Chapter Text
There are a number of misfortunes that might or might not affect omegas who go too long without taking a knot. Heads taller than the common omegas, with too narrow hips and those ears perked up like quotation marks on the sides of his too masculine face, Chanyeol listed some diseases that could boil his brain when he found himself still a virgin on his twenty-fourth birthday; none of the diseases that might or might not affect him were present — instead of these so-called diseases, what actually affected him was the power to read the thoughts of anyone who touches his epidermis.
He was able to protect himself from the misfortunes this new power brought him during the winter by wearing gloves that warmed his fingertips and prevented him from using the touchscreen of his cellphone freely. Now, in the summer, Chanyeol has to deal with the thoughts of subway passengers eating away at his brain with every bump that causes someone to lightly shove into him, or when he enters the too cramped elevator in the office building where he works as an intern.
I want to meet Sooyoung soon and tell her the news , is what enters his head when a short and cute girl lightly bumps into him. “I’m sorry,” she mumbles softly and glances at him sideways, rolling her eyes discreetly when she sees that it’s Chanyeol she’s talking to. So cute, too bad he is too tall. If it weren't for that, he would steal the attention of everyone around… well, but it would be a huge problem for— and Chanyeol pulls away, shrinking against the cold mirror of the elevator.
Chanyeol has always hated his height and the stares he attracts. Now that he can hear people's thoughts and know their opinions about him, he hates the attention he gets for being an omega this tall even more.
He sighs loudly. It’s frustrating and tiring. He wonders if, at some point, this power will fade the same way it came — quickly, spontaneously, like waking up from a nap on the living room couch. Chanyeol hopes so, because he’d rather die than go to a brothel and lose his virginity to a stranger just to get rid of this inconvenience.
*
Chanyeol quickly finds out what news the woman he bumped into in the elevator was talking about because, after all, Sooyoung is one of the few friends Chanyeol has.
Her heels click happily against the office floor as she runs to the small cubicle where Chanyeol’s desk is. She’s a natural gossiper. Her dark hair cascades down the shoulders of her dark blue blazer as the toes of her pumps slip and almost make her fall if Chanyeol hadn’t grabbed her by the wrists. In addition to being a gossiper, Sooyoung is also a total clumsy.
A loud and shrill Damn it! resonates against the walls of Chanyeol's skull and he has to hold himself back from letting go of Sooyoung's thin wrists and letting her fall to the floor. Thank you, thank you, my great friend… you saved my life…!
Chanyeol lets out a breathy laugh. One of the things he’s discovered thanks to his new psychic power is that Sooyoung is a lot more polite than she lets on. She’s always thanking him for something silly in her head, but she seems too shy or oblivious to say it out loud.
“Finally!” Sooyoung claps her hands. Thankfully, Chanyeol notices that the office still has just a few people waiting to begin to work. “You have no idea what’s going on.”
Chanyeol knows it has to do with the CEO and his controversially younger omega, but he, an antisocial, doesn't want to tell her how he discovered one of the key pieces of the big gossip that's making its way through the halls between the hundreds of cubicles, so he just gives her his big and curious eyes.
“It seems that CEO Do got that Jongin guy from the marketing team pregnant. And you won’t believe this, but…!” Sooyoung pauses for a moment, wanting to build suspense: “He’s actually going to take care of the baby!”
Chanyeol's eyebrows arch as he uses his foot to pull out one of the rolling chairs for the flustered Sooyoung to sit down and continue talking more calmly.
"I don't believe you…"
“I told you you wouldn’t! But it’s true, I went to Jongin myself to confirm.”
Chanyeol exasperates: “Are you crazy?”
“I need to find out the facts so I can tell you better! You know I can’t resist…” The pout that forms on her glossy pink lips is charming. Like Chanyeol, Sooyoung is an omega who has grown too tall, however, unlike him, whose height shows in his curved spine to fit between other people’s heads, Sooyoung wears her long, disastrous legs with elegance, and her confidence never wavers after noticing that her bones were stretching more than they should.
He considers touching her skin discreetly and searching her mind for this secret. Instead, Chanyeol shakes his head, scolding her for engaging in gossip that could cost them the internship they are both fighting to maintain.
INB Corporation is one of the few administrative companies that currently allows omegas to keep their jobs without having to bow their heads to constant harassment at work or be stuck in assistant and/or secretary positions, while earning, with great effort, salaries and promotions that match their habilities. It is the dream of any omega in Chanyeol and Sooyoung's field to get and keep their job at INB Corp., but Sooyoung always seems to be very willing to give up everything for a really good gossip. Despite this, she is very good at what she does, and Chanyeol is sure that she will be promoted soon.
