YooJin grunted groggily as the alpha picked him up by the scruff of his shirt. His eyes began to close on their own accord and he felt an unfamiliar haze fill his mind.

TaeHyun cursed as he stared at YooJin’s face then gracelessly tossed him over his shoulder with his bottom hanging high up in the air and in the direction the alpha was heading.

Like a sack of rice, YooJin vaguely thought with a laugh. It was funny but he wasn’t sure why it was funny. 

He felt drunk… It felt almost as though he was getting drunk off the alpha’s pheromones.

“Where—” YooJin began to say as his eyes started to close yet again.

TaeHyun opened the door to the room and walked out with quick irritated footsteps.

YooJin grunted as his stomach flopped against the hard ridges of the alpha’s shoulder. Through drooping eyelids he watched as the two forms of the alphas who were lying haphazardly on the floor grow smaller and smaller the farther away they got from the room.

He raised a hand and tried to squish their bodies between his fingers. He giggled.

“TaeHyun?” he heard a soft voice from behind him.

YooJin froze, then made an awkward, jerky attempt to turn and peer at the owner of what might have been the most beautiful male voice he had ever heard.

A large hand covered his bottom to still him and he quickly stopped moving, oddly aware, even despite his drunken state, of the pressure of his hand.

“What are you doing here?” said the beautiful voice and YooJin tried again to turn but the hand tightened its grasp on him.

“Who is that on your shoulder?” the voice asked when TaeHyun did not answer.

“No one of any importance to you,” the alpha replied coldly and YooJin turned his head curiously. The tone he had used was even colder than the one he used with him.

Who…

“I see he’s not here with you. What kind of alpha lets his omega wander the Academy alone at night,” said TaeHyun tensely.

“Ah… I was simply taking a stroll—”

“He’s with someone else.” It wasn’t a question.

YooJin strained his ears, he could hear something in the alpha’s voice that seemed unusual, a tightness, anger, and… hurt, perhaps?

The owner of the beautiful voice grew silent and even YooJin, who was a stranger to the situation, knew that it was his quiet affirmation.

“I’d never… if you'd just become—” There was a plea to the alpha’s voice that made YooJin suddenly uncomfortable.

“TaeHyun,” said the voice softly, “we’ve talked about this.”

The grip on YooJin’s bottom tightened and he winced. For a moment he was tempted to knee the alpha in the chest but… he seemed truly distraught.

“I saw him parading around his other omegas, younger, with political ties. He didn’t even invite you to the ceremony…. Why do I have to give up if he—”

“Stop.”

YooJin’s eyes widened. The drunken feeling had begun to dissipate and with it, his curiosity grew. What was happening in this scenario? Who was this person? 

He tried to turn again when a new voice called out from the distance. It sounded like it was calling out a name but YooJin couldn’t make out what exactly it was.

“Ah, he is calling for me,” said the voice but then paused. “I am sorry, TaeHyun.”

YooJin could hear soft retreating footsteps but even when the footsteps were gone, the alpha remained rooted in place, his hand still gripped tightly over YooJin’s bottom.

Awkwardly, YooJin cleared his throat but still, the alpha did not move.

He cleared his throat again. “Who was that?” he decided to ask, knowing that it was probably a loaded question.

He felt the alpha tense beneath him as he removed his hand and began to walk once more. “None of your business.”

“Sounded like –oof–” he grunted as TaeHyun’s shoulder bumped into a particularly soft spot on his stomach “–like he was important to you.”

Suddenly, the alpha stopped walking as he grabbed him by the shirt and tossed YooJin to the floor.

YooJin gazed up at him then his eyes narrowed into a glare as he rubbed his tailbone for the second time that day. “What the hell,” he said as he moved to stand.

“Shut up,” said the alpha in a low voice and YooJin looked at him more closely.

His shoulders were tense and his head was lowered slightly.

“Hey… Hey,” YooJin said cautiously, stepping forward. “Whatever it is, I’m sure he wasn’t angry with you or something…”

What the hell was he saying? He didn’t even know this alpha and he hadn’t even seen the face of the other guy, didn’t even know if he was angry. He wasn’t even sure why he was talking at all. Perhaps it was due to the obvious dejected look on the young alpha’s face, it reminded him of an incredibly hurt child.

“Just shut up,” the alpha said again. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Someone like you, what would you know? With your thoughtless carefree attitude, getting yourself into trouble and causing trouble for others. Why the hell are you listening in on a conversation that has nothing to do with you?”

YooJin froze.

“What the hell were you even doing in that room anyways? Who gave you permission to walk around as you please? You’re an omega, a fucking omega, you have no importance and no authority out there or in here. If I had been even a minute late you would have become that bastard’s. Then what? Did you even think about our promise? And now you’re here trying to be nice, consoling me with your pathetic words, if you hadn’t been in that room in the first place, I wouldn’t have had to run into him.”

The alpha’s voice was growing angrier with every word and though YooJin knew that his anger stemmed from the incident that just occurred, he knew it and he could kind of guess what it was about. He understood but… the guy was pissing him off. 

He suddenly took a charged step forward until he was nearly pressed up against the alpha’s chest.

“Let’s get one thing straight,” he said, his voice low, jabbing a finger against his firm chest as he spoke. “You invited me here.” Jab. “You’re the one who asked me to be your omega. And yet you–” Jab “–were the one who ran off, leaving me behind. I had to find out from someone else where I was, I didn’t even know where to go.” Jab. Jab. “I was in that room because I was trying to help some omega who was getting cornered by those douchebags."

