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“Please,” Beomgyu whimpered weakly as his grip tightened around the bodyguard’s shoulders. “I don’t want to,” the tears streamed down his pretty face, looking so delicate and beautiful that, under that dimmed lighting, they seemed like crystals. “I can’t- I can’t go back, I can’t,” he sobbed, eyebrows knitted together in a very desperate expression.
“My prince, you have to.”
Damned be the royalty, damned be the fact Beomgyu is almost past the age of getting married and probably at his prime to have children or whatever they tell him to, damned be the fact that, no matter how many fortunes and how many precious gifts those alphas offer him, his heart will still solely belong to Yeonjun. His bodyguard, his lifeline, his savior, his heart and soul.
Damned be them all, and mostly him.
“No,” he sobbed again and tried to tighten his grasp on Yeonjun’s robes. “I can’t, you know I can’t- I won’t- I won’t get back in there and have an inch of my skin touched by someone if not you.”
Beomgyu’s voice is weak, merely a whisper. More than that, it’s a plea of sorts; a song of desperation and urging. — A sad one, at that.
Yeonjun’s heart breaks for him, especially because Beomgyu loves to be a prince. He loves being an heir, loves the idea of becoming king and helping his kingdom become a better version of itself. — For many nights, Yeonjun would hear him talking about building a better port, expanding commerce, fortifying their connections with other kingdoms and even daring to go to other continents to build strong bonds and learn about the economy in other places, that and much more. So many plans, so many hopes and dreams, so many preparations. — Though he definitely would hurt much more if he saw Beomgyu becoming the king he doesn’t want to be.
It would hurt him more to see Beomgyu being erased in his own home, being diminished to a consort and spending day after day getting through pregnancies, raising children and teaching them to nurture the desire to be royalty, all that when he failed himself.
“My prince-”
“Call me by name,” Beomgyu urged, a sigh of relief escaping his lips when Yeonjun’s strong arms looped around his waist, but the pained expression never left his face.
“Beomgyu, love,” Yeonjun corrected himself, his voice low and composed. “You- your dream is to become king,” he tried to reason, but the prince was quick to shake his head and cup both of his cheeks with his dainty hands. “My king, the one I-”
“I don’t want to be your king like this,” Beomgyu hurried to interrupt. “I want to be king with you, belong to you,” he tapped gentle fingertips on the bodyguard’s face, his watered eyes scanning his features slowly. “I want to rule by your side, not above you.”
Yeonjun wanted to laugh at himself over hearing this, and not because it was funny, no, but because he felt the very same. His once cold heart had completely melted under Beomgyu’s warmth, maybe ages ago. Yeonjun had long forgotten who he was before being assigned to guard Beomgyu at all times, and he’d long forgotten what it feels like to lack his company.
Looking back at the boy who wouldn’t do more than a few gigs to get through the months, the boy who couldn’t see himself past his eighteenth year of life… that doesn’t belong to him any longer. His life is Beomgyu, to serve him, to follow him, to obey and to protect him with the will he doesn’t even have to protect himself. To belong to him so wholeheartedly that nothing else makes sense.
Yeonjun blinked his tears away, not allowing them to roll down. He looked around in search of a specific entrance and dashed inside, carrying Beomgyu in his arms with a fair amount of strength and double the amount of care. “My prince… you can only run for so long, you know this,” he hummed sadly, only stopping on his tracks when they were in the farthest corner of the palace’s dungeon. “Your people- your subjects, they are longing for you, they- they can’t wait until you become their king,” his voice echoed on the empty halls and cells, his heart pounding in his chest. “You can’t do this to them.”
“I can’t do this with myself anymore,” Beomgyu insisted, once again gripping on Yeonjun’s collar. “I can’t stand to be touched by hands that don’t belong to you, to be kissed by lips that are not yours, to- to hear badly written poetry and to receive meaningless gifts,” he sniffled, another set of timid tears cascading down. “I can’t rule without you- I can’t do it,” shaking his head, he forced Yeonjun’s body down a bit, inching closer. “Please.”
It physically hurt him, you know. Something about giving in to Beomgyu’s wishes always seemed to hurt him beyond words. Not only because he felt like he was wasting Beomgyu’s time, not cherishing his heart and affection enough or not being able to give what he deserves, but because the guilt would keep him up at night. His heart would clench and keep him restless for days in a row, everything alarming him to the fullest, everything scaring the living hell out of him.
But who is Choi Yeonjun if not His Highness’s best subordinate? Who is he if not the most obedient and punctual servant in the entire land? Who is he if not the one who always comes to rescue His Highness in his moments of despair?
“Choi Yeonjun,” Beomgyu called him for the first time that night without using any sort of suffix or royal term. Just his name, bare and exposed. The surname he inevitably had to take from the royal family as a token of lifelong devotion, and the first name that used to carry a lot of shame in the past, now said with more than need, more than urging. “Please,” he leaned it, their foreheads almost touching. “Do not let any of them get to me, mn?”
He was really in no place to deny anything. And to hell if his heart would hurt the next day. To hell if he felt like his years were being consumed with every ounce of attention that Beomgyu gave him.
To watch Beomgyu live in misery is to sentence himself to a fate worse than death.
“What does my prince want me to do?” He gave in, tense shoulders relaxing as Beomgyu’s palm met the skin of his cheek, and he unconsciously leaned into the touch.
“Claim me,” the prince whispered, their lips just a centimeter apart, maybe a bit less. “Mark me, make me yours, and- only yours,” he pleaded with a melodic voice, feeling himself a bit weak under Yeonjun’s gaze, but forcing himself to stay up in case he needed to shift approaches and give him a royal command. — It has worked before, just once; back when he just really wanted to go see the stars and Yeonjun insisted they shouldn’t go to the mountains for it, but Beomgyu was quite adamant about it and almost threw a tantrum. They caught a cold afterwards, but the prince had successfully stargazed by Yeonjun’s side, and they shared their first kiss there.
Fortunately, the bodyguard nodded and hummed in agreement without another word, seeming convinced enough that this really couldn’t go on as it was going so far.
The already short distance in between them was gone the second after that, a slow and loving kiss taking care of the two of them. Warmth irradiated all over, and despite the speed being low, their hearts started to race.
Yeonjun took a bit of time to push Beomgyu further into the room, but he did, eventually. He was a little taken aback by the edge of the bed that seemed to have popped up out of nowhere, but his grip was strong on the prince’s waist, so neither of them toppled over. He carefully placed his loved one on top of the bed and hovered over him, not daring to break the kiss even when Beomgyu started to undo his outer robe.
He allowed — funny choice of words, I know — the prince to take the first layers off, and retributed the action on him. It was cold outside, as it’s the last of October, but they wouldn’t get anywhere wearing so many clothes. “My prince,” Yeonjun called in between kisses when he sensed that the atmosphere was getting heated, and Beomgyu’s honeyed flowery scent was becoming a bit too numbing. “Are you- are you sure?”
“I have dreamed about building this kingdom with you since you took me to see the stars that day,” he confessed sheepishly, his cheeks coated in a thin layer of sweat and blush. “I have never been so sure of anything in my life.”
Yeonjun felt a pang in his heart, and he was pretty sure Beomgyu felt it too, because a moment later he was gasping softly and frowning, his hands tightening and loosening around the bodyguard’s neck. “I-”
“Unless you do not want it,” the prince cut him short. It’s a bad habit of his, but Yeonjun couldn’t bring himself to be pissed about it; He seemed to have somewhat of a good timing to interrupt. “I am only- I am only willing to do it if you want to.”
“I want to,” and God does he want to. “I want to be yours, want to see you ruling this land as you dream about it, want to- want to be by your side for the rest of my days,” he reassured and placed a soft kiss on the corner of the prince’s lips, “I would want you in any way and form,” and another one on his forehead, “I would want to be with you until you could not stand the sight of me a second longer,” and the last one on the tip of his nose. “I would have been happy to be your butler if you grew tired of having me as a bodyguard.”
“But?” Beomgyu inquired, already knowing that there’s adversity somewhere. His voice was tinged with disappointment, but not much of it showed.
“But you know there is not a future where you and I are kings,” Yeonjun murmured. “I want you, my prince, and I selfishly dream about becoming yours entirely, but it will not happen, not in this lifetime,” he still leaned down to kiss along the column of Beomgyu’s neck, tenderly as much. “Maybe the next one,” he whispered.
Nothing came out of Beomgyu’s mouth, his throat suddenly drying at the words. His body tensed a bit, but relaxed soon afterwards as if he just needed a couple of seconds to make up his mind. “And if I say I don’t care?” He offered, now sounding a bit more tranquil despite still looking wrecked.
“Then you would be lying,” the bodyguard countered almost immediately, but he meant no harm with the words; they just happen to be a bit sharp themselves. “I cannot let you ruin your dreams, Your Highness-”
“By name,” Beomgyu hissed the reminder of his previous request, his frown coming back as more tears threatened to spill. “My dreams are meaningless if I don’t have you by my side, Yeonjun. Don’t you understand? I won’t keep you as my bodyguard, I can’t- I can’t do this to you,” he murmured shakily, his hands cupping Yeonjun’s face carefully to bring him closer. “You’re the one I love, how can I let you stand aside and watch me pretend I love someone else? How can I so- so carelessly make someone an unfitting king and leave you there?”
Another pang, this time heavier and stronger. “Beomgyu…” He gasped out, and the prince bit his lip to hold a few words back. “I know your heart,” he hummed. “I know who you are, I know where your heart lies, I know- I know it all but- but I cannot let you throw it all away because of me.”
“Why not?” The prince sniffled. “Do you not want to see me happy?”
“Your happiness shouldn’t cost your fate,” Yeonjun’s eyebrows tightened together, forming a pained frown. “I am not worth your fate, Beomgyu, you know I’m not.”
Beomgyu seemed to have regained a bit of strength even in the middle of his tears, so he made good use of it to force himself upwards, head tilting to the side as he wordlessly sank both of his small fangs on the sweet spot that rested on the crook of Yeonjun’s neck. The words infuriated him, a bit. Who does Yeonjun think he is to say he’s not worth this or that? Who is he to say a thing about his fate and whatnot?
“My prince,” he gasped out breathily, completely taken aback by the suddenness of it all. His arms threatened to give out, so he fixed himself and propped his knees on the bed, holding dearly onto Beomgyu’s waist. “Beomgyu,” he called again, but didn’t try to push the prince away. The pain was oddly comforting when compared to the one that would envelope his heart in agony, and the blood that ran down his collarbones seemed to carry a bit of the tension away, so even though fear was tugging incessantly on his gut, he still felt a lot lighter. “You shouldn’t have-”
“You do not get to decide that,” Beomgyu spoke against his skin, his voice stern, though a bit shaky because of his cries. “You are mine, Choi Yeonjun, and I want to belong to you, to you only,” he swallowed and placed a kiss on top of the now love-bitten scent gland, licking a stripe to clean the blood to the best of his ability. “How can you say you’re not worth my fate, mn? How are you so sure of that?” He pulled away at last, his head falling back on the bed to stare at his lover.
He looked divine, even now. Even when he should be a sweaty and teary mess, his hair disheveled and the sniffles becoming more and more frequent; but he was pretty, looking so pliant, so given and so safe there. Looking like he wasn’t at all bothered by the fact he’s completely broken in the middle of the dungeons for Yeonjun to see.
And he wasn’t, matter of fact. What bothered him was the stubbornness and the course of the conversation, but not the company or the place, at all. He could be completely vulnerable in the middle of a snow storm for all he cared, as long as he had Yeonjun by his side; There wasn’t exactly an ugly side to either of them, according to Beomgyu, but he was aware Yeonjun thought differently and considered vulnerability a very problematic topic, so he took it upon himself to lean in first. To allow himself to break in front of Yeonjun and ask him for help first. To show he trusted him first.
