted him.
Maybe he would have had an ear for the unusual amount of noise that greets him as he pushes open the door to their dorm.
And maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t have walked in on his roommate getting plowed into next week by his teammate.