He jabbed him one more time. “And it wasn’t a noble damn deed, same with me trying to console your ass. I was just being a decent human being, which you apparently don’t know how to be. I guess no one’s told your spoiled little rich kid ass but you’re a bit of a dick, saying whatever the hell you want to say, however the hell you want to say it.”

The alpha’s face twisted in anger as he slapped YooJin’s hand away from him.

YooJin stared at him. Ah damn. He knew that he should back off, that he should back away, his anger was getting to him and whenever that happened— He shouldn't, he really shouldn’t but—

“Agh,” he groaned in frustration as he grabbed the alpha’s hand and just as he bit down on the soft flesh beneath the thumb, he felt the floor break open beneath him.

~

“What the hell?” YooJin spurted as his face broke the surface of whatever it was that was surrounding him.

He looked down and saw that they had fallen into nearly four feet of water. He looked quickly to his right to see the alpha standing beside him, soaked from head to toe, looking bewildered.

He followed the alpha's line of sight and looked up.

In the floor through which they had fallen was a giant hole, nearly a story above them.

“That’s not possible,” said TaeHyun.

“What isn’t?” he asked the alpha but didn’t receive a response.

This punk. He was tired of his tightlipped b.s.. YooJin grabbed him by the sleeve and forced him to look at him. “Just give an explanation for once in your life,” he said, meeting his eyes directly.

The alpha looked at him for a long moment, then slowly opened his mouth, “We were on the ground floor.”

YooJin blinked and released him in surprise. He wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “Well then…” YooJin said slowly, trying to understand. “There’s a hole beneath…”

“Look around you, this is a hallway.”

YooJin paused, then did just that. The alpha was right. Despite the water, it was clearly a hallway, just like the one they had just been ungraciously thrown from. The walls were maroon, windowless, and old torches that should have burned blue fire sat lifeless.

“So then… there was another floor all this time.”

“This is a traditional building.”

YooJin looked at him questioningly.

The alpha met his eyes then released a small sigh. “It’s built with an ondol. The floor beneath us is mostly empty space to originally let the heat from the fire warm the entire floor system. The floor we came from doesn’t touch the ground.”

“Then…” he looked back at him in confusion, “what—”

“We’re in a dungeon,” said TaeHyun quietly.

YooJin took a deep breath. “Another one? How?”

The alpha turned to him with serious eyes. “That’s what I want to know. How… Two dungeon breaks in one day… And one of them happened within the Academy grounds… within the building itself.”

YooJin took an unconscious step back at the intense look in the alpha’s gaze. “What?” he asked, suddenly uncomfortable.

But TaeHyun simply looked at him, his eyes narrowing in thought. “The enchantment surrounding the Academy makes it impossible for any dungeons to break here but—” he said softly, “you…”

Suddenly he turned away, returning his gaze back up to the ceiling. “We need to get out of here.”

YooJin too looked up and a thought struck him. “Can you – can wizards fly?”

The alpha shot him a look that told him exactly what he thought of YooJin’s intelligence.

YooJin shrugged. “There’s no harm in asking.”

Instead of responding, TaeHyun looked down the dark, flooded hallway.

“Hey! We’re down here!” YooJin suddenly yelled, trying to catch the attention of anyone who might be around when he felt the alpha’s hand clamp tight around his mouth, stifling his shouts.

“Shut up!” he hissed quietly into his ear. “You don’t know what could be here. If this really is a dungeon then it's a damned powerful one to open despite our defenses.”

YooJin stilled. The alpha met his gaze and he nodded, a silent sign that he understood. Only then did TaeHyun remove his hand.

“Something doesn’t feel right,” TaeHyun said after a long moment and YooJin followed his gaze into the dark hallway. He too felt a sense of uneasiness but he had assumed that it had simply stemmed from being in an eerie, unknown place.

“It’s exactly like the place we just came from. The torch there has a split clasp here, broken in the exact same place except on the opposite arm. The crack here in the brick, the length and path is the same but it’s also on the wrong side.” He paused and slowly began to walk down the hallway.

YooJin looked at TaeHyun’s back for a moment, his brows knotted in concern and irritation. If they got out of here, he swore to himself, he was going to beat some manners into the alpha.

YooJin glanced up once more to the place they needed to return before turning and wading through the water to follow him.

It took YooJin only a moment to realize that TaeHyun was going back toward the room where his altercation with the alphas had occurred.

He spotted him standing by the doorway, peering into the room. He swam up beside him then froze. 

In the room were two bodies floating face down on the surface of the water.

YooJin could recognize them instantly.

He turned to the alpha. What? he mouthed but TaeHyun’s eyes refused to leave the room.

“A mirror,” he whispered.

And this time YooJin didn’t have to ask to understand. Except for the flooding, the room was exactly the same except that it seemed to be reflected across an invisible y-axis, as though the room was being seen through a mirror.

YooJin suddenly spotted something floating in the water near the bodies and he squinted to better see it. It was a rolled up scroll, just like the one he had seen the female alpha pick up. 

But in their world she had already left with this scroll so why…

And before he knew it, he found himself treading quietly toward it.

He felt the alpha reach out his hand to grab him but it was too late, he was already fully within the room, making his way toward it and the bodies.

When he was about a foot away from the object, he reached out, his inner voice telling him not to get too close. But just when his fingers grabbed at the edge of the scroll, something prompted him to look down and when he did, he froze. And the blood in his veins grew cold.

For what stared back at him from within the water was a grinning face that looked just like his.