Archive of Our Own

“That’s just not how it works, Jisung.”

Jeongin rested against the booth, crossing his arms. It had been almost six months since his presentation as an alpha (to the surprise of half their friend group, including Jeongin), and Jisung had decided right after to base his senior thesis on an alpha’s first year after presentation. 

“I think you are wrong. Some papers are saying that during the first year, the presentation is weak enough that it can be changed,” Jisung insisted. 

“That can’t happen, and it certainly isn’t called ‘bitching’,” Jeongin replied, smiling with his lips thinned out.

“Hey, Chan, so are you ready for this year’s run?” Hyunjin interjected, trying to end the argument, surely thinking it would be a relief for Jeongin.

Instead, everyone froze, turning to Chan, who had been, as always, keeping to himself, enjoying the company of all his friends, ‘his pack’, as he jokingly called them, and drinking a smoothie. 

Jeongin looked at him, his plump top lip resting over the straw; his smoothie fell down the straw back to the glass as Chan stopped sucking and looked up like he had been caught doing something wrong.

Jeongin was of the opinion that Chan couldn’t do anything wrong. 

“Yeah, hahaha,” Chan finally answered, trying not to sound embarrassed by the question.

Jeongin started to feel a rumble in his chest, growing and growing, and suddenly, all the eyes were on him instead of on Chan as the sound became a proper growl. Chan grabbed his knee, squeezing it and making Jeongin whine and stop. 

“I mean- It’s fun and all,” Chan kept trying to overexplain.

It was embarrassing. That’s what it really was, because Chan had been in five annual mating runs already and had always come out empty-handed. Well, mostly. He had caught Jisung in his first one, but Minho had snatched him right away, way before Chan had the opportunity to mate him and… they were now there, all together at the ice cream parlour. 

A giggle distracted Jeongin; he turned to Jisung.

“What?” he muttered.

“Growling and everything? Are you jealous?” Jisung laughed harder. Seungmin elbowed him on the ribs, but Jisung didn’t seem too affected by it. 

“Aw, baby alpha wants an omega too!” Felix joined in, pointing to Jeongin in a way that made Jeongin rumble start again, even if he knew that Felix was joking.

“Innie,” Chan whispered. Jeongin zeroed in on him instantly. It had always been like that; Jeongin was instantly obedient to his hyung.

Chan's gaze was ice cold; he was reprimanding him, unhappy about all the rumbling and growling. 

— 🍎︎ —

Chan had been there when Jeongin presented.

Chan had been there before it, too.

Chan had always kind of been there, since Jeongin was a second-year high school transfer and a bully tried to knock him against a locker. Chan stepped in and yelled about rights and brotherhood and union, and then, when the other kid didn’t listen, he actually beat him down to the ground until Chan was suspended for three days. 

When he came back, Jeongin thought that Chan wouldn’t want to talk to him, after all, Chan was a top-tier student, the best of his class, class president, all that, and he had been suspended because of Jeongin. 

But Chan crouched in front of him, where Jeongin was sitting leaning his back on a wall and offered him a sweet bread. 

Jeongin looked up, kind of confused, his eyebrows knitting together. Chan smiled widely until his dimples, the same ones the kids at his last school had picked on Jeongin for, showed proudly. 

“I’m Chan,” he said, shaking the bread as if he was tempting a little animal with some leftovers. 

Jeongin didn’t have to answer; the bell rang, it was just the perfect opportunity to run, but, like an idiot, he took the bread before doing so. 

The next time they met, Chan wasn’t alone, and Jeongin realised, even when he had already known, that Chan was one of the popular guys, older than him, and with a crowd he carried around to please him. So Jeongin lowered his head and tried to go past him; he yelped when he felt a hand grab his backpack, expecting to hit the floor soon after. He braced himself, but he wasn’t thrown around; it was just Chan stopping him from running past him. 

“Got you this!” he smiled, giving Jeongin another sweet bread. “This is Changbin and-”

“I have class,” Jeongin muttered and ran away, bread tucked against his chest.

Jeongin’s mother told him he should return the favour, and so next week Jeongin was the one who looked for Chan. He came behind him and tapped his shoulder, and when Chan turned, full of energy, he almost winced away and threw the bread to his face. 

“Hey!” 

“Got you this in return. Thank you. Leave me alone now,” Jeongin said, offering Chan three different breads. When Chan didn’t take them, looking at him like he was weirded out, Jeongin shoved them in his hands and got away before the older boy could react and send his goons after him. 

But, even with the favour returned (because Chan ate all three breads, Jeongin observed from a distance), Chan didn’t leave him alone. 

Jeongin hadn’t exactly wanted that either, but at least, he hoped Chan would get that what he had wanted to say was: “This is half my allowance, please don’t give me any more bread, or I’ll never have the money to buy the sneakers I want.”

Chan didn’t get the memo.

  The bread exchange kept happening, and each time Chan would get more expensive bread. After a couple of weeks, Jeongin debated if he should stop giving back bread of equal price to Chan, taking what was going on as Chan being crazy, therefore, saving his allowance; but when he explained it to his mom, his mom didn’t let him stop. 

A month or two after it all started, Chan started calling him ‘Bread boy’. After hearing it the first time, Jeongin gritted his teeth, so Chan was a bully after all, just a much more elaborate one. 

“Hey! It’s Bread boy!” Changbin shouted after the nickname had spread around Chan’s friend group. 

Jeongin looked up, tried to square his nonexistent jawline, ready for the conflict, but it never came. Chan slapped Changbin over the head and yelled at him. Changbin yelled back, but in the end, Changbin rolled his eyes and went away, waving his hand at Jeongin as if he was saying goodbye to a friend. 

Jeongin didn’t wave back; Changbin wasn’t a friend. He looked down again and tried to go back to being invisible, but soon enough Chan’s red converses appeared in front of his eyes, and Jeongin had to take a deep breath and look up. 

“Hey, sorry, man. Changbin is cool, he’s just… excitable?”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

Jeongin frowned. “Yeah, okay.”

“Okay! But like, I think, maybe if… If I knew your name, you know? It may- I can tell Changbin not to- Like-”

“Jeongin.”

“Jeongin! Nice to meet you!” The bell rang, like that time months ago. Chan sighed. He knew Jeongin would let him get more than two words in after that sound. “I’ll see you around! I’m Chan… and I already told you that- Anyway, good luck!”

“Good luck?” Jeongin mumbled back. Chan shrugged and threw him a new bread.

Jeongin was left there, holding onto the chocolate bread with pistachio as the corridors folded, looking at Chan’s spiky hair disappear down the hall. 

They saw each other around more frequently since that day.

Chan had been right, Changbin was nice, he just had too much energy, and so were Felix, and later Hyunjin; and when they went to uni, they met Seungmin and Minho and Jisung. 

And he loved them all, it was great, but one of the nicest things was that one ever questioned the way Jeongin looked at Chan, and no one ever raised an eyebrow when Chan would bent over laughing and almost lay on Jeongin’s shoulder after a very bad, dry, joke, or when he would wrap his arms around him when they were talking and poke his dimple and smile, poking his own, too. Everyone knew that Jeongin faked not liking Chan’s touch, rolling his eyes, or even fake-puking when he was feeling too shy about how it really made him feel.  

No one was surprised when, when Chan had to leave for a semester abroad, he kissed Jeongin’s cheek goodbye, and Jeongin clung to him, crying, like he was going to war. 

No one questioned them.

Until Felix did.

One day, during Chan’s semester abroad, Felix sat next to Jeongin, just a couple of days before Chan was back. Jeongin knew he had been excitable for the last couple of weeks, a little out of it, too, and for a moment, Jeongin thought Felix wanted to talk to him about his bad performance at video games. 

“What’s up, hyung? You look nervous,” Jeongin said after he looked at Felix fidgeting for a couple of minutes.

“Innie… you know I presented a few months back…” Felix said. He gave him shy glances, looking away each time Jeongin would try to hold them.

“Yeah?”

“And- and I wanted to ask,” Felix took in a deep breath. “Do you like Chan?”

“What?” Jeongin laughed, a practised response. 

— 🍎︎ —

Jeongin had been in his last year of high school and at a college party (that he should absolutely not have been allowed in, but who was going to say no to the +1 Bang Chan had brought to the party? Surely no one.) 

“I’ll take care of you, Innie,” Chan had said, getting an arm around his shoulders. “I don’t like alcohol anyway, so I won’t drink,” he lied. It wasn’t a matter of liking or not liking it at that age, and Jeongin knew that. 

A little later they were spinning the bottle, a handful of them and six girls, and Jeongin kept stealing glances a Chan each time the bottle spinned, praying (like he had stopped doing a year ago) that it wouldn’t stop on him, because he knew he was unlucky enough that it wouldn’t stop on himself after, and he knew Chan was kissing omegas at uni, but he didn’t need to see it. 

“Do you like Chan, Innie?” Changbin asked, nudging his ribs with his elbow.

Jeongin choked on his alcohol-free drink (which obviously had vodka) and spat it all over the middle of the circle. He pushed Changbin sideways. 

Chan was in front of them, already looking worried by whatever was going on, but too far away to know if he should move or not.

“I don’t,” Jeongin answered. 

“Sure, that’s what I thought,” Changbin nodded. He didn’t question further, but when Chan had to get on all fours to crawl closer to the omega he was supposed to kiss, Changbin squeezed Jeongin's hand.

By the end of the party, he was crying in a fraternity girl's room, with her sitting there, squeezing him and cooing at him when they were supposed to have been kissing or something; Jeongin was sure that after that, half the campus knew his feelings, but Chan didn’t, and their friends didn’t know either.

— 🍎︎ —

 “Yeah, hyung is nice,” Jeongin smiled, answering Felix.

“I mean… like like,” Felix insisted. None of their friends had done that before, not even Changbin after looking at them with worry, not even Seungmin when he was feeling way too mean for a body so small as his.

