I slammed the laptop shut with more force than necessary, the sound sharp and final in the quiet of my apartment like a gunshot or a door slamming or the sound of hope dying. My hands were shaking. My whole body was shaking, fine tremorsrunning through every muscle as the full scope of my situation settled over me like a burial shroud, heavy and suffocating and inescapable.
The fever burned hotter beneath my skin, responding to my distress with cruel biological efficiency, and I could feel my omega pressing against my consciousness, desperate and afraid in ways that mirrored my own terror.
Please, she whispered, and her voice was small now, scared in a way I'd never heard from her before.Please, just let them help us. We're dying. Can't you feel it? We're dying and they could save us if you'd just let them?—
"Completing the bonds isn't saving us," I said out loud, and my voice cracked on the words like ice breaking apart in spring. "It's just a different kind of death."
That's not true. That's not?—
"Mom completed her bond once," I interrupted her, the memory rising unbidden like a ghost I couldn't exorcise. My mother's face, young and hopeful in an old photograph I'd found tucked away in a box after her death, her mark whole and colorful before she'd made her choice, before love had destroyed her piece by piece. "Before she broke it. It still destroyed her. The bond consumed her, controlled her, made her into someone she didn't want to be. That's why she broke it — because she'd rather die slowly than live as someone else's possession."
But we're not her.My omega's voice was firmer now, pushing back against my certainty with a conviction I hadn't expected.They're not him. We don't know what kind of alphas they are. We don't know what a pack bond feels like. You're assuming destruction because that's all you've ever known, but what if?—
"I can't," I cut her off, the words coming out broken, jagged pieces of sound that hurt my throat like swallowing glass. "I can't trust them. I can't trust any of this. I can't just... giveup everything I've built because biology says I'm supposed to belong to five strangers I've barely met."
My omega went quiet.
Not gone — I could still feel her there, curled up in some corner of my consciousness, radiating hurt and confusion and fear in equal measure. But she'd stopped arguing. Maybe she understood that words weren't enough to breach walls this thick, this old, this built on the foundation of watching someone I loved die because of exactly what she was asking me to accept. Maybe she was just too tired to keep fighting a battle she knew she couldn't win.
I looked at my reflection in the dark screen of my closed laptop. Grey eyes staring back at me, haunted and too bright. Pale skin marked with the flush of fever that wouldn't break. Visible tremor in my hands that I couldn't will away no matter how hard I concentrated on stillness.
I'm dying, I thought with cold clarity.Slowly but definitely dying.
Unless I complete the bonds.
But completing them might kill who I am.
Is there even a difference?
I dressed carefully, every choice deliberate and defensive, armor for a battle I wasn't sure I could win.
Loose clothes that wouldn't irritate my oversensitive skin — a worn cotton shirt soft from years of washing until it felt like wearing a cloud, comfortable jeans that didn't press too tightly against my aching legs. A high-collared sweater in charcoal grey to hide the mark on my neck, the fabric rising almost to my jaw like a shield against curious eyes and inconvenient questions. Flat boots that I could run in if I needed to, the soles worn enough to grip pavement without slipping.
I tried not to think about why that last consideration felt so important, tried not to imagine scenarios where running would be necessary again.
Scent blockers went on next.
I stood in front of my bathroom mirror — defogged now from the steam of my shower, forcing me to face my own reflection in all its terrible honesty — and applied twice the recommended amount. The chemical gel was cold against my skin, clinical and sharp with an almost medicinal smell that made my nose wrinkle, and I worked it into my wrists, behind my ears, down my neck over the mark that pulsed with heat beneath my fingers like a living thing trying to be noticed. The sensation was strange, the warmth of the mark meeting the coolness of the blocker, two forces fighting for dominance over my skin.
The bottle was nearly empty, I noticed with a sinking feeling. I'd been using more and more over the past two days, trying to build walls that kept crumbling no matter how much cement I applied.
When I finished, the chemical smell almost overwhelmed my own honeysuckle scent.
Almost.
I could still detect it underneath — sweeter than yesterday, stronger, my omega scent breaking through every barrier I tried to build like weeds pushing through concrete. Like perfume bleeding through paint. Like truth seeping through lies no matter how desperately you tried to maintain them.
They could find us, my omega observed, not unkindly.If they're looking. If they care. The scent blockers won't hide us from alphas who know what they're searching for.
"Then let's hope they're not searching," I muttered at my reflection, capping the bottle and shoving it into my bag with more force than necessary. The walk to the café felt like climbinga mountain with stones in my pockets and chains around my ankles.
Every step required conscious effort, a deliberate command from my exhausted brain to my uncooperative body. My legs wanted to give out with each stride, the muscles trembling with exhaustion that no amount of rest could touch, no amount of sleep could cure. My head pounded with each heartbeat, a relentless drumbeat of pain that made the morning sunlight feel like an assault on my senses, every ray of light a needle stabbing at my eyes. Everything was too bright, too loud, too much — the world turned up to volumes I couldn't tolerate, every stimulus magnified to the point of pain.
Seoul sprawled around me in all its chaotic glory, indifferent to my suffering, a city of millions going about their days without any idea that one of them was slowly falling apart in their midst.
The streets of the entertainment district were already busy with mid-morning activity, the industry that never slept grinding forward regardless of my personal crisis. Trainees in matching workout clothes jogged past in perfect formation, their young faces bright with dreams that hadn't yet been tested by reality, their synchronized steps a reminder of the discipline this world demanded. Managers hurried between buildings with phones pressed to their ears, barking orders in voices that carried too far and stabbed at my aching head. Stylists wheeled racks of costumes through lobbies, sequins catching the light and throwing tiny rainbows across concrete walls like scattered promises of glamour and success.
I kept my head down and my pace steady, trying not to draw attention to myself, trying to be invisible in a crowd of people too busy with their own ambitions to notice one sick omega shuffling through their midst.
