Day 1 without her almost slamming his door open is a major cultural reset for the alpha's world.
Somehow, her, loudly cursing him out to wake up serves as a better alarm clock for him than his own digital one, which's poorly ignored and will buzz at the designated time.
And whenever the cycle turns opposite, he will just break into the omega's room with the spare key he has and just stare at her rather than wake her up. It's always a cat and dog chase after that, though; the omega would hit him because they always end up late.
But today is different—totally different.
Haechan woke up after seconds of his alarm loudly buzzing. Picking his unenergized body up to shower, he lazily dressed himself with a sweatshirt, denim jeans, and white trainers.
He reached the ground floor with cold air. Curtains are heavily down and void of any light. There was no smell of kimchi jjigae filling from the dining area—one dish that he's always bugging the omega for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
And there was no vanilla. The only scent he's used to is waking up and lulling him to sleep, sending him sweet good mornings and comfortable good nights.
Haechan sighed—an empty and heavy one. He just grabbed a single apple from the fruit basket, caging it with his teeth, then grabbed his car keys from the kitchen counter. He trudge out of the house without letting any sunlight seep through.
━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━
Both Minjeong and Yizhuo's eyes squinted onto her, arms crossed and backs slumping on the chairs, while watching their friend eat like she had never eaten for a whole year across them.
There are three buckets of chicken, of which one and a half are hers. Unlimited scoops of rice, a large pitcher of cola, and a bingsu are waiting for them for dessert.
If the worriedly clueless omegas aren't used to these large meals, they will be gagging right now and skip lunch right away.
"This is stress eating," Minjeong suspected while squinting her eyes more. "I definitely saw this on broke TikToker girls."
"Are you saying she's filming for TikTok right now?"
"Do you see any filming processes right now, Ning?"
"Then... is she preparing to?" Yizhuo added while prolonging the last word, which resulted in puckering her lips longer.
Minjeong looked at her in disbelief, the youngest omega shutting her mouth tight after that and ending in a cute pout while looking at her empty plate.
"I should eat more," she gulped at the feeling of hunger striking her again. "But the engagement party will be next week, so I'd like to keep my purple dress fit."
"Engage what?"
"Heol," Yizhuo scoffed and nudged her head to their still happily eating friend. "It's their engagement party next week. Jeno told me, which Mark told him."
"AND I DIDN'T KNOW!? AM I NOT INVITED!?" and her dramatic speech ended when she got face-to-face with a sulky Hyerim, blankly staring at her face.
Minjeong awkwardly whistled and softly nudged the Chinese, who's secretly picking on the skin of a chicken wing, leaning on her side.
"Ya, what happened to her?" she whispered.
"I don't know. She was absent in the morning, and we were just suddenly dragged here, right?"
"That's weird.. she should be happy because they'll be—hold on, wait a minute—" she gasped and scrambled her hand to reach the ravenette's cheeks, which earned a whine.
"Ya Bae Hyerim. Should we aim for the balls or straightly castrate?"
"Stoooopp~" Hyerim whined louder while slapping the blonde's hands that were squishing her cheeks.
"Hyerimiieeeee~ what's happening to the both of you? I saw Haechan at school. He looks dead."
"Really?" Hyerim pouted. "Should I be worried?"
"What do you mean? You should! But not if he did something bad, so what is it?" Minjeong pushed further.
Hyerim sighed, dropping the almost full-boned chicken, and the two other omegas looked at her with such anticipation.
"He said we first met in Canada ever since we were fetuses in diapers."
"Mhm, and then?" Yizhuo inquired.
"And he said we're mates, and I already confirmed it."
"Oh," the youngest scratched her head, "I already knew."
"What!?" Minjeong gasped.
"The alphas told me, and I did tell her that opinion before." She flashed an adorable cheeky smile, which made the blonde groan and face back to the ravenette.
"So.. you're both mates.. and then? You should be happy! I mean.. you're clearly fond of him and you're both cheesy with each other, straight faxxx. Then, why now?"
"Right, I don't know," Hyerim mumbled and lazily poked the chicken with her spoon. "I feel like something's missing, and there's this empty hole that I need to dig in somewhere to cover it. Maybe my past? I don't even remember those days he told me. That I met him and Mark? We're very close? Even their parents say so, but I don't remember a single thing!" she exclaimed. "I don't think I can take a step forward with him if everything's unclear for me. I feel like an outcast from my own family."
"So... you mean you need to dig on that first before going back to him?" Minjeong summarized.
"Yeah, I hope he's okay in the house alone."
"You left him in that house alone!?" Yizhuo frowned. "Shouldn't you be with him until everything's clear, though? So you can bond further? And maybe he's the one that can answer your questions."
"Yeah, it sounds like he knows something about it," Minjeong added.
"I just thought that maybe taking a break with him will help me filter my messy thoughts too? Yeah, I know he can help, but I also want to find my better self alone so that I can proudly come back to him. I want to make him proud too."
"Aww, too cheesy. I'm going to order our bingsu now." Yizhuo rushed away.
"And maybe for you to see that he's really faithful to you?" Minjeong added, which got Hyerim's full attention.
The blonde grinned. "Let's just hope that he won't fuck up the week with hungry hormonal hoes."
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
