Chapter Text
When Nicholas was a child, all he dreamed of was being a professional athlete one day. Specifically a soccer player once he started training with his school’s team in third grade. It was exhilarating, a sport that barely stopped at all and required pure trust and collaboration from the rest of your team. He played every year until he got to high school. It was then that things changed.
You weren’t able to join any sports teams until you had presented. Once presented, you would be sorted into the alpha, beta and omega teams that would only play against other school teams with the same subgendered groups.
Nicholas presented when he was sixteen, an omega- surprising himself and some of his classmates. He could finally join the school team! And when he did he became the star player. Always picked for first draft and making up a good tally as their number one goal scorer. But eventually Nicholas got bored of the praise and the amount of effort he was toning down just to keep his team mates feeling like he belonged.
At seventeen he asked if he could join the alpha team. He was laughed out of the alpha coach’s office and whispered about amongst his peers at his insane request. But it wasn’t insane. Nicholas could keep up with the alphas, no problem at all. He knew this because he played all inclusive subgendered games outside of school for fun. His body type had been the only thing that didn’t scream “omega” about him. He was tall and quite muscular from all the gym work he had put himself through to improve his game. The alphas in these out of school games would always praise his skills and commitment to the game. Too bad they weren’t in charge of the school’s athletics department.
He leads the omega’s to national championships both years he was on the team, even being given the role of captain and receiving just about every MVP award at any ceremony they ever had. But it wasn’t as fulfilling as it should have been. Staring at all of his awards felt bittersweet. He was proud to have won them but disappointed by the fact that he hardly needed to put any effort into earning them.
That’s why when Nicholas starts applying for universities he leaves out the “omega” part of the accolades he had earned in high school. Subgender discrimination was basically washed out of the education system by now but it still applied to physical activities such as sports. The universities couldn’t exactly hold up his application as a red flag seeing as he had decided to leave his subgender box unticked.
He gets accepted into his top pick who happen to have a killer alpha soccer team which had achieved five national championships in a row. He needed to get onto that team as badly as his body needed oxygen. So he does something that some people may call… problematic and completely foolish.
He pleads with his doctor for a prescription for hormonal blockers and not just the over the counter stuff, the good shit that would completely mask his omega side. She eventually relents after being his doctor since he was a child and knowing his passion for the game. “These aren’t a permanent solution” she had warned him sternly. He complied and made promises he didn’t intended on keeping just for access to the one thing that could make his dream come true.
Don’t get him wrong, there were fantastic omega sports teams out there but it just didn’t feel like enough for him. He started taking the pills about a month before he began university, his mother remarking that she couldn’t detect his scent much anymore and that she missed it. The only thing Nicholas got from that was that his mother still could sense some of his caramel scent. His next course of action was starting to wear scent blockers. It wasn’t uncommon for athletes to use them during a game, but Nicholas may have gone a little insane with his usage. He used the long patches for the scent glands on both sides of his neck and double stuck the regular sized blockers to his wrists. He also took over the counter suppressants when he expected his heat cycle to begin. He ended up avoiding it completely and added that to the win column.
The day his sister had said she didn’t realise he was home by his scent and only knew as she found him in the living room was one of the best days of Nicholas’s life. He had jumped up from his seat in joy and his sister just gave him a funny look.
University was about to start and now he had just what he needed to reinvent himself. He couldn’t be tied down to being an omega, now he was an alpha who just didn’t have any scent at all. The only smell on Nicholas now being sweat and aftershave (very alpha adjacent aftershave mind you) and it had been the happiest he had felt in a long time.
Moving into the dorms had been interesting seeing as they still divided the students by subgender. His little white lie and lack of any omega indication earned him a room in the alpha building. Setting up his things had been difficult. Most athletes displayed their awards and achievements in their dorms but Nicholas could hardly do that when every single one of them had the word “omega” on them.
Amongst his contemplation, a tall figure walks through the open door.
“Hi. I’m Maki.” The alpha says with a bright smile.
“Nicholas.” He extends his hand to shake with his roommate, adding extra firmness to his grip to play up the alpha facade.
Maki quickly becomes one of Nicholas’s closest friends. It helped that Maki was a complete social butterfly and had already made a bunch of connections before orientation day had even started. He didn’t seem to be discriminatory either. The people he had introduced Nicholas to were of all different subgenders. Harua and Yuma were omegas, and Taki and Jo were betas. He said he had even spoken to some of the soccer teams alpha players and they seemed genuinely nice. Maki was also trying out for the soccer team. It should have made them enemies but instead it brought them closer.
When they both made the team they were unbelievably excited, taking their small group to the bar on campus. It was there that he got to know some of the older members of the soccer team who had been running drills with them during try outs. They seemed to frequent the bar fairly often with the discounted rates their drinks were. He got closer with Kei and Fuma and they eventually wormed their way into their little friend group. They were also in a same subgender relationship. It wasn’t shocking or looked down upon as much anymore but it was rare to see them be out and on the same soccer team. Good for them, Nicholas had thought as they shared their own try out stories.
And then there was Euijoo. Ahhhh Euijoo. What could Nicholas say, he was captivated as soon as he saw him. Euijoo was the captain of the team (surprising and rare as he was only a sophomore) and was the most breathtaking person Nicholas had ever had the pleasure of meeting. He hadn’t noticed the other as much at the try outs because he was completely in the zone, soccer being the only thing on his mind. But now that they were hanging out, Nicholas could definitely appreciate the man in front of him.
The captain was tall, lanky but still muscular and had the most adorable cheeks when he smiled that Nicholas felt the urge to lean in and pinch them (he didn’t, thank god, no way he would live that down from the rest of the team). It was fair to say that Nicholas had a little bit of a crush on Euijoo but nothing could ever come of it less he out his subgender and ruin his chances to play in a team that could actually challenge him.
University soccer training was way more intense than high school soccer. They were up at four-thirty every single morning, running laps of the field before they got into intense drills. Nicholas hadn’t even been to the gym once since he moved in, the training was enough to tire his entire body out that he thought if he did anymore leg work they might turn into jelly.
Things go relatively smoothly for his first year. He plays in a couple of matches but not as many as he would have liked to (freshman were not usually picked for first draft anyway, it was more about the experience) but he makes meaningful friendships and his grades aren’t terrible. Not that that mattered to him, soccer was the only reason he was there.
Things went terribly wrong just before the championship match towards the end of the season. Nicholas was just going about his nightly routine as usual, showering and getting changed in the small cubical that thankfully had a lock on the door but when he goes to grab his sweat pants he can’t find them anywhere.
“Fuck.” He mutters to himself angrily.
He ends up walking back to his room with his towel wrapped around the lower part of his body as his soccer shorts were completely covered in grass stains, sweat and blood where he had scrapped his leg on one of the drills earlier. He had still worn them around for the rest of the day but now that he was clean he couldn’t even fathom putting the disgusting item back on.
He makes it to his door and the small whiteboard on their door has “Hanging out with Rua” in Maki’s chicken scratch that he calls writing on it. A sigh of relief leaves him at the thought of not having to go all the way back to the bathrooms to change. He rustles through his closet for his favourite pair of sweatpants triumphantly saying “Ah-ha!” as he finds them weirdly towards the bottom of the pile of clothes he throws in there once they’ve been washed. Folding laundry wasn’t really a strong priority of his.
He drops the towel and as he is about to step into the first leg of the pants, the door suddenly opens and Maki struts in, pleased with himself (probably from being with Harua) until he catches Nicholas who has frozen solid for a quick moment before he yells;
“Close the fucking door!”
Maki does so immediately and Nicholas puts his pants on in what he thinks should be the world record of that category.
“I can explain…” Nicholas says but the explanation dies on his tongue.
“You have a…” Maki says, unable to look away from Nicholas’s now clothed crotch.
“Stop looking there perv.” Nicholas covers his front with his hands strategically placed over his front.
“Vagina?” Maki says as if he’s finishing his sentence from earlier.
“Yes, but,” Nicholas looks at his roomie with pleading eyes. “You can’t tell anyone. Please.”
“So are you a…”
“I’m an omega, yes. But you can’t tell any one on the team. I can’t go back to omega league matches. This is all I’ve ever wanted and I don’t want to be defined with what I do or don’t have between my legs.”
Maki still seems shocked then his eyes soften. “Your secret’s safe with me.”
“Really?” Nicholas asks in surprise.
“Of course,” Maki walks up and lightly punches Nicholas in the shoulder. “Roomies and team mates for life bro. And don’t worry, I’m not going to be like weird or anything about this. I only have eyes for one omega.”
Nicholas exhales in relief and sits on his bed. “It’s actually kind of like a weight’s been taken off my chest by telling someone.” Nicholas straightens his back in panic. “But this isn’t to leave this room. No one can know, not even Harua.”
“I wouldn’t break your trust like that. Ever. So… how do you mask it so well?” Maki’s eyebrows furrow together curiously.
“Medication, scent blockers, patches and sprays and a shit ton of neutral alpha smelling aftershave.” Nicholas boasts proudly.
“How come no one’s ever found out in the locker room?”
“Have you ever seen me get dressed at my locker?”
Maki looks off into the corner room as if replaying every single practice and game. “No, actually.”
Nicholas smiles. “I get changed in the shower cubicles and I usually loiter around so I can be one of the last to shower. We have curtains but they aren’t really reliable. Or sometimes if I’m not too rank I come back to dorms and use the showers here. Doors and locks are so much safer.”
“My mind is blown right now.” Maki says as he flops onto his own mattress. “Is that why you don’t date?”
“Yep. But it’s a small price to pay for doing what I love.”
Maki’s eyes widen. “How have you been having heats without me noticing? It almost been a whole year.”
“The medication I take cuts them off.” Nicholas says easily. “And ruts only happen twice a year so I’ve just been faking it and going to rut motels for a few days of peace and quiet.” Nicholas ends with a smirk.
“You’re kind of a genius and I don’t know if I should be impressed or terrified of your mind.” Maki leans back slowly to rest his back on the wall he’s pushed up against.
“You can be both.” Nicholas says with a laugh before turning serious. “Thank you for not freaking out. Or talking to me differently now that you know. I just… want to play soccer for a team that actually pushes me to be better.”
Maki smiles. “You are extremely gifted in your soccer skills. And I don’t freak out over much, you can tell me anything and it goes straight to the vault.” He taps his head as if Nicholas’s secret is buried there and will only be kept to himself. Maki really was an excellent roommate.
His sophomore year flies past pretty quickly. Surprisingly he gets called in a lot at proper matches and adored by the team as their new secret weapon. It feels good to be appreciated for something he knows he actually put time and work into.
Nicholas and Maki stay together as roommates except this year Nicholas has walked in on Maki and Harua making out a lot more than anyone should be forced to witness. He’s happy that his friends are happy but it also makes him feel completely alone.
He goes to bars as far away from the school as he can and has the occasional hookup with some alpha that uses him as nothing more than a hole to fuck. Sometimes he gets off, most times he doesn’t. He starts to rely on Maki’s being away with Harua to take care of himself in their room.
His crush on Euijoo never dims, he is nearly always at the front of Nicholas’s mind when he has a vibrator doing all the work for him. But lately his libido was starting to fizzle out. He rarely felt turned on anymore (even when he spots Euijoo’s abs and tiny waist with only a towel wrapped around his bottom half). Usually that’s all it does to have Nicholas feeling the slight build up of slick. Thank god his slick had gone odourless since he started the medication.
The medication is a god send. He hasn’t had a heat in almost two years and has been able to focus his time on the sport he loves. Even when he is pretending to be in rut in one of those motels he watches back footage of their practices and compares it to the pro athlete’s form and execution.
Not much differs from his first year of university. Well except for the fact that most of his friends get into relationships which makes him feel like even more of a loser. There were omegas that had thrown themselves at Nicholas what with him being a star player of the alpha soccer team. It flattered him that they didn’t even have an inkling of knowledge of his true subgender.
Taki and Jo start dating each other but end up breaking up after a month. Then Taki starts dating Yuma and that fizzles out as well only after a few weeks. Then Yuma starts dating Jo and a weird dynamic looms over their whole group until they decide to date Taki as well and the thruple is born. It makes Nicholas the tiniest bit jealous that he can’t even have one person to date while his friends were in a three way love affair. It sucked but Nicholas kept his eyes on the prize. Soccer, that was his partner for life. So why did it feel so depressingly hollow inside his chest.
Junior year is where his story really starts. He ends up getting a solo room because Maki and Harua decide to move in together in a place off campus. It’s a little bit freeing knowing he has an entire space to himself. At night he can remove his scent blocking patches (not that he really even had much of a scent anymore) and he didn’t have to worry about Maki walking in on him naked. He could basically be himself.
A month into his new found freedom, he shakes his bottle of hormonal blockers and realises he only has a few left. It looked like his Saturday was now going to involve a trip to the chemist. As for most omega related things, he went hours away from his school as to not bump into anybody he may know. He stands in line waiting to hand over his prescription and sighs at how many people are in front of him. He should have known Saturday would be busy but he liked to make sure he had his new bottle of the meds just before the last one runs out.
When he finally makes it to the front of the line he hands the piece of paper over to the woman behind the counter. She takes the script, looks down at it and then back up to Nicholas with a twitch in her customer service smile.
“I just have to check with the pharmacist on this one.” She turns and power walks into the area where the medications are being dispensed.
Nicholas frowns. For all the years he has been taking these meds he hasn’t once ever had a problem getting his script filled. He was usually called straight away after the paper was given to the pharmacist to prepare. A long stretch of seconds tick by and Nicholas feels a worried pit form at the bottom of his gut.
The woman returns with a slightly sheepish older man in a white coat following behind.
“Mr Wang. Please follow me.” The pharmacist says and leads Nicholas over to a quieter section of the store.
“Is something wrong? I only just got it a month ago so it can’t have run out of repeats yet.”
“Mr Wang-”
“Nicholas.”
“Nicholas. I’m sorry that your doctor hasn’t informed you but these tablets are no longer being made.” The man looks at him apologetically.
“What?” Nicholas asks as his hearing turns to static and his world flips around. “What do you mean no longer made? I’ve been on these for years. They can’t just stop making them!”
The pharmacist again gives him another apologising look. “Doctors were supposed to contact their patient’s on this medication but I see somehow you were never informed. Those types of pills have been deemed harmful to humans with excessive use and the international medical board has decided to take these and others like it off the market. For good.”
Nicholas gapes as he processes the words. “But… how are omegas supposed to handle their heats? This is bullshit.”
“I’m sorry,” the older man shakes his head. “Over the counter suppressants will still be available but the stronger versions have been completely banned. And sorry, did you say you’ve been taking these for years? As in multiple?”
Nicholas could feel his cheeks heating. He knew he wasn’t supposed to be taking them for that long of a time but he’d always come up with great white lies to get his doctor to write him the prescription. “My doctor writes me the scripts.” Is all Nicholas finds himself replying with.
The man sighs. “The studies on long term use are exactly why this medication is being eliminated. It can really disrupt cycles and even cause infertility problems further down the line.”
“Well I don’t care about hypothetical babies that I definitely do not want to have. I care about me. The me living right now who is going to lose everything without these fucking pills!” He’s aware he’s starting to cause a scene but his whole life is crumbling around him and he has no fucking idea how to stop it.
“I am sorry. But the medical board have the final say. We can sell you some over the counter suppressants at a discount for you today.”
Nicholas feels the urge to scream and cuss out this poor old man but he reins it in and replies with a calm, “No. Thank you.”
He snatches the paper out of the man’s hand and stalks out of the store with his blood only boiling even more the further he gets back to his car. The only logical thing he can think to do is to go to every possible chemist he can that’s in driving distance. So he does. He drives around for hours and hours and gets told basically the same thing at each one. He thought at least one of them might still sell them so he could have an extra month to figure out how the hell he was going to keep his life together. Instead now, minus the pill he took this morning he has only four days left to figure his shit out.
In one of the smaller towns he visited with very few residents and even less stores to visit, he takes a drive along the shore of the little isolated beach the town had. He parks under a tree big enough for shade and cover (even though it was already dark) and sits silently with the engine off.
He can hear everything like this. The crickets chirping in the bushes, the water hitting the rocks as the tide comes in and the deafening sound of utter silence.
That’s when he breaks. He slams his hands then his forearms against the steering wheel, setting off the horn a few times but there’s no one around to hear it. The tears start falling down his face and he lets out a completely hopeless sob. Then he starts screaming. That eventually turns into a medley of all those things at the same time until eventually his arms tire and his throat gets sore from all the screaming.
He uses his sleeve to dry his tears as best as he can but now there are silent ones that won’t stop no matter how hard he tries. He turns his attention to the scene out of his windscreen. It’s peaceful and serene looking, nothing like what Nicholas had created in his car. He grabs his phone and shit it’s almost 9pm. He still had a two and a half hour drive to get home. Luckily it was the weekend and he could lay devastated in his room for a whole twenty-four hours before he had to go back to the real world.
His phone seems to mock him. All he wants is to call someone, anyone and talk to them about everything. But that wasn’t exactly an easy thing for him to do. He could call his mother but she was very against the use of the hormonal blockers anyway so it would probably just end up turning into a lecture which he did not need right now.
His sister crosses his mind but she has been picking up extra bartending gigs to put herself through medical school. She would also probably lecture him about the long term effects the pharmacist had spoken of so he didn’t want to kick start the inevitable either.
And it wasn’t like he could talk to his friends. None of them knew his secret and would probably be pissed and disgusted in the lie Nicholas has kept from them for so long. It really only leaves one person he can fall back on.
Me:
Hey. Are you home? And will you possibly
be home and not asleep in like roughly
3 hours?
He sits with bated breath as he sees the reply bubble pop up.
Maki:
Super specific but yeah I will be?
What’s going on? Are you okay?
Nicholas chokes on a sob and the tears make it really hard to see as he replies to the only person he can truely talk to.
Me:
I just really need to talk to someone
Maki:
In that case I’ll have the tequila waiting :)
Nicholas laugh/cries and ends up thankful that Maki walked in on him that day. It didn’t seem like a good thing at the time but now it feels like the greatest blessing he’s ever been given.
When Maki opens his apartment door his happy puppy dog smile goes from a hundred to zero really quickly when he takes in Nicholas’s haggard form.
“Shit. What happened to you?” Maki basically drags him forcefully into the warmth of the home.
“I-” Nicholas suddenly feel hyper vigilant about his new surroundings. “Is Harua home?”
Maki shakes his head. “He went dancing with Taki. He won’t be home for ages.”
