Chapter Text
The private lounge of the elite university club was dead quiet, save for the rhythmic clicking of ice against glass. Sunlight cut through the heavy velvet curtains, illuminating the thick swirls of expensive cigar smoke drifting toward the high ceiling.
Maki leaned his head back against the leather sofa, staring blankly at the liquor cabinet across the room. He was irritated. For the past hour, Nicholas had been pacing the length of the Persian rug, refusing to drop a subject that Maki had spent weeks trying to bury in the back of his mind.
"You're acting like a ghost, Maki," Nicholas said, stopping his pacing to glare at his best friend. "You've been distracted for a month. You barely touch your drinks when we go out, your grades are the only thing you focus on, and every time that scholarship kid—Takayama—walks into a room, your scent spikes so hard it practically chokes the rest of the alphas. Don't lie to me. Something happened."
Maki let out a sharp, frustrated sigh, setting his glass down on the mahogany table with a loud thud. He knew Nicholas. Once the Wang heir got stubbornly persistent about something, he wouldn't stop digging until he unearthed the truth. And frankly, keeping the weight of it entirely to himself was starting to tear at Maki's sanity.
"Fine," Maki growled, rubbing his temples where a headache was beginning to form. "You want the truth? Sit down and shut up."
Nicholas raised an eyebrow, a triumphant smirk crossing his face as he threw himself into the armchair opposite Maki. "I'm listening."
"A few weeks ago, before the midterm project started, I found him on the street," Maki began, his voice dropping into a low, reluctant murmur. "He was having a violent seizure. Post-trauma epilepsy from the car accident that killed his father years ago. He was completely helpless, Nicholas. I rolled him over, kept his airway clear, and brought him back to my penthouse to recover."
Nicholas’s smirk vanished, replaced by genuine surprise. "Takayama has epilepsy? I had no idea. But wait... that was weeks ago. Why are you still acting so unhinged around him now?"
Maki shifted uncomfortably, his fingers tensing against the leather sofa. He jumped ahead in the timeline, skipping the immediate aftermath of that stormy night to focus on the tension that had been eating at him ever since.
"Because a couple of weeks later, during the project, he started acting incredibly strange," Maki muttered, looking away as the memory resurfaced. "He was running out of class to throw up. He looked pale, deathly ill. And when I confronted him at my apartment, he was constantly guarding his stomach. His yuzu scent had changed, too. It smelled... sweeter. Richer. My alpha instincts completely went haywire. For a second, I actually had this insane suspicion that he was... that he was carrying."
Nicholas gasped, leaning forward so fast he nearly spilled his own drink. "You thought he was pregnant?!"
"Yes," Maki snapped, his jaw tight. "But he cleared it up. He tore into me for it. It turns out the free clinic he goes to put him on some cheap, generic anti-seizure medication. The side effects cause severe chronic nausea and abdominal cramps, which is why he was holding his stomach. He completely shot down the idea, told me he took an emergency contraceptive, and said he hated me for even suggesting it. He made it perfectly clear that it was just the meds."
Nicholas went dead silent. He didn't say a word for a long, agonizing moment, his dark eyes analyzing Maki's defensive posture, the lingering frustration in his scent, and the subtle, protective edge that returned to the crushed mint and vetiver pheromones the moment Taki’s name was mentioned.
Nicholas tapped his fingers against his glass, his expression turning incredibly serious.
"Maki," Nicholas said slowly, his voice dropping all of its usual playful banter. "You just said he told you he took an emergency pill. You said he shot down the idea because you guys had one reckless night."
Maki froze, realizing he had let too much slip.
Nicholas leaned over the table, trapping Maki with a piercing gaze. "Did you and Taki... you know? Did you sleep with him?"
The question hung heavily in the air. Maki clenched his fists, the truth burning in his throat until he couldn't hold it back anymore. He let out a harsh, defeated breath.
"Yes," Maki admitted, his voice a low, gravelly confession. "The night after his seizure. We were dumb. The pheromones were too intense, he was vulnerable, and I completely lost control."
Nicholas’s eyes widened, but he wasn't done pushing. He knew the biological reality of their world, especially when it came to dominant alphas of their stature. "Maki. Look at me. Did you just sleep with him, or did you..." Nicholas hesitated, lowering his voice to a whisper. "Did you knot him?"
Maki’s heart gave a sudden, heavy thud against his ribs. The memory of that frantic, dark night flashed behind his eyes—the overwhelming sweetness of Taki's yuzu scent, the desperate cries, and the fierce, inescapable biological lock that had bound them together at the absolute peak of their heat.
"I did," Maki whispered, staring down at his knuckles. "I knotted him, Nicholas. Completely. It was entirely unprotected."
Nicholas sat back in his chair, a look of profound, underlying dread washing over his face. He knew exactly what that meant. A dominant alpha knotting an omega in heat had a near-certain success rate. Even with an emergency contraceptive, the odds were dangerously high. And knowing that his own boyfriend, Euijoo, had suddenly become inseparable from Taki over the past few days, a terrifying suspicion began to take root in Nicholas’s mind.
Maki believed Taki’s lie about the cheap medication because he wanted to believe it—because the alternative was too dangerous for a Hirota heir. But Nicholas wasn't blinded by denial.
"Jesus, Maki," Nicholas muttered, running a hand over his face as the sheer weight of the secret threatened to shatter the quiet room. "You have no idea what you've done."