TAT | MW [✔]

10. Wonwoo [End]

Headaches, body aches, and anxiety were not supposed to be part of the post-heat funk. My body hadn't gotten the memo, evidently. I stood glued to my spot, watching Mingyu's car leave the parking lot, and then turn the corner that took him out of sight. My head throbbed horribly when I lost sight of him.

That was it. He was gone. The whole thing was over.

I'd waited and waited for him to say something that would indicate he wanted to stay, that the things he'd said to me in the heat of, well, heat were true. I knew all about hormones, knew I couldn't trust my own feelings or reactions, but Mingyu was an alpha. He was the one who would have a better handle on whether what had passed between us was real or not.

But he'd said nothing, and now there I was, standing in a parking lot, staring at nothing.

I growled, pressed my fingertips to my temples, then turned to plod my way back to the classroom building. I didn't really want to be around anyone. I didn't want anyone coming near me, except Mingyu. I didn't want anyone to touch me, except maybe Mingyu. I didn't want to eat anything unless Mingyu had made it. And I didn't want to talk to anyone, except Mingyu.

"Sweetheart, you don't look so good," Papa said as soon as I stepped back into the classroom building.

I nearly burst into tears. Mingyu had called me "sweetheart", and it had felt like the most wonderful word in the world. Hearing it from Papa's lips, even though he was my papa, was close to sacrilege.

"I'm fine," I said without thinking about it. I slumped against the wall, rubbing my temples even harder. Actually, I felt as though I was in the process of being pulled through a wringer.

"Mingyu left?" Dad asked, one eyebrow raised halfway as he looked at me from the top of the stepladder he was using to hang a mobile from the ceiling.

I nodded, but I didn't feel like talking at that moment.

"He seems really nice," Papa said, also watching me as he tacked something to the board.

I knew it was a leading question. I knew there was much more to what Papa was asking with that statement.

The trouble was, I didn't know what to say about it. I wasn't some teenager with his first, disappointed crush, but I still felt like I needed my Papa or I might crumble.

"Hmm." Dad's hum as he stepped down from the ladder had me dragging my head up to look at him. He wore a look of concern, but there was a very Dad-like sparkle in his eyes. "Interesting." He walked all the way over to me and crossed his arms, tapping his chin, like he was looking at some sort of scientific specimen. "Very, very interesting."

I sighed as I tried to stand straighter and face him. It felt like my body had been slammed with a two-by-four repeatedly. "Could we skip this part, please?" I asked. "I don't really feel up to probing questions about my heat from my parents."

"So, it was good, then," Dad said. It wasn't a question.

I sighed. "Really good. Best I've ever had." I had no idea why I was being so honest about something so intimate with my dad.

Papa caught on to something happening, finished with the poster he was tacking up, and then rushed over to join us. He put a hand to my forehead the way he had when I was a sick kid. I flinched away.

"No touching right now, Papa," I scolded him. "You know how it is post-heat."

"I do know how it is," Papa said, glancing at Dad with a giddy grin. "I have questions about other things, though."

"What other things?" I inquired, rubbing my temples some more. The headache was getting worse, like something inside me was stretching and stretching to the point where it would break.