“Ah-” Jeongin frowned. His stomach suddenly ached. “Do you like hyung?”

“I mean… He’s so kind, and I had my first heat alone, and it was hell, and now that he’s back. Like he’s the only one who has presented as an alpha and-”

“You want to spend a heat with Chan?” Jeongin almost yelled. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt so wronged, so provoked. 

Chan was nice, Chan was- 

Jeongin knew that it would be great to spend a heat with Chan. He hadn’t thought about it before (lie), but he supposed Chan would be nicer than getting a helping-alpha from an app and- 

And Jeongin loved Felix; he wanted the best for him, and no one else had presented yet as an alpha in their group, so it made sense, kind of; it wasn’t a stretch to ask.

In fact, even with Jeongin feeling like his breath was running out, as if he would never be able to get enough oxygen inside again, he knew Felix didn’t even need to ask him in the first place. 

“It was stupid to ask-”

“Yeah-” Jeongin answered, and Felix lowered his gaze again. “Because, like, hyung is only my friend, Lix. We- we aren’t like together or even close to that,” he added quickly.

“Yeah, but if you like him, Innie-”

“I don’t like him!” Jeongin finally yelled, standing up. He knew there was something weird in his voice, a bark that wasn’t usually there, a deepness that Felix felt and made him crawl back on the bed and away from Jeongin before he could apologise.

Felix didn’t ask Chan. 

Chan spent Felix’s next heat curled up against Jeongin on Chan’s apartment couch, watching TV, unaware of the conversation between his two friends.

Jeongin cried for Felix that night, but he still couldn’t bring himself to tell Chan. He was that selfish about his hyung.

And yet, Felix came back the next week and smiled at Jeongin and kissed his cheek. 

Chan started going on the bi-annual matting run that year. 

They started living together a week before the first run. Chan, Changbin and him. 

Jeongin hadn’t been able to sleep properly for a week before the event. He would wake up in cold sweats after having nightmares in which Chan came back with a pretty omega to their home. It wasn’t usual for alphas and omegas to mate on the run unless there was over a 90% hormonal compatibility, and even then, the cases were low. That was what had happened with Minho and Jisung, who had started to hang out with them just a couple of days ago when their rut and heat ended. 

Chan had told Jeongin and Changbin the story about it the same night of the mating run. 

He had caught Jisung and, a second later, he had found himself lying on his back, a scratch making him bleed as Minho ripped open Jisung’s clothes.

Chan fell asleep on Jeongin’s shoulder as Changbin ordered something for dinner.

“Relieved, hm?” Changbin had said once he came back to the living room.

“Yeah, it’s a relief that he’s okay. Minho seems like a dangerous alpha.”

“Hm,” Changbin agreed. “I’m happy that he’s back in one piece. And unmated.”

“People don’t usually mate in a run,” Jeongin mumbled. He knew Changbin was trying to catch him; he had been trying to do so lately. Jeongin wasn’t sure why. They were living perfectly as it was; it wasn’t a good thing to stir things up.

“But he caught Jisung,” Changbin commented, dragging a cleaning rag over the already clean table.

“Well, they wouldn’t have mated anyway. Not that- not that I care, Changbin.”

“True,”  Changbin mumbled. He tried to ruffle Jeongin’s hair, but Jeongin dodged him. Chan groaned and Jeongin clicked his tongue at Changbin like it was all his fault. 

They hadn’t talked about mating again after that night, but Jeongin couldn’t stop thinking about it. His eyes were drawn to Chan’s scent gland again and again, as if he was still scared that a mating bite was going to suddenly appear in place. 

— 🍎︎ —

It was a late night, some time later, when Jeongin found himself being braver than usual. It probably had to do with the fact that he hadn’t been able to sleep properly since Chan’s first mating run, and it might have had something to do, too, with the alpha pheromones impregnating the house since Chan’s rut was approaching.

“What are you still doing up?”

Jeongin turned, shook. He thought he was the only one awake. Chan walked around the couch and sat next to him. 

“Hi, hyung,” Jeongin whispered, trying to sound soft, in case he somehow had woken Chan up with the noise coming from his head.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Nothing, just had a nightmare.”

“Zombies?” Jeongin hummed in response, noncommittal. “I can’t sleep either, pre-rut and all that,” Chan sighed. “Never present,” he added, giggling. 

“Is it that bad?”

“I mean…” Chan sighed again. He let his back hit the couch, spreading his arm on it. “The first one is definitely the worst one.”

“Felix said the same,” Jeongin whispered. “That a heat alone is terrible.”

“I guess it’s not nice, yeah.”

“I don’t want to spend mine alone.” 

“Who does?” Chan laughed. He patted Jeongin’s shoulder a couple of times, and then he realised the way Jeongin was looking at him, and he tried, really tried, to stop him from asking. “We can always find you-”

“Will you stay with me?”

“Of course, I can be your nurse,” Chan tried to giggle again, but it didn’t come out properly; it sounded more like a whine.

“I meant, if you will… spend it with me.”

“Ah- Jeongin.” Chan took his hand away, and Jeongin squared his jaw; it had gotten stronger, sharper, but it still didn’t intimidate Chan. “Lots of people, almost everyone, spend the first one alone; it’s not that bad.”

“No one who can spend it with someone does it alone, Chan. And I’m… a late bloomer. It’s going to be worse.”

Chan sighed, scratching his neck. He turned to look at Jeongin again, and then he nodded.

“Okay.”

“Really? Really, hyung?”

“Yeah- It’s- It’s going to be weird though, Innie. It’ll be very weird and- we should talk it through for real before it happens.” 

Jeongin nodded, ecstatic. An annoying little voice at the back of his head was telling him that Chan would have given in for anyone in their friend group, but the reality was that he had given in to him, and that was more than enough. 

They talked about it right then, just a little, enough to make both blush, and reconsider a couple times, but Jeongin pushed. Chan’s ears got so red that Jeongin thought they looked like cute tomatoes. Chan talked about boundaries, about what could happen during, and only hinted at the after, like that was the part that scared him the most. 

“I don’t want my first kiss to be during the presentation heat, though,” Jeongin interrupted the conversation.

“Good. Cool. Then no kissing,” Chan answered immediately, nodding.

“No,” Jeongin almost yelped in response. “I didn’t mean- I don’t mean it like that, hyung,” Jeongin muttered. “You’re so dense,” he added, annoyed.

“Hey! I’m just trying to help.”

“You’re always trying to help.”

“What does that mean now?”

Jeongin bit his lip. He knew he shouldn’t ask, getting confirmation that Chan would help any of their friends would break his heart forever. He couldn’t hear the answer, so he didn’t ask.

“I mean that I want my first kiss before the heat, Chan,” he said instead, making Chan make a cute ‘o’ shape with his mouth as he poked Jeongin’s side, making him bend sideways and then away from him.

“Cute Innie wants a romantic first kiss, okay, got it, got it. We can find you someone-”

“I don’t need to find someone, hyung,” Jeongin interrupted him, annoyed. Did he need to spell everything out? It was embarrassing. 

“Oh?” Chan looked at him, still playful, but then, when he asked, “So do you have someone in mind?” he didn’t sound as harmless. 

Jeongin could see the change in the light on his hyung’s eyes, deeper, darker, they seemed sharper; his voice was still soft, still trying to sound playful, but a shiver crept up Jeongin’s back all the same. 

“No, hyung.”

“No?” Chan asked, tilting his head. He had dyed his hair orange before the run, and the movement made it look like flames burning. “Sure?”

“I- Well-”

“Well,” Chan repeated, smiling. He pocked Jeongin’s side; it was more vicious than before.

“If hyung is going to help me- I thought- You-” Jeongin felt like his brakes were on again, his lisp was stronger than ever. He had been growing more and more confident lately, but he was still shy, and he was still feeling like a teenager next to Chan. “If you kissed me before-”

“Me?” Chan asked. He sounded surprised again, back to a soft incredulity, all sharpness gone; and when Chan softened, Jeongin could sharpen himself.

“Yes, hyung, you,” he replied, more confident. “I trust you, I want it to be you.”

“You still have time until your first heat, Innie- It’s- a kiss is-”

“More intimate than a heat? Come on,” Jeongin answered, interrupting Chan’s rant based on some intern guilt that Jeongin wasn’t sure where was coming from.

“Innie, but I’m like your older brother, it-”

Jeongin tried to make a pucking sound, which made Chan worry for a moment.

“Come on, hyung! I have an older brother! You are just my friend!”

“‘Just’, alright, alright, ouch!”

“You know what I mean! Don’t try to play weird excuses! If you don’t want to kiss me, I get it, but-”

“I want to,” Chan finally confessed. 

It stopped Jeongin’s rant, but it also stopped his whole world; Jeongin wasn’t sure it was put in motion again after.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, Innie.”

“So kiss me then.”

Chan took in a deep breath, “Now?” he whispered, and Jeongin nodded, turning towards him. “Innie…” Chan giggled, but Jeongin didn’t even answer in any way to it. Chan licked his lips, Jeongin’s eyes dropped to them, then up again to his eyes as he did the same. “First kiss… ever?” Jeongin nodded. “I see. Not even-”

“Chan.”

“Got it. I- I’m going in now, okay? Just a peck. Don’t expect tongue.”

“Chan…” Jeongin blushed, looking down. Chan smiled, happy that he had gotten Jeongin shy. 

He got a hand on Jeongin’s neck, slid it up to grab his nape, and put a thumb under his ear. He bit his lower lip, letting it release slowly. Jeongin couldn’t stop looking at it until he felt Chan coming in closer. He closed his eyes. He missed Chan’s warm smile when he saw Jeongin pouting his lips out. 

It was, as promised, a soft peck. But then Jeongin grabbed Chan’s cheeks and kept him in place, pressing against him as Chan tried to open his mouth to say something.

Jeongin hummed against his parted lips and whispered, “Please.”

