[Photo]
Ta-da, duty-free Ballantine’s 30-year — you win. Congratulations.
Despite Doyun’s blunt emoji, a cheerful reply came back from Eunho. The photo he sent along with it was a bottle of whiskey lined up neatly beside some small figurines.
The thought of Eunho posing the souvenir figurines to get just the right shot made Doyun smile a little. And at the same time, a sense of relief settled over him — Sa Eunho’s still here, at least.
“Why are you sitting here alone? Eunho’s around. You can hang out with Sa Eunho.”
lololololol what are options 1 and 2 lmaooo
In a better mood now, Doyun sent back a message packed with laughing symbols.
“Right, Eunho does hover around you like a mother bird. The guy’s ice cold to us but he’s all over you — now that I think about it, it’s actually kind of ridiculous? If he brought whiskey back this time I’m drinking all of it.”
“He just has good taste in people. And he didn’t bring whiskey back this time.”
“Are you texting Eunho right now?”
“Yeah.”
Worried Minjun might catch a glimpse of the whiskey photo, Doyun quickly turned down the brightness on his phone. Minjun shook his head watching Doyun grinning and typing out a stream of lol’s.
You two really have the strangest little love going on, Minjun added, and Doyun let it go in one ear and out the other. While Minjun drank his coffee, Doyun kept smiling and trading messages with Eunho.
Then pick one of the two.
Going with 1.
Curious about option 1?
Yep yes.
[Photo]
The photo Eunho sent was of a textbook. Probably taken in secret during class right now — beside it was the silver ballpoint pen Eunho always used.
lololololol general waste, go
🙁
As Doyun kept texting Eunho and laughing, Minjun also bowed his head and pulled out his phone. Doyun glanced sideways at Minjun’s screen. Not even trying to hide it, Minjun was firing off a barrage of puppy emojis clutching an oversized heart. When his eyes briefly met Doyun’s, Minjun said:
“Hey, even if he’s not seeing anyone… he’s an alpha. You know what that means? Their whole approach to that stuff is completely different from betas like us.”
Approach to that stuff? They’d been talking about dating and suddenly it jumped to that? Doyun frowned at the sensitive turn and leaned his head forward toward Minjun.
“What do you mean. Is Eunho dating someone — a girlfriend, or, I mean, an omega?”
Doyun set his phone down on the table and asked Minjun. He hadn’t even noticed when Minjun or Suhyeok — who both blabbed every detail of their personal lives — had started seeing someone, so the thought crossed his mind that maybe Eunho was seeing someone too.
“No, it’s not that. Did you not notice the other time Eunho rushed out? The two of you were hanging around together and out of nowhere he said something had come up and left.”
Curious about 2 as well?
Yep yep yep.
Eunho’s message came in and Doyun shot back a lazy three-circle reply. He didn’t know why, but imagining Eunho having found someone to date made his stomach turn. This was on a completely different level from feeling a little left out when Minjun got a girlfriend or Suhyeok started pursuing someone without telling him.
“He said it was a prior engagement he’d forgotten about. Na Minjun, what is it. Tell me fast, I want to know.”
Option 2 is
Yep yep yep.
Doyun sent another careless reply to Eunho.
“Turns out he had a sudden rut that day, that’s why he left. An alpha in rut — what do you think he’d do? I mean, apparently you can get suppressants… but you know yourself that’s not the real solution.”
Minjun set his coffee down next to him, formed a ring with his right hand, and repeatedly jabbed his left index finger through it. An unmistakably crude gesture that anyone would recognize as a stand-in for sex.
Alpha. Rut. The abnormally high body temperature. The hastily put-on shirt. Like pieces of a puzzle snapping into place, all the clues fit together perfectly. Doyun’s face went rigid as the realization hit him.
“…But why didn’t he tell us — or, well, me — about that?”
