A/N: For Pooj -- happy belated birthday -- and a friend who knows who she is. Here is an umbrella for you. 

He had wanted to try for his alpha, especially when the latter went out of his way to make special arrangements for him.

It had started out fine; they took a private lift straight up to the enclosed private dining area from the underground car park. He had been distracted from the anxiety when his alpha abruptly instructed for menus to be brought from every restaurant in the Cho’s departmental store building because he couldn’t make a decision on lunch. Not wanting to inconvenience the troubled-looking waiter, Sungmin had quickly chosen curry rice out of the available Japanese menu, cutting the fuss short. The discomfort was fully chased away when his alpha had told the waiter to instruct the chef to put extra carrots in “my little bunny’s” curry and none in his alpha’s, causing him to blush hard in embarrassment as warmth blossomed from within.

But things changed when they left the dining area for the hairstyling section. Sungmin could feel the numerous pairs of eyes tracking their movements as his alpha navigated them through the rows of apparel to transfer at another lift. It made him sick; the urge to hide causing his head to bow to the lowest and shoulders hunched under his alpha’s arm. There was that instinctive urge to bolt again, but he didn’t. He held it in, held it in, held it in until—

“Oh!” The flare of a foreign alpha aura coming from the front caused him to stumble to a stop. “Look who we have here!” The loud voice exclaimed in excitement, garnering the attention of all the nearby shoppers. “Isn’t this the infamous black omega?”

“Seungri-ssi, the adjective was uncalled for.” His alpha squeezed his arm, pushing him forward. “Now, please excuse us.”

“I doubt the rest of us here think the same.” His alpha led him past the alpha named Seungri, only to pause at the next words. “He is known for sleeping around.” 

Despite the expressionless façade put up, Sungmin vividly sensed the spike in his alpha’s dominant aura, the twist in his stomach so familiar he felt the need to escape from his alpha’s side. The rising noise from the spectating crowd around him overwhelmed his ears, flooding him with those undesirable comments he desperately wanted to drown out.

“So it is him. Returning shamelessly to Cho Kyuhyun.”

“He was with Choi Siwon just some time ago, wasn’t he?”

“Is that really him? The one who jumped from alpha to alpha?”

“Did Cho take him back? There’s no guarantee the omega would not run away and sleep with other alphas again though.”

“He’s the unfaithful black omega?”

“Why does Cho Kyuhyun even keep him around still?”

“Do you think he’s as good as Jin’s omega in bed?”

“Security, send a squad up to the 5th floor now. I want Lee Seungri kicked out and permenantly banned from this building.”

“Dirty thing. Changing alphas so easily.”

“. They are no different from even with a fixed alpha.”

“He should be in a e house.”

“Hah. Going to that extent just because I said the truth? Are you embarrassed by that shameless thing beside you?”

“He has a small . I bet he has a even smaller hole, perfect for ing.”

“Sungmin is no shameless thing. He is my omega. And there is not a single reason for me to be embarrassed by him. Your brother Seunghyun-ssi should instead be the one embarrassed by you.”

“Anything is possible! He submitted to Choi Siwon and even tried to provide service in front of his ex-alpha!”

“I can’t believe Mr. Cho is standing up for that black omega.”

“I bet he enjoys people ing him open like a .”

“And for your information, you should thank your half-brother that you are still standing intact before me. If I hear anyone else speak such baseless allegations and make any verbal or even physical attacks on my omega again, I will not hesitate to rip out all your throats.”

“You—”

A snarl tore away from Sungmin as he swung his arm defensively upon Seungri’s approach, breaking away from his alpha’s side. The surprised alpha jumped instinctively away from the attack, falling backwards and sliding a metre back across the tiled floor. The screech of skin scraping against marble accompanied the alpha’s cry of pain, piercing through the ringing in Sungmin’s ears.  

The fuzzy scene before him cleared for a moment. Sungmin’s eyes involuntarily widened at his drawn claws, gaze shifting to the alpha on the floor, to the silenced and frozen crowd and finally to his silent alpha beside him.

“You ing injured me!” Seungri’s voice cut through the thick silence as the alpha held up his elbow to examine the bleeding abrasion.

Tears blurred Sungmin’s vision, his loud pants resounding in his ears. He shook his head from left to right slowly as he took in the situation, before suddenly speeding up hysterically as the trembling took over control of his body. It wasn’t the fear that was the scariest. It was the helplessness that he couldn’t fight it, couldn’t stop the petrifying feeling from crawling over every inch of his skin, couldn’t stop his inherent nature from stripping him of all willpower to defy. It overwhelmed him without leaving him an ounce of strength to protect himself and he dropped, knees buckling and knocking against the floor loudly. 

