Chapter Text
The day Minhyung leaves T1 is the day he regains control over his life. It’s bittersweet and uncomfortable and exhilarating, finally being able to decide something for the first time.
The day he leaves Minseok is the day he loses it all over again.
“This isn’t a breakup.”
Of course not. We’re soulmates. We can’t break up. The thought of breaking up had never once crossed Minhyung’s mind. This would just be the first time since his years as a fledgling, stupid alpha, that they would be apart.
He should be strong. He should be the protector and provider, or whatever, he should be the one reassuring Minseok that things were going to be okay, that this decision was the best for them and he would take care of them if it wasn’t.
“Of course,” Minhyung hasn’t let go of Minseok. In the turmoil of leaving what had essentially been his home for so many years, he hasn’t had the chance to process the thoughts weighing down in his chest. After all, one can only process the shame of being alone when you’re alone.
“I mean we won’t be alone,” Minseok laughs wryly, petal-soft fingers messing Minhyung’s hair, playfully drawing a centre parting. Minhyung’s suddenly hyperaware of Minseok’s touch, trying to commit the feeling to memory, but it’s hard to remember what you don’t remember living without. It’s like desperately trying to commit to memory a life with oxygen.
“How do you feel?” Minhyung asks. It’s a stupid question, because he’d asked it ten times before he’d made the decision, and then ten times after.
And maybe Minseok’s thinking the same, because he lets out a derisive chuckle. Maybe it’s because Minhyung still has the centre parting.
“What do you want to hear?” the omega rises from Minhyung’s bed, picking up a Poro stress ball on the empty desk. “That I’ll miss you?”
Minhyung shakes himself out of it, annoyed at himself. “No, I’m just asking-...”
“Because I’ll miss you,” Minseok balances the Poro on top of Minhyung’s head, before leaning down, pressing a kiss on his lips.
That should set Minhyung’s heart at ease. But honestly all he feels is regret, that he has everything he wants right in front of him and he’s still walking away.
Maybe I’ll tell them I changed my mind. I’ll come back. I’ll move my things-...
“You had to do this for you,” Minseok murmurs against his lips. The alpha pulls him onto his lap, resisting the temptation to bury his face in Minseok’s soft pink sakura scent. “I’ll be fine.”
But I won’t.
*
Minseok helps him pull his luggage out to the front door, so by the time Moon Hyeonjun comes to help, the room’s been conveniently emptied.
“Your hair looks stupid,” Hyeonjun comments, grinning, and Minhyung swears under his breath, shaking his head to get rid of the centre parting. Minseok’s touch lingers like melting snow on his skin.
By the door, Choi Hyunjoon’s wearing his shoes, getting ready to go down for lunch with Minseok and Hyeonjun. Sanghyeok hadn’t turned up to say goodbye. The staff are trying to fix a light bulb in the corridor.
It’s just another day for all of them.
Hyeonjun wraps him in a hug (dumb emotional alpha) and thumps him on the back, before scrunching his nose, sniffing and clearing his throat. Minseok’s scent must still be all over him. “So you guys...still together?”
Minhyung blinks. “Yes...?” Then it clicks, uncomfortably, why Hyeonjun is asking. “Yeah, well, I mean, we’re soulmates. It’s different. I guess. Fuck, that came out wrong-...”
“No, no, it’s true. Some – it works out sometimes and then it doesn’t,” Hyeonjun helps Minhyung bring a bag to the door. He offers a shoulder for Hyunjoon to lean on while he’s tugging on his shoes. Hyeonjun sighs, then glances at his boyfriend.
“Babe, aren’t you going to cry for Minhyung?”
“For what?” Hyunjoon smiles, sweet and embarrassed. “We’ll still see him every few weeks. The Hanwha dorms are nicer and the ahjumma is kind.”
“Hyung, you can say that because you’ve been on so many teams,” Minseok says, shoes already on and pushing open the door. “Wasn’t your first time hard?”
“It’s always going to be hard,” Hyunjoon tilts his head, as Hyeonjun takes his hand. “But Minhyung’s confident and good at making friends, and the team is nice. I feel like he’ll end up having the time of his life,” he nudges Minseok’s hand, smiling slightly. “He can sneak you in to try the food.”
“He can sneak you in to try the bedsprings.”
Hyunjoon rolls his eyes, ignoring his boyfriend’s grin and giving Minseok a long-suffering look. “They’re not that great.”
Minhyung’s phone buzzes, and his heart beats faster. “My brother is here to pick me up. So I guess I’ll - I’ll see you guys at LoL Park?”
The next few minutes are a flurry, getting the luggage in the car before any fans can turn up and snap photos, and suddenly Minhyung’s in the passenger seat, watching the road in front of him get less and less familiar with every passing second.
That’s the end of SKT T1 Minhyung.
*
HLE Minhyung is confident and good at making friends.
He settles down expeditiously for someone who’s never transferred teams before, checking little things off the list like greet the staff and give them rice cakes and change my KakaoTaxi work address, and he goes for his appointment at the alpha health clinic.
Because Minhyung has an embarrassing confession to make.
“Never?” the doctor, a female alpha with long, noisy nails and perfectly shiny black hair, stares at him from her computer.
Minhyung is curled awkwardly in his too-small chair. “Uh, no. Uh-...”
“How is that possible?” the doctor – Dr Lee, gives a dismissive little smile. “They would’ve given it to you in school the moment you presented.”
“Actually I never finished high school,” Minhyung is starting to feel like he’s done something wrong. “When I was-...”
“Even if you dropped out, any doctor you saw as a teenager would’ve given you a prescription,” she’s scrolling through his medical history, as though determined to find a mistake. “You’re very lucky you didn’t get in trouble with an omega in your youth while off suppressants, you know?”
“Actually,” Minhyung says a little bit louder. “I never took suppressants because when I presented I bonded immediately with my soulmate. Yeah.”
Also, I didn’t drop out of high school.
Dr Lee pauses, and does a slow nod. This goes on for about a second. The soulmate reveal seems to be a surprise for her, as it usually is for everyone else. “I see. Can you share with me,” she poises her hands over her keyboard. “Why exactly you need suppressants now?”
“Oh. Because,” Minhyung’s jaw feels like it’s glued shut. “Because I...I won’t be with him for a while. And they told me we have to get on suppressants, or it’d, um, affect us.”
“Affect - yes, more or less, long-term separation from your mate without medication often results in depression, anxiety, lowered immunity, poor cognitive function – you said a while?”
“Uh, a year. Maybe more.”
“Why maybe?”
“Because...we used to be at the same job, where we lived together, but now our jobs are different,” Minhyung says. “Actually we’re professional gamers.”
Judging by the look on her face he might as well have said they were fire hydrants. “I see, I see...and he...decided to move?”
“Actually I, was the uh, the one, who decided to move - anyway-…” Minhyung shakes his head. “Sorry why is this relevant?”
“Sorry. It’s a doctor thing. We get interested in rare cases,” Dr Lee waves her hand and her sparkly nails, at least having the shame to look embarrassed. “Of course I’ll get you a prescription. Six months?”
“Yes, thank you,” Minhyung nods, relieved. “Yes, I understand – soulmates are rare, and all-...”
“Oh, but it’s actually not that special, the affliction hits just over one in a thousand people,” Dr Lee shakes her head. Her voice is starting to get drowned out by the printer shooting out paper prescriptions. She leans in earnestly so he can hear her better. “It’s more because when soulmates find each other they typically don’t tend to leave each other, you see.”
Minhyung laughs. His insides have gone all cold.
“Here’s your prescription,” Dr Lee says, pushing up her spectacles. “Usually alphas start off with two a day for four to six months, then we ease off the dosage once your body’s adjusted. We usually tell the kids to set an alarm because missing a day isn’t good. Starting so late...might give you some side effects,” she nods. “But the good thing is that you’re so much older now that it shouldn’t be a problem for you.”
“Okay, thank you, Dr Lee,” Minhyung stands, wanting to get out of this clinic as soon as possible.
“And if you’re separating from your omega for the first time in a while,” Dr Lee says empathetically. “Don’t be surprised when they suddenly show up...upset. Needy, that sort of thing. It tends to happen for my patients’ mates. Just listen to them, conduct skin to skin contact, and they’ll be fine.”
It’s quite possibly the only useful thing Minhyung’s learnt that day. “Thank you,” he smiles, and leaves so fast he almost forgets to collect his suppressants.
*
So yes, Minhyung had had the divine fortune of meeting his soulmate the moment he presented. Yes, Minhyung had thrown that away in favour of something as small and stupid as not wanting to kill himself all the time. And yes, he doesn’t have any time to process this because scrim season has started, and he has a whole new (kind of) team to learn.
Hyunjoon is right – everyone is nice. Hwanjoong is a great support on the rift and in real life, the kind of friend who’d ask you if you wanted something before going to the convenience store and tell you after that you didn’t have to pay him back. Jinhyeok is surprisingly easygoing for an alpha with such an aggressive jungle playstyle. Wooje is the same as he’s always been – in his own world, unless he’s beaming at you through his invisible braces waiting for you to buy him something.
And Geonwoo is sweet.
Minhyung finds a bottle of zero sugar banana milk on his table five minutes before their first official scrim.
“That’s for you,” Geonwoo has his headphones around his neck, smiling as he tests his keyboard. “Hyunjoon told me you were trying to work out and stuff.”
