Chapter Text
⚠️ Second Epileptic Seizure
The heater in the local taxi hummed with a low, mechanical rattle, blowing dry, artificial warmth against the frosty glass of the windows. Outside, Kyoto’s historic skyline slowly melted away, replaced by the dark, snow-draped pine forests of the mountain pass leading toward Shiga Prefecture.
Inside the cab, the silence was absolute, heavy with the terrifying realization that they had just abandoned their entire lives in a matter of minutes.
Nicholas sat in the front passenger seat, his dark eyes fixed entirely on the rearview mirror. His jaw was locked so tight the muscle leaped under his skin. Behind him in the backseat, Euijoo was curled into a tight ball, his hands desperately clutching his still-flat stomach. His tangerine and honey scent was gone, entirely replaced by the cold, metallic tang of raw adrenaline and early-stage morning sickness.
Beside Euijoo, Taki was shivering.
Even with the heavy black parka pulled tight over his four-month bump, Taki couldn't stop the deep, full-body tremors shaking his small frame. The sudden flight down the icy iron fire escape, the biting winter wind, and the sheer, suffocating terror of Maki’s decontamination team had pushed his fragile nervous system past its breaking point.
Bzzzz.
Taki’s ears suddenly popped. It wasn't from the altitude of the mountain pass.
A heavy, crushing weight slammed down behind his eyes, blinding him for a fraction of a second. The low rattle of the taxi's heater warped, twisting into a loud, rhythmic, mechanical buzzing that filled his entire skull. The faint scent of snow and exhaust outside vanished, replaced instantly by the terrifying, chemical smell of burning copper.
The aura.
Taki’s heart dropped into his stomach. His fingers lost all feeling, locking into rigid, claw-like positions against the fabric of his jeans. He tried to open his mouth to call out to Euijoo, to warn Nicholas that his epilepsy was violently waking up under the physical stress, but his vocal cords refused to vibrate. Only a small, pathetic gasp escaped his lips.
"Taki?" Euijoo turned his head languidly, his own exhausted eyes widening in instant horror as he took in the younger boy's appearance.
Taki’s eyes were wide, vacant, and completely fixed on a point in space that didn't exist. His chest was heaving in short, shallow bursts, and a subtle, rhythmic twitching had begun at the corner of his left eyelid.
"Nicholas!" Euijoo shrieked, the raw panic in his voice causing the taxi driver to flinch and look up at the rearview mirror. "Nicholas, it’s happening! He’s having an aura! He’s going to seize!"
Nicholas whirled around in his seat, his alpha presence instantly flaring with a desperate, protective heat. "Taki! Look at me! Breathe, Taki!" He reached over the headrest, slamming his hand down on Taki’s knee, but the younger boy was already slipping away into the dark static of his own brain.
"Hey, what’s going on back there?" the taxi driver asked, his voice tightening with sudden anxiety as he looked at the snowy, deserted highway ahead. "Is he sick? Do I need to pull over at the next exit for an ambulance?"
"No!" Nicholas roared, his dominant alpha voice cracking through the small cabin with terrifying authority. "Do not pull over! Do not call anyone! Just drive faster! If you hit a hospital registry in this district, I will personally ensure your license is obliterated! Push the gas!"
The driver, thoroughly terrified by the raw, dangerous aura radiating from the wealthy young alpha in his passenger seat, slammed his foot on the accelerator. The taxi fishtailed slightly on the slushy asphalt before speeding deeper into the dark Shiga mountains.
"Hyung..." Taki choked out, a single, broken word finally tearing past his lips as his vision completely fragmented into white, blinding sparks.
"I've got you, I've got you," Euijoo cried, throwing his own fragile body across the seat. He pulled Taki’s head down onto his lap, wrapping his arms securely around the younger boy’s torso to protect his head and limbs from hitting the hard plastic of the car door. He let his tangerine pheromones flood the backseat, desperately trying to create a biological buffer, an organic nest to soothe Taki’s misfiring neurons. "Nicho, his anti-seizure meds are back at the apartment! We left everything! What do we do if he drops into full convulsions?!"
