It had taken a while for Jongdae to continue after that, another fit of sobs wracking his body immediately as soon as the cursed words spilt from his mouth. Minseok didn’t mind, though—he barely knew what to say himself. Nothing filled the air but the sounds of soft hiccupping and quiet apologies. Apologies? What was there for Jongdae to apologize about? Sweet, cheeky Jongdae, who just wanted to live life as freely as possible, who longed for only the simplest respects in life, didn’t need to apologize for anything. No, everyone else needed to apologize—Minseok, for not doing enough, Jongdae’s family, for ignoring his wishes, society, for caging him within the suffocating restraints of conventions and tradition.

            But Jongdae? Jongdae had nothing to apologize for.

            Eventually, the sobs faded, gasps slowed, sniffles silenced. Soon enough, deep breaths and soft rustling replaced it all, and the only evidence left of the event was the wetness seeping through Minseok’s shirt and running silently down his own cheeks.

            It had been planned for months now, Jongdae explained. Far before Jongdae’s societal debut, before he and Minseok had even known each other. Progressive as the family behind Kim Industries was known for being, both in business and in personal affairs, certain customs were still expected to be upheld, certain roles to be filled. Somehow, it didn’t surprise Minseok all that much to hear that Jongdae’s big debut dinner party was less about letting the Omega take the reins and become a leader, but more to lessen the societal shock and backlash when his marriage was public announced. After all, some random Omega boy suddenly being announced as the second son to the largest entertainment company in the country and being married off would meet with quite the field day for press. Not to mention, letting Jongdae hold his own gala would not only appease the young boy and give him a false sense of control and stability, but would also give the family a chance to examine the guest list to see if any last-minute changes were needed, to see if there was another Alpha more appropriate to be Jongdae’s suitor.

            Suitor. Minseok hated that word, all the more so now. To some, it may even seem somewhat romantic, a reflection of the days of genteel balls and chivalric tendencies. But in their world, in business, such a word was far from its sweet and idealistic connotations. A suitor, one to buy, to take over, to conquer a company, was no better to Jongdae than any other sleazy tycoon trying to take advantage of a terrible situation.

            Perhaps he was being harsh to Jongdae’s… betrothed one, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. It wasn’t as though that Alpha would complain, having a successful, well-off Omega as his husband for life and the carrier of his children. After all, it wasn’t like Jongdae’s parents would arrange him with an Alpha woman—the children of a male Omega were far more precious. So precious, that in many areas less known and less flourishing, any and all male Omegas would be sold or married off almost immediately after hitting puberty, as early as 12 years old. Really, it was a miracle Jongdae had made it as far as he had, now it appeared that for the Kim family, 24 pushed too many boundaries and broke too many customs.

            “Say something, please,” Jongdae’s voice was muffled as he spoke into Minseok’s shirt, but he heard him just fine.

            “What do you want me to say?” he asked softly, letting his hand absently run through the boy’s hair.

            “I-I don’t know.” Jongdae pulled away to look at him directly in the eye, and Minseok’s heart broke at seeing the utterly devastated look on his boyfriend’s face. “That you’re sorry, that it’ll be okay, that you’ll do something.”

            “I can do something…” Minseok started, bring his hand down from Jongdae’s hair to instead his cheek. “I can rush over to your family’s home right now, stomp my way in and scream at them until I’m forcibly removed from the premises. I can start courting you right now and have it public and running through every major news outlet within hours. I can fight with every last bit of my heart and soul for you, but… is that what you want?”

            No, it wasn’t, Minseok knew that before Jongdae could even begin to reluctantly spit it out. It wasn’t, because even if he did all of that and, somehow, was successful, it still wouldn’t be true to who Jongdae was. It wouldn’t fulfil the role he wanted to live in as a person, not just as a pretty blow-up doll to be passed around silently. Minseok could do everything in his power to break off the arrangement, but at the end of the day, it would just be a matter of Jongdae’s destiny and life being thrown around between the hands of everyone he knew—except for himself.

            Even if everyone in the world stood up for you, it would mean nothing if you couldn’t stand up for yourself.

            “You said…” Jongdae started, leaning into Minseok’s comforting hand and fidgeting with his own hands in his lap. “You said that you could start courting me right now. Does that mean you… you—”

            “Yes, I do want to bond with you,” he finished knowingly.

            Jongdae bristled at that, but Minseok knew that was what the boy wanted to ask—what else would it be? Something like courtship only led to one thing, and that was bonding, eventually matehood. But he could understand Jongdae’s hesitation. After all, it was soon in their relationship for something like that, perhaps not by others’ standards, but at least by their own. But if there was one thing he had learned in the past two months, it was that there were no hard-fast rules and restrictions he could keep about himself when Jongdae was involved.

            “But I won’t try anything unless you want me to,” he added hastily, and he couldn’t help his confusion when he saw Jongdae chuckle lightly to himself. “Dae?”

            “Well, what if…” Suddenly, Jongdae was fishing through his pockets for something, and Minseok wasn’t sure whether he was supposed to be amused or concerned. He got his answer as something was held out to him. “What if… you weren’t the one trying something?”