“I’m s-sorry.” The apology fell out of his dried lips. Giving in to his submissive nature, he bowed his head, pressing his hands to his cold face without a regard for his sharp claws. “I’m sorry—I’m so sorry—sorry—”

“Get up, Sungmin,” his alpha ordered from behind.  

“Sorry—I’m so sorry—I’m so sorry—”

“Now, how are you going to make up to me, Kyuhyun-ssi?” He barely made out Seungri climbing up from the floor with his lowered vision.  

“I’m sorry—”

Sungmin shuddered at the hand that landed on his shoulder, feeling the chill all the way into his bones. “You fell on your own. Why do I have to make up for your clumsiness?”

“It’s my fault—I’m sorry—I won’t do it again—I’m sorry—”

“Yes.” The mocking voice echoed, “It’s your fault, darling. So you need to be punished.”

“Punished,” Sungmin repeated in a whisper, but the word was blaringly loud in his ears.  The sudden peak in his alpha’s aura sent him digging his claws into his palms, his teeth clenching down on his lip to muffle the cry that tried to escape from the pain.  

“Sungmin!” His alpha grabbed his wrists. “Retract your claws. Right now!”

“I-I’m sorry, Master—” He pushed his head down further, needing to feel the edge of a metal collar pressing into his neck to keep him stable, to keep him there, but there was nothing.  “I’m so sorry—I d-disappointed you again—”

“Sungmin!” He sank his claws deeper as his alpha tried to pry open his hands. “Open up!”

“I need to be p-punished—” Tears streamed down his face as he tried to control his shameful sobs, but he couldn’t find a way to keep the fear and guilt in check. “I’m sorry—M-Master—I won’t do it again—I’m sorry—I was wrong—”

“Sungmin.” A strong grip on his chin yanked his head up, forcing him to meet his alpha’s burning gaze. “I’m ordering you. Open up your palms.”

“I need to be punished—”

“Open up!”

He jumped at the yell, whimpering as he snapped his head down again, “I’m so sorry…p-please…I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry—”

“Do you not see me as your alpha anymore?”

The interrupting question stunned his chanting into silence. Sungmin’s head shot up to look at his alpha.

“I asked you, Lee Sungmin,” The coldness from his alpha’s voice cut through his panic like a sharp arrow, stabbing right onto his shaken heart. “Do you not want to be my omega anymore?”

The following insane panic thinned the air, making it even harder to breathe as his heart and lungs felt as though they were seized and squeezed. “No! N-No—I—”

“Is it not an alpha’s duty and right to discipline an omega?” His alpha continued when he failed to voice a reply and only shook his head. “Why are you robbing me of that right of mine and deciding on your own how you should be punished?”

At those words, Sungmin retracted his claws, immediately scrambling to press his forehead and hands flat onto the floor. “I’m s-sorry, Master—I did wrong—I’m sorry—Please-please forgive me—”

“Get up, Sungmin.” This time, he tried to follow his alpha’s order, clinging onto the firm voice to anchor himself. With whatever little energy he could snatch back from the anxiety, Sungmin tried to force himself up, unknowingly smearing the blood on his hands all over the floor. “Come here,” His alpha’s reassuring tone gave him an additional push, helping him to lift his knees off the ground.

But his body wouldn’t cooperate. Sungmin let out a cry as his feet gave way, his knees and elbows knocking hard against the ground. Before the panic could hit him from being unable to follow his alpha’s order, he felt himself being hoisted and swung around, the movement so fast he only realised when his alpha jolted him into a better position over the shoulder.

“M-Master—” He forced his back muscles to work and lift his upper body, making a turning attempt to catch sight of his alpha’s face. However, the strong arm around his thighs squeezed tightly.

“Down,” his alpha commanded. “No moving. No looking.”   

Despite the thought that he didn’t deserve to be carried, he gave in to the order, allowing his body to drop as the last ounce of his strength dissipated.

But the tears didn’t leave for long. They came back stronger when his alpha’s whispered words drifted into his ears.

“Trust me. I will handle everything.”

He couldn’t voice that it wasn’t his alpha that he didn’t trust. The one he couldn’t trust anymore was himself—he should have never left the house.

~--~

He followed his alpha silently into the house, closing his fists around the bandages his alpha had wrapped when they got to the car. Sungmin stood in the walkway, contemplating on whether he should kneel and ask for forgiveness as his alpha disappeared into the kitchen. Before he could decide, his alpha returned with a glass of water, ordering him to drink.