“Because you go around being all stiff and uptight like some kind of morality crusader, so he probably figured it’d be awkward to tell you he was going for a one-night stand. That’s exactly why I’m saying you should try going on a blind date too. If Eunho ends up with someone eventually… that’d be a bit of a thing, wouldn’t it. Though of course it doesn’t mean we’d all stop hanging out, so don’t take it the wrong way.”
One word in particular lodged itself in Doyun’s ears.
“…One-night stand?”
Doyun asked Minjun in a cool voice. Lips pressed shut, chin lifted slightly, Doyun pressured Minjun with just a look to answer. Knowing how intensely Doyun despised sexual jokes and promiscuous behavior, Minjun fumbled through his response as if making excuses.
“I don’t know if it was a one-night stand or if he has someone. But he said he went to a hotel that day. Oh — and he said absolutely don’t tell you, so don’t let on that you know. But it’s not like it’s Eunho’s fault — trait-carriers are just like that when rut or heat hits them, there’s nothing they can do…”
Bzzzzt.
The phone sitting on the table buzzed loudly, announcing a new message.
My heart?
“……”
Doyun stared at Eunho’s message in silence. A moment later, the phone buzzed loudly again.
I’ll head over to the Business Building after class. See you in a bit.
Sensing the shift in Doyun’s mood, Minjun trod carefully. He even put away the phone he’d been sneaking glances at to stay in contact with his girlfriend, and looked at Doyun instead. Doyun, who had been sitting with his head slightly bowed, snapped it back up, slammed his phone down on the table with a sharp thud, and said in a resolute voice:
“…Hey. I’m going on a blind date.”
Stupid romance — if everyone else can do it, there’s no reason I can’t.
Doyun stuck out his lip with a pout and gave a nod to Minjun, who said he’d message his girlfriend about it right away.
Should I have said that.
Watching Minjun’s fingers move fast as he typed the message, Doyun felt a twinge of regret. He’d agreed to a blind date out of spite, but there was no need for things to move this quickly. He’d only done a group mixer once back in his first year because even that felt awkward — and now a proper one-on-one blind date? Doyun started regretting it at rapid speed.
“Hey, sent it over KakaoTalk so check it. She’s a stats major, Daye, a year below me — apparently she’s had a little thing for you for a while? Wild.”
“Me? How does she even know who I am?”
Doyun looked up from the profile photo of his blind date that Minjun had just sent over, and asked. He couldn’t wrap his head around how someone from a completely unrelated department could have a thing for him. At his question, Minjun let out a short, exasperated breath and dropped his hand on Doyun’s shoulder.
Because of your face, obviously nearly made it all the way to the tip of his tongue. But it felt a little petty, and coming out with a compliment on his looks out of nowhere would be awkward, so Minjun answered gruffly that he had no idea.
“How would I know? Was she maybe in the same club as us and I just don’t remember?”
“You really have zero awareness, you know that.”
Deciding Doyun’s question wasn’t worth answering, Minjun shook his head and stood up from his seat. Doyun followed after him, still going “but seriously, how does she know me!” — but Minjun covered his ears and bolted off into the distance.
***
After parting with Minjun, Doyun headed into his last class. He took most of his other major courses together with Minjun, but for general electives, they didn’t bother syncing their schedules and just picked whatever.
The elective Doyun had chosen this semester was a large lecture, which meant there were no group activities. Doyun sat alone in the very back row of the large lecture hall. A stream of students poured in through the back door and passed right by him.
Most of the students filling the lecture hall were betas. There might have been an alpha or omega mixed in here and there, but as a beta, Doyun couldn’t pick up on pheromones and had no way of telling.
Alpha ♥ Omega… rut. Heat cycle…?
Half-listening to the lecture, Doyun doodled in the corner of his notebook. The fact that Minjun and Suhyeok were both pursuing someone had already been shocking enough — but Eunho rushing off to a hotel because his rut had hit was beyond shocking.
On top of that, the crude hand gesture Minjun had made earlier came back to him. Could Eunho really be doing that with an omega — maybe even a male omega? The moment his imagination drifted as far as Eunho’s bare, sweat-dampened body, a sharp wave of revulsion hit him.
