Of Soulmates and Love

Marking

A/N: TYK Omegaverse AU, took place after the first Extra Chapter (post nail removal)

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The world is unfair. It has always been like that from the beginning.

A handful of men could be filthy rich, while an entire village could suffer from hunger until their children looked no different than skeletons. The innocents could be punished severely for a crime they didn't commit but pure slander, while those who were truly evil at heart could live in peace until they grew old.

As if these injustices were not yet enough, still the world decided to impose a system where some would benefit from it, while some others were left to suffer at the bottom, unable to avoid the cruel destiny they were cursed with since birth.

Zhou Zishu was born an Omega. Beings who were originally meant to bear and nurture life, for some reason society decided that they must sit at the lowest caste, exploited and discriminated against for the very nature of their existence. He had seen the most unfair with his own eyes, felt the worst of agony with his own body. Thus, he had spent his entire life steeling himself. So that he could protect his body and heart, so that he did not need to depend on anyone to save him, much less the arrogant Alphas who stood at the very top, beings who were blessed with the authority to decide an Omega's fate according to their personal whims and preference.

When he left the Window of Heaven, Zhou Zishu discovered that although the "Nails of Seven Apertures for Three Autumns" consumed his life force and left him only with three more years to live, in addition to giving him freedom from that palace full of deceit, the poison also ruined his health so much to the point that the Omega in him ceased to function. In other words, he could spend the last few years of his life completely liberated from the "heat", the bane of all Omegas, the condition that always left them vulnerable and the reason why they were often ridiculed as a mere breeding tool. This was a pleasant surprise. Compared to suffering from the pain of heat, Zhou Zishu would much rather bear the nightly pain of the nails until his very last breath.

However, the most men could do was to pray and hope. In the end, despite having spent years devising his escape route and choosing how he would die, it looked like fate had another plan for him.

"A-Xu..."

It was merely one word. When the deep low voice called for his name, Zhou Zishu could feel shiver running down his back, a surge of desire rushing straight from his head to the pit of his stomach where an unbearable fervor was burning. He hadn't felt this for a long time, the agony of an Omega's heat. Although he thought he should've gotten used to this, when the removal of the nails returned not just his lifespan but his nature, as well, it turned out that the heat was still as excruciating as ever. He used to survive by swallowing pills that would suppress the symptoms in exchange to causing various side effects no better than the heat itself, including but not limited to severe headache and nausea. But instead of those pills, now he was presented only with a single choice if he wanted the torment to subside.

That is, to be embraced and marked by the sole Alpha standing in front of him, becoming his mate for life.

Wen Kexing was born an Alpha. Since the first time Zhou Zishu saw this man—him a vagrant sunbathing by the roadside and the other a mysterious young master casually enjoying a meal in a tavern in Jiangnan—he could already tell that Wen Kexing belonged to those small group of fortunate few in the highest caste of society. As the other persistently followed him around, Zhou Zishu was wary but what else could he lose? His body had become a failure of an Omega that could no longer exude pheromone to attract Alphas, and without a heat, his fertility rate was at its lowest. If he really must, he figured he could just fight this man to the death.