Chan’s eyes flew open. Jeongin was too close for him to see anything, but when he tentatively swapped his tongue against Jeongin’s lower lip, Jeongin only tried to press closer to him, flying a leg over Chan’s lap and pressing him against the back of the couch.

Jeongin hadn’t exactly been Chan’s first crush, but he had been the last one. Since Jeongin had given him those sweet breads back. Chan’s fantasies about him back then had gone as far as wanting to hold his hand in secret. 

He had tortured himself for wanting that. He knew he had been Jeongin’s first friend; he knew he should keep protecting him, wanting the best for him, but at some point since he came to Chan’s same university, Chan had started to think that ‘the best’ for Jeongin was himself, and since he had presented keeping away from Jeongin had been hell. 

Jeongin was kissing him, whining and trying to follow his tongue as Chan licked inside his mouth, sitting his small, perky butt in his lap, ruffling his hair as he tried to find an angle that wasn’t weird for himself and a place his hands could rest on that didn’t feel like ‘too much’.

Though Jeongin wasn’t sure if ‘just enough’ was a possibility right then.

Jeongin had asked Chan for help during his first heat; Jeongin had asked him to be his first kiss. 

Chan growled, but Jeongin didn’t scare away. He hummed against his lips again, pressing his legs closer to Chan’s sides as he towered over him. He bit his lower lip, as if he was trying to overpower Chan’s growl. 

“Innie,” Chan whispered, his alpha was growling for him to put Jeongin in his place, and Innie, his cute, unpresented omega, didn’t even know. He couldn’t even smell the way Chan’s pheromones were spiking up the sweet vanilla, turning earthier, spicier in a way vanilla should never be.

“Hyung,” Jeongin whimpered back, letting go of Chan’s lip and diving back into his mouth, pressing his tongue against Chan’s, his hands stronger than ever pressing Chan against the couch, his thighs a clamp. 

“Hey- Oh! Oh… Oh!” Chan and Jeongin turned to Changbin, his hands went up as his eyes closed, then a hand went down to cover his crotch and the other up to cover his eyes. “Ahahaha!” he tried, not a laugh, not even the proper sound of a fake one. “Well, I will get water tomorrow!”

Chan almost pushed Jeongin to the floor, trying to run away to his bedroom as he started to explain himself to Changbin, saying things that were only half-true, like that he was ‘helping Jeongin’. 

Jeongin didn’t mind; he smiled, hugging his knees up on the couch. Chan had not only accepted helping him in his first heat, but he had kissed him before it, really kissed him. Jeongin had felt him getting hard under him and all. Chan liked him. Chan liked him back and he knew.

He couldn’t wait for his heat. 

It took years before Jeongin presented. Each time he thought it was coming, it ended up being just a stupid stomach bug or a cold. But, each time after one of Chan’s failed mating runs, Jeongin would get to sit next to him on the couch, or in his bed if he was lucky, and Chan would talk for a bit and nod when Jeongin asked if he could kiss him, and, sometimes, Chan would nod and kiss him softly, then deeper until it got to be too much and they had to separate. 

Jeongin presented on the Friday before Chan’s fifth mating run.

He went into a rut.

Chan was there, of course. He made sure Jeongin would have enough water and food, but it was dangerous for him to stay in the same room, much more to try to ‘help’ with it. Jeongin growled when Chan tried to go away, clawing at the mattress, but when Chan came closer, he tried to claw at his neck. 

Jeongin spent his first rut alone. 

— 🍎︎ —

“Innie,” Chan tried again. 

Jeongin blinked. He was standing up. Growling. Looking at his friends still sitting at the ice cream parlour and looking at him like he had gone crazy. He sat down again, mumbled a soft ‘sorry’. 

Everyone was still so nice to him about him being a ‘baby alpha’, even when sometimes he wanted to-

Jeongin looked down at Chan’s hand on the back of his knee, then at him as he sat down, feeling like an apologetic puppy.

“We should sign you up, too,” Minho intervened, masterfully catching Jisung’s hand before he could slap his thigh for proposing so.

“Jeongin has been presented for six months only,” Chan answered, quickly moving his attention from Jeongin to Minho. That wasn’t right. Jeongin wanted it back. He growled. “Look at him.”

Everyone did, Chan too, and Jeongin tried to make his eyes rounder, begged to look a little more like their omega friends, approachable, an easy choice; but his features were sharp, sharper each year and even more so since he presented, and so was his scent. 

Chan liked to say it was close to apple pie, that he smelled like a dessert. Jeongin knew he smelled more like the spices on it, like the pie from a grandma who was losing her taste and lately all her desserts kept coming out spicier, almost uneatable. 

Jeongin was uneatable.

“What?” he mumbled, almost another rumble.

“You are not ready for a run. You don’t need one.”

“Aw, Chan, stop being overprotective,” Minho said, rolling his eyes. “What if his omega is waiting for him in one of those? Look at Jisung and me,” he added, quickly getting his hand in a semi-heart shape so Jisung could do the same and complete it. 

Minho and Jisung both were real believers in matting runs; after all, they were together because of one. Changbin rolled his eyes. He wasn’t that into them, nor was Seungmin; the rest were more or less partial to them. And it was kind of a game for Chan at that point (kind of his only hope to find a mate, too), but he had felt the way his scent changed when Minho suggested Jeongin joining and finding a mate in one, and he hoped Minho and the rest thought it was because Changbin’s and Seungmin’s anti-run propaganda was finally working on him.

“That’s very unlikely,” Chan answered, squaring his jaw. Minho raised an eyebrow, almost smirking.

“But could happen.”

“I know nothing about matting runs,” Jeongin interrupted the conversation, raising both eyebrows like he did when his hyungs were being incredibly dense and/or stupid. “And the next one is in a month.”

“Chan could help you get ready,” Minho chirped in again, smile wide. 

Chan swallowed. It was easy to see when Minho was hiding something; the difficult part was knowing his real intention. He turned to Jeongin. Jisung said something about the inscription period, Hyunjin jumped in and suddenly everyone was talking too loudly, and Chan couldn’t read Jeongin’s expression correctly.

He seemed lost. Looking back at Chan with thin eyes turned round, his mouth slightly parted, Chan could remember the shine of his braces on it.

“I don’t-”

“Alright.”

They answered at the same time. 

Chan wanted to back off. Jeongin had been about to say that he didn’t want to be in the matting run, right? He could still back off. 

“You can register online!” Felix chirped up.

Chan wanted to kill his friends. 

They walked back home alone. Changbin wasn’t living with them anymore; it was weird.

Jeongin thought that the night Changbin left, something would happen, but they ended up calling him and inviting him over. Nothing happened after that night either. 

The door to the apartment was lightweight, and when Jeongin rested against it, he felt like he could break it.

“Innie?” Chan called for him from a little further into their shared apartment. 

“Yeah?” Jeongin straightened himself, jumping out of the door.

“You do want to go in the run, right?”

No. “Yeah, you run all the time, it seems fun.”

“It can be… if you like running.”

“I- I’m not very good at running,” Jeongin answered. He was shifting his weight back and forth, incapable of moving forward, closer to Chan. 

“We can go running together for practice, but it all will come naturally once you are in the run.”

“Yeah? Won’t I embarrass myself?”

“You?” Chan smiled. He was the one to take a step closer, but there were still meters separating them. “You are so cute, Innie, you couldn’t embarrass yourself.”

“Even if I face-plant on the floor?”

Chan laughed. “I’ll make sure you don’t.”

“You’ll be too worried chasing omegas,” Jeongin answered, a pitiful mumble. He knew he sounded bitter; it was because he was. His scent had corrupted, soured beyond repair; it always did when he thought of Chan with an omega. 

“So will you,” Chan answered, his smile smaller, polite. 

“I have never been with one.”

“Don’t worry, that’s instinctual, too. Even more so.” Chan tried to laugh.

“What if I don’t have that instinct?” Jeongin asked, lowering his voice even more. 

It was an absolute truth that he was worried about that. But it was because he had been too worried about wanting Chan all his life to think of wanting any omega, and in the face of having to, at least pretend, he found himself lost.

Chan took another step forward, then one more. He grabbed Jeongin’s hands and brought them up, as if he were holding a princess’s. Jeongin blushed. 

“Come on, Innie. You’re a great alpha, see how defensive you get around your friends and all.”

“I don’t think that’s that great,” Jeongin mumbled. Chan giggled. “I’m being serious, Chan. What if I fuck it up? What if I’m- What if I’m too aggressive!”

“You aren’t aggressive, Innie,” Chan answered, shaking his head slightly.

Chan's only backup to say that, though, was that Jeongin had never been aggressive in his mind, and that was because Chan had never seen the way he looked at the omegas that approached him, had never felt Jeongin’s nails digging in his thighs because Jeongin always did it to himself to calm down, so hard he had bled from it. 

“I don’t want to look stupid, either…”

“Let’s go sit down, alright? You can tell me what you are worried about and-”

‘And if at the end you don’t want to do it, I’ll gladly take your name out. I’ll make sure you never find an omega, Innie.’

“-hyung will help you.”

Jeongin nodded, Chan let go of his hands and smiled, walking to the couch and patting the seat next to him for Jeongin to sit. 

Jeongin sighed. He sat down, closed his legs, bumping his knees against each other and letting his hands fall on top of them, and stared directly at the floor.

“So when an omega and an alpha like each other very much-”

“Chan!” 

Chan started to laugh. He put a hand around Jeongin’s shoulders and caressed his nape. It should have made Jeongin shudder; it wasn’t a normal touch between friends, much less between alphas; it was too close to scruffing, but Jeongin was so used to it that he didn’t register it as anything more than Chan touching him. 

“Come on, tell hyung, what are you really worried about, Innie?”

Jeongin sighed again, leaning closer to Chan. He didn’t want the conversation to end, but he really wasn’t worried about anything related to an omega; he was only worried about losing Chan.