"He won't," Nicholas hissed through his teeth, his hands shaking as he reached into the canvas duffel bag at his feet. He bypassed the clothes and pulled out the heavy white box of premium vitamins they had secured from the Hirota clinic. He ripped the top off, searching frantically until his fingers found the specialized bottle of high-potency, neural-stabilizing magnesium and organic iron blends Dr. Shimizu had prescribed for Taki's low blood levels.
"Get him to swallow these the second his jaw unlocks," Nicholas ordered, pressing two of the heavy capsules into Euijoo’s trembling hand. "It’s not his standard medication, but it’s high-grade Hirota neural support. It’s the only thing we have to stabilize his brain chemistry until we hit the lakehouse."
Taki’s body went completely rigid for five agonizing seconds, his toes curling, his fingers locking tight against Euijoo’s thighs as the peak of the aura washed over him. He felt like he was drowning in ice water, his inner omega screaming for the safe, grounded anchor of crushed mint and smoky vetiver—the specific, dominant alpha presence his body biology was naturally hardwired to rely on during trauma.
But Maki wasn't there. Maki was back in Kyoto, tracking a phantom virus.
With a ragged, breathless gasp, Taki’s body finally slumped, the rigid tension draining from his muscles as the aura slowly receded, leaving him completely conscious but utterly hollowed out, hyperventilating against Euijoo’s chest.
"Breathe, Taki, breathe," Euijoo whispered, pressing the two capsules into Taki's mouth and holding a small water bottle to his pale lips. "Swallow it. Please, for the baby, Taki. Swallow it."
Taki choked the pills down, his vision slowly clearing as the chemical smell of copper faded back into the scent of the taxi’s dry heater. He lay there, his hand weakly rising to rest over his four-month bump, feeling the frantic, rapid thumping of his own heart underneath. They had survived the threshold. They had kept the baby alive through a neurological cliffhanger without a single hospital record tracing back to them.
Ten minutes later, the taxi slowed down, turning onto a completely unplowed, snow-covered gravel road that bled toward the black, icy expanse of Lake Biwa.
Through the frosted windshield, the silhouette of the Wang family’s abandoned, unlisted timber lakehouse loomed in the gray twilight. It was dark, frozen, and entirely isolated from the elite world. As Nicholas paid the driver in cash and helped both shivering, pregnant omegas out into the deep snow, Taki looked out over the endless, freezing water and realized the truth. They were safe from Maki’s cleanup crew for now—but they were officially trapped in a frozen fortress, and the real winter was just beginning.
***
The silence inside Nicholas’s campus dorm room was heavy, smelling faintly of expensive cologne and stagnant air. The heating had been turned down to a low maintenance mode for the winter break, leaving the room crisp and hollow.
The lock on the wooden door clicked smoothly, sliding open.
Maki stepped across the threshold, his dark eyes instantly scanning the pristine, minimalist space. His heavy, dominant scent of crushed mint and smoky vetiver flared into the quiet room, restless and entirely unappeased.
He shouldn't have been here. Breaking into a fellow alpha’s private campus residence was a severe violation of university protocol—and elite family etiquette. But the report from the Hirota decontamination team two days ago had set his brain on fire.
They had broken down Taki’s door to find the apartment completely scrubbed of life. No sick omegas. No projectile vomiting. Just a half-packed duffel bag, a few scattered clothes, and Nicholas’s luxury sedan left parked idling on the street below like a decoy.
They fled, Maki’s inner alpha growled, the realization clawing at his ribs. Nicholas had taken Euijoo and vanished into thin air. Why run from a medical cleanup crew unless the sickness itself was a complete fabrication?
Maki walked deeper into the dorm, his boots clicking sharply against the polished wood floor. He checked the desk—completely cleared of laptops and study materials. He checked the wardrobe—only a few casual jackets remained. Nicholas had cleaned out his essential tracking profiles.
Frustrated, Maki marched toward the attached en-suite bathroom, his mind racing through a maze of corporate tracking options. He flipped the light switch, the harsh fluorescent glare illuminating the pristine marble counter.
