Chapter Text
Ricky has this thing that he does.
A few weeks before his heat, he finds a target . Some random Alpha that thinks more with their dick than their brain. He seduces them, plays up the coy act, bats his eyes nice and pretty, and convinces the Alpha to spend his heat with him.
And then the second his heat is over, he ghosts the guy and never sees him again.
It’s perfect.
Always works like a charm.
Why mess with perfection?
“The usual?”
“You know me so well,” Ricky replies, pointedly looking down at the barista's lips before looking back up to his eyes. “A man after my own heart.”
His current target is handsome enough.
A little nervous every time Ricky comes in, but eager to please, like an oversized puppy.
He’s probably recently presented, not like the older men that Ricky normally goes for. But two weeks ago, he stepped into the coffee shop in search of some sugary confection to bribe his niece with, and the moment he set eyes on the barista in question, he knew that this was going to be his current target. Even if he’s new to his Alphaness, he’s tall, he’s got big hands and a coffee scent that clings to him lightly- Ricky knows he’s got to be big .
It’s not that Ricky’s a size queen, but… He knows that he’s pretty enough to have standards.
The barista, Gyuvin, smiles- so clearly unaware of all the cogs Ricky is working to put into motion.
“Well, you are my favorite customer,” Gyuvin says, though he seems a little flustered after admitting it, as if he hadn’t meant to say all of that outloud.
“Don’t tell me you say that to everyone,” Ricky says, pouting a little.
“No! No, just you!”
Ricky grins, yes, he does so love it when everything falls perfectly into place, “Good.”
The effect that Ricky’s praise has on Gyuvin is instantly noticeable. Oh yes, that will be fun to play with during his heat. All of the Alphas he’s been with before have been good at getting down to the business of things, fucking him until he forgot his name, which was lovely.
But someone that was so eager to please, well…
Ricky had to admit he liked the idea of making an Alpha work for it, even if once horny brain took over, he might forget all about hs desire to have the pretty little barista begging for a chance to fuck him.
Still, they weren’t quite there yet, but in a few weeks, if he puts in the right amount of work, they could be.
And who knows, maybe if the sex was really good, he wouldn’t ghost Gyuvin after.
Just maybe .
Until then, he takes the coffee that he can hardly stand back from Gyuvin, giving him a practiced smile and says - “Same time tomorrow?”
“Oh I don’t work tomorrow,” Gyuvin says, “But I’ll be back on Thursday, except it’s the closing shift so…” Gyuvin trails off. “I open again on Friday?”
Ricky purses his lips.
He needs as much time as he can with Gyuvin for his plan to work.
Waiting until Friday morning for another five minute flirtatious conversation is too long. Not with the clock to his next heat ticking down with each passing day.
Thursday evening would mean coming with Yeseo in tow, unless he dropped her off at her chess lesson, and then came over afterwards. But the young girl would never let him live it down if he went and got Starbucks without her.
It wasn’t ideal, but it could work… Plus some Alphas liked the idea of an Omega that could look after children. It incited their inner breeding kink, or some bullshit like that.
“You guys close at seven, right?”
“Eight,” Gyuvin corrects.
“Perfect, I’ll see you Thursday.”
*
“Here’s the situation,” he says, pulling out of her elementary school parking lot. “I’m going to go in there and flirt, and you, my wonderful perfect favorite member of our pack, are going to go and order the most elaborate drink possible, so that it takes him at least ten minutes to make it, so I can spend those ten minutes flirting, you got it?”
“I have never been more ready,” Yeseo replies. “I’ve been training for this moment since birth .”
He wouldn’t be surprised if his six year old niece had been training to be the worst customer in existence since birth, especially considering how her parents were.
Ricky loves his sister, Xiaoting, he really does (most of the time), but nobody ever says ‘Xiaoting,’ and a ‘pleasure to be around’ in the same sentence without a touch of sarcasm. That, combined with Ricky’s sister-in-law Chaehyun, star of about a hundred Disney channel original movies, had led to an absolutely disastrous combination in the form of their six year old daughter.
The fact that they hadn’t been able to keep a nanny for her for more than a week at a time was testament to the fact that when Yeseo wanted to be difficult, she could be the most difficult person in the world.
The only person she didn’t actively try to run up the walls was Ricky.
A small miracle, as far as he was concerned.
“Question,” Yeseo asks from the backseat. “Once you break his heart, where am I going to get my frappuccinos?”
“At any of the other coffee shops in a five block radius of your school?”
“Fair enough, proceed.”
It’s not the first time that he’s brought Yeseo into the Starbucks with him. In fact, it had been due to her that he’d stopped in here the very first time, when Gyuvin had appeared to take their orders and flashed a charming smile that had haunted Ricky’s thoughts all evening.
Just normally he prefers not to have her tagging along, that way he can properly get his flirt on.
But sometimes sacrifices must be made.
Plus, who knows, maybe Gyuvin was one of those Alpha’s that liked to see proof that the Omega they were going after would be great with kids. Not that Ricky would be having his kids, but if the Alpha wanted to spend his heat insisting that he was going to knock Ricky up, well… Ricky was sure his horny heat brain would be into that, even if it was physically impossible.
He pulls into the loading zone in front of the Starbucks, before getting out and helping Yeseo out of the back as well.
“Don’t forget the plan,” he tells her, right before he pushes open the door to the coffee shop.
“I’ve got this.”
It’s perfect.
Everything should go according to the plan, except… The person behind the counter is not Gyuvin.
Ricky pauses, unwilling to get in line and order from anyone else. It’s not like he had gotten the date or time wrong, but he still checks his watch to be sure, before asking the girl behind the counter, “Where’s Gyuvin?”
The girl smiles in a way that seems just a bit too knowing.
At least someone was aware of what plans Ricky was setting into motion. Even if the Alpha himself still seemed to be mostly unaware. “He’s in the back.”
“Go get him.”
“I can take your order-”
Ricky looks her up and down dismissively, “I said, go get him.”
That earns him an eye roll from the irrelevant barista girl, but she does go into the back and return with Gyuvin only a moment later. Gyuvin’s face lights up at the sight of him.