And now- now he wants to say that he’s not worth it? When Beomgyu explicitly has shown every possible side of himself to him, exposed himself even when the shame was tremendous and bared his heart out for him?
Is he a moron?
The previous dialogue had taken place just a few moments ago, and now there’s a wave of silence crashing on them. Beomgyu’s scent has subsided a bit, the white roses being the most one could tell if they got close. “I have asked you a question, my guard.”
Yeonjun freezes for a moment at the title, his heart twisting a bit inside his ribcage. “I am not, my prince,” he bows his head slowly. “I just- that is… common knowledge, I guess.”
Beomgyu hums tiredly and lifts himself up to place a kiss on the bodyguard’s lips, chaste and soft. “I wish you got that knowledge out of your mind.”
It hurts a lot to receive this sort of gaze from Beomgyu, it really does. Yeonjun himself can’t stand the sight, much less the feeling of having disappointed his prince. “You know it as well as I do,” he replies a few seconds after that. “I’m not lying to you, my prince. You do know you are bound to failure if you choose me over your crown.”
And yeah, that’s the truth. Yeonjun is a nobody with nothing to leave behind, no one by his side and no personal life. No patrimony, no history, no relevance. Nothing. He has nothing to offer, nothing to add, nothing to say. He’s not the most versed in literature, he’s not exactly a classy guest nor this friendly of a guard. Naturally, the only thing he can offer is his own body as a shield.
He fails to see he’s given much more than all of the classy guests combined, of course, and he fails to see his heart is part of the offering he made, refusing to fully believe Beomgyu had taken it in his hands a few years ago and never let go of it since.
“Would you feel guilty if I chose you over the crown?” Beomgyu asks, his eyelids lowering a bit, making him seem a tad more wrecked. “Even if I told you I would be more than happy to live with you wherever?”
“Wherever is not the place of a prince,” Yeonjun shakes his head, his shoulders dropping a little. “I would not know how to live with myself if I caused such a shame to your kingdom,” he mumbles quietly, sighing as he holds himself back from diving into the crook of Beomgyu’s neck, too.
Beomgyu hums absentmindedly, tilting his head to the side further on purpose. “So my guard would much rather see me in an unhappy marriage, just so-”
“No,” the bodyguard hurries to interrupt, his hands squeezing Beomgyu’s waist. “Don’t do this, my prince. You know it is not true.”
“Why do you insist, then? I am telling you I only want you, why do you keep making excuses?”
“You can have me, Your Highness,” Yeonjun feels weak shivers run down his spine when Beomgyu’s legs loop around his hips. “You can always have me, you know this. You can- marry one of them and play pretend to the others, let him have a harem for all he cares and stay with me,” he offers. “We can think of something, just-”
“I will not have another alpha’s mark on my body,” the prince reiterates. “I can only marry if I am pure, and-”
“We can- we can think of something,” the bodyguard heaves a shaky breath and sort of slumps forward, but Beomgyu is a bit quicker and pushes him back until he’s sat on the bed, the prince straddling his lap. “You can- we can put some opium in his drink, wait until he falls asleep,” he then leans to rest his body against the wall, hissing a bit at the coldness. “He’ll believe he did it the next morning.”
Beomgyu frowns at him, impressed that he’d go such lengths to still remain a side piece. “You really do not want to be my king,” he tuts. “Or mine, if I-”
“Do not,” Yeonjun urges him, and this time he places a finger on his lips to shush Beomgyu. “I am yours, my prince. I will forever be yours,” he blinks as he looks down to the pair of pink-ish lips that have been inviting him since earlier. “I just can't let you give up on the throne like this.”
Not even Yeonjun himself knows why he’s so adamant about it. He so desperately wants to free Beomgyu from the claws of both his parents and the mates-in-potential, he so desperately wants out of this royalty life, out of this madness and out of the reach of malicious eyes… he really wishes he could flee the scene, and he can, but to bring Beomgyu with him seems so… wrong.
Not wrong as in he doesn’t want it to happen, but wrong as in he’ll choke on his regret and guilt if he allows it to happen. His heart will just hurt so much for having fucked it all up, so much he might just implode and die.
What use does he have if he is dead? What joy can he bring Beomgyu if he’s no longer by his side?
“Choi Yeonjun,” Beomgyu murmurs almost defeatedly, his entire posture shifting to a lax one as he lets it all weigh down on Yeonjun. “For how long will I have to plead?”
No. God no. Don’t.
“Do you want me to get on my knees?” The prince breathes out closely to the shell of his ear, and another wave of shivers runs past him. “I’ll say it a hundred times, if that’s what it will take. I beg of you-”
Finally, Yeonjun’s alpha deemed that enough is enough; increasing the strength on his grip, he mutters a very low “no” and helps Beomgyu straighten up, only to dig his fangs deep into the spot that should have some royal’s teeth instead.
Beomgyu almost screams at that, both from the surprise and the pain. Before he can even think about it, however, the tears are streaming down again. He feels like a shot of fresh relief has just been injected in his veins, his senses all alarmed but oddly tranquilized at the same time. — I know that doesn’t make an ounce of sense, but how can one explain being so hyper aware of everything while also so relaxed into someone else’s embrace?
“Alpha,” the prince calls him softly, his fingers threading themselves in his hair and tugging gently on it. “O-oh my– Yeonjun,” he hisses when the bite becomes a bit too painful for him to handle, a beautiful set of sobs following suit.
Yeonjun doesn’t seem to notice at first, but the small sounds of the prince’s cries are too characteristic for him to ignore, so when it finally snaps for him, he lets go and pulls away with wide eyes, hurrying to check on his lover. “I am- I am sorry, my prince, I- I went too far,” he slurs, the blood dripping from his lips to his chin.
Beomgyu shakes his head slowly and shushes the two of them with another kiss, a bit messier this time. The taste of blood has never been exactly pleasing to either of them, but exceptions could be made, sort of. Despite the bitterness and the awful metallic note that blood tends to carry, they could swear there was a hint of their scents there, too. — Which is a little concerning, having in mind that Beomgyu’s strongest note is honey. — That being said, the kiss didn’t taste awful at all. In fact, Yeonjun made a bit of an effort to lick the remnants of Beomgyu’s blood to the last drop, and all that with an eager demeanor.
“I love you,” the prince whimpers faintly against his lips, needing a moment or two to catch his breath while not daring to let go of Yeonjun in any form. “I love you so much,” he swallows, a fresh set of tears rolling down his cheeks. “My alpha, my Yeonjun,” he chants, the words slipping past his tongue with both love and pain; the two of them could swear there were thorns around them despite the beauty of the moment.
Harmful. Undeserving.
“I love you,” Yeonjun brushes the pain aside and clenches both arms to force Beomgyu’s lower body to come closer to his own. “I love you, my prince, my Beomgyu,” he gasps softly for air when they kiss again, and again and again for until the oxygen is cut short once more (much sooner than the previous time). “I apologize, my prince,” he murmurs shakily, his eyes not daring meet Beomgyu’s. “I shouldn’t have been so harsh-”
“It is fine,” Beomgyu reassures, “you did no wrong, my love.”
He did. He knows he did. He knew it was all ruined from the moment his teeth sank on Beomgyu’s skin. He knew it wouldn’t be long until he got slaughtered, poisoned, crushed boneless or anything of sorts.
What worried him was the fact that he was bringing Beomgyu with him.
The sight was cursed. It was terrifying, triggering all kinds of desperate motions even during their last moments. It was absolutely frightening.
Beomgyu looked up at his parents wearing a beautiful smile, sighing as they were done climbing the steps. His smile was wide, and his cuffed hands reached for Yeonjun’s own cuffed ones as well as they could.
Yeonjun couldn’t hear a word he was saying to the king and queen, not to the subjects, or the guards that were guiding them a moment before. His eyes were blown wide, taking in whatever he could from his prince, his love, his life. He shook his head when Beomgyu murmured “it is okay” to him. He also shook his head when Beomgyu said he lived a good life, and felt his knees giving out when he said he had no regrets, that he was the proudest man in the entire land for having chosen him.
Beomgyu smiled prettily at him when he was put back up, and he sighed when the ropes were placed around their necks. He still found himself some energy to place a last kiss on his bodyguard’s lips, making a pained noise when the chief guard pulled on the rope and hung him up, his face scrunching up as he tried to muffle everything to not cause a worse reaction from anyone.
It would haunt Yeonjun in his dreams if he had the privilege of going to sleep that night. He surged forward with a scream of his prince’s title and name in a futile attempt of stopping this madness, and another of the guards released the full weight of whatever would keep them up there.
✮
“The hell?” Beomgyu complains and tosses a pillow on Yeonjun’s face. “Stop being fucking weird, hyung,” he yawns tiredly and stretches on the bed. “Having dreams about me when I’m right here?”
Yeonjun wasn’t even fully awake to begin with, and he was already being bombarded with pillows and small plushies by his — now — boyfriend. He’s lost, for sure. First of all because he might or might not have indeed dreamt about Beomgyu, but he doesn’t remember a single thing about the dream, and second because his heart rate had skyrocketed to the point he felt like too much was going on at the same time. And third because he felt really weird for some reason.
“Would you mind sharing a bit of your problem with the class?” The younger one tilts his head to the side and smirks devilishly, which prompts a hoarse laugh out of Yeonjun. “Hello there. Awake now?”
“Sort of,” Yeonjun yawns and sits up, blinking his concerns away. “I have no clue about what I was dreaming of, was it really weird?” He stretches a bit to pop his joints, turning from side to side slowly.
“You seemed kind of desperate, actually,” Beomgyu giggles. “I thought I was dying or something. You screamed my name as if there was a gun pointed at my head,” he hums and yawns in reflex, hugging one of the plushies afterwards. “I thought someone had broken into the house.”
Well, not that it hasn’t happened before, but normally they’re well aware they’re going to have company for the night, so they have plenty of time to prepare themselves and deal with things as calmly as possible.
“Sorry about that,” the alpha chuckles and retrieves two plushies from the floor, placing them back on the bed. “What time is it?”
“Two something in the morning,” Beomgyu waves a dismissive hand and pouts. “Grab some water for me?”
Yeonjun rolls his eyes in fake annoyance, the spoiled behavior never failing to tickle him into a certain direction. “What, does Your Highness also want a foot massage and a bedtime story to fall back asleep?”
“You say as if you wouldn’t do it if I asked you to,” the omega grins mischievously at that, and Yeonjun has to fight the urge to push him down on the bed and smack the attitude out of him. “Such a dumb alpha, taking orders from an omega and not standing his ground when he’s supposed to,” he mocks. “Are you this pathetic all the time?”
“Only when I’m feeling like being a nice guy,” the alpha snickers. “You know, apart from when I have to fuck a certain someone brainless and shut him up because he’s being a spoiled brat.”
Beomgyu pouts as if he felt intimidated by the statement, but Yeonjun knows him better than this, therefore he knows it’s all part of his act. He also knows he’s not supposed to fall for it when Beomgyu starts fidgeting with the hem of his shirt, nor when he starts to mumble his little complaints about how much he’s threatened and silenced in this relationship, but he can’t help it sometimes.
Tonight, however, he feels a bit of an odd sensation taking mostly over his core region, and he sort of feels numb, so his reactions are reduced to a scoff and his signature smirk-plus-lip-bite, which causes Beomgyu to frown visibly.
“Not up to talking, are we,” he murmurs as he gets closer, leaning to kiss Yeonjun’s lips and then resting his head on the alpha’s shoulder. “Is it the dream?”
“I just feel uneasy, I guess,” Yeonjun sighs quietly and bites onto his inner cheek, clicking his tongue as he puts his thoughts into place. “Let me take a look around the house first, mn? Be back in a minute.”
“You checked everything before we came to bed,” Beomgyu tries to hold him back from going by looping both arms around his slim waist, but he still insists on getting up. “You worry too much, hyung.”
