“Kim Minseok! Time to get up! You have to go to school. This is your senior year for gosh sake!” A voice shouts as the loud individual shakes Minseok’s body before pulling the poor teenager’s blanket off and depositing onto the ground.

“Yah!” Minseok groans as he sits up on his bed before glancing up at his younger brother Jongin who was already picking up his brother’s blanket and setting it back on his bed in a messy fashion.

Minseok could not help but scowl when he notices the way his younger brother is dressed. His blazer is not buttoned correctly; his tie is not even tied in a correct manner.

If Jongin was going for the stereotypical Korean drama juvenile delinquent look then Minseok could only say that his brother has nailed it. Yet, he somehow got his hair to look perfect. Sometimes Minseok hates how his brother could still look good without trying.

“What time is it?” He yawns as he gets out of bed, heading to the bathroom, which was conveniently located in his room. His parents and siblings were willing to give him the bedroom with a private bathroom ever since he presented as an omega, they knew he would need more privacy, which can be hard to get in a house filled with only alphas.

Minseok rubs his eyes as he grabs a toothbrush, turning on the faucet. He splashes some cold water onto his face before starting to brush his teeth, casting a glance over at his younger brother.

“It’s 7:30 am, dad wants us to be downstairs by 8:00 so he can drive us to school. So you should hurry.” Jongin mumbles as he runs a hand through his hair. Minseok could only grunt back in reply as he continues to brush his teeth.

He almost forgot that it was the first day of senior year, his last year of high school before he heads off to university. Jongin, on the other hand, is in his sophomore year but the boy likes to act like he is older than he actually is. He is awfully protective of Minseok, despite the age difference, much to the older boy’s annoyance. It is in part because Jongin cared for Minseok but also because Jongin is an alpha male. It was in his biology to be protective of his omega mate and to a lesser extent, his family members aka. Minseok.

Minseok is born as an omega, in a family of alphas. It was okay when he was younger but over time, he could not help but felt disadvantaged due to his status. He could not stay out too late without his with him and people always commented how he should be taking omega classes instead of playing soccer or learning martial arts. Legally, people could no longer discriminate against omegas but there were still general stereotypical norms.

Thus, he decided to take heat suppressants when he was fourteen years old. It allowed him to hide his status when he officially presented as an omega. Suppressants did not make him into an alpha that he wished he was, but dampened his scent and allowed him to live his life the way he wanted as a beta. In fact, only his friends Jongdae, Chanyeol, and Yixing know about his true status. He still had to deal with heat every now and then but he planned them during his school breaks. Minseok knew about his parents’ concerns with his decision, they love him despite his status, but they were afraid of the long-term use of suppressants and for Minseok’s future happiness. However, Minseok was going to worry about everything else at a later time.

He rinses his mouth out with mouthwash before heading out of the bathroom, nearly bumping into Jongin. He had already laid his clothes out the night before so he simply slips on his uniform, making sure to button his blazer and correctly fix his tie. Taking another look at his reflection, Minseok smiles before grabbing his backpack and slipping his shoes on.

“Finally,” Jongin grumbled as he grabs Minseok’s arm and tugged the older boy down the stairs. Minseok smiles as they passed their mother who handed them their lunch boxes. She frowns slightly as she tugs Jongin back, fixing the younger male’s tie and forcing him to button up his blazer.

Minseok could not help but snickers before pecking his mother’s cheek, whispering a soft goodbye and a promise to be straight home after soccer practice.

“Class, we have a new student.” Ms. Kim’s voice announces as Minseok glances up from his English assignment that was due at the end of the week. He is currently in his homeroom class, which starts first thing every morning. His eyes land on a new student at the front of the room who practically screams ‘Alpha’ with his body language and already has half the omegas in the room sighing dreamily, except Minseok because he was not the stereotypical omega- okay maybe he internally sighs a little but it was impossible to not sigh. 

The new alpha is actually taller than Minseok, with dark brown hair and a warm demeanor. He is not muscular like the men on the football team or lean like his best friend Jongdae, he was well muscled but Minseok could not be sure since he was wearing his loose fitting uniform. There was no denying it, though; the new alpha is quite good looking and he is going to be quite popular among the student body.