“Yeah,” Minhyung sits down, genuinely moved. Maybe he’s just been at the bottom of the T1 food chain for so long that people being kind feels strange. “Wow, um, thank you.”
“Why do you want to lose weight though?” Geonwoo reaches over to help Minhyung lift up the CPU so he can troubleshoot his cables. His physique is insane, and he’s so thoughtful, Minhyung thinks – does he have an omega? He must have. “You already look good.”
Minhyung snorts. “After a meal I look like Winnie the Pooh. Wish I could look like you.”
“No,” Geonwoo shrugs, looking at him. “I prefer this.”
On his other side, Hwanjoong’s popping a pill out of foil grumpily, which reminds Minhyung. He shakes out two pills and washes them down with the banana milk.
The loading screen has the Worlds win on it. For a moment Minhyung’s taken back to that moment. Haha, I look so stupid. And Minseok has confetti on him.
He turns to his side, smiling. “Hey, you’ve got confetti on your-...fuck, sorry.”
Hwanjoong grimaces, booting up the client. “Happens to the best of us.”
*
He doesn’t do well at scrims, but he doesn’t do too poorly either.
The food at dinner isn’t as wonderful as Hyunjoon had described, but it’s not bad, either.
He supposes he misses Minseok from time to time, but he’s alright without him, he supposes.
It’s only after three days of this that Minhyung shakes out two pills onto his palm, and realises that this is what being on suppressants feels like.
Everything is grey. Losing a scrim doesn’t suck, and winning one doesn’t excite him. His appetite has shrunk because things taste don’t taste better or worse, they just taste less. For the first few days before suppressants he’d missed Minseok intensely, only able to fall asleep with his omega’s shirt on his pillow after texting him for hours, but now he’s so tired out from just existing that he’s asleep the moment he hits the bed.
“...and Minhyung,” Coach Yoon’s voice is like a drill, but the drugs just make Minhyung feel like he’s listening to him through water. “The play here was supposed to be aggressive. If we give you a prio pick then we need you to deliver,” the older alpha’s tone isn’t unkind. Just strict. “What happened to that FMVP from last year? Did you leave him on T1?”
“Sorry coach. I’ll work on it,” Minhyung says, voice low. A year ago, on T1, he would’ve been spurned by a comment like that, gritting his teeth and practicing into the night to make sure his coach never had a reason to speak to him like that again.
But now he just feels tired. Demoralised.
The green light on the dock across the lake that’d kept him going on all these years has faded.
*
you:
you’re so strong baby
minseokie:
??
you:
how did u survive on suppressants until we met?
I'm so tired
nothing tastes good
I'm sick of league
zzzz
minseokie:
hh welcome to the real world >-<
you:
can i not take it on the days we meet?
It feels weird...
minseokie:
that’s bad for u !
+ it’s just for the time being
anywayss
nobody asked u to leave me
hhhhhh
just kiiiddinggggg~~
you:
haha.......
minseokie:
scrims now byeee jh hyung scolded me FML
talk after
Minhyung thinks back to what the doctor had said about omegas needing you after separation, and feels a little stupid. Reading back all their texts, it feels like Minhyung’s always the one chasing after Minseok. But to be fair, hasn’t it always been this way?
It’s okay, because you’re good at making friends, and you’re confident.
Right, well, good thing Minhyung’s on a team full of alphas he can talk to about this!
He and Hwanjoong sit next to each other for lunch because they have a running betting pool on how much Coach Jaeha eats. From what he remembers, Hwanjoong has an omega, a girl he’d dated since his time on BRO. Great. A long-term relationship just like Minhyung’s.
“Yeah, don’t worry about what Coach Yoon said last week, he’s way harsher on us compared to Coach Inkyu. And I can’t believe you’ve never taken suppressants,” Hwanjoong would sound amazed if he wasn’t absorbed stacking banchan on his spoon. “Honestly, I don’t remember what it was like when I first started, I don’t really think about it. Jisoo’s still studying, anyway, we’re not planning to take the next step anytime soon.”
“But you don’t get like – tired? Or headaches?” Minhyung eats another spoon of rice. The food tastes exactly the same as it did yesterday, and the entire week before.
“I guess, once in a while. But hey, it gets better when you get to the once-a-week phase. You start tasting things again, and understanding people better, and liking omegas again-...”
“What?” Minhyung pauses. No one told me that.
“As in, the whole reason they give us suppressants as teenagers is so we don’t freak out with our new whatever going on and do something stupid to an omega, right?” Hwanjoong sounds a bit uncomfortable explaining this. “It’s really not that serious. Maybe omega scents just don’t smell that interesting for a while. I don’t remember.”
That explains why Minhyung’s almost forgotten about Minseok’s shirt, still hanging on his bedframe. “Okay, but, it stops after a while. Right?”
“Of course, give it like, six months?” Hwanjoong attacks the spoon of rice, voice muffled. “Our birth rate sucks as it is.”
Minhyung snorts, heart sinking as he eats another spoonful. Six months? “Well, it’s nice that she gets it at least.”
“Gets what?”
“Your uh, headaches. Tasting and smelling,” Minhyung gestures. “It’s nice that Jisoo understands.”
“Jisoo?” Hwanjoong frowns slightly. “Oh I don’t, uh, I don’t tell her about that.”
“You...you don’t?”
“Yeah, that’s kind of weird,” the other alpha downs another spoon of rice. “I don’t think omegas want to hear about that kind of stuff anyway.”
Minhyung looks down at his food. “Uh. Yeah.”
“Do you? Tell your omega all that?” Hwanjoong looks at him, then backtracks. “No, listen, it’s probably different because Minseok is a progamer. And you lived together for a while and everything. And you’re soulmates. Fuck you, honestly.”
Minhyung laughs, tension relieved for a moment. A bit weird that Hwanjoong knows all that, but sure.
“But like, Jisoo is a really pretty omega, okay? She’s smart, and she’s funny, and she’s surrounded all day by these fucking alpha finbros at Seoul U, and like,” Hwanjoong digs a knuckle into his temple, inhaling. “I don’t want her to think I need help, or anything.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Minseok’s surrounded by lots of capable alphas too.
“That’s just the way life is,” Hwanjoong shrugs. “Anyway we should get back soon or they’re gonna kill us. You remember what Coach Yoon said about the roam timings and playing with aggression?”
“Yeah,” Minhyung takes his tray of lovingly cooked, objectively delicious, half-eaten food off the table. “Let’s go.”
He realises now he doesn’t even feel bad as he’s scraping it into the bin.
*
For the record, Minseok is a pretty, smart and funny omega too, probably prettier, smarter and funnier than Jisoo, if Minhyung knew how to appreciate a female omega (he doesn’t).
If Minseok had been out on his own in the world, he’d probably have suitors lining up outside his door just like Geonwoo, and he would’ve been able to take his pick. He would’ve had such an abundance of choice that he could try one a day and never have to pay for a meal for the rest of his life.
And then stupid, arrogant, pubescent Minhyung had walked into his life, and then suddenly, he didn’t have a choice anymore.
For a while back then, the first time they lifted a trophy together, Minhyung had been proud of the person he’d become. He’d been proud enough to stand beside Minseok as his alpha and AD carry.
But he was far from perfect. And now, an hour away on a different team, he’s even less so.
Minhyung stares at the dark ceiling, and puts things in perspective. After last year, after everything it took to get to where he was, he’d had two choices after Worlds – to choose Minseok, or himself.
And he’d chosen himself.
Every day last year had felt like being dragged across a nailboard, sharp points cutting into his skin, waiting for the pain to end.
Was it worth it? Giving Minseok up just to hurt a little less?
*
minseokie:
i got cut off
anyway back to this
do u wanna go to the doctor again?
we can find a day
you:
it’s ok
honestly it’s nothing
you:
I miss you
minseokie:
<3
*
One afternoon in the LoL Park waiting room, idly watching LCK content autoplaying on the TV, Minhyung shakes two pills onto his hand and hesitates.
Well yes, long-term separation from your mate without medication often results in depression, anxiety, lowered immunity, poor cognitive function-…
He swallows the pills.
Wooje coasts over on his chair to join him in front of the TV, sucking on a Gongcha that was most definitely not bought by him. Being the sole omega and youngest on a team of alphas seems to have pretty good perks.
“Hyung, how are you settling in?” he chirps. “Coach Yoon is kind of fierce, isn’t he?”
“Yeah, but it’s fine,” Minhyung says, eyes still on the screen. He feels a bit ashamed that Wooje of all people is here to check on him about his performance. Was I really that bad? He wonders how honest he should be about what he’s been going through.
“You don’t sound very okay,” Wooje chews lazily on the pearls in his drink. “Maybe Minseok-hyung left you on read.”
This little shit. “Do you want me to take away your Gongcha?” Minhyung grins, pulling Wooje’s chair closer and feigning a grab. (Minseok did in fact leave him on read, but Wooje doesn’t need to know that.)
“You can if you want,” Wooje complains, fighting off Minhyung’s hand, still sucking on the straw. “Jinhyeok hyung bought the wrong flavour. He doesn’t know me at all.”
Minhyung smiles. It’s impossible not to feel fond. And despite his complaints, and how easy Choi Hyunjoon is to be around, he can’t hide how much he’s missed being around Wooje. “Yakult Green Tea with jewel pearls and less sugar?”
