The edge of town. A house small enough to look swallowed by the overgrown trees around it. The lawn had seen better days—patchy, uneven, a hip-high wooden fence leaning tiredly with age. The porch creaked under Kaiseng’s weight as he stepped onto it.

He clutched the folder in his hand. Homework—technically. An excuse—absolutely. He wasn’t sure which embarrassed him more.

He leaned toward the small window set into the door, but the glass was fogged with a frosted pattern that blurred everything inside into shapes and shadows. No movement. No figures. Just silence.

His pulse crawled up his throat.

This was stupid. He should go. Turn around, walk back down the sidewalk, pretend he never came all the way out here because a boy he barely knew hadn’t shown up to school in a few days.

His mind offered him out after out after out. But his hand still lifted. And before he could talk himself out of it—again—he pressed the doorbell. The chime rang faintly through the house. A beat of silence followed. Then a dog’s bark erupted from somewhere deeper inside—sharp, frantic, the sound vibrating through the walls.

Kai swallowed.

Too late to leave now.

The barking got louder as footsteps approached from the other side of the door. A woman’s voice—sharp, distracted—cut through the noise.

The door swung open.

A middle-aged woman stood there, bent slightly at the waist as she held back a large black dog by the collar. The animal lunged forward with each bark, nails scraping against the floor, but she kept the grip tight. Her phone was wedged between her ear and her shoulder as she spoke rapidly to someone on the other end, not missing a beat even as she looked Kaiseng up and down like she expected him to introduce himself.

“I, um—” Kai lifted the folder weakly. “I have homework for Rian—”

The woman didn’t even finish her sentence on the phone. She turned her head and shouted down the hallway: “Rian!” Then she stepped aside without waiting for a response, tugging the dog with her toward what Kai assumed was the kitchen. The dog twisted its head around her legs to sniff him, still barking between breaths.

She pointed vaguely toward a narrow staircase before disappearing around the corner, voice muffled but still on the phone, the dog’s claws clicking after her.

Kai hesitated, just inside the threshold.

The door closed with a soft thud behind him. Shutting him in. The air smelled like cheap detergent, dust, and something faintly metallic beneath it all. His hand tightened around the strap of his backpack, the other still clutched around the homework folder like it was a shield he’d forgotten how to use.

He looked up the staircase. It was dim. Narrow. A single bulb flickered near the top, casting the wood in uneven light. He forced himself forward, one step creaking under his weight, then another. 

Halfway up, he heard the soft shift of floorboards above him. He stopped. Rian stood at the top of the stairs—leaning one shoulder against the wall, hair slightly mussed, wearing a shirt that hung loose over one side as if he’d just pulled it on. There was a bruise shadowing the edge of his cheekbone, half-faded but still unmistakable.

His gaze flicked from the folder in Kaiseng’s hand to Kai himself and stayed there.

The indecipherable expression on Rian’s face softened slowly into that charming smile he always seemed to wear. “Kaiseng Park,” he drawled. “Is this your way of accepting my request for tutoring?” He pushed off the wall and turned, walking down the hall without waiting for an answer.

Kai followed, climbing the last few steps. The hallway was cramped, lined with framed photographs—older couples, weddings, school pictures of kids he didn’t recognize. Generations captured in still frames.

But almost nothing of Rian. Just one stiff-looking school portrait, too formal, too empty.

He stepped into a bedroom—Rian’s room.

It was small but clean, tidy in a way Kai hadn’t expected. No clutter. No clothes piling on the floor. The faint scent of Rian’s cologne lingered in the air, something warm and almost sweet that didn’t match the house.

And apparently, he’d shown that surprise on his face.

“What?” Rian said, sinking onto the bed with a seemingly lazy ease. “Thought I’d be a slob? Or”—his lips curled—“surprised by how little I leave lying around to snoop through?” He extended a hand.

Kaiseng stepped forward and placed the folder into it. “No, I just… didn’t know what I was expecting,” he admitted quietly, eyes flicking around the room once more. “You weren’t at school after that fight. I just wanted to make sure you didn’t die or something.”

Silence stretched.