Nicholas flops onto their giant couch with overstuffed pillows and enough fluffy blankets to think you were actually sitting on a real cloud. Maki looks at him expectantly and it just makes Nicholas cry again but it also gives him the space to tell Maki about his day.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do!” He weeps into Maki’s arms as he had tackled him into a hug when Nicholas had gotten particularly choked up. “My whole life is over. I’m going to get kicked off the team and I’ll never get a chance to go pro.”
“Your life isn’t over,” Maki tries to soothe him. “You’re too good not to go pro. You can still do that you know.”
Nicholas glares up at him. “Yeah, pro on the omega team where I’ll never play a challenging match ever again.”
“Is that all you’re worried about?” Maki asks after a beat.
“What?”
“Being put on the omega team? Is that it or are you…” Maki trails off looking like he doesn’t know how to form his words into proper sentences. “Or are you worried about people knowing you’re an omega?”
Nicholas pushes himself from Maki’s arms. “What the hell does that mean?”
Maki shrugs. “You just seem to get embarrassed and defensive about it whenever we talk. Are you sure you’re not worried about people seeing you differently when they learn you’re not an alpha?”
Nicholas stands quickly. “That’s fucking bullshit. You have no idea what you’re talking about Maki!”
“I rest my case.” The alpha puts up his hands in defeat.
“I don’t… care. I don’t. I know lots of great omegas… I don’t care.” Nicholas says but his voice wobbles at the last part.
“That wasn’t my question though.” Maki looks up at him far too seriously.
Nicholas flops back onto the couch. “I don’t care. I’m an omega. I don’t care… it’s soccer. I can’t lose it.”
Maki stays quiet for a few moments. “You know our friends won’t be mad at you, right? We all love you no matter your subgender. No one will think any less of you. I’ve known for a year and nothing has changed between us.”
I don’t care about being an omega, Nicholas’s mind wants to say again, the only thing is he can’t get the words out of his mouth. He shouldn’t care and he doesn’t but it still felt like exposing his true self with the others was going to do irreparable damage.
The front door swings open and a giggly Harua walks in, drops his coat on the rack and sing-song’s, “Maki, I’m homeeeee.”
When he turns the corner and notices Nicholas in a state on their couch his face drops immediately. “What’s going on? Are you okay Nicho?”
Maki glances at him. “He might be able to help.”
Nicholas jumps up again as if the couch is on fire. “What! Did you tell him?!”
Maki shakes his head quickly. “No. No absolutely not. I made you a promise and I’ve kept it, I swear.”
Harua looks between the two confused. “What am I helping Nicholas with?”
This is his chance to get ahead of things, but the words still catch sharply in his throat. Nicholas closes his eyes and inhales deeply. “Fuck.” He opens his eyes and stares right at Harua’s face. “I’m not an alpha.”
Harua just raises an eyebrow in confusion then cracks a smirk. “I knew it!”
Nicholas picks up a cushion and tries suffocating Maki with it. “You fucking liar!”
Maki squeaks out, “I’m not lying.” as he tries to push Nicholas off of him.
“He’s not.” Harua says evenly.
Nicholas eases back with the cushion still clenched tight in his hands. “Then how…”
“I’m like the most omega omega to ever have omegaed. Don’t you think I would have some kind of knack for knowing these things?” Harua juts his hip out and crosses his arms in front of himself. “The only thing I can’t figure out is why you’re telling me this now.”
Nicholas sighs and repeats his story. It does actually feel good to have more than one person listening to his woes.
“Nicho, those drugs are really dangerous.” Harua says worried after Nicholas finishes.
“I fucking know okay?! I’ve had multiple people tell me that today. See, this is why I don’t tell people shit. It just makes things more complicated and I get judged for being an idiot.” Again Nicholas stands but this time he starts pacing.
“Nicholas,” Harua starts sternly. “Sit your ass back down. Now.”
Nicholas does so. He has never heard Harua use a tone like that with him. It made him feel like a scolded child.
“I’m not judging you,” Harua says calmly. “I’m just showing concern which is perfectly normal for someone to do when they care about you. Now, what is it you’re really worried about?”
Nicholas rolls his eyes and grits out, “Not playing in the alpha team anymore.”
“And that’s it?” Harua prompts.
“God, I didn’t realise I’d come to the Dr Phil Show when I walked through your door.”
Maki looks at Harua and just shrugs. “I said the same. I feel a little vindicated now actually.”
Nicholas punches Maki’s bicep and the alpha rubs the spot with a sad “Ow”.
“Okay, I’m just going to be straight up blunt because it’s after midnight and I’ve had several martinis.” Harua says in his usual no nonsense tone. “Are you worried about your heat? You obviously haven’t had one for years but you have to remember how unpleasant they are. Is that the real problem here?”
Nicholas frowns. That hadn’t even been on the forefront of his mind but now it certainly was. His heats were agonising and embarrassing. He hated how his body called out for something that he wasn’t given a chance in allowing. The idea of days of pain and torture only to be eased by the companionship of an alpha made him feel ill.
“Well it’s a problem now. Thanks, Rua. I had forgotten that fucking part of it all.”
Harua puts his hands up in defence. “Sorry but you need a serious reality check. This is happening and there’s no way to put it off.”
“Wrong.” Nicholas says, standing once again but this time he marches to the front door. “I have four more days to fix it.”
He leaves without a goodbye and maybe shuts the door a bit aggressively.
Finally back in his dorm room he doesn’t bother changing out of his clothes. He just flops onto the top of his blankets on the bed and stares at the ceiling for far too long. He needs to sleep but his mind won’t stop reeling.
I don’t care that I’m an omega, keeps running on a constant loop in his mind, almost like a mantra. He doesn’t care. Really.
The next morning he finds himself standing with the pill bottle open and he stares at the remaining three pills, he had taken the fourth mere seconds ago. Tears start to well up in his eyes and he has to force himself not to cry again. The emotions of the night before leave him looking unwell with puffy eyes and a pale complexion.
He needs to get out of this room. He decides a run will fix just about anything so he changes and grabs his headphones and blasts his playlist as he leaves the alpha dorms. The weather has a slight chill to it but it won’t matter once he starts going.
The trail he usually followed around campus had his muscle memory leading him all the way there. He stopped at the soccer field when it came further into view. In the middle of the pitch was Kei, Fuma and Euijoo. They seemed to be doing drills but also goofing off throughout it. Nicholas’s chest tightens. Not only would he lose being on the alpha team, he would lose his teammates. They had become like family over the last three years. Playing without them felt empty and wrong. He runs back to the dorm and avoids being seen by his teammates as he takes a less often travelled path.
Running doesn’t always fix things, he decides after he showers and gets ready for the day. There was some pool party that afternoon at one of the frat houses and he felt obliged to make an appearance seeing as one of his teammates was in that frat. He would quite honestly rather not do anything related to partying right now but he convinced himself it would just be another good distraction from the emptying bottle in his nightstand.
The house is packed by the time he gets there, dozens of boxes of pizza are being passed around and he remembers he hasn’t eaten at all today so he takes a slice and works his way over to the drink table. He happens to bump into his teammate who was in the frat.
“Nicholas! I didn’t think you were going to show.”
“Hi Gyuvin. I’d never miss a chance to get shit faced on a Sunday afternoon.”
Gyuvin hands him a red cup full of beer. “Now that’s why I like you.”
The alpha pours himself another cup of his own and they clink the plastic together. Nicholas sculls the beer like water on a warm day of practice.
“Oh wow. You really are here to get shit faced.” Gyuvin says with a chuckle.
“Got any tequila?” Nicholas asks with a hiccup.
“Yeah, in the kitchen.”
Nicholas waves goodbye to his friend and searches for the kitchen. He and Maki hadn’t actually gotten to have the tequila promised last night so he feels the need to make up for it. It’s there that he stumbles over something on the ground and almost falls to the floor but catches himself on the body standing not too far in front of him.
The person looks around as Nicholas straightens up and starts saying, “I’m so, so sorry! I tripped and-”
Then he meets the person’s eyes and he realises it’s Euijoo. He really should have known it was him. The fresh forest rain scent was a dead give away. But lately Nicholas had been finding it harder to distinguish people’s individual scents.
“Nichol.” Euijoo says with a smile.
“Hey. Sorry again. I didn’t see it.” Nicholas looks back to find it was a crushed beer can that almost took him out.
“It’s okay. We all survived.” Euijoo smiles and then tilts his head. “Are you okay?”
Nicholas balks. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” He knows his voice sounds way off.
“You just look… tired. Are you having trouble sleeping?”
“Uh, no. Just got… a lot on my mind. But it won’t affect my game, I promise.”
Euijoo’s smile brightens again. “I’m not worried about that. But as your captain and your friend I feel like I need to make it clear that you can come to me about anything. I’m always here.”
Except for when I get cut from the alpha team and everyone finds out what a liar I am, Nicholas thinks but keeps his face neutral.
“Thanks. But I’m fine. Really. But now I need a drink.” Nicholas tries deflecting the conversation.
Euijoo pours him a tequila shot without even needing to be told. He really remembered Nicholas’s preferred drink. That just made him feel more guilty.
He takes the shot before he realises Euijoo also poured one for himself.
“Aww. I wanted to do a shot with you.” The alpha says with a pout.
“Sorry.” Nicholas says embarrassed. “You could always pour me another.”
And Euijoo does without a second thought. They clink cups and Nicholas takes the shot with ease. He looks over at Euijoo who is not fairing so well after his attempt. His nose is scrunched up far too cutely that it resembles a bunny. He also lets out a toned down cough as to not give away his distaste for the liquor.
Nicholas laughs. “You didn’t have to do that.”
Euijoo shakes his head as if he can will the burn away before he looks at Nicholas. “I’m brave enough to admit that I shouldn’t have but that doesn’t mean I didn’t want to do it.”
Butterflies start flapping around in Nicholas’s chest. There was always a flirty undertone to whatever Euijoo said when it was just the two of them. If the circumstances were different and he wasn’t trying to keep a very personal secret he would have jumped Euijoo his first week of freshman year. He was truely down bad for the captain but he had forced himself to be content with the sporadic flirting and the imagined images of what Euijoo could truely do to him when they were alone.
He ends up with another beer (which he wisely only sips from now) and hanging out with Euijoo, Kei, Fuma and some of the other members of his team. Maki and Harua show up later as the sun is just about to set and Nicholas feels the urge to look away when one of them catches his gaze. He was so not going to be having any type of conversation like last night in public.
Euijoo seems to catch on to his sketchy behaviour and drags Nicholas to under a tree where there are no loud party goers or couples making out too close by. They both sit on the cool grass like a couple of kids.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” Euijoo pries again, this time he elbows Nicholas in the ribs playfully.
Nicholas looks the alpha in the eyes and almost breaks down into complete shambles like he feels on the inside. Almost.
“I’m fine. Maybe a little nervous about the game on Thursday.” It’s a bullshit excuse because Nicholas didn’t get nervous about matches anymore. Especially not against a school they knew they could definitely win against easily.
Euijoo bites his bottom lip before leaning closer. God, his eyelashes are so long.
“I shouldn’t tell you this because nothing’s confirmed yet but…” Tipsy Euijoo does a stealth glance around them to make sure nobody’s listening. “I put in a good word for you to be captain next year after I graduate.”
Nicholas goes through too many emotions in a short span of time. Elated that Euijoo would recommend him for something he held so dearly. Excitement that Euijoo was still sitting in closer to Nicholas’s bubble. Shocked and amazed at the same time that there was a possibility he could be captain of the alpha soccer team! And then fear at the fact that once everyone found out his secret it would all be taken away from him in the blink of an eye.
It was almost torturous now knowing what Euijoo told him. So close in his grasp yet so unobtainable.
Euijoo backs away slightly which lowers Nicholas’s excitement. “Was that wrong of me? I should have asked first if you even wanted to be captain. I’m so stupid.”
“You’re not stupid.” Nicholas says with a sad grin. “I just don’t know if I’ll be able to do it.”
“Are you kidding? You’re a born leader. And you have so much skill to pass onto your teammates. And you’re great with people. It’s pretty much a job meant for you.”
Nicholas wants to scream that that’s not the reason he won’t be able to do it but he smiles anyway. Euijoo’s praise was always a good thing and he put that away into the NSFW part of his brain for later.
“Thank you for recommending me.” Nicholas finds himself saying anyway.
Euijoo grins. “It was my pleasure. You really are one in a million, Nichol.”
Nicholas’s heart skips a couple of beats and he ends up tilting his head back to look at the stars above them. Euijoo ends up joining him and they sit in comfortable silence before they make a game out of looking at star patterns and saying what they looked like. It was the first thing in the last forty-eight hours that had actually gotten Nicholas’s mind off of everything.
***
The last two pills seem to judge him as he took one and swallowed it. He was almost done for and he hadn’t come up with a single idea on how to keep up the alpha charade. He looked at his bottle of suppressants and the idea flicked on a light in his brain. Maybe if he tried taking multiple types of suppressants he could somehow keep his body from reverting back to its omega nature.
It surely wasn’t a healthy idea but he was feeling desperate. He drove around to different chemists again and brought a different brand of omega suppressants at each one. He was lucky only having afternoon classes that day and practice being called off this morning due to a staff meeting which their coach was obligated to attend. Nicholas would still go for a run after his classes. He never missed a day of training, even when he was ill he always pushed himself to do something.
Before his first class at one he stops by his dorm so he can quickly hide all the suppressants he bought earlier, he didn’t want to risk carrying them around campus and someone accidentally seeing them. It looked a little excessive when he lined the bottles all up in his nightstand drawer but it was the only solution he could think of. He slammed the drawer shut and put his mind into learning mode. He still needed good grades to keep himself apart of the team.
On his run at 5pm he crosses paths with Kei who has also decided on a later run.
“Kei hyung, don’t you usually run in the mornings?” Nicholas asks as they stop in front of each other.
“Usually, yeah.” It was unfair, Kei didn’t even sound the tiniest bit out of breath. “But I had a huge test to cram for. I feel like I kind of blew it even after the extra studying.”
Nicholas offers him an apologetic glance. “That sucks. They really should go easier with athlete’s grades.”
Kei laughs. “Yeah, I can imagine how well that would go over with the non athletic students.” He pauses and they share a smile before Kei adds, “You’re still coming to the team dinner on Friday night, right? I just need numbers before I can book a reservation.”
That makes the smile fall from Nicholas’s face. A team dinner on Friday. Who even knew if he would still be on the team by Friday? Everything really was just hanging in suspense with the pill situation. Maybe it would be his last chance to happily get together with the team he had become so close with (that’s if the suppressants didn’t work out as plan B).
“Yep. I’ll be there.” Nicholas responds and deludes himself into believing it. Maybe manifesting his future would work like it did for some people. Who was he kidding, honestly.
“Great.” Kei says beaming. “I’ve gotta get going but I’ll see you at practice tomorrow, right?”
“You sure will.” Nicholas says and Kei throws him a wave which he returns despondently.
Tomorrow could be his last practice ever with his team. If he silent cries the whole way around his running route then that’s nobody’s business but his own.
***
One. That was the number of pills sitting in his palm. He shakes the bottle frantically as if it may suddenly refill all on its own. It doesn’t. He swallows it and a tear runs down his cheek. He couldn’t get emotional now, he had practice to get to. His whole way to the field he tries not to think about the fact that this was all about to disappear.
When he opened his locker his breath caught in his throat. Nothing was different, but the photo of their team after their championship win from the year before stared into his soul. That was the last time he was going to have a win with his team. The other picture next to it was one of him and his group of friends at a Korean bbq restaurant after a game last year. He couldn’t remember much of the game but the night had cemented in his mind for another reason; his friends.
Nicholas took a deep breath in and tried to hold back the frustration, anger and sorrow he was feeling in that moment. There was no way he was breaking down in front of his teammates like this.
“You okay?” Nicholas is surprised to find Maki standing behind him.
He gulps down his tears. “I’m fine.”
Maki gives him a look that conveys he knows that Nicholas is not fine at all but he doesn’t dig for answers like Nicholas knew he wanted to.
He sort of felt like he was on autopilot the whole of practice. He had wanted to take everything in for one final time but found himself get far too emotional when he did that so he settled on blank indifference. It only made his heart ache a little more when the coach dismissed them.
The whole team laughed and talked on their way back to the locker rooms but Nicholas walked slowly to take in the field one last time before he was going to be one of the audience attendees and nothing else. He figured his lies wouldn’t earn him a spot on the omega team once the truth came out. Who would want to trust and play with someone who had been keeping everything a secret for years?
In regular fashion he waits around for the rest of his team to be done using the showers before he took his own. As the water rushed down on him he could no longer hold back his tears. He covered his mouth with his hand to stop the broken sob from escaping too loudly. He leaned his forehead onto the cool tiles of the cubical and banged his head against it, maybe a lot harder than he should have.
He finishes his shower, dries and dresses in the cubical and makes his way back to his locker. He just about jumps through the roof when he turns the corner and sees Euijoo sitting on the bench like he was waiting for Nicholas.
“Sorry,” Euijoo says panicked. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s okay.” Nicholas turns to his locker as quickly as he can to grab his gym bag. He can’t find it in himself to look Euijoo in the eyes.
“Nicholas,” That makes him swivel his head though, the tone being the serious captain one that Euijoo only ever used on the field. “What’s wrong?”
Nicholas gapes. “Nothing’s wrong. Why?”
Euijoo tilts his head. “Because I heard you.”
Nicholas looks down at his feet in shame. “Just… almost flunking a class. But I’ll be fine.”
Euijoo’s eyes focus in like he can smell the bullshit of Nicholas’s lie. “Really? Because I get coach to update me on everyone’s academic work just to make sure you’re all okay. Your grades are at a B average.”
Shit. Was that even ethical to know his teammates private education information?
“I’m fine.” Nicholas says again with a fake smile that he hopes looks real.
Euijoo asses him before he stands up from the bench and moves closer to Nicholas. The alpha puts his hand on his arm and squeezes it reassuringly. “Whatever it is, I’ll be there for you. Even if you say your “fine” I know you’re not and I just want you to know you can talk to me about it. You can trust me with anything. I’ll never turn against you Nichol.”
Damn Euijoo and his sensitive words and his warm touch. His hand was still planted firmly on Nicholas and the touch almost burnt him.
“You say that now.” Nicholas all but whispers.
Euijoo straightens up. “I’ll say that always.”
A part of Nicholas thinks that the alpha really means that but the toxic voice in his head just keeps adding fuel to the fire of despair.
“I have to get to class.” Nicholas announces. Euijoo pulls his hand away and Nicholas almost cries from missing his touch.