“Exactly! See? It’s not that hard,” Wooje sulks. Minhyung wisely does not add that he only knows this because Hyeonjun still has that order template pre-saved on his Gongcha app. “So what’s bothering you?”
What the hell, Minhyung sighs internally, it’s Wooje. The same Wooje that Minhyung had to console with ice cream when Hyeonjun chose to spend his first rut alone instead of with him. The same one he’d rushed down to buy omega scent-blockers for at a 7-11 overseas and gotten stared at for.
“It’s just...suppressants are hard.”
“They are!” Wooje whines, almost spilling his Gongcha on Minhyung. The alpha has to catch his jacket before it slides onto the floor. “You get headaches, you can’t eat anything, you’re tired and you play like ass...”
It feels silly, but Minhyung’s relieved to find someone who finally gets it. Wooje had probably had to go on suppressants when he got here last year too.
“Did it get better?” Minhyung pets Wooje’s hair down, and the omega pouts, knees up on the chair. He looks the same as back in T1, whimsical and carefree, but at the same time, different. Maybe that’s just what time does.
“Yeah, but only after a while. Sometimes I still get tired. And Jaeha-hyung is so unsympathetic. He says that’s just how it is for omegas, expect this until you get a mate, blah blah blah.”
“That sounds like Jaeha.”
“And there’s no one else! This team is full of alphas. I wish I was an alpha.”
“Choi Wooje, alpha or omega, you’d still be a menace.”
“Hyung!” Wooje headbutts his hand away, before settling in his chair with a sigh, staring at the TV. “You have it so much easier.”
“Easier?” Minhyung scoffs. “Wooje-yah, this suppressant stuff is just as new to me. And,” he lowers his voice. “What’s the point of a team full of alphas if none of these alphas want to talk about how suppressants make them feel?”
Wooje’s eyes are round. “They don’t?”
“Hwanjoong didn’t. I guess...it’s embarrassing. I don’t know,” Minhyung shrugs. Back in T1 he’d felt confident to talk about these things, but here it feels like talking just makes you an outcast. “And I don’t really know Jinhyeok well enough to ask. Maybe I’m just not as good at this whole friends thing as I thought.”
Wooje cracks a smile. “Yeah, you alphas are kind of stupid that way. Just ask someone else, hyung.”
Minhyung lets out an annoyed tch. “Who? I can’t even ask anyone back on T1,” he rolls his eyes. “None of them use suppressants. Except Sanghyeok, I don’t know – but imagine asking Sanghyeok hyung about suppressants. Hyung, does being on suppressants help you dodge skillshots better?”
“They’re not?”
Minhyung looks back at Wooje, and realises he’s made a mistake.
“I mean, I actually don’t know if they’re using suppressants,” he backtracks gently, hands up. “You know it just seems like-...”
“Sorry,” Wooje shakes his head, standing up and tugging on the back of his chair. “Yeah, it doesn’t matter.”
“Wait, Wooje-yah-...”
“We’re not together anymore. He can fuck whoever he wants.”
“Wooje-...”
“Hyung,” the omega turns around suddenly. “You wanna know how suppressants make me feel?”
Minhyung’s throat feels dry. “Okay?”
“I used to cry a lot last year. On and on, it was insane,” Wooje gestures listlessly. “Because they were everywhere, you know? He was everywhere. And it was so – so fast. And I couldn’t talk to anyone about it – you were all still there, making it look so...normal. It hurt so much I thought I was going to die, hyung.
“But then I started taking these pills,” he takes the bottle out of his pocket – the same brand as Minhyung’s prescription, except made for omegas. “And now, I don’t feel anything~,” he draws the word out, tilting his head to one side, staring past Minhyung. “Not even when I’m looking right at them.”
Minhyung turns around. On the TV, Hyeonjun’s clapping and laughing at something, as they sit around a table eating hotpot. Minhyung watches the alpha say something they can’t hear, as he puts his arm around Hyunjoon’s back, the omega absent-mindedly eating his food, like they’ve been doing this for years.
“That’s why we’re here~ Right?” Wooje says. He’s not the cheerful butterfly Minhyung once knew anymore. Like there are holes in his wings where nails used to be. “We wanted this.”
We wanted this.
“No one could’ve known it’d turn out like this,” Minhyung says, voice low. "Wooje, why didn’t you tell us?”
“What for? I chose this,” Wooje shrugs, turning away, pill bottle rattling in his pocket, finishing his bubble tea. “Suppressants aren’t that bad, hyung. You’ll get used to it.”
*
I wanted this. I chose this.
“...asking us about the skins – hey, ” Minseok huffs, and Minhyung snaps back to attention. “Are you listening?”
“Yes. Skin. The,” Minhyung fumbles. Even being in public feels different on suppressants. Hot oil from the BBQ grill in front of them had spattered on his skin, but he’s only noticing now, staring mutely at the raw, pink burn mark on his skin. “Your facial clinic appointment?”
“No, our Worlds skins,” Minseok’s eyes are narrowed. He glances at Minhyung’s phone. “What are you thinking about?”
Their dates have to be quiet now, this time in an expensive private room in a nice BBQ restaurant, because they don’t have an excuse to be seen in public together anymore. No more huddling at a wooden table at a cheap grill place, cheeks red from soju, listening to Hyeonjun’s bad jokes and holding Minseok’s hand under the table.
Omegas don’t really want to hear about that stuff. Minhyung’s been thinking about it all day, how he’d talk about it, if he’d talk about it.
“Sorry, I was just...” Getting owned by the side effects of a drug everyone has no trouble taking. Worried if you still love me. Worried that this wasn’t the right choice to make. Minhyung takes a deep breath, and looks at Minseok’s expectant face. “I was, um, worried about Wooje.”
The only reason Minseok doesn’t call him out on lying is because it’s the truth. He is worried.
“Oh,” Minseok says quietly. “How is he?”
“He...didn’t want to tell us everything last year, but apparently...it was bad for him. Watching them get together,” Minhyung sighs. “And he...he thinks it’s his fault.”
“Because he was the one who asked for the breakup?”
Because he was the one who chose to leave. “Yeah,” Minhyung eats a piece of meat. He should be appreciating it more, with how much it costs. “You know I still just don’t understand why he wanted to break up. They could’ve stayed together, just on different teams,” he looks at Minseok. “Couldn’t they?”
He expects Minseok to say yes. After all, that’s what the two of them are doing now. But Minseok has quietened. “Maybe he felt ashamed.”
Minhyung frowns. “Ashamed?”
“That he was asking for too much,” Minseok says, looking down. “You know Hyeonjun always believed they’d debut and retire together. Maybe he thought it was too much, leaving but expecting Hyeonjun to stay with him.”
Minhyung feels lost for words. Was I asking for too much?
He thinks of Minseok, alone on T1. The doctor’s words run through his mind. Once soulmates find each other they usually don’t tend to leave.
“But...but we were there. We know Hyeonjun would’ve given anything to stay with him,” Minhyung says, words tumbling out of his mouth. “He was fucked up for weeks, he was drinking, crying-...”
Minseok shrugs. “Yeah. And look at him now.”
“Seokie,” the alpha buries his face in his hands. “We both know Hyeonjun’s on the worst case of a rebound relationship we’ve ever seen.”
“Yeah? Because last week he asked me what it was like when you bit me. He wanted tips,” Minseok glances up at him. “For when he gives his mating bite to Hyunjoon.”
Minhyung lets out a breathy laugh, smile going slack when Minseok’s expression doesn’t change. “Are you fucking serious?”
“I wanted to tell him to wait, that he was rushing into this,” Minseok says calmly. “But I think...he probably thinks that was his biggest mistake. Waiting to bite Wooje,” he picks up his chopsticks again. “I haven’t asked Hyunjoon, though, he might want more time.”
Minhyung runs a hand through his hair. He stares at the meat grill. “They...he told me he was going to give Wooje a mating bite during his next heat. I don’t...I don’t believe he’d change his mind like that.”
“You don’t think he loves Hyunjoon?”
Minhyung’s brow creases. “Do you?”
“No,” Minseok says matter-of-factly, taking another piece of meat. “And I don’t think Hyunjoon loves him either.”
The alpha straightens with a slight frown. “How d’you know?”
“We were on DRX. I know what he looks like when he’s in love,” Minseok’s still looking at his food. “Sometimes love just fucks you up. Makes you drink and cry. And then you find something that doesn’t hurt, and then you...stay with that forever.”
It’s true, that since Hyeonjun started dating Hyunjoon he’d stopped crying, stopped going to the rooftop by himself to smoke, started remembering his friends and going out with them again, but Minhyung knew he wasn’t in love. He probably knew he wasn’t in love either.
But he was doing better.
Maybe, for the two of them, that was enough.
“You’re right, that it wasn’t Wooje’s fault,” Minseok murmurs. “But he’s an adult. As an adult, he chose to leave. And then life just...happened afterwards.”
Minhyung’s phone buzzes – it's a text to the HLE team chat, telling them they have to be up for an early scrim tomorrow. Minseok’s dark eyes catch it from across the table. “You should head back. It’s a long ride. I’ll get this one, you got the last two.”
Do you blame me? Minhyung wants to ask. The question stays, a knife on his tongue, daring him to speak as Minseok gets up and opens the door to politely ask for the bill. For choosing to leave?
