Hyung's Best Friend

The box slipped from Jun-seo's grip.

It hit the apartment floor with a crash, the sound of breaking glass muffled by cardboard. Jun-seo stared down at it—at the shattered pieces of a life he'd tried so hard to build—and felt absolutely nothing.

"Jun-seo-ya?"

He looked up.

Dong-hyun stood in the doorway, concern etched across those stupidly handsome features. He was wearing sweats and a rumpled t-shirt, clearly just woken from a nap, his dark hair mussed in a way that made Jun-seo's omega instincts purr.

Alpha, they whispered. Our alpha.

Jun-seo told them to shut up.

"Hyung." His voice came out steadier than he felt. "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you."

"What happened?" Dong-hyun stepped forward, that protective alpha energy radiating off him in waves. "Are you okay? Did you cut yourself?"

"I'm fine. It was just—" Jun-seo kicked the box lightly. "Photo frames. From the apartment."

Understanding dawned in Dong-hyun's eyes.

The apartment. The one Jun-seo had shared with his now-ex-boyfriend, the beta who'd decided after three years that actually, he wasn't ready for a committed omega relationship. That he needed to "find himself." That Jun-seo was "too much" with his heats and his needs and his desperate, pathetic longing for a bond that was never going to happen.

"I'll clean it up," Dong-hyun said quietly. "You go sit down."

"I can—"

"Jun-seo." The alpha's voice softened, and something in Jun-seo's chest cracked. "Let me take care of this. Please."

Jun-seo let him.

He sank onto the couch in the living room, surrounded by the familiar scents of his brother's apartment—the coffee his hyung drank by the gallon, the fancy cologne Min-jae had started wearing since his promotion, and underneath it all, woven into every surface and fabric...

Dong-hyun.

Sandalwood and leather. Something warm and spiced, like mulled wine on a winter night. The unmistakable musk of alpha, rich and grounding and utterly forbidden.

Jun-seo had been in love with his brother's best friend since he was sixteen years old.

It had started as a crush—the kind every omega teenager developed on the handsome alpha who came over to play video games and always remembered his birthday. But then Jun-seo had presented at seventeen, and his crush had transformed into something else entirely.

Recognition.

The first time he'd smelled Dong-hyun after presenting, his whole body had lit up like a circuit completing. His omega instincts had screamed mate with a certainty that terrified him.

But Dong-hyun had just ruffled his hair and called him "kid" and gone back to ignoring him the way he always had...