“Okay. Please just,” Euijoo looks worriedly at every inch of his face. “Don’t let whatever this is ruin you.”
Nicholas hurries out of the locker room before he breaks down crying at Euijoo’s feet. Instead, he climbs the stairs to the next level and races for the alpha bathroom. Luckily no one is in there because it means he can collapse on the toilet lid and cry even more than he had in the shower.
Euijoo was such a good person, a good captain, a good alpha. He had no idea just how much Nicholas was keeping hidden from them all. Instead of going to the first class of the day he stays glued to the toilet lid, trying to calm himself down so he can at least walk to his next class with some dignity and not have everyone know he’s been bawling his eyes out all morning. When he leaves the stall he looks at himself in the mirror and frowns. His eyes are red rimmed and terribly puffy but his eyes have stopped shining with fresh tears. He rustles through the bottom of his bag and finds the hard shell case. He opens it and places the sunglasses on, thankful he had decided to keep a pair with him at all times. It was kind of obnoxious to be that guy and wear sunglasses inside all day but he admits that he’s just going to have to be that guy for the day, maybe the rest of his school experience if he made a huge mess out of his whole lie.
***
When his alarm goes off at four thirty the next morning he sits up straight in bed in shock. He hadn’t slept well but obviously he had dozed off at some point with how startling his alarm was. He gets ready for practice like any normal day, but this wasn’t a normal day. He stared at the cocktail of suppressants he had bought and takes one of each (thinks about taking two but holds himself back to see how the initial dose works). He triples in scent patches and douses his body in all the scent blocking spray he had left. He’d already bought more though. That and scent blocking shampoo and conditioner, sanitiser, deodorant and even hair spray. He wanted to be prepared for absolutely anything he could.
He enters the locker room and crosses his fingers that no one could pick up a scent. He can’t smell it on himself but his nose had become less sensitised to scents on the medication. No one looks at him in shock or points and laughs so he imagines he must be all good… for now.
Practice goes well, he even beats his own time record in sprints and the coach gives him supportive praise. He catches Euijoo watching him throughout the practice and it makes him blush under the attentiveness and slight worry in Euijoo’s eyes.
His day of classes goes pretty okay as well. He almost falls asleep in his economics lecture but that was really par for the course with that subject.
In the cafeteria he catches sight of Maki, Harua and Taki sharing a table and Taki flailing his arms around mid story. He should really mend fences with his friends. Having Taki as a buffer seemed like a pretty ideal scenario so he approaches them and when he sits down, Taki greets him energetically and the other two send him small smiles. It seems like they aren’t that upset with him as they try to work him into the conversation.
Midway through Maki telling a story about practice that has Nicholas giggling at knowingly, a sharp pain starts radiating through his head. His giggles die down and he grabs his temples as he closes his eyes sharply.
“Are you okay?” Harua asks from across the table. “Nicho?”
Maki puts his hand out and grabs Nicholas by the arm. “Dude, what’s wrong? You’re looking pale.”
The pain subsides a little so Nicholas places his hands back on the table and cautiously opens his eyes. There is still a deep pulsating ache in his whole head but the look on his friend’s faces is what makes him really concerned.
“Must be a migraine I guess.” He says as he tries to shake it off.
“I’ve never heard you complain about having migraines before.” Maki says suspiciously.
“Well, there’s a first time for everything.” Nicholas says with a shrug.
Taki manages to get the conversation back up but they all keep a watchful eye on Nicholas. He looks down at his salad and suddenly has no urge to eat it at all. He pushes the food around as Taki talks but he sees Harua watching and noticing the behaviour.
The migraine lasts all day and Nicholas skips dinner entirely. Everything feels so off to him. All he wants to do is take some pain killers, go to bed with the blinds closed and lights off and drift off into the darkness of sleep.
But he wasn’t so lucky. He could feel his headache even in his sleep. He tossed and turned for hours when he was suddenly awoken by the fact that he was drenched in sweat, his sheets looking like they had just been through the wash cycle. He kicks off all of his blankets and when that isn’t enough he strips bare. It barely does anything to relieve the fever under his skin but he somehow manages to fall asleep again.
The four thirty alarm makes him groan in frustration, hitting his phone aggressively to turn the damn noise off. He feels disgusting. His head still pounds like someone is repeatedly tightening his head in a vice and the sweat from last night clings to his body grossly. He’s not sweating as much anymore but his skin feels hot not only down to the bone but to the touch. How was he supposed to make it through practice like this?
That’s it, he’s desperate and so he takes two of every suppressant that morning as well as maybe a little over the recommended amount of pain killers. The combination had to be strong enough to fight off the effects of his body going into detox. He had looked up the withdrawal symptoms a couple of days ago and these things he was experiencing seemed to be right on the money. And if any of those websites were right than things were only going to get a lot worse.
Maybe I should take extra suppressants at midday too, his brain offers up as if it were that easy. It wasn’t.
Practice was gruelling and Nicholas was sure his head was about to explode at any given second. The coach notices his errors and missteps and brings his demanding critiques back out. He catches Maki staring a few times and it’s plain to see he is clued in on what is happening to Nicholas. The only saving grace that day was that no one still seemed to be able to smell his scent. The boiling water of his shower makes him gasp so he turns the temperature down to as low as he can. He swears he hears the water sizzle as it comes into contact with his feverish body.
Waiting at his locker was Maki instead of Euijoo today.
“You’ve run out, haven’t you?” Maki says without needing to be too specific.
Nicholas only nods his thumping head slowly. “I’m handling it.”
“Really?” Maki asks incredulously. “Because you look a mess dude. I think you should see a doctor.”
“I’m fine.” Nicholas snaps even though he knows Maki is just trying to help. He’s never felt this agitated before and if anyone else asks him how he feels again he will probably rip their head clean off.
Maki doesn’t say another word so Nicholas pushes past him and makes his way to his first lecture of the day.
It’s 11:03am when he looks down at his phone in shock. This day was taking forever and all he wanted was to be tucked up in bed and not dealing with people. It’s also around that time that the muscle aches start to build. His shoulders slump forward on their own accord and his legs feel like jelly as he leaves the lecture hall. Even the couple of books in his hands feel like they weigh 100kg each.
He decides to skip his afternoon classes. Like Euijoo had said, he was doing pretty well academically so it won’t kill him to miss a few classes here and there. When he finally gets back to his dorm he makes sure to lock his door and he draws his curtains closed before stripping all of his clothes off. They also felt like they weighed a ton on his skin which was still boiling hot.
He laid there crying quietly at all the overwhelming sensations. His headache seemed to thump in rhythm with his heart beat and he tossed and turned laid on top of his blankets. Nothing or no way was comfortable. Everything felt scratchy and like too much so much so that he had the urge to peel off his own skin.
He’s starting to realise why the hormone blocking meds were being outlawed. There is no way anyone would willingly give up these drugs only to suffer these symptoms. Nicholas thinks of all the other people that are feeling the same effects as him now and he sends out a small prayer for them.
He can’t seem to get enough water. He goes through almost every bottle in his mini-fridge and freaks out at the prospect that he needs to go out to get more. There was an easier option though. One that would benefit him by not having to leave the dorms but would punish him for the fact that he simply asked for help. He picks up his phone and dials before he can talk himself out of it.
“Hello?” Harua’s confused voice answers after a few rings.
“Rua. I need your help.” Nicholas knows he sounds desperate but he can’t get his voice to even out no matter how hard he tries.
Instead of a teasing lilt, Harua says so seriously, “Are you okay? What do you need?”
“Can you. Buy me some water. Please? I just feel-”
“Water. Got it.” Harua says cutting him off. “Do you need anything else?”
“No.”
“Okay, I’ll be there in like fifteen. It’s going to be okay Nicholas.”
Nicholas had never heard Harua use that tone with him. There was no sarcasm or jabbing behind any of the words, just pure care and friendship. It made Nicholas cry as soon as he ended the call.
He looks around at his room and feels completely embarrassed at the state of it. There were clothes tossed about everywhere and his books had been shoved haphazardly on his study desk where the were looking like a possible avalanche could happen.
He knows it looks bad but at the same time he can’t even physically get himself to move out of bed to clean anything up. He does grab a pair of boxers to put on but can’t bare the thought of having any other fabric touching his skin.
Exactly fifteen minutes later there is a knock at his door. He groans having to get up to unlock it. He opens it just a smidge to make sure that it was in fact Harua and ushers him in quickly before locking the door again.
“Nicholas. You look awful.”
“Just what every guy wants to hear.” Nicholas attempts to quip as he sits back down on his bed.
Harua busies himself with replenishing the water supply then hands something to Nicholas. It’s two bars of chocolate.
“Trust me. You’ll want it.” Harua says with a knowing stare.
“Thanks Rua.” Nicholas gulps around his guilt. “I know you had classes this afternoon but I didn’t know who else to call.”
“It’s completely fine.” Harua assures him genuinely as he sits on Nicholas’s desk chair, scooting til he is in front of Nicholas. “I’m like five chapters ahead of the class anyway so not like I’m missing anything.”
Nicholas smiles small. “I thought about calling Maki but…”
“You needed another omega’s help.” Harua finishes for him. Nicholas nods silently. “You can call me for anything, even if it’s not omega related.”
Nicholas feels tears well up in his eyes. “They’re all going to hate me.”
“Who? Because I will beat their asses senseless.”
“The team. Our friends. Euijoo…”
“I knew you always had a thing for him.” Harua lightly taps his foot again Nicholas’s.
“Yeah, well now it’s all over. I might as well flee the country and change my name.” Nicholas tries joking but a wave of pain shutters through his whole body starting at the top of his head all the way to his toes.
He yells and cries out in agony as quietly as he can, hunching in on himself for protection against something he can’t escape.
Harua stands quickly and rushes to his backpack that he had been dumped at the door when he entered.
“Here,” Harua says handing a tube to Nicholas. “This won’t stop the aching but I find it helps tone it down a bit during my heats. Just apply wherever it hurts the most.”
Nicholas grits his teeth. “We’re going to need a bigger tube.”
Harua huffs a laugh. When Nicholas’s hands shake trying to unscrew the cap, Harua takes it from him and undoes it with ease.
“You’re shaking like a leaf.” Harua says as if pointing out the obvious was going to help in any way. “I’ll put it on you.”
“You don’t have to.” Nicholas puffs out between the cramping in every muscle.
“I know. Now come here. And no funny business. I am a taken man after all.”
That makes Nicholas genuinely laugh and he lets Harua bathe him in the ointment. It only has a very subtle smell (probably to avoid overstimulation for omegas in heat) and the coolness makes Nicholas huff a sigh of relief.
“Anywhere else?” Harua says after he practically rubs the ointment into every part of Nicholas’s body.
“No, thank you.” Nicholas takes the tube and squeezes a little more out before rubbing it into his temples. “You’re seriously the best friend anyone could ask for.”
“Well duh.” Harua says with a wink after washing off his hands at the small basin Nicholas has in his room that barely even works. “Is it helping?”
Nicholas closes his eyes as he feels his muscles ease from the tension plaguing them. “So much. I only want to die a little bit less now.”
Harua smiles. “Good, I’m glad.” He then assesses Nicholas curiously. “I still can’t get a scent off of you.”
“Good.” Nicholas says simply.
“Having a scent is nothing to be ashamed of Nicho.”
“Says the guy who smells like aloe vera. You could easily pass as at least a beta.”
Harua rolls his eyes. “Yours can’t be that bad.”
“It’s not the worst,” Nicholas admits. “But it will definitely give away the fact that I’m not an alpha.”
The next morning he wakes up feeling the complete opposite of the day before. His head still pounds and his muscles ache but instead of feeling like the sun was personally touching every part of his body, he felt like he had been plunged into freezing water overnight and left in the freezer to become an ice cube. Not only were his muscles shaking from the constant ache, his whole body was jittering from the cold.
He wraps his thickest blanket around himself and folds into a type of cocoon to shield away any breeze of air. He sat there for about five minutes before he realised that wasn’t working in the slightest so instead he stood up on his shaky legs and started doing star jumps hoping that would get his blood flowing again. He had stopped counting how many he was up to at some point but it was useless anyway, the cold persisted.
Doing the only thing he could think of he bundled himself in multiple pairs of workout tights, sweat pants, multiple pairs of socks and a few good layers of sweat shirts. He must have looked ridiculous and the cherry on top was adding his gloves and a warm beanie his mother had knitted for him years ago.
He downs the suppressant cocktail as well as some painkillers to help relieve the ache and made his way to the locker rooms. When he walked in he got a few strange looks from his teammates. The mornings were starting to get on the cooler side but nothing like what Nicholas had dressed for. Opening his locker, he sees Maki out the corner of his eye giving him a concerned glance. He smiles reassuringly but Harua had obviously spoken to Maki with the things unsaid but clear on his face.
“You all good?” Fuma asks when they make it onto the field.
Nicholas had forced himself to lose at least one of the hoodies and a pair of sweats. He kept everything else on though regardless of the bizarre looks he was receiving. “I’m good.” Nicholas replies through his newly chattering teeth. “Just feeling the cold this morning I guess.”
Fuma shrugs it off as a fair answer and they begin their warm ups. An ironic name seeing as none of what they did gave Nicholas’s body any natural heat relief. Even after the drills and the short practice game they played he was still finding it hard to keep his body from looking like he was vibrating between the layers.
The idea of getting into a shower was so appealing that he broke his rule and rushed to be one of the first ones in the cubicles. A moan threatens to leave his lips as he stands under the spray, water turned up as high as it can go. He makes his body smaller so he can fit all of it under the water at once. Icy tears roll down his cheeks and he hates himself from how many times he’s cried this week. He finally gets called out for hogging the shower so he quickly dries and changes back into all of his layers. His skin is bright red yet he can’t feel a damn hint of warmth.
He was slower on the walk to class. Practice had been much harder for him today with his already sore muscles being tensed with coldness. He sat in the warmest parts of the lecture halls and pretended he was listening to anything around him. All he could think was how much pain he was in and he had to fight extremely hard to stop himself from crying.
By lunch time his walking had become even more wobbly than before. When he saw some of his friends, he approached them with the tray in his hands testing just how much he could control the shaking. Maki, Harua, Yuma and Euijoo were at the table and he took the only free seat next to Maki.
“Dude,” Maki whispered. “You look like you’ve been dead for three days. Why are you here? Skip classes and go rest. And stop dragging yourself to morning practice like this.”
Nicholas just shook his head. “I have to keep going to practice. I don’t want anyone getting suspicious. I’m fine. I can handle things.” Nicholas’s hand betrayed his words though as he reached for his bottle of water and it sloshed all in the plastic confines. Thank god he didn’t have a cup right now.
“What are we talking about?” He asks, addressing the whole table in a steady voice.
“Yuma’s lack of cooking skills.” Harua answers cheekily but keeping a concerned eye on Nicholas.
“All I want is to make my boyfriends dinner but apparently my brain doesn’t know how to not burn something as simple as rice.”
“Jo would never go near you again if you served him burnt rice.” Nicholas says chuckling.
“Exactly!” Yuma says throwing his hands up. “Maybe I need to go to a night class or something. You know…”
Nicholas doesn’t hear the last of Yuma’s ramblings as Euijoo nudges his leg under the table where they are sat facing each other.
“Are you okay? You’ve been a bit… off at practice the last few days.”
Nicholas gulps. “Yeah I’m fine. Might be getting the flu or something. But I’m totally good to power through.”
Euijoo gives him a concerned head tilt. “You can take a few days off to get better. It wouldn’t affect your development or anything.”
“Nope. All good.” Nicholas says without hesitation even as a chill runs icily up his spine and makes him shudder. He doesn’t miss the look on Euijoo’s face when he notices.
He feels like every single one of the group has caught onto his act and that they’re staring straight into his soul, trying to squeeze every ounce of truth from him.
“You know what,” Nicholas butts in on the conversation quickly. “I actually have to go to the library before my next class so I should probably go now.”
He stands up quickly and his chair makes a loud sound against the tile floors. Maybe he stands up a little too quickly because all the blood rushes from his head and he’s left feeling like the world starts rolling like a wave. He waits a few seconds, picks up his tray and walks away from his friends. He gets about two tables apart from them when his eyesight goes shaky like someone’s shook a magic eight ball and his mind dulls out the noise around him. One minute he’s standing and the next thing he knows his tray has hit the ground and then so too does his body. He doesn’t pass out immediately because he can hear Maki basically scream out his name and he sees Euijoo’s shoes appear next to his head. That’s the last thing he sees before he goes under.
Nicholas wakes with a panicked startle and looks around the unfamiliar room. It comes to him that this room isn’t as foreign as he first thought. He had been here a few times, mostly with Maki after he hurt himself somehow because he was just prone to that for some reason. The nurses office. It quickens his heart beat when he realises that because what if the nurse had done an exam of some sort and learnt that he was really an omega.
The hyperventilating starts all by itself and then a familiar presence draws closer to him.
“You’re okay, Nicho.” Maki says as he places a gentle hand on Nicholas’s shoulder.
“Did they… do they know? Did they see?” Nicholas asks frantically but no able to ask his questions with too many dangerous words.
“No.” Maki replies reassuringly. “She just took your temperature and blood pressure. I made sure that she… didn’t pry any further. She seems to think you have the flu and that your blood pressure is low so that’s what made you pass out.”
“Where is she?”
“Some guy tripped on the cement and bit it big time. She had to go help until the ambulance got here. I told her I would stay seeing as I’m your next of kin in your records.”
“Oh yeah,” Nicholas says with a smile. “I forgot I put you down for that. Thanks for, well, everything.”
“You should be thanking Euijoo.” Maki says with an impressed glint in his eyes. “He carried you all the way here. And he basically ran the whole way. He’s actually still waiting outside. He didn’t want to leave until he knew you were okay.”
Nicholas’s face flushes at the words and Maki gives his shoulder a knowing punch and puts on a shit eating grin.
“Can I go?” Nicholas asks instead of addressing the Euijoo part of things.
“Yeah but she told me to give you this.” Maki hands him a piece of neatly folded paper.
“No practice for the rest of the week?!” Nicholas says in a panic.
“And bed rest and online lectures only.” Maki states the other parts of the letter that Nicholas hadn’t bothered to absorb after he saw the words no practice.
“Honestly Nicho I’m glad someone has slowed you down. Harua told me all the symptoms you’ve been having from withdrawals. I think you need the time to let your body rest. Soccer will always be there.”
A single tear runs down his cheek. “But not the alpha team.”
Maki sighs deeply. “Okay. Let’s get you up and back to your room.”
“Don’t you have classes?”
