“Wow.”

Jaehwan stared at nothing in particular, just blanking out like the rest of the squad while holding unto his ice cream cone. “Wow,” he repeated again but no one seemed to mind his nonsense right now.

It was initiation day. But again, it was one of the tiest and most unexpectedly surprising day for every student in the university territory. Jaehwan, Daniel, Seonho and Kuanlin were sitting in one line together on the bench just a few steps from the big oak tree in the campus lawn. It’s summer so the outdoor seemed to be the better place to mope around and sulk, this applies to everyone. 

“Still can’t believe Minki hyung is an alpha,” Seonho mumbled, leaning his head on Jaehwan’s shoulder. “Still can’t believe every single thing happening right now is actually happening.”

Kuanlin rubbed his temple. “As long as I could remember, Minki hyung dislikes alpha to a very extreme point. How is he going to handle this sudden info…of being an alpha.”

Daniel heaved a very deep sigh and looked up at the blue sky and lumpy clouds in a tired daze. None of the predictions they made were right and the test results were nonsensical. Well, at least from the test he got one good news: peter and rooney are gonna be under his care after the new semester starts. But on another note, the initiation had made at least 300 people cry, one of them including Choi Minki who was currently in the toilet, crying his hearts out with Seongwu, Daehwi and Minhyun trying to cheer him up at this moment.

Talking about Seongwu…

Daniel groaned at his own thoughts. How can Seongwu avoid him just like that? How in the world did Ong Seongwu, the only living creature in this universe to sincerely care and put up with Daniel’s stupid and mostly random antics, to suddenly turn into a complete new person and acted as if a certain Kang Daniel never existed? That is unfair, and really heartbreaking.

After the group revelation, Minhyun was the only person who’s in his right mind and took his responsibility as the eldest to herd the rest of the team out of the cafeteria towards the outside world. The air surrounding them was too suffocating.

As soon as they reached the main entrance, Minki started breaking down and voila! here they are, mentally exhausted and dying to find a place to rest and let the issue die down. As much as he wanted to confront Seongwu’s sudden change in demeanor, Daniel knew better not to do it today.  

Daniel took another deep breath before finally directing his gaze elsewhere. His eyes landed on the three approaching figures, obviously looking dead tired and all that jazz.

“Dongho called just now. He said he has soju, beer and chicken at home. Who wants in?” Minhyun said with a smile, steps slowing as he neared the bench. It still becomes a mystery on how he could still smile after all the emotion roller coaster.

“Me!” It was Jaehwan who raised his hand enthusiastically at the mention of alcohol. The rest agreed to end the tiring day with food and beverages. 

Daniel knew he was not imagining things so he started doing headcount and true to his thoughts, someone was indeed missing. They were supposed to be 8 altogether, there’s only seven. Seongwu was not with them.

“Minhyun hyung, where’s Seongwu hyung?” Daniel asked, the urgency in his voice startling everyone. 

Minhyun looked confused. “Wasn’t he with you guys? Only Daehwi and I went to the toilet with Minki…”

“.” 

Daniel fished out his phone and dialed the numbers he had memorized by heart. The call rings once, twice, thrice even until the end, Seongwu did not pick up. He tried again to no avail.

“Danny boy, calm down. I am sure he’s still around campus somewhere.” Minki said in his hoarse voice, eyes still red but able to shoot Daniel a calming glance.

But the thing was Daniel got a very bad feeling that something wrong might happen to Seongwu. His guts are always right when it’s about Seongwu and at that exact moment , he felt like puking out his breakfast and breaking out into cold sweat.

“I’m gonna look for him.” It was not a suggestion, more like a statement that Daniel is going to find his hyung, like it or not, as he dashed across the lawn in a terrifying speed.

Daniel ran towards the only place that came through his head first, the library. Seongwu hates going to the library and hates studying with his entire being, not to mention all the books stacked up in the shelves made him feel extremely uncomfortable but he would always go there on a bad day and sleep his tiredness away in one of the corners that provides good air conditioning before going back to the apartment.

Once Daniel made it there, he was welcomed with a thousand scents hitting him right on the face. His sudden ability to detect people’s natural smell scared him but that’s not his priority right now, Seongwu is. He slowly entered the huge library, unfamiliar scents infiltrating his nostrils painfully that he stopped in his steps for a while to shake all the smell away. It was surprisingly crowded today, a lot of people were clearly taking advantage of the spacious area to think about themselves after being presented. Some were doing research on their supposed role in the system.

It took Daniel almost half an hour to look up every nook and cranny of the library to find Seongwu at a secluded corner away from the rowdy bunch of students. When he found Seongwu, the older was half asleep, books about biology and human secondary anatomy scattered around him messily. The view broke Daniel’s heart. Seongwu wasn’t supposed to be an omega.

He took a deep breath of relief after panicking the entire time searching for his hyung and now, he finally got a sniff of what Seongwu’s scent smells like. The scent was of a very soft cotton, so soothing and calming that Daniel thought he was away from town and back to his grandparents place somewhere in the remote village in Busan.

“Hyung,” he called almost silently.

Seongwu immediately looked up from his position on the floor, eyes now wide open in alarm. Daniel took a step back hurriedly when he saw Seongwu flinch away out of fear, and he was the reason why.