Nicholas’s grooming kit was gone. The space was empty.
Except for the small, metal waste bin tucked beneath the sink.
Driven by a raw, dark instinct he couldn't fully explain, Maki tipped the small bin over with the toe of his boot. A few crumpled receipts and empty wrapper plastics tumbled out onto the marble floor.
And right in the center, catching the bright fluorescent light, sat a small plastic device.
Maki froze.
His breath hitched in his throat, his mint scent instantly spiking with a sharp, volatile heat as he dropped to one knee. His long, elegant fingers reached down, picking up the small plastic stick.
It was a pregnancy test. And right there in the clear indicator window, two vivid, unmistakable pink lines stared back at him.
Maki’s heart gave a sudden, violent thud against his ribs. Euijoo’s test, his brain automatically supplied, trying to force the piece into the existing puzzle. Nicholas must have brought Euijoo to his dorm when they first found out, and Euijoo had taken the test here.
But as Maki turned the plastic stick over in his hand, his eyes caught the tiny, printed manufacturer batch code on the side of the casing. Beneath it, a digital timestamp ink-stamp from the university convenience store was barely visible.
[C-STORE BATCH: 23-A]
PURCHASED: MAY 23, 2026 — 08:14 AM
The world inside Maki’s head ground to a sudden, screeching halt.
The plastic stick felt like a piece of dry ice against his palm. He stared at the date, his analytical, brilliant brain running the numbers with the speed of a terminal computer, over and over again, refusing to accept the output.
May 23, 2026. Two days ago.
If Euijoo had taken this test two days ago... he was newly pregnant. A week, maybe two weeks at most.
But four weeks ago, Maki had stood in the downtown private pharmacy and heard the pharmacist talk about unlisted prenatal vitamins and maternal support. Three weeks ago, he had handed Euijoo a private medical clearance card. Two weeks ago, the hospital alert had explicitly stated that Card #0094 was used for a routine second-trimester screening, with a fetal heartbeat fully established at fourteen weeks.
Maki stood up slowly, his body trembling as a cold, terrifying clarity began to splinter through the illusion Nicholas had built.
The math didn't add up. It was physically, biologically impossible.
An omega cannot be fourteen weeks pregnant at a private hospital wing and then drop a freshly positive, early-stage pregnancy test in a dorm bathroom two days later.
Maki clutched the plastic stick so hard it creaked against his palm, his crushed mint and smoky vetiver scent exploding into the small bathroom, turning completely feral, dark, and lethal with the realization of a massive, systematic deception.
Nicholas hadn't been hiding Euijoo’s pregnancy from the Wang family. He had been staging a massive, elaborate theatrical performance. The synthetic nesting spray at the penthouse, the paleness, the fake sickness—it was all a calculated shield.
But who were they shielding? Maki’s mind screamed, his knuckles turning white.
If Euijoo wasn't the one who was four months pregnant at the hospital... who was? Who was the omega who had actually swiped the Hirota executive card? Who was the omega whose trace of sweet, maternal yuzu had lingered in Room Four, calling out to Maki’s inner alpha with a magnetic, agonizing gravity that had nearly driven him insane?
The memory of Taki flashed across Maki’s vision—Taki wearing those ridiculously oversized, baggy wool cardigans. Taki fiercely blocking the apartment door two days ago, coughing and desperate to keep Maki from stepping inside. Taki always looking pale, defensive, and fiercely guarded by Nicholas.
The puzzle pieces violently inverted, crashing down into a singular, devastating truth that shattered Maki’s soul into a thousand jagged pieces.
It wasn't Nicholas’s baby. It was his.
Taki was the one carrying the Hirota heir. Taki was the one who was four months pregnant. And Nicholas and Euijoo had just used their own sudden, real medical crisis to smuggle Maki's mate and child completely out of his reach.
"Nicholas," Maki whispered into the empty, freezing dorm room, his voice dropping into a terrifying, gravelly alpha register that vibrated with absolute, unadulterated fury. "What the hell have you done?"