It really is just too easy to get Alphas eating out of the palm of his hand.
“Hey Ricky, the usual?”
“Yes, the usual for me,” Ricky replies, his tone much sweeter with Gyuvin than it had been with his coworker, “And Yeseo would like,” he turns, prompting the young girl.
Yeseo, who really has been waiting for this moment her whole life, smiles, “I'd like a venti green tea creme frappuccino with blackberry syrup, matcha powder, crushed graham crackers, those little rainbow sprinkles, and just a sprig of mint.”
“I don’t think we have graham crackers,” Gyuvin tells her.
Yeseo rolls her eyes, clearly channeling her inner Xiaoting as she replies, “Then find some? Isn’t the customer always right?”
“Uh…” Gyuvin pauses, looking up at him for support.
Ricky shrugs.
He had told her to be as difficult as possible.
“I mean, we have the dark chocolate covered grahams, I guess if you wanted to buy those you could crumble them on top,” Gyuvin suggests, still looking hesitant.
“If I wanted to crush my own grahams, I would have done so at home ,” Yeseo replies.
“Right, uh…” Another look Ricky’s way for support, before he finally accepts that the only correct answer is giving into the six year old’s demands. “I guess I can do that?”
“Don’t guess, do .”
“Yes, your highness.”
Oh, he can be sassy when he wants to too.
How fun!
“Yeseo, why don’t you go draw on the chalkboard,” Ricky says, gesturing towards the wall where the ‘question of the month’ is written up on it. They share a brief look, Yeseo clearly looking for a sign that she’s done what he had asked. Ricky nods at her slowly, and the girl smiles, the bratty persona slipping right back into place.
“Don’t take too long, Gavin, I don’t want to be late for my chess club,” Yeseo says, before skipping off towards the chalkboard wall, to give Ricky his moment with Gyuvin.
The female coworker of Gyuvin’s has returned from the back and waves the next person in line over to her, while Gyuvin steps to the side to make Ricky’s drink before he tries to make Yeseo’s complicated mess of a drink.
Which gives Ricky the perfect opportunity to talk to him - “Sorry about her, I can crumble the graham crackers on there before I give it to her so you don’t have to.”
He absolutely won’t be doing that, but he’d give the crackers to Yeseo to eat in the car, which was good enough as far as Ricky was concerned.
“No, no, it’s chill,” Gyuvin says, quickly. “I’m an expert graham cracker crusher.”
“Is that right,” Ricky asks, he leans against the counter to talk to Gyuvin as he goes about making her drink. His own drink is slid across the counter to him, and Ricky picks it up, taking a small sip.
He actually doesn’t really enjoy coffee.
The taste is altogether unpleasant.
But it reminds him of the coffee scent that clings to Gyuvin, and so he finds himself ordering the same thing, time and time again, with the Alpha in mind.
“You should put that on your resume,” Ricky says, as he watches Gyuvin roll his fist over the closed bag of chocolate covered grahams to crush them fully before opening it up to top Yeseo’s drink with them. “Expert graham cracker crusher.”
“I’ll add it to my LinkedIn,” Gyuvin replies. “I’ll probably be getting all the job offers once I’ve got that title up there.”
“Oh I’ll bet.”
“Honestly, though, don’t worry about it,” Gyuvin tells him. “She’s not my most demanding customer.”
“You’ve had worse?”
“Oh, all the time,” he replies with a laugh. “Try working in customer service for a week, and you’ll have all kinds of stories. Though I’m sure you’ve got your hands full as it is with that one,” Gyuvin nods in the direction of Yeseo. Where she is currently drawing a picture of a cat along the bottom of their chalk wall.
She’s admittedly pretty good at drawing, but she’s also had a private art tutor since she was three, so Ricky would hope at this point that she’d be able to draw a cat.
“Plus you know,” Gyuvin says. “If it gives you an excuse to keep coming by, I don’t mind making something extra up for her.”
Ricky smiles.
Oh yes, it’s all coming together now.
*
They soon get into a comfortable routine.
He grabs Yeseo from school, they swing by the Starbucks when Gyuvin is working, Yeseo continues to order the most elaborate drinks that she can think of so that he has extra time at the counter to talk to Gyuvin.
It’s progress.
Slow progress, considering how each day is a ticking time bomb, getting closer and closer to his heat, but it’s progress.
He just needs a little push to move things along in the right direction, which is why when Gyuvin hands him his drink the next time Ricky stops by, Ricky lets his hand linger on the cup just a moment too long, so that their fingers brush together while he’s looking up at Gyuvin.
It works like a charm, because the second he pulls back, Gyuvin says - “Actually, I’m about to take my thirty!”
Ricky blinks up at him, feigning confusion, “What?”
“Like, uh, I could take my break,” Gyuvin explains. “If you don’t have anywhere else to be, we could hang out and chat at one of the tables while you finish your drink?”
He did so love it when everything went according to plan.
Ricky holds up one finger to tell Gyuvin to hold on before switching to speaking in Chinese to tell Yeseo, “You’re skipping chess club.”
Ricky’s Chinese isn’t great. His older brother Hao had done his best to teach him (and his sister, Xiaoting) when they were younger, but most of it had gone in one ear and out the other, as far as Ricky was concerned. Where his sister had loved having a secret language to talk shit about people in, Ricky hadn’t seen much of a point of paying attention while he was younger.
He’d picked up just enough to make simple sentences. Yeseo’s was probably even worse than his, having only really learned from him and her mother, and really having never practiced speaking it.
The girl tilts her head to the side in confusion. “What?”
“No chess.”
“Why?”
He looks pointedly at Gyuvin and then back to her, hoping that the six year old can put the dots together. Thankfully she does, as she quickly replies with, “You tell Mother.”
Ah yes, he was so looking forward to explaining to his sister that he’d failed to take her pride and joy to one of her sixteen extracurricular activities, because he was trying to seduce the local Starbucks barista into spending a week fucking him.
Actually, she might be okay with that.
“Fine,” Ricky agrees, before switching back into English to smile at Gyuvin and reply, “I’d love that.”
*
After that, it becomes a thing .