“How is it?” he asked, tentative.

Chan had told him a hundred times, sometimes more explicitly, telling him about the shower beforehand, the little pill that you take to make sure no one ended up knocked up at the run. He had told Jeongin about the exhaustion, the scents permeating the air, how it all could become a little too much if you weren’t in the right headspace. 

Chan didn’t mind repeating himself.

So he started over, from the dressing rooms all the way to the sound, which made the omegas start to run, and the minutes of separation between that and the one that set the alphas free. 

He told Jeongin about searching for a scent that called to you, instinctually, about letting go and stopping your mind from working; always running, he joked about feeling like he was the one being chased. He told Jeongin about the river, the trees, and the little security huts. 

And when the story was over, when Chan was back at the showers after yet another unsuccessful run, he looked at Jeongin. He was looking back with stars in his eyes. Chan smiled. It was normal that a run appealed to a young alpha, of course it did; he had also liked the idea the first time. 

“See? Not so scary,” Chan smiled, trying to break the spell just enough for Jeongin to take his eyes away before he did something ridiculous, like ask Jeongin if they could kiss like they did after Chan’s matting runs. 

“It isn’t for you. You’re a great alpha.”

“Come on, it’s going to go to my head,” Chan answered, bumping into Jeongin’s shoulder jokingly. 

“How do you catch an omega?”

“Well,” Chan moved back onto the couch. “You might have noticed I’m not great at that part.”

“Why?”

Because I want you.

“I haven’t found the one? I suppose it is that. I hope it's that, or maybe I’m just not that great. Minho snatched Jisung right away from me,” Chan said, laughing. It was a joke between them, between all their friends. Chan was okay with it; Chan didn’t really ‘want’ Jisung, he just thought Jisung's scent was… fruity, and a little spicy, like one he liked a lot. He and Minho had offered a threesome more than once, Chan had never accepted; he didn’t think mixing sex and friendship was a great idea.

— 🍎︎ —

“But you like kissing Jeongin,” Minho had said once after Chan’s refusal.

“What?” Chan had laughed, avoiding Jisung’s inquisitive look.

He would never let Minho say something like that again. 

— 🍎︎ —

Chan was surprised by the low rumble suddenly coming from Jeongin. Jeongin would usually laugh too at those kinds of jokes, if never as loudly as Jisung or Changbin. The rumble got louder, like a big cat preparing to attack. Much louder than that afternoon at the ice cream parlour. 

“Innie?” Chan wondered, his eyebrows knitting together softly. Then something sparkled in his mind. “Do you like Jisung?”

Jeongin rumble got louder. 

Jisung. Jisung was his friend and a mated omega since before he met him, but he had also been one of the omegas that had been closer, probably the closest, to be mated to Chan. 

Jeongin knew that, even when Chan insisted that they probably would have ‘only fucked once’ after the run, if Minho hadn’t appeared they would surely still be together, Chan and Jisung together just made sense; they have similar taste in a lot of things, and Jisung was soft and easy to love were Jeongin was sharp, a growling mess, and an alpha on top of it all. 

Jeongin didn’t hate Jisung, of course, but his alpha hated each time he was mentioned, each reminder that he was all that Jeongin would never be.

“Innie?” Chan tried again, his voice still soft, but more careful.

— 🍎︎ —

Jeongin’s presentation had hit him in the middle of their university campus. Seungmin had called Chan because Jeongin had suddenly grabbed his backpack and had started to growl and snap his teeth at anyone who came close to him. 

Chan had arrived directly from work; he said his partner had gone into heat to be able to leave. 

That was the first time Chan had seen Jeongin so aggressive, but it wasn’t the last. The next few months, until Jeongin started to control himself, had been a little difficult; he would snap at the omegas who came to their apartment (all of them his dear friends) as soon as they tried to go close to the bedrooms or Chan. 

— 🍎︎ —

“Jeongin,” Chan's voice finally turned stern. Jeongin’s eyes snapped up, looking at Chan instead of being jailed in his own mind, guarding the door in case the omega came to take his alpha. 

“Sorry,” Jeongin whispered.

“It’s alright, Innie. I don’t like him, alright?” Chan mumbled. There wasn’t an universe in which he and Jeongin could be interested in the same omega, not when Chan hadn’t been interested in one since Jeongin presented as an alpha.

“I know.”

“I bet you know. Tell your alpha, too.”

“I don’t like him either. Not like that.”

“That’s good because Minho is far more possessive than it looks.”

“I am, too,” Jeongin mumbled. Chan giggled. Jeongin didn’t find it in himself to pretend it was a joke. “So- if I see an omega I like, if I smell them… what- how am I supposed to catch them?”

“What? Well, that’s easy, Innie, you just… catch them?”

“But how?”

“Do you want me to demonstrate?” Chan said, huffing a laugh. Jeongin nodded. “Oh, really?”

“I have never been good at catching games, Chan. I don’t want to… make an ass of myself.”

“You won’t, Innie!” Chan tried to comfort him. “Alright, look, just… Get up. It’s easy. Hyung will show you.”

Jeongin's eyes sparkled, a little surprised that it had worked. He stood up, his hands to his sides, a little awkward. Chan took him by the shoulders and moved him away from the couch, then he stepped back, leaving Jeongin alone and rigid.

“Alright, so, you are supposed to be looking the other way, because you are the omega- I mean- In this scenario, we can change later-”

“Okay, hyung,” Jeongin interrupted Chan’s ramble. He turned around and braced himself, he supposed Chan was going to impact into him, tackle him to the ground. 

“So, during the run, imagine you find a scent you like, and you go for it. You close in on the omega,” Chan said, stepping closer. Jeongin swallowed. “Usually, they are quick too, so you have to-” Jeongin took in a deep breath, he planted his feet, tried to balance himself, but Chan's impact was as soft as everything Chan ever did to him, there was almost no repercussions from the bump, apart from Chan being pressed to his back, grabbing his hips, pulling him back into himself.

“Hyung?”

“You’ll have more momentum, you’ll roll to the floor, or maybe hit a tree,” Chan said, bringing his nose to Jeongin’s neck and pushing his knees to the back of Jeongin’s, making them bent, and Jeongin lost his stability. He didn’t fall to the floor only because Chan was holding him by the hips, keeping him up, but he bent forward. “Probably the floor,” Chan mumbled against his neck. 

Jeongin could feel his chest heavy against his back, bending him further. Chan let go of his hands and Jeongin fell towards the floor face-first. Luckily, he was quick enough to put a hand in front of his face and not break his nose. 

Chan was over him instantly, breathing heavily, pushing his chest to the floor, holding his head down with his hand. 

“You have to immobilise them. They’ll want to keep running.”

“Isn’t that- isn’t that just rape?”

Chan didn’t answer. He hid his face against Jeongin’s neck again. Chan had never scented him, avoiding his scent glands like they were poison, but suddenly he was right there, all over him, smelling his cayenne and sweet apple, pressing his nose so hard against it that it could leave a mark. 

“They will submit,” Chan said then, moving Jeongin’s head so he would present his neck. 

Jeongin’s alpha stopped being compliant.

He had liked having Chan over him. He liked Chan. He could submit a little if that meant having the other alpha closer, but baring his neck like that? Like a whore waiting for a mating bite? That was too much. 

Jeongin thrashed around, growled, and tried to quick Chan off him. 

Chan growled back, holding Jeongin’s head twisted backwards as he bared his teeth way too close to Jeongin’s scent gland.

Jeongin wasn’t stronger or quicker than him; he had never fought another alpha or made them submit, while Chan, even when Jeongin didn’t know, had. 

The only reason Chan wasn’t a pack alpha was that packs didn’t exist anymore, and that night, Jeongin could feel it in the way his pheromones were overpowering his easily; his growls sounded like little meows next to Chan’s as he pinned him to the floor. 

He felt a splash of spit against his bare neck, the press of Chan’s hips against his ass, the pain of his nails on his scalp. 

“Hyung-” he mumbled. It was supposed to be a growl, it sounded like begging. 

Chan’s weight disappeared. He jumped away, almost to the other side of the living room, as he pressed his own hands against his chest.

“Sorry- I- sorry, Innie. Are you okay?”

“I am. I- yeah-”

“Sorry. I’ll go to sleep, okay?”

“Okay, hyung.”

Jeongin saw Chan go without standing from the floor. He had never been harder. It didn’t go down even after coming two times; his hand was not big enough to hold his knot, the pressure far from enough.

The next morning, he woke up at six to run with Chan, and they didn’t exchange more than a ‘morning’ until they were at the park, jogging alongside each other until Jeongin felt his stamina decreasing and he found himself behind Chan.

God. 

He understood. Understood what Chan had felt last night. He needed to chase him, get him, pin him to the floor, claim him, mark him, bitch him. He needed Chan open under him, his knot stretching him and making sure his come would take, that he would be round with their pups after. 

He needed, and needed, and needed.

“Innie?” Chan asked when he felt Jeongin’s hand on his hips.

“Hyung.”

Jeongin’s breath was heavy, dampening Chan’s neck, making his short hairs stand on end. His scent was stronger, spicier, there it was that cayenne that had surprised Chan the day Jeongin presented, overpowering the cardamom, cinnamon and slightly bitter, sweet apple. Chan’s alpha fought to come out and assert dominance. 

He felt the rush of blood, the shot of adrenaline through his veins and the need to let a growl ripple through his ribs and out of his system in warning. He pushed it all down and grabbed Jeongin’s hand instead.

“Jeongin,” he whispered, trying, really trying to keep his scent publicly admissible so no one would try to come and rip Jeongin away from him, thinking the alphas were going to start a fight. 

He had been told before that his vanilla was almost always mellow, even when he was angry; Jisung and Changbin joked about it daily, that he smelled like an omega even when he was being annoyed by them. He wished they were right, but they just hadn’t really seen him angry or pushed to his limits. He hated his scent when it got like that.

