A Tale of Two Omegas

Chapter 6: The Young Woman Pt. 2

Such... Peculiar creatures...

Mew tilted his head thoughtfully as he peered at the two children sprawled across the floor of Gulf's office, their minds affixed to a rather tense game of 'hangman,' which they'd been playing for nearly an hour on loose, blank sheets of printer paper that Gulf had had lying on his desk.

The kids were quiet and pleasant enough. When either of them won a game, they wouldn't shout their celebratory or losing remarks in a raucous or disruptive manner--they'd crow a more dignified victory or displeasure. And when they spoke with one another, their words were soft and faintly hushed.

Mew could gather that May and Ice were quiet kids, but he suspected they were doing their best to be extra respectful and aware of his presence in the office with them. After all, it wasn't like he could leave the shelter of the office during business hours to get away from the kids if they were being obnoxious; he'd get swarmed by customers and a potential invasive bombardment of local paparazzi if he did.

Children were certainly strange to Mew. Some at May and Ice's age would still have the compassion and surroundings-awareness of a non-sentient brick, but others, like May and Ice, appeared fairly considerate. It was odd how variable children were.

Perhaps Mew analyzed children and their behaviors far too much. The thing is... He wasn't particularly paternal. In that department, he'd always felt like he was lacking. He'd grown up in a society that always spouted on and on about the 'natural instinct' and 'calling' Omegas experienced toward parenthood and caregiving, but Mew could confidently say, as an Omega, he'd never understood the notion. He couldn't ever recall a time in his life where he'd felt any sort of visceral need or 'pull' toward becoming a parent, much less toward carrying a child himself.

Which, he supposed, was a good thing considering he'd lost the ability to do so anyway...

And yet, despite never feeling the need nor desire to carry a child of his own, he still felt something deeply hollowing about having lost the ability. He couldn't wrap his head around it, even to this day--why he'd felt so much grief over the news when it had first been broken to him, though he'd done incredibly well not to display any evidence of his distress at the time. Perhaps it was because he'd still lost something that was undoubtedly and unequivocally a part of him. Whether he'd ever intended to make use of it was irrelevant.

Most days since he'd received the news, he'd been able to completely forget about it or not really care, but on occasion, there'd be momentary lapses of sadness surrounding the subject, seemingly for no apparent reason at all. A feeling of emptiness.

Of course, for the past nearly three months, he'd felt some degree of 'empty' every hour of every day, so really, to him, thinking about his infertility was merely salt to an already festering wound, to be entirely honest.

"P'Mew?"

The sound of a soft-spoken child's voice carrying his name startled him away from his pensive rumination.

With a curious knit of the brow, his eyes settled on the one who'd called to him—May—as he answered, "yes, Nong?"

"Are we bothering you, Phi?" she asked earnestly. "We can be quieter if you want."

Mew blinked with puzzlement, then shook his head. "No, you're not bothering me. Why do you ask?"

"You've been staring at us for a while," Ice said. "You look... Kind of sad."

'Kind of' was an understatement, and 'sad' didn't really begin to describe the complexity of his feelings these days, but he did certainly wonder why he'd been sad-looking while staring at children whom he had no connection to. It wasn't like he was averse to raising kids one day, but he definitely wasn't longing for it either. Kids seemed quite supplementary to him; they didn't feel like some necessity for happiness or fulfillment.