Every time Ricky stops in the Starbucks, Gyuvin rings up his drinks, fucks about making whatever awful concoction Yeseo had demanded of him, and then they sit at the table chatting about anything that Ricky can think of while Yeseo plays games on her phone. It’s a good system, and sure, he does have to pick her up from school earlier to make it work, but it’s not like they learn anything in first grade anyways.
“My sister actually runs an Instagram account for our dog,” Gyuvin says. “Eumppappa is a social media icon. She has like thousands of followers.”
“People do seem to really like pet accounts,” Ricky muses.
His own social media following was nothing to scoff at. What Ricky may have lacked in real life companions, he made up for in the thousands of people that followed him and responded to his outfit of the day or shopping haul posts by telling him how much they’d like to fuck him. Alphas were always very predictable, and while he never responded to most of the private messages or knot pics sent his way, it always was nice to know how desirable he was.
“Oh! You should follow her!”
“I’d rather follow you,” Ricky replied flirtatiously, “Speaking of, you should give me your number.”
“Really,” Gyuvin says, a bit too loud and overeager.
Ricky really did love it when Alphas were pathetically obsessed with him. Like he was handing out scraps.
Except, Gyuvin wasn’t like other Alphas.
Despite the fact that Ricky was clearly flirting with him, Gyuvin seemed to flirt back in a way that was more hesitant, like he couldn’t believe that he was lucky enough to have Ricky flirting with him.
Which baffled Ricky.
Gyuvin’s handsome, tall, funny - all the sorts of traits people would look for in a boyfriend - plus, his hands were huge. Ricky could so clearly imagine those hands on his waist pushing him down into the mattress as Gyuvin fucks him. The second Ricky had seen him, he’d known that Gyuvin would be the perfect target to spend his heat with.
But where any other Alpha would have responded to Ricky’s flirting with intention, the way all those strangers that filled up his private messages always did, Gyuvin didn’t. Instead, he acted surprised each time Ricky clearly tried to flirt with him.
It was confusing, to say the least.
“Really,” Ricky confirms. “What’s your number?”
“Okay, yeah that’d be awesome,” Gyuvin nods. “I can type it in, or..” Gyuvin pauses looking over at Yeseo.
Is that why he hasn’t been so openly flirty?
Because he doesn’t want to say anything inappropriate in front of a child.
Ricky supposed that could make sense.
He wished he was able to pick up some sign of what Gyuvin was feeling from his scent, but the Alpha seems to have impeccable scent control - that, or the coffee shop they’re sitting in does a good job to mask his coffee scent - because all Ricky is ever able to pick up is a baseline scent.
“She isn’t paying attention,” Ricky tells Gyuvin.
“Oh no, uh, it’s not that. Don’t you need your phone back to get my number?”
“I have my phone,” Ricky replies, pulling his phone out of his pocket, unlocking it, and sliding it across the table for Gyuvin to enter his number in. “Wait - hold on, did you think Yeseo was playing games on my phone?”
As if he’d keep his own phone in a hot pink fuzzy phone case.
“Yes?”
“That’s her phone.”
“Why does a six year old have their own phone,” Gyuvin asks, “I didn’t get one of my own until high school.”
“To call people,” Ricky replies, “Obviously.”
“Yeah, right, that totally makes sense.”
“You really didn’t get a phone until high school?”
“Well, the summer before high school, but yeah?”
“Huh.”
“Wait, when did you get your first phone,” Gyuvin asks.
“My sixth birthday.”
Gyuvin laughs like he’s just told the funniest joke in the world. And despite the fact that Ricky was very much not joking, he finds himself laughing a little too.
Gyuvin’s happiness is infectious.
A warm feeling takes hold inside Ricky’s chest at the sound of their shared laughter. Something he’s not sure he’s ever really felt before. Like a single butterfly batting its wings against his rib cage.
Thankfully, the alarm that Gyuvin sets to let him know when his break is over goes off before Ricky can try to unpack that feeling.
*
“Yeseo says you’re seeing someone?”
Ricky groans.
He’d wanted to bring the topic up himself, not be ambushed by his family about it.
Well… Actually, he’d wanted to never discuss it at all, but if it was going to be brought up, he’d rather have brought it up himself.
“It’s not like that,” Ricky says.
Because it really is not.
He’s not dating Gyuvin.
He just sometimes goes to the same Starbucks multiple times a day to flirt, and sometimes Gyuvin takes his break so they can sit and chat together, and now they’re texting every single day.
Sure, it’s more than he’s ever done with any of his previous hookups, but that doesn’t mean anything.
Though he has a feeling that his sister won’t agree with his assessment of the situation, not with the way she pointedly glances at the iced Americano in his hand.
“How much caffeine is in that?”
“A normal amount,” Ricky replies, defensively.
Xiaoting doesn’t seem to like that answer, but she spares him the ‘caffeine is a bad idea for someone with your delicate condition’ lecture. He’s sure she’ll send Hao or Chaehyun after him to give that lecture later.
For now though, she circles back to the matter that Ricky would very much like to avoid discussing with her. “Are you sure you’re not seeing someone? Yeseo seems quite insistent.”
“You shouldn’t listen to everything Yeseo says,” Ricky insists. “She’s six.”
“My daughter doesn’t lie to me,” Xiaoting replies. It would seem like a harmless statement, if it weren’t for the way her words and tone seems to imply that she thinks that someone else would lie to her.
Not just someone else.
Him.
Ricky bristles, even though he really doesn’t have anything to hide, he can’t stand it when she does this.
He and his sister haven’t always seen eye to eye on these sorts of things.
As far as she seemed to be concerned, there should be no secrets in their pack, and anyone doing so was directly undermining her authority as the head (and only) Alpha of their pack.
This was a point of contention between the two of them at many times throughout the years that she’s been the head of their pack. He’s talked about it with his therapist, and knows that her need to be aware of everything that’s happening is more of a protective instinct than a controlling one, but at the same time… A part of him always jumps from fight to flight at the idea of being told what to do by his sister.
