POV: Go I-ram

He wasn’t supposed to be this bad at it.

Saturday morning came with a slow crawl of gray light through the curtains, and Go I-ram already felt like he was losing. His scent was everywhere.

It poured out of him in hot, erratic waves. Sometimes sharp and bitter, sometimes so warm and vulnerable it made his skin crawl. There was no pattern. No warning. Just flare after flare, like a fire alarm set to random.

He stood in the middle of his apartment, the window cracked open despite the cold. The air inside felt thick, like breathing in water.

He hadn’t taken the suppressants. That part was intentional.

Dr. Moon’s instructions had been clear: weekends off, if possible. Let the body relearn its own rhythm. Rebuild control from the inside out. Practice being present with your scent and not letting it control you.

Great in theory. In execution? A biochemical nightmare.

His head throbbed. His nerves were lit fuses. Everything felt like too much. His clothes, the temperature, the smell of his own shampoo.

He paced.

The rooftop called to him in the way danger sometimes does. That slow itch at the back of your mind whispering: just go up, see what happens…

But he didn’t.

Because if Do-yun was up there—barefoot, wrist-deep in dirt, sunlight catching in his hair—I-ram didn’t trust himself not to combust on sight.

So he stayed inside.

He cleaned.

Not a gentle, meditative clean. A vengeance clean. Scrubbing surfaces like they’d personally insulted him. Rearranging his spice rack alphabetically, then chronologically by expiration date. Even Mister Needle got a bath and a scolding.

“You live here rent-free,” I-ram muttered as he rotated the little cactus. “Contribute emotionally or get out.”

Mister Needle, traitor that he was, remained judgmentally silent.

He passed the rosemary twice and didn’t say anything. Not yet. Naming it felt... intimate. Hopeful. He wasn’t ready to admit he still had hope.

The next flare hit him in the kitchen.

No trigger, thought or warning.

Just… BOOM! A rush of scent, fierce and wild, bursting out like his body was trying to declare something he hadn’t authorized.

He braced both hands on the counter, heart hammering. “Stop,” he hissed. “Stop, stop, STOP!”

His knees nearly buckled.

It wasn’t even arousal. Not exactly. It was emotional. Need. Hunger that had nothing to do with instinct and everything to do with a pair of quiet eyes and the shape of a smile that had waited for him before the rain.

I-ram slapped a hand over his mouth, as if he could hold it all inside that way.

It didn’t work.

The room smelled like him. Vulnerable, unguarded and real.

He squeezed his eyes shut.

“I hate this,” he whispered. “I hate this so much.”

Eventually, the scent settled. Not gone, just hiding again. Crouched beneath the surface.

He leaned against the counter, breath shallow, and stared at the rosemary across the room. It stared back at him.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

The break room smelled like old coffee and cheap plastic. The overhead lights buzzed faintly, one of them flickering like it had commitment issues.

Go I-ram sat at the far end of the table with his lunch—leftover rice and pickled radish—pretending to scroll through his phone like he wasn’t actively trying to disappear into the table.

It had been a long week.

A long, scent-heavy, emotionally disorienting, socially avoidant week.

And of course, Ah-ra slid into the seat across from him like she had been lying in wait under the table the whole time.

“You look like you lost a bet with the universe,” she said.

I-ram didn’t look up. “I’m eating.”

“Doesn’t change the face.”

He sighed. “It’s just... work.”

“You haven’t made eye contact with anyone in three days.”

“I don’t like people.”

“You like some people.”

“Meh.”

She studied him for a beat. Then, softer, “So. Is it still that thing?”

He blinked. “What thing?”

“You know. The… neighbor-shaped thing.”

His chopsticks froze halfway to his mouth.

She raised her eyebrows with the precise level of smug that only comes from being absolutely right and extremely nosy in equal measure.

“I didn’t say anything about him,” I-ram muttered.

“You didn’t have to. You show symptoms.”

“Symptoms.”

“Text-checking. Restless sighing. The look of existential dread every time someone mentions rooftops.”

“I don’t…”

“Also you smelled like you were melting through your own skin.”

He groaned. “Okay, great, thanks for the report.”

Ah-ra smiled into her coffee like this was her favorite soap opera. “So what’s going on? You two have some emotionally repressed rooftop moment and now you’re spiraling?”

He didn’t answer.

“You’re spiraling.”

“I’m confused,” he admitted, quietly.

Her expression softened. “Okay. Confused is valid. Confused happens.”

“I don’t know what’s happening with me. I don’t know what I want. I don’t know how to want anything without… without it being a disaster.”

She stirred her drink slowly. “Sometimes the person who makes everything upside down is also the person you want nearby when things fall apart.”

He stared at his rice like it had wronged him. “I’m not good at this.”

“You’re not supposed to be. That’s the point.”

He didn’t speak for a while.

Finally: “It was easier when I didn’t care.”

She nodded, just letting that truth sit in the space between them.

Outside the window, the city pulsed along like nothing was cracking open at a cafeteria table of a painfully normal building.

He stabbed a piece of radish. “He makes things complicated.”

“And do you want them uncomplicated?” she asked.

He didn’t answer.

Because no.
He didn’t.
Not really.