— 🍎︎ —

Chan used to go back to pick Jeongin from high school during Jeongin’s last year when their schedules aligned. He enjoyed showing up with his ‘fancy’ car and making Jeongin hop in.

One time, he found Jeongin talking to another alpha. ‘Something about school,’ he had told himself.

He wasn’t a bully. Had never been. Pride himself in being a good alpha, he hadn’t even been harsh during his presentation.  

It happened again. 

Chan found the younger alpha. 

Chan’s scent was so wrong that the boy was choking, as if the orchid vine was growing inside of him, suffocating him, contaminating his lungs. 

Chan didn’t care that he was choking. He grabbed him by the neck, made it clear he should never talk to Jeongin again. 

— 🍎︎ —

Jeongin’s hand didn’t relax. Chan felt the scrape of Jeongin’s front teeth against his nape and took in a deep breath, tensing. He had to fight himself again to keep steady. He pressed Jeongin’s hand. 

“Want to go home, Innie?” he asked, soft, leaving space for Jeongin to feel like he was the one in charge. 

Chan had read about it when Minho first joined their group; he had read about what to do if a situation of a fight for dominance arose; he was prepared. 

He hadn’t really believed the little notes saying some alphas liked to be challenged, that some found it exciting. 

But the truth was that he did. He was feeling himself getting hard, and, as much as he was trying to control the souring of his scent, he couldn’t control the way it was getting denser, hotter, cloying; and Chan’s head was becoming foggy with the need to show Jeongin that he could be good, and at the same time he was filled with the need to make him submit. 

“Jeongin-”

“Want to breed you.”

Chan choked; he felt his knees buckling. 

“Want to mate you, hyung.”

“Fuck,” Chan whispered, sort of a sigh. He scoffed at himself after. 

He couldn’t deny the way his cock had twitched, but he was sure Jeongin didn’t really want that; not that- not that Chan would let him breed him. 

Jeongin pressed against him and Chan took in another sharp breath.

The most pressing matter was getting out of the public park, going back to their apartment, and giving Jeongin some time to calm down. Surely, an abrupt rut was coming over him; something was wrong for him to want Chan like that.

“At home, alright?” he whispered, trying to turn. Jeongin pressed his lips against his nape, a soft kiss, then another. “Jeongin-”

“Hyung, need you. Need you so much.” All of Jeongin’s words were slurred, his tongue heavy and hot in his mouth.

“Nest,” Chan said, a little louder. “Bring me to my nest, yeah? Breed me there.”

Jeongin lighted up; his grip softened. He nodded and moved up, towering over Chan, stepping away. His scent became sweeter, pure fructose as he grabbed Chan’s wrist with his other hand and made him turn, nooding again, quicker. 

“Nest- alright- yes, yes.”

Chan smiled, tried to make it seem real. Jeongin pulled him towards the entrance of the park, and Chan couldn’t help but laugh. He felt like they were two teenagers again, running to get to class on time after sneaking off during recess. 

Jeongin stopped them an empty taxi, a rare occurrence, and almost shoved Chan inside, making the taxi driver look at them like they were crazy. Chan was the one to give the address as the taxi driver waited for them to put on their seatbelts. Chan had to do so for Jeongin.

And then, after that second run, with the clear air inside the taxi, and the exhaustion from it all affecting the pheromones, Jeongin realised what had just happened. He came back down as if crashing through the sky, landing butt-first inside the taxi. It was even a little charming to watch. 

“Back here?” Chan asked, teasing.

Jeongin whined, covering his face and even trying to cover his ears with his thumbs. 

“I will take that as a no breeding tonight?”

The driver coughed, choking on his own spit. 

Jeongin turned to Chan, mouth hanging open. He groaned, his hands still covering his face. Chan laughed, louder than ever, until Jeongin was bent over, hiding between his legs.

“Come on, that’s dangerous, up,” Chan said, clapping his back.

“I’m sorry, hyung,” Jeongin finally whispered.

“It’s okay, Innie. You just got… excited.”

“Hyung…” Jeongin groaned, and Chan laughed again. “I’ll pay for the taxi,” he added when he felt the car stop; it had been less than a ten-minute ride.

“It’s okay, hyung got it.”

Jeongin looked at him, pouting. Chan ruffled his hair as he used his phone to pay for the ride and pointed for Jeongin to open the door. 

“I guess no running tomorrow?” Jeongin asked once he closed the door.

“I mean… You were a little too slow today.”

“What? I caught up to you, hyung!”

“I was running slow,” Chan said, shrugging as he turned toward the kitchen to get a glass of water, Jeongin on his tail. “More like… walking fast,” he teased some more. 

“That’s not true! We were going fast! That’s why I was triggered!” 

“I think you were triggered because you’re still a baby-”

“Don’t call me that-”

“-alpha,” Chan giggled. “It’s okay, Innie, you just got pheromone-crazed. I’m just glad I’m not an omega,” Chan said, drinking his glass of water, resting against the counter. “Little, passionate, baby alpha.”

“Hyung,” Jeongin sounded annoyed, and Chan couldn’t help feeling his body get warmed at that; his alpha was happy to regain some kind of power over Jeongin.

“What? Isn’t it true? Baby-”

“Hyung,” Jeongin moved closer, almost in front of Chan. He didn’t expect Chan to get a hand on his side, around his ribs and pull him closer.

“-alpha,” Chan muttered almost in his ear. 

What a devious game. What a horrible way to poke fun at him. Jeongin's blood was boiling. Hadn’t he shown Chan enough? Hadn’t it been clear enough that he could dominate him just moments before? Why was he playing with him? Defying his power? 

And why did the word sound so sweet against his ear? Making him melt into Chan’s touch as a low rumble started in his chest.

“You won’t be able to catch any omega like that, Innie,” Chan said next, probably still trying to riddle him up, but it didn’t work because Jeongin didn’t care for any omegas. “You’re too slow and too impulsive. Not even mentioning that you went for an alpha-”

“Hyung,” Jeongin mumbled. He let his forehead fall against Chan’s shoulder, melting into Chan’s vanilla scent. Whatever want for dominance was still in him, completely seeping away from his pores. He felt lightweight, almost drunk, a little sleepy, like he used to feel after a tantrum when he was still a kid. 

“How are you even going to take care of an omega if you get like this after a run, hm?” Chan asked, caressing his hair, tugging a couple of ginger strands behind his ear. “Sweet, Innie,” he added, kissing the top of his head. 

Jeongin looked up at him with sleepy eyes, shiny and wet. 

“I can take care of an omega,” Jeongin mumbled, his pride hurt just enough for it to make it sting. 

“Can you, Innie? What would you do with an omega? You haven’t even kissed one yet-”

“I have!”

Chan’s scent soured immediately. It would have been comical if anyone else were there; Seungmin and Minho would have poked fun at him for his harsh reaction, even more so when Chan had been trying to tease Jeongin, and it had turned right in his face.

“When?” Chan asked, his voice coarse; he tried to clear his throat.

“I- Ah! At a party,” Jeongin answered. If Chan’s blood weren’t ringing in his ears, he would have realised that he was bluffing. 

“Jisung?” Chan asked. Jeongin shook his head. “Lix?” 

“Ah- someone else. An unknown omega.”

“‘Unknonwn omega’?” Chan asked. He pulled Jeongin closer when he tried to move away, pressing a hand against his back.

“At Seungmin’s birthday party- one of- one of his friends?” Jeongin said, making it sound like a question. Chan's lips were close to his neck; the sensation made him lose the thread of his lie easily. 

Chan hummed. He pressed his nose against Jeongin’s neck, smiling at the scent of apples, all spiciness subdued for the moment except for a hint of sweet cinnamon. 

“One of Seungmin’s friends?” Chan asked, almost laughing, he pressed a kiss to Jeongin’s neck. “One of Seungmin’s multiple friends that I don’t know of, right?”

“Yeah-” Jeongin tried, Chan kissed his neck again and made him shiver.

“So you kissed them? Made out with them?”

“Yeah- It was nice,” Jeongin tried. 

Chan’s hands moved down, closing around his hips, keeping him tightly pressed between his legs as he kissed his neck again, a stronger press of his lips. 

Jeongin could feel the hunger.

“Did you do it properly, then, Innie?” Chan asked, a vibration against the damp skin, the press of his teeth, just a hint. 

“Yes,” Jeongin tried. Chan’s hands moved, circling his hips to grab his ass. 

“Present your neck, Innie. Submit.” 

Jeongin felt a shockwave through his body, all his instincts going haywire, his body hair standing on end. 

Submit.

His knees buckled for just a moment. 

He couldn’t move. His alpha was furious. How dare Chan even ask that? Not even that, he hadn’t asked, he had ordered, he wanted him to give him all his power, to bare his neck and just accept his dominance without even giving a fight? 

But the truth was that he wanted to bare his neck. 

He wanted Chan to take him like he should have done the day he presented. He wanted Chan on top of him, under him, against him. 

He had wanted him for so long. 

And yet he couldn’t move. His alpha made him grip the counter, threatening to make his fingers bleed with the strength put on it; his whole body was vibrating with the need to growl. His eyes were getting wet in the fight between his need and his want, and he just couldn’t make his head tilt. 

Chan grabbed a handful of his ass, almost browling against his neck. He got another hand on his head, but then, instead of pulling on it, like Jeongin was expecting, waiting for his alpha to snap at that, instead, Chan knocked his head against Jeongin’s shoulder and let go of him completely.

“Ouch,” Jeongin whined when Chan’s forehead hit his bone.

“Sorry,” Chan started. He pushed Jeongin back. “Sorry, Innie. Hyung only wanted to tease you a little. I went too far.”

“You can’t-” Jeongin started; Chan pushed him further away and moved from the countertop. “-leave me like this,” he whispered, but Chan was already past the kitchen door.

