As soon as consciousness hit him, a desperate groan echoed in the room. Each slight shift of his body resulted in his limbs screaming at him to stay still. He was too worn out and used way beyond his limits.
Hearing a quiet exhale from somewhere close, he forced himself to open his eyes. He couldn’t believe what he saw.
There, by his side, sat a delicate boy looking down at him with worry in his eyes. But that was not what caught Insu off guard: The boy looked so much like him.
The same pink hair, the same golden skin tone, and the same ice-blue eyes. Only that he was way smaller in form than Insu and had his hair short, unlike his neck-length one.
“You’re awake.” The boy’s soft voice said sweetly. “You’ve been out for a whole day. Which is granted after what you went through.” The other removed something, a towel, from his forehead and replaced it with a new, wet one. “Your heat lasted for a week. That’s… very long. Was it your first?”
He had a hard time following all the words, but he tried hard to focus. Swallowing painfully with how dry his throat was, he licked over his lips a couple of times to be able to talk.
“I—” Insu was shocked at how rough his voice sounded.“I don’t know what that word means.” He said before trying to sit up, failing pathetically, and ending up wincing in an ache that spread throughout his entire body.
“It’s better if you lie still.” The pink-haired boy said with furrowed brows and sad eyes as he pushed his shoulders back on the mattress with his small hands. “How can you not know what being in heat means? You’re an omega!” The other moved closer, crossed his legs, and applied pressure on the towel on his forehead.
“I don’t know what omega means either. The prince and the other guy kept calling me that, too.” He winced at the memory of the things they had done to him. His own voice rang in his head as he begged them countless times, but they never listened. They only did what they wanted until he blacked out, and then they continued anyway. He would come back to it, still under them and having one or both of them inside.
Tears gathered in his eyes in a second and his bottom lip started trembling. “Why did they do that to me? Why did I suddenly feel like that? It just— no matter how tired I felt, the urge just didn’t go away.” His voice broke many times saying that as he desperately searched in the eyes of the other for some answer.
A sad smile appeared on the boy’s face, brushing the pink hair out of Insu’s face. “That is how being in heat feels. A need of an omega, you, that can only be satisfied by an alpha, the prince and Duke Kangdae.” There was a pause before the other asked with much hesitation and a look Insu couldn’t read. “Did they knot you?”
“I…” He didn’t know what the word meant, but he had heard it from the two. “Did they release inside your body and keep themselves in afterward?”
“…Yeah,” He blinked, recalling and wondering why the boy asked that. “Yeah, many times.”
His answer must’ve triggered something in the other because the expression was… it was complex. A mix of many feelings; Hurt, sadness, and concern.
“At least they didn’t mark you…” The other said under his breath, removing the towel.
Insu watched him. There was a certain aura to the fragile boy. Something so innocent and pure… and broken. It hurt his heart to watch as he silently took care of him, looked under the band-aid on his neck before fixing it again and tucking him under the blanket better.
“What’s your name?” He asked with a soft, quiet tone.
“Duho.” The equally pink-haired boy said with a gorgeous smile on his face.
“Beautiful name.” He returned the smile and used all of his energy to brush his fingers over the boy’s on his forehead. “I’m Insu.”
The vulnerability that was painted over the soft face of Duho made him want to sit up and embrace him tightly, fight whatever darkness in his head away.
“Thank you, your name is beautiful, too.” The other said shyly, looking down.
Before they could talk any further, the big wooden door opened swiftly and the familiar figure of the prince walked in, steps making little to no sound with how smoothly he moved.
Duho shifted to his knees and sat straight with his head hung low, not really looking at the man standing by the foot of the giant bed.
The prince was wearing a long black leather coat, going down to his ankles. His white shirt underneath had many buttons undone. His outfit didn’t matter, sure he looked good and Insu hated himself for thinking that, but that scent, the smell that filled the room the moment he walked in clouded his senses, easing his mind a bit. It was nowhere as intense as when he was in ‘heat’ though.
“How is he?” The prince’s low voice asked, looking at Duho after only having glanced at him for a second or two.
“He’s much better. But the fever’s still there and—” The boy looked up at the black-haired man. “His neck is still swollen.”
The other stared at the small boy with that expressionless face of his for long seconds. “Come here.”
Duho was slow in his movements as he stood up and made his way toward the man, standing a few centimeters away from him and looking up to meet his eyes.
Namil leaned in, buried his nose in the crook of the other’s neck, sniffing him deeply and closing his eyes in satisfaction. Insu was watching it all.
“I didn’t mark him.” The prince’s raspy voice said in a whisper, but since the room was so quiet he heard it too.
Duho circled his arms around the other, hugging him loosely and pressing his head on the muscular chest. The black-haired guy stroked over the boy’s back with his hand as he stood straight and looked right into Insu’s eyes with a narrowed gaze.
There was a knock on the door, someone asking for permission to come in.
“Hyo doesn’t stop crying.” The woman said before Namil nodded at Duho and the boy left the room, leaving the two of them alone.
The prince walked a few steps and sat on the edge of the bed, pouring a glass of water. He got something out of his pocket, a potion, and added it to the water, twirling the liquid a bit as he looked Insu up and down, in thought.
“Sit up and drink this.” He said, looking at his face.
“What is it?” Insu asked, not willing to move an inch.
The black-haired guy who had just looked away, looked back at him from the side of his eyes again with a dangerous, intimidating gaze. “Sit up and drink this.” There was a pause as the other lifted an eyebrow. “Unless you want to get pregnant already.”
His eyes widened to their very limit. “P-Pregnant?! I’m a man!” He exclaimed in shock.
There was a sarcastic chuckle before the glass was placed on the nightstand. Namil shifted up on the bed, closer to him, and pulled his body up into a seated position just like that. “You really don’t know anything, do you?” The dark eyes looked back and forth into his with confusion. “How is that even possible?”
Wincing in the great amount of pain that was caused by the sudden movement, he didn’t have the chance to reply. The other got the glass again in one hand, his other hand squishing Insu’s cheeks so his lips would part as he quite literally forced the drink down his throat.
“Omegas can all be impregnated. No matter the gender.” The man said lazily, wiping the liquid off of his chin with the back of his hand.
The liquid, that potion, whatever it was, burnt its way down his throat. coughing harshly, he clutched to his neck for dear life as he fought the desire to throw it all up. But he didn’t want to risk getting pregnant, so he held it in. He couldn’t believe such a thing but he didn’t really want to risk finding out.
“Tell me,” The familiar low voice talked after he more or less dealt with his situation. “Who are you?”
Swallowing the disgusting taste once again and panting with the tears in his eyes, he bit his lip, feeling a sudden hatred toward the man in front of him. “I’m Insu,” He paused, frowning deeply to appear more serious. “And I wanna go home.”
The prince hummed, ever so calm, and leaned back on his arms behind him. “Where’s your home?”
“The forest. It’s a day’s walk from here.”
“The forest? You live alone there?”
“No, my parents and my sibling are there too.”
An alarming narrowed gaze took over the prince’s eyes. “Do they have your hair and eye color, too?”
He didn’t understand the logic behind the question, but he answered nevertheless with a shake of his head: “No.”
“What color then?”
“Brown!” He paused, frowning and frustrated. “Why is that even relevant? I wanna go home!”
The prince ignored his outburst completely. Just staring at him with an unreadable expression while pouting his lips crookedly in thought.
After minutes ticked by, the man stood up and walked to the door. His hand on the knob, he stopped and without looking back said the words that crumbled Insu’s entire world:
“This is your home now. You’re a property of the kingdom from here on out.”
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