A weak part of him wishes he could smell the foreign alpha but that is a not a possibility. Many schools had implemented a scent masker in the ventilation system to help students of all classifications focus on their studies. They did not want more incidents of mating fever and alpha fights to break out in schools due to uncontrolled teenage hormones especially last year when school officials had to tackle an alpha named Jonghyun. An omega had gone into heat and sent the entire hallway into a frenzy, some alphas managed to control themselves but Jonghyun went full on alpha and it took ten officials, including staff, to calm the poor boy down.

Most people have distinctive scents that are usually related to their biology. The new alpha strikes Minseok as the type to smell like a forest, or something earthy but he could be wrong. For example, one time in the locker room, he caught a whiff of someone who smelled like vanilla icing but it turned out to be one of the more “masculine” alphas. He had even met omegas who smelled like rain, soil, grass, musk and etc. Scents can be pretty deceiving.  

His friend Jongdae’s scent reminds Minseok of warm hot chocolate on a winter’s day, Jongin’s scent reminds him of mint ice cream, and his parents’ scent even complimented each other: his mother smells like pumpkin and his father smells like cinnamon; their house always smells like the autumn and pumpkin pie.

His parents and friends say that he smells like honey, much to his dismay, but his scent masker spray is able to hide his scent and changes it to that of fresh cut grass. No one questioned it anyways since Minseok is a soccer player on the school’s varsity team. It would be weird for him to not smell like grass.

That is also one of the many reasons why Minseok did not want to tell anyone his true biology, his teammates would act differently to him and might even kick him off the team. They are nice guys but at the end of the day, there are still stereotypes about omegas when it comes to sports.

There have been some progress in rights for Omegas, which led to creation to Omega sports teams around the country, but overall people still believe that omegas should not play with alphas because they are too delicate and they needed to wear more protective equipment.

Which is not true at all.

“Minseok, I think the new guy is checking you out-“ Jongdae whispers in his ears as Minseok snaps out of his own thoughts. He did not realize he was staring at the new alpha until he notices the latter’s lips stretching into a smirk, and the alpha was returning his stare.

Minseok makes an inhuman sound of surprise before dropping his gaze back to his assignment.

“Hi everyone, I’m Han but some of my friends and family members call be Xiao Lu so feel free to call me that too. I’m from China so I don’t have many friends yet. Please take good care of me.”

Even his voice sounds amazing, how is that even possible?

Minseok rubs the back of his neck as he finishes another sentence of his assignment, pretending not to hear his homeroom teacher telling Han to go pick an empty seat in the classroom to sit.

Perhaps it was all in his head but he swears he feels his entire body reacting to the alpha’s presence as the latter walks past him to sit next to some of the football playing alphas: Byun Baekhyun, Ok Taecyeon, and Oh Sehun.

For Minseok, it was almost as if he could feel the alpha’s warmth on his skin even though the latter was roughly six inches away from him when he moved past him. Maybe he is just only over thinking it but he swears he saw the alpha wink at him when they had made eye contact earlier.

It is probably all in Minseok’s head.

“By the lord, has Kim Minseok found love? Bless my tiny soul.” Park Chanyeol shouts as he stands up on his seat, causing a few people to stare over at the group’s direction. “Oh, this is something we need to celebrate, peasant, break out the champagne.” He adds, pointing at Zhang Yixing, a Chinese student, who was too busy listening to his music to pay attention to Chanyeol’s usual antics.

“You idiot.” Jongdae snaps as he slaps Chanyeol’s leg with his textbook before picking up the taller male’s phone from the table. “Shut up or I will text Seohyun all the derp pictures of yourself that you keep on your phone.” This threat manages to get the tall beta to step down from the table and pull Jongdae into a headlock in order to retrieve his phone.

“Thank you Jongdae,” Minseok says exasperatedly as he resists the urge to throw his pizza at Chanyeol’s head. He would feel bad for the pizza. He cannot remember why he became friends with Park Chanyeol, to begin with. It was certainly not because of his discrete and silent nature.

Nope, it was certainly not because of that.

He had met Jongdae first when they were in pre-school and Jongdae pulled a prank on their poor teacher. He had put a fart cushion on Miss Lee’s chair and when she had sat down, it made a loud fart noise.

The poor woman was extremely embarrassed, and when she asked who had done it, Jongdae pointed at Minseok. It led to a chain reaction in which, Minseok started crying and Jongdae started crying too since he felt bad for making Minseok cry and somehow, by the time they had finished sniffling, the two of them became best friends.

