tamed - nct, shotaro x nct

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"wait, so... if i understood correctly, you're telling me that you have 22 alpha mates?"

"yeah, that's exact." shotaro nodded.

"and those mates aren't just anyone, they're nct..."

"yeah, that too." the omega chuckled, glancing around the room at the 22 idols that were sitting around the small living room of his, hikari's and hawoon's house.

"god, this is a whole lot..." hikari sighed, looking successfully at her favourite idols and then at his brother, sitting in the middle of them with bite marks visible on his neck and arms.

as a beta, it was quite hard to imagine how powerful the bond that united alphas and omegas. sure, betas did fall in love and share their life with the same person until they died, but they never get to know how amazing the mate bond can be.

and so, it was hard for hikari and hawoon to understand what united shotaro and nct, but they were aware that something had changed; now everything seemed to make sense for them.

shotaro had met his mates for the first time at work, both in the entertainment company and at the café. and then, namkyu had asked him to come and live with them for a week.

during those seven days that passed, shotaro got closer with the alphas, and got to know them better. some kind of chemistry happened between them and they obviously grew attached for each other. and at first, hawoon and hikari had judged that to be a simple friendship, but it was in fact a complex mate bond.

this explained why shotaro felt more and more depressed after coming back from nct's dorm. he had gotten used to the presence of his mates around, and being taken away from them caused his inner omega to react badly as a coping mechanism.

but now that shotaro had met with nct again, and that he had been marked by them, all of this was over, and shotaro was back to being happy and bubbly. and even better, he was not an easy target anymore for malicious betas or predatory alphas since he had alpha bites visible on him, meaning that his mates would instantly feel it if their omega was in danger.

"can i ask you if you all marked him?" hikari asked as the overprotective sister that she was.

"we did." taeyong nodded.

"we don't want him to feel unsafe when walking around the city anymore." yuta explained.

"him wearing our marks will discourage people from approaching him to harass him." lucas finished.

"yeah, i understand." the beta girl flashed his brother a smile. "and... did you mark them?"

shotaro shook his head no which didn't go unnoticed by the alphas.

"actually..." jaemin coughed, catching the attention of the others. "jeno and i have his mark..."

"huh?!" "what?!" "how come?!" "what does that mean?!" "why you two?!" the neos asked in unison, immediately feeling jealous that two members had had the privilege to get a taste of shotaro's bite mark.

"i-i marked you?" shotaro stuttered, his brows furrowed in confusion.

"yes." jeno nodded. "do you remember that day when you asked if the 22 of us weren't mates? then jaemin and i showed you that alphas couldn't mark each other. and then, you tried to mark us."

"b-but... the marks faded..." shotaro replied.

"they did, but they reappeared again after a few minutes." jaemin told, tugging on his collar to reveal the reddish mark that shotaro had done days before.