His eyes are fixated on the muffin sitting innocently on the small floral plate like it might spring up and bite him. Could be a mimic, he reasons distantly, brow furrowing. It’s more likely to be poisoned than a mimic though, no way for the waitress to get a mimic on the plate without setting it off. Probably. 

Does Jung Jihye have the power to murder him in public and walk away from it? Probably, if she wanted- if they wanted. The Jungs hold a lot of power he knows, and if push came to pull, if Yunho were to approach his parents and ask to hack him to bits they would probably pay him to do so.  Thank him, at the very least. 

Jaejoong does know, if his parents ever actually do comit to getting rid of him that he’ll know before it happens. His father had made a comment once, off-handed and casual, jokingly... Except his father didn’t joke, not with him. His obituary would be in the paper, on the TV, in the headlines for him to read. 

Surely that isn’t true, it was just a nasty thing said to him when he was younger to keep him in line, to underline the sort of power his parents had in case he ever tried to step out of line. 

But his emotions are cycling rapidly, and he’s been tense since Jihye sat beside him in class. Surely, she had better things to do, but she was loyal to her family he bet. If Yunho needed help getting his hands on him because of what happened... 

That didn’t match with what Jihye was saying though. She wasn’t angry, Yunho wasn’t angry... She hadn’t been accusing him of being a homewrecker who had been insulting Yunho’s lover... He wanted to believe her, but if he believed that... what about the rest of it? 

Did Yunho like him? He probably couldn’t, it wouldn’t make sense. There wasn’t much to like, and if the man needed an in with his family, Hwayoung, proud and awful as she was, would drop and Yunho’s shoves if she asked her to.  She’d marry him and allow him to have a mistress on the side, he was willing to bet, just to say she had gotten him. 

Jihye wasn’t Hwayoung, he knew that, but... alpha female, alpha female... they both just sort of... blended together in his head despite his efforts to keep them apart. 

Jaejoong might have had a little bit of a crush on Yunho... He might have been carrying a photo around with him since the very time he had met when he was 13.  But it might have just been because Yunho had been nice to him, sort of, he’d tried to make sure he was alright once, for a minute... 

He didn’t actively stalk the poor man, or anything he didn’t. It was just a photo, it lived in his wallet now... And he followed the articles about him just because it was business, really. The Jungs hadn’t married with his family, they were rivals and allies at the same time. 

It had been Solar who had provided the idea though, the crush. What did it say about him that he had no idea what normal human interaction was like? He was so ed sideways that he needed someone to tell him how he felt. He’d thought she’d pulled up a check list from online, asking him if he looked at the photo when he was stressed, or sad, if it made him feel better, if the tabloids with Yunho with a pretty woman on his arm bothered him. 

It hadn’t been voodoo witchery though, just common sense, it hadn’t been common to Jaejoong though. But it was a disaster, he couldn’t like Yunho, it would only ensure he was crushed. 

He would be wrecked when Yunho turned out to be just the way every alpha seemed to be. His father had been nice too, once upon a time... 

The blonde fishes his phone out of his pockets, failing to notice the violent tremble of his hands as he unlocks the device. He doesn’t even check his texts, closing out the message previews as he pulls open a browser and types in his name. 

For a moment, his heart stops and he makes a strangled noise. 

There is an obituary posting for a Kim Jaesung posted this morning, he had read the name wrong in his disbelief. 

“Hey are you alright?” 

His head jerks up and he blinks, eyes wide with an almost owl-like quality as he registered the way Jihye was watching him. She looks perplexed, brow furrowed, mildly... cautious. 

“Ye-yeah I’m alright,” he excuses, locked the screen of his phone and setting it down, “I thought it was Tuesday- I have an assignment due.” 

The lie forms effortlessly on his tongue, and he finally realizes the shake in his hands is present, so he drops them into his lap, hidden safely from view. 

“You’re sure? You don’t want me to call off Yunho?” 

