Sunday afternoon, Xiaoran was in the theater building's costume room, helping with fittings for the upcoming student showcase. It wasn't technically his responsibility—he was only a first-year—but the senior costume coordinator, a harried third-year named Liu Ying, had put out a desperate call for volunteers, and Xiaoran had a pathological inability to ignore requests for help.
"You're a lifesaver," Liu Ying said, pinning the hem of a traditional robe on a second-year student. "Half my team came down with that flu going around campus, and we have fifteen costumes that need final adjustments before dress rehearsal Tuesday."
"Happy to help," Xiaoran said, though he was already regretting the commitment. He'd woken up feeling slightly off—nothing specific, just a vague unease he couldn't quite name. Probably just stress from juggling multiple projects and the lingering anxiety about Jintao's continued presence lurking at the edges of his awareness.
He was measuring sleeve lengths on a Song dynasty scholar's costume when the first real warning sign hit—a sudden wave of heat that had nothing to do with the stuffy costume room temperature. His skin prickled with hypersensitivity, every fiber of the fabric he was touching suddenly feeling too rough, too present, too much.
No. No, no, no. Not now. Not here.
Xiaoran's hand went automatically to his pocket, checking for his suppressant case. There. Still there. He'd taken his morning dose on schedule at 8 AM like always. This shouldn't be happening. His cycles were regulated, controlled, predictable.
But biology didn't always follow pharmaceutical schedules.
"Xiaoran?" Liu Ying's voice seemed to come from very far away. "You okay? You just went really pale."
"I'm fine." The words came out strained. "Just felt dizzy for a second. Maybe I should get some water."
"Sure, take a break. Water fountain is down the hall."
Xiaoran made it to the hallway before the second wave hit—stronger this time, unmistakable. His heat cycle, arriving three weeks early and with absolutely no consideration for his carefully planned schedule or current location. Panic clawed up his throat as he calculated distances. His dorm was a fifteen-minute walk. The campus medical center was ten minutes in the opposite direction. The costume room was on the third floor of a building full of students rehearsing, studying, working on various projects.
His scent would be noticeable soon. The magnolia fragrance that he normally kept muted through daily suppressants would bloom into something that made Alphas lose their carefully maintained control. And he was standing in the middle of a building full of people with absolutely no safe space to hide.
His suppressant case. He fumbled it out of his pocket with shaking hands, managing to extract one of his emergency high-dose pills. The warning label flashed through his mind: *Not for regular use. Maximum one dose per month. Side effects may be severe. Consult physician before taking.*
He didn't have time to consult a physician. He had maybe five minutes before his scent became obvious to anyone with functional olfactory senses.
Xiaoran swallowed the pill dry and leaned against the hallway wall, trying to control his breathing. The emergency suppressant would take effect within fifteen to twenty minutes, fast enough to prevent full heat manifestation. He just had to make it through the next fifteen minutes without drawing attention or triggering any Alpha responses.
The third wave hit like a physical blow, and Xiaoran's knees buckled. He caught himself against the wall, vision swimming. His skin felt like it was burning from the inside out, every nerve ending hypersensitive and screaming for relief. The magnolia scent was definitely perceptible now—he could smell it himself, sweet and overwhelming and completely uncontrollable.
"Fuck," he whispered, sliding down to sit on the floor. He couldn't go back to the costume room like this. Couldn't walk across campus. Could barely think through the heat-fog clouding his brain.
His phone. He should call someone. Zhou Mei? No, she was at dance rehearsal across campus. Zhang Wei? Also too far away. Campus medical? They'd want to admit him for observation, document the incident, probably contact his parents. The whole bureaucratic nightmare he'd spent four months trying to avoid.
A door opened somewhere nearby, and Xiaoran caught a scent that made his heat-addled brain react with confusing intensity—that clean, subtle cedar-and-paper scent he'd noticed yesterday at the library. Alpha. Nearby Alpha. His biology screamed for him to move toward the scent while his rational mind screamed to hide before being discovered in this vulnerable state.
"Wen Xiaoran?" Lin Yuze's voice, sharp with surprise and something else. "What are you—"
He stopped mid-sentence, and Xiaoran knew the exact moment Yuze caught his scent. The silence that followed was absolutely loaded with tension.
Xiaoran forced his eyes open, forced himself to look up. Yuze stood frozen about three meters away, his expression cycling through surprise, recognition, and then something that looked almost like panic. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides, his jaw tight, his entire body rigid with obvious control.