The grocery list was simple.

Soy milk. Tofu. Rice. Scour pads. Instant noodles.

Nothing dramatic you could weaponize with emotion.

Go I-ram shoved it in his pocket as he closed the door to 501 and stepped into the hallway. The lights buzzed faintly overhead. The air was stale, as usual, tinged with dust, old wood, and whatever someone a floor down had cooked that might’ve been soup or might’ve been a small crime.

He turned toward the stairs…

…and stopped dead.

Cha Do-yun stood at the other end of the hallway, unlocking the door to 502. He was still in his work clothes. Loose black trousers, pale shirt rolled up to the elbows, bag slung over one shoulder like it had no weight at all.

He looked up at the sound and they both froze.

Do-yun smiled. Small, warm and automatic.

“Hey.”

I-ram’s mouth went dry. “Hey.”

Do-yun stepped away from his door in I-ram’s direction, the bag still slung over his shoulder. “Off to the store?”

“Yeah.”

It wasn’t awkward. It was... overaware.

Their voices bounced too hard in the narrow hall.

And then it hit him.

A scent. Soft. Sweet.
Omega.

Not his.

Not his scent.

Something floral. Barely there, but clinging to Do-yun’s collar like a whisper. He could smell it even through the hallway air.

His spine locked.

He didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

“Busy week?” Do-yun asked, as if nothing had just imploded behind I-ram’s ribs.

I-ram’s voice was too sharp when it came out. “Seems like it.”

Do-yun blinked, just slightly.

“You okay?”

“Fine.” The word dropped like ice.

Do-yun tilted his head. Just a bit. The way he always did when trying to read someone he wasn’t going to push.

The silence stretched.

I-ram could still smell it. That unfamiliar sweetness. Faint, but there. Embedded.

It didn’t matter who it was. It didn’t matter what happened.
It shouldn’t have mattered.

But it did.

“I’ll see you later,” I-ram said, already moving towards the stairs.

Do-yun stepped back, a little confused, still watching him.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Later.”

I-ram didn’t look back.

The stairwell creaked as he descended, one step too fast, too loud. His pulse was hammering like he’d just been caught doing something illegal.

He stepped out into the street without thinking, into the press of evening air and neon buzz.

The walk to the store was a blur. He didn’t register the sidewalks, the lights, the sounds of the city trying to live around him.

All he could feel was that scent.

That stupid, stupid scent.

It had clung to Do-yun’s skin like it belonged there.

And the worst part?

He had wanted it to be his.
He wanted his scent to be the one Do-yun came home with.
Wanted his presence to stick.

And it wasn’t.

It wasn’t.

He picked up his groceries without remembering how. His hands moved automatically: items, basket, checkout.

By the time he returned to the fifth floor, his knuckles were white around the bag handles.

Do-yun’s door was closed now. Lights on.

I-ram didn’t stop.

He unlocked 501, stepped inside, and shut the door behind him with more force than necessary.

The second the door closed behind him, the smell erupted.

Go I-ram barely made it two steps into 501 before his body betrayed him, again.

His scent spilled out in an instant, sharp and chaotic, clinging to the air like panic. It hit the walls. The windows. His lungs. It smelled like fury. Like bruised paper and citrus peel left in the sun too long.

He dropped the grocery bag. A box of tofu slid out and thudded against the floor, ignored.

“Arg…” he gasped, stumbling back like the scent might physically shove him down.

He slammed the window open, letting the city air rush in.

It didn’t help.

His scent was thick and wild and wrong. Twisted up in jealousy and embarrassment and some festering thing that smelled suspiciously like wanting.

He stood in the middle of his kitchen, fists clenched, pulse ragged.

“What is this?” he spat aloud, to no one. “What the hell is this?”

The walls didn’t answer.

His body didn’t answer.

But his instincts? Well… those were screaming.

Not because Do-yun had someone. (He didn’t know that.)

Not because the scent was real. (It probably was.)

Because it mattered.

Because it mattered too much.

He was angry. At Do-yun, yes… But more at himself. For how quickly he folded. For how much he wanted to be wanted. For how his scent couldn’t lie even when his mouth did.

He ruffled the grocery bag.

“You’re so pathetic,” he hissed, pacing. “What, he smells like someone else and suddenly you’re in freefall?”

He rubbed his face. His eyes stung.

“It’s not like you’re dating. Not like he owes you anything. Not like you even said…”
His voice cracked.
“You didn’t say anything.”

He stopped pacing. Sagged against the fridge like it could hold him up.

His scent was still spiraling. Unfocused, unstable, grief tangled with guilt.

He slid down slowly, knees folding until he hit the cold floor. His back thudded against the fridge door. His head rested in his hands.

“Why does it matter?” he whispered. “Why does it matter this much?”

There was no answer.

Just the distant hum of traffic.

The soft rattle of wind at the open window.

And the ghost of a scent that didn’t belong to him.

He let his arms fall limp at his sides, palms up.

His whole body pulsed with something he couldn’t name.

And then, quietly:

“I’m not his omega,” he muttered. “I’m not even his friend.”

The words felt hollow. He wasn’t sure if he believed them.

He just didn’t know what else to say.

End of Episode Eighteen