Far away across the table, Minseok grabs his phone, laughing as he makes to pay the staff. The rotating lock screen flashes before Minhyung for a second - it’s the same old lock screen, a picture of the two of them, back when they first met. When that brash, proud, imperfect alpha had promised Minseok that if he stayed by his side, they’d take over the world together.
That stupid alpha who believed with all his heart he’d do anything for Minseok, until pain came and built its world around love, and he realised he wasn’t even strong enough to stay.
“Let’s go,” Minseok’s voice shakes him from his thoughts. He’s about to grab his bag and get up when Minseok takes his arm.
“You burned yourself,” the omega frowns, grabbing a wet tissue and swiping it gently against Minhyung’s tan skin. It’s another burn mark – bigger, rough around the edges. “It’ll blister if you’re not careful. Didn’t you feel it?”
“No,” Minhyung shakes his head, still struggling with his thoughts. Guess it’s the suppressants.
“Hm. Guess it’s not that good for us, huh?” Minseok looks at him, tiptoeing to kiss him. Minhyung closes his eyes automatically, but his heart feels empty. Bleak. “When things don’t hurt like they should.”
*
Minhyung squeezes his eyes shut that night in bed, inhales Minseok’s shirt, and wonders when he’ll start to remember the smell of sakura again.
*
Maybe it’s because he met Minseok after so long, but he dreams about him that night.
He never dreams of Minseok. Why would he need to, seeing him every day? So Minhyung’s sure this is real – that he’s standing in his old room at T1, about to head for a scrim at HLE, and Minseok is there.
The bedsheets are crumpled and half strewn over the floor, the door shut, but the shades are left just a little open so the streetlight peeps in, like how they always leave it.
The light glitters off the tears on Minseok’s face, his sparkling eyes, barely visible in the darkness as he sobs and bounces harder, faster, chasing his climax. “P-please-...”
The alpha under him grabs the back of his neck roughly, forcing him down into a kiss, fucking up into him hard enough to make him cry out.
“That good, huh baby?”
“Yes,” Minseok gasps, eyes glazing over as he moves his hips. Right as he’s about to cum, the alpha covers his mouth, muffling his squeal so no one hears.
This lasts for a few moments, until Minseok collapses against the alpha, breathing hard, hips twitching. From where he’s standing Minhyung can see white trickling out of him.
“I love you,” the omega sniffs, burying his face in the alpha’s neck. “So much.”
Anxiously, Minhyung hopes they’re occupied enough that he can sneak out through this door without getting caught. He really needs to get to that scrim at HLE, and Ilsan’s almost an hour away on taxi. If he doesn’t get there on time, Coach Yoon will kill him.
His heart jolts as the door bangs, three rapid knocks. How did they know he’s here?
“Minhyung! Are you there?”
*
“Minhyung!”
The alpha jolts up from his bed, gasping for air, everything he’d just dreamt coming back to him so hard and fast he feels it, the sounds in his ears and the carpet under his feet. Like being drowned in fireworks after weeks of sensory deprivation.
“Your alarm’s going off,” Hwanjoong reports, standing there with a toothbrush in his mouth. “We’re going to be-...”
Minhyung pushes past him, slamming the bathroom door close behind him and throwing up into the toilet bowl. The smell of half-digested meat and grease almost makes him retch again.
After several dry heaves he flushes the mess, staggering up and splashing some water onto his face, rinsing out his mouth as his heart pounds. What the fuck. What the fuck was that?
Phone. He needs his phone, he needs to call Minseok, needs Minseok to tell him that wasn’t real-...
“Whoaaa,” Jinhyeok stands at the doorway, rubbing his eyes, holding a toothbrush. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Minhyung grimaces. I need to get my phone. “Sorry, hyung. Must’ve eaten something bad. Excuse-...”
He steps into his room and grabs his phone off the mattress. Before he has the time to think about it he’s calling Minseok, fidgeting with the drawstring of his pants while he waits through the dial tone.
No answer.
This is normal. It’s normal because it’s ass o’ clock right now and HLE have an early scrim. Minhyung opens his chat and fires off a text.
you:
minseokie? u there?
can u call me when you wake up?
He’s fretting over what to do, whilst simultaneously aware that there are people in his doorway.
“Sure it’s not nerves?” Jinhyeok leans against the doorframe, toothbrush in his mouth. “Pregnancy?”
Minhyung snorts, tossing his phone on the bed and rubbing his temple. I should call Hyeonjun. He wakes up early. But what the hell do I ask him?
At the back of his mind he knows he should be paying more attention to his new jungler – he’s an industry senior, and they haven’t spoken outside of work and small talk since he got here, but it’s so hard to focus when all he can think about is Minseok.
Hwanjoong walks in then, shaking Minhyung’s pill bottle meaningfully, before tossing it onto his bed. It rolls and bumps into his phone, where his chat remains unread. “Take it. See you at practice.”
Minhyung looks at the suppressant bottle, eyes wild, as Wooje’s words ring through his mind. Now I don’t feel anything even when I’m looking right at them.
It’s the suppressants. They’re fucking with my head.
Jinhyeok laughs then. Minhyung hears him heading back to rinse out his mouth and spit in the sink. “Ahh, so it’s just suppressants. Yeah I used to take those too, they’re so annoying.”
“Yeah,” Minhyung’s about to dial Hyeonjun, then pauses. “Wait, hyung, you – you used to? So you don’t anymore?”
“No,” Jinhyeok shrugs. “After I broke up with my ex and got back on them, I just felt like they slowed me down in the game.”
Minhyung’s performance has been struggling, but he’d put it down to the new patch and team dynamics. “So, there’s something else you use?”
After weeks of suffering through these meds, of wondering if this was the right choice, there’s something else I can do to get through this?
“Yeah,” Jinhyeok’s stepped back into the toilet, lathering cleanser on his face. “I go to an alpha care centre.”
For a second Minhyung wonders if he’s still dreaming, and hence doesn’t understand what Jinhyeok’s saying. “A what?”
“An alpha care centre,” the jungler repeats, louder and slower. He's different from how he behaves on camera. “You know. They have omegas there that take care of your needs. You regulate naturally instead of with meds. There’s a lot of them in China,” he splashes water on his face. “You never heard of them?”
“Oh,” Minhyung can’t stop himself from sounding disappointed about the false trail. “Sorry, hyung, I – I didn’t tell you, um, I have an omega.”
“You mean Minseok?” Jinhyeok glances at him. “Yeah, we know. Everyone knows.”
“Oh.”
“But these omegas are super professional,” the other alpha buries his face in a towel, rubbing his face vigorously. “You don’t have to feel weird about doing it with them. They’re just...doing their job.”
“Yeah, uh,” Minhyung shakes his head, laughing awkwardly. “No, I don’t think my omega would be comfortable with that.”
“Ah,” Jinhyeok surfaces from his towel, nodding. “Minseok tracks you?”
“He - what?”
“Those tracking apps. He has one on your phone?”
“No, what-...”
“Then how would he know?”
When Minhyung doesn’t respond, Jinhyeok laughs, throwing his towel over his shoulder.
He steps out of the bathroom, eyeing the alpha up and down, and Minhyung finds himself unconsciously taking a step back.
“Aigoo, so this is what an innocent church alpha is like,” the older alpha says, half to himself, folding his arms across his chest. “You think it’s like, doing the wrong thing, or something? Going to an alpha care centre?”
Again, Minhyung doesn’t respond.
“Everyone does it. It’s not like you have a choice, being so far away from each other,” he remarks. “Better than trying to weather it by yourself, or overdosing on pills while Minseokie’s running around all alone back in Seoul.”
Minhyung’s fingers twitch. He wants this conversation to end, he wants to call Minseok and listen to his sleepy reassurance that it was just a nightmare, and he’s being silly, and to have a good scrim.
Jinhyeok must see it, because he smirks. “You know these days there are lots of omega care centres too,” he unlocks his phone, amiable and relaxed. “You don’t think Minseok’s hitting one up right now? That’s why he’s not answering your calls?”
Maybe it’s the dream, or the unanswered texts, or the way Minhyung’s been on the edge for the past weeks, but right then he snaps.
“Don’t talk about my omega like that,” he says quietly.
Jinhyeok doesn’t say anything. Instead an overpowering scent hits Minhyung a second later – it's the jungler’s alpha pheromones, aired freely, so strong Minhyung chokes.
“Were you talking to me?” Jinhyeok asks.
It takes Minhyung a split second to remember he can’t release his own pheromones – not while on suppressants. Jinhyeok must’ve remembered that.
For a moment Minhyung’s so angry he’s about to do something he’ll regret a month into his new team, until someone steps out from their room, shoving Jinhyeok lightly away.
“Seriously? This early in the morning, hyung?” Geonwoo sighs, shouldering his way in between them. It’s not that hard, given how well-built he is. “Go drink some coffee. You’re just pissed off we have practice so early.”
“Fuck, you’re right,” Jinhyeok cracks his neck, worn out at the thought of the common enemy ahead (three scrims straight). “Minhyung-ah, I’ll send you the link. I’m just trying to help~ Okay?”
“Tch,” Geonwoo rolls his eyes. “Don’t listen to him, he just had a generational breakup with a cheating ex coming here or something and made it his whole personality.”
“Thanks,” Minhyung says, under his breath, feeling worse than when he’d woken up.
Because when he thinks about it, Jinhyeok’s right.
Alphas and omegas were genetically programmed to regulate each other. You could try to do it yourself, with medicine, or surgery, but nothing was as good as the real thing.