"You need to leave," Xiaoran managed to say. "Go. Now. Before—"
"Before your heat fully manifests and I lose control?" Yuze's voice was strained but still functional. "I'm not leaving you alone in a public hallway during heat onset. That's dangerous."
"More dangerous than an Alpha being near me right now?"
"I have excellent control." But even as Yuze said it, Xiaoran could see the tension in his posture, the way he was holding himself perfectly still as if movement might shatter his restraint. "Where's your dorm? Can you walk?"
"Fifteen minutes away. I can't—" Another wave hit and Xiaoran bit back a whimper. "I took emergency suppressant. It'll kick in soon. Just need to wait."
"How soon?"
"Ten more minutes maybe?"
Yuze was silent for a long moment, clearly calculating odds and options. Then, with visible effort, he moved—not closer, but to prop open the door he'd come through. "This is a private practice room. It has a lock. You'll be safer in here than in the hallway where anyone could find you."
Xiaoran wanted to argue, but his body made the decision for him, struggling to his feet and stumbling toward the offered sanctuary. Yuze stepped back immediately, maximizing distance, and Xiaoran made it through the door before his legs gave out completely. He collapsed onto the small sofa against the wall, his body shaking with the effort of staying conscious through the heat waves.
Yuze locked the door and positioned himself as far from Xiaoran as the small room allowed—back against the opposite wall, hands flat against the surface behind him as if physically restraining himself. His face was carefully blank, but Xiaoran could see his throat working as he swallowed hard, could see the tension radiating from every muscle.
"Your scent," Yuze said, his voice rougher than normal. "It's stronger than I've ever encountered. Is this normal for you?"
"It's the magnolia phenomenon," Xiaoran gasped out. "Rare scent variation. One in ten thousand Omegas. Makes Alphas react more intensely than typical heat scent."
"I'm aware of the magnolia phenomenon academically." Yuze's control was audibly fraying. "Experiencing it firsthand is significantly different from reading about it."
"You should really leave. I'll be fine. The suppressant—"
"The suppressant hasn't taken effect yet, and I'm not leaving you vulnerable and alone." Yuze's hands were white-knuckled against the wall. "I have control. I can maintain it for ten minutes."
But maintaining control was clearly costing him. Xiaoran could see Yuze's canines had descended slightly, could see the way his chest heaved with careful, measured breathing, could practically feel the Alpha instincts warring with conscious intention.
"Talk to me," Yuze said suddenly. "About anything. Something that requires cognitive function. Help me stay focused."
"What?" Xiaoran's brain was increasingly foggy, rational thought difficult through the heat haze.
"Tell me about your monologue. The one from 'Rhinoceros in Love.' The emotional arc you were working on." Yuze's voice was tight but purposeful. "Explain your interpretation. Make me think about analysis instead of—instead of biology."
It was such a strange request, so characteristically Yuze—using intellectual engagement as armor against physical urges. But Xiaoran understood the strategy. Keeping the rational mind active, preventing the Alpha instincts from taking over completely.
"The character," Xiaoran forced himself to say, words coming slowly, "is trying to convince someone to love him. But it's absurdist—he knows it's impossible, knows love can't be argued into existence. So the speech is simultaneously sincere and self-aware of its own futility."
"Like performing an emotion while simultaneously critiquing the performance itself." Yuze's voice was strained but engaged. "Meta-theatrical awareness embedded in authentic expression."
"Exactly. The humor comes from the gap between his desperate sincerity and his intellectual recognition of absurdity." Xiaoran clutched the sofa cushions, trying to anchor himself. "It's harder to perform than straight emotion because you have to hold both truths simultaneously."
"Complexity creates depth. Same principle in musical composition—holding dissonance and resolution in tension rather than resolving too quickly."
They kept talking, Yuze asking questions about theater theory, Xiaoran forcing himself to answer despite the heat making coherent thought increasingly difficult. It was working though—the conversation gave them both something to focus on besides the biology screaming for attention.
Minutes crawled by. Xiaoran's internal timer suggested ten minutes had passed, then twelve, then fifteen. The emergency suppressant should be taking effect by now, should be cooling the heat, dampening his scent, returning his body to manageable equilibrium.
But the heat wasn't receding. If anything, it was intensifying.
"Something's wrong," Xiaoran gasped. "The suppressant should be working by now."