“Better safe than sorry,” the alpha untangles both arms from himself and proceeds to walk around the house, double-checking the cameras and taking a few looks here and there, trying to pay close attention to any signs of someone creeping anywhere and watching out for any sort of weird noise or notification sounds coming from any device.
A life of many dangers, this one that Yeonjun leads. The first one being the fact he’s linked to a mafia — no, better saying, he’s the head of a mafia —, second being his increasing number of enemies (and at that point many of them are considered enemies for the pettiest reasons), third being his passion for challenges such as falling head-first for Choi Beomgyu, someone he shouldn’t even look at considering his financial and social relevance for South Korea, and finally fourth, his sickening undying love for the omega.
Nevermind being corny, cheesy or whatever people call it nowadays; Yeonjun was full-on willing to kill whoever caused a slight inconvenience in Beomgyu’s life. Someone once dared to say shit about a commercial Beomgyu made earlier during the week, and that prompted Yeonjun to dig the filthiest stuff out and publicly expose the guy for it, causing him to lose basically everything he owned and you name it. Later on, when he deemed it had been enough, he went there and killed the guy, but he had some nasty stuff done prior to that (because he felt he was being too generous with the man). A sick alpha, let me tell you.
Beomgyu didn’t want to believe he’d come as far as to kill the guy for slut-shaming him once, but when Yeonjun arrived that night with blood in his hands, sweat built on his forehead and a sharp gaze that only softened when he landed his eyes on a perfectly safe Beomgyu… he couldn’t even be mad. In fact, he took care of Yeonjun that night, for a change, and said he was going extra lengths for him when he didn’t need to.
“But I want to,” Yeonjun said, his frown evident. “You’ve been hearing shit since you got into the industry, I can’t just sit here and pretend I’m not listening.”
Beomgyu sighed and bit his lip, shaking his head slowly. “I feel guilty when I add on to your stress,” he leaned to plant a kiss on Yeonjun’s knuckles, his eyebrows furrowing at the sight of his new bruises. “I don’t want you to get in more trouble because of me.”
“I don’t want you to shed another tear for fuckers like him,” the alpha nearly spat, but his anger wasn’t directed at Beomgyu; he hadn’t yet calmed down from the rush that night, so maybe his mind had gotten stuck to the guy from before. “Don’t even get me started on your stalkers.”
Since then, all forms of retaliation have been successfully blocked by Yeonjun, even that one time when Beomgyu broke down in tears because the fear of losing Yeonjun was starting to get to him as a real possibility. — It cost him a few sleepless nights of planning romantic getaways and thinking of meaningful gifts to overcompensate the stress of it all, but Beomgyu has always been worth every second of his time, so it’s really never too much of an expensive price to pay.
Now, Beomgyu’s methods have shifted from protesting to decompressing, so whenever he feels like either of them is going to implode from the stress, he finds a way to lighten the weight up. Normally, taking a full day off in Jeju is more than enough, but the issue here is the surveillance, plus it’s way too late into the night to get their asses to Jeju, so Beomgyu will have to make do with whatever he has at the moment.
Unfortunately, he only has his phone and his clothes right now, but fortunately, he won’t be needing either.
He places all of the plushies on the small couch by the corner of the room and gets the extra blanket out as well for practical reasons, ridding himself of his sweatpants and socks before jumping back to the bed. Now, the sight is close to being divine, if I’m one to say, but there’s a bit of a bias in the judgment so there’s no way to actually describe how he looks like at the moment.
He makes it seem unintentional when he lowers himself to grab the discarded clothes right when Yeonjun is coming back, startling a bit and pursing his lips as he sets the articles of clothing aside neatly and turns the lights off. “You’re stressed,” he points out, feigning shyness.
“It’ll get better,” the alpha hums a sigh and sits by his side. “We’ll figure it out.”
It makes Beomgyu glad to hear the first person in plural rather than singular, really. It took so long for them to become an item, and even longer for Yeonjun to acknowledge he didn’t have to do things completely on his own… Beomgyu is honestly proud to have played a part in this.
“I wish things were different,” he catches himself saying it aloud before processing the whole thought through. “I wish I weren’t born into my family,” the omega sighs deeply and rests his head on Yeonjun’s shoulder, snaking an arm to embrace his hip. “Would be much easier.”
Yeonjun pulls away for a bit to stare blankly into Beomgyu’s eyes, as if he heard something in another language. “I beg your pardon, Your Highness, but shouldn’t you say you wish I weren’t born into such a mess?”
“Living your way makes me feel actually alive,” the younger one pouts. “Plus, if I was anyone else other than who I am, I’d be much more useful and we’d be unstoppable. Banana Fish could never.”
The alpha chuckles as he rolls his eyes, shaking his head. “You shouldn’t think like that,” he pouts, too. “You shouldn’t know a thing about ending lives or- or whatever shit I do,” he bites onto his lower lip apprehensively, feeling a wave of shame flooding his insides slowly. “I just- I just wish I could give you the life you deserve.”
“I like my life now,” Beomgyu smiles gently at him and cups both of his cheeks, pushing himself closer to place a few kisses on the plump lips. “I just have one complaint, and you know which one.”
“And you know my many reasons why not to,” Yeonjun hums absentmindedly, his eyebrows furrowing. “You know it would lead us-”
“To a dead end,” the omega rolls his eyes in annoyance and nods his head in agreement, whining a bit as he replies a weak “I know. I still think it’s nonsense, though.”
“How can it be nonsense?”
“You know I don’t give a damn about what people might think of me for being with you,” he pouts. “Actually, if I told them I’m dating you, the number of harassment would be reduced to almost zero.”
“Then the police would be on your ass to get to me,” Yeonjun frowns and then cocks both eyebrows at him. “We’d be stalked by your sick fans, the paparazzi and the cops.”
“We could run away,” Beomgyu suggests lazily. “We’d figure something out.”
“You don’t love your life, do you?”
The omega scoffs faintly and offers a fond smile in return, despite Yeonjun’s clear bafflement. “Of course I do,” he pouts. “You’re my life, how can I not love you?”
There’s a solid second of silence as Yeonjun’s face reddens progressively, and then the room is filled with incoherent sounds — that being something in between endeared chuckles and some questioning noises such as “eh?” and whatnot —, Beomgyu following suit and giggling as he’s attacked by a cutely feral alpha.
“And then I’m cheesy?” He finally says a full sentence that makes sense, his face and neck fully pink with the embarrassment. “Ew!”
“Ew,” Beomgyu mocks. “Don’t ew me when you liked it so much, Choi Yeonjun! Have you no shame?”
“Who’s even saying I liked it,” he mutters with a pout, his scent clearly betraying him by getting stronger, warmer and a bit more suffocating. “You’re full of shit.”
“Uh-huh,” the omega giggles and loops both arms around Yeonjun’s neck and jumps to his lap, one leg on each side of his lower body. “Say it back.”
“Mn?” Yeonjun feigned confusion.
“Say. It. Back.” Each pause was either a small kiss on his lips or a soft pinch on his chin, which forced a cute laugh out of his mouth. “Say it, hyung!”
“I love you,” the alpha finally speaks, still in between giggles and pinches, but he does. “I love you, Beomie, love loving you, love you,” he adds with a few extra kisses, spreading love and warmth on his body. “I’m so lucky to be the one you love,” he murmurs shyly, but Beomgyu hears him either way.
“And that’s why you’re the cheesy one,” Beomgyu hums a chuckle. “Whipped. Folded. Stupidly in love with royalty when you’re such a bad boy, hm? Can’t get any cheesier than that.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that you’re my first love?” He shoots the question straight to Beomgyu’s heart, his eyes almost sparkling as he admires the omega on top of him blushing. “Though it’s… I don’t know, it seems like- it’s so easy and natural to love you that it feels like I’ve been loving you for my whole life,” he pouts. “It feels good to love you.”
Another moment of silence, and then more incoherent sounds. This time around, Yeonjun can detect the pterodactyl screeches and the other typical noises that Beomgyu makes on a regular basis, plus the word “why” being repeated a few times and stretching to the point they become another screech. Then, Beomgyu aggressively cups both of his cheeks and announces his desire to commit a crime before diving into action. “I’m gonna kill you,” plus a very specific little growl was all that he said.
The murder happens in the form of him kissing the alpha all over, pushing him to lie on his back and almost drawing his shape into the mattress with the force. Lastly, he comes up again (and brings Yeonjun with him) to kiss his lips. They’d have kept it simple and chaste for a bit longer any other day, but Beomgyu didn’t feel like it, so he breaks the chastity by running his tongue on the alpha’s lower lip, successfully licking into his mouth the moment after.
It doesn’t take long until they’re sighing into each other’s mouths, Yeonjun’s hands snaking up to find solace in Beomgyu’s waist, all ten fingers digging themselves into the smooth skin slow and tenderly. He gasps a bit when they part the kiss and Yeonjun trails a few down the omega’s neck, the sweet scent taking all over his senses. — The white roses tingle his nose every time, but the honey note leaves him with barely any brain cells functioning healthily, everything consumed by the desire of making this beauty his for the night.
God, how he loves that.
“My pretty Beomgyu,” he hums against a patch of skin, placing a kiss there before coming back up. “So pretty for me, always so pretty for me.”
In all honesty, Beomgyu is wondering where his clothes are at. His pants were off since before, alright, but where the heck are his underwear and his shirt? Since when is he completely naked and exposed?
“Hyung…” he pouts. “Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?” Yeonjun smirks a bit as he wets two of his fingers with Beomgyu’s slick, delighted with the full-body shudder that follows right after his motions. “I thought Your Highness loved to be praised?”
Beomgyu hums a divided answer as his eyes flutter closed, head bobbing back and heart picking up a faster pace when the fingers are buried knuckle-deep into his cunt. “Y-yeah,” he swallows. “But- but I–”
“Don’t tell me you got shy all of a sudden, darling,” the alpha sets a nice speed to his hand, taking well care of Beomgyu’s needs without rushing into anything. “No, did I get it wrong, then? Is my pretty thing actually up to being called a little slut tonight?”
Beomgyu moans prettily at that, a frown scrunching his face slightly. “Been good,” he shakes his head. “Want you- want your praises,” he breathes in deeply, stuttering the exhale because Yeonjun didn’t exactly buy his choice and fucked his fingers into the omega harshly. “Hyung!”
He feels a bit weak all of a sudden. His heat must be near for him to react strongly to Yeonjun, but it’s working on the other extreme, too. He’s feeling a bit down because Yeonjun hasn’t asked what he wanted to say before, and now because he’s not listening to him. It totally slips past his mind that he himself is a specialist on bratting around to get what he wants, and he ends up forgetting that he’s an expert on lying and behaving dubiously whenever they fuck.
Beomgyu feels a bit broken now, though he’s being held by mending hands, so it probably shouldn’t last for so long.
Feeling the subtle shift on Beomgyu’s scent, Yeonjun slows his fingers back down until he stops, taking them off and licking them clean without a word. “How do you want to have me tonight, Your Highness?”
It’s sort of a bad habit of his in this lifetime. He doesn’t address a lot of things, not even when he knows they need to be addressed. According to him, most of the time the things are better off left alone, and a few of them are not worth the time spent on them, so… yeah. In this case, it’s better to just fix the situation by following Beomgyu’s cues diligently without teasing, and all will be fine.
Right?
“Yeonjun-hyung…” Beomgyu whines as he pushes himself closer to the alpha, his mind spinning a bit. “Stop- stop doing this to me,” his voice is weak and his frown is downright sinful, making him look extra needy and pliant tonight. He kneels up until Yeonjun’s pants are gone with the boxers, only coming back down when he’s sure he’s all lubed up and ready for him.