He would never have snapped like that if he was with Minseok. It was this separation, these drugs, this constant fear that he chose wrong, that were driving him crazy.
Maybe this is the way it’ll always be. That by choosing to leave he’d forced both himself and Minseok into poisoning themselves on suppressants, drugs that could affect their performance and their career.
“You okay?” Geonwoo asks, concerned. “Hwanjoong told me you were sick this morning.”
“I’m fine,” Minhyung rubs his neck. He glances back at the pillbox on his bed, and his phone, still silent. “Just...stressed about practice.”
“Hey, I thought we did well,” Geonwoo touches his shoulder, and Minhyung looks up at him. His skin is cool but not clammy, refreshing like an early spring breeze. “Maybe you’re used to being perfect from the start,” he smirks, pushing Minhyung’s chest lightly. “But I think we just need a little more time together.”
“Yeah?” Minhyung touches his chest, absent-mindedly. “I wish I had your confidence.”
“But you’re always the most confident, right?” the other alpha laughs, heading into the bathroom. For someone so big, his laugh is airy and sweet. “That’s what we all like about you. I’m...just an introvert, I wish I could talk to people like you can.”
From his mattress, Minhyung hears his phone buzz. He turns, heart jolting, until Geonwoo takes his arm.
“Come on?” the other alpha pulls him into the bathroom, gentle and eyes expectant. “Wash up and let’s go, or we’ll be late.”
“Yeah,” Minhyung nods, blinking rapidly, squeezing out some cleanser on his hands and starting to wash his face.
*
Minhyung grabs his phone off the bed before he heads off. That notification sound wasn’t even from Minseok – his omega’s still ignoring his message.
The bottle of pills sits on the crumpled sheets. Minhyung takes it, and-...
“I love you,” the omega sniffs, burying his face in the alpha’s neck. “So much.”
“You don’t think Minseok’s hitting one up right now? That’s why he’s not answering your calls?”
“And now, I don’t feel anything~ Not even when I’m looking right at them.”
-...and Minhyung lets go, pressing his palms into his pants so the trembling stops.
He leaves the bottle on the bed. On the way out, he deletes the messages he’d sent to Minseok.
*
minseokie:
did u call me??
you:
sorry finger slipped
minseokie:
>.>
ok
*
A day into skipping his suppressants, Minhyung eats his first full meal in weeks.
He gets angry in a game of soloqueue. He clutches a scrim with a barely-there ace in the last ten minutes after an Elder flip, and gets a congratulatory thump on the back from Coach Yoon.
Two days in, he goes to the gym with Geonwoo, and forces himself to go on a run. He takes Wooje to the convenience store and buys him ice cream.
Three days in, he almost tilts over a losing matchup in a scrim but drags the scoreline back with Jinhyeok, who high fives him afterwards, grinning as if he knows what Minhyung is doing. He goes for another run. He starts a new webtoon Hwanjoong recommended him.
He does all this because every time he stops, his heart starts to whisper to him.
Little reasons why Minseok’s taking so long to reply him. That when he does, he sounds cold. Like he doesn’t care. It replays things Minseok said to him, phrases or words that make Minhyung’s fingers itch, scratching down the KakaoTalk chat and all of Minseok’s private accounts, wondering why he’s not talking to him.
I guess it’s not good for us huh? When things don’t hurt like they should.
Three nights in Minhyung breathes Minseok’s shirt in, laughing in relief when the intoxicating strains of sakura come back to him in the semi darkness. He buries his face in the softness and laughs and laughs until it soaks through to his fingers, and he lowers the shirt to realise he’s crying.
He’s crying for the first time in months, and he can’t stop, curled up in a ball on the mattress, body shaking with sobs, fingers dragging apart the soft cotton until it’s wrinkled and deformed, just like them, because he just couldn’t fucking take it anymore and ruined the only good thing he had in his life.
Why? Didn’t Minseok get it, what he was going through last year? How could he blame Minhyung for choosing to leave? Would you rather I have stayed? Suffered until I ended it all?
No, no his Minseokie wasn’t so cruel. No, Minseok would’ve wished you were stronger. Strong enough to stay by his side as his alpha.
Minhyung wasn’t good enough, and with every person he begged for help the more helpless he seemed. The confident alpha Minhyung was a joke. His career, the promises he’d made to his fans, and Minseok were all slipping through his fingers and no matter how hard he tried, he wasn’t worthy enough to hold on.
But then he wakes up. He washes his face and brushes his teeth. He grins and bears it, because this is what he’d wanted. This is what he chose.
*
minseokie:
sry was talking to the coaches
hey
are u feeling ok?
you:
im fine
why
minseokie:
ok~
you:
no
why
minseokie:
you sound on edge
I am, Minhyung wants to type back, resentment burning at the back of his throat. I’ve been thinking of you, all morning, all night, and I don’t know where you are, who you’re with. I’ve been waiting for you for hours, and you’ve only just noticed now?
His phone buzzes again.
minseokie:
i gotta go for scrims
can we talk when we meet?
Minhyung throws his phone onto the desk, exhaling through his nose, fists clenched so hard his nails cut into his skin, staring at the screen and waiting for the queue to pop so he can take it out on the next champion he sees in lane.
*
A week in, Minhyung raises his voice during a feedback session. Just for a second. But it’s enough for Coach Jaeha to find him afterwards, face blank.
He puts the pill bottle down on Minhyung’s desk. “You’re not on your suppressants.”
Minhyung’s irritation flares, and though he keeps his face straight it must come out in his scent, because the omega coach turns away, nose wrinkling. “If it’s affecting your performance then take them.”
My performance is affected whether I take them or not, Minhyung wants to say. But even drunk on hormones he manages to bite his tongue. “Yes coach.”
“Why’d you stop?”
If it was Minhyung’s first day here, maybe he’d tell Jaeha the truth. After all, he was close with Wangho and Geonwoo, right? He couldn’t be that bad.
But now there’s a beating, vulnerable part of him inside that’s covered in pinpricks, bleeding out into the cavity of his chest. That the more he tells, the more people will have to use against him.
“I forgot, coach.”
“You took them every day for almost two months,” Jaeha refutes. “You thought we didn’t notice you stopped? I’m not scolding you, Minhyung, I just want to know why.”
“I’m dealing with it, coach.”
“I don’t think you are. Every time I look up at you, you’re glancing at your phone. Even when you’re in game,” Jaeha gestures to Minhyung’s phone. The alpha’s eye twitches when it looks for a moment like the coach is about to take it away. “Do you want to be here or not?”
No, no I fucking don’t, I want to go back, I want-...
“Hyung?”
Minhyung looks up, ashamed for a split second that he’s caught getting told off, but relaxing when he realises it’s Geonwoo.
“Coach Yoon was looking for you,” the alpha points with his thumb. Minhyung’s sure that any other alpha on this team (himself included) would’ve gotten their head snapped off if they’d interrupted Jaeha, but Geonwoo (as usual) seems to be the apple of the assistant coach’s eye.
“Okay,” he casts one last warning look at Minhyung, before heading off. “Remember what I said.”
Minhyung looks down as Geonwoo sits next to him, chair swivelling. “Hey...you okay?”
“Yeah. ‘M fine,” Minhyung’s hackles are slowly going down. “Thanks.”
“Jaeha-hyung...he really cares a lot. It’s not easy managing a team full of alphas,” Geonwoo shrugs. “And...he really wants us to win this year.”
Minhyung’s stomach turns over. What happened to the FMVP from last year? Because he’s nothing without that team?
“Hey, you know I’m...really glad you came here,” Geonwoo admits, leaning back in his chair. “When Dohyeon said he was leaving, I thought we were dead. But then they said...they managed to get Gumayusi... I couldn’t believe it, at first. But you’re here.”
Minhyung laughs listlessly. “I’m sorry I’m not what you expected.”
“What makes you think so?” Geonwoo frowns. “Hey, it’s a five-man game. Nobody’s expecting you to carry the whole game on your shoulders. I know it was probably rough coming here from T1 after all those years – but you don’t think we could form our own legacy here? Together?”
Minhyung looks up at him, trying to see what’s the catch – after all the casual vitriol he’s faced, sometimes Geonwoo seems too pure to be true. “You think so?”
The other alpha looks down at his hands. “You know I’ve...never been to MSI. Stupid, right? World champion, and I’ve never even set foot in that international tournament. People call me a fraud that got lucky,” Geonwoo’s jaw clenches. “And I really want to prove them wrong.”
That lights a familiar fire in Minhyung’s chest. “I know how that feels.”
“That’s what I told myself last year. And the year before,” Geonwoo laughs, hollow. “Sometimes I feel like I’m cursed. Washed up before I even really started.”
“You’re not cursed. We’re going to make it this year. And we’re going to win,” Minhyung says. It feels strange, like the fire that’d been stoked in his chest last year is whispering to life again, remembering how to live. “Don’t give up now.”
I’m here now. No more getting stuck in the past. I have to be here for this team.
Geonwoo beams at him, amused. “You know when you say it like that…I really want to believe you. You promise?”
“Promise,” Minhyung smiles.
The other alpha shifts in his seat, closer to Minhyung – his leg bumps into the table, and the bottle of suppressants rattle. Geonwoo looks at him – it’s cute, how his eyes seem naturally sad. “Was it bad, taking these?”