Yuze's expression shifted to concern underneath the strain of control. "How many suppressants have you taken recently?"
"Just my regular daily dose this morning, and the emergency dose fifteen minutes ago."
"Before that. How long have you been taking daily suppressants without break?"
Xiaoran's heat-fogged brain tried to calculate. "Four months? Since summer. I haven't missed a dose."
"Four months continuous use without cycle breaks." Yuze's tone was grim. "Xiaoran, that's not medically recommended. Your body builds tolerance. Emergency suppressants become less effective when regular suppressants are overused."
"I need them." The words came out almost desperate. "I can't go through heat without them. I can't be vulnerable like that. Not after—"
He cut himself off, but Yuze's sharp mind had clearly caught the implication. "After something traumatic happened during a previous heat?"
Xiaoran didn't answer, couldn't answer. Another wave of heat crashed through him and he curled in on himself, whimpering despite his best effort to stay quiet. His scent spiked even stronger, and he heard Yuze make a sound—something between a growl and a groan, quickly suppressed.
"The suppressant isn't working," Yuze said, his voice barely recognizable. "You're going into full heat. You need to get to your dorm or the medical center, and I need to get far away from you before I lose control entirely."
"I can't walk. Can barely think." Xiaoran's hands were shaking violently. "Just leave. Lock the door from outside. I'll wait it out here."
"Absolutely not. Full heat without assistance is dangerous. Fever, dehydration, potential medical complications." Yuze pulled out his phone with hands that were also shaking. "I'm calling someone. Who can I call? Your friend Zhou Mei?"
"She's across campus. Won't make it in time." Xiaoran tried to focus through the fog. "Campus medical. But they'll document it. Contact my family. I don't want—"
"I don't care what you want," Yuze said flatly, already dialing. "Your safety is more important than your privacy concerns."
But before the call could connect, the practice room door handle rattled. Both of them froze.
"Hey, is someone in there?" An unfamiliar male voice, Alpha by the scent. "We have this room reserved for 4 PM."
Yuze checked his phone. 4:03 PM. They'd been in here for over twenty minutes.
"Room is occupied," Yuze called out, his voice controlled despite everything. "Find another practice space."
"We reserved this specific room. We need the piano." The handle rattled again, more insistently. "Open up."
Xiaoran's scent was definitely permeating through the door by now. He heard the voices outside go quiet, heard the moment when the Alphas on the other side caught the magnolia fragrance.
"Is there an Omega in heat in there?" A different voice, darker, more interested. "You can't hoard an unclaimed Omega during heat. That's against university policy."
"He's not unclaimed, and this is none of your business," Yuze said, his tone dropping into something dangerous. "Leave. Now."
"University policy states Omegas in heat must report to medical center for proper management," the first voice argued. "We're calling security."
Yuze cursed under his breath. He looked at Xiaoran with an expression of profound frustration and concern. "I need to get you out of here before campus security arrives and this becomes an official incident. Can you stand?"
Xiaoran tried. His legs barely supported him, and Yuze was there immediately—not touching, but close enough to catch him if he fell.
"I'm going to help you walk," Yuze said, his voice tight. "This is going to be difficult for both of us. Physical contact when you're in heat and I'm barely maintaining control. But the alternative is worse. Understood?"
Xiaoran nodded. He didn't have better options.
Yuze carefully, reluctantly, put Xiaoran's arm over his shoulders and supported his weight. The contact was electric—Xiaoran's heat-sensitized skin registering every point of contact, his body instinctively leaning into the Alpha's presence. Yuze made a sound like he'd been punched, his entire body going rigid.
"Talk," Yuze gritted out. "Keep talking about anything. Theater, family, favorite food. Just keep my brain engaged."
Xiaoran forced words out as Yuze maneuvered them toward the door. "My mother makes the best hongshao rou. Recipe from her grandmother. She adds extra star anise and rock sugar. Makes it sweet and savory simultaneously."
"Smart flavor balancing." Yuze's voice was strained but functional. "What else?"
"My sisters are terrifying. Three older sisters, all convinced I can't survive without their constant supervision."
"Sounds overwhelming."
"It is. But they mean well. They just express love through intensive intervention."
They'd reached the door. The voices outside had gone quiet—probably actually calling security. Yuze took a breath, steadying himself, then unlocked and opened the door.
Three Alpha students stood in the hallway, their expressions cycling between concern and inappropriate interest as Xiaoran's scent hit them full force. Yuze's reaction was immediate and overwhelming—his Alpha presence flooded the hallway, dominating the space with territorial aggression that made all three students step back involuntarily.
