Sungyoon speaks louder with an edge. “You knew this whole time, didn’t you? Where he was. Who he was.”
I nod silently, still looking at the floor.
“Did he know about me?”
I shake my head.
The silence that follows is unbearable. I can hear Sungyoon breathing, can hear the way it hitches once before he gets it under control, and when I finally look up his jaw is working, the muscle jumping beneath the skin, his fists clenched at his sides.
“So you lied to both of us,” he says, and his voice cracks on the last word in a way that feels like being gutted.
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly, and I mean it with every broken piece of me. “I thought it was better for all of us.”
Sungyoon lets out a harsh laugh that sounds nothing like a fifteen-year-old, too bitter. “Better?” he repeats. “You kept him from me. All this time you knew who he was and where he was and you kept him from me.” He takes a step closer and I can see his eyes are glassy now, bright with tears he’s fighting, his voice rises as the composure he’s been holding onto starts to fray. “Even when I presented and you knew I needed an alpha around to help me through it, you still didn’t say anything. You had no right to make that choice for me.”
I flinch at his raised voice, at the crack of genuine pain underneath the anger, the sound of a kid who’s just found out that the one person he trusted most in the world has been lying to him his entire life. I can’t say anything back because I know he’s right. Every word out of his mouth is something I’ve told myself in the dark at three in the morning, every accusation one I’ve already leveled at my own reflection.
“I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I was trying to protect you.”
Sungyoon scoffs, the sound wet and angry. “Enough. It’s all excuses.” He swipes the back of his hand across his eyes, quick and furious, like he’s angry at himself for crying. “You messed with my life to make yourself feel better. You were being selfish.” He shakes his head again and his voice drops, going thick. “You know what? I can’t even look at you right now.”
“Sungyoon, wait.” I step forward as he spins toward the door, my hand reaching out. “Where are you going? It’s late.”
He waves me off without turning around, his shoulders hunched up around his ears. “I’m going to get some air. Don’t come after me.”
He wrenches the door open and slams it shut behind him and the sound is identical to the one Hongjoong made hours ago, the same force, the same finality. I’m on his heels, but I stop at the threshold with my hand on the doorframe, Sungyoon’swords ringing in my ears.Don’t come after me.I stand there staring at the closed door. I can hear his footsteps receding down the stairwell, fast and uneven. Every instinct in my body is screaming at me to follow him but I know if I do, I’ll only make it worse. He needs space. He needs to not look at my face for a while and I can’t blame him for that.
I slump against the wall and slide down to the floor, my back scraping against the plaster until I’m sitting on the thin carpet with my knees drawn up. The apartment is silent around me, emptier than it’s ever been, and finally the tears that I’ve fought against since I was nineteen years old spill out, hot and relentless, streaming down my cheeks and dripping off my jaw. I put my forehead against my knees and I sob, the sound ugly and wrenching in the quiet, fifteen years of carrying this alone breaking apart all at once in the silence of my empty apartment.
Nearly two hours pass, and Sungyoon doesn’t come back.
I sit at the kitchen table in the dark. I can’t bring myself to turn on the lights, my phone lying face-up on the table in front of me, the screen black except for when I tap it every thirty seconds to check for a notification that never comes. I texted Sungyoon four times. The first was gentle, just asking him to let me know he’s safe. The second was more urgent. The third was his friend’s name and a question mark, asking if he went there. The fourth was justplease call me. All four sit on delivered, unread, and every minute that ticks by without the front door opening or my phone lighting up makes my chest feel tighter until I can barely breathe around it.
I keep running through worst-case scenarios. He’s fifteen and angry, and it’s almost midnight, and he left without a jacket. He could be anywhere. He could be walking the streets or sitting on a bench somewhere in the cold, or he could have gone to a friend’s house, and I’m praying it’s the last one, but I don’t know because he won’t answer me. I pick up my phone again, unlock it, stare at the delivered messages, and set it back down. My eyes are swollen and gritty from crying, and my throat is so raw from the cigarettes and the sobbing that swallowing hurts.
The doorbell rings.
I’m out of the chair so fast it scrapes backward across the linoleum with a shriek, my socked feet sliding on the floor as I lunge down the hallway toward the front door. My fingers fumble with the deadbolt, clumsy and shaking, and I wrench the door open with Sungyoon’s name already forming on my lips before it occurs to me that Sungyoon has a key and wouldn’t need to ring the bell.
I freeze.
Hongjoong is standing in the hallway under the flickering fluorescent light, still wearing the same clothes from this morning, the same jacket, the same shoes. He looks like he hasn’t slept or eaten or done anything in the last several hours except stew in his own fury, and the evidence of it is written across every line of his body. His jaw is set so hard I can see the tendons standing out in his neck, his eyes are flat and burning at the same time, and the sharp bitter edge of his pheromones washes over me instantly, alpha anger pouring off him in waves that make my omega hindbrain want to drop to the floor and bare my throat in submission. I resist the urge through sheer willpower and years of practice at not folding under aggressive alphas, but my pulse kicks up hard.
I start to speak. “Hongjoong, what are you—”
He cuts me off by slapping a manila folder into my hands, shoving it against my chest with enough force that I have to grab it with both hands to keep it from falling. The papers inside shift and rustle from the impact and I stumble back half a step, blinking down at the folder in confusion.
“What is this?” I ask, already flipping it open, my eyes dropping to the first page even as the question leaves my mouth.
The answer becomes horrifyingly clear within the first three lines.
The top document is a formal paternal claim filing, printed on heavy legal paper with an official government seal stamped in the upper right corner. Hongjoong’s full legal name is printed in the claimant field in crisp black type, and below it, in the section designated for the minor child, is a blank line waiting for Sungyoon’s name and identification number. The filing has already been stamped and notarized, the date on it is today’s, which means Hongjoong went directly from my apartment to a lawyer’s office and had this drawn up within hours. The requirements listed at the bottom are simple: a confirmatory blood test from the child and a signature from the birth parent. My signature.
My hands start to shake. I flip to the next page, then the next, scanning the legalese with eyes that are blurring at the edges, and then I reach the second set of documents and my breath stops entirely.
It’s an official omega claiming declaration. I recognize the form because I’ve seen it before, in pamphlets and in the waiting rooms of omega health clinics, the kind of document I always swore would never have my name on it. But there it is, printed in the same crisp black type. Hongjoong’s name in the alpha claimant field. My name, my full legal name, in the omega respondent field. The basis for the claim is listed in a single damning line:prior reproductive connection establishedthrough documented biological offspring, granting claimant legal standing for retroactive bonding claim.
I stare at the papers and the words swim in front of me. Hongjoong isn’t just claiming Sungyoon. He’s claiming me. As his omega. Legally, permanently, irrevocably, the kind of claim that once registered cannot be undone, that would make me his property under the law, that would strip me of my independence and my right to live on my own terms and place every decision about my life and my son’s life in Hongjoong’s hands. My fingers are trembling so violently that the papers rattle audibly in the quiet hallway.