He complied, sinking into the dilemma again when his alpha left to replace the glass in the kitchen, but his alpha was even faster to return this time. In that moment of panic, he made a move to lower himself, only to be caught by his alpha on the arm.

“Go change into something comfortable,” his alpha said, scanning him with an intense gaze.

“I—”

“I told you that it’s my right to decide how I should discipline you, no?” His alpha’s relentless voice forced his head low again. “And don’t get me wrong. You will be punished for your offences. But now, I want you to change your clothes.”

“Yes, Master,” he whispered, holding back the welling tears as he quickly made his way up the stairs to his bedroom.

Afraid that he would miss any signs of his alpha calling or coming for him, he left the door ajar, retrieving a simple set of t-shirt and shorts from the cupboard. Sungmin pushed the jeans off his hips, freeing his legs of the confining fabric and replacing it with the pair of comfortable shorts. One by one, he worked his way down the buttons on his shirt, freezing at the fourth as the brand on his chest was exposed to sight.

His shaking finger traced the emblem, nail digging into his flesh as the miserable affliction emerged from the memories.

“You see that emblem and surname? It’s the emblem signifying the Choi household. We use this to brand the prisoners and slaves of the Choi household.”

He had remembered Jong saying, the voice and words ever so clear in his ears. Of course he remembered; he remembered everything, including that incident at the Youth Council that caused what had happened in the departmental store just now. Even if he tried so hard to forget and suppress it all, the brand never failed to remind him every time he took off his shirt.

And every single time, the urge to scratch and cut the brand off his chest with his claws rushed in too. If he could get rid of the mark, he could at least pretend it all didn’t happen. He didn’t have to feel all the shame and wrong when thinking of his alpha just seeing his tainted body, much less to offer it to his alpha. But his alpha had set a rule that prevented him from doing so—it was no different from an order to never try to get rid of the mark. He wanted to obey his alpha, but he hated the rule so much that he was always debating whether to break it. Despite so, he never did it – he hated it not because of how ridiculous the order seemed as one coming from a supposedly possessive alpha, but because he understood why his alpha gave it.

His alpha put up with it, put up with everything because Kyuhyun didn’t want to see him hurt and in pain. He hated the thought that his alpha had to put with such things because of him, but it was precisely for the same reason he kept to the rule. Because his alpha cared and wanted him to take care of his own health and well-being and he—

Sungmin’s heart skipped a beat as his eyes landed on his bandaged hands that were shaking badly.

“Sungmin?”

Jumping at his alpha’s voice, he frantically tried to button up his shirt again, but his trembling fingers did him no favor in the panic. He only managed one button when the door was pushed open, his alpha’s aura and scent filling his senses as Kyuhyun neared.

“Sungmin?”

He swung around at the gentle call, clenching his fists tight around the ed shirt to hold it in place.

Kyuhyun furrowed his brows, silent for a few seconds before speaking again. “Change out of your shirt and come down to the living room.”

“Yes, Master,” he said, unable to meet his alpha’s eyes. Sungmin released a breath he didn’t know he was holding in when his alpha left the room without another word.

Locking the door, he swiftly changed into his t-shirt, worried to keep his alpha waiting for too long. Mind occupied only with the thought of getting to his alpha, he was stunned upon reaching the living room, the scene before him driving a shiver down his back.

Deep brown met his eyes for a moment before his alpha pointed at the cushion in the corner.

The cushion… from the ancestral room.

Sungmin trudged over, desperately grabbing onto the seams of his mind as he lowered his knees onto the cushion, facing the wall.

His breathing sped up as his senses were sharpened by the adrenaline pumping through his blood vessels. He didn’t miss a single footstep, a single breath of his alpha as the dominant aura neared him, crushing harder and harder on his lungs.

“Hands.”

Sungmin lifted them without looking, biting down on his lip as an image of his alpha caning his hands flashed past before his eyes. But even when his hands shook terribly under his alpha’s touch, he didn’t withdraw them. He submitted, allowing his alpha to touch and flip them freely as he awaited the punishment he rightfully deserved. What he didn’t deserve, was his alpha’s gentleness in unraveling the bandage around his right hand, followed by the sound of the first aid kit clicking open.

“The blood has seeped through the bandage,” his alpha informed, patting up the excess blood lightly with gauze before applying a fresh one to the wounds on his right hand. “It’s going to take some time for them to heal since your claws punctured through, so you need to be careful and not exert strength,” his alpha said, wrapping a new bandage in a figure of eight. “I think your left hand is fine,” his alpha muttered, tucking in the end of the bandage, then reaching out for his left hand to check again.