He remembers all too clearly how they’d first sat down, a pack of three at the time. Ricky had been unpresented and only twelve at the time, and Xiaoting went over the rules and expectations for their pack with him and their brother Hao. Explaining that as head Alpha, she would never try to control them the way that their grandfather or parents had in the past, but that in exchange, they would keep nothing from her. While his brother, Hao, had never seemed to have any issues with that….
Ricky finds himself struggling more often than not.
Sometimes it was little things, like when he was still in school and he’d hidden a bad grade at the bottom of his school bag so that Xiaoting wouldn’t see it.
Other times, it was bigger…
So maybe he had been keeping what was slowly developing with him and Gyuvin a secret, but if he was, it was only to have something of his own to hold onto.
“It’s just for my heat,” he tells her. Even though as he says the words, he’s less sure. Gyuvin is nice and fun, and a great listener. Way different than any of the other Alphas that Ricky had flirted with in the past just so he wouldn’t have to spend his heats alone. “I’ll probably ghost him afterwards, don’t worry.”
Xiaoting nods. “If it becomes more than that, I want to meet him.”
Ricky grimaces.
The last thing he wants is for Gyuvin and Xiaoting to ever meet, “Sure.”
“Ricky, I’m serious.”
“I know,” he replies briskly, turning to walk away from her.
“Ricky? Hold on a second.”
He’d really rather not do that. But while he doesn’t continue walking out of the room, he also doesn’t turn around to give her his full attention, he just asks, “What?”
“I’m taking my wife and daughter with me to New York this weekend,” Xiaoting says. “If this thing you have going on is more serious than you’d like me to know, perhaps you should use your free time to make plans with this boy that doesn’t involve exposing your body to nearly lethal levels of caffeine. Just a thought.”
That’s not actually the worst idea in the world.
Normally, he wouldn’t put in the effort.
His last three heats, he’d picked an Alpha at random, sent them a series of sexts and near nude photos, then asked them to spend his heat with him.
“It’s not that serious,” he says, even though he’s already mentally making plans to do exactly what she had suggested.
“Yes, of course, my mistake.”
*
He has a plan.
Not a solid fully formed one, but like the beginnings of a plan. Gyuvin works the closing shift today, which means he’s off at eight, and maybe if Ricky comes late enough and asks if he’s free afterwards, just maybe they could move their conversations to a secondary location, and then -
Well, he’s not sure what happens after that.
He’s never actually been on a date before that didn’t end in him getting fucked.
Whilr he certainly wouldn’t mind if Gyuvin did fuck him, it’s just that maybe, just maybe , he wouldn’t mind figuring out what people normally do on dates.
That plan goes to shit in a matter of minutes, as his phone rings with his sister’s contact information flashing across the screen.
“Hey, how’s New York?”
“I’m texting you an address, I need you to go there and pick up Yujin.”
For a second, his impulse is to feel annoyed that his plans had to be canceled, before her words seem to click into place.
Yujin should be attending his first tennis lesson today, Hao had spent all of this morning scrambling around to try and get Yujin some tennis equipment. Ricky had accompanied him out of sheer boredom, having not much to do with himself.
If he needed to pick up Yujin, then - “Is Hao okay?”
“He’s in heat,” Xiaoting replies.
He had to have heard her wrong. Hao hasn’t had a heat in years - “That’s impossible.”
“Apparently he’s met his True Mate,” Xiaoting says.
“Who?”
“Yujin’s tennis instructor,” she says, pausing as if looking at something on her phone before she says, “I believe his name is Hanbin. Which is why you need to go get Yujin and look after him until either we’re back or Hao’s heat is over, whichever comes first.”
Well, there go his plans of trying to figure out this whole dating thing.
Ricky sighs softly.
There’s a small part of him that’s annoyed at having to put his own plans on hold for the sake of looking after Yujin, but a larger part of him feels guilty for even thinking of that. It wasn’t like the pup had done anything wrong himself. Plus, he knows Hao would probably feel terrible to know that Ricky had canceled what could potentially be his first date ever in order to look after his son once he was out of his heat, if Ricky were to bring it up.
He pointedly won’t be doing that.
It’s not like Hao could control the universe, deciding that now was the perfect time for him to meet his True Mate.
It just… sometimes Ricky wishes something like that could happen to him.
But he’s not foolish enough to believe fate is in the cards for him.
He’s lucky to be alive at all, after everything that had happened before.
That was probably all the good cards the universe had to offer him.
“I’ll let you know when I have Yujin.”
“Thank you,” she replies. “And let me know what you think of Hao’s Alpha. I trust your judgment.”
*
Ricky’s first thought is that Hao’s Alpha doesn’t seem like anything particularly special.
He’s attractive enough in his athletic wear, with a clear nervous edge about him that comes off clearly in his cinnamon scent. And he does live in a nice building, not as nice as the one the Shen pack lives in, but for a single Alpha living by himself, the location is nice. A small point in the Alpha’s favor.
“Uncle Ricky,” Yujin yells, darting away from his father’s True Mate to run over to Ricky. Ricky bends down to scoop the pup up, who promptly hides his face against Ricky’s neck, in a desire to be soothed and scented.
That guilty feeling from before comes back again as he rubs his cheek against the pup to scent him; he hates seeing any member of his pack in such clear distress.
Despite Yujin’s distress, the pup doesn’t seem to be harmed. Another point in the Hanbin’s favor.
“So I’ll be back for Hao in a day? Maybe two?”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“You think you two will be at it longer than that,” Ricky asks, arching an eyebrow in a practiced manner. As much as he enjoys riling strangers up- and he does, he could do this all day- Ricky would still rather be anywhere but here. “Look, you have my number, just text me how it’s going and when his heat finally breaks, you can message me, and I’ll come around?”
“No, No - I just - I think you should take Hao with you,” Hanbin insists.
That’s surprising.
Ricky had assumed that any Alpha would jump at the chance to fuck an Omega in heat, every Alpha Ricky had ever encountered had. The fact that Hanbin seems to be hesitant to do so is surprising.
Especially considering how sure Xiaoting had been on the phone that Hanbin was Hao’s True Mate. Ricky would have thought that having known each other for lifetimes would be enough to convince the Alpha to help Hao through his heat?
Yet, he is an Alpha clearly distressed by the idea of doing so.