While Minseok grew up to become a soccer player with a love for the sciences, Jongdae went the opposite direction. The latter became incredibly interested in music and is involved mostly with music-based organizations on campus. Some people still find it weird that the gentle-natured Minseok would be best friends with troll king Jongdae but they work well together.

As for Chanyeol, and Yixing, he had met them in late middle school when they were all paired in a chemistry project. Chanyeol is brilliant science beta but is a klutz when it comes to many, many things. He was forced to take a chemical shower several times already this year for accidently spilling chemicals on himself and driving Mr. Jung insane.

Yixing, on the other hand, is a quiet beta but is quite talented when it comes to music which is why Jongdae and he get along so well. He is on the dance team, school choir, and plays a couple instruments.

Despite their differences, they were all really good friends and they were the only ones outside of his family who know his true status as an omega. At first, they were confused why Minseok feels the need to hide it but after a few deep and emotional conversations, they had decided that Minseok should do whatever that made feel the most comfortable.

“Minseok, this is huge, though, I was starting to think you were aual or soccer-ual,” Chanyeol says as he wrestles his phone back from Jongdae, causing Minseok to make another inhumanly sound from the back of his throat, reaching over to flick the taller male on the forehead.

“Chanyeol isn’t wrong, Minseok. You haven’t shown interest in anyone since you presented.” Yixing adds as he glances up from his phone, tapping the pause button on his phone before slipping it back into his pocket.

“He is just good looking.” Minseok laughed softly as he takes another bite of his pizza as he shifts his gaze around the cafeteria.

“Ten bucks they will be dating before school ends.” Chanyeol pipes in as he raises a brow at the other two males but Minseok, challenging them to join his little competition.

“Chanyeol!”

“I can’t believe you would do that to Minseok…” Jongdae says, wrinkling his nose slightly as he shakes his head, trying to hide his amusement.

“Thank you Jongdae.”

“Twenty bucks they will end up dating by Christmas.”

“Yah! Kim Jongdae.” Minseok exclaims, scandalized by his friends’ behaviors as he gets up, walking to put his empty plate in the dish collector.

He needs to get better friends, he needs less weird friends, and he needs friends who will not bet on his non-existent love life.

“Hey, you are Minseok right?” A voice says as Minseok almost drops his plate, luckily he manages to catches it before it hits the ground. His eyes refusing to look up at the stranger since he already knows whom he would most likely see.

“Um- uh, yes, my name.” He splutters as he quickly sets the plate in the dish collector before replying, not trusting himself to not drop the plate again. Minseok feels his cheeks warm as he hears the other male laugh. It is a nice laugh, a type of laugh that makes you feel like you could wrap your entire soul in it and just bury yourself in it.

“I’m Han by the way.”

“I know who you are.” He says as he finally glances up from the ground, his smile sheepish with embarrassment. However, he gulps when he notices the smile on the alpha’s face.

How is it possible that he is better looking up close? It should be illegal.

“I heard you are a great soccer player, I was wondering if you wanted to meet up later? I could really use some friends.” Han says with a warm smile that makes Minseok want to melt on the ground but he will not because he is a strong independent Omega.

Okay, he melts a little.

It does not help that he can see his friends watching them from the side; Jongdae and Chanyeol are pretty much grinning ear to ear and making crazy nodding gestures with their head. In fact, they look like crazy bobble head dolls. Jongdae even goes as far to mouth ‘say yes’ at Minseok with strange hand gestures while Chanyeol was silently chanting ‘kiss, kiss, kiss’ behind him. Yixing, his only true friend, throws him a pity glance before glancing back down at his phone.

Han notices Minseok’s gaze and follows it until he sees Chanyeol and Jongdae. The two idiots freeze under the alpha’s gaze before pretending to be reading Jongdae’s textbook. It would have been convincing if the textbook was not upside down.

“I’m guessing your friends want you to say yes.”

Minseok really needs new friends. 

Author's Note: Sorry for the long wait! I was still thinking about how to write my story. I'm so sorry for grammar mistakes but I hope it was not too much of a big issue. I know there was not a lot of interaction for our two main characters but I wanted to set up the background for the story. I will try to update soon and I hope this was good- if not, feel free to send me a message to just give me your thoughts on the story so far. I accept constructive feedback. If you hated the story then I'm sorry and feel free to unsubscribe- no need to hate. Good day.~