“Don’t do what, sweetheart?” Yeonjun tilts his head to the side a bit and hisses when the heat envelopes him whole. “God, how can you still be so tight every goddamn time? Seems like I’m loving you like this for the first time all over again,” he growls, the low sound reverberating in the dimmed room.
The omega lets out a cute little moan at that, sort of proud of himself for pleasing his alpha to this point. “Hyung, please,” he asks as he swallows his heart back down, feeling some heat climbing to his face and eyes.
Suddenly he can’t speak. He feels stupid for wanting to say it.
Yeonjun notices that despite the lights having been dimmed. “Want to stop?”
“No, no,” Beomgyu shakes his head slowly and starts to lift his hips up, then down; up, and then down again until he finds himself in a comfortable rhythm. “It’s just- I’m- I’m a bit overwhelmed, that’s all,” he bites onto his lower lip as the sensations start fogging his brain, slowly consuming him. “My heat is close,” he explains, even though he doesn’t need to.
Somewhat it helps Yeonjun sensing things ain’t exactly like usual, so he frowns when the omega is done speaking. “Want me to take care of it tonight?”
“I wish you could,” he mumbles breathily as he tries to pace up, his fingernails drawing tiny half-moons on the alpha’s shoulders. “God, still- feel you so deep,” he swallows again, one of his hands flying to the lower part of his abdomen and pressing hard to feel the bump.
Yeonjun lets out a low growl and holds Beomgyu’s waist in place so he can angle himself a bit better, appreciating the slide as he goes and humming when he feels the extra pressure of the omega’s dainty hand on the other side.
He wouldn’t let the comment pass this time for whatever reason, so even though they’re in the middle of something, he comes back to that after what feels like a couple of minutes. “What do you mean, love?”
“N-nothing,” Beomgyu purses his lips shut for a couple of seconds as the bounces grow quicker, his hips circling slowly in a pretty dance. “I didn’t say anything- oh, oh my god, hyung…” the frown returns now that he’s being touched wherever he loves to be touched, the alpha’s fingertips causing shivers to run down his spine.
Well, that was expected — him dodging the question, I mean —. Yeonjun took a while to ask, after all.
“You said you wish I could take care of it,” he reminds Beomgyu, and he hears the sound of him swallowing before he releases another breathy moan. “Can’t I take good care of you?”
He’s a weak alpha, unfortunately. Just one tiny implication has him on the verge of spiraling. It’s always been like that. He feels like Beomgyu isn’t fully satisfied with whatever, starts to go a bit loco and breaks down eventually, and then he comes back a bit stronger to compensate and try to make things right. However, this is sort of… new territory. Beomgyu is acting a bit different now and they’re attempting to talk during sex, so there’s a lot to unpack.
“You can- you- you try your best every time,” the omega whimpers softly and leans forward a bit to change his posture while trying to keep the pace steady. “You always- you always take care of me.”
“So?” Yeonjun hums out a sigh with the new angle and nibbles on his lower lip slowly, the smell of white roses and honey becoming unbearably dominant in the room despite him being the alpha. — Well, maybe it’s because he’s learned how to not smell himself within time, so the omega is all he can see and feel at the moment. — “Can’t I take care of you this time as well?”
“You won’t give me what I want,” Beomgyu slows down a bit, his heart racing and his mind starting to disconnect a bit from the pleasure. “What I- what I need, you won’t give it to me.”
The alpha in Yeonjun wants to prove him wrong, really. He wants to bite and claim and end this whole mating thing forever. All he wants is to see the mating bite adorning Beomgyu’s neck tomorrow, see him attending interviews and doing photoshoots and all that stuff with his mark planted there. That’s all he wants.
“I can’t, love,” that’s what he forces himself to say. “You know I can’t.”
“You don’t want to,” Beomgyu corrects through gritted teeth. “You call me yours when you don’t want to have me. You are-”
“I can’t possibly want anything more in my life,” Yeonjun interrupts, feeling a bit insulted (to put it lightly). “I’m crazy over you, honey. You know I am,” he doesn’t make the effort to pull out or stop Beomgyu’s hips, so it’s just incredibly awkward to have him still moving — very slowly — while they’re at this. “There’s nothing I want more than to call you mine and mean it in every sense of the word,” he continues. “There’s no one else I’ll love other than you, and there’s no one who my heart will beat for, but you know we can’t put you through this risk.”
Insult to injury. Salt to an open wound.
Unnerving.
The omega chuckles in pain for the lack of better options at the moment, and rests his forehead against Yeonjun’s to let the tears fall. “I just- I love you, hyung,” he says through a sob. “I just want to be yours, I want you, want you to be mine…”
The tears fall from Beomgyu’s face to Yeonjun’s chest, and the alpha almost hisses when he feels the two drops hitting his skin. It hurts, and it burns. Beomgyu’s pain has always caused him immense discomfort and despair, and it’s no different now.
“I can’t be yours like that, love,” he insists, much to his own disagreement. “Not in this lifetime.”
He wishes he could take it back, throw it all up in the air and just do it. Instead, he tightens his grip on Beomgyu’s waist to avoid making him leave completely, as he will not be able to fall asleep if Beomgyu leaves the house in the middle of the night.
He almost says “please don’t leave”, but there’s not enough time for him to even think of the words given that, once more, Beomgyu reacts differently than the other times. Tonight, instead of stepping out and taking a cold shower before leaving, Beomgyu actually pulls away just enough to glare at Yeonjun, scanning his face for a second or two before shaking his head and muttering something he’s not even sure he understands.
The moment after that, all Yeonjun feels is a wave of hot relief. The cold nervousness and fear is washed out instantly as the pair of small fangs pokes holes into his skin and veins. He moans brokenly at the feeling of Beomgyu’s saliva mingling with his blood, his body tensing before relaxing and then tensing again with the need of marking him too.
There’s a weak apology thrown somewhere in the room, but Yeonjun doesn’t hear the end of it — or cares, for that matter —, only allowing himself to sit still for so long. He pushes the omega away when he deems it’s enough, growling at the marvelous sight of a bloody mouth and protruding teeth dripping blood, and then he dives in for a kiss. He also mutters something unintelligible, which he’s absolutely sure Beomgyu doesn’t hear (since he looks a bit dazed), and finally, he uses the left hand to tilt his head to the side, nosing on the sweet spot of his neck before biting.
His senses come back to him when Beomgyu mewls, whimpering so prettily as he braces himself with both arms around his neck and body. “Hyung!”
Oh, Yeonjun is gone. All gone.
It feels so right, so good and so… so finally, you know? It’s not even been a minute but neither of them can get enough of belonging to each other like that… it’s the most soul-consuming sensation ever, truly.
For immediate matters, it consumes both of their minds, both alpha and omega taking over their actions and making a huge mess (understatement) of themselves and the bed.
It starts with Beomgyu rocking his hips slowly, even when Yeonjun hasn’t let go of him in any form. He’s glad the alpha hadn’t gone soft from the previous talk, sighing dreamily as his motions grow a bit more sensual and hard, which prompts Yeonjun’s dick to twitch a little inside him.
He whimpers faintly at that, his noises a bit higher-pitched than usual. “My hyung, my Yeonjun,” he gasps out, wincing when the fangs are buried a bit deeper and shuddering when the growl vibrates through his whole body. “N-no,” he hums while trying to push him away gently, feeling way too weak from the building pleasure and the realization that they’re mated. “Too much- hyung, too much.”
Yeonjun pulls himself away from Beomgyu’s neck as soon as he hears the words, but comes back for a moment to stop the bleeding. “Sorry, love,” he slurs, only then swallowing the mess of drool and blood in his mouth. “I’m so-”
“It’s okay,” the omega reassures, cupping Yeonjun’s face with trembling hands and a fond smile on his lips lighting up his pretty face. “I’m fine.”
Yeonjun feels his heart fluttering and stirring his insides, threatening to beat them to mush. His rational side wants to end this and have a serious conversation with Beomgyu, but there’s no way in hell his inner alpha — or Beomgyu’s omega — will let that happen. That being said, he hums his acknowledgment and nods, switching their positions so he can take proper care of his omega.
“God- Yeonjun-hyung,” Beomgyu chants his name like his life relies on it, beautifully so. Even though there’s more of a primal meaning to their sex tonight, none of them refer to each other as their subgenders. Beomgyu himself loves to call Yeonjun by his name or just by the honorific, leaving the alpha title to when they’re feeling like being a bit nastier; Yeonjun is basically the same, though he relishes on calling the omega “Your Highness” and “my prince” on a regular basis. The pet names are never left aside, surely, but they’re never actually that used because the mood doesn’t call for them.
His back arches sinfully off the bed, smooth skin tinting itself red with small bruises that collect easily; his voice fails him a few times, cutting his sentences and moans in the middle and leaving him speechless or breaking into a high-pitched whimper. Beomgyu scratches his alpha’s back with a bit of strength and locks him close, both of his legs caging him by the hips. — As if Yeonjun had better places to be.
The alpha makes sure to remind him that, a teasing smug smile tugging the corners of his lips. “I’m not going anywhere, Your Highness. I’m yours for the whole night.”
“You’re mine until I say otherwise,” he growls quietly and sort of pouts, tensing his lower body further. By consequence, his cunt tightens around Yeonjun’s cock, the pulses sending them both straight to the edge with loud moans. “God- fuck, you’re so-”
“You’re so perfect,” Yeonjun says at the same time, but only his voice prevails. “So fucking perfect for me,” his alpha groans in pleasement when the omega below him whimpers again, growing pliant once more rather than bossy. “Can’t get enough of you,” he murmurs once he lowers his torso down, placing kiss after kiss on top of the small incisions, as if to heal them.
“You won’t have-” Beomgyu swallows, “won’t have enough of me. You’re stuck with me.”
“Should I be worried?” He jokes, softly nibbling on the omega’s earlobe.
And he knows he should. Everything he should do from now on is worry. Worry about his safety, worry about Beomgyu’s, worry about being tracked and followed… worry about everything.
But having Beomgyu giggling and moaning so heavenly straight into his ear has him forgetting all of that. His priorities lie in making his omega feel this good for as long as he can; to provide and to take care, as he promised; to love and to fulfill.
And it feels rewarding when he succeeds, right? When it all seems to fall into place from the moment his omega whines and whimpers and cries so gorgeously and so graciously, his scent filling the air and barely making him lose his last bits of mind… it feels too right when Beomgyu begs him to make him feel good, feels too perfect when he declares belonging to Yeonjun, and even more when he calls his name again, again and again, always saying “my” before. “My Yeonjun, my hyung, my Yeonjun-hyung”.
So… you know, it can wait. At least a few more minutes.
It can wait until they’re fully composed, maybe. When they’re not so crazy over each other, wishing they could become one in those sheets; when Yeonjun is not so fully committed to bring Beomgyu to his limits and pleasure him until everything left on him are broken sobs and weak praises that tingle inside his chest.
He wonders if it will all be worth it in the end; his time, his efforts, his love. He wonders if the mating bite will fulfill all of their needs and wishes forever. He wonders if he’ll resent Beomgyu for having been so reckless and persistent; for having stepped forward without mutual agreement.
Yeonjun scolds himself the next day for thinking about the end like this; for thinking that they’d die with no more and no less than that. — Though that’s exactly what happens, and Yeonjun has to bite down his tongue to see if his blood can distract him from the bitterness of his regret.
It definitely took longer than he’d expect it to, under normal circumstances. — It took them a few weeks, but that’s just… honeymoon-ish long. It didn’t even begin to feel like life at that point, you know. It just seemed like a long vacation, a lot of feelings involved and new territory to explore.
They hadn’t had enough time to call each other by endearment terms or plan anything related to the announcement of their relationship. — Sort of like an engagement party, but for mating. It’s still that big of a deal even though the knot is not going to be legally tied anywhere soon, you know. — It had been so sudden, so quick and so cruel…
They still had things to see and places to go, right? They still had so much to do, so many years left to live… god, how could they be so careless?