“Regardless of whether or not Hao and I are True Mates. I’ve just met your brother, you can’t honestly think that leaving him with a stranger is a good idea, right?”
What would Hao want him to say?
His strong, independent older brother had always insisted that he didn’t need an Alpha to look after him, but at the same time, had on more than one occasion got tipsy enough to insist that he was still holding out hope of meeting his True Mate.
Hao believes in destiny.
Secretly, underneath it all, his brother is a hopeless romantic in the way that Ricky never could be. He’d probably want this.
And even if not - “No can do, Xiaoting said to only take the kid.”
“Okay, but your brother is upstairs in my home and in heat!”
“And what do you want little Omega me to do about that?” Ricky slides his hands over Yujin’s ears before saying, “Fuck my brother?”
Hanbin flushes with embarrassment, the emotion reflected in his cinnamon scent, “No, god, I didn’t mean it like that!”
“Oh sure, I heard all about your phone call to Xiaoting,” Ricky scoffs. He admittedly had found that part of the situation mildly humorous. “If Xiaoting says you’re the one most suited for the job, who am I to question her?”
“You’re really just trusting me, a strange Alpha, that you are meeting for the first time right now-”
“Xiaoting said-”
“She’s in New York,” Hanbin snaps at him. “What does it matter what she said?”
His inner Omega curls back from the Alpha’s sharp tone, bristling at once at the suggestion of ignoring his Pack Alpha’s instructions to follow the advice of this other Alpha.
He wouldn’t do it.
But the harsh tone of the Alpha leaves him off balance for a second, before the walls he’s spent years building up fall back into place. “Clearly you’ve never met my sister.”
Hanbin falters a bit at that. “Surely, she can’t be that bad?”
“I haven’t seen my parents since I was eleven, when Xiaoting banished them to Florida for pissing her off,” Ricky says.
Though that’s not true at all, a simplified version of his past for this stranger.
Certainly when he was eleven, she had gotten custody and taken him away from them, but that had been after a lengthy legal negotiation process regarding the abuse that she and Hao had suffered at their hands. A negotiation in which Ricky had been used as a bargaining chip, that Xiaoting would get custody of him in exchange for dropping the charges against them, and their parents agreeing to never reach out to try and contact them again.
To be fair, they hadn’t been the ones that reached out.
He had.
And that.. No, best not to think about the fact that the last time he actually saw his parents was in a different courtroom, just weeks before his seventeenth birthday.
He keeps the mask in place, keeps up the rich boy persona that used to feel natural when he was younger, but now sometimes feels like a costume he has to put on each morning.
“I can't live in Florida, I’m too delicate and homosexual,” Ricky tells him. “The Floridians would eat me alive, if the alligators didn’t get to me first!”
“I’m sure if you just explain the situation to her, she would understand.”
“She knows the situation,” Ricky says, cutting him off, before replying sarcastically, “Look, Hanbin, as fun as this conversation is, and it is so fun, the barista that I’ve been flirting with for the past few weeks is due to be off shift in twenty minutes, and I am halfway across town. So if you’ll excuse me, I have a future dick appointment to acquire.”
Yujin pipes up next to him before Hanbin can reply, asking “Uncle Ricky, what’s a ‘dick appointment?’”
Well, fuck .
“Who wants their favorite uncle to get them a pup cup as long as they promise never to say those words again where your daddy or Auntie Xiaoting can hear you?”
“Me! Me!”
“That’s my favorite nephew.”
“Uncle Ricky,” Yujin says, “I’m your only nephew…”
“And my smartest nephew, wow look at that,” Ricky replies, as he unlocks the door of his car and slides Yujin into the booster seat in the back. Technically it’s Yeseo’s seat, but it’ll probably do the job well enough.
“Hey, hold on-” Hanbin says, trying to stop him from leaving.
Ricky sighs, he’s had enough of this conversation. “I already told you I’m leaving. Call me when Hao’s heat breaks, capiche?”
And with that, he moves around to the driver’s side of the car, unwilling to hear anything else Hao’s True Mate has to say on the matter.
He glances in the rear view mirror as he pulls out, Hanbin still looks conflicted, but eventually he does turn around and head back up towards his building.
Hopefully everything does go well with Hao and his Alpha.
Hao deserves as much.
Ricky glances at the clock as he goes to queue up a Disney music playlist for Yujin to listen to.
It’s going to be cutting it close, but he should still be able to make it before Gyuvin gets off.
Though he will probably have taken his break already, but still he wants to try - “Don’t let me forget to take a selfie with you to send your dad later, okay?”
“Roger, roger,” Yujin says, saluting him.
Hao’s kid is an odd one, that’s for sure.
“Uncle Ricky?”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“You never answered my question.”
“What question, little man?”
“What’s a ‘dick appointment’?”
*
“Hey, sorry, we’re late, I,” Ricky hesitates.
It’s too much to explain to Gyuvin.
Too much to explain to someone he hardly knows.
“Yujin’s dad had something come up unexpectedly,” Ricky eventually settles on. “I was going to come by sooner-“ and ask you on a date “-But I couldn’t.”
Gyuvin still smiles at him, he’s always smiling, “It’s chill, though uh, I sort of thought you weren’t coming so I already took my break.”
“Yeah, right, that makes sense,” Ricky nods. “I’ll just get the usual then, and a pup cup for Yujin, and we’ll get out of your hair and-“
“I know a good ice cream place around here,” Gyuvin says, cutting him off. “If you want, once we close up here, we could go and take Yujin, and hang out for a bit there?”
“Oh that’s,” maybe his plans for having a first date weren’t completely dashed.
“If you don’t want to though it’s chill, shit, you probably have things to do.”
“No, no, I want to.”
“You sure?”
There it is again, that look of wonder.
What has Ricky done to deserve to be looked at like that?
“Yes, I’m sure.”
*
He’s got both Yeseo and Yujin with him the next time he ends up at the Starbucks that Gyuvin works at, because apparently it’s now his responsibility to shuffle Yujin to his tennis lessons too, since Hao was having a whole complicated situationship with his True Mate.
At least they’re able to entertain themselves coloring in Yeseo’s coloring book together at the table next to him and Gyuvin.