“Yeah, but I can listen to the recordings later on. Right now I’m in full care taker mode. And before you start bitching about it I should tell you Harua and I are going to take turns to make sure you are actually resting. You have no choice in the matter.” Maki gives him a stern look as he helps Nicholas slide off the cot.
Nicholas almost loses his footing and Maki props one of Nicholas’s arms around his shoulder for support.
“I can walk by myself.” Nicholas says with a pout and as a complete lie he doesn’t even believe.
When Maki opens the door and guides them out, sure enough Euijoo is still sitting in one of the waiting chairs outside the office. The alpha springs up when he sees them.
“Are you okay, Nicho?” Euijoo asks worriedly.
Nicholas plasters a smile on but his energy feels completely drained. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just the flu like I said earlier.”
Euijoo’s eyes are filled with worry but he nods. “That’s good. Well, not good that you’re sick but you know, good that it’s not anything more serious. You’re good so that’s… good.”
Nicholas feels Maki’s body trying to hold in a huff and swears when he is better he is going to kick the shit out of him for it.
“I guess I should give this to you then.” Nicholas sadly passes the note to the captain.
“I’ll pass it onto coach.” Euijoo reassesses him again. “I’m glad you’re alright. If you need anything just call or text me, or both. Any time day or night. I’ll help you with whatever you need.”
Nicholas blushes. “Thanks Euijoo. I appreciate that but I think I have two Nurse Ratched’s already.”
“I could literally let you fall right now.” Maki says offended.
Nicholas rolls his eyes and Euijoo laughs slightly.
“I mean it though,” Euijoo says looking deep into Nicholas’s eyes. “Anything you need and I’ll be there.”
On the walk back to the dorms Maki has a smug smile on his face and Nicholas makes sure to push him without accidentally pushing them both over. It only makes Maki’s grin wider.
***
The jingle of a key in the lock and the eventual squeak of when the lock finally clicks open wake Nicholas up from his restless sleep.
“What are you doing here?” He asks as he can see the blurry outline of Harua through his half closed eyes.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.” His friend replies as he puts down his bag on Nicholas’s desk.
“That didn’t answer my question.”
Harua sighs. “Maki told you we were going to take it in turns to keep an eye on you, didn’t he?” Nicholas nods. “Well I’m here to make sure you don’t try and sneak off to practice or go for a run or whatever it is you athletic people like to do.”
Nicholas chuckles then shivers.
“You’re still cold?” Harua asks in disbelief.
“Yeah. I even got the quilt out that my grandma gave me before I left for uni but it still feels like I’m laying in a frozen lake.”
“That’s why I brought this.” Harua turns to the bag and pulls out a grey blanket. “It’s electric. You can choose a heat setting too.” He looks for an outlet and luckily there was one just near enough to Nicholas’s bed. “I’m sorry about this next part.”
“Wha-” Nicholas doesn’t get a chance to finish his sentence as Harua pulls back the covers to place the new blanket on him first.
The omega quickly pulls the blankets back up and he hands Nicholas a remote connected to the blanket. “Just don’t boil yourself to death okay?”
Nicholas doesn’t hesitate on putting the setting up to the warmest he can. It takes about ten minutes before he finally starts to feel the heat around his body. He sighs in relief at being warm for the first time in two days.
He pops his head out from behind the covers and says, “Thank you Rua. You’re like the best omega ever.”
“For my next birthday you should print that on a mug for me.” Harua says seriously which only makes Nicholas laugh.
He hears some shuffling around and when he looks up again it is to find Harua flopped into the beanbag he has for really no reason other than it looks cool. The omega has a lap full of textbooks and a pen at the ready.
“Is there a reason you’re doing that here and not like at a library? Or your own home?” Nicholas raises his eyebrows.
Without looking up from the book he cracks open Harua replies, “Because I’m watching over you and I have a test this afternoon so I need to cram.”
“Again, why not the library?”
Harua looks up at him then. “Because you’re a little shit who doesn’t like to follow orders so I’m making sure you don’t get out of bed.”
“Rua, it’s not even 5am yet. Aren’t you going to be tired for your test?”
“I went to bed early last night and I have the power of caffeine running through my veins, I’ll survive. Now shut up and rest already. You’re making it very hard to study.”
Nicholas laughs and puts his head back against his pillow. He still felt like shit but at least he felt a little warmth seeping back into his body. He hardly even remembered Harua was still in the room, he was like a stealth study ninja.
Nicholas had to admit that it was pretty nice being able to stay in bed for a little longer than normal. Some of the tension seemed to leave his body just as the heat entered and he began drifting back to sleep.
He woke up with a start and sat straight up in bed, not even the weight of the amount of blankets covering him golding him down. Harua jumped from the beanbag and hurried to Nicholas’s side. He realised the sun was fully up now and peeking through the curtains.
“What’s wrong?” Harua said as he gripped the shoulders of a still frantic Nicholas.
“It hurts.” Is all he can grit out between his teeth.
“Where does it hurt?”
“My stomach.” Nicholas feels a tear roll down his cheek as he hunches over to grab onto his stomach like that will fix it. “My pills.”
Harua looks at him confused. “They stopped making them remember?”
“Of course I remember,” Nicholas says frustratedly. “My suppressants. I need my suppressants.” He motions with his head over to his nightstand.
Harua opens it and gasps at the contents. “Nicholas, how many of these have you been taking?”
“All of them.”
“Nicholas.” Harua says in a tone scolding enough that he sounds like his mother.
“They make me… normal.” Nicholas says as he looks away from his friend.
“You are normal.” Harua says forcefully. “Being an omega is perfectly normal. You don’t have to keep drugging yourself to be something else.”
“I do!” Nicholas yells. “Because everything in my life is built on not being an omega.”
Harua gulps. “Why do you hate omegas so much?”
Nicholas groans angrily. “I don’t hate omegas. I just… wish I wasn’t one. I’ve gotten nothing in life being an omega. I was finally happy and then they had to stop making my fucking pills! So excuse me for being a little cranky.”
Harua inhales calmly then stands. “I know this isn’t actually you talking, it’s the withdrawals. But Nicho, I think you need to speak to someone about this. Not just me or Maki, I think you need professional help.”
Nicholas starts full on sobbing at Harua’s words. He felt like he was on a rollercoaster of emotions and just when he thought he was settled on one feeling he would be jerked around to another.
“I need them.” He says weakly as he reaches for the drawer.
Surprisingly Harua helps him get the bottles out and gives him some water to swallow them down.
“I’m not endorsing this,” Harua says flatly. “But if it helps you get through the hormone withdrawals then we can figure out that mess later.”
Nicholas looks thankfully at his friend and can only nod in confirmation. He suddenly realises he’s freezing still and his body starts shaking. Harua makes him lie back down and tucks him in like a child, it’s oddly not as condescending as Nicholas thought it would be.
“I have to get going to my first class.” Harua says as he gathers all his books. “Maki said he would bring you some lunch so don’t you dare think you can move from that bed.”
“What about if I have to pee?” Nicholas asks with a smirk.
“Fine. But no loitering. I have eyes and ears everywhere so I’ll know.” Harua squints at him threateningly. “Take care Nicho.”
The omega starts to leave before Nicholas calls out, “Harua.” His friend turns back to him expectantly. “Thank you, for everything. And what I said about omegas earlier, I didn’t mean…”
“It’s okay Nicho.” Harua says with a small smile and leaves with a wave.
Exactly at 12pm Nicholas’s door unlocks again and Maki enters with a bag and a smile.
“How many copies of my key did you make?” Nicholas asks as he sits up in bed. He feels a lot less cold than he did earlier so he was slowly starting to shed his layers.
“Just one each for me and Rua.” Maki says as if that’s perfectly normal.
“Maybe knock next time before you come busting in.”
“Why?” Maki smirks. “Are you worried you’ll be doing something naughty?” He wiggles his eyebrows for effect.
“No, perv. Because I actually value privacy.”
Maki takes a seat at the end of Nicholas’s bed and hands him a sandwich from the bag.
“Ham and cheese.” Nicholas says with a turned up nose. “What am I, five?”
“Harua says you haven’t been eating much so I wanted to get you something plain and simple.”
It’s actually very sweet of Maki to be thinking of him like that so he doesn’t give him any more shit and takes a bite. It’s bland and exactly what Nicholas didn’t know he needed.
“What did I miss at practice?” Nicholas asks because he can’t help himself.
“Nothing much.” Maki shrugs. “We had to do an extra ten minutes of planking though because Changbin lost his jersey, again.”
They were usually taught a lesson by everyone on the team taking the punishment as well as the person who actually did wrong. Feeling how achey and jelly like his limbs were right now, Nicholas knew it was for the best that he didn’t go to practice this morning. But there was no way he was admitting that out loud, especially to Maki.
After they finish eating, Nicholas pulls the electric blanket back over himself and sighs in relief of how it eases his muscle pain.
“You’re still hurting?” Maki asks looking concerned.
“Yeah. It’s kind of a bitch.”
Maki puts his hands on his hips and looks down thinking. “I totally shouldn’t be doing this.” He heads over to his bag regardless of what he shouldn’t be doing and walks back to Nicholas with a pill bottle in his hand. “These are left overs from when I got my wisdom teeth removed. This is the good shit, not the over the counter crap. If I give you these will you please promise to use them like it says on the label? I know you don’t really like following instructions but it sucks to see you in so much pain.”
Nicholas nods eagerly. “I will. Please, anything to stop the pain.”
Maki slowly hands it to him and Nicholas shakes one of the pills free and swallows it dry which is so disgusting that it makes him splutter. Maki hands him his bottle of water.
“You should also have an amazing sleep. I slept for like a whole day on the first one.” Maki says with a laugh.
“I haven’t really been sleeping so that sounds fucking incredible to me.” Nicholas makes himself cozy again under the covers.
“Rua will be back with your dinner later. I have to go, I can’t skip politics and law again or I will definitely fail. Rest up but call if you need anything!”
Nicholas waves him off with a disheartened wave. He feels like he’s being a burden to his friends. They should be able to live their lives without having to fuss around Nicholas 24/7. It made him feel like he didn’t deserve anybody. He was just a stupid omega who got dependant on something completely avoidable and now his friends had to pay the price.
Suddenly his body started jittering less and the ceiling he had been staring at had started to look fluffy, almost like clouds. It let a small giggle leave Nicholas’s mouth. Looked like the pain pill had kicked in and Nicholas felt a wave of relief that he hadn’t had in days. So while he feels half way decent he decides to go shower. The water is calming and it’s even more relaxing knowing he had the whole bathroom to himself seeing as most people were in classes right now. Well, they should have been.
He hears the creak of the water being started in a cubicle a few over from his own and then the distinct sound of two people whispering and trying to laugh as quietly as they could. That lasts for about five seconds before the moaning and simply pornographic noises start. Nicholas stands frozen, unsure what he should do in this situation? Should he leave and let these two go at it? Or would that be off putting to them? Or was it creepy that he was still standing under the blissful warmth of the shower while these two were fucking intensely?
It hit him then, something that hadn’t happened for years. Not only could he hear the sexual encounter he could smell it in the couple’s pheromones. They were both desperate and extremely attracted to each other and Nicholas knew that from one sniff alone. He hadn’t realised just how much his senses had been dulled by the hormone tablets. The sounds only grew louder and faster before Nicholas realised he also could smell his own arousal.
He quickly turned his shower off, got dressed while not completely dry and legged it back to his room, his chest heaving when he eventually got the door closed. He stared at it with erratic breathing and the sickening feeling of his underwear growing wetter. In all those years he had been turned on for sure. This felt different though. As if his body was finally accepting its base desires.
Nicholas jumped back into bed and tried his hardest to not pay attention to his downstairs. He shut his eyes as tightly as he could and begged for sleep to take him before he could embarrass himself further.
He’s been awake for a few hours reading over some of his text books when the door opens at 7pm. Harua walks in with a bag of noodles and Nicholas feels the bile rush to the back of his throat.
“What the fuck is that?” He says as he dry heaves and holds his nose at the same time.
“It’s your favourite. Extra spicy.” Harua says looking confused.
“Get it out of here!” Nicholas yells.
Harua opens the door again and places the bag on the outside. “What’s your problem?”
Nicholas huffs at the lingering smell and grabs his cologne to spray the air a few times. “You didn’t smell that?”
“Yeah,” Harua says slowly. “But it smells like that every time.”
“It does?”
Harua eyes him before Nicholas can practically see the lightbulb go off in Harua’s brain. “Your sense of smell is coming back. I should have guessed that would happen. What do I smell like?” Harua asks excitedly as he sticks his wrist under Nicholas’s nose.
Nicholas coughs and pushes him away. “Aloe vera but shit that’s strong. I forgot that smells… smelt.”
“Very intelligent of you.” Harua says sarcastically.
“Does that mean? Do I have a scent?!” Nicholas asks in a panic.
Harua leans forward and grabs Nicholas’s own wrist before smelling it and making a face. He then leans into Nicholas’s neck and takes another long whiff. “No. You just smell like cologne. That’s really weird. Maybe it’ll kick back in slowly.”
“I don’t want it to kick back in at all.” Nicholas says with a frown. “If it stays away I might just be able to lie my way through the season.”
“It’s always about fucking soccer with you.” Harua says with a sigh.
“Of course it is.” Nicholas says defensively. “It’s all I have.”
Harua sharpens his gaze. “So what? Are your friends just nothing to you?”
“You don’t get it,” Nicholas pounds his fist against the mattress. “It’s the only thing I’m good at. The only thing I’ll ever be good at. Take it away and I’m just a useless omega who’s going to end up pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen while I wait for my alpha to come home and use me.”
Harua’s face crinkles. “Is that all you think omegas are? And alphas? I know there are some fucked up people out there Nicho but not all alphas are the same. And you don’t have to be the 1950’s omega, you can find something else you enjoy and focus your attention on that if the soccer thing doesn’t pan out. Believe me Nicholas, you are not only good at one thing. You’re one of the most extraordinary people I have ever met and when you start to finally see that you’ll love yourself the way all your friends do.”
Nicholas feels tears well up in his eyes and kicks his blankets off, he was starting to finally come out of the cold tremors. “I need to be alone.” He says without making eye contact with Harua.
“Nicholas, you-”
“Just leave me alone!” Nicholas basically shouts.
A surprised look crosses Harua’s face before it is then set in an even stone look. “Fine. I can’t keep having this argument with you anyway.”
Harua marches to the door and slams it shut behind him without another look or word at Nicholas. He feels his heart breaking inside his chest and the urge to cry burns the back of his nose. Suddenly everything is far too hot again.
He gets out of bed and strips out of his many layers of clothing until he is only left in his boxers. His chest heaves from the effort and before can think better of himself, he turns and punches the wooden cupboard with all his clothes stuffed inside.
He immediately regrets it as the sting takes over his entire fist as he stands in barely restrained silence and tries not to yell in fear of his dorm mates finding out what an idiot he was. Sitting down on the beanbag and cradling his sore hand he finally lets the tears flow and his body shakes with sobs.
A gentle knocking on his door wakes him up just before midnight.
“I don’t want to do this again Rua.” He says as he approaches the door but when it finally unlocks it’s not Harua who he finds, it’s Euijoo.
“Sorry. Just me.” Euijoo says with a small smile and rosy cheeks, most likely from being out with the rest of the team at the dinner Nicholas couldn’t end up making it to.
“Oh,” Nicholas says in surprise and then he realises what an absolute mess his room was in and also the fact that he wasn’t wearing a shirt. He’s the one blushing now. “Come in. Just let me…”
Nicholas starts throwing clothes under his bed and straightens out all the blankets still piled on it. He also happens to find one of his large shirts and he pulls it over his head without haste. It almost covers down to his boxers which works out fantastically to keep up the lie.
When he turns around Euijoo is just smiling at him. “You don’t have to worry about the mess. It’s your room.”
Nicholas flushes again. “Yeah but my team captain is here and I don’t want him leaving thinking I live in a pig sty.”
Euijoo laughs. “No judgement here at all.”
“So… was the dinner okay?”
“Oh, yes.” Euijoo’s posture stiffens up suddenly. “It’s why I’m here actually. We had a cake and I saved a piece for you.”
Euijoo presents Nicholas with a cardboard box and when he opens it he has a piece with what looks like the decorated icing of half of of a soccer ball. It makes Nicholas smirk.
“You were thinking of me?”
“Of course!” Euijoo says before his eyes widen. “I mean, yes because your my team mate but you’re also one of my best friends, so one would be rude not to think of you in a moment like that.”
Tipsy Euijoo always got a little loose lipped but it was different when it was just the two of them together. No buffers in the form of their friends and the air charged slightly.
“These are for you as well.” Euijoo says trying to change the subject quickly. He reaches into his back pack and hands Nicholas a shoe box.
“Do they sell shoes at restaurants now?” Nicholas can’t help but quip.
Euijoo’s head shakes. “No, silly. They’re from coach. We all got a pair.”
Nicholas opens the box to find a shiny brand new pair of cleats. His own were looking a little worse for wear so the gift was a welcomed surprise.
“Look at this bit.” Euijoo says as he leans into his space and points at the inside of the shoe.
Nicholas is printed on the side. He picks the other one up to find it also has his name.
“Coach ordered them custom for all of us on the team.” Euijoo says fondly and still in Nicholas’s personal space. Nicholas didn’t care one bit.
“They’re amazing.” Nicholas says and looks up to Euijoo only to find that the alpha was already watching him.
Euijoo smirks. “You look a lot better today. Is the flu starting to go away?”
Oh yeah, the flu. “Yeah. I’m feeling much better.” Nicholas says even though he can feel the muscle tension starting to creep back under his skin.
“That’s good to hear.” Euijoo says and the unexpectedly places his hand over Nicholas’s that is still holding the box. The alpha rubs it reassuringly but doesn’t immediately move his hand away. When he does though, Nicholas bites his tongue to stop the moan that sits right at the back of his throat.
Euijoo’s hand finally lets go of his own but not willingly by the look on his face. He snaps back to being happy smiley Juju in an instance though.
“I’m sorry I came by so late. I should have waited until morning. But I didn’t want the cake to go bad and I thought you might want your cleats in case someone mentioned them in the group chat-”
Nicholas puts the box down and grabs both of Euijoo’s biceps. He shakes the captain once to cut off the rambling. “It’s okay. I was kind of hungry anyway. And I don’t mind a late night visit if I get to see you drunk.”
“I’m not drunk.” Euijoo says placing his hands on his hips. Sadly Nicholas’s hands slide off his arms at the motion. “I’m just… giddy.”