"He's claimed," Yuze said, his voice dropping into a register Xiaoran had never heard from him—pure Alpha authority with an edge of violence. "You will not approach. You will not call security. You will forget you saw anything. Am I understood?"
The students nodded mutely, their own Alpha instincts recognizing superior dominance and backing down immediately. Yuze didn't wait for verbal confirmation, already moving, half-carrying Xiaoran down the hallway toward the building exit.
"I'm not claimed," Xiaoran mumbled against Yuze's shoulder.
"They don't know that. And right now, everyone in this building thinking you're my Omega is the safest option for both of us." Yuze's grip tightened slightly. "I'm getting you to your dorm. Then I'm leaving immediately. Then you're going to call your friends or campus medical to help you through this properly."
The walk across campus was a nightmare of barely maintained control and overwhelming sensation. Every step required conscious effort. Every breath brought Yuze's scent mixing with Xiaoran's, creating feedback loops of biological response that neither could fully control.
Students they passed gave them wide berth, clearly recognizing the situation and wisely staying out of an Alpha's territorial radius when dealing with an Omega in heat. Xiaoran was vaguely aware of stares, whispers, attention he absolutely didn't want. But his brain was too foggy to care, his body too overwhelmed to process anything beyond immediate sensation.
They made it to Xiaoran's dorm building—an eternity of steps and breathing and control barely maintained. Yuze got them up to the third floor, to Xiaoran's room, and gratefully found it unlocked—Wei Chen must be out.
Yuze deposited Xiaoran on his bed with visible relief at breaking physical contact. Xiaoran immediately curled up, his body demanding relief his mind refused to acknowledge.
"I'm leaving," Yuze said, already backing toward the door. "I'm calling Zhou Mei to come help you. And I'm calling campus medical if no one arrives within twenty minutes."
"Don't," Xiaoran managed to say. "Please. Just—I'll be fine. I have suppressants. I'll take more."
"More suppressants when your system is already overloaded is dangerous." Yuze had his phone out. "You need proper care, not chemical management."
"I can't," Xiaoran's voice broke. "I can't go through heat properly. Not after—I can't be that vulnerable. Please understand."
Yuze paused in the doorway, his expression conflicted. "What happened to make you this afraid?"
Xiaoran couldn't answer. Another wave of heat crashed through him and he couldn't suppress the whimper this time. His body was burning, screaming for relief, for an Alpha's touch, for the biological fulfillment his rational mind rejected absolutely.
"I'm going to be sick," Xiaoran gasped.
Yuze grabbed the trash bin and brought it to the bedside just as Xiaoran's body rebelled against the excessive suppressants, the heat, the stress. He vomited violently while Yuze held his hair back with hands that shook with the effort of maintaining control in the face of such concentrated distress and pheromones.
When the worst passed, Xiaoran collapsed back on the bed, sweating and shaking and absolutely miserable. His heat was still building despite the suppressants, despite his body's violent rejection of chemical intervention. Biology didn't care about trauma or fear. It just demanded fulfillment through increasingly insistent waves of need.
"This isn't sustainable," Yuze said quietly. "Your body is rejecting the suppressants. The heat is going to progress regardless. You need medical intervention or..." He trailed off, not finishing the sentence. Or an Alpha's help. Or proper biological resolution. Or all the things Xiaoran was too traumatized to accept.
"Just lock the door when you leave," Xiaoran whispered. "I'll wait it out. I've done it before."
"When? How many times have you forced yourself through heat alone with excessive suppressants?"
"This is the first full heat since summer. I was managing the cycles with daily suppressants. Keeping them minimal. This one came early. I didn't expect—"
"You can't do this," Yuze interrupted. "Forcing through heat alone with your body rejecting suppressants—you could seriously hurt yourself. Fever, dehydration, hormonal damage. This isn't safe."
"Neither is the alternative." Xiaoran's eyes burned with tears he refused to shed. "You don't understand. I can't be that vulnerable with anyone. Can't trust my biology not to betray me again. The suppressants are all I have to maintain control."
Yuze was quiet for a long moment, standing in the doorway, clearly torn between leaving and staying, between respecting Xiaoran's autonomy and preventing harm. His control was still visibly fraying—his canines fully descended now, his breathing labored, his hands clenched so tightly his knuckles were white.