He does, he really does. He wants to get up and bolt from the door and have her call and tell him not to bother.  Yet there is a part, a tiny, stupid little voice in his head that whines at him. He wants to see Yunho, he wants the handsome alpha to show up there to see him notbecauseYunholikeshimthat’simpossible because the man probably has plenty of reason to tell him to off six weeks from Saturday. Jaejoong can handle that, strict and firm and completely transparent.  

Then both of the Jung siblings can leave him alone and he can go back to being mostly invisible on campus. 

After that he can tell Changmin he’s wrong, that no he shouldn’t spend any time with any alpha ever because they all instinctively hate him. 

“I’m on a scholarship, assignment is worth almost half of my grade this semester,” which is true- it just... isn’t due Tuesday, but Jihye winces across from him in sympathy. 

“God that is awful,” she murmurs, cutting into her cheesecake with a fork, “I had to retake a course this semester because of something like that. Thought my parents were going to kill me.” 

Which is surprising. His eyebrows are nearly in his hair line. Jihye failed one of her classes? 

“How... how much trouble were you in?” 

Bruises, not being allowed to have dinner, being locked in his room, kneeling in the corner... His eyes glaze over a bit as he recalls what happened when he got anything less than a 94 on an anything when he was in middle school and his first two years of high school. To properly fail?  

“Well, dad was a bit disappointed. Told me I needed to stop slacking. He was right, of course, I wasn’t taking my classes seriously enough. I had to pay for that class out of pocket this semester, which meant I spent all summer working to do so.” 

Jihye sounds so... humble, somehow. A bit embarrassed at the telling, but she just kind of shrugs it off. 

“Your parents didn’t...” beat her? But he is a little too mortified to actually ask aloud. 

“Nah, they didn’t cave. I kinda thought after working all summer they would decide that was good enough for my lesson, but no. Down payment on a new car gone, just like that. Poof,” Jihye didn’t really need pocket money for a new car, but it underlined what a pretty penny she had spent. 

And if he ed up- if he actually did fail one of his classes he would lose his whole scholarship. 

“Your parents sound... nice,” he decides with a slow smile. 

For a moment Jihye looks like she’s going to disagree, like she’s going to break into a monologue about how not nice they were, making her pay her own way. He suspects she realizes she’s about to put her foot in her own mouth, and that is why she quiets down with a tense smile. 

“Yeah, mom and dad are pretty great.” 

-----

Less than 20 minutes later the bell chimes and the door of the café slams, a tiny bit, after being opened too quickly with too much force.  Jaejoong tenses, but doesn’t turn, he doesn’t need to, the way Jihye rolls her eyes with a barely there shake of her head actually speaks volumes. 

Yunho had arrived. 

And holy , by the sound of the door he is pissed. Jaejoong is actually going to die today. 

He shivers, goosebumps erupt across his arms and he tries to remember to breathe. 

The blonde is awfully tempted to grovel, to fling himself to the floor in an old-fashioned bow, folded over himself with his forehead and fingertips alike pressed into the tile. 

He’s sorry, he’ll never do it again, he didn’t know, Yunho would never, never have to look at his stupid, awful face again just please don’t- 

Groveling never worked, though... If anything, it made it worse, he thought.  Alphas didn’t beg, they didn’t bow, they didn’t break like a twig, but Jaejoong did those things, especially when he was small. All of his instincts would scream at him to bend, to submit, to please just to keep himself safe. 

Those instincts are all back, like he has just run face first into a brick wall. This time, he has the sense to ignore the urges, they’re all wrong and backwards, disgusting and pathetic. 

“Brother,” Jihye greets warming in a purr, it sounds predatory. 

The blonde doesn’t look up, even though he can feel Yunho’s eyes on him, piercing and heavy.  

To his horror, Yunho slides into the seat beside him, and for a second time that day he is caged in by a Jung alpha.  

“Sister,” he can practically feel the ache in his own jaw from how hard Yunho is gritting his teeth together. 

He doesn’t look, can’t- won’t. Whatever line of communication the siblings have going on is silent, and he doesn’t care pick his head up and follow. 

“Jaejoong,” the voice sounds so much gentler sud