Nicholas chuckles. “Okay, whatever you say captain. But I think you should probably go to your room now. You look like you’re about to pass out. That’s my thing, remember.”
Euijoo’s smile droops. “I was so scared that day. I thought you were going to die. I wouldn’t ever be okay again if you died.”
Nicholas is a little taken aback by the confession. Suddenly Euijoo pulls Nicholas in for a hug. It broke every rule that Nicholas had ever had to stop people finding out he was an omega. But Euijoo didn’t pull away in disgust or betrayal so Nicholas shakily wraps his own arms around the alpha and returns the strength of the hug.
Then Euijoo does something truely diabolical. His head shifts from where it was resting on Nicholas’s shoulder and his nose brushes over the scent patch covered scent gland at his neck. It lasts for only a second but that’s all it takes to make Nicholas’s mind short circuit. He quickly pulls away from the hug and pushes Euijoo back lightly.
“Good night Euijoo.” Nicholas says breathless as he all but pushes Euijoo out of his door.
“Good night Nicho.” Euijoo says dreamily and unaware of the bomb he had just set off in Nicholas.
Nicholas paces around his room with intense breathing. He hadn’t been scented in years. The only people who ever scented him was his family and a couple of his exes. It never really did much for Nicholas but he had done it to humour the people he cared about.
Suddenly the patches at his neck felt like they burning and he ripped them off a little too forcefully, irritating his skin and making his neck itchy. It was an itch he could elevate though. It was the itch an omega craved to be scented and marked by an alpha. It was primal and scared the hell out of him. To be fair though, he was rather enjoying the freedom that was always trapped behind the patches.
As he goes to begin his pacing again he realises that he is wet again. A simple hug with a touch of a nose to his scent gland and he was already leaking. He peeled his shirt off and cleared all his textbooks away just to crawl under the covers.
It didn’t mean anything. You don’t need to do anything, the slick will just dry up and you can wash in the morning. A great idea.
Nicholas’s mind wouldn’t stop swirling with with all the possible out comes and he tried to think of everything he could that would repulse him, simply willing his vagina to stop throbbing with need. He ends up drifting off to sleep at some point but is only woken up a few hours later, covered in sweat and his own hand down his boxers. His body was betraying him which only made it worse yet better at the same time. He essentially just dry humps his hand but he was so worked up that it made him come regardless.
“Euijoo.” He moans out without being able to help it.
Yeah he wasn’t going to be able to look Euijoo in the eyes for a good week after that. But his body did feel a bit lighter, less tensed. He hadn’t come like that in way too long. It’s even starting to occur to Nicholas that maybe he had never reached an actual orgasm while he was taking the hormone blockers.
He grabs a tissue from the nightstand tries to clean up what he can. It makes him flush that even the light brush of the tissue on his vagina made him shiver and moan. Maybe those hormonal blockers were actually poison and the doctors had been right.
***
By Sunday morning Nicholas actually feels a whole lot better. His muscle aches and pains had disappeared and the fever and chills had broken. A slight headache still lingered but it was bearable compared to the hell he had been through all week.
There was only one slight problem… he was producing so much slick, even when he wasn’t turned on. It still thankfully had no scent but it was ruining just about all of his pants and underwear.
“Really Rua? Pads?” Nicholas asks as he stares down at the packet Harua had bought into the alpha dorms for him.
“It’s the only way you’ll be able to play without people noticing. Like I can see right now.” Harua moved his eyes to Nicholas’s short clad legs and he followed his gaze.
“Ah, fuck. I just changed these!” Nicholas felt himself flush out of embarrassment but also anger. It was like his body had taken complete ownership over him and didn’t want to follow his rules.
“You’ll have to wear tight fitting underwear for them to not slip off at random.”
Nicholas frowned. He only wore boxer shorts. For some reason they just screamed alpha and he knew he needed to keep the charade up even if he was the only one to see them. “They won’t stick to boxers?”
Harua shakes his head. “Too loosey goosey.” He reaches back into the shopping bag he had produced the pads from and throws a heap of material at Nicholas’s head.
“Granny panties?” Nicholas says with a frustrated groan.
“You don’t really seem like the laces and frills kind of guy so I thought I would go easy on you.” Harua says with a wink and a smirk.
“How long will I have to wear the pads for?” Nicholas asks as he skims over the words on the plastic packaging.
Harua scoffs. “Dude, you think I would know? I don’t even know why your making so much slick while your not turned on or in heat. This is uncharted territory for the both of us.”
Nicholas tears through the packaging and pulls a pad out in one hand and a pair of the granny panties in the other. “Can you like, turn around for a sec?”
Harua rolls his eyes. “Not like I don’t see one on a daily basis but sure. Whatever helps you.”
Nicholas hasn’t had to use a pad since his first few pre-heats. They were uncomfortable and bulky to wear but they did the job (even though everyone with a nose could tell what was happening down there). He sticks the object to the underwear, tucking the wings to the other side firmly, and strip his bottoms. He pulls them up and then a new pair of pants before he adjusts his body in a few different ways, getting a feel for the foreign object.
“Can I turn around now?” Harua asks, tapping his foot on the floor.
“Yeah.” Nicholas says defeatedly. He quickly turns his back to Harua and tries his best to look down at his own butt. “Is it noticeable?”
“It’s not.” Harua assures him. “They’ve basically perfected slick pads by this point. No one will suspect a thing.”
Nicholas inhales deeply and hopes his friend is right. Maki ends up coming over to meet up with Harua and Nicholas does a few different walks and runs and leg movements to get the other soccer player’s opinions.
“You totally can’t notice it man. And I feel slightly grossed out having watched your butt for so long. Let’s go to dinner, Rua.”
The two leave and Nicholas dreads the next morning. He’ll finally be able to get back to practice which was amazing but he was suddenly carrying an extra burden he hadn’t even considered possible a month ago.
The morning arrives and he walks through the locker rooms cool, calm and collected. If he played the part maybe no one would catch the differences. He’s surprised to see Euijoo waiting by his locker when he reaches it.
“Surprise!” Euijoo says, throwing a small handful of confetti in the air.
Nicholas smirks. “Surprise for what?”
“For being back from sick leave, silly.” Euijoo says as if it’s obvious (and normal) to do.
“It was only a few days.” Nicholas tries to reason with him but Euijoo just shakes his head stubbornly.
“It doesn’t matter. One of the best players coming back is a big deal.”
Nicholas flushes at the compliment. “Come on now, captain. Can’t have the team thinking you’re playing favourites.”
Euijoo bites his lip. “Well it’s true so they can think what they want.”
The two stand in a small bubble of tension before Euijoo seems to bring himself out of it. “I said I would go help coach with setting up the drills. See you out there.” He lightly bumps Nicholas’s shoulder and hurries out of the doors.
Nicholas starts putting his things into his locker (totally not thinking about his interaction with a certain alpha) when he’s suddenly pushed forward right into his locker, the metal of the top shelf colliding with his neck. He lets out a choked cough and grabs at his neck. Angrily he turns to the pusher who was still behind him and he gives him the death stare.
“Back five minutes and already got the captain wrapped around your little finger.” Says one of his team mates, Yuta, with a smug yet hurt look. Yuta wasn’t the nicest guy so Nicholas made a point of never really getting into anything that involved him. Looks like he was involved in something now.
“What’s your fucking problem?” Nicholas spits out and hears a rasp in his still sore throat.
“I heard, you know.”
Nicholas’s blood runs cold and he feels the ground start to crumble under his feet. He decides to play it nonchalant. “Heard what?”
Yuta moves into his space a little more which makes Nicholas rear back and almost fall into his locker again. “That Byun put in a good word for you to be captain next year. That was supposed to be my spot. Coach and I spoke about it at the start of the year.”
“Well, maybe your qualifications are lacking this season. How many red cards have you been given this season?” Nicholas provokes when he knows he shouldn’t. The entitlement of this particular team mate just couldn’t go unchecked.
Yuta slams his fist into the locker next to Nicholas’s and Nicholas prides himself for not flinching even a millimetre. That seems to rile up Yuta more.
“Hey. Nicho, is everything alright?” Fuma says as he walks back through the locker room doors with his goalie gloves tucked under his arm.
Yuta gives him one more restrained glance and drops his arm before turning to face Fuma. “Nicho is perfectly fine. I’ll see you out there.” He then jogs to the doors and presumably runs out to the field.
Nicholas lets go of a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding and pulls himself upright.
“What happened to your neck?” Fuma says as he rushes to check on him.
“I’m fine.”
“No you’re not. I’m gonna get that fucking asshole bounced back to second string so quickly he won’t even notice.”
Nicholas smiles and pats Fuma’s arm reassuringly. “Really I’m fine.” Nicholas turns to look into the small mirror in his locker and yep he totally has a red mark from where he collided with the metal. “Please don’t tell anyone. Especially Euijoo. It’ll just provoke Yuta more.”
Fuma holds his breath as he thinks and finally exhales. “Fine. But if he touches you again I’m going to turn his “perfect cosmetic nose” into something that even Owen Willson couldn’t pull off.”
That makes Nicholas laugh. “Thanks. You can go now. I just need to change.”
Fuma looks him over again. “Okay.”
Nicholas ends up putting on a turtle neck compression shirt under his other practice clothes. Fuma seems to notice but no one else even seems to think it’s off so he just acts his normal self. The only thing not normal about his is the giant cotton padding between his legs hid under his loose fitting shorts.
He tries his best to ignore it and focus solely on the drills but it gets harder and harder to ignore when it is starting to fill not only with slick but with sweat as well. The paranoia has settled into his brain completely when they play a short game. He feels like every time someone runs towards him with the ball that they are going to notice the giant growth in his ass. It disrupts his keen eye and killer instinct for the game and he falls behind on plays he easily could have done if it was his usual self playing. Better self playing.
He waits to shower last and quietly tries to rip the pad off of his underwear without any one hearing even just the unsticking from the fabric. He succeeds and places the used toiletry in one of the discreet bags Harua had also gotten him. There was no way in hell he was going to throw it in any trash can anywhere near the alpha building. It was truely going to test the discreetness of the little black bags.
The shower made him feel better… until he looked at his new pair of underwear for the day with an attached pad. Yay (said no one). All day he walked around campus with feeling of trying walk normally with something the size of his phone between his legs, and the feeling of more slick oozing out of him randomly. He thanked god (who he doesn’t believe in) when 4pm rolled around and he could finally head back to his dorm and just relax.
The relaxing does not go as planed. Harua drags him to a bonfire party where everyone goes to get wasted and warm in the chillier weather welcoming winter in.
“What are you drinking?” Harua has to yell a little over the steady thump of the bass music playing in the background.
“Nothing.” Nicholas says on instinct and receives and eye roll from his friend.
“I know. “Practice tomorrow”.” Harua ends up wandering off to find drinks and also Maki who was here among the partiers somewhere.
“Nichol!” Nicholas turns to see Euijoo with Jo trailing behind him like a personal body guard. The way Euijoo’s voice lilted immediately alerted Nicholas to sense he was tipsy.
“You’re drunk? You? Before practice in the morning?”
“Yup.” Euijoo says popping each letter.
“I’m trying to slow him down but he just keeps getting handed drinks out of nowhere.” Jo says looking thoroughly stressed.
“You go find your boyfriends. I’ll make sure he doesn’t get anymore alcohol in him.”
Jo gives him relieved look and retreats as quickly as he can.
Euijoo smiles with little crescent moons for eyes matching the smile. He then places his arm around Nicholas’s shoulders. “I like alcohol.”
Nicholas hums. “Well seeing as this is the second time in under a week that you’ve hugged me drunk, I assumed you did.”
Euijoo wraps his other arm around, holding Nicholas in a side type hug, leaning his head on Nicholas’s shoulder. His fluffy hair tickles Nicholas’s cheeks.
“I like hugging you Nichol. You’re always so warm.” Euijoo brushes his cheek up and down on the shoulder of Nicholas’s jacket.
Not again. Nicholas had to clench his thighs to stop what he thought was a tsunami about to release from him. Luckily the pad was extra absorbent.
Harua returns with Maki and they look upon the sight before them. Harua gives Nicholas a knowing look.
“Maki’s here!” Euijoo says excitedly but doesn’t let his grasp on Nicholas go one bit. Oh this was his own personal form of hell.
A few hours later, Euijoo had dropped the hug encompassing Nicholas but the alpha was never not by his side. At one point he took Nicholas’s hand and the omega’s brain stopped working. He didn’t acknowledge it but he sure as hell wasn’t breaking the contact. At the end of the day he was simply just a man, a man scrapping for every little touch he could, but a man none the less.
“Juju, it’s after midnight. Maybe we should call it and get some rest before practice.” Nicholas suggests in the hopes of making Euijoo slip into leader mode and dragging them all home kicking and screaming (truth be told, Nicholas just wanted to pass out in bed even if he only got four hours of sleep). Instead, Euijoo scooches forward a little his bid boba eyes glittering in the light of the bonfire.
“I like when you call me Juju.” He says with a lip bite. Was it just Nicholas’s imagination or did his friend track his eyes down to Nicholas’s own lips.
Nicholas brushes it off. “You’re officially being removed.”
Euijoo laughs when Nicholas stands up and basically drags the alpha’s body over his shoulder. He even hears Euijoo saying some goodbyes to people he knows. Man his head was going to be pounding by the time his alarm went off.
They make it to the alpha dorms and Nicholas swipes his card to access the front door, still with a giggly soccer captain draped over his shoulder. He walks the familiar twists and turns of the ground level when he reaches Euijoo’s door. “Key?”
Still being held, Euijoo rummages around in his pocket and proudly yells “Ta-da!” When he finds them to hand to Nicholas. The omega shhed him as much as he could to spare the poor sleeping souls near Euijoo’s room.
Once inside, Nicholas places Euijoo upright on his bed.
“Woah. Head rush.” Euijoo smirks and giggles as he kicks his shoes off. “Will you stay with me?” Euijoo asks suddenly very seriously.
Nicholas gulps and hates his response already. “I’m sorry Joo but I can’t. I have to get ready for practice… and stuff.”
Said “stuff” being him needing to change his pad so badly after having Euijoo in close quarters all night.
“Oh yeah.” Euijoo mumbles as if he had forgotten and it seems to hit him then. “I’m going to be so hungover. Kei hyung told me I needed to have more fun but I probably should have waited until Friday night, hey?”
Nicholas moves his shoulders up and down, tilting his head. “Yeah… that would be what most sane people would do.”
“Are you calling your captain insane?” Euijoo slurs out.
“Only because I know he won’t remember this after he passes out.”
The alpha chuckles before shielding his eyes suddenly. “Why is the light so bright?”
“I’m not a science type of guy so probably not the best to ask on that one.” Nicholas says as he walks back towards the door to flip the light switch off.
It’s dark now, only a sliver of the moon light peaking through the blinds but Nicholas can still see Euijoo’s form on the bed curling into a ball with his head rested comfortably on his pillow.
“See you in a few hours, captain.” Nicholas jabs one more time.
“You suck. Good thing you’re gorgeous.” Euijoo mumbles into the pillow but Nicholas definitely hears every single word.
He walks up the steps all the way to his room and doesn’t really understand what had just fully occurred. Maybe his hearing was going bad. Maybe he hallucinated the whole thing. Maybe he was in a dream, “Ow” he says as he pinches his arm, definitely not a dream.
He lays in bed with a freshly changed pad and a millions what ifs running through his brain. It could have been just an off-handed compliment between friends. Harua tells Nicholas he’s hot all the time. No, this felt different.
Nicholas feels a steady stream of slick coating the pad and looks down at his genitals before whisper screaming, “I am not getting of to the thought of him again! Not so soon after last time so forget it!”. He seems to expect a response (like a crazy person) and frowns as more slick trickles out.
He slams his back against his mattress and crosses his arms like a petulant child.
Euijoo looks rough at practice a few hours later (Nicholas isn’t much better but he was thankfully not hungover). The alpha flinches every time coach blows the whistle or yells out instructions. Nicholas can’t help but find it awfully cute despite Euijoo’s poor condition.
They decide to have a small practice game, red vests versus blue vests. Nicholas ends up with blue and on the same team as Fuma and Maki. Kei and Euijoo teasingly stare them down threateningly with their red vests secured.
The game goes perfectly normal. Nicholas passes to his team mates (because apparently that was something he needed to work on, he scored on his own but “team work” was the big focus at the moment) and even scores a goal himself. In one play he is in the middle of the field when the ball gets passed to him and he swiftly makes work of getting it down to the net. He ducks and weaves through the red team trying to steal the ball but he has an unstoppable determination boiling in his blood.
He shoots the goal but before he can see whether he makes it or not he is hit with such a force that sends him toppling to the ground. He cries out in pain as he lands awkwardly on his right shoulder. He didn’t hear anything pop or break but it still hurt like a mother fucker. His eyes flicker open and that’s when he notices Yuta getting up off of the top of him and looking down with his smug smile and perfectly aligned teeth.
The whistle blows incredibly loudly as Nicholas stays stunned on the ground.
“What the fuck Nakamoto?” He hears Maki say as he rushes to the site of the fall.
“Wang should be more careful next time.” Yuta says, perfectly unbothered.
He remains unbothered, snickering down at Nicholas until suddenly a figure comes flying past his line of sight and punches Yuta in the jaw, causing him to stumble backwards.
Fuma shakes his now aching hand but looks down at Nicholas in worry. “Are you okay?”
Nicholas nods and starts to get up but feels himself slip back down when he put pressure on the shoulder. Another presence comes bolting towards him and sinks to his knees to look Nicholas in the eyes.
“Nichol. Are you alright? What hurts?” Euijoo says as he reaches out to hold Nicholas but looks too nervous to touch any part of him in fear of causing more pain.
“My shoulder. But I don’t think it’s broken or dislocated.” He replies as he sits up again and now knowing the site of his pain, Euijoo holds onto his left side to help him stand.
Nicholas glares at Yuta who is still looking all too smug for someone who was going to have a nasty bruise in a few hours. He spits on the ground then looks up to Euijoo. “Done saving your little boyfriend, captain?”
Euijoo leaves Nicholas’s side and pushes Yuta’s chest so that he stumbles again. Before he can do any real damage though, a frantic looking Kei and Maki grab ahold of him from each side and physically have to hold him back from continuing his assault. The rage in the alpha’s eyes was wild and determined as he tried to claw his way out of his friends arms.
The shrill whistle and coach screaming as he approaches them seems to mellow Euijoo out a little bit. The death stare he gives Yuta doesn’t falter one bit thought.
“Nakamoto, what in the fuck was that?!” Coach yells into his face.