Minhyung eyes the bottle, stomach curling at the thought of the nightmare, of going back to that bleak, unfeeling existence. “They’re fine,” he sighs. “What about yours?”
“Mine are different, but it’s the same experience. It sucks getting back on them,” Geonwoo wrinkles his nose. “But hey, that’s why we need each other to get through it, right? Back then, um, someone told me,” the other alpha chuckles, embarrassed. “If you take your suppressants with some milk, it absorbs slower, for some reason. So the side effects don’t hit you as hard.”
Minhyung’s brow creases. “Is that why you – that day, you gave me the...?”
“The banana milk?” Geonwoo lights up. “Yeah. You remember that?”
“Well, yeah,” Minhyung laughs, confused. It was the first nice thing anyone did for me here.
“You know we could...” Geonwoo glances out the door, then back hopefully. “Get out of here for a while. Grab some at the Family Mart downstairs. Do you want to...?”
Sure. What the hell.
“Let’s go,” Minhyung smiles, grabbing his jacket off the back of his chair.
*
They end up at the rickety plastic chairs outside the Family Mart, knee to knee because it’s so cramped and cold, huddled up in their puffer jackets and sharing a Shin cup ramyun with their banana milk.
“Cheers,” Minhyung bumps his banana milk with Geonwoo’s. The other alpha’s cheeks get pink easily in the cold, he notices, as he downs his pills.
They chat about how annoying some of the new patch updates are, pass the cup ramyun between them till Geonwoo’s just holding the cup to warm up his fingers.
“So, who was the one who told you about the milk tip?” Minhyung asks conversationally, watching the cars pass.
“Oh,” Geonwoo hesitates. “It was Seonghoon hyung. You know – Kingen.”
“Ah, yeah,” Minhyung nods. Why so furtive about it?
“The thing is, he was my – um...” Geonwoo swallows, glancing sideways at Minhyung quickly. “He was my boyfriend. Back then.”
Minhyung pauses in a drink of water. Because the last he remembered, Seonghoon was a-...
“Even though he’s an alpha. Yeah,” Geonwoo stares out at the carpark. “I...I’m an alpha who likes alphas. I...yeah. I just hope this doesn’t like,” he looks at Minhyung again. “Doesn’t change things between us.”
“Oh. Oh no, of course not,” Minhyung says, scrambling to wrap his thoughts around this. Get it together, he growls at himself. Geonwoo’s being honest and vulnerable, what the hell is he doing? “Thanks for telling me. Does anyone else...?”
“Coach Jaeha knows, he’s kind of always checking up on me. And the old DRX roster,” Geonwoo shrugs. “The rest don’t, maybe they do. I don’t really care. Alphas...sometimes they don’t like being in the same room as someone like me. They think they’ll get infected.”
Minhyung’s still reeling from this information, bits and pieces of all the times he’s been alone with Geonwoo over the past two months coming back to him. Might it have looked like he was giving the wrong signals?
He forces himself back into the present. “I...I think you should be able to like who you like. If they have a problem with that, then that’s their fault. Not yours.”
The other alpha looks at him, and smiles. It’s then Minhyung notices the teardrop mole beside his eye – just like Minseok. “That really means a lot to me,” he looks back out at the carpark. “We should probably get back to practice. Come on, let’s go.”
Their hands brush as they’re clearing the bottles off the table, and Minhyung’s heart jolts. You’re being weird. You’re being just like those asshole alphas Geonwoo talked about just now.
Coach Jaeha’s eyes narrow for a split second when he sees the two of them coming back up together, faces flushed and wind-blown hair. Minhyung thinks he glances at their hands, to see if they’re linked. Maybe he’s just being overly conscious.
“The scrim is about to start,” he says, arms still folded. His eyes burn into the back of Minhyung’s head, even when he’s seated. “Log in and get ready.”
*
Minhyung shakes himself out of that momentary conflict for the rest of the night, determined to find back and hold onto that spark he’d found that afternoon.
I’m here to get HLE to MSI. I’m here to win MSI with them, and Worlds, to prove Geonwoo wasn’t just lucky, and that Wooje and I aren’t nothing without T1.
Scrims go well, with none of that intense fatigue from the suppressants – maybe the milk had helped, after all. Minhyung doesn’t feel the sleepiness set in until after dinner and the first hour of his stream.
“Everyone, I’m going to stream earlier on Friday,” the alpha smiles, trying to keep his eyes open. He’d made progress today, and he was going to count his blessings and rest up for tomorrow. “Turning in now. You guys sleep early too.”
Wooje waves to him as he’s packing up to leave. Between them, Geonwoo looks up, sad eyes upturned in a sweet smile.
“Night, Minhyungie.”
*
The warm shower makes Minhyung feel even more groggy than before he’d stepped in.
He runs a towel through his hair in the darkness, letting it slip to the floor before collapsing on his bed. Did he close his door? He doesn’t even remember.
The air-conditioning's too warm, but he’s too exhausted to do anything about it. He needs to set his alarm for tomorrow, or he’ll sleep in again.
No worries, the rest will wake him up.
The rest will...
Minhyung’s half-roused in the darkness by the creak of his door opening. Faint light from under the bathroom door gleams weakly across his bedroom floor, then slowly disappears.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” Geonwoo whispers, padding silently across the floor. The mattress dips by Minhyung’s thigh, as his knees sink in.
Minhyung rolls over, blinking slowly. Geonwoo’s touch against his bare skin feels like a spring breeze, like it always does, across his chest, then cradling his cheek, fingers brushing hair out of his face.
“Hey,” Minhyung croaks back, heartbeat increasing in a slow crescendo. There’s a thrill under his skin, knowing something’s wrong, he just doesn’t know what. “What are you...?”
“Shh,” Geonwoo straddles him, before leaning down. His breath is cool and sweet, smile shy, his weight against Minhyung’s body firm and warm and constant.
And then he’s kissing him, open mouthed against Minhyung’s lips, tongue hot and sweet as fresh dalgona candy.
Minhyung’s heart soars, the touch exhilarating, jackhammering inside his chest until it’s shattering his ribcage, threatening to burst out of his chest.
“What’s wrong?” Geonwoo laughs quietly, eyes crinkling, and something sparkles at the corner of Minhyung’s eye.
The little teardrop mole, under his eye.
*
Th-thud, th-thud, th-thud. Minhyung’s heart is the loudest thing in the dead silent room as his eyes flash open, chest rising and falling rapidly.
He sits up, head spinning so hard he almost throws up. Breathing deeply, he opens and closes his eyes. His skin is buzzing. He forces his legs off the side of the bed, and checks his phone, unplugged and at 10%.
1.18am. He’s barely been asleep for two hours. He touches his lips, eyes lidded, feeling the fire of that kiss slowly dance away.
No, no. Minhyung stumbles to his feet, realising with a sinking feeling that he’d left his own door open. He staggers out into the deserted corridor, knees weak. It was just another dream. Just like the last one.
Fumbling, he grabs the doorknob of the room opposite to his, blood roaring in his ears. He hesitates for a moment, then pushes it open, and stares into the dark, empty room.
“Hey.”
Minhyung jumps, knocking his shoulder painfully in the doorway. Wooje’s materialised in the corridor, hair wet and a towel over his shoulder. “You okay, hyung?”
The alpha can’t reply, still breathing hard.
“What are you doing in Geonwoo’s room?” Wooje asks, uncertainty colouring his voice now.
“Nothing, I just-...” Minhyung swallows, like sandpaper against his dry throat. “I had a nightmare.”
“Do you...usually go looking for Geonwoo when you get nightmares?”
The AD carry’s headache is starting to get worse. It’s just the suppressants, just the suppressants. “Where is Geonwoo?”
“He’s still streaming,” Wooje says, arms folded across his chest. “Won’t be back for a while, I guess.”
Minhyung half collapses against the doorway, chest heaving, wiping his forehead against his sleeve. Okay. Then there’s no way – there's no way it could’ve been real.
“Hyung,” Wooje says again, quieter this time. “You know Geonwoo’s...you know who he likes, right?”
“Huh?”
“You know he likes alphas,” the omega says, measured. “Right?”
“Yeah,” Minhyung nods, still reeling. When he looks at Wooje again, the omega’s eyes are narrowed.
“Then why are you sneaking into his room alone at night?”
It’s not real. Minhyung pushes himself back up, feeling like he’s coming unravelled as he does. “There’s nothing going on between us.”
Wooje raises his voice slightly, some resentment coming through. “Then why are you always alone with him?”
“Because he’s been kind to me!” Minhyung says, tamping down his frustration. “And no one else has. I’m sorry, Wooje,” he breathes heavily, nails digging into his pants. “But it’s just been so hard trying to hold it together in front of everyone, including you, with all the expectations, and what everyone’s been saying,” he closes his eyes, taking a deep breath. “But I can assure you there’s nothing going on between us. I’m not going to let it happen.”
He feels so stupid, coming undone in front of Wooje like this, the omega he’d desperately tried to protect through the turmoil of last year, the person he’d wanted so bad to be a role model and big brother to since their time on T1. Now Wooje knew that it was all a lie – that Minhyung wasn’t strong enough to care about him. He wasn’t even strong enough to take care of himself.
The spiral downwards is starting to make his hands and knees tremble. He feels like running, except he doesn’t know where to go – nowhere is safe, and the dry, unforgivingly hot air of the heater makes sweat run down his back, down the side of his face. He needs to get out of here. He needs to-...