Kai’s gaze drifted back to him—and found Rian still watching. Heat crawled up his neck. His fingers toyed with the strap of his backpack before falling still. “I brought second-hour homework,” he said quickly. “And the study guide. There’s another test next week, so you’ll need to make up the one you missed too.”

“Thank you.”

Soft. Sincere in a way that made Kai’s chest tighten.

Rian set the folder beside him and shifted. The tension was subtle—a flinch that barely existed, a tightening of his jaw only someone used to noticing would catch. Kai recognized it instantly. He’d seen that same stiffness at his father’s gym more times than he could count: men trying to hide pain so it wouldn’t be used against them.

“How badly did they get you?” Kai murmured.

He slid the backpack off his shoulder, letting it fall soundlessly to the floor as he stepped closer. His eyes skimmed the bruise on Rian’s cheek, then traveled downward in quiet assessment.

“It’s literally just this,” Rian said.

“Liar.” Kai’s brows drew together. “It doesn’t make you strong to lie about injuries. Only stupid.”

The silence that followed was different.

Rian didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe. Didn’t smile. He just stared at him—something shifting behind his eyes, something unreadable and suddenly sharp. And Kai felt it immediately. That he’d touched a nerve.

“Stand up,” Kai said. Then, realizing how it sounded, he softly added, “Please.”

Rian did.

They had never been this close before.

Not like this. This was inches apart. Breath apart. Close enough that Kai could see the faint rise and fall of Rian’s chest, could feel the warmth radiating off him. Kaiseng kept his gaze down as he lifted the hem of Rian’s shirt.

Skin brushed skin—warm, taut, startlingly soft—but the contact didn’t distract him from what lay underneath. Bruising. On his ribs, his side. Layered—some fresh, some older, yellowing, overlapping in ways no street fight could justify.

This wasn’t from the attackers.

“You should go to the hospital,” Kai murmured. His voice felt too fragile, too young for the weight of what he was seeing. He lifted his gaze. “And you should make a report to the police. Who did this—”

Rian’s eyes flicked over Kai’s shoulder. His posture shifted—fast, practiced. He pulled down his shirt just as the door slammed open, smacking the wall with a violent thud.

“The doors stay fully open in this house,” a deep voice barked.

Kai turned. An older man staggered down the hall, booze bottle in hand, footsteps uneven, expression mean enough to curdle air. When Kai’s eyes returned to Rian, something shuttered behind Rian’s expression—walls slamming up, the softness gone like it had never existed.

Kai swallowed hard, heart pounding like it wanted out. “My father… He is an athlete representative,” he began, voice quieter than he intended. “One of the gyms he sponsors is… not far from here. You should stop by sometime. Just in case you ever run into those guys again.” Kai tried to steady himself. “One of our coaches can help you, um, channel that energy. Into something to defend yourself better.”

He drew in a breath. “And if you ever get injured again, we have medical staff on-site. My mom’s an MD and DAT so they’re trained well. And discrete.”

A tiny, pathetic part of him hoped he didn’t sound like he was pleading. Doctors, his mother used to say, always had savior complexes. He wasn’t a doctor. Not yet at least, but something in that moment made him desperate to be one. To be a savior.

Kai slipped his phone free, thumb unlocking it on instinct before his confidence caught up with him. “What’s your number?” he asked, gaze lifting briefly to Rian. “I can text you the information. It’s free as long as you say we’re friends.”

Rian’s smile appeared slowly—soft, boyish, devastating. “We are friends,” he said quietly. “Aren’t we?”

Kaiseng swallowed, pulse stuttering as warmth spread up his neck. “Study partners,” he corrected.

“So you did accept tutoring me?” 

“Tutoring looks good on college applications.” His gaze flicked toward the folder, then away. “It’s… also for Hana’s sake.”

Rian’s smile widened—lazy, knowing, a little too satisfied.

“Sure,” he murmured. “For Hana.”

***

The house was silent when Kai stepped inside—quiet in the way expensive homes often were, walls too thick to let life seep through them.

No shouting.

No thudding doors.

Just the soft click of his own footsteps across polished hardwood floors.

The lights in the living room were on, though no one was in it. Papers were spread across the coffee table, his mother’s medical journals half-opened and her laptop blinking in standby. A throw blanket draped neatly over the couch like someone had sat there earlier and left in a hurry.

