While we waited for the taxi, something sharp cut through the cold. Bitter ginger at first. Something icy underneath it that reminded me vaguely of VapoRub. I looked toward the street, trying to figure out where it was coming from, before my eyes settled on Geonsu.

“Are you an Alpha?” I asked. 

He turned his head slowly. His eyes made it about as far as my chin before dropping again. He paused for a while but then his lips parted and he spoke so shyly, almost whispering. 

“Yeah…” He rubbed the back of his neck.

“Dominant?”

He went quiet before managing to answer. “Yeah…” He glanced at me. “Are you afraid?” 

That wasn’t why I asked. I was dominant too.

Sitting beside another dominant in a taxi was one thing. Going into his home was another. His scent would be everywhere. Furniture, clothes, sheets. After what had just happened, I had no idea what my body would do with that much Alpha around me. Or what mine would do to him. I could already smell him out here.

“Kento…” He cleared his throat. “I’m so sorry. I should’ve told you…”

“No, that’s not why I’m asking.” I shook my head. “I’m dominant too.”

His eyes finally lifted to mine.

“You’re already leaking a little,” I added. “I wanted to make sure you’ll be okay with me there.”

He stared at me for a second. “Wait.” His brows pulled together. “You still want to come?”

“Yes.” I almost laughed. “Unless you changed your mind.”

“No!” The answer came out immediately. He looked away. “No, I didn’t… I’ll get inhibitors. I promise.”

The taxi smelled faintly of old fabric and rain-soaked asphalt. I kept my forehead against the cold window and watched the city lights smear into yellow lines. Every bump in the road made my stomach turn.

The sourness clinging to my own scent refused to leave. I could taste it somewhere in the back of my throat, sharp and unpleasant, like fruit left too long in the heat.

Geonsu hadn’t said anything since we got in.

When I looked over, his hands were resting on his thighs. His fingers curled slowly into his palms before releasing again. The muscle along one side of his jaw moved every few seconds.

“Kento… Can I release some?” he asked quietly. “I don’t want to make you feel worse.”

“Yeah.” I settled my head against the window again. “Maybe you can cover mine. I hate how I smell right now.”

“I’ll let a bit out.”

The scent appeared gradually, so slowly I almost missed it. I couldn’t believe what I sensed. The smell of stems snapped between fingers, of crushed green leaves, like fresh herbs bruised against warm skin.  Oregano rubbed between palms until its oils stained the air. Something wild and grassy lingered beneath it, like tall weeds after rain. 

Strong, even though he only let out so little. It never pushed or went over that volume. He promised to release a little and did so. It simply settled around me. I felt my mind clear and my shoulders drop. I wanted to deny it, but it was true; his scent was relaxing me.

The nausea eased slightly and the pressure behind my eyes started to clear. Even the soreness around my nape seemed less demanding.

I turned my head to look at him. Geonsu was staring out his own window, his jaw still tense and one hand clenched loosely over his knee. My instinct told me I needed more. My body asked for a deeper scent and my mind agreed. 

“Geonsu?” I whispered to him. He turned almost immediately. “Can you… let out more, please?” 

“Yes.”

I felt the difference immediately. Rainwater caught between dense summer grass. The bitterness lingered only briefly before something softer emerged beneath it. It also had a cool tone, fresh but not minty. For all the warmth the scent gave me, it also cooled the tip of my nose and tongue. It was so much, a recessive Omega would drop to their knees, but I just sank farther into the seat. 

By the time the taxi stopped, I almost regretted having to open the door. Geonsu paid and got out first.

I followed him into the building and barely registered where we were going. Up the stairs, through another door, then somewhere to the right. My clothes had started sticking to me again and now that a shower was actually within reach, I couldn’t think about much else.

“Bathroom…” Geonsu whispered as he opened the door for me.

As I stepped through his apartment on our way to the bathroom, his scent was different inside.

It had soaked faintly into the apartment, no longer concentrated like it had been inside the taxi. The sharper green notes disappeared somewhere beneath the warmer smell of his home, but the eucalyptus remained.

Geonsu appeared again with an armful of towels. Multiple. He put some on the floor in front of the shower to step on and gave me a bathrobe as well. 

“I don’t need all of these. One is fine.”

He looked down at them and sighed, a small smile pulling at his lips. “Choose which one you like best then…”

I chuckled a bit at the absurdity. “Why did you bring all of them?”