How could Yeonjun forget to double check the security cameras that day, mn? How could he be so fully engrossed in Beomgyu’s story that it slipped past his mind to check every corner of their house? How could he not fight against Beomgyu’s embrace like the usual to scan their surroundings and make sure they were safe? How could Yeonjun just lay there, kissing and hugging Beomgyu ang giggling so carelessly when danger was just behind the door?
How dare Yeonjun allow them to die like this, honestly?
“I love you,” Beomgyu whispered to him, even though he didn’t deserve even an ounce of respect, much less love for failing them like that. “Hyung- my hyung I- I’ll always love you,” he added, his voice shaking a bit with despair as they were surrounded by armed men. “This lifetime and the next one,” he whined as the back of a gun met his face, and tried his best to stop Yeonjun from doing anything on his behalf.
Yeonjun’s eyes zeroed in on the person who had just dared to hurt his soulmate in front of him, and his body moved on its own. The next moment, there was a corpse next to himself, five to six burning holes were poked through his body and another one scraped his face, and his omega screeched in pain.
He turned to look, feeling every nerve ending of his sending off sparks of alarmed electricity. They had used a knife with Beomgyu, because of course they did. Instead of pressing another bullet to his head, they’d much rather have a little fun time torturing him to get Yeonjun actually mad.
Beomgyu whimpered painfully as a cut was drawn from one side of his abdomen to the other, and cried out when the pain became too much for him to handle on his own. He begged for Yeonjun to stop the madness and stay still for once, but it ended up falling into deaf ears because all Yeonjun could see was red. Red tinting his own hands, red falling from Beomgyu’s core, red in the eyes of those who wanted them dead.
Maybe he does regret one thing or two. Maybe he shouldn’t have grown to be so much like his father, after all. So stubborn, so stuck in his ways, so selfish. Maybe he shouldn’t have fallen for Beomgyu in the first place. Maybe that’d have saved the two of them.
“I’ll always love you, this lifetime and the next one.”
Oh, Beomgyu… you have no idea.
✮
But maybe it’s for the best.
“Hyung! Hyung! Yeonjun-hyung!”
Yeonjun looks over his shoulder lazily, a frown on his sleepy face as he yawns. “What?”
“Do we have plans for tonight?” Beomgyu’s doe eyes stare into his own, and suddenly his heart does this thing where it drops all the way down to his feet and then back up to his throat.
“Why- no, I don’t think so,” he replies. “Why?”
“Soobin-hyung and Kai-ah are going to the arcade later, and Taehyunnie is having dinner with his family tonight, so… it’s sort of… just us?” The omega hops to his side and presses a soft kiss on his cheek, blinking slowly as he watches whatever is going on in the kitchen. “Need any help?”
“Chop some pork for us, I’m making enough ramyeon for three,” Yeonjun hums dazedly and nods to himself, biting on his inner cheek. “Just us, then? Do you want to go somewhere?”
“If we feel like it later, maybe,” he shrugs. “But I was thinking a movie marathon- well, a mini marathon. Maybe two or three movies?”
Cute. How can one be so cute?
The alpha smiles and nods, tilting his head and glaring lazily at Beomgyu’s lips, hinting he wants a kiss. — Works like a charm every time, and he can swear sometimes he can feel that Beomgyu wants to squeal when he does that.
There’s nothing improper about their shared kisses in the morning (almost afternoon, in this case), and they’re mostly just very very sweet and lovely; chaste most times, but knowing they’re unsupervised, they dare to challenge themselves a bit.
It becomes a bit too challenging when Beomgyu glues himself entirely on Yeonjun and scratches his nape with the tiniest bit of strength, trying to pull him closer. His scent isn’t giving away any signs of heat or pre-heat, but at the end of the day he’s just that needy and he’ll pout just as much.
“You’re a menace,” Yeonjun murmurs against his lips when they need to catch their breaths. “Can you stop tempting me?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the omega pouts to restrain his smile and turns around to fetch the pork that was asked beforehand, grabbing the knife to start chopping it in small cubes. “You’re the devil yourself.”
“Oh, so that’s how we’re playing now?” He cocks both eyebrows at Beomgyu, but fails to keep in character when all he hears back is a giggle. “You minx.”
But he didn’t say anything else after that. Not even when Beomgyu threw a few cubes of pork at him to tease. — Toss him to the wolves for this if you want to; he only ever complains in front of the cameras, and Beomgyu tends to only do this kind of thing when they’re recording as well, or when he’s trying to get lucky that night (reads: get Yeonjun to be a bit pissed off to go rougher on him).
Unfortunately, the tactic didn't work that night. The mini marathon was a success, which was a surprise, but more than that, Yeonjun looked a bit off. “Hyung?” Beomgyu tilted his head to look at him better, a tiny frown on his face. “You okay?”
Sighing, the alpha nodded his head and sunk into the bed even further, only turning a bit to the side to link their hands. “Do you… do you think of getting married?”
The question took Beomgyu completely by surprise, and he caught himself wishing he could laugh at it, but nothing came out of his mouth because Yeonjun just seemed so concerned that it looked like they were about to break up. “I… yeah? I mean, why not?”
He knows why not. Quite well.
“A bandmate, the eldest from the group at that,” he lifted both eyebrows in response. “First off, people would think I forced you into it, second, our subgenders are not even out for the public, and third– it’s sort of in our contract that we can’t.”
“You did your research, I see,” Beomgyu pouted and his frown deepened, not of all amused by the turn of events. “Why does that matter now?”
“Because- because we can’t have a future together,” the alpha bit his lower lip. “We can’t-”
“Don’t tell me you’re breaking up with me over the fact we can’t get married on paper.”
Yeonjun felt the bitterness exploding in his mouth and through his scent, not making any bit of an effort to hide it. “It's just– it's better if we don't raise any expectations.”
Beomgyu’s expression shifted a couple of times before he deepened his frown, pulling away a bit. “So you are breaking up with me…”
“No,” the alpha reached for his hand again, but when he was refused, he stood still. “I don't- I'm not breaking up with you, I just– it's… I don't want us to hurt this much,” he tried to explain. “We’re already bonded, it’ll- it’ll hurt like hell and we’ll have to stay literal cities or countries away to heal from it…”
“Why can’t we be together?” The younger one pouted, but the frown didn’t leave his face. “I don’t give a shit about signing papers, hyung. I just want to be with you for as long as you want me around,” he hummed a bit sadly. “Do you not like me anymore?”
Yeonjun almost jolted out of bed at that, shaking his head so hard that he got a bit dizzy. “Of course I do, Gyu. I love you,” he frowned too, leaning forward to press a gentle kiss on the omega’s forehead. “I’m sorry I- I didn’t mean it like that, it’s just- I’ve been thinking so much about it–”
“Well, I can see that,” Beomgyu pursed his lips for a moment, shaking his head slowly before cupping the alpha’s face with both hands. “Look, if you’re so concerned about people knowing and harassing us, we can always do fanservice with the other members,” he offered. “We can see who’s trending now and do what they want to see, hide it from them, I don’t care. Just don’t- don’t think about breaking us when we haven’t even tried to make it work through a rough patch, mn?”
It sort of hurt to hear it like that. To have it so… brutally thrown in his face. He hadn’t even tried to make it work and he was already giving up… tch.
Beomgyu could be a bit harsh sometimes, though it was never his intention. He’d always mean the best, and he’d always be kind about it, but something about the way Yeonjun was so far ahead thinking about their break up instead of enjoying the moments of peace they had at that time… It hurt him. Deeply.
It felt a bit too familiar for his taste, and he didn’t like the sensation at all. The feeling of being left behind for a reason beyond his own decisions is complete torture. It was madness and something he must avoid at all costs, though it feels like it’s been persecuting him for centuries in a row.
And you know, it felt too familiar when the topic wasn’t left alone for good. — Yeonjun had managed to stop thinking about the future for a few months, but the future he had envisioned back then was becoming their present, so it eventually came up again; much to Beomgyu’s distaste.
“I knew this would happen,” Yeonjun paced from here to there, chewing on his fingernails until there wasn’t a thing left to bite. “I knew it- fuck, this is so–”
“Hyung,” the omega grabbed him by the shoulders, trying to force his stop. “Stop it,” he frowned, his sadness all over the place. “It’s no- it’s no use stressing over this,” he gulped before sucking in another breath and continuing. “You told me so, I didn’t- I didn’t want to listen, you can say you were right all along and I’m… I’m too stupid to think we could’ve worked it out.”
He was tempted to do so, though he thought his heart would kill him if he did. It was a bit twisted considering that all Yeonjun wanted was to be reborn a civilian and not a public figure to live a happy life with Beomgyu, and the last thing he wanted was to see the omega cry, but there he was; wanting to say “I told you so”.
“Not stupid,” the alpha said under his breath, trying to collect his thoughts. “You’re not stupid, Beomie, you’re- you’re so much better than me for thinking he had a way out,” he walked closer to him and enveloped the younger one in a hug, but it wasn’t all that comforting. “It’s naive of you but- but I’d be lying if I said it’s not extremely beautiful and good.”
It was a failed attempt of comforting Beomgyu’s heart and he knew as much. There was no fixing this, there was no coming back from this trip as if nothing ever happened, there was no dating in disguise anymore.
It was over. Over for good.
Beomgyu shook his head defeatedly and a set of tears fell from his eyes gently, coating his cheeks with a subtle layer of sadness, some of it staining the alpha’s shirt. “I just didn’t want you to give up on us like that,” he murmured shakily, tightening his arms around the alpha’s body. “Your- first instinct was to say we had to move cities, even countries to stay away from each other and I-,” a sob, “I didn’t want you to let me go like that, I didn’t want to let you go like that,” a sniffle, and then a soft squeeze on his body, since all strength has seemed to drain from Beomgyu. “It’ll hurt so much, hyung…”
God, how it hurts now. How badly does it hurt for Yeonjun to literally lose his breath and shudder all over from a heavy electric discharge on his body as if they were already oceans apart. “I never-”
Beomgyu shushed him with a kiss then. He wasn’t feeling all too well to hear any sort of explanation at the moment, though he knew they weren’t going anywhere and it was only around eight at night, their flight being scheduled to three days ahead of them.
It tasted bittersweet, literally. Beomgyu’s honey note had lost a bit of its natural sweetness due to the heartbreak, but it was still honey, and it mingled well with Yeonjun’s overly bitter coffee scent. It burns from the moment their lips touch to the moment they part, and Yeonjun feels his heart clenching a bit more when they pull away.
“I’m sorry, hyung,” Beomgyu mumbled. “I know our careers mean the world to you and- and if we gave up on it now it would only be worse…”
The alpha felt his body weighing down to the mattress on its own, but luckily — ? — he brought Beomgyu with him this time. “I’m so sorry, baby. I wish we could figure something out,” he sighed as he lay the two of them in the center of the bed, his voice no stronger than a hoarse whisper.
“I wish we could just be together without people threatening to kill you,” Beomgyu bit his lip apprehensively and placed his head on top of Yeonjun’s chest, listening to the heartbeats beneath him. “It’s so fucked up,” he murmured softly, more tears streaming down his face, this time directly into Yeonjun’s shirt. “God, why can’t I love you? Is that so wrong?”
Maybe. Probably. Most likely, yeah.
That’s the mistake of a lifetime.
“You’ll always be my one and only,” Yeonjun tried to avoid the question, knowing very well the answer to it but not wanting to make things worse. His hand was stroking the omega’s hair softly, strands in between his fingers as he brushed them as gently as he could. “My love, my soulmate. Just like I’ll always be yours.”