Yuta looks at least a little ashamed with the coach yelling at him, yet it seems like he is only ashamed that he got caught.
“Sorry coach. Wang mistimed his kick.”
That makes Euijoo struggle in the arms of his friends harder.
“Bullshit!” Fuma says with his face twisted in anger. “You did that on purpose you fucking psycho.”
“Murata, I’ll deal with you later. Nakamoto, off the field. Now.” Coach looks around at the circle that has formed. “Byun, get a hold of yourself. And someone take Wang to the nurse. Practice is over for today.”
Nicholas stands bent at an awkward angle as he tries to hold his shoulder the most comfortably as he can. The others let go of Euijoo as he finally settles without Yuta’s presence around. He walks back over to Nicholas.
“Come on, I’ll take you to the nurse.” He places a soft hand on Nicholas’s unhurt shoulder. “Kei, Fuma, get everyone to help put the cones and stuff away.”
The two nod at their captain and starting giving directions to the other players. Maki on the other hand, makes a quick jog over to the two.
“Nicho, I can take you to the nurse. If you need me to that is.” Maki says with a knowing look between them.
“I’ll take him Maki. You go help the others pack up.” Euijoo says in his best captain tone.
Maki still looks back to Nicholas to make sure. “I’ll be okay Maki. I’ll let you know when I’m done.”
Maki nods with a look of worry but goes about helping the rest of the team.
Euijoo turns Nicholas towards the buildings and leads him in the direction to the nurses office. It shouldn’t make Nicholas giddy with Euijoo’s hand placed lightly on his lower back as they walk side by side.
“Does it hurt much?” Euijoo asks just before they reach the medical office.
“A little.” Nicholas was downplaying it of course. It fucking thrummed with an ache that could rival the kind of aches he had experienced the week before.
The nurse does a once over and examines his shoulder with his shirt off. The spot was already starting to go purple and blue in a bruise. Nicholas caught the hint of a hiss when Euijoo, sitting in the corner, gets a look at his arm.
“It’s not broken,” The nurse tells him. “Or dislocated but I recommend you go see a doctor. They can set you up with something for the pain and some exercises to do after it’s healed. I can give you these for now.”
She hands Nicholas a small paper cup with what he recognises to be over the counter painkillers. He takes them all too keenly which just paints Euijoo’s face with more worry.
“No practice until after you see the doctor and then follow their orders. Hot and cold rotation treatment is probably the best thing you can do for now. No class for today.” She orders strictly and Nicholas nods to appease her.
When they leave her office is with a heavy heart on Nicholas’s part. He had just gotten better and now something else had to ruin his life. His melancholy was basically streaming off him with his pheromones.
Euijoo looks up and sniffs the air subtly. “That’s odd. I’ve never sensed your emotions through pheromones before.”
Nicholas goes still as a statue. “It’s probably just because of this bad run of luck I’ve been having.”
The alpha nods as if reason enough and grabs lightly onto Nicholas’s good shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get you to your room.”
“I- I can walk there myself but thank you for coming to the nurse with me.” Nicholas says in a hurry.
“Nonsense. I’m making sure you get home safely. We can’t have you tripping or something like a piano falling out a window to crush you.”
Nicholas laughs. “The way my luck’s been going these days I wouldn’t be surprised.”
They arrive at Nicholas’s door to find his gym bag at the front of it and a small sticky note that read, Brought it home so you didn’t have to go back. Hope you’re okay. -Maki.
Nicholas smiled at his friend’s considerate actions. He digs through the side pouch awkwardly, feeling for his key.
“Here,” Euijoo says as he squats next to Nicholas. “Let me help.”
The alpha’s hand slips into the pouch before Nicholas has removed his own and the contact makes Nicholas’s cheeks flush almost immediately. He stands quickly and watches as Euijoo locates the key and unlocks his door for him.
It’s then that Nicholas panics. Euijoo was about to enter his room and there were about a dozen different ways that it would reveal his true subgender. He of course hid everything anyway in case someone had needed to get into his room for whatever reason. There were so many things hidden inside other things that Nicholas often had a hard time remembering where he actually put the items. He breathes a sigh of relief when he does a quick scan and sees the room in perfect order for an alpha.
“Do you want to shower first?” Euijoo says suddenly and startles Nicholas.
He realises he’s still in his disgusting practice clothes and grimaces. “Maybe later.”
“Do you at least want me to help you put on a new shirt?” Euijoo says perfectly innocently.
Nicholas’s brain goes to so many different places but he can’t find a way to say no because he did in fact need the nurse’s help to take off and put back on his shirt earlier.
“O… okay.” He answers with a gulp.
He wanders over to his closet and picks one of his favourite baggy shirts out. He panics when he turns around to see Euijoo eyeing the bottle of ointment that Harua had left for him for his aches. He’s just about to stutter out “It’s not what you think” but Euijoo picks up the bottle before his lips even part.
“I can put some of this on too? I use it all the time when my knee acts up.” Euijoo says with a smile.
Of course, the ointment wasn’t marketed just for heat care but it’s where Nicholas’s brain had gone the moment Euijoo saw it. It was a perfectly normal tube of ointment for muscle aches, something that many soccer players probably owned. Then Nicholas’s brain catches up to what Euijoo had offered.
“Put it… on me?” Nicholas asks dumbly.
Euijoo huffs a laugh. “Well yeah. You got hurt on a really weird angle to put this on yourself. Unless you don’t want to use it…”
The relief of his muscle pains from the previous week remind him that it’s exactly what he needs right now, no matter how embarrassing the situation. It wasn’t like this was Harua putting his hands all over him, this was Euijoo.
“No. I mean thanks.” Nicholas adds a smile. “You’re really going the extra mile as team captain.”
Euijoo grins. “They shall tell tales of my greatness.”
“Who’s they?” Nicholas laughs out.
“You know… the next generation of players or whatever. Now come here so I can help you.”
Nicholas steps forward with a wobble and Euijoo puts out a hand to steady him. Not embarrassing at all.
Euijoo goes to lift the hem of his shirt and they make eye contact. The alpha seems to be grasping the closeness this situation requires. Nicholas lifts his arms slowly with his right one not being able to go very high. Euijoo gets the left sleeve off and Nicholas pokes his head through the neck hole to free himself. Euijoo carefully pulls the shirt down the hurt appendage and tosses it to the floor.
If the ground opened up and swallowed Nicholas whole right now, he would not be too upset about it. Anything that could take away the look Euijoo gives his bare torso. The alpha gulps and motions towards Nicholas’s bed.
“It’ll be easier for this if you sit.”
Nicholas only nods and sits on the edge of the bed so that Euijoo can get the right angle for the application. The omega holds his breath (why, he doesn’t know really) and jumps a little at the first cool contact of the gel and Euijoo’s fingers.
“Sorry.” Euijoo says quietly as he carefully spreads the ointment over Nicholas’s ever bruising back.
The sensation makes Nicholas close his eyes. This was so much different to when Harua did it and not because of the pain he was in now. Euijoo’s touch was light and a little hesitant like he was testing the waters to see how much he was hurting Nicholas.
Nicholas would let the alpha bash his head in with a hammer if it meant that he got this sensation for his final moments. Euijoo gets bolder and adds a little more pressure. It makes Nicholas wince but it’s not in unbearable pain. His skin even rises in goosebumps with how light and caring the touches were.
Then the most embarrassing thing happens. Nicholas whimpers as Euijoo places slight pressure at the very top of his shoulder where the skin is not as bruised but still tense from the injury. Euijoo keeps the constant pressure and rubbing into that point that it feels as if his whole body were electrified. The slick gathering in his pants felt like it had an actual correct response for once. He didn’t want the moment to ever end but then the hand slides back down slowly along the bruise before being pulled back completely. Nicholas wants to cry and beg for anymore contact he can get but he controls himself like a sane person.
Euijoo clears his throat and Nicholas hazily turns to look at him. “The new shirt.” The alpha says awkwardly and Nicholas notices that his cheeks are just as red as his probably were.
They start by putting the good side on first then the neck. Euijoo ran a steady hand down Nicholas’s arm as he stretched the material to fit without pulling too harshly. The last feeling of his finger tips pulling the shirt down over his stomach make Nicholas stop breathing for a moment.
“Thanks.” Nicholas can’t help that it comes out in a breathless whisper.
Euijoo ducks his head. “Any time.” A few seconds pass before Euijoo finally looks up again. “Do you have your hot a cold compresses?”
Nicholas snaps out of his haze quickly. “Yeah. I’ve got ice packs in the fridge and a heated blanket Harua got me. Twenty minutes of each, I know the drill.”
Euijoo nods pleased. “Good. Text me if you need anything. I can bring you some lunch if you like?”
“That’s okay,” Nicholas answers too quickly. “I have something in the fridge but thanks anyway.”
“Dinner?” Euijoo asks hopefully.
“Maki will probably just bring me something.”
“Of course.” Euijoo seems a little deflated at the news. “But do text me if you need. And just so you know I will be harassing you with messages all day checking how you are.”
Nicholas smiles. “The greatest captain ever.”
“And friend.” Euijoo adds as if it means more than his role of captain.
“An extraordinary friend.”
“Bye Nichol.”
“Bye Juju.”
When Euijoo closes the door behind himself a coil springs loose in Nicholas’s body and he races up to lock his door. He’s desperate for relief, having been throbbing the entire time Euijoo had touched him or simply even looked at him. He would hate himself for it later but there was no shame in what he needed (wanted) to do now. His hand drifted into his pants before he remembered that that arm was out of order currently. He tried with his left hand but it felt like he was fumbling around in an unfamiliar place. He was left with one option.
He grabs the stupid little cushion that helps prop his back up at his desk chair and drops it on his bed before straddling it. God this was so embarrassing. He turns to look at his door to make absolutely sure that the door is in fact locked. When he confirms he starts moving against the cushion while holding it steady with his good arm. The friction sends shivers from his toes up to his thighs and he whimpers lightly. Something he’s learning is that the pads actually cause amazing friction against where he needs it most and he speeds his hips up.
He mutters Euijoo’s name quietly like a mantra. He finally buckles over as he reaches his peak with a sobbing moan. The guilt wasn’t immediate like other times he had gotten off to the thought of his friend. Instead, he stayed with his legs wrapped around the cushion and his head leaned against his pillows at an awkward angle because of his shoulder.
For once there was a new feeling after his pleasure. Contentment. He eventually got up and put his cushion back on the chair but there was no way he was ever going to be able to look at it again without thinking about what he’d done. He lets himself bask in the drying slick that had escaped the sides of the pad and has a strange thought, maybe being an omega wasn’t as dreadful as he thought after all.
***
The dining hall was unusually loud for the morning. Nicholas looked down at his porridge and frowned, it looked almost as pathetic as he felt.
“Did the doctor clear you yet?” Yuma asks as he takes a bite of his crisp apple from directly across the table to Nicholas.
“Not exactly.” Nicholas stirs his spoon through the mush of his breakfast.
“What does “not exactly” mean?” Jo asks from Yuma’s right side.
“Did you even go to the doctor yet?” Taki asks from Yuma’s left.
“It’s too early for you all to gang up on me.” Nicholas whines as he drops his spoon.
Kei strolls up to the table and takes a seat next to Nicholas. “What are we ganging up on him for?”
Nicholas widens his eyes at his friends sitting opposite him but he forgot he was dealing with two of their group’s three biggest blabber mouths (Harua being the third of course).
“Nicho hasn’t seen the doctor yet.” Taki says casually so Nicholas sends him a death glare.
“What?” Kei asks as he sits up straighter. “You got hurt two days ago. You should have already seen the team doctor.”
The team doctor, whom Nicholas had never actually gone to see in fear that he might figure out Nicholas’s true subgender and have him kicked off of the alpha team immediately. He’d always managed to get away with his own doctor providing regular examinations and passing them off to the coach with the slight mistruth of the alpha box being ticked instead of the omega. The plan had served him well for nearly three years and Taki just about blew it all to pieces in three seconds.
“I don’t know why I tell you anything.” He says snappily at Taki who looks surprised and offended.
“I’m just trying to help you.” Taki says with a shrug.
Nicholas huffs and stands up. “Well maybe next time ask before you open your big mouth.”
He walks off, leaving his tray at the table, far too concerned with the fact that he was going to have to face the music. He feels a little guilty for yelling at Taki but he stood firm on his stance that his friend shouldn’t just blurt out his personal information.
The dining hall is packed with people coming in and others leaving and it leaves Nicholas a little light headed. His sense of smell was getting even sharper with each passing day and the amount of different unmasked scents hit his nose intensely. He got so distracted he didn’t even notice the door frame getting closer and he walked straight into it with his bad shoulder. He bit his lip as to not scream out in agony, he didn’t want to cause a scene that would become gossip around campus. He was already involved with the Yuta stuff, he didn’t need anymore attention.
So he adjusts the shoulder bag over his left shoulder and heads off to his first lecture of the morning. He gets there early but is happy with taking his normal seat in the back for some alone time to heal while his shoulder throbbed and ached.
He shouldn’t be surprised at the message that lights up his phone screen.
Euijoo:
Kei hyung said that you haven’t been to
the doctor yet so I booked an appointment
for you. Today at 3 because I know your
last class is at 2.
If you want I could come with you for like
moral support or something.
Of course Kei had told Euijoo. He was like Euijoo’s little flying monkey that kept him informed in literally everything he heard about the team.
Me:
Thanks for the offer but I should be fine
on my own.
Thanks for booking for me :)
Nicholas wasn’t thankful in the slightest but he couldn’t let Euijoo know that.
The teaching hospital wasn’t too far away from campus so Nicholas chose to walk, hoping that some of his nerves would melt away with the physical activity. They did not.
The team doctor had his own office at the hospital as he saw non sports related injuries as well. Nicholas knocked lightly on the door ajar to the doctor’s office. The doctor ushers him in with a warm smile.
“Finally I get to meet the famous Nicholas!” Dr Choi says as he closes the door behind Nicholas.
“I don’t think I’m famous…” Nicholas replies awkwardly.
“With the way some of your team mates talk about you I’m not so sure that’s true.”
That makes Nicholas’s stomach swoop. His friends really talked about him to their doctor.
“I see you’ve got a shoulder injury.” Dr Choi says as he reads over the paperwork that was submitted, probably from Euijoo. “Hop up on the table and lets have a look.”
Nicholas sits on the exam chair nervously. The doctor helps him take his shirt off but it’s nowhere near as intimate as when Euijoo had done it. Nicholas probably could have done it himself today with the movement he was starting to regain.
The doctor checked him over and had Nicholas do all sorts of motions to test for mobility.
“I think it’s just a nasty sprain. You should be able to get back on the field next week, but only for light training.” He says that last part with a finger pointed at Nicholas.
“Thank you.” Nicholas starts to slide off the table when the doctor stops him.
“How have you been feeling lately Nicholas? Generally speaking.”
Nicholas watches the man warily. “Fine. I thought this was just about my shoulder…”
“Yes, of course it is. But I’ve never met you before and I just want to get a sense on your overall health like I do with the other members of your team.”
“I have a personal doctor.” Nicholas says too quickly and too loudly to not be suspicious.
The doctor puts his hands out as if trying to placate him. “That’s fine. I don’t mind at all. You just seem to look a little under the weather. Would you mind removing your scent patches so I can do a few test swabs just to see your condition.”
Nicholas’s heart starts pounding in his ears and his mouth dries up. “I would mind.”
“And why is that?”
Nicholas starts sweating and moves to put his shirt back on without any help.
“Nicholas, is there something you’re neglecting to mention? If you’re afraid of being benched I understand but your health should be your main priority.”
“I just can’t.” Nicholas says breathily.
The doctor takes a seat to be at eye level with him. “I have a strict doctor-patient confidentiality agreement. Anything you say in here will never leave this room unless I think you might be a harm to yourself or others.”
Nicholas gulps and feels his eyes well with tears. “My whole future… it’s going to be ruined if I tell anybody.”
“You don’t know that for sure though. Sometimes you can even feel better when you talk things through. I have a feeling you need to talk to someone.”
A choked sob leaves Nicholas and he quickly rips the scent patches off of his right wrist. He looks away from the doctor in pure shame and fear. He feels the doctor move closer to him and can hear the sound of him sniffing him.
“Oh.” The doctor says as he leans back. “I didn’t expect that at all.”
“Please don’t tell anyone! I can’t lose soccer, I have nothing without it. I was fine until they stopped making the hormonal blockers. If I have something like that again I can fit perfectly well on the alpha team.” Nicholas rushes all his words out.
“I’m not worried that you’re an omega,” The doctor says in a soothing tone. “But I’m more concerned that you have basically no traces of a scent. How long were you on the hormonal blockers for?”
Nicholas bows his head in shame and the doctor says “Ah”.
“They helped block it all out. I had the life I wanted. Not that I hate omegas or anything.” Nicholas says quickly upon realising Dr Choi was also an omega. “But for me it’s done nothing but hold me back.”
Dr Choi stops for a moment to think. “Your scent will come back fully one day. I’m going to take a swab of your wrist just to check that everything is normal and healthy with you.”
Nicholas pulls his hand back quickly. “A swab? Don’t the results get sent to coach?”
“I’ll make an exception and leave out any details about this part. Doctor-patient confidentiality agreement, remember?”
Nicholas holds his scent patch free arm shakily and feels ashamed to watch the doctor collect the sample. It felt like a demeaning moment that would play on a loop in his head unwillingly.
After the doctor is done, Nicholas can’t help himself from asking what had been bothering him for almost a week. “Dr Choi. Is it normal for me to have… so much slick coming out of me outside of my heat?”
“Normally no but seeing as you were on those pills quite a while I’d say your body is trying to realign itself by doing things any omega would do on instinct.” The doctor pauses for a moment before he adds, “It could also be your body’s way of going into heat for the first time in a while.”
Nicholas’s heart sank. He hadn’t even really thought that much about his heat. He was sort of putting out the fires as soon as they erupted but now his mind was swirling with all the memories of the past heats he had endured.
“Is there something you can give me to delay my heat at all?” He asks hopefully.
He’s not surprised though when Dr Choi shakes his head. “I’m afraid all medications for such a condition have been discontinued and now banned in the country. You can take regular over the counter heat suppressants which won’t don’t stop your heat but should ease some of the symptoms for you.”
Nicholas doesn’t mention he’s been taking a cocktail of suppressants already. He thinks that would probably constitute him “hurting himself” so he keeps his mouth shut to save his ass from being kicked off the alpha team.
