Chapter Text
In the late dark of a summer night in Seoul, Sieun stands on a paved overlook lining the Han River. It’s poorly lit, allowing the city lights to paint the black water all its various colors, bending them in the faint current of an approaching storm. The air is thick with a humidity that broils. Sieun stands at the railing with the hood of his sweater pulled over his head and his hands stuffed in its large pockets.
He should be sweating profusely under all his layers and the heat, but he’s not. He’s cold.
“You need to see a doctor,” his mother told him just this morning. For the first time in weeks, she had looked him in the eyes, holding his gaze until Sieun looked away. She didn’t press more than that, and Sieun did not respond.
There’s no use in seeing a doctor now. It’s too late. It’s too late for his mother to start giving a damn and it’s too late for his father to act on his concern. The time to prevent all of this has come and gone, and now they must suffer the consequences.
Behind him, a bonded pair pass with their arms linked and laughter bright in the air between them. Sieun can’t help but be aware of them as he shivers, toes icing even with the backpack he has tucked over his feet.
“I think we should get cold noodles,” the one on the right says, her voice carried to Sieun by the breeze even as he tries not to listen.
The one on the left hums in faux consideration before deciding, “Whatever my baby wants.”
Their voices fade into intimate laughter, and then into silence. Sieun tries to remember if he’s eaten today.
With classes out, he spends most of his free time in the library. He drafts lesson plans there, and studies ahead for the upcoming school term, but mostly he sits with his head in his arms, waiting for the sun to set so he can go back home and slip straight into bed. Now that his parents are trying to be around more often, Sieun avoids being home during waking hours.
When he’s not at home or at the library, he’s with Suho. And since visiting hours don’t apply to Sieun, this is as often as is physically possible. In Suho’s private hospital room, Sieun’s body stops falling apart. He doesn’t need a doctor to explain to him what this means. No one does. Sieun is dying.
It’s the oldest omegan trope in the book. Not unheard of, but not common enough for Sieun to have witnessed outside of television or dramatic novella synopses. And in its own twisted way, it almost makes sense. Where else would this trope occur if not for the tragic mess that has become Sieun’s life?
In the total collapse of what Sieun had learned to want, the impact tremors have spread inwards and now Sieun’s body is responding to the absence of his perceived mate. To the loss of him; for all that Suho is still alive and breathing, he has gone someplace Sieun can’t reach him.
It makes a similar kind of sense for the first truly omegan thing for Sieun to do is reject this loss, choosing instead to wither away than to live without Suho. He can’t say for certain if this decision was made consciously or not, but he doesn’t think it really matters either. As the months turned into a year, and the year now approaches two, Sieun’s health worsens. Eventually, he’ll go to sleep one night and never wake up again.
The irony of this is a twisting of the proverbial knife.
Sieun stares at the Han River and thinks, Why? If the cosmos demands their lives, why take them separately? It would have been kinder to take them at once, Sieun right behind Suho, instead of this dreadful, growing distance, this lapsing of time.
Watching the city come alive with the night, Sieun considers the possibilities. He tries to shape them into mercy, because wouldn’t it be better to die than watch Suho wake up and not know him? He’s read about comas and their neurological consequences, Sieun knows this is more than just a non-zero chance. And if Suho were never to wake up, a risk that grows everyday, it would be a clemency to let Sieun avoid bearing witness.
“Hey,” a man interrupts suddenly, having appeared out of the evening chatter at the railing.
He stands several feet away from Sieun, facing the river. Without looking, he asks, “Do you have a light?” He holds up his left hand, deftly bobbing a cigarette between his fingers.
Sieun stares at him. People tend to find his gaze discomfiting, looking away until they eventually learn to avoid it. When the man meets his eyes, he doesn’t waver, just waits. His eyes dart down to the medical-grade block patch on Sieun’s neck peeking out from the cave of his hood and his eyebrows raise.
“You must stink,” he says with some humor, placing the unlit cigarette behind his ear.
That’s an understatement. Sieun reeks. The prescription patches he wears on his neck and wrists are as strong as they come, but Sieun’s scent still seeps out around them. He’s become like roadkill that lingers.
The man slides closer, nose first. Sieun tries to avoid stereotyping on principle, knows this leads to underestimating and underestimating leads to losing, but this man is shaping up to be an asshole alpha who doesn’t care about boundaries or respect.
In his pocket, Sieun’s fist clenches around a pen. He’s had enough of asshole alphas.
“Interesting,” the man comments, straightening with a smirk. “It’s rare to find an omega that doesn’t smell all sweet and edible.”