Beomgyu frowned and sobbed again, holding onto the silver necklace he was wearing earlier. Inside the reliquary was a picture of him and Yeonjun back in the day they first met at the company, sweaty and exhausted, tired smiles adorning their faces. Yeonjun had this necklace made for their third anniversary, and the trip they were currently on was supposed to be some sort of honeymoon but for them as an unmarried couple, so just… a getaway? Even though they brought the others with them to hide it better.
But it was all gone now. It seemed like they came all the way here to end things instead of enjoying their third year together as a couple, and all because a fucking stalker caught the two of them a bit too close on the beach earlier that week. — They hadn’t even kissed, though it doesn’t take two to know how differently (and more affectionately) they behaved far from the cameras, plus the fact Beomgyu wouldn’t get touchy with anyone else under any circumstance… Well, it was out in the open. Useless to debate on that now.
“You’re not mine,” Beomgyu sniffled. “I said I didn’t care about the wedding papers, but I- I do care about the bite,” he curled up against Yeonjun, pushing himself upwards to nuzzle his head on the crook of the alpha’s neck. “You won’t ever be mine like that,” he whispered quietly, his scent so suffocating that it stirred Yeonjun’s insides the wrong way.
“Not in this lifetime,” Yeonjun hummed just as quietly. “Maybe the next one?”
The words kept replaying in his mind for a good long while; Dare I say they never really stopped.
Beomgyu cried until there wasn’t an ounce of strength left in his body, all energy dissipated and all warmth gone with the wind. The night was dark upon them, the room of that cabin being the one further up with a big glass window on top of the bed and a few full-length windows across the room, though these ones were covered with black-out curtains for their privacy — proven to be extremely necessary this trip —. It was cold even though there were only a couple of small windows open in their bathroom and a small bit of the ceiling one.
They hadn’t undressed since they got there, and ended up staying in bed even though they were wearing jeans and jackets and socks. Later on, they’d remove the belts and heavy clothing, but not much more than that.
Not in this lifetime. Maybe the next one.
It was plaguing his mind, honestly. The more he tried to push it away, the more he couldn’t get rid of it. “You keep saying that,” Beomgyu murmured when he was sure the alpha was fast asleep. “You always say that and you never mean it.”
Of all lifetimes, this is the one I’m remembering. One I don’t belong to you and you don’t belong to me.
Yeonjun was coincidentally half-awake when the omega said that, and he tried his best to not frown or make a sound, mostly because he didn’t want to disturb the already wrecked atmosphere, but partly because he felt so hurt it physically made him feel like he weighed a whole ton and nothing would get out except a pained noise or a big wince.
He had never said that, though. Not in this lifetime, at least. And he does mean it; he wants to mean it. He wants the next lifetime to do them some justice, he wants them to be able to have a nice wedding and live well, raise a couple of pups and grow old together, maybe move to a house close to the beach when they’re by themselves again…
God, how he wants the next life to be gentler with them.
And it’s quite dramatic to think they’ll never be able to do this in the current lifetime, but it’s far too risky and stressful to do this now. Yeonjun was already being threatened for being close to Beomgyu when it got out to the public he was an omega and would have to skip a few fansigns and fan meetings because of his heat… people weren’t being nice about it. Accusing him of grooming Beomgyu — as if they weren’t only two years apart in age — and then of terrible other things because of a few occasions where Beomgyu showed up visibly tired or spent when the fault was entirely on the company and not on Yeonjun…
They wouldn’t be able to escape this even if they did throw their careers in the trash. Yeonjun wouldn’t allow himself to do this to Beomgyu; making him throw his dream out for a shitty life where they’d have to keep hiding or traveling every now and then or anything of sorts. He wouldn’t have the heart to keep denying Beomgyu whatever he wanted because of the others.
They didn’t seem to have any luck regarding that; having to allow people to dictate how they should live, having to give in to general pressure coming from everywhere, having to attend to everyone’s wishes just to make a living. God, why couldn’t their dream jobs be something simpler? Maybe if Beomgyu’s calling was to be a preschool teacher and Yeonjun’s to be a dance teacher, things would be easier.
Maybe they’d face a bit of a problem when it comes to family, but the two of them are absolute sweethearts and completely level-headed normally, there would hardly be any controversy or reasons scandalous enough to keep them apart.
It hurt a lot to leave the group, it really did. Yeonjun felt as if part of himself died that day, and the other part died when he had to bid his farewell to the members, especially Beomgyu. He took a few days to pack his things and get everything settled for the trip, then he took a couple days to start detaching from the dorms and his routine… and another full day to talk to the four of them.
Huening Kai had been the first one because the poor thing seemed like he would explode in tears, having blamed himself for choosing the destination of that trip and saying it was a bit too much to worry about stalkers when that beach had been so empty. Yeonjun hugged him through the tears and cuddled for an hour or a bit more before they could actually talk, shushing him gently and saying none of that had been his fault. It hurt to see his maknae breaking for him. So much.
Next one was Taehyun, who had been very quiet and calm through everything, but not a word in and he burst into tears, also blaming himself for not being careful enough and not offering ways out. He regretted not valuing his time with Yeonjun, swearing there would be more than enough time to spend nights awake playing games and having fun. Also not his fault, and could also clearly be reversible, but the fans were getting out of hand with the threats — and they were becoming real — so… it would take a long while for Yeonjun to even think about visiting them.
Soobin didn’t have a word to say to him, crying like a baby and apologizing repeatedly for not being a proper leader. All he could say was that he failed as the leader and as a friend, allowing this shit to happen right under his watch because he couldn’t bring himself to do anything about it. — There wasn’t anything he could’ve done anyway, but it was sort of sad to see how much he was blaming his capacities as a leader when the issue was past that. — Yeonjun had tried to say it wasn’t his fault and that he’d done the job as a leader to warn about the risks; the fault was on them. Being stubborn and daring to dream when they’re not allowed to dream outside the contract.
And Beomgyu… Beomgyu spent the rest of the day there with him. Refused to leave at all costs, and tried with all his might to convince the others he would see Yeonjun off at the airport. All to no avail, of course. He had to be satisfied with being glued to his alpha until the last minute, which was until the staff knocked on the door to get Yeonjun’s bags and get them to the car.
The whole day was eerie, sad, very very gray.
Beomgyu had refused to say a word up until Yeonjun said he needed to shower, to which the omega just replied a simple “I’m coming with you”. In the shower, he forced Yeonjun to stand still, just so he could feel he was taking care of him for once. Being useful one last time. He could’ve bit him there, if he wanted to. He could’ve taken advantage of their vulnerability and sealed their fate right there and then, but he held himself back.
For the first time in what seemed like a century, Beomgyu felt the pain overwhelming him to the point it surpassed his wishes to fulfill his needs; his selfish needs. For the first time in forever, Beomgyu rejected Yeonjun. It cost him an entire life, and he regretted it every single day, but he did. For the first time, he put someone else before himself in his life.
It was hell to make peace with it. So torturous he never did so.
The beginning of this journey was agonizing, to put it lightly. Having Yeonjun in another city away for work was something, but having him in another country to force their bond to break was something else. Borderline demonic, if he’s one to say.
He cried so hard for the first few days, especially when he saw the funeral flowers displayed all over the front of the building and metro stations, plus the company announcing the change in name from “TOMORROW X TOGETHER” to “Thursday’s Child”. He cried in anger because the trend was now to pretend the members were dying instead of being kicked out of their groups, and people were dancing, celebrating, cheering about it. First was that guy who got ostracized for having had a couple of girlfriends before even debuting, then Yeonjun, and not too long after, someone who announced their subgender and their relationship with someone of the same subgender.
Treating people like experiments who should mold themselves according to their wishes and proclaiming their deaths when confronted with disappointment was foul. Beomgyu was sick of it. The companies were doing a terrible job, also. Not caring about the members, changing the names of the groups to “rebrand” and “start anew with a good note” was cowardy. It was enraging, revolting, insulting.
Beomgyu had never felt anything so strongly that wasn’t love before.
Yeonjun tried to say it was okay from wherever he was, tried to say he was safe and no one there recognized him, tried to say he was feeling calmer and a lot more, but he had none of it. Not when Yeonjun looked so tired all the time; not when he looked skinnier every single time they FaceTimed each other.
He didn’t believe for a split second that things were okay because the two of them cried almost every night before, during or after calling one another to talk, and they looked wrecked all the time. — It was physically challenging to feel the bond fading, you know. It was painful to long for someone that wouldn’t come, to pray for a warmth that would no longer coat them, to wait for comforting arms that wouldn’t wrap around their bodies, to wish for a reassuring “it will be okay” that didn’t come from a phone. It hurt.
It also hurt when days turned into weeks, that turned into months, that eventually turned into years, and nothing got better. It hurt to know their bond hadn’t weakened in the slightest, that the longing would never stop, that the pain would never go away, and that it got progressively worse when Yeonjun returned to Korea but didn’t dare to come close to the others until three to four years had gone by.
Sometimes Beomgyu thought he was going insane. He used to feel Yeonjun’s presence regularly in the beginning, but it faded after a few months. With the knowledge that the alpha was back home after the dust settled, his heart would race from time to time, he’d turn around to look wherever he was, see if Yeonjun was there watching him from afar. He’d always try to find Yeonjun during their concerts, staying visibly upset with the failure and crying every time he realized his alpha wasn’t there.
He started trying to move on when the second year ran by, and with a little help from the staff, he found out the popular opinion on who he should get together with. Most of the answers spun around Heeseung because of another controversy involving Sunghoon, a few around Soobin — though everyone still remembered how Soobin scolded the fans for invading too much on their privacy, so a lot of them presumed he still had connections with Yeonjun, which is a no —, and just a tiny percentage towards some actor guy that he met once.
Heeseung was a good guy, he really was, but he was just like Yeonjun. A bit too much like him, actually. — Too scared to ruin the idol life for Sunghoon, too scared of what their fans were thinking of them and how much they seem to think badly of him, just like they did with Yeonjun. — His heart ached for the four of them, but at least the fans were speculating the couples all wrongly thanks to their experience with fan service.
The idea came not too long after that. Heeseung met with him after a few months of “dating” to propose a fake marriage, discussing the possibilities and their options when it comes to what they show publicly and what they leave hidden. — Sunghoon and Yeonjun had been listening through their phones and piped in a few times to express concern, but in the end they could reach an agreement.
Yeonjun hadn’t exactly been on board with that because he was absolutely sure the fans from both sides would get on their nerves about the mating bite and wedding and all, but he offered to write a letter in their place to explain why they wouldn’t mate and they’d keep it private — for when Dispatch decided to fuck with them —, which turned out to be pretty convincing.
Sunghoon had started acting in a small drama and conveniently brought Beomgyu with him while the two groups were in hiatus, that being because the eldest ones were enlisting. They had a few months until they had to enlist, so they made good use of it to cause a nice first impression.
It was a success, luckily. Ascending actors and the ones who are really well off cannot have mating bites for the sake of their own relationships and their careers, so even though the fans wanted to see them following the other path, they couldn’t.
Pretending he was in love with acting and singing and being an idol was easy, and Beomgyu really had no complaints about that. He and the others even moved closer to Heeseung and Sunghoon’s place to purposefully be seen together more often, and that incredibly lifted up their spirits even though they couldn’t actually feel so happy about the turns of events.
The rumors were confirmed somewhere in May that year, and Beomgyu got a day off on the ninth to go on a fake date with Heeseung, discussing in length how he should surprise Sunghoon later. — Well, he gave Heeseung a song that would have gone into their new album if the company hadn’t been so awfully unsupportive about it. It was obvious it was dedicated to Yeonjun, and Beomgyu had altered it so many times to try and fit someone else in that he got mad and gave up. Eventually, he reformed it and made it match Sunghoon’s taste, giving it as a token of gratitude to Heeseung for putting up with his antics for so long.
