Chapter Text
In the beginning, DESIRE 4 was never supposed to work.
Four people with mismatched temperaments, mismatched origins, and mismatched destinies, gathered by a company that believed chemistry could be manufactured if you forced people into the same room long enough. And yet—against expectation, against probability—it worked.
They debuted quietly.
No extravagant promises. No overnight fame.
Just four boys standing under cold stage lights, singing about want, longing, and the ache of being seen.
And at the center of them stood Gao Tu.
To fans, Gao Tu was the gege—the reliable older brother of the group. Calm smile, warm eyes, gentle hands that guided choreography and adjusted mics before staff even noticed they were crooked. He was the one who brewed tea backstage, the one who remembered everyone’s habits, the one who laughed softly and never raised his voice.
What no one knew—what Gao Tu made sure no one could know—was that he was lying.
Not about his feelings. Not about his loyalty.
But about who he was.
The Lie He Lived.
On paper, Gao Tu was registered as a Beta.
Ordinary. Neutral. Safe.
In reality, buried beneath suppressants and discipline and years of taught self-disgust, he was an Omega.
An Omega raised by parents who believed weakness was contagious. Who told him his secondary gender was a curse, a stain, something to be beaten out of him through silence and shame. Who taught him early that being wanted was dangerous, and being desired was worse.
So he learned to hide.
He learned to swallow pheromones until his chest burned. Learned to smile through headaches, through nausea, through the ache that settled deep in his bones whenever suppressants wore thin. He learned to be useful, dependable, invisible in his needs.
The company didn’t know and the members didn’t know.
Only their manager did—Manager Lin, who found out the night Gao Tu collapsed in a practice room bathroom, shaking and apologizing through tears he tried desperately to hide.
She didn’t yell and didn’t report him but only knelt down, held his trembling hands, and said gently, “You don’t have to be alone with this.”
She helped him secure medical help. Legal paperwork. Better suppressants. Privacy.
And she kept his secret.
__
Shen Wenlang was the first to debut center stage.
An S-Class Alpha with a sharp jaw, piercing eyes, and a presence that commanded attention without effort. His pheromones—cool, powdery iris—were controlled, elegant, restrained. He spoke little, but when he did, people listened.
Sheng Shaoyou was fire to Wenlang’s ice.
Another S-Class Alpha, all easy smiles and teasing glances, his orange blossom scent warm and inviting, like sunshine after rain. He flirted with fans and staff alike, but there was a sincerity beneath it—a protectiveness that surfaced when it mattered.
And then there was Hua Yong.
The youngest.
An Enigma—rare, unreadable, unpredictable. His pheromones, ghost orchid, were faint but haunting, something you noticed only after it lingered. Hua Yong laughed loudly, loved fiercely, and attached himself to Gao Tu with the stubborn devotion of someone who had decided this person is mine in the simplest, most innocent way.
To them, Gao Tu was safety.
To Gao Tu, they were danger.
Because the closer they got, the more he feared the inevitable moment when they would see him as his parents had.
As weak.
As disposable.
--
The Night Everything Broke
It happened after a long rehearsal.
The kind that drained bones and blurred vision, the kind where the studio lights felt too bright and the air too thin. Gao Tu had been off all day—too quiet, too pale, smiling too tightly.
Manager Lin noticed.
She pressed a bottle of water into his hands and murmured, “Your suppressant schedule—”
“I know,” Gao Tu whispered, eyes lowered. “I’ll be fine.”
He wasn’t.
By the time they reached the dorm, the suppressant had failed.
It started subtly—heat blooming beneath his skin, his scent stirring despite his efforts. Wood sage, warm and grounding, threaded with something softer, sweeter. Familiar to him. Dangerous to others.
He locked himself in the bathroom.
He thought he had time.
He didn’t account for Hua Yong.
--
Hua Yong had always been sensitive to shifts in the air.
It was part of being an Enigma—reading what wasn’t said, noticing what others missed. When the dorm filled with an unfamiliar warmth, his laughter faded.