“You know, it’s really cool that the family you nanny for lets you drive their Tesla,” Gyuvin says. “I was telling all my friends about how cool the car is after last week, like talk about perks of the job!”
Ricky shoots Gyuvin a confused look, like he just spoke gibberish. Nothing he says makes sense, “Of course I can drive it, that’s my Tesla.”
“Wow, shit, really?”
“Mother bought it for Ricky as a Christmas present,” Yeseo says, apparently she has been paying attention to their conversation.
Yeseo wasn’t wrong.
Though technically, Xiaoting bought everything.
The credit card he swiped whenever he bought anything had her name attached to it, even his Trust Fund was from her.
“Dude, do you know any other rich families that need a nanny,” Gyuvin says, “I’ll quit this job right now, a Tesla for Christmas, holy shit.”
“I’m not a nanny.”
“Right, like an au pair, or whatever,” Gyuvin says. “Bahiyyih told me about them, you like join their pack and raise their kids for them in exchange for college assistance. I guess that only works for Omegas though, but surely someone has to want a B-“
“Hold on, you think I’m their nanny ,” Ricky says, cutting him off.
“Yes.”
Yeseo snickers at the other table. Old enough to know that he’s being insulted.
“Oh my god,” Ricky says, “You’re joking right?”
“Are you not?”
“That’s so embarrassing,” Yeseo tells him, now fully tuned into the conversation. “Silly Gavin, Ricky’s my Brother-Uncle-Cousin-Best Friend, not my nanny. ”
“Huh?”
Well, she wasn’t too far off the mark.
Except - “I’m not your cousin, that would imply I’m Hao’s kid, or my own kid.”
“You’re Yujin’s cousin,” she counters, “And Yujinnie is my cousin. So you’re also my cousin.”
“I’m your mom’s brother, not yours,” he tells her.
Yeseo shakes her head, “Wrong.”
“I’m confused now,” Gyuvin says. “You’re really not their nanny?”
“No,” he tells Gyuvin. “Where would you even get that idea?”
Gyuvin shrugs. “You always have the kids with you, and don’t you pick her up from school and take her to all her clubs? It just made the most sense.”
He supposes when Gyuvin puts it like that, his logic does sort of make sense. Ricky does take Yeseo too and from school, and runs around taking his niece wherever else she wants to go, but that’s just because he had the most free time out of anyone else in this pack. With Xiaoting running Shen Global, Chaehyun flying around the country for acting gigs, and Hao going to graduate school, a lot of the responsibilities when it came to the pups had been handed off to Ricky, but that’s only because he didn’t have much else to do.
Right?
“That’s just because everyone else in my pack is so busy,” Ricky says, though even as he says the words, he feels less sure of himself than he had been at the beginning of this conversation. “I can’t believe you thought I was a nanny.”
Gyuvin shrugs again, “I mean, it just made more sense for the cute Omega nanny to be flirting with me rather than some incredibly beautiful and wealthy Omega that could have anyone they want, you know?”
He should probably be unpacking all of that, but instead his brain focuses on one thing in particular - “You think I’m beautiful.”
“Yeah, I mean, I have eyes.”
*
“Mother! Mother! Funniest story ever! Come now I must tell you!”
“Yeseo, do not!”
The young girl sticks her tongue out at him, before continuing to dart around their pack home in search of her mother.
“If you tell her, next time I go I’m not taking you with me,” he tells Yeseo.
That gets Yeseo to stop, “You’re lying.”
“Am I,” he replies, before taking the last step needed to be able to grab Yeseo and stop her from continuing her plans to make his life more difficult.
“Hey! Let go!”
“No can do, small fry.”
“I’m not small, you’re small ,” Yeseo says, before stamping down hard on his foot. It’s enough of a shock that he lets her go, giving the girl just enough of an opening to dart down the hallway where Xiaoting’s office is.
“Shit!”
By the time he catches up to her, Yeseo is already perched up on Xiaoting’s desk dutifully telling her all about their encounter at the Starbucks earlier - “Funniest thing ever mother! Gavin thought Ricky was my nanny !”
“So the boy that you’re definitely not serious about has a name,” Xiaoting says, fixing him with a pointed look. “Will I be meeting Gavin before or after your heat?”
“His name is Gyuvin,” Ricky corrects.
He’s tried correcting Yeseo before, but she seems to get great enjoyment out of calling Gyuvin the wrong name.
“And nobody’s meeting anyone,” he adds for good measure.
“He thought you were Yeseo’s nanny?”
Ricky rolls his eyes, “Probably because someone is a brat that likes to boss people around too much, huh, wonder who she gets that from. Not Chaehyun clearly.”
Xiaoting lets out a mildly amused huff at his gentle dig at her, while Yeseo pouts, “Take it back! I’m not a brat!”
“No, don’t want to,” he replies, before scooping the young girl up off the desk and flopping her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go bury your daughter alive.”
“No! No! Don’t,” Yeseo says, already giggling.
While Xiaoting just smiles at him with a vaguely unnerving smile, “Make good choices.”
Ricky walks out of her office and over to the kids playroom, plopping Yeseo down on the couch before queuing up Frozen for her to watch. The pups had insisted on listening to the soundtrack on the drive back from the coffee shop and made him promise to put it on once they were home.
Though despite that, Yeseo had still made a break for it the second they were in the door to go and rat him out to her mother.
“Where’d Yujin go?”
Yeseo shrugs, “Beats me.”
Ricky sighs. “Don’t start the movie without him, he’ll whine if he misses the first song.”
“Well, then you better find him quick,” Yeseo says, grabbing the remote out of his hand and starting up her movie.
Right, of course that would be her answer.
In all likelihood, Yujin is probably wherever Hao is, he follows the vague hint of Hao’s honey scent in the air to the kitchen, picking up his iced Americano that he had left in the entry way on his way to where Hao and Yujin are.
When Hao sees him, Ricky can see the thousands of questions in the other Omega’s eyes, but he eventually settles for asking - “How was Yujin’s lesson?”