It wasn’t an easy task, honestly, so Heeseung took it happily and they left the café to practice for a bit. Beomgyu had even brought his guitar that day, so they spent some good hours away trying to prepare the surprise. (Also, Beomgyu scolded Heeseung for not having bought anything, forcing him to go to the mall and choosing a meaningful gift, but that’s another story.)
That day was one of those days where Beomgyu would feel the closest to himself as he possibly could. Close enough to be considered happy or at ease. But that was up until he got back home by himself.
Huening Kai, Taehyun and Soobin had called him half an hour prior to tell him to have dinner with Heeseung or order something because all three of them were going out with friends, probably only returning late at night; Heeseung, on the other hand, was full of romantic things to do and some time to make up with Sunghoon, so obviously having another meal with him was out of the charts.
That left Beomgyu to get some food on his way back and drive to the apartment on his own, but it wasn’t bad. Actually, he had been needing some alone time for weeks at that point and being in the army had not contributed to being alone at all, so…
He was feeling pretty great about ending the day on his own, eating and showering without having to tell anyone about how the day went or anything, but it all went down the sink the moment he grabbed the doorknob.
Opening the door to their apartment and removing the mask that was on his face, Beomgyu’s eyes immediately start to water. The place reeks of Yeonjun.
God, his scent is everywhere.
The only room that wouldn’t smell like him would logically be Beomgyu’s bedroom, but of course he had to be wrong about that, too. He was so painfully wrong that he broke into a fit of sobs and soft cries, unwrapping a gift that had been placed in the middle of his bed with tears falling from his eyes non-stop.
It was only two pieces of clothing and a smaller box with sweets, but he was bawling as if he had received the worst news of his life. Scented clothes, a small note with Yeonjun’s handwriting telling him he was sorry and that he had stolen something from Beomgyu’s closet, plus the sweets the two of them would only eat together whenever they’d buy them. Not only that, but the implication that he was so close but wasn’t willing to stay a bit more to break the number one rule for once… he felt so crushed. So little and so undeserving of Yeonjun.
He ended up not having dinner that night, and almost broke down once more when he moved across the apartment still feeling his scent and presence everywhere, coming as far as to notice how the couch was messy in the way Yeonjun used to keep it. — Oddly organized, he’d say.
It was awful. Yeonjun was so damn close, so reachable, so… there but not there, you know? Living hell.
Hell was brought down to Earth during more occasions such as Yeonjun being re-accepted into the celebrity world but being absurdly prohibited to come near HYBE’s artists, and another occasion that was Thursday’s Child “having to disband” so all four of them could focus on solo projects, Beomgyu being immediately forced into the acting field despite his protests. I could name more, but we wouldn’t get out of here if I did, so I’ll leave that up for imagination.
The communication had never actually stopped ever since Yeonjun left the first time, but it strained within time. Two busy men with so much stress to deal with, fake relationships to nurture and people to please… it was taking its toll on them. They never stopped loving each other, however, and they refused to let the bond break, so it would be common to have scented stuff delivered to their places every few months, though it accentuated the pain greatly.
It had been a mutual decision, but I’d be lying if I said Yeonjun didn’t make a face. He had gifted Beomgyu for their sixth anniversary because he was starting to get paranoid about being forgotten, which was pretty reckless of him, but he didn’t want to keep doing it and hurting him on purpose. — Beomgyu would’ve called him a few names if we could. Instead, he just said something along the lines of not allowing them to drift apart this much, and asked if he’d need to beg on his knees for it to happen.
So… yeah, that was life.
Eventually, Beomgyu learned how to make peace with the fact he’d only have Yeonjun when people forgot about their nonsensical fuss, but the public announcements that were made about Yeonjun didn’t favor them at all. Not even when they retired and were free to be their own persons.
✮
It had been the most difficult thing to accept throughout his life. Everything he wanted was always brought to him on a silver platter, except for Yeonjun. He could have anything and everything he landed eyes on, except the love of his life.
Closing his eyes and reopening them every day to find an empty bed and a noiseless house was extremely unsettling, but he couldn’t bring himself to do anything about it. He feared something might happen to them, maybe even to their families if news got to the crazy people, so that was his life.
As the years passed, all Beomgyu could wish for was to close his eyes and not open them again, but it kept happening. Day after day, schedule after schedule, sickness after sickness. He’d get through all of it even though he didn’t want to do so that much. It was getting a tad too lonely to grow old without any support. To wake up with a few muscles pulled and his joints all stiff and not being able to laugh about it with Yeonjun or ask him for a massage, you know. It was sad, but he didn’t have any other bit of his heart to break over this.
Until one day… one day he woke up feeling light. Very light. His heart seemed to beat at a better pace, his body seemed energetic again, and his whole self felt like a cloud.
Suddenly, his mind wasn’t all that heavy as it was a moment ago. The thoughts and worries that consumed him were no longer there, and he frowned at the sensation of having forgotten important stuff. He was absolutely sure he was dead, so why won’t he remember his life?
“Feeling cloudy?” A voice echoes next to him, and Beomgyu takes a little while to adjust his vision. There was a person — ? — standing there, a bit far from where he was. He doesn’t recognize this person.
“I’m sorry,” he clears his throat, only now feeling his feet touching the floor. “Who are you?”
“Tamiel,” the person smiles softly at him and sits up in the air, a small cloud forming right under him. “Took you long enough to come back.”
Come back, Beomgyu repeats in his mind. Have I been here before?
“You have,” Tamiel giggles. “You seem to be fond of this country you lived in,” he pouts a bit and stretches before lying down, staring at Beomgyu lazily. “I don’t know what’s so special about it, but I like it when you come back and call me Tami-hyung.”
“Hyung?” Beomgyu widens his eyes for a second. “How do I- how do I know you?”
“You’re my little brother,” Tamiel smiles widely, seeming a little bit like the Cheshire Cat but not quite. “Come. I’ll take you to your place so you can rest.”
“I’m- dead, right?” The human asks, just to make sure.
“Yup,” Tamiel pops the p with another giggle, stopping just about a meter or two away from a big gate. “In you go, Beomie. We’ll talk to you later.”
“Who’s we?” Beomgyu’s eyebrows furrow as he steps closer to the gate, looking back at his alleged brother. “And why aren’t you coming with me?”
“We as in your siblings,” Tamiel smiles softly as the cloud dissipates, sighing. “I can’t go in. Plus, you need to talk to a few guys before your memories can get back in your head, and I don’t really like them, so.”
Beomgyu nods his head dazedly and hums, waving his hand and watching as Tamiel’s figure is engulfed by another cloud, taking him far away from wherever he is.
Is this Heaven?
“Come in,” another voice strikes him from behind, making him startle and flinch visibly. “We have to talk.”
I can clearly see why Tamiel doesn’t like you, Beomgyu thinks just as he’s done turning around, his demeanor quiet and serious.
“Irrelevant,” the person says, her eyebrows knitting together in a disdainful frown. “Your sibling is not welcome here. Their judgment of me and my siblings matters the least at the moment.”
“Who are you?”
In the shape of a human woman, the archangel bows his head a bit before turning on her back and walking to the inside of the old manor, not looking back to check if Beomgyu was following her. “I’m Gabriel.”
The human cocks his eyebrows for a moment and follows her inside, looking around as soon as they get inside. “Gabriel,” he repeats dumbly, “as in… Gabriel, Michael and Raphael?”
“Mn,” she nods subtly and climbs a round of stairs swiftly, waiting for Beomgyu at the top. “You were a devoted believer in your last life,” she points out. “I’m sure you know about fallen angels and what they mean.”
“Y-yeah, I think,” Beomgyu frowns, suddenly feeling himself vanish from the bottom of the stairs straight to the top without having to think about moving. “What about the fallen angels?”
“Tamiel is one of them,” she hums indifferently and adjusts her robes before walking again, looking at a few doors before opening one of them. “In.”
Beomgyu’s frown deepens, skepticism written all over his face. “Why?”
“Do you want your memories back or not?” Gabriel also frowns, turning to look Beomgyu in the eyes. The human blinks a few times and purses his lips shut, swearing he could see the tiniest bit of a plea in the archangel’s eyes.
Without another word, he gets in the room. It’s not exactly dark, but the atmosphere itself is a bit dim, the walls colored a deep blue and dark wood being the main material of every piece of furniture there. Beomgyu feels oddly at home here, but something bothers him beyond his comprehension, an uncomfortable itch reaching the back of his neck as soon as the door is closed.
“Where-”
Nope. Not another word in. There’s absolutely no space for him to even think after Gabriel’s hand reaches for his insides through his unexposed core area. It hurts. So much. It hurts like nothing else, and it feels like his muscles are being ripped one by one, all by hand. — By inexperienced hands that have no knowledge on what to do, just destroying everything in reach.
Gabriel motions for him to stay shut while her firm hand searches around for something inside Beomgyu’s core, and really, all he wants to do right now is laugh at the audacity.
Him? Stay shut? When he’s experiencing the worst pain he ever felt?
But it doesn’t last too long. Not long enough for him to muster up the courage to laugh anyways. — He would have, don’t get me wrong. He was about to ready himself to give Gabriel his best mocking laughter, but the timing wasn’t right.
What he lets out instead is a heavy gasp, his entire body shuddering and almost collapsing to the ground when Gabriel seems to empty his core. In her hand, there’s a globe (glob?) of almost crystalline condensed water — no, not ice. Just a glob of water that is still liquid, but it seems like it’s inside a little bowl, except there’s no bowl —, the tone looking something in between a light blue and lilac. Then, all of a sudden, water turns into vapor, still in the form of an almost perfect circle and rotating in the archangel’s hand.
“What-”
“Your soul, everything that belongs to you and who you are,” Gabriel responds before Beomgyu can even finish thinking about the question. There were three other pairs of eyes on them ever since the door was closed, and all three angels that were hawking on them seemed to nod for a split second, their cold expressions softening into more relaxed ones.
It didn’t last for too long, either, but that time it had been sudden and quick. One moment there were five silhouettes standing in the room, the other, only two. The archangel did God-knows-what for the others to simply vanish, but Beomgyu could tell she did something at least questionable given the noises the other three made when they went away.
“Come.” Gabriel had extended her hand at some point, and a single featherlight touch on his shoulder had Beomgyu feeling dizzy as hell, scrambling to hold onto something in order not to collapse.
He finds himself in another room, definitely darker and not cozy at all. It had lost the appeal of a big manor, and now it just looked like an emptied basement with leaks everywhere and a disgusting, putrid smell in the air. The wood creaked from the minimum movements, the cracks becoming a bit too much to seem just an aesthetic.
He frowns at that, not refusing when Gabriel motions for him to lay on the couch but regretting it immediately. — He’s absolutely sure he had just touched fur despite the couch being made of leather.
“Can you-”
“I'm not your enemy,” Gabriel hums absentmindedly as she works on Beomgyu’s vital essence, slowly turning it into that liquid again, though partially. “I'm trying to help us both.”
“By torturing me?” Beomgyu blinks his tiredness away and tilts his head to the side, watching as the archangel snaps her fingers a couple of times and a few blood circles appear on the walls. “Are you actually Gabriel?”
“I am,” she nods indifferently and sighs, separating the human’s soul in two. “You have caused us too much trouble. I'm trying to get rid of you.”
Beomgyu had to laugh at that, because what. “Excuse me? I have caused you trouble?”
Gabriel’s head perks up and she stares blankly at Beomgyu, wishing she could ask if he was stupid, but then she remembers that the guy has not a single clue of what’s going on, indeed, so. “Yes. Let it sink for a moment,” she says, once again a featherly touch dizzying Beomgyu to the extreme, only this time it was on his forehead.
It all comes back in a single wave. Everything.
All of the times Yeonjun had said “not in this lifetime”, all of the times he had to die and to bear the weight of putting Yeonjun through that damn much amount of pain, all of the times his selfishness led them two to death. All of the times his foolishness consumed his mind and body.
