Night Sky Bloom

3- Spearmint

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"Fated mates? That's literally just a myth." Seungmin shook his head in disbelief, his narrowed eyes telling Jisung that he was, in fact, judging him.

"Who cares! The book is so cute. The moon like... chose them, Minnie. An alpha and an omega. Fated to be together. Their love was destined, Minnie. When they weren't figuring it out on their own, the moon pushed them together, helped them find each other."

Jisung ran his hand over the cover of the book, gazing down at it as if held all of the answers to all of life's questions.

"That moon? The chunk of rock up there that only exists for-"

"Don't ruin my hopes and dreams with your science."

They stared at each other, briefly, before bursting into laughter. It was the end of their school day and they had made their way up to the roof to talk about their day, work on some of their homework together, and just... be. It was their favorite part of the day.

"Wait." Seungmin stopped laughing for a moment, catching his breath as the wind brushed by harshly, forcing them to hold on to their backpacks and items so they didn't blow away. "Why is it always alphas and omegas in these books? Why no betas?"

Jisung looked down, furrowing his eyebrows before reaching to take a sip of the milkshake he'd brought up with him. "I'm... not sure. I don't know the difference between alphas, omegas, and betas, yet. Wait... do you?" He looked up as he asked his question, wondering how Seungmin could know anything more than him. They were in fourth grade. They weren't supposed to learn about any of that until freshman year of high school.

"I mean, a little. Alphas and omegas have like, the pheromone-scent things from our scent glands, and betas have them too, but it's like... less? I guess they're more... neutral? And omegas are the only ones that can hold babies in their bellies."

"Weird. I don't know." Jisung shook his head, trying to process everything. "This book doesn't say anything about any of that. One of the friends is a beta, but it feels like they're all the same."

"It's crazy to me that you haven't done all the research on this stuff. I guess if it's not like flowers or herbs, you're just not super interested, are you?" Seungmin responded with a teasing smile.

"I'm top of our class!" Jisung said defensively, albeit with a matching grin.

"Yeah, tied with me, who cares about more than just flowers and fated mates books that don't even explain anything important about the main characters."

Seungmin laughed as Jisung stood up, placing his book and drink on the ledge of the roof. "Alllright. You wanna do this, huh?" Jisung lunged at Seungmin, giggles continuing to echo off of the roof into the chilly, windy air. Jisung's fingers danced across Seungmin's side as he tickled him, causing them both to double over in giddy laughter. They stumbled to the ground, breathless and clutching their aching sides as they struggled to get back on their feet.

The wind blew more harshly, surprising them both, and Jisung reached for his backpack to grab hold of it, but knocked into his drink and book in the process, sending both tumbling over the ledge. He closed his eyes against the harsh breeze and clutched his backpack and the ledge until it had passed, looking over to see Seungmin doing the same.

Once the gust had abated, Jisung warily peered over the ledge to survey the damage. Below, a small boy  about his age, maybe older, looked back at him. His face was a canvas of surprise and annoyance, painted with smears of what was once Jisung's milkshake. The straw from the cup stuck out of his hair like an ill-placed antenna, and Jisung's book lay defeated at his feet, its pages fluttering in the wind as if trying to escape their unfortunate fate.