Sometimes, it feels like drowning. Or like a dream, perhaps. 

His vision goes spotty and he feels like he is sinking, slipping further and further away from where he needs to be. It’s a fight, to kick himself into gear, to claw his way back. 

And then abruptly after pushing and pushing and pushing it’s like everything snaps back into place, he’s breathing once again like he’s breeched the surface of whatever pool he was sinking into. 

Or he’s startled back to wakefulness.  

Either, or both, are just as unpleasant as the other. 

It’s not a gentle return to himself, he’s usually tense, aching from whatever he’s gotten himself into that he simply doesn’t remember blacking out from. 

Except this time he does remember, some of it. 

Little bits of pieces float back to him, stringing together- some seamless and some leaving gaping holes in the story.  

And, if he were confused...  

Well, Yunho’s sleeping face is quite something. 

For a second time Jaejoong jolts, flinching so hard he can hear the pop of his spine, and his face scrunches at the delayed ache.  

It isn’t a mad scramble away from the alpha, but he does shift, slowly untangling himself until he can get his feet safely under him on the floor. His knees nearly buckle, but he begins to shuffle backwards all the same. 

Still, Jaejoong doesn’t breathe until he manages to close the bathroom door behind him, and even then the sight of the broken medicine cabinet has him frowning. He’s meant to fix it, really, the broken mirror shards cling hap-hazardously to their frame look less than inviting... 

But every time he thinks of replacing the mirror he sees himself, sees his fist flying through the mirror and he backs away from the thought.  

Through the slivers of silver, he inspects himself, the slight hollow of his cheeks, down until he eyes the angry lines on his throat, they’re ugly, some red and raised, others subject to ugly jagged scabbing.  

Jaejoong knows already, and his fingers twitch, but he doesn’t look, eyes unblinking and unseeing as he moves to scrub his hands under scalding water.  

Somehow, he isn’t expecting Yunho to be sitting up when he wanders back in, isn’t expecting the way he rubs at one of his eyes and stretches at the same time. It makes him look small and vulnerable somehow. Nothing like he’s always been told alphas should be. 

“H-ey,” his voice cracks, it’s an ugly sound, but he forces a smile that is more of a grimace all the same.  

The alpha doesn’t look annoyed yet, there is something soft looking to him, but Jaejoong can’t tell if it is pity or something else.  

It’s a disaster, everything, all of it. 

He can’t help the slight bitter twinge in his chest. He’d never meant for his sister to know anything, and maybe if he had just kept his mouth shut... Perhaps, if he’d just shut up it wouldn’t have all been laid out in one fell swoop. 

He was a college drop-out, a nobody, an omega that was a disgrace to his otherwise prestige family. He was sort of dating, or were they dating-dating? His boss... the wealthy business tycoon of the family that was probably the most powerful one in the city if not better. 

Yet, the Jungs just seemed like... people at the end of the day, different than whatever the media showed them as.  

That in itself was something Jaejoong was sti