It wasn’t just one, two, three lifetimes. They were countless, scattered all around the globe, at least one life per century, and at least through three different dimensions. There was just so much to unpack, too much even for someone who’s used to receiving lots of news at once. There were endless lifetimes where they almost had it, but one tiny slip and they were gone all over again, meeting in another dimension and another time…
God, that was… intense.
Roughly ten minutes go by before Beomgyu dares to raise his upper body from that sofa, still dizzy and feeling a bit unwell with everything. — Too many deaths to remember, too many soul-crushing heartbreaks to re-endure and most of all, too many “not in this lifetime”’s to listen to again, for sure.
“Lie down again,” Gabriel recommends, “I'm not finished with your memories.”
Worst news of his day, but alright. What can he do, after all?
And then another wave crashes through him. It’s… somewhat weaker compared to the previous one, but it lasts longer, and it definitely feels more numbing than anything he’s been experiencing so far.
He watches himself in the depths of his mind thanks to Gabriel’s powers, probably. It feels like he was put in the back of his own brain, sat down and only got to watch as the memories played on a big screen. He feels dizzy when the angels all appear in their original forms, his poor human eyes suffering a bit to process everything at once. He feels his ears ringing when they speak, the earth beneath him seeming to shake uncontrollably.
There he was, long ago. Tamiel, Satariel, Turiel and a few other el angels, all looking at him in their human forms with knowing looks. Gabriel stood there from afar, though he was in his original form, so there wasn’t… anything. Really. Beomgyu wouldn’t know where he began and where he ended in that form. — It seemed wrong to look at him anyways.
“Chazaqiel!” Tamiel spoke first, his tone very light and amused. “Took you look enough.”
Beomgyu — Chazaqiel, apparently — blinked a few times as his head hung low, turning a bit to the side so he wouldn’t have to face any of his siblings, which pulled out a choir of loud laughter out of the three of them.
“So we spent almost a whole century trying to pull you with us with no success, only for you to come the first time Semyaza calls you?” Satariel crossed their arms against their body, clicking their tongue teasingly. “Are you that easy to make fun of?”
Semyaza. Yeonjun.
“For how long have you been in love with him?”
Beomgyu didn’t know how to respond back then, but right now, he feels his heart pumping so fast it forms the words “since always” in Morse code quite clearly. He presumes it was beating just as wildly back then. If angels have hearts.
“Raphael will not take long to find us,” Turiel disdained a bit. “Are we waiting for Semyaza to come?”
“Not enough time,” Gabriel spoke lowly, his figure shifting to one side as he observed something in the distance. “They’ll be here soon.”
And complete silence. Total whiteness. Beomgyu blinks once, twice, three times and his vision still fails to adjust to the new brightness that takes over his sight.
When he’s able to focus again, he feels that his arms (all six of them) had been restrained and that his organs were being… somewhat regulated by something or someone. It felt like they had been plugged onto something.
“Chazaqiel,” a displeasing voice spoke. “We have to talk.”
“And you had to tie me up to talk to me?” He heard himself spitting, his frown very evident as he raised his head to stare into Raphael’s eyes.
Raphael was by far the scariest of the archangels when it came to his physical form, though sometimes he did it on purpose — altering a few features here and there, I mean —. “You are falling, Chazaqiel. I would have to be either an idiot or a madman to let you hang loose when you are one strand away from the Heaven Realms.”
“Let God be my judge,” Beomgyu’s eyebrows raised in a cocky manner, but not for long. “You are not your father,” he groaned a bit when everything tightened around him, especially whatever was pinning his insides. It burned, sort of. “You have no-”
“You idiot!” Semyaza — who came out of nowhere — hissed through gritted teeth as he hurried closer, sending a punch directly towards his jaw, but was held by Gabriel before it could land. “Are you out of your mind?”
Oh god, how beautiful Yeonjun looked then. How harmonic everything about him was, and how heavy his presence was. All angels there seemed to shift a bit in their places, minus Gabriel and Raphael, of course.
Michael was also one to say, though he was clearly a show-off and liked to impose his power over the rest while playing the innocent act. He stood there, farther from his immediate siblings. A few of his eyes narrowed towards Yeonjun — Semyaza —, and he spoke quietly. “You forced him to follow you,” his voice wasn’t exactly low, but it was strong, and it almost shattered the glasses of whatever place they were at. “And you are surprised he is rebelling like you did?”
Semyaza took his human form for once, just so his expression could be seen clearly. “I haven’t forced him.”
Mad. That was a mad man right there.
Beomgyu wondered if a mad angel could cause a big commotion on Earth.
“You joined Lucifer in your free will as a Watcher, and we haven’t intervened,” Raphael spat. “Now you are trying to decease a Guardian and turn him into a Watcher, and that is not tolerable.”
It used to be nice to be a guardian angel, really. He used to have a lot of fun visiting the believers, was dedicated to protecting them to the best of his ability, and most of all he loved being in duty with his siblings. It started losing its spark when one by one, his siblings fell. Tamiel had been the last one, and he kept trying to hint that there were better things than to follow Raphael’s rules blindly, though it used to go into deaf ears.
Semyaza had made all three of them fall, of course. Being the leader of the Watchers included heavy recruiting, and he didn’t fail easily. Chazaqiel was a bit more of a task, but he couldn’t say he wasn’t already warmed up towards him. — The fact that Beomgyu had such a strong passion for his objectives already told a lot about him, and it made Yeonjun’s heart fill with expectation.
He made quick work, considering the circumstances, but he felt guilty for doing so. He felt that corrupting Beomgyu like that was a new level of low for a fallen angel, and stooping that low could easily classify him as a demon. — Nasty creatures, let me tell you. It is very insulting to be compared to one when you still have your glory and your powers from the Heaven Realm.
“We are giving you one last chance,” Raphael spoke again, this time looking at Beomgyu. “Chazaqiel, do you regret letting yourself be misled by Semyaza and attempting to fall, betraying your siblings and your father?”
Beomgyu looked up then, and he felt the urge to laugh. It was ridiculous to see how much Raphael thought he was God like that. To be in their little courtroom in a non-official trial and to be threatened by one that once swore complete servitude to their father, only to act on his behalf when the times are darker.
“No,” he responded simply, and smiled when he sensed that Yeonjun snapped his head towards him in a silent scream of “idiot” again. “Semyaza is his own being,” he added with a pained sigh, feeling the invisible screws twisting. “Semyaza is a leader in his full glory, and more- more honest than you will ever be,” he hissed a few times, his breath cut short by the end of the sentence. “If I am to follow someone blindly, I will choose him.”
The room was deadly quiet, but the floor shook with the silent rage that consumed a lot of the angels there.
Yeonjun was incapable of uttering another word, but Beomgyu sensed that he was moved by how strongly Beomgyu felt about him. He could see — even now — that he looked relieved after being chosen, even though it was their worst decision ever.
“Your leader is no better than yourself,” Raphael hummed, now in a human form that displeased him greatly. — A white old man with scarn written all over his face. — “And you, Chazaqiel, are nothing.”
“If I am nothing, I hold no relevance to you,” the angel smiled amusedly, tilting his head to the side, “and neither does he. Why bother in the first place?”
“You can become a problem if you fall on your terms,” Raphael turned to the other side and snapped his fingers, conjuring another set of tools to restrain Yeonjun. “If you are to fall to Earth, it will be on my terms or else.”
So that’s the story of how they fell from Heaven to Earth. Raphael himself took care of engraving their fates into their cores, specifying the irremediable deaths they’d face if they ever insisted on staying together — in this case, solidifying their bond with a mating bite —.
“You okay in there?” Gabriel speaks a bit more casually, her hands touching Beomgyu’s arm and head softly.
“Why now?” Beomgyu murmurs, blinking his tears away.
“Let’s say… let’s say I altered something about your fates somewhere in between the fifth and sixth millenia,” she pouts. “I engraved another condition.”
“I reached the limit of lifetimes?”
“No,” she shakes her head. “You and Semyaza finally managed to spend a whole lifetime without biting each other,” she giggles quietly and briefly, biting on her lower lip. “I wrote in your soul that, if you managed an entire lifetime without being corrupted, you’d have another chance to redeem yourself.”
“I don’t want redemption,” Beomgyu frowns tiredly.
“I know, I didn’t write this thinking solely of you,” she cocks both eyebrows at him. “I’m thinking of myself. Raphael knows you’ve ascended again and is currently looking for you, my plan is to tell him I’ve banished you permanently.”
“Banished me,” he repeats slowly. “To Hell?”
“To Earth, dumb thing,” she flicks her finger on his forehead, grabbing the glob of essence to place it back on Beomgyu’s body. “Don’t worry. Your siblings will visit you.”
“Why are you helping us?” Beomgyu asks as he holds Gabriel’s wrist with his two hands, refusing to accept his core back just yet.
“I am fated to fall to Earth,” she hums and sighs, shaking her head. “I am not happy with how things are turning out up here, and I do not condemn any of you for finding pleasure and purpose elsewhere. If it’s in my reach and if it’s possible, I want to help you achieve what you seek for.”
Beomgyu wanted to doubt her for a second, he really did. How does one of God’s immediate children happen to be just as much of a rebel, if not worse? Shouldn’t Gabriel be on the other side of the coin?
“You and Semyaza have faced enough in your existence,” she smiles weakly. “I will eventually ask you for favors when I get down to Earth, but until then, you should enjoy a few lives where you can live.”
“And- where is he?”
“Being decrypted by my sibling,” Gabriel winks. “He will also ask for favors later.”
After that, Beomgyu felt his body sinking deep into dense water. It was dark everywhere and multiple voices echoed simultaneously, making it impossible for him to focus on whatever was being said. He felt like anchors were tied on his body, weighing him down to the bottom of the ocean at a slow, torturous speed. The pain of having his core put back into himself didn’t come as close as to tickle him during this state of pressure. It lasted so long, too long for him to endure it awake. — It knocked the oxygen out of his body either way, so he’d have no option but to succumb to a heavy sleep.
It was much, much later that he felt himself awakening again. He felt sore all over, the tips of his fingers and toes curling and forcing some blood to move inside his body. He hissed at the amount of stimulations being spread at once, blinking the unconsciousness away slowly.
Beomgyu found himself staring right into Yeonjun’s sleepy figure, the early morning sun hitting his skin gently and casting a pretty shadow to the side. His heart started to race, his lips stretching into a smile that surely seemed to force the rest of his system into full wake.
There was a bite adorning the crook of the alpha’s neck, seeming very recent.
He wouldn’t dare to keep his hopes all the way up, mostly because he felt Gabriel wasn’t one to be exactly trusted, but his heart had already settled for the new reality. Their new fate.
“Hyungnim?” The omega called gently, pressing a kiss or two on the pouty lips that he had missed for what felt like eternity. “My guard?”
“Yes, my prince?” Came his response a moment later. It was quiet, hoarse and a bit lower-pitched, accompanied by the tiniest of frowns.
Then, his eyes blinked themselves open, his scent growing impossibly strong and alarmed. Beomgyu giggled prettily as he lay closer to him, bumping their noses together. “Hi.”
Yeonjun’s jaw fell a bit before he could smile properly, his arms closing tightly around the omega’s body. “Hi, love,” he spoke with his head nuzzled in Beomgyu’s neck, taking in as much as he could from his scent, kissing the beautiful scar of their bond and humming a delicious little chuckle out while he was at it.
“I missed you so much,” Chazaqiel hummed quietly and threaded his fingers through the alpha’s hair, pouting as he pulled away. “I thought I would die of a broken heart.”
“I thought I was done for, too,” Semyaza pressed a tender kiss on his forehead, intertwining their hands. “But I’m here now.”
Beomgyu sighed dreamily, a smile on his lips. “Mine for a lifetime?”
“Yours for my entire existence.” Yeonjun nodded, and finally, he kept his word.