Unlike the Others

Chapter 8

Wooseok locks the bathroom door behind him and lets out a deep sigh as he leans against it. He can hear Yein and Minsoo talk over the show they're watching in the living room, Wooseok having left Yein's pads inside his bedroom by his request when he showed him the convenience store plastic bag.

He needs to get rid of the smell of alpha before Minsoo or Yein notice it, it's faint but he's aware if he got close to them they would detect it.

Without glancing in the mirror by the sink, Wooseok takes off his clothes, holding the white turtleneck sweater for a few seconds too long, fighting off the sudden urge to press it against his face so he can fill his lungs with that scent once again.

He frowns, throwing the piece of clothing with maybe too much force into the laundry basket. His hormones are definitely messing with him and he's not going to surrender to them. Wooseok will make sure to be the one doing laundry tomorrow, God forbid the ideas Yein would get if he caught a sniff of an alpha's scent in Wooseok's clothes.

~🐾~

That night, he has a nightmare, of cars suddenly speeding by left and right, no matter where he runs in the complete darkness he keeps barely evading them, his heart racing inside his chest and a cold sweat covering his forehead.

At some point in the dream he stops running, tired and fearful he cowers down to the ground, closes his eyes and begs for it to stop. The headlights and loud horns stop, the soothing sound of waves crashing against shore makes him open his eyes.

The starry sky above him sparkles in a hypnotizing way and he's unable to look away, even when a pair of arms wrap around his waist and he's pulled against a chest, a face nuzzling the back of his neck, a warm puff of breath making a shiver run down his spine.

He's on a beach so all he should be able to smell is the sea salt so why does it smell like he's by the woods too? And underneath that its the freshness of a particular fruit his dream self can't name.

~🐾~

Wooseok ends up late to his English class, he had lost track of time working on correcting an assignment of Professor Seokhoon's class that was due that day and the printer getting stuck with a page in the middle of printing the corrected assignment didn't help at all.

The only acknowledgment Wooseok gets from Professor Haeyoon as he hurries as silently as possible to his seat all the way across the front of the classroom is the shake of her head without stopping her explanation of the proper order of adjectives when describing something, her bob cut swaying with the movement of her head.

He sends a glare to the few classmates who dare to snigger and they're quick to look away, with the exception of Sejin who even winks at him.

Jinhyuk offers him a small smile and a tilt of his head as a greeting that Wooseok is quick to reciprocate. Professor Haeyoon asks them to work on the corresponding page on their books and moves to sit at her desk but not before turning her attention to Wooseok.

"If you don't understand something you can ask your partners for help first and in case you need more help then feel free to ask me." She says, clearly directing her words at him without calling him out, an amicable smile in her cherry red lips.

The omega feels heat crawl up his face in embarrassment and he looks away from those sparkly eyes belonging to his teacher, finding himself locking gazes with dark orbs that make him freeze for a moment.

He recovers quickly, breaking the eye contact as he moves to pull out his book and pencil case. Without him asking, Jinhyuk tells him the page number and turns to his own book to start working on it.