“Puppy, can you just let me... be for a few more days?” Seongwu said, eyes darting everywhere as if he’s afraid to be seen anywhere near the younger.

Although pained, Daniel offered a tiny smile. “I will give you space, hyung. Don’t worry about privacy and stuff because you know I’d do anything. But I have one question…why? Why are you avoiding me?”

“I don’t have time to explain, Niel. You just need to stay away from me.”

“Am I such a nuisance to you?” Daniel held the urge to lash out or break into a sob at that moment. “Did I do something wrong?”

Seongwu stood up and collected his stuff. “You’ll never be a nuisance to me, pup. I- well let’s just say this is my way of protecting you. I want you to be safe.”

“Did the people from the initiation tell you to stay away from me?” 

Seongwu stared at Daniel for a while, eyes ever so warm and welcoming, and he smiled. “I always have a reason for my actions and you know I’d never do anything to hurt you. I’m sorry.”

Before he can ask any question about the cryptic reply, Seongwu had already made his way out of the library in a blink of an eye, leaving Daniel to his own devices. Seongwu’s scent slowly faded away as his figure disappeared out of the door. Daniel sighed.

Safe? Is someone trying to kill him? Torture him? Push him off a cliff? Highly doubted.

Seongwu was acting strange and Daniel couldn’t shake off the bad vibes his gut had been signaling all day. 

While thinking of scenarios and reasons why Seongwu’s been acting like a stranger, Daniel was too preoccupied to see and detect the unfamiliar scent quietly inching from behind with a baseball bat in the person’s hand. By the time Daniel realized that someone might have been a little too close for his liking, it was too late. The last thing Daniel remembered before fainting and hitting the ground was a painful hit to his leg and a dull ache on his head. Everything turned black.

_____________

“… you know the consequences, boy…”

“I stayed away from him and I kept my promise!”

“But in the end both of you still conversed, didn’t you? I have eyes everywhere and my little spies told me that you have spoken to Kang Daniel when you’re obviously forbidden to. You broke our agreement, pretty boy. Now he needs to take the punishment for your mistake.”

“W-what will you do to him?”

“Daniel? Don’t worry about him dear, its just a couple of tests, mostly physical endurance and chemical withstanding or some sort of those mad scientist thing that I did not sign up for so I don’t know, my boss is the smarter one. He’ll know what to do with such a rare alpha.”

Daniel slowly blinked his eyes open, the conversation being the first thing that greeted him upon consciousness. Now lying on his back and fully awake, he could make out the dim light bulb hanging above him as the only source of light in the room. A sharp sting behind his neck also made itself known as Daniel slowly sat up straight and leaned against the nearest wall for support. His eyes were bleary and still heavy from deep slumber but he willed himself to look around to see where the voices were coming from. 

He was in a mediocre room with no furniture, no window and no ventilation whatsoever. The plain white walls were facing him almost mockingly, as if saying that he’ll be locked inside for good with a door at the end of the room as the only way in and out. 

“Don’t hurt Daniel, he didn’t even know he was going to be an alpha. Please.”

This voice obviously belonged to Seongwu and by listening to its content, its not a pretty friendly conversation. 

Another voice laughed. “We can’t let him go just like that, boss needs a specimen like him.”

“I’ll do anything so please let him go.” At this point, Seongwu was practically begging and his voice sounded so desperate.
   

Daniel carefully stood up, putting all his weight on his good foot while limping his way towards the source of voice which was coming from the door.

“You can always replace the kid’s place, you know? Male omegas only cover 7% of the world population and people have a thing for very rare species like you so I think my boss would like to have your company. He’s in need of a plaything too.”

Something in Daniel just snapped as if someone had just lit up a fire in his lungs, a tight rope constricting his throat.

“I’ll go with you under one condition; leave Daniel alone.”

There’s a tired sigh coming from the outside. “Fine. If that’s what you want then we have ourselves a deal but he’ll have to stay here for a few more hours until you made it safely back to boss’ lab. Then I’ll release him.”

Seongwu didn’t answer anything else so Daniel tried turning the knob to the door but remain locked. He put more strength unto the handle but the door would not budge a single inch. He kicked the thick wood a few more times fruitlessly, sending jolts of pain back to his injured leg. 

“Oh look, your boyfriend’s awake!” 

“Get your ing away from Seongwu!” Daniel growled dangerously, hands desperately hitting the wall.

There’s a laugh coming from the other side of the wall. “Your boyfriend is pretty possessive of you, Seongwu dear. Come on, let’s get moving.”

“Hyung, don’t listen to him! Just run and get out of here!” Daniel was also desperate at this rate because he didn’t know how dangerous the situation before and he would never let Seongwu get involved in something that would hurt him in the first place if he had known about it.

Seongwu neared the door from the other side, whispering softly. “Sorry puppy but I need you to be safe.”
After that, Daniel couldn’t hear anything else other than the taps of shoes against the floor. They were leaving.

“Hyung!”

Daniel banged on the door a few more times without getting a proper feedback. Seongwoo’s smell was fading. The older is getting further away from him.

“!” Daniel cursed in frustration, hands clutching his head to force himself to think. “This can’t be happening…”

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