“Hyung,” Wooje says then, sounding faraway. “Do you need a hug?”
Minhyung opens his eyes, blinking away the floaters as he looks at Wooje, standing there meekly in the semi-darkness.
Wordlessly, he stands, closing the distance between them and pulling the omega into a hug, letting out a shaky breath. Again, he feels like a slave to his biology when even through the suppressants, some residue of Wooje’s omega pheromones calms him down, making the tremors stop.
“You know you gave me a lot of shit for not telling you anything, hyung,” Wooje says, quietly patting Minhyung’s back. “But you don’t tell me anything, either.”
“Sorry,” Minhyung says, muffled. “I don’t know how to deal with this.”
“Hyung,” the omega says seriously. “Why don’t you go see Minseok?”
Like, now?
“Right now,” Wooje says, as Minhyung lets go, breathing stabilising slowly as he thinks it over. “Take a cab over. What could happen?”
“But...but practice tomorrow-...”
“I’ll tell them the truth. That you’re feeling sick. You’ll be back in the afternoon. Right?”
That would mean having to come clean with Minseok – to tell him he’s been lying, that things haven’t been fine here like he keeps telling him, that he feels like a failure as a progamer and an alpha.
But it’s Minseok. His omega.
Wooje waves his towel. “You can sneak out if you take the elevator to level 2, then the stairs to level 1. If anyone asks me, all I know is that I saw you in bed.”
“Thank you, Wooje,” Minhyung says quietly, before turning and heading off, barely waiting for the corridor to end before he’s breaking into a run, unlocking his phone to book a cab.
*
you:
minseok, are you at the dorms?
His phone dies halfway through the trip. He has no idea if Minseok replied him, or if he’s even in.
So he arrives at the T1 dorms alone and unseen, standing in the dead silence of winter, taking in the place he’d grown up in. After the grandeur of HLE Camp One, the block feels smaller, and a little bit older. Like school shoes he can’t fit anymore.
He knows he should be quiet, that he isn’t allowed here, but divinely, the lobbies and corridors are relatively empty. The passcode still works the same. The fingerprint scanner on their level hasn’t forgotten him.
No one seems to recognise him, except an alpha staff member he’d seen once somewhere – Minhyung knows this, because she looks up from her files, bows absently, then does a double take so hard that her neck cracks. But even she doesn’t try to stop him.
He gets all the way to their doorway, steps through the familiar mess of shoes and the motion-sensor warm light in the hallway, before remembering that in addition to a passcode, to get in he needs the key fob.
A key fob he’d surrendered along with the rest of his T1 things last year.
Is this where it all ends? He thinks numbly. So far, only to get stopped here? Security would eventually approach him for lingering, and politely tell him that he’s not allowed to be here, not anymore.
But then the door beeps. His heart jumps – would it be Minseok? He’s not usually this early back from practice. If it’s Hyeonjun or Hyunjoon, they’d let him in, no questions asked. As long as it’s not-...
Beep. Click. The door opens, and there Sanghyeok stands. Same old white shirt and black pants, socks with slippers on.
“I saw you in the door camera,” he says.
Minhyung wonders if it could’ve been anyone worse. Even Suhwan would’ve probably let him in if he asked nicely. “Hyung.”
“You’re here for Minseok?” Sanghyeok hasn’t moved from the doorway. “He’s not in.”
“Right.”
A moment’s silence between them. “Aren’t you going to come in?”
Warily, Minhyung toes his slippers off, then steps across the threshold, past Sanghyeok’s wiry frame. The other alpha runs cold, but in a way that reminds him of autumn, quiet and slow.
Sanghyeok closes the door. He doesn’t seem to be about to ask Minhyung anything, not how he’s been, how HLE is, how T1 is faring without him, but that’s just Sanghyeok.
Minhyung watches him head wordlessly back to his own room, a cup of water in his hands.
“Hyung, why didn’t you come see me off?”
Since the day Minhyung had met Sanghyeok, years before he’d presented or met any of the other T1 members, he’d felt like a child to him. And through the years that passed, he hadn’t been able to run from that – from sounding like a child, until everything he asked sounded like a plaintive, pitiful cry.
Even now, he stares at the man, the face of the organisation he’d so eagerly bled for, gushing rivulets of red and black onto a keyboard and mousepad, until years later when he’d lain pale and stiff from shock, realising it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.
He stares and waits because part of him had hoped and wished that Sanghyeok had seen him as just that too – a child to him. And people didn’t just abandon their children to walk off and face the world alone.
Sanghyeok’s eyes are cold and dry. “Would you have wanted me to?”
“Of course. You’re my – we've been in this together for years,” there’s a dull, stabbing pain at the back of Minhyung’s head. “And I know, you’re used to people leaving the team, and I’m just another one of them, but I’m - it was the first time, for me. And after everything...”
I thought that would’ve meant something to you.
The older alpha is quiet, looking at his cup of water. “I’m sorry. It didn’t occur to me.”
“How could it not?” Minhyung’s trying his best not to sound desperate. Immature. Whiny. But maybe everything’s built up for too long. “Wasn’t your first time hard too?”
What am I saying. Of course, it’s Sanghyeok. Of course, he’s been here so long, he’s done so much, that the years that meant everything to me...could mean nothing to him.
“Never mind, I just-...”
“When Sungung-hyung left, it was hard,” Sanghyeok says, out of nowhere. “Jaewan, Junsik and I all cried. But when he came back...I thought. Crying like that when we part...makes it embarrassing when we see each other again, doesn’t it?”
Minhyung’s jaw feels locked.
“But I guess that made me forget...” Sanghyeok admits. “How hard it was the first time. When I didn’t know if I’d see them again. I’m sorry.”
“You think I’d come back to T1 again?” It feels shameful, how even after everything that happened to him last year, Minhyung still wants Sanghyeok to say yes. To say he needs him here. “You’d want me back here?”
“Not really,” Sanghyeok says, again with that cutting, cold honesty. “Why would I?”
Minhyung lets out a bitter laugh. “So all those years I was here...they meant nothing to you?”
“They meant everything to me,” Sanghyeok replies curtly. “But why would I wish and hope and pray for you to suffer more?”
Minhyung’s finding it hard to breathe. “You were the one who told me we could change it. That we were the ones who determined how the game would end.”
“We did. We won,” the other alpha says calmly, brushing past him. “And it starts all over again, like it always does. But you’re more important than this game. You’ll always be more important.”
Minhyung watches him slip into his room, and close the door behind him.
Mind muddled, he stumbles his way towards Minseok’s room, steeling himself for what he’ll say when he sees him. Hi, Minseokie. I just really, really needed to see you. Everything’s wrong, and I don’t need you to fix it, but I just need to see you.
He finds the snow white door, the one with a picture of Gureum printed and stuck on the frame. His hand wraps around the frosted handle, static electricity jumping and biting at his skin, and pushes the door open.
And everything shifts.
It doesn’t happen immediately. Minhyung walks into the cool, empty room, turns on the lights and watches the room come into sharp relief, everything exactly where he remembered. Some stuffies are gone from his mattress, and there are some new paper bags on the floor, but everything else...
Minhyung doesn’t mean to. But the moment he sinks down into Minseok’s cozy winter blue duvet it’s over for him, with the soft whoosh of sakura that encapsulates him like a scarf, refreshing and stronger and more alive than any of the shirts Minhyung had brought with him were.
He lets out a shaky, relieved sigh as he breathes in the scent on his omega’s pillow, feels the little depression in the mattress where his omega probably cuddles up to sleep at night, and more and more, he feels like a Jenga tower in reverse.
Like there are blocks slowly returning to the gaping holes in his heart and his mind, diligently filling in the spaces, invisible little hands gently pressing and shaping him back into the sturdy, stable person he barely remembers once being.
He doesn’t stand a chance. Within minutes, he’s out like a light.
*
Minhyung’s half-roused in the light by the creak of the door closing gently. The dip in the mattress by his thigh, as cool skin presses against his.
“Hey.”
It’s Minseok, sitting by the edge of his bed, hair slightly damp and a droplet clinging to his lashes, in one of his t-shirts so old the neckline is slipping, low enough for his collarbone to peek out, just a little pale dip in his skin. His eyes are on Minhyung, only on Minhyung, worried and wary and wistful. “Minhyung?”
And Minhyung’s body reacts before he can tell it what to do – to grab his omega and bring him close, enshroud his body with his own until it feels like they’ll never part again, chest to chest and lips finding each other, rejoicing, eyes closed, drinking each other in until one of them drowns.
Minseok’s hands are in his hair, half-sitting on Minhyung’s lap, kissing him back, shivering in his grip as the alpha kisses down his neck, sucking over the bite on his skin that’s already starting to fade, pressing in closer in hopes he’ll make him remember it.
But Minhyung pulls away, running his hands down Minseok’s back, so relieved and so ashamed. “I’m sorry. For showing up out of nowhere.”
“You’re scaring me,” Minseok says, looking at him, cautious. “Minhyung, what’s going on? I thought – it’s so hard to talk over text, I wanted to wait until we could meet up again, but – what happened?”
Seeing his Minseokie like this, all his for the first time in months, Minhyung’s overcome with stupid thoughts. Thoughts of coming back to T1. Even if it means he’ll be on the bench, if he’ll be ridiculed and laughed at by everyone in the community he’d grown up in, because nothing has made him feel more right than being in Minseok’s arms tonight.
