The question made my heart stutter. "What?"
"The lyricist. Describe her. Please." I closed my eyes, and she was there behind my lids. Every detail burned into my memory like a brand.
"Dark hair. Black, mostly, but with teal streaks framing her face — faded, like she hasn't touched them up in a while. Grey eyes, almost silver in certain lights. Pale skin, sharp cheekbones, delicate features. Small build." I swallowed hard, the next words coming out barely above a whisper. "She smelled like lilies and rain."
Hwan made a sound like he'd been punched in the gut.
"That's her." His voice cracked on the word. "Hyung, that'sher. The woman I bumped into yesterday. Outside the café."
My heart stopped completely.
"Your bond?—"
"Triggered. Yesterday afternoon." The words tumbled out of him in a rush, like he'd been holding them back for hours and couldn't contain them anymore. "I was getting coffee and she came around the corner and we collided and the bond just…it snapped into place. I felt it happen, hyung. I felt it like lightning in my chest. And she felt it too, I know she did, I could see it in her eyes. But then she looked at me like I was a monster and she ran. Dropped her notebook and just ran before I could even tell her my name."
Yesterday afternoon. Less than twenty-four hours ago. I opened my eyes and stared at the conference room wall, seeing nothing, processing everything.
"Hwan." My voice came out barely above a whisper. "You know what this means."
"She's ours." His voice cracked again, raw with emotion I rarely heard from him. "She's the one we've been waiting for. All of us."
"And she's terrified of us." I told him with a sigh.
"Two bonds in less than a day, hyung. Two bonds triggered and both times she ran." I could hear him moving, pacing probably, burning off anxious energy the same way I wanted to."Why? Why would our omega run from us?" He asked and I could hear the raw hurt in his voice.
I didn't have an answer….I knew we needed to find one.
"We need to tell the others. Now." I was already pulling up the group call. Five phones connected. Five alphas breathing in sync across the distance, the pack bond thrumming between us like a shared heartbeat.
Jae-won spoke first, his deep voice steady and commanding even through the phone's tiny speaker. That was our pack alpha, always the calm in any storm, the anchor that kept the rest of us grounded when everything else was spinning out of control. "What's going on? I can feel something through the pack bond. Something's happened with both of you."
"We found her," I said. "Our omega."
Stunned silence. Then everyone talking at once.
"What?" Tae-min's voice pitched high with shock, the youngest member's excitement bleeding through even the tinny phone audio. "Where? Who is she?"
"Are you sure?" Min-jun asked, his gentle voice threaded with concern. "How do you know?"
"Explain," Jae-won cut through the chaos, pack alpha authority settling over the call like a weighted blanket. "Everything. Now."
Hwan and I laid it out together, our words overlapping, filling in each other's gaps the way we always did when something important needed to be communicated.
"Yesterday afternoon," Hwan started, his sunshine voice dimmed to something softer, more vulnerable. "I was getting coffee at that café near the company. She came around the corner, we literally ran into each other. Our eyes met and the bond triggered. I felt it lock into place like it had always been there, just waiting for us to find each other."
"She felt it too," I added. "She must have….but she panicked. Dropped her stuff and ran before Hwan could even speak to her."
"I didn't know who she was," Hwan said miserably. "Just that she was ours and she was running. I couldn't chase her through the streets, there were people everywhere, phones everywhere, and she looked so scared..."
"Then this morning," I continued, "the company set up a meeting. I wanted to vet the lyricist they'd chosen for the comeback, standard procedure. I didn't think anything of it.” I paused for a moment before I continued.
"I walked into the conference room and she was already there." My voice tightened at the memory, at the way my chest ached even now with the distance between us. "It was her. The same woman who ran from Hwan yesterday." I took a deep breath.
"We talked about lyrics for maybe twenty minutes," I said. "Professional conversation. She's brilliant, her understanding of music is incredible, the way she thinks about words and meaning and emotional resonance. I thought maybe... maybe I could get to know her through work.."
"But then?" Jae-won prompted.
"Our eyes met. Really met." I pressed my free hand against my chest, where the violet thread still burned with reaching. "The bond triggered. Just like it did for Hwan. The same immediate, undeniable connection."