“Thank you for seeing me, doctor,” Nicholas pushes himself all the way off of the examination chair now. He doesn’t want to let this doctor poke and prod into all the other problems he had going on inside his body. He’d already risked so much by simply removing his scent blocker patches.
“Do you have any fresh scent blocker patches? This one is just useless now.” He says, still holding onto the one that he had revealed to his doctor.
“Of course.” Dr Choi gets up from his seat and walks over to a cabinet. He grabs out a small pack of the patches and hands them to Nicholas. “Please, take the whole box.”
“That’s very kind of you. Thank you.” Nicholas replies before he rips the box open maybe a little too aggressively and puts two patches over the exposed wrist. The doctor watches him but doesn’t say anything about the excessive use of them, even though it’s plain as day on his face that he wants to.
“Just one more thing,” Dr Choi begins hesitantly. “Have you been scented in all this time of taking the medication?” Nicholas looks down and shakes his head. “Scenting is a very big part of maintaining mental and physical health. It might seem overwhelming at first but maybe try to ease that back into your life. Being scent deprived for so long is never good, especially not for an omega.”
He gulps and nods again kindly. “Thank you for the advice.” He says before making a break for it.
Nicholas leaves the building with his left hand tightly wrapped around his right wrist. To anyone else it would look like he was supporting his injured shoulder, to him it was in fear that the different brand of patches may not work as well as the ones he’s used for years. He didn’t need to out himself on the way back to his dorm.
Speaking of his dorm, when he arrives at his door it is to find Euijoo sat on the floor, back leaning against it, knees pulled up and very intently using his phone. The alpha’s head immediately pops up when he hears Nicholas’s footsteps and the furrowed line between his brow un-creases.
“Nicho.” He says standing up quickly. “How did it go?”
“Can I at least get into my room before I get the third degree?”
Euijoo’s eyes widen and he takes a big step away from the door. “Of course! Sorry. I’ve just been thinking of you all day and I wanted to check on you.”
Nicholas tries to not let that comment affect him but man it was an instant rush of glee. His cheeks were probably warming as he turned the key and stepped inside his room, ushering Euijoo in after him.
Euijoo looks up expectingly from where he has sat in Nicholas’s study chair unprompted. Nicholas looks at it and feels his ears go red as he sees the cushion Euijoo is innocently leaned against.
“He said I’m fine and just to rest and ease back into things.” Nicholas says through the dry texture in his mouth. That damn cushion was still mocking him.
“That’s so good to hear!” Euijoo says clapping his hands together. “I couldn’t take it if you got benched for the rest of the season as well.”
“Who got benched for the rest of the season?” He asks in complete shock.
“Fuma.” Euijoo frowns as he says the name.
“But… it’s his last year! He can’t miss out on his last chance to play with the team.”
Euijoo sighs heavily. “The dean wasn’t impressed with how he punched Yuta. But if it makes you feel any better, Yuta got kicked off the team completely.”
It did not make him feel any better, although the idea of how Yuta would react did make his brain a little happy he can’t deny.
“Why didn’t you say anything about the locker room?” Euijoo asks suddenly in a hurt and serious tone.
“What do you mean?”
“Fuma told the dean, coach and I about Yuta harassing you on your first day back. You should have come to me. I could have dealt with this sooner and you wouldn’t be injured like you are now.” Euijoo seems genuinely upset. Then he adds, “I should have known. I’m sorry I failed you as a captain, Nicholas. I’m also sorry you didn’t feel like you could come to me with this. I’ll work on whatever I need to to get you to trust me again.”
Nicholas sinks down to the edge of his bed which is close enough to his study desk that he can put his good hand out and grab Euijoo’s own comfortably. So that’s what he does. “Euijoo this isn’t your fault. I was embarrassed honestly. The only reason Fuma knew was because he was there. I don’t blame you for any of this.” Nicholas squeezes his hand reassuringly. “I’ve just had some… personal stuff going on lately and I haven’t really wanted to talk about it with anybody really. And I didn’t want you to lose your role as captain if it had been you that took a swing at Yuta.”
Euijoo smiles a little. “And I would have done it too.”
Nicholas laughs. “I know you would have.”
Euijoo looks into his eyes and says, “You can tell me anything you know. Not just about soccer. If you’re having problems I’m always here to help or just listen. You’re one of my closest friends Nicholas. I don’t like seeing you so down, and yes I have noticed you’ve been off.”
The omega gulps as he processes the words. “It’s not personal Joo. It’s just… a big problem that I have no control over anymore. I feel like I’m being tortured daily.”
Nicholas isn’t sure why he revealed the last part. He was desperate to keep his secret and here he was dropping crumbs of it in front of one of the few people that could actually ruin his life if he found out.
Euijoo drags the chair a bit closer to Nicholas. “You’re not thinking of… hurting yourself, are you?”
“No, no. Not now at least.” He just kept setting himself up for more pain.
“But you have…” Euijoo asks quietly.
The truth is Nicholas had. The day he had found out the hormonal blockers were not being made anymore, he truely couldn’t see much of a way out of things. When he sat crying and screaming in his car, he thought how easy it would be to just drive his car off the cliff and make all his problems go away. He hadn’t even admitted that to himself yet really. It makes an unexpected tear well up in his eye.
“Oh, Nichol.” Euijoo says and wipes the tear away as it runs down his cheek. The next thing he knows, Euijoo is sat next to him on the bed and enveloping him in a hug.
Nicholas put his shame to the side for a moment and lets himself be held while he broke open a little of the walls he had put around himself. He clasped onto Euijoo and without thinking nuzzled his head in the alpha’s neck before he realises that Euijoo isn’t wearing any scent patches.
He pulls away almost immediately but the scent of fresh rain still clings to the inside of his nostrils.
“I’m so sorry.” He says with a weep. “I didn’t mean to get so close to…”
Euijoo cradles the omega’s neck gently. “You don’t have to apologise. You’re actually my only friend I’ve never scented.”
Nicholas feels shame boil in his stomach. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologising. I know you aren’t as touchy feely as the others but if you ever felt comfortable one day I’d like to scent you.”
Nicholas chokes on a sob. It makes his heart break with the fact at knowing that Euijoo never could actually do that.
Euijoo looks at him through his bangs shyly. “You can still scent me if you want. But only if you want.”
Nicholas can’t stop his head from nodding vigorously. It’s like his brain had trouble really understanding the request before agreeing to it. But then he thinks of the doctor. He probably meant having someone scent Nicholas himself but maybe this would be enough.
He shyly places his head slowly back into the spot between Euijoo’s neck and shoulder and nuzzles his nose slightly against it. He’s very out of practice with scenting but Euijoo hasn’t pulled away so he must be doing something right. He started to get more confident, the strokes of his nose against the gland going from light and friendly to something much more.
Euijoo holds his breath as one particular glide has Nicholas accidentally rub his lips against the gland. It also sets free a small moan from the alpha that makes Nicholas wet in seconds. He does it a few more times, really trying to test his luck and see how much he could actually have from Euijoo without having Euijoo.
The hug they were in tightens as Euijoo seems to unconsciously pull their bodies together. It’s a strange angle and it hurts Nicholas’s bad shoulder but he could care less about that now. He wanted to remember every breathy sound Euijoo made. Every time he leaned himself closer and closer into Nicholas’s movements. It was euphoric. Nicholas was sure that if for whatever reason Euijoo got the chance to scent him one day, he would explode into tiny, bright stars.
Nicholas does the mature thing and pulls away eventually, even with Euijoo’s grasp being iron tight. In one last act of boldness, when Euijoo puts his hands into his own lap, Nicholas takes one and scents the gland at Euijoo’s wrist. He takes his time dragging his nose up and down it and looks Euijoo dead in the eye the entire time.
The air feels electric and Euijoo’s pupils are so blown that Nicholas can hardly see the light brown of his irises. When he drops the alpha’s wrist, Euijoo breaks from whatever trance he was in.
“For someone who doesn’t scent very often, you’re quite good at it.” Euijoo says with a blissed out giggle.
Nicholas feels his face go even redder. “I’m good at everything, remember?”
Euijoo nods his head with a shy smile before he slowly sniffs the air. “It’s funny though. I still can’t smell you on me.”
“My scent is really light.” Nicholas bullshit lies like it’s as easy as breathing.
“Maybe one day you could let me smell it. Without the patches…” Euijoo looks coy and also hopeful like a kid asking for a toy.
“Maybe.” More bullshit lies but the truth is if he wanted to share his real scent with anyone on this Earth it would be the alpha right in front of him.
Euijoo stands up quickly, grabbing his bag and holding it in front of himself strangely. “I should probably go finish that essay that’s due at midnight.”
“All the best essays are the ones written in a time crunch.”
Euijoo laughs. “Exactly. So… I’ll see you around. I’m glad your shoulder is okay, Nicho.”
“See you around.” Nicholas smiles as he catches Euijoo’s eye before the door closes behind him.
The quiet was interrupted by the buzzing in his ears and he gave the cushion on the chair a long look, weighing the pros and cons.
“Who am I kidding?” He says to the empty air as he grabs the cushion and makes his way back into bed, this time armed with actual audio of the noises he had always wanted to hear in real life.
***
A couple of weeks later, Nicholas was back to playing at his regular standard. It had been a lot of exercises and massages to get his shoulder up to working order again but it was worth it, especially when they had an away game two hours from their campus. The bus ride was a little overwhelming. Although all occupants were wearing scent patches, Nicholas could still get a random whiff of a scent here and there. Mostly it was Euijoo’s scent from where he sat at the front of the bus chatting with Kei.
“Nicholas. What do you think?” Maki asks from the shared seat next to Nicholas.
“About…”
From the seat in front of them, Harua turns and kneels on the seat to look at them. “Honestly Nicholas. You’re getting worse and worse with your zoning out.”
“Why are you here again?” Nicholas asks the other omega with a scrunched nose.
“Because my boyfriend is on the team and there was a spare seat on the bus. I couldn’t miss your first big game back either.” He winks at Nicholas.
Harua turns back around but is very clearly still listening to the conversation behind him.
“The cat.” Maki says plainly. Nicholas gives him a bizarre look and Maki rolls his eyes. “What I was asking your advice about. Should Rua and I adopt a kitten or an older cat to give he or she the best years of their lives they have left?”
“That’s kind of a deep question for a bus ride, dude. And besides, the person you are actually adopting said cat with is sitting right in front of you.” Nicholas says with a huff of a laugh.
“I said I don’t mind either way.” Harua announces but stays sat this time.
“I’m in crisis, Nicholas.” Maki says pleadingly.
Nicholas stares at Maki with his eyebrows raised. “We may need to teach you the actual meaning of crisis one day.”
Maki huffs and goes back to scrolling on his phone. Nicholas leans over to see the page of an animal rescue website.
“Go with the older one.” Nicholas says seriously as Maki’s head drifts up. “It’s not their fault they’re in this situation now. Give them a chance. Most people are too scared to try but I think you’re both capable of it.”
Harua’s head spins and he cranes his neck up to look at Maki. The share a knowing smile and Harua nods. God, they were so fucking in love and perfect for each other, it was almost disgusting.
The rest of the bus ride goes past pretty quickly and they pull up to the campus of their rival team.
“This place is insane.” Maki says as he leans over Nicholas to see the buildings outside of the window.
The place was very modern looking. All the newest items of convenience installed to make students and professors lives easier. Compared to their older, more used campus this looked like something out of a sc-fi movie.
The coach leads them to the guest locker room (where Harua gets stopped immediately with a pout) and they start getting ready for the game.
“Glad you’re back, Nicho.” Euijoo says as he quietly sneaks up behind him.
“I’m glad to be back. Here’s to no more illness for the rest of the season.” Nicholas crosses his fingers tight and Euijoo copies suit. The unexpectedly, Euijoo clinks their crossed fingers together like the were about to share a drink.
The action throws Nicholas off, but he maintains a smile and his attention flicked to Euijoo’s face where it looked like the apples of his cheeks were starting to go pink.
Maki loudly closes his locker door and it breaks the two out of the weird trance they had fallen into.
“Good luck, goalie.” Euijoo says to Maki as if what happened hadn’t at all effected him. “I’m sure Fuma will be cheering you on from his seat.”
“But like, no pressure.” Maki says and his face takes on the same anxious look like when he has an exam coming up.
Nicholas walks over to his friend and places both hands firmly on Maki’s shoulder. “You’ve got this. Those giant limbs are going to get us a win. Be the ball.”
Maki’s eyebrows scrunch together. “But if I’m the ball then wouldn’t I want to go in the net?”
Nicholas rolls his eyes. “I don’t know. It’s just something people say. Saying it out loud really does make you wonder what they were thinking when they coined the term.”
“Are you two planning on standing here discussing the intricacies of langue or are we going to play soccer?”
“Soccer.” Nicholas and Maki say in unison.
Before they leave the locker room, coach gives his usual pregame speech, hyping the team up yet somehow still giving backhanded compliments as well. Euijoo also gives a speech and it is leaps and bounds better than the coach’s. He makes sure to look each member in the eye and when gets to Nicholas, the stare lasts at least a few seconds longer than everyone else’s.
The team rushes out to the field and right in the front row just a few seats to the left, Nicholas spots, more like hears Harua, and his other friends hollering and dressed in school colours. Taki even had war stripes painted on his checks with their colours. He also noticed Fuma, cheering big and chanting Kei’s name but there was a hurt look in his eyes. Fuma should be out here with the rest of the team, not stuck in the stands watching. Nicholas feels guilty for being the one that got Fuma benched in the first place.
He had to shake off that energy. Total focus was what he had to channel. He stretches with the rest of the team when the home team walk onto the field, noticeably the cheering and chanting was a lot louder for them. It was expected but all the noise was playing with Nicholas’s head. So he closes his eyes and takes deep breaths. It had always been a way to cut out all the distractions and just focus on the game.
The first quarter sucks for their team, the hosting school scoring one goal to their zero. Nicholas was mad, at himself mostly for not having blocked the player properly. Maki was so close to stopping the point too. Nicholas noticed the look of shame in Maki’s eyes and gives him an assuring nod. He’s not sure what exactly he’s assuring him of but it seems to perk him back up.
The second quarter went much better. They scored two goals (Nicholas having kicked one himself, the other, Kei), the other team getting zero goals. They were officially locked in now. The urge to win was pumping under each of their skins and it reflected in the pulsating crowd.
Third quarter was another let down. The hosts scored two goals and their team zero. It had them all disheartened as they chugged their water and Gatorade. He looked over briefly to his friends and they waved when Yuma’s eyes met his own. Fuma was there but not there in the look of encouragement he gave. Nicholas felt so bad he was sick to his stomach.
In the last quarter and flowing with adrenaline, Nicholas does not expect to hear, “Wang, Lee, sit this one out. Hokazono, Han, you’re in.” Coach yells after he blows his whistle.
Nicholas sits down but with the wet cat look Harua likes to tease him about. He keeps his fuming rage locked tight down, the team doesn’t need anymore losses of members. Squeezing his hand so hard he feels the crescent shapes form on his palm and he swears he actually draws blood on at least two of them.
Their team was doing fine but Nicholas just knew he could do so much better. In a blatantly easy steal, Nicholas feels himself rise from the bench, throwing his arms up in frustration. Coach looks back at him and with a sigh calls for a timeout. The group huddles around and coach quickly says,
“Wang, you’re back in. Sim, you’re out.”
Nicholas pumps his fist triumphantly at his side and runs back onto the field with the rest of his team. He catches Euijoo looking at him from the left and they share a smile and a silent nod in Nicholas’s return. It made Nicholas’s heart flutter that Euijoo looked so much happier now that he was back in the game.
Nicholas practically flies across the field when he gets the ball for the first time. Like on instinct, Euijoo has blocked his defender and eyes Nicholas to pass him the ball. He does and Euijoo officially scores their third goal. Their team goes crazy as the realisation they could actually win this thing if they kept this up.
It’s down to the final minute of the game and it looks like they’re going to have to settle for a tie. That wasn’t the worst thing ever but Nicholas hated losing and a tie was basically a loss for him, so he did everything in his power to make sure that he ended up with the ball as close to the net as he could. Kei did some great moves ducking and weaving and avoiding the other team’s attempts at stealing the ball. Kei hands it off to Euijoo for a moment who then passes to Han which eventually ends up to Nicholas who uses all of his remaining energy to navigate through the other team and once lined up he kicks the ball and holds his breath.
It satisfyingly hits the back of the net and a few seconds later the buzzer goes off. They had won. The whole team surrounded Nicholas and it felt a little hard to breathe but also it was the best feeling in the world.
They all raced off to the locker room in complete and utter adrenaline and joy. Maki had pulled Nicholas in and ruffled his hair which he hated but would up with for this one occasion. The team although still buzzing, went about showering and changing for the bus ride home. As usual, Nicholas found a way to busy himself so he could be one of the last in the showers (thank god this school had individual stalls with locking doors.
He washed away the sweat and dirt that had dried on his skin and once he was clothed, dry and had new scent patches on he made his way back to his locker to collect the rest of his things. He happened to get a locker right by Maki who was also getting the last of his things packed. Suddenly, he looks up at Nicholas and his eyes go wide.
“What?” Nicholas asks with an eyebrow raised.
Maki pulls out his heavy leather jacket he had worn on the bus ride there. “Put this on.”
Nicholas eyes him. “Don’t you think your boyfriend will get jealous?” He asks jokingly.
Maki just pushes the jacket at him firmer. “Put it on. Now.”
Nicholas takes the item from Maki but doesn’t put it on. “I’m actually not that cold.”
“Nicho. Just put the damn thing on.” When Nicholas gives him another confused glance, Maki leans over to whisper in his ear. “Your scent is starting to come back and all I can smell is omega.”
Nicholas’s face drains of colour and he hurriedly puts the jacket on. He could see Maki’s train of thought, give Nicholas something that smells so much like an alpha that it blocks out any trace of an omega. He sniffs the air lightly and he can smell it now. It wasn’t his full scent but a dull lingering of what it should be.
“Hurry up. We need seats at the back. I’ll get Kei and Harua to sit in front of us for a mix of alpha and omega pheromones.” Maki says very quietly as he takes his phone out of his pocket, presumably organising the plan with their friends.
“Maki,” Nicholas starts quietly. “Kei… he’ll know.”
“It’s okay. With the jacket I can’t smell it now but just to be safe we’ll have them there. Even if he does find out it’s not like he would expose you then and there. And I know it wouldn’t change his opinion of you one bit.”
