Jaemin hadn't slept. Every time he had closed his eyes, the memory of Seungcheol's weight on top of him, the scent of the alpha's intoxication and distress, and the rough friction of his voice had jolted him awake.
'You're mine.'
He was running on nothing but nervous energy that made his hands shake inside his coat pockets.
His phone buzzed against his thigh. Again.
He didn't check it. He knew who it was. The notifications had been stacking up since just after 9:00 AM.
Where are you?
Are you awake?
We need to talk.
Jaemin turned the corner, head down, walking fast to outpace his own guilt. He felt fractured: half of him still terrified by the events of the night before, the other half shamefully thrilled by it.
He needed coffee. He needed to sit somewhere and just breathe until his heartrate slowed down.
He steered toward his usual café, the one with the warm yellow lights and the quiet corner booth. But as he approached the storefront, his steps faltered.
Through the windows, he saw a familiar head of messy dark-blonde waves. Lukas was sitting in a booth near the front, surrounded by Marcus and the female tuba player from last night.
They were laughing, gesturing animatedly with pastry flakes on their fingers, but Lukas wasn't really with them. His phone sat at his elbow, screen up, and every few seconds, his eyes darted down to it, checking for a notification that hadn't come in.
On the sidewalk, Jaemin halted.
Lukas was safe. Lukas was kind. But looking at him now, Jaemin felt a sudden, crushing wave of unworthiness. He felt complicated and… dirty, somehow.
He couldn't go in there and face that wholesome concern. He couldn't explain why he had run off, or who he had run to.
He pulled his collar up against the biting wind, turned on his heel, and walked away from the café, heading for the university library instead. It was sterile, silent, and cold.
Exactly what he needed. Exactly what he deserved.
…
The library stacks were empty, smelling of dust and yellowing pages. Jaemin found a desk in the far corner, hidden behind a towering row of oversized orchestral scores. He had a piece of sheet music open in front of him, but the notes were swimming.
Bzzzzzt.
He winced, then reached for his phone to finally turn it off, but just then, the air around him shifted. The faint scent of black tea and bergamot, overlaid with juniper, registered in his senses just as a shadow fell over his table.
Jaemin looked up, his breath hitching as Choi Seungcheol slid silently into the seat across from him.
There was no trace of the messy, desperate, inebriated man from the night before. Seungcheol looked immaculate. He was wearing a crisp white shirt under a charcoal sweater, his hair perfectly styled, his jaw shaved clean. The princely mask was firmly back in place, flawless and impenetrable.
Only his eyes gave him away. They were darker than usual, rimmed with the faintest shadow of exhaustion.
"You're hard to find," he said finally, voice soft.
"I..." Jaemin gripped the book in his hands. "I didn't hear my phone. I was studying."
"You're holding that score upside down."
Jaemin looked down. He was. A flush of heat crawled up his neck, and he quickly righted the book.
But it was no use trying to pretend anymore. For all his attempts at avoidance, Seungcheol was right in front of him now. They would have to talk about what happened last night.
He hung his head. "I… I'm sorry Hyung. I didn't know what to do, I just—"
"Don't," Seungcheol cut him off. He didn't sound angry. He turned his head to look out the window at the dreary sky, the gray campus grounds, his expression slipping into something distant and vaguely… melancholic. "I should be the one apologizing. I was... indisposed. I said things I shouldn't have."
"You… You said…" Jaemin began, his voice a whisper, but couldn't complete his sentence. The unspoken memory of the night before hung heavy in the air between them.
Seungcheol winced slightly, looking down at his hands clasped on the table. "I was drunk, Jaemin. The pressure of the showcase... I was terrified that you would get distracted. That you'd settle for mediocrity, just because it's the easy way out."
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, an uncharacteristically unpolished gesture.
"You have a gift," he continued, his voice low. "A rarity that many in this Academy would kill for. I couldn't bear the thought of you throwing that all away for… for a fling. For something temporary."
He looked up at Jaemin, a familiar intensity back in his eyes, burning low and steady.
"But I also thought..." His voice dropped quieter, as if reluctant to admit what he was saying, "if you were going to be with someone... why shouldn't it be me?"
