It was dangerous for omega’s to walk around this late at night, but Sanghyuk really needed water and he was out of bottles.

 

“At least call someone on the phone, maybe Wonshik?” his roommate had encouraged.

 

The blonde boy shook his head and put his beanie on. “Honestly, Bin. It’s like 25 feet away. It won’t be that bad.”

 

“See, that’s what Gongchannie said the other night, and he got jumped.”

 

“And then Sunwoo hyung beat the out of those guys. And he’s only a Beta. I can take care of myself for 5 minutes.”

 

Hongbin sighed and went back to studying for his Philosophy of and Love test tomorrow. Of course. Such a predictable class for an omega to take.

 

Sanghyuk put on his leather jacket and grabbed his headphones, spraying himself before he grabbed his keys and locked the door.

 

The spray had been around for years, but it only started gaining success about 2 years ago, when the team of omega scientists (rarely ever heard of) discovered that they could abate the scent of an omega, no matter what scent they produced naturally. There were some scientists that tried to make the same type of products for betas, but they weren’t as popular, and rumor was that they were no longer in use.

 

Sanghyuk produced a citrus scent, it had formed around him once he was about 10 years old, relatively young for an omega like himself. It was crisp, fresh, and it once he dyed his hair blonde, people were drawn to him more; they said he now fully complimented his scent.

 

There were also products that were around that were said to change your scent to fit the one that complimented your mate. Because that was the main goal; to find a mate that complimented you, the mate that would make the scent feel completed. The products, however, were damaging. They often left people with a foul odor, reminiscent of hot, muggy, sweaty days, and mates never usually stuck around after that.

 

Sanghyuk plugged his headphones into his iPod and walked over to the bulletin board, putting his name by the section that said “Out”.

 

All omega’s lived together in the dorm building closest to the academic section of campus. This was done so they wouldn’t have to walk that far to get to their rooms at night, and no ID other than an omega, with the exception of some beta’s who were proven capable enough to be an RA, were allowed in. All of the floors had bulletin boards with the residents’ names on it. There were 4 sections: “In”, “Class”, “Out”, or “Home for the weekend”. When you left to do anything or came back, you were supposed to specify on the board so your RA knew where you were. Some of them were really strict about it, like Taekwoon, who was Sanghyuk and Hongbin’s RA. If he went to check on someone and they weren’t there, it was a text, a call, and then campus police would call your house and let them know you couldn’t get in touch with you.

 

In the alpha dorms, you couldn’t swipe in, you had to be signed in. Security guards were there to make sure that the people they were signing in were there of their own free will because...the university really didn’t like to talk about it. It was implied bad things happened, and apparently those kinds of things happened all over campuses around the world.

 

Beta dorms were higher up on the hill than the alpha dorms were, and no one knew the real reason behind it. Some said it was because the founder of the university was a beta, others said it was because his mate was one, and to show her how much he cared about her, he made the beta dorms bigger and better.

 

Some alphas were nice, but a lot of people weren’t willing to take the risk of finding out which ones were good.

 

Sanghyuk breathed in the air, the cold filling his lungs and he looked up. Snow had started to fall. Maybe there would be no school tomorrow, possibly a delayed opening? There had been a lot of those across local universities lately, but their school hadn’t been as lucky as the others.

 

He walked into the student center, happy to find no one there. It wouldn’t have been the worst if he had run into an alpha, but he just didn’t want to be bothered.

 

The filters that were put in place last year, going along with the campus’ plan to make the university greener, were stationed by the vending machine, and Sanghyuk tried to resist the urge to buy some snacks. He was going to be up late studying, but he had some carrots and celery back in his room. He could munch on those.

 

He caved.

 

After filling up his water bottle he ventured over to the machines and bought a cinnamon roll, some cookies, and a bag of chips. He’d just go to the gym for an extra 20 minutes on Tuesday.

 

He gathered his treats from the bottom of the machine and turned around, a scent filling his nose as he spun his head.

 

Sandalwood.

 

Oakmoss.

 

Alphas.

 

He tried to remain calm; alpha’s had the best sense of smell and they would definitely sense the fear on him. He didn’t really have anything to be scared of, anyway, he tried to tell himself.

 

He took a big sip of water and went to go refill the bottle one last time as he finally matched the faces to the smell.

 

The one who smelled like oakmoss was about his height, dark brown hair with soft features. He was complaining to the one who smelled of sandalwood about an omega who had rejected him earlier in the day.

 

“He gave me a fake number, me, Hakie!”

 

“I heard this story the first 20 times you told it, Ken,” said the other one. He had silver hair that clashed with his tan skin. The black and white flannel he wore was long enough to cover the thighs of his black skinny jeans.

 

“Well,” the one named Ken said. “He just doesn’t know what he’s missing.”

 

He suddenly sniffed the air.

 

“There’s an omega nearby!”

 

The tan one smacked him in the head.

 

“We’re by the omega dorms. Honestly.”

“No, I mean there’s one really cl-...hello there.”

 

Sanghyuk gasped as they finally took notice to him, coming out from his hiding spot by the vending machine.

 

“Er, hi there?” he said softly.

 

“Hey there, pretty thing,” Ken said. Hakyeon rolled his eyes.