Which is quite different from his situation.
When alpha Kim Minseok enters their compartment at exactly 8:10am, Chanyeol doesn't need to know that he'll be driving his feet to his cubicle. The Good luck my very good friend that Sooyoung thinks when she taps Chanyeol's shoulder is also a warning that she knows what's coming, even if she hasn't looked for much information about it in the building's hallways.
“Good morning, Park one. Good morning, Park two.”
Sooyoung bows slightly before running away from Minseok's sharp eyes. He's nothing more than Byun Baekhyun's right-hand man, the director of the finance department where Chanyeol and Sooyoung work. And he's the one who always brings Chanyeol hate messages from the boss. Chanyeol never thought he'd be so bad at what he studied to do, but it seems he's all that, indeed.
“Park, it seems like Baekhyun wants to meet you in person today.”
Chanyeol’s eyes widen to the brim. The antisocial Byun Baekhyun rarely held meetings in his office, but it seems that Chanyeol has been making more mistakes than he thought.
Minseok shakes his small face from side to side as he crosses his arms and watches Chanyeol lift his large body onto the chair, heading out of the room and down the hallways to the dark door at the end. Chanyeol feels even more embarrassed when he realizes that Minseok is walking far behind him, and he knows, since he discovered one day when they bumped into each other, that Minseok prefers to keep distance from Chanyeol so no one can notices how big the height difference is between the two of them.
It's nauseating. Chanyeol remembers the grimace Minseok makes every time he has to look up to look him in the eye when he has to scold him. In addition to embarrassing himself, Chanyeol tends to embarrass other people as well, unconsciously.
As he shuffles into Baekhyun's room, Minseok is no longer following, Chanyeol sees, but that doesn't change much; he still feels like a big, flashy elephant making a fuss with every step he takes, drawing attention to every picture hanging on the wall and every framed photo on the long table in the center, where Baekhyun is, frowning and eyes focused on some documents.
With rectangular glasses, he is even more handsome.
Chanyeol has hated Baekhyun a lot of times since he joined INB Corp.; he hated him in the coffee shop, the first time they met, when Baekhyun made a tsc loudly and clearly for Chanyeol's choice of dessert; hated him in the interview, when he spent long forty minutes staring at him and judging him with those sharp, mesmerizing eyes consuming him with questions that made Chanyeol feel very nervous; and, most of all, hated him when he found himself thinking a lot about the amber and mandarin smell he exudes everywhere, the warm, citrusy scent that sticks to his clothes and wherever he steps. His smell draws more attention than the yellow gold ring on the ring finger of his left hand — Byun Baekhyun is an alpha promised to CEO Do's sister since childhood and, despite the whole of Korea knowing it, Chanyeol hates himself for salivating over him since the moment he saw him in the coffee shop.
“Mr. Byun, did you call me?” Chanyeol asks softly, catching the alpha’s attention, cautiously approaching his desk and consequently making the citrus scent intensify. Chanyeol hasn’t met many citrus alphas, but he knows that Baekhyun’s fresh, warm-as-a-summer-day scent is the most delicious scent an alpha could dream of having, and he knows that no one will ever smell better.
However, just like a hot summer day, Baekhyun also knows how to be stressful.
“If you’re here, it’s because I called you, Park.”
Chanyeol chokes. “Oh, well…—”
Baekhyun is always so rude to him and everyone else, but Chanyeol just can't get used to it. His chest always shrinks and burns with pain, even without any exact reason, and even more so since it's been so little time since his last cycle — he's more of a crybaby than ever.
Baekhyun lets out a long sigh and lets some papers slide onto the dark table; his slender fingers enchant Chanyeol more than the ring that shines like the sun.
“Park, tell me, can you read?”
"... Yes, sir…?"
“Yes? Can you read?” Baekhyun’s slender hands fall with a loud thud on the wood that makes Chanyeol jump in the corner he’s planted at. He didn’t even dare to sit up, but the way his body trembles at Baekhyun’s rising voice makes him want to lean on something. “If you can read and count, then why do I have to correct you so many times?”
“I…— I’m so sorry, Mr. Byun, I promise that—” Chanyeol tries to apologize hurriedly, but Baekhyun hates being interrupted in his long lectures.
“Was your diploma fake?”
Chanyeol's chin starts to tremble, and his voice cracks.
“No… no, sir, it wasn’t.” Chanyeol studied very, very hard. His diploma isn’t fake, nor are the recommendations he has, nor is the effort he puts into everything he does. Even so, Baekhyun hurts him with terrible words and he no longer understands what he does so wrong.