Sieun turns, bracing his hip on the railing. He wanders why he’s not just walking away from this intrusion, but the answer comes to him quickly: he’s aching for a fight. A good, vicious one. This kind of alpha wouldn’t be prepared for an omega that would make a weapon of just about anything available to him.
The man doesn’t lunge at him. He taps the bannister and sighs. “You scent like a tomb, kid. And you don’t look that far away from one. What are you doing out here alone?”
Sieun’s fist releases his pen. Inside, relief mingles with disappointment. He turns back to the river and its dance with the lights and waits for the man’s good samaritan act to run its course.
Proving Sieun’s stance of stereotypes, the man continues to wait. He watches, eyes jumping between Sieun and the river.
In an unprecedented stroke of luck, Sieun’s phone begins to vibrate in his pocket. He considers letting the call go, but the man is still watching him and — well, Halmeoni has his number too.
Sieun pulls his phone out and sees his mother’s name. He swipes to answer and brings the phone up to his ear.
“Sieun-ah?” His mother says in a clipped tone. “Where are you?”
He brings his phone back down to check the time and is distantly startled to see that it’s nearly midnight. Returning the phone to his ear, he says, “Out.”
His mother sighs, aggrieved. “Come back. It’s way too late for you to be wandering around.”
“Mhm.”
“Will it take you long? I have a meeting tomorrow morning, early. I’ve got to go to bed.”
“No,” Sieun answers. He’ll call a ride.
“Okay. Come home quickly, Sieun-ah. Goodnight.”
As he brings his phone down, the man he’d almost forgotten about clears his throat. “Someone looking for you?”
Sieun turns to him again and for a second, no more than the painful contraction of his heart, something about the reflection of light off the water, the casual slump against the railing, the fall of hair around dark brown eyes — it reminds Sieun of Suho. Of those nights Sieun would walk out of cram school and find Suho waiting for him with a smile and a helmet in his hands.
“I’m going home,” he tells the strange alpha. “Smoking is bad for you and for others.”
The man blinks, startled, and then he throws his head back with raucous laughter. The cigarette falls from its perch behind his ear. Sieun considers this his good samaritan deed done, and grabs his bag off the ground.
Walking away, the man’s voice calls back to him, “Make sure you eat dinner, kid! You’re wasting away!”
Sieun would scoff if his throat wasn’t so dry, if he wasn’t so empty. If only it was that simple. He pulls out his headphones and slips them on, blocking out the faint sounds of people and lapping water.
Walking through the muffled night beside the Han River, Sieun keeps asking himself, Why?
***
Statistically, it is very unlikely to have more than two male omegas in the same school, much less the same class. Among the secondary genders, male omegas are rarest of all, less common than redheads but not as scarce as albinism.
Eunjang is exceptional in this matter, as it is in many others.
“Good morning,” Seo Juntae greets quietly as he shuffles past Sieun’s desk.
Sieun never replies to him, but the other boy has yet to be deterred. Today, Juntae even smiles, apparently unbothered by the blood that beads from the split of his bottom lip.
The smaller omega hurries over to his own desk, shoulders hunched and head down. This never helps him. Seo Juntae’s toffee scent is unmistakable, sweet and like a spotlight that refuses to let him hide. He is unquestionably omega, fitting the stereotypes better than Sieun, and Eunjang gives him hell for it.
And somehow, after a full year of attending this school, the student body continues to debate Sieun’s secondary gender. It comes down to a simple, unbelievable truth: an omega could not have committed the violence that Sieun was allegedly transferred to Eunjang for.
It’s unfathomable. Yeon Sieun doesn’t look dangerous or half-feral. He’s solemn and eerie and maybe, if you squint, his eyes have that omegan allure, but all he does is stare at nothing and do his work. There’s no way a sweet omega could have ruined several lives at his old school, beating ex-classmates until they were left crippled or dead.
But, others argue, that’s why he’s not locked away in some detention center. His omegan wiles spared him from harsh punishment. All he’s got to show for his crimes are the court ordered blocker patches he wears everyday. They keep his omegan scent from enticing more victims, and they stifle his more devious, tempestuous urges. It’s these drugs that cause him to sometimes scent like death.
Sieun is pretty sure there are no such blockers in existence. There are hormone medications, but Sieun isn’t court ordered to take anything like that. The patches were prescribed by his doctor to keep his rotting scent from disturbing the public.
The rumors don’t bother him. Let people say whatever they want to say. As long as they stay out of his way and out of his life, Sieun couldn't care less.
The classroom slowly fills as the morning rush hits its peak. Sieun puts his head down and lets his sleepless night demand its retribution.