The first thing he does when his eyes flutter open is wait. He waits for the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach to pass, waits for the room to stop spinning. Once it does, about four minutes later, he draws in a deep breath and holds it while counting backwards from ten. In the meantime, one of his hands rub stray bits of sleep from the corner of either eye.  

He has beaten his alarm clock once again despite having not crawled into bed but a few hours ago, he feels rested though. Not well rested, but enough to make it through the day with the aid of a cup of coffee or three. He didn’t need nor want to sleep, anyway. 

Several days in a row every month it would happen, an aggressive bout of insomnia would seize him and rest became impossible. He was always too warm with a fever and too restless to sleep, when his eyes would flutter closed for too long he would have... strange dreams. Sometimes they were nightmares, and sometimes he would be dragged backwards in time kicking and screaming, forced to relive his childhood over and over again. 

If he were being honest with himself, which was never, those memories were probably the worst nightmares of all. And if he listened to Junsu (which he didn’t), the fever and the restlessness he feels each month, along with his strange dreams, is probably a pathetic attempt by his body to do what it is ‘supposed’ to. 

As an omega he is supposed to experience a heat period each month, lasting anywhere from three to seven days. Jaejoong knows this, but he also knows he had never experienced such a thing; no desperate yearning, no pheromones, no extra recognition from everyone or even anyone (except perhaps his overly concerned best friend).  At 19 years old, Kim Jaejoong is an omega who has never been in heat, and though he wishes he could claim it was simply the case because he is not, in fact, an omega he knows better. 

The lineage of the Kim family is pristine, one of about half a dozen still remaining. For as long back as their family tree can be traced, they have never been graced with anything save for alphas. Or well, he supposes it was pristine until he had gone and mucked it all up, not that, as far as he is aware, his family  knows this. 

They wouldn’t just disown him if they found out, they would probably have him killed. 

For growing up, from the time he was about three until middle school, his parents had promised him the entire universe and everything in it. He could be anything, everything he wanted as an alpha. A lawyer, a doctor, even and international popstar or model. 

The only damnable, unacceptable thing he could ever turn out to be in the eyes of his parents, probably his siblings and his ancestors was an omega. Omegas were weak and pathetic and were best off treated like the animals they were; herded up and put down or locked away before they became a problem. 

Of course it would be impossible for an omega to exist within the Kim family. 

Which meant naturally, the one and only test Jaejoong had ever failed in his life had been the one in which fate had played a cruel, cruel joke on him, the one test he could not study or control the outcome of. 

Naturally he had been wise enough not to tell his parents or anybody else for that matter. Alpha, he had claimed with a bright grin when they had asked over dinner one night. 

At 13 what he was sure would be his lifelong charade had begun, and more than half a decade later it was going on strong. It helped, having an obscene amount of money and parents who were too busy to acknowledge his existence unless he needed to be punished, though that had been somewhat often some years ago.  

Omegas typically didn’t experience their first heat cycles until they were 15 to 16 years old, so Jaejoong had started that battle early. 

He has been on suppressants and inhibitors every day of his life for the past six years, buying them off of the streets from questionable persons until he had finally found a doctor that wasn’t one of his parents' minions.  

Not that his doctor thinks he is on a healthy or reasonable path, but he pays the man to treat and fix him, not to play the part of a life coach. Besides, he threatens easily, if he has to turn to the streets to medicate himself and something terrible happens to him, he promises the man his parents will sue him for everything he is worth and more. 

Oh, and the good doctor happens to have a thing for his best friend and a happy Jaejoong makes for a happy Junsu. Happy Junsu is pleasant and agreeable, and Jaejoong had made a quiet arrangement with said doctor to bail last minute every other time the three of them make plans to hang out. 

“Late, late, going to be late,” Jaejoong murmurs to himself, blinking up at his ceiling as he jerks himself away from the wild ride that are his thoughts. 

He isn’t actually in any danger of being late, but if he continues to lay around to contemplate his life and every questionable choice he has ever made he will be. 

He throws the weighted comforter from his form and with one swift push against the mattress he rolls out of bed, feet colliding with the floor as he pushes himself up right. Briefly the room around him spins around the edges of his vision, but he brushes it off as he treks to the bathroom. 

The bags under his eyes are fa