Nicholas feels like he wants to cry and throw up but he keeps himself composed. He walks as close as he can to Maki to hide his scent and when they get on the bus Harua and Kei have their seats saved for them. Harua doesn’t even look twice at Nicholas wearing his boyfriend’s jacket, he just gives him an understanding nod and quickly grasps his hand before he slides into the window seat.
The two hour drive feels like ten and Nicholas spends every single minute of it in complete silence. His team are all chatty and excited by the win so it’s not like his voice would be missed at any rate. He caught Maki trying to steal subtle glances at him but he didn’t acknowledge it. He just wanted to be left in his bubble. The bubble that also had him sitting uncomfortably in a slick soaked pad that rubbed against the heat rash that had accumulated over a lot of sweaty training sessions. He had brought some ointments for it but the slick mostly just washed it off straight away and his skin was back to being irritated and raw.
He really thought the slick would have stopped producing itself on its own by now. Surely weeks of it wasn’t normal but like the doctor had said, his body was trying to realign itself into its omega self. Nicholas barely noticed when they arrived back on campus until Maki nudged him carefully and he looked up to see everyone making their way off of the bus. Obviously Kei hadn’t noticed anything amiss because he sat and chatted to Harua most of the way home and didn’t think twice about the possibly underlying issue.
Nicholas is the last to step off the bus and when the crowd disperses a little, he can see Euijoo standing with his own bag over his shoulder as if he was waiting for Nicholas. The small smile proves it to be true and the captain starts walking over to him. In a panic, Nicholas grabs the back of Maki’s shirt and pulls him back until they are standing in each others proximity.
“What are y-” Maki starts asking before he notices Euijoo then immediately zones in on his scent hiding task.
“Nicho, you played so well today! I was hoping I would catch up to you but you disappeared to the back of the bus. Did you want to grab some dinner with me? I was thinking we could watch the game back on video and see what worked and didn’t.” Euijoo asks with a dazzling smile.
Nicholas feels a pang of despair in his chest as he has to break the happy puppy in front of him. “I can’t tonight. My shoulder’s not feeling the best so I thought I would just go back to my room.”
Lies, his shoulder was fine and had been for a while now. It was the only thing he could think of that wouldn’t sound like he was completely rejecting Euijoo.
“Oh, okay.” Euijoo says as his eyes lose their sparkle. “I hope you’re alright. Don’t forget hot and cold rotations on it. If it’s not better by tomorrow you can go back to light workouts.”
“It should be fine.” Nicholas replies too quickly. He was not sitting out on practice again. “Think it just needs a night of rest.”
Euijoo nods and doesn’t comment on the insanely little distance there was between Maki and him. “Good night then. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Night Juju.” Nicholas says sadly.
“Night captain!” Maki hollers with a wave as Euijoo walks away.
“I’m a shit person.” Nicholas says when Euijoo is out of earshot.
Maki smacks his arm lightly. “You are not. Should I walk with you back to your dorm?”
Nicholas sighs. “That’s probably the safest option.”
The whole walk there, Nicholas has his shoulders slumped forward like a depressed cartoon character. Maki again picks up on Nicholas’s lack of conversation and keeps the walk silent. At Nicholas’s front door, Maki stays in the door frame while the omega walks in.
“Here.” Nicholas says, taking off the jacket and handing it to Maki.
“Keep it for now. For classes tomorrow. And…” Maki starts searching his gym bag before he pulls out a sweaty white tank top that he had worn through their last game. “Wear this to practice tomorrow.”
Nicholas scrunches his nose as he takes the damp shirt. “Most people don’t give their friends dirty old clothing.”
Maki rolls his eyes. “No they don’t, but it should hide your scent tomorrow at practice. Just wear it under whatever. I don’t know how well it will work but it’s all I can think of right now.”
The omega’s face lightens. “Thank you, Maki. Seriously, I would have been dead today without you.”
“So dramatic.” Maki rolls his eyes but Nicholas can tell he appreciates the comment. “I should go. Harua’s probably already ordered dinner. If you need anything else call me or Rua. We’re here for you, dude.”
“Thanks.” Nicholas says with a dry throat. He was not going to cry in front of Maki right now.
They say their goodbyes and Nicholas strips off all of his clothes. They were starting to feel suffocating and overwhelming. Once nude he notices his breath coming out in shorter puffs. A panic attack, great. Just what the doctor ordered on a traumatising day.
He does everything in such a rush next that he can hardly tell what he’s actually doing. He grabs two of his towels and places them doubled in half on top of each other on his bed. He violently swings the door of his mini fridge open and grabs the nearest cold pack he can find. It’s not for his shoulder like Euijoo believed, it was for the stinging pain that the slick pad had caused the rash and sweat pimples from.
He laid down on his bed without any clothes and without even a slick pad and rested the cold between his legs. It was intense at first and made him hiss at the sensation. Then the shock started to ware off and the relief took over. He stayed like that and cried himself to sleep, all while being able to smell faint scent of caramel tickling his nostrils.
***
A new sort of routine began. Maki gave him a singlet that smelt of pure alpha that Nicholas could wear around other people to try and trick their senses. It works pretty well. He also overdoes it with the scent blocking products in all the ways he can. His skin always itches by the end of the day from him tripling the number of scent blocking patches he wears on both his wrists and his neck.
When he gets back to his dorm every night he sprays an anti scent air freshener and rips the patches off his scent glands. It’s pure relief and ecstasy as his whole body can finally breathe. The itching stops but the primal urge to scent things starts to overtake his entire being.
He tries it with his own clothing first but it doesn’t quite hit the spot. At night he scents his pillow like a lonely loser and tries to imagine what it would be like to actually scent another living body. He had one body in particular that always flashed in the back of his eyes when they were closed. Nicholas could only imagine what the real thing would be like if Euijoo were to scent him back like he had done for the captain accidentally weeks ago.
“I can scent you.” Harua says casually one day they’re studying at his and Maki’s place.
“You what?” Nicholas says in surprise.
“I can scent you.” Harua repeats slower. “Maybe it’ll help. Or if it’s weird for another omega to do it I’m sure Maki would instead.”
Nicholas sits there lost for words and embarrassed.
“Hey, Maki!” Harua calls out for his boyfriend in the other room. “You’d scent Nicho right?”
Maki pops his head out before the rest of his body follows. “Of course I would. Do you want me to scent you Nicho?”
Nicholas splutters. “No!” It comes out in a squeak so he clears his throat. “There’s no way I’m scenting or being scented by my best friends.”
“But we’ve sort of done it before.” Harua says calmly.
“Yeah, a brush of a wrist is basic pack scenting,” Nicholas says and then looks down at his open text book. “The kind of scenting I need is… intimate.”
“Why don’t you just ask Euijoo?” Maki says as if it’s completely that straight forward.
“Yeah,” Nicholas starts sarcastically. “And then I’ll just ask him to eat me out at practice right in front of the whole team.”
Harua’s eyebrow raises. “Didn’t know you were such the exhibitionist.”
Maki tries to hold in a laugh but it rattles out eventually.
“If he scents me, he’ll know I’m an omega. Simple as that.” Nicholas reaches over for his glass of water. Suddenly the room started feeling stuffy.
“Maybe you should tell him?” Harua says looking a bit reluctant at doing so.
“He’s right.” Maki says as he takes a seat next to Harua at their dining table. “It’s getting to the point where my tank tops aren’t going to be able to hide it for very much longer. I can smell a hint of it now even.”
Nicholas frowns and digs through his bag next to him, pulls out his scent blocking cologne and sprays it over every surface of himself that he can reach. Harua coughs dramatically even though there’s literally no scent to the product.
“I can handle it.” Nicholas says and grits his teeth stubbornly.
Harua perks up with a serious look. “And what about when you go into heat? There’ll be no amount of scent blockers that can hide that.”
Nicholas inhales because it had been a constant on his mind through this whole ordeal. The worst part was not knowing when it was going to happen. He was still producing an unhealthy amount of slick and it was starting to get it’s scent back which only pointed to the fact that his first heat in years was probably on it’s way.
“I’ll pretend it’s my rut like always.”
“You did that only two months ago. Ruts go three months between each other. How are you going to explain that?” Maki asks also very seriously.
“A medical anomaly.” Nicholas knows that is a stretch but if he tells his brain that enough than it might just manifest into real life.
Harua and Maki share a look.
“Don’t do that.” Nicholas says, pointing his finger between the two. “You know I hate that telepathic shit.”
“We’re not telepathic…” Harua mumbles out.
“No,” Nicholas adds with a huff. “But you already have everything mapped out in your brains and I know you’re just going to say things I don’t want to hear so just, shut it.”
“Nicho, we’re trying to help you.” Maki says for the millionth time probably.
The omega’s shoulders droop. “I know. But I’m not ready… especially not for Euijoo to know. I don’t want to lose him.”
The two give encouraging reassurances but Nicholas mostly tunes them out. It’s something they’ve repeated dozens of times but Nicholas just can’t get his mind to believe it. Euijoo would hate him and he’d be a disgrace being kicked off of the alpha team. It was just all too much.
On his walk home his mind does nothing but spin and spin. The patches at his neck feel extra irritated tonight and he tries to scratch the skin over the top of the patch without accidentally pulling it off and exposing his scent fully.
Waiting outside of his door is a small box and an envelope with the word Nichol scrawled neatly on top. He knows exactly who it is from without even opening the card. Nobody got the privilege to call him Nichol except for Euijoo.
He takes the small card out of the envelope and opens it with shaking hands. It reads;
Nichol,
I saw this at the thrift store and I thought of you automatically.
I hope it makes you smile the way you always do the same for me.
-Euijoo
Nicholas rereads the card about thirty times and each time it seems more implausible than the last. He opens the box and nestled between pink tissue paper is a mug with delicate hand painted strawberries on it. Nicholas holds hit breath. He had told Euijoo that strawberries were his favourite fruit growing up and that he even insisted that his seventh birthday party be strawberry themed.
But he had told him that in passing almost two years ago. How had he remembered such a small detail over all this time? There were a million other facts his brain could have preserved but instead he held onto a precious thought of Nicholas. He gripped the mug close to his chest and it warmed like the inside of him.
The mug gets used for absolutely every occasion that Nicholas has the opportunity to use it. He and Maki are studying in his dorm room one night when Nicholas pours his can of Coke into the mug and takes a sip, concentrated on the sentence he was reading.
Maki softly laughs.
“What?” Nicholas asks already on the defence.
“You’re drinking Coke from a strawberry cup like a five year old. Man you are so whipped.”
Nicholas blushes before adding the only thing he can think of. “It’s a mug.”
A few days later at practice one morning, Nicholas finds it extra hard to get out of bed and get motivated for some reason. He always was elated at the idea of going to practice (except maybe when he’d had a few too many drinks the night before) but today he just could not get into it.
Maki smiles at him when he enters the locker room but it is quickly downgraded to a frown. “Dude. You look awful. Are you feeling okay?”
Nicholas slowly opens his locker and stares into it distracted for no reason before he remembered Maki had been speaking to him. “Just tired I think.”
“That’ll teach you for staying up all night reviewing our last games.” Maki says elbowing him.
The practice feels like it goes on forever and he ends up tumbling and tripping over his own feet more times than he’s care to admit. When they pass the ball around it goes flying straight past him where he would usually steal it easily. It was like his brain and body weren’t communicating all that much. Everyone tossed him strange looks which only made him feel even worse about his random inability to train like he has every morning for literal years.
He slouches as he makes his way back to the locker room, being one of the very last at the back of the group. Maki makes sure to walk with him at his slower pace.
“Are you sure you’re okay? You’re not yourself at all today.” Maki says quietly.
Nicholas gives him a glance without much energy behind it. “Everyone’s allowed an off day every so often you know.”
“I know.” Maki looks around conspiratorially. “But are you sure it’s not about being a… you know what? Harua told me the other day that your scent had changed a bit. Now that I’m closer to you I can sense it too.”
“Maki, please just mind your own business.” Nicholas says a little more powerfully and increases his stride so that he can get away from Maki.
He waits for the last shower as usual and ends up seated on the bench, looking off into nothing as his mind blurs to nothing but static.
“You all good, Wang?” Han Jisung (one of his teammates) says on his way out with his bag hung over his shoulder.
“Just tired.” He assures and the alpha leaves without much more of a conversation.
Nicholas does a quick lap around the rows of lockers and when he notices no one else is loitering around he finally gets to go for a shower. The thought of warm water sounded like just what he needed today. He was starting to feel the cold that had set in fully now.
He goes about his shower routine, applying all of his scent blocking products when he is disrupted with most agonising sharp pain that shoots through him just below his belly button. He drops the tube of conditioner, leans forward clutching his stomach and bites his lip to block out the wail of pain he feels like shouting. He breathes slowly like he had heard worked for panic attacks and the pain eventually evens out.
The water stays warm as he finishes washing his hair but then again he is hit with the stabbing pain. He leans forward, hands going to the tiled walls and starts dry heaving. Luckily the need to vomit subsides quickly but the pain still feels like he’s being gutted like a fish. Nicholas holds in another scream that builds and he bashes his fist against the tiled wall, hoping it helps him forget about the searing pain.
A few minutes pass and so does the pain. He stands straight again bewildered, and washes his body with the scent blocking body wash. Just as he’s about to turn the water off though, the sharpest pain of all rips through his gut and it feels like something is trying to rip its way out through his stomach.
He can’t help it this time, the wail comes out of him and he drops to the floor in excruciating pain. The sound of sobbing bounces off the tiles as he admits defeat, laying on his side in the foetal position.
“Hello?”
Shit. Someone else was here.
“Are you okay?” The voice asks again. Nicholas recognises it this time. Of course it’s Euijoo.
Footsteps grow louder as the alpha walks up to the stall with the only running water still on.
“Nicholas. Is that you?”
Nicholas freezes and his eyes shut tightly with pain. “All good.” He tries to say in his regular voice but it came out way too high pitched and wobbly from the crying.
“Did you slip and fall? Are you hurt?” He can sense the worried pheromones bleeding out of Euijoo. He very rarely picked up emotion pheromones.
“No.” Is all can answer with, still curled into himself in pain.
“Do you need help? I can come in and-”
“NO!” Nicholas yells. “I’m okay.”
Euijoo pauses before he says, “I don’t believe you.”
Nicholas stays silent as more tears fall like the water from his shower which was starting to get colder the longer he laid there.
“You sound like you’re on the floor. I’m coming in.”
Euijoo pulls the curtain open slightly and steps into the stall, closing the curtain again for Nicholas’s embarrassed privacy.
“You have to go.” Nicholas grits his teeth, now jittering in pain or in the cold of the water, he couldn’t tell.
“Nichol.” Euijoo leans over Nicholas to turn the shower taps off. It leaves the end of his sleeve wet but the alpha doesn’t seem to notice or care.
From the angle Nicholas was curved in, he could hide his down stairs situation but knowing Euijoo he will probably want to help get Nicholas up and dried and dressed because he was just that caring of a man.
“Can you stand?” Euijoo asks as he approaches Nicholas like he’s a wild animal.
“I’m… happy down here for now.” Nicholas says stupidly but the pain was still ripping through him like a mother fucker.
“I’ll help you up. Here, put your arm over my shoulder.” The alpha bends down to pull Nicholas up but he holds firm in his donut like position. “You’ll get the flu if you stay in the cold for too long.”
Nicholas finally makes eye contact with Euijoo. “You have to go.” He repeats from earlier.
“Why?” Euijoo asks sincerely.
“I’m so fucked. It’s all over!” He yells more at himself than anything. “It’s over, it’s over, I’m done for.”
Euijoo places a hand back on Nicholas’s shoulder. “What do you mean? You didn’t hit your head did you?” Nicholas shakes his head silently. “Then what’s all over? I want to help you.”
Nicholas sobs into the floor for a few more moments before he says, “I’m so sorry Juju.” and takes the alpha’s aid in lifting himself from the floor. The pain was still there but had subsided enough that he could force himself to stand.
Euijoo looks into Nicholas’s eyes in confusion and when Nicholas stands, fully nude with nothing to hide behind, the alpha’s eyes travel down his body slowly as a look of shock slides right into where the confusion was. Nicholas detaches himself from his friend and quickly makes a grab for his towel, wrapping it quickly over his bottom half.
“You’re…” Euijoo says without being able to finish his thought.
“Can you get out so I can change please?” Nicholas asks quite calmly for all the anxiety he had dreaded about this moment.
Euijoo quickly steps out of the stall but Nicholas doesn’t hear him run or walk away so he figured that was an okay sign… unless he was composing the ass whopping speech in his head that Nicholas was about to receive.
The omega eventually steps out of the stall, head down and waiting to be ripped a new one.
“Why didn’t you tell me when you first joined the team?” Euijoo says surprisingly.
Nicholas clears his throat. “Because I wanted to stay on the alpha team. I didn’t know you well enough so I didn’t tell anyone.”
Euijoo’s eyebrows rise. “You never told anyone?”
“Technically no. Maki walked in on me naked and Harua “just knew”. So I… guess not?” Nicholas folds his body partially in another wave of pain.
“You thought I would tell on you?”
Nicholas nods, looking down to his bare feet.
“Am I not important enough to bare your soul to?”
That catches Nicholas off guard and is certainly not sure where that come from. “You know how the gossip travels around campus.”
“You really don’t think I would have kept your secret?” Euijoo huffs in frustration. “Nicholas, I would help you hide a damn dead body if you asked.”
“I need to go.” Nicholas announces as he haphazardly starts to collect his things.
Euijoo gapes at him. “After all that and you don’t even have anything to say to me.”
“Look,” Nicholas says with wild eyes. “I’m an omega, yes. You can tell coach if you have to but I’m pretty sure I’m in pre-heat and I need to go like right now.”
Nicholas doesn’t wait for a response. He even runs his whole way back to his dorm room. He’s out of breath from sprinting and he’s happy to find his mug still has some water from the night before and he chugs it as quickly as he can. He looks at the mug when he’s done and his cheeks start to heat in anxiety. He was spiralling and there was a tried and true cure to his situation.
The phone rings three times before a whispered, “Hello.” says on the other end.
“Shit. Are you in class?”
“Not anymore.” Harua says in a much louder tone.
“I need help Rua… like so much fucking help. I think I’m having heart palpitations. I feel kind of dizzy and hot. Why is it so hot in here?” Nicholas says frantically.
“Okay, slow down. It sounds like pre-heat to me.”
“Why thank you doctor but I kind of figured that one out all on my own.”
“Okay bitchy Nic, tone all those emotions way down. I’ll come and get you and take you to the heat hotel I used to go to. Pack some things you might want or need. Remember, your instincts will tell you to make a nest, grab anything you want in it. I’ll be there in ten.”