The answer was good. It had worked out well time wise, dropping Yeseo off for Irish Dance, taking Yujin to tennis, and then circling back to grab Yeseo. And Yujin seemed to do well and enjoy his lesson, but at the same time, Ricky knows that’s not actually what Hao wants to know.
“He asked about you,” Ricky tells Hao.
“What did you say,” Hao asks, clearly aiming for casual indifference and missing the mark completely.
“I mostly ignored him,” Ricky explains. “Though when I returned his clothes, he did seem upset, and genuinely apologetic when he asked about you.”
That makes Hao frown, his honey scent coloring with regret.
“Thank you,” he tells Ricky, despite his scent giving his real feelings on the matter away.
Ricky nods, figuring that’s the end of their conversation.
Until Hao says - “You’ve been drinking a lot more coffee than usual lately.”
Ah, there it is, the lecture on his caffeine consumption that’s been a long time coming.
“Oh, have I?” Ricky replies, feigning innocence. “I hadn’t noticed?”
“You’ve had a Starbucks cup in your hand every time I’ve seen you for the last week.”
Ricky shifts slightly. There’s something pointed in the way that Hao says it, as if he’s all too well aware of Ricky’s situation too. Had the pups gone and told everyone about his sort of dates with Gyuvin?
His ears burn slightly in embarrassment at having been found out as he looks down at his drink.
“Are you seeing someone?”
Where he had been adamant to refuse to admit it to Xiaoting, he doesn’t feel as hesitant with Hao.
“Not yet,” he confesses.
That one time getting ice cream with Yujin in tow and a bunch of times hanging out on Gyuvin’s break hardly counted as seeing someone.
“Someone that likes coffee?”
“His scent,” Ricky admits, flushing more as he tells Hao the secret he’s been keeping tight in his chest. “He smells like coffee, but specifically this one drink, so I keep getting it because it reminds me of him.”
“Well, whoever he is, I hope we get a chance to meet him one day,” Hao tells him.
Somehow, with the words coming from Hao, the idea of Gyuvin meeting his family doesn’t seem like a threat or a disaster waiting to happen.
“Not just yet,” he tells Hao, “But maybe one day…”
Hao nods at that. “In the meantime though, do you really think it’s a good idea to be drinking multiple iced Americanos a day given your condition?”
Ricky shrugs. “Hasn’t killed me yet.”
“Yes, but you see that is exactly what I’m worried about.”
“I’ll be fine,” he insists.
Even though Hao’s eyes are still soft with worry, he sighs and says “I just don’t know what we’d do if you ended up in the hospital again. At least stop drinking them a few days before your heat, okay?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Ricky, promise me.”
“Fine, fine, I promise. No caffeine next week, I got it.”
“Thank you,” Hao says, soundly genuinely relieved. “You know we only scold you because we care.”
He doesn’t miss the way Hao says ‘we’ .
“Oh, so this was a planned ambush.”
Hao looks away, “Yes, well, just be glad I was the one asked to talk to you about the coffee thing and not Chaehyun, she had offered to prepare a whole PowerPoint and stage a proper intervention.”
*
Ricky in his therapist's office, his fingers nervously tapping against the armrest of the chair. The ‘calming’ sounds of the rainforest fill the room as Dr. Choi shifts forward slightly, indicating that she is ready to listen whenever he is ready to start talking.
“Am I their nanny?”
“Do you feel that you are?”
“I don’t know,” Ricky admits. “I’d never considered it before, but I googled what a nanny does, and I basically do all of that. Except without being paid.”
Then again, did his trust fund and his access to Xiaoting’s credit cards not count as being paid?
“I mean, I don’t mind doing it, I like helping with Yeseo,” Ricky insists. Hadn’t she called him her best friend just the other day? Certainly, Yeseo didn’t view him as her nanny, despite how bossy she could sometimes be, clearly taking after Xiaoting. But at the same time, “They’re not taking advantage of my kindness or any bullshit like that. I offered to help out with Yeseo, but I guess I never realized how much I was doing until recently. It’s not like I have anything better to do, so I might as well help, right?”
Dr. Choi never answers his questions, instead she just asks more questions of her own. “Have you talked to your pack about feeling this way?”
“No.”
“Do you want to?”
“Not really.”
Dr. Choi hums softly at that, but doesn’t say anything else for a moment. He knows what she’s doing. They’ve been doing these sessions long enough that he knows she’s waiting for him to expand on thoughts. Trying to get the real answer out of him.
He knows he should just tell her.
The whole point of therapy was to talk about what you’re feeling, and figure out what it means, but he’s never been the best at doing that.
Most of these sessions end in sitting in silence for half their session time, until the bell chimes to wrap up the session.
But this time, he finds himself speaking - “The pups get to have these wonderful lives. Yeseo has all these clubs she goes to, and Yujin just started taking tennis lessons. Everyone else in our pack is so busy with their jobs and school, and then there’s just me.”
“You feel stagnant?”
“Yes, exactly,” Ricky confesses. “Sometimes I feel everyone else’s lives are moving forward, but I’m just staying in the same place.”
“What in particular makes you feel that way?”
Hadn’t he already explained that?
Why did every word coming out of her mouth have to be a question?
He doesn’t want to reflect internally, he just wants an answer, and for everything to be fixed. To go back in time to three years ago, when he was happy and living in LA and never had to question his place in the world.
He doesn’t say any of that though.
What he says is - “Everything?”
Dr. Choi scribbles something down in her notepad. There’s another lull in their session. Long silence filled by the noises of her rainforest playlist, before Dr. Choi gives in and asks, “Do you want to unpack that with me today?”
Ricky grimaces. “Not really.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
“I’m not sure,” he says, quietly.
He closes his eyes, letting the sound of Dr. Choi’s rainforest playlist wash over him. The gentle pitter patter of rain, the quiet animal calls. It sort of is soothing. Or maybe distracting is the better word for it.
“You know, these sessions aren’t a requirement anymore,” Dr. Choi says, after a moment. “If you don’t want to talk to me, then you don’t have to come here every week and sit in silence.”
The word anymore echoes through his head.
Technically they were never a requirement, just a strongly worded suggestion from child protective services, when they returned him back to Xiaoting’s custody, that the whole pack would benefit from individual and pack-wide therapy sessions.