The world seemed to stop. Jaemin stared at him, paralyzed. The muffled silence of the library vanished, replaced by the deafening roar of his own pulse in his ears. It thumped against his eardrums, a frantic, syncopated rhythm.
It sounded like a confession. It sounded like the answer to three years of secret glances and unspoken longing. For a moment, the possibility of them hung in the air—terrifying, thrilling, and tantalizingly close.
Seungcheol watched him, his eyes searching Jaemin's face, before he let out a short, airy laugh. He shook his head, physically dispelling the moment.
"I'm sorry," he said, waving a hand as if dismissing a foolish child. "I'm still not making any sense. My head is still cloudy from all the whisky." He screwed his eyes shut for a moment, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. "Such a silly, arrogant thought, isn't it? Ignore it."
Then he leaned forward, his smile warm, beseeching.
"Can we just... start over? Forget last night ever happened? I'm truly sorry for all that… undignified nonsense. I promise it won't happen again." He paused, head dipping. "I just want to focus on our music. That's what matters most, right?"
Jaemin blinked, feeling like the floor had just dropped out from under him. The adrenaline crashed, leaving him lightheaded with a mixture of sharp disappointment and immense relief.
"Right," he breathed, nodding a little too quickly. "The… The piece. That's the priority."
Seungcheol held him with his gaze, still waiting for absolution. "Still partners?" he asked softly.
Jaemin nodded again. "Yeah," he murmured. "Still partners."
He watched as Seungcheol's smile widened with deep relief, and let the alpha reach for Jaemin's bag.
"Come on, let's get out of here. This place is depressing."
…
They walked out of the library side-by-side. The wind had picked up, whipping dead leaves across the icy stone path. But as they reached the bottom of the steps, a figure hurried into their path.
"Jaemin!"
It was Lukas, his trumpet case slung over his shoulder, cheeks ruddy from the cold. He stopped in front of them, relief washing over his face, but his smile faltered for a moment as his eyes slid to the man standing beside Jaemin.
"I've been worried about you," he said, finally focusing his gaze on Jaemin. "You ran off so fast last night, and then..."
He trailed off.
Seungcheol stood there quietly. He didn't sneer, didn't glare, simply offered a polite nod to the beta before speaking.
"Lukas from brass, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Lukas responded. "It's nice to meet you again, Choi Seungcheol. We played the Haydn piece together last semester."
Seungcheol leaned closer to Jaemin, his shoulder brushing against Jaemin's arm. "Ah, of course. My apologies. I'm the one to blame for last night, I'm afraid. I had one glass too many, and ended up disrupting your evening. It was terribly rude of me to monopolize Jaemin like that."
"No problem." Lukas looked at Jaemin. "You okay?"
Jaemin felt the warmth of Seungcheol's arm against his. He looked at Lukas—kind, open Lukas—and felt a flush of embarrassment. He felt awkward, caught between two worlds he didn't know how to bridge.
"I'm fine," he said apologetically, rubbing the back of his neck. "Just... busy. We have a lot of work to do on our piece, and I'm a bit behind."
Lukas glanced between them, observing the shift in Jaemin's posture, the way he naturally aligned himself with the alpha, like a moon caught in a planet's gravity. A small, rueful smile touched his lips; the look of someone arriving five minutes after the train left the station.
"Right," he said, tone cheery. "Sorry to keep you." He smiled at them both, eyes focused on Jaemin. "See you around then, Jaemin. Good luck."
Seungcheol returned the smile with perfect polish. "Excuse us." His hand came up to rest lightly on the small of Jaemin's back for a beat before he stepped away. "Shall we?"
"See you, Lukas," Jaemin managed, before hurrying forward to catch up with Seungcheol.
As he fell into step beside Seungcheol, matching his long stride, a comfortable, familiar quiet settled between them, like the resolution after a difficult chord progression.
Seungcheol didn't look back. He didn't say a word about Lukas, or the interruption. He simply cast a sidelong glance at Jaemin, watching the younger boy unconsciously adjust his pace to stay perfectly in time with him, and smiled.