He ignored that and crouched to put one on the floor in front of the shower. Another went beside the sink. He left a bathrobe with them, then opened the cabinet, pulled out a few things and set them along the edge of the sink. Unopened shower gel. Soap. Shampoo.

He nodded once and disappeared. The door shut behind him.

I stripped before I had even decided where to put my clothes and stepped into the shower. I turned the water almost as hot as it would go.

The first stream against my shoulders made me close my eyes. I wanted everything off.

The alcohol from the bar. My own sour pheromones. The lingering grapefruit I could still imagine somewhere in my hair. The sticky discomfort between my legs.

I turned beneath the water and cleaned myself properly. Slick had dried along parts of my skin while the rest remained unpleasantly wet, and even under the shower I could still smell the acrid edge of my own distress.

My body had produced plenty of it.

I stood beneath the water for another minute after I was clean. I washed my hair too. By the time I finally turned the water off, my skin was pink from the heat and the mirror had disappeared beneath steam. I dried myself and pulled the robe tightly around me, when my face immediately felt dry.

“Geonsu?” Nothing. I opened the bathroom door. “Geonsu?”

The apartment was quiet. Apparently, he had left.

I went back inside and opened the cabinet beneath the mirror. There had to be some kind of moisturizer in there. I found one wedged behind several other things and reached for it. My fingers knocked against something beside it.

Three things fell directly into the sink. I hurried to put everything back where I thought it had been when I heard the front door unlock. I tightened the robe around myself and stepped out of the bathroom.

Geonsu was kicking his shoes off by the door, a plastic bag hanging from one hand.

“I kind of went through your cabinet,” I admitted. “I was looking for face cream.”

He looked up. “Did you find some?”

“Yeah. Sorry. And… thank you again.” I pulled the robe tighter around myself. “I was too uncomfortable before to properly say it.”

“You don’t have to.” His eyes dropped to the bag. “I got you some things.”

He handed it to me, then immediately took a smaller pharmacy bag from inside and disappeared toward the kitchen. I followed him as far as the doorway.

Geonsu took two glasses from a cabinet and filled them with water. Then he opened one of the bottles he had bought, shook two pills into his palm and swallowed both.

I looked at the label. Rut inhibitors. Strong ones.

“You took two?”

His hand stopped around the glass. “Yeah. Just to be safe.”

He drank the rest of his water and filled the second glass before handing it to me. I took it without saying anything.

“You can change in the bathroom,” he said. “Or the bedroom.”

The bathroom was still full of steam. And I was nosy, so I chose the bedroom. 

He showed me down the hall and turned the light on before stepping back out. The door clicked shut behind him. His room was considerably more interesting than his bathroom.

A few books were stacked on the nightstand beside a pair of reading glasses. Tattoo cream. His wardrobe had been left partly open, shirts hanging inside in colors that mostly seemed to range from black to slightly different black.

I emptied the bag onto the bed. Underwear. Black sweatpants. Socks. All new. There was a small box from the pharmacy underneath them. Omega Pheromone Calmer.

I turned it over in my hand. I knew those. They were usually given after pheromone attacks or when an Omega had been exposed badly enough that their own scent wouldn’t settle afterward.

I felt considerably better already. Maybe he’d bought it because he expected me to take it anyway. I put it beside me and changed. That was when I noticed a gym bag beside his bed. I looked at it for a second before returning to the medication. I pulled the robe back around myself and went looking for him.

“Geonsu?” I held up the box. “Do you want me to take these?”

His brows pulled together. “What?”

“The calmer…” I looked toward the kitchen. “You took two inhibitors.”

“Oh.” He shook his head immediately. “No, I mean… You don’t have to take it. I saw it when I got mine, so I bought it in case you wanted it– Why are you still wearing the robe?”

I tried to put back on the shirt I had today, but it smelled like that man. I put it inside the bag he gave me after I emptied it. With the bag in hand, I showed it to him and said quietly.

“It smells like him so… I don’t have any other shirts…”

He stood up immediately and went inside the bedroom. He brought out a T-shirt and handed it to me. “I’m sorry, I forgot about that. I didn’t think to get you a shirt.”

“You didn’t have to get me anything. Thank you, again…”

“Listen, it’s getting very late…” Geonsu rubbed his eyes as he slumped into one of the armchairs. “I don’t want to send you home alone though. I’m on the edge after what happened. But I also have to go to work in a couple of hours. I can offer you the bedroom to sleep over, and I will sleep on the couch. Would you be comfortable with that?”