In the two years since then, they’d never had a pack therapy session, but Ricky dutifully drove himself here every week to sit in a room for an hour and mostly ignore Dr. Choi. He’d lasted a lot longer than either of his siblings had.
Hao had attended therapy sessions for about a month before insisting that he was too busy with graduate school and raising his son to fit the sessions into his schedule. Meanwhile, Xiaoting had attended a single session, walked out and immediately declared herself to be more mentally well than the therapist, and therefore ruled therapy out as being unnecessary.
“I like the consistency,” he admits after a moment.
“That’s understandable,” Dr. Choi replies, though he sees her moving to write something down on the notepad in front of her even as she speaks. She catches his gaze when she looks up again. “Why don’t we talk about something else? Your birthday is coming up in just a few weeks, do you have any plans?”
Ricky purses his lips, telling his therapist that his plans are to hopefully be getting fucked so well that he forgets his name seems mildly inappropriate. Even though they have discussed the situation with his heats before.
Instead of saying that, he says - “I met someone, his name’s Gyuvin.”
“Tell me about him.”
*
“Hey! No kids today!”
“Yeah,” Ricky replies, “Just me.”
“I still feel bad about thinking you were their nanny.”
“I told you, it’s fine,” Ricky says.
Not willing to admit that Gyuvin’s assumption had seemed to tilt his entire world on edge over the last forty-eight hours.
“I’m going to take my thirty,” Gyuvin says, waving at one of his coworkers to take over the cash register, as he boogies over to shuck off his green apron and come around the counter.
It’s earlier than usual.
He’s pretty sure Gyuvin’s shift just started.
But Gyuvin doesn’t seem bothered by the prospect of taking his break earlier than usual.
The only problem with coming earlier is that the Starbucks is more crowded than usual. Their normal table is occupied by two girls working on their computers. In fact, all of the tables are taken, the only open spots are at the long shared table, or the uncomfortable little couch with the small table in the back corner.
He makes his way there, sitting down on the small couch.
“Let me grab a chair,” Gyuvin says, looking around the Starbucks for an open one.
Ricky doesn’t let him do that, instead patting the space next to him, “Sit,” he says.
It’s not a command, but Gyuvin acts like it is, sitting beside him at once.
That feeling comes back once Gyuvin sits next to him.
The one he most certainly didn’t unpack with his therapist.
The warm one that flutters in his chest whenever Gyuvin is around.
“You good?”
It’s probably not appropriate to say ‘ I told my therapist about you. ’
Instead he smiles, leans slightly against Gyuvin, trying to breathe in as much of his coffee scent as he can and replies - “I am now.”
*
“Gege, can we talk,” Ricky says, having knocked on Hao’s door for what he knows will definitely feel like an ambush.
Hao’s been weird over the last two weeks, clearly going through his own stuff with the whole situation regarding his True Mate. At least, now that Hao was sure he hadn’t accidentally gotten himself knocked up right after meeting his True Mate, the other Omega seems to have settled a bit.
It’s due to all of that situation that Ricky had been hesitant to burden Hao with his own problems.
But at the same time, if there was anyone in this pack that he could actually go to for advice, it would be Hao.
“What is it,” Hao asks, concern clear. He only ever calls Hao gege when the situation is complicated .
“I know you’re busy so, you can tell me to fuck off and get advice from someone else, but-“
“I would never,” Hao says at once, gesturing for Ricky to come over and sit on his bed beside him. “The HaoHao advice column is always open, whenever you need.”
Ricky nods, settling into the space that Hao had prompted him to take.
“Do you remember that guy I was telling you about?”
“The coffee scented Alpha that you want to spend your heat with?
“Yes, him.”
Hao’s brows knit together in concern, “Did he reject you?”
“No, not that,” Ricky says. He highly doubts Gyuvin would reject him at this point. “I haven’t asked him yet?”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“Usually I don’t get attached to the Alphas I find to help me with my heats,” Ricky explains, “But a part of me wants to do more than just have him help me with my heat? Like maybe I want to not ghost him afterwards unless the sex is really bad?”
Hao laughs a little nervously at that, “And you come to the person currently ghosting their True Mate for advice?”
“Better you than Ting.”
“That's fair.”
“I actually almost asked him on a date before, but,” Ricky trails off.
Shit, he shouldn’t have brought that up.
Because now Hao is looking at him expectantly, waiting for him to finish his sentence - “But what?”
“I was going to the day you went into heat, since everyone else was out of town,” Ricky admits hesitantly.
He’d known that Hao would feel bad once he found out, which is why he really hadn’t intended to bring it up. Still, knowing that and seeing the way Hao’s eyes flash with guilt, his honey scent twinged with it, are two different matters entirely.
“Oh, didi, I’m so sorry.”
“No, it’s fine, I’m over it,” Ricky says quickly, trying to get that expression off Hao’s face. “We ended up still hanging out, just with Yujin there too, so it’s fine.”
Hao doesn’t look like he really believes Ricky’s insistence that it was fine.
“Why don’t you ask him on another date tomorrow,” Hao says after a moment. “You’ve still got a few days before your heat.”
“Tomorrow’s Monday, I have to pick up Yeseo and-“
“I’m sure I can handle picking up my niece from school so you have a chance to go on a date with your Alpha.”
His Alpha.
Oh, Ricky did like that sound of that.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. How hard can picking Yeseo up from school be?”
*
He’s figured it out.
Practiced in the mirror of his bedroom.
He’s come up with five different suitable Monday evening options to go and do with Gyuvin after he gets off from work.
And yet - he’s still nervous.
Nervous , god, when was the last time Ricky felt nervous about anything other than his therapy sessions?
The things this man made him feel.
Ricky checks himself in the rear view mirror, making sure that he looks perfect one last time before finally stepping out of the car and into Gyuvin’s work.
Maybe he shouldn’t bother with the date?
Maybe he should just jump to the heat thing?
Maybe Gyuvin wouldn’t even be interested in going on a date with him?
“Hey, Ricky, what’s-“
“Can you take your thirty? I want to ask you a question.”
“Uh, sure..?”