“I haven’t been honest with you,” Minhyung’s alpha front, so easy to put up over the phone, collapses the moment he’s in front of his omega. “I’ve - I’ve been having a hard time with suppressants, and...fitting in with HLE, and thinking I made the wrong choice leaving – and I never told any of this to you, because...because I was scared. Of how I'd look like to you. Seokie, I-...” Minhyung holds hand tight, breaking down piece by piece. “I really, really missed you.”
“Hey,” Minseok hugs him tight again, lips pressed against the thin skin of his neck, starting to tremble. “I-...I really missed you too, Minhyungie. But we t-talked about this,” Minseok quickly wipes his eyes. He always gets annoyed at himself when he cries. “We said we’d tell each other everything. Right?”
“I know, and I couldn’t, because-...” Minhyung struggles with himself for a moment. “Minseokie, just be honest with me. Do you blame me? F-for leaving?” He can’t stop a tear from running down his face. For making you go back on suppressants, and leaving T1 without an AD carry, and running away? “Because if you do, it’d be okay, I just needed to know-...”
“Who the hell is making you think that?” Minseok sounds furious, sitting up. “Why would I blame you?”
“Didn’t it hurt? When I left?” Minhyung feels completely vulnerable. Raw. “Doesn’t it still hurt now?”
“Of course it hurts,” Minseok snaps, wiping away his tears. “It hurts so much having to do this without you, having to see this place and play this game when for so long I only ever remembered doing it with you. But you know what hurt more? Watching you suffer like you did last year. Knowing it’d all just happen again if you stayed. And t-that nothing I did,” his lower lip trembles again. “Could stop it from happening to you. As your omega. As your soulmate. Do you know how that made me feel?”
His forehead touches Minhyung’s, arms around his neck, warm tears against his wintry pale skin like snowflakes. “You had to leave. It was the only way.”
“Was it?” Now more than ever Minhyung doesn’t want to leave his omega. After knowing all the pain Minseok was going through. “I should’ve been stronger. I don’t even know who I am with them.” All I know is you.
“You are stronger,” Minseok looks him in the eye. “You don’t think you’re going to settle in with HLE? Take them to a championship? That’s what you chose. If HLE wins with you, it’ll be because of you.”
“And when we have to face each other for that championship?”
Minhyung watches Minseok, his Minseok, sure and fiery and defiant of every norm that’s been thrown his way, a prodigy and a genius and a queen on a chessboard of pawns. “Then we face each other. Play like we always do. And if T1 wins, it’ll be because of me.”
Words can’t describe the enormity of how much he feels for Minseok, such a toll on his heart that love in its perception by everyone around them pales in comparison to how he feels, what he’d do, how much he wants to spend the rest of his life with his omega.
It had to be him. It always had to be. And Minhyung would walk a million lifetimes more, feeling for the red string that tied them together in every single one, to find back his place by Minseok’s side.
“You don’t believe me?”
“I do,” Minhyung says, with all his heart, because Minseok is the only thing he really believes in anymore.
Minhyung kisses his omega, inhaling pale sakura as he pulls him closer, closer until they fall back onto the pillows, still kissing into each other.
The rest of the world is quiet around them, the stars in the night spinning silently across the black velvet sky and the blanket of white across the ground, holding its breath for the two of them.
Their clothes eventually hit the floor with a soft whump. The lower half of the duvet is crumpled and half strewn over the floor, and neither of them are sure if the door’s locked but can’t leave each other long enough to check.
The lamplight casts a soft glow over Minseok’s body as he sinks down onto Minhyung, biting down a soft, broken sound as he moves his hips, trying to keep as quiet as he can.
They haven’t had a moment like since Minhyung left, and the alpha feels desperate, clumsy, all consumed in wanting more of Minseok, hypnotised by the sounds Minseok’s making with every kiss he puts on his omega’s body. Every breath he takes is another lungful of intoxicants, deeper and deeper into an ocean of desire.
There are still tears in Minseok’s eyes, glinting like falling diamonds as he sobs silently, bouncing harder, faster, hands braced on Minhyung’s shoulders. “Minhyung, p-please...”
The alpha runs his hands up his soulmate’s perfect body, thumbs finding the milky-soft divots and curves as though by muscle memory, brushing over Minseok’s pert pink nipples and groaning at the full-body shiver it elicits.
“Good?”
“Yes,” Minseok gasps, eyes glazing over as he moves his hips. He’s close, even more so when Minhyung squeezes his waist, holding him down as he rolls his hips upwards, and Minseok collapses onto Minhyung’s chest, a hand over his mouth.
“Don’t,” the alpha tugs his hand away gently, returning it to his shoulder, meeting Minseok’s burning gaze evenly. “Let me hear you.”
“Ah!” Minseok pants, submitting beautifully. Reflexively, keening for more, tilting his head to let him in. “C-close, Minhyung, please-...”
Like the sun melting through ice, Minhyung cages him in, one hand cradling the back of Minseok’s neck so he doesn’t get hurt, and bites into the mark on his omega’s scent gland.
Nothing prepares you for the first bite. Or the second, or every bite after – not with the way the pheromones fill his mind like a shot of pure alcohol straight into his bloodstream, sealing the two of them together so deep Minhyung could never imagine them drifting apart, in body or in soul. It’s a snowstorm that blows through his mind, freezing over the lingering dawn mist and saccharine pollen, so when he opens his eyes he’s never seen anything clearer.
The omega arches his back and cums with a high-pitched whimper, Minhyung following after just a moment later, impossible to hold off any longer with the way Minseok’s tightening around him from the uncontrollable pleasure.
They collapse back against the bed, breathing each other in. Minhyung can’t help the spike of satisfaction at the slack-jawed, content look on his omega’s face, overwhelmed from so much love after so long apart.
“I love you,” Minseok slurs, burying his face in his alpha’s neck. “I love you so much.”
“I love you too,” Minhyung strokes his bare back, breathing in the smell of sakura, finally at peace.
*
They fight to stay awake after that, to actually talk for once about what it’s been like since they parted. Minseok tells him about how it’s been on T1, the slow climb to get quiet omega AD Carry Suhwan adapted to their playstyle, and the endless, exhausting battle getting Hyeonjun to confront his true feelings.
In turn, Minhyung tells Minseok everything – about playing on Hanwha, to the advice from all the alphas on the team, to the nightmares he’s been having.
Minseok listens seriously, completely silent until Minhyung tells him about the dream about Minseok with another alpha, and he snorts.
“You’re laughing?” Minhyung deadpans, one elbow up in bed. “I’m telling you about the nightmare that gave me PTSD and you’re laughing?”
“No, it’s because – I mean if there was ever another alpha in this bed,” Minseok snorts again, before pulling up the duvet that they’d previously been lying on top of. “Then he’d have to get through this.”
And Minhyung realises the little Minseok-shaped depression he’d cozied up to and fallen asleep in just now wasn’t a figment of his imagination.
It’s a nest, under the blanket, made out of his clothes. It’s now flattened inconsiderately, thanks to Minhyung’s weight, but still legible enough for the alpha to realise it’d been carefully made to fit Minseok in the middle.
He sits up slowly, staring at the stuffies wrapped in his many missing jerseys and shirts, wondering what it must have been like for his omega all these nights, curling up under the blanket, only able to fall asleep when completely surrounded.
“Minhyung, I was thinking,” Minseok says quietly, then. “What you said about your dream with Zeka. Geonwoo.”
Minhyung blinks, looking back at him. “Yeah?”
“I trust you,” Minseok says slowly. “But I’d prefer if you weren’t alone with him in private anymore.”
“Okay,” Minhyung agrees, flooded with relief to finally come clean and be understood. “I’ll be careful.”
“Another thing,” his omega sounds thoughtful, like he’s solving a puzzle. “Have you been consistent with your suppressants?”
“I...” Something shifts in the alpha’s head. Right...the doctor had mentioned to do that, hadn’t she? “No. I stopped because – because I couldn’t play well, and I felt like I was...forgetting you. And then I started again, and...I had that nightmare.”
“Minhyung,” Minseok says evenly. “I think we should go see another doctor, and get you different suppressants.”
“Okay,” Minhyung relents. Now that he thinks about it – it should’ve been weird to him, how both Geonwoo and Hwanjoong were taking different prescriptions from him, and how the only one taking the same grade of suppressants was Wooje, who was doing it deliberately to repress how he was feeling.
“Let’s go tomorrow morning,” Minseok gets off the bed, flipping the lights off. He’s in one of Minhyung’s shirts, probably procured from the fortress under the duvet. “I’ll excuse myself from morning practice. Hyunjoon will cover for me.”
“Thanks,” Minhyung wraps Minseok up in his arms in the darkness, lips brushing the back of his neck, voice muffled. “For taking care of me. Sorry.”
“You’re always taking care of us,” Minseok presses a finger to his nose, smiling. “Have a little more confidence. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to.”
“Well,” Minhyung’s throat tightens momentarily. “I mean I didn’t give you much of a choice. Soulmates and all.”
His soulmate frowns, before laughing breathily. “Minhyung, I am never going to stay somewhere I don’t want to be. I want to be here. I chose this.”
Minhyung runs the tips of his fingers down the side of Minseok’s face. “We chose this,” he repeats.
For once, the words don’t frighten him anymore.
fin