“Let’s try running again tomorrow, yeah?” Chan said, not looking back. “Even better, let’s call Minho, too. I’m sure he will help you better than I.”

 Jeongin was pissed the next morning. Chan understood why. He had gone and told him to submit, like a fucking cliché from a bad alpha x alpha porn movie. What a fucking asshole he had been. 

He was grateful at first that Minho was there, so Jeongin and he could talk when they stopped running instead of Chan and Jeongin walking in silence. 

But the cue was ‘at first’, because soon after, Minho had started talking about the mating run, about that ninety per cent compatibility thing, about claiming.

“In the field?”

“Well, yeah, precious Innie.”

“In front of everyone?”

“No one stops and watches, Innie. But yeah, I would have loved to have an audience when I claimed Jisung, that’s for sure, damn.”

“I- Wow- That’s too much.”

“You won’t feel like that when the right omega appears, Innie.”

Jeongin raised both eyebrows, doubting him, but Minho started running again and he didn’t have time to answer. It was a couple of minutes later, still running, when he caught a whiff of Chan’s scent again that he understood what Minho was talking about. 

He would have loved to claim Chan the day before, in front of everyone in the park. He had felt the need to do so too the first day he came to uni just to find Chan had an entourage of omegas around him, playfully talking to him. 

He wasn’t strange to the want to publicly claim. 

Chan was grateful that Minho didn’t keep talking about that. He was a little less grateful when he offered to go running with Jeongin every morning until the mating run, even less so when they started to go alone when Chan’s schedule got a little busier. 

“I’m just saying that I’m not that busy,” Chan said, sitting in Minho’s and Jisung’s apartment. “I can go in one or two rounds more with Innie before the mating run.”

“So do it?” Minho answered. He had been very peacefully making lunch when Chan came over to get back a hoodie Jisung had stolen, but knowing that Chan was incapable of claiming his own things, Minho had been sure the real reason had a more fox-like appearance than his tiny hamster mate. 

“Man-”

“Look, Chan, he’s not your omega, and I’ve already been more than open to sharing mine, so I don’t know what you’re trying to get out of this conversation. Get your putrid vanilla out of here.”

Chan's mouth dropped open, Jisung giggled and then tried to hide behind his open hands when Chan looked his way. 

“Sorry,” Chan whispered, realising what he had been doing. “Yeah- Hm- sorry. See you after the run on Friday?”

“Yes, hyung,” Minho answered. “I hope you find an omega,” Minho added, pushing Chan out of the living room and towards the entrance. 

Chan could hear Jisung laughing when Minho closed the door; he could even feel Minho’s eyes rolling back.

Jeongin kept his distance for the rest of the week. He kept running with Minho, going to the gym with Changbin and avoiding both if they were with Chan. 

And just like that, Friday arrived. It was seven a.m., and they both were waiting for instructions when Jeongin approached him.

“I’m sorry, hyung,” he whispered. 

Chan smiled and got an arm around his shoulders. He was very grateful that Jeongin had started accepting his physical affection after they moved in together.

“Hyung is sorry too, Innie.”

“I hope it goes well today.”

“It’s going to be nice. You got so much better at running, at least you’re going to enjoy a run around a beautiful forest.”

Jeongin smiled. Chan could feel he was more than nervous; the spiciness in his scent was back, and they hadn’t even taken the pheromone enhancer yet. 

“And if someone bothers you, you can always run to hyung, yeah?” he added, bumping Jeongin’s hips with his. 

Jeongin rolled his eyes and took in a deep breath. He knew he should say he hoped Chan would be the one finding an omega (finally), but he couldn’t bring himself to do so. So instead, he looked at Chan directly in the eyes, holding his gaze as Chan's playful smile became something deeper. 

“And if you don’t find anyone, hyung will still be here, alright?” Chan whispered, soft, his words like a trail Jeongin wanted to chase. 

Before he could answer, the bell signalling the start of the run for the omegas made Jeongin’s ears ring. He covered them, and Chan put his hands around his, as if he was covering the ears of a child while watching fireworks. 

Jeongin was supposed to move away and remind Chan that they shouldn’t be touching or even standing too close; their scents would mix and it would confuse everyone.

But no one could say vanilla and apple pie didn’t go well together.

They were given the pheromone enhancer, then Chan patted him on the back and went to his assigned position, a few groups away from Jeongin’s. They always put the newer presented alphas together and let them run first.

The bell rang again, and Jeongin was in the open field, sprinting towards the forest, keeping his breath steady like he had been told. Chan lost sight of him in between the trees and a few seconds later, his own bell rang.

He was used to it all, so much so that it felt degrading. 

The smell of the omegas was faint in the open field, and Chan ran towards the forest with a voice in the back of his mind shouting, ‘Find Jeongin,’ instead of whatever he was supposed to be thinking about. 

Soon enough, between the trees, the scents grew stronger. Alphas and omegas, some of them already smelling like a pair. There were chirping around the forest that weren’t animal.

Chan had had a strategy since the second time he had been to a mating run: zigzag around the trees, follow the river, get to the end of the run, making sure he wasn’t the first one to give up, but not lose too much of his morning in that forest. 

Someone groaned close to him, and when he turned, without stopping running, he saw an omega zigzagging in between trees. He sounded hurt. Or maybe it was something else that called Chan. He started moving, following the path that omega had taken, and then it hit him. 

The omega was in distress, the alpha that had been following him since before Chan was ill-intended, or at least that was what his instincts were telling him. He pressed his rhythm, but the omega was quicker. 

The pill hit, his scent getting stronger, that of the other alpha too. He ran faster, jumping over a falling branch, and felt the other alpha losing interest, running the other way, but the omega scent, close to apple, maybe pears, maybe just some fruity scent, was making his mouth water, and he was so close to him, so close to something that may alleviate the heaviness in his stomach that had accompanied him for years. 

So he ran and skipped until the omega was in his line of vision. His eyes sharpened, his spit was pooling in his mouth, dripping as if he was nothing but a wild beast; his legs moved without him having to think about it, and the trees became a blur as he came closer and closer to the panting omega, to his sweet price, his relief. 

A jump, a last effort.

He caught the omega’s ankles and threw him to the ground, both faceplanting on it. The omega resisted just enough, clawing at the dirt as Chan pulled him under himself. 

And then, as he was about to press his nose to the side of his neck, and convince himself that his pear was apple, that there was cayenne in his mellow scent, Chan felt claws around his stomach, a strong grip around his waist, something pulling him up.

“Mine,” Chan growled, trying to keep hold of the omega. It was against the rules; no alpha should try to take an omega once it was caught and willing, like the one under Chan.

“Don’t fucking care,” the alpha answered behind him, against his nape. 

Chan went limp, the omega thrashed and almost escaped. 

Jeongin. 

It was Jeongin’s voice.

“Mine,” Jeongin echoed.

“Jeongin- get another fucking-” Chan was trying to fight back, but Jeongin’s nails were clawed to his skin, buried and drawing blood even when Chan had a t-shirt on. “-omega.”

“I don’t want a fucking omega,” Jeongin growled, pushing Chan back and into him. The omega whined. Chan was hurting him by keeping him caught between his arms, pinned to the ground. “Want you,” Jeongin pulled him back again. Chan growled, pained. Jeongin didn’t seem to care.

He was gone. Like that day they tried running together. His scent was all cayenne, his words slugged. And Chan couldn’t help but sniff it, get lost in it as he let go of the whinny omega under him and saw him scramble away and start running again.

Jeongin turned him around and pushed his back against the floor, baring his teeth and diving right into his chest, biting down.

Chan screamed, and Jeongin tore away his t-shirt, trying to lick at the wound he had given him. Chan tried to kick him, push him to the floor; for a moment, it was impossible, but then Jeongin looked at him, a soft gaze in the middle of the madness. 

“Mine,” he mumbled, as if he were asking Chan. 

And thanks to Jeongin's distraction, Chan could roll them around, push Jeongin to the floor, and let his wound drip blood over Jeongin’s own chest. 

There was nothing in Chan’s brain, not a single rational thought, none of the voices that had told him to take care of Jeongin, to be a pillar until he found a proper mate, none of the guilty ones telling him he could not want him. 

There was only his alpha yelling at him that he had let the pup run wild for too long, giving him too much sympathy. Look what that had gotten him: wounded, challenged, pinned to the floor by a much younger, newly presented alpha.

Inside his mind, there was only the voice of his alpha yelling at him to bite Jeongin back, to make him submit, mate him, breed him, bitch him. 

Jeongin tried to fight back, kicking his legs and hitting Chan’s thighs.

“Enough,” Chan growled, and it must have been heard all around the perimeter. Jeongin gulped down, but he bared his teeth. Chan knew what to do to control the threat.

He kicked Jeongin back, turning him and pushing him down until he was chest down on the ground. He turned Jeongin's head to the side, keeping it down with a hand splayed over his cheek, pushing him into the mud as he lifted his hips with his other hand roughly, letting his fingers dig in the juncture, his nails dragging across the skin between Jeongin’s t-shirt and his running pants.

Chan pressed against him, his chest flat against Jeongin’s back as he thrusted against him, so hard that Jeongin jolted, letting out a snap. He was still up only thanks to Chan’s hold on him.

“Present,” Chan growled. Jeongin growled back. “Present,” he insisted, darker, his jaw locked as he spoke. 

“Hyung-”

“Don’t want it?” Chan asked. He pressed his nose against his own hand on Jeongin’s face, his breath heavy, saliva hitting Jeongin’s jaw as Chan sniffed him. Jeongin could feel the growl rumbling through his body, shaking his spine. “Don’t you want it, Jeongin?” 

“Want it,” Jeongin tried to speak. 

Chan’s hand didn’t give him too much mobility, and his whole body was burning with pure stress. He had been on top just moments ago, ready to get Chan marked and submitted and finally his, and now he was literally eating mud, and yet he couldn’t help pressing his hips back, whining wantonly at the press of Chan’s hard cock against him. 

