Chapter Text
Campus Legend
Choi Seungcheol was perfect—or at least, that’s what the entire student body of Hanseo University would swear on their lives.
When he walked into the gym, conversations stuttered to a halt. When he stepped onto the court, even rival teams straightened their postures. His voice didn’t ask—it commanded, rough and authoritative, the kind that made underclassmen flinch and coaches nod in approval.
And his scent—god, his scent—thick with synthetic oakmoss and leather, so potent it clung to the air long after he left a room. Betas whispered about it in the hallways. Omegas discreetly pressed their noses to his abandoned jerseys. Other Alphas? They stepped aside, instinctually making space for someone who outranked them in every way.
Because S.Coups wasn’t just any Alpha.
He was the standard.
The unshakeable truth.
The lie everyone believed.
🍒🍒🍒
The Lie
The needle slipped from his trembling fingers, clattering against the shower tiles. Seungcheol cursed, snatching it up before it rolled away, his breath coming too fast.
Many years.
Many years of this—jamming foreign chemicals into his veins, scrubbing his skin raw under scalding water, forcing his body into a shape it was never meant to hold.
The injection site burned. He pressed his palm against it, willing the synthetic hormones to work faster, to erase him quicker.
Outside, laughter echoed—Mingyu’s booming voice, Vernon’s quiet chuckle. Normal sounds. Alpha sounds.
Seungcheol’s reflection in the fogged mirror stared back, hollow-eyed.
A fraud.
A failure.
An Omega.
🍒🍒🍒
Flashback: The First Suppressant (Age 13)
The slap split his lip open.
Little Seungcheol didn’t cry. He couldn’t. Not when his father’s grip on his collar threatened to choke him, not when the man’s Alpha scent—real, natural, everything Seungcheol would never be—soured with disgust.
"Say it again."
His voice was barely a whisper. "I’m… presenting as Omega."
This time, the backhand sent him crashing into the bookshelf. His vision swam, but he didn’t dare close his eyes.
His father tossed the pill bottle at his feet. "From now on, you take these. You walk like an Alpha. You talk like an Alpha." A pause, heavy with threat. "Or you disappear."
The first pill tasted like poison.
It still did.
🍒🍒🍒
Present Day: The Mask
"Hyung! Coach was about to murder us!" Mingyu slung an arm around his shoulders, his pine-and-sunshine scent too close, too warm.
Seungcheol forced a grin, shoving him off with just enough roughness to be believable. "Should’ve started without me, pups."
Pups.
The word tasted bitter on his tongue.
Mingyu’s nose wrinkled. "You smell… weird."
Seungcheol’s stomach dropped. "New cologne." He turned away before the Alpha could press further, but not fast enough to miss Jeonghan’s sharp gaze tracking him from the bleachers.
Watching.
Waiting.
Knowing.
🍒🍒🍒
FLASHBACK: THE FIRST HEAT (AGE 16)
The world ended in honey and vanilla.
Seungcheol had wrenched awake at 3 AM, his body a live wire—every nerve screaming, every pore leaking scent. The suppressants had failed. The bitter pills he’d stolen from his sister’s stash, the prayers he’d choked on every night—none of it mattered now.
His skin burned like he’d been set on fire from the inside. His muscles turned liquid, his hips arching off the bed against his will. The scent—sweet, cloying, unmistakably Omega—flooded the room, seeping under the door, staining the air.
His father came within minutes.
The lock clicked. The basement stairs groaned.
"Disgusting," his father spat through the door, voice thick with revulsion. The thud of a water bottle hitting the floor. A single protein bar. "Alphas don’t whimper. Alphas don’t reek like this. Fix it."
Three days.
Three days of sobbing into his knees, fingernails carving half-moons into his thighs. Three days of begging a god he didn’t believe in to let him die, let him tear out his own glands, let him wake up as someone else.
When he emerged, he was hollow.
His father smiled.
🍒🍒🍒
PRESENT DAY: THE CRACKS
"Coups."
Jeonghan’s voice was a blade—soft, precise, sliding between his ribs.
Seungcheol froze. Practice had ended an hour ago. The locker room was empty. And yet—Yoon Jeonghan stood between him and the door, pale fingers circling his wrist like a shackle.
"You’re shaking."
"I’m fine." Seungcheol jerked back, but Jeonghan’s grip was iron.
"Liar." A breath against his neck—too close, too warm. Jeonghan’s nose skimmed his pulse point, and Seungcheol’s stomach dropped. No. No no no—
"Your scent is fading," Jeonghan murmured. "And your pupils?" A thumb brushed under his eye, smearing sweat. "Dilated."
Seungcheol snarled—an Alpha’s sound, practiced, perfect—and wrenched free. "Back off, Yoon."
Jeonghan didn’t flinch.
Instead, he stepped closer. The locker door rattled as Seungcheol hit it, trapped. Jeonghan’s voice dropped to a whisper:
"You’re not an Alpha, are you?"
Silence.
Seungcheol’s heart stopped.
Then—
"Fuck you." He shoved past him, shoulder slamming into Jeonghan’s—hard enough to bruise, hard enough to hurt.
But Jeonghan’s laugh followed him down the hall, a knife twisting in his spine:
"One day, you won’t be able to hide anymore… Omega."
🍒🍒🍒
The Breaking Point
Three syringes left.
Five days until his next shipment.
Seungcheol’s hands shook as he lined them up on his desk. His skin itched. His bones ached.
And beneath the layers of synthetic scent, something stirred.
Something warm.
Something sweet.
Something real.
He reached for the cologne, spraying until his throat burned.
Again.
Again.
Again.