He knocked on the bathroom door. “Gege?”
No answer.
The scent was stronger here. Wood sage—comforting, aching, wrapped around something raw.
Concern overrode manners.
“Hua Yong, wait—” Sheng Shaoyou called too late.
The door opened.
Gao Tu was on the floor.
Not naked. Not obscene.
Just… vulnerable.
His back pressed to the cold tile, shirt clinging with sweat, hands shaking as he struggled to breathe through the wave crashing over him. His eyes snapped up in panic the moment the door opened.
For a second, there was only silence.
Then—
“Oh,” Hua Yong breathed.
Not disgusted and not angry.
Just… stunned.
Shen Wenlang froze behind him, nostrils flaring as the truth hit him like a physical blow.
An Omega.
Their Beta gege—
No.
Their Omega gege.
Gao Tu scrambled back, humiliation flooding him. “Don’t—don’t come closer. Please. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to see. I’ll—I’ll leave. I can go. I’ll talk to Manager Lin, I—”
His words fractured, years of rehearsed apologies spilling out.
“I know you didn’t sign up for this,” he whispered, voice breaking. “I know Omegas are… troublesome. I won’t cause problems, I swear. I’ve never— I never wanted—”
“Gao Tu.”
Shen Wenlang’s voice cut through the spiral.
Steady and low.
He knelt, deliberately keeping distance, eyes level instead of towering. “Who taught you to talk about yourself like that?”
Gao Tu shook, unable to answer.
Sheng Shaoyou closed the door quietly behind them, blocking the hallway from scent leakage, instinctively shielding rather than exposing.
Hua Yong crouched too, eyes wide and bright with something dangerously close to tears. “Gege,” he said softly, “why do you look like you’re about to disappear?”
This was the moment Gao Tu had always feared.
The moment where truth meant abandonment.
He waited for anger.
For revulsion.
For rejection.
It didn’t come.
Instead, Shen Wenlang removed his jacket and held it out—not forcing it, not touching him without permission.
“May I?” he asked.
Permission.
The word shattered something fragile and tight in Gao Tu’s chest.
He nodded.
The jacket settled around his shoulders, heavy with iris, grounding without overwhelming. Sheng Shaoyou passed over a glass of water, his fingers careful not to brush Gao Tu’s skin.
Hua Yong sat cross-legged on the floor, stubbornly staying at eye level. “You’re still our gege,” he said, as if stating a fact no one could argue with. “You don’t get demoted for being you.”
Gao Tu’s breath hitched.
“You’re not broken,” Sheng Shaoyou added quietly. “And you don’t get thrown away for something you didn’t choose.”
Shen Wenlang’s gaze was unwavering. “We’re not your parents.”
That did it.
Gao Tu cried.
Not pretty. Not quietly.
Years of suppression—of scent, of self—broke loose, wood sage blooming fully into the room, warm and aching and honest. The others didn’t retreat.
They stayed and guarded the door and learned.
--
The company found out, eventually.
Manager Lin stood like a shield during meetings, her voice sharp and unyielding. Contracts were revised. Privacy clauses enforced. Desire's image adjusted subtly, carefully.
Onstage, nothing changed.
Offstage, everything did.
Shen Wenlang became Gao Tu’s silent anchor, standing close during crowded events, his presence steady and reassuring.
Sheng Shaoyou learned to cook Omega-friendly meals, pretending it was “just a new recipe” while watching Gao Tu eat with a soft smile.
Hua Yong clung openly, unapologetically, declaring, “He was ours first,” to anyone who dared question it.
They didn’t cage him and didn’t claim him but they simply stayed.
And for the first time in his life, Gao Tu believed—
That desire didn’t have to hurt.
That being an Omega didn’t mean being abandoned.
That sometimes, family wasn’t the one you were born into—
But the ones who chose you, again and again, under neon lights and quiet dorm rooms, where wood sage lingered, safe at last.