 

“Getting over your earlier omega?” he joked.

 

“Can’t even remember his name.”

 

Sanghyuk looked down and walked towards them.

 

“So, I hope you feel better, I guess?” Sanghyuk said to Ken. “ getting rejected.”

 

Ken smirked and rested his arm on the blonde’s shoulder. “Yes, yes it does. My fragile little heart might never recover.” He glared at Hakyeon because he snorted and went back to speaking. “But with you, I might be inspired to try to recover. What’s your name?”

 

“Sanghyuk?”

 

“You’re not sure.”

 

“No I’m sure, I just don’t know why you’re asking?”

 

Hakyeon pulled out his phone and sighed. Sanghyuk felt like Hakyeon had witnessed Ken do this many times before.

“Well, because I want to know, silly.”

 

“Ah….well I gotta go now. Studying, you know.”

“We can walk you back!”

 

“Come on,” Hakyeon begged, not even looking up from his phone. “Leave him alone, let’s just go.”

 

Sanghyuk was hoping that Ken would listen to his friend when he suddenly heard someone running into the building.

 

“Sanghyuk??”

 

“Hongbin?”

 

Hongbin ran up to him and hugged him tight, his breathing rapid. He wasn’t wearing a jacket; Sanghyuk was gonna kill him later.

 

“When you didn’t come back I started getting worried, and then Taekwoon came to look for you and...I just panicked. I wanted to make sure you were alright.”

 

Sanghyuk blushed and rubbed the back of his neck. This was next level embarrassment. “I’m fine. We were just...talking.”

 

“Talking? To…” Hongbin turned his attention to the alphas next to him and his eyes widened.

 

Their eyes were dark.

 

He forgot to spray.

 

The air around them smelled like spearmint. This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good. He didn’t know how they would react to their scent, but Ken was looking mighty interested and Hakyeon looked like he was fighting the urge to look up.

 

“Well, it was nice meeting you guys,” Sanghyuk said as he waved goodbye, walking backwards with Hongbin in tow, who was looking like he was about to die of fear. “Like I said...studying...but see you around!”

 

The pair turned back around and ran as fast as they could.

 

“Yeah...really nice to meet you,” Ken said, voice low.

 

Hakyeon pulled him away as he protested.

 

“No no please, that smell!”

 

“Spearmint, yes. Leave them alone, Ken. They’re babies.”

 

The younger pouted and sighed in distress, starting to grumble about fake numbers and minty omegas.

 

Hakyeon wondered why he was still friends with him if he was always like this.

 

__________________________________________

 

Sanghyuk and Hongbin didn’t stop running until they reached their dorm room, and they breathed a sigh of relief when they finally flopped on their beds. Hongbin reached over to lock the door and dragged a palm over his face.

 

“I can’t believe you forgot to spray!” Sanghyuk shouted. “Honestly, your scent is easier to pick up than mine.”

 

“Shut up, pine-sol,” Hongbin retorted. “You said you would only be 5 minutes, and I catch you being gawked at by 2 alphas.”

 

“Well, just one. The other was attached to his phone.”

 

“It doesn’t matter!” Hongbin screamed back, frustrated. There was a knock from the other side of the door and the omegas jumped, fearing it was the alphas.

 

“W-who is it?” Hongbin asked.

 

“Your RA.”

 

They sighed with relief and opened the door. Taekwoon was in his sweatpants and a zip up sweatshirt, blinking sleepily.

 

“Oh good, you’re both back.”

 

“Yeah,” Sanghyuk said, walking past him and walking to the bulletin board where he put his name back to the “In” category. “Ran into some alphas, but my big strong roommate came and got me away from them.”

 

Hongbin groaned and plugged his headphones in.

 

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Taekwoon questioned. “I have incident reports in my room if you need to fill one out.”

 

“No no I’m fine. Nothing happened, they just tried to talk to me,” he explained and Taekwoon nodded in understanding.”

 

“Let me know if you need anything, okay?”

 

Sanghyuk assured him he would and told him to leave before Kyungsoo went out looking for him. Taekwoon joked that that would first require him to get out of bed, so it was highly unlikely that that would happen.

 

“They’re weird,” Hongbin commented when Taekwoon left.

 

“Who?”

 

“Taekwoon and Kyungsoo.”

 

Sanghyuk shrugged and walked over to his bed, flopping down and pulling his blanket up to his neck. “I think they’re sweet.”

 

“Weird.”

 

“Go to bed, Hongbin.”

 

_________________________________________________________________________

 

Ken talked about the scent of spearmint until he and Hakyeon got up to their shared dorm. Hakyeon was sure that if the security guard at the front desk could have arrested Jaehwan just for being annoying, he would have.

 

Hakyeon slammed the door to the dorm and walked to the kitchen, opening the door to fridge to try to whip up something for dinner.

 

“If you buy anything spearmint for this house I’m gonna knock you out, I swear,” he spat at his roommate.

 

“Well, that was the most powerful thing I smelled. I couldn’t tell what that kid’s smell was. He was smart and he sprayed.”

 

“Sanghyuk. And he smelled like...oranges.”

Ken turned around and smirked.