“Good boy,” Chan muttered. He let go of his face, but before Jeongin could try to get in a better position, Chan bit his shoulder, deep, like Jeongin had bitten in his chest. His fangs went through Jeongin’s t-shirt as if it were nothing and pierced the skin, making Jeongin wince. Chan shushed him, as he caressed his cheek; it felt condescending.

“Hyung,” Jeongin groaned, arching his back with the pain. 

“Mine.”

“Mine,” Jeongin repeated, his alpha couldn’t let him say ‘yours’, but Jeongin knew Chan would understand, he understood too, in Chan’s words, even when all he could think about was the need to knot Chan, to breed him, he understood that Chan had been waiting too, thinking of a way it could work, and as he bared his neck, as he let Chan rip his t-shirt open and push his pants down, he knew that it wasn’t a sacrifice, that any other comeout would have killed him. 

“Innie, my Innie,” Chan muttered against his nape, pushing Jeongin’s face slightly down into the mud as he licked and nipped where alphas would bite other alphas when packs were still a thing to make sure they would know there was someone higher than them in hierarchy. Jeongin pushed his head down and presented the spot. Chan growled, pushed his clothed crotch against Jeongin’s bare ass, rutting against him as he sucked an impermanent mark, making Jeongin whine. 

Jeongin pushed his hips back. Half of him still wanted to try to kick Chan off him, the other half just wanted to feel him a little more. Chan’s chest rumbled at the feeling. He pulled on Jeongin’s hips again instead of moving himself, and then again and again, making Jeongin grind against him, making his skin start to chafe against Chan’s clothes, even when they were soft running pants. 

And then, Chan bit him again, deeper, on the side of Jeongin’s neck. Jeongin howled. He pushed back, hard, with enough force to throw Chan off. He rolled around in the mud and grabbed Chan’s head, turning him with the strength of his upper body and making him face plant in the mud, but just for a moment, because Chan fought back, turning his head against the pressure of Jeongin’s hands and gripping him between his thighs so he would flip them again, he held him down and bit his shoulder.

Then both feel someone coming closer. Jeongin snapped his head towards the sound, and Chan left his shoulder to do the same. One of the security guards, another alpha, very strong, wearing scent blockers and holding a stun gun. 

Both growled toward him at the same time; they knew he was going to try and separate them. They wouldn’t be separated, not again. They had been held back by biology, but they wouldn’t for something so stupid as a man. 

The guard retreated. 

Chan looked down at Jeongin again. Their eyes locked. There was still something savage between them, both too raw after having finally let go, after they both knew the other wanted to be there, rolling in the mud, clothes ripped away, and blood flowing from their wounds and mouths. 

Jeongin moved upwards, Chan downwards, they found each other in the middle, but it wasn’t long before Jeongin was pressed to the floor again as Chan kissed him, long, deep, a hint to unhinged, a little too strongly as Chan's fangs ripped his lower lip open. Jeongin feel like he could choke on his tongue, giving back as much as Chan was giving. 

Jeongin clawed Chan’s back, ripping his skin open and pushing his pants down with the heels of his feet, until he could feel Chan bare against himself. If he hadn’t been so lost in the cloud of vanilla and Chan’s tongue, he would have rolled his eyes at Chan going commando. 

But it made sense, too, didn’t it? To have as few clothes on as he could if he wanted to fuck an omega, catch them and bend them over quickly in the mud. 

Jeongin pushed Chan away, making him frown, surprised. Jeongin pulled him back close almost immediately into another kiss and then rolled them over, tangling their legs and pressing close to him, making Chan moan in his mouth. 

“What-”

“An omega,” Jeongin stated. He kissed down Chan’s throat, pushing his lips like a threat against it as Chan tried to understand why Jeongin was angry again before his alpha would take over again. “You wanted an omega,” Jeongin bit down again, making Chan wince and curse under his breath, half the bite was over the first one, piercing it deeper, abusing the broken skin.

Chan's frown deepened. Jeongin kissed the wound he had opened, then lower to Chan’s nipple, licking around it, sucking it perky. 

“You too, Innie,” Chan tried. His body felt divided, jumping between pain, arousal and desire, confused; his hips kept jolting up against Jeongin, making him bounce when the thrust was too strong, but Jeongin was impasible, holding himself steady on top of him.

“I caught you,” Jeongin defended himself. “I chased you, I got you. Mine. Not an omega. You.”

Jeongin rumbled against his chest, then he grinded his hips tentatively. It felt so much better than before, his hot cock sliding against Chan’s. It was way too dry, but it didn’t matter; he had been thinking about it for way too long. 

He had to keep away from him completely during the last weeks. At first, it was because he was angry and annoyed, but when he tried to apologise, even if it was only to the mirror, he discovered himself growling at the idea of Chan running, and just a whiff of his scent was enough to drive him mad, keeping him hard for hours. 

The morning of the run, Jeongin promised himself that he wouldn’t let Chan come out with an omega. He would do whatever was necessary to keep his hyung to himself. 

He pressed his lips against Chan’s sternum, happy when Chan got a hand on his hair and fished him up again, kissing him, but then Jeongin tried his luck a little to hard, and when he went to kiss over Chan’s scent gland, Chan growled and turned them again, agitated, panting after the sudden exercise, and pinning Jeongin down again, face against the mud. 

“I caught you,” Chan said between pants. “I got you first. I got you all those years ago. Mine,” he mumbled, close to his neck. “You want to be mine,” he added, not a question, as he kissed Jeongin’s nape, right on the bruising from the mark he had sucked in before, making Jeongin thrash a little. “Say it,” he mumbled, his teeth bare. “Say it, or I’ll go fuck an omega.”

“You won’t-” Jeongin mumbled against the mud.

“Say it!” Chan screamed. The birds flew away; someone close by whined and started to run. 

Jeongin growled. He tried to push himself off the mud, and then he felt it as Chan’s teeth scraped his nape. 

Chan was crying. His chest wasn’t rumbling to form a growl, but in pain. 

Chan had been demanding but also begging. He needed the confirmation as much as Jeongin had needed the chase. 

And, once again, Jeongin wanted to give it to him. He wanted to submit, he wanted to say it, but his alpha wouldn’t let him, too young and proud, and too hooked up in the idea that he had been the one who caught Chan, and not the other way around, he had proved himself, Chan should be the one with his face in the mud.

So, immersed in his own debate, he only whined as an answer, and Chan, frustrated, bit down, right in the spot it would take, making Jeongin wail, screaming in pain as Chan bit again, making the mark bigger and deeper. One hand pressed Jeongin’s head down, the other went for his ass and spread his cheeks open.

“Say it,” Chan tried shouting again before biting down again in the deep, bloodied wound that wouldn’t make them mates, that was impossible between alphas, but would tie Jeongin to him in a way that their alphas understood and wanted more than breathing. 

Chan’s fingers found his hole, dry and tight, and pushed in, two at the same time, without finesse. Jeongin cried again, but the pain in his neck was greater than the stretch in his hole, even more so when Chan made him turn his head and look at him. 

Chan looked so wrecked. 

“Bite me,” Jeongin mumbled, pushing his hips back against Chan’s fingers, making him go deeper. “Mate me,” he added, as he tried to bare his neck, but the wounds on the back made it so he winced and couldn’t completely offer it. 

“Innie-”

“Hyung, please, please, mate me. Mate me, mate-”

Chan kissed the side of Jeongin’s neck, over his scent gland. It’s taste flooding Chan’s mouth, making his cock twitch and his fingers tremble. A shiver ran down his spine. 

His.

Jeongin was presenting for him, offering his neck, asking for a mating bite.

Chan had never felt his heart beat that fast.

He bit down, but it was gentle, not like before. He knew it wouldn’t take, but he pierced the gland nonetheless, praying it wouldn’t damage Jeongin, but if he had one opportunity, he had to try.

At least, he had to try, to make sure Jeongin felt it as he was feeling his fingers deep inside him. 

Jeongin moaned as Chan’s fangs sank in. 

It had to take. 

Jeongin winced, but he didn’t scream in pain, and as Chan latched onto his neck, he started to move his hips, fucking himself raw on Chan’s fingers, hoping it would open him enough for his body to realise Chan was the one supposed to have him all along. 

Chan seemed to realise too, or maybe he just couldn’t wait, because as he lapped the blood from Jeongin’s newer wound, he curled his fingers, slowly fucking them in and out of Jeongin, shushing at him when he tried to move quicker. 

Chan kissed the clean wound and moved Jeongin’s head, making him hiss, to lap at the ones in his nape too.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. 

Jeongin couldn’t answer. He was biting his lips. He was starting to feel the pain of the forceful stretch as the pain in his neck subsided slightly. Chan’s fingers weren’t that big, but it was his first time, and it all felt raw. He fought himself not to try to wiggle away as Chan kept pushing deeper, scissoring his fingers, bullying Jeongin’s hole open slowly. 

Chan kissed down his neck, much cleaner, but still hurting like hell and bleeding a little. Jeongin thanked the heavens that alpha’s and omega’s saliva had some healing agents. Chan’s kisses felt like nothing against his back, soft butterflies resting for a moment against his spine before they were gone as Jeongin tried to keep still. 

Then, Chan kissed his lower back, right in the middle, and made him jerk his hips, making Chan’s fingers finally push against his prostate. Jeongin cried in a new sensation, still not completely good, but not all bad; but as he tried to move back to make Chan press against it again, Chan’s fingers disappeared, and Jeongin felt his hot tongue against him instead.

“Chan?”

“I’m sorry, Innie. I was so rough. I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying that-” Jeongin moaned when he felt Chan’s hot tongue against his too sensitive rim, lapping at the hole and hooking in as Jeongin spasmed around nothing.

He didn’t want to think about how Chan had noticed he had been too rought, he didn’t want to think about the wetness slipping out of him as he grabbed handfuls of mud.