“Kai?” his mother called distantly from the kitchen. “You’re late.”

The tone wasn’t angry—just tired. Always tired.

“I was studying,” he replied, slipping off his shoes.

His father was already at the kitchen island, suit jacket draped over the back of the chair, sleeves rolled to his elbows. He didn’t look up from his phone—scrolling through emails, contracts, someone else’s life he helped manage.

“How’d your progress review go?” his mother asked as she flipped a pan on the stove—salmon, perfectly seasoned, perfectly cooked, because in this house everything had to be done properly, even exhaustion.

Kai hesitated as he stood by the counter, lowering his backpack to the floor. “Fine.”

His father let out a noncommittal sound. The kind that said he expected excellence by default, and anything less wasn’t worth reacting to. “You’ll need to do better than fine,” his father said without looking up. “Grades are tightening for program applications.”

“I know,” Kai murmured.

“Then act like it,” his father replied, thumbs still tapping across the screen.

Kai’s jaw tensed.

His mother sighed softly but didn’t intervene. She rarely did. She chopped vegetables with clinical precision, as if the kitchen were another operating room.

Before Kai could retort, a small voice piped up: “Omma! I got a 92 on my spelling test!”

His younger brother, Minjae, bounded into the kitchen, hair rumpled from play. He dropped a crumpled paper into their mother’s hands.

Her entire face softened. “Oh, Minjae-yah, that’s wonderful!” she said, smiling as she cupped his cheek. “You worked hard for this.”

His father finally looked up, expression melting into something warm. “Good job, son.”

Minjae beamed.

Kai stared at the salmon cooling on his plate.

It wasn’t resentment. Not exactly. More like a quiet, familiar ache. A reminder. Minjae got praise for doing well. Kaiseng only ever got pressure to do better. Because he was the eldest. The example. The one whose future was already mapped out in neat, unyielding lines long before he understood what any of it meant.

Firstborn son in a lineage thick with male Alphas—his grandfather, his father, his uncles. Kai had grown up hearing the word before he even understood what it meant.

So when the routine designation screenings labeled him “pre-Alpha,” no one was surprised. No one celebrated, either. It was simply an expectation fulfilled. A box checked. Another rung on a ladder he didn’t remember choosing.

He wasn’t allowed to imagine being anything else.

And if he hadn’t been Alpha—well. Disappointment would’ve settled over the family like fog. Unspoken. Heavy. Inescapable. So he learned early how to carry weight. How to breathe through pressure. How to be steady, controlled, unshakeable. Even when he wasn’t.

“Do you have your exam schedule prepared?” his father asked, eyes returning to Kai. “You should be studying ahead. Falling behind isn’t an option.”

“I know.”

They all sat down to eat. The silence was suffocating. The kind of silence that felt carefully managed, like the whole house held its breath.

Kai pushed the food around on his plate, mind drifting back—not to school, not to exams—but to bruises on ribs, the flash of fear in Rian’s eyes, the sound of the door slamming behind them, a bottle clinking against a palm.

Two different homes. Two different lives. Two different hurts. But the ache felt uncannily familiar.

His phone buzzed. He slid it out beneath the table.

Rian Vue: thanks for checking on me.

His father cleared his throat. “You look distracted.”

Kai forced a small smile. “Long day.”

A lie. But easier than the truth.

He slipped his phone back into his pocket, thumb lingering for half a second on the fabric before letting it go.

“I was thinking of getting back into training,” he said quietly, picking up his fork again. “Just a little. After school.”

His father didn’t look up. “You should focus on your exams.”

“I am,” Kai murmured. “Exercise improves focus, memory, cognitive function.”

His mother hummed, not unkindly—just absent, already stacking plates in her mind. “Perhaps you can add that into your admissions essay.”

“Mhm.” Kaiseng nodded. He pushed a piece of salmon across his plate. “I also… have a friend who’s trying to expand his own resume. Athletic. A lot of potential.” He lifted his gaze, searching his father’s face the way he always had—waiting for approval he pretended not to care about.

His father finally met his eyes.

One curt nod.

Businesslike. Final.

It was all Kaiseng needed.