            A simple, golden band—a bangle. It looked just the right size to fit along his wrist, if not slightly too big. Jongdae must have guessed when he was deciding the size, though it seemed like a good enough estimate. The bangle itself was completely solid and plain, with no excess designs on it save for the hook on one end. It was relatively thin, and seemed pretty inconspicuous, but the sight of it made Minseok’s heart jump regardless.

            “You’re courting me?” he finally managed to splutter out, and a shy smile slowly crept up onto Jongdae’s face.

            “Is that okay?” he asked quietly, watching as Minseok ran his fingers along the metal.

            “Put it on me,” Minseok demanded lightly instead of directly answering. Jongdae gulped at the demand, but nodded, unclasping the bangle so he could properly hook it around Minseok’s outstretched wrist. The light clang of metal rang through the air as the bangle was set in place, and the older man couldn’t help but grin at the sight of it. It looked so perfect like that, all because Jongdae was the one to get it.

            “I can’t do much else while I’m still on suppressants,” Jongdae started, and Minseok nodded in understanding. Usually, a mutual courtship could only properly begin when the one courting spread their hormones onto their partner or person of interest, but with Jongdae on suppressants, it would take a while before anything like that could happen. Even if he chose to stop taking them, he’d have to slowly wean himself off them to avoid side effects, and it would take a while before any full change could be seen. “Promise me you won’t conceal it when you’re out?”

            “I promise,” Minseok parroted, bringing his hand up once more to cup his boyfriend’s cheek. “Though I’m not responsible if it sometimes hides under my shirts. You know I love my thick, fluffy sweaters in the winter.”

            That had Jongdae cracking up, cackling to himself as he pulled Minseok in for a hug. The Alpha grinned back, leaning in fully to press a soft kiss to his snickering boyfriend’s lips. The metal on his wrist was a bit cold against his skin, but he didn’t mind it at all. As far as he was concerned, it was absolutely perfect, just like everything related to Jongdae was.

            They’d figure things out. They had each other, and for now, that was all that mattered.

----

            Except, Minseok wouldn’t even be given a chance to hide the bracelet, because Jongdae was always one step ahead.

            “Executive Kim, sir, is it true you’ve accepted someone’s courtship?”

            “Seungwan, could you not yell so early in the morn—wait, what did you just say?”

            Minseok found himself frozen as he read the title to the article shoved into his face. It was just from some small finance magazine, not much more than just a gossip hole for among ‘elites,’ but news like this spread like wildfire in their world. News like ‘From Consultancy to Consorting: Infamous Kim Minseok Wooed off his Feet?’ was bound to catch wind soon enough, and somehow, Minseok felt like he had an idea of who was responsible for this.

            His suspicions were immediately confirmed with a single text reply.

It was just a little hint, I swear!

            Goddamn it, Jongdae.

            Sighing, Minseok looked through the article once more, now at his desk. There didn’t seem to be any hint to who was courting him, nor since when, so at least Jongdae had managed to keep those discussions to a minimum. Still, with that not present in the article, it was only a matter of time before people began coming up with their own suspect list. There couldn’t be that many options: after all, to gain Kim Minseok’s hand, whoever was courting him must have been some immensely successful, intensely confident superstar Alpha, right?

            Oh, if only they knew.

            He did his best throughout the day to get along with his work without distractions, though it was hard considering how he had to not only dodge his co-workers and subordinates’ nosy questions and interrogations, but also had to manage all of the people calling him about it too. He had tried calling his parents back to calmly explain things to them during one of his breaks, but his father had spent so much time speaking over him and chewing his out, that eventually he simply hung up and resolved to talk them in person later. Soon enough, the only messages he decided upon opening were Lu Han’s, though he immediately closed them after seeing their contents. Myriads of ‘how could you not tell me??’ and ‘are you cheating on Jongdae???’ messages flooded his inbox, along with emoji bursts and more indignant, insignificant banter. He figured he would respond to those messages later too, but before he could completely exit his messaging app, he noticed another message from Lu Han—this time, with a link.

Looks like you won’t hit center gossip for a while, though.
Did you know about this?

            Minseok could already taste the dread as he opened the link, the feeling only worsening as he realized what it was. ‘Kim Industries Stock Increases as Kim Jongdae’s Engagement Announced!’ The title itself made him feel sick, and he barely managed to skim through the article before shutting out of it completely. He didn’t even bother looking for the name of Jongdae’s fiancé—he was probably going to find out soon enough anyway. Mentally, he a made a note to himself to restock on chocolate and alcohol in case Jongdae had repeat of last night for whatever reason. At the rate they were going, though, they were in for more than enough of those nights.

            Sighing, he sent a quick ‘I’ll explain later’ text to Lu Han before shutting down his phone completely and returning to his work. 

SORRY I KNOW ITS SHORT BUT I WANTED TO GIVE YOU GUYS A LITTLE OPTIMISM BEFORE THE NEW YEARS BUT I DIDNT HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO WRITE MORE
CONSIDER IT A LATE CHRISTMAS GIFT? IDK RIP 
#PRAY4XIUCHEN