Chanyeol notices the sound of saliva being swallowed by Baekhyun's throat before the sensation of thin tears running down his cheeks, red with shame. Chanyeol noticed his own face were hot, but he didn't imagine that he wouldn't be able to hold back his tears until he reaches the bathroom in the hallway. Soon after, there is the sound of a chair being scraped back, but Chanyeol's eyes are starting to get blurry and still fixed on the office floor.
“Here, drink some water.”
Chanyeol shakes his head. “No— no need, sir, I’m s-sorry.”
Baekhyun's concern warms Chanyeol's chest with comfort, but the alpha's scent warms him in another way; too embarrassed to pull away, Chanyeol wipes his own tears away in anger.
“At least sit down, Park, you’re shaking…” Baekhyun’s voice is incredibly lower and thicker, but now Chanyeol’s tears don’t stop rolling down his cheeks. “Drink, that’s an order.”
With blurred vision, Chanyeol accepts the transparent water bottle that Baekhyun offers him. He takes the bottle with his free hand while the other continues to wipe away tears and try to hide his own red face, but that's when he touches Baekhyun's fingers. It's just a brush, light as a feather, and the sensation barely reaches the fingertips. What Chanyeol reads from Baekhyun's troubled mind is what electrifies his entire body:
Stop crying… I can't fuck you here.
Chanyeol's body falls into the chair that was thankfully right behind him. He notices Baekhyun's shocked and worried eyes on his long body, but it doesn't change the fact that the expression on Chanyeol's face is far more horrified.
He wonders if it's some misunderstanding or if he's really going crazy. However, after a loud sob escapes Chanyeol's chubby mouth, one of Baekhyun's hands quickly takes out a small embroidered handkerchief from one of the pockets of his dress pants, soaked in the hot scent of amber and mandarin.
Baekhyun's soft touch is cold and makes Chanyeol's skin crawl, and he swallows hard, tears still running thickly down his face, constantly being wiped away by the thin fabric; so thin that, even though Baekhyun's epidermis is supposedly protected, Chanyeol can still hear:
Stop crying, please… be stronger for me just this once. I really can’t hold myself for too long…
And this time, it came along with vivid images of Chanyeol being bent over Baekhyun's office desk, his own pants down and his face wet with tears — Chanyeol has no idea if it came from himself or from Baekhyun's mind, but it rush and swallow his mind, slowly turning him on, body warming, blushing everywhere.
As the cloth dries the tears that are slowly ceasing on the right side of Chanyeol's face, Baekhyun's thumb rubs his left cheek. Baekhyun's sharp eyes are locked on Chanyeol's frightened ones, locked in the dark orbs as if he is prevented from blinking, and it is Chanyeol, softened by the gentle touch of Baekhyun's thumb, who escapes his gaze, closing his eyelids slightly — he can't help it, this being the first time an alpha has treated him with such affection and kindness and actually been willingly intimate with Chanyeol, even if the alpha in question is the reason Chanyeol was crying in the first place. The frightened wolf that exists inside Chanyeol's soul now runs to its own nest and calls out to the alpha who is taking care of him.
And that—that reaction from Chanyeol, makes Baekhyun growl.
It's low, restrained, but Chanyeol hears it.
If you don't stop crying now, I'm afraid I'll have to knot you up in front of everyone.
Chanyeol chokes back his moan with a sob. His eyes immediately open and run to look at Baekhyun's face, which remains impassive, showing no reaction, but Chanyeol knows that he heard correctly and that those were indeed Byun Baekhyun's thoughts.
Chanyeol clears his throat and pushes away from Baekhyun, missing the warmth of his hands, missing the extent to which Baekhyun's alpha scent affects him at that distance.
“I-I-I’m sorry, Mr. Byun,” Chanyeol stands up, legs shaking, and bows quickly at a 90-degree angle. He’s shaking like Baekhyun is an assassin — the alpha actually looks like he’s trying to kill him. “I’m sorry!”
The omega Chanyeol runs out aimlessly, knocking lightly on Baekhyun's office door and nervously walking through the hallways. He runs to the bathroom, unbuttoning his dress shirt, looking at himself in the mirror without checking if there is anyone else there to see him in that state.
Chanyeol looks at his own reflection breathlessly, embarrassed, lowering the collar of his shirt and noticing the red spots that begin to form on his neck, right where his scent glands are, scratching them lightly with the tips of his fingers, testing how sore they are. “Ah,” he lets out a soft moan at how sensitive they are.
Byun Baekhyun is the death of Park Chanyeol.