"I'm not qualified to help you through this," Yuze said finally. "My control is good but not infinite. And your scent is specifically designed to break Alpha control. I need to leave before I do something we both regret."
"Then leave." Xiaoran tried to sound firm but it came out desperate.
Yuze hesitated one more second, his expression unreadable. Then he stepped fully out of the room, pulling the door closed behind him. Xiaoran heard the lock click into place.
Alone. Safe. Vulnerable but protected by walls and doors and distance.
The heat intensified immediately, his body punishing him for choosing isolation over biological resolution. Xiaoran reached for his suppressant bottle with shaking hands, knowing it was futile, knowing his system was saturated and rejecting, but having no other option.
He swallowed two more pills—definitely over the recommended maximum, definitely dangerous, but less dangerous than the alternative in his mind—and curled up in a ball, waiting for either the medication or the heat to win this particular battle.
Outside his dorm, Yuze leaned against the hallway wall, phone in hand, trying to decide what to do. Every instinct screamed to go back in that room, to help, to provide what Xiaoran's biology demanded. But that was exactly what Xiaoran feared—Alpha instincts overriding consent, biology weaponized against vulnerability.
Yuze pulled up Zhou Mei's contact from the group chat they'd been added to yesterday. His thumb hovered over the call button.
Then he heard it—through the door, muffled but unmistakable—Xiaoran crying. Not from physical pain, but from something deeper. Fear and grief and the overwhelming unfairness of having a body that betrayed your agency, of needing things you were too traumatized to accept.
Yuze closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the wall. This was beyond his capacity to handle. Beyond his experience or expertise. Beyond what simple control and discipline could resolve.
He texted Zhou Mei: *Wen Xiaoran is in heat. Room 307, dormitory building 3. He needs help. Refusing medical intervention. Overdosing on suppressants. Someone needs to check on him. He won't let me help.*
The response came immediately: *OMG. I'm coming right now. 5 minutes.*
Yuze waited in the hallway until Zhou Mei arrived at a sprint, her expression fierce with concern. She didn't ask questions, just knocked on the door.
"Xiaoran? It's Zhou Mei. Let me in."
Silence, then a weak voice: "Go away."
"Not happening. Let me in or I'm getting an RA to unlock this door."
More silence, then the sound of the lock clicking. Zhou Mei entered immediately. Yuze caught a glimpse of Xiaoran on the bed, curled up and clearly suffering, before Zhou Mei shut the door firmly behind her.
Yuze stood in the hallway for another moment, listening to Zhou Mei's voice through the door—gentle but firm, coaxing Xiaoran toward sense. Then he forced himself to leave, to put distance between himself and that magnolia scent before his control shattered completely.
He made it back to his dorm room and locked himself in, ignoring Zhang Wei's concerned questions. His canines were still descended, his body still flooded with Alpha response, his mind replaying Xiaoran's scent, Xiaoran's distress, Xiaoran's tears.
For the first time in four years, Lin Yuze's perfect control had been truly tested. And it had barely survived.
He took a cold shower—long enough to be punishing, hot enough at the end to hurt. Anything to reset his biology, to purge the scent memory, to return to equilibrium.
When he finally emerged, Zhang Wei was still there, looking concerned. "You okay? You've been in there for over an hour."
"I'm fine." Yuze's voice came out rougher than intended. "Just needed to reset."
"Reset from what?"
"Nothing. Personal issue. I'm handling it."
Zhang Wei clearly didn't believe him, but he also knew Yuze well enough not to push. "Okay. Well, if you need to talk about this mysterious personal issue, I'm here. Roommate availability and all that."
"Noted."
Yuze returned to his desk, pulled up his composition software, and tried to lose himself in work. But for the first time in years, music wasn't enough of an escape. His mind kept drifting to a dorm room across campus, to an Omega in distress, to the sound of crying through a closed door.
He'd done the right thing—getting Xiaoran somewhere safe, calling for help, leaving before causing harm. He'd maintained control when it mattered most.
So why did it feel like failure?
Why did walking away from someone clearly suffering feel like the worst kind of abandonment?
Lin Yuze didn't have answers. He only had discipline, control, and the memory of magnolia scent that would probably haunt him for weeks.
He forced himself back to his composition, back to work, back to the fortress of productivity where emotions couldn't reach him.
But some walls, once cracked, were harder to rebuild than others.
And Xiaoran's tears echoed in places no amount of discipline could quiet.