“I will make you wet, okay, baby?”

Baby. 

Jisung called everyone that. Chan had never called anyone that. Jeongin had dreamed he did. 

“All wet for me, leaking,” Chan mumbled, kissed one of his cheeks before he went down between both of them again, sucking at his rim. 

Jeongin moved his hands, free to do so, and bit the heel of one of them as he rested over the other. It felt like days were passing by as Chan lazily licked him, stretching him open with much more care, making him a wet mess. Jeongin’s cock came back to life, and it was leaking under him, leaving a small trail of his lust over the mud, but Chan was only worried about his hole, and Jeongin couldn’t move enough to touch his own cock, so it kept leaking, untouched, as Jeongin moaned at each new movement of Chan’s tongue. 

It took a while for Chan to feel at ease with Jeongin’s wetness to start fingering him again, much more slowly, pushing in just one finger, which surprised but didn’t hurt Jeongin, then another as he pushed his tongue in too.

“Hyung-” Jeongin whimpered and bit his tongue. He had almost said it, almost called for ‘alpha’. He was so ashamed he felt his cheeks picking up colour. But Chan didn’t notice, humming against his rim, sending shivers up Jeongin’s spine. “Chan, it’s- it’s enough- I’m not getting wetter, I’m not an omega.”

That seemed to annoy Chan, making him rumble. It wasn’t the notion that Jeongin wasn’t an omega that made him mad, but knowing he wasn’t wet enough, he would never be without lube. It would hurt him again. He was going to hurt his mate. 

Jeongin reached back, grabbed Chan’s head and tried to pull him up over his back until he could turn his neck and kiss Chan again, moaning in his mouth as Chan’s hot cock rutted against his hole.

“Come on,” Jeongin mumbled against his lips, bit down on the lower one and pulled it. “Come on, hyung,” he said, his words slurred. “Breed me-” Chan gasp was so loud it made Jeongin smirk; he felt his cock throbbing against his rim. “Mate me.” 

Chan grumbled. He didn’t waste a second, making sure he was aligned with Jeongin and pushing it as he clung to his lips, whimpering and moaning Jeongin’s name again and again.

Jeongin's tears finally came free as his breath hitched. It was painful, it was too dry, Chan was too big, his alpha was clawing at his ribecage, and Jeongin couldn’t hold his weight on his forearms anymore, but before he could faceplant, Chan embraced him, keeping him close to his chest with an arm as he held both of them up with the other until Jeongin could rest on his hands again, breathless.

“Mate,” Chan whispered, kissing the tears off Jeongin’s high cheekbones before moving down to his neck, kissing the mating mark that would heal before night came, not made to take. 

Jeongin couldn’t stop crying. It didn’t hurt anymore, not when Chan was finally, finally, inside him like he should have been the day he presented if his stupid alpha hadn’t prevented it.

The first thrust felt like something was piercing him, Jeongin wasn’t sure if blood hadn’t been drawn again, but it was alright, he couldn’t feel better, the wails of need in his head stopped, and he could think about Chan above him, covering him, kissing his mating bite again and again as he caressed Jeongin’s sides, thrusting ever so slowly in and out of him. 

Jeongin’s knot was starting to inflate, but that didn’t matter; what mattered was that he could feel Chan’s knot against his rim. He was going to knot him as his soft lips traced the evidence of their mating. 

And Jeongin couldn’t stop the silly smile spreading on his face as he thought about how not a single omega would dare approach Chan again after Jeongin bit him back; their scents mixed together. 

As if he had heard his thoughts, Chan thrusted deeper into him, then moved out completely, making Jeongin whine. He shushed him and, turning him, laid him on the floor softly.

“Bite me,” Chan whispered as he pushed inside again, setting a quicker rhythm, making his knot catch again and again in Jeongin’s rim, but not going inside yet. “Mark me too, Innie.”

Jeongin pushed Chan’s neck against his mouth. He bit as deep as he could, maybe like that the mark would stay there, and as he did, Chan turned his head and Jeongin made sure his neck was bared for him, too. 

“It’ll hurt- It won’t take-” Chan mumbled. 

Jeongin kicked him as an answer, making Chan whine and thrust deeper. 

“Don’t care. I don’t care, hyung, please, please,” Jeongin whined, almost growled again, pushing his heels on Chan’s back so he would get closer. 

Chan kissed the previous mark, already closing, even when the rest of the bites weren’t, and he felt the need to bite deep within him. Something told him if he tried right then, if he bit down hard enough, deep enough, it would defy biology and take, that Jeongin’s mark would also decorate his own neck in return. 

“Alpha,” Jeongin whined, baring his neck once again. 

Chan bit down, deep and rough as he thrusted inside Jeongin, finally knotting him. Jeongin couldn’t help but come, overwhelmed by the sensations. Chan’s deep bite hurt, but having his scent gland pierced again was sending waves of pleasure to his core in a way it shouldn’t, and Chan’s knot inside him made him felt split open, stretched way beyond his limits. 

He bit down on Chan’s neck again, right over his scent gland, as he came, throbbing between their bodies and milking Chan’s knot inside himself. 

He felt Chan kissing him, kissing his tears and panting over him, asking something, but he fell asleep before he could answer, overwhelmed, maybe he had passed away, but he had never felt happier, as full or completed. 

He woke up in the infirmary, almost jumping out of the bed and panicking until he saw a nurse.

“Hi, good afternoon, how are you feeling?” she asked. “I’m your nurse, you’re at the-”

“Where- sorry- where is-”

“Your- ah, I mean, the alpha that was with you?” Jeongin nodded. “He brought you here, but we asked him to wait outside-”

“Why? Let him come in, let him-”

“He’s alright, we can talk before-”

“Let him in!” Jeongin screamed.

The nurse took a step back, then nodded. Jeongin felt shitty for having shouted at a nurse, but he needed Chan. He felt like his insides were yelling for him. He sniffed and realised that he didn’t smell of vanilla that much anymore, when he was supposed to be drenched in it inside and out. It wasn’t fair, he should-

“Hey, Innie, baby.”

Jeongin breathed again. He opened his arms, and Chan looked surprised, overwhelmed by Jeongin asking for affection when Chan thought he would never see him again. He ran to bury himself between Jeongin’s arms. Grateful that jeongin still smelled faintly of him even after the nurse's care. 

“Hyung,” Jeongin muttered against his neck, sniffing him, then he started to rub his head there, scenting him. “Hyung, don’t go.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Innie.”

“Stop running from me.”

“You would catch me anyway if I do, won’t you?”

Jeongin smiled, pressing his nose to Chan’s scent gland. He realised then that the mark of his bite was still there. Had they not cared for him? How long had it been? Maybe only minutes. He moved his hand to touch his own and he found out that it had been bandaged alongside the rest of his neck. So not minutes then. 

“Hyung?”

“Ah- yes. It’s not healing, but don’t worry! The doctor told me not to worry. They want to speak to us. Well, to you first, they have to make sure that I…  I didn’t do anything to you- I’m- I’m so sorry, Innie.”

“Hyung, please, don’t start it.”

“But-”

“Chan. Come on. I was the one chasing you, I… I’ve been wanting to be with you forever,” he muttered, his head hidden in Chan’s neck crook. 

Chan smiled and embraced him closer.

“Alright, alright,” Chan whispered, kissing the top of his head. “Me too, Innie. I wanted you forever ago.” 

It was reassuring to feel Jeongin’s heartbeat against his own. Chan had felt Jeongin fall asleep on his knot right after cumming and almost had a heart attack, thinking he had hurt him for real, irreversibly. He had tried waking him up, but Jeongin would only open his eyes, smile softly and fall asleep again, so he ran them to the nearest infirmary within the mating run area as soon as his knot deflated.

The nurses had been very attentive to Jeongin, looking very worried. They had called one of the ER doctors to the tent as they tended to Chan’s bites. 

That had not reassured him in the slightest. 

When his bites were tended to, they asked him to wait outside and didn’t let him in the room as the doctor examined Jeongin nor after he was done. The doctor hadn’t come out for almost an hour. 

“Mister Yang, I see you are awake,” the doctor said, coming back into the room after a soft knocking. “There’s something we have to talk about, alright?”

Jeongin nodded and let go of Chan, but he caught himself missing him as soon as Chan was out of the room. The doctor asked about their relationship before the mating run and the events of the mating run itself. When she determined that everything was okay, she called Chan in.

Jeongin let out a long breath he didn’t know he was holding, and was grateful that Chan ran to his side and held him in his arms instantly.

“Do you mind if I ask, are you two usually this tactile?”

“Ah…” Chan started. He looked at Jeongin, who had pressed his cheek to Chan’s arm, hiding on it, still sitting in the camilla. “Well, I’m usually very touchy-feely, but Jeongin isn’t that much, I think.”

“How were you feeling while you waited outside, Mr Bang?”

“Oh, you can call me Chan. I- Well, it wasn’t great, I was worried sick.”

“Anything else?”

“Hm, I guess I just… I needed to be with Innie, Jeongin, I mean. I- I felt like I would explode if I didn’t come in soon, but I knew it was important for his health, so I stayed outside.”

“Can I check your bite again, Chan?” she asked. Chan nodded and moved a little to the side so she could take a look at his neck, but he didn’t let go of Jeongin’s hand, who gripped it more strongly, and she noticed it. She inspected the bite, lifting the gauze covering it. It was bumpy, healing, but in no way going to disappear. “Well, it’s… It’s clearly a mating bite.”

“What?” Jeongin almost jumped from the bed to see it himself. When the fuck had Chan had time to get matted by an omega? Had he- No, he smelled of cayenne and apples… but that wasn’t possible.

“It seems like you have successfully mated, boys.”

“I-”

“That’s not-” they both tried at the same time.

“But what’s important right now, and what I want to talk with you about is… more of a sensitive subject. So, have you ever heard the layman term: ‘bitching’?”